The Thursday! Newsletter 1-31: Let's Go Through the Crazy Door
Volume 1, Issue 31
I have a lot of crazy ideas.
When I say that, I don't mean that I've drawn up plans for a Moon-Pull-Downinator or a lightning raid on Fort Knox that involves an all-female aerobatics troupe and a lot of knock-out gas. I suppose I could, except those have already been done. They didn't work.
No. What I'm talking about are creative ideas, like a podcast where I and other people whose work I like and respect narrate my stories or a comic book about the many adventures of the Trouble Team. I have other ideas too, ideas I've not told more than a couple few people because I'm afraid everyone will laugh at me.
Worse, though, I'm afraid people will hear me out about half-way, stop me, and say, "Jimmie, no. This is not for you. You aren't good enough. You don't have the expertise, the experience, the credentials. You're not the sort of person who can do this. Not you. Not ever." That, my friends, terrifies me. I can handle being laughed at, even though I don't like it. I have a lot of experience being laughed at. I got bullied a lot. The laughter of my peers and people in authority over me in school or at work is old hat. I suppose it shouldn't be that way, but the world quite often does not ask us for our permission before it dumps on us and people, as a rule, can be awful. You take your lumps and move on. This isn't the most uplifting message, but it is useful. Some things, you just take.
On the other hand, flat dismissal? Not even getting the chance and, worse, being told that chance will never come because I'm...me? That scares the snot out of me because it means another closed door. I've had that happen as well. Not as often as the laughter, mind you, but often enough that I know what it means when it happens. It means so long as that person or those people, whomever they are, are in my way, that way is closed. The notion that some thing will be always beyond you because people exist who will keep it beyond you is perhaps the worst feeling in the world. Potential you can see but will never reach is not only lost potential, but rotten potential. It festers in the heart if you let it. And sometimes you can't get it all out before it does. Look around. You can see it. You can see what decades of doors slammed shut causes. You can see the hurt and the anger and the...well...sometimes you can see what happens when people hurt like that get the chance to do it to other people, too. The only place revenge is clean and pure is in the storybooks. In real life, slamming a door in someone's face because it once happened to you is not less wrong than doing it just because you can. In fact, it is the same thing.
Here's the thing, though. Many times, in our own heads, we expect someone will slam a door shut who will not. The lost opportunities we imagine feel just the same to us as the real ones. I don't know exactly how often we don't even try to open a door because we believe someone will stop us, but I do know it happens often enough that we are foolish not to try. See, the worst person who can deny us our potential is us. Someone else might stop me from going through one door, but that person can't stop me from going through every door, nor can he stop me from making my own door and going through it my own self. I can, though. I can stop myself every day, all day. I can even stop myself from opening a door with no one in front of it. I am the worst guardian of what is and isn't possible because I am here all the time and I always get a say.
So do you. You always get a say.
Sometimes doors don't have guards. Sometimes you don't need to ask anyone's permission. You can just walk right through. Easy-peasy, chicken-squeezy, right? We already know that's not quite right, though, don't we? You are there. You can say no. You can say all those mean, hateful things about yourself. You can close the door. You can impair your own potential. You can stunt your own creative growth. You can make yourself cynical and evil towards yourself.
You. Just you.
This is not to say that bad people aren't out there and they won't kick dirt in your face. They are and they will. But I'm not sure there are as many of them as we imagine. They do not lurk behind every corner and in the dark shadows of the trees along the trail. In truth, they don't hide very well. They're too proud for that. But you? You hide inside yourself. You act like the good and true you and when the times comes to reach for that handle and open that door...BAM! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? THAT IS NOT FOR YOU! YOU DO NOT DESERVE THAT! YOU CAN NOT ACHIEVE THAT! YOU ARE NOT WORTHY! And you drop your hand and walk away, denied by yourself as surely as if some jumped-up martinet, promoted on his ability to suck up more than his ability to do any worthwhile job, told you no just because he had the power to do so.
I have a lot of crazy ideas. I also have a lot of reasons I tell myself for not at least exploring the exact level of crazy in the ideas. I mean, there's a lot but maybe not the underpants-on-head level I think. Maybe that's the horrible me inside me trying to slam that door shut before I even get a good look at it.
I think that dude needs to take a long hike. I can't look over these crazy plans with all his hollering. Want to come with? I bet you have a few crazy plans too. Let's look over them together. Never know. They probably aren't that crazy.
And if they are? We'll figure that out when we get there. The path is right behind this door.
Before I go, I want to wish Happy Birthday (yesterday) to my wife Candi, who reads every issue of Thursday! before it goes out. Hi, my angel! I love you! I hope you had a good birthday!
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What I Wrote and Read Last Week (More or Less)
I've been entranced with the idea of being stuck in the "wrong" dimension since I was a kid. "The Shining Man" is a story about a person in such a terrible position and what he might have to do to save someone he loves.
Sometimes a poem is just goofy, goofy fun. Such is "It's a Thing", which I put over on my Instagram feed. You don't need an account to see it.
Have you ever heard of a "pneumonia front"? I hadn't and I found the phenomenon fascinating. Our planet is still a wonder to be explored thoroughly.
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Arts and/or Letters, to Class Up the Joint
I think we need a little more fun this week, so click on this video and enjoy the "Mistake Waltz" from Jerome Robbins' The Concert (or, The Perils of Everybody). You need a bit over three minutes, but you'll smile. Seems a fair trade.
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One Last Thing
This is where I ask you to help me out. I don't like asking for help but there's no way I can share Thursday! far and wide without wonderful people like you who dig what I do and are willing to tell other people about it. Please, feel free to share this or any past newsletter with anyone you think will love it like you do. You can also buy or share my cool book, give it a solid review, or get an autographed copy (ask and I'll tell you how!).
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