TYSIC news and moth poem
Hello. So, thanks once more to a member of my recently-appointed temp staff, this time Kate W, who has collated a report on recent TYSIC efforts. If you’ve just tuned into this blog, the Ten-Year Self-Improvement Challenge is - well, the title gives it away a little bit. A large number of readers of the blog have undertaken one or more challenges to be tackled over the next decade (the lifespan of this blog). Some are all but completed, others are a matter of inch-by-inch progress. Some have set multiple tasks for themselves.
This is a commendable endeavour by everyone, and although Kate’s summary of recent highlights is a thorough one, please do either leave Comments with your own efforts (successful or otherwise) that escaped mention, or with anything that elaborates on what IS there. And if you’re new to this, go to the TYSIC site (some kind person will post a link) and get involved. Still more than 9.5 years left to make an impact.
The summary follows. At the end, I have taken the liberty of ‘printing’ one of my favourite short poems, ‘the lesson of the moth’, by Don Marquis. It is from a large body of work called The Archy and Mehitabel Poems, written in about the 1920s I think. In brief, Archy is a cockroach living in the office of the New York Times, and he writes free verse by jumping on the keys of a typewriter at night (this is why there are no capitals, he can’t do the shift key). His friend Mehitabel is an ageing dame of a street cat who looks back with nostalgia on her wild past; some of Archy’s poems are in tribute to her, others (like the one below) record his other conversations and adventures. It’s all very funny and strangely beautiful. You’ll see the relevance of the poem to anyone looking for motivation to get stuck into doing something about their life. Well done, see you tomorrow, and thanks to Kate for this…
People reporting a lack of progress, which happens to us all at some point
Katy has decided her challenges aren’t tangible enough and would like suggestions for new ones with more concrete goals – anyone?
Catrachide had to come back from her trip to Spain for a family emergency and has had a pretty tough week all round.
Progress, major and minor
Seamus has a place in the Highland Youth Orchestra, taking him a crucial step closer towards playing in front of more than 300 people.
Deanna has completed her one month photo a day challenge (which you can see here) and “learnt to be an expert ladder holder and finder of lost things in the dark”
Pandora (Rachel) “did good things” by buying Alex the Big Issue man lunch. That’s definitely a good thing.
Joneshs took a risk and tried new things by going to a TYSIC iPod meet-up (meeting Hannah, Simon and Kate) where she took official custody of the iPod; she also scored more live entertainment at the Reprieve benefit gig.
Matt’s written a computer game! He’s not counting this as achieving his “write a computer game” TYSIC challenge; hmmm.
Stusteph has done the Birmingham walkathon (26 miles) and started learning new songs on the guitar.
Kateweb’s got a rehearsed reading of one script coming up and is making some progress on a second script.
Bill.mu has finished five songs out of the fourteen for his first album of the ten he aims to release this decade. Phew!
Lauren has booked herself a stand-up comedy gig and is keeping a blog for funny stuff.
AdamF has now written two football blogs in three days – the plan is to do one every day during the World Cup.
Lisa Brunders has finished the mini challenge of gardening for her Mum (who keeps sneakily adding more tasks…)
MusicalLottie has got out into the countryside “caving, mountain biking, on the Ashridge walk, and doing Dell Farm Fox – oh, and survival”
Nic (@nwoolhouseuk) has been reading, blogging and has booked a TAM London ticket – all in the cause of developing her critical thinking.
Shell read four books in May, has written her monthly blog and worked on her CV.
DIB’s doing well with the confidence building and has ensured she HAS to go to next year’s Melbourne Comedy Festival, by telling Josie Long she’s going.
Sarah has finished her junior year of college and is running a bookclub this summer.
Cymruangel has, in the cause of being fitter, agreed to take part on a salsa marathon; 12 solid hours of dancing!
Laurs is keeping a food and exercise diary, has a holiday booked for half term and is feeling more positive.
glamlovinkitty ate the first lettuce she’s grown from seed and her runner beans are on their way.
GooseCG has finished her exams, working towards completing her degree.
misswiz is doing well with weight loss, has officially passed her teaching qualification and her uke playing is improving – there are YouTube videos and everything.
TYSIC challenges achieved!
Cailin has also completed a TYSIC challenge by passing her driving test and is now driving “fully independently”. (18th May)
Linzy has achieved one of her TYSIC challenges by getting a job working with HTML and PHP! (9th June)
Iora has achieved one of her TYSIC challenge by going to the Download festival and camping this week. (9th June)
THE LESSON OF THE MOTH (Don Marquis)
i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires
why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense
plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves
and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity
but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself
-archy
Posted by Knox on July 18, 2011
ps:
“it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty”
is it greedy to want to carry on existing once you’ve been a part of the beauty?
Posted by Knox on July 18, 2011
i got stuck at this blog – i came back to read it, and never quite got round to it, three or four times. possibly in part due to it having ‘moth’ in the title (*shudders*) and also partly it reminds me i need to sort myself out tysic-wise (haven’t updated my ‘weekly’ blog’ since mid-june).
hugely encouraging to see how others are getting on though – huzzah to you, mark, once again, for starting an amazing, awesome thing.
Posted by David Calder on June 15, 2010
So the moth is essentially saying that it’s better to burn out than fade away? Rock n roll. Love it!
My TYSICs will resume in July when I return from my European adventure. I’m crossing the border from Czech to Germany tomorrow (hopefully!).
Posted by Lydia on June 15, 2010
I think I need to get in on TYSIC.
Thanks for sharing that poem. I’ve had a really terrible day and that made me smile [:
Posted by amycool on June 14, 2010
I couldn’t read that poem without recalling a chapter of a book I once read about the actual scientific reason that moths fly into lights (navigation), which probably spoiled the message.
TYSIC is going marvellously. I finished reading Ulysses, which I think deserves some kind of medal as it took up quite a lot of my life (not from you, just in general for everyone in the world who finishes it. From Ireland maybe). I only did it to help another TYSICer with her challenge and then she buggered off just as I started reading it. I’m doing lots of things that scare me, including hosting (and planning and organising) a quiz night for all the libraries in the area, which there’s no way I would have done this time last year. And thanks to the blog about doing things you’ve always wanted to do, I’m off to swing through trees in July.
It’s lovely to see how everyone is progressing. I’ve been trying to follow everyone but seemingly I have failed as I see people I don’t recognise in the round-up.
Posted by Tom Beasley on June 14, 2010
I adore that poem! It is really clever.
Posted by Adam on June 14, 2010
Loving the poem Mark, particularly the whole lack of any punctuation for being a cockroach.
Also, you’re Back Of The Net, “Australians plan ‘awesome trip round Africa’ as elimination beckons” piece was absolutely brilliant. Keep it up
Posted by Ally on June 14, 2010
That is a brilliant poem. I love it. My TYSIC is coming along… slowly… I’m about half-way through a short play for a competition and that’s about it. I have my holidays coming up though so hopefully a lot of stuff is going to happen then
Posted by Catherine on June 14, 2010
I am in Florida trying to get my daughter sorted. Having lunch with her and her dad tomorrow. I am going to look at the next 12 days as a fun vacation. May even go to the beach in a bathing suit.
I am disappointed about Spain, but I spent two wonderful weeks there. Definitely going back again. I want to go to Galicia. It is in northwest Spain right above Portugal. I’m told that it looks a lot like Ireland but with more sunshine.
My cancelled trip to London was going to be my big adventure. I will get there. Maybe next summer.
In August I am going to New York (alone) to see Frank Turner play at the Brooklyn Bowl. Can’t wait to see him play. This will be my Anglophile fix and Big Adventure.
Trying to put a positive spin on my situation. Thank you to the Watsonians and Mark for making optimism a possibility.
Cathy
Posted by Lisa brunders on June 13, 2010
I’m thrilled to be mentioned, although doing a bit of gardening for my Mum’s not a spectacular achievement! My Mum was very pleased though, that’s the main thing.
And I have to say the garden won in the end as I had an allergic reation to a plant about 3 weeks ago and I was in a bit of a bad way for a while. Am still under the doctor, but on the mend now.
Posted by fuzzy_ducky (Laura) on June 13, 2010
Heya – I never stated that I was starting a TYSIC, but well, I was kind of doing one anyway. At the start of September 2009 I began collecting money for Limerick Animal Welfare. My goal was to reach 740 euro and do a tandem skydive.
http://www.skydiveireland.ie/packages-charity.php
By raising 740 euro I will be able to do a skydive (which costs 420 including the DVD package) and the extra will go towards Limerick Animal Welfare.
So far this year, through school car washes, bake sales and fun days in school, I have raised (drum roll)….. 640 euro!!! Just 100 more to go. I’ve a few people who are saying they’ll donate 10 euro each, so I’m well within reach of jumping out of a plane at 10,000ft.
Will keep you posted when I have raised the last 100, and my date for the jump
Posted by Kate W on June 13, 2010
The TYSIC site’s here: http://www.markwatsonfans.com/tysic/home.php
Amazing poem – thanks for that, Mark. Reminds me of the closing lines of To His Coy Mistress, which I love:
“Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.”
(http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/marvell/coy.htm)
Posted by Rachael on June 13, 2010
Why can’t we ever have both?
Posted by (Magnificent) Josh on June 13, 2010
Yeah, I haven’t done much towards it really. I’m beginning to wonder if “start giving a damn about things” is too intangible. But then maybe I’ve made a lot of progress, I’ve been revising nicely and stuff, so… But, I’m in still in shape. Haven’t learnt guitar yet though, carried one yesterday though…
Posted by Kathryn on June 13, 2010
Whatever I have achieved this month cannot be measured until I get exam results in August. At the time it felt like I was getting nowhere with revision- looking back after a few weeks I can’t quite believe I worked that hard.
The poem was unexpectedly beautiful.
It did clash slightly with the angry bees that appear to be living in my television due to the world cup.
Posted by Helen on June 13, 2010
Well what a lovely poem, I am also very taken by the last verse. Great to see all the progress people are making. I haven’t been doing that well but I hope that I’ll be able to focus on it properly soon. It is hard when you are trying to be positive and things seem to be on a mission to get you down but I am determined to get through all the not so good stuff and I have lots to be happy about as well so I musn’t forget that.
Posted by Seamus on June 13, 2010
I just thought I would add to my update by saying that the thing I made it into specifically was the Highland Youth Big Band, which from what I can tell is by far the most interesting of the groups they organise. If this year’s band gets to do anything like previous ones, I should complete my TYSIC in no time!
Congratulations to everyone on their progress, and thanks Mark for that lovely poem. I am compelled to look up more of them.
Posted by Someone on June 13, 2010
I like that poem :]. Shall have to look up the rest.
Asidely, I’ve given up on my tysic – i know, very poor show giving up so early on in the run of things… but it’s just the people thing. Some people probably just aren’t meant to be people people. I’m making a new list of more achievable and funner goals (Fit, piano, money… (get)).
Everyone else should be chuffed though, for making such progress! It’s so nice, is this.
Posted by Laura-B on June 13, 2010
I really love the final verse of that poem!
The New Pornographers are playing round the corner from me in a small but lovely venue in September. I have downloaded some of their songs, after a previous Mark recommendation, and I may book me some tickets.
Posted by Sarah (@misswiz) on June 13, 2010
Excellent round up! It’s great to see everyone is doing so well. And thanks for the mention…I’m very glad I’ve made some progress but as Mark says, 10 years is a long time!
And Heather – that quote is great. I must get round to reading 59 Seconds one of these days.
Posted by Misha on June 13, 2010
I didn’t do much, tooed and froed, met new people, arranged stuff and did a bit of guitar.
The Moth poem was lovely, even if I did initially misread the title as moth porn.
I don’t know either.
Posted by DizzyDoo on June 13, 2010
Heh, the reason why I don’t consider that the computer game I wrote (http://tundragame.tumblr.com) to be completing one of my tysic goals is that it isn’t a commercial game. I’d love to write one I could make money off. Still, I’m on my way there though. Congrats to everyone else making progress.
Posted by Heather Jones on June 13, 2010
Great round-up from Kate, and lovely poem from Mark.
Am prompted to add a quotation I just came across in Richard Wiseman’s excellent :59 seconds book. It’s by the 17th century American poet John Greenleaf Whittier (apparently):
‘For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: It might have been.’