Every time I've participated in some kind of online writing forum over the last few years, there is always a long, hotly debated, and unnecessary thread about what makes a "real" writer and "real" writing. Because blogging makes publication so accessible for everyone, there are a precious few who would like to define "writing" as something other (almost anything) than putting words on a blog. Many participants (usually the unpublished ones) get very hung-up on whether or not they're "real" writers.
And then there's the self-descriptions of those who are writing, or writing and publishing, or writing and posting. You look at an author's mini-bio, and they're described in one or two of the following ways: short story writer, essayist, novelist, biographer, blogger, reviewer, journalist, writer, storyteller, author, nonfiction writer ... all of which clutters up people's ideas of what a writer is or does, and limits the writer's own perceptions of what he or she is doing when inspiration strikes and they make the effort to put words on a page.
Any "real" writer knows in his or her bones that the essays, stories, novels, and blogs are all different consequences of engaging long-term in the same activity. No matter what your final product is -- an essay in Harper's or a blog read by your friends or oral narratives told at a storytelling festival -- they all come from the act of attempting to take experience and shape it into story. It doesn't matter whether that story is fiction or nonfiction, short or long, read by millions in book form or ten people looking at a blog.
We need a new word for this act, to cut through all the crap about what constitutes a "real" writer, and I've had one in mind for a long time: storysurfer.
Why storysurfing? This act, that of reaching into or out to experience, life, memory, and trying to shape it into a narrative that might resonate with others, reminds me a great deal of windsurfing. You are at the same time pulling and being pulled, letting go and holding on, riding the elements and letting them take you. That's what writing is, the whole act. All those titles above -- essayist, novelist, blogger -- they just describe the product. The act is its own thing, separate from the end result and separate even from the experience it's pulling on.
Beginning writers will often hear, if they're taking a workshop or in an MFA program or reading a creativity self-help book, that "a writer is someone who writes." But there's more to it than that. It's not just putting words on a page. Storysurfing is a full-body act. A storysurfer is someone who rides life, and harnesses their experience to the page.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Dear Vida: Why I'm not helping up the submissions percentage this week
The much-discussed 'count' by Vida: Women in the Literary Arts shows a saddening lack of women writers represented in literary publications, daily publications, book reviews, etc. Here's one sliver of a reason why:
9:30 a.m. The children have breakfasted and nursed, been toileted and diapered, medicined and vitamined, swept off and wiped. The baby is down for her reliable morning nap (the afternoon one is hit-and-miss, and requires long periods of holding and rocking). The 3-year-old is playing happily with his train tracks on the floor after I spent 20 minutes helping him set up an elaborate layout with plenty of bridges, tunnels, curves, and switches.
I've had two cups of coffee and even the breakfast dishes are washed. The new album from Bright Eyes is playing. So while Alex sleeps and John plays, I sneak out a story that I've been writing and rewriting for 5 years, and am hoping to send to a journal this week. (Even though I still feel shaky in fiction, creative nonfiction being my strength, and this journal has off-handedly rejected several of my nonfiction essays. But they mentioned on Facebook that they're looking for stories, so I keep working. When I can.)
I sit down on the rocking chair slightly out of sight, rest the clipboard on my knee, and uncap a pen.
John looks toward the kitchen. "Mummy, I want a hug." Gripping Percy the green engine, he trots over and climbs onto my lap.
Five minutes later, and again ten minutes later, I ask if he's ready to play with his tracks again. "No," he says, running Percy up and down my arm, "I just hugging now."
And in no time flat it's time to get the baby up and make lunch.
Of course I'm going to put the story down and give him a hug. There's a tug, an "I wish I could just have half an hour and then get lots of hugs," but there isn't really a choice. Does this make me not-a-writer? Are you a writer only if you push away the hug and stick to the story? No. It just makes me a writer who doesn't get things done very quickly. A writer who is always tired, and always trying. I'm betting a lot of women writers who are also caregivers find themselves in a similar position.
(I did attempt to keep working by offering to read John the story I was working on. While he was patient enough, and I always do a fair bit of editing while reading aloud, it is a bit hard to engage in serious rewriting when you've got your "This is George. He was a good little monkey and always very curious" voice going on.)
9:30 a.m. The children have breakfasted and nursed, been toileted and diapered, medicined and vitamined, swept off and wiped. The baby is down for her reliable morning nap (the afternoon one is hit-and-miss, and requires long periods of holding and rocking). The 3-year-old is playing happily with his train tracks on the floor after I spent 20 minutes helping him set up an elaborate layout with plenty of bridges, tunnels, curves, and switches.
I've had two cups of coffee and even the breakfast dishes are washed. The new album from Bright Eyes is playing. So while Alex sleeps and John plays, I sneak out a story that I've been writing and rewriting for 5 years, and am hoping to send to a journal this week. (Even though I still feel shaky in fiction, creative nonfiction being my strength, and this journal has off-handedly rejected several of my nonfiction essays. But they mentioned on Facebook that they're looking for stories, so I keep working. When I can.)
I sit down on the rocking chair slightly out of sight, rest the clipboard on my knee, and uncap a pen.
John looks toward the kitchen. "Mummy, I want a hug." Gripping Percy the green engine, he trots over and climbs onto my lap.
Five minutes later, and again ten minutes later, I ask if he's ready to play with his tracks again. "No," he says, running Percy up and down my arm, "I just hugging now."
And in no time flat it's time to get the baby up and make lunch.
Of course I'm going to put the story down and give him a hug. There's a tug, an "I wish I could just have half an hour and then get lots of hugs," but there isn't really a choice. Does this make me not-a-writer? Are you a writer only if you push away the hug and stick to the story? No. It just makes me a writer who doesn't get things done very quickly. A writer who is always tired, and always trying. I'm betting a lot of women writers who are also caregivers find themselves in a similar position.
(I did attempt to keep working by offering to read John the story I was working on. While he was patient enough, and I always do a fair bit of editing while reading aloud, it is a bit hard to engage in serious rewriting when you've got your "This is George. He was a good little monkey and always very curious" voice going on.)
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
On the Purging of Books
Last week I did a little book purge. If you're a book lover, you've probably done this. This weird thought process: "Why did I keep that again? Oh, right, because I thought referring to a bunch of first-in-series mystery novels would hep me finish my own. But this was crap. Don't care if she's famous now, I yawned all the way through it. Chuck ...
"I'm never going to read these again. But I need to keep them because when the kids turn into ravaging book hordes they'll be curious to read everything. Even the lesser novels of Isabel Allende and Michael Ondaatje (even great writers turn out mediocre books sometimes). When you're into a writer, you don't care. But then ... do I really need to keep Wyoming Stories 2? It was awful. Why have bad Annie Proulx around when I don't even own a copy of The Shipping News? Why don't I own a copy? ...
"These are disposable. But when guests want to down a thriller in bed, it's nice to have something to feed them. And they can take them away (though they rarely do). And if one of the kids is into thrillers I'd rather keep the paperbacks than try to remember the names Daniel Silva and Robert Ludlum. ...
"I can't get rid of that. The author's a friend. And not that one. It's out of print and good for reference. And those were gifts. So depressing when you get a used book that someone wrote a loving note in. Reminds me of that awful Paul Theroux memoir, and the bit at the end about finding all the books he'd gifted to his friend V.S. Naipaul, with personal notes written inside, for sale online. At least I didn't keep that book, though I did keep the Naipaul."
And on and on. If a book doesn't come alive for me, why should I keep it on my shelves? Why should I finish reading it in the first place? If you don't like a book so much the first time around, why keep it for years just in case? That's what libraries are for.
Last weekend my husband gave me time for a nap and brought me a cup of tea (husbands like Ian = good). I, of course, need a book to doze off the way that some people need a sleeping pill. I wasn't in the mood for either of the current books I'm reading -- Wait for Me, an autobiography by the Duchess of Devonshire, and Pioneer Women, letters and journals of women settling the Kansas frontier, by Joanna Stratton -- but I took one look at the pile of to-be-read books and they just made me feel more tired.
Last year, in the space of about 8 months, I read at least 6 really crappy or just mediocre novels and memoirs. I wasn't ready to take the risk again, of wasting the time and energy to figure out if a book was worth reading, and resenting the author of a crappy or mediocre book for stealing my precious free reading time.
Out came The Hobbit.
Talk about comfort food. My older sister gave me The Hobbit to read when I was 8 years old, followed by The Lord of the Rings. I read them all at least once a year for over 20 years but have been neglecting them recently. There was a time when I'd get partway through The Return of the King and start crying because I'd forgotten how large the appendices were and there was less of the story left to live through than I'd thought.
The book purge was prompted by my reading through all 4 of those Tolkien books last week. I took a look at our well-filled bookshelves and wondered just how many of those books I would ever read again, or read with as much pleasure. Why keep any books that I know I won't read over and over? There aren't many authors who fit that bill: Jane Austen, J.R.R. Tolkien, J.D. Salinger, L.M. Montgomery. Dodie Smith, Kathy Tyers, Anthony Trollope, J.K. Rowling. C.S. Lewis, Norton Juster, Dorothy Sayers, Wilkie Collins. Colin Thubron, Jan Morris, Margaret Atwood, Susan Cooper, Fyodr Dostoevsky. Some others.
The first book I ever got rid of was The Great Gatsby. I hated that book, partly because I'd moved schools several times and had had to study it 4 years in a row (#1 way to kill a kid's interest in a story: force them to study it rather than just read it). But also I just don't think it's very good. Or maybe it just doesn't speak to me. Not a big Fitzgerald fan.
Books look pretty. Well-stocked bookshelves make for a cozy room, and for book-lovers impart an odd sense of security. Maybe there will always be a struggle, wondering what we should keep and what to give away. Book are old friends, even the lesser novels of well-loved authors, even the ones we might have grown out of. But I think what it comes down to is that the ones worth keeping are the ones that inspire us, one way or another. Anne of Green Gables might not suck me in the same way it did in my early teens, but I still enjoy reading it. And I might no reread Motherland: A Philosophical History of Russia again anytime soon, but I was engrossed in it and marked it up and dip into it now and then when I'm curious about something.
Our books are like an encyclopedia of the kind of reader we are, and how that reader has evolved. For me, they also represent the kind of writer I'd like to be. Most of the books that I keep out of love are the ones that people continue to read a hundred or two hundred years, or more, after they're published, not because they're forced to, but because the story comes alive no matter how old it is.
Which is why I finally gave away Wyoming Stories 2 and bought a copy of The Shipping News. Good writers can write crappy books, but they can also write great ones that last for generations.
"I'm never going to read these again. But I need to keep them because when the kids turn into ravaging book hordes they'll be curious to read everything. Even the lesser novels of Isabel Allende and Michael Ondaatje (even great writers turn out mediocre books sometimes). When you're into a writer, you don't care. But then ... do I really need to keep Wyoming Stories 2? It was awful. Why have bad Annie Proulx around when I don't even own a copy of The Shipping News? Why don't I own a copy? ...
"These are disposable. But when guests want to down a thriller in bed, it's nice to have something to feed them. And they can take them away (though they rarely do). And if one of the kids is into thrillers I'd rather keep the paperbacks than try to remember the names Daniel Silva and Robert Ludlum. ...
"I can't get rid of that. The author's a friend. And not that one. It's out of print and good for reference. And those were gifts. So depressing when you get a used book that someone wrote a loving note in. Reminds me of that awful Paul Theroux memoir, and the bit at the end about finding all the books he'd gifted to his friend V.S. Naipaul, with personal notes written inside, for sale online. At least I didn't keep that book, though I did keep the Naipaul."
And on and on. If a book doesn't come alive for me, why should I keep it on my shelves? Why should I finish reading it in the first place? If you don't like a book so much the first time around, why keep it for years just in case? That's what libraries are for.
Last weekend my husband gave me time for a nap and brought me a cup of tea (husbands like Ian = good). I, of course, need a book to doze off the way that some people need a sleeping pill. I wasn't in the mood for either of the current books I'm reading -- Wait for Me, an autobiography by the Duchess of Devonshire, and Pioneer Women, letters and journals of women settling the Kansas frontier, by Joanna Stratton -- but I took one look at the pile of to-be-read books and they just made me feel more tired.
Last year, in the space of about 8 months, I read at least 6 really crappy or just mediocre novels and memoirs. I wasn't ready to take the risk again, of wasting the time and energy to figure out if a book was worth reading, and resenting the author of a crappy or mediocre book for stealing my precious free reading time.
Out came The Hobbit.
Talk about comfort food. My older sister gave me The Hobbit to read when I was 8 years old, followed by The Lord of the Rings. I read them all at least once a year for over 20 years but have been neglecting them recently. There was a time when I'd get partway through The Return of the King and start crying because I'd forgotten how large the appendices were and there was less of the story left to live through than I'd thought.
The book purge was prompted by my reading through all 4 of those Tolkien books last week. I took a look at our well-filled bookshelves and wondered just how many of those books I would ever read again, or read with as much pleasure. Why keep any books that I know I won't read over and over? There aren't many authors who fit that bill: Jane Austen, J.R.R. Tolkien, J.D. Salinger, L.M. Montgomery. Dodie Smith, Kathy Tyers, Anthony Trollope, J.K. Rowling. C.S. Lewis, Norton Juster, Dorothy Sayers, Wilkie Collins. Colin Thubron, Jan Morris, Margaret Atwood, Susan Cooper, Fyodr Dostoevsky. Some others.
The first book I ever got rid of was The Great Gatsby. I hated that book, partly because I'd moved schools several times and had had to study it 4 years in a row (#1 way to kill a kid's interest in a story: force them to study it rather than just read it). But also I just don't think it's very good. Or maybe it just doesn't speak to me. Not a big Fitzgerald fan.
Books look pretty. Well-stocked bookshelves make for a cozy room, and for book-lovers impart an odd sense of security. Maybe there will always be a struggle, wondering what we should keep and what to give away. Book are old friends, even the lesser novels of well-loved authors, even the ones we might have grown out of. But I think what it comes down to is that the ones worth keeping are the ones that inspire us, one way or another. Anne of Green Gables might not suck me in the same way it did in my early teens, but I still enjoy reading it. And I might no reread Motherland: A Philosophical History of Russia again anytime soon, but I was engrossed in it and marked it up and dip into it now and then when I'm curious about something.
Our books are like an encyclopedia of the kind of reader we are, and how that reader has evolved. For me, they also represent the kind of writer I'd like to be. Most of the books that I keep out of love are the ones that people continue to read a hundred or two hundred years, or more, after they're published, not because they're forced to, but because the story comes alive no matter how old it is.
Which is why I finally gave away Wyoming Stories 2 and bought a copy of The Shipping News. Good writers can write crappy books, but they can also write great ones that last for generations.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Mindful Parenting: Childrearing is a Job. Pay Me and Get Over It.
It's hard to know where to begin. Do I launch into a critique of Erica Jong's rambling, contradictory column in the Wall Street Journal, in which she criticized attachment parenting -- essentially, it seemed, because it put too much pressure on mothers? How about pointing once again to the Salary Survey study that found stay-at-home mothers, if they do 10 common activities per week (including preparing meals, minor housecleaning, and driving kids around to various activities), are worth nearly $118,000 per year? How about the studies that show that people who have children are unhappier than those without? Or last year's factually incorrect attack on breastfeeding in The Atlantic Monthly, in which Hanna Rosin sacrificed scientific fact in order to justify how pissed off she was at society's lack of support for breastfeeding and other beneficial parenting practices?
I will start, instead, with one statement and one little story. The statement: conditions for parents, families, and mothers in particular are never going to improve if the only people given voice in the media are the ones criticizing others' parenting choices.
The story: Last night I got really pissed off at my husband, simply because he offered to help me.
You see, I haven't made much money since our son was born 3 years ago. It's a long story, which I won't go into here. But this week, for the first time since he was born, I am taking on paying work in my job as a copy editor and proofreader of textbooks. As our house flooded recently and we could use the extra income, my husband was happy to hear it. Last night we were discussing how many hours I could do per week, given that our son is in preschool 3 days a week but we also have a daughter almost 5 months old who needs my care.
"I can't do it the days I have John home," I said. "It's just not gonna happen." I've explained to my husband (and friends without small children) that using a computer with our 3-year-old around is just an exercise in frustration. I can't even check email, much less concentrate on a detailed proofreading job I get paid to do. Forget it.
He said, "Maybe I can help a bit in the mornings on those days, and you can do an hour or so of work."
Ah.
Of course I knew, and I know now, that this was a generous offer. My husband is emphatically not a morning person. But he is a modern father, one who cooks dinners and cleans the bathroom and, before we had the second baby, took our son out on weekends so I could have Saturday mornings off. And one who wants to support me in the choices I make regarding our life, my life, and our children's care. However. Behind that statement (and I emphasize that my husband never intended this meaning, and was simply trying to be thoughtful and helpful) is an unspoken point that all of the other work that I do every morning is worthless compared to something that actually earns money. Being the one to get up at 5:30 when our son says, "I all done sleeping," playing with him, helping him poop on the toilet and wash his hands with soap, making the granola we all eat, packing a healthy, tasty lunch for both of them, writing notes to our son's preschool teacher and speech therapist. Making breakfast, sweeping up spilled granola, nursing our baby daughter, making coffee, washing the dishes, writing checks for bills, making our son brush his teeth, changing our daughter's diaper, reminding our son for the zillionth time to say please and thank you. God. Let's not even talk about the rest of the day. Or my often smothered efforts at writing essays, novels, stories.
None of those things have ever earned an offer of help in the morning. (Since so many people like to criticize women for complaining too much, I emphasize once again that my husband is awesome. He just can't deal with mornings. My brain checks out after 6 at night, so we balance each other.)
Then again, I don't earn an income for any of those things. And in this fact lies the tangle that mothers these days have found themselves in. Because while some of us read books and practice what I think of as 'mindful parenting,' other mothers attack us for treating childrearing as a job, a job for which we are not paid.
"When I was a mother, all we had to do was keep the kids alive," I've heard. "If you're breastfeeding exclusively you're only doing it because you've been brainwashed to think of yourself as a cow." (Okay, that's a paraphrase.) "If you treat childrearing as a job, then you're taking it too seriously."
So, essentially, those of us who actually spend the time and effort to consciously do a good job of mothering? We suck. And we make life suck for all the other mothers who feel guilty for not doing what we try to do. We should all just wing it, all just throw out the research of the last 50 years, ignore the benefits of breastfeeding and attachment parenting, put our kids in preschool, take our kids out of preschool, spend more time listening to them, spend less time listening to them -- basically, do whatever feels like it takes the least effort.
None of the critics has actually come out and said this, but that's what it boils down to. If any of your childrearing choices feel like they take mental effort or thought, then you'd better stop. Because it means you're taking it all too seriously.
Yeah, that attitude has worked real well for humanity up until now. You can see how well we're all doing. No greed, no wars, no poverty, no wasteful use of non-renewable natural resources. Life's just roses all over the world.
You think the state of the world, the condition of humanity, the choices that the powerful make, the struggles we have for equality and justice have nothing to do with how we are raised? They have everything to do with how we are raised.
Those who criticize some of us for treating mothering as a job have a misconception as to what that job is. My children are not my job. My job is to understand my children in the best way I can, to provide an environment for them to become the most complete human beings they can be, and to instill in them certain lessons that, if we adults actually followed them, would make the world a livable place for everyone: share, let everyone else have some, wait your turn, say please and thank you, wash your hands with soap, listen (if adults just listened and paid attention to others' points of view, we could probably solve about 80% of our problems), don't hit, clean up after yourself, apologize when you've hurt someone, don't take more than your fair share, everything you do has consequences, good or bad, listen to your intuition, trust yourself, respect your choices, respect others' choices, if you've done something you regret, then own up to it. Goodness knows how many others I'm not even aware of.
The most important of all these lessons is respect. And here is where the job comes in. Before my children can learn to respect others, they need to respect themselves. And in order to do that, I have to help them understand that I respect them. I think this is the lesson that sticks in the craw of many critics. Somewhere in the back of our minds still lies the mantra that children should be seen and not heard, that their needs are unimportant and subservient to others' needs. Even I was raised somewhat that way. When I say that I try to listen to and respect my children, too many people hear "I let my life be ruled by my children."
Not. What. I. Said. Listen.
When my son says that he wants to watch more Curious George when he's already had several episodes, or play with my computer, or squeeze his baby sister, I try not to say just plain 'no.' That's all it means. I don't let him do these things. I don't let him negotiate for them. But I do take 20 seconds to focus on what he is asking for, show him that I understand what he wants, and explain why it isn't happening.
Sometimes in response he'll throw a fit and have to go into time-out. But over time the lesson does sink in -- both the lesson of what is allowed and what's not, and the lesson that I will listen to him, respect his wishes, and explain when they're not possible. And I use the same lesson to teach him respect for me: that sometimes Mummy has to work, that sometimes she needs quiet or some space, that he can't just take my things without asking for them, that I am a person, too, with wishes and needs of my own.
If I expect my children to honor my needs and my space and my possessions (and, I hope, take those lessons to their interactions with others in the outer world), the best way to achieve that is to give them the same respect.
This is a really hard job. It takes an immense amount of time and energy. I read piles of books and articles, looking for more tips on certain sticking points. I talk at length with other parents about their difficulties and problem-solving tips and frustrations. I practice a lot. I start over a lot. I have done more work in three years of parenting than I devoted to my Master's degree.
Yes, I take this job seriously. And because I and others do take it seriously, the world might possibly be a marginally better place in the next generation.
Therefore, I think we should be paid for this job. I think the taxpayer should pay all stay-at-home parents a salary. You think I'm kidding? We pay politicians crazy amounts of money to solicit campaign contributions and future job offers from lobbyists in order to push through laws that they neither read nor understand -- I mean, we pay them to pass thoughtful legislation for the benefit of their constituents. How is that any different from paying full-time parents for raising the next generation in ways that are most beneficial to society?
Of course, the danger is that many full-time parents might do a bad job. There's little quality control. But seeing as how the aforementioned politicians largely fail to do the job they're paid for (concentrating instead on aforementioned campaign donations, thinking up nasty things to say about people they dislike, and trying to make sure the other party can't do anything they want to do), and seeing as how I can think of a number of bank executives who did a really shitty job and still walked away with millions of dollars each, I don't see why it's such a stretch.
The easiest way to put a stop to the "Mommy Wars" (for a critique on that concept, read my post Declaring War on the Mommy Wars) is to simply make full-time parenting a paid position funded by the taxpayer, like Congress or public schools, with Social Security benefits and a monthly check.
Personally, I'm going to continue treating this as a job. Maybe if I raise my children right, the next generation will pass more family-friendly policies and will start giving mothers some compensation besides brunch on Mother's Day, rights to half our 'working' spouse's Social Security benefits, and really repetitive essays about our children's love being all the compensation we need. And maybe a day will come when that is true, too.
[Note that during the time I spent writing this, I also made breakfast for 3 people, ironed a shirt, made coffee, nursed my daughter, showered and dressed, reminded my husband of tomorrow's haircut appointment, and 3 times took my son to poop on the potty and wash his hands with soap. I'd like to see my husband do that while performing the job he gets paid lots of money for!]
I will start, instead, with one statement and one little story. The statement: conditions for parents, families, and mothers in particular are never going to improve if the only people given voice in the media are the ones criticizing others' parenting choices.
The story: Last night I got really pissed off at my husband, simply because he offered to help me.
You see, I haven't made much money since our son was born 3 years ago. It's a long story, which I won't go into here. But this week, for the first time since he was born, I am taking on paying work in my job as a copy editor and proofreader of textbooks. As our house flooded recently and we could use the extra income, my husband was happy to hear it. Last night we were discussing how many hours I could do per week, given that our son is in preschool 3 days a week but we also have a daughter almost 5 months old who needs my care.
"I can't do it the days I have John home," I said. "It's just not gonna happen." I've explained to my husband (and friends without small children) that using a computer with our 3-year-old around is just an exercise in frustration. I can't even check email, much less concentrate on a detailed proofreading job I get paid to do. Forget it.
He said, "Maybe I can help a bit in the mornings on those days, and you can do an hour or so of work."
Ah.
Of course I knew, and I know now, that this was a generous offer. My husband is emphatically not a morning person. But he is a modern father, one who cooks dinners and cleans the bathroom and, before we had the second baby, took our son out on weekends so I could have Saturday mornings off. And one who wants to support me in the choices I make regarding our life, my life, and our children's care. However. Behind that statement (and I emphasize that my husband never intended this meaning, and was simply trying to be thoughtful and helpful) is an unspoken point that all of the other work that I do every morning is worthless compared to something that actually earns money. Being the one to get up at 5:30 when our son says, "I all done sleeping," playing with him, helping him poop on the toilet and wash his hands with soap, making the granola we all eat, packing a healthy, tasty lunch for both of them, writing notes to our son's preschool teacher and speech therapist. Making breakfast, sweeping up spilled granola, nursing our baby daughter, making coffee, washing the dishes, writing checks for bills, making our son brush his teeth, changing our daughter's diaper, reminding our son for the zillionth time to say please and thank you. God. Let's not even talk about the rest of the day. Or my often smothered efforts at writing essays, novels, stories.
None of those things have ever earned an offer of help in the morning. (Since so many people like to criticize women for complaining too much, I emphasize once again that my husband is awesome. He just can't deal with mornings. My brain checks out after 6 at night, so we balance each other.)
Then again, I don't earn an income for any of those things. And in this fact lies the tangle that mothers these days have found themselves in. Because while some of us read books and practice what I think of as 'mindful parenting,' other mothers attack us for treating childrearing as a job, a job for which we are not paid.
"When I was a mother, all we had to do was keep the kids alive," I've heard. "If you're breastfeeding exclusively you're only doing it because you've been brainwashed to think of yourself as a cow." (Okay, that's a paraphrase.) "If you treat childrearing as a job, then you're taking it too seriously."
So, essentially, those of us who actually spend the time and effort to consciously do a good job of mothering? We suck. And we make life suck for all the other mothers who feel guilty for not doing what we try to do. We should all just wing it, all just throw out the research of the last 50 years, ignore the benefits of breastfeeding and attachment parenting, put our kids in preschool, take our kids out of preschool, spend more time listening to them, spend less time listening to them -- basically, do whatever feels like it takes the least effort.
None of the critics has actually come out and said this, but that's what it boils down to. If any of your childrearing choices feel like they take mental effort or thought, then you'd better stop. Because it means you're taking it all too seriously.
Yeah, that attitude has worked real well for humanity up until now. You can see how well we're all doing. No greed, no wars, no poverty, no wasteful use of non-renewable natural resources. Life's just roses all over the world.
You think the state of the world, the condition of humanity, the choices that the powerful make, the struggles we have for equality and justice have nothing to do with how we are raised? They have everything to do with how we are raised.
Those who criticize some of us for treating mothering as a job have a misconception as to what that job is. My children are not my job. My job is to understand my children in the best way I can, to provide an environment for them to become the most complete human beings they can be, and to instill in them certain lessons that, if we adults actually followed them, would make the world a livable place for everyone: share, let everyone else have some, wait your turn, say please and thank you, wash your hands with soap, listen (if adults just listened and paid attention to others' points of view, we could probably solve about 80% of our problems), don't hit, clean up after yourself, apologize when you've hurt someone, don't take more than your fair share, everything you do has consequences, good or bad, listen to your intuition, trust yourself, respect your choices, respect others' choices, if you've done something you regret, then own up to it. Goodness knows how many others I'm not even aware of.
The most important of all these lessons is respect. And here is where the job comes in. Before my children can learn to respect others, they need to respect themselves. And in order to do that, I have to help them understand that I respect them. I think this is the lesson that sticks in the craw of many critics. Somewhere in the back of our minds still lies the mantra that children should be seen and not heard, that their needs are unimportant and subservient to others' needs. Even I was raised somewhat that way. When I say that I try to listen to and respect my children, too many people hear "I let my life be ruled by my children."
Not. What. I. Said. Listen.
When my son says that he wants to watch more Curious George when he's already had several episodes, or play with my computer, or squeeze his baby sister, I try not to say just plain 'no.' That's all it means. I don't let him do these things. I don't let him negotiate for them. But I do take 20 seconds to focus on what he is asking for, show him that I understand what he wants, and explain why it isn't happening.
Sometimes in response he'll throw a fit and have to go into time-out. But over time the lesson does sink in -- both the lesson of what is allowed and what's not, and the lesson that I will listen to him, respect his wishes, and explain when they're not possible. And I use the same lesson to teach him respect for me: that sometimes Mummy has to work, that sometimes she needs quiet or some space, that he can't just take my things without asking for them, that I am a person, too, with wishes and needs of my own.
If I expect my children to honor my needs and my space and my possessions (and, I hope, take those lessons to their interactions with others in the outer world), the best way to achieve that is to give them the same respect.
This is a really hard job. It takes an immense amount of time and energy. I read piles of books and articles, looking for more tips on certain sticking points. I talk at length with other parents about their difficulties and problem-solving tips and frustrations. I practice a lot. I start over a lot. I have done more work in three years of parenting than I devoted to my Master's degree.
Yes, I take this job seriously. And because I and others do take it seriously, the world might possibly be a marginally better place in the next generation.
Therefore, I think we should be paid for this job. I think the taxpayer should pay all stay-at-home parents a salary. You think I'm kidding? We pay politicians crazy amounts of money to solicit campaign contributions and future job offers from lobbyists in order to push through laws that they neither read nor understand -- I mean, we pay them to pass thoughtful legislation for the benefit of their constituents. How is that any different from paying full-time parents for raising the next generation in ways that are most beneficial to society?
Of course, the danger is that many full-time parents might do a bad job. There's little quality control. But seeing as how the aforementioned politicians largely fail to do the job they're paid for (concentrating instead on aforementioned campaign donations, thinking up nasty things to say about people they dislike, and trying to make sure the other party can't do anything they want to do), and seeing as how I can think of a number of bank executives who did a really shitty job and still walked away with millions of dollars each, I don't see why it's such a stretch.
The easiest way to put a stop to the "Mommy Wars" (for a critique on that concept, read my post Declaring War on the Mommy Wars) is to simply make full-time parenting a paid position funded by the taxpayer, like Congress or public schools, with Social Security benefits and a monthly check.
Personally, I'm going to continue treating this as a job. Maybe if I raise my children right, the next generation will pass more family-friendly policies and will start giving mothers some compensation besides brunch on Mother's Day, rights to half our 'working' spouse's Social Security benefits, and really repetitive essays about our children's love being all the compensation we need. And maybe a day will come when that is true, too.
[Note that during the time I spent writing this, I also made breakfast for 3 people, ironed a shirt, made coffee, nursed my daughter, showered and dressed, reminded my husband of tomorrow's haircut appointment, and 3 times took my son to poop on the potty and wash his hands with soap. I'd like to see my husband do that while performing the job he gets paid lots of money for!]
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Push me, pull me, leave me alone: What is wrong with hugging on your own terms?
[This is Part II of the occupation therapy evaluation. For Part I, the evaluation experience itself and the crazy-making fixation on "school readiness," click here.]
The Evaluation Report: Are You Gonna Hug My Way?
Today we received the evaluation reports. Among the thick stack of papers was the occupational therapist's evaluation, in which the topic Sensory Issues was labeled in bold.
Having been involved in John's Early Intervention services for well over 10 months now, I have learned to be wary of these occupational therapists and their infatuation with 'sensory issues.' His first therapist kept mentioning them, even when he blatantly proved her wrong as she was speaking. It was a classic case of entering a situation with preconceived notions and refusing to let go of them despite all evidence to the contrary. (Such as: on separate occasions she spoke of his difficulty eating highly flavored foods while he chomped feta cheese, garlic chicken, and drank a full glass of grapefruit juice right in front of her.)
In this evaluation report, the OT makes her concern with sensory issues as a general topic clear, while unfortunately muddying the understanding of them for the general population. Clear, because they're in bold and larger type than anything else. Muddy, because the description is confusing: "Many children fluctuate between sensory sensitivity and sensory seeking behaviors and others may be sensitive to certain sensations but seek other ones. Each child's patterns may be highly unique and individual, and it is not uncommon for those patterns to change depending upon the context the child is in."
And this is different from being a regular human being how, exactly? It's very hard to read this language as other than "Kids like some things. Other things annoy them. Different things annoy different kids, and sometimes whether or not a kid is annoyed will depend on the circumstances." What can one say about this explanation except that hey, most of us have slightly more self-awareness than a head of cabbage.
Here's an example of the sort of thing this evaluation concentrates on. With the exception of our current occupational therapist, all the ones I've met have had a thing about "tolerating imposed touch." They will poke John, push him, and prod him repeatedly, sometimes trying to push him over to see how he corrects himself. And then they act surprised when he eventually gets pissed off. Wouldn't you? I don't tolerate imposed touch very well. Hell, I'm pregnant and people are constantly putting their hands on my belly. I know exactly how John feels because mostly I want to punch them. In addition, he will "tolerate" this touch from some therapists more than others. His first one tended to get a very wise and know-it-all look on her face when he reacted strongly, which he did increasingly early in her sessions. As a parent, it was hard not to respond to her bullshit analysis with pointing out the obvious: "No, the problem is, he just doesn't like you." And he didn't. I didn't like her either.
I loved this question from both that original OT (the one we have now, I should say, is fabulous and John looks forward to their sessions) and the school evaluator: "Does he only hug on his own terms?" To which my response is, "What the fuck?" Do these people not consider the logic of what they're asking? To follow these expectations to their logical conclusions, children should be able to tolerate being touched or even hit by anyone. Of course nobody thinks about it that way, but where do you draw the line?
To insist that a child hug and kiss on anyone else's terms but their own is extremely dangerous. How far do you expect them to take that? Do you hone your therapy to override their own instincts and self-preservation, much less any safety protocols built in by parents? I don't want my child to accept hugs, kisses, or touch of any kind from anyone if he's not comfortable, much less insist he give the same when he doesn't feel like it.
The nice OT, when I asked her how this could possibly be good for children, explained that the question should really be "Does he like hugging," as in hugging from parents and close relatives, anyone they'd be comfortable around. Unfortunately, the way it's asked is open to gross misinterpretation and makes me question the safety of the therapy itself, at least when unmonitored by a parent (which the school therapy services are -- unmonitored, that is).
So maybe that's a big of an overreaction. But I, personally, have never liked being touched when it's uninvited. And I certainly know when it feels wrong (try being a young female journalist in Australia and you'll get intimately acquainted with people trying to touch you inappropriately, and constantly). How much of this therapy would it take before a child starts to lose that sense, starts to mistrust their own intuition telling them this touch is simply not right?
I don't know the answer. But I do know one thing. There is no way I'm going to risk my son finding out.
(Apologies if this post sounds a bit bitchy. But you try watching someone poke and shove your kid, and tap their joints and fiddle with them when they're trying to eat, as your child gets increasingly annoyed, irritated, and frustrated at his inability to make them stop, and see how well you react to it.)
The Evaluation Report: Are You Gonna Hug My Way?
Today we received the evaluation reports. Among the thick stack of papers was the occupational therapist's evaluation, in which the topic Sensory Issues was labeled in bold.
Having been involved in John's Early Intervention services for well over 10 months now, I have learned to be wary of these occupational therapists and their infatuation with 'sensory issues.' His first therapist kept mentioning them, even when he blatantly proved her wrong as she was speaking. It was a classic case of entering a situation with preconceived notions and refusing to let go of them despite all evidence to the contrary. (Such as: on separate occasions she spoke of his difficulty eating highly flavored foods while he chomped feta cheese, garlic chicken, and drank a full glass of grapefruit juice right in front of her.)
In this evaluation report, the OT makes her concern with sensory issues as a general topic clear, while unfortunately muddying the understanding of them for the general population. Clear, because they're in bold and larger type than anything else. Muddy, because the description is confusing: "Many children fluctuate between sensory sensitivity and sensory seeking behaviors and others may be sensitive to certain sensations but seek other ones. Each child's patterns may be highly unique and individual, and it is not uncommon for those patterns to change depending upon the context the child is in."
And this is different from being a regular human being how, exactly? It's very hard to read this language as other than "Kids like some things. Other things annoy them. Different things annoy different kids, and sometimes whether or not a kid is annoyed will depend on the circumstances." What can one say about this explanation except that hey, most of us have slightly more self-awareness than a head of cabbage.
Here's an example of the sort of thing this evaluation concentrates on. With the exception of our current occupational therapist, all the ones I've met have had a thing about "tolerating imposed touch." They will poke John, push him, and prod him repeatedly, sometimes trying to push him over to see how he corrects himself. And then they act surprised when he eventually gets pissed off. Wouldn't you? I don't tolerate imposed touch very well. Hell, I'm pregnant and people are constantly putting their hands on my belly. I know exactly how John feels because mostly I want to punch them. In addition, he will "tolerate" this touch from some therapists more than others. His first one tended to get a very wise and know-it-all look on her face when he reacted strongly, which he did increasingly early in her sessions. As a parent, it was hard not to respond to her bullshit analysis with pointing out the obvious: "No, the problem is, he just doesn't like you." And he didn't. I didn't like her either.
I loved this question from both that original OT (the one we have now, I should say, is fabulous and John looks forward to their sessions) and the school evaluator: "Does he only hug on his own terms?" To which my response is, "What the fuck?" Do these people not consider the logic of what they're asking? To follow these expectations to their logical conclusions, children should be able to tolerate being touched or even hit by anyone. Of course nobody thinks about it that way, but where do you draw the line?
To insist that a child hug and kiss on anyone else's terms but their own is extremely dangerous. How far do you expect them to take that? Do you hone your therapy to override their own instincts and self-preservation, much less any safety protocols built in by parents? I don't want my child to accept hugs, kisses, or touch of any kind from anyone if he's not comfortable, much less insist he give the same when he doesn't feel like it.
The nice OT, when I asked her how this could possibly be good for children, explained that the question should really be "Does he like hugging," as in hugging from parents and close relatives, anyone they'd be comfortable around. Unfortunately, the way it's asked is open to gross misinterpretation and makes me question the safety of the therapy itself, at least when unmonitored by a parent (which the school therapy services are -- unmonitored, that is).
So maybe that's a big of an overreaction. But I, personally, have never liked being touched when it's uninvited. And I certainly know when it feels wrong (try being a young female journalist in Australia and you'll get intimately acquainted with people trying to touch you inappropriately, and constantly). How much of this therapy would it take before a child starts to lose that sense, starts to mistrust their own intuition telling them this touch is simply not right?
I don't know the answer. But I do know one thing. There is no way I'm going to risk my son finding out.
(Apologies if this post sounds a bit bitchy. But you try watching someone poke and shove your kid, and tap their joints and fiddle with them when they're trying to eat, as your child gets increasingly annoyed, irritated, and frustrated at his inability to make them stop, and see how well you react to it.)
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
For the Sake of Our Society, for the Sake of Our Kids: It's Time to End Standardized and High-Stakes Testing
I've heard from a lot of people (most of whom responded directly on Facebook) regarding my family's recent experiences with public school evaluations and standardized tests. In addition, I've been reading piles of books about homeschooling, peppered with narratives of families who chose to homeschool after the evaluation and standardized teaching culture affected their kids in gut-wrenching ways from the loss of a smile, to anxiety-driven insomnia, to very young children forced to take Ritalin to be allowed in school.
The stories that have come out -- powerful, personal, some heartbreaking -- leave me wondering why on earth we put up with such a ridiculous, demoralizing, wasteful, and finally counter-productive system. There's only one answer, and I'm afraid it's unacceptable. We put up with it because we're too tired, too overworked, the top-heavy bureaucracy of the education system is just too immovably pigheaded, and so we give up and put our energies into the one thing that counts: navigating the system to ensure the mental and emotional and academic welfare of our own children, because that's the only place we have an impact.
Not that there's anything wrong with caring for our children first. But if we can't change a system we know is wrong, what kind of society are we leaving for them, in the end?
In a recent post on standardized tests (TEKS and TAAS), I mentioned the complaints of college professors that their students lack the ability to think independently: "These students, they moan, are always wanting to know 'what the teacher is looking for' in a paper. In other words, they’re so used to being taught to the test, that it comes naturally to them to write to the teacher."
That's aside from the worried, stressed-out reality many kids are living in, whether it's in response to high-stakes high school graduation testing or twice-weekly spelling drills to prepare 2nd graders for high-pressure standardized tests. The book Guerilla Learning (by Amy Silver and Grace Llewellyn) has an excellent chapter on the history of standardized tests, and how they have gained prominence in our schools. It has absolutely nothing to do with our children's education, and everything to do with bureaucracy's need to formulate colossal busywork rather than doing anything real to improve the quality of education. Numerous studies have shown that standardized testing is self-referential -- while test scores might improve, education and learning do not. And, as one mother friend said, "I don't think you can standardize results for a young child. They can do great one day and terrible the next purely based on whether or not they had a good nap or ate enough lunch."
The problem is, this busywork, and the industry that now makes millions off of it, is not only denying our kids real learning opportunities, but is actually causing them lasting harm.
What sort of humans are we creating, in the pursuit of this hyper-testing culture? Nervous young creatures driven by anxiety and unable to think for themselves or engage in imagination because they are so used to being judged by an arbitrary metric that they don’t know how to function without it. No proponents of standardized testing answer this question: What happens when the testing stops? What happens to the kids we’ve trained when we throw them into the world and suddenly say, “Now think and do for yourselves, even though we haven’t allowed to do so for 18 years, and you have no idea of what it means to succeed or fail without a test score returned to you”?
Where did we go so wrong?
Our society is never going to be competitive in math or engineering, or ingenuity or philosophy or literature or justice, or in fact anything at all if the way we measure success keeps being driven by standardized tests. Because, as anyone with an ounce of sense knows by this time, the reliance on tests means that the tests are all we teach. And what use are the tests in life? Absolutely none.
So if a lesson is in no way useful in real life, why is the school teaching it? Your tax dollars at work, spinning out reams of pointless paperwork designed to make your children nervous, fearful, and more prone to need anxiety medication as they grow. Is that what we want? A nation of anxious, sleep-deprived people who are unable to make decisions or solve problems without hanging on to a life raft of a standardized metric, without receiving a score that tells them whether they passed or failed?
If you want a nation of people who are dependent on the rest of the world for solving problems and inventing new technologies, that’s a surefire way to do it—not to mention a nation of people easily led by any dogma, no matter how ignorant or narrow-minded, that happens to strike a chord with them. Ignorance and anxiety, as history has taught us countless times, is an explosive mix. This is not how humanity makes progress.
In the case of students with special needs, the use of evaluations and tests seems counter-intuitive. Do the evaluations actually do much to identify those needs and how to meet them? It’s what the tests are supposedly designed for, but do they succeed?
As with any complex problem that needs solving, the answer is no. What the evaluations do is allow providers to apply easily identifiable labels to children without taking into account each child’s personality, quirks, tendencies, or, indeed, actual needs.
I realize this difficulty is hard to overcome. No one but the parent and perhaps future teachers truly has the time to get to know the child and work with who they are. They only have the time to work with a broad outline—those labels—of what this human might be.
While the system might for the most part do little harm and sometimes quite a bit of good, there are two reasons it is hopelessly flawed. One is that in some cases it can do harm. Think of the child who really doesn’t fit the mold, and is forced to, or children who are under the care of an incompetent or uncaring provider.
The second is that providers and parents could accomplish the same tasks without the use of evaluations. Any parent even mildly observant can tell the provider enough about their child to make the evaluation redundant (yes, there are crappy parents; I have yet to see any real evidence that standardized evaluations make up for that). And any provider worth their salt can easily discover all they need to know about how to begin working with a child within one or two sessions of observation and play.
If the purpose of these systems is to simply standardize people, they succeed, at the expense of humanity. If the intention is to help children become their best selves, how widely they miss the mark. How will they, and we, pay for that mistake in the future?
The stories that have come out -- powerful, personal, some heartbreaking -- leave me wondering why on earth we put up with such a ridiculous, demoralizing, wasteful, and finally counter-productive system. There's only one answer, and I'm afraid it's unacceptable. We put up with it because we're too tired, too overworked, the top-heavy bureaucracy of the education system is just too immovably pigheaded, and so we give up and put our energies into the one thing that counts: navigating the system to ensure the mental and emotional and academic welfare of our own children, because that's the only place we have an impact.
Not that there's anything wrong with caring for our children first. But if we can't change a system we know is wrong, what kind of society are we leaving for them, in the end?
In a recent post on standardized tests (TEKS and TAAS), I mentioned the complaints of college professors that their students lack the ability to think independently: "These students, they moan, are always wanting to know 'what the teacher is looking for' in a paper. In other words, they’re so used to being taught to the test, that it comes naturally to them to write to the teacher."
That's aside from the worried, stressed-out reality many kids are living in, whether it's in response to high-stakes high school graduation testing or twice-weekly spelling drills to prepare 2nd graders for high-pressure standardized tests. The book Guerilla Learning (by Amy Silver and Grace Llewellyn) has an excellent chapter on the history of standardized tests, and how they have gained prominence in our schools. It has absolutely nothing to do with our children's education, and everything to do with bureaucracy's need to formulate colossal busywork rather than doing anything real to improve the quality of education. Numerous studies have shown that standardized testing is self-referential -- while test scores might improve, education and learning do not. And, as one mother friend said, "I don't think you can standardize results for a young child. They can do great one day and terrible the next purely based on whether or not they had a good nap or ate enough lunch."
The problem is, this busywork, and the industry that now makes millions off of it, is not only denying our kids real learning opportunities, but is actually causing them lasting harm.
What sort of humans are we creating, in the pursuit of this hyper-testing culture? Nervous young creatures driven by anxiety and unable to think for themselves or engage in imagination because they are so used to being judged by an arbitrary metric that they don’t know how to function without it. No proponents of standardized testing answer this question: What happens when the testing stops? What happens to the kids we’ve trained when we throw them into the world and suddenly say, “Now think and do for yourselves, even though we haven’t allowed to do so for 18 years, and you have no idea of what it means to succeed or fail without a test score returned to you”?
Where did we go so wrong?
Our society is never going to be competitive in math or engineering, or ingenuity or philosophy or literature or justice, or in fact anything at all if the way we measure success keeps being driven by standardized tests. Because, as anyone with an ounce of sense knows by this time, the reliance on tests means that the tests are all we teach. And what use are the tests in life? Absolutely none.
So if a lesson is in no way useful in real life, why is the school teaching it? Your tax dollars at work, spinning out reams of pointless paperwork designed to make your children nervous, fearful, and more prone to need anxiety medication as they grow. Is that what we want? A nation of anxious, sleep-deprived people who are unable to make decisions or solve problems without hanging on to a life raft of a standardized metric, without receiving a score that tells them whether they passed or failed?
If you want a nation of people who are dependent on the rest of the world for solving problems and inventing new technologies, that’s a surefire way to do it—not to mention a nation of people easily led by any dogma, no matter how ignorant or narrow-minded, that happens to strike a chord with them. Ignorance and anxiety, as history has taught us countless times, is an explosive mix. This is not how humanity makes progress.
In the case of students with special needs, the use of evaluations and tests seems counter-intuitive. Do the evaluations actually do much to identify those needs and how to meet them? It’s what the tests are supposedly designed for, but do they succeed?
As with any complex problem that needs solving, the answer is no. What the evaluations do is allow providers to apply easily identifiable labels to children without taking into account each child’s personality, quirks, tendencies, or, indeed, actual needs.
I realize this difficulty is hard to overcome. No one but the parent and perhaps future teachers truly has the time to get to know the child and work with who they are. They only have the time to work with a broad outline—those labels—of what this human might be.
While the system might for the most part do little harm and sometimes quite a bit of good, there are two reasons it is hopelessly flawed. One is that in some cases it can do harm. Think of the child who really doesn’t fit the mold, and is forced to, or children who are under the care of an incompetent or uncaring provider.
The second is that providers and parents could accomplish the same tasks without the use of evaluations. Any parent even mildly observant can tell the provider enough about their child to make the evaluation redundant (yes, there are crappy parents; I have yet to see any real evidence that standardized evaluations make up for that). And any provider worth their salt can easily discover all they need to know about how to begin working with a child within one or two sessions of observation and play.
If the purpose of these systems is to simply standardize people, they succeed, at the expense of humanity. If the intention is to help children become their best selves, how widely they miss the mark. How will they, and we, pay for that mistake in the future?
Monday, May 3, 2010
The Capacity for Genius: A Eureka Moment in All of Us
A couple months ago I was talking with a friend about Einstein, whose biography I read last fall (Einstein: His Life and Universe, by Walter Isaacson). Actually, I was asking about general relativity, aspects of which I still have a lot of trouble grasping. (I do this to my physicist and mathematician friends, starting with my husband, in a futile hope that someone somewhere will suddenly hand me the key to fully comprehending the stuff in the way I wish I could, and which no amount of reading seems to do.)
We wandered onto the topic of genius. The friend contended that Einstein wasn't necessarily the genius he's always sold as, but simply happened to be the right person at the right time to make "his" discoveries. It's an argument with which I agree, especially as it's clear that many other scientists had already made similar discoveries (but hadn't quite connected the dots yet), or were verging on them.
This led on to the question of whether genius actually exists. And, again, I found myself agreeing with the friend's contention that there are no geniuses, only people who happen to be able to follow or take certain opportunities when they're fortuitously presented.
On further thought, however, I would argue that in fact everyone is a genius, or has the capacity for genius. Two writers have bolstered this personal conviction. First there was Arthur Koestler's book The Act of Creation, now sadly out of print, although you can easily find used copies. I originally picked this book up because I found his Sleepwalkers (about the lives and discoveries of Kepler and Galileo) to be a masterpiece, and thought this book would delve into the psychological activity behind the creativity in art, writing, etc. It was far more interesting than I anticipated, as it actually focused on the "ah-ha" or "eureka" moment of great scientific discoveries.
The Act of Creation is far too long and involved to go into detail here, but what I found interesting was Koestler's investigation into how the "eureka" moment, like that of Darwin's, is often preceded by years, sometimes decades, of research and hard work. In other words, it's not a matter of genius at all but simply a matter of pursuing a passion or interest in a dedicated fashion until one day the pieces seem to fall into a new pattern and you're looking, possibly, at an entirely new discovery or shift in paradigm. Which is essentially what happened with Einstein.
Koestler’s research would indicate that "genius" is actually a matter of having the time, ability, and drive to do or pursue something you're passionate about, with no promise of immediate results or of ever seeing a reward.
This viewpoint is still limited, however, as our accepted concept of genius focuses only on the accomplishments that get mentioned in the public sphere. And genius is so much more than simply academic or creative intelligence. I've met people who are geniuses at dealing with babies, who know instinctively how to handle the toddler tantrums of the terrible twos; people who know how to live at peace with their world, who can cobble a delectable meal from the most unlikely and sparse ingredients; people who can manage the tempers and caprices of a boardroom or political field to help a group of people reach a needed goal; people who seem to make gardens produce unbelievable bounty with the daily stroke of their hand; people who inspire others to do great things with their own lives. Geniuses in every possible aspect of life, not just in the achievements that win Nobel Prizes or Pulitzers or even those that solve the biggest problems facing the human population and the planet.
If genius is, as I think, a matter of doing what you're meant to be doing with your life, of following your passion, then we are all surrounded by geniuses every day; we just don't know it. And we all have the capacity to tap our own genius.
The other author was Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love), whose TED TV talk on "A different way to think about creativity” proposed going back to the Greek and Roman concept of genius being a sort of daemon or “other” who assists the writer or artist or musician in making their piece of work as good as it can possibly be.
(If you don’t watch the occasional TED talk, you should. The organization TED—Technology Entertainment Design—has the sole goal of presenting weekly talks on Ideas Worth Spreading, whether they’re innovative ways to accomplish social justice, new ways to think about creativity, or discussions about brain science.)
Gilbert’s talk was thoroughly enjoyable, aside from presenting a new and interesting idea. And if we took her advice and changed the way we think about artists—seeing their “genius” as some sort of separate entity that simply assists in their work—then there is no reason that the same concept can’t apply to everyone.
The problem is, of course, that very few people will ever have the means to allow their genius to work its magic. Most of us are daily, hourly, grindingly involved in activities that are designed, yes, to earn us a living or scrape us a scanty life, but also to keep us from ever listening to the genius-creature whispering in our ear. The vast spectrum of human experience up to this point doesn’t allow more than a tiny, lucky percentage of the population to even consider what it is they love to do, or expose us to ideas that might inspire us. And even those of us who listen to flashes of insight are constantly derailed by the seemingly constant demands of simple daily life.
None of this reality, however, changes the fact that we all have the capacity for genius. We can stifle it, deny it, run from it, strangle it, or fear it. But we can’t ever fully kill it.
We wandered onto the topic of genius. The friend contended that Einstein wasn't necessarily the genius he's always sold as, but simply happened to be the right person at the right time to make "his" discoveries. It's an argument with which I agree, especially as it's clear that many other scientists had already made similar discoveries (but hadn't quite connected the dots yet), or were verging on them.
This led on to the question of whether genius actually exists. And, again, I found myself agreeing with the friend's contention that there are no geniuses, only people who happen to be able to follow or take certain opportunities when they're fortuitously presented.
On further thought, however, I would argue that in fact everyone is a genius, or has the capacity for genius. Two writers have bolstered this personal conviction. First there was Arthur Koestler's book The Act of Creation, now sadly out of print, although you can easily find used copies. I originally picked this book up because I found his Sleepwalkers (about the lives and discoveries of Kepler and Galileo) to be a masterpiece, and thought this book would delve into the psychological activity behind the creativity in art, writing, etc. It was far more interesting than I anticipated, as it actually focused on the "ah-ha" or "eureka" moment of great scientific discoveries.
The Act of Creation is far too long and involved to go into detail here, but what I found interesting was Koestler's investigation into how the "eureka" moment, like that of Darwin's, is often preceded by years, sometimes decades, of research and hard work. In other words, it's not a matter of genius at all but simply a matter of pursuing a passion or interest in a dedicated fashion until one day the pieces seem to fall into a new pattern and you're looking, possibly, at an entirely new discovery or shift in paradigm. Which is essentially what happened with Einstein.
Koestler’s research would indicate that "genius" is actually a matter of having the time, ability, and drive to do or pursue something you're passionate about, with no promise of immediate results or of ever seeing a reward.
This viewpoint is still limited, however, as our accepted concept of genius focuses only on the accomplishments that get mentioned in the public sphere. And genius is so much more than simply academic or creative intelligence. I've met people who are geniuses at dealing with babies, who know instinctively how to handle the toddler tantrums of the terrible twos; people who know how to live at peace with their world, who can cobble a delectable meal from the most unlikely and sparse ingredients; people who can manage the tempers and caprices of a boardroom or political field to help a group of people reach a needed goal; people who seem to make gardens produce unbelievable bounty with the daily stroke of their hand; people who inspire others to do great things with their own lives. Geniuses in every possible aspect of life, not just in the achievements that win Nobel Prizes or Pulitzers or even those that solve the biggest problems facing the human population and the planet.
If genius is, as I think, a matter of doing what you're meant to be doing with your life, of following your passion, then we are all surrounded by geniuses every day; we just don't know it. And we all have the capacity to tap our own genius.
The other author was Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love), whose TED TV talk on "A different way to think about creativity” proposed going back to the Greek and Roman concept of genius being a sort of daemon or “other” who assists the writer or artist or musician in making their piece of work as good as it can possibly be.
(If you don’t watch the occasional TED talk, you should. The organization TED—Technology Entertainment Design—has the sole goal of presenting weekly talks on Ideas Worth Spreading, whether they’re innovative ways to accomplish social justice, new ways to think about creativity, or discussions about brain science.)
Gilbert’s talk was thoroughly enjoyable, aside from presenting a new and interesting idea. And if we took her advice and changed the way we think about artists—seeing their “genius” as some sort of separate entity that simply assists in their work—then there is no reason that the same concept can’t apply to everyone.
The problem is, of course, that very few people will ever have the means to allow their genius to work its magic. Most of us are daily, hourly, grindingly involved in activities that are designed, yes, to earn us a living or scrape us a scanty life, but also to keep us from ever listening to the genius-creature whispering in our ear. The vast spectrum of human experience up to this point doesn’t allow more than a tiny, lucky percentage of the population to even consider what it is they love to do, or expose us to ideas that might inspire us. And even those of us who listen to flashes of insight are constantly derailed by the seemingly constant demands of simple daily life.
None of this reality, however, changes the fact that we all have the capacity for genius. We can stifle it, deny it, run from it, strangle it, or fear it. But we can’t ever fully kill it.
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