2012-02-11T12:09:40-05:00 http://patrickward.com/words/ Patrick Ward Willow Copyright © 2009-2012 Patrick Ward 2012-02-06T00:00:00-05:00 http://patrickward.com/words/2012/02/06/movie-review-drive-2011 Patrick Ward Copyright © 2009-2012 Patrick Ward In lieu of watching the Super Bowl last night, I watched the movie Drive, staring Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman, and the amazing Albert Brooks. I was blown away by this movie, not what I was expecting. It's a stylistic, existential, "man with no name" movie in the spirit of Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy". Only, instead of Clint Eastwood in the old west, we get an equally talented Ryan Gosling with cars, mobsters, and over the top violence. Gosling did a fantastic job. He has truly perfected the art of no-dilogue acting, something a less talented actor would not have been able to pull off. There is a palpable tension throughout the movie, released only during driving scenes and sudden bouts of violence. But it works, it keeps you on the edge, wondering what will happen next. It fits the story, which is a parable in a way. Without giving away too much, I'll just remind you to think of "The Scorpion and the Frog" while you watch this movie. Thankfully, this movie didn't turn out to be a typical Hollywood high-action car chase movie. It's a smart, cinematic movie with a surprisingly excellent role reversal for Albert Brooks. Now, I'm a fan of Mr. Brooks comedic talents, but I have a new found respect for him as a villain now. He walks the line between his usual likeable character and the sadistic, cold-hearted mobster he turns out to be. It's subtle though, like much of the other acting here. Cranston, Mulligan, and Perlman all shine and fit both their roles and the style of the movie perfectly. There isn't any scene stealer, hyperbolic acting in this movie, which is a welcome change in today's plastic movie going experiences. If you're a fan of cerebral, understated movies that aren't carried on the backs of unnecessary action scenes and subpar acting, you'll love this movie. But, for the action junkies, it has plenty of movie conflict when needed. I think it has classic written all over it, not unlike the classic "Bullit" with Steve McQueen. 2012-01-31T00:00:00-05:00 http://patrickward.com/words/2012/01/31/obligatory-new-first-post Patrick Ward Copyright © 2009-2012 Patrick Ward I've decided to give the blog idea another shot. So, here's the obligatory new first post to get things started. It's a small nudge to get the lizard brain out of the way and the words flowing again. *That little sucker's got a serious hold on me at times.* True to my split personality, I've collected both my interests in literature & liberal arts studies along with my interests in programming & technology onto this one blog. It might be a strange combination, but I have no desire to manage multiple blogs right now. I would say that a blog like this ends up consisting primarily of *"notes to self"*. However, in case there are any bored souls out there looking for something to read, I've split the posts into two main categories, created separate feeds for words and code, and will try to tag the posts with meaningful keywords in the future. That way, anyone who cares to can steer clear of an area they aren't concerned about. ### Willow I've built the site with a derivative of the [Jekyll](https://github.com/mojombo/jekyll) blogging software called [Willow](https://github.com/patrickward/willow), which is of my own doing. It's an offshoot, but different in it's own right, using [Mustache](https://github.com/defunkt/mustache) as the templating engine and currently only supporting [Redcarpet](https://github.com/tanoku/redcarpet/) for Markdown syntax. I'll write more about it later, but the key differences at the present moment include: * Uses the Mustache templating language instead of Liquid. I like it better than Liquid and it was a nice challenge. * It does not parse all files in the directory. Instead, Willow uses specific directories (**posts**, **pages**, **public**, **assets**, etc.) for organizing different file types. Jekyll folders always looked messy to me and I didn't like creating filenames with leading underscores, so I opted to make Willow directories a little more like a structured application. * Includes a Sprockets compiler for working with CSS and Javascript assets. Minification will be added later. * Uses GLI for the command line executable, which provides a nicer command line syntax. * A refactored document handling system; cleaned up and refactored for possible extensions in the future. * A SiteList object that handles collections of pages, posts, categories, and tags with a consistent api. This allows me to use collated posts, grab categories as a hash or an array, etc. * Uses Redcarpet exclusively for Markdown objects so that it can take advantage of Redcarpet's hooks. Of course, that's not to say that another Markdown parser can't be added later. * Replaces Jekyll's Generator with Before and After Hooks. It's just the beginning of an idea, but I'd also like to add hooks before and after the reading, renering, and writing of pages and posts as well. * Rather than associating output extensions per parser (or converter), Willow uses a default file extension that can be overriden on a per page basis. This allows you to create, for instance, .shtml or .php files using any parser, instead of the standard html extension. This was useful for a recent project of mine in which a client needed to continue using .shtml extensions on an existing server and was unwilling to change at the time. 2011-01-27T00:00:00-05:00 http://patrickward.com/words/2011/01/27/jack-lalanne-the-important-thing-in-life-is-to-be-happy Patrick Ward Copyright © 2009-2012 Patrick Ward Rest in peace Jack, you knew what was important all along... <iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/NEboAJf9UVc" frameborder="0" allowFullScreen></iframe> 2011-01-24T00:00:00-05:00 http://patrickward.com/words/2011/01/24/sunday-surfeit-number-2-emerson-the-monday-edition Patrick Ward Copyright © 2009-2012 Patrick Ward I wasn't as productive as I had hoped to be this past week. Of course, that's my own fault. With as ambitious a plan for reading, writing, and programming as I've set for myself this year, it's clear that I will have to set some well defined schedules for myself. Despite this lack of discipline, I did find time to read some powerful essays. ## Reading This was the Emerson week, filled with strange incantations of "transparent eyeball[s]" and an insistence on experiencing the world from the point of view of the true "self". Emerson is a powerful, descriptive essayist who forces you to slow down and read each word, each phrase, carefully, because within each of them is an essay unto itself. He is difficult to read, but if you stick with the challenge you are greatly rewarded by the insights found within. I wrote 15 pages of notes on the various essays I read, but I still feel I've only understood a small portion of what he was saying. I could write a book's worth of notes on them and spend an entire year on Emerson alone. In fact, I have considered spending another week on Emerson, though I am eager to move on to Thoreau this week. I am sure I have only touched the surface of what's inside Emerson's essays, which, in a way, is ironic considering Emerson espouses the surface of things over depth in his essay on "Experience". His writing almost contradicts his insistence that depth is a fiction. "Life is not dialectics," he says, all the while logically proving his point. His essays deserves more than the brief summary that I can provide here. They are each an ocean to be navigated and must be experienced to be fully appreciated. Because, beyond the message Emerson is trying to convey, there is also the language he uses, which is elegant and descriptive and mesmerizing. Many of these essays were derived from speeches he would give, and it's often noted that Emerson was one of the most eloquent speakers of his time. He was described as lulling audiences into a trance with the mellifluousness of his language and delivery. And even though they may not have fully grasped what he was talking about, the elegance of his words and the splendor of his imagery was a gift unto itself. I can fully concur with those sentiments. I found myself lost at times while reading the essays, but captivated by the fluidity of his writing. Which, in a way, is descriptive of what he's talking about as well: the liquid, malleable nature of life itself, ebbing and flowing, constantly changing, full of wonder. I warn you that the following brief summaries are clearly an effrontery to the brilliance of the original essays. They really do the essays little justice and barely touch the ideas within. So, I hope, if anything, they encourage you to read them in total and not rely on my pathetic attempts at compressing them into a single paragraph. ### Nature (1836) by Ralph Waldo Emerson "Nature" is a clarion call to create our own culture in America at a time when America really was still quite young. Written a mere 65 years after the birth of the United States of America, it beckons a new kind of literature, a new kind of culture based not on the poets of the old world, but on the realities of the world around us. It's a discussion about fusing the writer, the poet, with nature, the famous "transparent eyeball". It discusses semiotics and the study of linguistics from a natural origin. Everything signals to, is a conduit for, something else. Words are not just codes, they are "signs of natural facts" which are "symbols...of spiritual facts", which leads to the ultimate realization that "nature is the symbol of spirit". And from there we learn about power and fluidity and how we use it all for the most banal of purposes: "We are like travelers using the cinders of a volcano to roast their eggs." But, the poet, the writer, "sits at the foot of the Sphinx" and opens himself to this strange reality. Emerson calls on us to open ourselves to the facts, to see the spiritual wonders within "nature" and liberate ourselves through it. It is a call to open ourselves to the world! ### The American Scholar (1837) by Ralph Waldo Emerson "The American Scholar" was a scandalous speech for its time and given by Emerson to Harvard on August 31, 1837. From what I understand, he was not invited back to Harvard for another 29 years after giving this speech. It describes a new kind of scholarship, and independence from the "courtly muses of Europe" and a further fusion with nature where "life is our dictionary." It's critical of the hallowed halls and libraries and entreats us to get out of the libraries and do our own work, to embrace the present times and not be shackled to the past. ### The Poet (1841 - 1843) by Ralph Waldo Emerson "The Poet" is a call for a uniquely American poet, for new laws of writing. It's the harbinger for the coming of Walt Whitman, who would become the poet that Emerson speaks about. Whitman was directly influenced by this essay and actively went out to answer Emerson's call. But this is no lofty poet of old. He is "representative", he "stands among partial men for the complete man, and apprises us not of his wealth, but of the commonwealth." He is the translator of all these natural symbols. "Nature offers all her creatures to him as a picture-language." And yet, all people are "poets and mystics!" We all carry within us the genius of the Shakespeare. But, above all, he's calling for that new poet: <blockquote>We have yet no genius in America...Our logrolling, our stumps and their politics, our fisheries, our Negroes, our Indians, our boasts, and our repudiations, the wrath of rogues, and pusillanimity of honest men, the northern trade, the southern planting, the western clearing, Oregan, and Texas, are yet unsung.</blockquote> ### History (1841) by Ralph Waldo Emerson "History" speaks to ownership of what is ours, to laying claim to what is ours. That, "what Plato has thought, [we] may think...what a saint has felt, [we] may feel." We are heirs to everything that has come before us; we are a part of this history and own it within us. And yet, we must broaden our horizons. We must look to the idiot, the child, the unschooled farmer's boy. We must, again, move out of the libraries and universities and into nature, to the woods and the farms. That is where the language of nature can be best understood. And in a way, this foreshadows future American works in which the idiot and the unschooled are the protagonists: "Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain, "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner. ### Self-Reliance (1841) by Ralph Waldo Emerson "Self-Reliance" is Emerson's most famous essay. Looking at it from today's perspective, it may not seem very revolutionary, but in it's time, this notion of the self was unheard of. It just may be because of Emerson that Americans have this strong sense of the self. And yet, he explodes the self in this essay. It's more than our familiar and comfortable concept of the self; this is a about a self that becomes something both inside and outside of our own bodies. We join, in a sense, the rhythm of the universe. We become most purely, authentically real. "Perception is not whimsical, but fatal." What we see, what we feel, these are the very attributes of who we are. How we look at the world is who we are. It's a connection to the Over-Soul, that vital force that connects all souls and transcends all individual consciousness. As he says in another essay "The Over-Soul": "The heart in thee is the heart of all...one blood rolls uninterruptedly an endless circulation through all men, as the water of the globe is all one sea..." Self is our connection to the Over-Soul. This self is a rejection of the comfortable Judeo-Christian ethos. For "No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it." It is an anti-social self that rejects charity. <blockquote> Virtues are, in the popular estimate, rather the exception than the rule. There is the man and his virtues. Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world, -- as invalids and the insane pay a high board. Their virtues are penances. I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. </blockquote> It rejects imitation: "Insist on yourself; never imitate...That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him." <blockquote> Where is the master who could have taught Shakspeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? Every great man is a unique. The Scipionism of Scipio is precisely that part he could not borrow. Shakspeare will never be made by the study of Shakspeare. </blockquote> Don't imitate it. Instead, rival it! Do something of your own on that scale! Reject the foreign models, reject the genius if it makes you servile to it and instead be your own artist, your own writer. But, there are difficulties to overcome as well. Not the least of which is our insistence on consistency. <blockquote> The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them. </blockquote> Emerson implores us to forget the past, forget what you were yesterday and instead be prepared to be mercurial. For, "to be great is to be misunderstood." <blockquote> A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. -- 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' -- Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. </blockquote> There is just so much in this essay! But, for now, I'll leave you with a final phrase that seems to sum up much of what is being said by Emerson: "Nothing can bring you peace but yourself." ### Experience (1844) by Ralph Waldo Emerson "Experience" is Emerson at perhaps his finest. Though "Self-Reliance" is his more famous essay, in a way "Experience" is the more refined and mature of the two. It was written during the time that his son passed away, and so it has some extremely melancholy moments in it. But, it is surprisingly optimistic as well, in a very stoic, existential manner. It begins with life as a dream. "We wake and find ourselves on a stair; there are stairs below us, which we seem to have ascended; there are stairs above us, many a one, which go upward and out of sight". We're caught in the middle, which is life, an endless set of stairs to climb. And then we find ourselves discussing grief: <blockquote> The only thing grief has taught me, is to know how shallow it is. That, like all the rest, plays about the surface, and never introduces me into the reality, for contact with which, we would even pay the costly price of sons and lovers. Was it Boscovich who found out that bodies never come in contact? Well, souls never touch their objects. An innavigable sea washes with silent waves between us and the things we aim at and converse with. Grief too will make us idealists. In the death of my son, now more than two years ago, I seem to have lost a beautiful estate, -- no more. I cannot get it nearer to me. If tomorrow I should be informed of the bankruptcy of my principal debtors, the loss of my property would be a great inconvenience to me, perhaps, for many years; but it would leave me as it found me, -- neither better nor worse. So is it with this calamity: it does not touch me: some thing which I fancied was a part of me, which could not be torn away without tearing me, nor enlarged without enriching me, falls off from me, and leaves no scar </blockquote> I found myself understanding this. I've felt this death of a loved one too many times in my life. And yet, I too realized that even my most cherished and deep relationships seem alien to me. They are not me. I cannot touch them beyond my own experience. When you realize that, the grief does indeed become shallow. And you begin to realize our moods are the way we see the world. <blockquote> Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus. </blockquote> Our lenses become the filters through which we experience the world, they color our views. But they are governed by our temperament. <blockquote> Temperament is the iron wire on which the beads are strung. Of what use is fortune or talent to a cold and defective nature? Who cares what sensibility or discrimination a man has at some time shown, if he falls asleep in his chair? or if he laugh and giggle? or if he apologize? or is affected with egotism? or thinks of his dollar? or cannot go by food? or has gotten a child in his boyhood? Of what use is genius, if the organ is too convex or too concave, and cannot find a focal distance within the actual horizon of human life? Of what use, if the brain is too cold or too hot, and the man does not care enough for results, to stimulate him to experiment, and hold him up in it? or if the web is too finely woven, too irritable by pleasure and pain, so that life stagnates from too much reception, without due outlet? Of what use to make heroic vows of amendment, if the same old law-breaker is to keep them? What cheer can the religious sentiment yield, when that is suspected to be secretly dependent on the seasons of the year, and the state of the blood? </blockquote> We become prisoners of the whatever temperament we have at any particular moment. We are shut "in a prison of glass which we cannot see." So what are we to do? How are we to move outside this prison of glass? Emerson instructs us to be active, energetic, to not waste so much time theorizing and speculating on what might be. Instead, we must give ourselves over to the rhythm and pulses of existence. For: <blockquote> Nature hates peeping, and our mothers speak her very sense when they say, "Children, eat your victuals, and say no more of it." To fill the hour, -- that is happiness; to fill the hour, and leave no crevice for a repentance or an approval. We live amid surfaces, and the true art of life is to skate well on them. </blockquote> Think about that, "to fill the hour, -- that is happiness." It's a very Zen-like notion he's talking about it. It's about living in the moment, experiencing the present at it's most raw. When you eat, eat. When you walk, walk. Don't theorize about it, just do it. And then there is learning to skate amid the surfaces of life, because life is really just surface, we live in the here and now, not in some pointless search for secrets and meanings, not in some fictional fantasy of getting to the "core" of things, and reaching our "deep feelings". It's all wrong, for life is just surfaces. It has not inside, only outsides. <blockquote> Fox and woodchuck, hawk and snipe, and bittern, when nearly seen, have no more root in the deep world than man, and are just such superficial tenants of the globe. Then the new molecular philosophy shows astronomical interspaces betwixt atom and atom, shows that the world is all outside: it has no inside. </blockquote> It's interesting, because, in a way, "superficial" is a pejorative term in our world, but Emerson is saying that's all we have! The rest is just speculation and keeps us out of touch with the true surfaces on which we live. And then we find ourselves questioning the existence of the surfaces: <blockquote> It is very unhappy, but too late to be helped, the discovery we have made, that we exist. That discovery is called the Fall of Man. Ever afterwards, we suspect our instruments. We have learned that we do not see directly, but mediately, and that we have no means of correcting these colored and distorting lenses which we are, or of computing the amount of their errors. Perhaps these subject-lenses have a creative power; perhaps there are no objects. Once we lived in what we saw; now, the rapaciousness of this new power, which threatens to absorb all things, engages us. Nature, art, persons, letters, religions, -- objects, successively tumble in, and God is but one of its ideas. Nature and literature are subjective phenomena; every evil and every good thing is a shadow which we cast. </blockquote> We're still encumbered by those colored lenses from before, stuck with faulty instruments that don't provide us with the "direct" views we seek out. And Emerson wonders: "perhaps there are no objects." Perhaps we're the constructors of all we see: nature, art, letters, even God! But Emerson says this is all a source of freedom, that there is optimism and creativity in these forces. That, though all our "muses and love and religion hate these developments", these "bleak rocks" are where God lives. These spaces, this ever-changing nature of reality is where our happiness lies. Again, this is not unlike a Buddhist philosophy of life, in which our lives are like a running river, ever in motion, always changing, always being, and that we must accept these facts, and that the only way to true happiness is to accept that "the life of truth is cold" and that "we must hold hard to this poverty." Self-possession is the goal and a life of the present is the key. We will always return to the solitude of our selves. <blockquote> We dress our garden, eat our dinners, discuss the household with our wives, and these things make no impression, are forgotten next week; but in the solitude to which every man is always returning, he has a sanity and revelations, which in his passage into new worlds he will carry with him. Never mind the ridicule, never mind the defeat: up again, old heart! -- it seems to say, -- there is victory yet for all justice; and the true romance which the world exists to realize, will be the transformation of genius into practical power. </blockquote> Perhaps that is enough about Emerson for one day. ### To Read... <strong>Walden by Henry David Thoreau</strong> <strong>The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759 – 1769) by Laurence Sterne</strong> ## Writing There was some progress on the writing front this past week: I started a short story, but still need to finish it. I also started a blog post that isn't a collection of random reading selections like this! Of course, that also needs to be completed. Hermes has not been kind to my plebeian brain for some reason, but therein lies the problem: it is not, as I lie to myself, some external force that prevents me from writing. It is the internal jokester who prevents it, the lizard king who sits atop a jaded throne and smirks at my puny attempts to make sense of this swarming, cyclonic imagery I grasp at. ## Links A few of the more useful and entertaining essays I found on the web this past week: <a href="http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1888/the-art-of-fiction-no-134-toni-morrison">Toni Morrison, Interview in The Paris Review</a> Wonderful interview. I particularly loved her response to where her ideas come from when she begins writing: <em>"...it’s a sustained thing I have to play with. I always start out with an idea, even a boring idea, that becomes a question I don’t have any answers to." </em> <a href="http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/101486/Why-We-Need-Stories.aspx">Why We Need Stories</a> <em>"Without them, the stuff that happens would float around in some glob and none of it would mean anything."</em> <p> <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/01/10/110110crat_atlarge_acocella">Many of Mystery: Why do people love Stieg Larsson's novels?</a> I found myself agreeing with this assessment. I've read all three novels, but by the end of them I was left feeling indifferent about the whole thing. The stories were good, but the writing wasn't. </p> <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/01/read_bill_murrays_hilarious_sp.html">Read Bill Murray’s Hilarious Speech to Sofia Coppola at the NBR Awards</a> Hilarious, yes. But it was also spot on correct as well! <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/15/novels-internet-laura-miller">How novels came to terms with the internet</a> <em>"The internet has altered our lives in ways television never did or could, but mainstream literary novelists – by which I mean writers who specialise in realistic, character-based narratives – have mostly shied away from writing about this, perhaps hoping that, like TV, it could be safely ignored."</em> 2011-01-16T00:00:00-05:00 http://patrickward.com/words/2011/01/16/sunday-surfeit-number-1-the-beginning Patrick Ward Copyright © 2009-2012 Patrick Ward A surfeit can be generally described as an excess of something, usually in terms of eating or drinking. In other words: a gluttonous meal. Which is what I feel I've eaten at the end of the week, when I've collected too much reading material, too many thoughts, and a general distemper for any more mental gymnastics — be they technical or literary in nature. I overindulge in my zeal toward subjects I'm interested in. But these informative meals can be a glorious celebration of excess as well. And, since I collect a seemingly random surfeit of fascinating links, readings, and thoughts throughout the week, I thought it would be fun to collect them into a post each Sunday and share them with the world. And thus is born the Sunday Surfeit for your general humor or dislike; your choice. ## Reading The reading selections for the first few weeks of 2011 have been according to a rather ambitious plan I have for the year. I'm starting way back in the 17th century and moving forward in time, with a few dips farther back when the schedule permits and some necessary distractions with more modern novels as well. The bulk of it is English and American literature, some of which I've read before. But, I am coming back to them with a more experienced mind. When I first studied literature at college, 20 years ago, I found it fascinating. But, I'm not sure I fully understood the impact it had on me then or the insights into the human experience that it seems to afford me. Regardless, it's become my new passion, and so I'm jumping into this literary pool head first. <strong>The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (1683) by Daniel Defoe</strong> Written in the picaresque tradition of rogues and scoundrels, Moll Flanders is the story of a woman who on the surface seems to have no morals. It's a truly contemptible life described by Mrs. Flanders herself. And yet, beneath the surface of this scandalous life of harlotry, adultery, thievery, and lying is a message about our own hidden lives. It seems to ask the question: do we really know the other people in our lives? And do they really know us? For a novel written in 1683, it's surprisingly existential. And, in contrast to other novels of it's time, it has a disturbingly honest look at the ordinary lives of people. It asks the question: how morally scrupulous is any life? It took me some time to get into the novel given the elevated, seventeenth century language used. However, once I became accustomed to it, I found myself engaged and excited to see what new misfortune this woman would find herself in next. <strong>The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1791) by Benjamin Franklin</strong> Ben Franklin needs no introduction as one of our most beloved founding fathers in America. I had heard about and read about this book for years, but never sat down and actually read it until this month. Again, the language is not modern, so it took some time to get myself acclimated to the phrasing. But, it's far more modern in tone than Defoe's work. In general, it's the story of the self-made man. And, in deep contrast to other more Puritan works of its time, the book can be described as naturalistic, secular, diplomatic, enterprising and pointing forward towards a very American sense of self-reliance. Throughout it, are peppered various anecdotes about life that are worth the read alone. Some, I believe, are written almost tongue-in-cheek, such as his admission to stopping his vegetarian diet with a slightly flawed sense of logic and a taste for the fish he so desired: "So convenient it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do." I was disappointed, though, to find that the book only chronicles his time up to around 1760 and doesn't cover the events of the Revolutionary War or the birth of our new country. But, I can see in it the ideas of a time that led to the concept of a new country. Franklin was truly an industrious and brilliant man for his time (or any time for that matter). His earnest desire to be a virtuous man and right the errors of his youth as well as create a wonderful place for people to live is inspiring. <strong>The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820) by Washington Irving</strong> Sleepy Hollow is one of those stories whose reputation is larger than the story itself. It's a wonderful story, though. And, when looked at through the prism of a new country, you can see how the town of Sleepy Hollow and it's grotesque, intellectual, and comical protagonist Ichabod Crane stands in stark contrast to the brash, roughneck, and strong nature of his antagonist Bram Bones. And though we are rooting for Crane, I can't help but think that he's representative of the past in contrast to the roughneck like nature of the "new" America that Bones represents. Such a fun story; I smiled when the pumpkin was thrown. <strong>Rip Van Winkle (1819) by Washington Irving</strong> I hadn't read this story in ages, and I had forgotten what it was really about. If you know the story, it's obviously about a man who slept through his life. But, there are details inside this story that describe the events he actually slept through: The American Revolution! So that, when he awakes, the scenes are drastically different from the past: the feel of the country is different with it's business and bustle in the streets; the discussions are about "rights of citizens", "elections", and "liberty" — topics unknown to him twenty years earlier; the sights have changed — King George's red coat is painted over with Blue and made into George Washington. In his slumber, Rip Van Winkle slept through the single, most important events of the new America. But beyond these incredible scenes are some fascinating Freudian and existential insights as well. At some point he asks, "Does no one here <em>know</em> Rip Van Winkle?" before seeing his double, his son, but a younger version of himself. Couple this with themes of escape, memory, sleeping through your life, and male menopause and you come away with an amazing amount of detail in such a short story. Well worth the read again. ### Next up <strong>The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759 - 1769) by Laurence Sterne</strong> I've just started this book and it's truly one of the most zany, rambling, and humorous books of it's period that I've ever read. It's almost maddening to read; a very odd book written by a clergyman with a very keen sense of wit. <strong>Several essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson</strong> It's been twenty years since I cracked open an Emerson essay and I'm looking forward to it again. On deck are <em>Nature</em>, <em>History</em>, <em>The Poet</em>, <em>The Over-Soul</em>, <em>Self-Reliance</em>, and <em>Experience</em>. ## Writing The writing efforts have been in my private journal only, and this is a serious problem. Because, writing for yourself is vastly different from writing for other people, which requires a different kind of thought process. It's less of a mental dialog to myself (which is rambling and incoherent at times) and more of a sustained conversation with an imaginary friend I'm writing to. There is obviously a mental shift that I haven't made yet, and that's holding me back. However, I have a new goal for the coming week that I hope to give a favorable report on next week. So, let's keep our collective fingers crossed that the gremlins inside allow me some modicum of public creativity over the next seven days. ## Links Even though my reading schedule is fairly busy in the evenings, I do find the time to peruse some interesting articles on the internet. Some of these aren't very new, but they are worth your reading pleasure in my opinion. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/05/huckleberry-finn-edition-censors-n-word">New Huckleberry Finn edition censors 'n-word'</a> It irks me when a classic text is edited for modern sensibilities. And in this case, it's just wrong. The irony is that Huckleberry Finn is one of the most anti-racist books of it's time; the n-word itself is used to further that message. <a href="http://theiron.tumblr.com/">The Iron</a> by Henry Rollins "When the Iron doesn’t want to come off the mat, it’s the kindest thing it can do for you." <a href="https://projects.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html">A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace</a><br />by John Perry Barlow Old and still not realized, but always fun to read. <a href="http://www.cracked.com/article_15231_7-reasons-21st-century-making-you-miserable.html">7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable</a><br />by David Wong (Senior Editor of Cracked.com) A humorous, and yet, insightful take on modern day life. <a href="http://feliciaday.com/blog/five-things-about-2010">Five Things of 2010</a><br />by Felicia Day Some excellent advice for creative types here. <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/kevin_kelly_on_the_next_5_000_days_of_the_web.html">Kevin Kelly on the next 5,000 days of the web</a> This was recorded in 2007, but I think we can already see some of what he's talking about in this TED talk. Ok, I've bored you long enough. Till next time... 2011-01-05T00:00:00-05:00 http://patrickward.com/words/2011/01/05/frozen-seas Patrick Ward Copyright © 2009-2012 Patrick Ward In a letter to a colleague, Kafka once wrote: > I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? ...we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us. It's a violent image, but it has ignited inside me the passion I felt for literature and writing. It reminded me of why I wanted to be a writer and why I read to begin with. And then, in a wonderful occurrence of synchronicity, my grandparents sent me a lecture series called "Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft". How perfectly appropriate and thoughtful a gift! It's the very catalyst I needed to resume this heady goal of mine. I don't presume I'll ever attain the heights of such great writers as Kafka, but I have found that writing allows me to explore my own frozen sea; one that grows colder every year. Just as a great book can break open my misconceptions of the world and wake me up with it's blow to my head, I feel the act of writing provides me with an even larger ax to wield. It forces me to look into that shadowy self I hide from the world. As I looked over my accomplishments last year, I kept thinking that the fiction I wrote pleased me the most. It's not great by any means, but it was something that stirred me more than anything else. It was probably the least noticed of anything I did last year as well; and probably not nearly as practical an endeavor as writing software or improving my health. But, it allowed me to explore all those ideas, fears, and emotions that I tend to store away, like forcing all the undesirable parts of me, the not so nice parts, into a bag I drag behind me. Robert Bly talked about these bags in "A Little Book On the Human Shadow": > Behind us we have an invisible bag, and the part of us our parents don't like, we, to keep our parents' love, put in the bag...We spend our life until we're twenty deciding what parts of ourself to put in the bag, and we spend the rest of our lives trying to get them out again. Most of us do this, especially in my American culture. We're taught to be nice little boys and girls, to put our anger, our sexuality, our wildness, our impulsiveness, and our freedom into these bags and seal them up. They are not to be let out. Bly says we "came as infants 'trailing clouds of glory', arriving from the farthest reaches of the universe, bringing with us appetites well preserved", but that we're rejected before we can talk, taught to fit in with the expectations of our societies. I think that's what Kafka was talking about. He was describing why we need stories to begin with, to remind of us of these chilly, unconscious pieces of ourselves that we methodically store away into our private bags. We need to break them open, to face the hostility of our shadow selves. Because, otherwise, they regress, sitting in the dark, growing in hostility until we finally open them again; and we always open them. Like so many others, my bag has grown long and heavy, becoming a shadow that grows forever long, darkening the atmosphere around me. For me, the stories I read and write are the very ax I need to break open this seal, to chip away at the icy sea inside me. So, this year, I've decided to continue to claw my way towards that elusive writing life I've been searching for and step further into that labyrinth of great literature I'm drawn to. If there is ever a time to break open this frozen sea, it's now. 2010-09-21T00:00:00-04:00 http://patrickward.com/words/2010/09/21/your-creative-death-sentence-comparing-yourself-to-others Patrick Ward Copyright © 2009-2012 Patrick Ward I'm sure I'm not in the minority when I admit that I consistently compare myself to others. It's a human trait, and an annoying one at that. For a would be writer it's a near death sentence. I mean, how can I possibly expect to write another short story after reading an anthology of Philip K. Dick stories? It just doesn't seem possible! Yet, stop comparing we must. Remember: You are this infinitely unique miracle of genetics, experiences, and ideas. There's no one else exactly like you and there never will be. Sure, it's a trite old reminder, but it's true. I can hear you saying, “But — I'll never tell a story like PKD did!” You don't have to. That's the beauty of being you! You're not supposed to tell anyone else's story, paint their picture, or start their business. You're just supposed to do your thing. Look, even if every story has already been told, every picture's been painted, and every business idea has been tried before, it's never been done by you. Maybe your idea is a fresh take on an old muse? You don't have to convince the world, just enough fans who think you're the new “awesome”. Take this blog post, for instance. There are a bazillion articles and entries with the words <em>Stop Comparing Yourself to Others</em> on the web. When I started thinking about this article, I first thought “why should I add to everyone else's thoughts on this subject?” Of course, the answer lies in the title itself. Because, if I didn't write it, I'd be comparing myself to someone else's thoughts instead of contributing my own. There's nothing wrong with wanting to contribute to a meme that's already in progress. It just means you're helping it move along, whispering the truth to more eager ears and adding to the conversation. Perhaps, you've never read one of the bazillion other articles about this idea. If so, then it's my pleasure to pass it along through this post. So, when you find yourself comparing yourself to someone else, try a different approach: * <strong>Admire them, but don't compare yourself to them.</strong> Remember, you're supposed to do your thing, not theirs. * <strong>Learn from their talents</strong>, and let your own talents grow because of what you've learned from them. I've become a better writer because of the inspiration I've found in other's writings. * <strong>Do it for yourself.</strong> If you're enjoying the creative act, that's reason enough. Ultimately, your love of the creative process is what's going to make what you do inspirational to someone else. * <strong>Enjoy the journey.</strong> Follow the path of right action, and immerse yourself in the flow of what you're doing. When you forget about comparing yourself to others, your mind can open up to the full power of your own creative potential. * <strong>Be willing to suck.</strong> If you're willing to take the risk of failure, then you've already won. There are countless stories of people like Babe Ruth who failed time and again before realizing their own potential. Failure is never the end, but it's always a learning experience. * <strong>Give yourself some credit.</strong> I'm the worst when it comes to giving myself credit, but I am proud when I complete something. Regardless of whether I think it's good enough, I still have to admit that each act of creation has added to my experience of life, my understanding of creativity, and my knowledge of the process I'm working with. * Finally, <strong>Realize that the comparison is just a stalling tactic.</strong> Ultimately, all this futile comparing of yourself is just holding you back from realizing your own potential. The sooner you get past it, the sooner you can get to being awesome yourself. 2010-09-20T00:00:00-04:00 http://patrickward.com/words/2010/09/20/become-a-better-you-by-knowing-who-you-arent Patrick Ward Copyright © 2009-2012 Patrick Ward There comes a time when it's not so much about who you are as it is about who you aren't. When you realize who you aren't, you're getting closer to understanding who you are. But, that's a wonderful thing. Because, it means you're narrowing it down, shaping the idea, and getting closer to the truth of what you're all about. It's a lot like producing a work of art. A painting isn't imagined as a fully formed work. It takes time and layers to produce, sometimes painting over what you just painted to create the effect you're after. Layers are added, overwriting (or extracting) the ideas of before in order to reveal the broader vision. Similarly, sculpting is a matter of elimination, carefully removing stone to find the beauty of the object inside. A sculptor has to be aware of the subtle changes in a rock's formation, skillfully chipping away just the right amount of stone at just the right position. The result is a perfectly formed sculpture, created through the process of extraction. I find this is true of our search for meaning in life as well. Sometimes, you have to chip away at what you thought was the real you. It can be painful, but realizing what you don't want is also a part of growth. You have to remove those elements of your life that are holding you back. It can be a challenging, but rewarding, adventure depending on how you approach it. For most of my life I've fought against that process, choosing instead to hang on to ideas that were more about approval from those around me than they were about who I really needed to be. It's proven to be a dangerous and futile attempt on my part. There are plenty of examples of artists choosing to go their own route in direct opposition to those approving peers. Do you think someone like Picasso sat around thinking, "Maybe I should be more like a traditional artist?" No. Thankfully, he realized that's not what his vision of himself was. Picasso's early years were marked by a brilliant ability to paint in a realistic manner. Yet, in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century, he forged a new direction in modern art and changed the way people looked at a painting. He could have easily established a fine career as a traditional painter, but chose instead a path that uniquely defined his role in the arts. He found fame and fortune in a path that suited him well. The point is, personal growth isn't always about finding paths. It's also about eliminating those paths that aren't yours to take. When you're honest about realizing what you don't want, you'll more easily find what you do. 2010-09-18T00:00:00-04:00 http://patrickward.com/words/2010/09/18/back-to-blogging Patrick Ward Copyright © 2009-2012 Patrick Ward It's time to get back to this project. However, I've come up with a few rules for myself: * I'll try to blog every day, but I won't sweat it if I miss a day. Chances are, I'll schedule posts a few days in advance. * Word counts are for poseurs - well, at least that's what I'm telling myself now. In other words, I'll write as long as the post requires. I'll let the content determine length. * Content is King, but only if it interests me. I'm not going to worry about piquing the interest of others. If it's worthy of my time and I find it of interest, I'll write about it. * Inspiration will rule. Perhaps it's telling of my own chaotic thought processes, but some days I feel like writing fiction, others I feel like being semi-profound, some days I'm insanely silly, and others, well, I'm just plain odd. It's more fun that way. * Controversy and criticism will be accepted. I'll admit my skin is thin, but I'm willing to accept the consequences of my thoughts. Perhaps it's better if I do wander into a battle of words at times. At the very least, I'll learn something. * I expect to be wrong at times, which is a good thing. * I'm not going to worry about a focus right now. My lens is perpetually out of focus these days, so why should my blog be any different? Calibration is an active process, so I might as well get started. So, why am I starting this up again? I have so many things I want to discover, so much to learn and share with the world. It just seems a shame to keep it all locked up inside. So, why not share these experiments and explorations with everyone else? Time, she is a wasting. Besides, this is a practical exercise as well. Regardless of whether or not others read, or care, about my words, it's a space for me to think out loud, to catalogue my daily discoveries, to be creative, and do a little mindful sharing. Life is so much more enjoyable for me when I'm actively engaged in it. And this blog is one way I've found to remind myself of that engagement. It's an exercise in mindfulness. There you go. That's the plan. 2010-08-15T00:00:00-04:00 http://patrickward.com/words/2010/08/15/chinese-handcuffs-and-the-art-of-letting-go Patrick Ward Copyright © 2009-2012 Patrick Ward <blockquote> Sitting quietly, doing nothing,<br /> Spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.<br /> ~ from the Zenrin kushu </blockquote> When I was young, I was given some Chinese Handcuffs. They were tiny, paper finger traps with an ironic method of release. I loved tricking unsuspecting kids with them. I'd snicker with glee as they put their fingers in both ends, only to find they couldn't pull them back out. They were trapped, and the harder they pulled, the tighter the toy would squeeze. Of course, the trick was to let go. You had to rest your fingers and push inward on the handcuffs to release them. It required a non-intuitive approach. I was reminded of that toy recently as I realized the same holds true in life. The more I resist in life, the more complex and chaotic it seems to get; the tighter its grip on me. The opposite is also true: the less I resist the more peaceful I am and the more I get done. Writing this blog has been a constant in my mind ever since I stopped writing in it. It's plagued me as I try to figure out what I want to do with it. The harder I try to figure out what my goal is for this blog, the further from an answer I get. Until, I asked myself the other day: <em>Why does there have to be a goal to begin with? Why can't the goal be realized through the process of doing?</em> In Zen, there is an idea of no-time, no-effort; that things are just done, one after the other. There is no tomorrow, and there is no past, there is only now. It's not the attainment of something that elicits enlightenment. Rather, enlightenment is the process itself. It's not the goal achieved, it's the act of sitting that matters more than anything else. You just do something, even if that something is not doing anything. Life moves on, not towards some distant, unknowable future, but one moment after another. Becoming one with the flow of that moment by moment nature of the universe, letting go of your resistance to it, is what matters. It is more important to just do, to be aware of the state of action, than it is to find that perfect answer that will complete your life and set you on some fantasy ride towards a personal nirvana. Perhaps an answer will come, perhaps it won't. The point is that it doesn't matter. That's not to say that the goal isn't important. There is value in its motivation. But, goals are not immutable. They change with the shifting tides of experience as you drift along through the currents of your life. By responding to those changing currents, delighting in the adventures they offer, rather than resisting and trying to set them back to the original course, you'll find that life requires less effort, it becomes in a word: enjoyable. And when the course changes, it doesn't mean the goal is unattainable. It just means you have to adjust to the new course in order to realize the goal. When I started writing earlier in the year, I didn't have a plan then, either. I just knew I wanted to write 30 posts in 30 days. And I did it. I just started. And that made all the difference. Each day was its own adventure. Somewhere along that path, I'd forgotten that it was each day's post that counted, not the attainment of the goal. Just as sitting in a 30 minute meditation isn't about reaching the end of the 30 minutes. It's about each second of meditation. Ironically, it took a return to the practice of meditation to remind me of all this. In fact, the more I meditate, the more efficient I become — my work improves, my writing improves, my motivation improves. I begin to realize that there are no all-encompassing answers that I need to come up with before I begin to engage this life. The day to day discipline of moving forward is what gets you somewhere. Ruminating incessantly about what to do next won't get you any closer to realizing anything. In fact, it gets you further away from your destination. Oddly enough, I stopped riding my motorcycle when I stopped meditating as well. I'd forgotten the trite, but true, adage that all motorcycle enthusiasts realize: "it's the journey, not the destination, that counts." As I've come back to meditation, and a life built on one task after another, I've returned to my writing, reignited my studies in mathematics, become more efficient at work, realized greater gains in the gym, returned to running, found my motorcycle, opened up relationships with others, and found a sense of peace I'd thought was lost. It's all leading to a more mindful life. A life where I find that: as I slow down, I tend to make fewer mistakes, which propels me forward at greater speeds. It's ironic, but as I let go of the things I grasp at, I find them easier to attain. I seem to gain more by focusing on each moment and letting go of the resistance to life itself. I'll have much more to say about mindfulness in the future. It's something I've come to realize is key to my own growth. As I become mindful of my daily life, I'm realizing how much of life is truly just a connection from one moment to another, one person to another, one idea to another. For now, I'll continue to let go and push inward, no longer trapped by a resistance to life's version of Chinese Handcuffs.