Lost in Translation

I wrote this this morning, because I’m tired of not being creative for various reasons. I firmly believe all of these to be true; this is me giving myself permission to live by them.

In no particular order:

• Creative work doesn’t have to spring fully-formed from my head.
• It doesn’t have to be perfect the first time.
• It doesn’t have to be perfect at all.
• Learning is as important as doing.
• What I did right is way more important than what I did wrong.
• Mine is the only judgment that counts.
• I can be creative in more than one way.
• Just because it’s been done before doesn’t mean I can’t do it again.

“Critics who treat ‘adult’ as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adults themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence… When I was ten, I read fairytales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” – C.S. Lewis

As a brief follow-up to my last post, I’ll give you a quote from Colleen Wainwright (@communicatrix)’s brief but excellent review of Daniel Coyle’s The Talent Code:

There is a little bit of luck to greatness—at least, there is in an uninformed world where we don’t know how to make “magic” happen. In quotes because of course, it’s not magic—it’s science and awareness and commitment (a ton of commitment) and love (so much love). But that is what The Talent Code is for: to get the word out there, to spread that love.

I ran across this panel in the comics page today, and couldn’t get my mind off it. I see this kind of unconscious condescension (and I do think it’s unconscious) all the time among people who are considered “creative” (and the reciprocal self-deprecation among people who aren’t). “You don’t decide to be an artist, you’re born one” and, conversely, “oh, I couldn’t draw a straight line to save my life, so I could never be an artist”. Guys, let’s stop this right now: the only thing preventing a person from becoming an artist is the lack of reinforcement for the process of becoming. In plain English: there’s not enough apparent reward to make us want to put the work in. In plainer English: if we’re not artists, it’s because we don’t want to practice.

Consider this hypothetical parallel (cribbed from Betty Edwards). Imagine that when a child arrived in preschool, she was given a book (no pictures, just words) and told to figure out what to do with it. No instruction, no examples. If, at the end of the day, she’d managed to piece together a few words, the teachers would label her “a reader” and encourage her to further develop her reading. Her parents would smile and say “oh, her uncle Dan was a reader – it runs in the family”. The other kids, the ones who hadn’t been able to make sense of the book (again, without instruction or guidance), would have mandatory, rudimentary classes throughout grade school, with assignments like “read this short story” – without any explanation as to how one was to do that – and by the time high school rolled around, reading would be an elective, taken at high levels by the “readers” and avoided by everyone else except to fill requirements.

If it’s unacceptable to think of reading that way, why do we treat art exactly as described? Show an early predisposition toward art, and you’re a “born artist”. Don’t, and you “just don’t have the talent”.

I’ll follow that with a caveat: I do believe that there are people to whom practicing a creative craft is more inherently rewarding than it is to others. At the same time, there are people to whom the practice of law is more rewarding than it is to others. I don’t think anyone would argue that law takes vast amounts of study and practice. Why would we believe that art is any different?

One of the songs I learned when I took piano lessons in my youth had the lyric “If I had even a fraction of Vladimir Horowitz’s talent, I’d practice all day”. It’s exactly the opposite: Vladimir Horowitz has his talent because he practices all day. Artists don’t draw/paint/etc. because they’re talented, they’re “talented” because they’ve spent years drawing/painting/etc.

Why do we persist in the “talent” myth? Because it’s reinforcing. Talent allows those with to believe that they’re special, that they possess a gift that separates them from the unskilled hoi polloi; and it allows those without to believe that their inability to do what they want to do is out of their control, instead of something to be worked past.

This is not to diminish the accomplishments of artists – far from it. But let’s recognize them for their hard work and real accomplishment – not for some imaginary “talent”.

1. Coffee.

We have several ways of making coffee in our house. The one that gets the most use is a Gevalia coffee maker (we had a Cuisinart, but I forgot to take some old grounds out when we went out of town for a week and Bad Things Happened). It’s pretty basic: you put the water and grounds in, press a button, and ten minutes later you have a pot of coffee. If I’m really inclined, I can pre-load the grounds and the water, and program it to turn on at a certain time. (The clock is currently blinking 12:00, largely because I don’t use the programming system.)

The other major way to make coffee is an espresso machine. Where the Gevalia is set-and-forget, the espresso machine requires pretty much constant attention. To make a latte (the variety of espresso coffee that we drink), you need to

1. Make sure the water reservoir is full.
2. Pre-heat the steam chamber.
3. Load espresso grounds into the filter. Pack the grounds gently.
4. When the steam chamber is ready (a light goes from blue to green), fill the measuring cup with milk, place it under the steam nozzle, and turn the steam dial to full.
5. Carefully monitor the steaming milk to make sure that it’s not scalding. Foam it by tilting and moving the cup.
6. When the milk is heated and foamed, place two shot glasses under the filter, turn off the steamer, and turn on the espresso maker proper.
7. One shot glass will fill faster than the other. When the first is full all the way, move the second glass so that it’s being filled by both streams.
8. When the second glass is full, turn off the espresso maker.
9. Pour the espresso in the shot glasses into the desired mug. Follow with the (hopefully not too de-foamed) milk.
10. While the milk and the coffee mix, clean off the steam nozzle with a damp cloth, and dump out and rinse the grounds filter.

On the one hand, there’s a lot to be said for being able to dump some grounds and water in, press a button, and then have coffee available whenever I want it (at least until I drain the pot).

On the other hand, I really like lattes, and they get me going in the morning far better than standard coffee does.

(On the gripping hand, milk is cheaper than coffee grounds, and lattes use more milk and less coffee than the Gevalia does.)

Plus, if I make a latte, I get to be part of the process. Instead of just walking away and coming back when the coffee robot is done its job, I’m actually the one making the coffee. If it’s a great latte, it’s because I made it that way. It’s very satisfying to drink that latte, and that’s probably why it does such a good job of perking me up.

2. Twitter.

I just ran a quick straw poll on Twitter:

Do you prefer to see “classic” or “new” retweets in your timeline? Which do you prefer to use? On both questions, why?

“New” retweets are the inline ones – if you use the new retweet, you can’t edit the tweet, and it shows up in your timeline as from the original user. “Classic” retweets are the kind where you actually say “RT @etherjammer: Do you prefer to see…”; you can edit the tweet, and it shows up in your timeline as from you.

The drawback to new RTs is that you don’t get to add your thoughts, and they don’t show up in the original user’s “Mentions” – in fact, the API doesn’t seem to provide an interface for gathering them at all. The drawback to the old RTs is that if you’re trying to retweet a long tweet, you’re going to have to truncate it to get it all in. (I know a lot of people who actually advocate keeping your tweets to 140 – (5 + the length of your username) characters, to make it easier for people to retweet you.)

There’s something to be said for set-and-forget RTs. You don’t have to worry about whether you should add your thoughts or whether you need to truncate the tweet – you can’t, and you know that the original tweet fit the guidelines so it’ll fit in your timeline without editing. Plus, it’s a single button-click – push the button, and the system does the work. But the original RT system gives you the opportunity to interact and be part of the process, and that shows on the far side.

By the way, the results of my straw poll? 100% in favor of “classic” retweets (except for one friend who doesn’t like retweets at all). Nobody who replied likes the new style (which, incidentally, is the style that I’ve been using for the last few months).

• “It’s easier to tell who retweeted.”
• “I can add a comment if I want.”
• “I get confused by unfamiliar userpics popping up in my feed.”
• “I want to see the retweeter as the source.”
• “If it’s too long to RT, only then will I use the new.”

3. Process and agency.

My latte tastes better than my drip coffee in part because I’m the one who made it. I’m involved in the process and so I’m engaged. Even when it’s just a cup of coffee, it makes a difference.

My classic RTs are better received by my audience because they know I’m involved in the process. My engagement engages them. That makes a difference too.

If something as simple as a cup of coffee or a retweet can be affected directly by your engagement, what else could you improve by being part of the process instead of just letting the machine do the work?

A few years after I graduated from high school, I was back in my hometown for the summer and a kid I knew from school came up to me at the grocery store. “I was always impressed by you,” he said. He’d been one of the guys who relentlessly tormented me – about being shy, about my weight, about how I was the Smart One instead of the Sports One. “You just kept going. You didn’t give a crap about what anybody said. Water off a duck’s back, man.”

He’d been to therapy because he was abused as a child and became a bully to compensate. It was the only way he’d known how to get the anguish out. “I wish I had your coping mechanism.” It was a therapy term. “Nobody should have to put up with that shit. I’m sorry.”

Funny how different we look from the outside.

Inspired by this post by Kyeli.

About twenty years ago, my sister took horse-riding lessons. She was At That Age, where every girl wants a horse*, and for a couple years she lived the dream. There was no horse that was particularly hers, at least as far as I remember, but she rode every weekend, and read up on horses and riding when she couldn’t actually be on the horses. In the fifth grade I checked a book out of the school library about a girl and her horse, and devoured it; and when I told my sister about a particularly vivid scene where the heroine had loped around on her horse, my sister told me in no uncertain terms that there was no such speed as a “lope” and the author clearly didn’t know what she was talking about.

One summer, my sister and I both went to the same camp that revolved around horses. (I think I was starting to feel left out.) She rode, while I did archery and crafts and such. We did all have the opportunity to get on a horse, though, and walk around a bit. They were very well-behaved horses, but when I got on mine, we walked around a bit like we were supposed to and then he reared up a little and I was so startled that I fell off. I figured that my turn was up, so I started walking away. The trainer shook her head. “When you fall off the horse, you get back on.” Then she led the next kid over to my horse and that was the end of my riding experience.

I thought about that day today, for the first time in about twenty years. Today was an exceptionally hard day, in Havi‘s parlance. Money stress, and family stress, and work stress – all the big problematic stressors showed up and made a big mess of my day, and every time I’ve tried to push through and get going again, something else comes up to slap me back down. It’s been, to coin a phrase, one of those days.

There’s a significant part of me that’s trying to retreat. One of the things I tend to do when I’m stressed is to go into a quiet room and listen to water falling. In this house, since the only quiet room tends to be the bathroom, I’ll go in and run the shower for a few minutes. Often I’ll turn the showerhead outward, so that it’s spraying against the curtain, and let the pressure and heat relax me. I can’t express how much I’ve wanted to do that, pretty much all day. But instead, for whatever reason, that horse trainer’s voice keeps coming into my head. I can still hear her – with perfect clarity, my memory tells me, although twenty years and the shame and dizziness from falling off a horse have probably introduced a few artifacts. “When you fall off the horse, you get back on.”

So instead of retreating and finding a safe spot, I’ve been getting back up. Every time I fall or am knocked off the horse, I dust myself off and get back on. That trainer keeps prodding me. “No more being the ten-year-old who fell off a horse and just walked away,” she says. “It’d be easy to walk away. You could wipe the slate clean and never have to worry about it again. But if you want to be stronger, and show the people around you what kind of person you are, then you look the horse in the eye and get right back up on its back.”

When you fall off the horse, you get back on.

It’s hard. These difficulties hit me in what’s charitably called the solar plexus. I get dizzy. My vision contracts and I feel my skin tightening and growing hot. My stomach hurts, and I spend a moment reeling. But then I breathe, and smile for ten seconds like my dad taught me to do, and start going again. In the face of so much difficulty I want to be strong. I want to show the people around me that I can come out the other side and be okay. I want to get back on the horse. And it’s strange, because even though today has sucked so hard that Hoover is filing for patent infringement, I’m feeling better about myself than I have in years.

* Yes, I know, you hated horses and wanted a machine gun.

This is a Very Personal Ad, in the style of Havi’s. In fact, I pretty much copied it directly from my comment there. I too am trying to get better at asking for what I want. Unfortunately, most of what I want is internal…

Here’s what I want:

I feel like I’m still a kid. I was young for my class (August birthday) AND I was skipped ahead a grade, so I was always about two years behind everyone else in school. So I always feel like the youngest one in the room.

I take myself WAY too seriously. Even though I was young for my class, I was still the oldest of three children, and I felt like I was constantly being told to “be mature” and “just deal with [perceived hardship or favoritism] because [I'm] older”. I stopped taking piano lessons because my sister was also taking them, and she got precedence on practice time because she was younger, and by the time she was done my mom was sick of hearing the piano so I never got to practice. Long story short, I learned at an early age to take myself REALLY seriously because it was the best way I’d found to Act My Age.

Even if I felt like I was Younger Than Everyone Else.

So what I want is a way to be myself without feeling like I’m way too young to be taken seriously (I’m older than Naomi, for heaven’s sake) and without feeling like I have to take MYSELF excessively seriously.

How this could work:

I’m actually open to advice on this one. Suggestions that aren’t just “suck it up and grow up” are welcome. I’m really not sure how to proceed. Please leave a comment if you have any thoughts about this.

My commitment:

I will do my best to notice when I’m feeling excessively young or taking myself too seriously. I will do my best to correct for it, without BLAMING myself for it. Just because it’s a part of me I’d rather not have doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s bad to have it.

Havi has been talking a lot recently about Monsters – the parts of yourself that are holding you in a stuck pattern. Havi encourages addressing your monsters, identifying with them, seeing what they need, and helping them see what you need. As part of my progress toward Life On My Terms, I’ve wanted to address my monsters for a while, and today I got the opportunity to do that. I woke up this morning believing that my monsters were goblins, part of a tiny but teeming army, all gnashing their teeth and bearing spears. After listening to Havi’s Habits Detective recording this afternoon, I became convinced that what I was really seeing were just the foot soldiers – each of them a part of the stuckness but under the control of a General – and that the General was the Monster with whom I needed to deal.

I was expecting to have a conversation with my Goblin General when I sat down this evening. I started sketching my Monster – part of engaging these monsters is visualizing them – and I was surprised.

Hello, Monsters, I said. “Monsters”. Because: I see three of you. All three had little goblins scurrying around below them, carrying out orders.

The first was – is – me, but colossal. A parody of overweight. Hand in a bowl of popcorn and candy, too heavy to even sit up, having to look over his massive stomach to meet my gaze. You’re how I see myself, I said. You want to protect me from disappointment.

He nodded, with effort. “Look, giving up isn’t so bad. You get to relax all the time. You get to eat tasty food. And you’re still alive, right? I mean, you’ve lived through everything so far. Why not assume that’ll hold?”

I turned my attention to the second. He was me, too, but just a head, with no body, floating next to the first. I’d thought I’d recognized his expression out of the corner of my eye, but when I really looked I realized I was mistaken. I thought he was angry, passing judgment, telling me how awful I was. Instead he was worried, eyebrows raised, brow furrowed a little, his frown one of compassion rather than upset. You’re trying to protect me too, I said, just in a different way.

“Do you really want to put your work out in front of everybody?” he asked. “You don’t really think it’s any good, so why should you think anyone else will think so? And since you don’t think you’re improving, you’re probably right. No sense in continuing to practice if you’re not going to get any better.”

I looked at the third. This was difficult, because he was a long way off. He was recognizably me even at that distance, but the me I’d like to be in my wildest dreams – successful, thinner, and happy. You’re trying to protect me by staying away from me, I called out.

He shouted back: “It’s such a long way to your goals, and you’ll have to move so slowly to get here. It’s so much easier and pleasant to stay where you are; I’m just trying to save you effort. And you remember how much you dislike driving long distances? Getting here is even harder than that.”

I sighed, and spoke so they could all hear me. O my Monster Selves, I said, thank you for trying to protect me. I know that you want me to be happy and you’re just doing your jobs. It’s hard for you to see me try and fail.

But I need something from you: I need to move forward. I need to get going again. I need to start taking risks and putting myself out there and getting things done.

Self-Image Monster, I said, I won’t live through becoming you. I am already dangerously unhealthy. I need to change in order to live. Instead of encouraging me to give up, would you please protect me by reminding me that that’s not how I want to be?

The first monster nodded again. “But,” he said, “you have to make me a promise. I want to change too. I’m your self-image and if you can’t live being me, then I can’t live being me either. I want to change.” I agreed.

I turned to the second. Concerned Monster, I need you to drive me to improve instead of discouraging me. Help me keep moving forward by helping me recognize what I have left to do. You’re good at seeing my shortcomings; help me turn them into successes instead.

The Concerned Monster was recalcitrant. “You’ll still get laughed at and judged,” he said. “You’ll still get hurt.”

Let’s give it a trial, then, I told him. Until the end of the month. If nothing horrible has happened, then we’ll keep going.

“Okay,” he said, “but only if I get to decide what counts as horrible.”

I turned to the third and pulled out a megaphone. Future Monster, I am willing to move as slowly as you need me to, if you will help me by standing still, so that I know that my journey has an end. When I reach you I promise that you can move away again so I have something new to aim for. I won’t stop just because I’ve reached you.

He said nothing, but a green sign popped up next to me. It had “Future Me: ?? Miles” written on it in white Futurist lettering. I took that as a positive sign.

The little goblin armies had scattered. They were nowhere to be seen.

I got up and opened my eyes, and here I am.

Your thoughts

Like Havi, I’m practicing asking for what I want. Here’s what I’d like to receive in the comments:

• Your experiences with your monsters.
• Support and friendly chatter.

What I don’t want:

• Criticism of my methods or results.
• Other kinds of thrown shoes.
• Shoulds, judgment, and other kinds of negative thoughts.
• Non-productive “advice”.

Thanks for reading!

An odd thought I had today in the shower:

1. Imagine yourself as you want to be. (This does not need to be concrete.)
2. Envision the kinds of problems that the person you want to be has to deal with.
3. Deal with a few of those problems.

It’s an odd exercise, and I don’t know if it works, but it seems like it ought to at least get you partway into the mindset of the person you want to be.