The grindstone

(27th August 2012 Signing on at 13:32)

OK. Here we go again. This time I don’t really have a starting point. Let’s see what happens. Yesterday, I started to read “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” by TE Lawrence again. I read it the first time many years ago. The copy I have is a rip-off republication of an out-of-copyright edition. I’m not sure which edition it was, but it looks like it is photo-typeset using the old text. The typeface used looks a little old-fashioned. Anyway, it may by more than 20 years since I read it.  My eye was drawn to it on the shelf, so I thought “why not?”  Picking up a recent catchphrase: “I can and I will!”

I’ve just made a discovery. I think I may have found the solution to the keyboard problem I had encountered recently. Up to now I had been “fixing it” by restarting the computer. Just now I tried restarting Word only and, what do you know? Problem fixed! That would seem to suggest that leaving Word on for a long while (like several hours) may not be a good thing to do. It also suggests that somewhere deep inside of the version of Word I have there is some insidious little bug. Not my problem. I expect Microsoft know all about it and can’t be bothered to fix it.

Back to the Seven Pillars: I was struck by some of the language Lawrence uses at the beginning; beautiful, dense, poetic prose. It sounds to me like a man at the end of his tether, which I believe he was.

As well as reading Lawrence, I’ve started another self-help hypnotherapy course. There is nothing quite like working on yourself.

As an aside, were you aware that the idea of “self-help” originated with Samuel Smiles? (here is a link to a free version http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/935). Maybe I will add that to my Kindle some time. I have more than enough reading to do at the moment, what with hypnotherapy, sociology and Lawrence!

Still, on we go! I will need to set myself an alarm to stop writing so that I can get tea cooked for the workers returning home. OK. Just done that.

I’ve noticed one or two small changes as a result of the hypnotherapy course I’ve started. I’ve already skip-read the book and I recognise techniques being used. Actually, I have done this course before and I found it helpful last time. If “The Artist’s Way” is for breaking the log-jam of being a “stuck” creative, this is more directed towards achieving a particular goal.

Achieving a goal is challenge. The difficult thing can be to decide on what it is you want to do. I have to confess that I find that difficult from time to time.  Right now I feel like I am ready to make some changes. I feel restless and I feel energy. But what am I going to do? I think I know, and this writing is part of it, but I am going to work on the details of the change for a while. There is a great deal written about carefully crafting the way you phrase the goal for an affirmation. I’m sure many of you will have come across SMART:

• ·         Specific
• ·         Measurable
• ·         Achievable
• ·         Realistic
• ·         Timely

And there are several other variations. I am fully in favour of setting the goal in that way, but that is not all. Before I get to the stage of setting the goal (and the inevitable sub-goals which represent milestones along the way) I want to be sure that I have the right goal for me. This needs to be something that I can commit to. Commitment is an important part of the process. However laudable the goal is, if I am not committed to it, then in the end I am likely to make excuses and find a way of wriggling out of it.

What do I mean by commitment? First of all, I need to be doing it for me. Other people may be involved, but the commitment is being made by me, the pain will be felt by me and therefore it needs to be me that makes the commitment. This means that this new goal I am developing is not there just to please other people. If that sounds selfish, then I suppose it is but I’m not going to apologise for that!

Here is an extract from Lawrence, taken out of context, which captures a feeling that I want to use:

We were a self-centred army without parade or gesture, devoted to freedom, the second of man’s creeds, a purpose so ravenous that it devoured all our strength, a hope so transcendent that our earlier ambitions faded in its glare.

I’ve read it. I’ve written it. Quite honestly, I’m not sure I know what it means. Maybe even Lawrence did not really know exactly what it meant. What I want to communicate to myself is emotion. The passage contains some seeds which I feel are important: “self-centred” and “freedom”, I want to be free; and I want the goal to be “ravenous” and “transcendent”. I want this goal to consume me. In the bible the Old Testament repeatedly uses words for sacrifice which are intended to mean “Wholly consumed” (I think the correct Greek rendering is “Holocaust” – holo = whole, caust = fire). That is what I mean.  I what my goal to contain the idea of brightness. (I slipped into editing what I was writing then for just a moment. That is something I do not want to do. I do not want to polish these words. I want to write them. The time for polishing comes later.)

Here is an image: Look back to the Steel-works at Lackenby: imagine that you are standing on the gantry on the West side of the convertor building. This is above the 30 metre level where the convertors are gimballed, but below the 60 metre level where the crane tracks run. Now imagine that one of the vessels has just been blown. Pure oxygen has been blown onto the surface of molten iron. Phosphorus has already been removed from the iron by the Polyseus Plant outside. Here, carbon  has been burnt out of the hot metal from the blast-furnace and the temperature of the mixture in the vessel has risen to approaching 1700 deg C. Imaging the vessel is tilted towards you. Fumes pour from the open mouth of the vessel as the metal and slag are sampled. The vessel remains in the tilted position while the operators await the lab test results and instructions of exactly what quantities of alloy metal and carbon to add. Remember the heat of the metal! Remember looking into the glowing heart of the vessel. The mouth of the vessel is approaching a black body. The surface of the slag is visible in the vessel and through the convection shimmer the hexagonal convection cells are visible on the surface of the slag. The convection currents churn the slag and the metal below it. Remember the heat! Remember the intensity. Remember the brightness in the darkness. Remember the contrast.

I remember polishing metal. Words can be polished like metal. Now is the time for making metal, but the time for polishing will come in the future. Today is a time for creation. Not all that is created will be perfect. Some will not even be good. That is not the point. The point for the time being is to create. The objective of creation is to quieten the inner critic. There will be time to criticise in the future. Shape the stone, first with the gavel, then with the chisel. Knock off all superfluities and then prepare the work for the hands of the more experienced workman.

Polishing! Imagine aluminium freshly polished, buffed with a buffing mop. Imagine metal polished so brightly that it reflects the light. Imagine the different shades you can see when metals are polished brightly: aluminium, stainless steel, carbon steel. Imagine all the different shades.

As well as creating new stuff, I want to tidy old stuff. Each day I am going to make my working environment tidier. Some days the change will be big and some days the change will be small. Today there were some small changes. Tidying will include the physical and the mental environment. Every day I will do some creative work and some tidying. Also each day I will move forward a little and consolidate my position a little. I can and I will!

I do not have to do a lot of everything each day. I can do more of one thing one day, and then more of something else the next. The road is the thing! The journey is the thing! I am establishing habits. Establishing habits can be painful and it can be hard work. Never-the-less the effort is worth it, because once the habits are established, I can use more of my energy on the truly creative.

The process I am undergoing at the present is letting my creativity out. What are the things I want to be doing? I have embryo ideas in mind, but I want to order them and prioritise them. Trying to do too many things at once is counter-productive. It is best to do one thing at a time. It is rarely possible to do one thing exclusively, but if I have one thing which is my priority then that one thing can get my attention.

I like the way that doing the writing is quietening my mind. There is less room for rumination when I am concentrating on writing. Although the writing process is useful at the moment, what I am writing is not as useful as it might be. That will change. As I get more used to writing, as I get back into the habit of writing, I will be able to focus more attention on the content.

Already, I like the fact that I can write continuously. For me it is more productive to split writing into a number of distinct steps. First, plan what I am going to write. At present I am not doing that at all. This is purely stream of consciousness (and therefore, I suppose also free-association in some respects). Second, do the writing. That is what I am doing at the present. That is what I am practising and I am enjoying the process. I am also pleased with the results. I am not editing what I am writing, but even so a great deal of this is coming out in reasonable sentences. At some time in the future I may try doing this step using Dragon. Then, thirdly, there is the editing step. I have spent so much of my life editing things that I tend to interrupt myself to do the editing as I go along. That is what I am going to stop doing.

I look after the quantity. God looks after the quality.

And he does! This is working so much better than I expected. I am going to keep writing until the alarm goes and then copy this text into the blog along with a word count and a number of pages. Based on the three different blogs and other stuff, I must have written more than 5 thousand words today. That is amazing. I time to go. The alarm just went off!

(Pages 3 plus, words 1932, signing off at 15:02 )