A clean slate

Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Apparently, when you file bankruptcy and qualify for Chapter 7, they call it getting a clean slate. I’m neither proud nor ashamed to have chosen that option. I chose to use the process as a true clean slate.

I’m fifty. I tend bar in Texas. I live with a dog named Walter, and I’ve got very little to show for my life other than a lot of stories.

My goal is to transform how I show up to what shows up, starting now.

Here’s what nobody tells you about a clean slate. It doesn’t come with instructions. For me, a blank slate is a little dangerous, because if I don’t pay attention, I know exactly what will be written on it.

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The last time I started over

I told my dad I’d get back to writing. Like with any new set of goals, I did what I always do: I tried to learn all the things while changing everything about myself at once.

I thought, if I could only be more disciplined, or know more, then I’d finally be okay.

Since I promised to be a writer, I bought five Steven Pressfield books, a storytelling course for marketers, a screenwriting workshop, and a Seth Godin book, just to make sure I had enough of the right information.

I mean, everyone knows it’s better to take a course on writing than to sit down and write the damn book.

Anyhow…

One course blew my mind.

The class that cracked it open

Michael Hauge and Christopher Vogler sell a recording of a workshop they did together, The Hero’s Two Journeys. Its premise is that truly compelling stories all follow a template. Great stories take a main character through two journeys at once: an outer one, and an inner transformation.

I’d watched Joseph Campbell’s interviews with Bill Moyers fifteen or twenty times, so I thought I knew where it was going.

Hauge teaches the inner journey, but he says it can’t happen without the plot (aka action) to carry the character forward through the trials and tribulations that transform them from the inside out.

He defines the outer journey as a clear goal with a clear finish line, a moment of achievement you can see.

The inner journey is the conflict and growth the hero has to go through to get past the obstacles in the way.

It starts with the hero’s longing: a deeply felt desire the hero only pays lip service to, because they’re too afraid to do what it would take.

Sometimes the hero can name the longing. Other times they don’t know what they actually want, and they chase something else.

Every hero carries a wound, an old pain that never healed. At some point they catch a glimpse of their own essence, but the identity they built around that wound won’t let them step into it.

Most of the movies and myths I love follow this framework. Somewhere along the way I started seeing my own life through it too. It’s a lens, not a law of nature, but it’s been a useful one.

The struggle between identity and essence has led me on many a side quest, chasing and slaying many dragons, and has provided some entertaining stories while tending bar.

Stories, the ones we tell ourselves and the ones people tell us, can inspire or imprison. Stories are that powerful.

I think stories run the world

I believe stories change the world.

In Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari argues that laws, money, and nations are stories that enough people agree on, so strangers can work together.

One of his examples is Hammurabi’s Code. It took the stories of how people should treat each other and spelled out the consequences. Carved into stone, it helped people live together and build cities.

Stories can steer one person, too.

Plutarch, citing an earlier writer, says Alexander of Macedon kept two things under his pillow as he led his army: a copy of the Iliad, and his dagger. He’s said to have read from that book daily. Good stories guide people. The Iliad guided Alexander’s attention and his mission.

Back on the first page, I mentioned Wallace’s commencement speech. In it, he gives a name to what he considers our default setting: seeing the world as if we’re the center of the universe. His description of leaving work and needing to stop at the grocery store made me chuckle and cringe at the same time.

That default setting, being completely and utterly self-centered, comes with a play-by-play from our own inner narrator. Mine is convinced that I’m worthless, incapable, and unlovable. It still puts me at the center of the universe; it just casts me as the problem. My identity has always struggled with self-esteem. Hauge would say I built the narrator young, to keep me safe.

So this is the plan.

What I’m writing on the clean slate

My old plan was: figure it out. It’s always my plan. I read the books, did the programs, and then read more books. But my actions always seemed to fall short, and I’d end up feeling a little broken.

New plan. I’m not building a business. I’m not anyone’s guru. I’m not trying to fix myself, because I don’t actually think I’m broken.

I’m just going to experiment with harnessing my own attention. I’ll test out a few things. Work on my mind, my body, and my craft. And do my level best to fall in love with my life exactly as it is, while I take steps to create what I want for my future self.

It’s time for me to take my attention back. Writing is how I slow down, sort out ideas, and get my mind to stop fighting life. Hopefully, this experiment helps me put into action the principles that keep me growing.

My goal fits on a sticky note:
love the life I’m living while I create a life I love.

Try this

I swiped it from Michael Hauge’s course.

Finish this sentence: “This is who I am…”

That’s the identity.

Now take away everything. Your job. Money. History. Whatever is left is your essence. The identity is there to try to keep your essence safe.

Now answer this:

“I will do whatever it takes to achieve my goal, but just don’t ask me to ________.”

Then ask of each one: Who wrote that, and how old were they?

Cross out any you’d never choose today.

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The plan is embarrassingly small. It fits on a napkin.

Love your face.

Tim

The path: A clean slate · Pause. Get Stoked. Flow. · It gets louder · Manifesto