Life - Falling Out

Life - Falling Out

You asked me once. To not share my writing with you anymore. It was too heavy, it hurt too much. It was too emotional for you.

So I stopped.

I never mentioned my writing to you again.

But I did not cease.

Choice - Silent

Choice - Silent

Do me a favor.

When you see posts of people fighting against racism, calling out discrimination, or even just being brave, forthright and honest...

Don't be silent.

Tell them "I see you. I hear you. Thank you." Even DM them, if you don't feel you can post that publically.

Don't be silent.

We hear that silence.

I'm still hearing that silence, more than a week later.

I've been hearing that silence my entire life.

Life - Attention Must Be Paid

Life - Attention Must Be Paid

Wes and I were walking before dinner tonight. We beheld a strange situation. On a busy sidewalk with many people, a young man, shirtless and sardonic did something to a woman pushing a stroller. She was distracted, phone braced against her shoulder and clearly distracted, he darted down and did something with either the child in the stroller or in the basket beneath the seat and then straightened immediately. He ran, a smirk on his face towards us and almost past.

It couldn't have been more than a few seconds.

Something compelled me, or maybe it was just a reflex. Or maybe it was something internal, indescribeable.

My leg lanced out, catching him right in the leg. He stumbles, almost falls, trips sideways and goes down. He's up very quickly, he glares.

I turn. I look him square, and set my shoulders. I'm ready to brawl.

I think he realizes then that we saw. That we paid attention. That we knew, even though we were not sure what exactly had happened. I marked him, saw his face, and most importantly, attention was paid. There is a tense moment, I can almost feel Wes over my shoulder not sure what to do, but I don't look away.

I am ready, for whatever this young man decides he is going to do.

He backs up, he runs. His smirk is gone.

We catch up with the woman with the stroller, ask her if everything is alright. She seems a little shaken but otherwise fine. She didn't know the man either. Another elderly man comes along and asks us what happened. We try to piece it all together. We think he must have either tried to steal her purse down under the stroller, or maybe he thought it would be funny to put a cigarette down there or something, but we find nothing, and she still has her purse.

Ultimately we separate on the street, unable to resolve it, and the young man long gone, run off down and away.

I think about that moment while Wes and I continue to walk. It's important then I realize. Attention must be paid. It's not the nature of the quote that Arthur Miller coined, but when we see injustice, or question the veracity of the human condition, I think it's important to stand up with back's straight and say:

I noticed. I saw. You have, my attention.

Writing - On The Cascade of Humans

Writing - On The Cascade of Humans

Oh what these glorious monsters, astride in silence looking out into the darkness. I sat in quiet vantage, contemplating their movement and found myself alone. To behold their freewheeling paths, that which made them both envious and enviable.

Words bespoke one another, and gestures too. They tried to share their experiences, but words and language fail, they turn to pictures and then to long pieces of video, carefully constructed for the human mind, frame by frame at a galloping 60 per second.

These too fail.

I kept a silent vigil, long into the night. A cloak of cascade water, and a weary eye alight.

Rant - Trolling

Rant - Trolling

Let's declare a cessation on the word 'trolling' and call it like what it is. Criminal harassment. Verbal Abuse. This frontier of digital assault should be in the twilight of its days now, not becoming worse and worse with every passing day. Let us get the names of these people, who hide behind monikers and anonymity. Let us have their faces, and let them stand trial for their actions. Let them speak in a public forum and defend themselves, and let the rest of the world know that there is no defense for these terrible actions.

"In the name of a joke, or Just Kidding" is no longer a defensible excuse for not being an upright human being.

Quotes - Martha Graham

Quotes - Martha Graham

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others. 

 - Martha Graham

Wil Wheaton - Advice for Baby Violet

Wil Wheaton - Advice for Baby Violet

Lifted from Wil's blog post, because it deserves restating.

Writing - Jiro Dreams of Sushi, and Art

Writing - Jiro Dreams of Sushi

I finally watched Jiro Dreams of Sushi tonight.  It's a movie that won a number of awards last year, especially for its visual cinematography.

Sometimes, especially after having done a lot of work for a long stretch of time, I need to take some time or a few days to compress.

Creux - Essence

Creux - Essence

Sometimes you write something that makes no sense.  Actually I write a lot of things that make no sense.  I have to toe a strange line between both being absolutely clear in the execution of my communication, but also give it a sense of artistic styling to convey how it should feel.

Sometimes I get it right.

Sometimes I get it wrong.

Navarre Island - Benedict's Letter to Despina

Navarre Island - Benedict's Letter to Despina

I had an assignment today to write different fictional pieces of writing that would fit into my campaign world.  I wrote a letter from Benedict to his unborn daughter, Despina.

Thoughts - The Problem With Records

Thoughts - The Problem With Records

We live in a strange age, this internet era of ours.  What we have come to realize is that everything, everything and anything you say or write can be recorded.  For that matter, not only can be, but usually is.  Your emails, your blog posts, your facebook status, your tweets, your text messages.  They all exist in time (and sort of space, somewhere).

Life - Set Time Aside

Life - Set Time Aside

I have a smart phone.  I have a smart phone of the latest brand, and quality, running the latest operating system.  I have a smart phone that hooks up to a bluetooth headset that I can control with the sound of my voice, and I'm teaching it to respond to my eye movements (the galaxy s3 is a wonder).  I have a computer that is always on, and a myriad of very specific, encrypted ways to get into it from wherever I am so I can access my data, be they pictures, or music, or algorithms, save files, programs, utilities.

Life - Missing

Life - Missing

My opinion is that for all our technology, we also live in a tragic time of just missing one another, by inches malformed as words.  That everything we want to say is so close, and so far away.  It should be so easy, so simple to reach out and say "I miss you", "I care", "I'm here".  But we don't.  We can't.  We've bound ourselves at arms length away from one another.  I don't know why, but we do, every day and in every way.