So, I think I mentioned yesterday David Allen's Getting Things Done, which is apparently helping me get more blog done - it's all about goal-making, goal-achieving and goal-evaluation. I've been thinking a lot about this because I have more things I want to get done - in work, in non-work life - than I am currently doing, and maybe more than I can ever do. I am realizing lately, in a way, I have not before, that there are a limited amount of things any one person can get done in any one lifetime. As he says: "You can do anything, but not everything" (I think I've quoted this before here, but you can never hear this one enough; I always need reminding). There are, in other words, choices.
A while ago, my NYC friend Z and I were discussing this: as artists, we said, isn't it interesting, what projects we pursue? Which ones, out of many thousands we conceive, do we manage to bring to fruition? It differs for all of us, of course. Some of us want what we never achieve, and some of us do manage to produce. I can't but help think of artists, like Christo and Jean-Claude, who work years, decades, putting together temporal and spatial art that only lasts, in some cases, less than two weeks.
And in some ways, it is a choice, sure - but it does kind of seem random. Why did that project happen, and this other not? Why was I able to keep on on this thing but not that? Why the ukulele, for me, and not the guitar? Why this blog, but not a website? I have ten thousand things planned, but the actual goals....
And not just artistically, but personally - I'm trying to develop those good habits, like regular exercise and healthy cooking and eating. Stretching and meditating, performing, when I can, some self-reflection or magical intention setting. And work too: work is all about goal setting. This is how I am measured. My bonus is tied directly to my quarterly goals achievement. So, trust me, goals are uppermost in my mind, and pressing ever more closely. These days, I am constantly thinking about all the Big Questions and Direction of My Life, and going deeply into Figuring Out What I Want to Be When I Grow Up.
And then, this morning my Rob Brezsny horoscope showed up in my email, and, not surprisingly, it could not have been more relevant (full disclosure: I've been reading Rob's stuff for years, but just met him on Saturday, so this horoscope felt especially personally directed):
"In the absence of clearly-defined goals," said Cancerian writer Robert Heinlein, "we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it." If this description is even a partial match for the life you're living, now is an excellent time to address the problem. You have far more power than usual to identify and define worthy goals -- both the short-term and long-term variety. If you take advantage of this opportunity, you will find a better use for the energy that's currently locked up in your enslavement to daily trivia.
Well! You don't have to hit me over the head! I get it already!
And yet....it isn't so simple. What is daily trivia? It's not as easy to define as one thinks, since these larger world events have begun to play a prominent role, I think, in any sort of personal questioning and life examination. Witness that revolution in Egypt - not to mention all the other countries; do we even know how many? Wait, what does Wikipedia say?
The 2010–11 Middle East and North Africa protests are an unprecedented revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests which have been taking place in the Middle East and North Africa since 18 December 2010. To date, Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have seen revolutions of historical consequence, Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Oman and Yemen have all seen major protests, and minor incidents have occurred in Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Western Sahara. The protests have shared techniques of civil resistance in sustained campaigns involving strikes, demonstrations, marches and rallies, as well as the use of social media such as Facebook and Twitter to organise, communicate, and raise awareness in the face of attempts at state repression and Internet censorship. (Amazing how inspiring even this relatively dry account of events is, isn't it?)
When such events are happening - the Middle East, Wisconsin, and now, Japan - it's hard to set personal goals. It's possible that this is the time to collectively set larger, joint goals: local, regional, national, international, planetary, galactic. David Allen says his system will work for any size organization, so why not planetary?
My point is....the news is dramatic these days. Japan suffering from earthquakes, tsunamis, a volcano and, now, nuclear explosions; what is going ON there? It's heartbreaking and shocking. And now I see news - posted on Facebook, as I see so much of my news - that there could be a radioactive cloud headed, in a few days, for the West Coast. It's not that I don't feel for the people of Japan....and I was very connected, as you know, to the Egyptians....and the Wisconsin situation, being in my OWN country, is close to my heart....
But once the reports of the possible nuclear cloud over my own city....well, that gets my attention in a real way. Or maybe it's just all the culmination of all of these events. I interviewed someone today and noted she'd written 3/15/2010 instead of "2011" and her response was: "Well, at least it's not 2012, when the world ends." In the light of all these recent unprecedented events, I gave her more of a serious look than I'd once imagined that sort of statement deserved. She shrugged.
But if the world is ending in a year, what am I doing there, interviewing someone? It seemed tedious. It seemed trivial. It seemed downright silly - which is odd, because I like my job. I believe in the company's mission - to change the way the world eats. Food is important, yes. And interviewing keeps the company going.
But if the world were to end in a year - which I absolutely discount (this is a theoretical discussion) - or even if the world were to change dramatically soon, am I doing the right thing? Am I in the right place? Am I contributing my own talents in the way best suited, not just to me personally, but to the world at large? Am I really listening, as the great character Frank Black from the TV show Millennium questions.
We survive, maybe. But only by discarding the questions that confuses us – what do I want – and asking what the world, what the universe wants and needs. Asking what does life itself expect of me.
This sounds...right. The character was full of wisdom; he had gravitas in spades - and gratitude. These are perhaps qualities we need, now more than ever. People are always saying the end of the world is here, saying that things now are as they never have been before. The earth is the warmest it's been, the most populated it's been, the most fill in the blank. But despite being a bit jaded, I can't but help feel something is indeed happening, something that has not happened before.
What is it? That is the question. Is it along the lines of Childhood's End, say, or Star-Trek style first contact? Is it some form of Armageddon? Or transformation - the New Age, so long promised and so long desired? Is it the One Ring on its way toward Mount Doom? Are we headed towards the Golden Age of - well, there's so many traditions of golden ages, you can pick the one closest to your own mythology.
We don't know. This is the genius of linear time, a major rule of this particular aspect of the great Game of life. We will find out. In a few days, either a radioactive cloud will or will not come. I won't say anything more, but I'm thinking it's not a bad time to pray.
A while ago, my NYC friend Z and I were discussing this: as artists, we said, isn't it interesting, what projects we pursue? Which ones, out of many thousands we conceive, do we manage to bring to fruition? It differs for all of us, of course. Some of us want what we never achieve, and some of us do manage to produce. I can't but help think of artists, like Christo and Jean-Claude, who work years, decades, putting together temporal and spatial art that only lasts, in some cases, less than two weeks.
And in some ways, it is a choice, sure - but it does kind of seem random. Why did that project happen, and this other not? Why was I able to keep on on this thing but not that? Why the ukulele, for me, and not the guitar? Why this blog, but not a website? I have ten thousand things planned, but the actual goals....
And not just artistically, but personally - I'm trying to develop those good habits, like regular exercise and healthy cooking and eating. Stretching and meditating, performing, when I can, some self-reflection or magical intention setting. And work too: work is all about goal setting. This is how I am measured. My bonus is tied directly to my quarterly goals achievement. So, trust me, goals are uppermost in my mind, and pressing ever more closely. These days, I am constantly thinking about all the Big Questions and Direction of My Life, and going deeply into Figuring Out What I Want to Be When I Grow Up.
And then, this morning my Rob Brezsny horoscope showed up in my email, and, not surprisingly, it could not have been more relevant (full disclosure: I've been reading Rob's stuff for years, but just met him on Saturday, so this horoscope felt especially personally directed):
"In the absence of clearly-defined goals," said Cancerian writer Robert Heinlein, "we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it." If this description is even a partial match for the life you're living, now is an excellent time to address the problem. You have far more power than usual to identify and define worthy goals -- both the short-term and long-term variety. If you take advantage of this opportunity, you will find a better use for the energy that's currently locked up in your enslavement to daily trivia.
Well! You don't have to hit me over the head! I get it already!
And yet....it isn't so simple. What is daily trivia? It's not as easy to define as one thinks, since these larger world events have begun to play a prominent role, I think, in any sort of personal questioning and life examination. Witness that revolution in Egypt - not to mention all the other countries; do we even know how many? Wait, what does Wikipedia say?
The 2010–11 Middle East and North Africa protests are an unprecedented revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests which have been taking place in the Middle East and North Africa since 18 December 2010. To date, Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have seen revolutions of historical consequence, Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Oman and Yemen have all seen major protests, and minor incidents have occurred in Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Western Sahara. The protests have shared techniques of civil resistance in sustained campaigns involving strikes, demonstrations, marches and rallies, as well as the use of social media such as Facebook and Twitter to organise, communicate, and raise awareness in the face of attempts at state repression and Internet censorship. (Amazing how inspiring even this relatively dry account of events is, isn't it?)
When such events are happening - the Middle East, Wisconsin, and now, Japan - it's hard to set personal goals. It's possible that this is the time to collectively set larger, joint goals: local, regional, national, international, planetary, galactic. David Allen says his system will work for any size organization, so why not planetary?
My point is....the news is dramatic these days. Japan suffering from earthquakes, tsunamis, a volcano and, now, nuclear explosions; what is going ON there? It's heartbreaking and shocking. And now I see news - posted on Facebook, as I see so much of my news - that there could be a radioactive cloud headed, in a few days, for the West Coast. It's not that I don't feel for the people of Japan....and I was very connected, as you know, to the Egyptians....and the Wisconsin situation, being in my OWN country, is close to my heart....
But once the reports of the possible nuclear cloud over my own city....well, that gets my attention in a real way. Or maybe it's just all the culmination of all of these events. I interviewed someone today and noted she'd written 3/15/2010 instead of "2011" and her response was: "Well, at least it's not 2012, when the world ends." In the light of all these recent unprecedented events, I gave her more of a serious look than I'd once imagined that sort of statement deserved. She shrugged.
But if the world is ending in a year, what am I doing there, interviewing someone? It seemed tedious. It seemed trivial. It seemed downright silly - which is odd, because I like my job. I believe in the company's mission - to change the way the world eats. Food is important, yes. And interviewing keeps the company going.
But if the world were to end in a year - which I absolutely discount (this is a theoretical discussion) - or even if the world were to change dramatically soon, am I doing the right thing? Am I in the right place? Am I contributing my own talents in the way best suited, not just to me personally, but to the world at large? Am I really listening, as the great character Frank Black from the TV show Millennium questions.
We survive, maybe. But only by discarding the questions that confuses us – what do I want – and asking what the world, what the universe wants and needs. Asking what does life itself expect of me.
This sounds...right. The character was full of wisdom; he had gravitas in spades - and gratitude. These are perhaps qualities we need, now more than ever. People are always saying the end of the world is here, saying that things now are as they never have been before. The earth is the warmest it's been, the most populated it's been, the most fill in the blank. But despite being a bit jaded, I can't but help feel something is indeed happening, something that has not happened before.
What is it? That is the question. Is it along the lines of Childhood's End, say, or Star-Trek style first contact? Is it some form of Armageddon? Or transformation - the New Age, so long promised and so long desired? Is it the One Ring on its way toward Mount Doom? Are we headed towards the Golden Age of - well, there's so many traditions of golden ages, you can pick the one closest to your own mythology.
We don't know. This is the genius of linear time, a major rule of this particular aspect of the great Game of life. We will find out. In a few days, either a radioactive cloud will or will not come. I won't say anything more, but I'm thinking it's not a bad time to pray.
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