Reverb13 Day Ten: Disengage Auto-Pilot
Living life on auto-pilot can feel disorienting and dull. How did you cultivate a life worth loving during 2013? How can you turn off your auto-pilot button in 2014?
Truth be told I could have probably done a better job at specifically cultivating a “life worth loving” in the last year. It’s not something I think about specifically very often, though I do have moments and activities and certain events that I love at least a few times each year. Those tend to arise in a more natural way, however, as opposed to my cultivating them into existence.
I have this year begun the process of determining if I suffer from defined, clinical anxiety. (I have suspected I might for a while now.) This means finding a professional counselor to help me determine whether or not this is so. Not an easy process. And it has been made all the more troublesome to me because after some research and a personal recommendation, the first professional I went to was a total disaster. Thankfully I needed no more than the initial consultation to determine that, but it means I’ve had to start the process over, and I don’t think I’ll be able to get started this year after all.
So if not cultivating, perhaps I could call that “weeding” in a sense. Or a tune-up if that works better. Making life more lovable by determining if I suffer from something that can be alleviated. This in a sense relates to auto-pilot I suppose because inertia makes it easier to just keep living each day with my anxieties. I don’t enjoy them, but when I think about all of the things I have to go through to officially see if I have a clinical form of anxiety, I can’t help but thinking my life would be easier just left as it is. Auto-pilot. But I must disengage that auto-pilot in order to course correct.
So, once that process is at last officially off of the ground and doing its (hopefully) good for me, that is one way I will be shutting off auto-pilot in 2014. Thriving instead of surviving and all of that.
Reverb13 Day 9: Inspirational People
Who inspired you in 2013? And why? What gifts did they give you? And how will you carry these forward in to 2014?
Inspiration is a tricky subject with me. I tend to be more inspired by events or even thoughts and ideas, than I am by individual people. I can have deep respect for someone’s situation, obstacles and achievements without feeling personally inspired by them. Their story, after all, is not my story. Though on some broad level I intellectually understand that such people can be examples of overcoming the odds, (if they can do it you can do it!) I tend to view such people as the one-legged man who scales Everest, or the woman who overcame her mental illness to become a published writer as circumstances isolated from my own.
Maybe I don’t look closely enough, or maybe I am just a colder, more shallow person. Or maybe this is just another manifestation of my unique, sometimes strange perception of life. I don’t know.
All of that being said, I do have at least a partial answer for this prompt, and it is a surprising one: Pope Francis.
I am not a Roman Catholic. I disagree with the church, (and by extension any Pope) in regards to many moral and social issues. But within that framework, this current Pope has said and done many things that have gotten my attention, and at times even touched me on a personal level.
His attention and prioritization of the poor. His refusal to demonize homosexuals even as he disagrees with them. His willingness to admonish the rampant excesses of capitalism. The fact that he still does not use the luxurious papal apartments, but rather lives in a simple hotel within the Vatican. These are perspectives not shared by many previous popes. At least not in as vocal a fashion as this pope.
So I admire, respect, and in some cases, deeply appreciate what Pope Francis is doing and saying.
But his viewpoints are not what inspires me per se. What I find inspiring, rather, is the deep conviction with which he not only expresses but lives his beliefs. The humility. The unflappability. And perhaps most of all, doing all of this in the face of a Vatican establishment, namely the Curia, that is not the most welcoming of his speeches and reforms, sometimes to the point of talking back the Pontiff’s comments the following day, so as not to allow him to appear too “different”.
I don’t know what goes on behind the closed doors of the Vatican. Nor can I sympathize with how it feels to believe in and cling to an infallible pope, as again I am not Catholic. But I can be inspired by acts of faith, charity and love. Though the possibility always exists that he could be for whatever reason faking all of it, I’m willing to take Pope Francis at face value, and be inspired by the man.
As for what gifts the man can give to me in 2013…his gifts to Catholics and the poor are of course of far greater significance. But I do think he serves as a reminder, and solid example of the importance and the power of knowing one’s convictions, and striving everyday to live them and share them, regardless of how inconvenient it may be to some. The courage of conscience, even if that conscience is not my own, contains a power that can sometimes transcend difference and circumstances. Doing the work one feels they were born to do in service to what they feel is right in this world. That’s the inspiration of Pope Francis, and others like him in this world. I will take these lessons with me into 2014 and beyond as I follow my own convictions in pursuit of service.
Reverb13 Day 8: What Went Right.
What went right in 2013?
I’m sort of a pessimist at times, I maintain with reason. But this year I can’t deny that a lot of my writing went right. (Not really liking the homonyms in one sentence, but there is no other way to put it.)
I say this about my writing even though I didn’t achieve one specific goal I set for myself at the start of the year. But first, let’s talk about what I did achieve.
In January, I wrote the following list of writing goals:
–Write the fifth and sixth draft of my novel, Flowers for Dionysus
I’ve talked about my novel many times here on the blog. I’ll be revising it again come New Year, but I achieved both of these drafts within the span of 2013. Plus, one of them was reviewed by a small group of writers. I didn’t like everything they said, and will be ignoring some of it, but they did provide me with some useful information for the future revisions. (Which I hope to be done with next year.)
–Write ten short stories.
I actually exceeded this by a few. Mostly as part of a collection of ten short stories about a theatre which will be a sort of companion piece to my novel. But also one or two single-shot stories. I know that a dozen or so doesn’t sound like much, but for me, a more methodical and at times plodding sort of writer, it was a fair goal. Looking back, I probably could have written more than a dozen. But there is always next year.
Each of those stories has also been through a revision or two this year. That wasn’t technically on the goal list, but it’s satisfying to have gotten that far with most of them.
–Draft a one-man stage show.
Did it. My one man Shakespeare-based show will still require some work, but I did get the research and the first few drafts of it done this year. In theory it should be ready for me to perform sometime next year.
Now to what I did not get done:
–Finish the first and second drafts of Novel 2.
As many of you who follow this blog on a regular basis already know, the status of so called Novel 2 has been unstable to say the least. I won’t explain all of it again here, as I have done that about a thousand times. Just do a search for “Novel 2” on this blog, and you’ll be caught up on that saga. Suffice to say I have had to seriously rework and reconsider that project. I have not abandoned it. But I have taken an extended leave from it due to some of the difficulties. So I did not accomplish a first or second draft. But I hope to next year.
Then there are the things I accomplished with my fiction writing this year that were not specific goals, but in a sense make up for the one I missed:
-I wrote two other novels this year that I didn’t expect to write. One was a ghost writing job for which I got paid. (Eventually.) The base material was atrocious and the man that hired me was about as unprofessional and inconsiderate as they come. (No wonder his screenplays have not been turned into film; they are trash.) But I did the best I could with what I had, and frankly my story is better than his could ever hope to be with the same material, even though he didn’t think so.
This novel was on the short end, because again the source material was pure drivel. But I did write a novel, nobody can deny me that.
Then there was last month’s Nanowrimo, which I have also talked about several times. For the first time ever I completed the entire novel in November, with almost no planning ahead of time at all. That went better than I thought it would. So much so, I am considering revising it once or twice, and publishing it myself, depending on how solid I think the first draft is. (I will read it in January.)
But whether I go forward with that novel or not, I finished it. Which means I wrote two novels this year. Not two of the longest novels out there, and nothing compared to some prolific writers, but for me, having written two novels within the course of a year is quite the accomplishment.
Actually, having written two novels, edited a third, written a dozen short stories and a stage show is quite the accomplishment, if I may say so myself. It wasn’t always pretty, and I don’t know what the future holds for any of the writing. But I can say that my fiction production for the year is something that went right, for certain.
Reverb13 Day Seven: Picture This
Please post your favorite picture of yourself from 2013, self-portrait or otherwise!
About 90% of pictures of me are taken by me. That’s not an ego situation, either. Truth be told, I am neither that great nor that fond of doing it. But I am usually the photographer when my family gets together, and no matter how much pleading and encouraging I do, the others rarely take any pictures.
And as for friends? I am not often invited to social events where pictures are being taken, and when they are, few people ever decide to take a picture of me. Who knows why, but it probably has a lot to do with whatever reasons people don’t engage me in other ways as well. I only know that on Facebook, I am tagged in fewer photos on other people’s pages that most of my friends.
That leaves the selfie, or else I might not ever be documented in pictures!
And this year I have not taken many of them. Not many that have any value, anyway. But this one that I’ve chosen for this post works on a few levels. It’s not a great picture, and my hair is messed up. But it does show me as happy. It’s by and large a warm picture of me, and for lack of a better choice, that’s why it was selected. Happy, warm, natural Ty. (As much as possible when one takes a selfie.)
Almost natural. At least not gloomy.
Reverb Day 6: Memories and Precious Things
What precious things have you gathered in 2013? Which memories from this year do you wish to keep with you always?
I’ve come to believe in recent years that we don’t often know that something may be a precious thing, or a memory we wish to hold on to forever while we are still in the midst of it happening. Sometimes we may not even know for quite a while after the fact that something qualifies as such.
Some things do obviously fall into this category. Any time I spend with my youngest niece, naturally. She is two and a half years old, and comes with all of the craziness of that age. Not at all difficult to consider things such as that as “precious”. In fact, time with family in general is probably a fair entry into that collection of memories one wishes to keep with one always. Fair enough.
But what of other things? The things around which one’s entire life does not revolve, but nonetheless become woven into each person’s spiritual tapestry? It is these things that don’t always announce themselves as precious memories.
For example, I have met several new people this year. Could one or more of them end up being significant in my life for any number of reasons? Certainly. And if they do, the moment I met them would become retroactively precious, in a sense. Or the feelings I have had upon completing any given one of my writing projects. Will those projects be the means by which I touch lives? If so, I should imagine I’d want to hold on to the memory of conceiving and completing such works.
Or, none of those things could end up significant, and will present nothing precious to me, no matter how long after the fact I consider them.
That being said, I do not recall any things that happened in 2013 that I would at this moment consider precious on this level. Though the future may reveal them as such.
In the end, I suppose there is a lesson even in my ambiguous relationship with my moments of 2013; one must, (or at least I must) make room in my heart for any event, any moment, any person, any experience to be precious, and worthy of my recollection forever. Or I must be willing, like a miner, to dig through the mountains of dirt that make up the tedium of daily life so as to seek out the sparkling precious gems or the memorable and significant moments. For though the precious in life will for some people at some times present itself, for the rest of us we probably have to be astute observers for most of our days to detect same.
Ty Unglebower 