Fear of Baby-Sitting

Kids scare me more than almost anything. What's troubling is the idea of being responsible for one or more, the trapped feeling of not being able to look away. This is no doubt a function of my touch of obsessive-compulsive disorder, which focuses on the fear of doing harm.

Tonight and tomorrow night, my husband and I are staying with my younger three nephews, ranging from age 5 to 12. They're lovely boys, every one.

Still... This is my vulnerable area, and I'll be there for at least two hours before Bob arrives. Intellectually I know it'll all be fine.

However, it still feels huge. Risky. Unsettling.

It's clear to me that one thing I need to do is give myself credit for doing it at all. Another is to let this remind me to have sympathy for people whose fears I don't share: of flying or public speaking or traveling alone.

I'll let you know how tonight goes. I expect that once I get there it will be fine.



If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Characters Behaving Badly

From Digital Digressions: Debunking Popular Myths about Creativity:

"Creativity...involves making the familiar strange and the strange familiar."

In writing my novels, I seem to specialize in making the strange familiar. I like taking difficult characters, sometimes behaving badly, and making them clear enough that anyone can understand why they act the way they do.

In my writing, I want to make it possible to identify with anyone. Partly because it's a challenge. Partly because I'm curious about why people surprise me the way they do.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Getting Results

We've talked in some recent posts about having a theme for the year. Here's an example that seems to be working for Kay Summerlin in California:


"My goal this year has been to FOCUS. I have attention deficit and
am easily diverted with my short attention span, so focusing helps me
stay on track. Dave built me a large bulletin board which covers a two
foot wide swath across my study wall, where I can place pictures,
words and notes about my studies. It seems to be working to remind me
of my quest. I have always tried to do too many things at once and
find that my research gets watered down when I don't keep at it."


Keeping one idea in mind, such as focus, or fitness, or productivity, through all the small decisions of a day can mount up to a big difference.





If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Check Your V.I.T.A.L.S.

How Do You Do Something That You Don't Want to Do? Check your V.I.T.A.L.S.

V.
Validate-validate your feelings, the "I don't want to...", there is a real reason for how you feel.

I.
Imagine-imagine yourself doing it peacefully and productively.

T.
Take Small Steps-break down the project into bite-size pieces.

A.
Applaud yourself- encourage your efforts, cheerlead, and coach (e.g., enjoy the feeling of making progress on the project.)

L.
Lighten the load- remember what you are getting out of by doing this (e.g., reducing guilt, shame, or anxiety; avoiding the negative consequences....)

S.
Sweeten the pot -add something during or after that you like, reward your efforts (e.g., enjoy the feeling of accomplishment.)



Used with permission of Meggan Moorhead and Triangle Area D.B.T.



If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Three Inspiring Opportunities

1. Learn to use self-hypnosis for putting aside fears and enhancing creativity. My psychologist husband Bob Dick is offering a one-day class at our house in rural Chatham County,NC, on February 22.

2. Writing with Horses: Finding Forward Motion in your Writing will be led by novelist/psychotherapist/
horsewoman Billie Hinton on March 1 and 22, also in Chatham County.

3. For those who can't get to North Carolina in the coming weeks (and the rest of us),Coach Laura Neff of Charlotte invites all to take part in a Living Boldly call-in discussion.

I highly recommend all three of these.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

A Message from the Universe

"Let us dare to read, think, speak and write."
John Adams, 1765

This quote was printed on the receipt I got for buying stamps at the Post Office (I still use them.) Most unexpected to find this bit of encouragement in that location.

I have another such object in my office: a wrapper from a Delta Airlines snack. It says in large cobalt blue type: "enjoy!" I keep it tucked into my box of manuscripts to read for clients.

Both items are now part of my rotating collection of found wisdom. For me, running across one of these little reminders can produce a small burst of energy, approximately equivalent to the impact of an M&M. And that's significant.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Conquering Financial Fears

Artists tend to think a lot about money. Like round the world backpackers--when they cross paths, they don't talk about the culture or the historic sights. They talk about cheap places to stay that have hot water 24 hours a day.

A lot of us get very nervous about the subject of money, insist we're no good at it, etc.

A story on Beliefnet today sets out ten tips for beating the fear of money. It's aimed at the spiritually-minded, but some of the ideas could be useful for anyone. Like "Make Peace With Your Financial Past." That one is very valuable to me: I still beat up on myself for years of undercharging, for various financial errors I've made.

This piece by Susan Corso offers some strategies for replacing the guilt and anxiety, thus making better financial decisions.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Graceful Self-Promotion

This advice is from, of all places, a year-old Cosmogirl magazine. It's aimed at teenagers: "Here's the trick to talking yourself up without sounding conceited." (I don't think I've heard the word "conceited" since high school.)

But anyone with work to sell needs to know how to self-promote gracefully. Here's one very good tip from the article: "Get psyched." We're advised to think of our most spontaneous friend talking with excitement about what she/he has been up to. "You don't feel like she's bragging because you're having so much fun listening to her, right?"

Basically let your passion for doing the work show, and it doesn't sound like petty personal bragging. Instead, what we're doing is getting other people excited too.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Marital Argument

Last night, an argument on the home front.... I started it by mentioning something that was going to fester to the point of eruption if I didn't.

Wasn't pleasant, as I expected. But I did it, and am pleased that I did.

We didn't resolve it. We've only resolved one difference in 24 years of marriage and I've forgotten which one that was. Neither one of us is famous for changing our own minds. But each having said our piece, we move on...better for having spoken than not.

I'm fairly new to "mentioning" things immediately. And it's embarrassing that that's true at the age of 59. But better late than never, of course.

So I'm congratulating myself for getting on with it instead of waiting. It would have been a lot easier short-term to hope that the issue went away.

If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Putting Your Message Where It Can Be Seen

Greenpeace pulled a pretty splashy trick this week to get a message across.

They projected--as you would with a movie projector--an environmental warning up onto the Washington Monument. You have to see this.

One night after Bush's state of the Union address and one day before a major climate meeting, these activists used projectors of monster-rock-concert magnitude, and shone up onto the white obelisk the words: "U.S. Global Warming Plan: Hell and High Water" with an image of water climbing high up the monument.

The whole picture and warning stayed up there, outrageously large against the night sky, for ten minutes before security people closed it down.

That ten minutes is the kind of triumphant moment that makes a good movie ending. I'm impressed they pulled it off. Makes me want to cheer.




If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

A Model of Creativity

A famous British advertising genius died this month: John Webster. In addition to his very imaginative work, he presented a model of a "creative type" who didn't conform to the stereotypes. From Blogger Jia:

"John was the antithesis of the caricature advertising man. Though supremely confident of his own talent, he was never arrogant, did not push himself forward, dressed unexceptionally, threw no tantrums and accepted good ideas from others gracefully, including ideas from clients, something few advertising creative people will countenance."

I don't think I want to dress unexceptionally. But other than that, I think he set an admirable example.

It can take some gumption to be oneself, rather than what is expected of an artist. Which he was.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

A Quick Pick-me-up

If you need a bit of uplifting, go to this site:
http://www.greatquotesmovie.com. It's wisdom put to music.

Thanks to Renee Warren for letting me know about this.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Talk Nice to Yourself

Being yelled at can hurt your creativity.

University of Florida researchers did some workplace observation and concluded that bosses who are verbally abusive are doing harm rather than good. Both problem-solving skills and imagination take a hit when voices are raised.

The underlying principle appears to be: when you're the target of a harangue, that's all you're thinking about. And that's true even when the rudeness is fairly mild.

This would seem a no-brainer, but a lot of yelling and threatening does occur. And it's generally because somebody wants something done or done better. I think most of us could say that it doesn't work. I have an idea that it's also meant to be punitive; but whatever satisfaction might be gained by the name-caller/accuser is surely no compensation for what's lost in productivity.

I think this may also be true when we're verbally abusing ourselves. So cut out the self-berating and free your imagination.

If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Creative Courage and Car Repairs

My 17 year-old car--which you've seen on this blog before because I stencilled morning glories on it--is in the shop today for $700 worth of replacement of small wornout parts that were causing it to rumble and shimmy and throb and would soon make it stop altogether.

So I've been working at a grocery store cafe (Weaver Street Market)and a library computer (Carrboro Cybrary) all day while waiting for this to be fixed. Pleasant places to work, but the whole idea of sitting outside of the car ICU (Autologic) does not make me feel bold.

So I tell myself: it's not my body or one of my loved ones that's in the ICU, and I'm fortunate to have such a glorious and faithful car that is now getting a whole new lease on life, and it's not $2,000, and I haven't wasted the day.

But the fact is: I feel as if I somehow didn't play my cards right or I wouldn't have to buy $700 worth of car maintenance today.

This is irrational. We all have to get our cars and our teeth worked on. And nobody can slay dragons every day.

So, I've decided that for me today's dragon-in-need-of-being-slain (since I need one)is the idea that needing a car repair and wincing at the cost are not an indication of bad life decisions.

Devoting as much of my time and money as possible to art is not an indication of immaturity or failure.

On days like today, I do need to remind myself of that.



If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

A Theme for Your Year?

A suggestion offered at my Mystic Pizza gathering this week: instead of a goal or a resolution for a year, try a theme. (Mystic Pizza is a monthly lunch of friends who are interested in mystical experience and related topics.) I think the idea of choosing a theme came from leadership/diversity consultant and writer Thomas Griggs.

Kelley Harrell of Soul Intent Arts said her theme this year is "allowing," not standing in the way of the good stuff that's happening for her. She likes this approach better than having goals, which feels too coercive and burdensome.

I like the idea too. My daily to-do list is something I rarely finish; it just gives me an idea, a set of priorities for my day.

I can see having a theme of being more fit, or improving my writing, or getting more work published, as a guiding factor in making a lot of daily decisions.

My resolution for this year is follow the will of God, which really falls more into the theme category. Because how do you know when you've accomplished it?

We did decide that a decision to follow the will of God is a lot easier than the resolve to lose five pounds, which is far too troublingly measurable.

If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Heath Ledger

A sympathetic note struck by director-editor-screenwriter Richard Brody on NewYorker.com blog on the death of actor Heath Ledger:

"As we remember Ledger, it’s worth recalling the agonies that actors, from amateurs to stars, have to pull from their guts."

Any day we feel like beating up on ourselves for lack of creative courage, it could be good to remember Brody's kind and soothing thought.

Ledger, who played one of the two cowboys in love in Brokeback Mountain, was one actor with a lot of courage. I'm one of the very many sorry to see him go.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Inspiring New Links?

Yesterday I discovered that two of my favorite bloggers didn't know of each other's marvelous sites, and both of them are on the subject of writing.

So--I'd like to ask you a question. What are some of your other favorite blogs? Or websites. On any subject. Please don't keep these resources a secret.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

This Prize-Winning Blog

Fellow writer/blogger Irene Latham of Word Lovers Unite has chosen this very location to received the Excellent Blog Award. I'm delighted, and hope you are; a blog is its commenters as much as it is the blogger. Do go visit Irene at Word Lovers. A post that might be of particular interest is Goals and Whatnot.

It is now my delightful responsibility to pass this honor on. I must tell you that I am so torn between two blogs that I insist on giving it to both. One is the newish Mystic-Lit, a collection of thoughtful writers writing about writing. There's always an interesting discussion underway here. The other is Design Your Writing Life, where Lisa Gates is doing excellent coaching with commenters. Her thoughts are insightful, and her encouragement is highly effective. I've had several bursts of productivity after visits there.

If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Working in the Spirit of MLK

How I'm celebrating MLK Day today: I'm going about what I'm called to do without hesitation and procrastination. Doing my work in the spirit of MLK, following as best I can the example of his courage.

Part of me considers that a cop-out, since it's not a variation from my normal activities.

Most of me will be well satisfied if I carry through with it.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

"Celebrate! Act!"

Monday is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the 40th anniversary of his death. This year's theme (I don't know who decides such a thing) is "Remember! Celebrate! Act! A Day On, Not a Day Off."

I'm not sure yet what that's going to mean for me; I do like that it encourages activism.

I know a guy who decided in elementary school that he wanted to be an activist when he grew up. He's now in high school and is a volunteer with Greenpeace, the ACLU, and a group promoting gay-straight harmony. I'm impressed.

I've never been much of an activist myself--always one revolution behind, so it has seemed.

I'd love to know anything you're initiating on this MLK Day to change the world to the way you think it ought to be.

If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

If You're Taking Your Work Too Seriously

Here's a marvelous gift I received yesterday, meant to be a tub toy, but I spend more time at my desk. It's difficult to get too mad at the computer, myself, or the world, when I'm keeping company with Jack Nicholson Duck.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

The Business of Art

Painter Jackie Battenfield is a serious artist and a commercial success. She teaches professional development at Columbia University and Creative Capital, among other venues.

I've attended sessions of hers at Creative Capital and really like her practical go-get'em perspective. She made her first round of visits to Washington, D.C. galleries with her three-month-old baby in tow.

She has a website and an upcoming book on how to do what she has done: The Artist's Guide: How to Make a Living Doing What you Love .

Jackie has supported herself through the sales of her paintings for more than twenty years. That's an astonishing accomplishment. What she has to say is valuable not just for visual artists, but others as well.

Visit her website (click on her name above) for daily tips until the book comes out.

If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

"A Two-Book Deal"

I had terrific news this morning from a writer I've worked with: Deborah Dunn. Here's what she wrote:

"Wanted to let you know I'm signing a two-book deal with Simon and Schuster (Howard) this week for the book you critiqued The SAM Syndrome: Help for Women Who are STUPID ABOUT MEN.

I got a major advance and the editor of the inspirational division wants to cross over into the mass market with it."

This news has been years in coming and it's so good to hear, makes me feel re-encouraged about the possibilities. This writer had a good idea and she didn't give up.

If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Building Insights. Breaking Boundaries

Discovered: another good source on creativity research books. A publisher called Elsevier has as its motto: "Building Insights. Breaking Boundaries."

The list of titles is long and diverse. The International Handbook of Giftedness and Talent. How Designers Think. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation (That's one I wrestle with a lot: am I better at doing the work because I love it and it needs doing? or do I need to promise myself a Tootsie Roll Pop at the end of a new page? Right now I'm running on love, but there's a big glass candy jar not far from my desk.)

This collection of books also recognizes the creativity involved in a wide range of activities. Not only are there books on advertising but one called The Art and Soul of Midwifery.

In my view, writing fiction is midwifery. It's just helping the story to emerge.




If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much

How to Cook Up New Stuff

From an article in Vogue on the design of a pocketbook:
"To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."

I agree about the pile of junk, whether it's tangible junk or odds and ends of ideas and memories. I think we all have a good imagination, and when we sit and play with junk, that natural inventiveness kicks in.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Shut Up and Make the Movies?

Woody Allen thinks it's better not to think about one's creativity.

He summed up this philosophy in an interview on NPR: "Shut up and make the movies."

I can see his point. At the same time, I find the subject of how-to-enhance-creativity fascinating, and some of the things I've learned from my reading and discussions have helped me.

I also know it's possible to avoid "making the movies" by reading about the process instead, or reading one's own press. Out of fear of that, I've read fewer of the classic books about writing than I otherwise might have. As is so often true, it's a matter of each individual finding her/his balance.

What has your experience been with finding this balance?

I find that my perfect ratio shifts quite a bit from time to time. And that discussion with my weekly writing group and on this blog are currently the right amount of talk for me.

I don't plan to shut up.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

An Inspiring Movie

Please see Juno. The movie.

It's full of characters who speak their minds--and so interestingly. Especially the leading lass, 16 year old pregnant Juno.

Also her father, who at a key moment says: "Freedom is not a choice that the world encourages." (I think I have that right. I wasn't taking notes.) This movie encourages honesty, of the gutsy rather than the petty kind.

If you see it, I'd love to hear here what you think.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Fake It Until You Make It

A few blocks from my office a venerable Krispy Kreme doughnut store shows off its bakery through a large interior window. You can watch the whole process of doughnut creation while you're throwing down a few with a cup of coffee.

Yesterday my office partner Carrie came in and suggested that we get a Krispy Kreme-type device installed in our office doors. Each morning as we pass through the doorways we would be showered and frosted with confidence, as if it were the sugaring stage of doughnut manufacture.

One could argue that this would create only an exterior coating.

My answer to that is the familiar saying:
Fake it until you make it.

Confident behavior is treated like confidence by the outside world. When that happens, real confidence grows. It's also true that what's applied to the outside starts, after a while, to sink in.

Anyone who has ever eaten a Krispy Kreme doughnut knows that they taste pretty sweet all the way through.



If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

The Cross-Over Book

Alexis de Tocqueville, who observed and judged American character and life in the first half of the nineteenth century, had some critical things to say about the literary styles that succeed among the people of a democracy.


"As the time they can devote to letters is very short, they seek to make the best use of the whole of it. They prefer books which may be easily procured, quickly read, and which require no learned researches to be understood.... Above all, they must have what is unexpected and new. They require strong and rapid emotions, startling passages, truths or errors brilliant enough to rouse them up and to plunge them at once, as if by violence, into the midst of the subject....

"Style will frequently be fantastic, incorrect, over-burdened, and loose, almost always vehement and bold. Authors will aim at rapidity of execution more than at perfection of detail. Small productions will be more common than bulky books; there will be more wit than erudition, more imagination than profundity; and literary performances will bear marks of an untutored and rude vigor of thought, frequently of great variety and singular fecundity. The object of authors will be to astonish rather than to please, and to stir the passions more than to charm the taste."


The kind of bold that he's describing is not what I want from myself or the writers I read.

Unfortunately, de Tocqueville has a pretty good grasp of the kind of choices that the largest number of readers and publishers are still making in this country.

And that makes it very tempting to try to write to that audience.

Truly bold, however, may be doing one's own work without regard to that pressure. For me, it is to revise in a way aimed at satisfying my own standards and at the same time attempting to be accessible to readers in a hurry who are looking for a good time.

Not so easy. That's why for me the process takes so long.

It's because I'm "trying to serve two masters." That's supposed to be impossible, but I don't believe it. There's almost always one book on the bestseller lists that is complex and beautiful, even as it retains its "rude" American vigor. This is what's known in the trade as "the crossover book."

That's the slot I'm aiming for, the one that Tocqueville didn't mention.



If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

A Daily Mini-Meditation on Creative Courage

I find that writing every day about creative courage is firing up my own imagination and gumption. The act of scanning the world for wisdom on this subject--and then focusing on it for the time I'm writing about it--is driving the lesson home for me. I have a lot less hesitation about plunging into projects, less procrastination, than once was the case.

So here's a suggestion: one that will likely be useful for you and others. Comment regularly here on the subject of creative courage, boldness, passion, imagination, or any variation that suits you. The act of doing it can act as a a mini-meditation that fires up your brain, inspiring both you and your readers here.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

No Time to Waste

This afternoon at 2:34 p.m. I will achieve the age of 59. This is a significant number because of its proximity to 60, the official beginning of very late middle age. (Old begins at 80, as we all know.)

One might think that the shortage of time would "put the pressure on," and that that would be an unpleasant feeling.

I'm finding--for today, at least--that it does put the pressure on and that that feels good.

I don't want to waste another second with any of the following
TIME-WASTERS:
*busy work
*kidding myself
*guilt
*rationalizing
*things I "might as well" do
*being too lazy to get up and get what I need

Part Two of My Birthday Wisdom> Some months ago, I chose an overall rule of thumb to guide my decisions, an idea suggested by life maximizing guru Judith Wright. After some thought, I decided on: I am living my life as my best self.

This morning I realized that I need a new one. My test drive of the old one turned up one problem. It didn't answer the question: Why? Why live my life as my best self?

My new guiding line: I unhesitatingly, joyfully, serenely go after the best results, the highest good.

That may seem to be a small matter of wording. But for me the change adds the motivation needed to do the exercise, work on the book, develop the idea, make the needed effort and enjoy the process.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Passion

"You can argue with somebody who says, I know this and I know that. But you can't argue with passion." Film director Tim Burton in Esquire

"Nothing good has ever been done ironically." David Granger, editor-in-chief of Esquire.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Refresh Your Creativity At Lunch

I tend to have "my regular" order at every lunch spot near my office: a veggie plate at the K&W cafeteria, a calzone at Vic's, a veggie-on-sunflower sandwich at Logan's, the tunafish at the snack bar at the Federal Building next door, etc.

While I do enjoy these little traditions, it's nice to startle the senses occasionally with something new. So last week at the Museum of the American Indian in Washington, I ate at the cafe which serves only traditional Native American food, with different serving areas for different regional styles. For example, the Northern Woodlands area was offering cornmeal crusted frog legs, which appeared to be very popular (dish on right). The tamales (tamals, they were labeled) of the South American Indians were cooked and served in corn husks. The smoked squash and raisin dish was excellent. The pine nut and rosemary tart was terrific. There must have been 50 exotic-to-me items available that day. The cocoa guinea hen I will have next time.

This was a super-refresher of the tastebuds. But I find that simply eating something different at the local beanery is enough to give me a slightly new view of the possibilities in life.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Adding a Flourish

I like the idea of making activities and places interesting that don't "have to be." For example, our culture pretty much expects us to tack up something appealing on our walls. But we're off the hook when it comes to decorating ceilings. Here are some particularly noteworthy ceilings I saw in D.C. last week.

The first two of these are both at the Museum of the American Indian; the other two are Union (train) Station and the oddly shaped ceiling of my funky old hotel room near George Washington U. Of these two last you can probably tell which is which.

I once shared a house with a woman who decorated the walls and ceiling of her bedroom with floral sheets. On the walls the fabric was tacked down smooth like wall paper. For the ceiling, she attached only the corners of the additional sheets and left them loose enough that the centers billowed and swooped downward a couple of feet. She was an art professor at Meredith College. Her room was otherworldly.





If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

My (Upcoming) Year of Cutting Loose

My New Year's Decision of three days ago is bearing its first startling fruit.

That resolve, you may recall, is to follow the will of God.

Just now at my dentist's office I felt an intimation of what that will is for me today. I was breathing nitrous when I sensed this, so you may find the guidance suspect, but I don't.

First a bit of background that regular readers likely already know: I have what I ever refer to as "a touch of OCD," or obsessive compulsive disorder. It's not the hand-washing kind that is the most well-known. I'm mainly what's called a pure obsessive, and my specialty is (has been) scrupulosity: anxiety about the possibility of doing something wrong. I worry about accidentally poisoning or infecting people, burning their buildings down, or worst of all: saying the wrong thing.

I have also, for years, literally "kept tabs on myself" in a niggling guilt-ridden manner that would make Dicken's Uriah Heep look like a benevolent god. My personal ledger sheet, always in my pocketbook, tracks how much time I've spent on every project this week and how much exercise of what sort and how much I've read French and how much I'm behind on everything, etc. And there are rewards and penalties attached. Enough said.

This afternoon in the dental chair when I sucked in some anxiety-relieving gas and, for a change, relaxed, here's what God-within-me had to say:

Toss the Ledger Book.

Did you hear that satisfying ripping sound when I paused after typing the foregoing sentence? That was the end of the ledger; its shreds are in the recycling bin.

There was a second part to the wisdom I received, and it arrived in the words of Jamie Foxx when he accepted his Oscar for best actor in the movie Ray. I'm spelling his line the way I heard it, the way he made a point of pronouncing it, in the Southern accent of his youth and mine. Foxx quoted his grandmother whom he credited with teaching him to act. She told him:

"'Ack like you got some sense.'"

This is my new plan. Instead of tracking myself, I'll make reasonable choices in the moment and hope for the best.

This is pretty much what I reported my therapist advising me a couple of months ago. He said get rid of your superego, your values will guide you. Since then I'd been feeling a significant falling-away of the weird charge attached to my "requirements."

Now I've tossed them. Not just for the day, but at least for the year. Even if I get quite nervous about this a few days or weeks from now, I will stay unfettered and unledgered at least until the end of 2008. Then I'll see if I've become someone who misses deadlines, has weak core muscles, and a dwindling grasp of French. Or if,on the other hand, something interesting and peaceful emerges. I have great hopes for this. (At the same time, I do mean to continue taking my medication.)

If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Bhutto at a Raleigh Drugstore

Here's the story of my chance meeting with Benazir Bhutto, and my farewell to her, which appeared in my local paper the Raleigh News & Observer the day after her death. She was one courageous human, and showed that it's possible to be bold and graceful at the same time.



My Personal Prime Minister

One midmorning some years ago, while waiting at the Eckerd prescription counter in Cameron Village, I had a pleasant chat with Benazir Bhutto.

I'd been in line a few minutes when I heard behind me a South Asian accent and turned to look.

"Afroz!" I said. I knew him: a Hindi-Urdu professor at N.C. State University, Afroz Taj. He greeted me, then turned to a woman whom I hadn't noticed. She seemed so petite and delicate, but then I had on heels. What I noted of her Pakistani dress was layer on layer of fabric, shades of blue and plum, wrapped around her shoulders and over her hair.

I heard him introducing us, but was only half-listening. I didn't expect to recognize the name, or get it right. It would surely be long, delivered high-speed and accented.

I did hear. Her name landed on my brain the same instant I recognized her face, famous and beautiful, though a bit blotchy without makeup, and tired.

I fell all over myself greeting her. I didn't know much about her, but enough: She was a woman who had gotten herself elected leader of a Muslim nation. And she'd led with such feminine grace and style. When I first watched her from afar in the late 1980s, I thought, "This is what great power can look like in a woman who accepts it as natural, who is strong without having to appear hardened."

She seemed touched and pleased by my effusions. I don't remember a word she said to me.

Thursday, as most of the world knows, she was assassinated during a campaign rally in her bid to regain leadership. She had barely escaped death in previous attempts on her life, and I had feared for her.

Star power, controlled

Living in Dubai in 2002, Bhutto had come to town to give a talk at N.C. State University. Immediately after the drugstore meeting, I rushed back to my office and began strewing e-mail in every direction. My friends replied with messages that, in essence, said: In Raleigh? At Eckerd? Are you kidding?

That afternoon, I drove to campus with a copy of my novel set in India. I inscribed it to Bhutto, leaving it with a journalism professor who promised to get it to her.

That evening, the auditorium was packed. Bhutto came to the lectern in a manner I've seen evangelist Billy Graham use -- with modest bearing, unmistakable star power understated, subordinated to a larger cause. Her speech assumed a fair amount of knowledge of Pakistani politics, infused with a level of detail that's the stuff of C-SPAN. Most strikingly, she responded to a question sympathetic to current Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf by telling the audience that Musharraf "is a dictator."

She spoke little of her personal experience, but as she talked, a mesmerizing mini-drama was taking place between her and her head scarf. Diaphanous and white, it wouldn't stay put. Again and again, she'd gracefully pull it forward, then syrup-slow it would slide back, exposing ever more of her black, black hair. It was as though she traveled back and forth as we watched, between Muslim head-covering and the world of bare-headed freewheeling women.

A note from Dubai

In the weeks after her visit, I searched out her autobiography, and, of course, Googled her. I read how she was held in a cell with her mother while her father, overthrown prime minister, was executed by the Pakistani military. The man who brought them his wedding ring said the prisoner died a peaceful death. Bhutto questioned how peaceful a hanging could be.

I read, too, that she had been widely accused of financial corruption on a massive scale, and some details gave one pause. She denied wrongdoing, saying the allegations were political weapons. I used to think I was a near-infallible judge of character, even on brief meeting. Then the cheerful computer guy who'd spent hours at my desk helping me was convicted of murder. Now I am slower to assume I know for sure. And, in the instance of Ms. Bhutto, I have a bias.

Months later, an e-mail arrived in my box with an "@emirates" address. Spam, I thought. Instead it was my own personal former head of state writing from the United Arab Emirates to say thank you for the book, she liked it very much. I was astonished to hear from her, had never had a moment's thought that I might.

As real as car keys

Years passed in which her political efforts remained quiet. Then she returned to the world stage.

When I learned she was considering co-leadership with Musharraf, I thought of e-mailing her: "You go, girl!" But given the cultural differences, that line could be entirely misunderstood. And I didn't feel informed enough to encourage any particular course of action.

What I do know is that I had a stake in this fight. I followed it, wanting not only peace in Pakistan -- and, by the way, freedom of scarf-decision, with all that that embodies -- I also hoped, futilely it turns out, my brave friend from the drugstore would be successful and safe.

Thus Benazir Bhutto brought the fight in Pakistan close, making it as real to me as my car keys. She was a woman who was about my age, someone with whom I had identified and talked in the most ordinary, everyday way.

I learned of her death while in Washington, D.C. I should not have been surprised, but I was and am. I send sympathies, most especially to her young daughter, and wish her spirit godspeed.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

A Top Ten List for Success

Publisher and Editorial Director of SUCCESS magazine, Darren Hardy, offers the following advice on how to make 2008 your best year ever:

1. Decide to be Successful – Success is not a dream, hope or fantasy; it is a decision. Make the decision to change, improve and act on your ambitions.

2. Design your Best Year Yet – As an architect would design a skyscraper, write out the goals, plans and actions it will take to achieve the life you want to live.

3. Identify Your Passion - What are your unique interests, talents and gifts? Passion attracts success. Find what you love to do - you will never “work” again.

4. Program Yourself for Success – You will see, perceive, expect and create what you think about. To program your mind for success – read watch and listen to materials that will support your success.

5. Surround Yourself with Success - You are the combined average of the five people you hang around the most. Surround yourself with healthy, success-minded achievers.

6. Model Success - The best way to learn to be successful at anything is to find someone who is where you want to be and model their success habits.

7. Master the Fundamentals – Don’t complicate it. About a half a dozen things make up 90%+ of what it takes to be successful at anything. Keep it simple.

8. Get Fit - The mind cannot achieve what the body cannot perform. Your family, friends and career and future depend on your good health. Make it priority No. 1.

9. Remember What’s Important – At the end of the journey what will have mattered most will be your relationships – the people you love and those that love you. Make sure they are on your goal list for 2008.

10. Make a Difference – What do you want your life’s legacy to be? You have the power to make a positive difference – to a single person, a neighborhood, a community, a nation, the world. Realize that power in 2008.

Success magazine is for entrepreurs, small businesses, and home-based business people. That's us, because whatever your day job might be, if you're an artist, you're also an entrepreneur.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

My New Year's Decision

My New Year's Decision this year, which I prefer to a NY Resolution, is simply this: follow the will of God.

I did this once before, in the year 2000, and that year I finished and got a nice contract for Sister India.

So this is a pragmatic thing. I don't know why I didn't think of doing it again before now.

You might ask how I know the will of God. Well, it's not hard. If I ask myself in the moment of any other decision what that will might be, it's usually a no-brainer.

The way I see God, though, doesn't quite fit any religion I know of. More like The Force, as in May the Force Be With You.

Whatever your decisions are for the New Year, I hope that The Force is also with you.

(I'll be back in my office tomorrow. I promise to catch up on my email then.)


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Hogmanay

Just read that there's a holiday, in Scotland, I think, called Hogmanay. And it's today, last day of the year. The purpose of Hogmanay is to clean up after the old year, literally to clean house. Well, I've done a few things: unpacked my bags, anyway.

I do like the idea, and am somewhat inspired to bring new order. But it will take me a lot more than a day.

I expect it takes more than a day for everybody. Perhaps the purpose of the special day is to get us all inspired to start once again.

Happy Fresh Start to you.



If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Checking In

Still on the road, and at a borrowed computer which I have to give up in minutes. I'll be home again tomorrow. And will soon have much more to say--about Bhutto, fear, courage, our ongoing challenges.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

About Benazir Bhutto

A story I wrote about my encounter with Benazir Bhutto was published today in my local paper, the Raleigh News & Observer. It's an essay and a loss I feel strongly about. I hope you'll read it. In any event, I say again here: I wish her spirit godspeed.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Cool D.C. Lodging

Well, I wasn't going to blog this week, but there's a computer online three steps outside my hotel door. I'm staying in a hotel in D.C. at the edge of Georgetown. I always find cheap digs, and this has led me to some novel experiences. This one is a delight.

The hotel is the Allen Lee, across the street from the GWU's fraternity and sorority houses. It looks like an old-fashioned dormitory itself. And I was fortunate enough to get the room that opens onto the lobby, (thus the computer outside my door.)

The room itself is the truly fun discovery. First, it is irregularly shaped, to put it mildly: it has 17 walls, the bathroom has ten. And the room extends away from the building like a pier, on a block that ends in a corner. So I have traffic passing on three sides. And sidewalk voices, etc. Not everyone would like it, to be sure. I find it to be like sleeping next to the ocean







If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

The Eve of Good Things

Merry Christmas to you, if you're a celebrator of Christmas. Whatever you celebrate, I wish you well at this year's end. And I'll be back in action here just before the first of the year.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Flying Dude...and Holiday Fun

All over the world people are trying to figure out how humans can fly like flying squirrels.

This is not a joke. A New York Times article says that half a dozen organizations are doing serious work on this challenge--and a link to YouTube shows an astonishing demonstration. If you feel you're working on something risky and impossible, have a look at this guy sailing over snowy peaks and no-doubt-startled skiers while wearing a wing suit.

The wing suit is the basic equipment, and it looks both scifi-ish and a bit priestly. This suit ideally turns a person into a human glider. Which sort of puts my day to day risks in perspective.

Update from last night's party (I resolved in yesterday's post to party serenely through the holiday season, without necessarily being "on" all the time.)

Well, the party was elegant, terrific, and fun. Was I serene? I thought so. I later asked my psychologist husband, without explaining why, how things looked from the outside. He said, "Intense. I just figured you'd gone hypomanic" for the occasion.

That suits me just fine. Serene on the inside, festive on the outside.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

A Bold Party Strategy

Tonight's the first in a four night stretch of socializing. Holiday stuff. It'll all be fun once I'm into it. Can be a bit daunting in advance.

I heard a phrase today about someone else's strategy in such situations: "call on your inner extrovert."

I actually come off as an extrovert, or so I'm told. I may need to call on my inner introvert, and not be in high gear the whole time. I think I have just written my way to a plan. (Writing does so often clarify the thinking.)

So that's it. I go forth to party serenely.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Reclaiming Your Creative Courage

Check out this helpful article on "Reclaiming Your Creative Courage." It has some ideas tucked in that I haven't run across. One of these is to take inventory of your dream projects and mark off the list any that you've definitely decided against. That allows for better focus on what you are going to do. This might be part of this year's New Year's resolution, which I take quite seriously.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

An Opportunity for Inspiration

Here's an appealing take on the holiday experience from Judith Wright's More e-zine:

"I used to think that my holiday had to be encompassed in one 'perfect day' or that I had to re-create my family’s traditions impeccably. But I’ve learned to embrace the holidays as a season and a spirit, and not as one single tradition or event. I’ve learned that when I’m not open to the spirit of the season, then everything feels like a dreaded to-do list rather than an opportunity for inspiration. When I remember to touch the spirit, my preparations become sacred, loving acts."


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Shopping

Well, traffic and conversation have quieted here at PPBB. I suspect that most of us are doing quite a few holiday errands just now: chasing down a Creepy Crawly Bug Maker for the four-year-old nephew, etc.

While it's simply necessary to produce the longed-for toy for the wee boy, I also like to see how I can put my own individual spin on the events of this time of year. (One year our Christmas tree was an easel--the three-legged teepee kind--wrapped in lights. That was great at night, very odd when unlit.)

My feeling is: whatever I come up with is unlikely to be any weirder than a Creepy Crawly Bug Maker.

And all of this is, after all, supposed to be a celebration, and fun.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

A Creativity House, and Rollerblading

Here's an interesting press in the UK that specializes in books on creativity: Ablex Publishing.

Some sample titles: The Person behind the Mask: Guide to Performing Arts Psychology and Improvised Dialogues: Emergence and Creativity in Conversation.

I find the idea of creativity and emergence in conversation appealing in itself. Although I can't say that I like the idea of self-conscious conversation.

I think it's also true of writing and, no doubt, any art that both free inventiveness and lack of self-consciousness are needed.

I learned this in a visceral way once while rollerblading. Every time I had a thought about how well or badly I was doing, or how I looked, then I stumbled. Otherwise, smooth sailing.

If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

"Negative" Emotions

An old print ad for Ban deodorant has caused me to ponder.

It suggests, with an amusing picture for each, some items we might like to get rid of:

Ban Insecurity
Ban Stereotypes
Ban Angst
Ban Self-Doubt
etc.

For some of these, mental health professionals (and Buddhists) might suggest that we let them be and simply watch them float in and away.

I've found that thoughts/emotions I try to get rid of tend to stick and grow. At the same time, sometimes I can stop a thought when it first rises: just "don't go there." This is a matter of some import to me, since I have a form of OCD that's more "pure obsessive," as it's called.

What do you think? What has your experience been?


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

The Passive Part of Creativity

A lovely essay I came across in an old thrift-shop New Yorker (June 16, 1977) extols the pleasure and power of pausing and letting something happen, of yielding to the natural rhythms of processes.

Letting bread rise is the obvious example. Or pregnancy.

Letting an idea cook also has much to be said for it. Or letting a draft sit until it's possible to see it fresh. (I have so far found the latter physically impossible.)

What was most interesting about this piece by Noelle Oxenhandler is how sensuous and whimsical she made the experience of what could be called waiting.

Sensuous: the simple matter of letting a newly-washed floor dry..."to lie on my back in the grass watching the clouds, my wet mop beside me, while inside the house th ewater shapes dried on clean, lemony wood floors."

Whimsical, following the odd impulse: A young blind man was gathering strength for action in the French Resistance movement against the Nazis. In spite of his sense of urgency, he felt he should first take dancing lessons. "What courage," she writes, "to dance on the brink of war, on the threshold of Buchenwald. To give oneself the time to evoke or to exorcise whatever inner forces were needed or stood in the way of action. And how difficult--except with hindsight--to see this as courage."


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Physical Tension

Some weeks back I mentioned here that I was using a hypnotic induction on Increasing Your Physical Presence, a product of an English business called The Confidence Club. I'm doing this so that when the time comes for me to rule the world, I'll be ready.

The directions call for listening to the CD two or three times a week for the first month. I've just completed week three.

The first time I listened I didn't remember most of it afterwards. (That may have been the most effective go-round.) Now I've heard it enough times that I'm familiar with the words. And one line that jumped out at me last night was "tension relies on fear of the future."

I've never been especially attracted to the idea of being entirely relaxed; it has always seemed slouchy and draggy in my mind. But coding tight shoulders as fear of what's going to happen takes all the virtue out of it. Which may mean that I'll finally relax--a little, anyway.

I'm not sure how I'll know if there's a change in my Physical Presence. No one has commented yet on my unusual growth in charisma. But I'm expecting it any day now.

And, by the way, if you click on the link in the previous sentence, you'll find a put-into-practice now set of tips from none other than The Trump Blog. No reason not to try both approaches. We all need to be prepared to be rule the world; the moment could come any day now.



If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Blake's "Forests of the Night"

A friend just got a tiger tattoo for his 60th birthday.

Which of course brought to mind the William Blake poem:

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?....

Blake is asking of the tiger: who made thee? He's writing about where we came from and where we're going, as well as the power and beauty of the animal.

Sometimes when I teach a writing workshop, I ask people to figure out what one question all their writing is trying to answer.

Blake's question is my question, the search that drives my books. "In what distant deeps or skies/Burnt the fire of (our) eyes?"

Do you know the question that drives your art? Is there an image that embodies that question?

I don't plan to get a tattoo, but I do like seeing my question clearly before me as I follow a story into the forests.



If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

This Man Knows How to Handle Setbacks and Keep Going

SPEECH BY AL GORE ON THE ACCEPTANCE
OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
DECEMBER 10, 2007
OSLO, NORWAY

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Honorable members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen.

I have a purpose here today. It is a purpose I have tried to serve for many years. I have prayed that God would show me a way to accomplish it.

Sometimes, without warning, the future knocks on our door with a precious and painful vision of what might be. One hundred and nineteen years ago, a wealthy inventor read his own obituary, mistakenly published years before his death. Wrongly believing the inventor had just died, a newspaper printed a harsh judgment of his life’s work, unfairly labeling him “The Merchant of Death” because of his invention – dynamite. Shaken by this condemnation, the inventor made a fateful choice to serve the cause of peace.

Seven years later, Alfred Nobel created this prize and the others that bear his name.

Seven years ago tomorrow, I read my own political obituary in a judgment that seemed to me harsh and mistaken – if not premature. But that unwelcome verdict also brought a precious if painful gift: an opportunity to search for fresh new ways to serve my purpose.

Unexpectedly, that quest has brought me here. Even though I fear my words cannot match this moment, I pray what I am feeling in my heart will be communicated clearly enough that those who hear me will say, “We must act.”

The distinguished scientists with whom it is the greatest honor of my life to share this award have laid before us a choice between two different futures – a choice that to my ears echoes the words of an ancient prophet: “Life or death, blessings or curses. Therefore, choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.”

We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency – a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here. But there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst – though not all – of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly.

However, despite a growing number of honorable exceptions, too many of the world’s leaders are still best described in the words Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored Adolf Hitler’s threat: “They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent.”

So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the sun.

As a result, the earth has a fever. And the fever is rising. The experts have told us it is not a passing affliction that will heal by itself. We asked for a second opinion. And a third. And a fourth. And the consistent conclusion, restated with increasing alarm, is that something basic is wrong.

We are what is wrong, and we must make it right.

Last September 21, as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North Polar ice cap is “falling off a cliff.” One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years.

Seven years from now.

In the last few months, it has been harder and harder to misinterpret the signs that our world is spinning out of kilter. Major cities in North and South America, Asia and Australia are nearly out of water due to massive droughts and melting glaciers. Desperate farmers are losing their livelihoods. Peoples in the frozen Arctic and on low-lying Pacific islands are planning evacuations of places they have long called home. Unprecedented wildfires have forced a half million people from their homes in one country and caused a national emergency that almost brought down the government in another. Climate refugees have migrated into areas already inhabited by people with different cultures, religions, and traditions, increasing the potential for conflict. Stronger storms in the Pacific and Atlantic have threatened whole cities. Millions have been displaced by massive flooding in South Asia, Mexico, and 18 countries in Africa. As temperature extremes have increased, tens of thousands have lost their lives. We are recklessly burning and clearing our forests and driving more and more species into extinction. The very web of life on which we depend is being ripped and frayed.

We never intended to cause all this destruction, just as Alfred Nobel never intended that dynamite be used for waging war. He had hoped his invention would promote human progress. We shared that same worthy goal when we began burning massive quantities of coal, then oil and methane.

Even in Nobel’s time, there were a few warnings of the likely consequences. One of the very first winners of the Prize in chemistry worried that, “We are evaporating our coal mines into the air.” After performing 10,000 equations by hand, Svante Arrhenius calculated that the earth’s average temperature would increase by many degrees if we doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Seventy years later, my teacher, Roger Revelle, and his colleague, Dave Keeling, began to precisely document the increasing CO2 levels day by day.

But unlike most other forms of pollution, CO2 is invisible, tasteless, and odorless -- which has helped keep the truth about what it is doing to our climate out of sight and out of mind. Moreover, the catastrophe now threatening us is unprecedented – and we often confuse the unprecedented with the improbable.

We also find it hard to imagine making the massive changes that are now necessary to solve the crisis. And when large truths are genuinely inconvenient, whole societies can, at least for a time, ignore them. Yet as George Orwell reminds us: “Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.”

In the years since this prize was first awarded, the entire relationship between humankind and the earth has been radically transformed. And still, we have remained largely oblivious to the impact of our cumulative actions.

Indeed, without realizing it, we have begun to wage war on the earth itself. Now, we and the earth's climate are locked in a relationship familiar to war planners: "Mutually assured destruction."

More than two decades ago, scientists calculated that nuclear war could throw so much debris and smoke into the air that it would block life-giving sunlight from our atmosphere, causing a "nuclear winter." Their eloquent warnings here in Oslo helped galvanize the world’s resolve to halt the nuclear arms race.

Now science is warning us that if we do not quickly reduce the global warming pollution that is trapping so much of the heat our planet normally radiates back out of the atmosphere, we are in danger of creating a permanent “carbon summer.”

As the American poet Robert Frost wrote, “Some say the world will end in fire; some say in ice.” Either, he notes, “would suffice.”

But neither need be our fate. It is time to make peace with the planet.

We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war. These prior struggles for survival were won when leaders found words at the 11th hour that released a mighty surge of courage, hope and readiness to sacrifice for a protracted and mortal challenge.

These were not comforting and misleading assurances that the threat was not real or imminent; that it would affect others but not ourselves; that ordinary life might be lived even in the presence of extraordinary threat; that Providence could be trusted to do for us what we would not do for ourselves.

No, these were calls to come to the defense of the common future. They were calls upon the courage, generosity and strength of entire peoples, citizens of every class and condition who were ready to stand against the threat once asked to do so. Our enemies in those times calculated that free people would not rise to the challenge; they were, of course, catastrophically wrong.

Now comes the threat of climate crisis – a threat that is real, rising, imminent, and universal. Once again, it is the 11th hour. The penalties for ignoring this challenge are immense and growing, and at some near point would be unsustainable and unrecoverable. For now we still have the power to choose our fate, and the remaining question is only this: Have we the will to act vigorously and in time, or will we remain imprisoned by a dangerous illusion?

Mahatma Gandhi awakened the largest democracy on earth and forged a shared resolve with what he called “Satyagraha” – or “truth force.”

In every land, the truth – once known – has the power to set us free.

Truth also has the power to unite us and bridge the distance between “me” and “we,” creating the basis for common effort and shared responsibility.

There is an African proverb that says, “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” We need to go far, quickly.

We must abandon the conceit that individual, isolated, private actions are the answer. They can and do help. But they will not take us far enough without collective action. At the same time, we must ensure that in mobilizing globally, we do not invite the establishment of ideological conformity and a new lock-step “ism.”

That means adopting principles, values, laws, and treaties that release creativity and initiative at every level of society in multifold responses originating concurrently and spontaneously.

This new consciousness requires expanding the possibilities inherent in all humanity. The innovators who will devise a new way to harness the sun’s energy for pennies or invent an engine that’s carbon negative may live in Lagos or Mumbai or Montevideo. We must ensure that entrepreneurs and inventors everywhere on the globe have the chance to change the world.

When we unite for a moral purpose that is manifestly good and true, the spiritual energy unleashed can transform us. The generation that defeated fascism throughout the world in the 1940s found, in rising to meet their awesome challenge, that they had gained the moral authority and long-term vision to launch the Marshall Plan, the United Nations, and a new level of global cooperation and foresight that unified Europe and facilitated the emergence of democracy and prosperity in Germany, Japan, Italy and much of the world. One of their visionary leaders said, “It is time we steered by the stars and not by the lights of every passing ship.”

In the last year of that war, you gave the Peace Prize to a man from my hometown of 2000 people, Carthage, Tennessee. Cordell Hull was described by Franklin Roosevelt as the “Father of the United Nations.” He was an inspiration and hero to my own father, who followed Hull in the Congress and the U.S. Senate and in his commitment to world peace and global cooperation.

My parents spoke often of Hull, always in tones of reverence and admiration. Eight weeks ago, when you announced this prize, the deepest emotion I felt was when I saw the headline in my hometown paper that simply noted I had won the same prize that Cordell Hull had won. In that moment, I knew what my father and mother would have felt were they alive.

Just as Hull’s generation found moral authority in rising to solve the world crisis caused by fascism, so too can we find our greatest opportunity in rising to solve the climate crisis. In the Kanji characters used in both Chinese and Japanese, “crisis” is written with two symbols, the first meaning “danger,” the second “opportunity.” By facing and removing the danger of the climate crisis, we have the opportunity to gain the moral authority and vision to vastly increase our own capacity to solve other crises that have been too long ignored.

We must understand the connections between the climate crisis and the afflictions of poverty, hunger, HIV-Aids and other pandemics. As these problems are linked, so too must be their solutions. We must begin by making the common rescue of the global environment the central organizing principle of the world community.

Fifteen years ago, I made that case at the “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro. Ten years ago, I presented it in Kyoto. This week, I will urge the delegates in Bali to adopt a bold mandate for a treaty that establishes a universal global cap on emissions and uses the market in emissions trading to efficiently allocate resources to the most effective opportunities for speedy reductions.

This treaty should be ratified and brought into effect everywhere in the world by the beginning of 2010 – two years sooner than presently contemplated. The pace of our response must be accelerated to match the accelerating pace of the crisis itself.

Heads of state should meet early next year to review what was accomplished in Bali and take personal responsibility for addressing this crisis. It is not unreasonable to ask, given the gravity of our circumstances, that these heads of state meet every three months until the treaty is completed.

We also need a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store carbon dioxide.

And most important of all, we need to put a price on carbon -- with a CO2 tax that is then rebated back to the people, progressively, according to the laws of each nation, in ways that shift the burden of taxation from employment to pollution. This is by far the most effective and simplest way to accelerate solutions to this crisis.

The world needs an alliance – especially of those nations that weigh heaviest in the scales where earth is in the balance. I salute Europe and Japan for the steps they’ve taken in recent years to meet the challenge, and the new government in Australia, which has made solving the climate crisis its first priority.

But the outcome will be decisively influenced by two nations that are now failing to do enough: the United States and China. While India is also growing fast in importance, it should be absolutely clear that it is the two largest CO2 emitters — most of all, my own country –– that will need to make the boldest moves, or stand accountable before history for their failure to act.

Both countries should stop using the other’s behavior as an excuse for stalemate and instead develop an agenda for mutual survival in a shared global environment.

These are the last few years of decision, but they can be the first years of a bright and hopeful future if we do what we must. No one should believe a solution will be found without effort, without cost, without change. Let us acknowledge that if we wish to redeem squandered time and speak again with moral authority, then these are the hard truths:

The way ahead is difficult. The outer boundary of what we currently believe is feasible is still far short of what we actually must do. Moreover, between here and there, across the unknown, falls the shadow.

That is just another way of saying that we have to expand the boundaries of what is possible. In the words of the Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, “Pathwalker, there is no path. You must make the path as you walk.”

We are standing at the most fateful fork in that path. So I want to end as I began, with a vision of two futures – each a palpable possibility – and with a prayer that we will see with vivid clarity the necessity of choosing between those two futures, and the urgency of making the right choice now.

The great Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, wrote, “One of these days, the younger generation will come knocking at my door.”

The future is knocking at our door right now. Make no mistake, the next generation will ask us one of two questions. Either they will ask: “What were you thinking; why didn’t you act?”

Or they will ask instead: “How did you find the moral courage to rise and successfully resolve a crisis that so many said was impossible to solve?”

We have everything we need to get started, save perhaps political will, but political will is a renewable resource.

So let us renew it, and say together: “We have a purpose. We are many. For this purpose we will rise, and we will act.”


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

Cross-Pollenation and Mythic Imagination

First, the pollenation business.

A Google Alert arrived in my mail saying that another site had written about this blog. I clicked on that link and found myself at Mystic-Lit, where the writer of the day, Billie Hinton, was listing people, places, and processes that help her write fiction. Billie was kind enough to list this site, and while I was there at her post, I checked out some of the others on her list.

Now comes the mythic imagination part. Did you know there's a Mythic Imagination Institute that has an intriguing website and has put on at least one event that James Hillman describes as "a spiritual Spoleto Festival"? (Thank you, Billie, for this info.)

Here's a bit from the About Us page:

Our purpose is to enliven the imagination. Imagination is the root of empathy, innovation, problem solving, art, and science. Our way toward imagination cultivates the ground from which it springs: the observation and understanding of nature and human nature. This understanding exists universally in myths, folktales, sacred stories, and wisdom stories. It exists within the structure of story itself. It speaks through the images within the stories.

Once a while back my horoscope in the local weekly Independent told me I'd be better off if I viewed my life in more mythic terms. At first I didn't understand that. Now I think I do.

The question of when one's agent will return one's call becomes less aggravating when it's all part of "the hero's quest." Or when I read the Joseph Campbell quote on the Mythic Imagination site today: "We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, in order to have the life that is waiting for us."

The Mythic Imagination site/institute/e-magazine encourages seeing art and every person's life in mythic terms. For me that turns performance-pressure down and the fire-to-write up, which is very good for the outcome and for the pleasure and ease of the process.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.

The Holiday Dilemma.

We're now in the serious holiday shopping season. And I'm not one who decries the commercialization of Christmas.

In fact, I grew up in a retailing family, clerking at my parents' clothing business, and in the '70's published an Op-Ed piece in The New York Times about my good memories of "Christmas at the store." (The argument of the piece was that nostalgia's better when it's real and honest, not Currier & Ives.)

But nostalgia aside, the holidays are for many us (me, for one) pressureful--an extra set of deadlines. What to do about this? It takes some spunk to single-handedly go against the great wave that says have it all done by the 25th.

I'd like to be able to give a Christmas present at any point during the year. And have it all done up in Christmas paper and ribbon, never mind that it might be August or April. Do you think I'll ever do that? Would I really like it? Don't know.

But some new variations on the ways to celebrate would be an interesting experiment. I'd love to hear your stories here.


If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.