Tag Archives for psychology

Linkfest

I’ve been wanting for days and days to write some stuff about what’s happening on my interior landscape, but have been too busy churning out actual work (made some updates to my website, though, alongside working on the big book project). So, in lieu of content, you get some of the interesting things that have come up in the past several weeks.

Design & typography

Beautiful and colorful, both from This Is Colossal:
The Chromatic Typewriter: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2011/12/the-chromatic-typewriter/?src=footer
A Massive Black Field of Cut Steel Plants Hides a Colorful Secret: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/01/a-massive-field-of-cut-steel-plants-reveals-a-colorful-secret/

The Met has a new section on their (recently overhauled) website called “Connections”, a long series of thematic presentations with voiceovers by various Museum personnel and specialists. It’s really nice.
http://www.metmuseum.org/connections/

Of historical interest: a film about Linotype (click to read about/see the trailer if you don’t know what that is) that premiered in NYC this past weekend:

Linotype: The Film

“How to Build a Newsroom Time Machine”: Typesetting and layout the old-fashioned way, or, what “on the pasteboard” really means:

HOW TO BUILD A NEWSROOM TIME MACHINE

Writing

Gotham Writer’s Workshop offers FREE writing classes! (well, one-hour workshops, but it could be fun):
http://www.writingclasses.com/CommunityEvents/index.php

An old one from Neil Gaiman about how to get published and/or how to get an agent:
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2005/01/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about.asp

Work

Fascinating:
Scaling back consumption in service of happiness:

See also: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-case-for-a-21-hour-work-week.html

Useful:
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/the-100-best-lifehacks-of-2011-the-year-in-review.html
(srsly, read only the ones that you find interesting! Skip the rest!)

Relationships

Unbelievably beautiful:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arjuna-ardagh/goddess-worship_b_660896.html

Insightful:

30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself


http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/naming-elephants-10-ways-to-use-radical-honesty-to-improve-your-relationship.html

Not really so insightful, but several people pointed me at it:

Mmm!

Scotch tastings in NYC:
http://nycwhisky.com/events-old

Star Wars

I forget who pointed me at this, but I am totally loving it (and I’m on about page 52 of 600+ and counting — they just got up to Episode IV last month).
Darths & Droids is an “RPG screencap comic” that re-envisions Star Wars: Episode I (The Saga Begins) as a roleplaying campaign. Apparently inspired by DM of the Rings, but funnier in terms of making sense of the weaknesses of the source material.
http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0001.html

This reminds me that I also wanted to post this link when it first came to my attention several months ago:
Secret History of Star Wars: A Tribute to Marcia Lucas
http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/marcialucas.html

Jewish

Jewish Sacred Theatre – Its Components and Its Means:
http://www.jewish-theatre.com/visitor/article_display.aspx?articleID=525

A handy nuts-and-bolts link on kashering your kitchen:
http://njop.org/resources/kosher/how-to-keep-kosher/

You’ve just gotta fight your way through.

This has stuck with me since a friend shared it to Facebook about 2 weeks ago:

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal, and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
― Ira Glass

From this video segment: http://youtu.be/BI23U7U2aUY
Nicely typeset here, if you can access it: https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/293156_10150290719459626_795709625_7387707_7099296_n.jpg

That said, I think I might sign up for a writing class. Yes, I know you don’t need to pay someone to jump-start your writing process, but I feel like some structured guidance would help me at this point in my creative life, and that’s worth investing in.

On burnout

Some friends of Tiger Boy’s have a regular games night. I went with him one night several weeks ago, and what we played when I got there was Frank’s Zoo.

I’d never heard of it. “It’s fun,” they said. “It’s a trick-taking game.” Crap, I thought. Well, I ought to at least be a good sport and try it.

What I knew from before was that I cannot play trick-taking games. Not just “suck at,” although I do, but literally “cannot play” — because they stress me out enough that it simply is no longer playing.

What was interesting to notice on this particular occasion was that it stressed me out in essentially the same ways that my job had been stressing me out. Strategizing. Prioritizing. Being supposed to keep track of a dozen factors, their relative weights, and — oh yeah — when not to play the thing that looks obvious because it might be better used down the road, if I could think far enough ahead (and understand enough of the relevant factors) to predict what that would be. Or then again, not. Duh.

Add this to the cold I was acutely fighting off, and the general run-down exhausted feeling I’d had for a couple of weeks, and… it really pushed my buttons. It was totally fascinating to observe (in a third-party kind of way) myself approaching the verge of a nervous breakdown. I had to get up from the table for a few minutes to escape to the bathroom and try to collect myself.

I just now took the “Are You Burned Out?” quiz du jour, putting in the answers from the past several weeks, and I got 68%. “You are very burned out. You need a huge break from your responsibilities, starting as soon as possible. And you need this time to reevaluate what you really want out of your life. Because you’re working hard and going no where… and that would burn anyone out!”

Luckily, I figured that out in the interim — and have taken the appropriate steps.

Yesterday was my first official day of full-time self-employment. Today, I had a massage in the morning (yay!) and a really energizing screening interview with PSG in the afternoon.

Tonight, there’s another games night.
I think I’m ready. :-D