Every once in a while you may come to a point on the road where it seems that you can see yourself as others perceive you.  It’s like looking at a desert on one side of the road and fertile land on the other, and you suddenly become aware of why it is that most people react to you in a certain way.

You might totally creep some people out, or make some people laugh (keeping in mind the subtle differences between, laughing at you, or with you) or maybe most people love you, envy you, resent you, ignore you, I could go on, but I think you get the picture.  In this moment of clarity, like it or not, you see what they see. 

A negative reaction could be seen as coming from a misunderstanding.  Perhaps you came on too strong, kept staring, needed to employ the use of deoderant, said something inappropriate at the wrong time, forgot to apologize for doing or saying something offensive, or maybe you bring out a person’s bad side and your mere presence puts them off, who knows. 

A positive reaction on the other hand, might get taken for granted, until we examine it more closely.  Suspicious minds might wonder if all that adoration is, well, genuine… do some of those people showering you with all that love and attention want simply to bask in your wonderful light, or do they want you to help them to get something--a fancy job, an introduction to someone they consider important, a record deal, a chance to be famous?  Maybe, maybe not.

Nevertheless, when you reach that point on the road, you can see it all for what it is.  It’s a bit like reaching a strange understanding of oneself. Seeing one’s own generosity, humbleness, pettiness, or invisibility like a glaring light, shining directly into your eyes…

The Storyteller
Mario Vargas Llosa
www.listal.com

The tradition of the storyteller goes back many thousands of years.  It is an integral part of our ancient cultural history.  A member of a clan or tribe (often an elder member) would tell rich tales of truth, myth and legend, of hunting adventures, magical animals, spirits in the trees and in the rivers, many of which are passed down through the ages from one generation to the next, with new and remarkable adventures included over time.

We see this represented in movies set in ancient times and in documentaries about cultures that have maintained most of the old ways; the group sitting around a fire at night, the rising and falling intonation of the storyteller as he shares a story that he may have told fifty times before and yet he still holds the undivided attention of the group, right up to the very end of his tale.

The storyteller is a great asset to the tribe, not only for the entertainment value of his/her stories but for the lessons learned.  It’s one way to remind the audience of who they are and where they came from, the dangers of evil, the power of good, who their greatest leaders were and (religion aside) how morality, grace and wisdom should be embraced throughout their everyday lives.

If that is the case, perhaps being a storyteller carries with it some responsibility, and as such, to embark on a journey of this nature would require some thought about what kind of storyteller one should choose to be.

Are you perpetually tee’d off...?  No, this isn’t the intro to some weird infomercial.  But, if the question is relevant to how you’re feeling right now, you’re welcome to keep reading, if not, please feel free to move on.

So I ask again: Are you perpetually tee’d off, like angry down inside, nearly all the time these days?

Yeah? Me too.  Well, maybe one of us needs to see an analyst, maybe not.  But, in giving it some thought, it’s possible that we know what it is that’s causing the frustration.

Wait though, I don’t have the answers, you probably have those yourself, I’m merely posing the question.  Nevertheless, on thinking about it, maybe we’re angry because when the thing that bothered us got started we were fully aware that it was a problem, and did nothing about it at the time. 

Then it continues to get worse, until we find ourselves taking our anger out on someone that has little or nothing to do with the original issue--perhaps even someone that is struggling along with us, trying to help make things better (a bit like Thandie Newton’s Christine Thayer, or Sandra Bullock’s angry and frustrated character, Jean Cabot, in the movie Crash).

We’ll stew, and grumble, instead of acting in a positive way (if we have the power) to stem the problem, and then vent our feelings of frustration on the wrong party. Sound familiar?

But who’s fault is it really, if we didn’t take the bull by the horns and give it a good shaking when we should have?

I’m just saying…

We’re always in a rush to get from here to there, blowing our horns and screaming at each other to get out of the way, trying to beat the traffic lights; “Can I make it before it turns red?” But where are we rushing to? 

Of course, a real emergency is another story…

Clearly, we ignore the moments that could make our lives less tense, those moments that give us the opportunity to make a different decision… They might seem rare, but they do exist, waiting on the periphery of our thoughts, hovering like a tiny voice in the wind… But we’ve got things to do haven’t we?  Places to go, people to see, calls to make… No time to slow down and listen to some silly tiny voice, I mean, what’s the point?  Who could blame you for wondering, “How would I benefit from it?”

Well, I guess we’ll never know until we take that pause and listen, will we...?

In the distant past, [as I see it] the people were closer to the Earth.

Some [few] still are…
They watched it, listened to it, respected it.
Nature [perhaps as a gift] inspired the sights and sounds that where transmuted into art and music… Flowing water, bird song, the wind in the trees, crickets, cicadas, the tapping of the wood pecker, falling rocks, roaring and squeaking.... 

The whispering of the muses could be heard in that quieter world,
where the shifting seasons brought rhythms and flavors that expanded the mind, maintained body and spirit in balance…

I wonder we don’t listen to, watch or respect [our] Earth anymore…

Saying thank you is such a simple way to show your appreciation for a nice gesture, no matter how insignificant that gesture may appear to you…

In these busy times, we often forget to remark on the little things that can make our days more pleasant. 

Imagine offering a cheery “Thank you!”, when someone holds a door open for you… Wouldn’t it be more rewarding for both you and the person who took the time to offer you a mannerly gesture...?  Or, on leaving the restaurant at the end of your meal, how about saying something pleasant to the person that served you; that part didn’t cost you anything and it helps their day, and yours to flow more smoothly…

I’ve found it good practice to wave a hand (in appreciation that is), when a driver is conscious enough to stop and let me cross the street safely at an intersection, or on a driveway, hey, he or she could be texting instead and not be paying any attention to pedestrians at all… and on and on…

In case you’re not convinced, just consider this scenario: That man who politely held the door for you on your way out of the bank yesterday, and whom you completely ignored, because you take it for granted that people will open doors for you, and anyway you were far too busy talking to your bff on your cell… Well, that man could be the same dude that is going to interview you for your next job… And he just happens to remember your face because he’s seen you and held the door for you before… Uh-oh! 

Okay, so maybe that seems unlikely, or unrealistic, or whatever, but can you be so sure about that?  Fate has a sick sense of humor and has a way of kicking us in the butt sometimes, just to see if we’re paying attention.  Are we...?

Like I said, I know you’re busy, but its always the little things, like remembering to say thank you at appropriate moments, that begin to make a difference in our lives.

Oh, and thank you, for taking the time to read this post!

I have noticed that I have had to add a new skill to my everyday activities…

I have had to learn how to ask questions… Okay, so we ask questions all the time, like, “Hey! Do you know where Kroger’s is?” or “Excuse me. How do I get to Main Street from here?” or “Would you like fries with that?” but I’m not sure that we really think about how we ask questions or what kind of impression, good, or bad, we give of ourselves with our approach.

With our prolific use of the internet these days, I wonder if we ever stop to consider our how our attitude may appear to the person we’re addressing.  Being clear is important, being polite is important, but I’ve noticed how easy it is to come across as muddled or rude, even arrogant and threatening. 

We definitely need to think first before we hit the “send” button. 

Here’s a great tip I picked up, if you’re sending an email, for example, consider sending the message to yourself first; read it, as if it came from a stranger, and see how it feels.  If it doesn’t sound right when you read it back, then, maybe you need to take a different approach...? It might help you to get a better response.  Just a thought…

I have a growing collection of unfinished projects that I’m currently working on; stories, poems, drawings, anims...you name it.  One idea will lead into the next… one idea begins and dissipates before I reach a satisfactory conclusion on the first, like an unfinished thought during a conversation, spoken and stopped mid-sentence…

Time is the issue, not the lack of ideas or the inability to complete a project…

The concept of the “unfinished” is interesting in itself though, more so if it has artistic merit or whatever… You could decide to build a bridge to nowhere, intentionally, and while it could be fascinating as an abstract idea, and a wonderful feat of civil engineering, in reality, would actually be considered by most to be a colossal waste of money and time…

“Just build it...”
“But it doesn’t go anywhere...”
“So what...?”
“The people won’t like it...”

However, if that same bridge was created as a painting, or sculpture, then perhaps...Hmm…

Generally, when it comes to the arts for example, we like our movies, novels and songs, even instrumental pieces to have something resembling a beginning a middle and an end… opera, ballet… its what we’ve been trained to expect.  Swan Lake would not be the same story without the Dying Swan scene, and yes, I know there is such a thing as the Unfinished Symphony (I can Google as well as anybody), but Schubert was a master composer and the piece is so well structured and so long that as a casual listener, one may not notice the “unfinished” aspect, anyway. 

It’s the subliminal lessons conveyed by our family, teachers and friends, or audience, that motivates us to complete a story, to finish what we started, to avoid the: “So then what happened...?”

How funny would a joke be, without the punch line?

But then, why is it that movie previews are so much fun to watch...?