Living Abundantly

By: Stephen D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

Check it Out: Freakonomics

Ok, I read a book in one day.  Yes, I picked a book, and read it in it’s entirety between the last post and this post.  What can I say, it was Saturday!

Things I thought while reading this book:
1. That’s Cool
2. Fascinating
3. No WAY!
4. I wonder if Oprah did what Martha Stewart did if she would have gotten the same
punishment?
5. Now I want to read Monster (Autobiography of an LA Ganag Member)
And when it came to the last two chapters (on parenting) several thoughts of disagreement and disappointment.

Let me just say on that note though that while the rest of the book was very objective (just the facts -or numbers in this case – ma’am) the chapters on parenting felt like the numbers had been crunched with a definate bias (that test scores can rate kids, that IQ has power, etc.) they did seem to try balance this bias but in my mind it was too little too late.

Things I said while reading this book:
1. Cool!
2. Listen to this…
3. Laugh out loud (to which Wakizushi said “What’s so… oh, you’re reading.”)
4. That is so fascinating.
5. Hmmm….

I like to read books on subjects.  I have innumerable books on prayer, prophecy, creativity, etc.  But I also like to learn.  To explore new things.  Lately, in looking at books I’ve been pushing myself beyond those “safe” categories I would normally confine myself to and pusing myself to learn something new; to discover a good book I would have missed had I never branched out.  Learning new things is good for you you know!

This book was definitely one of those books.  Being a NON-number person something by an economist would normally be an instant “No” but reading Sonlight books has been broadening my mind, the introduction was interesting, and I now have tons of cool useless facts.  (Did you know your child has a 1 in 11000 chance of drowning in a swimming pool and only a 1 in (over) 1 million chance of dying by gun accident?  Put a fence around your pools!)  I love a good book.

You may note my piddely “What I’m Reading” list in my sidebar; I finished two of the books and had to return Tigerland unfinished to the library (it had a waiting list).  Now I’m waiting to decide what to read next.

I’ve already decided to swear off of Creativity books for a bit.  I do have a handful of them sitting on my shelf waiting for me to dive in but I really think I need to step back and do some of my own writing for a bit.  The question then becomes – What do I read instead?  I don’t actually have a shortage of books so it’s really just a matter of weighing (and testing) what I’m in the mood for.

Letters to a Young Artist
By: Julia Cameron
Check it out

I read the last of the letters this morning lying in the bathtub.  By now you probably know that I like Julia Cameron’s work; Letters is nothing new it’s her same lessons packaged in a new and unique way.  I enjoyed the work; I recorded some quotes; it didn’t move me the way it was intended to, not coming on the heels of her other works anyway.

Which is not to devalue the book.  I actually think it would be a great introduction; a good place to begin or a gift to a lost artist who needs a prod.  In fact, I’ve already recommended it to someone.

Actually, I did get something out of the book.  A pressing need to begin to organize my days better.  To actually do work each and every day.  My dilemma – what work? – my painting, my drawing, my writing?  Maybe a little of each?  Just yesterday I was musing to Wakizushi that my Painter Me seemed to have eaten my Writer Me, but this morning I woke up and wanted to write.  First though I had to clean the house, to do this, to do that, and now the writing need seems to have faded.  I can’t even remember what I was going to write; I’m blogging instead.

I can’t remember if I told you that I paint. I’ve been taking Watercolour classes for over a year now.  My teacher is very much a realist (a painter who paints things to look as they are seen, realistic paintings) which is fine with me because so am I.  I’ve never truly understood abstract painting (I am learning to appreciate it more though) and so love paintings with definability in them.

I’ve really enjoyed studying with this particular teacher.  Each week we have an assignment (something to imitate), or we bring our own project, and step by step she walks us through the painting.  One of the things I’ve learned through this teacher is that I want to develop my own style of painting.

When I first came to her class I had taken a few workshops and that teacher loved random abstracts.  She taught me how to make certain techniques and effects and then said, “Now you paint.”  I was overwhelmed and never really accomplished anything.  I needed the current teacher’s step by step guidance to get comfortable with the paints.  But now I want to make the paints do what I want them to do.

I’ve spent the past few months looking at paintings, thinking about what I like, and what expresses me (and what doesn’t).  I’ve also spent about a month wanting to paint Blue Limes.  I’m not sure why.  I’ve just had this overwhelming need to paint Blue Limes.  I took the photos (for reference), picked my favorites, sketched two small paintings, and now I’ve started the actual painting process.  Finally.

It started in frustration though.  Even though the limes were blue (rather than green) the painting was still too flat, too realist (I’m not totally leaving that realm but I do want to play a bit).  Two days ago Wakizushi came home to a very frustrated wife.  The paint wasn’t doing what I wanted.  He told me I’d figure it out.  So I let it float around in my head a bit.

Yesterday morning I woke up with an overwhelming urge to buy round brushes.  (My teacher only teaches us with four brushes -none round – and three colours.  It’s a good way to learn but also limits me when I want to break out.)  So I drove into town and got some.  As I stared at my (frustrating) base coat a basic system also came to me: paint flat base coat, use round brushes to create desired effect in later layers.  I’ve finished one lime (mostly) and most of the background and am immensely happy.  I think there may be just a little bit of ME in these blue limes.

As they say in writing, I’m discovering my own voice.  Wasn’t it nice of God, the ultimate artist, to give me a hand when I got stuck?  When I’m done the limes I’ll put them online for you to see.  Maybe later I’ll have somehting more to say about God, today my mind is on Art (which isn’t really, all that removed from God).

Found a quote today in my evening reading that is just perfect for our current conversation:

You can dismiss miracles as coincidence or you can begin to label coincidence as miracle.

– Julia Cameron, Letters to a Young Artist

I know there are those who are skeptical about my Talking God post.  I mean, no one commented saying they were skeptical – but I know they are out there.

Yesterday I was walking through Walmart trying to remember all the things I had told myself I needed to buy before leaving home: Pledge, Windex, Wasp and Bee spray.  Walking down the aisle I had a sudden image flash in my mind.  It was a picture from a few weeks ago,Wakizashi and I were sitting outside and he made a comment about a can sitting on our porch; at the time it was an irrelevent comment and an irrelevent can.  In the Walmart I had a clear image of the can, and it’s label, Bee and Wasp Killer.

“Oh, Thank you,” I happily directed to the ceiling (you know, upwards).  Why spend $7 if you don’t need to?  Yep, there it is, right where I saw it in the image in my head.  Now I have dead wasps.

Gratitude.  Not only do Christian circles have a lot to say on the subject, even secular “positive thinking” teachers agree that Gratitude is one of the most powerful forces available to us.  Want to hear from God more often?  Stop second guessing the little you do hear and say, “Thank You!”.

Thank you.  Thank you for helping me, for listening to me, for answering me.  You might note, I wasn’t asking God to tell me whether I needed the spray or not; my personal theory is that God knows me to be a grateful kind of person and so helps me out when I don’t even ask him to.  Though I suppose an argument could be made that he’s generally just a helpful kind of guy.

“So why doesn’t God talk to me like that?”
That’s the skeptical response, I know a few of you are thinking it.  In case you were wondering, it’s nothing special about me.  As far as I’m concerned there’s one of two reasons you aren’t hearing God the way you want to (and neither of them are that God isn’t talking to you).

1) You aren’t really listening.  Or maybe, you don’t know how to listen, it does take some practice you know.  Ever have some natter and natter away at you and you suddenly realize you have no idea what they are saying?  That’s what I’m talking about.  And who wants to talk to someone who isn’t really listening to them anyway?

2) You’ve traded skepticism and doubt for Gratitude.  Was that God or me?  Oh, that’s just a memory, a coincidence.  I don’t know about that…  Did you know there are people who don’t even believe in God (as you know him) who are more thankful to him than you are (and therefore hear from him more often)?  As far as I’m concerned I figure either I believe in the Spiritual/Supernatural or I don’t.  Either I believe in Creation and Angels and Voices from Heaven or I believe in Evolution, and Instinct, and Scientific (Logical) Explanations.  Try some gratitude on for size.

On that note we’re in the process of putting our house up for sale.  Not just selling our house but aspiring for a “Dream House“ that is logically outside of our reach.  It occured to me yesterday that I maybe
I should make a list of those things in this house that I’m grateful for; after all, I’ve been over and over the things I don’t like about it for years.

A Short List of Gratitude or What I Love about my House:
1. My big, beautiful, backyard Maple (I love trees).
2. My lovely, long kitchen with it’s custom designed cupboards (something I’d probably never pay to install but love having).
3. A Main floor laundry (I hate going in our basement).
4. Our large bathroom.
5. My own ensuite bathroom.
6. A huge Master Bedroom.
7. Our picture window (in our bedroom) that looks over my big, beautiful tree.
8. My cute little library (which I decorated myself).
9. A little office for me and a little office for Wakizushi.
10. Our large backyard and double decks.
11. That we’ve had relatively little that needed repairing or buckets of money.
12. That living here we were able to give Wakizashi’s friend, The Geek, an opportunity to get a better job.
13. That The Geek (he wears a shirt labelling himself this, I’m not insulting him) and Wakizashi have become such close friends.
14. The chance to live a country lifestyle with a grocery store within walkin distance!
Actually, this house hasn’t been that bad at all!

It’s the middle of the night and suddenly I have an inexpressable amount to say.  How is a person supposed to sleep with so many narratives running through her head at the same time?  One side of my head tells me that it’s closer to 1 am than 12 am, which is a completly unreasonable hour, and the other says if I don’t write some of it down I’ll have forgotten all of it by a more reasonable hour (whatever a reasonable hour is).

The Danny Gregory book has (almost as an aside) a short list:

These are your enemies:
Procrastination, Self-Doubt, Obligation, Perfectionism, Judgementalism.

Of course, the first thing I thought is – Procrastination and Obligation.  Which is not to say the others are never a problem for me but these are my personal demons.

Oh wait, I should amend.  Obligation is something I no longer struggle with, but I see it so clearly in other’s lives that I’ve come to vehementally hate it.  Procrastination on the other hand is truly my closest enemy (you know what they say about keeping your enemies close?  I’m not so sure they are right in this instance.) – I like to think of myself as spontaneous.

So, as per Gregory’s advice I drew them.  I suddenly had an inspiration to draw these demons; so I grabbed my journal/sketchbook and my pencil (yes, I was too chicken to start in pen) and started drawing.  I could clearly see them in my head, and even though I’m not normally very good at drawing from my head I really like these guys.

Obligation, a small but rotund fellow with twigs for legs sits on your shoulder.  His arms are really chains which wrap around your neck and weigh you down.  Ton weights (you know those cartoony ones Wile E. was always hit with) hang down from his chains; “Pay the Bills”, “Not your Place”, “What will People Think”, etc; they overwhelm you with other people’s concerns and hold you back from your own desires (and self).  He smirks in a self satisfied kind of way.

Procrastination was simple; lank and seductive, a think curvy body with tall stilt legs and arms that never seem to end disappearing behind the text on the page.  Mostly faceless, her only goal is to hold you back from your real desires.  She doesn’t really attract you but rather pushes you back from who and what you really want to be (acheive).  An unending arms’ length.

What fun.  It was neat to see my issues take on a face, to think about who and what they really were.  Not so much as my own faults (“I can never do anything right, I always procrastinate”) but as seperate entities; outside forces pushing in on me. The images were so swift and clear, it’s like I’ve known them all along and just been blind to them.  Maybe now Procrastination won’t have so much pull over me?

Now you try, which of Gregory’s enemies are your personal demons?  Give them a face, maybe a name, and short, encyclopedic description.  If you share them with me I’ll scan mine and post our own Personal Demonology listing.  Hey, we all have our personal demons – lemme see the faces of yours!