Guard Your Sensory Doors

Today the yoga teacher began by saying that it is through the sensory doors that we get in touch with the world. But during today’s yoga, we wanted to guard the sensory doors intentionally.

This is the reason she doesn’t use music in her teaching, because she wants us to focus on yoga.

During the whole day, I have been thinking if I have guarded my sensory doors mindfully.

We live in a world of information overload. I do not subscribe to printed newspapers. But every day I look at the New York Times, Politico, Huff Post, World Journal (in Chinese) and sometimes South China Morning Post.

In addition, I watch videos from Hong Kong and Taiwan. During the past six months, I have been following the Hong Kong protests and sometimes spent hours watching commentaries by different KOLs (key opinion leaders). Watching the news often makes me upset, sad, and angry.

I have told my students many times about the need to protect our brains and guard our time. In Crazy Busy, Dr. Edward Hallowell says that many of us are suffering from ADT (Attention Deficit Trait). ADT are people who have difficulty staying organized, setting priorities, and managing time. As a psychiatrist who has diagnosed and treated thousands of people with ADD, he is seeing more and more people suffering from ADT.

Our culture and modern life create the environment for developing ADT. We watch TV, eat dinner, check our phone, and talk to our children at the SAME TIME during dinner.

We boast we can multitask, but this may affect our brain’s function. Dr. Hallowell writes, “as the human brain is asked to process dizzying amount of data, its ability to solve problems flexibly and creatively declines and the number of mistakes increases.”*

After I talked about Dr. Hallowell’s research in a class, a student canceled several of her social media accounts and said she needed to wean herself from spending so much time checking messages.

I did not have her problems until two weeks ago. My friends were amazed when I told them that I did not have a smartphone till two years ago. I had only a flip phone. Since I sat in front of my computer all the time, I didn’t need a smartphone to check and respond to emails. I also did not want to be connected 24/7.

I finally decided to change to a smartphone because I found a phone plan that was even cheaper than my flip phone plan. I went to Amazom.com and bought the cheapest one (on sale for $69).

I was not addicted to my phone and did not carry it around every day. Sometimes I purposely left it at home, so that I would not be connected all the time. The cheap phone worked for me, except it could not take beautiful photos as iPhones or Samsung phones could.

During the Thanksgiving holidays, I decided to buy a nicer phone because I need to take a few videos for a project.

So, I bought a top-of-the-line Samsung phone that came out this year. And my problems began!

The screen is so nice and the images so sharp. They appeal to the eyes.

I have always wondered why my friends can respond to Facebook posts so fast. Now I know. My Facebook app shows the number of likes, comments, etc. I have received. It is so tempting to check what my friends have said.

The Outlook app and the Google mail app show the number of new messages. The YouTube app shows the number of new videos I have subscribed to. The apps in my old phone would not show these numbers.

Suddenly, I find myself checking my beautiful phone all day—a practice I had proudly avoided until two weeks ago.

As I am typing this, my phone sits right next to the laptop, smiling at me.

How can I ever do or write something seriously if I am checking my phone all day? I will be busy responding to emails, checking Facebook likes, and looking at how many steps I have taken today through another app.

Guard your sensory doors should be my inner mantra from now on. Dr. Hallowell wrote CrazyBusy after he has written a very popular article, “Why Smart People Underperform” in Harvard Business Review. At my age, I am not so concerned about underperform or overperform. But I need to protect my brain and live a fuller life. Not becoming a slave of a small device that I am attached or addicted to.

In this age when there are so many external demands, close or limit some of the sensory doors may bring sanctity or inner peace. At least a healthier brain, I hope.

p.s. I wrote this in 49 mins, including checking Dr. Hallowell’s article. I could have done it faster if I didn’t check the Facebook likes!

*Edward Hallowell, “Why Smart People Underperform,” Harvard Business Review, January 2005, 57.

Getting Published

In the past two years, two very talented racial and ethnic minority colleagues were denied tenure by their universities. Among the reasons given was that they did not have enough publications.

I want to share my experience as a writer and editor for more than 25 years. I especially want to speak to those of you who find yourself in the situation that you have little time to write.

To get published, you need to do 5 things:

1. You must have something to say. Many dissertations have been written, but only a very tiny number get published. Why? Because the dissertations have too many footnotes. When I published my first book, one reviewer said that the book had all the features of a dissertation, namely, lots of notes and short summaries. As all doctoral students want to do, I tried to document everything to impress my professors and to avoid plagiarism. I felt comfortable hiding behind what other scholars had said.

After listening to Pamela Johnson, an editor at Fortress Press, speaking to a group of young scholars and students, I knew why so many dissertations cannot get published. Many dissertations use many chapters to rehearse or explain what other scholars have said about the subject. This is called literature review. It is only in the final chapter that the author brings out his or her own viewpoints. Editors are not interested in a book full of citations of what others have said. They are interested in what you, as the author, have to say on the subject. Pam asked the audience to imagine what their book would look like if they start from the final chapter.

2. Learn the craft of publishing. Two university presses turned down my dissertation before it got published. I wish William P. Germano’s From Dissertation to Book had been available at that time. Unfortunately the book came out much later. In that book, Bill Germano guides the reader through the process of publishing your first book: from revising your dissertation, reading with an editor’s eyes, to making your prose speak.

Many of us think that if we have some good ideas, we will be able to get them published. Not so. We spent many years honing the skills of writing academic papers. Turning a paper into a published article for a journal is a learning process. Learning to publish a book is a learning process. Over the years, I have read many books on writing. I enjoyed Stephen King’s book On Writing and Bonnie Friedman’s Writing Past Dark. After I asked a professional editor to edit my work, I was surprised that she could spot so many mistakes, while I couldn’t. So I read the book How to Edit Your Own Writing. After the page proofs came back, I needed to know how to mark the corrections. I found out The Chicago Manual has a few chapters in the beginning that I had overlooked. They talk about manuscript editing and proofs. As you can see, I needed to learn each step along the way. When I became an editor, I had to learn many new things. After I submitted the manuscript for my most recent edited volume, Hope Abundant, the editor at Orbis Books was very pleased that the manuscript was in such great shape. I had published with the same editor 16 years ago. I told her that I have learned much about publishing in the intervening years.

3. Make your proposal stand out. Many trade presses have changed their editors in the last couple of years and publishing houses have slashed their programs. I spoke to one publisher recently. His press used to publish 75 books a year, but the number was cut to half last year. When I asked why, he said people are not buying books in this economy. Even university presses, which are non-profits, are watching closely the bottom line.

A book sells because of the author and the contents. If you are not yet a well-known author, your book must have a great title and attractive contents. Your proposal must convince the editor that the book will have a market. The marketing people will sit down with the editors in the editorial committee to decide whether to accept or reject your proposal. If your book can be adopted as a textbook, you will have a better chance of getting it published. If you wonder how to write a good proposal, I recommend the book Thinking Like Your Editor by Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato. The book even contains a sample proposal and a sample chapter. Don’t get discouraged when your proposal is rejected. Trinh T. Minh-ha’s book Women, Native, Other got rejected numerous times. She went on to become an internationally acclaimed cultural critic and filmmaker.

4. Find time to write. I was very impressed by how many books that Miguel De La Torre, Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, Mark Jordan, and Daniel Harrington have produced. So I asked them what are their secrets. I found out that they write almost all the time and everyday, except for the weekends. De La Torre wakes up at 5 a.m. and reads and writes for 6 hours 3 to 4 days a week, with the goal of writing 10 pages per week. I must confess that I do not have that discipline.

For racial and ethnic minority scholars, finding time to write is such a luxury. Many of us do not teach in research universities and have a heavy teaching load. We are put on all the committees and we have communities of accountability outside the school.

But I have become convinced that only those of us who can wean ourselves from the electronic gadgets that constantly connect us with the outside world can write and get published. This may sound old-fashioned. But writing is a very lonely business and takes a lot of concentration. We need a stretch of time so that our ideas can simmer and our thoughts can develop.

We have to learn to protect our brain. In his book Crazy Busy, Edward Hallowell, a psychiatrist who specializes in treating ADD and has ADD himself, says that our culture is producing people with ADT (attention deficit trait). We can’t focus because there are so many attractions. Our attention span becomes short and we are so overwhelmed that we are about to snap. He said, “Being busy may very well keep you from doing what matters most, or it may lead you to do things you deem unwise.” In a very humorous way, he tells us how to address the problems from brain science and psychiatry and encourage us to find our solutions. He even includes a chapter on “Why women have it harder than men.”

5. Nurture Relationships. Here I mean both professional and personal relationships. If the editor has met you and talked with you, she or he will have a face to associate with when she or he is reading the book proposal. I encourage you to introduce yourself to the editors at the book exhibit and tell them the exciting projects you are working on. Get to know the senior scholars in the field so that when they are editing an anthology, they will think of including your work.

Many books begin with an acknowledgment thanking the spouses, partners, and children for their support. Writing may take you away from attending ball games, watching videos, or doing other fun things with family. But sometimes, these distractions keep you sane. Balancing all the demands is a fine art.

I am the advisor with Joerg Rieger to the Religion in Modern World Series of Rowman and Littlefield and co-editor with Ivan Petrella of the Reclaiming Liberation Theology Series of SCM. Religion in Modern World aims at the general audience and focuses on how modernity is reconciled within each religious tradition. Liberation Theology has been considered dead in some circles. SCM publishes works of liberation theology by a new generation of scholars who expand the problematique of liberation theology. I hope to hear from you.

*Presented at a panel on "Getting Published" at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, San Francisco, November 20, 2011.