Ah, the sounds of summer.  The chirping of songbirds in the air, the cresting of waves as they hit the shore, the sizzling of skin as it gets burned by the sun.  Gotta love it.  But I had an experience recently that was rather harrowing, and left me with very little to hear at all.  I went camping.

Growing up in an urban setting, camping for me involved going to the trailer every once in a while.  There was a TV there, albeit with limited reception.  That was the most I had wanted to “rough it.”  A week ago, however, my wife thought it would be a rewarding experience for us to go camping in the deep woods.  I thought the “reward” would be the beer I was going to be able to drink by campfire, as that was the selling point she directed at me.  Not so much.  I mean, it was there – and it was pretty much considered to be a camping ritual to be fair, but she did not prepare me for the horrors that awaited me once the well had run dry and the fire had gone out.

Silence.

It was deafening.  The stillness, the quiet – it was all too much to bear.  Even a bear sighting would have been more bearable.  They roar, after all.  Even the crickets you’d expect to hear went into a vow of silence, as if they’d made some kind of pact knowing that I was there.  I couldn’t take it anymore at that time.  I freaked out.  And that’s when I began to sing Backstreet Boys tunes.

I know, I know.  But the O-Town catalog is just too small and Take That is so passé.

As an Eventualist – as anyone who wants to get things done eventually – you need noise.  Remember how foreboding the Simon & Garfunkel tune from The Graduate was? That’s what mood you’ll be in when stillness prevails.  Foreboding – and no one wants to feel that way.

If you find yourself straying from Eventualism, do what the young kids do.  Get out the pots and pans and start bashing.  Just make sure you bash them, and not anything or anyone with them.  While the legal process is perhaps the most eventual of all processes, there’s no need to take a course of action that drastic.  Unless you’re a pro football player or from Cincinnati.  Or a pro football player who plays in Cincinnati.

Now I’ve heard some guy say that “stillness speaks,” but everything I’ve read (meaning listened to in audio form) that he’s done has been impossible for me to understand.  How can now be so powerful when it just got here?

Anyway, the fact of the matter is “stillness freaks.”  Don’t get caught up in its stagnation.

Create your own stagnation instead.