Most of what happens in our lives in not high drama. We wake up, eat, work, walk down the street…Crates of inspiration and revelation do not fall from planes circling overhead. We don’t go through the day shouting “Eureka!” every hour on the hour. Well, not unless you’re paid to…
I derive much satisfaction from marveling at the simple things in life. Take the paper clip. What an amazing thing! Or the rubber band! Or tape! Or stapler! These things are just plain amazing, and they cost next to nothing.
Here’s something odd. There’s a Japanese guy that’s been doing these experiments on water (freezing it and then looking at the crystals). Somehow he’s found out that water is affected by feelings (ie water in a bottle with the label “happy” will have cooler looking crystals than water in a bottle labeled angry, or something like that).
The human body is made up of 80% water.
Last week I also had a bunch of fun putting the stickers on to one of those race cars you can buy from 7/11 (those Tomy ones). I couldn’t believe how fun it was. I’m looking forward to doing the other side.
I’ve got all sorts of high tech gadgetry and consider myself a fairly worldly guy. And that’s all fine and cool. But it’s the little things like stickers and popsicle sticks which are, I don’t know, archetypal in a way. Maybe it’s because everything has gotten so damn complex, and it feels like to function well you need to jump through a million hoops a day. But what do you reach for to bunch everything together? Your PDA? Nope. A rubber band or paper clip.
Sometimes I think the more we struggle to try to be savvy or hip, the more confused we become. Break it all down and the most important things in life don’t require an instruction manual.
Here’s something I think about all the time. My, hands down, most useful tool for getting things I want in life, solving life’s problems and just all around goodness is (next to a towel of course )…
A notepad and pen/pencil. With it, you can get everything off your mind, doodle, write things down, never forget, it never runs out of batteries or needs a charge.
My semi-new love for notebooks and pens/pencils has also turned me on to another world, the world of notebooks and pens/pencils. I’m a newbie now, but there has been a lot of developments done in the field of pencilonomics and notebookalogy in the last 50 years.
Those shaking mechanical pencils are really cool.
Paper airplanes rock too. I could probably never get tired of making/designing (on my notebook of course) paper airplanes.
Clouds. You look up and there they are. Without them, there’d be no rain and sunsets wouldn’t have nearly the same beauty without them to reflect off the purples and pinks and oranges. They inspire creativity in people from song lyrics to imagining concrete objects in them or angels sitting on them.
And to think they are just masses of water vapor, ice, and dust, yet hold so much sway over humanity.
[quote=“miltownkid”]Here’s something I think about all the time. My, hands down, most useful tool for getting things I want in life, solving life’s problems and just all around goodness is (next to a towel of course )…
A notepad and pen/pencil. [/quote]
You sound like a potential convert to the world of the Hipster PDA.
Hey miltownkid, I know what you mean. In coming to Bali, I have forgotten to pack some Off, but I did remember to pack a notebook for any inspired poetry or observations I might write while traveling through a rice terrace or sitting on the beach, a sketchbook and a drawing pencil (the ones at 7-Eleven are awesome for doing artwork with) to capture any moment that I feel would be better captured on paper than on my digital camera, and my journal for writing down what’s been happening on my trip, along with a few pens and erasers.
I can’t imagine traveling without somewhere to write down whatever pops into my head. Actually, I can’t imagine being anywhere where I have some time to meditate my thoughts (i.e. not at school) and not have a notebook, or at the least a piece of paper from which I would transfer my writings to somewhere more permanent, handy.
)…
