I’ve been thinking a lot about discipline recently. In approaching the art and craft of writing I find that when I leave it up to chance in finding time to write that the opportunities often slip away. My friend Paul, a professional writer, says that discipline is everything when it comes to creative writing. I’m wondering now why just the thought of discipline seems to sap the creative energy out of my mind. Is it my confusing the ideation with the crafting?
One of my granddaughters is finding it difficult to meet some similar challenges and I want to know if there is anything from my experience that could be passed along to help her with hers.
My experience has been that my best creative ideas come without notice. Before arising in the morning, while walking to the store or while engaged in some other activity, no matter its importance. Getting those ideas put down as writing or artwork requires the application of craft and that may involve not just already learned skills but the acquisition of new ones. There are frustrations as well as some degree of tedium in learning the finer details of a craft. This requires a high level of dedication, concentration and patience fueled by a strong inspiration.
I’ve mastered some things — digital painting and computer graphics, teaching, auto and bicycle mechanics, home restoration, photography, furnace repair, plumbing, cleaning polishing anything, gourmet cooking, and even a bit of altering clothing. I’ve found that I do have the patience to explore and analyze a new challenge in detail to decipher its solution. While this is usually best done alone, I am open to suggestions. I often research others’ encounters and solutions on line. Help is most appreciated and applied when I seek it out, not always wanted when it is freely offered.
I am self-taught in most things I do. I had to apply self-discipline to accomplish that. So why do I still have an aversion to discipline in learning? Is it just a matter of ego — or could it be something deeper, something genetic? I just don’t seem to take direction well.
I heard an interview on NPR yesterday [ 2/2/09 – KPCC interview on AirTalk w/ Ben Sherwood, author of “The Survivor’s Club” ] with a man who for years studied survivors and what allowed them to survive. He studied many things from the Holocaust to airplane and car accidents, from hurricanes to bad lectures. His work showed him that, in any of these threatening situations that 10% of people acted on their survival instinct while 80% waited to be told what to do. I don’t know where the other 10% fit but, its the 10% that survived that really count. He said that most cases involved luck. But what is luck? Its when preparedness meets opportunity. For example, its been proven that to have any chance of surviving most airplane crashes you would have to be sitting within 5 rows of being over the wing and, knowing where the primary and secondary routes to exit were, head for them as fast as possible. This researcher also found that belief played a strong role — people believed they could escape or believed they could succeed or that they were trusting a higher power to motivate them through the challenge. He found that people who regularly attend religious services in a congregation of fellow believers lived 7 years longer than others who didn’t. Though I haven’t attended a religious service for decades, I think I am one of those survivor types.
I have developed a reflexive positive attitude. I look for the good or the opportunity in every disaster. Granted, this is not always my first response. Sometimes challenges elicit anger or stark terror but, it doesn’t take too long for the positive attitude to kick in and help me to discern a path to safety or success. Could this be related to my aversion to discipline?
Maybe part of that confidence in my abilities, the part that would place me in the 10% that are survivors, is what enables me to learn best on my own. Perhaps its what makes me ignore what that 80% are so desperately looking around and listening for as I pursue a path I have instinctively chosen. Not that my choices always lead directly to success, they often don’t but, if the desire is strong enough, I re-evaluate and move on toward the goal. Self reliance is too often seen as antisocial and uncooperative, often it really is that but, how many people survive or become masters? While in the grips of a challenge, that other 80% are clamoring around trying to find out what they should do and, after the event, if still living, may even be jealous of the success of that 10%. They may feel that they didn’t have to work for it.
In school, such self reliant behavior is too often diagnosed as a disorder. Certainly, one engaged in critical thinking in the process of self-learning may find the surrounding clamor or the persistent direction to be a frustrating distraction from what they know they must instinctively accomplish. When I was young we were labeled non-conformists. ( an aside: I remember thinking that one can always tell who the non-conformists are, they all dress alike. ) Such disorder definitely poses some social challenges for a classroom teacher. This is where discipline comes in. This is where the various meanings of discipline need to be examined.
The word discipline is from the Latin word discipulus or pupil and subsequently disciplina, teaching and learning. Teaching and learning — these are good things. Learning is exciting in its portent of reward, gaining new insight and knowledge, and the development of skills. But, according to Webster’s Dictionary, the most common usage of the word is Punishment. Could this seemingly small detail be a major contributor to the decline in the level of quality in our educational system?
The second most common usage is Instruction. Having the concepts of punishment and instruction so closely related bothers me. It conjures images of the slapped wrist or standing in a corner, torture and humiliation. When self-discipline means self-instruction, it sounds good. I never feel like I am truly punishing myself — self-punishment — when I am applying self-discipline though the learning process may be arduous. In that process the achievement of the goal is primary and, just like in the survival example, focus is critical. This can result in behavior that those other 80% may see as uncooperative or divergent. This can result in the activities of the 10% being labeled as disruptive when its the reaction of the majority itself that is to blame. But, then, that majority may not be surviving or, have their learning advance as fast as the minority either.
Here are the other five usages of the word discipline:
2: instruction;
3: a field of study;
4: training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character;
5a: control gained by enforcing obedience or order;
5b: orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior;
6: a rule or system of rules governing conduct or activity.
I haven’t completed this piece because I’m still deep in thought on it.
So, what do you think?