Russell Davies

Semi-retiring
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Why be more interesting?

This is a section I'm working on for the book. It's not a simple answer...

Tooth and claw - the productivity answer

There were once two hikers setting up camp in the woods after a long day’s walking. They’d just finished their evening meal and were settling down in their tent, getting into their sleeping bags, when they heard the unmistakable sounds of a bear snuffling around the campsite. They froze with fear. Then they heard it getting closer, then they saw the bulge in the nylon as the bear rubbed against the outside of the tent. One of the hikers slowly reached over to their rucksack, dug out a pair of running shoes and silently started putting them on. 

“What are you doing?” whispered the other hiker “You can’t outrun a bear”

“I don’t have to outrun a bear” the first hiker replied “I just have to outrun you”

This is a reason to be interesting. It’s a competitive world out there. In a world of work, a world of raising money to start a business, or to persuade someone to buy your new idea, or to support your cause, or whatever it is, it helps if you’ve got a little edge. And being more interesting can be that edge. It won’t make you the fastest runner in the world but it’ll help.

Just because - the life is for living answer

Someone once did a study which claimed that a greater proportion of scientists who won Nobel Prizes had hobbies than those that didn't. I posted this on the Do Interesting instagram and my friend James poked at it, questioning what I was suggesting: ‘be interesting so you can be successful, so you can win?’ And, yes, that's a bit of it, we talked about that above. 

But there's more to it than that. I think it's a useful counter to all the productivity pom in the world to remember that not only is being maniacally focused on work unhealthy, but that it also doesn’t work. I like the Nobel/hobbies study because it demonstrates that hobbies don't get in the way of professional success. Many of us want to succeed professionally and feel like our hobbies should sit on pause while we do it. This is study is one indication that that's pointless.

What else is there? - the happiness answer

The Australian author Helen Garner just wrote a magnificent essay for The Guardian about happiness. She said she’d finally realised that it wasn’t a thing you got after a lifetime of striving but something that you ‘glimpse in the corner of your eye’ Something elusive, that slips away before you name it. 

And then she writes:

“So I’m not going to spend what’s left of my life hanging round waiting for it. I’m going to settle for small, random stabs of extreme interestingness – moments of intense awareness of the things I’m about to lose, and of gladness that they exist. Things that remind me of other things. Tiny scenes. Words that people choose, their accidentally biblical turns of phrase. Hand-lettered signs, quotes from books, offhand remarks that make me think of dead people, or of living ones I can no longer stand the sight of. I plan to keep writing them down, praising them, arranging them like stepping stones into the dark. Maybe they’ll lead me somewhere good before I shrivel up and blow away.”

And then she tells you about the things she’s noticed. It’s magical and mundane. Go read it.

Being interesting means being interested. What else is there?

February 07, 2023 in DI, DoInteresting | Permalink

Updates from the House of Procrastination

I done a newsletter: Happy Septuagesima

And the latest 41233 features fairy tale weddings.

February 06, 2023 | Permalink

Learning to fly

Looking back I've always been pretty bad at going to gigs and going out dancing. Or, rather, I was OK at it until some point in my twenties.

Fondly remembered gigs as a teenager: Genesis and Tangerine Dream (twice?) at the Assembly Rooms, Prefab Sprout and The Daintees at The Blue Note.

Fondly remembered gigs while at college: Trouble Funk at the Town and Country, The Membranes, The Mekons and Bogshed at Stow Hill Labour Club, Newport. (This one?)

After that. Not much. Similarly I've been bad at going out dancing. 

Fondly remembered dancing as a teenager: 6th form disco. Co-op Function Rooms & the Blue Note, Derby.

Fondly remembered dancing while at college: the Tufty Club, various parties.

Since then it seems to have dried up. Some combination of work, hating smoke, always being the only person not drinking, being in a band, not liking crowds, really loving being at home has gotten me out of the 'going out to music' habit.

I have determined of late to change that. Because I really like live music. I really like dancing. And yet, as discussed, I never do either of them.

Partly because I don't drink. And sitting on my own sipping a Diet Coke seems more something than nursing a beer or a whisky. The latter would make me feel like a stranger on the edge of town, the former makes me feel like a Dad dropping someone off.

Partly because I have no one to go with. Anne's not really interested in much of the music I might like. She is occasionally kind enough to humour me with pleasant jazz if it involves sitting down but that's about it. My current solution to this is to buy two tickets to things I fancy and then flail randomly amongst my friends trying to entice them to come. So far it's not really working. People have lives.

But 2023 is the year I'm determined to get better at this. If you fancy a gig let me know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 03, 2023 | Permalink

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