Perfect martial arts.

Just watch. Perfect martial arts. Only two minutes.
Perfect.

(Found on boingboing.)

Juggling and miscellany

First, a musing about juggling, brought to my attention by my justly esteemed colleague and friend, Peter M. Ball (who knows I love juggling). It's from Seth Godin, whose name is NOT the same as mine. He writes:

Two truths about juggling

1. Throwing is more important than catching. If you're good at throwing, the catching takes care of itself. Emergency response is overrated compared to emergency avoidance.

2. Juggling is about dropping. The entire magic of witnessing a juggler has to do with the risk of something being dropped. If there is no risk of dropping, juggling is actually sort of boring. Perfection is overrated, particularly if it keeps you from trying things that are interesting.

Hence the tricky part--you want to ship in a way that (as much as you can) avoids failure, but when failure comes, moving forward is more effective than panic or blame.

This post gives me plenty to think about. First, yes, these are golden words: Emergency response is overrated compared to emergency avoidance. We who are or have been involved in emergency management or self-defense (or both, like me) know this as a cosmic truth, a foundation truth, the very core of our beings. It is, in every way, indisputably better to avoid an emergency than to have it at your throat, snarling and slavering and going for your very artery. Have a clear idea about what you want to accomplish, do your research about what could go wrong (and use your imagination to figure out a few new ones), minimize both the likelihood of things going wrong and the severity of the effects should they do so, and keep an eye on how it's all going. This is risk management, and it's useful for juggling, writing, and driving to the supermarket.

The second point is sort of the opposite of the first one, isn't it? And yet they're inseparable, like yin and yang. Because no matter how well you prepare, no matter how much you lower the risk, you can never eliminate it. The trick — for the writer, the musician, the SES volunteer, the lion-tamer — is to maintain a certain strength of purpose and an optimism that lets you adapt and overcome when things go wrong. When you drop the balls. When you receive your thousandth rejection. When things outside your control change the choices you thought you had.

I don't actually agree that perfection is overrated. There's a beauty in something perfect, or nearly perfect, that is good for the soul. However, there is also beauty in the courage of a flawed attempt, in persistence, in recovery, in the slow journey toward perfection.

Juggling is a terrific metaphor for all this, and it's a fantastic way to keep your brain going, or to unstick it, when the writing isn't maybe going so well. Trust me. Juggle. And think about risk management and the glory of the imperfect journey.

In other news, boingboing posted a piece on a beer theme park that is (a) causing me to add the spot to my Must See Before I Die list, and (b) better than the theme park's own actual site. Go look. Marvels, wonders, beer! (I could even be persuaded to drink a wheat beer while there, and that is by no means my favorite sort.)

Shakespeare in the park

It was still quite light when my friends and I spread our picnic blanket and started sharing out our food and wine. The play began: lighthearted, full of wordplay and banter and over-the-top characters. The stage was an herb garden, and now and then the scent of mint or basil from a leaf bruised by an actor's foot or hand would drift to us.

As evening came on and the clouds turned pink, the cockatoos cried harshly; the play darkened with the sky. Deceit, betrayal, injustice, false honor, false shame, false pride — then, at last, the slow, sick realization of error and the frantic need to put things right. And the incomprehensible, unlooked-for, miraculous second chance. This was no frivolous evening's entertainment.

Seeing Much Ado About Nothing like this — performed outdoors, simply and skillfully, watched with friends and good food and good wine — is the way it ought to be.

A couple of writing-technique links

Some people reckon you shouldn't stress too much about technique; that following someone else's rules about how you should write stifles your unique voice and all that. I do not agree. I am of the opinion that not all writing is equal, and that this is not due to crystal fairy magic or mystical inborn superpowers. (Although these may be factors in a gosh-wow piece of writing, I doubt that they're the primary factors.) It's due to technique.

I could try and find these techniques out through trial and error, gushing about how I neeeeeeed to find out what works for meeeeeeeee — and yes, there's value in being true to your own voice and ideas. But why should I thrash around chaotically, hoping I stumble on something that makes my writing work, when other writers have been thrashing around for thousands of years and found out a lot already? It would be like attempting to perform sophisticated scientific research without ever bothering to take so much as an introductory science course in high school.

So here are some links to a couple of technique posts I've recently found, and found useful:

Key Conditions for Reader Suspense by John D. Brown

Writing Emotion by Carol Ryles

Do you know of any really useful technique-related links? Share them in the comments!

Hello, 2011!

Long-time readers of this blog may recall my mentioning the idea of pareidolia as an example of the human compulsion to ascribe order or meaning to what are essentially random phenomena. In other words, we are all driven to think things matter. I am no different: I see patterns and plans in the events of my life that meet at this point: the beginning of 2011, Wollongong, Australia, Earth.

Even the most skeptical cannot deny the existence of chains of events and causality. The difference comes in with an added layer of meaning: that there is a purpose behind these chains of events. Maybe not a guiding force outside of human agency per se (although I do have opinions on that matter), but certainly a chance to bring meaning to them. To make them mean something.

If I work on the assumption that my intention shapes the choices I make, and therefore the chains of events in my life, I start to have more of a say in what happens to me. I'm not a fan of the Law of Attraction viewpoint; I'm sure there are a lot of starving people in Ethiopia who would just love to know that they brought their sufferings onto themselves, and that if they wish hard enough, full bellies and peace will come to them. But I do know that choices are made based on intentions and core values — often unexamined, even subconscious. One's life becomes a fairly consistent expression of those values and intentions.

I'm pretty sure pretty much everyone reckons their own values and intentions are entirely praiseworthy (otherwise they wouldn't hold them). However, it's worth a thought or two, at the beginning of the year: what do I value? What do I intend to do, be, accomplish? How do I intend to approach adversity, triumph, other people? If everything in my life has led to this point, where do I want to go from here?