what have I been thinking about?

Capturing thoughts is like catching butterflies.

I have all sorts of wonderful insights and mullings. Most of them occur on the road. I have a small recording device to use when my hands aren't free enough to jot a note. The recorder is in the catacombs of my tote. If I dig for it while driving, I'm risking a coma. My note-jotting books are all in the bag, circling the recorder, bullying it and hiding it from me when I fish for it. If I choose a notebook to jot in while driving, the idea ends up illegible. When I do manage to record an idea, I blurb something like, "Oranges and how peels get under my nails." This surely held perfect, deep meaning when I recorded it, but darn if I know what it's about. Even awake, notes to myself are like taking notes on a dream. When I write the thing out completely, I'm still unsure just what I meant at the time.

No, my ideas must be captured fresh, on the fly. Who would carry a butterfly net in the car and scoop some of the beauties out of the air at a high speed? The odds are against getting anything wholesome, or anything at all. No, catching ideas requires slowing down, making space for them to settle and drink. I really hate that. I want to go go go and have a mind that takes multiple images on the move and makes them clear capturings of events and ideas. I want to hurry up and get it all down.

What is that about, this rush? I'm afraid. I'm afraid that good ideas, or even ideas that hold moisture, will evaporate from me if I slow down. I'm afraid that I'll ultimately have nothing at all to say. And if I have no substance in my writing, who will chew on my ideas long enough to consider them?

And under that fear is the real concern: that without sharing my ideas as they evolve and without getting confirmation that these are indeed ideas worth pondering that I have somehow wasted my life and not done my homework.

How bizarre a way to live. I'd rather play with ideas. I like to take three or so, better if they're conflicting, and toss them into the air. It's fun to do that in front of people. Some folks know how to juggle, so they take the ideas and make them fly in formation. That makes ideas seem less conflicting, less self-contradictory. But the ideas that I toss around are like magnets polarized to oppose. My ideas mix like oil and water. My ideas are that everything both is and is not something else.

How about that?

Was it worth writing down?