Last summer I met Larry Smith of Smith Magazine, the purveyors of the six-word essay. You know. It is all the rage. And the gist is pretty obvious. You tell a story in six.
Like for Eliot Spitzer: She wasn't worth the hourly rate. See? Get it?
It's very Zen. And speaking of. I was in a Bikram yoga class last weekend doing the 26 poses, slipping into a heat-induced purple haze when I started thinking in six words. Maybe it was a Zen thing. Maybe I didn't have enough liquid in my brain, but I started to think. In sixes. And then I thought, six words is way more than enough to communicate what is really important in life. In fact, we should all stick to the sixes. Or even fewer. And start to consciously communicate more with less. Like...
You are one of my favorite people.
I'm lucky to know you.
You are enough.
I love you.
You matter.
Breathe.
Ah. Zen. Wouldn't the world be such a better place if we all practiced it. If we were more succinct. More direct. More with less. And then I thought, wow, yoga really does do wonders for your soul.
And then the instructor came over, looked at me with sympathy and spoke a volume with six simple words...
'Hi, this is the advanced class.'
Nice.
So much for Zen.
(Sorry Karen! Love you!)
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