Head Down
There’s a point in your life when you realise exactly what matters to you. It doesn’t have to be a poetic Fight Club moment. It could be a slow-moving process where you get so caught up in your life’s inertia that you stop to take stock, and notice everything that you’ve left behind.
I’ve lived the latter of the two. I’m not quite running lean, but I’ve been subconsciously drifting in that direction.
The things and people that don’t matter just fade into the background, into the distance as you keep moving. They’re far behind, now, and still caught up in their incessant bickering about endless trivialities. Caught up in the minutiae of life.
Glenn‘s eighteenth birthday post made me stop and smile. Such optimism and enthusiasm for what’s ahead.
I can’t pretend that any of the things that concerned me when I turned eighteen were anywhere near as important as the concepts and possibilities that Glenn is currently juggling. I was writing, sure, but without a purpose or an audience.
Girls. Drinking. The opinions of my peers. These are the things that concerned me at age eighteen. As much as I wish that I’d been grappling with notions of personal accountability or building self-value – I wasn’t.
Realising that you’ve got to put your head down and just go for it – that’s an important point to reach.
Stating that ‘nothing else matters’ is over-simplifying a little, but hell, you’re in control. It’s the difference between crawling, or choosing to stand up and walk.
Know
I don’t know much. But I’m not comfortable with that. Which is why I endeavour to know more every day.
There’s nothing wrong with not knowing if you’re honest with yourself and others. Not knowing should not cause embarrassment. Not knowing should be reframed as an opportunity to learn a new skill or new information.
Before this week, I didn’t know Metcalfe’s Law. I didn’t know the capital of Uruguay. I didn’t know about petabytes.
Not knowing can be difficult. I know. Difficulty becomes problematic when a paralysing fear of new information takes hold and you resign yourself to not knowing. You’re caught within your own self-concept loop.
Picture a fruit tree. Imagine the fruit as knowledge. There’s ten thousand low hanging fruit that just about anyone can reach. They taste fine. You can easily survive on eating them for the rest of your life. Many do.
But just out of reach are countless, considerably more fulfilling fruit. With a little extra effort and determination, you can climb the tree and feast on tastier knowledge. This is easier than ever before.
Knowing can be dangerous. A voracious desire to know can intimidate those who are comfortable with not knowing.
The Bayesian notion suggests that we should constantly examine our circumstance and direction against new information. I’m reminded of John Boyd’s OODA Loop.
Observe. Orient. Decide. Act. If you don’t want to know more, enjoy those low-hanging fruit.
Learning When To Speak
You’ve noticed that lately, I’ve been writing once a week, if that.
I read a variety of sources most days, but it takes something special to inspire me to respond in my own words.
Often, I feel that I don’t know enough about a subject to comment. This is less a fear of failure than an internal quality control, which I referred to when discussing my music writing.
Having spent several years wrestling with words, concepts and emotions in a private journal, I’ve started to learn when to speak publicly. But I’m still learning.
The polar approach is to open my mouth and speak about everything that I come across, like the wide-eyed teenager that I used to be. Everything that comes to mind. That drunk guy who I conversed with late last night while waiting for my train home. The costs and benefits of the brand of washing liquid that I use.
I don’t, though. I alternate between the mindsets. Open versus closed. I know intuitively which of those strategies is bound for success.
The converse is: you only have to close when your DNA isn’t quite there yet; when the way you manage things still kind of sucks.
Maybe that it’s it. The way I manage things – my thoughts, my ideas, my words – still kind of sucks. Not that there’s anything wrong with sucking, as long as sucking is a means to an end.
Some days I’d like to spend a thousand words analysing a minuscule, inconsequential interaction. Or discuss the way that crowds tend to wait near the top of the stairs at a railway station, while the length of the platform remains largely unused. Some kind of public transport normal distribution comparison.
Maybe my quality control is set too high. Maybe I should be throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. I tried that with my Customer, Serviced posts, which I soon lost interest in.
That’s the Long Tail theory, right? Instead of publishing a few precious – ‘quality’ – ideas, put it all out there, and I’ll find demand that I hadn’t anticipated.
We’ll see. Until I better self-manage, I’m inclined to keep my mouth shut.
Defining Decisions
Deciding to be yourself is scary. There’s no one to follow, and well, what if they don’t like me? But if you can make that bet, the act of actually being you is easy. All you have to do is wake up in the morning.
This afternoon, I watched a tiny spider trying to climb its near-invisible silk. As far as I could tell, its intention was to climb the thread to the top and reach safety. A slight breeze affected those intentions. After battling the draft for a few minutes, the spider lost out. It landed on the ground, far from its desired destination.
You could fight the breeze your whole life. Or you could position yourself to sidestep it altogether.
Ryan wrote about defining yourself in the above quote. Glenn wrote in a comment on that entry:
People are vulnerable to the influences of others for a very specific reason; peer pressure doesn’t just strike randomly.
My message isn’t to find yourself. Or to closely monitor the crowd you’re a part of. Those are tired, common maxims.
John commented on one of my entries that social networking sites have provided an unmatched insight into their users’ psyches. Upon registering, you’re immediately presented with myriad opportunities to define yourself. Interests. Location. About you. Education and employment history.
Of course, there’s a reason why you’re presented with these options. We tend to want to place each other into distinct boxes. It’s how we make sense of the world. The conflicts begin when your definitions become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The inherent problem with defining yourself based on a handful of universal markers – birthplace, location, hobbies, dress style – is that you’re constantly open to misinterpretation. If you define yourself as an engineering student who loves to drink and party, you’re expected to adhere to those definitions at all times. Most people can’t look beyond this fundamental attribution error.
It’s hard. I loathe defining myself. That tagline at the top of the page? It’s bullshit. So is the slightly elaborated descriptor here. Defining yourself based on a handful of interests or accomplishments marginalises the million other thoughts you have each day.
You are what you do. I disagree with that statement in the context of study or employment. You know what I mean. You’re at a party. Someone asks you what you do. What they mean, of course, is what you study. Or where you work. You respond, and a bunch of assumption seeds are planted in their head, before your eyes.
I’m not trying to pretend that I’m above any of this.
Play the game. Humour those who try to pigeonhole you. Never understate your inner values.
Wouldn’t It Be Cool?
Ben Corman wrote an excellent follow-up to Ryan Holiday’s post about new media resumes last week. Central to Corman’s message:
Don’t be afraid to suck. Building a new media presence, writing a novel, starting a business, learning to juggle — you don’t develop any of these skills without actually doing them.
Most importantly, though:
Sucking is not the worst thing that can happen.
Last month, I wrote about luck. Last week, I found the source of the half-remembered anecdote that I mentioned in that post. I found it while re-reading Getting It Together by Noel Whittaker. He’s an acclaimed financial adviser and popular Australian author. His new media presence may be lacklustre, but the advice he offers in that book is crystal clear in its simplicity and scope. From the back cover:
Noel Whittaker came from a poor farming background to become one of Australia’s most respect financial advisors with weekly columns in most of Australia’s leading newspapers. In Getting It Together he gives young people simple techniques to discover and use their true potential.
It’s an excellent book. I intend to revisit it at least once more before year’s end. That anecdote, transcribed in full:
Haven’t you wanted top grades without doing the work, sporting honours without doing the practice, a fit body without doing the exercise? Of course you have – that’s human nature. Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s, tells the story about a famous musician who was accosted by one of those social chatty women at a cocktail party. “I’d give anything to play like you,” she said. “No, you wouldn’t,” he replied. “You wouldn’t be prepared to practice for hours, to give up the social life, to exist on a pittance while you were trying to make your mark – that is what made the difference.” (Whittaker 1993, p. 42)
Success isn’t conceived overnight. Before success is born, there’s a hundred nights of failed conception attempts. Yes, I’m equating success to intercourse. Isn’t metaphor fun?
Corman concludes:
So here’s your homework assignment. Take one thing you wish you were doing that you’re not doing. Now, everyday take an hour (or maybe ten minutes) and do whatever it is. And in a year you’ll be able to look back at how much you’ve improved. Or in a year you’ll still be sitting around thinking “wouldn’t it be cool if I did _____.”
You know intuitively that it would be cool. Go and do _____.
What I’ve Learned
Accept personal accountability for every action that you take. Realise that you alone control your actions. To let any external factor dictate what you say or do is to cede control.
Stasis is a dangerous state of being – a thousand times moreso for the young and unestablished. Be wary of those who are comfortable at a standstill. Adapt, adapt, adapt.
Disdain what you cannot have. Greene
Create value. Build a new media presence.
W.C. Fields advised to never trust a man who doesn’t drink. Conversely, be wary of those who regularly drink to excess without concern for the consequences of their actions, both personal and interpersonal. The regular abuse of alcohol is nothing more than a mechanism for ceding control of one’s accountability. Recognise that their choice is indicative of greater inner issues, and walk away.
Create dialogues. It’s easy to contact almost anyone online. Use this to your advantage.
Read. There is no new problem you can have that someone hasn’t already solved and wrote about in a book. Furthermore, the web has allowed an incredible amount of voices to emerge. Once you’ve sifted through the garbage, follow those whose voices speak to you.
Write. If only for yourself. Keep a private blog and aim to write in it most days. If you haven’t already discovered the manner in which transcribing your thoughts allows you to view an issue with renewed clarity, you’ll be amazed. I can’t wait to look back at my private journal in ten years’ time. Hell, Ryan wrote that in six months’ time I’ll have discarded most of what I claim is important now. Through reading my archives, I’ve found that two months has been a consistent timeframe in which I’ve noticed enormous shifts in personal values.
Listen. Don’t just wait for your turn to speak. Don’t interrupt. If most people are happy to fill a conversation with their words, indulge them.
Communication is key. In a knowledge economy, income disparity exists primarily between those who can and cannot communicate. Read. Write. Learn to express your ideas clearly and succinctly. Communication is key.
Taxing The Piss
“We don’t think there’ll be a simple change-over, because we know many young people simply don’t like the taste of beer, or straight alcohol,” she said.
“That will be a good thing if it delays some people from having their first introduction to alcohol, or if it puts them off drinking for a number of years. That will have a positive impact.”
This is the dumbest bunch of bullshit I’ve read in a week. Can you say, “prolonging the inevitable”?
The Australian Government intends to increase tax on “alcopops” by 70%, as this will supposedly “help to cut teenage drinking, because the so-called alcopops disguise the taste of alcohol”. Up until this point I’d been rather blasé about the issue, but the truckload of bullshit that Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon wheeled into the discussion has prompted me to respond.
People like to get drunk, regardless of age. It’s been glorified throughout history. It’s glorified everywhere you look in the media. Getting drunk is fun. More importantly, getting drunk teaches individuals to become responsible for their actions.
My introduction to binge drinking occurred at around age 15, three years before our national legal drinking age allows a person to buy, drink or possess alcohol. It took me around a dozen violent vomit explosions and killer hangovers to realise that my actions, however fun they were at the time, had consequences. I learned that drinking a lot is fun, but it fucks you over. I learned personal accountability for my actions.
My experience was not uncommon. Beginning binge drinking at the age of 15 was later than a lot of my peers at the time. It’s what teenagers do – experiment, participate in risk-taking behavior, and learn. There’s a small percentage who don’t learn, and who are thus plagued with problems throughout their lives. That’s another discussion entirely, though.
“Cask wine is the drink of choice for someone who wants to get hammered,” Mr Smeaton told AAP.
He’s not wrong. From experience, goon is the cheapest, most popular decision for the discerning binge drinker.
“We need to increase the tax on things like full-strength beer, on cask wine, and on port.”
Okay, now he’s wrong. Increasing taxes in an attempt to quell an activity that members of society knowingly participate in is an act of social engineering, in its simplest form. And it’s not going to work.
People are going to binge drink, regardless. Alcopop sales will plummet, and both goon and straight alcoholic spirit sales will soar. And then they’ll attempt to implement further tax hikes, and then where does it end?
Look. Taxing the shit out of an activity isn’t going to reduce its prevalence. I doubt that the popularity of binge drinking has increased in any other manner than proportionately. There’s more kids than ever, so there’s more of them that binge drink. This has gone on for generations. Hell, wasn’t rum used as a currency during colonial times?
The act of binge drinking in ingrained into our national culture. Logically, we should teach kids how to handle alcohol from an early age. I don’t mean teaching as in the bullshit hour-a-week program that they probably still receive in early high school, as I did. I mean, really raise, address and discuss the issue with kids from a young age.
Tax ain’t the answer. You can’t throw money at – or in this case, take money from – an issue to make it go away. The problem’s deeper than that, and it deserves a reasonable, rational response.
An Autumn Storm
I’d spent several hours interacting with media. A casual glance out the window at 3.45pm revealed a dark storm front approaching from the west.
I pulled up the Bureau of Meteorology website. Their rainfall radars confirmed as much as I assumed: wet weather was on its way. I sent the link to my housemate, and went outside to take my dry clothes off the washing line.
It took an hour for the ominous clouds to break. As soon as they did, I shut down my computer and stepped outside to sit and watch the show.
After spending six hours immersed in the realm of technology, it was utterly disarming to witness the storm pass across and dump its contents on the earth. Ignore the manmade caricature of ‘mother nature’: this was the natural environment reacting to impossibly complex calculations and connections occurring in the atmosphere kilometres overhead.
My thoughts turned to the nature of the technology-based world in which we live. Realistically, power surges resulting from electrical storms have the potential to destroy the entire interconnected network.
In August 2005, I read in real-time what later became the Survival of New Orleans weblog. It consisted of live updates from the Directnic office in central New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, and the resultant floods and disorder. It’s been preserved here for posterity, and it has its own Wikipedia article. It’s one of the most memorable blogs I’ve ever read, and it remains a fascinating study concerning human response to disaster.
The storm that I watched in silent awe passed within twenty minutes. As the rain subsided, a rainbow was left in its wake. Lightning and thunder rolled around the suburb while the last remaining sunlight of the day lit the cloud mass. This was a truly exciting experience that I relished. I pity those who chose to remain inside, oblivious.
Contrast the two shots below, which were taken at 4pm and 5pm respectively.
On Luck
A Ben Corman post reminded me of an article I read within the last month – unfortunately, my Googling skills seem to have failed me, so I can’t link it.
The article described a world-renowned musician at a dinner party. A woman introduced herself, and told him that she’d “give anything to play like him”. He immediately responded: “no, you wouldn’t”. She wouldn’t devote the thousands of hours of practice in social isolation to master the craft, as he had.
People always want the quick fix; they don’t want to put in the required effort to be truly knowledgeable, or talented, or athletic, or popular, or rich, or all of those things. Logically, that’s why people are so enamoured with the notion of celebrity: so that they can live vicariously through the lives of the rich, the athletic, the talented – without having to change a damn thing about themselves.
I hear that L word thrown around a lot, too. Sometimes at me, for the small achievements I’ve made and opportunities I’ve undertaken. But it’s not luck. Luck is very rarely the reason why intelligent people end up in enviable – ‘lucky’ – positions. It seems that “you’re lucky” is the automatic response to news of any significantly positive personal development.
A fork in the road. You can spend the rest of your life wallowing in “could have”, “should have” and “would have”, wishing that you were someone else. Or you can take action, and work toward becoming the person you wish you could become.
In life, there’s very rarely a quick fix. If you want to achieve something significant – something that’ll be perceived as ‘lucky’ by less motivated people – you have to work hard for it.
So, which road will it be?
Customer, Serviced #2
Where?: Michelli’s Cafe, 448 Boundary Street, Spring Hill QLD 4004
When?: May 12 2008, 2pm
Who?: Male salesclerk/food handler
What?: I made the snap decision to buy lunch from this store, which is on the corner of a busy street. Though I’d passed it a few times without much interest, I decided that today was the day. I noticed that there was a pre-made egg and lettuce sandwich sitting in the window. I approached the cashier – a young girl – and made my request. She started toward the pre-packaged sandwich, before I told her that I wanted it fresh. She gave me an inkling of a disgusted expression, before ringing it up and charging me $4.50. I paid her, then stood back while she served the next person in line.
Throughout this interaction, a talkative Greek man behind the counter had been chatting to a customer as he made a kebab. Upon wishing him a great day, his attention turned to me.
“What can I get for you mate?”
“I just paid for an egg and lettuce sandwich.”
(he gives a brief glance to the inept register girl)
“An egg and lettuce sandwich, certainly mate.”
He immediately removed any negative thoughts I might have been having about the cafe’s so-far poor service by engaging me in conversation. While he expertly and swiftly prepared my sandwich, we talked about Brisbane, and I mentioned that I’d moved down from Bundaberg a few years ago. He listened, before telling me that when he was my age – I told him that I’m 20 – he moved from his small Greek town to Athens. “The big smoke!”
While spreading mayonnaise onto my wholegrain bread, he remarked that this was the “best mayonnaise in Australia mate!”. By this stage I’d assumed him to be the owner of the cafe. His humour and genuine enthusiasm resulted in a thoroughly enjoyable customer service experience. I got the impression that he treated every customer with the same respect.
As he wrapped my sandwich in paper, he told me to enjoy my day, and to try his grilled chicken burgers the next time I came back. “We’ve got Portuguese seasoning, mate, it’s to die for!”
Result: A relaxed customer who’ll happily return to try the grilled chicken burger. And aside from my poor choice of curried instead of normal mashed egg, the sandwich was great. Especially the mayonnaise.
