When I was in grade school, my second-grade teacher always used to say, “it’s time to put on your thinking cap.”
As a writer my mind is always thinking about stuff.
It could be the beginnings of an idea that is forming into a story. A conversation that bothered me. Searching for a solution to a health issue I am having. Or wondering where the money is coming from for an unexpected bill.
But sometimes all of this “stuff” starts to pile up.
It makes me feel like I’m under a heavy weight. I start to feel tired, irritate easily, and become a little grumpy.
My friend who knows the signs will ask me “is there something you need to do?”
When I realize…or sometimes reminded what is happening, I look for a way…any kind of way to rip off my thinking cap if even for a couple of minutes.
Meditation can do that. Or for me watching television can do that if I can actually find a show that doesn’t make me think of real life.
Today I am grateful for cartoons.
That may sound funny that a serious adult thinker could enjoy stepping back into a child’s world but I find it very relaxing and dare I say…inspiring.
Growing up it was Casper the friendly ghost, Roadrunner (beep-beep), or Elmer Fudd and that rascally rabbit Bugs Bunny.
I don’t see too many of those classics these days. The closest I come to is Scooby Do or watching a public broadcasting station.
Take for example the cartoon I saw this past Sunday morning. I had just finished watching a weekly news show with all the politics and world affairs, pandemic updates and their moment of nature and wanted something mind numbing.
I landed on this show with two very happy guys talking in an Australian accent about hamsters. Some music played and they both jumped up in the air and landed as two cartoon characters.
Now they were inside a huge flying green turtle. The door to this turtle ship mistakenly popped open and six computer chips flew out. The two guys and their friends had to land their big turtle and go find the chips.
It led them to following a hamster who they saw stuff one of the computer chips in his cheeks. The two guys used their zapping machine that made them instantly tiny so they could follow the hamster into his underground home.
That wasn’t enough so one of the guys turned into a hamster so he could stuff the rest of the computer chips they found into his pouches and get back to their turtle ship.
It all worked out and it was a “happily-ever-ending”.
I smiled. I laughed. And I remembered why I loved cartoons when I was little.
Because they helped me feel happy.
They encouraged me to believe there was always a solution to problems no matter how dire the situations could be.
No, watching a cartoon didn’t find me the answers to my real-life issues.
But it did inspire me to keep looking…maybe even outside the usual box.
I couldn’t turn myself into a hamster but maybe I could turn…
You get the picture.
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