Drifting
I was sitting at my desk the other day with a characteristically blank look on my face. Anne walked by and asked, “What are you doing?”
I said, “Nothing.”
“You’re actually doing absolutely nothing?” she asked. “Is that even possible?”
“Well, since you seem to be rather insistent about it, I’m drifting,” I said.
“Drifting?”
“Yes,” I said. “Did you see where that last thought went?”
“No.”
“Neither did I,” I replied. “And that’s exactly the point. I had the thought. It went somewhere. Now I have to find it.”
“What’ll you do with it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “First, I have to find it. Then I have to decide what to do with it. Do you see how this works?”
“No.”
“Okay,” I said. “What do you do when you pick up a paint brush?”
“I don’t.”
“Then what do you do?” I asked.
“I pick up a pencil.”
“How do you paint with a pencil,” I asked, with a characteristically blank look on my face.
“I don’t,” she said. (She didn’t say moron.) “I write something for inspiration on the canvas before I start to paint.”
“Then what happens?”
“I have no idea until I put a brush in some paint and put the paint on the canvas,” she said. “Then I follow the first strokes until it becomes what I’m inspired to make it.”
“Don’t look now,” I said, “but that’s drifting.”
“You’re a moron,” she said.
I made no attempt to argue.
Originally Published on https://www.bizcatalyst360.com/category/lifecolumns/notes-to-self/
