Part of a 12-blog series for the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts.

Scout Law point #8: “A scout is cheerful.” Or else.

Does that really have to be a law? Doesn’t making it a law take some of the cheer out of it? Or if you’re really cheery, does it matter what’s required and what’s optional?

As my own form of happy lawlessness, I’ll more or less completely shift gears now. We are social animals. It’s not natural, or particularly cheerful, to be a recluse. Don’t believe the writer’s conceit: that we’re actually writing down real experience. Ideally we go out and live life for a while, jot some notes in our pocket spiral pad, and eventually hole up somewhere to try and write down what happened. It’s kind of like scrapbooking. Creepy, right? Sorry scrapbookers, but you aren’t exactly living in the present, are you?

Perhaps I underestimate the present-tense appeal of photo corners, squiggly scissors, and puffy paint. But look at the photos you’re pasting in there: you saved them and you’re sharing them for a reason, right? Probably a particularly happy time? Or a moment that brings past emotions forward to the present where they clash with our current state of mind? That might explain the night I spent many months ago, picking photos of my brother’s dog, Brutus. It was a tribute, a sort of scrapbook I created, on the day I heard he died.

Yes, we should learn from the past, but I think we underestimate our need to find something to be cheerful about in the present. Some big brain once said we only use 10 percent of our brains. I think that’s good: brains are overrated. What if we stopped trying to use our brains so much and let current experience inform our guts, our hearts, those less brainy parts of ourselves that control critical functions like, oh, say, keeping our hearts beating and our lungs breathing.

When we realize that there are physical costs we pay for emotional stress— hello backaches, migraines, ulcers, heartburn, and all the follies of the accident-prone multi-tasker— we realize maybe we should take better care of these machines that surround and transport us physically through the world. Without these little flesh and bone jalopies of ours, we would be naked ghostly psyches roaming the world passing our wispy hands right through all the faces we actually long to touch. Don Hertzfeldt illustrated a bizarre variation on this— a population of brains attached to spinal cords roaming the earth— in his animated short, Everything Will Be OK.

I’m a tyrant to scrapbookers? It takes one to know one. I love the past: I dwell there often in my career and in my hobbies. But I’ve learned to believe that if it’s really that magical, we shouldn’t dwell there. Bring that magic back to our world here and now.

I’ve been calling Steve’s new dog ‘Brutus.’ All it took was a little present-tense wrestling, a few toy-stealing antics that were purely Flash (and nothing to do with Brutus), and I’m cheerfully back from scrapbook la-la land, loving the present.

Thanks for reading. Cheers,

Photos © SeattleHamiltons

I woke up with that usual seesaw of to-do lists bouncing between my ears. My whining puppy finally rousted me from bed: I grabbed my clipboard and coffee to begin another hard day’s procrastination.

Your typical multitaskers, they might be checking voicemail and email while doling out directions to several coworkers on a morning like this. I was there earlier in my marketing life: we used to compare who had the most voicemail messages in a single day. I was pretty proud to break fifty, but I was among bona fide multitask mavens who had broken a hundred.

In those days I multitasked with the best of them. Now it’s up to me, and only me, to fulfill my immense capacity for trauma management and multi-task madness. For that, I rely primarily on multicrastination. Take today: I have one huge project to complete. All the other chickenscratches on my clipboard are the things I would love to do once the bulk of this assignment is off my shoulders. And here I am, multi-caffeinating:

multicaffeination – the multicrastinator’s friend: combine coffee, Mountain Dew, and chocolate for a 100 percent reliable mid-day sleep aid

All the while I’m adding more things to my to-do list and ultimately blaming my failure to start today’s big project on you, dear blog reader. Actually, I’ll take my defense in the words Harlan Ellison has taped to his typewriter (yes, typewriter— he keeps a supply of discontinued ribbons in the refrigerator):

Any writer can procrastinate, but for the really big projects that you need to put off a while longer, try swimming in an endless sea of things you really ought to be doing instead. As writing tutors we learned this was called “pre-writing,” that period before sitting down to the keyboard, when the best ideas foment (or ferment) in the backs of our otherwise utterly distracted minds.

For creative types, it’s sometimes hard to justify our long hours spent staring blankly out windows. If you find yourself in this position, nothing fools yourself or others better than long lists of things you appear to be coordinating. If that sounds like your bag, join the multicrastinators: we postpone more by noon than most people do all day.

Thanks for reading. Cheers,

Photo by AirplaneMouse

There are times when I feel like a Lone Ranger (no Tonto). Like a ronin (a wandering masterless samurai). Some people call that the ultimate, enviable freedom: no connections tying you down, no bosses, always on the move toward adventure, always looking out for number one. With that kind of freedom I can sleep as long as I like. Until, that is, Harry stands on my chest and licks my face.

If my human friends stood on me like this, assuming my rib cage could take it, I believe this particular morning ritual would lose some of its novelty. And I would really wonder how they got that awful breath with subtle undertones of day-old cat food. But Harry’s only about 50 pounds and he is a dog after all. Dogs are supposed to stink. So I accept his friendship as the gift it is.

The fourth point of the Scout Law is “a scout is friendly.” Honestly, I don’t plan to lob too many words at this one. Does anyone really doubt the virtue in breaking that ronin solitude and making cheery connections with others? The alternative to being friendly is, well, unpleasant. Even ferocious opportunists should realize the value of friendliness. Despite cynics’ theories of squeaky wheels getting oiled, some of us would rather skip the lube job and get rolling. Friction impedes progress. Friendliness is fuel.

Take man’s best friend. Mine, a one-time New Mexican stray named after my grandfather, provides the fuel to break my snooze and start the day. All with a well-timed morning tongue to the face. All out of the dumb loyalty and friendly enthusiasm that good friends— furry or not— can exert on one another. As Harry would counsel you, use your tongue, your wagging tail, and all the other resources at your disposal as a force for friendliness. Whether it gets you breakfast, a nice morning walk, or the start of a pillow fight or wrestling match, you can trust that it’s always a good thing.

Thanks for reading. Cheers,

Background: This is #4 of 12 monthly blogs in the 100th year of American Boy Scouts.

Photo by Boo-Creative