Put another way, it comes down to whether we see other people as means or ends.  If you see others as ends in themselves, you’ll treat others with respect and care, recognizing yourself in them and resonating with an understanding of interdependence.  If you see other peoples as means to achieve your own agenda, then you have no qualms about destroying them on your way to trying (always futilely) to firebomb the world into the vision that your scared, separate mind thinks is how things should be.

It wouldn’t be  stretch to say that the mark of a truly evolved human – one who is maximizing on that which makes us different from animals, i.e. the fact that humans are basically life being conscious of itself – is the human who works actively on developing the art of loving him or herself in a profound and non-narccisstic way.  It is inevitable that the more you get to know yourself, and how little of the story you tell yourself actually represents who you are, that you begin to extend your deepening love of all that you are to those around you.

This isn’t some new age hoo-hah, but rather might be said to be the goal of all great religious and spiritual traditions if followed to their logical (and non-pedantic, patriarchal, or mediated) conclusion. The energy we call God, or Allah, Yahweh, or Gaia, or Life Force, or Jah, or Jesus – isn’t something separate from ourselves. Rather it’s an energy that resonates from the divine moment when that force existed as both a mundane presence and the representation of all that is everything. This energy resonates through whatever personal religious or spiritual history we ascribe to, it resonates through everything in the universe, it resonates through you.

The ability to go beyond mediated access to this energy, to do an end-run around the crusted layers of middlemen, edifices, rules and rituals which serve as obstacles to you connecting directly with omni-vibrational spiritual energy by whatever name or religion you call it, is the mark of being truly invested in evolving as a human.  This is not to suggest that you should reject whatever spiritual or religious tradition you ascribe to if it is designed to prevent you from having direct access to this energy.  But if your day does not include some practice that allows you to practice the art of overcoming your feelings of separateness, anxiety, and fear in some way that leads to greater compassion and self-knowledge, you may want to consider investigating some form of prayer or meditation or other practice that allows you to do so.

I’m not talking about blissing out with a great head-clearing running meditation, or prayers written by other people for you to recite.  I’m talking about a practice that allows you to transcend language, habituation, conditioning, cultural bias, and self, in a way that makes it energetically clear that we are all not only in this together, we are all responsible for each other.

That’s the path to peace, on a personal and planetary level.  It’s about creating a small space between action and reaction, and developing the ability to allow a deep love for yourself and others to fill the space before you react aggressively.  You may choose agression after all, but cultivating the skill set to take advantage of the full potential of the human brain to be aware of itself at least gives you the chance to pause, and make a choice.  Gina LaRoche of Seven Stones Leadership (and a fellow board member of The Interdependence Project, where I study meditation) talks about this eloquently in this article about September 11th.

Final thought: Imagine if, on September 20th, 2011, George Bush had called on the citizens of the United States and the world to reflect on the events of September 11th and join their energy in a great wave of compassion for everyone on the planet who was suffering or victimized?

If, rather than launching a series of wars that have killed over 100,000 civilians in the Middle East, plus more than 10,000 US and Coalition soldiers, contractors, and journalists – in retaliation for the murder of 2,996 people – we had been urged to transcend the reptile impulse to retaliate and acquire (war and shopping, the two activities Bush encouraged Americans to embrace) we had chosen to do something deeply more active and profound – extend compassion for the victims, the perpetrators, and anyone suffering on the planet?

If rather than engaging in war to achieve peace (because that has (cough cough) a great track record) we had not retaliated at all except through actively engaging in non-violence?  Would it be likely that there had been some other attacks? Yes. Would they have killed more than 110,000 additional civilians and soldiers before tapering off, as America became a beacon of compassion? Really, really unlikely.

We always have the choice to (insert space) between action and reaction. Taking a moment to be in that space is what makes us able to see other as ends, rather than means. Actively developing the ability to call upon that space and make a choice from compassion – or not – rather than always blindly reacting from habit, conditioning, and fear, is the difference between whether you are an example of what it means to be  an example of an evolving human being, or operating from a place of scared, selfish, and separate.

The other night at dinner at The Buckhorn Exchange – a Denver restaurant so awesome and old that Buffalo Bill ate there frequently and Sitting Bull’s nephew gave the owner’s family General Custer’s sword after he was vanquished (and they make a damn good steak for four) – my friend Isaac’s girlfriend Meredith mentioned that she was struggling her way through Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, a novel that had confounded me as well. “Ah, but have you read The Fountainhead,” I asked, having been blown away five years ago by how incredibly readable and inspiring Ayn’s second novel was.

Meredith had in fact read and liked The Fountainhead, and my friend Drew mentioned that his wife Ana had read it and loved it as well, not surprising given that she is a Russian immigrant who studies architecture.  We were all amazed at how much of a page-turner potboiler romance it is, complete with romantic intrigues, secrets, and even violent sex (a scene Rand herself later described as “rape by engraved invitation”).  Not at all what I feared/expected when told over the years by many how much I would enjoy this 700-page novel that is normally described as a work of philosophy. But even more than that, I was surprised by how much I like the book, given how much it is hated by many people who I respect and generally agree with.

Here’s the thirty-second version for those of you who haven’t read it: The Fountainhead is Rand’s second novel, and follows a brazen young architect named Howard Roark as he refuses over and over again to compromise his creative vision for his clients or society at large.  Dominique, his love interest, is the daughter of the owner of a crowd-pleasing traditional architecture firm that also employs Roark’s college buddy Peter Keating.  As Peter, Dominique, and Howard tussle over art, power, love, and vision, a slimey muck-racking columnist named Ellsworth Toohey tries to destroy Howard, calling him an enemy of the people for having “superior” artistic ideals. Toohey’s employer, newspaper magnate Gail Wynand, also gets involved in the romantic and artistic going-ons, at one point even taking Dominique as his own.  Buildings are erected, modified, re-built, and destroyed.  Businesses are built and ruined, as are reputations.  Marriages, divorces, lawsuits, trysts, and secret identities all make an appearance, and yet in the end the individual spirit of Roark’s creativity triumphs.

Written in response to Rand’s disdain for collectivism – the philosophy that man should dedicate his efforts to the goals of a group, rather than his own individual needs – it is a book that celebrates individualism, the idea that man should hold no mind sovereign over his actions other than his own. Indvidualism celebrates individual rights and the pursuit of one’s own happiness. Collectivism demands that the desires or needs of the group are paramount to the needs or desires of the individual, in service of a greater group ideal.

While it would seem on the surface that collectivism would lead to greater group happiness, collectivism’s demand that the individual subordinate themselves for the higher good runs into two main problems. One, it anthropomorphizes the “group” into a organism with a real identity, when in fact all groups are just made up of people and have no actual identity themselves. And two, it is human nature to want to pursue one’s own happiness.  One’s own tiny pleasure will always feel a thousand times more real to an individual than the greatest “group happiness” that could ever be possible, because it is one’s own.

Paradoxically, as I’ve discovered through deepening my own Buddhist practice of non-violence against myself (self-love, self-compassion, self-interest), the more interested I am in my own happiness – individualism – the more compassionate I am towards those around me, because it is inevitable that as you become deeply interested in yourself (through reflection and practice and dedication to truth and high ideals, not narcissism) you recognize your own flaws, hurts, brilliance, and humanity in those around you.

In The Fountainhead, Dominique rejects the world as she wants it to be (Howard) in favor of the world as it wants her to be (Peter), but in the end, her own need to simply love, create, and live proves more important than the externally imposed desire of the community for her to reject her own passions.  Dominique’s journey is the triumph of individualism over collectivism, and it is no accident that the gateway to her contentment was sign-posted by Rand with her embracing of art, love, and the rejection of authoritarian thinking.

Yet, I know many liberals who absolutely revile The Fountainhead, who think that it is a work that suggests that men should be free to do whatever they want regardless of whether it hurts other people.  The implication of this is that man, left to pursue his own happiness, is a selfish actor who cannot be trusted to watch out for his fellow men.  The deeper implication is that compassion needs to be enforced by society, by regulation, by force.  It may be true that some men and women are narcissists or sociopaths, but the cast majority of people I know freely form bonds with friends and family and community that are deeply compassionate and concerned with each others welfare, without the need of a collectivist enforcement to make them do so.

Isaac asked me at dinner if it was strange that we consider ourselves liberals yet love The Fountainhead.  I responded (not entirely sarcastically) that if you love The Fountainhead, you’re not a liberal, you’re a libertarian – a political view that I find much more encompassing of my own than the mush-mess that people refer to as liberalism.

When I read The Fountainhead, I found Roark’s commitment to his vision of his life to be inspiring.  Not that I necessarily agree with everything he did, but the mere act of knowing what his personal vision is and committing to it no matter the cost without causing harm to other individuals, is a brave antidote to the vague acceptance of dimly defined personal missions and visions that most people live from (if they bother defining them at all).  The Fountainhead inspired me to develop my own personal mission statement, and also was a major catalyst for committing to a regular practice of sitting meditation and my involvement with the Buddhist sangha at The Interdependence Project.

While it might seem obvious that collectivism – expressly and explicitly acting for the common good – is more likely to achieve success for a liberal (or Buddhist) approach to society, I think that’s wrong.  Individualism – recognizing that one deserves to be happy, that there is a way to be happy, and rejecting authoritarian thinking in favor of one’s own mind – is, for me, far more aligned with the Buddha’s teachings, and far more likely to engender true compassion and actions on behalf of the common good.

The word liberal itself is just a convenient shorthand for a vague collection of views that aren’t the same as people labelled conservative – but there’s so much gray area in there the whole “label” concept itself may be the problem.  Maybe I’m not what they call liberal as I think I am.

In the end, though many of my liberal friends reject The Fountainhead for it’s overtly individual message, for me it comes back down to this realization I had sitting on my cushion about a year ago: if I’m going to practice non-violence and compassion and help other’s to end their suffering, I better start by practicing non-violence, compassion, and happiness with myself first.

Dear Editors:

I nearly spewed my coffee on the front page on Monday as I read the
second paragraph of your article about the historic first gay
marriages in New York. Michael Barbaro’s description of gay men and
women arriving to their weddings  ”in matching sequined ties and
pinstriped suits” made me wonder if Mr. Barbaro thinks that gay people
wear sequined ties with their pinstripe suits because it’s a)
effeminate, b) theatrical! or c) (god forbdid) fashionable. But
journastically, the description fails not only the litmus test of my
own experience of how my boyfriend, myself, and our gay friends dress,
but none of the 25 photos accompanying the article display a sequined
tie either – matching or not. Had Mr. Barbaro said “some of them
arrived in matching sequined ties”, and been supported by photographic
evidence, I would have thought “Okay, that’s like saying some of them
arrive in assless chaps, or high heels, a bit biased and of
questionable purpose, but at least accurate.”  In this case, it feels
like a dated, slurry reference, as if I were to describe a New York
Times reporter as “arriving via Checkered Cab, crumpled suit reeking
of the cigarette dangling from his lips, Fedora cocked at a jaunty
angle, rushing to get the copy back to the boy on the printing press.”
Such a historic occasion, and the dignity of the process and people
being reported on, deserved a more careful editorial eye, especially
from a newspaper that has been so careful to err on the side of
intelligence.

Sincerely,

Jerry Kolber

- the promise in the 60′s was the *dawning* of the age of Aquarius.There’s massive disagreement among astrologers about whether astrological ages should be measured in 12 equal parts, or based on the actual size of the constellations, so there’s no consensus on whether Aquarius began a few hundred years ago or if it will begin a few hundred years into the future.  Either way, dawn means the commingling of the light of the new day with the nightfall of the old, and there’s no question that we are just beginning to see the effects of humanizing, philanthropic, idealistic and honest Aquarius.

- Martin Luther King Jr’s dream, and John Kennedy’s dream, and the dream of all the people who may not have been great orators but felt in their hearts the same burning kernel of humanity and rightness that these men did – MLK’s dreams were not for his audience, not for their time. They were dreams and visions of another time – perhaps now.  The first time I became aware of this idea was when I was shooting a documentary with the prophetic hip-hop artist KRS-One, who looked at me through my camera’s glass and said of MLK and JFK and Malcolm X:

“those cats were using technology as a time machine. they knew what technology meant and they were sending a message to the future.”

- all trees require seeds, fertilizer and water.  Your parents (or you) may have let your hair down and smoked dope in Central Park, ready to change *everything*,  and then ten years later found themselves with a mortgage, credit card debt, and a wife (or husband) they didn’t really know. That Central Park, hippie stuff – that’s a seed.  The next thirty years of oppressive, oil-soaked, consumer capitalism? That’s fertilizer. And your undirected frustration, low-grade anger at it all, and gnawing sense that though you have everything you still deserve something else – that’s water.  It’s not that the social movement of the 60′s wrote a check it couldn’t cash – on the contrary, it wrote a check, put it in the bank in a federally insured savings account, and is just waiting to cash out the juicy dividends.

- because here’s the thing.  You and all your friends – even the ones working on Wall Street and in corporate America – grew up with a profound distrust of the system that created these institutions.  You realize this is all an illusion, a particular version of the board game called society, that we’ve all agreed to play within.  There’s no one who says that capitalism has to be set up this way, or that laws have to be this way, it’s just what we’ve all agreed to agree to, and it changes every day. That’s great news, because whether your cynically punching the clock in a system you don’t believe in, or working as outside the system as you can on your terms, you know that giving and compassion are what really matters, and your ready on some level (maybe really deep level) to begin living a life in line with these values.

- and then there’s this. all those baby boomers – the ones who did, or didn’t, buy into the whole sixties thing – are retiring and guess what most of them want to do ? they want to do things to help other people!  teaching, building schools, coaching little league, planting trees, volunteering in hospitals, helping raise the grandkids – THEY are ready to cash the “giving check” at exactly the same time a massive generation of 20 and 30 year olds are figuring out how to be in this world but not play by the rules of inhumanity.  thanks Moms and Dads, we always knew you’d come around!

- living a life of humanity - which might also be called a life of giving (because what separates us from the animal is our ability to visualize a different future then give it to our community through action) – doesn’t mean a society of people who are all teachers, nurses, and farmers.  Living life as human means you can do ANYTHING if you do it with the right attitude, if you do it from a place of abundance rather than “mine”, a place of allowing rather than “wanting”, a place of humor and lightness rather than “fear”.  There are practices like meditation that just make it a little easier for you to make those choices, if you choose to.  That’s all it’s about.  You don’t have to give up your job in the investment firm, cheese factory, or indie band to live a life of giving. It’s all about how you do whatever you do.

- and why is this the coming of the age of humanity? Because despite knowing the game was rigged, the seeds still got patented and the earth, sea, sky, and air auctioned off to the highest bidders.  And now the kids are grown and Mom and Dad are thinking about re-starting their own spiritual monkey-wrench gang, and us kids are in our prime and we know where each other lives.com, without calling it a revolution or movement or dropping out.

- we’re all dropping IN and the combined force of all this great human potential landing at once on the system is what is making things feel so unstable right now, because the systems and processes and mechanics that are in place for us to land on (with deep deep cement pillars and a hundred stories concrete stories stretching into the sky) are all set up to factorize an idea that very few of us still believe in.  Because the system is a relic and is literally not set up to act as a foundation for what you are doing energetically right now, you are going to feel scared some(a lot of)times and like you are making a mistake, and sometimes you’ll find a footing that someone else left for you and you’ll feel strong and a million miles high, and there’s no way to know when or why or which and you just have to accept that great joy and great doubt are two sides of the same mobius strip. Even if the ground gets pulled out from under you, its still under you somewhere.

- notice your physical space start to mirror our collective inner desires, and our collective desire for a more human world begin to affect these physical processes directly, and this may not always be pretty, but change is unavoidable in the coming of the age of humanity. Weather report 2011: look for gaps in the solidity, rainbows where there’s supposed to be anything but rainbows, and hawks nodding their wings in approval of their allies.

Recommended Blog Reading if you’re on this path or want to be, see if any of these really inspiring people vibe with what you need to help you advance on your path – every one of them offers amazing “free” energy and articles to help you succeed, and all also more in depth coaching or books if you want to support them with a few dollars.

Jonathan Mead – living and working on your own terms; tons of great advice and his free pdf’s rock.

Josh Millburn - minimalist living

Karol Gadja – adventure living, awesome writer

Ev’Yan Nasman – creative and sexual liberation for self-discovery

Corbett Barr – advice for adventerous entrepeneurs

Dave Ursillo - improving your world and the life of others

Chase Night  – creativity from a young dude figuring it out as he goes. intimate, thoughtful stuff.

Mars Dorian - bullshit free business advice

Justine Musk - one of the three best writing/creativity advice sites online. she’s amazing.

Tyler Tervooren - the beauty of taking risks

Johnny B Truant - good advice on how to be a seriously rad motherfucker. seriously. big focus on online entrepreneurship.

Jacob Schere - photography and writing from an inspirational artist in Tokyo

Sam Spurlin – creative coach and writer with a particular focus on “life after school”. great stuff.

Pema Chödrön, a brilliant Buddhist nun, says this of the dharma in her book When Things Fall Apart:

“Turning your mind toward the dharma does not bring security or confirmation. Turning your mind toward the dharma does not bring any ground to stand on. In fact, when your mind turns toward the dharma, you fearlessly acknowledge impermanence and change and begin to get the knack of hopelessness.”

Fuck hope.

Hope is a joke. Hope is just mirrors and smoke. Hope is a rope that you use to hang your own personal responsibility.

Hope is nothing. Hope is daydreams renamed.  Hope is a trick that politicians, naysayers, and negative-thinkers use to make you think they are optimists.

Hope is one of the most seductively destructive thing you can let into your life.

Fuck hope.

Two people stand at the edge of a putting green. One is there for fun, not really caring about the game, giving it a shot. The other spends every weekend golfing, every weeknight practicing putts, her spare time at work is spent researching the latest golf clubs.  Golfer #1 goes to take her shot and thinks “I hope the ball makes it in,” and swings at the ball.   Golfer #2 puts all their preparation into practice, concentrates, lines up, and putts, thinking about technique and focus.

The key difference? Golfer #1 hopes, because a) they aren’t really committed to the outcome and b) they aren’t really prepared. Golfer #2 doesn’t hope because a) they care so deeply about the game that have committed to taking matters into their own hands and b) they have prepared themselves to focus, rather than dream.

You might recycle your paper garbage and minimize your water use, and hope that your neighbor does the same.  Don’t waste your time.  If you really care about what your neighbors are doing about respecting the environment, you’d knock on their door and get a commitment from them to recycle, and you’d make sure each week that they do.  Hoping they do it is a convenient way of letting yourself off the hook.  Hoping is a euphemism for “I kinda care, but not enough to actually do something.”

Hope is also a way to hedge your bets because you think you’ll fail.  It’s a loser mentality. Let’s say you are about to see a solo classical pianist.  Assuming they’re backstage having an internal dialogue prepping for the concert, which show would you rather see: The pianist who is thinking “I’ve prepared for my solo concert and I hope it goes well”?  OR “I’ve prepared for my solo concert and I’m going to kick ass and blow these people’s minds!”  Which performer do you want in front of you for an hour? The one who hopes, or the one who is committed to a kick-ass outcome?

“I’ve written my novel and put it out there, hopefully people will find it and enjoy it.”  BULLSHIT!  You’re not really preparing to write a novel, you’re just laying the groundwork for yourself to say this sentence six months from now: “Well, I did my best, I tried, I guess no one wants to read my stuff. Oh well.”  That’s a loser mentality.  That’s a hoper mentality. “I’m not done until I find an audience for my novel!” = winner mentality.  ”I’m not done until I find an audience for my novel, I really hope I do” = mushy thinking.  Failure built in right from the get-go.

Baking into your thinking and internal dialogue the possibility that you’ll fail is a layer of negative thinking you don’t need. The universe is already filled with enough people and experiences that will say “no” to you – don’t say “no” to yourself at the outset of a new project.

Which sounds wishy-washy vs. being an actual commitment?

“I hope this is the plan that will finally let me lose weight” vs. “I’m going to become lean and healthy.”

“I hope this time I finish writing the novel” vs. “I’m going to finish my novel in three months come hell or highwater.”

“I hope my new band works out” vs. “We are going to play four shows a month next month, six shows the month after that, and talk to other bands to figure out how to book a tour for the spring.”

If you’re hoping, you’re not really committed to making it happen.  Whatever is it you’re hoping for (and giving yourself permission to fail at), someone JUST LIKE YOU has accomplished.  Look for them if you need support, ask other people who have taken the journey you want to take for advice about how they dealt with the inevitable pitfalls and curveballs. Bang on their fucking doors until they help you.  Timid tapping is for hopers. Banging on the door screaming FUCKING HELP ME FIGURE THIS OUT BECAUSE SOMEONE HELPED YOU is for the hopelessly committed.  Whatever the fuck you wanna do, there’s a community of people online and in the real world who can help you (this is a GOOD use of the Internet, vs. the five ways the internet is destroying your life.)

If you’re hoping for something, either:

a) It’s something you don’t really care enough about to do the homework and practice to master it. If it’s something you have fun doing, then keep on hoping. Otherwise, drop whatever it is you’re hoping for – it’s just taking up psychic space that would be better used focusing on something you care enough about to really commit to.

b) You don’t have enough faith in yourself to not give yourself the option to fail. You’ve failed before, you might fail this time, and hey better to just acknowledge that pretty much this might work out for you.  BULLSHIT!  Next time that stuff creeps in, imagine that your negative thoughts are a different person, and tell your negative self-talk “Oh hey, nice to see you drop in, yeah, you’re not really welcome here. Go fuck yourself.”  Talk to your friends or a therapist or coach or find a community of people who can restore your faith in yourself, because you ARE incredible and powerful.

OR

c) You haven’t found a community of people or a coach or friend who can help you make a real plan and offer advice on how to deal with obstacles. If you really care about the thing you’re hoping for, find them and seek their support (and don’t forget to offer your support to those who are behind you on the journey).

If the thing you’re hoping for is literally something you have no control over (I hope I win the lottery, I hope that girl/guy likes me, I hope it doesn’t rain today), ask yourself what need would be addressed if you got the thing you’re hoping for, and then ask yourself if there’s some way to fill that need with resources that lie within your circle of influence.

Hope is an excuse masquerading as positivity.  Hope is a commitment with an escape hatch.  Hope is a way of saying “I kinda care but not enough to knock on the door”.

Fuck hope.

If you swim in the big pool, the pool that exists without “pop culture”, the really deep pool, you realize that no one really notices what you’re doing anyways and you suddenly become free to practice doing underwater backflips without worrying about anyone laughing at you or giving you the bronze instead of the gold. Let’s break it down: the little pool is the non-existent world of commercial/critical success you’ve imagined and that you have so much less control over than you would ever believe (hint; there are no big breaks, or overnight successes).

The big pool is the universe, which has an uncanny knack for supporting creative people who trust their own instincts enough to dive in the deep end. Grab any magazine or turn on e! and ask yourself – why are these people on the cover or on TV? Who made the rules? Are they better at what they do, work harder, know somebody, did something special? In some cases, talent rises, but in others, there’s a mysterious swirl of accidents that you could never replicate, so don’t bother trying.

Extra credit: Write a 50 word letter to the universe telling it what scares you most about the parts of it that you can’t see. Dear Universe, I’m a little nervous about diving in because there might be rocks under the water…maybe I’m not as good as I think….maybe I’m better than I imagined….

Unless you’re goal is literally to become famous for being famous – and that’s both a dumb goal and nearly impossible to accomplish without the right last name – give up on being famous, and just deal with doing the work and getting over your fears. Trying to become famous is a euphemism for avoiding doing the work of creating/marketing/selling, because you are afraid.

Fortunately, externalizing comes with it’s own little alarm system, the words “If only…” “Man if only I had a little more saved up I would take more time for my painting.” “If only my family didn’t fight so much, I’d have the energy to be creatively free like that guy over there.” “If only I didn’t get so much email, I’ll have time to write that novel.” “If only my kids didn’t need so much attention, I’d start painting again.” “If only I was twenty pounds thinner I’d spend more time creating”. Externalizing is tricky because it seems to set up a goal, when in fact it’s just a way to dodge what you wanna be doing, for real.

If you are in a situation where you are truly being physically or emotionally victimized, you must seek help. And of course if your physical needs – food, shelter, water – are not being met, you must meet those before you can enjoy the luxury of creating. But if you’re not in either of those situations, there is no such thing as creative freedom. There is only a choice of how you choose to act, in this moment, without concern for what you did or was done to you in the past, or fear or worry or excitement about what might be done to you in the future.

There is this moment, in which you can stop thinking and analyzing and start writing. That’s it. That’s all you have to do. No “if only”, no waiting for the right time or perfect circumstance or perfect plan.

Right now. Stop reading, stop surfing, stop looking for a magic bullet. Create for three minutes. Write, draw, paint, sketch, dance whatever it is – do it right now for three minutes. That’s not creative freedom. That’s just making a choice on how to spend your time.

Let’s flip the whole “kill your TV idea” here, and figure out how to finish your novel FASTER by watching MORE TV, because, let’s face it especially if you have a family, you’re gonna watch some TV or internet.

Breakthrough concept: If you are watching an hour of TV a night, you can write a novel at the same time, and have it done within a year at MOST. If you watch two hours of TV, you can finish your novel in six months. How does this work? Commercial breaks!

Put away your DVR fast forward button and get ready to use commercials as a signal to write. Every hour of television includes 40 minutes of program and 20 minutes of commercials. Even if you write or type just ten words a minute, you can output 200 words in twenty minutes.

200 words a day X 365 days in a year = 73,000 words. No matter what genre you are writing, that’s in the zone of a novel. Many people can write or type twenty words a minute (and some ten-per-minuters find themselves getting faster as they write more as well) – so at twenty words per minute, you’re at novel length in about six months.

How does this work? You keep your notepad handy or your computer on. The second a commercial comes on, get to work. Remember, you only have to write 10 words a minute. When the show comes back on, stop writing. Repeat at the next commercial break.

Those of you who type or write faster, or who watch MORE than an hour of TV each night, congratulations. You’ll finish your novel in 3 to 6 months of watching television.

Yes, this is a writing plan that (instead of telling you to STOP watching TV) rewards you for watching MORE television! If you’ve got a family make a game of it – involve the kids or your significant other. You’ll be hanging out with them 40 minutes of the hour anyways – so when the commercial comes on they can yell “GO!” You’ll never be writing for more than 2 or 3 minutes at a time so you don’t have to have ANY fear of running out of something to write.

Important note: Drop the “I need a special place/candles/quiet/writing cabin/etc” bullshit. You don’t. Your not trying to have a romantic writing life, you’re just trying to finish your novel. Cut the bullshit and write for two minutes at a time during commercials and you’ll be blown away by how fast you get where you want to be.

There’s a lot of ways the internet chips away at your life energy. Prior to the mid-90′s explosion of the internet as a common utility in your home, there was only three basic ways to transmit information between humans: 1. Person to person 2. Telephone/video – real-time electronic exchange 3. Hard copy – mail, books, papers, binders, letter.

Why does the internet make you feel overwhelmed? Because it is delivering information to you at the speed of light, in a constant stream that would take millions of lifetimes to digest. Here are five reasons you should turn off the internet.

1. You aren’t going to find the answer you’re looking for. Whatever it is you are trying to learn about – losing weight, writing a book, climbing a mountain, starting a meditation practice, learning karate, becoming happier – likely has a few basic components of information that need to be understood. The rest comes with practice. The answer to your question will come over time, with practice. But you have to practice, which means turning off the internet once you get the thirty minutes of basic information you need

 2. You are taking in far too much information. You may think piles of information is a good thing – you can learn more that way, make informed decisions, be more up to date. You may even take pride in being an “info-junkie”. However, there is no “end point” to information online – it’s a never-ending treadmill of ever-more-subtly different ideas. Rather than empowering you, on some level this is creating the sense that your research can never be complete. Easy way to decide your research is over? Turn off the internet and do something.

3. Your family and friends are not on the internet. Of course right now you are thinking – yes they are! You email, chat, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, etc all day to keep in touch with your wide network of friends and family. But you aren’t keeping in touch with your friends and family – you are engaging with digitally mediated representations of friends and family. I can remember nearly every time I see my friends; but I’ve never gone to someone and said “man I had the best chat with Paul on gmail just now”. By their nature, online interactive forums will present all your friends and family in the same bland, branded context – I see Uncle Stan, my Dad, and my friend Jamie all in the same blue-and-white box, stripping them of their personality and flavor. Your friends and family are in the human world. Enjoy keeping in touch, but limit your time online and get real with your relationships by … turning off the internet.

4. You are frittering away your life, giving away your creative energy to a world of electrons that will never give back to you. Harsh but true. Unless you are online creating or working on your life’s passion, you’re wasting time, no different than TV or video games. The difference beween fun and entertainment is that fun is something you do, while enertainment is something you watch. Internet time splits the difference in a sly way, making something that is usually passive feel interactive. Are you writing your book / painting / playing with your kid / visiting a friend / enjoying nature online? Or just passing the time? Turn off the internet and just go meditate, or do something – try focusing on one thing or give up and do n0-thing. See point #1.

5. Turning off the internet can save you thousands of dollars. Spending an hour a day wandering the internet dehumanizes you whether you realize it or not. Sitting in a chair, your body motionless save for the occassional mouse click or typing, eyes darting around the screen, turns you into a lump of inactive flesh and hypnotizes your brain into a particular dreamlike state. It’s not good for your eyes either. But even more important, spending that much time looking at a flat version of the world as your own body sags its weight into a chair has the effect of disassociating your sensations from the world, and not in the good and useful Buddhist way.

This leads to disconnection, and (combined with the endless parade of “solutions” you find online) a deeper feeling of dissatisfaction, which in our culture tends to lead to over-consumption of food, clothing, gadgets, drinks, etc. Turn off the internet to get back in touch with yourself and re-connect to the real world in a deep, meaningful way and you might buy a lot less junk and find a pathway toward healing.

BONUS REASON: The internet is helping you create your own obstacles to happiness. A settled mind is necessary to recognize the way we participate in creating our own suffering – you can’t begin to open up spaces of clarity if you’re not settled enough to recognize where you are stuck. The internet and it’s constant stream of info-info-info does a great deal to keep your mind unsettled.

In 1932 if you wanted a distraction, you could turn on one or two radio stations (maybe), look at a book or newspaper, or talk with a friend. That’s pretty much it. 100 years before that, distraction likely meant hanging out with friends or family in person; which frequently involved a creative activity like singing, games playing or sewing, quilting or building something, or hunting something.

The internet makes it possible to be endlessly distracted all by yourself; it breaks up human interaction into chunks that are convenient for computer processing and branded interactive experiences, but that aren’t so good for how we actually communicate. Human communication devoid of nuance or eye-contact expressed with no flavor in a never-ending digital stream of sameness -now that’s what I call living! (barf)

Try a ten minute internet free zone each day. That means no online, no phone, no text message. Leave the smartphone in the office and go for a walk for ten minutes – you might feel surprisingly lonely and disconnected – investigate that.

“If we could first know where we are and wither we are tending we could better judge what to do and how to do it.” – Abe Lincoln

But the ego, with best of intentions,  says the end result is the representation of the process so it has to be perfect.  The ego needs your art to be perfect.  But you just need to do your art,  and to make mistakes.  This contradiction is the road to madness.

Tell your ego, your expectations, the whole ball of what your art “needs to look like” to go do itself with a crowbar.  Then just start doing the work, even it looks and smells like a pile of dog poo.  That is the path to growth and being a working artist.