After reading this Wonkette article about a Florida judge LOLing at a Sovereign Citizen in his court, I was fascinated enough by the SC gibberish to follow the links to here.
Do not click those last two links.
Mercy, people, there are some serious whackjobs out there. I am sniffing around a very deep rabbit hole here and am really thinking I don’t need to dive any deeper.
So far I’ve only read secondary sources, i.e., sane people who try to explain/untangle the concepts that have seized the brains of these whackjobs. I know, though, that sooner or later I’m going to go looking for the whackjobs themselves. (I briefly encountered them in comments at that last link above, and OMG are they impenetrably deluded!) There’s only one thing I want you fellows to do: talk me out of it.
At the moment I’m reading through a 176-page Canadian legal decision wherein the judge outlines the entire basis of Sovereign Citizen stupidity, mincing no words and outlining the reasons why he will no longer tolerate the pseudolegal nonsense in his court. I’m on page 17, and it’s fascinating.
One reason I am interested in this kind of thing is the real-life ramifications when your average Sovereign Citizen tries to engage what you and I laughingly refer to as the Real World. The whole Bundy Ranch and Malheur Bird Refuge debacles were driven largely by Sovereign Citizen concepts, and we all know how well that turned out. Unmoored egos + righteous sense of authority + guns = seriously dangerous craziness.
I’ll send dispatches back from Wonderland as I go.
Today I had 192 spam messages in my filter—a light day, actually. I decided to scan them all and see what I’m missing out on.
Make Your No Alcohol Resolution Stick with Rehab
It seems to me that it’s either a ‘no alcohol [sic] resolution’ or rehab, but maybe that’s just me.
You can charter a Private Yacht for any event
And in case your plans change…
Private Jet Charters are more affordable than you …
Going on…
Grow Your Own Enticing Cherries
Grow 10,000 Cherries per Plant, Buy2 Get2 Today On...
Are cherries a thing now? I can’t keep up.
This lipstick trick is insane!
That’s actually from a legit email concern that I don’t care enough about to liberate from spam.
☽ Temp Temp Hooray
I let this one through just to see what it is.
Secret Brain -Enhancer -the elite – use to–g…
Damn Illuminati.
PICS: New Images-Inside: Cops Use Them! MUST SEE
Since this is from a concern called specialnewlightingupdates.eu, I’m wondering if it came from my engaging with piethein.com. Not going to find out, though. [update: It’s flashlights.]
In yet another post on How I Did It, a tutorial on how I added the inserts to the fabric walls of the 3 Old Men labyrinth.
You will recall that I laid out the labyrinth recently and made the executive decision simply to whack two of the long walls so that I could adjust them to match the measurements of the long walls that seemed to be accurate.[1]
Yesterday, I finally set up my sewing station in the basement and got to work. I was dreading it for several reasons, not the least of which was that I have been prone to poor conceptualization of these issues and thus mismeasurement. But as far as I can tell, this was an easy task.
First I gathered all the necessary items: extra fabric from the original project (already hemmed, etc); equipment; Assistive Feline®.
I had the forethought onsite to write down the length of the gap that needed to be filled and to pin the two edges together along with the measurement:
Since I hacked through the walls with a pair of shears, the cuts were neither straight nor even, and so my first task was to straighten the edges of the cut. This means another loss of fabric which has to be taken into account in the measurements. Fortunately, so far, I can standardize that cut as 1″.
I’m using 1/2″ seams to make all the math easy. After lots of laying out and fretting and measuring, I developed a formula to calculate the length of fabric for each insert: excision + seam allowance + extension = insert.[2]
From here it was astonishingly easy. Seam, then overcast the edges:
Iron flat, then topstitch:
(No, those bottom edges don’t match. You might be astonished at how much this cannot be seen and does not matter when you are Camping With the Hippies™.)
And finally, the insert is finished:
Pro tip: don’t make your cut so close to the pocket for the stake. You can’t actually lay out that edge flat.
The good news is that I knocked out the three inserts in the northeast wall in short order. I should be able to knock out the four in the southwest wall today.
The bad news is that I won’t know if it actually worked until we set it up at Euphoria. No, I don’t care that I don’t know if it will work.
The serendipitous news that that the leftover scrap of wall fabric that I started with had exactly enough fabric to do the three inserts. EXACTLY ENOUGH FABRIC, KENNETH!
—————
[1] Yes, well, we’ll see how that assumption works out, won’t we?
[2] Crap. You are correct. I did not account for the seam allowance on the original wall pieces. My measurements are off by 1″. Oh well, that’s not a horrible mistake and won’t be noticeable. However, I’ll correct that today. (In Lichtenbergianism, this is called SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION.)[3]
[3]update: I was wrong about being wrong, I think. At any rate, I went back to my old calculations.
As I work my way through the text of my putative book on the creative process, you might like to read the rest of the text so far here. Also, the rest of my meditations on the process here.
There are many ways to manage TASK AVOIDANCE.
xxx <— this is my place holder for “needs more cowbell,” in this case some examples of structured procrastination before I get to kanban. (You can leave your system in comments if you’d like me to include it!)
My favorite way of making sure that my TASK AVOIDANCE is productive (and not just laziness) is the Japanese system known as kanban.
Kanban was originally developed at Toyota as an inventory control system and has been adapted for use in other areas, such as software design. Jim Benson and Tonianne Demaria Barry have developed a “personal kanban,” and I highly recommend their website (personalkanban.com) and their accompanying book.
Kanban involves writing down your tasks and subtasks on cards or sticky notes, then subdividing them into workflow stages such as Ready, Doing, and Done. (Benson/Barry emphasize that the system is ultimately adaptable to your workflow, terminology, and needs.)
This first key concept is called “visualizing your workflow,” and the first time you do a kanban dump it’s scary: all those sticky notes with all those things to do! But take a deep breath and remember: you’re going to procrastinate on most of this. You’re just getting organized about it.
The second key concept is “limit your work-in-progress.” Decide on how many of the sticky notes you’re going to actually work on at a time. The usual number is three, certainly no more than five.
As you complete a task, move the sticky note over to the Done column.
That’s all there is to it. (Of course there’s more to it, but that’s it for the basics.)
As Benson/Barry describe the process, the rest of the value of kanban manifests itself through these two key concepts. You’ll begin to get an idea of the tasks you’re avoiding and why. You’ll begin to examine your work practices as you watch the flow of sticky notes.[1] You’ll begin to adapt the system to your needs.
There are a lot of ways to implement a kanban. The easiest way is simply to take a white board and stick sticky notes on it. (The important thing to remember is that your kanban has to be where you can see it as you work.)
There are of course software versions, including free add-on apps for Google Drive.
For a while, I used my laptop, creating a desktop image and using Apple’s Notes app to create sticky notes there.
Let’s take a look at this for a moment and see how I modified the three-phase model for my own workflow.
Across the top are the three standard columns: To Do, Doing, and Done.
Across the bottom are the modifications I made to the kanban to fit my workflow: Holding, Daily, and Future.
Holding is where I’d put the tasks in the Doing column that I couldn’t work on until someone else did their thing, e.g., budget figures or travel plans or something they had to get done before I could finish the task.
In the Daily section, I put things like blogging that I did on a daily basis, stuff that it didn’t make sense to keep creating in To Do and then move across the screen every single day. Notice the small vertical line: the Daily section was like a mini-kanban loop inside the Doing column. I could move my blogging sticky from one side of the line to the other to check it off—then move it back.
The Future area was stuff I knew I needed or wanted to work on—just not right now.
Your mileage may vary. It should vary.
Note that kanban is not a to-do list. I still have my to-do’s on my phone: mow the lawn, do the laundry, prep the labyrinth. My kanban is for MAKING THE THING THAT IS NOT and keeping my TASK AVOIDANCE on track.
XXX… <— some kind of conclusion
(Each of the chapters on the Nine Precepts ends with a SO… summary.)
Task Avoidance- SO…
Use “structured procrastination” by alternating your projects—avoid working on one project by tinkering with another.
Kanban[2] your projects—know what you’re putting off and why.
As I work my way through the text of my putative book on the creative process, you might like to read the rest of the text so far here. Also, the rest of my meditations on the process here.
The other secret to successful TASK AVOIDANCE is that gestation is a necessary part of the creative process in any model worth the study—and a smart artist uses TASK AVOIDANCE to let ideas fully form. For the Lichtenbergian, it is part of the joke—procrastination is a key to creativity—Cras melior est—but make no mistake: we know when we’re wasting time and when we’re allowing an idea to mature or a problem to percolate unseen.
It is a mistake to think that “creativity” is somehow limited to the actual actions involved in finishing a work. Planning—working out the kinks—developing a framework—sketching, doodling, warming up—daydreaming about possibilities [1]—these are as responsible for the quality of the finished product as the actual acts of painting or sculpting or composing or writing are.
As Danish mathematician/poet/designer Piet Hein put it in one of his aphoristic poems he called grooks:
TWIN MYSTERY
To many people artists seem
undisciplined and lawless.
Such laziness, with such great gifts
seems little short of crime.
One mystery is how they make
the things they make so flawless;
another, what they’re doing with
their energy and time.[2]
It’s also true that simply walking away from a project[3] will sometimes allow your subconscious to work in the background on a solution to whatever has been puzzling you. History is replete with examples of great thinkers whose biggest ideas came upon them when they weren’t directly thinking about the problem. So absolutely, put down that sonnet and go get in the hot tub. You can thank me for it later.
Another important benefit of TASK AVOIDANCE is slack. Slack is that extra bit of rope that allows you to make adjustments in whatever it is you’re doing with that rope—in Lichtenbergianism, slack is extra time, and it is critical to any adaptive system like creativity.
One of my favorite fables about the importance of slack concerns a secretary in a large firm who was a wonder: she could schedule meetings, make calls, make copies, organize—you name it, she could get it all done for you at the drop of a hat. Then the company hired an efficiency consultant who found that the secretary often had nothing to do, large stretches of time which were not productive. They advised the company to schedule her workload more tightly so that she could get more done.
To everyone’s astonishment, her usefulness to the company plummeted. She couldn’t get to all the things she was asked to do and was often behind. No one could understand it.
They had taken her slack. All that time she was observed doing nothing was actually her being available to take on any task that was asked of her. When her whole day was scheduled, she was no longer able to pivot from one task to another and get them all done.[4]
In Lichtenbergianism, whenever you feel over-structured, rushed, or swamped, it’s time for a little TASK AVOIDANCE. Clear out some time for reading, or thinking about another project. Or, if worse comes to worse, clean your house. Ugh.
Just remember that filling every moment with work is not actually being efficient.
As I work my way through the text of my putative book on the creative process, you might like to read the rest of the text so far here. Also, the rest of my meditations on the process here.
Chapter Three: Task Avoidance
The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle. —GCL, K.27
A parable: He always wears spurs but never rides. —GCL, J.127
Cras melior est. —motto of The Lichtenbergian Society
—————
The core value of Lichtenbergianism is procrastination, not doing All The Things.
Procrastination is generally supposed to be a bad thing. “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today” is the sturdy, Puritanical maxim. Clean that house, compose that song, write that chapter, update that website—and do it now! After all, won’t you feel better when it’s done?
Well, yes, of course you’ll feel better when it’s done, but first you have to do it. Ugh.
To a Lichtenbergian, though, procrastination is a core principle. Avoiding that symphony, that second draft, that new series of photographs… That’s a lot more comfortable. Cras melior est. Tomorrow is better.
Avoid that task.
But why is TASK AVOIDANCE considered to be a critical Precept of Lichtenbergianism?
Part of the joke is that we think that the world be better served if artists of all stripes thought twice before releasing their works on an unsuspecting public. It’s a matter of quality control, really. It’s one thing to crank out the ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS; it’s quite another to assemble them and release them as your band’s CD. Or book of poetry. Or Southern gothic novel.[4]
We call it the “Better as a T-Shirt Rule,” e.g., a Cafe Press t-shirt vs. the permanence of a snarky tattoo. Don’t commit to permanence when there’s still SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION to be done. You can always take a t-shirt off; you can always go back to an unpublished poem and take another look at it. Not so much with an hastily-considered tattoo, nor with a published collection of unrevised diary entries posing as poetry.
It is good when young people are in certain years attacked by the poetic infection, only one must, for Heaven’s sake, not neglect to inoculate them against it. GCL, L.69
Let’s face it: 90% of everything is pure dreck. Dreck is fine—see “The Bad Penny” in the previous chapter—because without people having the courage to put their dreck out there, we’d never get the 10% that’s actually worth something. God bless all the lesser but nevertheless competent composers that dotted the musical landscape of the Age of Enlightenment, as Professor Peter Schickele called them—without them, Mozart wouldn’t have had a market for his perfection.[5]
But if we, as creators, can hold back our dreck until it’s worth at least as much as the bottom 90%, then let’s do that. Cras melior est!
I want to make it clear that I am not telling you not to write bad poetry. On the contrary: you should write bad poetry, the more the better. You should write execrable death metal music. You should make uninspired pottery. That’s the whole purpose of Lichtenbergianism.
But, I hear you ask, how do we get from “create a lot of bad dreck, but put off finishing or publishing it for the love of humankind” to “create successful dreck by putting off finishing or publishing it”?
Here is the secret to successful TASK AVOIDANCE: because you are an artist, you have more than one Task to Avoid, each one nagging for your attention. The trick is to play them off against each other, avoiding one by working on another.
This very book (at least at the time of writing this sentence) is being written to avoid the pain of writing music.[6] Not only that, but in the process of writing every section of this book, every other section proved a suitable distraction. Stuck on the AUDIENCE chapter? Jot down that note in your head on GESTALT that has been doing its best to distract you.
The very first full year of the Lichtenbergian Society I failed to achieve a single goal, mainly because I got distracted and built a labyrinth in my back yard instead:
Click to see it in all its glory
In fact, often the Lichtenbergians will find that although we didn’t achieve what we said we wanted to achieve in any given year, we have done something else of value while avoiding our actual goals.
This is what John Perry calls “structured procrastination” in his charming and perfect The Art of Procrastination. I would say that Dr. Perry had beaten me to the draw on the concept, but as I said in Chapter One, none of this is new— he himself quotes a 1930 Robert Benchley column as defining the concept even earlier: “Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.”
As Dr. Perry puts it, “The key idea is that procrastinating does not mean doing absolutely nothing… The procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely, and important tasks… as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.”[7]
In 2003, for example, I was given permission by poet Nancy Willard to set her Newbery Award winning A Visit to William Blake’s Inn to music. Since there was some interest in performing this piece as part of an international sister city thing, you would think that I would have gotten right down to it.
Instead, I spent 2004 writing a children’s opera for a competition in Germany—which needless to say I did not win.
The good news is that I went on to finish William Blake’s Inn with an increased confidence in my abilities to orchestrate, and the final result is still my proudest achievement.[8]
[1] This is one of those “memes” you’ve heard tell about. I will be using lots of similar pop culture allusion. I may be old (spoiler alert:[2] I’m old) but I try to stay aware of all internet traditions.[3]
[4] We call these premature releases Corroborative Evidence and we shake our heads sympathetically—there but for the grace of Apollo—as we consign them to the flames. [see RITUAL]
[5] Peter Schickele. The definitive biography of P. D. Q. Bach, p.23.
Let’s take another look at our posting from the Facetubes yesterday:
My problem with this graphic is not that someone says “Merry Christmas” or “God bless the USA” or any of those other things. My problem is that the author—and I have to assume anyone who posts it—wants you to think it’s a problem that they say these things.
They are hopping up on that cross to be crucified as martyr patriots when in fact no one is standing by with nails. Most of the country would in fact agree with the honest sentiments expressed in each of the phrases individually.
But these people are not saying, “Merry Christmas.” They’re saying, “I say ‘Merry Christmas,’ and that’s the way it’s supposed to be and if you don’t say it too then you are the enemy and I will fight you in the halls of Iwo Jima because you are one of Those People.”
They are declaring their über-patriotic stance as the only permissible and credentialed patriotic stance there can be in these here parts, and the rest of us need to take our nelly sensibilities and just move somewhere else if we don’t love the United States of A as much as they do. That we might love our country as much—and perhaps differently— is clearly impossibile. It is a thought-crime as far as they are concerned. They have suddenly realized that there are 300,000,000 other Americans outside their monkeysphere, and they are freaking the freak out.[1]
Now I personally do have issues with the political stance behind some of these statements, “We support our troops” in particular. What does that even mean other than militaristic idolatry? But again, if these people are honest in their troop supporting, I have no issue with that. It’s when they go berserk with their SUPPORT THE TROOPS while at the same time they vote for people that lie us into wars; when they vote for people that don’t pay for those wars; when they vote for people who don’t provide for our veterans; when they post uninformed graphics about rejecting refugees while we have homeless veterans that need to be taken care of while not voting to take care of homeless veterans; that’s when I have issues.
And I would be correct. Politically, ethically, and economically.
—————
[1] Am I suggesting that they are hooting and flinging poo? Why are you even thinking that?
To quote Georg Christoph Lichtenberg: “It is true I cannot say whether things are going to change for the better, but what I do say is that things will never be right unless they do change.”
No, darling, you are not politically incorrect if you say those things. You may, however, be an asshole if you say them as a way to consolidate your tribal membership to the exclusion of Those People. And we all know about Those People, don’t we?
Those People are queer, aren’t they? Or bitches, or chinks, or towel-heads, or niggers—aren’t they?
Those People all up in your face saying you ought to be more respectful of them and their so-called humanity.
Those People who make you so angry because they think that their “lifestyle” or “culture” or “religion” deserves some kind of special rights.
Those People who get their precious feelings hurt if you just say what everyone is thinking.
But no, darling, your saying “Merry Christmas” or “God bless the USA” is not why we might be calling you politically incorrect. Let me know if you figure it out.
Before I start posting the next chapters of Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy, I have some pondering to do.
I’m fairly happy with the first two chapters, “Introduction to Lichtenbergianism” and “Framework,” but the chapters on the Nine Precepts are still not making me completely happy. I know, one’s writing never makes one completely happy, but I’m not sure I’m saying what I want to say the way I want to say it.
For example, I think I need more anecdotes from my fellow Lichtenbergians about how the Precept has functioned in their work. At this point, a book supposedly about a group of creative men is merely about me and I think that creates an uncomfortable disjuncture between the reader and the text. Certainly, it was the participation and sharing of the assembled Lichtenbergians at the GHP seminar that made the topic so fascinating and inspired me to think that it was worth a book.
In Chapter 3, “TASK AVOIDANCE,” I wonder if I get bogged down with procrastination management. There doesn’t seem to be a conclusion to the chapter yet. Have I made the point effectively? Is it funny enough?
So here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to brush up the chapter as best as I can and go ahead and post it in pieces. That’s what this experiment is all about, isn’t it? Sharing, beta-testing, audience engagement? (see SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION, Chapter 5; and AUDIENCE, Chapter 10.)
Any place I feel that there’s a gap in the texture, I will leave an XXX to indicate that someday I may write something to fill that gap.
In turn, you will comment helpfully to let me know what you think is missing. (see GESTALT, Chapter 9.)
Mercy, people, there are some serious whackjobs out there. I am sniffing around a very deep rabbit hole here and am really thinking I don’t need to dive any deeper.
