Nicholas Bate

One Of The Many Mysteries Of Life

for Megan (age 7) was why her parents-now that (unlike her)-they could do as they wished, didn't buy more confectionery. And then she discovered her father's cache of premium German lager.

Making Films 101

"Props reveal character" so says 101 Things I Learned in Film School, Neil Landau.

That's often true in every day Life, too.

Musing, Thinking, Preparing, Being and Three Ls For The Fall

As he sat in the mid-town launderette ('service washes 75c/pound') watching his faithful denims circulate in suds he took another sip of iced tea and started to scribble in the cheap college notebook from the corner store next door:

Fresh Goals September to December 2010

1. Do laundry every Sunday. Whatever.
2. No excuses. In Laundry, in Life, in Love. Haha: he'd make those his Three Ls For The Fall.
3. Write more long, real letters.
4. Be happy in doing less. A lot more.
5. Always work on a clear desk-top
6. Today: ring and book squash lessons.
7. Create reading list and aim for one book per week on the daily commute to work. Include re-reading the greats.
8. Up-date my master list of stuff that I want to do beyond the stuff which has to get done.
9. See even more sun-rises.
10. Do 25 spider-man press-ups every day
11. Put note above PC: whatever: it'll be OK.

Cool. He turned the page and started storming a reading list.

• Anything by Orwell
• ? Blair autobiography. Second-hand copy.
• Anything by Updike
• Tim Parkes...something about illness....

On Change

To get the change you seek you'll probably need to break a pattern or two (A pattern? A regular well-established behaviour. Good or bad. E.g. putting sugar in your coffee. Going for a walk at lunch-time. Reading on the train.) To break a pattern you'll need to go through the discomfort e.g. 'learning' a new taste as you dispense with the sugar in your coffee. That's the real barrier isolated: the discomfort. Can you push through that discomfort barrier to get what you want? Can you push through that discomfort barrier to get what you want? Can you push through that discomfort barrier to get what you want? You can. Certainly you can, otherwise we simply become trapped in an old version of ourselves and stop growing.

On Success

There are real barriers, sure. No amount of 'positive thinking' will allow you to safely jump off high buildings. But having said that the usual first barrier for all of us is a mental one. We can draw. Possibly not as well as Michelangelo initially but we can have fun with it and might-with practice-get good at it. We can push back on unreasonable work demands. We can start our own enterprise. We can change our community for the better. It all starts with overcoming the mental barrier. It's then generally a long way until the real, physical barrier.

On Productivity

As with so many areas, the study of productivity has been successfully reduced to its component parts: lists, triggers and schedules for example. But just as the human body is not a stack of chemicals nor the Mona Lisa a collection of well balanced colours and perspectives, there is something missing: the passion which drives will which drives real productivity.  Too much study of the chemicals removes what is Life. Too much study of techniques destroys great art and too much concern about the component parts of efficiency and effectiveness can ironically destroy the real productivity we seek.

Mmmm

 

Eating Better

1. Real vs. Processed
2. Steamed vs. Boiled
3. Fruit vs. Confectionery
4. Grilled vs. Fried
5. Water vs. Soda
6. Tall vs. Venti
7. Balanced vs. Fanaticism.

Zombie? No Thanks!

One of our many magical gifts as a human being is our consciousness, our self-awareness (you are not just reading this, you are aware of yourself doing so). Consciousness allow us to do our best work, to make choices, to reflect. The New World of Work fights hard to take this away from us: to distract, interrupt and over-load us  so that we become hypnotised. Fight it. Push back. Don't become a zombie.

Something To Think About