All posts in prose

Better company?

Ughhh. Their company has 10 Harvard graduates while we… Ughhh, we just don’t.

Better athlete?

Look how huge he is! I can’t possible take him down.

Better love?

Look at the size of her ring! She’s got the best husband in the world.

Better message?

That post is 1000 words, while this one is only 100, obviously this one sucks and has nothing of importance to say.

Oh, America – land of the big is better slogan. Judging on size is self-defeating. And pretty stupid. (Smaller is not better by the way – that’s just you, judging on size again.)

photo credit: Tobyotter

The famous Nighthawks (1942) by Edward Hopper.

Bartender: “I can’t believe you’re back in town! Never thought I’d live to see the day John McKempoll strolled back into Phillies again. And with a lady too! Hold on, let me get you two a couple of drinks, on the house.” *Reaches for drinks under the cupboard* “What’ll it be?”

John: *Chuckles* “Glad to see you never change Tom. I’ll have a coffee, black. And this is Karla by the way.”

Karla: “Nice to meet you Tom. I’ll have what John’s having.”

John: *Looks at Karla* “Really? Never met a woman who takes her coffee black.”

Karla: “Well, I do…”

Tom: “Come on John, shouldn’t you know your lady’s preferences by now?”

John: “Actually we just met. Gave her a ride coming here.”

Tom: *Pause* “And why did you come here?”

John: *Silence*

Tom: *Shakes head* “Same old John, looking for trouble again.”

John: “That’s not why I came back.”

Tom: “Good, because Clyde’s still in town.” Continue Reading →

Yesterday I saw the future.

Not just once, not twice, but thrice.

Do you remember that scene from Minority Report where Tom Cruise walks past an ad and it recognizes him personally and talks to him directly? What about Johny Mnemonic, where Keanu Reeves surfs the web in a virtual reality environment? In a sense, that’s exactly where we’re headed. And frankly, I can’t wait.

But I can’t go about yelling “This is the future” all willy nilly. Don’t want to be compared to that guy on that corner downtown saying the same thing now do I?

So let’s look at the details of this whole interactive video thingy we have going on here. Continue Reading →

“You are a victim of the rules you live by.” ~ Anonymous

Remember the first time you crossed the empty street when the do not walk sign was still flashing red?

I do. And I’ll never forget that feeling I got from doing so that first time. That feeling as exhilarating as stepping on the moon, of going where no man has gone before (I thought so at the time). That euphoric feeling in which I realized that the constraints I once thought physical and unbreakable were in fact mental and fragile.

Sometimes the simplest of childhood moments changes your life forever. For some it’s seeing someone on television receiving bewildering amounts of praise from girls of all kinds (John Lennon seeing Elvis Presley), and for others it’s hearing classical or jazz music. For me, this was it – crossing the street illegally at age 7.

My views on rules, authority, and society were forever changed! It was as if I had taken the red pill and finally seen the world for what it truly was. The world was not as almighty and unchangeable as I once thought it was.

Rules didn’t have to be followed!

With those few illegal steps I had unknowingly altered my own future drastically.

I had unknowingly uncovered something about the world that the majority of people never do. At that moment I realized that we all live by a set of rules. Continue Reading →

“Not being racist is not some default starting position. You don’t simply get to say you’re not a racist; not being racist — or a sexist or a homophobe — is a constant, arduous process of unlearning, of being uncomfortable, of eating crow and being humbled and re-evaluating.” ~ G.D. of Postbourgie

You know what’s hard? Being good.

Doing the right thing and choosing the ‘right’ path is extremely hard. And it doesn’t get any easier with time (sorry to disappoint).

The only thing that changes with time is your reaction to the struggles in your life. Overtime, as you continue to pick the right, but difficult, choice it’ll become a habit. You’ll come to realize that the choice in which you struggle the most is most likely the best one. Sure, now and again you’ll pick the one with the least amount of struggling on your end – but you usually realize that you chose wrong (I know I have). Moving on from that in itself is a struggle. (Ask any ex-smoker, each slip up made it that much harder to quit, but they had to continue trying to quit.)

Unbeknownst to most is that we’re actually faced with tons of choices every day that require us to make a choice between the path of least resistance (struggle) and the path of most: Continue Reading →

A while back I ran across a post by Frank Chimero in which he described how he kept a text playlist:

“[O]ne made of the best writing on the web I come across. I take this list and revisit and reread it every 4 to 8 weeks. You could almost consider it a playlist of text: it’s very select (I artificially limit it to 10-15 articles), I typically read them all in one sitting, and the order and pacing is very purposeful. Most revolve around what it’s like to be making things in 2010, and a lot of the people that I respect the most have pieces in it. It’s almost a pep talk in text form. I visit it when I’m down, when I’m lazy, when I’m feeling the inertia take over.”

Wow, I was at a lose for words. A pep talk in text form – so brilliantly simple!

Not one to stand still when something catches my interest, I feverishly spent the next couple of hours rounding up all of my favorite writings, talks, poems, and speeches, etc.. And from that I picked my top 5 (which was most difficult to do) in order to make it a list that I could review in full once a month quickly (in an hour or less) without loosing any of the ‘pep talk’ effect.

I should have talked about this earlier, but I didn’t want to talk about my “Good Life Playlist” until I had spent at least two months finding out for myself how well it worked. And boy, does it work.

This short playlist consisting of poetry, talks, writing, and photography has for the past two months helped me in ways I couldn’t begin to describe. It’s helped me remember over and over why I chose to be different, why I chose to make my own future rather than hand it to someone else, and why I am on this path even when the easiest (conforming to the status quo) was the most pleasant path in most situations. My playlist reminds me of why I do what I do; in order to lead a good life.

My “Good Life Playlist” currently consists of:

Continue Reading →

As I said in Part 1, dance is synonymous with life. And thus, one can learn countless things about life by examining dance. For the first five life lessons learnt through dance check part one of this two part series. For now, I’m going to jump straight to where I left off.

Continue Reading →

If you haven’t heard, I’m a dancer. In the literal sense, and in the sense of a dancer being someone who enjoys the movement of life in an artistic sort of way.

I never started dancing thinking I would learn any big life lessons (it was just something cool at the time). Yet here I am, writing about what dance taught me about life. Why?

Well, because dance and life are synonymous in a lot of ways. They both consist of movement and motion, of trying to grasp something beyond yourself (this can be spiritual, artistic, etc.- anything that makes you feel alive, outer-body, and lifted), and of enjoying yourself in the process of grasping that which is bigger than yourself.

And since there aren’t many bloggers out there who dance professionally and write about improving the self at the same time, I might as well do so since I find myself overqualified in both areas. So… let’s begin.

Continue Reading →

Do less and do better.

There are countless things you could be doing with your time. Some things deserve your attention, and some things don’t. Your family deserves your attention. Reality television doesn’t. Your health deserves your attention. Your neighbors income doesn’t. Continue Reading →

Search for eHow online and you’ll be bombarded with tons of How To’s and a thriving website. But try that with eWhy and you get a practically non-existent website.

How come there are no Why To’s on the web? And yet so many How To’s?

I do get it from a certain mindset –  the world is a scary place and it’s getting more and more complicated by the day. How To’s make it easier for us to do the things we want to do.

We want to bake a cake for our soon to arrive guests yet we don’t know how, we search “How to bake a cake”; we want to pick our own locks because we’re trapped outside with no key, we search “How to pick a lock”; we want to make money online because our jobs suck, we search “How to make money online”; And on, and on, and on. (Surprisingly one of the top hits for “How to” is “How to shower”.) How To’s help us in a moment of crisis, How To’s help us learn things we weren’t taught in school, and How To’s help us help ourselves.

But isn’t WHY as, if not more, important as how?

Shouldn’t we slow down a little and ask ourselves why we’re doing so and so? Why am I baking this cake? Why am I picking my own lock? Why am I working at a job I hate? Continue Reading →