Sharing and Collecting Thoughts

Looking through johnaugust.com for something to add to the Inneresting newsletter, I saw this post from 2006:

WriteRoom 2.0 is in beta, but there’s nothing spectacularly different or better than plain old 1.0. Either version is worth checking out.

As for the inevitable question:  Could I write a script with it?

Yes, no, maybe.

I’ve actually had conversations with two gurus of web markup about creating a simplified screenplay markup that could be imported into “real” screenwriting applications like Final Draft. 

John August, “I heart WriteRoom”

It’s a post that predates the first version of Highland. It’s the seed of an idea.

It’s almost 15 years since that post, and finding it now gives perspective on the work that happened between then and now on Highland.

Imagine how hard it would be to get that sense of perspective if that rave about WriteRoom had been a tweet.

It’s not easy to archive or look back on tweets. The service is designed to encourage a focus on the immediate present.

I’ve thought a lot about the value of having my own blog, and what social media is really good for, and this moment clarified something for me:

Having a blog is better for a person to be able to look back on what they were thinking. It’s a way of sharing something with your future self.

I need to remember that time spent questioning if something is possible to do is often better spent trying to actually do it.

It’s like being a pundit, looking at your life from the outside.

It’s better to trust my ability to work than my abilities at precognition.

I’m having trouble with anxious thoughts when trying to get to sleep.

It took a few nights of this before I came up with a phrase I repeat to myself to try and shut things down:

Don’t try to play the game when the other team is on the bus.

If the anxiety comes from something that already happened, or something that might happen another day, there’s nothing I can do about it while lying in bed in that moment.

It’s like a team playing in an empty stadium, convinced the points they rack up matter in a real game.

It’s helping, so I thought I’d share.

When am I ever going to need this?

I returned a library book early.

Two chapters in, I kept seeing references to the last several books I checked out. The book wasn’t making new connections for me, so I stopped reading.

Some nights in college my friends and I would play a game.

We’d split into two teams at the video store. Each team picked a potentially terrible horror movie none of us had heard of. We’d rent them both, and watch a double feature.

Whichever team found the better movie got paid back for the rental by the other team.

I don’t remember many of those movies, but no matter how bad they were, we watched them from start to finish.

I remember in middle school and high school a common complaint that I’d hear (and sometimes say myself): “When am I ever going to need this?”

We’d wonder why we would need the quadratic equation, or how to properly do a flexed-arm hang, or remember some seemingly obscure Supreme Court case.

The answer we usually got was a combination of “It might be on the test,” and “You don’t know what’s going to be useful to you when you grow up.”

I don’t remember the movies, but I remember having fun with my friends.

I don’t remember everything I learned in high school, but more of it turned out to be useful than I anticipated.

That hindsight makes it hard to put something down or walk away. What if I’m wrong about this? What if it turns out to be useful later?

It’s not necessarily that I’ve honed my decision-making skills. There’s less later than there used to be.

I got older, made choices, and there are fewer possible futures I need to prepare for.

Maybe there’s some alternate world where I remember all my math because I work for NASA or Toyota. Maybe there’s another me that kept playing music regularly and retained more music theory and finger callouses.

I can still change and grow. I’m not on a single, set path. But the choices I make are the product of choices I made.

That makes it easier to see the difference between a book that I’m enjoying and a book I can put down.

I don’t know everything that’s going to be on the test, but I have a better idea of what kind of tests I’m taking now.

Don’t Apologize for Someone Else

Button hits.

Sprout never had a big issue with this. It’s another way the two of them are very different.

We’re still working on the best way to get Button to stop and take responsibility for hurting other people.

When apologizing to Sprout after hitting her, he patted her cheeks roughly. She didn’t like it.

I pulled him back. Sprout said it was okay.

“That’s just how he’s saying he’s sorry.”

We got through making sure Button tried apologizing in a gentle way. I stayed behind with Sprout.

I told her she doesn’t need to apologize for anyone else’s behavior.

I told her she doesn’t need to accept an apology if it doesn’t feel right.

I emphasized to her that she knows what feels like love to her.

She should never, ever make excuses for someone else’s behavior. Not to us, or herself.

That if it doesn’t feel like love to her, it doesn’t matter if someone else says it is.

It’s good that she wants to help us teach Milo how to behave. But while she helps, I don’t want her to think that helping her younger brother includes learning to treat herself or her feelings as less than.