Saturday, June 8, 2013

Take It Personal

No matter how carefully it's done, getting your hair cut with a lawnmower is a bad idea. Somehow we convinced ourselves it was just a haircut. That's OK. We'll blame it on the salesman. He'll sell us the upgrade next week.

Yep

It's surprising what you face when you set out to write. Not just to pen words and thoughts like this, but to produce something meaningful to others and interesting to yourself as well. creativity is something you have to work very hard at to make it relevant. You learn that what you set your mind on at the beginning of the day is very difficult to change along the way. Creativity can be a problem in the wrong setting too. It's hard to turn off once you've made a habit of it...I could never control it very well anyway. A room full of people who are serious about the purpose of their meeting will most likely not appreciate the wanderings of your mind if you speak your thoughts as they came to you, prompted by their own talk or by nothing at all that's present in the room. I've done this (and still do this) often. I'm amused at how a whole room full of talkative people can suddenly become awkwardly silent when someone makes the right (wrong) comment. It's more enjoyable still when the person is unfazed at the at the fallout.
For example: Pre-meeting small talk
Person 1 - "I wish they would close the forest sooner when it's this dry. Some idiot's going to start a fire and ruin it for the rest of us."
Person 2 - "Yeah! They aught to do a better job of keeping the wrong people out of there too. There are too many idiots in there already."
Group - "Yeah. Yeah. We all agree. Stricter rules. better enforcement. Yeah."
Person 3 - "I wish they would let it burn and leave it open"
Group - "Uhhh...........................................................".
Awkward stares while everybody tries to figure out if he's serious... He stares back. He is serious. Awkward silence while everyone comes to terms with the fact that he's serious.
Group Leader - "Ok? The reason I called this meeting is to..."

For some, creativity is a nearly involuntary point of view that differs from the norm on nearly everything. Yes please.

How does this thing work anyway?