The Tintinnabulation of Interesting People

 

tintinnabulation - noun - a ringing or tinkling sound.

I discovered the word tintinnabulation while reading a novel featuring a magician protagonist that a friend of mine had authored and self-published. During a recent trip to L.A., his home for the past forty years, he gave me a copy. It acted as a corporeal manifestation of good tidings since before that luncheon we had not seen one another since college, some 45 years ago. After hearing about what he had accomplished in the interim (an advanced degree in astrophysics, careers in space science, acting, and magic), I could hear the tintinnabulation of amazement as it was hard to believe that one person could achieve so much in such a relatively brief time period. 

And he was not the only friend in L.A. who had managed to become proficient at doing interesting things. My other friend, who had also been involved in the same university theater program as the astrophysicist and me, has been a successful, professional storyteller for years. And I bet you never thought that weaving stories orally in front of audiences could be lucrative. She told me that her occupation has defined her over the years and that she could not imagine life sans it. Of course, she could only live in either New York or L.A. to keep her passion alive, but those are the only two places she would want to exist in anyway. On the flight home, the tintinnabulation I heard was either the sound of the jet engine or my inner voice concluding that L.A. attracts interesting people. Maybe it was both?

If you have ever looked in the mirror and asked yourself why you are bored with your life, why everything that you do is part of a routine that boils down to cacophony rather than tintinnabulation, it is probably because you lack passion for what you do and are afraid to throw a wrench in the banality and make a change because it just may take some effort. Allow me to give you a few words of advice. FIND PASSION. Or FIND A PASSION. Don't be afraid to go out on a limb. The road from Point A to Point B is not as circuitous or stressful as you may think. It could just involve a small risk, like going down to the local community college and signing up for a class on something you have always wanted to pursue but could never find the time to do so. If you are over sixty (in my box), many course offerings could just be free. You never know. You might just find that you have a hidden talent, which will propel you from dull to fascinating in just a few months. 

As always, everything in life involves choice. Of course, if you are content living an ordinary life, then disregard all of the above. If you need some spice in that taco of existence, it is easily obtainable. It could be on the table right in front of you.

Life is short. Make the choice to live passionately.

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