I heard about Road Kill Cafe years ago. There was a poster in circulation that showed the menu of this fictitious eating establishment and you can use your imagination as to the cuisine served. I will refrain from detailing it here, lest your breakfast come back up for a second look. I’ll just say, for the sake of those who are not familiar with road kill, the term applies to animals who have lost their life as a result of a bad decision to cross the road when a vehicle is coming. Ew.
The topic of road kill came up at church last night. Yes I know, an odd discussion point for a church group gathering, but we had a good laugh. And it got me thinking.
There is a connection between road kill and the creative process. The very fact that I can make a connection between the two is proof.
Every single day hundreds, maybe even thousands of thoughts whiz through our brains. Most of them come and go before we have a chance to process them and make a choice as to whether or not we want to keep them. (I’ve often thought about how a butterfly net might come in handy to capture them all. But that’s a topic for another blog post.) The escapee thoughts race on by and way too many of them become road kill. Wiped off the face of the earth, never to be considered again.
So sad.
Of course, a lot of those road-killed thoughts aren’t worth salvaging. Like, who really cares that two dirty socks fell behind the deep freeze while you were sorting laundry and you can’t reach them. There’s no story in that. Or is there? Hmmm.
But some of those thoughts definitely belong in your idea box (or book, or drawer, or file). How to get them back? Well, some of them, we will never hear from again. But we can train ourselves to slow down a little and think about what we’re thinking. A previous post called Thinking might help there. There are just too many brilliant ideas floating away into the wild blue yonder because we just don’t gear down long enough to snatch them and write them down before they’re gone.
I bought a pen yesterday. On it are the words Don’t Forget – Write It Down. Good advice.
Don’t let your great and profound thoughts become road kill.
Inside the Writer 