On Vibrations

Saturday night I enjoyed a local blues concert. I’ve always been drawn to blues for its concise and unfettered portrayal of the human condition, but something else has always fascinated me, too: the humble guitar. I tend to focus on guitar players during a performance, and the instrument- and those who wield it- never ceases to amaze me. So, while watching this performance, I thought.

I focused on the strings. How amazing that the simple act of plucking some carefully placed strings can produce such rhythmic sounds, causing an entire audience to tap their feet. Some closed their eyes, some swayed their bodies, but all felt the vibration of those strings enter them. All because of a little vibration.

So it is with all sound, really. Sound is made when an object is struck by an external force, disturbing its state of rest. Were it left in that resting state, no sound would be produced. Leaving that state, sound- music- is born of the resulting vibrations, which travel through space and time to reach our ears, perhaps entering into our very bodies. We hum, we sway, we tap our feet- all because of a tiny vibration.

The typical state for any creature, too, is a resting state. It is only when something comes along to disturb that state that we are capable of making music. Some of us will run marathons, some will write novels, some will grow a business, some will simply be the best damn mother in the tri-state area. What you will do, what you will be, is irrelevant. Your only task is to leave your state of rest, and make your own music.

The Freedom of Limitation

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Two nights ago, I watched Avatar for the first time. Yes, I’m very late to the party, and there’s a reason for that: I’m not a fan of science fiction, but I’ve never been able to pinpoint the reason for the aversion.

While watching Avatar, though, it hit me. The story is not awful, and the movie is entertaining, if quite predictable. What was unsettling was the lack of any ties to reality. In creating a universe so lacking in similarity to our own, there was no sense of realism, no familiarity. I’ve always found the fascination with exploring things outside the realm of possibility to be odd when our own reality remains so largely unknown. There’s so much to explore right in front of our noses.

The following morning I happened into a wonderful piece on ‘bottle writing’ in which the author describes the phenomenon of bottle episodes in television series. Bottle episodes are those in which the budget is severely limited, because a large portion of the show’s budget was spent on a previous episode. Bottle episodes are an attempt to balance the show’s budget by spending very little on locale, special effects, etc. In a bottle episode, all that remains is the ingenuity of the writer:

The thing is though, those ‘bottle episodes’ (where people are trapped in conveniently low-budget settings) are often considered the best written episodes. Why?

The first thing that is apparent is that bottle episodes are very restricted in what you can do. But rather than limit the writer, this pushes writers to come up with unusual ways to keep things interesting.

The bottle episode is one in which very severe limits are given, and often, the ingenuity that springs forth is precisely because of those limits.

Our reality is nothing if not limiting. We’re governed by the laws of physics, by societal standards, by geography, by our very minds. True creativity emerges from within the context of these limits. Science fiction simply eliminates any limitations, allowing for a new set of rules to be applied. If a creator of sci-fi needs a specific plot mechanism to make sense, he simply changes the rules to accommodate the plot. It is a much more ingenious mind that must bend his art to within the limits of an already established set of rules.

Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.

~ GK Chesterton

In the same vein, true accomplishment emerges from within the limits set by your reality. If you dream of running a business, you cannot simply will yourself to possess all the attributes necessary to make your endeavor a successful one. You may have the necessary business skills, but lack any marketing acumen. How much greater, then, is the success when this limitation must be overcome? Limits, when viewed in the proper light, are not restrictive; they are a source of liberation.

Maybe you’re a writer who’s become quite adept at a certain style of writing. You would like to venture into the world of comedy writing, say. Were this a sci-fi or fantasy story, perhaps a concoction could be made by which you would simply swallow the necessary ingredients to transform you into a comedic gem. In reality, though, you must simply work your ass off.

In the end, it is the limitations imposed that force us to create amazing things- be it a story, a business, a design, or a life. Learning to bend your creations to exist within reality is true creativity. Simply erasing the limits that stand in your way is best left to the realm of science fiction.

How to Escape from Purgatory

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Not long ago, I awoke from a strange and terrifying dream, the implications of which had my mind reeling. I'm lucky enough to have a friend who happens to be a psychologist, and who's well-versed in dream analysis. I told her of my dream, and asked her to be ready for a session of sorts. The result would be a fascinating journey into the depths of my fears.

The dream started in an apartment complex which closely resembled, in structure and in mood, a prison. It was a large square structure, with an open courtyard in the center, and no way out. Inside, its inhabitants formed a close-knit group, and included my daughter and her brother, her mother, her stepfather, and me.

The apartments felt more like rooms, as we all congregated outside of our own places on a regular basis, and the entire place began to take on a sort of community center feel, with everyone adopting an open-door policy even when we did gather inside of our apartments.

During one such gathering, my daughter's mother revealed to me a gut-wrenching truth: someone had violated my daughter. She pulled from her back pocket a folded magazine page, then held it up for me to see. On the page was a man of about my age, whom I had never seen before, and who, she explained, was the man responsible for the atrocities. I had to do something, she told me.

The mind-boggling begins when I pay virtually no attention to this revelation. Perhaps I don't believe her- the reason for my inaction never crystallizes in my mind. The scene, and its implications, slide to the recesses of my psyche.

Later (I've no idea of the amount of time that has passed), a few of us, including my daughter's mother and stepfather, congregate in the home of a new neighbor for a drink or two, welcoming him into our midst. The event passes without fanfare.

Still later, we're all huddled in my place when that same neighbor comes waltzing through my open door. I immediately recognize him as the man from the magazine page- the same man who had taken liberties with my daughter. Somehow, this time, I don't shrug it off. Why I had not made the connection when I was sitting in front of him, I'll never know. I recognize him now, though, and I instantly fly into a blind rage.  He has to die for what he has done, and he has to die now. I turn to grab a circular saw three paces behind me, and when I turn back to the intruder, he has transformed into the very magazine page that revealed his true identity to me. This, to me, makes no difference. In fact, I don't even register the transformation. To me, he's still the man that committed the unthinkable, and I proceed to cut him, a piece of paper, into small pieces. When he's sufficiently shredded, I feel a mixture of relief at having served justice and guilt for having killed a man.

To say the least, this is an odd sort of dream, but one that I was sure had some sort of implications which I must pay attention to. There is no greater wrong than that committed against my daughter, and if I am to serve only one role in this life, it's that of her protector. By those definitions, the implications of the dream could not be greater. The fact that the dream had occurred the very night that I had taken the kids back home after having spent the greater part of a month with them only added to the urgency. Perhaps I was failing in some way as a father. I needed to know why.

The analysis began on Thursday night. By its completion, my head would be spinning from the chasm between its true meaning and my initial concerns.

The prison (the apartment complex) was a construct of my mind- the tension between two opposing forces that had come to dominate my life. Since leaving the sales industry to pursue a career in writing, I had been living in purgatory, with both heaven and hell pulling me from either side. In this case, heaven was a life of writing and creating beautiful things for the web. Hell was returning to a stable yet meaningless job in which I spent the next twenty-five years in a miserable race for a gold watch and a meager pension. Hell had a firm grip. Why not simply do what everyone else does? Get a stable job, live my life like the rest of the world, get regular check-ups with the doctor and a regular paycheck, and slide into predictable living. Stop making people who love me worry about where all this might lead.

On the other hand, heaven was so damn alluring. I could spend my days doing what I love, be completely location-independent, contribute something to the world, and answer the call to man's greatest ambition: to be a creator in the truest sense of the word.

To get to my heaven, though, I had to embrace it fully. I had to free from the shackles of hell and devote the entirety of my energy and devotion to my heaven, the pursuit of which, it seems, cannot be half-assed.

My imprisonment in the dream was of my own construct, of my lack of ability to completely invest myself in the pursuit of my heaven. The man who needed to be killed was, in fact, this tension that had completely enveloped me. Indeed, not only did he need to be killed, but only I could kill him.

The circular saw was the tool at my disposal, whose only purpose was to destroy things. If it could speak, it would say that its greatest fear, then, is to have no connection to power. Without being plugged in, it cannot perform its sole duty.

In much the same way, if I am not plugged into the world at large via the web, I have no way to pursue my dream- that of writing and design. The web provided my opportunity, and for that to be taken away from me was unthinkable.

The guilt I felt at having killed the "man" was fleeting, as would be the guilt I would feel were I to pursue my goals. The relief at having destroyed this demon would wash over and cleanse me.

The usual state of man is one of imprisonment. Almost always, though, the shackles are attached by us, the shackled. To understand the cause of our imprisonment is a gift waiting to be unwrapped. Some will answer the call, some will shrug it off. Most will never be given the gift in the first place. We all- every one- have within us the ability to achieve great things, and to place our own definition on greatness itself. It is what is done with this gift that separates creators from consumers, great men from average. It would seem that the only way to escape purgatory is to realize you're there in the first place.

Footprints in the Snow

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.

~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Since these words were written two and a half centuries ago, their meaning has been the subject of debate. Few can deny the power of the statement, but most differ in exactly where they think the true revelation lies within the sentence.

Putting aside, for now, the concept of everywhere, and taking for granted the initial premise that 'man is born free,' two meanings can emerge from the idea of man being in chains (at least, the two that I will focus on).

The enslavement of man can be external- imposed by society on an individual- or internal- imposed by the individual himself. It is the internal argument I'm interested in.

If man is born free, we can think of a life (man, woman, or beast) as an open valley, untouched by human hand. At the onset of life, then, we all stand before a great expanse of earth blanketed, as far as the eye can see, by snow of the purest and whitest form. The entire terrain, an entire life, is a blank slate. For a time, as a child, we must venture where no footsteps exist. Our actions, which will become our habits, are entirely our own. Our first steps, our first words, our first laugh, are contrivances of our uncontaminated minds. We are led by no one but our selves, taking our first steps onto the snow, standing alone.

Somewhere along the way, we encounter other footprints: our parents, our friends, our family are walking with us, just a few steps ahead, marking the way. So it is that we learn how to behave, where to go to college, proper table manners, and to brush our teeth before we go to bed. We recognize these footprints as safe. Someone has been here before, so to follow seems natural, once we see the footprints.

Ollin Morales recently wrote a guest piece for Write to Done in which he's sitting in a local coffee shop, observing a girl of about four years, and of whom he says this:

A child like the girl I see at this coffee shop still doesn’t know that there’s anything wrong with squealing with the delight when she feels like squealing with delight. She doesn’t know that there’s anything wrong with running around a coffee shop, and playing an impromptu game of hide-and-go seek with her little brother, when she feels like doing so. She doesn’t know that there are some people out there who might not like what she has to say, or might not even understand what she says—no, a child like the girl at this coffee shop just says what she wants [to] say simply because she wants to say it.

This girl has yet to see the footprints.

The story reminded me of my brother, an adult autistic, who has virtually no social filter. Consequently, he laughs at the most absurd things, and at the most inappropriate times, just because he feels like it. When we go to the movies, his distinct bellowing laugh can be heard echoing through the theater when a character on-screen has just been crushed beneath a flipped car. Usually, this is during a heart-wrenching moment, and his is the only laugh to be heard. Sometimes I tell him to keep his voice down, out of respect for others watching the movie. Other times, I let him laugh until he cries, because I simply can't bring myself to deny him the pleasure of an unfiltered belly laugh.

My brother, too, has yet to see the footprints.

David Karp, founder of Tumblr, was recently the subject of a New York Times piece documenting Tumblr's rise. In following the story, it becomes clear that Karp has a very different mindset, and very different goals in mind for Tumblr than has become the norm for a social media property.

How, then, to encourage feedback while discouraging drive-by hecklers who make you never want to post again? First, Karp notes, you can comment on someone else’s post, by reblogging it and adding your reaction. But that reaction appears on your Tumblr, not the one you’re commenting on. “So if you’re going to be a jerk, you’re looking like a jerk in your own space, and my space is still pristine,” Karp explains. This makes for a thoughtful network and encourages expression and, ultimately, creativity. “That’s how you can design to make a community more positive.”

The result is Tumblr's unique culture of creativity and positivity. Karp is now in a position to revolutionize online advertising, not by maximizing the collection of user data, which has become the standard, but by "following our hearts."

David Karp, clearly, has yet to see the footprints.

No one knows to what extent we are a product of our environment or our genes. What we do know is that, as each of us stands on an endless, pristine plain at our creation, the path gets muddied by those who have gone before us. Those footprints feel safe, and if we follow them long enough, the pristine disappears from our vision. It's still there, though. All we have to do is lift our gaze, take a deep breath, and step onto the pure white snow, where no one has stepped before.