Sunday was my birthday and as I begin my 58th trip around the sun, I’ve been reflecting on some of the things I’ve learned over the past half-century or so. I’m not talking about skills per se, though I have racked up a fairly impressive list. I think one of the things that has both helped the most while also being the most frustrating is the realization that in the vast majority of cases, control is an illusion. And when I say control, that could mean a job, our health, the art we make, almost anything — and a few things have happened recently that have really solidified that for me.
I think we love the idea of control because it gives us comfort and reassurance that we have some semblance of agency or responsibility over our lives and the events within them. But I think the truth is that luck and chance play as big a role as purpose and intent. In fact, sometimes it feels like we have no control at all and the only thing we can do is just hold on — and maybe that’s okay. As Jack says in Croupier, “Hang on tightly, let go lightly.” The challenge — or maybe it’s even a skill — is to know when to do one versus the other. I’d like to share a couple stories about how challenges around control have appeared in my life recently. Maybe you can relate.
About a month ago, I started getting multiple weird physical symptoms, which was strange because I never get sick. I won’t go into detail but they happened sort of sequentially rather than all at once, which led Adrianne and me to think that they were seemingly unconnected. Stranger still was that everything came and went over the course of a couple weeks. We tossed around a few theories, but since I never really felt bad per se, I didn’t see a doctor. I even tested for Covid, which was negative, and when all of the symptoms went away, we just chalked it up to some sort of weird bug. I was telling a neighbor about all of this and he told his wife, who’s a retired nurse. The next day she texted me and encouraged me to go see a doctor. I did, and after running some tests we found out that there was in fact something going on. The short answer is that I’m fine and will continue to be, but the whole thing was a lesson in taking control — or at least taking action — in a particular situation, rather than leaving it to chance.
I’ve had an on-and-off relationship with Morning Pages for years. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, it’s an exercise from Julia Cameron’s brilliant book The Artist’s Way. The premise is simple: every morning when you wake up, before you do anything else, you do “three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing.” That’s it. It’s designed to be sort of a “brain dump” that helps clear out whatever happens to be bouncing around in your head, so that you can start each day with a blank slate. It sounds simple, right? It actually is most of the time and I generally love doing them. But there are definitely days when my stream of consciousness seems to be running a little dry. If one missed day turns into two or even three, it’s a practice that can quickly fall by the wayside.
The other day a video popped up in my feed that just might change my relationship with Morning Pages. It’s one of those “10 essentials” videos that featured Pierce Brosnan, who I’ve been a big fan of since his Remington Steele days. He was a terrific Bond and his remake of The Thomas Crown Affair is still one of my favorite movies. Anyway, Pierce was going through his 10 essentials (3 of which are footwear, for what it’s worth) and 1 of them is a sketch book and a set of colored pencils. It turns out that before he was an actor, Pierce wanted to be an artist, and he’s continued to sketch and paint for most of his life. He said he routinely annotates and decorates his scripts with various sketches and doodles, some of which serve as inspiration for future paintings. This gave me an idea that may sound obvious, but it was sort of revelatory in the moment. As visual as I am, my own “sketch and doodle” practice suffers many of the same fits and starts as my writing. What if I combine two practices that I love doing (but fail to do consistently) into a hybrid version of Morning Pages? Some days I may write, others I may sketch. Either way, I regain control of getting things out of my head and onto the page — regardless of how they come out — so I don’t get stuck in a feedback loop and instead I’m free to move on to something new. I even have the perfect notebook, which was gifted to me years ago by my friend Kristopher Matheson and has sat unused on one of the bookshelves in my studio ever since.
In a previous iteration, I wrote about my decades-long love of synthesizers and electronic music. For the past few years, I’ve been dabbling in making “music” of my own — and I use that term very loosely. A more accurate description might be that I cobble together sounds, tweaking them until they get to a place that I like. In fact, the ambient soundscape you hear playing under each Iteration is something that I made. Here’s the thing — I will never be a “real” piano or keyboard player. I just don’t think about making music in that way. My approach to music is really no different than my approach to making art — which has taken me years to figure out and accept. While I think of myself as an artist, my creative process is more akin to a curator or, not surprisingly, an art director — and I don’t mean that as a negative. It shows up in the way I build my paintings by distilling ideas and assembling various elements into a cohesive whole, rather than creating those elements from scratch. I think it even comes through in my approach to writing. As much as I love synths, I doubt that I’ll ever get to a point where I can actually play one. I think a better choice for me is something like an Elektron Digitakt, which is a sampler, a drum machine, a synth, and a sequencer all in one box. It’s a brilliant piece of hardware and I’ve wanted one literally for years. In fact, the other day I was watching a video about assembling songs on the Digitakt, and as I was watching it I thought to myself, “this looks really familiar.” Then I realized why. The most recent comment under the video was from me, saying that I was thinking about buying a Digitakt because the workflow seems to fit the way I think. That comment was from two years ago! Since then, I’ve gone back and forth over it, and I’ve watched countless videos about it, but for whatever reason I just won’t give myself permission to buy one. Actually, that’s not true. I know exactly what the reason is — I don’t deserve it. We have the money and while I think that I would love using it, there’s no specific reason for me to have it. Instead, I see it as an unnecessary indulgence, which I just can’t allow. Denying myself can be another form of control.
Control is a tricky thing. As I said at the top, we love the feeling of reassurance and certainty that being in control of a situation can bring, but often feeling like we have to control everything can be debilitating, not to mention exhausting. It can also leave us unprepared when life throws us an unexpected curve. Part of why I’ve started seeing a new therapist is to learn how to process some of the traumatic situations from my childhood that I felt I had no control over at all, which set the tone for how I try to control situations in my adult life. That means unlearning old patterns and behaviors and pressing the pause button on tapes that have lived rent-free in my head for decades. The practical upshot is that by learning that I don’t have to try to control everything — and recognizing the difference between control and influence — I can be more present and thoughtfully respond to challenges, rather than simply reacting indiscriminately.
I hope some of this resonated with you. If you enjoyed this iteration, I would appreciate it if you would share it with a friend or two. And if you’re not yet subscribed, maybe you could do that as well.
Thanks for reading.
Thank you for the paragraph on the digitakt! While I knew I didn’t spend money easily on things “I didn’t deserve” and I knew family members deprived themselves as a means of control, I didn’t put together that I do this as a means of control too. I’m constantly learning (or relearning?) lessons of balancing joy, worthiness, control/fear, and letting go. Thank you for the reminders and happy birthday!!
Belated birthday wishes indeed to you. Sorry I've missed your daily walks for weeks now.
Control is a difficult thing to have. Although we maybe able to influence ourselves and others ( thinking of healthy eating for ourselves as an instance ) some of it is based more on luck than control. Where we are born and live, what our family are like and schooling etc. Sometimes I feel as though my life is stuck on a rail road set of tracks and I'm standing to one side of me helpless to do anything bar accept my fate. Other times I struggle to not be a creature of habit despite it frustrating me. All I do know is I've been very lucky in life even if I can't control most of it or even know I am at the time.