Patient Energy

Listening to Tony Blair's speech today, I was struck by one thing.

The patient energy of the man, and the patient energy it takes to get anything big done, or make a difference on a large scale.

There were many examples I noticed, but the Northern Ireland peace process is a prime example. It was seven or eight years ago that the Good Friday agreement was signed. It was only yesterday that it was finally confirmed that the IRA has decommissioned all its weapons. And even now, the process if far from over.

In between there were many all night negotiations, many breakdowns, lots of frustrations, seeming impasses, seemingly impossible awkward characters to deal with.

And yet what has been accomplished is something that would have seemed impossible, as recently as 1994.


So it wasn't the accomplishment of one person, but the accomplishment of many people of tremendous patience and energy on all sides.


Now what strikes me about this is that I am sometimes patient, and sometimes energetic, but rarely both at the same time.

When I am patient, I think things like "this can wait until tomorrow", "there's no hurry", "I don't need to do this right now", "it won't make any difference if its done today or next week".

And then I have energetic bursts when I throw myself into projects. And I often accomplish a great deal that way, and other people are sometimes very impressed. But if it can't get done in a burst of intense energy, if it takes time, if there are problems that seem to have no immediate solution, chances are I will get disheartened or lose interest, or move on to some other more exciting project.


It could be possible for me to cultivate being a person of patient energy.

And it would make a big difference to my life, and what I accomplish in it.

Amateurs vs Professionals

Recently I've been spending time reading fan fiction, and talking with people who write fiction for fun. And I've also been reading books by professional writers about their ways of working.

One thing strikes me about the difference between amateurs and professionals, and it probably applies to any field.

Professionals pay attention to the parts of the work that aren't fun.

Being bright doesn't stop anyone from being dumb

In case it sounds like I think I'm some kind of idiot, I don't.

I'm very bright, but being bright doesn't stop anyone from being dumb.

And being dumb doesn't stop anyone from being very bright.


The definition of being dumb we're using here is:

Doing things that you really know better than to do.


I'm not beating myself up about it. And I know perfectly well that it's not just me. I'm asking myself: How do we come to do those things? And what could we do to be less dumb and more successful?

More on Being Dumb

I continue my meandering inquiries into being dumb, and the dumb things I do.

For the purpose of this conversation, being dumb is defined as:

• Doing things that I really do know better than to do
• Doing things that I really should know better than to do

So notice that this does not include any of the following:

• Things I did because I was young and naive and didn't know any better
• What my mother warned me against, but I never took her seriously
• Things that are important to me that other people think are stupid

No, we are not talking about any such things that the world might think are dumb, but aren't dumb to me. Being dumb is here defined as doing things that I know, or ought to know, to be dumb.

Today I went to the bank especially to pay in a cheque which has been sitting around waiting to be paid in for a month. I forgot to take the cheque.

Now it is not necessarily the forgetting that is dumb.

I was actually sure I had taken it, until I got to the bank and discovered otherwise.

Perhaps the dumbness lies in not carefully preparing and packing what I need before I go out.

Perhaps it lies in not allowing for the time I need to prepare and pack.

Perhaps it lies in allowing myself to get absorbed in my thoughts, and not do what I know to do - be systematic about packing and preparing what I need.

I think this is going to be a very fruitful line of inquiry.

Dancing with Bad Wolves

I've been watching Dances With Wolves on DVD.

I haven't finished it yet, but it's very good.

It is strange that the moment that touched me the most was the death of the wolf.

And I don't think I'd be alone in that.

I've been dumb, dumb, dumb!

And I'm feeling happy and liberated to have actually noticed it at last.

I spend so much time doings things that if I thought about them in advance I'd know they will never work out, or be useful, or produce the results I intend.

Like I've spent an hour or more this evening writing posts to people that were never likely to take on board what I had to say.

And I would have known it, if I had even asked myself if that was a productive thing to be doing.

That is just the way of the world, sometimes people are in a place to hear you, your relationship is such that they'll listen, and other times they're not.

But I feel obliged to "make a contribution" and "make a difference".

Well, there's not much contribution if they're not in a place to hear.


And meantime I leave undone things that are important to get done.


It's bad news of the liberating kind: How I waste so much of my life, and the habits and thinking that drive me there. The complusion to do the caring, good, contributing thing, which actually makes no difference at all.

Freedom - I don't have to do that.

There's the possiblity of being accountable and responsible for the hours of my life. Owning my life. Literally not wasting my breath.

Writers' Perversity

More from David Lodge:

Some of Joyce's biographers have wondered whether this [jealous] emotion wasn't almost deliberately whipped up by Joyce so that he could draw on it for his fiction. Nora complained later in their marriage that "Jim wants me to go with other men so that he will have something to write about." She never did and Joyce would have been devastated if she had actually done so.

Maybe not so unusual among writers. The book also talks about Graham Greene and D H Lawrence. In that arty world there seemed to be glamour attached to complicated angst, and especially to tortured and complex love lives.

I got beguiled by that when I was a teenager, and it was only much later that a simple, happy life became attractive and possible again.

David Lodge on Joyce's Choices

I'm reading David Lodge's "The Practice of Writing". One chapter is called "Joyce's Choices"...

These are some of key choices that Joyce made and stuck to with extraodinary steadfastness: to renounce the Catholic faith in which he was brought up; to become an artist rather than a priest, or a doctor or a lawyer; to live for most of his life in exile from Ireland...turn his back on the Irish Literary Movement; and to form a permanent monogamous relationship with a woman of humble background, limited education and such scant interest in literature that she never read Ulysses.

It is interesting to compare and contrast Joyce in this respect with Soren Kierkegaard, the great philosopher of existential choice.... Kierkegaard himself however had the greatest difficulty in exercising choice in his personal life. When he was twenty-one he met and fell in love with Regine. In due course the couple became engaged, but almost at once Kierkegaard began to doubt the wisdom of his decision, and convinced himself that because of his character and temparement he could never make Regine happy. After about a year he broke off the engagement... He tried to convince himself he had acted rightly, but secretly hoped that somehow, through no will of his own, the broken engagement would be mended and Regine restored to him.

Why do I mention all this?

Because I am trying to understand if the resolute and committed life given over to one great purpose, which is recommended by all kinds of people, is all that it's cracked up to be. What are the qualities of a life lived in the context of a few big commitments, compared to a life in flow in the moment?

The examples of Joyce and Kierkegaard are interesting. The theoriser about the necessity of choosing, and someone actually making choices and sticking to them.

A key difference seems to be the inner certainty and confidence that Joyce felt in himself and in his choices.

Welcome!

Welcome to the Reflections of a Meandering Spirit.

In this journal I will post reflections on life, including my own life.

My life is a meandering one, and this will be an eclectic journal.

I will probably include thoughts and observations on life, reviews of books and other media, pieces of my own creative writing, and simple scraps and quotations I've seen and want to remember and share.

My purpose is threefold:

• To share those thoughts that don't belong in any more organised form
• To reflect on my own meandering, and what else might be possible apart from meandering
• To connect with others and their lives

I hope you enjoy the journal, and I'm looking forward to meeting you.