Overflowing Chamber Pots: "Wake Up Successful: How to Increase Your Energy & Achieve Any Goal With A Morning Routine" by S. J. Scott

(original review, 2014)

But for early rising, I would not have been able to achieve all the work I put in for years. I also missed the traffic, allowing me to move at great speed to my destination. But for late starts recently, I would not have gotten enough rest. And but for a mix, my life would not have changed. From late to early, early to late, we change our perspectives, clocks and everything about who and what we are. Sleeping late is not for much other than redolence and milder temper. Yet, for years, groves put us in single spots every day to reinvigorate what when before. True genius strives for diversity. My guess is that, as with Henry Ford and many others, weird hours are the norm for most genius. Sleeping under porches and wherever there might be a spot, being awake for days at a time, and having trouble sleeping from a racing mind, makes for better and worse. As for the rest of us, we have been fed on the claim that lots of sleep is important and necessary to good health.

Really.

According to Vedic belief the pre-dawn time is the richest time of the day for garnering inner well being and outer calm. This is the period when positive vibrations are strongest and easiest to pick up and draw advantage from. In Vedic parlance the term is Brahm muhurata (The time of Brahma). Many eureka moments have occurred in the early hour and it is possible that a creative mind would find the time very conducive to creative flow and expression.

On the other hand, to attribute creativity to routine is nothing more than puerile wishful thinking by the mediocrities of the world, which is 99.9999999999999999 % of us most people follow the same boring tedious routine day after day and accomplish nothing; it is inborn talent and ability that propels people to greatness, not having an alarm clock by the by; Beethoven also kept overflowing chamber pots in his rooms; I wonder how much that factored into the 9th symphony ?

My recipe for geniusness is quite simple (but brilliant of course):

1. always do the kitchen before you go to bed - no matter how pissed you are, congealed pots are a real creativity stopper;

2. no procrastination, which I am going to tackle as soon as the hangover and the washing up permit

Barmy Kafka: "What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast - And Two Other Short Guides to Achieving More at Work and at Home" by Laura Vanderkam

(Original review, 2013)

This is all grimly self-helpish and there is no common denominator, so there is no top tips take-away. I’m coming from the Rough Guide’s “50 things You Must Do Before You Die” and all that, this is a bit of a double whammy. Are we supposed to squeeze the last drop of productivity out of every second? I spotted a book with the title “What The Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast” and I just had to buy to see for myself what it was all about. (Make it, presumably - or if they're really successful, have the help make it.) There is no end to it. Can't we just get our Weetabix down us in peace?

A lot of the examples are solitaries who live in their own imaginative world, so can defy the dictates of daily routine more. The old drugs help creativity thing does need to be laid to rest. Although, each probably had some mild stimulant - I believe Erdös said something like: 'A mathematician is a machine for turning caffeine into formulae.' But most of humanity's rhythms are dictated by an employer who sticks them on shifts that will trash their body clock. They won't recognize the delightfully eccentric world portrayed here. Some imaginative souls, though, obviously, welcomed the routine. Wallace Stevens was a life-long insurance salesman and was no doubt coming up with some pretty bizarre imagery and original language while poring over policies, as an antidote to the mundanity of it all. Maybe he and Eliot deliberately went against the romantic cliché of the poet for their own sanity.

I don't know if anyone else feels this, but I have always felt that the basic unit of physiological time - the day - is just too short for me. It's just too itty-bitty and doesn't suit my rhythms but I can't see it being changed under edict of the EU. Maybe if it was a normal-two-days long day, then you could get into stuff more, but it seems before you know it, you're getting undressed and into bed again and then staring at that damned toothbrush again next morning in a very Groundhog Day kind of way. Routine is essential to humans but it is dreadfully double-edged.

And you can imagine a Kafka being driven barmy by noise - he probably was glad of the 'horror' of the office. There may have been some relative serenity there. How can anyone study toward and work at any profession in a working-class area, or anywhere which tends to be unholy bedlam. You need this precious commodity of reasonable quiet more than anything. Without it - if the mind cannot be quietened and focused - what of any seriousness can be achieved? More a class handicap than many others.

So for best results, I should get ready to down coffee (which I don’t drink) and a martini, then fix up, and sniff rotten apples, all in the nude. But where do I get this Bergman Ready-Brek?

"The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life: Before 8AM” by Hal Elrod

(original review, 2012)

“Why is it that when a baby is born, we often refer to them as “the miracle of life,” but then go on to accept mediocrity for our own lives? Where along the way did we lose sight of the miracle that we are living?”

“How you wake up each day and your morning routine (or lack thereof) dramatically affects your levels of success in every single area of your life. Focused, productive, successful mornings generate focused, productive, successful days—which inevitably create a successful life—in the same way that unfocused, unproductive, and mediocre mornings generate unfocused, unproductive, and mediocre days, and ultimately a mediocre quality of life. By simply changing the way you wake up in the morning, you can transform any area of your life, faster than you ever thought possible.”

In “The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life: Before 8AM” by Hal Elrod

Why do these books give out only common sense utterances?

If there is a determinable set of factors that lead to particular creative success (not only related to what we do in the morning)...but actually these are fairly acceptable, and if simplified:

1) make the most of productivity

2) maintain self-sufficiency

3) don't over-saturate yourself (*)

4) keep a disciplined work ethic

5) expand your cognitive horizons

6) be flexible

All very practical, and you could easily apply these to generally living a decent life, not just to pursuing creative heights.

(*) A sense of proportion, even of humour, could usefully be added to this rather technical list (and I do hope item 3 is not referring to the activity which Baden-Powell warned could lead to blindness) Ah, Baden-Powell. Apparently used to sleep on the veranda on a bunk bed, to avoid 'marital beastliness'. Funny chap.....It might have meant to stop himself being beastly to his wife instead of to stop beastliness from her. Abstracting yourself to stop yourself hurting others is admirable. I don't know which was operative and hold no candle for Baden-Powell but the possibility needs to be addressed. Though the spartan cold might have had other sought effects and it may be he found sex to be unpleasant.

Chi Kung Ritual: "The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business" by Charles Duhigg

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(original review, 2012)

I was just thinking earlier this week about the 4 dimensions of rituals that Mervin Verbit, a sociologist, wrote about: content, frequency, intensity and centrality. And, although he was talking more about religious rituals, I think they apply to most other kinds of rituals in our lives too. And, I think that if our everyday rituals include these 4 dimensions in the right proportions, they can allow us pay more attention to what we’re doing and give us the space to be more creative. Note that I'm not suggesting that rituals, in themselves, can make anyone more creative - rather that they enable some of the right conditions for creativity.

I believe "centrality" refers to how central the overall practice is within one's life. If it is central enough and the other 3 dimensions are present, the practice constitutes as a ritual. Charles Duhigg, in The Power of Habit, called them "Keystone Habits". And, while he did not suggest ritualisation, I find that there is a strong connection between long-standing habits and rituals - particularly when all Verbit's 4 dimensions are present.

I like the idea of rituals, but how do you differentiate between ritual and good working practice? I sort of see good or optimal working practices as a subset of rituals, so I'm not sure you would differentiate between the two.

I'm wondering if we might possibly mean "How do you differentiate between rituals that are optimal/good working practices vs. those that are not optimal working practices?" And, that is certainly an interesting question. I suppose there would have to be a 5th dimension then - the impact or the end-result that is generated from the particular ritual or working practice. I haven't read any sociological theories on this yet, but, I'm sure they exist. I imagine, also, that we start getting into slippery territory here as the definition of "impact" and "end-result" will likely vary on multiple levels - e.g. with reference to the one practising the ritual, others who may be impacted by it, any actual by-products that result and who, in turn, they might impact...... Also, there is the difficulty of actually being able to measure or see the impact / end-result. I need to think on this some more, clearly. :) Books like these raise good questions and also give me something to chew on. Sorry I'm not being more helpful besides just thinking out loud like this. Maybe we need to investigate other ritual-related and habit-related theories out there.

Bottom-line: It's not the number of beans in your morning that's important (I don't drink coffee by the way), the important bit is that the beans are crushed with a cherry wood pestle in an Italian white marble mortar. Turning the pestle three turns clockwise to every counter turn. And, of course, there's the water which must be drawn at dawn from the well in a brass bucket then transferred to the stove in an enameled bowl. But all preparation may be ruined if served in the wrong cup. Because I don't drink coffee, my morning ritual is 20m of Chi Kung every single day. If I’ve got the time, I do some Zhan Zhung as well.

Worth mulling over more. [Note: I'm no sociologist, just an avid reader. But, this is one of my favourite topics, so I like to read/discuss. Doesn't make me an expert, I hasten to add.]

Own Rituals: “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey

(original review, 2004)

"To learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know."

"Love is a verb. Love – the feeling – is the fruit of love the verb or our loving actions. So love her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her."

"At some time in your life, you probably had someone believe in you when you didn't believe in yourself."

In “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey

The above-mentioned quotes are some of the pearls of wisdom we can find in the book.

There's a story, probably apocryphal, about an Amazonian tribe's reaction to a group of Westerners (possibly miners or farmers or similar) who had created a settlement close to their village some time in the 1960s. The settlers built a makeshift runway, and the tribe watched from afar in amazement as, shortly after the runway was complete, a plane arrived carrying supplies. The tribe immediately set about building a runway beside their village, believing that once it was complete, a plane would arrive on it with supplies. They had a long, fruitless wait. Obviously, there's a lot that doesn't ring true about this story, however it illustrates well the fruitlessness of adopting other people's actions in the hope of replicating their results, without really sharing or understanding their motivations. Presumably most of the rituals described above have one thing in common; they're the author's own.That's why they worked, they were what the author genuinely felt worked for them, they weren't adopted in an attempt to recreate the conditions of someone else's success. I've a creative friend who drinks whisky in the mornings when he's writing, because that's what Hunter S. Thompson did. He is not and never will be anything like Hunter S. Thompson. The overarching advice from this book should be: find your OWN rituals and routines. Forget about crappy books like these.

A friend of mine used to say he could write at any time of the day or night, but there came a point - after about three hours - when he didn't achieve much more by working longer. The best time, he said, is early morning, 5 or 6am. He could look again at something that seemed hard to write the previous evening, and suddenly everything just fell into place... As for myself, I can write any time I'm awake, but nobody would want to read it. Seriously now, I have realised that my most creative and productive hours are 3 -6 am. This is when my genius will fizz and pop, worlds are created, and my art manifests itself, seemingly without effort. At these magical hours, I will become a conduit for creative forces beyond my ken. At this special time, unfortunately, I always seem to be unconscious and dribbling, stretched out amongst bottles, filth and pools of damp... 

But at the end, don't forget that: "quod natura non dat, Salmantica non praestat". Who could ever forget that...?LOL