Throughout the year, I'll be testing various attitudes, behaviours, et cetera, to see if they make my life more awesome.
Worry is something that drives me nuts in other people, and as is the case so often, it does so because I recognize it as something I don't like about myself. I am a worrier, nervous by disposition, prone to panic at the earliest provocation. Or at least I am in my head. I tend to internalize a lot. (Possibly another thing I need to work on, but that's for another time.)
Worrying is useless. Caution is useful: it prevents you from making mistakes. Preventative actions and decisive actions are useful: they prevent negative outcomes. But worrying is just empty mind-space. Will something bad happen? Possibly. Will the likelihood of it change through the act of worrying? No.
I once worked with a very laconic joker of a guy, who also happened to have been a civil engineering student. One day the office started shaking. I immediately looked at him, assuming he was playing a practical joke that I hadn't quite worked out. He, in turn, was quietly but intently headed to the safest place in the office, underneath a support beam, as he knew what was going on: we were in an earthquake.
There was something about that quiet efficiency that always struck me: after all, few are more aware of the potential catastrophe of an earthquake than a civil engineer. And yet here he was, not screaming, not fretting, not worrying: just doing what was necessary to avoid the most non-awesome possible outcomes.
(Again: I can't speak for what he was doing on the inside. But the outside is what I saw.)
Conversely, I have worked with many worriers, and been one myself in many other situations. I'm pretty sure it's never done any good in and of itself. (I encourage anyone with counterexamples to mention them.) On one show I worked on, I spent months worrying that our team wouldn't make a deadline. Then it became clear to everyone else that we wouldn't make the deadline. Then everyone else panicked. My worry clearly did nothing to prevent the problem. If I worried less in general, would sternly worded caution have helped to prevent the outcome? Don't know, but when the guy who doesn't worry speaks up, people listen; when the guy who worries speaks up, he's just being a pain in the ass again.
Or such is my experience, anyway.
So going forward, I am consciously attempting to short-circuit my emotional "worry" reaction whenever possible, through a combination of preventative actions and emotional channeling. These are phrases I just made up, so they probably deserve clarification.
As to the former: yesterday, I flew back to Dunedin. An hour before I left, I started packing, calmly, to music. There was more I would have liked to do in Auckland, and I could have possibly done more, but then it would have been a mad rush, and I would have started worrying about missing the plane. By not setting myself up for an impossible situation, I didn't have to worry about getting out on time.
As to the latter: I did some maths on the way to the airport, looking at the time, and realized I could possibly miss the luggage boarding time. I kept thinking three things:
1. The bag will get there eventually, one way or another.
2. Nothing you can do will change this.
3. You're driving around with friends on a glorious day listening to SINGLES GOING STEADY by The Buzzcocks. Be here. Enjoy this.
And then I booked like hell when I got out of the car, and got my bag on the plane with 2 minutes to spare.
No worries. It's been easy so far this year. Now that I'm back to work, hopefully I can maintain it. I am confident I will have greater things to worry about through the year; I strive to be equally confident that I will choose not to worry about them.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Friday, January 2, 2009
AWESOME DIARY ENTRY #3
Dunedin, NZ
03 Jan, 08:00 PM
np: THE COMPLETE STAX/VOLT SINGLES, disc 6.
It's time to write some goals. Almost.
But first, to settle back in to my Dunedin flat. Calmly. One thing I am learning, or have decided, is that the Year of the Awesome is not about overloading on doing something CRA-ZY and EXTREME! every day. Doing a new adventure sport every day is not only expensive and unsustainable, but it obliterates a whole other class of subtle and free but equally awesome pleasures.
One of my favorite memories of Houston was a day when my roommate* Andy and I both came home on one of those days when the weather was turning fierce, and the humidity was approximately 100%. You could feel the storm coming. We got two cold Shiner Bocks out of the fridge, put on Steve Reich's "It's Gonna Rain", and sat on the porch, waiting for the rain to hit, watching as it did, until finally the wind was so fierce it was time to go inside.
It may lose something in the retelling, but it was instantly a moment that we'd never forget, unlike hundreds of other rainstorms in Houston I can't recall.
Today I sat in the Christchurch airport, waiting for my delayed flight. It was delayed because of lightning and hail. But I'd deliberately set up my flights so there was no stress on when I arrived (well, as long as it was tonight sometime.) So I alternately read from my current book and practiced taking pictures of the tarmac with the new camera. A non-awesome situation promptly had its non-awesomeness negated.
You can't do intrinsically awesome things all the time. But you can do a lot to increase the awesomeness of normal things.
Time to put on disc 7, make a salad, and write some goals.
*cultural difference: in NZ, this would be "flatmate", as we did not share a room. It's rather strange writing cross-culturally about past events. I have yet to determine the most awesome solution.
03 Jan, 08:00 PM
np: THE COMPLETE STAX/VOLT SINGLES, disc 6.
It's time to write some goals. Almost.
But first, to settle back in to my Dunedin flat. Calmly. One thing I am learning, or have decided, is that the Year of the Awesome is not about overloading on doing something CRA-ZY and EXTREME! every day. Doing a new adventure sport every day is not only expensive and unsustainable, but it obliterates a whole other class of subtle and free but equally awesome pleasures.
One of my favorite memories of Houston was a day when my roommate* Andy and I both came home on one of those days when the weather was turning fierce, and the humidity was approximately 100%. You could feel the storm coming. We got two cold Shiner Bocks out of the fridge, put on Steve Reich's "It's Gonna Rain", and sat on the porch, waiting for the rain to hit, watching as it did, until finally the wind was so fierce it was time to go inside.
It may lose something in the retelling, but it was instantly a moment that we'd never forget, unlike hundreds of other rainstorms in Houston I can't recall.
Today I sat in the Christchurch airport, waiting for my delayed flight. It was delayed because of lightning and hail. But I'd deliberately set up my flights so there was no stress on when I arrived (well, as long as it was tonight sometime.) So I alternately read from my current book and practiced taking pictures of the tarmac with the new camera. A non-awesome situation promptly had its non-awesomeness negated.
You can't do intrinsically awesome things all the time. But you can do a lot to increase the awesomeness of normal things.
Time to put on disc 7, make a salad, and write some goals.
*cultural difference: in NZ, this would be "flatmate", as we did not share a room. It's rather strange writing cross-culturally about past events. I have yet to determine the most awesome solution.
YotA Book #1: Hunter S. Thompson, BETTER THAN SEX
I intend to read more this year, because reading is awesome. I will try to write something about every book I read here.
Does Dr. Hunter S. Thompson need an introduction? Quite possibly, if only because his writing is more varied and intelligent than he gets credit for. Being relatively uninterested in reading page after page of drug-addled nonsense, I ignored him for far too long, until, interest piqued by the positive opinions of many intelligent and awesome friends, I picked up The Great Shark Hunt at a used bookstore one vacation. It's the perfect introduction to HST: a sprawling work excerpting everything from serious early journalism to his later gonzo style writing, and it's a satisfying reading on its own.
Better Than Sex is the fourth book I've read by him, falling a good twenty years after Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail and returning to the same topic. To be honest, I prefer the earlier book: while HST was deep into his gonzo phase already, he was also on the road, getting the stories, and writing long flowing streams of prose, albeit with his usual tirades, sideways turns, and, well, personal touch.
By the time of this book, narrative flow is replaced by a series of short bursts of writing punctuated with fax pages - his preferred form of communication - all told, creating the (accurate) image of HST as a man hiding in Colorado, watching a political nightmare unfold while blasted off his tits, and spurting out spasms of unshaped genius, free-associating into the depths of conspiracies.
To which I can hear a voice saying: "You're saying that like it's a bad thing." And independently, it's not. Objectively, it's a pretty fascinating book, and certainly worth the time of anyone remotely interested in HST. But overall, despite some genius flights of fancy, I didn't find it as rewarding as his earlier work.
At the end of Better Than Sex, though, is a eulogy for Richard Nixon, if the term can be applied in this case. It's a relentless, relentlessly incisive, brutal piece of writing, and one that lays the sensitive heart of HST bare. Behind the drugs, guns, insanity, and self-caricaturizing was a man who cared more about this country than even his supporters really imagined.
The final paragraph:
He has poisoned our water forever. Nixon will be remembered as a classic case of a smart man shitting in his own nest. But he also shit in our nests, and that was the crime that history will burn on his memory like a brand. By disgracing and degrading the presidency of the United States, by fleeing the White House like a diseased cur, Richard Nixon broke the heart of the American Dream.
The combination of passion, incisiveness, and imagistic obscenity in one short paragraph is Thompson at his greatest, and why he is, well, awesome. I'm saddened to think of what we lost with his suicide: his writing would have provided a fresh, much-welcomed perspective during the Obama/McCain campaign.
Next book: probably McSweeney's THRILLING TALES anthology.
Does Dr. Hunter S. Thompson need an introduction? Quite possibly, if only because his writing is more varied and intelligent than he gets credit for. Being relatively uninterested in reading page after page of drug-addled nonsense, I ignored him for far too long, until, interest piqued by the positive opinions of many intelligent and awesome friends, I picked up The Great Shark Hunt at a used bookstore one vacation. It's the perfect introduction to HST: a sprawling work excerpting everything from serious early journalism to his later gonzo style writing, and it's a satisfying reading on its own.
Better Than Sex is the fourth book I've read by him, falling a good twenty years after Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail and returning to the same topic. To be honest, I prefer the earlier book: while HST was deep into his gonzo phase already, he was also on the road, getting the stories, and writing long flowing streams of prose, albeit with his usual tirades, sideways turns, and, well, personal touch.
By the time of this book, narrative flow is replaced by a series of short bursts of writing punctuated with fax pages - his preferred form of communication - all told, creating the (accurate) image of HST as a man hiding in Colorado, watching a political nightmare unfold while blasted off his tits, and spurting out spasms of unshaped genius, free-associating into the depths of conspiracies.
To which I can hear a voice saying: "You're saying that like it's a bad thing." And independently, it's not. Objectively, it's a pretty fascinating book, and certainly worth the time of anyone remotely interested in HST. But overall, despite some genius flights of fancy, I didn't find it as rewarding as his earlier work.
At the end of Better Than Sex, though, is a eulogy for Richard Nixon, if the term can be applied in this case. It's a relentless, relentlessly incisive, brutal piece of writing, and one that lays the sensitive heart of HST bare. Behind the drugs, guns, insanity, and self-caricaturizing was a man who cared more about this country than even his supporters really imagined.
The final paragraph:
He has poisoned our water forever. Nixon will be remembered as a classic case of a smart man shitting in his own nest. But he also shit in our nests, and that was the crime that history will burn on his memory like a brand. By disgracing and degrading the presidency of the United States, by fleeing the White House like a diseased cur, Richard Nixon broke the heart of the American Dream.
The combination of passion, incisiveness, and imagistic obscenity in one short paragraph is Thompson at his greatest, and why he is, well, awesome. I'm saddened to think of what we lost with his suicide: his writing would have provided a fresh, much-welcomed perspective during the Obama/McCain campaign.
Next book: probably McSweeney's THRILLING TALES anthology.
a few notes about an awesome dream.
3 Jan 09
Auckland, NZ, 8:31 AM
np: fridge hum, birdsong
I used to think I never dreamed because I could never remember them, bar one dream around 12 years old where I was flying over my hometown to the comic book store. Then I took a psychology class where we were forced to keep a dream journal, and I managed to remember three dreams that week. Which is about average these days, but I usually forget them instantly, even the awesome ones.
This morning, I remembered a particularly vivid fragment of my dream when I woke up, and started to try to piece everything together.
Dreams are awesome. This one would have been even more awesome if I hadn't spent half of it worrying about paying for parking.
Auckland, NZ, 8:31 AM
np: fridge hum, birdsong
I used to think I never dreamed because I could never remember them, bar one dream around 12 years old where I was flying over my hometown to the comic book store. Then I took a psychology class where we were forced to keep a dream journal, and I managed to remember three dreams that week. Which is about average these days, but I usually forget them instantly, even the awesome ones.
This morning, I remembered a particularly vivid fragment of my dream when I woke up, and started to try to piece everything together.
- A rotund Michael Moore breaking down a door at a friend's house to retrieve a DVD of ROGER & ME.
- Robyn Hitchcock performing a live, standup-bass only set at an intimate venue. The version of "Birds in Perspex" still glistens in my head.
- Japanese saxophonist Kazutoki Umezu performing some conceptual piece that began with six bikini models playing unruly noises on bass saxophones while rolling onstage. Somehow, a tent materialized. I went in, and in the front of the tent (which was massively large) was a hostess who had a 42 Below drink on offer, after which a second drink was queued, after which I would go to the next room and sit with Kazutoki Umezu and ... something would happen. (At which point I woke up)
Dreams are awesome. This one would have been even more awesome if I hadn't spent half of it worrying about paying for parking.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
AWESOME DIARY ENTRY #2
Raglan, NZ
02 Jan, 12:26 AM
np: Radiohead, OK COMPUTER
Spending two hours with Alastair going through over 1000 trip photos, deciding which are awesome, putting them in a iPhoto album and sharing them with Al's mum: awesome.
iPhoto crashing and losing track of what we put in the album before Nicole could see it and before we tweaked all the photos = decidedly NON-AWESOME.
In point of fact, I am completely sick of iPhoto, and if anyone can offer an alternative Mac photo browser that imports existing iPhoto albums, this would greatly increase the amount of awesome in my computing life, particularly as I intend to spend a lot more time playing with photos in 2009, both because of my new camera (a Canon D40, my first digital SLR) and because I'm starting to think of awesome things to do with some of my pictures.
Regardless, there is no way that iPhoto can negate the awesomeness of a day in which I paraglided for the first time.
again, posted belatedly from Auckland because I couldn't be bothered finding a wi-fi spot in Raglan.
02 Jan, 12:26 AM
np: Radiohead, OK COMPUTER
Spending two hours with Alastair going through over 1000 trip photos, deciding which are awesome, putting them in a iPhoto album and sharing them with Al's mum: awesome.
iPhoto crashing and losing track of what we put in the album before Nicole could see it and before we tweaked all the photos = decidedly NON-AWESOME.
In point of fact, I am completely sick of iPhoto, and if anyone can offer an alternative Mac photo browser that imports existing iPhoto albums, this would greatly increase the amount of awesome in my computing life, particularly as I intend to spend a lot more time playing with photos in 2009, both because of my new camera (a Canon D40, my first digital SLR) and because I'm starting to think of awesome things to do with some of my pictures.
Regardless, there is no way that iPhoto can negate the awesomeness of a day in which I paraglided for the first time.
again, posted belatedly from Auckland because I couldn't be bothered finding a wi-fi spot in Raglan.
ENTERING THE YEAR OF THE AWESOME PROPERLY
or, how I failed to jump out of a plane but still landed in the air
The Year of the Awesome, when conceived, needed a grand sendoff, and the plan for New Year's Day took hold one day in a kebab shop in Dunedin: jumping out of a plane.
I'm not a big believer in the ceremonial, but if any year would be an exception to the rule, it should be this one. And reaching terminal velocity while jumping out of a plane seemed to be the ideal way to shake off the demons of 2008. And, better still, a friend works at a skydiving company in Taupo! I called Alastair, and had a conversation like this:
"What do you think about jumping out of a plane on New Year's Day?"
(pause) "That would be ... awesome."
"Exactly."
Scene.
A simple, elegant plan, and one that came all too easily undone. It turns out that they didn't do dives on January 1st, and with a flight back to Dunedin impending later wasn't realistic. Eventually, begrudgingly, we settled on a date of December 30th, planning a day trip from our retreat in Raglan 3 1/2 hours east for an afternoon dive, then returning that night. I crossed my fingers that 2008's final surprise wouldn't be a parachute failure at 7,000 feet.
And then December 30th came, and the weather was pissy and miserable, and it became obvious it wasn't going to clear up anytime soon. A few texts later, confirming it was the same in Taupo, and that plan was cancelled.
To add insult to injury, around 3 pm the sky cleared and the day was as lovely to hope for. While I didn't confirm the same was the case in Taupo, I suspect it might have been, and we could have skydived after all.
Grrrr.
On the 31st, a beautiful day, we went to the beach. Lying in the sun, unconsciously inflicting sunburn upon ourselves, Al paused and said: "We should be up there."
Above us, paragliders.
I went on a lengthy expedition, and finally found a paraglider, a Russian traveler who had already been accosted by an eager Indian who also wanted to fly. The Russian was bemused. He, like the others in the air, had come here on his own, an independent paraglider with no ability or interest in taking others with him.
Defeated, I trundled back, cursing 2008 under my breath, when I noticed three confused-looking people getting out of a van and an older, not-at-all-confused looking guy holding what looked like paragliding equipment.
A brief conversation, a plan set for the next day: mission successful.
The Year of the Awesome, when conceived, needed a grand sendoff, and the plan for New Year's Day took hold one day in a kebab shop in Dunedin: jumping out of a plane.
I'm not a big believer in the ceremonial, but if any year would be an exception to the rule, it should be this one. And reaching terminal velocity while jumping out of a plane seemed to be the ideal way to shake off the demons of 2008. And, better still, a friend works at a skydiving company in Taupo! I called Alastair, and had a conversation like this:
"What do you think about jumping out of a plane on New Year's Day?"
(pause) "That would be ... awesome."
"Exactly."
Scene.
A simple, elegant plan, and one that came all too easily undone. It turns out that they didn't do dives on January 1st, and with a flight back to Dunedin impending later wasn't realistic. Eventually, begrudgingly, we settled on a date of December 30th, planning a day trip from our retreat in Raglan 3 1/2 hours east for an afternoon dive, then returning that night. I crossed my fingers that 2008's final surprise wouldn't be a parachute failure at 7,000 feet.
And then December 30th came, and the weather was pissy and miserable, and it became obvious it wasn't going to clear up anytime soon. A few texts later, confirming it was the same in Taupo, and that plan was cancelled.
To add insult to injury, around 3 pm the sky cleared and the day was as lovely to hope for. While I didn't confirm the same was the case in Taupo, I suspect it might have been, and we could have skydived after all.
Grrrr.
On the 31st, a beautiful day, we went to the beach. Lying in the sun, unconsciously inflicting sunburn upon ourselves, Al paused and said: "We should be up there."
Above us, paragliders.
I went on a lengthy expedition, and finally found a paraglider, a Russian traveler who had already been accosted by an eager Indian who also wanted to fly. The Russian was bemused. He, like the others in the air, had come here on his own, an independent paraglider with no ability or interest in taking others with him.
Defeated, I trundled back, cursing 2008 under my breath, when I noticed three confused-looking people getting out of a van and an older, not-at-all-confused looking guy holding what looked like paragliding equipment.
A brief conversation, a plan set for the next day: mission successful.
Awesome.
(Video and more photos to come someday.)
AWESOME DIARY ENTRY #1
Raglan, NZ
01 Jan, 12:56 AM
np: The Dodos, VISITER
The Year of the Awesome has started auspiciously here in Raglan, where my friend/flatmate/partner in crime Alastair's mother is hosting, him, me, my flatmate/Al's girlfriend Nicole, and some other fine folks. As 2008 dwindled to an end, things looked decidedly non-awesome, thanks to a lack of sleep, a sunburn, and general malaise, including a complete inability to find a mutually satisfying soundtrack for the evening. With an hour to go, however, a soundtrack change to the evening (a compilation of lounge singers - Dean, Frank, Sammy, etc.) boosted the mood, as did strawberries and misc. snacks. The New Year in Raglan was seen in with fireworks, our own soundtrack of Debbie Harry cueing us in. I experimented with the new camera, taking many unusable shots but a few reasonably awesome ones, I believe. A boost of energy, a bit of spontaneous dance invention, quick texts to a few friends and a chat with our absent flatmate Alessandra (seeing the fireworks in Auckland), and then everything chilled out reasonably quickly. Fun without intensive destruction of sleep patterns is, for me, awesome. Probably a sign of being old, but anyway.
The weather turned pissy once the fireworks ended, and hopefully it will clear up tomorrow. Al and I intend to properly inaugurate the New Year by paragliding, but we'll have to wait til the morning to see if that's plausible. In the interim, I will let "Fools" by the Dodos play out, then attempt to sleep with my decidedly horrific sunburn on my shoulders, a last painful lingering reminder of the horrible year of 2008 as I enter the Year of the Awesome.
posted late because of no wi-fi connection in Raglan, or at least none that I felt like looking for.
01 Jan, 12:56 AM
np: The Dodos, VISITER
The Year of the Awesome has started auspiciously here in Raglan, where my friend/flatmate/partner in crime Alastair's mother is hosting, him, me, my flatmate/Al's girlfriend Nicole, and some other fine folks. As 2008 dwindled to an end, things looked decidedly non-awesome, thanks to a lack of sleep, a sunburn, and general malaise, including a complete inability to find a mutually satisfying soundtrack for the evening. With an hour to go, however, a soundtrack change to the evening (a compilation of lounge singers - Dean, Frank, Sammy, etc.) boosted the mood, as did strawberries and misc. snacks. The New Year in Raglan was seen in with fireworks, our own soundtrack of Debbie Harry cueing us in. I experimented with the new camera, taking many unusable shots but a few reasonably awesome ones, I believe. A boost of energy, a bit of spontaneous dance invention, quick texts to a few friends and a chat with our absent flatmate Alessandra (seeing the fireworks in Auckland), and then everything chilled out reasonably quickly. Fun without intensive destruction of sleep patterns is, for me, awesome. Probably a sign of being old, but anyway.
The weather turned pissy once the fireworks ended, and hopefully it will clear up tomorrow. Al and I intend to properly inaugurate the New Year by paragliding, but we'll have to wait til the morning to see if that's plausible. In the interim, I will let "Fools" by the Dodos play out, then attempt to sleep with my decidedly horrific sunburn on my shoulders, a last painful lingering reminder of the horrible year of 2008 as I enter the Year of the Awesome.
posted late because of no wi-fi connection in Raglan, or at least none that I felt like looking for.
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