90 Days of ILP

Against my better judgement, we've just networked the house for wireless internet and free cable TV (thank you Comcast). Just a month ago I got a laptop. What was once an activity limited to the office during business hours, can now be ubiquitous, and with it arise all the old problems I thought I'd defeated. Last summer my old laptop crashed, and I moved to a new place with a mutually-understood "no TV!" policy. Before that I was working in the dining room, online all day long, three steps from a sofa and a channel changer with access to 100 channels, a mode of living I'd been doing for 5 years. With this move, I intentionally left the new house unwired, and over the past year have seen enormous strides made in my writing, music, and artistry. Now the old demons are back, and I am terrified.

There was a time when I thought I could defeat TV addiction. Ha ha ha. There was also a time when I thought email and video downloads wouldn't get the best of me. Ho ho ho. The fact is, there is no escape from the networked life: once you're in, you're in. The trick is to find new ways to limit your involvement, stop your participation, and hold it all at arm's length. And with a steady wake-up time, a new commitment to writing, and growing habits for practicing ILP modules every day, I can once again turn to the struggle that almost killed me: losing oneself in the desire drugs of the 24/7 info-economy.

That's where a little bastard of an advice book called The War of Art, by novelist Steven Pressfield, comes in. Tv, Internet, porn: all of these are forms of Resistance, the unrelenting force of nature Pressfield posits as the true enemy of the working, evolving artist. For if there is one thing the aforementioned techno-vices have in common (as does the technology that provides them right here to my dining room table as I type this), it is the ability to instantly gratify. Writing, artistry, and practice, on the other hand, are long, drawn-out, miserable affairs, which may not yield benefits for many years, if not ever.

Says Pressfield:

When we drug ourselves to blot out our soul's call, we are being good Americans and exemplary consumers. We're doing exactly what TV commercials and pop materialist culture have been brainwashing us to do from birth. Instead of applying self-knowledge, self-discipline, delayed gratification, and hard work, we simply consume a product.

Many pedestrians have been maimed or killed at the intersection of Resistance and Commerce.

You might say that I am an expert at network-facilitated Procrastination. Besides drinking, indie rock, Ken Wilber, and running, its been one of the key features of the duration of my twenties. It's the reason I started this blog. It's the reason I realize I couldn't realize my potential on my own, sitting on my tv couch waiting for inspiration to strike. It's only been recently that will and intent have to be matched by complementary social structures (or, the "lower right" quadrant for you AQAL geeks). Giving up TV was hard, yet the last year has taught me that it's also hard to miss having. Yet with cable now back in the house, other structures become even more crucial to maintain the balance between work and play, to keep from Procrastinating again right through my thirties. Integral Life Practice, and all the other idiosyncracies I've been able to introduce into my own life, may provide just this structure.

To paraphrase Field of Dreams: if you build it -- a daily routine, a structure, a practice -- "they" (those inspiring moments we artists live for) will come.


[NOTE: If you have derived any inspiration from these words, please leave a comment. I am considering a new blog around the topic of artistic inspiration and art practice -- integral or otherwise -- but would like some "market data" beforehand. Thanks!]