Checking in

It's been a little while since I last posted. I'm still here, but I'm working on some things that I'm not ready to share with the whole world just yet. Bear with me. I'll keep you posted.

Wiring Diagrams

According to the books and articles I read before launching into this year-long adventure, I could expect to spend 2-3 months in "detox". My energy levels would be low, and I would enjoy staying at home and doing quiet activities with a few close friends. This was supposed to give way to a more exploratory phase, during which I would go to art exhibits, take day trips, join groups, and generally make my way back into the wider world. After a few months of this, I would be ready to start ramping up to rejoin the workforce. Yeah, right.

Here I am, after 7-plus months, enjoying a blend of hibernation, exploratory activities, and small freelance projects. The "supposed to" schedule has fallen by the wayside, and I am just taking life as it comes for as long as I can. This approach has turned out to have unexpected benefits.

I find myself taking small, one-off, noncommittal samples of things that I might be interested in, interspersed with long stretches of relaxation. The noise level in my life is the lowest it has been since, well maybe ever. In the quiet spaces, I'm starting to pick up signals of long-suppressed ideas, wants, and needs.

I'm working like an electrician, first shutting off all the breaker switches, then turning them on one by one to see what lights up. When something affects me strongly, I pause to examine the reasons for the reaction. As I find my hot buttons, I examine the wiring diagrams to see what they are connected to.

This kind of careful examination requires stepping back from the gaudy, flashing carnival midway that is city life in the 21st century. Just as a careful electrician makes sure that the power is shut off before she begins working on the wiring, I am stepping back from the political campaigns, protest rallies, committees, social events, and jam-packed schedules that are so typical of life in Washington, DC. Perhaps an election year was not the best time to start this retreat into my own quiet space, but my interior clock is dictating things for the time being.

I still keep myself informed, but I find myself alienated from the mud-slinging and the snark. I yearn for more understanding about why intelligent, rational people of good will take such radically different stands on the issues. I grow impatient with the trite slogans, marketing spin, and outright lies that each side tells about the other. Why can't we look at both sides, find out what our highest priorities are, and come to a compromise that we all can live with? Please don't say that it's because the other guys have gone insane or given themselves over to pure evil -- we all know that's not true.

And maybe this is where my future direction lies. Maybe I am a person who listens to varying points of view and puts them out in a calm way for others to examine and discuss. I have spent a lifetime gathering facts and observations, putting things in order and juxtaposing things in an interesting way. If I can find a way to make that pursuit pay my bills, I might just have something.

So please don't be offended if I don't sign your petition, show up at your rally, join your committee (although nobody I know has actually expressed any sense of being offended). Only a few small lights are on in my metaphorical house just now--I'm still working on the wiring.

Pondering Life in the Real World

Last week, I listened to a thought-provoking talk on the myths that we create to explain the world to ourselves and our communities. By "myths", I mean stories that, although fictional, contain some element of truth, morality, or human nature. During the audience comment period that followed, several people responded that they had no use for tall tales and fiction, preferring instead to deal with the world as it is.

It's a noble thought, avoiding fantasy and make-believe in order to spend more time solving problems in the here and now. The problem I have with this mindset is that it misunderstands the role of story-telling. Far from being a way to avoid reality, myth-making is a device for setting up simplified model systems in order to better grasp some concept that is too complex or emotionally charged to deal with head-on.

Scientists use model systems all the time. When they first delve into a new concept or discovery, they often set up a simplified version in the lab or in a computer program. They control all but a few variables so that they can observe each variable separately to see how it affects the system as a whole. The real world seldom lets us tease out individual variables in this manner, so the model system is a necessary first step toward an accurate understanding of a real-world system.

After the foundations are laid, the model must be validated against a more realistic system. Often, a series of increasingly complex models are necessary before the whole thing is ready for validation in the outside world.

Likewise, our myths allow us to isolate and explore just a few aspects of our complicated existence using idealized worlds and simplified characters. The simplicity allows a clarity that is seldom available in the daily onrush of events and interpersonal interactions. Myths and stories make no attempt to explain all of reality -- how could they ever succeed?

Fantasy stories are a proven tool for talking about topics that are too emotionally charged to address head-on. The television show Star Trek talked about real-world racism using space aliens as stand-ins for present-day humans. JRR Tolkien explored the concept of evil via the malevolent Sauron, the amoral Saruman, and the obsessive Gollum. These stories stood a better chance of getting a point across to audiences who had their guard up against full frontal attacks on their cherished beliefs. Subversive, but effective.

Myths, allegories, fantasy literature -- I suppose some people just aren't into this form of truth-seeking. If they have methods that work better for them, I respect that, and I hope that they respect my love of metaphorical worlds. The real world needs both Muggles and Wizards, after all.

Respecting Each Others' Creative Work

Just a link today. Roni Loren blogs about the do's and don'ts of posting images with your blog, Pinterest, Tumblr, and other ways of expressing yourself on the Internet. This is a very clear, concise explanation (NOT in the sense of legal advice, just an overview!) of where the safe ground is for using the works of others and claiming the rights to your own work. She includes several links to sources of images that you may use with confidence. Ms. Loren knows whereof she speaks: she was sued for using one photo in one of her postings, and she had to "pay money that I didn't have for a use of a photo I didn't need."

Here's her post:
Bloggers Beware: You CAN Get Sued For Using Pics on Your Blog - My Story

Just FYI, most of the photos on my blog are the product of my very own finger on the shutter button of my very own camera. Which means that I own them outright. Where I use someone else's photo, I post a photo credit, and it's almost always something explicitly in the public domain. Now you know.

Unopened Gifts

A long time ago, I heard a story (probably fictional) about an elderly couple who had saved their money for years so that they could afford an ocean cruise. They booked the most basic accommodations, and they carefully looked for ways to economize. They had the time of their lives, but they were always conscious of the need to keep expenses to a minimum.

Every evening, they retired to their cabin and made a modest dinner out of the bread, cheese, and apples that they had brought with them. On the last night of the cruise, they allowed themselves the luxury of eating dinner in the main dining room. They enjoyed a wonderful meal, and afterward, the husband asked the server for the check. The server looked at him very strangely. "Sir," he said, "There is no extra charge. The cost of all your meals was included in the price of your cruise."

What is life offering me that I am ignoring because I think that I have to take care of everything all by myself? What opportunities am I missing because I think that they are only for other people?

It's only been during the last ten years or so that I have started to learn to ask for what I want -- or even admit to myself that I want certain things. My upbringing emphasized self sufficiency: accepting and living with whatever role I was given to play, whatever resources "someone else" wasn't using, whatever I could scrounge up for myself. Great accomplishments, brave adventures, unfettered creative expression -- those things were all reserved for "someone else". No explanation was ever given as to why "someone else" was more deserving than I, it was just taken for granted. Like all those unclaimed meals on the cruise ship, the gifts that I could have had either went to "someone else", or they went to waste.

When my sister was getting our mother's house ready for sale, she came across a stash of fancy soaps and lotions that we had bought for Mom over the years. We had thought that we were giving Mom a little something to brighten up her day -- a pleasant scent, a soothing touch for her dry skin.

Mom had saved up all these gifts in their unopened containers, some of them for fifteen years or more. Some of the older items had become unusable. Was she waiting for a special occasion that never came? If she didn't enjoy these things, did she think that we would be offended if she offered them to someone else? Would she rather have had some other gift? We had spent our money on items that never served their purpose because we didn't know that she wasn't using them.

Unopened gifts are not just wasted resources, they choke off the streams of generosity and gratitude. The care and sacrifice that the giver put into selecting the gift fall by the wayside, unappreciated. The chance to enjoy something out of the ordinary goes untaken. The gift-giving stops short, never paid forward to someone else. The possibility of taking that gift and using it to make something wonderful is closed off.

I get a real kick out of those times when I can do something small that makes a big difference in someone's day. Running an errand that saves someone a long side trip, checking on a friend's house while they are out of town, opening the door for someone who has both hands full. I get a bigger kick out of doing small things that open up the door for someone else to do bigger and better things. Giving an inspirational book or art supplies to a creative person, being there to listen when a friend is working through a big issue. It would make me sad if my friend refused my gift. Am I being blind to the gifts of love that my friends (or life itself) is offering me? Am I closing myself off to some great thing that I could do because I won't ask for or accept the help I need -- a gift that the world is yearning to give?

Isaac, Andrew, and Mick

To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction. -- Sir Isaac Newton

What is literally true for planets and stars is metaphorically true for humans interacting with each other. Any time you reach out to another person, you reach inward toward yourself.

I realized this a few weeks ago as I watched some of the televised auditions for "America's Got Talent" (one of my guilty pleasures). Up until that point, the contestants had been interesting, but not compelling.

The last audition of the night was by Andrew De Leon, a young man dressed in Goth attire, ready to try his skills as a singer. The amount of interview time the producers included before they showed his audition was a signal that Andrew's audition was going to be spectacularly good or painfully bad. The young man admitted that he had never sung in front of anyone before, not even his parents. His Goth look was a response to and a defense against the alienation and rejection that he felt, the sense of being a misfit, "not really good at anything," in his words.

Andrew was clearly nervous as he walked onto the stage. His black leather jacket, heavy black eyeliner, icy blue contact lenses, and long raven-black hair set up a whole package of expectations about what kind of music he was into.

When the stage hand started the recorded musical accompaniment, he had clearly cued up the wrong track. Harps and violins? Surely not. Then, Andrew began to sing "O Mio Babbino Caro" in a clear, strong, falsetto voice. He poured his whole soul into his aria, earning a standing ovation from the audience, effusive praise from the judges, and tearful joy from his parents, who were in the audience.

In the next round of auditions, Andrew choked up and bombed rather spectacularly. The judges eliminated him from the competition and sent him home. All of this was pre-recorded, so by the time the television audience saw his fall from grace, Andrew had been living with that reality for about a month.

In the days after the broadcast, Andrew's auditions were viewed hundreds of thousands of times on YouTube, multiple FaceBook fan pages sprouted up, and fans circulated a petition to get him back onto the show, gaining thousands of signatures. Yes, I admit it -- I signed the petition and I wrote him a note of encouragement. I don't know if he read it, but it did me some good.

Andrew De Leon's time on camera totaled about 15 minutes -- 15 minutes of fame in a very literal sense. So why did hundreds of thousands of people from all around the world care so deeply about whether this shy young man could finally come out of his room and shine?

I think it's because he had the courage to face his fear and take one desperate chance. Because he had something beautiful to offer, and just singing for himself wasn't enough anymore. Because so many of us have felt like misfits and outsiders at one time or another, and we know how wonderful it is when someone else reaches out and accepts us for who we are. His action prompted our reaction.

By responding to him, I had to ask myself if I could take a bold step like that. I had to remind myself that sitting around and daydreaming is only a beginning. At some point, you have to roll up your sleeves and plunge into the real world. Sometimes, the response from the real world is more affirming than you could ever imagine, even with all the hard work and obstacles that come with the package. Just the act of saying "this is who I am" can cause another person to say "I'm that way too -- it's such a relief to know I'm not the only one."

I started with a quote from Isaac Newton, and I'll end with a quote from Mick Jagger:
"You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you just might find you get what you need."

Update, August 24, 2012 -- Andrew came back to the competition as a "wild card" act this week, and he was spectacular. His painful setback made him all the more determined to make the most of his second chance. He was "overwhelmed" (again, his word) by the outpouring of support from all his fans. The Andrew we saw this week was more reserved (keeping his nerves in check?) but clearly looking toward a more professional presence on stage. He's still in the competition, moving forward to the semifinals. Whatever happens now, whether he wins or not, he is already well on his way to bigger and better things.

Checking in

I'm not posting as often these days, but I'm hardly idle. I have been transcribing a lot of my journal entries for the last couple of years (pen and spiral notebook are the only way to do creative first drafts, as far as I'm concerned). Not all of them, just the ones (that I'm willing to share) that form the back-story to my sabbatical year. I'm hoping to take these notes as well as my blog postings here and make a book. I keep reading about how all these people have ditched jobs that just weren't right for them and found something much better, often after taking some time off, but the details of the time off and the whole process are less than sparse. Well, I want to chronicle what it's like to go into this adventure, boring/anxious parts and all, and what happens after the year is over. Obviously, I can't finish this project until I have actually lived it, but I think there's enough material here for a fairly decent book.

I have also sent in a couple of short stories and a poem to see if I can get them published. Just small literary journals for now, but if I can get some publications on my track record, I'm hoping for bigger and better things. Duotrope has been a big help in locating suitable venues and keeping track of where I'm submitting what. Also, I found out that there is a self-publishing site called BookBaby where you can get your e-books out into the world. Several of the local musicians I follow have been using CDBaby (which is affiliated), so I'm going to have to check out this BookBaby thing. Leave me a comment if you've had any experience with them.