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 |   All that remains: here in my afterlife as a 'mainstream' blogger, with what little I know. |
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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
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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*^*](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/group-Second_Time_Around_Contest-2164963_14.gif)    "...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:
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... |
| If I were to offer input to someone struggling with obesity, it would start with cut the coffee and cigarettes and start walking if you want to enjoy the waning years. It seems simple, but when you consider that these vices make you their bitch, it might be a wake up call to take back the health that is rightfully yours. We worry about the stereotypes of being healthy. People look at it as extremism. But, high heart rates, cholesterol, or whatever can be avoided naturally, or with Lipitor, whatever. I am not qualified. But, from personal experience, I could quit the coffee. But, I don't need to. After my rotator cuff surgery last summer, I've worked my way back into the gym and to having my moments of dominance on the basketball court. I can challenge the best players in the gym because I mostly do the things that benefit a person who might be genetically superior to the greatest portion of the human race. Maybe, a reason why I shouldn't talk. My dad dealt with hypertension, didn't take care of his diet, even after told to watch it by a physician and my mother. Being Italian, lots of carbs in that diet that he wouldn't sacrifice. He wound up with cancer twice and took his life after the second diagnosis, at 83, when he was still robust and full of life. He just didn't want to go through chemo again. I have glaucoma, and that is where my defect resides. Somehow, surgeries on each eye have held for nearly thirty years, making me part of less than five percent who can claim that success. But then, how many had the surgery as young as me? I might be worthy of study in that respect. My diminishing vision does not prevent me from stepping between the painted lines at the YMCA court where my love for the game resides. I kept thinking the knees or an Achilles would give (beware now after saying for the 100th time) by now. People now call me by my first name, not the color of the clothing I'm wearing when assigning defense. And I plow through two, sometimes, five hours of basketball in a day. My hamstrings are sore. My knees don't bother to complain. My feet would like to be soaked. But, I take care of myself. I will down over a gallon of water, watch my food intake before and after. I sleep as much as I can, making sure to keep turning so rigamortis doesn't set in  . I can get tight. I stretch, I keep exercising. I snap back. And my heart? Thanks to FitBit, I can track resting heart rates as low as 52! I didn't think I'd get there again, since it's not been that low since 2017. The rotator cuff surgery was like a reset, a step back. I was able to collect, refocus and double down on this basketball life. I've guarded guys from 6'8" to 5'2", speedy or strong and the long and feel always prepared and up to the task. I have my health, genetics, mind and whatever else to topple anything that comes in my way. I know, ultimately, time will tap me on the shoulder. I know that I will not struggle unless cancer knocks on my door, or something as evil. The day will come when coffee will be exchanged for tea, when I need one more advantage. If I have to do yoga frequently, and not just when my limbs need a little disentanglement and elongation. I will eventually walk instead of dribble drive to the hoop, if I'm not pulling up for a long range jumper. I'll always have the trash can to receive my aim, if nothing else. I'm sure I'll have just enough eyesight then. Blessed. Sometimes, I need a reminder for purposes of perspective. Take pride in what God (or the equivalent) has given me. Even if it's to just thank my lucky stars. Believing in something, even if it might seem delusional, helps with this process that is my life. Thanks. 8.29.21 I really do have that strong of a heart. Something I'm reminded of frequently. I'm pretty sure no ailment there. My mom had angina and a murmur (for those collecting data on me  ). |
| Somedays, I have to run my thoughts by my wife on something I know she understands better than me, but launched at the opportunity to respond to Angela's blog today, as she attuned to these matters surrounding the decision to vaccinate against Covid, after an Uber driver dosed her with their own, unsolicited, opinion: "You are not that special"  My response: You're too nice to the Uber driver. You are entitled to that space between your ears so you can get prepared for your day. I'm too nice, too. I would let them go on. Regardless, the Uber driver's task is only to drive. Your testimony is worthy and much needed. What you outline are reasons the unvaccinated use, even when they don't fall into those categories, because they feed into that larger narrative. It has affected my brother-in-law, a retired state trooper and his RN wife, who would rather quit her 100k a year job than take the vaccine by the October mandate deadline. Both are healthy, athletic, non-smokers and Trumpers. They buy into the election rhetoric and more, moving to the country to prepare for something worse, in Michigan. I have very little clue what happened to the them. Extremists at this point. I think if we can all step back, acknowledge FDA approval is a mandate for the (one) vaccine, and urge people to get us to herd immunity, those who dosed will not have done so in vain. And, we do have to respect those who cannot take the drug for reasons you've outlined. This just shows how little due diligence people have done before deciding for or against vax. It shows we buy into the spin and the emotions of something that was highly charged politically and put the fabric of our country/world at jeopardy. If I were to buy into a motive the division caused by politics surrounding Covid, it's a need to dumb down a world that's getting too smart, and to thin out the herd as were prepare for overpopulation. Seems selectivism (is that not a word?) would be the advantage for all of this. But, that's beside the point. Keep testifying and maybe run this back to the next Uber driver, if for no other reason, social experiment to see if people can consume information objectively, and respectfully. What we all need a little more of. Thank You! As yet, haven't shared with the wife who is plugged in to a podcast, mid-living-room-paint-job, right now. When she needs to decompress. I hope I got it right. |
| Got your attention? I have to rewatch this video because he must have ADHD to go with that superior intellect to be able to decipher any leaning on white privilege, which I do not feel I possess, but maybe a richer man. I will say I had/have some of the other intersectional things that privileged me to go with my male whiteness. I never felt it was anything more than a foot in some doors, only to be inevitably defeated by life's pursuits. And if I had it too easy, things handed to me, well I don't have the moxie or additional skill to rub elbows with the privileged few. Just take my 14 years as a black case here. Can't say I've arrived or even risen above the settling fog, but a dew upon a blade of grass near the future headstone marking my journey six feet deeper. Nah, I won't watch it again, just yet. 8.26.21 Many of you can successfully argue for what you want. I'm just gaslit and dead tired of life's spin. PCness can kiss my ass, because I know it is even more limited in conjectural theorem, 1984ing ourselves into mediocrity, hypocrisy while lacking any understanding of our past to now. And now...am I done? And, I'm moot. Not on any public stage/no pulpit. I will see you all in hell, I guess. |
No comment really, just caught my attention not too long ago. A guy who seems well spoken on the subject of feminism and pervading perceptions. |
| I think this is the biggest news I've heard in awhile. Trump says 'take the vaccine' in Alabama, one of the worse vaxxing states in the country (36%): https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/supporters-at-alabama-rally-boo-trump-af... He got booed a little, according to the story. Hm. I know a lot of 'normal' people who won't take it. Not even compelled to help the rest of us reach herd immunity. It's sad. I don't know if Trump stumping for Covid medicine will sway at this point, because he has never spoken like this...until now. Seems those who've made up their mind will only see him as a turncoat at this point, positioning for another run at the White House. There are a lot of things Trump has to retreat on to make this statement more true. For instance, stop saying the election was rigged. Further, say it was a fair election and accept the results. Un-spin the spin, I guess. I don't think Machiavelli would support that. Liars like murderers stick with the untruths until they day they die with blood stains on their hands. That's politics. FDA approval of one of the vaccines would be another direction to compel Alabamians and the like. |
| https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-s-afghanistan-exit-raises-question... I'm just learning all of this now, putting this all together in my mind. If someone were to write a synopsis, or headline, it would be a 'that's what she said' moment. Another way of describing it, not by me, is this could be a 'Saigon moment'. I could not conceive of what happened in the 70s anymore than I can now. There is so much we cannot know, but if I am to assess from what little I read, the prez doesn't consult to get input from others (generals). I wonder if he'd be more patient/considerate as a younger man...that a lot of civilian lives are at stake, or that NATO is only there because of US presence and pulled up the stakes as fast as waning commitment of the Commander-in-Chief? And, did we give peace a chance? Not trying to be critical of a political leader but the lack of bureaucracy, when there's so much that's not needed for progress in Washington and around the world. Anyway, this rests on him, however it plays out. It's actual lives that are at stake foremost, however, let alone what could happen to 'democracy' (and safety of young women) over there. I don't know. My gut reaction. My life moves on, as with anything else I'm delivered as news. Not getting any smarter, just wise. 8.15.21 Furthering my knowledge of the situation (well, that escalated quickly…): https://www.wsj.com/articles/afghanistans-taliban-seize-jalalabad-as-panic-grips... from Brian Williams' lips, but not mine (8.17.21): https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/former-cia-analyst-contradicts-msnbc-hos... One week later (8.22.21): https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/nikki-haley-biden-administration-complet... AND FINALLY...(8.27.21).... The trail leads back to a post 2020 Election Trump Administration decision to leave a little present on the doorstep of the incoming President to deal with: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/afghanistan-former-adviser-to-mike-pence-wa... |
| These brief dissertations start out as newsfeed posts and evolve into these notions of grandeur that attempt higher thinking only to float back down to the ground wanting to know, 'what aim?' And here it is -- I might be confused which character I should be (as if that is something yet undecided), aspiring as a 'brilliant repository of...killer one-liners', per Stephen Fry: The difference in American comedy and British seems one is a little bit rock and roll, and the other, country. And, we do know which derived from the other. For comedic effect: here, smash my guitar. Oh, what? I'm not supposed to hand it to you? Hmm. I might be British.  Plug this one in and see if makes the same sound.  Might just be one form riffing off the other inside of my mind...constantly, as if I'm to evolve into some higher comedic life form. In as much as we borrow from British comedies (ideally, 'The Office'), our American comedic art seems to find it's roots and aim a little higher than Jim Carrey now. I do feel Fry fails to acknowledge that while we wise crack, our heroes can show pain in an aside. More depth. Some are anti-heroes, perhaps, rehabilitating from a life of poor choices or general ignorance. We are not truly above it all, just desire to be. Much of American film of yore might attempt escapism or be Utopian in scope. Today, they craft new movies like, 'Free Guy', that I judge from trailers to be beneath an aspiring intellect, settling more to frame this unwitting character on an adventure he collects the girl's heart on the way to surprisingly overcome by naturally serendipitous instinct in video game-like odds (that may or may not involve an extra life or two along the way). Perhaps, the new Utopian comedy is to suspend natural disbelief for the surrealistic quality of arcadian dreams. 8.8.21 Yup, add arcadian to list of words I've made up. Capitalize, not capitalize?  Of course, doesn't matter. Must be Sunday. Sounds like I stepped up to the soap box, once again. |
| Perhaps, with the advent of the internet, social media and websites like this, we could all call ourselves recluses for idling here rather than go public with our offerings (for one reason or another): https://blog.bookstellyouwhy.com/emily-dickinson-and-three-types-of-reclusive-wr... I know I have plenty of chances to put myself out there (not in here). As been oft iterated, writers like myself don't have a true measuring stick with words spilled within these virtual walls. Perhaps, it's self-aggrandizing to know we can get likes and pretty little virtual ribbons for our efforts to construct conceptions from a tome of English to never truly come under scrutiny by those eyes hungry for fiction or paltry poetic endeavors. So, I stay cooped up (literally and figuratively) -- retreat from a glaring social stage, because I'm screwed up in little ways that have not deterred my ability to rub elbows with the human race. I just feel a bit too human on soccasions and doubt my ability, my voice on stages constructed to hold potential efforts like mine. I could work on a short story or novel that was concepted on vacation. Or, could cool it and just put focus on things social like pick up games and the YMCA. My physical health comforts my mental health at these interstices that insist step back from purging anymore thought from this logjam of weighty thought. Just letting stuff work itself out. But, thinking to, how like E.D. or Salinger I could be, for various reasons. The Beatles were good, but the whitest band of all time.   "Life’s Little Misdirections 🥀🦋" 8.4.21 I'm developing a new approach to my involvement at WDC that will be more rewarding to refuel what inspires me in the future. It begins with some undeniable honesty in a very constructed manner. |
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In the Falkland Islands, internet is very limited and very expensive. The place I'm currently staying only lets me use it in the middle of the night, so when I have to get up at 3 am to check my texts (no cell service to the US here unless I'm on the internet) or WdC, I don't do nearly as much as I used to. 
I currently have 2 very long emails I still need to get to from several days ago. Anyway, I miss everyone, but I also miss sleep, so there's that. 
Have you spoken to the doctor about your vision problems lately? I know there are special glasses for it because I have to wear them to read much ever since the brain injury. It's part of why I now only listen to audiobooks instead of reading regular books. It took 8 years for anyone to diagnose it because I have a brain injury and while one might think it would be obvious to me that I see double, it wasn't. Partly, my brain does a fair job of compensating. But also, partly, you use your brain to realize and understand that the 2 images you constantly see are double vision and something you should mention to your eye doctor. Since my brain was damaged, even basic things like that can escape me. 
I never once thought to mention it, even with annual eye exams in the Army and an exam every 2 years at the VA. Though, in my defense, since it happens in something like 41% of people with a brain injury, it should have been discovered by an eye doctor much sooner. 
I know doing that activity is a CRAP TON of work. But you made a difference in lives, not just his, but for all the people he's reviewed since. 
Well done! 
