It's Nice to be Normal

Have you ever wished you had been better at documenting your own life with photographs? For instance, not counting separate dorms in college, I've lived 18 places in my life, in 14 cities and 10 States. (Just one country, though). At this point it would be interesting to me to have pictures of all those places. But, nope. 

I have two impediments in my life as far as aptitudes go. One is that I'm deficient in organizational skills. The other is that I'm lazy.

As I've gotten older, I understand increasingly how much working hard is a prerequisite to success in anything. One reason I decided to become a photographer is that I found myself working hard at it. Even in my 20s I already knew that I had a laziness problem, so picking a field in which I could work hard didn't seem like a bad idea. (The other reason I picked photography was that it didn't involve computers. We all know how well that worked out.)

Laziness is in part pathological, I believe. I've suffered on and off from depression for most of my life, and I've been impressed by the degree to which episodes of depression can sap away the impulse to keep up. It robs you of motivation. I remember times when small, ordinary normal tasks simply seemed insurmountable. They took energy I didn't have.

Not recognizing this? Those of you with plentiful amounts of energy are probably feeling a little incredulous here (and I hope not too judgemental). Instead, you should be grateful—just having normal energy is a great blessing. Having abundant energy is a key life advantage. It's curious that those who are blessed with it often prefer to denigrate those who don't, rather than being thankful for what they themselves have.

Of course, disparities in energy level can lead to relational problems sometimes. I read not long ago that George, John and Ringo would be sitting around chilling, and the phone would ring, and they all knew it would be Paul, nagging them to come down to the studio and get to work. Whoever it was telling the story—I think it was Ringo—said something like, "you just knew it was Paul—somehow we could all tell his ring."

Twenty seconds to spare
I'm more normal now, and boy do I ever appreciate it. I really do; I appreciate it every day. I get up in the morning; I keep the dishes done. Every household item I use regularly from dog food to razor blades has a backup waiting; I don't run out of things any more. I haven't suffered from debilitating depression for years. I'm definitely in the normal range of the spectrum now, although not on the high-functioning end of normal, I'll admit. It's wonderful, though.

One change is my approach to time management. Decades ago I used to be oppressed by the feeling that I never had enough time to do anything, so why try? That's characteristic of depressives. Now I'm much more likely to think, let's see, I have X amount of time—what can I get done in that time? If I have four minutes to wait for the tea to brew, I'll think, that's enough time to empty the dishwasher. Sometimes I'll even find something to do when I have an extra twenty seconds to wait. This is relatively new for me. Things get done. It's a better way to live.

Something else that helps me is to think of how little time a task takes. When you're oppressed by depression, little tasks seem insurmountable. But the opposite mindset works for me too, come to find out. Now I'm much more likely to think, "it only takes X minutes, and that's nothing, so just do it." It helps a lot to think consciously of how little time various tasks take. And instead of feeling overwhelmed by bigger tasks, I'm much more likely now to think, "just get started." Do a little.

If you suffer from low motivation, the other helpful suggestion I can make is to pay special attention to the first hour of every day. I start every morning with a prayer (as suggested by my 12-step program), and I always try to get something done first thing. It sets the tone for the day. If I'm lazy for my first hour awake, the rest of the day will usually follow in suit, so I try to avoid that.

Coupled
Organizational ability is a more interesting subject. It's curious that many people don't understand that's it's a skill, an aptitude. It's been my observation that people who have it are just as apt to criticize themselves for it as value themselves for it. They call themselves obsessional or neurotic or words like that, perhaps because they recognize that there's a compulsive aspect to being organized. But organizational ability is a spectrum, and the other end of it can be a challenge. Living an excessively simple life is one way to cope with very low organizational ability; surprisingly, joining the army or a religious cult is another coping strategy. Ordinary everyday decisions are too much for some people. It helps if there's a charismatic leader making all their decisions for them or an organizational structure telling them what clothes to put on in the morning.

It's also a good reason why people who are coupled feel less stress—there's real truth to the old expression "two heads are better than one." It's easier to make decisions when you work on them jointly, and it's easier to motivate yourself to do something for yourself and another person than it is to do it for yourself alone. I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone say they find it easier to cook for others than to cook just for themselves, for example.

As far as being organized is concerned, I think I'm a little out of the normal range on the low end. It can be really hard for me to do things other people take for granted. I don't need to be told how to dress myself, but I can't keep a calendar even when I really try, and this week I missed two medical appointments on successive days (augh), which makes me ashamed. 

I think my organizing deficiency is why I've never written books. It's too hard for me to organize large amounts of material. My attempts to write novels have been unintentionally comical, because I wander so much that the story line literally gets lost. Organized people will say, in clipped tones, "just write an outline." Without realizing that to write an outline you need to be good at organizing! I am spectacularly, appallingly bad at writing outlines. I'm honestly not sure I've ever successfully done it one single time in my entire life. Maybe a rudimentary one as a schoolboy exercise, but that would be it.

I've always thought that I could be part of a book-writing team, however. There are examples in history, and screenwriters and songwriters do it. I'm great at wordplay and I love to rewrite and polish, which many writers don't enjoy. I'm good at subtler details like characterization and motivation and I like to add poetry and portent. But the other person in the duo would have to start the ball rolling with a twenty-page discursive precis of the story from soup to nuts. Without those bones, I'd build a jellyfish. I've considered writing an autobiography, not because I feel my life is worth anyone's especial attention, but simply because that would solve the writerly problem of what comes next.

Lucky
Does it sound accurate to you if I were to claim that being organized and having a high level of energy are two things that are essential to success as a photographer? At least to a professional. Although, sometimes, a professional photography business is a mom-and-pop shop—one person handles the business and scheduling, the nuts and bolts, the other does the creative work and keeps up with the photo-technical stuff.

In any event, if you are highly organized, I encourage you not to be scornful of people like me who aren't. You don't need to pity me, either—everyone has their cross to bear. (Hey, I got through this post, didn't I? That's something.) Rather, be grateful for your own gifts. You're lucky.

Even if I had taken pictures of all the places I've lived in my life, it wouldn't matter, because I wouldn't be able to find them anyway.  :-)

Mike

Book o' This Week:

Eyes Over the World: The Most Spectacular Drone Photography, by Dirk Dallas. The above link will take you to Amazon.

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Paul Van: "I can relate. I have several projects on the go, and it can be difficult to keep at them. So, I follow advice you have given here: touch it every day. It has helped me keep going. While my pace may seem intolerably slow to some, work continues. (I am scanning family photographs, going back to my great-grandfather.)

"However the slow pace does allow me to travel down some rabbit holes. Specifically, family history and genealogy. I'm four years into that particular project, and have managed to connect with cousins I didn't know I had in Western Canada and in France. I have no idea where the next steps will take me, but look forward to wherever it leads me. And yes, this has been a challenge to my energy levels and organizational skills. So far, I think I'm winning."

Mike replies: That "touch it every day" advice comes from Joni B. Cole, in her book about writing.

Hil: "The outline remark cracked me up. My head does not work that way at all. But all through school, you had to write one as a good chunk of the grade. So I had to write the report, assignment, whatever, first, and then from that the outline. Same with rough drafts. The good thing is that it forced me to write early, so I could do the earlier stuff later. Always on time."

John Camp (partial comment): "I've written (I think) 54 novels since 1990, which takes a degree of organization and persistence, but my office looks like a windstorm blew through it. I'm often astonished by the things I find on my desk. I recently discovered my chrome Lumix GX8 there; I wondered where it went. I have another (black) GX8 and had been using that exclusively, only vaguely curious about where its near-twin had gone—I knew it would turn up sooner or later. So I really think it's possible to be organized in some things, disorganized in others."

Mike replies: True dat. When I was in photo school, I decided that school would be my oasis of organized calm in the chaos of my life. I kept everything down at school neat and orderly. My school friends were always amazed when they got a glimpse of the real Mike and discovered I wasn't a neat freak.

Terry Burnes (partial comment): "I have thousands of slides from days gone by, mostly mediocre shots of scenery on various vacations. But in among those are pictures of our family and friends. My wife and I have been talking for years now about sitting down and viewing those slides, discarding as we go, to get down to just the ones that have meaning for us now and to leave the whole collection in better shape for our son, who certainly won't care about the discards but might about the slides of people. You've inspired me to get out the projector and set up the screen and get started."

Mike replies: Might I make a suggestion? Making the decision to discard is often too big a decision. I would guess that that strategy would lead to either keeping too many slides or throwing away ones you'll regret losing. Rather than working by discarding, I would approach the task by making selects. Just pluck out the best, most meaningful slides and take a stab at labeling them somehow.

If you want to, do a "1-2-3" with the selects—1 being absolute best, 2 being the probables, and 3 being the maybes. Just set aside all the rest. That will make it easy for your son to know which ones really meant the most to you and his mom, and he won't have to agonize about all the others, but you won't be tempted to "keep" too many slides or risk discarding ones you'll regret losing. 

If you really want to destroy the rejects, wait about a year, make a final pass through all the rejects to rescue anything you think you might miss, and toss the lot away at that time, en masse. Much easier to deal with the loss that way than one at a time.

Something Larry McMurtry said about book collections: culling is hard but makes the collection better.

Ken Bennett: "Interesting essay, Mike, and thanks for writing it. I think I agree that the successful photographers I know (including myself) are both well organized and incredibly driven. Of course, that is often limited to photography, and not the rest of life. It's only in the last few years that I have been more organized in my personal life.

"The best part of Army service for me was the uniform. Get up, put on the uniform, done. No decisions to make. I carried that over to my work life—I wear khakis and a university polo shirt almost every day at work (or a black suit for formal events.) Off work I wear khakis and a black t-shirt. Makes life (and shopping!) easier."

Mike replies: I did something similar in my 20s when I lived in downtown D.C. in a tiny walk-up. I had a terrible time keeping the dishes done, so I got rid of everything I could—kept only a couple of pots and pans and two place settings. It was little enough that I could easily wash part or all of it at any time. It helped me keep the kitchen clean.

Artur: "Mike, thank you for this post. Ironically, I had to read a photo blog with the help of a translator to reassure myself that I also have similar ailments that probably do not delete me as a human being. The consequence of these drawbacks is, for example, that I have never learned the English language and I also write these words using a translator. For me, the best way to get depressed, i.e. to get out of bed on a day off and do something, is even a small photographic trip. As I understand you very well, I wish you peace and good thoughts! Best regards, Artur from Poland."

Mike relies: Dziękuję za przeczytanie Artur! Odbyło się to również z pomocą tłumacza.

Kurt Kramer: "Mike, Thanks for writing this very personal essay. I empathize totally, almost exactly sharing the foibles you wrote about. The inability, the laziness that come with feeling low can lead to self-recriminations that make one go even lower. We are not afflicted to the level that we can’t get through life, but there’s not much joie de vivre. Nice to know I am not alone in this. Now, out to make some good photos tomorrow morning!"

Jim Couch: "This really hit home today. As a fellow depressive I can fully relate. A lot of good practical advice here. THANK YOU!"

Mike replies: Thanks for saying so. After I posted this I felt bad about it—like maybe it was one people wouldn't like. I was relieved to come back later and find positive comments like yours.

Ilkka: "Very good story and good advice. I have found that breaking big projects into smaller tasks greatly helps me into getting them done.

"I have done a book. I treated it like painting a house. I could never paint a house if I think of all the walls inside and outside and ceilings as well. Too many. Impossible. And too expensive to hire an outsider to do it. So I don’t paint the house. I just paint this wall, or this small room. That’s my target, nothing else. Then I get it done. And start planning for the next room. Same way I did a book. One chapter at a time."

Comments

[Malcolm Myers]

Here's a couple of organisational tips I got from Brooks Jensen, the photographer behind Lenswork:

1) only touch things once, i.e. don't pick it up and put it down again, because you haven't tidied it up. Instead, pick it up and put it where it is supposed to go (bin, file, whatever)

2) At the start of the day split your tasks into boulders, rocks and pebbles, i.e. from most pressing / difficult to least. Start with the boulders and then hopefully the other, easier tasks won't seem so bad.

[Dave Jenkins]

Sheesh! I’m worn out just from reading this.

[Patrick Dodds]

Thank you for this Mike; it's posts like this that keep me coming back and so much of it chimes. One thing though - I think when it comes to your responsibilities for your son, from what you have said in the past you showed no signs of laziness at all.
Stay well - I hope you are enjoying your pool room.

[Albert Smith]

Do I wish that I documented my life in pictures more? I did. I wish that digital photography started 30 or so years earlier.

I spent over a couple of decades in the military, living and traveling all over the world. I transferred 10 times, packing out and reestablishing residence over and over. Boxes packed and never fully unpacked in anticipation of the next move. Today, I can't watch a movie without yelling out that I stood on that spot.

The thing is, for a million dollars, I couldn't put my fingers on any specific image. Literally 10 thousand plus slides, in boxes stacked to the ceiling fill a walk in closet. When I die, who ever cleans out my house can make another Vivian Mayer documentary showing all the slides and negatives they found.

I went kicking and screaming into digital, but I can locate anything that I shot I minutes off of my computer. I couldn't find the slide with a Kangaroo from Australia if my life depended on it.

[Rob Campbell]

I'm afraid I recognize too much of myself in your essay.

I wasn't always lazy, but I do admit to feeling pretty low at times. And yeah, it happens in pro photography too. The problem I discovered there was that if the 'phone wasn't ringing enough, I became discouraged and didn't want to go and look for fresh clients because I just felt too humble to face anyone. Fortunately, being fairly unique in my small pond, I did get work of my kind when it was available, so we made it through the troughs.

But, losing a wife you met in your teens is something else when she's loses her life in your seventies. Being left as survivor isn't always a nice situation, and for a few years photography did come to the rescue and help fill the empty hours. But, recently, perhaps because of the pandemic and the impossibility of going to local cafés and sitting around looking and watching, reading the local papers, making the occasional shot of something or someone, the urge to shoot has evaporated, and with it my way of making it through the day without too much time for introspection.

I used to eat lunch out every day, and now, instead, I have to cook, which I can't, and which builds up dishes and pans that haunt me as they await my attention in the kitchen, attention I give them once a day and only because I know that if I did not, the entire structure of my life would collapse around my ears. Photography of itself isn't much good: one needs purpose with it. God alone knows what will happen if I get incapacitated through age or illness. By your 83 algorithm, I should be dead. Maths ain't always right. :-)

[c.d.embrey]

No-one is normal. Repeat, no-one is normal. Got that?

Nurses are all OCD—that's why they are good at their job.

I suffer from a mild form of dyslexia. I'm color blind. And I'm also an arrogant jerk.

Many, but not all bloggers have narcissistic personality disorder.

Many people are resistant to change. What's normal to someone under 21 may be anathema to someone over 60.

[John Camp]

You didn't explain how you got to be, um, normal. Did you take a pill? Experience a religious or 12-step conversion, which are quite similar? Maybe you got old, and finally organized?

And I think you over simplify. I've written (I think) 54 novels since 1990, which takes a degree of organization and persistence, but my office looks like a windstorm blew through it. I'm often astonished by the things I find on my desk. I recently discovered my chrome Lumix GX8 there; I wondered where it went. I have another (black) GX8 and had been using that exclusively, only vaguely curious about where its near-twin had gone -- I knew it would turn up sooner or later. So I really think it's possible to be organized in some things, disorganized in others. You portray yourself as this disorganized wretch who, oh by the way, has kept a quite-profitable blog afloat for a couple of decades, writing almost daily, and leading a lifestyle that many 9-to-5 LA commuters can only regard with envy.

Is it possible that you have an addictive personality, and you're now addicted to self-help schemes? Just wondering.

[Speed]

This is me not responding to your post because I have to clean up the dishes and go get the mail.

[Jim Arthur]

The importance of working hard at the things that matter most (to you) reminded me of something I read recently. My Dad passed away just before Christmas and while sorting through some of his things I found an old overhead projector slide and written in his hand on an 8x10 piece of Kodak Safety Film was a quote titled, “Press On”.

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” ~ Calvin Coolidge

I had never seen this slide (or quote) before and I can just imagine the story that accompanied it. I’m sure my Dad told his dazed first year students about a childhood in the hills of West Virginia where it was his job (as the youngest) to get up first in the morning to stoke the wood stove and how his family had no electricity or running water and yet there he stood…teaching them about radiology. Dad was a Professor and the original Program Coordinator for the first Community College based Radiologic Technology (X-ray) program in the Chicagoland area.

Persistence really helped me in my career as well (thanks Dad) and I touted it when trying to teach staff about data security policy and procedure. I always tried to teach staff the big picture, how their small part fit in, and why it was important. I always stressed that everyone needed to remain vigilant and persistent. I did not have a tale of hardship to tell like Dad did (thanks again, Dad), but I too used a quote about persistence in my education materials.

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” ~ Albert Einstein

[David Dyer-Bennet]

I've certainly regretted having few to no photos of some places I've lived, like apartments in Switzerland in 1966-67. My mother doesn't seem to have any either (I inherited her photos).

I think of "energy" as my limiting factor. It decreases somewhat over time. Back in 8th and 9th grades I trained myself to do photography and darkroom work usefully and to program computers to professional levels, including assembly language, in my spare time (while maintaining top marks in school). In fact, probably having that much to keep me busy prevented me from having some of the unhappiness in the level of school that many smart people, especially those in science fiction fandom, experienced. (I was out of the country the year everybody else made the jump from 3 separate gradeschools to one junior high, too; in many ways like turning up as a new kid in town.) But these days I fritter away a lot of time happily enough, I just don't have the energy or focus to remain on-task all the time even with a variety of tasks.

Much of the time I've been pretty good organizationally. Hence having all my early negatives, and knowing exactly where most of the ones after 1964 were taken.

I'm not really in a position to know what's needed to be a successful professional photographer. I do think the energy and organization are key to being any kind of self-employed person, though, which includes photographers mostly.

[Michael Hill]

You got me with that last sentence … Cheers!

[Ricardo Silva Cordeiro]

I can certainly relate to that, never been a high-energy guy and in my early 20s I dipped into depression, not catastrophic, but enough to make the climbing up strenuous and lengthy. That made my motivation disappear for almost everything. Was lucky enough to discover areas of study (and then work) that were engaging for me (graphic design, illustration and photography), that kept me going.

In recent years I felt I’ve changed in this regard though. I’m sure I can pinpoint why: my personal life was improved and stabilized and, regarding the particular energy aspect, I’ve started exercising. Was lucky that I’ve been slowly discovering physical activities that I enjoy doing, started swimming and then also running. In the past few years, since I’ve started working as a freelancer at home, the first thing I realized was that it was crucial to create a discipline of working out almost every day, made all the difference: I’m feeling more energized than ever (well, maybe except some of my childhood) and even being enjoying learning new stuff about the body, muscle groups and all that. Exercise has sure became part of my life now, I’m enjoying the slow but sure progression, and I surprise myself on how disciplined I am (maybe addicted), it really makes a big difference on my physical and mental well-being.

Regarding being organized, it’s sure not a natural skill for me also. I always found it was something good to delegate, back when I worked in a studio with more people it was easy to do it. It’s certainly a skill that can be worked on, but I also find that we can only work so much on each skill to achieve good levels. Nowadays I’m a bit better at it, I could say I’m at a functional level, but if my personal our professional life gets a bit more complicated I would sure had to delegate that, since working on it would certainly affect my other strengths.

[Stephen Scharf]

I think we all struggle from time to time with respect to being maximally productive.

A good starting point is to focus on being maximally EFFECTIVE and EFFICIENT.

These were two concepts I used to stress when teaching my DFSS (Design for Six Sigma) students (most of whom were PhD or M.S. scientists and engineers; needless to say, pretty dang smart folks) with respect to achieving their new product design goals and objectives:

Maximally EFFECTIVE is doing the RIGHT thing. Maximally EFFICIENT is doing things RIGHT.

EXAMPLE: using Design of Experiments to develop and characterize (new) functionality is MUCH more EFFECTIVE than OFAT (One Factor At a Time) experimentation.

These two basic tenets can really help with productivity and...just gettin' stuff done.

A great way to start is David Allen's book, "Getting Things Done". Allen is part of the VitalSmarts team.

https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity/dp/0142000280

Also a good website with tools and resources: https://gettingthingsdone.com/what-is-gtd/

Cheers.

[Thanks for the book recommendation. I'll look into that. --Mike]

[Marc]

I have a visceral reaction, rejection, of “normal”. For me it is “normal” that has been the cause of my lifelong depression, anxiety. It was a diagnosis four years ago that illuminated this and much of the cause for me - neurodivergence (in my case autism) in a world that punished, condemned, persecuted any variance, still does, from its arbitrary “normal” (sexuality being another area in which I experienced the same).

Every time you say the word above I feel a pang. Of course, I realise it is not your meaning, and don’t mean this as accusation, and I empathise deeply with your words - thank-you for being open about such things, there are few stronger reassurances than a hand reaching out in the dark*.

I don’t strive against “normal”, don’t commit to weirdness for its own sake, it’s just unavoidable. Masking what is me, whatever that is (hell, I still don’t know where to start), pretending to be “normal”, is what quite literally nearly killed me multiple times, and caused, causes, deep pain. And it has never been successful. I am weird. Not in a cool way, not in an interesting way... I say I am “weird but boring”.

I cannot be normal. I would like relief from suffering, but acknowledge that entropy, chaos, will bring it regardless, and that being traumatised and conditioned for so many years, decades... there’s a long way to go, rugged, unkind, shadowed. But better illuminated now, with diagnosis and the same decades’ hindsight.

So I now continue less scared, writing my weird sh*t, taking my “boring photos”, obsessing over my obsessions, finding, as you do, the ways that help me, the things that help me get to where I want to be, the things that just are me. And the people I feel connection with and hopefully ~cross fingers~ vice versa.

I guess I’m sorry, Mike. You struck a chord of empathy and a discord of lexicon for me, and I set off. It might not sound it, but I honestly thank you for this.

Cheers
Marc

*an allusion to the Ursula K. Le Guin quote: “We’re each of us alone, to be sure. What can you do but hold your hand out in the dark?”

Although I’d add Eartha Kitt: “The price you pay for being yourself is worth it.”

[LarryS]

I too wish I'd documented past abodes. But what I really want to address is this business of organizing a large-form piece of writing. I'm a technical and non-fiction writer and I like to work in the outliner module of Word. It automatically gives a spine, in Mike's metaphor, to the jellyfish. Except you can shift the vertebrae. You can move stuff around, store details and rough ideas, put stuff on the back burner, visually switch from the big picture to the small passages, and rewrite more freely. Of course it's still work. Give it a fair try. I can even imagine novelist A using it, though maybe not novelist B. Lyric poets, I dunno.

[Les Myers]

Great essay! Thanks!

[Eolake Stobblehouse]

I hear you Mike. I have been lazy, or "lazy", all my life. It's only in recent years that I have learned that it comes from fibromyalgia, chronic universal pain, and resulting exhaustion and depression. it got worse and worse. It's formidable barrier to say the least.

The only upside is that it taught me to be efficient. I sometimes have done things in a fraction of the time others did.

Eolake

[Arjun]

Very relatable, Mike. I think it's more likely that most people have been through periods of being low-functioning and high-functioning adults, depending on their life experiences and learning.

Since you're a writer, you might be interested in this book I'm reading: "How To take Smart Notes" by Sönke Ahrens.

[Dave Pawson]

Tks Michael, interesting and well written.

[Daniel M]

Thank you Mike for that very revealing article (at least for myself!).
I think that « well » organized people can still be creative but I would say that the « over » organized ones have the outmost difficulty to exceed their routine.
Good day!

[Kirk Tuck]

There's important stuff and then there's everything else. I ignore everything else and just concentrate on the important stuff. My desk is a mess but my swimming and photography are right on track.

If you want to get more done I think the secret is not to work harder but to work faster.

[Nick]

Funny, I have the exact same '20 seconds to spare' way of looking at time since a few years. My wife loves it ;-). It started about the same time I discovered nutrionfacts and went plant based... Maybe just a coincidence.

Best, Nick

[Dan Hillier]

Thanks for posting this. I have similar traits, and I've nothing really to add, it's just good to know there are others out there. Thank you.

[jp41]

This essay and its comments are kind of shaking me up. The word "lazy" seems kind of harsh. What if one uses that extra startup time to work on something completely different to allow the subconscious time to process something creatively new?

[David Jacobs]

Please do write your autobiography, Mike. Even if you don’t think you’ve led a particularly notable or consequential life, I’d happily read it and I bet many of your other regular readers would too. After all, how many of us have led “extraordinary” lives ourselves?

Or rather, how many of us don’t yet realize we actually may have? Aren’t each extraordinary in their own unique and particular way? As a portraitist (and a big fan of portraits generally), I’m just as drawn to unknown folk as I am to the famous. In fact I often prefer them. For instance, I like Avedon’s “In the American West” more than, say, his ‘76 Rolling Stone portfolio of political power players, “The Family”—though I love both bodies of work.

Anyway, you’re a great writer, and if anyone can help us see that a “common” life is anything but, I bet it’s you. And if that’s what it takes to keep you on course and motivated then all the better for the rest of us. I bet that once you’re fully underway you’d find it immensely satisfying too. Do it, Mike! Write your life!