Some 25 years ago I took a class with the conceptual performance artist Kenneth Maue called "Water in the Lake," named after his book of that title. Why "Water in the lake?" Because that was the first thing we did on the first day of class -- we traveled to a local lake, and each of us poured a glass of water in the lake.
That was it. Class dismissed.
My favorite session was a class where each of us sat in a darkened room together with a box of matches. Every time you had a thought, you lit a match. If it was a minor thought you blew the match out right away. If it was a Big Thought, you let the match burn for a while. We never explained our thoughts out loud to the other students; we just sat in silence and observed the passage of the thoughts as they arose.
If there was one lesson that I got over and over from the class it was this: Wake up! Pay attention! Come alive in this moment!
For many years I have been a great proponent of having fun at work. The main purpose of bringing intentional, structured fun to work is to give you and the people around you a wakeup call, a chance to see things a bit differently, a chance to view your work environment from a new and fresh angle. I believe that fun at work will invariably lead to more "creative thinking" on the job. But it's most important result is that is awakens you to the infinite joy of just being awake and alive in this present moment.
One of the things that Kenneth Maue asked his students to do was to put a book in the freezer, and then to let him know the title of the book. He published all the titles in his Rollmag newsletter. I put a copy of Naked Lunch by William Burroughs in my freezer, and never took it out. Every time I opened the freezer door for the next twenty years, the first thing I noticed was the book, and most of the time it made me smile. (I am married to the writer Geneen Roth, and she famously writes in her book Appetities about the time she bumped her head on the fencepost, and, searching frantically through the freezer for some ice to stop the swelling, could only find my copy of Naked Lunch perched on the shelf. She roundly cursed not only me but also Kenneth Maue and William Burroughs that day.)
When I moved to my present home, I left Naked Lunch behind in the freezer for the next occupants, and as far as I know it still might be there. But I woke up this morning and realized that it's time for a new book in my freezer, so I am going to put one in there today: Yes Man by Danny Wallace.
I think it might be time for you to put a book in the freezer, too. If you want to go public with it, let's publish our book titles on the Facebook Fanpage.
Or if you don't feel like publishing your title, just let it be a secret between you and the universe. A secret that will probably give you an unexpected little smile the next time you go looking for some ice cream in the freezer.
