Read and write, Christmas love-hate, Letting go

In this newsletter:
- Read a lot, write a lot
- Christmas, a love-hate relationship
- Letting go of our children
- Letting go of our past
 

Being a writer is not easy. It's new for me.

It’s actually one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in all my 64 years.

But that’s okay. I need something challenging to do as part of my Purpose. I like to be busy and useful. The notion of retirement and not being productive scares me more than death.

I find inspirational advice from famous writers generous enough to share their wisdom.

Stephen King
Stephen King is one of the world’s most successful writers who has published over 65 novels and sold hundreds of millions of copies of his books. Many, as you likely already know, have been adapted into films, television series, miniseries, and comic books.

In his book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, he offers helpful advice to aspiring writers on the craft of writing, work routines, and discipline that have shaped his life and work.

Every time I go back to this book, I find new words of wisdom and advice I didn't see before. 

It's interesting how we find new meanings in what we reread depending on our age, mood, location, relationships, and so forth. Same brain, different interpretation.

King writes:

“I’ll tell you right now that every aspiring writer should read The Elements of Style.”

“It is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out a merely competent one.”

“But if you don’t want to work your ass off, you have no business trying to write well.”

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”

“I’m a slow reader, but I usually get through seventy or eighty books a year, mostly fiction. I don’t read in order to study the craft; I read because I like to read. It’s what I do at night, kicked back in my blue chair.”

“If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered.”

“The TV really is about the last thing an aspiring writer needs. If you feel you must have on the news analyst blowhards on CNN, the stock market blowhards on MSNBC, or the sports blowhards on ESPN, it’s time for you to question how serious you really are about becoming a writer.”

“The sort of strenuous reading and writing program I advocate – four to six hours a day, every day – will not seem strenuous if you really enjoy doing these things and have an aptitude for them.”

“I work to loud music – hard-rock stuff like AC/DC, Guns ‘n Roses, and Metallica have always been particular favorites.”

Ernest Hemingway
I also enjoy going back to Ernest Hemingway on Writing, edited by Larry W. Phillips. It’s a great book for aspiring writers who are looking for practical advice on the demanding task of putting ideas and words together.

From the book:

“To Hemingway, every other pursuit, however appealing, took second place to his career as a writer. Underneath his well-known braggadocio, he remained an artist wholly committed to the craft. At some times he showed an almost superstitious reluctance to talk about writing, seeming fearful that saying too much might have an inhibiting effect on his muse.” Foreword, by Charles Scribner, Jr.

“I have to write to be happy whether I get paid for it or not. But it is a hell of a disease to be born with. I like to do it. Which is even worse. That makes it from a disease into a vice. Then I want to do it better than anybody has ever done it which makes it into an obsession. An obsession is terrible.” to Charles Scribner, 1940, Selected Letters

“Don’t you drink? I notice you speak slightingly of the bottle. I have drunk since I was fifteen and few things have given me more pleasure. When you work hard all day with your head and know you must work again the next day what else can change your ideas and make them run on a different plane like whisky?” to Ivan Kashkin, 1935, Selected Letters

“I have to ease off on making love when writing hard as the two things are run by the same motor.” to Charles Scribner, 1948, Selected Letters

Arnold Schwarzenegger
I recently purchased his new book Be Useful: Seven Tools For Life.

Everyone knows him as having three acts. Mr. Olympia bodybuilder, Hollywood action star, and Governor of California.

He has been monumentally successful, and then fell hard.

In 1986, Arnold married Maria Shriver, a niece of President John F. Kennedy. Things seemed to be going well.

Then his life unraveled after he admitted to fathering a child with their housekeeper. Now he and Maria are divorced.

He writes in Be Useful:

“What had made my career fun for more than thirty years was sharing it with Maria. We’d done everything together and now my life felt out of kilter. There was no one to come home to.” (This one comes from his previous book, Total Recall.)

“I blew up my family. No failure has ever felt worse than that.”

“I was at the bottom. I’d been here before. But this time, I was face down in the mud, in a dark hole, and I had to decide whether it was worth it to clean myself up and start the slow climb out, or to just give up.”

“My fourth act has been an amalgamation of all three previous acts, combined to make me as useful as I can.”

“But what I never expected was that, as a by-product of all this failure and redemption and reinvention, I’d become a self-help guy.”

I know a lot of guys who have fallen down and fallen hard. It’s hard to get back up when you fall down.

It’s not how high he goes that makes a man. Rather, it’s how well he gets back up after falling.

Jon Bon Jovi said it well: “Success is falling nine times and getting up ten.”

I don’t agree with everything Arnold says, but I certainly respect his courage to continue to try to make a positive difference in health and wellness, political reform, climate initiatives, motivational speeches, on television, and so on.

Yes, life can get hard. But we have choices to make. We can dwell in self-pity, be a victim, get depressed, or blame others.

Alternatively, we can take charge, take responsibility, be accountable to ourselves, and decide where we want to go.

As I’ve said before, it’s either self-help or no-help. I recognized that a while ago, hence my Nine Pillars of Well-Being.

And as part of my "18 Lessons from Dad" in my Eulogy for Dad, he reminded all four of his sons to "Make yourself useful" (Lesson 4).

I encourage you to learn about Arnold's tool kit, his Seven Tools for Life. They could make you more useful, and improve your Well-Being.

Christmas, a love-hate relationship

Recently, I saw a BBC article about the 1940 romantic-comedy film, The Shop Around the Corner, starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan. 

The article said, "Laced with darkness but ultimately life-affirming, The Shop Around the Corner taps into our love-hate relationship with Christmas - and should be a staple of festive viewing alongside It's a Wonderful Life."

According to the article, Jacqueline Lynch, the author of Christmas in Classic Films says, "It's a very charming movie. There's a lot of comedy. It's very simple. But it's not entirely cheery all the way through." I watched the movie a few nights ago. 

It's good to know the movie is not cheery all the way through. That makes it more realistic to me. Because, let's be honest, Christmas is not cheery all the time for everyone.

A lot of men are alone for the holidays. Women too.

 Jeremy Arnold, a film historian and author who wrote Christmas in the Movies: 35 Classics to Celebrate the Season says, "No matter what our attitude is to Christmas, we all have a love-hate relationship with it. It can inspire great highs, joy, love, togetherness. It can heighten feelings of loneliness, emptiness, wistfulness, alienation, cynicism. Sometimes, we can go through variations of these emotions on a daily basis when it gets closer to Christmas."

As a single man, I can certainly relate to this. We don't want to tell anyone we might be alone for Christmas. That would be embarrassing.

But if you find yourself alone, it's probably a good idea to acknowledge to yourself how you feel, talk to your friends about it, and workout hard or do a yoga class or take a long brisk walk, then let those lonely feelings drift away like clouds overhead.

Because I have children, Christmas makes me think of them and what we did for the holidays in the past. Yet, as I've matured and grown older, I'm reminded of two things. First, we need to let go of our children. Second, we need to let go of our past.

Letting go of our children 

For decades, my mother had this little book called The Prophet on the bookshelf at our beach house in Aptos (Santa Cruz County, CA). As a little kid, I always wondered what it was about. It was called The Prophet. The cover of the book looked scary to me. I avoided it for years.

Then recently I went back to M. Scott Peck, M.D.'s book The Road Less Traveled. 

In the book, in the chapter called "Love and Separateness," Peck has a passage from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran with some words on child-raising.

Here's the passage: 

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you
cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bow from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrow may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Letting go of our past 

I have a lot of various memorabilia, particularly from my mother.

A few weeks ago, I came across a letter I received from my mom years ago that included a citation from a book called God Calling. She was very religious.

I think she sent that to me because she knew I was struggling in my business, and I was scared. It was hard for me to support my family and we were running out of money.

I told her I might have made a mistake by quitting my job to start a company. She sensed I was regretting my decision.

Here’s the citation she sent me. It comes from God Calling by A. J. Russell:

 Forget 

Regret nothing. Not even the sins and failures. When a man views earth’s wonders from some mountain height he does not spend his time in dwelling on the stones and stumbles, the faints and failures, that marked his upward path. 

So with you. Breathe in the rich blessings of each new day – forget all that lies behind you.  

   Man is so made that he can carry the weight of twenty-four hours – no more. Directly he weighs down with the years behind, and the days ahead, his back breaks. I have promised to help you with the burden of to-day only, the past I have taken from you and if you, foolish hearts, choose to gather again that burden and bear it, then, indeed, you mock Me to expect Me to share it.    

   For weal or woe each day is ended. What remains to be lived, the coming twenty-four hours, you must face as you awake.   

   A man on a march on Earth carries only what he needs for that march. Would you pity him if you saw him bearing too the overwhelming weight of the worn-out shoes and uniforms of past marches and years? And yet, in the mental and spiritual life, man does these things. Small wonder My poor world is heartsick and weary.
Not so must you act.

I hope you get to enjoy this holiday season with all your might!

Thank you for reading!

Be well,

Peter Pavlina