NY Times Article On "The Art of Not Trying" Spurs Thought Growth

I've been thinking about the concepts in the NY Times article A Meditation on the Art of Not Trying as a writer, particularly the sense that in crafting something as mind-boggling complex as a 400 page thriller with multiple perspectives, set convincingly in foreign locales, with correct stylistic/grammatical choices, and innovative plot--the best way to do this seems to be to free my mind, immerse myself in the moment and forget that I am doing "work" that took a lifetime of training to achieve. (Even during the revision stages, I wipe my mind clean a thousand times and look at the pages anew, with the eyes of the first-time reader)

"The advice is as maddening as it is inescapable. It’s the default prescription for any tense situation: a blind date, a speech, a job interview, the first dinner with the potential in-laws. Relax. Act natural. Just be yourself.

But when you’re nervous, how can you be yourself? How you can force yourself to relax? How can you try not to try?"

Interestingly, "wu wei" is a quality that some of the top live poker players that I have observed seem to have. Ivey, Danzer, Haxton , Jacobson. (Others like Smith, Kitai, Esfandiari, and Selbst seem to have a neurotic, compulsive strategy going, I'll have to think about this more). Negreanu is fairly unique, not sure how to characterize his style--annoy your opponent into revealing stuff?

I do know that in the 49 hour-continuous Ironman I was so tired I somehow "transcended" the tournament, started seeing things as they really were at the table, free of fear or self-consciousness. This was a particularly effective strategy in that particular tournament because it was so deep structured, the blinds never really came into play. In 99 percent of normal tournaments there is way more variance related to increasing blind levels, and one's mental strategy plays a correspondingly smaller role.

“Our culture is very good at pushing people to work hard or acquire particular technical skills,” Dr. Slingerland says. “But in many domains actual success requires the ability to transcend our training and relax completely into what we are doing, or simply forget ourselves as agents.”

Another aspect of this article that interests me is the part about wining and dining--that is of getting someone drunk, as an essential part of any business decision. This is super prevalent in Japan, where I taught English for five years, and very few major decisions are made without a long night at the izakaya. Corporate meetings can often be described as mere formality, or an in-depth sounding out (like the beginning stages of a deep stacked tournament) rather than as the venue for decisions to be finalized.

"Before signing a big deal, businesspeople often insist on getting to know potential partners at a boozy meal because alcohol makes it difficult to fake feelings. Neuroscientists have achieved the same effect in brain scanners by applying magnetic fields that suppress cognitive-control ability and in this way make it harder for people to tell convincing lies.

“Getting drunk is essentially an act of mental disarmament,” Dr. Slingerland writes. “In the same way that shaking right hands with someone assures them that you’re not holding a weapon, downing a few tequila shots is like checking your prefrontal cortex at the door. ‘See? No cognitive control. You can trust me.’ ”

This is also relates to something recently observed. A full month before I signed with my literary agent, I met with her (and an intern) for lunch and we polished off a bottle of wine and went through edits on the entire manuscript over four hours-- incidentally sounding each other out. I realize now that there is a definite method to this seeming madness. Although no money is exchanged until the agent sells the manuscript, the decision to take on a new client is not taken lightly. If something emerges in the preliminary interactions that indicates a poor fit, the offer will simply not be made and the contract never offered. You can argue that it should be the actual words on the page that sell themselves, but in today's personality driven age this is no longer the case.

So the conundrum comes down to the idea that success at the highest levels often involves forgetting your training, losing fear, immersing yourself in the totality of what is going on rather than preconceptions. Interviewing Brian Rast last month I asked him how he could steel his nerves in Big Game situations, with hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line and his reply was something surprisingly similar. Reminds me, I'll have to go back and make a podcast of that.

Progress Report

As a writer, the progress is in your head. Nothing is bought until everything is complete. No money is exchanged and thus there is no risk of losing integrity. Accomplish work as stunning in its technical breadth as setting up a completely new infrastructure, with stylistic flair and imagination, and get paid in––what? Promises, whisps of encouragement. 

And yet you are the author, no one else. And somehow that is enough, fair payment for daring to question Bob Dylan's adage "you've gotta serve somebody." Serve somebody? Nah. Serve a dream, an ideal. A pathway that only you can take but which can, with luck, bring everyone one step closer home.

Life Becomes Conveyance

No time for life, the waking hours
populated by frames, skeletons of sketches,
dreams, ideas, revisited memories

No time for life on this killing floor
of artistic creation––a job and hence
lifeless, talent unwound and tied to commerce



Escape to the ideal planet where
thoughts, dreams astound
where reality mirrors vision vexed



not constricted, no chains of status, belonging––
commerce, pride, cages and cages
we make for ourselves to hoard trinkets.

A 1963 "Miles Davis Sextet - John Coltrane Quartet" Poster Glimpsed

A Love Supreme. (40th anniversary). Davis, Rivers/Coleman, Hancock, Carter, Williams units. (also Supreme).

I wonder if anyone knows, who would have been the personnel in this early '63 Miles Davis sextet? Seems to me that it would have been George Coleman, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, and Tony Williams. An amazing and under appreciated unit that would come out with one of the most tremendous performances ever in early 1964 (Philharmonic Hall, New York, February 12th). Unless Davis had a guest alto saxophone player. Or maybe this was right before he settled on Williams and Carter, was still trying players out.

Wonder which show I would have liked to have seen most.. both musicians were pretty exploratory around this time. Coltrane was discovering multi-octave freedom, fast. Davis was fine-tuning the backbone of his second great quartet, arguably one of the most innovative in jazz history.

Would have been nice to have seen Coltrane team up with Davis for a couple reunion gigs. The closest we have to that vibe is the Davis' '64 shows in Tokyo, with fellow musical explorer Sam Rivers. (That is really enough––I enjoy Rivers' improv as much as Coltrane's). What emerged with Shorter in two short years would be yet another tremendous departure, which I am still exploring as a listener.

I wonder (regarding a Davis Coltrane reunion) were there factions of jazz by this time (63-64) that prevented free interflow of musicians? Was it pure economics––two supreme jazz musicians could not inhabit the same city or club at a time. Can you imagine them mixing it up? Hancock with Coltrane, Tyner with Davis. Eleven Jones and Tony Williams double uniting it on the skins. I think a large part of it was that Davis was still in an outwardly trad musical space, as compared with the free flowing Coltrane. Not in terms of musicianship or fluidity, but in that he had not bought into the Dolphy/Ornette abstractions that were starting to ascend. Even Rivers, who was brought in at fellow-Bostonian Williams' suggestion was a little too far out for him, although the contrast works in the Tokyo concert, and is enlightening.

In any case, this kind of existential cross-pollination of jammers did not really occur until the late 1960s, with Hendrix, Miles, Traffic, McLaughlin et al. All I know is that, with musicians like Davis, Coltrane, and Ornette Colman in the mix, jazz had already reached the center.

P.S. 

A little further Facebook exchange on the topic, with my cousin Paul Rogers, a noted Raleigh-by-way-of-Philly trumpeter. 

Me: I wonder if anyone knows, who would have been the personnel in this early '63 Miles Davis sextet? 

Paul: it would have been Herbie, Tony, Rob, and likely Coleman. I'm not sure who the sixth man would've been, though.

Me:  yeah, its so odd because I simply don't see a MD sextet since late 1950s. Could have been that exact transition moment when there was a fluid number of band members. Cause I think he brought in Williams and Hancock in April. Coleman was constant, having replaced Mobley in 1962. As was Carter. Quite possibly, they prepared the poster a couple weeks in advance, when there was talk of a sextet that never materialized. Cause they were recording the second session for Seven Steps To Heaven in Los Angeles around that time.

Nested Combustion

Eyes the color of beer, mind brimming with straightforward enigmas

as he autotunes instinct to all that is required in today's

sleek, undecided stratosphere––

Half afraid to walk off the deep end

and half intrigued by the sheer force of boredom

and wish to leave the machines behind

Nested in the cocoon of combustion, to fly.

One with the dusty world

I wonder sometimes, was everything meant to be? ... I mean living, really living. Was it because the earth was moving toward something almost taoist in circumference?

Walk the desert, without a net. Cast aside doubts and aim for the horizon, where the thicket lays so shallow on the coast and the smoke streams up in trickles.

Days are empty
bottomless, the origin of all things;

They blunt my path, become One with the dusty world.

Time For Another

Las Vegas do or die

I am bust, beat out,
carpentered, made up of brittle holes
and still I wobble

,