Creative Play

“In play, there are no stakes. No boundaries. No right or wrong. No quotas for productivity. It’s an uninhabited state where your spirit can run free.” - Rick Rubin

I've been leaning into this lately as posting little blurbs about the books I read here was starting to feel like work. 

Not sure what will come next but for right now I'm having fun playing with my writing and drawing - but not necessarily sharing. Stay tuned!

Better not turn your eyes away, my friend

"Seated up in the boat's bows, as you

Notice the leak down at the other end

Better not turn your eyes away, my friend

For you are not outside Death's field of view

- From Motto, by Berthold Brecht

Quote of the day

 "The last clear definite function of man - muscles aching to work, mind aching to create beyond the single need - this is man... For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments."

- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

First lines of Zadie Smith's "Fences: A Brexit Diary"

 "Back in the old neighborhood in northwest London after a long absence, I went past the local primary school and noticed a change."

- Zadie Smith, from "Fences: A Brexit Diary" from her Feel Free: Essays collection.

Smith's analysis of Brexit, combined with astute and relevant antidotes from her life and those around her, all combined with her usual powerful writing, is one of the best things that I've read in some time. I highly recommend it. One thought-provoking sentence:

"While we loudly and rightly condemn the misguided racial attitudes that led to millions asking "them" to leave "us," to get out of our jobs and public housing and hospitals and schools and country, we might also take a look at the last thirty years and ask ourselves what kind of attitudes have allowed a different class of people to discreetly maneuver, behind the scenes, to ensure that "them" and "us" never actually meet anywhere but in symbol. ... In this atmosphere of hypocrisy and deceit, should the working-class poor have shown themselves to be the "better man" when all around them is corruption and venality? When everyone's building a fence, isn't it a true fool who lives out in the open?" 

Powerful stuff, and relevant not only to her native England but what's occurring in the US as well.

The 8-hour Workday

 "The 8-hour workday is too profitable for big business, not because of the amount fo work people get done in eight hours (the average office worker gets less than three hours of actually work done in eight hours) but because it makes for such a purchase-happy public. Keeping free time scarce means people pay a lot more for convenience, gratification, and any other relief they can buy. It keeps them watching television, and its commercials. It keeps them unambitious outside of work. 

We've been led into a culture that has been engineered to leave us tired, hungry for indulgence, willing to pay a lot for convienience and entertainment, and most importantly, vaguely dissatisfied with our lifes so that we continue wanting things we don't have. We buy so much because it always seems like something is still missing."

- David Cain, from "Your Lifestyle Has Already been Designed"

Reality as a Network of Processes

 "Reality is not a collection of things, it’s a network of processes.

If this is correct...we understand reality better if we think of it in terms of interactions, not individuals. We, as individuals, exist thanks to the interactions we are involved in. This is why, in classic game theory, the winners in the long run are those who collaborate.

Too often we foolishly measure success in terms of a single actor’s fortunes. This is both short-sighted and irrational."

- Carlo Rovelli

I read this as "pay attention to your relationships." Between people. Between institutions. Between systems. And between people, institutions, and systems. This environment of relationships defines what actions you take or your "success" more than anything else. As W. Edwards Deming put it: "A bad system will beat a good person every time."

A Stillness and a Sanctuary

 “Within you is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.”

- Hermann Hesse

Are we there yet?

 "One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things."
- Henry Miller

or

"...
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you wouldn't have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now. ..."
- part of Ithaka, by C.P. Cavafy

And to play us out...

Hunter S. Thompson on Finding Purpose

Hunter S. Thompson was an incredibly intelligent and interesting person who wrote some fantastic books. His output also became sadly reduced to a shell of what it was after many years of drinking and drugging. However, when he was lucid, he was extremely insightful, and this letter to a friend on how he should find his purpose is essential reading. 

Money quote: “…a man must choose a path which will let his ABILITIES function at maximum efficiency toward the gratification of his DESIRES.”

 

 

Freud on Group Psychology

Reading about the anti-vaxx communities who continue to refuse vaccines and the need for masks reminds me of what Freud wrote about group psychology:

“The impulses which a group obeys may according to circumstances be generous or cruel, but they are always so imperious that no personal interest, not even that of self-preservation, can make itself felt.”

First Lines of Ali Smith's "Winter"

"God was dead: to begin with.
And romance was dead. Chivalry was dead. Poetry, the novel, painting, they were all dead, and art was dead. Theatre and cinema were both dead. Literature was dead. The book was dead."

- Ali Smith, Winter.

These lines don't do the poetry of Smith's stream of consciousness writing justice. Her way with words is mesmerizing: you can feel her characters thinking as you read. And read you will! Before I knew what was happening, I had read through 60 pages of this delightful novel. Can't wait to see where it goes.

Peter Garrett

"I know that the sunset empire shudders and shakes
I know there's a floodgate and a raging river...
Sometimes you're beaten to the call
Sometimes you're taken to the wall
But you don't give in"
Sometimes, by Midnight Oil, as sung by Peter Garrett, shown above

It Simply Stops

"A painting is never finished. It simply stops in interesting places."

- Paul Gardner

First Lines of "How to Talk so Kids Will Listen & Listen so Kids will Talk"

"I was a wonderful parent before I had children. I was an expert on why everyone else was having problems with theirs. Then I had three of my own."

- Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish, How to Talk to Kids will Listen & Listen so Kids will Talk.

This book changed how I approached being a father. A practical approach for healthy communication with your kids. I strive for the ideal detailed in this book and fall short as much as I succeed, but having tactics for success helps me along the journey.

First Lines of Edward Abbey's "Desert Solitaire"

"This is the most beautiful place on earth.

There are many such places. Every man, every woman, carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or unknown, actual or visionary."

- Edward Abbey from Desert Solitaire. A stark, powerful book. I'm reading in slowly, in digestible chunks, mainly because I like it how it strips away the bullshit in favor of a clean view of how the world works.

First Lines of Joanna Russ' "The Zanzibar Cat"

Katy drives like a maniac; we must have been doing over 120 km/hr on those turns. She's good, though, extremely good, and I've seen her take the whole car apart and put it together again in a day."

- Joanna Russ, from "When it Changed", the first story in the collection The Zanzibar Cat.

I fell in love with Russ when I encountered her amazing story "The Dirty Little Girl" in The Hidden Side of the Moon. It's a mesmerizing story, compelling and deeply weird at the same time, and I can't stop going back to it. A few stories in, The Zanzibar Cat is not of that quality (yet?) but is still entertaining.

First Lines of Kim Stanley Robinson's "Red Moon"

"Someone had told him not to look while landing on the moon, but he was strapped in his seat right next to a window and could not help himself; he looked. Quickly he saw why he had been told not to -- the moon was doubling in size with every beat of his heart, they were headed for it at cosmic speed and would certainly vaporize on impact."

- Kim Stanley Robinson, "Red Moon". Entertaining read that starts and ends well but with a bit of a lull in the middle. Love his outlook on life.

First Lines of Ursula LeGuin's "The Name for the World is Forest"

"Two pieces of yesterday were in Captain Davidson's mind when he woke, and he lay looking at them in the darkness for a while."

- Ursula LeGuin, "The Name for the World is Forest"

First Lines of Anthony Doerr's "All the Light We Cannot See"

"At dusk they pour from the sky. They blow across the ramparts, turn cartwheels over rooftops, flutter into the ravines between houses. Entire streets swirl with them, flashing white against the cobbles. Urgent message to the inhabitants of this town, they say. Depart immediately to open country."

- Anthony Doerr, from his amazing "All the Light We Cannot See", a book I never wanted to end. Book review coming shortly.

Diversity was Necessary

I was astounded by the sublimity of this vision [of social Darwinism in business], whose implications spread far beyond the business sphere. Thinking back to my first discussion with Riley, I wondered if this weren't the answer to the question he’d proposed: How was the Christian to reconcile the existence of evil with the unconditional benignancy of God? Or, alternatively, how did the Taoist reconcile the existence of what was not Tao – which represented an affront to its essential nature, even contradicted it – with the primordial unity of all things in Tao? Was it possible that this was the answer? If so, then on both counts the objections were based on a simple narrowness of view. Once the Great Whole was seen, objections flew away like chaff. Evil, then, was the crucible in which the good was tried and proved. The unnatural was the fever which the body suffered internally to purify itself and become well again. The sores and the corrupt places of the economic world, as of the larger, were where the Tao had sent the legions of its influence, its platelets and leukocytes, its antibodies and white corpuscles, to eradicate diversity’s failed experiments, devouring the excesses of the blood. Diversity was necessary to insure the greatest possible perfection, and if it created a few monstrosities as well, then it all provided  for their destruction by natural selection. That was the miracle! Everything was tending towards the good!

- David Payne, Confessions from a Taoist on Wall Street, p. 577