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Rapid Fire Deep Thoughts

For the past couple months I’ve been working hard on a big project for work (which I just finished). I’ve been trying to write down some quick notes of ideas for blog posts, but now that I look at them, I don’t think that any of them deserve their own post. Perhaps they would have if I had written when inspiration struck. But I didn’t. So instead I am collecting them all here, crossing them off my list, and preparing to move on.

My next post will be about the five most important words for a happy life.

The What-If Game

People say that the what-if game is a dangerous one to play, but I love it. It keeps my brain active. I do, however, play it with a twist. I don’t mull over past mistakes and wonder what would happen if I could go back and change them.

Instead, I like to think about what the world be like if someone invented something that could do… X. And then I put some conditions on it and play around with my fantasy world a bit.

For example: “What would the world be like if someone invented safe and cheap teleportation technology?” Condition: You couldn’t just teleport at will. You would have to go to a “teleportation hub.” These would be about as plentiful as gas stations.

A few thoughts:
<> This would clear out the roads so much, it would make driving/riding a dream!
<> It would completely destroy most conventional transportation industries. Companies would have to focus on making cheap, reliable vehicles for short trips to the hubs; vehicles small enough to travel with the person.
<> No one would want to live anywhere besides the tropics. Why live with the cold if you don’t have to?
<> Would regions shift to being entirely residential or entirely commercial, or would the fact that most people wouldn’t be driving as much mean that the blended nature of cities would become even more important?

And so on and so forth…

Another “what if” scenario I’ve been thinking about recently is: “What if we perfected a substance that safely made sleep unnecessary?” Condition: It would be a drug that you would have to take each day that would replace 8 hours of sleep.

A few thoughts:
<> Sleep, then, would become a luxury. We would enjoy it — when we did it.
<> Would the traditional 9-5 would become irrelevant? (Side note: aren’t those hours kind of irrelevant already?)
<> If the drug were expensive, there would be two classes of people: the “sleepers” who couldn’t afford it and the “wakers” that could. The wakers could pull even further ahead of the sleepers since they would have 8+ extra hours for work.

The interesting thing about this one is that we pretty much could be doing this right now. There’s no reason why we need to sleep 6-8 hours every night. Take a look at this and ask yourself what you would do with an extra 4-6 hours every single day.

Why Trust the Government?

Changing gears here, I have to wonder why people trust the government at all.

I am being serious here, but I am not advocating for anarchy or anarcho-capitalism or anything like that. There are certain things we need government for. A few things. Not many, but some.

A little organization makes us all a lot freer. (If you want an illustration of that, think about how easy driving is thanks to those lanes and those signs and those lights and those policemen.)

But let’s take a look back through history at the various structures of government we’ve seen. Monarchy. Feudalism. Whatever the hell Egypt had going on. Etcetera.

Has the government ever been “good?” Have they ever been trustworthy?

I’m not saying that there haven’t been good leaders within the existing structures of government throughout history. There have. But the overall structure of government, historically, has been oppressive for hundreds upon hundreds of years.

Generations were kept in poverty so that some could live in opulence. Wars were waged for reasons of race and greed. And on and on and on.

Why do we think that it’s any different these days? What’s changed so fundamentally? Ask yourself this the next time you’re advocating for more handouts, which inevitably puts more power in the hands of the government.

The Caste System

I remember reading about the caste system in India for a middle school project. It’s been awhile, but from what I remember there are several castes that you can be born into that will basically determine how terrible or how awesome your life will be. You cannot change castes, and you are pretty much duty-bound to perform whatever jobs are befitting of your caste.

The whole system works on the presumption that you believe in reincarnation. If you do your job well in this life then you will rise to a higher caste in the next life. But if you screw up then you start over.

The idea appeals to me on some level. I love the idea of reincarnation; that we might be able to experience this wonderful thing called life from another perspective, again and again.

Things break down a bit for me when we assume that we can somehow “deserve” to have perfect and privileged lives. That’s iffy.

I know it’s iffy because I have one (a privileged life), and although I have a hard time not feeling entitled to it from time to time, I mostly feel that I don’t deserve it. Am I really better than someone born into poverty and sickness? Was I “good” before, while they were “bad?”

Again: iffy.

Whenever I watch a movie that has one of those sweeping, helicopter-ride shots over a slum in [some third-world country], I hope that in my next life I am reborn there. Just to experience it. To balance out this life.

Perhaps, to be a “good” member of the top caste (Brahmins, I believe), one must think like this. I hope so.

Speaking of “good…”

The Objective Good

This is definitely a subject that I’ll be revisiting someday (since it fascinates me), but for now I’ll just get down a few initial thoughts.

I think poetry sucks. Most of it, I absolutely hate.

Yet, I know that there is some absolutely amazing poetry out there. And I’m not just talking about how there are “good country songs” here. There is good poetry.

I know this, and yet I am more than happy to ignore the genre because, on the whole, it doesn’t please me.

About poetry, I realize that I am wrong. I think it sucks. But it doesn’t. Poetry, as a thing, is a legitimate form of art. And while there’s a ton of bad poetry out there, there is also a ton of good, amazing, inspiring poetry.

Now let’s think about something a little less established than poetry: techno music.

I love techno music. I even love a lot of techno music that techno music snobs would consider “low rent.” I know that my taste is not great, here, but I like it.

The thing about most art is that it is very subjective…

So now my question: is there a such thing as an objective good? Poetry would seem to be a great example of one, but is that only because it is old and established as a genre?

Do we only know what is “good” and what is “bad” after hundreds of years? Surely, if something stands the test of time like that, it probably is pretty good. But isn’t that setting the bar a little high? And, when tastes change and what was once “good” is forgotten, does that make it “bad?”

I discarded the black-and-white definitions of good and bad a long time ago, but I still wonder if there are things that are only one or the other. Know any examples?

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What it Must Feel Like to be Rascist

Why I Don’t Like Dogs

Feel free to disagree with me on this one. I know many do, and I think that is totally fine. But I don’t like dogs. I can’t stand them.

Actually, I must admit that’s not true.

Once I get to know a particular dog, generally I start to like it (with some exceptions). We bond, and because I love animals in general I am willing to work past my extreme dislike for dogs in general.

It’s not just that I prefer cats arbitrarily. It’s not simply that I grew up with cats or that I was bitten by a dog as a small child. Here is my honest-to-God reason why I don’t like dogs: Externalities.

Externalities is an economic term that basically means, “the extra crap that other people have to put up with because of your selfish decisions.” Examples include pollution from a factory, noise from a loud party, and an absurdly long wait at the grocery store because you want to argue over an expired coupon.

If you’ve ever been through an economics class, you are probably tuned into externalities more than most. You are probably aware of how your actions affect others. I’m not saying that econ 101 is the only way to grasp this concept (parenting and morality are also both acceptable), but it certainly qualifies as one of them.

When I adopt a cat (or a hamster, or a snake, or almost any other type of common pet), that decision affects my neighbors very little, if at all. But when you adopt a dog, that decision suddenly becomes my problem as your neighbor, as a patron of the same park you visit, and as your house guest.

If you walk into my house, and I have a cat, you might smell the litter box. If I walk into your house, and you have a dog, not only will I immediately smell the dog, but I will also have to listen to it barking incessantly, deal with it trying to lick my face and hump my leg, and watch my step when I go outside. And let’s not forget that, when you’re not home, you dog will probably bark its head off at nothing all day and make your neighbors want to kill it.

So, to sum up:

<> Dogs — lots of negative externalities (along with some undeniable positives, to be fair).

<> Almost all other pets — almost no externalities whatsoever (along with many similar undeniable positives).

Racism

I’m not writing this post to try to convince you that dogs are inferior pets. That boat has sailed. I know that I am in the minority, and I am fine with that. I would even like to remind you that, once I meet your dog and see how happy and well-behaved it is, I’m more than likely going to spend some time petting and playing with it. Like I said, I do love animals.

I do, however, have a purpose to my writing. Namely: that my feelings towards dogs are exactly like what I imagine it must feel like to be a racist.

When I see a dog, my mind immediately switches to the “dislike” spectrum. My specific opinion of that individual dog will vary with circumstance, but it generally won’t get much better than indifference unless I spend a good amount of time with that dog and it proves itself to me.

The same goes for racists. When they see someone of a race they hate, that same “dislike” spectrum applies. Perhaps, if that individual really proves that they’re a good person to the racist they will consider moving their evaluation up to indifference or even mild friendship. But their opinion of the race as a whole cannot be improved by the actions of one individual — just as my distaste for dogs never seems to ebb no matter how many I meet.

A Rational Case Against the Irrational

While I realize that my hatred of dogs is a little irrational, I do feel that I have some justifiable reasons. Even dog lovers would have to admit the following: dogs bark, dogs go crazy and jump all over people, and dogs poop everywhere. You can train them not to, but that’s their default setting. They’re hard-wired that way.

The interesting thing about humans is that we’re hard-wired to do very little. We have one of the longest (if not the longest, I’m honestly not sure) periods of helpless childhood of any living creature. We become what we are taught to be. There is no “default” setting in a human that makes him selfishly harm his neighbor. No, we learn (not?) to do that every single day as we’re growing up because that’s what we see.

The question is: Do racists honestly believe that all those people that are a different color from them are hard-wired to hurt those around them? Or are they just acting out racist and bigoted ways of thinking that were modeled for them during childhood?

I guess the only real way to test this would be to see how many well-raised individuals there are who, at some point later in life, decided to be racist. I’m sure there are some. But I am equally sure that the majority or racists don’t have even a single shred of “evidence” upon which to base their racism (and even those that think they do should be reminded that A) Shit happens and B) People are not ambassadors for their race).

The vast majority of racists were raised that way. I have no research to back that claim up, but I defy anyone to provide evidence to the contrary. And I would be very surprised if anyone felt compelled to try.

The Moral

So what do we do with that information? Honestly, I’m not sure. I feel like I’ve made a good case for how racism is irrational, which is by no means ground-breaking news. Yes, racism sucks. No doubt about it.

I guess the moral is this (if there is one): if you’re holding onto a dislike of something — and here I’m not talking just about the incredibly poisonous dislike that is racism — you need to examine it carefully. It may be that there are good reasons for that dislike (drugs and unnecessary pollution come to mind as two examples). But really, most things in life don’t have to affect anyone besides the person that chose to initiate the action.

Life is too short to worry about stupid, insignificant crap that doesn’t affect you.

Post-Script

I want to add this in here, just because it’s topical and because I feel quite passionate about it.

What homosexual people do at home or in public has absolutely NO affect on you (unless we’re talking about actual crimes, like if a lesbian couple robbed a bank).

FUCKING LET THEM GET MARRIED.

If you don’t support same sex marriage, you are no better than a red-neck cracker who hates Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

…

And that is how I feel about that.

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How Long Do We Want to Live?

Continuing in my theme of “meditations on death,” I’ve been considering recently whether or not it is a kindness that science has done us by allowing us to live for so many years. My inspiration comes from this quote:

“[John] Updike met the decline of his powers with courage and good humor, but also with a clear-eyed recognition that the compensations of old age—a hard-won sagacity, a bemused detachment—don’t make up for the irretrievable losses.”

It comes from this (short) blog post by Ben Casnocha.

I’m not saying that this alone is reason to say that people are living too long. Of course, everyone should be (and is, thankfully) able to choose how old they want to get. By this I mean that there’s no externally-imposed age limit like in some old sci-fi movie.

Accidents and illnesses don’t count. We will (probably) never do away with those. But we are trying — and succeeding to some extent. Life is much safer and less dangerous these days than it was a couple hundred years ago, and it’s only becoming more so.

But is there a case to be made for an enforced age limit — or perhaps an “enfeeblement test” that results in an early termination upon failure? I realize that I sound like a horrible fascist here, and that I am without a doubt speaking with the extreme ignorance of youth.

Consider, however, the following…

<> How many people dread the day that they must depend on someone else for such necessities as going to the bathroom, running simple errands, and paying their own way.

<> The regrets of all those people that never got around to doing X, Y, or Z because they thought they had “all the time in the world.”

<> The fire that gets lit under your ass with the approach of a hard deadline.

<> All the incredible work that has been done by people who were told that they had a short time to live.

If we all knew that we only had 60 years to live, how differently would we act? If we knew that our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness would expire on the day that we lost our physical or mental capacities, would we work harder at maintaining them?

There is, of course, a natural progression to our life cycle. We are supposed to decay. We are supposed to lose what we once had. This happens for a reason, I am sure. It is all part of the rich, beautiful, and tragic lesson that the world is meant to teach us. But I can’t help but wonder if we’re not prolonging the decay into a period of painful and humiliating “waiting” that teaches us all of the wrong lessons.

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We Do Not Know Death

The Cat

We were on our way home from the grocery store and had just turned onto the back road leading to our apartment complex parking lot when we saw a cat, lying in the middle of the road. It’s legs were twitching and its face was a bloody mess, and it was obvious that someone — perhaps even the minivan that we had just passed going the other way — had hit it. And that it was suffering.

My immediate thought was that the “right” thing to do would have been to swerve and put the poor animal out of its misery. But I couldn’t. I love cats.

The sight struck Ashley harder than it struck me, and while we were unloading our groceries she was on the verge of tears wondering what we could do to help it. I said that it looked to me like the animal was beyond “helping,” unless she wanted to drive back and kill it. And although she seemed ready to do just that, I wouldn’t let her. Again: I love cats.

It occurred to me, though, that perhaps it was my love of cats that should have spurred me to take action. Cowboys loved their horses, and so they knew that if their horse broke its leg out on the prairie that the most humane and loving thing to do would be to shoot it. They were prepared for this eventuality. It was simply a part of their existence; of the life they chose.

Ashley ended up calling the police about the cat, but when she found out they wouldn’t be able to be there for at least an hour she decided to drive back and see what she could do. When we got there, just fifteen minutes later, the cat was already dead. Thankfully.

By the Throat

The experience got me thinking about how divorced our culture is from death. It is an entity foreign and unfamiliar to us.

We understand that death exists; that things die all the time. But we do our best to distance ourselves from it. We don’t want to know about the chickens that gave their lives for our dinner or about the cattle that died for our leather boots. We believe that we can live in a world where we can love animals and also eat them and harvest the useful parts of their bodies for our clothes and our furniture.

And, as the current world proves, we can. Except when death reaches out and grabs us by the throat. (That is, by the way, the second part of Lazarus’ quote from the other day: “Death smiles at us all the time, and we just look away. Except when death reaches out and grabs us by the throat.”)

Death doesn’t have to grab us by the throat to grab us by the throat. Seeing that poor cat twitching in the road, its life-blood pouring out of its eyes, reminded me of that fact.

Preparing for Death

I have lost a few family members in my time. Others I never got to know because they were taken from this world prematurely. It is not an easy experience, to lose someone. But I have never had someone ripped from my life brutally or without notice. It has never been a surprise, and so I have been able to deal with it slowly and with some (often significant) degree of detachment. I remember reading an entire Harry Potter book on the day that I attended my Great Aunt Carmy’s funeral.

Life expectancy is in the upper seventies in this country, which means that everyone expects to live for quite a long time (with some exceptions, apparently). Many of us really only start to think about death in a real and meaningful way when our parents are “getting up there,” which means we have decades to keep the issue on the back burner, moving it to the front only rarely for grandparents and the occasional tragedy. Even then, though, it’s still something that we can view with detachment, bewilderment, irreverence, or any number of other emotions besides acceptance.

But death does not go away. It will not go away. No matter what.

Ancient and tribal societies knew that. In fact, it is only in the past few hundred years that most people began living past 40. Societies then had to deal with death on a much more regular basis. It was a likely — if not probable — outcome of many, many things.

I cannot imagine a young man of the 1700s reacting as I did at the sight of a suffering animal. Dealing with death was something you simply had to do. “The authorities” were not just a phone call and an hour away. If you ran across a suffering animal (or a suffering human), you had to deal with it. Or, you had to ignore it, and live with the memory.

Is it progress that we have gotten to a point where death is practically no longer a part of life?

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We are Works of Fiction

I just finished reading one of the most enjoyable books that has ever crossed my path: The Jamais Vu Papers by Wim Coleman and Pat Perrin.

I “discovered” Wim Coleman almost immediately after he started a blog about using plays in education (as I’ve said before: you never know who’s reading!). I reached out to him to write some guest posts for one of the blogs I manage for work and before I knew it we were chatting via email and friending each other on Facebook.

The more I got to know about Wim, the more interested I became in his work. The guy has published and contributed to something like 65 books, so I chose one almost at random (even against Wim’s advice). And I am so glad that I did.

The Jamais Vu Papers is a “post-modern” novel, which basically means it does more with the novel format than most books. It breaks rules. The closest approximation that I know of is House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, although I’m sure there are others.

TJVP is a book about different states of existence. Dreaming and waking. Insanity and rationality. Alive and dead. Fiction and non-fiction. And so on, and so forth. It handles these weighty themes with what I would describe as a “flippant solemnity.” Perhaps you’ll know what I mean after you read the book (which you should do!) Or perhaps you won’t.

The main character of TJVP is a psychiatrist named Hector that, about mid-way through the story, finds out that he is fictional. Once he does, he wastes a lot of time trying to manipulate his fictional world to his liking. It doesn’t work.

It takes Hector some time and some soul searching, but eventually he comes to grips with the idea that he is fictional — mostly because he realizes that everyone else is too. At least, that everyone else is mostly fictional.

There is a real version of us. It does things in the real world. It buys shoes and flosses its teeth. But there are many, many versions of us that are not, in the physical sense, “real.” Here I am referring to our own memories, to imagined or dreamed-up versions of ourselves in other people’s minds, and any number of other permutations of our “self” like biographies and Facebook profiles.

It is comforting to know that we are, at some level, real. But we must also remember that we exist primarily as works of fiction. And the more we do — the more people we meet — the more fictional we become.

It is a powerful book indeed that makes you think about life in such a way that you’re suddenly okay with being fictional.

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Great Quotes from the Weekend

I wanted to share two great quotes with whoever may read this blog that I heard this weekend.

The first was from Lazarus, a professional squash player from Namibia who came with me and a friend to IKEA to buy a bed (and eat Swedish meatballs and cinnamon buns). On the way there we were talking about how often we come “this close” to death and we don’t even realize it.

Lazarus said: “Death smiles at us all the time, and we just look away.”

It sounded particularly profound with his accent. He then proceeded to tell us about a time he saw someone get eaten by a lion.

The second great quote came on Sunday evening when I was cooking a “breakfasty” dinner of pancakes, eggs, and bacon with Nick, our resident four-and-a-half year old sous-chef.

When we were preparing the pan to cook the bacon, he said: “Bacon is like a warm, cozy bed in our stomach.”

Which is probably the greatest description of comfort food I’ve ever heard.

You gotta appreciate things like this when they happen…

In other news, I am embarking on a new project for this blog soon. I’ve been mulling over what the five most important words in the world.

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Spinning Wheels

Forgive the Title…

…but I have been watching quite a lot of Top Gear lately. The car metaphors kind of jump out. Also: I am now in the habit of turning the traction control off in my Mini whenever I drive somewhere.

Drag races and laps around the test track figure quite prominently in Top Gear, but while burnouts and drifting make for some dramatic shots they don’t make for a fast time.

Wheel spin is not your friend. Wheel spin means you’re wasting power and wasting time: two things you don’t want to do in a race. Or in life, for that matter.

A Doer

I am a “doer.” I get great satisfaction out of finishing a project — especially a project of my own invention. And I structure my life around being able to work on as many of my projects as I possibly can.

The biggest way that I do this is working from home. I have a couple part-time gigs that pay the bills (sometimes just barely) but also afford me a great amount of free time. To make the best use of the free time, I make lists of “side-projects” and then I set to work crossing things off.

Not everyone is like this. Not everyone has this all-consuming need to create; to accomplish. Some people (like my mate, Ashley) are quite content to sit back and do nothing when nothing needs doing.

I must admit that I’m something of a judgmental person (although I try my best to give people the benefit of the doubt when I stop and think about it), and I have a tendency to forget that not everyone is a “doer” like myself. So when I see someone just taking it easy in their free time, I think to myself, “Why aren’t you doing anything?”

Scorn.

Joseph Campbell Said That

What I am currently working on reminding myself is that we’re both actually engaged in the same pursuit. We’re following our bliss.

When I make lists of side-projects and work on accomplishing them, I’m really just trying to make myself happy. I might think to myself that I’m fulfilling some greater purpose by creating art or by starting projects that might one day help people I’ve never met. But the reality is that those ideas make me happy — and if they didn’t, I would do any of it.

Reluctant prophets truly are few and far between, if there are any.

When you look at it that way, Ash doing nothing is just as significant as me doing something, provided that both of us are doing what makes us happy.

There is, however, one nagging thought that I’ve been struggling with recently. What about those people that could be helped by our labor? What if I did write a book that helped thousands of people, or start a non-profit group that improved countless lives? What if my unquenchable desire to achieve is put there so that one day I will actually accomplish something great?

Isn’t then doing something greater than doing nothing, for it helps others while simultaneously making me happy? Wouldn’t it be worth doing even if it made me miserable?

I laid awake at night thinking about that more times than I can count before I came up with an answer.

An Answer

What I realized is this: If I want to justify my “doer” persona beyond the simple (yet elegant and not insignificant), “it’s what makes me happy,” then I need to get better at deciding what I do. I need to stop spinning my wheels.

While it is true that checking items off my list makes me happy, I know that some of those items never really needed to be on the list in the first place. They might be pleasant diversions, but there are more than enough of those to go around. And at the end of my life I’d much rather look back on a few great accomplishments than a multitude of tiny and forgettable ones.

Right now, my list of side-projects stands at three items.

<> Start a philosopher’s book club.

<> Create a non-profit (I’ll post details as this develops, but I don’t want to get into it and give anything away right now).

<> Make a mural for our bedroom.

Item number one is currently on the back burner because I just picked up a new project for work that is taking up my reading and philosophizing time. That’s okay. Books on philosophy aren’t going anywhere.

I estimate that items two and three would take approximately equal amounts of time. The non-profit that I want to start is a very small and simple thing (though I think it is absolutely gorgeous in its beauty and potential — possibly my best idea yet). And the mural?

I love the idea of being a visual artist. But I am not a very good one.

I could set aside the time to make my vision of a mural come alive, true. But I have no greater aspirations than that. I’m not planning on being a great visual artist, mostly because I don’t have the natural talent and I have no interest in taking the time to develop my skills. Stuff like that takes time and dedication, and while I have both, I prefer to save them for other things.

Internal Struggle

The “doer” in me tells me not to neglect a single side-project that makes it onto my list; that leaving items un-crossed is the first step towards becoming “one of those guys” who never finishes what he starts. But the part of me that knows that I tie my happiness to accomplishment (perhaps a bit too much) reminds me that I need to prioritize.

Just because I’m a doer doesn’t mean I like being busy. I actually revel in inactivity — so long as I feel that I have earned it.

I’m sure there are any number of self-help bloggers out there who will tell me that I’m wrong. They’ll tell me that I shouldn’t have to feel like I’ve “earned” the right to take a nap and read a novel. Or they’ll tell me that if I apply myself that I could easily cross everything off my list no matter how long it gets. Or some combination of the two. Or something else entirely.

Whatever. That is something that does not concern me.

What does concern me is this: happiness, realism, and honesty.

It is my life-goal to be completely, 100% transparent. I want people to be able to look at a brief snapshot of me and know what kind of person I am. That’s honesty, and honesty makes me happy.

But if I’m going to be honest then I must admit that there are certain parts of my being that are unchangeable. Being a “doer” is one of them — not because I’m a busy-body who can’t sit still but because I am driven by a need to change the world in some small way. That is my life quest. It might be egotistical and vain, but it’s me.

That’s realism, and even though it isn’t entirely flattering, I need to work on letting that make me happy as well.

Now, time to strip away the distractions, stop spinning my wheels, and put down some power…

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Preventative Maintenance

There are a lot of great bloggers and authors out there talking about how to become truly great at something. One of may favorites is Cal Newport, who has been writing a lot about “deliberate practice” these days in an effort to help people understand what it takes to be one of the best of the best.

But sometimes it doesn’t matter if we’re the best of the best. Sometimes we don’t need to be great at something. Sometimes all we want is to just be good at it. Sometimes we’re not trying to choose a vocation. We just want a hobby.

Cheap Hobbies

You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but two items in my long list of hobbies are working out and riding motorcycles. Unfortunately, I have so many interests (more on that later) that I don’t devote nearly enough time to either one of them — although, since my doctor told me I was 25% body fat and had high cholesterol I have started making time to work out more regularly.

The problem with having hobbies that you do only semi-regularly is the lack of a solid base. If you don’t work out at least a couple times per week, every time you go is like your first time. You know how to push yourself (maybe) but you can’t — or you’ll probably end up with a herniated disc or something. Like I did a couple of weeks ago, when I started trying to back into shape and lifted during my first workout.

The same goes for riding. Sometimes the bike won’t start for one reason or another, sometimes it’ll run poorly because the gas is too old, and sometimes you just won’t feel like you can push it because you’re out of practice and don’t want to die.

Right now, I’m in the remedial class for working out. I’m easing back into it and trying not to hurt myself in the process. When spring comes, I’ll find myself in a similar situation with my bike. Both of these take some sort of investment — either time (working out) or money (getting the bike road-ready after a winter in the garage).

The nice thing about both hobbies, though, is that neither investment is very large. Working out just a half hour each day yields significant returns. And bikes are way cheaper than cars. I got mine for $600 two years ago and have since spent less than $1,000 keeping it on the road, fueled up, and insured. And that figure includes safety gear (something you never should ride without).

The Difference Between Hobbies and Vocations

But what if you want to go beyond the “serviceable” stage with your hobbies? What if you want to have the kind of body or bike that turns heads? At that point, you’re moving far beyond the remedial and into the advanced classes. You’re not choosing a hobby, you’re choosing a vocation. And what was once a small investment is now going to be much more significant. Now you’re on the business end of the 80-20 rule. In other words: you’re fighting an up-hill battle. It can be won, but not easily.

When you see a model or an actor/actress with an amazing body, remember that they have spent hours upon hours in the gym and months on a strict diet. Likewise, when you see a beauty of a bike out on the street, just know that it’s owner has either spent a lot of time wrenching on it and fixing it up or paid someone else a lot of money to do it for them. Apply this rule to anyone you see that has a talent that you wish you had.

If your goal is to be like them, you need to know what you’re signing up for right from the beginning. Lots of “preventative maintenance,” so to speak. That’s fine. Perhaps you’re ready for that. But in most cases, however, our goal is not to be like them. Not exactly like them. We might want to be in shape but most of us don’t want to be models. We might want to play an instrument but most of us don’t want to be in a famous rock band. We just want to enjoy a piece of the action.

Don’t Confuse a Hobby with a Vocation

Gladwell gave us the 10,000 hours rule. It’s probably not a hard and fast rule even for vocations — and it’s definitely not for hobbies. To be the best of the best takes a lifetime commitment to continuous improvement. But to be a hobbyist takes just one thing: to decide to find ways of enjoying ourselves as we work towards some goal. 

Lucky for me, I enjoy working out (I enjoy any activity that is an acceptable excuse to not answer your phone). But not everybody does. They want the product (good health) but they can’t stand the process. For those people who don’t like hitting the gym but want to get in shape, I recommend doing some research on group fitness classes or taking up an active hobby (like climbing or dancing).

I don’t particularly enjoy working on my bike, however. So I try to only do it when I can wrangle one of close friends into helping me, making it a more social activity. If I didn’t have mechanically inclined friends, I would probably buy a newer bike with fewer problems or find a good mechanic and pay him to do under-the-table repairs from time to time so I could spend more time riding.

With most jobs or vocations, it doesn’t really matter if you’re having fun. Something needs to be done and it doesn’t really matter how it gets done. It doesn’t matter if you enjoy the process (though, hopefully you do). Hobbies and minor life goals like getting in shape are different, however. They should be enjoyable all the way through — and in the vast majority of cases it’s possible to make them that way.

Remember that you’re far more likely to arrive at your destination if you’re happy while working to get there.

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If Everybody Could Kill Somebody

Society has evolved to the point where might rarely makes right. And thank goodness, because if it hadn’t then I would already be dead. For sure.

We gained a lot when we got ourselves organized and started passing laws to help level the playing field. It paved the way for unprecedented progress and development world-wide — even in places that still seem to be stuck in the dark ages.

But we also lost something when we made it illegal to simply “put someone in their place.” You know what I mean.

I’m not saying that I would trade all the progress of the past few hundred years for the ability to slap that uppity guy in Starbucks or the dude who cut me off during my drive home, but I do think that people would act differently if they knew that they ran the risk of being called out (or worse) on their selfish behavior.

He was probably joking when he said this, but I used to play Dungeons & Dragons (nerd alert!) with a guy who said that everyone should have the right to kill one person. Why? Because he figured this would make everyone more courteous in their daily lives. At the very least, they would think long and hard about screaming at the checkout clerk at the grocery store if they thought it might be the last thing they ever did.

There is a certain amount of truth in that, I think.

Perhaps we could even “civilize” the whole process by making it illegal to take action right then and there. If you wished to cash in your “killin’ card” on someone, you would have to inform them of your intent and file a report with the police. Then they could appeal, and if you didn’t change your mind they would be quietly put to sleep like a dog.

Don’t bother to point out the obvious problems with this line of thinking. I’m well aware. That’s why this post is in the “Musings” category and not the “Fully Developed and Vetted Thoughts that I Think the World Should Adopt” one.

Assuming you were legally allowed to kill one person in your lifetime (you didn’t have to), what would you do? Would you take revenge on someone for a past wrong-doing? Would you store the freedom away “just in case?” Would you kill on behalf of a loved one? Would you auction yourself off to the highest bidder as a sort of “one time use assassin?”

I think your immediate reaction to that question says a lot about you.

Don’t pretend you’ve never thought about it.

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Are All Writers Sell-Outs?

Editors are the Enemy

Right now, I am going through what I hope are the final editing and revision stages in what has been (so far) a two year publication process on my first book. It is a painful process that has caused me to say (and think) that editors are the enemy on more than one occassion.

Perhaps some of them are. I don’t know. But most, I think, are actually on your side. It is your job, as the writer, to create great content. It is the editor’s job to make sure that people will actually want to (and be able to) read that great content. This necessitates a lot of back-and-forth stuff that can get old quickly.

This got me thinking about the supposed freedom that comes from self-publishing, which is quickly establishing itself as a legitimate way to get your work out to the masses. The stigma is still there, to some extent, but it’s not so bad. I think we have indie music and the internet to thank for that. And e-readers like the Kindle.

“It used to be about the music.”

A lot of musicians fight tooth and nail to keep their artistic integrity when they sign to a label. They don’t want to end up like one of those stereotypical rock stars who skips shows because they found a single brown M&M in their bowl backstage.

There is a certain unspoken sense that it’s not the fame that does this to you. It’s the things that you had to do to become famous. It’s pandering to the pop fans. It’s changing your sound to be more in line with whatever’s topping charts. It’s listening to your producer too much.

In other words, it’s selling out.

We have no problem with bands that became famous simply because they were great. I haven’t heard many people calling Led Zeppelin and Creedence  ”sell-outs” (even though Zep did get a little synthy towards the end). What we hate are the bands that used to sound one way but then they got picked up by a big label and had one of their songs in a movie and now they sound completely different.

That’s basically what happened to Switchfoot, one of my favorite bands from back in the day. I still listen to them from time to time, and I try to keep up with some of their new stuff, but it’s just not the same.

They went from a band of artists to a commercial product. And now every 14 year old knows about them.

Sell-outs. Sorry, guys.

Can Painters Sell Out?

It got me wondering: can other artists sell out?

I just recently watched the movie Exit Through the Gift Shop, which seems to suggest that they can. In it, a man who has spent years hanging out with real street artists turns into Mr. Brainwash, now a pop-art phenom, nearly overnight by hiring a team of graphic designers to make whatever bizarre creations he can loosely describe.

A friend of mine has a friend whose father paints pictures of wine bottles for a living. He carefully arranges the bottles and corks, takes pictures of them, and then reproduces the photos in oil on canvas in great detail. Apparently there is a company that pays him to do this, and apparently they review all his photos before he proceeds to painting.

So let’s compare the two. Mr. Brainwash seems to have vision but no talent. The wine bottle painter has talent but no vision. Is what they do still considered art — or is it a mere product?

This also begs the question: What is art? Does art require vision and skill? Just one? Neither? Something else entirely?

I think Christopher Walken said it nicely in Man on Fire.

I like to keep as broad a definition of art as possible, and I politely disagree with those who don’t look at writing as art. (I’m pretty sure they’re joking too.)

What other artists have editors?

If writers are artists, what role does the editor play in the artistic process? The closest corollary I can think of would be the music producer — they guy that tells musicians how their own music should sound. After all, that’s basically what an editor does for a writer.

If movies and TV shows are a clue to the reality of making an album (I’ve only helped do it once, and even then my role was fairly small), then musicians hate their producers. Perhaps even more than writers hate their editors.

Most writers know that their work would never reach the public if it weren’t for their editor. But musicians have seen many examples of other bands that broke all the rules and still became extraordinarily famous.

Meanwhile, painters don’t seem to have any editorial equivalent at all — and when they do (like the wine bottle painter) we call them “commercial artists,” which is a nice way of saying “sell-out.”

I can’t imagine anyone “editing” Michelangelo. He did his work his way. Period.

When a painter or a sculptor produces something, they simply work on until they decide that it’s finished. Then they put it out there. Bands have extra steps in there for mastering and audio engineering, but the majority of them aren’t told to go back and rewrite portions of their songs.

Am I a Sell-Out?

So what about writers?

Here’s the truth about writers. If you’ve heard of them, they have an editor. Even if you haven’t heard of them, chances are they have an editor.

Does that mean we’re all a bunch of sell-outs?

Maybe.

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