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What's in a Name?

For some time now, I have thought that I should start a blog.  Why?  Firstly, so I can stop driving my friends crazy with super-long Facebook status updates.  I mean, really, who wants to read two paragraphs in a status?  Secondly, because I love to write -- it is how my heart communicates best.  And thirdly, because I really shouldn't let all of this wisdom go unshared! [wink, wink] 

As soon as I decided that it was time to start my blog, the name just came to me.  BLAM!  Like a lightning strike.  Musings of a Whimsical Realist.  Musings seemed obvious enough: "A discourse intended to express its author's reflections or to guide others in contemplation" (Merriam-Webster).  But the real fun lies in the last two words.  A Whimsical Realist.  Whimsy is defined as "the quality or state of being whimsical or fanciful" whereas Realism is defined as "concern for fact or reality and rejection of the impractical and visionary."  A contradiction in terms if I've ever seen one.  And I have seen one every time I look in a mirror.

I am whimsical.  My favorite place in the world is Disneyland.  It's magical.  It's timeless.  This will not be the last time that I mention it in this blog.  I cry when sunsets capture that perfect shade of purple.  I can imagine wood sprites watching me from behind redwoods on the northwest coast (my other favorite place in the world).  I love fairy tales and looking at stars just because they twinkle and smelling flowers after they have been rained on because they are just sweeter.

I am a realist.  I can tell you how Disneyland functions, what tricks they use to make you like it more, and that Disney is a retail genius.  I know that sunsets occur because of (among many things) the angle change of the sun and how light refracts differently at that time of day.  Wood sprites have never been captured nor observed, so logically one cannot assume that they are watching us.  I've broken down fairy tales into their basic elements and written papers explaining why they work so well.  Stars are balls of gas millions of miles away.  Flowers, however, do smell better after it rains.  That's just a fact.

There is within me at all times a battle to balance the side of my nature that flies into fancy and the side of my nature that stays firmly planted on the ground.  It hasn't always been an easy fight.  But like William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, I am not complete without both halves of myself.  So welcome!  I hope you enjoy getting to know me and how one good thing does not have to exist by extinguishing another.

           

Comments

  1. Cara RaeNovember 21, 2012 at 3:46 PM

    Perfect name! It describes you wonderfully :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. ZVWNovember 21, 2012 at 4:23 PM

    If your first commenter "accidentally" disappears, does that make me first?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Erin ClaassenNovember 21, 2012 at 5:31 PM

    Welcome to the wide world of bloggers. Very beautifully and logically written. I can't wait to read your future musings.

    ReplyDelete

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