Back home, returning to the fold. We just need to keep blogging, shaping, accumulating. I don't know where or what it is, but the only to find out/get there is to keep writing. I'm glad that I am learning how to do this--I feel like much of my life has been involved with theorizing and approaching creation/any problem by thinking, analyzing a bunch. Now it is time to learn this approach, which feels uncomfortable but gets more comfortable over time. Khatz has been a life-saver here. Again, I want to find more good PD literature.

It's interesting to note the "nodes" of slang: there are lots of slang words for money, for sex, for everyday activities. The aspects of life around which we revolve constantly, and which is a very important aspect of any language.

Keep starting, and leave the finishing to the forces which you don't understand. Serendipitiy is powerful, accidents will happen, and the more you start, the more opportunity, the more room there is for these events "out of your control" to happen. It takes so much weight off of me to think in this way. My job is to start, and to make sure my environment makes learning/working as convenient as possible. But there is much beyond that that is out of my control, and for good reason. If everything I wanted to accomplish were left up to me alone, not much would get done. Sabe?

Keep touching, keep learning. It will be good when I am back in my home, where my work can fall into its normal habits again. But I'm glad that I've been able to keep up my work while at home. It's proof that I've hit on a great method, if I can easily continue when I'm in Virginia.

Khatz has gotten me interested in motivational literature. He's clearly read a lot of it, so I trust him. And from the little I've read, I can totally agree when he says that although most of it is shit, the good stuff is REALLY good. So that's something to keep up with, especially if I can find Portuguese translations.

Here we are again. Been immersed in Portuguese all day long. Every second I sit with it, the more I get used to it. The house is getting built, and it's getting comfortable. I wrote on my other blog during the summer that I was in a season of sowing, and that I was excited to reap. I'm still sowing, and I am getting used to this lifestyle (the bucolic way of doing things, a la Khatz), and it feels good. Putting in the time to be able to reap enormous things later on, things beyond my imagination.

It is helpful for me not to think of this language learning so much as "studying" as "accumulating" or "living" a la Khatz. When we acquire our native language, we aren't studying it. We're playing video games in it, hearing and listening to it, whining in it, living in it.

Blog a little here, blog a little there. Eventually we'll be at the point where we are editing and compiling, to create actual posts. But for now, we're just accumulating.

It's amazing being able to consciously watch the language learning process. Most of us don't get to do this when learning our native language--by the time we are at the point of sufficient self-awareness, we're already fluent in the language! But it's amazing this time around, watching myself learn. For example, I observe myself, when searching for the way to say something, either not knowing how, or actively remembering a phrase I heard in Family Guy or read on a blog, a phrase which I know is accurate, and literally parroting that phrase. And because my rate is so constant, I am constantly seeing myself learn. Fascinating.

II just read a little while ago a quote about how life is conducted through accidents a lot more often than we are comfortable with. I think this is true, and it is another reason for emphasizing quanitity over quality. The more shit you do, the more likely fortunate accidents are going to happen. I just saw this happen with a piece I'm working on. I want to learn to trust in accidents more, and I think that will happen naturally if I keep emphasizing producing and producing.

Another route into the castle: some words are better learned by looking at a picture, rather than a dictionary definition. There is value to the dictionary definition, particularly in developing the essential skill of being able to discuss the target language in the target language. But certainly it helps to include some picture flash cards in the SRS--they're often more fun, more direct, and stick in your memory better.

Going off the last post, this sulking on the studio floor is a lesson that I learned with music. My relationship with music is so fascinating. But after I graduated, I was miserable not having any "drive," but I just wouldn't do anything. Which is not the way to get things done :)

The SRS can be used to control what you are exposed to. The more you are exposed to something, the more you are able to imbibe it, to become it, and in this world where there are so many influences going in, the SRS can provide a sound method for controlling this input.

I can feel myself slipping a little bit, frustrated that I still don't have a blog, but when I start to feel like that, I just come back and keep writing. The only way the situation is going to improve is to keep hitting it. It's like a sculptor moping on his studio floor after doing a few ticks, miserable that he doesn't have a sculpture. Sitting is not going to do anything. Doing, failing, moving through the uncomfortable-ness. This will eventually bring me to what I want. The way will show itself, but I have to keep walking.

As long as it's in native Portuguese, it is good.

Again, working with one's nature instead of always trying to change oneself. I think both processess are important. Part of my maturing is understanding that I don't always need to be striving, don't always need to be climbing up the mountain. I can also work with myself where I am, and tweak things in my work processes to suit who I am at this point in my life. My short attention span, for example. Annoying, most of the time, but when I have such a wide variety of Portuguese sources, which I can switch back and forth between, my nature ceases to become such a burden. Instead, I am having fun the way I want to have fun, which is the most fun :)

It's interesting to read about how people are using SRS's in a much more expanded way in their lives, putting in personal development quotes, etc. I could easily see myself doing this, I LOVE Anki.

I'm trying to put into practice what I have learned in the past about learning vocabulary: the effectiveness of connecting the word to be learned with something personal, funny, visual, etc. E.g. "a ____ vermelha do Marvin Gaye" is a more effective way of remembering this word than "cap/beanie."

Little things.

Also, remembering that even after having been learning English for 23 years, I still have to pause and find the right word. SO I SHOULD NOT GET BUMMED OUT WHEN I HAVE TO DO THE SAME IN A LANGUAGE I'VE BEEN STUDYING FOR 4 MONTHS. lol

I would love to have a blog that has an audience. I am going to have a blog that has an audience. I feel that it needs to be focused on something, like language or style or something, but I'm not sure where that comes in. I have a lot of interests, and I need to learn how to coordinate them. That will come, the more I keep picking at it.

When you make your work, whatever it may be, in bite sized pieces, it is much easier, in my experience, to sustain the work, day in and day out. This seems much more important than bursts of work followed by inactivity because the prospect of returning to the work seems so daunting and uncomfortable and unmanageable.

Also, it's interesting how part of the process of becoming fluent in a language is getting a "feel" for it, as in you begin to be able to say or write something and tell whether it "feels" correct or not, based on massive input. In English, if I am unsure how to phrase or spell something, I can usually get it right simply by which option "feels right." And it doesn't take all the headwork that my previous experiences with language learning have had.

Cidade de Deus was the first Brazilian movie I watched with the substitles (in Portuguese), and it was very illuminating. One of the main take-aways was the fact that the spoken vocabulary of the characters, an observation which I can assume extends to real life Brazilians, was very economical and surprisingly small in range. I've touched on this elsewhere, but it was amazing to see how few verbs were used, and the versatility of these verbs: fazer, dar, falar, ir...And when they were communicating ideas, it was very interesting to see how simple their communications were in comparison to what I would guess they would be. These observations have been supported by viewing other movies and following along. And again, when I come back to English, I observe how simple and "less is more" spoken language often is, especially in everyday, informal settings.

Here we are. We are boiling water. We are sustaining. My mind is slowly but surely changing. Time really is a fascinating thing. Deceptive, but also almost absurdly simple. The dance between the human mind and time is fascinating.

Earlier I was thinking about that Ken Wilber passage about "self objects" or whatever he called them. And the idea in Boss that our physical location is only one, limited dimension of who we are and "where" we are at any given point in time. It's a big idea, but one that really stimulates me, so I'd like to try hacking away at it.

One of the many things I like about learning a language, as I've mentioned before, is that it helps me introduce learning into more gaps in my day. Even when I am feeling lazy, I can put on a TV show in Portuguese, and I am learning. This is more difficult to do with other forms of learning, like reading. It makes me happier in general to know that so much of time is being used productively, even when I am feeling lazy.

Reading menswear blogs in Portuguese. Khatz is right--do the bit of work to establish your environment in your target language, then you can just go back to chilling, just in your target language. This is great. The more I am exposed, I more I just feel comfortable hanging out online in Portuguese. Again, like getting to know a city, I am slowly beginning to just be able to hang out.

I've begun to dream in Portuguese every once a while. I don't remember much when I pick up, but I can hear Portuguese words immediately after I wake up. This is encouraging.

Read wikipedia articles about things you're interested in, in Portuguese. When you have an impulse to do something on the internet, see if it can be done in Portuguese.

It's easy to keep going when you are getting constant, visible feedback, but the real endurance comes when that feedback/visible progress goes "underground" for a while. I'm getting better at that.

3478251111

Keep making, and keep having fun. The watched pot really does take longer to boil. I am getting better at noticing when I am fixating on the future goal, and instead drawing my attention to what I am doing right now to reach that goal.

I want to be successful. I want people to listen to me. I want to have an audience. What to do? Keep hacking at it. Just sit with it. It's like meditating, sometimes you just have to sit with it. Good things yield themselves after time, like good conversation. Silences come, but good, deep things come as well. And these timeboxing, etc. techniques help in keeping one interested, and keeping one willing to sit and listen.

Khatz is so right. Fun is what keeps the project sustained. I am watching Family Guy and loving it. What should we right about? Not sure. But the Portuguese is going well. Let's check in in another hour.

Observation: it is fascinating to notice the "grooves" of language. Language is a multilayered affair. Humor, slang, register, sarcasm, irony...when we are speaking our native tongue, we hang out deep in the grooves, without realizing it. There are phrases and meanings that we have communicated nearly every day since we started speaking, and it is often these aspects of the language that exhibit the most idiosyncrasy, and often use the shortest words. Example: the English phrase "Let me see." Short words, and usually pronounced "lemme see." In Brazil, the phrase is "Deixa eu ver." Again, short words, and the pronunciation is quite clipped "Cho ver." Phrases like these seem to me like well-worn wood, worn down from the steps of thousands of people (literally, the pronunciation wears down so much, and yet is still intelligble"), whereas other aspects of language, that are less used in everday conversation, are less embedded? It's like Khatz about being able to read the paper in your second language, but not being able to describe what that drunk guy is going on the other side of the train. Sabe?

I need to keep in mind (isn't this the hardest thing? Just remembering the path) that it is more important to keep making, to favor quantity over quality. The more milk there is, the more cream. Keep making shitty things, and cream will naturally develop.

The more input of the language you receive, the more you begin to notice the "nodes", the phrases and words that are used so frequently and that accumulate many different meanings. This is much more apparent in spoken language, where, at least in English and Portuguese, and i imagine in most other languages, there is a strong bias towards efficiency. A word such as "get" or "run" or "do," which can take on dozens of meanings. And the process of learning this versatility seems a natural result of the process of receiving more and more input. In watching a Brazilian movie, for example, and listening to native, informal speech, i hear the verb "dar" used over and over again. The groove is being formed slowly, and with it my ability to live within this word. It's helpful that I have learned how to play ano instrument. When i am playing the saxophone, i don't so much think of individual notes, i just play what i "hear." I cant do this nearly as well as more dedicated saxophone players, but I can do it well enough to be musical. It's interesting considering the input hypothesis in terms of input. What is the effect of listening to so much jazz, for example, in one's quest to be "fluent" in jazz. In my experience, the effect is enormous. I often find myself just creating a musical phrase with little idea as to how it came out of me. Rhythms, melodies, whatever.

The reflexiveness of the language learning process is endlessly fascinating. Today at Chickfila, i sort of muttered that i wanted tap water, and i think all the girl heard was "tap water"--it was a simple reminder that even in our native language, even with years and years of experience, we still do not understand everything everyone says. It is good to remember this when i get discouraged because im not understanding what i hear in portuguese. I certainly have much room to improve, but its good to remember that sometimes you only need a few key words and some context (i was at a restaurant, so if my key words are tap water, im probably asking for it)

Each of us is like a river. We want to take the proverbial path of least resistance. Trying to use our willpower all the time — trying to “do” and “finish” things — is like trying to get the cooperation of every molecule in the river at every turn: tiring. By changing our environment, we basically tweak the path in small, simple but significant ways. And then we can go back to being our lazy selves for the remaining ~99% of the time, sliding down a path that we have altered to lead us right where we want to go.

Khatz

I've been noticing something about Portuguese lately that I find very beautiful. When speaking about a noun in general, it is often used in the singular and without an article. For example, in English we would say "Cats are good for sleeping with." In Portuguese you could say: "Gato é bom para dormir junto." I love how you just say "gato"--I love the way the noun stands out.

This blog post: http://ubora.wordpress.com/2012/12/18/realengo-sandy-hook/

has a lot of good ones. It is so beautiful to me.

I have always been a pretty indecisive person, and it annoys me. Reading this has helped me: "In both Sino-Japanese and Latin, the word “decide” literally means to “cut off” (決斷・裁斷). The “de” is a prefix that indicates removal — out of, away from. The “cide” part is the “cut off”. It’s the same “cide” as in “homicide”, “infanticide”, “patricide”, and “West Cide”."

Decisions often involve loss, and, clearly, I have a lot of difficulty with loss. Of course, on one level there are more more and less significant decisions, but on another level, the plane is much more level, and every decision inherently entails loss. It just needs to be accepted. And knowing this somehow makes it a bit easier, because I have accepted that I will never escape loss. It will be a part of my life everyday. Live with it.

I often forget how important motivation and inspiration is. Just seeing that Thelonius Monk quote about "playing what you want to play" really helped.

Touching base at the barber shop. Where is the blog going? I dont know, and that is okay. Just keep starting, keep chipping away, keep sowing. It is promising to notice that my ability to sustain has gradually increased over time. Slowly but surely. I think this is part of the bad feelings surrounding Althea. I began to doubt my pace, in hearing about how quickly things seem to be moving for her. But there is nothing wrong with my pace.

"If you aren't building, you aren't learning."http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/08/quantity-always-trumps-quality.html

I often like reading the perspectives of computer programmers, like Khatz and this guy. This is very good to keep in mind. Learning, particularly in arts and crafts, comes from doing. If you want to get better, don't fret, don't theorize, just do. Rack up those hours. It's still very difficult for me to do this, as I've been stuck in analysis paralysis for so long. But I'm getting better.

It is starting to make more sense...it's very satisfying studying a language, where I can study in idle time and get quick wins a la Khatz, as opposed to music which is much harder to be satisfying, especially moment to moment.

I was resting and transitioning, but now I am back. Again, I am seeing the value of lowering goals/expectations to just touching frequently--when schedules get hectic and life in general happens, you need to be able to be able to maintain contact, if even briefly. Not letting the flame die for too long. Rest is important, but once you are rested, what then? That uncomfortable guilty feeling of unproductivity, I know it well. And I am getting better at slipping productivity in, and making it easier, so I am happier and thus more willing to keep working instead of sulking and brooding.

One think I am noticing in my listening comprehension is that I am slowly understanding phrases, not just individual words. And, as has been happening, I've noticed certain things in English as well. For example, earlier I heard someone say "He said something," in English, but his pronunciation was like this: "H- s- something." In other words, the first two words were reduced to just their initial sounds. Yet I understand what he was saying. When listening to Portuguese, I'll get stressed for a moment when I hear a rapid series of short sounds that I can't understand. But I'm seeing that part of being able to understand such series of short, common words is hearing the entire phrase, the context, enough times to be able to deduce what the meaning is, without having to hear each word enunciated. Context and comprehension sort of feed back on each other; the more context I can understand, the more sounds I can comprehend, and the more sounds I can comprehend, the more context I can get. And it keeps going like that. 

Where we at?

I can feel myself growing in my listening comprehension. I understand more and more of Brazilian radio every day! Words and phrases begin to separate. The same is happening with Café Brasil. This kind of "feedback" is nice, but I am aware that it is important to be able to carry on working without such convenient feedback. To be able to trust that what you are doing is working, and to be able to sustain that trust.

Sentence mining from as wide a range of sources as possible. For example, computer error messages. You learn the subtle but important differences between the way technical matters are phrased in English, and the way they are phrased in another language. For example, "Este site pode estar temporariamente fora do ar ou sobrecarregado. Tente de novo em alguns instantes." "Instantes" instead of "momentos;" literally: "try again in some instants." It sounds weird to my English brain, but this is the same thing as "all your base are belong to us." Each language has its own logic, and its own arbitrariness.

It makes so much sense to base output on outright copying of input, especially input you have read, to verify you heard correctly. This way there is no anxiety/wondering if I am saying the correct thing, or at least much less of it. If the input comes from a reputable source, which is most native speaker material, I can be confident that I am saying, broadly, the right thing. Of course, there are nuances of connotation, register, colloquialisms, etc. But this is a good method to ensure I am building a good foundation. Thank you AntiMoon and Khatz, as usual.

When I listen to Portuguese, I am submitting for my usual (English) internal monologue, an alternate track, installing, as it were, the language in my mind, bit by bit. It's a pleasant feeling most of the time, though sometimes I get tired of listening to Portuguese nonstop. At these points I usually just switch from speech to music, or vice versa.

Writing is hard, but in some ways it's easy. Just keep doing it. It doesn't necessarily get easier, at least with this kind of writing, but you do get used to some aspects of it. I'm sure creative writing is another animal altogether.

Just don't let it drop, keep the momentum. The longer the time in between touches, the more likely you are to forget, and the more easier the echoes die down. Like Khatz's descriptions of sample rates, etc. You want the echoes to keep going, to have as little chance as possible to die down, for the water to cool down. What am I writing about? Who am I writing for? For myself, principally, and it must be this way. Heath understands this. I would love, in the future, plan to have an audience in the future, who listens to me, and whom I can help, and through which I can make a profit. This is what I plan to do. It will come from constant touching.

It's amazing, as Goethe knew, how your native language begins to appear to you the more you learn, and the better you get, at other languages. Whenever I come back to English, I marvel, truly marvel, at the comfort, at the incredible flexibility being a native user affords me. Slang, different dialects, accents, all these things, it feels like a wonderful game. Stretching the limits of what I can say in order to be still understood, how many syllables I can cut, the obliqueness that is possible when you have been communicating in this language for 20 years. It's like, as another website I saw one time described it, a language being like a city. When you start learning a new language, it's like moving to a new city. You can learn it as well as you'd like. But your native language, you so many back alleys, secret nooks, you have places where you and your friends have hung out many times, you have areas where the young people hang out, the more formal areas, and in general you can just play more. I just LOVE how much the language can be stretched, and how it's always changing, just like a very active city like New York. Like I can write "check dis du ova heah nigga, du be trippin doe" and be understood by many people (mostly younger, I would imagine)

Just two minutes, come on. Even if you feel totally dry, you have to keep going to find your voice. How do I communicate with readers? What will I communicate? You can't find out unless you keep doing it. Thinking and analyzing is fine, but for you, who rests in that as a default state, it is not very useful. That comes later. For now, just keep doing and doing. The very process of writing shapes things, even if you don't know what is being shaped. You are not in total control, there are processes occurring beyond your ken (is that the right way to use that word?). It is a great word, regardless. Sow the seeds, water them, and GET OUT OF THE WAY. This is true: we often get in our own ways, and don't let nature do her job.

Beauty is so important. So important. Repetition is also very important. And patience of course.

Discipline is remembering what you want. If you are like me, you are easily distracted, even on the order of weeks. Some things take months, and require simple remembrance for months.

Watching Orfeu Negro.

Learning a language does not need to be stressful! When you find yourself falling into that hole, realize what is happening! It does not need to be stressful.

This process of getting used to Portuguese feels like slowly acquiring a second home, that will eventually feel as comfortable, though without the extra native-ness, as English. I can feel myself very slowly getting more comfortable, through sheer familiarity and repetition. And it's interesting to notice the moments when I still feel uncomfortable--when I don't understand the humor, or when I just start to miss English. The only way to get comfortable is to go through the stage of discomfort. A long stage, but well worth it, it seems to me.

Studying a language vs. Acquiring or doing a language. Examining from the outside, rather than plunging in and allowing yourself to be completely inundated by the language.

I think one of the reasons it feels good to have a big learning project alongside writing music is that composing is such an uncertain, frustrating, meandering process that, comparatively, learning language seems quite straightforward and even easy. Especially because I have so much trust in Khatz's/AntiMoon's method, it's like the system is fundamentally set. Of course I tweak it to my needs, but it has so much more certainty than the process of writing music.

I like what Marías says: even writing a diary or something helps to clarify one's thoughts. I find that is true. A clear mind is always nice to experience, to live through. I like to live as transparently as possible, but of course that is not always possible. This is an aspect of maturity that I can begin to see--an acceptance of, but not a resignation to, the fact that it is not always easy to live transparently.

Something that is useful when learning a language, as Khatz discusses somewhere, is to learn the most natural ways of saying things. In English, this happens to be the Germanic words much more often than the Latin words. In Portuguese, the situation is similar, these words are often smaller. Some verbs: pegar, fazer, faltar, ir, ver, ouvir, chegar (like já chega!), dar all short, quick words that carry a lot of meaning. Same with mesmo, é, embora...

I am interested in conducting ecstasy to a large group of people through music. I haven't been to accomplish this yet. I am interested in entrainment, and the effect that Reich's "Drumming" has on me--conducting one's awareness, through highly rhythmical and complex music, past the point of no return (like an orgasm), where there is a distinct shift in consciousness, and the listener is quite literally in a new state of consciousness. I think the density is important because I want the music to fill every corner of the person's consciousness, again like much of "Drumming," especially the last movement.

I love meditating for these short sessions (5 minutes). The more I do it, the more it feels like I hit a reset button during the session, and I come away thinking about something in a different way, or with a new idea.

Things I am interested in music/ways I would describe my music:
-trance
-ecstatic
-hypnotic
-dense
-instrospective
-contemplative
-reverent
-repetitive
-optimistic

I want to do more pseudo-stuttering, and examine its effects.

Working with James went well today. Putting into practice, running the same section over and over, finding new things each go around. Just like listening to a podcast in Portuguese, getting better each time. It felt good to return, especially because the time between returns has been reduced. Momentum is a powerful force, of course. And if you have to dedicate a very short period of time to a specific project, even one minute, it is worth it if it keeps the momentum going. As Khatz says, 1 is so much greater than 0.

Also, fascinating hearing different accents from Brazil. I'm getting good at being able to understand a variety of accents.

Just keep writing the blog. It will shape itself if you water it enough. You don't know what to write about? Keep writing to find it. You don't know how all your thoughts fit in? Just keep writing them, and they will sort themselves out. Not sure if it will be successful, or worth the time? The only way to find out is to keep doing out. There may come a point when you decide it is not worth the effort and time anymore, and that is fine. But this is not the time. You just started. Extend your attention span, the span of time you expect to see results, progress, what have you. Look at the Portuguese, you can see progress, but it's been months. Keep watering, sowing, what have you. If anything, writing everyday just feels healthy anyway :) And you have to find your writing voice.

Just learned my first joke in Portuguese: "Filho vai ter bebida?" "Nao mãe, nao vai" "Tem certeza?" "absolut mãe, fica tequila :)"

From Twitter. Pouring the language into my head, from as many directions as possible. Podcasts, news, TV, literature, Twitter...

I chatted with Chris a bit today, it feels good to be able to practice speaking. Would love to falar with Olivia...

I always think about how grateful I am for the Internet, especially because, in some ways, it makes learning much faster. But it's interesting how other things just won't change that easily...many things still take a long time...Learning patience.

Also, I'm learning how to stick with a piece of music until it begins to yield itself.

http://noticias.uol.com.br/album/2012/05/04/marcha-das-vadias-pelo-mundo.htm#fotoNavId=pr8047773

Adding these signs into the SRS.

As with movies, find transcripts of interviews, podcasts, etc. that you've heard. And listen to them over and over, so that you can understand which words are shortened, etc.

Also, looking at ads and signs is helpful, yet another aspect of language.

Monolingual dictionaries are very useful. Again, Khatz is the man. But the ability to discuss the target language in the target language is very useful for several reasons. One, we do this all the time in our native language. In order to communicate our meaning, we often have to twist and turn around with our words until we are satisfied with the meaning we are conveying. Being to able to navigate a monolingual dictionary, to begin to use the target language reflexively reaps great rewards in the future, and I can already feel them. Especially for a stutterer, who relies on synonyms :)

Here we go. I need to try to find some spaces during my day where I can to the blog, not just at work. It'll be a bit easier once I'm back to my normal schedule. Though it seems that things never stay still for long :)

Was reading Art and Fear earlier--lots of good insight. Particularly the idea that, as an artist, you need to just create a lot and the cream will naturally rise to the top. Similar to Khatzumoto's advice in regard to language learning, and life in general. Throw a bunch of shit at the wall. Especially where the body is concerned, as it is, to various extents, in both art and language, it is important to give it ample exposure and attempts to work out what it needs to work out.

Today on the train ride home, I spoke to myself in Portuguese, trying to express my thoughts. I was very pleased with how much vocabulary I find myself commanding already. Hurray! I feel that I am on a good path, thanks to that mtf Khatzumoto.

The Twitter discovery is important. If I want to understand a word, or better yet, a (coloquial, idiomatic) phrase, I just search for it on Twitter and I find a bunch of native speakers using it naturally, and in various situations. Twitter is especially useful because, unlike other sources like newspapers, it is close to how people actually speak. So it's good for learning natural speech. It's a good supplement for the newspaper.

"You can either get WHERE you want to, or do things HOW you want to, but not both. That is, if you focus on one, you inevitably relinquish control over the other. To put it in a more positive way, you can choose to be uncomprimising on one of where/what, but then you have to be willing to be flexible on the remaining option. You can have either a fixed MEANS or a fixed END, but not both."

http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/language-is-like-a-video-game

Interesting. This rings true. If you have a fixed end, you have to be flexible with the method needed to get there. 

Oops, I forgot to come back to you. Gathering sentences tonight. Just keep writing, don't think so much, something will come. I sit in my little analysis cloud and just spin the circles, and I am tired of it. Just keep going, keep doing, reflection can come later. Much of this "analysis" is driven by fear, both in music and writing here, when it needs to come from action, just action, just keep going, you can fix later, but there are walls to be broken and clouds to be realized that that is just what they are--clouds.

I love that quote from Dr. Lomb. It's fun to attack language from multiple angles: literature, news, Twitter, spoken conversation, music, movies, TV, academic prose, dictionaries, grammars.

There's an interesting difference between learning language as a child and learning as an adult. As a child learning your first language, you're not "translating" from anything. You are learning to express ideas, emotions, etc. using words for the first time. Whereas what can be tricky as an adult language learner is, while it is natural to try translating ideas from your native language into your target language, depending on the similarity of the languages, this eventually becomes harmful, because you end up trying to force one language into another. At a certain point along the road, you have to bid adieu to your native language and really enter the target, to learn how things are actually expressed, not just substituting word for word.

I remember a salient example of this: one time I asked a friend from Shanghai, who was showing me some Mandarin, how I would respond if someone asked me if I like ice cream. I asked if I would simply reply, "Yes," or "I do," like in English. She told me that, no, you would say "I like." I found this fascinating. Later, further on into my Portuguese studies, I learned that this situation is quite similar in Brazil. Usually, one would answer the question as in Mandarin, "I like."

A helpful tool: search for tweets containing a specific vocabulary word. You get to see a wide variety of uses, mainly informal, you get to see different connotations of the word (affectionate, derogatory, old-fashioned). Of course, it's difficult to get these connotations and contexts at first, but I'm sure it gets easier over time.

Also, a good informal/slang dictionary is useful (especially an online one, where native speakers can constantly add definitions, like Urban Dictionary).

Just two minutes. What can be done in two minutes? Just keep writing. Don't the flame die, keep it burning, even if what appears is not great and looks like a waste of time. Just keep it going.

Learning how to learn better. Finding more fun ways to learn. There is something to be said for something feeling difficult (building character, etc.), but the "Protestant work ethic" can easily become an assumption, and a default. I want to avoid this.

Time is deceptive.

How long have we been away from the blog? No matter, we are here now.

I'm listening to the Café Brasil podcast about Mozart for about the third time, and I'm picking up more words. Being able to track progress like that keeps me motivated. As long as I am better today than I was yesterday, I'm good. Same with  music. As long as I have written something today, no matter how bad, then I'm good. Just keep going. Things this significant, important, and just plain big take their own time, and I do not know enough to be able to place any kind of time schedule. Sure, deadlines are useful, but there are things that need their own time, and if given that time diligently, will be great (I believe).

At this point, both with music and the blog, I am gathering material and figuring out my voice. Revisions come later, but especially with the blog, I don't know what it is, so I'm just chipping away at the surface. The blog will reveal itself, I believe. That's how I like to approach the world, coaxing it until it reveals itself. It requires patience, and I still have a lot to learn about patience. It would be very instructive for me to grow a plant from seed.

There is literally no one better/cooler than Gerald Johannsen (how do you spell it?)

Just two minutes. What can come from two minutes? Not much, one would assume. But if you keep touching, changes are wrought slowly. And such a short time slow allows one to put in some effort...after all, it's just two minutes. Slow changes, but constant change.

Life is already painful enough. Find ways to make it less so, while still getting work done. There is something to be said for working with your nature, instead of always trying to change or better it. Do you have a short attention span? Work with it, use it, dance with it. In the past I have been so obsessed with self-improvement, but I've been going about it with the assumption that I need to change myself. But instead, I'm finding ways to work with myself, to not drive with both the accelerator and the breaks.

The key, or one of them at least, is to not succumb in the periods where there is no inspiration, no drive, no motivation. It is important to find inspiration, yes, but it is also important to be able to find the absolute minimum that you can do just to keep going, until you are ready to face it again.

It's been interesting watching myself find my composing process. Things I have found so far:

--It is easiest for me, at least right now, to approach whatever I am working on from many angles--working on one piece or section for anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours, then it feels like the door closes, I feel hopeless for a while, then I go find another door I can open. I may work on two, or six, different pieces/sections/movements in one day. And very rarely in order of the actual piece--I'll write endings first , then work on a beginning, then tweak a sample, etc. It feels like putting together a big puzzle, but without seeing the final picture first.

--I need breaks to refresh and restart myself--today I took a few breaks, five minutes of meditation, five minutes of yoga, a little cleaning. As long as the breaks stay short, this really helps me return to the work freshened and with new eyes. Meditation and yoga both help a lot--meditation, because I come back with a feeling of a slightly altered mind, and yoga because, really anything dealing with my body is useful for the music I am writing.

As expected, the goal of just doing one becomes very important on those days, in those hours, in those periods when you don't feel like getting any work done, but the fact that you're not getting any work done makes you feel worse and inhibits you from enjoying the rest. I have been in that vicious circle many times. But now now it's shifting--I've made things easier for itself which, counterintuitively for me, makes me more productive. Just keep starting, that is all you can do, even when you don't feel like doing anything.

And it's funny. I feel like part of procrastination is misuse of our imagining faculties. When I am faced with a task, I get stressed out because I start to think: "How am I going to finish? How am I even going to accomplish? What's my plan? What if it's a waste of time?" Then I just end up not doing anything. But all of that thinking is taking on too much responsibility. It's not the job of my imagining faculty. All I need to do is start, set myself up, and a lot of things can happen of their own.

About to go to sleep. Just keep it spinning, lose as little momentum as possible. Read another great post by Khatz: there is a difference between wanting to accomplish something, like becoming fluent in a language, and deciding to. I have now decided to become fluent in Portuguese. That is a strong foundation. I've never really thought in those terms, but I could feel a subtle but palpable shift in my mind/soul.

"To use a metaphor, the Russian language is a complicated, massive cathedral harmoniously fashioned in every arch and corner. The learner must accept this is in order to have sufficient motivation to 'build' it."

"A foreign language is a castle. It is advisable to besiege it from all directions: newspapers, radio, motion pictures which are not dubbed, technical or scientific papers, textbooks, and the visitor at your neighbors."

--Dr. Kató Lomb, Hungarian polyglot

Also realizing that I do have a penchant for metaphor. This is a valuable aspect of my writing.

Keep pouncing, and keep starting. I'm slowly lowering my standards to where, as long as I've started on my daily work, every day, then I'm satisfied. As long as I've sat in my chair to meditate, played a few notes on the keyboard, reviewed a few flash cards, I'm satisfied. I'm not used to this lowering of my expectations, but I can already see it helping. It helps to make sure I continue through the periods when I don't feel like working, especially with music, when I feel discouraged or uninspired or overwhelmed. As long as I keep moving, keep starting, keep edging along, I end up making more progress than spurts and inspirations.

I'll have to find the link at Khatz's site later, but I read a post about learning how to say simple things, and how important and overlooked this often is in language learning. Example: I'm watching an episode of Hey Arnold, and Rhonda says to Lila, "What about you, Lila?" She says "Que tal você, Lila?" Before hearing the Portuguese, I tried to guess how she would have said it...maybe my guess would have been correct, but it's best to hear, again, native-speaker version. I've found in these everyday, "small" phrases a lot of illumination, because it is here that is often the least difficult to translate directly from English (and one of my goals is to get away from such translation, because I believe that it this method is ultimately very limiting.). For example, in a newspaper article I can read something like Alcoolismo: principal fator de risco para saúde dos brasileiros (http://oglobo.globo.com/saude/alcoolismo-o-principal-fator-de-risco-para-saude-dos-brasileiros-7047521). Which is quite easy to translate directly. But what about "What about you?" Or "I bet you can't do it", etc. Smaller is more difficult, and more important.

"O tempo é seu professor." Time is his teacher.

Time really fascinates me. And it really can be learned from. As with most things in the world, all the interesting stuff arises from the interaction between myself and the nature of time itself. How best to use it, to dance with it? Today I feel like I used very well--I've started to timebox meditation, five minutes here, five minutes there. It feels good, and the five minutes I can really hone in, knowing that I won't have to do it for long.

I've found Khatz's advice to continually be getting new media very useful. I will bore very quickly of listening to the same podcast over and over, and the language learning will no longer be fun. But if I have new songs and podcasts to listen to, I am much happier. And then I am more likely to return to the older ones. Freshness is the name of the game. And also, range. It is useful to introduce yourself to a wide range of native-user materials, especially if you don't live in your target country. As Khatz points out, in trying to simulate the incredible breadth of the country, it is helpful to get materials from all over, and ones that you like.

It is important to breathe big when feeling strong emotions, positive or negative, but especially negative. Fear and anxiety, in my experience, can be much less suffocating and exhausting when my breathing is open and full, as opposed to my default mode of breathing, which is rather shallow (accompanied by poor posture). These emotions need room to exist, and it is much easier to learn from them, and carry them, when my body is more open.

More inspiration from Khatz: a "learning journal."

Learning, and learning how to learning how to learn better is central, and has been central, to my life for a long time. And the principles I apply when learning one particular thing often apply, with slight modifications, to learning something else.

For example: today I copied and pasted a few Youtube comments on the movie I was watching in Portuguese. It's always good to see how native speakers speak, and to take these examples from a range of sources. So I read the newspaper, which is one kind of language, but Youtube comments are just as valuable. You see slang, spelling variations (e.g. "aaki" for "aqui"), and the natural way people speak. I'll take sentences from a good informal dictionary I use, from Twitter comments from Brazilians, songs, movies. The wider the range, the better. The more I see I a certain word, the more firmly it gets cemented in my mind, the more likely it is going to come out when I am writing or speaking the language, and the more likely my speech is going to sound natural.

For example, I was watching the Brazilian version of Disney's Tangled (Enrolados in Portuguese). There was a part where Rapunzel asks Flynn Rider if he understands, referring to something she has just told him, and he responds, "Tô começando" ("I'm starting to," referring to understanding [and falling in love with] her]). In Brazilian Portuguese, as in English, there are several ways to say, "to begin, to start." The obvious cognate (is that the right word?) for the Portuguese começar is our "commence." But we wouldn't say "I'm commencing," but in Brazilian Portuguese, "Tô começando," I can only assume, sounds perfectly natural. But I wouldn't really learn that from a dictionary, but only from listening to FUNBUN (for us natives, by us natives) material, like a Disney movie (even though the movie is originally in English, the dub is done by professionals, and is intended for native speakers). And the more I hear "Tô começando," the more I am likely to use this construction.

As a stutterer I have had to accept that, as much as I would like to imitate other people, to speak as fast quickly as other people, I cannot always do that. I am a stutterer, thus there are certain facts about my physiology and psychology that are, as far as we know, permanent. I have to remind myself that I need to speak the way that is best for me, not simply at the speed of most other people I come into contact with. For me, for the most part, that means speaking much slower than I am accustomed to. Not only do I have greater muscular control when I speak slower, but it helps me avoid the typical avoidance behavior of speaking very quickly to just get the speaking over with. As my speech therapist has told me, one of our main goals is to get a place where I can genuinely enjoy speaking, and cease, gradually, to fear it. For a stutterer, most communicative situations are avoided and feared, which just makes everything worse.

Returning to the board. The process of uncovering. There is so much waiting to be unearthed, but the only to get to it is by digging. Plans are useful, research is useful, but there needs to be more digging and less ruminating. Carve out your own corner of the world. There is so much space. And you have spent enough time at the surface, or digging one hole for a bit, then another, then another, pockmarking the landscape. Choose one and go down, however you need to. It seems best to dig little, but frequently, instead of massive sporadic bursts. Chip away, as long as you are a few centimeters deeper than your last foray, you're good. And because it is so frequent, those centimeters add up.

This is especially true for endeavors that don't show much in the way of results early on, like many deeply rewarding endeavors. It's been hammered in over, literally, thousands of years, but it bears repeating, especially for those who don't grow their own food--plant your seeds, and they will grow. But it will be a while, months, before you see any sign of life. You have to relinquish the need to see immediate results.

What will we find this time around? Watching An Extremely Goofy Movie dubbed right now.

Discipline is remembering. Retouching. Reducing the time between last time you touched your prize and the next time touch.

There is not a dearth of metaphors for language learning, and they are certainly of limited use, but one way of looking at the process is that of building a house. At first it will not be very comfortable, but after dedication and time, the L2 starts to feel like a second home, one in which you can operate and function just as safely, comfortably, and naturally in this second home.

I need to stop having my e-mail up nonstop. It wastes so much time.

How not to waste time, yet still live in the pocket. Relaxed? Maybe relaxed is not the right word. But un-stressed.

I want to assemble an album of piano pieces--I'd like to go to a studio in January for a couple hours to record. Having something relatively concrete feels good, and helps me close the book on certain things, at least for now, so that other things can open up. The recording I have of the "The Heights" is good to go, and maybe the live recording of "Music for Spring." Other pieces: Sonata, Pace, Thursday. I wish I knew how a music studio works.

Today I didn't get to listen to much Portuguese, but that's okay. Just reduce the time between the last time I touched it and the next time. I also need to meditate.

I met some beautiful people, physically and otherwise, tonight.

It really does help to have electronic interfaces in the language you're learning. After a while, you just get used to it and the language gradually begins to feel like home.

What is your work? What is the work you need to get done? What is your work? It is good to know mine, it has taken a lot of fluttering about to be able to sit and face what is my work. Other people have helped me to see what it is.

http://plus.ajatt.com/the-ajatt-quick-reference-guide-qrg-mandarin-edition-part-12

Amazing, this is just what I need.

Finding better ways to use my time is imperative for me, and it has been since I started working a full time job. I hate the feeling of wasted time, and it seems Khatzumoto does as well. His website is full of little techniques that make time management (it sounds so boring, right?) really fun and exciting.

Where are we right now? Trying to find something true and something that will be valuable and useful to people. To who? Stutterers? Creators? People like me, who can learn from me.

At work it is non-stop Portuguese. I might take an English break and listen to a song or something in English, but for the most part, I've got about 7 straight hours of Portuguese input. Tonight I created a few MCD's; it is an intriguing technique for learning language, so I'll have to give it a shot.

Momentum is a powerful thing. I like Khatzumoto's metaphor of boiling water (metaphors are just amazing...if you look at the etymology, the word literally means "carry over," and that's exactly what they do for me all the time; they carry me over, over the wall or the valley or the dry patch, into a new place of understanding or clarity or motivation): you can take a goal--fluency in Japanese, for Khatzumoto, or kensho, or a satisfying quality of creative work--and think of it in terms of terms of time (heat) dedicated to the task. But what is fascinating is that boiling water requires not just heat, but constant heat, as constant as possible. And as Khatzumoto describes here and here, one can look at the situation in terms of the ideal, Platonic method of one straight, continuous stream of heat, which is much more difficult to accomplish in the life of the average person. The more sophisticated method is leaving as little time as possible between "touching" the task--whether it is writing, or language learning, or meditation--so that the pot has as little chance to cool off.

    One day in speech therapy, I was trying to explain some recent developments in my speaking. I often like to explain what is going on within me using images or metaphors. This particular metaphor I chose to describe my experience of different speech "tracks." One of my therapists had once asked me if I stutter when I am singing, and I told her that don't. Most stutterers don't. She explained to me that, basically, the brain uses a different "track" for singing than it does for speaking. So if you think of it in terms of a mullt-lane highway, one lane is for speaking, while another is singing. That idea intrigues me, because I am often puzzled by the seemingly uncontrollable nature of my stutter. I often think of the mind, awareness, in terms of grooves or tracks. A habit is a perfect example. A habit can be described as a groove that has been developed over time, like a canyon. As is the nature of grooves, it is easy for my awareness to travel, to lie down, in the groove, for better or for worse. If you think of a bowling ball rolling down the gutter, you can see why it is difficult to create new habits--creating a new habit is tantamount to raising the ball out of the gutter. It takes effort, clearly.

    In speech therapy, we often discuss and work with habits--psychosomatic habits that have been laid down my entire life, and which my speech naturally falls into if I am extering any conscious effort. These are the tracks I mentioned earlier. Two fundamental ones are the emotions and history associated with my parents; simply, my mother track is much more fluent than my father track. I have observed this dynamic for years--I am generally more comfortable speaking with women than men, and the more like my mother someone is, or the more of my mother I am able to project onto someone, the better I speak with them (i.e. the more firmly I establish myself in that groove). The same for my father.

    These grooves are psychosomatic. Depending on which one I am currently inhabitating, my body feels different, my mind feels different, and my speech is different.

    What originally prompted the discussion of these tracks was when my therapist asked me about my experience using what she calls the "confidential tone." It is a tone of voice that we often use when discussing something confidential with someone--words are usually more enunciated and spaced apart, and the voice is softer. She suggested I try speaking with this tone, as we have both noticed that I am more fluent when I slow down, soften my voice a bit, and enunciate (even over-enunciate).

    As I practiced using the tone over the following couple of weeks, I noticed a palpable shift (changing lanes) that would occur if I consciously chose to use the tone in conversation. It almost felt as if I were using a fresh, new voice, which, for a stutterer, would be a dream come true. As I mentioned in my further development of the tracks metaphor, it is as if my usual speaking voice is a lane littered with debris from all the years of negative emotions associated with speaking. But when I consciously spoke in a slightly different tone, much more perceptible to myself than to any of my listeners, it was as if I were driving in a new lane, uncluttered and clear. Obviously, it is not as black and white as my description may imply, but I could feel this shift throughout my being--a feeling of space, freshness, and clarity in my speaking. 

Just keep doing. I use my head, and my mental powers of anticipation and planning, too much sometimes, to my detriment. There is a difference between standing and looking down the road, wondering, worrying, and actually pick up your feet and walking. Just keep going, finishing will take care of itself.

I don't know about you, but I have a hard time following the advice to just "enjoy the journey." I believe that it is possible, and I believe that in order to be able to enjoy the journey I need to develop my patience.

Starting

When I hear two different sources discussing the same idea, I pay attention. If I already respect both sources, I pay even more attention (not exactly that article I am looking for, but it's in the same vein). One such idea that I have been putting into practice lately is simply this: just get started.

When I first came across this simple yet powerful injunction, via Leo Babauta's blog (the first link above), I knew immediately that this would help me resolve a problem that has long disturbed me, and I imagine disturbs many. It's not just procrastination--it's the distinctive feeling of being so close to getting one's daily work, whatever that work may be, accomplished, as there were an invisible but palpable wall between one and one's work. How to get over the wall? It always feels so daunting. I wake up, and I know I need to meditate. But I'm in bed, I'll just stay here for a few minutes. I'll check a few e-mails before I go over to the chair or the mat. I'll get a snack first, so I'm not hungry and distracted. I'll do some straightening up. Maybe I'll take a shower first? The rationalizing never ends.

I've struggled with this a lot, and I bet you have too. So, how do you fix it? Remove the paralysis of the amount of time you're avoiding--20 minutes of meditation, an hour of writing, 30 minutes of running, whatever. Just start. Just sit down, and tell yourself that you'll just meditate for ten seconds. Sit at the desk with pen in hand. Stand outside with running shoes on. As long as you've done that, you're good. I think you'll be amazed by what can happen next as long as you just start.

From The Now Habit by Neil Fiore, Ph.D. (on Khatumoto's recommendation, of course): "Keep on starting, and finishing will take care of itself."

There is something very powerful in that statement. In particular I find in it a confirmation of a conviction I have, but often have difficulty in implementing: accomplishing something is not simply a matter of sheer will and force; it takes a certain humility and willingness to allow the "process" to happen of itself. I find this reaffirmed constantly when I write music. If I try to just "make it happen," it is quite painful and frustrating. But if I just sit down, if I just keep starting, eventually the process takes over and I feel more like I am swimming than carrying a ton of bricks up a hill, blindfolded, needing to pee. Of course, the challenges still arise, I still come up to a wall, or a valley, but I trust that by keep starting, keep "showing up," things eventually sort themselves out.

Maybe I could write about stuttering? That is definitely that I have invested a lot of time in and have a lot to say about.

On foreign language and stuttering:

As I learned in this article, some stutterers, like Henry James, have found relief in being able to speak more fluently (meaning, smoother) in other languages. In my case, it is the opposite: I stutter far worse in a foreign language. I remember realizing this pretty early on in my days of studying Spanish in school, so I wrote off foreign language as a successful part of my life, as I did with other things like acting, public speaking, and most careers, to be honest. And when I recently decided to learn Portuguese seriously, the same doubts came up, because I again hit the always-present wall of much more difficult speaking in a foreign language. But I owe it to my speech therapists for instilling in me the confidence to not allow my difficulties speaking close so many doors in my life.

So I'm going strong with the Portuguese. And I have had to remind myself that, in some ways, the road to fluency is more difficult for a stutterer like myself, as I have to constantly be vigilant, as I do in English, paying attention to my breathing, muscle control, etc. But it is a rewarding feeling in and of itself to be able to face the challenge, stutter and all. I hope that hearing this will encourage other stutterers who have given up on learning another language because of their speaking difficulties.

Also, one thing that I have found, which I shared with my speech therapists, is that I find my Portuguese study to be beneficial for my English speaking, as English now feels much sweeter in my mouth after having spent several hours choking over the many new sounds and combinations I have to learn in Portuguese. And when I enjoy speaking, I speak more smoothly. I have been able to savor English more. Which is an unexpected benefit.

Being a stutterer is interesting, for a lot of reasons. Something that often strikes me is how often I "forget" that I stutter. As in, I have developed throughout my life a subtle dissociation, based primarily in fear and an unwillingness to accept myself completely. I learned from my speech therapist that this dissociation is not at all uncommon--she told me of a client she once worked with, an elderly man, who, when he began treatment, continually denied that he stuttered. It's obvious in hindsight, or from the viewpoint of anyone except for this man, but the very process of accepting who he was improved his speech immensely. I have found the same to be true for me.

Some notes on learning Brazilian Portuguese, so far:

For the most part I am following Khatzumoto's advice. For the immersion environment, I try to take in as much Portuguese as I can, every day. As I write this, I am listening to the radio from Salvador, Brazil (Rádio Metrópole). When I am on the train, I either listen to podcasts or music, even if I am reading in English. And I try to get in some reading in Portuguese every day, usually the news (O Dia), or Wikipedia articles on subjects I am interested in (samba, mysticism, the Portuguese language itself). I sleep with Brazilian radio playing. When I am at work, I'll watch movies or TV (usually cartoons) that have been dubbed. Sometimes I'll accompany the movie with subtitles in Portuguese, which helps immensely. Or I will take a cartoon, like an episode of the Jetsons: I'll first watch it in English, then in Portuguese a few times, pausing here and there to sort out the phrases.

All of this helps. I agree with Khatzumoto's insistence on listening to FUNBUN (for us natives, by us natives) material. If I am aiming at being able to understand native speakers of Portuguese, I need to practice with material intended for native speakers. I have been actively studying Portuguese for about two months, and usually I can only get words, and every once in a while I'll be able to hear entire phrases. But every time I listen, I can feel myself getting better, which is enough motivation to keep going. It is a daunting task, but I am trying to learn how to be patient and to put one foot in front of the other.

Repeatedly listening to the same thing, whether it be a song or an episode of a cartoon or podcast, is also very helpful, because I can more easily piece together the sound and sense of something finite. It's a fascinating process to watch. It's like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. At first, all the pieces (sounds) are just spread out. But once I get one little phrase, it becomes much easier to piece together a preceding or following phrase, based on context and more familiarity with the speaker's accent. Piece by piece, the meaning of what they are saying slowly surfaces.

One of the lessons I've learned in the past couple of months is that I can live more sharply. What do I mean by that? Well, take my penchant for buying clothing. For a while I wrote about the process of updating my wardrobe and finding my sense of style. But at a certain point, I had to decide if continuing to invest energy, which includes money, in this project was worth it. I discovered two role models for myself--Travis Gumbs and Joshua Kissi, the gentlemen behind Street Etiquette. I had to ask myself if I was willing to put in the amount of effort into the design/fashion game, to get where they were. If not, then I would need to re-focus my energy, and my money.

In other words, a clothing purchase for these guys can easily be channeled into furthering their career--they are photographed in the clothes they choose to wear, and they receive clients based on their continually refining their taste. I am not in that position, and I do not feel that it is my calling. So instead of giving into the temptation to buy a new pair of sneakers, it would behoove me to put that money towards studio time, to record some of my music. An obvious choice, but it has taken me a bit to understand this for myself.

I'm going to try applying the critical frequency concept to blogging. I would love want to have a successful blog, which can generate income. If other people can do it, why can't I? My ultimate goal, or one of them, is to be able to spend as much time as I want writing music. But I can't do that right now, because I have a full time job to pay the bills. So it would be nice to be able to create a product, like a blog, that can be a more productive and enjoyable way to make money. And, at my current job, I can work on the blog at work.

I have tried blogging in the past, but, like many other projects, I eventually faltered and stopped altogether. One of the main obstacles, as I perceive it, is feeling like I don't know what to talk about. But, as I have found in other areas of my life, like writing music, the best way to find what I want to talk about is to keep writing (talking) until I find it.

Which is what I will try to do here, bit by bit, but constantly. I have had, and continue to have, so many interests, and the trick is to try to harmonize them and create something cohesive and, eventually, income-generating. What is at the heart of my various interests over the years? What ties them together?

For one, the joy of learning, and a developing interest in learning about learning (meta-learning). I have always been an autodidact; teaching myself new things has always provided immense pleasure. But I have often been disturbed by what seems to me an inability to focus on one thing for an extended period of time. I often feel scatter-brained. The situation has improved a lot in the past year, mainly through daily meditation and just deeper self-knowledge and self-exploration. But I have recently been thinking, prompted by reading the work of people like Tim Ferriss and Khatzumoto, that it may be useful to not always assume that I am scatter-brained, but instead to find how best I can use this aspect of myself. Tim Ferriss, for example, has built a career, in part, from his obsession with learning skills, jumping one from to the other like I tend to do. Of course, as a writer, he has also had to learn how to produce sustained and disciplined work. But there is much to learn from his dedication to exploiting his obsessions.

I try to do a lot. I have been writing music since high school, and I consider it my most satisfying work, perhaps my calling (This "perhaps" is something that I need to sort out, though I am not entirely sure how. David Deida has a lot to say about this, particularly in his Way of the Superior Man.). Right now I am learning Brazilian Portuguese--my goal is fluency. I am dedicated to Zen meditation. And I want to create a blog, or something similar, that can make money. I try as much as possible to cut out areas of my life that aren't directly related to these goals--not spending unnecessary money on clothes or shoes, for example.

Anyway, more later.