Always Something New

This post draws on some of my other recent posts.
Not long ago I posted about how getting joy out of little things makes you a good candidate for living forever. A few posts later I posted a movie of a bunny washing it's nose.
So how are these two related?
I worked with someone for  a while who was kind of a punk. When a bunch of us got excited about seeing a bald eagle fly overhead he said "who cares guys. After seeing 200 of them they are just birds." But if you have that opinion after 200 I'm not sure he didn't have that opinion after 5.
Yesterday I went on a walk with my nephews. We passed some calves and they got really excited about them wanting to go pet them which they did. I hung back at first. I've see calves before afterall. But then I got close and petted their soft noses and one of them licked my fingers with a surprisingly long, skinny, rough tongue. Never been licked by a calf. Another one tried to eat the hand cord of my camera. It got all slimy.  I was glad I went up close, and look at them just a little bit closer.
The thing with calves and bald eagles and bunnies is that there is always something else to learn from them. I had never seen a bunny clean it's nose before in real life (just animated bunnies doing it). And if you look at it that way everything can be excited.
Something else that helps me stay in that mindset that I like to think about is the following questions:
How would I draw that? What colors would I use? What is the contours?
How would I describe this if I was writing it?
You have to pay attention if you really want to make an experience come alive for someone else whether through visuals or language. And if you are paying attention enough to do that then suddenly it seems far more new than it had before whether the experience is actually new or you are just being more observant this time.

Consuming and Creating: Part 7: Song and Dance

Sometimes when things are stressful or life is hard I like to go into denial and read a book. I've heard of other people doing similar things. The Mormon Pioneers are often said to have walked all day and then spent the evening in song and dance. I always thought that was a little odd but I could understand it in terms of a type of denial. Not long ago I had a stressful as well as exhausting day of work but instead of just reading a book, or laying around doing nothing I convinced some friends and we went to a free outside performance of singing and dancing. We might have done a little of the singing but we didn't do any of the dancing. We also did quite a bit of laughing. I enjoyed it and I think it was the best thing we could have done. Instead of sitting around complaining at each other we got out and laughed and thought of lighter things. It's not the state of denial I feel like books usually give me (because as soon as you stop reading it all comes rushing back), it was a genuine stress outlet. The stress was mostly gone. I think I have come to understand those early pioneers just a little better, and it works.
Caveat:
I would just like to state that on several other occasions in similar situations I just needed time to recoup in an alone time atmosphere. There is certainly a need for that too but I have also seen the advantage of lighthearted social situations. But again that alone time was typically walking around admiring the beauty of the earth.

So my hesitant conclusion is that pure consuming forms of entertainment may work as a form of denial but true stress relief may come more easily and thoroughly with creative entertainment.

Drat. Now that I've written all that and come up with my hesitant conclusion I am responsible for doing it... and not just picking up a book whenever I'm depressed. I hate when I learn too much as I write these posts.

Complaining

I heard a quote a few weeks ago that I had a hard time believing. It was from an early Mormon pioneer who said that during their trek west despite all their struggles and trials they never complained. I wonder how long after the trek the quote was given...
Recently I was around someone who every time someone made a comment about a car being small or the beds being plastic he would say "well at least you have one." I found it slightly annoying because it made me feel like I was complaining when I previously hadn't felt like I was.
So I guess the question is what is really complaining. Is it the words, the tone of voice, the mentality, or a little bit of all three.
"It's raining a ton."
"We've been working all day."
"I'm exhausted."
All of these could be said with a spirit of complaining or resignation or even satisfaction. And just because you say it in just a commentary type way or even exhausted when you think about it 20 years later will you think it was complaining.