A lesson from Mother Nature on change.

Modern man has a problem with waiting. This cultural attention deficit poses a real problem when it comes to change. Meaningful change, the kind that's worth pursuing, doesn't happen overnight. 

While scratching away at my morning pages, I was riffing on the notion that nature is aesthetic perfection. Though man is a part of nature, our creations aren't always harmonious with this aesthetic. Why, my favorite question, is a subject for another post. 

In most instances, nature's most stunning beauty didn't arise in a matter of days -- or weeks, or months, or centuries for that matter. It took time. Lots of it. It was the steady, eroding force of the Colorado River that carved the Grand Canyon, the persistent movement of plate collision that gave rise to the Appalachian Mountains. 

I think, aesthetically speaking, where man and nature's creations diverge is the allowance for time. Granted, we don't have thousands of years to paint our masterpiece. But we can't wake up one day, expect to be a painter, and be one. As Pressfield would say, we must set the table for the Muses, always keep a steady fire going in the hearth, and show up. We need to let time have its way.

The need for gray sheep.

The tribe provides us with a true sense of security. These are the people, this is the social stratum, that will shield us and understand us above all else. Whether it's in our personal lives or in our working lives, our tribes fortify us.

What happens when we break with tribal doctrine? Does the tribe itself disintegrate? Are we excommunicated? Do the threats of the world outside become more pressing?

I belong to few tribes. Ethnically speaking, I'm an American mess. Professionally, I've often found myself on the fringes of management circles -- welcome at the conference room table, but not invited to the golf course. In my family, not quite the black sheep, but definitely a dark gray. I think it keeps the tribes honest.

Liquor store history lesson.

I'm standing in the liquor store parking lot under gray, swirling skies. It's the same liquor store where I bought my first legal beers -- a four pack of Boddington's Pub Ale pint cans -- eight years ago. I had left Mercer County a year later without so much as a second thought. 

Mercer County is where I spent my college years. My college years were not good to me. Walking through the store, tucked back from the roaring highway traffic, I felt the ghost of who I was tugging at my sleeve, looking for help to drag around a metric ton of fears and insecurities. 

I pay for what I came for, and the store clerk doesn't even card me. It's been eight years, after all. Out in the daylight, the apparition dissipates. I start the engine, put my car in reverse, and ease off the clutch. Moving out into traffic, I glance in the rear-view mirror, and then back again to the road. I remind myself that the past is dead people. 

Semantics: Something that means nothing.

I'm semantics obsessed. I guess it makes sense, given the line of work that I'm in. One of my goals as a word worker is to eliminate or avoid phrases that have little or no meaning. I was mulling this one today and yesterday: "That is not who I am." This phrase is often used as pseudo apology.

Don't worry. This post isn't about to nosedive down the rabbit hole of grammar. Let's get the obvious out of the way. The phrase makes no literal sense. Moving along.

What bugs me most about "That is not who I am" is its weak-kneed attempt to create distance between a wrong and the person who committed it. When I hear this phrase, I hear myself at age 6 trying to lay the blame for the missing batteries in the remote control on my sister: "I didn't do it. Kate did." The person who took the batteries, mom and dad, that's not who I am.

It's a linguistic dodge cultivated in a PR cubicle farm under ultra-violet light. As such, you will often hear this phrase spill from the mouths of public officials, professional athletes and Hollywood stars who are caught on the wrong side of the law or morality. We hear them utter it. We accept it at face value. 

But what are they really saying? We all screw up royally. The best we can do is own it -- not disavow it -- and move on. 

How to deal with disruption.

It seems antithetical, but I believe that creativity thrives within a routine. It took me a few years to come around to that realization, to turn my back on spontaneity and impulse. They each have their purpose, but they're not effective when it comes to doing the work required for any creative endeavor.

My routine is sacred. It keeps me aligned with my goals and my purpose. It gets the work done. Historically, when my routine gets disrupted, bad things happen: Time gets wasted. Complacency slips in unnoticed. Writing stops. Exercise suffers. Mental well-being starts to slide.

Purchasing a home and moving were two recent major routine disruptors. I left my jiu jitsu academy. My kettlebells got packed away. There was little time for my Five-Minute Journal, my morning free writing, and most important, finishing the first draft of some long-form fiction.

This type of disruption -- the life-event variety -- is the only type I tolerate. As I've written here before, in terms of training, I only take rest days when life sends them my way. The same can be said for the routine in its entirety. 

I recovered by making every minute count. I didn't have an hour to work out in the morning, but I had 20 minutes for the kettlebell sequence at the top of the post. That's 20 more than zero. There's no internet access at the house at the moment, so I can't blog when I'd like to. Taking 15 minutes while I eat lunch forces me to be parsimonious. I'm eager to sample a few jiu jitsu academies to find the right fit, but the class schedules and my work schedules aren't aligned. An open mat, though not ideal, is better than watching YouTube.

It's essential for me to keep this in mind: The only thing more sacred than my routine is the work it generates.