Dipping a Toe In
“Brains are tricky and adaptable organs. For all the ‘neuroplasticity’ allowing our brains to reconfigure themselves to the biases of our computers, we are just as neuroplastic in our ability to eventually recover and adapt.”
“I can adapt to change easily, but I’m not a fan of it.”
When it comes to swimming, I’ve always been one to dip my toe into the water and ease myself in while everyone else was running into the lake or pool. I thought there was something wrong with me, and some other people probably thought the same. But there I was, easing myself in, first my feet, then up to my knee, and after about 3-5 minutes, I eventually plunged the rest of the way in. After that, I was swimming just like everyone else.
If I was forced to jump in, would it be as enjoyable? Eventually. But when attempting to do it in the past, it was too much of a shock to my system. And if you don’t take the time to ease yourself into a lake in Minnesota, sometimes you can get your foot cut on a rock (worst case scenario, a glass beer bottle some maniac or careless person threw in the water where it broke). Doesn’t happen every time, but that’s one way to get yourself out of the water.
But if you ease yourself in, you learn where the hazards are, how deep it goes, and even where the sandy parts are rather slipping around on seaweed.
Sounds smart, right? I think so too. But sometimes, it’s easy to fall into the group think or take what other people say as fact because “it worked for me! That’s the correct way to do it!”
When it comes to writing advice, much like swimming advice, they don’t want you to cut yourself or have a bad time (if they do, get some new friends…) In both cases, it’s getting over the shock of doing something different with more time to enjoy it. And some people can do that, but in most cases, it’s too much of a change and the two aren’t exactly the same.
Take working out for example. When January 1 rolls around, people go from eating fast food, sleeping in, and pacing in front of the microwave to eating salads, waking up far before the dawn even cracks, and expecting to run a marathon the first day at the gym. You know what many of these people also do? Quit. They find it too hard and go back to what worked before. And who can blame them? As cliché as this is, we are creatures of habit.
We are also complicated. We strive for more, but love comfort. We create our own problems, but talk about how we hate these problems. We no longer have to outrun predators like big cats (at least I hope so), but instead we go to work or get our hearts pumping with traffic and stupid arguments on the internet…(over freakin’ hot sauce…which hey, life isn’t so bad if that’s what it comes down to. But I’m not dying on that hill…my anus quivers at the thought.)
By default, many find problems to solve before dismissing them and choosing not to solve them. We love the struggle and if it becomes too stressful, it’s not like we need to evolve anyway, right? But…we fail to become ourselves…the self we want to be and imagine ourselves being. This is what I think is our truest self. But I think we have to want it badly enough. And when you want something badly enough, the instinct is to jump right in, but the mush that is our brains protects us because they hate change.
No matter how good it is for us, if we were comfortable before and there’s even a minor pang of discomfort, it asks, “What was the problem with how things went before? We were happier then…eating Cheetos in front of the TV, playing video games, and not working out or working on that dreaded manuscript. Now, just back away from it. See isn’t that better?”
That’s resistance. And from Steven Pressfield’s who is an author who wrote the very influential War of Art and The Artist’s Journey, when that comes up, you know you are doing something right.
I’m easing myself back into writing with at least 30 minutes which on a good day ends up being 500 words, but lately is 250. But…it’s 250 more than I did the day before. Progress…progress.
Until next week, I’ll end with a quote from Steven Pressfield’s War of Art. Happy writing!
“Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember one rule of thumb: the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.”