Or is it 73? I admit, I lost track! I lost my notebook, and then I got a bit depressed and kind of lost track of things. Anyway, my BMT and my Signal Operator course are both over- so I’ve got a LOT more free time now. Actually it’s the same amount I had before BMT, but I didn’t really appreciate it as much then- sometimes you got to have something taken away from you before you learn how to make the most of it. (In this case, I’m lucky that I got it back- I could have gotten a stay-in vocation, which would have made this much more challenging for me.)

The plan is to ground myself with really good fundamentals, as follows:

Fitness: I’m going to be running in camp on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays (I don’t have a choice!), so that will get me quite a good bit of exercise. I’ll just add a weekend weekly total-body gym workout, or swim. Maybe alternate between the two. That should be enough for me for fitness.

Reading: I’ll spend my free time during camp hours reading or writing. I need to systematically start tearing into my huge book collection. I just finished Murakami’s Norwegian Wood- tomorrow I’m going to start on Jay Griffiths’ A Sideways Look at Time. I’ll write reviews every time I finish a book, to make sure I remember and understand the poignant stuff.

Music: I’m going to develop a guitar practice routine for before I go to sleep. I’ve already printed out chord sheets for quite a few songs I’d like to play. Tomorrow after work I’m going to go  and buy a webcam so I can record myself and upload songs to YouTube. I expect the first 20 videos to be shitty, but I don’t care, I’m just going to do it. I’ve started a practice log to keep track of my progress. If I make enough progress and people tell me I’m good enough, I’m going to seek out a pub/bar gig as a cover musician to earn some $$.

Writing:  A daily writing routine, with articles for Fever Avenue, blog entries and at least 500 words of fiction a day for my novel. I suppose I’ll start by writing as soon as I get home, and maybe the first thing when I wake up? I think the fiction is suited to soon-as-you-wake-up.

I’ve got to grind these down and set these habits in stone. Let’s see if I can last 2 full weeks without slipping. (And even if I slip, I’m just going to aim to get back on track.)  Once that’s accomplished, I’ll have to start adding more interesting stuff- Project Statement, etc. Let’s go! (so exciting)

Week 77 (Week 3 of 2012)

(January 23, 2012) I just re-read The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch (watch the video here), and went through bits and pieces of To Have or To Be? by Erich Fromm, and they were both wonderful experiences. I’ve watched The Last Lecture about 6 times now, and it still hits me every time.

I figure it’s really important to remind yourself of what matters, of what you believe in. Thoughts are fleeting but we can turn them into actions and habits if we persistently keep them in mind. Read a good book once and you’ll enjoy it- read it several times and you’ll begin to assimilate it.

Fromm put it elegantly- you can have knowledge, or you can know. (To have, or to be.) I have quite a lot of knowledge. But that’s nothing to be proud of. In fact, you could say it’s something to be ashamed of, because it’s messy and inelegant, and doesn’t actually amount to very much. It’s like having a library of books that you never read. Real knowledge manifests itself in your behaviour, in your character. Otherwise, you simply have the knowledge, but you do not know.

Lately the greatest success in my life has been my fitness habit, and perhaps my brain-training habit too. I’m getting fitter both physically and mentally, and at the same time I feel like I’m learning something that’s emergent from both. (This is what I’m trying to express now.)

Fromm’s perspective hit me hard, because it’s entirely consistent with all the knowledge I have- and a clear indicator of what I ought to know. I nod in agreement with all of his ideas, because I recognize them as my ideas as well- or, to be more accurate, ideas that belong to neither of us, but that we have both explored. He, of course, has explored them far more thoroughly and effectively than I have, and has kindly left a bright path for me to follow.

It is clear to me that the language we use- the way we choose to define our lives- make a huge difference to our experience of it. We talk about things most of the time. Possessions, things to be consumed, acquired, conquered. But love, knowledge, conversation, learning, reading and the like are not things that we acquire.

Have you ever wondered why a cup is blue? All the colours in the rainbow hit the cup- but the cup absorbs everything else, and reflects only blue. It is named not for what it possesses, but for what it gives out.

Think about it. You don’t become happy by “possessing” happiness. If you’ve tried to do this, you know it doesn’t work. You become happy by giving joy to others.

Love, knowledge, conversations, art- if you want to experience beauty in this world, realize that it’s not about what you possess, but about what you give out.

(By the way, the above idea is not mine. People don’t own ideas. I have been privileged to have had it shared with me. You know what you gotta do.)