Wordy Life


Today is Dr. Seuss’s Birthday. Theodor Seuss Geisel. But I am not going to write about him here. He was a great writer, and a tremendous inspiration for a lot of people. But, I’ve covered him before. Probably every year, on his birthday for the past ten years. I bet some of you know it better than he does by now.

I won’t put you through it again.

This week I watched the movie “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” which is a story about author Lee Israel. And yes, this entire week. It takes me about that long to watch a movie, fifteen minutes at a time. Anyway. It stars Melissa McCarthy, and I have to say, she was brilliant in her portrayal. Ms. McCarthy deserved an Oscar, as far as my untrained eyes go.

I don’t want to give away anything about the story, in case any of you haven’t seen the film, and decide to watch it. But I will say this, because it is common knowledge. Lee Israel was a writer. A struggling writer.

By God, I’m beginning to think we all are, at this point.

I looked at my writing stats, so far, for the year of 2019, for this blog. I have written 40,958 words in the past two months. Last year, in 2018, I wrote 206,624 words. The average length for a fiction novel is 70,000 words. Of course, I am writing about the lives of Barney Fudruckers, slipping on banana peels, and not War and Peace. But nonetheless. If I had set my intentions toward books, I could have written three last year. Albeit, it isn’t like Mount Everest. You don’t write books just because they are there. Yet, here I am in the wasteland of Bloginess.

I have to imagine you must be getting tired of this by now. After all these words.

At any rate, back to the movie. I can’t even give my take away from all of this, because that would involve a spoiler. But I will say that it made me think about worth, and value. Maybe because I am a writer.

I don’t think the movie did as well as The Black Panther at the Box Office. In fact it only grossed $8 million, compared to Black Panter’s $700 million. So. No. The majority of movies that attract the public are rambunctious on some level. There has to be showy turbulence and clanging of some sort. Either on an action side of things, or an interaction note.

Oh, enough about the movies. A branch of creativity. People do and say a lot of different things in the world of make believe. Like movies, and writing. Creating, is after all, putting good use of our imaginations. We all have them, imaginations, which we then use to create. All of us can close our eyes, and picture something that isn’t in front of us. That, is creativity. The first step at least. Many people don’t take it any further. But we all have it in us. If we can think of a number between 1 and 10, we are using our imaginations. But it doesn’t matter to some people. Just like accounting doesn’t matter to me, or pop culture, or ice fishing.

We all move along in different ways.
But finding the things that matter to us, is surely something.
That is the thing, I think.

I read a quote this morning by a guy named Horace Walpole. He was a historian who died in the mid 1700s. He said, “The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well.”

But, then, another guy said this. “The secret of life is not in what happens to you. It is in what you do with it that happens to you.” Norman Vincent Peale

And yet, another, this. “He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.” Shannon L. Alder

And. “The secret of life is knowing what you want and asking for it.” Lailah Gifty Akita

I could keep this up all day. Pick your secret of life, I suppose.

But I am steadfast in what I think the secret of life is. And we can’t find it in words, or quotes. Mostly, because.
There is no secret.


Why I don’t have a cat.