February 22 - Five Minutes
Perhaps a penguin wrestles with the question of “what’s it all for????”
Start a timer. Write for five minutes. Nothing more. Nothing less. When the timer stops—you stop—even if you are mid-sentence. Go.
Jack Kerouac wrote a list of his 30 beliefs and techniques for modern prose, one of which was, “Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind.”
Evoking images of the ocean, my own mind is a mystery. One of the many brilliant writers in this community shared about going to Antarctica twice. They said, “It’s amazing beautiful and devoid of people. Yet, life moves on each day. Penguins thrive, whales and seals thrive, and it doesn’t matter to them if my life has meaning.”
I reckon it doesn’t matter much to them if their life has meaning either. From the sound of it, whales are too busy being bottomless. Maybe they do have existential crises which we cannot fathom. Perhaps a penguin wrestles with the question of “what’s it all for????”
Or maybe it’s just our minds that get in the way of our unfolding. We cling to our thoughts and as we sync up with our phones and technology more and more, we lose the sanity that comes with nature.
“Touch grass” is such a perfect command to those terminally online
I liked your spin on my penguin take because it’s accurate. The penguin isn’t looking for meaning. Penguins find meaning in purpose. Like Hooper said about the shark in Jaws, “all he does, is eat, sleep, and make little sharks.” Maybe that’s enough. The meaning is the purpose. Sure, it’s just survival and prolonging the species and as humans we need more than that. But I’ve always admire Frankl and he saw purposeful work as critical to finding meaning. I just worry we’ve lost the ability to define purposeful. For most of us, we find it when we have children. It becomes obvious. But what about the rest? Especially the young. They keep looking for meaning in a handheld device that feeds them a skewed definition of purpose. Eat whatever you want. Take this medication. Have this life altering surgery and you’ll feel happy. Somehow they need to tune it out.
Maybe the meaning of purpose is finding a purpose with meaning.
Write for 5 minutes...well ok. It’s a Wednesday. Middle of the standard workweek, although many people don’t work a standard week. It’s always amazing to me how many “average” Americans forget about all the evening, Sat/Sun workers out there who make their life easier. Retail, so they can get their retail therapy. Food workers so they can buy something quick, instead of cooking with the family. Salons, to get their hair and nails done. Ugh. The arrogance of some of these “average” Americans is so annoying. Yet, so many of these same people will tell you how incredibly busy they are so they....