Say Yes
Comments(3) I am not usually on the bleeding edge of trends. An early adopter maybe, but there’s always a bunch of funky ‘kids’ in Williamsburg or Shoreditch or wherever doing anything before me. Which incidentally reminds me of a joke I heard recently about those Williamsburg hipsters:
Q: How many hipsters does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: You don’t know???
Ha!
Anyway, back to our story. In light of all this, I was completely thrilled when my friend Christy invited me to go see a hot up and coming band last thursday. Not only are hot and up and coming (and my resident hispter-at-work Noah had not even heard of them yet) but they are locals from my new home-sweet-some Brooklyn. For all those reasons I was disposed to like them, but then on top of all that, they have about the best band name I have heard in a long time: Yeasayer.
It may not sound like much, but I think the world is in need of a little saying yes these days. A little more ’sure, we can work that out’ and a little less ‘not my problem, mate.’ A little more of, “yes I care, yes I am engaged, yes I want to take action and make even a small difference.” “No, I am not too cool for school!” (see, that double negative there, is like a yes 
Yes is more than a word, it is a very powerful attitude that influences how we are in the world. I recently spent 2 days at a corporate offsite for a client, which was perhaps a bit corporate for my taste, but was facilitated by some very cool improv actors who had all sorts of pearls of improv wisdom. One of the groud rules of improv, apparently, is to take everything done by other actors as ‘offerings’ and go, ‘yes, and…’ as opposed to ‘that’s stupid!’ or just ignoring it, which are called ‘blocks.’ We all know blockers, don’t we, and boy who wants to hang out with them? ‘Yes’ allows creative flow, ‘no’ cuts it right off. The more we say ‘yes’ to the offers already on the table in our lives, the more will come into our life in unpredicatable ways. Equally, the more we refuse offers, the safer and more predictable, along with stuck and boring, it becomes. They called accepting offers ‘allowing yourself to be changed by others’, which I also think the world could use a little more of these days.
There is also that famous story about how John Lennon and Yoko Ono met in a show of hers in a gallery in London. She had a piece that required visitors to climb a ladder to read something on the ceiling. It was a framed piece of paper that said, “Yes.” Lennon recalled later, “So it was positive. I felt relieved.”
In light of this positive spirit, I said “yes” to a lovely Yeasayer tee-shirt, which I am happily wearing as I write this. Oh, and the music was great too. Check it out at http://www.myspace.com/yeasayer
nice meditative site. read something somewhere about saying “no”: how one’s willingness to close doors was psychologically beneficial in the context of abundant options, “the paradox of choice” per se. the larger goal: one’s ability to say yes, when one does say it, more completely. say yes to saying no in order to say YES, to be consumed by saying it, is the outside angle i’m taking on this one. do you believe
hey, have you visited http://www.storyofstuff.com? the drawings create a similar effect.
i had this dream last night where the solution to the ecological aftershock of consumerism was legislation that prohibited people from throwing stuff out. they would have to use their brains to negotiate a life lived with everything they ever bought. they would see their effect on the planet by directly witnessing their effect on themselves (not just as a bit of catastrophic effect televised entertainment followed by Gray’s Anatomy).
somehow, though, forcing people to live with themselves seems criminal.
I actually just stumbled upon your blog because I was doing an image search for “cup of coffee” and was stunned cause – I’m not sure if someone has already said this on this site – but your site is the exact format as:
http://obsessiveconsumption.typepad.com
Although, the above site actually produces zines about her purchases.
Not sure who got the idea from whom or if it was one of those rare coincidences, but thought you might have it on your list of links…but you didn’t…so I pass it along. Check it out.
cute t-shirt!