Lichtenbergian Proposed Efforts 2019: a review

Last Friday night the Lichtenbergian Society had its Annual Meeting, during which we each had to confront the success or failure of our Proposed Efforts for the year.

I set a couple of very simple Efforts for myself, and today I will report on my failures and successes.

Composing

I was supposed to—at the very least—compose ten short piano waltzes. I did not. I have 100+ measures of absolute ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS, but not one phrase commanded me to develop it into a full piece. We will not even think about Sun True Fire or Seven Dreams of Falling or my mystery project. CME. Ugh.

Work in the labyrinth

“Several projects” is how I vaguely defined this, and even so I can’t claim to have made much headway. CME.

Burning Man

Didn’t do it.

Prep As You Like It

I can honestly say that I did work on this. Am I absolutely ready to have auditions/rehearsals in a month? No, but I’m getting there.

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So out of four Proposed Efforts, I only got close to achieving one. This is not good, even for a Lichtenbergian. The point of the RITUAL of the Annual Meeting is to stake out a mental framework for the creative work you want to get done in the next year, and to do it in the presence of your scenius, knowing that you will have to do as I just did: explain yourself to them in twelve months.

I cannot even claim, as some of us do every year, that I created y instead of x, q instead of r. (This is the engine behind TASK AVOIDANCE and the only thing that makes Lichtenbergianism work as a creative philosophy.)

To sum up, whatever slump I’ve been in, it’s been pretty total. Ugh.