Photo by Piotr Marcinski
Scrolling through old notes from a newspaper where I worked years ago, I came across an explanation given by a high school football coach to a reporter about why his team would be short-handed for a game that night:
“We had one player just go stupid on us. Injuries are one thing … you can put ice on an injury. You can’t put ice on stupid.”
Image by Gustavo Frazao
This piece by Maria Bello in The New York Times and her piece that preceded it were food for much thought as I was reminded of them again recently. Consider:
Echoing the thoughts of many, one person wrote to me: “I’ve been feeling ‘whatever’ and I didn’t know what to call it. I’m a whatever too.” Another said: “Being a divorced mom I sometimes don’t know where my life fits, and your story brought to light that everything doesn’t always have to be black and white. There can be ex-husbands who are still partners in our and our children’s lives, friends who could be lovers — whatever it is.”
Yes. And so continues the journey toward liberation from the preconceived notions and the labels of others we so often think we must personify.
At the risk of labeling you … are you a whatever?
Photo by topnatthapon
A line I heard today brought me here to post this. I’m certain there are several variations, but the version I heard is easy to remember.
“The faintest ink is better than the best memory.”
Going through notes I’d jotted down, long ago and more recently, reminded me that false memory is a real thing, and that misremembering something can be as troublesome as completely forgetting it. I’ve experienced both in the past few weeks as I’ve stumbled upon notes, whose details are not the way I’d remembered — or of which I had no recall.
Even now, as the world around me distracts me, I’m losing focus about the points I wanted to make in this post. Ideas fade so quickly sometimes. But my main post is: Write it down.
On a piece of paper. On a receipt. On your hand. Or dictate it and record it. Get it on the record, so to speak. Preserve it. Now. Before you forget it.
Photo by Erin Cadigan
y
How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?
That quote, sometimes presented in a version with a folksy grammatical awkwardness but always displaying its liberating and charming insight, has been attributed to the late Satchel Paige. His age was an elusive target for many who tried to nail it down.
I can’t vouch for the quote, but I love it.