The Energy of a Wacky Thought

I returned home from work, fed my pet bunnies, and nuked a frozen dinner in the microwave. I’ve come home more depleted than usual lately. The weather has been muggy and dusty – typical monsoon temperatures for Arizona in August.

Lately I plop down on the couch and turn to Netflix to watch another episode of Voyager.

I am 20 years behind in my television viewing. The show has been off the air since the 1990s. But since it’s set in the future, it doesn’t really matter. I mindlessly eat my sweet and sour chicken (which probably only tastes marginally better than Voyagers replicators) and I see what Captain Janeway and the crew of the USs Federation Starship Voyager are up to. 

Normally I am not one to veg out in front of the tube. I have a full day of work, family, friends, my spouse, CB, my pets, continuing education, Buddhist activities, and an array of household chores to keep me busy. But CB is out of town working, so my lesser self takes over and I give in to a guilty pleasure of watching TV. I’m too tired at night to do anything else.

A weird dust storm washed over the city earlier today. The sky turned dark, leaves, plastic bags and debris littered the landscape. Even within the protective walls of the office of my workplace, I could taste the dust in the air. I was tired and I wanted to go home. Unfortunately, it was early afternoon and I had at least two more hours of work ahead of me before “quittin’ time.”

I put together a couple of media lists together for some press releases that needed to go out and performed a couple of mundane tasks. I had more creative work to do, but assumed my dusty mouth and mind were not up to the task. However, rather than enter data on a spread sheet, I decided to do some research for my next writing assignment.

I sifted through the information about scholarships. I know I could have done some modifications and revised an older piece and be done with it, but that is not what makes me tick. I’m not happy unless I’m flexing my creative muscles. I did some research and discovered some interesting data. Strange data. Weird data. Stuff that made me laugh data.

 Suddenly, I had a wacky thought for where I might take my new assignment. It would be a place where no press release in the life insurance galaxy had ever gone before. I wrote a clever headline and lead sentence. I sketched out an outlined for the rest of the article and played with it until it was time to go home. 

My wacky thought energized me more than a jolt of caffeine. It carried me through the 20 minute commute home and through the duties I had to carry out before I could join my friends on Voyager. After the show ended I took a walk, admired the clouds, enjoyed the cooler temperatures, returned home, and wrote the first non-work-related blog I had penned in nearly three months.

It’s ironic. The Voyager travels through the galaxy looking for new life forms and energy systems. It seems they are always on the lookout for a new batch of Dilithium crystals as a power source. That’s all well and good, but when I want to go the distance, a little creativity and a wacky thought can go a long way.