Famished Writer

Image taken by By Martyn Seddon [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons. “…memory cannot retrace its path that far unless Another guide it.” Paradiso, Dante (Canto 18 L. 11-12) Looking back and reflecting on the crystal clarity of reflection (which is also commonly called 'logic'), I have surmised from experience that looking back doesn't do anything positive for forward momentum. I mean, certainly Kierkegaard was right about many things, namely his point about only being able to understand life backwards, and subsequently only being able to live in a forward direction. Most basically, if you were to imagine a timeline with arrows representing directional time, Kierkegaard’s well-known psychological observation would look something like this (the blurriness of the line itself is appropriate): LIFELINE                                   Understanding         ...

It is a lingua franca, or a universal game, dating back to the Han dynasty of China (206 BC-220 AD), simply called shoushilling (trans. ‘hand command’) and nearly two thousand years later we still play this simple game, called by various names all over the globe.  English speakers call it Roshambo (technically Rochambeau) or “rock-paper-scissors”, “ick-ack-ock”, or even “ching-chang-walla” and is most often played between 2 people in a decision-making challenge, much like drawing straws or plucking daisy petals, but requires no props real props.  While it was introduced to Europeans as late as the 1920’s for its portability and simple instructions, quickly gained popularity for its considered “uncheatable” fairness. In the 1930’s Rochambeau was promoted widely in America, more specifically aimed towards school-age children that could take this game with them where-ever they may be and use it to settle trivial disputes (thereby freeing up the parents/adults need to inter...

Side effects can be good. New data that science has been acquiring and collecting about the brain itself has provided an over-stimulating amount of data to condense usable information from. How much we don’t know about the brain is not only ironic, it's borderline tragic. I keep my eyes and ears on new studies published. Reading knowledgeable interpretations of information about the brain are much easier to chew on. I am hopeful the number of senses will be revised, upgrading our generation to Human version 2.0, but minimally I am hoping for an official promotion of ‘intuition’ as a new addition the team of five sense staples. I realize these chances are about as likely as Pluto getting an official reinstatement, and it’s at least as many miles away from sociological acceptance in the mainstream. Why intuition as our sixth sense? I’m not talking about ESP, or anything metaphysical (maybe hyper-real at most), but every human knows what this (intuition) is, every culture, all t...

There are two opposing opinions about the advancement of technology in the 21 st century- either you fear the machine as evil or you are genuinely excited about the future of the human race. Like it or not, technology and time are accepted momentum's we also call this “progress”. The Industrial Age has been replaced by what has been coined as the Innovation Age. And now that I have mentioned coinage, it would be neglectful not to acknowledge the alchemical concept (money) as ‘here to stay’also (and an influencer for either side of this argument).  Most simplified, these two sides of the spectrum could also be summarized as; some feel we are either destroying the world and messing with someone’s Divine perfect creation, or we are getting closer to understanding the riddle(s) of humanity, we are evolving or devolving. Who knows? I guess that theorem will prove itself. Time will tell. Image By United States Geological Survey [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. One...

People will tell Image of painting by By Felix Nussbaum (http://www.felix-nussbaum.de) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, 'The Secret' 1939. I am no expert in psychology, in fact, I am just getting to know my own psyche, so I guess you could say I’m in the element-ology phase, just stretching out my brain muscle, still picking up the pieces and seeing how things fit together. Sure there's some loose bolts rolling around, but I'm sure they go to something. That’s not to say I’m crazy, given the fact that there does seem to be a lot of fragmentary pieces floating around my mind at all times (words and phrases) I’ve accepted that it is because I am a writer (private poet), ergo, I guess I am crazy. Who else besides writers talk to themselves all day and not ever concern themselves with the connection between money and survival?  “A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom." -Roald Dahl Since I have begun with m...

This is some good news people. First, a light-hearted joke based on my findings. What does a professional racecar driver and a professional surfer have in common? Besides the obvious being these are both solo sports with perks like sponsorship pay and groupies, both also bravely seek the thrill of the ride for a swell time (not punny?), neither mind hot environmental conditions, both get paid to play for a living, and both can pee their pants (or wet-suit) whenever they want to.  Image By Dénes Emőke (Isle of Wight, England) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons. It’s absurd to think the answer to the world's clean energy crisis and secret sauce for “going green” can be found in green algae- sometimes we humans make matters far more complicated than they need to be-take fracking for example.  It has been known by top ranking government offices and somewhat in the general public that bio-fuels have been successfully produced and are nearing ...

It all started with Salinger, which I actually thought was pretty cool and still is. All writers secretly want to live forever, it is an underlying motivation for publishing and more mature than carving your initials on some tree that will be bulldozed for development or graffiti, which I’m not good at anyway. Holden Caulfield would have preferred graffiti and knife carvings, but not me, that’s why I read. Anyway, the thoughtful author J.D. Salinger so graciously was (I hate to use the word) “literally” ahead of his time and wrote some books for his future audience. Yes, all books are for the future audiences, but that snarky Mr. Salinger put a clause in his will to publish “5 books new between 2015 and 2020” vetting his popularity points for the future and etching himself eternal. This raises some technical conundrums for the publishing industry such as who gets the contract? Where do the proceeds go? Most interesting to mull over is if any of these stories were to be rejected,...