Time and Habits

I distinctly remember writing about having not written in a while at the top of my last post. Back in November of LAST YEAR.

Not to steal from Britney, but...

Oops, I did it again.

I just haven't been writing recently. Which is not great. Writing is good for me.

Granted, I have not been writing for some fairly positive reasons: my job, general busyness. But, I can't help feeling as though I'm allowing something to atrophy. People do tend to speak of creativity as a muscle and by not actively flexing it, am I allowing it wither?

---

Huh. I wrote those previous words in February.

It's June.

This is now officially a problem. 

Seeing as how this has become a pattern — a pattern of absence— what is it? What is it about time and habits that has led to this abandonment of something I love and intended to grow?

---

HA! So I freely admit to adding those last lines and then proceeding to sit there staring at my computer screen for a couple days, my fingers hovering over my keyboard, without a single thing to say. I was stuck. I intended to blather on for a bit about precisely why I stopped writing, but the words weren't coming. I knew it pretty much had something to do with a promotion at work, busier personal life and the such. But who cares? It's always stuff like that when we stop tending to things that we promised ourselves we would prioritize. 

As I sat there, fingers fluttering, I believe my thought was that I should delve deep into the 'why' of it all and create an abstract theory that poked around concepts of habits and choices, but it all got lost in it's lack of purpose.

Because I realized that wasn't the story. That story was boring. It doesn't provide value to say that at the end of a work day I started choosing unwinding with Netflix over mining my brain for cohesive thoughts about life.

What matters it what comes next. Starting from here.

Declaring that starting now I'm committing to writing one post a week. Which may very well result in some short and/or obscure posts (so dear, kind reader you have been warned), but ultimately should force me into a new habit.

A habit of being accountable to this work.

And that, to me, is way more interesting. Because this serves. It's of value to move forward and make a commitment to writing on the regular. I tried simply acknowledging that I wasn't writing and that succeeded only in continuing my hiatus. Instead, I'm going to take a stab at accountability.

Make this declaration here in writing both for myself and to perhaps inspire a little bit of commitment in anyone who also may have let something slip aside.

photos: source, source

Creative Genius

I relish the words of author Elizabeth Gilbert and Eat, Pray, Love has been my favorite book for the last 6 years.

For some reason this can elicit jeers from supposedly highbrow, nose-in-the-air sorts of people. (Such a fun sort, these people.) And it irks me.

Actually to be fair, the reason I eluded to is not just SOME unknown reason; I know the exact reason: Eat, Pray, Love garnered mainstream bestseller popularity in recent times. Thus, "boo, hiss!") 

It bothers me that people so often belittle artistry the minute it becomes popular. This is most commonly recognized in the realm of music, but it also happens in every other creative atmosphere. It is silly, and above all, such rash and illogical judgement only prevents an audience from beholding a possible moment of genius.

Perhaps a work will not change or resonate with you, but if you pass it up for reasons as irrelevant as commercial success, you've only robbed yourself of an opportunity. And worse, your prejudice may infect others and prevent them from either openly expressing their experience or from even experiencing it at all.

Even more to the point: who the heck cares with what someone else feels a connection?

The attachment that we have to the art we like and the art we create (not to mention the art we don't like and the art that others create) is too pervasive.

At some point we need to detach from the result. From the way that something is received. And simply allow it to be. 

Elizabeth Gilbert has a beautiful TED Talk about creative genius and I've included it below. 

Elizabeth talks about the prevailing assumption that artistry is connected to suffering. That our contemporary creative artists are somehow being killed by their art.

Then she asks the audience a most brilliant question: "Are we all cool with that?"

Must artistry and creativity be the death of their vessels? 

Gilbert gives this speech at a very apt time. Between what she refers to as the "freakish success" of Eat, Pray, Love and the publishing of her wildly anticipated follow up to that behemoth, which will ultimately be judged as the work that came after her "freakish success" and potentially doomed to never reach such great heights. 

That kind of pressure and conceivably depressing notion is exactly the sort of misery that, as Gilbert mentions, "could lead one to start drinking gin at 9:00 in the morning."

Alcoholism and other unhealthy vices have a history of running rampant in the artistic community. Why is that? Is it inherent in the type of people who wish to share aspects of themselves with an audience or has our modern understanding of genius placed a false and considerable burden on our artists?

"False" in that perhaps the human involved shouldn't be seen as one with their genius. It seems to me that by doing so we strip people of all of their humanity and value that is unrelated to making art. By defining artists exclusively by their art we have inadvertently created a hole in which artists can lose themselves.

Gilbert makes this point in her speech: that prior to the humanist movement, the ancients believed that genius was something external to each artist. An artist was seen as a person who had a connection to a special spiritual being. This spiritual being was referred to as a Genius. It was this separate Genius who was credited with bestowing brilliance and allowing creativity to be expressed through the artist.  People were seen has having a genius rather than being a genius. What this difference in perception allowed was a degree of separation between an artist and his/her work. Thus, no artists could claim complete credit for successes or complete responsibility for failures. Essentially, this protected artists from overwhelming narcissism, which is so common today.

Some modern artists internalize this notion, even without having been raised in the culture of the ancients. They just intuitively allow for their work to be a collaborative project. Sometimes this is merely in pointing to all of the other humans who were involved in the process. Sometimes it is by crediting God. Other times still, it is by simply allowing creativity to flow through oneself whenever it does and detach from the outcome. 

I guess my posit to all of you is that we need to make this shift. We need to allow our artists to be human beings with value outside of their creative contributions and permit their identities to exist independent of their successes and failures. If we grant artists this freedom hopefully more of them can thrive and live to bear us all many more gems without buying into such crap ideas as, "You are only as good as your last project." That is an absolutely absurd concept conceived with the thought that perhaps fear of failure and/or fear of becoming irrelevant will wring one more commercial success out of someone else. A "someone else" for whom the person proselytizing this inane concept does not value on a human level and has a financial stake in the outcome.

I would like to point out that I actually wrote the vast majority of this post many days before actor/comedienne Robin William's passing. There have been many headlines on the subject, most of which reference society's great loss. One which was simply titled: Genius Gone.

Compare Much?

I got published in Flux!

Thanks Flux!

In their own words: Flux is a space for those of us who are trying to navigate the beginnings of adulthood to safely express our views and experiences on topics that affect our daily lives. Personal stories, reflections, political views—they all have a place here. This is a judgment-free zone for those of us working to figure out what it means to be a “grownup.”

Here is an excerpt of my article titled Maybe Other People's Lives Don't Matter.

As it turns out, turning twenty didn’t actually make me much less like a teenager.

At 18, I really did think of myself as discerning and astute. I had it in my head that I was now a real-life adult and that I was in control of my own life. In actuality, I was often affected by my surroundings and fairly insecure about a lot of things. I suppose being easily influenced is a rather common trait among teenagers. Unfortunately, that unpleasant state of confusion and that search for exterior validation didn’t magically go away when I turned twenty.

I’ve come to realize that classic “peer pressure,” which is often depicted as an exclusive product of childhood, sticks around well into adulthood. In fact, there is a solid possibility that I will one day be 70 and will face manipulation by my fellow 70 year olds. (I’ve worked in a country club and witnessed this happening first-hand.) But, it is definitely an epidemic when we’re in our twenties. I mean seriously, why do you think the most coveted key demographic for advertisers is 18-34? Because we are impressionable! And on top of that, we tend to buy shit. Because we actually believe that we need it!

Granted, besides the already often-discussed consequences of consumerism-gone-wild, I don’t actually think that wanting to wear fashionable clothes or have the latest iPhone is super terrible or indicative of a personal crisis. We are allowed to like shiny things. No, I’m more concerned about being so affected about others’ opinions of how we live our lives.

Click here to read the rest of Maybe Other People's Lives Don't Matter

How to Distinguish Between Commonly Confused Terms

At risk of coming across as a pompous sudo-English professor, I've got a mini English lesson in store for you.  A lot of people actually wonder about this stuff, enough that they are common google searches, so I'm really just trying to be helpful.  

Now I realize that some are you are gonna be all:

And that's okay.  But for those of you who like words or don't know how to use irony correctly and want to, please stick around.

As I've previously mentioned- I'm a word nerd and I love language.  With that in mind I thought I'd go over some common word misusage.  The following are a few words that get thrown around a LOT and often in the wrong context.  Yes, fine, we probably knew what you meant, but seriously you will upgrade your power of speech significantly if you can use these properly.  Plus, you really will win major favor with other obnoxious word nerds like me.  

Ethics versus Morals

Ethics (in the practical sense) are rules/laws about right and wrong from an external source, typically society at large.  Ex. government laws, a company's rule book. In the philosophical sense, ethics deals with theories about what is good for society.

Morals are an individual's own principles.

For example, smoking marijuana may go against society's ethics (although that is now shifting) and result in a fine or incarceration, but an individual may not think that smoking marijuana is immoral.  Violating ethics usually results in some sort of punishment by law or a company ethics committee, while violating your own moral code tends to result in shame or depression.  The two often overlap as ethics tend to reflect the morality of the people, but since morality is individual, what is deemed ethical by society may not align with some people's own sense of morality. Also, something can be deemed unethical in the philosophical sense if it does harm to society, even if it goes without reprimand. This actually happens a fair bit because: 

• Our lawmakers are supposed to be concerned with defining the country's ethics code. The political parties are supposed to be offering different points of view with regard to what is ethical based on how they define society, but ultimately still be debating what is beneficial for society at large. Instead, recent history has found politicians debating morality.

Envy versus Jealousy

Envy is when you covet something that someone else has.

Jealousy is when you are afraid of losing something you already have.

You can be jealous of your boyfriend flirting with another girl because you are afraid of losing your boyfriend.  You are envious of that girl if you want her shoes or great hair.

Let me state this again for the record since this is such a common confusion: if someone else has something you want the word is ENVIOUS.  If someone achieves something that you've wanted to achieve you are ENVIOUS.  Unless you are afraid of losing something or being replaced, jealousy isn't the correct term.

Irony versus Coincidence

via pinterest

Unfortunately, Alanis Morissette got this one a bit wrong.  Pulling from the NY Times, "Not every coincidence, curiosity, oddity and paradox is an irony, even loosely. And where irony does exist, sophisticated writing counts on the reader to recognize it.”  Okay, so I'm not trying to make us all NY Times worthy writers, but here's some helpful info regarding IRONY.  

First off, just to complicate matters, there are multiple different types of irony.  I'm going to avoid dramatic irony and tragic irony since this is not a Shakespeare class.  Here are the two types of irony that are commonly used today:

Situational Irony is when there is an incongruity (or reversal) between what is expected and what actually happens.  Meaning: what happened is not what you would have expected.  For example, it is ironic when a couple chooses to have an indoor wedding in order to avoid the rain and the sprinklers end up going off during the indoor wedding.  Another example would be if a criminal returned to the scene of the crime to cover up his tracks, only to end up leaving new evidence that actually leads to his capture.

Verbal Irony is when the intended meaning is opposite of what is said.  Sarcasm is an example of verbal irony, as is understatement and overstatement.  There is also something that I will call "Non-Verbal" irony because it's technically not spoken, but it's the same usage.  The best example of this is modern day hipsters. Hipsters wear clothing that is indicative of a certain genre or social statement, but wear it "ironically" because they are actually meaning to make fun of that trend.  

Coincidence is when two things occur in such a manner that it would appear as if they had been planned or prearranged even though they were not.  

For example, everyone showing up to a party wearing the same colored shirt is a coincidence.  Rushing to make it to your flight on time, then getting to the airport and finding out your plane has been delayed is just a coincidence.

The trouble with irony is that it is somewhat dependent upon one's expectation.  Therefore, technically some events could seem ironic to one person and coincidental to another.  For example, believe it or not: if a daredevil manages to complete all of his stunts without injury and then trips while walking and breaks his arm- that's really coincidence.  The fact that he tripped while walking isn't truly ironic because people trip and fall sometimes.  Although, if you were talking to this daredevil and asked him, "How did you break you arm? Did you fall off your motorcycle or hurt yourself cliff diving?" And he replies, "Actually, I tripped while walking down the street." You would find that ironic since it was the opposite of what you were expecting.  All in all, there is definitely some leeway. 

But for the record: "a traffic jam when you're already late" is just a coincidence.

Sympathy versus Empathy versus Pity

Sympathy is a recognition or understanding for the situation of another.  Acknowledging another's hardship or challenge with support or encouragement. Think "comforting" someone.

Empathy is when one actually feels and relates to the emotions of another person.  One has experienced that hardship before or can place himself in that person's shoes.  Think "relating to" someone.

Pity is when someone compares one's personal situation to someone else's and feels better off.  Think "feeling sorry for" someone.

Well, there you go!  I hope that has cleared up a few things.  If you have any questions about the correct use of those words, feel free to ask.  Otherwise go forth my newly educated readers and spread annoyingly accurate speech throughout the land!

Got a Weight Problem?

I got published in Elephant Journal! (Again!)

Thanks Ele! I'm very grateful for these opportunities.

Elephant Journal is an independent online journal dedicated to the mindful life.   In their own words: "The mindful life is about yoga, organics, sustainability, conscious consumerism, enlightened education, the contemplative arts, adventure, bicycling, family…everything."

Here's an excerpt from my latest article titled How To Not Have a Weight Problem:

The key to not having a weight problem is not having a food problem.

The key to not having a food problem is not having a body image problem. So ultimately the real question is: How not to have a body image problem? And the answer is not (I repeat, NOT) having the perfect body, because that doesn’t exist. There isn’t one perfect body; there isn’t even my perfect body. There is just my body, and in so being my body, it is perfect.

We’ve got to love ourselves.

We need to not beat ourselves up every time we eat a “bad food” or forgo a workout.

Please don’t be someone who always wants to lose 10 pounds. I know those people. I’ve been that person. I didn’t feel extremely unhealthy or overweight, but any day that I felt extra slim was a good day and any day that I felt larger than normal was a bad day.

I always pictured myself thinner (and therefore magically happier) in the future.  In the words of Bob Newhart, I needed to “STOP IT.”

Click here to read the rest of How To Not Have a Weight Problem.

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Feel free to leave any thoughts and comments about this article on this post or at the bottom of the piece on Elephant Journal. 

Word Nerd

I love language.  I love descriptive imagery and witty banter.  Good conversation, challenging debate, a beautiful turn of phrase- mmm, baby, that's the stuff.

While I am a little dismayed that one of my favorite quotes, an awesome quote from Dead Poet's Society, has been turned into a commercial voiceover for iPad Air, it reminded me to focus on language on this site.  I actually was going to have a separate page on this site entitled Written Word (which featured that quote btw) where I would list books, essays and poetry that I enjoy, but instead I decided just to allow those to come out organically as part of my journal.  So here is a post featuring some words that I think are beautiful and little known.

And here is that wonderful quote from Dead Poet's Society, in case you haven't heard it before: 

"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?"

(And just for the record: my problem isn't with Apple.  I'm writing this post on a MacBook Air actually, but something about using that quote as a marketing campaign and therefore making it super hackneyed feels kind of like my favorite indie band just went mainstream.  I don't know- it may be silly, but I think many can relate.)

Published

I got published in Elephant Journal!  

Elephant Journal is an independent online journal dedicated to the mindful life.   In their own words: "The mindful life is about yoga, organics, sustainability, conscious consumerism, enlightened education, the contemplative arts, adventure, bicycling, family…everything."

Here is an except from my article:

Of the many diet-based communities out there, the vegetarian community is one of the largest and most prolific.

Bear with me for a moment, but as a recent graduate with my M.S. in Nutrition and Integrative Health, I’ve spent a lot of time the last couple of years thinking about people’s diets and their relationship to their diets. It seems to me that, for some, subscribing to a particular diet philosophy is akin to subscribing to a specific religious belief.

The correlations run deep—from leaders to sacred texts to ‘true believers’. Blind faith, for example, can defend any effect that a diet may have upon one’s body: feeling ill is simply the body detoxifying, or perhaps the diet wasn’t adhered to strictly enough. Any unfortunate reaction is explained away.

Is there a Church of Vegetarianism?

Click here to read the rest of Is there a Church of Vegetarianism? 

Feel free to leave any comments on this post or at the bottom of the article with your thoughts.

I'm very grateful to the staff of Elephant Journal for publishing my article.  Thank you!