Writing towards Sanity

‘The Writing Life’ by author Ellen Gilchrist has interesting stories about teaching creative writing courses. She teaches in the University of Arkansas and shares her experiences making writers out of students. She describes her difficulties particularly in encouraging students from small Southern towns to expand their minds. Hers is an interesting perspective on how to grow the talent or skill in writing. She encourages her students to read the book ‘On Writing’ by Ernest Hemingway. I have not read this book but I understand it’s a collection of essays or parts of Hemingway’s works that speak of writing – plucked out and assembled in a book.

It’s arguably a good way to start with Hemingway but perhaps it’s a problem for those in small towns who have not seen the world as Hemingway has. The difficulty is seeing the world in his eyes which was distorted by his own prejudices on how one should live a true life. One may get the impression of a life of ‘moveable feasts’ in exciting cities, drinking wine and eating good food. Of adventures in wars and other cataclysmic world event that make one a man and shape his outlook in life. Hemingway is a great writer but reading his advice on how to write is like learning golf from Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus – each with his own expert bias.

One cannot step up that fast without earning one’s dues. Hemingway’s words are like a drug for the young and uninitiated. For the experienced and world wise, his works seem juvenile and infantile (i.e. bullfights, hunting in Africa, etc.) and lack seriousness. Nevertheless, he is a great writer but one has to be careful on the lessons that can be learned from him. This brings us back to Ellen Gilchrist and the creative writing course. I guess the writing seminar is meant to bridge the gap between learning how to write and being Hemingway. But perhaps it is a good start and one sees her imagination, sincerity and dedication. I have not read her works of fiction but somehow I feel it lacks the depth of vision that one looks for. It’s her fondness for Hemingway or Turgenev (a Hemingway favorite) that provides a clue.

Comparing her works with Zadie Smith’s essays on writing on the other hand is the difference between night and day. To me, Ms. Smith’s work is the true barometer of good critical writing. But she is more at a master class level as compared to Gilchrist. I guess it’s the difference between teaching over intelligent Ivy leagues students and the rest of the population. But I am ashamed to make this distinction but just stating a fact. Ms. Smith’s writes about E.M.Forster, Vladimir Nabokov and David Foster Wallace – an entirely different universe from Hemingway or Turgenev. But I like Ms. Gilchrist especially since like me, she adores John Le Carre and his master spy George Smiley and makes one understand her better. Ms. Gilchrist has also written more books than Ms Smith.

I see now that it’s the women who make better teachers on writing than men. In fact, my first epiphany on the writing craft came from Ayn Rand after spending decades under the spell of Hemingway.  Perhaps I would have done better starting with Ayn Rand than Hemingway. One wonders if it’s the father figure that he provided in the budding writer’s subconscious – telling everyone that it’s alright and one could be a writer like him but really it’s like Tiger Woods telling you that you could hit 250 yards and compete in the US Open after attending only a few weeks of training. Is golf like writing? Like golf, writing is a life long activity that one has to keep practicing to gain expertise and be in the game. One has to adapt to the aging mind and body as one makes the journey through life. Golf is also a game that one can be good at any age while one plays at different courses. It’s always a different game played in the green as the terrain keeps changing.

12 Angry Men

During the weekend, my family and I watched the movie ‘Inception’. It’s a clever movie that one reviewer called ‘The Matrix’ meets ‘Ocean Eleven.’ In fact, it’s very slick and entertaining. Despite its visual appeal and special effects, I still think the ‘Dark Knight’ is the better movie. Christopher Nolan is a director I am getting to really like due to his original vision for the Batman movies but also his movie like ‘The Prestige’ which I thoroughly enjoyed. Long ago, we watched this film together but my family did not particularly like it. But we all agree that ‘Inception’ is good movie – way above the usual fare. In fact, we think that it’s more intelligent and authentic than Matrix II and Matrix III which was more special effect driven.

We watched ‘Inception’ on Friday evening. I rushed home from the gym and ate dinner then rushed to the cinema. We barely made the 8 pm show. ‘Inception’ is one of the few movies that we watch at the movie house. Normally we borrow the DVDs or watch in the Internet when it’s available. We make exceptions if the story is good, made by a good director with exceptional special effects that warrant enjoyment in a big screen. Movies we watched in the cinema were: the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Harry Potter movies, James Bond series, Matrix, Star Trek and Avatar. All other movies we watched in the television via DVDs or in the computer.

Going back to ‘Inception’, the reviewer enjoyed more Angelie Jolie’s latest movie ‘Salt.’ According to him, ‘Salt’ is more enjoyable due to Jolie’s performance and the action and story is more or less straightforward. There were a lot of gaps in the plot but were overcome by the action sequences. On the other hand, the reviewer thinks that ‘Inception’ was over complicated being a story about a dream within a dream within a dream. I agree with the reviewer as I like Angelie Jolie and will wait for the movie in DVD.  She is the type of actress that people see mainly die to her presence. Nevertheless, ‘Inception’ is a great movie because it’s a ’thinking’ movie so I brought the kids for the enjoyment of it.

The next day, we watched the Saturday afternoon matinee of the play ’12 Angry Men.’ The play was staged by the Flatrock Playhouse – the national theater group of North Carolina. The play was staged in the old courthouse of Hendersonville, giving the play a rare authentic feel. It was great drama and is the first American theatrical production we saw. The play illustrates the American jury system, expertly played by an ensemble cast with great subtleties. This is more educational compared to the movie ‘Inception.’ My family again enjoyed the show and afterwards we attended church and ate dinner in a Chinese buffet. I like these short field trips to small towns in the Carolinas – visiting caves, watching ball games or plays.

Making your Brain Work

The book ‘Making a Good Brain Great’ by Daniel Amen makes the case that a person’s psychological makeup or ethereal qualities like personality are impacted by the state of your biological brain. The mind’s condition can be determined by brain scans which depict the health of your grey matter. The scans can tell whether one has ‘psychological’ problems like attention deficit syndrome or obsessive compulsive behavior or cognitive problems by looking at one’s brain scan. It’s the logical outcome of the scientific method that shows the link between brain deterioration and mental problems like dementia or Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease. It’s the scientific explanation of relationship between the mind and/or personality and the brain.

In other words, a person’s personality, attitude and/or outlook in life are determined by your brain health. It is no longer one’s will or determination or other quirks of your personality that drives you to succeed but your brain state. Of course not all can be explained by the biological reality as the mind can transcend one’s biological limitation. For example, brilliant people who excel at a high intellectual level despite brain damaging flaws like alcoholism, drug abuse, excessive lifestyle and lack of sleep. I guess these are exceptional people but their intellectual capacity does not tell the full story: these brilliant people maybe difficult to live with, mean and destructive due to their brain abuse. A well adjusted or balanced personality may have a healthy brain.

The author says that a healthy brain is very rare. Coffee, tea, excessive alcohol, cholesterol, bad fats all affect the performance of the brain as well as sports like soccer or tackle football or motorcycling or other such activities that may cause brain injury. Lack of sleep is also important - at least 7 hours; some commentators say that the nation is sleep deprived - all indicate the difficulty of maintaining a healthy brain.  This entails daily exercise, 7-8 hours of sleep, good diet and supplements like fish oils are important. According to the book, this will determine your success – in work and personal life. It’s a holistic viewpoint that combines mind and body theory. It’s more important for people in their declining years because the mind and body are not as strong as in their youth.

In the weekend, I watched the Martin Scorsese film ‘Shutter Island’. It’s a movie about insanity and the best movie I have seen that clearly expressed a person’s insanity. Trauma – both psychological and physical – and chronic stress can cause one to be mentally unbalanced that the mind creates its own scenarios in order to survive. Trauma trips the mind to be constantly churning delusions or unhealthy thought patterns which cause ‘insanity’. Applying the theory of the Amen clinics: cures can be had by fixing the biological component of the mind like having a good diet, proper sleep, exercise and medicines like Serotonin (to address moods) to make the biological brain healthy. Psychological measures like talking to a psychiatrist or staging helpful scenarios (as done in the movie) is not the main solution.

Holistic cures can be meditation, calming techniques like Tai Chi or Yoga, journaling, and cognitive therapy can help address the psychological component. But one needs the biological component as well especially supplements like fish oil (Omega 3) or serotonin to complete the picture. Eckhart Tolle mentioned that modern society show signs of having ‘mental disease.’ His lectures during the aftermath of 9/11, terrorist attacks and wars seem to prove his point. Aside from the information overload and other such ‘psychological’ stimulants that affect mental health – the biological component such as poor diet, obesity, lack of exercise and lack of sleep all contribute to the ‘mental disease’. Sleep I believe has a major impact on mental health and the ‘sleep deficit’ experienced by a lot of people today needs to examined closely. Perhaps this is the most important aspect that is overlooked that could easily improve mental health – have at least 7 hours of sleep to be mentally healthy.

Applying all these lessons is important for the ‘knowledge worker’ today. It maybe the predictor of one’s success. Writers are especially vulnerable because it entails a lot of mental activity done in isolation. Its lonely work that requires creativity, discipline and organization.  A disorganized mental state will not help the writer achieve his goals. Earlier this week I watched a biography of Ernest Hemingway. Young writers usually admire his work and especially his life of adventure. But he was a heavy drinker and he suffered a concussion when his plane crashed twice in Africa. I guess in the last years of his life, his brain was damaged because of the accident and years of abuse and ended with his suicide. But in his early years, he had an excellent brain that produced masterpieces but was destroyed by his lifestyle. Unfortunately one can be fooled into thinking that Hemingway’s success was due to his excess.

Independence Weekend

We watched a baseball game in the evening before the 4th of July. The local team won. It was a minor league game but the stadium was filled. After the game, there were fireworks with great patriotic music in the background. During the game, we ate hotdogs and I drank a beer. The ticket to the game cost $ 8 dollars. The game, including the fire works lasted about 3 hours so the cost was about $ 2.60 per hour. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday night watching the ballgame under the summer evening. This is the national past time, watching a ball game; there is always a game going on somewhere whether baseball, basketball or football in the national, local, college or high school level. Children are taught at an early age to get ingrained into a competitive though civil sports environment. My wife and kids did not enjoy the baseball game I think preferring basketball and soccer.

On the 4th of July, Sunday, we drove 2 hours to Bluff City, Tennessee. We spent about 4 hours in Worley’s Cave in the afternoon. It was a real or authentic cave experience, going down in pitch darkness with helmets and head lamps led by an experienced guide. It was a physically demanding adventure, going down vertical walls, crawling through limited spaces, climbing up rock faces, walking through underground streams with your shoes all wet in the cold water, getting all dirty with mud as we slid down rocks, all in a 55 degree temperature. It was tiring but I think the kids loved it. We were with a Japanese family who had 4-5 young kids (I lost count) and the kids were all over the place, crawling in the mud, squeezing into crevices while the parents just looked on. I was glad to get out of the cave and we changed clothes due to the dirt and mud. My shoe broke when near the car as the sole of one shoe fell off.

From Bluff city we drove to Knoxville, another 2 hour drive, to catch the evening fireworks. We reached Knoxville at about 8:30 pm, a nice city beside a river, with large, elegant bridges spanning the water and a nice park. We had dinner at Wendy’s and watched the night spectacle that lasted for nearly an hour. I can’t help but think that people here love spectacle, a sort of shock and awe event of entertainment. It’s an impressive feat of planning and organization; perfected in local events and especially in sports events. No wonder the military invasions overseas are planned alike. We got to our motel at about 10:30 pm for a well deserved rest. I wanted to walk around in the World’s Fair Park where a concert was ongoing but every one was tired. Instead, I watched the HBO series ‘True Blood’ while everyone slept.

During the drive, we listened to Donald Trump’s audio book ‘Think like a Champion.’  It’s actually a good book, about the experiences of an incredible business man talking about real estate, reality television and golf courses. Despite the news of his empire being overextended or bankrupt, Trump is am astute business man with many experiences both good and bad plus a Wharton MBA degree. His latest book strikes me as coming from someone who has distilled all his incredible experiences into a Zen like wisdom. I hope the audio book was useful for my family. I try to play this type of educational books during long car trips because it’s the only time I could get my kids away from the Internet. It was like having a captive audience listening to Trump’s wisdom while driving through the Tennessee country side.

The next day we drove to Knoxville again before driving home to see famous city landmarks such as Tennessee Theater in Gay Street, and the waterfront beside the river. The journey home took about 8 hours as we drove through the Great Smokey Mountain Park, Pisgah Park, Cedar Mountain and Table Rock. Along the way, we drove through sections of the Blue Ridge parkway, passed through interesting small towns like Gatlinburg, Waynesville, the Cherokee Indian reservation and Brevard, in often deserted rural roads, twisting and turning through the amazing mountain ranges of the Appalachians. We took turns driving but I think the effort exhausted the kids. We ended the day with a modest Chinese dinner of fried dumplings, bone-less ribs, chicken, shrimp, fried rice and spring rolls. During the Tennessee trip, food was mainly cheeseburgers, fries, soda and an occasional salad.

When we got home, I rushed through the materials I was returning to the library the next day. A DVD movie on ‘Amazing Caves’, John Naisbitt’s ‘Megatrends China’, Robert Kiyosaki’s ‘The Conspiracy of the Rich’ and a pictorial book on Charleston homes. I finished at about 11:30pm. During the weekend, in the long drives through the mountains, I resolved that I would lessen my time reading books and watching movies and spend more time actually working on my project and teaching my kids. I am inspired by Zadie Smith while listening to her audio book ‘Changing My Mind.’ She’s a brilliant writer especially on the writing craft, movies and Barack Obama (it’s the most incisive analysis of the Obama phenomenom, written in just a few paragraphs as part of a larger essay on voices). In fact, Zadie Smith is probably the best living essayists today and her work inspires me to continue.