5 ms·

Letter of Recommendation: Digging a Trench

67 points by js2 8y ago

ggm 8y ago
In praise of CBT. By doing, feeling becomes meaning.
- AnthonBerg 8y ago
  Yes!! Thank you! I’ve been fumbling with trying to put that thought into a form as succinct as that.
  - ggm 8y ago
    I think other koans could be better. Nice game to play reducing acronyms down to short non acronymic description. Maybe it's doing through meaning becomes being?
    - AnthonBerg 8y ago
      Yes, nice game. The first koan resonated more with me :) However I see beauty in that “be” is there twice in the second one. If we prune the second, we get: Doing through meaning becomes. That’s not full capture of the thing. I think this might be closer: “Meaning through doing becomes.” It’s a little stilted and unnatural, but to me it indicates a loop, which is a life mechanism or pattern which CBT has pointed me towards.
mcnichol 8y ago
Wow, so well written. I really enjoyed that!
- NotSammyHagar 8y ago
  A real writer. I've never been able to achieve something so... fluid, complete, interesting.
mirimir 8y ago
Yes, very Zen. And good exercise, if you're young enough. But me, I'd have just found the shutoff valve for the sprinkler system. And actually, something like that happened to me. We'd bought this very old house. With an electrical box that had evolved since ~1900. It met code, but was a rat's nest. So we hired an electrician to bring order. Long story short, we found a circuit that led to an old iron pipe, which had supplied a long-gone outbuilding. The circuit hadn't shorted out, but the pipe was so rusted out that the circuit drew ~5A whenever it rained. Edit: spelling
- mirimir 8y ago
  Belated edit: It looks like Bring Out the Dog is a must read.
bonoboTP 8y ago
This is probably deep and profound, but I'm not advanced enough to get the point. Guy found some leakage of water in his backyard, went digging around to find the source and meanwhile had some existential epiphanies of epic scale.
- magpi3 8y ago
  With writing like this, I think trying to "get the point" is... missing the point for lack of a better expression. For me the question is simply does this piece make you feel something or not? A piece like this invites the reader to make their own connection to what the narrator is experiencing, and if a reader doesn't make that connection then that is okay, and it certainly does not mean that the reader is in any way less "advanced."
  - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
    I used to think that writing or storytelling that “doesn’t have a point,” so to speak, was more profound or enduring, but later in life I no longer feel this way and have come to regard the modern trend to create film and written artwork like this as a mistake. Maybe it goes in cycles? If society is prepccupied with formulaic narratives that stick to a tight setvof themes, then material written without a specific aim in terms of “a point” might help broaden discourse or generate discussion. But if society is already floundering around with aimless discussion in a lot of areas, with big conflicts in terms of the basic moral or ethical premises of the world, then writing succinct, direct stories that have a point may be more useful.
    - magpi3 8y ago
      > But if society is already floundering around with aimless discussion in a lot of areas, with big conflicts in terms of the basic moral or ethical premises of the world, then writing succinct, direct stories that have a point may be more useful. Maybe more useful, but I think purely utilitarian writing does less to broaden a reader's mind than more ambiguous writing that they have to struggle with. I know it did for me. But I understand what you are saying, and I too outgrew reading "challenging" novels because I feel like my mind has been broadened enough and also I feel like I just have less time (although maybe I am just getting older). I haven't read this essay in a while, but as I remember it Jonathen Franzen's essay "Perchance to dream" takes on this exact subject and is an excellent read. Regrettably it is not available online.
chrisweekly 8y ago
Lovely piece of writing.
true_tuna 8y ago
I did some car work yesterday. Struts, so nothing hard, just needed to put in the time. The next thing to do was always obvious. I don’t think I had a complex thought the whole time. I was just there. I came back to myself feeling like my mind was awakening from a long nap and my body had just done something difficult and wondrous without me. I felt more refreshed than I usually do after a vacation. I can think of no better reason to write than to share such feelings. To grant meaning to the effort, and share that meaning with others.

67 points by js2 8y ago

ggm 8y ago

In praise of CBT. By doing, feeling becomes meaning.

AnthonBerg 8y ago
Yes!! Thank you! I’ve been fumbling with trying to put that thought into a form as succinct as that.
- ggm 8y ago
  I think other koans could be better. Nice game to play reducing acronyms down to short non acronymic description. Maybe it's doing through meaning becomes being?
  - AnthonBerg 8y ago
    Yes, nice game. The first koan resonated more with me :) However I see beauty in that “be” is there twice in the second one. If we prune the second, we get: Doing through meaning becomes. That’s not full capture of the thing. I think this might be closer: “Meaning through doing becomes.” It’s a little stilted and unnatural, but to me it indicates a loop, which is a life mechanism or pattern which CBT has pointed me towards.

mcnichol 8y ago

Wow, so well written. I really enjoyed that!

NotSammyHagar 8y ago
A real writer. I've never been able to achieve something so... fluid, complete, interesting.

mirimir 8y ago

Yes, very Zen. And good exercise, if you're young enough. But me, I'd have just found the shutoff valve for the sprinkler system. And actually, something like that happened to me. We'd bought this very old house. With an electrical box that had evolved since ~1900. It met code, but was a rat's nest. So we hired an electrician to bring order. Long story short, we found a circuit that led to an old iron pipe, which had supplied a long-gone outbuilding. The circuit hadn't shorted out, but the pipe was so rusted out that the circuit drew ~5A whenever it rained. Edit: spelling

mirimir 8y ago
Belated edit: It looks like Bring Out the Dog is a must read.

bonoboTP 8y ago

This is probably deep and profound, but I'm not advanced enough to get the point. Guy found some leakage of water in his backyard, went digging around to find the source and meanwhile had some existential epiphanies of epic scale.

magpi3 8y ago
With writing like this, I think trying to "get the point" is... missing the point for lack of a better expression. For me the question is simply does this piece make you feel something or not? A piece like this invites the reader to make their own connection to what the narrator is experiencing, and if a reader doesn't make that connection then that is okay, and it certainly does not mean that the reader is in any way less "advanced."
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  I used to think that writing or storytelling that “doesn’t have a point,” so to speak, was more profound or enduring, but later in life I no longer feel this way and have come to regard the modern trend to create film and written artwork like this as a mistake. Maybe it goes in cycles? If society is prepccupied with formulaic narratives that stick to a tight setvof themes, then material written without a specific aim in terms of “a point” might help broaden discourse or generate discussion. But if society is already floundering around with aimless discussion in a lot of areas, with big conflicts in terms of the basic moral or ethical premises of the world, then writing succinct, direct stories that have a point may be more useful.
  - magpi3 8y ago
    > But if society is already floundering around with aimless discussion in a lot of areas, with big conflicts in terms of the basic moral or ethical premises of the world, then writing succinct, direct stories that have a point may be more useful. Maybe more useful, but I think purely utilitarian writing does less to broaden a reader's mind than more ambiguous writing that they have to struggle with. I know it did for me. But I understand what you are saying, and I too outgrew reading "challenging" novels because I feel like my mind has been broadened enough and also I feel like I just have less time (although maybe I am just getting older). I haven't read this essay in a while, but as I remember it Jonathen Franzen's essay "Perchance to dream" takes on this exact subject and is an excellent read. Regrettably it is not available online.

chrisweekly 8y ago

Lovely piece of writing.

true_tuna 8y ago

I did some car work yesterday. Struts, so nothing hard, just needed to put in the time. The next thing to do was always obvious. I don’t think I had a complex thought the whole time. I was just there. I came back to myself feeling like my mind was awakening from a long nap and my body had just done something difficult and wondrous without me. I felt more refreshed than I usually do after a vacation. I can think of no better reason to write than to share such feelings. To grant meaning to the effort, and share that meaning with others.