Category: Daily Life

Pacing at the Starting Gate, Waiting for the Right Amount of Rain…

I am delighted to announce that I’ve got —not one, not two, but —three cool freelance gigs coming up.

JOB A is producing some product sales meetings for a well-known company.

JOB B and JOB C involve story creation for two different technology / game apps.

I am being super vague because I don’t want to jinx anything, but I’ll say that I’m excited about all three: Each one will involve learning new vocabulary (which is one of my favorite things) as well as new software (which I enjoy if it’s not overwhelming). And I get to collaborate as part of a team. I’ve been in a good mood as each of them has become more solid in the last several weeks.

The producing gig, JOB A, scheduled for mid-July to mid-September, is the most definite because it’s built around pre-scheduled events that involve multiple people and businesses, so barring some natural disaster or new pandemic surge, it will happen. I’ve spent the last month virtually “onboarding” with their third-party payroll vendor, and just received my company email address and access to their Microsoft Teams hub, so am feeling very official.

For JOB B and JOB C, the “paperwork” is still being sorted — i.e. various parties and lawyers are defining and agreeing to terms etc.

Here’s where I’m getting a little antsy and “pacing at the gate.” Both of these jobs became possibilities after meetings in early May, and are slated to happen in June. In particular, JOB B was supposed to begin June 1, for a duration of about 30 days. June 1 would have been a perfect start day, as then JOB B would have ended with a couple weeks before the beginning of JOB A, with some wiggle room if we were running late.

But, as I write this, it is June 11, and a weekend, and the paperwork is still “being finalized.” I’d have to start JOB B on Monday in order to have a full 30 days before JOB A starts.

I keep reminding everyone on my end that JOB A is not one of my usual day jobs where I can write in the evenings and go to meetings on my lunch break and pretend like I don’t really have a day job at all. JOB A will be a real, on-location, with (hopefully only) 10-hour days, production-type job that will require my full attention.

But legal departments rush for no one (at least no one at my level, but I think maybe no one ever).

Writers often juggle various jobs without their clients being the wiser or really caring, as long as the job gets done. And people who aren’t actually writing tend to act like miraculous things can happen. Also, I’ve noticed that people in entertainment are used to acting like miracles can happen, but then having them not happen, and deadlines get pushed all the time. What I don’t know is if that also happens in the tech world.

I’ve heard George Saunders say, “A cliche is a truth that has lost its luster.”
It never rains, but it pours is a cliche.
And it is true. I don’t know why.

The year so far has been a work-drought, so all the rain is welcome. But when too much rain hits packed dry earth … (you get it–that’s why it’s a cliche).

The blessing of these gigs is that 1) while they are short term, each should lead to future fun — if I can establish a good relationships, making it over the learning-curve hump and do a good job, and 2) I really want to do them all because I’m genuinely interested.

But the blessing of caring about all three will become a curse if they all — with their unique learning curves, new people, new software, and new story forms— end up landing at once.

So today’s manifestation is that the starting gun goes off on Monday… because I’m raring at the bit—And that for the next few months the rain can fall steady but not torrential.

“Let’s get this party started!” says the horse.

Dopamine, Anticipation, Capitalism, Hollywood, and What Happens if Charlie Brown Never Kicks the Football?

When it comes to habits, the key takeaway is this: dopamine is released not only when you experience pleasure, but also when you anticipate it. Gambling addicts have a dopamine spike right before they place a bet, not after they win. Cocaine addicts get a surge of dopamine when they see the powder, not after they take it. Whenever you predict that an opportunity will be rewarding, your levels of dopamine spike in anticipation. And whenever dopamine rises, so does your motivation to act.

It is the anticipation of a reward—not the fulfillment of it—that gets us to take action.

Atomic Habits, by James Clear, p 106

I’ve been thinking about anticipation in our society. About how dopamine keeps flowing for a person who believes a reward is coming—and how capitalism is great at instilling belief in rewards by showing us other people receiving rewards and selling the idea that with enough work, it will be our turn, or at least our children’s turn. And, if that seems too obviously unrealistic, Christianity offers the back-up belief that rewards will be offered in the life to come, if we are good.

For our economic system (or those who profit by it), it’s good for people to believe in capitalism, religion, or both because it keeps them anticipating a reward. If people stop anticipating— because they stop believing the reward will manifest, or in the value of the reward — their dopamine levels could drop to such an extent that (like the rats mentioned in my previous post) they stop working. Which would be bad, because everyone striving for their individual rewards within the system, is the system.

The pandemic has shown, in a small way, how when people can’t / won’t service the system, it becomes inconvenient for the people who need a new bathroom vanities, cling peaches or car parts, and it also becomes threatening to the people who normally profit from all these transactions. I’m far from the first to theorize that in order to keep things running, the system might ultimately have to provide rewards of actual value — like workplace safety, higher wages and maybe some other things, like respect and appreciation for one’s contributions and skills…etc.

Oops — I think most of that was a tangent. The real topic of this post (of course) is me.

Who am I? I’m a subset of people: i.e. a writer, existing in a subsector of the capitalist system: i.e. the entertainment industry. The rewards I want are the same boring things most people in my industry who aren’t sociopaths want: creative opportunities, a living wage, functional work relationships, etc. For a fair while, I’ve sustained myself with the anticipation of obtaining these, because I had some belief that it was possible. Like its parent system, Hollywood is great at saying “look at all these other people getting treats—if they can do it, you can too!”— and also selling the idea that if you are just good enough, God (or someone) will pick you and lift you up to heaven (or at least higher up the food chain). You can anticipate this happening at any moment…Dopamine!

The thing is, one starts to lose one’s ability to anticipate a bright future if this keeps happening:

If you don’t want to kick the ball anymore, CB, there’s thousands of writers out there who would kill for the chance.

Please know, that, within my field, I am in no way unique and this football-yanking happens to lots and lots of people, all the time. So this is not a plea for sympathy, inasmuch as a preamble for some self interrogation, wherein I ask:

Who’s at fault in the situation pictured above?

Is it Lucy, for being a jerk? For sure. But. Is it also Charlie Brown? Why does CB repeatedly come back to Lucy and her ball? Doesn’t he have any other friends who treat him better? Is Lucy so much more glamorous and interesting than those friends? Or, is Lucy his only acquaintance with a football, and a football is the only kind of ball he wants to kick?

What’s with Charlie Brown’s obsession with that dumb football anyway? That question is facetious — I know the answer. He feels like he’s meant to kick that football. If he could just have that one chance, where the ball didn’t get pulled away, and his foot could connect — he can feel in his bones how that football would go flying! (And once that ball was in the air, the world would know, and soon he’d have his face on a cereal box or at least be kicking footballs everyday for money. It’s just one kick between him and living the dream!)

But who are we kidding? It’s in Lucy’s nature to pull the ball away. Like the proverbial scorpion who has to sting, or like Jessica Rabbit, who’s just drawn that way, Lucy is literally incapable of not fucking with the ball.

So the question becomes, what should Charlie Brown do now? I mean, shouldn’t he try playing some other game that doesn’t include Lucy? Like baseball or soccer, or Yahtzee? Or maybe he could start mowing lawns, and just buy his own football?

Hell, he could start a lawn-mowing franchise and eventually buy a whole football team. By then he’d be past the prime for football-kicking himself, but he’d likely have friends who are more loyal than Lucy, clients who truly appreciate (and pay for) their evenly-cut lawns, and co-workers who invite him to BBQs and their kids’ birthday parties where they share inside jokes and compare lawn mowers.

Possibly, he could have a happy life with plenty of anticipation and dopamine despite never kicking a football!

Ugh, I just passed 1000 words! I didn’t want to do that. How can I wrap this up? Okay, here:

  • Capitalism is deeply flawed but seems poised to persist.
  • Given the fact that I’m not Neo, and can’t unplug from the Matrix, I need to live in it. (Matrix=capitalist system. I didn’t set up that metaphor in this mini-essay, but it’s so commonly used I don’t need to, right?)
  • Within the capitalist system, my stubborn commitment to football kicking (i.e. screenwriting) seems increasingly likely to end with me living underneath an overpass (at least between police sweeps), while Lucy / Hollywood forgets I ever existed and doesn’t feel the least bit guilty.
  • However, Hollywood is just one subsector of the big capitalist machine, and if I can quit sulking about the not-getting-to-kick-the-football thing, I could look for a different sector that doesn’t lead to the whole overpass scenario.
  • And in the process, I could even look for a sector with work-life balance, respect for my skills, and getting compensated happily and fairly instead of grudgingly and as little as possible. (I don’t know if this place actually exists, but what is life without a search for mythical lands?)
  • All of which would help renew my faith in humanity and the capitalist whole reward system, which would reset my ability anticipate good things, triggering the release of dopamine…

Sugar Water For My Dopamine-Depleted Brain, featuring George Saunders

The importance of dopamine became apparent in 1954 when the neuroscientists James Olds and Peter Milner ran an experiment that revealed the neurological processes behind craving and desire. By implanting electrodes in the brains of rats, the researchers blocked the release of dopamine. To the surprise of the scientists, the rats lost all will to live. They wouldn’t eat. they wouldn’t have sex. They didn’t crave anything. Within a few days the animals died of thirst.

In follow-up studies, other scientist also inhibited the dopamine-releasing parts of the brain, but this time, they squirted little droplets of sugar into the mouths of the dopamine-depleted rats. Their little rat faces lit up with pleasurable grins from the tasty substance. Even though dopamine was blocked, they liked the sugar just as much as before; they just didn’t want it anymore. The ability to experience pleasure remained, but without dopamine, desire died. And without desire, action stopped.

James Clear, Atomic Habits (p. 105)

Although I’m happily emerging from the slump now, for much of this year, I found myself relating to the rats described above, in that I had very little desire to do much of anything. Although this sounds like—and probably was—a classic depression symptom, I simultaneously observed that, like the rats, I didn’t feel particularly unhappy. I still enjoyed flowers and pretty scenery and conversations and food when —like sugar water dropped on the rats’ tongues—it was delivered to me with minimal effort on my part. Luckily, because I live with a man moved by his appetites, much of the world was delivered to me: Television programs appeared on the screen, food arrived, I was ferried to various destinations. And as these things happened I thought mmmm, riding in the car in the sun is nice, this view is nice, this Modern Kale Ceasar Salad hits the spot.

The main arena where Paul could not carry me was in my writing. With a kind of distanced concern, I observed that my sense of hope and ambition had disappeared and my desire to write had dwindled to almost nothing. This, more than anything else, highlighted for me the growing similarity between myself and the desire-less rats.

I thought, For most of my life I have cared about writing. While I don’t care right now, it seems probable that I’ll care again in the future, so I should try to prolong my creative life until the caring kicks back in. To that end, maybe I need to be not only a rat, but also a scientist. (Not the one of the scientists who let their rats die of starvation, but the one who provided sugar water to keep the rats alive, albeit after cruelly disrupting their normal dopamine flow.)

In other words, I needed to procure my own source of sugar water.

I set about doing this by signing up for a new session of a writing workshop I sometimes do. It didn’t push me into writing pages as it normally would, but my sense of social obligation drove me to read other people’s work and give decent notes. There’s some satisfaction in realizing that, after years of practice, searching for writing solutions when I read scripts is now as automatic as starting to chew after I’ve put food in my mouth. So I think my fellow writers benefitted and it exercised my brain a little. But after a couple of months, I was worn out even by this. I needed sugar water that required zero effort.

And I was lucky enough to find some.

On Apple TV, there was Severance. Rather than attempt to say much about it, I’ll just recommend it, or recommend reading the second half of this essay in Electric Literature.

On audio, there was the George Saunders’ book, A Fish in a Pond in the Rain.

In the first weeks after my surgery, my general I-can’t-make-myself-care mood mixed with a fair amount of physical pain. I knew I was looking bad when our nosiest neighbor approached me on one of my daily recovery walks and asked, “Are you okay?” with a tinge of something approximating actual concern.

I’m sure whatever I answered was less than satisfying for her curiosity. I had little energy for back-and-forth conversations or the social niceties of stretching my face into different expressions. But as I slowly shuffled around the block like a battery-finally-depleted energizer bunny, I hit “play” on A Swim in a Pond in the Rain and it was pure sugar water piped into my brain via my ears. Inside my head, and even inside my soul, “my little rat face lit up with pleasure.”

Although the book can be described as about writing, Saunders’ discussions weave in morality, spirituality, human nature and the general poignant ridiculousness of people.

Saunders, like my husband, is an engineer-turned-storyteller, and it’s interesting to observe the ways in which their minds think alike (though Saunders’ analyses are elevated because he’s well-read and dedicated to efficiently and affectingly articulating his thoughts shaped by years of reflection and teaching).

In each section of the book, an actor reads a story by a Russian author, and then Saunders analyzes the story, beat by beat, page by page, combining close reading and larger structural analysis.

If you are a writer, a reader or a lover of stories in any format, I highly recommend this book.

P.S. Though I’m a fan of George Saunders’ fiction, I became aware of A Swim in a Pond in the Rain via his Story Club newsletter which you can check out on SUBSTACK for free. I will admit to being months behind — apparently opening emails and reading things on my computer is less like sugar-water delivery and more akin to having to cross one’s cage for sustenance—and I’m not all the way back yet. The minute he compiles his posts into an audiobook or podcast, I will be the first to lay my money down!

Introducing ATOMIC HABITS

Quick health update: I’m almost six weeks out from my surgery and feeling much better. Some aches and pains will work themselves out for a few months and deep healing is a process, but, as of now, no more daily needles in my belly, the glue is slowly peeling off the wounds, and I wake in the morning with more energy…

So… cool! I guess that means I can get back to what I was doing I when I got distracted, like…. six months ago? What was I doing again?

Oh, right, planning my best life ever in 2022! 😹

As 2021 came to a close, I decided to build the new year around two books: Joy at Work, co-authored by Marie Kondo, and Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear. My plan was to pre-read these books before the end of 2021, then, in the new year, to go back through them in a more active way, using the advice and doing the exercises until I emerged anew— organized, in control, productive and operating at maximum satisfaction.

Of course, I understood that reconfiguring a lifetime of not-great habits wouldn’t be quick. It might take all year! Though, secretly, I hoped for less. Maybe I would achieve my optimal life in half that time—like by June, or even May!

Hahahahahahaha.

God

Consider this a prequel to some upcoming posts wherein I will reference Atomic Habits in the context of ruminating about life and purpose.

Last Day With Colon

(On the last day before my full colectomy, I prepare for surgery)

Tomorrow is my colectomy. 

My surgery 20 years ago was what they call a “hemi-colectomy,” because it removed about half my colon. Some friends came to visit in the hospital back then and brought me a get well card adorned with a bold, graphic:

;

It was funny. I really enjoyed that. I don’t know what can graphically represent my situation after tomorrow. Maybe this? 

,

PREP DAY:

My pre-op prep started last night with a shower using a chlorhexadine soap that is supposed to block germ growth to prevent infection. After using it, you can’t use lotions or moisturizers, so I currently have elephant skin. I’ll take another shower today and another in the morning before we head to the hospital for our 5:00 AM call time.

For the rest of today my duties are: 1) Don’t eat any food that’s not transparent (which, since I’m too lazy to make yellow jello or clear broth, just means a water fast), 2) Take two kinds different antibiotics three times during the day, and 3) drink two bottles of magnesium citrate (which interestingly (to me) after 20 years of colonoscopy preps, I’ve never had before).

Halfway through this protocol, I can say that in terms of bitterness and nausea inducing qualities, one of the antibiotics is actually worse that the magnesium citrate, but we’re making it through. In between trips to the toilet, I’m prepping for convalescence, which is pretty much like prepping for a trip. Paying bills, set up an auto reply on my email, doing laundry and dishes and whatever tasks I’ve been putting off but now seem worth doing at the last minute. 

NEW VIDEO PROJECT

I’ve also been bossing Paul around, having him get some shots on his phone camera that I might be able to use later for one of the videos I have in my head. It’s possible that my newfound passion to do this YouTube / podcast thing is just my subconscious distracting me from the realities of the realities at hand, and my energy for the whole thing will be short-lived, but…

As threatened in my previous post, I recorded my first video yesterday! A video-version of my last post, “How often will I poop after a colectomy?”

It was a good reminder of the joys of producing the simplest of projects. We got the camera and mic set up just in time for the tree cutters, leaf blowers and house remodelers to rise in chorus outside my office window. Once these noises tapered off toward evening, the young woman in the apartment downstairs came home with a girlfriend and they had a nice 3-hour gabfest in the room right below mine. I finally recorded anyway, with the rise and fall of their conversation — that distinct rhythm and lilt of two women in their early 20s — in the background. 

My initial takes were so rambling and disjointed that I ended up reading from script instead of looking into camera which I’m expecting to be weird and off-putting, but in the end I just loaded it onto the hard drive for “Future-Barrington-who-has-learned-how-to-edit” to deal with. The perfect is the enemy of the good enough, right? 

I’m sure Future-Barrington is going to be happy with … everything.

It’s fine. It’s all fine. I’m not worried at all!