I spent the better part of the week in an intensive workshop-like writing process with a friend. We got an amazing amount done in a short period, but we refrained from the scripting of any dialogue, sticking solely to the outline process. Naturally, you start hearing lines you’d like to include.

It would seem that the majority of them came rushing forth in the night, and, if memory serves… it was brilliant stuff. Only I didn’t write any of it down, and now I can’t remember a word of it. Which leads me back to an old nemesis: the difficulty getting up in the night to write things down.

I’ve tried everything. Pens and pads at the ready. Tape recorders. Digital recorders. Special flashlight pens.

My writing mentor in college told me that it wasn’t worth doing. His experience was that what he thought were strokes of genius at 3am, divinely inspired, were in fact peals of useless drivel. Better, he suggested, to go back to sleep and start fresh in the morning.

Maybe.

It occurs to me there might be an alternative. Having experienced first hand how a practice of mindfulness and meditation has changed the way I think, I believe the mind can be trained to do marvelous things. My experience aside, I know also that the cab drivers of London show greater development in the hippocampus, the area of the brain dedicated to spacial memory and navigation, because of their profession.

So, is it not possible to train the mind to retain these passing thoughts in the night, and determine later whether its worthy of a Nobel, or meant for the scrap heap? I’m going to try. My guess is there might be something worth salvaging amidst the ramblings.

Either way, any exercise of the mind should help me wake up, in some way, and that’s really the ultimate pursuit…

So when I took a bus trip through the very corners that defined the better part of my American life (sadly there is no Providence, Rhode Island to Milan, Italy connection available on Peter Pan), it was inevitable that my thoughts would scatter and come back, dragging along with them nearly every emotion I’ve ever known in the course of a few hours.

In truth I love these occasions. They are nostalgic, and not a little bit sad, but have a sense of stillness that cannot be recreated anywhere else. In six minutes I experienced my childhood, in six hours, my life. It always leaves me wondering what I would experience were I to sit there for six days.

There’s a sense that your life is able to be defined and sculpted, that all those memories that came flooding in were borne of choices made, some by you, some by others, but always by somebody. You understand for a moment that you are standing in the middle of a memory, and you chose to travel to it.

If there is sorrow, it recedes with the realization, replaced by an emboldened sense of purpose. Anything is possible if you can let go. Anything is possible so long as you believe that anything is possible. But so long as you feel bound and obligated, all prospects are limited.

I could go on, but I’ll stop here, and turn my attention elsewhere. I have things I want to do in the next six minutes, six hours and six days.

(Before anyone call the authorities, rest assured that she is fine. Only my ego was wounded in the exchange.)

Part of my meditative practice teaches me to observe what is happening, and nothing more. It has a remarkable effect. It allows for what Wallace Stevens observed in his beautiful “things are as they are on the blue guitar” line.

I’ve struggled to apply this to the creative process. I not only wait for perfection, but I push and pull at every little thought that arises, to the point of exhaustion, ensuring that any riches that might have been working will be reduced to an unworkable chaos before sunset. It’s woefully obtuse…

Ever the man of science (not really), I put the idea to a test. The last couple of weeks I let go in a couple of areas I had been hammering the stone to no avail, and I waited for the abundance to take over and flourish. And by some strange miracle, it did.

People I’d been waiting on to do things… did them. People I hadn’t asked things of… offered things. People wrote to say kind things. Out of the emptiness came light, all on its own. What’s more, the nagging frustrations that arise with every bump in the road subsided more quickly. The thoughts, like butterflies, flitted off in their own time, and in their absence, came abundance.

I was reminded of the poet Lau Tzu’s words:

“By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try the world is beyond the winning.”

Indeed.

I’ve had several discussions lately about timing. When do you do something, like, say, make a short film project. And certainly timing, and planning, matter. But more often than not, in waiting for the perfect moment, which of course never arrives, we don’t do anything at all.

Over the course of my life I’ve had dozens and dozens of ideas for projects, most of them reasonable. This is not an over-estimate. I keep a folder of ideas, and were it not now a digital folder, it would be overflowing. And over the course of my life I’ve completed… a few… and that’s being generous.

There is always a reason not to do something. Especially if there is any chance, any chance at all, that it might not be perfect.

For years I convinced myself that I couldn’t do things because I lacked certain elements – equipment, time, money were always in the mix. Flash forward to today: the equipment I so stubbornly claimed was out of reach now costs less than a weekend getaway, time has never really been my problem, and money, well, things have become so absurdly inexpensive, that even that isn’t really a factor. (Note: I’m not talking about making “Avatar.”)

And yet, my old buddy perfection comes along and demands to be involved in the project, so I come up with a new list of reasons I can’t do something. And I don’t think I’m alone in this.

So here’s what I’m thinking: let’s do things badly for a little while and just see what comes out of that. We can apply some insight teachings and just notice what happens, with as little judgement as possible. Then we can take a look at the final product.

It may even be pretty good…

The second version has a man standing on a street corner snapping his fingers continually. When asked why he does this, he replies, “To keep the elephants out of the city.” When told that there are no elephants in the city, he says, “See?”

For a while last year my meditation practice and the upheaval of my life seemed to be in lockstep. The more I studied, read, and sat, the more seemed to be happening in my world. It was a period of breakneck speed of change, perfectly coinciding with the meteoric learning curve that happens whenever anything is new. In short order I moved cities, put a career back on track, re-established every aspect of my personal and social life, changed representation, went back to school, and all while developing my spiritual practice.

But when the pace settled into normalcy, as it inevitably had to, my instinct was to wonder what was wrong with my practice. What are all these tigers and elephants doing here? I’m tossing the breadcrumbs and snapping the fingers, so what gives? Obviously, there’s something wrong with this whole sitting and meditating thing…

The premise, of course, is totally backwards. The practice is of awareness of what is, and a path to the end of craving. There is nothing in it that says that the externals of your life will change, there is no promise of job offers and development deals, new houses and cars, or eternal sunshine. If there is a promise, it is that through understanding things as they are, you will be happier. This could mean that absolutely nothing changes except how you feel about things.

But without even that simple understanding, that may not come true.

In a twist of irony, I may have been able to understand my causation/correlation snafu because of the practice itself. Having trained myself in awareness to a modest degree of proficiency, my mind was open to see what was happening. That, and a handful of conversations with fellow practitioners, whom I now thank.

So… if you’re confused, or stuck, speak with your friends, and continue to meditate, meditate, meditate. And if it comes to it, feed the elephants the breadcrumbs…

Please don’t misunderstand. These guys, and gals, have real talent, and great charisma, and an uncanny ability to navigate the waters. I’m just not sure they’re doing anything I can’t, and it’s been a long time since I felt that with such conviction.

Perhaps it’s the heat…

In the best of circumstances, you’re working, on something you like, and you’re well paid. In these times you walk the earth with a lighter step. Traffic snarls are merely chances to listen to more music, rain is refreshing, and the dim-witted cashier is a person worthy of compassion.

And in the worst of times, the wisdom of a three day waiting period to purchase a hand gun becomes clearer than ever.

I am no stranger to these matters, of course, much as I can elucidate a point or two about them. An assessment of my life can shift depending on the day, or the hour of the day, so that at breakfast I’m King Midas and by lunch I’m Wile E. Coyote, and all that happened in between was a phone call, or lack thereof. It’s a fragile state of affairs.

It need not be so. Caring about one’s work and livelihood is a good thing, of course, but defining ourselves by the decibel level of applause we hear is a fool’s errand.  It will never be high enough, and even Pavarotti had nights where the standing ovations must have felt tepid.

So, where do we go from here? What is the winning shot in the endless volley of good times/bad times? Can we live lives of equanimity and joy, regardless of the external circumstances?

The answer is yes. The art of it lies in defining what we can control, and what we can’t control, and making sure our energies are focused on the former. If the only joy an actor experiences comes from getting the call with the offer, it’s going to be a dark road. If instead, there is equal, or dare I say greater, excitement in, say, putting up good work in a class, then we might have something.

The formula may seem simple, but it’s effective.  It’s also very difficult to master, and no, I am no great master. But I know the road I have to travel, and that may make all the difference…

For the Mineralava Musings, this is Edoardo Ballerini.