Writing and Being

I haven’t written much lately. Sometimes it’s like that. Words need an open channel, a lighted path, a clear mission. You have to be able to get out of their way.

Writing is an ethereal art. There is something of the invisible in it. Where do the words come from? How are ideas born? What is a thought? Does a thought have substance? Matter? Or is it entirely transient, like the wind?

When babies are first born they can’t talk. Or at least they don’t, pretty much universally. Some tell us that even though they have physically crossed over into this world, for some time babies remain more in the spirit world than in this one. During their first year, they slowly begin to keep a foot in each world. Then, as they start to take on the language of those around them, the spirit world becomes more and more faint. Before they reach young adulthood, most have utterly forgotten the spirit world and are hard pressed to be made to believe such a thing even exists.

This makes for a good argument that there’s a connection between words and the spirit. Like when you suspect that two people might actually be the same person because they’re never in the same room together. You know, like Superman and Clark Kent, or Barry Bonds and Gladys Knight.

In short, to take on language, it appears we must first give up spirit. At least its purest form. Then, for many of us, we spend a great part of our adult lives trying to use that language to retrace our steps, to hear the language of the spirit. This is what I talk about when I talk about finding your voice.

Which begs the question: Do words help us or hinder us? Or both? Words are necessary, aren’t they? If there were no words, how would we even know our thoughts? And conversely, if there were no spirit, could words exist?

I believe each word is a tiny spirit. A reflection of the whole. A drop of water splashing down on Earth.

Think about it.

Namaste,
T.

I came here to write something about distractions.  Because it is something I think about a lot.  Usually when I should be doing something else.  Like texting while driving.  Come on, you know you do it, too.  While we’re there, really, who are we trying to kid about this.  I remember being 15 ½ and the Drivers Ed teacher pounding into our heads that we needed to be looking everywhere, all the time.  Because you never know what’s coming at you from where.  This must be where it started.

And he was right, after all, what if we missed a billboard and didn’t know where to find the best nachos served by a gorgeous and scantily clad woman or which personal injury lawyer to call when we get into a wreck while trying to read the bumper stickers on the car in front of us or rubber-necking to see who is in that hot convertible in the other lane?  And just to be sure we’re paying attention, now there are half a dozen lights on the back of every car and laser beams installed in the headlights of every new car over $28,000.00. 

Sure, there are the usual bikes and skateboards and school crosswalks and – depending on whether you live in a 24 hour town – drunks playing in traffic.  But these things pale in comparison to the electronic billboards which have started showing up in my town, the ones they’ve designed to be bright enough to be seen from the moon.

All of this takes our attention away from the things going on right under our noses, like the flashing strobe lights on our stereos which have removable faceplates we have to retrieve from the glovebox in between shifting, because we forget to do that before we’re driving more often than we forget to bring our canvas bags into the grocery store.  And of course, there’s climate control adjustment and watching your speed and closing the air vent when behind the four ton Armada the driver needs to survive the dangers of the McDonald’s drive-through.  That’s if we aren’t too busy trying to follow the on-screen mapped GPS route.

But the single most important thing in your car environment is your phone.  Why?  Because it is your only link to Facebook when you are not in the office, at home, at the corner Starbucks or in the airport Starbucks.  And so, how are you going to update your status unless you are able to text and drive?

Wait a minute.  What was I saying?  Oh yeah, how are we supposed to pay attention to how much money bankers are stealing from us this week when every thought we have must be recorded on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace (okay, I admit it, I don’t actually have a working MySpace page — I was too late to that game), LinkedIn, and the four hundred other tracking devices we’ve cleverly agreed to subject ourselves to.  I’m sure there’s a conspiracy theory out there that blames Drivers Ed teachers for these distraction phenomena designed to take our attention away from the airplane chemtrails.

But the real issue is how is anyone accomplishing anything these days other than keeping a moment-by-moment journal of their lives?  Which, if they keep it up, they will have unlimited time to do.  Seriously, it could be that the unemployment rate has less to do with the economy and more to do with the fact that people just aren’t working anymore.  They’re re-tweeting about what other people are posting about something they saw someone who is supposed to be working upload to YouTube.

Okay, I gotta go, I have to check the stats on my fan page.

Namaste,

T.

Sometimes we see the right thing to do or not do. And we do the other thing anyway. I just did that. Here’s what I mean.

As a lawyer, a big part of my practice has been death penalty work. As in representing people on death row. You may or may not agree with the death penalty, which is your right. Though, as with anything, I would encourage you to become educated on the subject before you take a position. Where you end up may surprise you.

Anyway, as part of my job in upholding the constitution which protects your rights and my rights as well as my clients’, I was before the Nevada Supreme Court this week arguing a death penalty case. The client, of course, is not popular. And the crime he is convicted of committing is not pretty. Add to this the fact that his victim was much beloved in the community.

As happens in these more high-profile cases, the local daily newspaper writes a story or two on the latest status of the case, i.e., the appeal before the Nevada Supreme Court and my arguments on behalf of my client. Since all the news that’s fit to print is now also online, the online version offers certain unique features, like anonymous comments from readers. Here’s where the dumb part is about to come in, in case you are following along at home.

Now, I don’t usually waste my time reading these comments, because on the few occasions that I have read them, I am remarkably disappointed in the picture of humanity (or the seeming lack thereof) which is depicted there. Nevertheless, when an article is partly about me, I sometimes can’t help but take a peek. Yes, this is the dumb part… but it doesn’t end there.

Not only did I read many of the comments, I took a few of them personally. Really, no matter how evolved we think we are, if someone who doesn’t even know you writes on the electronic public wall that you are a piece of shit, it is hard not to take that personally. (Even when you believe in the thing you are doing — trying to save someone’s life along with the integrity of the judicial system — which is the subject of the hateful criticism.)

Here’s where the dumb part continues. I wrote back. Yes, I know. Dumb. And hopefully I don’t stoop to that kind of behavior in the future. Because, really, who am I talking to here? As Walt Whitman said, the speech is for the speaker.

From now on I’ll endeavor to channel that energy into more productive ventures. After all, I’m still writing my way through somewhere around the middle of my second novel. And I – and hopefully you — will be much better served for me to pour my energies there.

Thanks for listening.

Namaste,
TQ

Patriotism may or may not be a good thing. If you don’t understand what I mean by this, this blog probably isn’t for you.  While this isn’t really my point, it is the premise I’m starting from.  What I mean, of course, is that in the John Lennon sense of imagine there’s no country, patriotism isn’t really helpful in so far as it serves to divide us further from our fellow humankind.

And while these days it is far from the no-brainer I think it ought to be, I believe it is not helpful because it feeds the let’s fear and hate others mentality all too common in certain circles. For the sake of argument though, let’s say that it is good in the (larger) community-oriented let’s take care of each other kind of way.

This isn’t the sort of thing I usually write.  Really.  I am less interested in taking political (or religious or…) sides and more interested in finding common ground.  Having said that — as well as the above thesis regarding patriotism – I guess my question is:  Is stupid the new patriotism?   Because that seems to be the base requirement. Indeed, it seems empirically true that in order to buy into the Glenn Beck Nation’s worldview (also known, entirely inappropriately on both counts, as the Tea Party or sometimes, the Tea-Baggers), and to be considered therefore as a true patriot according to the new American brand of crazy fundamentalism, one must be stupid.

That is, one must be willfully ignorant. Or incapable of absorbing actual facts. Also, one must possess some radical disinclination to look up words one does not understand, like Fascism, or Marxism, or Stalinist, or even Nazi.  Oh yeah, and one must NOT have ever traveled anywhere near either pole, so as to avoid at all cost witnessing any actual ice melting at the speed of light.

Further, one must demand all the services the local, state and federal governments now provide (and have also provided under all recent Republican Administrations) and yet be completely unwilling to pay for any of these services through any such Communist means known as taxes.  One must prophesize about the imminent destruction and decay of life as we know it should Obama be successful in passing any kind of now-room-temperature health care plan (otherwise known in these circles as — gasp — socialized medicine), and yet demand that Medicare and Medicaid continue to be available to them, free of charge of course.

In short, one must demand fulfillment of the god-given right that the government give each and every one of us a pony, which we may ride whenever we damn well please, wherever we damn well please and also to refuse to lift a finger to feed that pony.  Or to clean up after it.

Praise peas and pass the pizza.

Namaste,

TQ

Show up.

Seriously.  Spending all your time thinking about writing, wanting to write, or sharpening pencils –that’s just standing on the bank of the river.  Get in!

Stop making excuses, stop trying to sneak up on the words, stop checking your Facebook page or playing super industrial solitare XII.  Sit down and write. 

Even if you only have 20 minutes to devote,  even if you only end up with a single sentence — that’s better than having to kick yourself all the time for not writing.  Just write — something.  You’ll feel better, I promise.

Namaste,

TQ

I’m sure at least once in the last decade you’ve caught your friend /partner /relative saying something embarrassing /revealing /obnoxious and then let them know, you just said that out loud. Now, in a world where real-time has taken on a whole new meaning – with voice and video recorders built-in to our cell phones and instantaneous uploads, no matter where you are on the planet your public AND private life can instantly become everyone else’s entertainment.

Now, let’s say for the sake of this piece that this technology was not created just for sophomoric end uses. I believe there’s a real benefit to the connectivity this affords each of us. It creates a sort of level playing field where virtually everyone with a cell phone or an internet connection – or the ability to pay for a couple of minutes of the same at an internet café — has access to the same airways. At least theoretically.

The problem, we have quickly learned, is when there is so much information being thrown up on the ceiling, it quickly gets lost and then buried.

A primary motive for self-publishing was the (perhaps naïve) belief that viral marketing actually works. That if I gathered 200 fans on my novel’s Facebook page, they would each tell at least two people about my work, and so on. Before long I’d be like Susan Boyle (not that Susan Boyle had become, well, Susan Boyle yet when I made the decision, but you know). And while I’m not ready to say it’s not that easy, it hasn’t worked that way yet for me.

Another problem is that I’m a guy who is by nature quite private. And, unless you’re Salinger (may ye rest even easier now), that doesn’t really work. Or rather, until you become as revered /hated /envied /feared /inspiring as Salinger, being a recluse is of no use to you in selling novels.

I’m not saying I have any answers here. I’m just stating what I believe is a common misconception among writers: that the writing is the hard part. Reality has taught me that the hard part is when you think its over, you’ve really only begun. The corollary to “dying is easy, comedy is hard” might be “writing is easy, marketing is hard.”

In this new wired 24/7 world, many people have been caught doing something embarrassing and become famous for it. Paris Hilton comes to mind. So what’s it take to become famous for something you’re proud of doing? If you have any ideas, drop me a line. thomas a t writingandbeing.com

Namaste,

TQ

Just finished watching the movie, The Soloist, with Jamie Foxx as the mentally disturbed musical genius Nathaniel Ayers who is living on the streets in Los Angeles and Robert Downey, Jr. as L.A. Times reporter Steve Lopez who befriends him.  We don’t watch many movies lately, when we do, we have to squeeze them in while Prince August naps or after he goes to bed for the night.  This one was a two-part segment, which was good in a way because I think it heightened our appreciation for it.

I had no idea where the movie would end up and I’m thankful for that.  Because it allowed me to be quietly surprised.  I love RDJ, and all the more now, as his character reached out of the movie, sat down on the couch with me and in a low, quick voice spoke into my ear with perfect timing, at just the right tone, with just the right inflection, using not a word too many, a simple profound truth that I hope will ring as clearly tomorrow, next week, ten years from now.

I would like to repeat it here.  To record it, tape it to my mirror, tattoo it on my wrists.  Though I’m not sure I can distill it as clearly as he did, as clearly as it fell from the sky with grace and sureness, where it lingered in perfect stillness in the center of my chest, on the curve of my tongue, in the soft light of the mind’s eye.  Still, it goes something like this:  Everything is perfect.  Just like it is.  The most you can hope for is to see it clearly and therein, to see yourself clearly and your connection to all things.  To see that you and the world are beautiful, whole, right where you need to be. 

The ego looks around and sees that everything is broken, from the pavement to the people who must negotiate its terrain.  It wants desperately to fix all the brokenness it sees.  It thinks that if it can fix even one thing, it might be seen as worthy of the soul’s affection.

I have a client who is set to be executed by the State of Nevada on the week of February 1, 2010.  He has it in his power to save himself, at least theoretically.  At least for now.  At least until I have effectively passed the baton to someone else.  Like most people on death row, some time ago he did some really bad things.  I say it like that not to trivialize his acts or the ripple effect of them on others, on society, but because for purposes of this writing that is not the point.  The point being the ego’s desire to fix things, to save people, even from themselves.  Even if they do not necessarily want to be saved. 

I have been his lawyer for approximately 5 years.  The time is not necessarily the point either, except to say I’ve been able to see some transformation over this time.  I also believed that he had gone from wanting to throw in the towel to finding a reason to live.  During this time I have done what I could for him.  I raised many constitutional errors in the various levels of state courts and though neither the lower courts nor the Nevada Supreme Court granted him any relief, I have preserved those claims for federal appeal. 

Last week he refused to sign the papers which would allow his federal appeal to go forward.  There were four lawyers, including myself, who sat in a room with him for hours and gave him different reasons to sign, different reasons to choose to go on living.  Four egos looking for some measure of salvation.  Four egos carrying wrapped bouquets and reciting poetry, trying desperately to talk soul into going out to dinner.

The egos see the criminal justice system as tragically flawed.  Beyond the criminalization of mental illness, they see that the prisons and the departments of parole and probation, not to mention all the counseling, rehab and medication, the urine tests and the mandatory deportation rules all need someone superhuman to come in and clean things up, make them right.  But who is to say what the right thing is.  What we know about being human is so small.  Our experiments in parsing out behavior, the brain, physiology, seem at best to be somewhat-informed guesses, at worst perhaps criminal interference.

The second part of the message delivered by the movie has to do with detachment.  I think I maintain pretty good boundaries.  Actually, I probably err on the side of them being too good, not unlike RDJ’s character.  I don’t want to be anyone’s god.  Don’t want to have that much influence or be made to witness the inevitable let down I will visit upon the worshiper.  Ego genuinely seeks salvation but not at the cost of long term commitment, not if it might cost something real, not if it means admitting imperfection.

But what if life asks neither from us.  What if we aren’t required to fix anything, to be superhuman, to promise that we can make everything alright.  What if we really can’t walk anyone’s else path.  Even if we want to.  What if the willingness to show up is all that’s required.  What if it is in the act of showing up that space is cleared enough for grace to visit us.  What if that is perfection.

What if we are (already) perfection.  What if the hardest thing to do is to see that.  And to let it be.  What if it doesn’t need to be that hard.

To be continued…

Namaste,

T.

Change is perhaps the only constant. And resistance to it is about as useful as an expired passport.

The world is changing / has changed more in the last 10 years than anyone thought possible. True, we are still not living on the moon, not traveling by teleportation, and don’t have devices not much bigger than a credit card which connect us to everyone and everything instantly, putting at our finger tips more information and more entertainment than most people collected in their entire lives not a decade ago. Oh wait, we do have the last thing, it’s called an iPhone.

There is not a single thing that exists that doesn’t have at least one upside and one downside. Technology is no different. Right now, musicians and writers – and those who represent them, promote them, and distribute their art — are trying to find some middle ground on which to walk between these sides. Because the upside to technology is that these artists can reach infinitely more people than ever before. The downside is that most of these people being reached want their art for free. As well as their news.

It has been widely reiterated that “information wants to be free.” Apparently less widely known is the accompanying statement, “information wants to be expensive.” If all information is free, then pretty soon, there won’t be any new information. At least none that is worth observing or absorbing. Furthermore, there won’t be any reliable – not to mention instantaneous, real-time — vehicle to get it to anyone.

Or we will live in a world where only the independently wealthy will be able to produce information, music, novels, news. But that doesn’t seem very likely, especially since Madoff stole a lot of those people’s money already.

But I digress. My point is that eventually we will find the middle road. Musicians, along with the music industry, will stumble upon the model that works best for everyone. Writers, readers, agents, distributors and the rest of the publishing industry with do the same. One thing appears certain, when the meeting of the five families is called, technology is going to have a seat at the table, maybe even the head.

What then, is a writer to do in the meantime? Format those manuscripts for ebooks. That’s what. Starting today, Waking Up at Rembrandt’s is available on Kindle:  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=waking+up+at+rembrandt  (And in case you had to ask, there’s a Kindle app for the iPhone.) Go ahead, download away.

Change is good. Because the other option…

Namaste,
TQ

For an NPR junkie like me, this is very cool.  How many times did we hear Garrison Keillor mention AbeBooks during the Writer’s Almanac every morning?  And now, anyone can go to http://AbeBooks.com and type in either my name or Waking Up at Rembrandt’s and up comes images of the book for you to buy. 

While I buy (and browse) at local, independent shops whenever I can, I think it is a good idea to support booksellers who support NPR and the Writer’s Almanac (which is almost as important to my morning as a good espresso).  And I have used AbeBooks a number of times.  After all, I can browse their whole selection at home, in my pj’s, by the fire.  Technically, I don’t even have to wear pants.  Though sitting in front of a computer without pants is bound to raise some eyebrows.  Second thought, just pull on the pj’s if you do this at home. 

I didn’t (and I still don’t) mean this to be some kind of advertisement for AbeBooks, though perhaps it is an endorsement of sorts.  I just like the up-side of technology.  And also the finding of myself in the middle of it.  And I’d like to believe that if I’m good enough for AbeBooks, I might just be good enough for the Writer’s Almanac.  Because really, then I can die. 

In the meantime, being on AbeBooks is something to celebrate.  Which got me thinking about other Almanac sponsors.  Turns out, Waking Up at Rembrandt’s is on Powell’s Books as well.  Next stop, the Poetry Foundation.

Namaste,

TQ

Here’s a little Q & A with the Reno News & Review’s Brian Burghart. You can find this on the Interviews page on this website, but I thought it would make it easy, and make a good record, to post future interviews and reviews here as well. A little different angle than ususal: http://www.newsreview.com/reno/content?oid=1332361

Namaste and Happy Holidays to everyone! Thank you for your support. Thank you for continuing to make time to stop by here and read.

TQ