Back to the Future for News

About two years ago I cancelled my subscription to the newspaper for several reasons:

1. No one takes the newspaper anymore. It's old-fashioned. Newspapers everywhere are literally (and figuratively) folding. I would need to get with the times and go digital like everyone else under 80. 
2. Because of our busy lives, several issues each week went unread, and some of them did not even make it into the house on the day they were delivered. One ended up jamming our neighbor's snowblower when he tried to clear our driveway after a heavy storm. That was embarrassing. 
3. Our local newspaper stopped sponsoring "Itty Bitty Salt Lake City," a search and find contest in which the paper published 20-24 pictures of small things in a four square block area downtown every September. Participants were given a month to identify the location of each item (cracks in the sidewalk, peeling paint on an old phone booth, panes of leaded glass, etc.) and submit their answers to be entered for some not very glamorous prizes. It was absolutely addicting, a favorite family tradition and pastime. Even though our eyeballs dried out each week searching with such intensity, we all loved it and often met people on the streets looking for the same things we were. It was a game everyone in the family could play. When the "Itty Bitty" clues were not published one fall, I called the newspaper to express my disappointment, but they were unmoved. I made an idle threat that I would most likely cancel my subscription, then six months later, I finally did.

But this week, after reading yet another article about how addicting Facebook is and what a time-suck it is, I analyzed why I spend more time than I would like to admit on Facebook and realized I am hungering and thirsting for news. ANY kind of news: personal, social, political, religious...I crave information!

People read Facebook because they have FOMO (fear of missing out), yet when I read Facebook it often confirms IHAMO (I have already missed out!) As an avid newspaper reader for decades, I felt informed. I didn't just get a snippet of information or a snarky summary of an event -- I got the whole story told as objectively and completely as possible.

My crossword puzzle last night.

So this week, I re-subscribed.

It is the most luxurious feeling in the world to have something delivered to your home seven days a week that only costs about 50 cents a day. I bring it in from the cold in its colorful breadsack bag, and it smells fresh and crisp and inky. When I spread it out on the table just beyond my cereal bowl, I see one square yard of news, then turn the page and see another.

But one of the best things about taking the newspaper again is the New York Times crossword puzzle. Oh, how I have missed it! When I cancelled the paper, I promised myself that I would buy NYT crossword puzzles already bound at Barnes & Noble, but it isn't the same experience. When I am working on that day's puzzle in its original newsprint form, I know that thousands of people around the world are puzzling over the same clues I am. It's simply more satisfying.

So if you have been socially guilted into going digital and reading all of your news on electronic tablets and microscopic phone screens, you might enjoy being a retro renegade like me.

Like sands through the hourglass...

I tend to ask for strange things for Christmas, and after a few years of making these strange requests, my husband usually buys them for me and I cherish them. (I know -- from a feminist perspective, I should probably buy them for myself, but because I know that I will cherish them, I like them to come from him.)

In previous years I have asked for and received a bushel basket and a shepherd's hook, for example, both symbolic items that are full of meaning to me.

The strangest item on this year's wish list was a good, old-fashioned hourglass. Not a 30-minute glass, or a stopwatch or anything mechanical that ticks or tocks - a real hourglass. Before he bought it for me, he asked me why? Why did I want an hourglass?

[Pictured: The hourglass Scott gave me showing exactly how much time this blog post took from beginning to end.]

It was difficult to explain.

I have long had a suspicion that I'm living in the wrong century. Not that God made a mistake, of course, but that I am living in 2016 as a sort of compromise between the 1800s, when I might have been born, and the 2100s when my husband might have been born. Maybe we mutually agreed to be born in the latter half of the 20th century. Just a theory, but who knows? It could be true.

Anyway, I am comfortable with an hourglass. It doesn't buzz at me or make any noise. Even holding it close to my ear, I can't hear the sand trickling down. I can look at it and see, without numbers or mathematics of any kind, how much time I have remaining in my task. No calculations necessary, or possible. It is a purely visual way of tracking time.

An hourglass is a useful thing if you need to do something very quiet on a regular basis for one hour, like writing.

A few quotes on HOURS:

Don’t say you don’t have enough time.  You have exactly the same number of HOURS per day that were given to Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Helen Keller, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. - H. Jackson Brown, Jr., Life’s Little Instruction Book

An HOUR’s industry will do more to produce cheerfulness, suppress evil humors, and retrieve your affairs than a month’s moaning. – Ben Franklin

One of the illusions is that the present HOUR is not the critical, decisive HOUR.  Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year. – Emerson

From John Dryden, English writer “Happy the Man”:

Happy the man, and happy he alone

Who can call today his own:

He who, secure within, can say,

Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today!

Be fair or foul or rain or shine,

The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate,, are mine.

Not heaven itself upon the past has power,

But what has been, has been, and

I have had my HOUR. 

RESEARCH NOTES: Hourglasses were not invented until about 150 BC. I would have thought they were older than that! In 1519, the explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, took 18 hourglasses with him as he sailed from Barcelona to circumnavigate the globe. A page would flip the hourglasses every 60 minutes to ensure the accuracy of the captain's logs. The hourglass remains a symbol of time today, most frequently on electronic screens to indicate that the computer is engaged in a time-consuming process.

Quotes and Thoughts on BEGINNING

Every journey ends at the BEGINning of another journey. - Anonymous

One who fears failure limits his worth. Failure is the opportunity to BEGIN again more intelligently. – Henry Ford

It is better to BEGIN in the evening than not at all. – English proverb

You can’t solve every problem, particularly if the problem isn’t yours to BEGIN with. – Dear Abby

The BEGINning is the most important part of the work.  – Plato

Attention is the BEGINning of devotion."-  Mary Oliver

To love oneself is the BEGINning of a life-long romance. – Oscar Wilde

The journey of a thousand miles BEGINs with one step. – Lao-tse

Now this is not the end. It is not even the BEGINning of the end.  But it is, perhaps, the end of the BEGINning. – Winston Churchill

Don’t despair. The world is round. What looks like the end may only be the BEGINning. – Unknown

But this revolutionary act of treating ourselves tenderly can BEGIN to undo the aversive messages of a lifetime. - Tara Brach 

Peace BEGINs with a smile. - Mother Teresa 

The secret of a good sermon is to have a good BEGINning and a good ending, and to have the two as close together as possible. - George Burns

Everyone has two lives. The second one BEGINs when you realize you only have one. – Steven Sotloff, American journalist killed by ISIS in Syria in 2014

"Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it BEGIN here" -- Captain John Parker, 1775 (commander at the Battle of Lexington)

Tomorrow is a new day; BEGIN it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I Happened To Be Standing" by Mary Oliver

While I was thinking this I happened to be standing

just outside my door, with my notebook open,

which is the way I BEGIN every morning.

Then a wren in the privet began to sing.

He was positively drenched in enthusiasm,

I don't know why. And yet, why not.

I wouldn't persuade you from whatever you believe

or whatever you don't. That's your business.

But I thought, of the wren's singing, what could this be

      if it isn't a prayer?

So I just listened, my pen in the air.

Regarding my writing ambitions, how long does a volcano have to be dormant before it is declared extinct?

from Wikipedia:

Extinct

Whether a volcano is truly extinct is often difficult to determine. Since "supervolcano" calderas can have eruptive lifespans sometimes measured in millions of years, a caldera that has not produced an eruption in tens of thousands of years is likely to be considered dormant instead of extinct. Some volcanologists refer to extinct volcanoes as inactive, though the term is now more commonly used for dormant volcanoes

once thought to be extinct.

 Dormant

It is difficult to distinguish an extinct volcano from a dormant (inactive) one. Volcanoes are often considered to be extinct if there are no written records of its activity. Nevertheless, volcanoes may remain dormant for a long period of time. 

This subject seems appropriate as a I embark on a new goal for a new year of writing -- namely, 

to finish, submit, and publish a book. 

I read some advice recently about new year's resolutions, which I will share here for anyone who has a new year's resolution or two:

1) Select 1-3 things ONLY so that you can have clarity and focus on a really important goal or two.
2) List all of  your really compelling reasons to accomplish this goal. They have to be huge, because they will have to TOWER over the reasons you would like to quit later on.
3) Judge yourself on your honest effort -- NOT the validity of your excuses. Soft lies we tell ourselves kill goals and dreams.
4) List those things that will distract you from accomplishing your goal -- forces that will try to keep you in your comfort zone. You will have to be committed to make this change and work hard to avoid these distractions.
5) Recognize that you will be on your own to accomplish this goal, then hold yourself accountable. Do not blame anyone else.
6) Make a strategic plan. What will you do specifically to accomplish your goal? How will it work? List steps in a hierarchy of importance.

So here is my analysis based upon these steps:
1) Goal Selected: FINISH, SUBMIT & PUBLISH A BOOK
2) My really compelling reasons:

• Because it has been a goal my entire life. I've always known that I am / should be / could be a writer. (To avoid regrets later on in life if I have not really written anything.) 
• To share my vision and insights with the world in a quiet but effective and permanent way. (Someone once observed that people want to write because they want to be heard -- maybe that's it. I also thoroughly enjoy words and ideas.) 
• To demonstrate (especially to my children) that through dedication and hard work, you can fulfill your dreams. 
• To contribute to our household income in a fulfilling, artistically satisfying way. 

3) I will judge myself by my honest efforts by tracking how many minutes I devote each day and how many words I write. 

4) Anticipated distractions: 

• The lure of the Internet, especially Facebook and news sites. 
• My tendancy to become embroiled in other people's projects and problems. 
• Fear, self-doubt, worry. I will need to believe in my own voice as a writer and my destiny to write. I am the only one who can say what I have to say. 
• My tendancy to avoid the hard work of writing by throwing myself into other hobbies and interests. 
• Not having a good daily schedule. Being reactive instead of proactive. 
• Fatigue from staying up too late doing unproductive things. 
• Interruptions. 

5) I will hold myself accountable by:

• working on no more than two writing projects at a time (probably one fiction, one non-fiction) 
• Leaving the house each day for another environment if there are too many distractions and temptations at home. 
• Keeping track of how much actual time (in minutes) I am devoting to writing. 
• Keeping track of how many words I write in each session. 

6) My strategic plan: 

• Pray daily for divine guidance and assistance. 
• Spend up to 30 min. each day doing the business of writing: research, inquiries, etc. 
• Spend about 30 min. each day "free writing" on a blog or elsewhere to warm up. [Record minutes and words]
• Spend 30 min. or more each day working on a piece of writing. [Record minutes and words]
• On Tuesdays, tally up # of minutes and # of words for the week. Make specific goals for the coming week. 
• Submit pieces for publication every two months (The first day of March, May, July, Sept., Nov., Jan.) Track progress. 

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. – Goethe