Tag: discipline

This Blog

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One thing I have noticed about this blog is that since I started publishing it and not continued keeping it a secret thing like the first month, I have stopped writing about the blog itself. The pieces now seem to be about topics; such as resolutions, Dublin, something political, and other things I can’t remember but certainly in the early days I was happy to write about how this beast itself was developing. Initially the point of the blog was to do an experiment and see whether I could write about something every day. So far I have managed that and it is something that the majority of the time doesn’t take up a disproportionate amount of effort. The articles are not necessarily of the highest calibre, or what I would like them to be, I suspect if I took longer or didn’t put a piece out daily, I could take more time and effort researching and forming something. Instead as is clear I seem to start with an idea and just go from there, which I also really enjoy as a format. I’ve mentioned before about the discipline to sit down each day and the mental discipline to put in effort to write something decent are separate things. Since publishing certainly the awareness of others reading has had an effect on this, but I think I am pushing myself slightly more; fully aware I could go further, which will evolve as time goes on.

What will also evolve though, and has as I said, is what I write about. As I mentioned already I’m not really putting out fluff pieces – although it could be argued this is one – even though it’s a perfectly legitimate topic it feels slightly self-indulgent. I see other blogs and they seem to be on particular issue, like travel, food, mindfulness or politics and I seem to drift into each of those areas when I feel like it. To attract people to this blog it would be good perhaps to focus on a particular area and subject to write about. However I’m not going to as I think that while it will evolve organically, the point is to see if I can write each day about something over writing about something each day, and there is a difference. Equally if it is an experiment to simply write, we corrupt ourselves the moment we worry more about numbers than the actual thing we’re doing. It may evolve organically in a certain direction which would be great and if after one year I am still writing and writing about a particular subject then the goal would be complete with a bonus thrown in.

So this blog is going to continue to be random and off the cuff. I would like it to improve, in the meantime though I’m happy; nothing is ever perfect so it is great that I can see improvement is necessary and hopefully make the effort to find it. It is even greater that I’m still here after what is probably about two months now and not got distracted and sacked it off.

Self-congratulatory piece…tick.

Well done me…prick.

Resolutions Update 2.0

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Part of my resolutions are about to begin. My friend owns some exercise equipment and I’m going to use some ski machine thing I think, or at least something which he says is going to probably make me sick from the twenty minutes of effort I have promised him. The reason sick is actually a good thing for once is that as a result of my attempts at beer making I have not been too far from the toilet these last few days. If this continues I may be writing a piece soon detailing a salt water cleanse, or at least the benefits of it, over the intimate details of the procedure. My friend also drank the beers on Saturday but was sick on Sunday and seemingly felt better after. I unfortunately trained myself when younger not to be sick which can be good when drinking and smoking excessively but along closing the heart chakra apparently, which is perhaps a story for another time, it does mean that my body doesn’t necessarily expel poisons by vomiting in times it should. This attempt at doing some crazy amount of exercise when already feeling a bit weak and ill is completely the most ridiculously illogical approach and reminiscent of tv series from my youth like Jackass or Dirty Sanchez. I am though willing to give it a shot because while I doubt it’ll actually make my sick, I know it is at least an opportunity at making a start on my resolutions and I’ve passed up on far too many chances already. I am though losing weight by being ill so at least the belly is slightly shrinking. Does that mean I am inadvertently sticking to my resolutions? Only in the most perverse of ways. I also accept fully that nothing I say in any articles after this one can be taken with any seriousness and I may have completely destroyed any sense of credibility I have had the good fortune to acquire these last two months. But fuck it, here goes nothing….

…If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs is a line from a poem by Wilfred Owen about the folly of patriotic war and death, this line about the effects of chlorine gas during the First World War. It feels comparable to what I can taste in my mouth now. That old familiar taste of iron. The stabbing sensation in the ears and the throbbing of the head. My legs feel like jelly and either I’ve got cramp or I’ve hurt my hamstring but I completed twenty whole minutes of surprisingly gruelling exercise skiing, running with some bag on my back, lifting some heavy ball repeatedly and doing push ups. I didn’t vomit, I knew I never would despite the silliness of the first paragraph. I should be proud of myself apparently. I’ll let you know tomorrow if I manage to scrape myself off the floor.

New Years Resolutions

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Happy New Year, it’s another year and another decade. The imagery of 2020 alone should get people excited. I’m also a day late but I wanted to talk about something else yesterday and prefer doing things my own way anyway. I hope people are more excited about the prospect of a new year than the horror of a new year – are we excited to leave the grim realities of 2019 behind us or terrified of their continuation. It’s been a good year so far politically as Scott from Marketing has been berated and run out of town for his disdain for and inactivity helping victims of the bushfires in Australia. Still no link with or acknowledgment that climate change may be connected or even a real thing as his bosses in the mining industry instructed him. There was a great moment in the video where he tries to shake hands with a woman who refuses so he grabs her hand and shakes it as the cameras start snapping away. We live in a truly corrupt world. I’m looking forward to Boris from Events similarly being run out of town somewhere over here in the next six to twelve months.

My plan for today was to talk about New Year Resolutions but as you can see from above I’ve already digressed and used up half my word count in the process. I had a small rant the other day about this particular topic and while I stand by it, I also stand by the fact this is a grey area and many people find credible benefits from such actions. It’s just a shame there’s so many others out there inspiring vomit instead.

I suspect I will have four resolutions this year. I’m not sure if that is too many or not enough as this is my first time and a new experience. None of them are that ground breaking either but then I’m not unique and I imagine if you break down all resolutions they’re all roughly the same thing.

Firstly like everyone else who feels like shit after Christmas I’m going to get fit. I have been putting it off for a while as I’m still nursing an old jiu jitsu injury. Sounds heroic until I admit I hurt my shoulder doing a forward roll in the warm up of the one class I attended. I will go back to this and also do some yoga. I love telling people I am yoga teacher because I once did a month long training course in India but all that makes me is a cliche. It does mean I am capable of practising on my own though so have little excuse for not especially when I understand it’s benefits. It’s the mornings I struggle with but apparently that gets easier with practise. Perhaps I can use some of the discipline required to do this each day. I’m only thirty-four and feel sore, more than I should at this age.

This links in with resolution number two which is to sort my diet out. I was discussing with a cousin over Christmas about joint pains and she was suggesting that cutting gluten out has reduced these pains in people she knows. I’m not suggesting I’m going to dive into some kind of gluten intolerance hysteria but it does show how important diet can be for overall physical health. How energised we feel, physical recovery, overall health – diet plays a role in all of this, just as exercise does of course. There is no golden rule for all with diet, something people always seem to miss the point of, but it is important to discover what really works for us.

One thing that sometimes prevents me from making the most of my time is that like many people the world over I’m suffering from addictions. In regards diet, certainly consumption of sugar needs addressing but for resolution number three it is time I addressed the procrastinating opportunities social media and constant access to online nonsense through my phone has. In mornings I don’t often do yoga or get started properly with my day because I spend an hour checking out whats going on in the world of football – a soap opera for men – and I apologise for the gender stereotyping but it’s a stereotype for a reason. Phones allow for procrastination and we waste so much time in the day as a result. There have been times in the past that I have intentionally gone the full day without using technology, and by evening I have run out of things to do I have been so busy. Like giving up smoking I will use the approach that when I immediately think of going online for no other reason than habit and addiction, I will give it five minutes and then if I still want to I will. It works with cigarettes, why not with other addictions too.

And finally I resolve to make something decent out of this blog. I doubt I’ve done over sixty posts yet which means I have over three hundred to go. It is daunting but also shows how much opportunity for learning and practise is still ahead. Doing this every day will always give opportunity for fluff days in which I have little time or am hungover but to make the most of it means I really need to be strict and mentally disciplined, try new things and push myself. Today I read an interesting article in the Guardian by Max Rushden on Bobby Madley, just as I had written yesterday about him. It was better researched and partly as a result better written. It was interesting to see and very useful to be able to compare the two, there are always opportunities to learn if we’re willing. I also want to step back to some of my original intentions such as answering philosophical questions from my Philosophy Now magazines which I haven’t even attempted, poetry or something similarly creative which I haven’t even contemplated and I just thought yesterday that maybe I should try a book review, so theres one of those coming when I finish my current book on how to utilise fear. These things are not always possible when limiting yourself to a small word count of four to five hundred, and while that has it’s benefits there is always scope for flexibility. Seeing as this piece is over one thousand words, and the only one over six hundred so far I am clearly happy to break my own rules.

It is clear to say that there was nothing really groundbreaking in any of my resolutions, but then there never are with these kinds of things. I also had to rush through them without any real details but it gives you the gist and the point as previously mentioned is to allow people the opportunity to realise there are many others out there struggling with the same things. Hopefully to know we are not alone gives a certain strength of resolve. I also just realised that resolutions means to find new solutions and resolve to find new ways to solve – in this case how we approach and live our lives. We are forever attempting to solve the riddle of life – these new solutions for a new year.

Day 32

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Fuck!! Today is the big day, the first piece I publish properly. I don’t know if I’m ready for this mentally, I’m a bit nervous actually as it has been purely writing for myself until this point. It’s also probably worth mentioning that today is Day 32 and if anyone is inclined for any reason to read all the way back to Day One, I was supposed to publish for the first time on Day 31. Yes I missed my own opening party by a day.

But what the hell am I talking about I hear you say. I should explain as I doubt anyone is going to read all the way back to the first piece, and even if they did, I haven’t exactly stuck to my own rules. This is an experiment, I’m experimenting with myself, although not in a teenage boy kind of way. The idea is to learn the discipline needed, and create the required habit, of writing a piece on this blog every day for an entire year, three hundred and sixty-five days to be precise. That has already been broken, but I have published everyday so far, which was a rule change I decided upon at one point. I wrote two pieces one day, saved it in reserve and subsequently used it one day. That piece was Amor Fati and I make no excuses as events made writing that day impossible. The other rule I seem to be breaking more or less daily is that each piece was supposed to be only ten words more or less than four hundred, and there was a reason for that although I won’t go into it again. I seemingly love the sound of my own thoughts though as I am averaging about five hundred words per day.

So far then it has been an interesting experiment. I have proved I can write daily, although were I to go adventuring and my environment changed that may prove a new challenge to sustain. There have been days I haven’t been able to think of much and have just dribbled something inane onto the page, but then that is all part of it. It was interesting to realise I found it quite challenging to write and at first what came out seemed quite immature. Not really writing for the last ten years has not allowed my writing style to develop. It’s just practise. There are more observations I could share with you but I can’t remember them off the top of my head right now so they can’t be important. Ultimately though I’ve actually quite enjoyed it. Whether habit has been formed yet I’m unsure, they do say something about a month of repetition being an important milestone though. This is just a simple blog on my observations, misunderstanding and everything in between, it may be self-indulgent but then I’m kind of doing it for myself more than anyone else. Saying that, I do hope you enjoy it, and I must thank you for at least taking the time to read this far.

Born Again

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When people get into their thirties, like I am well into now, they discover new things and sometimes become mad and obsessed with them. In their twenties it doesn’t happen so much but thirties for sure I’ve seen people go crazy. The born again christians of whatever new hobby or life direction they take to fulfil that empty hole in their life. My lack of the focus and attention span required may just protect me from this. I’m currently reading a book on beekeeping and they’re incredible animals, from the nanny bees keeping the larvae at the perfect temperature, and I mean to one degree celsius, to the queen laying two thousand eggs a day to the language they use communicating about good sources of pollen like little stoners. They’re incredible and I want my own apiary, healthy nutritious raw honey, tasty alcoholic mead and the connection and bond with an actual hive of tens of thousand of bees. Will I become obsessed, well maybe we’ll see. It may just fall at the wayside like my plan to learn how to write code – I downloaded an app about a month ago – and making beer – I bought a brewing set about two months ago.

The problem with desiring doing too much is that we put so much effort into the excitement of the planning and dreaming that the actual doing becomes boring. The effort and hard work required to complete these fantasies doesn’t compare to how we have been imagining it in our excitable dreams. In the end we do nothing. Part of this then involves discipline and this seems to be the thing that has been lacking for me. Of course it suited me in my twenties having no discipline, who needs it when you’re just traveling around and having fun. This continued into my thirties but at thirty-four I think I may have to become a born again disciplinarian, or at least born again about the idea of it. If I ever have kids, poor little fuckers. This writing experiment is just that, an experiment but it is also an attempt at learning discipline and creating the habit required to not even notice the effort required to be disciplined. I have the physical discipline to write daily it appears, or at least do at the moment while my life is in one place and stable, but not always the discipline to write well or with effort. That will come, as much because it’ll be boring for myself to just dribble out inane nonsense. But what I am curious to see is whether this discipline can spread out and infect other parts of my life. The discipline to do yoga every morning, to do a little exercise, to eat well – these three things are starting to become necessary more each day as I start to feel the aches and pains of age. Maybe I’ll even make my beer and god forbid sit down long enough without procrastinating to find time to write an app.

Time is the master. While it may be infinite our moment within it certain isn’t. What has happened now in the past is done, it is over. It may have been great and full of experience but if we do not look forward we just become those grumpy old lonely travellers lost in their missed opportunities and repetitive stories. Today I drive to Cockermouth, the day after I probably come back, and the day after that, well thats anyones guess but I suspect it may be a good one.

Stuck at Level One

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Writing on a daily basis is an interesting exercise especially when you don’t have any fixed subject to write upon. Ultimately I end up writing about writing about something and seem less often to actually write about anything much at all. If people write regularly for example about politics, fashion or sport would it be a fair assumption to imagine they must spend large periods, if not the entirety, of the day reading or talking with others about such subjects. Does it in that case make it much harder to write about philosophy if I never discuss philosophy once throughout the day with anyone? I do listen to a large amount of podcasts on politics which would suggest that perhaps I would be advised to write about how much of a cunt Boris Johnson is and in the same breath how our obsession with personality politics allows those in power to distract us from their policies or on a larger scale how we’re being fucked left and right on a daily basis. I could talk about all those things and actually perhaps I should, that was quite enjoyable for a moment.

There has already been one Tomorrow piece and while the very next day was interesting I think, the following three just denigrated into at first me being hungover and then later being actually ill. Therefore tomorrow don’t expect me to fulfil something promised today but perhaps I just need to remind myself of the difference between physical and mental discipline. Another idea could be to create some structure over the subject matter. Political Friday could break down the week’s politics for example. Football Monday the same for the weekend’s football, although an unmentioned television channel already seems to do exactly that. For some reason I like the idea of philosophical Thursdays. Ultimately though when I get to the half way point of about two hundred words and realise I’m now warmed up and starting to think of some ideas, I need to delete what I have written so far and go with one of those ideas from the beginning. Clearly if you’re reading this I haven’t done that and am still all talk but it is certainly an idea worth exploring and hopefully one which will be explored one day, maybe tomorrow and you know what, if tomorrow I do exactly this and it’s any good you’ll be none the wiser.

Tourist

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Has anyone ever been a tourist in their own city? While I have never necessarily lived in Edinburgh I was born here and grew up less than an hour away. It is my nearest city and therefore I class it as my city. Over the years friends I have met while traveling have either visited Edinburgh or have visited me but regardless the result has been me visiting certain tourist sites. Edinburgh castle is nicer from the outside, some interesting museums but nothing to get excited about. Arthurs Seat is worth walking up for an idea of the the landscape and terrain of the rest of Scotland as well as a pretty spectacular view of the city. The Royal Mile is worth walking up if you want to browse through tacky tourist shops and dodge throngs of foreigners. Edinburgh is largely foreigners these days, most actual Scots having moved to Glasgow long ago. The National Museum of Scotland, I think thats it’s name, is free and has some pretty cool things worth seeing, as is and has the National Portrait Galley. Ultimately what I am saying is that these are a few things you can do which I have done already, but my point is this weekend will be different to all previous times. For this weekend I will be actually staying in an airbnb in Edinburgh, going all out tourist.

My Mum is turning seventy on Monday which is nice, a decent wee achievement so good on her. We have some cousins, aunties and uncles or nieces, sister-in-law and brother from my mothers perspective, visiting and so we’re staying up here too. The point of all this is that while people may do tourist things where they’re from, and yes of course quite often people never explore their locale at all, very rarely do they stay in an actual hotel in their own city and go full on tourist. I’m quite looking forward to it, it will most likely be a lovely treat. Let’s see how many locals I can piss off by being an awful tourist, thats alway fun.

This is probably one of the more boring pieces I have written but I’m tired, its been a crazy couple of days and it will soon be the end of the day and I want to maintain my streak. Does that make this piece a fail. I’m unsure. At some point I may have discipline in action but not discipline in mind if all I am doing is writing a daily piece that is me simply filling space. Do you really care about me spending a weekend in Edinburgh? There are different types of discipline. To be positive though, it is all part of the learning curve because until now I had never thought about the fact there are different types of discipline, different values to what I thought was one thing. Another day, another lesson. Aren’t you just lucky to be going through this with me.

The Motions

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And having ploughed through one surmountable challenge I am left with another, a challenge which this time I am unsure I can conquer. Is it time to attach a negative prefix, sadly it just may be. For today…drum roll please…I am hungover. Totally hungover to the point where my little noggin throbs. Why have I done this to myself I may hear you asking. It may be worthwhile skipping back a few posts and highlighting that I have already touched on the idea that we love doing things which are self-destructive. For today I am but half a man and unfortunately while this man may have maintained his discipline by sitting down in front of this laptop and pressing buttons, he refuses to partake in much thought. The moment I let myself down and go through the motions. Today is a sad day.

One particular plan I have is to write a few pieces and have them as backups incase it is impossible for me to write something one day. The chances of it being impossible are slim lets be honest, I can always find an hour spare at some point in the day if I really try. However imagine I am at sea sailing and I go nowhere near land for three or four days, without internet, oh the horror, I will be powerless. I think there is a handy function on here that allows you to automatically time when pieces are publish so I can set them up for a few days and they will publish at the same time each day. That is a justified reason but there is always the chance I will cheat one day when hungover or don’t find the time for one excuse or another. That is a cheat, being at sea is not. Next weekend I am not at sea but genuinely may not have the time, that is a dilemma. It is also worth pointing out that in the introductory piece I intentionally said I would publish a piece everyday and not write one and while I have broken my own self-imposed rules by writing more than four hundred words a few times I am loathed to not write on certain days through laziness as it defeats the point in this exercise all together.

So thats it. I’ve gone through the motions and I have my four hundred words. Have I achieved something. Only time knows the answer to that question.

Tomorrow

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The challenge of an experiment or a learning experience, or whatever is best to describe my attempts at learning discipline and practising writing at the same time, is that there will be days when nothing really comes to mind about what to talk about. There is a list of things written down in a notebook somewhere, a notebook unfortunately out of reach in the next room, on various topics that could be worth writing about. This list was written down about six months ago though when the idea of writing this first arose and bar What would Henry Rollins do no other topic on the list comes to mind. That is however not the point because so far nothing that I have written about has been from any list or pre planned. That may be pretty obvious, mostly each piece seems off the cuff and I have preferred that to planning as seeing something evolve organically is enjoyable, and let’s be honest having a little ramble for four hundred words is far less effort than writing about a particular topic.

Do people enjoy reading a little ramble that’s the thing. There are plenty of blogs, opinion pieces or editorials in which if you look carefully it is pretty clear they’re not much other than a little ramble dressed up as serious journalism. Todays piece certainly doesn’t even reach those levels as it threatens to drift off to sleep in the gutters of nothingness but that doesn’t mean it’s existence has no value. We never know what is born out of any event, cause and effect if you will, it isn’t alway the moments which appear great that holds a true sense of enormity in a lasting sense. Sometimes things are born out of the most inconspicuous of events and this may just be one of them. It equally may not, that is for future us to discover. What is clear though is that if every moment has the possibility of creating something whose significance is not immediately obvious, then we should not dismiss any moment. Another way of putting that is that we could attempt to be conscious of all we do at all times. Be the Buddha, be enlightened he says, be human also but don’t dismiss something because on first glance it appears to hold no immediate value. Today though, the task of rambling with an obvious conclusion is complete, but we never know what tomorrow will bring.

Discipline

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What an interesting concept discipline is. Some of us, such as myself, have spent our entire lives without it and avoiding it too, or at least avoiding the harder elements of a disciplined life. Certain things such as having fun, partying, going cool places, having interesting conversations – you get the point – have been embraced with the most intense of disciplined behaviour. The discipline however that has seemingly lacked existence is the one which has involved effort like concentrating at school, studying at university, exercising at always, writing this post today. And it may still be today in a way as the day is not over but it is after midnight, although not everywhere, there will never now be an indexed post for Saturday 16th November. There will however be two on Sunday 17th and who gives a shit really because that is fine. While there may not have been a written rule on Day One, there was always an unwritten one in my mind, but again who really gives a shit. This is a process, and processes are long and full of fuck ups on the way. It is just unfortunate that the first one occurred on the second day. 

It is also a shame to be writing this so late at night because in truth I had been looking forward to it all day and was genuinely busy for a large proportion of the day. Not all the day though and that is the thing, discipline isn’t just about being hard working and full of will power, it’s about recognising the best time to complete a task and the flexibility to take the opportunity whenever it arises. There is no specific moment to suggest, more that as long as you’re not genuinely doing something else, the moment the thought comes to mind is the best moment, the moment you think is the moment to act. Perhaps that’s the secret to these psychopaths who just seem to be doing things nonstop, those who do not have the ability to think ‘fuck it I’ll do it later‘.

In that case I’ll flip it on it’s head, how utterly blessed I am to not feel the need to constantly act and respond to life’s many little supposed necessities. How people must be so jealous of my ability to sit down, drink some tea and put it off until later. Now that is some serious discipline.