El libro extraordinario

I have always wanted to write a book about something extraordinary that would stop people dead in their tracks of whatever the hell they were doing and want to fulfill their wildest dreams. It hasn't happened yet. I'm trying to figure out why.

I will sometimes get these bizarre ideas or think of those one-liner quotes fit to be published in "the 100 best sayings of all times" in the middle of a normal day, so I rush to write them down on whatever scrap of paper I can find, including torn napkins, used printer paper, and the backs of old books. Unforunately, my brilliant ideas suffer one of two fates: (a) I forget what I was thinking before I get to write it down, or (b) I lose the sheet of paper I have written my life-changing idea on because it was mistaken for a napkin to clean up the messy table spill. Whenever B happens, I think to myself that someone somewhere in this world will one day discover my precious piece of writing and think, what a pity that this idea wasn't developed into some amazing masterpiece. Then they will steal my idea and became billionaires overnight because it has inspired them to invent the next great human accomplishment. Yeah.

I have one particular folder that is filled with ideas I have somehow managed to retain or remember not to throw away. And why haven't these been used to make my marvelous book, you ask. The only problem with this folder is that I'm too scared to go back and look at my ideas, perhaps in fear that they aren't as special as I thought they actually were when I wrote them down. I actually ventured through them around 4 am one random night in which I had abosolutely nothing else to do, and I discovered that half of the scraps of paper said exactly the same thing. Was it my bad memory or refusal to accept the harsh truth of my uncreativity that kept eliciting the same spectacular yet not so original idea, over and over again?

And what did my conscience repeatedly throw up onto those poor scraps of paper over and over again? They were thoughts about my mother, which seems to be a recurring theme in my writing. And a recurring theme in my dream that I cannot seem to get rid of. So perhaps this extraordinare book I want to write has nothing really to do with changing the world and everything to do with just understanding myself.