The Absence Between

I tried to type this up to mimic the way I used space when I wrote it on paper.

2021-10-16

The absence between

        A    and    C

As though leaving it out means

        It goes away

    1    and    3    equals    B

Bliss must be ignorance

    Because if I just pretend

        Then it doesn't exist

But some things are better left unsaid

The space between

        The floors in the building

    This tower to heaven reaches higher than it ought

(Has no one noticed the foundation is flawed?)

    But there's no stopping a bullet

        Train of thought

Better we not say anything at all

The absence between

            The thoughts you I say

        And the words that you I mean

    I'll be imaginary until proven guilty

Because a jury of peers

            Lack the control for silence

Background:  I wrote this while flying on an airplane. On the plane, I noticed they did not label the 13th row of seats, just like in buildings that also tend to skip numbering for the 13th floor. Along with everything else going on in the world, I thought this was a somewhat absurd practice and tried experimenting with it.

In the first stanza, I'm using the letter B as imagery for 13 if the 1 and 3 were pushed too close together. The second stanza speaks of the building with more floors than the actual height, because they number the 13th floor as 14. In the last stanza, I originally wrote "you" but I crossed it out and changed to "I," and I liked the look of that because it could be either, or both. The final stanza was meant to allude to mathematics and the imaginary number, as well as the court trials that have been consuming the news.

 

 

 

Returning to the scene... 2021.12.14

I wrote the poem above while flying home from San Antonio. I wrote the poem below the night before, trying to capture some of the emotions going through me while I was visiting San Antonio. "Returning to the scene" was supposed to be a clever way to identify that this was an update/edit to this blog post, but it could also be a good title for this poem.

2021-10-16    (0131)

Hard to find words to identify

These feelings have been overwhelming me

The anxiety building inside my heart beat

I was last here a child

Now, though grown, I still feel the shadow

The breakdown of self as I travel

Do any of you see the significance?

Am I alone in this awe?

I was first here a child

Background:  I'm unsure how to capture my feelings as I return to Lackland for the first time since I went through Basic Training in 2009. I had a lot of feelings washing over me and I felt small and insignificant.

As I was flying here, I saw a group of "kids" wearing Air Force shirts. When we transferred planes and they boarded the San Antonio flight with me, I knew they were on their way to Basic Training. They're not kids.

This is also my first time traveling away from my family in almost four years, and that brings its own emotions. Not to mention the stress added by COVID restrictions and the past two years.

The Right, Wrong Answer

 So, I just watched a video, which I thought was outstanding, until I wanted to comment and find an answer to a problem. The only problem with my comment was that it opened up other problems and would probably upset people. So I'll post it here where it's less likely to offend someone (or ever be seen at all).

Here's the video by Cinema Therapy: Therapist Reacts to Implicit Bias in ZOOTOPIA

My issue was with the "articulate fella'" compliments. I've been guilty of saying such things myself and I wanted my comment to express my concern of what should I say (if anything) in those types of situations? What my comment ended up saying was "I understand how you're offended, but do you see how that offends me?" and I've already been here all night going back and forth with the logic of "I see how you can see that, but can you see how I meant it?" and it's driving me nuts. This is what's kills me about whatever this is, "woke" culture or "cancel" culture. I don't know what it is, but these days we're expected to treat everyone equally, but equally based on what? I can't treat one person or party one way without offending another, and I'm so tired of feeling like I'm walking on eggshells because you've established the standard that I'm not allowed to offend you or anyone else! That's the issue I want an answer to. Can we all just agree to not be offended? Or does that offend someone? (of course it does!)

So here's my rambling comment that will not be posted on the video itself: 

Okay, to flip this away from race, because I've been guilty of "articulate fella'" comments, and I don't want to dig myself into that hole, but I do want to delve into how to fix it. So to look at a similar problem from a different perspective, I was recently thinking about how to encourage my daughter with school as she grows. I grew up with the typical A-F and 100 points or less grading scales. My daughter's elementary report cards now simply say "Meets", "Approaching", or "Below" the standard (MS, AS, BS)... (on a side note... that grade is BS!). Back on track, because this is serious, and I hope you'll see my comparison here in a second. I was thinking about when I was a kid, I had friends who would get monetary rewards for an A or B on their report cards, so I told my mom, because I wanted a reward too. But here's the problem, some of my friends usually had Cs, and had to work really hard for those Bs and As. I almost always had As. So I could easily get the same reward, but it doesn't mean the same thing.

Let's change the situation and reward a bit and say my daughter always gets MS, but my son always gets AS. How do I express the same love to both children when I get very excited that my son got an MS, but for my daughter, MS is just par for the course and I still love her the same? Do you see where I'm going with this and how it ties back to the "articulate fella'" type "compliments"? Am I wrong for getting excited that my son got an MS? Is it just as wrong as being excited to meet "a real articulate fella'" when I expected they wouldn't be? Do I love my daughter less because she can't exceed an established standard but love my son more because he can exceed his standard?

I know that problem is fairly straight forward, but do you see the hidden problem (and the hole I didn't want to dig myself into)?

I'll call it the "I'm offended that you're offended" problem.

Let's say I reward my son for his hard work and give him $5. Then I also reward my daughter with $5 because she did well too. Is it right for my son to be offended that his sister got the same reward even though she might not have had to work as hard? Is it right for my daughter to be offended that her brother got the same reward when she could have done better if the standard allowed for a "better" rating? Now with both of them offended, am I not allowed to be offended that they are offended by my reward?

I know this is a little bit different than biased complements, but this is the problem, and I'm not sure there is ever a right answer. If a person can mow a lawn in 45 minutes, do they deserve more/less/the same pay as a person who takes 60 minutes? Say one is a person of color, one is a woman, one is tall, weak, strong, fast, slow... How do we treat people equally? If you're offended at me because you think I'm treating you unequally, can I be offended right back because I did my best to be fair?

How do I encourage my daughter and son to strive for excellence equally when excellence is different for each? How do I avoid instilling a bias that my daughter "outshines" other kids at school (or at home) because she always "meets the standard"? Is the reward the problem? Is the standard? We are all different. I can't tell my son to "be smarter" or "more articulate" any more than I can tell my daughter to "be less smart" or "less articulate."

So how do we compliment and encourage desirable traits and behaviors without discouraging based on stereotypes and biases? Who establishes desirable traits and behaviors? 

Book writing with words

Long ago (more than half my life at this point) I started writing a book. At the time I was maybe 15, and heavily inspired by Christopher Paolini's Eragon. I had planned to write a series about a great war, heavily influenced by the Suikoden games and the concept of the main character recruiting numerous characters and building up a castle/fortress/town with all the characters recruited. Obviously I never finished. I wrote and rewrote six to ten chapters and eventually found myself distracted from the story by the world building. I started creating lore and creatures and eventually stopped writing the story. So the notes and ideas sat dormant for a long while, always in the back of my mind as something I wanted to finish but never got around to. Lately, ideas and inspiration have been flooding my mind at every turn and I find myself longing to write. So I'm here, writing.

I used to keep all my writings in Word documents: poems, songs, my book and notes, copies of AOL IM conversations, text messages, email conversations, backed up MySpace posts and comments. I had documents for all sorts of nonsense and memories. In one late night session of file organizing inspiration back in 2014, I decided I wasn't actively using any of the files, so I could save some hard drive space by compressing everything into a zipped folder. Because securing my files seemed like a good idea, I password protected the file with 256-bit encryption. I remember creating the password and saving it in my KeePass database. It was around 2 in the morning and I looked around the room, merging words from random objects I saw, and because my KeyPass database would keep it safe, I wouldn't have to worry about forgetting it. It wasn't until two or three years later when I went looking for some file that I discovered I did not save the password, or it accidently ended up deleted in a database conflict. I also couldn't remember my late night inspired, random password. So I now have a wonderful zipped file with all my old writings and files sitting on my desktop as a constant reminder that I cannot access it.

Fortunately, the one folder I left out of the zipped file was the book that I always wanted to finish writing but never took time to work on. So all my chapters and notes are still accessible.

In the past couple years, I moved all my notes to OneNote, and that's where I've been throwing all my notes lately. I keep jotting down random ideas and thoughts. When I moved all my notes to OneNote I read through a lot of them trying to remember all of my original ideas and plans (that I thought were impossible to ever forget). I realized I've forgotten almost everything. Even some notes I wrote down don't make sense because I can't remember the context of ideas that inspired them. So I'm almost starting with a clean slate. Sure I have a handful of chapters written and plenty of world building notes, but there are a lot of bits and pieces I have forgotten completely. If I remember my original plans, I start there, but I've allowed myself the freedom to adjust and some characters/ideas I've completely redefined. So I've been thinking up character backstories and plot twists and taking lots of random notes, but I have yet to revisit the previously written chapters.

It's a wonderful feeling of inspiration, but I hate to find myself sitting at the computer at night. I spend all day in front of a computer for work, and I really don't want to come home to another computer, but the inspiration and ideas are overflowing from my head while I'm working, while I'm driving--anywhere and everywhere I'm coming up with new ideas and it's so exciting! So I think I'm willing to sacrifice some more time in front of a computer to get back to writing.

On that note, maybe six or seven years ago I discovered Scrivener, the word processing software for authors, but I wasn't writing at the time and didn't want to spend money on something I might not use. So I filed it away in Evernote for "someday." I've decided someday is finally here. I'm going to buy Scrivener and I'm stoked!

Will it help me write? Nah.

Will it help me organize my notes and thoughts? I certainly expect so.

Will I have to spend a good bit of time figuring out how to use it? I imagine I will.

But I'm stoked nonetheless.

Don't expect a finished book anytime soon, but know that it's on my mind.

Goodreads Audible Review - The Harbinger by Jonathan Cahn

The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery That Holds the Secret of America's Future by Jonathan Cahn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I listened to the Audible version, narrated by the author.
The facts in this book are incredible and nearly unbelievable (but look them up, and you'll see). I highly recommend it. I think it mainly suffers in the way it was turned into a narrative.
First, I think it should have been written entirely in the first person, as it gets a little confusing (especially the audio version) when it jumps from the past (first person account) to the present (third person). As it was written, Nouriel is telling the story first person in the past, but becomes "he" in the present, which conflicts with the prophet being called "he" all the time as well. I think the three main speakers should be: Nouriel, always narrating in the first person, The Prophet in the past, often referred to as he or him, and Ana in the present referred as she/her from Nouriel's perspective. Might not be such an annoyance when actually reading the book, but when listening to the audio it was frustrating.
Second, speaking of the audiobook, the narration is good, because Cahn is passionate about his story and message, but I think it suffers because he doesn't usually create voices for the characters i.e. everyone sounds the same. So when Nouriel and The Prophet are discussing back and forth, interrupting or repeating each other and then Ana chimes in from the present, it's difficult to follow exactly who's talking unless it's tied to a "he said/I said/she said."
Third, on that repetition piece, sometimes it seems like Cahn just likes to hear his own story. I don't believe this is the case, I think he just wants to cover all angles and make sure the message comes across clearly by repeating key details. In the first half of the book, while revealing the harbingers, it worked well, but the repetition of the same things over and over started to get on my nerves later in the book.
My final critique is on solving the mysteries and Ana's character. First, the reputation established for Ana at the start of the book was powerful, and Nouriel's plea never would have convinced her to listen past five minutes. Second, I wish she had a larger part, for example, Nouriel could have visited her after receiving each seal, and she could have helped him solve the mysteries, but I guess that would have made it more story between Nouriel and Ana and less narrated dialogue between Nouriel and The Prophet. Finally, the solving of the mysteries of each seal was hit or miss. It seemed like a couple Nouriel didn't even solve or come close, he just ended up in the right place to meet The Prophet, while others had zero mystery and he figured out immediately. For example The Prophet showed up at the library to give Nouriel a hint on one of the seals, but then he ended up just explaining the whole thing anyway. Again, this would have turned more into a story about solving the mysteries, distracting from the message presented as a dialogue between Nouriel and The Prophet.
Not to say that the book was bad, but in the end, I think Cahn didn't want to write a list of facts, so he tried write a suspenseful novel about discovering true facts in mysteries, but failed to deliver some story elements because he didn't want the suspense and mystery to distract from the facts he wanted to get across. Again, seems like he's in love with the message and won't leave it for adding story bits, which is understandable.

A side note that has almost nothing to do with this book review, but it was just something in my mind that gave it an extra kick.
Toward the end when The Prophet voiced the call to "return" it reminded me of the song "Subject To Change" by Project 86, from their album …And The Rest Will Follow. "Subject to Change" has a section of the chorus that chants "return, return, return" and now reading the lyrics again, the song could easily stand beside Cahn's message (despite the album's release in 2005). It speaks of a character hiding in useless distractions and devices to escape from themselves and then calls them to "Return to yourself". The bridge toward the end could even be calling out the public's momentary turn to God following 9/11, stating "Remember when you nearly plunged into embrace? But instead you've chosen to keep it all at bay. (lyrics here: https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3...)

Overall, I was fascinated by what was presented in this book, just a little disappointed with some of the formatting and some areas of the story I felt were weak. But since this isn't about the story, it can be forgiven.
So 4 Stars for the story and audio narration, but 5 Stars for the message.

View all my reviews