LIST CRAVINGS

NOTE:  There will be no mental heavy lifting of conceptualizing, categorizing, and analysis required to read my blog today.  

I attended a writing class with a prestigious and talented instructor.  (Mind:  This guy is going to straighten you out!)  I was eager. 
He was talking about the elastic boundaries between non-fiction prose, essay, poetry.  He used a term I had never heard before: 
A Collage Essay.
This named what I do.  All my senses and I were instantly exalted.  I needed to sit still, however, because the chairs were very close together and it was a full house. 
(Mind:  You are going to be this guy's favorite and most insightful student today!)

He referenced numerous well-regarded works that involved lists.  He gave the class five minutes to make a list of lists.  I came up with the best list of lists ever created:

Apology narratives
Explanations of why
What's wrong with tonight's moon
How clouds ought to behave for maximum enjoyment by children
Possible outcomes of my 60's
Possible DNA paternity events and how they might affect me personally
Ways in which the sun could be redesigned for world-wide benefit
Ways in which my life is already perfect

"Does anyone want to read what lists you came up with?"  said Prestigious Instructor.

As students read and the instructor commented, it became apparent to me that I was supposed to come up with universal lists already out there for me to just find and record, or draw conclusions about.  I was incorrect in making a list of personal lists.

The lists I was supposed to come up with were lists such as:  Liner notes from old record albums, Tools you will need to put together this shelf, Wedding Registry lists, Lists of war dead, Lists of medical names of sexually transmitted diseases. (FYI: Instructor made the comment that medical names are among the most beautiful words available to our ears.)

Instructor Approved List Example

Thank you right arm, for not thrusting yourself to the ceiling, thus volunteering me to read aloud my personal list, leading to gentle correction from Prestigious Instructor. 

Fine.  I can make my personal list work for me in some other context.  But first, I need to understand list, lists, making lists, reading lists. 

1.  Read New Yorker article, A List of Reasons Why Our Brains Love Lists.
New Yorker: a-list-of-reasons-why-our-brains-love-lists
From this I learned the brain craves effortless data.  I gleaned names, Claude Messner and Michaela Wanke, as well as Walter Kintsch.

2.  From the internet word search "Claude Messner and Michaela Wanke: 
Paradox of Choice: The more information and choices, the worse we feel.
Unconscious information processing reduces information overload and increases product satisfaction.
Genealogy affiliates.com  We would love to show you a description here but the site won't allow us.
Good Weather for Schwarz and Clore: This article is a tribute to the "mood as information" paradigm in general.   (This article thickly makes the obvious point that our mood determines how we process information.) 

3.  From the internet word search "Walter Kintsch" I determined he is Professor Emeritus at the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at University of Colorado.  http://psych.colorado.edu/~wkintsch/
He writes about things such as "Construction of Meaning" and "Metaphor Comprehension". 
Whoa.
 
4.  Internet:  "Lists": 
Witnesses to historical events
Wives who set their husbands on fire
Celebrities who went on to commit homicide
Things that would happen if prostitution were legalized
Known gangs
Kidnapped and missing persons

5.  From the crossword dictionary "A list of things to do":
agenda
donts
items
catalog
errata
saint
todo
affair
MDSE

I have no idea why the word "saint" appears on such a list.  I looked up "saint" and got no clue.  I think it was put there to make the reader do some mental heavy lifting.

I stumbled upon one page during my research that reported studies have shown shopping without a list but after having made a list increases retention of what to buy while shopping. 

Back to my original, personal list that was a one-off from what Prestigious Instructor was aiming for.

I put my list under my pillow last night and slept on it.  This morning, I could plainly see that my list was merely a list of how I feel most of the time:

Ways I feel guilt.
Times I want to know why.
Ways I want to reorder nature.
Ways I am a little anxious about my future.
Entreaties about Who am I really?
What is there to be grateful for?

Ah. 

The Widow Lessons.

Shindler's List