Two Books In My Bag

This morning before I left the house I remembered that I am sixty pages from finishing the book I'm reading. I was in the living room and went over to the windowsill where I keep the books I'm hoping to read soon. I grabbed one and tucked it in my bag with the other. Then I was ready to leave the house for my job.

Stephen King says this in On Writing:

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around those two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.

In that book he talks about how he carries a book with him everywhere. I bet a lot of those books are on his phone or an e-reader, but I prefer to think of him with an actual book in his hand, held loosely as he walks, open on his lap in waiting rooms, and on the car seat when he drives because that's how it is with me.

Yesterday just before three my daughter texted that she would be done with rehearsal at three-thirty. I texted back "On my way." She wrote, "I've still got at least half an hour???" I said, "No worries. I've got my book." I drove to the school, parked, and opened my book. I read seventy pages before she came out and I couldn't have been happier. I read my book and then saw her smiling face. My life is good.

Teaching school, I schedule time for kids to read books of their choosing. There's all sorts of pedagogy behind that decision and thankfully the data from a silly reading test the school makes me give backs up what we're doing, but let's face the fact that we do reading time so I can read my book too. Call it a win-win and leave it at that.

One of my great fears in life is that I will find myself somewhere without a book to read. That this is the extent of my fears as opposed to sudden death, sickness, cancer, or another Coldplay album means I'm living well. Still, being without a book to read is fearsome enough that I remember to tuck a second book in my bag.

However comforting that second book in my bag might be, there is of course a downside beyond the added weight and overdue fees at the library. It's that now I want to finish the first book so I can dig into the second. I'm ready to abandon all other responsibilities and sit still turning page. Getting fired has nothing on not finishing the book. That's a problem too. Yet another problem I'm not too upset about having.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to reading.

Head In The Sand

Alan Jacobs writes in his January 23, 2019 newsletter:

"On Tuesday morning, January 22, I read a David Brooks column about a confrontation that happened on the National Mall during the March for Life. Until I read that column I had heard nothing about this incident because I do not have a Facebook account, have deleted my Twitter account, don’t watch TV news, and read the news about once a week. If all goes well, I won’t hear anything more about the story. I recommend this set of practices to you all."

My first thought is to agree with this but that's followed hard upon by the notion that Jacobs and I have our heads in the sand. It can be some of both I think. There may be benefits to having my head in the sand when it comes to the news which often has the appearance of and is as insubstantial as gossip.

Like Jacobs I also wrote about that confrontation on the National Mall and have since avoided all news of it. My brother brought up a couple points about it but that has been the sum total of my reading, listening, or viewing of the event since the morning after it happened. I liked what my brother said about it being the perfect news story for our times because absolutely no one, not even the participants, can say for sure what happened and there is nothing we can believe about it other than the assumptions we brought to it. My experience with difficult students colored how I saw and reacted to the situation. The story wasn't about anything that happened far away. It was all about what I feel is happening near and to me.

Look at me with my head in the sand. Alan Jacobs is there with me somewhere. Neither of us deny the crises of the moment, the evils perpetrated by too many in power, the problems plaguing our world, but rather than focus on the minutia of whatever just happened I want to consider a longer view if for no other reason than I have felt how easy it is to be manipulated by this Republican administration that distracts from their intentions with antics and ridiculous rhetoric.

Jacobs quotes Brian Eno:

We don’t yet, however, live in The Long Now. Our empathy doesn’t extend far forward in time. We need now to start thinking of our great-grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren, as other fellow-humans who are going to live in a real world which we are incessantly, though only semi-consciously, building. But can we accept that our actions and decisions have distant consequences, and yet still dare do anything?

and responds:

My question for Eno: Is it possible to think constructively and empathetically about our great-grandchildren, and their great-children, without also thinking constructively and empathetically about our great-grandparents, and their great-grandparents? I suspect it is not possible — that without understanding our past we will be unable to wisely direct the future — and that’s one reason why I’m writing the book I’m writing.

I like the idea of considering this moment in terms of the far future and distant past. I like imagining my great-grandchildren and great-grandparents neither of whom exist in the world in this moment. I never met my great-grandparents and don't even have grandchildren yet. Holding these people in mind is a challenging act of thinking, imagining, and empathizing. It requires I thoughtfully consider my place in a very large world one that not only extends around the circumference of the Earth but reaches far back and forward in time. It affects how I feel about even mundane things like shopping.

Friends wonder why I link to Indiebound.org books when I would likely make more sales through Amazon. I avoid Amazon because when I consider the times of my great-grandparents and the lives of my great-grandchildren I'm disturbed by the ideas Amazon represents. I don't want to get on a soapbox (not today anyway) about Amazon but thinking long-term has me shopping elsewhere (or not shopping at all). I've long been a person unwilling to delay gratification and so everything Amazon does satisfies those desires. Resistance isn't easy but neither is it futile.

I've recently made a big decision about my future. I considered how I was feeling in the present, what my past has indicated, and what I want from my future. The decision has been made difficult for years because of everyday distractions some of which are important (paying bills, providing the family with healthcare, saving for retirement). Being in the moment when I'm holding the bill or looking at our checking account balance, I haven't been able to think past those immediate emergencies and have pushed the decision to a time when I'm not distracted, a quieter time. That quiet time has yet to come but I've been brought to thinking back on the example of my father and forward to the examples I want to set for my children. I have been confronted by my long-term desire. It's not enough to be concerned with whatever happened ten minutes ago on Instagram, in The New York Times, or along the National Mall. There are larger issues to address and on which to focus especially in the locus of our individual lives.

There is no shortage of crises. Even with my head in this sand I can still see and feel that. The crisis on which I'm most focused at the moment has little to do with the morning news or anything on Twitter. It stretches from a much more distant place and out into the great unknown. Instead of the news I'm listening to jazz on vinyl from 63 years ago. It sounds good and clear. No sand in my ears. Maybe I don't have my head in the sand so much as I'm lying somewhere on a beach looking up into the infinite sky and listening to the waves which have pounded that sand seemingly since time began.

No Reason To Celebrate

Almost 5,000 Morning Pages. That's the count.

If my math is correct I've written 1,663 days of Morning Pages. Three pages a day means I've filled 4,989 pages in four and a half years. Friday I'll cross the 5,000 page threshold.

Whoop-dee-doo.

Having written that many pages is nice. Since I average 800 words per session I've likely written something like 1.3 million words. That's more than a few. But the only statistic that matters even a little is that I've done 1,663 days in a row. I haven't missed one day.

Even that's not crucial in any universal sense but it matters to me. I have a habit of starting or deciding but then abandoning. I have every intention of staying with things and making good on my promises but then get distracted, bored, or more likely frustrated and let things go. I've been distracted from and bored by some of my Morning Pages sessions. You bet your ass I've gotten frustrated. There was a week when I considered taking an intentional day off to break the streak as Cal Ripken Jr. did. I decided against it, worried worried (rightly so) that I would let the practice go. How long after he broke the streak did Cal Ripken Jr. quit the game?

Even the streak isn't much to brag about any more. It was more impressive at fifty days or one hundred or my first 365 because back then it was still a struggle. I had to overcome all that kept me from developing the habit. I don't have those problems any more and so at 1,663 days, the streak just feels meh because it's just what I do.

This morning I was too tired at 4:40 but got out of bed and into Morning Pages stopping between only to use the bathroom and make a mug of coffee. There was no more question about doing the pages than of going to the bathroom. At this point the coffee is more in doubt than the pages.

This isn't a heroic story. It's the story of a plodder. Years ago a fellow runner described me as a plodder. He tried to apologize for it but I agreed. Plodders don't run fast but they can run far. I'm happy when I become a plodder at anything I'm doing. Running or writing, it's the same to me. Plodders persevere. I've heard that a million words is a good start for most people. As a plodder, I figure it will take me a few million. I don't mind.

Friday, barring some disaster, as I write the last word on my second morning page I'll have filled 5,000 pages. There will be no fireworks, cake, or champagne. There's no need to celebrate. There's just the next page.

Deliver Me From Anger

I keep thinking about going back to social media.

I don't miss it but I'm trying to start a writing career and self-promotion is part of that. I have 45 subscribers to my newsletter and no one makes a career on that small of a platform. Social media is the obvious way to get the word out and push things to another level. All week I've felt almost compelled to rejoin Twitter and Facebook and to sign up for Instagram.

Then this crap happens.

In the news, there was a picture of a kid in one of those hateful red hats smirking at a Native American man beating a drum. There's video of high school kids seeming to surround the kid and the man with fury. Both picture and video disquiet me but something else really makes me uncomfortable.

The day the story broke I read an article about it and got angry at that kid. It was that smirk and how he stood in the man's space. I teach high school and see that kind of deniable aggression often. I felt myself go toward anger and dive in deep. Then I dove into the web to find out more.

The school from which the kids had come was identified and so was the smirking kid. I wanted to flame everyone involved. I wanted revenge. I wanted to get angrier. I searched for more, more, and more to feed my anger. That kid's name was all over the web and I was part of a growing mob calling for his head. From what I've read about such things we were all reacting predictably to the stimuli. That's just what social media algorithms feast on.

Eventually, I backed away from the computer. I still went to bed angry at that kid but stopped reading for the night. Good thing too. The next day I saw that the kid had come forward to say who he was. Turns out it wasn't the kid identified the night before, the one my mob was after.

The headline for the new piece began "A More Complicated Story Emerges..." Complications get lost in anger. I scanned the story but couldn't stand reading it or looking again at the picture of what I still see as the kid's condescending and provocative smirk. I closed the browser tab.

I don't want choose anger.

There may come a time I go back to social media to promote my writing. If so I hope I'm not led into temptation but find a way to be delivered from evil. I might need to look higher than a social media platform for that kind of guidance.

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I've chosen not to link to the articles or post the picture. Nothing good can be gained from that.