Zen and Point of View

This parable illustrates the Zen teaching to accept life as it is without judging whether things are good or bad: A farmer’s horse runs away and his neighbors say, “Such bad luck,” to which the farmer replies, “Maybe.” The next day the horse returns with two wild horses. The neighbors say, “Such good luck,” to which the farmer replies, “Maybe.” The farmer’s son tries to ride one of the horses, but falls and breaks a leg. “Such bad luck,” the neighbors respond, which again meets with a reply of “Maybe.” The next day, soldiers come through the village and draft all of the healthy young men, except the farmer’s son with his broken leg.*

I can’t say that I was sorry to send 2009 packing and usher in 2010. Last year will not rank as one of my best. Yet when I reflect on the past 12 months, I find that what stands out for me is something rather nice. During 2009, I reconnected with quite a few friends and family members, some of whom I had not been in contact with for decades.

In many cases, we were brought back together by Facebook. The simple act of “friending” through social media has put me on their radar once again, allowed me to catch glimpses of their daily life and provided a fast and easy way to communicate with each other.

One of the main reasons I’m even on Facebook is because of something it’s hard not to view as negative. My work is drying up as traditional advertising vehicles are being abandoned for new media outlets. I need to become intimately familiar with social media to convince potential employers that I’m not a dinosaur in my field. So I’ve been dragged (just short of kicking and screaming) into the world of Facebook and Twitter, and yes, this blog.

Now that I’m here, I’m seeing not only how I can use social media to advertise my clients’ products and services, but also how I can use it to promote my own book. For example, I’m looking at using Craig’s List to advertise a promotional video on Facebook and You Tube that gets parents to see the value of my online novel so they’ll introduce it to their kids. And that’s just the beginning.

As much as I don’t like being drastically underemployed, it is forcing me to explore new avenues that will potentially benefit me down the road. So my situation is both a curse and a blessing, depending on how I choose to look at it.

This idea that everything in life has both its good side and bad side is central to my children’s novel, The Magic Hair. In the book, the heroine Nici has a mishap that causes her hair to grow to an unwieldy 20-foot length. Whenever she cuts off her tresses, they grow right back. Her unnaturally long locks provoke ridicule and fear, as well as making moving around terribly inconvenient.

When her hair becomes tangled in a horse’s hooves, Nici is sent flying into a river where she’s washed downstream and into a series of adventures. As she tries to find her way back home, she discovers the extraordinary power of her long locks and their ability to regenerate. At the end, Nici and her hair thwart a plot to overthrow the kingdom. So she becomes celebrated for the very thing that has caused her so much pain and turmoil along the way.

My hope is that children—or even adults—reading my story will learn to look at the negative things happening in their life (their parents’ divorce for example) and see that it also yields positive things (such as more attention from both parents).

It’s a view I’m trying to adopt myself. Because a healthier, more balanced take on life could help me enjoy the journey more.

Maybe.

*The story is sometimes called “The Farmer’s Luck” in the Western world. There’s a great children’s book titled Zen Shorts by John J. Muth that includes this and two other thought-provoking tales.

Gift-givers and Tidbits

Saint Nicholas was a 4^th century bishop known for giving gifts to children, but only after asking if they had been good throughout the previous year. His name in Dutch is Sinterklaas, which was corrupted into Santa Claus. In the 16^th century, the Protestants said the one bringing the gifts was the Christ Child—or Christkindl—which got corrupted into Kris Kringle.

As I mentioned in an earlier post (Attics and Creative Sparks), the tidbits that define my posts will be a part of the interactive website of my children’s adventure novel. There are about 150 tidbits throughout the 30-odd chapters. And it was incredibly fun researching every one of them.

Each new fact, fable or bit of trivia was like unwrapping a little gift. I often had to wade through pages and pages of information about a given subject to finally find the one little nugget that became the tidbit. Whenever I reached an “I didn’t know that” or “That’s interesting” moment, I knew I had something. (Then I had to verify that it was actually true.)

Here are some favorites that I uncovered…

Light travels faster than sound, which is why you generally see lightning before you hear thunder. The lightning super heats the air, causing pressure that results in a sonic boom. This boom is the thunder. The rolling or rumbling of thunder is caused when the shock wave moves along the lightning’s path.

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In medieval times, the poor slept on mattresses stuffed with straw. The rich, however, enjoyed luxuriously soft featherbeds, sometime set on top of a straw or woolen-stuffed mattress. Curtains or embroidered hangings surrounded the bed to keep out the cold. The bed and bedding were considered so valuable that they were often passed down in the owner’s will.

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The term for sun reflecting off a still body of water is “sun glint.” When waves break up the reflected light, it’s called “sun glitter.”

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Black, oolong, green, yellow and white tea all come from the same plant—the camellia sinensis or common tea plant. The difference in the types of tea stems from the manufacturing process, not the plants themselves.

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If it wasn’t for the bubonic plague, beer steins might never have been invented. In the early 1500s, people still had no idea what caused the “Black Death.” Fearing that the hoards of flies in their midst might cause another outbreak of the deadly plague, the government of what is now Germany passed a covered-container law.

To comply with this law, common beer mugs had to have a lid. Someone cleverly made the lid hinged with a thumb piece so people could drink their beer with one hand—and the beer stein was born.

Around this same time, new techniques for firing earthenware were developed. Higher temperatures turned clay into a more solid, stone-like material. Beer steins were made of this new stoneware. The word “stein” is short for “Steinkrug”, which means “stone jug” in German.

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The smoke produced by a fire is a mixture of water vapor, gases and extremely tiny particles—about 40 times smaller than the width of a human hair. The actual make-up of the particles and gases depends on what’s burning, which is why smoke can have different smells and be black or white.

As the fire is extinguished, the smoke particles cool and adhere to everything they touch. This is why the smell of smoke can linger long after a fire.

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The term “scapegoat” comes from the Yom Kippur ceremony of Judaism where a goat is driven into the wilderness (escape goat) to carry away the sins of the people.

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Most rainbows appear to be an arc, but that’s because we’re only seeing part of them. If you could view the whole thing (such as from an airplane), you would see a full circle.

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I hope you enjoyed these little gifts of knowledge. And I hope that Santa Claus, Kris Kringle, Pére Noel, Babbo Natale, Joulupukki or whichever incarnation you prefer fills your holiday with friends, family and fun.

Attics and Creative Sparks

Ancient Greeks who lived in Attica, the peninsula that includes Athens, used to build a low, decorative wall above the main building to hide the roof. In time, these became enclosed and the space between known as an “Attic story,” later shortened to “attic.”

Five years ago, what is now my office was just unimproved attic space. To access it back then, you had to put a ladder into the front bedroom closet, push a 2’ by 2’ piece of plywood out of the way and shimmy around the clothes rod and through the cutout. Once there, you had to walk on the joists because there was no flooring. Loose insulation filled the spaces between, 100 years of dust clung to the rafters and you couldn’t stand upright except for where the roof peaked.

It was perfect.

Luckily, a friend—who has the design and construction skills I lack—shared my view. In a few short months, and lots of physical labor later, we went from wishful thinking to reality.

Now I not only have an office that I love, but also wonderful memories of building it. I particularly enjoyed watching my friend design on the fly every time some new challenge presented itself—and there were many in this quake-altered frame. My vision of “we could do something with this space” became a fun, creative challenge for her.

This is more or less what I’m trying to do with my book and website. Present a starting point for other people’s creativity. Offer the spark that ignites an imaginative fire.

I could say that this whole idea started because I want to help young people unleash their creative power so they can visualize and build a better world. But the truth is less altruistic. I simply want a way to publish my completed (finally) book.

After doing some research, it didn’t seem like going the agent/editor, print-on-demand or e-book route was quite right for me. So I came up with my own idea.

What I’m envisioning is a website—actually, more like a community—built around the novel that encourages anyone and everyone to upload their own work based on the story. This could be illustrations, videos, songs, animation, side stories, costumes, games, puzzles—whatever.

But it’s more than that. Readers also earn “extras” as they go deeper into the novel. Some of these include an animated map that tells where the chapter takes place. An electronic bookmark that at sign-in goes directly to the last page read. A highlighter, notepad, sketchpad, chapter summary, and other tools to help kids record key things about the plot and characters so they can create their own contributions.

Then there’s my favorite extra, the 3-6 pop-up tidbits in each chapter. These pertain to something going on in the story and provide interesting trivia (the Chinese had armor made of paper), as well as activities (how to create a quill pen) and behind-the-writing stories (one of the female characters was male in an earlier draft). These are much like the tidbits that frame each post on my blog.

I could go on and on about the other things such as the contests, polls, section for parents and teachers, etc. But the final site might look very different from my vision given my limited budget.

Or maybe if I get the right team working with me, it will be even better than I envisioned. Just like the attic where I’ve come up with these ideas.

Who knew that an ancient architectural adornment would have such a profound impact on my future?