Words / Time

Herman Wouk used to keep “work journals” that he generated while warming up for the day, and they give me confidence in having to work through innumerable thoughts before getting them on paper. He wrote fiction, which arguably takes a more creative mindset than nonfiction, but most fiction writers recognize that the story often comes from real experiences. And, as John Irving mentioned at the National Book Festival last weekend, people become much less bashful about their own lives as they age.

But nonfiction also takes great creative skill, and good works have a grand thesis behind them that synthesizes many disparate aspects into one provocative idea. In addition to creating realistic characters, dialogue also makes fiction difficult; the nonfiction writer must be genuine and authoritative. Both writers, if his/her books sell, do the same. A fiction writer must create realistic parents and social interactions that affect, for example, an elementary-school adolescent who later takes his own life. The trouble is putting into words what real people act like, how the whole picture is formed from the micro-interactions that take place day to day. It takes an incredible amount of work to develop characters who talk and act like real people, but the fact is, all we need to do is look around us and be observant. In nonfiction, the people are real and the difficult part is keeping it as close to reality as possible. As we saw with the work of James Frey, though, the line is thin, and both scenarios make for something passable in either genre.

Perhaps for many of us this is the essence of the practice of blogkeeping: we’re glad to put words on the page and render them vocational by publishing them on the web. As a group, posts in the end may indeed amount to something useful, words that in combination depict a certain slice of reality. And the words can be rediscovered--or better yet, further cultivated--and turned into the fiction and nonfiction that later in life produce readable work.

"Start with the trunk of a tree, and then take up one branch after another so that the casual hearer can get a general idea of the whole subject, and then of its different branches, and just what relation they bear to each other." - John Altgelt

A glimpse of the "Zorbatic world"

Since he lives so deeply in my heart, Zorba is presenting the story for the day. Chuckling throughout, I am pressed into thought about my own life by his anecdotes, and read to hear of travels just as the narrator does. As he tells us at one point, he follows in the footsteps of his grandfather in entertaining himself with such a great world traveler as Zorba. After he had searched the town by lantern for visitors from abroad, the grandfather would invite them into his home with the promise of tobacco and a meal. "Talk!" he would shout at them; as the narrator found with Zorba, "he speaks and the world grows bigger."

"All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart." 93

"I was happy, I knew that. While experiencing happiness, we have difficulty in being conscious of it. Only when the happiness is past and we look back on it do we suddenly realize -- sometimes with astonishment -- how happy we had been." 77

"He interrogates himself with the same amazement when he sees a man, a tree in blossom, a glass of cold water. Zorba sees everything everyday as if it were for the first time." 61

"I can't help it, boss! That's how it is. I eat beans, I talk beans; I am Zorba. I talk like Zorba." 65

No time like the present

Many people have wondered about how quickly my trip abroad came up, and said that they realized I had been thinking about doing such a thing but not that it would come up so quickly. “I remember that you mentioned it at happy hour,” one of my friends remarked. I figure that the only way to get underway in something new – particularly if it’s wildly out of the ordinary and something that takes quite a bit of initiative – is to do it as soon as you can. It felt good to surprise people with the fact that indeed, my plane flight was at the end of this week, not a procrastinated date in the future. Even some of the people who I had explained so fully what I was trying to do with the establishment of my enterprise were surprised that I was in action. It is funny how people react as the time passes during and after the trip – many of your acquaintances don’t realize until you return that you had ever gone. I noticed this primarily when good friends of mine went biking across the states and were busy telling people about the trip only months after they'd come up with the idea.

I have a framed photo of Russell Train (1920- ), taken while reclined in his office at the world wildlife fund after his career government stint as the environmental protection guru. Indeed, he may have influenced environmental conservation as much as anyone in the 20th century. On safari in Africa around the age of 35, Train fell in love with the place, and thought that more money should go into wildlife conservation on the continent. He returned to Washington and began the papers for incorporation of his African Wildlife Leadership Foundation, which supported education of conservation workers in Africa—to achieve it he raised money in the States and offered scholarships to study and return to work in Africa for several years.

It worked, and it led to his career of more than forty years conserving natural places in America and abroad. The outcome interests me less than the initiative that it took to take the opportunity as it lie before him. Since we’re presented with so few in life, we ought to snatch them up when they come along. Train began printing newsletters, calling people for meetings during his spare time, and establishing more contacts with people already working in conservation, which in the 1960’s and 1970’s were relatively few. The personal motivation that he had mustered in the establishment of the AWLF paid off, and in the late 1960’s Train was offered posts at newly created agencies of the Nixon administration, notably the Council on Environmental Quality and the EPA. All of this is a way of saying that by taking the chance when it was ripe--it wouldn’t have happened the same way if he had waited--he gave himself a role in the environmental movement. How would he have known what he might do if he hadn’t seen the opportunity and seized it the minute he got home. Think of a beautiful woman walking by on the street: she passes only once.

In younger years it seems particularly difficult to discern what is what. How will the next few years turn out--the next five? There are many decisions and opportunities in this short life. But we’re lucky that so many of them seem big and difficult, because it allows us to do amazing things. And some do seem to come at us full stop--they take a big commitment and its in our nature to hesitate. While you make yourself vulnerable in making the decision, vulnerability is what gives you time to grow into the decision and embrace it. For all the inspiration in life, here's to help my friends and so many who inspire me to push ahead.

"In the 21st century, from here--five years more--the first question that people are going ask after your income per capita is how much [carbon] we emit."

"En este siglo XXI de aquí a cinco años lo primero que van a preguntar después del ingreso per capita es cuanto emite [de emisiones de carbono]" – Ricardo Lagos

Conquering a song

When you hear a great song that used to remind you of someone and at last you think of another, you've come a long way. There are also those songs that make you give you a new jolt -- I woke up to "crazy" a few years ago as it blared on the alarm and knew that I had to begin once more. To think of someone during a song is a refreshing feeling, and sets up an invitation to enjoy more time with the person it reminds you of. A song can bring back the long lost, but it can also introduce something you to something new. Since I never hope to lose the song, I have to chalk it up to the continuity that we all witness in our daily affairs -- the "everything happens for a reason" mentality it is sometimes so difficult to accept. I'm happy to know that while it remains the same, my perspective can make the song change after all, and it will forever grow with me.