...from the "triathlete" part of me to the "writing" part:
My last two play-going experiences have been intriguing ones, if not for the reasons that play-going is usually referred to as "intriguing." In each case, I went because I knew someone affiliated with the production, and thus both wanted to show my support for their work as well as see what they've been working on. In both cases, the acting was superb: there were people on those stages doing some simply wonderful work.
The "intriguing" part had to do with the material those actors were working with: in each case, it was, to say the least, problematic.
Play #1 went something like this:
Character 1: Monologue monologue monologue monologue.
Character 2: Monologue monologue monologue monologue.
Character 1: Monologue? Monologue monologue monologue monologue.
Character 3: Monologue! Monologue monologue monologue monologue.
You get the idea.
Play #2 began with a semi-realistic premise, then spun it in ever-widening and ever-wierdening circles until the characters were no longer consistent, believable, or even fully human. For three hours.
What was intriguing to me wasn't just the heroism of the actors in each case doing remarkable jobs with such stuff, but the fact that both playwrights in question are well-known, indeed celebrated. And neither play was a 'minor' work of said authors.
Hmm, thought I to myself. If these two can write this sort of thing and get away with it, is it possible that the stuff I write (and almost immediately condemn as dreadful schlock) might not be quite so bad as my inner critic invariably insists it is?
I'm not claiming my writing's necessarily as good as that of these playwrights, or that of any author at the top of her or his profession: far from it. But perhaps there's a chance that I should persuade my inner critic to give myself just a bit of a break at the outset of new projects-- at least enough to let things sit for a while and see if they'll become something more useful.
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Monday, February 6, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
Fifteen minutes, and other musings.
This is the response I use when the whinies kick in-- those annoying mental voices that start going on about how it's cold outside, it's wet, and I don't wannaaaaaaa!!!! at the prospect of doing my slated workout for the day. (Curiously, they tend to kick in more in the afternoon than in the early morning-- possibly because I'm not really awake when I start up in the morning-- and most often when I have to leave work and go to the pool.) They're both irritating and awfully persistent, the whinies, and have the dangerous potential to be effective if listened to for any length of time.
Hence my response. "Fifteen minutes," I say to them. Yes, whiny voices, you have been heard: I'm going to go and try whatever workout is on the schedule for fifteen minutes. If at the end of that time I'm still cranky, grumpy, and unwilling to continue, I can stop.
So far, I've always completed the workout in question-- once I get moving (once I get both wet and moving in the case of swim sessions), I'm usually feeling much better about life by the time fifteen minutes are up; so much so that I've yet to check my watch to see if the requisite minutes have elapsed yet, being far too busy doing the workout to remember to check anything.
I've also come up with some more thoughts about why I'm doing this. Really, there's no rational explanation at all for running in circles (either outside around a local block or inside around a teeny-tiny running cement running track suspended above an often vaguely odorous basketball gymnasium) at 5AM. Since the scenery's literally nothing to look at, I find myself often returning to this question as I trot along, and I realized recently that there's much here to do with encountering my limitations and engaging with them. Not in an "ooo, that's a barrier so I mustn't go there" kind of way, nor in a temper-tantrum-throwing, battering-at-the-walls kind of way. Instead, training at increasing volumes and eventually increasing intensities in order to complete a 17-hour race is a way to realize that though limitations are a part of being human, they're not absolute barriers to anything-- it's possible to acknowledge their existence while still going beyond them. Indeed, the very best experiences I've ever had as an athlete or an actor have been those transcendent ones, where I was left both fully (and humbly) aware of my own (limited) human-ness and yet amazed by the fact that I had gone far beyond what I had originally thought myself capable of.
So one way to phrase the "Why?" response is that I'm chasing transcendence. Though "chasing" isn't quite the right word, now that I think about it, because I'm not running after something in a desperate attempt to corner and claim it-- rather, I'm creating opportunities for it to find me. And the more I train-- the more consistently I train-- the more chances it has to do so. It's a kind of hide-and-seek, really.
The issue of consistency is a new one for me, too-- though I've been a dedicated gym-goer for years, I've never actually followed a formal training plan before, choosing instead to cobble together stuff that I more or less felt like doing. So far, with almost 5 weeks of Fink's plan completed, the main difference I've noticed is in consistency: I swim twice a week (with no swapping a swim session for an elliptical session due to an attack of the whinies), bike three times a week, and run four times. I also work some strength sessions in twice a week-- these are optional as far as Fink's concerned, and it's interesting to me that these are the sessions that vary in length and difficulty depending on how I feel, because I'm cobbling them together: an avenue for the whinies to insert their tedious little fangs, it seems. But at the moment, that's my training week. No omissions, no substitutions, no excuses. So far, it's working remarkably well-- there's a part of me that relaxes knowing that there's a plan, I'm following the plan, so all I have to do is Workout X. No need to worry about what I'm doing, whether it's enough, should I be doing something else, etc. And since consistency is one thing that differentiates actual training from simply "working out," I'm sticking with it-- 'twill be interesting to see how it goes as time and training continue.
Hence my response. "Fifteen minutes," I say to them. Yes, whiny voices, you have been heard: I'm going to go and try whatever workout is on the schedule for fifteen minutes. If at the end of that time I'm still cranky, grumpy, and unwilling to continue, I can stop.
So far, I've always completed the workout in question-- once I get moving (once I get both wet and moving in the case of swim sessions), I'm usually feeling much better about life by the time fifteen minutes are up; so much so that I've yet to check my watch to see if the requisite minutes have elapsed yet, being far too busy doing the workout to remember to check anything.
I've also come up with some more thoughts about why I'm doing this. Really, there's no rational explanation at all for running in circles (either outside around a local block or inside around a teeny-tiny running cement running track suspended above an often vaguely odorous basketball gymnasium) at 5AM. Since the scenery's literally nothing to look at, I find myself often returning to this question as I trot along, and I realized recently that there's much here to do with encountering my limitations and engaging with them. Not in an "ooo, that's a barrier so I mustn't go there" kind of way, nor in a temper-tantrum-throwing, battering-at-the-walls kind of way. Instead, training at increasing volumes and eventually increasing intensities in order to complete a 17-hour race is a way to realize that though limitations are a part of being human, they're not absolute barriers to anything-- it's possible to acknowledge their existence while still going beyond them. Indeed, the very best experiences I've ever had as an athlete or an actor have been those transcendent ones, where I was left both fully (and humbly) aware of my own (limited) human-ness and yet amazed by the fact that I had gone far beyond what I had originally thought myself capable of.
So one way to phrase the "Why?" response is that I'm chasing transcendence. Though "chasing" isn't quite the right word, now that I think about it, because I'm not running after something in a desperate attempt to corner and claim it-- rather, I'm creating opportunities for it to find me. And the more I train-- the more consistently I train-- the more chances it has to do so. It's a kind of hide-and-seek, really.
The issue of consistency is a new one for me, too-- though I've been a dedicated gym-goer for years, I've never actually followed a formal training plan before, choosing instead to cobble together stuff that I more or less felt like doing. So far, with almost 5 weeks of Fink's plan completed, the main difference I've noticed is in consistency: I swim twice a week (with no swapping a swim session for an elliptical session due to an attack of the whinies), bike three times a week, and run four times. I also work some strength sessions in twice a week-- these are optional as far as Fink's concerned, and it's interesting to me that these are the sessions that vary in length and difficulty depending on how I feel, because I'm cobbling them together: an avenue for the whinies to insert their tedious little fangs, it seems. But at the moment, that's my training week. No omissions, no substitutions, no excuses. So far, it's working remarkably well-- there's a part of me that relaxes knowing that there's a plan, I'm following the plan, so all I have to do is Workout X. No need to worry about what I'm doing, whether it's enough, should I be doing something else, etc. And since consistency is one thing that differentiates actual training from simply "working out," I'm sticking with it-- 'twill be interesting to see how it goes as time and training continue.
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