Floundering

[Naboka]

Don't you just love it.

You're floundering.

The board is rocking back and forth. Your fingers just can't grab hold of the lines. Wind slams water into your eyes.

The sails are tattered. The rudder broken. You know you're sinking.

About to go down.

But you press on.

The floundering continues. The storms seems worse and worse. You're desperate.

But, you press on.

You think you see land. You frantically try to guide the boat that direction. And, nothing seems to be working.

But...

you press on.

And to your dismay, time has expired.

You're exhausted. Defeated. Chiding yourself for not doing better. Trying to accept your fate.

Then...

you look at the results. And you've done far better than you expected. Maybe set a best of some sort.

How in the world did that happen? Miracles do exist. As if somehow you've moved into another dimension.

Don't you just love this game?!

[2cute]

Unique poem.

[floppers]

the line between instant gratification, and delayed gratification can be as narrow as two minutes, or so very much wider...depending on how many others have sought that gratification on the same board

[Naboka]

Unique poem.

Sometimes I worry that people will mistake what I write as poetry. Mostly the visual form of the writing.

I've found it useful to disentangle ideas to give them punch. Attention spans have withered. Ideas get lost easily. Halfway through a sentence, many start to wonder if the cheese has started to mold in the refrigerator. By the end of the sentence, they're remembering that their phone was only 21% charged. Shortened passages seemed the solvent.

Words have rhythms. Sometimes you want it tight, sometimes loose. Pacing and movement. The rise and fall. Tension and relaxation.

Mental music. Ideological scoring.

In the era of sound bites, forums aren't a place for creative writing. Who wants to wade through 3 minutes of rambling? Or even one.

I seldom plan what I write. I just sit down on the bed, wonder what thought I should wear to the dance, open the suitcase, and see what falls out.

Usually, I'm pleasantly surprised by what comes together as an outfit. It's eureka! I've found what to wear to enhance the tango. Without stress. It just fell together as the outfit I wanted. In my mind, I'll look stunningly campy. In other minds, I'll probably look like a vagrant hooker, stumbling rather than dancing.

That said, I realize that what I write is frequently misunderstood by others. All the allegory and metaphor and other crap the English teacher shoved into your ear in hopes of nascent seeds sprouting flowers of enlightenment. That's okay. The audience isn't in my mind, and my mind is all I'm concerned with when I write. It is what it is. And I could leave it in a notebook where only I see it, or offer it up just because that's what I do.

It's always surprising what resonates with others and what does not.

Which begs the question: how in the hell is playing Wordtwist anything like being lost at sea in a damaged boat? To me, it resonated. It captured the essence of what I had experienced moments earlier playing a game that seemed tragically doomed, but which I refused to abandon. Playing the game is therapeutic in that it allows the player to examine their responses and learn from them. How we face challenge is a big part of who we are. How we grow from challenge and permit ourselves defeat or refuse to be beaten.

[Naboka]

the line between instant gratification, and delayed gratification can be as narrow as two minutes, or so very much wider...depending on how many others have sought that gratification on the same board

Who would have thunk that a game could be so dramatic?

So educational. A study of life itself.

I heard a comedian say something like gratification is thinking you're getting one taco, but end up getting two; whereas disappointment is thinking you're getting three tacos and end up getting two.

How many tacos others have gotten playing a board is less important than how many we expect to get from it.