Clocks versus Demons: How do you work?

I'm investigating the boundary between work - what you do until you quit - and what Lewis Hyde in The Gift calls labor - what you do until it's finished. (Notice the change in pronouns). Recently, I've started writing projects with the intent to work on them for 45 minutes and then quit, only to discover that I'm so excited about writing that blog post or revising my next chapter that I'll finish it, no matter how long it takes. What changed?

Let's start with the baseline of boring old work. Often, when I'm working on something for a spell, I stop because my productivity peters out: either because doing the task is hard, or because knowing what to do next is hard. The "tipping point" when timed work becomes labor has do with conceptualizing my task in enough detail to know the sequence of actions to take. Suddenly, all I have to do is my task, and I can stop thinking about what to do or how to do it. It feels like I'm almost possessed by a plan. I give up to the goal. And the work gets done.

According to Stephen King's On Writing, Anthony Trollope wrote for exactly two and a half hours each morning before work - no more, no less (p 147). That's the clock approach. Being possessed by an idea is the demon approach. What is your preferred habit of working - clocks or demons?

What makes work meaningful?

Teresa Amabile is a psychologist at Harvard Business School. I heard her speak today, and she made the obvious-but-true point that making progress on meaningful work is one key to productivity and happiness at work. (See her TEDTalk).  That started me thinking on what constitutes meaningful work for me. I'd love to hear about what makes meaningful work for you! 

Meaningfulness for me can come from what I make: a story or a performance,  as compared to a dryer document like a report or an outline. Meaningfulness can come from how I make it: by creating, inventing, or synthesizing, rather than listing or analyzing. Meaningfulness can come from who I make it with: a report done with friends is infinitely more fun than one done alone.   

Meaningfulness for me combines what I call dry joy and wet joy. Dry joy includes feelings of thankfulness and gratitude, the intellectual sense of "I'm happy to be in this community doing in this work moving in this direction." Dry joy is an intellectual feeling of rightness. Wet joy is in-the -moment jubilation, the emotional IM from your amygdala saying: "I'm happy!" Find exactly the right word for your character, envision the arc of your plot, and this is what you feel. 

Writing and performing are two of the most meaningful activities for me. When I performed with world folk ensemble Northern Harmony, audience members clapped and smiled after our concerts (most of them, at least), and ran up to us afterwards to say "Thank you" in French, German, and Swedish. When I sang in college, an audience member once told us  "I felt a tsunami of emotion." It's this constant feed-back and emotional connection that can make performing so powerful. Writing is meaningful for me because I think most readers  appreciate being in the hands of a good writer. Stunning sentences make us stare at the ceiling. And remember how we devoured books as kids!    

I think about meaning in relation to potential summer job opportunities in environmental mediation and creative business consulting. Environmental mediation could be meaningful for me because I am "helping the environment" or "helping people solve problems". But this so abstract! I would need to a see a stream that is now clean, salmon that now run free, or people who now talk to each other to see the meaning in this work. 

I'm not sure if business consulting could be meaningful. In fact, it could be destructive of meaning and corruptive of morals, not to put too fine a point on it.  But could a creative process make consulting meaningful? Could a team of smart people? Could a call from a company CEO saying, "This changed my life?" Could the mere act of getting feedback on work - any work - make it meaningful because feedback enables growth and progress? Is that enough to transform a business consultant into more than a knee-jerk enabler of capitalism? I don't know. 

Question: The folks at the Good Work project have done a lot of work on meaningful work . What makes work meaningful for you?  

New gig!

It's been about a dozen songs and many stories since the last time I posted, but that just means you have more to look forward to.

I've a gig coming up - Nov 7, 6:15 - 6:45, All Asia Cafe in Cambridge, arranged by my wonderful musical friend Tali Freed. (Thanks Tali!) I'll be playing a bunch of originals. Here's the Facebook event, where you can find out about all the other cool musicians playing.

To whet your appetite, here's a new song. :)

Hope to see you there!

Integral

I am singing, 
I am still 
    singing. 
I am still, singing; 
    I am still. 
I am still singing! 
I am singing -- 
    still. 

I Love You, Wall

March 10, Hexham, UK

At Hadrian's wall today, I shed a tear of joy. For the voluminous blue sky, the gigantic wall's invitation to play within it, my happiness at having finally found the the promise of the tour fulfilled. But it was not just that -- it was perfect, complete contentment with myself and everything here.

Today was elusively the best day yet on tour, from the way our wonderful hosts Ruth and Mike at Lowlucken's hugged every last one of one us when we said goodbye, to this moment of lying among the high crags at sunset. 

Expectations

I’ve been feeling a little guilty about not posting here more regularly here, so I wanted to explain why. I thought I would have relatively constant internet access and time to write while on tour. Given the time we spend on the road, in rehearsal, and in the countryside, that hasn’t proved to be the case. I think I overpromised how often I was going to be able to write, and I'm sorry about that.  I want to correct whatever unrealistic expectations I may have set up for myself. I absolutely do want to share the great time I’m having, and to that end I’ve been writing, journaling, and taking tons of photos. But internet access and free time have been so sparse that I can never know if I’ll be able to post something or not. So, you can expect that, while I will post here as often as I am able, most of my sharing will happen after I get back – when I will love to talk to you, show you photos, tell you stories, in as close a form of communication as we can pull off. Sound good? Good! Now, on to the important stuff. Next chance you get, remind me to tell you about the concert in Hexham Abbey. It was wonderful, and I never knew I could feel so happy and sad at the same time.

Hide and Seek

On the road from Lowlucken's Organic Farm, March 10, 2010

We are all playing hide and seek with Real Life. We talk of jobs and appartments as if they were secrets, speaking in whispers so that it can't hear us. We respond to job postings on the sly.  We worry about What Next in moments stolen from our schedule, while tossing under our the covers, where we think it can't catch us. That is why we travel so much, piling quickly into the van, hurrying and stumbling over each other so that real life won't notice our departure. He has agents everywhere, in glasgow and across the UK. His network spans continents and his welldressed agents operates without remorse. We can't stay too long in any one place lest they catch us.

Most of us, if caught, would quiver. Would blanche and admit lingering insecurity and try to patch up the the accusation (spoken with the familiar jocularity of an old friend) that we had been avoiding it. But Mia would laugh. Over her two years off, she confides, while sapping and blacksmithing and milking sheep, she has earned not a handful of dollars. But she has earned milk, good goatsmilk, and according to Mia she would take goatsmilk over dollars any day. So Mia would laugh at real life's boned face in its  black cowl, and into it's hungrylooking fingers she would place a glass jar of fresh milk.

Me, I try to extend a friendly hand to real life even while trying to escape from it. Knowing that with his mutts nose and falcolns eyes he will track my trail eventually, i try to blackmail the blackmailer. I do dishes in hosts' houses, even when our hosts have a dishwasher. (Real life admires goid work and clean bowls). Laundry cures the blues, and sometimes I treat myself to a good dose of making sandwiches. I stuff three foiled bundles of pita, peanut butter, and apple slices into my backpack: sandwich security. Should real life come busting into our van, I will give him a sandwich, my offering, and he will not hurt me.