L.C. Barlow's Blog, page 4

Update

I haven't been keeping up with this blog quite enough, but there have been various things that have popped up this year, including the unfortunate but necessary amputation of my father's foot (due to an infection and low circulation). But, I think it is time for an update on Pivot and everything else I've been working on.

Pivot is with an agent (a fantastic agent) who has sent it off to publishers. Currently, I am waiting for responses from publishers. This can take a long time, or a very short time. There's no knowing. I am nervous about this, of course. Terribly nervous. But also terribly excited.

After I finished the revisions required on Pivot, I wrote another book. This one is kind of a dark fantasy novel. I finished the first, second, and third draft of that one. It will need more drafts, but I needed time away from it. I actually really really love this book, but I think it has not yet reached its fullest potential.

After writing the dark fantasy novel, I then completed the first draft of Pivot II (yet to be named). There is no knowing, depending on what a publisher may want, whether this second book will remain as it is, but a first and full draft is at least complete.

I am letting Pivot II sit, and I am currently working on a non-paranormal horror novel. It will, I think, be psychological horror and only psychological horror. Apparently that sells better than paranormal horror. This will be my fourth novel.

While all of this has been going on, I've kind of swung like a pendulum between terror and excitement. It's been tough, but it's also something that I have enjoyed.

The best part about this process is that, working with objective readers who have been in the business for a long time, I have been able to take my writing to a whole other level than I realized it could reach. I have surprised myself, and that's a wonderful feeling.

It has been very tough, though, waiting on responses. Waiting to hear back from agents was very very tough. Now the wait on publishers is just as tough.

I remind myself, though, that one way or another these books will be released. Even if all publishers were to reject the revised-Pivot, I could eventually just self-publish it again. That's not what I want. I want it to be picked up by a good publishing house. But, one way or another, it will be released.

I also often times feel for the readers out there. The ones who have to wait an extremely long time for the revised Pivot, the second book in the Pivot-verse, and the third book in the Pivot-verse. The world of book publishing moves very slowly, it seems. Every book you see in Barnes&Noble is at least five years old, from concept to publication. It's insane, and you have to have stamina.

There is really nothing for me to do right now except to keep writing, and so that's what I'm doing. As well as traveling. (I went to the first StokerCon in Las Vegas this year. It was very fun! I even went zip-lining down Fremont Street).

But the wait is tough. Of course, any author you talk to can tell you that. Still, I keep chugging. Just like, I'm sure, you do.

The Future of Sin: ODO and Graphene

For a class I'm taking, I've been researching ODO (a kickstarter that I funded and now a fully operating store). In fact, if you want to take a look at the prezi I created researching a speculative history of ODO, you can do so here: https://prezi.com/70fqqpmdaaz9/specul...

What's special about ODO jeans is that they supposedly won't stink or stain, even after ONE YEAR of never being washed. That's right, a year. The reason for this is that 1.) they're sewn with silver (the most antibacterial metal available), and 2.) they employ nanotechnology that imitates the leaves of the lotus plant (they have tiny little ridges and, thus, don't absorb liquid). They are self-cleaning.

After researching ODO, I then moved on to what I think will be the future of clothing: graphene. You can find a wonderful article on the potential of graphene and graphene clothing here: http://www.gizmag.com/graphene-sheets...

A quote from the above article: "Researchers see in graphene a promising avenue to flexible electronics technology, leading to smart clothing, Harry Potter-style newspapers that can play videos on demand, and smartphones that unfold into full-sized tablets, to name a few. Graphene could also create high-performance composites to replace carbon fiber or, some researchers speculate, even a space elevator that could tether an artificial satellite to Earth (carbon nanotubes, which are rolled-up sheets of graphene, are the only known material with a strength-to-weight ratio high enough to pull off such a feat.)" - Borghino

I think what's interesting about conceptualizing the future, though, is thinking about, not just how things can be used, but how things can be misused. In other words, what is the future of sin?

Well, if our clothes can display things like videos in the future, perhaps that will revolutionize flashing and streaking. That is, rather than a man running onto the baseball field naked, perhaps he is wearing graphene, and the image coded into the graphene is that of a naked man... or woman.

On that same note, perhaps when graphene clothing becomes a thing, there will be a Tyler Durden out there splicing blips of pornography into an otherwise seamless outfit.

Maybe with 3D scanners, every bit of clothing will become custom fit. There will be no need for stating one's size, or trying to find one's size. There will also be no need for vanity sizing. Then again, there might be a huge differential in social classes - between those who choose an off-the-rack sized clothing, versus those who can have one custom-made for them with 3D scanning.

Perhaps clothes will be just as warm, without the weight. After all, at this moment in time, military clothes dipped in silver can have an electric current run through them to warm soldiers: http://www.wearethemighty.com/article...

So, perhaps just like newer cars have butt warmers, newer clothing will have leg and butt and ankle warmers. And the class distinction will be that poorer individuals will have to bundle up with layers, while wealthier individuals can wear a clothing that's hardly there, just an atom wide, that will warm them just the same.

When clothes become custom fit, that will completely revolutionize thrift stores. Because, how do you buy off-the-rack, when clothes are no longer made off-the-rack?

And what about art, when it comes to graphene? Will artists be able to sell a code that transforms the look of a graphene outfit, in the same way that artists now sell things on Society6 and Etsy? Will there be free promotion everywhere?

And with GPS capabilities in graphene, it seems as though the government could know, not just where you are, but even the very gait with which you walk.

As for medical uses, graphene might be able to keep track of your health, but would this come at a cost of medical insurance companies knowing what you're doing and when? Will there become a proper way to live, move, breathe, etc.? Will there be fewer ways that people are allowed to live? Insurance companies already punish smokers... Will there be less freedom?

With access to the internet through our very clothes, will there be an even greater sense of information overload? And, if so, will there be apps that can create a web curfew, if you want, across your phone and clothes and computer? If so, will your clothes be like a programmed part of you - a split self - an AI semblance of you - that makes sure you don't get drunk and buy things online or get drunk and call that one person you know you shouldn't? Is the future of AI a lot more personal than we once imagined?

Will hipsters be those who prefer "dumb clothes?" Will clothes be outdated like technology is, with the purpose of buying fashion becoming linked with an evolution in generations of technology? You might have a twentieth generation iPhone and a second generation graphene jeans.

So many things to think about, and all of them are so interesting.

Update

I have jumped another hurdle in terms of the potential professional publication of Pivot. In addition, I am working on the second book of the series.

It is interesting to me that there are so many parts and pieces to the publishing process. When I first talked with the people I'm working with, they told me "There are usually three revisions before an agent, three revisions with an agent, and three revisions with a publisher." And that is sometimes true, sometimes isn't (it depends on the book). But there are other things you have to take into consideration that I hadn't thought about before.

One of the things that many professionals have talked to me about is, basically, "How does your book compare to others in the genre?" Who do you write like? What other story is comparable to yours? Is your book longer or shorter than others in the same genre? All of these questions have to have answers because these are the questions they will ask you.

Another important point that has been made to me is that you want your book as perfect as possible before you send it off to an agent or publisher. One of the reasons for this is that, once you read a book and get a sense of it, you can never have your first reading experience of it again. In other words, once you enter a room, you can never enter it again as though it is the first time. So, if the room changes, you are, essentially, watching the furniture move around, but you are never re-experiencing the new-looking room for the first time again. It makes revising more difficult for agents and/or publishers if there is still a lot of work to be done, because they can't be as objective down the line as they need to be. If they were to take on a project that needs a lot of work, they would be kind of numb to the power that the book has because they've been working on it for so long. That's not sustainable.

Along the same line of thought, I have found that people should not underestimate the power of the first encounter with a book or movie. There is a power in someone sitting down and reading in ten or so hours what it took two years to create. This means that there is a kind of "POW!" already built into the system. And, thus, you can trust in the system of the book, the rules of storytelling, rather than trying to create your own kind of POW! by breaking all of the rules.

Speaking of rules... one thing that I enjoy about working with others is that they bring you back to rules you have not adequately judged as being important to the creation of the novel. Plots, subplots, characters, minor characters, villains, protagonists, etc. all have to be map-able. Thus, rules have to be followed (at least some of them some of the time). And so, it's nice to be forced to try something you have been avoiding, and then discover it works. GOOD objective advice brings out the better parts of your writing - parts you have not thought to exercise, parts that help you write beyond what you thought you could.

And, lastly, I will reiterate what I have mentioned before when it comes to writing and success. Successful writing - whether it's a book, a script, an essay, an article, a presentation - occurs when you write beyond what you know. When you sit down and you write only what you know, there is a sense of a kind of failure. But it is when you write and write and write to the point of creating something you didn't know you knew (that then causes you to look at the entirety of the piece in a different way) that you have succeeded.

Live Your Life. Don't Babysit.

I went to New Orleans for about a week, including the Halloween holiday. While there, I met four people that I have become friends with. I would not have met any of them, though, if it wasn’t for (we’ll call him “John”) John coming up to me in one of the nightclubs in New Orleans and striking up a conversation with me, for which I am very grateful. We had both been drinking a lot, of course, and eventually the conversation steered towards what he did for a living, and he shared with me the following:

When he was eighteen, he had been granted full scholarships to three different universities. He had enrolled in one university and was doing well. One day, though, he was approached by a recruitment officer for the Army, who talked to him about enlisting. John considered doing so. So, the next time he visited his father, he brought it up with him. Though this should not have mattered at all, John has a twin brother who is, apparently, quite unlike him, and much more like his father (thus, John had always felt the need to catch up to his twin in terms of parental affection). In addition, John is gay (and I got the sense that his twin brother is not). And, as you can already guess, that is perhaps one of the reasons why their father preferred one twin over the other. In any case, as soon as John told his father about the recruitment officer talking to him, John’s father’s response was, “Pfft! Yeah, right. Don’t let them see you cry.”

The very next day, John dropped out of his university and enlisted in the Army.

By the time we talked, he had been in the Army 17 years as a sharpshooter, and he just had four more years to go (four, not three, because he “had one bad year”). He assured me, though, that his father is proud of him… at least, now.

This story really, REALLY bothers me.

And not just in terms of John, but in terms of a person’s accomplishments not being celebrated, but rather used as proof that they are “not as weak” as a person has made them out to be.

What John did was babysit his father’s emotions. I don't judge John in any way for it. Because I understand the pressure to say "Fuck you, I'll live my whole life proving you wrong, if it's the last thing I do. I am not weak." (People calling me unintelligent was what drove me to strive so hard for Summa Cum Laude during my undergraduate – and also one of the reasons why I don’t see that particular accomplishment as a success, but as a kind of idiotic pandering to criticism). But it is, in a way, babysitting someone in terms of their own emotions about choices that do not affect them.

And this becomes terribly sad because, when one enters into a relationship (or is already in a relationship) with a person who doubts them, every accomplishment that one achieves is not celebrated, but rather turned into proof that “I have not failed… yet.” I’m sure that anyone reading this who has ever made a choice that not everyone approves of (whether it is having a child when young, or choosing a different job, a different path, getting married “too soon,” etc.) knows that his or her choice, or potential choice, becomes a litmus test for people he or she meets. A person soon realizes he ends up doing a lot of babysitting for the people who want to doubt him. Babysitting. Your question becomes, “Who do I have to babysit next?” Who do I have to console when I tell them that I made my own life choice? Who do I have to soothe forever? Who is the next baby for me to be the babysitter? The baby who, if he cries enough, will make me mad so that I will do whatever I have to so I don't have to hear him cry anymore?

And the truth is that no one should have to babysit another person’s negative emotional reaction to a choice that does not affect them. Frankly, it’s terrible. Every success John had in the military can potentially become mutated into a way to soothe his father that his son is not weak. It is not a success to be celebrated anymore. It is babysitting material. And it subjugates one person to another.

I could begin another path of argument where I say that people purposefully doubt others as a way to manipulate everything into being about their own emotions/criticisms, rather than allowing the focus to remain on other peoples’ choices and successes, but I’m not going to go into that. What I am going to say is that I believe it is important NOT to babysit individuals who make comments like, “Pfft! Yeah right. Just don’t let them see you cry.”

Babysitting, of course, only occurs if you play along. Once you know that a person looks at your choices or accomplishments as soothing their own emotions, their own beliefs about you, rather than simply viewing your choice as part of life/of living, as part of being, it is important not to communicate with that person about what you do anymore. If John had never been allowed to tell his father that he had joined the Army, that he had been successful in it, that he was going to go career, then that takes babysitting out of the equation, and their relationship must subsist on things other than one trying to prove himself to his father. Then, John’s joining the Army is only about the job, the successes are only about the successes, rather than proving his father wrong. He is, once again, simply living his life, rather than performing. And performing. And performing. Forever. Trying to get what should have already been given to him.

If the babysitting fodder (in this case, where the child is babysitting his or her parents’ emotions about his not being a failure) is removed, then a relationship must subsist on only what goes on personally, in the moment, rather than a child always having to prove to his or her parents (or friends, or family, or family friends) that he is not a failure. That he is not weak. He no longer has to perform for them.

What bothers me is that it is terribly easy for one’s focus to be drawn to people outside of him or herself. Any criticism, no matter how arbitrary, introduces a type of framing that filters all actions into a binary – whether those actions prove or disprove the criticism – and eradicates the possibility of seeing something for what it simply is: for example, just toying with the idea of joining the Army. It also eliminates all other attributes of the person that define him as a whole human being: for example, since John got full scholarships to three different colleges, that is definitely something to be celebrated. When the Army gets introduced, however, then the accomplishment in terms of universities goes by the wayside. Scholarships are no longer proof of success when the binary of fail/not fail in the Army is introduced.

Even worse, in that binary, ANY future success become null and void. Any new, positive step is no longer a gain. It is paying off a debt created by the detractor. What you do will never be seen for what it is. In a way, they cannot see you for who you are, and, if you are not careful, you will no longer be able to see yourself for who you are, either.

If you are capable of easily stepping out of this false framing, that’s wonderful. But for people who still get sucked into arbitrary criticisms, I think it is useful for them to be picky about who they share their lives with – to remove from any conversation the tool used to create that binary. The fact is, in the presence of certain people, progress reports are not perceived as accomplishments that will be celebrated, but are rather babysitting fodder to prove one is on the “not fail” side of the failure/not failure binary. In the presence of some people, every accomplishment gets mutated into methods of soothing negative emotional reactions, of babysitting them. That's not what accomplishments should be, and that’s not what living should be about.

Mark Manson

It would be a shame if I didn't pass on this fantastic post by Mark Manson, so here it is.

I feel as though the title should be different, but this was fantastic.

"It’s like a nerdy kid walking onto a playground and saying, 'Well, bugs are really cool, but NFL players make more money, so I should force myself to play football every day,' and then coming home and complaining that he doesn’t like recess."

Takeaway: Don't force yourself to do something so you can have evidence of being successful.

http://markmanson.net/passion

It's Been A While!

It was about four months ago that I made my last post. I've been so focused on writing that I haven't taken the time to create an update.

What have I been doing? Well, writing-wise, Pivot is continuing along its path to potential professional publication. I don't want to say more, but I have passed several hurdles. There are still a few more, but I'm focusing on knocking them down. One by one. I must say that I have been astounded and overjoyed by how far the book has gone.

I have written a second book NOT in the Pivot-verse. It is in the fantasy genre (dark fantasy, perhaps). I have a good first draft completed, and I have submitted it to the powers that be. The response so far has been great. I will be revising that book in a month or two, after some other items get done first.

I also adopted two new cats! Smaug and Dusty - brothers - became part of the Barlow family in June. They are both gorgeous and so playful, sweet and loving. I am happy they are with me.

In August, I took a trip to Chicago for the first time ever. It was for a friend's wedding (I was a bridesmaid), but I went ahead and spent three days just exploring the city. I did three bike tours with Bobby's Bike Hike - a food tour, a night lights tour, and just a day tour. Great bike tour company. Totally recommend them. All the guides were funny and entertaining. It was great to get out and see all the parts of the city I might have missed otherwise. I also went on an architectural boat tour, and I went to Second City twice to see Soul Brother, Where Art Thou? and Panic on Cloud 9. I can't recommend Second City enough. They are a fantastic group of comedians, and I am so so glad I was able to enjoy their performances. I totally recommend Second City if you ever find yourself in Chicago. Also, after I left - like two days later - they had a fire! They had to shut down Second City and rebuild! Crazy. Glad that everyone was okay and they have everything under control.

Ended up buying a green Savinelli tobacco pipe at the old Chicago tobacco shop: Iwan Ries. They have been in existence since 1857 and are America's oldest tobacco shop. The building itself is amazing and is worthy of a look. I purchased a pipe because I don't own one and, though I don't normally smoke, I do maybe once a year. I asked for "cotton candy" smelling tobacco, which cost about $8. One of the men selling it to me thought I was probably purchasing all of that for a male friend of mine. I guess I don't look the type to sit in an old-timey mafia-like tobacco lounge. But I am. Once a year. ;-)

I also went to a blues club called Kingston Mines. It was great. Had a drink after twenty-one miles of biking that day. It was a nice bit of enjoyment after a long day. Met a couple from Australia there. It was nice talking to them.

The wedding in Chicago was fantastic. It was held at Starved Rock State Park (great name for a park, eh?), and my friend Stephanie was just gorgeous and obviously brimming with happiness and excitement. It was worth the hour and a half drive from the city. Of course, the fact Enterprise let me rent a 370Z didn't hurt, either. First time driving a Z, first time renting a car, so I was nervous at first. But I felt more self-assured when I got on the highway. Btw... Chicago highway speeds are crazy slow. Like 50-55 mph. What is that? Come to Texas. It's all 65-75 around here.

I also went to Austin recently to see Cirque du Soleil's Kooza. Great performance. I really want to see O in Vegas next year. Vegas is where the StokerCon will be held - the World Horror Convention and Stoker Awards split, so they will be held in different locations at different times. I likely won't make it to the WHC next year, but I'm looking forward to a Vegas trip.

What else? I did indoor skydiving at iFly in Austin. Apparently, the military trains there. There were about thirty Army soldiers practicing during the hour before I was supposed to fly. Indoor skydiving was an interesting experience. Definitely an ab workout. Loved the part when the instructor spun me around the cylinder. Such a great time. Definitely felt ALIVE! that day.

I've been trying mindfulness meditation and decided that I enjoy it. I suggest downloading the Calm app and trying it out. I also met up with a meditation group one Wednesday and have been meaning to go back. It was held in a GORGEOUS old home - three stories, with the topmost story being a meditation room. We meditated for an HOUR. Way more than the ten to twenty minutes that I normally do. But by the end of that hour, as I was driving home, I really felt different. Almost like I had just done a session of yoga. More at peace. It is pretty amazing what meditation can do (and believe me, I was the greatest skeptic when I first started).

Right now I'm reading Russell Brand's book Revolution, and in it he talks a lot about the benefits of meditation. In fact, there are a lot of wonderful things he says in that book, and I'll paste some of his quotes at the end of this post.

But, yes, he talks about meditation, and he likes to call it a way to tap into a higher consciousness. I think that's one way of describing it. But I also think there are many others.

I think what it comes down to is (and this is something you learn in psychology and psychoanalytic theory as well) there is a strong difference between thinking and being. I won't get too much into the theory I've read, but basically, we're forced into thinking, away from being, as children. And, ultimately, we sometimes forget how to just be. How to disconnect from all of our emotional connections and logical connections to problems and actions, etc.

But everyone has to disconnect somehow, someway. Some people do it through exercise. (Read Eminem's article on exercise as therapy here: http://www.people.com/article/eminem-... ) Some people have to do it through drinking or drugs. Some people disconnect via smoking. And then there are some who do it through meditation and yoga.

You have to disconnect somehow. HAVE TO. (Because there will always be outside pressures that take you out of yourself, out of a state of flow, of being). And once you realize this disconnect is required for being a healthy individual (that you're not a hamster in a wheel 24/7), then you just need to find the tools to help you disconnect. Yoga and meditation are probably the healthiest. Smoking and drugs, though they achieve the same thing, are far less healthy.

Other types of disconnection are setting aside "me" time - time to do whatever one wants with no judgment. There are no requirements or judgment in "me" time.

What this disconnection does is try to help you simply BE in the moment (movement FROM thinking TO being). What does that mean? Well... imagine going hiking, and while you're on this trail, imagine there is something else you HAVE to do. HAVE to. And this thing that you have to do you can't achieve while hiking. It requires you to go home and use the computer. Oh, and this thing you need to achieve will take hours. You're going to feel anxiety - because you're so far away, and you can't get it done because you're hiking. So, suddenly, you despise the hike. Now, with your mind, erase the assignment. Make the time when you are hiking "me" time, where there are no requirements or judgments. Poof! Anxiety gone. And that's the basic idea. Meditation, yoga, exercise, drugs, alcohol, television, they're all used to help you not know about the "assignment" or "task" while hiking - of forgetting tasks that are impossible to do while you are elsewhere in life. Instead, the question is simply "What's next?" That's all that has to be answered.

This post turned into a discussion of meditation. Oh well. The above is pretty much a good summary of everything that has been going on for the past five months.

Anyways, I leave you with several Russell Brand quotes:


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"The unrelenting bombardment of consumer imagery, the intoxicating message that you are not good enough. You are too fat, spotty and wan. You are not as fit as David Beckham or Beyoncé, escape your life into this PlayStation, mask the stench of your failure with this fragrance, run from your debts in these gleaming new shoes. Don’t be you. Don’t be you. If it had occurred to me, and if I’d had the guts, I’d’ve reduced that treacherous temple to shards. I’d’ve torched that shrine and scarred the sky with a smog like the fugue like they’d glued to my mind."

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“We are living in a zoo, or more accurately a farm, our collective consciousness, our individual consciousness, has been hijacked by a power structure that needs us to remain atomized and disconnected. We want union, we want connection, we need it the way we need other forms of nutrition, and denied it we delve into the lower impulses for sanctuary.

We have been segregated and severed, from each other and even from ourselves. We have been told that freedom is the ability to pursue our petty, trivial desires when true freedom is freedom from these petty, trivial desires.”

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"If you can’t escape the system, you’ve got to escape from yourself. If you’re looking for God, for salvation, for a connection, for sanctuary from the cuckoo self incubating in you, and there’s no map, no guide, no story, no folk memory of how to get there, sooner or later you’ll pick up a bottle, a pipe, or a brick."

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"The reason I became a drug addict was because it was too painful not to. What’s more, I had no means to describe the pain and no way to access any kind of solution. In the absence of any alternative, self-medication was a smart thing to do. Even now, eleven years clean, I still feel the feeling that led me to drink and take drugs, but now I have access to an alternative way to change my feelings. The techniques are simple but not easy. I believe that by sharing these methods we can overcome together, not only addiction to substances but our addiction to a way of life that has been intoxicating us all."

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"Who are you really? Are you your name? The place you are from? The negative feelings you had as a child? The anxieties you have about your future? No, these are all conceptual. In this moment now, your name is not real, your relationships are irrelevant, and, most important, your thoughts - all your thoughts - are secondary. In my mind, even as I type and adhere to the metaphorical codes of language, there is another awareness. A distinct awareness. An awareness beyond, behind, and around those incessant thoughts. Whilst some other inaccessible aspect of my being keeps my heart pumping, produces digestive enzymes, makes the muscles in my fingers spasm according to the precise qwerty ballet, there is awareness. This awareness is often neglected in favor of fear and regret or projected need."

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[On how the thin tightrope was created between the twin towers for someone to walk across] "What they did was attach a thin piece of very light fishing thread to an arrow, then they shot the arrow between the two buildings. The thin thread was attached, and then wires, strings, ropes, and cables of gradually increasing thickness were pulled across. It is with increments of this nature that mantra meditation induces a different state of consciousness."

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"I'm not a total idiot: If taking drugs worked, I'd still be doing it; if promiscuous sex was continually fulfilling, I'd've carried on; if fame and money were the answer, I'd hurl this laptop out of the window and get on with making movies. They don't work, in spite of what I was told, and there's a reason for that, as we'll discover."

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"But who are you, stripped of those things that tell you who you are? Your job, your car, your husband, your kids, your favorite TV show, that pasta dish you do that's just so mmm? All these things that will one day go with death if not before. With death if not before.

Good to find out who you are with nothing, because nothing is really what we have."

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"On the short walk to the front past the others, either bowing or kneeling or whirling or howling, I feel glad that my life is this way; so full of jarring experience. Sometimes you feel that life is full and beautiful, all these worlds, all these people, all these experiences, all this wonder.

You never know when you will encounter magic. Some solitary moment in a park can suddenly burst open with a spray of preschool children in high-vis vests, hand in hand; maybe the teacher will ask you for directions, and the children will look at you, curious and open, and you’ll see that they are perfect. In the half-morning half-gray glint, the cobwebs on bushes are gleaming with such radiant insistence, you can feel the playful unknown beckoning. Behind impassive stares in booths, behind the indifferent gum chew, behind the car horns, there is connection."

Contamination and Compassion

Forgive me for any misspellings in this post. I'm still a little tipsy from red wine.

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People in first world countries suffer from anxiety and depression in numbers greater than people in third world countries, and while I don't claim to know the theoretical reasons for why that's true, I do want to share a way of looking at things that might help alleviate said anxiety or depression. I hope to do this in such a way that, if one reconsiders the percentages, he or she can understand why depression and anxiety might be higher in first world countries than elsewhere.

A friend shared with me tonight a little test she had read about that is supposed to determine whether you, as a woman, have strong boundaries. The test goes as follows: Say you are on the subway, and a man is sitting with his laptop case in the seat beside him. If you are a woman with strong boundaries, you will ask the man if he will move his laptop case so you can sit down. If you are a woman with weak boundaries, you will continue standing without saying anything to the man about moving said laptop case.

My friend admitted she is the type of person who would never ask the man to move his laptop case, so she wouldn't inconvenience him. I myself used to be that type of person.

But one of the things I asked her was, "Have there ever been days when you are more confident than usual, and you would ask him to move his laptop case?"

She said yes, that it was the days she was angry.

And my response was, "Perhaps the days you are angry are days that are already fucked, and so you feel a sense of permission to ask for things you want, because it's no longer the case that /you/ are the one fucking up the day."

She admitted that was possibly true.

I then made two points, and these are points that I think are important to keep in mind, even if you can't live by them, even if you fall back into the habit of being nervous about inconveniencing other people. They are the following:

1. Even if not asking that man to move his laptop case would make him happy, that's not a good or healthy thing. Even if he said to you, "Wow, you have really fulfilled me by not inconveniencing me to move my laptop case," that's not the type of person you want to be around. You are responsible for fulfilling your own life, and he is responsible for fulfilling his. In no way is it a good thing if you have pleased him, or fulfilled him, or made him happy by not inconveniencing him.

In other words, in social situations, the most you can get is respect.

There is no fantastic sublime moment that has been lost if you inconvenience another. There is no wonderful, perfect fulfillment that has been lost. The most that has been lost is respect. So, if worse comes to worst, and he yells at you, it's not as though you've missed out on Disney Land. You've only missed out on neutral-ness.

In no way should you gain a sense of delight in the idea of fulfilling others more than they can fulfill themselves. That's a dangerous and horrible path.

And if the most you have to lose is respect, if he's rude to you, well... it's not as though the moment could have been amazing. Again, it's not as though you've lost a trip to Oz.

2. The second point I made had to do with a point I had actually made before in my thesis over trauma and its resolutions in television series. The point is that, in order to not see one moment as a contaminating moment, you must understand that every part of the world is already contaminated.

In other words: It's all contaminated.

This idea of mine I derived from Kenneth Burke's discussion of God as a common denominator. His point was that it is pointless to talk about the sky being blue because God made it so, or that the ocean is deep because God made it so, because, in this sense, God made everything. He is in everything. He is a common denominator, and so He can be divided out. You can see Him as the item outside of the set that defines the set.

You can see contamination being similar to this, and you can understand that to see contamination as a common denominator is to accept that it's not /this/ moment that can be contaminating. (It's not that you have ruined the day by inconveniencing a man to move his bag). It's rather that /all/ moments are contaminated. It's just that you attempt to fill your day with pleasures and fantasies that distract you from this fact. Once you understand all is contaminated, then the bag on the subway is just a bag on a subway. It doesn't mean the improvement of a day. It doesn't mean the ruin of a day. Or a moment. Or whatever. It's just a fucking bag.

Because it's all contaminated. The most you can get is neutral-ness. Nothing beautiful or wonderful or fulfilling has been lost. Because it's all lost.

-

The book that I have been reading - Happiness - by the Buddhist monk Mathieu Ricard is very helpful in terms of the idea of compassion. That is, Ricard's point again and again is that outside items in the world cannot fulfill you (they can please you temporarily, but nothing beyond this). The only thing that you can do to find fulfillment is to attach yourself to that underlying sense of self you have, rather than the ups and downs of every day, as well as the idea of compassion. What is compassion? The idea that everyone suffers. Everywhere. And that we all deserve alleviation of that suffering.

All is contaminated. Everywhere. And we all deserve decontamination.

It's a beautiful book, and I suggest everyone read it. And this essentially concludes my post. I just think it's useful to keep in mind that no conversation, no grade, no person, no success, no amount of money, no anything will fulfill you. And when you can finally understand that, then when the shit hits the fan, you realize that the only thing you might have lost was a very temporary kind of pleasure, but a pleasure that could never have lasted forever, distracted you forever, from the fact that the only persistent happiness you can gain is from yourself, from your own meditation on compassion.

Another Update

So, revisions on Pivot have paused or ended for the time being, as the book is beginning its travel around to an agent and/or agents. I am not sure what to expect, but I am hopeful.

Meanwhile, I have finished the first draft of a novel completely unrelated to the Pivot-verse. I have taken a week or two off from it to get some distance, and then I'll return to it for some necessary revising and editing.

I also have an idea for another novel that I have been toying around with. I've been trying to figure out how to sink my teeth into it. It's interesting how a truly evil character cannot be the main character for a novel. An evil character has to have something redeeming if he or she is going to be the protagonist. I'm trying to figure out if this character will indeed have something redeeming and, if not, what I will do.

Sometimes, I am irritated with how long it takes to write a novel. There is a quote that goes, "Vita brevis, ars prolixa." Chaucer translates it to, "The life so short, the craft so long to learn." That is how I feel.

I have been observing a class at a local university and teaching a few classes at a local community college. That gives me a break from my writing. Well, a break from my fiction writing. Summer will be arriving soon, though. I am thinking about traveling to Budapest. =)

On a completely different note...

Unfortunately, this week I had to put Inga, my cat of 17 years, down. Her kidney disease, which started last year, had progressed to the point that it was impossible to help her for a permanent length of time.

Inga was born from a stray we took in when I was about 10 or 11. I have owned her since she was a kitten. She was the first of the litter to learn how to growl (and she freaked out all the other kittens). She was the first to jump over the wall we had in place to keep the kittens in the bathroom. She was always sassy. In her younger days, she hunted mice and rabbits. In her older days she followed me 24/7. She always ran to me when I came home from school or work. She slept beside me every night.

I was there with her the whole way yesterday. I loved her very much, and I am going to miss her. She was very special to me.

It's times like these that I'm reminded of what is really important in life.

Third Revision Down

Good news. I had a very very positive response on the second revision of Pivot. That revision took approximately two months to complete.

The third revision was a lot more minor than the prior two, and I spent approximately one week on it.

So, all in all, the first revision took approximately 1.5-2 months.

The second revision took a little bit longer than that (2-2.5 months).

The third took a week.

I'm now currently waiting on the response to this third revision. I am nervous, of course. Always nervous. Nervously excited, that is.

I will be sure to keep you updated.

How to Find Happiness: A Rumination

If you keep a pocketful of questions for when conversations run dry, add the following: "When was the last time you were absolutely, extraordinarily happy?"

It might take a while for your friend or acquaintance or lover to remember. Then again, it might not. I hope it is the latter. That is the kind of life we should lead.

In any case, whatever his or her answer, you better be ready. Because as soon as they answer - or fail to - they will turn the tables and ask you the same. And for good reason: If you are going to make them think THAT hard about their own life in front of you, they will inflict the same misery upon you and sit back to watch you squirm. ;-)

But, it's more than that. You won't hear just one answer, and neither will the person on the other end of the table. The second, more subtle, question being asked is: "Tell me what has worked for you so that I can try it, too." That is, there is a subtle demand for the answer to happiness in and of itself. And when you discuss temporary moments, you tap into the hope for infinite happiness. "What has worked for you? Maybe I'll try that." And also, of course, there's the idea of, "Just talking about that joy and seeing your face light up brings me joy right now." Joy engenders joy.

Now... a brief veering...

I teach a writing course at a community college. I only came into the possession of the course a few days before I had to teach it, and I'm about four weeks in. The course is ENGL 1301, and it's fast-paced - 9 weeks long. The required book that goes along with 1301 I had never seen before, and so I am reading it just a little bit prior to my students. Or, as is most likely the case, I am the only one in the class actually reading it.

One of the most important points that the book makes is that, for most people, generating ideas requires writing. That is, sitting in a room won't get the gears turning for the paper. To come up with a job-application letter, a sonnet, an essay, you have to spend time writing your ideas down, playing with them, teasing them out, and examining them in order to come up with a topic, put your thoughts in order, and flesh out your argument.

In other words, before you even begin to write your paper, you have to write.

And this is generally true for everyone, even for writers who are advanced enough that they can do most of the somersaults and leaps in their heads. The one thing that happens for professionals and amateurs alike is the following: They go along, writing, and come up with an idea (perhaps through a slip of phrase, a misplaced comma, a homophone, or logical next step) that they had never expected. That is, the idea is produced ONLY through writing. In short, they surprise themselves. Professional writers surprise themselves all the time. ("Did this even come from me?" they ask). And, once they encounter this new idea, they have to go back to the beginning of the paper or article or whatever and reform everything so as to include this new, fantastic argument. Eventually, they can begin to see their writing as a failure /unless/ this saying-more-than-I-meant-to-say occurs. You can see, easily, how the idea of the muse fits into this. Or, perhaps, the idea of Godly inspiration. An argument entered into the paper that is far more amazing than you intended, and though it entered via you, it has an alien-ness to it. It's almost as though someone else put it there. Someone higher. Someone better.

In any case, this restructuring of the entire work to account for this new, inadvertent and fortuitous idea is what we call "paraprosdokian." The end is such a surprise it forces us to go back to the beginning to re-understand and re-order everything.

The only type of writer who believes he can sit in a room and come up with a perfect paper without accessing the tool of simply writing is an amateur. He doesn't understand the value, yet, of the paraprosdokian. But, even more importantly than that, he doesn't understand the necessity of writing before knowing. Of trusting specifics on the page rather than generalities in his mind.

A good paper requires specificity. Specificity requires a multitude of things other than sitting in a room. It requires tools. It requires drilling. Every day. You cannot magic the water out of the well. You cannot magic the essay out of thin air. You have to have tools, and you have to use them.

This is how we go from a general idea to a specific one. A general understanding of an argument to a specific one. Hazy to clear. Foggy to crystal. If we sit in a room, and we have no pen and paper, no way to create symbols to help ourselves along, we exist in fog and haze and generalities. We only tap into the crystal, the clarity, the specificity with tools.

It is the very difference between imagining an apple and holding one in your hands.

Okay... my veering off topic is complete. Now, to return to the original focus.

My argument is we must understand happiness the same way as we understand writing.

On one hand, emotions (like arguments and ideas) can be general, hazy, and foggy. In the same way that you can picture an apple, you can "picture" happiness.

Then, there is happiness in the specific sense, in the clear sense, in the crystal sense. This is happiness in the sense of actually holding the apple.

And if we are to look at people as students of happiness in the same way that we look at people as students of writing, too many people believe that they should just be able to magic the perfect essay into existence. That they can magic the water out of the well. That all is possible just sitting in a room.

"If I just sit here and think hard enough, I can get the essay done."
"If I just sit here and think hard enough, I can be happy."

No.

If you want happiness in the specific sense, in the revised sense, in the sense that you can be going along and stumble upon a happiness you never thought possible (just like writing and coming along an idea you didn't know you had), then you cannot just sit in a room and expect it to come about. You have to use tools.

This, I believe, is a completely different way of thinking about life than most people usually use. I think that most of us believe, "I should just be able to sit here and be happy, and if I'm not happy, something is wrong with me." It is probably very similar to my students who sit in class and think, "I should just be able to sit here and come up with a perfect essay in my head to write. And if I can't, I'm a horrible writer." Both assume that one can create what one desires without moving. That one can magic it out without lifting a pen.

Is this not the same idea as The Men Who Stare at Goats? I'm not as familiar with the government study, but I believe the basic principal is that people were hoping they would just be able to sort of sit in a room, stare at goats, and through some sort of magic or mental ability, kill them or move them with their minds or something. It was, again, "magical thinking."

And it is a similar idea in The Yellow Wallpaper - the short story that altered psychological bed-rest prescription forever. The fictional story tells of a woman who was (as most women were back then) ordered by her doctor to rest 24/7 to feel better, and that only made her more insane. Action was necessary, but action was not prescribed.

Would this not explain why we feel so much better when we travel? During travel, we act, with an open mind, expecting... something. We are active all the time. It is expected of us on vacation. To actively pursue things that please you. This is not your normal mindset, perhaps. Your normal mindset might be more along the lines of choosing one thing to focus on and sacrificing all else for the sake of it, including happiness.

I think emotions get subjected to the "magical thinking" idea more than anything else because they often do feel magical. As though they rise up and out of nowhere and consume us. And, again, I think this is an effect of the paraprosdokian element. (Think of the muse, again. Think of that Godly inspiration. Happiness feels like it comes down from the heavens upon us - it has that foreign aspect to it, just like the idea that lands in a paper fortuitously). That is, stumbling upon a happiness you didn't know existed is what happens naturally when you are using the correct tools, and that type of happiness is so immense it seems unattached to the actual act itself, for it rewrites your very understanding of what happiness is, and it rewrites the very moment in which you experienced it. You never naturally connect it to whatever act you're going through because the emotion seems to rise up and out of the act. And, it often can't be repeated through the same act. Well, that makes sense. If I write the same paragraph, again and again, I'm not likely to find that paraprosdokian element as if I were writing new things.

I cannot tell you what tools to use to gain your happiness. They must be tools of your own choice. But I do believe that what is most important is that we drop the idea that we can have a specific, clear, crystal happiness by committing acts that only allow for the general, hazy, and foggy.

The most bullshit argument I hear, usually in anti-drug commentators, is "I don't need to drink. I can imagine the sensation. I don't need to every do crystal meth. I can just imagine feeling that way. I don't need cocaine to get me energized. I can imagine the energy into myself." The amount I loathe these arguments cannot be overstated. For one, they account for no agency besides themselves. For another, though (and I'm not saying you should try meth - I would never, ever argue that), you cannot just sit in a room and magic the water out of the well, the essay out of thin air. And, guess what. That's what you're arguing. You are perpetuating the myth that causes the downfall of happiness: I can just sit here and have all the experiences arrive. I can just sit here and think hard enough, and happiness will come to me. Where is my happiness? Why am I not happy?

When people answer the question, "When was the last time you were extraordinarily happy?", they have a story to tell. They don't just say, "I was sitting in my room, and I forced this amazing sensation over myself, and it was spectacular." If a person said that, it would be creepy. People have a SPECIFIC story to tell - a tool they used - that ended up providing the unexpected sensation of happiness that rewrote the idea of happiness or the situation itself.

"I and two other people drove a slipshod go-kart my friend made one night. The steering wheel was fucked, and I nearly hit a tree. The temperature was perfect outside... We took turns riding in it until midnight. It was so dark out, I could only find my friends because they had one flashlight. It was always a tiny dot in the distance."

"We shot fireworks off for three hours. One chased so-and-so through the street. My clothes still smell like sulfur. The pictures don't do it justice."

"I traveled to Versailles. With twenty other people, I did an eight hour biking tour of the Palace of Versailles and its grounds. We had a picnic with wine and macaroons on the lawns."

Specificity.

You're not just sitting in a room.

You're not in a haze. Nothing is foggy.

It's crystal. It's clear. It seems as though the emotion that arrives comes from another place entirely. But it's all because of the act. It's all because of the tools you used to get there.

This. Is. Happiness.