Fortytuity: Chance Encounters with Life, the Universe, and Everything

Spoiler Alert: For those of you who do not already know this, there is a very, very simple answer to the question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Remarkably, mind-bogglingly simple.

In The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams wrote about Deep Thought, a computer designed solely to answer just that question. And after running its complex program for seven and a half million years, it announced, “with infinite majesty and calm,” that the answer was indeed very, very simple. The answer was 42.

Don’t you feel better now?

“Forty-two!” yelled Loonquawl. “Is that all you’ve got to show for seven and a half million years’ work?”

“I checked it very thoroughly,” said the computer, “and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.”

If you don’t feel better after hearing that, don’t worry. No one else there did either.

I’m not going to take the time to tell you how much I love HHG2G. It’s been my favorite book since 1996 and never seems to lose its charm. (You find another book that clarifies the problems of materialism, capitalism, and organized religion on the first page and doesn’t make anyone angry. Well, very angry, anyway… )

Anyway, as there seems to be no other such succinct answer that makes more sense in light of the human condition, 42 works just fine for me. (Though I did recently read a completely plausible and rational explanation for it, I’m grateful to have spent almost 20 years not knowing it.) So here we are, the human race, continuing to ask, “What is this whole thing about anyway?” and trying our best to cope without exterminating ourselves in the process (though sometimes I wonder about that).

I tend to ask a lot of questions. And my own personal delight is that 42 keeps popping up all over the place, peeking its little pointy-serifed face around corners and grinning at me when I least expect it, hinting at what that unknown question actually is, what this “Life, the Universe, and Everything” is all about anyway. Sometime I think it’s flirting with me. It wants to be noticed, and I try to pay attention.

And so I thought, from time to time, it might be fun to share these things as they pop up. Here’s one:

By somewhat sideways means several years ago, I came across a passage by Florida Scott-Maxwell, a woman I’d previously never heard of, but loved instantly, because of this:

“You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done, which may take some time, you are fierce with reality.”

“Fierce with reality.” Oh, how I love that phrase. Not that you are overly aggressive with some forceful agenda, but just that you are so fully yourself, so aware of who you are, that you are fully alive. I read those words and wrote them down, and they’ve popped back up into my life in a couple of different places over the years. Finally, I managed to track her book down at the library. (It’s called The Measure of My Days—it’s a good book). And I knew it was coming, but when I came to that passage in the book, it struck me again, passionate and fresh. Fierce.

And guess what page it was on?

This happens to me all the time. It’s like the universe is giving me clues, like we’re playing a game.

How fortuitous.

Hope Springs a Turtle

It’s called an eggcorn—a substitution of a word in a phrase that changes it in some way, but still seems oddly right. (They’re a lot of fun—NPR has a great short article and accompanying list here.) At it’s core, I suppose an eggcorn is something you don’t expect that makes you look at things a little differently. Hope does not always spring eternal. Sometimes it springs something else. Like this week.

A few days ago, I finished reading this biography on Dr. Seuss. I couldn’t believe it had taken this long for me to pick one up. In addition to his classics, I’d already known about his advertising work and his war cartoons, but when I got to the part where he met his wife Helen at Oxford, I was sort of enthralled—fully and completely hoping a fairy tale for them. She would watch him doodle in class and finally told him he would be wasted as a professor. “That’s a very fine flying cow,” she said. And she became his inspiration and his support and his encouragement and his rock and pretty much organized his/their life. Until forty years later, when, from the one book I’ve read, it sounds like when she got very ill, he eventually distanced himself from her mortality and “adopted” another family—a still-married woman with two daughters of her own. Physically unwell and deeply unhappy, Helen realized she had made her whole life about him and hardly knew who she was herself any more without being his active partner. She committed suicide.

I’d started the above paragraph saying I couldn’t believe I hadn’t read a biography about Dr. Seuss yet because he was one of my heroes. But then I saw the problem. Dr. Seuss books were and are still some of my all-time favorite books—but I never met or knew the real person. And it doesn’t mean that he wasn’t greatly loveable, or amazingly creative, or a completely worthwhile human being.

It just makes him a human being. But I was still feeling really, really low after I read that. You have these ideas about people from the work they create, and it’s not always what you expect.

And then, there was this morning… in which I picked up a magazine I’d almost instantly thrown away (Rolling Stone), with a story I didn’t intend to read (the cover), about a band I have little personal interest in (Rush)—and my hope sprung a turtle.

Evidently, Rush has been together for 40 years at this point with little internal group drama (“We’re never mean to each other,” says [Geddy] Lee, “so if we disagree, we pout.”), stable relationships with each other, and also long-term faithful marriages—Geddy married his wife, Nancy Young, in 1976.

I read about their relentless rehearsing (still practicing by themselves before they start working together, and then playing on their own even after three-hour rehearsals, that last part “… a pure exercise of joy,” according to Alex Lifeson), their insistence on creativity and craft, and how they drive each other and respect each other, even after all this time together.

“If any of us were the slightest bit less stable,” says [Neil] Peart, “the slightest bit less disciplined or less humorous or more mean, or in any way different, it wouldn’t have worked. So there’s a miracle there.”

And this from a famous rock band from which, in any stereotypical situation, you’d expect chaos, rivalry, animosity, possibly less creativity, and a fair bit, after 40 years, of resting on their laurels. (Though evidently there is still a fair amount of responsibly-ventilated drugs and a lot of very, very impressive sports cars.)

But I was impressed and not just a little inspired. You just never know.

You’ve got to be careful with words. After reading just one book and one article, I still know pretty much next to nothing about the real Dr. Seuss or the real Rush. But it reminds me that things aren’t always what I expect them to be, which is what I loved—and still love—about what I learned from Dr. Seuss.

Apples & Oranges

First, here is an apple.
It is smooth and red.
It is heart-shaped.
You can bite right into it.
Its skin crunches, yielding quickly to your teeth.
It is firm. It is crisp.
Good job, apple.

Now, here is an orange.
It is not smooth. It is not red.
It is not heart-shaped.
You cannot bite right into it.
It makes you work to get what you want.
It is not firm. It is not crisp.
Bad job, orange.

“Comparison is the thief of joy.” – Teddy Roosevelt

Poor orange. I’ve been thinking about him for days and I still feel sorry for him, hoping he will never, ever read this. And I’ve had this constant urge to go out and buy some oranges and just reassure them, tell them, “No, really, you’re all beautiful.” (And then eat them, savoring them joyfully, as is the natural order of things.)

Comparison is useful—but it’s not enough. It’s discernment that brings some wisdom to the picture, showing what’s most true, most important. It’s good to be able to tell things apart. But you need to know what a thing truly is, not just how it’s different from what’s around it. (Like when you’re standing in the bathroom and you want to brush your teeth, it’s important to know which long-handled white plastic stick with the bristles on the end you actually need, because there’s a big difference between a toothbrush and a toilet scrubber.)

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about this for awhile and it was just a good reminder, if only to myself, to look at everything for what it is—not what it isn’t.

Appropriate Response: Thoughts on a Boring World

The great master Yunmen was once asked by a monk, “What was the Buddha teaching his entire lifetime?” Yunmen answered, “An appropriate response.” – from Reb Anderson’s Being Upright

When I came across this story, I wondered, “What would a world actually look like where everyone actually responded appropriately?” And before I even managed to go look up “appropriate” anywhere, my imagination quickly pulled up this drab, gray picture of a world where everyone was extremely well-behaved and emotionless—boring, unadventurous, unimaginative, and devoid of excitement or joy. It was a world filled with well-dressed people at afternoon tea served with all the “appropriate” silverware. Forever. (No offense to tea-drinkers. I really like tea.)

But oh, what a dull world that would be. Who would read stories about Appropriate Response World? And would anything interesting ever happen there? But I did go look the word up, just to check: appropriate: adj. suitable or proper in the circumstances. I did note the absence of the words “drab, dull, and lifeless,” though, and so I thought about it a little more.

Back to the beginning: what constitutes an appropriate response? In every situation, it’s different. As I shuffled through a deck of examples that came to mind, an idea generally started to emerge that any appropriate response would be made up of actions and/or words that are helpful to each particular situation and are given out of agenda-less caring. Someone’s excited? Be excited with them. Someone’s bruised? Hugs and band-aids. Someone’s hurt you? Don’t hurt back (not helpful)—but be patient, wait out your anger, and figure out what’s really going on. (So sometimes the appropriate response might even just be not responding.)

I began to realize I’d been confusing “appropriate” in Yunmen’s context with my idea of the word “proper.” So now this world is already seeming better. Helpful, supportive. Kind of a nice place. But what about passion, excitement, or adventure? And would anything be funny in Appropriate Response World?

And then I remembered a story about another very wise man…

“What my father figured out was if you can’t get out [of a joke], you just either blow something up, or you eat something, or you just throw penguins in the air.” – Brian Henson (son of Jim Henson, Muppet God)

And there it was—the “Eureka” moment where Appropriate Response World really came into view, and there were all these beautiful colors! I’d been selling it short, having a failure of imagination. Appropriate Response World is filled with options. Proper had been left on the side of the road, miles back where things had to follow conventional rules or fit in to status quo. Appropriate is different, hilarious and exciting. Find a beautiful mountain? Learn how to climb it, explore it, reach its summit. That can be one appropriate response of many. Love the wind in your face? Run a marathon. Try skydiving! (Not inappropriate if it works in your life.) Meet someone completely amazing? Choose to love! That’s definitely not boring and lifeless–and probably even more breathtaking than skydiving! Doing anything when it’s rooted in appropriate response just means that it’s coming from a place of helpfulness and courage a good chunk of wisdom. It has more than enough room to hold intensity, connection, and joy. Big and loud. Small and quiet. A caveat, though—Appropriate Response World isn’t free from pain or surprise or things not turning out as you expected. But in that world you would have learned how to deal with those things (that’s just life anywhere) in ways that were helpful, not destructive. Appropriate Response World would be full of wonder, whatever it involved. And, happily, sometimes it might even involve throwing penguins.

*(Note: While it is not entirely impossible that throwing real penguins would never be an appropriate response, it is more likely to be appropriate if using Muppet penguins.)

Four Letter Words: Time

Last week at work, I went through some timed creative-thinking exercises. Some were fun, intriguing and even a little helpful. One, however, involved designing something which would keep track of time. No budget, no boundaries. Just take 15 minutes to think up some new device that would be useful in keeping time. After I completed it, I read in the instructor’s end notes that this was supposed to help you learn to think outside the box, to not limit yourself to ideas based on things that already existed. That exercise did not teach me anything close to that.

What it taught me was that I really hate keeping time.

I have suspected this for a while, but the exercise only confirmed this in a visceral, deep-seated loathing that surfaced while trying to accomplish the task. I don’t want another way to track time, I thought. In fact, that’s the last thing I want. What I actually want is a way to move within it differently. To be looser with time, less strict. I want moving through time to be more like a rubber band. Stretchy. Adjustable.

There are a lot of “life values” quizzes that contain some form of this question: “What would you do differently if you knew you only had a short while to live?” My answer has become this: to the best of my ability (with some exceptions), I would never, ever look at a clock again. 

I think what the exercise produced was the acknowledgement (and resentment) that I let clocks make far too many of my decisions for me, and when it boils down to the bottom of it, those reasons are largely based on tradition, efficiency, productivity and economics. If I could afford to swing outside of the system even a little, I would make my decisions based on other things. I would let my body tell me when it needed sleep. I would let it tell me when it was rested—waking up, not to a loudly-beeping machine, but maybe to the sunlight or the birds. I wouldn’t quit my job, but I wouldn’t worry so much about being 5 or 10 minutes late. Then I would get lost in my projects, working on them until I was deeply satisfied, not when it was just the scheduled time to go home or to move on to the next task. I would let my body tell me when it was hungry, instead of the clock telling me it was time for scheduled food intake. Why let a machine tell me when I’m hungry? It has no connection to my stomach.

I would like to experience time with a little more generosity, a little more give and take. Schedules can be useful, and even helpful—if I’d like to meet a friend at the gym or the movies or dinner, it does help if we show up roughly in the same time frame. But when everything gets too scheduled, I can feel myself start to shrink, in a bad dream where the clock hands loom larger and larger overhead, and I feel myself get smaller and smaller. Never mind small closets. I get claustrophobic in those small spaces between the notches on a clock. 

Those hands on the clock will keep going around and around, but to be able to move more freely in and around those little notches? That would be something. After all, in the grand scheme of things, we really do have only a short while to live.

Love Means Nothing in Tennis: Thoughts on Motivation

Why do we do anything we do? From primal urges to impulse buys, there’s motivation behind every simple thing we do, even if we’re not giving it conscious thought.

Sometimes after a string of hectic days I get to the point where I feel frazzled and tired and confused, and I find myself asking, “Why am I even doing this?” Some days I can answer that question fairly easily, which keeps me from going back to bed to hide under the covers. But when the answer is, “I honestly have no idea,” it makes me take a couple of steps backward to see how I got to the point to where I no longer feel connected to what I’m doing.

There are a lot of ideas lurking behind why we do things, and I found motivations falling into a few different categories–and finding some really interesting insights as to who’s really making my choices.

This has become a fun little game for me now—a multiple choice test that has produced everything from snorts of laughter to some fairly profound revelations.

The game: Why am I ___________ today?

a) Tradition: the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way. (I group nostalgia in here too.)

b) Habit: a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.

c) Obedience: compliance with an order, request, or law or submission to another’s authority.

d) Obligation: an act or course of action to which a person is morally or legally bound; a duty or commitment.

e) Desire: a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen.

f) Love: an intense feeling of deep affection.

(Note: all definitions taken from the Oxford English Dictionary online.)

So just for fun, here’s this: Why is ham always served at my family’s Easter dinner?

Tradition is one reason, full of memories of family Easter dinners from years before—but it doesn’t really have anything to do with Easter, or the actual ham itself. It could also be habit, but again, not actually about the ham. It could also be obedience—which could actually be about the ham in some cases, but the motivation is based on someone else’s—not yours, and trust me, probably not the ham’s. Obligation is also external motivation. Desire? That’s where it really begins to connect to you personally. Desire to eat ham? Desire to prepare ham in order to please your family? What’s your desire really for?

And finally, love. Well, no, definitely not for the ham. I think love is probably for non-ham-related motivations. It’s more deep-seated, intrinsic motivation. It’s more personal.

The last time I played the game, it was, “Why am I going to the gym today?” It definitely wasn’t tradition. It could’ve been habit, though it wasn’t that day. It could’ve been obedience, because my doctor wants me to achieve certain health goals. It could’ve been obligation, because I’m paying for my membership, or because my health plan gives me a discount if I go a certain number of times per month. And that particular day, let me say it definitely wasn’t desire.

No, I went to the gym out of love.

Recently, a friend of mine related some advice he received about the nature of discipline—that discipline was not about being punished or forcing yourself to do something you didn’t like just because you know it’s good for you. She told him to remember that discipline was based on the idea of being a disciple—a committed follower of someone or something you loved. And so her advice to him was this: discipline is remembering what you love.

I went to the gym because I’ve learned to love my heart and my lungs and my muscles and showing up at the gym is my way of telling them that. I love my completely beat-up running shoes that have run more miles than they ever thought they would run. I love feeling completely out of breath but strong and resilient. I love feeling alive.

And so I am a disciple of feeling alive, which is why I lift the weights and run the miles and say thanks to my heart and lungs and muscles for working hard for me. And then I drag myself up the gym steps (because, don’t get me wrong, I’m elated but completely exhausted), and pass the tennis courts and think to myself, “Interesting… love means ‘nothing’ in tennis.” That’s about keeping score. That’s not love–for me, at least.

But, thankfully, I don’t play tennis.

Dare: I Gave, I Give, I Keep Giving

[Note: today’s post is in support of Blog Action Day’s “The Power of We,” which you can find out more about here]

Give: [with two objects] to freely transfer the possession of (something) to (someone)

I was going to try to be clever and translate this post’s title into Latin—and when Google informed me that “to give” in Latin is “dare,”  it just put a new spin on everything I had been planning to say.

I talked awhile ago about the word “mine,” and all the grasping and clutching and nasty ownership byproducts it can produce. But if “mine” is protective and clutching something toward yourself, “to give” is daring, to make yourself open and vulnerable, to unclench your hands and release what’s in them, not only to give up possession of a thing, but if you’re really fully giving, to also give up your expectation of what will happen to that thing as well. (This last insight, on expectation, was given to me by a very wise friend, and it has permanently affected my perspective on giving.)

To give is to make an offering, to dare to say, even on the smallest level, “I would like to honor you by presenting this thing which I hope will please you.” You are humbling yourself, opening your heart to that other person, who you care enough about to offer this expression of care or admiration. Even if it’s just a $20 gift card, it means something.

Stores have had fake Christmas trees under their rafters for more than a month now, and every year the impending pressures of the holiday season can knock a little wind out of my sails. Of all times of the year, this is where the word “giving” usually has the emotional baggage of “mandatory” attached to it, which can often suck all the spontaneity and life out of giving anything. You make a list, you imagine what you’d like to do, you calculate how much you can actually afford, you guess at how much each person will spend on you, and, at the base of it, you try to make it heartfelt while trying to make everyone happy. It’s enough to want to make a person hibernate, no matter how good their intentions.

Many moons ago, I fell in love with an organization called Heifer International which partners with communities in poverty all over the world. Heifer’s “gift catalog” is filled with animals you buy for communities involved in Heifer projects. These communities, who want to provide a more self-sustaining life for themselves, have contacted Heifer to develop a plan for their area (for example, a local milk cooperative) and then, if the project goes forward, the participants not only receive training and education in agriculture but then livestock suited for their geographical area (cows, goats, camels, etc.) as well. It’s not a food drop in an emergency situation—though those are also valuable and necessary things—this is building a sustainable livelihood. And you get to help by purchasing cows. Or water buffaloes. Or pigs. Or sheep. Whatever is best for their project. And so you get to send a card (or anything you care to do) to your friend saying, “somebody now has a water buffalo thanks to you!” or something to that extent. Heifer makes cards available. I liked making my own. (They call it “fun fur” because it’s a lot of fun. Though do be careful with the glue.)

You’d think that whole process in and of itself would be a laudable thing, but the extra beauty embedded in Heifer’s model is something called “passing on the gift.” For every animal received, it is part of the Heifer contract that the first offspring of an animal be given to someone else as a gift, and that person’s animal’s first offspring after that, and so on. Heifer partners with a community project officially for several years, helping and monitoring to make sure everything is going smoothly, and during that time they track the gifts that are passed during the course of the project, which are numerous. There are even official “Passing on the Gift” ceremonies that communities hold. But if a community stays true to the spirit of the gift over time, the initial project can birth generations of gifts—gifts that simply can’t be tracked forever on hard copy spreadsheets. If that spirit is passed on, the gifts just keep giving.

For me, this embodies the spirit and process of giving—the act of caring for a person, understanding what they desire and/or need, giving what you hope will bring them true joy—and then letting go of your own expectations of thanks or results. Who knows what the ripples will be?

These kinds of gifts—not just Heifer gifts, but any gifts given in this spirit—well, those are worth staying awake for through the holidays.

Perspicacity Jones

Words are funny things. A few years ago I came across the word “perspicacious.” I don’t think it had crossed my path before, so I just passed it in context and kept reading. And then  it showed up at least twice again over the course of the same book, so I gave in and looked it up.

Perspicacious: having keen mental perception and understanding.

Charming word. Fun to say. And today, for no apparent conscious reason, it popped back into my head again, and I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it meant. But my mind started playing games with it, tossing it around like a slinky, pulling it apart, squeezing it back together again, and all of a sudden it decided that the planet has been missing a very important literary figure named Perspicacity Jones. And when I looked up the word again, I was even more convinced.

Perspicacity Jones: gutsy, witty adventuress, possibly Australian, a sort of mesh of the best parts of Pippi Longstocking, Harriet the Spy, Indiana Jones and Sherlock Holmes (and just as much fun to say as Benedict Cumberbatch). I suppose she would have some sort of achilles heel—all heroes do…

But I have no idea what it is. Because she doesn’t exist yet. But she could. Maybe someday she will. Regardless, I’m sure I will never have to look that word up ever again.

__________
Afterthought:
As the brain slinky was roaming around, it remembered seeing a similar name somewhere, and, sure enough, courtesy of Terry Pratchett, there is actually a Miss Perspicacia Tick, witch finder and teacher of Tiffany Aching in Pratchett’s “Wee Free Men” books. Miss Tick is a witch finder in a good way, though, helpful to young girls born to be witches in areas where it’s unfavorable to be a witch, and is also an excellent practitioner of escape techniques when found out to be a witch herself. These are hilariously funny, wonderful, and rather wry books about young Tiffany’s road to becoming an extremely practical community witch, aided by a group of completely recalcitrant little blue men who will drink anything, fight anyone, and say a lot of things not repeatable in proper society. Can’t say enough great things about this series. Of course, people over the age of 18 probably shouldn’t be allowed to read these books.

Poor Joel Stein. He misses so much.

Sleepovers (and other misnomers)

A friend of mine mentioned that her daughter had a sleepover at a friend’s house, and of course that brought up the fact that sleep is actually one of the least likely things to occur at a sleepover.

We decided that sleepovers are actually a clinical condition much better referred to as RSD: Recreational Sleep Deprivation.

Sleep: it’s a noun, it’s a verb, it’s a great way to spend a Saturday morning if you can’t watch cartoons. But like all sorts of other words, it hasn’t limited itself to its original meaning, which made me think of other “sleep” words that don’t have much to do with the primary dictionary definition:

• to sleep with someone: euphemism
• to sleep with the fishes: something hopefully completely different from the above
• to let sleeping dogs lie: worst case scenario, this ends up with you and the fishes, leading into
• the big sleep: do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Happy weekend, everyone. Enjoy the lovely summer days. And if you can, catch some zzzs and pull them into a hammock for a good afternoon nap.

The OED: Possibly the Funniest/Saddest Read Ever

“This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel…”
– Horace Walpole

Depending on your view of the glass being half full or half empty, the Oxford English Dictionary could be either the funniest or saddest collection of words in existence. I suppose it depends on the order in which you read it. Having not read the entire work myself, I can’t say for certain, but I stumbled upon a book some time ago that has convinced me it’s quite the comical thing.

“Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages” is Ammon Shea’s recounted adventure of reading the OED from cover to cover—all 150 pounds and twenty volumes of it. It’s remarkable. It’s death-defying. And, most importantly, it’s hilarious.

Shea’s book is divided into 26 chapters, A-Z, each chapter beginning with a description of his current emotional and physical state during the mammoth undertaking, followed by short commentaries on a handful of words beginning with the chapter’s alphabet letter. If you read the book in alphabetical order (which you don’t necessarily need to do), you’ll follow along with his descent from exuberance into just a little madness, eye strain, backache, and his eventual return to pleasure upon reaching the final pages.

As one could expect, the experience became completely surreal at times, with words and sanity losing context in the real world—somewhat like watching any more than five episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus in a row.

Shea’s book is such a fun read, and his short asides on words often made me laugh out loud, which created some interesting complications when reading excerpts to friends. The peculiarities he chose to share are delightful and odd and enlightening. There are words we use today that we would never think to connect with their origins. And there are those I simply fell in love with, even though I can’t bring myself to use them casually in conversation. It’s where I fell in love with “epizeuksis,” and how I found out that “petrichor” describes the smell of rain on the ground.

True, Shea’s is an abridged adventure through the OED, but it’s a fantastic one, and it will do for now. Some things can get away with being abridged. Others cannot. More on that later.