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 MoreAhhh Yeah Baby – Sextant Time
When technology breaks, it can be disastrous – planes can fall from the sky, votes can be manipulated, your vibrator data could be pilfered (true story and it was done on purpose), and all other sorts of weird things. On my drive home recently, I noticed that I was driving North (but I should be traveling South as I am coming from the North), and I nearly had a heart attack: “How long had it been since I had left the gas station?” “How much back tracking had I done?” “Shit snacks on a turd cracker, I can’t believe this is happened.” Then I calmed myself, I hadn’t made a mistake.
I looked up and found the Sun: it was off to my right and it was late afternoon. With that quick assessment, I was transported back in time and leveraged my hiking/camping knowledge to correct the compass in my car – I was traveling South. But boy was it weird constantly looking down at the compass and seeing it tell me the exact opposite of what I was doing at that time.
It was unnerving, surreal, and uncomfortable. Everything I did, I thought I was doing wrong. So then I thought about, when did I choose technology’s answer over my own? Clearly I have deduced that the technology in my car was incorrect and that the Sun (which has been doing it far longer) was giving me the appropriate information I needed to make it home. Not only that, all the signs indicating I was traveling the correct direction. Yet, seeing that little N each time I looked down provided me a healthy dose of anxiety.
Perhaps, I need to cut out the technology and get back to the basics. Time to buy a sextant. (Secondary note: Sun is a pronoun, there should be no the before it, but I know people are used to seeing “the Sun” in text. I’ll write about my issues with “the Sun” but for now, know it pains me to write that).
Read MoreTaking a Bullet for Someone
John has zero health insurance. He is a good guy, loves life and has two kids. His life is modest, a vacation once a year to Disney World for a week, then a few other weeks off to take care of the kids and stuff around the house. The family cannot eat steak every night, but that isn’t healthy, and John’s wife is a wonderful cook – so chicken, pork, and produce fill their bellies. At the end of the evening, John loves to play cards with his kids, read, and listen to albums. John’s got a pretty sweet life.
Then Tiffany broke into the bank and pointed a gun at you and John. It was surprising how quick John laid down on the ground and slid his gun across the floor. You stood there dumbfounded, but I guess I am surprised by your confusion at John’s actions.
Do you really think a security guard making fifteen dollars an hour is going to lay down his life for you?
Read MoreHow Hate Dies – Maybe
I don’t know if capitalism will destroy hate, but I can hope that a weird dynamic that has sprung up within our version of capitalism that will force hate to die out – revenue. In previous posts I’ve railed against the new structure of using advertisements to build revenue for most technology companies. I hate these advertisements because I don’t think I should be subjected to a 15 second advertisement when I want to watch a 2 minute video… however, I am beginning to see an interesting twist. This culture has given the power for choosing web content to the companies that need to advertise – not the consumer (think, who pays the bills, that’s who chooses). But more on that, let’s focus on some assumptions I’ve made in the past. [click “Read More” to dive into the twisted world of revenue]
Read MoreOne of my Real Fears
My process for writing fiction is probably one of those things that other writers do but something I don’t know about. For me, I need to live in my universe/world before I can create it. I visualize everything and place myself there before I begin writing about it. My short fiction tends to suffer because I don’t perform this task in as much detail as I would for a novel. However, my novels are places I’ve lived in for many days, weeks, months, and some have even been there for years. Since I was a kid, I loved teleporting myself into a world of my own creation before bed. I would live there for some of my day and then rejoin those on Earth. It was a trick, I could disappear and do whatever I wanted. Yet, that ability, to vividly create something and believe you were there also has a downside. [Click “Read More” to go on a philosophical journey]
Read MoreProduce, Produce, Produce – Lettuce not Discuss Vegetables
Something is wrong with me. My brother has made this abundantly clear – though his criticism is a joke – I’ve noticed that something is “off” when I compared myself to others. I’ve come to this conclusion after multiple walks and conversations with friends that I differ from these people in certain regards. I want to create… nay, I am driven to create. I don’t write to pay my bills (it is actually a drain on my finances), but rather, I write because I love to generate something from nothing. With each dash of the pen, stroke of my fingers, key that clacks, I take my mind and provide it to you. And through that process, something that was only available to me is now available to you.
I cannot remember which philosopher discussed the two ways people create (Maybe Maron (Jean-Luc) or Romanov but they seem too contemporary to be correct). The goal of the philosopher’s analysis was to highlight that human beings are driven to create a legacy (as I read it): biological creation (making new babies) and intellectual creation (books, art, business). The point is that humanity needs to create and we choose different ways to achieve those goals; I personally am driven to leave my legacy via fiction.
So I produce and produce, I avoid revisions and move to my next project quickly. In order to publish, I have been dumping a lot of time into revisions (my most hated activity, but one I am beginning to respect (makes what I’ve pulled out of my mind less messy for the non-Theodore reader)). Nonetheless, I wish I could just be set in a room and left to create new universes and worlds to ad nausea. I don’t feel the need to be in a relationship, but I do feel the need to be writing. I don’t know what it is, but I do know this is a garbage pile of a blog post. Perhaps, I will wrestle with understanding the people who don’t feel a compulsion to create something intellectual, but I see the way they look at me, and I know they wrestle with understanding how I don’t feel a compulsion to create something biological.
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