What’s the Worse Thing that Can Happen?

About “dh.” I don’t know the first thing about sports, or what exactly a “designated hitter” is. But I didn’t mean to suggest anything violent with the reference. No one is hitting anyone.

It interests me, how even when communication gets strained my husband and I continue to work together and balance things out. One of our jobs, it seems to me, is to figure out how to fine-tune this balance, how to keep communicating, even when we’re busy and the lines are tangled.

This morning, for instance, I have an appointment with Emma’s high school principal. Dh thought he should go, too. He wants to tell the principal that we will sue the school district if Emma’s classes aren’t allowed.  He was leaning into my cabin doorway, his legs apart, his jaw set. I have been reading Steven Pressfield’s Left of Bang (which I found because I’m sorting through my cabin), and a little warning bell went off in my head. I should listen to that bell, I told myself, or Pressfield whispered to me. “I’ve got this,” I told my dear dh, “you don’t need to go.” So, already dressed in his gym clothes for the morning, he left to get through his workout.

Another book I’m reading is Michael Michalko’s Cracking Creativity.  Like Pressfield, he reminds me to not go with that first impression, but to keep looking, keep asking questions. To look at the problem from every angle and to be open to numerous solutions, not just the first one I find. He quotes an older book, Scientific Genius by Keith Simonton, in order to point out some word etymology that is useful here:

“[Simonton’s] theory has etymology behind it: Cogito — ‘I think’ — orignally connoted ‘shake together.’ Intelligo, the root of intelligence, means to ‘select among.'”

Too often, writing or just living (and surviving the presidential election season), we believe the first thing we’re told. When you write (or do a crossword puzzle, as dh likes to point out), it’s crucial that you remain open, that you listen for the hints and nuances that arise as you write. The first thought may be your best thought, but a character has many facets. Your job is to represent all the facets. So keep looking. Keep thinking. Keep shaking it all together, and following the fascination.

“Just as the difference in point of view between your eyes allows you to perceive depth, multiple perspectives about your subject deepen your understanding.” (Michalko, Cracking Creativity)

Most of all, stay open to those intuitive hints. (And check out what you hear in the media about your candidate at http://www.politifact.com/.)