MJ Walters

A break from social media

Clearly I am having a break from social media. I don't have anything to say right now, I seem to have gone all internal. I'm studying like crazy for AA100, I'm working full-time, I have a family and a big new house that needs... care. All of this needs my attention. Perhaps something will come out of it that I need to say, but until then... peaceful silence on this URL :) hey you could come here and enjoy the fact that there's nothing new to absorb!

On a canal boat, thinking about being on a canal boat

So, I'm trying to work on my projects whilst working on the way I work on my projects. What does that mean? An anecdote...

On Saturday I went with my Yorkshire family to Skipton and spent the day on a canal boat. I was nervous - I'm not confident in (or on) the water, and I didn't fancy going into a muddy canal to fish out one of kids. So I was a bit jumpy.

But we had a great day. I walked along the tow path with my partner and we were able to watch her father captain the boat and see the fun he was having. He's 70, but he looked 55. It was brilliant.

And no one fell in the water. We nearly hit a few other boats, and the bank took a hammering a couple of times, but it was fun.

I had a go at steering - it was a pretty basic boat, but it had a big golden tiller that had a life of it's own. Every time I turned to say something to my son, his eyes would widen and I'd find us heading straight for some innocent bystander. And moving the tiller left to go right caused me no end of anxiety.

There's a short story in there somewhere.

Anyway, the point. I (mostly) enjoyed myself doing something that I really wasn't looking forward to. And I did it by noticing how I was experiencing the day, letting negative feelings go, and generally being mindful.

Perhaps that's what I meant by working on the way I work on projects. Like this blog post. I'm writing it, but I'm also wondering about how I'm writing it, and noticing stuff about what I'm thinking while I write it, and so on. But still the words come. And perhaps I get a little bit better at writing blog posts.

That's it. Have a great day :-)

How I became a software engineer

When I was ten I wanted to be a writer, a story-teller, a creator of imaginary worlds. I was reading well above my age, mainly to escape the painful reality of being a chronically shy, stuttering, obese, pre-pubescent in a steel-working town. I wasn't writing though, I was consuming, losing myself in other people's work. I didn't know how to write stories, but I couldn't think of anything else I wanted to do when I was older, apart from be an astronaut.

When I was sixteen, in 1989, I had to let go of some subjects in school and think about specialising for my A levels. I wanted to do the things I was interested in: English, Physics and Maths. But the college's timetabling wouldn't allow English and Physics to be studied together, so I grudgingly dropped English because I couldn't think of anything else I was interested in to study alongside it. I went instead for Geography. Geography became Chemistry within a few weeks of starting the new term because, in the end, it was a random third choice and Chemistry was a more natural fit.

I had become a science student, without much conscious thought. The system shaped me. And I was maleable.

I was a science student for 5 years, and when I left University in 1994 I had shaped my mind to be logical, analytical and thorough (even if that wasn't borne out in my degree classification!).

But something was missing. I had left the dream of being a writer behind. Thrown into the world of work, at the bottom of a recession and with a Third class degree, I went from temp job to admin job trying to make a life for myself. I was a scientist who didn't enjoy doing science work. I loved the theory, but the practical, daily experimental stuff didn't excite me. Being an office drudge thrilled me even less. I kept trying to write stories, but they were empty and lifeless. I felt stuck, desperate and unfulfilled.

In 1998 I reached an internal crisis point. I was reading philosophy texts, self-help books, business books, and I was writing really bad poetry. I quit my admin job and moved back in with my parents to regroup. I was 25 and disconnected from my friends, my interests and myself. In retrospect this is very clear, at the time - not so clear. I made lists of things I enjoyed doing, subjects that interested me, jobs I had cut out of newspapers, things I wanted to do with my life.

I had no money, but more importantly I had no debt. Our family wasn't afraid of debt if you could pay it off. So I had options.

A friend of mine had done a 1-year conversion course in Computer Science and walked into a job as a graduate trainee straight after. £5k plus living expenses. That was the cost. My parents had bought me a ZX Spectrum in 1984 to cure my addiction to arcade games, so I could link it with my childhood dreams. I could see computers offered secure employment, an identity, a life out of my parents house again. The Internet was just catching on, and I convinced myself I could work with information, making it free and available to people to do great things.

This was the start of the summer, and there was an MSc at Swansea University starting in the September. One phonecall, a brief interview and an acceptance letter later, I was in. I saw an opportunity to heal myself. I took it with open arms. And heart. I got a Career Development Loan (I would have that baby for another 6 years) and rebooted my life.

July 1998, the month I became a software engineer.

Bubbles

I want to work in the Arts. I'm fascinated by stories, story-telling, story-engineering, metaphors, imagery, and how narratives work in psychology. I'm a writer, and I have a lot to learn.

I keep generating interesting things to do and explore, but they have been too disparate, apparently connected very loosely, leaving me overwhelmed and paralysed by the enormity of my interests.

Then, walking down my local High Street with my kids on half-term, thinking about something else entirely, I saw bubbles in my imagination. These bubbles coalesced into five groups and I realised I was thinking about my Thing again.

That night I looked at my huge list of fascinating jobs, and noticed some themes they came under. I started to seperate them out and, sure enough, there were five of them. Five clumps of bubbles:

• Studying - the Arts, literature, whatever is floating my boat right now
• Writing - generating words, scenes, characters, story ideas
• Reading - understanding other people's work, and how they did it
• Sharing online - sharing what I learn through my blog and twitter
• Finding tribes - people who get my enthusiasm and are geeky about similar things

Logical head says: man, that's really obvious. Why did it take so long?

Emotional head says: Wooooooohooooooo!

Avatar, story-telling and the magician

I saw Avatar in 3D last night, and I still haven't worked out how I feel about it. It was an exceptional film experience - but I wouldn't watch it twice.

The 3D effects added an extra layer of immersion, though after 30 minutes I wondered if I would be able to watch a whole film like that. But once my eyes passed through the discomfort barrier, the 3Dness was more subtle and effective than I was expecting. It worked best in scenes where things were moving in multiple planes (front, middle and back) and where there was action and fast-moving objects. I can see it being a wonderful tool in the action film-maker's toolbox. I bet studios can smell the money now Avatar has grossed so highly at the box office.

But the story is average. It is a maturation tale and love story, with nothing new to add to either genre. It's emotional and engaging because of the amazing way it is told. There are only three or four scenes where the dialogue is so bad you are pulled out of the story completely.

And this is the heart of my confusion, I think.

Writers know that stories are formulaic, and the best writers play with the formula, mix them up and tease them in unexpected directions. We seem to be psychologically programmed to respond to particular story lines, and James Cameron hammers this point home with some wonderful scenes and powerful moments. He ticks the story boxes - he made my cry at all the turns of the plot, and I did care about the characters. So what's the problem?

Well, we also love to be surprised, and there isn't much of that in the story. It could have been so much more interesting. I know that seems unfair, I don't totally understand it either - as a film it kicks arse, and yet I was continually noticing the poor dialogue and the obvious story.

But he is a virtuoso story-teller. Terminator, Titanic, and now Avatar - these films are all immersive and entrancing through solid stories, and an amazing mixture of camerawork, acting and software effects. In Avatar, even though he doesn't bring much to the table story-wise (the characters are shallow, there isn't much to think about in the choices they make), he is a magician when it comes to story-telling.

I have not seen anything like this film. It tells it's story in a new way. The imaginary world Cameron has created is extraordinary in its complexity, detail and beauty.

It's a 3D film, with a 2D story, to be seen just the once. I urge you to see it. It could change cinema-going forever in certain genres. But it's not going to be much use to Martin Scorcese. Or Woody Allen.

A very silly, very important project

 

I made a Vision Board at the weekend. It was one of those projects that felt both very silly and deeply important.

I've been collecting photos online over the last few months of things that inspire me, and the majority of them have (without me realising) been people. Famous people. Most of them were actors, two of them were artists (Pablo Picasso and David Hockney) and one was a writer (Margaret Atwood). That's just how it came out. I didn't even know I was building up to a Vision Board. I just had a bunch of pictures saved up and I knew I had to do something with them.

I bought a piece of A2 card, then printed the pictures out in the highest quality I could manage on nice A4 paper. Then I started cutting them out. I realised there were themes emerging, and from my journal I remembered there were other themes I hadn't been collecting images around. I printed the themes as words, went back to the Internet to find some more images to fill the gaps, and printed those out too.

The fun bit. I arranged the images around the words as best I could. I tried to place them on the paper so I could fit everything in. In moving them around, I saw I could tell a story from left to right. So I did, and by a mixture of luck and careful snipping I got them into a semblence of a meaningful order. I stuck them onto the paper, tweaking here and there as I made mistakes and put things out of order. I tried to make the mistakes work, and often they improved things, adding meaning where I hadn't intended any initially.

At the end I stuck it on the wall over my desk. A weight left my shoulders and flowed out through my feet. I saw it was right - It was an accurate vision of the qualities I wanted to embody, both in myself and in my work - things like courage, simplicity, mindfulness, vulnerability, elegance, honesty. The colours worked, the faces worked, the words worked.

It was a wonderful feeling.

And yet this object I had poured so much energy into was something a child could have done. Cardboard, scissors, a printer, glue. If it got torn into little pieces tomorrow I wouldn't care. The value was in the process of making it.

I feel different for doing it. I changed myself through consciously working on something. That's what I want to do more of.

Starting to notice how I actually live

This is something I learned today.

When I drop my shoulders, breathe from my stomach, pull a funny face in the mirror then smile, I like what I see. I see a healthy, vibrant, awake 36-year-old man.

In a Tricycle interview with Larry Rosenberg, a meditation teacher in Massachusetts, Rosenberg talks about walking and talking with Krishnamurti in 1968, and being given this advice on what to do about the work he didn't enjoy anymore: "Just go on teaching and start paying attention to yourself. Start noticing how you actually live." Yes.

How did I get to this peaceful place today?

I had heavy cold a couple of weeks ago that I'm just emerging from. Whilst ploughing through it I went back over old journals, from January 2007 to now. I noticed a pattern that was familiar, but obviously hadn't really struck home.

This was the pattern: I would get really excited about lots of things and start them all; after a few months I would begin to tire and have doubts about whether I was doing the right things, but keep going because they were all too important to me; at some point I would become exhausted juggling multiple things and begin to quietly drop them; and finally I would be back where I started, with some great stories and an inner sense of guilt and frustration because I didn't feel any different.

I've done this with writing, singing, piano lessons, guitar lessons, learning Java, Pilates, meditation, getting up early, garden projects, DIY projects, poetry, cooking, and on and on.

This pattern took four months to play itself out in 2007 - by the end of last year I was going through it in a couple of weeks! I was fast approaching some sort of manic singularity where I would disappear in a whirling puff of creative desperation.

Before I got ill, on January 2nd to be exact, I decided I wanted to be more mindful this year. Mindfulness and paying attention to myself has been on my radar for a few years, but it wasn't getting any traction in my mind. I wasn't practicing it. On an unconscious level I didn't yet see it's importance. But since the start of this year, with no real effort, I've slowed right down and I'm noticing things again.

I look at the daily prompt from the Mindfulist (thanks Gwen!) to remind me. I try and stretch every day, both to make sure I don't get injured again and as a mindfulness practice. And I think it was cemented when I saw that pattern in my journals spread over all that time. Three frickin' years. That's a long emotional rollercoaster. I was so tired - tired at the end, but mostly tired all the way through it. It was no way to live.

But I seem to have stepped off, and my recovery is underway. I've made some big decisions - more on that next time.

A short conversation with made-up me

As a software worker, coding and using technology is a safe activity for me. Studying is also a safe environment, by which I mean the act of doing it is relaxing and empowering.

But making something that is not software or study notes terrifies me. Sometimes I can make myself write short stories or poems, but more often I retreat to what I know I can do without criticism.

If I want to change (and lord knows I've been giving myself the signals for long enough) perhaps I can find a way to let go of the safety netting. When I begin to think about writing fiction, and the intense desire to enrol on a Physics course, or start a software business comes up, perhaps I can notice that and wonder at it.

I know the qualities I want to embody in this life - perhaps I could ask one of my imaginary role models. Or even better, some crazed mixture of people that represent the mindful, creative, courageous, confident, compassionate, life-long-learning focussed leader me that I am designing.

What do I need to do then, made-up me?

• Choose projects that solve the problems in front of you
• Use each project as an opportunity to study and learn (oooh, safety, I like!)
• Keep talking to other people (external) and mining your unconscious (internal)
• Keep talking to your shadow/anti-patterns/stucknesses as they come up
• Accept the incubation period of these projects will be as long as they need
• Write about what you learn, so you integrate and share

Holy crap, it worked. Deep breath.

What if I measured success by how I was, not what I did?

I'm trying to be more mindful and pay more attention this year. In my usual way, I told myself I would blog every day on each prompt the Mindfulist set. Which was almost immediately blown out of the water, along with not drinking alcohol in January, drinking less coffee and tea, and going to bed earlier.

But in practicing noticing through the prompts, I've uncovered a latent ability to notice other things - like the fact I'm rebelling against the voice that told me to blog every day, to stop drinking alcohol, and so on. I'm having an inner tantrum over it. Which is kind of cool :-) go me! I won't do what you tell me, me!

Which opens up other communication options. Like dialogue, and compassion, and playfulness, amongst other things.

Perhaps a better measure of my day (week, month) is not what I did, but how I was.

In my journal on New Years Day I glued photos from magazines of people I wanted to be more like in 2010 (don't ask). They embodied qualities like courage, vulnerability, leadership, confidence, learning and excellence. Perhaps a better measure of how my year is going, then, is how much I was able to embody these qualities in my daily life. By much, I guess I mean how often, and with what quality.

What word captures that 'muchness'? Not impact, that implies a focus on the end product. I might achieve nothing in the world on a day where I was very successful on being these qualities.

Let's say intensity.

If I was in an intensely creative state today, big tick - even if I have nothing to show for it. If I was intensely vulnerable today, bingo - even if the person I was talking with didn't appreciate it. If I stepped up and took a big decision, even if I got it wrong? Ha! I'm on my way.

Behind it all is being mindful. If I pay attention to my patterns, my feelings and my thoughts I can spot opportunities to be these qualities I can feel bubbling up from within me.

Is that what Gwen meant when she said this kind of awareness is like holding a weapon? Or perhaps realising that I am holding a weapon, and that I could hurt myself or someone else?

Instead of a weapon, what if this awareness is like an incredibly powerful tool (no sniggering at the back). That way it could be used for growth, as well as doing damage.

Does this make sense to anyone else?

Photo by James Justin, Flickr.

Power up

(My first post for "The Mindfulist" project)

My first thought on powering up my computer was - I wonder what the people I'm following on Twitter have been making overnight? I use Twitter to connect with people who share my interests and attitudes, people I find hard to find offline. And being in the UK following mainly American/Canadian people, the good stuff happens when I'm asleep.

It makes me wonder what else I can do to find these people in my physical life. Positive, emotionally-aware, mindful, compassionate people who want to make a difference in the world (even if they don't quite know how yet, or are just playing with new ideas).

I realised I wanted an inspiring, energised online presence - and this implies an inspiring, energised offline presence! I just want to be energised and inspired (dammit!).