I Proudly Present...

No one human has everything, but yet not even the poorest 3rd world child has nothing. Each member of the human race is born with a gift, a unique opportunity to bestow upon the world in our own manner. But where is that gift? Is it placed in our hearts, to uncover when we have found our true selves? Is it in our minds, just waiting to be plucked out amongst all the thoughts and ideas, when the time has come for it to be revealed? And once found, how do we use that gift of ours? These and many more are questions that are often swirling around in the great expanse called the human mind. That gift is not in one certain place, a human's gift is themself, and while the certain romantic may believe that it is placed in our hearts once we have cleared out all the uncertainty and found who we truly are, the only true way one can find their gift is to look at the life lessons they have encountered, and the possible future events that can show them their destiny. Truly, the only answer to finding one's gift is life. We live, we love, we laugh and learn. To find one's gift, one must simply go out in the world and be yourself, but learn from the mistakes one cannot have found their gift without. So the final question might very well be once the gift is found, how do you use it? Quite often when you've found an answer, using the answer comes easily, and finding the answer to this question comes in the same way as the earlier question: simply laugh often, live happily, and love generously.

Just Put One Foot in Front of Your Brother

Have you ever strived to be "better" than your sibling? Tried to achieve greater heights than them, accumulate more positive feedback? We've all seen this at least to some extent in our lives, even if it didn't happen to us directly. "Joey was such an excellent athlete, so we expect our Christopher to be just as wonderful as he was." Sound familiar? Siblings, it seems, constantly try to be one rung higher than the other on the ladder of social status, whether among family or their peers. If the older sibling was the favorite, the younger one wants nothing more than to follow in their sibling's footsteps and be the favorite as well. Hand-me-downs, reputations, and expectations are passed from generation to generation within a family. But when does this hierarchy become a cloning of the same type of person, over and over? How does a child find themself when they try to achieve perfection of another persona altogether? The simple statement could be that they don't, and end up losing themselves in the whole process. They struggle with what their own dreams and goals are, because they simply can't identify the difference between their own and a sibling's. Yet, when have you ever seen two siblings exactly alike? Even twins have very different personalities and styles, once they become of the age when matching jumpsuits and sweaters become more Goodwill than "good taste." To put it into more tangible form, as two snowflakes drift down from the heavens, they seem uniform at first, but at a second glance, they are completely different, with their own crystalized patterns of beauty. So, no matter what we humans might set upon our kin to strive for, the only way to achieve a balance is to find interests and self-sufficiency without having to feed off a sibling like a leech to a rather porous wound.

The Absence

This is a new idea for a story I got one night while laying in bed, and is a small excerpt from the introduction chapter.
Blackbirds chatter and commute across an inky black sky, but there's no storm blowing in today, it's the sky's natural color. A pure white hand reaches out to pick an apple from a tree, but the apple is not green, not red, not even yellow, it is a deep gray. Where has all the color gone? The question is not where all the color has gone, it is rather when the color will come.
Pigmentum Medicus, a rapidly expanding number of people, starting out in a small town called Coloures have banded together to bring this color into their world of black, white and gray. But this isn't the first day of their existence, immidiately wishing to put the color back in; they have lived this way for thousands of years, awaiting the day when color would simply pop into existence.
That, however, did not happen at all. In the tunnels of their small, humble outcropping of buildings, a small bit of government for color formed, calling themselves the Pigmentum Medicus, "The Color Healers." There was no holy calling, no spiritual wonder asking for their contribution to the world, it was simply a cry for something new, and the people decided, together, that they were the ones to put color into this world.

Day 1825:Tortue

This is an example of minimalist fiction I tried-not sure if it's all that great, but no one could figure out what it meant, so I suppose that's a plus-side, what with the mystery of minimalist fiction.
A green haze splits the sky-a barrier between good and evil. A rope-bound mouth rents the air, startling the balance. Intakes of breath turn shallow and water seeps in; counting sheep never worked as well as this.
Light again; the monsters under the cliffs have gone to bed. Red rivers flow through great white mountains, tumbling over the cliffs into the golden sahara. Rope still binds-no, that's just pain-but the water rises ever higher. The barrier is diminished, yet the earth remains tilted in space.
Sun-risings reveal truth, but no upturned lips today-a turtle never survives long without its shell.
"Lay down, get up, go quickly;" words spoken from above; on Day 1825, never to see his shell again.

Social Caterpillar

I usually tend to lean toward the abstract in my writings (at least in this blog), but I've had something that's influenced me all my life on my mind, and I thought I should share it. You see, every year, no matter how many people I know, no matter how strong, determined, or how much support I have, I can never seem to socialize very well. It seems so simple in my head; each morning I wake up and imagine a scenario where I come out of my shell and just start talking, but when faced with actual people, I lock up. It's not a shell-shocked, hang-your-mouth-open kind of lock-up, but I just shy away and don't say anything, and if I do, I say very little, such as "Hi," and "How are you?" I'm sure I'm not the only one, I just seem to be so troubled when it comes to trying to be friendly, and not snobbish or standoffish, like I don't care about other's feelings. That's the thing, I care about others more than anything, but I just can't express that very easily unless I get to know them, so my first impressions are usually very difficult, both for me and the other person I'm attempting to make "small talk" with. I really have sympathy for those individuals, especially adolescents in high school and middle school, that have the same disfunction as me...if you can call it a disfunction. So, I suppose all I can say is that I hope all the quiet individuals out there may grow their wings and expand into the world with vibrant colors and the ability to find their own identity among the many other butterflies that already have.

Technologically Declined

I apologize for the length of this one, there was just so much to say.
Ding! “You’ve got mail.” Facebook Alert from…. People just cannot get enough of this lovely thing called technology. I mean, who wouldn’t want a 32 gigabyte MP3 player or a phone that does absolutely everything from opening car doors to checking if the lights in your home are turned off? But, what about the good old days, when family game night wasn’t on the Wii, and hamsters weren’t fuzzy little electronic toys with wheels? I know that this world can’t just give up all of the technology, for a single person’s opinion. Technology is not always a bad thing, either. While it may advance our willingness to stay on a screen for half the day, it also increases our chances of finding a cure for cancer, finding a way to increase the longevity of our planet, and bringing about better global communication.
First off, I would like to question the indulgent craze there is on Facebook. Must everything have a page on there? If you want to find something nowadays, you don’t necessarily have to “Google” it, you can just “Facebook” it. It seems to almost be a competition as well to have the MOST friends possible. Are they really friends? I know people that add people just for the sake of it. I am no better; I get on Facebook, my e-mail, and the internet more than I should, but it’s just insane the amount of time so many of us are on the computer every day.
To make my opinion clear, I would like to say that while I do not think we could ever go without technological advances, we could use a few less than the ones we make. There shouldn’t be a need for 500 different smart phones, when one could fit the bill. I do not have much knowledge in marketing, but I do know that competition is fierce. But, wouldn’t it be so much greater if companies banded together and split the money evenly with all their profit shares? But that would not work. How would those companies ever be honest and just in that? Maybe I know nothing, being a teenager whose brain has rotted out from staring at a screen for too long, but I just think that this competition of sorts is outrageous. No one knows what may come later on in our time on earth, but we should be living for all people, not all computers, all televisions, not all telephones!
My next opinion is on those darn things called “e-Books.” I do not understand the appeal to those. In my opinion, a good old hardback suffices for the few that still wish to read. I like the new technology of putting a textbook online, however. It makes it so much easier for those that have computers to get on, and access the text no matter where they are, without lugging a giant textbook everywhere they go. While it is very much a good idea, however, it is also a tricky one, seeing as not all families in the schools have an accessible computer. The library is wonderful, but then some children have no transportation, and therefore have no motivation to really try to accomplish their homework.
One last thing that I really wish could be different. Too often do I see misspelled words and grammatical errors in professional signs and articles. Just the other day, I saw a sign for “Middle Eastren” food! Now I am wondering if that is a delicacy somewhere in the Middle East. So many books have horrible grammar as well, and sometimes, the mistakes do not degrade the reading experience, but others create a horrible irk in the mind of the reader at not being able to completely decipher just what the author was trying to convey. As for me, I am all about learning more and more about this marvelous language we call English, and other languages as well.
In closing, I would just like to state that while my opinions are not the most accurate, they are an opinion nonetheless. Technology is not necessarily a bad thing; it is merely overruling the people of this planet.

What is your Quest?

Ever seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail? It's a classic comedy spoof about Sir Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. During one part of the movie, they come to a bridge, and the only way to pass is to answer three questions: "What is your favorite name," "What is your quest," and the last question varies. The comedic aspect of this is that if they answer wrong, they get thrown up into oblivion (and apparently die). Imagine yourself being up there, just before that bridge, answering questions to cross. If it was a simple answer of just what your "quest" is, then wouldn't it be simple to answer and cross that bridge? But it doesn't seem to work like that. Sometimes, our "quests" are only one of many; we would have to ask the bridge "keeper" which quest he was seeking, and then, if he didn't know, he himself would be thrown from the bridge. Sometimes, we may know our quest (or think we do), and then have it change a while later, only to look back and realize that what we wanted then isn't what we want any longer. So what exactly is a quest? That is quite the excellent question, as it can be many things. In the religious aspect, a quest is the fulfillment of our faith, the duty that we were given on earth until we reach our paradise, heaven, or whatever we may believe in. Those who have no religion or don't really care one way or the other may have a quest to build something great, go somewhere beautiful, or marry the love of their lives and settle down in a family. So, my question of the week is, what is your quest?
P.S. If you hear the sound of two coconuts clicking together, you may just see Sir Arthur on his noble steed momentarily. ;)