“If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated.” – Algernon
The Importance of Being Earnest is by far my favorite play. I’ve read it twice and quoted from it multiple times over in my writing. (Also bias in the sense Oscar Wilde is my favorite poet.) I was finally fortunate enough to see a live rendition of it last night, and the show reminded me what makes a play or any artform remarkable.
People never talk about perfection and if they do, they are lying.
From a three hour-long play, only two actors made one mistake each. They merely started a word and, half-way through, restarted the word. There was a millisecond moment they questioned whether the word they were saying was the right word or not.
Again, over the span of three hours and thousands of words, only two moments reminded the audience the actors are human, and those two moments make all the difference in a remarkable show and an unremarkable one.
Jugglers, Actors, Humans
The reason jugglers attract such a crowd is they are in a constant state of risk. Even the most professional jugglers in the world still drop what they are juggling. If jugglers were perfect, no one would be impressed. The same goes for a playwright. The same goes for any form of art.
Slight noticeable errors are what we all relate to; it’s part of being human. When a minimal error is made during an act, it reminds the audience just how difficult, incredible and remarkable the art you’re doing is. As Earnest would suggest, it is mixing pleasure and science.
If anything were perfect entertainment (pleasure), it would go without being talked about. People talk about great experiences, sure, but never perfect ones and if they do, they are lying. (Consider giving them dental floss and reminding them lying through their teeth doesn’t count as flossing.) When an error is made, science complements pleasure.
The universal relation of humans is we may all strive for perfection, but we will never reach it. Any reminder of this concept, say, a slip of a word during a three hour-long play is what makes art of any kind, remarkable.
Stay Positive & Do Something Remarkable, Anything Except Perfection
There’s extreme power in balance, in meditation, in flow. I just don’t believe you can use all your potential that way. If you think of an idea and proceed to ruminate, perhaps you’ll reach a symbolic conclusion. Then what? What if you think of an idea and then run with it, try it out, make it happen? Psychological cardio.
Forget all adjectives used to describe ideas. An idea is an idea. The real meaning of it is defined by what you do with the idea, how far you run with it, what you shape it into. Don’t tell me what kind of idea it is. It doesn’t matter. Show me.
How do you run with an idea? That’s where bullying comes in. I’m not fond of the connotation bullying has taken on; it’s completely negative. There’s so much more we can learn from it. We are our own best bullies.
Track coaches are great bullies too. They push you to run further, they yell at you to run faster, they blow their whistle to get you to try the jump again, only this time, jump higher.
B2B bosses are great bullies too. They’ll tell you to go back and do something again until it’s right, they hold meetings with you just to tell you where you are failing and how to improve, they adapt negative reinforcement strategies into their training.
And as I said, we are our own best bullies. We have the chance everyday to steal our own lunch money, to trip ourselves up on a project, to hate on ourselves when we half-ass something. However, we can also yell at ourselves to get up off the ground, to blow a mental whistle signaling to try something again (practice, practice, practice), and to threaten ourselves with unemployment.
Every person I’ve spoken to who states they are self-employed, also tells me “my boss can be a real ass sometimes.”
Rightfully so! As a friend Tweeted at me yesterday, it’s not about seeing just the forest or just the trees, it’s not all in or nothing. She means that it’s a dance. We can institute positive reinforcement, but if we want to reach our fullest potential, there must also be negative reinforcement. To get the most out of our rumination, we also need to act on our thoughts. Think about it in terms of bullying.
What you hear about bullying is only the negative extremes of it. You never hear of bullying gone right even though it happens in our lives everyday and turns out some of the most talented artists.
You have a chance to redefine bullying, you have a chance to build up your psychological cardio, you have a chance to use all of your potential. You can read all the inspirational quotes you want, but follow them up with the crack of a bull whip.
Right now, you are doing one or the other. 20 minutes from now, you will be doing one or the other. Five years from now, you will be doing one or the other.
There is no middle ground, there is no hideout or escape from it.
It is very simple; if you are not using your highest potential, if you are not trying your hardest, then you are discouraging others. When people look at you, they may judge you and stereotype you, but at the same time, they are either encouraged by you or discouraged.
“Either they draw inspiration and want to do likewise or they draw discouragement because they see us not doing the most with our ability that we can be doing with that ability” – Zig Ziglar
If you’re not discouraging, then your encouraging. Simple as that.
I know that a couple book regurgitations ago I said that I really disliked reading books a second or third time. Not so ironically, this regurgitation of the book My Ishmael by Daniel Quinn is the result of a second reading. I knew it was an extremely powerful book and since I did not write a regurgitation last time, I wanted to write it before I gave it away for someone else to use as a tool to change the world.
The more books I read, especially ones by people like Daniel Quinn, the more I feel absolutely guilty of holding back the world when I put the book back on the shelf instead of giving it to someone else to read. Whether the person I give the book does the same or ends up sticking it on their shelf after reading it, at least I can say I gave a motivational tool to someone. I didn’t make it a keepsake. I helped the world become one person better than what it was by giving a good book to them. A good book can work wonders.
You will notice just how strong My Ishmael is as I write this regurgitation. Enjoy.
“Adults get real cranky if you quiz them about the scams they’re running on you.” (Pg 23) Real cranky, I might add.
If food became free, no more lock and no more key, what would become of thee.
You are food. You are who tradition feeds on endlessly.
But tradition holds the lock and you the key.- My own little jingle I came up with.
“Another rule of thumb you can use to identify the people of your culture is this: They perceive themselves to be members of a race that is fundamentally flawed and inherently doomed to suffering and misery. Because they’re fundamentally flawed, they expect wisdom to be a rare commodity, difficult to acquire. Because theyre inherently doomed, they’re not surprised to be living in the midst of poverty, injustice and crime, not surprised that their rulers are self-serving and corrupt, not surprised to be rendering the world uninhabitable for themselves. They may be indignant about these things, but they’re not surprised by them, because this is how they expect things to be.” (Pg 40)
I recently wrote a regurgitation on a book of history that persuaded me to comment about how history must to be taught in a way that teaches us “how” and “why”, not “what” happened. My Ishmael does part of it in the sense that he knows the future depends on understanding how we came to be the way we are.
I have always said that people want you to succeed, they really do. After reading My Ishmael, I realized why they do. People are meant to live successful lives. If we can just get enough people to ask themselves (ask yourself now), “Am I successful?” If the answer is no, then the way you’re living isn’t right and that effects everyone. You can’t not share success, so you must define what successful is and then try to live it that way for all of humanity to become wealthy. -And not the type of wealth that involves money, I’m speaking about the intangible kind of wealth-
Quinn notes how we perceive ourselves as being deprived of essential knowledge so special we can only access it through supernatural means. When really, essential knowledge comes from understanding and you don’t need superpowers to understand anything, just some time and a desire to actually understand it.Until that desire is declared, we will continue thinking of ourselves as wisdomonically impoverished. (Yes I made that word up)
Wisdom plays a huge role in Quinn’s reality that no invention ever comes into being fully developed in a single step from nothing. Wisdom is having an understanding of everything that has lead you to your current thought. It may take a billion ideas and theories before you become wise on a single subject just as it may take a billion projects and prototypes before an invention is fully developed. Most importantly, give it another year and the wise will become wiser and the inventor more inventive.
“Whatever grows without limit must inevitably end by overwhelming the universe” (Pg 62)
Quinn was sure to note that nothing comes into existence from failing and I had to add, ‘but anything can fail and become nonexistent.’
On the note of failure I must proclaim that anything that makes failure hurt will help you succeed.
“We know how to cope with everything that has already happened but we dont know how to cope with what has never happened before” – Daniel Quinn
Humans are passionate but inconsistent. [I’d like to quote myself on this…]
“I sense that more and more of you are becoming alarmed about your headlong plunge toward catastrophe. I sense that more and more of you are casting about for new ideas” (pg 127)
Quinn on school: “Do you know why students ask so many questions about their (the teachers) hobbies?” Because the teacher expresses real passion about it and even if the students don’t have any interest in their hobby, they are sung into listening from the teachers passion in telling.
School produces no value or skills because if they did, you would enter the job market competing with siblings for the same jobs that they worked to get by doing the menial jobs, the grunt work. That may be unfair to you, but I feel that the fact that it comes down to this is unfair.
“Imagine what a twelve-year-old with a musical bent could learn at a recording studio. Imagine what twelve-year-old with an interest in animals could learn at a zoo. Imagine what a twelve-year-old with an interest in painting could learn in an artist’s studio. Imagine what a twelve-year-old with an interest in performing could learn in a circus.” (Pg 164)
I have to agree with Quinn that if people were free to follow their passions, there would not be a single occupation that someone wouldn’t pursue.
Note: One of Quinn’s golden nuggets is definitely his explanation of the ‘make products to get products’, ‘give support to get support’ charts. Highly worth reading just for that.
“A problem shared wildly is no problem at all” (Pg 183)
Quinn’s 7 point plan — One: the revolution won’t take place all at once. Two: it will be achieved incrementally, by people working off each other’s ideas. Three: it will be led by no one. Four: it will not be the initiative of any political, governmental, or religious body. Five: it has no target end point. Six: it will proceed according to no plan. Seven: it will reward those who further the revolution with the coin of the revolution.
A positive revolution can only occur when you give something better than what a person already has. By giving something better, they lose interest in what they we’re just doing. I suppose that is a background theme to why I write; I just want you to know of all the possibilities and options that are open to you in hopes that you will let go of the destructive habits well all indulge ourselves in. I give you my total support. No reservations.
Humans are taught to expect little from life. Can we change that?
Stay Positive & An Experienced Intriguer And Confidence Trickster
I get a lot of people telling me that I inspire them, that they like the way I think and the status-quo-breaking ideas I come up with and test. I admire that. It’s important to note that the motivation I get to inspire other people comes from being inspired myself, from seeing extraordinary potential in people who lose themselves in creativity and from the challenge I give myself to help these artists as much as possible.
With this now in mind, I will be showcasing a small handful of interviews over the next few weeks. These people are artists that I have kept very little touch with, in fact, I may not have talked to them in years until I messaged them recently inquiring if they would participate in an interview. These are noteworthy people, people whom I noticed there to be potential that I would hope to be cracked open all the way. So with that, I am handing you the hammer, the ability to connect, learn from, enjoy, and inspire these people.
Interview: Rose Kendall
The first person who’s interview I will be sharing is Rose Kendall. I met Rose in a Poetry 101 class over two years ago, never really talked in class other than when there were class discussions, and I still remember the passion she poured into her poetry. It’s easy to standout in class by dressing uniquely, being pretty and always participating. It’s not however, easy to standout in poetry. Rose does this and I hope you enjoy the following interview. Feel free to leave a note in the comments section or add Rose on Facebook.
Q: Now, I know your passion is writing. What type of writing do you love most and why?
My favorite type of writing is poetry. I love all types of writing, but poetry speaks the most to me because on one level it is trying to compact so many different emotions and thoughts into one small space, but on another level it can bring so many different ideas and concepts to the table in the subtle meanings of line breaks and punctuation. While I do believe that fiction also has a tendency to be descriptive, poetry is tantalizing because to me personally it propels the imagination like a movie, with the possibility of going in so many different directions.
Q: What gets you through the hard times of writing (depleted inspiration, writers block, time, emotion, etc)?
Listening to good music (I usually pick Sia, Damien Rice, Stateless, Florence + the Machine, and David Gray), closing my eyes, and thinking about what exactly the message is that I want to give off. Then I can usually come up with images that accompany that message. Most times it’s a good start.
Q: If you had to make your own writing prompt, what would it be?
It would be to take a piece of paper, fold it in half, and write on one side a list of nouns that are very common (like clouds, or sun) and on the other side list five adjectives you would never think to use to describe the noun. You will be challenged in so many ways you never thought were possible
Q: What do you want your legacy to be?
I want to be able to share with the world the sadness and anger I feel at the horrifying things that are occurring on a daily basis all over the world. As a society, I feel there are so many topics we are afraid to talk about for various reasons, so we sweep them under the rug (whether conscientiously or not) and choose to avoid them. Yes, they are hard topics, but if we are not made aware of them we will not be able to appropriate the change needed to stop these crimes from happening.
Therefore, I hope to shock my audience enough that they can’t decide if they want to get out of their chair and leave when I’m reading to them, or if they want to stay and consider what is really happening in the world. I would love to be able to travel around the globe and present to large audience my heart and my passion. I also want to continue to become published, and maybe one day be able to publish a whole book of poems.
Q: What determines a successful writing day?
A successful writing day usually is accompanied by a thought or an idea taking form into a poem, but very successful if a whole poem (or more than one) is written.
Q: Take me through a though process of a poem. Do you plan it out? Relate it to your life? Free write?
When I’m writing a poem I generally pick a topic I feel strongly about and concentrate on how I feel as well as why I feel that way. Once I come up with that, generally I will “see” what I want to write in my head. It’s like a movie, and at the risk of sounding like a schizophrenic, I have seen several of my characters chatting with me at the edge of the bed. Maybe less chatting and more just standing there and telepathically telling me their story. Either way once their story is being told it kind of just flows out. Some stories are harder than others, but most times I listen to a lot of calming or inspiring music to try to urge them to tell me. Sometimes when that doesn’t work, lines of poems come to me when I’m trying my hardest to sleep.
Q: What is the most helpful advice you have been given?
Keep a journal of all of the compliments and accomplishments I have made in writing. When I feel like I’m not a good enough writer, or I’m having a dry spell, I read them to remind myself how much I have accomplished. Also, keeping old poetry no matter how bad it is shows to me how far I have come.
Q: What advice would you give to other writers?
Do not worry about what one person thinks about your poetry. There will always be that one person (or a group of people) who are offended by what you write or think it’s no good. Keep working on your goals, and you can accomplish anything. Do not be afraid to have other people give you constructive criticism, it can make you grow in ways you never imagined.
Q: Would you care to share a poem?
After tonight
she’ll never ever again
have to wonder
what it feels like
to try to jump over a barbed wire fence,
catch her foot,
and slam her throat
into the wire
–it’s like climbing to the top
tippy top
of a tree,
* snap *
that first breath
you suck in after collapsing
back first, lungs turning black—
only his weapons are his words
and last night he decided
to see how many it took
before they wrapped around her neck
like his thumbs
squeezing
tightening
thrusting
until she’s one breath away
from dying.
and then he lets go.
She sees herself in the reflection
of the spit he sprays across
her face
the growl that echoes deep in the caves
of his lungs
and she remembers
how beautiful she once was
before the cancer
of the vacuum of his world
started eating away at her face
formed valleys and canyons
that were never there in her youth
even though she’s only 29.
when i first met her
she was perched on
the windowsill of my breaking heart
trying to kick her way
into the bullet-proof glass
surrounding my hope
and complicated things
like how I felt seeing
her teeth sprawled
across the living room floor
after last night’s fight
came too close
to leaving too much proof
so she lies
tells her friends that the dog
pulled her up the stairs and she tripped
(which dog she does not clarify).
but i can feel her,
see her floating nightgown
near the ocean on the edge of my bed
tangerine sunrises
screaming “helpme”
because even though
he’s a vacuum
trying to rid her of herself
of the filth she carries around
in the form of personality
she’s stronger than the marble
statue he wants to turn her into
and her beauty
is a cool breeze in the desert
he does not know how
to appreciate her love.
they always taught him
“be stronger than your fist”
but his fists are like concrete
and his words are like
espestice
eating away
at her lungs
liquid drowning her
under the tide he confuses
with affection.
so i pull her into my bed
twist her hair around my fingers
and show her
what a field of roses
feels like when it’s growing
just beneath your breastbone
and she’s blooming
i know i imagine
what her love would look like
as a photo on my mantle
–my prized wife
because she’s too beautiful
to be a trophy
she deserves to shine
like the sun.
so after tonight
i’m going to take her hand
twist out the fear
gently
and carry her
to the palace
she deserves.
and if he shows up
at my door
looking for her
i’ll blow his fucking head off.
It’s been over a month and a half since I attended Seth Godin’s Pick Yourself event in Tribeca (NY). There’s a specific reason I waited so long to reflect on the event. I wanted to prove a point, not just about Seth Godin, but what any business must produce, whether in product or experience.
Simply put, it must be astonishingly remarkable, something so memorable it is still thought of and excites a person’s senses a month, five months or a year after the product is purchased or the service is used. Essentially, that is what Seth Godin’s Pick Yourself event manifested, so it is with easy honor that I will hit some points from it again along with my own curves and twists of ideas.
I had no inclination to write this so soon. I decided to after I created a new motto the other day, tweeted it and it got retweeted by a few people. It was just another tweet, another 140 characters that my mind spit out and that I needed to share.
My motto: Give yourself authority.
It was only after I expressed the motto on twitter that I was tapped by the memory of Seth Godin’s Pick Yourself event, which it’s theme was to not wait for someone to pick you, not wait for an authority to notice you, to get lucky; but to pick yourself, solve the problems yourself, find the opportunity yourself, to lead yourself and quite plainly, as my motto states, give yourself authority.
72 Steps To Starbucks Coffee
While in New York City every 72 steps, either if I turned left or right, I would be facing a Starbucks. In Manhattan alone, there are approximately 300 Starbucks stores. That means that out of all the registered Coffee Shops in New York, Starbucks consists of about 60% of them. In a city dominated by the outlier of the Coffee Industry, how can any other coffee shops even make it?
That’s a simple answer that you can come up with. The better question is how Starbucks was able to take a symbol from Moby Dick, use it as it’s logo, and create a brand – an understanding of when you see the symbol, you are going to smell the richest Coffee in town and get free Wi-Fi along with the absolute best customer service.
It’s A Revolution
The dictionary says that a revolution is a single turn of event. Our revolution, the one we don’t quite understand, the one we thought could be easily understood, the one that is making us question nearly everything, is not a single turn of event, it’s a million turns. This revolution is something that is a collective change in one sense, but deep down to it, it’s about the turn each one of us makes, a turn that may be different than the person next to us. While putting it in the most simple form, the revolution is about giving yourself authority, ridding yourself of the chains of tradition and following your passion to create art. Yet, to do each of these things is not something that we can do collectively, being collective is what got us in this grave. No. This must be done individually; each person must make the choice, must give themselves authority and use it. In its entirety, this revolution will turn Perfect into impossible
Instead Of Giving It Our All
Seth gave a long description about the industrial age and this new age of connection. The one take I want to share with you from the event is this.
“So one quick example, just to show you how deeply ingrained this is. If you don’t mind, raise your right hand just as high as you can. Okay, now raise it just a little higher.”
Instead of giving it our all the first time, we give enough and then a bit more when told to. Some people raised their hands 20% higher, others 5% higher when told to raise it a bit higher. In a room of about 200 people there was about 4,000% of potential not being used until told to. The way I see it, even if you gave 100% and raised your hand as high as possible the first time, you would still find a way to raise it higher.
I No Longer Market To You
I had no clue what real type of marketing I was doing on my website until I heard Seth Godin say this, “Because marketing has shifted from me marketing at you, to you marketing to each other.” So, when creating a product, running a business or writing a blog, you can provide all the strong content you would like, but unless you know what you want to do with your audience, your tribe, unless you know how to give them strategies to market to each other and other people that will join your tribe, you have nothing.
Juggling
Seth Godin also inspired me to write this post: The Juggler’s Perfection. On the note of Juggling, of doing what you love, of taking that risk…
“Is it worth getting arrested for?” – Seth Godin
Bluffs, Excuses and The Promise
You think you have a hundred reasons not do something, not to take leap, not to go out on your own or start your business or take a risk to achieve what you really want. Actually, you probably only have 15 to 20 excuses, or rather, they are bluffs. When you sit down, write the list of the 15 to 20 bluffs, and work through it, you will find that either you don’t have anything holding you back, or you just need to work out a way to get around one or two excuses (a lot easier than working around 20). What it comes down to, what it really comes down to is that you want a promise it will work. You want the paper to say, after you have crossed all your bluffs out, that it will work indefinitely.
There will never be a promise that it’s going to work. Once you realize that, you realize there’s no point in making a list, not because there’s no point in achieving your goal anymore, but because you realize that you are going to have to take a risk and that there isn’t a promise, you will say “something is better than nothing” and get on with it, ship the product or start the business. As humans, if we are not promised lobster (perfection), we would rather have crawfish (anything) than nothing at all. Once you realize there is no promise of perfection, no lobster, it makes doing the thing you made a list of bluffs for, all the more easy. You may even find that you like crawfish more than lobster.
A couple of sayings to use/share
Money is a weight you can run much faster without
You will be wrong a lot, but you will be right a lot too
All you need to care about is being human
The Two Achievements I Made After The Event
Seth made a simple, yet such an extremely interesting point about entrepreneurship and freelance. A freelancer gets paid when she ships, delivers the product, finishes. The entrepreneur gets paid while she sleeps. I am happy to say that, while I still do freelance writing, I have crafted a segment of it into a businesses in which I have hired two employees already! I now sleep easier (because I know I’m getting paid for it) and I have more time to do $100 an hour work that makes a much larger impact on the world – which leads me to…
The second achievement is nearly ready to be shipped. My 30,000 word manifest on what school is for: a view from an 18-year-old graduate who received his associates degree and plans to go back for a master’s degree. Not for the diploma, but for the information and experience being within the system will produce, in order to write a 90,000 word sequel upon graduation. The eBook, Start Schooling Dreams will be released at the beginning of August, 2012, completely free. More background information to come soon.
Stay Positive & Take The Authority, Make A Badge Even
