Dear Characters in the Drama of Life,
I heard one novelist say she likes to throw her
characters into hot water and see how they get out of it. I think some of us
are suffering from burns, but we’re still here. And some of us still believe in
the goodness of people.
Yesterday, on our night walk with the dogs, I commented to my daughter that we’re all immigrants unless we’re Native American, and then it dawned on me that they are, too. Scientists/historians believe they crossed the Bering Strait (between Alaska and Russia) into North America before the ocean invaded the land bridge. My daughter said some Native American DNA shows that they came from the South.
We all came from somewhere, although it appears that
the Africans were created on the spot.
It’s been a mine-cart/roller coaster ride, hasn’t it?
I am launching a new website this week.
Just what the world needs, right?
Another website.
Yes, we need magic, fun, and laughter back in our
lives.
And after all my years of writing, I need one that pays for its keep. Not that I’m charging you guys, but I am offering some mind stuff, and physical stuff for sale—all optional.
Think of this: your mind can
create the fragrance of freshly made sourdough bread that runs through my site.
I know bread has been maligned, but sourdough is the very best for you, and the
scent and taste are subline, so when I read a novel that kept describing the fragrance
of sourdough and gave a recipe for making your own sourdough starter, I had to
include the recipe.
I’m way into the day with this blog because I have spent so much time on the other site, and it is not complete, but I know how engineers work, (although I’m not one) they are still dinking with their product as it is being pushed onto the display floor. Yesterday, I got immersed in my story, Where Tigers Belch, by rewriting it, cleaning it up, and feeling a respite from the cares of the world by reading it. I wanted to include it on my new site.
Today, I put in a Table of Contents, it got screwed up, so I took it out. It only has 10 short chapters, so it doesn't need one. I posted Where Tigers Belch, some
time ago on this site, you may have read it, but for those
who haven’t, here is the new Introduction:
Where Tigers Belch
by
Jo Davis
Where
Tigers Belch is
another quest as a young college student sets off into the jungle to find
her purpose and reason for being. The spot will be, she says, “where tigers belch.”
Have
you ever had one of those days where you felt off? You were out of sorts,
irritable, thinking nothing was going right? You were mad at the world and mad
that things weren't going according to plan. You were angry that you aren't
further along on your enlightenment trail, and wondering what enlightenment is
anyway.
You
could search for years and never find that spot where the tiger belches, where
you are calm and believe all's right with the world. It is the place where you
feel invincible.
I
understand the gap. Best to back off. Go into your hut, nap, pet that baby
cheetah on your bed, and listen to it purr. (I've heard that they have a purr
like a lawnmower, and if they lick you, your skin will feel like it has been
sanded.) Decide at that moment that you will be fresh tomorrow, and you are not
going to push it today.
I've
decided that tomorrow I will take my backpack. I will add a few bottles of
water and a couple of sandwiches and set off to find my destiny.
This
is the purpose of Where the Tigers Belch. It is an investigation into
finding one’s purpose and learning that we are magnificent beings on the road
to greatness.
We're
not on safari here, although I wish we were. We're here to find the spot that
lights our fire. That's where the tiger belches. I could say sleep, lies down,
or roars, but I like Abby's lyrical poem, so I'm saying, "Where it
belches."
While
in Africa, Martha Beck found herself in an awkward and dangerous place. She was
between a Momma rhinoceros and her baby. Standing there looking at an animal
the size of a Volkswagen bus, she experienced a strange phenomenon. She was
frightened, yes, but she was also elated. She was at a place she had dreamed of
since childhood, and at that moment, that rhinoceros represented her one true
nature. She felt that, somehow, she had come face to face with her destiny.
(Between a rhino and a hard place?)
Perhaps
that rhino was a talisman for her, a representation of what she could become:
big, strong, able to overcome obstacles, that thing that both scares us and
elates us. We hope we live to tell of it when we find ourselves in that place.
Being
at a spot where a tiger belch has a gentler ring than coming face-to-face with
a rhino. The purpose is the same. However, which would you rather face, a wild
tiger or a wild rhino?
I
don't think we can take credit for all we have produced, for I believe in muses
and divine intervention. However, we can take credit for searching. I
search for my figurative or literal spot where the tiger belches.
Come along for the hike. This will be available as a Pdf to download on Travels with Jo--coming up this week.
Chapter 51
Badass Training
101
Have you
ever read a well-written story, but you felt miserable after reading it?
I won't tell
you where I found the story I’m talking about, I read it by accident. The Title
lured me. That shows the value of a good title, doesn’t it?
If I tell
you what it was, you will read it. The author will get ten thousand hits, and
publishers will think that's what people want and publish more depressing
stuff. And I will be home sucking my thumb, and you will be depressed because
you read about another miserable life.
While I
found that miserable story, I also found this:
It was a
three-line blog by Seth Godin:
"How
much of what we want, really want, is due to the ideas that culture has given
us, and how much do we need?
"If
a memetic desire isn't making us happy, perhaps we can find some new
ideas."—Seth Godin.
My response?
What’s a memetic?
I looked it
up.
“Memetics
are ideas that become a kind of virus, sometimes propagating despite truth and
logic."
A memetic
belief isn't necessarily true, as rules that survive aren't necessarily fair,
nor are rituals that survive necessarily necessary.
These
beliefs are good at surviving.
Isn't that
odd?
Some liken a memetic belief to a virus, while others say they are more like genes, replicating themselves. Robert Aunger says, "A memetic is more like a benign parasite incapable of or reproducing without a host, and the mimetic’s host is the human brain."
The word was
new to me, while the concept was not.
It was one
of those facts we know to exist. It lurks in the back of your mind, irritating
us without our knowing why. You know something is wrong. Our internal
knowingness recognizes it as absolute nonsense, but our conscious mind is
muddled.
We know that
rules grow and reproduce until we have dogmas, governmental ones, religious
ones, and metaphysical ones. Ideas get passed around, repeated, and
disseminated until people speak the same jargon and spout the same opinions.
That belief has taken on a life of its own.
It takes a
Badass not to do it.
Today I watched
and listened to Oprah Winfrey's commencement speech at Tennessee State
University, her alma mater. What a woman. She can put it out there like no one
else; I was motivated, inspired, and deeply moved.
When she
said she had never felt out of place, not enough, or an impostor, I saw how
this woman had achieved heights few women ever have, and she continues to be out
there to inspire. “Start by being good to one single person every day. You can
be a lifesaver to the one who receives it. Be someone's hope.”