bearing blog

bearing blog


bear – ing n 1  the manner in which one comports oneself;  2  the act, power, or time of bringing forth offspring or fruit; 3 a machine part in which another part turns [a journal ~];  4  pl comprehension of one’s position, environment, or situation;   5  the act of moving while supporting the weight of something [the ~ of the cross].

  • Introduction to the Devout Life, 4-8 and 4-9: Remedies for small temptations.

    This is part of a continuing series.  An index of all posts on St. Francis de Sales' work Introduction to the Devout Life is here.  A post outlining part 4 of the book is here.

    Whereas Chapter 7 of part 4 deals with comparably rare tempations to serious or grave sins, Chapters 8 and 9 together deal with the onslaught of many, many temptations to lesser sins.

    [T]o fight well against small temptations may be more profitable still.  Though great temptations may surpass them in quality, small temptations are far more numerous and so the victory over them is comparable.  

    Recall that in Chapter 7, Francis told us that in the face of temptation to grave sin we should "follow the example of children… when they see a wolf or a bear at large" and "fly to the arms of God and implore his mercy and his aid."  The analogy continues here:

    Wolves and bears are obviously more dangerous than flies yet they are less irritating and do not try our patience to the same extent.

    Some examples:

    • It is easy to refrain from murder but hard to refrain from the anger which we are constantly tempted to express; 
    • easy to refrain from adultery yet hard to refrain from loving glances, expressions of mutual love, from soliciting favors and from flattery.  
    • It is easy to keep one's body for one's husband or wife but hard to keep one's heart; 
    • easy not to violate one's married love but hard to avoid what might injure it; 
    • easy to avoid stealing but hard to avoid envy; 
    • easy to avoid perjury but hard to avoid lying; 
    • easy never to get drunk but hard always to be temperate; 
    • easy not to wish the death of another but hard never to wish him harm; 
    • easy never to defame him but hard never to despise him.

    Noteworthy here is Francis's emphasis on the positive.  He hardly writes of the harm caused by giving in to such temptations.  Focusing on that might discourage us (since the onslaught never stops) or cause us to rationalize them away (since the harm is comparably small).  Rather, he emphasizes the value of resisting them, couched in military terms:

    …every small victory will merit another jewel in the crown of glory which God prepares for you in heaven.  Fight valiantly against great temptations when they come your way but in the meantime defend yourself diligently against these smaller ones.

    Now, some advice for what to do about these universal irritations.  Back to the analogy of flies (rather than wolves):

    Treat such small temptations like flies and gnats which flutter about us and sometimes settle on the face; as we cannot be entirely rid of them our best defence is to remain undisturbed; they can annoy us but never harm us so long as we are firmly resolved to serve God.

    Some scrupulous people imagine that their many temptations prove their own depravity.  Francis reminds us that "we cannot be entirely rid of them."  Everyone has this problem, which means that anyone can deal with it.

    Despise such temptations without listening them; treat them like flies; let them hover all around you and buzz about your ears as much as they like; 

    when they settle on your heart and try to sting you, do not attack them or argue with them but merely drive them away quietly by making acts of love of God or of any other virtue; or if you have had time to recognize the real nature of the temptation, by an act of the contrary virtue; 

    then turn your heart to Christ Crucified and in spirit kiss his feet by an act of love, for to persist in acts of the contrary virtue would be to dispute with the temptation.

    I notice that St. Francis follows a pattern of advising people not to "dispute with" or "argue with"  or "reply to" a temptation.  I had been a little disappointed that Introduction to the Devout Life didn't appear to contain any advice about overcoming a tendency to rationalize one's behavior, or to be overly scrupulous about it, or to scrupulously worry that one's seemingly good reasons are only rationalizing.  Now I wonder if this advice against "disputing" might be a bit of a commentary on that.  I will have to think about it some more.

    In any case, I thought that previous paragraph had an interesting point about not erring by "persisting" in "acts of the contrary virtue."  You might think that you could not go wrong in, i.e., fighting pride by making acts of humility, but Francis has a different view.  One act of the contrary virtue is enough, then head straight for an act of love of God — which, of course encompasses all virtues, and so prevents us being mistaken.

    An act of the love of God is the surest weapon against temptations great and small; for the love of God contains to an eminent degree the perfection of all the virtues and is the most perfect remedy for vice.  Learn to seek peace in this remedy whenever temptations trouble you, and you will have no need to examine or consider them…

    No need to examine or consider them, eh?  Which makes me wonder if that rationalizing and scrupulosity I have been thinking about couldn't be ameliorated by stopping to make a sincere act of the love of God before diving into the rationalizing and/or scrupulous worrying.

    …moreover, the devil will be so terrified when he sees that these temptations lead you to make acts of the love of God that he will cease to trouble you.

    To that, I say, it's worth a sustained try, anyway.

    p>So much for these countless small temptations; to give more attention to them would only be a waste of time.

    Which shows you how much Francis thinks they deserve your attention too.  I've never before been advised to diligently disregard something, but there you go.

    For reference, here is a common text for an "Act of the Love of God."

    ***

    O my God, 

    I love you above all things, with my whole heart and soul, because you are all-good and worthy of all love. 

    I love my neighbor as myself for the love of you. 

    I forgive all who have injured me, and I ask pardon of all whom I have injured.

    ***

    I've always thought it pretty cool that we had these handy, simple, small things, these "Acts" of love, faith, hope and so on.  Having them at our disposal means that some tiny act is always in our reach, a tiny act of real virtue.  You don't have to feel love, faith, hope, to willingly speak these words.  It is a small act, but it is indeed an act of body and will, and we can know that it is real no matter how little we feel ourselves in accord with it; however weak and wretched our heart, we CAN make these acts, and that can be the first stumbling step in the right direction.

    More on this very same topic when I discuss chapter 10, "How to strengthen your heart."

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  • Co-schooling: Migraine edition.

    Yesterday over at Hannah's, just after lunch, I was felled by a mighty migraine.  I haven't been carrying my Imitrex because I haven't needed it in so long — I don't get migraines during pregnancy or most of lactational amenorrhea — and I had thought I probably wouldn't start taking it till the baby was nursing less.  I've had two migraines since giving birth, and they hadn't been so bad, so I thought maybe I could handle the occasional migraine without drugs.

    This one was a good-old-fashioned pre-Imitrex whopper, though.  I had just enough time to quickly lay out the world history and Latin lessons I'd planned — then I wobbled over to the couch and curled up on it, whimpering.  Occasionally I would stagger to the nearest bathroom and retch for a while.  But it took me out for a good, oh, three or four hours.

    Hannah dropped my baby in the sling and taught the other eight kids through the rest of the afternoon without any more help from me.  (Really, I hadn't any choice.  I couldn't possibly have driven home.  I just had to stay on the couch.)  Fortunately, we have the system working smoothly enough that either one of us could teach any of the subjects without very much extra preparation.  She skipped a couple of subjects — there is room in our schedule for a few missed days in each, expressly for days such as this — but everything essential got done.

    I emerged from a headachy fog after it was all over and sent the two oldest boys to the grocery store to buy me a couple of real Cokes.  Then I surveyed Hannah's house, considered that her husband wasn't going to be home for dinner, and neither was mine — and offered to buy pizza for everyone.  The two moms, eight kids special:  one extra-large pepperoni, one extra-large cheese, and one medium pepperoni-jalapeño-greenolive-blackolive.  

    As long as we're willing to trade pizza for guilt, we will be able to keep this thing going.

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  • Education assumptions.

    Instapundit pointed to this think-tank piece today that, I think, is worth reading:

    Americans borrow roughly $126 billion a year to pay for college…This heavy debt load is causing much suffering…there is plenty of blame to spread around.

    The piece discusses the government's portion (encouraging people to go into debt to start degrees they likely won't finish), the financial institutions' portion (structuring the loan system poorly) and the universities' portion (spending enormously, mostly with student debt), as well as the part that's the fault of students and their parents:

    While earlier generations that paid only a few hundred dollars a semester can perhaps be forgiven for continuing to believe that college is a nearly risk-free decision financially, today's students do not have that luxury. Exploding tuition and the related horror stories about crushing debt loads appear regularly in the media. Yet students and parents largely ignore these warnings. The views that more (formal) education is almost always a good thing and that the loans needed to finance it are "good debt" since it is an investment are both widespread and contribute to the problem. While true to an extent, these views can be and are being carried too far by some, blinding some individuals to the dangers of debt.

    I have been following the student-debt story with some interest, I suppose because I can feel it changing my mind.

    I was graduated from high school in 1992.   When I was in high school and college — public high school, state university — I believed that college was a risk-free decision, with a few caveats.  I understood that if circumstances forced you to drop out, your money and time might be wasted; and, in my mind, you had to major in something "useful," otherwise it was your own darn fault if you couldn't get a job afterward.  I also found it really hard to understand why anyone would spend so much money going to a private school when there was such a thing as a state university, but I chalked that one up to taste.  So I had some pragmatism, but really, I completely bought the "thou must attend college or be a loser" line.

    Hardly anyone in my peer group chose not to enroll in college the same year we graduated.  A few ran into hardships that prevented their enrolling, but I would have been rather scandalized if any of my friends were to say "Sure, I could go to college, but for me and what I plan to do, it's just not worth the cost."  I would have been thinking, I thought you were a contender, but I guess you're just a bum.  

    And hey, it wasn't too long ago that I wrote this semi-famous post (the Anchoress linked to it, and it's still one of my highest-traffic posts ever).  I am not repudiating what I wrote there about whether education is "wasted" on a stay-at-home mother — and you'll note that it contains a caveat about not going into debt — but it is pretty clear that I come at the subject with an underlying assumption that more education is generally better.

    I had the luxury of attending college and graduate school on scholarship, which undoubtedly affected my opinion.  Hey, if someone offers you free money, it changes the calculation.  But I find myself with different thoughts these days.  We expect our kids to go on to some kind of additional training after high school, but I try to talk about it in a more open-ended way.  Four years at a four-year college doesn't automatically make sense for every  bright and motivated high school graduate anymore.  Especially not if you would have to go into debt for it.  There are other ways to be.

    Maybe it's the homeschooling habit.  You see all the opportunities for real self-education that are out there.  You get used to thinking that a lot of the time, credentials are not much more than pieces of paper.  You understand the value of your family's time, and you get used to saying "no" to some admittedly cool-sounding enrichment opportunities because they make it hard for everyone to sit down to dinner together, or because you'd have to drive across town in rush hour traffic.  You want the best for your kids, and it turns out that your idea of "the best" is different from what you expected it would be.

    Update:  Don't take on debt to go to culinary school.

    Added:  I seem to be getting some feedback that assumes I'm saying that all degrees are meaningless paper, or that private college is a waste of money, or that liberal arts degrees aren't worth it, or  that loans are always a bad thing.  Not at all.  But there seem to be a heck of a lot of people taking out loans and shelling out cash who don't understand the concept of return on investment.  I think some of them don't understand the concept of "loan."

    Some people may be carrying assumptions that were valid a generation ago but aren't anymore.  Once, *any* college degree was a ticket to a good paying job.  Guess what.  Now so many people have college degrees that the value of a college degree has been diluted.   Once, college was less expensive.  It's more expensive now.  Ergo, some prices are too high to pay for some degrees.  

    A lot of it depends on what you expect to get out of it.  And if you are seeking higher education not because you expect it to help you earn more money (or to earn acceptable money but at a job that you might enjoy more), but just to make yourself a more well-rounded person, well, let's just say I'm not really happy about my taxes funding your defaulted loan…

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  • Introduction to the Devout Life, 4-7: Remedies for temptations to grave sin.

    This is part of a continuing series.  An index of all posts on St. Francis de Sales' work Introduction to the Devout Life is here.  A post outlining part 4 of the book is here.

    Chapter 7 of the "troubleshooting guide" of St. Francis's handbook — that is, of Part 4 — is entitled "Remedies for Great Temptations."  By "great temptations" he means temptation to particularly grave, serious, or dangerous sin — the "greatness" doesn't have to do with how strong the urge or how difficult to resist, but rather, with the seriousness of the sin.  Later, I'll write about Chapters 8 and 9, where St. Francis discusses temptation to less serious sin. 

    It seems straightforward to suggest that Francis means to separately treat mortal sin (in chapter 7) and venial sin (in chapters 8-9), and yet in this translation the terms are not there, it is merely "great" and "small."  I suspect a different sort of classification is in order, which may become clear as we read.

    Before going on, let us guard against the mistake of thinking that the "serious sin" bit isn't something we're personally imperiled by.  It might be instructive for each of us to spend a moment considering what really grave sins she might really feel a temptation to — not necessarily on a regular basis, not necessarily a besetting temptation, but some imaginable and realistic circumstance of  temptation to commit some really grave sin against God or neighbor.  I know I can think of a few for myself;  one I am willing to admit is "deliberately missing Mass without sufficient reason," and believe me, there are plenty more where that came from.  Of course, if you suffer from a besetting temptation to any serious sin, that will do.  Put yourself mentally in that place where you know you would be tempted, and stay there for a moment.   

    Having a realistic picture of temptation to serious sin in mind, and an awareness that you and I are both at risk from it, let's go on and hear what Francis has to say about "great temptations."

    As soon as you find yourself tempted, follow the example of children who when they see a wolf or a bear at large run at once to their parents' arms or at least call out to them for help and assistance; in other words, fly to the arms of God and implore his mercy and his aid, for this is the remedy recommended by our Lord when he says:  Pray, that you may not enter into temptation (Mt 26:41).  

    If you find that the temptation still continues, or even grows stronger, hasten in spirit to embrace the Cross as if you saw Christ Crucified before your eyes:  protest that you will never yield, ask him to help you, beg him to strengthen your resistance, and continue to do so as long as the temptation lasts.  While doing so, never look at the temptation itself but only at our Lord; otherwise, if the temptation is a strong one, it may cause you discouragement.  Divert your mind from it by every good and lawful means you can; let them so occupy your heart as to drive out the evil suggestions arising from the temptation.

    So the first thing to do is ask God to take the temptation away.  If that doesn't work, focus on Christ and the Cross.  Francis adds that we can also try to distract ourselves from it in other ways besides praying and contemplating God ("divert your mind… by every good and lawful means you can").  I guess he knows that most of us can only think about God for so long.

    We should also take them to the confessional:

    The best remedy against temptations, whether they are great or small, is to open our hearts to our confessor, making all these suggestions, temptations and feelings known to him, for silence is the first condition the devil makes with a soul he wishes to seduce… God, on the contrary, requires above all that we should make them known to… our confessors.

    The act of speaking even "unspeakable" temptations — and we have a great gift in the privacy of the confessional here — I am convinced, gives us a natural strength and confidence that we can resist them.  Once spoken, they are robbed of some of their power over us.  Add to this the grace of the Sacrament, which transcends the natural, and the ability to overcome temptation is placed well within our reach.

    If, having done all this, the temptation still obstinately persists in troubling us and making us anxious there is nothing to do but remain obstinate ourselves

    "F*&k you, temptation."

    in our refusal to consent, for as a girl cannot be married so long as she says 'no,' so the soul, no matter how harassed, can never be harmed so long as it refuses consent.

    Basically, Francis is reminding us  that no matter how strongly we are tempted, the final decision to stay out of trouble is really ours.  Great temptation may mitigate our guilt, but it is no excuse; and that means that we always retain one tiny spark of free choice.

    What all this requires, of course is enough self-awareness to know when temptation is happening, AND enough knowledge to recognize serious sin when we see it.

    A final tip from St. Francis is not to waste our attention on this kind of thing.  He employs an excellent analogy:

    Never argue with the enemy; give him no answer save that of our Lord:  Away with thee, Satan; it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and serve none but him (Mt 4:10).

    A pure wife should answer not a word to one who makes an impure proposal to her, nor even look him in the face, but leave him at once, turning her heart towards her husband and renewing her promise of fidelity to him.  

    In the same way, a devout soul when assailed by some temptation should waste no time in replying or arguing but simply turn at once towards Jesus Christ her Spouse, renewing her protestation of fidelity and her desire to be entirely his for ever.

    As soon as we realize that we're experiencing "temptation to a grave sin," our reaction needs to be quick and merciless — like a woman who realizes that, yes, she's not imagining it, that weirdo acquaintance of her husband is in fact hitting on her.  I rather think that a little dose of contempt and a willingness to laugh at the soon-to-be-foiled attempt might help.  Lo-ser.  

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  • The difference between tuna and chicken.

    This week was a bit unusual in the lunch department because I made tuna salad sandwiches one day, and chicken salad sandwiches another day.   (Unusual because we don't do a lot of non-pb&j lunch sandwiches in general.)  And this alignment of the sandwich stars, because of the juxtaposition, got me thinking about flavor repertoires.

    I mean, the staple around which the two are based — not very different.  Both water-packed tuna and skinless cooked chicken white meat are high in protein and quite low in fat.  Both tend to be a little dry and not terribly flavorful, though tuna performs a little better than chicken there (and does anyone else think that canned chicken tastes a little bit like canned tuna?).  Both come from cans (although I had a poached chicken breast to work with yesterday) and so are suitable in pantry-backup-type meals that can be whipped up on short notice.

    Possibly as a result of these similarities, the (tuna OR chicken)-salad sandwiches that I tend to make have a lot in common.  I make them from items I almost always have on hand, which yields a nice synergy with (tuna OR chicken)'s pantry-backup capabilities.  Both recipes contain mayonnaise, which takes care of the leanness and dryness, carrying flavors and improving the mouthfeel — generally making the culinary experience much more satisfying.  And both recipes contain minced celery, with its subtle, fresh bite and pleasing crunch that can yield to the mushy chewiness of chicken or tuna.

    But my tuna salad and my chicken salad taste completely different from each other.  Besides the tuna or chicken, the mayonnaise, and the celery, and besides salt and pepper, my salads always contain the following:

    TUNA SALAD

    • minced onion
    • chopped hard-boiled egg
    • chopped dill pickles or pickle relish — lots of it

    CHICKEN SALAD

    • raisins
    • chopped apple
    • curry powder

    And you know what, I never ever ever swap them.  I never make curry-raisin-apple tuna salad.  I never make egg-onion-pickle chicken salad.  

    I can't think of any reason why chicken wouldn't work with the onion-egg-pickle trinity.  I can't think of any reason why tuna wouldn't work with raisins-apple-curry.  And yet, in my imagination, it is not even worth trying.

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  • The answer depends on the question.

    A friend of mine asked me a week ago, "So, how important do you really think exercise is for weight loss?"  I gave a rambly off-the-cuff answer, but I wasn't satisfied with it.  Let me try again.

    Research data does exist about the subject.  But the kind of data that's out there is not the sort that can be translated into advice for everyone.

    Some of it reports a relationship between exercise and immediate weight loss; some of it reports a relationship between exercise and long-term weight maintenance.  Some of it compares cardiovascular-type exercise to resistance-type exercise.  Some of it reports what happens when totally sedentary people take up very minimal exercise; some of it reports what happens when people who move around during their normal lives introduce sessions of intense exercise; some of it reports what happens when people who already exercise in sessions add more sessions.  Some work studies people who are generally healthy, some work studies people who are ill or frail.  Clearly not all of the results are relevant to each person.

    And then, what comes out in the headlines isn't necessarily what the researchers were studying.  Check out this apparently decent article in The Guardian:  "Why exercise won't make you thin."  The article reports:

    In what has become a defining experiment at the University of Louisiana, led by Dr Timothy Church, hundreds of overweight women were put on exercise regimes for a six-month period. Some worked out for 72 minutes each week, some for 136 minutes, and some for 194. A fourth group kept to their normal daily routine with no additional exercise.

    Against all the laws of natural justice, at the end of the study, there was no significant difference in weight loss between those who had exercised – some of them for several days a week – and those who hadn't. (Church doesn't record whether he told the women who he'd had training for three and half hours a week, or whether he was wearing protective clothing when he did.) Some of the women even gained weight.

    But if you go to the journal article abstract, you will find no mention of weight loss.  The study's authors apparently felt that the really important result was the relationship between exercise and cardiorespiratory fitness.  (There is one.)

    Finally, the numbers are not really simple enough to be distilled into headlines without losing some subtlety.  Let's say that "New study shows that X is superior to Y when it comes to losing weight."  This may mean that the average weight loss in the X group was significantly more than the average weight loss in the Y group.  Or it might mean that a greater percentage of the X group than of the Y group achieved some criterion for "success." But often there are some individuals in the Y group who outperformed individuals in the X group for some unknown reason.  How do you know which group you would do better in?  You don't, unless you try X and you try Y.

    So:  Most of what you read in the papers may as well be ignored as acted upon.

    That being said, I am personally convinced of this:

    Exercise is next to useless for weight loss.  If there is an effect, it is so small as to be not worth the time and effort anyone puts into weight loss.  If the only reason you want to exercise is to lose weight, don't bother.  Seriously. 

    (I've written about this before.)

    But.

    Why do you want to lose weight?

    If any part of that is "Because I want to be healthier" — or "stronger" — or "able to do more things" — or "longer-lived" —

    — then exercise will give you that, EVEN IF YOU DO NOT LOSE ANY WEIGHT AT ALL.

    I can't stress this one enough.

    Mark told me about a paper that he saw presented at a conference that, while I cannot link to it, will do for an illustration.  The research subjects were overweight people who increased their exercise for the study.  Rather than just presenting averages and standard deviations and the like, the presenter showed data for all the individuals.  A few gained weight.  Most lost very little weight or no weight.  Some lost a significant amount of weight.  But all of them increased their muscle mass, and all of them increased their lean-to-fat body ratio. 

    Yeah, some people will lose weight after they start exercising.  Good for them.  But why not just start with the assumption:  "Exercise will probably not help me lose weight, but it will definitely make me healthier."

    So fess up.  If you are the sort to say you don't care so much about your appearance, but you want to lose weight because it's good for your health… well, if that's true then the only logical response is to get some exercise.

    Or even if you DO care about your appearance, AND you want to lose weight because it's good for your health, then the only logical response is STILL to get some exercise.

    "But wait," you might be saying.  "I do only care about my health, but we all know that simply being obese is so very bad for my health, that if I stay obese I'm going to be unhealthy anyway.  I should try to lose weight first, and if exercise won't help me lose weight or might even make it harder to lose weight, then it'll actually be standing in the way of better health."

    Bzzt.  Very, very little evidence exists for the assertion that being obese, alone, causes health problems.  Correlation has been demonstrated.  Causation, not so much.

    Exercise will definitely make you healthier.  Losing weight will not definitely make you healthier.

    So.  Let me distill this into a handy Q&A.

    ***

    Q.  I want to lose weight, so should I be getting regular exercise?

    A.  Yes.

    ***

    Q.   If I want to GAIN weight, should I be getting regular exercise?

    A.  Yes.

    ***

    Q.   Let's suppose I don't give a flying fig newton whether my weight goes up or down or stays the same.  Should I be getting regular exercise?

    A.  Do I really have to answer that?  

    Q.  Yes, just for the sake of completeness.

    A.  Yes.

    Q.  That's what I thought you would say.

    A.  Glad to oblige.

    Q.   Okay, this is what I REALLY meant to say. I'm not getting regular exercise, and I'm not losing weight as fast as I want to.  Will it help me lose weight if I get more exercise?

    A. I can't be sure, but probably not.

    Q.  Is that bad news or good news?

    A.  Yes.

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  • Because of the people I hang out with.

    My first thought on reading this was:  "Oh great.  There goes mankind's last peanut-free zone."

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    6 comments on Because of the people I hang out with.

  • The co-schooling record sheet.

    We were having trouble keeping track of everything every kid was doing.  Finally, after consulting with Hannah, I made a form for us to fill out once each day:

    Photo 269
     

    This works a lot better.  There's one row in the grid for each subject.  Left to right, the cells read the name of each subject; the kids who usually take part; and then a wide blank for us to write down what the children did.  

    Some things we do only once a week, and these share a row: for example, we teach art on Thursdays and music on Tuesdays, so one row reads "Music theory OR art study."  Saves space.

    Sometimes we have to get a little creative.  For example, Tuesday's entry for "Pre-K activities" said:  "Free imaginative play with blankets, neighbor girl under the plum tree in the back yard."

    At the end of the day, we photocopy the record sheet, and each family takes one copy home.

    Last week, I added a line to record what we fed everyone for lunch.  This data may come in handy when we start running out of ideas (again).

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  • Wanted: Honesty.

    At Whatever, science fiction author John Scalzi has some good things to say about finding the time to write.  

    As I read it, I thought that it really applies to anything people say they "want" to do.

    So: Do you want to write or don’t you? If your answer is “yes, but,” then here’s a small editing tip: what you’re doing is using six letters and two words to say “no.” And that’s fine. Just don’t kid yourself as to what “yes, but” means.

    If your answer is “yes,” then the question is simply when and how you find the time to do it. If you spend your free time after work watching TV, turn off the TV and write. If you prefer to spend time with your family when you get home, write a bit after the kids are in bed and before you turn in yourself. If your work makes you too tired to think straight when you get home, wake up early and write a little in the morning before you head off. If you can’t do that (I’m not a morning person myself) then you have your weekend — weekends being what I used when I wrote Agent to the Stars.

    And if you can’t manage that, then what you’re saying is that you were lying when you said your answer is “yes.” Because if you really wanted to write, you would find a way to make the time, and you would find a way to actually write. Cory Doctorow says that no matter what, he tries for 250 words a day (that’s a third of what I’ve written in this entry to this point), and if you write just 250 words a day — the equivalent to a single, double-spaced page of text — then in a year you have 90,000 words. That’s the length of a novel. Off of 250 words a day. Which you could do. On the goddamned bus. If you really wanted.

    This is why at this point in time I have really very little patience for people who say they want to write but then come up with all sorts of excuses as to why they don’t have the time. 

    I particularly liked the line:  "If your answer is “yes, but,” then here’s a small editing tip: what you’re doing is using six letters and two words to say “no.”"  Rings true, no?

    I hear it about homeschooling from time to time.  I occasionally hear "I would like to homeschool, but there's no way I could do it, I don't have the patience, etc."  This is a good example, because believe me, every one of those obstacles has been overcome by many, many people who really wanted to homeschool their kids.  Or, lacking a desire, who really believed it was what they ought to do.  There is nothing wrong with not wanting to homeschool your kids, by the way.  And it's not what everyone ought to do.   But again, honesty about it.

    And I hear it about regular exercise — much more commonly than about homeschooling.  "I want to exercise, but I don't have the time."  Same thing.  Whatever your obstacles, whatever your set of obstacles, other people have had them, and some of those people — the ones who really wanted to — have gotten through and over and around them.  

    The doing is the measure of the wanting.  "Doing" might involve planning and preparing, but it implies action of some kind.  Without action, so-called wanting is only vapor and wind.  Not wanting at all.

    Which makes me think that a good resolution to make might be to stop saying "I really want to do X" when the evidence demonstrates that I don't.  And that means facing up to some truths about who I am, because don't we all measure ourselves in part by what we imagine ourselves doing, rather than by what we really do?  And couldn't that truth set us free?

    Like this:  

    • I don't want to read stories to my children every day. 
    • I don't want to go to Mass except on Sundays.  
    • I don't want to turn off the computer every night as soon as my husband gets home.
    • I don't want to take public transit instead of my car.
    • I don't want to grow kitchen herbs in containers.
    • I don't want to stop feeding the kids convenient and cheap packaged cookies for tea snacks.

    What don't you really want to do?

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    7 comments on Wanted: Honesty.

  • Catching my breath.

    I kind of feel the need to check in, even though I haven't anything specific to say right now.  It's been a few days since I've had the chance to write anything at all lengthy.

    This is the first few weeks of school:  I am busy, crazy, dizzy, and yet I am still feeling positive and motivated. The newly-sharpened-pencil scent hasn't dissipated from the schoolroom yet, if you know what I mean.  And so I don't have extra time — PLUS I don't have that desperate need-to-get-away-and-think-my-own-thoughts procrastination that ordinarily drives me to blog at least a little even when I don't have extra time.  And I am also not trying out many new recipes, having fallen back on old standards for these weeks while we are still hammering out our schedules.

    Already figured out:  Mondays (with late afternoon swim lessons) will be beans-and-rice-in-the-rice-cooker night.  Tuesdays (getting back late from co-schooling) will be leftovers night.  

    In other news, the baby appears to be teething, poor thing.  He wouldn't stop crying this morning (until he finally dropped off to sleep, fitfully, in the sling — that's where he is now); and this made school kind of hard for the others.  My 6yo dutifully read his book aloud to me, but it was hard to hear him over the wailing.  My 10yo tried singing to himself to drown the baby out, which of course made it even louder in here.  My 4yo was agitated and couldn't hear her (educational, I swear) movie.  Lunch couldn't come soon enough.

    From the kitchen:  "Can I have some baking soda, mom?"

    "No."

    "Why?"

    "Because I don't know what you want to do with it."

    "I want to put it on some paper."

    I know what this means.  Scientisting.  "No."

    "I'll do it outside."

    "It's thunderstorming outside."

    "Can I have some orange juice?"

    "Are you going to put baking soda in it?"

    "No."

    "Okay then."

    You see?  I'm no fun.  Guess I'll use the rest of break time, um, making a grocery list.

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  • Government work.

    I got a parking ticket yesterday because we forgot to put new license tabs on my car.  Oh well, such is life.  Sat down to Pay Fines Online! this morning and the ticket didn't show up on the county website.  A couple of phone calls later and I discovered that supposedly it can take "in excess of 14 days" from the issuance of the ticket for the information to appear in the online system.

    Remind me what decade we are living in, please?  And you're telling me I now have to keep this thing on my mental radar for two weeks or more?  (Yeah, I suppose I could put a "check" in the "mail."  That's no fun and wastes a stamp.)

    And as for the state: Why can't the tab fees just be automatically deducted from my bank account?  This is 2010.  I don't know about you, but years ago I re-assigned to other tasks the brain cells formerly responsible for "remember to pay my bills."

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  • Manifesto.

    It's disturbing that anyone needs to write a manifesto defending women's pants, but I'm glad Simcha has stepped up to the plate.   Clip 'n' save for the next rant you encounter.

    I happen to be pretty comfortable in a long-ish skirt a lot of the time, even here in Minnesota (hint:  Italian wool stockings), but yeah, it's not a moral issue.  

    The whole male-female pants-skirt dichotomy stems from needing to pee comfortably in the woods, anyway.   On the subject of which, incidentally, I recommend Chapter Six of this book.  And yeah, a hiking skirt does help.

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    3 comments on Manifesto.

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