photo by ImageEditor

I recently read Brian Swimme’s article, “The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos.” In it, he describes how past societies made a point to celebrate the mysteries and wonder of the universe, as a way of exploring the meaning of our existence. In contrast, he explains, modern society has pushed such questions of meaning under the umbrella of religion, and thrust the mysteries of the universe under the umbrella of science. As you can see, that leaves a pretty big gap — our search for meaning becomes disconnected from the wonders of the universe. Swimme then goes on to connect these circumstances with the culture of advertising that now shapes our youth — but that can be a whole new discussion for another time.

As an undergraduate, I took an astronomy course to fulfill one of my science requirements. One day in class, we were discussing a recent school shooting that had happened elsewhere in the U.S.; the professor was too distraught to hold a normal lecture. A student raised his hand and told the professor that, by teaching us that we all come from stardust, the professor was stripping us of all meaning. The student concluded that when we study these things instead of focusing on religion, it’s no surprise that school shootings and such violence are so common.

I was stunned.

The professor responded (very diplomatically, I might add), that in fact his intentions were quite the opposite. “When I teach about the workings of our universe, when I teach that we come of the same stuff stars are made of, I want you to share my profound awe of the universe — of our existence.” The professor had been trying to rebuild that gap between our search for meaning and the wonders of the universe.

In the past few years, I’ve picked up some natural history and science books to read at home. Carl Sagan’s The Dragons of Eden and Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, for example. I find it beautiful to read about the patterns and processes that shape the world we see, the things we touch, and even the things we imagine. Patterns that sometimes seem impossibly simple, and other times, incredibly complex. I love the things we can’t quite fathom, and the things that make impeccable sense.

This disconnect between our human existence and the wonders of the natural universe scares me a bit. I have to remind myself at times to take a few steps back. It’s not just about spending more time in the great outdoors — to consider even that we are all made of potions, with different proportions of elements, molecules, hormones, chemicals, and that somehow out of that heady mix there emerges spirit. That with all the differences existing among humans, there are connections and shared ingredients that are unquestionably strong.

What I love most about these things is that the more I learn the “answers,” the humbler and more exhilarated I become with life.

When’s the last time you tried to peer into your unconscious mind?

In my thesis on the surrealism movements in France and Latin America, I cited and explained a passage in which the “father of surrealism,” André Breton, concisely expressed the movement’s fundamental motivation:

“Je crois à la résolution future de ces deux états, en apparence si contradictoires, que sont la rêve et la réalité, en une sorte de réalité absolue, de surréalité, si l’on peut ainsi dire”(24)

[“I believe in the future resolution of these two states, dream and reality, which are seemingly so contradictory, into a kind of absolute reality, a surreality, if one may so speak” (14)]. – André Breton,  Manifeste du surréalisme [Manifesto of Surrealism]

The concept of vision being inevitably tainted by the present context – specifically, the mark of society – is precisely the limitation that the surrealists sought to overcome. Armed with poetry as their medium of choice, they struggled to discover the most potent formula for unleashing the unconscious, muted by the self and society, while striving for a surreality in which the conscious and unconscious minds possessed equal validity.*

I’m interested in loose translations of this concept in our own lives. Maybe you aren’t literally trying to give voice to your unconscious mind, but are there times when you’ve tried to see past your present context? Times when you’ve tried to shed the endless layers of memories and assumptions that shape your vision of today? These layers form who we are, but so does the process of peeling them away.

I’m striving to step out of my own context often, but it’s a constant process — I don’t think there’s an ending to be found. Sometimes we do need to be immersed in our own spaces, but it can be jarring — and important — to step out of those boxes. How does that translate in your life?

*If you can’t take the suspense and simply must see how the thesis ends, you can check it out by clicking here.

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An uncharacteristically teeny post for me, as my family is going through difficult times and I haven’t found the focus to muse here.

Walt Pascoe posted the following message on Twitter, linking to a commencement speech by David Foster Wallace. It is an excellent read that fleshes out the ideas I had hoped to touch upon in my last post, unfolded in DFW’s eloquent, evocative language. Thank you for sharing this, Walt, and I hope you all have a chance to read it.

At its best, social media – such as blogs and social networks — tells stories that empower and expose. Stories that push beyond physical boundaries and deeply ingrained assumptions, softly reminding us of our fundamental interconnections.

I’m not compelled to talk about social media at its worst, though I’m sure you can all drum up a few examples. But by highlighting the best practices in social media, perhaps more of us will work to ensure these virtues expand and become the norm.

Epic Change is a nonprofit social enterprise that recently caught my eye. Epic Change raises funds (primarily through donations), and loans these funds to organizations promoting positive change in their communities. Epic Change then facilitates loan repayment by helping these organizations create income-generating projects that tell their story and the stories of their communities. The money from loans repaid is then used to fund other organizations.

When I read this, I was intrigued to know how Epic Change would maximize the potential of storytelling. Seeing that one of the founders, Stacey Monk, actively blogs and contributes to various discussions on other blogs and Twitter, I suspected they would be aiming to make the most of these stories on both traditional and unconventional fronts.

Their pilot project is to rebuild and expand Shepherds Junior, a primary school in Arusha, Tanzania, founded by Mama Lucy Kamptoni. Shepherds Junior has begun repaying the loans by selling photos, greeting cards, and hope candles that tell stories of the schoolchildren and Mama Lucy.

But their newest project takes storytelling to the next level: Epic Change plans to build a technology lab + library at the Shepherds Junior school. They have already received 20 laptop donations with basic software. The next steps are to get the laptops to Tanzania, build the facility, and figure out how to get internet access for this remote community.

The Epic Change blog has already been posting updates they receive from Mama Lucy, but now the plan is to give the 300+ students direct access to social media and the skills to use it for storytelling. I’m quite excited about this project, and I think it’ll be fascinating to see how it unfolds.

Before I bring up some questions, I want to point you all to ideablob, a network that funds innovative business ideas. Epic Change is a finalist in their current round, which means they have a good shot at winning $10,000 to build this technology lab. If you’re excited about this project too, you can head over to ideablob to register and give Epic Change your vote. Voting ends on Sunday, May 31st.

Update: Epic Change won, and is now preparing to build the technology lab! Thank you to all of you who voted on ideablob — this is an exciting project you’ve enabled.

Now, with Epic Change in mind as an example, what ways do you envision storytelling and social media acting as forces of empowerment? What are some examples you’ve felt in your own life, or seen around the web?

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This blog post is part of Zemanta’s “Blogging For a Cause” campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about.

photo by C.P. Storm

I’ve been thinking a lot about education lately. It all started when I watched this TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” Robinson asserts that creativity in education is as important as literacy, and the current school system does not treat it as such. In fact, he says, the current school system stifles creativity.

What these things have in common you see is that kids will take a chance. If they don’t know, they‘ll have a go. Am I right? They’re not frightened of being wrong. Now I don’t mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. But what we do know is, if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original. If you’re not prepared to be wrong.

And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this, by the way — we stigmatize mistakes. And we are now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities. Picasso once said this. He said, that all children are born artists, the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up. I believe this passionately; that we don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it, or rather that we get educated out of it. So why is this?

Do Schools Kill Creativity?

When I heard this, I of course started thinking about my own schooling. I was fortunate enough to go to some pretty unconventional schools throughout my childhood. My elementary school, for example, encouraged “inventive spelling.” If you didn’t know how to spell a word for the story you were writing, you made it up — you wrote it the way you thought it should be. Now, I can’t prove any cause and effect here, but I now happen to be a top-notch speller. I’m sure that’s more due to my childhood consumption of every book I laid my hands on, but inventive spelling was great nonetheless. We actually had a class called “Rhythm” that, as far as I remember, entailed a lot of jumping and dancing around a big empty room. I also didn’t have grades until I was 10 years old, and the school I went to resided inside half the public library building.

So my schooling experience wasn’t exactly conventional, but it began to fit into certain molds as I grew older. After all, I had to get into college, didn’t I?

Robinson suggests that our schooling system would look to aliens like an entire process devoted to creating university professors. If you look at the path from high school to university and beyond, schooling and academia have become insulated, self-perpetuating ecosystems that are often irrelevant to the world outside. Luckily, there are many teachers who reach beyond that — but it is a hard system to crack.

Confessions of a Lifelong Student

Let me pause to say that I have always loved being a student. I actually was one of those people who really liked going to school. And in university, after completing a thesis my senior year, I considered going on to do a PhD in literature. But after a year and a half of giving myself space from academia, I realized that if I do go back to school, it needs to be for something relevant to the social discussions and issues I confront every day. I still adore literature, but I cannot spend six years diving ever further into the insulated academic world of literary analysis. Today I am writing my stories, exploring new territory, and diving into projects that I figure out as I go. Most importantly, I have realized how much I am learning by going at it myself.

I sat down today and thought about the most organic and fulfilling learning experiences I’ve ever had. The first four things that sprang to mind were:

- becoming fluent in Spanish

- taking a community activism training course

- learning to start my own business and build an online community

- writing my thesis

What do all these experiences have in common? I was thrown into the thick of it, and spurred to make my way.

I became fluent in Spanish by living, studying, eating and breathing in Spanish for a full year in Valencia, Spain. The community activism training course was based around actually planning and creating our own nonprofit organizations — press conference introduction and all. My business and blogging? Well, I was just trying to figure out a way to support my mobile and independent lifestyle. And the thesis, though unquestionably within academia, required me to create something huge on my own.

In all of these examples, I made tons of mistakes. None of them were irreparable, and most of them were formative in my learning experience. Being in the thick of things is one of the best ways to get rid of that fear of failure, which is how we thrive and nurture our development.

Does this mean that our education systems need to become more experiential in order to become more creative? How can classrooms embrace the fruits of failure, and redefine them as discovery? I think this should be an inspiring topic to discuss, because there is so much potential.

I encourage you all to watch Robinson’s TED talk below — aside from being brilliant, he’s also relentlessly hilarious. [If you are viewing this post in an RSS reader or e-mail, you may need to click the link to watch on YouTube].

Sir Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity?

I’m deep in the middle of a wonderful project — which I’ll tell you about soon — so I haven’t had the time to write a new post today. I would, however, like to show you 2 interviews I gave recently.

Alex Fayle, who writes at Someday Syndrome, interviewed me about motivation and pushing through rough patches.

Jessica from Curious Living interviewed me about my writing and my day-to-day in Thailand.

Take a few minutes to check out the interviews — they asked some great questions and delved into some topics I don’t usually talk about here.

Big thank you to Alex and Jessica!

photo by wonderlane

The responses you all wrote to my “Midnight Blogging from the Bathroom: Do We Have to Choose?” post were inspiring and incredibly perceptive. It felt pretty wonderful to wake up and read comments that recognized the complexity of the questions at hand, but offered encouraging advice and perspectives. I’m truly grateful to have such a supportive community here at Essential Prose… it’s what keeps me writing.

Two readers wrote their own blog posts in response to my questions. Both posts had a strong impact on me, and I’d love for all of you to take a look:

Isabel Joely Black at In These Heels? wrote “Save the World or Write Fiction?”

Matt Blair at Elsewise Media wrote “Choosing Our Work, Sowing Our Seeds”

If you haven’t joined the conversation yet, please head over to “Midnight Blogging from the Bathroom: Do We Have to Choose?” and put in your 2 cents (or a whole dollar if you please). I even added a photo to polish the post up a bit!

photo by suchitra

This is a guest post by Isabel Joely Black, who blogs at isabeljoelyblack.wordpress.com and is podcasting her novel Amnar at www.joelyblack.net. As an author working toward publication while podcasting her fiction online, Joely is the perfect person to follow up last week’s post on online publishing.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that the NYT bestseller list currently features a man who started out by podcasting his fiction to the world.

Scott Sigler is the pioneer of podiobooks, or podcasting fiction. It’s become popular enough that some established authors use it as a means to attract an audience to their work, and as I heard from a publishing contact back in October last year, the traditional publishing houses and agents are starting to pay attention to these authors.

So this is my story. I’m an author, with several unpublished manuscripts sitting waiting for that magic moment. Self-publishing has never seemed right to me, especially as I’ve come very close to deals in the past. My friends have been dying to hear the story, though, since I never shut up about Amnar and how much I love it.

As it happens, one of my friends listened to Scott Sigler’s podcast. He suggested that I try doing that, to keep the clamouring fans at bay. Finally, I wouldn’t just be talking about Amnar, I’d be putting it out there. They’d never liked the idea of it being posted on a blog because they didn’t want to read on screen — but they liked the idea of being able to listen to a podcast.

It’s like an audiobook, with extras. It’s becoming so popular that even established authors use it as a means of encouraging people to get into their work. It’s usually free, so it’s all about building up a group of listeners excited by the story, people who’d be your army and buy your book once it gets a deal.

Yet it’s also more than that. It’s not just about the story you’ve written, it’s also about you as a person. It’s a chance for you to connect with readers on a personal level. They get involved with your life, your story as you try to get yourself out there.

Amazingly enough, podcasting is really easy. Although I had somebody else do them at first, when I took over at the beginning of the year, all I had was a built-in microphone on my laptop and Garageband (which comes free with a Macbook Pro). Each podcast takes about two hours to put together, and it’s another opportunity to go over my work and get back into the world of Amnar on a new level.

The structure of the podcast is a fairly standard thing: I talk a bit to introduce the chapter, then do a little piece at the end, which I leave unedited. I add in background because the world of Amnar opens up all kinds of possibilities to talk about the detail involved. The most exciting part for me right now is the feedback, as more and more people are getting in touch to say they love what I’m doing and are excited by the story.

Of course, there are drawbacks. You have to build a website that convinces listeners to get listen to or download your work, and do just as much marketing as you would for a ‘blook’. However, there is the opportunity to do something that you might not be able to achieve with a blog. Whereas people have to enjoy reading on screen (not something I want to do with fiction, myself), listening to a podcast is something you can do on the train, the bus, on the way to work or on the way home.

I get a great deal of pleasure out of the podcast itself. I’m one of those people who likes not just writing but talking, being able to communicate using voice. While you often can’t catch a person’s tone just from words on a page or screen, you can do so much with additional sound.

Some people take really original approaches, including using actors and producing a fully dramatised version of their stories. Others do a reading with added sound effects, something I’ve experimented with over the last few weeks. It’s possible to take the story to a new level, as well as showcasing your own writing.

If you decide to do it, it will require more than just a free blog. If you have a Mac, you might well have everything you need. It takes a microphone, some editing software, and either your own website, although it is possible to get space on sites specifically designed for podcasting like Podomatic and Podiobooks. These are great places to showcase your work as you progress, and a chance to share your story as you work towards getting a deal.

Personally, I love podcasting. I love the chance to share my work in this way, and to connect with listeners. I would recommend it to anybody.

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mindmap by Austin Kleon

Reproduced paintings, like all information, have to hold their own against all the other information being continually transmitted.

Now take that quote above, and replace the word “paintings” with: ideas, stories, images, designs…

We’re talking about context here. The quote is from the first essay of John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, a classic work that explores images, visual language, and mechanical reproduction. I won’t try to boil a complex argument down to a couple sentences, but Berger was discussing how the camera transformed the way we see images — when an image can be reproduced anywhere, what you see becomes inseparable from the context in which you see it.

There are countless context shifts that will sharply affect how you view an image.

A simple caption can change an image of a girl crying into an image of a girl who has just lost her best friend in a car accident. Seeing a photo of a 19-year-old girl will bring different assumptions if it is framed on an elderly woman’s wall or in a frame on a 19-year-old boy’s desk.

I want to take this topic of context, which Austin Kleon alludes to in his marvelous mind map above in the sections “clipboards” and “blogs as curator,” and run with it.

A Level Playing Field

Berger describes the bulletin boards people often keep in their living room or office, pinning up photos, postcards, newspaper clippings, and whatever else they fancy. Berger then makes a daring statement:

On each board all the images belong to the same language and all are more or less equal within it, because they have been chosen in a highly personal way to match and express the experience of the room’s inhabitant. Logically, these boards should replace museums.

Berger is essentially saying that we should all be recognized as curators. This book was published in 1972, long before any of us were blogging, but I believe it has incredible relevance for us now.

The internet offers a level playing field in many respects. Whereas an original painting will be solemnly displayed in a museum, a reproduction of that painting can be pasted anywhere: on your wall, in your notebook or on a website. On a website, that Very Important Painting may sit next to an art student’s musings about why the color green is so important. Although that art student’s words would never be pasted beside the painting at the museum, the internet allows for, and even encourages, such juxtapositions.

This inclusive quality of the internet is one of its most endearing qualities, but it also creates problems with searching. We no longer have our vision limited to what is inside that museum, but that means that we must take on extra work as the curator. It also brings with it a slew of copyright issues, but we won’t get into those now.

Who’s Reading What You Write?

So, what does this mean for your blog? I say it should make us very curious about who is reading our blogs, where they are reading them, and when. We have this amazing opportunity to reach across endless contexts, so how do we exploit this in the best possible way?

Comments are one obvious answer. We open the mic to everyone who wants to contribute their perspectives. Links are another good example — we link to relevant articles, usually ones that support our arguments.

But how can we take this further? How can we make our blogs that much better than a museum?

I believe one key to taking it further is debate. Presenting views that oppose your own, welcoming constructive opposition — debate often serves to enhance and extend an issue.

What do you think? How else can we take advantage of these endless contexts?

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photo by extranoise

The cynic inside me perks its ears up at the phrase “personal development,” ready to scoff and jeer. That phrase conjures up visions of self-help books oozing with pats on the back and lavish declarations of self worth — the worst of the booming self-help market.

But then I realized I wasn’t being fair — there are actually smart people writing about personal development. I mean, if Aristotle and Jung’s ideas can fit in the category, it can’t be all that bad. Plus, it’s kinda hard to hate on things like enhancing self knowledge and quality of life.

Illuminated Mind, Jonathan Mead’s blog about “the less boring side of personal development,” intrigued me from the first time I stumbled upon a post. Jonathan has a decidedly atypical approach to personal development, one that resonates well with me. So when I read that he was writing an e-book to complement the blog, I signed up to be among the first to know of its launch. As soon as I bought and finished reading the book, I was certain that I wanted to review it here on Essential Prose. It touches upon many of the points I discuss on this blog, and takes those points to a new level with stimulating suggestions and questions.

Jonathan begins Reclaim Your Dreams with a prelude, rightfully wondering why we need yet another book about happiness and following your heart. His answer boils down to the need for a guide to uncommon sense, rather than the conventional words of wisdom offered in most books.

This is a treatise on freedom.

This is a declaration of authenticity,
an act of spontaneity, and a call
to live deliberately.

This is an homage to exploration
and a dedication to yourself; an
affirmation that we all have the
ability to create whatever we want.

This is a permission slip to be ridiculous.

This is an invitation to dream.

Reclaim Your Dreams is divided into two parts: Part 1 teaches us how to conquer mental obstacles — the clutter that’s crowding out our dreams. Part 2 introduces the practical solutions for actually uncovering what your dreams are, and cultivating the tools to put them into action.

Each chapter ends with an exercise and a list of points to meditate on — these exercises are extremely valuable, because they transfer the abstract ideas into tangible steps. The exercises range from broad ideas such as “get more involved in life” to specific tasks like creating a “transition budget.” Because he offers examples with each exercise, even the broader ideas are accessible.

The core ideas of this book are often reminiscent of Buddhist principles – namely, that the purpose of life is to enhance awareness to achieve happiness. Awareness, authenticity, and deliberate living are strong themes, often presented with analogies to modern life. Jonathan offers a fresh approach to the idea of presence, reminding us why we should savor the path we are exploring.

It’s the continual interest in what’s around you that cultivates presence…
That’s really the aim of living your dreams. It’s not so much about achieving a goal, although that’s part of it. What it’s really about is getting lost with joy in the journey.

Jonathan does not tread lightly — he plunges straight into the difficult questions, the ones that often go unanswered. Several times while reading this book, I had to put it aside for some time to process and meditate on the questions and ideas introduced. The funny thing is that these questions are, for the most part, incredibly simple. I’ve often asked myself what my “purpose” is, or what my dreams are — but how often have I tried to write these answers down?

Part 1

Part 1 explores our “domestication” by society’s expectations, while teaching us to reclaim ownership of our mind. Jonathan exposes how others’ words and even our own thoughts can dramatically compromise our authentic selves. The advice in Part 1, which seems counterintuitive on the surface, includes “stop caring” and “stop listening.” These are essentially calls to filter out the toxic noise of status symbols, expectations, and norms.  Jonathan suggests that we choose our beliefs wisely, as “they can be either an elevator or a cage.”

Ultimately, Part 1 aims to demonstrate how to integrate your heart and your mind — the practical and the dreams. The exercises, such as promising that you will use your mind to work with, rather than against yourself, are things that must be practiced. They are healthy habits to create.

My only complaint about this section is that the pace of the book seems to overrun the pace of the thought processes that follow. At times, it feels like Jonathan is moving too quickly — I want to process and explore that thought a bit longer! I solved this issue by putting the book down when I needed more time to think and write down ideas.

Part 2

Part 2 is about manifestation of your dreams. The chapters follow a very logical progression that takes us from figuring out what exactly our dreams are, to how you can create a life that allows your dreams to move toward actuality. Jonathan discusses how to face the unknown — which can both inspire and cripple us — and how to develop the focus necessary to live authentically.

Part 2 leads us through three vital questions:

What are your dreams?

What is your purpose?

What are your values?

These questions have been thrown around time and again, to the point that they often seem too abstract to mean anything. Jonathan makes these questions relevant by walking us through the process of answering, offering plenty of examples and surprisingly effective techniques. He puts particular significance on that last question, pointing out that “90% of living your dreams is based on how much you live in alignment with your values.”

He then introduces two exercises that are critical to the book: writing a personal manifesto, and creating your dream sanctuary. Again, the specific examples and methods described make these exercises extremely useful and accessible, rather than allowing them to float around uselessly.

Some of the suggestions and exercises will be slow to kick in. Jonathan acknowledges that many of these habits and assumptions are difficult to break, but readers should realize that there are entire books about reforming the patterns that are mentioned here. Reclaim Your Dreams is an excellent igniter that leads you through many significant actions, but those who have difficulty achieving a certain change may need to seek an additional resource.

It’s important to note that Reclaim Your Dreams is not a guide to creating a career out of your passion — though it takes several steps leading you in that direction. It is a guide to transforming your perspective and attitude on life in order to rescue your authentic self. As Jonathan points out, there are other resources covering “the next steps” that lead to making a living from what you love.

Reclaim Your Dreams can only be valuable if you are open to the possibility of challenging your assumptions and actually being honest with yourself. I am still digesting many of the words, but they left me with an incredible sense of new possibilities and insights. They also left me with a firmer grasp of what I am working toward, and how I will move forward.

This is the book to read if you’re itching for something to bring your heart back into focus. To strip you down to authenticity. To challenge your assumptions of what is possible.