Cool title, right? No? It needs a lot of further explanation? All right, here goes.

“Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist of creating out of void, but out of chaos”—Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Whether you prefer the stealer of Tesla inventions or the author of Frankenstein for invention quotes, you have to admit they are both right. Those of us who think creatively try with all our might and mind to take the wreckage life has given us and make something new. Preferably we make something that is good for us and improves our situation. But sometimes it turns out that it only makes matters worse and creates monsters of the mind.

When I was ten, I was sexually assaulted by a neighbor boy who was older and stronger and decidedly crueler than me. It split my world into pieces. I retreated into fantasy worlds and lived in my imagination far more than the real world. The monster in my memory was locked away in a tightly sealed forget-me box. I repressed the memory successfully until I was twenty-two. My creativity and inventiveness turned to fantasy art and fanciful fiction. I worked at having a good sense of humor, being a tough athlete on the high school football field, and trying to force people to accept me as the brainiac weird kid who always knew the answers in science class and could do practically anything except successfully talk to girls.
Surprisingly my greatest invention would turn out to be me. I reinvented myself.
I would’ve never believed when I was young that I was made to be a teacher. I lived inside my own head. How could I be a teacher and control a classroom and make people listen to the various shards of nonsense that I was completely full of? But, through gradual problem-solving, I learned to be an effective public speaker. I learned how to be an engaging presenter. I did a few magic tricks. I told more than a few jokes. Some of them were even funny. I learned how to put ideas in front of children in visual displays and organization charts. I learned how to teach people to read. And more than that, I learned how to teach people to learn.
I honestly don’t think I would’ve learned to do all of that if my childhood psyche hadn’t been broken and hidden away in brain boxes when I was ten. I might still have been an artist. But not the teacher and story-teller I ultimately became. Without the mountain to climb, a boy can never become a mountain-climber. Without a star to see and study, he can never be an astrophysicist. And without a brain filled with broken brain bits, a man can never learn how to put himself back together again, let alone teach others how to do it. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men are no help with this endeavor.

Have I now explained my terribly tilted title? Does this help you see how I have sung the songs taught to me by the Mother of Invention? Probably not. I am a rather dense little goof and the work of making me into me is not yet finished. I crashed and burned again a couple of years ago when I had to retire from teaching. I had to invent myself again as something new. I am certainly not done hitting the metal work with a big black hammer. But, perhaps, you can see the tool-marks on this blog and learn something from it too.




































Stupid Is as Stupid Does
This is not a tribute to Winston Groom and his famous creation, Forrest Gump. This is an admission that when I have had very little sleep and lots of worry lines on my brow, I often do remarkably stupid things.
And sometimes, doing something monumentally stupid makes me feel better. You know, more a part of the stupid, meaningless, and goofy world around me. So, what stupid thing did I do? I joined a nudist organization’s website. Me, who freaks out when members of my own family happen to see me naked. And, you see, there is more to joining this organization than just signing up for some random thing on the internet where you get a lot of random emails. I had to submit nude photos of myself to be posted in community forums. And I may be able to write a blog for this website, which will mean taking some camping gear and actually going to the naturist club site near Dallas to experience the things I will be writing about… and probably making jokes about. But don’t be afraid of being subjected to the hideous torture of having to see me naked. In order to see any of that, you would have to join the organization yourself, and you are probably not as stupid as me. (But I am not telling you the name of the website anyway.)
This is a detail from an illustration based on Golding’s Lord of the Flies. But it is also a picture of me and a childhood friend from back in the skinny-dipping days, based on an old black-and-white photo.
You see, I have some real life experiences with nudists before this happened. I had a roommate in grad school who liked to go au naturel, and even was comfortable with me being in the room when his girlfriend was visiting. He was nude in the kitchen one time when my grandparents came to visit. It is a good thing my grandfather entered that room ahead of my grandmother. I also had a girlfriend in the eighties who had a sister living in the clothing-optional apartment complex in Austin, Texas. Every time we visited Austin, the city nearest where my parents lived, she would stay with her sister there and I would have to go in to fetch her whenever we had plans. Sometimes I was there just to visit. But always, since clothing was optional, I took that option. I did get used to being around naked people, though. I actually have nudist friends.
So, though I am not a nudist, I guess I already know a lot about how to be one. It is how I managed to stumble into this awkward arrangement.
I know I will never be able to get my wife to go along on this harrowing adventure. She refuses to even consider going nude in the house. She has to wear clothes to bed even though studies say that sleeping nude is good for you. I will be facing this basically naked and alone. And possible paid writing work will never make this worth it by itself.
But my photos are already posted and approved. My membership is a real thing. And I am not ready to shoot myself for this stupid decision. In fact, I will probably be less naked there than I have been here in this very blog where my every secret is laid bare and made fun of on a daily basis.
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Filed under battling depression, commentary, feeling sorry for myself, humor, nudes, Paffooney, self pity, self portrait, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Tagged as bad decisions, humor, naturists and nudists, stupid stuff, stupidity