Writing is really just doing the work, isn’t it?
We build our skill set and unique perspective of the world and of people, and then, we just have to sit down, lock out the hours, and write.
And on the other side of all the work, we are writers.
The way a problem works, is that it arrives out of nowhere, we scramble to find a solution as fast as possible to avoid any discomfort, and then when we have the solution, the problem goes away and we move on.
Which, unfortunately, means we’ve learnt nothing about ourselves.
If we are truly going to grow in life, if we are going to actually transcend our “normal” into a life we’d be proud to live, then we need to step back and notice what’s happening between the problem and the solution.
We need to see ourselves, watch how we react, consider why we are doing what we are doing. No judgement, just compassionate honesty.
Is it fear? Chasing comfort? Ignoring the obvious?
If we are not aware of ourselves when a problem hits, then we’ll just automate our response to it, and it will cycle back again.
Being aware allows you to move forward. Grow. And when you’re done, you might even be able to thank the problem, instead of fearing it’s return.
(March 2018)
We landed at 5am this morning in Melbourne.
Rach is an amazing sleeper. She sat right next to me, eyes closed and face down, completely zenned out. Like a monk in prayer.
I’m not so successful at the sleeping thing.
I spent the flight staring at the back of my eyelids, and exploring every other sensation my body had running. I imagined being blind, and how all my other senses would grow stronger, like a superhero.
I could hear the low rumble of the engines, and a few muffled conversations two rows forward. I heard every snap and click of the bathroom doors. I heard so many coughs I lost count. I wondered if I could influence dreams, up there in the sky with all these sleeping souls. So I pushed thoughts of courageous generosity out into the ether, but, no one woke and gave me 20 dollers, so I guess it didn’t work.
One of the things I love about Rachel Callander is how she does this: The travelling, speaking, training, listening thing. She hustles so strong, but at the same time she’s not grasping at all, not chasing the spotlight, even when the spotlight chases her. The learning, the studying and thinking is hardcore, but the delivery is kind of effortless.
Not EASY effortless, but, more like, joyfully determined.
Like, she’s been told her future, been given that certainty, so now, no matter what the journey looks like, or how hard it gets, she’ll lean in to it with a cavalier open heartedness.
Psychologist Angela Duckworth would call this “grit”, I think.
—-
Abbortsford Convent is a peaceful ancient thing, straight out of a Harry Potter novel. I swear I saw some kids just finishing up a game of quidditch in the courtyard when we arrived. I laid some books on a table in the hall and enquired about coffee, and Rach stepped up to the stage.
This is the third year North Richmond Community Health has run their “Conversations About Care” symposium, and it has become something quite beautiful and powerful. It feels like a summit of elders, a gathering of altruism where the conversation isn’t about personal gain, money, justice or excuses, but instead, we hear ideas about transforming the customer experience, flattening the hierarchy of ego, building equal respect for both the patient and the professional.
Rach is alive here - Softly buzzing with questions, empathy, warmth and strength. She’s taking notes and sketching models into her Moleskine, and remembering every name she comes across.
I’m terrible with names, and have to write everything down:
Susan Alberti AC - A powerhouse of forward motion;
John McKenna - The Yoda of the Health System, reminding us of our limitless potential in life;
Dr Ajesh George, Prof. John Aitken, Dr Jonathan Silverman, Lucy Mayes, Dr Ioan Jones, Dr Katy Theodore, Dr Martin Hall.
Incredible humans, investing their lives into healthcare and relationships.
Rach whispers to me in passing, “These are our people, Nath!”
And I close my eyes, and again push my thoughts out into the ether; and I see a room full of people invested in humanity and cultural change.
Looks like I found that courageous generosity after all.
I think someone who studies writing will write better, but I don’t think that is enough. The greatest writer will just have created a really pretty, but empty, page. What I mean is that our art, our unique style, comes from somewhere else. It can’t quite be trained.
Don’t get me wrong - I want, and desperately appreciate, the training. But an artist who learns the techniques of brush strokes and acrylic paints will not a masterpiece create. The masterpiece is born from somewhere deeper. And in that sense, I really believe I have a chance at writing things that matter, and that are meaningful.
What got me on to this thinking was a conversation with Jenni that I had last night. She said she loves to write, but that she hasn’t written for a long time. She said that when it really matters, like when she needs to write a report or a thank you letter to someone at church, she just does it naturally, and the writing is awesome.
I told her that she has always been that way, and that I have a shoebox full of letters from her, from the 15-year-old her, that probably read the same as the letters she’s writing now. I think we are first of all heart and inclination, and technique follows.
We are souls first, completely alone in our unique diverse speciality, and when we write, we are simply opening our shells, and doing our best to shape the outflow.
Which gives me so much hope.
I never wanted to be a photographer.
I wanted to be a storyteller. I wanted to tell people stories about themselves. The kinds of stories they should already know, but had somehow lost along the way.
Stories like,
“You are amazing.”
“You are resilient.”
“You are broken, but also whole.”
“You are love(d).”
So I picked up a camera, and stepped into the world of weddings, and showed these amazing couples the sparks between them. I wanted them to know that the most magic thing about their wedding wasn’t the party, nor the vows and promises. It wasn’t even that they were loved.
The most magic thing, was that they themselves, were love. That’s the story I’ve been telling in every wedding I’ve every shot.
Tonight the sky is exploding.
Trails of fizzy light erupting in spectacular bouquets of pink and green and blinding white. There's so much smoke, we can’t see the stars anymore. Below our balcony, there are heavy grey ghost-clouds just yawning their way through the city, like ancient spectres roused from slumber, and already bored.
I love fireworks, but not for the usual reasons. Celebrations like these are always monstrously expensive, and often just bring out the worst in us. Thousands of humans massing themselves on the foreshore and shouting drunken patriotic slogans at each other all night. I don’t care about that at all. But tonight, I'm only seeing the lightshow in reflections: glimpses in the bathroom glass, the kitchen chrome, the bedside lamps over Rach’s shoulder, and the tiny starfalls in her moon-earrings.
She is watching the sky, and I am watching her. She’s telling me stories of festivals back in her hometown, back in New Zealand. Her face lights up with every firecracker, and in her eyes are sparks of experience, little explosions of whimsy in the deep pools of her memories.
It reminds me of the first time I brought Sebastian to a firework show.
He was barely two years old, and he sat in my lap and laughed at the sky. His tiny hands reached out, grabbing at the fireflies, his face awash with delight and glory.
This is why I like fireworks. It’s the soft splashes of wonder on all the faces.
The droplets of eternity on our lashes.
“Set aside a certain number of days during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with course and rough dress saying to yourself all the while ‘Is this the condition that I feared?”
— Seneca, Roman Philosopher (c. 4 BC - AD 65)
I am sitting cross-legged on an excellent chair. Drinking coffee, typing words. Today, we have no plans.
The foyer of this place is beautiful. High arches, wraparound internal balcony on the second floor, domed opaque glass for a ceiling, all lit up by the sun, without any of the heat. The only other soul in this palatial retreat is Rach, curled up and surrounded by her journals, like an intellectual cat.
This week had its moments. Two nights ago I rode my bike out of work at 3am. Last night I had clients until 9pm. This week had deadlines and bills and walls.
But today, it's all done. The muscle of life contracted, clenched, choked, but has now released again. Breathing free.
I suppose this is how everything happens:
Tense. Release.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Conflict. Peace.
Pain. Healing.
I suppose, if I'm being completely honest, today wouldn't mean anything to me without the preceding conflict. It would just be another day. Boring, even. But, because of the perspective afforded by conflict, I can truly appreciate the zero.
Today, we have no plans, and I am joyfully grateful, and I am being in, and enjoying every second of, this moment.
I’m listening to songs I haven’t heard in fifteen years.
Thoughts and feelings and sensations from that era tumble past my consciousness.
And when I stretch out my hand, and run my fingertips under these waterfall memories, I feel such a curious mixture of laugh-out-loud joy, and crashing loss. I miss all the people I’ve loved. And I loved all the people.
Peter Rollins says that you have to let them go, those loves. He says, in order to remember them the best, in order to hold them in your heart in a way that’s healthy, you have to let them go. Set them free. Give up the ownership, and the pain, and the grudges, and the hurt.
So then, when you meet them again, or when you have to talk about them in the future, you won’t be pouring out your bitterness, anger, victim-ness. Instead you can speak open heartedly:
“I’m really sorry for my part in our distance..”
“I’m so proud of you…”
“I miss you, but you’d be proud of me..”
“I care about you, and want you to be happy..”
“I forgive you..”
Pete Rollins says, if you don’t do the work of letting them go, then you won’t be able to have that healthy encounter in the future.
I think he’s right, too. I can’t cup my hands and hold on to all these memories, as they cascade over me. It would be a life’s work to hold it all, and I’d never get anywhere myself.
So, I stand here with palms open, letting the nostalgias and losses splash through my fingers, releasing them to keep falling through space, eventually to hit a surface far below me with a roar, like each memory was worth celebrating, like the world is applauding.
It just hit midnight here, and I’m alone with the city. All the tall buildings, the great ventricles of the city, have pumped out their last suited human, and are in a cardiac rest until the morning. Their lights have been left on, to compete with the stars, I think.
But the stars still win. The Southern Cross constellation is right in front of me, close, like it’s strung up between the Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton buildings. Like we missed a decoration when we were clearing out Christmas.
Rach said the moon was close tonight too. She texted me three hours ago, and said it was exceptional, that it sat in profile, all proud of itself for shining beautiful.
I missed it completely.
I think this is the part of life that breaks us. Not the late nights. Not even the deadlines. It’s not the hard work.
What breaks us is the pouring of our best hours into a vision that is not our own. It’s giving our best to something that doesn’t love us.
I’ll happily work all night for those whom I love, and who love me. I’ll pull an all-nighter to unpack an exciting idea onto a page. I’ll hustle so hard for those things in life I consider meaningful.
But, to put in hours of my day into a generic job? That is like death. That’s like pumping tiny suited bodies into my cubicles and letting them use up my best resources, only to leave at the end of the day without a word of thanks.
I’m with you, city buildings. I get it.
Sometimes you just want to fill yourself with inspired meaningful work, hey?
To know that worthwhile progress has been made this day. Progress towards a better world.
I think we should do work that matters. We should put a bouncer at the door and be selective about who will work within our walls.
“Joyful optimism? Come on in. Your desk is over by the window.”
“Grit? Take the top floor.”
“Prideful comparison? Sorry dude, there no space here for you today.”
“Love? Right this way. Take the boardroom.”
If I were that building, then at the end of the day, when all my people have emptied out of me and I was at rest again, I would turn on every light I had. I’d be so energised, I’d give the stars a run for their shine. And the great exhausted buildings beside me would start asking whether, maybe, they could borrow my bouncer for a day or two.
“Rachel Callander, award-winning photographer, gives up wedding photography to evangelise the Health System.”
“Nathan Maddigan, award-winning photographer, gives up wedding photography to persue authentic story craft.”
It doesn’t matter, really. What the papers say. What the fans say. What the critics say.
What matters, is that we chase ourselves.
What I mean is, every day of our lives, we are learning more about ourselves, what we love, what we believe in, what we despise. And the more we learn, the greater the responsibility to act.
We need to chase down our authentic core. Every time we unearth a clue, every time we discover a piece of the puzzle that is “us”, we must chase it. We can’t just ignore what we know to be true about ourselves.
I’ve done it, the ignoring-my-true-self thing. I experience a moment of revelation, of what I truly love in life, where I actually want to put effort in to achieve. And then I shut it down. I’m afraid of the work, or of failure, or of success. So I push it down, and ignore it.
And when I do that, I shrink a bit. I become smaller, weaker. And I’m reminded of Viktor Frankl’s words,
“When a man cannot find meaning, he numbs himself with pleasure.”
And I’m reminded to return to the chase, keep learning, trying, changing. To not give in to the fear or give up for the comfort. To honour everything that is weird/unique/different in me, honour the calling, and to keep chasing.
I wrote this three years ago, but it feels right to post it here, now. It’s a slow process, doing the work you think matters, but it absolutely matters.
Jan 2018
It’s midnight, and I can’t sleep. I wish there was a great inspired reason, but to be honest, I probably had a bit too much caffeine too late in the day. So, instead of sleeping, I’m out here on the balcony of our 6th floor apartment, watching conversations on the street, and drinking whisky, and writing. A truck just drove by, loaded up with Christmas decorations. Like a giant tinsel-spider, folded up and put to rest for another year.
The world is getting back to work.
And so are we. Rach and I. We took some time out, drove 400 kilometres to the southernmost tip of Western Australia, and made our plans.
We said, “Life is not long. We have to do meaningful work”.
We said, “No matter what, we need to do work that matters.”
We took stock of what we have, and what we need to get our message out. We pooled all of our stuff, everything of value.
We climbed a mountain, and talked about Love.
Rach said the clouds felt closer up here.
Tonight Rach sold her piano.
“If this indeed be the hour in which I lift up my lantern, it is not my flame that shall burn therein. Empty and dark shall I raise my lantern, And the guardian of the night shall fill it with oil and he shall light it also.”
- Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet, 1923.