We took rest on a mountain pass
Even above the soaring lark.
by Matsuo Basho
Matsuo Basho (1644 – 1694) was the most famous Edo period poet and a haiku master.
To read more poems, click here.
The Lark
The Christmas Tree Is Up
The Christmas tree and the decorations are up! The Nutcracker guards are new; I found them at our local garden center (while looking for bird feed).
The Yule goat is over twenty years old.
The Santa traveling by hot air balloon is from the garden center as well. I regret now not buying more of them, they match the older decorations so well.
Decorating the Christmas tree is one of my favorite things to do while listening to the best Christmas album of all time: Frank Sinatra’s The Christmas Album.
No Christmas is complete without a cat hiding under the tree.
In The Midst Of Winter
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.
Albert Camus (1913 – 1960)
Albert Camus was a French writer and philosopher who was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1957.
To read more quotes by various authors, click here.
The Zone: No. 9 – Dec 10, 2020
The Map of Doom (say what?), Cal Newport on technology improving productivity, The Queen’s Gambit, and more in The Zone No. 9.
- It’s that time of the year bringing us the “Best Of“-lists; here are a few more. You can find other lists in the previous installments of the Zone here and here. Yep, mostly books. Of course. Books = Life.
- I wanted to single out The Best “Good News” Stories of the Year. It’s easy to forget the good things when enduring annus horribilis. Let’s hope 2021 will be annus mirabilis.
- The Map of Doom: A 20 minutes summary of all the threats to mankind, ranked. All right, apparently still on annus horibilis. Let’s move on to less gloomy subjects, shall we?
- Sarah Miller on the fatal flaw of the TV adaptation of “The Queen’s Gambit. I just bought the book so I can’t offer an opinion yet; I enjoyed the series so far. Bonus: A history of how chess became an allegory for society.
- Cal Newport on ASMR as immersive single tasking, applying technology to induce states of productive and rewarding concentration. I’m partial to the Hogwarts Library ASMR.
- Archaeologists discover eight miles of prehistoric rock art, “the Sistine Chapel of the Ancients” in the Amazonian rainforest, along the Guayabero River in the Colombian Amazon. The over 100,000 paintings were made around 12,500 years ago, and are likely to take researchers generations to record them.
- Artificial Blooms: Digital Botanics Showcase the Fractals, Tessellations, and Repetitive Features of the Natural World. Mesmerizing to watch.
- The Tom & Jerry movie is coming to theaters 2021. Yay! I grew up with Tom & Jerry cartoons, so I’m looking forward to it; the trailer looks promising.
- First Nobel Peace Prizes were awarded to Red Cross founder Jean Henri Dunant and peace activist Frederic Passy on December 10th, 1901. I would look forward to the Nobel Prize ceremonies (literature only, to be honest) and the usual book signing by the Nobel literature laureate in the NK department store every year. Alas, not this year. Everything is digital. Fingers crossed for next year. Hope dies last as they say.
A Quote I’m Pondering
Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. Every great idea I’ve ever had grew out of work itself.
Chuck Close
From My Photo Archives
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iPhotography II
Creativity Thrives on Constraints
This post is about creativity, constraints and making do with what you have.
I had forgotten how dark it gets in this country after years of living in Switzerland. Last year doesn’t really count as re-acclimatization to Scandinavian darkness as we moved in at the end of October, had plenty of things to manage because of the move, and then went to Australia mid-December.
Darkness is so oppressive now; it feels like we’re living in a perpetual twilight zone. Even at noon, there’s not enough light to take decent photos. Outside, that is.
I use to go for a walk at noon, to get some fresh air and daylight. Especially daylight. I always preach creativity thrives on constraints, and so I’m forcing myself to find something to photograph during my walks. Sometimes I bring my Canon 5D if there’s enough light to give it a try; otherwise, I always have my iPhone.
On some overcast days, this really becomes an exercise in creativity as the whole world seems to be blanketed in 50 shades of gray (pun intended).
The salvation then is in post-processing. I like to keep things simple. The photos above were taken with an iPhone and processed quickly with Snapseed. That’s it; it took me only a couple of minutes. No masterworks, I’m the first to admit. But much better looking than the original photos.
And since creativity thrives on constraints, I’m considering doing a 365 project, when you take and post one photo a day, every day, for a whole year. January 1st is around the corner, a good date to start a 365 project, don’t you think? It should be fun.
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Ice and Water
Lo, ice and water joyfully
Are reconciled to one another.
Matsunaga Teitoku
Matsunaga Teitoku (1571 – 1654) was a Japanese poet who founded the Teitoku (or Teimon) school of haiku poetry.
To read more poems, click here.
Just Squander Yourself
The task is always to write every single piece like it’s your only one. It has to have that energy. Use your best material now. Just squander yourself. Enjoy it. I don’t want to read anyone’s tepid writing.
Parul Sehgal
The quote comes from this excellent interview with Parul Sehgal, book critic at The New York Times, and former editor and columnist at The New York Times Book Review.
One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.
Annie Dillard
Annie Dillard, along the same lines.
The Zone: No. 8 – Dec 3, 2020
Best books of the year, productivity hacks, Earth’s new mini-moon, cute squirrels, and more in this week’s installment of The Zone.
- To continue on the “Best Of 2020” Books-theme from last week: the best books of 2020 according to the New York Public Library, The New York Times, and Smithsonian’s ten best science books of 2020.
- I’m sure Merriam-Webster’s word of the year wouldn’t make any best of-lists. Based on a statistical analysis of the words people searched for in their online dictionary and a significant year-over-year increase in traffic, the word of the year is (suspenseful pause)… pandemic! Says Merriam-Webster: “Sometimes a single word defines an era, and it’s fitting that in this exceptional—and exceptionally difficult—year, a single word came immediately to the fore as we examined the data that determines what our Word of the Year will be.“ With Coronavirus in the first place, quarantine in fifth place, and asymptomatic on the eighth, 2020 has been the pandemic year, indeed.
- The Oxford Dictionary: 2020 has too many Words of the Year to name just one.
- For those times when you feel like you live in a catastrophe movie: watch this video in which a former NASA engineer builts an epic obstacle course for squirrels. It’s about 20 minutes long but well worth the time, trust me! It takes a whole new meaning since we started feeding the birds in our backyard. But we ended up with a different solution (scroll down, please).
- The 10-3-2-1-0 Formula to Get More Done.
- 10 hours before bed – No more caffeine.
- 3 hours before bed – No more food or alcohol.
- 2 hours before bed – No more work.
- 1 hour before bed – No more screen time (turn off all phones, TVs, and computers).
- 0 – The number of times you will hit the snooze button in the morning.
- Did you know that Earth picks up a new temporary moon now and then? They’re usually pretty small – we’re talking about a few meters in diameter – and can hang around for a few years before they drift away. They contain the oldest material in the solar system. They haven’t been studied much as they are hard to detect. A new one has been recently discovered and baptized 2020CD3 (CD3 for short).
- Speaking of moons: NASA’s 4K visualization showing the Moon’s phase and libration at hourly intervals throughout 2021 is awesome. This one is viewed from the Northern Hemisphere, and there’s one for the Southern Hemisphere too. NASA creates these simulations of the moon phases every year, with no practical purpose in mind. They are very instructive, though, as so much as NASA does. Universe Today has a good article about the nitty-gritty details if you’re into astronomy like me. I, of course, have an iPhone app to check moon phases (free). There are plenty of them in the app store; I used this one for years and I’m pretty happy with it so I never looked for others.
- Starfish cling to rocks as the tide comes in off the coast of Greymouth, New Zealand. Photo by Stanley Loong.
- Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and US President George H. W. Bush declared the Cold War over on December 3rd, 1989. Living in Romania at the time, I remember thinking bitterly than nobody told Ceaușescu. But three weeks later, he was dead.
- Tomorrow is Friday and cookie day, yay! I know what I’m going to do. If you thought baking cookies, you’re wrong. Eating them is more like it.
A Quote I’m Pondering
Heaven and hell are not separate places but are already here among us on earth. What separates and protects us from hell is a surface layer that could be called civilization. A surface layer that we have realized this year is much more fragile than we thought. Dystopias are alarm clocks. *
Jan Gradvall, Swedish journalist in Dagens Industry Weekend magazine
From My Photo Archives
* Here’s the original quote in Swedish:
Himlen och helvetet är inga separata platser utan finns redan här bland oss på jorden. Vad som skiljer och skyddar oss från helvetet är ett ytlager som man skulle kunna kalla civilisation. Ett ytlager som vi detta år har insett är mycket bräckligare än vad vi trott. Dystopierna är väckarklockor.
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How To Handle A Creative Block & Avoid Distraction
Creative Block?
As creators, we’ve all been there, showing up to do the work, and nothing happened. Going through the motions, following the ritual (you do have a ritual?), yet the creative spark is gone, not even smoldering ashes left. The empty page.The blank canvas. The feared creative block. “Is it all gone? Will I ever be able to write anything? What’s happening?” That’s scary. I know it because I’ve been there. Too often.
Try Visual Writing Prompts…
One of the tricks I’ve learned to jumpstart my writing when I feel stuck is visual writing prompts. I would pick a random photo and force myself to write the beginning of a story based on the image. Something short and easy to get me going. You can see an example at the end of this post.
I try not to use one of my own photos but something completely different, to force my brain into something new. A site such as Unsplash, offering free photos for download, is great for the purpose. (I may want to use a text in the future, so it’s good to know I won’t need to worry about licensing).
This gets me started at any time, just because I don’t have any expectations to produce something extraordinary or brilliant. I’m just supposed to write a few words; I can do that.
… And Avoid Distractions
However, more often than not, as my writing starts to flow, it takes me in a new direction. I’m suddenly drawn into a new story, and curiosity pushes me to continue instead of returning to what I was working on. It’s good fun, and the temptation is to go with the flow. The brain is skilled at taking the path of the least resistance, that old rascal.
This is where discipline comes in. I can’t afford to start on a new story; I have to finish what I’ve started before going in a new direction. It’s tempting to abandon the work when the going gets tough and respond to a new project’s sirens’ song. But all this approach does is make sure I don’t finish anything, ending up with many great starts with no ends. Ask me how I know.
Use a Slush File…
This is where a slush file comes in handy. What’s a slush file, you ask. This is where all good but seducing ideas go. Got a great idea for a different project? I write it down and return to the project I was working on. Once I’ve finished it, I’ll visit the slush file and pick a new project.
… And Keep It Simple
My slush file is very straightforward: a bullet point list in Apple’s Notes app, points grouped by project. Something like this:
- End of the world story, a prepper & his cousin.
- “Prepper John” has a so-called shack middle of nowhere, in fact, a well-stored bunker. Remote island??
- Cousin (she), a journalist, meets him at the shack for an interview on prepping.
- Zombies!!
I keep the Notes app easily accessible on my phone’s home screen. I don’t need to search for it, or open folders and files. As soon as I get one of those tempting ideas, I just write it down quickly in Notes, and resume whatever I was doing at the time.
Visual Writing Prompt Example
I leave you with an example of a visual prompt. I found an everyday photo of a garage on Unsplash; these are a few story beginnings I wrote. I can tell you that I’ve used my slush file after this exercise. (Yep, I love a good zombie story, I admit. And terriers called Jexy.)
- I was tinkering with my old motorcycle in my parents’ subbasement garage, with Jaxy as sole company, when the first zombies reached Stockholm. That saved my life.
- Having my own space was the most important thing back then. Even if it was just a run-down garage with an astronomical rent and rich in cockroaches.
- My new home office didn’t look much to the world, but it was my own. Only Jaxy seemed to think differently and barked at the battered van. I had to agree, “some renovation needed” was an understatement.
- The morning the first undead burst into the city, Mats woke up in a dilapidated garage, his head pulsing with the mother of all headaches. A dog stared at him, tail wagging furiously back and forth. Where the hell was he? What was he doing in this, this…place? With a terrier? If it was a terrier, Mats didn’t know much about dogs and frankly, didn’t care. Of course, had he known about the undead, his view of things may have been slightly different.
Related Posts
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On the Death of Issho
Oh, grave-mound, move!
My wailing is the autumn wind.
Matsuo Basho
Matsuo Basho (1644 – 1694) was the most famous Edo period poet and a haiku master.
To read more poems, click here.
