Thursday, February 16, 2012

The Significance Game

You know about the Gratitude Game - well, not really a game, per se, but something very like; you can use it when bored or feeling blue or going to sleep.  You think of something - or a few somethings - that you are grateful for, prompted by the letters of the alphabet.  "I'm grateful for apples, angles, airplanes.  I'm grateful for balloons, bananas, brownies." Then cats and dogs and elephants.  Whatever you like - whatever you are grateful for!

The Significance Game is similiar, but instead of asking yourself "What am I grateful for [that starts with the letter__]," you ask yourself, "Where would I be without ________?"  You can also say "we," as in we the people, we the human race, we the women, whatever.

Where would I be, for instance, without...say...Woody Allen?  Like, depressed and isolated.  I'd have no true appreication for New York, or big band, or black and white movies.

Speaking of, where would I be without those black and white movies?  The ones from the 30's, especially pre-code, with Barbara Stanwyck?  Where would I be without her, without Clark Gable, without Groucho Marx?  What a bummer of a life it could have been.

And the list is endless; I think about what my life would seem like if I hadn't experienced so many great things, or loved so many great people.  Where would I be without Paris?  Without Harbin Hot Springs?  Hemingway?  Alan Watts.  Bob Dylan.  The usual suspects - but aren't they fun to think about?

Where would we be without birth control?  Microchips?  The wheel.  The Amazon.  IPhones.  I used to despise those people who said they couldn't imagine what they would do without their iPhone, and now I am not one of them, but I get it.  I get where they are coming from.

So, there you are.  That's the idea.  If you find it useful to do, then enjoy it.  I just made it up but I've been doing it for years. 

1 comment:

  1. Read in Bonaire in middle of might-one of those I "need to get up and do something". Where would I be without internet, Kar,...? Thanks!

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