Creative - of course you are!

A pandemic is a lesson in living with reality. It will be a hard lesson, there will be grief and heartache.

For many across the world, the Covid-19 pandemic means financial and health insecurity. Fear of disease and death is compounded by loss of income or housing, and accompanied by unease about governments seeking only to seize more power.

For many of us in Australia right now, though, we are simply stuck at home. After the initial anxiety spike, the panic buying and the grief of ruined plans, we find ourselves facing a new reality of being in the one place, all the time, without our usual activities and distractions.

Those of us away from the 'front line' of Covid-19 have a sudden excess of time. It feels strange.

This strange feeling is largely the lack of opportunity to consume.

From Oliver Sacks

Wordly Inspiration from Oliver Sacks, who not only wrote prolifically, he regularly reflected on the process of his own writing.

"The act of writing is itself enough; it serves to clarify my thoughts and feelings. The act of writing is an integral part of my mental life; ideas emerge, are shaped, in the act of writing...a special, indispensable form of talking to myself."

See more Wordly Inspiration. 

Wild and zany - whose adjective is it anyway?

In these days of ubiquitous social media, online dating and 'tell us how good you are' job interviews, we frequently need to describe ourselves.

To do this, we use adjectives like friendly, fun, down-to-earth, positive, thoughtful, creative, caring, trustworthy, dedicated, motivated, effective. You can even find helpful lists online if you need more impressive adjectives for your profile.

When I was young, we were schooled in modesty: to assume effort, character and ability would speak for themselves. Self promotion was frowned upon. So, the contemporary need to self-describe and self-promote has been uncomfortable for me.

But I'm used to it now. I no longer panic in interviews when asked to describe myself in three words, and I follow the job seeker's guideline: 'Don't be too modest'. 

But sometimes the way people talk about themselves, well, it just doesn't feel right to me.

Source: Public Domain

Here are a few examples that feel off beam:

• We're soooo crazy! - group of performers in an interview after a concert
• We're wild; we're out of control; look out world! - group of 30-something football fans
• My parties are always great because I'm so zany! - woman at public function she organised
• We're all really cool; you'll like working here - new work colleague.

When a person says these sorts of things, it's not that I disagree with them. What feels strange and a bit off is that they use these adjectives to describe themselves.

I find myself wondering, is it actually their adjective to use?

TATKOP 121

There Are Two Kinds Of People: those who look for the answer 'out there' and those who look 'in here'. 

See more in the TATKOP series.