[This is a repeat of a photo and its accompanying post from 2018.]
Bow Tie o’ the Day and I are practicing our scary faces for Halloween, even though it’s still January. Clearly, we need to work on more looks o’ horror. We woke up this morning and simply decided we wanted to give in to our whim to wear our orange and black today.
It is said that we should follow our arrows. I agree with that advice, but I also believe in indulging our whims. To me, your arrow is usually a big, abstract, directional kind of concept—like where you want to go in your career; how you want your family to be; your personal goals and values.
Whims, on the other hand, are very specific things that add panache and wonder to your life. They should celebrate your individuality and give you singular joy. It’s usually best if your whims reflect your arrow, but sometimes you need a whim to be so out-there that it knocks your arrow’s arc into a better path than you aimed your arrow in the first place.
Both things matter. I do have to say that, although I’m a dang good see-er o’ the expansive picture o’ The Big Arrow, I’ve become quite wrapped up in committing as many whims as I can at this point in my life. Hey, folks! We’re all running low on years.
The best way I can explain it is that we spend so much of our adulthood making sure we’re following our Big Arrow (family, career, education, etc.), and then at some point we realize our Big Arrow’s traveling just fine without our constant fussing over it. Ain’t really no knockin’ it off its path now. We don’t need to worry quite so much about the trajectory of the Big Arrow we’ve tended so well for years. The aim of our Big Arrow is true. It has become who we are. It is the sum of our lives. We decided its path long ago and adjusted it as needed. We can now use the auto pilot we’ve achieved through decades of living true to our Big Arrow. Our autopilot can do its job to get us to our desired cosmological destination.
Now’s the time for whims. We should “whim around.” We should have whimsical attitudes. We should do things in a “whimmerly” way. We should exercise our “whimmers.” We should expand our “whimmerosity.” We should do “whimmerrific” activities. I could continue to come up with oodles more words o’ whimsy—real and made-up. But you get the idea.
I am my own Whim-meister. You are your own Whim-meister. Let us play on! 🤡 😜
