Six Simple Words Can Communicate Volumes.
Last summer I met Larry Smith of Smith Magazine, the purveyors of the six-word essay. You know. It is all the rage. And the gist is pretty obvious. You tell a story in six.
Like for Eliot Spitzer: She wasn't worth the hourly rate. See? Get it?
It's very Zen. And speaking of. I was in a Bikram yoga class last weekend doing the 26 poses, slipping into a heat-induced purple haze when I started thinking in six words. Maybe it was a Zen thing. Maybe I didn't have enough liquid in my brain, but I started to think. In sixes. And then I thought, six words is way more than enough to communicate what is really important in life. In fact, we should all stick to the sixes. Or even fewer. And start to consciously communicate more with less. Like...
You are one of my favorite people.
I'm lucky to know you.
You are enough.
I love you.
You matter.
Breathe.
Ah. Zen. Wouldn't the world be such a better place if we all practiced it. If we were more succinct. More direct. More with less. And then I thought, wow, yoga really does do wonders for your soul.
And then the instructor came over, looked at me with sympathy and spoke a volume with six simple words...
'Hi, this is the advanced class.'
Nice.
So much for Zen.
(Sorry Karen! Love you!)
posted by Girl con Queso at 12:36 AM
11 Comments:
No problem. As my daughter says in six words, "The idea of Zen is bogus." And I couldn't agree more!
I love yoga. Brevity sucks.
Happy Easter!
Great post. (Found you today through Karen's blog). I recently tried out the six-word memoir, too.
I loved your Spitzer one. Mine was: Spitzer: Ethics champion goes for gold!
This is one of your best posts. I love it. And I love your list of examples.
Did you ever notice that we both have the same habit of writing in incomplete sentences? I wonder if we picked that up from each other over the years? I've often wondered why I do it, and have concluded that it's because I write like I talk. And I talk in incomplete sentences. And often begin sentences with conjunctions. And phrases.
I attribute my habit of beginning sentences with "and" to you, my friend.
Here is mine 6-word Zen for the day:
Getting married in twelve days. Wow.
Best. Post. Ever.
(Three words left.)
Close to forty and never been.
HA! Clever post.
And I thought the teacher was going to yell at you for not focusing on your breathing + yoga.
Because that's what happens to me when my mind wanders in class...
I'm totally going to be thinking in six word sentences all day now.
ie: Must pare down the extraneous parentheticals
(There's no syllable limit, right?)
Well speaking may be difficult, but writing in sets of six words will be a good exercise. Sounds like a nice Sunday afternoon writing prompt. Thanks
Hm, 6 word essays. Interesting - I probably won't be able to to do it because I'd always be counting how many words were in my sentence haha.
Btw, I tagged you in my latest entry if you'd like to check it out :)
http://heyitsjake.com
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