The Grasshopper Sunday Edition: Going With the Flow

Sometimes things just go right, so go with it

Photo by Marc Mintel on Unsplash

These Sunday Editions are becoming an ongoing experiment, content-wise. In many ways all of The Grasshopper is an experiment in musing publicly about life as a writer, from the mundane to the sublime.

Note: Sundays in March are free to all subscribers.

This Sunday: A great work week, the fourth anniversary of the Covid lockdown and how it changed lives, and my concerns about the real dangers of censorship.

I have had a very productive week writing. On Monday I wrote Wednesday’s Grasshopper and it is my most read so far. I also wrote two pieces for Medium on politics and a mediation on the Zen genius, Eihei Dogen and logic, two subjects I would never have conflated, but I think it works.

I don’t know where that piece came from and I’m not sure where I’m going to publish it, as it breaks with my typical subjects, whatever they are. It may show up here. We’ll see. I still need to do some work on it.

So the writing that day added up to about 3500 words, about three times what I write on a normal day, and surprisingly, the three articles I published here and on Medium all worked well on the page and are doing well online. A very good flow day.

I’m not going to get into the concept of flow because I think most of us recognize those moments when everything is in sync and you can move through your work without much conscious thought.

Normally I’d be mentally tired after that much writing, but the experience was the opposite. I was pretty energized. And the next day I was mostly tapped out, which was to be expected. But that flow day got me ahead for the week and I was able to sketch out a few more ideas for the future.

I love it when the ideas are flowing and you need to capture sunlight. One of the ways I manage my workload is to grab one of those ideas, open a Google doc, and write a title. Then it’s there when I’m ready to write. So, though I did not do a lot of writing on Tuesday, I had primed the pump for the rest of the week.

The consequence has been that by today, the ninth of March 2023, I’ll have published 11 pieces on Medium for the month so far, and a newsletter issue, and now I’m doing this Sunday’s Grasshopper. Which is what you are reading.

I’m not big on the concept of writer’s block. Yes, I’m familiar with those days when you are drifting in the Doldrums waiting for the breeze to freshen, but I don’t let them own me most of the time. And if they do, I can ignore it most of the time.

I suspect writer’s block is based on being stuck in a repeating loop, recycling ideas until they feel lame and limp. A flow state is when you break that pattern and start making progress. It’s a very satisfying feeling and one of the main reasons I write.

I’m an information consumer. I spend a good part of my day in the news world, likely too much but it is my job, a job I designed for myself. And I think designing your own life is essential to being a writer. You may be very busy and trying to fit writing into your schedule, but having a hard time.

Stop the world, I want to get off

To me, that became a signal that I had to put this thing front and center and make it my occupation and my preoccupation. Like many people, Covid, now entering its fourth year (good grief) created a gap in our normal lives, and many used that time to do something they had always dreamed of doing.

We all know the saying that crisis is opportunity, based on a Mandarin Chinese character. I think another way of saying it would be disruption, or unexpected change out of the blue that represents opportunity. The lockdown may have been the biggest disruption in many of our lives for a long time.

And it had all the elements of a crisis, including uncertainty and death and grief and fear. But it also included gifts if you were open to it, and survived. Survival is a signal to reevaluate your life and reconsider your priorities. During lockdown, many did.

I actually remember the moment I realized the world had changed. It was the end of March 2020 and the pandemic was really gaining momentum. No one really knew what it was, how it spread, or whether we or our loved ones would survive. So we locked down and the scientists did a miraculous thing in developing a vaccine in record time.

Until that event, things were in flux. The moment I remember was at the peak of everything being shut down. I was walking to my friend’s place downtown where we had decided to see this thing through together, sharing meals, drinks, and communicating with people we had not seen or talked to in a long time.

So I’m walking through a familiar urban landscape that is completely unfamiliar. It is quiet and there is literally no traffic. I could imagine myself as the only person in the world. That stopped me in my tracks mentally and I realized I was in an opportunity, if I survived.

I obviously did, and so did you. But millions didn’t. I’m not sure the magnitude of those events can ever be grasped. We were all collectively in a state of shock at first. Then we realized we had to deal with it, whatever it was. 

I guess I knew it was a story in the making if it could be captured. And, on some level, I made a choice to try. That choice took me to where I am today as a writer and showed me that creativity, combined with a steady flow of work changes people.

I changed. And I’m still digesting that change through writing and sharing my ideas, rants, and realizations. I hope you are doing the same. 

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Living on a soapbox in the park

In 1872 someone carried a wooden soapbox to a corner of London’s Hyde Park, set in a corner, now known as Speaker’s Corner, stood on it, and started talking. Orating. And a tradition was born that continues to this day. The concept is much deeper than it looks on the surface.

I get on the soapbox when I do my political writing, and in a different way when I express myself in The Grasshopper. And sometimes passers by pause and listen. No big deal, right? Well it is if you live in a country like Russia or Iran or China, where I would be thrown in jail or disappeared for expressing myself.

We risk entering that territory when we start wholesale censorship of books and ideas like the DeSantis efforts in Florida. Restricting access to a wide range of information is an early indicator of an autocratic state. Frankly, it scares me.

Americans too often take freedom of speech as a God-given right and we abuse it. It isn’t a right for many in the world, it is a power, a power that is dangerous and risky to use. That power, when used to speak truth to power, is a great opportunity to be taken seriously.

Every once in a while I have to pause while writing and consider this truth we take for granted. It can be a humbling experience.

And an enlightening one.

Did you write today?

Martin Edic

1201 words

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