Read and write like your life depends on it
Words to live by from Adrienne Rich (where would we be without her?):
You must write, and read, as if your life depended on it (emphasis Rich’s). That is not generally taught in school. At most as if your livelihood depended on it: the next step, the next job, grant, scholarship, professional advancement fame; no questions asked as to further meanings. And let’s face it, the lesson of the schools for a vast number of children - hence, of readers - is This is not for you.
To read as if your life depended on it would mean to let into your reading your beliefs, the swirl of your dreamlife, the physical sensations of your ordinary carnal life; and simultaneously, to allow what you’re reading to pierce routines, safe and impermeable, in which ordinary carnal life is tracked, charted, channeled.
To write as if your life depended on it: to write across the chalkboard, putting up there in public words you have dredged, sieved up from dreams, from behind screen memories, out of silence - words you have dreaded and needed in order to know you exist.
- Adrienne Rich in What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics
In a tyrannical regime, professional ethics matter more
Timothy Snyder wrote succintly On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century during the first Trump presidency. Lesson 5 reminds us that professional ethics matter more in the face of authoritarianism:
When political leaders set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become more important. It is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers, or to hold show trials without judges. Authoritarians need obedient civil servants, and concentration camp directors seek businessmen interested in cheap labor.
If lawyers had followed the norm of no execution without trial, if doctors had accepted the rule of no surgery without consent, if businessmen had endorsed the prohibition of slavery, if bureaucrats had refused to handle paperwork involving murder, then the Nazi regime would have been much harder pressed to carry out the atrocities by which we remember it.
Resilient vs divisive power
Divide, divide again and conquer.
Sexual hierarchies, we found, are always at the service of a project of domination that can sustain itself only by dividing, on a continuously renewed basis, those it intends to rule.
- Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation.
As the US votes for the 47th president today, Seth Godin reflects on power:
There’s the James Bond villian (sic) sort of power, based on division, dominance and destruction. This is the short-term power of bullies, trauma and mobs.
And then there’s a more resilient form of power. This is power based on connection, discussion and metrics. A power based in reality over the long term.
Divisive power tears things down. Resilient power builds things up.
Resilient power creates the conditions for the community to produce value over time. Resilient power uses optimism and fairness to create value because participants can see ways they can participate and contribute.
Fear might be for sale, but that doesn’t mean we have to buy it.
Better is possible.
- Seth Godin Types of Power
On Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke’s eponymous foundation, describes him as an Engineer, a Futurist and a Humanist. Clarke thought of himself as a writer, underwater explorer, space promoter and science populariser. Doubtless, Clarke was a man of many talents whose work helped shape the world we live in today.
Among his many contributions as an award-winning engineer, Clarke helped advance geostationary satellite technology for telecommunications. As a result, the International Astronomical Union named the 32,000 kilometres (22,000 miles) above the equator where satellites orbit, the Clarke Orbit. In addition, Clarke’s correspondence with Dr Harry Wexler, the chief of the Scientific Services Division of the U.S. Weather Bureau, about satellite applications for weather forecasting, led to the use of rockets and satellites for meteorological research.
Clarke was a writer of science fiction and non-fiction. In his collection of essays, Profiles of the Future published in 1962, Clarke made many accurate (and wrong) predictions about the future of technology and space science.
His vision of communications in the five decades to come was uncannily accurate. When he turned out not to be right, it isn’t clear that he was altogether wrong… And even when he got the big picture wrong, he was often spot on with the details. He mildly observed that the first astronauts would need to be scholar-scientist-engineers as well as courageous pioneer-explorers. He was right about that, but wrong (so far) about settlements on Mars and Venus.
- Tim Radford, Profiles of the Future by Arthur C Clarke — review
Clarke proffered the so called Clarke’s 3 laws about the nature of technology and discovery, the third of which is probably the best known and most widely cited. They are:
- When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
- The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
- Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future (1962)
Clarke co-wrote the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey with Stanley Kubrick, which was inspired by a number of Clarke’s short stories.
Clarke was also a teacher and broadcaster who popularised science and tried to make it accessible to everyone. He was interested in how humans relate to the natural world. Clarke was concerned about the kind of natural legacy we would leave future generations, and advocated for the move away from fossil fuels.
… we have a situation in which millions of vehicles, each a miracle of (often unnecessary) complication, are hurtling in all directions under the impulse of anything up to two hundred horsepower. Many of them are the size of small houses and contain a couple of tons of sophisticated alloys — yet often carry a single passenger. They can travel at a hundred miles an hour, but are lucky if they average forty. In one lifetime they have consumed more irreplaceable fuel than has been used in the whole previous history of mankind. The roads to support them, inadequate though they are, cost as much as a small war; the analogy is a good one, for the casualties are on the same scale.
- Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future (1962)
Clarke understood that it would take transnational cooperation to solve our common problems. On is 90th birthday, Clarke recorded a video in which he said:
I would like to see us kick our current addiction to oil, and adopt clean energy sources. … Climate change has now added a new sense of urgency. Our civilisation depends on energy, but we can’t allow oil and coal to slowly bake our planet…
Clarke was born in Somerset on 16th December 1917, and lived in Sri Lanka for 52 years. During his time there, Clarke was interested in diving, until post-polio syndrome bound him to a wheel chair. He died on 19th March 2008 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, aged 90, where he’s buried with his Sri Lankan partner Leslie Ekanayake. Of his many contributions, writing is what Clarke wished to be remembered for:
I’m sometimes asked how I would like to be remembered. I’ve had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer, space promoter and science populariser. Of all these, I want to be remembered most as a writer - one who entertained readers, and, hopefully, stretched their imagination as well.
- Arthur C. Clarke: 90th Birthday Reflections (YouTube), at 7.28 mins, accessed November 2024
10 Supportive behaviours to help with writing
Talking about some of the reasons why I previously failed to keep up my blogging habit, got me thinking about what I could do to support myself this time round. Here are some things that might ensure that I stay productive:
1. Safety
“Creativity flourishes when we have a sense of safety and self-acceptance”
- Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
Finding a place you feel safe and relaxed enough to be fully yourself, is essential. Self-acceptance can be a harder nut to crack and there are no tricks to this. You simply need accept yourself with all your strong points and imperfections. Because, you know, you’re only human.
2. A specific place to write
I tend to write at my desk. Sitting there sends a signal to my brain that we’re about to get down to business.
I’ve set my desk up to cater to my own comfort and preferences. It’s a vast improvement on when I used to have a job where hot desking was the norm. It gives me immense pleasure to be there, which is just as well, as I spend more time at my desk than I do anywhere else, other than in bed. It’s probably one of my favourite places on earth.
3. Active rest
It’s important to do the kind of leisure activities that free your thoughts to rise to the surface. Walking, for example, has worked wonders for many a writer, including this one. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as it allows you to hear your inner voice.
Other example activities include: gaming, knitting, fishing, whittling and so on. Basically anything that doesn’t involve words or using your brain to think too hard. Let your thoughts roam free.
4. Sleep
Good sleep is essential. It allows both mind and body to rest. Your brain, finally free not to pay attention, can integrate thought and make connections. Personally, I work best on 8 hours minimum.
5. Silence
I find silence congenial. Writing in silence helps me focus deeply.
6. Exercise
It’s important to preserve and strengthen the body that houses the mind.
7. Reading widely
Creativity is about connecting disparate ideas. To connect ideas, you need to have them in the first place, from as many different sources as you can manage. For me that’s reading, listening and watching. A wide range of information sources, within and beyond your areas of interest, will give you fodder for writing.
8. Solitude
Time alone is essential. especially for over-stimulated introverts. It allows one the space to think and recuperate.
9. Support
You need people in your corner. It need not be a crowd. One or two people to cheer you on whenever you’re flagging, will do.
These can be people you know, or part of a virtual community. I find that it encouraging to read people engaged in the same enterprise as me. It makes me feel less alone. If they can keep going, then so can I.
10. Show up
It goes without saying that if you don’t sit down to write, nothing will get written.
Some lessons from learning to touch type as an adult
One of my goals for restarting my blogging habit, was to improve my typing speed. I first learnt to touch type as an adult only last year. Previously, I didn’t need to type much, so I stuck with seek and peck for years, as I was comfortable with 35wpm using only 4 fingers. I started spending more time at the keyboard and realised that I could save myself a tremendous amount of time if I learnt how to touch type.
The biggest challenge was that beginning period, when my touch typing was slower than my seek and peck speed. But I was motivated to get through that phase, as I knew my touch typing speed could only get faster. My current speed is 40 wpm which is just about passable. I’m building on that.
Here are some thoughts from my experience of learning to touch type so far.
Practice, practice, practice
It’s obvious, but daily practice will help you improve. You don’t need huge swathes of time. I’m currently doing 15 minutes a day and I’ve seen significant improvement, as it’s building a very good imprint of the keyboard in my brain.
When I started learning how to touch type, I stopped practicing consistently, once I got up to the same speed I had been at with seek and peck. This was a bad idea, as I stagnated. It couldn’t be helped, as work became intense and I had no spare brain space even for this. That’s my excuse. But I am now back to daily practice and I am aiming to build my speed up further to the 75wpm region. Learn from my error, don’t stop, keep practicing.
Aim for accuracy, not speed
I know you want to go faster. That’s the whole point, right? But I’ve learnt that, slow is fast. I’m always desperate to fly across the keyboard, especially as, until I build up my speed, my thoughts are faster than I type. It’s frustrating. I get it. However, the faster I try to type, the more mistakes I make.
Whereas, when I’m more deliberate, it feels slower, but it’s quicker in reality, because I’m not hitting the backspace key constantly to correct typos.
The ubiquitous advice I read online about focusing on accuracy over speed, was spot on.
Be patient
You will be slow before you are fast. There’s no way around this, so be patient with yourself. I found learning to type as an adult frustrating, and if I’m being honest, a little boring at the beginning.
When you’re used to typing fast, by seek and peck, it is very frustrating to go back to being slow. Hang it there. It gets much easier once you begin to progress. It also becomes fun. Once your typing is accurate, it is much easier to build up speed.
Keep your finger movements small
Try not to move your fingers and hands across the keyboard too much. It makes for more efficient and quicker typing.
Stiff fingers
Initially, my fingers felt as stiff and unwieldy as frozen sausages. As time went by, and with more practice, they became nimble. Just keep typing.
Use keyboard shortcuts
I try to use keyboard shortcuts without looking down at the keyboard. Aim to use all keys without looking down. Efficiency makes you a quicker typist.
Pace yourself
Don’t overdo it, else you’ll find the process punishing. I found it very tiring when I first started typing. It’s better to practice for say 15 minutes a day than to binge with two hours and do nothing for a while. Short, regular and consistent practice is best.
Experiment with apps
You may need to use more than one app to help you learn and practice. I used TypingTest.com and EdClub.com concurrently at the beginning. I’ve now added monkeytype.com and keybr.com.
I also dabble in TypeLit.io, where you can type classic books. It sounds like a good idea to type and read - two birds, one stone. But my experience is that I get so focused on typing, that the meaning of the text falls away.
Free sites abound that can help you learn how to type. They all have something different to offer, so find the one(s) that works for you.
Music might help
This one will only suit some people, but I found that music reduced my resistance in the early days. I dispensed with it as soon as I started having fun.
Scream If you want to go faster!
I really enjoy typing these days. As I improved, I began to love typing. I still enjoy observing my progress.
I was surprised by how much time I saved by being a faster typist. I find it endlessly rewarding when my documents come out tidy and already formatted, which makes it easier to make corrections.
I like being able to look at my work on screen as I progress, instead of staring down an my keyboard and developing neck strain. Side note: The irony is, before I learnt how to touch type, I bought an expensive keyboard with RGB lights, because amongst other things, I liked the colours. Now, I hardly ever look at it. I still love my RGB keyboard though, it was a good purchase.
Conclusion
Learning to touch type is tedious at the beginning, but if you persevere, it’s totally worth it. Not only does it save you time in the long run, it also makes work easier, faster and increases productivity. My only regret is that I waited so long, before I learnt how to. But, better late than never. Keep practicing. You’ve totally got this.