Committing Random Acts of Silliness

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By Arlene F. Harder, MA, MFT

The idea for "random acts of silliness" grew, in part, out of the complexity of my own life at the time and the realization that I needed to create more activities with the sole purpose of having fun.

Then recently, while cleaning out my office, I came upon a "Crossword Po'm" written more than ten years ago by my daughter, Rebecca. After finishing a Los Angeles Times' crossword puzzle (in pen, no less, which is disconcerting to those of us who are crossword-puzzle-challenged) she decided, during a lunch break, to compose a piece that would string together thirty-eight unrelated words and ideas. Just as a lark. Just to have fun.

Because I admired the poem for its originality, I had filed it away for later use. Then, as I reread it once more, I saw the possibilities of using it as the basis for a Take-a-Break. But before I explain what I mean, here on the right is the poem with the crossword puzzle words in bold and some explanations on the left, including an "Ode to the Spell Checker!"

When I read the silliness poem my daughter had written, I asked her permission to put it online and wondered whether she might have gotten the spelling of a few words wrong 'cause my spell check took exception to some of the words, like "armes." She pointed out that armes is the correct answer for "French weapons" and that "The Jabberwocky," that marvelously creative poem by Lewis Carroll, wasn't proper English either.

Incidentally, if you want to explore the glorious nonsense of "The Jabberwocky," you can read the poem and learn more about such wonderful silliness than you ever imagined possible in Jabberwockies in Print, Song and Stranger Places on the Jabberwocky! site.

And here are other thoughts about words and spelling.

Ode to the Spell Checker!

Eye halve a spelling chequer

It came with my pea sea

It plainly marques four my revue

Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word

And weight four it two say

Weather eye am wrong oar write

It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid

It nose bee fore two long

And eye can put the error rite

Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it

I am shore your pleased two no

Its letter perfect awl the weigh

My chequer tolled me sew.

Anonymous

Crossworsd Po'm

The Druids came in rebel form

Their armes an ocher hue

But fast they found the ancient land

Had lost its joyous tune

So cautiously they left behind

That dreadful land of yore

With nosy spaniels soon they fled

The bogies of before

At soonest date they set their sails

To see what they might find

With hardy looks and rapier wit

And mouthwash on their minds

For weeks on Isar down they went

With teems of shes and hims

Then Uncle Roger blew his horn

With very grateful limbs

A bright new land with much to offer

Was all that they could see

Anon they anointed the shiny world

With lager and barrels of tea

A soothful crone met them on board

Her hood a lovely puce

To welcome in the newcome folks

And set them out footloose

"Seek the land," she asserted loud

But do not legislate.

For if you do you'll only find

Great pain and much heartache."

So cautiously they went ashore

Through lanes the natives set

Seeking lucre from the land

To pay their foreign debts

But more than wealth, they quickly found

A life of greater giving

Free of hate, and death, and war

No tsar to roast their living

They lived in tipis in the wild

And kissed their lovely wives

And cried in glee and merriment

While playing CDs of Burl Ives

QED (the end)

By Rebecca Harder

Okay, this is all kind of clever and definitely silly, but what does it have to do with you? And how does it fit in with random acts of silliness?

Well, dear friends, here's what I suggest for today's Take-a-Break. Tell those brain cells that are determined to take life more seriously than necessary that it's time they made room for some creative play by making up a story, of any length, using totally unrelated words.

You can begin with a crossword puzzle (if you have one available) and see what kind of a story you could spin with the words. Of course, it doesn't have to be in the form of a poem and you don't even have to work the puzzle. It's not cheating if you use the answers for the previous puzzle. Of course, an alternative approach would be to open any newspaper, book, or magazine and, with your eyes closed, use a pencil to point to a word. Write that word down and repeat the process until you have at least ten words. The more the merrier. And a telephone directory could create a further variation. You could create a story with whatever names, addresses, and phone numbers your blinded pencil happens to choose.

WARNING: You may need to convince yourself to stop for silliness, especially in this day and age when not only do you have your usual load of too much to do, an abundance of seriousness arrives with every morning paper and continues through the last newscast of the day. But that's all the more reason to declare that you are unwilling to cede to someone else the right to be as silly as you want to be, provided no one gets hurt, of course.

If you need a little encouragement to step back from the difficulties of today and take this Take-a-Break, just go to the nearest mirror and, with a very serious face, say, "I will return to worries and solving the great problems of life just as soon as I get this nonsense out of the way." And you will return, of course, because it's hard to be silly all the time. But it's also not a good idea to be serious all the time.

Good luck. And don't hesitate to get help from family and friends on this project. The next time you're in a restaurant with friends, you could even make up a story from words on the menu.

Just to show that I don't ask my readers to do something I'm not willing to try, you can read my attempt at committing a random act of silliness at A Story Short and Simple. And if you send me your piece of silly creativity (and if you want it published on the web), I'll be glad to add it to a special section we're creating for reader contributions.

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