The Stars and Planets Will Affect Your Life in Some Way
While strolling through the world wide web, I came across one of these meme thingamobobs where it listed all the zodiac signs and then their horoscope. For each zodiac, it stated: “The Stars and Planets Will not Affect Your Life in Any Way”. Now, the question you are probably asking is if Theodore is a believer. Some of you no doubt believe in horoscopes and some of you hate them and consider them a plague upon the rational enlightened mind of the homo homo sapien. Or perhaps it is something different, like that person I met who believed pink quartz had healing capabilities and was fixing their ailment; this thought had spread from their significant other. If you have to ask where I land on this topic, I highly suggest you review my marinade recipe rant: Marinade or Cancer Cure. However, I am not on the side of this meme because they failed linguistically. Blatantly put: they are wrong and their meme is a lie. You want to know how I can say that so confidently? Click [Read More] and I will take you through a philosophical journey.
Read MoreThe Man in the High Castle – Not the Book by PKD
I recently heard about a man who has locked himself in a castle (large mansion that is nicknamed the castle). He doesn’t have visitors often and is mostly there to maintain the place and enforce the rules. It is an isolation job where he doesn’t see anyone for many days throughout the week. When he does have an interaction with someone, it is usually brief and him discussing what he does.
Now, I know that I am an extrovert and introvert blend, and because of that, I need to see humans on a regular basis. I need to see the way they tick and move. All these observations go into creating mannerisms for characters, speech patterns, and all of that fun jazz that makes a character three dimensional/realistic. Obviously, I make some stuff up, but I often listen to the world around me and pull from there. This blog post is developed from this approach and a conversation with a neighbor.
So, the man in the castle confused me. His goal is to write a screen play for a movie. That’s why he took the job in the mansion – he needs the isolation to work on his product. Now, when I write I am capable of doing it in a coffee shop (only for short stints, I am actually writing this blog in a coffee shop right now) or with pure silence/instrumental music (if a neighbor is being loud). So I do understand the benefit of being in your home, by yourself, with silence, and how it makes writing easier. If I could have a pure silence chamber, I would write exclusively in there.
Yet, when I am writing, I am usually writing or creating something that comes from a semblance of reality. The concept of existing in a bubble, in a castle, and writing a screen play (unless it is about living an isolated life and the incurring psychological damage you receive) doesn’t seem possible to me. Where is the material coming from, the ideas, the human characteristics? Then again, everyone is different and I am especially adept at knowing the environments I need to be productive. Perhaps, his is isolation allows his thoughts to hammer on his brain box until something squeaks out his hands.
All I know is I couldn’t do it.
Read MoreThe Good Bargain
“What,” cried the peasant, quite angry, “since you are determined to know better than I, count it yourselves,” and threw all the money into the water to them. He stood still and wanted to wait until they were done and had brought him his own again, but the frogs maintained their opinion and cried continually, “aik, aik, aik, aik,” and besides that, did not throw the money out again. He still waited a long while until evening came and he was forced to go home. Then he abused the frogs and cried, “You water-splashers, you thick-eads, you google-eyes, you have great mouths and can screech till you hurt one’s ears, but you cannot count seven talers! Do you think I’m going to stand here till you get done?” And with that he went away, but the frogs still cried, “aik, aik, aik, aik,” after him till he went home quite angry.
~Brothers Grimm
In my previous post for Project Grimm (Faithful John), I discussed the potential mistake I made by starting this project. Based on my notes, I had originally planned on discussing The Good Bargain from the perspective of the Peasant being a villain and no one being a good guy. This is pretty easy to run with because the Peasant constantly blames everyone else for his failures, ignorance helps him stumble through countless obstacles, and those around him are punished for his foolishness. At the root of this piece is a dude who is not very bright, believes animals can talk (gives them his food and money), insults a king, gets tricked into giving a two people his reward (which isn’t a reward, but rather 250 lashings, gets the king to laugh, and then gets some real gold. He is a bubbling boob who ends up earning a treasure through sheer stupidity. 1/7 not recommended. [Click “Read More” for more of my rant]
Read MoreHow I Go On…
I realize that someone looked at the Emoji Movie script and said: “How much do you need? This will be brilliant.” Then, somehow, a bunch of actors – T.J. Miller, James Corden, Anna Faris, Patrick Stewart, Sean Hayes – looked at the script, read it, and said: “I’m in!” So… if the Emoji Movie can be birthed into this world and be marketed, I think I will be just fine.
But that ignorance is obliterated when, being an idiot and curious, I searched and learned that the movie had an estimated budget of ~50 million dollars… and made over 200 million in gross revenue. At which point, I begin to doubt the universe and my future.
Read MoreInundated by Media – Podcast
It may come as a surprise, but I talk to myself a lot. Over time, I’ve noticed that I’m not designing things in my head nor focusing on world building or testing dialogue with the mirror in my bathroom. Normally, it would be healthy, or at least considered healthy, that I have ceased speaking to myself. Except, I leverage these moments to figure out things for my writing. A ton of ideas have poured from me when I just let the train run off the rails.
Therefore, it is a problem that I am not doing these crazy things anymore. At first, I thought it was because I had become self-conscious about appearing insane. Then I realized what it really was… podcasts. Instead of letting my brain do its own thinking, I was blocking it out by playing a podcast. I had lost the ability to sit by myself in silence and just think. Now, I listen to history podcasts and learn from them, but I stopped just having ideas flow from me.
As such, I have ceased my podcast consumption at home and I’ve immediately benefited from having my mind do its own thing. It’s a shame, I truly love learning and podcasts are a very easy way to do that, but I also like letting my mind think instead of be squawked at.
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