When Euripides Interrupts Wild Daydreams

I’m not sure what happens in other people’s heads, but I tend to overshare what happens in mine. It wasn’t long ago that the words, “Think BIG!” popped into my brain interrupting thoughts of blogging and book writing. Well, it happened again.

While I washed dishes one morning, my mind wandered to thoughts about my book. I was eighty pages away from my final read-through after a major revision. When finished, I planned to query again. Of course, my mind pole vaulted waaaay past that.

ME:  Someday I’ll be preparing for my first book signing. Huh. That will be so cool. I’m sure I’ll be nervous and will rehearse all day. I’ll have to make some notes for my…..

THOUGHT:  Euripides!Euripides

ME:  What?

THOUGHT:  EURIPIDES!

ME:  Where did that come from? Wasn’t he some famous old philosopher?

Usually, when a random word pops into my mind, I dismiss it. This time it was super loud and insistent.

I Googled Euripides surprised I spelled it correctly. Quotes came to the top of the search. My eyes fell on this one:

“Do not plan for ventures before finishing what’s at hand.”

ME: Whoa! Okay, I get it. I’ll go back to work.

I tweeted about it and received some great insight. (Disregard the repetition of my original tweet):

ME:  Why did the name Euripides interrupt an otherwise lovely daydream about the future?

  • Could it be that my subconscious remembered the quote from somewhere and the author’s name popped into my head? Pretty abstract and doubtful.
  • Was a higher power giving me a clue? It was more like a reprimand. “Okay. I get it, Higher Power!”
  • Was someone, who exists on a higher plane, having an argument with another entity and needed me to look up Euripides? Pshh!
  • Maybe Euripides is the patron saint of “staying present centered” and he becomes aggravated when we wander into the future.

After all that I looked him up:

Euripides was a playwright, not a philosopher. He wrote over ninety plays in Athens, Greece. He is credited with producing the first rom-com (romantic comedy) and wrote about ordinary people presented with extraordinary circumstances. He was also an ancient feminist:

Medea: “Sooner would I stand to face their battles, shield in hand, than bear one child.”

Ha!

I have to admit, I haven’t entertained thoughts of book signings since. I finished my work and am onto the next project. I did what I was told. “Are you happy now, Euripides?”

I wonder what word will wreck a perfectly good daydream next time…

What do you think? Has a random word ever popped into your mind?

47 thoughts on “When Euripides Interrupts Wild Daydreams”

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  3. Off the top of my head I can’t think of a word but I do have random ideas and thoughts and totally irrelevant things pop into my head. And I talk to myself all the time. Makes me sound like I’m a bit nuts, which I sometimes think I am! I enjoyed this post Susie, it gave me goosebumps in parts. Go figure, it’s a strange world. Sometimes we just have to listen to those voices! 🙂

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    1. When it first started happening, and it doesn’t happen but a couple times a year, it was a word that I didn’t know the meaning of. Just the word. Weird.
      I agree that we do need to listen. It’s when we don’t that we get into trouble. 🙂

      I worried that I looked like a basket case when talking to myself, so I wrote about it. Check out the comments! It was very enlightening. It’s actually good for you! https://susielindau.com/2016/01/25/when-people-think-youre-crazy/

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  5. Like you sometimes a word pops up and it escalates into writing.. But I found a new word on a Canadian commecial i keep saying over and over.. it’s like you WONDEROUS! I love that word hahaha

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  6. My life has always been a series of random words popping into my head. I think my subconscious + all my ancestors + all those higher beings are talking to me! Apparently they feel I need constant supervision and guidance. I tend to agree. 🙂

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  7. Once Duh, Freud and Euripides all got into a fight in the cranium…

    Oh no! not the wild daydreams!’ the cranium of thinkers’ and thunkers’ can be a wild pub like establishment indeed. Sometimes it’s just better to hit them all with the fire hose than try to rush in and break them all up.

    That’s why I insist they all eat their hot steamed bowl of buttered broccoli before meandering on down to take up the evening socializing. You never know who is going to pop in announced. As once Freud got me toss out a winder, as he showed up in a the worst ever possible moment spilling his tea, and well of course! I slipped; although I still suspect the heart had a doing it that’. It happened whilst I was in the troughs of love with Miss Rhonda, pinned to the wall swapping heated passionate kisses, then Pop! I said: I love you Freud’ I MEAN Rhonda, but it was too late her Ivories were snapping wildly as she backed me across the room. I started laughing… If it had not been for her grasping my neck tie and saving me at the very last moment, I would have fallen out the first story window into the rain and wet.

    -And then once Euripides popped in right in between Freud and Duh (of Duh moments), well he knocked uncle Duh onto the floor as well it spilled his hot tea and Duh’s Iced Chocolate Latté, Sure enough as always Freud slipped and the fight broke out in the Old cranium. There was ear hair and beard pulling, as well as name calling and words were used like Pompous’ Buffoons’ Misanthropic’ Sarsaparilla’ Synchronicity’ and Lackadaisical’. At about that time’ Mr. Twain’ old Samuel Langhorne Clemens’ stood up rolling back his sleeves and threatened in a stern semi – heated kind of way, threatened them all with the options of eviction upon a strong and violent Easterly wind, if they did not calm their own order of winds back down and become once again reasoning and civil animals of the cranium.

    And the Answer is: B -6 – Steamed and buttered fresh Broccoli – you can substitute coconut oil for butter if like myself’ you tend to be a bit of a hippy. 🙂

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    1. Hahahaha! Your imagine has run Wild on a blog of a kindred spirit. I will promise to feed my tenants coconut-oiled fresh broccoli (I’m a Boulder Granola), the next time they duke it out inside my head and will be sure to keep the windows closed. Your mind sounds a thrilling place with loads of rough-housing. Good thing Clemens resides there as well!

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  9. That is so wild. I get weird random thoughts like that too but I rarely research them. Maybe I should start doing that. Interesting stuff.

    And, one day you will be preparing for your first book signing. As will I.

    Patricia Rickrode
    w/a Jansen Schmidt

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    1. We will reach our dreams, Patricia!!!
      I never paid attention until “Think Big” and now this one. I mean, Euripides? Where did that come from? I will never know. They are the only two into the last few months, but now I will pay attention!

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  10. I can’t help thinking of when Euripides took a torn robe to his tailor’s shop. When the two friends, met, after not having seen each other for some time, the tailor looked at the robe and then at his friend and exclaimed, “Euripides?” to which he nodded and answered, “Eumenides?”

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  12. One thing: Euripides was many things, but a feminist wasn’t one of them. He was all over the map in regards to women: some of his plays have incredibly strong, positive female characters (“Iphigenia at Aulis” for example) and others have unspeakably vile representations of women (“Orestes” for example) and some have both at once (“The Trojan Women” in particular). At one point, Aristophanes actually took him to task for his negative portrayals of women (and Aristophanes was no feminist, either!), so it may well be that the balance in his lost plays tilts more towards the misogynistic than the feminist.

    Um, all that being said though, he was a really fantastic playwright, and many of his surviving plays are still among the best ever written. It’s just that a few of them are really, uh, not. (And “Rhesus” isn’t even actually his play.)

    I can see him being the type who would have loved book signings, though; maybe his spirit was watching you jealously because book signings (and indeed books as such) didn’t exist in his day, and your thoughts just somehow picked up on that.

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    1. Ha! I love it. He probably would have loved all the attention. I can imagine him spinning yarns in front of a room in his long hair and robes.
      I really didn’t know anything about him until I looked him up. Quite a guy!
      Thanks for stopping by!

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  17. It happens to me too. Sometimes not necessarily a word but a mental image of a place. It’s really weird and sometimes hard to make the connection between that thought/image and my conscious thoughts. I definitely think there’s a higher power at work as well.

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    1. I don’t know! It started happening, very rarely, about a year or two before I started writing. Some random word, I’d heard before, but didn’t know the meaning of would pop into my head. I never did anything about it and it was pretty rare. After “Think big,” I perk right up and write it down! Ha!

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  21. Random words pop into my head all the time. Usually two days after I’ve been trying to think of the word. Drove myself crazy trying to think of that word. Drove others crazy trying to think of that word. Finally forgot about the word I was trying to think of. Two days later…bam…there it is. Word!

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  22. This is because our minds never shut off! I drive my hubby crazy. He’ll put his hand on top of my head and say, “Stop, close your eyes and stop thinking.” Sometimes it works. lol. But who can stop the creative mind. “Do not plan for ventures before finishing what’s at hand.” Sounds like somebody was trying to tell you something. Like that’s gonna stop us! 🙂

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    1. Hahaha! A girl’s gotta dream, right Karen?

      I have been waiting for another weirdo word to pop into my head, but just the usual noise of crazy thoughts have bounced around in there. I can’t imagine my mind shutting off. I would go straight to bed thinking there was something wrong with me. Ha!

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