Free Association Thursday - A Pleasantly Disturbed Diversion

Isn't free association a wonderful thing? Digging down deep into your self-conscious mind, that sometimes barren and sometimes fruitful area of your mind that provides so many great stories. Along with many bad ones.

That animal part of the mind (is it called “animal?” I don’t know) where we don’t always like to delve, but sometimes can’t help it. Are there stories just waiting down there to be revealed by the feel of your mental shovel clanking against it? Hidden gems that just need a brush to wipe all the grit and grime away? And is this what they mean by a “gritty” story?

I keep hoping that there are some gems down there for me to discover. Ones that don’t require a lot of work to shape. Of course, if that were the case, publishing them would probably be considered something else: plagiarism.

Because really, if they’re already that fully-formed, most likely they’re from somewhere else. The subconscious is a place for nuggets and gemstones, but they’re not just sitting out there on a pillow. They have to be mined, dug out with the sweat of the brow (maybe best left figuratively, unless it’s 100 degrees outside) and then shaped into something good.

It’s almost like those Pleasantly Disturbed posts I did a year or two ago. Just letting the mind wander, not restricting it at all. Letting it off the leash and hoping that it’s trained well enough that it won’t go jumping off after some stray pun or something and never come back. It can point to a great pun and lead you to it, but it shouldn’t go off on it’s own.

You don’t want it to be brought back to you by Animal Control, do you?

The other thing to be concerned about with regards to minds wandering is whether or not they get lost in the metaphorical forest and can never make their way back to you. It’s a tragic thing when the mind is so far gone because it made the left turn at the massive oak tree instead of the right turn. In that case, you can only hope that it will eventually find its way either back home or to a kindly farmer who will see the tag around its neck and bring it back to you.

Really, a mind is a terrible thing to lose.

All that being said, a wandering mind can definitely be a good thing. Remember that old adage “if you love something, set it free. If it loves you, it will return to you?” Ok, maybe not a good analogy for a mind, because how can your mind not love you?

I know what you’re thinking. What about those who have image issues with themselves, or don’t think they are worth anything? The emotional areas of your brain are telling you that, but can you really say it’s your mind? The part of you that thinks?

Then again, maybe this is all coming about because I let my mind wander and it’s already wandered off, sniffing in the bushes and not coming when I call it?

A successfully wandering mind will often come full circle, reaching the beginning point, as if you were able to attach the leash back to it and lead it back home. At least it will if you’re going to use it for anything (like a blog post!). If it doesn’t lead you back to the beginning, then you may want to actually go find it.

Because it’s lost.

And you don’t want a mind that’s lost. You just want one that comes when you call it, but otherwise leaves you alone.

Alone to free associate as much as you want.

(This is almost completely unedited, just taken as it flowed. Which can be dangerous to post, but I think free association exercises like this are great ways to spark the writing process. It's something I want to keep doing to maybe get myself writing again, though I won't necessarily publish them)

Lost in Thought

You see it all the time in books of all genres.

The narrator is going over previous events, or having the character think heavily about something. Maybe trying to piece together the clues in a murder case. Maybe trying to figure a way out of the death trap that the black-clad villain has trapped her and her companion in.

Maybe she's trying to sort her grocery list.

Whatever the case, what inevitably follows is a sentence like "Linda realized that Joe had been talking to her the whole time. 'Are you even listening to me?' Joe asked."

Then the conversation will continue.

But does that really happen?

Have you ever been so lost in thought that you haven't heard that a person around you is speaking to you?

I can't remember it ever happening to me.

Oh, sure. If you're *doing* something, I can see it happening. If you're reading a book, a blog post (like this one?), playing a game. My wife has completely missed when I've said something to her because she's wrapped up in reading something. I know I've done the same thing.

But just sitting there, lost in space? Letting your mind wander?

I've never been that lost in thought.

If I'm just thinking of something and somebody comes up to me and starts talking, or is already in the same room and starts talking, my train of thought is interrupted and I hear what they have to say. I may not *listen* to what they have to say, but I do hear it.

And then I beat them to a bloody pulp because I ALMOST had the secret to world peace all figured out, but it's all gone now because they opened their gaping pie-hole and my train of thought derailed.

Once I've dismissed them from my mind, I can sometimes get back to what I was thinking about. If I'm lucky.

And if I'm able to tune out the screaming.

Which I usually can. Though sometimes I do have to move to the next room.

I'm sorry, did you say something?

This is part of Duane Scott's "Pleasantly Disturbed Thursdays" series. Head on over to Duane's page to find some more disturbed posts!

Disclaimer: No innocent persons were harmed in the creation of this post.

Not for lack of trying.

Disclaimers? I'll give you disclaimers!!!

"Experienced Blogger on a Closed Course. Do Not Attempt This at Home"

I was watching last night's Canucks/Red Wings game, and there was a commercial for dishwasher detergent. It showed a bunch of construction-type workers manually scrubbing all of the caked-on food off of the plates and other dishes. I guess the commercial was trying to show how effective this detergent is in getting out tough food stains (stains on your soul, however, are still much tougher to get out).

What made me laugh is that little word down in the bottom right corner of the screen: "Dramatization"

Really? You mean there aren't little construction workers in my dishwasher, cleaning my plates? I am so disappointed. Not only that, but if there aren't any of these workers in there, then why do I keep hearing voices coming from it?

Maybe those voices are actually coming from where we keep the household cleaning supplies. Maybe it's these guys!

I can't quite understand the voices, but they seem to be saying stuff like "Your friends hate you! They don't understand you! You should just end it all now and be done with it!"

And by that, I'm sure they mean that I should go to a Justin Bieber concert. Because that truly would be the end.

I think they should put disclaimers on household products like these. "Warning: Lack of use of this product, may make you feel inferior when you go to other people's houses."

Especially when the head of the house is this woman.

Actually, I think that *house* should come with a disclaimer.

"Warning: Upon entering this house, you shall have joined the Space Age."

But getting back to dumb disclaimers, what does it say about our society that commercials *have* to put some of them on there? Who uses their blow dryer in the bathtub? Are they trying to set up their own hot tub with whirlpool action? And are they shocked when it doesn't work?

I want the ultimate disclaimer:

"Warning: This product not intended for use by stupid people. If you aren't sure if this applies to you, then it does."

But then I guess sales would really plummet, wouldn't they?

This has been another entry in Duane Scott's ongoing "Pleasantly Disturbed Thursdays" series. Head on over and check out the other entries!

Yet Another Pleasantly Disturbed Thursday

Ever wonder how old sayings become old sayings? And what they might mean? Who came up with them and why?

How much wood would a wooodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

So you're saying a woodchuck can't chuck wood? If so, why was he named a woodchuck? Is it really a woodcharles shortened?

And if it can't chuck wood, then why would anybody care how much it could chuck? Who thought of this?

Was it some friar looking out the window of the monastery in the 1400s, watching some frolicking woodchucks, who suddenly slapped his head and wondered "God, why am I doing this?" Ummm...I mean, "I wonder how much wood they could chuck if they were able to chuck wood rather than frolic?"

And why are they frolicking?

Do they know something we don't know?

Animals can sense natural disasters, you know. Like earthquakes, maybe tornadoes, or the arrival of Justin Bieber.

Maybe they're frolicking because the Apocalypse is coming soon?

Needless to say, when it didn't come, that monastery was shut down for inflaming the masses, but that's another story.

"Inflame." There's another word that I don't understand where it came from. "He was inflamed with jealousy." Did it start out with somebody literally catching on fire? And if so, why was somebody coming up with a new word rather than putting him out?

It's seriously a conundrum.

What's even more of a conundrum is where "conundrum" came from. Who creates this stuff? And how do they come up with them? It's not like a planet, or a sea, or a baseball team, where you just name it after the guy who discovered it.

Or the gal. I'm not sexist.

I think the guy who came up with "conundrum" should have been trying to figure out his conundrum rather than coming up for a word to call it.

You know?

And this is why you should really keep my mind occupied.

Or I might start trying to figure out who came up with "occupied."

This is yet another entry in the Pleasantly Disturbed Thursdays tradition started by Duane Scott over at his blog, though he didn't post one today, whining about some test or something like that (just kidding, Duane! Love ya!).

Instead, it's being hosted by his friend Helen, over at Random Musings. Head on over and check out the rest of the insanity.

A Pleasantly Disturbed Thursday

They're doing construction on the building across the way here at UBC. Every time I look out my window, whether spending a moment daydreaming or trying to think, I see the red girders on the rooftop, arranged in some kind of grid-like fashion. They're obviously building another floor onto the building.

I take in the regularity of the layout, the perfect rectangles that the metal beams form, and I imagine what will eventually wrap those girders in a warm embrace. Concrete? Drywall? Both? Some find of fantastical new plastic polymer that will revolutionize the construction industry?

I see that, and I think of our own building, whether the building I'm currently working in or our condo downtown. I imagine the intricacy of what must lie beneath the walls and floors that we are encased in or walking on top of.

And I marvel.I marvel at what is holding us up so far above the ground. How all of these pieces fit together to form something so perfect that it will stand up in the wind, or even possibly an earthquake. How do we not fall through the floor? Or how does the floor support us? How is that roof supported?

Yes, I know it's all engineering and physics. But to those of us who don't understand these things, it might as well be magic. You've probably heard the old adage from Arthur C. Clarke about "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

How many things do we use every day that, if somebody from 1888 came forward in time and saw it and asked you about it, you wouldn't be able to explain how it works? Sure, you'd be able to explain how to use it. But how it works?

I recall reading something just recently (can't remember where, so if you recognize this, please let me know) that said travelling back in time wouldn't necessarily give you any advantage as far as technology goes, because you'd never be able to reproduce what you bring back. An iPhone? Sure, you could use it (though the roaming charges would be killer), but if it breaks? You'll never build another one.

Could you introduce automatic weapons and take over the world if you went back to 11th-century England? Of course not! You would have no idea how to make them. You would have a lot of knowledge the populace doesn't have, but how much of it is practical knowledge?

You can text Caesar and try and tell him to beware the Ides of March (though the cheapskate probably didn't spring for a text plan), but could you make the trip between Rome and Athens without help from the locals? Could you forage for food? Fight off bandits? (I suppose you could show them your phone and make them think you're some kind of demon, I guess, though they might just kill you right there).

Technology? Magic? What's the difference sometimes? One might as well be the other, as far as our understanding of certain things goes.

And does all of this mean I should stop looking out the window and get back to work?

*****
This is part of Duane Scott's "Pleasantly Disturbed Thursdays" series, Volume 15. Go on over and check out the other entries!

What a pleasantly disturbed human being

I think we're all disturbed in our own way. Sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes it's a bad thing. Bad disturbance is pretty obvious (known any serial killers, anybody?). But good disturbance?

I live with that whenever I do a blog post. Or try to think, hanging out in my own mind and discovering just what kind of insanity might be hiding in there. I like to think it's more like Steven Wright than it is the Joker. But can we ever tell?

Ah, the Joker. Heath Ledger left us too soon, didn't he?


The Joker was always an interesting Batman villain, though he was never my favourite. I was always partial to Two-Face, because it represented the inner conflict that we all face at one time or another. Most of us make the moral choices though we're tempted to go the other route, but Two-Face left his up to the flip of a coin. I always found that intriguing.

The Riddler I just always found annoying, which is why I'm not totally happy that he's rumored to be one of the villains in the new Batman movie. Then again, Christopher Nolan can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned, so maybe he can make the Riddler palatable? We'll see.

I always loved the sleek lines of the 70s and 80s Batman to the kind of clunky look of the 60s Batman.

What do you think?

(60s Batman)

(My favourite Batman)










Of course, it depended on the artist, but I always thought the latter just looked cooler. Less silly.

While I always enjoyed Batman, though, my main favourite was the Teen Titans (from 1980, not the older ones or the newer ones, as there have been many incarnations).

I didn't exactly grow out of comics, though. They grew out of me. And I mean that almost literally. I just got tired of trying to make room for them, and there's no way I was going to be throwing them out like any other magazines. So I stopped buying them.

Now that you can get comics on the iPhone/iPad, I may start again. If they ever start doing new subscriptions rather than the old stuff that they keep adding right now. Don't get me wrong. The old stuff is cool. But it's not what I want to pay for right now.

Isn't that a cool thing? Magazines on your iPhone/iPad? More and more of them are doing it. Wired, Time, People (if they can get past the objections of the photographers). All of that stuff in the palm of your hand. The news, photos, features, writing that you love to read, ready and waiting for you to turn the machine on. And no worries about recycling! There are no landfills for electronic bits and bytes!

Hmmmm...what would a data landfill look like? Something out of the Matrix? Or a product of an insane mind?

Or a pleasantly disturbed one?

This is part of Duane Scott's brilliant weekly series called "Pleasantly Disturbed Thursdays." See some other participants on his site here!

I hope you enjoyed.