Fearless Moment

When does the fearless moment occur? Where are we when it happens? Why is it that the fearless moment usually lasts for only a moment and then we return to our normal state of anxiety? Is being fearless overrated? Is it so bad to be in a state of anxiety if that is indeed our normal state? Aren't these just artificial labels for the purpose of ... what purpose?

We are like drug addicts that have once experienced that perfect high and spend the rest of our lives trying to re-enact it. We think of those moments that we felt like King Midas and everything we touched turned to gold. There were those moments of perfect synchronicity when the planets are correctly aligned and we are blessed with miracles. We recall those rare experiences when time seems to slow down and we are acutely aware of our every perception within every second. Of course, then there is that illusive zone where creativity thrives in spite of our fearful nature.

We analyze those seemingly sacred moments in an attempt to induce the birth of just one more. We tell ourselves that we could do so much more, enrich our lives and the lives of others, if only, if only, we could ... Yet, for all our efforts, we stop and ask ourselves, "When does the fearless moment occur?" and there is no answer. We sit quietly and we wait. In the waiting, we find breath. Like a butterfly that hovers nearby, the fearless moment seems so close. We see it, we reach for it; we reach for it in the belief that to grasp it is to have safety, to be fearless. However, the grasping fingers tremble. The fearless moment is gone.

New Sins from an Old List

The Vatican has released a new, more modern list of sins. The new list includes sins relevant to bioethics, stem cell research, drug trafficking, cloning, and responsiblilities to the environment. Apparently, the Vatican feels the Ten Commandments need a make-over.

Here are a few more sins to upgrade the old list:

1. Thou shalt not text message while in a conversation with someone present. Even if you are nodding your head and saying uh-huh occasionally, the person present knows that he or she is being ignored and that someone else has your attention.

2. Thou shalt not view pornography on a computer in a public place. This is not a commentary on pornography per se, but if others see you looking at pornography, then they have this visual of you and what you most likely would be doing if you were not sitting in a public place, and people would prefer the pornography minus the visual that includes you.

3. Thou shalt not talk to strangers in restaurants. The strangers are there to eat and visit with their friends and family. They did not go there for you to intrude. The next "sin" probably applies to you as well.

4. Thou shalt not call customers, patrons, or other unrelated people "hon" or "sweetie". It is disrespectful to other people to force terms of endearment on them.

5. Thou shalt not make noises unnecessarily while in a bathroom stall in a public facility. While some noises are unavoidable, singing, whistling, or excessive groaning make you seem mentally imbalanced and make other people uncomfortable.

6. Thou shalt not continue to talk to someone while they are walking away from you. Obviously, they aren't interested in anything else you have to say or they would have stayed around for more of your pearls of wisdom.

7. Thou shalt not tell another person how blessed he or she is. One person's blessing is another person's burden so don't presume to know which ones are which.

8. Thou shalt not send out "holiday" letters at the beginning of a new year. You know better than to think other people really care about your long list of accomplishments and amazing travels. If they want something to make themselves feel bad about their inadequate lives, they will watch Access Hollywood.

9. Thou shalt not look to the car next to you at a red light. It's just creepy, so keep your eyes on the road. This also applies to elevators and escalators.

10. Thou shalt not tell another person to smile. Especially don't tell the person that a smile improves one's appearance. Non-smilers are usually just fine until they are told that they are ugly and a smile might help.

I don't know how the Almighty limited her list to just ten; there could easily be more than ten on my list. I guess that's what makes her the Almighty instead of me or the Vatican.

The Zone

Creative people often speak of having "entered the zone", a place where time loses importance and the focus is exclusively on the creative process. They allow the muses access to their subconscious mind, to freely dance and play with their own words, longings, and experiences. Furthermore, they trust that some beneficent force will act as a screen, filtering out negative influences while allowing the cream of the collective unconscious to flow in.

Those of us who are amateurs wait hopefully for the muses to guide us into the zone. Sometimes we manipulate the time of day or our location or the use of tools (a computer or notepad?) to seduce the muses into giving up their inspiration. Other times we grit our teeth and close our eyes in an attempt to force the arrival of anything that might pepper our blank slate.

I confess that I expect the muses to arrive by way of a mail order catalogue. I will read every entry in the writer's book club flyer searching for "The One", the book that contains the secret to writing and will reveal itself to me for $19.95 plus shipping and handling. More often than not, I'm disappointed when it arrives. Either it demands work ("develop your craft") or attempts to entrap me in structure and terminology when all I really want to do is write something worth reading. It's not likely that I will, in this lifetime, do anything worth being written about by someone else. So the remaining alternatives for me seem to either be forgotten or to write.

Often these books on writing are a collection of personal experiences of writers about how they "broke into publication." One entry in one of the several books like this that I own is my favorite. Both the title and the entire article is "Just Send the Damn Thing In."

I also like to read quotations from writers. The Nebraska Center for Writers has on their website (http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/ncw/quotes.htm) an extensive list of quotations that are categorized according to craft, editors and critics, publishing, reading, teaching, and the writer's life. I could spend days perusing this website. It's loaded with wisdom and inspiration.

For example, Alice Walker said "Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence." She lost an eye when her little brother shot her with a BB gun. Maybe what she intended was that writing saved her from doing violence. That I understand completely.

Grace Paley, a proficient writer who died within the past year, said, "The best thing is to read and write, no matter what. Don't live with a lover or roommate who doesn't respect your work. ... Write what will stop your breath if you don't write." I have learned the hard way to avoid talking about writing to anyone who is not supportive. It's bad enough to have an inner critic but when it becomes externalized and tangible, even writing may not be enough to save me from doing violence.

I like the Nebraska website. It's free and I don't have to pay for shipping and handling. However, it's cost is in spending time outside the zone. It's only during the time in "the zone" that I can't breathe unless I write.

POV (Prisoners of View)

The point of view (POV) in a story is an important element of writing according to those who claim to know something about writing.

A story could be told in first person. According to some writers, the story in first-person is the easiest to write because it is the one that we have most experience with in our everyday conversations. This says something about our self-centered nature if, in fact, most conversational statements begin with "I".

The story could also be told in third-person; the omnipotent, omniscient narrator tells as little or as much as the reader/listener is supposed to know at any one time. This is what many people think they are doing in everyday conversations while they are overusing the pronoun "I".

The limited omniscient POV tells the story as understood by one of the characters. This is what the "I" users are actually doing. The stream of consciousness POV not only tells the reader about what the character is consciously aware but also about the character's unconscious processes. I've decided not to comment on this one, but will instead invoke the Fifth Amendment. The objective POV follows the action and the dialogue, leaving the readers/listeners to interpret for themselves motives and internal conflict. Isn't that what journalists used to do before Fox News?

Moreover, the story might change from one point of view to another as long as the reader/listener understands whose head or heads that he or she is in. Now, isn't that simple? The best way to keep the reader informed in this more complex style of POV, of course, is stay in the same POV for the entire scene or chapter or conversation.

In other words, it's all about perception. As characters on the world stage, perception is reality and vice versa.

I'm glad I was able to take time out of my busy day as I am, in fact, able to clear this up for you because this is the way I see it ... so should you.

Common Sense Tells Us

This might be an appropriate time to look back at another time when it appeared that the rights and aspirations of black men were in conflict with the rights and aspirations of both white and black women.

In 1866, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony formed the American Equal Rights Association. The organization was dedicated to universal suffrage, voting rights for white and black women and black men.

The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868 extending protection to all citizens against unjust state laws. Furthermore, the Amendment defined "citizens" and "voters" as "male."

In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment enfranchised black men. The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA, led by Elizatbeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony) refused to to work for the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, insisting that it be scrapped for a Sixteenth Amendment which would have provided universal suffrage (to include black and white women as well as black men).

However, Frederick Douglas, who had previously seemingly supported voting rights for not just black men, but also black and white women, broke away from Stanton and Anthony over the NWSA's position of universal suffrage, in order to secure ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, voting rights for black men only.

In 1872, both Susan B. Anthony and Sojourner Truth showed at up at polls to vote (in New York and Michigan, respectively), but were turned away. Anthony was, in fact, arrested and brought to trial for attempting to vote.

Several women attempted to use the Fourteenth Amendment in the courts to secure the right to vote, but they were unsuccessful. The Women's Christian Temperance Union became an important force for women's suffrage, but would see no immediate results of their efforts. (The liquor lobby feared if women had the right to vote, they would prohibit the sale of liquor.)

In 1878, a Woman Suffrage Amendment was introduced in the United States Congress. The wording remained unchanged but it wasn't until 1919 that the Nineteenth Amendment finally passed both houses and was ratified on August 26, 1920 ... This was fifty years after Frederick Douglas broke away from the women's suffrage movement in favor of securing the vote for black men, leaving black and white women still without the rights of citizens.

I admit that my nerves are rankled by a history past and the one forthcoming. Can't we all just get along? ... at least long enough for common sense to prevail? Common sense and a sense of fairness seem to have once again been overshadowed by self-centered arrogance.

Is it Barack Obama's assumption that he is entitled to be the presidential nominee at this time? ... rather than a woman with more years of experience working for all Americans and working for us since Obama was in high school in Hawaii? ("Barry" in the multiethnic classroom and "Barry O'Bomber" on the basketball court.)

Is it also an assumption that women will someday have their first woman president ... perhaps fifty years after this election? Oh, golly, I can hardly wait!

The Blogs of Others

As I was considering what I wanted to write, I looked at the blogs that a couple of other folks have imposed on the cyber-psyche and I have to admit that it was a little scary.

One of the blogs that caught my eye was a gallery of doodled-on post-it-notes. That was kind of cool but then I realized that post-it-notes are most readily available to a person while they are at work or sitting in a classroom. So, this blog was an admission that when they were supposed to be doing something productive, they were doodling on post-it notes. It was probably during this "work-time" that he/she decided it would be cool to post them on a blog.

Further into the blog, I saw that other people were also contributing their doodled-on post-it-notes most likely doodled and posted during their "work-time". Is there a growing epidemic of doodling? Have we become so bored with, first, computer solitaire and ,then, video games that we are now reverting back to a simpler, more basic vehicle for avoiding work ... doodling? Will we next take up carving wood chips to avoid work? Or will we just browse the blogs of the doodlers?

That reminds me. I need to shop for a pocketknife so I'm ready for the next cool trend.

Post-Super Tuesday Notes

I confess to being a recovered Republican. I was in a mixed-race family: one Democrat and one Republican. That made every race interesting. But that was back in the days when Republicans were compassionate and not just in word but also in deed. It was actually possible to be a fiscal conservative and a social moderate. My Republican step-father cried when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assasinated and it broke my step-father's heart to see the rioters burn themselves out of their own homes. He was my example of a kind, but cautious Republican.

However, the first Bush and the first Gulf War rehabilitated me. Somewhere, I had been told that Democrats start wars and Republicans end them; I am a pacifist through and through and I believed that lie. Now, I know better and I have been a Democrat ever since.

When Obama first announced his intention to run for president, I was excited for my own state's senator. I was happy with his anti-war rhetoric. The rhetoric continued but without much substance. He said he was the voice of change but the rhetoric hadn't changed. It was still more style than substance. So, I got over being angry at Hillary for appearing to support Bush the Sprout.

I also remembered my roots. I didn't mention that I managed to balance my Republican-leaning with my strong feminist principles. It didn't make sense to me that women could become automonous individuals while still depending on Big Brother in Washington to take care of them. (I'm now older and realize that we all need some help; sometimes we needs lots of help.)

So, yesterday, even though I knew that most other Democrats in my state would be voting for Obama, I proudly went to the polls and voted for Hillary. Once I was alone in my car, I started to cry. I thought about being in high school in the 1960's when the length of a girl's dress was deemed acceptable or not by the male coaches. After lunch, we all went to the gym. If the length of a girl's dress was suspect, the male coach would have the girl get on her knees on the gym floor. If the dress didn't touch the floor, he made the decision to send her home to change to a longer length. That might sound trivial but I haven't forgotten how demeaning it was just to watch that happen to another girl.

It was also during that era that a man could beat his wife without interference from the police as long as it happened behind the doors of the man's "castle". If an employer asked for sexual favors from a female employee, she had better agree to it if her income was needed at home, which it almost always was.

I am proud, so I cry. Hell, I am thrillled to have voted for Hillary. I understand why she gets the votes of women over 45 years old while Obama gets the votes of the younger women.

We remember. So does Hillary. The girls in the class of '68 thank you, Hillary!