Bonfire of Failures

"Show me a hero and I will write a tragedy
Draw your chair up close to the edge of  the precipice and I will tell you a story".
                       F. Scott Fitzgerald

Choice A- When standing at the precipice and looking into the Abyss you take that leap,and hope you sprout wings on the way down. Odds are your going to crash and burn often, maybe more often than not.

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an Abyss, the Abyss also looks into you."
                Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Choice B- You wait for your ideas to grow wings before kicking them out of the nest, and while your waiting someone else is probably acting. 

Choice C- Is the assumption that your are going to fail more than succeed so we learn to fail faster, and cheaper therefore winning becomes equally faster and cheaper, winning ,and winning more often.

So we learn to fail well get back out of the Abyss don't look it in the eye. Get back to the precipice, cause it's on the edge where your vision is the sharpest. ( Rinse and repeat as often as needed). Please don't confuse being on the edge, with sitting up high in the cheap seats watching the game.


You got to have some skin in the game, and it better be thick skin cause your going lose some on the way down. 2 more very important points. One Never, Never, Never, Ever bet the farm. That way when your work, project, idea, goes up in smoke you can dispassionately warm yourself by there dying embers, without choking on the smoke.

" Fire is the test of gold ; adversity of  strong men ".
       Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Lastly when you win, and you will, don't do a dance at the goal post. Cause you will most surely lose again also. When this happens just dust yourself off tip your hat to the crowd. ( for they are bound to be in the cheap seats ). Stand tall walk out of the arena, and fix your eye on the precipice.

This is Papa Randy and I am

Koolerbythelake.blogspot.com

Reject - Rejection

When I write something on this blog, usually I write it for myself. Meaning It's a subject that I'am interested in enough to do some research into or have some personnel experience with. I believe if you ain't got a dog in the hunt why go there at all.

By blogging about it, putting it out there for the rest of the world to see forces me to galvanize my thoughts, forming an opinion, and putting it in print helps me understand it better. Hopefully you are helped as well.

Rejection is something we all deal with or in my case don't deal with very well. It's not that I've had so much, it's that I deal with it so badly. I recently ran across two examples of how other people have dealt with rejection in their work. I hope you find it helpful.

George Bernard Shaw the Irish playwright. Made a habit of writing 5 pages per day, for 9 yrs. he wrote making 30 dollars in that time, about a penny a day, and yes he did have a day job as a bank teller.

"First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable.
Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not.
Habit will help you finish and polish your stories.
Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice."
                Octavia Butler

Since then he has received both an Academy Award for a screenplay, and a Noble Prize for literature. Today he is considered second only to Shakespeare as a British dramatist. He is said to have wrote a quarter of a million letters in his life. Most of this takes place in the early 1900's.

On a more modern note a book that most of us have heard of " Chicken Soup for the Soul" was rejected by publishers 144 times. Author Jack Canfield says"Where would I be today If I would have given up after 100 rejections".

That one book spinning off a series of 250 titles, and more than 500 million books sold. Who said persistence doesn't pay off. His books consist of collections of inspirational stories about the true lives of ordinary people. His story belongs right with them.

"When your efforts run in the face of
conventional wisdom and accepted mastery,
persistence can look like madness. If you
succeed in the end, this extreme originality
reformulates into a new level of mastery,
sometimes even genius; if you fail in the 
end, you remain a madman in the eyes of
others, and maybe even yourself. When you
are in the midst of the journey... there's
really no way of knowing which one you
are."    Hillary Austen

Seth Godin gives the best advice to writers, and the advice I like to follow. Which is if you write poorly, then continue to write poorly, and after a while you will write less poorly. He says writing is a skill to be learned.

He should know after writing more than 20 books, and 7000 blog post. Writing one a day on average. These are just a few examples of how persistence pays, and the struggle that a few people have gone through.

Your results may vary (mine do).

This is Papa Randy and I'am

Koolerbythelake.blogspot.com
















            
                     

Just Walk It Off

We have all heard that cliche, and most of us have given  that advice. Advice that we would rather give than get. The universal cure for what ails you. Did you know the worlds greatest philosophers, thinkers and writers have been walking it off for centuries. Using walking as a cure, a tonic for both mind and body.

"I have two doctors, my left leg and my right."
G.M. Trevelyan - English Historian

I won't go into the science, but for centuries people have known the health benefits of walking. As I wrote about in my article (How I lost 10lbs. fast).  People have been fasting for hundreds of years, because they knew the benefits.

Now we have the science to prove what they already knew. It is the same with walking. They say all the best things in life are free. Which is true of both fasting and walking.

" No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and independence which are the capital in this profession. It comes only by the grace of  God.
It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven to become a walker you must be born into the..."
     Henry David Thoreau - American author, poet, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, inventor, historian, and philosopher.

Charles Dickens was a walker. It is said that he wrote one of his most stories, A Christmas Carol after a walk around London.

" If  I could not walk far and fast I think I should 
just explode and perish."
Charles Dickens - English Author

It doesn't seem to matter short walks, long walks, walks to familiar places, walks to the great unknown, in the city or in the country. Just be mindful of what your doing.

"We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance. In the
spirit of undying adventure, never to return - prepared
to send back our embalmed hearts only as a relic to our
desolate kingdoms."
Henry David Thoreau

Now that a pretty serious walk, maybe that's why men like him are not so common anymore. 
Yet he gets more serious.

" If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother 
and sister and wife and child and friends,and never see them again;
if  you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled 
your affairs, and are a free man; then you are ready for a walk."
Henry David Thoreau

If you think you don't have time for a walk Edward Abbey has this to say.

" Walking takes longer... than any other known form
of locomotion except crawling. Thus it stretches time and
prolongs life. Life is already to short to waste on speed."
Edward Abbey - American author of environmental issues

Henry David Thoreau though it so beneficial he wrote an" Essay on Walking."

" Think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless
I spend four hours a day at least, and it is commonly more than that
- sauntering through the woods and over hills and fields,
absolutely free from all worldly engagements."
Henry David Thoreau

My favorite walk is along the Lower Mountain Fork River in Beavers Bend State Park Hochatown Oklahoma. Begin at the new bridge and head upstream. If you need flatter ground go to the old park dam and walk down stream, it is a very easy walk.(See my article Oklahoma's best hiking; camping; fishing.)

" In short all good things are wild and free."
Henry David Thoreau

I read this the other day" When in doubt, trust in long - existing cliche's, because they exist for a reason." Stephen Harding

One more reason to just walk it off.

This is Papa Randy and I'am
Koolerbythelake.blogspot.com

King of the mountain

How would you like to have millions of acres of unspoiled wilderness, as far as the eye can see. Since your dreaming how about one better, no payments, rent or leases that lock you in. While your at it how about no land tax or upkeep or maintenance.

Just enjoy it all to yourself, this can be done, I do it so can you. My vacation rental cabin is on the edge of Beaver's Bend State Park in Hochatown Oklahoma. I'am about 200 ft. outside the Kiamichi National Forest. I have the whole state park to myself.

How do I do this, I just go there on the weekdays. What do I get Broken Bow Lake not just the shoreline, but the whole lake, the Mtn. Fork River all 12 mi. of it that runs through the state park, and access to the one of a kind fly fishing that goes with it. Not to mention hiking trails and campsites.

It's better than owning it because you can relax and enjoy it. Robert Frost understood this when he wrote this.

                         
   " Whose woods these are I think I know.
      His house is in the village though;
     He will not see me stopping here
     To watch his woods fill up with snow."  
                            Robert Frost

What was he doing there, he was just stopping and watching.( I wrote about this in another article FOREST BATHING- age old solution to a modern problem).

Now to the man who says he's to busy to pause and watch the greatest show on earth. Robert Frost writes further.

    " The woods are  lovely dark and deep
       But I have promises to keep,
       And miles to go before I sleep,
       And miles to go before I sleep,"
                     Robert  Frost

Repeating the last line twice just seems to make it sadder but, I guess that's the point. What sleep is he talking about, the one we take every night, or the one we take once in a life. Make a promise today to make an appointment with the woods before you sleep.

This is Papa Randy and I'am

Koolerbythelake.blogspot.com






              

Thru Other Peoples Eyes

What you look like to other people. I got to thinking about this the other day. Something I wouldn't usually spend too much time on, but the situation caught me off guard. I was at the library, where I write, publish, post, and take advantage of their WiFi. I had just finished a very difficult bicycle work-out, and was feeling really good about it.

 I shaved, got cleaned up was looking good, and feeling good. Driving to the library with my bike on top of my Jeep Suv, made feel sporty. Carrying in my computer and notebooks made me feel smarter. After setting myself up, I found I needed a dictionary. So I asked the Librarian where I could find one. She leads me to the back of the library to a shelf filled with dictionaries.

She pauses. "Well let's see you'll be needing this one."
As she handed me this huge volume, the largest book on the shelf. I was thinking to myself that my reputation as a wordsmith must have proceeded me to think I would need such a book.

"A lot more words in this one." I say.
" No a lot bigger words."
I say "A lot longer words."
Giving me a look."Same words just bigger, it's the large print addition."
   "Oh, Thank you."

One look at me told her I needed the large print addition. The way she was seeing me and the way I was seeing me, was completely different. What I had to remember I was looking at me through eyes that really did need the large print addition."Oh,Well."

" Take everything you like seriously, except yourself." Rudyard  Kipling

This is Papa Randy and I'am

Koolerbythelake.blogspot.com