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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/books.php/item_id/1300042-2012-The-Year-We-Flip/sort_by/entry_order DESC, entry_creation_time DESC/sort_by_last/entry_order DESC, entry_creation_time DESC/page/6
Rated: 18+ · Book · Writing · #1300042
All that remains: here in my afterlife as a 'mainstream' blogger, with what little I know.
The Idiotic Ideate??

Formerly: New Zenith To Hell…(all started with arc as writer here from the trials of Rising Stars to Preferred Author to WDC Quills Best Poetry Collection to the falling action I feel now that settles in a white case.)
Got to hustle to preserve the best of me before fully fading on that virtual horizon glowing more brilliant with each passing day to permanent nuclear winter.

if people don’t get it, I don’t need to explain it.


We kill all that’s beautiful before we question it’s purpose. So many people find it easier to think in the black and the white. God forbid you get lost straying in the gray.

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it…he does not become a monster.”
I’ve been to the abyss and back. Not so bad.

The loneliest happy person you'd ever meet, when not the saddest person who needs to be alone.

In an ever-changing world, we need to handle topics at the ready. If you roll over and give in to the narrative without lending a voice of your own, you might as well hand over your civil liberties. We have voices that should connect to true conscience and spirit for honest and open discourse. Why feel so redacted?

Unify on issues and put drama aside. Open minds require complete objectivity. If none need apply, question the unbendable sources for answer. If you knee-jerk react to every issue lurking out there that clutches your neck, you fall victim to your own ignorance born from a life of apathy (no doubt) in pathetic cries of injustice.

Just writing what I feel without the narrative-altering mind f---ing with my head.

[MY Chorus]
In your house, I long to be
Room by room, patiently
I'll wait for you there, like a stone
I'll wait for you there, alone

"It amazed me how truth was often suffocated in minutes, but lies were given sufficient air to breathe indefinitely."


"You are all better than you think you are, you are just designed not to believe it when you hear it from yourself."


Merit Badge in Second Time Around Contest
[Click For More Info]

Congratulations on winning the Grand Overall Prize in  [Link To Item #2164876]  with your beautiful poem, [Link to Book Entry #933358]. This poem really moved me. Great writing!

Rachel *^*Heartv*^*

                   A signature image for use by anyone nominated for a Quill in 2018                    

"...lasting art is never anything more than a mathematical expression of the relations that exist between the internal and the external, the self [le moi] and the world." -Jean Metzinger

I'm in love with carefully chosen words, arranged just so, audible, edible, to inhale. I attempt to post new poems and epiphanies daily with some links to what inspires.

I am legally blind with a rare, genetic form of glaucoma. I'm described as "end stage" after two successful surgeries, still subject to further vision loss. Cataracts complicating matters. Writing Can get strenuous but seldom deters what yearns to emerge, despite a documented history of depression and recently diagnosed ADHD and undefinable social disorders and/or PTSD.

My recent poetry:

BOOK
Life’s Little Misdirections 🥀🦋  (18+)
10k views, 2x BestPoetryCollection. A nothing from nowhere cast words to a world wide wind
#1149750 by He’s Brian K Compton 18 year


Sometimes epiphanies about my insights on writing and life and what goes on...

Making sense of life is maddening. Why do I need to know, when truth may not actually exist? Learning to accept would be a better pursuit? Flailing about in my own mediocrity, hoping to bust out.

I am visible. You can put a face with a name. I would like to see other writers, too. Fiction is what you write, not who you are.

Reinventing myself. I couldn't continue on the path I was on and needed a fresh start. This time around I want to put the focus on writing and the world outside of this community as it affects my life.

I realize now that I have been baring my chest a bit more, as when young. fake me much more boring and unliberated than the real me.

A world arriving as silent as that blossom in your garden that I told you about...
Previous ... 2 3 4 5 -6- 7 8 9 10 11 ... Next
October 14, 2020 at 5:38pm
October 14, 2020 at 5:38pm
#995891
Had no idea how grumpy and angry I get when I stop exercising. Just 45 minutes in fresh air with a basketball followed by some brisk raking and feel it leaving me like the sweat purged from my body. Why I don't do things in moderation and get so consumed with things that I can't think clearly, I'll never fully know. This is my new therapy. Back to basics.
October 13, 2020 at 3:52pm
October 13, 2020 at 3:52pm
#995807
Not that I'm rooting for this, but it's intriguing (It's long and tedious. Plan to skip some parts.):

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/how-donald-trump-could-win-the-presidenc...

I decided to take the truck for a run up and down the streets around our neighborhood and count the Biden vs Trump signs to see how many were supporting which candidate. Not many out there. And most signs posted were up near homes instead of on the street. Might be a reason why I saw fewer signs? But, Biden was leading as I made one more swipe up and around two more blocks on my route home.

By the time I got to our little cul-de-sac, Biden was ahead 8-4. What happened on the ride up and and down our 25-house block had me rolling in laughter. It had everything: A voting block like an electoral college for Trump, a tie, and perhaps, what I could call election fraud. On the roundabout, there was a Trump sign on the island and one at the house across the street. They could have voted twice. It was 11-11 when I got home. I rode around 20-some blocks to get 12 signs, with 10 more on my street. There was only three signs a week ago.

Interesting, I can break down the demographics mostly: the pot head, former skaterz across the street with problem kids were Biden, as were the two neighbors down the road who identify as lesbian (we chat, that's how we know). I think it was the retired dentist with the other Biden post. So, Trumpers included the retired constructor company owner across the street, a cop up the road, the widowed woman next door, and several older neighbors down toward, and in, the cul-de-sac -- the upper middle class. No sign at my house.

With all the talk of weird outcomes in an odd year, it's compelling. I don't think a tie would be a divisive thing. It would actually force Congress to finally do their jobs. Whether or not they're capable will be another thing to watch.
October 8, 2020 at 1:28pm
October 8, 2020 at 1:28pm
#995376
I really have to share this again, which was once posted in my notebook (maybe, your newsfeed)...



This is the most enlightening video for me. It has freed me from what has shackled me for so many years. If we could just inform ourselves and acknowledge what represses, it's like drawing air into lungs for the first time. It's brief but pleasurable to know we can get a handle on the manipulators and why they abuse us, and moreover, how we can and/or do not have to respond.

How I know I'm not one...narcissist. Put me in a room with one and let us debate. I will feel like I've lost or just emotionally worn out every time.

Plus, I go toe-to-toe with one nearly every day of my life. In fact, I have three of them. I don't even approach anymore, assuming there's no use convincing them to see things my way. I'm practically invisible and voiceless to them.
October 6, 2020 at 4:29pm
October 6, 2020 at 4:29pm
#995196
“We need more bassists, not less. But for real, stop trying to play goddamned bass chords under a guitar solo.”

R.I.P. Eddie Van Halen

iconic rock guitarist inspiring listeners and wannabes like me





"I been to the edge
And there I stood and looked down
You know I lost a lot of friends there baby
I got no time to mess around"


Rock on solo, my friend. I'm crying 'cause his music meant so much to my life.
October 3, 2020 at 2:57pm
October 3, 2020 at 2:57pm
#994956
Totally unrelated and yet complimentary...




The Flying Lizards cover of the Beatles song might be unknown, unless it got heavy rotation by a disc jockey at your local radio station during those formative, musical years.

Ben Folds Five felt like another rare discovery for me before they landed a song in the Top 40, which disappointed me because I wanted them to fly under the radar so I can say I was of the rare few aware of their odd musical genius.


September 30, 2020 at 12:18pm
September 30, 2020 at 12:18pm
#994681
I'm reminded of this constantly...

"Throughout history, oligarchies have often been tyrannical, relying on public obedience or oppression to exist."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy

Example:
A group of people come to a programmer friend at college and say, 'hey, let's do something together on the internet. You build it, people will come and we will act like the statue of liberty accepting those huddled masses.'

Money making venture launched.

I wonder if this is how America really got started? Nope, feels more totalitarian with socialist applications, perhaps?

Has anyone read Ayn Rand?

Let's skip over that Orwellian stuff.

going sideways at bit, sort of like an experience one might have...

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/oct/01/featuresreviews.guardianreview11
September 29, 2020 at 10:22pm
September 29, 2020 at 10:22pm
#994635
I think I get it but I don't like it. Let's speed up the infections on the virus and get it over with. Why delay the inevitable? These states like Florida and now Tennessee lifting all restrictions give me pause. Yes, still mask and wash your hands. Use commons sense and precaution. Everyone has the information now how dangerous this is and enough time has passed to make for proper provisions, for the most part.

I don't know if this is the logic. The vaccine isn't going to save us in time. And calculations having about 80% of the population winding up with this disease...that's assuming some are less effected or somehow have built immunity to it without knowing. So much yet to learn. But, we are heading indoors for the winter season and the chances of getting increase greatly. So, bring it on?

Just pondering from the reports I'm seeing, reading and trying to understand the logic of some politicians, bureaucrats and more. It's just not the easy to suss out.

9.29.20
September 29, 2020 at 7:58pm
September 29, 2020 at 7:58pm
#994617
A Not For Newsfeed Player Presents...

Something I couldn't resist, since I thought it up:

You'll find nothing in Joe Biden's head.

From Twitter to Facebook to Fox News to QAnon to your ears...no, not you Joe.

This has been a Not For Newsfeed Update. Now back to whatever it is you do around here.


9.29.20

I really should stop getting distracted with all this hooey.

September 25, 2020 at 9:02am
September 25, 2020 at 9:02am
#994164
you know, history can teach us about the true origins and purpose of poetry...

It can be applied here for the same purposes, as it should be applied anywhere free speech rights are ignored. Anywhere people are downtrodden for standing up to would be rulers and oppressors. Though, they might employ some sort of highly disciplined playbook to characterize these types that challenge the narrative of those holding court. No matter. Speak your truths amid the debunkers, the disbelievers. Perhaps, there was one amongst us who wore a thorny crown, perhaps another emblazoned with a scarlet letter upon the breast?

You've all been rejected by someone or something. Perhaps, it aroused an anti-authoritarian sentiment that you just couldn't quell. Maybe, it was that kid or kids that held you down on the ground while you were fed dirt. They made you eat it. You lost your innocence of what was good. You realized as you walked through life anyone could be an agent of evil, could do no good. Perhaps, you secluded yourself and trusted very few...and then the betrayals. Yes?

Look in the mirror and realize the safe haven you are in looks a bit different in the glass. Almost satanic? Welcome! You've arrived. So, pleased to see you here.

What are you going to make in finger painting class today? No, no. Teacher says we don't rub that on our faces? Nurse! Nurse! He needs another sedative. I think he's coming out of it. He's talking about typing some kind of a manifesto...in quatrains? What'a a manifesto? No, I didn't ask for medicine. I'm...zzzzz

9.25.06?

No one gets out without a little literary lobotomy.

I'll edit later...look I used WritingML to make the text richer...ahhhhh

He's escaping!
Don't worry. I wouldn't do that to you. *Smirk*

Okay, everybody. Nothing to see here. Just another psycho.
But you want to watch, don't you?
September 24, 2020 at 8:29pm
September 24, 2020 at 8:29pm
#994125
It's no use. I tried talking to him. Anyone else want to tag in?

Stay tuned. I'm working up a memory from my early days with the WDC Angel Army where I squared off with Sherri Gibson(remember her?) in not one, but two popularity contests. I'll tell you what those were, how I got involved and the results from those early times before someone dubbed me 'King of Newsfeed', not that it has anything to do with the story. I could have said, one of the Top 5 poets at Writing.Com...not my words, someone else's. Now, to rest and to devise a tale of triumph despite great woe.

fun story. I like it. You should enjoy, too. Getting so most people don't know who Sherri was.
September 24, 2020 at 6:37am
September 24, 2020 at 6:37am
#994069
JOIN TODAY!

"Invalid Item

Become a charter member: first 10 to join "Red Wheelbarrow Winter Poem Contest receive a commissioned MB. All FULL RIDE members get access to monthly lessons like "Invalid Item

BLOG: "SuperNova Afterglow: End Of Days
POETRY BLOG: "Life’s Little Misdirections 🥀🦋

2020 WDC Heart Throb Poet:
STATIC
Time-Kissed (Heart❤️ThrobPoet Award)  (E)
Memory of a perfect moment fading with time. 2020 WDC Heart Throb Poet Winner.
#2213763 by He’s Brian K Compton 18 year


Published poet, award-winning broadcast journalist, former literary editor, newspaper editor, columnist, professional freelancer writer.
September 21, 2020 at 9:52am
September 21, 2020 at 9:52am
#993846
just spit-balling philosophy

Do I argue I exist, if you have not shone
your light upon my empty space?

Nature abhors a vacuum,
yet, empty, unfilled spaces like this
unnatural,
goes against nature?

This Aristotle would persist...

does a void yield
if you make it naught?
What moves through this hole,
if you can find it, prove it
cannot contain what you bring...

be it light
be it water
be it air
to love, to sate, to breathe...

if you are the earth,
should I reside upon it?
empty, deflecting of all it contains?

I prove in a vacuous state
exists some-thing
next to nothing, as you negate.

Harnessing a destabilizing belief,
collapsing all that asserts upon me,
could set the small space free
to inhabit within thee...

in the small spaces, virtually.

In the mind (I have one),
in this heart (I act on),
in the soul of Him,
lacking but filling with guilt from grief,

a mere shadow appears.

In dark, unfillable property,
the indefinable energy,
you would impose your philosopy
that I shouldn't exist...

but I'm here. Good luck
getting through to me with
all the space you put
between us.

I do not require an atom of energy,
but persist in sanctity,
of reverence to emptiness
and all who could see, despite

blindness from ignorance
that nature abhors
the very ability of me
to persist within what you dream

the entity, invisibly
horror vaccui...

you should not sleep at night.



9.21.20

just more thoughts on this vagueness I bathe myself in




BLOG: "SuperNova Afterglow: End Of Days
POETRY BLOG: "Life’s Little Misdirections 🥀🦋

2020 WDC Heart Throb Poet:
STATIC
Time-Kissed (Heart❤️ThrobPoet Award)  (E)
Memory of a perfect moment fading with time. 2020 WDC Heart Throb Poet Winner.
#2213763 by He’s Brian K Compton 18 year


2014 Dear Me Winner:
STATIC
Dear Me WINNER: Crossroads  (E)
'14 WINNER: Crumple up the past, toss it aside and begin on a new page.
#1974353 by He’s Brian K Compton 18 year


Rising Stars Most Talented Author 2011

2009 North Star Award

Award-winning broadcast journalist, former poetry editor, newspaper editor, columnist, freelancer writer in multiple publications.

September 17, 2020 at 2:20pm
September 17, 2020 at 2:20pm
#993579
A new 'Let's be real' session with myself, in an open forum...

There's this ruminating about THE novel. I look at it from all angles and wonder about my mentality that forces me into this dance around it. I look it up one side and the other, barely interacting with the idea, basic premise, the inner workings. I'm not really inspecting it, but the idea of its purpose. As its master, the need for its creation. Then, I travel down an avenue about writing fiction. It could open discussion to further delay this project:

Does one who desires to be an architect of a story need to be an avid reader of fiction?

To break it down further. I read non-fiction. I've learned this is a trait of a person of my particular psychological makeup. Does this mean my aversion to reading novels is a reason why I don't have the right mind to write a full length manuscript of fiction?

Here's what I know and struggle with. It's not that I don't understand the construct of characters, setting, conflict and resolution or even elements of foreboding, symbolism and developing a subject of worth with context that a reader can appreciate. I can write a hook and I can summarize story.

I cannot, however, create an alternate universe with its own parameters, reality, sets of beliefs and morals with assumed characters without feeling phony, not true enough to reality. Not true enough to my own experiences without embellishing and getting lost in my way and what direction a story could go.

Yes, I could plot a course with outline and characters with things to do. What if I want to deviate or try to make them seem real? What if I just want to write my own story and then change all the names when I'm done, because it feels fake if I change just one detail about them, including any attribution. And that's when I run into this wall of recall. I have to make up words they said, can barely paraphrase. It starts to feel fake again. I'm like some Holden Caulfield who is at war with himself.

I'm in my own paradox. I suddenly want to create alternate timelines with any story where my fictional charcters and real characters run into each other and turn to me, their master, and ask what the hell I'm doing. It's odd that this surreal world I'm in is blocked before I can take my fictional creations any further than a sudden outburst of words that dead-end when I've written into these corners of the mind.

I see an opportunity with Nano Prep. I stopped myself from signing up because the entry form felt a little confusing what I was committing to. I had to give that some thought. So, while I put all things on hold while my life is on hold, I get trapped. I turn to the easy things to write and distract myself instead.

But here's the other thing. Year in and year out I talk with her about my desire to write a novel...The novel. Year after year her interest wanes more. I realize it's gotten to the 'Uh-huh, that's nice dear' phase of this conversation. The point where I have to completely drop it. Now, my motivation is just, write it and surprise her. But here again is me going toward something for the wrong reasons. I need to believe in the project foremost for myself. I have to work out these obstacles I place before me, as I'm questioning if I have the right head for fiction.

I'm not organized. I'm easily distracted. My head is a clutter. I can't focus when I should. I need rewards that leave me in limbo. I should just want to do this for myself. i should not want to do this to shove in someone's face. I need a clear vision, clear goals, to make a path toward something that could be realized and completed. I feel I don't even know my own mind well enough in this self-analyzing psychosis pending state of reality I'm in.

I'll keep hashing it out in blogs and mindless musings, while I wait for a reality check.


9.17.20

Hi, my name is Brian. You may have encountered me running in and out of areas of Writing.Com where i mostly feel like Chang on an episode of Community where my reality seems to be that of a ghost. Since I'm invisible to most of you, I decide to act the part and rattle my chains. Be all big and scary. But for the indifferent...well, they won't see this anyway.

I'm likely Schizophrenic, so take that with a grain of psychoanalytical salt.

September 17, 2020 at 12:37pm
September 17, 2020 at 12:37pm
#993573
You know that time literally stops when you're on Writing.Com?

But, the moment you duck out time immediately - snaps - back. Whooosh!

This time expansion forces me to miss daylight, chores from the list, that judgmental clock on the wall.

Perhaps, an entire season or a year could go by with nothing to recall. I wonder the why of it all.

Perhaps, when I wake tomorrow, I'll skip the coffee and the computer.

Perhaps, I'll wake up one day and you won't be there. I'll be in that other dimension I avoided, the place I was meant to be.

dream on


9.17.20

"Newsfeed Poem
September 15, 2020 at 11:15am
September 15, 2020 at 11:15am
#993410
Ever feel like your living in a bubble? Do you feel you followed a dream to an internet community where you were treated special and could give your special talents to something and feel the love reciprocated? Ever get like this?

"We used to worry about filter bubbles, which accidentally trap users in a certain sphere of information. In the era of social networks, the bubble has expanded: People can easily become enmeshed in online communities that operate with their own media, facts, and norms, in which outside voices are actively discredited. Professor C. Thi Nguyen of Utah Valley University refers to these places as echo chambers. “An epistemic bubble is when you don’t hear people from the other side,” he writes. “An echo chamber is what happens when you don’t trust people from the other side.”

There are some common pathways reported by people who fall into, and then leave these communities. They usually report that their initial exposure started with a question, and that a search engine took them to content that they found compelling. They engaged with the content and then found more. They joined a few groups, and soon a recommendation engine sent them others. They alienated old friends but made new ones in the groups, chatted regularly about their research, built communities, and eventually recruited other people.

“When you met an ignorant nonbeliever, you sent them YouTube videos of excessively protracted contrails and told them things like: 'Look at the sky! It's obvious!'" Stephanie Wittis, a self-described former chemtrails and Illuminati conspiracy believer, told Vice. “You don't even go into detail about the matter or the technical inconsistencies, you just give them any explanation that sounds reasonable, cohesive, and informed—in a word, scientific. And then you give them the time to think about it."

This behavior resembles another, older phenomenon: It’s strikingly similar to cult recruitment tactics of the pre-internet era, in which recruits are targeted and then increasingly isolated from the noncult world. “The easiest way to radicalize someone is to permanently warp their view of reality,” says Mike Caulfield, head of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities digital polarization initiative. “It’s not just confirmation bias ... we see people moving step by step into alternate realities. They start off questioning and then they’re led down the path.”

The path takes them into closed online communities, where members are unlikely to have real-world connections but are bound by shared beliefs. Some of these groups, such as the QAnon communities, number in the tens of thousands. “What a movement such as QAnon has going for it, and why it will catch on like wildfire, is that it makes people feel connected to something important that other people don’t yet know about,” says cult expert Rachel Bernstein, who specializes in recovery therapy. "All cults will provide this feeling of being special.”

The idea that “more speech” will counter these ideas fundamentally misunderstands the dynamic of these online spaces: Everyone else in the group is also part of the true believer community. Information does not need to travel very far to reach every member of the group. What’s shared conforms to the alignment of all of the members, which reinforces the group's worldview. Inside Cult 2.0, dissent is likely to be met with hostility, doxing, and harassment. There is no counterspeech. There is no one in there who’s going to report radicalization to the Trust and Safety mods."

https://www.wired.com/story/online-conspiracy-groups-qanon-cults/

9.15.20

You're in a cult?
September 14, 2020 at 9:25pm
September 14, 2020 at 9:25pm
#993367
I share a review I wrote:

Review of "Peace"

Dear Prasenjit Paul ,

For a short poem, it seemed a long departure. I looked in on "Invalid Item and discovered a poem described as fulfillment in life. I had to reconsider the context of the poem upon observing this. Perhaps, this poem is more about the end of one's life. Perhaps, it is actually a sad goodbye.

The only reason I doubt this sounds like one fulfilled is it lingers and seems to draw attention to this narrator going on about 'lonely I will depart' because one has 'done their best' and 'nobody will disturb' before that 'happiness and bliss.' I think the writer is actually trying to get someone to notice. It's falsely modest, but it is nothing to be ashamed of.

We all get in this way where we have to tell ourselves that what we've been, what we've done in this world and for others, amounted to something. It sounds like one reassuring that they have mattered. And, who actually pens a poem before leaving, and makes it seem about a final farewell. A goodbye that might seem permanent?

It might be overdramatized for effect. I get it. I'm there. This is how life seems to leave us...empty, unfulfilled. I lie and tell people I'm fine, I'm worthy, all the time. In my heart of hearts, yeah there's a big hole there. I fill it with delusion or whatever will do. There is a deeper meaning and texture to this poem that goes beyond what a reader may see or believe.

If it's just on the surface, this is just an ordinary poem about, 'okay, I'm leaving,' or 'okay, bye, this is me walking out the door.' Who does that? Normally, just someone who wants a grand exit. We want those arms to enwrap us and make us feel warm, to make us feel like the visit was pleasant with the reciprocated love.

But, this poem is just a person alone, as if speaking to oneself. Is that the echo of our words we hear as we are alone in the doorway on that sweet exit out?

I am totally on board with this. It is awkward, perhaps not on purpose. We write these things when we are in a particular mood. It is self-fulfilling or a grand illusion about life, but it is certainly not providing the evidence to support the depicted description. I've been known to be dishonest with myself in this way. It's humanizing. And, I think it is beautiful and endearing.

It's important to accept we are lonely and that we are self-sustaining as we must love ourselves and the gifts that we've given, even when it feels we are not appreciated. And to me, that overall sums up the general tone and theme presented here.

Thank you for sharing this.

Brian
September 14, 2020 at 4:46pm
September 14, 2020 at 4:46pm
#993350

When I begin to think how easy it is to drop 500 to a thousand words on a review, I think about the novel. But then I examine why I don't just plow into it again. What's stopping me isn't necessarily that I couldn't knock out 50k words in two weeks. I think writing fiction is like trying to bullshit a bullshitter...at least in the context of a writing community.

Listening to people discuss their slants on preferred fiction, it's wide-ranging. Not necessarily main stream stuff that they're talking about, and I'm lost. I don't care for derivative styles, not what draws me in to specific genres. Maybe, I'm too vanilla thinking in the context of reality, and what I could draw from...experience. Then, I think, I've been here 14 years. I don't have a crew, an audience, unless it's about poetry. Even then, how seriously am I really taking it?

I thought, after one zoom session, there are some real people. While I agree with a lot of things they say and can jump in and talk about many subjects that inspire thought, I can't visualize myself speaking very much. The one time I went in a particular direction, I started to talk too fast, felt I could hyperventilate. I remember looking inward, my eyes not focused on the images facing me on the screen. Yeah, it was my first time, and with mostly strangers looking on. I felt afterwards that I was not true to myself, that I was false. I might not have seem like it to them.

So, I stare at the screen. I look on at the massive numbers of words I've created in this community. Would anyone disagree I've written enough for 10 books or more? Why wouldn't I devote all of that effort to myself? It feels I'm being untrue to myself, because I'm trying to serve something outside of me. This website designed a system where some writers are elite of others. My value as a writer here, devalued by that system. I realize that everything I do for this community is not really for myself in the long run.

How am I benefiting from this association? How am I going to tackle that novel if I go on thinking I have not found a group I fit in? Why, why haven't I found like-minded people? Was I so hurt before I came here that I pushed everyone away so they couldn't see how false I felt? Or, could it be that this website has not facilitated my needs in a way that I expected it would or should?

Lots of good questions. No easy answers. I could stop reviewing. I could stop writing poetry. I could end this dance through newsfeed like it is going to humanize me and draw people nearer. It's just some likes, quips and on to the next. I share my face. I see avatars in return. I see real people in zoom and wondered, why public here? Am I the false one? Because, I could really share. But, would that be going too far. Yes, I would like to share my life in Green Bay with the rest of you. Baby steps, I thought. But, I am a baby and that is why I feel like pushing away again.

Whatever is that I have done to make this community so dismissive of me, I need to be educated. I always took any indifference or shunning as proof my provocative statements to draw people out are enough to show my true value to them. I could offer more of myself, and have. But, I won't commit. Not if it's going to continue like this. I know that if I devote all my time to myself and nothing else, it will be the same result.

No one is going to take the time to read my blog, plow through all of this to get to the end. I might as well keep typing, for myself. I have dived into the other blogs and postings of people who seem to need attention over those who get more than their fair share, and it yields nothing for me still. Yet, people in this community seem to know one another, get involved with one another. It might be all tied to the cryptocurrency that is the unit that drives this machine. do I give in to it? Do I want to know the only reason people befriend me is because I drop a couple hundred dollars a year to pathetically draw their ears? Is that friendship?

I've been through all of this and more in my life outside the internet. When I arrived in 2006, I didn't know what I was setting myself up for. I knew I could write novel length stuff. I did not want to self-publish. Do I plow forward knowing that is my only outcome with this craft? Posting on this website is self-publishing and is earning me as much respect and money as I could expect to receive anywhere. Shouldn't I be satisfied with that?

One problem, I stumbled into this place and knocked over a bunch of stuff before I got a handle on things. And there's this matter of listening to all these sorts go on about how their this or that. To listen to these associations that they form for being this or that. Well, I don't need a blue ribbon or someone paying homage to my case color. But, that is the hurdle that stands in the way. That is the thing that forces folks who don't know the difference from my book cover what worth I could be, or have been, in this writing community. If you have peered inside and it remains this way, then I will only have to assume my value here. And, it apparently isn't from reviewing.

While I am rewarded handsomely with the crypto-credit, 20 of my last 100 reviews earned a response from the author. I know an in-depth should do better than that. So, here I am spinning my wheels in my blog. I don't need pity. I don't need fake relationships. I don't know what I need at this point. I do know, I will continue to write and sour and it will be what it is as the days pass. I have tired of the false relationships. I can tell where I stand with people who greet me with words that feel we are six feet apart. Don't need the platitudes, though I'll hear them to continue to know where I stand with each.

I know I won't kiss the ground to earn favor. I know I won't go out of my way to strike out of some sort of animosity. I'm owed nothing, even if I feel I have overpaid with something more valuable than money...to me. And that has been my words. More specifically, content.

I see what is linked in the margins. Some of the most god-awful stuff. For a website that should want to put its best foot forward, you draw in an odd assortment. Imagine the competition among good writers and the levels that this place could go. I have to read material outside of this website for inspiration, often. I find it hard with the flawed rating system to ferret out works worthy of review. Then, I find a few authors I like and the people they like and I read and review and hope to associate. But, there is a color barrier, it seems.

It's unfortunate that when I get to the bottom of this blog post, it's like getting to the bottom of my last cup of coffee and still uninspired. Still wishing I had that special slice of something to go with that Joe that didn't sate. The days are far and few between with this caffeine addiction that leaves me always trying and always coming up empty.


9.14.20

so sad that I get to the end of this and the only thing playing on a loop inside my head are the lyrics from the song, 'no I won't give up...' slowly and sadly churning over and over melodramatically or bittersweetly. ly-something.


Grammar check later. (I had to resist writing all kinds of introductions to this piece, post mortem) DOA

The problem with the systematic way members are put on disproportionate levels leads to less interaction and not more. You have put worlds within worlds with walls that only incentivizes the best activity from the privileged elite which is actually becomes less beneficial than those with the drive corrupted by the perceived division. We're basically all equals...but we're given information otherwise here.

This relationship is f'd up...not just on my end.
September 12, 2020 at 7:11am
September 12, 2020 at 7:11am
#993147
I finally did it. The thing I should be doing and should have been doing all along is right in front of me. I've started to mingle with that novel, the one that has been so closely associated with my life as a journalist. I think 30 years is long enough.

When rereading what I wrote, I realized that I thought my story was too dull to come across to a reader's audience. I was wrong. In recounting the events to my physical therapist the other day, I realized I had more than one nemesis, struggled in the university atmosphere and at a public radio station because of this PC culture I had never been exposed to before, the fact that (lead buried?) I had been the victim of not one but two sexual predators (and maybe more) who used their position to manipulate me, and a love interest that would not be.

It's been so personal and real that the biggest part of the story that I discount is that I had glaucoma. The pressure of being at college and my abuse of alcohol created an even worse scenario. I had to buckle down and keep my personal and public life under control while I went through discouraging encounters with doctors and two surgeries. I also managed to be a full-time student holding down two part time jobs while attempting a social life that included pursuit of a girl introduced to me by my backstabbing roommate who threatened me because he and her were 'mentally ill' (he ironically a victim of sexual abuse by his father: claimed) that I think he was using to get closer to her. However, he was jealous of me and her apparent attraction to me. But, through some guise I couldn't see, he managed to lower me in her eyes, though I suspect that didn't matter. She would have an incident with police that landed her in jail and set her off on a journey that seemed to force us into a platonic association. Maybe, it's because after one night out at the bar I wrote on a slip of paper for her to see my actual desire for her. It was never discussed. But, it was pointed out at one point why we could only be friends, because she didn't want to lose what we had. It could have been out of respect for her friend, my roommate. It could have been that I was truly the mentally ill one, though I thought I hid it pretty well. Ironically, I was the sanest when I was with her.

Which gets me to the next thought I had when revisiting this. Does one try to make fiction out of a real story, or just make it an autobiographical piece. Do I use fiction (definitely for dialogue) to glue together a story that I cannot imagine without embellishing to flesh it out. Maybe, as it develops, be able to recall events. Perhaps, the whole novel could be about a search to understand what happened in the early 90s. Why I walked away from that life and never looked back, because it burned me out, failed me, and I failed it...by my own ignorance of how to handle it.

I have regrets. That is essentially the motivation for going back.


Here's what I wrote as a new introduction (very rough):

The song Slow Burn might best describe my life at the end of 1989 on varied levels. It's a story that could begin in so many places (and still does when brought up in reflection/flashbacks) and could end just as quickly.

It’s taken me nearly thirty years to weave together journals and fictional attempts to account for the years that brought about a mental awakening. This new sobriety in '89 was aided by what was coined as negative capability, which I had been learning to apply and eventually deplete. My use of telephones would become one casualty, oddly (a phobia?).


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_phobia#:~:text=Telephone%20phobia%20

Like any story with a prequel, it really all began in 1984 when I was recruited by a community college after I responded to an ad for a seminar in town on writing careers and more. I was sold on getting paid while working for credit at a local newspaper. Though the Daily News shot me down, a local shopper grabbed me up. The fuel was provided to show my rejecters what they were missing, as I started a misguided journey to prove my talent as a writer.

After five and a half years and a fine arts degree, with two and a half years spent chasing news stories as a broadcast journalist for a local radio station, I was staring at a huge change for my life: an attempt at a four-year degree while a student news associate at the university Public Radio affiliate in Marquette.

Many will remember and fictionalize my journey differently than I account, because I was not stronger than the narrative that would be applied to me for the two years it took me to get in the door and then rush out like it was some turnstile at the end of 1992.

I was naïve and didn’t realize people I encountered didn’t play fair. I had many failed relationships before washing the slate clean in December of 1989, and it included demolishing my car on New Year's eve, right after getting affairs squared away in Marquette.

Though, this story is not a religious journey, it was after a plea to god to help me that I rolled my car after a night in my hometown to celebrate. I didn’t give Him as much credit as deserved for that auspicious start to the next two years, even after climbing out of an overturned Oldsmobile at the bottom of a ravine. It rolled several times on the way down. I was not wearing a seatbelt. I used my arms and legs to brace myself inside the cabin all the way down in that machine.

I walked away with a gimpy ankle that clicked in cold weather for, ironically, the next two years. I had been sleepy, I guess, the moment the car gained speed climbing that hill from the club a quarter mile away with only two miles to drive. It made no sense as the car climbed that it would cross over the centerline, which I could vividly remember for years. After cutting the wheel, the Cutlass Calais with the Quad-Four engine seemed to slide across the 'cut off road' toward a guard rail at the top that would inevitably be sheared off.

Steering out of the car’s new direction on that fateful night (do I believe in fate and destiny?), it seemed to steer and propel itself, as if it had stepped on a bar of soap in a wet shower. To this day, I believe I may have been drowsy but not drunk in my weakened state after a few drinks following an exhausting evening of basketball. I could not imagine it was enough to cause me to send the wrecked car awry.

What I was ticketed for, I don’t recall, but it wasn’t drunk driving. I wondered if my days communicating with the local sheriff in my capacity as a news reporter helped change the outcome. I don’t recall anything more than a sobriety test, which was simply counting backwards from 100. And when it was time to meet with a claims adjuster, my prayer was answered. I had money for college. I was able to pay off my auto loan and put an extra $2500 toward my living expenses and education, until I earned enough to get me through the next two years. It wouldn’t stop there.

I took a second radio job part-time while earning 16-20 credits per semester. I didn’t have to take that many classes, but I was about to become an overachiever who would pull down three state broadcasting awards.

I was Mr. Serious to other student interns at the PBS bunker where we gathered. They tried to get me to integrate and loosen up. I could have become the next director of that radio station by the summer of '92, but I did not want to be part of that atmosphere anymore. When I denied the station manager’s request to oblige his request to seek the position, he turned on me. It got colder and even more divisive. Little did I know that he would become (and had been) a sexual predator who used his position to get close to guys like me. Young, attractive men he could keep under his thumb.



That's as far as I want to go with the current synopsis.
September 11, 2020 at 9:38pm
September 11, 2020 at 9:38pm
#993102
Chapter One: The Icicle


Preserve winter iclcles
Create Factory to create and ship icicles by drone
Dark Web for icicles
Dry Ice ?
September 10, 2020 at 5:52pm
September 10, 2020 at 5:52pm
#992986
I encourage you to share this (too) if you agree or disagree, though not much for asserting opinion as much as framing factual information and other's theories...

I don't defend him. I just know how our family handled the Covid19 situation. We prepared a room where my wife could isolate if she got ill working in an environment where the virus could spread. Be damned if she didn't get it, knew instantly she was compromised and for two weeks was sequestered, going through hell with that virus alone.

We advocated all the things people could do to protect themselves: masks, hand-washing, anti-bacterials and isolate. That last one was the most important.

As a nation, we have our government, but as a world that was going through this pandemic at the same time, we had all the governments with all the doctors of the world advising. There wasn't a sound unison of voices at the outset.

It feels China was tight-lipped, but did not hide how they were responding. Information flowed from every direction and what could be used as treatment, including hydroxychloroquine until it became the lightening rod, because the most watched leader in the country and world was taking it.

So how are we to act today? Betrayed? Misled? We had the same information from multiple sources and many people have the right to decide what they should do before states decided fates.

Were people forced home? Yes, mostly, but not all at once. Repercussions like penalties might not have been enforced or were ceremonial, but stories did surface of extreme penalties for people breaking code or curfew. The best any state could do was enforcement, before that was compromised.

Did businesses shut down? Some were resourceful, some had no clue. I think where meat processing plants were concerned, health departments dropped the ball and it raises some eyes. Not all stores enforced masks in the first months until that summer wave and state governments had to step in again and really enforce health rules. There was not a lot of compliance at first until it got real.

Did we have the medical supplies to meet the needs of a country? Some would say no, maybe, but assuredly, it would be supplied eventually. Masks and respirators were big concerns. Many large businesses pledged support, but it would take up to a month to be fully stocked to protect. We were at best, off guard. I think China and other countries had first dibs. AT least, there were resources still available, but availability of N95 masks would be at the top of our weaknesses.

Was testing available? We'd like to think there was. But there is more to it than that. If you can get a test, it has to be administered (and how) and it has to be processed (how and where). And results? A week? It seemed unreasonable and incomprehensible. Tests were needed for sick patients before the public at large, until enough time had passed. This goes to lack of preparation, too.

Did hospitals have the necessary resources? Here is where we get to the meat of the matter. Would people overreact and want to be tested and treated for every little symptom, when there was a strain on hospitals that would overshadow patients who truly needed care over those that were scared. It was the 'you're on your own' statement that applies here best. States would have to figure out that part of the equation because we are so spread out with populated city centers and access by highway or byway. Strategy was best in the hands of state government, where the federal had it's hands full trying to advise and secure an economy that could go in the dumper and pandemonium would be worsen.

After the first market swoon, there was a lot at stake. Our country needed to steer clear of a recession so bad it could've equaled the most famous stock market collapse. That would be more work than a country would have to dig out of (for a decade?). Money from the government was earmarked for people to stay at home and many took good advantage of that, to the point that is could have had a boomerang effect and strap businesses that needed help.

You have to look at the big picture. It's not just about public health. It's about focused health. Testing was limited at first when it was not available. Then, it was focused in areas to trace the disease to focus resources. But, then summer came and so did the idiots who partied and couldn't stay away from holidays or events. And then, riots.

Let's point out that a lot of tests are going to pro sports leagues and more, over a nation at large. NFL, three tests per player, per day. There was a definite drop off in tests available to many hospitals recently. Some are, even now, disregarding employees concerns about spreading the disease after being infected in respective workplaces. It's basically the old military, don't ask, don't tell policy. Hospitals don't want to lose their bread and butter and go back to testing like running a MASH unit. So, those people on the front lines in the beginning who knew and were ready, are still on the front lines and still dealing but even more quietly now about all the risks they face.

If a conspiracy nut, let's put this on the table. Was some or all of this manufactured with an important election year coming? If I were an opponent of the incumbent and knew my only chance to defeat him was to stir the pot, what would you come up with? Are we so naïve to believe that politics played out on both sides of the aisle? And if not, what country or countries could plan this to weaken the United States specifically, a country with a leader who has imposed restricted trade and more? It's all important to consider that many might not have played fair, preying on the weaknesses of the US.

Summation:
What you need from your parents is somebody strong and willing to act. Our parents made mistakes raising us, but hopefully, with the best intentions. Hopefully, they knew what was most important. To show strength is one thing. To show strength while holding our hands takes great character. We don't have the ability to really choose our parents. There are only two initially, if we're lucky.

We have one parent who wanted to take on the role and did what they thought was best for the family that they foster. Did they make mistakes? I think it's really too soon to tell. As with a trial, you have to get all that information out there, make it official, then decide. Even then, court of public opinion will debate ad nauseum. Get used to it. Politics will rear its ugly head and all stories (the bigger the better) will play out.

Will we ever be totally convinced? I think we have just one court of opinion that could truly weigh in. There is enough time for arguments either way. If everyone gets a chance to speak, then it will be decided. And the fate of one country, and the world, well, that's always going to be in the balance no matter who serves.

I will say this, Dr. Anthony Fauci is a clever man, quietest behind the scenes.


9.10.20

I will continue to check my facts against assertions and I will seek to clarify what I say and illuminate anything I've offered. It's just one person's opinion. I'm not about to sway anyone but ask people who are quick to judgment to consider every bit of evidence and try to place it in that puzzle. It's not easy. It takes some time and devotion to follow public information, events, and with experience, consider what it all means.

These thoughts could get all flipped on their head at any time. What I do know, the media is as big a culprit as anyone in the way it disseminates information for undereducated people to consume and process. We all just want our sports back, don't we? Well, you did get that. I'll leave it at that. Although, if Ayn Rand could weigh in about distracting the public, that would be helpful now. Where are all her fans?

Brian

My response to another blog flying below the radar (for preservation):

"Nicely crafted. I shared it with my wife. She gave me context so I could be sure what you alluded to.

Lot more factors than just public health at stake. I wonder how the book quotes will be framed for context. Mr. Know-It-All is not a Mr. Do-Nothing without a reason. I need to hear a good defense, or I have to buy into some conspiracy to mislead...for financial gain? To help the rich? Was he trying to avoid a market collapse? Keep our country solvent? I need a smoking gun, better than those titillating quotes. I need context.

We need another Deep Throat."

Additional:
I respect all opinions on this subject. My news background prepares me to be as objective as possible. I'm not waving anyone's banner.

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