Working On You?

How many books have to read in the last six months?

How much time do you spend working on you?

What is the meaning of your life?

How much time to you spend working on your dream?

What new skill have you learned in the last year?

I love it! It really is so awesome! Stop and think about it and make the changes you want in you!

Where have all the Hemingways gone?

So I used to think that Hemingway and Faulkner lived the greatest lives. These men and some others went out an experienced life and also wrote glorious novels along the way. And as I sit here drinking scotch and enjoying the burn of my post work out high, I feel like as great as it would be to follow these writers those days are over. Times change and the world turns and all that blah blah wordy nonsense that basically means things don't stay the same. As much fun as it would be to be that person it isn't applicable anymore and that's okay. The question I find myself wondering is who or what has taken the place of the greats. Is it as simple as taking in a libation after vigorous excessive? I feel like the next greats are most likely very different and that doesn't mean it is a bad thing. I mean some of the all time greats lived lives that resembled Charlie Sheen.

Where Do We Go From Here?

The beginning is the start but where to we go from there? The middle? It seems like a short trip to straight to the end. But what does any of that mean? It means that we get to the beginning very easily. In fact we can get to the beginning without ever getting out of bed. And for that and a few more reasons is why most people never get passed the beginning. It is easy to get started but once you get going and it takes some sort of physical or mental activity it is game over for those people. So let's try and break the trend and move passed the start and on to the next part. Even if we have no idea what the next part is.

How Many Times?

How many times does it take to be come an expert at anything? When the credits role in the movies do we not see what hard work happens next? Making the choice to be great is the beginning but where does it stop? Or does it ever even stop? Once you break down walls and reinvent your self it is just over? How many times do you have to work on your craft to be the best?

The Price of Silence

What is the cost of silence? Or rather what is the opportunity cost of silence? So let's back up a step. In college I took Economics (actually I took three different Econ classes because it fascinated me) and one of the terms that they drilled into our heads from the onset was opportunity cost. In the simplest terms and the most convenient definition opportunity cost was described as the thing you give up to get something. I always remembered this way, if investing your money in company A would net you a $X profit. However while that money is tied up you could use it for another investments. So the opportunity cost of $X profit is the other things you could do with the capital.

So circling back around. The cost of silence is one thing but the opportunity cost of it is quite another. What could you have done while you sat in silence? What do we give up when we are silent? To be continued,..

What Did You Think?

Why wouldn't it be so inclusive? The idea is that a dystopian government always fails when a revolutionary unravels everything. But why wouldn't the totalitarian regime have fail safe against it in place? Would it be so difficult to have several false rebels in place to make any upstart revolutionaries spent years working for nothing. Or the far more real possibility of pacifying anyone and everyone as a sheer prevention of any upheaval. I guess the question I am really asking is why is the bad guy so inept? I can accept that the villain always loses but why are they so stupid?

The Grind

Staying in the grind is one of my biggest failures. I constantly stay in my own lane instead of getting out of my comfort zone and doing/saying the things I really want to. That is not to say that the grind is bad because it isn't. The grind has a time and a place and it can be very useful for dealing with monotony. But that ain't me. I so badly desire to get out of the funk and be free. I want to do this for a living and not worry about sitting at a desk arbitrarily for the next 50ish years. Again don't take this to mean that the grind is bad. There is a use to it but it shouldn't become your/my excuse to be lazy.

The Monster I Keep in my Pocket

There is a monster that I keep in my pocket everyday.
It is small and dark and completely terrifying.
But it is also small enough that I put it in my pocket for the day.
The monster is a killer with gnashing teeth and beady eyes.
People likely have similar monster in their pockets.
Some do and some don't; but I'll never know.
That's because we don't talk about the monsters in our pockets.
We all know some have them and some don't.
But we all act like no one has them at all.
Somewhere along the time it became easier to ignore the monsters.
Even though I carry mine with me it doesn't always bother me.
Some days I can almost feel like I don't have a monster at all.
I want to be one of those people without any monster.
We all want to be one of those people.
But we don't talk about our monsters.
When it acts out my monster can cripple me with doubt.
My monster can derail my life.
My monster can even take away my will to live.
I could take my life but then the monster wins.
I refuse to be beaten by this monster.
Or any other monster that may replace this one.

My monster is called depression.

What Do I Do?

I have this recurring dream that is semi regular at this point. In the dream I stand on the edge of a great cliff that looks around and is surrounded by air on three side and a treacherous hill to my back. Surely arriving at the top of this metaphorical mountain must have been an incredible hike. Yet as I stand on the edge and stretch my arms out to either side I feel fear inside my soul. As I stand the wind kicks up and swirls around me in the air causing the dirt to kick up and twirl on the breeze. Then a magnanimous voice from above says "you know what to do!" The voice says it with such ferocity that it is surely growing out of patience with me. "What if I don't make it?" I asked the body-less voice as if to start some ethereal conversation. "Then you know the other choice is" it loudly responds.

At first I thought that the dream was about depression as I felt like the voice was telling me to stand tall and what laid in front on me was a bottomless black pit that I should avoid. But sometimes I fall in the dream and I think it is not so bad, the fall isn't what scares me so much as knowing what awaits at the bottom.

But as I recall more and more of the night time scenery I am beginning to suspect that that message is different. I think that thing I am suppose to do is fly. Sometimes more recently I don't jump/fall off the cliff and then I die of old age just standing there afraid to move. That then would be the second thing the voice warns me about.

My brain is working through something where it is necessary to make a choice. I can either take a chance and go for it, which would be symbolized by jumping. Or I can remain on the cliff which would mean not taking whatever that chance was. If I don't jump, I grow old and die on the cliff having always been afraid of it but never knowing if I would fall or if I would fly. But if I take the chance and jump, I may fall but I may also fly. And flying would be the most wonderful thing my heart can imagine.

So do you let life pass you by? Or do you take the chance? Stand on the cliff? Or jump? The choice is yours.

New Year - New Challenge?

The plan was to start the new year off right and get back to putting words on paper every day but that fell apart hard. I began 2015 with some great ideas and plans to write but also with the flu. So that's always fun but it isn't an excuse. So it may be eleven days late but here is the new year writing challenge I have set about for myself.

Cliche Boxing Metaphor?

It's not about getting knocked down. Hell, EVERYONE gets knocked down but your life can be made or broken by what actions you take after you get knocked to the mat. In that moment you need to decide what you are going to do, this is harder when it happens during the worst moment of your life but it is important CRUCIAL. Do you stay down and wait for the count out or do you get back up and keep fighting?

You and you alone bear the burden for your decision here. It is easy to blame the person or thing that knocked you over and some people blame the 'counter' while being counted out. But those are just decisions you made to stay down and blame whatever you could. Me? I am a quitter from way back. In fact I have quit on almost everything I have ever started including my writing 'career.' What is worse is that I have blamed the entity that knocked me down for my quitting in the past. This doesn't make me feel like a winner, it only makes me feel like a quitter, and I hate feeling like a quitter.

I am making changes and they start with me.

Sunset

If all you have at the end of your life is your memories and experiences, it could be reasoned that life is made up of these moments. The number of people for whom there are monuments is minute. So I vow to work my entire life toward having a monument in my honor when I pass but I also promise to never lose sight of the moments that make up the path I choose to walk. Those experiences and memories I spoke of so romantically are important, so I will keep them in my heart. Then at the end of it all, even if I don't have statues or pages in the history books I will still have led the kind of life that is rich in those moments.

I Enjoy This

What is in your brain? A sense of urgency? A yawn? What am I thinking about right now? The issue is that you have to turn off everything to find out. You must eliminate all distractions, no matter how important. to find out what is truly on your mind. I hum sometimes when I am writing a piece that really means something and I feel like I am on a 'roll.' That is to say that I am humming along. Ah humorous word play. But the issue at hand before my distracting confession was how do you unplug sufficiently to access what is truly on ones mind? Since I was siting here and I couldn't figure out what to write about. Then is began to unravel in my mind that I was still to jacked in to concentrate on what I was thinking. And since you write with your heart and edit later, it would behoove me to figure out what was on my mind. My assumption being that by figuring out what was truly buried in the depths of my subconscious, I would somehow magically figure out what was in my heart. Or am I simply writing away some deeper pain? Wouldn't that be this risk of figure out what was in fact in my heart of hearts. This may read strange as hell and I will make no apologies as I am clearly working through something bigger then myself.

But then the like the song changing in the headphones and I am off the path I was bearing down and on to something else. Or am I? Since I never dove deep enough into my soul to actually figure it out I couldn't possibly know if I have change the path or not. All I know is that you can't force this out like toothpaste, it has to bubble up inside me and work its way out of my fingers when it is ready. Nothing sounds worse to me then when I am forcing myself to put words out on paper. This usually manifests itself in academic works that shall we say have a certain number of words required. Although I do count myself fortunate that whatever I vomit onto those pieces is generally highly regarded and is often successful in achieving the goal of a passing grade. I do listen to music when I write. I know some people don't but I find the music excites me and helps me punch the keys on the input device of choice.

Time Will Tell

I hate feeling like I am being forced to do something. Sometimes I feel that way about things I enjoy doing. I only wish I understood how to keep something I love from becoming a forced job. One of the great mysteries of my life I suppose.

New Posts Every Tuesday & Thursday

I have finally after going back and forth decided to post new content on my blog every Tuesday and Thursday. Look forward to writing again for you guys soon!

Ben Talks Contact Lens' Part 1

The Comeback Trail.

Could I possibly be making a comeback? Stay tuned.

Videos!

My New Videos!

Choice

Lately I have been thinking about how life seems to boil down to choice. And how often I have felt like I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. But these ideas are intrinsically linked. My choices in my life are part chance but so are everyone else's. I am not ballsy enough to say that anyone else who isn't sure of something is the same, but I was simply lazy. I realize with my perfect hindsight that I was just to lazy to make a decision. So for me at least it wasn't about not knowing as much as it was lazy. But that is no way to go through life and it isn't right. I guess sometimes you have to ask yourself is it uncertainty or laze?

Different

I once wrote that if you asked me if I had ever been alienated I would lie and say I had not. When in reality I have been alienated over and over again in my life by almost everyone I have ever met. In fact most days of my life I am alienated in some way, shape, or form. But the truth goes much deeper then my pop psychology self diagnosis. I started thinking recently about why I feel this way and it suddenly dawned on me that it has to be me. I am almost thirty years old and it took me to this point to figure out that the problem wasn't the whole world, it was just me. I feel strangely free by this information, like a ton of weight has been taken off me. I feel slightly embarrassed that it took me this long to figure it out and I feel remorse for those who have yet to grasp it.