I've learned to maintain wish lists for books, DVDs, apps, etc., that I definitely want but which I wouldn't use right away. If I buy something upon first craving, it will most likely sit around unused, while if I wait until it's needful, the price will often have dropped (especially on the second-hand market).
I'm a fan of DVDpedia, CDpedia, and Bookpedia from Bruji, great software for Mac that lets you catalog both libraries and wishlists.
The purchase impulse can easily unhook from actual needfulness, and wish lists act as a release valve to get back into sync. A wish-listed book I eagerly want to read (once I get through 30 others!) doesn't feel lost. It's merely queued in a pre-sale state. It feels like it's in my ownership, just not yet in my possession.
I very rarely buy the stuff on my wishlists (unless I find something super-cheap), so it's a perfectly effective release valve. Terrific books/music/films are terrific, so it would pain me to deny myself. But this is not self-denial, it's just queueing in pre-sale! I'm waiting for the right moment or for a great deal...perhaps forever. It feels cheerful.
I do the same with long online articles, which get queued to Instapaper or Pocket, aka Read It Later.
I've always argued in my head a lot, especially while on hiatus from meditation. It's a writer thing; I'm always plotting expression on all fronts. And last year I tried an experiment. When someone annoys me, and I found that I've mentally played forward the conversation to craft a response to the imagined next line, I actually write out that response...and stow it away.
It helps me to write everything out, hence this Slog. The creative impulse is not playful delight so much as feverish compulsion...at least if you're doing it right. The creative flow is a magical thing but it is, alas, never optional. Be careful what you wish for!
While it would be daft to actually shoot off a snappy reply to a statement that has not yet been made, it gives me a sense of security to know it's ready. So perhaps once per week I'll queue such a response, and it's like a release valve. But here's the thing: I have yet to send even a single one.
When annoying conversations continue, they never go in the direction I'd imagined (my intuition is quite good, but in this one context it fails me utterly), so these pre-prepared missives remain stillborn. Occasionally I browse through with a sense of horror, beholding a pathetic litany of sputtering exasperation. My shadow self on full display! Meanwhile, my actual replies surprise me with their temperateness. It's not self-restraint, it's just that Real World me is different from Fantasy Imagination World me. In the Real World, I'm not the egotistical center, and a person is a real person.
I cringe at the seeming madness, but have come to realize that it isn't crazy, it's progress. A great many people - including many who've glued a thin veneer of simulated moderation over their seething toxicity - never leave Fantasy Imagination World. That's all there is. Everything's always about them, and other people are mere objects. I seem to be describing narcissism, but if you add in the sane-seeming veneer-gluers and self-deluded mask wearers, this is a huge swath of the population (though obviously not you!).
A personal trainer friend once confided to me that while he can run like a demon on a treadmill, whenever he dashes to catch a bus he winds up huffing and puffing. And though he can easily perform many sets with heavy weights, he's sore for days whenever he helps friends move.
I do an hour of fast, steep hill walking every day. 53 minutes, to be exact. It gets easier every week, but if I try to walk for 58 minutes, I transform into a whiny loser, wheezing and sweating. And, strangest of all, my 58 minute performance is not the slightest bit better than it was months ago, when I found 53 minutes tough.
The other side of the coin: some time ago a friend who's in phenomenal shape (vastly better than me) visited and came along for my hill walk. He struggled to keep up.
Training is way, way more specific than we realize.
You know how your car's "empty tank" light illuminates while you still have several gallons left? It's a sensible precaution. But it appears that the human "empty tank" illuminates when 95% of its reserves remain untouched.
I'm a fan of "The Race Across America", an ultramarathon bike race (there are two movies - both good - available as a package deal here). It stretches from Santa Monica, California to Manhattan, and there's very little stopping or sleeping.
You obviously can't train for this race - how would one train to bike 3,000 miles continuously? - so it'd be only mild exaggeration to say that an Olympic athlete has little advantage over a shlumpf like me. The athlete would feel utterly defeated halfway over the Rockies with thousands of miles still to go, while I'd lose it halfway up the first mountain...with thousands of miles still to go. The question - the only question - of this race is: what happens when you've got absolutely nothing left and still must pedal for days and days and days and days?
Everyone who finishes reports the same epiphany: at the moment when you're certain you have nothing left, you actually have thousands and thousands of miles left. I find this incredibly inspiring.
Whoops, I see that I wrote about Race Across America one before, along with some great links.
I wrote last week about "Hitting the Bullseye", a discussion of the psychology behind shooting basketballs and similar win/lose activities. Anyone who's ever worked on this sort of thing knows that the only helpful thing to do with one's mind is to quiet it down. Mind can only distract; it can't actually help.
I recognized that there was nothing my mind could do to help. Thoughts were utterly impotent; they could only comment, to no benefit. Nothing helpful comes from the mind; all calculation is inherently miscalculation. You must train your body to take the action, and otherwise relax and let it quietly happen. Less mental chatter means less distraction.
Slog regular Richard Stanford left this comment:
This post reminded me of something that I feel to be true (yet have no real proof of), mainly the key characteristic that I've found over the years between people who are successful at making a life change (diet, smoking, etc) and those who aren't. The former decide positively to make the change, while the latter feel and know absolutely that they should make the change. Turns out that the art of making the active decision made all the difference in the world.
...and here’s a lightly improved version of my reply:
Yes, but you're offloading all the good stuff onto an extremely fuzzy word: "decide".
For most people, a decision is a thought. And while thought is useful for performing calculation, it's absolutely unable to affect (much less spur) action. All the platitudes and notions in the world can't do a damned thing. As I said in my posting, thought is commentary, nothing more. When we issue a mental command to ourselves, and then carry it out, we imagine that’s cause/effect. But it’s not. The body girds to act before the mind hastily gives the order ("I meant to do that!!"). When, by coincidence, thought and action align, we feel satisfied. When they don't, we feel stressed (see this).
A few years ago, I was about to fall asleep and realized I'd left the back door wide open. The problem was that next to that door lurked a bag of freshly baked cookies I'd managed to avoid all night. So I told myself I'd 1. go close the door, and 2. wouldn't eat the cookies. I headed downstairs, closed the door, and ate the cookies. Every last one of them.
My mind's "decision" had nothing to do with any of it. The door needed shutting regardless of mental resolutions. My body simply did what needed doing, though my mind feebly took credit. And my body ate the cookies, because that, too, seemed needful. The mental narrator gnashed his teeth, re-experiencing yet again the horrible truth: it only pretends to be in control. It's a laughable pretension.
So how do you actually make life changes? When something becomes needful - i.e. grabs your attention as something needing to be done. We rarely obey mental orders, but we do - for better or worse - respond to needs. It must be a visceral need, not an intellectual "want". You can't think your way to action, much less change. That should be obvious.
After I had a stent inserted into my heart, my cardiologist said the way to regain confidence in my heart - to feel healthy and strong rather than sick and victimized - was to go whole hog with cardio. Suddenly, I found I had the initiative to walk up steep hills, miles at a time, day after day after day. This "decision" preceded any conscious decisionmaking process.
Unlike previous resolutions to get in shape, it worked! Friends inviting me over for lasagna? Sorry, I've gotta walk. Twisted my ankle? Fuck it, I'll walk on bloody stumps if I have to. I walked and I walked, and I aced my stress test a month later. The nurse said it felt like a locomotive was in the room (I wrote about it here).
When we become accustomed to responding unflinchingly to benevolent needs (i.e. choosing not to inhibit our natural response via distracting mental chatter), the reflex strengthens. That's how we develop faculties like character and commitment. But people who haven't recognized the flimsy impotence of their mental thought stream never learn to trust their innate need/fulfillment response. They just keep endlessly telling themselves stuff.
“Deciding” only works when the decision is made for you, much as creativity only works when inspiration strikes from beyond conscious thought. You always know, viscerally, when such a turn is being taken. There’s a certain moment when it becomes inevitable. But the news doesn't arrive via a chatty mental ticker tape. It's deeper. And as for the mysterious decisionmaking process, it’s as opaque to us as the mysterious inspiration process. It stems not from a thought, but from a reframing of perspective, which is a whole other thing.
This explains why most people don't do anything. Thinking it is not doing it!
Three Slog readers this week separately told me they needed to reread a posting. They were apologetic, figuring they're slow on the uptake.
Not at all. Slog postings are intentionally designed to reward - and even require - multiple re-readings. See those "Popular Entries" listed on the extreme left side of the page? I've read each of them a dozen or more times, myself. And I wrote them!
I understand the appeal of disposable snippets of leisure reading. I, too, consume plenty of that (and, for years, produced it). It confirms what we already believe, or offers new detail in topics of interest. But how much of it is surprising? The same ideas are endlessly re-churned.
Here, I aim to offer mostly new ideas. Not cleverly rebundled same-old, but unique takes you won't find elsewhere, and which may prompt you to reframe your perspective. That's my proposition; my shtick.
(It's not that every thought in my head is original; it's just that I don't post anything that isn't. I have plenty of conventional ideas and opinions, but can't imagine why you'd want want to hear me repeat what everyone else says. We live in a world where seven billion people say about forty seven things. It bores me, and I don't want to bore you.)
These postings are cognitive lozenges which, by design, impede speedy absorption (by, for example, forcing you to unpack phrases like "cognitive lozenges"). The ideas that absorb me are counterintuitive and nuanced, and while I always leave a breadcrumb trail, I choose not to spoon-feed (having worked as a professional spoon-feeder for years). I want you to work it all through, as I have, and maybe go further than I could.
For example, I would never expect anyone to completely grok "Marilyn" Syndrome on first reading. While confirmation bias swallows readily, surprising observations can't be hastily gulped. So if you find yourself retracing, that doesn't reflect on your smarts. Nor does it mean I'm eccentric or needlessly obscure...or that I've failed to be clear. This is what I'm aiming for!
We are accustomed to writers pre-masticating their stuff into a slurpy paste for instant digestion. That treatment works for conventional notions, but, again: Surprising observations can't be hastily gulped. If you're gulping, you're not grokking!
I read super slowly. Like "slow child" slow, even with the most conventional writing. I've tried speed reading classes, but it dawned on me that they were training me to reflect less; to abandon my entire purpose for reading in the first place. Writing that's so gussied up that it deserves to be skimmed is bad writing that doesn’t deserve to be read. If I'm trying to get through a piece of reading as swiftly as possible, with the least effort and commitment, then why exactly am I reading? I don't get it!
Efficiency has become so paramount that we've lost our original purpose for doing the things we do. We breathlessly await the train, then, once aboard, we can hardly wait for our stop. When do we finally arrive at the destination we've been hustling all our lives to reach? Why not now?
If any of you are still holding shares of SIGA (the Smallpox/Animalpox/Weaponized-Smallpox wonder antiviral - not vaccine - which I first recommended at $3.50, and shot to $15, pulled back to the $2s and is now hovering in the $7s), here's an update:
SIGA will never be, like, Pfizer. There will never be a brisk, broad-revenue trade in smallpox antivirals. There’s likely some boffo revenue ahead, but I’d be astonished if there were more than a dozen individual events in all. Probably way less.
So it’s a game of baked-in expectations, "selling the news" (e.g. FDA approval a few weeks ago didn’t do much for us, though it did rise in anticipation), and tons of shorting and other manipulation. All of which continue to spook the bejesus out of me.
I’ve decided that all that matters is having new revenue on horizon. Not benchmarks, not news, not investor exuberance, but hard revenue. When such prospects appear, the stock price rises in expectation, then usually snaps back fast after they're fulfilled - if (and only if) there’s nothing new on horizon. The reason we’ve remained in $6s/7s so long lately is the large government (BARDA) contract that’s been on horizon for several months. Once that's awarded, if there are no tangible new revenue events ahead, look out!
So, again: scary.
The good news re: that new BARDA contract is that SIGA seems sure to score (though who knows what shenanigans may ensue, with Congressmen still permitted to short stocks). Pricing is still uncertain. But, per above, if there’s nothing else serious brewing at the time of that award announcement, it may be be very hard to exit anywhere near peak. A fast up-and-down. So it might not be dumb to set a limit sell order at $10-15.
Aside from the BARDA award, here’s potential revenue:
Benchmark payments
More revenue gets released from their old BARDA contract as they hit certain benchmarks, e.g. FDA approval (which just happened)
Replenishment contracts
Like all drugs, this expires and must be restockpiled
These two are healthy but not huge, and I believe they’re largely baked in (a third is alternative formulations, a realm I don't completely understand, and consider a mere "kicker"). That leaves, in terms of future revenue, a few faith-based prospects:
Foreign Orders
SIGA investors have been waiting for foreign orders (including W.H.O.) for years. It’s true that foreign govs may have been awaiting the signal of FDA approval, but that’s come and gone with no foreign news. OTOH, SIGA’s notoriously tight-lipped, so we may hear nothing until a sale actually gets booked. I'm not banking on this, and the market clearly is not, either. Yes, South Korea and Israel and many more would be smart to stockpile this drug. Similarly, Betamax was a way smarter format than VCR.
Pipeline
Diehard SIGA investors still hold hopes re: the pipeline of in-progress drug candidates. SIGA had years and years and years to work on these while its smallpox drug was caught in legal/legislative quagmires, and they had the money for it, too (from the big BARDA order), but nothing happened. In fact, several years ago they tried to sell the entire pipeline outright...but nobody went for it, which I took as a bad sign (though there was one sleepy licensing deal we haven’t heard much about). In my mind, the pipeline should be entirely disregarded.
Acquisition
Idunno. If big pharma wanted SIGA’s drug or tech, they could have bought the company cheap a couple years ago. Which doesn’t mean it’s out of the question now that the legal cloud’s finally been dispelled. But I’m not banking on it (and I’m not sure it would bring us a huge premium, anyway).
If something juicy appears on horizon before the BARDA award announcement, that could keep the price up for a while. If not, I’ll expect a fast up/down upon that announcement, followed by an uncertain, becalmed wait for something new. I don’t want to be holding this stock in that scenario. So I’ve set a limit sell order, and will raise or cancel it if I hear anything new/exciting before contract is announced.
Everyone's the hero of their own story. We know this intellectually, but it's seldom really baked in. It's always surprising to discover that the bad guys think they're the good guys. Most surprising of all is the discovery that you're actually the bad guy! It's helpful to be aware of this, but that awareness comes at a price.
Remember Marilyn? She was the healthy, "normal" family member in "The Munsters" TV series, and I hereby name a psychological syndrome after her: "Marilyn" Syndrome.
If you're ever forced to engage with several psychological monsters (narcissists, psychopaths, borderlines, etc.) at a time, you'll feel like the Marilyn. But if you're sensitive and aware, an insight will arise: the others think they're the Marilyn, too. Monsters recoil from monsters because they don’t acknowledge their own monstrousness. They feel just like you do. And this can get super confusing.
They won't view you as a Marilyn - at least not for long. Your first sin will be to reveal - however subtly - that you find them monstrous. This makes you the monster. Then, at some point, you'll refuse to enable or fulfill their dysfunctional needs, making you the worst monster ever. As I once wrote:
From the perspective of a control freak, anyone resisting their control appears to be trying to control them.
Once again: your instinctive reaction will be "I'm the Marilyn," and your first insight will be "They all think they're the Marilyn." After that a second insight arises for anyone with a shred of self-awareness and intellectual honesty (which is to say, it's pretty rare): Perhaps you really are a monster.
After all, if monsters always think they're Marilyns, and you think you're Marilyn, and the others consider you a Monster, then you may very well be deluding yourself, just as they do.
It may be true! Again, recoiling from monsters doesn’t make you a Marilyn! But for genuine Marilyns, this is the worst sort of gas lighting. It's savagely destructive, psychologically. So it's essential to know how to tell whether you're monster or Marilyn.
Simple answer: The monsters, who believe they're Marilyns, rarely have insight #1 ("Monsters always think they're Marilyns"), and never, ever have insight #2 ("I may be a monster"). By even questioning yourself (in a sustained and penetrating way), you've proven yourself a bona fide Marilyn.
If you wonder whether you're overly selfish, don't worry too much. That's what generous people wonder. Selfish people wonder if they're too generous.
The gaslighting isn't all bad. It presents an excuse to confront your monstrousness (there are no pure Marilyns; we all have at least a seed of horrendousness). If you're stout-hearted enough to face this fact with courage and diligence, the self-doubt can impel you to step up your game, purify your motives, and fortify your character, even if you were pretty cool to begin with.
"Dude studies with Bill Watrous!" marveled Erich, the worldly and ordinarily cynical sixth grader trombone section leader in my elementary school's concert band. "Dude" was a hotshot player from a nearby middle school. For Erich to be so envious of another trombone student - when he, himself, had lived so large and seen so much - was nearly inconceivable to me. I'd never heard of Bill Watrous, but kids at that age imprint instantly. Bill Watrous, whoever he was, was definitely the bomb.
Erich was impeccably tapped in, as always. Watrous, at the time, was the hottest name in trombone. He was the Elon Musk of trombone; the LeBron James of trombone. I detested his playing from the moment I first heard him a couple years later. But at that age I hadn’t developed a cohesive perspective, so I was able to hold contradictory positions. I could hate his playing while idolizing his status. After all, we’re talking about Bill frickin’ Watrous here!!
Here’s how I sized him up at the time: Watrous spewed breezy streams of fast high notes in a glibly detached monotone. The effect was both laid-back and tiresome. If Axe Body Spray could play trombone, this is how it might sound. His tone was so weak (one of several compromises facilitating his bag of technical tricks) that he had to practically swallow the microphone into the bell of his horn to be heard. There was not much in the way of phrasing or expression, more just a dense packing of flurries of notes. That's it: dense note-packing.
I would take the opposite approach, cultivating a rich, fat sound which projected to the rafters. I'd swing hard and listen with utmost attention to my fellow musicians, never merely gliding over them like wallpaper. I wound up incarnating a 75 year old black man in the body of a suburban white kid.
Here's a sample of Watrous' playing:
Here, by contrast, is my hero, Slide Hampton, who also had formidable technique but who struck me as far more swinging and expressive:
Jump ahead nine years. I’m attending University of Rochester while taking classes at the associated Eastman School of Music. I still dislike Watrous’ playing, but certainly acknowledge his technique and ease. And - hah! - I am offered an opportunity to study with him for a week over the summer. I don’t know quite what to expect. Check out the early photo, above, and see if you don’t share my trepidations about his ego.
Sure enough, he showed up in a shiny Adidas track suit - like an NBA star on his off day - and a haircut straight out of Austin Powers, like some groovy modster from the 60s. A real star, baby! Yet he spoke to his students like colleagues, without a trace of condescension. And I was flabbergasted by his reaction to me.
I assumed Watrous would hate my playing as much as I detested his. I was, after all, the anti-Watrous. But, to my shock, he liked me...just as I was. He didn’t tell me to go buy a smaller horn, or to reign in my fat tone, or to work on cramming a jillion notes into every gap. He didn’t suggest that I take everything up two octaves, or reduce my intensity. In fact, he was far more respectful of my choices than even my most like-minded teachers, who were constantly pestering me to tone it all down.
He offered suggestions, but only to help me achieve what I was already aiming for. Watrous respected my vision, and didn't urge me to be more like him. In fact, he suggested that I tell anyone who didn't like my musical choices to go screw off. No one had ever spoken to me like that before, much less Bill frickin’ Watrous.
Watrous shook up not only my assumptions about Watrous, but about music and art, generally. In fact, I’m still processing the lesson. He told me about a trombonist whose playing style was downright lazy. Notes wouldn’t glibly propel from his horn, as with Watrous, nor did they waft out, as with me. Rather, they’d tarry and slobber, like a depleted wind-up toy. But his playing had personality, so Watrous respected and adored it.
So: what the hell had been my big problem re: Watrous' playing? Why had I been so judgemental about him? You can respect - even love - a thing even when it's not your thing. Again, I'm still processing this, many, many years later. It's a lifelong effort.
I was not making out well in music school (for reasons explained here), which stamped out clones more along the Watrous spectrum - certainly a trendier choice than my geriatric African-American inclinations. I was rejected like a slug coin. I wasn’t permitted to major in music and the illustrious top trombone professor refused to teach me, sloughing me off on the backup teacher (who I now recognize, with immense shame, was a far better player and teacher).
I told Watrous this, and he said “I know the guy. You go straight to him and tell him Watrous says to get off his lazy ass and teach you, and that it’s important.” I was grateful and flattered, but too young to understand how seldom people put themselves out there like that. He didn’t need to do this for me. It shot right by like a heady blip, but now, shortly after Watrous' death, I'm belatedly feeling a fuller appreciation.
That fall, I returned to school, delivered the message, and the haughty top-string trombone professor was dumbstruck. He knew me, slightly, as the liberal arts guy who sloppily dabbled a bit in music. I was a dilettante, unworthy of his time or attention, yet here I was, bearing a directive from Jesus Christ himself. The poor fellow just couldn’t reconcile it. It really messed him up.
This was the first of many times where I would uncomfortably witness the real time shock of someone who'd severely underrated me getting The News. At age 55, it still happens. An old pal, who'd missed the Chowhound period and never really accepted that his goofy musician friend had ever done anything significant, recently reported, dumbfounded, that a food-loving colleague had turned giddy upon learning that he knew me. It doesn't happen often; just enough to keep me awkwardly disoriented.
Thankfully, the top teacher didn’t wind up teaching me after all, and I stayed with the good guy....who was neither important nor famous, but who offered a rare direct link to the late great Remington - hallowed be his name - who was a titanic influence on all my previous teachers. While Top Guy was an egotist whose playing lacked soul, my guy was warmly caring and a truly great player. Exactly the teacher for me, despite my foolish angling to get with Top Guy.
I'd gotten lucky. The haughty local capo was interested in turning out clones (and correctly sensed that I’d never submit), even though Bill Watrous, the capo di tutti capi, saw more deeply.
I’ve seen this pattern repeat constantly; the pack is inevitably smaller-minded than the top dog. I hung around a lot in Jamaica Queens in the late 80s with the guys who were developing hiphop by day and playing jazz by night. The scene included a contingent of very “militant” black Muslims who didn’t like white guys much, and they gave me the serious cold shoulder. Their spiritual mentor was an elderly trombonist who I heard a lot about, and who I expected to be as harsh as the surface of Venus, one Hassan Hakim (father of famed drummer Omar Hakim). But when I finally met Hassan, he was the sweetest guy ever and we became instant best friends, going out all the time to sit in with local rhythm sections. Hassan, who was in his 80s at the time, had little technique, but I hung on every swinging, uplifting note like a gift from Heaven. His followers, who hadn't suffered a fraction of the persecution, poverty and Jim Crow that he had, had sadly misinterpreted his perfectly admirable urgings to cultivate backbone, dignity and self-respect.
When you finally meet the top dog, it's always different.
I'd shallowly idolized Watrous' celebrity while stupidly disdaining his playing. I should have admired his abilities and embraced his originality - however different from my own choices - just as he'd embraced mine. As for the celebrity and status, none of that should ever have been a thing. He’d knocked himself out for me, and I was the furthest thing from a celebrity. So, again, what was my problem?
I’d made assumptions about Watrous’ arrogance, but I was the arrogant one, disrespecting an influential master who respected me, some kid, far more than I deserved. And I'd distracted myself by chasing celebrity for celebrity's sake - twice in this tale, alone (with fortunate results in both cases, though it took years to fully purge the impulse). I should have embraced more broadly while navigating my own course more narrowly and thoughtfully. Instead, I was backwards in both aspects, turning into a judgmental, status-conscious little snot who let himself be distracted from the only thing that matters: the music. I‘d thought I was more "musical" than Bill Watrous. Ha!
I was really sorry to see you go, Bill. Thanks for teaching me so much, even if not one iota of it was about trombone. Also: you played your ass off. You were absolutely the best Bill Watrous ever!
As a kid I spent afternoons practicing basketball shots. As a precociously serious yogi, I was concentrating on the inner process, sensing how fear and neediness and uncertainty could undermine the shot.
I recognized that there was nothing my mind could do to help. Thoughts were utterly impotent; they could only comment, to no benefit. Nothing helpful comes from the mind; all calculation is inherently miscalculation. You must train your body to take the action, and otherwise relax and let it quietly happen. Less mental chatter means less distraction.
Pretty good stuff for a nine year old, yet I never became a great player. I was the guy who made shots that spun around the rim a half dozen times before drooping down the wrong way. Same for bowling, putt-putt golf, and every sport or repetitive physical activity. I was always a "B", never an "A".
My latest computer game addiction is Fallout Shelter, which I play on iPad (App Store link). Part of the game involves a coordination task that requires touching the screen the moment a rhythmically oscillating series of lights forms a bullseye. And I quickly figured out the trick: feel the rhythm, jab your finger along in time with the lights, and, once synchronized, simply punch the bullseye. But I usually hit a nano-moment too soon or too late. Again, a "B", not an "A".
But this time there was an epiphany. I noticed I was doing something counterproductive; something I'd always done in all sports and games. Once I've begun poking my finger at the screen (or releasing the basketball), I let the gods handle the rest. Having aimed, and quieted my mind, I figure that's it for my end. Either it works or it doesn't. Buh-bye and good luck.
So I tried something new. I did the synchronization trick, I quieted myself down, and added a new step: I also decided to hit the bullseye.
And....bullseye. Every time.
I've expressed it a bit delicately. I "decided to" hit the bullseye. You might call it self-confidence, or faith, or positive thinking, or lots of other things. I've heard it expressed by many people in many ways, but it never struck me that all they're saying is you need to decide to hit it. It's not a desire or need (though that's how some people express it, even if they reject the grunting, whiny, emotional approach I've instinctively avoided). Simply don't forget - amid all the prep and tricks and quieting down and whatever - to also hit a bullseye. Don't leave that part off the to-do list. Don't forget to also hit a bullseye!
I always entrusted basketballs to fickle winds out of a staunch distaste for over-attachment to results. That reasoning was wise, but I'd taken it too far. I was literally throwing it all away. There is an anxious, emotional, yearning sort of attachment that I'd correctly recognized as counterproductive, but there's a much lighter, merely intentional sort of attachment that's necessary. Within calm silence - blithe equanimity with whatever ensues - you still need to engage that playful sliver of an intention. It's small. It's not John McEnroe screaming at the ball. You may entirely let go of the process, but you still must drive it home.
I figured out very early that bad musicians play their instrument while good musicians play the room. I think this is the exact same move; a sense of engaged follow-through. So I already knew it, but forgot to apply it in this context. It's cursedly hard to distribute insights from one realm into all realms. In the end, little's actually hidden from us (which is why revelation so often elicits a sense of deja vu; an exclamation of "of course!"). We just get unnecessarily blinkered. The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.
