Nonsensical Times

“You’re in pretty good shape for the shape you are in.”

~Dr. Seuss

Are you having a Grinch day? Are your problems as faithful as an elephant?  Are your worries taking you places you do not want to go?

Well, don’t you fear. The doctor is here.

And he has a prescription all ready: 1 dose of nonsense, taken as needed.

Dr. Seuss may not have been a medical physician, but his advice is good for what ails you. Especially, if what ails you is the prospect of making sense of your life.

Feeling bored or ignored? Greedy or needy? Scared or unprepared? Sad or mad?

It happens.

You know it. I know it. The Doctor knows it.

He knows something else, too.

He knows that negative, emotion-driven thoughts are extremely contagious. He knows that one case of irrational thinking can easily lead to another and another.

Fear. Anger. Depression. These outbreaks can quickly escalate to the state of epidemics in our lives. Unless, of course, we treat them.

But how do we treat them?

The answer is not the same for everyone. However, a general, over-the-counter remedy that seems to alleviate the pain for most people, is a good thought. And a good thought that leads to laughter? Well, that’s extra strength stuff. That requires specialist thinking.

And Dr. Seuss? He’s a specialist thinker. When it comes to bad days, his nonsense is fast-acting.

Let me tell you why.

The Doctor knows that it is only by turning our worlds upside down every once in a while that we can stay thinking on the upside.

“Nonsense, play, and paradox,” Susan Stewart (1978) notes, “as activities that discourse on the nature of discourse, are built into the generic system as methods for innovation and evaluation” (p. 50).

In short, when Seuss writes nonsensical stories about nonsensical creatures, he usually does so for a purpose. The Doctor is conducting a physical examination of our thoughts. He’s listening to the rhythm of our ideas, looking for our creative reflexes, and testing the state of our imaginations.

In Oh, the Thinks you Can Think!, for example, he states: “Oh, the THINKS you can think up if only you try! If you try, you can think up a GUFF going by.”

In this playful discourse on the topic of our thoughts, the specialist uses nonsense to alert us to all of the amazing, mundane, and possible things we can think. In doing so, he subtly asks the question:

Of ALL the wonderful, amazing, incredible, unbelievable things we could be thinking, what are we thinking? What are we choosing to think about?

The Doctor waits for an answer. After all, what makes more sense? Trying to think up imaginative, funny, lighthearted creatures like a GUFF? Or not trying to think of anything good at all and being stuck with our problems? Which is more nonsensical?

Especially, when there are so many incredible “thinks” to think! Seuss reminds us that we can find joy in thinking of simple things like “gloves,” funny things like “BEFTs,” or interesting things like the amount of water fifty-five elephants can drink.  As each turn of the page shows, we can think of anything that we want to think about.

After all, we have the imaginations to do it.

And healthy imaginations, the Doctor points out, need exercise. They need to play.

Seuss’s nonsense helps our imaginations do both. It helps our minds get in shape. It trains us to re-evaluate things from different perspectives, to escape the “generic system” of unproductive thoughts in exchange for new, innovative ones.

And when our imaginations are stronger, our problems don’t look quite so overwhelming.

So the next time you’re feeling overwhelmed, just remember this thought, given by the Doctor himself:

“You’re in pretty good shape for the shape you are in.”

And if you are feeling like your thoughts could be in even better shape, go take some time to exercise your imagination. Go play. Remember, it makes a lot of sense.

Wishing you a day full of awesome thinks!

References:

Seuss, Dr. (1975). Oh, the thinks you can think! Toronto: Random House.

Stewart, Susan (1978). Nonsense: Aspects of intertextuality in folklore and literature. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

~Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

The clock strikes five. Then six. Then seven. Before you know it, the time is eight o’clock and your alarm is screaming at you: “You’re late! You’re late! You’re late!”

And you are.

You quickly hop out of bed and run to the shower. You jump! The water is too cold. You jump again! The water is too hot. You begin to wash your hair, but something is wrong. It doesn’t feel right. You pick up the bottle and realize you have been conditioning your hair with shower gel and washing your body with conditioner. Frustrated, you reach for your towel, but it isn’t on the rack. Wet and cold, all you can find to dry yourself with is the mat on the floor.

And all you can think is: I’m late. I’m late. I’m late.

You have a good excuse though. You were dreaming a wonderful dream, a dream so good you had to see how it ended. You could vaguely hear your consciousness calling you back to reality, but you chose to ignore it. You wanted to know what happened.

But what did happen? What was the dream? Why can’t you remember it?

You can’t remember it, because YOU’RE LATE. You’re late. You’re late.

Where are your socks? Where are your pants? Where is your mind?

You’ll find it later. For now, you’ll settle for being dressed. As long as you know who you are, people might not think you are that crazy. As long as you can answer what day it is, they might even think you are capable of going out in public.

By the way, what day is it? 

You tell yourself you don’t have time to answer such a silly question. You’re late. And it’s obviously Monday. You only panic on Mondays. But, is it Monday? No, it’s definitely Tuesday. At least, you think it is Tuesday. Tuesday does come every week. But then again, so does Wednesday. Is it Wednesday?  Who made the days of the week so complicated?!?

You reach for the calendar on your desk. It takes a few moments before your sleepy eyes can read it. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. Saturday…Sunday.

It’s Sunday.

You’re not late. You’re early.

And now…you’re AWAKE.

You sink down on the bed for a moment, trying to make sense of the last few minutes.

Well? you ask. What next?

Food, of course.

It will make you feel better. Wearing one white sock and one blue sock, a pair of dress pants, and your bathrobe, you head to the kitchen. You pour yourself a bowl of Cheerios, and you chew. You chew and chew and chew. You chew on the fact that you are up early on one of the only days you have to sleep in. Ugh! You can already feel the headache starting. How stupid you feel! How mad! How…

…relieved.

And then you remember.

You remember the dream. It was a good dream…an impossible dream. The very best kind. The kind that makes sense. Not like this morning. Not like the fact that you are still out of bed when you could be sleeping. When you could be falling back into the dream.

In a matter of seconds, you are in your bed. You are sinking into the still-warm mattress and burying yourself deep beneath the blankets, pulling them up to your chin. The pillows are so soft you can’t feel your head anymore. The pain is gone. The clock strikes nine, but you don’t hear it. You are too busy chasing your dream.

After all, you have the time to do it.

Moral of the story? There are many or there are none, depending on how you choose to read it. It may mean that nonsense is not limited to books. That dreams sometimes make more sense than reality. That the line between sense and nonsense is not as clear as we imagine it to be…

…but my personal favourite? A little nonsense for breakfast helps us believe and pursue the impossible. It helps us dream the best dreams.

I cannot guarantee that this blog will always be ready for breakfast. Sometimes, you might have to wait until lunch or dinner for your nonsensical news. I can guarantee, however, that it will always be on time, in one way or another. It may be on time for being late, or it may be on time for being early. It may be a joke, a story, or an article. But whatever it is, and whoever YOU are, I invite you to have a bite. I hear it goes well with tea.