Spend one day in front of a screen. Get and make lots of phone calls, check your e-mail, blog, update your Facebook page, send some tweets, read some blog posts, listen to a podcast, peruse some Youtube videos. Watch American Idol, Lost, The Office and Thirty Rock followed by some Fox or CNN.
Spend the next day off-line, unplugged, face-to-face with real people, hearing live voices instead of recorded ones. Walk through the woods or around the block or through a crowded mall. Talk to your spouse, your friends, your neighbors. Play with your kids. Smell flowers, watch the sun set, point at shooting stars.
Which day gave you more stories to tell?
Would you believe that my days include both?
Amen. And why is it so hard to do the second?
Beautifully said. I just blogged about storytelling myself.
http://rmfo-blogs.com/brandy/2009/03/24/telling-stories/
I just had lunch with Andrew, my 4 year old. In 30 minutes, I was entertained by:
- him calling his watery eyes, “eye sweat”
- when he talks, he constantly positions his fingers in the “I LOVE YOU” sign – because he thinks it’s cool.
- survival technique that he created himself, telling me that if anyone every tried to take him at the mall, he would act like a statue, and they would think that he wasn’t real. But he said that he hasn’t thought through on what to do if they try to buy him.
- after eating 4 carrots, he now claimed to have the eagle eye, and said that he could see deep into outer space.
- And lastly, one in which I’m still pondering on how to answer, he asked why girls couldn’t take their shirts off in the summer?.. he wanted to know if it’s because they make breast milk?
OK… gotta run now and get back to the real interesting stuff….
I don’t know – Melanie and I just talked about last week’s “30 Rock” for a solid 15 minutes and laughed our stinkin’ heads off.
But yes. You’re right. Point well taken, my friend.
Sounds like a great idea. I bet I’d have a whole lot of things to twitter about. Wait, what?
wow, this hits hard today. thanks.
Have you heard Brian Unger’s Twitter report? http://tinyurl.com/bodl2b (3 minutes of awesomeness)
Hubs and I always talk about our online friends like they’re real. Which they are, of course. But I ‘spose it’s not the same.
In order to have something to talk about online I have to be engaged in real life duh.
Well said, Shaun. Well said.
About the same, actually. Lotsa cool things happening out there where I can’t be. I’m glad I can tell those stories too, not just those from my immediate physical surroundings.
That’s a rhetorical question right? Is it not amazing that we both know that it is, yet I still feel compelled to respond. I digress.
Perhaps it is because I live a ‘column one’ kind of existence. Or perhaps it is because I have few friends–a gazillion acquaintances maybe, but few friends. I suspect that the folks who consider themselves to be my friend might be shocked to know that I don’t truly see them that way. It’s not that they aren’t friendly, but rather that I hold my definitions of words to a higher, albeit semantical, standard.
Take the word ‘good’ for example. It is my firm belief that the word ‘good’ should only appear in sentences where God’s name is used. The fact that we misuse it continually (“boy, this meatloaf is good,” or, “For Sale: 1973 Ford Pinto; good condition, “ or the ever popular, “free to good home,” as if such a thing existed), only serves to devalue the word and God simultaneously. But I digress.
Here’s the way I see it (without any further digressions); at the top of my ‘top ten list’ of my ‘top priorities’ there is only one name: Jesus Christ. I suspect it is the same with everyone else reading this diatribe. However, for me, there is no number two, or three, etc. on my list, despite the fact I have a wife, and children, and a friend or two I love dearly. There is no number 2 on my list because I am in th practice of allowing God to dictate what my priorities are to be. Essentially there are only 2 slots on my top-ten list: # 1 is Jesus and # 2 is whoever (or whatever) He says # 2 is–and that changes moment by moment. I think I am digressing again.
Anyway, all that is to say, much of the column-one stuff I do (less American Idol and 24) is what the Lord would have me do. The ‘good’ part is that ‘Jesus’ (that’s what I’m talking about!) orchestrates much of the other stuff (sunsets, walks on the beach, puppies) into my life in chunks I can swallow (or endure when it comes to playing house with my daughter). I guess what I am trying to say (finally) is that I’m not gonna get too upset if I find myself in a column where the grass is seemingly greener. That fact that I belabored the issue clearly demonstrates that a story can be found in any alley.
*although perhaps not a ‘good’ story