Practicing Life #12: Black Hills and Expectations
Meditation:
Contra Polonius, The Don Ray Bradbury said: “Digression is the soul of wit.”
This is absolutely true. I say this on the basis of it confirming what I want to believe. As such, I will commence to ramble. I can do no other.
If you’re following the section of these journals headed “Reading”, you’ll know I’ve been “reading” the same damn book, Nora Roberts’ Black Hills, for like two weeks now. This is utterly unacceptable.
“Don’t beat yourself up.” No, I’m going to. This has gotten out of hand. It should take me three days tops to read a 450-page book. I simply haven’t made the time to commit and finish the thing.
I launched what I call The 10M Project on Friday, or was it Thursday?, no Friday, I think, and it’s a sort of challenge-slash-manifesto on what I think it takes to be a great writer. But the sort of elephant in the room is I failed to mention reading. Primarily that’s for streamlinity (coining it) of purpose, but it’s also very clear to me that you can’t be any good at this game without reading a ton. I’m talking bare minimum one hour a day, but more like 2-4. Yeah, I don’t have time for that. Or do I? The thing is you don’t really know until you try. Until you start sacrificing everything that doesn’t negatively affect your loved ones to the epic life-project.
“Oh you need your sleep”, “take it easy on yourself”, so on. Look, I’m not plagued with horrible guilt about this or anything, but whether you like the special brand of internet-era insanity that is David Goggins or Cam Hanes, or you prefer the statelier writings of Mr. William James, the fact is most people don’t have any what they’re capable of when the chips are down. I’m not saying put yourself in an early grave over this stuff, but my wager is most of us are soft af and aren’t really (I mean really, honestly, in the private motions of our own minds where truth cannot be hidden from) working as hard as we can on THE THING. End of the day, I won’t speak for you, but I know I’m not.
I expect to be able to read and write at a considerably higher rate than I currently am. Relative productivity and achievement means nothing to me. I need to be doing all that I, me, myself, know that I can do.
This is all just a call to figure out what that edge is for you and push it. And look, vainglory isn’t a virtue. Suffering just because is stupid. But having what looks to the outside world like an insane tolerance for suffering in service of a worthy goal is admirable. And I for one (this is not medical advice. Or any advice at all) find it’s time for me to start pushing at that edge a lot more than I have been. So, mark my words, I’m gonna finish this stupid book (it’s not stupid, it’s actually rather good) today, even if it’s an all-nighter situation.
Again, caveat emptor. You gotta do what is good for you. I’m not telling you to do this shit. I’m telling you what I am going to do, in the hope there’s something for you to work with here. Maybe you actually aren’t pushing hard enough. Only you know. But sometimes breaking your back a little is self-care. You have to figure that out just like I do. Cover and move. Know thyself and adjust when you misfire. To the moon and all that.
Ciao:
I’m not going to do the other sections for today because as stated above, I have tons else to do and I need to log some fiction words so I don’t show up to the first 10M Project update without any gains. And I need to catch that dastardly and enigmatic master-in-the-making that is
, who I know is plowing forward at an alarming rate in terms of my competitive spirit. My petty-in-the-service-of-great goal is to beat that guy in word counts. Look out!Have a great day, take what I’ve said with heaping handful of salt, and keep working on whatever your thing is. See you tomorrow.
LFG!
C'mon, the pun is obvious...