“Well, I don’t care if it was some dork in a costume. For one brief moment, I felt the heartbeat of creation, and it was one with my own.” – Futurama
I love my step ladder, but it’ll never be my real ladder.
It was March of 2005. I remember it fairly well. It was when we were living in Alaska. The move had been a big risk for The Mrs. and I – moving north across the better part of a continent for work. I was fortunate to have a good boss and good co-workers.
It was there that I had what I would normally call an epiphany, but epiphany seems too strong. A realization? Maybe. Regardless, to me, it seemed profound.
The Space Between The Words . . . it was a throwaway line by a guest on a radio show that The Mrs. and I were listening to on KFBX, the local AM station. But sometimes a phrase sticks with you, and this one stuck with me like the phrase “floozy crotch snout” sticks to Kamala Harris.
Or am I the only one who calls her that?
Yup, real quote. Her real words are better than almost any meme.
Regardless . . . The Space Between The Words. It seemed as insignificant as Hunter Biden’s willpower until in that hypnogogic state between wakefulness and sleep I thought about it . . . The Space Between The Words.
What exists there, in The Space Between The Words?
My realization was that The Space Between The Words isn’t made of silence. It is far from that dead and sterile nothingness that silence implies.
My HVAC guy sure has his ducts in a row.
For me, that space is infinity. It is the engine of creation itself.
I wrote “The Space Between The Words” down on a piece of Post-It® note and taped it to my computer monitor. I still have that piece of now-faded pale yellow paper stuck in a book I carry with me every day. To me, it is a touchstone and a personal reminder.
Why does it matter to me?
When I am talking, (or doing public speaking, which I do 10,000% more often than I want to do and potentially 20,000% more than the audience wants me to do) if I ever get flustered, I can just stop. I can pause. I realize that I can tap into The Space Between The Words, that creative power that allows me to choose whichever of the thousands of words I know as the very next one. I get to choose that next phrase. I get to choose the way the conversation can go. I get to create the possibilities with only the choice of my words.
The Space Between The Words is crucial.
If I choose well, I can turn a simple conversation into something meaningful. One of the powers of words is that, when applied correctly, is that they can become something transformative. A simple conversation can change a person’s life forever. Especially if it’s on tape – just ask Richard Nixon.
My buddy and I got a huge contract to make toy vampires. There’s only two of us – I have to make every second Count.
The choice of words is, as I mentioned before, the power of creation. I don’t claim to own that power. Again, the word I would use isn’t that I came up with the idea or invented the concept I’m describing now. I just discovered something that I’m sure many others before me knew was there, just like I discovered that someone was keeping a list of all of my jokes in a dad-o-base.
I won’t claim to be a great or charismatic public speaker. I’ve had my moments. But I do know that I’ve changed at least one or two lives through things that I have said, and I do know that I’ve said more of what I mean with greater clarity when I allowed The Space Between The Words to guide me.
I bet no one expected that meme.
Likewise, when I write, I don’t claim to be a great writer. I do, however (when it’s not 3am!) try to carefully edit what I write so that it has the meaning I want to share. Sometimes I don’t get there. Sometimes, when writing one of these posts, the content takes a sharp turn, and I let it run. I know that the full idea I was trying to get out will get born, eventually.
Or it won’t.
That’s the beauty of The Space Between The Words. Even when writing, it is there.
And, to a certain extent, it has changed me. I’m no longer afraid to stop, to pause, and to collect. In one sense, that vast galaxy of creation that I feel I’ve tapped into is something much greater than I will ever be, especially if I keep losing weight.
I wonder what other planet worms exist on . . . otherwise why do we call them Earth worms?
In a religious sense, it feels like I’ve come into a brief (and unworthy!) contact with Logos – a deep universal well that I can only see dimly. Not Legos®, but Logos. Legos™ just hurt your foot when you walk down the hall in the dark.
In my experience, The Space Between The Words contains wisdom. The Space Between the Words contains creation. The Space Between The Words contains . . . redemption.
Listen for it – I assure you there is no silence there between the words. There is no self-doubt. It is calm. It is patient. It is Good. And, for me, it has certainly been worth keeping that Post-It® note around.
Warning: next week we’ll take a darker turn, probably all week, if not longer. I’ll still try to be the “Mary Poppins of Doom” and interject humor and a smile where I can, but realize – there are many twists and turns ahead, and probabilities leading to a dark future are rapidly coalescing.
May have been one of your best posts yet.
Thank you very much!
Caesura – is a metrical pause or break in a verse where one phrase ends and another phrase begins.
No, I’m not some high-brow literature snob, just a fan of Eddie and the Cruisers.
Very cool! It’s been forever since I’ve seen that one.
Isn’t a hat tip to Dave Matthews due?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiVav5nBmOE
I hadn’t heard that one before. Thanks!
There is a lot out there, so much more than we can understand and far more than we can organize or systematize in our limited, finite existence. Not being able to explain and quantify *everything* used to bug me and it still kinda does but I try to embrace realizing that we don’t have all of the answers and being OK with that. Heck, we have only scratched the surface of knowing some of the questions.
I agree. It’s a pretty amazing universe, and the beauty of something as small as a rose petal or as large as a galaxy can be amazing.
Yes, but…
If there is too much space between the words, it isn’t signifying a pause to create something better.
It signifies too much space between the synapses, due to a Swiss cheese brain, exactly the problem of Emperor Poopypants I, when he was solemnly trying to explain to us “Y’know…the…the thing…”, exactly like the lying dog-faced pony soldier that he is.
A midwit on his best day in the prime of life, he’s now descending past moron and sinking all the way to cretin, and the trouble is, with Joe, it’s such a subtle difference from baseline as to require careful attention to notice. He’s a guy that was born falling on his face, spent decades in politics doing it every single day, and he’s spent an entire lifetime pretending he’s sliding into home plate.
When in reality, the far more frequent occasion is falling into his dinner plate. This is a man who’s spent his political career with spaghetti for makeup, and even with heavy pancake (and I mean actual pancakes, which he wears at breakfasts for years now), all those fork-marks in his cheeks are beginning to show through. Pretty much like the daylight behind them.
The last physical he had, the radiologists at Bethesda just held his head up to the light. And they didn’t even need a 60W bulb to see through his head; the light shines out from ear to ear. Sunglasses and a hairpiece on a sunny day are mainly to ensure his head casts a shadow.
When Stalin talked about Useful Idiots, he wasn’t talking about people like Gropey Dopey, he meant literally Joe Biden. The DNC latched onto him, because other than putting in a hole in his trousers for the ventriloquist’s hand, they didn’t need to do much to make him White House-ready. Most of the work was just copying enough ballots to sell the gag to a willingly gullible press audience. And the only pause he gets between words is when the staff ventriloquist on duty is drinking water.
Looking back at 2021, it would almost be funny. Until you notice it’s nearly April in 2022, and we still have a 2023 and a 2024 left to go.
The entire country is on suicide watch at that prospect, and the Secret Service’s biggest concern is having Poopypants’ clothes tailored out of pool noodles, in case he wanders too close to any body of water. Being make largely of cork, his head will float, but then the water leaks down inside, and if that happens, he’ll sink to the bottom like a stone (rather precisely like his approval ratings, which Bob Ballard is looking for diligently at the moment, using a swarm of DSRVs), and nobody wants to trade Dumb for Dumber, if Kneepads gets her hands on the levers of power.
She’d probably try to swallow them, from force of habit.
But seriously folks, he’s here all week. Please try the veal.
(Ha! You’re on FIRE tonight!)
“…on FIRE tonight…”
You have no idea.
Say, when a dog eats a cat, is that what they mean by inner muse?
Or is it dinner mews?
At some point you’ll have to paws.
“…mucho…means a lot to them.”
Especially if they’re sitting in a Comfy Chair.
But no one expects that. Or the cushions.
You got me with the “mucho” meme.
That means a lot to me.
A brilliant insight, John, the space between is indeed a void of possibilities.
It’s not just with words. Like Brick, my fav character (after Mike) on the vastly underated American classic TV show The Middle, I have always been interested in typography and fonts. All of that to say, adjusting the space between the characters of a word is called kerning.
And there is beauty in kerning.
https://www.vectornator.io/design-tips/what-is-kerning
There is! And even a presidential race was perhaps won based on that (remember the memo Dan Rather “found”?)
I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition.
Most people don’t. Hardly anyone, really.
Darker posts next week, hmmm? I shiver with antici… [pregnant pause] …pation.
(h/t Dr. Frank-N-Furter)
Well played, indeed.
The warning is duly noted. Forge on.
It hits shortly.
Good one John, your topic reminds me of something I once heard. The Bible says that not one jot or tittle (diacritical marks in Hebrew apart from the actual words) will pass from the law til all is fulfilled.
But I heard that the believing Jews hold that Messiah will interpret even the spaces between the words.
The space between , indeed.
I hadn’t heard that one . . . thank you.
Necessarily difficult, not dark. The future is bright. We’re in a cycle.
Bright? Maybe this bright…
It is. It takes time. Tough times will lead to strong men.
Warning: next week we’ll take a darker turn, probably all week, if not longer. I’ll still try to be the “Mary Poppins of Doom” and interject humor and a smile where I can, but realize – there are many twists and turns ahead, and probabilities leading to a dark future are rapidly coalescing.”
Future doom is always more intriguing than current doom. The doom is always bleaker on the other side of the fence.
I once thoroughly depressed a fobbit officer who asked me how the war (Iraq) was going outside the wire. 45 minutes of bleak explanation later, he looked at me with a horrified face and asked, “How do you keep going out there every day?
“I’m a professional. It’s my job.”
Very, very well said.
Spaces are a construct of the white male capitalist patriarchy and they will be redistributed for the good of the collective.
All kidding aside, read about the “youths” writing in all lowercase with no punctuation after it was trending on the Doogle.
Sorry if spaces are off or there is misspelling or wrong punctuation, first take is always the way go, like a good band.
Heh heh. Generally, it takes me fifty takes to get my best one. Unless they fix it in post.
Snoozy flotch crout.
Croozy Snotch Flout
Don’t be mean to President Emhoff or Larry “RAT” Fink will cut back on your vodka rations!
She is the most qualified evarz and penetrated the dastardly white male ceiling of toxic masculinity and manspreading, you wayciss bigot!
Just how soft and weak is this suiciety? Some mongo just about freaked out over some real tree gear and camo jacket with watch cap until I launched some face pollution their way.
A human being who chooses to live in absurdity is a human being who has given up a pre-set meaning, or who stopped looking for it. More than that, living in absurdity means pursuing whatever you want, being awfully aware that it could be all for nothing.
I’m surprised she hasn’t misread her medications and overdosed.
The Mary Poppins of Doom. Worth the read for that one line alone!
Twas a reader here that called me that in a comment. Loved it.
John, one of the audit training tips that anyone in my industry has likely had is that when government inspectors appear, they will often use a technique where the simply pause and go silent. Most people cannot handle silence in the wrong; after a few moments they will likely begin talking to fill up the space – and in the talking, perhaps say something that will lead to “further” conversation.
One of the great lessons of my life was when I learned to be comfortable with silence and simply not talking.
Yup, works very, very well with my kids, too.