Category: Words

And I’m doing nothing wrong
Riding in your car
Your radio playing
We sing up to the eighth floor
A rooftop, in Manhattan
One in the morning
When you said something
That I’ve never forgotten
When you said something
That was really important
–PJ Harvey/You Said Something

Don’t run back inside
Darling you know just what I’m here for
So you’re scared and you’re thinking
That maybe we ain’t that young anymore
Show a little faith there’s magic in the night
–Bruce Springsteen/Thunder Road

To follow up on nothing coming from nothing…
If there has to be a something that the something comes from, what is my “something”?

If the something that starts something is a catalyst, then mine is often a person. There is one in particular who I sometimes don’t like very much, but always love. One I have a relationship with that is both important to me and frequently maddening. He isn’t the direct cause of anything I have ever done in the past or of anything I might do now, but he has been a spark to a lot of things over the years, in bad ways and good.

Writing, for sure. I don’t consider the blog a “something good” because it is so jam packed with good writing and profound thinking, but because it was a way for me to reach out to people I was having a really hard time reaching, including myself. You know who you are, people who are difficult to reach. Everyone wave hello…

“We should write a book,” he said.
“We already are,” I answered.

So I started scribbling. I scribble through everything because the spark sort of got away from me a little and it turned into a bonfire and I can’t stop. Oops. The world knows what is going on in my head before I know these days. I scribble in the car, or at work. I wake up to write things down. I neglect..pretty much everything.

The catalyst now owes me at least several chapters of a book, and if he thinks I am going to do his writing for him he is very much mistaken. I can only write what I write, and that only just barely. I definitely can’t write what other people write.

But if nothing comes from nothing and is earned by doing something good, then what good have I ever done to deserve anything? Is that my question to answer? Can I assume that if good things happen to me, I must have earned them or they wouldn’t be happening?

Sometimes I wonder if the people who cause good things to happen are aware of it. If they are motivated by it. If it even counts as good if you’re doing it to get some sort of Karmic ticket punched.

I don’t know that I have done any Good. Not in an important sort of way. I do know that I don’t worry much about it. It might be the only thing I don’t worry about…maybe I am more adapted to lower case good. Making people laugh. Listening to my friends. Not killing people at work. Being kind to people, mostly.

We can’t all be Mother Teresa. I can just barely do a good job of being me.

Scribbling away at this helps. I am glad I did enough of something good to earn having someone in my life who poked me in this direction.

Thanks, Sparky.

Now if someone can catalyze me into some exercise and a better diet, that would be a Very Good Thing indeed….

Nothing comes from nothing,
Nothing ever could.
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good.
–Rodgers and Hammerstein/Something Good

There’s this really annoying song that’s been entrenched in my brain for several days. I don’t know about most people, but to me that’s a lot like the voice of God speaking directly into my ear.

Ear worm-voice of God Potayto-potahto. Wait, that isn’t Rodgers and Hammerstein, it’s George and Ira Gershwin. Is it mixing metaphors to use one song reference to describe another? Oh, this is getting complicated.

No matter how I describe it, the point is that I really do think that ear worms are my personal equivalent of a message from God. Moses had fiery visions. Joseph Smith had magic rocks. Some people hear a voice answering their prayers. I don’t believe in a god, and I don’t hear voices, but I do have music in my head, and a lot of times there is a reason a specific song gets stuck in there.

It’s a message. Call it God, or call it my subconscious mind, but it’s a message.

Except when it’s Abba. Then it’s just annoying.

So what does it mean? Hell if I know. I’m no soothsayer. Where’s Joseph and his prognosticating rainbow jacket when I need him?

On a superficial level, I suppose it’s true that nothing comes from nothing. To get a plant, you need a seed. To gain acceptance, you have to be tolerant yourself. To love yourself , you have to forgive others. To get, you always have to give. Seems like that’s true. The happiest people I know seem to be the ones who are the most giving. The most generous in spirit. The ones who seem to share naturally.

Nothing comes from nothing…you need a catalyst. Internal or external. A bit of a spark. Like a spark moves a piston that turns an axle that moves a car? And where does the spark come from?

At some point wasn’t there nothing?
Does everything come from nothing?

Nothing comes from nothing, but I am definitely going nowhere with this…
Sleepy brains do not reason well.
Or maybe I will be stuck with this song until the message is clear…

And for those of you who keep track of such things, it’s the Carrie Underwood version. Because whatever it is who controls the message appears to dislike me intensely. Shut up. I know it’s me.