Steven Pressfield’s Writing Wednesdays
I’m really loving Steven Pressfield’s “Why I Write” series, and wanted to share today’s post with you.
Click on the link to find it.
Radical Optimism
Some years ago — 15 to be exact — a friend gave me a copy of Beatrice Bruteau‘s Radical Optimism: Practical Spirituality in an Uncertain World. I have read this book several times, and when I came across it recently, I felt that the current political climate gave me call to revisit it.
What I’ve realized, however, as I’ve been rereading, is that I need this book for other reasons besides the presidential race. My underlinings and highlighting and marginal notes show how enormously helpful this book has been to me as a teacher and as a writer. Going faster, working harder may be the zeitgeist of American culture, and it’s an attitude that infects higher education, too, but we might think differently.
In that spirit, here are just a few of my favorite Radical Optimism passages:
“The most important thing is this: Don’t represent to yourself what you are doing as difficult. Don’t keep saying how hard it is, don’t remember your failures. Don’t imagine the project as a tremendous task, a huge effort. Be like a weight lifter who deliberately concentrates on the bar and imagines it to be light as a feather.” (32)
“Hearts can be hardened — or ‘tensed up’ — in the same way that muscles can…” (27)
“But the Latin word schola comes from the Greek scholé which means ‘leisure.’ What an interesting discovery! Before you can teach, you must learn, and in order to learn, you must stop your busyness and hold still for a while. You must give yourself leisure to learn.” (9)
“The contemplative is not a dweller in an ivory tower, cut off from the world, oblivious of the suffering of humanity. On the contrary, the contemplative is one who is devoted to seeking the way out of evil and suffering. If we can understand the roots of our distress and the secret of our release, then we can act in the world to alleviate the pain.” (73)
“We get the kind of world we ourselves create…” (134)
“One who feels this way [to be right] is convinced that the only way to be safe is to control everything oneself. This isn’t pride. This is fear. Terrible, rock-bottom, existential fear.” (83)
“You may try by sheer willpower to do something or resist something, but if you cannot convert the imagination to the desired position, you will probably not attain what you have willed.” (45)
Mucking Out
As I believe I have mentioned (probably numerous times), I have been mucking out my writing cabin. To give credit where credit is due, the idea of hiring someone to help me came from my Writing Lab friend, Lori, who is going through this process in her entire house, and then from a new book, Minding the Muse, written by the inestimable Priscilla Long.
I have known Priscilla for twenty-five years. This is a woman who knows how to get writing done. In Minding the Muse, she reminded me, yet again, that it is good for creators to have an up-to-date inventory of their work. And, as I have countless times before, I thought, “I can’t.” I had great excuses. I lined them all up and danced them across my journal pages. But there sat “I can’t,” exactly the words that I am always telling other writers that they must not say.
“I can’t” is not a small, harmless phrase. Repeated use of it will damage your creative life, and your life. You can, however, decide to transform it from something you hide behind like a mother’s skirts, to a red flag. When the “I can’t” flag goes up, from now on, that’s your signal to go to work.
Of course I can inventory my work. Of course I can sort through my boxes (and boxes) full of papers (and poems I’ve forgotten I ever drafted). Of course I can be organized. I have arms. My brain is still working. If I have a bad habit of letting things get away from me, it is just a habit. I can change a habit.
I have mucked out before, but never as fully as I needed to. I tried to content myself with a stack of boxes and bins tucked in the corner. Since leaving my college office, since my mom’s illness escalated, things have gotten much, much worse. The so-lovely writing cabin had become a place of unrestful distractions.
So, not knowing where or how to start (feeling — I have to admit — paralyzed), I asked Lori for a referral to her professional organizer, and I emailed her and set up an appointment. In about 7 hours of work, I have made an excellent start. Formerly unlabeled boxes full of mixed papers and notebooks are now sorted into labeled bins (or recycled — lots was recycled). A few books went away, but it was gentle. A whole box of pictures and knick knacks went into storage (for when I have a guest room again some day). I got everything off the floor except a couple boxes of homework to accomplish on my own. It may still look messy to the neatniks among you, but it’s a big change for me to know where everything is. What felt impossible now feels possible.
What’s the Worse Thing that Can Happen?
About “dh.” I don’t know the first thing about sports, or what exactly a “designated hitter” is. But I didn’t mean to suggest anything violent with the reference. No one is hitting anyone.
It interests me, how even when communication gets strained my husband and I continue to work together and balance things out. One of our jobs, it seems to me, is to figure out how to fine-tune this balance, how to keep communicating, even when we’re busy and the lines are tangled.
This morning, for instance, I have an appointment with Emma’s high school principal. Dh thought he should go, too. He wants to tell the principal that we will sue the school district if Emma’s classes aren’t allowed. He was leaning into my cabin doorway, his legs apart, his jaw set. I have been reading Steven Pressfield’s Left of Bang (which I found because I’m sorting through my cabin), and a little warning bell went off in my head. I should listen to that bell, I told myself, or Pressfield whispered to me. “I’ve got this,” I told my dear dh, “you don’t need to go.” So, already dressed in his gym clothes for the morning, he left to get through his workout.
Another book I’m reading is Michael Michalko’s Cracking Creativity. Like Pressfield, he reminds me to not go with that first impression, but to keep looking, keep asking questions. To look at the problem from every angle and to be open to numerous solutions, not just the first one I find. He quotes an older book, Scientific Genius by Keith Simonton, in order to point out some word etymology that is useful here:
“[Simonton’s] theory has etymology behind it: Cogito — ‘I think’ — orignally connoted ‘shake together.’ Intelligo, the root of intelligence, means to ‘select among.'”
Too often, writing or just living (and surviving the presidential election season), we believe the first thing we’re told. When you write (or do a crossword puzzle, as dh likes to point out), it’s crucial that you remain open, that you listen for the hints and nuances that arise as you write. The first thought may be your best thought, but a character has many facets. Your job is to represent all the facets. So keep looking. Keep thinking. Keep shaking it all together, and following the fascination.
“Just as the difference in point of view between your eyes allows you to perceive depth, multiple perspectives about your subject deepen your understanding.” (Michalko, Cracking Creativity)
Most of all, stay open to those intuitive hints. (And check out what you hear in the media about your candidate at http://www.politifact.com/.)