The Big Wiggle

In this Boutcher

• What is a Bloutcher?
• The Big Wiggle
• Announcements

What is a Bloutcher

Folks have suggested that I should remind readers what a bloutcher is and how I came to give it that name. First, bloutcher rhymes with voucher. Second, I created the name from BLogjOUrnalskeTCHbooknewslettER because none of those things by themselves matched what I was interested in doing which is to COMBINE all of them as a way of reflecting on and sharing the creative process (of/in living and working.)

The Big Wiggle

In my last bloutcher I offered readers the opportunity to identify with a straight line or a wiggly line.

Well, the results qualify as a landslide. Only one person identified with the straight line--she was very focused on finishing her dissertation--and still admitted "in a more general sense I really relate to the big wiggle." Here are some other responses.

"Who would have thunk it but I'm totally wiggle."


"My life is very much like the squiggly line right now and that's the way I like it. I feel totally unencumbered."


"I'm definitely the wigglie line. Some folks think that just because they have clear goals things are going to go in a straight line. Yeah, right!"


"I'm definitely a squiggle! I pity the individual who either has, or thinks he has, things figured out and is on a straight track."

Soooo, virtually everyone is sympatico to the wiggle. This doesn't surprise me because I have come to refer to the creative process, aka life, as The Big Wiggle.

And what makes life a big wiggle?
How many times have you changed your mind?
How many times have you had to start over?
How many times have you made a mistake?
How many times have you gone down the wrong road?
How many times have you given the right answer but asked the wrong question?
How many times have you wondered--"coulda, shoulda, woulda"?
How many times have you had the rug pulled out from under you?
How many times did things "just not work out the way I thought they would?"
See what I mean?

Pablo Picasso understood this when he said "I start with an idea and then it becomes something else." He got The Big Wiggle! Of course he was speaking about art and the creative process, but you and I know his comment also applies to life and work. After all how many of us are doing what we thought we would be doing when we were 18 or 28 or even 48?

So I think there's a big deal implication to The Big Wiggle view of the world.

What if our educational system spent time teaching us how to navigate the "something else" Picasso talks about? I am not suggesting we forego the basics. I am suggesting that we teach the "oops, the rug has just been pulled out from under me" skills. The change skills. The embracing uncertainty skills. The creative skills. I recently polled an audience of 125 people regarding whether they were currently doing what they thought they would be doing 10/20/30 years earlier. Somewhere north of eighty percent of the hands indicated they were doing something different from what they had expected to be doing--and, as one person in the audience noted, that's if they even had an idea of what they wanted to be doing. If 80 percent of the people are currently doing "something else" then we know there's been a whole lot of wiggling goin' on. So doesn't it make sense not only to "educate" people to prepare for the 20 percent of what they expect to be doing but to also prepare them for the 80 percent Big Wiggle?

But the real message in this is that the The Big Wiggle is where we spend most of our time. The Big Wiggle isn't the exception. So feel it! It's where we are domiciled. TBW is home.

This isn't only true in terms of life skills but leadership skills as well. After all, YouTube started as a way to share videos for dating purposes and became something else. Facebook started as a self contained system for Harvard students to be in touch with each other and became something else. Wells Fargo started with a bunch of ponies and became something way else.

Educate for The Big Wiggle!!

Perhaps no other artist embodies The Big Wiggle more than the abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock who began to drip cans of liquid enamel paints on a canvas he had spread out on the floor of his barn studio. Visually step into one of his drip paintings and you're not sure which side is up. I don't care what the art critics say, you can't convince me he ended up where he thought he would.

So if you're feeling tossed about by TBW, you're not alone. I would suggest you use it as a creative opportunity. Here are three things you can do to wiggle The Big Wiggle.
1. Drip paint--that is, try something new. You know, the thing you've wanted to do but have put off. Just start it. You might become famous. At least, you will end up doing something else.
2. Step back from the canvas of your life by suspending the governing "shoulds" in your life and asking these three big questions:

• What do I really want to do?
• How do I really want to be in the world?
• Are there things inside of me that I really want to get out but have been tamping down?
  

3. Find the irony in your life, that is the incongruity between the actual outcome of events in your life and what you had expected and ask yourself what makes this incongruous. Then ask how you can create greater coherence between what you expect and what you want to get.

Announcements

• Reminder: As the holidays approach please consider a gift of Becoming a Life Change Artist; 7 Creative Skills to Reinvent Yourself at Any Stage of Life. I am more than happy to sign a card with an inscription that you can insert into the book. Just send me an email with the name of the person(s) and anything you would like me to incorporate into the card. To order the book please click here.
  
• Speaking of gifts I am extremely excited to let you know that Donna Krone and I have just come out with a wonderful and we believe inspiring workbook/sketchbook/guide we call Unlocking Your Creative Mantra. I reference the power of a creative mantra in Becoming a Life Change Artist. If you would like to spark new levels of creative energy, get focused on what really matters to you, create a framework for wise decision making, then Unlocking is the perfect gift to yourself or others who are at a crossroad in their life. If you would like to order a copy just click here.
  
• I also encourage each of you who are interested in issues surrounding the second half of life to consider attending the International Positive Aging Conference. Attendees are committed to shifting the paradigm related to aging in America. I will be presenting at the conference and I am thrilled that my wife Karen will also be presenting a program entitled: "Calling Calliope; Finding Your Poetic Voice at Midlife and Beyond." For details click here.
  
• In my last bloutcher dated October 20th I noted an article on the decline of creativity in the US that appeared in Newsweek and the IBM CEO study that identified creativity as the number one need for corporate leadership. Well, there seems to be confluence of these articles. In the Tuesday, November 9th op ed page of the NYTimes David Brooks wrote a worthwhile piece on the importance of creativity in the years ahead entitled The Crossroads Nation.