how to make a plan seem real

John Lennon quipped that life is what happens while you’re busy making plans.

We have plans all the time. But how do you tell which one is a 'goer' and worth putting your shoulder behind and which ones are best relegated to becoming humorous conversation pieces? I once had a plan to build an underground house. Never happened. I got some good laughs out of it though. For other people an underground house and all the digging it involves is no big deal. It's a real plan for them.

Plans are easy to make but hard to make real. I do not just mean achieving a goal, I mean coming up with a plan that convinces you it is worth pursuing. How do you tell the plan with legs? At the very beginning there are signs. But which ones should we take note of? You can go through phases when all plans seemed doomed and pointless from the start because you just can't get enthusiastic. Then, at other times, every plan seems brilliant. Apart from your own mental state the signs of a good plan include simplicity, the desire to tell others about it and lucky breaks at the outset. Recently I have become involved in an exciting project that involves building a solar vehicle. It’s still at the planning stage and yet is already a 'real' plan. I am fascinated to see what form it takes as the plan itself is realised. I am sure it will, for various reasons I will outline below. Yet there are other projects I have started and wasn’t a bit surprised when they didn’t get to be realised. When we say someone ‘gets things done’ we are acknowledging, first of all, they have the power, or skill, to make plans real- and then realise that plan. So what are these powers and skills and how can we improve them?

Simplicity

First, the simplest way to make a plan real is having the use of money in the background when you make the plan. You want to look at the stars- you have money enough to buy a telescope- this plan is a goer. You want to drive across the desert- you have money to buy the services of someone who can drive you across the desert. You want to get into space- well, for several million dollars, you can hitch a ride on a Russian rocket though Richard Branson is not far behind.

Because money can make things real, some things, very easily we get all too caught up in the magic power of money. You become obsessed with raising money for an expedition instead of thinking of a clever way to do the expedition for less money, or even none. You can borrow gear, get it secondhand, use volunteers rather than paid hands- there are lots of ways to cut down the money costs of an expedition. By doing this instinctively you can make a plan seem real by having ways of achieving things which usually need money. Instead of giving up even thinking about a long trip you can nurture the idea, make it real.

Then, of course, there are the things money can’t buy: skill and enthusiasm. In any project, however well funded, there will be moments when giving up seems the logical thing to do. So, at the planning stage how enthusiastic are you? If you aren't so keen on the plan now you better be able to see a way to get enthusiastic. As for skills- if you can’t ride a bicycle then no amount of money will enable you to take a bicycle tour. So plans that use only the skills you already have will seem realer than those that need special training. Unless, of course, that training is extra fun and adds to your enthusiasm for the project.

For a plan to be real and therefore realised, the basic idea must be communicable on a simple level- to someone- even if it's just yourself. If you just have a feeling ‘that you want to write a novel’- then you probably will but it may take years and years to arrive at a good basic idea. I am not saying you have to communicate the basic idea to people who will tear it apart- which if you simply give an image, many unimaginative people will, but you need to be able to warm your hands, so to speak, at the hearth of your idea. You need to feel it’s a good idea whose time will come. And for that to happen there must be something arresting, new, simple or memorable about it. All this means is: be on the look out for ideas that have these qualities, especially simplicity.

Greenlight it!

So much for the externals. What really interests me is the moment when you yourself mentally ‘green light’ a project, plan or dream of your own. For me it becomes real at that moment. You get a strong sense of ‘knowing it will happen’. It no longer seems unreal. Strangely, you may have nothing to go on except a dream or image. When I knew I was going to make a long canoe trip across northern Canada what made me switch from uncertain to certain, was, after seeing a birchbark canoe in a museum, I had this constant image in my head of a birchbark canoe sitting on its own reflection on some unnamed lake. When John Fowles set out to write the French Lieutenant’s Woman all he had was an image of a woman standing at the end of a long curving jetty that was being pounded by the sea.

Lucky breaks are a sign

But a dream isn’t always enough. You can easily con yourself that some image in your mind deserves to be real – you plough in a lot of work and it comes to nothing.  This is when the second factor becomes important – the nebulous, but very real, notion of alignment. How do you know if you are in alignment with some project or plan? Coincidences pile up. Happy coincidences seem to find you out- the right book, a useful suggestion, people being interested, a few lucky breaks. However you can’t sit around and wait for them to happen. It’s a bit like those psychic experiments which revealed people are better at correctly guessing a random card when they have no stake in ‘being right’. It’s easier to win at poker when you don’t care whether you win or lose, in other words. Likewise, with a project, you can’t ‘will’ the good coincidences. You have to act as if there were none and then graciously accept them as they pile up. You can take, after a while, a ‘loan from the coincidence bank’- this is when you have faith that something will just turn up- but usually this is hard to do at the beginning of a project. You need to have some momentum first.

When you mentally green light a project there must be the feeling that there are no insurmountable obstacles, by this I mean no obstacles that are plain boring to contemplate surmounting. That’s all. Very little is unsurmountable as long as it still engages, energises and enthuses you. You might have to take years to get it done but then as the Samurai Tesshu liked to say “I only copy the Buddhist Cannon one page at a time- that way this big task is actually an easy task”. But a task that seems draining and boring- unless you have external forces propelling you- will seem tedious to contemplate and the image, the idea, will not catch fire. You’ll hold back and somehow the project won’t seem ‘right’.

Be Impregnable

One of the biggest helps I’ve found, after you have got a ‘good image’ or dream idea in your head is to build an impregnable position. If you say ‘this book gets published if it takes 100 rewrites and 10 years’ then that’s a powerful position. Somehow the energy of that decision will communicate itself and you’ll find that the plan will probably be realised much sooner than you thought. And, oddly enough, when I have set time limits and rushed things it takes much longer. So if you build an impregnable position you are giving your project the best start.

What are the obstacles? Do a mental checklist of obstacles. Does any obstacle seem harder than the project itself? For example: learn fluent Chinese to start business in China. For most people becoming fluent will be harder than mastering a few basics of the language and finding a Chinese person who speaks basic English. If you find you have obstacles that are bigger challenges that the final project then you should find a way of getting there more directly. For example, it may be harder to achieve credibility in a subject by writing a book about it than actually mastering the subject, and then writing the book.

Focus on the inessential.

I wrote the above because 'focus on the essential' sounded so boringly obvious...yet, unless you have a well defined end or finishing state in mind, you can lose your way tormenting yourself with the question ‘just how essential is this?’ However, the skill of focusing on the essential is not hard to acquire when you realise it is related to the simplicity of the idea. With a simple idea the endgame is obvious. You want to make a cake. The endgame is a piping hot cake coming out of the oven. To focus on the essential you only have to know what your endgame is. For the solar vehicle I know that it will have to be able to drive a certain distance. Nothing less is acceptable. Anything more is a bonus but certainly not worth wasting time over. When I know, and can imagine my precise endgame, what the jacket of the book looks like if the idea is a book, then focus becomes far easier. If you can’t seem to focus then it means you have an imprecise idea of what the end result should be and you need to get more precise- or ditch the idea for a simpler one.

When I was first interested in getting out into the Sahara and had no car and no camels I couldn't come up with a real plan. I kept changing my mind. Everything depended on doing other things which I had no control over. I couldn't get enthusiastic. Then I said- after a lot of messing around I might add- what is the basic end situation I want here? Getting into the desert carrying food and water. How can I do that? By rucksack? No. By bike? No. What about pulling a sledge or trolley? Now I was away. I had a trolley built in a Cairo metal work shop. It cost very little-$50- and was completed in a day. On that trolley I was able to haul food and water over 150km. I deliberately made it super simple- no proper steering, no fancy frame, no suspension. All of those things were inessential. if I had even thought about them at the planning stage they would have made the plan seem unreal and not worth pursuing. But because the plan was so simple and doable it felt real. And was realised.

To return to my current project: the image of a solar vehicle to be built inexpensively. This image is clearly in my mind. The low component cost can be shared between the interested parties involved. Friends seem positive and coincidences are already piling up- people with good connections, useful suggestions arising rather than useless ones. I have a clear image of the endgame too so this feels like a real plan.

Tell everyone about it

There are novelists who never speak about a book idea until it is written. They fear that criticism could kill off the plan before it becomes strong enough to withstand public inspection. But I have reluctantly concluded that if I am buzzing to tell people about an idea - and not just because it is outrageous or funny but because I am genuinely proud of it- then that is a key sign I am on to something: this is a real idea. if you suddenly get all shy and reluctant to spout your idea you either should simplify it or examine it again- it may not be real enough yet.

Find your own fun sensor

OK, so much for a big plan. But what about a small plan? Having a party, say, or painting your house. Increasingly I think you have to find what is fun and exciting in any project, you have to have a ‘fun sensor’ digging the potential fun out, wherever it may lurk. Actually I realise this is central to making any plan happen, big or small. Where’s the fun in it? Where’s the excitement? Building a shed in your garden may be boring to contemplate- but what if you designed it yourself, made it individual and quirky? For me this is a KEY turnaround for any boring idea. I can think: OK must get exercise- then do nothing. But if I add the idea of exploring some obscure cave up the canyon then exercising to get there is suddenly infused with fun. Simple stuff but it is surprising how easy it is to lose the fun habit and become a dutiful adult, even boringly dutiful about getting drunk and partying. Far better to give a party a theme or even a challenge. Raise the tempo any old way you can. Find the excitement.

living in the moment #2

Having written that piece on living in the moment I found myself in a taxi heading to a two o’clock meeting stuck in traffic and watching the meter ticking with increasing anxiety as I had the bare minimum for the ride in coins. If we went over I’d have to offer a fifty pound note and many taxi drivers have no change so I’d be walking into shops to get change making me even later for the meeting. Which I was already late for as the traffic was still not moving. If ever there was a time when I was NOT living in the moment this was it. So I thought I’d experiment and notice my reactions. I didn’t try and ‘stop’ feeling agitated, I just noted that I wasn’t ‘living in the moment’. Strangely just repeating this phrase effected a major shift. This has happened to me before with ‘mantras’. If you’re slogging through the desert on foot against the wind or canoeing against the current you can find a phrase, that, if you endlessly repeat it, somehow powers you up. As Ranulph Fiennes the English explorer (and cousin of Ralph Fiennes the actor) puts it, ‘a mantra lasts about three days.’ After that the ‘magic’ power of the ‘power phrase’ has lost its urgency and you need a new one. So I suspect I’ve made the phrase ‘living in the moment’ into a mantra phrase so it will be a powerful switch of emotional state for a few days and then I’ll be back to normal. That’s why, incidentally, I am wary of the massive claims made by NLP and other systems that employ ‘emotional reboots’ of one kind or another. They promise permanent change but actually just supply a series of emotional kicks. At the risk of going off the point I should clarify. Permanent change means removing things from your personality, from your life, from your conversations, from your way of seeing. You may add information such as, say, the need to be physically fit, but it acts as a removal of tiredness and lethargy. Abundant reality surrounds us all but we’re often blocked from perceiving it. Things and thoughts get in the way. Any plan of change that is based on a model of adding ‘new software’ to build some kind of superman battling the world to get his or her share of the goodies is just as doomed as a computer locked up with bloatware. In fact this example has some fleeting application here: imagine you’re a computer with a marvellous operating system and minimal software perfectly adapted to its correct use but somehow you’ve been loaded up with lots of free programs and downloads that keep causing you to crash. Your instinct is to find yet another program to cure all the others. Actually you just need to start stripping away all this stuff you don’t need. Or, more practically, recognising it can be used for temporary gain or boost, but then must be ditched. Hence mantras. There is no question if you are engaged in some hard boring task and you want to blast through it find a mantra that works- power phrases of the right kind usually suggest themselves at the time (‘never give up’ ‘I am unstoppable’ etc etc) and then as they lose effect try and find another. If you need it. But each mantra is ditched as needed, not left around to be worshipped as some ultimate truth- which only clogs the system.

Stripping it away rather than adding and adding has to be the overall strategy. And it is supported time and again by experience. For example, by stripping away thoughts about past and future one will feel energised. The freer you feel the more energy you have. The more ‘tied down’ you feel the less energy you have.

Back to the taxi. So I had some mantra help to get me started but then I began to notice what I was thinking. I found that if I turned my head to search out something new and potentially interesting to look at outside in the street I could beat getting ‘locked in’ which is the characteristic state of NOT living in the moment. I found I was observing my breathing, noting the extent of my body sitting in the chair. So making a note of sensations and then moving on definitely helps. I didn’t pursue or hang on to any thoughts that occurred. I visualised my head as ‘empty’ (true in more ways than one it has been suggested…), a place for observing ideas and thoughts and sensations and then moving on. The feeling of moving on is essential. I complimented the driver on the snazzy orange plastic interior of his cab. Beaming out a measure of goodwill definitely helps, looking out to be vaguely helpful rather than vaguely hostile loosens things up too. It all sounds rather simple because it is. Maybe it amounts to just removing the things that are stopping you from living in the moment. Worries? Just note them and then move on to noting your breathing and the blueness of the sky. If you can connect to the idea of all of life being somehow interconnected, including the inorganic, then it’s easier to avoid ‘mental lock-ups’. It’s easier because you can keep focusing outwards, keep using awe and wonder to keep your own tiny thoughts in perspective.

I am as guilty as the next person of thinking I need X and Y, and only if I get X and Y will I be truly ‘fulfilled’ and happy. What a needless penance! What a treadmill.  Humans need something to do otherwise they become unhappy. But this doesn’t mean they should make themselves unhappy trying to make themselves happy…you aim for goals because that is what humans do, that’s the way we structure our days. But goal setting and achieving, though energising, won’t make anyone happy. Happiness is the natural state, the basic condition of life when you remove distracting thoughts and sensations.

living in the moment

What does it mean when people talk about ‘living in the moment?’ And why should it be preferable to any other style of living? Eckhart Tolle has made a pretty good niche espousing living in the moment as the cure for all ills. Panacea thinking? Maybe.

When we are totally involved, not thinking about future or past, then we’re living in the moment. This is a so called ‘flow’ state and, in as much as it is experienced (because often you are so involved you are not even observing yourself being involved) this state is far preferable to one of worry, indecision and vacillation. Of course, anyone who has experienced ‘flow’ states during any sort of activity- be it fishing, running, fixing cars- will know what I am talking about.

But to be able to consciously turn on a ‘living in the moment’ head whenever you want is different from indulging in a flow state activity such as fishing or rock climbing. One might use those activities to calm down and ‘happy up’ but you can’t fish 16 hours a day- and its flow inducing possibilities would be reduced anyhow. Going from writing as a hobby to writing for money is another way to reduce the flow feeling- especially if it involves long hours. So, to be able to turn on an instant feeling of ‘living in the moment’ would be very nice.

What we are talking about here is detachment. Not detachment in the sense of not caring, but detachment in the sense of focusing only on the present moment and when you sense that moment is passing, refocusing on whatever is at hand and anchoring to that moment. It’s not hard and fast. It’s kind of like watching a series of balls being hit out of stadium. Normal life is watching the ball, following as long as possible (because you are for some reason attached to that particular ball) and then staring at where you think it landed imagining all kinds of fates for that ball. Living in the moment is watching the ball leave the stadium and then immediately switching back to watch another ball and another ball.

Doesn’t that mean you become a kind of grasshopper, flitting all day from the most obvious forms of stimulation? Yes, I suppose, if you are totally reactive. But most of us are pro-active. We have stuff we want to do. So we get stuck in- say in writing an article- and we cut out distractions- er- hold on isn’t this just another flow situation? Yes, it is. OK, living in the moment capability is something you turn on when you feel yourself ‘drifting off’ ie. getting stuck in a worry pattern, a pointless day dream, intertia, a desultory conversation going nowhere. Living in the moment is a strategy for dealing with downtime.

Think about Zen monks. All their time is scripted from waking up until going to sleep. That doesn’t mean they can’t change their routine if something crops up- but it does mean whenever they have ‘downtime’ they have something to do- usually meditating while sitting down. Similarly if you find yourself stuck in a maundering sluggish frame of mind it would be great to be able to get out of that. A lot of life can go past musing on past insults and future problems- all of which have either happened or won’t happen and are therefore unreal, at least a lot more unreal than the living breathing state of being here right now.

The technique of switching may require previous experience in becoming ‘detached’. It may also require a sense that ‘ultimate reality’ or ‘truth’ is what surrounds us all the time if only we could perceive it better- though we do get glimpses all the time. Maybe it only requires acceptance of the idea of becoming detached. The classic exercise is to close your eyes and every thought or sound that you experience you simply take note of and then ‘let go’ ie. you focus briefly on the next one, take note by saying to yourself “another thought about how hungry I feel’ ‘the sound of a dog barking’ etc so that you get used to the feeling of simply observing the mental contents of your brain flitting past, rather than ‘taking seriously’ and pondering on everything you think and perceive.

Having become thus acclimatised one is probably in a situation to try switching on a ‘living in the moment’ head whenever you need it. The knack is to be light hearted- every attempt at 'being present' worth it’s salt emphasises humour- why- because it brings you right into the here and now, encourages flexibility of mind- the kind of ‘breakage’ with the enfolding tentacles of past and present. What I mean is that as you go through life the present moment can get sort of hijacked by the past (regret, musing on what might have been, dreary self analysis) or the future (what accident might happen, how to get more money) and these tentacles can be very strong. So you have to mentally see yourself slashing at them maybe, or at least snipping them away. Then you focus on the sensations of the present, breathing, your physicality, what is humorous, and then the biggest part of it: not hanging on to the moment as it passes. You know the thing- a topic is raised, you prolong it overmuch. A conversation starts- you like it so you try and make it extend beyond its useful lifetime. One thing I like in Egypt is the organic nature of group meetings. Talk can be formal and a bit stilted or even silent for an hour of more. People don’t try to force it though. Then when it catches alight everyone participates. No one feels guilty that conversation isn’t happening, and no one holds back when it does begin.

The new fun is constantly breaking off and refocusing and breaking off- kind of looking for the next ball to get out of the stadium. When you’re up and running and in a ‘flow’ state you don’t need this trick but when you have downtime that seems dead or lacking spark, try it- you'll feel energised as you break those slimy tentacles of past and future.

The Power of Oomph

The other day I was injected with cortisone for a lung complaint. It had a very strange effect. As well as ridding me of lung inflammation it started to speed my brain up. I developed grandiose ideas. I believed I could, just by moving fast enough, achieve anything, raise any amount of money, do a 100 things at once. Mania, no doubt. It subsided, more or less. But left me thinking about a few things- which has coalesced into this notion I now have of Oomph.

“Give it more Oomph,” we say. Or, “He hasn’t much Oomph.” I started to conceptualise Oomph as the necessary ingredient to any project. Big projects needed more Oomph than little ones. Making a lego model needed less oomph than building a model from scratch. Oomph was comprised, in a less than obvious way, of money, expectations, knowledge/experience, persistence, ability to learn from errors, willingness to think big, boldness; yes, I think that just about covers the list. I wondered why, I, as a boy, until I had been on an organised scout hike of 50 miles, had been unable to achieve such a march on my own with my pal. Answer: not enough oomph. But going on the organised hike gave me experience/knowledge, new expectations, increased my boldness and expanded my 'thinking-big' facility. No doubt about it, for me, the scouts was a great oomph builder.

I wondered why some people were able to tackle massive projects with the same financial resources as others who claimed they had not enough. Oomph. I saw that people brought up in wealthy families (as long as they weren’t made useless by this) often had more Oomph than people brought up in poor families (except those of course with the burning desire to succeed)- because they had higher expectations, more 'thinking-big' facility- which included taking on board the increased number of petty things you have to do when you have something big to run. What actually happens is that you let go of worrying about details. You let others decide. You have to let go as you would lose perspective on the whole thing. It doesn’t mean you can’t swoop down on key details from time to time, but you need that overview to know what is and what isn’t key. If you have seen someone else running, say, a grand hotel, then running one yourself isn’t so daunting- even if you have no real idea how to do it. I always assumed I could work as a teacher simply because my parents had been teachers. Actually I had to learn pretty damn fast on the job because I had little special aptitude for teaching, probably about average or even less…but I had Oomph for the job supplied by observing my parents and the extremely powerful motivator “If HE can do it so can I (by golly)”. We learn by observing others, if, in this case, we mean by learning not the aquisition of a skill but the acquisition of a WIDER perspective- more 'thinking-big' ability. 'Thinking-big' is only stopped by lack of nerve and not removing the obstacles before making the attempt, whatever the attempt is.

Oomph can be nurtured. Oomph can be drained away. People with Oomph can Oomph-inspire each other. Sitting around with people without Oomph can result in losing it.

Money brings Oomph- or can do. Lots of people with money spend it in their minds as soon as they get it. They then, mentally, are actually poor. They don’t USE their money as a tool, as an Oomph generator.

When you’re ill you lack Oomph. Feeling super fit you may or may not have Oomph. Youth may have energy but generally lacks Oomph because of a lack of knowledge/experience, lack of thinking-big and undeveloped persistence. Oomph is energy plus vision, wide angle vision, the ability to get your head around a large project.

You could of course simply keep nurturing something and watch it grow. You could start like jewelry designer Azza Fahmy with a corner in someone else’s shop and gradually expand until you have a chain of your own stores and outlets all over the world. You only have to keep pace with your growth, you only need enough Oomph to get you top the next stage and keep you from freaking out and blowing the stage you are in.

I love the rewards of Oomph, the imagining of great things without actually putting the work in. If you imagine the work in too much detail then you wouldn’t start. Part of Oomph is the ability to shut off this part of the imagination and just focus on what you have to do today. When faced with the daunting task of copying the entire Buddhist Cannon, Samurai Tesshu said, “It’s easy- I only do one page at a time.”

Oomph fuel can include imagining the end result, but this is a quick burning kind of fuel. Better is Oomph conservation methodologies. You put in place procedures, lifestyle checks, physical STUFF that keeps your project on target. It’s the less extreme version of sleeping in your office to get the work finished. How to conserve and grow your Oomph is probably of greatest interest and utility.

I think stories remain the single most powerful Oomph source around. The stories you heard as a child, the shawl of narratives you were clothed in; these provide your basic Oomph starting point. Cultures decline because the stories aren’t told anymore, or the stories lack inspirational quality for some reason. Maybe they became old fashioned and out of date. Unless you have a particular sympathy with the past stories of riding around in a horse and cart won’t cut it in the age of grand prix racing cars. Some stories are naturally more resilient than others. Stories of blue blood or even royal ancestry can supply incredible Oomph, but even these can run dry: the old Plantagenet family that ruled England became known as gardeners in the 19^th century. In fact almost all the ‘aristocracy’ of England is descended from rich city merchants of the last few centuries rather than the ancient families of the middle ages. Times change and so do the stories that inspire us, that give us Oomph.

Stories are the news brought back by someone who ha done what you want to do. They are the basic instruction kit, supplying not just the technical stuff, but the intangibles that can be lost in any dry how-to explanation. Chay Blythe set out to compete as a round the world sailor with NO experience of sailing. But he had rowed the Atlantic in the company of an experienced sailor- John Ridgeway. He had his Oomph bolstered by his Atlantic row and his association with other would-be record breakers. Simply by keeping the company of people whose routine talk is HUGE will enable your Oomph to be multiplied.

But why? I mean what’s the point? Why crave Oomph? The interface of energy and information is the heart of the matter. When people say all you need is energy they are plain misleading. You need a way to organise information, you need stories (one way), methods, approaches and most of all vision. Vision is pure information, in the modern sense of the world, yet it interacts with energy to produce…life. Oomph is about finding better ways to organise the energy at your disposal- by using it you will maximise it. This is the opposite of death, in a way.

By rooting Oomph in the very forces of life and death we see it is something to take a little seriously. I don’t mean one should panic, but one should at least know it for what it is. In aikido great stress is laid on posture- which seems very trivial- yet, after a while, one realises one’s posture reflects one’s inner state, one’s level of Oomph, and by some curious alchemy, adjusting one’s posture can change your thoughts of defeat into those of victory. No small thing.

If you are out of the mainstream, out on a limb, no visible support, your Oomph may dribble away. One of the world’s great yachtsmen was Bernard Moitessier- yet after his record breaking sail not once but twice around the world via the three capes he retired for ten years to Polynesia to write, smoke spliffs and do a bit of gentle gardening. Not that it made him THAT happy. He took to noticing how the modern world was destroying all the peace and calm of the islands. He tried various plans for helping Polynesians but they weren’t too interested. In the end he went to America and gave talks about his great sailing trips- which worked for a time, but then he found all his money went on day to day living and gradually he lost Oomph. He ended up, at 55, working as a building labourer working for 10 dollars an hour- until actor Klaus Kinkski paid him to sail him to Mexico. Moitessier hated the compromises that came with the mainstream, but he ignored the nurturing power of the mainstream, as useful to anyone as the gulfstream or any other global current is useful to a sailor. You sail against the wind too long and your sails will be in tatters.

What Moitessier feared was that his ‘inner Oomph’, so to speak, would be stolen by the mainstream. How could that happen? He was, for example, very happy to work as a rep for pharmaceutical company when the money was needed for a new yacht. It was when he had to earn money just to ‘live as others do’ that he veered away from the mainstream. He didn’t want to look like he had sold out. Perhaps he sensed tat this would dilute his reputation even if it increased his earnings.

If you have a job, say, in hotel management, it may well give you all the skills to run your own hotel, yet, paradoxically, deprive you of the Oomph to do it. I know people who work in the movies business who have the kind of access lots of would-be film makers crave, yet they are uninterested in making films themselves. They are content with their own little patch. The mainstream nurtures Oomph but also destroys it by limiting and trimming the narrative you inhabit. The mainstream narratives are supremely boring. The most exciting thing is to become the boss of something and tell others what to do and get a big house and a fancy car. Wow. Or become a success on TV with lots of fans. Hmm. And then what? Moitessier sensed that the outsider narrative was way cooler, it gave a sense of excitement to life that was lacking in the dull 9-5 routine. Even though success at writing brought welcome, and exiciting, acclaim, unless that acclaim rises exponentially you soon get used to it and start looking around for other more thrilling things to do.

Unfortunately the outsider narrative- so attractive in the 1960s and still attractive now- also deprives you of the mainstream’s nurturing qualities: being part of something, earning opportunities, modern conveniences.

Can one square the Oomph circle? Obtain mainstream advantages without dying of boredom? Well, the internet has certainly helped people who live away from things to derive income from the majority. Fast travel has aided this too. On the other hand the remote places, as Moitessier saw, have been invaded by the same forces operating in favour of the mainstream.

I have made this lengthy diversion into the life of Bernard Moitessier because he exemplifies in an exaggerated fashion the nature of Oomph. This is a man who built from scratch several boats. Who sailed singlehandedly through the world’s roughest oceans, pioneering techniques of sailing taken for granted by today’s ocean racers, who wrote many books still avidly read today- all evidence of massive Oomph, and yet who succumbed at various points of his life to periods of very little Oomph. I don’t believe for a minute that it can all be blamed on brain chemistry. I think the narrative of opting out of the mainstream, of assuming the modern world to be evil, deprived Moitessier of his natural Oomph- which could only be kindled when he was near disaster- as in his several ship wrecks. In other words: he needed challenges to spark up his Oomph but he subscribed to a narrative that derided challenges as part of the bullshit mainstream world.

Oomph rises to the occasion. Big occasion, big challenge- the more Oomph is called forth. Big projects, if we don’t succumb to the malaise of thinking we are therefore ‘important’, are a way to eliminate pettiness. By doing so we soar, what Moitessier termed ‘achieving escape velocity’- except in his cramped vision of the world he seemed only able to do it when sailing on great journeys or staying on remote islands. Is it a matter of ‘conning yourself’ in order to reap the benefits of a big project. In a way, yes. But once any project is underway it develops its own life, its own logic. I remember at the end of my three season odyssey across northern Canada it seemed absolutely logical to continue westwards in a log canoe to Hawaii. I didn’t, for many reasons, but at the time it seemed I was ignoring the obvious thing to do. It is much easier to ‘con yourself’ if you have a group of like-minded conspirators. You conserve your Oomph for the project rather than in fighting nay-sayers.

We have arrived here at a crucial conclusion. Oomph isn’t something you get like a tank of gas. It’s all around us. Oomph is our natural condition. The problem is- stuff gets in the way. Getting Oomph is more like ‘maintaining a connection to the Oomph source’ by removing obstacles. For example- the slow boring process of getting a book edited and published is a real oomph killer. That’s why people in the past wrote way more books than writers today (though more are writing today I guess). Your average published author- like me- goes through a hand wringing process of writing, changing, editing, proofing etc etc. This gets you down and saps Oomph bigtime. When you finish a book – the first draft- you are so high you want to just keep on writing. But the structure says: hold on- start editing, start sapping your oomph. Now there is a new option ‘indie publishing’ via kindle and amazon. Just get it out. Editing improves a book from 20% to 3%. The first edit can improve it to 95% of the final version- that last 5% can take a year!!!! I buy from any bookseller with a 95% rating or above. It’s good enough- and if you write another book instead of constant editing then the world is ahead in a big way.

So the main point is: accept that Oomph is natural and start looking for the Oomph killers in your life. Stuff that stops your natural flow, your natural enthusiasms. Don’t worry about money, about success, think about FLOW, about setting up an unopposed production line, kind of, so that you can do what you want to do continuously and mellifluously.

strange bedfellows

Alexander Trocchi (Cain's Book) and Alistair McLean (Guns of Navarone) both graduated from the same English class in 1950 from Glasgow University.

drop outs earn big money

The average net worth of billionaires who dropped out of college, $9.4 billion, is more than double that of billionaires with Ph.D.s, $3.2 billion.

working hard and success

People sometimes think that working hard allows them to take their eye off the ball. But it's actually the other way round. You don't have to work any harder than is necessary to keep your eye on the ball- all the time. In fact, keeping your eye on the ball is the main thing- it is surprising how quickly things slide when you don't.