My Consciousness Tends To Swim Upstream

My favorite writing style is stream of consciousness. If you’ve read anything prior to today’s post, I probably didn’t need to tell you this.

I spent some time recently thinking about when I am at my most creative. I find that these times come when my eyes take in whatever is around me and my mind drifts wherever it may go.

Sometimes I try to achieve this by putting myself in a place where a lot is going on, notebook at the ready. Other times I sneak off to jot down some notes about something that just happened. Still other times I simulate this process by staring at a blank word document page and consuming beer until the random thoughts flow.

As I said to my wife the other day, “I’m at my most creative when my mind wanders around. I like to just let it roam.”

I think I like to write this way because it’s how the mind works. How often could you not remember the name of a band, movie or actor only to get off the subject and have the name spring out and surprise you like a horror movie villain ten minutes later? Then you shout it out just to have everyone look at you like you’re crazy.

“Norman Greenbaum!”

This doesn’t happen for no reason. I think that the mind instinctively wants to think randomly. Your thoughts were probably flowing too straight and accurately. Your brain then said, “This is boring, I need to shake things up a little,” and stole the answer from the tip of your tongue, where you insist it just was, and hid it behind your repressed memories, not setting it free until you’d given up and moved on to something different. Sometimes, your brain will even torment you so much as to reveal it from it’s secret location as you sleep, causing you to sit bolt upright and hope you run into the same people you were talking to earlier today so that you can read to them what you just scribbled on the back of your hand in the middle of the night. No doubt it has been eating away at them too.

My first experience with stream of consciousness in the written word came during a high school English class. We were reading The Jilting of Granny Weatherall by Katherine Anne Potter. I remember thinking to myself, “This is how I want to write,” and never looking back. Since then, I have been known to jump from political commentary to toilet humor. Wait, that’s a lie. I never write political commentary. I do, however, dabble with toilet humor. Okay, more than dabble.

The ultimate story of my thought process is a tale I tell of my senior year history class. My teacher asked what we think of when we hear the words Protestant Reformation. I smiled to myself. Noticing this, he insisted on hearing my answer, which I was reluctant to give, knowing that it was not what he was looking for. But, after he forced it out of me, I said, “Pancake breakfasts.” I explained that my drive to school every morning took me past a Protestant church whose large sign with interchangeable letters always seemed to be advertising an upcoming pancake breakfast. Though I tried to explain as best I could, it still didn’t make sense, not even to me.

But, I’ve learned to accept it. Sometimes I can use it to my advantage by getting a laugh from someone just by making them wonder how the hell my mind went to where it just did. Even though I find myself having to use words like anyway and phrases like getting back to the point, where was I, or but I digress way too often, I’m not sure I’d have it any other way.

Of course, I’ve never really thought about it as much as I have just now. It reminds me of that one story. The one with the guy who did that thing. I’m sure I’ll remember it later.

Where was I?