A better question

Neera

I am reading Mark Mason’s book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck where I got struck by an interesting point.

Mark writes when asked “What do you want out of life?” most people respond by saying something like, “I want to be happy, have a great family and a good job.” This response is so common and expected that it doesn’t really mean anything.

We all want these things. We all want to lead a carefree, happy and easy life, fall in love, have amazing relationships, look perfect, be admired and respected by everyone.

Everybody wants that because it is easy to want that.

But there is a better question. A question we never ask ourselves but turns out to be a much greater determinant of how our lives turn out to be.

That question is, “What pain do we want in our lives? What are we willing to struggle for?”

Asking about pleasure is easy. Pretty much all of us have a similar answer.

The more interesting question is about the pain. What pain do we want to sustain? That is a hard question. But it is a question that matters. A question that will actually get us somewhere. A question that can change a perspective, a life.

We can’t have pain-free lives. Our lives can’t be all roses and unicorns. We have to choose something.

The bad thing is our lives are full of struggles. The good thing is we can choose our struggles.

By choosing what we are willing to struggle with, we can decide which direction we want to take our lives.

Where the day has gone?

Neera

You are hoping for a solid day’s work.

Brainstorming and writing in the morning, editing and polishing in the afternoon, and reading at night.

Not too much to ask for, especially when you have the whole day to yourself.

Your day starts well. You mind-map three articles and write three pages before I take the first break to have breakfast.

But things start going downhill from there.

The kitchen needs your urgent attention. Ironing is sitting in one corner staring at you. There is no milk in the fridge. If that is not enough to derail you, the sheer guilt of skipping the gym for five days in a row does it. That is it, you decide, I am going to the gym today.

By the time you come back from the gym and do all the above, it is two pm.

You settle down in front of the computer thinking, I will not get up until I finish this morning’s writing and editing and polishing.

But as soon as you open your computer, you couldn’t stop the urge to check your emails. There are a few urgent ones; it will not take me long to respond to them, you think while you frantically punch keys.

Then, quite innocently, wooed by the tempting title, you open the email from another blogger and before you know it you are devouring her writing.

Without realizing you are on the net, surfing to find a fix for an annoying technical issue with your blog.

Before you know it, the day has gone.

Now compare this to a day in screenwriter and director Woody Allen’s life.

He wakes up in the morning, opens his German Olympia SM3 manual typewriter, starts punching its keys, and doesn’t stop until he has finished all he had planned for. He then leisurely walks to his fridge, gets himself a drink and something to eat, stares out from the window for a while to gather his thoughts, and then stations himself back in front of his typewriter and type till the next break.

Consider this, in the forty-four-year period between 1969 and 2013, he has written and directed forty-four films that received twenty-three Academy Award nominations—an absurd rate of artistic productivity.

Peter Higgs, a theoretical physicist who performs his work in such disconnected isolation, joins Allen in his rejection of computers that the journalists couldn’t find him after it was announced that he had won the Nobel Prize.

J.K. Rowling uses a computer but was famously absent from social media during the writing of her Harry Potter novels—even though this period coincided with the rise of technology and its popularity among media figures.

What the network tools seem to be doing is chipping away at our capacity for concentration and contemplation.

The idea that the network tools are pushing our work from the deep towards the shallow is not new.

The Shallows by Nicholas Carr was just the first in the series of recent books to examine the internet’s effect on our brain and work habits.

William Powers’s Hamlet’s BlackBerry, John Freeman’s The Tyranny of E-mail, and Alex Soojung-Kin Pang’s The Distraction Addiction – all of which agree, more or less, that network tools are distracting us from work that requires unbroken concentration, while simultaneously degrading our capacity to remain focused.

Cal Newport in his book The Deep Work hypothesizes that the ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time. It is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy.

As a result, the few who cultivate this skill and then make it the core of their working life will thrive.

To do deep and meaningful work, we need to organize our lives in such a way that we can get long, consecutive, uninterrupted time chunks.

For me, it could mean locking myself up in a room with no computer, just books, a notebook, a pen, a pencil, and a highlighter.

Happiness is overrated

Neera

Why is everyone so obsessed with being happy?

Why can’t we accept that happiness is a feeling which comes and goes just like sadness, anger, love, and frustration?

None of these feelings last forever, not even love.

Why would happiness?

How many of us have stayed in a state of bliss forever? We all have experienced joy from time to time, but it disappears. Then we are back to our default state, whatever that is for each one of us. For many of us, it is melancholy.

Some of us are happy, being sad.

So much so that we try to hide our happiness because we are too afraid that misery is just around the corner, waiting to step in as soon as she finds the door ajar.

Often we blame circumstances for our unhappiness, while happiness is an inner state of mind and is independent of outer conditions. Many people have turned their grief into creative pursuits and created something beautiful out of their unhappiness.

Elizabeth Gilbert just released a new book, ‘City of Girls’ that she wrote in the grieving months just after her partner’s death.

Red Symons’(an Australian comedian) son, had brain cancer at four. At that time, the famous show ‘Hey Hey Saturday’ featuring Red Symons had just started. Red used comedy as a relief to deal with the blow of fate. He decided to stay happy and live life no matter what fate had thrown at him.

After spending a year in search of happiness, Gretchen Rubin wrote in her book ‘The Happiness Project,’

“It’s about living in the moment and appreciating the smallest things. Surrounding yourself with the things that inspire you and letting go of the obsessions that want to take over your mind. It is a daily struggle sometimes and hard work, but happiness begins with your own attitude and how you look at the world.”

She says:

“When I find myself focusing too much on the anticipated future happiness of arriving at a certain goal, I remind myself to ‘Enjoy now’. If I can enjoy the present, I don’t need to count on the happiness that is (or isn’t) waiting for me in the future.”

The fact is we are guilty of inviting unhappiness into our lives. There are three reasons for that.

  1. Our belief system. We think that unhappiness is selfless and happiness is selfish. To get the glory, we act unhappy. It takes energy, generosity, and discipline to be unfailingly light-hearted. It’s easier to complain than to laugh, easier to yell than to joke around, easier to be demanding than to be satisfied.” Meaning being happy is a lot of work, while being sad is easy. As Seth Godin puts it, “Doom is inevitable, gloom is optional.”
  2. Our paradox of expectations. We want to change ourselves, but we also want to accept ourselves for what we are. We want to be merry-go-lucky, but we also want to take ourselves seriously. We want to be disciplined, but we also want to wander, play, and read at whim. We are always on the edge of agitation; we want to let go of envy and anxiety, yet keep our energy and ambition. What we don’t get is we can do anything we want, but not everything we want.
  3. Our occupation. For the last four centuries, we have abandoned creativity from our lives. In 1600, before the industrial revolution, everyone lived their creativity when there were no proper jobs. A bread-maker baked bread, a seamstress sewed clothes, a blacksmith made tools, and a cobbler made shoes. They all worked with their hands to create something that provided them with a living and gratification from their work.

Today most of the jobs are left-brain jobs. Jobs consisting of following processes, solving problems, and working in the assembly line. They might pay well, but they don’t bring the satisfaction the creative work brings. 

No wonder in survey after survey, most people express their desire to quit their jobs to do something they are passionate about. They are seeking contentment from their work, which comes from creativity.

Being creative is being happy, and being happy is being creative.

Most people are happiest when they are engrossed in a creative activity.

Creativity doesn’t belong to artists, but it exists in every field. A farmer can be as creative as a mason or a hotel receptionist who makes her guest feel welcome in a creative way.

To invite happiness into your life, change your beliefs, lower your expectations, and be creative.

The more I read, the less I write

Neera

Reading and writing are two integral activities for writers. A writer must read and she must write. But lately, I have found that the more I read, the less I write.

Why is that so?

There are a few reasons for that.

One, I get carried away, one article leads to other, one link has ten more, and by the time I am through I have used all the available time reading other people’s writing rather than creating my own.

Two, reading and writing engage two different parts of the brain. Reading is inherently a passive activity, while writing is an active occupation. Although, reading prompts writing if I don’t stop mid-sentence and pick up a pen and a pad, thoughts disappear pretty quickly.

One blogging guru once advised, “If you want to write good posts, stop reading other people’s posts (at least for some time).”  

There is a lot of truth in this advice.

As a writer, you first need to write what is in you. That could be utter nonsense, incoherent, good-for-nothing content. But it comes from the core of you and represents how you understand things.

After getting that on paper, you can research and find evidence in contradiction or in support.

It is possible, now that you are more informed, that you will change your mind. That is fine. You can do so. In fact, it will give your writing more authenticity if you can explain what made you change your mind.

It is also possible that other people have explained certain things much better than you.

Great. You can include their writing as a quotation in your own. This will strengthen your argument and give your post a boost.

You need to allocate separate time for reading and writing.

I write best first thing in the morning. As soon as I brush my teeth, I plant myself in my bed with a pen and a notepad and write. I don’t even make a cup of tea or coffee. I know fully well that if I go to the kitchen, the trance will break. Those two hours in the morning are gold.

Science supports my morning bout of creativity.

Studies have proved that soon after waking when the prefrontal cortex is most active, creativity is at its highest while the analytical parts of the brain (the editing and proofreading parts) become more active as the day goes on.

There are several writers who swear by their morning writing routine. But then there are a great number of night owls as well.

Charles Dickens was a lark. He would have finished his day writing (by 2 pm each day) by the time Robert Frost would just about getting started and often going late at night (and waking up the next day around noon). What each of these famous authors lacked in synchronicity, they made up in a routine. The daily schedule of writing is almost as important, if not more than the human body rhythm. 

I believe the same goes for reading. You need to set up a time for reading as well. Whether it is at night or during lunchtime or commuting to and from work. Allocate one to two hours each day to reading and stick to those. You find that you can go through a lot in that time.

Without realizing it, we give too many hours each day on the internet and TV. All you need to do is to claim them back and give them to your actual passions—reading and writing.  

Cherry blossoms and change of some rules

Neera

Here are the things I find worth sharing this week.

  1. My post about a scientific, fail-proof method to study and retain complex and lengthy material was introduced by no other than Tony Buzan.
  2. A note on how unforgiving and overdisciplined we have become.
  3. I have always believed that having a linear goal at every stage of life is as important as breathing fresh air and eating healthy food. You can survive in pollution and on unhealthy meals, but the quality of life is not the same. Ann Rand was an author much ahead of her time; that might be one reason she is my favorite.
  4. Creativity can be found anywhere. Even in the dog’s pooh. I have yet to see a more colorful place than Valparaiso, where residents hire street artists to paint murals on the outer walls of their houses.
  5. November is approaching fast. In three weeks and three days, many of us are going to have sleepless nights, early mornings, and social boycotts to take part in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). An international internet-based writing initiative started in 1999 from humble beginnings where a few people got together to write a novel in a month. In 2005, it became a non-profit organization. This year over 400,000 people world-wide are expected to write 50,000 words in thirty days.

I have been participating in the initiative since 2012 and won it twice. Winning or not winning I will participate again this year to write a non-fiction book that has been lurking in the background ever-since I started this blog. You will hear about it more next month.

This week I changed some rules. First, I started posting every day (to put more pressure on me). Second, I reduced the number of things I share through the newsletter from ten to five (to reduce the pressure on my readers and myself). I thought ten new things every weekend are a bit too much for everyone. I would like to hear what you think. Drop me a line in the comments section below.

If you like this newsletter and my blog and want to support it, forward it to a friend.

How to read a complex and lengthy book and retain most of it

Neera

I am a long-time fan of Tony Buzan, the inventor of the Mindmapping technique.

In his book Use Your Head he suggests an Organic Study Method that could be applied to reading complex and lengthy material for maximum retention with minimum time investment.

The usual way to study text or non-fiction is to start the book from page one and read, reread incomprehensible areas, take a break, force yourself to go back to where you left off, and continue reading, rereading, and taking breaks until the book is finished. Then going back and revising it, sometimes multiple times, for retention and still not succeeding.

It is like starting the jigsaw puzzle from the bottom left-hand corner and insisting to build the entire picture step by step from that corner only.

The normal steps we take to solve a jigsaw puzzle are:

  • Find edges and boundary pieces.
  • Sort out color areas.
  • Fit ‘obvious’ bits and pieces together.
  • Continue to fill in.
  • Leave ‘difficult’ pieces to end (for reasons that as the overall picture becomes more clear, and the number of pieces used increases, so does the probability increase that the difficult pieces will fit in much more easily when there is a greater context into which they can fit).
  • Continue the process until completion.

Tony Buzan proposes that the jigsaw analogy can be applied directly to study.

Similar steps in reading a book would be:

For a book, it would be

1. Overview—Review the book for all the material other than the actual text such as a table of contents, illustrations, photographs, chapter headings, graphs, footnotes, summaries, and so forth Use a pen or a pencil to provide a visual aid to the eye. This stage is equivalent to finding the edges and boundary pieces.

2. Preview—Cover all the materials not covered in the overview. In other words, the paragraphs, and language content of the book. This is likened to organizing the color areas of the puzzle. During the preview, concentration should be directed to the beginnings and ends of paragraphs, sections, chapters, and even whole text, because information tends to be concentrated at the beginnings and ends of written material.

3. Inview — This involves filling in those areas still left, and can be compared with the filling-in process of the jigsaw puzzle once the boundary and color areas have been established. Major reading is not necessary as in some cases most of the important material will have been covered in previous stages. Jump over the difficult sections, leaving them for the next stage.

4. Review—This stage is to concentrate on the difficult areas. It is aided by making notes on the book itself or separately in a notebook, including making mind maps. Notes such as the following can be made in the book itself.

  • Underlining
  • Personal thoughts generated by the text
  • Critical comments
  • Marginal straight lines for important and noteworthy material.
  • Curved or wavy marginal lines show an unclear or difficult material.
  • Question marks for areas that you wish to question or that you find questionable.
  • Exclamation marks for outstanding items.
  • Your own symbol code for items and areas that relate to your own specific and general objective.

5. Continued reviewing—Apart from immediate review, a continuous review program is essential. It is seen that memory didn’t decline immediately after a learning session, but actually rose before leveling off and then plummeting. Reviewing just at the point where memory starts to fall leads to the longest retention.