Because DreamingRight is not a big enough umbrella, I am starting a new blog, where eclectic bits of digital detritus will swim happily alongside poesy about chickens and photos of same.

Please help me name her.

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I have a graphic designer friend who was toying around with a logo for Dreaming Right. In the process of giving him feed back about his beautiful logo design, I realized something about my mission for this project:

I want readers to get clear, warm, and simple information about how to live better. I want them to feel that it is a friend…a kind of goofy, kind of nerdy, flawed but authentic friend is passing them advice that they can take or leave.

The nerdy part refers to my desire to be “literary”, to explain my reasoning, rather than to post links or lists. I guess you could say that I am a writing nerd. A fan-boy of the essay.

But another part of me is feeling frustration that all the tidbits of good information that flow over me are not being passed on. I take too much time tweaking my little essays, and with my current job, it seems like I only have the time, energy and attention span for one post a week.

Maybe I should write short posts. Maybe I should just post short synopses and links to useful life advice like Bruce Barber @ The Real-Life Survival Guide.

I want to share, but not indiscriminately.

I have been avoiding the short post and link-heavy content because of my literary pretensions, but also because I feel like the bite-sized chunks of information might be doing something detrimental to us. The internet may be changing our brains.

As Nicholas Carr says in an article in last summer’s The Atlantic:

…the world we enter when we go online, there’s little place for the fuzziness of contemplation. Ambiguity is not an opening for insight but a bug to be fixed. The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive.

His essay, which took all of my concentration to read even though it was totally interesting and well written, was about how our brains might be losing something that those of us who once read deeply and patiently recognize as valuable.

Nevertheless, short posts are more efficient…and more likely to be read.

My mom told me about this article in January’s Wired. It would make me jealous if I didn’t have love in my heart for talented people.

Mr. Hardwick is not a haughty dog-hearted clot pole who stole my idea. Instead, he is a talented, and if his article is accurate, chaotically productive, gentleman. He had no idea that his combination of subject matter and humor was exactly what I aiming for when brainstorming this blog. How would he know that one of the original subtitles of Dreaming Right was “Misadventures withThe 4-hour Workweek?

I am not at all upset that the title of his article, “Diary of a Self-Help Dropout: Flirting with the 4-hour Workweek” combines erudition with a dash of self-depreciation, even though I write that way as well.

His joke about “mini-retirement” being eerily similar to a “vacation” does not at all suck. Nor does it make me less enthusiastic about finishing my article about Timothy Ferriss’s book, even if much of it, including the “hook,” is about his made-up terminology and now the idea seems a little flat and used.

Kudos to a freedom-loving humorist who is not anything like a thieving eye-offending canker-blossom.

And thank you, Mom, for referring me to this article, which in no way contributes to my feelings of inadequacy as a writer and creator of original ideas.

Partial writing credit for this article must be given to the Shakespearean curse generator.

• Step 1: think about it, dream about it, talk about it
• Step 2: make a mind-map about it.
• Step 2.1: get distracted looking at mind-map web applications
• Step 2.2: write an article about getting distracted

Me and Mind Maps

I got into mind maps a couple years ago. I started out by reading The Mind Map Book by Tony Buzan, the slightly annoying man who attempted to trademark the word “Mind Map” and is often given credit as being the inventor. Despite being annoyed by the constant capitalization (of the letters and on the idea) of Mind Map, I found the book to be incredibly useful. I followed advice which suggested that I adhere to a particular set of “Mind Map Laws” until I had made 100 maps. I’ve drawn about 300 or so, written an article about them and given several workshops on the topic.

“Mind map” can mean a lot of things, but it usually refers to a visual representation of ideas, concepts, or facts that uses color and makes connections that radiate out from the center. Mind mapping is a great way to brainstorm and to organize thoughts about a project, idea, or piece of writing that is in its early phases. As a writing tutor, I’ve used mind maps to help visual and kinesthetic learners to organize their ideas into coherent papers. This is all to say – I love mind maps and I use them often.

3 Free Mind-Map Web Apps

• Bubbl.us has a very simple interface, which is important because you don’t want to stifle your creative flow by having to a lot of left-brain figuring-out-of-complicated-stuff. This is a mind-map I made for a presentation I was going to do at a tutoring conference. It may take a little while to load, but when it does you can zoom in and out and scroll around
• Text 2 Mind Map – was the first place I Stumbled Upon. This is a really cool app that takes regular text and creates one of those floaty, rubber-bandy, self-adjusting mind-maps. By using tabs in the text, you create “child” nodes that are farther out from the center. Unfortunately, it couldn’t handle my entire brainstorm and didn’t read all the tabs exactly right. Still, I love that my ideas were floating around, nervously bouncing off each other.
• Mindmeister – seemed to be a much more powerful application that offers several levels of membership above the free sign-up. I hope they are still working on it, because all in all, it is a good compromise between the all important simple interface and extended functionality. I use a slow computer and a slow DSL connection, so it was a bit frustrating when I uploaded the text that I had originally used with Text 2 Mind Map. Still, the fact that I could upload text and convert it to a mind map is awesome.

What I Learned

I did very little new thinking about building my website while clicking around looking for a way to mind-map online. The internet is for gathering new information and it is too tempting to click around, trying out new features. Even if using a particular webapp became second nature, every time I used it, I would be thrown into a temptation rich environment. As Timothy Ferriss might put it, I would be thrown off my information diet.

For me, mindmapping is about making new connections between ideas and information you already have. The big idea that results is a new idea, but not new information. It is an amalgamation of information that you have already gathered.

So, sitting at a table with a blank piece pf paper and some colored pencils is where creative organization is going to happen for me. I won’t stop checking out the mind map apps though.

More Mind Map Resources on the Web

While stumbling around, I came across a few cool sites, and some disappointing ones. Don’t go to Wikipedia to find a list of mind map apps. It is ridiculously short. On the other hand, mind-mapping.org has a huge database of mind mapping software. A great free application that you have to download and install is the open-source Freemind. I’ve used it a lot.

Another resource, a little closer to home, is my article on how to use mind maps to improve your writing.

It’s been a while since my last post.

The exact measurement of a “while” – 11 days.

What has happened? A whole hell of a lot. Or should I say, a whole “helloween” of a lot.

Because Halloween happened. It was an amazing time and I didn’t think about drinking for more than a few seconds. There were two dance parties happening in my house, and I was a clown. I’ve been talking about what a great party it was to anyone who will listen.

Digression

Costumes are amazing things. When I think back to the first time I felt like I was my own person, with my own identity, it is tied up with what I wore (plaids and army boots). When I decided to go to my first college, I chose Bard College because I liked the way the people there dressed. (This may sound shallow, but at that point in my life, it was as good a reason as any. I didn’t know what I wanted or even who I was, so how was I to decide which college would fit me best? Besides, Bard is a great school, so it worked out fine.).

I’m not ready to fully digress, so here are some ideas about costumes:

• We grow into our costumes.
• Costumes are how we identify with a group.
• Costumes make us more aware of the image we present to the world.
• Costumes say something about us.
• Clowns aren’t always creepy.

The Rest of the Week

Monday I decided to take the advice of Timothy Ferris, author of The 4-hour Workweek, and set an impossible goal.

I was going to write my business plan in one day.

It actually took me about 20 hours, which I spread over 3 days.

The business plan is for my writing coach/tutor business.

On Tuesday, I began to design a new blog! It will be called Dreaming Right, and it will be all about my favorite person’s encounters with self-help books, programs, and blogs.

There will be more on The 4-hour Workweek, as well as 12-step programs, concepts learned from Zen Habits, and maybe even a GTD post.

I am a slow typist and a CSS/HTML noob, so I spent a lot of time figuring out how to do simple things, like create nice looking navigation tabs. I am still working out the bugs.

Also on Tuesday: Obama.

I’m sure you’ve heard enough about the whole political scene, so I’ll just say: It’s nice to see Americans hugging each other, and crying with joy. The last time I remember seeing that, it was in black and white.

Speaking of black and white, here’s what I think of red and blue:

On Friday, I went to our local film festival’s opening night and say a Buster Keaton film with live performers doing the musical score. The crowd was local and enthusiastic, and Buster Keaton was our hero.

And, I smoked my last two cigarettes.

Saturday, Sunday, Monday – I dealt with cigarette cravings.

It occurs to me why so many people have trouble quitting. They are faced with a choice: Smoke a cigarette or continue to feel CRAZY. The first two days, especially when I wasn’t busy, made me feel like I was possesed by a smoker. He was trapped in my body and calmly but persistently demanding satisfaction.

But I still haven’t smoked.

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I’m freaking out! It’s about my economic situation. I am broke.

To make matters worse, some idiotic decisions are coming back to haunt me. I have an awful habit of driving without insurance. A habit that caused me to accrue over $700 dollars in fines.

Luckily, I paid them off.

Unluckily, I got pulled over last week and found out my license was suspended and my tabs were expired. I had a court date yesterday, which I totally forgot about.

Now there is a warrant out for my arrest!

These tickets are probably going to end up costing me a thousand dollars.

I don’t have a job. I’m freaking out.

What now?

Well, the first thing I did was to call the court. They told me I could come in next Thursday and pay 50 bucks for an opportunity to explain why I missed the court date.

I’m still freaking out, but not as badly.

The problem is that the freak-out is self-justifying. It was triggered by my sudden realization that I spaced-out such an important thing, but it continues because it is finding tons of reasons in my sub-conscious to perpetuate itself, things floating around that feed it.

Here is what my freak-out is telling me:

• You are lazy.
• The economy is bad.
• You are crippled by fear.
• You are neglecting your responsibilities.
• You are lazy. (This idea is particularly hardy freak-out food)

My gut is tied in a knot and I feel like crying. Actually, the knot is loosening a little bit. I am starting to feel better.

Why?

I have identified what my freak-out is feeding on. Looking closely at piece of freak-out food, I see that it may be either true and within my control, true and outside of my control, or simply not true.

Not true:

I am not lazy, I am prolific. I am not crippled by fear, I am bravely examining my fear.

Outside of my control:

There is nothing I can do about the economy.

True:

Perhaps I have been neglecting my responsibilites. I can do something about that.

So, after doing what I can about the trigger for my freak-out, I proceed to eradicate the three flavors of freak-out food.

Neutralizing False Fears

I’m just figuring this out myself, but these techniques seem to work on the things that simply aren’t true.

Looking at them - most fears that are obviously false will shrivel under the light of observation. “Look how much I have accomplished in the past month, how can I be lazy.”

Affirmations – “I am prolific and productive. I am brave.” These cheesy statements are often quite effective, even if they remind you of Stuart Smalley.

I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me!

Writing about them - write a list, persuasive essay, (or a blog post!) giving all the reasons why the fear is a false one. Writing has always given me clarity when I’ve been overwhelmed by emotion, although it doesn’t usually produce very good writing.

Accepting things that are out of your control

Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy. – Leo Buscaglia

One of the biggest things that we worry about that is completely out of our control is the past. I can not go back and make that court date, so, intellectually at least, I know I shouldn’t be worrying, much less freaking out about it. I find it helpful to remind myself:

I am not responsible for my past actions, only for the present consequences of those actions.

I am not responsible for the actions of others.

and, for good measure…

I did not break the economy.

Acceptance is also a key part of the serenity prayer, another great thing I learned from 12-step programs:

“…grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference…”

Doing something about legitimate fears

Break them down into parts – What are my responsibilities? They are creations of society and my own personal morality. I am responsible for keeping my word, keeping myself fed, paying taxes, and doing what is best for my well-being, which includes helping rather than harming the people I come into contact with. Which of these responsibilities am I neglecting right now? And what can I do about it?

Take action – The only real responsibility I have been neglecting is the promise to myself and my readers to post regularly on this blog. So, guess what? Here it is, a new post! Taking action feels great.

Oscar Rodgers put’s it simply:
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And don’t over-analyze, you can never predict what course events will take, just do the next right thing and know that you are doing everything you can to vanquish your freak-out.

PS – 48 days with no booze!

There is a great scene from the 80′s movie, Broadcast News, where Holly Hunter’s character, Jane, has what I like to think of as a scheduled breakdown. She is in her hotel room and has just agreed to meet her co-worker in the lobby in half an hour.

She hangs up -- takes the phone off the
hook and lays it on the bed for a moment's
solitude.  She sits stiffly, palms on top of
her legs.  It looks like someone with unusually
good posture, waiting for something, and now
we BEGIN TO SEE the first signs redden and
she begins to cry.  Now she sobs -- then
miraculously shakes it off and exits quickly to
the bathroom.  This crying episode is clearly
part of her morning routine.

You can check out the full screenplay here.

Over the years, I’ve come to accept that every couple of months or so, I have a similar breakdown. It lasts longer than Jane’s, and isn’t really scheduled…so I guess it isn’t that similar, except that it feeds the same need…the need to wallow.

My Recent Wallowfest

I spent the last 3 days neglecting nearly every one of my responsibilities.

Here’s how you do it:  Let everything drop, isolate, watch TV and order delivery. Play spider solitaire for five hours. Click the “Stumble!” button on your web browser until your eyes lose focus. Watch TV. Feel depressed.

Shutting down for a couple of days is a childish, “mom, I’m sick” type of thing to do, but there is something to be said for wallowing every once in a while. I don’t want to rationalize it, but I would like to make peace with it.

Why Wallowing Ain’t All Bad

The practice of wallowing does have its benefits. Here are a few lessons I learn and relearn during my time on the pity-pot:

1. The world does not fall apart. Although some of my wallow fests have resulted in minor damage (missed assignments, appointments, or showers), most of the time nothing at all happens. Life goes on.
2. I feel better eventually.  This too passes. No matter how much I cling to the nothingness of depression, it eventually ends. This is my own experience, not meant to be universal advice, particularly for people who have chemical or neurological reasons for being depressed.
3. It is possible for me to enjoy something and hate myself at the same time. Wallowing has the same obsessive-compulsive quality that drug use has. Take the 15 episodes of Arrested Development that I watched during my most recent wallow. I enjoyed each episode, but I never quite silenced the inner voice that told me that I was wasting my life.
4. Great advice is annoying. “Buck-up”…”take baby steps”…”let go and let God”…”this too shall pass…” I’m wallowing right now, please leave a message at the tone. No matter how well intentioned, advice on how to “fix” my attitude and get out of my rut annoys me. I have learned to nod and thank the advice giver, then go back to watching crap TV.
5. Philosophy will not get me out of a rut. Big ideas tend to reveal big tragedies when I am wallowing. It’s all meaningless after all, what with us dying in the end and God being either dead or invisible. When I am wallowing, I am feeling, not thinking.
6. Simple things will - I like to work from the bottom up. No matter how stuck I feel at the beginning of a wallow, I will come out of it at the end because I’m ready and because I start doing something simple like:

• Waiting. See #2.
• Cleaning. A clean room may not give my life meaning, but it will put me in a better mood.
• Taking a shower. There is nothing more depressing than smelling your own butt.
• Taking a walk. Although I will reject this piece of advice if someone offers it, getting out of the house can often lead to miracles.
• Accomplishing a very small task. “The day wasn’t a total waste, I took the trash out!”  During this last wallow, I made an origami picture frame and caught some ladybugs to eat the aphids off my girlfriend’s houseplant. I was a whirlwind of activity!
• Making a plan. At some point, I decide that tomorrow I will reenter the land of the living. It helps to have a few tasks written down.

And oh yeah…I’m still not drinking and it is day 32!

Today is my 26th day without drinking. I haven’t felt inspired to write a great post, so I’ll serve up this essay I wrote several years ago. It is, perhaps, an answer to the question, “Why smoke cigarettes?”

Cigarette

The first fifteen minutes of my drive to campus wind past a field which is topped, for a second, by a glimpse of Budd Inlet and Cooper Point beyond. There is a horse lying down, a sign in front of a Lutheran church that says “Anger’s best solution is delay.” There are some goats that I noticed for the first time a couple days ago, there are two parks, a lonely Shell station with a convenience store that is stocked more like a general store, with bacon, nails, coffee beans, cans of soup, video rentals, copies of a locally authored book about geoducks…

I often have my first cigarette of the day on this drive—the nicotine creeps into the back of my neck, my stomach, my nervous system, my brain. Nicotine initially causes a rapid release of adrenaline, the “fight-or-flight” hormone. It also causes increased release of acetylcholine from my neurons, leading to heightened activity in cholinergic pathways throughout my brain. This in turn promotes the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine in my brain’s reward pathways. The nicotine also causes the release of glutamate, a neurotransmitter involved in learning and memory. My first cigarette stimulates receptors in my hypothalamus, hippocampus, thalamus, midbrain, and brain stem, as well as my cerebral cortex. Besides acetylcholine and dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin,vasopressin, growth hormone, and ACTH neurotransmitters are released by the nicotine’s actions.

Many smokers enjoy their initial cigarette more than any other, but I consistently feel sick after the second puff. My nausea is always accompanied immediately by an emotion like depression, but it comes on with more urgency, with the sharp edges of terror.

McCain's Hero.

Whatever tide of neurotransmitters and hormones washes through my system, it pushes me up against a familiar, yet mysterious shore. It is a low-lying place where I’ve lost shoes in the sucking mud. I stuck my kindergarten teddy bear under a bush there. I had accidentally carried it halfway to my first grade classroom, suddenly seized by the fact that I was way too old to have a teddy bear at school. When I returned, the stuffed animal was gone. When I visit this foggy place, I am still the shortest in my class. In the murky air, I pass an anguished earlier self and know I can’t help. I can’t stop him from asking that girl to marry him, from throwing dozens of pages of horrible poetry at her feet and crying on no sleep. “You don’t really love her,” I might yell at my earlier self, “You are on amphetamines, or in withdrawal from all that Codeine and Vicodin. You are just desperate for some meaning.” I can’t make him hear, no matter how urgently I whisper, “You are embarrassing yourself!”

When this sharp edge of self-pity, this familiar amorphous violence, hits me after the second drag of my first cigarette, when I am suddenly balanced precariously on this side of tears, it takes me a moment to realize that this happens every time. Every morning I smoke a cigarette. Every morning I am momentarily washed away, spun around, sucked up. Every morning this bad tide quickly recedes and I forget that I was drowning a second ago. The day comes crowding in, happily, and the moment is forgotten.

Today I know the terror passes, but I didn’t always. I haven’t always been able to visit the darkest spot on that gloomy shore. At one time, those desperate memories were inaccessible, even though they were fresh. From the flat uncomfortable place that the people in the recovery business call “post acute withdrawal syndrome,” I couldn’t quite believe that my paranoia had been so imaginative, that terror was a thing I had actually felt, sharply and recently.

There are thoughts I had in the days before I went into rehab that I still don’t want to write down, thoughts that I would imagine a schizophrenic might have: parasites, poisoned water, someone hiding in my house…everyone knows, they all know…One night I collapsed face down on my couch, every light in my house burning, my mind was still racing but I hadn’t eaten or slept in days, so my body collapsed. As clear
as if it was in the other room, a voice called my name, a voice I was sure belonged to someone playing a trick on me, maybe the neighbor across the street was hiding in the basement. I am sure, now, that I hallucinated this voice, but I was as sure, then, that the voice was real when I answered it: “What? Leave me alone.” All this was insane, but what strikes me as more insane, more pitiful, is the fact that I did not get up, I just remained face down on the couch, allowing the conspiracy of killers in my basement free reign.

In the rooms of NA and AA—that is what they are called, “the rooms”—you hear a lot of things over and over; the experience of the addict is universal and clichés proliferate: One day at a time. You’re right where you’re supposed to be. My best thinking got me here. Let go and let God. Most recovering addicts insist that they
never want to forget what brought them to the rooms, their “bottom,” their last high. This is the redemption that my first cigarette of the day brings me: the reminder of how bad it got. Addicts don’t know much about what feelings are. They have suppressed them for a long time, pressed them into the feeling of being high and the feeling of not being high. So, when Bernard, the drug counselor at my outpatient facility, a big black man who had a weird kind of non-greasy jerry curl haircut and fingernails that had some type of fungus on them, demanded of me how I felt about an experience, I was often at a loss. He helped me out by saying, “There ain’t but five,” pointing at piece of oak tag on which someone had written:
F ear
L oneliness
A nger
P ain
P leasure
S adness

There ain’t but five. In one way, the reduction of my emotional range to an acronym has been a good thing. It is a comfort to be able to grasp my feelings, write them down, safely label them and place them back on the shelf, certain that they will all make an appearance at one time or another, that no matter how they mess up my apartment and demand my attention, they are only here to visit. Nevertheless, my emotions are calling the shots, even when they linger in the background. I’m not sure, but I think that all my choices are dictated, in the end, by my desire to comfortably balance my emotions. I try to live so that sadness doesn’t dig too deep, so that loneliness doesn’t penetrate as sharply, so that pleasure doesn’t leave me washed up, writhing.

But there is more to a thing than its name. I cannot describe all the things that happen when I am on that morning drive by looking at an oak tag poster or researching the psychopharmacological effects of nicotine. That sudden drop, that shaky dark vision that the cigarette brings on is something more. It serves several functions. Its transience assures me of its transience. Its darkness shows me light. It is contrast.

I have a warm apartment, fifteen minutes from anywhere. I am looking out window at the water and the hazy silhouette of the Olympics. I have my neighbor’s beagle curled up on the couch. Spring is coming quickly. I will never run out of good books to read. I have a good stereo and my favorite radio station comes in clear. I am my parent’s prodigal son. I have goals. I am in college. I am incredibly happy and light. I will float away.

This is why I thank gravity. This is why I do not want to give up my daily moment of darkness, of heaviness. My moment of nostalgic terror is a glimpse at what my life is not, what it was, what it could be: contrast. When I smoke my morning cigarette, it is the beginning of my prayer of thanks, my ablution. My moment of terror is not just payment for my blessings, but reassurance that all things pass, and all things return.