Silver (maple) lining
I was planning on putting out another deliberate practice video, but events conspired to make me change direction and do a little video on mindfulness instead.
Last night we had a thunderstorm roll through. Whenever we get one. It’s always preceded by a squall and last night’s persuaded a tree branch to come down. On it’s way down, the branch took off our chimney cap. Put a bit of a dent in it. A little cosmetic damage. But free carving wood. Win.
That reaction to this event made me think. Having a chunk of tree bounce off your house isn’t usually seen as a positive. But then, I’m a spoon carver. We’re an abnormal bunch. A slightly dented chimney cap has given me a couple of crooks, a few feet of carvable wood and, most importantly, some sweet, sweet online content. I’m able to choose to look at this event through a positive frame because this fallen branch will let me practice my craft.
Being able to react calmly to unforeseen circumstances, even reframing them as positive, is an important soft skill gained from spoon carving. Working with green wood means so many things completely outside of your control. Unexpected bark inclusions, inconveniently placed knots, wood that’s determined to tear itself apart as it dries. We rationally know that we have no control over what we’re going to find when we split open a piece of wood. Sure, there are some external clues as to what might be happening inside, but we’ve all been caught out by rot, knots and twisted grain. Letting these things get to you would make carving very frustrating. Getting upset over something we can’t control just doesn’t make sense. The unpredictability of wood is just part of what keeps spoon carving interesting. In this way, spoon carving helps foster resilience to the unforeseen and helps keep us calm in other situations too. Just a small way that spoon carving is good for you.
While I carve a little spoon from the unexpected bounty that landed on my roof I’d like to offer up some extra resources if you would like a little more help in developing this way of thinking.
Accepting events as they are, without passing judgement on them, is a core part of the school of philosophy known as Stoicism. The Stoics believed that when something outside of your control happens, a tree branch falling on your chimney, our response to it has two stages. The first is an emotional reflex, we don’t get to choose. The external event gives us a rush of emotion: happiness, saddness, anger, worry. We just have a burst of that emotion. The second stage is a voluntary judgement of that reaction. Do we think that external event was good, bad or neutral? Fortunately the Stoics have some advice. They would say that assigning any intrinsic values to external events is irrational. Events just are. They’re not good, they’re not bad, they’re neutral. Sure, they concede that some events are preferable to others but once we’ve had that rush of emotion, what really matters is how we respond to those feelings. We can let that initial response rule our thoughts or we can get on with doing something that’s more in-line with our goals.
If my axe hits a nail hidden in a lump of wood, sure, I’m going to have a bit of swearfest. But having gotten used to dealing with other undesirable surprises I can reframe it as an opportunity to learn how to regrind an axe.
The Stoics also taught that we only have control over our thoughts and actions, we have no control over outcomes. When we start judging outcomes as good or bad what we’re doing is making a kind of commitment to obtain or avoid that outcome. But it’s irrational to demand that you achieve a goal you can’t control. I find this idea very freeing. The Stoics still encourage us to engage in action with determination but just to remain unfazed by whatever the outcome is. A Stoic reaching for a goal would often add the clause ‘if fate allows’ to the end of their statements as a reminder that there’s always the possibility that everything will go wrong
I’m going to carve a spoon, if fate allows.
