The Anti-Writer

The Anti-Writer

 In the pursuit of cultivating a skill, often times we encounter a deterring resistance. For the case of writing, it appears as the "Anti-Writer." The anti-writer can be obvious thought patterns that detrimentally impose their force on your will to write or subtle forces that operate beneath detection. 

 Obvious ways in which your anti-writer wreaks its will on you would include any thoughts that counteract your desire to write. They are immediate and declarative. You have the will to write and suddenly you encounter an opposing thought. Perhaps, also,  you encounter your anti-writer in your daily internal dialogue frequently, confronting resistance every time you even think of writing. 

 Subtle ways in which your anti-writer sabotages your excellence is by operating in the subconscious, by surreptitiously influencing your behaviour. You set your alarm for 6am to seize an extra hour to write before work or school, but you stayed up later the night before by "accident" thereby hitting the snooze button repeatedly. Or you sit down to write but find yourself becoming excessively engaged in research (perhaps not even related to what you intended to write) and not actually writing. 

 Our daily behavioural decisions influence the sustained success of our desires. One means of cultivating a cognitive "smoke-detector" would be to create a repository for all of your immediate and declarative deterrents. Those thoughts that appear immediately when you have the will to write. Create this list and amass as much as you can in a period of two weeks. With each deterrent, generate a positive or neutralizing response. 

 Try implementing these responses proactively each time you encounter a deterrent. The goal is to, with time, have those positive responses become the default thought-pattern. Writing, or really any skill, begins first in our conception and conviction. We must be able to conceptualize our potential and have the necessary conviction to execute it. So the initial, default thoughts that appear are immensely impactful. 

Expressive Motion

The human form is profusely expressive, we've become so "civilized" that we've forgotten the captivating thrills of expression through motion. Movement isn't necessarily about calories burned and prestigious accomplishments, these are by-products, but not causes. The causal variable in highly active people is the beauty of mind-body integration, the inexpressible trance of being fully engaged. 

 Motion through landscapes can be perhaps the most romantic existential experience; being not only in the environment but integrating yourself with that environment. Breathing in the molecular products of nature inadvertently labouring away for your benefit. Intersecting and connecting your destinies with  unknowing critters. This is where I derive my motivation.  

 What the fitness industry has done is it has eloquently bottled up and sold what you can freely and naturally obtain with visceral curiosity. Find a natural landscape and plot numerous ways to navigate through it: be that climbing, running, walking, swimming,  or a mixture of all of the above. Rekindle your intimate connection to the Earth and relish in its bounties and abundance. 

I would of course first encourage you to learn the requisite skills and perform the requisite tension-release and postural alignment prior to this.

 When it comes to expressive motion (or "fitness") it has, experientially, been most prosperous and fulfilling to not entrench yourself exclusively in any single form. A specialty is necessary for mastery but within maintaining a mastery there can be many auxiliary practices. A runner can be a gymnast on the side, a weightlifter can be a track athlete, a gymnast can be a weightlifter. To immerse yourself without pretence is most resourceful.

Personally, the philosophical and visceral insights garnered through navigating forests (trail running, hiking) has yielded the most substantial mental and physical gains. I derive the largest sense of satisfaction from long distance runs in nature, be that with a small tribe of like minded individuals or by myself. Nothing can replace the visceral bliss of a sun-kissed run deep in the bellies of the rainforest geared as minimally as possible.