Thursday, October 1, 2009

Thinking is overrated

For days I'd been on the cusp of finishing the chorus to my song in progress. Just one word and I'd be set. The word didn't come at the end of a line, so it didn't even need to rhyme with anything.

I thought real hard, trying to will the word into my awareness. When that didn't work, I continued to think real hard. Sometimes I furrowed my brow. No dice.

Here's what happened when I enlisted Ron the Drummer's help during rehearsal.

Me: "Hey, Ron. What's a word that means 'brief,' with two syllables, accent on the first syllable?"

Ron: [thinks for a moment] "Brief ... two syllables ..."

Me: "Yeah, you know. Like 'fleeting.'"

My brain is weird.

6 comments:

Angel said...

ha ha!! That was funny.

Jannie Funster said...

Ooo, fleeting, and such a nice word to sing too. Good one!

Darryl Gregory said...

You should read "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell - it's all about quick decision making and how too much info can sometimes be bad.

wyvernfree said...

Wait, this was bugging you for days and you didn't Google it? Was the Internet down or something? ;-)

cinderkeys said...

I've read Blink. I'm just not sure how to apply its lessons on purpose. :)

Wyvernfree: I've been wondering if someone would call me on that. The answer is, it was bugging me for a few days, but not a few days straight. I'd attempt to come up with the word when, say, I was in the shower, and I'd think, I really oughta key "brief" into m-w.com's thesaurus. But I'd never remember when I was actually *at* the computer.

Also, I kept feeling like I really ought to be able to do this on my own. :)

DeppityBob said...

There was a prank we used to want to pull, but probably never did, back in the 70s, when radio still took requests. We wanted to call up the local station and say, "We want this song, but we can't remember who did it, or what the title is! It goes like this: 'Dada da dada, dada da dada, WHICH WAY IS UP?"

(Helps if you know the song with the title.)

(Okay, maybe you had to be there. And be 17.)