Yo! I totally stole that title. Because I liked it.

Smee:
I’ve just had an apostrophe.

Captain Hook:
I think you mean an epiphany.

Smee:
No… lightning has just struck my brain.

Captain Hook:
Well, that must hurt.

Yup. No doubt.

Also I kind of grabbed the title from another source, maybe. More about that later. What I’m getting at is that I’ve had two(2) potentially significant, life-changing, universe-expanding random thoughts lately. To which I attached significance. And in both cases they were mostly inspired by other people! I knew there was a reason for all these damn monkeys.

First, in chronological order: Chuck Pezeshki. Fascinating guy. I’ve had a lot of thoughts of my own regarding system(s) design, most of which boil down to distributed > centralized. For all kinds of things. And, yeah, I mostly almost actually mean ALL kinds.

So what Chuck did was tres kewl. He (for me) reframed that notion as “empathy,” which for my $$ is a better term on multiple levels. He has tons more to say, and it’s pretty much exploding my head right now. I started here, via a semi-random recommendation via a Twitter account I had set up (maybe more about that later too…but, nope, it turned out I didn’t include that stuff). Then Chuck suggested this post to me, which of course spoke to me more directly. Though it might have been even more apropos if I’d played, or at least seen, a game called Mario Kart. And here’s a reading list. What I’m going to say now, before I callously abandon the topic: this is a paradigm shift of the first magnitude.

AND I really hope I can help him publish his book. Seriously, I’d say more, but there’s this notion-detritus in my head right now & I think I can probably do a better job of describing it all later.

Okay then. Moving on.

Then there’s Becca Syme. I’ve enjoyed her books. She has this “Question the Premise” thing going that appeals to me. Sadly, or so I thought, she’s had her cognition kidnapped by this ridiculous Gallup “CliftonStrengths” groupthinkly morass. I read her stuff, watched some videos, and sighed a little. More than once. Yes, okay, these guys claim they have “science” behind their sales pitch. Kind of yawn-worthy on that front, honestly. But the interesting part for me boiled down to three ideas:

1. We have, via experience/practice, trained our minds to process information of various sorts in specific ways.
2. These ways are not all the same between individuals. Thus, different people have different preferred/specialized/optimized modes of operation on multiple levels.
3. It’s more productive to focus on what we already do well than to attempt to address weaknesses.

That last is especially interesting. Lean into strengths? Hmm. We learn faster by doing that than by focusing on ideas/processes that are essentially alien to us? Okay. Might or might not be true. But it’s an interesting idea. Obvious value to it, if it works. If not, not.

Now, does that mean that the various “themes” Gallup identifies/espouses have any particular objective value? Nope. Is there any reason to believe their classification of people will apply across problem domains? Not that I can see.

So  I sat on all that. Until yesterday, when I bit the bullet and (via a discount, I admit) took their test. And my mind started blowing up in all-new ways. Except that they weren’t new.

Bit of background: there are 34 “themes” in this scheme. They’re kind of listed in order for each person, based on blah blah a process blah whatever. In principle, to the extent you buy it, they’re giving info about what sort of processing/perception/action/reaction might in theory exist, and in any/some of which each test-taker might excel.

Yeah. Sounds kind of like voodoo to me too, except that vudu at least involves sacrificing animals and kewl ritual-dingi. Maybe zombies!

But anyway, as I said, I took their test. Here are my TOP FIVE STRENGTHS (bc nothing is a weakness in this world):

1. Learner
   SHARED THEME DESCRIPTION People who are especially talented in the Learner theme have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. In particular, the process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites them.
   YOUR PERSONALIZED STRENGTHS INSIGHTS What makes you stand out?
   Chances are good that you yearn to know a lot. It makes little sense to you to skim through a book and read only the highlights. You delve more deeply into intriguing subjects than most people do. You love to gather all kinds of information. This explains why you take time to grasp ideas that appear in print. Driven by your talents, you usually equate education — formal and informal — with understanding more about something today than you understood about it yesterday. By nature, you desire to acquire additional knowledge and gain new skills. Why? You are naturally curious. You often work alone to commit information to memory. You probably have a solitary place where you can practice your art, craft, sport, or science. Because of your strengths, you channel your efforts into the task at hand. You persevere until you have gained the knowledge and skills needed to attain a goal. You can toil for many hours to secure your objective. You probably work hardest and most productively at a particular time of day. Instinctively, you are an individual performer. You typically welcome opportunities to acquire knowledge and ponder ideas on your own. You often seek and find solitary places where you can think without being distracted by people or noise.
2. Ideation
   SHARED THEME DESCRIPTION People who are especially talented in the Ideation theme are fascinated by ideas. They are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena.
   YOUR PERSONALIZED STRENGTHS INSIGHTS What makes you stand out?
   Driven by your talents, you bring new thoughts to most discussions and meetings. Your reputation for innovative thinking explains why you are recruited by groups. You derive satisfaction from mental activity. You recognize when you are especially creative. By nature, you frequently opt to systematically study various subjects, rules, processes, mechanisms, or programs when you work alone. In your opinion, having the freedom to decide how to approach a project is one of the advantages of being an individual contributor. Because of your strengths, you usually find novel and fresh ways to do things. People turn to you when they find themselves struggling to generate ideas. It’s very likely that you favor conversations where information, facts, or data are considered objectively — that is, emotions do not distort the truth. You pose questions, evaluate answers, and figure out how things work. Reducing an idea, theory, or process to its most basic parts provides you with many insights. You are likely to archive — that is, preserve — your discoveries so you can use them later. Instinctively, you welcome opportunities to understand people one by one. You carefully examine each person’s strengths, shortcomings, character, choice of friends, interests, goals, and history. This enables you to draw conclusions and make judgments about individuals.
3. Strategic
   SHARED THEME DESCRIPTION People who are especially talented in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues.
   YOUR PERSONALIZED STRENGTHS INSIGHTS What makes you stand out?
   Instinctively, you might enjoy a group problem-solving technique that involves the spontaneous contribution of ideas from all participants. When you have acquired specialized skills or possess specific knowledge, perhaps you can suggest alternative solutions for certain issues. Now and then, your expertise excites your own or others’ imaginations. Maybe this occurs when you are encouraged to think what will be possible weeks, months, or even years from today. By nature, you pay close attention to what is going on around you. You listen. You quiz people. You read. You probably take notes on key points. As you accumulate lots of information, you disregard what is unrelated, and pay heed to what is really important. The more you reflect on what you know, the more problems begin to reveal themselves, and eventually solutions start taking shape in your mind. Finally, given the situation, you select the best plan from your list of options. Driven by your talents, you may be viewed by some people as an innovative and original thinker. Perhaps your ability to generate options causes others to see there is more than one way to attain an objective. Now and then, you help certain individuals select the best alternative after having weighed the pros and cons in light of prevailing circumstances or available resources. Chances are good that you may generate numerous ways to enhance, upgrade, revise, correct, or revamp certain processes, action plans, or itineraries. Sometimes your suggestions influence how a project will unfold in the coming months, years, or decades. You might find fault with your own or another person’s talents, skills, or knowledge. To some extent, fixing people or things ranks in the top half of your list of favorite activities. Because of your strengths, you long to know more so you remain on the cutting edge of your field or areas of interest. Your inventive mind usually generates more possibilities than you can handle or fund. Nonetheless, you are committed to acquiring knowledge and/or skills. You study everything involved in a situation and conceive entirely new ways of seeing or doing things. What you already know prompts you to ask questions and delve even deeper into a subject or problem.
4. Responsibility
   SHARED THEME DESCRIPTION People who are especially talented in the Responsibility theme take psychological ownership of what they say they will do. They are committed to stable values such as honesty and loyalty.
   YOUR PERSONALIZED STRENGTHS INSIGHTS What makes you stand out?
   Instinctively, you are an individual performer who wants to be held accountable for your results. Why? You generally accomplish more when high expectations are established. You probably set these high expectations for yourself when no one else does. Because of your strengths, you conduct yourself in an exceptionally mature and orderly fashion even when your teammates, classmates, friends, coworkers, and colleagues are acting childish. It’s very likely that you are quite comfortable being honest about yourself with others. You harbor very few illusions about who you really are. Furthermore, you can openly acknowledge your mistakes and shortcomings. This is apt to distinguish you from most people. By nature, you are naturally open and honest about who you are, what you have done, what you can do, and what you cannot do. Your straightforward explanations and stories help listeners see you as you see yourself. You reveal your strengths and limitations. You are forthright and plainspoken. People generally seek your company and want to work with you. Many are impelled to move into action by your words and examples. Driven by your talents, you probably want to work on your own because you thrive in settings where you can function independently. You have a strong need to know each task has been done correctly and ethically before you declare it is done.
5. Intellection
   SHARED THEME DESCRIPTION People who are especially talented in the Intellection theme are characterized by their intellectual activity. They are introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions.
   YOUR PERSONALIZED STRENGTHS INSIGHTS What makes you stand out?
   Driven by your talents, you prepare for important conversations or discussions by collecting lots of background information. It is not unusual for you to set aside at least five hours of quiet time each week to consider what you have discovered. You are likely to use this time to expand your thinking. A new piece of material can send you hunting for additional evidence to support your theories, concepts, or proposals. Chances are good that you value education and scholarship at any level and at any age. Your thirst for knowledge causes you to explore many topics of study or specialize in one particular subject. You thoroughly enjoy opportunities to acquire additional information, skills, and experiences. It’s very likely that you are more comfortable talking about ideas than issuing orders or dealing with conflict. You gravitate to conversations with intelligent people. You intentionally cast aside emotions and concentrate on the facts. You continually search for evidence to make your points and wish others would do the same. Because of your strengths, you prefer having quiet time to mull over ideas as well as read and examine interesting topics. Periods of uninterrupted thinking give you great pleasure. You probably excuse yourself from noisy, active, or distracting situations to thoroughly process your ideas. By nature, you may place great value on moments alone with your thoughts. You might consider whatever arouses your intellectual curiosity. Setting aside time each week to explore particular ideas might be a pleasurable or necessary activity for you.

(Next five in order, if anyone cares or even if they don’t: Individualization, Achiever, Analytical, Competition, Developer. Sort of interesting to see what they’re said to mean. Ish.)

Okay. Right. Fine. All descriptions are flattering. It’s how they roll. Nothing wrong with that.

But…weirdly…since I’d decided to play the game, take it seriously for argument’s sake…it made a certain amount of sense to me. And led to some of them epiphanitis whatsits.

1. There’s nothing in my “top 5” about focus. About successfully limiting my options.
2. Also, nothing much about other people other than feeling responsible to them. They don’t motivate me at all? Hmm.
3. So, uh, it might be a mistake (within this paradigm) to self-define success and failure according to whether I accomplished a predetermined task? I mean, if I’m mostly a guy looking for new ideas…maybe trying to do a non-new thing isn’t going to be a great fit?
4. So this might be “why” outlining/planning won’t ever seem to work for me? I don’t know how to stop having epiphanies/ideas as I write? So the outline just can’t work. I mean, I rebel against it & come up with new stuff. The ideas in the outline might have worked, if only I hadn’t written them down and attempted to self-constrain….
5. Maybe the barriers to task-switching I’ve been attempting to set up (phone off, operating system only for writing, full-screen emphasis on one project, etc.) are actually counterproductive? Maybe I should instead minimize costs of switching from one activity to another?

Look, there’s lots more, and as I said about Chuck’s stuff above…it’s pretty much blowing my mind. Maybe distractions aren’t as bad as I’ve told myself (and others)? Maybe I get irritated when I’m “trying to focus” and people dare to breathe nearby, not so much because they did that gas-exchange thing with their lungs, but because “focus” itself really isn’t my forte? Maybe I need to find a way to make things new/interesting, not only sometimes, but ALL THE TIME??

Okay. Well, whatever. We’ll see how things develop. But I can see why, maybe, “hiking the Appalachian Trail” ended after a month. Or riding my bike from New Orleans to Alaska ended just south of Minneapolis. But how I maybe also built a lot of things, from scratch, on my own. Because they were new/interesting.

Maybe focusing on a project is the wrong idea. Maybe a project can only work for me in that context if it’s sufficiently complex that I can actually switch to different sorts of effort without (apparently) abandoning my goals? So, actually, project boundaries are sort of fluid/nonessential/arbitrary, and it might make more sense to give myself opportunities instead of trying to restrict them?

Well. Hmm.

I don’t actually expect this will make sense to many of you, of those few of you who are you who read these things. But I do love me a paradigm shift.

You know, it wasn’t too long ago that I identified “epiphanies” as my primary goal in both reading and writing fiction. So, uh.

I still say it’s fuckin’ voodoo. But I’m heading off on a path that’s, you know, other than others. To see how it goes from here.

Oh yeah! The title of this post! I think I remember a book by James P. Hogan of the same title. I haven’t found a reference to it online, though. Instead I found a Wikipedia article about him…the article called him a “Holocaust denier.”

Well, ouch. I liked his stuff. The Holocaust seemed like a bad thing. But here’s how my mind works: I got curious. Not enough to actually do any research, at least not yet. But in that CliftonStrengths world there’s a “Strength” called “Harmony.” It’s apparently about valuing the experience of having people all get along. Well, there are 34 strengths, so-called, and for me that’s #34. I really can’t think that way.

What I thought: “Huh. Hogan was pretty smart. No idea whether he was right/wrong, or whether he in fact said/believed what’s being said here, but it might be fun to research the topic and see what’s out there.”

Because, really, I don’t care about which hypothesis/theory turns out to be correct, in any area at all. I’m not interested on any level in “consensus” on any topic. I just want to play with ideas. See where they lead. And violently disagree with those that make no damn sense at all. AFTER I look into them.

So there’s that. It may offend some/most/all/none. Frankly, guys, I don’t care. And it’s fun to see a test that agrees I’m not supposed to do. Enabling! You should see what I do to cows when nobody’s looking! If anything! (Couldn’t get away with that on my home planet. Them cows is mean.)

Have fun out there!

The post Epiphanies and Apostrophes first appeared on Caveat Lector.

Hi!

Of course you guys knew that already. So what I did today was write down a lot of things that might or might not be objectively true, but will have to be true if I’m going to write fiction in the midst of distractions. Then I recorded myself reading those things aloud. Then I recorded an app on my phone that plays stuff I like that kind of helps block other noises…crickets, frogs, thunder, and so forth. Then I put the two tracks together, fiddled with them, and created a five-minute MP3. Which I put back on my phone.

So I’ll probably play the thing for myself, and let it repeat, as I sleep.

Why would I do this? Well, how’s it going to hurt? I credit Lawrence Block with any value this plan has, and freely offer both the idea and the text as targets for your amusement. The text follows:

I am not behind. I’m never behind. I always have exactly the progress I’ve created. I have no obligation to write.

There is no reason I can’t write, often, except that I get in the way. Writing is easy and fun for me.

I don’t need a particular method. It’s okay to type on a Neo, type directly on my laptop, dictate into my phone or laptop, type on a Bluetooth keyboard, or what have you. I don’t need special equipment. A napkin and a pencil will do in a pinch.

I will aim for one draft, but will leave placeholders with quick notes to myself in lieu of stopping to do research, or stopping to figure something out, or stopping to flip back through previously completed work to answer a question. I will produce one clean draft, with quick notes as needed.

I don’t need a particular location. I can type at my desk, or in a coffee shop. I can dictate while sitting on a rock, or possibly while walking down a trail.

I don’t need a particular schedule. I can write anytime I get a free moment. I can write on a Neo, or dictate text, while sitting on a bench and watching kids play. I can write at my desk while kids watch TV. It does not matter that I will be interrupted, or that dictation is faster than typing. It only matters that I can write if I want to.

I can write in a crowded room, while being distracted. Writing is not difficult. It does not require perfect concentration.

Writing is not a job. Writing may or may not lead to income. Writing more is better than writing less. I feel good when I write. I feel bad when I don’t write. So I should write, a lot, and feel good.

Planning and outlining kill the fun. I will not plan to write anything in particular. I will write whatever I feel like writing. I will not plan writing time, because that creates pressure. I will find time when I feel like writing, and write only then.

I don’t owe anybody any fiction. I write for my own enjoyment. If I’m not enjoying what I write, I will write something else.

Writing is not important. I don’t have to stop doing anything else in order to write. Writing is just a fun thing to do. I write for fun, only, and often, because I want to.

The business side of writing is not writing. Writing blurbs and descriptions are part of the business side of things. They are only tangentially related to fiction. I write fiction to tell myself a fun story. Blurbs and descriptions exist to sell books and stories.

I do all my writing myself. I do all editing myself, too. I create my own book covers, and blurbs, and descriptions. I do all the book design. I don’t need a team. It’s okay that other people have teams. They just get in my way.

I publish everything myself. I may or may not allow others to publish my work in the future. That is a business decision, and has nothing to do with my writing.

Writing is creation. Publishing is business. Writing can not be a slave to publishing. Publishing is a game to be played after writing is finished.

I do not check sales figures. I do not read or solicit reviews. Instead I write more than I would if I let those things take over my brain.

As a matter of convenience I usually write on my phone. I almost always have my phone with me. My phone has current versions of whatever I’m writing. I can edit on my phone.

It is time to write now.

So that’s it. Enjoy it if you can, and have fun out there!

The post I am such a geek. first appeared on Caveat Lector.

So I posted a comment over at Anarchist Shemale’s blog (well worth reading, by the way), and decided I might as well post it over here too. It’s sort of philosophical: I disagreed with the notion that reason is superior to emotion. Like this:

I don’t want you guys to misinterpret: I say house pets, because they’re lovable. Loved, too, in many but sadly not all cases. But most people probably won’t contribute much to the world at large. Fill the emotional needs of others, yes, sure. Maybe contribute food and other necessities too. So do animals in the wild, even insects. But will they contribute original thought or analysis or art that inspires us? Most folks never will, because they can’t. That doesn’t mean they’re not valuable, and deserving of love and affection. Doesn’t mean there aren’t several I’d gladly take a bullet for, because I love them and want to do whatever I can for them. That’s a separate matter entirely. But it does mean there’s not a lot of point in worrying about their opinions, present or future, or appealing to them via reason. That’s…just not their thing. It probably never will be.

It is what it is. Luckily most folks, regardless of all that, are actually pretty decent. By which I mean they have a degree of empathy, and mostly treat others as they’d like to be treated. I have no idea why this is true, but I’m convinced of it. It makes me happy.

Is this at all relevant to the main business, whatever that might be, of this blog? Not that I can tell. I’m maintaining my every-day writing streak, though, so there’s that.

Really should have taken on the end of this trilogy (unless there are more books later) earlier. I’m having a blast.

Have fun out there!

The post Stealing from myself first appeared on Caveat Lector.

Looks like it’s time to shake things up again. Writing-wise, this time, rather than life-wise. Or even -foolish, applied to either, which might be more in line with your expectations.

I’m working on a book. Well, the first of a new trilogy. It’s YA dystopian SF. I like the genre in general, and have a few favorites. But…ever looked at the category? Notice anything about the authors?

Their names tend toward the non-masculine. Hmm.

I doubt it’ll surprise any of you that I like messing around with people’s expectations as I write. I have to entertain myself first, after all. But this habit comes with a price tag attached. I mean this semi-literally, and maybe semi-literately, at that!

‘Scuse me. Words are funny. I like them.

Suppose you were a writer. Suppose you wanted to get paid. And you knew, or suspected, or maybe just hoped, that you could write in any of several genres. Suppose you were trying to figure out which one might pay the best. You might try going to Amazon and looking at category listings, right? You could look at the top sellers, figure out how many books already exist in each category, look at the sales ranking for books not only in the top few spots, but maybe also for those books coming in one or two hundred spots below them. Then you might look at a few of the books in the top spots, identify any commonalities you can, and get an idea of what it’d take to hit a genre sweet spot. To satisfy the expectations of readers. You’d end up with a rough sort of notion of how a particular type of book might sell, right? If you were to write it?

You might consider that a series is likely to out-perform a similar number of standalone books. Then you might come up with a plan–you incorporate some long-range notion of several books, or several trilogies, or whatever, and you could hope to bring readers along with you from one series to another–not all readers, of course, but some of them. Over time, you might build a career.

How much do you guys think the above resembles my own process? Not at all, right? I don’t have a writing career in any meaningful sense. I have a careen. Which suits me, mostly. But not entirely. And I can’t use anything remotely like the above process with my stuff. Yet.

Thing is…how do readers find books? Generally, I suspect, it’s either by author or category. Most likely in that order. There are some of you who’ve been reading my stuff for years, and I very much appreciate it. But there aren’t many. And as for finding my books by category? By genre? They’re are all over the place, and none of them fit neatly into existing categories to begin with. No shame in that (I think)…but it does limit my financial upside quite a bit. Having a “backlist” of books readers can buy if they happen to run across one of my titles and like it is very handy. It’s clearly helped. And, let’s not forget, I love to write. But if the backlist is all over the place? As things stand, for my own work, the only readers who might stick around from book to book are those who enjoy several genres, and don’t mind seeing them all mixed up in the same book. My people! So, uh…how many of you are out there?

You know what? For all I know, there are thousands upon thousands of people looking for weird cross-genre stuff just like mine. But. Even if it’s true? How do they find it? I’ll tell you, I don’t know how to find the sort of thing I tend to write. Might be because I’m a weirdo. Might be because retailers aren’t very good at matching books with readers yet. Or both. Doesn’t matter.

Mostly, I’m (not) guessing, other people don’t know how to find books like mine either. Even if they’d want to. Which is more a fond hope than an expectation on my part.

So. With crass commercial intent, I’m going to start out with a new pseudonym, in a new genre. I’m not sure just how easy or difficult I’ll make it to figure out what else I’ve written under my own name, or other names. Probably it’ll be at least somewhat difficult.

Plus I’m going to pretend to be a girl.

Nope, not intending to cross-dress. Or even disguise my voice. It’s just…my intent is to meet readers’ expectations. Or appear to meet them. While writing the best books I can manage to produce, while coloring between the lines.

Further: I suspect that social media stuff, including blogging, is…well, diverting in more than one sense. Fun, but not very useful in terms of sales generated for time spent. Which ain’t the end of the world. But what if time spent writing new fiction turns out to be more productive all around? Also, what if I don’t really want to spend a lot of my time pretending to be someone else, so I figure I’ll just skip that part?

So. I’ll still publish under my own name. I think. I’ll continue to cross genres with wild abandon, and write…you know…my sort of stuff. When I can.

But I really want to know: if I color within the lines for a bit, meeting (most of) readers’ expectations, can I turn this writing shtick into a reasonable sort of full-time income? Can I do it in a single year? Can I do it with no social media time, no time spent promoting my work, via nothing more than writing and publishing fiction? (Well. That, plus a mailing list for the new pseudonym.)

If that works, can I enjoy the process? Can I do it without completely abandoning my genre-bending turn of mind, while still publishing separately under my own name?

Got no idea, here.

I’m going to try to find out, though. And I’ll keep y’all posted. And…well, I’ll probably announce any new releases, only without divulging the titles, and tell you how the books are doing. If you really want to read them? Send me a private email, swear up and down you’ll keep my secret, and I’ll probably tell you how to find the books. Maybe. We’ll see.

Assuming I get them written to begin with. Gotta go work on that.

Another thought: hey, maybe I’m just fundamentally the kind of writer who has to write well enough to entice readers to follow him across genres. Maybe, for whatever reasons, this is my only path to long-term financial success in this game. Well, okay. I can work on getting better. Might need to do that anyway, you know. But. That being said? Who says writing in-genre fiction that pleases people isn’t a path to that goal? After all, more readers means…more readers. Probably not a horrible idea to give them what they want before asking them to try something else. Eventually, I imagine all pen names will be revealed anyway.

Meanwhile. Have fun out there!

The post Call me crazy…I won’t argue first appeared on Caveat Lector.

So I tried a startup thing, with a few friends, that didn’t work out. I’m not upset about it; I’m just reporting. Meanwhile my wife started up a business involving cooking and selling grain-free products at local flea markets. That’s working out pretty well–in fact, it seems likely to cover our expenses for the next few months. It won’t last forever, as these things are seasonal, but it’s doing pretty well for now. And we’ll do other things as we go along.

I’m helping out with the production of a cookbook, by the way. And some of the initial recipes were mine. And right now I’m shoving stuff in and out of the oven, plus sprinkling yummy bits on top, while she takes our daughter to a gymnastics class. I might start doing the flea market thing, too, if we add a third day. So it’s not as if I’m uninvolved in her business. It’s just that it’s primarily hers, just as the writing is primarily mine. But she’s involved in that too. Guess who my First Reader happens to be? I’d have trouble without her.

Meanwhile I’m thinking of driving a car part-time for Uber, or more likely Lyft, just to bring in some more cash. It seems likely to be relaxing. Profitable, somewhat, and congenial by nature. I like talking to people. It’s so interesting to be out from under the pressure to make every moment count–toward a goal. So much nicer to be able to smile at a stranger, and mean it, because I don’t have anything better to do and don’t even want to.

And on top of all that? We’re giving serious consideration to becoming foster parents, again. We loved it, last time. Hard when the kids leave, but on the other hand…that’s sort of the goal, right? So we might move into a much larger home than we’ve ever considered before. Might even get a dog. You never know. But we’re pretty happy about the possibility.

This is all so much more peaceful than our old lives had become. I was obsessed, and nearly always irritable, with my software development projects. She was obsessed, and nearly always easily provoked to tears, with her Federal government positions. From the outside, we probably seemed pretty happy. We kind of were, actually. But this is better.

We used to make far more money than we do now. Each of us made much more than the two of us are pulling in now. But we’re getting by. I don’t know, really, what will happen next. But it’ll be something.

Somewhere along the way we’ve both lost all interest in using income as a yardstick of success. Maybe it’s because our daughter doesn’t care? Last I heard, she wanted to grow up to work in a restaurant. And write books. I’ll be proud as hell if that transpires. Or if she does anything else that makes her happy.

Why did it take so long–so many decades–for me to understand that time is more important than money? That time spent with family is especially precious? That enjoying it doesn’t actually require a lot of planning or scheduling?

You know what I don’t actually love about writing fiction? I have to be by myself. I have to shut people out. But it’s not all bad! At the same time I’m inviting people in, of course. I make up my worlds and invite folks to explore them. I try to offer an insight or two along the way, or maybe just a good shiver, or at least an eye-roll. Something. I want to offer something to people that they might not find elsewhere.

The nonfiction is similar. There are a few subjects I’ve studied in depth. I want to share. I want to help people understand little bits of the world around them.

Is this notion distinguishable, from the outside, from any other form of arrogance? Perhaps not. Thing is: I’ve learned a lot from other people’s books. I’m trying to pass that along. It is what it is.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this post, except to tell you guys I’m happier now than I’ve ever been before. It doesn’t seem to take much to remind me of that. A clear blue sky, maybe, or a good storm when it’s been a while since the last. A smile from my daughter. A joke muttered to me by my wife. A nice drive in my car. Almost anything can turn out to make my day.

It’s nice to be in a head-space that lets me notice all this. That doesn’t dismiss all that in favor of some goal or other. I’m not opposed to goals. I just know how they can take over my mind, if left to run unchecked.

Probably less-driven folks are rolling their eyes, because they’ve known this all along. My brother did. I wish I could tell him how right he was. And the still-driven folks are rolling their eyes too, if they’ve taken the time to read this, because they’re busy. Lots to do.

I still can’t sit around all day chewing on a leaf of grass. I still have to move around. I don’t yet have the patience to spend the day fishing, and not caring whether I catch anything.

But maybe I’m getting there.

We’ll see. But the timer’s going off. I need to go fool around with food.

Have fun out there!

The post Opportunities everywhere… first appeared on Caveat Lector.

Wow, I feel good!

I know: I promised–well, sort of promised–no more polyphasic updates until I was done with the first month. But come on, people! I’ve had an epiphany. I have a new goal. I’m totally going to have a blast. And you think I can shut up about it all? No way!

First, the epiphany.

Actually you might do better to skip this part and move on to the “new goal” section if polyphasic sleep per se doesn’t interest you. You have been warned.

I think polyphasic sleep is a fairly natural process. Or procedure. Something. Anyway, I strongly suspect many people make it harder than it needs to be. Chiefly, I blame a slavish adherence to schedules for many of the difficulties our sleepytime explorers encounter.

Here are a few principles I’ve either come across, or deduced, or simply declared. These principles are very likely to help those who design schedules for polyphasic sleep. But I think there is at least one better use for them! More on that in a bit. First, the principles:

1. Circadian rhythms are real, and not to be trifled with unnecessarily or without a well-defined purpose.
2. Ultradian rhythms (recurrent periods or cycles within a single day) also exist and serve a purpose.
3. Nonetheless? It’s clear from the fact that I’m not dead–nor detectably more insane than usual–that these things can be modified somewhat.Chiefly, it appears well-established that with sufficient (un?)training the human body can derive a great deal of useful rest from a 20-minute nap–which can be fully sufficient for survival and happiness even if no other type of sleep is allowed to occur. This conflicts with pretty much everything you’ll read about sleep in humans. However, I am demonstrating it on a daily basis–and I’m not the only one doing so.
4. Although some polyphasic sleep schedules, such as the Uberman, are set up to assume equal intervals between naps and equal nap lengths, there is no immediately obvious reason why this would in the long term be ideal for me or anyone else. (It is, however, an excellent way to train the body to usefully take 20-minute naps!)
5. Shit happens. Interruptions to schedules are virtually guaranteed. It’s necessary to know enough about the theory and one’s own body’s reactions to compensate usefully, or–it appears to me–failure is inevitable.
6. Schedules are often planned in terms of the effects of circadian rhythms and also specific ultradian rhythms called BRACs (“basic rest and activity cycles”). These can apparently be anywhere between 90 and 120 minutes in length. Their precise duration supposedly responds well to training. For the classic Uberman schedule, BRACs are trained to repeat every 120 minutes, and thus naps can be taken every four hours–with the possibility of an “extranap” at the intervening two-hour marks.
7. Some schedules call for one or more “core” sleep periods, with lengths ranging from 1.5 hours to 6.5 hours. These are often most usefully performed at times of day that are consistent with an individual’s circadian rhythm.

Well, guess what? I came up with my own schedule, to which I intend to shift after my first month of Uberman is complete (IOW, in about a week). But…although I love many things about polyphasic sleeping? I do not like the rigidity of schedule that many seem to believe is required. Plus, the notion of scheduling things to occur near “dusk” is pretty damned laughable to those of us living in, for instance, Alaska. Plus, I’ve never really been strongly tied to a circadian rhythm, sleep-wise. Like many people’s, mine appears to naturally be a bit longer than 24 hours. And a regular sleep schedule is just not something that’ll ever make me happy.

So instead, I’m introducing a “new” scheme: The Polyvagrant.

It consists of the following rules for napping and sleeping:

• All naps will be taken as close as possible to 30 minutes past the hour on (some but not all) even-numbered hours. This is arbitrary, but matches my current schedule.
• There is no goal of striving for an “equiphasic” schedule (meaning the naps can be of different lengths, with different amounts of time between them).
• Naps will be either 20 minutes or 1.5 hours in length. A semi-inflexible goal is to take a maximum of one 1.5-hour nap per calendar day.
• During the hours I tend to be wide awake, I will tend to space the naps more widely. During the hours I tend to be sleepy, I will either (a) space the naps more closely, (b) precede the shorter naps with a longer nap, or (c) do both.
• I will feel free to move naps around as seems convenient. I will not take a nap simply because a clock tells me to–I will do so only if I am currently sleepy or trying to use the nap to be sure I’m awake and alert for some non-nap activity that is scheduled in the near future.
• I will feel free to take extra naps, of either length, to compensate for periods of unexpectedly long awake-time.
• When planning naps I will take into account what I have learned (via the Uberman schedule) about the times of day/night during which I tend to be especially alert or sleepy. If necessary, I will also take extra naps to account for the effects of exercise.
• Just for fun: jet lag should be impossible with this scheme. In half the world’s timezones, I’ll take naps 30 minutes after odd-numbered hours. The others should require no modification. In any timezone, the local sunrise and sunset (and/or my exposure to light) will very likely affect the timing and length of my naps.

This actually strikes me as easier than sticking to any of the schedules currently extant. It will require a certain degree of mindfulness. Perhaps even a bit of good judgment. Well, I might make it work for me anyway!

My “starter” schedule currently consists of one 1.5-hour nap, three 20-minute naps, and one optional 20-minute nap. I think it’ll work very well for the majority of my days–it’s designed to fit my family’s current schedules as well as my sleepytime needs. But! I can modify it whenever I want…such as when I want a night on the town during what would normally be my 1.5-hour “core” nap.

My New Goal: Vegas, Baby!

In a couple of months (or so), I intend to put my polyphasic superpowers to the ultimate test. Bear in mind that I’m a big fan of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books and stories–Reacher travels the world without a suitcase and with no fixed address. He doesn’t own a car. He buys new clothes as needed, and rents places to sleep. He doesn’t keep much of anything besides a toothbrush. It’s very cool.

So what am I going to do? Simple: I’ll go to Vegas for 30 days. I’ll rent a car. I will not rent a hotel room or an apartment. I will do all my sleeping via naps–most or all of which will happen in the car. I will play many many hours of poker. I may even do a few days’ worth of 20-minute naps only (a la Uberman) in the car in a nearby parking garage, or possibly in some sort of lounge if I find a good one where I might be left alone, and I’ll see if I can keep playing at the same poker table for…three days? Five? Who knows?

Speaking of that, I’ll do some sightseeing. I’ll get into odd conversations, and exert myself somewhat to make new friends. I’ll visit old friends and acquaintances.

And I’m going to write a book about it all. It’ll involve my Polyvagrant adventures in Sin City, the difficulty/ease of maintaining my fasting schedule in the midst of that, probably a few barefoot escapades, my decades-long love affair with Las Vegas and how it’s changed over time, the poker subculture and its changes over time…for me, this trip will be a blast. Guaranteed.

And my wife love love loves the idea. Which is how I feel about her, too. She gets me, and she likes me just as I ever-changingly be. Cool!

The book’s working title? Same as this post’s. But that may change. Much, in fact, may change before this adventure is completed. In fact I’m counting on it.

But I really, really want to pack up (lightly!) and leave right now.

Thoughts? Opinions?

Either way, have fun out there! I know I will.

The post 30 Days a Polyvagrant: Time Travel Through Vegas first appeared on Caveat Lector.

Which morning? I have six of them each day, functionally speaking. If we can agree to call it a morning whenever I wake up and have stuff to do for a few hours, to be followed by sleeping again. Rinse and repeat.

Why is this important? Because last year I discovered a reliable way to produce a lot of fiction. The catch? It only really works for me if I can wake up and jump into writing without distractions. Later in the day? Not so much. My inner editor gets in the way. And…my method worked very well. It was fun. I felt good about myself and my accomplishments. But mornings are important for other reasons–meaning I had to make some sacrifices.

You may now–as who wouldn’t?–picture an oddly slippery slate altar concealed within a primeval rainforest, in a green hollow well-encrusted with scattered bones (tending to the small, but some over-large and…you hope they were somehow distorted post-mortem, because otherwise…), the bones in various states of decay showing the site to be in regular use, but still–there’s something fuzzy about the air–it smells not of death, but not of life either–if the emptiness between galaxies had a scent? this might be it–and the sounds behind you may or may not be footsteps–then, once you step into the circle of my daily ritual, it becomes hard to see beyond the place of sacrifice. The place of death, and rebirth, and stories shouted into a void. A void that hungers for structure, but is eternally incapable of hewing to it for longer than a panicked heartbeat. Which may be your last. You are not certain the world you left behind is still there. Anywhere. You find yourself becoming hoarse as your measured words, your entreaties, your final appeals to reason…shade into screams. As my knife rises, and falls. All that you are becomes Anguish. Followed, natch, by lunch. And then editing, but that’s another story. No pun intended.

But it mostly wasn’t like that. My chief sacrifice? I had to shut myself off from my family for the first couple of hours each day.

And I’ve come to very much enjoy first-thing-in-the-morning playing with my daughter. My wife and I talk about all sorts of things. We plan. And, also? My productivity-enhancing regimen really worked better if I did it every day. Which made lots of weekend activities difficult to impossible. Or it meant I’d take Monday and Tuesday to get back up to speed. Up to me, right? Life’s all about making choices.

Well. I chose to spend my precious morning-time with my family when I could. And kept trying to get the sand out of my fiction-machine gears in some other way. I wrote, but slowly.

So I’m doing this ridiculous nap-every-four-hours thing. I’m spending the morning-time with my family. But once or twice a day, I’m also going to be waking up and going in to write. First thing I do. Well, after shutting off the alarm(s).

Will it work? I don’t know. I’m sleeping less than two hours out of every twenty-four. I feel good. I am soundly mocked by many. (Though truthfully I feel a little bit like a superhero and so don’t mind the gibes too much.)

But I’m just now getting my head clear of the sleep-fog that’s dogged my thoughts as I’ve moved into this strange new world of waking dreams. Just now about to discover whether I’ll be able to do…what I’ve always wanted to do. To write, a lot, without sacrificing family-time. (I’ll note here, parenthetically, that brains are awfully stupid organs–they’re unreliable and messy and ornery and won’t always do what I want.)

My first session under this new schedule will occur during a time-slice many of you would call “tomorrow morning.” Right now I’m going to do some editing. It’s tempting to do prep-work to make things easier later, but…no. I want to see what happens when I don’t. Then I’ll sleep. Then I’ll study a couple of subjects that interest me, then I’ll sleep again. Then I’ll spend family-time with family, and sleep again.

And then, finally…we’ll see how the writing goes. If it doesn’t flow well at first, I’ll tweak. I’ll try again.

I know: I’m nuts, and impractical, and also barefoot. But…you know…what if it works? Won’t that be cool? So why not try?

I’ll keep you posted. Have fun out there!

The post First thing in the morning, I’ll… first appeared on Caveat Lector.

Well, first off, I’m a bit sleepy as I write this. But maybe even before that…zeroth off?…I do wonder how the hell to count this first day of my polyphasic sleep attempt, and also maybe whether to count it at all. Maybe I’m done with it? Depends. How long is a day, when all the sleep you ever get is in 25-minute naps? If that happens.

See, last night I slept normally and woke up around 5:00AM. So “today” I started this shenanigan, but that just means I laid m’self down for a few minutes at 5:30PM and again at 9:30PM. Didn’t go to sleep, as who’d have expected me to? But it does mean that I’ve completed all my scheduled sleep-times for Day One, if that ends around midnight or so. So I’m calling it good.

Eventually I hope to sleep for 20-25 minutes every four hours, and otherwise keep myself busy with other activities. No, I don’t know whether it’ll work. Some folks around the intertoobz claim they do it, or have done it. But it’s not many people. And they could all be lying after all. Come to think of it, they could all be virtual identities of one teenage girl down Dallas way. If she has an odd sense of humor and an above-average facility with horseshit. So…I’d say the science ain’t settled here quite as of yet.

I found out a few things already. For instance: I didn’t have much of a physical dependence on caffeine. Didn’t expect to, either, ’cause I suspect my younger self’s apparent reliance on caffeine was in fact more of a sugar-withdrawal thing, and I stay away from that stuff these days…anyway, I had a mildly and strangely pleasurably groggy couple of days when I quit drinkin’ the stuff the Friday before last. And–this part did surprise me–I’ve been able to take short naps on a few of the days since then. First naps I’ve taken in…hmm…a decade or so? I guess any caffeine at all makes ’em impossible or at least strongly improbable, but they weren’t so hard to slip into when doing without. Interesting, and maybe enough to put me off caffeine for the long haul? Either way, it’s been tough trying to get other people to drink my last pitcher of cold-brew French Roast for me, I’ll tell ya that for free. And this is in spite of the fact that my chicory gets prepared separately. Don’t other people like thick, chewy coffee that’s been brewing for a week? They should.

Not much is yet known here by me. I’ll probably type more later. I will say it’s been entertaining settin’ up my office to try to ensure I’ll wake as scheduled (I figure going to sleep will eventually take care of itself and I haven’t given that part a lot of attention so far). But…is this really going to be any harder than one of my week-long cross-country road trips? I get by fine without much sleep for those. Is this going to be harder than fasting three days a week? That turned out not to be so hard–though my wife and I did decide to try to eat normally for the last week ’cause of relatives in town. Which felt weird and gluttonous, if you were wondering. I’m looking forward to a break from all the food-shoveling. Not to mention the dish-washing and general cleaning-up.

Is this thing truly, in fact, even possible? Beats me. Oughta be a blast to find out though. For some values of “blast.”

Have fun out there!

The post Polyphasic sleep: Day One first appeared on Caveat Lector.

So there I was, exulting in my triumph. I had inspired a friend to…this might require explanation…try my barefoot shoes! And then he ordered some of his own! Two different kinds!

We’d had a long and whisky-fueled (except when it was whiskey-fueled, ’cause these terms are island-specific) discussion one night at my cabin. Topics included barefoot’ry (we’re both fans), fasting, making toothpaste, the surprising value of homemade shoe-destinker-stuff as both insect repellant and underarm deodorant. You know, guy stuff. And a bit about writing and daughters and wives too. It was fun.

The “barefoot shoe” thing is only sort of a joke. ‘Cause, see, going barefoot causes social problems even though I think that’s stupid, and then there’s ice, and shoes are after all tools…so one ought to acquire the right shoe for the current conditions, yes? Therefore I’ve got silly toe shoes, trail running shoes, rubber-and-string sandals, some fancy handmade leather dinguses, and other oddities in my closet by now. None of ’em have the faintest hint of a raised heel, arch support, or padding other than sheepskin in my cold-weather boots. So it’s like, you know, all natural and stuff for my feet. Right? This is what “going barefoot” entails. Isn’t it?

Anyway.

A couple of weeks later this guy texted me asking about the quality of his soul. Well, about thickness of the sole anyway, but given that he was asking me, that obviously meant I had the upper hand and could interpret as I chose. I suspect he used some sort of modern-tech smugness detector, because he then sent me a two-word interrogatory text: “polyphasic sleep?”

I’d never heard of it. I scanned a Wikipedia article, saw it was about some kind of crazy hippie-ass thing with people taking naps all over the place, and replied that I’d only recently started sleeping well (a side effect of the fasting, that, and it’s been working for a bit over three months now) and…well, I used to have trouble going to sleep at all, so doing it more than once per day was out of the question.

No response came. Hmm. Was there something to it?

So the notion sat around in my brain for a while, as notions do, and I remembered: back when I was 21 or 22 and playing poker in Vegas, my watch battery died. Taking that as a sign or a portent or perhaps an omen, for a while I wandered around without a timepiece. I had no clock in my apartment either, and of course the casinos don’t display clocks. I’d wake up whenever I woke up–might be daylight outside; might not–and wander over to get in a game. Sometimes I got sleepy again fairly quickly. Sometimes I didn’t. After all, I might have been sleeping for only ten minutes. Or it might have been nine hours. Often there was no easy way to tell.

My idea at the time was that I might as well try sleeping whenever I wanted/needed to, and who needs a clock for that? But it was awfully inconvenient to wake up at 10pm, not feel like playing poker, and try to figure out what I could go do for fun. So eventually I bought another watch battery and become a perfectly normal person. At this point in my life I think it’s kinda funny that I would ever have actually felt there “wasn’t anything to do” in nearly any context…but I was young and stupid. Anyway, I’ve been normal ever since. Ask anybody.

Okay, so that wasn’t quite the sort of thing these polyphasic folks were talking about. But…what were they talking about, really? So I googled (actually I startpaged, because that’s what I tend to do) around and found this post by Steve Pavlina. It was sort of interesting–well, the guy writes code and writes English and appears to live in Vegas, and also he plays poker. So I read more on the topic.

Seriously? There are people who sleep only 2-3 hours out of every 24? Bucky Fuller did it for two years? This Pavlina guy did it for five and a half months? This is a learned sort of thing, and not just weird genetics? Cool!

I read more. Euphoria? A sense that life is all one very long day? Improved mental acuity…eventually, after a lot of adaptation and possibly anguish, but, you know, eventually? Intense and sometimes lucid dreams?

It all sounded…well, wacky. Not exactly plausible, but at least possible. And then (I realize this is a great surprise to you folks) I decided I just had to try it.

So I will, starting on or around July 3. We have relatives coming into town, and that’s the day they leave.

Is it just my general loopiness driving this? Maybe. But the thing is, a while back I discovered a repeatable and fairly easy way to write a lot of fiction–but it only works for me if I do it first thing in the morning. And I quit doing it one day because I got sick, and then I got back to hanging out with my family for a while of a morning…and bear in mind that I (used to) have real trouble going to sleep, and I like being with the fam of an evening too, so…well, you see where this is going. I’m still writing, but progress is slow.

But. What if I had several “mornings” every day? What if a couple of ’em happened in the middle of the night? Couldn’t I…you know…return to the productivity I loved and also get to be with my peeps when they’re home and awake? An occasional 20-30-minute nap doesn’t seem too high a price to pay.

See, I get most of that benefit no matter which “polyphasic” schedule I settle on. But the one I really want to try involves a nap every four hours, and no other sleep. ‘Cause…well, my daughter’s now nearly five years old. What if I can also spend a lot more time with her? I really don’t want to put her into the sort of environment where people think she should ask their permission to go to the bathroom. That’s just icky.

It may all flop horribly. “Horrible” is by all reports an excellent word to describe the first week, or maybe the first month, or maybe the whole idea.

Meanwhile it’s clear to me that I’ve been had. My friend knew exactly whom he was dealing with when he sent that damned text message and then shut up. Turns out he was secretly all excited about polyphasicality himself, and plans to start in August. Well, screw him anyway. I’m going first! And besides, I think (and if you examine the Wikipedia URL above I’m sure you’ll agree) that his text could have been only one word long. That sort of wasted effort–double the required word count!–is almost certain to spell (heh) his eventual undoing. Sloppy work there. Pshaw.

I’ll keep ya posted as I go.

And have fun out there!

The post To nap, perchance to dream… first appeared on Caveat Lector.

…probably not something I’m going to figure out any time soon.

I’ve been reading and thinking about habits lately. Well, okay, that’s a damn lie. I started thinking about habits because I’ve been thinking about productivity. Another lie there, by the way. Sort of. More on what’s going on around here in a bit: truthfully it’s all more personal than that. So this post is somewhat difficult to write.

On the surface, well, I’m trying to focus not on each day’s results but on the process of achieving small wins in service of some goal or other. That whole thing got started around Christmas when I was too sick to do much of anything, and somehow slid into wanting to dictate fiction, which was a skill I simply didn’t have (getting better at it, though).

Another skill I don’t have? Productive habit formation. In fact I seem to be almost completely habit-resistant over time (meaning everything that seems semi-constant in fact fades within a few months), with all the good and bad results you might expect from such a trait. But…I’m working on it.

What I always have been able to do is hit/maintain insanely productive spurts of activity. Thing is, when I’m in that zone I really can’t do anything else–potentially for weeks at a time, depending on what I’m trying to get done. And when I’m not in that zone it’s hard to do much of anything that’s productive. This is not helpful when dealing with my family. Or even refilling my iced tea at McDonald’s, for that matter–I actually screwed that process up in three separate ways in a single trip this morning. Without spilling a drop. Probably I set a record and will soon be internet famous. Soon.

So meanwhile, as I wait for that, I’m trying to find stuff in my life that’s unproductive so I can replace it with stuff that’s productive, hoping that’ll end up leveling out my performance a bit. While preserving the fun-factor. For instance: (lately) I really enjoy my very very black French Roast cold-brew, often enhanced with chicory, of a morning. When I start drinking I reach for the nearest electronic device, because that way I can get daily news and commentary online. I love diving into it all. So…what’s that do for me? It distracts. Powerfully. Whatever I was going to do that morning? I’m interested in something else by the time I’m done. Maybe even something worthwhile, but that’s not really the point.

I tried just doing without my morning caffeine infusion and news-binge. Ick. It was okay, but diving straight into writing when I wake up turns out to be not much fun–my brain wants to spin up to speed first. So I needed something to do while I woke up, so I went right back to what I’d been doing. Then I tried making the whole process less palatable–and potentially shorter–by not sweetening my go-juice. Ew. (Okay, actually I liked it well enough to otherwise act as I had been…but that just meant I gained nothing there, so I went back to drinking coffee the way I prefer it this month.) I tried putting coffee/news off until after a morning writing session…and telling myself it was a reward! In case that mattered!

You know what? I felt cheated. And kind of stupid too. Plus it still spun my mind off on a tangent no matter when I did it.

So, instead? I’m printing stuff out (primitive, I know) and sitting down with it and my coffee. Always, always stuff I wrote the day before. Then I’m thinking about it, making whatever notes and corrections seem useful, and brainstorming a bit about near- and far-future developments in the book(s) I’m writing at the moment. Afterwards, a break (or a breakfast). Then my (first) writing session follows.

It may work; possibly even for more than a month or so. Too soon to tell. So far it’s at least an interesting change.

All that said? I’ve written three novels in my life thus far, plus a bunch of stories, plus (not that you guys care) I’ve taken on and completed lots of software projects. And I’ve studied various subjects to various depths along the way. And…well, other stuff, but that’s probably enough to mention here. Doing things like that is…well, is it a habit? I dunno. It’s at least a major factor in my life. I’m a get-it-done addict, though perhaps a bit inefficient in getting my fix.

Which brings me to a kid I’ll just call my son, though there’s no biological relationship (probably…maybe…small town…hmm).

This kid is smart. He means well. But I don’t think his early life was all it could have been. He’s got no learn-stuff habit. No reading habit. No do-stuff habit. He’s actually succeeded and won praise in at least three areas (swimming, bull-riding, and [REDACTED SO YOU’LL WONDER]), but you know what? He was naturally good at those things. There was very little training involved. No sustained effort, and in all three cases he lost interest fairly quickly.

I wonder: does that kind of trivially-obtained attention actually inhibit future success? He’s a teenager, so this goes with the territory, but the kid really seems to live much of his life in a fantasy-land where he’ll get all sorts of goodies at some point, if he just hangs out with his friends for long enough.

And, look, this is a really good kid I’m talking about. I suspect all he needs is…well, a few small wins. Like, you know, a reward for actually showing up in class every day. Or for making progress in a small business he intermittently wants to start and run. Something.

But instead? See…he grew up around a bunch of other kids who looked out for each other. I could tell you stories. Heh. But seriously, his relationships with his peers were critically important to him. They kept him fed and housed when other systems failed. For years. So, now? He’s around a bunch of other kids, who may or may not have his back as he’ll expect ’em to…okay, that’s a separate issue. And these kids (like the last batch) are essentially slackers. For good reasons, in many cases, I’m sure. But the fact remains: they don’t conspicuously value effort, or project-completion. Good stuff comes to the talented kid in a 30-second montage in the teenybopper movies, right? Not as a result of sustained effort. If it’s hard, see, that means it’s not worth doing.

He gets the opposite of a reward if he commits the social error of progress. Nice.

Incidentally? I’ve decided to avoid too many specifics here. The whole post has gotten much easier to write as a result. A cop-out, maybe? Let me know if you think so; I’ll enjoy reading all about it.

And there’s a girl involved with him these days. A girl from a different sort of disadvantaged background. But…wouldn’t it be nice if they could team up and help each other? They could play let’s-get-ahead and swap really encouraging bodily fluids or whatever! (Ahem. This is my mind on Mardi Gras. You’re welcome, as always.)

Maybe they could pick one thing they both want to do, and help each other. Make a daily habit of it. At least a habit of talking about it. Maybe?

Well, come on. We all know they could, and it’d lead in all sorts of good directions for them. But will they? Too soon to tell. I’m going to be hopeful about it for now. What the hell. What’s it cost me anyway?

What I keep wondering: is there anything I could say or do that’d help my son with this stuff? Probably not. I mean, he’s been listening to me (no, really…he mostly pays attention, and it’s flattering as hell although of course almost certainly a poor decision on his part) for years now. We’re pretty close. Some stuff he may just have to figure out on his own, when he’s ready. Which might even be this week. For all I know.

Oh, and laisser les bon temps rouler out there. It’s the day for it.

The post What I should say is… first appeared on Caveat Lector.