Discipline, cont'd

My friend Jess (see comment on July 18 blog post) said that energy and structure are needed for discipline. I concur. But then, what supports energy and structure? Discipline.

It's a catch-22. It's an Escher drawing.

So I 'm trying to take the sting out of this area of my life by saying that discipline is just the development of good habits.

And current popular wisdom says that you can develop a new habit within 21 days.

Oh, the first 21 days will be hard, I understand. But after that, then you have the habit and it's easier to stick with whatever you are trying to do. (I usually read this advice in connection with developing the habit to exercise.)

I am also contemplating the advice to people who are trying to train their dogs: Saying "No" doesn't work. You are supposed to give a dog something else to do, if your dog is doing what you don't want him to do. Say "sit," instead of telling him "no," when he's jumping up on someone, for instance.

So, can we use these 2 pieces of advice to become more disciplined?

If, instead of telling myself "no, I shouldn't be doing this" when I turn on the television, can I substitue calling a friend up, or cooking an elaborate meal, or -egads!- perhaps, WRITING?

Or instead of eating bags of chips mindlessly, can I substitute a stretching routine?

And can I try this for the next 21 days?

Are you undisciplined? Have you figured out what's stopping you? And do you have any hints or techniques for overcoming being undisciplined? Please share.

Discipline

I've been thinking lately about discipline and how it affects creativity.

Did you grown up with "romantic" notions about "artistic types" whose creativity flourished in some unknown way? Just because they were "touched by the muse?"

If you are like me, you did.

And like me, you might have been told that "no one can make a living as a writer." That writers and, painters lived in garrets and starved. I knew that artists lived in garrets long before I knew what a garret was. And for those who might not know, I'll save you from having to look it up. It's an attic.

Well, I was never given any idea that artists and writers had discipline at all.

But as we all know, writers and artists have to have discipline in order to be able to produce. Even rock and rollers have to have discipline to write songs, then get into the studio and record.

No, it might not be a 9 to 5 job that we've chosen. We might not be able to leave our desks and "leave it at the office," but we still need discipline.

So, if, like me, you haven't been exceedingly disciplined in your chosen creative field, how do you solve that problem?

Writing and Voice

I was talking to my friend Jessica yesterday, and we were talking about the fact that sometimes the only creative writing we do is blogging. It's not always enough, but at least it is something. She has two blogs: The Other Invisible and A Woman Visible

Do you think she's got a thing about visibility? Uh, yeah.

She's recently been blogging about writing and voice. When I read her words, I can absolutely hear her voice in my head. When I read my friend Chad's blog, I hear his voice in my head! Sometimes, I don't "get" blogs, if they don't have a real definitive voice.

I wonder if I have a "voice" here? I don't really think I've developed one, for blogging at least, because this blog is used for the "serious topic" of creativity. And as Jess says, voice changes depending on what one is writing.

I do know that sometimes I have to try hard to make my blog posts readable. I have a tendency to write in the longest sentences known to mankind. I am always re-writing things, even blog posts, in order to do away with dependent clauses. No, I do not write run-on sentences. Grammatically, my sentences are very well structured. But I can have dependent clauses within other dependent clauses! (And yes, you can start a sentence with the word "but." "But" is a coordinating conjuction, not a subordinating conjunction. Don't be old-fashioned! And yes, you can start a sentence with "and.")

But is this voice? Voice has to do with grammar and sentence structure, but also with point of view. Have I really developed a point of view, particularly on the subject of creativity? I suppose the reason that I blog about creativity is because I want to develop a point of view on the subject. I use my blog to do so. It's a damn sight cheaper than discussing the subject with a therapist!

Here's a shout-out to two of my Tunisian friends, Rami and Ahmed. And here is their picture, for the viewing pleasure of the females in my audience. I'll include pictures of my Tunisian sisters within the next post or two, for the viewing pleasure of the males in my audience.

Resting or decaying?

When does "taking a break" turn into "acting like a vegetable?"

Since I've come home from Tunisia, I've done not much of anything--except watch TV. In Tunisia, I watched TV maybe twice. I thought I had broken myself of the habit. But since I have been home, I have fallen back into my routine of using it as company. It's really bad, boring company, but, just like real, live, human company, I end up paying attention to it. Of course, it is rude to ignore human company, even if they are boring. But TV, I can turn off. I know that it just sucks the life out of me and my creativity.

In Finding Flow, which I am browsing through once again, now that I'm back from Tunisia, Csikszentmihalyi writes

...a simple way of improving the quality of life is to take ownership of one's actions. A great deal of what we do (over two-thirds, on the average) are things we feel we have to do, or we do because there isn't anything else we feel like doing. ... Under these conditions we are likely to feel that our psychic energy is wasted.

Well, I know that TV wastes my psychic energy. So, I have just turned it off. And I plan to keep it off, not using it as company. Heck, I have company. I have great friends here in Georgia, whom I missed while I was away. And I have things I want and need to do.

I want to write more--my novel, travel articles, essays. I want to publish.

I want to speak more--I want achieve my CTM in Toastmasters (I know that they changed the designation, but I don't like the CC tag.) I want to become a professional speaker and give seminars on creativity.

I want to teach. I want teach both writing and speaking, helping people develop two very basic skills that get buried in their high school curricula, but which turn out to be so important in everyday lives.

These three items at the top of my to-do list are all creative, but they take psychic energy. And I think that psychic muscles are just like physical muscles. They need to be exercised daily, or they will atrophy. I exercised my psychic muscles every day when I was in Tunisia--I was writing a lot, I was fully engaged with life--seeing new things, making new friends. But now that I'm home, I'm falling back into some of the bad habits I had. I think a lot of people indulge in bad habits at home. They sit on the couch and pig out. They aren't polite to their family members. They act like slobs.

The antidote, I believe, is to pay attention--to give psychic energy to the things that are important, not to the blasted, veggie-matic thing called TV.