Who's Standing On Your Financial Hose?

In Auroville, I am about to move all my shit to the room around the corner from me. Instead of tiles on the floor, there is cement. I will switch from a double to a single bed. And the neutral odour in my current place will morph into the faint smell of mildew.  In all, I will save 150 rupees per night. After two nights, this means 300 rupees. So like just over 6 bucks Canadian. Do I feel smug? A little bit. And also maybe pathetically frugal. 

Internet in Auroville has demonstrated selective fatigue and is unfortunately unable to upload photos of my mildewed and un-mildewed room. And so instead, here is Matrimindir, Auroville's pride and Golden Ball. Rather a symbol of Wealth...

Amazingly quickly, I have adapted to thinking in Indian currency. The other day I was considering buying some guava fruit from a fruit lady.

“Oh no, too expensive,” I said, learning that two small pieces cost 30 rupees. At the time, it seemed scandalizing to pay more than 20 rupees for two larger ones. I walked away. In India, the Canadian dollar gets you about 48 rupees. For my daily budget, I aim for 1500 rupees or less. Accommodation and most often transportation included. This works out to around 1000 Canadian dollars per month. You’d be hard pressed to live so cheaply in Canada, even in Montreal. I hate doing this, but for the month of December, I kept track of all the money I spent. It was a total pain in the ass; however, I was able to observe that most days I spent less than 1000 rupees, and some days my total was as low as 297, 400 and 430. Yay me.

Oh money. What a relationship. I have always had a sort of superstitious view of money. Like you shouldn’t worry too much about it, or you’ll go broke. And I am afraid to look at how much I actually have, or how much I’m spending, for fear I’ll discover I’ve totally fucked up. And yet, the reality is, I am exceptionally responsible and resourceful when it comes to money. Having just inched across the poverty line, these days, I am set up so that I can live in India with minimal income until around April. And although I am not being super proactive about getting translation and writing contracts, most likely something will come my way. Despite all my doubts and fretting, I will almost certainly be okay.

“Always pay your credit card bill on time.” My father once told me this. It was the only financial advice he ever gave me. And except for during a year of poverty post-university, I have always paid my bills in full, usually weeks in advance. I’ve had the good fortune of being on the receiving end of generosity. To help me out while I was starving after graduation, a dear friend gave me a gift of 2000 dollars. Soon afterwards, I met the Boatman and he invited me to live in his home rent free for more than a year. Sometimes this is kind of embarrassing to admit. Like I am a charity case and can’t pull off shit on my own. And well, I really truly hope I can pay forward all this kindness someday soon.

Which brings me to the 300 rupees I am about to save. Back in Delhi, I found a financial book in my friend Fern’s fancy apartment. A small bright pink paperback, it was called, “The Naked Accountant Asks, Who’s Standing on Your Financial Hose?” The Naked Accountant’s name is Jean Backus. Like the title, the book is somewhat abominably written, although it begins with an interesting story about a car accident. The book costs about 13 dollars but once you are done with it, you are encouraged to pass it on, which I imagine decreases the overall profits.

Who's Standing On Your Financial Hose?

My self-help book only costs $2.99, including the excellent pictures. So far, Amazon hasn’t given me any money for it since I haven’t hit 100 bucks in royalties. I wonder how much money Amazon is banking from aspiring authors who earn nineteen dollars each. Oh well. Perhaps it is my act of generosity. To Amazon, and to the Universe.

Naked Accountant Jean Backus compares the journey towards financial freedom to a road trip from Austin, Texas to Boulder, Colorado. Creative analogy. She recommends replacing the Scared Small Fretting Child and Ego Bully into the respective Wonder Child and Co-Creator. The Small Fretting Child and the Ego Bully have deep and paralyzing doubts about their ability to thrive financially. They are afraid they will never have enough and constantly criticize your higher and/or deeper self for your seemingly poor financial choices. Unlike the Small Fretting Child and Ego Bully, the Wonder Child and Co-Creator view the universe as an abundant place of great wealth. (It seems they have never been to India…) They approach the world with awe, and are committed to figuring out exciting solutions to all your financial issues.  I’m afraid I may not have the concepts or terminology exactly right since I left my copy of Who’s Standing on Your Financial Hose in Rishakesh, in a dusty, mildewed room that cost 200 rupees per night.

One thing I do remember is the importance of envisioning your chequing account as a living, breathing organism. I have been giving this a try.

“Chequing account,” I say. “You Are Alive.” So far I have made 400 bucks.

In any case, it is time for me to switch over to my cheap and mildewed room. I wonder what exciting thing I will do with the extra 300 rupees.

If you would like to hire me for exceptional financial advice, do let me know. Naked or not, I would love to discover who’s  standing on your financial hose.

The End.

Fancy Room (500 rupees), Mildewed Room (350 rupees)
(courtesy Canadian Internet)

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Castles in the Basement

Those of you who know me may be aware that I am a recovering self-help book junkie.  Before admitting that I was powerless over my affliction and surrendering my suffering to high power, I came across Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way:  A Spiritual Path Towards Higher Creativity.    The Artist's Way is geared towards “blocked creatives” whose inner artist children have been deeply wounded, preventing them from producing the very excellent novels, sculptures, haikus and pottery that lie deep within.  I had never heard of Julia Cameron’s excellent novels, sculptures, haikus and pottery, but my own writing career had barely blossomed beyond dabbling in adolescent notebooks and journals.  Hence, I diagnosed my artist child as “VERY WOUNDED” and embarked on Julia Cameron’s prescribed spiritual journey. 

Along the lines of many other 12-step programs, The Artist’s Way is divided into twelve chapters. Each one is focussed on different recovery themes.  In Chapter one, we “recover a sense of safety,” reclaiming our right to live happy, creative and free existences, free of dysfunction and vice.  We compose affirmations:

“I, Erica Schmidt, can write a marvellous novel with joy, ease and without taking up narcotics.”  We address our creative injuries and forgive our grade two teacher Mrs. Douglas for not casting us as Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.

In Chapter 6, we recover a sense of abundance and allow ourselves to throw out ugly clothes and buy our favourite fruits and vegetables even if they’re not on sale.  We can affirm this:

I, Erica Schmidt, buy and eat blueberries. 

Julia Cameron is adamant that it’s never too late to recover and discover a dormant and repressed artistic adventure.  She was also adamant that we should each commit ourselves, every day for the rest of our lives, to a daily practice called, “Morning Pages.”

In order to become a writer of morning pages, set your alarm 30 minutes early and use this time to write uninhibitedly for 3 pages. 

“But Julia Cameron,” you might protest. (I like to call her J.C.)  “I’m not a writer.  I want to carve ducks.”

“Phooey!” J.C. proclaims.  “Morning pages are not supposed to be REAL WRITING.”  Instead they are designed as a potent preparatory tool to serve you for the rest of your inspired, basket-weaving, duck-carving , narcotic-free, blueberry-filled existence.  JC considers morning pages to be a sort of Active Meditation during which all the greatest irritations and desires of your unconscious emerge to the surface.  By confronting various existential voids and hang-ups, we may magically devise more effective methods of doing our laundry, quitting our jobs and leaving the country.  In addition, you may also become aware of your deep longing to wax your pubic hair or have your toenails removed.  Finally, behind the details of laundry, hygienic ambitions and bad sex, artists may also uncover insight on their own art; lines from a poem, an image, an interesting character called Annabelle Gordon who could potentially make her way into your next short story.  Fabulous.  But again, “Morning pages are not REAL WRITING.” 

For four or five years, more or less every morning, I have diligently woken up, grabbed a pen and strived to reveal my higher creative self.  I don’t regret one page.  There is something redeeming and enlightening about forcing yourself to transcribe the details of your existence.  I have made interesting discoveries. 

“Too much coffee.  Out of toilet paper.”

“Bellydancing is a bit of a misnomer.”

“The dishes are full of sink.”

“I hate hamsters”

And poetic declarations: 

“I cannot throw knives at the walls of bathroom stalls.” 

“So much depends upon ovulation”

“A is for Alveolar Palate”

As well as extremely useful imperatives:

Get over Mike Snow. 

Act like a child of God.

Call your dentist.   Book a pap smear.

So as I said, no regrets.  However, I think it’s time to re-examine my tactics.  I now have piles of notebooks, filled with industriously scrawled  bits of self-awareness.  I’m all for self-awareness, and I like that my morning page have helped me keep track of the last couple of years.  I just don’t think that this ritual needs to take such a large place in my “Artist Routine.” 

I, Erica Schmidt, have maxed out on self-awareness. 

During my spiritual path towards higher creativity and beyond, there were many days when the only REAL writing I ever did was morning pages.  Alas, as JC maintains, is not actually REAL writing.  She’s right:  it’s brain puke.  Vomit is deceptively tasty when it hasn’t yet acquired too much acidity.  But most often, vomit is a personal thing that you don’t show other people. 

My friend Simon likens my morning page routine to “building castles in the basement.”  Your construction skills may improve and the process may be valuable, but your castles will never grow very high.  Plus, you’ll probably never finish one.  For me, the chronically unfinished novel (or any other writing project) is one of the most painful diseases you can endure.  Perhaps some people do just write, simply for the sake of writing.  The final product isn’t important and they don’t desire any sort of praise or recognition for their work.  They truly love writing and that is enough.  But I think that deep down, many of us basement writers have something we really want to share.  We want to connect with other people and we want to be understood. 

I would keep writing even if nobody read another word I ever wrote.  These days, this desire has become increasingly clear to me as I write my morning pages.  And it has become increasingly clear to me that whining about pap smears and laundry in a cute little pink notebook is not helping me connect with other readers.  Hence, I woke up this morning with the clear conviction that I would forego the thirty minutes of private agonizing over my existence. 

I, Erica Schmidt, hereby cease to build castles in the basement.

Get to your novel!  Your blog!  Flesh out those characters from your play! Anything besides whining about your life for three pages and thirty minutes.

I tried.  But the heaping basket of dirty clothes smells like mildew.  The only "clean" shirt I have smells like mildew.  Yesterday, two and a half new job prospects were probably extinguished.  It’s been a year since my last pap smear.  And I still can’t do karandavasana.  What to do with this agony?

I made coffee, opened my notebook and began my daily purge of written angst.  As Margaret Atwood says, “Old neurological pathways die hard.”  

The End.

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