Ampersand Gazette #4
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg
In his own words ….
I’m a minimalist, but I do make certain exceptions.
One can never have too much chocolate in their pantry, too big a battery in their cellphone, or too many words on their wordshelves.
Words don’t take much room. They don’t need feeding, vacuuming, washing, or tuning. No need to buy insurance or locks.
How many words does one really need in life? The more the merrier. You don’t have to use them all at the same time, but you never know which word might come handy when.
So true. I personally love to learn new words, and do almost every day. What’s not to love? More words, to my mind, means better expression. Better expression is what our Turquoise Fifth Chakra is all about—we’re here to express ourselves.
For a writer, I look at more words like a painter looks at more tubes of paint. Bettah.
&
Every increased possession loads us with new weariness.
John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (8 Feb 1819-1900)
From the same resource, Anu Garg’s A.Word.A.Day, which always ends with a quote, this one was right after what I excerpted above! Hilarious. Possessions—things to take care of, to move, to dust, to use, to toss, to whatever—can bring weariness.
When I’m weary or stuck in my creative process, I almost always need to do something physical—to move my body—and it often takes the form of de-cluttering. Clutter clogs me up. Not everyone, I know, but for me, I need a clear, orderly space in order to create.
How about you?
It’s vital to discern and understand what foments your creativity and what foils your creative impulse. This is one of the reasons I advocate that all creators, in every medium, learn about themselves.
Supporting your creative impulses is easy if you know this one thing about yourself.
&
“All pain is ‘harm.’ All ‘harm’ is ‘trauma.’ All ‘trauma’ comes from someone who is an ‘abuser,’” said Natalie Wynn, a philosopher turned popular YouTube personality. “It’s as if people can’t articulate disagreement or hardships without using this language.” And so, Caleb became a “predator.”
Call it post-traumatic hyperbole. Or TikTok pseudo-psychology. Or even therapy-speak. There are plenty of horrible things going on in the world, and serious mental health crises that warrant such severe language. But when did we start using the language of harm to describe, well, everything?
Jessica Bennett
from an Opinion essay “If Everything is ‘Trauma,’ Is Anything?”
in The New York Times
February 4, 2022
I know this topic might be fraught for some of us, but I don’t think it’s only me who is trauma-fatigued. More and more people seem to lead with their traumas when you meet them. It’s as though every interaction has to start with a trigger warning. Ack.
It doesn’t. Or, God help us, it shouldn’t. There are levels of discourse, Beloved, and we are in charge of them for ourselves. There’s another name for them, that’s all. They’re called Boundaries, and yours are strictly up to you and your own.
When I first meet somebody, unless I’m on a panel discussing a traumatic subject, they don’t need to know my dad was killed in a plane crash when I was five within the first few minutes of meeting me.
Jessica Bennett asks a very good question. If everything is trauma, is anything trauma?
I have to answer honestly. No. Because everything, no matter the trespass, isn’t trauma. When someone cuts me off rudely on the highway because they don’t like the fact that I go the speed limit, I am not traumatized. I might be angry, sure. But it’s not a trauma. Now, if that same guy cuts me off, and it causes me to have an accident that hurts someone else? That might be trauma.
There are levels, and I think, because of the curated factor in social media, and how we want our lives to seem that they go from perfect joy to perfect elation to perfect perfection—making our experiences way too simple—that we oversimplify everything else under the trauma column.
Uh, no. Zeroes and ones are great for computer languages, great for algorithms, great for zeroes and ones, but human experience is so much more than oversimplification. We risk robbing ourselves of the true blessings of our own experience with this oversimplification, no matter how fond we are of it.
Human life, human experience, ergo human learning can be messy. Finger-paint messy. Chaos messy. Even, disaster messy. To lose this knowledge is to lose a very dear part of our humanity.
&
“If you’re alive, you’re afraid. If you’re not afraid, then you’re not paying attention. The only thing we have to fear is having no fear itself—having no feeling on behalf of whom and what we’ve lost, whom and what we love.”
…
“And yes, I still am terrified every day. Yet fear can be love trying its best in the dark. So do not fear your fear. Own it. Free it. This isn’t a liberation that I or anyone can give you—it’s a power you must look for, learn, love, lead and locate for yourself.
“Why? The truth is, hope isn’t a promise we give. It’s a promise we live. Tell it like this, and we, like our words, will not rest.”
Amanda Gorman
from a Guest Essay “Why I Almost Didn’t Read My Poem at The Inauguration” in The New York Times
January 20, 2022
And to go along with my oversimplification sermon above, I really enjoyed what Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman had to say about fear.
“Fear can be love trying its best in the dark.” Fear isn’t something to fear. It’s information—ofttimes valuable information.
Whenever you’re afraid, Beloved, it’s time to ask some questions. First, am I really afraid? Or am I afraid because I think I should be? Or because others have been afraid in the same situation? Second, am I unsafe? Is that why I’m afraid? Third, how would I be if I weren’t afraid? The line between fear and excitement is thin indeed.
FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in his 1933 Inaugural Address, famously said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” And now, here is Amanda Gorman is saying the opposite. “The only thing we have to fear is having no fear itself.”
It seems to me that so much of our political machinating these days boils down to people who are afraid of what they have lost, what they are losing, and what they might lose. Loss is a genuine fear, Beloved, for our species. We lose the fear of loss at our peril.
Often, it is just that fear which sends us into the celebration that is gratitude for all of life. Hope is what grows out of that fear of loss because it’s sourced, fertilized, and grown in an environment of appreciation for what was, for what is, and what will be.
&
“As a journalist who relies on freedom of speech, I would never advocate tossing [Joe] Rogan off Spotify. But as a citizen, I sure appreciated [Neil] Young calling him out over the deeper issue: How is it that we have morphed into a country where people claim endless ‘rights’ while fewer and fewer believe they have any ‘responsibilities.’”
Thomas L. Friedman
from an Opinion column, “America 2022: Where Everyone Has Rights and No One Has Responsibilities” in The New York Times,
February 8, 2022
Anyone who has ever even put a toe into the waters of metaphysics knows that the key to living according to its principles is responsibility. Rights, Beloved, come with responsibilities. Not surprisingly, responsibilities come with rights. You actually can’t have one without the other.
People who have only rights are tyrants.
People who have only responsibilities are martyrs.
Do you want either label? Either job? No? Me, either.
&
“And now Facebook and Instagram — and probably TikTok, though I’ll be damned if I’ll add yet another possibility to my time-wasting options, so I can’t say for sure about TikTok—has turned the entire 21st century into high school, and once again the popular kids are holding out their bouquets and exclaiming, ‘Smell these; aren’t they divine?’”
…
[Here is what Ms. Renkl used to write on Facebook for Valentine’s Day:]
“Whatever the world seems determined to tell us on this day for love that shuts so many people out, no one is alone. We are, all of us, made for one another.
“You were made for me, and I was made for you, and we were both made for the grieving widow and the friendless child and the old man sleeping in the sunny library chair and the tired barista just barely leaning her hip against the counter and the teenager sneaking a smoke in the parking lot and the woman in high heels pumping gas and the cyclist pedaling head-down in the whoosh of passing traffic and the bored checkout clerk and the irritated mother whose child will not put on her shoes and the fog-breathed lineman in the bucket high above branches just on the verge of breaking into bud.”
Margaret Renkl
from a Guest Essay “A Valentine’s P.S.A.: Instagram Is Not Your Friend Today” in The New York Times February 14, 2022
V-Day, as it’s come to be called, can be fraught. It’s the only holiday that prompts me to send an out-of-sequence Seed each year. It can’t help but bring up loneliness in our couple-crazed society.
That’s why I liked what Margaret Renkl said. “You were made for me, and I was made for you.”
It is this sentiment that seems to be so lacking in our social contract these days, but even if it’s thin on the ground, the notion holds. You were made for me, and I was made for you, and the sooner we remember that, the better a place the world will be for all of us.
&
“Freedom comes when you let go. Creation comes when you say no.”
Madonna
from an Instagram post by Broadway producer Ken Davenport
February 18.2022
& (not two minutes later …)
“It seems that for success, in science or art, a dash of autism is essential. For success the necessary ingredients may be an ability to turn away from the everyday world, from the simple practical, an ability to rethink a subject with originality so as to create in new untrodden ways.
Hans Asperger, physician (18th February 1906-1980)
from Anu Garg’s A.Word.A.Day newsletter
The two items above go together. Steve Jobs talked about this very thing at the beginning of creating Apple. Letting go of what everyone else is doing is first. That’s a saying no. Only then, as Dr. Asperger recommends, can you turn away from the everyday world long enough to become original. Think on these things, Beloved. Ponder them in your heart.
&
And here is why ebooks are so popular, and why it can be tough to get a publishing deal, and why self-publishing is still on the rise:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/19/books/how-a-book-is-made.html
On a very happy personal note, the forewords for the eight chakra workbooks are almost done, and as soon as I have them all, the workbooks will be published together. I’m hoping for a March 4th debut. Fingers crossed.
And, God’s Dictionary—20th Anniversary Edition should be out soonish in ebook and paperback.
A blessing until we connect again,
S.