Introverts with ADD Get Lonley Too

The Rule: Introverts never get lonely.

The office is quiet today. A little too quiet. It's dark, the halls are empty and no one is in their office... except me. I have a good idea where everybody is. They are working, or playing I don't know the difference, in the new studio. It's a great environment to work in. Your best buddies by your side, side conversations buzzing about the center of the room. Food packed high. There is laughter, joy and solidarity. Ministry walls are coming down at the Newsong staff. Great! But not for us poor introverts with ADD. We need walls so when we work we don't see that YouTube being watched at the work station next us. Or the flood of people gathering at the center of the room leaning back in their chairs, rubbing their bellies, laughing at a joke I just missed because I was distracted at my workstation from a joke at the center of the room. Some people can work great in such conditions. I can't. I must be by myself.

Of course that hurts, but that is my fault and problem. How does an introvert find the balance between social affirmation and solitude? I am still trying to figure that one out.

Writing a daily blog and a book forces me to be isolated more than I am used to. I have to be in conversation with myself more frequently than I have ever been. What I have discovered in this process is:

1. I am a boring guy. I have being hearing myself talk within the contexts of prolific writing for over a month now and I am getting bored of my voice.
2. I am deeply cynical with a bruised heart. My main character has dark, malicious thoughts towards other characters. He is deeply wounded- I think more wounded than any child in most Young Adult books.
3. I am lonely. I have denied adventures, and social gatherings for the sake of my art. I feel like I am fasting from normalcy, but I want to keep going because I know this feeling is normal in writers. I must seek God in this or I'll end up like Hemingway.

Someone once said the greatest journey a hero can take is self-discovery. I am seeing this as I go deeper and deeper into my subconscious. I am pulling away 20 year old scabs, digging through dingy dreams every night, and swatting at irritability and anger at every moment. Where is the holy spirit in this art? Writing is the most freeing enterprise I can think of, but it certainly confines you into your soul, where one is constantly looking at its nastiness. The difficult part is using this gruesome spectacle to create something of meaning and of beauty.

I am thankful for how God created me. I am thankful that he gave me the heart of a writer. I wouldn't change it for any other craft. It gives me joy when at the same time it makes me sad and lonely.

God be praised (I am serious).

Turn off Your Lights

The Rule: You Always Need Ample Light to See Where you Are Going

Last night, riding Santiago Truck Trail, I experiences something rather thrilling and interesting. When I reached the end of the trail, 7 miles deep, darkness was quickly approaching and my light didn't have enough battery power to last me the entire ride back to the safety of my car. So I did what any reckless, yet sensible (I know sounds like a oxymoron) mountain biker would do: ride as long as you can without light.

Eventually it became so dark all I could see was a faint white line on the trail made from the tread of hundreds of mountain bikers before me. My tire would leap off of hidden bumps and drop into dark ruts without any warning. Off the side of the trail down far below, I saw the entire Orange County aglow waking up from its diurnal slumber. A gorgeous view. This all led to a fun and exhilarating adventure that I survived, minus a few scratched. If I played it safe than it wouldn't have been as exciting.

As I was racing through the darkness last night I asked myself how this could be just like my writing, or anything else in life. Than I thought to myself, we don't always need to see where we are going in life. We don't need to have the path fully illuminated with plans, strategies and outlines are orchestrated. Art, particularly writing, is extremely messy work that requires a lot of blind faith, and most importantly it requires a sense of taking it one step at a time. To expect your art to come together like an Ikea instruction manual, than it's not art, it's safe, and art is not safe.

If you are willing to be unadventurous and play it safe, than that is what your art will look like. For a writer, if there isn't an element of discovery, of fresh insights and gutsy literary moves, than you are writing something mass produced. How are you to lead your reader into a journey that they have already been down. You eat one In and Out Burger you have eaten them all. A way to avoid that is to turn off the lights, or creative crutches that helps you play it safe.

What are your creative lights? Mine would be to follow someone's example of plot development, especially found in books. Or maybe its the idea of trying to outline every detail of a story before even writing the story, and sticking to it like God etched it in stone with his pinky. In music, it could be playing very similar chord changes with the same vocal pitch and tempo. A huge creative crutch most artists have is the denying of others to speak into their art. You may feel what you have created is wonderful, so you don't show anyone. Whatever it is that you feel safe in, try pushing it to another level. Your art and audience will thank you for it.

Turn off your lights, feel the art underneath you, take a chance and explore senses you know you didn't have. See your music dance off the guitar and swirl about in the air until it lands on an ear, feel your words swirl in your mouth, drip on the page and smeared on someone's chest, hear your painting lament with dark sadness, rejoice with bright pomp or even hear the colors of your kitchen sizzle with bacon and baking cinnamon rolls from days long lost in memory.

When you do this, something original and wonderful will come through and your audience with follow you along the way through the darkest parts.

Don't Trust your First Born

The Rule: The majority of a published content was from the writer's first attempt.

Writers don't write, they rewrite, rewrite, rewrite and edit. I justed concluded a 2 hour writing session and read my work and it was terrible. So I rewrote it that took another 1 hour, and then I read it again, and sure enough it still didn't look good at all.

For now, I put it aside for the night in utter frustration and a little rest. It is times like these I doubt I am meant for my craft. But, I will not let this upset hold me back. I choose to keep fighting, keep tuning my story, and improving my art.

This is what separates armatures and the common enthusiast from professionals. Professionals bludgeon their words until the bloody pulp turns into something beautiful- a rather impossible feat.

I choose to rewrite, and rewrite and fight the idea that I am a terrible writer. I am not. First creations cannot be perfect.

Giant Squids, Intersteller Volcanoes and Uncharted Jungles

The Rule: Humans are the central source of God's joy.

Why is it that God created millions of galaxies, uncharted jungles, volcanoes gloriously erupting on the moons of Saturn, and giant squids gracefully swimming the deepest darkest regions of the ocean? Is it because God want humans to explore? Not entirely. That is extremely presumptuous and prideful to think that humans are the reason for all of the hidden secrets of the universe. No. God makes what is known, unknown and very little known, for his joy. God is too big. God loves too much. God is too wonderful for him to find only joy in us. Of course he loves us so much he died for humanity.

God takes delight in something even if humans are unaware of it. Think of the grand canyon before the native Americans discovered it. God delighted in it before human eyes had ever seen it. It wasn't built and waited for humans.

There is more to this life than just us and our own happiness.

Glorifying God

The Rule: The only way to glorify God is in a Christian setting.

How can art glorify God when His name or themes are not even mentioned? Does Vincent Van Go's Starry Night glorify God? How about Arthur Miller's tragic play Death if a Salesman? What about the horrific glimpse into drug usage in the film Requiem for a Dream? None of these hold any ideas of God, so were they glorifying God? If not then did they serve no purpose?

Some would say, no. I for one give an enthusiastic "yes!" There is inspiration in art. And when God's goodness and gentleness is completely removed from the subjects, the audience observes the horrors of what life is without Him. That is a paradox: God is being glorified through His absence. No matter what, God will get what's coming to Him.

The Whitewater

The Rule: There is a trick to getting beyond creative adversity.

I stepped into the beach water at 630am this morning unaware of the extreme difficulty of paddling out before me. With my surf buddy by my side, we set forth. A good 4 foot whitewater charged at us, knocking us back towards the beach and further away from our objective- the lineup. We gain composure and keep paddling only to find another one rolling our way. This went on for 15 more minutes. Plus there were tons of surfers catching the waves ahead of us and paddling back out with what we perceived as ease. That aggravated me and I felt cheated by the ocean.

Eventually my friend turned around and looked at me and said, "I can't do this."
I said, "yes you can."
In response he said "then what's the trick?"

I didn't know what to tell him, but stay positive, and keep pushing. He made it to the lineup before me.

I don't think there is a trick to adversity. It's just pure arm burning, headache inducing, hemorrhoid forming perseverance. The more you are creative, the creative flow loosens, but when you are face to face, fist to fist with your work in progress, resistance is there to fight you back. There is no way around it.

I remember sitting in a library, eyes gazing over the busy bodies hunched over in their studies, struggling to generate a single productive thought towards my story. I couldn't. So I put my pen to my paper and just wrote. Eventually the ideas came to me, but it was a challenge. But two hours later I came up with three pages of good stuff.

It is easy to get disappointed. Here the rest of the world is writing up a storm on a daily basis, displaying beautiful paintings weekly, gorgeous movies released as fast as a sitcom, and here I am sweating at my keyboard, eyes burning and brain aching and all I can produce is dribble. But I have to keep pushing. Even the greatest artists, the greatest surfers had to push through the same opposition.

Maybe there is a trick after all. It is to keep going. Don't stop. Stay positive, even when it hurts so bad.

Listen to what people say is the trick to overcoming creative blocks, but don't hold them to be entirely true- including myself.

Bullets, Posion, Daggers and Nails

The Rule: Good leadership doesn't have consequences.

Bullets, daggers, poisons and in some cases nails entering any leader's body says a lot about the quality of his leadership.

To be assassinated is either a tremendous complement or utter defeat. No one has ever been killed due to mediocre leadership. An assassin's' bullet never makes its way into a leader if the leader has not forged new grounds.

No leader wants to die by an assassin's hand They would much rather die in their sleep in a quiet room covered by cool colors of a summer's evening and a warm breeze gently caressing them, not by coughing up blood with their brains leaking out of their skull.

Leaders want easy lives, but that is not possible. A life of a leader is brutally painful with assassins lurking around every cubicle, hiding behind lurking eyes at a staff meeting, two clicks away from a gut piercing email aimed right at him. Leaders have to take hits that many below them cannot do.

Leaders must dodge the arrows, block the swinging daggers and shun the poison goblet. But not every leader is quick, smart or clever enough to do these things. Sometimes the weapon penetrates the skin. In this case a thick skin is needed.

Gossip, slander and harsh criticism lurks in the hearts of all assassins. This is their weapon of choice. The scary part of it is that all can be recruited into the assassin's camp.
Many a leader's assassin doesn't even know they are smiting them. Their warfare is subtle and even subconscious. The assassins could even be leaders themselves, bloody from the battles they have fought and lost. They limp, and snarl with lips of disgust and frustration over the leader's choices. Generally, a wounded solider or patriot is the cause.

So if you are a leader and are not facing any opposition, hardship or assassination attempts maybe you are mediocre and boring. If you are facing these things you have to ask yourself, what type of leader are you: an Abe Lincoln or a Nero. The difference is Nero wasn't strong enough to lead through the turmoil. Instead he let it eat at him and digest his soul until he slit his own throat. Despite opposition and extreme hatred, Lincoln stood through it all. The death came from the outside. As much as we want to be Lincolns, each leader has a little Nero inside him: after a string of mistakes we tend to be our own assassin.

As leaders let's take the hits others throw at us, and disregard our own.