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End of another sluggish work week. We took one of our co-workers to lunch, the guy who took me to the hospital and stayed with me when I got mugged by the sidewalk a few years ago. Lovely Portugese restaurant, with table-cloths and everything. A rarity in Jamaica (NY). Had sirloin steak on a rock (hot rock), with dipping sauces, and french fries. Very good. But my teeth aren't what they once were, they hurt afterwards. Did a light dinner tonight - spinach salad with hard boiled eggs and cucumber soup, with Jaques Torres chocolates for dessert.
It hits me...again, that the internet in so many ways is crack for writers. ( Read more... )
Listened to a song this week by Guy Forsyth entitled Long Long Time from the Album Love Songs for & Against, the following lyric jumped out and smacked me across the face the way good lyrics often do.
Self-medicated, pacifated, trying our best to stay distracted, living life according to the TV set.
Corporations owning nations, telling us "don't change the station, it's the only safe way to win the human race."
I wonder how the world sees us. Rich beyond compare, powerful without equal, a spoiled, drunk, 15-year-old waving a gun in their face.
It worries me at times - that the world's perception of the US is based so much on the onslaught of violent commercial media, news and otherwise, that we shove in their face. But my correspondence tells me otherwise. It's easy to make generalizations I think. Too easy. But that lyric still haunts.
Other lines that strike a chord...
Last night, in our nightly phone chat, Momster talked about her book club - which she is struggling with. Last year they insisted on doing Atlas Shrugged. This year, one of the ladies has decided to read all the Stephanie Meyer Twilight novels because she has heard how incredibly well written they are and what a great moral message they provide. I asked if she was the same one who wanted to read Atlas Shrugged and enjoyed it? Yep. But that's beside the point and so not what I wanted to discuss.
Another woman in the club questioned the point of discussing fictionalized works, they are just fiction, what's the point, the characters aren't real, why does it even matter? And Momster stated that while she does see the difference, fictional characters if written well - do become real in a way, they exist if only in our minds and imaginations. Their motivations, their development is vital. And their journeys are as interesting as real one's. You still have to see if the story was constructed well, if the writer had a theme in mind, if the character evolved. And I find myself wondering or thinking once again of that Star Trek the Next Generation Episode where Jean-Luc Picard wonders aloud are we, his crew and himself, merely characters of someone else's imagination inside a box - entertainment, as their virtual reality is entertainment for them, and if so, what's to say the characters in the virtual reality cannot become real? It reminds me of another quote that stood out for me this week, this one by Walter Mosley, author of Devil in a Red Dress...and other mysteries,
stating that the only way we know the world is not flat is by what we see from videos and tv screens.
But if you go out to a parking lot and put a level on the ground - it will prove otherwise. Tangiable vs. intangible. Circumstantial evidence. But if you question it - see past it, realize that your senses are limited and experience even more so...you accept, yes, the world most likely is a sphere moving rapidly around a sun in space. To see beyond what appears to be true...to imagine.
And finally this quote which haunts on so many levels fictional, non-fictional, and personal - so obvious, yet often ignored.
I'm sorry, but I can't take it back. It happened. Let's all agree to stop whining about it.
This quote in the work in which I discovered it has a triple meaning - it refers to the character, someone who has done horrifically bad things and is trying to be better, to the writer's own struggles online with his fans and not!fans and no doubt his regrets regarding it, and to the struggle to let go of a nasty disappointment.
It's not about forgiveness. It's about learning from the past. And moving on. I remember years ago,
a wise man told me once, that everyone makes mistakes. We all screw up. Royally sometimes. It is inevitable. The trick is to learn from the mistake and not do it again. Try really hard not to repeat it. We can't really control whether others forgive us for it or not. That is out of our hands. But we can try to learn from it, forgive ourselves, and not do it again. Although I think we are or at least I am doomed to, until I do finally learn not to. Going on and on and on about it, ripping the wound open repeatedly, helps no one. Ranting and raving...just makes you ill. You give the person or persons that hurt you power. And if it is something you've done - you make that mistake define you and become doomed to repeat it. Learn and then let it go. I'm not very good at this, I don't think. My Granny once accused me of having a memory like an Elephant. So it's something I keep working on.
It hits me...again, that the internet in so many ways is crack for writers. ( Read more... )
Listened to a song this week by Guy Forsyth entitled Long Long Time from the Album Love Songs for & Against, the following lyric jumped out and smacked me across the face the way good lyrics often do.
Self-medicated, pacifated, trying our best to stay distracted, living life according to the TV set.
Corporations owning nations, telling us "don't change the station, it's the only safe way to win the human race."
I wonder how the world sees us. Rich beyond compare, powerful without equal, a spoiled, drunk, 15-year-old waving a gun in their face.
It worries me at times - that the world's perception of the US is based so much on the onslaught of violent commercial media, news and otherwise, that we shove in their face. But my correspondence tells me otherwise. It's easy to make generalizations I think. Too easy. But that lyric still haunts.
Other lines that strike a chord...
Last night, in our nightly phone chat, Momster talked about her book club - which she is struggling with. Last year they insisted on doing Atlas Shrugged. This year, one of the ladies has decided to read all the Stephanie Meyer Twilight novels because she has heard how incredibly well written they are and what a great moral message they provide. I asked if she was the same one who wanted to read Atlas Shrugged and enjoyed it? Yep. But that's beside the point and so not what I wanted to discuss.
Another woman in the club questioned the point of discussing fictionalized works, they are just fiction, what's the point, the characters aren't real, why does it even matter? And Momster stated that while she does see the difference, fictional characters if written well - do become real in a way, they exist if only in our minds and imaginations. Their motivations, their development is vital. And their journeys are as interesting as real one's. You still have to see if the story was constructed well, if the writer had a theme in mind, if the character evolved. And I find myself wondering or thinking once again of that Star Trek the Next Generation Episode where Jean-Luc Picard wonders aloud are we, his crew and himself, merely characters of someone else's imagination inside a box - entertainment, as their virtual reality is entertainment for them, and if so, what's to say the characters in the virtual reality cannot become real? It reminds me of another quote that stood out for me this week, this one by Walter Mosley, author of Devil in a Red Dress...and other mysteries,
stating that the only way we know the world is not flat is by what we see from videos and tv screens.
But if you go out to a parking lot and put a level on the ground - it will prove otherwise. Tangiable vs. intangible. Circumstantial evidence. But if you question it - see past it, realize that your senses are limited and experience even more so...you accept, yes, the world most likely is a sphere moving rapidly around a sun in space. To see beyond what appears to be true...to imagine.
And finally this quote which haunts on so many levels fictional, non-fictional, and personal - so obvious, yet often ignored.
I'm sorry, but I can't take it back. It happened. Let's all agree to stop whining about it.
This quote in the work in which I discovered it has a triple meaning - it refers to the character, someone who has done horrifically bad things and is trying to be better, to the writer's own struggles online with his fans and not!fans and no doubt his regrets regarding it, and to the struggle to let go of a nasty disappointment.
It's not about forgiveness. It's about learning from the past. And moving on. I remember years ago,
a wise man told me once, that everyone makes mistakes. We all screw up. Royally sometimes. It is inevitable. The trick is to learn from the mistake and not do it again. Try really hard not to repeat it. We can't really control whether others forgive us for it or not. That is out of our hands. But we can try to learn from it, forgive ourselves, and not do it again. Although I think we are or at least I am doomed to, until I do finally learn not to. Going on and on and on about it, ripping the wound open repeatedly, helps no one. Ranting and raving...just makes you ill. You give the person or persons that hurt you power. And if it is something you've done - you make that mistake define you and become doomed to repeat it. Learn and then let it go. I'm not very good at this, I don't think. My Granny once accused me of having a memory like an Elephant. So it's something I keep working on.
