Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Diarrhea of the Mouth

I first heard the phrase in high school.  It was one of the funniest things I had ever heard.  It is a massive, unstoppable, uncontrollable deluge of crap spewing forth in the form of speech.  It's a pretty good way to describe how most high school students speak.  But I have recently found that there is more to it and that it's not always negative.

Sometimes random words or phrases pop into my head.  I don't control it and I don't usually want to (except for choosing to say them out loud or not).  They are a completely unexpected addition to my day.  In fact, it feels like spontaneous creation to me.

I've been in the market for both a new computer and a new cell phone.  For both of them, the ease of writing is a significant factor to me.  Keyboards are just as important as sheer functionality.  But when I am sitting in front of a demo model, I have no idea what to do with it.  I know I need to type something, but what?  There's nothing I need to type, nothing I've been wanting to type.  I need to move my fingers, but they need to be doing something real.  Mashing buttons tells you nothing about the ease and comfort of typing.

This is where diarrhea of the mouth is awesome.  I just hit a button, then hit another one, then another.  Those buttons are turning into a word, which leads directly into more words, becoming a sentence, and then a paragraph.  It may make no sense, or it may be brilliant.  All I know is that it gets my fingers using a keyboard.

An example of me doing just what I described:
Every time there is a man walking by a biscuit factory, there is a dozen biscuits being bought by the end of the thirtieth day.  In some situations, seven stacks simply set silly expectations.

I don't think that was particularly good.  It wasn't funny or clever or dramatic.  It was just a bunch of drivel.  But this time, I ended up creating some alliteration.  This makes me want to do more alliteration, which is pretty much always fun (though challenging).

In this case, my diarrhea of the mouth has spawned a desire to write more and given me some ideas of things to create.  This is the best part of that spontaneous creation: sometimes it creates pure gold.  Even if it made bronze or silver, it's still a winner.

Give it a shot. Spit out the first thing that pops into your mind and keep on going.  I want to see what you've got.

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