Freedom to Drink Tea

Two hundred thrity two years ago today, on what must have been a cold day in Boston Harbor, Bostonians took out their frustrations on taxation without representation by dumping ship board tea arriving from england into the harbor. This step of defiance was one of several significant ones in the walk to freedom and a new nation. But how best to celebrate in suttle nods of thanks? Must I avoid the steaming cup of Earl Grey or English Breakfast tea and instead protest by the consuption of a brew from a brazilian bean?

Maybe that I can do either and make the choice on my own, that is the tip of the hat for those that did what it took to get us to the tipping point for freedom. Now if only my english muffin and french toast would finish up befor my tea gets cold.

Learning Becomes Personal Knowledge

When does what you learn become more than some fact for recital? When does it become part of your personal knowledge and experience? Learning from knowledge is the explanation from others, learning from experience is understanding from personal observation. But at some point this is blended to a personal perspective, where knowledge is applied and interpreted. At this state questioning and pattern recognition are practiced. This independent interpretation and application decision of one's knowledge base represents when this knowledge is personalized and becomes our own. It is the synthesis of unique perspective of common data (knowledge) that formulates a professional (and valuable) opinion.

Memo to Self

Persistence is paramount.

Patterns of History

You see things in your job, in life and in the world that seem similar. Situations matching in context to similar events, years or decades before. These dejavu type events may be readily apparent or need a scrutiny and a pattern recognition to surface the similarity. But they hold a fundamental parallel between them, the dissimilarities are limited to cosmetic or participant identity, but are formulated in similar manner and likely reach similar results.

History does have a way of repeating itself. Recognizing these patterns helps in identifying higher level trends, applying similar solutions or adjustments, or even identification of tether points need to break the cycle and institute change.

Understanding history is important for these reasons. Current lessons and successes are equally important, as they may be needed again in the future for yourself or others.

Mother of all the Success Skills

When I think of of the skills needed to be successful, one stands longer than the others. It is persistence. We could all use a little more persistence. It keeps us bounding over the hurdles placed in our way. Whether they be self-imposed or placed there by others. It places the achievement in the context of effort over time, not only as a duration of work, but truly as a accomplishment over the hurdle of time passing.

Individually do you need more persistence in starting something or finishing? That idea you have been kicking around for a few months or years, but just haven't taken that leap. That half finished project in the garage that is waiting for that elusive 'round-tu-it'. Or maybe it is all a matter of persistence to finish - i.e. you have to start to be able to finish.

I am going to take the first of every month to remind myself to be more persistent.

Traffic volume 1

The Automobile Traffic Jam, I could do a whole blog on this subject alone. Has anyone done a study on how much time is wasted in traffic jams? I would bet the opportunity cost, lost productivity, increased stress and aggression, pollution and expended natural resources would total out astronomically. I'm not talking about accident related jams - except gaper delays. It's the ones that are correctable or avoidable. Slow or inappropriate drivers, bad light sequencing, insufficient road capacity, and others causing transit inefficiency.

There's a need I could fill, analysis and remediation recommendation for traffic congestion. Maybe I'd have time to work on that if I got back that hour a day I'm stuck in traffic.

Cliche...The art of the real

I had heard today was cliche day. Maybe its true, or its a voicing only to me, signify that I rely too much on the cliche. I could rattle on and drop cliche after cliche phrase, which is a problem while trying to excel at this craft. I like cliches, I use them to relate and associate. They provide a shared abbreviation of more complex abstractions. But as writing dictums go, cliches represent one as a 'lazy writer' [so many have said]. There is truth in that statement, and lazy I am not - and will not be.

Striking the reliance and use of cliches from my writing efforts is high on my list of goals. If anything it will help with the expansion of written explanations and should help both the clarity and length. I will use my creativity to annotate.

Public declarations of goals are a great way to commit to their fulfillment. Plus I'll be sure to add this one to my new year's resolutions. So its up to me to Seize the Day....(D'oh!)

Accomplishment by Association

Associate
Simulate
Model
Assimilate
Improve

As humans our learning is not limited to genetics. We have the capability to learn through communication - whether verbal, visual, or written. These all permit passage of information beyond generations or geography, with technology currently available to us. We evolve by taking what others have learned and building on it. This how scientific breakthroughs are achieved and medical advancement. We can apply this to any level of craft or work, ignoring all the information committed or available from others that have traveled the same path only delays you in creating your own path.

Programmed for Learning

Life is slanted to learning, taking things in, absorbing. It makes it difficult to switch to sending information out, presenting it, teaching.

You have to learn to use information almost as soon as you get it. Practice producing with the new knowledge. The craft is in not only the identification but the preperation for presentation.

Flooding the Input

I seem to be rushing and jammin information into my brain in an attempt to increase the output of the machine that is my creative mind. Is that going to work? While I agree that some knowledge critical base is needed, and continually worked, it may be more condusive to quality and lengthy works to open the release value and let it flow.

As gross as it sounds, I need a mind vomit.

Lay it all out. If nothing else it should clear the pipes from any grime of self criticism or clogs of self doubt. Build the practice of flow with a stamina to sustain it.

Reading Critically

As I work on learning the writing craft, I am becoming self aware of an innate sense of where the energy of a writer rises, falls and peaks within a give work. In books I feel I can pick out the chapters that they were struggling with, the sections where they just put something together, just as well as the enthusiasm and thrill that spawned or sped the writing along.

This is a good think (intentional, not misspelled), it tells me I am learning. Now I need to build my understanding and recognition of paragraph structures and intent.

This is a confidence builder, not only on increase ability, but on the humanity of my fellow writers. This is not to slight my fellow writers, just a recognition that writing is many times work, and with understanding I am closer to becoming.

Varying Degrees of Quality

With human endeavors, particularly artistic ones, 'works' are not always of the same superiority as previous works or even of future ones. Every painting by DaVinci was not a masterpiece like the Mona Lisa, every album by the Pink Floyd was not as refined as Dark Side of the Moon. To even approach a masterwork, one must develop their skill and practice their their craft.

This prepares you for the inspirational. The time, the place and the work; aligning to create that defining masterwork.

Not everything gets better with age, but you can strive for a consistent high quality, and know that you have the confidence and potential for great work when it's time.

The day belongs to the Rut

There is a TV ad where the guy, walks the same path, to the same place he parked his car, leans against the same spot next to the water cooler and so on. This all leaves a well worn pattern of where he is and what he does. The car he sees pauses him as he daydreams about doing something different.

I want my freelancing (writing or other) to be that catalyst to free me from my rut. I don't like my rut, it tires me and drains me. I feel energy and motivation siphoned from my very blood. This rut fuels complacence. My creativity is anemic in the darkening as the rut deepens. Time is now, no better than now, later may be too late; to get out of the routine.

It is now more of what I can not do with time and energy, that what I can accomplish. This ends soon, the seeds are planted, the watch is made for the glimpse of opportunitity. The run for escape and self-reliance and freedom for creativivity wil be mine!

Glass Ceiling

What was it that kept me from learning the complete Tai Chi form (short and long)?, Was is the same thing keeping me from recording the CD, learning the song, making the change, taking the leap.....?
Damn, I've got a glass ceiling. And its self imposed too.

Time to use the hammer of peserverance, beyond the glass ceiling. That I know its there, removes its persistence. "There is no ceiling" (as in "there is no spoon")

This will work, but only if it was the ceiling, and not the juggler's drop, when balancing all life entails. - [but then that is priority, is it not?] -

Spreading The Word

If one blogs in internet space and no one reads it, is it really a blog, or just anonymous databits taking up precious (but cheap) disk space for the entertainment and benifit of no one?

How do you get interest and traffic? Well they (whom ever they be) needs to know about it. But still the question is 'How'?

I know the answer - it was in an old shampoo commercial - you need to tell (or interest) two freinds (or even strangers) about the blog, and they'll tell (one can hope, can't they) two friends, and they'll tell freinds, and so on.....

Quantity versus Quality

Success seems easier pinned to quantity and speed of output. How does this work and apply to more creative endeavors of art, writing, music, etc.? Obviously if you can do 'more, better, faster' that should be a success definition. More and Faster can be achieved with effort, better is a different story (pun intended).

I don't think I want to be the low cost provider in a creative endeavor, but can I be a quality provider without quantity and speed?

Only if the quality is much better than the competition and is clearly visible, and downright obvious.

Stamina

Can my stream of creativity around a single idea, maintain over the duration and effort to completion without resorting to filler. Am I trained by all the web content, the 60 second commercial, the highlighting the scanning and skimming? Even this blogging, excentuates and re-enforces the staccato thought. Am I destined to be the sprinter in a marathon?

Immersion and paitence may be the method of extraction. There are key points and hooks in every work, but I must think in terms of build up and dispersion, relavant and supporting of the hook.

The bones are the foundation, but it is the flesh that gives it life.

Too Many?

S-O M-A-N-Y B-O-O-K-S. How can they need any more?, be any more that can be written? Are all those romance novels really different?..Why can the market accomidate x books on the Red Sox Championship season, they are all about the same season, and I would bet most of the buyers of those books, were fans and saw most of the games.

Maybe its perspective and insight that people are buying. Maybe a chance to re-live, even in the case of the romance novels, maybe they are not that much different, but instead they take the reader back to a place they want to experience again (or similarly). And maybe its like music, were the writer takes a limited specific (notes/language) and organizes it into one of an infinite number of combinations and produces 'works' of varying levels of merit and sucess.

Differentiation

I certiantly recognize myself as unique. But how do I really differentiate myself from others that are similar, at work, at a certian skill, a capability, or a contribution? Is that just more marketing? Is success based on presented and perceived differences versus actual differences and value?

It starts with the belief (and truism) that you are different, then experience, results and advertising (?). This is a walk to find one's self, and tell everyone along the way what you have found out.

Here's the Rub

An article or writing of orginality comes from one's self, its source internal and its authenication is only your belief. Given that it lacks credibility, unless voiced from authority, demonstrated by experience or collaborated. Complete collaboration is pagerism, is it not? Where's the orginal idea?
In writing how do you bridge between Essay (no source but the writer) and Copying (Referencing others [ which is giving full credit, thus not plagerism ]) to create a contribution of value, a submitable piece?

This is the answer I must find. And once found I must practice it and be fluid and intuitive in generating work in the space between these two.

It Tingles

I now see the box I'm in. The limitation posed by my surrounding, self imposed(?) prediciment. With that knowing, I tingle with potential, though I don't see the potential, or more importantly the the likely results, this is what gives me pause. The good news is it is not a pause of inaction, it is contenplation, as in hunting for a solution to a puzzle.

Is that, the puzzle is solvable, an assumption or a truth?

Technology Trouble

Been having trouble with the old blogger this morning....thoughts on writing have been replaced by technical frustration....so the thoughts were surplanted and never recorded...Hmm...maybe they'll come back.

Momentum

I feel the inerta. The taste of the cabability, the change, grows in my mouth. I know I'm not there yet, but I feel a growing sense of being on the right path, though the visibility is inherently low.
I want to sustain this, want to prove I can do it, want to succeed beyond the goals I've set. Free myself of limits, but maintain a focus. Self-Reliant is the phrase that dances in my head. I apperceive my growth, my increase of understanding.

I will be ready when the time and opportunity arrives, and it will come soon.

Questions

Questions are good. It means I know enough to ask, and what I know I don't know, I now give myself the capability to learn.
Not knowing is the root of fear, decisions made because something is not known are places of fear. Declination is not fear, in that it is decision made with knowing.
A cons lists of "I Don't Know..." and "What About..." is really an action list for success, a preminition of hurdles, you or someone else have put between you and your goal.
Knowing them you are more likely to prepare for them.

Words

Where are all the good words and why are they 'used up'?