Tasmanian Street Musicians

Yesterday I walked to the Salamanca Market in Hobart, Tasmania, a street market that opens every Saturday. Much like everything else I’ve experienced here in Tasmania, the market had ‘calmly dramatic’ feel to it, filled with three hundred stalls and bustling with thousands of people, yet not feeling one bit chaotic or rushed.

There were lots of street musicians strewn about. There was a teenage girl on the flute, a young man singing to an acoustic guitar, an older gentleman attempting to play the ukulele, and another selling CDs.

After walking around a bit, I noticed the young man with the acoustic guitar had joined another young musician. The two men, who did not seem to know each other, started playing as one, carefully watching each other as they tried to find a rhythm.

A few of these musicians seemed comfortable performing, but there were many others who made it obvious they were struggling with stage-fright. I remember seeing a young man sitting on a bench through one of the stalls, set back away from the crowds as he quietly sang to himself and tapped on his guitar. I wondered what he was thinking.

At one end of the market there was a young girl, perhaps ten or eleven, holding a violin and glancing around nervously. She found the courage to start playing just I walked past her and several people turned as they heard the music, their faces going from curious to astonished when they saw her age.

Walking down Kennedy Lane, into Salamanca Square where families gathered to relax around a water fountain, there was a young boy band playing. One boy on the drums, one on the keyboard, and two more standing up with guitars. The lead singer wasn’t more than eight, his flushed red face and closed eyes telling me he didn’t want to see all the people stopping to smile at him. His singing was horribly off pitch, but his soul made that irrelevant.

Down the other end of Kennedy Lane, down the quiet narrow end with tall stone walls on either side blocking the already diffused sunlight, there was another musician standing in the shadows. I recognized him immediately from my walks around the city earlier in the week. But I had never seen his face. Or was it a girl? I couldn’t tell. He wore a expressionless white mask, baggy jeans, and a faded blue sweatshirt with the hood pulled over. The only thing more unsettling than his ghostly appearance was the tune that he added to the scene. Picking gently at a closely clutched guitar, he played with the sound of each string ever so carefully, clearly having more experience than a casual passerby would notice. Perhaps that’s why he wore an expressionless white mask.

I walked around the market a few more times, not really knowing where I was going or what I was looking for. Around the middle of the market, at the end of a closed street, there were two men playing music and generating a crowd. Not being much for crowds myself, I stepped off to the side, a bit behind the musicians. There I noticed several guys in black suits sitting on the ground, with bags of wires and instruments and other musical equipment sitting on the street around them. As they laughed and watched the crowd, I realized they were next in line, awaiting their turn in the spotlight.

It was here, facing in the same direction as the musicians, that I noticed a man in the crowd step up and throw some money into a guitar case. He smiled and stepped back into the crowd to continue watching. There was something about his posture that told me he was standing there simply to encourage others to step up and give. Not many did.

Every single one of the musicians I had walked by, from the young girl playing the violin, to the person picking at the guitar in a white mask, had a bucket or instrument case in front of them collecting donations. But I hadn’t given anything.

As I ate breakfast this morning, I reflected on all the musicians I walked by and I felt bad for not giving anything, especially not to the children. I realized that even if I had given money to every single one of the musicians, it wouldn’t have amounted to more than a few dollars.

But how much hope and validation might I have given in the process? What if my giving something meant that one of those children felt inspired to see their dreams through? How could any amount of money be valued higher than that possibility?

Perhaps the problem lies in my relationship to money. Perhaps deep down inside there is still a lot of insecurity and scarcity that I’m not recognizing, a part of me that is reluctant to give because I’ve spent so much of my life living in fear of not having enough.

I do have enough. In fact, I have more than enough.

Next week I’m going back to the Salamanca Market. I’m going to give something to every musician that I can find. In fact, maybe I should make this a permanent habit, to always give something to street musicians. Unlike beggars, they’re clearly offering something in return. Instead of just asking, they’re creating something and hoping that you’ll find value in it.

But more likely than not, they’re also asking for you to support their dream, to show them that it’s a dream worth working towards.

All dreams are worth working towards and I believe there is no better way to invest in others than to help them achieve those dreams. What’s your dream and how are you working towards it? Let me know and I will send you something. (Please include your PayPal email address.)

Notes: Truth

A friend recently published a book, Truth. Here's what I shared with the author after reading the free copy that was sent to me:

I read the entire book straight through the first time I opened it. My intention was to download and read the book later, but I felt myself pulled in from the start, an intuitive attraction towards wisdom shared from one truth-seeker to another. Thought-provoking and soul-stimulating.

The various quotations you included throughout the book were perfect, along with the very reflective thoughts you added to each one. There were several occasions where I lost track of who I was reading: you or the person you just quoted!

I grew up with my dad reciting and elaborating on elucidations of mantras from the Vedas. I have felt the truth and depth that lies in ancient Sanskrit teachings and I was delighted to see you include several references to Sanskrit and Gandhi.

Here are a few of my favorites from the book:

The author who wrote the notes that were previously included here asked to have their name and all information about them removed from my site.

Travel Notes: Gratitude on Australian Busses

One of the most interesting things I’ve observed on the busses here in Australia is that of gratitude. When the passengers disembark, they always say “Thank you”, or “Cheers”, to the bus driver as they leave. And the bus driver nearly always does the same, making eye contact with each one of them.

This has an amazing effect on the environment of the bus as a whole. 

For example, today there was a young schoolgirl, maybe thirteen or fourteen, who was being rough with a younger boy as she got on the bus. The bus driver scolded her as she passed him and she gave him an attitude and said something under her breath.

Throughout the entire bus ride, I could hear the girl and the younger boy arguing and mocking each other. But when the two kids got off, the bus driver smiled at them and said, “Have a good day!”, and I heard the girls tone suddenly change as she said quietly under her breath, “Thank you.”

Running Notes: Learning About Chafing

Yesterday I set a new personal record for running: 11.22 miles (18 km). While this may sound like a lot, it’s just one step for me towards a 100-mile (160km) ultramarathon. (I set this personal record entirely barefoot, as in nothing on my feet, no running sandals or anything.)

I wasn’t looking at my iPhone during the run, so I didn’t know when I passed my previous record (8mi/13km), but my body definitely felt it. 

I could tell that I was running in uncharted territory. My tight hip flexors and my left achilles tendon made themselves heard. And there was something else seeking my attention: a pain between my legs. Yup, it was chafing.

This certainly wasn’t the first time I’d experienced chafing, but it was the first time I’d experienced chafing with the knowledge that I would eventually be running much further distances. 

If I was experiencing chafing this painful at 18 km, what would it be like at 118 km?

In the past, I would simply endure the pain for a few days, waiting patiently for it to go away (if the pain is endurable, I always choose to endure it). There was no reason to learn more about chafing or even seek out a remedy. 

This time, however, was different. I’ve committed to running an ultramarathon and untreated chafing can get serious can lead to infection, or worse, it could force me to drop out of an ultramarathon.

After a painful shower, my first Google search was, “natural chafing remedy”, because there’s always a natural remedy and natural is always the best way to go. 

The next thing on my priority list was a minimalistic solution: I wanted something that was simple. One remedy caught my eye immediately. It called for making a paste to rub on the affected area using oatmeal and olive oil. I’m a huge fan of both oatmeal and olive oil and I usually have both of those ingredients nearby. Minimalist solution found.

The next step was to research prevention techniques. Chafing was certainly not a new phenomena. Throughout history, soldiers, runners, hikers, and athletes all must have experienced this. What did they do?

Unfortunately, I was unable to find anything conclusive. Suggestions for prevention varied from using vaseline and gels, to skipping the use of underwear (Roman style), to losing fat and staying hydrated. 

It looks like I’ll need to experiment with chafing prevention to find what works for me. Until then, I’ll be sleeping with olive oil and oatmeal between my legs.

My First Video with One Million Views

Early last week I considered traveling south from Cairns, Australia to Canberra, Australia to attend a big party for the landing of NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars.

The rover had been en route to Mars for more than 8 months and was scheduled to land on Monday, August 6th. The party was to take place at the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex in Canberra, Australia, the first place on Earth that was to receive the signal from Mars (the data was then transmitted to NASA’s JPL in California).

However, when I learned that no Internet access or even mobile phones were going to be allowed inside (they didn’t want to risk interference with the transmission from Mars), I decided to stay home and watch the event on my laptop using NASA TV and Eyes on the Solar System (a browser-based simulator that allows you to fly around the solar system and track real spacecraft using live telemetry data).

The last time I planned to watch an event this way, I ended up accidentally missing it by a few minutes. I immediately searched YouTube afterward hoping that someone had recorded and uploaded a screen capture for replay but unfortunately it was days before I found anything.

This time I decided that I would record the event myself as I watched it on my laptop and then upload it to YouTube for others to watch. 

The ScreenFlow app was already installed (an app that allows you to record videos of your desktop), but I didn’t realize that the app needed to install special drivers to capture audio coming from the computer. 

With less than 10 minutes before touchdown, I rushed to install the drivers, finishing with only 6 minutes until landing.  I pressed record, sat back, and tried not to fiddle with anything (in the video you can see me start moving my mouse and then suddenly stop when I realize I should leave it alone).

My biggest worry was that the NASA TV stream would freeze up because the only Internet connection that I had available was the 3G connection on my iPhone, which I was sharing to my laptop via Bluetooth. 

It was slow at first, but once it started streaming, everything worked beautifully.

I felt like I was right there in the mission control room as they received confirmation of the landing, and then a few minutes later images from the surface of Mars. (If I had the microphone on, you would’ve heard me cheering with the engineers when the rover touched down; I still get goose bumps watching them receive the first images.)

A few minutes later, I stopped recording, processed the video, and then uploaded it to YouTube. I’m using a pre-paid Internet connection, which costs me $1 for every 100mb, so I’m very careful about what I upload and download. However, I had a feeling that uploading this video was going to be worth it. (It ended up costing me abut $2 to upload and test the video.)

Within a few hours, the video already had 17,000 views and as of writing this—only a few days after Curiosity landed on Mars—the video is at 975,000 views. By the time you read this, it will likely be over 1 million.

I take absolutely no credit for those one million views; all the credit goes to the NASA engineers and everyone else who made this landing on Mars possible. I’m incredibly happy that I was able to play a tiny part in helping one million people relive such an incredible experience 

As I said in my previous essay, this isn’t just another robot going to Mars. This is a machine, built by fellow human beings, sent out toward the stars in search of answers to questions that our species has been asking for thousands of years.

If you haven’t already watched the video, I highly recommend taking 15 minutes and watching it. I’m embedding the video below, but you can also watch it on YouTube.

Living in Congruence with Ourselves

Congruency is compatibility, agreement, and harmony. If we're living in congruence with ourselves, then our actions are in harmony with our beliefs. Things we want to see in others, we consciously strive to exude from ourselves. Our actions reflect a commitment to our values.

If we’re not living in congruence with ourselves, then we will say one thing but do another. We will seek things in others that we ourselves fail to strive for.

I’m always looking for ways in which my actions are not congruent with my beliefs. I ask myself, am I acting the same way I would want others to act? Am I making choices that I would want others to make?

I recently realized that my Journal offering — a $7/month subscription — was not in alignment with what I look for in other subscriptions, nor was it compatible with the way that I make monetary contributions to others.

Recognizing this, I’ve made a few changes to the Journal that are going into effect as of today.

There are now monthly and yearly subscription options, along with a one-time donation page. If you make a one-time donation of at least $7, you automatically receive access to the Journal; the duration of access is determined by the amount of your donation.

For the monthly and yearly subscriptions, the minimums are $7 and $40 respectively, but those amounts can be adjusted as long as they remain above the minimums.

As a current subscriber, you can upgrade or downgrade your account at any time. Simply login to your account and then visit the new Upgrade/Downgrade page.

Of course you can choose to do nothing and keep your current monthly subscription. However, you now have the option to switch to the yearly subscription, or cancel your recurring subscription and make a one-time donation. Whatever you decide, I’m very grateful for your support. 🙂

So far this year I’ve made monetary contributions to [person requested name be removed], Joy Holland, Sui Solitare, Lynn Fang, Niall Doherty, Thom Chambers, Ando Perez, and Earl Baron, along with several other donations to small independent software developers. 

In each case, I might not have made the contribution if I wasn’t able to choose the amount of my subscription or if I wasn’t able to make a one-time contribution.

The freedom to choose, I realized, is quite important to me. I also realized that despite its importance in my life, I wasn’t holding myself to the same standard. 

The options for subscribing to my Journal have been, until now, quite limited: you could subscribe for $7/month or not at all. Even the donation button was removed from my site in early 2011.

However, with these new options in place my offering now feels congruent with the rest of my life; I’m now presenting things in way that I would want to see if I visited a site and felt the desire to make a monetary contribution.

Do you have any thoughts on living in congruence with yourself, or on the power of choice? Is there anything in particular that you wish you saw more of, whether from me or from others that you follow?

Three Days, Two Nights, Forty-Four Strangers

For three days and two nights, forty-four strangers become a tribe, a group of people living communally under one roof, all headed in the same direction, with every intention of arriving at the same destination.

During our journey we all sleep in the same room. We use the same bathrooms and kitchens. We fall asleep side-by-side, snore, and otherwise leave ourselves entirely vulnerable to absolute strangers.

We awake in the morning with messy hair and groggy eyes, collect our clothes and toiletries, and wobble down the hall to the bathroom where we shower and brush our teeth.

All of us different colors, genders and ages, with different passions and dreams, each with his or her own unique set of strengths, and weaknesses, and problems, and idiosyncrasies.

How different is this from life itself?

All of humanity is living together on a proverbial train, moving around the sun on a predictable course, itself moving around the galaxy, and that around the local cluster, and even that moving around the universe.

Life ebbs and flows, inhales and exhales, until it exhales no more and instead transforms. All of us, headed in the same direction, to the same destination, a ‘last stop’ for our physical bodies, where the tracks end and we must get off and use our feet to continue on.

Are you familiar with your feet? Are your walking muscles strong and in good shape? Or will you, when the momentum of time stops carrying you forward, wither and die before you’re dead?

The Ghan slogs through the center of the continent, streaming the Australian Outback through the window and providing a never-ending source of distraction to my writing. I pause between acrobatic sessions of finger-dancing and look out the window to see metaphors everywhere.

If I were to allow myself, right now, to be distracted by that stream of beauty, I would not be creating these words. I need to first detach myself from what’s going on outside and focus my attention here, in the now.

This chair, my laptop, these thoughts.

These thoughts. I feel compelled to empty these thoughts from my brain, for their purpose feels too great to be contained in such a weakly guarded shell. They’re safer written down, transformed into something more tangible.

But there is danger in becoming too obsessed with the now. In writing that previous paragraph I found myself getting trapped in the past, my ego clinging on to every word. And so I turned my attention back to the streaming Outback, to that place where I had no choice but to let go.

The train will not stop for my ego, nor my curiosity, nor my inquisitive spirit. Momentum carries them forward, the same way time carries forward each of us, with or without our consent.

It doesn’t matter how interesting the landscape is or how fascinating the animal, or how quickly either disappears. Look! There’s a kangaroo hopping over the tall grass as it runs away from the drumming train. Look! There’s a emu! and another! But the train, unsympathetic and single-minded, continues chugging forward.

And so it is by observing this movement and embracing the impermanence of everything within my reach that I learn to enjoy that stream of beauty, to recognize its presence all around me.

I can now return my focus to the present.

The group of forty-four people are aware their time together is limited, so they don’t worry about looking funny when they awake. It doesn’t matter if strangers see the color of their toothbrush; they’ll probably never see these strangers again. It doesn’t matter if some people snore loudly or if others let off gas; we’re all getting off this train soon anyway.

The girl who is anxious about finding a place to charge her laptop doesn’t lose sleep over the lady who might miss her flight if the train arrives late, but the two travelers can still smile and share a friendly conversation about their favorite Australian city.

All of this is possible because it doesn’t matter where we’re going or when we’ll get there, but rather how we interact with those around us, to what and to whom we give our attention, and to where we focus the energy of our presence before this train’s final stop.

Travel Notes: The Cheapest Way to See Australia

When I decided to visit Australia a few months ago, I knew that getting to see a large portion of the country was going to be difficult. Australia is about the same size as the continental United States in land area and having lived in the US for 28 years and only scratching the surface of the country, I knew that traveling around Australia was not going to be easy.

Putting aside the sheer size of Australia, the other issue I worried about was the cost. My research told me that Australia was going to be at least, if not more, expensive than the United States and one of the primary reasons I haven’t explored more of the US is because it’s so damn expensive.

While getting to the country itself is quite an expense, once you’re here traveling around doesn’t need to cost a fortune.

For the past week, I've been on the train in Australia, hopping from one long-distance train to another as I make my way from the northern city of Darwin down through the center to Adelaide, then across to Sydney, then up to Brisbane, and finally all the way up to Cairns, a total traveled distance of 6,883km / 4,277mi.

While one certainly needs to get used to sleeping in recliner chairs, showering in small bathrooms, and sitting next to strangers (that is unless you dish out more money for the higher class sleeper rooms), this mode of travel is incredibly rewarding if your intention is to actually see the Australian landscape. 

You’ll wake up to sunrises and watch sunsets from your seat, see endless sheep and cattle, and even catch a glimpse of a few kangaroos and emus. It’s like your own Australian safari, except when the train stops at its destination you can get out and explore even more.

In the United States, train travel is quite expensive. A one-way, 2,400km/1,500mi journey will cost you at least $250 USD. (On the other hand, the same journey by air will only cost you $90 USD; air travel has been heavily subsidized by the US Government, so it’s a lot cheaper.)

Now compare that to the cost my recent one-week train journey here in Australia, which will be ending in just a few hours. The travel itself only cost me $58 for the entire week. That’s $58 for traveling 6,883km / 4,277mi!

For less than it costs to take a train from Boston to New York, I’m traveling across the Australian continent not once, but twice.

This isn’t to say the cost of living in Australia is cheap. It’s not. In fact, the past few months have taught me that living here is actually more expensive than living in the US (especially the cost of food; however hotels, air travel, and apartments are about the same price).

So how is travel by train so cheap here? Well, there’s a catch. If you don’t have a non-Australian passport, travel by train is almost as expensive as the United States. However, if you do have a non-Australian passport, you can purchase one of several different a rail passes.

The most expensive pass, the Ausrail Pass, will give you unlimited travel on all of Australia’s long-distance trains for 3 to 6 months, costing you $750 or $950 respectively.

I did the math on what the journey this week actually cost me and it came to just $58 (my $750 3-month Ausrail Pass, divided by 90 days, times 7 days = $58). 

By the end of my travels here in Australia, I estimate that I will have traveled roughly 21,000km/13,000mi by train, bringing the total cost per mile down to about $0.04/km ($0.06/mi). That’s about the same cost per mile as traveling by train in India!

So there you have it. If you’re thinking of visiting Australia for a few weeks and you want to get around the country cheaply, definitely consider picking up one of their rail passes.

Notes: Letters to a Young Poet – Letter 2

Written between 1902 and 1908, "Letters To A Young Poet are ten letters written to a young man about to enter the German military. His name was Franz Kappus, he was 19 years old, and he wrote Rilke looking for guidance and a critique of some of his poems. Rilke was himself only 27 when the first letter was written. The resulting five year correspondence is a virtual owner's manual on what it is (and what is required) to be an artist and a person."

While you can purchase the book, you can also find the full set of letters online for free. I've been going through them slowly and keeping track of my favorite passage from each letter. I'll be sharing those passages here over the next few weeks.

Here's my favorite passage from Letter 2, written April 5, 1903:

Irony: Don't let yourself be controlled by it, especially during uncreative moments. When you are fully creative, try to use it, as one more way to take hold of fife. Used purely, it too is pure, and one needn't be ashamed of it; but if you feel yourself becoming too familiar with it, if you are afraid of this growing familiarity, then turn to great and serious objects, in front of which it becomes small and helpless. Search into the depths of Things: there, irony never descends and when you arrive at the edge of greatness, find out whether this way of perceiving the world arises from a necessity of your being. For under the influence of serious Things it will either fall away from you (if it is something accidental), or else (if it is really innate and belongs to you) it will grow strong, and become a serious tool and take its place among the instruments which you can form your art with.

Notes: The Laziness Paradox

In The Laziness Paradox, Scott Young writes about something that I've always had a hard time putting a finger on: why short-term estimations often fail and long-term plans often turn out to be inadequate.

I believe optimism, hope, ambition and all that general self-help pabulum work best as far beliefs. That is, being overconfident works best when it is a generalized ideal you use to think about the long future, not when you're planning your to-do list tomorrow.

The truth is, most people make two errors in their judgement. They are overly optimistic in the short-term, because inherent overconfidence and the illusion of control convince them they can achieve more than they can. But people are also too unimaginative about the future--we tend to imagine the future as mostly resembling the present.

I suggest two cures: first, acknowledge your short-term laziness more. If you know you're lazy, you can work around it. Most people don't because we like to think of ourselves as being industrious and in control, not easily manipulated automatons. Second, be more imaginative about the future, even small ripples can turn into big waves over time.

I often allow my imagination to run wild when thinking about the future. I really do think anything is possible. I believe that civilian trips to a colony on Mars will occur in my lifetime. I believe that the standard of living for all human beings can be vastly improved within my lifetime.

But while dreaming and believing in those dreams are big first steps, they're not enough. How to act in a way that works towards them is arguably the more challenging task.

Notes: Correct Posture by Capt. Godfrey Rodrigues

Correct Posture - Its meaning and its results is a fascinating little book on posture published in the 1930s by a man who appears to have no selfishly-motivated interest in sharing his knowledge and his experience (this was the first indication to me that this book was worth reading: he was sharing this knowledge because he truly believed in it and saw its truth in those who applied it).

For me the most interesting part of his story is how he came back to the western world with this newfound knowledge after spending some time exploring India and speaking with practitioners of yoga.

The principles presented in this book are incredibly simple and I can tell you, after applying them for less than two days myself, that it's the real thing. Try it and see for yourself. The book is short and you can read the entire thing online for free here.

I'm including a few of my favorite quotes from the book below.

Physical strength is of value to a man or woman only when it becomes a medium for a better and fuller life, a life of constructive labor an achievement.

Muscles are not the outward signs of inward health of body and mind, but they are part of man's equipment to 'carry on' in the rush and tumble of the world.

*

[...] misunderstanding is the world's worst disease with which man has to contend.

*

Teachers should themselves be taught first the value of posture and air--then they can turn to teaching it to the children. Make it necessary as their book education.

*

From the body of Arabian literature comes these words, as true today as when they were first uttered by some scholar in ancient Bagdad or Mecca: "He who has health has hope, and he who has hope has everything."

*

"The only way for a rich man to be healthy is by exercise and abstinence: to live as though he were poor." - Sir William Temple

*

"Refuse to be ill. Never tell people you are ill: never own it to yourself. Illness is one of those things which a man should resist at the onset." - Lord Lytton

Notes: Chi Running Video

While looking for YouTube videos that demonstrated examples of proper running and walking gaits, I came across this video on Chi Running.

I'd come across the Chi Running book many years ago, but I unfortunately never looked into it. (I could've saved myself so much pain and discomfort while running.)

I've been exploring barefoot running for the past few years and as a result of running naturally, I've been discovering just how out of whack my body has become after years of improper running and walking, spurred on by, and no doubt contributing to, my bad posture.

If you run, even just a little, I strongly suggest watching this short video so you can understand how you may be, quite literally, putting the breaks on your progress.

There is so much we're not taught about how our bodies work and a little knowledge goes a long way towards avoiding injuries and correcting existing pains.

Notes: The Strangeness of Everyday Things

Have you ever repeat­ed a word to your­self so many times that you begin to notice the strange­ness of the sound it makes? The rep­e­ti­tion begins to con­ceal the mean­ing of the word, so you notice what it actu­al­ly sounds like.

I’ve found the same thing hap­pens the more you learn about a sub­ject. As you bur­row in, the sur­face lay­ers of com­mon sense peel away until you’re left with some­thing stranger.

Strange­ness is a good thing. It means you’ve ven­tured into new ter­ri­to­ry, where oppor­tu­ni­ties can be found and false­hoods shed. I’d say my goal in learn­ing any­thing is to try to find this zone of strange­ness.

In a recent blog post, Scott Young writes about something that I've experienced for as long as I can remember, that point where a repeated word suddenly seems to change.

I've also noticed this happen when doing a repetitive task: I feel the task becoming so automatic that I can almost forget about it, but then something strange happens and I start screwing up, as if the task became more challenging right when I was getting used to it.

I found Scott's point about how we can use this sudden strangeness to guide our learning quite thought-provoking and the full blog post is definitely worth a read.

Notes: Letters to a Young Poet – Letter 1

When I met Lisa Rigano earlier this year she recommended that I read Letters to a Young Poet, and I'm really glad she did because these letters are a goldmine of wisdom.

Written between 1902 and 1908, "Letters To A Young Poet are ten letters written to a young man about to enter the German military. His name was Franz Kappus, he was 19 years old, and he wrote Rilke looking for guidance and a critique of some of his poems. Rilke was himself only 27 when the first letter was written. The resulting five year correspondence is a virtual owner's manual on what it is (and what is required) to be an artist and a person."

While you can purchase the book, you can also find the full set of letters online for free. I've been going through them slowly and keeping track of my favorite passage from each letter. I'll be sharing those passages here over the next few weeks.

Here's my favorite passage from Letter 1:

Don't write love poems; avoid those forms that are too facile and ordinary: they are the hardest to work with, and it takes a great, fully ripened power to create something individual where good, even glorious, traditions exist in abundance. So rescue yourself from these general themes and write about what your everyday life offers you; describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty Describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world's sound - wouldn't you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attention to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. And if out of , this turning within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it.

Notes: Is this not true for all of us?

"Some of our dreams come true, others do not; some people stay close, others move away; some get sick and then better -- while others wither and die. Some people we love remain faithful and loving our whole lives, while others abandon or betray us. Relationships and friendships come and go, businesses succeed and fail, fortunes rise and fall, people we love will die, and we will grow old, get sick, and die. As William Stafford says, 'Nothing we do can stop time's unfolding.' In that inevitable, excruciatingly human moment, we are offered a powerful choice…;

Will we interpret this loss as so unjust, unfair, and devastating that we feel punished, angry, forever and fatally wounded -- or, as our heart, torn apart, bleeds its anguish of sheer wordless grief, will we somehow feel this loss as an opportunity for our hearts to become more tender, more open, more passionately alive, more grateful for what remains?" - Wayne Muller, A Life of Being, Having, and Doing Enough

I bought Wayne Muller's book on the Kindle today after reading this passage and I'm looking forward to digging into it during my one-week train journey across Australia later this week.

How I've Been Sweating the Little Things

I tell myself that I don’t sweat the little things, that I’m really good at letting things go, but if I’m frank with myself and I take a hard look at the evidence, it’s clear that I do hold on to lots of little things. Many small, rather insignificant things that prevent me from growing and moving forward.

I came across a column article called How We Get Better, written by Steven Pressfield. Steven tells the story of his friend Paul who recently had a writing breakthrough and accidentally discovered his writing voice.

Steven explains how we get better by sharing the observations he made of his friend’s breakthrough. The observation that I found most interesting was number four: “This new voice was not the ‘real’ Paul; it was the artistic Paul.”

When I read any of my old writing, especially the writing that I feel is good, it never sounds like me. It’s as if there was someone else writing it. Was it because I was writing with my artistic voice and not my normal voice (i.e., the voice that I identify with)?

And if there was an artistic voice within me, what was holding it back when I wanted to write? Where was the resistance coming from?

Intrigued, I started scanning my collection of old unpublished drafts. I don’t know why I started there, but intuitively something told me that’s where I should go next, so I listened.

Within a few seconds I came across something that I had written nearly two years ago about not sweating the little things. The draft included two incomplete stories of events that caused me to start writing the draft.

While the stories were incomplete, I immediately remembered the events in great detail and recalled the importance and impact of their lessons.

In both events I had run into situations that seemed impassable. There seemed to be no possible resolution that did not come with repercussions.

But instead of stressing out, worrying, and taking premature action, I took a deep breath and released the situation to the universe.

Almost immediately the situation changed in ways that I never thought possible and both problems were resolved, like a magical missing piece to a jigsaw puzzle falling into a place that I didn’t know existed.

As I read this old draft and recalled the story and the lessons I learned, I realized that the resistance I most often experience actually comes from getting in the way of the natural flow of things.

The problem isn’t that I’m incapable of making more money, producing better writing, improving my social skills, or learning how to cook. It’s that I’m holding myself back from progressing forward by spending valuable time sweating the little things.

When I’m trying to learn how to cook, for example, I hold myself back by giving credence to thoughts of insufficiency.

Instead of looking up recipes online, buying ingredients, and then experimenting, I choose to worry about making something that won’t taste good, or wasting ingredients, or that my being too analytical isn’t compatible with cooking.

(In the past few weeks I’ve overcome a lot of this resistance and discovered that I love cooking, but more on that another time.)

When I’m trying to write, I resist forward progress by holding myself back by giving attention to needless thoughts.

“What if people don’t understand what I’m trying to say? What if I don’t know what I’m trying to say? What if my point is missed and my writing is criticized? What if I do more harm than good in my haste to publish?”

These thoughts, these unrelenting doubts and worries and questions, never seem to let up. They appear to be waiting for one thing and one thing only: for me to give up.

I’m realizing that the key isn’t to challenge these things that present resistance but instead to ignore them, like a raging river ignoring a large rock and flowing around it.

We get better by not sweating the little things but by letting them go and moving on to the next step with fearless bravado. It’s only when we try to take on the whole world, to shoulder responsibility for getting every single thing perfect, that we hold ourselves back from getting better.

The Other Side of Discomfort

I spent this past weekend learning a new language. Not a spoken language, but a programming language called Python. It was incredibly rewarding and it’s hard to believe that I almost paid someone to take that opportunity away.

A few weeks ago I came across a traveling programmer who had written some software to show a map of his travels on an embedded Google Map. He included a drop-down that allowed the selection of different maps, each map representing a different period of travel in his life. 

After being thoroughly impressed—and perhaps a little bit jealous—by his extensive travels and the simplicity by which he displayed all this data, I began to envision how I could do something similar on my own website.

His software was fairly straightforward: It looked at the contents of several Google Earth KML files, parsed the map data inside them, and then displayed that data on an embeddable Google Map.

Straightforward? Perhaps. But I didn’t even know what KML files were, let alone how to use Google Earth. The last time I played around with Google Earth was years ago. I had no idea how to create maps with it.

But I wasn’t going to let that stop me. 

I foresee myself traveling for years to come and I’ve been looking for a good way to track and display my travels for awhile now. I’m currently using the TravelMap plugin on my map page, but it has limited features and doesn’t scale for my nomadic lifestyle. This Google Earth solution seemed elegant, practical, and scalable.

So I downloaded Google Earth and learned how to create lines and points. I watched tutorial videos on YouTube and read documentation. I exported one of the test maps to a KML file and opened it in a text editor to learn about its format. 

I discovered that KML files were simply XML files (very similar to HTML). The locations of the points that I added in Google Earth were identified using its GPS coordinates; the lines that I drew between two points were represented by a series of coordinates: start-coordinates, end-coordinates, start-coordinates, end-coordinates, and so on.

With my newly acquired knowledge I set out building several Google Earth maps, each representing all my travels for the past two years, starting with my trip to India in 2010 and ending with my present location in Australia in 2012. 

It was around this point where I began to think about what the process of updating my current location with this system would look like on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis. 

I realized it would require opening Google Earth on my computer, editing the map with my new travels and adding new points and new lines, then exporting the file to KML and uploading it to the web server.

That seemed like a lot of work, especially when I was already recording my travels to some degree using geotagging on social networks like Twitter and Foursquare. 

I’m very suspicious of repetitive things when it comes to my time. (It all started when I calculated how much of my life each year was being spent simply looking at various notifications on my computer: 15 hours! I no longer use notifications for anything.) If I’m already recording my location online, why should I spend time recording it again in Google Earth?

How could I automatically update the Google Earth KML file with my latest location without spending any additional time?

After a bit of research, I discovered that Foursquare provides a KML feed for all my check-in data. So, I just needed to create a program that would automate copying the data from one KML file to the other and then updating the path line to show that I traveled from the old check-in to the new check-in.

With my limited knowledge of programming languages, I knew that Python was the best language for this job. The problem was, I knew practically nothing about Python. I was a PHP programmer and I knew that solving this problem with PHP would be both messy and time-consuming.

At this point I’d already spent a lot of time learning about KML files and creating maps in Google Earth. The thought of learning a whole new programming language just to get a travel map on my site was pushing the limits of what I expected to invest in this project in terms of time.

Wouldn’t it be easier to just hire someone else to do this final part? 

Never before had I hired someone to write a program for me, but for the first time I found myself taking the thought seriously. Was I getting lazy? Was this laziness the result of being able to afford to hire someone?

I posted the job on Elance with a maximum budget of $250— that’s what this program was worth to me. Within a few hours I began receiving bids, but with each bid I felt myself more and more disinterested with this idea.

Why was I paying someone to take away my opportunity to learn and grow? 

That’s when I realized something important: It wasn’t that I was being lazy. It’s that I wanted to pay someone to take away the discomfort of learning and growing. 

That one realization changed my whole thinking and instead of succumbing to the discomfort of learning something new, I decided to push into the discomfort and find out what’s on the other side. 

On Friday night I found a free Python tutorial online and began learning. I started with the very basics and ignored what I already knew about programming. I completed every exercise, from the very basic to the more advanced.

At first it was repetitive and boring, but as the hours passed I found myself muttering over and over, “that’s interesting”, every time I learned a new concept or understood how something worked.

This learning and exploration became so fun that I spent nearly the entire weekend indoors, peeling myself away from the computer only to eat, fulfill my running commitment, and watch the sunset.

By Sunday morning I began exploring beyond the Python tutorial and started searching the Internet for examples of using Python to handle XML files. There were very few examples specific to KML files and I couldn’t find anything that did what I wanted, but I continued experimenting.

By that evening I had finished a 248-line program in Python that did exactly what I wanted. It’s certainly not the prettiest code but the sense of empowerment and elation that I experienced upon finishing it was worth far more than $250.

The lesson? When it comes to spending time or spending money, always spend the time if you’ll learn something that will save you both money and time in the long-run. 

And more importantly, when it comes to learning new things, don’t pay someone to take away the discomfort for you: lean into that discomfort. 

On the other side of that discomfort exists a world where you live with more knowledge and understanding than the present version of yourself. It may be hard to imagine that world right now, but push through the discomfort and you’ll get there.

I haven’t finished integrating the new travel map into my site, but here’s a working sneak peak of the Journey Map.

Notes: Life is real! Life is earnest!

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
and things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art; to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Notes: Be Your Best Self

Scott Young writes about how we should not become trapped by trying to 'be ourselves', but rather we should strive to be the best version of ourselves, even if that means changing what's important to us:

I’ve always hated the advice to, “Be yourself.” What if you don’t like parts of your­self, does that mean you shouldn’t change them? Does it imply you can’t change them, so you’re bet­ter off just accept­ing your des­tiny?

Friends and fam­i­ly often don’t want you to shift the val­ues you have, because they worry (right­ful­ly) that it may change you as a per­son. If you’re intro­vert­ed, but you want to be more social, those peo­ple may resist your efforts to be more out­go­ing. If you’re over­weight and try to get in shape, they may resent your sud­den­ly dif­fer­ent, health-conscious atti­tude.

I believe the advice should be “be your best self.” That also means being flex­i­ble in shift­ing the things that are impor­tant to you when you real­ize your cur­rent val­ues con­flict with that ideal. Don’t be fake, but don’t let a rigid con­cep­tion of your­self pre­vent you from being a bet­ter per­son.

Notes: The Inner Artist and the Inner Businessman

I posted the following thoughts on Shanna Mann's blog post, My Art Is My Business-- And Now Both Are Stuck!, about how I've been dealing with my inner artist and my inner businessman since starting this Journal:

What I've been doing is listening to what works and what doesn't, keeping my artist and my businessman separate enough to learn from each other (as opposed to combining them and trying to find compromises). For example, late last year I started monetizing my creative writing for the first time and since then both my inner artist and my inner businessman have learned a lot.

The artist has learned that having people paying monthly for a subscription to my writing is actually a huge distraction: I feel obligated to create and publish at a certain frequency because people are paying me monthly and a lot of extra energy goes into overcoming that pressure and simply creating when I'm ready to create.

The businessman has learned that creation is an absolute necessity and that perhaps offering an annual subscription at a lower price-point would be more harmonious with the way the artist creates. It would also give the artist a huge block of time (one year) to create and to provide value in exchange for that subscription.

All of this, of course, is specific to the way I create. Others may be able to create and publish something every day. I know that I spend more time diving into topics in my head and reflecting on ideas before I publish them.

What I think is important is that the artist and the businessman learn to communicate and share information with each other. For some, that could mean the artist needs one full week of creativity to create his or her art, entirely free of business tasks. Then, perhaps the businessman or businesswoman comes in and switches to business-mode (or hires someone else to take care of the business and marketing aspects altogether).

It's important to continue experimenting, to continue trying new ways of assigning responsibilities and time to the inner artist and the inner businessman/businesswoman.