Moving beyond listlessness

It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what may happen.

— Herodotus

Let the seasons come

Fall sunset over the bay of Green Bay

The future is always uncertain, so quit worrying about it. Prepare as best you can for what may come, but then meet what does come with cheer.

No one can say the end will come today, but endings are in the wind, like the promise of fall, and winter afterward. In every ending is (for most of us) another beginning – the promise of spring – but first the cold, and so we gather fuel and food and shelter.

So: What provisions do you need, in case this is indeed the first day of fall, or the beginning of winter? And how are you living to make the most of the summer?

Your soul has been placed in a body that is essentially a time bomb that one day will go off, or a windup toy that will run down and stop. What will you do before then? Let your words and actions comfort and encourage and feed.

The free men and women on this train

Sen. Rand Paul is out with a video that asks the question, “Do we no longer have a Fourth Amendment?” Well, no, nor a First or a Second or et cetera. The Ninth and Tenth are rarely even mentioned without a condescending smirk.

We lost the Fourth – in the “NSA is watching us” sense that Paul means – back in the Clinton years and probably much sooner. I remember being alarmed by talk of monitoring of personal emails somewhere around 1998.

During my early days of blogging, I started a series of posts called “The Constitution in Plain English,” intended to show how each amendment in the Bill of Rights has been compromised and ignored. I gave up after the Fourth or Fifth; it was too discouraging.

It was around that time that I began to understand fully that the purpose of a government is not to secure freedoms; it is to restrict them. A “governor” on a bus is a device that keeps the machinery from exceeding a certain speed – that’s the best illustration of the concept of “government” I have ever found.

It was also around that time that I began to understand that freedom is something we are each born with, and it exists between our ears and in our actions. It is not a privilege granted by fiat or law; it is part of our being, endowed at the moment of our creation. Outside influences may be brought to break or destroy that freedom, but only we have the power to surrender it.

There’s a poignant scene in the film Doctor Zhivago when the character Kostoyed Amourski is being tortured and scoffs at his captors, “I am the only free man on this train!” He dies, of course, but he is never beaten. That is why tyranny can triumph only for a while; it is against human nature to accept being tyrannized.

And that’s why instead of writing about the specifics of what’s being done to us, I write things like “Refuse to be Afraid. Free yourself. Dream.” So much of what is happening is out of the individual’s control – but your freedom? Your dreams? No one can take those from you without your permission.

A message from beyond the end of the world

The world ended six months ago today. Remember?

The Mayan calendar came to an end, and so did we. How’s oblivion working out for you?

When I hear predictions about the end of the world, I recall that every prediction about the end of the world I have ever heard — and I’ve heard my share of them — did not come true.

Two quotes I’ve often quoted come in handy when you’re tempted to listen to the siren call of OMG We’re In Deep Doodoo Now …

“Most things I never worry about never happen anyway.” — Tom Petty

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” — H.L. Mencken

I cannot stress enough the last four words of Mencken’s comment. He didn’t say most of the hobgoblins are imaginary; he didn’t say almost all of them are imaginary; he said all. All. Let me say that one more time: “Hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

You’ve heard that joke: How can you tell if a politician is lying? His/her lips are moving.

What’s today’s imaginary hobgoblin? What are you reading about in the news about the latest threat to your personal safety or your homeland security? What did your favorite politician tell you to fear?

Do you really think in six months all that horror will have come true and our lives will be in chaos unless we trust these people to lead us to safety? If so, I have some surplus Mayan calendars I’d like to sell you at a bargain price.

Live your life. Move forward boldly with your dreams. Be all you can be. Nothing can stop you but your fear. What you fear won't happen — or even if it does, it won't stop you unless you let it.

Insist on yourself

I find quite a few nuggets of wisdom in every reading of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s immortal essay Self-Reliance.

Here, he summarizes an entreaty that the reader think and act for herself, find her own way, not be content to follow in the steps of even the greatest men and women who have come before – because only you can or will walk the path ahead of you.

“Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him.”

A barricade of one's own making

There is no writer’s block. There is no mysterious force that prevents words flowing from the mind of an author to her fingertips and onto a page. There is only willful decision, in this case a choice not to make the choices that will allow the words to flow. A conscious hesitation, a deliberate procrastination.

Why? As I’ve stated in the past, procrastination is fear. Fear of what? A fear of making the wrong decision? In fiction, a fear of sending beloved characters in a direction you will regret. In nonfiction, a fear perhaps of irrelevance – who cares what you have to say and what if you’re wrong anyway?

And of course there is the opposite fear – a fear of sending the characters in the right direction. To tell the right story, beloved Romeo and Juliet both had to die. Rhett Butler had to leave Scarlett and not give a damn. Rick had to make Ilsa get on the plane. In nonfiction, the fear of changing the world for the good. Ask Jesus and Gandhi and King how that works out.

These of course are the extremes, but the fears work themselves in similar fashion in the writer’s mind – and so the stories don’t get told and the essays don’t get written.

And the myth of writer’s block is born. The myth is that this is out of the writer’s control. What has happened in fact is that the writer has chosen to second-guess himself, to pause: He has chosen that not writing is more comfortable than making the moment by moment decisions of putting one word after another and then choosing the next one and the one beyond that.

Last summer and fall, after years of procrastination, I threw caution to the wind and told the story of The Imaginary Revolution. I wrote every day (at least until the willful hesitancy began to interfere), and then I set a deadline to compile it all into a story, and I shipped the story to the world on Bill of Right Day (Dec. 15) 2012, and I let it go.

Then, so I wouldn’t stop writing, I returned to my old friend Myke Phoenix, and in two and a half days in January revived his career in a story called The Song of the Serial Kisser, and three weeks later I completed another superhero story about Myke and the Firespiders.

And then the “writer’s block” set in. And I wondered: What am I afraid of?

None of these stories are bound for the writer’s hall of fame – although the themes of The Imaginary Revolution complete a sort of trilogy that, with Refuse to be Afraid and A Scream of Consciousness, describe the philosophy by which I’d live what I estimate to be my best life – and although I have come to care very much about the characters who inhabit Astor City, the setting of the Myke Phoenix chronicles.

So, why did I stop writing as the ideas for another, and then a second, and then a third additional Myke story began to bounce around in my brain?

Why did I stop writing as the story between The Imaginary Bomb and The Imaginary Revolution coalesced after 20 years and a possible sequel began to nibble at the edges of my consciousness?

Why did I stop writing as new ideas and new characters with new stories whispered in my ear?

What am I afraid of?

What an interesting question.

And, by the way, what is stopping you from following your own dreams and your purpose? That may be a more interesting question, especially in your mind.

Let’s explore it together.

Or best yet, I’ll start writing again, and you get started on your dream. We’ll meet up the road a ways. Deal?

7 paragraphs about negotiating the winds of change

Live intentionally. How do you fulfill your mission? On purpose. So stay on purpose.

Is it time for a change? Too late; while you were asking the question, everything changed.

Ride the wind, they say. But what is the wind? An ever-shifting maelstrom of interactions, some intentional, mostly random, some proactive, mostly reactive. The intentional and proactive can influence the direction of the maelstrom somewhat – ride the wind, and keep a hand on the tiller.

Take time to learn. But not too much time; what you've learned has already changed.

The wind howls. Ride the wind. But what is the wind?

Where does the story begin? How do you know to end it, and when?

Only you can determine those answers. Consider them carefully, but find an answer. In the time you've taken to think about it, everything has changed.

The one in which I reveal I needed my books most

I know how you feel. That's the whole point.

Dirty little secret?

I wrote Refuse to be Afraid because I was tired of being stuck because of fear. Same old, same old, and I knew it was because I was afraid – afraid of stepping forward, afraid of rejection, afraid of consequences, afraid of this goofy economy, afraid of losing freedom – and I needed a pep talk.

In the midst of writing out those fears and trying to cope with them, I found – just like a cliff I fell off as a child – that the things I feared weren't nearly as formidable as they seemed. When you control your fear instead of letting the fear control you – when you refuse to be afraid – the rewards can be enormous, especially in terms of peace of mind.

I wrote A Scream of Consciousness because I was tired of living aimlessly, watching brainless TV shows that I immediately forgot – or surfing the Internet. I told myself I was educating myself, but I rarely took action about what I learned.

An exuberant aging folkie named Barry McGuire and a 350-year-old book by a Jesuit priest taught me concepts about living in the moment that I had to share.

Funny thing – when I put my little self-pep talks out to the world to share, I discovered I wasn't the only one who needed to hear those messages. When a friend tells me how Refuse to be Afraid served as a reminder to stay calm during tough times, I realize we all face moments when fear threatens to immobilize us, and we all let our consciousness drift.

What's keeping you from going forward? Maybe the first thing you need to do is write yourself a pep talk. Don't worry about building an audience – or even if anyone will ever read it – just write what you need to hear. You may find – as I did – that you're not alone.

(And if you want to buy my books as examples of what I'm talking about, I certainly won't object.)

I choose whimsy

I see and hear the cranky and dyspeptic political tones, philosophical arguments dressed up as a battle between good and evil, and I have seen and heard enough.

"There ain't no good guys, there ain't no bad guys, there's only you and me and we just disagree," the poet sang.

And yet the demagogues behind the curtains conjure images of battlegrounds. We don't just disagree; you are the embodiment of evil walking on Earth. If your kind keeps/retains power, then the rest of us die.

Hogwash. I say again, hogwash. Pay no attention to the demagogues behind the curtains.

My freedom is not dependent upon someone holding or being ejected from office, and neither is yours. Human beings are born to freedom, not granted liberty by benevolent rulers. What part of "endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights" is so hard to understand?

We have a choice to stew in our own bile – or in bile provided for us by willing political toadies – or to live our lives freely, joyfully and in celebration.

You may follow the path to fear and loathing and the infestation of imaginary hobgoblins. I choose whimsy.

What controls your attention controls your life

Darren Hardy, the publisher of Success magazine, offers a practical application of the theories in James Allen's As A Man Thinketh in an article titled "Is Wolf Blitzer Hurting America?" Well worth the read.

Excerpt:

Where your attention goes, energy flows and so goes your life. When I interviewed racecar-driving legend Mario Andretti, I asked him for the No. 1 success tip to racecar driving. His answer, “Don’t look at the wall.” He explained, “Your car goes where your eyes go.” If you are a tightrope walker, what’s the one thing you never do? Right, look down. Why? Your body will follow your eyes. Your body (your life) also follows your eyes (your attention). If you point your eyes at Constant Negative News (there’s an acronym for that), your life will also go in that direction.

Your mind is like an empty glass. It will hold anything you put into it. You put in sensational news, salacious headlines and talk show rants and you are pouring dirty water into your glass. If you’ve got dark, dismal, worrisome water in your glass, everything you create will be filtered through that muddy mess, because that’s what you’ll be thinking about. Garbage in, garbage out.

Check out the entire article here.

Dance of the butterflies

Riffing and moving on from the brief Pink Floyd reference of the other day:

You say the hill's too steep to climb? Climb it.

You say you're not sure where to start? Get started.

You say you don't know what to do? Do something.

They say the road is blocked? Drive it.

They say the economy's too tough? Go for it.

They say it's been tried before? Try it.

They say it can't be done? Do it.

Of course you're anxious. Of course you're scared. Every new venture, every step outside of your comfort zone, causes a little anxiety. A now-familiar motivational quote sums it up: It's all right to have butterflies in your stomach. Just get them to fly in formation.

We all get butterflies when we attempt something worth doing, something we believe in. The beautiful part is that when it works – and it will! – the butterflies don't actually fly in formation, military-style.

The butterflies dance.