Mar 2006
What Gnomes Know
Until recently, I didn’t
believe in gnomes. My garden was a serious place, one of toil and
concomitant results. I took pride in my accomplishments there, and
never noticed my pride elbowing aside my joy.
During this time, I catalogued gnomes under the heading of “lawn crap”, which includes anything needing moved before mowing the lawn. I naively included gnomes with such vulgarities as lawn butts, those annoying plywood cutouts that, from a distance, are supposed to look like the bending over backside of fat people. But gnomes add a bit of whimsey to a garden. And gardening, being such serious business, needs whimsey.
So I swallowed my pride and went looking for a garden gnome. I found one, which I will move periodically to maintain the surprise necessary to puncture my pride with whimsey.
The most serious undertakings always need a tiny bit, about a gnome-sized bit, of whimsey. The calculated surprise. The unanticipated delight. What gnomes will you hide inside your next serious undertaking? Let one loose in there and almost everything will remain the same. But whatever changes might delight you when you least expect and most need delight.
During this time, I catalogued gnomes under the heading of “lawn crap”, which includes anything needing moved before mowing the lawn. I naively included gnomes with such vulgarities as lawn butts, those annoying plywood cutouts that, from a distance, are supposed to look like the bending over backside of fat people. But gnomes add a bit of whimsey to a garden. And gardening, being such serious business, needs whimsey.
So I swallowed my pride and went looking for a garden gnome. I found one, which I will move periodically to maintain the surprise necessary to puncture my pride with whimsey.
The most serious undertakings always need a tiny bit, about a gnome-sized bit, of whimsey. The calculated surprise. The unanticipated delight. What gnomes will you hide inside your next serious undertaking? Let one loose in there and almost everything will remain the same. But whatever changes might delight you when you least expect and most need delight.
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Computerless
The last few weeks have seen me
computerless. A manufacturing problem, left unidentified, caused me
to burn out four logic boards and make three 140 mile round trips
to the nearest service center. They finally found and fixed the
problem. My machine cought up with me in Wisconsin last this last
week, and I'm finally clicking keys again.
In the mean time, I rediscovered the power of the pen. I relearned that I can actually write using paper, and write just about as fast and certainly as effectively. Were it not for the transcription time, I could probably create faster with a pen. Of course, the spelling would be wanting. And the transcription work is a useful edit all by itself.
I recommend going computerless occasionally. It' Lent, perhaps giving up computing for Lent would be a useful focusing tool for anyone dependent upon their computer, as dependent as I had become.
Vonnegut, in his latest book, remembers the delight in manually typing pages and sending off the resulting parcel to his typist. The human interaction demanded by this ritual was worth savoring.
In the mean time, I rediscovered the power of the pen. I relearned that I can actually write using paper, and write just about as fast and certainly as effectively. Were it not for the transcription time, I could probably create faster with a pen. Of course, the spelling would be wanting. And the transcription work is a useful edit all by itself.
I recommend going computerless occasionally. It' Lent, perhaps giving up computing for Lent would be a useful focusing tool for anyone dependent upon their computer, as dependent as I had become.
Vonnegut, in his latest book, remembers the delight in manually typing pages and sending off the resulting parcel to his typist. The human interaction demanded by this ritual was worth savoring.
