Move Towards Pain

Another little ditty from Mastery.

When John Keats (1795-1821) was eight years old, his father died in a riding accident. His mother never quite got over the loss and died seven years later—essentially leaving John, his two brothers, and one sister orphaned and homeless in London. John, the eldest of the children, was taken out of school by the appointed trustee and guardian of the estate, and enrolled as an apprentice to a surgeon and apothecary—he would have to earn a living as quickly as possible, and this seemed the best career for that.

In his last few terms at school, Keats had developed a love for literature and reading. To continue his education, he would return to his school in his off hours and read as many books as he could in the library. Some time later, he had the desire to try his hand at writing poetry, but lacking any kind of instructor or literary circle he could frequent, the only way he know to teach himself to write was the read the works of all of the greatest poets of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He then wrote his own poems using the poetic form and style of the particular writer he was trying to model himself after. He had a knack for imitation, and soon he was creating verses in dozens of different styles, always tweaking them a little with his own voice.

Several years into this process, Keats came to a fateful decision—he would devote his life to writing poetry. That was his calling in life and he would find a away to make a living at it. To complete the rigorous apprenticeship he had already put himself through, he decided that what he needed was to write a very long poem, precisely 4000 lines. The poem would revolve around the ancient Greek myth of Endymion. “Endymion,” he wrote a friend, “will be a test, a trial of my Powers of Imagination and chiefly of my invention …—by which I must make 4000 lines of some circumstances and fill them with Poetry.” He gave himself a rather impossible deadline—seven months—and a task of writing fifty lines a day, until he had a rough draft.

Three quarters of the way through, he came to thoroughly hate the poem he was writing. He would not quit, however, willing his way to the end, meeting the deadline he had set. What he did not like about Endymion was the flowery language, the over-writing. But it was only by means of this exercise that he could discover what worked for him. “In Endymion,” he later wrote, “I leaped headlong into the Sea and thereby became better acquainted with the Soundings, the quicksands and the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore and … took tea and comfortable advice.”

In the aftermath of writing what he considered to be a mediocre poem, Keats took stock of all of the invaluable lessons he had learned. Never again would he suffer from writer’s block—he had trained himself to write past any obstacle. He had acquired now the habit of writing quickly, with intensity and focus—concentrating his work in a few hours. He could revise with equal speed. He had learned how to criticize himself and his overly romantic tendencies. He could look at his own work with a cold eye. He had learned that it was in the actual writing of the poem that the best ideas would often come to him, and that he had to boldly keep writing or he would miss such discoveries. Most important of all, as a counterexample of Endymion, he had hit upon a style that suited him—language as compact and dense with imagery as possible, with not a single wasted line.

With these lessons in hand, in the years 1818 to 1819, before he became gravely ill, Keats would produce some of the most memorable poems in the English language, including all of his greatest odes. This added up to perhaps the most productive two years of writing in the history of Western literature—all of it set up by the rigorous self-apprenticeship he had put himself through.

***

By nature, we humans shirk from anything that seems possibly painful or overtly difficult. We bring this natural tendency to our practice of any skill. Once we grow adept at some aspect of this skill, generally one that comes more easily to us, we prefer to practice this element over and over. Our skill becomes lopsided as we avoid our weaknesses. Knowing that in our practice we can let down our guard, since we are not being watched or under pressure to perform, we bring to this a kind of dispersed attention. We tend to also be quite conventional in our practice routines. We generally follow what others have done, performing the accepted exercises for those skills.

This is the path of amateurs. To attain mastery, you must adopt what we shall call Resistance of Practice. The principle is simple—you go in the opposite direction of all of your natural tendencies when it comes to practice. First you resist the temptation to be nice to yourself. You become your own worst critic; you see your work as if through the eyes of others. You recognize your weaknesses, precisely the elements you are not good at. Those are the aspects you give precedence to in your practice. You find a kind of perverse pleasure in moving past the pain this might bring. Second, you resist the lure of easing up on your focus. You train yourself to concentrate in practice with double the intensity, as if it were the real thing times two. In devising your own routines, you become as creative as possible. You invent exercises that work upon your weaknesses. You give yourself arbitrary deadlines to meet certain standards, constantly pushing yourself past perceived limits. In this way, you develop your own standards for excellence, generally higher than those of others.

In the end, your five hours of intense, focused work are the equivalent of ten for most people. Soon enough you will see the results of such practice, and others will marvel at the apparent ease in which you accomplish your deeds.

Marley

No, not this one:

This one:

The only one.

Last weekend, I was watching this—to say fascinating is an oceanic understatement—documentary on the life and music of Bob Marley whose songs were the constant background of my early life from ages 6 until I left for the United States at 21.

Bob was the “illegitimate” son of an Irish man, Captain Marley who as near as they can tell never actually was a captain of anything other than bedding underage Jamaican girls. I put illegitimate in quotes because, as someone said, there are no illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents.

His early life was as one would expect growing up in a shithole, shitty. He picked up music, a propensity for ganja, pretty women and a biting urge to succeed. So far, we have here the age-old story of a man possessed of talent and drive clawing his way out of the slums to reach fame. All well and good. What he couldn’t get away from, however, was his genetics and his circumstance.

Bob Marley espoused Rastafarianism, a rather weird combination of homegrown Christianity, hero worship pointed in the general direction of Emperor Haile Salassie, “good vibrations” socialism, and toking large burning rolls of marijuana while managing to keep soap and water as far away as possible from their hair.

This laissez-faire attitude—naturally (Jamaica, man!) and pharmaceutically acquired—combined with an unmanaged melanoma that metastasized into a full-body infestation (the Jamaicans called it his “white” disease) ultimately did him in so that he died in Miami in 1981.

His life stands as a lesson, or should: if you’re a Rasta, you’re a fucking idiot. If you have a melanoma on your toe and treatment required cutting off the tip of the toe, continue to visit the doctor for regular checkups afterwards, the protestations of Jah Rastafarai notwithstanding. Stay the hell away from the machinations of two warring Third World political parties, the only difference between them being just how leftist they can be so you don’t get shot at by idiots.

Five stars.

See Yourself As Others See You

I’m at the start of reviewing the new book by Robert Greene, Mastery. So far, really good stuff if a little dense. And I mean that literally, this is packed of information and can read a bit dry but if you stick with it, there’s gold in thar hills, like this:

Growing up with autism, Temple Grandin had much to overcome in life, but by the end of high school she had managed to transform herself—through keen desire and discipline—into a gifted student with a promising future in the sciences. She understood that her greatest weakness was in the social arena. With animals, she had almost telepathic powers to read their moods and desires, but with humans it was the opposite. People were too tricky for her; they often seemed to communicate with one another through subtle, nonverbal cues—for instance, falling into a pattern of laughter in a group, according to some interpreted rhythm she could not fathom. She felt as if she were an alien, watching these strange creature interact.

It seemed to her that there was nothing she could do about her awkwardness with people. What she could control, however, was her own work. She decided she would make herself so efficient in whatever job she had that her social handicap would not matter. But after graduating college with a degree in animal behavior and entering the work world as a consultant in the design of feedlots and cattle handling facilities, she realized, through a series of mistakes on her part, that this was completely unrealistic.

On one occasion, Grandin had been hired by the manager of a plant to improve its overall design. She did an excellent job, but soon she began to notice that the machinery was constantly breaking down, as if it were the fault of her design. She know that the malfunctioning could not be because of any flaws in her work, and with further investigation she discovered that the machinery had problems only when a certain man was working in the room. The only possible conclusion was that he was sabotaging the equipment to make her look bad. This made no sense to her—why would he deliberately work against the interests of the company that had employed him? This was not a design problem she could solve intellectually. She simply had to give up and leave the job.

On another occasion, a plant engineer had hired her to fix a particular problem, but after a few weeks on the job she noticed that there were other parts of the factory that were poorly designed and clearly dangerous. She wrote to the president of the company to point this out. Her tone in the letter was a bit brusque, but she was annoyed that people could be so blind to such design issues. A few days later she was fired. Although no explanation was given, it was clear that her letter the president must have been the cause.

As she mulled over these incidents, and other similar ones that had marred her career, she felt that the source of the problem had to be herself. She had known for years that she often did things that rubbed people the wrong way, and that they avoided her for that reason. In the past she had tried to go about her life ignoring this painful reality, but now her social deficiencies were threatening her ability to make a living.

Ever since she was a child, Grandin had the peculiar ability to see herself from the outside, as if she were looking at another person. It was more of a sensation that would come and go, but as an adult she realized she could use this gift for practical effect, by looking at her past mistakes as if watching another person in action.

For instance, in the case of the man who had sabotaged the machinery, she could clearly recall how she had barely interacted with him and the other engineers, and how she had made a point of doing everything herself. She could see in her mind the meetings in which she had presented her design ideas with rigorous logic and not opened them up for discussion. In the case of the letter to the president, she could recall how she had bluntly criticized people in front of their peers and had made no attempt to interact with the man who had hired her. Visualizing these moments with such clarity, she could finally understand the problem—she was making her coworkers feel insecure, useless, and inferior. She had injured their male ego and had paid a price.

Her realization of what had gone wrong did not stem from empathy as it might have for other people—it was a intellectual exercise, like solving a puzzle, or a design problem. But because her emotions were not so deeply involved, it was easier to go through the process and make the necessary corrections. In the future, she would discuss her ideas with engineers, involve them as much as possible in her work, and never directly criticize people for anything. She would practice this in every subsequent job until it became second nature.

Slowly, developing social intelligence in her own way, Temple ironed out much of her awkwardness and her career prospered. In the 1990s, as she grew famous, she was increasingly invited to give talks—initially about her experiences as a professional who had overcome autism, and later as an expert on animal behavior.

In giving these talks, she had imagined that they had gone quite well. They were full of information and appropriate slides to illustrate her ideas. But after a few such lectures she was handed the evaluations from the audience, and what she read was shocking. People complained that she made no eye contact, read her talk mechanically from her notes, and did not engage with the audience, to the point of rudeness. The audience had the impression that she was simply repeating the same talk over and over, with the same slides, as if she were a machine.

Strangely enough, none of this bothered Temple. In fact, the idea of these evaluations excited her. They gave her a clear and realistic picture of herself as other saw her, and that is all she ever needed for self-correction. She pursued this process with great zeal, determined to transform herself into a skilled lecturer. As enough evaluations came in, she pored over them, looking for patterns and criticisms that made sense. Working from this feedback, she taught herself to mix in anecdotes and even jokes, and to make her slides not so logical and tight. She shortened the length of her talks, trained herself to speak without notes, and made sure to take as many questions as the audience wanted to ask at the end.

For those who had seen her initial efforts and then attended her lectures years later, it was had to believe she was the same person. She was now an entertaining and engaging speaker, one who could hold the attention of an audience better than most. They could not imagine how this had come about, which made her transformation seem all the more miraculous.

***

Almost all of use have social flaws of some sort, ranging from the relatively harmless to those that can get us in trouble. Perhaps it could be that we talk too much, or are too honest in our criticisms of people, or take offense too easily when others do not respond positively to our ideas. If we repeat instances of such behavior often enough, we tend to offend people without ever really knowing why. The reason for this is twofold: first, we are quick to discern the mistakes and defects of others, but when it comes to ourselves we are generally too emotional and insecure to look squarely at out own. Second, people rarely tell us the truth about what it is that we do wrong. They are afraid to cause conflict or be viewed as mean-spirited. And so it becomes very difficult for use to perceive our flaws, let alone correct them.

We sometimes have the experience of doing work that we consider to be quite brilliant, and then are rather shocked when we receive feedback from others who do not see it eh same way at all. In such moments we are made aware of the discrepancy between our emotional and subjective relations to our own work, and the response of others who view it with complete detachment, capable of pointing out flaws we could never see. The same discrepancy, however, exists on the social level. People see our behavior from the outside, and their view of us is never what we imagine it to be. To have the power to see ourselves through the eyes of others would be of immense benefit to our social intelligence. We could begin to correct the flaws that offend, to see the role that we play in creating any kind of negative dynamic, and to have a more realistic assessment of who we are.

To see ourselves objectively, we must follow the example of Temple Grandin. We can begin this process by looking at negative events in our past—people sabotaging our work, bosses firing us for no logical reason, nasty personal battles with colleagues. It is best to start with events that are at least several months old, and thus not so emotionally charge. In dissecting these occurrences, we must focus on what we did that either triggered or worsened the dynamic. In looking at several of such incidences, we might begin to see a pattern that indicates a particular flaw in our character. Seeing these events from the perspective of the other people involved will loosen the lock our emotions have on our self-image, and help use understand the role we play in our own mistakes. WE can also elicit opinions from those we trust about our behavior, making certain to first reassure them that we want their criticisms. Slowly, in this way, we can develop increasing self-detachment, which will yield us the other half of social intelligence—the ability to see ourselves as we really are.

Bond, James Bond

 

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Hecho A Mano

Toy Samba

Superb!

Your Moment Of Zen

Backwards Pawns, A Love Song

Sing-along … Chess!

Latina Pro Populo

This article in the UK Spectator makes a very good case for learning Latin at the “primary school” level—as elementary school’s known in the fair isles.

Here’s a key quote:

“Those kids are learning through Latin what I did: what verbs and nouns are, how to coordinate ideas in speech and writing, all the varieties of ways of saying the same thing,” he says. “I did not and could not have learned that through English, because English was too familiar to me. It was through Latin that I learned how to express myself fluently in my native language.”

Interesting, and of course I agree!

Flying Wild Alaska

Verily, Verily

My Amazon review of Verily, Verily by Jon Sweeney:

For many Christians and non-Christians alike, the King James Version of the Bible--also known as the Authorized Version for reasons you'll find outlined in good detail--is a work of art, a work of immense social and cultural influence and, not least, a work of beauty.
So says author Jon Sweeney in Verily, Verily and I believe he does a convincing job of it. In fact, so convinced was I that it was only after a few chapters that I ventured out to my local used bookstore to find a copy. This was a step I'd never taken before because, like many, I didn't grow up reading that particular translation, preferring instead the modern--more understandable--ones like the New International Version among others. Like Sweeney, I now this is a mistake and, also like Sweeney, I urge others so inclined to get one and see again (or maybe for the first time) what an astounding piece of work was the KJV.
After opening with a sad tale of this translation's neglect, the reader gets introduced to what I've come to understand is the unseen hand of the KJV influencing everyday language ("in the twinkling of an eye" comes from 1 Corinthians 15:52; "seek and ye shall find" Matthew 7:7) and, in its role as a religious book of course, we see it influencing the law, politics, science, and philosophy.
So why isn't the KJV read more these days? Sweeney believes that it is because slowness is required, just as in the reading of poetry, yet another discarded staple of yesteryear. "Our time and attention is splintered in ways that Benjamin Franklin never could have imagined possible. As a result, few of us practice the discipline of reading slowly, and the KJV demands the slowest, most careful reading of any translation."
After a chapter detailing the history of the process by which the KJV became both the King James Version and the Authorized Version, in itself a resoundingly fascinating tale of Kings James and Henry, and the English Civil war, the reader begins to understand the travails a lot of devout people went through to bring this translation of the Bible to us. If Henry VIII hadn't wanted out of the Catholic church, it isn't a lie to say that the Latin Vulgate Bible, which only the most educated (among which were priests) would have been able to read much less understand, would have been the only Bible for millennia.
In essence, and ironically since it was authorized by a King, the KJV is the symptom of a democratization of religion, bringing God to the common people as it were. Sweeney continues on to show how the KJV affected the work of literary luminaries such as Charles Dickens and Emily Dickinson, but also people like Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr. and even "African-American" spirituals.
It was right around here that I began to sense a slightly defeatist tone to Sweeney: he starts alluding to the Bible's generally "difficult past" with respect to its seeming condolence of slavery and "the contradictions of the Bible on matters of justice" which "have been evident ..." While he does make some attempts at explaining and justifying certain parts of the Bible, I felt he could have done a bit more scholarship. Paul Copan's new book, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God is the type of work that tackles and resolves a lot of what Jon Sweeney was to ready to throw up his hands on. I suggest those interested pick that up.
Such illustrious atheists as Christopher Hitchens will readily admit that the King James Version is a masterpiece of English literature (irrespective of its content, of course, in Hitchens' case) and more care should be allotted to its study. Sweeney responds in chapters seven and eight by quoting and explaning at length different verses from the KJV. He recounts that one of the aims of the translation committee was to translate in such a way as to provide an easy oratory: the King James Version was meant to be read aloud and these verses show that up to good effect.
If you enjoy history, language, or British history for that matter, or are a curious and studious Christian, "Verily, Verily" will draw you in and thoroughly entertain. I recommend this despite some misgivings about strictly, overly pedantic theological matters. Let's not let this wonderful book die out; after all, it has provided four centuries of tutelage and wonder to humanity.

Hope you get it, it’s a great read.

Good Motto

My Country ‘Tis Of Thee

If you don’t know this by reading my rants, I am an unabashed patriot. I love the United States because I know what it is to live elsewhere. Not just any elsewhere, but Africa ferchrissakes!

In other words, I subscribe to the catch-phrase “My country, right or wrong,” but as one of my few favorite Englishmen John Derbyshire (“Daarbysher”) writes,

most people forget the second half, which goes: “If right, to keep her right; if wrong, to put her right.”

I didn’t know this, but now that I do, I’m re-upping my subscription!

What’s So Great About Christianity

My review of Dinesh D’Souza’s book, on Amazon:

Dinesh D'Souza is a battle-hardened Christian apologist who has taken on such notable atheists as Christopher Hitchens, Michael Shermer, Daniel Dennett, and Peter Singer all recorded for posterity on YouTube. A notable characteristic of each debate is that his opponents have all been extremely congratulatory of D'Souza, they've actually walked away licking some wounds!

Of course, before picking up this book, I did not know any of this. D'Souza has long been a favorite author and I was surprised to see he'd written such a book so I picked it up to find a well-written collection of a case for Christianity, based solely on logic and science. He promises this right out of the gate and stuck to this promise throughout the book: no revelatory expositions, no pointing at this or that Bible verse. He writes on page 11, for example, that his "modus operandi is one of skepticism, to view the claims of religion in the same open-minded way that we would view claims of any other sort. The difference," he continues, "between me and my atheist opponents is that I am skeptical not only of the allegedly irrational claim of religion but also of the irrational claims made in the name of science and of skepticism itself."

Like a prosecuting attorney building a case against atheism, D'Souza deftly and succinctly handles all the most important questions raised by the New Atheists: the question of evolution, the question of evil (how can a good God exist in the face of such evil), the question of an objective morality not dependent on opinion, the veracity and historicity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Chapter 15 in particular (The World Beyond Our Senses: Kant and the Limits of Reason) is a brilliant precise of how we know what we know and whether we can trust it.

All this combines to make a strong case that religious faith in general and Christianity in particular is not altogether unreasonable and that while there are no absolute proofs on its side, the skeptical atheist also bears the burden of proof, only this time of proving that God doesn't exist. A burden, he surmises, they cannot rationally support. In the end, 'What's So Great About Christianity' did end up proving certain things: that D'Souza here, as always, is a steadfast good writer of formidable intelligence, a fact attested to by none other than Christopher Hitchens on several occasions. That the religion of Christianity doesn't require blind, unthinking faith and is thoroughly defensible against atheistic and secular attacks and that we today live in a world positively molded by the tenets of Christianity.

For the budding Christian apologist setting out on the path, this book sits high on the list of recommended titles. Those who understand the basics can then move on to William Lane Craig's [[ASIN:1433501155 Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics]]. Be careful however, for this is an area of philosophy that is not only fascinating beyond belief (no pun intended), but also rigorous.

Highest recommendations.

Adverts

Or commercials are you provincials know them. As in: almost all US adverts suck rotten eggs. Luckily, the Brits are incredibly marvelous at producing imaginative and above all, ironic commercials.

So if there are any of you ‘Ad Men’ or women reading this (fat chance, I know), allow me to point you in the direction of the Top Gear ‘Best Car Ads’. Notice the almost effortless, simple, sometimes bizarre way these commercials transfer the need and want to buy via the TV.

Also: notice with what aplomb the accompanying descriptions simply introduce then with that light touch of Englishness, for lack of a better description, snarkily tosses it your way. Now go and do likewise.

Enough jibber jabber, go forth.

A Thought

From Jonah Goldberg:

Quick question: What happens if they find a way to identify gay kids in utero and many women opt to abort them? Will the Waldmans of the world still find abortion-rights absolutism to be the progressive position?

Wow, what a thought experiment! I hope it explodes a few heads.

Liberals Think They Know Everything

Thomas Sowell

Work

We All Get Yachts