Tag: charm of life

Blog 2013

Learning Good Things From Bad Guys

Posted on by Robert V Aldrich

Note: Links are not offered in the following blog because Cracked.com is currently experiencing technically difficulties involving malware issues.

I’m a big fan of Cracked.com.  Love it.  Read it daily.  I especially like the After Hours video segments and most of the work by John Cheese and Daniel O’Brien.  David Wong is also a wonderful contributor, but I’ve recently had some issue with his article ‘6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You A Better Person’.

Now, I take a lot of issue with the mistaken belief that brutal honesty is somehow a good thing.  It isn’t.  Being blunt isn’t an admirable trait.  I won’t deny that there’s a time and a place for it, but it’s far more rare than most people think, especially those who extol the virtues of being blunt.  Being blunt or harsh is like punching someone in the mouth; if you find you absolutely must do it more than five times in your life, you really need to reconsider some of your life choices.

I’ll expound on that topic at another time.  I want to return to the issue of this article, ‘6 Harsh Truths’.  The article fixates primarily on a segment from a play-turned-movie called ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’, a famous segment in which Alec Baldwin plays a motivational speaker who essentially shames the cast of real estate salesmen into productivity.  If you even Google Gleangarry Glen Ross, this speech comes up at the top of the list.  If you want to watch it, feel free but I won’t link to it because I think it’s deplorable.

It’s a brilliant speech, make no mistake.  It is easily Alec Baldwin’s finest performance and – his Capital One commercials not withstanding – that’s saying something.  And it’s written by a masterful playwright, David Mamet.  And it is very motivating, in a negative you’re-worthless-unless-you-get-off-your-ass sort of way.  But what I take issue with is that few people seem to realize that Alec Baldwin’s character is, essentially, the bad guy.

Glengarry Glen Ross isn’t a happy play (or movie).  It isn’t uplifting and no one comes out of it unscathed.  In many ways, it’s a terribly ugly film in which even the characters who come out best are the ones who quit and leave the real estate business entirely.  The whole script is one big warning against being like these people.  And the chief among ‘these people’, the very essence of ‘these people’ distilled, is Alec Baldwin’s character.

People point to the character’s tirade as an amazing motivational speech, not seeming to realize that’s like idolizing Gordon Gekko from Wall Street, or Gunnery Sergeant Hartman from Full Metal Jacket, or even Tony Montana from Scarface.  They may be compelling, they may be interesting and even entertaining, they may even have some good and admirable traits.  But none of that diminishes the fact that the primary point of these assorted films is to NOT be like them!  It blows my mind when people talk about Baldwin’s speech like it’s a good thing.  That’s akin to saying taking cocaine is a great way to be more productive.

I’m not suggesting people shouldn’t occasionally take an objective look at their lives and themselves.  I’m not saying we all don’t occasionally need a good kick in the pants to get us moving in the right direction.  And I’m definitely not saying this scene/speech isn’t one of the finest performances in cinema history.  What I am saying is that to look at this speech and say ‘He’s right’ is to severely miss the point the entire movie is trying to make.

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Blog 2013

Promise of the Future

Posted on by Robert V Aldrich

I watched someone’s life get saved this weekend, all thanks to the Internet and social networking.

An alert went up Friday night about a missing person.  It was someone I didn’t know and don’t believe I’ve ever met, but someone whom many of my friends considered to be a close friend.  My Facebook feed was littered with notices of ‘have you seen this person’ and ‘this person was last spotted…’.  Friends from many different spheres of my life posted alerts, looking for the person in question.

I threw up a copy-and-pasted alert, hoping to extend the reach of the alert.  All I did know is that this person – whom many I consider to be friends were very worried about – had made a worrisome Facebook post and then just up and disappeared, with no further contact.

This morning, I awoke to find that contact had been made and the individual was safe.  A healing process began, both for a community and for the individual whom, regardless of what they were going through personally, must have taken away some comfort to know how loved they were and are.

It was amazing to see.  In the past, when most people have talked about Facebook, it’s been to complain about the newest interface or to suggest that social networking was replacing real-world networking.  Many people level a great number of complaints against the digital age – one where social media is king – and for good reason.  But this time, someone discovered how much they mattered to many people.  And I get the impression that a life was saved.  Maybe that’s an exaggeration, or maybe the life that was saved wasn’t the person who went missing but the person who witnessed the public cry for support and realized that maybe they matter to that many people too.

Whatever the details, I took away from the events of this weekend something remarkable and inspiring, and very hopeful, about the digital age we live in.

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Blog 2013

Three Rules for Living

Posted on by Robert V Aldrich

My 8-year-old nephew starts the third grade in one week.  As we were out this morning, walking our dog, we discussed his malaise towards returning to school.  And he happened to ask why school had to be so awful.  I countered by saying “Would you like to know the three secrets to school?  The three things that you can do that will virtually guarantee you that you’ll succeed?”
Smiling like I was about to reveal the greatest secret in all of humanity, he nodded and said “Yeah!”
Rule #1 – Read thirty minutes every day
Rule #2 – Do all your homework
Rule #3 – Be friendly to everyone you meet
Needless to say, he was less than impressed.  Which is a shame because, in truth, those three rules do in fact all but guarantee complete success at school, almost regardless of how you define it.

If you consider school nothing but an academic institution where you go to learn, reading thirty minutes a day is a shoe-in for good grades.  Not even good grades; As and Bs mostly, if not As.  The effects of reading daily, especially for thirty minutes (though, ideally, an hour) is as well-documented as it is staggering.  It’s almost unfair how big a difference is made, grade-wise, between kids who read and those who don’t.

If you consider school to be nothing but a proving ground, where you produce the best results to get into a good college, then homework is the key.  In a typical classroom grading distribution, homework produces the best results for effort of any endeavor.  Homework often trumps quizzes and classwork in grade-point-value and can even trump tests in some classes.  And yet homework often requires the least overall time (though not always; we all had THAT teacher).

And if you consider school to be the domain of social acceptance, a place where kids go to socialize and make connections, then what better method is there than being friendly to everyone, but especially to new people as they enter their life?  In truth, just cultivating good manners and the skills of making a good first impression are invaluable in and of themselves.

The Three Rules extend beyond school, and definitely beyond third grade.  In diet and weight-loss, the three rules are:
Rule #1 – Drink enough water (64oz per day minimum)
Rule #2 – Eat enough protein (usually 1 gram per pound of bodyweight)
Rule #3 – Eat enough vegetables (one serving per meal minimum)
Most everything else is window-dressing.  Sure there are other rules that make a difference, but these key three make up the majority of what anyone needs to know or worry about.  Can you break these rules?  Of course you can…at your own risk.  And if you decide these rules are to be discarded, odds are it’s because you already know enough to know rules to replace them.  But a different set of Three Rules is still Three Rules.

Fitness has similar rules, too.
Rule #1 – Focus on one goal at a time
Rule #2 – Don’t exercise for more than 50 minutes at a time
Rule #3 – Don’t use the same program for more than 6 weeks at a time

You find these semi-magical Three Rules everywhere.  Want to know the Three Rules for living longer in the modern world?
Rule #1 – Don’t smoke
Rule #2 – Always wear your seatbelt
Rule #3 – Learn to take a fall

Want to know how to write female-friendly fiction? Consult the Bechdel Test.
Wanna write a punk song? Learn the C, F, and G chords.
These three rules inform a lot of the world.  Look at whatever you’re doing now and consider ‘what are the three REALLY core elements that make this successful?’  Whether it’s computer programming, surgery, or searching for adorable cat pictures online, almost every endeavor comes down to Three Rules.

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Blog 2013

Straight Edge

Posted on by Robert V Aldrich

Despite the inane delays surrounding Rhest for the Wicked, I am moving forward with other writing projects.  My current project (actually, one of several) features detox and rehab as a theme.  I’ve done a lot of research on these things, and have had friends who have gone through it.  But I never have.

I’ve never been a drinker.  Nor a smoker.  Nor have I done any drugs.  I’ve experimented with all three and never found any of them at all appealing.  Not the slightest thing.  I have friends who are huge alcohol aficionados and more than a few proponents of altered states.  But no experience has given me even the slightest interest in repeating those exposures.

I didn’t really even know the term ‘straight edge’ until the professional wrestler CM Punk brought it to the forefront.  Though that element of his character has largely fallen to the wayside, I still hear mention of it from time to time.  Straight Edge is, simply, an abstinence from chemical inhibition.  You don’t drink, smoke, do drugs, take steroids, etc.  But for many people, this seems to have been some kind of conscious choice, especially within the straight edge movement.  For me, it wasn’t a choice.  It’s just who I am by default.

I’ve lost friends to drugs (both overdoses and as victims of the ‘drug lifestyle’).  And while I haven’t lost a friend to alcohol, I’ve had friendships end thanks to alcohol.  And I’ve been ringside to see the effects of alcohol on families.  Those horror stories were never worth the ‘fun times’ such substances seemed to make possible.

The profession of writing has a long history of substance abuse, whether it being Jack Kerouac, Earnest Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson, or hundreds of others.  And more than a few people assume that being a writer means, as if by default, a certain level of consumption.  But at least in my case, it isn’t so.

I don’t look down on people who consume.  I don’t think that I’m better somehow.  I just don’t understand the appeal.  And as I research rehab and detox, I realize I really don’t want to understand appeal either.

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Blog 2013

Week Off

Posted on by Robert V Aldrich

I live my life in twelve-week cycles.

I train and work hard for twelve weeks, and then I take one week off.  During that time, I do not write, exercise, and am far less strict about my diet.  I turn off my alarm clock and wake up naturally and I go to bed as I wish, rather than adhering to a schedule.  It’s pretty fun.  And the benefit of it – aside from the obvious – is that when it’s time for me to return to my regiment schedule, I am hungry to do so because living so carefree doesn’t suit me.

As both a creative professional and a pretty serious athlete (or at least I like to think so), I think there’s a benefit to completely throwing it all away for more than a few days at a time.  Weekends are great but you can only do so much decompression and recovery (both mental and physical) in two days.  Having a full week off where one doesn’t work, it allows you to fully recharge.

The trick, I think, is to staying on this ‘I ain’t doing nothing’ lifestyle until you start to get bored.  For me, that takes about four days.  Around about Wednesday night or Thursday, I’m starting to get antsy.  I get restless.  My mind begins to bubble over with story ideas and scenes and clever concepts waiting to be put to the page.  And I start getting hyper-active, ready to get out and do something.  By Saturday, I’m anxiously awaiting the coming week, the coming start of the new cycle.

Having this week off has other benefits as well.  It helps you define success with greater clarity.  Living in these twelve-week cycles makes it easy to set medium-term goals.  “In this twelve-weeks”, I might say, “I’m going to write a full book, six short stories, four essays, publish two articles, and prepare two convention presentations/panels”.  And by having a clearly defined start date and end date, I know how to further breakup my tasks for easier accomplishment.  But I also have a period when I call it.  I have a date where, after this, I stop.  I no longer work on this book, I no longer push to get this article published.  If it didn’t happen in this twelve weeks (barring a few extenuating circumstances), I drop it and move on.

And that clean slate every three months is intensely valuable.  During that week off, I am able to let go of all the baggage and issues and static that’s built up.  I’m able to clear my head and let go of everything that was unnecessary.  So that way, on Day One of the new cycle, I am focused and eager, with clearly defined goals and a timetable for achieving them.

And that’s where I am.  Day Two of my week off.  It is restful.  It is relaxing.  And I had candy bars for breakfast.

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