Tag Archives: Thoughts

SEVENTY THOUGHTS FROM TURNING SEVENTY

4 Replies

I just turned seventy years old, and I’ve travelled a long way from a child’s subsistence existence in rural Manitoba to a comfortable senior’s lifestyle on Canada’s west coast. I grew from hand-cranked telephones to now commanding a sophisticated, personalized artificial intelligence system—something no one imagined back in the 50s and 60s, And during the journey I’ve observed and learned a few things. Things I’m expressing today as seventy thoughts from turning seventy.

My boyhood happened in a little Canadian village called Rennie on the Manitoba-Ontario boundary. It revolved around the fur industry, nature, the railroad, and the drag strip. Looking back, it wasn’t a bad place to be. Not a bad place at all.

I left Rennie at twenty-one. Since then, I’ve been a police officer investigating homicides, an ERT (SWAT) member in armed conflicts, a coroner dealing with human death, a housebuilder/designer, a land developer, a boat skipper, a security and safety officer, a toxicology technician, and a reasonably accomplished writer starting in my fifties and sixties. Actually… I have no idea what I’m going to be when I grow up.

Turning seventy is a time to reflect. A time for thinking back, ahead, and right here. What emerged are random thoughts. Not advice. Not wisdom. Not guidance. Not insight. Not counsel or perspective. Just seventy thoughts from turning seventy.

Beginnings and Becomings

  1. Humble Start. Rennie wasn’t the center of the universe, but it was home. I had no idea where life would take me, and that’s probably just as well. I might’ve talked myself out of half the adventures.
  2. The One-Room Schoolhouse. My first four grades shared one teacher and classroom. You learned to work on your own while the older kids got their lessons, and you couldn’t help overhearing theirs. Whether I learned patience is another question.
  3. Small-Town Values. In Rennie, neighbors helped neighbors, and everybody was expected to pull their weight. Those weren’t grand philosophical principles. They were just how people got along.
  4. Family Foundations. I didn’t notice what my family was teaching me. I was too busy being a kid, watching, listening, and occasionally getting into trouble. It’s taken me a few decades to appreciate how much of my education happened outside school.
  5. Curiosity. I’ve always wanted to know how things work and why people do what they do. It served me in policing and writing, and now it’s got me exploring advanced AI when I could be putting my feet up. Apparently, curiosity doesn’t retire.
  6. School in Nearby Whitemouth. Whitemouth school opened up a bigger world, although nobody would’ve mistaken it for a Manitoba metropolis like Winnipeg. I graduated in 1974 with friends, memories, and a limited idea of what came next. But things soon turned out to be interesting.
  7. The People Who Influenced Me. I’ve crossed paths with generous teachers, investigators, writers, and friends. Some showed me what to do. Some provided excellent demonstrations of what not to do. You can learn from almost anybody if you pay attention.
  8. Opportunities and Choices. Big changes sometimes began with seemingly minor decisions. I’ve worked hard, made wrong turns, and benefited from plain old luck. Anyone who claims to have planned everything might be overlooking the luck factor.
  9. Life Doesn’t Come With Instructions. Nobody gave me a manual for life, and I’m not sure I’d have read it if they had. I’ve made obvious mistakes, sometimes more than once. It’s an expensive way to learn, but it works.
  10. Becoming Is Never Finished. I’ve changed jobs and opinions enough to know I’m unfinished. New interests keep turning up when I least expect them. If being grown up means having everything figured out, I’ve still got some work ahead of me.

Work, Experience, and Purpose

  1. The Value of a Paycheck. My first paychecks bought independence, though they didn’t last long. Early jobs taught me to show up, do the work, and take some pride in it. Those lessons have paid better dividends than the wages.
  2. Lessons From the Railroad. Railroad work taught attention, quick thinking, and pulling my weight. Things didn’t always go according to plan, and complaining rarely fixed them. I can’t say every task was enjoyable. Neither was the weather.
  3. Becoming a Mountie. Joining the RCMP in 1978 changed my life. Depot training in Regina introduced discipline, teamwork, and the unpleasant discovery that I wasn’t quite as clever as I thought. Twenty years of policing provided lessons no classroom could offer.
  4. The Reality of Homicide Investigation. Homicide work showed me human kindness and cruelty at their extremes. There wasn’t the television glamour—mostly patient, detailed digging and uncooperative evidence. Finding answers for people who couldn’t speak for themselves mattered.
  5. Life Through a Coroner’s Eyes. As coroner, I investigated sudden, tragic, sometimes preventable deaths. It didn’t make me gloomy, but it cured me of assuming tomorrow was guaranteed. That perspective stays with you.
  6. Building Things and Running Businesses. Business and construction taught me that ideas need actual work. Budgets, deadlines, and things that don’t fit have a way of correcting optimism. Being your own boss also means the problems know where you live. And laying awake at three a.m. calculating how you’re going to make payroll beats an academic MBA.
  7. The People You Work With. I’ve worked with outstanding people and some who made me wonder how they got dressed. The best taught loyalty, humor, and keeping a cool head. Often, it’s the people I remember more than the work.
  8. Success, Failure, and Starting Over. Some ideas worked. Others cost money, time, and pride. Failure isn’t automatically a wonderful teacher, but it can be if you’ll listen. Sometimes the sensible choice is to quit digging a hole, climb out, and take another route.
  9. Becoming a Writer. After investigating others’ stories, writing my own proved harder. Since starting DyingWords in 2012, I’ve written 31 books and learned to rewrite passages I once thought were terrific. Some days the words flow. Other days they require dental extraction.
  10. Finding Purpose Beyond a Career. Leaving a career doesn’t mean leaving purpose. Books, DyingWords, Stoicism, and now AI have kept my intellectual days full. I’ve got more ideas than time to pursue them, which strikes me as a good problem to have.

People, Relationships, and Human Nature

  1. Marriage and Making It Last. Rita and I have been married forty-three years, long enough to know my irritating habits. We’ve raised a family, enjoyed plenty of good times, and weathered very few storms. I suspect reciprocal kindness has something to do with that.
  2. Family Comes First. I’ve sometimes given work too much attention. Family gatherings and shared memories mean more to me now than they did when I was younger. You don’t get those ordinary moments back once they’ve passed.
  3. Raising Children. Rita and I raised two kids while pretending we knew what we were doing. They taught us a few things along the way. Watching them become independent adults has been a joy, even if my advice doesn’t always get top billing.
  4. The Value of True Friendship. I’ve known plenty of people, but true friends are a smaller group. They’re reliable, funny, and easy to reconnect with. Friendship doesn’t need a crowd. It needs people genuinely glad to see each other.
  5. Trust Is Earned, Not Given. Police work taught me to mistrust unsupported stories. I pay more attention to what people do than what they say. Trust can take years to earn and only a moment to lose, and patching it up isn’t easy.
  6. People Are Complicated. I’ve seen decent people make awful decisions and dishonest people show surprising kindness. People seldom fit into tidy categories. Whenever I think I’ve got human nature figured out, someone comes along and reminds me otherwise.
  7. The Art of Listening. Homicide interviews taught me to shut up and listen. Ask a good question, then listen. As my old detective mentor said, “You’ve got one mouth and two ears for a reason.” I’ve tried applying that at home, although Rita might question how consistently I’ve mastered the technique.
  8. Kindness Doesn’t Cost Much. A helping hand or kind word can make a difference. You seldom know what another person is dealing with. Being decent doesn’t require much effort, which makes the lack of decency rather puzzling.
  9. Disagreements, Grudges, and Forgiveness. I’ve held onto arguments longer than they deserved, usually because pride got involved. Standing firm differs from nursing an irritation. Forgiveness doesn’t excuse what happened. It can simply free up your time.
  10. The People Who Really Matter. The best parts of my life involve people, not possessions. Family and friends have supplied laughter and company worth remembering. Accomplishments are satisfying, but they don’t sit around the table with you.

Truth, Reality, and Judgment

  1. Reality Doesn’t Negotiate. Reality doesn’t give a fat rat’s ass what I believe or how badly I want something to be true. I’ve argued with facts, and they weren’t impressed. Sooner or later, what’s real has a way of settling the discussion.
  2. First Impressions Can Fool You. A scene or person can deceive on first glance. I’ve misread people and jumped to conclusions myself. Now I try to look a little longer before deciding, although occasionally I still get caught.
  3. Facts, Opinions, and Assumptions. There’s what I know, what I think I know, and what I’d really like to believe. Those aren’t the same things. Policing taught the distinction—loud opinions aren’t evidence.
  4. Follow the Evidence. It’s easy to favor evidence supporting your theory. Homicide investigation taught me how dangerous that can be. If the evidence points elsewhere, you’d better have the sense to follow it, even when starting over hurts.
  5. The Truth Isn’t Always Comfortable. An inconvenient truth stings when it exposes a mistake. Pretending otherwise might feel better for a while. In my experience, an uncomfortable truth is still easier to live with than a comfortable lie.
  6. Knowing What You Don’t Know. I’m increasingly comfortable saying, ‘I don’t know.’ Some people have answers even without knowledge. There’s no shame in ignorance if you’re willing to follow it with, ‘I’d sure like to find out.’
  7. Intelligence Isn’t Wisdom. I’ve met highly educated fools as well as uncredentialed folks with excellent insight. Knowing lots of things isn’t the same as knowing what to do. Wisdom seems to require an understanding of people, circumstances, and consequences. As they say, knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting tomatoes in a fruit salad.
  8. Changing Your Mind Isn’t a Weakness. I once thought changing my mind showed weakness. Now I see it differently. New evidence ought to change an old conclusion when the conclusion was wrong. Defending a mistake just to save face seems like a poor bargain.
  9. Decisions Have Consequences. Some decisions deserved more thought than I gave them. Good intentions don’t guarantee good results, and small choices sometimes travel a long way. You can’t predict everything, but you can take responsibility for what you decide.
  10. Good Judgment Comes From Experience. Good judgment supposedly comes from experience, often bad judgment. I can’t argue with that. I’ve made some fine calls and spectacular blunders, and I like to think the blunders at least earned their tuition.

Character, Stoicism, and Living Well

  1. Character Is What You Do. Some people preach integrity until it becomes inconvenient. Character shows up in conduct, especially when nobody’s watching. I haven’t always met my own standards either but admitting that beats pretending I haven’t got faults.
  2. Discovering Stoicism Later in Life. In my late sixties, ancient Stoics explained lessons I’d learned the hard way. Stoicism’s emphasis on judgment, restraint, and accepting reality made sense. I wish I’d found it sooner, but here we are.
  3. Knowing What You Can Control. Stoicism reminds me I can’t control others or tomorrow. I can work on my choices and responses, though. It’s a simple distinction that’s saved me aggravation, whenever I actually remember to practice it. Ta eph hemen. Ta ouk eph hemen. (Google that saying.)
  4. Courage Isn’t the Absence of Fear. I’ve been scared when circumstances justified it. Courage meant recognizing the danger and doing what needed doing anyway. Sometimes it also means admitting you’re wrong when pride is begging you to keep quiet.
  5. Treating People Fairly. Everybody deserves a fair shake, regardless of background or wealth. In police work, hearing someone’s story mattered before reaching conclusions. Respect doesn’t require agreement, and decency doesn’t mean approving of everything somebody does.
  6. The Value of Self-Discipline. Work, exercise, and routine aren’t always exciting. Doing them anyway has served me better than waiting for inspiration. I don’t always feel like starting, but once I’ve done the work I’m generally glad I did.
  7. Keeping Your Emotions in Check. Anger happens. Letting it decide can be expensive. Police work taught me to keep a cool head, and Stoicism helped explain the habit. A moment’s pause between stimulus and response has saved me a few apologies.
  8. Knowing When Enough Is Enough. There’s always another goal or purchase. Chase them all and the finish line keeps moving. I’m more content these days, and I’ve discovered that knowing what’s enough can be more useful than getting more.
  9. Gratitude, Simplicity, and Contentment. Health, family, friends, quiet mornings, and coffee count for plenty. I don’t need much more to make a day worthwhile, although something interesting to think about helps. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistocation.
  10. Becoming a Better Human Being. I don’t expect to become wise and faultless. Learning from mistakes, treating people decently, and trying to exercise better judgment seem like useful daily work. There’s still plenty of room for improvement on my end.

Time, Aging, and Mortality

  1. Where Did All the Years Go? Seventy years sounds long until you look back. Childhood seemed endless when I was waiting to turn sixteen and get my driver’s license. The decades since haven’t shown quite the same patience.
  2. Age Is More Than a Number. My body disputes that age is just a number. The mind still proposes projects without consulting the knees. I’ve accepted a few limitations, but I don’t intend to let the calendar make every decision.
  3. Taking Care of the Machinery. I’ve only one body, so I eat, sleep, and move sensibly. Rucking means walking with a weighted backpack, an activity that sometimes makes me question my own judgment. Still, the machinery seems worth maintaining.
  4. Eat. Move. Rest. Think. Do. This formula of five is the closet thing to a good life prescription as I’ve found. Eat—I try to follow the Mediterranean diet. Move—I ruck n’ rope. Rest—7 to 8 hours unbroken. Think—Cognitive workouts. Do—Having a purpose.
  5. Don’t Put Life on Hold. It’s easy to wait until work settles down. There’s always another reason to wait. Planning ahead matters but spending your whole life getting ready to live would be a pretty disappointing outcome.
  6. The Things That Matter Less With Age. I seldom worry about impressing people or winning pointless arguments—especially politics. Time with people I care about and work I enjoy interests me more. It’s taken a while, but I’m getting better at sorting the two. Also at saying “No” to things that don’t matter.
  7. Time Is the One Thing You Can’t Replace. Money and possessions can be replaced. Yesterday doesn’t offer refunds. I’m more particular now about what deserves my hours, and I’d rather spend them on people and things that matter than on somebody else’s nonsense.
  8. Learning to Let Go. Plans change, people leave, opportunities disappear. I’ve wasted time wishing I could rewrite things that were already done. Letting go isn’t always giving up; sometimes it’s making room for the life still in front of you.
  9. Growing Older Without Growing Old. I’m keeping curious while letting my body vote. There’s no reason to stop learning or trying new things at seventy. I just allow a little more recovery time than I once did.
  10. Making Peace With Mortality. I know the final outcome, but I’m not eager to meet the Grim Reaper. I’ve had a good run and hope there’s plenty left. The best preparation I can think of is to enjoy living while I’m here.

Curiosity, Progress, and What Comes Next

  1. Curiosity Keeps Life Interesting. New questions and rabbit holes keep appearing. Investigations, books, philosophy, and technology have all taken their turns. I can’t imagine being bored when there’s still so much I haven’t figured out.
  2. You’re Never Too Old to Learn. Stoicism and AI made me a beginner again in my late sixties. It’s humbling, sometimes frustrating, and often tremendous fun. Learning may take a little longer now, but I haven’t noticed any shortage of things worth learning.
  3. The Writing Isn’t Finished. Since 2012, I’ve enjoyed turning ideas into DyingWords articles. I’ve got more stories and opinions in me, whether anybody asks for them or not. The keyboard isn’t getting retired just yet.
  4. Discovering Artificial Intelligence. ChatGPT began as my research assistant in 2023. That led to bigger questions about human thinking, machine learning, and what the two might accomplish together. I never expected a bot-tool to send me off on an entirely new adventure.
  5. The Past Has Plenty to Teach Us. Stoics, Ben Franklin, and computer pioneers remind me that ideas have histories. I’ve become more interested in tracing those roots. You might know where you are, but you don’t know where you’re going unless you know where you’ve been.
  6. Learning From Younger Generations. Birthdays don’t confer a monopoly on ideas. Younger people see technology and changing customs differently, and I’ve learned by watching and listening. That’s more rewarding than speaking on why everything was supposedly better in the old days.
  7. Keeping an Open Mind. Evidence has changed some of my strong opinions. That doesn’t mean believing every new claim that comes along. It means holding my convictions firmly enough to examine them and loosely enough to correct them. It also means not judging youths with green or pink hair.
  8. Finding Something Worthwhile to Build. I’ve always liked building with tools or words. Now I’m working on a project that I hope might help other people. It’s called Twenty-Second Century Enlightenment—22ENL for short—and it trains humans to build, command, and govern their personalized artificial intelligence system. It’s a human development and self-improvement program that may succeed or it may not, but getting up with something worthwhile to tackle suits me fine.
  9. Planning for a Future I Can’t Predict. Life’s surprised me too often to script the next decade. I’ll still make plans and pursue what matters, while leaving room for surprises. If someone had described my seventieth year to me at twenty, I’d have laughed.
  10. I’m Still Looking Forward. Seventy isn’t a finish line, and I’m not interested in waiting around for Doctor Death. I’ve experienced good fortune and learned some lessons I’d rather not repeat. I don’t know how many roads remain, but I intend to enjoy the drive.

65 THOUGHTS FROM 65 YEARS

I turned 65 this week. Officially, I’m a Senior. I’m now eligible for geezer graft – my public pension and a free morning coffee at McDonalds plus 10 percent price cuts at prestigious places I patronize like Walmart, Home Depot, Habitat For Humanity’s ReStore, Salvation Army’s thrift shop, and many, many hole-in-the-wall used book stores. On delegated days, of course, and with certain conditions applying like having my Covid vaccine papers ready and my leak-free Depends securely on. Also, my If Found – Return To wristband in place and my GPS tracker beaconing away.

I never thought I’d live this long, given some of the high-risk behavior I’ve displayed during my 65 trips around the sun. 64 of those trips were pretty much fun. 1 was not.  However, that bad trip gave me an entirely new respect for the value of this extremely precious and terribly fragile thing called life.

My 65 trips gave me insight into what’s important and what’s not. They also gave me plenty of time to think. Specific thinking. Random thinking. And nonsense thinking. In no particular order, and with no particular agenda, here are 65 thoughts from 65 years—many borrowed from folks much wiser than me. By the way, I also shared this post with friends over at the Kill Zone blog on Thursday although it’s tweaked a bit for today.

———

1. Whatever the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve by taking planned action with a positive mental attitude. This is the core of Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich personal growth and success philosophy which, in my experience, is pure truth. It’s the primal advice I pass on.

2. You become what you think about most of the time.

3. Be careful with your thoughts, because your thoughts become your words. Be careful with your words, because your words become your actions. Be careful with your actions, because your actions become your habits. Be careful with your habits, because your habits become your character and your character becomes your destiny.

4. Dream big. Dream often. The first step in achieving big dreams is by having them.

5. Don’t matter what came first—the chicken or the egg—as long as you stay alive and remain healthy enough to eat them.

6. I’ve been rich. I’ve been poor. Rich is better.

7. Always read the instructions. Twice. Then save them.

8. Don’t buy extended warranties, timeshares, or cheap tools.

9. Persistence is to character as carbon is to steel.

10. If you must read the news, read for fact and data, not for opinions.

11. Cocaine users say they indulge because it amplifies their personality. I say coke is a dangerous drug for assholes.

12. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

13. If you chase a badger across a field and it goes down a hole, don’t follow and poke its backside with a pick handle. Seriously, don’t. I tried this. You’d be amazed at how fast badgers can turn around in a tight spot.

14. People of accomplishment rarely sit back and let things happen to them. They go out and happen to things.

15. Do not steal the parking spot reserved for the guy who’s about to interview you for your dream job.

16. And don’t bother searching for your eyeglasses while wearing them.

17. Speaking of eyeglasses, when you do go searching for your lost glasses and finally find them, don’t put them back where you found them. Put them where you first looked for them.

18. Once you get it all down to one shopping cart, you’ve got it made.

19. The Golden Rule will never fail. It’s the foundation of all other virtues.

20. I don’t judge your age, race, gender, sexual orientation, language, religion, political beliefs, education, occupation, body shape, or any other quirk that makes you a human being. You are you. I am me. I’ll be nice to you even if you’re not nice to me and I’m fine with that.

21. Never get involved in an Asian land war.

22. To make mistakes is human. To own your mistakes is divine. Nothing elevates a person higher than quickly admitting to, and taking personal responsibility for, the mistakes you make and then fixing them fairly. If you mess up, fess up. It’s astounding how powerful this ownership is.

23. Optimize your generosity. No one on their deathbed ever regretted giving away too much.

24. I’ve never seen a hearse pulling a trailer loaded with a ski-boat, an ATV, or a full-dresser Harley.

25. A vacation + a disaster = an adventure.

26. Ancient Jewish wisdom says not to argue to win the argument. Argue to discover the truth.

27. The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.

28. The best way to have good ideas is to have a lot of ideas and then discard the bad ideas.

29. Seek to be the wisest in the room, not the loudest, and never miss a good chance to shut up.

30. Never take down a fence until you know why it was put up.

31. If you have to convince someone to stay with you, they’ve already left.

32. You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book is too difficult for adults, then write it for children.

33. No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer. No surprise in the reader.

34. Always apply the duck test.

35. The past is behind, learn from it. The future is ahead, prepare for it. The present is here, live it.

36. The two founding points of human existence are consciousness and entropy.

37. Everything in moderation, including moderation.

38. Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, bad and good, and see how they do it. Just like a stonemason who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window and write something else.

39. Carl Sagan said, “A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called leaves) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you’ll hear the voice of another person, perhaps a person who’s been dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time—proof that humans can work magic.”

40. And Lady Gaga said, “When you make music or write or create, it’s really your job to have mind-blowing, irresponsible, condomless sex with whatever idea it is you’re screwing with at the time.”

41. There are old pilots and there are bold pilots but there are no old bold pilots.

42. You don’t stop flying when you get old. You get old when you stop flying.

43. A ride in a US Navy F-18 Hornet flight simulator is a mind-blowing and condomless, sexual experience. Been there. Done that. MUST do again.

44. A business rule: Pay every invoice within 48 hours. You’ll be amazed at how many people give your work top priority.

45. Ungulates like deer, moose, elk, and caribou have antlers for a reason.

46. Bears have claws and teeth for a reason, too. Don’t poke the bear like I poked the badger.

47. The cost of perfection is inaction, but boring progress produces exceptional results.

48. The less you need the approval of others, the easier it is to get what is right rather than what is easy.

49. “I don’t pay no attention to no kind of critics about nothing. If they knew as much as they claim about what they’re criticizing, then they ought to be doing that instead of standing on the sidelines using their mouth.” ~Muhammad Ali.

50. Multitasking is not only not thinking, it impairs your ability to think. Thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it. You do your best thinking by slowing down and concentrating.

51. Ninety percent of success can be boiled down to consistently doing the obvious thing for an uncommonly long time without convincing yourself that you’re smarter than you are.

52. That thing that made you weird as a kid could make you great as an adult—provided you don’t lose it.

53. If someone tries to convince you it’s not a pyramid scheme, it’s a pyramid scheme.

54. If you have any doubts about your ability to carry a load in one trip, do yourself a favor and make two trips.

55. Anything real begins with the fiction of what it could be. Imagination is the most potent force in the universe, and a skill you can get better at. It’s the one skill in life that benefits from ignoring what everyone else knows.

56. For every dollar you spend on something substantial, expect to pay another dollar in energizing,  repairing, maintaining, disposing, and replacing by the end of its serviceable life.

57. Eliminating clutter makes room for your true treasures.

58. If you plant for days, plant flowers. If you plant for years, plant trees. If you plant for eternity, plant ideas.

59. Never start a fight. Especially one you can’t win. Like, don’t get in a pissing match with a skunk, because you’re going to end up taking an excruciating, eye and nose blast plus a humiliating, clothes-stripped, tomato juice remediation bath while the skunk reloads and carries on to hose the next idiot who’s stupid enough to cross it.

59. Subsection 1. Same applies to badgers.

60. A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

61. People shouldn’t look for perfect leaders. They should look for authentic leaders with human-flawed competence and integrity, not consumed with presenting their title’s self-importance.

62. Near the end of his life, Steve Jobs said, “I learned that life is like a river. At first, you think that if you’re successful, you get to take many things from that river… products people have made or ideas people have come up with. But, eventually, in life you realize that it’s not what you take from the river, it’s what you get to put into that river.”

63. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but not their facts.

64. Learning is not compulsory. Neither is survival.

65. When you die, you take nothing with you except your reputation.

Bonus Bit: When playing Monopoly, spend all you have to buy, barter, or trade for the strategic orange properties at the end of the second stretch just before Free Parking. Don’t bother with Utilities or Railroads. If you play the game right, and for long enough, you’ll find Park Place and Boardwalk are terrible returns on investment.

Another Bonus From 31Oct2021: I don’t care if the cat is black or white as long as it catches mice.

———

Dyingwords followers – What words of wisdom will you share? Don’t be shy about commenting!

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR CREATIVITY

A8Creativity is the phenomenon of finding imaginative ideas and turning them into reality. It’s the process of bringing something new and original into existence. The results can be intangible products, like theories and songs, or tangible products such as inventions and the new crime-thriller novel I’m struggling to create. Creativity appears to come easier to some folks than others and we tend to see high achievers as gifted, natural creators rather than nurtured normals.

But is that so? Are there a chosen few, born with greater creative ability? Or can creativity be learned—a skill that can be taught, practiced, and mastered?

A2Back in the Greek and Roman days, creativity was seen as facilitated by a muse who connected individual human minds to the gods. Daemons were the Greek equivalent of guardian angels. They accompanied a soul from birth to death, some being highly creative which manifested themselves in outstanding and intuitive people like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Romans saw these paranormal intermediaries as Geniuses—disembodied messengers from a heavenly intelligence, delivering divine wishes to mortals.

The Renaissance era disagreed. Creative individuals were enlightened, they posed. Creativity came from within the self and gifted ones—DaVinci, Beethoven, and Shakespere—were born intellectually superior with unique abilities to create. They were the geniuses; being able to connect directly with a plane of higher intelligence rather than having an imaginary genius translate for them.

B2Today’s neuroscience has another view on this. It sees creativity as a complex psychological process that occurs via the brain’s ventral striatum and amygdala and can be enhanced through neuroplasticity, or rewiring the brain through practiced behavior.

In other words, a planned and continual workout program for your brain can definitely improve your creativity.

Improving creativity starts with a foundation of subject knowledge, learning a discipline, and mastering a proper way of thinking. You build on your creative ability by experimenting, exploring, questioning assumptions, using imagination, and synthesizing information. Learning to be creative is like learning a sport. You need a desire to improve, develop the right muscles, and be in a supportive environment.

You need to view creativity as a practice and understand five key behaviors:

1. Associating—drawing connections between questions, problems, or ideas from unrelated fields.
2. Questioning—posing queries that challenge common wisdom.
3. Observing—scrutinizing the behavior of others in, around, and outside your sphere.
4. Networking—meeting people with both common and different perspectives.
5. Experimenting—constructing interactive experiences and provoking unorthodox responses to see what insights emerge.

A3Read this as — listen, watch, ask, mingle, and stir. Sir Richard Branson has a mantra that’s bred into the corporate DNA of his Virgin staff — A-B-C-D — Always Be Connecting Dots. Branson swears that creativity is a practice and if you practice these five behaviors every day, you will improve your skills in creativity and innovation.

Now, if these five behaviors put you in the right direction for improving creativity, then there must be behaviors to avoid. I found eight:

1. Lack of courage—being fearful of taking chances, scared of venturing down new roads, and timid about taking the road less traveled. Fear is the biggest enemy of creativity. You need to be courageous and take chances.
2. Premature judgement—second-guessing and early judgment of outcome severely restrict your ability to generate ideas and freely innovate. Let your initial path expand and follow it to its inevitable destination.
3. Avoidance of failure—you can’t be bold and creative if you fear failure. Creativity requires risk and making mistakes. They’re part of the process.
4. Comparing with others—this robs your unique innovation and imagination. Set your own standards. Be different. Something new is always different.
5. Discomfort with uncertainty—creativity requires letting go and the process doesn’t always behave rationally. Accept that there’s something akin to paranormal in real creativity.
6. Taking criticism personally—feedback is healthy, even if it’s blunt and harsh like 1&2-Star Amazon reviews. Ignore ridicule. Have thick skin, a tough hide, and don’t let criticism get to you.
7. Lack of confidence—a certain level of uncertainty comes with any new venture. Some self-doubt is normal but if it becomes overwhelming and long-lasting, it will shut down your creative abilities. The best way to create is to first connect with your self-confidence.
8. Analysis paralysis—overthinking renders you unable to make a decision because of information overload. “Go with your gut” is the answer to analysis paralysis.

A9

Aside from positive and negative behaviors, there is one overall and outstanding quality that drives successfully creative people.

Passion…

Passion is the secret to creativity. It’s the underlying feature that’s laced the successes of all prominent creators in history.

A10Passion is a term we’ve heard over and over again. Chase you passion, not your pension. But few understand what passion implies. The word comes from the Latin root “pati“ which means “to suffer“. Passion is what perseveres in getting to your goal despite fear, discomfort, unhappiness, and pain. It’s the determination—the motivation—to push through suffering for the sake of the end result. And this passionate feeling of motivation has its source in your brain.

B11A study released in the Journal of Neuroscience identified the ventral striatum, in connection with the amygdala, as the brain’s emotional center that controls the motivation feeling—the higher degree of motivation you feel, the higher the activation will be in this part of your brain. So that intense feeling of motivation you feel when you are in a creative state—that feeling of euphoria when engaging in something you feel truly worthwhile and meaningful to you—is real and is something physiological occurring in your brain. It’s one of the least researched areas of psychology, yet has the biggest impact on your creativity.

I sense you’re wondering if there’s a trick—a method to stimulate your ventral striatum and amygdala—in improving your creativity. Well, yes there is. It’s long been known and practiced by the greats:

Relaxation, along with definite purpose.

Relax. Put your thoughts and desires out to the ether. Relax and wait. Creative ideas will come.

A13I’m a life-long student of the Napoleon Hill Philosophy of Personal Achievement which is the psychology behind the world’s best self-help book, Think and Grow Rich. Hill clearly outlines the path to unlimited creativity which he postulates comes from the source of Infinite Intelligence that we all can tap. In order to get creative ideas from Infinite Intelligence, first you must know what you want, then you must relax and let Infinite Intelligence deliver ideas or answers to you.

Relaxation can be done in many ways. Meditation. Workout. Vacation. Change of environment. Retail therapy. Long showers. Reading. Music. Deep breathing. Long walks in nature. Maybe a stiff drink or two. The methods are varied but whatever you choose, it needs to put you in a headspace receptive to creative ideas.

A11Napoleon Hill didn’t have the anatomical knowledge of how the ventral striatum and amygdala worked, but he sure understood that definite purpose, motivation, and relaxation opened the doors of creativity. Hill described this part of the brain as being like a radio transmitter and receiver which exchanged creative thought with Infinite Intelligence.

So, if I can give one single piece of advice on how to improve your creativity it’s to read, understand, and practice the seventeen principles of success Napoleon Hill outlined in Think and Grow Rich.

Click Here for a previous blog post I wrote on the Napoleon Hill’s science of personal achievement.

*   *   *

A post script to this DyingWords article—while I was researching this piece, I came across a TED Talk with well-known author, Elizabeth Gilbert. Her presentation on creativity for writers is a fascinating look at the process. Click Here to watch it.