Comments on: Thomas Sullivan: 24-HOUR INSECTS, DUSTY DREAMS & ETERNAL ISLANDS

By: THOMAS SULLIVAN: SWALLOWING CHOCOLATE-CHIP FRISBEES, CHARLIE BROWN, & THE ONLY BUS OUT OF TOWN | Storytellersunplugged

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 04:02:17 +0000

[...] of miraculous timing that revised everything. I have written about it before in another context (THOMAS SULLIVAN: 24-HOUR INSECTS, DUSTY DREAMS & ETERNAL ISLANDS | Storytellersunplugged ), so I’ll just say that cosmic lightning flashed at precisely the right moment to allow me to [...]

By: Sully

Sully — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 19:14:00 +0000

Thank you, Donella. My lad is still here, that’s what makes it vivid.

– Sully (Thomas Sullivan)

By: donella

donella — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:24:00 +0000

You are a wonderful writer….bringing the image to mind with perfect words.
the letter to your son brings tears to my eyes. I can believe that those moments stay consistently vivid in your memory.

By: Sully

Sully — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 23:27:00 +0000

If I distilled to one more level, it would come out: “To thine own self be true.” I guess that’s what you’re saying too, Janet. Thanks for another way to say it.

– Sully (Thomas Sullivan)

By: Janet Berliner

Janet Berliner — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 22:28:00 +0000

I think it’s all about finding the quietude
that allows us to hear our inner voice and
the courage to listen when we do hear it.

–Janet

By: Sully

Sully — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 19:47:00 +0000

You know, it’s even more than any one issue. It’s a mind-set. Either you cower in indecision and doubt or you enjoy the vitality of being in the game, of breathing the air. It doesn’t rule out compassion or regret or empathy or imagination — on the contrary it frees those things up to be meaningful and lead somewhere positive. So few people get that connection. They do things for the wrong reasons — the negative ones that render things meaningless or done to the standard of mediocrity or to protect an image. That doesn’t make for a good person, just one who tries no to be bad. Maybe that’s enough, but I doubt it satisfies the purpose of creation or the essential force that drives all instinct to survive. So thanks, Amalgam. And BTW, I’m pretty sure that Edison thing was 1000 failed experiments, not 50. And he did, indeed, reply to the question, “What failures? I’ve discovered 1000 things that don’t work.”

– Sully (Thomas Sullivan)

By: rjones

rjones — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 19:31:00 +0000

Sully,

I think society, and those in charge, have forgotten, or never learned, that fear of failure is ever so destructive of creativity and prohibitive of accomplishment. Failure is but one of the many steps to success. If you don't take any steps, you won't fail at them; but you won't succeed either.

During many of the corporate meetings I've attended, I'm certain that there were many fine ideas in the minds of persons present that could have led to significant results if those persons had not been afraid to speak up and risk having a failure noted on their record. Avoiding failure seems to have become more important than succeeding.

I've read that, upon learning that Edison had tested some 50 different filament materials while trying to improve the electric lightbulb, someone said he had failed 50 times. Edison said that he had not failed, that he had rather been successful at discovering 50 materials that would not work.

Don't be abnormally afraid of failing. Go ahead and try tungsten.

R C Jones

By: Sully

Sully — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 19:16:00 +0000

Oh, c’mon, Brian, you’re as schizophrenic as the rest of us. HODGE(S) is your due! What’s in a name, I screw them all up regularly, but I plead intensity with the inner person to the exclusion of labels. And I know you by your gem-like thoughts presented in sterling prose.

Write on, my man. And thanks…

– Sully (Thomas Sullivan)

By: Anne

Anne — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 19:11:00 +0000

Ouch! It’s still resonating. You read between the lines so well – just what I needed to hear

By: Brian Hodge

Brian Hodge — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 19:00:00 +0000

> Was it Brian Hodges who posted that great quote about the unforeseen good consequences that come from committing one'e self to move ahead? <

Yup, that was me. Except in my singular form, rather than the plurality you’ve bestowed upon me.

Once more, then, with feeling!

“Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issue from the discussion, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.” — W.H. Murray

Gotta say, I’ve felt that providential hand at various times throughout life-so-far, and in ways that seem to far, far exceed what may merely be explained away as a function sometimes ascribed to the brain’s reticular activating system: that, out of the jumble of infinite stimuli around us, we notice that which benefits whatever is most important to us.

The just-so circumstances and anorexic window of opportunity that connected me with one of my best friends … the way Editor A said “Whattaya think about this?” and plonked a novel manuscript of mine onto the desk of Editor B just when she’d finished writing a letter to see if I had something to send her … a highly atypical bit of gradeschool-era conceptual blindness, a dead-simple connection that I repeatedly failed to make, that undoubtedly saved a limb and/or major organs, and maybe my life…

These and more bear reminding myself of when I’m tempted to think that we don't really swim in currents that, while not dictating the course of our lives, at least seem to occasionally steer us with a sometimes-gentle, sometimes-firm intent.

Anyway, lovely thoughts, Sully, new and vintage alike.

Momentary interesting glitch:

“…big swings of cosmic destiny…”

I read that as “big swigs.”

Kinda like it that way too.