Taking a break from the clown camp narrative for reflection. The saga shall continue. I would like to balance my newsletter with pieces like this which feel like “weekend reading.” Does this feel like “weekend reading” to you, too? Let me know!
I’m currently apartment sitting for a friend and have opted to not connect to their Wi-Fi. As an added bonus, something in the building’s construction obstructs my cell signal. Now I notice I’m far more deliberate in my scrolling.
The greatest gift of being disconnected from the internet is having a disconnection from “instant learning.” As long as I’m making up terms, let’s coin “debilitating knowing.” Turns out, I don’t need to research every thought that comes through my noggin.
“Instant learning” does not happen through reading. I know this because I just read it in the book Deep Play by Diane Ackerman, and I trust her enough implicitly to repeat the gist of her words without recounting my personal lived-in experience.
For the sake of argument, I suppose I should share my own experiences. I joined a bowling league through my grade school. We didn’t face-off against other schools, instead opting to instead foster budding rivalries amongst peers. My secret weapon, besides playing bowling video games (pre-Wii Sports [shout out to Capcom Bowling,]) was checking out a book of bowling strategies from my school’s library.
After an afternoon of studying the 70s-era guide to America’s other other past time, I considered my bestowed with the hermetic wisdom of the pins. With the burden of this knowledge, this power, on my shoulders, I vowed to lead my bowling team to victory. In application, this meant I told everyone to aim for pins 1 and 3, ‘cause the book called this pocket “the sweet spot.” Whenever a teammate did not hit the sweet spot, I helpfully reminded them that they should aim for the sweet spot next frame.
Actions based on “instant learning,” like the illusion of perfect bowling knowledge, lead to debilitating knowing, regardless of well-intentions. By knowing too much about bowling, without actually physically bowling or developing a modicum of social awareness, I made bowling harder for everyone involved.
I learned my lesson that day, and I never confused book-learning with actual physically-embodied action. Never would I voraciously read every book about writing and performing comedy! Never would I obsess over daily writing! Nay, never! Do you think I’m the type of person who would dedicate their college career to analyzing parody, satire, and burlesque through the lens of Russian Formalists and linguistics in lieu of a consistent practice of stand-up!? I assure you that when writing and performing sketch comedy with my high school friends, I stayed present and didn’t get secretly hurt when my galaxy-brain was not recognized. I embraced absurdist comedic performance by keeping a mental rolodex of absurdist comedic performances, though only because dutiful analysis of absurdist performance surely could have been the only way to express myself correctly.
It's so much easier to read and hone skills in theory!
Debilitating knowing is an attempt to avoid anxiety by reciting external truths verbatim instead of creating space for possibility. The mantra becomes dogma. The intention becomes the rule. Seeking non-attachment: a virtuous low-key obsession. Instant learning appears as a fun shortcut that reveals itself as a trapdoor in hindsight.
Fortunately, there are other forms of learning and knowledge. Here’s a quote from Diane Ackerman’s Deep Play:
“… [T]here are things you do even though they may be frightening, not because you don’t feel fear, but because knolwedge is a tonic. Who can say at what stage fear becomes rapturous interest? But does it, even though one doesn’t lose the fear.”
Knowledge does not need to be debilitating, though learning might require a healthy amount of fear.
There are ways to avoid this path and break the personal cycle of unhealthy learning and knowing. I’m not a professional, but from what I gather all avenues involve courage and being encouraged. Easier said than done, in more ways than one. Someone saying “I encourage you” does not encourage on its own, for courage is its own process. If this newsletter was the third act of a feel-good story, I’d assure you that the courage you seek has been inside of you all along. Alas, to summarize is not to encourage.
Further, the well-intentioned statement “I am encouraging you” absolves the attempted encourager from any ineffectiveness. Our bodies are rich, complex machines holding emotions and potentialities within their organic currents — vague verbal encouragement is a nod at a human body that says “It’s probably somewhere in there.”
The attempted encourager waves broadly towards a vista, assuring that “you can narrow down where the courage is at if you know the zip code and search by radius.”
The most effective way to encourage is through living courageously. Witnessing courageous acts increases the odds we take our own. Tapping into this flowing current of courage, we see how courage exists as a baseline. The presence of courage is a teaspoon in some, a boulder in others, but exists regardless. The quality and consistency of your personal courage do not matter unless we take time to feel our courage as it is, without judgment. Courage, then, is intertwined with our capacity to love ourselves.
There is a quote from Teddy Roosevelt that applies here. I’m writing this without an internet connection, so forgive me if I get some words wrong:
There is a man in the arena, and the audience sees him fail, but the man must not heed their judgment. It is noble to fail bravely. Or is it dare bravely? Be bravely? What’s the name of that Brene Brown book? What I’m trying to say – me, Teddy Roosevelt -- is that the man in the arena is a good man, and hard arenas make brave men, and brave men failing in big arenas make for good entertainment, so always get a cut of the ticket sales when playing the arena circuit. This way, if you shoot for the moon and fail bravely, you aren’t going home with empty pockets. Asking the booker for a split of the door is an act of daring greatly-- WAIT, that’s the title of the book! Bully! So yes, dare greatly like a warrior, in both the arena and in your contract negotiaions.
~ Theodore Roosevelt
Well, that’s the essence anyways.