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This week: Observations: Binocular-ly Speaking Edited by: Fyn  
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A myth is the name of a terrible lie told by a smelly little brown person to a man in a white suit with a pair of binoculars.~~David Antin
With the most powerful binoculars, I cannot see Alaska.~~Mikheil Saakashvili
To marry is to get a binocular view of life.~~ Dean Inge
“Still she wondered: did the present deliver up the future, or must you chase your destiny like a harpoonist?” ~~ Edith Pearlman, Binocular Vision: New and Selected Stories |
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A conversation over the weekend ...
"Grandma, are you very old?"
"No, I don't think so."
"But when Sissy gets married, she'll have a baby and you'll be a great-grandma, right?"
"Yes."
"Then you are really old. Great-grandmas always are, you know."
"No, maybe it is that great-grand children are just very young."
"Oh. {puzzled look. Dazzled smile} Good. OK, can I have a cookie?"
Perspectives are a marvelous thing to know how to skew! Seriously though, one thing I've learned is that a particular perspective can really change how you look at things. For example, have you ever looked through the 'wrong' side of a a pair of binoculars? Instead of the distant being brought in close, everything is very far away. Of course, everything is exactly where it really is, but you see it differently. Too often, I've found that we want to reach out to the 'far away' and drag it into the close or into the 'now,' or into the 'here' rather than waiting for it.
As children, we look through life's binoculars and want to be eight (I'm seven and a half!) or able to drive or drink or go to college or move out. While long range planning is always a plus, sometimes rushing through the now to get to that far off vision, in the process we miss all that the now offers. The focus is so set on gaining that far off big objective, that the little things that can influence it are lost on the blurred sidelines.
My grandmother used to tell me to look through the other end of the binoculars all the time. I wouldn't think that it just changed how I saw things, I'd take it as a reality. But what she taught me was that something might look impossibly far (or hard or tiny or ...) but it is all in how we perceive whatever it was. It is the same number of steps from point A to point B regardless of which end you look through!
Sometimes I get a bit frazzled when I think of the long range plans I have for my company. I was talking to someone last week about them and one of the long range goals for ten years down the road is to have my own crazy, creative, very unusual bookstore. Her comment was: "You're going to start a bookstore when you are seventy?" Well, there is that age factor, but my point is that if I can, am able, then why not? I don't see any black gate across the road saying life ends at seventy!
On the other hand, sometimes things happen. Life (in some form or another) piles up on me and temporary obstacles seem to loom like blackened specters and stress levels reach new highs. Time to turn the binoculars around and gain a new perspective. Maybe it is the 'this too, shall pass' or maybe I just need to think that in the grand scheme of things, this isn't a stumbling block ... just a rocky stepping stone!
Changing perspective can change a whole outlook.
Remember back to your last discussion/disagreement/argument/fight? (In real life or perhaps a character's dilemma) Did it matter? Is it something that will be remembered ten years down the road? Will the outcome still carry an effect in 2023? If not, it probably isn't all that important. In the immediacy of things, it might seem terribly important, but is it? Really? If it truly is and will domino into something bigger if not handled right now, then absolutely take care of it/settle it/make that point. Just like the cliche-ed 'two sides to every story' there are multiple perspective one can use in almost every situation. Example--that six people all seeing the same robbery attempt and all six having very different stories to tell.
Ever dig up a piece of writing that you haven't looked at in a while? Happens to me when I receive a review on something I wrote so long ago that I do not remember it at all! Often, when I go to look, I have that, 'Oh. That one, okay.' reaction. Sometimes it is the 'OMG that is atrocious!' or its partner the, 'That's really good, I was so on when I wrote that!' and is accompanied by a (slightly) smug smile.
When writing, especially a longer piece like a novel, it needs to rest for a bit after you finish it. Like a bottle of wine, it needs that aging period (or the writer does) to look at it through fresh eyes, through both ends of the binoculars! Look at it for typos and as a whole, in other words, see the big picture and what works along with what just might not quite yet.
One of the best gifts my grandmother left me was her old pair of binoculars. |
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brom21  writes: Cleaning out the fridge is a gruesome, messy job. Why is it that we keep stuff we’ll never eat? I hate it when I have to scrub the heck out of stuff that is really stuck on the surface of the shelves. I agree that we can find little gems of creativity when we go to tidy up the closet. Not letting a good premise go down the drain is very important. Those loose thoughts in the back of our minds can be good stories.
(user:monty31802} says: A fun read in this Newsletter Fyn. Thank you. Keep these on ice.
Joshiahis  suggests: Excellent, excellent newsletter. A funny story with a lesson- like a fable.. Fyndorian' Fables????
Hmmm you just might have something there!!!
Carol St.Ann  comments: Wonderful newsletter, Ms. Fyn! Love the analogies and thought provoking wise cracks. Life is like a refrigerator. Ya never know... er, never mind. Thanks for the great NL!
LOL
DRSmith adds: ANTIQUE shops? It's all relative I guess. For example, the wife and I were in a local "Peddlers Mall" recently; a huge warehouse of individual booths filled with soup to nuts items. We happened by a booth where 3 clueless teenagers were picking through "antiques", like an obsolete rotary dial phone they had been examining from every angle. Beaten by its simplistic complexity I guess, one turned to the wife and with a perplexed expression challenging his sense of reason, promptly asked: "say ma'am, how do 'spose they text on this thing, anyway?"
Oh my....how funny! A statement of our times!
Christine Cassello says: Your refrigerator and closets sound like mine, but I live alone so all of the mess is mine. I have become very good at growing mold and do not buy fresh fruit and vegetables as we are advised to because most of it spoils before I eat it. My writing is also like that, as you say I find notes of things I started and never worked on all over the apartment, (they never stay in one place do they?). Thanks for writing this. It may encourage me to follow your example.
Hope so!
A*Monaing*Faith writes: LOVED this weeks quotes. Glad I'm not the only one to think so much/deeply about the state and contents of my fridge! It really is a whole-nother world in there...and don't get me started on the freezer!
Mara ♣ McBain  adds: I have to admit when I saw the title of this NL, "Observations: Cleaning the Fridge", I thought you might have finally lost your last marble. Way to bring it around, bind it all together and draw your parallel. LOL As always your writing is uber descriptive. I could picture the horrifying items as you dug through the fridge. Way to keep your newsletters fresh and get the house work done at the same time!
Actually, it was something of a procastinational effort to get out of doing the laundry! All things for a reason!
harperpaul comments: Ya know what? Your newsletter kinda reminds me of the song Empty Garden by Elton John. I type this because cleaning the fridge of nasty's is a lot like tending to an empty garden of yuk. But if you do water your garden with tender loving care (much like cleaning the fridge) what happens? Know what I mean?
I think? :)
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For Authors: October 23, 2013 Issue [#5957]
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