Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

Sometimes people ask how I come up with my topic for the “Ten Minutes A Day” column on my web site. They seem to think that it would be hard to find something to write every day.

The truth is that it’s hard to keep it to the proscribed ten minutes, since inspiration is everywhere. Actually, inspiration is not the right word, because not every essay is inspired or inspiring. Instead, what I find everywhere are ideas that might be worthy of the Andy Warhol fifteen minutes of fame, although I only grant ten minutes.

I once worked in the public relations department of a community hospital, and one of my jobs was to create press releases for the local newspaper. The challenge was to find things to write about that didn’t look like blatant advertising, and I got pretty good at it. Perhaps that was the start of stretching my imagination. This doesn’t mean to imply a stretching of the truth. Rather, the real skill lies in seeing connections and correlations, what ifs and maybes, in a world that often stops looking once it discovers the obvious and measurable.

I look out my window as I write this and the view begs for attention. How can the maple tree in our front yard be so beautiful? Why do birds shun the ceramic birdhouse that was a Christmas gift? What kind of family will live in the new house across the road? How can clouds look so soft but be so bumpy to fly through in an airplane? What are those black birds doing literally walking across the front lawn in formation? Well, maybe formation is my word.

So when others ask how I can find something to write about every day, I am amazed. I suggest we all look about with a wondrous eye.