“Enjoy Your Tea”.
Sometimes I have been called a curmudgeon. I’m not sure if that is accurate or not. I can see why some might use the term to describe me, though. I do sometimes enjoy rants against things that annoy me. I call out the plastic, superficial nature of our society quite often. 90% of the shiny objects that enrapture most other people fail to impress me, and I say so. The people that impress others also tend to fall flat to me in big ways, and I mention that as well.
The net result of these traits of mine is that I sometimes appear to others to have little to celebrate. That I almost never see the good to anything. This isn’t true, but I think that as an introvert my default position is to say little and observe much in the world around me. Yet as an Unglebower I am hard wired to point out when something has pissed me off. Especially something pertaining to unfairness or incompetence.
The result is that what I enjoy or appreciate is sometimes left within the confines of my thoughts, to be drawn on internally. I realize however that I could, and probably should vocalize, (or write down) the pleasant stuff a bit more often than I am wont to do by default. It may never happen as often as I express the frustrating experiences, but today I’ll make a step towards sharing more stories of good fortune.
On Tuesday I met up with a friend of mine for an hour or so. We agreed to meet at a local coffee and tea shop. I had only been there once before, so I didn’t remember what they had available. I chose the location because of its convenience, not because of its menu.
I got in there and saw the dozens of exotic teas available. My tastes being simple, I didn’t know what any of these drinks were like, or if I would even enjoy them. At first I didn’t want to look like a tea-rube. But once I get up to the counter, I said to myself, “The hell with it.”
“I’d like the plainest, most boring green tea you have,” I said.
And they did have one, and they started to make it. While they did that I looked around and read all the signs to see if they said “Cash Only”, because I only had my card on me. I didn’t see any such signs, but when I went to pay the couldn’t take my bank card because my purchase was less than five dollars.
“As a small business, the card fees kill us,” he said. I apologized for wasting their time and their tea, but the proprietor balked.
“Just take the tea now, and when you have the cash on you, come give it to us.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant, until I asked him to say it again.
“You don’t want me to sign something, or get my address or anything,” I asked, the tea still untouched on the counter.
“Until you give us a reason, we have no reason not to trust you. Enjoy the tea.”
I thanked him, took the tea and went outside to wait for my friend. (Who eventually paid for my drink anyway, so I no longer owe the shop any money.)
I would have paid of course. I actually planned to make the trip to pay them back in cash the next day. But the $2.50 or whatever it was would never have covered how impressed I was by the gesture. Or the fact that he didn’t even think about it. It came to him right away to let me pay later. I guess it must happen a lot.
Good business practice? A marketing technique to establish loyalty? I guess the cynic in me could see it as being those things. And in fact, so what if it was those things? The fact is I could have walked out of this dude’s place of business with some of his product, and he very well may never have been compensated for it. I could have never come back. He wouldn’t know how to find me, if I had been so inclined as to just take the tea and go. But he allowed it to happen anyway.
Had my friend not paid, and had I never come back, my theft (and that is what it would have been) would not have broken his bank of course. But it would have still meant a net loss for him. He took that risk on a stranger.
I suppose sometimes we all can take a risk on a stranger. Or a strange situation. A new path that hasn’t been tested. The last thing I want to do is be one of those, “stretch your comfort zone everyday” gurus, but I will advocate just doing for someone (or for yourself) sometimes, even if you don’t know what if any pay off will result. I do that on occasion, and I try to do it more and more all the time.
A deferred payment on a green tea has made it a little bit easier for me to do so the next time.
Have you ever been surprised and then motivated by a gesture such as this? Let me know.
Permission Granted: Proceed to Write.
Writers at every stage of development have heard certain advice over and over again.
-Show, don’t tell.
-Read as much as you can.
-Write every single day.
-Join a writer’s group.
-Avoid passive voice.
-Be 90% business person, 10% writer.
-Find your voice.
-Write what you know.
-Believe in yourself.
I could add more to this list of mostly legitimate advice.
Yet there is one bit of counsel that doesn’t often make it onto these lists. A step each writer must take, and take constantly: You must give yourself permission to be a writer. This is something with which I struggle almost daily.
The mechanics of writing well can be difficult. Developing that into an art form is also a challenge. Having to do all of the marketing for your own work, even if you get a publishing contract is for many of us the most trying aspect of being a writer. Yet none of it matters if there is any part of you that believes you should be doing something “more important”.
People who embark upon a writing life have heard comments about giving up food, electing to live in a cardboard box, or becoming the most well-read fry cook that McDonald’s has ever known. Our work and our passions get compared to “real jobs”, and we as people are contrasted with those that are “productive” with their time and “contribute something” to society. We’re quite familiar with the passive-aggressives who say they long for the luxury to “sit around all day at home and pretend” like we do, instead of “having to work for a living.”
The great hypocrisy is that many of these naysayers are consumers of the written word. A fact to which they will respond, “yeah, but you’re no….(fill in the blank with name of successful writer)”.
Let’s face it; writing aspirations are often eschewed by our peers. Writers, (and others in the arts and humanities) are often shunned by a society that still has the rusty iron pole of the Protestant Work Ethic shoved straight up its ass to keep it in line.
There is only so much the romantic, magical perspective on the wonders of being a writer can do to counteract this after a while. Even the happiest, most self-aware of writers are bound to buckle under this judgmental eye on occasion.
That is the reason we writers must daily canvas the gardens of our souls in search of invasive species. Weeds and fungus known as guilt and shame. Guilt for not majoring in something marketable, or for paying the bills with a job that has no upward mobility. Shame at the fact that imagination is at the core of our identity, and that we seek to engage the world through our words just as much, if not more so than through our actions.
Do not allow such plants to take root, my friends. Like kudzu they will be covering and strangling everything else, PDQ.
A lucky few writers may not have ever experienced the slight dismissal from colleagues, the upturned nose at a cocktail party or the finger pointing of in-laws who expected more for their little one. But the rest of us, (and I know there are many) live with a near perpetual inclination to justify ourselves and our calling to the world.
The only inoculation to such chronic self-destructive behavior is to fully embrace our nature, and give ourselves unconditional permission to orient our lives to one of many potential writer paths. To realize we can be our own highest blockade. To embrace without question our place in the world of storytellers and wordsmiths. To call ourselves writers and insist that those around us do the same or depart from us forthwith.
I am many things. Among them, a writer. And if you wish to be one as well, start by giving yourself permission to be one, right now. And never relinquish that permission to anyone, especially to you. The rest will come later.
The Appeal of Religions.
I am not an atheist. I like people to know that about me. I also like people to understand that I don’t attend church on a regular basis. Despite being baptized as an Episcopalian, I do not consider myself one. In fact I am not a follower of any religion or church on a regular basis. Of the religions I know about and have studied, none of them provide enough dogma agreeable to my conscience to warrant my membership, though some are closer than others.
That being said, there are aspects of myself that admire aspects of certain religions and sects of religions, both in dogma and in practice. I will leave the more complicated matter of dogma to another time, and mention here today some of the more practical aspects of various religions which appeal to me. (Naturally there will be some overlap between practices and precepts, so bear with me.)
–The Roman Catholic Church
The Roman Catholic Church is masterful at ceremonial formality. (I know this, for not only have I observed and studied their ways much of my life, but I have many Catholic friends and I even attended a private Catholic high school.) I don’t like to be confined to rules much of the time, but the predictable, solemn, somewhat cold but unquestionably introspective nature of the Roman Catholic Mass, (and its nearly identical cousin, the Episcopalian service) appeals to both my love of orderliness and to my introverted nature. Naturally many Catholics are extroverted, but to me the core of the Roman Catholic service allows for an individual to remain alone in a room with 100 other people. (Or alone with Christ, as it were.) That I can get into.
Also, setting aside the sometimes nefarious purposes for which it has been put utilized, I have to admire the organizational structure of “The Church”. Ordered hierarchies wherein everyone from the old parish priest up to the Cardinals knows who to answer to and what their specific responsibilities are. When motivated, this command structure can mobilize efforts of charity unlike most other institutions in the world, I dare say.
Then there is the exquisite art and architecture.
-The Evangelical Christians
I realize this grouping is broad, and contains more than one denomination. It is a type as opposed to a sect. There can be Evangelical Baptists, Evangelical Lutherans, and so forth. Yet when I use the term, I feel safe in assuming most of you will know the type of experience I refer to.
There is much for me to dislike about this demographic, (which is why I am mostly leaving dogma out of this post.) But for lack of a better phrase, they know how to “party”.
The Evangelical sects are social entities, there can be no doubt. Their places of worship usually contain basketball courts, ball fields, stages. Not that they make use of each of these amenities every time they gather to worship, but they make use of them as part of an active engagement within their congregation that usually isn’t matched by other domination within Christianity. An energetic interaction. Their way of doing things is extroverted, though of course their are introverted Evangelicals as well.
Plus, their music. Music is a part of almost all worship, but for them it often goes beyond a few hymns and chants. Electric guitars. Harmonicas. Foot stomping acoustic goodness. All are often part of the Evangelical gathering, and that alone appeals to me energetic nature.
–The Buddhists
The blessed, wonderful quiet that is Buddhism! I kid somewhat because of course there are chants and such within the various schools of Buddhism. And any given Buddhist can of course be loud. Yet let’s be honest-practically speaking don’t “quiet” and “Buddhist” often go together in our minds? Whereas some are challenged to put their money where their mouth is, Buddhists aren’t attached to the use of either money, or their mouths. They just…are.
Practicing Buddhists are so expertly in tune with the “right now” I can’t help but admire them with those parts of my soul that long to slow down, and just exist, without thoughts of the future or the past.
–The Hindus
I have heard it said before that there are more ways to practice Hinduism than there are Hindus in the world to practice it. Whether or not that is true, one of the admirable qualities of this faith is its big tent quality. In essence all that is, the divine and the moral, the living and the “dead”, are in some ways equal with the Source. Yet many Hindus worship and honor specific incarnations, avatars, or aspects of this “Oneness”. In short, everything is one, and any given one is everything.
This appeals to my often paradoxical nature. My mind and spirit are often filled with dichotomies and contradictions.
In addition, I admire how Hinduism, far from rejecting and admonishing the sensual and even sexual in life, embraces such things as a part of life. I feel Western culture is far too prudish and puritan in such matters, and to be both religious and sensual is to some impossible. To me, it is not.
-The Jewish
If Hinduism represents the metaphorical beating heart of world religious presence, Judaism represents its curious mind. Not that one need be Jewish to be intellectual anymore than one need by Hindu to be sensual, but I have always found the Jewish as a whole to be a people proud of their dedication to reason and thought. Again some feel reason must be abandoned in order to have faith, but most who practice Judaism seem to regard the intellect and faith as comrades, not antagonists to one another.
Consider the Talmud, one of the most important texts in that religion. It is a collection of rabbinic discussions about Jewish ethics, history, philosophy, customs, and so forth. The key word here being discussions. Conclusions are reached in the Talmud, but dissenting viewpoints are included within the text. A codified debate, highly revered to this day lies at the center of Judaism. It’s marvelous. (No surprise then that this faith appeals to my intellectual nature.)
-The Muslims
Much like the Jewish, Muslims at their nature are also quite intellectual. Muhammad commanded Muslims always to “seek knowledge.” And indeed, only the word “God” appears in the Koran more often than the word “knowledge.”
Their contributions to art and literature over the centuries have been invaluable. Their commitment to charity and personal hospitality is a trait I wish more people shared.
Yet in these days, I think what I admire most about Muslims is a certain degree of bravery in the face of adversity. To call oneself a Muslim, at least in the West, and know how many people make a living convincing others that you and your family are plotting to blow something up. I can’t imagine living with that every day in the post 9/11 era.
-The Pagans
Like “Evangelicals” the term “Pagan” is a general term that covers all kinds of different religious and spiritual practices. There’s Wicca, other Earth-based faiths, the various forms of ancient Reconstructionism. Yet one thing many of them have in a common is a satisfaction with worshiping alone.
“Solitary” is a designation many pagans use in fact. They study, worship, build altars, write prayers, and meditate mostly on their own. This of course is not limited to the pagan religions, and there are plenty of communal pagan activities. Again, the terms are broad. Yet a willingness to be totally private and alone with one’s divinities is a common trait among practitioners of many pagan faiths, and my desire to be away from other people meshes will with such a dedication to and comfort with solitude.
Most pagans in my experience are quite tolerant of the outcast, the forgotten, and the alternative lifestyles, as well.
***
Most religions, or sects within a religion have deep, complicated histories and count diverse people among their follwers. No one set of characteristics can be stamped upon them 100% of the time. Yet in my heart, based on my experiences and studies, I feel that these broad statements are fair. I hope they cause no offense.
What do you think of these religions? Are you a member of any of them?
What Dreams May Come.
I had a rather odd dream last night. I won’t bore you with the details of it, but suffice to say I have been thinking about it repeatedly since waking up. I’d say that happens with about a third of the dreams I recall having. There is that odd image, strange sensation, or inexplicable setting that just sticks with me. Most of you probably know what I’m talking about. And most of you have probably at some point told someone, (or everyone) about that one dream you had.
Writing down dreams has long been a practice of mystics, psychologists, and intuitives. Dream journaling has many psychological and emotional benefits. But perhaps doing so holds a particular purpose for the writer.
Robert E. Franken, in his textbook, Human Motivation offers, among other things, a definition of creativity. On page 394 of that work, Franken says of creativity:
“…it is linked to other, more fundamental qualities of thinking, such as flexibility, tolerance of ambiguity or unpredictability, and the enjoyment of things heretofore unknown.”
I chose to include this particular quotation out of the many I found on creativity, because it seemed to fit best with my advice to write out detailed accounts of our dreams. Whether we choose to acknowledge or not, every one of us is creative when we dream.
Allow me to elaborate by breaking down Franken’s quotation as it applies to strengthening our writer’s creativity by means of describing our dreams in writing.
1.) “Flexibility”.
Have you ever noticed how often within a dream you suspend logic? You may know deep within your thoughts in a dream that there is no way you should be able to see the Statue of Liberty in the distance if you’re in Chicago. But there it is, and by and large you accept it. Our notions of sequence and space are far more flexible when we dream. When we write down these experiences, we pursue a flexibility of thought that strengthens our creativity. We need to be flexible with our use of words, and the structure of our sentences if we are to have any hope of transmitting what our dream felt like to others.
2) “Tolerance of ambiguity and unpredictability.”
Needless to say, most dreams are both ambiguous and unpredictable. To be creative we must at times be willing to accept uncertainty. Perhaps a final draft of our story requires structure in order to be published, but the road we take to get to that draft may twist and turn a lot, and have no signs to lead the way. One of the most creative things a writer can do is to just strike out, and see where a line of thought leads.
Writing down dreams in as much detail as possible embraces this tolerance of ambiguity. You might not be able to remember a single word of the conversation you had with Harry Truman, but you describe it occurring and embrace the ambiguity of what he was trying to tell you based on other factors happening within the dream at the time. It could be that the not-knowing leads to the bigger purpose. Creatives embrace ambiguity, at least at first.
3) “The enjoyment of things heretofore unknown.”
As a writer, how many times have you used terms such as “discovering my characters” or found yourself “surprised” that a scene unfolded as it did? To outsiders this makes no sense. The writer creates and decides every word of their own story don’t they? Yet those of us who spend any time writing realize that this is often far from the truth. Many writers take as much joy in finding out what happens next as their eventual readers do.
Even with an outline, writing something is to a large extent taking pleasure in pursuing the unknown.
Because anything is possible in our dreams we may come across a thought or knowledge within us the we previously didn’t realize was present. Something within our minds that the ordered, logical nature of being awake kept hidden. By writing about such discoveries with a happy curiosity we are in a sense welcoming the unknown, and all that comes with it. When we seek, through our writing, the enjoyment of discovering new things, about ourselves and the world, more new things are likely to come to us.
***
Dreams are to some mere random firings of the brain at rest. To others they are messages from the beyond. Still to others they are subconscious desires made manifest in imagery. Yet whatever their true origin, a writer should consider them useful and inspirational in ways that those who do not write may not choose to see them. We break the rules in our dreams, and we make that rule-breaking not only a reality, but a habit, if we write down our dreams and review them.
A writer in the habit of challenging convention, as our imaginations do when dreaming, is bound to meet success.
My First Writers Salon.
As I mentioned last week, Monday evening would be my first experience in a writers salon. Today I fulfill my promise to tell you all about how it went.
I won’t mention the names of the group or any of the group members, of course, because that would be an invasion of privacy. I will however say that it is a group that meets regularly that I discovered through MeetUp.com. It was in fact the first MeetUp.com event I have ever attended, despite having an account on the site for years.
To begin with, several people were there early. This almost never happens in any group I have ever been a part of. (I’m usually the first one to arrive at anything.) So at least there was someone there when I arrived at the local coffee house, and that was a plus. I introduced myself to those already gathered.
Now it is a known fact that I don’t tend to make much of an impression on people early on. I don’t exactly know why, but I know I have tried different tactics over the years, all with the same result. I end up just sort of “being there”. That’s another issue for another post, but suffice to say for now I have grown somewhat accustomed to this. The people were polite, regardless.
As more people filed in, I was able to engage in some light conversation. Almost but not quite small talk, because most of it did relate to writing in a way. Or the venue we were in.
When we all introduced ourselves and explained why we were there, my reason was that I thought it was time to meet writers outside of Twitter for a change. (Which spurred the idea that we all exchange Twitter handles, but we forgot by the time it was over.)
The structure of this group is simple. Four people each provide five pages of writing to be critiqued by the group. (The pieces being made available a week before on the private message board.) At the group, each writer listens to comments, suggestions and reviews of their piece for 20 minutes, and cannot respond to any of it until the 20 minutes have elapsed. They may then answer questions or clarify something.
Permitted genres include just about everything other than non-fiction and children’s writing.
You will be happy to learn I did offer feedback on the pieces. The points I made didn’t usually spawn further comments, though. Nonetheless I feel proud of my comments because they provided exactly what I hoped to provide to each author.
My goal was to keep my observations as short as possible, and to direct them as much as possible towards the craft displayed in the piece. (“You have excellent word economy. You’re pacing was spot on. You provided just enough dialogue.”) These are the areas I am most comfortable discussing in such a setting. I did make notes on a few negatives, but I didn’t share those. Someone else tended to cover the same negatives anyway.
Others preferred to explore specific plot points, or mention how they might like to see a piece end, or how to make a given character stronger. I didn’t feel it was my place t make such a “personal” suggestion, though I am sure I could have. Maybe after I have been to a few meetings. Yet even by then I am sure I won’t want to do so. I feel as though I have more to offer when commenting on the engine, not on the color of the vehicle, or have to drive it.
I agreed to submit something for the very next salon, which is in about two weeks. Seating at each meeting is normally RSVP, first come, first served. However those who submit writing for review automatically have a seat reserved for them at the next meeting. So if nothing else I have managed to get a seat at two meetings in a row.
I mentioned before that some of the negatives in a few of the pieces were already brought up by others in the group. That was also true of the positives. While I tried to only share thoughts that had not yet been brought up by others, often something I felt was strong about a piece was also something several others thought was strong. So I didn’t feel as though my tastes and observations were too far out in left field at least. (Or else everyone was out in left field with me.)
I didn’t think all comments at all times were fair, given the samples being read. However that snooty condescension that I think writers groups tend to slide into after a time was not present. I still don’t know these people, but they didn’t give me a reason to not come back. Most of them were able to offer their solutions, questions and comments about a piece without coming off as sounding pompous. This, I feel, is more rare than you might think among writers discussing the work of another. A big plus for the group that it lacked such pretension overall.
All of the submissions were excerpts this week. Two from novels in progress. The other two from short stories in progress.
As an extra on that particular night, one of the gentleman showed us samples of book trailers that (I believe) his company helped produce. We were each given a card to rate on a 1 to 10 scale how effective we found the trailer to be. This was tricky for me because I don’t care for book trailers as a concept. I think they attempt to force a visual into a media that is not at all visual. Or perhaps better to say that trailers for books invade the visuals I want to create in my head, with visuals created by someone else. I like to slowly build in my head what I see when I read a book, not have it explode onto a screen for me.
But from a technical standpoint at least I thought the trailers were well made, and my grades tended to reflect that.
On the whole, I would say the experience was a net positive for me. Given how I’m not all that wild about being in a room full of strangers, as well as my obvious introversion, such a meeting could have gone south for me in a hurry, but it didn’t. I think I have the open mindedness of the group, and the enthusiasm for what we were doing to thank for my general ease.
Also, I think a few of the others were introverts as well, or perhaps shy in some cases. Knowing that not everybody had to be the center of attention made the whole group more tolerable. Worth visits in the future. I just hope the feedback I gave helped at least one of the authors in some small way on Monday. And if not then, in future meetings.
I already have decided what I will submit to the group. It will be a complete short story that has existed in some broad form for a while now. But this week I have been tweaking and polishing it more than it has been in the past to get it ready for the group. I like the story, and hope they do as well, but it is not one that is so personal I will feel crestfallen if they do not.
Will I still feel this hopeful about it once my own work comes into the spotlight of the group? Who can say until then? I feel I will be. I’ll know soon enough.
Ty Unglebower 