Words, Words, Words

What do you read, my lord?
Words, words, words.

When I read, I sometimes find myself gasping, “Yes, yes, that’s exactly right!” and then groping frantically in my bag for a pen so I can underline the passage. It’s as if the author and I have experienced a Vulcan mind meld, and I know precisely what he means. More rarely, others’ words become a sort of torch, a guiding light, an idea to which I find myself turning again and again in an important area of my life. My purpose today is to pinpoint and more fully explore some of those guiding lights.

“Life is not a support system for art. It’s the other way around.” – Stephen King

As I interpret this gem from the very excellent book On Writing, you are a person first, and a painter/writer/executive/teacher second. In general, your person roles – parent, spouse, child, friend – should come before your professional or creative roles. This is true even if you’re a brilliant novelist or a founding officer in a start-up company currently angling for acquisition by Facebook. This is not to say that you shouldn’t prioritize your career or your creative work or your pet passion (and lucky you if those three are the same). Simply that, if you always prioritize those things to the exclusion of yourself, your friends, and your family, you will find yourself with not much else in your life.

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” – Annie Dillard

As much as you can, fill your days with the things – the foods, the textures, the activities, the stories – and the people who you love. Cultivate contentment in your life. Don’t wait for something – your real life, your true love, your dream job, your ideal weight – to come to you. Your life will dribble by while you watch Hulu and eat Fig Newtons out of the package. This quote haunts me at odd moments, usually while I am scooping the kitty litter or sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

“Do or do not. There is no try.” – Yoda

My favorite part of the Star Wars movies is watching people – Yoda, Han, Leia, Darth Vader, the Emperor, the ewoks, the list goes on – push poor Luke around. This is probably the most heartless thing anyone ever says to him – counting even Vader’s unexpected confession. But it’s true. A sort of companion quote might be Jeremy Irons as Scar in The Lion King drawling, “Life’s not fair.” You don’t usually receive credit for trying. Your efforts are often appreciated only if they produce results. The good news is that if you want to get something done – if you need to get something done – you can almost always find a way to do it. The trick is to ruthlessly deny yourself excuses.

This is what I say to myself if it’s 3 PM and I have six assignments due before I can leave for the day. If I’ve locked myself out of the house with no keys and no phone and I have to break back in. If 46 seconds into the tattoo I realize that, Holy shit, there is no fucking way I can finish this, except if I don’t, I will have one-eighth of a griffin on my back. This was my mantra when I was competing in taekwondo, when I weighed in at 164 pounds 12 hours before I had to weigh in under 158 pounds, and knew I was going to spend the evening sitting in a sauna wearing a plastic sweatsuit. This is how I got myself out of bed at 6 AM to run in the hills before crew practice in high school. Do or do not.

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” – William Morris

Morris’s “golden rule” is the standard by which I decide what to keep and what to toss when I declutter my house. I love that the first half of the quote is viciously minimalistic: Throw away your teddy bears! Your chandelier earrings! Your old love letters! Your art, your fridge magnets, your frivolous paperweights with owls on them! But the second half is gorgeous: Morris gives us permission to cherish useless things, as long as we believe them to be beautiful. And why else would you keep something, if it were neither useful nor beautiful? You would not. Stick it in a bag and take it to Goodwill.

“Order is Heaven’s first law.” – Alexander Pope

I can certainly see why. For me – admittedly, I do have OCD – order is virtually synonymous with harmony, serenity, relaxation, convenience, productivity, and delight. I bought a new organizer for my silverware drawer and spent the weekend unnecessarily opening the drawer just to admire my own handiwork. This was two weeks ago, and the pleasure has not yet worn off. Inheriting from my mother-in-law a rolltop desk with innumerable drawers, dividers, and compartments was an experience of almost orgasmic anticipation and bliss from which – the furniture received in mid-August – I have yet to fully recover. Even for the less organizationally inclined, to impose some order on one’s home, one’s schedule, one’s silverware drawer, etc. is usually a rewarding experience. It saves you time, if nothing else, when you don’t have to spend hours rooting around for wayward shoes or misplaced keys.