“I’m tired,” said Thalia.
Calliope chimed in, “Tell me about it—tired and stressed. Anybody got a tennis ball I can use for the knots in my back?”
“The working conditions are deplorable!” Thalia continued her rant, “We haven’t had any popcorn or gum since Sunday and it’s all work, work work!”
“Oh God, don’t remind me…I mean that article about the anthropologist alone is enough to make me dizzy. Then there’s that new group…something about needing an approach to the world’s mysteries that doesn’t use logic and reason…throw out the dishwasher manuals. Did I get that right?”
“And what is it with the tech? She KNOWS we draw a hardline when it comes to compu….” Thalia’s words were cut short by….
Calliope, who jumped back in, “and don’t forget the Gift of Shared Kindness!”
Urania cleared her throat.
“Enough…we’ve got a call to prepare for…and you know the topic…”
What is something you could whine about, but have the awareness to adapt to (or take action on) instead?
In Dharma Road, Brian Haycock wrote:
Whatever you face, whining about it won’t help. Do what you can to deal with it, and then let it go. Adapt to conditions and stop wishing conditions would adapt to you. They wont.
“Can you hear her now?” asked Calliope.
“Yes,” Thalia sighed. “She’s thinking about Katherine Johnson.”
That explains everything. A trio of muses! You know I’ve observed in recent months that, to me, the power of your writing has taken some quantum leaps. Or, at least, it’s effects on this reader.
The Katherine Johnson story is a powerful life lesson. When I began college as an engineering student, slide rules were the required computational device. Texas Instruments had just developed and was selling a scientific calculator. Our professors forbade their use in class. Yet the Space Program relied on the foundations laid by slide rule use. The Univac and IBM 360 room sized computers , with far less muscle power than today’s laptops, got us to the moon and back. And Katherine Johnson.
Kudos, again, to you and your muses!