Lifehack! How to Break a Habit

As I've said before, I'm a loser who's bad at life (not as bad as some people, but still pretty bad,) and that's why I read books with titles like The No-Moving 100% Ice Cream Law Of Attraction Diet and Chicken Soup for the Twitter Addict's Broken Husk of a Soul. I've probably read upwards of forty of these sorts of books and here is one of the three* that have actually changed my life in a tangible, positive way.

It's called The Power of Habit, and it's AMAZING. Not only is it impeccably researched and well written, but it offers a fascinating combination of the science behind habits, and how to apply those lessons to make everyday life more awesome.

The Power Of Habit by Charles "the shiz" Duhigg.
I just made that nickname up but here's hoping it catches on.

There are so many fun facts in this book it makes me want to cry, and Charles Duhigg's clear and engaging style made me fly through the 300-odd pages. I mean, when I learned that at least 60% of our behaviour is driven by habits rather than conscious decision making? It blew my mind. The conscious 40% of it anyway. The other 60% was eating a cookie at the time.

So here's the coolest part of the book: the habit loop. Every habit comes in this structure and learning it basically lets you break habits and hack your life and win at everything!

How does it work? Basically, every habit consists of three elements:

1. Cue: that thing that triggers the habit, like a certain time of day makes you want to have lunch or a looming sense of anxiety makes you want to check your phone so your hands look busy.
2. Routine: the actual habit you act out, like smoking a cigarette or unlocking your phone and navigating to facebook (I do that so automatically I can be halfway through replying to a message before I realize I'm even on my phone.)
3. Reward: what you're getting out of it, whether it's as vague as momentary distraction or as powerful as the dopamine rush of someone proposing to you on twitter.

As a rule, the cue will trigger a craving for the reward, and the routine is the flexible part which you can alter to make real, lasting changes.

It's really interesting to take a behaviour you want to change and dissect it into these three separate parts. Some habits are easier to analyse than others: if your cue is thirst, your routine is getting a glass of water and your reward is relief from dehydration. Bam!

Of course, nobody wants to break the habit of water drinking so let's go with something more interesting: incessant phone checking.

Dopamine may stain some fabrics.

Our cue here is a nagging little anxiety, which creates the craving for that happy little rush that social media provides. It's that craving that gets the habit loop rolling through the routine of checking your phone, and of course once the habit is established you're not in conscious decision mode anymore. The cue comes along, and just like a zombie, or a lab rat, or a soccer mom who's been sleep deprived for eight years, you automatically act out the routine in order to get your reward. In fact, the cue gets you excited about the reward so you get a pre-rush just starting the habit. It's like a little shortcut that your brain takes to save time. Isn't that amazing / terrifying?

Now that we've identified the habit, we have the power to break it - well, actually 'break' isn't the right word, because this habit's structure will always be in place: anxiety will always trigger a craving for relief and distraction.

It's the routine bit that we can manipulate to get a better result. See how the routine has a little dotted line surrounding it so you can cut it out? That means you can replace it with something else. The important part is that the new routine is triggered by the same cue, and offers the same reward. To mix metaphors, you're putting a different train on the same track in your brain! You're rewiring your powerful unconscious networks! You are the one, Neo!

It's fun to experiment with different routines until you find just the right one to hit that reward in the nuts. For our example, an alternative to checking your phone might be:

• Having a glass of wine
• Taking three deep breaths
• Popping a happy pill
• Pulling out a Moleskine notebook and writing a haiku about your feelings

As you can see, some of these solutions are better than others. But I included stuff like having a glass of wine to illustrate that the routine can have negative consequences but still serve to satisfy the craving. That explains why people who quit an addiction often replace it with another - because the craving has to be satisfied and the habit loop's already in place. But if you become conscious of it, you can replace the routine with something healthier and better for your liver.

And of course after you've changed the routines in your existing habits, you can create wholly new habits that have a much bigger chance of sticking around because you know how habits are structured. Your brain wires this stuff the same way every time: get yourself a clear cue, plan a sustainable routine and give yourself a powerful reward and see how much easier it is to make changes than when you're just white-knuckling it and hoping for the best.

Obviously this post is only scratching the surface of this cool concept but I hope it helps a bit and piques some interest in this whole process. If you dig it, I highly recommend The Power of Habit if you want to level up the train tracks of EXISTENCE.** Or if, like me, you just want to stop pulling your hair out or checking your phone so much.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have a glass of wine while breathing deeply and writing a haiku about my feelings.


*If you're wondering what the other two are: Follow Your Own North Star by Martha Beck, and A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. Both brilliant.
** Yes, I've mixed so many metaphors I seem to have ended up with a metaphor salad. All it's missing is the avo of truth.

Friday Review: Becoming A Writer by Dorothea Brande

This book is dope.

A short but content-rich read, Becoming A Writer is a fluff-free gem of sensible advice about how to stop being a tortured artist and start being a happy and productive writer.

Written in 1934, it's a classic of the writing-on-writing genre. It's easy to see why. Even though it's been around for over 70 years, the message was fresh and relevant to me.

I repeat: dope.

There are some cool exercises, all practical things that should turn into habits rather than fill-in-the-blank homework. Some I haven't tried yet, as they tend to build on each other, but the one I love so far is getting up a little earlier than usual each day, and writing FIRST THING.

You shouldn't read (or preferably even speak) a word until your allotted writing time is up. I've done this for a few days and let me tell you: it's a pain in the ass, and it's totally worth it. Writing before consuming any information (and therefore influence) really lets you find your own rhythm and voice. Highly recommended.

Though the tone is generally kind, one moment Brande actually says that if you consistently fail at one of her exercises, you're probably not cut out to be a writer. (To be fair, the exercise was focused on discipline rather than skill.) I really respected her for saying that. Though she condemns instructors who aim to discourage writers, she doesn't offer blind encouragement either.

Did I mention this was written seventy years ago? That tripped me up a bit. Here are some fun archaic moments:

• The word 'behooves' always makes me chortle. Behooooooves.
• "The typewriter has made the writer's way more rocky than it was in the old days of quill and pen." Ah, the old days! When you had to climb into the eagle's nest to get a fresh quill. Good times.
• Brande suggests that you not allow your fancy white friends judge to you for listening to "Negro spirituals" while you write.
• NEGRO SPIRITUALS. At no point between 1934-2011 did anyone think to backspace that and replace it with something not so ridiculously offensive? 'Gospel' would've worked.
• "Talking pictures should be very rarely indulged in." Oh, them talkies are the devil's work!
• She uses the idea of 'duplicity' (every writer has two sides, the one that makes shopping lists and the one that writes poems about the moonlight) and spends at least five pages convincing the reader this duplicity is "not psychopathic". I guess back in the olden days of quill and pen, people spontaneously went on killing sprees after doing a particularly creative scrapbooking project.

Despite these jarringly oldschool moments, some of the advice is nothing less than New Age by today's standards. Brande encourages clear-eyed awareness exercises that would make Eckhart Tolle proud*, and the main technique she prescribes for unleashing your 'genius' is simply a focused meditation.

But you know what's really great about this book? It gets to the root of why most writing advice misses the point completely. Anyone who's suffered from writer's block, stared at a blank screen (or blank vellum sheet, their quill unyielding) or wondered why inspiration hit only once in a blue moon has usually sought advice. But studying plot structure and approaches to dialogue aren't the solution, because the problem isn't the writing, it's the writer themselves. Brande understands the personality pitfalls of being a writer and offers imminently practical solutions.

This is one of those rare books that makes you want to go write! I'd give it a 4.7/5 or 9.4/10 - if you're a writer, this belongs on your bookshelf right next to Stephen King's On Writing.

D. O. P. E.

*Does Eckhart Tolle feel proud about anything? I get the feeling he's perpetually just-okay with the universe, man.

Friday Review: The Selected Works Of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen

Basically what happens is that a twelve-year-old genius, T.S. Spivet, is obsessed with mapping the achingly ordinary world around him, until it stops being quite so ordinary – he wins a major scientific prize and has to decide whether to stay on the dry Montana ranch he calls home, or somehow travel two thousand miles across the country to claim his place among the scientists he so reveres. 

Guys, it was so good. If you missed my hints on the blog and twitter, here's how freakin' good it was:

TWO THUMBS UP KINDA GOOD! [Doing two thumbs up while holding heavy book: unsuccessful.]

You know what I loved? The experimentation with sidenotes and illustrations. I literally got this book because I saw it and went “Ooh! Pictures!” and I definitely wasn't disappointed. The little maps, sketches and graphs all add to the story and appeal to my incredibly short attention span. 

Almost every page has a little sketch leading from the text with a delightful dotty arrow.

Reading a sidenote, even at the very end, feels like you're unlocking a secret layer in the narrative. It creates an intimacy with the reader that isn't easy to come by in contemporary lit.

You know what could've been better? The language didn't strive to be childish at all, but there were glaring times when the voice was all “hello, I am an adult self-consciously writing from a child's point of view.” Luckily those moments were few and far between.

Another thing that irked me is the micro-story in the middle, which had its thematic appeal, but dragged on a bit too long. It was compelling at first, but I got through the whole thing only by devouring the side notes. There's also an annoying deus ex machina that pops up towards the end to iron over some dodgy plot points. But hey, this stuff is forgivable.

This isn't an action-packed story, but it's certainly a compelling one. Though T.S. is a little genius, he's far from cold, and there is a pervasive curiosity and clarity of vision that sticks with you after you've put the book down. What's most fascinating is the way he charts and maps his family – from the traumatic accident that killed his brother (this broke my heart a little bit, because it was never fully fleshed out, but constantly hinted at in the narrative) to the series of muscle contractions that make up his father's expressions. Larsen's also a kickass illustrator when he's not doing the whole measuring-and-charting thing, too.

One of my favourite pages, a swarm of sparrows.

Much of the book is set on a very long train ride, and it was described so well that I felt a little fatigued and motion sick whenever it was mentioned. I don't generally recommend books that make me sick, but there you go.

Too charming for words.

I loved it, not only for the rich, endearing story, but because it's so visually interesting I couldn't wait to turn each page. I could argue that the tangential structure hints at the way a genius' brain works, but to be honest it felt very natural and not at all contrived to prove some abstract literary point. It's a brief and intoxicating return to picture books mixed with the secret thrill of reading someone's journal and turning the page sideways to check what vital insight is squished along the margin. 

I wonder if Larsen designs tattoos? *pines*

I recently got a Kindle (yay!) but The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet is exactly why I'll never stop buying print books. I may be downloading classics I'm not sure about, and new stuff that'd take ages to ship to S.A., but something as beautifully crafted as this book could never really live on a screen. It's meant to be held, the weight of it showing how much talent and hard work went into it.

Also, I cried at the end. SO YOU KNOW IT'S GOOD.

I give it a 4/5, or 8.2/10, or :) / 9000. Do pick it up if you get the chance!

Friday Review: No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

No spoilers here, safe to read!

Basically what happens is a regular guy stumbles across some deep shit in a drug deal gone wrong – he's got to find a way out of it with both the Sheriff of his town and a really, REALLY evil hitman on his tail.

If you don't feel like schlepping through this whole review, have a visual representation of my reaction to No Country For Old Men:

I liked this book!

...But it made me sad.

You know what the best bit was? The opening was gripping – I mean, a guy's hunting and suddenly comes across a field strewn with dead bodies, abandoned cars, a stash of heroine and a case full of MONEY. Shit son, I'm interested. I'm wondering what I would do in that situation and I'm eager to read on.

I also loved the interludes of the old Sheriff's inner monologues. These were refreshingly personal and engaging, compared to McCarthy's usual dry, direct style. Which I love almost a little too much on its own. 

The entire narrative was an honest, sad portrayal of moral degradation without being didactic. I still can't quite figure out how McCarthy did that. I think he's magic.

You know what pissed me off? This was one of those books where a simple statement of what fucking year it was would've really helped. I was so confused – this guy is a war veteran from Vietnam, okay, but he seems sorta old, so maybe it's the eighties, but maybe it's the seventies because his wife is nineteen, wait, no, is that a DeLorean I see over the horizon?

And another thing... When I was expecting a massive showdown at the crux of the novel, when the guy we're rooting for and the seemingly indestructible hitman stalking him finally go head-to-head, it just didn't happen. Instead I got a straight-faced account of the aftermath from the Sheriff's point of view. I felt like I got left at the altar, man. Lame.

In a way I can understand why McCarthy made that choice, but you can have all the highbrow literary aims you like, you still left your reader unsatisfied and that's the bottom line. Nevertheless,  that one anticlimax didn't ruin the book for me, because by then I was invested in the other characters. Overall the book ended on a poetic high note.

Quotable quote: When you've said that it's real and not just in your head I'm not all that sure what it is that you've said. (p. 299) I mean, how awesome is that? Layers, dude. Layers.

Should you read it? Sure! It's one of those books where even if you didn't like it, you still know it's good. While it didn't rock my world I'm definitely glad I read it, and I'm eager to reread it soon to play spot-the-foreshadowing.

Should I rate it? That's what reviewers do, right? Well I'd give it 4/5 or 7.8/10 , whichever you like. 

What'd you think of my new review format? I'll be putting up new reviews every Friday. Don't worry, there will still be deviations and snark, but luckily not everything's as bad as Divine: The Series! 

If you have suggestions for stuff I should review, let me know in the comments!

The Perils of Second-Hand Books

First let me say I love second-hand books. They're conveniently sold at the place where I work, it's nice to support independent traders instead of bullying corporations, and best of all, they're cheap!

But like dating a divorced guy or taking in a stray cat, sometimes you're bound to run into the darker side of their damaged, worn and sometimes sticky past. There's always dog-ears and maybe a few water-warped pages, but now and then you find something annoying, something weird, or something... perilous.

The Scribbler

Often in textbooks or self-help stuff, the previous owner saw every page as a blank public-toilet wall just begging to be vandalized.

Geniuses use pencil, bitch.

Not only is this lameness shortsighted (yeah, because you'll own this book until you die and then it'll be buried with you) it's also just WRONG. Writing in a book is like recording your own commentary to a rented DVD. Nobody cares. Get a blog!

The Leperous Softcover

They're falling apart, so well-loved there's only sellotape and hope keeping them together. 

I can't believe this is second-hand.

You figure there's one more read in them and they're in the bargain bin anyway... but you find yourself compulsively checking that the page numbers match as you read, checking if anything's gone missing while the poor thing was raging against the dying of the light.

The Hidden Horror

Forget the plot, what's scariest about these books is the disturbingly anonymous materials found between the pages.

For the love of God TURN THE PAGE. WHO CARES WHAT HAPPENS ON THIS ONE.

Most of the time, you don't even want to know what this is. Tea leaves? Unimpressive confetti? The last owner's dehydrated kidney? The answer would probably horrify you.

Suspicious Stains

The best you can hope for is that this was a fluid going into someone's body and not coming out of it.

That's... probably just orange juice.

Like the hidden horror, you're probably better off inventing a happy, non-gag-inducing tale about these marks than actually giving it a good think. You can't handle the truth.

The No Seriously WTF

The second-hand peril that inspired this entire post? HUMAN TEETH MARKS. 

Maybe the previous owner was a raging alcoholic.  Maybe they were trying to prove some obscure point about consumer culture. Maybe they lost a bet.

Maybe they just love the fibrous crunch of yellowing paper under their incisors.

Whatever the reasoning behind it, this book was in someone's mouth, and... They. Bit. Into. It. So hard that the marks persist months and probably years later. That's... just... excuse me while I scrub my hands with antiseptic.

Have you ever had to put a second-hand book down to take an emergency shower or preventative Listerine? Share your perilous – or marvelous – story in the comments!

Loving Dasia

You know when you get so bored that you google your own name?
*crickets chirping*
Well anyway, turns out there's a book out there called Loving Dasia. At first I was like "Yay! Not only do I have a real name, but other people in the world think it's cool enough to name a book after! Weeeee!"
And then I saw Dasia's dark, handsome, secret-agent lover's name is...
Grimarious. For realsies.

That's Grimmy for short, then?  Lovely.

(For the record, I just linked the Amazon page here to prove this book exists. On no account do I think you should buy it. Need any more proof that you should stay away? Grimmy's last name is Gautraux. Apparently Ana Gia Wright's hobby is to mash fun-sounding syllables together and pretend the result isn't ridiculous. Kind of like fanfic writers who introduce Harry Potter's long lost - totally hot - sister Qi'bnoby into canon.)

Sigh. I wish I had a real name.

"Snowflake" is my middle name, bitch!

When I get all sad and angsty about life [coughEXAMScough], I like to distract myself by planning what tattoo to get next. What symbol, design, size, placement, and colouring? (I usually go for plain black silhouettes. Binaries FTW!) These plans shift so often that finances can't really keep up with my changes of heart. Which I guess is a good thing. If I had the money, I'd probably be covered in impulsive ink.

The tattoo flavour of the week in my mind is a single snowflake, either on my left wrist or left ankle. This morning I taught Elizabeth I's "I grieve and dare not show my discontent," which (while Renaissance poetry usually leaves me cold) is a totally fucking awesome poem. I was struck by the lines "Some gentler passion slide into my mind, / for I am soft and made of melting snow." I can't express how this makes me feel without reverting to the words 'totally fucking awesome,' but I guess that's just the ever-eloquent English Lit postgrad in me.

This got me thinking about snow; I have a book I bought in my first year at varsity called "The Encyclopaedia of Snow," which I got for exactly R1 at a library purging sale. I'm ashamed to say I've never read the whole thing; I was put off by the apparently factual but super confusing layout of the thing (I didn't know what PoMo was back then. The days of innocence!) But apparently it's a fancy novel which takes the form of an apparently random collection of extracts about snow... which turn out to weave into a (probably cheesy or pretentiously deep) love story.

The point is that - superficial as it is - this book has the loveliest cover and frontispiece (say wha'? Fun fact: a frontispiece is an illustration that isn't within the book itself, but precedes the title of the book.) The cover has very minimalist, fading snowflakes, while the frontispiece is a collection of photographs created by Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley, a 19th century farmer who was frackin obsessed with snowflakes. How hardcore of a nickname is "Snowflake"? Mad props to Bentley for living up to the hype. He's actually the guy who, through years of photographing them, discovered that no two snowflakes are alike.

What fascinates me is the devotion and passion Bentley showed to his collection: in his lifetime, he collected over 5000 images of snow crystals, and it was no picnic to get a decent photo. Not only does one run the risk of melting the little thing with one's breath, but also be careful not to crack the little bugger while you get it onto a slide. And in a few moments the beauty of it was gone forever.

I'm on the official website of the collection now and I can't stop staring at these photos. Only a few of them are up, but they're mesmerizing. The above is number 13. There's something quite (for lack of a better word) inspiring about Snowflake Bentley. I can't think of anyone these days who would be so devoted simply to the idea of preserving and sharing the beauty of something so miniscule and precious. I'm quite keen to get the book of selected photographs published by Bentley in the 1930's, which is still available in paperback today.

I like number 13 for my imaginary tattoo, but now I've got 500 or so other images to study before I make a decision. And by then, my enthusiasm may very well have melted away.

White Noise: 310 pages of my life I'm never getting back

White Noise by Don DeLillo is doublepluspostmodern, and not in a good way.

The whole book is about this dude, Jack (why are 75% of all protagonists named Jack?) who's an annoying college professor, insufferable poser, babydaddy, and a guy who generally has too much time on his hands to ponder... wait for it... DEATH.

(DEATH is like so scary, that's why we have to write it in BIG LETTERS.)

Now, DEATH is hardly an overwritten subject, especially in postmodernism's heyday, right? But DeLillo brings it to a whole new level of Oh My God, My Eyes Are Bleeding badness. Basically, good ol' Jack can't stop thinking about DEATH because it's the only thing that freaks him out in his comfy consumer culture.

Poor Jack, DEATH upsets him. Don't you feel sorry for him and can totally relate to his character? No? You'd rather just chuck a portable DVD player at his head? Wow, me too! We should hang out.

DeLillo's description of the overly media-saturated world was probably a big whoop in the eighties, but writing "Leaded, Unleaded, Superleaded" in the middle of a love scene between Jack and his legwarmer-clad wife strikes me as less deep and meaningful and more 'I need three more words for this chapter or my publisher will yell at me again.'

I'm pretty sure that this book got on the Honours reading list, and into academic acclaim in general, through a very clever the-king-has-no-clothes approach: the individual fakes awe and a deep understanding of the book because that's what the collective is expressing. Nobody wants to be the idiot who says he didn't get it.

And after three hundred or so pages of Jack whingeing about DEATH, I was sincerely hoping he'd fall into a giant meat grinder and... wait for it... DIE! But the freakin' dude just keeps on trucking. Yes, it's postmodern. It's also a shitty ending.

The only good thing about this book is that (despite that fact that I found it really, really lame) I get it, so I'm going to write an essay on it this week and not have any more American Lit work until the exams.

Next week we're starting on Black Boy, by Richard Wright. I'll probably write more about it once I've finished it, but let me say now that it's fantastic. One of the best books I've ever read; I can't wait for classes to start so I can gush about it to a begrudging audience of eight.

The only thing is that it's pretty depressing, and brings me to tears almost as much as the first season of Glee. I don't know why I start crying when perfectly good-sounding people break into show tunes. Maybe because it makes me ponder the ceaseless void of DEATH.

And now I want to crash a cocktail party

An Incomplete Education, by Judy Jones and William Wilson, is definitely the best book buy (excuse the alliteration) I’ve ever made! An exclamation point is necessary! (And another one… but not a third. That would just be gushing.)

It is such an awesome collection of information. Every subject you could possibly want to know more on – Art History, Music, Philosophy, Psychology, Science… pretty much everything. And it’s written in a simple and lighthearted way. I haven’t put it down much since I got it.

And now, for some choice extracts...

In Political Science:

“What you need to know if you’re dating a Congolese: How to party down with someone who’s suffering from disease, malnutrition, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Try a little tenderness. If your date is a woman, she may have been gang-raped by rebel soldiers on her way to meet you, especially if you’ve arranged a rendezvous outside one of the squalid refugee camps where some of the two million or so internally displaced Congolese huddle in tents, waiting for supplies that never arrive. If your date’s a man, congratulations on having found a live one!”

In Science:

From the intro to Chaos Theory: “Chaotic behavior follows simple rules and recognizable patterns. What’s more, when you translate that behavior into mathematical models, then plot the models on your computer, you get the kind of visuals people used to have to drop acid to see.”

In the Lexicon:

The distinction between ‘anxious’ and ‘eager’: “Famous last stand of the language purists: You’re not anxious to spend a languorous evening with your oldest married friends, you’re eager to spend it. Unless, that is, you’ve been sleeping with one of them for the past three months. Then you are anxious.”

Word pronunciation: “Eight words where you have to choose between being unimpeachably correct (and risk sounding pretentious) or disarmingly casual (and risk sounding uneducated.)”

Seriously, best R300 I’ve ever spent. Naturally, like I’ve found the Literature section a bit shallow and over-simplified, I’m sure it’s not the holy grail on every subject. But it’s still really cool. Informative, funny and covering a huge range of great subjects, I’d totally recommend it to everyone, from happy nerds who really love learning, to people that are just tired of giving the ol’ vacant nod-and-smile at cocktail parties whenever Chaos Theory comes up.