I’ve been sick most of this week. It’s gotten me to thinking about things, particularly the idea of relaxation. Forced relaxation will do that.
For example, today I spent all day reading Fox Trot and Calvin & Hobbes collections. And boy was it nice to just while away a day, doing absolutely nothing of consequence.
And then sit down and lose myself in writing. I’m working away at the script for ”Leviathans,” Otherspace’s pitch to Cartoon Network. It was amazing, how some time spent utterly relaxing helped build me up for a creative endeavor that I could just dive into and drink deeply from.
So, yes, relaxation is great. As long as that relaxation lets you do something. Too many folks have gotten so used to stopping that they never start again.
I’m struck by how much we let ourselves be enslaved by our devices.
Oh, I don’t mean literally, and I’m not trying to be alarmist. But, well, how often do we get home from work and immediately gravitate to the computer or TV? Personally, I can’t wait to get back online. It makes me feel connected to people and current events.
Even though, of course, that’s a thin, mediocre connection. Really, it’s a way to keep busy. It’s something to fill our time.
When actually, if we thought about how we really want to spend our time—What do you want to be doing in ten years?—we probably wouldn’t be spending an hour every night on the computer.
I avoid writing a post that’s just a link to another blog post—I feel, like Brennen, that one should contribute content in a blog, not just redirect the reader to other content—but David Seah writes about a lot of the things I’ve been thinking about lately in his recent post, Five Things On My Mind. He writes about his desire to spend more time connected to the physical world, and to do things instead of endlessly think and plan them.
Years ago, when I was thinking of starting software companies and such, I wrote business plans. I never used them. I didn’t write a business plan for Otherspace (well, I noodled around with one, but never wrote more than half of it), and I built that into a ten-person company of skilled aritsts.
As David writes, a business plan or functional spec or any other sort of design document is useful only if it gives you one (or both!) of two things: a clear vision or a simple list of metrics for success. If you already have these, you don’t need the plan.
It’s been a long, long week.
Didn’t realize it until Saturday, but I’ve been busy basically all day, every day from Thursday through Saturday. On Thursday, I met with one of Otherspace’s artists, the character designer for our Cartoon Network pitch. She had some screenplay material that we went over, after I got lost and wandered around for an hour. On Friday, my parents came over and we watched The Magnificent Butcher, plus random videos from Google Video. On Saturday, I made a key lime pie, granola bars, and cinnamon blackberry muffins, attended a weekly Otherspace meeting, and went to Guy’s Night Out (Die Hard, the MST3K episode Hobgoblins, and two episodes of Ghost Stories). Got home around 11:15.
So I took today off. Off from my personal responsibilities as well as my more public ones. The only chore I did today was two loads of laundry. I filled the rest of my time by re-watching The Critic.
And…it feels so good. I really needed some time to just relax and do nothing of any consequence. To recharge. To refill.
This week, I’ve really realized how important it is for a person to have some “off” time. Some time to recharge. Most of the folks I know spend too much time goofing off and too little time feeding their dreams (as far as I can see, at least), so it’s been very hard for me to recognize this need. But it’s there.
Okay. Based on some excellent advice from a reader of this blog—and the advice of Tom Peters—I’ve decided to pare down my list of projects again.
As you may recall, I recently pared down my list of projects (see my February 17th entry) from about fifteen to seven. That list shifted around a bit as some of those projects shifted into maintenance mode and others were added, but as of yesterday, I still had seven significant ongoing duties. I’m cutting that down to four. And one of those four will be toned down.
- Otherspace remains unchanged.
- I’ll keep blogging.
- I’ll continue to cook, since I really do love doing that.
- I’ll still be keeping up with admin on this web server, but I’m going to move into a less active role. I won’t worry as much about checking logs every day.
- I’m going to stop my Syllable work, so that I’m only “on call” to fix bugs on the website, blog occcasionally in Syllable Labs and generally play around with the operating system and the community. E.g., a few minutes of attention here and there, totally at my leisure.
- Giant Armors, my young adult novel, is going on hiatus for the next month or so. Once the month has passed, I’ll re-evaluate whether I have the time to finish it.
- RPG nights with some local friends will have to go on hiatus, too. They’ve been really busy with schoolwork lately anyway, so if we pause now, we can re-start in the summer and have plenty of time to play and get into a rhythm.
I feel really good about these changes. I didn’t realize until last night just how creatively drained I am, and how much I’d benefit from plenty of time off from my various responsibilities.
I am tired.
I’m tired of being the adult.
I’m tired of being the responsible one.
I’m tired of being the one with the answers.
I’m tired of being the one who looks beyond the surface.
It’s more of a burden than I realized. And I’m not complaining; I’m just saying that I’m tired and discouraged that I seem to be the only person I know who’s “on top of things.”
Which means I need to feel my feelings, acknowledge them, let them play out, and get on with life. I’m sure I’ll feel much better about this in a day or so.
If you knew there was a 30% chance you’ll die in your sleep tonight, what might you do differently today?
Okay, why not do it?
From the beginning of the year to the end, day and night, morning and evening, in action and repose, in speech and in silence, the warrior must keep death constantly before him and have ever in mind that the one death [which he has to give] should not be suffered in vain. In other words [he must have perfect control over his own death] just as if he were holding an intemperate steed in rein. Only he who truly keeps death in mind this way can understand what is meant by [Yamaga Sokou's maxim of] “preparedness.”
— Yoshida Shouin, On Leadership
I’m going out on a date on Thursday.
This is the first time I’ve ever gone out on a date. Really. I was homeschooled through high school, then commuted every day to college. I’ve had a few crushes, but nobody I’ve wanted to pursue.
Meanwhile, over the past few months, I’ve been hearing the ticking of my biological clock. I’m almost thirty years old now. If I got married tomorrow, when my kids are in their teens I’d be in my fifties. Which is fine, but I don’t want to push it too far.
So I’ve been using eHarmony, looking for someone. And now there’s a girl who I’ve been e-mailing and IMing, and we agreed to go out to Starbuck’s on Thursday.
It’s an oddly frightening feeling. I feel like a fourteen-year-old with acne. Worse, I feel like I should have gotten over this when I was fourteen. I’m more than a little frustrated that I’m only now going through something that everyone else went through when they were half my age. And it’s not like I should have dated a few girls just “for practice,” but still. These jitters feel frustratingly juvenile.
Nothing I can do about them, though. And they’re minor; I feel mostly calm about it. I’ll go, and we’ll chat. She sounds like a great person; I’m sure I’ll have a great time. But I’ll still have to face this nervousness.
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.”
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)
So Seth Godin was kind enough to link to me from his blog. And my first thought was, “Shoot! My site’s not ready! I wish I had time to clean it up beforehand.”
You never know when someone important—or a lot of important someones—will look at your work. Does this mean that it has to be ready for important glances at all times? I think so.
I’ve now put back online two of my earliest writing projects. The Wand of Cabalis is the first thing I ever wrote, and it shows. I’ve uploaded it along with fresh commentary on its bad (and very few good) points. I wrote A Joining of Powers four years later, so I was marginally better, but it’s still pretty poor.
I’m putting these online as encouragements to other writers. Your early writing may stink to high heaven. That’s okay. Everyone starts out like that. Just keep writing, and you’ll get there.
I don’t mind exposing my faults, if others can learn from them.
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