People always ask how cartoonists come up with ideas… When something interests us, we play around with it.
My goal is to feel enthusiastic about some aspect of the work. I think one can always tell when an artist is engaged and having a good time: the energy and life comes through the work.
—Bill Watterson
Any Calvin and Hobbes fan can tell you Bill Watterson’s energy and life did indeed come through his work. That’s why the cartoons are still loved 14 years after the last one was published, and why the U S. Postal Service is going to issue a Calvin and Hobbes stamp this coming July.
Hobbes is one of my role models so I have all of the comics and revisit them from time to time. They’re guaranteed to get me out of mental ruts…they stir my imagination and make me see the world with fresh eyes. You can view the comics in order here.
One reason the cartoons still seem fresh after all these years is because Bill took two sabbaticals when he needed to, from May 1991 to February 1992, and from April through December 1994. (The strips ran from November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995.) And he ended the strips in 1995 because he had said all he had to say. It was time to move on.
What about you? Have you ever taken sabbaticals to renew yourself? Have you ever stopped doing something you loved and/or were successful at because it was time to move on?
This past week Rummuser suggested I comment on a New York Times article with the catchy title Seeking a Cure for Optimism. The article argues against extreme positive thinking, the idea that if we just work hard and look on the bright side everything will go the way we want. That conclusion is like the one we came to last week, that having a positive attitude doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep our eyes open and our brains plugged in. Hopefully people who weren’t doing that before have learned from the recent financial crisis.
Let’s face it, it’s not an either-or thing. A positive attitude promotes creativity, flexibility and cooperation, and it motivates us to take action. On the other hand being more negative can cause us to gather more data, look for pitfalls and think more critically. We need both. Brainstorming is a good example. To come up with new ideas that are sound we need both the generative and critical phases.
The article points out too much negative thinking is “just as delusional as unquestioned positive thinking.” We need to encourage realism, to try to see the world “not colored by our wishes or fears, but by reality.”
One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was from one of my favorite teachers in high school. I still remember where we were standing when he said kids often rebel against their parents and authority figures, but if we simply criticize and attack we’re just as trapped as if we blindly believe everything we’re told. We have to figure out what our own values are and learn to live them.
Neurolinguistic programming (NLP) says it more simply:
Focus on what you want, not on what you don’t want.
In fact NLP in a nutshell is
Figure out what you want,
Notice if what you’re doing is getting you closer to what you want, and
To all the people watching, I can never thank you enough for your kindness to me and I’ll think about it for the rest of my life. All I ask of you is one thing: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism- it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere.
Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.
One of my favorite stories is the Zen one of a man being chased by a tiger.
He came to a cliff and thought he would be killed until he saw a vine. He grabbed hold of it and swung himself over the edge of the cliff, safe from the tiger’s jaws.
But looking down he saw more hungry tigers on the ground below him. And even worse, a mouse above was gnawing through the base of the vine. At any moment he would fall to certain death. Then he noticed a wild strawberry growing on the cliff wall. Clutching the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other and put it in his mouth.
His very last taste of food was delicious.
When I first heard this story I thought it clearly wasn’t an American one. We like happy endings. But since then I’ve read that the original story was modified for American audiences. In the original ending the strawberry was poisonous.
That’s a bit grim for even for those of us with a tragic view of life.
On the other hand, I find the above version inspiring. Unlike a true positive thinker I believe there are circumstances that we’re powerless to change. But that doesn’t mean we can’t make the most of the life we still have left. What do you think?
We have long telephone chats with my daughter every Sunday evening, and last Sunday my daughter was telling me about the winter displays at the Chicago Botanic Garden. We both wished my husband and I had a magic carpet to come and see it with her and Torben.
They get a season pass each year and go there often. The four of us always go when Andy and I visit, and she and Torben were married there.
My husband loves model trains so when we visit we see the Model Railroad Garden. It has 17 trains (1/29th the size of full scale trains) on 1,600 feet of track. The tracks go over trestles and through tunnels and miniature gardens and around representations of some of America’s landmarks. It’s a fun place to visit for the little kids in us.
So the part of the garden that my daughter was most enthusiastic about was the Wonderland Express. They had moved the miniature trains inside, into the very room where Kaitlin and Torben were married. I wanted to share the experience with her and even though modern technology hasn’t come up with a magic carpet for Andy and me, it has provided a substitute. I went online while Kaitlin was talking and found this video:
It was a great way of sharing, reinforcing old memories and creating new ones.
What about you? What new memories are you creating?
Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you
cry alone.
I don’t believe it. I know plenty of caring people who are quick to help people who are feeling down. I also know people who dismiss people who laugh a lot as being completely brainless.
And even when people do laugh that doesn’t mean they will laugh with you. As gaelikaa points out in her recent post on humor, people don’t always laugh at the same things. I’ve been lucky that way. I can still remember silly incidents from when I was a kid that my mother and I laughed about for years.
I also remember an incident that happened when my husband and I were first married. We were on a trip to England and the highlight was being able to see Hamlet played at Stratford-upon-Avon. I had loved Hamlet when I studied it in high school and couldn’t believe my luck…until I saw the performance. The acting was so poor it was funny, especially the gal who played Ophelia. A robot could have delivered her lines more convincingly.
Then when Ophelia was saying “Oh woe is me” a loud snicker rang through the room. I was thrilled…there was a kindred spirit who felt the way I did. Yeah, sure. Everyone in the room started staring at me… I had done the snickering. That made it even funnier. It was all I could do to wait until intermission to laugh. Andy shared it with me, then I went back to the hotel while he stayed for the rest of the performance. It was a family joke for years that I had to leave in disgrace. Even now if I start to feel sorry for myself it lifts my spirits to think of that wooden voice saying, “Oh woe is me.”
Many of the things that tickle our funny bone don’t make good stories. We often say, “You have to have been there.” I think it’s more than that. You also have to have seen the incident with the same quirky sense of humor. Humor is tricky because it’s so personal.
What about you? What makes you laugh? Do you still remember funny incidents years later?
When we went up to get our Christmas tree this year we saw this one on the side of the road. A local couple decorates one each year for the pleasure of passersby.
This tree is a nice contrast to the opinion voiced by of Peggy Noonan (Wall Street Journal, 12/19/09) that Americans are deteriorating in the way we treat one another:
I’d like to see a poll on this. Yes or no: Have we become a more vulgar country? Are we coarser than, say, 50 years ago? Do we talk more about sensitivity and treat others less sensitively? …. Is there less courtesy in America now than when you were a child, or more?
I think the popular culture is more vulgar than when I was a kid, but as far as how we treat one another I don’t think it has changed all that much. It depends on who you hang out with. I tend to avoid rude people as much as possible and hang out with the caring, considerate ones.
I don’t have as rosy view of the world as Duncan does. I read the headlines and skim some articles every morning to see the latest ways things are going to hell in a hand basket. Then I spend the rest of the day practicing the art of reviving my spirits.
It’s good practice in emotional self-management. And I do think that’s an art. I agree with Thoreau:
It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look. To affect the quality of the day—that is the highest of arts.
— Henry David Thoreau
I’m not necessarily good at it, but that doesn’t matter. Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.
What techniques do I try? All sorts. One of the simplest is using iGoogle, with the tea house theme, as my home page. It sends a powerful subliminal message to stay centered and peaceful.
The picture changes 12 times a day as the fox goes through his daily routine. (Click on each picture if you would like a larger view.)
We have gazillions more techniques at our disposal, of course, but this is one of my favorites. Which, if any, do you use?
This cartoon reminds me of the bumper sticker, “Beam me up, Scotty. There’s no intelligent life down here.”
If you were an intelligent life form somewhere else in the universe would you try to contact us? I’m not sure I would. As I’ve said before, I think we’re all a bunch of nuts.
That doesn’t mean we’re not lovable nuts, of course. That’s been a liberating concept for me, that we don’t have to be perfect. It’s okay to make mistakes, to make fools of ourselves, to keep trying things.
Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
I’m sure I have a noble mind
And honesty and tact,
And no one’s more surprised than I
To see the way I act!
That’s been a great comfort to me when I’ve made a fool of myself one more time.
The other day I came across another poem that’s a bit longer, but it brings back the feeling of embarrassment and regret when I’ve blown it again. Sometimes all you can do is laugh.
The Cookie Thief
by Valerie Cox
A woman was waiting at an airport one night,
With several long hours before her flight.
She hunted for a book in the airport shops.
Bought a bag of cookies and found a place to drop.
She was engrossed in her book but happened to see,
That the man sitting beside her, as bold as could be.
Grabbed a cookie or two from the bag in between,
Which she tried to ignore to avoid a scene.
So she munched the cookies and watched the clock,
As the gutsy cookie thief diminished her stock.
She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by,
Thinking, “If I wasn’t so nice, I would blacken his eye.”
With each cookie she took, he took one too,
When only one was left, she wondered what he would do.
With a smile on his face, and a nervous laugh,
He took the last cookie and broke it in half.
He offered her half, as he ate the other,
She snatched it from him and thought… oooh, brother.
This guy has some nerve and he’s also rude,
Why he didn’t even show any gratitude!
She had never known when she had been so galled,
And sighed with relief when her flight was called.
She gathered her belongings and headed to the gate,
Refusing to look back at the thieving ingrate.
She boarded the plane, and sank in her seat,
Then she sought her book, which was almost complete.
As she reached in her baggage, she gasped with surprise,
There was her bag of cookies, in front of her eyes.
If mine are here, she moaned in despair,
The others were his, and he tried to share.
Too late to apologize, she realized with grief,
That she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief.
Sometimes I wish I were more perfect, but then I think, “Don’t be so arrogant, Jean, Old Gal. We’re all a bunch of nuts. Why should you be any different?”
This cartoon reminds me of my dad. He used to say, “Never let people know how much you can do, otherwise they’ll expect you to do it.” He wasn’t a great achiever, of course, but his strategy worked well for him.
Have you ever pretended to be less competent than you really are? (I have.) If so, what did you do with the time that you saved?
Have you ever pretended to be more competent than you were at the time? (“Fake it ’til you make it”…I have.) How did that work out?
