Wayne Dyer

"The child in you, like all children, loves to laugh, to be around people who can laugh at themselves and life.  Children instinctively know that the more laughter we have in our lives, the better."

— Wayne Dyer

American Author/Speaker

1940 -

Do you love to laugh?  Or have you forgotten how to laugh?  I don't remember laughing much as a child?  I probably did, but I can't remember.  I know that I was a serious child and have been known to be a serious adult.  I know that my grandfather on my mother's side was very strict and serious.  He probably considered laughter to be the devil's work.  I know that as an adult I don't smile a lot.  I think that it is because as a child I spent a lot of time in the sun.  I squinted so I was able to see in the brightness.  I know that I do laugh as an adult, but I don't always laugh at what others consider to be funny.  I know that many of the movies that people think are funny I find stupid.  I guess you could say I don't like people acting dumb or stupid.  I like serious humor.  I don't like humor that puts people down and makes fun of individuals or groups of people.  I did not grow up in an environment where we told jokes.  I don't know how to tell a joke.  I don't like planned or canned laughter. 

The best laughter for me arises unexpectedly and spontaneously out of the moment.  Something someone says or does will strike me as funny and we will both experience a deep belly laugh.  It is not laughter that you can share with others.  If you were not present when it happened, it will not be funny to you.   

As creative leaders, we must be careful not to take life too seriously.  We must learn to laugh and enjoy the moment.  In the laughter we are refreshed and we will find hope.

Pearl Buck

"I have the habit of forgetting what I do not care to remember."

Pearl Buck

American Novelist

1892 - 1973

Memory makes a strange bedfellow.  Have you ever forgotten something you needed to remember?   Or have you remembered something you needed to forget?  Some people can remember the smallest of details.  I tend to forget the details, particularly of place and fashion.    Clothes rarely appear in my conscious mind let alone in my memory.  And if I have been insulted by word or deed, I usually forgive and forget.  My parents and my wife can not understand how I forgot so much of my childhood.  

And yet the strangest of details will find their way into my poems.  Details from somewhere in my past.  The last twenty years have seen an unusual growth in memoirs — both truthful and false.  Yet memory continues to haunt.  Remembering the wrong events can hold you hostage to your past.  What we remember impacts how we behave in the here and now.  Our memory defines who we believe we are.  What memories do you need to forget?  What memories do you need to hold onto?  What memories influence how you behave and help create the person who you have become?  What memories appear in your writing or your art?

Henning Mankell

"To grow up is to wonder about things; to be grown up is to slowly forget the things you wondered about as a child."

Henning Mankell

Swedish Novelist

1948 - 

I watch the three-year-old child that my wife and I are raising and I am amazed at the creative powers of her mind to imagine worlds that I cannot see.  To invent stories and stories within stories.  What happens to us as we grow up and take on the cloaks of the adult world?  Where does our inventiveness go?  What worlds of the imagination have we forgotten?

What do you do to keep your mind young?  Do you play with children?  Do you enter their worlds?  Or does the path you walk become narrower with each passing day?  Do you still think as a child or have you given up childish things?  Are you young at heart?  Or are the arteries of your imagination clogged?

I recently finished Mankell's excellent novel, The Man From Beijing.  Here is a video of Henning Mankell discussing the novel at Strand Bookstore.

Virginia Satir

"We must not allow other people's limited perceptions to define us."

— Virginia Satir

American Author

1916 - 1988

One of the challenges we all face is not letting other people's perceptions of us determine who we are and how we behave.  This development of who we believe ourselves to be begins almost from the moment we are born.  Our parents judge us based on our gender.  I have talked to women who say: "My father wanted a boy so he named me ___________."  Other people will tell us that we are big or tall or pretty.  And over the years these observations sink into our subconscious and we begin to believe them to be true.  Much of my childhood I was told that I was big for my age.  Over time that observation by people translated in my brain as "you are fat" even when I wasn't.

What observations have you heard throughout your life that you have come to believe as true?  How did these observations become translated into your brain?  Are these observations true or do you need to discard them?

As artists and writers we experience similar challenges.  People will criticize our creative works and often we come to believe these criticisms to be true.  We may even change our work to please the critics.  If we do, we are allowing their limited vision to define who we are and what we are capable of achieving.  Do not let those with limited imaginations limit you.  Stand up for yourself.  Choose to define yourself and your work by your vision, not that of others.

 

Flannery O'Connor

"Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days."

— Flannery O'Connor

American Novelist

1925 - 1964

Do you remember your childhood?  Some people block out memories of their childhood?  Others have a difficult time forgetting even the most painful memories.  As artists and writers we can mine our past experiences for inspiration for our art.  What events out of your childhood can you use in your stories or your art?  Remember art should transform the actual events into more than just the mere facts like spinning straw into gold.


Here are links to three story poems where I transformed childhood stories and events into more than family history — where I discovered a truth greater than facts.


Mary Lou
http://web.mac.com/hgking/HarleyKing/Mary_Lou.html

Sister
http://web.mac.com/hgking/HarleyKing/Sister.html


Brother Al
http://web.mac.com/hgking/HarleyKing/Brother_Al.html