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 |   Second blog -- answers to an ocean of prompts |
 "Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself." CHARLIE CHAPLIN  Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you. David Whyte        This is my supplementary blog in which I will post entries written for prompts. |
| Prompt: "O, money can't buy the delights of the Glen, nor poetry sing all its charms: There's a solace and calm never described by the pen when were folded within nature's arms!" James Rigg Be inspired and write about your reflections from this quote. ----- I think this quote is a derivative of an Emerson poem titled, Nutting Time, which goes like "0, money can't buy the delights of the glen,/ Nor Poetry sing all its charms/ There's a solace and calm ne'er described by the pen / When we're folded within nature's arms!" as it praises the beauty and healing power of nature. The loveliness of nature can have a profound impression upon the senses, letting the outer world affect the inner with feelings like awe and amazement as well as imparting a soothing effect on the psyche. This usually happens not only because of the beauty of nature itself but also because of our perception of it. In close observation, everything in nature has beauty but our perception picks and chooses with what it wants to influence on our senses. It never occurs to us to question why we experience nature in any one way. I think it is because, as living organisms ourselves, we find solace in seeing the growth and development in other living things, and that they have colors, fragrances, and beauty is the icing on the cake.  Do you think people are aware of their own emotional needs and habits all the time? What about artists and writers? Are they more aware than other people? ===== Most of our needs are emotional. Even food and shelter. Just think about it. Why do we need nice houses and an excess amount of food? I don’t think we are always consciously aware of our own emotional needs. Otherwise, our lifestyles would be totally different. The way we treat one another would be very different, as well. Artists and writers are people, too. While they may not be much aware of their own emotional needs and habits, since they are watchers and observers of humans and nature, they are more aware of other people’s emotional needs. Writers, more so than other artists, however, may be more aware of themselves as their own characteristics and emotions usually show up in their work, whether they have planned on writing about those or not. This is because writers measure, remember, and examine their feelings and emotions, albeit subconsciously, while they create characters and build imaginary worlds. This must be why the writing teachers say, “emotion in the writer, emotion in the character.” For this reason, writers are aware that fictional characters, also, have interior lives, and even though they can’t be expected to compete with complex human beings, most readers react favorably if fictional characters resemble the people in real life. |
| Prompt: John Green who is the author of The Fault in Our Stars and Looking for Alaska says, “In my opinion, actual heroism, like actual love, is a messy, painful, vulnerable business—and I wanted to try to reflect that.” What is heroism to you and how would you show it through your writing? ---- When human nature rises above itself, in courageous acts that sometimes necessitate sacrifice, that it heroism. Heroism is a matter of choice and not being forced into action due to circumstances, no matter how heroic that action seems. Most of what I consider heroism are everyday undramatic acts by caring people. Heroism defies fear and accepts the honor of the action without wanting or needing to rise above humanity. Heroes usually do something other people do not dare do because of the dangers or fears. Heroes do not do things just for themselves. Heroes aren’t afraid to be called fools. Heroes are those who work for peace and the love of humanity without needing to make a name for themselves. To show true heroism in writing, I think it would be best to take regular everyday characters and give them a love of something, and surely, that love will inspire them to take dynamic, meaningful, and heroic actions. |
| Prompt: Let's see where your creative genius takes you with this quote by Leonardo Da Vinci. Begin whatever you write with "I love those who can smile in trouble… " Have fun on this creation Saturday. ==== Smile! “I love those who can smile in trouble. Because you and I are both out of work. And you can still spew jokes,” Rob hissed with sarcasm. He was so upset, his eyes were watering, or maybe, he was shedding a tear or two. “I am no Mona Lisa, and being without funds,” Jenna rubbed her fingers as if counting money, “is no joke, speaking hypothetically.” He rubbed fiercely at his eyes. “Don’t tell anyone I cried.” “Who said anyone cried? Did someone cry? Don’t we always smile around here?” “There you go again! Turning everything into a joke. Life is not a joke, Jen!” “We’ll get other jobs,” Jenna said decisively, her eyes now twinkling as she arose and reached for her purse. “In fact, that’s what I am now going to do. In the meantime…” “In the meantime, I sit here and brood, right!” Rob cut her, his voice transmitting annoyance. “Correction: you don’t. You’ll take these…” She reached into her purse and took out a couple of papers. One looked like a receipt and the other was a lotto ticket. “And see what you can do with them. I think we hit the jackpot.” Rob stood up and grabbed the ticket. “Really!” He was now shifting his weight from foot to foot. Then, he rushed at Jenna and lifted her in the air, dancing and laughing with joy. “Yes, really,” Jenna said. “But we still have to find work. We can’t idle our life away just because we have the means.” Rob finally quieted a bit and put Jenna down. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Smoothing her hair and skirt, Jenna said, “I wanted to but you enjoyed grieving our situation a little too much.” “Always the jokester, aren’t you!” But he wasn’t mad; he was grinning. Jenna smiled at him. “Smiling puts you on the right track, always!” she said. |
| Prompt: "Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life."~ Mark Twain Yes indeed, Mr. Twain is correct. So, let's talk about something you've done recently with a good friend or a good book you've read. ===== My husband is a good friend with everything, but mostly for thinking of me or laughing at my silly jokes and statements. I have many other good friends who know a side of me but not all sides of me. I guess I am unknowable for just about everybody.  As for good books, most books are good if written with the best of intentions. I don’t like books that are written to put down someone because the author is biased unnecessarily or out of proportion. If I happen to download such a book, I delete it immediately, as soon as I’ve caught on what the author was about. Then, when reviewing books, I am careful not to give too few stars because my reviews also go to Good Reads and Amazon. An author’s psyche is fragile, and he or she can always improve. Regardless of stars, however, I don’t hold back what I think. As I must have indicated before, I am not too crazy about using the stars-system when reviewing anything. As for my taste, some books are more than good. I look for strong characterization, powerful themes, a good plot, and quality in using the writing craft. Those more-than-good books range from above-good to out-of-this-world-in-excellence. Recently, I discovered a young Swedish author, Fredrick Backman, who impressed me greatly. I promised myself to read everything he has written and to follow him. There are a few other authors from the US or anywhere in the world that I make sure I read when or if I can get my hands on their books. |
| Prompt: "I longed to be transported into that quiet little landscape, to walk up the path, to take a key from my pocket and open the cottage door"..... What happens next? ----- I longed to be transported into that quiet little landscape, to walk up the path, to take a key from my pocket and open the cottage door. I held that picture-postcard, drawn neatly and painted carefully by loving hands, but then thrown in the back of a drawer. Such a well-kept place this might have been. No mess, no dead rodents, no broken dishes or bottles. I wondered what it was this tiny cottage. Who had lived in it? It had to be a nice couple, I surmised. Did it contain displaced feelings and broken hearts or lost loves or chubby babies growing up to run about the hills and dales that seemed to lurk behind the cottage? Maybe it was the home of a young couple who came up with an idea they could sell on Shark Tank, which as a deal, first went well, too well, almost suspiciously and then turned bad very quickly, even dangerous, even fatal. No, nothing fatal. Even my imagination, as dark as it can get, cannot handle anything fatal. Maybe the couple never gave up this cottage even after moving into the big city to a fancy penthouse with a doorman in uniform at the entrance to the building. They didn’t, couldn’t, give the cottage up because they were happy here. Not so, when they had to be on top of things with that stupid idea that a Shark on the Shark Tank carried to extremes. Maybe the couple is now inside the cottage, which is all that’s left of their fortune, and they are drinking one coffee after another and becoming re-acquainted with the tiny bathroom and dwarf-sized rooms. Maybe they are sharing loving looks and smiles of relief not because their little cottage can win the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval but because, after looking at some serious money, they came back to what was really important, to the cozy place that was the reflection of their true love. I gently placed the picture-postcard back in the drawer. And yes, I longed to be transported into that quiet little landscape, to walk up the path, to take a key from my pocket and open the cottage door. Maybe I, too, would find what I had lost. |
| Prompt: "I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers." Anne Of Green Gables With this in mind, write you love about October --------- I used to love the Octobers in Long Island, NY, in dinosaur time. Whenever I was alone in the house, I used to take a book and lie in my hammock under the oak trees. Our backyard was very large, filled with trees, and isolated. Even the distant houses weren’t visible. I loved the quiet that was only broken by the sound of fallen leaves of all colors, then turning to rust on the ground. This utopia lasted until I hit my mid-forties when I suddenly developed all kinds of allergies and asthma, the worst of it being against ragweed, all weeds, all tree pollens, and anything you can think of that can be airborne. Then, the entire fall season became my enemy. Soon, to give my allergies a break, we moved to FL. Well, the allergies are still there, but with much-diminished strength. I think the shots I got for about eight years helped, too. Anyway, I am still wary of Octobers because they are at the thicker tail-end of hurricanes. So, to Anne of Green Gables, not everything that seems lovable to you may be as lovable to other people, especially to those who have experienced a love-hate relationship with your Octobers.   -- Note: The best thing about Octobers that I have experienced in the recent years is Brandiwyn🎶  s NaNo Prep. "October Novel Prep Challenge"  . If anyone would like to help finance it, the group number is 1474310. |
| Prompt: Which feels more important, how much one is loved or how much one is able to love? ======= Emotionally and spiritually, I am more inclined to go with how much one is able to love, but then, the degree that one is loved in childhood does affect that person’s lifelong relationships with other people and his or her ability to show and give love. This makes me believe that one has to be loved first in order to be able to love...unless one is a Godsend saint or any other higher being. Then, even if one hasn’t been the recipient of love in the earliest years, he or she may be able to revise and adjust his or her behavior differently. A betrayed infant can become a loving person because love can be learned, too. I think both being loved and having the ability to love cause and support each other. Still, just because I can be starry-eyed, how much one is able to love feels more important to me. Prompt: "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." Alvin Toffler Your thoughts, please.  Yes, as of now, we have many illiterates with college degrees earned 40-50 years ago, and because they couldn’t keep up with the electronic revolution, they either badmouth it or, if they are lucky, their grandchildren save them. I am in that age group, too, but I try a lot to keep up with stuff and at least become a good-enough user, as I am not that lucky to have grandchildren to save me. I think there is a formula for this: Literacy = learning - unlearning +relearning This whole thing has to do with mental conditioning. If we think we cannot unlearn, we cannot relearn when things change. Consequently, we are subjected to become trapped in the ways of the past that limit today’s opportunities for us. Especially when everyone is doing things in the new ways, if we get stuck with the old ways, we’ll never progress or get things done. Unlearning and relearning constitute a process that takes flight when we question everything we know and work to make things better, faster, and more practical. Then, if such a change has already happened, we’d better learn how to work with it. If we don’t keep up with the changes, we’ll fall too far behind, and it will be as if we’re using messenger pigeons instead of e-mails and other electronic messaging. |
| WDC's birthday is approaching, are you planning any special events, participating in or hosting any contests. Would you recommend any to other writers? ---------- For living in FL and September being a hurricane month, I am first worrying about my everyday responsibilities. I might be unable to do anything due to lack of electricity and internet access...or worse. As to the WdC b’day, I was thinking of a tiny contest, but then it was planned for the sr. mods to run a joint one, so I decided to forgo my original idea as I will be participating in that group thing. I hope I can be around during that week to enter contests and help with whatever I can. Then, of course, we have the GoT, which as any one of us knows, is a biggie. Enuf said! At this time, I am crossing my fingers for September to be a quiet month weather-wise and an action-filled one WdC-wise. -------- RANT: I have Norton in my computer. McAfee, on the other hand, has attached itself to one or two other programs or downloads and has been keeping up with bugging me several times a day. I tried to uninstall whatever *!^&$ programs it stuck inside, but the uninstall thing couldn’t do it because it couldn’t locate it, I guess due to its sneaky hiding places. No way could I ask what to do on Norton or McAfee sites, so I Googled my complaint. It seems many people are in the same boat with me and they don’t know what to do. One person said he managed to uninstall it, but after that, his computer didn’t work right and he had to take it to a computer shop. So, it was probably lucky I couldn’t uninstall the darn thing. Why is it that we can fight trojans and viruses and what-have-you, and we can’t fight McAfee? If I knew where to complain, I would in a blink. In the meantime, when I am writing anything or engrossed inside an article or reviewing something, McAfee is keeping up its bugging and distracting me with its popups and offers. This has been going on for more than a month. I wish there was some authority, like an internet better business bureau, where we could take our complaints. And mark my words, as long as I live, I’ll never buy or use McAfee, even if it were free. They got on my last nerve. |
| "People say I got a drinkin' problem, But I got no problem drinkin' at all, They keep on talkin', Drawing conclusions, They call it a problem, I call it a solution." ~ Midland Your thoughts on this lyric. How do you help someone with a problem? Can they be helped or do they have to hit rock bottom? ---------- I can see how, in the song, a drinking problem is called a solution. It is because a person feels himself to be in such dire straits that he or she sees no other solution. So, to dull the pain and the annoyance of it, he resorts to drinking a few times too many until his or her body is hooked chemically. Yet, we all know a problem drinker’s solution is no solution even if it feels like that to her or him at the moment. If anything, it is like being at the bottom of an abyss. I think these people can be helped before they hit rock bottom through psychiatric therapy plus intervention that targets the physical addiction. This is because of that ‘rock bottom’ place. It is true that some stronger ones can kick themselves out of that place once they hit it, but then, there are those who can’t because they are weaker and they don’t possess a powerful enough kick to rise to the surface. Those either die of a physical disease or continue on for a long time. I know this to be true because I had a cousin I liked very much who had this problem. He had a wife and two sons in their teens. The thing with him was that he could work at his job very well and responsibly, and he could even go without drinking a month or two; thus, he fooled himself that he didn’t have a drinking problem, although when he was drunk, he always turned into a monster, which he always blacked out afterward. His wife begged his doctor to scare him, as she believed he needed scaring, but the doctor said all his medical tests were perfect and he had nothing to present to him for scaring him, and the doctor had already talked to him and advised him on his wife's insistence. A psychologist she consulted told her to wait until he hit rock bottom. Well, he didn’t make it. At the age of 39, during a drunken fit, his heart suddenly gave out. He was dead before the ambulance made it to the house. Coming back to the lyrics, I don’t know the song in the quote at all and I am not putting down that group, but if that song in its totality is showing drinking as a desirable thing, that group has something on their conscience, and this goes not only for song lyrics but for all arts and all people who promote and publicize drinking in excess as a desirable thing. |
| Prompt: Hope. I had hope. It wasn't much hope but it was a little. Then it turned out to have a thousand pieces, Scattering it in all directions. Hope for the best, expect the worst. When is the last time you felt all hope was lost but things got better? --------- Somehow, I believe I never lost hope. If I had, I probably wouldn’t be alive. Even in my darkest hours when I was grieving for someone or something, I always saw hope in other things. This may be because, at some point in my life--I don’t know when but possibly when I was very little, I must have been taught or I must have found out on my own to view life in its totality. This type of looking at life might work because even a tiny bit of hope can go a long way. Since hope has a tint of optimism in it, it influences how we feel in the present while creating a positive outlook for the future. It also has a way of blocking the current situation no matter how bleak it may be. Hope is not considered, by some psychologists, an emotion, however. These psychologists claim that this is because emotions are reflexive and they cause physical or behavioral changes. Others, on the other hand, believe hope to be an emotional state. I think of hope as an understanding of life that determines our way of seeing events and situations in life. Hope is eternal, but only in its general form, as there are situations in life we need to let go because we understand no good will come out of them if we insist. Being hopeful in such a situation means carrying a false hope and setting ourselves up to feel ruined at the end when that situation goes down the drain. In such a specific case, giving up hope can be our saving grace. As for the “hope for the best, expect the worst” saying, I can understand why it is said, but I don’t agree with its wording. Why should we expect the worst in anything? If it means, ‘should things go badly, don’t be too upset,’ it is okay, but still, why would I even start something or go along with something that I am expecting the worst from? Shouldn’t I at least have a limited expectation for it? Anyhow, there is little difference between hope and expectation. In fact, in some languages, they are one and the same. For example, from esperer, it is spero, spēs, speī in Latin, and from esperar, esperanza in Spanish. In short, as Martin Luther King said, “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” |
| Prompt: "The act of naming the world, in ways uniquely your own, is one way to spark the creative energy that lives inside in each human being." Write anything you want about this. -------- The world breathes and moves, but is it conscious of its own existence and its temporariness? Since I don’t want to name it Wally the World, I’ll write a list of partial descriptions or maybe even surnames in chains. After all, aren’t we all in chains? I mean chains of oxygen, water, land, food, shelter, bodies, feelings, etc. Third Son of the Sun Handsome but Messy Sun-dependent Rock Roadside Stop for Adam’s Tribe What Noah’s Ark can’t save in the future Stuck between Venus and Mars Rolling and Circling Macrocosm Fire, Water, and Rock - a musical trio Where Oceans will Boil Away A Place to be annihilated when Andromeda and Milky Way will collide Where UFOs Stole the Dinosaurs Provisional Area for Life An Entity of Temporary Future Place where people get along but nations don’t Lab for Genetic Mixtures Place Where Nothing Lasts Road Where Hope and Misery Collide Seat for Soulful Nature Existence Caught Unawares Unbeknownst to me, I must have an American-Indian blood, as the names I came up with sound like Indian names. |
| Prompt: Tell us about the most amazing place in nature that you’ve been to. What made it so amazing for you? ===== Although I am the one who came up with this prompt, I am having a very difficult time pinpointing a place. To begin with, I love the ocean and the beach the most, then the snow-topped mountains and the waterfalls. Yet, what keeps coming up in my memory is the New England forests in autumn, mainly those in New Hampshire because that is where we went once and their vivid impressions always stayed with me. It was before I developed all my allergies, the worst of them attacking me with ragweed spores. I am guessing this was about forty-five to fifty years ago when we went on a road trip from Long Island to Massachusetts in early October. We stopped in Concord for three nights and visited a forest (Cilley State Forest?) which had a few trails. If I remember correctly, the forest was named after a general in the Revolution. We went on two of those trails for very short walks but the beauty of the place will stay with me forever. I think it was the colors and the topographical variety by which I mean hills and valleys and boulders and flat areas. The colors were just turning on the tall trees with bright reds against yellows, oranges, and hints of green. There was something divine and peaceful about the place with the colors lighting up the dense shadowy parts of the forest. I am not sure if the two brooks that impressed me were here or in some other forest or park we visited on our way north, but one of the brooks flowed over a terrain of several levels made up of boulders. The other had lots of smaller rocks and pebbles but its bed was flat. Both these tiny bodies of flowing water were framed by colorful trees and brush. Those sights, too, have stayed in my memory. |
| Prompt: "A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices," says William James. Agree or disagree, but if you agree, what do you think are the underlying orientations inside people to make them act this way? ----- I agree, but more important than agreeing and disagreeing is the reason why William James said this. As the father of modern psychology, I believe he is urging us to think about our own thinking because the awareness of it will mean a change in our thought systems to benefit us. As to the quote, our thoughts are shaped by patterns pushed on us by family, religion, culture, plus the extras we pick on our own on the way of living. We build our thinking system on these patterns, which they may become stronger and problematic over the years, although this may be hidden from our own consciousness. It is also easier to think along the lines of an already established template. Since this is a painless mode of action, it feels more practical to fall back on earlier patterns of thinking when faced with a problem. This may work, at times, for being the only roadmap, but what if we are not seeing the real problem in its entirety or misidentifying it due to the lacking parts of the earlier patterns instilled in us? Then, there is that thing called prejudices. A prejudice may not be of the famous kind such as the racial prejudice; in fact, it might apply to any area, person, or thing. Whatever the prejudice may be about, isn’t it a fact that we fall back on it either by sugar-coating it or changing its form to an unrecognizable thing? Isn’t this a pattern in itself? Even those of us who pride themselves as problem solvers fall into these patterns. When we are aware of our own thinking patterns, then, we may have the ability to discard the degenerative ones and attain a fairly effective system of thinking, which is called analytical thinking. This is why a quest for true analytical thinking can benefit our lives and elevate us as human beings. |
| Prompt: The new moon of August comes on Saturday the 11th this year, perfectly timed to bring dark, moonless nights around the peak of the Perseid meteor shower. Indeed, 2018 is an excellent year to watch for these meteors; such moonless-sky conditions are ideal for observing the Perseids. Write a story or poem using the meteor showers somehow. Have fun on this creative Saturday! ====== Watching the Meteor Showers I’ll leave this estate for another soon migrating like a monarch butterfly to slide on slopes of some unknown place to mull over the dark beauty of a hybrid past not grasping whether it is fact or false memory when in rearview mirrors all will seem minute like forgotten old melodies of the reprisal kind decrescendo, diminuendo but tonight, I won’t lose my words in spooling themes and I’ll let me celebrate your kisses and twinkling eyes then eagerly gaze overhead for new sensations away from earthly lights, as if in dreams, at bright shooting stars showering in sheets rigging the sky in one sprinkled symmetry of rocks |
| Prompt: Have fun with these words: steak, pull, true, minor, quotation, confrontation, sin and constant. ============ Ropa Vieja Mine is a minor sin, rather a prickling rhythm pulled out of a pincushion when it comes to writing in my blog, for in the heat of taking concepts apart, I introduce a constant confrontation to every quotation diagonally reinterpreting with all the clamor and bravura its highfalutin’ meaning as if sabotaging a feast like steak with red hot peppers --what the chefs from Cuba call Ropa Vieja, in other words, old clothes, with tangles and snags-- and while I wiggle my sentences, I feed my unblemished record of causing a true disruption. |
| Prompt: "Promise me you'll always remember you're braver than you believe and stronger then you seem and smarter than you think." Winnie The Pooh A. A, Milne Write anything you want about this quote or about Winnie The Pooh ------ Heavyweight advice that warns against the fear of trying for fear of losing. In other words, we stop ourselves from reaching higher, forgetting that we are born to be resourceful, and instead, we become to be shadows of our own selves because we are afraid of using our full potential. Yet, it is difficult to always practice our strengths, both with the spirit or the mind, because it is only human to forget that we possess resourcefulness and intelligence to overcome the stumbling blocks in our way. This advice, since it comes from Winnie the Pooh who is a fictional cartoon character, seems lighter than it really is, but the advice works as Winnie is a nice character, intelligent, honest, and ethical. The author A. A. Milne named Winnie-the-Pooh after his son‘s teddy bear. Winnie-the-Pooh lives in the Hundred Acre Wood with his friends; he is fun-loving but always helpful to others. He is obsessed with honey and will do whatever it takes to get it. He may be overconfident or impulsive and obsessive, at times. Of the characters in this set of stories, my kids used to love Tigger, I guess because he is hyper like them. I, on the other hand, used to vacillate between Eeyore the pessimist and Rabbit the OCD, which may be an indication of my life during my child-raising era. |
| Prompt: "Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it turned into a butterfly." What are your views on this? Write anything you want about this. -------------- Life is a catch-22 affair, in which we feel discontent in our present situation in some way and grope for bigger and better; not that there’s anything wrong with aiming high, but what of the end? What happens when we reach the end? As such, when the caterpillar is a caterpillar, it keeps on eating to shed its skin a few times in a row. Then, it may become tired of the repetition, and in tedium and melancholy, it may just dangle from a branch to build a cocoon around itself. When it is done being in the cocoon, it frantically pushes itself out of it. Then, suddenly finds itself a beautiful butterfly. A being the caterpillar never imagined it could be. Now it has a beautiful, happy existence under the sun, but it still lacks knowledge. The knowledge of nature, which says a butterfly’s life is the end of things. What I gather from this evolution is: • Don’t rush through your stages. • Each stage is a blessed event; just enjoy where you are, what you are • Don’t take to the air too soon. At least, not before developing strong wings to carry you. • Don’t give up on your situation, ever. There’s always the next step…that is until you become a butterfly. • When you make it to the butterfly stage, be happy with where you are because where you are won’t last too long. And this is the catch-22 of it all. |
| Prompt: Mary Oliver says, “You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I'll take grace. I don't know what it is exactly, but I'll take it. ” What is grace to you? ------- Grace is a friend of mine, in human form. Grace as a noun is refinement, elegance, and doing a favor to people by being in their presence. The last meaning has evolved through the millenniums and entered into theology. There is grace or divine grace in Christianity and its relative words in other religions and cultures. Grace is the most important concept in all religions that I know of. It is the love and mercy the Supreme Being shows even to those who are not so lovable. Grace is a favor that is not earned or merited. Grace rescues us earthlings from our misunderstandings and brokenness. Grace is the divine help and strength given to us. We cannot hand out grace like the Supreme Being does, but we can forgive and show mercy, and hopefully, come to love those who wrong us, and then live a righteous life. That can be our minute humanly grace. I believe when we forgive and love, we just may encourage the Supreme Being’s grace upon us, although our every breath is the result of that grace, anyway. Then, no matter how I try to describe grace, I may not be able to do it fully, and since the point of origin of grace emerges from such a high place, I wholeheartedly agree with Mary Oliver’s words, “I don't know what it is exactly, but I'll take it. ” |
| Prompt: “Your ambition should be to get as much life out of living as you possibly can, as much enjoyment, as much interest, as much experience, as much understanding. Not simply be what is generally called a 'success.'" ~ Eleanor Roosevelt Is this good advice and do you think it is doable? ==== This is really a high and mighty goal to reach, although I believe we all do the best we can to live a life which is at least provides some contentment, somewhere, somehow. Is it doable? I believe it can be done by some who live in a good place and grow up in a good family and with some luck. This quote wouldn’t work for a person who is fearing for his life in a war zone or those imprisoned in Auschwitz or people who may be in countless dire straits. The problem with such an advice is that it puts too much pressure on a person’s psyche. It feels as if you have to do all that or else, you have failed somehow. From that point of view, as much as the advice sounds good and it strokes the egos, it is not the best advice ever. Eleanor Roosevelt was an uplifter of people, especially women, and her preaching this must have been centered in that context. Also, I believe she is referring to ‘success’ as in fame or financial security. While there is nothing wrong with those things, the word success can also be applied to gaining experience and understanding and enjoyment of life. As writers, here in WdC, almost everyone I read seems to have a natural curiosity and interest in just about everything, and they seem to be gaining understanding and experience in most areas. Are they doing those things fully; who knows? After all, who can measure such successes? |
| Prompt: “Another secret of the universe: Sometimes pain was like a storm that came out of nowhere. The clearest summer could end in a downpour. Could end in lightning and thunder.” ― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe Your thoughts? ==== Pain comes from the brain, which is significantly interconnected with the rest of the body. In the physical sense, it is supposed to be the brain’s message concerning the injured tissue, but those who work on pain management know that physical pain is not always a reliable sign. If it were, how would people feel pain from their amputated limbs? Physical pain is an unpredictable, complex sensation exaggerated by the brain due to its overprotectiveness. In itself, physical pain is not totally reliable. When pain is emotional, it is just as intense and real as physical pain and, at times, even a lot stronger. Emotional pain is more intense because it has the possibility of hurting the overall action and outlook of a person. If it weren’t so, some people who experienced social rejection or bullying would not commit suicide. Pain, regardless of its intensity, is also an indicator that something is wrong. If it comes suddenly like a storm as the quote says, it needs to be addressed. This goes for physical or emotional pain. Emotional traumas that may have happened in the past and went unheeded may suddenly surge, for example, making the person function erratically. They may even affect or change an individual’s personality in the long run. That is why we need to take our feelings and reactions seriously, and if need be, we should find ways to talk to someone who is understanding or a professional, with possibly some serious spiritual guidance, in addition. |
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