Category: Musings

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Wait for the turn this takes

This morning I was up early, brewed some coffee, and sat on my front step. Listening to news of the latest mayhem, I started spiraling down into despair. I titled one of my apocalyptic books All Empires Fall because, well, they do.

The death of Elijah McClain broke me. This was George Floyd all over again. Mr. McClain was a slight, 23-year-old massage therapist choked out twice by three police officers and administered a sedative by a paramedic after he was subdued. It was murder, no doubt. If you have any doubt, search up Mr. McClain’s last words. This was a gentle spirit and agents of the State murdered him.* Colorado officials have no plans to take any responsibility. The DA on the case refused to prosecute, in part because the victim “was not injured.” You know…except for the part about him being dead.

*Note: Don’t ‘No angel’ victims of police brutality. Even if he wasn’t a gentle soul, the authorities should still bear responsibility for such callous mistreatment and the unnecessary death of anyone in their custody.

Then I spiraled down further

The more I listened to stories of violent, selfish, and greedy people who don’t believe in science, people who don’t know what empathy is… Let’s just say my empathy drained away, too. I know a minority is ruining everything, but that is a powerful minority and they’re in charge. A racist is president and a lot of people voted for him. A lot of people will still vote for him! The insane are running the asylum.

Hearing all this grim news I thought, it’s not just that America has become a failed state. It is that we are a failed species. Things are so far off the rails, I don’t know when that train will run again. The poor are not protected. They’re vilified and criminalized. The helpless remain helpless. God damn it, people can be mean.

I flirted with a grim conclusion: There’s a lot of evil and stupid out there. Maybe, as a species, we don’t deserve success. We could have created a utopia, but we fucked it up. Maybe New Zealand or Iceland has a shot at getting things right but sometimes it feels like we’re too far gone. Maybe Vonnegut was right. The species is suicidal.

Then I turned to Facebook

I came across a post that swung back the pendulum. It was a series of pictures with brief captions telling of random acts of kindness:

A guy on a subway playing on his phone shared a game with a kid.

A woman in a wheelchair couldn’t get down to the shore to place a rose in the water where her husband’s ashes had been scattered. Someone took care of it for her.

Dropping off a passenger at an amusement park, a cabbie mentioned he had never had the experience. His passenger invited the cabbie to join him for the day and paid for his entry.

A teacher visited his ill student every day in hospital to make sure he kept up with his homework.

Story after story, I saw short, simple tales about everyday people being kind to each other. And I wept again. Big, ugly cry, too. It was a great relief to be pulled from the brink, back from the cold chasm of despair to the thin ledge of hope.

I don’t believe God’s coming to save us. We’re going to save ourselves or depend on a rescue mission from benevolent aliens. Or maybe, you, reading this, have a part to play in being kind and acting to find solutions. What if it’s you?

Whoever can turn things around, I want to send up the same signal flare.

Know this:

We are worth saving.

We are. I know it doesn’t feel that way sometimes, but we are worth saving.

Please…begin.

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Every Evil Thing

Seen on the internet: Did you have a happy childhood or are you funny?

Last night I went on a long walk. Usually, I have my earbuds in. Craving stimulation, I listen to podcasts (mostly about how the world is falling down and the landing won’t be a soft one). If I want to walk faster, I’ll pump music into my head and swing my arms faster. On this stroll, I was in a mood to ruminate. I walked in silence for a change, listening for what my brain offered up. Unless I’m at my keyboard engaging in the writing life, this is generally a bad move.

Sunny people see a sunset and enjoy the beauty. I move on from those feelings quickly. The looming sunset in a silent sky served as an existential reminder of Nature’s cold indifference. I can be funny, but my nature is not sunny. Irony and dark humor? A lot of that comes from a dark place.

And so I plunged headlong into the past

Passing through a stand of trees, the green aroma pulled me back to memories of Nova Scotia, where I grew up. I ran through a lot of woods in those days. If I did that now, all I’d think about would be ticks and Lyme Disease. (I’m fun at parties, but that’s hard to imagine, isn’t it?)

We like to think we are proactive, a cause in the world. Sometimes, history condemns us to little more than an effect. My father refers to Nova Scotia as “God’s Country.” I would say it is a nice place to visit. It’s not all bad, not at all. I miss the sound of foghorns lowing to each other when a thick white blanket falls over Halifax Harbour. I miss Atomic Subs on Jubilee Road (sadly and inexplicably, long gone). In my hometown, the #4 Special at the House of Cheng was special. There are kind people there, but my mind doesn’t allow me to remember much of that.

Years ago, I met a fellow at a party who was born in the same hospital as me. Though he never actually lived there, he rhapsodized about how great our little town was. He became irritated when my lived experience didn’t match his fantasy. He seemed eager to overlook the casual racism, for instance. I could never watch an episode of Trailer Park Boys. I knew too many guys like that in real life to find it funny. I recognize that people are just as different and also the same everywhere. Human failings and mental deficits are certainly not unique to that place. However, painful memories specific to me lie there in the shadows. I am haunted.

When I wrote The Night Man, the town of Lake Orion, Michigan is just as much a character as it is a setting. I grew up in a small town. I know what it’s like when everyone remembers you from when you were in diapers. I remember how gossip is an engine that never stops revving. Growing up where I did informed Ernest “Easy” Jack’s experience of coming home to Orion. I have plenty of ghost voices in my head. They’re useful for what I do for a living.

History is generic, trauma is personal

The writing life is a sedentary one. I aim for 10,000 steps a day. Last night was a 14,000 step walk, plenty of time to dwell on regrets, unforced errors, my own shittiness, and the shots not taken.

Unfortunately, I have an eidetic memory for every negative thing I’ve witnessed. In perfect, excruciating detail, I remember the look on my mother’s face the last time I saw her. On her deathbed, she was furious, angry that she was dying, at how unfair it was. Loathing any display of weakness, she seemed most rageful that she was not immortal.

I remember every unkind word spoken to me like a fresh wound. I have always had a problem with authority and giving up control. In childhood, the locus of control is always elsewhere. Perhaps that’s why that time can feel so terrible. Everything feels important, even when it isn’t. Every failing is the end of the world. Everything is taken personally. (Still is.)

Indoctrinated into ideas I now find abhorrent, young adulthood was difficult, too. I couldn’t get hold of all the variables that might allow me enough independence to be left the hell alone. I was told I was too young to have a valid opinion, that my thoughts and feelings did not matter. I think some people might be getting better at valuing children so they learn to better value themselves and others. Sadly, there’s still a better than average chance you were told the same things I was. Maybe you got over it. I hold grudges.

I’m still resentful of the interview for the publishing job where I was told that, if hired, I couldn’t possibly have a valid opinion for the next seven years. Shit, why not just go train to be a brain surgeon? I’d get to a position where I counted as a human being a lot faster that way. Or how about those job interviews for newspapers where the interviewers tried to bully me? That didn’t go well for them and I learned that I was truculent. (That’s also how I learned the word truculent.)

I know grudges are not healthy, but I don’t know how to unring that bell.


In silence, my busy brain breaks open the floodgates: the crazy Spanish lady I should have fired, the landlord who cheated me, the boss who scooped up my commission bonus, the thousand little affronts, the threats of assault, the bickering, the anger that’s always simmering…the constant grating sense that for every little win I might eke out, I’m still behind and losing ground. The near-certainty that I WILL NEVER BE ENOUGH.

Thinking about it last night, I will never return to Nova Scotia. Though I enjoy being in faraway places, I hate the process of traveling. The last time I flew, my left eardrum burst. With a pandemic burning across the world, staying in my blanket fort is best. I still have family Down East, but it’s a long way to go to be told I’ve gained weight and my hair has turned white (as if I didn’t know).

I don’t feel a desperate need to be underestimated and condescended to in person. I outsource my self-esteem and moods to strangers on the internet (AKA book reviewers). Besides, there are lovely tourist destinations calling. Why go for awkward personal interactions where criticism is mistaken for love? Some families write off cruelty as “teasing” or “banter” where they are rude to relatives in ways that would rightly earn them a bloody nose from a stranger. Exposure to conflict does not breed warm feelings. It often breeds anxiety and hypervigilance.

Conflict used to be a steady diet for me. My interactions with the public are rare now. Through careful choices, astonishing luck, hard work, and seclusion, I’ve edited out most potential for conflict. It’s a peaceful, contained, and controlled life wherein I often manage substitute humor for anger. I write in a literal blanket fort, for God’s sake! However, since I worked in retail from the age of 13, I’ve got plenty of drama to draw on to spin my stories of murder and mayhem.

I remember very well the urge to commit homicide, for instance. That coworker deserved it. That feeling is still handy, anytime I reach out to fire up those neurons. Humiliation, rage, and fear are all on call, ready to flow into the keyboard. All our experiences can be rewoven to create new patterns, new characters. To weave plots, to tell engaging and relatable stories, pain is useful.

Despite time and growth, I remain hypervigilant and anxious. I still feel that I will never be enough and that I am losing ground. If you are, like me, a writer who can’t let go of every evil thing, use that shit.

If you’re a reader, enjoy it.

~ Interested in reading The Night Man? Find out what happens when the prodigal son leaves the war abroad and finds a new, more insidious plot at home.

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The Writing Life: Vicissitudes

The writing life has its ups and downs. As I was closing up shop yesterday, my editor, Gari Strawn of strawnediting.com, noted, “It’s been a week of a day.”

Amen, sister! Yesterday felt like Thwart Day. Whatever could go wrong, did.

First, I discovered that Google Docs can’t be trusted. Editorial changes we’d made to a book I’m doctoring did not necessarily take (as detailed today on my writing blog, Chazzwrites.com.)

But the hijinx didn’t end there. Besides getting a new word processing platform together for the editorial team’s collaboration, my internet connectivity became sketchy. (See that, right there? That’s what you call foreshadowing, partner.)

Working furiously to meet a deadline, other projects I thought I was going to get to faster had to be pushed further back. Not happy about that, but to pay the bills, the writing life often has to be about short-term and long-term.

My son’s PC crapped out on him so I consulted (AKA did the heavy looking on as he poked through the machine’s innards). I nodded sagely as he diagnosed the need for a new power supply.

Which got me thinking, when was the last time I did a full manual backup of my computers?

Backup

I once belonged to a writing group where some odd questions were often posed. Most memorable: “Who here writes with a quill pen?” Settle down, d’Artagnan. Write or type, but don’t be so precious and extra.

My son’s computer issues spurred me to be more proactive about the health of my desktop and laptop. Both are climbing into the age where they are antiques. It was past time to protect them better. I’d used Sophos before. This time, I installed AVG tuneup on both machines and eliminated many gigabytes of duplicate and useless files. Then I did a full backup, updates and virus scan. The process took some time, but it was inexpensive. It felt good to clean up my babies. My living does depend on their health, after all.

Finding balance

The writing life isn’t just about tickling brains, sly jokes, and meteoric wordplay. Because my brain navigates a meatwagon through the world, I’m also trying to find balance for my health. Despite some all-nighters recently (because of looming deadlines and tech glitches I couldn’t plan for) I try to stop work by 9 pm. After that, my brain is too overstimulated and I’ll be up for the night. Though the day had been an example of Murphy’s Law, I made time to go on a long walk with She Who Must Be Obeyed. Sometimes that’s the only time we have for long talks, as well.

I’ve gone back to vegan eating. There’s a long theory about the relationship between ingestion, temperature, and sleep, but the short answer is, for me, more vegan = less insomnia. Since I’ve gone vegan, my energy is up and I’m not schlumping around like a wounded animal quite as much.

I even made time to give myself a haircut last night. I shave it tight on the sides. Any tighter and I’d look like I have mange. It’s kind of a Peaky Blinders vibe.

Despite yesterday’s frustrations, it turned out better by the end. I’m more calm than I might otherwise be. Thwart Day was tough, but I was determined to make today better.

Then the internet totally crapped out on us this morning.

Thor…damn…it.

And so … we begin again. When I mention my frustrations to a friend, he always comes back with how much harder he has it. I’m not sure whether he’s bragging or complaining, but he’s not wrong. There are vicissitudes, but the writing life is still pretty sweet compared to all my other options.

Breathe. Repeat. Continue.

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What I talk about with readers

At the end of each book, I have a link to my Facebook fan group. These are kind readers who elect to hear from me reporting in from the blanket fort daily. I make jokes, talk about the writing life, and sometimes opine about the gap between the way things are and how they ought to be. It’s a safe space for those who dig what I do and I truly enjoy it. They do, too. Friends are the family we choose. Interest, fun, and empathy are the glue that holds it together.

In the past few weeks, I’ve posted amusing memes, linked to fresh blog posts, talked about the ongoing fall of civilization, and discussed the challenges of foraging and scavenging in the apocalypse. We also engage with questions like the following:

What’s your blocking policy on social media?
What books would you consider contemporary classics?
What has COVID-19 done that took you by surprise?
Who are the celebrities you’ve met and what were your impressions?
What concerts have you attended that stood out?

In other words, Fans of Robert Chazz Chute is all over the place and I like it that way.

The vibe is hanging out with friends. I’m not leaving my blanket fort for the next two years, so this is pretty much my only social interaction. (She Who Must Be Obeyed, Musical Son and Business Daughter don’t count as social interaction. They’re contractually obligated to listen to my latest bout of hypochondria.)

Here’s a sample post from the Inner Circle:

Today, a little review. Also, with one question, I shall demonstrate that I am incapable of pleasant small talk.

I finished watching the second season of After Life on Netflix. The depiction of the psychotherapist will annoy She Who Must Be Obeyed. I know the character is supposed to be a counterpoint and comic relief, but he’s a sour note struck too often. For dramatic purposes, is psychology ever done right on screen? (I, too, have written short stories featuring Dr. Circe Papua that thankfully don’t reflect the happier reality of the profession.)

On the plus side of After Life, Ricky Gervais makes a strong choice I admired. He knows he’s wallowing in grief for his deceased wife. He says he’s wallowing. Then he wallows. He tells and shows and risks annoying the viewer by actually wallowing. He’s stuck. This is what stuck really looks like.

The other aspect I appreciated was that he resolves to be a better person. To do so, he can’t be who he is. Fiction and non-fiction are packed with aspirational stuff about how to change. (I’ve written about that, too.) The unpopular slant here is that his character discovers the limits of how much he can change. A total revamp is too ambitious.

People can and do change. Can they get a full personality transplant, though? For me, I don’t think I’ve changed all that much since I was in my 20s. As a little kid, I distinctly remember worrying about burning in hell. I was an atheist for a long time, went through a brief religious period, then settled back on atheism.

Is there something fundamental about you that’s changed over the course of your life?

Further thoughts for fellow writers

If you’re a writer trying to engage with fans, I’d encourage you to open up and be real. Not everyone will be equally comfortable with honesty and your boundaries of privacy will vary from others. I don’t worry about that overly much. I don’t hide the fact that my political leanings are to the left, for instance. That’s the subtext of some of my fiction, too, so I doubt I will shock or offend many of my hardcore readers. If someone were to be mean, I’d simply eject them, but I haven’t had to do that yet. My readers are a lovely bunch of people. They’re supportive. I love writing books for them. I love the creative outlet of reaching out to the group.

I would also say to fellow writers that posting daily on a platform you don’t enjoy for a fan base that isn’t there wouldn’t make much sense. If you write middle-grade novels, your target audience probably isn’t on Facebook.

Keep in mind that anyone on my fan page is part of my core readership. They know my books. They don’t come to critique. They come because they love the books (and probably stay for the jokes.)

Regular readers who don’t want that much interaction beyond the pages of my whimsy might sign up for my newsletter and leave it at that. I avoid bothering newsletter subscribers often. Certainly, gurus would have me sending emails and setting up sales funnels but I decided a while back that is not for me. It feels too artificial and bothersome for the more casual reader. Unlike the Facebook group, all the newsletter group generally wants to know is when the next book is coming out or if there’s a promotion going on. That’s fine with me, too. I only take volunteers for the Inner Circle. No one is drafted.

For readers

Please so subscribe to my newsletter if you’re of a mind to do so. I promise I won’t bother you often.

If you’re hardcore, here’s the link to that Inner Circle: Fans of Robert Chazz Chute.

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How to Dopamine Detox

VIDEO: How I tricked my brain to like doing hard things.

If you are feeling less motivated, part of your energy management strategy might be to curate where your dopamine fixes come from. A little dopamine detox might get your mojo back in gear and refresh your energies.

To boost your productivity, dare to give these strategies a try for a day. Let me know if it helps. And, hey, total honesty? I know this is hard. I had this video bookmarked for a couple of days before I got around to listening to it. That done, I think it makes a lot of sense.

Good luck!

 

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What good & bad people have in common

In research for several of my books, I’ve soaked in prepper culture. I warned in This Plague of Days that the apocalypse would be boring, especially at first. In This Plague of Days, Season One, I spent a lot of time on the effects of quarantine on an average American family. My zombie apocalypse wasn’t all about having a castle with unlimited ammo and shooting zees all day for fun and freedom.

Besides gathering food and whatnot, one of the Spencer family’s first trips is to a library to stock up on books to keep them entertained. (Jaimie’s father was a librarian so they really stock up!) The Spencers prepared for the siege pretty well. Turns out, some of prepper culture is full of shit. They enjoyed their paranoid fantasies and stocked up on guns and ammo but maybe not enough on toilet paper and seeds. After a short time in isolation, many are crying to be let out way too early. They may have lots of MREs, but no heart. (Buckle up, by the way. This pandemic is just getting started, but that’s a topic for another post.)

Protests versus terrorism

The people who are protesting that their states need to open up so they can get a haircut are horribly misguided. I would have more sympathy if they maintained physical distancing and wore masks while they screamed about house arrest.

(Hint: You’re not really under house arrest. You’re not being oppressed. The well-informed authorities are trying to save you from yourselves and protect us from you.) 

I know folks are hurting financially. Many do have genuine and valid concerns about how to get money coming in to feed their families. However, these armed Covidiots aren’t peacefully protesting to receive UBI, food relief, and governmental supports for healthcare efforts. They aren’t demanding moratoriums on rent and mortgage payments. Instead, murdering irony forever, they have “My body, my choice” on their signs and car windows.

Newsflash: You aren’t pro-life, after all. You’re pro-selfishness and all for short-term thinking that will result in a greater economic collapse and more mass graves.

Some even call the pandemic a hoax. Gee whiz, guys! If it’s a hoax, it’s the most elaborate one in history and I’m not sure what the aim might be. We all live in the same economy. No one wants to trash it. We all have at least a few loved ones we’d like to see survive. It takes heavy Alex Jones-level mental gymnastics to achieve that kind of confirmation bias. You do know Italy exists, right? No? How about New York? Did New Yorkers make up slammed hospitals because they’re a blue state? If so, damn, those ambulance sirens wailing all day and night sure were a nice touch to the massive deception.

The Defining Moment

The most pathetic thing I’ve seen in these armed terrorist gatherings is a big guy in a stare-down with a nurse. She’s in her mask and scrubs, arms crossed, not budging. He’s desperate to intimidate her. Dude, with the amount of death she witnesses in one shift, you aren’t going to scare her in your Army Surplus camo and beret. You’re emboldened by a president who tweets about “liberating” democratically elected states from the tyranny of saving lives. That nurse and all the healthcare professionals like her are trying to save civilization. If called upon, she’d even try to save your dumb ass. Screw you, Beret Guy. Go home. Stay home. If you have concerns, write a letter to your government officials while you still have a post office.

There’s the moral fulcrum: Beret Guy doesn’t care who dies as long as he gets to fire up the grinder of capitalism and enjoy him some waffles that ain’t take-out. Healthcare workers suffer in an attempt to stall death and end suffering.

If anyone’s having trouble identifying who’s who:

Beret Guy is a terrified terrorist.

The nurse standing her ground is the brave protester.

 

 

Closer to home

No one is immune to poor decision-making skills. I used to work in healthcare and still watch a professional forum where the issues of the day are discussed. In one thread, a manual therapist whose husband was in pain from tennis elbow asked about recommendations for a brace. Applying cross-fiber frictions to lateral epicondylitis isn’t that big a deal for professionals trained in assessment and treatment protocols. Isolate the tissue, treat, and follow up with hydrotherapy and remedial exercise. It takes just a few minutes and there is no great danger. The therapist only asked for an equipment recommendation. It shouldn’t have gone south. It sure did.

And then the Deluge

Self-styled gurus and pedants descended upon her, burning up the comment threads with the same bullying comments, over and over. “Treating your spouse is illegal!” they cried. “You could lose your license!”

Those colleagues valued appearing virtuous more than true empathy and compassion for people in pain. They may have technical skills, but I have a rule: Don’t consent to treatment from self-aggrandizing sociopaths. (That’s a good guideline for people to avoid when you vote, too.)

Consider the alternative for a moment: The therapist’s spouse is in pain. She can help him quickly, easily and safely or he can try to get an appointment at a clinic for a non-emergent issue. Good luck with that, sure, but if he succeeded, then what? He risks going to a doctor’s office, possibly getting infected with COVID-19 or bringing the virus to the office? In other words, these so-called experts would rather people risk death than defy a bad law in these extraordinary circumstances. Spoken as true healers, guys, Good job, you goddamn defects.

I am so glad I am retired from manual therapy so I can write for a living. I loved my patients, yes, but my provincial regulators and administrators couldn’t be trusted to exercise good judgment and discretion. The job didn’t pay enough for the stress headaches it gave me. I’m healthier now for having let that career go.

Guidelines for defiance

If you are desperate for income, I understand that all too well. Carrying guns, attempting to intimidate frontline workers, and opening up too soon is not the answer. Most people can’t make $1200 last ten weeks unless they’re already homeless and sleeping under a bridge. Demanding more of a federal response and societal supports would make sense.

Those screaming to be let out so they can freshen up their spray tan are a threat to themselves and many innocent people. If they were minorities acting like that, I fear the next response would come from the National Guard.

Don’t block ambulances. Don’t be a dick for a bad cause. I know you’re scared. We all are. Masking your fear by carrying an AR-15 to a protest doesn’t make you look braver. Your protest signs don’t tell me you are a patriot speaking truth to power. Your empty slogans advertise your disrespect for science and spelling. (I misspell sometimes, too. It’s no grave sin. Please don’t make it a way of life that defines your character.)

What do good and bad people have in common? Defying the law.

Bad people defy good laws designed for public safety because they’re criminals. They have bad wiring, lack skills and opportunity, are stupid and selfish (or a combination thereof).

Good people defy bad laws because sometimes laws defy reason. Why? Because we’re trying to have a civilization here! Let’s work together to survive and thrive in mutual respect and compassion.

I recommend changing bad laws by working peacefully from within the system. Vote. Run for office or campaign for your candidate. Demonstrate peacefully. If you must be a dick, dare to be a dick for a good cause. There are rare times when defying laws makes sense. When you do it, make sure it makes sense.

Make sure a reasonable person would suspect you’re one of the good guys.

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How to make your nervous system less nervous

This audio includes a short box breathing exercise and a mixture of the contract/relax technique and visualization to help you relieve stress.

Do not listen to this while you are driving or doing anything that requires your attention elsewhere.

Last week, I wrote about the 3A Triad of Stress Management. Today, I’d like to share a breathing and visualization exercise with the aim of:

  1. Staying in the moment to
  2. deepen breathing in order to
  3. boost body awareness to
  4. ease bodily tension
  5. and cue a more calm state of mind.

    With practice, you can consciously ease your stress and deepen relaxation.

    Your body is constantly listening in on your thoughts and reacts to those thoughts unconsciously. As you entertain stressful thoughts, the red-light reflex kicks in and your muscles tense up.

    Here’s the good news:

    Using time-tested mindfulness techniques, you can activate the green-light reflex. Your mind is listening to your body, too. By deepening your breathing and consciously easing muscle tension, your autonomic nervous system sends out a useful signal: “I am not being chased by a bear.”

    You can use box breathing anytime. Breathe in for 4, hold for 4, exhale for 4, hold for 4, repeat as necessary to increase calm in the face of stress.

    The rest of today’s audio exploration is meant to be performed on your bed, on a couch or on the floor if you can get comfortable. As long as you are comfortable and can take approximately 20 minutes to yourself without distractions, you can deepen this practice to ease your stress.

    This recording has been a Blanket Fort Production by Robert Chazz Chute of AllThatChazz.com, all rights reserved.

    For more stress management tips, check out Do The Thing by Robert Chazz Chute.