striker
9d ago
My advice would probably differ from most of the others here. I believe that your unique “voice” needs to find its own “truth” for you to be seen (or see yourself) as “a better writer”.
For some people this will be more direct and concise. For others this will be more “verbose” and “rambly” to use your words. There is nothing intrinsically wrong about long sentences. Charles Dickens often wrote long sentences. David Foster Wallace was seen by some as the greatest novelist of his generation and some of his sentences were pages long. The key thing that set both of them apart was they wrote what was absolutely true for them. Ernest Hemingway (who typically wrote in short, direct, pared back style) had some famous advice for writers: “Make every sentence the truth.”
That prompts a different question: “How do you know what’s true?”
My belief is that this is a matter of feel and intuition. Your mind might not always tell you what’s true. But your body will. Something somewhere in your body, some wave of small emotion, some inkling that might even express itself in the formation of a tear or two behind your eyes, will communicate itself when you find words that express a truth.
Also, this is not a 0 or 1. There are a million decimal points on the journey from falsehood to truth in your writing. The staircase stretches far far into the hazy distance and you can never see the top, you can just keep climbing.
Also, good luck.
striker
9d ago
I think it is difficult to pin down, but keep trying. For what it’s worth, I believe your Mars/Venus dichotomy here layers easily on my distinction of care taking. Mars is looking outward as a mode of care (protection and provision etc) and Venus is looking downward (rather than inward, I would say), also as a mode of care (nurture and nourishment etc). I haven’t studied the details of Buddhism so can’t talk much on that.
striker
10d ago
I have a theory that one day I'll write out in greater length that there's something in male psychology that tends to be more other-regarding, focused on the exterior to the self, even self-forgetful at times, whereas there's something in female psychology that's often more self-regarding, more aware of and focused on self-presentation, and the connections between self and other.
Interesting theory. I would disagree. My view is that both feminine and masculine are, at their highest calling, focused on the "exterior of the self" or "self-forgetful" as you call it. I believe the ideal of both feminine and masculine is one of care-taking, but the care-taking takes different forms. For the masculine, the care-taking is in forms of protection and provision (and this can find expression in the form of things to deploy, problems to solve, situations to fix) and for the feminine the care-taking is in forms of nurture (which typically plays out in human-to-human kindness, warmth, affection). And that this is why the masculine-feminine mix is so powerful to procreation, because working together gives children exactly everything they need.
[Edit: You're 100% right that men and women embody a mix of these masculine and feminine traits at different times.]
Of course, I might be wrong and you might be right. Or both of us might be wrong. I dunno. But this has been my experience and perspective.
striker
10d ago
Huge fan of short stories. I find it interesting that unit economics was a key point of influence in making novels a dominant format for literature.
We were brought up on short stories in Ireland. (Frank O’Connor’s Guest of the Nation and Michael McLaverty’s The Poteen Maker two great examples of great stories told across a handful of pages.)
Claire Keegan is a fine current day practitioner. Foster was brilliant and her recent So Late in the Day was top class too. (Both published as standalone books but they’re just short stories really.) Kevin Barry is another. Beer Trip to Llandudno made me go wow. I thought Roddy Doyle’s story Bullfighting was excellent too.
striker
11d ago
A few thoughts that came immediately to mind (as opposed to a deeply thought out reply):
- Taking good care of your mind and body is absolutely the best use of your time, because it influences everything else.
- Taking good care of your mind and body is at least a decade-long learning process (and probably more), because (a) even minor changes can take months to show whether they’re working, (b) there are always multiple confounding factors over any short term period, and (c) all long term improvement comes from small changes that compound over time.
- The whole point of taking good care of yourself is that you can take good care of other people. We are effectively nothing without the closeness of family, friends and the countless people who might benefit (directly and especially indirectly) from our care-taking.
- Time and money are usually seen as the most important resources but energy is the foundation resource that sits beneath both, because without energy, time and money are worthless. Therefore, studying energy in all its forms, from calories to coal, psychology to sunshine, physiology to physics (and investing time and money to do so!) is a rest-of-life pursuit that will positively impact every moment of your life.
- The best and most important things in life might not be free, but all are intangible. They include love, respect, beauty, wonder, truth, awe, poetry and art. (Michelangelo’s David and Velazquez’s Las Meninas might be tangible but their vitality is profound and spiritual / metaphysical / intangible.)
That’s my back of the envelope answer. Thanks for the question.
striker
11d ago
Good luck with it all. You’re so young (I know you probably don’t feel that, but you are … I remember when I was 22. I might have projected knowledge and certainty but looking back I was completely clueless about myself and everything around me.)
I’ve always been bad at breath work too. It gets better when I realised that one of the main points of breath work is present moment awareness. And you can get to present moment awareness without sweating the breath work too much.
Running is my breath work. The breathing happens as a side effect of the running so I get the benefit without the mind restlessness.
striker
12d ago
I don’t hunt and I don’t record hours if footage in my house during the night, but all the rest of this resonates with me massively. I don’t have an answer to your ultimate question but a few things that seem to have worked for me for several years (with intermittent falls off the wagon which underlined how much they were working):
- Bread of all kinds is poison for me. All my weight gain is directly or indirectly bread-related. I don’t even eat much. But whatever I do seems sit on my ass and gut. Just finding a way to stop eating bread seems to be very effective in stopping weight gain / aiding weight loss for me.
- Weighing scales in bathroom. I weigh myself 4/5 times a week, first thing, naked, after a piss. This catches any weight gain before it creeps up on me and does something to my psychology. (Sort of like the old auto-suggestion daily reminders from Think and Grow Rich…)
I also run, which does at least as much and possibly more for my psychology as it does for my physiology. Periods of solid running always coincide periods of better body self image and better mental health. None of it is cracked though. Every day the clock resets and the challenge starts again.
striker
12d ago
There is way too much going on here to offer an answer that’s in any way complete, but just two cents offered from a few decades more experience than you (I’m in mid-40s). Life has chapters / seasons. Weirdly, something that (a) happens without reason or (b) was achievable in one particular season/chapter just reverses or becomes (or seems) impossible in another. It’s desperately hard to do, a million times easier said than done, but I’ll say it anyway. Try not to sweat all this too much. The mind is an instrument of a type of power we’re scarcely beginning to understand, so the way you’re thinking about all this is almost certainly having a massive influence on your reality. Practice breathing. Practice recognising joy and beauty (more than proactively seeking them out). Practice present moment awareness (because every past moment and every future moment are always colored by the present moment that’s actually thinking about them). And good luck. 🙏
striker
12d ago
In that case, since we know he drew one gold coin, it also rules out Box 1, so we’re left with Box 2 and 3. We know that initially there were 13 coins here (3 gold, 10 silver) so now there are 12 coins left (2 gold, 10 silver). So 2 gold out of 12 remaining coins = 1 in 6 chance = 16.66%?
[Of course, the chances of him plucking a gold coin in the first place would have been much less than the 50% in the first question – it would actually have been just 20% 2 silver 2 gold 1 gold, 10 silver = 3 gold vs 12 silver = 20% But since we know he did actually pick a gold coin first, the chances of him also picking a gold coin second are 16.66%.]
striker
12d ago
Totally different genre but the vocals here brought Roy Orbison to my mind, and that would be from the same era, right?
striker
14d ago
- sleep
- exercise
- nutrition (excess carbs and lack of protein are common problems)
This is all you need.
striker
15d ago
Am outside the US (assuming you're inside...) But our local cinemas show almost nothing that isn't mainstream and current. Unfortunate, but also it's providers responding to the market. The great films I watched in those places years ago, often it was just me and a couple of others who showed up.
striker
15d ago
It's an acquired taste, I found. Initially I found it to be ... unusual. I really like cashews, which are sort of creamy / tasteless, but cashew butter had a much stronger taste (for me!) But I soon loved it and ate way too much straight off the spoon. (It was really hard to get where I for 2-3 during Covid, and supplies have not returned to pre-pandemic levels just yet.)
striker
15d ago
Having gone through 2-3 years of always working on/tinkering with something, I’ve experienced some tinkering burnout this past few months. I think it’s fatigue from never seeing any of the things I was working on come to a whole pile of fruition (all content rather than code) - they included:
- membership group for people trying to overcome overthinking/procrastination
- podcast & publication about real life personal/couples financial statements (where income comes from / where expenses and investments go)
- magazine / publication for writers about sports (essays, reflections, memoirs rather than reporting or journalism)
Working on a few things still that did get off the ground, are not yet income generating but still are rewarding enough for me to keep doing them:
- musings/essays/interviews on psychology and money (sort of: “self worth and net worth”)
- podcast on poetry as a personal development vehicle (sort of: “poems as teachers”)
Right now mostly I’m drifting rather than driven. Maybe it’s just a phase. (Recovery from a recent chest/lung illness playing a part too…)
Wondering if anyone else has gone through something like this and if so did you just allow it to pass or did you force a return to “productivity” in any way?
striker
15d ago
Very underrated book. Wolfe is so good I remember enjoying Charlotte Simmons immensely.
striker
16d ago
- Greek yogurt. One of those 500g tubs with 50g of protein and packing it all down with berries, nuts and honey. Quality grubbing. (Also: 1kg tub of cashew butter. Stuff is ludicrously good, but I need to be careful as I can go overboard.)
- Midweek afternoon at a movie. Don’t do it often, but I almost never regret it. Trouble is, most of the cinema chains don’t show any quality movies nowadays, and I can’t be bothered watching something Marvel. Years ago I watched Coen Brothers movies or arthouse or foreign language pics on a Wednesday at 2pm. Good times.
- I enjoy doing f* all work in January. Lots of other people are hammering through the fake New Year’s goals. So several days in January I might chop some wood, light the fire and read a whole book in the short daylight hours. Bonus marks if it’s a book set in winter. The Brothers (short book by a Finnish author about Finnish-Russian wars in 1800s) and Julius Winsome (about a man who lives in the woods with his dog until he gets some unwanted visitors) both ticked all boxes.
striker
16d ago
Not sure I ever got to the end of The Goldfinch but wow I love how Donna Tartt constructs a sentence.
striker
16d ago
Brave and Google (for now).
- Brave: Someone recommended it to me last year and I love it. It’s quick, light, syncs pretty well across devices (although I don’t do a lot of syncing) and most of the Chrome extensions I had been using are compatible. I love its playlist feature where you can force it to download lots of media from different places (YouTube, podcasts etc) and play them while offline.
- Google: I still search lots, but usually for something that I know has a specific destination page/answer. I.e. I don’t Google-then-browse-and-scroll, which I probably did for years and a lot of people probably still do now. I also use lots of advanced search operators both on Google and in other “search engines” like Twitter/X and Reddit.
striker
16d ago
The election will be determined by normies and their emotional reactions to pictures and videos.
100% this. Always.
striker
26d ago
Also on new regime this week. Removing all gluten for at least a month to see what happens. I would often have had gluten multiple times a day (cereal, pasta, bread etc). Could care less about cereal and pasta and most other gluten/wheat products, but I do salivate at the prospects of a good sandwich and part of me dies at the thoughts of not having one for a while.
I’m 6-4, ~210 lbs, up from 195 less than a year ago (have run marathons but odd energy fall-offs and months of colds/sinusitis/chest infections this year).
Figure inflammation is an issue and elimination diet to remove gluten (first) is the least I can do.
striker
26d ago
Have tried a gajillion types of accountability, and find I rebel against it all. I might want to do it the day I ask for the accountability, and I might still want it done a week later, but at the time I’m supposed to be doing it, I can’t make myself do it and revert to something more interesting and rewarding (in the short term). Maybe that means my life won’t amount to more than a hill of beans, but maybe subconsciously what I really want is a hill of beans.
Nice rundown. I’m not in the US so the church-based focus of this is quite alien to me. A lot of people here go to Church but it’s down from probably 90%+ in the 1980s/90s to 30% now. (Guessing on these numbers but the fall off has been huge in a generation or so…) And the only people who use Church as social outlet are people aged 80 and up. Sad but that’s just the way it is, and probably a natural result of abuse scandals and coverups.
Could you explain what you mean by “ fraternal organization”? [Yes I can ask Google but just wondering what exactly they look like for you…]
For me (40s, married almost 20 years, two teenage kids) social life is quiet. I still live close to where I grew up but drifted away from all school friends (drift took place all the way through 20s, by the time we were all 35 we had nothing in common anymore). And I haven’t replaced those friends.
I’m involved in management teams of my old football club so it’s good to still be a part of a group of 20-30 year-olds trying to get the most out of themselves and each other. (It’s amateur but serious.)
Otherwise I run but not part of a club and prefer to do it alone. Also a member of a tennis club but it’s a strange social set, plenty of older richer people who have it made and are just enjoying life and I don’t have much in common with them, while the people my age and younger are sort of poor, a bit “drinky”, whiny and unambitious.
I’m after people my age with drive, energy and ambition - next stop might be a golf club. I love lots about the game but my game is crap and I haven’t yet got over the ego hump of getting lessons and putting in the hours to improve.
My wife and kids spend a lot of time together. I work from home, wife works near home, so we’re together 7 nights a week for an hour or two at least, but we haven’t done much socially. (Wife and son are mildly autistic and hate crowds so happier sitting silently with books, art or games at home.)
I’m much more extrovert but haven’t had much of a chance to explore that part of me last number of years. I like things like horse racing and poker but don’t have any friends to go/play with, went alone a few times and actually enjoyed it but still hard to get over the feeling of being a loner (I see other loners kicking their heels and looking smelly and friendless and would hate hate hate to be like them.)
I also write some poetry but have zero time for the poetry/spoken word scene. Full of self important dicks who think capitalism is to blame for their shitty lives and want to take it out on the world with snarky writing that has poor scansion and no rhythm.
Thanks for the question. It made me think about something I’d really like to improve.
More options
Context Copy link