Homework for a Vision

THE REASON FOR WHICH I WAKE UP IN THE MORNING?

thenaturalist — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 20:37:15 +0000

Mehmet Oz, who is a heart surgeon, believes deeply that having purpose in your life is the key to good health — especially after retirement, when your cognitive health might begin to decline. Instead of treating retirement as a time to take it easy, Dr. Oz proposes a different path. In Japan they call it ikigai, which means “the reason for which we wake up in the morning.” Finding that reason for living is critical, says Dr. Oz, especially in the United States, where so much of our ikigai seems tied to our careers. He recommends identifying activities that we enjoy and that help maintain our cognitive health and suggests that the best activities combine social engagement, physical activity, and intellectual stimulation. So I guess I’m on the right track. For social engagement I meet friends for breakfast and sustain rich and various email correspondences. For physical activity I take walks here at home and in Winooski, and every once in a while Winooski motivates me to row. For intellectual stimulation, I read every issue of The New Yorker from cover to cover, and I’m also trying to develop various Web projects that involve creating searchable archives of various quotations, ideas, facts, and miscellaneous bits of information I find interesting. So I guess I’m on track, even if I do sometimes worry about what it all means, which I don’t think I’d be doing if these activities were indeed my ikigai… For homework, I think I need to explore my “reason for which I wake up in the morning”….

WEDNESDAY MAY 11, 2011

thenaturalist — Wed, 11 May 2011 20:47:04 +0000

I wonder if sadness, depression, discouragement, despair, uncertainty, self-doubt, etc. qualify as homework? I need to take more walks, longer ones and more often — starting RIGHT NOW!

SATURDAY MAY 7, 2011

thenaturalist — Sun, 08 May 2011 02:41:37 +0000

I revisited this blog today and found it interesting. I transferred several overlong and negative entries to another blog because they seemed out of place here. I intend my HOMEWORK entries to be relatively short and positive.

SUNDAY JULY 25, 2010

thenaturalist — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:49:06 +0000

I’m having a sinking spell. I’ve always considered the long walks I take a major part of my homework, but I’m bogging down in the process of posting over 30 years worth of my pocket notebook entries to the blog I call A NATURALIST’S JOURNAL. I figured if I posted all my notes to this blog, it would serve as a searchable archive of everything I’ve ever seen, heard, noticed, wondered, or thought. It would also help me remember where I was when and allow me to beam up the various trips Bob and I have taken over the years. Having spent the past few days trying to post my most recent entries, I’m exhausted and discouraged. If I can’t even post what’s current, how am I ever going to post all the years clear back to 1978? The walks themselves are the homework, but the blog-as-searchable-archive may just be a waste of time. Or maybe re-reading and posting all my old notebooks is part of my homework too….

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 13, 2009

thenaturalist — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:47:21 +0000

In a recent effort to figure out who I am, I searched my name on Google and discovered I could click on a special option that focuses on blog entries. I wanted to see if I existed in the blogosphere, so I clicked on that option and discovered that quite a few blogs have commented on my books, THE BEGINNING NATURALIST and A FIELD GUIDE TO THE FAMILIAR. It seems that several homeschoolers and a few other nature lovers have found my books useful. I was touched and moved and profoundly grateful after all these years to discover that people out there are actually using and appreciating the books I worked so hard to produce. At that point I HAD to keep searching, and a few pages later chanced upon my old LiveJournal, which I started in October 2001, kept for a grand total of eight posts, abandoned, and completely forgot. In reading my old posts I can see that my LiveJournal was my first impulse toward what has become this HOMEWORK FOR A VISION. So I guess I began my homework even before I knew I was doing it….

To see what I said in my first LiveJournal entry, which was dated October 2, 2001, CLICK HERE.

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 3, 2009

thenaturalist — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:30:04 +0000

I finally finished transferring all my NATURALIST’S ALMANAC entries from Blogger to Word Press and made a list of 12 additional entries I can add from my Web site. As I was reviewing each entry and checking the links, I was impressed at how much good information I’ve put together, and how intelligently I’ve presented it. I’m actually quite proud of myself at the moment. I have a lot more material in my files, and if I can make myself stay focused, I might even begin to feel good about this particular project. Any new research I might do would definitely qualify as the kind of intellectual homework I envisioned myself doing when I began this blog.

SUNDAY OCTOBER 25, 2009

thenaturalist — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:52:45 +0000

Sunday again. It’s almost like being back in school when I always did my homework on Sundays. Today’s homework actually began last night when I decided to reconsider this blog. I didn’t like the way it looked, so I spent some time exploring other WordPress themes. I chose a new one I haven’t used for any of my other blogs yet: Sapphire, which is attractive but doesn’t offer a full-text search. I like it because the print is dark and legible, and the bold blue header appeals to my eyes. Once I had chosen the new theme, I decided I needed to re-read my whole blog just to see if it seemed worth continuing. I discovered that I’ve produced only 28 entries in six years, which isn’t very impressive, but I didn’t see any I would delete, and I learned a bit about myself from looking at my six years worth of non-progress. I still haven’t solved the basic problems I’ve been wrestling with since I retired from writing for publication: a sense of purpose, a feeling that my work is meaningful, a desire to share what I am learning with readers who might find it interesting or useful. No way am I going back to publishing — unless maybe I decide to self-publish some short projects — but I do need to commit more time and energy to at least some of my Web projects if I’m going to rediscover a sense of purpose. Right now I’m thinking my NATURALIST’S ALMANAC has serious potential — but would challenge me with a lot of hard work if I decided to add new entries. Then there’s my NATURALIST’S COMMONPLACE, which I could develop into a small book that would explain what a commonplace is and offer maybe 100 quotations? I could also develop a companion volume called A WRITER’S COMMONPLACE, which I could give to the aspiring writers who approach me about how to proceed. Another small and manageable project would be A NATURALIST’S YEAR based on the monthly columns I wrote for an outdoor magazine many years ago. Focus. It’s all a matter of focusing on one project until I finish it, and I’m not sure I’ll ever do that again without a deadline….

MONDAY SEPTEMBER 07, 2009

thenaturalist — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:45:57 +0000

Today I decided to switch HOMEWORK FOR A VISION from Blogger, where I began it in 2003, to WordPress, where I’ve been blogging more recently. It’s another huge project that I’ve declared homework because I will learn from the process. And when I’m done, maybe I’ll post entries more often, which seems like the HOMEWORK I should be doing….

SUNDAY APRIL 12, 2009

thenaturalist — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 20:34:53 +0000

3:30 p.m. I’m in a perplex. My shoulder is bothering me so much I’ve decided I shouldn’t write longhand unless I absolutely have to, but writing longhand seems to work better than trying to word process my thoughts. Maybe I just need to focus on changing my habits? I wonder how long it would take for my shoulder to quit aching if I quit using a pen altogether? My luck, I’d probably just develop pain in a different location. Somehow I managed to produce hours and hours of drafts and manuscript on my old manual typewriter(s) — much of it at high speed — without causing any repetitive stress injuries. But my old self-taught four-finger typing style was positively aerobic compared to my stop-and-start way of word processing. Maybe with practice, I could learn to word process as speedily as I used to type? My problem with word processing is that I’m always going back to change, fix, or proofread things as I go. The name of the game when I’m writing for the fun of it is speed — keeping the words coming at the pace of my thoughts — so maybe what I need to practice is word processing as fast as I can. Then I can go back and use spell check to pick up all my careless typos and change whatever I feel like changing after the fact. So here goes several pages worth of warp speed word processing, with most of the first page already written….

3:45 p.m. So where will a word-processed speed write take me on a mopey Sunday afternoon? I’ve been depressed all day because the weather has turned cold and gray again. I want spring to come and stay. I want sun and light and warmth. I also want to live in a clean, well-lighted place — preferably that someone else attends to and keeps functioning at a high level of efficiency and convenience. Maybe I could take up residence at a well-run writers’ colony or retreat? I’m deathly tired of my own house, which keeps confronting me with more repairs that need attending to plus my own messes that I can’t seem to do anything about. Actually, I started to deal with the things on my upstairs work table and bedroom floor today, but I ran out of steam after about 15 minutes. I don’t know why I can’t even target small tasks and complete them to my satisfaction. I know I would feel better about a lot of things if I had less baggage and fewer messes confronting me everywhere I look, but I can’t seem to find a strategy that will help me do what needs to be done to get started. Maybe one small task a day? I’m not sure I can even muster that, and I’d be generating new messes faster than my small tasks would be eliminating the old ones.

I’m stuck. That’s the problem. I’m stuck in a quagmire or quicksand or what? A maze? A labyrinth? No. They would motivate movement. This thing I’m stuck in is thick and sticky. Maybe it’s the flypaper Dad used to warn me about when he lectured me on the dangers of becoming involved with nonprofits. But it’s not just my feet that are stuck. My whole body, my spirit, my energy, my life force — all are stuck. The only parts of me that can operate are my head and my hands. My other parts are totally immobilized. A spider web? No, not thick enough or heavy enough. Maybe a quagmire is the best metaphor, but I don’t even know what a quagmire is. Is it a messy swamp? A wet thicket? What does Webster’s 11th say? QUAGMIRE = n (ca. 1580) 1: soft miry land that shakes or yields under the foot 2: a difficult, precarious, or entrapping position: PREDICAMENT. Then there’s QUAG = n [origin unknown] (1589): MARSH, BOG. What about a SWAMP? Or a SLOUGH OF DESPOND? Enough etymology. Enough words. I need speed ….

4:10 p.m. So now it’s about speed, just speed — filling up the page as fast as I can no matter what I say. What, what, what is bothering me? I’ve lost my way. I can’t move because I don’t know where I’m going. Everything I attempt seems worthless, make-do, busy-making. I want to feel that my activities are meaningful, that I’m moving forward, that I’m making progress. I’m having trouble building up momentum because I still keep wanting to go back to correct typos. No more correcting, just typing and thinking and trying to follow the words that are coming but don’t know what they want to say. What is this all about? What strategy can I use to get myself moving again? What happened to my sense of purpose? My curiosity? My feeling that I was headed somewhere? Corrections, corrections, no more corrections. Do them later. Use spell check. Keep the words flowing in hopes that the thought will emerge. Language might reveal the answer if I can only let it. But it has to be in motion. Rhythm and momentum. Words, sentences, thoughts, writing my way into the unknown in order to know it. Why can’t I make it happen today? If I were writing longhand would it be any better? No. My shoulder would just be aching. Keep typing, keep the words coming. Keep it all happening until it starts working on its own. I feel all stumbly and bumbly. I keep wanting to go back and get the words right, but the right words are less important than the thoughts. No it’s not thoughts I want here, it’s INSIGHTS. What’s the difference between a good, clean clarifying thought and an insight? No more dictionary either. Just whatever I can find in my own mind. INSIGHT. Seeing in. Seeing into. Seeing inside. Seeing beyond the surface. The light bulb? The eureka moment? The A-ha? The “So that’s it”? Where do insights come from? From thinking hard enough to induce them? From relaxing the mind enough to let them happen? Who knows?

4:30: Time to start all over again. How long will it take me to get to the end of this page, which will be the end of this writing? I’ve got some speed going now but still no breakthroughs. On and on I go. Where I stop I’ll know when I know. Why can’t I use physical motion, movement at times like these? At least I’d be getting exercise. But it’s cold and gray out. I don’t feel like going out into the weather. But maybe I should make myself. I will as soon as I finish this page. I’ll suit up against the cold and wander somewhere. Wandering and wondering. That’s my practice, insofar as I have one. Is it possible to wander and wonder aerobically? What is happening to my body as it sits here writing? It isn’t getting any younger, that’s for sure. When human beings were first evolving, walking — and maybe a certain amount of climbing and running and bending down and stretching up and lifting and pushing and pulling and picking and digging and pounding and all kinds of other movements — were the name of the game. So what have I evolved into? A slug with a brain? Maybe I just need to go primitive for a bit every day. Maybe if I just start walking and see where it takes me every day, I’ll feel better. I think maybe I should dance a bit too — bounce and twist and move my feet to music. And what about body percussion? That would feel good. Am I anywhere near the end of this writing? The bottom of the page isn’t in sight yet. Insight vs.in sight. Big difference. Just a few more lines. This page was at least a little more fun than the others. I need to keep thinking about human evolution and where we went wrong. I want to backdate myself to when body, mind, and spirit were all one, all evolving together with the common goal of survival. (DONE — AND EXHAUSTED — at 4:43 p.m.)

SATURDAY DECEMBER 01, 2007

thenaturalist — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 20:55:57 +0000

Do I want to transfer the Blogger version of my HOMEWORK FOR A VISION to WordPress? I’m not sure at this point, but given how much easier WordPress is for me to navigate, I think I should. We’ll see….