I will be away from the blogosphere for a little bit and am sorry if I don’t respond to comments promptly.
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: A Romeo and Juliet Story
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
To remake is to make anew or in a different form.
________________
While brainstorming what to write for this week’s episode, I realized that I had already started the post as a comment–and all because of something from the ever-inspiring Rarasaur and Grayson Queen! Recently I shared a memory with this dynamic duo as a response to “Speak Geek to me Shakespeare,” which was posted on their collective blog: The Queen Creative. It’s a perfect fit for the remake theme, so I’m going to be remaking it for you today. Oh my, a remake of a remake. I do believe the creators of Community would be proud!
One day, my English Lit. teacher gave my best friend’s and I an excuse to fly our freak flag: a semester assignment prompting us to do a video remake of a scene from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Don’t ask me where the idea came from, but we decided to apply the play to the classic Spaghetti western: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Despite the plot of the movie not really lining up with Romeo and Juliet, it worked out pretty well. We chose to film the scene where Mercutio kills Tybalt and is then killed by Romeo: Romeo was The Good, Tybalt The Bad, and Mercutio the Ugly.
The dress on the right is almost exactly like the one Juliet wore. Image source: Etsy
This is some of the most fun I’ve ever had. We put together costumes–I played Mercutio, wearing an ill-fitting, child-sized mailman costume; Romeo wore a large poncho and jeans with a white hat; Juliet wore a 1970s bridesmaid gown; and Tybalt (who was also Juliet) wore all black with a black cowboy hat. We made swords out of dowel rods and created five O’clock shadow with makeup. Thus, we became a group of sword-wielding cowboy hermaphrodites strolling down the antiquated town square of our local Pioneer Museum.
Together, we learned that acting is not easy. Even playing dead becomes difficult when a fly is sneaking up your nostril as you try not to breath in your constrictive mailman costume. We also learned that filming takes a long time to create a short video, and that editing takes even longer. The night before our project was due we realized we were several minutes shy of a six minute requirement, and we scrambled to film the next scene of the play in which the Friar and Juliet’s nurse convince Romeo to flee.
This is the actual museum where we filmed. Image Source: Pioneer Florida Museum and Village.
With an old blanket and some rope I became a monk, and a Navajo print nightgown and beaded headband made the former Juliet into her own Native American nurse. It went well considering that we had to film this bit with no script in one of our backyards. The Nurse urged Romeo to travel to Mantua by extolling the virtues of their new McDonald’s and lovely botanical gardens while the Monk, trying not to giggle, called him a moron for killing Tybalt. Romeo hammed up the drama, wailing over having to leave his beloved Juliet who now stood next to him as an Indian princess and had recently been stabbed by him as Tybalt.
Image source: alibaba.com.
Afterwards we edited until dawn, guzzled coffee, and dragged ourselves to school the next day. Our teacher loved it, our classmates seemed confused (especially when Romeo fled from killing Tybalt atop his lightening-fast stick horse), and we tried very hard to suppress both laughter and embarrassment as it played before our peers.
*clicking on an image will take you to its source.
This one is Hard to Write
Saudade is a Portuguese word that describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic longing for an absent something/someone that one loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing will never return.
Saudade was once described as “the love that remains” after someone is gone. Saudade is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places or events that once brought excitement, pleasure, well-being, which now triggers the senses and makes one live again. It can be described as an emptiness, like someone (e.g., one’s children, parents, sibling, grandparents, friends, pets) or something (e.g., places, things one used to do in childhood, or other activities performed in the past) that should be there in a particular moment is missing, and the individual feels this absence. It brings sad and happy feelings all together, sadness for missing and happiness for having experienced the feeling.
_____________________
I’m pretty late with this Prompts for the Promptless from Rarasaur. I haven’t really been feeling 100% lately and haven’t been keeping up with other blogs well (or my own for that matter).
I could say it’s the back-to-back colds, updating pages and images for this blog, novel writing, or any number of things. The truth is I just haven’t been myself lately. Something broke inside of me in December. With the passing of my grandfather I came face-to-face with too many things, and I don’t know if I’ve been hiding from them or if my brain did what brains always do and put them neatly away in a box. It’s not a good box, things keep leaking out of it and leaving tracks across my cheeks.
As I saw him laying there, emaciated and dying, hitching breaths and refusing to go until his body simply couldn’t take anymore, I didn’t think about the good times. I thought about the times I simply wasn’t there. No matter how often my mom told me over the phone that I was missing my last moments with him, over four years of deepening states of dementia, I didn’t listen. I heard her, but there was so much between myself and going to see my grandfather that I just couldn’t bring myself to go.
My grandmother isn’t very nice, and my response to this has been to stay away from her. Not just her though, my entire extended family. I allowed my fear of and anger towards another person take from me memories I could have made, and now I have to find a way to forgive myself for that. I have to find a way because there is no going back. A slowly growing solace comes in that, recently, I have been able to remember what I couldn’t when sitting next to his death bed.
I remember weeks I would spend with my grandparents when we would work all day–my grandparents were always working–and settle down to hearty dinners followed by quiet games of Dominoes in the evenings. I remember watching a documentary on Pepsi Cola and Coca-Cola with the two of them sitting in their separate lounge chairs while I fought sleep on the sofa directly behind them. I remember the way my grandfather would hem and haw while he read the morning paper, licking his finger to turn pages, his mouth slightly open as it always was when he was trying to focus on something. He is the person who taught me how to fart and blame it on others in public, the man who never swore unless he was driving (then all bets were off), he was my only living grandpa and now he is gone.
It feels like the only tie I had left to that side of my family is gone too. The weekend of his passing and memorial services and funeral there were family events from which we were intentionally left out, though if anyone not involved in this were to ask of our absence they were most likely told we chose not to be there. People I had been told were waiting to talk to me seemed inexplicably cold and I had to wonder if they had been told lies about me before we had a chance to reunite. Other members of the family seemed to be trying to bait me into saying negative things about other family members, probably with the intent of using them against me.
Through all of this I couldn’t help but wonder how he had survived it all, and I felt so much more love for this man who had dealt with so much in his life while maintaining a grace and strength so tempered by humility that I only saw it in echoes after his passing.
I wish I could go back to that simpler time when youth helped me rise above everything and simply be a part of my extended family. What is it about teenagers and young children that makes them able to navigate rough waters so much more smoothly? As and adult I hide, from all of them, because it is simply too much to handle. It is easier to stay away from it, or so it seems, but as I learned in December: this too has its cost.
Killing Me Softly With Your Ad
Wow. The outlier collective handles this very touchy subject very well.
An Excuse to Talk about Monty Python
I’d like to thank Rarasaur for giving me this excuse with Sortaginger’s suggested Prompts for the Promptless segment this week: Gallows Humor!
Really, who does Gallows Humor better than Monty Python (well, aside from the fellows who create South Park)? Whether traversing plague-infested England and admonishing people to bring out yer dead,
extolling the ex-virtues of an ex-parrot,
or harvesting organs before the harbinger has technically expired,
their view of history and the present brings an unexpected humor to the darkest travails of humanity. One could say their chief weapon is surprise, though we cannot forget their almost fanatical devotion to the pope either.
Honestly, I love anything that can make a person laugh at something taboo, serious, or dark. The reason being that learning to laugh at a thing removes its power over ourselves. Fear does little more than restrain us from moving forward. Laughter is both empowering and uplifting, and finding the humor in the grief simply highlights the human weaknesses which caused it in the first place. This serves to remind us that grief and sorrow are but a wee bite small part of life.
Besides, whenever life gets you down, Mrs.Brown and things seem hard or tough
and people are stupid, obnoxious or daft
and you feel that you’ve had quite enough,
look at gratuitous pictures of penises:
or listen to this song:
Above all remember this: if we can learn to laugh at all the darkness in the world we may gain the courage necessary to stand up to it, bringing about a day when we can sail off into the sunset together–moving against the tides of Westward expansion in all its forms. A wee band of merry pirates who will become capable of taking back this ship and setting a better course for humanity.
Note: clicking on an image will take you to its source.
The Gurus We Choose
I often find myself in situations where I have more questions than answers. Even in finite studies, like mathematics, every time I find an answer, I reveal 3 more questions. In spiritual matters, this ratio is magnified ten fold.
Last night, Dave and I watched a documentary called Kumaré, the "True Story of a False Prophet", and all day today my mind has been overwhelmed with questions.
I love this movie, so does Rarasaur and a bunch of other people I know: maybe you'll love it too! Give it a watch, it's on Netflix (oh, and get Netflix).
WTOE: Reyeshine
Food for Thought is Dead, and Some Other Stuff
Bring out yer dead!
TPI, A Symphony of Science, and a Duckload of Ducks
WTOE: Artists and the Why Behind the Creative Process
Food for Thought: Drink More Water and Less Sugar
***This segment will not be pursued on this blog, click here for details***
Hey everybody!
Yep, that was a reference to The Simpsons.
Anyway, hello and welcome to the first small step (and big brain dump . . .eeewwwww) of
FOOD FOR THOOUUUUGGGHHT!
Food for Thought: The Beginning
Eulogy
THE EARLY YEARS
He was born during the Second World War, in Montreal, in a French-speaking Catholic family. His mother gave birth to eleven children—he was the eldest, and the only boy. When he was in grade four, he was removed from school, and worked as a store clerk to provide food for the thirteen mouths to feed. He was sexually assaulted by the store owner, removed from his first job, and placed elsewhere.
This is beautiful, and sad, and wonderful. Thanks Le Clown for sharing!
The True Cost of Civilization
WTOE: Purnimodo
Let’s Talk About It
Hello everybody!
Welcome to this rainy (at least in my corner of the world) day!
Last night the sonic boom of thunder woke me from a deep sleep, and the rainstorm outside proceeded to play Marimba music on the metal shutter over my bedroom window. Suffice it to say I was rendered sleepless, so I wrapped myself in thought and realized some things.
I keep telling you guys we should talk about stuff, that the answer to a problem is to sit and talk about things. I realized last night that sounds kind of stupid if not explained, so let’s all get comfortable, grab a beverage of your choice (mine is coffee) and have a little chit chat about that.
I’ve stated in the last week that we become our thoughts, which become our words, which become our actions, which become our effect on the world, which becomes the World. Gandhi put it this way:
“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.”
Even Buddha talks about how thought becomes who you are.
We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.
Yesterday I broached the subject of sexual harassment and abuse in the town where I grew up. When I would talk with my mom about this she would always make the point that the biggest problem in her day was how no one talked about it. The problem was ignored, and by being ignored it made the behavior seem acceptable. Change eventually came in the form of legislation allowing lawsuits for misconduct.
Why do we rely on these things? Are we, individually, so irresponsible that we have to rely on another to dictate that we be good. Are we a nation of three-year-olds? I believe firmly in the idea of self-reliance and self-monitoring. I believe that our system has a legal system that is far too complex. We could argue over why indefinitely, but that would come to nothing. Really, the corruption of the legal system is a chicken or the egg question (is the system corrupted to be exploited, or exploited because it is corrupt–as usual, the answer lies in the middle). Truth be told, we dictate what happens to the system with our actions, our beliefs, and our fears–or, rather, how we allow those fears to be used against us.
Ignoring something that is frightening only causes the problem to grow bigger. Those who are of a more exploitative nature will use this as a shelter for their actions. We need to find our courage, and with it our voices–not as the fearful rabbling of a frenzied crowd, but as the informed individual voices of a collective. Debate and argument are stupid. I prefer discussion, and so I talk and hope that more will join the growing number of those talking because talking is a beginning.
Talking is the start of planning. We have to understand a problem before we plan for a solution. You see, I learned in my brief foray into anthropology that trying to affect change without first understanding what you are changing and why will usually create more problems with the “solution.” Even with the best of planning, problems are still going to slip in. But those problems are easier to address when the initial problem is better understood. Every angle has to be considered, even if those angles frighten us.
So, let’s talk.
Daily Prompt and Then Some
Usually I don’t do the Daily Post Prompts, the reason being that my brain runs across new ideas to write about every ten minutes or so, but this week their prompts have been awesome fun. I’ve also been putting a lot of my writing/creative energy towards a novel, and planning for the future of new and old segments on this site.
Anyway, the prompt today asks us to describe our ultimate escape plan and what we are escaping from. I have one of these! It’s kind of weird . . .
The town I grew up in is strange (I feel like I’ve said that before. . .) and one of the strange things about it is that sexual abuse and harassment seemed to be rather commonplace. What my mom describes as normal when she was younger is way worse than what I saw/heard in my day, but I still knew far too many people who had been victimized in their life (honestly, one is far too many, we really need a better discourse on this stuff).
Anyway, my parents have always felt that the best way to equip your child for the dangers in life is to be honest with them about those dangers. So, I knew not only to be careful of strangers, but of adults and older children in general, what behaviors to watch for, and why I should be careful of them. This helped tremendously because I was a friendly kid, and knowing what behavior to watch out for helped me discern between who was acting strangely in a dangerous way and who was not. This is important because threats in your child’s life do not always come from strangers–what was happening in the Catholic church is a glaring example of that.
Okay, that was a bit of a tangent. Anyway, as I got a little older and took some self-defense courses, I devised a strategy to escape an attacker in my head. I wasn’t necessarily afraid, but I had just found out that a friend of mine had sustained abuse from another student when she was younger and realized how right my parents were. I wanted to be prepared in case I needed to hurt someone badly enough to give myself a running head start in a dangerous situation.
My plan was to administer a swift kick to the nuts, while the person’s head came down as a reaction to pain I would bring my knee up into their face, probably breaking their nose. Then I would take a quick step back and bring my leg up to kick their head down, sending them sprawling to the ground. One swift kick to the ribs for good measure, then it would be time to run like hell.
Yeah, I had some violent tendencies and anger issues when I was a kid. I knew a lot of people who had been abused in various ways, and I think that’s where a lot of the anger came from. Actually, I know that’s where it came from because my temper triggers often revolved around feeling as though someone was messing with a person I loved, or feeling helpless to help someone in a bad situation.
Obviously, it’s really crappy that I thought like this at that age. This says more about our society than it does of me. My parents weren’t fear-mongering, I know too many people (some not from my hometown) who have been victimized. We have some incredibly strange and damaging notions on sexuality in this country, and I do think that it is creating what is being referred to as a “rape culture.”
And women are not the only people who need to worry about this. Men are victimized too. Men are also subject to the same negative effects of standardized ideals of body image, and many men are taught that to allow their sensitive side to affect who they are is tantamount to being a woman.
What in the hell is wrong with us?
Guess what: I fart, I belch, sometimes I speak in ways that are not ladylike. I have some violent tendencies, I have a mustache (yep, that’s right, it’s not big but it’s there). I’m still a woman. I know men who cry, who preen, who like to take longer in front of the mirror than would be considered normal: they are still men. There are differences between genders, physical and emotional, but they are not nearly so well-defined as we would like to pretend they are. Many of those differences have been exaggerated or created over time, and I really hate to see the idea of the manly man broken down as an advertising ploy to sell grooming products and not because it is good for the overall well-being of humanity. This isn’t going to solve anything, it’s just going to create more problems.
Those problems being that we oversexualize everything. Sex sells, and we buy it. We buy the products and we buy the notions, and all of us suffer for it. We cover the breasts on the statue representing the spirit of justice (journalists, think about the possible effect of what you do and not about how great that wiseacre photograph might be) while glorifying all sorts of lewd behavior in television shows and advertisements. We glorify an unobtainable body image for both sexes, then pump misinformation regarding nutrition out to the public which ensures that most people will not be able to maintain a healthy weight–unless, of course, you buy into the major weight loss programs offered on t.v. . . .
Houston, we have a problem.
The solution? We talk about it. So I’m talking, and I’m researching, and I’m partnering with people who have way more knowledge than myself so I can help. There is a lot of good and accurate information regarding nutrition and how the human body functions out there, and I will be bringing some of this to you every other Wednesday through Eating for Happiness. With the help of my Mother-in-law, who is very well educated when it comes to nutrition and how to create practical meal plans for your family (through both schooling and practice), I will be bringing you easily digestible information on how to live a healthier life. Twice a month the posts will deal specifically with nutrition, sometimes including recipes and practical plans for implementation. The other two Wednesdays a month I will be providing some thoughts on body image issues and how they affect society (with resources). I’m not the only one talking about either of these things, and I will always point you towards others who are because knowledge is power (yeah!).
- Ilya Fostiy. Verdict | Inside My Glitching Mind
- Escape! – I’m Afraid Of The Dark
- 3rd April Daily Prompt: Escape! | Family Photos Food & Craft
- 58/366 – The Great Escape | Camera Girl
- Daily Prompt: Escape! | The Gozum Show
- Go fly a kite… | Sweet Somethings
- The Greatest Escape | The Jittery Goat
- Singaporean sleeplessness | Mind Heart Journeys
- Daily Prompt: Escape Plan for Tornado | My Daily Prompt Blog
- Daily Prompt: Escape! « Mama Bear Musings
- Escaping the future | Prompt Queen
- Daily Prompt: Escape! 3rd April, 2013 | ittikorn1994
- The Hidden Cottage | Hope* the happy hugger
- Ready to Quit | Daily Prompt: Escape! | likereadingontrains
- Daily Prompt: Escape! | Of Glass & Paper
- Escape from the demons of my mind | My unsorted thoughts
- Daily Prompt: Escape! | Dianaruth’s Journal
- Don’t look back | Spunky Wayfarer
- Daily Prompt: Escape! | JUkk
- My worst nightmare | The Local Lens
- Embrace | Conversations
- Escape | Miss Pelican’s Perch
- Human Hearts… | Haiku By Ku
- Daily Prompt: The Pen | One Starving Activist
- Escape! | Drama Queen Under the Sun
- Daily Prompt: Escape! | Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss
- Escape! | The Nameless One
- Daily Prompt: Escape! | My Atheist Blog
- The Ultimate Escape | The Story Grey
Humpty Dumpty is Starting to Smell . . .
Today’s Daily Prompt from The Daily Post asks us to describe a prized possession from childhood and what became of it. I immediately thought of my “Humpty Dumpty” stuffed . . . well, I guess it was a pillow with arms and legs and did not resemble an egg in any way. I have no idea why I called it Humpty Dumpty.
Anyway, Humpty Dumpty went everywhere with me; and I was an adventurous little tyke (you ever see a cartoon where I kid straps their dog to a wagon and dangles a hot dog in front of her face–I did that, and it totally works. Well, until the wagon hits a bump and goes air-born, your friend bails out the back, and you fly screaming through the air while hoping the wagon doesn’t land on its side and cut off your fingers). Anyway, after so many adventures Humpty Dumpty would begin to smell a little . . . ripe, and his face would begin to tear open spilling rotten pillow guts all over the place.
That’s when my mom would wash the thing, get a new small square pillowcase, and sew him back together again–hey! maybe that’s why we called him Humpty Dumpty! I think the original Humpty had a face embroidered on him, but the new one was usually drawn on with a permanent marker (Humpty went through a lot of shells). One night, my mom was tired and couldn’t find her marker so she sent me to bed with a faceless Humpty. I think I might have come close to getting hit with a baseball bat later that evening as I woke her up by making burglar-like noises while trying to find a marker to draw on Humpty’s face.
Humpty stuck around until my teenaged years, though by middle school he had been resigned to a bag of smelly fluff and pillow shreds at the bottom of a closet. I don’t know if my parents ever threw this away (probably). I still have a few stuffed animals from my childhood (including a gigantic stuffed dog that I apparently “stole” from my mom when my dad put it in my crib as an infant–hehe, mine!).
When I look back on Humpty Dumpty now I realize the value of such items for children. He is like a little key in my mind, and when I turn it over a door opens up to all sorts of memories. Swimming, learning to ride a bike, literally believing I could fly, playing with clothing hangars (they were an alien race of people who lived on a frozen planet and got around mostly by ice skating–though they could fly too–lol, it figures that a kid from Florida would dream of an ice skating planet). It makes me smile and think that maybe the security toys I took such pleasure in as a child are actually of more value to me in adulthood because they can momentarily bring a little bit of that magic back to life.
Other Responses to The Daily Prompt:
- Ilya Fostiy. Clone | Inside My Schizophrenic Mind
- Prized Possession – I’m Afraid Of The Dark
- Daily Prompt: Prized Possession | pandora’s island 2
- You’re the Beary Best! | Misifusa’s Blog
- 57/365 – childhood attachment | Camera Girl
- Daily Prompt: Prized Possession | To Name a Few | Loading…
- Books of my grandfather, or what you need French for | Standing Ovation, Seated
- Puff, the Magic Turtle | Conversations
- Daily Prompt: Prized Possession | The Gozum Show
- Old Glove Old Desk Old Sweater Old Me | The Jittery Goat
- Step aside Blankie… | thoughtsofrkh
- Ever decreasing comforter (Daily Prompt) | Prompt Queen
- Daily Prompt: Prized Possession | My Daily Prompt Blog
- Daily Prompt: Prized Possession | Alex Hurst
- Daily Prompt: Prized Possession | The Dork Life
- The Pendleton | Kansa Muse on Micro Farming and More
- Daily Prompt: Prized Possession — Annabelle | SERENDIPITY
- Anne | Hope* the happy hugger
- My most prized, loved possessions. | Random Encounters of an Inquisitive Mind
- Waiting Upon My Every Move | Daily Prompt: Prized Possession | likereadingontrains
- Daily Prompt: Prized Possession | JUkk
- Daily Prompt: Prized Possession « Mama Bear Musings
- My Most Prized Possession | Chatter From a Single Mom
- Daily Prompt: Prized Possession 2nd April, 2013 | ittikorn1994
- You’re Too Slow! A Story About My Experience With the Sonic Games | Eyes Through The Glass – A Blog About Asperger’s
Social Media
Today’s prompt from The Daily Post asks this question:
Do you feel like you “get” social media, or do you just use it because that’s where all your friends and family are?
I get social media: and that is exactly why I only use it because that’s where all my friends and family are (I also try to use it to promote endeavors from/for this blog).
You see, I’m sick of social networking disease. I’m tired of seeing the minutia of people’s lives played out on a virtual screen. I never enjoyed it in the first place. Sometimes, it feels like the world’s most poorly scripted reality television show: a distorted image of the distorted image of someone’s view on their life according to what that person would like to think of his or her day-to-day actions and thoughts. The thing is, I don’t want to see social media disappear either.
Like anything we create, social media is a tool and becomes what we make it out to be. We could say the same of ourselves, we are what we make ourselves out to be: we become our thoughts, which become our words, which become our actions, which become our effect on the world, which becomes our world. I love blogging, because blogging is what I would like to see social media become: an outlet for ideas which, in turn, spurs more individual thought. While I enjoy zingers and one-line snippets of wisdom from great minds as much as the next person, the distillation of an entire thought process is generally only good for momentary inspiration. It allows a person to neatly file the thought away and continue on with life largely unaffected.
I want to affect you.
I want you to walk away from me (whether in real or virtual life) pondering over yourself, your notions, your life, the world, society, philosophy. I want to make you evaluate your thoughts and, by evaluating your thoughts, possibly make you fine-tune your thought process; which might cause you to reevaluate how you speak (whether through your mouth or your keyboard); which might change how you act, which could change your effect on the world and–with enough individual change–our effect on the world.
Of course, I can’t do this alone–and I’m thankful for the many, many, others who are doing the same. We blog, we hold ridiculously complex conversations in the most unlikely places with the most unlikely people, we stick to our guns, we scorch with our words when passions are ignited, we forgive others easily while holding ourselves to sky-high standards, but most importantly we look at the world for what it could be–not just what it is.
And so, when I think of social media I don’t think solely of one-liners; journalistic photo albums of my day at the zoo; increasingly manipulative bombardments of advertisement for stupid things and organizations; wolves in sheep’s clothing; and all the like. I also think of things such as I 
ing Love Science on Facebook, which is reigniting a passion for discovery and engagement with (a) field(s) of study. I think of artists who can create a soapbox from nothing. I think of the potential for global discussions of humanity and everything that means. I think of Umair Hague using the Harvard Business Review to spread ideas about common decency. I think of the day we will move beyond the need for self-promotion and on to the need for self-discovery.
I also think of sites such as Good.is (Facebook is a part of social media, not the whole darn thing). This is a website that seeks to connect awesome people who share a vested interest in changing the world for the better. It’s social networking meant specifically for the advancement of ideas/projects/the world.
So yes, I use social media; but I do it my way. I use it as a platform for discussion and learning, a meeting ground for ideas and people; I see its value as a global panopticon (wikileaks, woot!), and I really believe that the internet is the world’s first transcontinental watering hole. It is a total game-changer, and it is up to us how the rules are rewritten.
Oh yeah, happy April Fool’s day!
Awesome things/people on the internet:
Project Gutenberg (book nerdvana)
Umair Hague on HBR
Hyperhistory (history nerdvana)
I Wont Back Down
So lately I’ve noticed something: a lot of people I know (in both real and virtual life) either are, or have been, weighed down by the negative side of things. Myself included. I have only one thing to say to that:
Satan, get out.
You know that old adage, the greatest thing the devil ever did is convince the World he didn’t exist? Well, it’s very true. Satan, evil, the negative side of things (there are a lot of names for it, use your own if the word “satan” throws you off) is the master of lies. Evil doesn’t work by direct action. It is an indirect action, a voice whispering in your ear that you are not good enough, you are not capable, that you are bad. It’s your shin banging against a table in the middle of the night (sometimes literally), it’s all those little things that happen to disrupt your day, your mood, and–above all–your belief in yourself.
holes happen because they listen to this voice, and eventually it becomes the thing that guides them. I don’t think this is a conscious decision, it is more a slow attrition. This carries with it the scary implication that holes started out with a strong connection to the divine that soured. Everyone is connected, some people seem to feel it more. While this is also a mingling of conscious and subconscious choice, the ultimate CHOICE to be good must always be a conscious one; and that is the essence of the matter really. Darkness can run away with you, but free will dictates that you must choose to be good.
No, this doesn’t excuse the bad actions of others. It may not be a completely conscious choice to be bad, but most people reach points where they can see themselves a little more clearly: and in those times of clarity the choice is before them. It is a person’s responsibility in life to make the choice to be good–no matter what circumstances that person may carry with them to explain away why they don’t make the choice.
No, it doesn’t excuse their actions, but it does make it easier to love a person despite the bad things they may do. Could you imagine being carried away on this current? I’ve coasted it before: it is the loneliest, angriest, most desperate feeling, full of self-loathing and hopelessness. This rarely shows on the surface, most of the time people going through this seem very happy–most times people going through this have convinced themselves they are happy and it is everyone else that has something wrong with them.
I believe people caught in this current have run away with our world, and I also believe that it is our time to take it back.
So, if you find yourself feeling awful about yourself for no reason. If you keep getting sick, kicked in the shins, spat at, slapped in the face; if it seems like everything you try to do is just taking you six steps back for the the three you got ahead; if depression darkens your doorway; if the voice in your head tells you to just give up because it’s hopeless DON’T BACK DOWN.
You are doing what is right in this world. No matter how small your actions seem, you are helping people. Maybe it’s just one person, maybe it’s a hundred–it doesn’t matter. Something you are doing is slowly turning that tide, and satan can ‘t stand losing even a little ground. It is time for us to stand our ground, and here’s a little tool to help you do just that–something my mother taught me.
Stand up, puff out your chest, put out your right hand with palm facing out, and muster as much energy as you can to put behind these words, spoken in a clear and commanding voice: SATAN, GET OUT. YOU ARE NOT WELCOME IN MY LIFE OR IN MY HOME. I DO NOT BELIEVE YOUR LIES. GET OUT, IN THE NAME OF GOD I COMMAND YOU.
This is essential. Making the choice to be good is conscious, and so is the choice not to listen to satan’s lies. God (and again, God and the divine is so much bigger than words, so use whichever ones feel comfortable to you) grants free will to people, and so He can only hold evil at bay temporarily. It is up to you, to each of us, to tell it to leave; to use our power to banish evil from our world. Anytime you feel like you are being bothered by something, anytime you have deeply negative thoughts that seemingly come from nowhere–stand up and command darkness out of your life. It might try to sneak back in at a later time, so just stand up and do it again.
You have so much potential, don’t let anything or anyone tell you otherwise: you are a beautiful reflection of the divine.
Listen to the words of Tom Petty: stand your ground, don’t back down.
