Thursday, March 28, 2013

Foolish Prompt

[This week, as I resurrect this blog, I use foolish thinking to help me get back to writing again.]

Sometimes, you need a random act of foolery.

Step 1: Generate a random number between 1 and 60:


Step 2: Find your number on the list below:

RISK
#1: Look for Trouble
#2: Make Things More Difficult
#3: Don't Solve the Problem
#4: Set Yourself Up for Failure
#5: Try a Really Bad Idea
#6: Scare Yourself
#7: Make a Fool Out of Yourself
#8: Seek Rejection
#9: Trust in Dumb Luck
#10: Use Weaknesses as Strengths
#11: Fix What Ain't Broken
#12: Never Give Up
#13: Give Up
#14: Repeat Repeat Repeat
#15: Play It Safe
IMAGINE
#16: Imagine the Impossibilities
#17: Connect the Unrelated
#18: Transform Objects
#19: Borrow Ideas
#20: Exaggerate the Details
#21: Fantasize the Future
#22: Picture an Audience
#23: Misremember the Past
#24: Worry about Everything
#25: Destroy
PLAY
#26: Make Fun
#27: Do the Opposite
#28: Manipulate Time and Space
#29: Act without Reason
#30: Make and Break the Rules
#31: Compete with Yourself
#33: Use More Effort Than Necessary
#34: Use What's Handy
#35: Secretly Cooperate
#36: Fool Around
#37: Make Music
#38: Be Serious
PRETEND
#39: Change Identity
#40: Do the Wrong Thing
#41: Act Crazily
#42: Fool Others
#43: Fool Yourself
#44: Get Caught Up in the Moment
#45: Overreact
#46: Go Through the Motions
#47: Know Everything
#48: Enjoy Failure
#49: Play Yourself
OBSERVE
#50: Spy on the World
#51: Misunderstand
#52: Look for Laughs
#53: Change Your Perspective
#54: Pay Attention to the Unnoticed
#55: Follow and Trip Assumptions
#56: Listen to your Unconscious
#57: Ride the Opportunities
#58: Find the Best in the Worst
#59: Don't Think
#60: Think Like You

(from 60 Ways To Think Like a Fool)

Step 3: Apply the prompt to your problem. Or use it all day. Or all week! Or forever!

Next: Applying a random prompt to get me to write this blog.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

How Long Should a Blog Post Be?

For a fool, this blog post is long enough.

[This week, as I resurrect this blog, I use foolish thinking to help me get back to writing again.]

 

Monday, March 25, 2013

Your Moment of Fool

[This week, as I resurrect this blog, I use foolish thinking to help me to write again.]

I haven't written in this blog in a long time. But here I am writing while big snowflakes fall outside. There is no time like the present they say, so I'll let these words fall like snowflakes, fill the page, get me started writing again.

How can thinking like a fool get me to write again, get me to use writing to learn again, and get me to share what I've learned to teach?

I put on my imaginary clown nose, my dunce cap, and my jester's hat, and the two hats fight it out for time and space, and the clown nose sneezes, and the video goes out. What video? The one that just went out, silly. The one I was watching to procrastinate writing.

I am a fool, and I write, right? I see the snow fall through the barely open curtains, through the window, through my brain synapsing. And the snow reminds me that the world outside, the present moments, remind me, that that's all I need, that that's all I need to start writing again, to start feeling, thinking, acting foolish again. I think, therefore, I fool, therefore I write, therefore I play. Wright? Achoo!
Makes nonsense to me.

Takeaway: A fool uses the present moment as a jumping-off point to start writing.