John Du Cane

John Du Cane

John Du Cane’s Sunday Share: August 18th, 2019

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Hi All!

Here is the current issue of my weekly “Sunday Share,” a list of what I have been engaging with, excited by or otherwise found intriguing.

What I’m listening to —
The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr. Having written Wild Boy, my own set of memoir-like reflections on the presentation of self and having collaborated with Debbie Harry on her upcoming memoir Face It, I have realized this is a perfect vehicle for me to express myself creatively — and grow greatly in the process. So, I was delighted to fall upon Mary Karr’s brilliant, inspiring and immensely trenchant deep dive into what it takes to craft a compelling memoir. Any writer, whatever their niche, would benefit from her wisdom.

What I’m reading —
The Art of Money Getting, or Golden Rules for Making Money by P.T. Barnum. Austin Kleon recommended this short book in the back of his excellent Show Your Work and I am so glad I followed through and bought it. In fact I liked it so much, I might just publish an illustrated version of it with an intro by one of the “money-makers and -keepers” I admire. Barnum’s advice is deceptively simple and seemingly obvious. But I only wish I had devoutly implemented his strategies and mindsets about true wealth building from the outset of my career. This is one of those books you want all of your loved ones to read — and then reread.

Service I am Using —
Factor75. Since embarking on my Keto lifestyle a few months back — and loving the results — I’ve been keeping my eyes out for any product or service that might further enhance this wonderful way to eat. Factor75 popped up on my radar a while back and I started to order four meals a week from them. I have been delighted by the quality, freshness and taste of each and every meal. Frankly, I’m a most lazy cook and with Keto, my Achilles heel is ensuring I eat enough of the appropriate vegetables. That vulnerability is fully addressed for me with Factor75. Oh and if you are not a Ketoist, they also do Paleo and high-protein meals. If you want to try them out, here’s a link that will get you $40.00 off your initial order: https://www.factor75.com/get-started?referral=BQQNW

What I have watched recently —
Honeyland documentary by Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov. This elegiac paean to the beauties of living in harmony with the natural ecology is both heart-wrenching and deeply thought-provoking. A stunning achievement by all involved and a must-see.
Here is the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHNkNSZpJxg

What I am putting into my body —
Petadolex. Since my mid-twenties, I have had an interest and played around with all kinds of nootropics. A big standby for me over the last 20 years or so has been Butterbur, for its gentle enhancement of my faculties. Great when I am writing or giving a talk and need to be that much more articulate. Like many of the gentler nootropics, it enhances circulation by expanding the capillaries. While you can get various generic preparations of Butterbur, my favorite is Petadolex by Enzymatic Therapy. I get mine at Vitacost, where it is dramatically less expensive than the normal retail: https://www.vitacost.com/enzymatic-therapy-petadolex-pro-active-60-softgels-1

Newsletter I love to get  —
Austin Kleon After reading and thoroughly enjoying three of Austin Kleon’s books, I happily subscribed to his newsletter. He’s a voracious curator of fascinating pieces from a dizzying array of media and sources. I open with anticipation and am never disappointed.

Most thought-provoking quote —
“Be cautious and bold.”—Victor Rothschild

Thoughts, comments, wishes, suggestions? Hit me up by email at johnrducane@gmail.com

John Du Cane’s Sunday Share: August 11th, 2019

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Hi All!

Here is the first issue of my weekly “Sunday Share,” a list of what I have been engaging with, excited by or otherwise found intriguing.

What I’m listening to —
Go Wild: Eat Fat, Run Free, Be Social, and Follow Evolution’s Other Rules for Total Health and Well-Being by John Ratey and Richard Manning. Every now and then I get so excited by the information I am learning in a particular book that I share it with friends at every possible moment. Go Wild is one of those works, just jammed with eye-opening arguments, studies and stories about how and why to re-introduce evolutionary survival skills back into our overly-domesticated lifestyles. What I like is how intuitive, actionable and sensible the authors’ approach is.

What I’m reading —
Show Your Work!  By Austin Kleon. I just love Austin Kleon! And guess what, a section in this book inspired me to finally put this Sunday Share out into the world. I read a small section in the morning and a small section in the evening, which has proved more than enough to stoke the fires of my imagination and nudge me into practical action. The bad news about Kleon’s books: they end at some point and you want them to go on forever. The good news? You want to read them again — and perhaps again.

Dance style I have taken up —
Brazilian Zouk. Perhaps because of having being brought up originally in Africa, I’ve favored free-form dancing to African and Reggae. I’ve shied away from more formalized dancing, although I did do a one-year stint of Argentinian Tango around the year 2000. A few months ago I was getting a chemical peel to clean up my sun-ravaged face and my diminutive Guatemalan cosmetician told me about her obsession with Zouk. After checking out a few videos of this highly sensual, flamboyant style, I was attracted and am welcoming a new addiction into my life. Here’s a sample for you: https://youtu.be/4CncoyoIbYA

What I have watched recently —
Son of Saul by Lazlo Nemes. My illustrator/collaborator Judit Tondora told me my Wild Boy stories had a cinematic perspective that reminded her of the approach in Son of Saul. Now, this brilliant film is also harrowing in the extreme as it portrays a brutal story of the Sonderkommando in Auschwitz-Berkenau. No surprise it won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. It takes a lot for me to stare man’s inhumanity to man straight in the face but the payoff personally is almost always immense. Given the current level of prejudice, hate and divisiveness being engendered in our country right now, this masterpiece is one to watch then reflect on the fragility of our civilization.

What I am putting into my body —
TRU Niagen I first started using flush-free Niacin in the early 90s, on the recommendation of Qigong/Tai Chi master and all-around wild man Gary Clyman. He would pass it out before classes to help stimulate qi and blood flow. I have used it pretty well every day since then and swear by it. So I was intrigued, if initially skeptical, when I started seeing ads for a supposedly more potent version called Nicotinamide Riboside. I have been using it now for several months and am convinced that it is indeed more powerful than the regular Niacin.

Newsletter I love to get  —
5-Bullet Friday from Tim Ferriss Every Friday I ALWAYS open and read Tim’s newsletter. And it is a rare issue where I don’t follow it up by watching a great film, reading an excellent book or picking up some other golden nugget from one of my favorite guys. You can see I’m kinda imitating his approach here in my own Sunday Share. Learn from the best, then implement, right?

Most thought-provoking quote —
“What we call thinking is the evolutionary internalization of movement.”—Rodolfo Llinas

Thoughts, comments, wishes, suggestions? Hit me up by email at johnrducane@gmail.com

Choosing Friends

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“Friends show their love in times of trouble, not in happiness.”—Euripides

How many really good friends do we have—of either gender—that we feel we could count on in a pinch, a bind or something far, far worse? Who would have our back and who would be happy to throw us under the bus when the chips started to fly? For good reason, in all cultures, strong friendship is revered—because when it comes down to it, abiding friendship and loyalty can be all too rare.

Friendship

We are speaking here of unconditional friendship—the kind of friendship that transcends the need for ego-strokes, superficial niceties and thin-iced acts of kindness.

Friendships were won or lost on the battlefield of our addiction. Usually lost. After extended periods of chemical abuse, we’d be lucky to be able to count to three fingers when listing those who we retained as true friends. Because—while the true test of deep friendship is to hang in there whatever the shenanigans being perpetrated—we can all handle only so much disappointment and inflicted pain.

In recovery, we learned to distinguish better between our true and our false friends. Between safe friendships and risky friendships. We had to become more positively discriminating in whom we chose to be our friends and whom we needed to cut loose. To still hang with some of our former using buddies could be the equivalent of hanging out in bars. Why play Russian roulette with our sobriety for the sake of some nostalgic—or vicarious—entertainment? Better the brief pain of staying away to the extended pain of a relapse…

Let’s take a moment today then, to look at the state of our current friendships. Who can we count on and feel blessed to have in our lives? Could there be anyone who our gut is warning us to stay away from, despite certain attractions to do otherwise?

Friendship reveals itself in action, but it resides in the heart. So, with the intention to boost our capability for deep friendship, let’s exercise our heart-love muscle with just our breath and our attention:

Sit or lie comfortably. Inhale slowly and put your attention in your heart area. Exhale and reinforce the heart further with your attention. Pause your breath a few moments and feel the glow of your heart. Do a total of twenty to thirty cycles until you feel gently complete.

I breathe into my heart, I listen to its beat, I attend to its beauty and I strengthen its capacity to love others through abiding friendship.

Mood Swings

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“And people are moody, dude. You gotta get used to living with people.”—John Green

Moods, by their nature, ebb like the tides. But those tides can vary enormously from just a slight shift to an overwhelming surge. Throw in a distant earthquake, a hurricane or some other disturbance and the tide can become a tsunami. And devastation can follow in its wake.

Moods, tides

Chemical dependence exacerbated our mood swings. Our addiction pitched a dizzying array of curve balls, fast balls and sliders at us, with scant regard for our mental health—let alone the well-being of others. Depending on the chemical, we could blaze up into angry tirades, withdraw into sullen silences, sink into depression and despair—or pivot into exuberant displays of manic joy. And the deeper and longer we progressed in our disease the more dramatic the swings…

In recovery, we take care to set up early warning systems to alert us to potential mood swings. However, the triggers can be so sudden sometimes, that we need to have the built-in resilience to surf those surges without being dragged down and possibly drowned.

We can’t afford to be lulled into a false sense of security when it comes to moodiness. There’s just too much volatility and unpredictability within ourselves and others. The best defense is to build our spiritual strength and work on our inner balance. For moodiness specializes in the surprise attack. It can be on us before we have the extra breath to cry for help… Staying closely connected to our support group can be a tremendous help in building up those spiritual reserves.

Today, let’s look back at a recent mood swing—either our own or someone else’s—and how we handled the challenge of that swing. Did we take the shift too personally? Were we resentful, afraid, dispirited, offended? It helps at this point to remind ourselves that by their nature these moods are very temporary. Let’s hold steady in our spirits and smile away our worries…

Speaking of our inner smile—let’s use that as a wonderfully effective method to wash away the debris on the beach of our being:

Sit or lie in a comfortable position. Close your eyes. Good. Now, put a light smile on your face. Feel your cheeks raise up in response to that smile. Inhale and bring your attention to the top of your head. As you exhale, let your smile wash down through your whole body until the smile reaches your toes. Feel the smile permeating every cell in your body. And feel every cell smile back at you—as your kind attention bathes them in relaxing relief. Pause for a moment and feel the calmness spreading through your being. You may feel your smile broadening in a natural way from all the pleasant sensations you’ve released within yourself… Repeat for another nine cycles, or until you feel complete.

I smile as I watch my worries wash away into the ocean of acceptance.

The Perils of the Impulse

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“Before you make a decision, ask yourself this question: will you regret the results or rejoice in them.”—Rob Liano

How would our traffic work, if all three choices were always only Green? Never Red. Never Yellow. No stop. No slow down. Just go, go, go all the time? The answer of course, is all kinds of pile-ups. Fender-benders if we are fortunate, but horrendous meat-grinders at the other end of the spectrum. Mutilation, disfigurement, disablement, limbs torn off, young and old—their lives shattered forever from one reckless decision.

ImpulseAnd yet, only too often in our using days, that was our MO: blistering through the Green and to heck with those silly Yellows and Reds! Those were for the wimps, the straights, the buttoned-up types who were too scared to live life to the max.

Unfortunately, our lack of impulse-control often hurt not only ourselves but had devastating consequences for others. We were accidents waiting to happen. Human wrecking balls. Bad for us—doubly bad for the poor unfortunates who crossed our paths…

When we entered recovery, we suffered much regret and remorse, remembering the consequences of our impulsivity. We came to understand that the impulse for fulfillment—while crucial for our will to live—is an immensely powerful and easily mismanaged force.  We, in particular—with our addictive propensity to shoot before we aim—need help regulating our urges.

Our journey in recovery is hence all about caution and safety. On a daily basis, we are released from the perils of chemical consumption. We are careful to release ourselves simultaneously from the perils of impulses run riot. Moderation may appear boring to us initially, however the more moderately we take our moments, the deeper those moments become. Richness happens when we pause to feel it…

Today, let’s reflect for a moment on an urge, an impulse that may be presenting a challenge for us. Will giving in to that urge result in joy or regret? It’s good to remind ourselves that just because we have the impulse, it doesn’t mean we have to act on it. Because, that impulse may not have our final best interests at heart.

Here’s a method we can do now to help release the tension from a needy impulse. We are using the paradoxical notion: to release tension, begin by intensifying the tension. Our method uses a wonderful exercise called the HardStyle Plank:

Kneel on the floor. Then bend your torso forward, placing your hands and forearms on the floor. Make fists. Rotate your fists so they face in toward each other. Scoot your feet back all the way and raise your whole body into a line parallel with the floor.

Tighten your fists as much as you can. Now tighten your abs as hard as possible. Now your butt muscles. Tighten your thighs. Be as tight and as tense as you can manage. Hold this tension-laden position from thirty to sixty seconds, breathing lightly through your nose. If you notice you have relaxed a certain muscle group, show them no mercy and insist they tighten themselves back up!

When your HardStyle Plank becomes more than you can continue to be friendly with, relax and come out of the position. Hopefully, if we ask you now about “that impulse” you will answer “what impulse?” The HardStyle Plank is a fabulous strengthener for your whole body and in particular your core. Plus it doubles as this wonderful impulse-releaser.

I enjoy the calmness that comes upon me, as I choose not to rush in to that beckoning alley.