Wyzga On Words

We Are "Homo Narrans" ... Storytelling People.

I am delighted to have been invited to join Kathy Hansen's blog, A Storied Career!

Just in case you missed us, over the next several days I'll be re-posting the interview she conducted with me and began publishing on April 9th.

Click here for Question #4.

 

Call Me An Armchair Traveler. Sometimes.

True, I have my own well-thumbed copy of 1,000 Places To See Before You Die.

Meanwhile, I journey the NYTimes Travel section to see how other adventurers are faring in places I have yet to experience.

Imagine my delight to come across Miki Meek's article, "Where Amish Snowbirds Find a Nest, stitching together a story finer than an Amish quilt with photos that look like they have been PhotoShopped!  Excerpt.

"We were headed to Pinecraft, a village on the outskirts of Sarasota, on Florida’s gulf coast. What started out as a tourist camp around 1925 has evolved through word of mouth into a major vacation destination for Amish and Mennonites from all over the United States and Canada. Some 5,000 people visit each year, primarily when farm work up north is slow.

On the bus, older passengers reminisced about going down to Pinecraft as children when roads were just sand and dirt. One man wistfully recalled a great-uncle who hitched a ride down in a Model T. But I didn’t fully understand the town’s popularity until we reached the end of our 1,222-mile drive, at a small church parking lot, where we were greeted by more than 300 people under a hot Florida sun — bus arrivals are a community event in Pinecraft.

Walking around Pinecraft is like entering an idyllic time warp. White bungalows and honeybell orange trees line streets named after Amish families: Kaufman, Schrock, Yoder. The local Laundromat keeps lines outside to hang clothes to dry. (You have to bring your own pins.) And the techiest piece of equipment at the post office is a calculator. The Sarasota county government plans to designate the village, which spreads out over 178 acres, as a cultural heritage district.

Many travelers I spoke to jokingly call it the “Amish Las Vegas,” riffing off the cliché that what happens in Pinecraft stays in Pinecraft. Cellphone and cameras, normally off-limits to Amish, occasionally make appearances, and almost everyone uses electricity in their rental homes. Three-wheeled bicycles, instead of horses and buggies, are ubiquitous.

“When you come down here, you can pitch religion a little bit and let loose,” said Amanda Yoder, 19, from Missouri. “What I’m wearing right now, I wouldn’t at home,” she said, gesturing at sunglasses with sparkly rhinestones and bikini strings peeking out of a tight black tank top. On the outskirts of the village, she boarded public bus No. 11 with six other sunburned teenagers. They were bound for Siesta Key, a quartz-sand beach about eight miles away."

Sometimes your travels take you to the least expected places.

 

Earth Music - The Animal Orchestra.

Last week at Juniper Moon Farm I was trying to sleep in the yurt out in the pasture after a long day pitching manure, scouring a chicken coop, mending fences, gathering eggs, and a plethora of other truly wonderful farm chores that invigorate the heart and spirit as well as muscles you did not know you had.

Overhead the moon was full.  Outside the temperature had dropped to a frosty 40+.  Somewhere in the woods an owl hooted, a whippoorwill "sang", and a  mocking bird made a mockery of the still country night.

Unbeknownst to me, this was "Earth Music" as celebrated in Bernie Krause's book, "The Great Animal Orchestra."

Click here to read a thoughtful review of Krause's book as written for the NYTimes Book Review by Jeremy Denk, who seems to love the music of the outdoor wild places nearly as much as Krause.  Excerpt.

"Bernie Krause’s new book, “The Great Animal Orchestra,” is not about this beastly symphony; it is about the symphony of beasts that surrounds us, a vast orchestra in the process of being silenced, perhaps even more endangered than our human animal orchestras.

Krause’s term for this symphony is “biophony”: the sound of all living organisms except us. He is a man with a calling. After a stint with the Weavers (he replaced Pete Seeger), a foray into electronic music and some not-too-surprising drug use, by “Hardyesque chance” he ended up in the Muir Woods recording nature sounds for an album. Now he is high on hippo grunts and insect drones, having spent decades recording and archiving wild soundscapes. He chronicles his life choices and epiphanies, guides us through nature’s sonic treasures, makes interesting assertions about the musicianship of animals (human and nonhuman), and begs us to pay attention.

In Krause’s world, everything is seen through the lens of sound. He even maps by ear. In one fascinating passage, he surveys a Costa Rican jungle, dispensing with the “100-meter square grids,” which anyway “nonhuman animals don’t understand.” He ends up with “amoebalike shapes, each an acoustic region that, while mutable, would tend to remain stable within a limited area over time.” Yes, I thought, as irritable honks floated up Broadway and through the window of my apartment: we all live on mutating maps, in the land of the audible, whether we like it or not. Krause offers endless odes to sonic nuances: the timbres of waves crashing on the world’s beaches, the echo effects brought on by dew, the acoustics of night and day, the dry, hot rattles of deserts, the way baboons bounce their voices off granite outcroppings, to send them deep into the forest. But at the same time that he wants us to feel sound’s sensual pleasure, he wants us to respect it as an indispensable tool of knowledge. Krause records a forest, before and after environmentally sensitive, “selective” logging. Though the forest appears mostly unchanged to the eye, the soundscape is devastated; the true damage can only be heard.

Krause spends many pages challenging the human monopoly on musicianship. He asserts that in the wild, animals vocalize with a musicianly ear to the full score of the ecosystem — a mix of competition and cooperation. Since animals depend on being heard for various reasons (mating, predation, warning, play), they are forced to seek distinct niches: “Each resident species acquires its own preferred sonic bandwidth — to blend or contrast — much in the way that violins, woodwinds, trumpets and percussion instruments stake out acoustic territory in an orchestral arrangement.”

I did sleep well that night and every night thereafter - even the one where I was on a two-hour watch: roll out from under the woolen blankets, pull on my BOGS, trek across the pasture flashlight in hand, and squint out across the darkened fields to make sure none of the pregnant ewes were in labor.  It's all a matter of listening to the music of the earth.

 

What Decision-Makers Look For From The Lawyer.

A book review holds a good lesson for lawyers. 

Sylvia Brownrigg writing for the NYTimes Book Review, "A Wedding and a Funeral,"  leads with several observations sure to be shared by readers and speech listeners alike. Excerpt.

"A very good book is not only more satisfying, memorable and coherent than its lesser neighbors on the shelves. It’s also more relaxing to read. That wary inhalation as you take in the first lines — Will I believe in these characters? How distracted will I be by implausible dialogue, or forced plotlines? — lasts a page or two and then gives over to a long, slow breath of relief. You don’t have to worry. This writer knows exactly what she’s doing. She won’t let you down."

Lawyers, speakers, politicians, what are the take-aways here?

TIP:    Have you developed believable witnesses or characters?  Do they have fidelity to what we know?

TIP:    Will the listener or decision-maker be distracted by implausible rhetoric?  Plotlines that fail to hang together seamlessly?  Is your trial story or presentation congruent from start to finish?  Or does it unravel like a poorly knit sock?

TIP:     Do you know exactly what you want to convey and to whom so your listeners and decision-makers can relax into the story, go with you on that virtual journey, and "translate images into action"?

Metaphors Rouse The Sensory Cortex.

By now you might have come across Annie Murphy Paul's NYTimes Opinion piece, "Your Brain on Fiction."  Why bring it up again?  I am curious to know whether hearing the spoken word works the same way as reading fiction.  My sense is that there are parallels.

The upshot of the article is that brain science has revealed what we intuitively know: "Stories stimulate the brain and even change how we act in life."  How does it happen?  Metaphors - and the more sensory the better.  Words describing how something looks, tastes, smells, feels and sounds stimulate brain areas which respond to the images as if they were real.  The brain is an equal opportunity organ.  Excerpt.

"The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated. Keith Oatley, an emeritus professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto (and a published novelist), has proposed that reading produces a vivid simulation of reality, one that “runs on minds of readers just as computer simulations run on computers.” Fiction — with its redolent details, imaginative metaphors and attentive descriptions of people and their actions — offers an especially rich replica. Indeed, in one respect novels go beyond simulating reality to give readers an experience unavailable off the page: the opportunity to enter fully into other people’s thoughts and feelings."

What got me thinking about listening to sensory rich metaphors versus reading them in fiction is something I wrote in 2003 that I had inscribed on bookmarks I gave away to clients.

"Storytelling thrives on imagination.  Images touch the heart and become sensations, sensations trigger memories, memories create meaning annd meaning leads to listener action."

With this discovery in mind I subsequently wrote and taught law students and lawyers (among others) about the primal importance of incorporating the five senses in oral presentations to inform and persuade.  The guidance changed the speaker and the listener both.  You could feel trial stories vividly come to life.

I am convinced that we "homo narrans" use stories to navigate the social realm, to understand feelings, desires and motivations of our fellow global inhabitants, comprehend lessons, make sense of mistakes, and the like.  Metaphors smooth our efforts to translate by showing us show how "this is like that."  Apparently, the more sensory our metaphors the more easily we connect and relate with one another.  And that's not fiction.

Really, Now! Who Has Time To Write Poetry?

I am reading "The One-Straw Revolution" by Masanobu Fukuoka.  Michael Pollan calls this little book,

"One of the founding documents of the alternative food movement, and indispensable to anyone hoping to understand the future of food and agriculture."

Why would I read such a book? I want to feed people organic apples and the foods one can make with apples.  We can always use a good apple, grown right - and a nice slice of pie.

In one chapter Mr. Fukuoka reflects on how the times have changed.  Not just for farmers but for all of us. In the act of cleaning his village shrine he uncovered bit of haiku written by villagers time out of mind.  Then, he notes, even farmers had time to write poetry.  But no more - we are hurried.

This seems true for all of us.  Even for me when I catch myself (again) eating a meal in front of the computer screen instead of appreciating what I prepared perhaps sitting in the sun.

It can be different, even if only incrementally. We just need to step out of the cave:

From Out the Cave
    by Joyce Sutphen

When you have been
at war with yourself
for so many years that
you have forgotten why,
when you have been driving
for hours and only
gradually begin to realize
that you have lost the way,
when you have cut
hastily into the fabric,
when you have signed

papers in distraction,
when it has been centuries
since you watched the sun set
or the rain fall, and the clouds,
drifting overhead, pass as flat
as anything on a postcard;
when, in the midst of these
everyday nightmares, you
understand that you could
wake up,
you could turn
and go back
to the last thing you
remember doing
with your whole heart:
that passionate kiss,
the brilliant drop of love
rolling along the tongue of a green leaf,
then you wake,
you stumble from your cave,
blinking in the sun,
naming every shadow
as it slips.  [from Straight Out of View. © Beacon Press, 1995]

Samuarai Lawyer In Three Parts. Part 2.

Patrick Trudell writing as Zen Lawyer Seattle (patrick@ktbllaw.com) posted “Lessons from Musashi-The Book of Water” on 24 January 2012. This post was preceded by Lessons from Musashi - The Book of Earth, and followed by Lessons from Musashi - The Book of Fire.

On January 24th I was speaking with Eric Wagner, a longtime friend who is also a fellow lawyer and life observer in Canada.  I knew he had spent a number of years living in Japan and practicing Aikido.  I asked him for his thoughts on the Book of Water post.  He was generous with his comments. So much so that his remarks will cover three days and conclude with an article relevant to this topic recently posted in the Law Society of British Columbia's monthly publication called The Advocate.

Excerpts from Zen Lawyer Seattle will appear indented and italicized as befits quoting from a source.  Wagner's comments follow each excerpt.

Part 2.

Purpose. “The martial arts [and trials] are not a game… . You must mean it when you strike… . If you do not, you will certainly get hurt. The only reason to draw your sword is to cut down the enemy.” Id. ad 31. The warrior/trial lawyer must “go straight to the heart of the matter… .” Id. at 33. Musashi teaches the main purpose of the warrior is to defeat the enemy. “Do not be side-tracked by the appearance of the enemy or yourself. Do not be conscious of the particular technique you will use. This causes hesitation. …” Id. “Your attack must be filled with conviction and purpose. In this way you defeat the enemy regardless of his abilities.” Id. Your attitude will be recognized by your opponent and he will prefer to fight someone else. Id.

As for “purpose” – it is not correct to say that the only reason to draw the sword is to cut down the enemy.  Sometimes, it is done in order to see the “enemy’s” reaction and show a willingness to cut, so as to help with settlement.  That is why setting mediation for a date just before one would start ramping up for trial is often much better than having mediation when no trial has been set.  He says not to be conscious of the technique you will use.  This is accurate in swordwork or any combat art.  However, in law, one must be extremely conscious of the arguments and other techniques to be used.  At the same time, though, one must avoid locking into a particular argument so as to blind oneself to developments in the case. 

One of the very first Iaido moves one learns is to draw the sword in a horizontal motion in front of the other person’s eyes.  The main intention is not to cut, but to cause the other person to blink,  hesitate, or move in a particular way, thus setting the stage for the next move.  Japanese castles are often designed so that one entrance/exit appears strong and important, so as to attract an attack, while a less obvious portal somewhere else allows troops to come forth and flank the attackers.  The parallel in law is that sometimes, one makes an argument without there being a true intention for that argument to carry the day.  It may be meant to create an environment where another argument  or negotiation strategy will succeed.

Here’s an old Japanese story.  One fellow bragged about the sharpness of his sword.  He threw up a silk scarf into the air and as it fell, it cut itself in two.  Another fellow put his sword into a stream and the leaves cut themselves as they passed over the sword.  The third fellow (why is it always the third guy in these stories?) put his sword into the same stream and the leaves went around, unharmed.  My preference is to develop the skills and stand like the sword in the water, so that conflict itself falls away rather than destroying anything.   That is the teaching we get from Aikido.

If you haven’t tried Aikido, you may want to walk into a dojo and see if it holds anything for you.

Part 3 will conclude on Monday.

 

Samuarai Lawyer In Three Parts. Part 1.

 

Patrick Trudell writing as Zen Lawyer Seattle (patrick@ktbllaw.com) posted “Lessons from Musashi-The Book of Water” on 24 January 2012. This post was preceded by Lessons from Musashi - The Book of Earth, and followed by Lessons from Musashi - The Book of Fire.

On January 24th I was speaking with Eric Wagner, a longtime friend who is also a fellow lawyer and life observer in Canada.  I knew he had spent a number of years living in Japan and practicing Aikido.  I asked him for his thoughts on the Book of Water post.  He was generous with his comments. So much so that his remarks will cover three days and conclude with an article relevant to this topic recently posted in the Law Society of British Columbia's monthly publication called The Advocate.

Wagner's preference on this matter would be to say that Trudell's “metaphor” goes off track in some important ways, while giving some valuable teaching in others.  His remarks are not to be considered a full frontal attack on the man and his ideas, but rather a gentle reminder that he seems to be venturing off course sometimes.  If Trudell truly understands Japanese martial arts, the approach will be familiar and appreciated, since it is what practitioners like Wagner do in training.

Excerpts from Zen Lawyer Seattle will appear indented and italicized as befits quoting from a source.  Wagner's comments follow each excerpt.

 

 In  Musashi’s second book, The Book of Water, we continue to develop the warrior/trial lawyer metaphor.

When I first started practicing, I thought it was appropriate to read Musashi the way this lawyer seems to.  After all, I was a warrior/lawyer going forth to do battle for the forces of good (my paying clients).   This, however, now seems to be incorrect.

Musashi was writing for and about samurai in feudal Japan.  These were folks who were duty bound to follow their lords’ and superiors’ orders without question.   The challenge was to develop the skills to carry out those orders without going crazy in the process.   Some people say that the appeal of zen and its emphasis on stillness and quiet were in response to the need to deal with the voices of all the people the samurai killed and were about to kill.  Samurai really had no discretion.

I have a great deal of respect for the samurai, but I refuse to make them out to be anything other than what they were.  While there is a tendency among some people to romanticize samurai, they were killers above all else.  Unquestioning and effective killers.  That does not change just because they may also have been able to recite poetry or do calligraphy.

Modern day lawyers, on the other hand, are tasked with developing and exercising discretion at every turn.  We are not just blindly following orders.  We have to recommend and evaluate courses of action.  Sometimes we must refuse to do as our clients say.  It is not at all like what the samurai were doing.

Viewing oneself as a samurai / lawyer bound to destroy “the enemy” on the other side would seem to make one overly combative as a lawyer.  Negotiating a settlement with such a lawyer would be difficult at best.  Such a view also fails to take account of the fact that there is often a need to have a continuing relationship with that person on the other side.  Separated and divorced parents need to work with one another where the kids are concerned.  People in the business community will continue to cross paths and a reputation as a ruthless and eager litigator will poison the well pretty quickly. 

 

Appearance. “The manner in which a warrior carries himself is of utmost importance both physically and mentally.” Musashi’s, Book of five Rings (Translated by Stephen Kaufman, Hanshi 10th Dan 1994) at 26. The appearance of a warrior / trial lawyer should be “quiet and strong and seem to be doing nothing.” Id. The lawyer neither appears to be tense nor in disarray. The lawyer simply appears. When it is necessary to present the lawyer does so with complete resolve, confident, “neither overbearing in attitude nor with false humility.” Id.

If I as a lawyer “seem to be doing nothing,” it will not go well for me with a client who is paying me fees to do something.

 

The Opposition. “A small man can beat a much larger man and one man can beat many men.” Id. at 27.  Never allow yourself to be intimidated by the size of the opposition. Never show the enemy “false bravado.” Id. at 30. Never “prejudge a view according to what you think things should be, but instead look at all things equally and in this way you will be able to discern what can hurt you and what cannot.” Id. at 29. Steadfastness of purpose is a key requirement because if you lack this you will easily be led into false security and be easily defeated. Id.

As for not prejudging – that is bang on.  It is much better to approach a matter in a neutral manner, as should a judge, than with a view overly slanted in favour of one party or the other.  This helps one to see the entire picture much better.  Doing this requires discipline and experience, which is along the samurai lines but also along the lines of pretty much any discipline, whether it be flower arranging or playing the violin.

Part 2 continues tomorrow.

Q&A Tuesday: How Do I Get To Be As Famous As Grisham?

Q:    An old saw storytellers are familiar with goes like this?  "How do I become a good storyteller?  Tell stories.  How do I become a great storyteller?  Tell more stories."  For those who are looking at John Grisham's trajectory and wondering, "How do  I get to be as famous as Grisham?" 

A:    In his own word: write.

The Op-Ed piece I clipped out of the NYTimes on Monday, September 6, 2012 is creased and dried out but the words are still very much alive.  John Grisham wrote, "Boxers, Briefs and Books" to share a little of the history of how he became a writer. 

You might recognize yourself in his words.  And the magic hand of Destiny or, as a friend calls it, "A God wink."

Either way the instruction is the same: pay attention, learn quickly, take yourself seriously, and write.

What Do You Really Know About Your Family? What Do You Know About Anyone?

It all started at The Corner Perk, a small, locally owned coffee shop in Bluffton, South Carolina.  As the story goes, one day a customer paid her bill and left $100 extra to pay for everyone who ordered after her. One by one the food and coffee orders were filled.  Every few months the same woman has returned to leave another donation with the same request.

But it doesn't stop there.  Other customers have been leaving money to pay for others' food. Some people don't even buy anything when they come in; they just stop to donate and head right back out.  In this day and age the kindness of strangers trumps the greed of Wall Street. 

What does this story have to do with a battered suitcase? Ted Gup, a former investigative reporter for The Washington Post and TIME magazine is handed a suitcase which has laid undisturbed in his mother's attic for some 70 years.  Folded inside the suitcase are hand-written letters sent to a man Gup comes to learn is his grandfather.  The letters are responses to a tiny newspaper ad that promises a $5.00 Christmas donation to be given to folks in Canton, Ohio in 1933 who request such aid - and both the giver and recipient to remain anonymous.   

To us that $5.00 might just buy a coffee drink and muffin at The Corner Perk.  In 1933 - during the Great Depression - if you had the coins you could buy a loaf of bread for seven cents, a pound of hamburger for eleven cents, a dozen egs for twenty-nine cents, and a gallon of gas for eighteen cents.  $5.00 would be the Christmas miracle.

Gup's book, "A Secret Gift," is a time travel back to the Great Depression; a trip eerily reminiscent of the past few years of financial crisis to which he makes frequent reference.  His investigation uncovers intimate layers of community, generosity, and family secrets.  What is heartening is the message of endurance and recovery in the face of a stranger's kindness.

What do you really know about your family?  What do you really know of compassion, suffering, community, loss, humility, resilience, gratitude, perseverance, joy, sharing, inspiration?  Ask for one story - be prepared to receive a treasure trove.