Rejection.

“The nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced the nail with a spike and kept on writing.”

— Stephen King, On Writing

I wrote a piece of flash fiction several years ago. It got under my skin, and it hasn't worked its way to the surface. Enough time has passed where I don't know if its good or bad. But I do know two things: 

1. It's important to me.
2. Nobody wants it.

That hasn't stopped me from submitting it periodically. It was first rejected by Glimmer Train for its emerging writers contest. Then rejected by Glimmer Train a second time for its micro fiction contest. Wish I had those fifty bucks back.

It was then rejected a third time by a literary journal I can no longer remember. And a fourth time, today, by another. I'm waiting to hear back from a fifth publication.*

I write this to you, dear reader, with no malice, no bitterness, and no self-pity. This kind of rejection fuels me. I'm not who I was when I wrote that story four(?) years ago. I was punching above my weight like I had something to prove.

I'm literary -- jab-cross, jab-hook -- I have vocabulary and a world view -- jab-cross, duck, cut -- I don't have an MFA but I can say a lot with every little -- hook, hook, duck, jab-cross.

That writer was brave, but he was misguided. He had no technique. Maybe I'm still misguided. I don't know. I'm still not published. But I've learned from every glove Rejection has landed on me. One day, I'm going to drop his sorry ass to the mat.

* I promised myself if the story didn't get picked up on the fifth try, I'd publish it here. And I'm keeping that promise.

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”

— Samuel Beckett

Intentions | Confidence.

Self-doubt is insidious. We've all seen it sabotage what should be easy. You have that two-foot putt lined up, then, that nagging voice in the back of your head asks, what would happen if you missed? How would that feel? Bet it would feel pretty awful. And the ball cuts wide, rolling downhill off the green and into the rough.

I'm in no way athletic. And I suck at golf. But one of the few things I'm good at is archery. As an archer, I'm at my best when I'm not thinking. The bow is an extension of my left arm, the release and the arrow an extension of my right. Together, we are just a machine that shoots arrows. The world begins at the tip of the broad head. It ends at the target.

I miss often when I get in my own way, when something breaks that contiguous plain of consciousness of arrow, bow and limbs. That voice is there, asking what would happen if I missed. In truth, if I missed, I'd knock  another arrow and shoot again. As simple as that sounds, it took me a while to figure out.

On a recent episode of the Joe Rogan experience, Vinny Shoreman, a mind coach for fighters, talked about how so many of his clients have the same problem. They get in their own way. Shoreman's main objective is to have the fighter's inner confidence trump their self-doubt.

He does not instill them with confidence. He brings what's already there to the surface. 

Book report | 'The Professor In The Cage' by Jonathan Gottschall

“Then a roundhouse kick reminded me of why it’s much better to bite down on the mouthpiece. The kick sank my teeth hard into my lower lip. I struggled as my opponent pushed me into the fence and tried to drag me down. The flavor of the blood pulsing into my mouth was nauseatingly good, and it made everything clear: by nature, men like the salt taste of blood.”

— Jonathan Gottschall, The Professor In The Cage

In its opening pages, Jonathan Gottschall, a struggling college English professor, becomes a willing test subject by immersing himself in the body-breaking world of mixed martial arts -- a blood sport maligned for its brutality and culture of machismo. In the process, he delves into the nature of self-confidence, masculinity and violence. What he learns from the black eyes, stints on crutches and hyper-extended limbs -- as well as a near-scientific analysis of martial arts and careful examination of pugilistic history -- surprises him and likely will offend many.

On the surface, this book seems like a man who has watched Fight Club one too many times living out his fantasy of defeating his own cowardice and cutting closer to the fascia of our nature. In fact, every time he mentions the book, I found myself wincing. But Gottschall is more deft than that. He knows he's traversing well-traveled territory of writers and journalists who have either fought themselves, or written extensively about the subject, such as Joyce Carol Oates, George Plimpton and Norman Mailer. What sets him apart is his willingness to to look closely into the mirror to find out what fighting means for man and mankind.

“The whole project made me think differently about masculinity, about the codes, tendencies and rituals of manhood. It made me feel more compassion for my own sex—locked as we are, pathetically and sometimes tragically, into a lifetime of monkey dancing. Although it is perhaps regrettable that men are so competitive, so dominance obsessed, it’s still a lucky thing that we have our monkey dances. Most of the time, they keep our contests civilized.”

— Jonathan Gottschall, The Professor In The Cage

Will I ever be able to watch an MMA event without a twinge of guilt? Or hear the thwack of leather smashing into a skull without recoiling? Or watch Muhammad Ali nod off during  a live interview without feeling sorrow? No. No. And no. But like Gottschall, I accept why people want to step inside an octagon or a ring and throw bones at each other. And I respect them for it.

Intentions | Smile. It won't kill you.

It's December 19, 1914. You're in West Orange, New Jersey. Before you burns the most spectacular blaze you've  ever seen. Columns of technicolor smoke and fire climb skyward. The air smells like burning cotton candy. Glass is shattering in the heat. Walls that were supposed to be fireproof are crumbling. You're watching one of Thomas Edison's laboratories -- full of decades of innovations -- burn.

Edison arrives. And he's smiling. The Wizard of Menlo Park is actually smiling.

This was the recent subject of a podcast by Tim Ferriss. You can listen to it here to find out why, exactly, Edison was smiling. This episode had a big impact on me.

I'm not stranger to setbacks, though mine are minor in comparison. If Edison could smile at his burning factory, I could have done with a lot less pissing and moaning about the cracked rim you see above. 

Regardless of my reaction, the rim was still broken. Acknowledging it with a smile rather than the bird makes moving forward much easier.

Following through.

There's a particular shot in competitive trap shooting that's my favorite. The clay pigeon soars out of the corner of the house, skimming the horizon. It hovers low and seems to fly faster than any of the other clays. The key to hitting it is the follow-through. 

The gentle arch that begins as you trace the clay's flight doesn't stop when you take the shot. It stops when the barrel falls along that natural arch, pointing at the earth where that clay would have landed. But, if all goes right, it doesn't land. It goes up in a puff of orange smoke. Stop that graceful swing, and you've got yourself a loss.

It's Friday and many of us can taste the weekend in the air. But it's time to follow through.