Motivation, Villainy, and Double Takes

In yesterday's post procrastinating alone, I described how I was recovering from a less-than-productive weekend brought on by a feeling of depression. The key insight: I have been feeling rather alone in my endeavor to build things, and the resulting angst was dragging me down. It was difficult to admit that I, as someone who tries to be as independent and self-empowered as possible, was going through that spot of melancholy. But as many commenters pointed out, the blues, they happen and it's part of life.

One of the main takeaways from yesterday was my recognition that I needed to create relationships that went beyond mere contractual obligations. While I wasn't exactly sure what this meant, today I had an interesting online experience with a couple of people I've never met in person. We're not working together, but we're sharing some collaborative thinking in one of my Basecamp areas. I noticed that there was an odd after-school clubhouse feel to the entire experience, which was both unexpected and delightful. This further reminded me of an old friend, sadly passed on, who I used to scheme with on a daily basis. We spent hours outlining grand dreams in great detail, combining our love for media with the desire to make cool experiences for people; it was that daily conversation that kept my energy at a high level.

It's been quite some time since I've felt that lightness of spirit, as opposed to the heaviness I had felt just 24 hours earlier. The funny thing was that the recent experience didn't require tangible collaboration at all: It was enough just to scheme together.

Perhaps this is the secret. Read onward.

The Joy of Villainous Understanding

As a result of this insight, I have formed a new theory about villains in James Bond movies. You know how the mastermind villain tends to have the bad habit of revealing their plans to Bond, ultimately leading to their undoing? It's been often mocked as a plot device, but I think one might explain it by recognizing a fundamental problem with organizational growth. Say you're an evil overlord, with an insanely high IQ and the ambition and resources to match. You're a self-made man, nothing beyond the well-disciplined grasp of your giant brain. But alas, you've had trouble staffing your evil operation with A-level co-schemers. For one things, your peers have their own evil operations going on, and since they're evil you can't really trust them in the first place (without leverage, anyway...mua ha ha!) Everyone else you can hire can grasp but a tiny fraction of your majestic vision, and can't be trusted (company culture issues tend to elude evil masterminds). But Bond, he's-a-coming to wreck your operation, and thus also validates its importance. Though you are on different sides, you would certainly recognize that you finally have an audience capable of understanding your vision without you having to (sigh) spell it out. Surely, such a person would...understand? I can see why a villain would give in to temptation...it would be such a rare treat to not have to explain yourself, and maybe get a reaction from someone that knows where you're coming from.

Though I lack the single-minded focus of an top-flight evil overlord, I can still appreciate the value of a good co-schemer. I'm not sure WHY co-scheming is so important, but I do believe there's a strong human need to share our dreams with a partner that "understands." I would conjecture that part of the appeal of personal coaching stems from this desire: A coach is there by your side to help you achieve your goals, and though they may not participate materially in the work to be done, it is their job to understand you so they can effectively tell you what you need to do. This is essentially a form of scheming, which I'll define loosely as having shared mind and vision. The stronger this bond, the more powerful the team becomes. Think of those people in your life with who you share that "co-conspiratorial commitment": wives, girlfriends, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, best friends, mentors, coaches, teammates, and role models. Every one of these connections is (potentially) a foundational part of our identity, supplying strength that augments our own. It is exhilarating to tap into this energy, and terrifying when you lose it.

I could use me some of that mojo.

Looking Toward Goals, not Tail Lights

Yesterday Seuss left a comment creating an analogy between motorsports and commitment to task: "look toward the goal, not at the tail lights of the car in front of you". Taking that to heart, it occured to me that I may already have a group of co-conspirators around me.

I've been very fixated on the tasks that I thought I needed to get out of the way, and have been demoralized because there's so much to do. I also hadn't keep my end goal in mind in a way that was easy to visualize. The forming of committed work and personal relationships is, I think, is my way of recognizing that I have been operating in isolation too long. My modus operandi should then be finding the right people to form those relationships with. I even know who those people are, and I've been aware of it for the past couple years: to be around positive, self-empowered, conscientious, and kind people.

As I look up from my planning notebook I'm somewhat embarrassed to realize that, um, those people are already here. I'm surrounded by kind, conscientious, positive-minded and self-empowered people; if you've been following this blog, there's a very high likelihood that you're someone who shares these values too.

Note to self: DUH.

I thought that I needed to build my lair first, so I could launch my plans and build something of note, and then maybe I could get the revenue and know what to do with it. That's still important, but I can now move my focus back to the present instead of obsessing about "future Dave" and "future audiences". But I'm forced to admit: if indeed positive-minded, self-empowered, conscientious and kind people like you are already here, I didn't think this through and don't have anything prepared. The first thought that comes to mind, though, is to find out who's out there and what they have to say. I could be completely wrong about this whole "we're already here" thing too, but I'd like to hear from anyone who thinks that there's something to this.

If anything, it's an interesting thought.

Procrastinating Alone

I was feeling very positive on Friday; Never before has my path seemed so clear, with so many things within my grasp. It was thus with great confidence I predicted a landmark productive weekend. The power I felt on Friday, however, began to resemble more a rolling blackout by Saturday, followed by grid failure as I slipped into total couch potato mode. What happened?

Review

When I am doing a self-diagnostic of this kind, I try to remember other times in my life when similar things had happened. While I don't entirely trust my memory to recall specific details and sequences of events, I do have a pretty good memory for emotional tone. In other words, I can remember what situations made me feel a certain way. This is sometimes useful when doing graphic design. Anyway, I mentally ticked-off the specific sensations I had felt over the weekend:

• inertia
• boredom
• restlessness
• isolation
• disconnectedness
• sadness
• tiredness
• wanting to be distracted

It's a familiar feeling that I associate with not knowing what to do. I have a pretty clear plan, though, of what it is I can be doing to move things forward with my life. There's all the cool Printable CEO things: new forms, books, and software! There's the awesome people who are out there doing cool things that I can partner up with that make me happy. Plus there's stories to create! New ideas to outline! Principles to share! As I'm typing this, I'm absolutely amazed at the wealth of options I have available to me from a creative perspective. They are all things that I know I would enjoy doing, and I would even be good at doing them.

"Meh", says some part of my brain, lurking somewhere in the darkness and oozing ambivalence like a leaky nuclear reactor. It's toxic, and it's lodged somewhere in my system.

Depression?

On a whim I looked up depression (mood) and clinical depression in Wikipedia to see if this was what I was going through; I had caught a piece of a show on NPR that was talking about an instrument called the Beck Depression Inventory, which is a self-administered test that determines just how depressed you are in (I guess) medical terms. A lot of the symptoms sounded familiar---I had just listed them above---so I probably should keep this in mind next time I see a doctor. On the other hand, I don't want to take any drugs to correct any "deficiencies" in my mood. I don't even know what I should feel like, so maybe it would be worthwhile to define what I think that is.

Happy?

If I were happy, I would think it would be something like this:

• contented and fulfillment
• appreciated
• strong
• loved
• warm
• generous
• connected
• meaningful

Hm, that's interested...these are largely words that are related to being connected to other people. As I read through the list, there is a kind of intimacy that I feel is part of the definition. So my feeling of "meh" might be explained by a feeling that I'm only doing all these interesting things for myself, because I should. I know that they're all very good things to be doing because they'll make me stronger, but in examining my happy list I end up asking myself: but for what? It's like doing it for myself isn't enough. Interesting...very interesting.

I'd read recently an interesting definition of happiness: happiness is not being bored; it's being excited by what you're doing. I'm clearly not excited by all the things that I'm doing, because I'm having some difficulty really feeling that it's worthwhile.

Dichotomy

The reason I started freelancing in the first place was to gain my independence so I could do things that I thought were important and worthwhile to me. What I seem to have discovered is that I apparently don't have an important tangible goal, and have metaphorically missed my exit off the self-reflection highway. As a result, I've ended up in a place named after a dead philosopher's theory of existence. Or I'm somewhere near Buffalo, New York. Part of my brain is saying, "I told you there was nothing out here, we should have gotten off at Tonawanda", while another part of my brain insists, "No, there is something good just up ahead. We have to keep driving."

I used to go to grad school in (you guessed it) upstate New York, and have driven solo from Rochester to Boston a few times. It's not a particularly long drive, maybe 7-8 hours. The feeling of being on the road by yourself, unsure of what you're going to be doing with your life, but knowing at least that you're heading east down the I-90, is a lot how I feel now. I've grown used to the solitude of traveling by myself toward a destination, and I think I'm at that point where I'm just really sick of it. I think I really want to be on a road trip with someone else in the passenger seat, maybe taking turns driving, and so on.

I guess I'm saying I'm becoming increasingly aware of being alone. I've been alone for great swaths of time during my life, being always out of place or not quite understood by the people around me, and I've grown quite used to the solitude. It's only in the past few years that I've deepened new relationships and had a taste of what it's like to be around people who vastly improve the quality of the day-to-day existence. I've enjoyed visits from my sister and her cat on holidays, and Dad came to spend several months with me. I became re-acquainted with the human element. I've also met women who made me smile, and gave me something to look forward to beyond myself for a time. As I've grown more comfortable with myself, I've been able to see the value of close human relationships, and now that I've tasted that...I've been spoiled. It's like when I tasted my first really excellent chocolate croissant, or had a really fine piece of aged cheese: I could not go back to the supermarket stuff. In fact, the supermarket stuff makes me kind of angry.

"Why bother? It's not worth it." whispers that dark part of my brain.

Redirection

So I am pretty sure that one of my major bottlenecks right now is due to this feeling of loneliness. There's not much I can do about it overnight, but at least I know what the challenge is, and can put it out of my mind for a time.

I can also redefine my game plan. It had gone something like this:

• make myself stronger financially...
• so I can fund the things I think are really worthwhile.

The raw assets I have are my ideas, my writing, and my design work. I had thought the challenge was creating a product that I could sell and feel good about in exchange for income, but I can see that this is too narrow a definition: I need to also consider the creation of strong face-to-face human relationships as an integral part of the game plan.

Now, I've talked in the past about finding people to collaborate and so forth, but I have probably held myself back because I didn't want to get burned by the possibility of a bad project relationship. I've been spending a lot of time thinking about the right guidelines or set of principles that would ensure a "quality working relationship" based on metrics like similar level of skill, compatible background experiences, shared ethical standards for work, imagination, and so forth. These are all pretty useful metrics, and I still plan to use them, but what it comes down to is this: both parties are equally committed to making the relationship work above everything else. That's really it. If you don't have that, all you have is a social contract. I have been using these skill criteria as a shield against forming relationships intimate working relationship, because I was afraid of getting hurt.

Now, I'm not saying one shouldn't be prudent in choosing their working partners. There are moments when recognizing a discrepancy between intention and action will prevent you from really getting taken advantage of. However, if you want to form a close relationship of any kind, you're going to have to make yourself vulnerable to the other person. In a way I've started to do that on this blog, by writing about things that could be considered rather personal. However, my comfort zone with writing what I think and feel tends to be rather broad. Where I have difficulty is expressing my deepest fears: that I'll be alone and misunderstood, and everything I've tried to do will be for naught.

Practically speaking, I know I'm not alone, and that there are plenty of people who do understand and appreciate what I say. I'm blessed with excellent, excellent friends that I trust deeply and implicitly. I am a lucky, lucky person that happens to be going through another wave of self-doubt and loneliness. The thought that goes through my mind is that I really have not learned to trust my own assessment of the situation, or that I haven't stopped to appreciate my blessings in quite some time. And I know that everyone's gone through this misery at one point or another.

And with this insight, I can finally visualize the miniature version of myself exploring the nooks and crannies of my brain, shining a flashlight into the most ancient and darkest corners. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the little boy version of myself, confused and sad and feeling like an outsider, huddled next to a particularly nasty-looking knot of fears and anxieties.

"Yo", I say.

The little boy version of myself stares back, the hollow look on his face telling me he's not quite aware of his surroundings, but I can also see that he's expecting nothing useful to come out of my mouth. I know that there's nothing I can say that will make any sense at all because the boy has not yet experienced what is to come, and that it will be mostly good. But I can't say that...it means nothing in the moment. So I offer my hand and say, "C'mon, let's go up where it's not so dark" with all the warmth I can muster. It's not an answer, but it's a start.

Summary

To sum up:

1. I've been feeling down because, I think, I'm feeling lonely and isolated from people. This is despite all the dozens of people who I've met or have written to over the past couple of years. There's an additional element of relationship that I am looking for, and while I believe I've been pretty open, I have probably been putting entirely too much emphasis on criteria than commitment.

2. My "master plan" to date has focused on what I can build to bring in revenue, because revenue will give me both the resources and freedom to effect further positive change. The resources I have now are my abilities to think, write, and create media to convey ideas and processes. However, it never occurred to me that I could use the same skills and opportunities to also build deeper relationships; I've tended to see the work more in terms of revenue and/or barter. In the past I've taken on projects because I've wanted to "help" people out, but this hasn't always worked out. My revised approach will be to take on project because I want to create stronger personal relationships; this is more mutual in intent.

The Art of Acting…Like Yourself

I am listening to The Art of Acting, an hour-long interview on On Point with Tom Ashbrook with acting coach Susan Batson. The popular media calls her "The Oscar Coach" because she works with lots of A-list actors who have gone so far to thank her in their acceptance speeches.

I was expecting something kind of salesy, but I was pleasantly surprised at how down-to-earth and genuine she sounded. Batson has a book out now, Truth, Personas, Needs, and Flaws, for which actor Nicole Kidman wrote a heartfelt introduction (emphasis below is mine):

I can't create unless I have truth--I have to feel it. Susan helps me to find the truth in myself and use its purity, intimacy, and honesty to make my work real. She's helped me to nurture and protect truth in myself and in the characters that I've played. What I've learned from Susan is how to keep the truth alive no matter what. There's so much more to acting than just creative success. It runs thicker and deeper than that. It has to--it's in my blood, it beats through me. I know that it's in Susan's blood, too. I feel like we've been together my whole life.

I think there is an emotional amplification that happens with great acting, and that this has parallels to what I try to do with information graphics. In my work, I strive to uncover the essential ideas behind the problem, then present the entire solution with clarity. It is, in essence, the search for truth. And I'm not talking just about the veracity of facts; I'm also talking about truthfulness in our action and our communication, which is all about acknowledging that we are human. If you do not address that in your design work, at best you've created style. At worst, you've created an undeployable solution that will not stick.

At the 27:40 mark, Ashbrook asks Batson about her "trade secrets", which she apparently describes in the book. She tells a story about how she had to create a "walking, talking human being" as a character for a director, and came up with the idea that every real person has a need, deeply planted by the time you're like 5 years old. But since the world is a harsh place, we create a persona to cover the need, the "mask" that protects the vulnerability. When the need and the persona are in opposition, things get "jammed up" and what emerges is (and remember we're talking about acting) the tragic flaw, which adds depth and subtlety to the character. She gave some interesting examples (from her book, which I haven't read yet):

• In the movie The Aviator, Leonardo di Caprio's Howard Hughes had a "need to be mothered", but he created a persona that was the opposite of being a "momma's boy", knowing no limits of adventure, to cover it up. However, the tragic flaw that emerges is that he goes crazy.

• In Monster's Ball, Halle Berry's character has the need to "be loved". The persona she develops is to push everyone away, "to be the porcupine". The tragic flaw: she becomes a victim.

• In Lost in Translation, Bill Murray's character has the need to be "pure and honorable". The persona he developed: "to be a hustler". The tragic flaw is that he loathes himself.

Batson says that in these performances, there is a very deep, connective thing that happens, creating dimensionality and personality. It goes beyond mere acting. It's very real, empathetic, and authentically draws from the great actor's experience.

I couldn't help but wonder how Batson's model of need, persona, and tragic flaw could be applied to my own struggles. After all, I'm a real person too! In science, models are very useful for clarifying a situation and outlining possibilities. Because I've been interested in applying storytelling to my design work, this is a fruitful line of inquiry. And frankly, I still have to work out a lot of things for myself, just like other real people. Having the strength to "go there" and confront those basic embarrassing needs is very hard, but I think it's a necessary part of working through my motivation to live my own life in alignment with my values. Perhaps my writing here is the "expression of my art"; since I can't paint or write music, writing about my experiences, anxieties, and solutions to deal with them is my way of facing them. My solution: If I can do it, so can other people, and then so can I. It's circular logic, but that's how it works for me :-)

So give a listen to Susan Batson's interview. I found it quite enjoyable.

Surprise! You’re Already Here!

This morning I had a few interesting insights, which I feel compelled to share:

Insight #1:

I work better if I document as I go. It is how I focus. I have been thinking that focus is some mystical internal state that I had to achieve as a form of enlightened awareness. Actually, that's probably still a laudable goal, and I shouldn't be so quick to toss Buddhism out with the bathwater, but HECK, why not work with what I got? WRITING ABOUT WHAT I DO is MY PROCESS.

Insight #2:

The kind of design I do "is what it is." I shouldn't worry about what I wish I could do. As I've written before, I've had a lot of trouble accepting the "designer" label for myself, because I can easily see where I fall short. I have very high expectations for Design, on the order of enlightenment again. That's great, but I am going to start accepting that what comes out of me is what comes out. People seem to like it, now that they can see what it is through the work I've made publicly available. The work examples themselves form the basis of a "contract of understanding" now. I just need to be firm about what it is that I can do well. Which leads to the next insight...

Insight #3:

I'm never happy if I don't have enough. But maybe I do. You know how there are some people who are financially very successful, but never are satisfied and always want more? I have been so glad that I didn't fall into that category, displacing my happiness in the shallow pursuit of infinite wealth. But then I realized that for me...money has been replaced by skill acquisition. I'm just as guilty of displacing happiness because I "never have enough skill" and feel like I'm not measuring up to my potential. Well...that isn't very enlightened or cool.

Distilling these insights to general principle:

1. If you've ever been frustrated that you aren't doing something quite right, take the advice I got from the TV a few nights ago: If you knew the answer, what would it be? Start with what you know. Use your existing processes. We're conditioned to think that there's the "right tool for the job", not to use flashlights as hammers, or screwdrivers as crowbars, and that tends to carry over into our mental processes...there must be a correct way that isn't the way I'm doing it. If there are no technical and physical constraints, and it's not going to actually kill you if you're wrong, then take your strongest asset and try to make the job fit. I liked what Phil Torrone said at SXSW this year, about their acquisition of a programmable laser etcher: When you have a laser...everything looks laserable. We laughed because we knew that wasn't true, perhaps even imprudent, but joyful in that pure hacker way. But heck, if all you have is a laser and you like using it...why not apply it? I think that productive people may accept this without question.

2. The phrase, "Be satisfied with what you have" has never sat well with me, because it's often delivered in a dream-crushing manner. If you're a dreamer and a schemer like me, that attitude is anathema to the very core of your personality. So let's rephrase this in a more positive light: Live your life like a toy collector. Instead of fixating on the end of the journey---for me, that was being Award-Winning Super Designer---work on acquiring that next great piece that moves your collection of experiences and skills in the right direction. If you've ever collected anything, you know the joy of this process.

I guess the theme here is finding joy in processes that you can embrace and work with now, bootstrapping your way to greater productivity. This may seem obvious to most of you out there, but it's something I have to constantly remind myself of because I'm impatient. Oh, so impatient.

Ok, I’m Inspired! Now What?

I spent most of this weekend vegging out and reconnecting with local people who I haven't seen for a week, but it's time to face the coming week head-on!

However...

I feel I'm lacking clarity in what I should do. I am starting to think, though, that may be a matter of having the courage to pick just one thing and do it. And by "one thing" that, I'm not talking about finding the mission...I'm really just talking about starting a project and willfully ignoring all those other things that seem so pressing. Can't get them done all at the same time, after all.

Perhaps focus isn't about willfulness, power, and character after all. It might just be putting on blinders of productivity on the sides of your head so you aren't distracted, so you get from point A to point B without freaking out.

Thoughts? Experiences? Is this a crazy idea?