Plateau, Schmateau

When did you most recently feel stuck? How did you dislodge yourself?

How many expressions do you suppose there are for those times when we hit a wall of any kind? And what is the link between feeling stuck or hitting a wall and locating the needed motivation to get out of our own way? Have you ever known anyone who has escaped this human dilemma, no matter what it's called - running out of steam, trouble locating the mojo, being dried up, whatever? If you know such a person, would you introduce me, right away? In the meanwhile, nomenclature aside, what is your go-to strategy when this plagues you?  

Although it usually pleases me when any reader finds value in the suggestions made by other readers to questions I pose here, I'm feeling less generous today. I'm not looking for a magic bullet - per se - but given my current stasis, my awareness about the predictability of plateaus we all experience in life from time to time is not real useful to me. I want a practical strategy - preferably one I can implement the moment I read your comment - to help me jump-start the engine, get the juices flowing, unclog the pipes, etc. These past few days, my usual stuff - exercise, meditation, reading, playing guitar - has not gotten me off the starting block. 

I guess right now I'd welcome the flexibility to be able to kick my own ass.

Putting Siri Back in the Bottle

Isn't it a near certainty that our lives are headed toward more dependence on technology? What is your guess of the impact of that increased dependence on the following: Attention deficit disorder? Listening skills? Critical thinking? 

The data I'm seeing does not fill me with hope. In addition, my regular interaction with others dismays me increasingly. I've had conversations with friends who acknowledge a connection between their diminished attention span and cell phone use. I've also witnessed - as I'm sure you have - many of the impediments technology helps to create with respect to listening and conversation, a phenomenon Sherry Turkle expertly explored in her still startling book Reclaiming Conversation (2015). I'm alarmed by the rising rate of adolescent suicide, a trend many researchers attribute to the pernicious effect of ubiquitous social media. The implications of AI - especially in the creative domain - terrify me.  

That said, my inadequate solution of near abstinence is complicated. First, it frequently puts me at odds with people, including loved ones. And in what is best described as an Uber-disconnect, I'm a blogger, for crying out loud.

Still, disconnect aside, despite my obstinate resistance to most technology, I'm neither advocating for a return to the horse-and-buggy era nor am I oblivious to the benefits technology has delivered. But I am deeply concerned where we are headed. Consequently, I'd sincerely welcome hearing from you. What are some practical strategies all of us can begin using to assist in putting Siri, Alexa, et al back in the bottle, at least from time-to-time?

Reflections From The Bell Curve: The Choir And The Monkey  

Delayed De-Brief

Even though more than a week has passed since we returned from our latest National Park adventure, I'm still de-briefing the time spent away from home. This ever happen to you, i.e., you feel like there's more to be extracted from an exceptional travel experience?

Front and center in my delayed de-brief is a sense of lingering gratitude for the unremitting miracle of nature. Each hike we took in Yosemite and Sequoia National Park was more spectacular than the one before. The breathtaking views in both parks defy description. I'll never forget the awe I felt walking around the world's largest tree. 

I've also had ample time to reflect on how traveling with Road Scholar has enriched our time away from home, beginning with the first trip we took with them in 2015. It would be hard to over-state how much more relaxed I am knowing I don't have to think about anything other than showing up on time each day; Road Scholar does everything else. The direct consequence of that? I'm fully present. I'm more receptive to the information the terrific guides dispense as well as the beauty engulfing me. I'm also more open to interacting with fellow travelers and my creative riffing feels limitless. Ideas and inspiration come at me - unimpeded - from everywhere. I don't need directions, hiking maps, or anything aside from water, my notebook, and a pen. Difficult to describe how liberating that feels. 

My delayed de-brief also reminded me to add a note to our gratitude jar. I feel fortunate to have the means to enjoy experiences like these and doubly fortunate that my partner of forty-seven + years is a willing and enthusiastic travel companion.  

Reflections From The Bell Curve: Practicing Gratitude

Words for the Ages: Line Thirty-Six

"All your money won't buy another minute". 

I've never owned a recording by Kansas. That includes their biggest hit single - Dust in the Wind - the song from which the lyric above is lifted. Always liked the tune - nice acoustic guitar, inventive violin lines, subtle vocal harmony, moderately bleak but largely solid lyric - but I'd mostly stopped buying singles by 1978 and their other music didn't grab me enough to invest in an LP.

My disinterest in Kansas aside, I submit that terse phrase will outlive composer/lyricist Kerry Livgren. I hope he'll forgive the fact that I transplanted the word buy from the end of his phrase to the middle. In the original, Livgren needed buy to complete a rhyming couplet (with "sky"). But for me, the clumsy syntax of "...won't another minute buy" dulls the impact and lands with a thud. However, at least one faithful reader and good friend pushed back at my presumptuousness when I shared this notion. She gently chastised me for minimizing "artistic license". We agreed to disagree.

You decide where you want to land, then place the word buy where it suits you. No matter really because in the end, those concise seven words stand alone and contain a universal truth. They are words for the ages, clumsy syntax or artistic license notwithstanding. 

A Jolt

Happened to be changing the widget called featured post on the left side of my home page when I noticed a comment the older of my two sisters had made many years ago on the post I'd most recently resurrected from my archives. What a jolt that comment delivered to me. 

How I miss the once-frequent visits to the bell curve she made for years. Nowadays, I'll occasionally read a recent post to her, usually involving some family-of-origin folklore. Though she can no longer type in a comment, the smile on her face is often enough to tell me I've gotten through. 

I'm grateful for that smile just as I am for my sister's frequent comments during the first nine + years of my blog's life. In the early years, her comments helped inspire me to keep publishing even when my view numbers were discouraging and it seemed as though few people besides her, my wife, and my daughter paid any attention. And that jolt from her years-old comment then further reminded me of her early-in-life embrace of my awful high school poetry. It would be difficult to over-state how her lifelong support of my creative efforts has sustained me. Bad poetry, abysmal early songs, marginal musical endeavors, my blog; she never wavered. Who has been that kind of anchor in your life? When was the last time you acknowledged that person? What are you waiting for? 

 

Reflections From The Bell Curve: This Moment

The Line of Beauty

Since finishing The Line of Beauty (2004) a few weeks back, I've purposefully limited my reading diet to books of non-fiction. Alan Hollinghurst's Man Booker Prize-winning novel is literature of the highest order. It hit me with such force that I haven't wanted to risk being in the hands of a less capable novelist ever since. The closest recent analogue I can recall to this reading experience was how I felt upon finishing The Overstory (2018) in early 2020 and then subsequently gushing about Richard Powers's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel in seven blog posts over the remaining months of that year.

"Even disagreements ... had a glow of social harmony to them, of relished licence, and counted almost as agreements transposed to a different key."    

Hollinghurst had me right there, on page twenty-one. Smart sentences like that, all in the service of a pitch-perfect story about class in Thatcher-era England, adorn every chapter. The conversations in this masterful book - especially those featuring the protagonist (Nick Guest) and each of the four members of the wealthy Fedden family with whom Nick lives - are unimprovable. Details? "Dragon flies paid darting visits." Bringing a character to life? "...his tone combined candour and insincerity to oddly charming effect". Telling observations? "...he could make a mere gesture towards an action which would at once be performed by someone else."

Above all, The Line of Beauty transformed me as a reader, much like The Overstory did five years ago. This time, Hollinghurst helped me close a gap I reflexively create between myself and characters with money and power who collect beautiful things. Because all of Hollinghurst's characters were expertly rendered, instead of seeing them as "types" and feeling distanced from them, I saw them instead as flawed human beings, like me.

Reflections From The Bell Curve: To Be Continued 

Not Cut Out for Heavy Lifting

No maintenance required. Low - medium - high maintenance required. Uber-maintenance required. 

Using the five levels above, where would you place yourself on a maintenance required continuum? How closely would your self-assessment of where you are on that continuum match up with how others - especially those who know you well - see you?

While on our recent adventure to Yosemite National Park with Road Scholar, I reflected quite a bit on how grateful I am that my partner of forty-seven + years requires such low maintenance. Although I've known this since our first date in April of 1978, spending time with groups and observing what others seem to require as minimum maintenance invariably amplifies my gratitude for her. 

What does my gratitude for her low maintenance requirements say about me? How many of you in long-term partnerships have ever considered this angle, i.e., some of the reasons why we gravitate toward certain people based on how much heavy lifting we think we might have to do? I'm reasonably sure my selfishness has had a lot to do with the people I've been most drawn to throughout my life, including my partner. Under no circumstances could I ever see myself responding well to someone having what I considered to be trendy, frivolous, or expensive tastes. Nor could I see myself attracted to anyone who equated either stuff or undivided attention and adoration with affection. I'm too attached to my own exceedingly modest needs to react favorably to anyone at the higher end of that continuum. 

Not that I'd ever be in the running for anyone like that anyway. I'm certain that any person requiring a high or above level of maintenance would quickly surmise that I'm not cut out for heavy lifting.  

 

#74: The Mt. Rushmore Series

Even for those less music-obsessed than me, certain songs are guaranteed to conjure a specific time in a life. In my experience, the same applies for books - both for casual readers and bookworms - and for movies, cinephile or otherwise. 

For this iteration of Mt. Rushmore, I'd like to hear which specific detail - mundane or off-the-curve - is so inextricably linked to a movie that you immediately recall that film when that detail presents itself. My monument is listed chronologically backwards by date of the film's release. You'll soon understand why. List your monument however you choose.

1.) Detail: Port-a-potty. Film: Slumdog Millionaire. The direct inspiration for this post came during our just finished visit to Yosemite National Park. As I entered one particularly dingy port-a-potty, a scene from early in Danny Boyle's 2008 film wouldn't let me go. From there, it was easy for this movie geek to come up with three more details that simply can't be linked to any other film.

2.) Detail: Hedge maze. Film: The Shining. Even money you knew what film I would name before I did so. I submit anyone who saw Stanley Kubrick's 1980 adaptation of the Stephen King novel will never be able to separate a hedge maze - or the deranged look in Jack Nicholson's eyes - from that film.  

3.) Detail: Phone booth. Film: The Birds. Although phone booths have been featured in many movies, if you saw Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 film even once, I think you'll agree this detail and that film cannot be separated. Film buffs: Check out High Anxiety, Mel Brooks's hysterical 1977 homage to Hitchcock, phone booth included.   

4.) Detail: Shower. Film: Psycho. Within seconds after connecting port-a-potty to Slumdog Millionaire, shower = Psycho came to me. Since 1960, no year has ever passed without that shower scene crossing my mind at least one time. I suspect I'm not alone.    

If you can't come up with four, don't stress. Make one or more nominations. Unrepentant movie junkie that I am, I'd love to hear what comes to you.