Posts Tagged "inspiration"

In Which the Squirrel Climbed a Tree and Found a Friend

Posted by Crisman on Feb 25, 2009 in Guest Post | 0 comments

Lately my thoughts have felt rather reminiscent of tree houses. I didn’t have a terrific tree house as a kid, but I made friends with plenty of trees and spent a hearty portion of the 1980s up said foliage. It was not unusual in suburban Chicago to catch sight of an even scrawnier version of myself halfway up the neighborhood oak, Choose Your Own Adventure paperback held tight between my teeth and PF Flyers kicking free. That’s where I could escape and no one could reach me (even if they could see me through the leaves).
I am still frequently overwhelmed by the urge to shimmy up some branches as I make my way around the world. That’s not always an option, unfortunately. People don’t look too kindly on a grown woman scaling municipal trees. For example, Beverly Hills has amazing trees, and I exercised a non-human level of self control by not disappearing up one or two just off Rodeo. Well, this time, anyway.
Like I said, I didn’t have an awesome tree house, I just made do with whatever tree I happened by. But my best friend Katie had the best tree house ever. This wasn’t some rickety box her brothers threw together one weekend- this was a handcrafted, architectural masterpiece! The hardwood floors were sanded so smooth you could film an Olde English Pledge commercial there (I probably tried, come to think of it. That was about the same time the camcorder entered my life and I started writing Saturday morning comedies a la Saved by the Bell). The square footage alone could easily pull a couple G’s in Manhattan. It was spectacular.
So what’s got my head up in the trees today? It’s hard to say, but I think it has something to do with Twitter. It seems that the time I spend online lately leaves me feeling the same way I did after an afternoon hanging out in the tree house with my best friend, listening to music and laughing until it hurts.
See, the life of a writer can be lonely. We’re odd, moody creatures that simultaneously crave and loathe attention. We love to read people and struggle to understand them, but want to keep a measurable distance just out of reach of anyone trying to understand us. I don’t know, maybe it’s in the vain attempt of objectivity, but I think it’s mostly a defense mechanism (like I said, writers are odd ducks).
For me, writing is like climbing trees. It’s solitary observation a safe distance from the world below. Now what I’ve found is happening with Twitter of late, is that I’ve taken up with other writers of the tree climbing persuasion. We were all up on our branches, miles from each other, drawing the world as we want it to be. Then one day a Retweet catches your eye, and you see someone sitting in a tree somewhere just like you. Soon Tweets turn into conversations, and conversations to games. Next thing you know, you’ve built a tree house where you can hide with your friends, telling stories and laughing until it hurts.
Twitter has made a measurable impact on my life, but it’s not just because the stunning infrastructure invites play and conversation. It’s the people in the tree house with me. We can climb onto our respective TweetDecks and hide from the other 89% of the world, playing our games and making up new stories so that when it’s time to go home for dinner, we have things to chuckle about until we meet again.

When Sarah Crisman isn’t climbing trees or trying to break into your kid’s tree house you can find her over at SarahCrisman.com or tweeting away on Twitter. Follow her! Don’t let me slap you!

Praise Success in Any Light

Posted by TheZimp on Feb 1, 2009 in Blog | 4 comments

There’s something that baffles me beyond any measure. Actually, that’s a lie. It doesn’t baffle me, in fact, I completely understand why someone would act in a certain way. 

I’m talking about success and achieving success. Whether it’s you or someone else. That’s not what baffles me, what baffles me is the people who get angry at someone else’s success or “luck.” Certainly there’s an ego at work here. A cranial function that looks for logical answers in the illogical. The ego looks for a way to bring this “successful” person down so the ego can feel secure, special, and important. By doing this, the ego is performing a self-sabotage on it’s own success. 

Praise success, in all it’s forms. Whether it happens to someone you like or someone you dislike, praise the fact they’ve found the means of making something happen. Be inspired by those who take action. 

Now, I’m not talking about me in any way. I did have a little personal success this past week or so when I posted a video I made on YouTube. It made the rounds on Twitter and both Sarah Crisman and Michael Urie posted it on their blogs. This was a personal success for me because:

A) I am trying to re-brand my image by introducing thezimp.com and in it’s first few weeks of existence it has performed on par with a website I’ve had for years. 

B) My first video on a completely new YouTube channel made the rounds pretty quickly, hitting 500 views in a couple of days. 

500+ views on the first video on a new channel is big news to me. Despite the fact I have some videos on my other channel that have over 15,000 views, I find my little video to be more of a success than any of those because I’m doing what I want to do. 

Now, there’s been no animosity shown towards me yet.

What I’m talking about is someone I know who’s trying to reach success in a certain field and basically has nothing but bad things to say about others who have met success in this field. People like this feel like someone out there owes them something when, in reality, nobody owes anybody anything. If you want something you have to go out there and get it, take action towards what YOU want. The solution is not to suck everything around you down to a level where you look like the “boss.” No, you don’t win that way. You don’t win when you victimize yourself. Nature doesn’t take nicely to those who victimize themselves. Nature says, “this guy’s looking for shit, so I’ll give it to him.”

So praise success. Learn from it. Be inspired by it. And most importantly know that those who want to bring you down do so out of their own fear of taking action towards their own goals and dreams. If there’s any hope, we can try to show these people the light.