diversity

What's the point of diversity? Of things being various? The sea is always different where I live; seeing the difference wakes you up. Which is the reason: diversity wakes us up. Once awake we see the unity.

the road

Mostly we don't take turn-offs. We're turned off by them, the abruptness, the decisions required. Mostly we just keep driving along veering a bit left or a bit right as the road forks. That's mostly all it does- fork. One branch always has the sign MORE and the other LESS. Sometimes we take a whole lot of MORE forks and end up stressed, confused, wondering how we got here. Then we take a few LESS forks and it feels right, maybe a bit empty though. So soon we are tempted back by that lovely MORE sign. How did we get here? MORE or LESS on autopilot I'd say.

art

The job of the artist, one job, is not to explain the mystery, but to evoke it.

be average

We are told from an early age to ‘do our best’. We try to make things perfect even when we know being a perfectionist is ‘wrong’. You see comedians on panel shows being clever clever, but look carefully and often the biggest laughs are for obvious things said with good timing.

One of the most interesting things I have done is to go on a Keith Johnstone improvisation course. Keith is the father of modern impro- most games and ideas in this area of theatre training and performance can be traced to his findings over a fifty year career. His books on impro and impro for storytellers have wide application – very useful for people wanting to get mentally tougher too…

One of Keith’s catch phrases hurled at people about to go on stage is ‘be average’. It’s a shocker. We are all so programmed to hear ‘give it your best shot’, ‘go for it’, even ‘break a leg’ has a certain do or die reach-for-the-skyness about it. But Keith says: Be average.

It’s genious. Why? Because it removes the ‘trying’ element from within us. Charles Bukowski was a prolific writer- but only when he decided to stop ‘trying’ to be a literary writer. On his gravestone it reads “Don’t Try”. In other words- just get on with it without that ‘trying’ getting in the way. As children we are taught to ‘try harder’. Nonsense. Just do it. If it’s wrong, correct it. No ‘trying’ is needed; ‘trying’ functions as a sort of barrier between doing and thinking about doing. 

The problem is we are rewarded as kids for ‘trying hard’- ie. having a go. Instead we should aim to reward kids not for attempting things but for finishing things, however small- which, apparently, is what Goethe’s father did.

Tell someone to be good or do ‘their best’ or ‘try hard’ and they get all caught up with being clever and doing things not for their own right but to attract attention to themselves. By saying ‘be average’ we return the focus to the material itself.

Being mentally tougher is about not getting screwed up with being successful, high achieving and other ludicrous bullshit. Of course we all want those things, but to be screwed up about them is sheer codswallop. The way round it is to focus on being mentally tough first and not be too attached to the outcome of anything you attempt. Be average. See what happens. You may be pleasantly surprised.

get tough #4

We're all mentally tough in one area or another. I know writers who can sit for hours and type 3000 words but are scared to make a phone call to a builder. I know martial artists who will walk towards any kind of streetfight but lie to their girlfriends rather than tell them the truth. I know city millionaires who can gamble everything but are frightened to talk about what they really think of something in case someone laughs. Tough in some areas, lamentably weak in others. The problem is transferring from an area where you use mental toughness to your blindspots, where, for years, for whatever reasons, you have failed to be tough.

Yukio Mishima, the famous Japanese writer, was not a natural athlete. Yet he studied karate and kendo diligently- becoming a blackbelt in both. Though his technique was rather ordinary he performed brilliantly in tests- which is the time and place when many go to pieces. (There is a saying that one public demo or test is worth a month of training). Mishima said his secret was to apply to martial arts the lessons of focus and persistence he had learned from writing. In other words he had mastered transferring his mental toughness from one area to another.

First we may look at why some people fail to transfer their toughness.

Self image

Early indoctrination

Rebelliousness

Don’t see it as important

CBA (Can’t Be Arsed)

If you have a tough guy self image you may think keeping the house clean a little effeminate. So you become a slob.

If your father and grandfather got angry when they were irritated maybe you think that is the normal and manly thing to do.

If people who are boring think keeping calm is a good idea than surely doing the opposite will make you interesting?

Maybe, when you’re retired you’ll stop being agitated by people parking in your ‘spot’, but not now.

Why bother to change anything? After all we’re all going to be dead one day. Have a drink?

Self- image is an incredibly powerful restraint on change. It is also a great boost to change. A double edged weapon. If you adopt the self-image of ‘creative’ you’ll be looking for all kinds of novel and interesting things in life. If you change to ‘assertive’ you’ll be looking for opportunities to be top dog. I’ve found that even walking round with a camera for a few days changes my self image to ‘photographer’ and I start to see the world in terms of effective images.

Once you adopt the self-image of ‘mentally tough’ it is way easier to be…mentally tough.  

Equally powerful in restraining change, is the example of people we respect (for one thing) who may have a negative characteristic. I’ve observed that students always pick up a teacher’s worst habits first. Or his irrelevant ones. I knew one aikido student who used to bang his feet on the ground before a technique because the teacher did. He didn’t know it was because the teacher was dispelling momentarily his arthritis, from which, of course, the student didn’t suffer.

You can’t really argue someone into transferring mental toughness from one sphere into another. Their response is very likely to be ‘why bother?’ In aikido it took many months of intensive training to appreciate something no teacher had told me but which is absolutely fundamental to martial arts: real fighters make decisive movements; they don’t wobble. But what if I had been told at the beginning ‘don’t wobble’? I’d have probably nodded and then said, “But what angle do I make this throw from?”

It is hard to make the transfer if you don’t think you need it. Or if you don’t think you can.

One way is the ‘as if’ experiment. Try, for a day, to act, in a new area, where before you never considered mental toughness, ‘as if’ you were mentally tough. Nothing will freak you out. You won’t whinge, complain or run people down. You’ll remain calm and take your time when you have to. Nothing will anger you, and if it does you’ll get it under instant control. Think of yourself as an actor playing a mentally tough war veteran who has studied Buddhism…whatever works to get you into the role! If you can do it for a day maybe it isn’t so hard after all.

two ways you can go

Ariens Sno-Tek ST22 Two Stage Petrol Snow Thrower Product code: ET2829 £707.50

or...

Snow Shovel Sturdy Red Snow Shovel with Wooden Handle Product code: AA2273 £7.85

The snow thrower - a bit like a leaf blower is the latest bit of kit you don't need. At a hundred times the price of a plastic shovel it seems extraordinary that anyone would want one. We're all missing chances to use our bodies, suffering obesity and we can even save a vast sum of money solving just these problems by buying the shovel rather than the blower.

Of course a blower will be a lot of fun- for the first five minutes. Just as that jet boat I went on was a great laugh, at first. Then it was just as boring as any other kind of water craft. Everything becomes boring after a while so it makes sense to be getting fit at the same time.

Why not buy a crate of champagne or two and a shovel- surely that will be a Merrier Christmas than a sno-blower taking up yet more garage space?

Get Tough #3

How can we alter our default setting for Mental Toughness? Our culture, our bodies, our own upbringing and habits, the stories we have heard about our heroes and relatives- all this will have a bearing on your own default setting for mental toughness.

That’s your starting point. If you have never had anaesthetic for dental work then having a filling with no injection is no big deal. My grandfather once pulled out a rotten tooth he had with a pair of pliers. But I’ve always asked for an injection. I’m not about to use pliers unless I’m on a desert island like Tom Hanks in Cast Away. And even then...

The default setting is nothing to be ashamed of. But it may not be your optimum setting. In fact it won’t be.

You may have grown used to being irritated when the bus is late. You can stop that today. Almost any reaction which is negative in a trivial sense can be stopped by adopting a stance of mental toughness.

What are ‘non-trivial’ negativities? I suppose pain and fear settings that are long entrenched. If you have been scared of spiders since you were four it won’t disappear just because you ‘will it.’ You’ll need to do certain things, have certain positive smaller experiences to enable you to overcome such early programming.

Conditioning or programming is what we are talking about, largely, when we talk about mental toughness default settings. By nibbling away, bit by bit, you can overcome a setting that says X cannot be done.  You can also do it by having a BIG experience. Say, you’re frightened of snakes- OK go on a snake hunt. Reverse the situation- you are actively looking for what you normally avoid.

Sometimes simply adopting a mentally tough stance will dissolve a default setting. Others can be more permanent. But by assuming a mentally tough posture you can erode them.

“Pushing Yourself” versus Mental Toughness

You can ‘push yourself’ and it can look like mental toughness but the end result can be depression or a nervous breakdown.

It’s important to distinguish between refusing to be fazed by something and forcing yourself on, stressing your system. In the former you aren’t taking the activity in question too seriously, in the latter case, you are. 

When we over-associate with a goal, when we become over attached to an outcome we can strain ourselves trying to achieve it. But who cares- in the great grand scheme of things whether we get a first class or a second class degree? Who cares if our book is finished this year or next? Who cares if we make a million dollars or not? 

Targets are good for getting us going, for starting the race. They are bad if they simply become weapons to beat ourselves up.

Mental toughness is about encouraging stretching but avoiding strain. Say, you’re trying to finish writing your book and feeling tired- OK tough it out- not for any ulterior motive (because it MUST be finished) but because you want to test yourself and see if you CAN tough it out. If it works, and you ‘break through’- as often happens when you refocus hard on a thing- all well and good. But if you still feel tired then so what- go to bed, get some rest and be tough again in the morning. Toughing it out isn’t about pretending you’re superhuman. It’s about accepting your limitations and pushing them, a bit at a time, in a way that stretches and does not strain.

It’s not an easy call. But, if you are not wedded to some goal in an obsessive way, you will be perceptive enough to stop when toughing it out becomes damaging. 

The Japanese swordsman Tesshu set himself the task of copying out the entire Buddhist Cannon by hand. He was asked, “Isn’t that a huge undertaking?” “Not at all,” he replied, “I only copy one page at a time.”

What’s the big deal about ‘thinking positive’?

There is a whole industry out there devoted to promoting Positive Thinking. What’s that all about? Why does it strike such a chord and claim such great results? Surely we should endorse it if it really works?

But what’s the downside? The downside is simple: positive thinking requires energy you may not have. This is an important but subtle point. When you raise your game- such as going on a mission or an expedition you get an across the board rise in energy to help you succeed. But if you don’t raise your game, say in everyday living, then ‘being positive’ is an effort and you may not be always up to it.

But ‘toughing it out’ raises your game. It’s a ‘level up’ across the board. Once adopted, you don’t need to push yourself each time you take a tougher attitude, it’s just there, like a backstop, ready and waiting. Positive thinking involves ‘trying’, getting tough involves ignoring the imaginary- think of it as double negative…and therefore ultimately positive.

Being ‘positive’ all the time is a very effective way of isolating what is good in any situation and focussing on that. But that may not be what is required. The situation maybe insoluble, or simply very bad. You need to be clear sighted and making the right judgements, not distorting things in order to make it seem ‘positive’. 

But seeing the flaw in unthinking ‘positivity’ is not, as some feel, a thumbs up for negativity. That kind of either/or thinking is primitive to say the least. Positive thinking in fact derives its incredible power- and for some it is almost like a religion- because it activates mental toughness.

When we think positively we are slamming the brakes on ‘following up’ any negative thoughts. We are choosing NOT to think certain things. Both these things happen when we are mentally tough. We just say to ourselves- nothing bothers me, nothing freaks me out. And when it does we say- well, I’m human but so what? And get on with it. Becoming mentally tough is about taking a stand. It’s about saying “NO MORE” to feelings of inadequacy, intimidation, anxiety. It’s about over riding them. Now, we will see, you can put in place certain behaviours and practices that make OVER RIDING these negative emotions much easier. 

When I was first a father I knew about being woken up all through the night and I didn’t look forward to it but I was certainly unprepared for how it hit me. I felt like a zombie. Work was really hard. And worst of all I became irritable. I had never before allowed irritation at others to flourish. Now I did. And like all negative emotions- once they have a home they just keep on enlarging it. You keep going back there, being more irritable and allowing irritation to become a normal behaviour. And it did with me: I became an irritable man. It took several years for me to actually notice this, and several more for to do anything about it- slow learner eh? But the answer was simple: be tough. Tough out the irritating feelings, don’t give in to them. The more you grin and bear it the easier it gets.

I could have tried to be ‘positive’ about having no sleep but where is the positive? Having no sleep sucks. But you can tough it out. Doctors do. Soldiers do. And they can’t afford to make mistakes even when they are dog tired. By toughing it out and not giving in you gradually find it easier.

The power of mental toughness lies in the way it CONVERTS negativity into fuel. It’s like saying “OK life, give me your best shot! Call that hard? Come on try again!” It is empowering because it is not fearful or greedy. The harder life hits you the better you feel because you’re ‘winning’, you aren’t folding, you aren’t giving in. There is sophistry here but not much, it works you see. There are always people smaller and weaker than oneself who have withstood greater calamities. They empower us with their example. They give us the strength to keep getting back up.

Positive thinking derives similar power from taking a stance: nothing is going to get me down. The problem is- when something does- the dam bursts, you find you can’t find a positive foothold anywhere. You get swept away. I’ve seen a very positive person completely devastated when something with NOTHING positive at all about it hit them. (It didn’t help that they were a little ill and in a new environment.) They just collapsed.

But mental toughness is a little like fighting in the mountains. The terrain is your friend even if you are on the defensive. You never need to flee, just pull back and regroup behind a convenient summit. It’s almost impossible to flush fighters out of mountainous terrain- look at Afghanistan. With mental toughness you accept each attack on your calm as a test of your toughness. It doesn’t matter how bad it is- can you take it on the chin? Can you remain calm? You don’t have to make out you can solve it, or that it will get better or that there is hope of any kind. You just have to face it like a person who is mentally tough, who won’t be beaten.

And then you find there is a sliver of hope, there is a chance, there is a way. And because you didn’t panic and turn tale and run you can actually do something.