“Life changes fast.

Life changes in the instant.

You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.

The question of self-pity.”

~ Joan Didion

Someone I never met died today. But this post isn’t about his death. It’s about the way he lived.

Time. It’s our only finite resource. Annie Dillard once wrote, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.”

But most of us don’t pay attention to how we spend our time. We walk through the world blinded and numb. We live too much in the past or future, rarely in the present. It is in this way, that we miss our lives.

And yet, there are those among us who either through tragic misfortune or earned enlightenment, seize upon life. We might call them dreamers and doers, or visionaries and believers…we watch them from a far, marveling at their energy and passion. We orbit them, hoping to catch some of their fire. We recognize in them a quality that we yearn and long for in ourselves.

They are awake in the world.

It is with great sadness that I mourn the passing of Zach Sobiech. But I also envy him. His time may have been short, but he lived every moment.

PHOTO BY J. Dunn Photography

I chased a man down Walnut tonight…thinking he was someone else. The truth, I stopped myself mid-chase. This is crazy. It couldn’t possibly be who you think. I never got close enough to find out.

You know how when you know someone – really know someone – you could spot their walk and pick them out of a crowd of thousands? Even millions? Just by their cadence or the way they hold their head or a hundred other seemingly inconsequential details? But still…it couldn’t have been.

Toby and I had dinner at Sherpa’s tonight. Sorta a farewell and Happy 38th Birthday all rolled into one. He’s off to train more and get ready for the biggest adventure of his life – Climbing Mount Everest next summer. I’m really proud of him. And inspired. Even more so now, knowing what I know about his path.

This was the first time I’d ever eaten at Sherpa’s in the summertime. I didn’t even realize that they had an outdoor patio. And it’s lovely. Birdhouses and bells adorn the trees – some made of metal, some of wood. And the light – the light makes you feel like you’re some place else entirely. Some place mystical where fairies live and things like deadlines and phone bills don’t exist. One of those places where time stops.

We talked a lot about fear. How to conquer it. How to live with it. How things like fear and anxiety can both paralyze us and push us forward. And we talked about loss. Grief. How as Joan Didion would say – things change fast. Things change in the ordinary instant. And how sometimes what we need more than anything is the ordinary.

We talked past both our bedtimes. But it was the kind of talk that’s worth missing sleep over.

I’m planning to climb Mount Kilimanjaro with Toby one day. I’ve already added it to my list, so that means it’s absolutely going to happen. Until then, I plan to be inspired by his life – and his words above (click on them…no really do it).

And on those rare occasions when I find myself chasing ghosts – I’ll remember to stop running, step back and embrace my magically ordinary life.

The person I would most like to meet before I die…or before she dies…or before it’s too late once said:

“We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4am of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.”
~Joan Didion

Several years ago now (gosh has it been that long), I blank slated this site. One morning I just woke up and erased everything. Poof.

I justified this by saying (to those of you who asked), that upon reading through my old posts and articles that I wasn’t that person anymore. I had grown. Changed. Evolved. And I didn’t want a record online of the person I “used” to be.

Now before you start calling me naive, or asserting that people rarely change that much, let me state for the record that I am absolutely, unequivocally a different person. Both then, and yes, even now.

As I work more consistently and deeply on COAZDN, I find that I can’t help but return to those early archives (now set to draft status) as I attempt to revisit the person I was then. To try and make sense of why I did the things I did, and to better explain my motivations and describe my actions in some cohesive manner.

I also find myself turning to old notebooks and files with writing exercises. Things I’d hastily written in 10 minutes or less, and then tossed away with no intention of revisiting.

Like this short timed exercise I wrote about Shelley’s murder:

I’m reading a book on acting, and in the beginning the acting teacher tells a Zen Koan that I know well. I call it “Overflowing Tea”. Only he doesn’t tell it the way I would tell it or the way I’ve most often heard it told.

I comment to a friend: “This book started with the teacher telling his class the zen koan of overflowing tea. Except he told it wrong. And for a moment I lost trust and confidence. But then I thought maybe the writer got the teachers words wrong. Benefit of the doubt right?”

Do you see all the emphasis I seem to place on “right” and “wrong”? My thinking mind is working overtime to try and make things neatly fit my own preconceived notions.

S and I used to always repeat to one another, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”. Shakespeare via Hamlet. What a genius.

There is the “thing” – and then there is the meaning we bring to the “thing”. Right. Wrong. Good. Bad. Perfect. Imperfect. In our quest to make the pieces fit, we often fail to see what truly is.

So I will tell you this Zen Koan the way I know it best. And then I will tell it to you again, the way others know it. Neither is right or wrong. They both simply are.

The student arrives seeking wisdom.

The serious student, his head filled with questions, is annoyed and becomes more and more frustrated when his teacher refuses to answer his questions.

“Pour me a cup of tea,” the monk eventually says, “and I will tell you when to stop.” The dutiful student starts pouring the tea—and pouring and pouring the tea. The bowl fills and he is horrified, watching as the tea finally spills out of the cup and over everything. Exasperated, the student finds the courage to speak.

“Can’t you see the cup is full? It can hold no more!”

“And so it is with you,” the wise teacher answers. “Your mind is full of too many things. Only when you are empty will there be room for more knowledge to come in.”

And Again…

“Once there was a student who desperately wanted to learn about Zen. So he approached the house of a great Zen master. The master, in a moment of uncharacteristic graciousness, invited the student inside.

“They sat down to tea and the master asked the student, ‘Why have you come?’ The student opened his mouth and started to babble. A torrent of words poured forth: testaments to his immense curiosity, his passion, his understanding and confusion regarding Zen. On and on the student talked. The master blinked, then set to work making tea. He set out cups, ground the tea leaves, and boiled water while the student kept talking.

“The young man only shut his mouth when the master started to pour the tea. The old man filled the student’s cup until the tea reached the brim and overflowed, running all over the table, scalding hot. ‘My God!’ cried the student. ‘What have you done?’

“The old man stopped pouring and said, ‘Your mind is like this cup of tea. How can I put anything in it when it’s already full? If you wish to learn Zen, you must bring me an empty cup.’”

Do you see the subtle but to my “thinking” mind important difference? In one version of the story, the student is pouring the tea. In the other the master is the one pouring…And yet in both, the moral is the same. “To begin with an Empty Mind. To Begin at Beginner’s Mind”.

You could argue that since we end up in the same place in the end, it really makes no difference who is pouring the tea.

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”

“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

Think less. Listen More. Be an Empty Cup. Forget About Who Is Doing the Pouring.

Suzuki Roshi said, “In the Beginner’s Mind there are many possibilities, in the Expert’s Mind there are few”.

Last night as I sat in the black chairs on the black wooden platform above the flat black stage at my very first acting class, I realized how open I was to this new experience. As cliche would have it, what I know about acting would barely fill up a postage stamp. It turns out, this is a very good thing. If I had had any clue how hard this class would be, I never would have shown up in the first place.

We started with a memorization exercise. The trick, to memorize the lines in 20 minutes and repeat them verbatim from “center stage” without acting. I was Jennifer. And these were my lines:

You’re right you hypocritical son of a bitch. It’s just another day at the fucking office! It’s another day watching helpless little children, most under the age of five, slowly whither away to tiny corpses as their insides literally feel like they are exploding. Have you ever had food poisoning, Mr. Crowe, where you cramp so bad you can barely breathe? You want to know why I seem so hardened? Because I go to bed many nights crying myself to sleep. There comes a point when I can’t cry anymore, where my stomach aches, and all I can do is vomit. Why are you here? Did you need some sort of purpose in your life Mr Crowe? Did you get tired of the high dollar hookers and the endless parties? You thought you’d come save some poor little African girl, but you didn’t think you’d find this, did you? This is a little more than you expected. Isn’t it?

Tough stuff. Especially for a chronically “nice girl” like me. The truth is, I didn’t realize until last night just how damn nice I can be sometimes. It’s sickening really. But I digress.

I got most of the lines right, but I brought too much style and personality to the delivery. I was acting a part instead of blandly reciting the words (as the exercise had called for). But as I took my seat back on the black platform, all the tension drained from my body and I sighed in relief. Phew. The worst part was over…right?

Wrong. Of course. The worst part hadn’t even begun yet.

Next we pulled from the techniques of Michael Chekhov, doing a variety of exercises designed to discover the physical core of a character. We also played an amusing game of Zip, Zap, Zop.

Stuff got real when we started one of Sanford Meisner’s foundational exercises called Repetition. This was the point when I started looking for the nearest exit. What I was witnessing was real. These people (most of them working actors) weren’t afraid of being who they are. They weren’t afraid to touch those tender spots inside themselves. They weren’t scared to go to that dark place we all ardently hide – and upon arriving – share it openly with the world. They got angry and sad and frustrated and joyously happy. One cathartic moment after another, the room was enveloped in a curious energy.

And then it was my turn.

And the room went flat. I was so guarded. I was so nice. I was so sickeningly sweet. I refused to do anything but scratch the surface of who I was…of who the other person was. I held back so much they were squirming in their seats.

Which is why I’m going back again. And I’m gonna keep going back until I can break through all my nice and get to that deep dark place – and maybe even bring a little of that deep dark place back into my work.

Acting is hard. It’s more than just technique or voice or movement. At it’s core, it’s about connecting deeply with yourself so that you can in turn connect deeply with others. In this way, it reminds me a lot of both writing and meditation. The good news, I have a life time to practice.

Until today I’d never heard of James Salter. He’s an American Novelist – the kind of novelist whose prose will stop you in your tracks. His writing is succinct and reminiscent of Hemingway. For those of you who know me and my love of 20th Century American Literature, you’ll know that I don’t make such comparisons lightly.

Salter is a careful writer. Writing his manuscripts first by hand, then typing and retyping. He says, “I’m a frotteur, someone who likes to rub words in his hand, to turn them around and feel them, to wonder if that really is the best word possible.”

But what caught me are his thoughts on Fiction. Salter doesn’t believe that Fiction is imaginary. Sure, some things might be made up – but for him good writing is about capturing the true story (even if it’s embellished, deconstructed, or disordered). One of the reasons I’ve never written Fiction is because every time I try – all I can write is the truth. No matter how much I try to mask or alter my characters – they are always some version of me or those closest to me. I’ve only ever been able to write what I know.

And then Salter says something that startles me – he says, “There comes a time in life when you realize that everything is a Dream. Only those things that have been written down have any possibility of being real. That’s all that exists in the end. What’s been written down”

Sometimes when I’m reading back through old posts in my archive, I experience that very thing. I find myself remembering both the truth of the moment and the dreams I’ve written down – the dreams that are really just mirrored reflections of the truth. And the dreams are always more real to me – even if the picture I’ve painted of those moments is slightly generous or in-genuine or overly hopeful. And of all the moments, all the memories in my life, the ones that are most real to me are the ones I took the time to write down. Whether I am completely accurate or deliberately charitable in my re-telling – they are (and forever will be) my truth.

I can’t tell you how good it feels to have a blog again. A place to put all these thoughts that are rattling around in my head that just don’t belong on Boulder Life or Divine Caroline or Medium. The thoughts that are just too personal and raw and naked.

I had a conversation about competency today. And how when we build up our skills in a certain area (whether related to business, fitness, relationships, etc), when we build up core competencies – we gain courage and confidence. Recently I started hiking with a friend who is an “expert” hiker. He even used to be a guide. He probably invited me hiking a half dozen times before I finally committed and said yes. I hesitated because I was scared that I wouldn’t be “good enough”. That I would slow him down and ruin his experience.

But that’s not what happened at all. Our first hike, we went up Chautauqua to Realization Point (trust me – the irony is not lost). And it was tough. There was still a fair amount of snow on the ground and even with the Yak Trax on my shoes, I spent a lot of time worrying about my footing. Scared I would slip and fall down a ravine. Or twist an ankle. Or fall face first into the snow. And while all this anxious dialogue was going on in my head – outwardly I was pretty confident. Somehow I managed the full hike without so much as a stumble. I even refused help a time or two saying, “No…I can do it myself”.

On our second hike I hardly thought about my footing at all. Sure…it was still tough…but without all that worry and anxiety needlessly taking up space in my brain…I settled in to the experience. Which made me think about the first time I practiced Oryoki.

In Zen, Oryoki is a formal meditative eating practice. The word actually means “Just Enough”. Traditionally a monk will take his empty bowl out with him and whatever is placed in the bowl will be his nourishment for that day. But during Sesshin, Oryoki is more like a choreographed dance with countless steps and lots of opportunities to miss your footing.

During my first Oryoki, I was so worried that I would mess up – that I would spill something, or drop something, or do everything out of order. My mind was constipated with worry. As they brought the food around and we were served it was like someone had suddenly hit the fast-forward button. Everyone around me seemed to be eating so quickly. Were they even chewing? How could anyone eat that quickly? And once they’d eaten, they were cleaning their bowls. This too at lightening speeds. And then they were sitting. Waiting for me to finish. Waiting for me to catch up.

I felt embarrassed and ashamed. But most of all I felt exposed. Clearly I wasn’t worthy to sit among these “Masters” of the Oryoki tradition. Maybe I would never be good enough?

But my second Oryoki was different. I knew enough of the steps that I was able to quiet some of the voices in my head. And do you know what happened? Well…it turns out that without all that noise – without all those questions in my head – time slowed down. People were actually eating at normal speeds. The perception I’d held before that they were racing to finish – vanished.

I had never until that moment understood the tremendous power of the mind to alter our reality. To speed up or slow down time. To make us feel exposed and judged, when in reality we are surrounded by compassion.

Zen Teachers say things like “When you eat do nothing but eat. When you work do nothing but work.” They instruct you to bring your full attention to the tasks at hand. It is in this way that we settle in.

Turns out, the same wisdom applies to hiking. To be sure-footed…when you hike, do nothing but hike.

As someone who is naturally introspective and frequently searching for ways to improve my personal patterns and paradigms, I feel I owe a debt of gratitude to the Greek Philosophers like Socrates and Plato for their profound insight into the nature of man. With this maxim in mind I’ll be spending the Month of May taking a closer look at Life Metrics, tracking everything from how much I sleep, to the nutrients I consume, to the number of steps I take each day.

What I Plan To Track

I’ve chosen the following 10 Personal Metrics to Track this month:

1. Sleep (Jawbone Up)
2. Exercise (Jawbone Up, Nike+)
3. Mood (Jawbone Up, 750Words.com, Happier)
4. Meditation (Equanimity App)
5. Nutrition (Jawbone Up)
6. Writing (750Words.com)
7. Productivity (RescueTime, 42Goals)
8. Books/Blogs Read (Feedly, 42Goals)
9. Steps (Jawbone Up)
10. Water (Jawbone Up)

If you have any recommendations for other apps for tracking personal metrics – especially apps that aggregate data from other apps like TicTrac – I’d love to hear more.

Just Do The Work

I finally get it. Growing up I believed that what separated those who succeed from those who fail and die alone was talent (with lots of intelligence thrown in for good measure).

I grew up talented. And smart. This isn’t just my opinion. From an early age I was shuffled from one gifted and talented program to another. I was in the coveted RED reading group. My elementary school teachers would brag to my Mother that I was a joy to have in class, always helping the less fortunate students learn how to read or memorize their numbers. By High School I was winning awards at the state and national level in Science, History and even Mathematics. Every class I took had a label that implied I was special – one of the chosen few. Honors. GT. AP. I was on various academic teams – competing in Academic Octathlons, Decathlons, Science Olympiad (yes – this really exists), National History Day and more.

And while I had every advantage – I didn’t grow up to be as successful as everyone believed I would be. It’s taken me the last couple of years to figure out why so many of my friends are millionaires and even billionaires by now, and I’m still barely making six-figures (and yes…I know that’s a lot of money to most people). I’m just not where I thought I would be.

Talent Is Over-rated

The answer. Talent is over-rated. Intelligence is over-rated. Being talented and intelligent is just not enough.

I won’t spend too much time explaining the why behind this. If you’re curious Malcolm Gladwell wrote an entire book about the talent myth called Outliers.

What matters infinitesimally more than having talent or smarts – is hard work, discipline, perseverance, and PRACTICE.

Success = Doing The Work

Many of my friends are writers. Some are good writers. Some are great writers. Some are dabblers.

The good writers write often. Not every day – but they know that if they want to get better they must keep writing. Over time, the good writers realize one of two things:

1. They love writing and they are ready to commit their lives to their work.
2. Writing is a nice hobby, but they aren’t cut out for the writing life.

The dabblers write when inspiration or the muse strikes them. Often they have talent – and the work they produce is better than average. They love the idea of writing – of living the writing life. But when it comes down to it – they fail to commit to the writing path. And so their work is scant and inconsistent.

The great writers don’t worry about waiting for inspiration or the muse. For them, writing is serious. They sit down every day and they write. Some days they write crap. Other days they write crushing poetic prose. But no matter what – they keep writing. They are committed. They know that talent and intelligence can never take them where hard work and discipline will.

My friend Victor told me a story once about the time he met Louis L’Amour at a bar and asked him his advice – one writer to another. L’Amour told him that the secret to writing was to sit down and write. It’s the easiest and the hardest thing in the world to do. He went on to say that throughout his career he’d had several occasions to meet celebrities and go to fancy parties…but he knew that the work was more important. So he stayed home to write.

“John Wayne was in 3 of my movies and I’ve had many opportunities to meet him…but I never have…cause my writing came first”. ~Louis L’Amour

I’m paraphrasing that a bit – I’m sure Victor would tell the story differently.

While staying with Victor at his compound in Oceanside he gave me the same advice. Having now gone on to write several books himself – including a best-seller and two Pulitzer nominations – Victor would admonish me over and over again to stop wasting time and write. Just write.

It’s been over a year since the last time I saw Victor. But in the last 3 months I’ve started to take his advice to heart. I’ve stopped worrying about whether I’ll ever write anything good or not. I’ve stopped worrying about what it means to be a writer – I’ve stopped lusting after the payoffs and fallen in love with the process.

I have some raw talent and I’m smart, but it’s like we always say in the Startup world – “Ideas are great. Ideas are beautiful. But ideas are worthless. It’s 100% in the execution.”

So get out there and Do The Work.

Then I remember the words of Katagiri Roshi, “Continue under all circumstances”. We live in a society where it’s become too easy to give up. To stop mid-stream or just steps away from certain greatness (or in this case certain death defying terror). Some people blame television with it’s 30 minute sitcoms and constant commercial breaks, or video games or the internet. But it could just as easily be food or jogging or anti-depressant medications. There are simply too many ways we can distract ourselves from life. And because we haven’t learned to stay with our life as it is – we miss the signs showing us that we’re on the right path or the billboards showing us that we’re in for a bumpy ride and suggesting an alternate route. And so we wander, filled with anxiety and uncertainty – constantly wondering if we’re going the right way. Wondering if there isn’t a better life waiting for us on some other trail. One that requires less work and less effort.

But the answer is always the same. Whether we’re on the right path or we’ve taken a detour: “Continue under all circumstances.” And when we continue something extraordinary happens – we become less anxious – we become comfortable with uncertainty and fear – we start to really see life as it is…and not as we wish it could be. And it’s only from this vantage point that we can discover our true path. The one we’ve spent most of our lives running away from. Only then can we commit to our lives.

-E

P.S. Tomorrow I will definitely jump – whether I want to or not. I’ve made a commitment and I plan to see it through. I might love the adrenaline rush or I might hate it. Either way – it’s likely I’ll live to tell about it.