Dear Derek, (link)
Greetings from the Great Plains.
When you were asked why your famous successful peers didn’t give in to distractions, you said they stayed active because of “holding themselves in high regard.” To me, the flip side of that is not “normal regard,” it’s “low self esteem.”
Commentary
What society doesn’t talk about is “fear.” I remember one day in my early middle age, while in university and taking a “theory of algebra” course as “high school make up.” Some “home work”(self study) had to be done. So on the weekend, off I went to a donut shop, one with tables attached to round steel stools.
To prevent procrastination, I had a hack: I would not leave until I was totally finished. If you had seen me you might have thought I was happily involved in distractions. Or possibly, but unlikely, on that day I was doing sweet nothing —just so I wouldn’t accuse myself of escaping into distractions— rather than just get started.
In fact, not until that steel seat began getting awfully painful did I even begin. Not lazy. Afraid. (Or was it a subconscious death wish, or maybe the big Resistance? I’m sure my subconscious exists)
I am writing to say that if society doesn’t say “the f-word,” fear, then it’s easy for us to look and only see “distractions.”
As the flip side of fear, bravery, how about those young men in the pool hall? Supposedly “cool, brave and tough.” Not quite. Their sad lives have stress enough already, they aren’t about to add more by, say, taking up hiking or rock climbing. That’s why a government outdoor school for juveniles—with immediate consequences—is good for “character training.”
Somewhere between the donut shop and the pool hall are many folks like my relatives, whom I think have forgotten and suppressed their fear of life. I laughed when your artsy reply to a question about sloths ended, “…So yeah, those people should not be reading books. They should just be eating dinner and dying.”
Derek, in your early teens, you decided to beat the very heavy odds to become a full-time musician. No fear, no sloth. At that same age I had not much “high regard,” but at least I reduced my fearful sloth tendencies, by deciding: “Never lose hope, never do the “pool hall,” and always keep trying to make a good life.”
I succeeded—With no substance addiction, and no hobbling survivor guilt over my relatives who never made it. It took me years. At last I earned permission to enter university… and I graduated.
Sean Crawford …any comments?
