Tag Archives: spontaneous

Cross-road

Crossroad: (n) a road that crosses another road

I’m desperately trying to remember the formula. I’m sure it’s age-old—but one night I convinced myself that I came up with it on my own.

Having some time on my hands, I got in my car and started driving, attempting to get lost.

I wanted to see how much fun it would be to find my way back home. (This was long before GPS and also long before I had so much shit on my plate that I had free time.)

So I set off driving, tried to ignore the signs or the names of towns and made sporadic turns. Unfortunately, my internal GPS naturally had me drive in boxes, and eventually I ended up right back where I started.

So I put on my thinking cap (which, by the way, is much too large for the surface it serves) and I tried to figure out how to pull off getting lost without it becoming manipulative but also having a spontaneous feel to it.

I came up with a simple concept:

Drive one mile, turn right, drive another mile, turn left, another mile, turn left again.

Then drive another mile, turn right, and repeat the process.

After about forty-five minutes of this endeavor, I ended up not knowing where I was.

To discover what crossroad would take me back to my destination, I just kept turning left. Then I saw something I recognized, and in no time at all, I was back at home with people who recognized me.

Honestly, I do not know if this is an actual plan of action, or even if it’s worth this small essay.

All I know about crossroads is that they offer you another direction.

The power of this? If you’re tired of where you’re going, you have the option of getting lost for a while, until you can find yourself again.

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

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Checklist

Checklist: (n) a list of things to be done

A checklist is most effective if it is written, attached to a clipboard, with a pen or pencil nearby to cross off things that have been accomplished. Without all these ingredients, it is very similar to writing an essay on “What I Would Do If I Lived on the Moon.”

In other words, well-intentioned but impractical.

The reason people are afraid of organization is that it demands we organize. In organizing, we lose two very essential units of our egotism:

  1. The power to be completely spontaneous
  2. And the erroneous notion that we are so smart we will remember everything we need to do.

Therefore, on this issue there are three kinds of people:

  • Those who have a checklist but never use it
  • Those who refuse to make a checklist because it’s demeaning and stupid
  • And those who have a checklist who do not mind being considered stupid or find it demeaning–because they get things done.

It is completely alright to be suspicious of anyone who likes a checklist. After all, it’s weird–similar to coming into the acquaintance of a nine-year-old boy who likes wearing his bicycle helmet.

But it is very important–whether fretfully, fearfully or faithfully–for us to pursue the organization of our thoughts the very moment that inspiration is delivered to us, and use ink or pencil to memorialize them for all time.

Or at least until we have the erotic pleasure of crossing them off of our list.

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Chart

Chart: (n) a sheet of information which is a diagram

My brain sometimes pauses, not yet convinced of the validity of any particular opinion. In other words, I could argue it either way.

In my personal life, I’m very organized. At least, I think I am. Yet there is a vanity to even stating such a mercurial thought as a fact. Am I
organized? Or just more organized than the person next to me?

Yet I do get around human travelers who insist on living a totally spontaneous life, and to some degree it works for them. They’re always looking for surprises, luck, miracles and good fortune to blow their way, but there is a certain charm to their presumption.

It begs the question: can organisms be organized?

The classic line of defining futility by comparing it to herding cats is true with almost every creature. No living, breathing animal on the face of the Earth likes to be told what to do. Yet each one, in some strange way, finds a plan of action that keeps them from being cold in the winter and too hot in the summer.

So what is the power of charting our lives to such a degree that there is little awareness of the element of chaos (which certainly will arrive)?

I think it may just be as simple as realizing that a line item which appears on our “Things to Do Today” list may very well still be there next week.

 

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Affectionate

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

 

Affectionate: (adj.) readily feeling or showing fondness or tenderness: e.g. a happy and affectionate family.

You gotta BE there.

It’s true, you know. There are some things in life that cannot be viewed, read, perused, discussed, debated or downloaded.

Affection is one of them.

In a climate where “lukewarm” has begun to feel “heated,” we lack such closeness and intimacy that it has caused us to become defensive with one another because we privately feel cheated of the tenderness we need to satisfy our souls, yet at the same time we push away personal overtures from those who try to get too close too quickly.

A lady warned me the other day, saying, “Watch out! I’m a hugger.”

I do remember attending a rock concert many years ago where complete strangers–thousands of them–came up to each other, hugging in groups of five and ten without explanation or apology. Yet to promote such an idea in our day and age would be cynically mocked as a “hippie philosophy,” a throw-back to olden times or impractical due to the spread of disease.

This culminated for me when I saw churches offering hand sanitizer to folks after they had the “passing of the peace.” I wish I had a profanity to express how upsetting that is to me. And please, spare me the explanation on why it is needed. I am fed up with the notion of what is needful and anxious for the pursuit of what is helpful.

  • I need affection.
  • I need to be affectionate.

Now, it doesn’t have to always be demonstrative, but it does have to be spontaneous and real. It can be reaching across a table and cutting up the banana of a friend who is making you coffee, or coring an apple for another friend so she doesn’t have to deal with stems and seeds.

When you lose affection in a society, you promote the idea of isolation. Once humans are isolated, there’s only one thing that takes hold–survival.

Is it possible that in the next decade we will begin to treat each other–all the time–like we do when we’re in a traffic jam?

Ad lib

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Ad lib (v): to speak or perform in public without previously preparing the words: e.g. Charles had to ad lib because he forgot his script.

  • Spontaneous
  • Improvisation
  • Extemporaneous

These are words that pepper our society and the language of those who deem themselves to be so creative, entertaining and intelligent that at the drop of a hat, they can begin to postulate on almost any subject with clarity and beauty, to the awe of the hearer.

Actually, all they do is DROP their hat.

I don’t think there’s anything more ridiculous than believing that things that come off the top of our head has as much value as something thought through and dug out of the depths of our heart.

I understand there are times we ALL ad lib–especially in moments of crisis–but I must tell you that even when we get surprised, to simply leap in to cover nervous energy with more words, explanation or just a series of twitches is no replacement for finding concise expression.

So when I’m surprised, instead of launching into a juggernaut of words or approaching my thoughts as if I were a Rubik’s Cube that has to be wiggled around to a solution, I just like to buy some time.

To me, people who are in a hurry to push me to make a decision are usually determined to establish my foolishness. People who require an immediate answer are more often than not certain that they’ve cornered me in my own defeat.

There are only two things that can happen when you ad lib–three, I guess, if you think you can pull it off. But the main two are that you talk too much or you hem-haw around with a bunch of “ums” and “ahs” which only makes the listener believe that you don’t know what you’re talking about.

I have friends who say that politicians need to pause and reflect before they answer questions, but I think it comes across like they’re searching through their publicity material for something safe to say without going off party lines.

I used to think that going on stage and doing a bunch of improv or ad libs made my show funnier or more organic. Actually, it just made me sound like I was rambling, with the audience trying to keep up with what the subject was in the first place.

As often as possible, put your thoughts together. Even write them down–so people know you put some care into it. And if you find that your notes don’t cover the breadth of the subject, or another one comes before you, take a general pause before audaciously choosing to believe that your magic tongue can weave a spell.

I am not a fan of ad lib and improv. I think it is often done by talented people who have forgotten that they got to where they are by using well-constructed words instead of believing they are “miracle orators.”

And don’t forget–there is always that possibility, if you want to be a really decent human being and escape all politics–of just turning to your audience and saying: “I don’t know.”