Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2013

The Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2013

(from http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2013.php):

“Each August since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college.”

Most students entering college for the first time this fall were born in 1991.

• For these students, Martha Graham, Pan American Airways, Michael Landon, Dr. Seuss, Miles Davis, The Dallas Times Herald, Gene Roddenberry, and Freddie Mercury have always been dead.
• Dan Rostenkowski, Jack Kevorkian, and Mike Tyson have always been felons.
• The Green Giant has always been Shrek, not the big guy picking vegetables.
• They have never used a card catalog to find a book.
• Margaret Thatcher has always been a former prime minister.
• Salsa has always outsold ketchup.
• Earvin "Magic" Johnson has always been HIV-positive.
• Tattoos have always been very chic and highly visible.
• They have been preparing for the arrival of HDTV all their lives.
• Rap music has always been main stream.
• Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream has always been a flavor choice.
• Someone has always been building something taller than the Willis (née Sears) Tower in Chicago.
• The KGB has never officially existed.
• Text has always been hyper.
• They never saw the “Scud Stud” (but there have always been electromagnetic stud finders.)
• Babies have always had a Social Security Number.
• They have never had to “shake down” an oral thermometer.
• Bungee jumping has always been socially acceptable.
• They have never understood the meaning of R.S.V.P.
• American students have always lived anxiously with high-stakes educational testing.
• Except for the present incumbent, the President has never inhaled.
• State abbreviations in addresses have never had periods.
• The European Union has always existed.
• McDonald's has always been serving Happy Meals in China.
• Condoms have always been advertised on television.
• Cable television systems have always offered telephone service and vice versa.
• Christopher Columbus has always been getting a bad rap.
• The American health care system has always been in critical condition.
• Bobby Cox has always managed the Atlanta Braves.
• Desperate smokers have always been able to turn to Nicoderm skin patches.
• There has always been a Cartoon Network.
• The nation’s key economic indicator has always been the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
• Their folks could always reach for a Zoloft.
• They have always been able to read books on an electronic screen.
• Women have always outnumbered men in college.
• We have always watched wars, coups, and police arrests unfold on television in real time.
• Amateur radio operators have never needed to know Morse code.
• Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Latvia, Georgia, Lithuania, and Estonia have always been independent nations.
• It's always been official: President Zachary Taylor did not die of arsenic poisoning.
• Madonna’s perspective on Sex has always been well documented.
• Phil Jackson has always been coaching championship basketball.
• Ozzy Osbourne has always been coming back.
• Kevin Costner has always been Dancing with Wolves, especially on cable.
• There have always been flat screen televisions.
• They have always eaten Berry Berry Kix.
• Disney’s Fantasia has always been available on video, and It’s a Wonderful Life has always been on Moscow television.
• Smokers have never been promoted as an economic force that deserves respect.
• Elite American colleges have never been able to fix the price of tuition.
• Nobody has been able to make a deposit in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).
• Everyone has always known what the evening news was before the Evening News came on.
• Britney Spears has always been heard on classic rock stations.
• They have never been Saved by the Bell
• Someone has always been asking: “Was Iraq worth a war?”
• Most communities have always had a mega-church.
• Natalie Cole has always been singing with her father.
• The status of gays in the military has always been a topic of political debate.
• Elizabeth Taylor has always reeked of White Diamonds.
• There has always been a Planet Hollywood.
• For one reason or another, California’s future has always been in doubt.
• Agent Starling has always feared the Silence of the Lambs.
• “Womyn” and “waitperson” have always been in the dictionary.
• Members of Congress have always had to keep their checkbooks balanced since the closing of the House Bank.
• There has always been a computer in the Oval Office.
• CDs have never been sold in cardboard packaging.
• Avon has always been “calling” in a catalog.
• NATO has always been looking for a role.
• Two Koreas have always been members of the UN.
• Official racial classifications in South Africa have always been outlawed.
• The NBC Today Show has always been seen on weekends.
• Vice presidents of the United States have always had real power.
• Conflict in Northern Ireland has always been slowly winding down.
• Migration of once independent media like radio, TV, videos and compact discs to the computer has never amazed them.
• Nobody has ever responded to “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”
• Congress could never give itself a mid-term raise.
• There has always been blue Jell-O.

Done!

 

Three months have passed in a blink of an eye, though I suppose my family may have a slightly different perspective.  Since the fall term began back in September, I’ve spent more time writing and investing myself in schoolwork than I did through the entirety of my first year back.  Truth be told, I think I’ve written more in the last twelve weeks than I’ve written in the past twenty years.  Not all of it has been great; if anything, most of it has hovered somewhere between acceptably mediocre and acceptably okay. 

One of the key things I learned in the process, however, was how to kick my chronic perfectionism to the curb and to just enjoy the act of writing.  I adopted a shift in my thinking, and began to see writing as not necessarily a destination to be reached, but as a journey.  Many times, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself someplace unexpected, but often, the time spent writing was like taking a leisurely scenic drive on a lazy Sunday afternoon.  It didn’t matter if anybody else saw what I saw – it just mattered that I saw it.

Now my fall classes are over at last, and I have an entire month before I begin the next big step forward – the assessment of my prior learning.  That’s a whole other blog post in itself.

In the meantime, I’m not going to put away my proverbial pen, but I’m going to keep on writing, even if only for myself.  I still harbor a dream of becoming a Writer with a capital W, a dream that had languished in a coma for too many years, refusing to die, but also not showing many signs of life.  Since resuming college last year, those dreams have begun to stir, a twitching finger here, a fluttering eyelid there… but it’s only been within the last twelve weeks that they have awoken, rising from their slumber, and tentatively stretching their atrophied muscles.

"God gives us dreams a size too big so that we can grow in them. " ~ Unknown

I’m going to keep writing, to shake off the dust and to continue the ongoing process of perfecting my craft.  Most of all, I’m going to persevere in the knowledge that God, who is the Giver of all good gifts, will lead me along this journey to precisely where He intends for me to be.

I’m just enjoying the view along the way.

Why Do I Feel Like I Just Wrote A Novel?

Twelve weeks after beginning my Creative Writing class, I am finally done with my portfolio, a collection of the ‘Best of the Best’ and the ‘Best of the Rest’ of my work written over these long days and nights.

I was up late last night printing almost eighty pages of fiction, poetry, introspective ramblings (much like my blog posts), along with a few scattered odds and ends.  Seeing all those words printed in 12-point Times New Roman filling up page after page was a surreal experience to say the least. 

For many years, I had feared that the best of my efforts were long behind me, a distant memory of life and fertility, as I walked through the long, dry desert of writer’s block.  I’ve since learned otherwise.  While I wouldn’t claim to have written the ‘perfect’ body of work by any stretch of the imagination, I’ve found a sense of redemption of my love for writing, and a rising hope that perhaps the best of my work is still ahead of me.

The portfolio is due by Friday.  I mailed it out this afternoon via overnight mail, and now I wait…

Almost There………

I’ve written so much over the past couple of weeks that I feel as though I’ve completely tapped out, which I suppose is a good problem to have…

… except that I still have a small mountain of revisions and editing to do to my final portfolio.  At it’s current state, the page count is just under 90 pages.  Suddenly, the prospect of writing a novel someday doesn’t seem quite as intimidating.

It’s there in me somewhere… I just have to find it and draw it out.

Where Was I?

At the risk of stating the obvious, I haven’t written in this blog in a while again.  That’s okay, though, because if one doesn’t have much to say, it’s much better to say it sparingly than to spew volumes of empty words just for the sake of speaking or writing.

Given the sheer amount of writing I’ve had to do over the past ten weeks, I have actually enjoyed these prolonged silences.  The itch to write, to communication, to express, to articulate is ever present, but sometimes the words that emerge upon the page feel so contrived.  They are still a part of me, of course, but that doesn’t justify giving every single thought or fleeting perception a permanent voice.

My Creative Writing class is winding down to a close.  My final portfolio of completed work is due by December 11th.  While most of the difficult work is behind me, I am faced with the task of selecting and revising a number of pieces that I have written throughout the duration of this term.  I’m not being graded so much on the quality of my writing as much as I am on the effort I put into my revisions. 

This is a more daunting task than it would appear; I don’t even know where to begin in the process.  I’ve received very little negative feedback, which I absolutely rely upon as a focal point for improvements.  I’m my own worst critic, so I don’t trust my judgment about what would improve my writing, or if I’d be actually working against what I’ve done so far, just so I can say I revised it.

I’ve learned a lot of unexpected truths about writing, as well as about myself, through this class.  I’m looking forward to my winter break, but I will miss the class.  It has stretched me, challenged me, awoken me again to my love for writing, and has drawn things out of me that I didn’t even know were there.

Soon enough, though, the class will be over, the writing challenges done, and I will be left on my own to find a way to try to sustain the momentum.  I’m not quite sure exactly how I’m going to do that, though this blog will continue to be a part of my general ‘keep-on-writing-no-matter-what’ focus.

So, despite the week-long pauses, I am still here, still moving forward, still pushing myself to write, even if I am the only one who cares to listen.

Another Stab at Poetry

I recently had to write a sonnet on any topic, with only the rule of being mindful of rhyming schemes and syllabic structure.

Again, against my better judgment, I fling this poem irretrievably to the great “out there”:

Unwritten words lie hidden in pages,
Clamoring for meaning, their lonely plight
Germinating tender shoots seeking light,
Prisoners freed from darkened cages,
Impatient actors longing for stages.
Questioning my competence, my words slight,
Expression is elusive though I write.
Words emerging inspire, heart engaging.

Spilling forth as light in blackness of ink,
Words well from inner reservoirs, I bleed.
My heart, in language of its own, is heard
In fragile voices filtered as I think,
Few repressed to bury again as seed,
Languishing lone inexpressible word.

~ Joseph Grabowski

Silence = Busy-ness

I can’t believe it’s already been over a week since I last wrote here.  My writing class has me so busy these days that it’s hard to keep track of what I wrote, where I wrote it, when I wrote it, and what it was even about!  I feel like I am now just writing for the sake of writing, though according to my writing class, that’s precisely the secret to writing successfully!

To my defense, though, my attention has also been occupied by other situations over the past week.  I finally worked up the courage to upgrade my Tablet PC to Windows 7, which, since I was upgrading from Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Professional, required a clean install.  The actual install was relatively painless; it was the reinstalling and reconfiguring of the critical software that I use on an almost daily basis that was tedious and time-consuming.

On top of that, my son developed a fever and a few other troubling symptoms.  Thankfully, the fever never crested above 100, though he clearly didn’t feel well for a few days.  Normally, we don’t panic over standard viruses that make the rounds, but with all the conflicting information out there about the H1N1 virus, I was hypervigilant.

As for school, I’m down to the final stretch for this term.  I still have a mountain of work ahead of me, and I’ve had my moments of overwhelming panic and hysteria.  Not for the first time, I’ve had the distinct thought of “What did I get myself into?!”  It didn’t help that all these situations, plus a few more unexpected complications, conspired together to rob me of quality sleep, thus intensifying my general anxiety and restlessness during the day.

I don’t want to neglect this blog, though.  Writing, however mundane the words I produce, has been an exhilarating experience for me.  My Creative Writing class is almost done, but I hope and pray that my long dry season is permanently behind me.

Brevity vs. Wordiness

For years, I tried to fire up the old writing drive within me, only to be met with sputtering misfires at best.  Now, though, I find myself at the other extreme.  Not only am I refueled and ignited in my passion for words, I fear I’ve been running a bit amuck with them, like a maniac with a chainsaw.

Okay, perhaps that’s being a tad bit dramatic…

Nevertheless, in rereading some of my more recent blog posts, I’m realizing that I’m overdoing it with wordiness.  So the question I’m now wrestling with is – what is a decent length for an average post?  Short and sweet often suffices, but what constitutes ‘too long’?

Then again, if I truly am writing for my own sake, does it even matter?

Storm Clouds and Chocolate Days

Most days are relatively uncomplicated.  A little drama here or there, perhaps, but for the most part, the journey across the seas of life are smooth sailing.  I find this to be ever more true as I age.  It’s not that the frequency of the storms have changed; it’s just that I panic less these days at every little storm because I know that God is in the boat with me.  I can see from the vantage point of time that each time I have emerged on the other side of the storm safe and secure.

Having said that, however, I can admit that I still have a tendency to feel overwhelmed when the storm clouds gather.  Yesterday was one of those days.  I’m not sure what the catalyst was, but I woke with an underlying sense of anxiety that I was unable to completely shake off.  Even now, I can’t always identify the specific source of such inner tensions; in a way, experiencing general anxiety is much like sensing an approaching thunderstorm while the skies are still blue and cloudless.  You just know, though you don’t know exactly how.

I used to call these my “chocolate days” because it seemed that the only tangible alleviations to my internal suffering, besides relentless prayer, was coffee and chocolate.  I don’t know what chemical reactions happen within them to calm my restless spirit, but they always seemed to help somewhat.  Mostly, though, when I feel like a washing machine spun horribly out of balance, I just hold on with everything I have, knowing that this, too, shall pass.

I had almost made it through the day, too, when I was waylaid by an unexpected encounter while picking up Noah from school.  I wish that I could spill out my heart here to process the emotions that swept over me during those few fleeting moments, but I am silenced by too many boundaries.  Someday this heartache will finally find expression in a story, or a novel, but for the moment, it is a quiet, private grief.

For the rest of the day, all the old unresolved sorrow, still lacking a closure I may never find, rolled and surged within me, and for the first time in a long time, I felt as though I may drown within those cold waters.  I am blessed, though, to have a wife who understands and shares the burden of that nameless grief, as well as friends who have a gift to say the right words at the right time.

It would be too easy to fall back upon my old coping mechanisms, plastering on a phony smile and projecting a false sense of “all is well” to those who inquire, while my heart breaks afresh.  Thankfully, though we are instructed to “rejoice always”, we can also take comfort in knowing that Jesus Christ was described as a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. 

In fact, it is written, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin.  Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

I’m always glad to remember that God is not going to reject me for my flaws and moments of weakness; rather, that He has unrelenting compassion on me, even when I least deserve it, as frequently as that seems to be.

So, after a good night’s sleep, and a hot cup of coffee, I feel much better today, and once again, hoist my sails to press forward through these uncharted waters.

And, if you’ve made it this far through this post, thanks for being along for the ride.

A Stab at Poetry

Against my better judgment, I’m posting one of the first free-verse poems I recently wrote in my Creative Writing class.

 

Propelled by ragged sneakers
The wooden skateboard glides
Across the asphalt dance floor
With kicks and spins and taps
A final pirouette before
Leaping gracefully into waiting hands 

~ Joseph Grabowski

 

Please don’t take my Poetic License away just yet…

In the Springtime of Writing

Where does it all come from? And where does it all go? I write, trying not to think too much about the formation of the words, but to let them flow forth naturally. Sometimes the ground is stony, requiring a bit of work to break up the hardened crust to expose the richer soil beneath, but other times, the ground is fertile, simply awaiting the barest hint of rain to bear fruit. Like a tender shoot arising from the earth, there is a deeper place from which it originates, a seed of thought, of feeling, lying dormant until the conditions are right.

I worry from time to time that my momentary springtime of writing is just that – a passing season in which the fresh green of life bursts forth, only to fade away again after the initial bloom. I have spent twenty years in a winter, in which the ground was frozen solid, seemingly lifeless. I remember countless times of dreaming of that warm spring day in which the words of my heart would take root and grow;  now that they have, I am finding myself battling fear that it is short-lived. After all, I reason, how many ideas, how many stories could possibly be inside me? And what is there to say that hasn’t already been said so many times already, in so many different mediums? The explosion of Internet media has only served to illustrate the lack of original, fresh voices. Oh, they are out there, but what hopes does one have to say anything of worth and value in a sea of voices all clamoring to be heard?

And yet, I know that there are a few stories in me that, as far as I know, nobody else has told. I’ve tried on occasion in recent years to write them, but have encountered writer’s block time and again. All this time, I supposed my writer’s block to be a dried up well, an inkless pen, a rainless cloud. Of the things that I have learned so far in this course, however, the one truth that has grasped my soul with an unrelenting ferocity is that writer’s block is not a burnt-out deficiency on the writer’s part, but an inability or unwillingness to face certain truths and feelings about one’s self and one’s own history.

Having been tasked with writing a number of semi-autobiographical pieces, I have found that the ground nearest my own doorstep, rather than being barren from the familiar passage of footsteps, has hidden the richest of soils under the hardened crust. The shovel broke the dirt reluctantly, but once that resistant first layer was excavated, I began to rediscover the treasures that lie beneath. Memories, beautiful or haunting, lie scattered about, their roots already established, the shoots rising up in response to the exposure of daylight and the watering of tears.

Some memories have started to become pieces of literary nonfiction; others have begun to find expression in a fictional retelling of the scattered bits and pieces of my own self, fertilized with imagination and a creative spark. Watching long-buried parts of myself spring to a new life has been amazing, though I strive not to think too hard about what I am doing. It reminds me of a passage in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” when Arthur Dent learns that the secret to flying is to hurl oneself at the ground and miss, and once in flight, to not give further thought to the impossibility of the act, for fear that gravity might take notice and rein one back in down to earth abruptly. In writing, I feel as though I have found my flight, as though I am currently coasting high above the trees, from a perspective I’ve not had in a long time. I want to stay up here, to feel the wind upon my face, to soar, to dive, to just float along to wherever the psychic winds carry me.

It used to be that the only thing that I could write was semi-rambling pieces about my desire to write. (And so far, in this blog, I’m continuing in that fine tradition…)  In thinking about that now, I realize that mindset is characteristic of who I am, of who I’ve been throughout my life. I was a child who did not walk until he knew he could. I did not speak until I was sure of what I was saying. My mother tells me that, when I finally spoke, I was speaking in complete sentences. Looking at my life from the bird’s eye view of memory, I can see how almost everything I have done has been after a long bout of self-doubt and perseveration, of anxiety and of fear – the fear of failure and the fear of success.

Now, as the gardener of my own memories, thoughts, and feelings, even though I am beginning to see life spring forth, I am afraid that after all these years, this is not a spring at all, but a sort of Indian Summer, a releasing of those things I have carried for far too long. Once they are grown into whatever it is that they are meant to be, what will be left? Once I tell the story of my own unique heartbreak and loss, will there be anything left for me to tell? Still, the joy of seeing the resurgence of hope where I had all but given up on the dream of writing spurs me on to dig up what I can, to plow the soil, nurture the sprouts as they emerge, and to simply sit back and let them grow.

It is, after all, for nobody else I write but for myself. Even if no other eyes ever read the words that spill across the page like blood from my vein, the mere act of writing has proved to be very therapeutic and freeing. The winter winds may blow again tomorrow, or next year, or not at all, but I will endeavor to keep my hands and heart busy for as long as possible, hoping that I am not in a cycle of seasons at all, but on the other side of an obstacle that has finally been overcome.

Better to write for yourself and have no public,
than to write for the public and have no self.
~ Cyril Connolly

Some Humor Not My Own

In lieu of anything remotely original today, I thought I’d share an oldie but a goodie.  I don’t know where this originated from, but I love it…

"Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids? If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions. How old are you?.... "I'm four and a half" .... You're never 36 and a half .... you're four and a half going on five!

That's the key. You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number. How old are you? "I'm gonna be 16." You could be 12, but you're gonna be 16.

And then the greatest day of your life happens .... you become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony .... you BECOME 21 ... YES!!!

But then you turn 30 .... ooohhh what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk .... He TURNED, we had to throw him out. There's no fun now.

What's wrong?? What changed?? You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you're PUSHING 40 ..... stay over there, it's all slipping away ........

You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, you're PUSHING 40, you REACH 50 ..... and your dreams are gone.

Then you MAKE IT to 60 ..... you didn't think you'd make it!!!!

So you BECOME 21, you TURN 30, you're PUSHING 40, you REACH 50, you MAKE IT to 60 ...... then you build up so much speed you HIT 70!

After that, it's a day by day thing. After that, you HIT Wednesday .... You get into your 80's, you HIT lunch. My grandmother won't even buy green bananas .... it's an investment you know, and maybe a bad one.

And it doesn't end there .... into the 90's you start going backwards .... I was JUST 92 ...

Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again .... "I'm 100 and a half!!!!""

-- author unknown

As of this writing, I’m 41 and a half!  Only five more months to the big ‘42’…

‘Me Too!’

Do yourself a favor. 

If you ever get the inclination to write, be it a blog, an article, an essay, whatever is straining for expression within you…

Don’t Google the topic or thoughts you are writing about until you’ve written them, committed yourself to them, and hopefully, put the words irretrievably ‘out there’.  It can be extremely disheartening to sit down to articulate any flicker of thought or emotion, only to find that there are dozens or hundreds of blog entries on the Internet having already expressed what just wrote.  Your efforts, you feel, are wasted; instead, it seems like you might as well just toss off a quick ‘me too!’, or if applicable, clicking the ‘Like’ button.

Why bother at all?

Simple, really.  Every person has a slightly (or not so slightly!) different perspective on life.  Our own histories and life experiences provide us with a perceptions that other people may never have experienced, or a common bond with another living breathing human being suffocating in a sense of societal isolation.

Our words hold the potential to ease another person’s loneliness, to offer a sense of community, to inspire, to touch, to comfort, to humor.  Even merely writing words that have already been expressed hundreds of times lends validity to the universal truths of the human condition. 

The more that we see that others feel the same as we do, the more we realize that we aren’t crazy after all.

Most of all, though, write like somebody cares about what you have to say, however trivial or insignificant you imagine it to be.  It may just be your particular style and voice that makes all the difference in the world to someone.

So, write your heart, cast it into the sea, and it will find its way to where it’s meant to be.

We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to. ~ Somerset Maugham

Fear Itself

Late last night, as I was unsuccessfully falling asleep, I had a sudden flash of insight into myself.  I already know that I wrestle with a duality of fear – a fear of failure and a fear of success, but I realized that I have a third fear as well, one intimately related to the other two.

I have a fear of mediocrity. 

I often feel like I am a “jack of all trades, master of none”, though even that description doesn’t adequately describe me.  When it comes to sports, cars, or anything to do with plant life, I am epically clueless.  In any number of conversations, I smile and nod, hoping that my complete and utter ignorance isn’t as evident as I imagine it to be.

Don’t get me wrong.  There are lots of things that I am good at, and I am a fast learner when I need to be.  I’ve even discovered over this past year that, when properly applied, my brain can still comprehend new subjects and embrace new challenges.  I’m don’t want to be a perfectionist (which interestingly enough, seems to go hand-in-hand with the whole ‘fear of mediocrity’), but I often feel that if my efforts aren’t ‘excellent’, then they aren’t worth even trying.

So how is it possible to be afraid of the extremes of success and failure, as well as the safe middle ground of mediocrity?  I would think that I would feel somewhat comfortable somewhere along the spectrum, but no.  All too often in my life, this dysfunctional aspect of myself has resulted in an emotional paralysis, which I attempt to shake off only after the tension of idle mediocrity becomes too much.

“Mediocrity is now, as formerly, dangerous, commonly fatal, to the poet; but among even the successful writers of prose, those who rise sensibly above it are the very rarest exceptions.” ~ William E. Gladstone

We are encouraged to be unique individuals, but also not to be too different.  I've wrestled with this paradox through my life, as I never really 'fit in' with any particular crowd, though at times I desperately wanted to, sometimes at the sacrifice of my own self. Other times, though, I found myself rebelling, becoming a non-conformist to the point of being a sort of social outcast. At both extremes of the spectrum, I still didn't have a strong sense of identity. I was creating my public self as a reaction to others.

Now, at 41, I find myself still sifting through all the various personas that I’ve worn over the years, all aspects of myself, but lacking a unifying cohesiveness.  Having said that, I can honestly say that I have a much stronger sense of who I am, though I think I still have a long way to go.  I wonder, though, if we ever really do arrive at a solid conception of ourselves, or, as ever-changing, ever-growing people, that sense of fulfillment will remain elusive while in this life.

What is important to me, though, when I get carried away by these anxious thoughts, is that God knows me far better than I could ever know myself.  He sees all the good, the bad, and the ugliness of my heart, and loves me anyway.  He doesn’t just see where I’ve been, but He knows where I’m going.  He alone knows the potential that He has placed within each one of us, though it is our duty to discover it, and once having discovered it, to develop and invest it.

As for this fear of mediocrity… it has just been reinforced by a search for the phrase “fear of mediocrity” on Google, which resulted in ‘about 484,000 results’.  Apparently I’m not the only one who feels this way…

Impulsive Writing

In a recent online conversation with an old friend of mine, he jokingly suggested a term that brilliantly captured the essence of my sudden surge of writing.  In addition to ‘creative writing’, of which I’ve been doing a fair amount of in my class, I’ve been producing a lot of ‘impulsive writing’.

impulsive – adj:
1. characterized by actions based on sudden desires, whims, or inclinations rather than careful thought an impulsive man;
2. based on emotional impulses or whims; spontaneous an impulsive kiss

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/impulsive

Though he was referring to something else I had written on the spur of the moment, I realized that such a phrase spoke to the spur-of-the-moment, stream-of-consciousness ramblings I’ve been rattling off, whether in my blog, e-mails, or even in my Creative Writing assignments.  This, of course, is the fault of the latter.  At the outset of the class, we were encouraged to adopt a “First Thoughts” mentality in our writing, as outlined in Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg.

The rules of “First Thoughts”:

1. Keep your hand moving.  (Don’t pause to reread the line you have just written.  That’s stalling and trying to get control of what you’re saying.)
2. Don’t cross out.  (This is editing as you write.  Even if you write something you didn’t mean to write, leave it.)
3. Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar.  (Don’t even care about staying within the margins and lines on the page.)
4. Lose control.
5. Don’t think.  Don’t get logical.
6. Go for the jugular.  (If something comes up in your writing that is scary or naked, dive right into it.  It probably has lots of energy.)

At first, I found the process difficult.  It felt completely against my nature to write freely without editing or revising, to just give way to my thoughts as they emerge, and to let the words take form on the page.  As the class progressed, however, I’ve rediscovered my love of writing, and while I’m still not sure that I have anything new and fresh to say, it has been a liberating experience.

Numb Expressions

I’m currently working my way through the poetry module of my Creative Writing course, and have been pleased to discover that it hasn’t been any near the painful process I had imagined it to be.  I have always loved words, and lately, I have been drawn to quotations that stir and inspire me.  Rather than try to express my own inadequate articulations, I’ve had a compulsion to share some of the words I’ve found that capture something of the human condition, as I’m sure many of of my Facebook friends would attest to.

“The author who benefits you most is not the one who tells you something you did not know before, but the one who gives expression to the truth that has been dumbly struggling in you for utterance.” ~ Oswald Chambers

One of my greatest dreams has been to someday be able to write in such a way that I no longer need to draw upon the words of others to say the things that my heart longs to say.  Not that there is anything wrong with borrowing those words; Hallmark and American Greetings have built their empires upon our inability to transform elusive emotions into flowery prose.  We wander the rows, meticulously inspecting card upon card until we finally discover the one that evokes a “Yes! That’s it!” reaction within us.  We take it home, making it our own words by underlining words and phrases and adding our own brief closing sentiments, and hopefully give something our own selves away to a loved one in the process.

It is, though, only in the miracle of our hand upon pen, pen upon paper, ink flowing and dancing across the blank page, when our hearts break open and spill across the paper.  Even in a day and age of e-mail and text messaging, the handwritten note or letter sent via ‘snail mail’ conveys much more than the digital equivalent.

Or so says the man typing madly away on his tablet pc, who hasn’t sent a handwritten letter in years…

Without A Net

I need to start carrying my notebook with me. 

Earlier this year, I finally gave in and bought a set of pocket-sized Moleskine notebooks, one of which I have already mostly filled with everything from meeting minutes to statistical formulas, with a liberal sprinkling of miscellaneous notes and doodles throughout.  Since taking this Creative Writing class, though, I have completely ceased to even think of slipping one in my back pocket before I head out the door. 

No big deal, except that it seems like my best thoughts for writing or blogging come to me when I am least prepared to capture them.  Given the fact that I always have my Palm Centro on hand wherever I go, that sounds like a poor excuse.  To my defense, though, even though I have Documents to Go installed on my phone, my fingers can’t match the pace of the fleeting thoughts.  Just yesterday, I was reading one of my Creative Writing textbooks while sitting in a booth overlooking the Connecticut River Valley (oddly enough, the chapter was entitled “Writing in Restaurants”), when inspiration suddenly floated in on butterfly’s wings, fluttering just tantalizingly out of reach, and me without a net.

Later that evening, when Josh and I were out for a drive, we encountered a family of deer standing within feet of the road.  Once again I lamented leaving my camera at home, as such opportunities are rare.  I suddenly remembered that Josh had his camera with him, but by then, the deer were on the move, leaping away into the darkness.

It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by.  How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?  For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone.  That is where the writer scores over his fellows:  he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.  ~Vita Sackville-West

I dream of becoming a writer and photographer, but I have to wonder about how serious I am about it when I consistently neglect to bring along the tools of the trade.  My notebook should always be within each (along with a pen!), and my camera dangling from my neck.  I might look like a tourist, but adopting a tourist mentality is the best way to see the ‘old and familiar’ with fresh vision.

Dear Diary…

I haven’t written in my blog in several days.  Previously, that would have constituted a setback of the most grievous kind, one that warranted nothing less than a complete hands-thrown-in-the-air dramatic “It’s no use!  I’m a loser who can’t finish what he starts!” pity party, after which the blog would remain perpetually lonely and unattended in cyberspace.

This pattern is nothing new at all for me.  I don’t remember how old I was at the time, but as a gift one Christmas, I received a small book with a the word “Diary” etched into the cover.  All the pages were dated, beginning with January 1st, and as a whole, presented a wonderful opportunity to spent a year chronicling my exciting childhood!  It even had a clasp that locked with a small key.  I could write whatever I wanted, and nobody would be able to read the secrets of my heart.

I wanted to plunge right in, but I made myself wait through that long span of time between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.  Finally, it was January first, and at the end of the day, I sat down at my desk, pen in hand, fresh blank diary page before me, and I began to write.

Of course, I don’t recall what I wrote; I just remember filling the page with words about my day, about what I was thinking and feeling, and probably even with hopes and dreams for the coming year.  I was off to a great start!  The following evening, I wrote again, though a little less of the latter.

My next memory about the diary was of flipping it open, turning past several pages with entries of simply “School” or “Snow”, and quickly jotting down something just as profound, just to get it done with.  I think even that effort was too much by the end of January, and my dear diary made its way to the trash, where it could no longer remind me of the high hopes I’d had only weeks before.

Fast forward 30 some-odd years later, and I find that I haven’t changed all that much.

However, I like to think that I have grown and matured somewhat in recent years.  A lapse in my writing doesn’t have to mean that I’m still a failure; on the contrary, if I allow myself the freedom to write when I feel like writing, not burdened by any particular schedule or output expectations, the process is far more enjoyable to me.  Besides, who on earth can think of anything even remotely interesting to say on a daily basis?  ‘Quality over quantity,’ as my professors have said time and again.  ‘It’s what you write, not how much you write.’

On the downside, though, I also find that I tend to overcompensate for writing lapses by becoming extra verbose in subsequent posts….

Better than the First Half?!

Day Five into this blog, and I am still giving thought to the precise words to define what this blog is all about.  My problem (among many) is that I often try to find a hundred words to articulate what I could say in ten.  I’ve read dozens of other blogs, varying from subtle wit to intellectual depth and clarity, and I want to emulate this one or that one.  I want to have something meaningful to say, something insightful, inspiring, thought-provoking… or even just plain funny.

I want to find a hook to hang this blog on.  I’ve got the title; it actually came to me with very little effort.  I shouldn’t be surprised, though, as I’ve spent the last six weeks digging deep into my psyche and extracting truths about myself that I had never previously considered.  While I’d like to think that I’m still in my first half of life (I’d like to live longer than 82!), symbolically I recognize that I have begun the second half.

“The first half of life is spent in longing for the second - the second half in regretting the first.” ~ French Proverb

I can see where that saying would be true if a person was not careful.  True, we often reach a point in life where we are reaping the benefits and the consequences of the choices we made or didn’t make in our earlier years, but it is not as if we’re then at a place where we can only move forward by fixing our eyes forlornly at the past.  To live with that mentality as we age is to pretty much start digging our own graves, for were it true, the best days of our lives would a rapidly fading image in our rearview mirror.

Instead, I think that we should periodically take a moment to acknowledge our past mistakes, make amends where we can, grieve where we cannot, learn something from them, and then walk boldly into the sunshine of the new day, having grown as a person in the process.  We can’t change our pasts, to be sure, but as long as we continue to have breath in our lungs, we remain responsible for our today and for all of our tomorrows.

"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow belongs to God. So live today by the Grace of God and do good unto others.” ~ Unknown

I don’t know how long I will continue this blog, but for now, it is a loose chronicling of the commitment to myself to not spend my next forty or so years wallowing in sentimentality and regret over the past, but to build each day upon the foundations and memories that have comprised my first forty years.  To title this blog “Better than the First Half” is not to imply that the first half was anything less than wonderful; I’m just stating my hope and conviction that my best years still lie ahead of me!

In hindsight, I probably could have said all that in ten words or less….

Poetic License

My Creative Writing class is almost halfway through.  The first two modules, Literary Nonfiction, and Fiction, were exhilarating.  In six short weeks, I discovered that I still can put the occasional subject and verb together to create, much like a child realizing that snapping a few Legos together makes a wall.  More often than not, though, it felt like a psychological exercise to break open the stony ground of my psyche in order to resurrect long-buried dreams and desires. 

In the process, I also unleashed repressed emotions and memories into my general consciousness.  I often found myself startled, wondering where a particular thought or idea had come from.  Instead of self-censoring, however, trying to stuff the genie back into the bottle before it could wreak any damage, I let the inner voice find expression through seemingly random words and phrases that nonetheless began to flow into a strange but familiar order.

Module Three, which officially begins on Saturday, is all about poetry.  I’m a bit nervous about this one, as I’ve previously dabbled in fiction and nonfiction.  My past poetry efforts, on the other hand, have resembled Vogon Poetry in their sheer wretchedness.  As is often the case with particularly bad poetry, however, a couple of my ‘works’ were used as lyrics by a friend’s rock band.  Keep in mind, this was the 80’s, when the ‘bad sound’ was all the rage.

Okay, that last line was an inside joke…

The last three assignments of the week all lead up to next week’s dive into the wonderful world of poetry.  So, yes, today I wrote my first poem (all six lines) in several years, and no, I will not be sharing it here.

I’m just afraid that I’m going to fail so epically that whatever poetic license I have is permanently revoked.

Tablet PC Back from the Dead!

My big news of the day is that, after almost two months of aggravation, I finally received my Tablet PC back from the manufacturer.  I’ll spare the details of the excruciatingly long process I went through, but suffice to say that I’m very happy to be reunited with my computer. 

I’m also very relieved to find that all my programs and settings are still intact.  I was afraid that they were doing to have to do a factory restore.  While I like the ‘new computer’ feel, I don’t care so much for the drawn-out, complicated process of reinstalling everything that I use with regularity.  The last time I had to perform that nightmarish act, it took me days to get everything back just to the way I like it.

Which leads me to wonder if I should upgrade to Windows 7.  I’m currently using Vista Ultimate 64-bit, and am happy with it.  But, as a student, I can purchase the latest version for a mere $29.99.  While I wasn’t among the legions that participated in the technical preview, I followed the details and people’s initial impressions with much interested throughout the past year.  Hopefully, I’ll get a better sense of direction after attending this week’s Windows 7 Launch Party.

I’m sure the world is awaiting my decision with baited breath.

No Pressure or Anything…

I signed into my Facebook account this morning, only to discover that my loving wife had posted a link to this blog – a blog currently conspicuously devoid of any content!

So, to anyone who may have followed her link… uh, hello.

*moment of awkward silence here* 

I have had a bad habit throughout my life of starting projects with the grandest of intentions, only to be derailed time and again by the passage of time.  I’ve previously tried to set deadlines for myself to post at least so many times a week, in an effort to keep myself on track, but I can identify with Douglas Adams’ statement:

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”

Until recently, deadlines and I had only a minimal acquaintance, nodding politely at each other as we passed like two ships in the night.  Returning to school, however, has given me the incentive to reinvent myself to a degree (disregard the pun), discarding old ineffective patterns and adopting new strategies.  Rather than writing papers at the 11th hour in a surge of adrenaline, I discovered a sense of peace and satisfaction at having completed them well ahead of time.

At 40, this was a mostly foreign concept to me.  Whoever said that the proverbial dog cannot be taught new tricks was either lying, or better yet, referring specifically to dogs as opposed to humans.  Whatever the case, I’ve managed to learn a few tricks over the past year.  The question remains, though, if I can apply this newfound self-discipline to writing a blog.

Even if nobody else cares, I do… and so does, apparently, my loving wife.  I love you, Shelly!

Inspiration Strikes Again...

Inspiration strikes at the most unexpected times.  Last night, my wife and I actually had an opportunity to go on a date together, something we've not been able to do for a long time, longer than I remember.  Living in northern New Hampshire, however, affords us few options, and so, we found ourselves defaulting to the standard 'dinner and a movie'.  At least it was a chance to get out, just the two of us, away from the mounting pressures that have been looming over us.

Since the last few movies we've seen together have been more my choice than hers (much to my shame, I took her to see "I Am Legend" on our 11th anniversary...), I insisted that we see something "chick flickish".  After numerous protests on her part, we finally agreed to go see "Julie and Julia".  She was apprehensive about sitting through such a movie with me, and rightfully so, because I have an unexplained aversion to just about any program on the Food Network.  It's a character flaw, I know, but I can't seem to get through even one of those shows without squirming and sighing.

What mattered last night, though, was that we were together, sitting cozily in a warm movie theater.  I didn't expect to actually *like* the movie, but I was resolved to enjoy the moment.  Surprisingly, however, I was soon drawn into the story, and two hours later, walked out of the theater very glad that we had gone.

Anyway, watching the main character, Julie Powell, decide to write a blog about her attempt to cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1 in 365 days, I was reminded of the blogs I had previously started and subsequently left mostly unwritten.  At first, the oh-too-familiar guilt and self-condemnation set in, but with further thought, a spark of inspiration was ignited.

Elbert Hubbard once wrote, "There is no failure except in no longer trying."  As I watched the movie unfold, I realized that, as one character told Julie, Julia Child wasn't always 'Julia Child'.  Both characters, Julie and Julia, were just ordinary people who had caught a vision for something they thought they might like to do, and set off toward that goal, refusing to be dissuaded by rejections and emotional setbacks.

I love writing.  I always have, even though I suffered from writer's block for most of the last twenty years of my life.  I'm currently midway through my Creative Writing class, and I've rediscovered my passion for writing.  Past efforts to write a blog have been an attempt to find an outlet for that elusive urge to write, but have been frustrated by my own self-doubt, the harsh inner critic constantly nitpicking at my every word, and most of all, an avoidance of getting real with myself.

I'm not writing for fame or fortune, but simply because I genuinely enjoy the process.  So, having said that, I mouse over "Publish Post", and thus begin a new blog...