Practicing Life #6: Three Cheers for Emotional Manipulation (On Yourself Only. Probably. Look, It's Nuanced)
Meditation:
Yeah, the title is kind of clickbaity. Sorry, not sorry. Gotta do something to get people to read. I’ll start by saying I don’t mean lying to people or yourself or trying to get people to do things they don’t want to or shouldn’t do. I am resolutely against psychopathy, if it needed saying.
What I mean is that what you DO is the thing that matters. Not what you say you’re gonna do, or dream you’re going to do, or plan you’re going to do. What you actually do. Results matter. I’m getting to the title, patience please.
A quick caveat that intentions also matter, but less so. We have murder degrees in court and sentencing because if you trip and fall and kill somebody with a knife on accident, you shouldn’t pay the same penalty as if you thought about and planned it for a long time and did it out of evil and malice. Similarly, we have self-defense mitigations, etc. Intentions do matter. But end of the day, somebody is dead in that scenario. So, the result is paramount.
What does this have to do with life and emotions and practicing and writing? A lot, actually. I think. Maybe. The benefit of a daily journal is I don’t have to claim a well thought out iron-clad argument. I’m just thinking about stuff.
After lotsa ado, I’m getting at the phenomenon that is all too familiar to everyone where you don’t “want” to do something you know you should. I’m going to refer to writing of course, but again, you can read between the lines for other disciplines and domains.
So the salient question is how do you get yourself to write when you don’t want to? Remember, it doesn’t matter what you feel like, even though it feels like it matters a lot. It matters that you actually DO IT.
If you are raring to go, inspired, excited, ready to take on the world through your prose (or verse for you poet weirdos), then by all means capitalize on that and get to the pad or keyboard.
But, depending on your temperament largely, you’re often not going to “want” to do that. Life and enemy forces will conspire against you feeling those super motivating emotions. And for me that down-and-blue state is more frequent than the bursts of creative energy.
So then you figure out how to manipulate your thoughts and feelings so you can actually get to work. Sadly, there’s a misconception in hustle and positivity culture that you always have to feel good. Good luck on that. The point is to do shit anyway. Here’s some options:
Psych yourself up with some hard physical exercise (Careful though because that can become procrastination because it eats time)
View yourself as an underdog. Nobody believes in you and understands your grand vision and that’s okay because you’ll show them! (This one is almost certainly false. People probably do support you but I’m not paying much mind to truth here. This is a practical matter to get ourselves to work)
Treat it like a job (yeah, I said it. Sure, over the decades if you don’t fundamentally enjoy writing or whatever skill or practice, you’ll quit. But does it have to be a pure delight every time you sit down? Are you really expecting unfiltered joy at every moment? Let’s get real. You show up and do your job so you don’t get fired. You show up and do your writing so the muse doesn’t take you off her gift list. Sometimes your passion feels like a job. You committed to it. Tough luck if you don’t like it. You gotta eat (metaphorically))
Tell yourself you’re only gonna do 5 minutes of the thing (chances are you’ll do a lot more but this kills the “don’t have time” excuse)
I’m open to more suggestions. For real.
Ultimately, what I’m saying is: figure out how to do your work BY (mostly) ANY MEANS NECESSARY. Obviously use discretion. Don’t harm others or make yourself sick or do something illegal or downright evil. But within the bounds of moral behavior, figure it out.
When your emotions fail you, act like a cold and calculating robot. When all the logic in the world makes it look impossibly dark, power through on sheer irrational feelings of certain victory. When everything fails, cry out from the pit of despair and put your pen to the page anyway. If it’s all fucked you might as well write then. Of course, it probably isn’t and there’s lots of good stuff in life going on. Maybe not. I don’t know your situation. I do know that the way out is to fulfill your purpose and do your work.
Viewing:
I watched Rise of the Planet of the Apes. It was… sad. I can’t take James Franco seriously in a dramatic role, but he did do a good job and Serkis is predictably great as Caesar. I still hate CGI but I learned to ignore it after a while. It feels incomplete as a film because it’s a set up for the next one, to which I’m very much looking forward. Still, solid 4/5 movie, worth watching.
Writing:
1500 words of fiction today and counting. I’ll get this short story done for you all and then I’m back to the novel. Said novel is shaping up to be a bit longer than I expected. Finishing in September might be a stretch goal at this point, but I’m here to keep it real and show what the “writing life” (I hate that phrase) is really like. Sometimes you miss the mark. As ranted about above, keep going regardless.
Reading:
Eventually I’ll finish this book, Black Hills. It’s good but I haven’t read anything yet today. Reading and writing are a balancing act when you work full time and have a family. One day when the money truck is shoveling cash into my driveway, I’ll do a lot more of both.
Ciao:
Thanks for reading and have a great day. I hope that’s some helpful stuff. As always, I’m yelling at myself mostly and if you benefit from the crossfire, I am happy. See you tomorrow.
Personally I don’t need to be told that I need to show up and keep at it as I’m three novels and four published books in - but this was readable. Thanks!
Sounds suspiciously like all of life.