Many Worlds Theory

Here’s a new kind of art.  The artist (me?) writes a set of instructions for the reader to follow.  Then, to “experience” the art, the reader has to follow the instructions explicitly.  No fair cheating: you can’t really appreciate the artist’s “vision” unless you go all-in and do whatever the instructions say.

I hereby stipulate a few house rules.  I won’t ask anyone to do anything illegal (don’t want any lawsuits, here!).  I’ll also never ask you to harm yourself or others.  Finally, I will try to make these “poems” within reach of the average person…most can be experienced without any undo tribulations.

So here goes:

In Springtime

1. Before dawn, hike by yourself to a suitable place to watch the sunrise.
2. About five minutes before the sun crests the horizon, begin listening to Siegfried’s Funeral Music from Wagner’s Götterdämmerung.
3. Listen to the music in its entirety.
4. Count how many wild flowers you pass on the hike back home.

Adversity

1. Wait for a moderately rainy day.
2. Stand outside in the rain for ten minutes.
3. Come back inside, change into dry clothes, and have a glass of pomegranate juice.
4. Slap yourself gently across the face, and laugh, as I am laughing now.

On Nature

1. With pencil and paper, compose a haiku on the theme of nature’s beauty.
2. Burn the haiku with flame drawn from a wooden match.
3. With pencil and paper, compose a haiku on the theme of nature’s indifference.

The Human Condition

1. At the grocery store, try to spend exactly five dollars, including tax, on things you don’t really need.
2. At the register, note how many cents away from five dollars you were.
3. Multiply this number by 100. For example, if you paid $4.83, you were $0.17 off, so multiplied by 100 this becomes $17.00.
4. Go online and donate this amount to a charity of your choice.
5. Enjoy your approximately five dollars’ worth of junk.

Unrequited Love

1. Go outside and wait until you see and can identify a wild bird.
2. Go to Wikipedia and learn something new about this kind of bird—something you didn’t know before.
3. Share this newfound knowledge with someone you love.
4. Also share this quote: “If a lion could speak, we could not understand him.”
5. Refrain from explaining yourself.

Wake Up

1. Play a musical instrument for five minutes. If you don’t play a musical instrument, then sing a song instead.
2. Stop playing or singing, even if the music isn’t over.
3. The music’s over.
4. Crack you knuckles and close your eyes.
5. Think of this: there are as many stars in the universe, as grains of sand on Earth.
6. Open your eyes.
7. Now open your eyes.

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