Though, to Be Fair, I Lived

Towards the end of any haircut, when the barber pulls out the electric trimmer to shape the line where my hair meets my neck, I always worry that someone will to bump into him, that he’ll for some other reason lurch a bit, and that I’ll be left for the next few months with a bald runway up the back of my head.

Unfounded as that fear might be, it was only magnified today when I headed in to the Three Aces Barber Shop, an old-school place with giant jars of Barbisol and framed pictures of boxing matches. And, more importantly, a place where they trim neck hair not with electric trimmers, but with hot shaving cream and straight-razor.

Turns out, there’s really nothing to exacerbate that sort of phobia like an eighty-year-old with failing eyesight, essential tremor, apparent balance issues, and a freshly honed open blade.

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Think It, Do It

Even with the best of daily blogging intentions, even on a long holiday weekend, it appears I couldn’t keep my re-start streak going for three straight days.

But, at least, it appears I’m not alone. In one of his earlier books, productivity guru Mark Forster relates this exercise:

All you have to do is pick one task which you are going to do the next day without fail, and then do it. If you succeed at that task, then you pick another different task for the following day and make it just a little bit more difficult.

And so you continue one day at a time, picking one task which you will do each day – each day a little bit more difficult. Once you are confident that you can carry out any task no matter how difficult without fail, you then repeat the process with two tasks.

It doesn’t matter whether the tasks are meaningful or completely nonsensical. The idea is to do them for no other reason than because you have decided to do them.”

As easy as it gets. Yet, as Forster points out in his later Do It Tomorrow, that simple game “has in fact proved too difficult for just about everyone who has tried it.”

Clearly, I wouldn’t fare particularly well on Forster’s exercise either. But I do increasingly believe that mastering it, achieving that sort of conscious self-control, is at the heart of productivity, and most other life successes.

So, perhaps, that simple exercise is worth working on. Perhaps it’s less about will, and more about skill. Perhaps practice makes perfect, and self-control can actually be learned.

Or maybe not. Either way, I think it might be worth the effort to find out.

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Give Thanks

“The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.”
– William Blak

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
– Marcel Proust

“I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose.”
– Woody Allen

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Redux

Sometimes, after long breaks in blogging, I think about why I maintain this site. Do I have something to say? Does the exercise of regular writing hold some benefit itself?

Perhaps, and perhaps. But, more importantly, this site keeps me atop the Google results for ‘joshua newman’, ‘josh newman’, and a slew of other similar searches. Yes, in point of fact, this entire site is an elaborate form of SEO.

So, to that end (and, possibly, some others), back to it. In the words of the inimitable Will Rogers, even if you’re on the right track, you get run over if you just sit there.

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Portrait of the Artist

Apologies for the silence of late; things have been more ‘exciting’ than ideal on the work front, with multiple films all going (and, in standard form, running into series of disasters) at the same time.

This past Friday, however, I took the morning off to drive my sister-in-law Nina to a med school interview just outside of New York City. By way of thanks, she crafted this paper cutout portrait of me and Jess:

joshandjess.jpg

I’m impressed.

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