Fountainhead Pen
- Operator
- Jun 7
- 12 min read
Updated: Oct 19
When I was first writing on Wix, there was no red underline pointing out misspelling of words, I read my work more intensely looking for mistakes.
Sadly it has that function, but I still make sure not to select the correct spelling.
I type it out so I improve.
I didn't know how bad a speller I was until there was nothing pointing it out, nor giving me a fast click correct.
Auto-correct gave me a false sense of pride. The change in environment revealed that I needed to improve.
Correction is where learning comes from.
Mistakes are where one finds improvements, incrementally, by just constantly correcting, without worrying or memorizing.
It happens naturally by the doing, with no passion or judgement when found, just correct and move on.
It also gave me another opportunity to reread what was written, which is another chance to refine.
Disposable writing is a work of the moment, since it is not reread to see if there is a better version. Something can always be written better.
In some ways, we are creations of time, and how we spend our time is who we are.
If one limits what they do with their time, and work on things that matter to them, one naturally begins mastery.
Whether somone ele considers you a master or not does not mattter. Everyone is an amateur in the beginning of all endeavors.
One can master their own time and see where that leads.
To work on something for years, of constantly figuring out how to refine, until the best version survives, is the mountain climb to improvement.
It shows through action I don't quit, and continue to strive to find the best, of the work and within. Nothing has value until you finish the work.
White Sands took me two years to write.
It taught me my style of writing, which then improved my style of thinking.
I made a lot of mistakes with that story.
Too forgiving of a mistake will only ensure that mistake will be made again, perhaps forever. Mistakes left on the wayside will only lead to lowering your standards of your work and yourself. What you do, becomes you.
If something is too easily forgiven, it is easily forgotten.
Correcting a mistake should not feel like a personal attack on your identity.
Correct and move on, and continue to look for mistakes you make.
With constant practice it becomes a part of you. Correcting is a habit that only gains in not making future mistakes.
Instead of striving for perfection, just do your best, which is as close to perfection as you are going to get.
Idealism is never easy.
The struggle to reach the ideal is idealism.
Rising up from failure is the Test.
Every time you get up, one gets closer to their ideal Self, revealing the heroic within. Ideals, if lost, often never return. The range of the best in yourself can be just get it done, or do your best.
Go down with humility, to rise up with pride.
A mistake revealed is a correct path shown. The effort to correct is where one finds character, the correct character of a misspell.
The red underlines in life are mandatory, to see and research the correct spelling, and retype. Correct before you forget, because they are the hidden gems.They are puzzles to problem solve, where new ideas are found.
Going back and correcting is quality.
It instills a habit that will carry you to the next thing that needs to be done.
The best way to apologize is never do it again.
If it is not corrected, one does not think it is worth the effort.
If you misspell a word often, sometimes you just avoid that word.
"Restaurant" is a word I misspelled for most of my life.
I used to know that auto-correct would find it and would fix it.
Almost every time I got that one word wrong.
But I also noticed I didn't use that word often, since I knew I didn't know how to spell it, so I used other words to avoid.
Avoidance is fear, a sign one feels danger.
I was in danger of getting that word wrong all the time.
It was a fear of my own making, because I was too lazy to ever fix it and didn't think it was worth the effort to learn that word.
It was amusing how often I stayed away from that word because I forgave myself too easily.
It takes effort to look up and type.
But that is how I learned to spell restaurant now, which was to finally focus correcting since I no longer had a safety net.
The change in environment was the solution to my laziness. No auto-correct meant I had to spell correctly without any assistance. A removal of a standard spell check brought to light my laziness.
Forgiveness shouldn't be a safety net to keep making the same mistakes.
Some things should never be auto-corrected.
I learned that from experience, the cost of never thinking one will get caught doing something wrong.
My wife's auto-correct was, "can't prove it."
It emboldened her to keep pushing the boundary of intentional mistakes.
It was comical at times, just how safe she felt with the auto-correct that everyone shares.
But then again, Maria Isabel Williams did choose a life of identity theft, so it is only natural I guess, to hide behind another's identity and not one's own to admit a mistake.
The fear that I had when I started writing is that it would be misunderstood. The title of mental illness made me fearful that a misunderstanding could bring punishment. It was a reasonable fear based on the false statemetns made.
Fire is understood by those burned. Fire cannot be defeated with fire though, fear cannot defeat fear.
My wriring became a bore and obviously turned into a chore with the carefullness of ensuring that I would not be misinterpretted.I began to second guess and overcomplicate.
I was letting fear control what I was writing.
It reminded me of when I was young.
I went to a public pool, where they had a high dive. I was only eight or nine, but I remember jumping off only once.
The thing I feared was the idea of the dive, but once I took my first step and started climbing up, the fear lessened with each step. I focused on what I was doing. which was the ladder.
I don't remember the dive, only the climb and the moment I reached the top.
The best way to overcome fear is the step forward. The illusion of the certainty of fear will shatter.
The certainties of my mind was just an illusion, of what my belief was before the experience, which was not that memorable.
I can't remember the dive.
The best way to overcome fear, is to keep experiencing it again, until you are present.
The doing is the knowing.
It took a lot of bad writing to finally overcome the fear of being misunderstood. Luckily I found a solution after I got fed up with my work feeling like homework.
I accepted I can't control if anyone can understand my writing.
I decided to focus on what I could control, which was to learn to communicate with myself, and that would be enough.
I just wrote for myself and didn't care if anyone understood, and then I loosened up, without any worry, and focused only if my words made sense to me.
I don't care if anyone misinterprets it, by not caring if anyone reads it.
I learned that through painting, validation of others is a rookie mistake. It compromises your own belief in your Art and you start changing your style towards comprehension of other's tastes.
Writing for others is needed in the practical, but not for Art, which has to be practical for the creator.
It takes courage to continue writing after someone reads your work and say, "I don't get it."
That is the test, to see if you have the courage to keep trying despite another's opinion that doesn't hold true to you.
No one should ever make you doubt your Art.
Never allow another to doubt yourself, accept it as an opinion you doubt yourself.
I sometimes come across a Youtube channel where there are a few videos made with barely any viewers. I know they quit because the validation wasn't there.
If you believe you can do something, nothing should stop you from your goal.
I have been writing for over two years and the number of viewers was the least of my concern. The words I write are on my own interface.
I created my own program.
Within the words are sentences that hold all my thoughts, the understanding of them make the words more powerful, with the meaning expanding like a Big Bang, since I am the creator.
There is a remarkable discovery every time I read my work. It is genuine. I have to figure out what I am saying, since I write non-linear.
I am unpredictable even to myself, who writes in code often. I just do while I am writing, unsure where it goes until I get there, and then I figure out during the doing.
I write the end, not knowing how it starts. Sort of like doing, without knowing what I did, until I explain it.
Explanations catch up after I finish what I did.
Sometimes I don't even now how some of these things get written. they just were what I was thinking in the moment.
The first book that really taught me how to draw was Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. That book is the most important book I ever studied. I had the luck to find it my junior year in high school.
There was an exercise where you drew upside down to take the memorization out of drawing. It prevented naming what was being drawn, since one couldn't recognize it upside down.
It was a simple way to see the Truth of what was in front of me, without uttering a word.
I can't name it if it doesn't look like it. It was a remarkable moment because every time it worked, without fail. I drew better when it was upside down.
I never forgot that experience and I kept that habit of not naming things, from the age of 17 until 45.
Nameless thinking is sort of similar to what Taoism is.
I can shift gears in my mind and just see, without any certainty what names are attached to what I am seeing.
It reinforced a philosophy I hold, that words distort. Explaining constantly leads to more explaining and it is quicksand where you miss what it is you saw.
I haven't had to named anything consistently until I started writing, which makes me seem dumb. I never memorize or even think of words when I am doing anything.
I just do.
When I worked in the Black Zone, my trainer would get annoyed because I would call things, "thing."
Jim would say, "Why don't you call it by it's name?"
I would shrug and say, "It is easier to just call it 'thing.' You know what I mean."
It was less stressful to point and not have to memorize the device's name.
With Excel I saw that I built programs that way, which was alarming the things I built without any planning.
If I wanted it to do something, I just did it, without any concern of how and just started.
I just put what was needed and slowly the program got built.
I don't think of how I do it, but look at the problem upside down, and see what parts need to be built. I create without even bothering to explain it to myself.
Why would I, that would be weird to me, to narrate what you are doing, while you are doing.
That is extra work. The fast you can get to point A to point B, from thinking to doing, the more things will get done.
But I think that is how one naturally does things, with the guidance of words to keep what you are doing in place.
It causes stress if you forget the words though, since essentially you are memorizing, in place of the doing. That art book showed me that words create a roadblock to seeing and doing.
It taught me that anywhere is a good place to start.
Memorization is a bottleneck since words applied to something needs an explanation, and behind those word...more words, and it is just a cluster fuck. Steps and outlines, a beginning and end, and those things prevents from...actually doing.
Complicating when doing is simplicity.
The faster you can start the work, the more you are motivated to work. Doubt and complaints are the shadows that follow words, and you have to outrun those.
Run towards the task at hand, before those chains can catch up to your focus.
Words slows downs the mind, like honey of your words, making you certain it can't be done any faster.
The doing, without naming, makes the speed of creating go lightning speed.
Don't talk to yourself and just learn to communicate by just willing yourself to do.
No words, just pure focus.
My wife's grandson used to play this game called Poppy's Playtime 2 on my phone. He said simple things while he was playing, "Go here, there, jump, then I need..."
Broken sentences while he was playing a pretty challenging game. I couldn't beat it.
He was only 7 or 8.
He was narrating, but simplifying it since the speed of the challenges were fast, and urgency was needed.
You were chased in the game.
He focused and kept starting over until he got to the end. I was happy to see him get back up and try again, from the beginning.
When I mistype a word, I erase and type it again. Sometimes if it just one letter I correct within. It is the retyping where I learn, since that is how you become a better speller.
I don't memorize and just type it again.
That is how I learn.
The more laps I do, the better I get, without the stress of worrying if I will get it.
I know myself, I will figure it out eventually.
Eli failed 3 or 4 times with the Big Boss. I watched as his determination grew. He was close to getting the victory. I could feel his confidence build and the frustration turned to pure resolve.
He was playing to win.
When he got to the end and finally beat the game, I saw pure joy.
He accomplished something difficult and he did it all by himself.
I was there.
I saw Eli do something that I could not do, and I was overjoyed that I got to witness a gifted grandson.
He just sat there with smile all day.
He was happy.
Something he thought he couldn't do, he did.
I have those moments all the time with my writing, painting, and excel programs I created.
When I write and it comes together as I envisioned it, better than what I thought, I keep that joy all day.
That is why I am happy.
I created my own interface and I judge whether I beat the difficulty of the page.
He was my only pupil and I wish I had more opportunities to make him believe in himself.
He is so talented. Eli just needs to believe in himself.
To do that, he needs to get back up and keep trying, and find something where he can create his own interface.
Create your own so it continues to challenge you.
Belief turns to truth when you do what you think you can do, and you do it.
I experienced someone who would to go all out if I pointed out a mistake she made.
She would fight tooth and nail, at all cost, for her right to be right. No tactic was taboo.
Total war, without any peace talks.
After a few of these skirmishes I just said you are right.
If you remain certain, your mind rests, assured of your certainty.
I yielded and just stopped pointing things out. I think she saw my yield as being weak. She thoroughly enjoyed battles where she coudl win. She just repeated over and over again she wa right and if that didn't work...punishment.
My wife was interesting. It never had to go that far since I just didn't dance in her war circle.
If you are not self aware, whatever interpretation of others will be misread.
She thought she was right all the time and I was wrong. I was no longer concerned if she was right or wrong.
That would lead to a debate where I would not win.
I don't like to waste time so my tactic changed to, you gained a new territory and I will move on.
I adapted to the environment and I just accepted that this was a topic that was not to be crossed. I didn't want to get punished for what I thought was reasonable.
I put these topic in the "don't care" category.
You get the win and I get to continue with my life.
This led her to not even look at self-mistakes, since no one pointed them out, and she thought that this was victory.
To never make a mistake and defend any who says otherwise was her way of life.
I felt sorry for her, not angry.
Those mistakes become a part of her, with misspells of her character that were covered with format.
Starting over is the best way because you learn from start to finish.
Delete and try again.
Don't worry if you will get it right, instead just let it happen naturally, which is you don't misspell it if you keep typing it over until you get it right.
Restaurant is a word I still occasionally check.
I kept putting an "e" at the end.
Corrections builds characters if you are willing to do the work and correct.
The act becomes a part of you, a repetition that reinforces striving to correct before you forget.
Forgetting your own mistakes is the easiest thing to do, since you don't want to think of yourself as making mistakes.
But once you start correcting them, you naturally make less mistakes.
That is how you improve in art, life, and work.
It is unnatural to punish any who see your mistakes, since that is stressful to focus on what others think and say, and takes away from within.
But to each their own.
Truth only exists within.
Timeline
Started: 12/11/24
Completed: 5/21/25
Days: 161 days
Genre: Writing
Thinking is writing thoughts
without writing
PassionReason
West ArtLogic East
PaintingExcel
Writing is thinking thoughts
with writing
