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 |    My primary Writing.com blog. |
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Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics). Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:  "The Soundtrackers Group"  "Blogging Circle of Friends " "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" "JAFBG" "Take up Your Cross" Thanks for stopping by!  |
There are way too many fiction books that I still think about years later to even hope to narrow it down, so I'm going to focus the question on nonfiction books that have stayed with me over the years. I really enjoy reading nonfiction and there are definitely bits and pieces of each that I'll absorb, but the list of nonfiction books (entire ones) that really affected me and that I'm constantly revisiting is a much smaller list that includes: Caveat Emptor: The Secret Life of an American Art Forger by Ken Perenyi. In a similar vein to Kevin Mitnick's The Art of Deception about his life as a hacker, this book by Ken Perenyi is about his experiences as a very successful forger, and the amount of detail he provides about the kinds of scams that he'd pull, or the types of details that went into forging specific types of artwork was really fascinating. It's a book that I think about often when writing criminal characters in my own work, but it's also a book I think about just in terms of how captivating it was to read about the world he was a part of. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner. While they've continued the work in subsequent books and a long-running podcast, this first "Freakonomics" book, when it came out, was mind-blowing. I had never seen someone use the study of economics (something that I attempted to understand in college and was not good at  ) to explain, like, normal things. I'd always assumed that economics was some fancy study of larger market conditions that were largely divorced from people's everyday lives, and it was really cool to see these guys take those same principles and apply them to everyday situations to explain them better.Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain. I really miss Anthony Bourdain. The guy was an incredible chef, author, and culinary critic. Like Caveat Emptor above, Bourdain's book has a way of transporting the reader into the world of working in professional kitchens, and all of the chaos that surrounds that lifestyle. It's one of those jobs that is almost entirely unique and most people just would not understand or have any visibility into unless they or someone they knew worked one of those jobs. Professional kitchens sound like absolutely bonkers places to work, and this book was a real journey. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell. Overall, I've really enjoyed most of Malcolm Gladwell's books, each of which focus on a different subject, but this is the original breakthrough book and still one of the best. Similar to Freakonomics, it applies a thought process usually reserved for academics and "big picture" thinkers and applies it to everyday problems and questions that come up in people's normal lives. More than anything, it's a book about better understanding the forces that impact our world, and I always find books like that both illuminating and interesting. |
Ooh, this is a great prompt. I'm also a little conflicted because I think - for me - I would choose different years depending on whether reliving that year was purely an exercise is going through the same experiences all over again, or if it was an opportunity to change things that would then have downstream effects back in the present day. If there aren't any downstream effects, is it an opportunity to do things differently just for that one year? Hmm ... you know what? I'm going to answer all three! If I could relive one year of my life and it was purely an exercise in experiencing that year all over again, I think I would choose 1999-2000; my senior year in high school. There were so many great moments that year ... I finally felt like I was growing more confident in who I was as a person and I had a solid friend group, I finally got over a girl I had been pining over since middle school and started enjoying life (like school dances) with friends ... I discovered my passion for filmmaking through school projects where I got to make short films for the first time ... as cliche as it is to say, I'd go back to high school because I remember that as a really fun, carefree time in my life. It'd be fun to go back to that time for a bit. If I could relive one year of my life and it was a chance to live just that one year differently, I would definitely choose 2020. Even though it was during the pandemic and during the uncertain time when we were fostering the kids, and I don't love the idea of reliving either of those things, that's also the one year of overlap between us starting to foster our kids and my mom being around before she passed away. We ended up staying home and sheltering in place in our tiny little apartment because we had no idea how long the pandemic would last; we only saw my parents in person a couple of times that year, and we weren't able to be there with her when she passed. If I could live that year again and change something, I would have absolutely moved our family home so we could have all spent that last year together. I would have loved to have spent more time with my mom, given my kids more time with her, and lived somewhere that wasn't a cramped apartment for an entire year. If I could relive one year of my life and it was a chance to change the downstream course of my life, this is where it gets tricky because I love my life. I'm not sure I'd want to actively change it as much as just get a glimpse of what would be different if I had lived my life differently. Most of these are probably career related. In 2004, I was working in the financial services industry and got my first job in the entertainment industry. What if I had stayed working in financial services? In 2005, I was up for a job at Marvel but didn't get it (and it wasn't until 2016 that I made my way there through a different job); what would have happened if I had been at the company a decade earlier? In 2018, I left Marvel for another ill-fated job; what if I had stayed? In 2022, I was offered a job at Apple but I turned it down to stay at Marvel; what if I hadn't? I have a lot of "what ifs" about career choices I've made over the years. Not so many about the rest of my life, which I think turned out pretty good, all things considered. |
It's totally fitting that the Blog City prompt about procrastination is one that I left in my inbox for almost a week before getting around to writing an entry about it... I hear a lot of people say that procrastination causes them to not get anything done, and I don't think that's the case. Procrastination, to me, is the end result of some other causation, rather than an actual casual factor on its own. For example, I've procrastinated on going to the gym and losing weight, but procrastination isn't what caused my lack of progress; the procrastination and lack of progress was the result of multiple casual factors including exhaustion, over-scheduling, insufficient motivation, etc. People procrastinate for all kinds of reasons, but I think the most common ones - at least for me - are laziness, fear of failure, and poor time management and/or lack of preparation. Poor time management and/or lack of preparation is probably the most common reason why I procrastinate. I've been meaning to clean out the garage for months, but that means I have to buy a bunch of boxes and bins, I have to spend hours sorting things out, make a bunch of trips to the dump and donation sites, etc. The fact that there are multiple steps and I have to do something first in order to prepare to do the thing I actually need to do is a huge cause of procrastination. Same with other home improvement tasks like hanging pictures, repairing a small gouge in the drywall, repainting, getting a new bookcase that needs to be assembled, etc. ... if there are intermediary steps, there's a good chance I'll procrastinate until I can devote time to getting the whole thing done all at once, even though my brain knows that smaller incremental steps are possible. Of course, sometimes I'm just lazy. It's been a long week and I don't want to do the dishes right now, so I let them pile up in the sink a bit. Or I could be getting the Christmas decorations down but I'm at a really good part in my current book, so I don't want to get them right this second. A lot of procrastination is the result of times when, if I'm really being honest with myself, I just don't feel like being particular productive. And while that can certainly be a problem if the procrastination is getting to the point where it's causing problems or nothing is ever getting done, that's one thing ... but I'm also realizing as I get older that adulthood is just one never-ending to-do list, and I also think it's okay to not pack every single moment of every single day full of productivity goals. Lastly, the most insidious cause of procrastination for me, if I'm really being honest with myself, is a fear of failure. It's why I haven't written anything substantive (more than a short story, or a poem, or an essay here or there) in years. I'm afraid that the thing I write won't be very good, so I put off actually starting. Heck, I've probably put off exercising and losing eight because a part of be is afraid that I'll put in all that time and effort and I won't be happy with the results. I'm the kind of person who is used to being "pretty good" at most things, so the idea of taking something on where there's a very real possibility of failure because it's outside my comfort zone can be a leading cause of procrastination ... especially when it's paired with the "poor time management and/or lack of preparation" thing I wrote about above. It's easy to convince myself that instead of actually writing, I first need to do more prep: more research, more outlining, more listening to interviews with other writers about their process, etc. It's easy to convince myself that instead of actually going to the gym, I first need some things first: new workout clothes, a better playlist to listen to, more research about what kinds of exercises I should be focusing on. The two things I really need to stop procrastinating about are my writing and my health. I'm really hoping that I can buckle down and make some progress on both in 2025. |
To qualify for my Watch List every month, the following has to be something that I've watched that's new to me. It doesn't necessarily have to be a current show, but it can't be reruns or rewatches of something I've already seen. So if I'm including it in this list, it means this month is the first time I've watched it. I'll put "DNF" (Did Not Finish) next to anything that I stopped watching and have no immediate plans to finish. Movies  Bad Boys: Ride or Die Canary Black Dirty Harry The Hateful Eight My Old Ass Transformers One WolfsMy favorite movie this month was probably either My Old Ass or Wolfs, both of which were pretty entertaining. Aubrey Plaza was great in the former, and it was a fun take on a coming of age movie, and for the latter, it's always fun to see Brad Pitt and George Clooney in a movie together where you can just tell they're having fun. And the premise of two different fixers showing up to help get rid of a dead body was a fun premise. Transformers One was also a lot of fun and probably the best Transformers movie since the old animated one from the 1980s. The rest of the movies, though, were just kind of blah. Bad Boys: Ride or Die continued the trend of the movies in that franchise getting progressively worse, and Canary Black was an entirely forgettable spy thriller that didn't have a single story beat that hasn't been done a thousand times. Dirty Harry was incredibly dated at this point, although I can understand why it was so popular in the 1970s when it came out. And I'm finally getting around to watching Quentin Tarantino's most recent movies. I actually worked on this one back in the day but never watched the final cut. It was okay except for - like so many of Tarantino's movies - being way too long and self-indulgent. Television Agatha All Along The Day of the Jackal (Season 1) Formula One: Drive to Survive (Season 1) The Old Man (Season 2) Only Murders in the Building (Season 3) What If...? (Season 2)With the exception of the second season of The Old Man (which is really slow), I really enjoyed all the other shows I watched this month. Agatha All Along was super fun, and I finally got around to watching What If...? (Season 2) in preparation for the next season; I'm now officially caught up on all the shows I've worked on at Marvel. Only Murders in the Building (Season 3) was pretty good, but I think the first and second seasons were way better and this one felt like the premise was getting stretched a bit.My favorite for most of the month was The Day of the Jackal (Season 1), which is a really great remake of the prior movies (and the book they were based on). I've really been enjoying it and was ready to put it as my top pick of the month ... but then I watched Formula One: Drive to Survive and got absolutely hooked. It's a Netflix docuseries where each season follows one year in the Formula One season, complete with interviews with the drivers, team principals, journalists, etc. It's a great introduction into the sport and I'm definitely hooked on both this show and the sport in general now. So much goes into Formula One and I find it all fascinating. Highly recommended for anyone who likes sports docuseries. TOP PICK: Formula One: Drive to Survive (Season 1) RUNNER-UP: The Day of the Jackal (Season 1) |
I used to journal pretty regularly; I had a physical journal that I would use and it's a habit that I picked up from both my grandmother and my mom. My mom kept a daily diary for years until my brother and I were born and life got hectic. And my grandmother faithfully kept a daily journal for most of her life, well into her eighties. There are volumes and volumes of diaries that I assume one of my aunts now have, detailing her daily life from growing up in the 1930s all the way up through at least the turn of the century, I think. I loved the idea of having some kind of a daily record of what I was doing and/or thinking on a given day; something that I could go back and review years later and remember what had happed at that point in my life. Unfortunately, it's not a habit that I've kept up with very well, and there are a couple of reasons for that. First and foremost, life has become more digital. I don't really need to sit down at the end of the day and write a paragraph about what I did, because I carry a phone around with me all the time that has a picture and video camera embedded in it. Especially when I'm doing something memorable or noteworthy, I have a habit of snapping a couple of quick pictures or filming a quick video or two as a way of memorializing what happened, which kind of negates the need to chronicle the day's events in writing on a regular basis. Second, I've had two bad experiences in the past where someone has read my journal without permission. And as someone who at one point in his life kept a journal to chronicle my inner thoughts, feelings, etc. rather than just objectively document the days, that was a huge breach of trust and something that has made me wary about writing private thoughts down. I've thought about keeping a journal on a password-protected file on my computer, but that just doesn't have the same "journaling vibe" to me as physically writing things down on paper. I've also considered a daily journaling habit where I just shred the pages after I commit them to paper. The best advice I can give to someone who is interested in journaling is the same advice that I have to keep giving myself... don't give up on the habit, and find the exact way of doing it that works best for you. Because it is a valuable habit to have. When the new year starts, I'm honestly considering giving it another go in some way, shape, or form. It might actually dovetail with my other goal of getting back into the habit of writing things by hand. Over the past several years, my handwriting has gotten atrocious because I simply don't write things by hand much anymore. I'd like to get back into the regular habit of doing that, and daily pages might be a positive way to work on that goal at the same time. |
"Take up Your Cross" | November 22, 2024 ▼ I'm not sure that I see the concepts of contentment and "always trying to get more" as mutually exclusive. Contentment, to me, is about being in a state of happiness and satisfaction, while the desire to always have more can be either positive or negative depending on how much of a premium you place on it. For example, if ambition turns into greed or envy, and it's constantly convincing you that you don't have enough, or that you're not happy with what you have, that's definitely a problem and it jeopardizes contentment. If you spend all your time jealous about the fact that your friends and neighbors have better jobs, nicer cars, more attractive significant others, bigger houses, etc., then that's a deeply unsatisfying and disappointing life that you're going to live. But that doesn't mean that ambition has to become those things. Ambition on its own isn't a negative; it can be what inspires us to achieve more for the Kingdom, or to grow personally in any number of ways. If your ambition leads you to greater success in business and that connects you with more people you never would have met otherwise, is that discontentment? If you aspire to have more money so that you can buy a bigger house, but your intention is to use that house to welcome in people who are in need of a stable home, is that problematic? I think the real question is whether you can be both content and ambitious at the same time. Can you have larger aspirations or goals while at the same time being okay if you don't get those things? To me, that's the ideal place to find yourself; where your ambition spurs you to greater things, but you're secure enough to be content with what you have even if those ambitions don't ultimately come to pass. |
To qualify for my Watch List every month, the following has to be something that I've watched that's new to me. It doesn't necessarily have to be a current show, but it can't be reruns or rewatches of something I've already seen. So if I'm including it in this list, it means this month is the first time I've watched it. I'll put "DNF" (Did Not Finish) next to anything that I stopped watching and have no immediate plans to finish. Movies The Garfield Movie Get Out Happy Death Day MaXXXine Pearl Us We Summon the Darkness What We Do In The Shadows XSince last month was Spooky Season, I decided to watch a lot of horror movies in October (plus The Garfield Movie, with my kids). Jordan Peele's first two movies (Get Out and Us) were solid; I can definitely see why people liked them. I don't think either one is perfect by any means, but I enjoyed both for different reasons and respect the fact that he has a different perspective and point of view in his filmmaking. I also had fun watching Happy Death Day which is basically what happens when you take the premise of Groundhog Day and apply it to a horror movie, where a character wakes up at the beginning of the same day, over and over again, always ending in them getting murdered by a serial killer. There's a sequel called Happy Death Day 2 U which I'll definitely be watching soon. We Summon the Darkness was a completely forgettable 2019 horror movie about a religious cult which goes undercover at heavy metal concerts to murder other concertgoers in order to increase "Satanic panic" and drive more people to religion. And Ti West's Maxine trilogy was just okay. X was a decent first horror movie in the series where aspiring filmmakers rent a room from a remote Texas farm to shoot a porn film and end up getting killed off one by one. Pearl was the sequel (and actually a prequel showing how the killer became a killer) and easily the worst of the three, and MaXXXine is the third and latest installment which was pretty fun, if for no other reason that it embraced a real eighties slasher vibe. The best movie I saw by far this month, though, was What We Do In The Shadows, a mockumentary by Taika Waititi and Jermaine Clement about a group of vampires who share a flat in New Zealand, and it's honestly one of the funniest horror comedies I've seen in a long time. There were so many great jokes and moments that made this an instant classic for me; definitely something I'm going to add to my annual October movie rotation. Television Emily in Paris (Season 4 High Potential (Season 1) The Irrational (Season 1) - DNF The Lincoln Lawyer (Season 2) So Help Me Todd (Season 1) - DNF Star Trek: Discovery (Season 1)Getting the bad ones out of the way first, The Irrational (Jesse L. Martin plays a psychologist who helps the FBI solve crimes) and So Help Me Todd (Skylar Astin plays a private investigator who goes to work for his mom's law firm), both of which came highly recommended from different sources of both of which I watched about a half-dozen episodes of, and then didn't continue with because they weren't all that engaging. The fourth season of Emily in Paris was something I did happen to watch all of, and I kind of wished I hadn't because it's just gotten really tedious and boring. On the plus side, the second season of The Lincoln Lawyer was pretty good (we watched it in preparation for the new season that's coming out), and High Potential is a good procedural that has an excellent cast. The best thing I watched in television all month was the first season of Star Trek: Discovery, which just finished it's five-season run and was the first show in Alex Kurtzman's and Bryan Fuller's reboot of the Star Trek franchise. Honestly, it was really great. The first episode is pretty wild, and the rest of the season builds off of it as a narrative foundation, which is really different for a Star Trek show (which usually relies on an independent, episodic format). I decided to start watching Star Trek and figured jumping into the "reboot" of the franchise was the place to start... and I definitely wasn't disappointed. I can't wait for the second season, and the other shows beyond that. TOP PICK: What We Do In The Shadows and Star Trek: Discovery (Season 1) (TIE) |
I think "triple your success by doubling your investment in personal development" is exactly the kind of thing a self-help motivational speaker and author would make up, because it's a general truism with complete nonsense masquerading as practical advice layered on top of it. The underlying point is well taken... that if you invest in your own personal development, it's one of the best things that you can do to contribute to your success. But "personal development" can mean a variety of different things, many of which have no objective means of measurement. Same with "tripling your success." And I feel like that's kind of the point with stuff like this. Because the self-help industry (especially in the area of business development) absolutely thrives on the idea that greater success (usually financial) is just around the corner as soon as you figure out the one quick tip, life hack, pro tip, etc. that the person selling you something has to offer. Is this quote saying that if you take one of the author's seminars or pick up one of his books, that your salary will triple? Or that if you go back to school you'll suddenly have the skills needed to be your own boss? Or that your investment portfolio will triple in value if you take a few online courses in leadership development? That's kind of the point of quotes like this... it allows you to fill in the blanks. It encourages you to imagine what your "success tripling" looks like for you, as long as you double your investment in personal development (which is what the author is, conveniently, selling). Don't get me wrong; I'm someone who thinks there is value in some self-help stuff, and who genuinely believes in the power of personal development, self-actualization, and all that good stuff. But, at its core, what do I think this quote means? I think it means that a self-help guy is trying to sell you more of his products by encouraging you to imagine how much more successful you'll be if you buy just one more of his books, or attend one more of his seminars, or pay for one more personal coaching session... or whatever it is he's offering. It's a catchy quote, with the barest hints of truth to it... but that's been layered over by cheap salesmanship and impossible-to-prove assertions. |
In a world where we could freely contact the deceased as easily as making a phone call, I wonder if death would still have the same significance. For a lot of us, I suspect a big part of it is the fact that we can no longer speak with the people we care about or used to communicate with. I know that, after almost four years, the times that I still miss my mom the most are on my commutes home from work when I would often call her to catch up and just pass the time while I'm sitting in traffic. If I could still communicate with her in the afterlife the same way that I just dialed up her number when she was alive, I wonder how much of the significance of her death and absence from my life would still remain? I would, unquestionably, use this ability to contact friends and family who had passed. I have zero interest in reaching out to famous persons or historical figures, except maybe as the occasional novelty, or if I were able to use it to get a very specific question answered. I don't see myself calling up an actor or a musician that I love who died, because my connection was to their work (which still exists) rather than themselves as a person. I'm not sure what I'd gain by contacting Stan Lee, or Leslie Nielsen, or Anthony Bourdain and trying to have a conversation with them. Unless it was to very specifically get an answer to a burning question. Think of all the college students that would call up William Shakespeare or Robert Frost to ask them what they really meant by a particular passage of their work. Or all the phone calls Jesus of Nazareth would get with people wrestlings over a piece of scripture or one of his teachings! Or the number of times Napoleon, or Alexander the Great, or Aristotle, or Sun Tzu would be consulted for their thoughts on a present-day geopolitical issue. Would this usher in an entirely new industry of personal assistants and answering services for incredibly popular historical figures? Would there be gatekeepers and "we don't accept unsolicited requests from the land of the living" auto-replies to filter out the thousands, or even millions of requests certain dead people would get? Part of me wonders if having an ability to contact the dead like this would be a wonderful gift. To be able to talk to my mom again, to let her know what's going on in my life and with her grandkids, and ask her advice when I'm struggling with something would be an incredible gift. On the other hand, another part of me wonders if having that kind of access to people who have died would do real damage to the sanctity of life, and the significance that death plays in the world. It's an interesting question for sure, but if given the opportunity to do it, I'd one hundred percent take the chance and worry about the philosophical effects later. In the meantime, I'd just enjoy talking to my mom, my grandparents, etc. again. |
"Better three hours too soon than a minute too late" from Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor is often cited when people are looking for quotes about punctuality. And, depending on the context, it definitely makes sense. You wouldn't want to be a minute too late to board an international flight, or defuse a bomb. Although I suspect that it probably would't be as big a deal for something like showing up to an event you really don't want to attend. For situations that don't involve anything critical, I actually think most people would prefer to be a minute late rather than being three hours early. I am not most people. I hate being late. It drives me crazy when I'm late to something, even if it's a casual get-together or something where punctuality isn't expected. If I say I'm going to be somewhere at 6:00 p.m., I do not want to get there at 6:01 p.m. or 6:02 p.m. When it is for something important, I will 100% inconvenience myself by arriving way early and hanging around rather than taking the chance of arriving late. For example, I live in the Greater Los Angeles area, where traffic is always unpredictable. The only predictable thing about it, in fact, is that it's almost always bad. And when I have something like a job interview, even though it would be perfectly acceptable to walk into the room a single minute late, I would rather drive there hours early, and take the chance of arriving hours early and killing time waiting in my car or hanging out at a local coffeeshop just down the street than chance that I'll be stuck in traffic. So, yes, I deeply identify with Shakespeare's "better three hours too soon than a minute too late" line from his play. It's pretty much how I've dealt with punctuality my entire life, even for occasions where I think other people would be more inclined to be a minute late. |
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