Beyond the Far Blue Mountains

8x10 Oil

(This narrative is longer than usual. If you’re interested in how I make things happen, read on. If not, thanks for taking a peek at my new painting!)

Years ago I wrote this in my journal: “Some days I may not feel like writing at all, I’m not inspired, not energetic, not there. But one thing I know for a fact is that if I sit down and write despite that complacency, I will, at day’s end, have made progress, moved forward, perhaps even become absorbed by the work done that day. The point is to write whether you feel like it or not. It’s critical if you want to go anywhere as a writer.”

William Faulkner came to the same conclusion: “I only write when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes at nine every morning.”

Now, years later, I understand the profundity of that observation. It has gotten me far as a writer, and that principle has been applicable to every other endeavor I’ve set out to achieve. But even now I have to work at it, just to get started, which is the most difficult part of the entire creative process.

Resistance is real. It has many forms, and they all live within me whether I want them to or not. Resistance stands at my door, a mouth-breathing knuckle-dragger blocking the way into my own world of creativity and accomplishment. I am utterly powerless against it.

That is … without a weapon.

And I have one. We all do. And it’s powerful. It has a name.

Habit.

An acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary.

It takes strength and discipline to form one, but once ingrained, it can hold its own against the beast of resistance. Without this weapon my life’s path would have been circular. And as I have said before, I am not here to be mediocre. Circling the drain is not on my agenda.

There are many, many things I do to keep myself on my path, but over the years I have formed six rock-solid habits that have made all the other things possible.

When I was twelve, I worked as a deck hand on my step-father’s deep-sea charter fishing boat. When it was time to get moving in the morning he woke me up with a loud bang on my bedroom door. Boom! One hit. I heard it or I didn’t. If I didn’t, he’d leave me behind without a word. When that bang on the door came I bolted up, not for a second thinking about sleeping any longer. I put my feet on the floor. That alone changed my perspective. With my feet on the floor, I was on the move. To this day I get up at five o’clock seven days a week. I have been doing this ever since I was twelve. There is no murkiness to the start of my day. HABIT #1: Get up everyday at the same time, and make it early.

In seventh grade I was sent away to boarding school on the Big Island of Hawaii, fifty miles from my home in Kailua-Kona. At that school I learned about discipline and routine, and the huge benefits of both. One thing I picked up was the benefit of starting my day with a clear mind. Crazy as it may sound, the most powerful tool for gaining that clear mind was to make my bed. Precise. Hospital corners. Coin-bouncingly tight and snappy clean. To this day I can’t leave my bedroom unless I’ve made my bed. It just doesn’t feel right. I also never ever leave clothes or towels on the floor. HABIT #2: For a clear mind, make your bed every day, and make it well.

When I was in my twenties and living in Los Angeles, I suffered periodic anxiety attacks, and they were frightening. It took months of counseling with my very kind medical doctor to understand the cause of these attacks, mostly having to do with the many holes in my life that needed to be filled. I resolved most of those issues over time and have come to a peaceful place of gratitude for the practices and people who have helped and guided me along the way. The most effective and long-lasting of those practices is one I learned on campus at UCLA. Meditation, a simple practice of quieting my mind and calming my being. I have meditated from 20 to 30 minutes almost every day since I was twenty-one. It has kept me calm all of my life. If I miss this practice for more than a few days, I get antsy. HABIT #3: Meditate daily, at a specific time and in a specific place.

I lived in Los Angeles through most of my twenties, first in the music business, and later in college. One day, I and a bunch of guys decided to head over to one of the fields at Cal State Northridge to play some flag football. Boy, was that a blast. We played and played and played. After it was over, I staggered to my car and barfed. For days after I felt kind of sick, and could hardly walk, having used muscles I hadn’t used in years. I was alarmingly out of shape. I made a decision then and there that I never wanted to feel that way again, and the only way I could think of to make that happen was to develop a daily workout routine. Which I did. Ever since then I have been working out every day just before lunch (lunch is my reward). I stretch, lift weights, and run/jog/walk. I don’t feel complete if I miss this daily exercise (and who knows when someone will ask me to play flag football again?) HABIT #4: Develop a daily exercise routine and stick with it. Your positive outlook and old age will be ever so grateful.

Lots of people have dreams of writing a book. Many more want to have written a book. Few actually write that book. Why? Because it’s one heck of a lot of work. And it’s so easy to procrastinate, or get lazy, or go down the research rabbit hole and never re-emerge. There are so many ways to not write. In the beginning, I like almost everyone else, suffered from these roadblocks as well. But I developed a way through them, and that was to visualize and chart what I was going to do before I did it. The first thing I needed to know was what time of day I was most alive and ready to work. I determined that I was definitely a morning person. Then I worked on figuring out how best I could use my mornings. I still do this today by sitting in bed at night and organizing the next day’s work. This planning stage has helped me to achieve all that I have set out to up to this point in my life. HABIT #5: plan your day the night before, and stick with that plan the next day.

This last habit may not be a habit at all, but I’m calling it one because I do it so constantly that it very often turns me into what some people call a space case. This “habit” is to think. Actually, I couldn’t stop thinking if I wanted to. The thing is to be aware of that thinking. I ask myself questions all the time, and try to make sense of life’s miracles and mysteries. I often stop and gaze at sunsets and wonder why it is that I find them so magnetically attractive. Sometimes I listen to the voice in my head, my intuition, my inner critic, my spiritual guide and mentor. These thoughts are out there, I know. But it’s also the absolute truth. HABIT #6: think. And be immensely grateful that you can. Ask questions. Answers will come.

So what does any of this have to do with this painting? Well … everything. Because without these grounding habits I would never have painted it. I would not have written this narrative. I would very likely have spent my life consuming, not producing.

There you have it, for what it’s worth. Strange thoughts from beyond the far blue mountains.