Administrivia: this is NOT the Very Important Blog I referred to earlier today on Facebook. That blog will arrive in due time, and that could be some time off.
I feel introspective today.
I just ran across somebody's idea of fifty rules for life (Facebook link, and they'll all be reproduced below). As you might expect, some of them I agree with completely, some I am kind of iffy on, and some of them leave me ice cold.
1) No one knows what they’re doing. Some do it anyway.
I find this hard to believe since (a) competence is a virtue in this society and (b) pretty much everybody seems a lot more competent than I.
2. Work hard on what doesn’t feel like work.
Yes, I sleep very well, thank you. What if it all feels like work? Seriously. I have nothing I can truthfully refer to as a passion. Writing comes closest, and that's not very close, because I get bored and want to write about something else.
3. Your thoughts make up your life. Literally. If you don't enjoy thinking about it, don't spend time pursuing it.
This I believe implicitly, and it had led me to believe many people, perversely, enjoy thinking some pretty ugly thoughts.
4. To make new friends, treat strangers like you’ve been friends forever.
True, a corollary of "be the change you want to see in the world...but very challenging when strangers are strange and many of them are very much unreceptive.
5. If you want to win awards, be the best. If you want to actually win, be the only.
I like this. Very freeing.
6. Most people don’t need advice. They need one person to believe in them.
...I'm very male with this. I struggle mightily with it. Not the "believing in you" part -- I do, I do! -- but the "okay, despite your believing in me, I have this problem. I'm not interested in solving it, I'd rather just live with it, but I'm telling you about it and now you have to live with it too. Don't DO anything about it, that's not why I told you, just luxuriate in me and my problem."
7. Meditate to upgrade your software. Work out to upgrade your hardware.
OMG THIS IS WONDERFUL. I want a sampler.
8. When you can't decide, the answer is obvious.
Excuse me? If the answer were obvious, there wouldn't have even been an alternative decision it made any sense to make. I do not get this. At all.
9. Pick one problem to solve this decade, and problems today get a lot easier.
Ummm....no.
To take one example: misinformation. It's a pressing problem that needs to be solved and what's happening instead? Multiple very powerful corporations are pushing generative A.I. on us replete with misinformation. I think what this is really suggesting is "pick one problem to solve this decade, and problems today become ignorable." Which I do NOT agree with.
10. The happiest people combine art, passion, and purpose, into one compounding vehicle.
Again, lovely in theory, but for a little thing we call "money".
Let's say I want to write full time. A tiny fraction of people live off writing, but I don't need to: I enjoy my job, and writing would, perhaps, provide a supplement that would allow me to live more of my dreams.
All the way back in 2004 when I started this blog, I not-so-secretly hoped that one day, I would write something that caught somebody's eye. It hasn't happened yet, and after twenty years it ain't gonna, either.
I have art. I do not have passion and I don't have a purpose. I have thought a LOT about this and still am no closer to understanding why that is, or why some people just DRIP purpose.
11. Spend time with freaks. They have dashes of genius, madness, harshness and kindness. Authenticity doesn't live in the middle.
I am one, and I mean that affectionately. My favourite people are, too, and I mean that even more affectionately.
12. The world wants to know you for one thing. Do everything you want, but own one idea.
Hmmm. Is there an idea I am known for? Despite just calling myself a freak, I feel entirely too bland for that to be the case.
13. To be heard, don’t follow the herd.
THIS is true, but it can bite you. The herd has no interest in hearing you, after all.
14. Fill your mind with inspiration from the edges. Read old books. Walk new streets. Unique ideas starts with unique input.
I live this daily, and it keeps me semi-sane in this cookie-cutter capitalist hellscape.
15. People can ‘feel the energy you put into your work.
People can feel energy period, and people ARE energy, exclamation mark! Multiple people have told me that they have felt me pouring love into them from a distance, and I can feel the energies of others at a remove as well.
16. When you’re good, they tell you. When you’re great, they tell others.
I aspire to be a good person, not a great one. I don't need the adulation of random "others".
17. If you’re following steps, you’re falling behind.
What kind of fresh bullshit is this? You have to follow steps to get ANYWHERE. You don't master quadratics without a firm understanding of basic arithmetic; you crawl before you walk and you walk before you run, and I suspect anyone trying to skip steps is likely to fall very fare behind indeed.
18. The more you’re hesitating to share it, the more you desperately need to.
True. Right on cue: 'SHARED PAIN IS LESSENED, SHARED JOY IS INCREASED; THUS DO WE REFUTE ENTROPY."
19. Art is a marathon of creative sprints.
Ah, that explains why I'm no good at it. One sprint and I'm done tired out.
20. The more you write, the more you’re right.
I have invested twenty years and untold millions of words into this thing. Am I any more "right" than I was in 2004? Debatable.
21. Never apologize for doing something good for you, but strange for others.
Sorry, not sorry.
22. The future of work is not 'play.' It's a relentless obsession with what sets your heart on fire. This isn't a game. It's war. With a beautiful, torturous craft that consumes your entire life.
We all know, or at least know of, people like this, people who married their jobs and who don't have time for anything besides work. If I ever turn into one of those people, I expect to be taken out behind a barn and disposed of.
23. If you’re being copied, you’re on to something.
I...wouldn't know. If anybody has ever copied me in anything, they've done it away from me and kept quiet about it.
24. Life is short. The world is small. You owe it to yourself, to bet everything on a dream you don’t want to wake up from.
No, no, I don't owe anyone that, least of all myself. There will be other lives, other worlds. I know this even if I can't explain it, much less prove it scientifically. Betting is gambling and gambling is a gamble. If I bet it all and lose, that doesn't just impact me.
25. Obsess over the details for a decade, and you will win.
If "winning" means any kind of obsession, you go right ahead. Don't call me a loser, either: you can't lose if you don't play.
26. When you’re predictably unpredictable, they pay attention.
Why does this feel like "look at me! Look at what a unique rabbit I am!"
I seek connection, not attention.
27. Life gets easier when you fall in love with hard things.
Tell that to anyone who has ever fallen in love with someone they can't have.
28. Don’t ‘be’ things. Do things.
Something about this rubs me the wrong way. Vigorously. Don't be loveable...instead, do...what? Disagree.
29. Working out without your phone will solve 99% of your problems.
People work out with their phones? And while working out is certainly a good thing to do for those of us who aren't allergic to it (I get shortness of breath and sweat like something that is no a pig because pigs don't sweat)...it's not going to solve very many of MY problems, anyway.
30. If you're not obsessed with the future you're creating, create a new one.
Hello? Not alone in the world here. I'm along for the ride to the future YOU'RE creating, and you're damned right I want to get off but I'd need to buy Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and a whole bunch of other people and execute the lot of them. Got any ideas how I might do that?
31. If your problems were given to a friend, you’d know exactly what they should do.
Yes, I would, but it wouldn't force them to take a shred of my advice, which you just said people don't want anyway. And the advice I give them might not be applicable because of parts of their lives that are none of my business. There are reasons we don't take our own advice, you know.
32. When you’re stuck between two things, choose a third.
"I can't decide whether I want a hamburger or a hotdog. That's why I ordered a pizza." That's how ridiculous THAT SOUNDS.
33. Happiness can be measured by how excited you are to wake up.
I am, for the most part, content at the moment. For me to be excited to wake up, there almost has to be a Dad-visit or a road trek in the morning. I like sleep. Let me sleep.
34. The more obsessed you are with your craft, the more relaxed you’ll be with your life.
There's that word again. This guy is obsessed with obsessions. Psst? The thing about obsessions is that they are obsessive. They take over your life, they sure as hell don't "relax" it.
35. If you think you need a haircut, get a haircut.
Fair enough but how petty a thing to put in here amongst all these other ideas on how to live life.
36. If you can make decisions quickly, and unemotionally, the world is yours.
Please pardon me while I drag out the Bible for a moment...flipping...flipping..ah, yes, here we go. Mark 8:36: "What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?"
37. Use technology more than it uses you.
Good idea. Anyone want to tell me how that's done, in a world I must use fragile technology to so much as talk to other people?
38. If you want people to follow you, lead them somewhere.
I don't want anyone following me. I run into walls. But I do believe that the true Master isn't the one with the most students but the one who produces the most Masters. In that one way, I believe I would have been a good father.
39. Focus on art for a decade, and profit will come for a lifetime.
True...as long as you don't define "profit" as narrowly as much of the rest of the planet.
40. When you start enjoying pressure, you’re about to win big.
I just shake my head at some of these. They apply to human beings, and I am not human. If I am under pressure, I'm thinking about throwing up. How does one get to enjoy the sensation of incipient un-eating? Why would you WANT to?
41. Most progress comes without a plan.
This one I will not dispense with in a pithy sentence, or any time soon. I'm not sure I agree with it, but I'd need to think on it for a while. It seems to me this is related to that one earlier about never minding the steps, because professional pianists don't need to know where middle C is first or anything silly like that. Then again, if plans meant progress, I wouldn't still be on the starting line of life, now, would I?
42. Everyone is dying to talk about *something.* Notice when their voice changes, when their eyes light up, and let them share that world with you. Make people feel seen for their obsessions.
True if you find someone with a passion and they feel safe enough to share it with you. I think the safety is critical there.
43. Great writing isn’t read. It’s felt.
This is true in the writing as well as the reading. The best blogs I have ever written, I don't feel like I had any kind of hand in them at all. I just sat down and became a channel.
44. Use your dark side to make something bright.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding "dark side" here, but I fail to see what brightness can come out of laziness, overthinking, and general invisibility.
45. True greatness is a rare combination of obsession, service, and patience.
I only have one of the three: the patience of Job. Service is my job, so I guess I kind of do have that, too, but would you work your job unpaid? I wouldn't. I don't know many who would.
46. Pain tells you exactly where to go.
To the hospital, right? That's the only way this makes any sense to me.
47. Don't trust an ideas [sic] you 'think' of. The greatest ideas come to you. And you have no other choice.
I just can not wait until I am caught between a rock and a hard place. Then a very great idea will come to me. Just before I'm squashed like a bug.
48. Life's short. Go make stuff.
You're not the boss of me. No, really. I'm nobody's maker. I try not to be a taker or a faker, either. What's left? Shaker? Breaker? Bellyacher?
49. Put yourself in places you don't belong. One day, you'll end up where you want to be.
If you don't get thrown in some kind of jail for some kind of trespassing first, maybe.
50. The number one rule: Break as many rules as possible.
At least examine why the rules are rules before you do this. But yes, do this. I'm not saying go out and break laws, even though the entire concept of "law" is incredibly problematic, laws being made and enforced by those in power solely for the benefit of those in power. I'm saying most social norms are arbitrary and often pretty stupid when you really dig into them. When you sign a mortgage with your partner, the bank doesn't ask you about your sex lives at all, which is odd, because having sex with somebody seems to be an absolute REQUIREMENT if you want to share a house with them. Our entire society is predicated on rules -- some of which are written immediately above -- that glorify "power over" rather than the much more healthy "power with" and define "success" as "monetary wealth". Those rules are best broken, or better yet shattered.
But don't be a reflexive rule breaker: such people can not be trusted, and your trust is the only capital you have outside your body, if you weren't savvy enough to be born rich. I think Heinlein said it best: "“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”
That last sentence is what separates Heinlein, a complicated man politically but generally right wing, from the right wingers of today. Heinlein believed UTTERLY in personal responsibility. He would have had no time for people bleating about "rights". In his world, for good or ill, rights were earned....by exercising responsibility. Which is, let's not forget, your ability to choose your response to a given situation.
Tomorrow I'm going to try my hand at rules for life. I doubt I'll make fifty of them, but we'll see.
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