Month: November 2014

Yes, I get these. I usually keep’em locked away. Not here. Here I should be able to wear my inner black shirt.

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where is this island, this thought?
to find the shore i’ll seek its waves, the ripples
as it moves about like a weighted freighter
spewing rusted ruffage, powdery rouge
that red whale! for others white
and when my toes can bleed across its shores
i’ll finally break it down, smelt it, smash it to the deep
watch it writhe as it drowns, caked in its own vomit
i’ll do the back stroke above a watery grave
looking to the blue sky and whistling with a smile
the sound of silence, of wind, of breath
a calm night to finally rest my shoulders on.

It’s nice that introverts are getting more attention.

In the recent slew was this one from the Huffington Post about signs of introverts. Here are the ones that most jumped out at me:

• You go to parties -– but not to meet people.
• Downtime doesn’t feel unproductive to you.
• Giving a talk in front of 500 people is less stressful than having to mingle with those people afterwards.
• When you get on the subway, you sit at the end of the bench — not in the middle.
• You’re in a relationship with an extrovert.

There are, of course, more that I connect with than others. And yes, one or two that I don’t think relate to me at all. Either way – sounds pretty damn

I forget too much. If yesterday I thought too much, today I’ve forgotten all about the sad things I thought about and am left with a clean slate to think about them again. I have thousands of empty notebooks waiting to be filled. I have tried check-in apps and logs, but again the root is forgetting. Even an alarm doesn’t seem to work, either:

a) I don’t set it, or
b) it goes off, I see it, get distracted, and forgot it went off.

A bit of a chasing my own tail scenario I’ve got going. If I come up with a sense of purpose and passion – and Idea of where I want to go next, by the next day – it’s drifted and forgotten.

Things… the things that I surround myself seem to be like little Harry Potter like talismans, storing memories. Like the pen I use, the coffee cup I drink from. The desk and chair I sit at. The room that’s just for work.

Habitual patterns… habit seems to help. If by chance I do something enough, then it starts to trigger a pattern, and that pattern triggers a memory. Like hours studying at home transitions well to working from home. When I went back to school I wrote more notes than I ever did the first time round and interestingly enough, although my personal journals are empty – my work journals are stacking up – all full.

Things & habits. Habits & things.

Fuck I hope I remember this tomorrow – wait, I will!

I have a problem of thinking too much – it’s sad really. No, really, it makes me sad. Add that to the fact that I work from home, alone, the majority of time, in a small town, and I’ve got a deadly combination.

Doing things can break that. Making things can break that. Running can break that. Playing piano can break that. Human contact can break that. Making a pile of mash potatoes can break that.

Anything but “thinking”.

A Concise Mind

I recently had an opportunity to hang around brilliant folks in their fields. Mainly it was wine and food – and ooooohhhhh such good wine and ammmmmazing food.

But there was something to their brilliance which had me think about this little quote.

“If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.”

Misquoted as a bunch of old guys

Excluding the non-verbal aspect of tasting the fruits of their talents – when I spoke with them, they easily got me to grasp what they did. No fancy language, not bells and whistles, no references to 18th century chefs & techniques that didn’t mean anything to me.

They had taken the time and could write a shorter letter.

Perhaps the leaders of tomorrow should remember that. Perhaps we’re already heading there with the infinite blogs and content creators leveraging skimming behaviours, smaller paragraphs and brevity to stand out in the crowd.

Perhaps it’s a tone we’re getting used to and looking for the more we head into a tribal state.