Victoria & Michael: A Children’s Story

“Victoria & Michael”

Victoria & Michael: Love Notes and Scrapbooks.

By. J. Michael Jeffries

My ex and I had this sweet game we’d play where we’d write short notes to each other and leave them in special hiding places where eventually they’d be found and remind us how much we cared for one another.  We’d also write short children’s stories about our love which was to help us remember the sweetness of love and our youthful joy in the relationship.

I wrote this short story about a fantasy childhood meeting between a lonely boy named Michael and a kindhearted girl, Victoria, that meet on a fate filled and share some great adventures together.  Being a children’s story it had a happy ending, which unfortunately real-life doesn’t always follow.  Ultimately I completed the story by putting it in a journal and drawing childlike pictures to add dimension to the text.  I also narrated the story and took some great photos of the book to add depth and movement to the story.

Victoria & Michael at the art gallery.

We broke-up in May 2012, but I still continue to think of my lost love at least once a day.  Ultimately I’ve dreamt of reuniting with her; however I really don’t foresee that happening.  Rather than keeping this work tucked away I want to share it with the world and hopefully inspire others to use their artistic talents to the highest expectations.  Though my love story continues as a single life story, my expectations for others remains open and I believe this may help individuals understand the beauty of love; although it may be lost, it does exist.  Please use this as inspiration, and hold on to whatever love you may find.

Victoria & Michael get married.

YouTube.com video link below:

“Victoria & Michael“

Creativity and Criticism

Staring at a blank computer screen… or possibly a half-finished canvas… pondering,  simply waiting for some sort of artistic inspiration to strike you like a bolt of lightning, an epiphany from the gods of art.  Then, BAM!!! It hits you… absolutely nothing at all; you’ve hit an artistic block.  A stagnation of your imagination, you have completely no idea how to begin or complete a project.  We’ve all experienced this at some point in our lives, where we say something to this effect “I have writers bock” or “I can’t find my inspiration.”  Oddly enough, this is a completely fictitious manifestation of your imagination (meaning it’s a false excuse).

The human mind, with all of its intricacies, is not without knowledge or inspiration.  As humans were are innovators that can adapt to any given situation.  Why?  Our brains, this is the same reason that Homo-sapiens succeeded in expanding throughout the earth and Neanderthal went extinct.  We come up with new ideas, communicate those ideas to others, and add innovation to the idea, which allows us to continue on the track of progressive longevity.

I’ve often wondered why we seeming get this sort of “blocking” of the mind… and to me the answer is excruciatingly simple, we worry.  The main thing that we worry about is the way in which our work will be perceived or critiqued by others.  Will people simply laugh it off as the ravings of a lunatic or will they accept it as some great innovation for the collective whole?

One of my sketches from “Adult Art Night.”

Acceptance is the key principal in the aforementioned statement.  We’d like to think our ideas are completely new… that no one has ever thought of this before, that for some unknown reason we’ve become a genius overnight.  The reality of the situation is, in fact, that ideas build upon ideas.  Expression is unique to the individual, and most importantly we all fear rejection.  Sure, some artists say that they “don’t care what anyone things about their work” that they’re “loners, set to blaze their own trail.”  The only problem with these statements are that they aren’t based in reality… they’re excuses to curb the pain of criticism, critique… or in other words rejection.

This leads me to the cornerstone of this blog, as alluded to in the title, creativity and criticism.  The crucial aspect of creating and completing any project is self-exploration; some may argue it’s also self-expression.  You see, it really isn’t that one is dealing with any sort of block in their creativity… the block is their fear of others perceptions of their work.  However, it’s important to remember that we constantly have ideas… we tend to reject ideas that seem weak, but these ideas are just as important as innovative ideas.

Rather than simply looking at a blank sheet of paper, one must begin to write down everything that comes to mind.  This could be colors, sketches, words, phrases… anything at all that comes to mind.  Then review those creative pieces, pick one or a few to build on, and before you know it… BAM!!! Again.  Only this time, you’ve began exploring new ideas and thoughts… things that were always there, but that you were to afraid to explore.

The simple point is to get any and all thoughts out; most people refer to this as “brainstorming” others may use the term “mind mapping.”  Either way, they are ideas that may contribute a solution to the problem at hand or may simply contribute to other explorations in the future.  Alas my friends, your minds are not completely blank… there is no block.  Don’t over-think an issue, don’t throw away thoughts that you may fear inconceivable by others… simply express, if not for the world then just for your own exploration.

A Great Political Experiment: The Impact and Progression of the United States Constitution through American History

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our prosperity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”  – Preamble (September 17, 1787)

These words and this document penned in 1787 by James Madison, the individual who is aptly referred to as “The Father of the Constitution,” adopted by the Constitutional Convention on September 17 of that year, and ratified on 21 June 1788, spark a torrent of discussions, comments, and questions concerning the great political and social experiment known as the United States of America. This is exactly the way in which the United States begins, as an “experiment.”  A small conglomeration of former British Colonies, each diverse, each unique, each individualistic (just as her citizens are), now united under a document that forms the base for government and society for all citizens in the newly formed republic.

The main question is why, why did our forefathers create this Constitution of the United States instead of simply establishing a government to rule the people?  The best response to offer to this question is to understand the world in which our founding fathers lived, the society and culture in which they existed, and most importantly the ideas of independence that they and the American Colonists fought and died to bring to fruition.

Liberty and tyranny, independence and authority, autonomy and monarchy; these are words synonymous with the American Revolution and the establishment of constitutionalism within the United States.  These terms stand to represent a divergence from Colonial Britain to the formation of a new republic, a republic of former colonists bent on creating a government “of the people, and by the people.”  Interestingly enough the British Empire had, at this time, already developed and incorporated the most liberal government that the world had seen… until this point.  Under the British government, all the while shouting “Rule Britannia,” they had formed the foundation of a Parliamentary Monarchy.  A system of government that encompassed the globe, the entire British Empire which had colonies on six of the seven continents, and shared a system of checks and balances between the House of Commons, House of Lords, Prime Minister, and King of England.  Yet these American colonists, this “band of rebels,” sought an improved form of liberty, a form of liberty that harkened back to the Greco-Roman tradition of a Democratic-Republic and they accomplished this through the “living document” that we know as the Constitution of the United States.

In a letter to Thomas Jefferson written on October 24, 1787 (as Jefferson was serving as the U.S. Ambassador to France), James Madison outlines the objectives of the Constitution stating:

“The greater objects which presented themselves were:

1. To unite a proper energy in the Executive and a proper stability in the Legislative departments, with the essential characters of Republican Government.
2. To draw a line of demarcation which would give to the General Government every power requisite for general purposes, and leave the States every power which might be most beneficially administered by them.
3. To provide for the different interests of different parts of the Union.
4. To adjust the clashing pretensions of the large and small States. Each of these objects [were] pregnant with difficulties

The whole of them together formed a task more difficult than can be well conceived by those who were not concerned in the execution of it.”

This “living document” does more than simply outline the roles of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the United States government; it sets a precedent and provides legal protection for the individual freedoms of every American citizen.  It is our Founding Fathers and their development of the Constitution, as well as those that take an oath to defend the Constitution that one may thank for our vindication of rights, our protection of freedoms as framed in this “living document.”  A document that changes with time and evolves to fit the society and culture of that given generation; this is the beauty of the Constitution and its profound impact on U.S. and global history, its ability to be interpreted, modified, and amended over time.

In a letter to Samuel Kercheval written by Thomas Jefferson on July 12, 1816, Jefferson points out these great attributes of the Constitution stating:

“Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them, like the Ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present, and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-learning. I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.  As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.  We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when [he was] a boy as [for] civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of its barbarous ancestors.”

Our Founding Fathers, the “Framers of the Constitution,” knew all too well that society changes with time and that the document that they were creating must also change with the times.   They realized, even then, while the Constitution was being passed through each State’s government during the ratification process, that the rights of the American people must be specifically outline, written out, protected through the legality of words, and added to the Constitution.   These guaranteed liberties become the Bill of Rights and are among the first Amendments added to the Constitution, of which state:

“The enumeration of the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”  – Amendment 9

In supporting the Bill of Rights Thomas Jefferson writes to James Madison on December 20, 1787 that:

“A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, & what no just government should refuse or rest on interferences.”

And why, we ask, would Jefferson not support a Bill of Rights?  He was, after all, the “Writer of the Declaration of Independence,” penning these words very 1776 against what he and the American Colonists felt had become a tyrannical government:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government…it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”

Remembering these words, written some eleven years earlier, the Founding Fathers incorporate “unalienable rights” in the form of the Bill of Rights and the ideals of revolution within in the Constitution in the form of Amendments the greatest of which include, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments which occur nearly one hundred years later in a new revolution, the American Civil War.

These particular Amendments address the idea of slavery and equal rights for all male citizens regardless of race or ethnicity.   That is not to say that our Founding Fathers did not have direct discourse on this subject, they simply overlooked this major factor as they knew the Constitution would not be ratified in their time (due to the weakness of the U.S. and the idea that “United We Stand, Divided We Fall”), yet they hoped and dreamed that future generations would make these drastic changes to the Constitution to remedy the “Peculiar Institution,” the institution of slavery.  In a letter to Robert Pleasants, January 18 1773, the “Voice of the Revolution” Patrick Henry writes:

“[L]et us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot and an abhorrence of slavery. I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil.”

After this second revolution, the American citizens certainly did abolish what Henry calls a “lamentable evil.”

Yet another issue that the creators of the Constitution wrestled with was women’s rights, but again in their time this revolutionary ideology could never quite be remedied.  Abigail Adams, the wife of our future first Vice President and Second President of the United States John Adams, wrote to her husband in 1774 stating:

“I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.”

It takes nearly one hundred and thirty years for American society to progress to the point of accepting equality and offering universal suffrage to all citizens regardless of sex.  The “living document,” ingeniously created by our forefathers, thus allows for the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment and another revolution for the rights of all American citizens.

Never forget the intellectual beauty, quality, and rights of equality delivered by our Constitution of the United States.   Also, constantly honor and thank those that continue to defend the Constitution and our personal liberties as American citizens.   Those brave men that wrote the Constitution, those brave people that Amended the Constitution, and those peoples that continue to make this the “Land of the free and the home of the brave.”

“Let America Be America Again” (1938)
by Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed–
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek–
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean–
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today–O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home–
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay–
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again–
The land that never has been yet–
And yet must be–the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME–
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose–
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath–
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain–
All, all the stretch of these great green states–
And make America again!

Social Acceptance and Existentialist Crisis: Indivi- “dual” “I” -dentity

Upon my recent break-up… albeit as recently as May, which may not be too recent for some but is still quite recent for me… I’d begun to look at ways to mend my broken heart.  One phrase that consistently appears is that “one must focus on oneself during this time.”  I’ve pondered this dilemma throughout my time of loss and on occasion obsessed over the true meaning behind the phrase.  There have been times where I simply laid in bed the entire day dwelling on what I had lost and how to better myself for the future… constantly repeating the aforementioned phrase in the hope of sparking some sort of epiphany into myself.  This of course never really happened until I began working on a free writing journal (without censorship) last night.  I had no clue what would come out of it, if anything at all; yet the practice of doing so intrigued me enough to experiment… call it the empiricist in me.

I’ve been quite taken back by what I’ve found… a lack of a sense of self, self-worth, of truly knowing who I as an individual really am.  It seems that I, at the ripe young age of 30, am experiencing some sort of existentialist crisis.  I’ve commonly defined myself as being an

“I”
One of my digital manipulations.

individual, the reality of it all being that I actually define myself through other’s perceptions of me… for those of you familiar with this ideology it’s essentially a derivative of Charles H. Cooley’s “Looking Glass Self Theory.”  Without someone there to chameleonize myself for, I feel that I have no redeeming qualities for existence.  No one to garner a smile and great compliment from, no one to help me define my identity, no one at all… now I must look to the only individual around to identify with, myself.

Who is this man in the mirror I wonder?  What does he really enjoy?  What does he really want?  What does he really fear, need, feel?

The ideas seem to pervade my consciousness and in my existentialist rhetoric I’ve come to the conclusion that I still don’t know… i.e. my crisis.   Sure, I’ve accomplished a lot in life… but the one thing that I’ve never mastered is me.  I’ve always distracted myself from truly getting to know me as an individual… my “I,” if you will; hence the “I” in “I”dentity.  I think myself to be an intellectual, a philosophical eclectic that picks and chooses a philosophy to suit my own needs at the time… a rationalist, a realist, a romantic, a (as pointed out previously) empiricist… only to find that I’m in a dualistic (dualism) state of wrestling between the ideas of logic and emotion with one overcoming the other at certain times.

Who am I really?  Will there ever be an answer to this question or is there no real truth in who any of us are?

The key to solving these questions must be addressed through experience, exploration, and experimentation.  The answers only come to the surface through the individual and are as unique as the individual themselves.  No, I’ll not stop my search… the long road of life will never allow me to do so, but I vow to pursue the depths of my “I”dentity to whatever extent that I must… because the only thing that I have left is me, and my vow to better myself.

My America — Reflections, Reactions, and the Manifesto of a Patriot

It’s fairly obvious that I have not “blogged” in quite a while, but at this point… I must; not because I’m bored (though that could be the case), not because of sentimental attachment to words or writing (that gets dull and tiring)… but because I need a form of expression and exercise for the mind, promoted through language, and tapped out on the keys of the computer like a mad pianist playing some Romantic Classic.  E.X.P.R.E.S.S.I.O.N. of letters forming words in cohesive thought — in my case maybe not so cohesive after all, does anyone have glue by the way? — sentences structured to expand the mind and pervade the soul.  What pray tell do you ask is so important as to allow me to want to express, to explain, to elaborate?  Simply look above at the title of this blog… gain a sense of what is to come with this non-verbose and pensive expression of thought.  Let me repeat it again, in case you are too tired to look above… My America – Reflections, Reactions, and the Manifesto of a Patriot… there is no pretension in the title, simply a few expressive points that need to be made concerning the current state of affairs of MY America, YOUR America.

The Washington Monument on Veteran’s Day (11/11).

We look at our country, OUR America, and contemplate the state of affairs concerning this world in which we live.  Job loss, economy, job loss, death, job loss, pain, job loss, dreams… depression, recession… whatever you say, however you choose to categorize this time, realize that WE ALL need to unify as Americans to solve the issues; the problems… particularly the economic issues plaguing OUR country.  Realize that it starts with US, simply, US… YOU, I, WE… AMERICANS.  It is in tough times, hard times, that greatness is achieved… not necessarily from the top, from the upper class, the prestigious, the “powerful” factions in society… greatness is achieved from the “others,” the ones that stand in the shadows waiting for a chance to change the world with a single set of gestures that proliferate, pontificate, and propagate, thus generate a new sense of being… state… and fulfill those dreams of past generations, of US… WE… YOU… I… ME… America!

It starts with simple gestures, things that can be done in life to make society stronger… to provide unity and support for all within OUR society.  These gestures don’t have to be brazen, bold, or brassy… they can be, as mention, simple… as simple as being a good person to others, assisting those that need assistance, but are too ashamed or proud to ask.  You don’t have to be a Rockefeller or Carnegie to provide support, or create some grandiose philanthropic cause… just follow the “natural order,” the “natural laws” if you will, of helping your fellow man — that’s mankind ladies, not simply men –.  Romantics such as Rousseau and Kant would agree that we as humans can be innately kind to one another without necessarily doing deeds to make ourselves look better; but to better society, natural society as a whole.  It’s also the pop artist Andy Warhol that said “I think everybody should like everybody.”  These things ring true today because it is up to US… WE… YOU… I… ME… to make America the land that it should be, the land that it was established to be.

Looking at the title… yes I asked you to look up at the title again… you see that “Reflections” and “Reactions” are an integral part of that main title.  I assume that you will realize that these words resonate with this entire blog, as you have read, but the other two words “Manifesto” and “Patriot” seem lost amidst the society in which we live.  Manifesto is customarily associated with Marx, Engels, and that awful word in our Capitalistic society… Communism… uh-oh, he said that, who said that, yes I said that… Communism.  In actuality I’m not suggesting Communism.

City-irical Sate of Mind

“Al: I woke up in a Los Angeles. And life is beautiful!” – David Ives, The Philadelphia 

Great line for an opening, no?  The quote above comes from Allen Chase, a character in the short play titled The Philadelphia written by David Ives.  Not to go into too much detail concerning the production, but the play basically revolves around two main characters (Al and Mark) and one supporting actress (Waitress) that are dealing with unique metaphysical states of being.  The particular metaphysical states are manifested through characteristics associated with certain American cities.  Al, for example, is in a Los Angeles.  He lost his job, loves the hole in the ozone layer, and his girlfriend left him that very morning. Because of his metaphysical state he doesn’t even care about these things, water under the bridge.  Al, “You know Susie packed up and left me this morning.  And frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a shit. I say go, God bless, and may your dating pool be Olympic-sized.”  He has lost his job, which according to Mark was “his life.”  Yet Al says he’ll simply turn it into a movie script, pitch it to a few production companies, and let the chips fall where they may.  Nothing can stop Al from having a great day.  Mark, on the other hand, cannot figure out what’s going on with his day.  Anything he asks for or wants, he “can’t get.”  Al reveals to him that he is in a Philadelphia and proceeds to explain that “…inside of what we know as reality are these pockets, these black holes called Philadelphias… and physically you’re in [enter whatever town or city where you live].  But metaphysically, Mark, you are in a Philadelphia.”  Near the end of the production the Waitress reveals that she is also in a metaphysical state known as a Cleveland.  This is much worse than Mark’s state because in a Cleveland “it’s like death, without the advantages.”

Now, many of you may be wondering what this play has to do with anything in life.  Well, in my humble opinion, the idea of existing in a metaphysical or emotional state of mind can be expressed through the idealistic qualities associated with specific cities within the U.S.  And yes, I have the data to prove it… was that a gasp I just heard from all of you wonderful readers?  I of course Googled “most depressing cities in the United States” and found some interesting data.  Number one on the list… wait for it… wait… okay, Cleveland.  That’s right people, how crazy is that?  I probably shouldn’t ask you all, seeing as you must be quite crazy to read anything that I post… but I digress.  According to a poll conducted in 2010, “Cleveland [is] deemed [the] most miserable city in the USA” (Reuters).  Further research provides support that other cities in the U.S. are deemed the happiest cities and, gasp again, Californian cities topped the list.

I, like Al, woke up in a Los Angles this morning after having been in a Cleveland nearly all week.  My metaphysical state of mind today prompted me to pose a question to my family and friends in this interactive blog. Ready for it?  No, wait… that wasn’t the question, although it is a question, it’s not THE question… this is the question: what city state of mind are you in and why?  Below I’ve listed the four cities mentioned in The Philadelphia, but I’d love to hear more and will provide more myself over time.  I bid you all adieu from my “cosmic beach.”

Los Angeles: relaxed, happy, no worries, life is good.

Philadelphia: anxious, tense, can’t get what you want, everything is the complete opposite.

Baltimore: practically the same as Philadelphia without everything being opposite.

Cleveland: depressing, sad, like death without the advantages.

To clear a few things up, yes I played Mark in a production of this play and yes I have converted it into a screen play to be filmed in the future.

Valentine’s Day — of the Damned

Love in the air.

Ahh… Valentine’s Day, a day when love is in the air, when Cupid flutters by spreading amour to all, and time to show that special someone how much you truly care for them.  Excuse me for a moment… my gag reflex drew me away from the computer.  Sure, we all know what V-day is about, we’ve been inundated with the semi-chocolate induced love frenzy since early childhood… you may still be upset that you didn’t get a good card from your crush in elementary school, yes – the trauma and mental abuse is… I’m sure, still there… but if you sit down and truly think about this… and I use the word loosely… holiday, you’ll realize that it is actually a ‘Day of the Damned.’

There are many ways to relate V-day to a ‘day of the damned.’  Take this connotation for instance you’re in a relationship and you know it’s not working out… but for this day, you at least have to express your true love for someone… you… well truly don’t love and may actually be repulsed by.  That’s not really the main reason for the blog… it’s to point out the sheer disdain for a time when, in all honesty, society accepts a hideous… but noticeable existence of class structure… if you will.

Let me start by saying this, another Saint’s day… St. Patrick’s Day, a day for acceptance of all, of everyone… and yes of course wonderful drunken debauchery, how can you not like that?  But realize that as the saying goes on St. Patrick’s Day “everybody’s Irish.”  This is extremely important to understand because for hundreds of years the Irish have been subjugated, insulted, degraded, and socially rejected throughout Anglo society… yet on their day, they accept everyone… even if it’s just for that day.

V-day on the other hand, ostracizes individuals who don’t have someone to whisper sweet nothings into their ear… you may insert any overly sensitive, romantic, or hopelessly romantic phrase here that you want.  In actuality V-day puts these types of individuals down, forming a segregated… realize this could be a bad term used in U.S. history… and distinct class structure.  Those with somebody… and those without, the ‘losers of love,’ as some would say.  Do individuals celebrate class structure, segregation, or ostracization on any other day of the year…?  (You may also insert any group of people into that question marked phrase; all civilizations have or continue to treat others poorly, but aren’t necessarily celebrated, in good reason, for it.)  Of course not, that would be bad… it could even get individuals called heinous names too.  No, V-day is the only day when people can feel rejected… get pointed out by others… and well it’s truly acceptable to/accepted in society.  I could probably ramble on about all of this… but I’m sure you get the point… and you’re maybe thinking… ‘day of the damned’ really means this damn long blog that took me… well… what felt like a day to read.

Anyway, I will be celebrating my V-day releasing my frustration and stress in the Boxing Gym… nothing says love like a right cross to a focus mitt or a hook to a heavy bag, and a peck on the cheek is probably a left jab to the jaw… maybe I’m just a little bitter since this is the first Valentine’s Day I’ll be spending alone in two years, but to tell you the truth I never cared for V-day to begin with.

What’s in a Blog? Or Better Yet, to Blog or Not to Blog?

I recently read a note posted on Facebook by my friend Max Everhart in which he describes making “notes in the margins of books, notes on tests [he has] given, and on essays [he] grades…” and being “all noted-out because… [his] ‘Notes’ section on Facebook remains noteless.”  His posting inspired me to attempt to do the same.  I too have been constantly reminding myself to re-begin a journal of my thoughts, goals, readings, inspirations, experiences… etc. but not done so.

You may be pondering the point of this endeavor that can only be best described as a digital journal; why would I even do this?  I offer this information to answer that particular question: “In a classic study of mental traits of genius, Catherine Cox examined 300 of history’s greatest minds. She found that geniuses in every field – from painting, literature, and music, to science, the military, and politics – tended to have certain common characteristics.  Most notably, she discovered that geniuses enjoy recording their insights, observations, feelings, poems, and questions in personal notebooks or through letters to friends and family” (Michael J. Gelb, “Discover your Genius,” pg. 21).

Coincidentally, as eluded to in paragraph one, I attempted this on a previous social networking site that many may be familiar, MySpace. I do not access that site anymore, thus I will begin my Blog section on WordPress with electronic posts with my previously written MySpace “Blogs.”

Now that you’re on the edge of your seat, with amazingly contained excitement (note the sarcastic tone)… I leave you with my very first electronic posting titled “What’s in a Blog? Or better yet, to Blog or not to Blog?”

– Although I haven’t made much use of Blog entries, I plan on making “the Blog” an integral part of MySpace, those reading… don’t sigh with boredom, at least not quite yet. You may wonder what sparked this epiphany if you will, or what drunken stupor I stumbled home in as it dawned on me to employ my blog… was it rum, beer, bourbon… that’s not the point, I digress… unfortunately I wasn’t under the influence of alcohol at all, but enough “boos” already… no alcoholic play on words or puns intended.  In actuality as I’ve began spending hours looking through primary documents from the mid-1700s, written in almost illegible cursive hand writing, on microfilm… I may have a microfilm hangover if that helps anyone… I realized that blogs have become the computer age equivalent of manuscripts, journals, and memoirs; and can also be used to record events, emotions, and ridiculous things you may forget or quite frankly… should probably forget.  Anyway, I’m going to start using this blog a little more to rant, rave, philosophize, or just release some emotions… it may offend, it may intrigue, it may make you say “what the hell?,” but ultimately I hope that it will intellectually stimulate or inspire in some way, simply… stay tuned. –