Wallace vs. Kersten

Who isn't deluged with December to-do lists?

My own first two weeks have been packed with a weekend hockey-tournament trip to Grand Forks, ND, holiday choir concerts at school and Mall of America, driving my mom shopping all over town, another weekend hockey tournament in Inver Grove, MN, re-stringing my holiday lights to get the right end to the power source and frantically trying to grab gifts and mail them to my Lithuanian relatives before the big 2-5.

Zany? sure. Magical? It can be. I do my best to stay in tune with the real meaning of the holiday season.

I even came across a wonderful line from poet Wallace Stevens that puts some wind in my sails for the next two weeks of December:

"Beneath every No, lays a passion for Yes that had never been broken."

(Just like that current of electricity you know is coursing through a string of holiday lights while you keep futzing with a section that doesn't want to light!)

Wow. Stopped me dead in my tracks quicker than a half-price sale sign at Sports Authority.

But so did this Despair, Inc catalog I just got in the mail. Front-cover headline reads: "No matter how luckluster you are, you have the potential to be so much less."

My cynical nature engaged, I smirked, flipped through the catalog, but just couldn't come all the way around to E.L. Kersten's motivational philosophy of inspiring people with "Demotivator" products.

Heck, I think he even likes FISH! In his book The Art of Demotivation, Kersten writes that FISH! "is a suitable complement to a comprehensive program of Radical Demotivation," though first you have to eliminate the principles of Play and Make Their Day.

I don't know: tongue & cheek stuff for folks with a great sense of humor or real fuel for the cynic's soul of coal?

I've got both types on my list and I've got figure out who gets what!

Comments

[Papamintz]

Hey John,
It strikes me that Kersten's right and so is Wallace - but for a reason completely aside from motivation or demotivation. And, appropriately enough for the season, it has everything to do with giving.

Each of us - grinch or giver - is responsible for whatever we do. We can choose how we are - no, more than that, we HAVE to choose. It is all up to each of us individually, not some government agency, not our employer, not our parents - just me, myself.

If I give - as a husband, father, friend, employer - I do so because it is good and right. So what if some or much of that giving goes unnoticed? That's not the reason I gave.

It's both lonely and empowering to conclude that everything is on your own shoulders. In the end though, it is. So, I might as well just do my best, give with my heart, and know in my soul that it is right and good.

Happy Holidays and thanks for always giving me something to think about.