The Wild and Precious Life

Nodus Tollens: (n.) The realization that the plot of your life doesn't make sense to you anymore - that although you thought you were following the arc of your story, you keep finding yourself immersed in passages you don't understand, that don't even seem to belong to the same genre - which requires you to go back and reread the chapters you had originally skimmed to get to the good parts, only to learn that all along you were supposed to choose your own adventure. (Excerpt from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows)

Each of us, at birth, is given a Book. The cover is new; the binding is crisp; the fresh pages just sewn together with immaculate care. Some, upon receiving the Book, anxiously clutch it to their chests and grab at the Giver's pencil. The Giver sighs as he hands it over with a gentle warning: "It's hard to write a story when you don't know how it goes." Others sit and stare at the empty pages, waiting for the Giver to author whatever wonderful tale he has in mind. They are disappointed when the plot gets stuck in the mud, deaf to the Giver's prompting, "I gave you the oars. Stop sitting there and start rowing!" 

I'm realizing that the Book is, in fact, a Mad Lib of sorts. A fill-in-the-blank. We are given a basic plot, but it's up to us to take the blanks and turn them into our own adventure. We add the adjectives and adverbs, the when's, why's, and how's. All the little details... within the rules of the Guidebook he also supplies, comparable to those little bits of text that tell the parts of speech needed to complete the sentence. Add the wrong part of speech and the sentence will be garbled - but follow the rules, and it comes out grammatically correct. 

It's only at this point in my life that I'm beginning to feel this "nodus tollens." Looking back and realizing... I was supposed to choose an adventure after all. No wonder the carefully cut cliches tasted bland... food without spice is just, well... food. Living without adventure is just, well... living. Finding different genres? Instead of trying to rewrite them to match the automatic, embrace them as an intriguing twist of the adventure. What fun is a Mad Lib without the unexpected?! 

Our job is not to snatch the pencil. Not every adjective is left blank. Living purposefully, serving cheerfully... these are already written in. But in the points of the Book where it reads "serve cheerfully, and in a __________ way," we're left with a dictionary supply of blank fillers! Your adventure is your own. Choose wisely. 

There is a thought-provoking quote by poet Mary Oliver that serves as the basis for this blog; it is a question each of us answers every moment whether we realize it or not: 

"Tell me, what exactly is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"