I have pondered all week what to write and I have started several different articles. None of them seem to flow, none of them seem to sit right, none of them feel particularly interesting. My writing is a reflection of how my week went. Too many thoughts are circling around and in all sorts of directions. As soon as I catch a thought and am able to make sense of it, it moves on. This action happens a lot quicker than the speed of my typing. I even find myself writing the heading to something and then I don’t know what to write about. It is like staring at a blank page, that is ready to be infused with letters, but as soon as I lay my fingers on the keyboard, nothing useful is being typed, or so it feels. All sorts of random thoughts that are being interrupted by other random thoughts. It is like our thoughts decide to go on an excursion.
This journey can be frustrating, especially when you had no intention of going on a road trip. Whilst you may have a clear idea or plan on how to get from A to B, one thought didn’t go to the bathroom before jumping in the car and we all need to stop at ‘worry’-town. Then another is thirsty, and we need to grab ‘distraction’ drinks. Another thought decided to invite someone else along and you need to do a detour to catch that thought but as soon as you rock up, it decides it doesn’t want to come anymore. You get back into the car, finally back enroute, when yet another thought jumps into the driver seat and takes the exit which leads into ‘confused’-ville. Before you know it, you are in a town that is not even on the map, and you try to work your way back to the main road to get to your intended destination.
This is a sweet little mess in the head much like scrambled eggs, and not even the good kind with chives on top. All you actually wanted is sunny side up eggs with a clear delineation between the yolk and the egg white. These eggs sit nicely next to each other, with a soft and runny yolk. You wanted your thoughts to be exactly like these perfectly organised little eggs with one thought next to the other, but you got yourself a scramble instead.
This can be annoying and people often get mad at themselves when everything is unorganised. And as much as I love a mini tantrum myself, the best course of action is to stop for a second. When you look at the scramble and observe it, it is not necessarily a bad thing. Quite possibly, it could be exciting, useful and maybe the start of something delicious.
Let’s consider scrambled eggs. To create the perfect fluffy scramble, you need to know to keep the heat low and understand at which precise moment to disturb the eggs to fully incorporate the yolks with the egg whites and when to fold them. When you set out for sunny side up eggs, the pan is hot. When you accidentally disturb the egg yolks and you can’t have perfect sunny side up eggs, the best way to salvage the eggs is to turn them into a scramble. However, at this point the yolks cannot fully mix with the egg whites anymore as the heat doesn’t allow for it; the pan is too hot. What you end up with is a messy scramble where the yolks are still having the colour of yolks and you clearly also see egg whites.
When you overlay this with your thoughts, and how our thoughts would come together, what you get is thoughts that are not fully mixed up but still show up as they are. And whilst it may not seem to be that great, this situation can be most precious. Your thoughts may not be as tasty as the fluffy ones, but they are still standing in their own rights. Maybe, just maybe, you can also find a real gem in this scramble. Only when you have random thoughts that are trying to mix together but are still somewhat separated, can you see some thoughts that are trying to come to the surface, that you may not have otherwise witnessed.
It is like taking that road trip where you end up in a place that is not even on the map. I am not sure about you, but every time I have actually let myself go off route to a place that I had not intended to be in, I found something worthwhile. I have had the best experiences, met incredible people (and thoughts) in the unplanned situations. When we don’t try to force an outcome and simple allow ourselves to go with the flow, we may just have a good time after all. This is scratching the surface to another topic that I am starting to write about (The topic of ‘control issues’ which has lead towards starting my 10th document).
So where am I going with this? When there is a scramble cooking away in your head, take the time to maybe practice a ‘thought-dump’. This is where you write down random thoughts (and maybe even start ten different documents like me). Let yourself go on the road trip with your thoughts and be curious but don’t attach to them either. Let them be what they are but allow them to flow without having to read into them.
The point is, sometimes being all over the shop is not such a bad thing and our random thoughts can be quite useful. As for me, I have had a week full of interesting thoughts, some more irrational than others, but mostly I have stumbled upon some topics that I want to write about that I didn’t know I had in me. So let yourself go on that road trip and know that a not so perfect scramble may surprise you and taste better than expected. As with anything, sometimes when things don’t go to plan, maybe the alternative route was the route that was more nourishing after all (and you may even find some chives on top).