Do
you have a core, motivating belief? Is it something that you can put
into words? How open are you to the next moment?
I’ve
always been a great believer in randomness and serendipity. If you
put your trust in the next moment, if you can open yourself to
chance, precisely the right thing will turn up. I’ve never been
sure how best to put this into words.
The
most succinct way to express it is probably to say: “The
universe will provide.” But that is just not an ideal turn of
phrase to me.
Parameters
Longstanding
readers of this blog (should such an unfortunate personage exist)
will know of my admiration for Brian Eno.
One
of the many things I love about Eno’s approach to his work and to
life in general is his constant openness to experiment. One of Eno’s
experimental approaches is the paradoxical setting of real or
imaginary parameters to promote or enable creative freedom.
One
of my favourite things on Twitter is the More Dark Than Shark account’s daily
sharing of one of Eno’s Oblique Strategies cards. The Oblique
Strategies are decks of cards to be drawn at random when you hit a
creative impasse. Their gnomic instructions provide suggested next
steps. Some are highly practical, more are deeply abstract. None is
what you might expect.
A good blog-scuppering problem to have
One
of my favourite things in life is to blog early of a Saturday
morning, strong coffee to hand, deeply immersive music playing. Today
was different. I was bereft of inspiration. A vague idea I’d had
for a post about the explicit awfulness of Steve Bannon’s
strategies** was scuppered by a) being but a half-formed idea and b)
the news that Bannon has been removed from his post as Trump’s chief strategist.
This latter factor definitely counts as a good blog-scuppering
problem to have.
I
decided to give up on the blogging for this week, and instead take a
look at what might wash ashore from the beautiful sea of words and
thoughts that is Twitter.
As if by magic, the perfect thing, the words for which I had been looking (without knowing it) appeared.
Today’s
Oblique Strategy share from More Dark Than Shark expresses perfectly my belief
in randomness and serendipity. For me, these are words by which to
live:
“Once
the search is in progress, something will be found.”
Randomness
and serendipity are certainly not the only things in which I believe.
But they can be among the most powerful. I am interested to know: How
big a role does randomness and being open to the next moment play in
your life? What beliefs drive yo?
Gentle
reader: Might I please wish you the most fulfilling of days? May
the next moment be a beautiful one for you, in the most unexpected way.
FOOTNOTES
* Diamonds
by Xordox is today’s music of choice, which I randomly happened
upon yesterday via a recommendation from DJ Food’s consistently
excellent Four From Food Fridays post yesterday. Thank you, sir!
** I
was stunned and sickened by Bannon’s statement in an interview with
The American Prospect on how the current racial tensions in the US
were working to his advantage:
“The
Democrats, the longer they talk about identity politics, I got ‘em. I
want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on
race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush
the Democrats."
What can you even say in the face of this?
MJCarty 