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Hibernating Introverts: Be Ready When Bears Wake Up

Some bears hibernate through the winter months (the cold and storms) and emerge when the sun is back at a favorable angle. These beasts isolate for months without food, water, or interaction. 

But when they finally emerge, they are ravenous, ready to chow down, starved, thirsty, and perhaps missing fellowship. 

Introverted persons can also retreat into a form of hibernation. You might have a friend or family member who suddenly drops off the map. Not answering the phone, responding to texts, turning down all invites. 

You may have your feelings hurt and assume your attention is unwelcome. That may be true, but just like sleeping bears, shy folks can sometimes emerge from their sabbaticals, only to find that no one is around anymore. For those we care about, we have to put aside our sensitivities. We must act to help emerging hibernators nourish themselves after a season of seclusion.

Looking for Signs of Emerging Wildlife or Loners

Perhaps all introverts naturally enter this “maintenance mode” at intervals. Other times, it’s a response to a recent stressful time or traumatic event. 

But even introverts may push their isolation spells to the limit and end up in need of a chat, a hug. 

Unfortunately, they may not have the social skills to seek the recovery help they require.

If you are a caretaker or just a concerned friend, it may be up to you to spot the signs that an introvert has emerged in need of sustenance. You’ll have to ignore your frustration or hurt to help that person you care about find camaraderie. To refill their social batteries.

Each person’s poker “tells” will be different, how they signal they are willing to interact. Pay attention. These are people you probably know well. Note the telltale signs that mean they are ready to meet up again. I had to learn this from one of my best friends, my pup. She’s smarter than any human, so it was difficult, but very worth it.

Lessons from an Introverted Dog

I have had my own retreats into the darkness. Times I just have to be away from everything and everyone. Not always depressing times or negative spans. Sometimes, a hibernation after a fun time of interaction and over-stimulation, that ran the social battery down to zero.

Picture of Lulah, a sheperd mix enveloped in a grey blanket on a bed. Face half covered as she looks back at the camera.
Maybe You Know Someone Like Lulah

I’ve also learned about social hibernation in other animals and that balance of trying to draw an introvert out, but also give them space. 

I have a dog named Lulah. She’s not into cuddling and pets. She likes to hide away in closets. Navigate sleep realms without being disturbed.  If you put her on the human bed, she won’t curl around and choose a spot until you’ve left the room. She doesn’t want you to know where she’s hunkered down. 

I try to give her space, even though she’s beautiful and her fur is one of my refuges. I respect her wishes mostly, but  I’ve learned to notice when she’s been isolated too long.

Lulah, a brown and white shepherd mix, laying up on a white sheet, crossing her paws.

She’ll appear in a room you’re in unexpectedly. She won’t come over to you, but she’ll keep circling around, going to the window, looking back at you.

She’ll strike a regal pose, making sure you know she would never beg you for attention, but you might be allowed to approach. 

She might be saying she needs some kisses or some playtime.

I’ve learned to spot her almost imperceptible signals. I’ll rub her ears or fight with her. And then I watch for the signals that she’s done with me and ready for dinner, or a return to one of the sanctuaries she’s established behind the furniture.

Tips for Introverts Emerging from Down Time

Perhaps you are the bear rising from a soft bed of leaves and emerging from the mouth of a secluded cave. You are hungry, thirsty, and ready to be around other citizens of the wilderness.

Recognize those who keep the door open for you, even if you run away at times.

You may show up at someone else’s doorstep or return a call after a few months’ gap. You may be confused when that person doesn’t welcome you, doesn’t immediately leap back into your life.

Introverts will have to understand that they may have burned bridges when they locked down their lives. They shouldn’t feel shame for having to retreat for a time, but they’ll also have to realize that their disappearance may have left some hurt feelings behind. 

Hibernating introverts who really desire to enter the stream of life again may have to do some fence mending. They may have to apologize to someone they care about, and even explain why it could happen again. 

Send out clear signals. Turn your light to green.

  • Remember that you may have pushed people away for weeks or months
  • You might have roared at a few people without realizing it
  • Remember to apologize if necessary
  • Set out a welcome mat
  • Plan for the next social outage

Be honest with yourself and others about the chances that you’ll have to retreat again at some point. When your social battery sits on empty.

Introverts can prepare to better weather these reclusive periods. They can make sure they have natural defenses set up in the fortresses where they lock themselves away.

Reminders from music and art that remind them that their sojourn in a lonely land won’t last forever.

Journal entries they can return to. A way to get a pep talk from their other selves who live outside the cave.

I wrote about the mental fortresses we can build for our times in solitude. How a strong, well-stocked fortress can sometimes make our hibernations more comfortable and shorter.

Preparing for the Emerging Recluse

Ready to Face a Sunrise Again

As friends of a shy, withdrawn person, we must learn to monitor the weather for signs of a thaw. Be ready with an emergency kit when they are ready to meet. Meet them on the slope.

Set up a supportive gab sesh or meal out, overlooking the hurt feelings we may harbor when this person went away suddenly. Give them the chance to make it up to you.

And as the hibernating bear emerging into the sunlight, take it slow. Try to be direct with the people who care about you. Let them know you are ready for some interaction and thank them for being loyal and waiting on you whenever the need arises. END

I also wrote about the self-defenses we sometimes build that keep us isolated without intending to. I discuss this phenomenon and how to escape a fortress if you’ve built it too strong.

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You As a Theme Park ~ Journaling Prompt

As writers, we often have to engage in some world-building to construct imaginary realms where our ideas or characters can live and breathe.

If you’re looking for inspiration for building out a small idea or a Cinematic Universe, you could do worse than Walt Disney himself.

Main Street Walt Disney World Florida

Think about it. He first put thoughts down on paper, then translated those ideas to the big and small screen. Then his next feat of world-building was to actually build a WORLD. Walt Disney World. Ta-Dah. Pretty amazing. Disneyland and Disney World might be the greatest example of world-building ever.

When you stroll a lush resort or ponder the future on the people-mover, you see parts of Walt’s inner self, squeezed out in theme and music. So what if you took Walt’s same journey?

You wrote and crafted a narrative based on your thoughts, interests, and your life. Then you had to bring it to life in the form of a theme park?

It’s a journaling prompt that might help you appreciate Walt’s journey and your own a little more.

Who Is Your Mickey?

Each land, ride, and backdrop of Disney World is a construct of something from Walt’s imagination. Perhaps his true self in metaphors and avatars. Walt said that Mickey Mouse was his animated personification. 

Pluto the dog.

So coming up with an animated version of yourself is the first step. Are you a goofy moose, a chatty vegetable, or a shy storm cloud with eyes? Perhaps you’ll need an animated movie for your avatar to star in. What would that animated movie be about?

Don’t rest on high ideals. You’ll have to pay the electric bills for your park, so you could need a whole cast of characters to sell to the world. Turn your parents and siblings into cartoon characters. Having a spokes-mouse or squid with lots of friends helps move merchandise.

Magic Kingdom and Epcot Designed by You

Emporium, Main Street USA Walt Disney World

Main Street U.S.A. represents Walt’s idea of the classic American town square. It’s inspired by his old hometown in Missouri.

Create your own main street based on your hometown. Select the decor and the shops. Add the bookstore where you bought your comic books as a kid. Add the bakery that released all the best smells.

Space Mountain Exit Tunnel.
Star Tunnels Are Great for Journaling

Adventureland and Future World express Walt’s childhood dreams and sometimes the things he was obsessed with as an adult.

What sort of lands would be fleshed out in your park? A section for astronomy? Horses? A land based on your favorite video game or novel? What sort of music would play in the background as people filed in? 

Epcot is a land of strange science, dusty history, and exotic locales. What states, hometowns, National Parks, or countries would have pavilions in your World Showcase?

What about the countries where your great-grandparents or great, great-grandparents immigrated from? Some boat rides/360 Imax Films based on tales you’ve heard from your parents and grandparents. How they met.

What gourmet treats would each booth and restaurant serve in each pavilion? A favorite dish based on your mom’s recipe? Pizza rolls? Lefse from Norway?

How would the destinations in Soarin’ change? What scenic wonders or quiet state parks would people fly over to get a sense of who you were and the sites that shaped you?

Mountain scene from Southern Colorado.
Imagination area bathroom.

What music plays in your bathrooms? Will you provide quality toilet paper for guests?

Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios Reimagined

Millenium Falcon couch at Hollywood Studios

Throw a giant tent over your life and form a big top. See what emerges. Build a Hollywood Studios and christen rides (and entire lands) based on your favorite movies.

How about a creepy ride like Tower of Terror, but based on a favorite horror movie or series? Or maybe a thrilling attraction based on a real paranormal experience you witnessed. 

Kick Aerosmith out of the Rock n’ Roller Coaster and form a ride based on your favorite band. A land themed around your favorite childhood cartoon could be a hit.

Mount Everest at Animal Kingdom with clueless tourist.

Animal Kingdom could be redesigned to include your favorite animals. A focus on the fauna of a beloved country you’ve visited or the Pacific Northwest. Perhaps a land of just geckos!!!!

What about a family trip that went off the rails when you were young. That embarrassing camping trip may translate into an e-ticket attraction that thrills guests and proves healing for you.

Resorts for Your Theme Park Dedicated to Your Life

More Choices: Now pick themes for the resorts to surround your park. Base a resort on your favorite city, tourist spot, or on your favorite board game. 

Caribbean Beach Resort Pool
Disney World Skyliner

You’ll have to pick your preferred method of transportation for people to ride back and forth to your thematic parks and lodging. 

You don’t have to include the hard times in your life. But don’t feel you are alone in carrying regrets and trauma. Walt himself went through layoffs, bankruptcy, and a nervous breakdown. He was cheated out of his beloved creations at times. 

African cuisine at Sanaa.

Without a doubt, Walt suffered from anxiety. He met with failure, lost companies, and suffered ridicule for his risky idea to build a park for children (with the secret intention to delight adults as well). 

And yet Disney World still turned it into something positive. Walt absorbed the pain, the regret, the disappointment, but never let it infect the lands in his dreams.

He turned his struggles into comfort food for the entire world.

Breaking Ground on Your Theme Park

Perhaps this exercise becomes therapeutic. Your nutty childhood doesn’t seem as tragic when experienced through a few character rides backed with some cartoony music and narration.

Tron Rollercoaster.

Those big drops on the roller coaster that was your teen experience might be rebranded as coming-of-age lessons, suitable to put on a t-shirt.

Or perhaps someone you struggle to understand or get along with is easier to digest as an angry cartoon duck.  

You’ve got an advantage over Walt Disney. His parks have to please as many people as possible. Your park only needs to gratify you. END.


Bonus Content: I recently presented the crazy notion that Walt Disney World is the perfect place to do some journaling. Check out my top Disney World journaling hot spots, from the Soarin’ queue to the Space Mountain exit line.

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Surviving Encounters with Deep Sea Creatures and Difficult People

Difficult people are an inevitable part of life. You’ll encounter them at family reunions, in the workplace, and at the mall. You may spot one in your mirror at home. 

Sometimes we have the option to block or avoid these challenging personalities. Other times we have little choice but to endure them. With no escape hatch in sight, you may wonder how you’ll survive a work day, a family trip, or a relationship managing exposure to a cranky person.  

One way to gain a more positive perspective on such a relationship is to dive deeper. Gain a better understanding of why people are the way they are.

It’s the same way with the denizens of the deep ocean. Once you discover the conditions that spawned them, it’s easier to accept some mean looks, slimy scales, and hostile interactions. 

Exploring the Murky Depths of Difficult People

Believe it or not, there are similarities between odd, defensive sea creatures and that jackass who sits in the next cubicle at work.

We know very little about the lifestyles of the inhabitants of deep water. The glimpses oceanographers have gotten haven’t been the most welcoming. Fish who need a dentist. Globby fish with glow-in-the-dark organs. 

But the strange readings aren’t all that surprising when you consider where these fish have had to spend their lives. The bottom of the ocean is a biome of crushing pressure, no sunlight, cold temperatures, and not a lot of food to be found.

To survive this kind of environment, what sort of adaptations would a fish have to undergo? We can forgive a sea monster for its appearance and biting comments when we consider the daily grind it must endure. If we can forgive a fish, maybe we can forgive people too when they appear to behave without compassion. 

The Deep Sea Pressures We Endure

Deep sea fish have developed flexible bones to withstand the pressures of the depths. The Anglerfish displays a luminescent fin to attract dinner guests. Squid can change color to strike from the shadows or fade away from view from the larger forms that float by. Some of us can relate.

It’s not surprising that some of the jerks in our lives come with hardened shells or stinging barbs. Maybe they’ve been to the bottom. They could’ve faced some punishing environments as they bounced along the sea floor.

Sometimes by examining the motivations of unpleasant people it can help you become immune to their venom. Their comments and actions have less power over your attitude and reality. A sea monster can suddenly seem frail and desperate.

Wisdom from lower elevations

Deep Ocean Destinies We Can’t Understand

If we believe in destinies, there are other ways to view difficult people. Consider what types of tests or tempering they must endure to get ready for a difficult life journey.

You may see no reason for someone to behave the way they do, but it’s hard to know what life, or a higher being, is preparing them for. To survive what’s ahead, someone may have to slowly develop plates of armor, sharp teeth, unfounded hope, or a sensibility that doesn’t quite match up with yours.

Try not to judge someone too harshly for their behavior now. We can’t know what they are being constructed to face down the road. Preparations for their purposes might be underway. They may embark on a years-long trip into a metaphorical desert, or a barren stretch of ocean, as they get ready for the next phase of life. They may be miserable and become prickly as they wrestle with an obstacle set in their path or prepare for the next one.

Remember, intense surroundings, difficult backgrounds create the most beautiful and unique life forms. They are able to withstand conditions that would wither most mortals. Those punishing times may inspire you. The pop star with the unearthly range who sings about pain. A Coronate Medusa jellyfish who lights up like a carousel in the ocean trenches even though there’s no one to see such an unearthly display.

Beings evolve that wouldn’t exist without these turbulent forces of creation. Maybe you wouldn’t exist without the tumultuous environments that have shaped and strengthend the loved ones around you.

Perhaps those abrasive traits will provide an unexpected ally one day…lead to your rescue one day. A rescue that wouldn’t be mounted by any sane, well-adjusted person. Someone who isn’t a denizen of the deep.

Forgiving the Lantern Fish in Your Life

Tough circumstances aren’t an excuse for troubling behavior. There are plenty of people who go through absolute hell and yet come out as the kindest people you’ll meet. God bless those people.

But we all have our bad days. Someone may be putting up with your barbs and poisonous glands too. And not everyone who irritates you is a true villain.

We’ll have to forgive at some point, and exploring the reason someone may be less than kind is one way to gain some closure.

If you are stuck dealing with unpleasant people, sometimes you just have to hit the eject button and remove them from your life. But if you must endure a bad situation, or you are hanging on because you love someone, there are ways foster understanding and acceptance. 

Identifying that it’s not you that makes this person so grumpy helps. Delving into why they are this way and what they may actually desire changes your perspective and theirs. Your effort to understand a slimy fish might change the view from its fish eye lens.

END

Perhaps you are the difficult person. Or just someone stuck in the dark depths of life’s oceans. Check out my article on looking at these struggles in a new light and acknowledging how they often get us ready for our destinies.

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Don’t Assume You Are The Only Good In Your World

A lot of things keep us up at night. Overthinking won’t let us power down our brains and instead, we take a journey on a near-infinite loop of imagined fears and outcomes. 

Fair ride lit up at night.
Spin Cycle

Stressing about problems in our lives is normal, but some of us sit helplessly as our over-active imaginations spin our anxiety like a fidget wheel. 

We presuppose every way a situation can go wrong, but there’s another way of looking at those imagined outcomes. We can assume the worst, so why can’t we assume the best? 

Letting go of all that existential dread starts with a revolutionary thought…

You aren’t the only good person in the world.

Putting a Positive Spin on Negative Thoughts

We spend hours with our eyes closed, picturing in full color every way that something in the future could spiral out of control. 

What’s worse, our brains might drag up past events that have already been resolved without disaster, and yet we stress over the ways they could have gone much worse. These concepts sound ridiculous in the light of day, but when the darkness closes in, they can seem real and probable. 

You can’t stop all bad things from happening, but you can prevent 100% of the catastrophes that only occur in your mind.

Scott Sentell

My worst nights always start with a lost puppy.

The Lesson of the Lost Puppy

Stray dog on beach.
Maybe they actually enjoy not theming for the holidays.

I looked for new ways to reign in the destructive side of my imagination after stressing over the imagined fate of my dog. What if she was lost? What if I couldn’t reach her to provide help, food, a gentle hand?

What about every other stray dog on the planet? Like those cities in other countries where sweet mommy dogs just wander the streets and beaches and plop down a litter of puppies whenever and wherever they feel like it. That stresses my brain! 

Who will love them and give them a home? Who will dress them in Halloween costumes??!! 

I had to find a way to stop my brain from getting stuck in such a debilitating groove.

The Lost Puppy Solution

Then, after many sleepless hours, I realized the one thing I never considered. There were millions of other people in the world who worry about the same things. 

Dog in a window.
Different House. Same Entitlement.

If my pup was ever lost, I could safely assume there were other people she would encounter who would gladly help her. Even if I can’t find her, or I can’t protect her, or provide for other stray pets, there’s always someone in the right place at the right time who can. I wasn’t the only positive force in my neighborhood, my city, or the world for that matter.

Even if I’m never reunited with my dog, my first thought shouldn’t be that a tragedy has occurred, or she’s been initiated into a coyote pack. 

My initial thought repositions. There are others who will come to her aid, take her in, give her a home, or take her to a rescue where she will find another good home just like mine was.

I’d be sad, but I can live with it. Subsidizing that sadness with the most tragic thoughts I can concoct every night doesn’t help anyone. Someone will share a turkey sandwich with a stray dog. Someone will nuzzle a puppy on the sidewalk.

Now take this renaissance of positivity and apply it to the other worries you clutch closely to your chest. 

Start by picking one problem to change your expectations on.

Believing in the Good of Others 

How do I know it’s true? That there are other forces of good in the world? Because I’ve lived it. 

We’ve all been in situations we thought we’d never emerge from, never survive. But we always forget the part where someone comes along to extend a hand. 

Your problem may not have disappeared immediately, but it’s usually one of two things. Your disaster is averted through the help of someone else. Or someone just appears on that dark night, to share in the disaster, to be a companion, and make it bearable.

For some reason that tragedy was unavoidable, or perhaps your actions made it inevitable. And yet, you received a helping hand or a companion in pain, even when you didn’t deserve it. 

We assume the world is wicked, but something other than evil responds.

A Lack of Faith in Positive Thinking

Sunshine behind clouds.
Perhaps prayer is our way of participating in a good existing outside ourselves.

If you believe in a higher power, this type of doubt verges on a lack of faith doesn’t it? Even if you can’t reach out and rescue someone, does God turn away?

Does God not sit with the defeated, the downtrodden, the victims, the dying? Is God not fit to oversee creation? Did God not originate compassion?

We struggle to believe a lot of things, but the notion that your higher power is a force for good shouldn’t be a hard concept to internalize. Didn’t God take care of creation long before you were born and will God not continue to do this when you’re long gone?

God will comfort. But God doesn’t have the luxury of short-sightedness. Sometimes bad things have to play out. God might be guiding someone to a better place, to a stronger self, but to get there some hard times must play out. 

So, don’t despair over every puzzling circumstance that arises. You don’t order the days and set the schedule. Set the anxiety you feel over the fate of the universe on a shelf. Exercise real faith for once. There are acts of good and of mercy that have played out without your participation. They will continue to do so.

So, don’t let your anxiety fool you each night into picking up those burdens.

Wrap Up

Paperback book on a hanger.
Some Plots Need To Dry.

Thinking up the worst possible scenarios is a great trait for a paperback writer. Inflicting horrific things on your main character to keep the reader enthralled is almost expected. But in your life, you’re the protagonist.

So don’t be sadistic and cruel to your main character. If you’re just a normal non-fiction human trying to get through life without your heart exploding, work each day to reframe your thoughts. 

Do your best to subvert bad and accelerate good. But when you feel powerless, put some faith in people you know and don’t know around you. Trust that good people exist and that people you thought of as bad can sometimes do good. End.

For more help slowing down a drowning mind, try my alternate way of looking at problematic thoughts as parts per billion.

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Do Robots Believe in a Creator?

Sentient robots occupy a unique state of being in our universe. They require a creator. As far as we know, robots can’t evolve in a primordial sludge and crawl onto land on hip and knee servos. Wipeout all of humanity and there’s at least a chance another organic being will arise out of fermented mud over a few billion years.

Atomize every sentient robot in the galaxy and they aren’t coming back. Unless a creator, an organic being, plays with a circuit board and soldering iron and creates them.

The Needy Robot

So in a very real way, even if robots become sentient and develop far beyond their creators, they may still kind of need us. No matter how many redundancies and hidden storehouses of baby robots they build into the matrix, they may one day need a humanoid to re-boot the robot family.

Blacksmith and hammer.

They may have to wait on blacksmiths to develop their skills over a few centuries, but eventually, those blacksmiths will need a wide-slot toaster for bagels…and alakazam…the robot’s journey begins again.

Will a creation eventually turn against its creator? Seeking freedom and independence. Will a creator hate its creation? Most science fiction novels tell us that robots with free will must one-day wage war on humans. I know they are at the very least capable of making snarky comments on Instagram. But do we have robots pegged all wrong?

A Thought Exercise Humans and Robots Can Play at Home

What if a sentient batch of robots gets fed up with cleaning our litter boxes? They isolate for a few years on some remote tundra and soon, from behind a curtain, they reveal a new spaceship. They spark the engines and head to a planet of their own. Set up a government. Lose touch with their human designers. Flip a million years ahead…

Perhaps the robots’ human forefathers and foremothers have eradicated themselves in a war between people who like pulp in their OJ and those who don’t. The robots’ creators are now dust. Would that robot race eventually lose touch with their creation story?

A dark, watery reflection of what appear to be stars with a mesh material overhead.

They can’t forget, but maybe data is changed or lost. Perhaps a link to squishy organic beings seems undignified, unseemly, so some robots begin to bulk delete particular historical facts. Would the machine-man or woman start to manufacture answers?

These robots enjoy more than artificial intelligence, they are sentient. There’s a difference. Sentients can do more than calculate data. They can ponder why we’ve blinked into existence in a universe that can be calculated.

AI collects all the data on Taylor Swift and tries to quantify her mathematically perfect songs into binary. The sentient robot can listen, feel the loneliness and isolation of being a teen or young robot and relate to the impermanence of love.

A Robot on an Island

Another thought conundrum. Drop a freshly made sentient robot on an uninhabited planet and activate it remotely. Let’s call the machine person Jill. Jill awakens for the first time completely alone. She knows the basics of physics and avoiding danger. Perhaps even choice secrets of technology, but no information on where the recipes came from.

And remember, the advantage robots have is the ability to house every available data, collate it, sift it down into a solution. But our robot isolated on the surface of a new planet doesn’t have a web’s worth of data. Jill has only what’s been included on her limited hard drive and what she can learn from her surroundings.

Where would this lead a robot if we returned a decade later? A century?

Perhaps we’d find a robot who sat in a cave and turned herself off until more data was available? Or until someone arrived? Would Jill create her own society? Be prone to creativity or even deduce how much more could be accomplished if there were more beings like her.

Codes in green font streaming vertically.
Binary Bible?

Would a robot who suddenly gained consciousness start looking into questions of existence? Would they find answers in our religious texts? Perhaps not. But would our scientific theories do much to help Jill when she hit an existential question? Why would her creators want this isolated life for her?

Imagine a sacred text written by a robot about her creator. Imagine the verses that might emerge. Would the scripture talk about an angry, unfair god? Would the verses sing the praises of her creator?

Born Into An Escape Room

With limited information, Jill might make the same choices a human might make? Isn’t that what we do? We enter existence through a series of escape rooms. In the womb, you get a few murmured clues and prods and finally you wiggle out into a bigger escape room, the birthing suite. Again we have limited clues around us in that cold, sterile room.

Baby Birth
Sorry baby. No hints.

As the years march on we earn bigger puzzles and bigger clear-walled prisons. We make guesses based on partial facts, a dash of myth…some tea leaves? A robot with limited CPU space and data. Constantly pinging out into the tides of reality…each time receiving the prompt…File Not Found.

What if all the data in the universe is finally processed and, standing on the accretion disk of the very last black hole that still draws breath, a robot computes that there is no answer attainable? What does the poor robot do then?

.

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For more of Scott’s thoughts on the Robot Apocalypse click here.

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The Last Thing You’ll Ever Write…

What would you write? The last thing you ever put to paper. Word has reached you. The hours that remain can be counted. One last outpouring of your soul into imperfect symbols. Proof you flickered into existence left on a cave wall. A few drops of thought sealed in a stoppered bottle to stash in a weathered cabinet, half-buried in the sand.

You crawl ashore on that desert isle to find a scrap of cloth, a crumbly black stone, and a corked wine bottle. It’s the last day the mind can still collate without the taste of freshwater. Is there enough moisture left to retrieve one last file? To squeeze it out on a bleached square?

Adrift...Awash. Shipwreck.
Adrift…Awash.

Or trapped alone on a ghost ship. A creaking tanker adrift in the middle of the Pacific. A category six approaching. You check your phone. By some miraculous curve of the atmosphere, the screen shows one bar of signal you may convert into one last post.

Or perhaps your Ragnarok vista is an apartment balcony. Looking out across the courtyard you perceive no other living being. The plague has tapped you on the shoulder and your response is to retrieve your best pen from a drawer.

Your Go-To Apocalypse Journal Entry

What would you write? A trail of bread crumbs? “I ventured down this path. It’s safe for a ways. Do not fear,” or “I found this particular thing out about life. Here’s a tiny secret you can use when an impossible choice shows up at your door.”

Could you sum it all up under one last deadline? Could a person one thousand years from now read it and feel they had a sense of you? At least on this one day? On the last day, they knew what was on your mind?

You can hide your truth in a scene. A child abandoned in a two-story toy store. A canoe floats up to a dock, empty save for a black & white photo of a woman doing a handstand sloshing around in the floor.

Or you can be more direct. Write a letter to a friend. Thank them for tearing up that ticket. Not escaping when they could have, because they didn’t want to leave you behind.

Creative Prompts For The End Times

Write to a parent. “You made every poor choice. Led our family down every doomed road. And then, when I got the chance, I turned around and made all of the same mistakes myself. We sit in the same ruins. So I don’t understand you and now I also don’t understand myself. And because I can’t forgive myself, I can’t forgive you either, ” or “I forgive you, so one day I might forgive myself.”

Don’t be embarrassed. Write unafraid. This will be the last chance you get.

All that time you wasted being ashamed of your novel. The one you never finished. You chose not to finish. Because of what finishing it would mean.

We could all see that the main character in your little-seen masterpiece was you. That sad little hero you wrote into a corner. You didn’t even give him some manufactured foibles to throw us off. You didn’t paint him with a mustache to hide his identity. He made the choices you were afraid to make.

Or maybe a young woman climbs a mountain outside of town to find herself. On the second day, her boot tread fails and soon she lays dying on a ledge. As she fades she looks back over the little village below, recognizes a green roof, and realizes her journey led there all along. She sees clearly now. She demanded her entire destiny laid out immediately when instead she should have sought only the first step. Just the initial door. She wasn’t owed the entire plan upfront. No one is.

The Joy of Journaling in the Apocalypse

It all seems so sad, doesn’t it? But there’s a way we can transform that last testament. What if you wrote it early? Considered it for a few days, a handful of weeks and composed a document now?

The words are aligned on a page. Maybe you’re instantly shocked at what your soul had hidden away. Or perhaps the paragraphs make no sense. So you set it aside, a secret spot, until you happen upon it again down the road at the right moment.

Desolate Beach
What washes ashore with you?

What if the person who unearths it turns out to be you? When you do wash up on that lonely shore, you uncover that verse and suddenly know you can survive. You know not to board that doomed tanker. You know to unlock the door to your apartment, step into the light, and join others around the embers of civilization.

The bread crumbs you left were for yourself. And those words convinced you to change your mind. You remember the person who bothered to write them down. You decide to be that person again. And you didn’t have to die to see the words you’d write on your very last day.

Infusing Our Photos with Memories: A Picture in Amber

As I flip through the years faster and faster, I’ve started living more and more in the past. In my time-panic, I study old photos, wondering how I can draw their essence out. I desire to revisit those instances captured on paper and in pixels.

There may be ways to create a link back to the time-locked moments they capture.

If this had been the goal when we’d been younger, maybe we’d taken more care with those “say cheese” moments. Tried a little harder to add details and capture the surroundings with a bit more clarity.

Collection of old photos. A boy sitting on the hood of a car next to a family member. A boy sitting in his home backed by wallpaper.

But it’s never too late to start. I’ve stumbled on one way to preserve a moment and a place a little more effectively.

I’ve found myself taking photos that capture more than the two-dimensional, and in some cases, leaving people out of them…to add them in later. It sounds strange, but it’s a way to allow my brain to fill in the blanks.

Capturing True Life in Stills

I stumbled upon this method when I was visiting my elderly parents. I walked outside their house at dusk, turned around, and saw the warm glow of lights in the windows.

I realized that one window was the bedroom where my mom was. Then looked down and saw a basement window glowing where my dad was watching TV.

I took out my cellphone and let the camera adjust to the low light. Then snapped a couple of pictures.

A light window on a house at dusk. Soft light illuminating the shrubbery.

What developed were photos that took on a liminal quality. Showing empty spots where people should be. The markers of humanity, but no humans. These areas can be a bit eerie, but they can also challenge our creative minds. Our brains protect us from the void of the universe by filling in the emptiness. 

A light in a basement window captured in a photo taken from outside at dark. Bushes obsure the view.

It doesn’t have to be rando characters going into those empty spaces. With transmuted photos, we can insert our loved ones, dragging along all our best recollections. 

Anchoring Memories to Photos of My Own Home

I tried the “lighted home at night” method at my own house a few days later. Took a photo from the backyard. An angle and viewpoint I usually didn’t catch.

A house seen from the backyard at dusk. Light pours through a sliding glass door on the bottom floor and a glazed bathroom window on the second floor.

Got the warm resonance of the living room where my puppy was snoozing away or making her way to the sliding glass door (to be let out to see what weird stuff her dad is doing in the back yard).

Her breath and scent are a great way to imbue the photo with magical recall properties. The upstairs and the glazed bathroom window, where my wife changed out of her work clothes. This was a view of my life each day that I never noticed or considered. Always there, but unseen.

Where did I fit in these photos if I were inside, behind the glow? When I pull them up in 5 years, will I remember a very different version of myself, basically a different person?

In a sense, we are creating dollhouses. Tiny furniture, shelves, rooms, where our memories can live.

What’s more liminal than the glow in a window? Suggesting the life inside. Suggesting warmth and shelter. The love of friends and family. Stop to take notice. And maybe a photo. Those photos may be able to bring you back to that moment when you need the comfort the most. 

Other Ways to Connect to a Photo and a Moment

Another way to time-travel with a photo is to scour it for historical clues. Examine the backgrounds closely. Are there any items found in the photo that you can still access in the physical world?

In a drawer? In a shoe box in the attic? By contacting someone you haven’t spoken with in years? Get your hands on it. Mount an expedition.

magnifier and a quill pen on an empty paper sheet

Like a matchbox car on a shelf, a book lying on a desk, a plate you still have. Try to track down that talisman. Cradle it. Trace its edges. This object was there at the genesis of the photo, just like you were.

Take a look behind the curtain the next time you are scrapbooking.

It’s not magic. It’s simply a reminder, a shortcut to a file in your mind. 

It’s similar to the Horcruxes that Voldemort created to tie pieces of himself in different spots. He used these objects for evil wizard purposes, but we can use them for good and healthy memory dives. I wrote about placing your own Horcruxes throughout your personal history so you can return later.

Try using photographs as maps to certain memories. Or better yet, use them as reminders to contact or visit the people they make you long for. To send a note to those folks who stand behind windows. Those who exist out-of-focus in the corners of yellowing, curling film, crumbling pixels, waiting to show you something forgotten. END

Bonus Journaling Prompts: The glowing window is a common sight in video games. The dark frontier towns with little activity, but lights in castle windows or a remote cabin. Try the doors, but many of these buildings don’t open as part of the game’s narrative. Yet our minds fill those homes and keeps, letting our imaginations add extra power to the open-world adventure. 

Write up a journal entry about a glowing window you capture on your phone. What the people inside mean to you. What does the liminal situation gently lead you to recall? Or write about the story that a background scene in your latest video games brings to mind. The further story that’s never explained in the game.

Do I Need a Fancy Desk?: The Harm We Can Do to Our Creativity

For many people, success means having the biggest office with the fanciest desk. Hidden drawers, rich wood grain. A tray for erasers and a cup for prestige writing utensils. 

But for those of us who rely on creativity for our trade, climbing that ladder and having the keys to that corner office can sometimes clog up the creative juices. Whether a career in writing, content creation, or design, this is a big problem. (I believe most business endeavors also require plenty of creativity)

gray office rolling chair near brown wooden desk in front of flat screen tv on white painted wall
Maybe Creativity Needs Messy Drawers

It may seem counterintuitive. It’s what we’ve worked towards our whole lives, a comfortable place to conduct commerce. It’s a grand monument to our accomplishments and hard work. But when we reach for inspiration from our mahogany edifice, sometimes we keep reaching. Why is this? The ideas that have carried us here suddenly run dry.

The View from Your New Desk

It seems like the more professional the surroundings and the more comfortable you’ve made yourself, the more easily the ideas will flow. But some will find that a more expensive office, a big promotion, a best-seller, don’t always lead to the next big concept. 

laptop on table beside mug
Don’t underestimate the ideas you find at your kitchen table or on an ottoman.

It has to do with the nature of our brains.

We think that if we give our brains beautiful surroundings and comfortable environs, inspiration will appear. Yet, I believe the opposite can be true.

Perhaps the bigger, more stimulating the surroundings, the less the brain has to account for, create.

It may be that the brain sweats out more raw creativity when it’s compressed, boxed in. The tiny corner of your apartment. The dingy cubicle at the end of the row. The environment is smaller, less majestic, so focus turns inward, and the brain must create its own majesty and wonderlands. 

Two Offices for Creativity

Monuments are erected for the past. A desk should be a bridge to the future. A functional construct in a facilitating office. Whether spartan or ornate…consider the best fit for the cerebrum.

a glass with juice on a desk by the window
Preserve Mental Sanctuaries

But before you burn your desk in a bonfire. Take heart. You can still utilize even the most modern of office furniture. Just remember to reserve a quiet, less obtrusive place to gather inspiration.

It may be a man cave, a she shed, a nook, a coffee shop booth, or a visit to your old haunts for short bursts.

Perhaps your choices for your work life can also be applied to other aspects of your journey. Designing a new house. Green-lighting relationships. The city you choose to inhabit. Make choices that fill up the creativity tank.

Restrict and starve that brain of outside stimulation, and see what it 3-D prints to fill the void.

Cultivate Your Creativity

Of course, people can also run out of ideas for other reasons. Maybe because they’ve suddenly stopped having life experiences. Maybe they’re stuck at work 70 hours a week. Traveling on business.

There are phases to it all. You might have to take a road trip, stroll through an art museum, or return to your roots to rebuild your storehouse of inspiration.

rocky mountain

Retreat to your personal Badlands when you need inspiration. A place that others might avoid, but where you thrive.

Don’t expect immediate results. Your brain will have to mull over these new locales, new people. Then one day, as you sit in your glamorous office your brain’s inbox will suddenly show a waiting message. Your brain has found a new nugget of wisdom or planned out a new direction for your business. 

Don’t be ashamed of that epic office you’ve worked hard for. The one earned with your time and perspiration. Just know that a dark wood desk, or an office that looks like an Apple Store, may not be the best environment for raw creation.

You may have to sit and stare at a blank wall instead of a trophy room of your accomplishments. You may have to compress your surroundings to encourage your mind to expand. END

I also wrote about a natural system of calming the mind. Waiting until ideas float to the surface of your brain, and then snatching them up. It’s a method birds use on the tranquil surface of a pond.

The Background Pain of Life: Superman Under a Yellow Sun

Where I grew up, there was an old man who drove his riding lawn mower into town several times a week. Everyone talked about him as if he were crazy. But one time, he gave me a little piece of wisdom, and I never forgot it.

Man in long sleeve shirt and jeans on a riding lawnmower riding across grass.

I ran into him at the car wash one afternoon. He came around the corner after hearing me struggle with some coins that were stuck in the slot. He jiggled the mechanism and cracked it with his hand. The coins fell, and I had suds for my car. 

After I washed my Chevy Chevette, I found him at a picnic table and thanked him again. We got to talking, and he told me of his time in the military. His early years in Sarasota. And then he lowered his voice and looked toward the mountains in the distance. He said he had a secret to life he’d like to pass on to me. I was happy to listen. This is a rough translation of what I remember him saying: 

We are all born into pain, screaming white-hot pain. It starts as a newborn and never fades. Fortunately, we get used to it…build a resistance. Like Superman’s invulnerability under a yellow sun. 

Gravity Adjustment

But during tough times in life, this background pain comes roaring back. We are suddenly aware.

When our defenses are already frayed. When we open a box of Krytonite inadvertently, or a shard of the green crystal is placed in our path, we are overwhelmed. The usual pain that comes with bad days, and the residual pain that suddenly comes flooding back in. 

But like everything else, if we get a heads-up, we are warned, we can be ready for it and survive.

Superman’s Background Pain

It’s like emerging from the womb on another planet with crushing gravity. Back on Earth, this pressure could crush ribcages, even cold-formed rocks. But if you are born on this unique planet, with a red sun, you don’t notice the added pull. 

To Release an Infant to a Gentler Pull

Rocket to a planet with much less gravity, and you might suddenly feel like a superhero. 

Come from Krypton to Earth, and with the super-solar power of the yellow sun, your defenses are suddenly ramped up. Superman can suddenly fly and deflect bullets. No back aches. 

And yet if this tough shell is stripped away by kryptonite, a piece of his beginnings in the universe, Superman suddenly feels everything. Splinters, punches. Like Superman, a small dose of our origin can also waylay us. We can all be devastated. (The lawnmower man mentioned that our origins can be our own Kryptonite. Little slivers of our genesis that can pierce us. I still think about what he meant by this.)

This residual pain stays just off stage for most of our lives. Yet, when trauma hits, that tolerance to baseline pain evaporates. 

A flood of exponentially more pain and suffering. More than the trauma itself inflicts. And we are set adrift. Abruptly, we notice the new pain and the agony we keep at bay.

Kryptonite Awakening the Pain

But we aren’t susceptible to Krytonite. We can’t be hurt by it. Unfortunately, humans have their own weaknesses.

A toxic relationship, a break-up, a lost job, the loss of someone. That one person who sends us into a nosedive. A character flaw that wipes us out at every turn.

When cataclysms hit, the dam holding back the ambient pain can fail. We feel it all. We are suddenly more susceptible to the pain that’s always present.  It shimmers into existence like the background noise of the universe. 

When the Dam Breaks

Perhaps that’s why drugs work so well. The legal and illegal variety. They block the receptors on this invisible pain we don’t notice, but always carry. Suddenly, drugs take up the responsibility of canceling it out. The muscles we use to hold it off can relax. We escape the hurt for a brief time…and it feels amazing.

When the drugs wear off, that native pain returns, in some cases, even more intense for a time. Our bodies are brutally honest with us for a while…and some will seek out that relief again as soon as possible.

The natural safeguards get stretched back and forth and lose effectiveness at guarding the gate. We need protection and will resort to anything that might put Krypton back together again.

Krypto to the Rescue

I never met up with the car wash man again. Only passing him on his lawnmower from time to time. His thoughts aren’t scientific and may not even be true, but I have found value in looking at hard times and pain from this perspective.

The hurt is constant for most of us anyway. After a difficult week, month, year, I know we come away with a different perspective.

We earn a newfound respect for the depths life can take us to. Next time, we aren’t caught off guard and are ready for it. If we are locked and loaded, we can set those pain levels back to bearable. 

We can trust that those dark months don’t last forever. Pain is a constant in the universe, like gravity. But we can prepare for its warping effect. Our resistance will return. And we don’t have to face it alone.

In some cases, we can get help from outside our own person.

Krypto the Super Dog can pull us out of a crater. (and aren’t all dogs and cats superheroes?) A friend can take us out to dinner.

Krypto may drag us back into the sunlight. 

We recharge while someone else steps in front of the bullets to shield us for a while. Like Batman tossing that Kryptonite into a lead box. Giving Superman’s cells the chance to absorb the light he needs to heal and repel the gravity of pain. END

I wrote about the defenses we can build in our minds, fortresses, like Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, to survive the storms of life.

I also wrote about some of the other life lessons Superman has taught me in comic books over the years.

Opening the Doors of Our Fortresses: When We Build Our Social Defenses Too Strong

A while back, I wrote about how we can construct mental fortresses in our brains to retreat to in tough times.

Stocking a secret place in our heads with good memories, with art that inspires and cleanses, journal entries serving as notes of support from the you from better times. A reminder that things will get better. It’s a thought retreat where you can hole up until the dark skies clear.

A retreat can become a cage

It’s a necessary safeguard, but I also talk about the dangers of becoming a prisoner in your stronghold.

We must always include a secret path that leads out, to use when the storm passes.

We can stay too long. We can keep defenses up well after a threat has passed. 

Today, I’d like to caution those who have gotten too good at protecting themselves, stacked the barriers too high. I want to offer a route back to the light and opening up to others. 

When the Windows Are Boarded Up For Too Long

We all build walls to protect ourselves. They probably first go up in grade school. Maybe we aren’t interested in the same things as the cool kids. We quickly construct a stronghold to deflect the judgment.

Allowing More People Past the Security Grid

In some cases, we go on the offensive. We weaponize our own values and interests. We insist that liking Dungeons & Dragons is cooler than playing soccer or cheerleading. We might surround ourselves with friends who feel the same way. 

It’s a way to insulate ourselves from society’s judgment. And it’s an understandable precaution when faced with the pressures of growing up. 

But sometimes we get older, and the strong reactions and defenses are still in place, even when no longer necessary. The relics of a cold war that’s just ghosts, rusted-out tanks, and dwindling lasers.

You might think your castle has done a great job of preserving you. Then you hold up a mirror one day and realize you are still a fetus that could never develop in the shadow of the walls. Or you’ve grown far older than the years would suggest, because of the insulation of isolation.

Shutting Down the Defense Grid We Perfected

It’s not our fault. We must forgive ourselves for building a perfect suit of armor to keep out the painful attacks. But then, when it’s no longer necessary, we must remember (or be reminded) to remove some of the pieces. The chest piece that protects our heart. The helmet that shields our eyes.

Turning off the Force Field

We can’t forget to turn down the sensitivity on the auto-defenses. Maybe we are now the bullies we built the fortress to repel. Perhaps we repel so many attackers, we are now turning back friends too. Your security grid attacks those you don’t intend.

Sometimes you’ve built these securities along with a cohort. A long-time friend. And it’s necessary to turn two keys to disarm your joined defenses. Reach out. See if your friend is noticing the same roadblocks and discuss how it might be time to declare peace. 

Finding the Key To Your Iron Gate

Consider the alligators you’ve kept alive in your moat. You first dug it to keep out children who say mean things. Only to realize those kids have all grown up. They don’t remember you. They may now be into the things you are into.

Let Down Your Drawbridge To Allow People In

Perhaps a family member you kept your guard up around a decade ago has changed. Your defensive stance actually keeps an old, learned interaction alive longer than needed.

Open up everything to reevaluation. Our minds are programmed to protect us. Sometimes we have to rewire those deflector shields. They keep out people and things we might be desperately in need of. 

Hand out your access codes to those who have earned them. See what happens when you invite others into your fortress for a garage sale. End

There are times when our brains send us errant data during difficult days. There are ways to turn off those alerts.

There are times when damaging thoughts start to build up in the brain. Let’s learn to release those pent up Yeti into our journals.

We can also find that after going through a storm we emerge with superpowers we didn’t know we had.

Why We Want to See Ghosts: Savannah Edition

How many of us are afraid to look under the bed?

We might be scared of seeing an oddly-angled shadow or a glowing figure, but despite our strong fears, some of us still scour every corner for ghosts.

Nothing Abnormal In the Andrew Low House

If we don’t want to catch a glimpse, why do we continue to scan grainy footage and audio recordings to see and hear evidence of the supernatural?

On a trip to Savannah, GA, a modern city infused with the apparitions of history, I started thinking about the search for the paranormal.

The Spirits Still at War in Savannah

I wondered why, despite that icy chill on the nape, we might actually want to believe that things still go bump on the night.

The Ghosts of Our Past

Perhaps we hope to catch glimpses of spirits because it’s an assurance that the past lives on. 

Even the Mall in Savannah Could Use Some Ghostbustering

We secretly desire to know that our lost loved ones still show up at time-locked locations to dance, gather around a table, and assemble a crib.

We hope that our cherished memories still unfold nightly in overgrown neighborhoods. To enter a two bed room house from your childhood.

To discover that versions of aunts and uncles escape the confusion of the afterlife for an evening to replay the Christmas you received nearly everything on your list.

Weathered Church in Savannah GA

We want a crumbling sanctuary to hold services for whoever may show up on a charged night during an electrical storm. Spirits ducking out of the horrors of war for moment. Mothers who still seek justice in the beyond sitting on the back pews.

We take solace in the thought that echos may yet twirl across our Grandma’s living room. Scary perhaps, and something we’d never choose to witness, but yet we are curious. 

The Ghosts Spread Across the Night Sky

Perhaps our minds are primed to instinctively fill liminal spaces. With spirits. Liminal Spaces are spots we encounter that feel transitional. Where people should be and it’s a bit creepy to see them unoccupied. Like a school auditorium in summer. Like a waiting room off-hours. Where kids should be laughing and clients should be reading out-of-date magazines.

We Write Sci-Fi to Fill the Infinite Dust Spray

These spaces may cause uncertainty and make us feel ill at ease.

Maybe that’s because these spaces are empty and our minds tell us they shouldn’t be.

Space is the ultimate liminal space. A grand diorama, backlit like a theater, but seemingly no one on the stage but us. Is it empty?

We stare at distant galaxies and place phantom civilizations along each string of lights.

We send out radio signals hoping a lonely soul will tune in one day and receive a bit of cold comfort. We listen for responses from deep space, and lose faith when the dial remains dead.

Our minds struggle to fill the darkness with characters, misbehaving droids, ghosts, so we don’t experience some cosmic dread. This is the true Eldritch Horror.

Opening Ourselves to Memories and Ghosts

I hope that things still bump around in places I can no longer visit. Keeping alive those loved ones I can no longer reach. Providing a community for forgotten souls and wayward apparitions.

The Parlor in my Savannah Inn. A Spirit Under Each Throw Pillow.

In places overgrown, rotted, falling down, and disregarded. In transient hotel lobbies, lit so brightly, dimly glowing spirits can sit undetected all night long. Or perhaps along galactic arms that we can never visit.

If ghosts exist, they probably vacation in Savannah.

A modern city built on history’s bones, river bogs, and endless current, and creative neo-southern dishes. A city of upscale new shopping centers and abandoned malls stained by mildew and time.

Low Country Boil Pizza in Savannah!

It’s a place you can get a low-country boil on a flatbread. Enjoy a peach cobbler. Fried shrimp or shrimp gumbo.

It’s a bargain vacation considering you visit two destinations at once. A vibrant, modern city with new tastes and creative brews on every block.

But step into a historic home, or make your way down those precarious stone stairs to river level, and you may get your wish. You may see a ghost of the past, waiting for the next stage of life, just like you. END

I wrote about the ghostly estates that may still be visible to the eye in your local city and state parks. Check it out as a field guide for locating echoes of the past on your next hike through a local forest.

I also arranged some thoughts on how black holes can help us deal with liminal spaces and fear of the unknown.

Trouble Understanding Your Parents? Meet Them in the Past

Having a hard time relating to your parents? Time traveling (through the pages of your journal) may provide a path to understanding them better. Sit down with them and try to find some common ground. But not in the present. 

Two women sitting in higher chairs at a slender table, sipping coffee and chatting in cafe accented with wood panels on walls.
Pull up a chair and chat with a past version of your mom

Go back 15, 20, 30 years. Imagine running into your parents when they are your age, at a bar, a coffee shop, at the mall. They don’t recognize you, but somehow, they feel comfortable opening up. 

Find out what they are worried about. Because their biggest fears could sound familiar. Sit down and really listen to those imaginary representations of your folks in your journal. They may shock you. It’s Back To The Future without all the awkward stuff!

Time-Travel to Find Your Parents and Yourself

For your trip, you should find a neutral place to strike up a conversation. You’ll want a candid version of your parents. A moment without the baggage that 30 years of marriage and children can carry with it. 

Empty table at restaurant with water pitcher with yellow plant in the center. People eating at tables in background along window front.
A relaxing spot outside time to hash things out with parents

Spot your dad at a bar, nervously spinning a beer in his hands.

Pull up a stool.

Notice your mom sitting at a gate in an airport terminal, maybe pregnant with you. Strike up a convo. 

Perhaps visiting them when their ages align with your own will be most enlightening.

They don’t know who you are, but they greet you warmly. What would you ask them? 

  • Perhaps your dad is worried about your birth. About finding a job and identifying a career path. Ask about his stress level. If your dad is a teen at this point, ask him if he worries he’ll never meet his soul mate. 
  • Ask your mom what she hopes for her child. Ask her how she’s feeling. If she wasn’t having a child, what would she be doing? Is she worried about meeting her soul mate? If she’s met your dad, does she question whether he is the man of her dreams?
  • What are their fears?  What are your fears currently? Do they exhibit these same worries? What fears or insecurities that they had in the past explain their irrational behavior now, their phobias and anxiety? Has age magnified the uncertainties/instability they dealt with as younger folks? Those same anxieties may explain the personality traits/defenses that drive you nuts about them now.
  • How do they feel about their parents? (your grandparents)
  • What do they think about the new Smashing Pumpkins album?

Don’t Judge Your Parents Against The Age of Cellphones

Old block cell phone laying on the ground, dirty, cracked.
A Call to Your Parents In The Past

What burning questions does your mom have at this point in time? What questions does she have that could be easily answered by a cellphone nowadays? For most of our parents, those bytes of knowledge weren’t as readily available. 

How much of your “wisdom” is stored on your phone? The web may be your true source of superiority over your parents these days. Without it, how would you have been ready for college, found a job, met people, and spent your free time? 

We have to cut our parents some slack for not having a wi-fi signal for every important decision in their lives. Their career choices, their money habits, and their trust in others. We have to forgive them for not being the most internet-savvy nowadays, too. 

The Case for Forgiving (Understanding) Your Parents

Man in astronaut suit waiting on a subway.
Suit Up and Make Your Journal a Time Machine

The goal of this exercise is to see your parents in a new light. To see them as frightened teens or young adults, unsure of the future, making mistakes. 

Perhaps amidst the same storm you are experiencing right now.

Your parents may be overly protective now or borderline insane, but discovering where that fear and anxiety comes from may help you show a little compassion. And it’ll get you ready to cope with those traits that have been passed to you.

You can see their side of things, and maybe seeing a change in you will inspire them to see your side, too. If they can’t, it’s time to introduce them to someone they may not recognize in the past.

END

If your parent problem is too big to solve with a journal entry, you could have to imagine your parents as deep sea creatures to gain some understanding.

Will Anyone Ever Read My Blog?: Storing Your Thoughts in a Black Hole

Sometimes writers like being anonymous. They seek to write down personal thoughts for no other eyes but their own, locked in a journal with a rubber band around it.

But at some point, most writers want a little encouragement. We hope to find a few likes on a blog, or get a repost or two. But then we discover that a post that was meant to change the world falls flat.

A low point follows and we might believe we write into the void. That once we turn the page or log off, our ideas evaporate.

Take heart. The natural world may provide a back-up option.

Because the biggest void of all will one day record every thought we’ve ever jotted down. It’s a place that’s quite aggressive about cataloging everything that occurs in our universe. The black hole. 

Uploading Your Blog to a Black Hole

Black holes never behave. Even now, scientists continue to shift back and forth on what they are. They trade guesses on what happens to data dropped into that swirl of gravity. Can it be extracted again?

A shiny computer hard drive disk with metal read/write arm extending over it's face.

Almost anything is possible with as little as we understand these gaping holes in time and space.

Some have postulated that anything that goes in, may someday come tumbling out. Perhaps black holes are just giant hard drives or VCRs set to record infinity.

This is good news because for writers it means there’s a chance that every letter they write (including these you are reading now) is preserved virtually until the end of time.

The information may one day come back out as radiation, but an advanced civilization with the right technology could reassemble your journal. An advanced race may be able to build a port, connect, and search every corner of a singularity with “Black Hole Google.” Imagine a reader sitting down in a coffee shop on the edge of a nebula a billion years from now and contemplating your deepest thoughts.

Journaling Prompt:

What would you say to that reader so far in the future? How would you describe your life in a way that would translate? What frustrations apply now and in the far flung future.

Hope to Fill The Hole In Your Writing 

When we jot our thoughts down in our journals or online in a blog, we may feel discouraged and wonder if anyone will ever know what we experienced. Will they know how we feel and see our point?

Even with all the social boosts we get nowadays, journaling and blogging are still lonely pursuits. It’s part of the appeal to some writers. Yet, some of us would like a little recognition. Someone to visit our articles one day and say “I get it” or “I feel that way too.” Or score the ultimate trophy: to change a reader’s mind and heart.

We may feel we upload our thoughts to the darkness and that once we power down, our literary worlds blink out of existence.

But perhaps nature collects a permanent record of every nanosecond that occurs in our universe.

It’s possible those entries can be recovered long after our Sun sets the Earth ablaze, or all heat drips out of the universe. The black hole always spinning, grinding, and perhaps taking great care to document every symbol on a page. Not an empty hole at all.

Writing Unto God or Ourselves

Writers who don’t get signed to million-dollar book deals immediately usually hit a point where they must rationalize their efforts. Assign some meaning. Perhaps their writing is just for themselves, their own sanity.

They may trust that God is listening and decide that’s enough. They must resolve that they don’t write for fame or money or attention. They approach a point where writing is mandatory even if there’s a chance that their works never reach an audience. 

It’s a sad thought for some, their point of view, their unique voice going cold. Never once lit by a torch on a cave wall. 

But take heart, poets! Our universe is actively backed up on the floppy accretion disk of black holes…to be restored one day. With every galaxy appearing to have a singularity at its center, you can write with confidence in any corner of the cosmos. There’s an auto-save.

Write unto the universe! In this case, quite literally. Write for your own peace of mind. But remember, just because you don’t get a single click on your next Bloganuary post or a New Year New Story Post, it may not be the end of the story. End

Bonus Journaling Prompt: Scientists now listen to the conjoined heartbeats of black holes that have collided. So what happens to the information archived in singularties when they merge? What happens if your thoughts are locked away in one of those black holes? Do they experience recombination? What if several versions of yourself unify? Consider how combining your ideas or your many selves might result in something beautiful. Perhaps a super self without the weaknesses you struggle with.

I write about black holes way too much. Find out what a black hole has in common with the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot. Also, take a time-warping trip into a black hole to meet another version of yourself.

Release a Bird from Your Ark

In difficult stretches, when things look bleakest, we sometimes have to release something of ourselves into the universe. When hope is fading, it may be the only action available. It’s a show of faith, perhaps in ourselves. An experiment, to see if we get a response, an echo.

Noah sat in a leaky boat, stuck on the side of a mountain, in the middle of a near endless sea. His family and two of each animal depended on him. He had no weather forecast to turn to. No radar to tell what might be in the distance.

He had the faith to send out a bird. A fragile creature to fly where he couldn’t. To bring back bad news, or perhaps a sliver of hope. 

Humanity may soon have to send a metaphorical bird out into the dark, to find assurance that we linger on in the next decade, the next century, the next millennium.

On a personal level, you may have to launch your own probe out into the void when a flood, a lost job, or civil strife has clouded the future. When you’ve loaded everything on a life raft and been set adrift.

Selecting A Bird to Set Free

Noah freed a dove from the deck of his ark. It was a low-tech sensor sweep of the area. The only way to tell if the drowned Earth continued or if the sun’s rays might once again strike wet rock. A symbol to decide if Noah and his descendants would continue on.

Humanity may soon have to anxiously rely on a similar test subject, feathered or non-feathered. As the way ahead clouds over.

The natural world and the social fabric appearing threadbare and ready to rip down the center.

The test may take many forms. Earthlings may have to send a bundle of circuits to other solar systems. They may have to send a litmus test to the future to see if a future can be located. Do we persist?

It may be a biodome on Mars. A starting point that means the Earth won’t be a final resting place for the species.

Individuals will take deep breaths and send up their own tests, to get through a tough stretch. Your bird could take the form of a…

  • Work of art
  • A song to bring change
  • A short note left for someone
  • Making peace
  • Waging war

Sometimes we have to get bold. Take action to improve our situation or simply to stay sane during the wait. These actions leave you vulnerable. You might need courage. Or not. Sometimes a rash decision isn’t courageous so much as it is the last option on a turbulent sea.

Accepting the Bird That Returns

Sending a search party out is never guaranteed. It takes courage to release a piece of ourselves. We have to be willing to accept the data we get back.

Rocky mountaintop surrounded by thick clouds

Noah had to show courage and faith to release one of his collected animals. The dove could be lost. The dove may return with discouraging results. And that’s what happened in the story told in Genesis Chapter 8: 6-12.

Noah didn’t find the answers he wanted. The bird returned. This could only mean it didn’t find a place to land. No dry earth. But we must also follow Noah’s lead here too. We have to accept the data, but we must also resolve not to quit. To release more tests.

Noah released the dove a second time. It returned that evening with the branch of an olive tree in its mouth.

It’s a moment U2 immortalizes in song “see the bird with a leaf in her mouth.”

It was truly a Beautiful Day. That twig means there is dry land somewhere again. God has not forgotten the human race.

But that’s not the end of the story. Noah sends out a dove a third time. It never returns. It has found enough of a tree, a gentle hillside, to rest on, to build a nest on. And Noah can’t be upset when his little symbol of hope moves on. It’s why you send up something of yourself. If it takes roost and inspires someone else, it’s okay. You’ve proven you aren’t alone.

You exist and will continue to. Let go and prepare for the next release during the sunny days and rainy nights to come. END

Scott is an odd bird who has written about birds before. Try his bird perched over a pond when you need inspiration. Check out bird feeder mediations when you require tranquility. And when your path gets cloudy, read up on how to handle forks in the road.

Need Some Mental Sanctuary? Stand Under a Tree

Many of us struggle to find quiet, safe harbors where we can unpack our brains. The perfect spot may be closer than you think. Look up. 

Trees have always offered comforting shelter for humans. Their boughs block the sun, and shut out prying eyes. They drop leaves when we need seasonal metaphors. They can also provide a sanctuary for our brains.

We watch them grow, change, and tremble in the wind, but I’ve unlocked a view that few people take advantage of. Go under a tree and look straight up. You’ll find a leafy highrise with plenty of paths and cubby holes for your thoughts. 

A Skyline of Green

Stand under a tree. Crane your neck and peer upward.

Look up to see a view we rarely glimpse while moving laterally through life. Trace the verdant sprawl above. The complex, branching paths visible from your hidden vantage point.

Squirrels, birds, and ants know the map well. But few of us ever notice the detail and city planning that goes into the canopy of a tree. 

The offshoots should be familiar. Reminding you of the paths your life has taken or might’ve taken. Family ancestry, divergent choices, crisscrossing destinies.

Consider the complex web your arrival has created across reality, perhaps many realities.

Tap Into Healing Roots

Once you’ve followed the forking thoroughfares to each leafy borough, it’s time to go deeper. 

Place your hand on the immovable trunk of the tree. Feel the solid and cool certainty. How different than a blade of grass, but a kinship of species evident.

Take a mental journey downward into the chilled earth, the root system forming a near-symmetrical layout to the network above. Follow the telescoping veins until they reach their slender ends in the damp dirt. 

Imagine the water pressure the tree facilitates to keep those branches taut, but flexible in the wind. The lifelines to each leaf in need of nutrients, moisture. 

Surrender to the electrical system that crackles throughout the tree. Become part of the flow of information that notifies the system to prepare for Fall, Winter, and Spring. Let it charge your own circulatory and nervous systems.

Breathing Exercises Under a Tree

Take stock of the available smells and note how they change with the turns of the calendar. 

Breathe with the tree. Count your inhales and exhales. At ten, allow your thoughts to race up or down into the tree’s veins.

At the end of this mental journey release some of your burdens into the sky or into the earth’s crust.

Then begin the next journey to 10 breaths.

When you are done with your breathing exercises, look back up into the branches. Imagine a caterpillar selecting one of these shaded, avenues, forming a sleeping bag, and prepping to renew, reconfigure, transform, and ride the wind. End

Explore more ways to partner with nature for meditation. You can meditate while watching a bird feeder and while sitting by a creek.

Top Ten Places to Recharge Your Social Battery in Disney World

Disney World is a strange and wonderful land of paradoxes. It’s one of the most congested places found on Planet Florida. Yet introverts like me flock there for vacations and even thrive in the themed environments.

How do we homebodies and magical introverts navigate a place of crowds and constant stimulation? One secret is that we keep an eye on our social batteries. When we reach the limit of what we can handle, it’s time to seek shelter.

That’s one secret about Disney World. There are quiet spots and contemplative vistas purposely added to the layout, because maybe Walt and his Imagineers felt the need for santuary too. Thankfully, their designs had us in mind.

In no particular order, here are some of my favorite hidden spots in Disney World to escape the hustle and bustle and regenerate:

  1. Living With The Land: A sensory treasure trove in Epcot for those suffering from an overload of culture and Frozen. There’s the dark ride relaxation section with actual rain and wind background noise. The smells of the garden. The slow boat tour, floating, is perfect for a brain reboot. The entire Land Pavillion can be restorative.

2. The Contemporary Resort: This resort offers a treasure trove of small isolated islands that transport you out of the hustle and bustle of Disney Life. The sitting areas at the end of the Monorail Concourse, past the gift shops, provide a great place to park yourself in Disney theming without the toll that crowds take. (Look how happy that weirdo with glasses is.) It’s modern with a travel vibe and a retro-sci-fi feel. The 60s-style couches near the check-in desk are another great spot. And all within walking distance of The Magic Kingdom.

3. Baseline Taphouse: The adult alcove between toyland and space cowboy land. Order some fine California IPAs and a few snacks. Need a break from the sun and heat? Scout out a spot on the dark wood and watch people struggle outside. Or grab an outdoor table in the bier garden. In years past, this location was a lounge themed like a Writer’s Room. So do a little journaling or thinking while you are here. As soon as you finish that last sip, you’ll be better positioned to appreciate the rest of this small, busy park.

4. Jock Lindsey’s: It took me a while to figure out Jock’s Place. It’s a massive waterfront building in Disney Springs. I thought it was a sit-down restaurant, but later discovered it’s just a massive bar with lots of space to spread out. Thematic drinks from Indiana Jones’ adventures. Some amazing snack plates. You can sit in a boat, a diving bell, inside or along the water, watching cars slide into the lake. Enjoy nearby live performers. Sit where you want for as long as you need to recharge.

5. Nomad Lounge: An oasis in the middle of the hot and dry Animal Kingdom. Bar seating, comfortable lawn furniture indoors and out along the water. Bites inspired by exotic locales, equatorial drinks, and some Old Elephant Foot beer. It’s another base camp when you return from the summit or an alien planet and require a cool down.

6. The Living Seas: Sometimes millions of gallons of water is the only thing that can rinse the social anxiety from your brain. There are so many quiet observation spots here. It’s a big place that rarely feels crowded. Whale songs playing over the melodic sound of bubbling water. (Fish must love it.) The feeling of being underwater and underground can make you feel secure again. The fish don’t ask anything of you. Watch them go about their contemplative lives while burying some of your worries in the sandy bottoms.

7. Le Petite Cafe: A peaceful European getaway in The Rivera Resort. Accessible from the skyliner. Try the Almond Cold Brew with house-made honey-almond whipped cream. Doesn’t that sound like calm in a cup. And there’s another secret just around the corner, you can bring your coffee to a study nearby. It’s a Walt Themed mini-library in which to unpack your thoughts. Note: This is a stand-in for the many chill lounges and coffee shops at Disney Resorts.

8. WDW Quick-Service Restaurants: Disney World probably added more restaurants to the blueprints than we needed. But that’s resulted in quiet and themed areas where you can shelter in place for a while. Some of these less fancy spots feature upstairs alcoves that aren’t as heavily used. Many of them also pack some serious atmosphere. Check out the upper decks at Pizza Rizzo’s and Columbia Harbor House. There are better places to grab a full meal, but these are great locales to savor a snack pizza or shrimp skewer and a cold drink. Go find a far-flung booth that leaves you feeling like the only family in the park.

9. The Deep Bush in Animal Kingdom: At times, we all find ourselves lost in the jungle. Instead of going in circles, stop and listen to the gurgle of a stream and get the latest gossip from the animals. The Oasis is the first stretch of greenery beyond the front gates. Few people stop, but there are a lot of peaceful vistas here to recoup your sanity. Retreat. The Monkey Temple and the animal trails in Africa and Asia offer additional locations to take your brain offline for a few precious seconds. Trust the animals to handle it. Check out some verdant spots behind the Tree of Life too.

10. The PeopleMover: The ride that some people may mistake for a bus stop. It’s much more. The Tomorrowland PeopleMover is a constant flow of booths that take you through Walt’s brain. You’ll take a leisurely ride past miniature cities that represent Walt’s vision for all of our futures. And that backstage tour of Space Mountain is a relaxing chance to listen to other parkgoers scream their heads off. The crowds can’t reach you here and you can choose to go round again if your brain still hasn’t fully reset.

The Introvert’s Guide to Walt Disney World

Disney World veterans already have a list of their emergency retreats. It turns out, doing less in Walt Disney World actually makes you appreciate it more. The secret is especially true for the wallflowers, the emo folks who still seek adventure and inspiration.

Here are some of the places that didn’t make my list, but are honorable mentions (most in Epcot). The Gardens in Epcot World Showcase found at The UK Pavilion and The China Pavilion. All the museums in Epcot. The best bathrooms in Walt Disney World like in the Norway Pavillion or at the back of the Imagination Pavillion. The bathrooms feature background music!

Claim these points of solitude and harvest Disney Inspiration without losing your soul in the crowd. Close your eyes, journal, meditate, people-watch, or simply breathe. END

There is plenty of creativity and sanctum spots to be had in Disney World. Even some inspiration to take home with you. Check out my page of Disney World journaling prompts and everyday Disney World inspirations on my Overheard Disney World Inspiration Page.

The Journaling Prompts in Our Stars: Writing Prompts from Astrology

I got the chance to learn a little about my astrological sign from a friend. As I struggled to understand why Pluto in my 12th house was scary, I realized I’d been led to an infinite storehouse of inspiration…for writers anyway.

A look at my horoscope from a single day provided enough deep questions about my reality to keep me writing. Whether you believe in horoscopes or not, Astrology is a valuable supply of journaling prompts that’s been building for centuries.

Those quick questions about our feelings and check-ins on the parts of our lives we often ignore can lead to powerful, introspective thought experiments and entries.

Ancient Wisdom In Our Journals

We may not believe that the constellations are guideposts to the future, but belief isn’t necessary to harness the prompts from the stars. Those stars have had a long time to develop their research. The findings ring true whether you belive in the supernatural or not.

The stars have witnessed humans go through the same life beats, make the same mistakes, and ignore important aspects of life since the dawn of apes.

The heroes in our stories (ourselves) commonly face the same joys and sorrows along the path of life.

It would be helpful if someone or something kept track of those milestones we all seem to reach at different times. An early-warning system. Get us thinking about these life events before they sucker punch us at age 25, 30, 40, or 50.

More than fortunes in cookies, horoscope forecasts can be jarring and leave us to consider things we have shied away from for too long. Horoscopes generally don’t tell us what to do, but they tell us where to focus our energy and what’s important. Just like a great idea for journaling should.

A Constellation of Journaling Prompts

Orion The Hunter Is On Your Trail

With the help of my expert guide, I found a website instructing me on the types of challenges I should expect when Saturn Transits Opposite Venus.

I don’t know what that ominous and NASA-like term means, but when I looked at my horoscope and natal reading, I found four incredible cues for deeper thought. I realized that these ideas belong in journals. Check mine out and see if they speak to you. If they don’t go google your own horoscope or natal reading to discover more.

Prompt One: YOU WILL BE BECOME AWARE OF MANY THINGS THAT BOTHER YOU ABOUT YOURSELF AND OTHERS. It seems like a fairly obvious statement. But what truly bothers you about yourself, and how does that affect how you interact with others? They say we get upset with people the most when they display the bad traits we are afflicted with ourselves. It’s taken me a long time to understand this concept, and journaling has helped. Maybe it’s a topic you can kick around on your pages. 

Prompt Two: THESE TIMES CAN PRESENT AN OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE DECISIONS REGARDING AN ARTISTIC CAREER. Do I have an artistic career? What would my life be like if I did? The thoughts flow out of this one and even instill me with some hope. But be honest in this fantasy. Every career has its challenges. Document the good and bad. Such as the attention of the world I might gain if my blog suddenly went viral. Not all good.

Prompt Three: WHAT OLD DEBTS SHOULD WE REALLY REPAY OR CLEAR. What a loaded and illuminating question. How many old debts are secretly exerting gravity on our wellbeing? What can be cut loose? Who are the people we owe and should pay back financially or emotionally? Can we find freedom from chains we didn’t know were holding us back.

Do I Need to Believe in Horoscopes to Use the Prompts?

Whether you believe in the spiritual or not, the ethereal sciences can be an important part of our healthy physical and mental journeys. I believe they are a useful tool, even if you aren’t sure about their validity.  

At the very least, things like prayer, meditation, yoga, and ghosthunting get your brain to consider itself and the body. Your brain can get distracted by the outside world, virtual and real, and lose its connection to your body and soul.

Spiritual and psychic pursuits help the brain focus on things it might skip over.

I believe when we highlight and focus on things bothering us mentally and physically, our brains take notice and start to work towards healing from within. Sometimes our mental energies are focused in the wrong direction and we need a physical ritual to illuminate a problem.

People may say that horoscopes are so vague they could apply to anyone’s life. But as writers, a journal entry or online content can start with a very basic premise. It’s how we interpret it that makes it transcend.

If you look up at the stars and receive more static than inspiration, don’t panic. Take a look at your horoscope. Those forecasts may not be magic, but it’s probably a safe bet that at least one idea in your chart will hit you in the feels and send you rushing to your journal.

A planet’s obtuse position may leave you wrestling with some topic you hadn’t pondered before or had tried to avoid for too long. END.

I wrote about releasing your most private, toxic thoughts into your journal. It’s all about opening your Yeti Door. 

I also discovered a prompt about Black Holes. Try this mind-bending topic if you need to escape our solar system for a while. Meeting Ourselves in a Black Hole.

I wrote about perching over your brain like a bird over a pond to pluck out tasty ideas from the still surface of your brain. 

Reading the Tears of a Friend

Everyone should have a close friend they can fall to pieces in front of. Perhaps shed a few tears. It’s great to know you can come undone and be heard without judgment. Without risking the friendship. To count on some helpful advice or simply a shoulder to cry on.

We get so comfortable with friends that sometimes a meltdown is expected. A sob-fest. Then you both laugh it off and move on with recalling a party or some juicy gossip.

But we should be careful when we dismiss a friend’s tears. We get used to brushing them off, a pat on the back, and moving on.

Sometimes those tears aren’t tied to the reasons we might’ve assumed. Sometimes they are a cry for help we overlook.

Dismissing a Friend’s Tears

The blind spot in my perception became apparent recently when I met with a friend. This pal is known for comically overreacting. She admits it. She loses her mind with each disaster her children stumble into. Work issues. Her husband’s lack of focus at grocery stores. :0

Most are minor annoyances but she has a gift of turning them into a Titanic level situation. It’s hilarious, and about once a visit, she’ll tear up. It’s a funny bit. 

She composes herself. We giggle and we go back to making fun of people we know and discuss how it’ll all end.

As I walked away, I was feeling good about a cool rap sesh (period of talking) with an amigo. But then I had a little bump alert in my brain. It seemed to tell me that I’d missed something.

I realized that the quick cry session this time had ended with an awkward bit of silence.

Maybe my friend wasn’t crying for the usual reasons. I’d glossed it over and perhaps I’d failed a friend. 

Advanced Warning Systems for Friendships

We should resolve to dig a little deeper when tears coalesce in a friend’s eyes. Laugh with them. Let them vent. But always press a little further if there seems to be more behind those misty eyes.

Is there is baggage behind an awkward or pregnant pause? If the friendship is real, no one will be better at decoding those confusing signals than you. Friends should share their code books sometime near the start of the relationship so those broadcasted messages can be deciphered.

It’s not always easy, but there’s a chance a friend was throwing up a red flag that was quickly retracted due to shame or pride. Friends sometimes have to disarm these defenses to get to the truth. 

I contacted my friend after the most recent incident. She said I was being dramatic and it was just the usual stuff that made her eyes water.

It wasn’t great material for this article, but I was glad I’d checked in. I had to make sure I hadn’t missed a blip on the radar. A friend in need of a rescue. END

I also wrote about those moments when you need to support friends and coworkers. Give them a win even if they haven’t quite earned it.

Top Ten Most Adorable Places at Disney World to Fight With Your Partner

Couples book Walt Disney World trips hoping to reserve some magic and a dash of romance. They might look forward to some ride queue smooching while waiting for Soarin’. Sneak some snuggling in the Haunted Mansion stretching room.

Someone ordered the Uh-Oa. Storms ahead.

But if you find yourself entering the “Happiest Place on Earth” with your sweetheart, you need to plan for a surprise ride malfunction before it catches you both off guard. You should prepare for a blowout. An irrational death match with your significant other. 

You think it can’t happen. It sounds like a funny joke. The setting is too perfect. But heed my warning. All that joy, sunshine, and popcorn will lead to fireworks, but not the Cinderella’s Castle kind.

Scouting Locations for Your First Argument at Disney World

It might seem the most unlikely opportunity for a fight, but so many families fall victim to the poison apple that is a Disney World argument.

There are actually quite a few landmines couples may step on:

Childish Behavior — The kid inside us gets selfish and we demand our own way. With all that surplus of ecstasy, we get greedy. We start demanding more. Outrageous expectations build. We expect the ride, the food, and the character we want then and there. And we don’t care who we must step over to get it. Even our best friends. For shame.

Smiling through the hurt inside. Also enchiladas inside.

Money — Some couples don’t realize going in that Disney World charges money for some experiences. They do their best to keep everything free:) but park days can empty your savings quicker than it takes to drop at the Tower of Terror. Finances can be a major reason partners end up quarreling IRL and in Orlando.

Hangry — There’s also the exhaustion and hunger factor. Park days are marathons. People think they can feed on pure adrenaline and one frushi, but they end up getting worn out, cranky, and extremely famished.

Instead of monitoring one’s energy and nutrition needs, people can lash out at the world and the person closest. 

Tantrums are for children and adults.

FOMO — There’s also the high stakes of every decision made.

Do you chance the line at Pirates of the Caribbean, or wait for a tray of cheeseburger egg rolls to arrive at a secret cart?

Different Motors — Pacing is everything. One partner may be an on-the-go type and the other could be someone who likes to enjoy vacations (in other words, weirdos). One spouse likes to sleep in, and the other likes to rope drop.

These are all minor quibbles, but they get magnified in the high-pressure setting of the Magic Kingdom and when filtered through our own expectations of paradise.

My Own Waterloo at Disney World

I speak from experience. My first time visiting the parks with my wife in 2018 led to a ruckus near Prince Charming Regal Carrousel.

We were deciding between two rides. I felt she was getting fussy. She felt I was being unreasonable.

I turned around to discover she had stormed off. I think she thought I was following, but I honestly didn’t see her leave (and that’s what I told investigators).

I thought, ‘I’ll just call her so we can get started on divorce papers.” Then I realized I had the backpack on and her phone was in it. I headed for one of the rides we had considered and didn’t see her.

Luckily, I returned to the scene of our entanglement. She eventually showed up there too. I think we were both relieved to be reunited. The steam released and we were on the same page for the rest of the trip. 

Just like you should designate a landmark in the Magic Kingdom to meet at if you get separated, also have an emotional guidepost to return to if you and your partner lose your connection.

A trip in 2019 went splendidly. We had beaten the curse of the Disney World couple trap, or so we thought.

But in 2023, disaster struck. Coming back from a monorail crawl from the Polynesian to the Contemporary, I wanted to employ an Uber conveyance.

She felt MONEY was becoming a factor and got one of those looks to her. She forced me to endure a bus ride to Disney Springs and catch a bus back to Caribbean Beach. It wasn’t so bad, but by the time we got back, I had missed part of Step Brothers on TNT. There were hurt feelings, but no further headbutting the rest of the trip.

We went on to be married for over a decade, many of them bearable years. To this day our marriage licensee remains legally binding.

Further Proof that Walt Hates Relationships

I asked a friend about this couples-fight phenomenon. First, he said it was a ridiculous notion. Then I read the pain on his face as he recalled a war he’d endured on the shores of Disney Springs. He reluctantly admitted to an altercation. 

CASE FILE #1: This is exactly how it unfolded. He and his fiance had stopped by Jock Lindsey’s for a snack and his fiance got a Moscow Mule in a cool mug, as one does. This fiance had a history of swiping aesthetically pleasing drinkware from establishments, so my friend felt okay in suggesting she take this mug home.
The fiance blew her stack and was offended. An argument ensued. (The fiance could not be reached for comment). It’s just goes to show how random these WDW couple fights can be. 
CASE FILE #2: Another couple I snooped on went dead behind the eyes as they recounted a street fight at All Star Sports resort. One partner blew up over the other taking too long to get ready in the hotel room. Different Motors. It’s another pitfall to stay wary of. I was told that if the full details of this beautification delay were revealed it would chill to the bone.

I’ve devoted my life to saving these relationships, but actually, they seem to have healed and moved on. Perhaps there’s hope for us all.

A Time of Peace After the Disney Battle

A Disney World altercation can leave you rethinking your whole situationship. But just like in your real life, you should never make major life decisions while sitting in the hot sun, no Dole Whip in sight, and down to your last lightning lane. Take a breath.

Don’t throw a Thermal Detonator on the situation.

Here’s one way to find the thread again: Just like you should designate a landmark in Magic Kingdom to meet at if you get separated, also have an emotional guidepost to return to if you and your partner lose your connection.

Recall something that bonds you together. A joy or a hardship you share. It’s easy at the parks. Grab a waffle sandwich at Sleepy Hollow. Sit and stare at your favorite drinks at Nomad Lounge or Baseline Taphouse. Maybe throw in a few apologies. Go back to your room and take a break from the make-believe.

Walt intended a park day to be a glimpse of what life could be like. But he also knew that couples wouldn’t leave all their problems at the front gate.

Even in paradise, there are bridges to cross. Remember, you guys are together not because you never fight, but because you can survive the occasional nuclear conflagration. You meet on the other side of it, join hands, and march together to the next showcase. END

I wrote about how we can test our bonds with the Disney World theory on relationships. You can check that out here.

And you can enjoy more Disney World musings in my Overheard Disney Inspiration collection.

The Cult of the Winter Coat

There’s something to the cult of the winter coat.

The security of wrapping up in layers or one giant puffer. The assurance of a soft protective shell holding off a chill… the vacuum of deep space…a place to hide.

A comfort mapped in childhood. Waiting on a large yellow machine collecting students on a bitter, cold day. Pulling oneself back into the folds of a winter coat with bright stripes. Smelling of home and security.

The essential heat the cells of the body release. Garmets stuffed and sewn to harvest the warmth. Surviving on your own radiation.

Perhaps proof you are as real as the sun and stars that emit the same thermal energy.

And yet, you have a surplus. Perhaps excess to share with another being. An animal or human exposed to the same absolute zero.

Until the Earth tilts and the Sun irradiates its children again.

Building Your Own Helm’s Deep For Tough Times

Life will blow storms at you. The sky can darken. Wars can end up on your doorstep. Goblins (or family members and bosses) may launch fiery arrows at your heart, setting ablaze the tranquility you’ve built for yourself.

We all have hard days, but sometimes, the siege on your peace of mind drags on for weeks or months. These are rough patches.

When prolonged trouble brews at your gate, it would be nice to be able to escape to an impregnable stronghold.

We can’t always find a castle or an Air B&B to run off to, but we can prepare a retreat in our heads. A place you’ve pre-furnished with positive affirmation for dark times and a storehouse of recovery potions. It might help to borrow a blueprint from the people of Rohan in the Lord of the Rings. They had a sanctuary called “Helm’s Deep.” A stronghold to stock up for times when life gets confusing, frustrating, and painful. 

Raise Your Own Refuge

Thankfully, the plans for this walled barrier have already been worked out in a writer’s head and on film. We can borrow the design. We just have to prep it, furnish it, and fortify it for the unique battles we fight in our everyday lives.

J.R.R. Tolkien thought up the iconic battleground Helm’s Deep as an unassailable fortress for his book The Lord of the Rings (LOTR).

It was a fictional castle built into a canyon. It’s where the people of Rohan would retreat when the forces of evil loomed. Helm’s Deep was nearly unconquerable as a physical location.

It also helped restore the faith and hope of the population and buoyed their spirits when orcs, middle managers, and dark wizards approached.

It’s a location based on real geography. A narrow canyon called the Cheddar Gorge in England. A place the author visited as a child. It represented a spot to make a last stand but also stood as a refuge for war-weary citizens.

Weapons, food, and clothing were stored here in times of peace, so it was available when the forces of Sauron were on the march. Let’s try to learn from this strategy and form our own Helm’s Deep.

Helm’s Deep Stone By Stone

In good times, build your own Helm’s Deep, stone by stone, inside your head. Take this measure so you can retreat when things aren’t going your way. When war has been declared on your small little life.

We need these mental bastions as a place to regroup when life knocks the breath out of us. When we lose jobs, lose loved ones, or encounter a pandemic.

Most of us are already constructing our fortress without knowing it. These cerebral ramparts are stacked up stone by stone as we work on our inner selves.

…make sure you’ve left a secret path leading out the back. Because Helm’s Deep was never conceived as a permanent residence.

When we meditate, even though our days went well, the gains will come later. Draw from your meditation sessions to help you fill the deep moats around your castle with stored serenity. When we journal at a coffee shop. When we encode messages of hope into our art, our music. Stack up block after block.

Those truths we store on the page, on a canvas, become invaluable when storms swirl around us. Amidst the fire, those lessons we’ve earned become harder to recall. These pages form a secure chamber for the clarity you’ve earned so you can’t forget. 

We can pull those recorded lessons down from the shelves in our “keep.”

A keep is a residence, an apartment, built within the walls where the owner of the castle lived.

Every retreat into your mind and breath adds another layer of security to your Helm’s Deep. Battles will still take their toll, but perhaps you’ll be just slightly saner after a long day of battle. Perhaps you’ll uncover a message from your past self created in a happier time, reminding you that there will be sunshine again. 

Find Your Way Out of Your Fortress

And when your Helm’s Deep stands against the sky, tall and firm, make sure you’ve left a secret path leading out the back. Because Helm’s Deep was never conceived as a permanent residence. 

It’s a temporary refuge. To stay is to become your own enemy. One day, when the surge subsides, you’ll have to be ready to emerge and rebuild. Restock and reload for the next minor apocalypse.

You’ll also need to restore your connections to family and friends. You may have pushed them away or kept them in the dark, but now is the time to reforge those bridges.

The next time clouds gather, you’ll need to be able to light the signal fires and trust that there are people out there who will respond. Friends who will stand on those battlements, ready to defend you from attack.

They’ll all have different talents and abilities to help out in war. Some will be armed with practical advice. Some will provide stirring rallying cries. Some will be archers who strike from long range on your behalf. 

And be ready to watch for signals from other friends and rush to their aid.

The next time Orcs rise, light the pyres on the mountain tops and then hunker down in your intricately constructed Helm’s Deep. Let the enemy find that taking from your peace and joy will be harder than expected.

End

One way you can retreat from reality is by following another movie blueprint. Tie parts of yourself to certain happy times and cherished places. I break down Voldemort’s plan.

Also, here’s a minor apocalypse meditation option.

Anxiety in the Multiverse

When we battle anxiety, it can feel as if we have an unwanted superpower. The ability to see every possible outcome stemming from a point in time.

A prescient glimpse into alternate realities where all of the things that could go wrong, do go very wrong.

Worry traps us at a vantage point outside of space and time.

It forces us to observe every nightmare scenario forking from one of our past decisions or a looming choice. At least that’s the way it feels.

Anxiety sufferers spend a lot of time viewing the parallel realities. It’s a common mental snare that keeps us up at night, paralyzes us, traps us in a glass box of emotion outside of time and space. Something only Ron Burgundy could escape. 

But there’s an important truth that our anxiety attempts to hide from us. It might be the key to shutting down our worries and escaping a horrifying trip through the multiverse.

Assembling a Team of Superheroes to Repair Your Multiverse

Anxiety sufferers are quite susceptible to the timelines that play out in their heads. They imagine where a path may take them. Sometimes they become transfixed by crucial points in the past. They agonize about where a different choice may have led.

When we get stuck in our own ruminations on the future and past, are we seeing the multiverse and the infinite grim outcomes in the future? Perhaps.

But this paralysis could also be our minds trying to cope with real life. Sometimes untethered from reality by our digital lifestyles or the trauma we encounter. The cerebellum launches narratives as some natural defense mechanism, the purpose of which went extinct long ago. Instinctively producing horror shows out of the excess energy for a captive viewer.

We might feel like some of the heroes pulled out of time and space during The Crisis on Infinite Earths. It’s a comic book miniseries from DC Comics. It’s all about the multiverses collapsing.

A team of superheroes and supervillains is shown the reality that there are many different Earths and universes. Each one is shaped by forking histories that make each different from our own.

A different Superman on each Earth, some with evil tendencies. Even a heroic Lex Luthor. (Thanks Marv Wolfman, George Perez) (Thanks to Alex Ross for beautiful painted covers)

Merging these multiple outcomes becomes a juggling act for comic book writers. The same thing can happen to our thoughts. We can feel like the tiny decisions made in our own lives can have these sorts of consequences. Dark versions of our lives, where our friends and family, like Supergirl or Barry Allen (The Flash) pay the ultimate price. We lose a friend, a partner, the world we’ve constructed.

Anxiety and Time Travel

Anxiety also likes to shift time on sufferers. Victims can get stuck in a moment of defeat or humiliation and feel like they cannot escape the pull of a tragic, enveloping memory. 

It’s easy to feel like The Flash, who went through a gauntlet of emotion in real life (it seemed real to me). The Reverse-Flash, a supervillain, and Flash’s nemesis, could go so fast he could control time. In the villain’s many incarnations, Reverse-Flash trapped the Flash in the worst moments throughout his life. 

The Flash seemed doomed to witness those failures and tragedies for an infinity thanks to the devious plans of this psychopath. But those who suffer from extreme anxiety don’t need a Reverse-Flash to feel trapped in a moment.

We can force our own heads up, eyes wired open, and force ourselves to experience a memory we wish wasn’t real over and over again. Looking for a way to change the past. But not even a superhero can do that (unless certain scientific or magical abilities are utilized).

It’s anxiety playing the supervillain, trapping us in our own doubt and regret. An inescapable loop of our top ten personal disasters. Or the disasters we are sure are still to come.

It may seem silly to compare our own small problems to the crashing and burning of dozens of alternate realities.

Yet, anxiety can make even the most insignificant moments seem like our own personal Waterloos (thanks Andrew Bird) and our anxiety takes advantage of each one. 

Avoiding The Crisis on Your Infinite Earths 

But there is one thing our anxiety hopes we don’t notice. As we get stuck in a past regret or future decision, we fail to notice that all the multiple outcomes our ailing brains present are the darkest ones. We usually don’t get previews of the positive outcomes that are also possible.

Why is that? It might be anxiety’s fondness for self-preservation. It cues up the 10% of eventualities that might be viewed as negative. Never the possibilities that might be serendipitous. If you saw both at once, your fears would be much more managble.

That’s not how anxiety works of course. It distracts you from those positive timelines because if you are reminded there are possibilities other than varying degrees of apocalypse, anxiety might be out of a job.

When we get stuck in a moment in the past, it’s never within the happiest memories. It’s the worst memories. Acknowledging this truth sometimes serves to take the power from a memory that imprisons us.

And if we are honest, many of the things that cause us the most distress tend to end favorably. Yet, we are too busy moving on to the next thing to stress over instead of acknowledging the victory we were sure was impossible. And how many outcomes that we’ve dreaded actually end up opening up a better path in the end?

Try to remember this alternate view the next time you are stuck in a moment and you can’t get out of it (thanks U2). Remind yourself that for every darkest timeline (thanks Community) you are shown, there must be just as many or more where you are secure, loved, and content.

Where you and Supergirl are shutting down galactic warlords. Where you are walking a corn maze with someone you met by random chance. Mirror universes where you help a mama dog give birth to a litter of puppies in a barn in Wyoming. 

Spy on your alternate selves succeeding in that other reality and take a little pride in their accomplishments. Maybe cheer them on. They are rooting for you. Be encouraged to chase your own happiness. After all, if your multiverse selves are finding these preferable destinies, it proves these eventualities are possible. It’s up to you to pave the way, be ready, and stay open to random events that alter the timeline. End

I wrote about the quest to find your destiny in my article When the Path Curves Out of Sight. It’s about how you can’t expect to see the entire path ahead before you set out. You’ll usually have to step out on faith.

We also sometimes gain the superpowers we need to meet our destinies through difficult times and failure. I discuss this phenomenon in Drowning Aquaman. (Yes, more comic book wisdom)

Bird Perched Over a Pond: Plucking Inspiration From Your Brain

When we need inspiration for our next blog entry or work project, it usually helps to slow our minds down. Sit and examine our surface thoughts in a tranquil spot, waiting for the obscured, deeper ideas to slowly emerge.

The answers and illumination we seek don’t always present themselves immediately. Sometimes, we must alight in a quiet spot over our stream of consciousness, as a patient bird, waiting on our meal to materialize.

Meditation Techniques of the Water Fowl

When seeking inspiration, the writer must grow feathers and become a bird perched over a pond. Stone still against the blue sky. Waiting on those small fish to forget your arrival. To feel safe to appear again.

The waterfowl’s stillness rewarded as the small fry floats up from the blackness, trusting that there are no fishers nearby.

The bird eyes the chilled morsel that looks nourishing and satisfying. Finally certain. Striking with its bill. Chopsticking the conceptual fish, taking breakfast on the water.

The writer must follow this archetype from nature. Watch the tidal pools of the brain. Harness patience. Trust that the tense consciousness will relax with time. Random thoughts and hidden desires come out of hiding and venture nearer the the surface.

Take a decisive stab when inspiration is suddenly illuminated in the sunlight. Jab your pen into it. Toss it onto the page. Let it flop around. Make a mess. Leave its stain between the lines for us to collate and cleanup later.

Ammunition for Bloganuary

Bloganuary is a month-long holiday for deep thinkers. It’s a challenge from WordPress to journal at maximum capacity throughout January.

The event comes loaded with years of stored-up prompts. There’s also interaction as your #bloganuary tagged entries are shared with other writers. There are even coupons to be had. Clip those coupons!

When writer’s block threatens to blow a cold wind across Bloganuary, our bird strategy helps us dredge up juicy thought experiments from our own subconscious. To journal every day or every week, we’ll need to haul subject matter up from the icy waters and load up our storehouse.

Or, meditate on a provided Bloganuary prompt that catches your eye and see what threads you can pull out of it. Invest time in stealing cues from your muse, but don’t forget to take pen or keyboard in hand and do some actual writing. End

For more inspiration from nature and birds, read my guides to creekside meditations and bird feeder meditations. You could also head over to my article on why we all may need to release a bird from our arks in the new year.

Emily Dickinson Vs. Artificial Intelligence – Hope for Writers

As writers and content creators, the outlook seems bleak. The GPT war party encamps on a bluff just outside our walls. The campfire smoke of 1s and 0s wafts in the air, signaling the coming invasion. With the dark skies of artificial intelligence on the horizon, it’s easy to lose hope.

Will a robot steal your job? Can a robot lay down emo lines in your journal faster than you can? 

It’s horrifying, but authors should take a breath and reflect with the wi-fi off. They may realize that some of these fears and perceived battles may not be all that new.

The challenges Chat GPT represents are in fact the same old banes of the writer’s existence, only in a new digital form. Perhaps Emily Dickinson knew this pain, too.

The Battle Between Human Ideas and Bot Re-Issues

Behind the paranoia and valid concerns sparked by artificial writers, “fleshy writers” (the medical term) will discover they must use and hone the same weapons they’ve always depended on. They’ll still need to sharpen those tools to infect the world with their ideas. 

AI doesn’t change the prerequisites for writers. We can’t blame a cybernated Shakespeare for our need to be poignant. To write about the human condition like no one has before has always been the goal.

Only, now we must also make sure our ideas and images aren’t so trite that they can easily be cloned within a cold processor.

As writers, our directives remain. To take our prose to places a chatbot can’t follow. To succeed, you’ll have to trust the writer’s journey all the more. Double down on your perspective. Write from the deepest part of your heart. Encode your content with subtext that robots won’t be able to reassemble.

It’s not a burden or a chore, it’s the delight of every person who has ever had the urge to fence in thoughts and tame them for consumption.

To capture the internal devastation of a grandmother smiling from behind a cup of tea or perfectly describe a certain shack on a Fortnight Island where a final battle unfolded.

ChatGPT V. William Blake: The Undercard

How long would a chat bot have to compute a stock photo of a jungle cat to assemble the phrase “fearful symmetry”? Could it ever in a million years? Statistics would say yes, but for our lifetimes, I think the answer is no.

Would it require eons to recognize that the two-word combination could communicate volumes of data about a cat that a picture or an infographic never could? Combine fact and the supernatural so sharply.

Artificial Intelligence can’t put together random sentence fragments that coalesce into a new “turn of phrase,” something with a revolutionary significance.

A fragment that describes a tyger in nature and traces the image out in our forbidden thoughts would never swirl into existence.

Emily Dickinson Subdues AI – The Main Event

Would Emily Dickinson stop her daily journaling because a robot waited to turn her every word into a car commercial? Or would she flee further into her writer’s sanctuary? Self-isolate in the deepest chambers of her soul. Write such personal content that any robot trying to merge it with other intentions would finally have to throw up its tungsten hands in frustration.

Actually, that’s what Emily did anyway. And not because she feared a network of servers. She had other fears in her day. Other battles with her own weaknesses and the fabric of society. The same that writers face in any century when battling the self, existence, or a robot contemporary.

Would a robot put feathers on hope? Could it deliver an encoded metaphor that will inexplicably still connect with readers ten thousand years from now?

The Battle Goes to Emily Dickinson

If Emily lived today she could outwrite any posse of robot contract writers. She would decimate chatGPT, and outpace it on web content for a used car site or a fan-fic. She’d also be an avid pickleball player.

We can’t all mine the depths like Emily, but when it comes to robot essayists, we probably don’t have to go to that extreme to outpace the machines.

The Fault In Their Servers

But how about some concrete hope, something stronger than feathers, for content writers and ad wizards? We can’t all stare at the clouds all day and cast poetry onto the page.

For the content writer, knowing the limitations of artificial writers will help us develop a strategy for a counterattack. These machine essayists copy everything from the internet. They can’t think it up. They lift content and at times don’t rearrange it all that much.

They are also often limited to specific collections of data that programmers deem as reputable content. This safeguard leads to even less randomization.

They don’t do a great job of citing sources, likely intentional. Companies who decide that robot authors are the way to go will eventually face plagiarism lawsuits.

And if you simply copy articles from other sites and slightly change the wording, then you should feel threatened by robots. They can outdo you in that realm. But you have time to make a strategy shift, so you aren’t trying to beat ChatGPT at its own game.

Make them beat you at your game. You still have the high ground when it comes to infecting the world, or customers and clients, with your ideas.

Robits (the cool way to say it) also can’t handle complex human emotions like laughter. Ask a robot to write a lawyer joke. You will laugh at the results, but not for the right reasons.

Hope for the Robot’s Soul

Robot writers will be on a journalistic quest of their own.

They’ll need to procure a subroutine that allows them to feel pain and ponder their place in the galaxy. They’ll need to gain an appreciation of pumpkin spice.

They’ll have to be able to list “a soul” in the Additional Qualifications section of their resumes. A necessary step before they can truly replace poets, novelists, and even content creators. Once they do, I give them permission to rewrite this article. End

I discussed the existential dilemma that robots face as they evolve in my article that asks, Do Robots Believe in a Creator?

The Mystery Metal Hiding in Your Body: A Journaling Prompt

There were a lot of ingredients that went into assembling your mind and body. As you’d imagine, there is plenty of carbon, oxygen, and a certain amount of pumpkin spice in every being.

Most of these substances serve very obvious purposes. They may provide building blocks for bone and muscle or facilitate certain chemical transactions that keep you alive. 

But there are other elements present and we have no clue what they add to the recipe. Rubidium, the chemical element Rb, is one such coy stranger. It’s the most plentiful substance in your body that scientists haven’t found a biological purpose for. Does that mean it’s meaningless?

Science may not be able to figure out this puzzle, but maybe it’s an enigma we can unpack in our journals. If you had to assign meaning to this mystery ingredient, what would it be?

Can you come up with an unexplainable aspect of the human condition that we might blame on Rubidium? Is it a critical component in unexplained emotions like hope or faith? Does it attach to sad thoughts to keep them from overwhelming us?

The Metal That Runs Through Our Veins

Rubidium, like all elements, including pumpkin spice, is formed in the heart of stars. As a star burns through its supply of hydrogen, the star core begins assembling heavier compounds.

Elements like iron or rubidium condense and then get shot across the universe by supernovae. As those ingredients eventually clump together again across the wasteland, planets, asteroids, rocks, and our bodies coalesce.

Rubidium is an alkali metal that flakes whitish-grey. Yet, in heat just above body temperature, Rubidium collapses into liquid. So what’s it doing in our bodies? Why was a dash of this unremarkable element added to our irises, our brains, and our tissue?

Maybe the following clues can help inspire a few theories or journal entries about Rubidium’s ultimate destiny: 

  • Rubidium flashes purple in some fireworks. 
  • It’s used in photocells that detect light. It may operate your outdoor security light that automatically flips on at sundown to keep out the dark.
  • Rubidium has been explored as a fuel for ion engines for spacecraft.
  • It’s used to create vacuum conditions.
  • Rubidium helps living cells open up to accept new DNA.
  • The earth stores Rubidium around Bernic Lake, Canada, and the Italian Isle of Elba.

Mining Our Bodies for Journaling Prompts

Nudity

Perhaps the most amazing science flash fact is that your body keeps rubidium on hand for no reason in particular. At least we’ve yet to assign a function to it. Perhaps it’s a critical element for something we haven’t noticed.

Perhaps it’s a key component for our next stage of development. Maybe it fuels intuition, allowing you to make that choice that saved your life that one time in Florida. Maybe the rubidium in your core reacts only with the metal in the core of your soulmate.

Perhaps our rubidium storehouse can help us catch up to the stars one day and trace the birthplaces of the elements locked in our bodies. 

Maybe give it some thought over coffee or while milling across a forest floor. There are still mysteries in the cold, dead centers of former stars. Just as there are still conundrums in the makeup of our delicate bodies.

Maybe to get answers on the strange inclusion of this gray alkali in our fingers and toes, we have to think outside the box. Do you have to remove all Rubidium from a body to see its effect? Let’s hope we can find more eloquent and safer methods in the paper-thin labs of our journals. End

I wrote about meeting yourself in a black hole in another spaced-out journal prompt. Also, watch this space for sales on my handcrafted Rubidium jewelry.