YOU WANT ME TO WANT TO?

In Patrick DeWitt’s novel French Exit, the mom asks her thirty-two year old son to get something for her.

“Please bring me my cup.”

“I will if you want me to.”

“I want you to want to.”

And he obeys. So I ask . . .

How many times have you been asked to do something, did it, and got criticized for lack of enthusiasm?

One of the jokes around my house is lack of ‘Finishing School’ manners.

I didn’t go to finishing school, neither did my wife.

If I had, I’d know to do everything with a dollop of enthusiasm for the sake of harmony.

Take the garbage out, vacuum the floor, weed the yard. All things I do on auto-pilot.

It’s the sort of work that prevents us from living in a hoarder’s sorting room of dust bunnies surrounded by patches of weeds pretending to be a yard.

The basics of adult life need doing, so do them, or ask someone to do them.

If it all gets done on schedule, like before your house is condemned by the health department as a menace to normal society, keep doing it.

If you get it done with the burden of guilt because you don’t seem adequately happy about doing it? Keep doing it.

Maybe you need reminders on how and when to be happy.

 

Being Happy Matters

How many writers want to be the best writer they can be?

My guess is all of them. Who would finish a piece of writing worse than their last and call it good?

I’m of the feeling that every blog post I publish is better than the last, including this one.

 

Anyone who’s blogged as long as me knows one thing: be authentic.

If you strive for authenticity, if you write authentically, you learn to see it in others, read it in others.

My latest brush with authentic writing comes from Patrick DeWitt.

In praise of Patrick DeWitt I bought two more of his books.

I’m reading French Exit now and loving it.

The characters complain a lot, but do it in a way I can relate to, and isn’t that the secret to progress?

 

No one asked me to read DeWitt. I’d never heard of him until reading an Oregon Arts Watch email that singled him out as the winner of Ken Kesey Award For Fiction.

After reading more DeWitt I wanted him to want to write more.

He’s got the knack of going off on tangents that circle back in a way that makes it less tangent and more plot line, an unexpected twist in a twist.

My guess is he’s two-thirds of the way done with his next novel.

 

The Baby Boomer ‘Want To’

All high school athletes have struggled with one thing: Their potential.

Usually the struggle is a continuation of a coach’s struggle who didn’t rise to their own potential.

After years of blaming coaches for their lack of success, former athletes learn to break in down into more manageable bites of bitter.

It starts with capabilities.

They are capable of great things. Big enough, strong enough, fast enough, smart enough.

The missing part is the will. They aren’t willing to do the things needed for success.

The revelation comes after high school, after college, not so much after being a pro.

I mean, what’s a higher designation after making it that far?

I’ve been complaining the last fifty years over a poor sports outcome.

Now I wonder what was worse, losing, or complaining about the referee.

I spent three years figuring it out and came up with the idea that I wasn’t good enough.

Ouch, that one hurts. But what else is there?

I was willing, just not capable, instead of capable but not willing.

Which one hurts more?

Since then I’ve been willing and capable, capable and willing, and I’ve got no outcomes to complain about.

Instead, I complain about people who don’t know the difference between the two words.

Those people are usually called quitters who cover their buts.

He could have been great, but he quit.

Keep scratching my friends. Don’t let go.

See you tomorrow.