Out of the flow - bummer

Big Frank is out of the flow now. He is fighting off a cold; yesterday he appeared to have the upper hand, last night the cold did; and today . . . well Big Frank is going to need some ammunition and he's scrounging his cabinets for left-over medicine from his daughter, Gina's, bouts with colds.

Flow Tracking Day # 7

Big Frank spent day # 7, the last of his experiment, much in the flow. Rather than get into any analysis of the results of this experiment now, Big Frank will report on this last day and then leave the report for later. So here's day 7.

1. Big Frank attends a lot of meetings as part of his job. Usually these kinds of meetings are not condusive to flow in the least. However, Big Frank has discovered how to productively use this time - when the meeting is taken over by the redundant repetition of the obvious, and the tangential expeditions of those oblivious to the agenda at hand. Big Frank's solution, at these time, is to write aphorisms. The technique is to pay very close attention to everything that is happening at the meeting - what is said, the reaction of those attending, and the context within which all this is happening. The result is . . . Big Frank enters the flow. Here are his aphorisms from this morning's meeting. Categorize as WRITING.

1. Hair is a face frame.

2. Your honesty with yourself is your window into your character.

3. Your secrets are your treasures.

4. If there were no gravity our heads would be in the middle of our bodies.

5. Small talk is like treading water: it serves a purpose in emergencies or pauses, but gets you nowhere.

6. Nonverbal communication is the silent percussion of speech.

2. Big Frank organized a new meetup this evening: Social Adventurers. Ten people signed up but only three actually showed up. This seemed like it should have been a failure of sorts and one that would have resulted in worry and contemplation of mistakes. However, just the opposite happened. The three people who did show up got into a very animated discussion about something quite apart from the purpose of this group. While this was, in a sense, off the mark - still it did get Big Frank into the flow. Categorize as SOCIALIZING.

Flow Tracking Day # 6

Big Frank was well into the flow of it all today. The day seemed to fly by; time seems to not be much present during flow. So here's what it was all about.

1. Big Frank spent much of the day filling out an application and writing the project statement for a Fulbright application. The amount of information required is timeconsuming: biographical, work experience, responsibilities, awards, college descriptions, program descriptions, demographic information, trends, etc. etc. Then there is the contacting of people to be referees and sending them all the relevant information on what the Fulbright program is that he's applying for and the project that he envisions implementing. It took hours and hours and throughout Big Frank was totally in the flow of it all - it did require skill and it was a challenge. Categorize as WRITING.

2. When Big Frank wasn't working on the above, he was writing to agents in India and Vietnam to make appointments for his upcoming February trip. Balancing schedules and trying to fit everyone in a limited time schedule takes patient and skill - especially when you are working via e-mail and there so many people to accommodate. This demands focus and got Big Frank into the flow. Categorize as SCHEDULING/ PLANNING.

2. During Big Frank's lunch (he actually took a half hour for it) he put aside the application and project writing and did some reading. He read "Reality Check" the latest collection of poetry by a great Irish poet, Dennis O'Driscoll. This put him in the flow. Categorize as READING POETRY.

3. After work Big Frank headed to the gym for a workout. He lifted some weights and did a good solid three miles on the treadmill. While running he listened to Sade - especially "Is It A Crime". This is the first time that Big Frank ran to her music and it really got him into the flow - great running music. Categorize as RUNNING/LISTENING TO MUSIC.

Here's a poem from Dennis O'Driscoll's "Reality Check":

The Clock

With only one story to tell, the clock strikes
a monotonous note, irrespective of how
musical the bell, how gilded the chimes
its timely conclusions report through.
Time literally on hands, it informs you
to your face exactly where you stand
in relation to your aspirations, stacks up
the odds against your long-term prospects,
leaves your hopes and expectations checked.
Keeping track of time to the last second, it gives
the lie to all small talk about your reputedly
youthful looks, sees through the subterfuge
of dyed hair, exposes the stark truth beneath
the massaged evidence of smooth skin.

---- Dennis O'Driscoll

Flow Tracking Day # 5

Hey - getting into the flow on Monday is a challenge. Big Frank was having trouble getting going this morning. He said to himself (yeah, when you live by yourself you end up talking to yourself a lot), "Blah, getting up and going to work today is not what I want to do." He was definitely not in the flow, and was feeling bummed out - in a kind of antiflow. But, in keeping with this experiment Big Frank will give the moments of flow for today and not the unflow or antiflow, or whatever - perhaps - lack of flow. So here they are:

1. Potluck at work with the staff he works with. This was in the flow - a group of people each bringing food that they had cooked specially in for this event (well, except for Big Frank, who forgot about it and - adding to the bummer start - had to go shopping for food this morning). Sitting around together and sharing food and talking about stuff that doesn't have anything to do with work - in the flow! Categorize as EATING/SOCIALIZING.

2. Discussing the concept of honest with the philosophy meetup group. The topic was "What is honesty?" There were about 15 people and the discussion was far ranging, personal, occassionally abstract, and sometimes even philosophical, but sharing thoughts and feelings, and following what others were saying was definitely being in flow. The feelings and ideas were challenging and thought provoking. Categorize as DISCUSSING/SOCIALIZING.

Big Frank Tries His Hand At Aphorisms

Big Frank has been reading a lot of aphorisms lately. So he thought that he would put down a few of his own. Here they are - 10 of them.

1. Getting into the moment means getting into which moment?

2. This life of yours is never wasted; what you spend your time on has value - the waste is not your life - it's your attention.

2. Honest sharing is selective revelations.

3. The face of your lover reflects in your reaction to it the face of your love.

4. Your comfort with your body is a good indication of your insouciance.

5. When your tears laugh you have touched the face of God.

6. The way in which you get out of bed in the morning has absolutely nothing to do with what kind of person you are. The way you go to sleep at night, however tells everything about who you really are.

7. People who insist on talking only about themselves are condemned to listen only to themselves.

8. The neglected sense is one that rarely gets anyone into trouble except in public announcements of the obvious.

9. Music is the source of emotion that never deceives.

10. The gaps in your attention are a map of your detention.

Flow Tracking Day # 4

This flow tracking is 4 days on the road - three to go before Big Frank puts it all together and tries draw some conclusions. There are few patterns emerging - maybe there will be more. Today, Sunday, Big Frank thought that he would get a little more into the flow, but the day just seemed to slip away in kind of a flat manner. There were a couple times when he did get into the flow - so Big Frank will ignore all that flatness and relate only the flow.

1. Editing poetry. Big Frank is going through all the poetry that he wrote over that past year. Sometimes in rereading the poem sits well and Big Frank is pleased with it as it is. However, often he is struck at how it's off a little with a word, or sometimes the whole thrust of it seems less than what he had intended. However, the entire activity did put him into the flow of the moment. Categorize as WRITING.

2. Reading and listening to others read poetry. Big Frank met with a group of poets that get together every two weeks to read poetry (both that they have written and also others). It is a very satisfying activity that requires concentration and is very rewarding. It takes you out of yourself and into the world of poetry - a very good place. Categorize as LISTENING TO POETRY.

Flow Tracking Day # 3

Big Frank had a couple of good flows today.

1. Snowshoeing at Mt. Spokane State Park. It was extremely quiet - the only sound being the squeeking and the crunching of the snowshoes as Big Frank moved along the trail. That movement settled into a kind of rhythm and with the crisp cool air, the cedar lined trail, and brilliant white snow everywhere Big Frank definitely got into the flow of the moment. It was terrific. Categorize as SNOWSHOEING.

2. Driving back Big Frank put on Grant Green's amazing "Idle Moments" accompanied by Joe Henderson on tenor, and Bobby Hutchison on vibes - it is a classic. This is classic jazz in every sense of the word. It is one of those jazz songs where the melody falls just a fraction of a second behind the beat creating such a laid back hip sound that it takes you away. Categorize as DRIVING/MUSIC.

3. During the evening in honor of the Year of the Ox, Big Frank went to a Chineese New Year party prepared and served by Chinese friends of Big Frank's. In the company of lots of friends, with terrific Chinese food, and great conversation flow was easily achieved. Categorize as SOCIALIZING/EATING.

4. Reading Wallace Stevens' aphorisms. As with all good aphorisms - and Stevens' are good - they make you look at things anew - differently. They challenge your view and in thought take you away from yourself - from thinking of yourself. Categorize as READING/THINKING

Here are ten of Big Frank's favorite Wallace Stevens aphorisms:

Life is an affair of people not of places. but for me life is an affair of places and that is the trouble.

Thought is an infection. In the case of certain thoughts it becomes an epidemic.

What we see in the mind is as real to us as what we see by the eye.

Sentimentality is a failure of feeling.

The final belief is to believe in a fiction, which you know to be a fiction, there being nothing else. The exquisite truth is to know that it is a fiction and that you believe in it willingly.

We live in the mind.

When the mind is like a hall in which thought is like a voice speaking, the voice is always that of some one else.

The more intensely one feels something that one likes the more one is willing for it to be what it is.

The mind that in heaven created the earth and the mind that on earth created heaven were, as it happened one.

Reality is not what it is. It consists of the many realities which it can be made into.

Flow Tracking Day # 2

Same start - like everyday, and no flow in going throught those morning routines. Big Frank wonders if getting up and getting going could, in some way, every put one into FLOW. Perhaps there is a different approach.

First stop today was the county jail. No flow there. Just visiting someone and trying to help him figure out what to do to get his plan going to get out. Big Frank thinks there's little flow in places like that.

However, this posting is rather more about times when flow occurs. So here they are:

1. Planning a trip to Southeast Asia, making plane reservation that will take Big Frank all the way around the world, picking out hotels in Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, and Delhi. Time melts away in the details and decisions and double checking with travel agents. Categorize as PLANNING/TRAVEL.

2. Eating sushi. Big Frank went out after work with The Foodies - a meetup group that eats at various restaurants and does potlucks. It's all about food - well, and conversation while eating also. Eating is not an especially challenging activity - actually pretty much anybody can do it, and it requires practically no skill whatsoever. Maybe not real high flow, but eating good food (sushi and sashimi is about as good as it gets) does induce flow. Categorize as EATING/SOCIALIZING.

3. Drinking wine. Big Frank went out for a couple of drinks with his blogging buddy, Magne, after the sashimi dinner. It's much like eating - drinking wine and talking with someone with whom the conversation is good - you're in the flow when you do that. Categorize as DRINKING/SOCIALIZING.

Flow Tracking Day # 1

Big Frank was tuned in today to FLOW. This is a report of discovered times of flow - no sense, for now anyway, in reporting those times when it was lacking. When Big Frank got up this morning, had his coffee, showered, read the NY Times, and got dressed - the flow was pretty slow. Let's concentrate on when things were good and he actually experienced some flow. He reckons that there were three times during the day when that happened.

1. Driving across town listening to Lee Ann Womack sing "If You're Ever Down In Dallas" he felt good. This doesn't really seem to fit within the criteria of relatively high challenge met by relatively high skill. Driving is not all that much of a highly developed skill, but under the right conditions it can induce happiness. Big Frank thinks we all know of times - the right tune is on and we just get get into the flow of the moment felling very good. So categorize this one DRIVING/LISTENING TO MUSIC.

2. Working on addressing a problem There was a person who was arrested, had spent the night in jail, and was a foreigner. So without getting into too much revealing detail, let's just say that in my position Big Frank had to contact that person's consulate, contact the jail, see if the public defender's office was representing him, what the charges were, had bail been met, when could I visit him, etc. etc. In the effort to gather all this information Big Frank was into the moment and out of himself. It was not the same kind of happiness as driving, but it was definitely a feeling of being engaged and not aware of himself. Let categorize this one as "SOLVING A PROBLEM/INTERACTING WITH PEOPLE.

3. Exercising in the gym while listening to a song of Pat Methaney's - "Are You Going With Me" from the CD "Off Ramp. This was while Big Frank was actually walking on the treadmill, warming up for his run. The warm up with this great tune got him into a much better sense of flow that when he was running the 3 miles that followed this warm up. This tune may just be the best warming up tune ever - listen and then use it and experience the flow yourself! Categorize it as EXERCISING/ LISTENING TO MUSIC.

So Big Frank immediately sees a pattern here with music. Driving was something of a surprise, but it probably shouldn't have been.

Track the good times

Big Frank has been thinking about the good times, and paying more attention to them. When you are really involved in creating something new you don't have enough attention left to monitor your identity (your problems, hunger, anxiety, etc. - all of these disappear from your conciousness). Something that requires a lot of attention leaves your existence unattended (that's a good thing - that's when you are in flow!). You don't think, you merge yourself with your activity. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced chick-sent-me-high-ee) talks about this state of flow at TED. He explains how it feels to be in flow. At that time you

• Are completely involved in what you are doing.
• Are in a state of ecstasy (outside normal reality)
• Experience a sense of inner clarity
• Know that the activity is doable
• Have a sense of serenity (no worries - outside the ego)
• Feel a sense of timelessness (thoroughly focussed on the present)
• Have intrinsic motivation

Csikszentmihalyi came to these results by collecting data from people by paging them 10 times per day and asking them to record what they were doing, how they were feeling, and to note the amount of skill they needed at that time along with the challenge being faced. It turns out that when both are high, but not too high, flow can often be found. This is when people typically are most happy.

So join Big Frank in his own experiment and note for yourselves during the day when you are most happy:

• Where are you?
• What are you doing?
• How much of a challenge are you facing?
• How much skill is required to do what you are doing?

When are you in flow? Big Frank is going to track his flow and post his results here. He welcomes anybody else to do the same.

Marginalia

"One keeps saying the same thing, but the fact that one has to say it is eery."
Elias Canetti


Marginalia All the Way Back Home to You

Your own mental scribbles comment on
A story you just told, telling you how off
It was, or maybe even asking why that,
Just now; well, perhaps you shouldn't have.
That story has to go - away for good,
Its relevance was questionable.
Now the commentator's front and center
As though it were a talking head, a
Pundit on TV, who sees a pattern
In all you do and never lets you be.
In leaving the margin it's fair game
And is then marginalized by you:
Acknowledging that while it's stale, its telling
Pleases you more than refraining.
But marginalia had been set, so while
The story will stay on for more replay
It'll always be framed in anxiety from that day.

---- Big Frank Dickinson

Clouds of Intentions

Clouds of Intentions

We can talk and talk it over . . .

Like the unreadable newspapers

That we subscribe to day by day,

That pile up in corners or are

Recycled into cardboard boxes

Into which are put yet more papers.

Silence and the high clouds that circle us
Day by day assume shapes that go

Unnoticed and morph into yet new figures
That in turn are seen as only clouds

That cast shadows over the mumbling
That takes place beneath them and these in turn
Take on latent forms and patterns that are
Heard only as the vocal traces of

Words that condense into mist and fog
That often goes unnoticed and then

Drift upwards in trails of cloudy intentions
That shift in the wind but cast no shadows.

---- Big Frank Dickinson

An Ambulance Can Only Go So Fast

Neil Young put out "On The Beach" in 1974 - right on the heals of his megahit "Harvest". However, this was a dark follow-up, but a brilliant one. No song on the album is better than "Ambulance Blues". Here are some of Big Franks's favorite lines from that song.

"Oh, Mother Goose, she's on the skids

Shoe ain't happy, neither are the kids. "

"It's hard to say the meaning of this song.

An ambulance can only go so fast

It's easy to get buried in the past

When you try to make a good thing last."

"With your stomach pump and

your hook and ladder dreams

We could get together

for some scenes."

"I never knew a man

could tell so many lies

He had a different story

for every set of eyes.

How can he remember

who he's talkin' to?"

Cause I know it ain't me,
and I hope it isn't you.

Check out all the lyrics in full here. Then here's Neil singing it live.

What is the meaning of this song. It's an experience - like poetry - it means what you experience. Aside from the great lyrics the chords in this tune are haunting and the harmonica pulls you through - a great song.

"Desire without an object of desire"

Big Frank has been reading Wallace Stevens, a poet who is often thought of as dry and unlyrical. Nothing could be further from the truth. Stevens writes perceptively and knowingly of desire. Even when disillusioned he invites desire and happiness. As he wrote: "I am like a man in a grocery store that is sick and tired of raisens and oysters crackers who nevertheless is overwhelmed by appetite."

Of Mere Being

The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor

A gold colored bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.

You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.

The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

---- Wallace Stevens

Was Becomes True and Real

Remiss Rebut

Remis Rebut.
It is over and done for,
and the glory gone,
the seaweed foul,
the sea itself
a symbol in your dream.

Let it be
and behind it all,
you will see the globe,
an earth becoming slowly
a real world,
undreamed of but beheld.

---- Harriet Zinnes

Worry Reminders

The Man
With No Short Term Memory
Reminds Himself To Worry (His Notes)


My foot hurt; does it always hurt?
Are my towels as plush as hotel ones?
My heart skipped a beat; is this a trend?
I think that I used to exercise more - did I?
I ate with P; do we always eat together - why?
I felt tired today; did I feel tired yesterday also?
Why did M look down when I said good morning?
Is this my real life, or I am leading an unreal one?
The car didn't start the first time; is this the norm?
There was no mail today - should there have been?
When G called me today she sounded upset - why?
I thought a lot today about getting old - is this normal?
I wore my brown shoes with my blue pants - is this OK?
I was expecting something good to happen today - why?
V called me today and we talked - should I call her back?
My computer freezes up when I open a WORD doc - virus?
I sleep alone - why is that; has this always been the case?
Which cup should I toss - the one with the M&M guys on it?
I called D today, but nobody answered - is she avoiding me?
I feel like someone should be contacting me soon - should I?
Are the cans of olives in my cupboard intended for something?
There is a brown spot on my hand - has it always been there?
Did I close the garage door; check if someone took your bike?
The date on my milk carton indicates it's old - can I still drink it?
My shoes are scuffed; do I need to polish them or buy new ones?
I lay in bed for one hour before I fell asleep - do I always do this?
I watched a TV program on monkeys tonight; should I have read?
The light next to my bed makes a high pitched sound - or does it?
My stomach hurts when I wear the black pants - have they shrunk?
When I close the garage door, can someone open it from the outside?
The cups don't seem to fit in the cupboard anymore; should I toss one?
When I went into work today - everyone was already there- was I late?
W went to lunch & didn't ask me if I wanted to go -does he ever ask me?

---- Big Frank Dickinson

The Numbers

Big Frank has been thinking about the numbers lately. What numbers? Well - take any important aspect of your life: your friends, your job, your bank account, your free time, your hobbies, your love life, your exercise, your eating, your televsion watching, your shopping, your interests, your reading, your music, etc. etc. - all of them can be quantified. When you quantify them you learn something about them. This is actually one piece of advice that Atul Gawande gave in his book about how to improve medical treatment. He said that when you count something you will learn something - and he recommended that you count something that you are interested in. A recent This American Life radio program focussed directly on this issue also - in this particular episode, "Numbers" the show interviewed people who used numbers to quantify things that typically are not quantified. One woman quantified her love life over a 10 year span. A couple used numbers put into a kind of corporate report to quantify the emotional content of their lives (this one - they claim - didn't work). Still others used numbers to create art, to keep track of their daily lives, and one man used them to learn how to better market himself to his wife (this one actually improved their marriage). So the results are a mixed bag - but in many cases it works. We think of numbers as dry, but . . . they don't lie.

So contrary to what my brother Dan said about the intuitive approach being the only way to respond to people's personalities, Big Frank thinks otherwise. We all know times when our intuition failed us - if we had numbers to back us up, and we paid attention to them, the mistakes might have been avoided. So as an experiment - go back to Big Frank's numerical system for evaluating personalities, and use it with your real time-tested friends. I think you'll find that they all score pretty high on it. Then when you meet someone new - score them out and this will tell you whether your intuition is working in your favor or not.

Then - find something else to count in your life (Big Frank is talking as much to himself as to all you readers). Find something that is important to you and then count it and keep counting it over a period of time. Then - if you are comfortable sharing - let Big Frank know what the result showed you.

Finally, Wislawa Szymborska's poem, "A Word on Statistics".

I'm outa here - I'm coming back - or is it the other way around?

"Now I'm a little past Little Rock
further down the line
too soon to know what's up ahead
too late to change my mind
I've got to keep my heart out of this
and both hands on the wheel
I'm learning more with every mile
just how leaving feels
It's a lonely stretch of blacktop
out into the blue
don't know where I'll go
or what I'll do
I'm a little past Little Rock,
but a long way from over you."

This is from Lee Ann Womack's tune "A Little Past Little Rock", which is off her CD "Some Things I Know". However, note that she has just released a new CD "Call Me Crazy." Lee Ann is quintessential country - about as good as it gets. She is old-school country, she's always solidly supported with extraordinarily strong musicians. She is firmly in the themes of country in all her songs - you know: OMG he's gone, he was bad, but OMG I love him and miss him. Take the above song. As the music video clearly indicates here's this lovely woman who had to leave Dallas - in the middle of the night. Why? Because she broke up with her guy so when night "with nothing more than a tank of gas" she leaves and heads north. So here she is, on the road driving away from Dallas but the whole way she's thinking of nothing except the guy whom she's leaving. The thing that she really wants is to go back to this guy that she's running away from. So, OK all you non-country fans are going - what a bunch of hokey nonsense. But . . wait a cotton pickin minute: who among you has not been in a similar situation. Well maby not in a jeep driving to Little Rock, but I have to get away from this guy/girl - I've got to get back to this guy/girl - I've got to get away. Country has its own take. So how about a hippy riff on the exact ambiguous feeling - here's Maggie Estep, slam poet, on the same topic "I'm an Emotional Idiot" or watch her perform it here. Confusion comes with being human.

What?

Communication breakdown. When most of us hear that we think: "OMG - this is unusual and WTF has happened?" In other words, usually all signals sent from me to all the other people in my life get received just as I sent them, and just as I intended them to be received - cognitively and emotionally. Yeah, right. It would be very revealing if there were such a mechanism or device that would/could compare the message sent with the message received. Big Frank thinks that the norm would be a message along this lines: "ALERT - message sent - ABCD was received as XUC#. Big Frank is not talking about messages like: "Could you please open the door?" or "How many scoops of ice-cream would you like?" or "I really like that movie." What Big Frank is referring to is any message that entails any sort of complexity of thought or depth of feeling. Why is this? Well one reason is that people don't adhere to Grice's conversational maxims, which include adhering to appropriate quantity, quality, relevance, and manner of speech. Deception in communication flouts, for example, Grice's maxims of quality and manner. Concealment, exaggeration, equivocation, half-truths, irony, and misdirection can all be considered as types of deceptive communication. However, even messages correctly sent and using the appropriate context can break down, because there is no single way of interpreting - ambiguity permeates everything!

Big Frank is aware it that from not uncommon within lacking or context of appropriate ruling one or another. Often linguistics dares not always have to or possibly, there are those other instances. For meantimely, argon-like particles and resultant considerations could, from times, under deceptive over eagerly contingent upon simply not worrying. Sample tat rumple dat ordat l ; s ;o . . . . fzzzz breakdown.

The President-elect and Big Frank's newly discovered miraculous powers

It's that time again - random thoughts; and strange occurences.

Big Frank had a dream two nights ago. Barack Obama was in the dream with Big Frank. This was in some kind of office building with lots of people moving in and out of offices and small groups standing around and talking. Im not sure what Big Frank was doing there - he hadn't been offered a post in the cabinet (yet), and he wasn't lobbying, but he did feel like he belonged there. However, the president-elect was definitely not paying any attention to Big Frank, and he was aware of that. Still he enjoyed hanging around with the president-elect.

The snow is melting in Spokane. Big Frank got stuck in his driveway on Tuesday evening. He drove in, onto a two-inch thick sheet of ice. Then once on the driveway he could neither go forward nor backward. This presented a problem, which Big Frank dealt with by going into his house and ignoring it. Then (reward for procrastination) when Big Frank woke up in the morning . . . the ice had all melted and the vehicle was no longer stuck! It was a miracle! Big Frank now believes that he may have miraculous powers. In the future, whenever confronted with a problem he will ignore it and that will resolve it. What a blessing to discover the source of his miraculous powers. Who was it that said: "What you ignore will go away." That would be Big Frank, of course.

Good personality means what?

Miss Congeniality - we all know this award. In the beauty contest one candidate is selected by all the other candidates. Essentially that means that this is the woman that is best liked by the other candidates. She has the "best personality". The same thing basically holds true in evaluations of people: when someone says, "Oh, he/she has such a great personality", what they are really saying is that person is such a likeable person. Good personality = personality that makes other people feel good. Is this really the best personality? Big Frank thinks not.

What if the criteria were set up so that best would equal most interesting, or most unusual, or most beneficial. In all cases this may not be the most likeable person. If we take the BIG FIVE personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, and then create some kind of consituent criteria using these, that would make this choice a little more meaningful. Each item could be scored on a scale of 1 (low) to 3 (high) depending on how characteristic this trait is of the person. Here is han example of how the criteria might look:

Openness

__ active imagination

__ aesthetic sensitivity

__ attentiveness to inner feelings

__ preference for variety

__ intellectual curiostiy

Conscientiousness

__ self-disciplined

__ carefulness

__ thoroughness

__ organization
__ deliberation

__ need for achievment

Extraversion

__ gregarious

__ assertive

__ generally seeking excitement

Agreeableness

__ empathetic

__ considerate
__ friendly

__ generous

__ helpful

Neuroticism (lack of)

__ emotionally stable

__ less reactive to stress

__ calm

__ even tempered

__ less likely to feel tense or rattled

This is Big Frank's list of desirable traits. Your list might be different. For example - you might like introverts better - in that case just substitute for the above three: reserved, less outgoing, and less sociable. A similar substitution could take place for the others. In the end you have a scoring system in which 72 is the top possible score. This person would be BEST PERSONALITY. This could be used in beauty contests, and it could also be used to evaluate friends, relatives, potential dates, and in gossip. For example, if you said that so-and-so was a 13 everyone would know that he/she had a rotten personality; whereas a 60 would be someone that you could say with some assurance had a good personality. Let's hope that this system is used more often - it would certainly let people know what "good personality" meant. Try scoring yourself so that when you meet people you can shorten the time it takes to know people by exchanging personality scores, e.g., I'm a 57 what are you?

Be Yourself (take your pick)

Big Frank has been thinking about "being yourself". Of course, that means: Big Frank being himself and you being yourself - in other words, for a person to truly be who it is that they are. You know how people are constantly telling others in tense situations to not worry about things - "just be yourself" as though it were like a choice between that or being Frank Sinatra, Pee Wee Herman, or some random person out of the phone book. When in reality it is a choice among being Yourself A, Yourself B, Yourself C, Yourself D. etc. The advice is really predicated on there actually being one true personality. Of course, Big Frank is aware - thank you, that most people truly believe that they have a benchmark, baseline, authentic personality. This is a personality that when they are totally alone and have no roles to play they naturally allow free reign, but - that approach holds - in the face of social pressure, insecurity, attempts at social leverage, or the belief that one can customize one's behavior to gain certain advantage, that people then will put on certain personalities to better position themselves for desired gains. OK - we all do this to a certain extent, and . . . it works (that's why we do it). However, people don't generally accept friends who have multiple personalities - this is considered abnormal and most people want normal friends. What Big Frank means here is that we all want a certain predictability in our friends and certainly in our significant others. With predictability goes authenticity. People who put on personalities like others put on clothes leave others scratching their heads concerning how to react to that person. In this sense it's more about the other than about you. There's nothing wrong with having and using different personalities as far as you are concerned, but be aware that it makes others uncomfortable. So, what's the conclusion. Be yourselves! Give yourself full reign to all that you are - it's all you after all! As the man, Marcus Aurelius, said: "Ignoring what goes on in other people's souls - nobody ever came to grief that way. But if you won't keep track of what your own soul's doing how can you not be unhappy."

Including Expectations

Including Expectations

The tourist expected vacation.
The mountain included a boulder.
The vacation expected a car.
The boulder included gravity.
The car expected destination.
The gravity included a fall.
The destination expected the tourist
The fall included the car.
The tourist did not expect this.
This included the tourist.

---- Big Frank Dickinson

Aphorisms to Make You Think

Big Frank was recently presented by Magne (read his great collection of aphorisms) with a comprehensive collection of aphorisms, The Oxford Book of Aphorisms. Written on the back of the book was this apt description: "This anthology demonstrates to the full how brilliantly the aphorist can illumine the hidden truth, or lay bare the ironies of existence." Below, Big Frank has selected a few gems that give the reader pause as the hidden truth slowly emerges.


"One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead."
Oscar Wilde

"Try to arrange your life in such a way that you can afford to be disinterested. It is the most expensive of all luxuries, and the one best worth having."
W. R. Inge

"We discover in ourselves what others hide from us, and we recognize in others what we hide from ourselves."
Vauvenargues

"It is so many years before one can believe enough in what one feels even to know what the feeling is."
W. B. Yeats

"Exuberance is beauty."
William Blake

"Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love the truth."
Joubert

"One keeps saying the same thing, but the fact that one has to say it is eery."
Elias Canetti

"Explaining is generally half confessing."
Marquess of Hilifax

"Pleasure chews and grinds us."
Montaigne

"Happiness is a how, not a what, a talent, not an object."
Herman Hesse

"Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love."
Nathaniel Hawthorne

"The pleasure of love is loving, and we get more happiness from the passion we feel than from the passion we inspire."
La Rochefoucauld

"The offender never pardons."
George Herbert

The Beeches

The Beeches

With visions of silver tubular towers,
And parallel posts of solid cool shade,
The beeches were planted some time ago
In the rocky ground with hope and care.

Sapplings but two feet high, they grew slowly.
Their shortness and delayed promise gave pause,
But you were told: long-lived strong trees grow slow.
The weak ones (willows and poplars) shoot up,

But the compact soil opens not to them;
Neither to the eager but facile roots
of weeping willows nor to the widely
Indiscriminate spread of the cottonwood.

You drew strength from the fact that beeches
Resemble sturdy stainless steel structures
That, in columnar pairs, like Atlas,
Support the very sky to which they reach.

Their branches strained to reach the vision,
But did not match the deep penetration
Of the hidden anchor of their roots.
They still had no hint of silver bark

When winter came snow quickly overcame
Their mostly promised height. One cold dark night
A deer came and silently chewed off
The one sole branch not buried in the snow,

Leaving a broad solid sheet of flat white
that horizontally drew the eye out
And then up to a still starry sky, untouched;
Below - the sleeping roots awaited spring.

Happy New Year!

Big Frank has stepped into 2009 and it still has much of the feel of 2008, but with time (that's what it's all about, not?) he will evolve and change just as that 8 was transformed into the 9.

We can all feel the energy in the air - all the reflection, the resolutions, the transformation, and the positive energy that radiates from people at this time of the year. Big Frank likens it to, as he remembers, the feelings that you have at the beginning of the school year. You have your binders, your notebooks, pens, class schedules, and your determination and excitement about beginning the new school term. Hold that thought without skipping ahead to the times (too often we all know) when it all fell apart or it all felt like it was falling apart. The memories of this are most poignantly present in all of us in those ubiquitous dreams we have to this day: "Oh, no! I have a test in a class that I forgot that I had even registered for." Or: "I know I'm supposed to be in a math class that meets in 5 minutes, but I don't even know what building the class is in." OK - scratch that memory, and insert this one: "I'm so on top of everything - I've even have A's going in classes that I never even registered for." And, "I know where classes meet that I don't even have to go to." No wonder organization is one of the top new years resolutions. So: GET ORGANIZIZED!

With reference to the above - if you are especially anal on the resolution (Big Frank is somewhat) then the fact that you can never be as organizized as you would like to - or should be then you need to be able to deal with the stress what to do with - all your extra buttons for pants you bought, all your piles of receipts, all your coupons (even though you never use them), and the boxes (you never know when they will come in handy) etc. etc. So you need to relax, which leads to resolutions 2, 3, and 4:
2. MEDITATE! Let all those disturbing thoughts in, look at them, and then watch them sail away unattached and untroubling.
3. EXERCISE! Run, bike, lift, throw, and generally be regularly active and get the good hormones flowing. You will feel high! You will release muscular tension and unease.
4. SOCIALIZE! Get out, meet people, share your life, be interested in theirs and you will find that your problems will be replaced with theirs (no that's not right - your problems will be lost in the warmth of socializing).

Finally, pick up a pen, or put your fingers on your keyboard and WRITE! This is Big Frank's last resolution for the year. Tell your story in whatever way you want: poetry, memoir, diary, journal, fiction, nonfiction, essay, blog, or crossword puzzle. In all cases you will have the opportunity to impose order on chaos, wrestle with making sense of the sprawl of experience, increase your vocabulary (words are power), and leave your mark.

So there you are - Big Frank has gone public. Help him hold to these and if you have any to share - Big Frank is here to help. Happy New Year!