Thursday, November 13, 2008

I've been told on many occasions that I think too much.



but then again, I berate myself for thoughtlessness and cluelessness often. so I suppose it all balances out. what must it be like to think just enough, I wonder.

you think too much. you worry too much. you feel too much.

you get the picture. it's the excess, and then the veering back madly (blissfully, regretfully) to the not enough, the feast a famine of moderation, the plenty stretched thin and transparent.


oh blah blah blah. the words, always, waiting, tumbling over each other. pick me, pick me! the ideas, jostling for attention, all elbows and promises.

she's a bright and creative child, but I wish she'd work harder, apply herself, she shows such potential, she daydreams too much. she's too shy. she talks too much.

never enough, or too loud, feelings like ripe bright nerves, glistening, electric.


a cartoon I saw once and wish I'd kept. or kept and lost. or still have, but where? an artist, stereotypically french beret-wearing mustached man about to sit on a chair with a big obvious nail poking up on it.

the wife (?) and the horrified child, no pierre, don't sit. (seet, they say, in that cartoon text french.)

but I must, he says.

of course he must. I'd much rather have this purpose and clarity burning than the other, colder kind of away.

5 comments:

Pauline said...

I remember being told once that what other people thought of me was none of my business. If only that were as easy to believe as it is to say! We suffer mediocrity inside the box, censure and ridicule outside the box. I guess if it's not safe anywhere, we just pick our poison.

Peter Bryenton said...

If you didn't think a lot, we'd have nothing to look at or read here.

Unknown said...

someone told me not too long ago that whenever she heard the word "too" as in too much, too little... she knew they were so out of their business and she just could not take them one bit seriously. There is no such thing as "too much or too little of anything" - it is totally outrageous to think anyone knows what the right amount is for another person. I wish I had known her a long time ago... as I have finally adopted that mentality. I talk the right amount. I think the right amount. sheesh. Who ARE these people and how in the world can they truly know what is too much or too little?

shara said...

mediocrity inside the box, censure and ridicule outside the box. yes, pauline, exactly. difficult sometimes to risk venturing outside, and sometimes inside is best, but too long inside the box and suddenly you're all sharp edges and unable to move anywhere. or something like that, I don't know. it's been a long, fully day. good, though. but I'm tired now, and ready for bed. I'll sleep well and happy tonight. hope good second job news is soon coming your way.

peter, I met someone today I think you and dave would get on famously with. I'll email you his website. and I'm pleased you come by to look and read.

mikaelah, I will think of that every time I hear or say too this or too that, thank you. I'm guilty of saying it, too. you're too loud, I tell my daughters sometimes. when what I need to say (what I try to remember to say) is I need more quiet.

Pauline said...

you just provided a delicious aha moment - when someone is "too" for us it means we "need" something different than what they are doing. Thanks!