Farting on the surface of the moon

For weeks now, literally, I've been puzzling over the exercise of a 40-word description of what this blog is about.  That exercise is specifically for the purpose of joining a major massive network of women-bloggers, one with the potential to bring me advertisers, possibly some income, from this daily practice of writing down what I think about whatever.

In the beginning I thought coming up with those 40 words would be pretty easy.  I did one version, then another, then a third that I thought was better and still left me with 12 words more, 12 extra opportunities to describe.

But none of it felt right.

I set myself a deadline -- I said I'd have my cocktail-napkin elevator pitch complete by the night we were going to the midnight super-special screening of The Hunger Games to which we had the good fortune to be invited -- but even with a publicly-stated drop-dead, I still didn't have it.

And now two weeks after Hunger Games, still here in the middle, still considering.

Taking more time with it, actually, has been the best possible outcome for me.  In fact, something occurred to me yesterday while hiking through the woods for the first time since my second epidural for the herniated disc in my spine.  Something good, I think, which is that

The Force Expansive is what life's about.

There's a lot more to the story, naturally, and I'm filling in in my notebook, scribbling notes and grabbing good phrases from earlier attempts, but really, since this blog is me, is my thoughts, is my ruminations and stories and confessions of bad behavior and misguided rages (like my post, "I really hate religion.  Especially cross-fit," on how much and unreasonably I hate the cross-fit people at the cafe), of course it's hard to write the forty words. 

How would you describe your life's mission, if you were asked? 

I lovingly throw down the gauntlet and invite you to devote some thought to this, share your blurbs in the space below. 

Taking my time, as I am -- and I do have to add that I'm not taking my time all that willingly.  My laptop is still at the shop after 1 1/2 weeks so I'm going a little nuts without it, trying to write on this antique super-slow desktop computer at home -- means, though, that refinements keep showing up.

As I've mentioned as recently as yesterday, I've been reading a lot of Jeff Goins for the past few months.  He's really tremendous when it comes to sharing information about how to blog better; I've learned a ton from him already from just reading what he writes regularly, and also reading his two e-books, and being signed up for his Intentional Blogging email series, now in its 6th of 7th week, I can't remember.  Anyway, I'm learning a ton from him and not all of it, I'm sure, is exactly what he has in mind.  It's because we're so different, and that difference is illuminating for me something new and yet not-new, something that has always animated me but which suddenly, now, I can articulate.

Which is that profoundly, deeply, I have the conviction that everything is, that people are, inherently good.  I reject all notion of original sin, of sin at all, and always have.  I don't buy any philosophy that starts from a premise of us being dirty in some way, base, and in need of a deep clean.  Nope.  Don't buy it.

This is why, for example, I completely refused all of my mother's attempts to baptize The Kid.  Even at 24, 24 long/short years ago, although I couldn't say it the way I am saying it now, I felt that baptizing him, feeding this idea that somehow he arrived in this life with something wrong in him that could only be made right through this ritual, was so wrong that I could never make peace with it.  So I said No. And my mother eventually gave up.  What's funny is that I know, actually, that she totally agrees with me on this, but then, because he was a baby, those crazy religious rituals just seem to take over the thinking.  It happens all the time, even when you're raised, as I was, to be an unbelieving Catholic, a cultural Catholic who knows the stories but has always known that they're just stories.

I don't know and don't presume to know what Jeff himself believes.  All I know is that lately things he has written have really made me aware of what is really the Truth of All Truths for me -- that inherent goodness that permeates all life, everything around us.  [Which is why, incidentally, I always loved Anusara Yoga, since that's it's starting premise, but that's a longer post that I'm still not ready to write.] So first, Jeff wrote that thing about The Hunger Games that I mentioned in yesterday's post -- that as writers we could really learn from its pages to write for an ADD generation.  Then yesterday there was this:

To which I, in the clear minority, responded:

And I really mean it.  Because look, no matter what century it is, no matter how far we think we've evolved or whatever, we can be standing on the surface of the moon and a fart is STILL going to make us laugh.  Because that's what we are: this amazing synthesis of potential for greatness AND sweet, glorious silliness. 

I reject this notion that we're going to hell in a handbasket right now thanks to and with our tools.  That we're somehow worse off now that we ever were, that we're a nation, if not a world, of ADD-addled short-attention-spanned toddlers.  That kind of thinking gets us in trouble.  Sure, we say it about ourselves, but we also mean it about OTHERS, and that allows all kinds of bad shit to go down between you and the next person if you're starting from the premise that that person is somehow fucked up, with ADD, and stupid to boot, watching aforementioned cat videos.  At least that's how it seems to me.

And that's in part what The Force Expansive is about: sharing this strong feeling that I've always had, that we got here good, that we can get good-er, sure, but that we started out just fine and life is a process of constant expansion of that goodness.

Stuffing that into a coherent 40 words, though?  I'm getting there, loves.  It's getting better all the time.

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