(Un)Planned randomness can be awesome!! For some (random) reason, I recently set out to read about life’s many facets, which include mental and physical wellbeing, relationships, work and leisure, personal development and finances, and then the spiritual aspects too. So today, I took a pause and reflected on how I focused on some of these facets recently, like at least this week.

Which led to me thinking of unplanned random things for this post on the day of – guess – awesomeness!

So yes,

(Un)Planned Randomness Can Be Awesome

First off, yes, planned randomness is kind of a thing, a concept. You see, it is used in programming (and of course in other areas too) to deliberately introduce randomness into a process to help achieve cool outcomes. It is often used in game design to create the elements of surprise and unpredictability while also keeping that familiarity of the game intact and also letting players know that the game is still being fair to them.

We can use this concept of planned randomness in creative fields to get out of that rut or block. Kind of like brainstorming, a little differently. And of course, planning random acts of kindness is possible too. Even thinking that we would do a RAK is a planned randomness in itself, isn’t it?

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Now on to those facets of life I mentioned earlier, and my tips and forays into focusing on them.

Physical Wellbeing

Yay! I am actually working on it once again. While I refuse to talk about my sleep patterns at this time, I am having fun exploring random (and pretty awesome too) fitness videos on Youtube while getting my heartrate up and my muscles stiff and aching but in a good way! Here are a couple I enjoyed so you can see how eclectic my tastes are (kind of like with books, and also music by the way)

Personal Development? Or Leisure?

I realized that writing about play can make me feel all those feels and thrills I felt when I played these awesome childhood games… 🙂 The randomness aspect – my participation at dVerse!

This poem is for dVerse Poetics Playtime! – a contemporary sonnet where I have 14 lines in common with the regular sonnet. As for the other aspects of this sonnet of mine, it has rhyming couplets, and each line has 12 syllables. Game names are bolded below and either linked to earlier posts where I talk about them or to other sites which explain the game.

And given that I have a baker’s dozen of games here, it is also for Thursday 13

A Playful Sonnet
A baker’s dozen of child-play today I bring-
antakshari -pure joy in its zestful singing..
Then — aim… strike…was carrom’s claim to fame and fun.
As for bluff, we did not care if we lost or won!
Knock down, stack up, quick! All done? Now, scream, lagori!
Hop, skip, jump, and squeal breathless with stapoo joy;
Barely say ‘kho‘ when you can’t chase no more, oh boy!
Canny crocodiles choose colors, cheerfully chase…
Chain brings with “it” laughing linked taggers, though no grace!
And from those scrabble tiles, for cool words we scrambled.
While uncrossed housie boxes meant hopes (dashed or) dulled,
Those ladders raised us and snakes, well, they meant downslide.
Then there was ludo, players played for their own side!
While uniqueness won in name place animal thing,
it was more the merrier in hide and seeking!
~ Vidya @ LadyinReadWrites

Leisure? Or Personal Development?

If writing is one of those things I am not sure I should classify in leisure or personal development, reading is another of those things too. With that in mind, here are a couple of books I am reading (in bits and pieces given they are both non-fiction and also books I can dip into a little at a time) for my Friday Memes.

The randomness (and awesomeness) aspect: I pick up the books from my huge Netgalley overdue for a review list randomly (and this time picking one led to the other as it reminded me of it) and so far, both books are looking pretty awesome to me. Well, books about books, or words, or language, or anything bookish always do appeal to me.

• Babel: Around the World in Twenty Languages by Gaston Dorren
• The Power of Language: How the Codes We Use to Think, Speak, and Live Transform Our Minds by Viorica Marian (Pub date – Apr 4, 2023 but you can preorder it now)

For First Line Friday and Book Beginnings:

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. To join in, share the opening sentence or more of a book you are happy about reading this week and check out other blogs to see what they are reading too!

First Line Friday hosted by Reading is My Superpower also asks us to share the first line in the comments on the post.

Babel: Around the World in Twenty Languages by Gaston Dorren

From the Introduction:

From the first chapter (language #20)

The Power of Language: How the Codes We Use to Think, Speak, and Live Transform Our Minds by Viorica Marian

The Introduction

From Chapter One

For Friday 56:

THE FRIDAY 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice. To play, open a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% on your e-reader). Find a sentence or two and post them, along with the book title and author. Then link up on Freda’s Voice and visit others in the linky. 

Babel

The Power of Language: How the Codes We Use to Think, Speak, and Live Transform Our Minds by Viorica Marian

And since I am on the bookish Friday memes, this is my other one I participate in:

This meme’s purpose is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, and befriend other bloggers and is hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The question/theme for this week: Do you listen to audiobooks with earbuds or headphones?

Well, my answer is: I don’t listen to audiobooks, that is, I prefer reading to listening to books 🙂 (but if I did, I will most likely go the headphones route)

Relationships

From catching up with friends over a much-needed loooooong cup of coffee to chatting (voice and text) over the phone with others I had not got in touch with for a long time, this week was all about strengthening relationships, and invariably strengthening myself as well. Of course, bonding with family is an everyday thing, done by default and also consciously, as we work to make sure we eat dinner at the table rather than make it a TV-dinner (which is fun, but table-dinner is magical as I am sure you know!)

What was random here? The catching up with friends actually for it came about completely randomly and out of the blue… A Happy Women’s Day text that I sent out to that recently silent group of friends resulted in a downpour (like the rains we are having) of messages and finally meant we met for coffee braving winds and rains.

Mental Wellbeing

Completing this set of five for Friday with mental wellbeing here. I have been working on quite a few of the things from the list of 13 tiny habits (a post I wrote a few weeks ago) and pretty consistently for me, I must say. Here are a couple of those (with focus on mental health)

• A List to Make Me Feel Better. Another blogger friend read this post and suggested GLAD – write about one thing that you are grateful for, learned, accomplished, and one thing that delighted you each day
• Affirmations. I downloaded an app which gives random affirmations each time I open it, and that never fails to make me feel happier.

Related Reads About Planned Randomness

On a totally random note, well, not really random, today is

• Harriet Tubman Day. While the exact date of Tubman’s birth is not known, she died on March 10, 1913, and this led to the observation of Harriet Tubman Day on March 10th across the United States. Read more about her in this brilliant picture book biography – Before She Was Harriet (my review here).
• Mario Day (Mar10!). Have you played any of the Mario games? It was one of the first video games I played (back when we had joysticks attached to the game console which was attached to the TV!)I now found this delightful Mario themed Uno game (another family favorite for all time and all ages!)

And Now, the End of This Post

Dear reader, so there it was – a planned randomness post for you. I would love to hear any and all thoughts and comments on this post. And do let me know how you worked on any of the facets of life this week? Have you played any of the games I mentioned in my Playful Sonnet poem? If yes, which one is your favorite? What is your favorite childhood game?

Don’t forget to check out the memes I linked to this week and join in if you wish to. It is a whole lot of fun, and you never know what to expect for it is all planned randomness and awesomeness!!