(#197-1) April 18 2015. There are things I understand—and things I decidedly don’t. The latter would include why women continue to tolerate the gender pay gap.

THE GENDER PAY GAP IS UNFAIR, UNJUST, ECONOMICALLY INEFFICIENT—AND SHOULD BE REGARDED AS INTOLERABLE—YET WOMEN TOLERATE IT.

NEITHER SEX SHOULD TOLERATE IT. FOR ALL KINDS OF OBVIOUS REASONS—IT HAS GOT TO GO.

TIME FOR A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.

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(#196-1) April 17 2015. Greed is out of control. The U.S. economy is currently so rigged and distorted that it is hard to find the words to describe it effectively. To say it is predatory is an understatement of magnitude. Yet there is surprisingly little fight back. It’s a tragedy.

THE COSTS OF THIRD LEVEL HAVE ROCKETED WAY AHEAD OF INFLATION—TO THE POINT WHERE STUDENT DEBT HAS BECOME A NIGHTMARE FOR MANY

YET ONE OUT OF FOUR COLLEGE ADJUNCT FACULTY ARE GETTING PUBLIC ASSISTANCE

WHAT KIND OF AN ECONOMY ARE WE RUNNING? AND WHY DO WE TOLERATE SUCH EGREGIOUS DISTORTIONS?

College tuition and fees have gone up 1,120% since 1978—whereas the Consumer Price index has gone up by little more than 200%. Earnings for most of us, in real terms, have scarcely budged. As a consequence, student debt has soared to well over a trillion dollars.

This is yet another example of the havoc being wrought by the financialization of the U.S. economy. For the vast majority of Americans, it has become impossible to live without incurring major debt.

Debt now dominates the American Way of Life.

“(MarketWatch) Nearly 100,000 of these part-time faculty, generally known as adjuncts, benefit from the earned income tax credit and, to a lesser extent, Medicaid and the CHIP health-care program for children, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, previously known as food stamps, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, according to the study.

“It’s shocking, but it’s the reality,” said Carol Zabin, research director at the Center for Labor Research and Education. “Universities are depending much more on part-time and adjunct faculty.”

“Indeed, the American Association of University Professors reported this week that well over half of the college academic labor force is part time. That includes both graduate teaching assistants, which account for 12.2%, and other part-timers, or adjuncts, which are 46.7% of the total.”

VOR words c.100

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(#195-1) April 16 2015. Given that writing is an open secret—which you can study at your leisure—you would think it would be easier!

IF YOU ARE LEARNING TO WRITE, (AND THAT’S A LIFELONG ACTIVITY) NOT ONLY CAN YOU READ HOW OTHERS DO IT

BUT THERE ARE SOME EXCEPTIONAL BOOKS ON WRITING OUT THERE AS WELL.

The following is from that helpful website www.contently.net If you are a writer, it is worth checking out.

The best way to learn how to write is to read a great deal—widely and well. If you do so, you will absorb much without conscious effort. That said, I have found books that focus on writing itself vastly helpful.

5 Books About Writing Every Freelancer Should Read

• April 13, 2015
• Spenser Davis

Whether you’re an experienced writer or just getting started, learning about your craft can be an essential ingredient to professional and personal growth. For those without any idea where to start, books can help you get a handle on the fundamentals; for experienced writers, the texts might offer help for a specific problem like writer’s block.

Thousands of books have been written about writing, largely because there’s such a demand for them. But most of that huge pile of books in your local bookstore’s “Writing/Reference” section is—to put it bluntly—garbage. Often, as is the case with a lot of self-help books, they recycle intuitive tips without discussing anything all that interesting.

But there are some gems in the rough every writer should read. We’ve compiled a list of five of the best books about writing. Not all are specifically about freelancing, but they all contain extremely valuable wisdom and practical advice for those who write for a living.

 

1. On Writing

Excerpt: “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.”

The quintessential writing manual, Stephen King’s book is part memoir and part study about the art of fiction writing. King’s narrative is inspiring—his journey mirrors that of most freelance writers. He submitted a ton of stories from a young age, getting rejected hundreds of times before he became an international bestseller. The tips on writing might be focused on fiction, but the nuts and bolts that King describes are vital to any kind of writing, including pieces of advice like making sure research doesn’t overshadow a story and eliminating distractions when working.

Many writing instructors recommend and teach this book, and I refer back to it constantly for my own writing.

 

2. On Writing Well

Excerpt: “Examine every word you put on paper. You’ll find a surprising number that don’t serve any purpose.”

Another classic, this book by brilliant nonfiction writer William Zinsser covers the basics of good journalism as well as some advanced tips for writers looking to carve out a specialty.

First published in 1976, On Writing Well has become an essential text in creative nonfiction and journalism courses in both high school and college, and manages to stay very relevant in a writing world that has changed a lot since the book was published.

Freelancers hoping to get a thorough education on writing clean, clear, and concise nonfiction should pick up this book and keep it handy.

 

3. Bird by Bird

Excerpt: “It reminds me that all I have to do is to write down as much as I can see through a one-inch picture frame. This is all I have to bite off for the time being.”

In addition to being the first book I ever read about writing, Bird by Bird has been a major influence on how I’ve approached my life as a writer. Anne Lamott’s book stands out above other writing manuals because the author doesn’t presume to have all of the answers—or that there is a single set of answers in the first place.

Her advice starts small: Just write, and write honestly. Start from your earliest memories and work your way forward. New freelancers aren’t always sure where to start, and even if your goal isn’t to write personal essays, Lamott guides you through the inferno of the writing life.

From the chapter on so-called “shitty first drafts” (and the author’s memorable tips on quieting the voices in your head), to tips for dealing with jealousy, Bird by Bird can help writers find their footing on the page and in the world.

 

4. Good Prose

Excerpt: “Every story has to be discovered twice, first in the world and then in the author’s study. One discovers a story the second time by constructing it. In nonfiction the materials are factual, but the construction itself is something different from fact.”

The spiritual successor to Zinsser’s book, Good Prose is the product of a lifetime of work and collaboration between Tracy Kidder (the writer) and Richard Todd (the editor). The pair began their professional journey at The Atlantic, where Kidder was a freelance writer and Todd a staff editor.

This book mainly looks at three types of writing the authors dealt with in their career: writing about the world, writing about ideas, and writing about the self. Freelancers looking to dabble in writing and/or editing will get a ton out of this slim but helpful text.

 

5. Daily Rituals: How Artists Work

Excerpt, from novelist Anne Rice: “I certainly have a routine, but the most important thing, when I look back over my career, has been the ability to change routines.”

A bit different than the rest of the list, this book by Mason Currey focuses on the daily rituals and habits of a long list of writers and artists from Flaubert to Murakami to Mozart. I’ve found that most beginner freelancers have difficulty with the actual routine of writing—this book could provide some much needed encouragement and inspiration.

Overall, the author makes it clear that there is no “wrong” creative routine; everyone is different and requires specific methods to achieve maximum productivity. Some routine actions work for a lot of people, like writing for a set amount of time every morning. But not every writer functions that way. French novelist Gustave Flaubert usually wrote at night since daytime noises seemed to distract him. A lot of freelancers (such as yours truly) will sympathize with F. Scott Fitzgerald, who found strict routines quite difficult to follow and often did his best work in random spurts regardless of the time.

If all of these books have a common thread, it’s that they offer paths to success that are clearly defined. Freelancers can glean great ideas about their own writing habits by learning about the extremely varied routines of famous artists and thinkers. And if I have any advice of my own, it’s to read the best books out there until you find an approach that works for you.

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(#194-1) April 15 2015. Why do we put up with such an extraordinarily unfair economic system? It is blatantly biased to favor the ultra-rich and the corporations they control.

AN EXAMPLE OF THE AMERICAN BUSINESS MODEL IN ACTION—CORPORATE WELFARE

WE NEGLECT THE TRULY NEEDY BUT SUBSIDIZE CORPORATIONS TO THE TUNE OF $153 BILLION A YEAR—AND THAT IS ONLY THROUGH SUBSIDIZING INADEQUATE PAY.

CORPORATIONS ARE HELPED IN COUNTLESS OTHER WAYS. TAX HAVENS ALONE SAVE THEM ANOTHER $110 BILLION A YEAR—AND IT DOESN’T STOP THERE.

We talk about—and practically worship—the free enterprise system, but we don’t practice it. Again and again, if you look, you find that major corporations are subsidized in some way—frequently, a wide variety of ways. Tax breaks and waivers are only part of it.

The U.S. economic system is, indeed, rigged.

Congress—given that elections are increasingly funded by corporate interests—pays its donors back through cutting special deals. At the heart of it all lies the Federal Reserve which pumps vast sums of money into financial corporations.

The following extract is from a Huffington Post story.

Poverty wages cost U.S. taxpayers about $153 billion each year, according to a recent report from the University of California, Berkeley. That's because, when families depend on low-wage jobs to survive, they're forced to rely on government programs like Medicaid and food stamps to make ends meet.

The Berkeley report looks at how much states and the federal government are spending on programs like Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Temporary Aid to Needy Families program, the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps. The report found that the federal government spends about $127.8 billion per year, and states collectively spend about $25 billion per year, on public assistance programs for working families.

Currently, the federal minimum wage is stalled at a paltry $7.25 an hour. A parent working full-time at that rate over the course of the year won't bring in enough money to live above the poverty line for a family of two, which means leaning on government assistance.

So when a company like McDonald's, for instance, pays a worker the minimum wage, you, the taypayer, end up subsidizing her pay. A 2013analysis from the National Employment Law Project found that the 10 largest fast food companies cost taxpayers about $3.8 billion per year.

(#193-1) April 14 2015. Just because everybody does it, does not mean it’s right. Indeed, it is probably wrong. Carry that thought further—and one has to wonder about democracy (even the representative kind).

I THINK A GREAT DEAL ABOUT HOW TO WORK BETTER—AND I HAVE HAD EXCELLENT RESULTS

BUT I SUSPECT I WOULD ACHIEVE MORE IF I WORKED LESS

The following may well be the most important article I have read in a long time—and it is certainly going to result in my changing the way I work.

The problem with ultra-long hours and failing to take vacations (very much the American way) is that the quality of your thinking is affected—and you lose perspective.

I have been guilty of it. Time to change.

How Charles Darwin used rest to be more productive — and how you can, too

Brigid Schulte April 13 2015

Washington Post

In the United States, we work among the longest hours of any advanced economy, and we tend to most highly prize workers who log the most hours at the office. But what if we’re wrong? What if the most productive and creative work gets done when we also take what author, consultant and futurist Alex Pang calls “serious rest?” He explains:

Q: What is “serious rest,” and why do you argue that it’s critical for doing better work?

Pang: When I was writing The Distraction Addiction, I had a chapter about digital Sabbaths, restorative practices, the things people do as a way of recovering some balance in their lives with their digital existences. In the course of that, I was looking at the life of Charles Darwin, and his daily practice of taking long walks on what he called his “thinking path.”

This was a man who was arguably the most important scientist of the last 300 years. He published a dozen books. He’s still read by lots of active scientists. But when you look at his daily schedule, you see he worked – conducting experiments, doing things a university committee or project leader would recognize as labor – about four hours a day.

At first I thought, well Charles Darwin was a super genius. Of course he didn’t need to spend thousands of hours in a laboratory. This is a one off.

Then I got more curious. I started poking around at the lives of other writers, scientists, artists. And started to realize there were a lot of really creative people who followed a similar rhythm in their daily work: they spent four or five hours a day on their most intense work, the stuff that required the most focus and the most attention. That would be the centerpiece of their day.

They might spend, another 10 hours writing letters, applying for grants and other things. But their really critical work occupied only about four or five hours.

The other interesting thing I realized is that there were pretty consistent patterns in how they rested, or what they did with the rest of the day. An awful lot of them were more physically active than you might have imagined writers or scientists of being.

Charles Dickens walked about 10 miles a day. Scientists I looked at turned out to be avid, sailors, hikers, skiers.

[Related: To flourish creatively, embrace daily routines like Georgia O’Keeffe]

Q: And they worked four-hour work day? That seems impossible!

Pang: Right! I began to think about the lives of these wonderfully creative and productive people – and how they managed to be so fantastically productive while working what seems like an irresponsibly small number of hours per day.

We think if eight hours of work a day is good, ten must be better, 12 must be awesome and 16 even better. We live in an era in which overwork is rather literally like a drug. All the cool kids, the really successful people, all seem to be doing it. So there’s both some peer pressure and the sense that, in order to be successful, you’ve got to do it, too.

It feels good at first. You get a kind of high. But it starts to taper and wear off. You’ve got to do more and more to get that same initial buzz. And while it may seem to work for a little while, in the long run – and it’s not going to be that long – it’s probably going to kill you.

Q: So that’s where serious rest comes in?

Pang: I realized that there’s a second way to build a career and be creative. That involves a more measured, paced kind of way of working that takes rest really seriously. When you give rest space, it allows you to be really productive and really creative. But it lets you do so for your entire life.

The last thing that convinced me was reading (psychologist) Anders Ericsson’s work on deliberate practice, the idea that it takes 10,000 hours to be really great, like it’s this magic number. He looked at conservatory students and saw that future recording artists, future first chairs, practice more than other musicians, but they do so in a consistent, deliberate manner. And they sleep more –about an hour more a day than others, and usually a nap in the afternoon.

So just as they were engaging in deliberate practice, they were also engaging in what they called deliberate rest. And they were more thoughtful about what they did in their downtime, and why they did it. It seems to me, that rest turned out to be an important part of how they became who they are.

Q: If rest makes us more productive and creative, why don’t we do it? Or why don’t people believe it?

Pang: This is a battle we’ve been fighting for the last century, when Harvard philosopher and psychologist William James began talking about the American mania for overwork and how stupid it is.

James knew firsthand that overwork leads to all kinds of stresses in ourselves and our family lives: he worked himself into a breakdown as a student at Harvard and felt the effects of it more or less the rest of his entire life.

James was fighting a long American suspicion of people who lead leisurely lives. It goes back to the Puritans. The idea that work is virtuous and leisure is suspect, is kind of woven into the DNA of American culture. In business, it’s always easier to make the argument for working more rather than working less. There are always competitors, there’s always more stuff to be done. And our understanding of business and work is that – if you want to get more out of it, you put more into it.

This is an especially tricky thing today, as fewer of us are working in places that have very set schedules, like factories, and as more of us take on responsibility for scheduling ourselves. And as we have more kinds of work for which there is no immediate, tangible output, like a bunch of widgets we can point to that show how productive we were.

These performative dimensions of work become more and more important both as a way of showing how dedicated you are, how productive you are, and defensively, to keep from getting more work thrown at you. It is, in a way, in our best interests to look constantly overworked and overstressed.

Q: A lot of people work in cultures that expect and reward overwork. And if you aren’t in a position to change that culture, what do you suggest people do?

Pang: Take rest seriously. Recognize that it is an important part of your creative life, your productive life and just your life. In order to honor it, give it time to work its magic.

Pare down your life to just a few critical things. There is now an awful lot of stuff that I say no to – little projects, stuff at the kids’ schools, volunteer stuff. I often regret having to say no, but I make the calculation, in order to do the kind of work I need to do, I really need to focus on doing the work, and doing rest, and doing stuff with my family. And the dogs. That’s pretty much my life. But it turns out, that’s a full life.

Start with your evenings and weekends. It’s really difficult to change a workplace culture. It is easier to begin to change how you work or whether you work outside it. We really underestimate the value that disconnecting from the office, both psychologically and digitally can make for us. The better you are able to disconnect, when you’re away, the better a job you can do while you’re there.

Practice what (sociologist) Robert Stebbins calls serious leisure – one really absorbing, rewarding hobby. That’s one thing that a lot of really creative people do, especially if their regular jobs are very busy.

If you have the flexibility, play with your schedule to figure out the rhythm that works best for you. There’s lots of research on ultradian rhythms, our cycle of natural energy peaks and valleys about every two hours or so. So take 90 minutes of really focused time, and taking a break, doing something completely different, like going for a walk around the block. If you can incorporate this practice into your days, it makes it easier to say it’s not slacking, but life hacking.

Do what you can to cultivate focus for the first part of your working day. That means, to the extent possible, don’t schedule meetings and don’t keep your email open.

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(#192-1) April 13 2015. Our enemies are most unlikely to be able to destroy us. They won’t have to. We’re doing a pretty good job of it ourselves.

THE THREAT OF FOREIGN ENEMIES IS MUCH USED TO KEEP US FEARFUL--AND THUS EASY TO MANIPULATE

HOW NICE TO READ THE FOLLOWING HEADLINE FROM THE BOSTON GLOBE OF APRIL 12 2015

“The world of threats to the US is an illusion”

By Stephen Kinzer

WHEN AMERICANS look out at the world, we see a swarm of threats. China seems resurgent and ambitious. Russia is aggressive. Iran menaces our allies. Middle East nations we once relied on are collapsing in flames. Latin American leaders sound steadily more anti-Yankee. Terror groups capture territory and commit horrific atrocities. We fight Ebola with one hand while fending off Central American children with the other.

In fact, this world of threats is an illusion. The United States has no potent enemies. We are not only safe, but safer than any big power has been in all of modern history.

Geography is our greatest protector. Wide oceans separate us from potential aggressors. Our vast homeland is rich and productive. No other power on earth is blessed with this security.

Our other asset is the weakness of potential rivals. It will be generations before China is able to pose a serious challenge to the United States — and there is little evidence it wishes to do so. Russia is weak and in deep economic trouble — not always a friendly neighbor but no threat to the United States. Heart-rending violence in the Middle East has no serious implication for American security. As for domestic terrorism, the risk for Americans is modest: You have more chance of being struck by lightning on your birthday than of dying in a terror attack.

Promoting the image of a world full of enemies creates a “security psychosis” that misshapes our view of the world. It tempts us to interpret defensive steps taken by other countries as threatening. In extreme cases, it pushes us into wars aimed at preempting threats that do not actually exist.

Arms manufacturers profit from the security psychosis even more directly than militarists. Americans take our staggeringly large defense budget almost for granted, and lament continuously that other countries do not build as many exotic weapons systems as we do. Finding new threats is always good business for someone.

The primary threat to the U.S. is internal and comes from the current American Business Model. Any system which makes only the few ever richer—and leaves most of the population suffering a decline in terms of real earning power—has to be deeply wrong.

But, it is much worse than that. Our political system has now been largely suborned by Big Money, our legal system has gone much the same way, our infrastructure has been neglected for decades—and entrepreneurship is in decline. I could add a laundry list of problems including our truly wretched and unnecessarily expensive healthcare system.  I might be tempted to mention, in passing, that we lose out in relation to longevity. On average, we die three years sooner than the citizens of other developed nations. That is a pretty miserable performance for the richest nation in the world.

And we are not even trying hard to change things. We have turned our electoral system into a spectator sport.

Instead, we seem to have opted for a form of oligopolistic crony corporatism—with a bloated financial sector leading the pack.

Greed has become our one and only god. We worship it zealously.

We should be ashamed of ourselves.

VOR words c.115.

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(#191-1) April 12 2015. I can think of no more fulfilling life.

I HAVE NEVER THOUGHT OF MY RESOLVE TO DEVOTE MY LIFE TO THINKING AND WRITING AS “FOLLOWING MY BLISS”—BUT THAT IS HOW JOSEPH CAMPBELL DESCRIBES IT.

THE MAN PUTS IT WELL.

MIND YOU, I DOUBT MANY WOULD DESCRIBE MY LIFE AS BLISSFUL—IT IS DIFFICULT IN THE EXTREME (AT TIMES)—BUT IT IS A GREAT AND WONDERFUL THING TO KNOW THAT YOU ARE DOING EXACTLY WHAT YOU SHOULD BE DOING

‘BLISS’ MAY WELL BE THE RIGHT WORD

The following Joseph Campbell quotes are by way of Maria Popova and her consistently excellent website www.brainpickings.com

Popova understands creativity like few others do—and excels at explaining it.

But, do any—who are not creative themselves—understand? I sometimes wonder. Some do, of course, but my general feeling is that they are rare exceptions.

It is a great pity that we don’t rate creativity more highly. It is a force of astonishing power that almost always enhances the human condition —yet it is suppressed in almost every way from the moment we are born. Its great crime is that, virtually by definition, it questions the status quo—and a great many people are vested in just that, and fearful of change. Those in power—the true beneficiaries of the status quo—manipulate and exploit them accordingly. The fearful are disturbingly easy to manipulate—which is why the current U.S way of life always features a bogeyman and has been structured to be, as far as most of us are concerned, economically insecure.

Some of us fight on regardless—and discover that the game is worth the candle and how truly extraordinary and enriching the creative life can be.

Joseph Campbell explains it well. He did this, according to Popova, during a lengthy conversation with broadcaster, Bill Moyers which ended up as six one episodes for PBS. They were broadcast in 1988. Campbell actually died in 1987.

“If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are — if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.

“Our life has become so economic and practical in its orientation that, as you get older, the claims of the moment upon you are so great, you hardly know where the hell you are, or what it is you intended. You are always doing something that is required of you. Where is your bliss station? You have to try to find it.

“It’s characteristic of democracy that majority rule is understood as being effective not only in politics but also in thinking. In thinking, of course, the majority is always wrong.

[…]

“The majority’s function in relation to the spirit is to try to listen and to open up to someone who’s had an experience beyond that of food, shelter, progeny, and wealth.

“We are having experiences all the time which may on occasion render some sense of this, a little intuition of where your bliss is. Grab it. No one can tell you what it is going to be. You have to learn to recognize your own depth.

“Poets are simply those who have made a profession and a lifestyle of being in touch with their bliss. Most people are concerned with other things. They get themselves involved in economic and political activities, or get drafted into a war that isn’t the one they’re interested in, and it may be difficult to hold to this umbilical under those circumstances. That is a technique each one has to work out for himself somehow.

“But most people living in that realm of what might be called occasional concerns have the capacity that is waiting to be awakened to move to this other field. I know it, I have seen it happen in students.

“The religious people tell us we really won’t experience bliss until we die and go to heaven. But I believe in having as much as you can of this experience while you are still alive.

[…]

“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”

VOR words 229

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