WHY DO YOU WRITE? IWSG Post

 

We tumble from womb to tomb ...

    from one blackness towards another,

        remembering little of the one and 

            knowing nothing of the other,

              except through faith.

Life distracts us, with happiness or struggle, 

    from seeing the tides that are drawing us towards 

        those clusters of events called 

Crossroads.

More tragically 

for our being blind 

to them.

The star, the wheel, the butterfly ...

    all are in an unseen state of turmoil,

        waiting for some signal that 
               the time has come.

Then, the star explodes,

The wheel of Fate turns, 

making a poor man rich,

The butterfly mates and dies.

STORY can say all that is unsayable in the world ...

    How can we resist attempting that?

Life has a way of bruising us 

    until we long for some passage out of ourselves.

That's what STORY does ...

    for a few precious moments

        it takes us out of ourselves

            to become someone other than who we are.

Each of us is a myth within our minds.

    We make it up. 

    It is the STORY of ourselves 

         we steer our actions by.

        It is not the truth of our life.  

           We could not bear to look at that.

It is the illusion which helps us 

keep on going in life.

Man alone

    tells STORIES to understand his world.

I believe that there is one STORY 

in the all world, and only one,

 that has frightened and inspired us.

 Humans are caught,

in their lives, in their thoughts, 

in their hungers and ambitions,

 in their avarice and cruelty, 

and 
in their kindness and generosity

 in a net of good and evil. 

 Do they struggle towards the light 

or embrace the darkness?

There is no other STORY.

 A soul, 

having emerged 

from the cocoon of this life, 

will have left 

only the hard, clean questions: 

Did I make my time good or evil? 

Was my life worth

the pain of my birth?

WHAT IS THE PARTICULAR

MAGIC OF WRITING

THAT KEEPS YOU DOING IT?

If YOUR World Was Ending TOMORROW_ IWSG Post

 

"If today was your last day
And tomorrow was too late
Could you say goodbye to yesterday?
Would you live each moment like your last?
Leave old pictures in the past
Donate every dime you have?
If today was your last day.

Would you call old friends you never see?
Reminisce old memories
Would you forgive your enemies?
Would you find that one you're dreamin' of?
Swear up and down to God above
That you finally fall in love
If today was your last day."

- IF TODAY WERE YOUR LAST DAY; Nickelback

If you close your eyes tonight and never re-opened them, what kind of last day would you have had?

 The world will be gone.  Time is set to be an echo.  You have 24 hours left in which to exist. 

It could happen.   The funny thing about life is, trouble never comes from where you expect it. 

You spend two months worried about interviewing for that big job promotion, 

then on your way there, you die of a heart attack brought on by all that stress. 

That's just the way it goes.

Super-volcanoes, a Verne-Shot (which combines the super-volcano scenario with an asteroid strike, fun, right?), 

Gamma Ray Burst from our sun, 

engineered diseases or something totally out of left field could end life as we know it.

But for you ... for me ... the world could end tomorrow.

Heart attack, mugger, or drunk driver.  Any of those three could end your life suddenly.

"There is only one time that is important: NOW.  

It is the most important because it is the only one over which we have any control."
- Leo Tolstoy  


Appreciate your job if you can ...

If you just "Survive" your job, you are wasting 71% of your life. (5 out of the 7 days of the week.)


Forgive if you can ...

What someone did to hurt you was their fault.  Carrying it with you for each day afterwards is all on you.


Focus on the NOW ...

The Past and the Future are illusions.  NOW is the only reality.  

If you grasp after ghosts, you, yourself, are not living.  You are making of yourself a ghost.

Each moment matters for it may be our last.  

Think of all the shooting, bombing, or air crash victims.  They thought their lives would go on for years.

Appreciate what and who you have while you have it and them.

Here is Stephen King on my favorite novel of his, DUMA KEY

Why Does HALLOWEEN Stay So Popular?

 

Halloween has been more Trick than Treat to me of late ...

But I couldn't let one of my childhood's better holidays pass unnoticed.

The National Retail Federation reckons that Americans will pay

a record $3 billion-plus this season on hairy spiders, blowup Draculas and plastic maggots that glow in the dark.

Millennials are characterized by a desire for a prolonged adolescence so it is no surprise that they cling to the idea of dressing up.

In fact, two in three adults feel Halloween is a holiday for them and not just kids.

But I think it goes deeper:

The books and then movies in the 50's of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and WHO GOES THERE? (THE THING)

did not just tap into the paranoia of the Cold War

but also the paranoia of adulthood when aging children realized that their parents, 

their leaders, and those around them were not who they posed as being:

In essence those children lost their innocence in that they realized they were surrounded by people wearing masks ...

and that the real monsters lay BENEATH those masks.

Especially since September 11, 2001, the Boston Marathon Bombing, and endless school shootings,

it seems all too easy to imagine a murderer sitting in the aisle next to you.

Sociologists tell us if you want to understand a culture, look at its holidays.  

 Christmas gift-giving rituals shed light on how we manage social relationships. 

Thanksgiving feasts depend on shared understandings of family and national origin stories.

 Halloween, with its emphasis on identity, horror and transgression, can tell us about who we want to be and what we fear becoming.


Of course, that is not the only reason for the surging popularity of Halloween --

Young adults I’ve spoken with often identify this as their favorite part of the holiday – the chance to be, at least for a night, whatever they wish to be.

There’s no stress to it.

 You don’t have to travel or deal with relatives. There’s not the holiday pressure to find a date if you are single.

You can wear whatever you want and not be judged. There’s the fantasy, role-play element.

 If you think about it, it’s not surprising that 70% of people feel it’s their favorite holiday.


My friend, Darren Comeaux,

tells me that Halloween is quite an event in Japan, a country from which he has just returned.

In Japan, Halloween is not simply an end-of October event.

1.)  It is celebrated more in the form of masquerade parties and parades for adults.


2.) Halloween season in Japan runs for quite a long time.

 In amusement parks like Disneyland, Halloween-themed performances start from early September.

In schools and offices, Halloween parties and related events fill up their calendars for two months.


(While in American Politics, Trick or Treat lasts all year!)


3.) Halloween is still a growing market in Japan.

DEVIL'S NIGHT

Devil's Night is a name associated with October 30, the night before HALLOWEEN in Detroit, Michigan

(a city that both Victor Standish and I have highly violent memories of)

Devil's Night dates from as early as the 1930's.

Traditionally, city youths engaged in a night of mischievous or petty criminal behavior, usually consisting of minor pranks.

However, in the early 1970s, the vandalism escalated to more destructive acts such as arson.

The crimes became more destructive in Detroit's inner-city neighborhoods, and included hundreds of acts of arson and vandalism every year.

The destruction reached a peak in the mid- to late-1980s,

with more than 800 fires set in 1984, and 500 to 800 fires in the three days and nights before Halloween in a typical year.

ANGEL'S NIGHT

Let us resolve to counter-act the darkness a bit and make of Halloween season a time of Angel Nights where we do random acts of kindness.

Now, that's a real treat to a night of tricks, right?

Look for my collections of Halloween tales 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GVFH1PF

only 99 cents

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HM8ZS5Q

only 99 cents

Living in UNCERTAIN TIMES

 

Who to vote for? Will Our Vote even make it out of the ballot box?

A fatal amount of Covid-19

could have just

lodged in the membranes

of our eyes.

(Yes, we can catch it that way)

Or we become a victim of

violence

by uttering a

micro-aggression

or

support of a hated group

of which we were unaware.

When did we get so

thin-skinned anyway?

I feel many of our

great grandparents

who survived

the depression

would tell us it was

past time to

grow up.

I got a scathing email recently from a reader who scorned me for 

even suggesting that a white male Caesar could speak for and to all humanity.

The ghost of Mark Twain whispered in my ear, and I wrote back

that I would try to "man up" to these changing times.

But back to writing in these uncertain times.

I am not a Titan of Literature, but I have read and listened to many of them.

Take Harlan Ellison whose ghost visited my blog long ago:

https://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2023/11/decembering-art-isnt-supposed-to-be_30.html

He would say that the very uncertainty, the very danger of our times

provides grist for the mill of our minds.

The above image should spark a dozen story ideas to us.

Yes, we are scared by the Hamas killings, the plague killing our children now, and by the economic ruin hovering over the horizon.

Michelangelo didn't let the ache in his arms, the spasms in his back

keep him from crafting the masterpiece, the Pietà.  

Samuel Pepys lived through the London Fire, the Plague, and restive political unrest that could have resulted in his execution.

But he kept writing the journal that is studied by students to this day. 

We can take the idiocies of conflicting demands being ignored 

and make of them a riveting story or novel born of what we see and feel.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? 

Are You Wasting the DARKNESS?

 

Our lives can be thought of as paintings.

Created by dual brushes:

Our own and the Father's.

If we had our way, the painting of our lives would be airy and bright always.

And the lessons of our mistakes would be lost in the glare of unnatural brightness.

"Going on despite the darkness does all the work, while the happy arrival gets all the glory." 

- Mark Twain

The dark hues of life speak to us in ways the bright caresses of happiness never quite manage.

To be bright in a world of darkness is not easy. Do not do it to stand out to others.

Others have their own burdens to carry.

Do it to stand out to yourself in reflection later:

Here is where I endured when I wanted to give up. 

Here is where I became more than what I thought I could be.

Here is where I developed the strength to lend to others in their own time of darkness ...

if only by encouraging them to go on despite the encroaching gloom

while I stand on distant shores.

NO SAFE MODE TO LIFE

 

Have you noticed? The melodies that stick with us are the bittersweet ones.

At least that is the way with me.

Life moves on without us. Time slips through our fingers whether we’re spending it wisely or not ...

whether we even sense it slipping away or not.

There is a relentless forward current to Nature. It sweeps onward like an uncaring river carrying us with her. 

No opportunity to catch our breaths on the banks, for there are no banks to life.

We swim... well, badly... or sink.

There is no Safe Mode to life.

I am not telling you anything of which you are unaware:

Life has become something of a stretch of rapids for most of us.

I hope today finds you in a better spot than you have been struggling in.

For me ...

Well, it has been interesting ... as in the Chinese curse sort of interesting.

Covid claiming me, blood running during a pandemic, 

having my apartment destroyed by Hurricane Laura while I was trapped within it. 

That was ... interesting.

Being homeless for seven months as my city was mostly destroyed by Laura and Delta that followed two weeks later.

A massive heart attack last Halloween ... all trick and no treat.

Back to driving rare blood ... but now, with a camera on the windshield, facing me, monitoring for any minor infraction ...

I commit even one, and I am terminated.

Interesting.

Guess what?

I committed that one. Ouch.

Mother once told me: 

No one has the right to complain about something that is happening to everyone.

We all have been bobbing along some rough currents these past few years.

I pray that those currents have calmed and you find yourselves in a better place with people who care.

I hope the person you see in the mirror is wiser, if not sadder, at the tuition paid.

We are small only if we allow ourselves to become that way.

Be Large. Live Each Breath. Be kind.

Ever wonder what your 

last book will be?

I think mine will be the above.

{A meld of OLIVER TWIST, FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR, and BAND OF BROTHERS.}

If you are curious about it:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNR5T9DW

Oh, and in the print versions, there is even an image of Midnight, my cat, at the end who I managed to keep with me during those seven ... interesting ... months.

He is shamelessly asking for reviews of my book, since he gets extra tuna when I am happy.

Well, this post has certainly taken a turn I hadn't expected ... just like life has for all of us, right?

Live on purpose, follow your heart, become your dream.

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.” 

- Sister Ameal