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" T H E W H O L E L I F E
L I E S I N T H E V E R B
S E E I N G."
De
Chardin Teilhard
" T H E W O R D "S H O U L D"
H A S N O P R A C T I C A L
V A L U E ,
E I T H E R Y O U D O I T
O R Y O U D O N ' T."
Unknown
" E S C A P E I S N O T A
D I R T Y W O R D.
Y O U C A N ' T F A C E L I F E
H E A D O N A L L
T H E T I M E."
S.
Kopp
" A S A M O D I F I E R ,
A S T H E M O D I F I E D ,
A S A N O U N O R A V E R B ,
C O O L H A S W I T H S T O O D
T H E F L E E T I N G N A T U R E
O F M O S T S L A N G."
Stephanie
Shapiro
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Almost every New Year, Mary and I each choose a word that will be our
guide or beacon for the upcoming year. It refers to some issue we feel
inspired to address that is important to us in our personal growth and
well-being. We post our words in plain sight on a bulletin board in
our home so that we are reminded of them often.
This is an era of linguistic creativity. It seems to be trendy to convert
nouns into verbs. The noun "dialogue" becomes the action verb "dialoguing"
in its present tense form. These words become popular vocabulary in
specific sectors of society. They are overly and easily used and rapidly
lose any significant meaning. They become light in weight. I have seen
such words as items in an amusing office game called "bullshit bingo".
I continue to be interested in creativity, as a general concept and
as a quality to nurture in myself. This year I decided to be creative
in my word choice. I wanted a word that captured the nuances of who
I am and how I would like to be for the upcoming year. I had no interest
in creating a word that would become popularized. I wanted it to remain
uniquely mine and to hold significant meaning for me. It had to have
weight.
I mused and pondered about all of this while sitting in the middle of
a freezing snowstorm on Gabriola Island, our "winter escape". I like
irony, but do not always enjoy living in it. Anyway, Mary and I had
to be careful not to slip and fall on the icy walkways. Hmmm, careful,
now there is a word that really fits me.
Pending a personality transplant, I will always be careful, often to
a fault. That quality has kept me well out of harm's way, and in the
process, has meant lost opportunities. I see that the costs are at least
equal to the benefits. And I do not want to become careless. I just
want to be less careful so that I still keep myself safe and not miss
out on enriching experiences.
I had to invent a word to capture my intention. Being less careful converted
to "carefulless". I did not surrender a quality that is an authentic
aspect of my personality. I modified it with a suffix so that it will
serve me better.
It is, however, an adjective that implies a static state of being. It
sounded inert and even boring to me. So I performed some magic by adding
the "ing" present tense verb ending to create a more dynamic word. It
is my action verb for 2004. My word is Carefullessing.
What word would you create for your self?
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