creativity is just persistence and keen observation

My posts get a lot better if I give myself time and space to talk nonsense in between. If you didn’t see the nonsense you’d think I’m a better writer than I actually am. But that’s the idea of posting these bits and pieces up. So you get an idea of the process. It’s not just the big posts that count but the little ones, and I love you if you can see that, and I hope you will see that, and that you will dare to fight your own battles, and realise that the little ones add up and contribute because of the beautiful way the mind works, and how creativity is really just persistence and keen observation, feeling full of love right now and going to sleep <3

observation, improved decision-making

I don’t even really know what to write right now because I’m drawing a blank. What I can say though is that I feel really good- even though I’m kind of sleepy, tired and exhausted right now. I feel like I’ve really made progress. I can see where I used to be from here, and I can see where I am now. Most importantly, I can also see where I plan to be in the future.

Everything is connected and I’m trying to build a personal interface for myself that does it a reasonable amount of justice.

My main goals right now are relationships, fitness, finances and overall organization/coherence/management- nothing’s changed but I really, really feel like I’m making progress here. The focus is on making better decisions- I feel like my observation skills have been significantly heightened- I’ve learn to talk less and discern more, and as a result my decision-making has improved substantially.

It feels amazing.

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persistence

Okay let’s crank out a post before I go to sleep. I just hit the gym today and had a killer full-body workout, it feels great. I didn’t smoke all morning and afternoon until I met my friends later, which was pretty good too- physically I feel like I’m in a really good place right now- I feel fit, strong, tensile. It was nice to spend time with friends.

This blog is many things- it’s a place for me to share my thoughts and ideas, it’s a place where hopefully people will begin to get involved and have conversations, blah blah.

But I think most importantly of all, it is a testament. It’s a manifestation of my personal persistence. I am not an accomplished individual. There’s no reason why you should listen to what I have to say instead of reading the works of established thinkers and authors who have been validated by countless others.

But there is- and that’s because I’m human. My story is a unique story even if it isn’t as interesting, as profound or brilliant. It is indulgent, sometimes contemplative, it is a lot of things. Why do I bother? A part of me wants to leave some sort of legacy, yes- and there is most certainly an element of self-interest in that- but I think even more important than that, I want to represent something. I want this blog to mean something to people, something that is more than myself.

So what is that? What is that profound quality that I am skirting around and not actually talking about? It is persistence. I have many failings and weaknesses and I have never accomplished much, but if there’s anything I would give myself sincere credit for, it’s for being one stubborn motherfucker.

To the people who have criticized me so far- I love you deeply, because you have made me think, and you have helped me grow. To the people who have provided personal attacks and insults, I enjoy you too- you are entertaining and I spend whimsical evenings contemplating the nature of your existence.

But there is one specific response to this blog- and to anything else- that I find very difficult to tolerate- and that is- “Give up.” “Stop writing.” “Quit.” “What’s the point, don’t bother.” “Why do you do this.” Fuck you. Nothing good in this world has ever come out of giving up. Nobody ever achieved greatness or happiness or anything by giving up.

I know there are people who don’t like me, or don’t like what I have to say, whatever. That’s cool. You make the world a more colourful place and you challenge me to improve myself. But never, ever, EVER tell anybody to give up at something. EVER. I’m an arrogant, self-absorbed, stubborn bastard and I will never give up at something because someone else told me to. I might not work as hard as I should, and I might not be as disciplined, effective or consistent as I should be, but I will never give up. And I swear to you that if I ever accomplish anything worth mentioning, it will be because I never gave up.

I will keep writing. I welcome your input- whether you agree with me, disagree with me, like me, hate me,  whatever. But don’t tell me to stop writing.

And don’t tell anybody else that they can’t do whatever it is that they want to do.  Let them find out for themselves.

(I suppose exceptions could be made in life-threatening contexts like “I want to fly out of my window into the sky with my home-made cape”. But you know what I mean. If a person is harming themselves, perhaps there might be a way to accomplish what they’re trying to accomplish in a different context or setting.)

How much more might we collectively have, as a species, if we never encouraged anybody else to give up? Suggest alternatives. Suggest different perspectives. Suggest whatever you like- but NEVER GIVE UP.

That is all.

Wow, that got a little more heated than I had originally thought it would be. But I feel strongly about this. Please. Don’t crush other people. If you don’t like what they’re doing, ignore it, or offer a constructive perspective.

I sometimes wonder if people tell other people to give up so they don’t feel so bad about not having tried at all.

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 the future and uncertainty

I was on the bus a while ago and I watched a little girl- about 10 years old, maybe- bespectacled, diminutive, on the way home from school with her mother- handling an iPhone in her tiny hands with more deft finesse than anyone else I’d ever seen. Something clicked in my head- me and the rest of the 90’s kids are the last people to remember an age before cell phones and the internet. Kids born in the year 2000 and later will have as much difficulty imagining the past as we do imagining life before television and radio.

What is life going to be like for these kids when they grow up? The world is going to be very different. The relationship they have with information- be it static information about specific facts and figures or dynamic information about complex systems- such as each other- is going to be rather different from what we’re used to. These kids are literally growing up in a different world from the one we grew up in- and I’m speaking from the perspective of someone who was introduced to the information age during my early teens.

Information is free now. We can’t hoard it anymore, or pretend that it’s worth any more than it is. A lot of rote knowledge becomes irrelevant, unnecessary, even cumbersome and counter-productive. Encyclopedias are worthless now, and a lot of other forms of rigid, monotonous one-size-fits-all instruction will become obsolete. I’m not sure if we’re ready for that yet. That’s a bit of an ineffective expression to use. Change will happen whether we like it or not- and we can choose either to prepare for it and roll with it, or suddenly find ourselves obsolete and irrelevant in a world that has passed us by.

I’m not entirely sure how to phrase this insight, but it is rooted in the same powerful gut intuition I get from thinking about University. I will figure out how to describe it logically eventually, but right now I just get an acute sense of dissonance- something is Not Right, and forces beyond our perceptive abilities will “correct” them- forcefully- for the better, but not without casualties. I anticipate that having access to information will become so common-place that it will become relatively worthless; he who knows and understands how to manage information effectively to suit his ends will triumph. Similarly I think academic qualifications will begin to lose their value as they become over-saturated and supply begins to outstrip demand- and we’ll see a disturbing sort of grade inflation. The best of the best will survive, as they tend to do, but a lot of the people who thought that life was going to work out fine for them just because they managed to scrape together a degree are going to be quite disappointed, I think.

I need to spend some time thinking about this and reading about what other people have to say about this. But what I can tell you is this- the future is exciting, but it is also uncertain. Be ready for anything. What would you be worth if tomorrow all your qualifications, possessions, skills and knowledge were written off as worthless? Think about it.

spontaneity and routines

I just got home from work, I bought a subway sandwich which I am eating now, damn it’s yummy. Feels great to indulge in something once in a while.

I think I might be most productive as a writer if I start writing immediately after I get home from work, or immediately after I wake up (which is not an option at the moment when I’m still an NSF, but is something I could do on the weekends.)

The pattern I notice is as follows- I need some period of time to mull over ideas and thoughts in my head, but not so much that I feel happy/satisfied with them. When I take too long, I either forget what it is that I was interested about, or I feel like I’ve already done enough with it in my head and that writing it out would be a waste of time and energy- well not wasteful, but boring.

This especially happens when I tell people what I’ve been thinking about, then feel kind of lethargic when it comes to sharing it again immediately. (It’s not final, though- usually after some time I can re-visit an old idea and it’ll feel fresh- and usually I will get some valuable input out of conversations, so it’s still worth sharing thoughts rather than keeping them cooped up and isolated like a boats that never leave the harbour)

Anyway I want to talk about something that I’ve changed my mind about, which is the value of routines- if it isn’t already obvious. I used to abhor routines like the plague, thinking of them as anathema to creativity, lateral thinking and improvisation.

What I didn’t realise though, is that we are creatures of habit whether we like it or not- our brains are largely defined by their pattern-generating and pattern-recognizing ability, and in the absence of effective routines we will fall into ineffective ones. During the period of my life where I’d proudly proclaim that I had “no routine”, I actually did have a routine of sleeping and waking up late, copying homework half-heartedly, spending hours watching anime or playing video games… we cannot escape routines, as far as I know at least. In the absence of good routines we will fall into bad ones.

More later, on sleep, nutrition, fitness, smoking, finances.

sleep and systems

I’ve been planning to look through the intimidating amount of data I’ve accumulated over the past 30 weeks to distil simple ideas, truths, maxims that I can apply to my decision-making to create more value for myself and others- and I think the simplest and most basic repeated motif was that I wasn’t getting enough sleep.

Not Enough Sleep.

So I will embark on a little mini-experiment- for 4 weeks, let’s say, where I get as much sleep as I possibly can, even at the expense of lengthy blog posts (I know, your heart sinks at the thought.). I will publish my findings accordingly.

But I might as well leave you with something I’ve been thinking about, and that’s Systems Theory–

The most immediate and relevant system anybody manages is… the self. (Nitpickers- let’s not argue about whether or not the self actually exists and stuff like that- I mean in the general, conventional sense, the same way you might develop a character in a role-playing video game)

I would divide the individual (I say divide but of course all parts are not divisions but nodes in a complex and symbiotic whole, like brain cells) as follows:

BODY:

• Sleep
• Hydration
• Nutrition
• Fitness
• Hygiene
• Posture
• Appearance
• “Feel”

MIND:

• Thoughts
• Emotions
• Perception
• Decision-making
• Desires
• Knowledge
• Know-how
• Philosophy
• Motivation
• Ideas

EXTERNALITIES:

• Communication
• Expression
• Language
• Reputation
• Relationships
• Environment
• Culture

All-encompassing: Experiences, Skills, Abilities, Value, Finances, Assets, Resourcefulness, Effort

Now you will immediately notice that this is a highly imperfect dissection of the self. The self, if it even exists, cannot be broken down into separate components- everything affects everything else, albeit in different degrees. You’ll notice, for example, that your Mind highly influences how your body “Feels”,  and how you communicate, etc.

There’s a lot of overlap. That’s a good thing. The best way to visualise this is to draw everything in a chart of connected nodes like a spider-web. You will quickly notice that some things are more influential than others- that is, some things affect a lot of other things. You’ll have to figure this out yourself (or wait for me to elaborate on my personal experiences), but I find that building this sort of arbitrary “character sheet” helps me to focus my efforts on improving specific facets of my life that would otherwise feel unmanageable.

For example, I’ve personally determined that improving my sleeping habits would yield a disproportionately large increase to my quality of life. What could or should you be working on? If your life seems to be dull, dreary and laggard, perhaps you could use a boost- focus on something- one thing- and make it better, and I think it’s safe to say that you’ll find your quality of life improve reasonably for it. Worth a shot, isn’t it?

 what is politics

Politics is about saying and doing what needs to be said and done to achieve your agenda (whether as an individual, or representing an organization or body of some sort).

Politics exist in any relationship, be it one-one or one-many. When you say “I don’t do politics” and you choose to be honest, straightforward and direct with everybody- that in itself is a political decision. (Much like how not caring about how you dress is in itself an unintended fashion statement.)

I am of the opinion that the negative connotation to the term “politics” (as in, “he’s so political!”) is undesirable. We should all strive to be politically conscious. As a general rule, it is better to be aware of the formal and informal political system and hierarchy than to remain ignorant- you will make better decisions, for yourself and on behalf of whomever you represent. In some communities (like say, Japan, maybe?) it can be considered impolite to be blunt and straightforward, and you may find your honesty hampering your ability to achieve your goals- which is a shame.

Understanding politics does not immediately equate to being a conniving, two-faced backstabbing agent of underhand skullduggery. It’s about evaluating and understanding a situation and figuring out how it is to be handled effectively. By this logic, Barack Obama is a brilliant politician!