Ten suggestions

by imothyt

1. What other people think about you is actually none of your business.

Yes, they are talking about you. They are saying mean things about you. There’s a whole subreddit dedicated to what a fool you are. Did you know that people make fun of you behind your back? Like all the time, in twitter conversations, on Facebook, in texts, on the phone, to your boss. And it’s none of your business.

Because what they are really doing is just projecting their own insecurities, their own flaws, their failings, angers, and even love and admiration, of themselves onto you. And who wants to get into why they are doing that? Or really even into anyone else’s clouded up brain?

2. You’re wrong.

Say this, “I don’t know”. Try it out some time. Actually, go ahead and say it all the time. The things you think you know are probably wrong. The things we take as facts are probably wrong. Reality probably isn’t even reality. And worst of all, you don’t even know what you don’t know. Even if you think you do know something for a minute or two, it’s probably wrong tomorrow.

Being wrong now, and admitting you’re wrong, allows you to be even more wrong in the future. Which is magnificent! That is the journey of humanity! It has been one long history of utter wrongness leading up to what is now an explosion of wrong! We have never been more wrong as a species than we are now. Look at the frothing cauldron of error that we call Twitter. Look at every book ever written! Every scientist who ever published. They have all been wrong! The greatest minds in human history have all been wrong! So how could you possibly be right? How could these suggestions even be right??

3. Do what you do for the people who love you.

No matter how much you try to impress people who hate you, they will never be satisfied. See how in suggestion one, there’s that thing about other people’s thoughts being none of your business and in recommendation two there’s the bit about you being wrong? Here is the solution. You’re wrong, other people’s thoughts are none of your business, so don’t waste your time with people who hate you.

4. Ideas are worthless, the only value is in doing.

My grandfather was a painter. He wasn’t famous, though one of his paintings is in the background of the Mary J. Blige video “I am” and he has a painting of Horace Pippin in the National Portrait Gallery. He actually spent most of his life in the shadow of Andrew Wyeth. But despite his relative obscurity, he made art every day often at great personal sacrifice.

One day, shortly before his death, he caught word that I had been published. It was, to be fair, my college’s literary arts magazine, that I had founded, and worked on as the art editor, but it was my first published story.

I was surprised because Tom never called me. His voice was raspy, he inhaled a lot. These were the choppy breaths of a man dying of emphysema. Still, he fought through it and told me that he was proud of me. I said the story was bad. He told me he was proud of me for even writing the story. And then he said something that has stuck with me ever since, the reason I write every day: ideas are worthless, unless you make them real. Then he needed to catch his breath, and he said, “now you talk”.

5. Sucking at something is the first step toward being kind of good at something.

Yes, I stole that from Adventure Time, the episode “His Hero”. It’s an excellent piece of writing and what, you think the bible guys didn’t steal anything?

6. But perseverance is key

Taking a few steps toward not sucking is one thing but playing guitar every day until your fingers bleed is a thing I used to read about in the guitar magazines. I don’t remember bleeding. I did play every day. Usually until my dad yelled “CAN’T YOU PLAY ANOTHER FUCKING SONG??”

7. Being nice takes courage

The more I learn about the history of humanity the more I realize how exceptionally rare it is for people to be nice. Polite, sure, but actual niceness is rare. And being nice to people you don’t know, people who are outside your social group, takes courage.

By nice, I mean empathy. Not just giving someone a dollar on the way to the metro. I mean understanding what it feels like to be cold, homeless, hopeless, or addicted, abused, and loathed and then doing something about it. That takes courage.

8. Everything in moderation, some things not at all.

“Even moderation!” say the hippies. No. You ruined the world with that. Let’s try a little more virtue and a little less vice for a while.

9. Love is selfless

The opposite of love is not hate, it’s not indifference (sorry Elie!), it’s selfishness.

10. The root of anger is unmet expectations.

You’re in the parking lot at the local market at 5:30pm. The car in front of you stops and waits for a car near the entrance to pull out. You can’t get around them. Cars behind you are backing up into the street. You even see people pull out of parking spaces a little further up! One, two, three. You could be in the building by now if this guy would just park in one of those far away spaces. But you’re stuck there waiting for this chain of events to unfold. It’s frustrating. It makes you angry.

Do you want to be angry?

You only have two choices: you can be angry and possibly act out (yell at the guy, blow your horn, crash into them, get in a fight) or change your expectations. “Ah,” I say to myself in these situations “someone is applying for a job with the automotive harassment squad!“

11. (These go to 11) Hell is other people

There is a heaven and there is a hell. We don’t know what it’s like to die and only a fool would pretend to know if there is another state of being or if we just die. What I do think I know is that memories of you get passed on. Good memories are the heaven we leave for others. Bad memories are the hell. So, maybe leave some good ones for others. You don’t want to make everyone’s life a hell around you, do you?

Qq

23 comments

  2. The non-Arsenal days are so brilliant here. (Not to say the Arsenal days aren’t, too. ) I usually bristle at self-help-ism and such, but somehow it’s different coming from you.
    #4 has been the hardest lesson to learn for me. Better to write, play, or make one lousy thing than dream up 100 great ones.

    Thanks, Tim!

  3. Nice write up. When you start trying to find answers about the human condition and life. Its hard, its scary, makes you panic and hope in cycles..

  4. I’m a bit of a loner so your blog has been a good place for me to practice humility. When I am out in the world I avoid conflict because it’s difficult and uncomfortable. I’d rather take an L than get into a potentially uncomfortable situation with someone. At work it’s practically mandated. So sometimes I come in here with pent up frustrations from elsewhere and perhaps subconsciously infuse them into my posts, or not so subconsciously. However I have found that the energy you put into the world is exactly what you will get back. I never feel good afterward about my posts when they have an edge, even if it feels good at the time to write them. I check back, dreading the consequences of my actions, face flushing as I re-read my more contentious arguments fired off in the heat of the moment. Instead, I am now learning to let more things have the space to exist without needing to correct or question them. I am learning how to disagree without being disagreeable. And most importantly I am learning to be thankful. So here’s a big thank you for giving me the space to grow into a better man, no matter how obliquely.

    2. I feel this energy in your posts. I also think that a lot of the posters here have this same energy. And in full disclosure, I do this exact same thing here and often on twitter.

      One thing I wish I would do is write a response and then let it sit for an hour. Then come back, read it again, and then see if I still like it. My guess is that I would delete most of my responses. You’re a scientist! Do an experiment.

  5. #2 put another way: to get to a place of humility and grace, it is important we admit first that truth is possible, that there is such a thing as reality, and that not everything is wrong; and, second, that since truth and reality are not merely discursive constructs — and thus, to some extent, lie outside our subjectivity — our striving to know them must at the same time be accompanied by a sense of our own limitation.

    (Sorry, I’m just too much of an idealist to go in for the nihilistic all-is-lost/wrong reality-isn’t-reality approach! But I share the underlying sentiment of the post!)

    1. No! I really like it. It adds a positivity to what would otherwise seem very negative.

      As you know from my writing, I think of wrongness as a positive thing. For example, Newton was wrong about gravity. But does that mean we should abandon all of the progress and science humanity made based on that wrongness? NO! When we are wrong, we learn. That’s my real lesson. So, I will steal like an artist and add your concepts to mine.

    2. It probably sounds trite (I don’t mean it to be and its about myself!) but I always enjoy the moment I discover I was wrong about something, as I then realise I’m a bit more ‘right’.

  8. Lovely post. A welcome tonic in a time when narcissism, sociopathy, mendacity and demagoguery are defining characteristics of too many in leadership from Jair Bolsonaro to Jose Mourinho. And those are just the Portuguese speaking ones.
    Thank you for this.

  9. Also, I’ll leave you with an 11th suggestion:
    That writing well is an act of resistance especially in these times.
    This blog is definitely an Act of Resistance.

  10. Who said there were some only 10 commandments?!
    My favourites are # 2,4,5,7 &11 but all good thoughts and worth remembering when next contesting a parking place or balling out Mustafi for another missed tackle!

  12. As someone who works in a creative field this is all such great advice, especially 2 and 4. Your late grandfather sounds like a top geezer.

    Regarding wrongness, I worry that people have taken that concept and run wild with it, in a political sense at least. There’s a difference between good faith “open inquiry” and steadfastly refusing to learn basic lessons of history.

  14. No 4 is a lesson I’ve had to learn the hard way and often still struggle with. Love the story and thank you so much for sharing this Tim.

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