Profluence

   Do you ever feel like you're being hit over the head with a certain idea or theme?  I mean, it just keeps coming up, in every possible area of your life.  That's me with this MOVE thing.  Who knew living a life in motion could apply to all parts of life! 
   I began my spring semester of courses last week in the middle of my diabetic breakdown, realizing that I had movement in my health, but in the wrong direction. Once I cleared the mental obstacle of insulin injections, I was off and running, and in my usual overzealous fashion, I had grandiose goals of ONLY eating healthy foods, exercising instead of watching tv- ever, etc., etc..  After only15 minutes on a treadmill followed by a couple of cookies, I realized that I was forcing this thing, and I would burn out if I didn't find a way to make this a part of my life naturally.
  Right on time, my second lecture in Creative Writing 2 brought me to the next aspect of this journey of movement- profluence. Webster defines profluence as "having the quality of flowing forward".  In literary terms, this means that a story must progress- it must flow-without being forced.  Nothing is worse than reading a book where the plot is forced to move along and feels unnatural.  The goal is to create characters and dialogue that carry the story along.
   What a concept; allowing life to flow naturally!  Obviously, some work is required. Just as a story would not simply move itself along without characters or dialogue, we human beings will not flourish without taking the first steps in the right direction.  But the goal is profluence-the quality of flowing forward.  This strikes me as a completely natural movement that comes from somewhere deep inside the inner dialogue of the heart. So maybe the goal is less about changing the functions of life and more about changing the mental and emotional attitudes of the soul.  And just as the plot of a story will flow out of the characters and their discourse, the greatest moments in life flow from the effort we put in to our character, not our forced plans.