Sam Tompkins’ “Die For Someone” has a beautiful line that made me think: Guided, I’m misguided Wasting my time with easy goodbyes Many relationships make up our everyday interactions with people around us. The cashier or barista you met earlier today. Online customer service agents. The local church congregation. That group of friends you’re going…
Pleasure Without Prior Self-Organization
The original title for this post was “On Masturbation”. Nothing sexually explict; but do proceed at your discretion. I have been thinking about pornography and masturbation the past few months, and the many forms they could take on different levels of a person’s being–all of which lead to antitheses of life. I’ve heard it said…
The Right to a Right
You do not desire something until you understand what it takes to achieve the object of your desire. It goes further. You do not truly desire something unless you’re moving toward achieving it. Inaction leads to stagnation, the death of true, honest desire. Desire drives all human thoughts, words, and actions. When desire remains only…
Tests
Remember dat speeling test u tok in graid skool? You do? You probably didn’t pass it the first time then, if the above sentence actually made sense to you. But that’s beside the point. About that test—oh yes. It wasn’t real. Nor are all other manmade ones. Each test that’s known, explained, or prepared for…
The Poetic (and Ironic) Nature of Life
Yesterday, the last article I’d write under my own name for a client was published. It’s the third part of a blog series on “Generative AI: How to Use It To Be Productive…But Not Lose Your Soul” from Freedom Matters. This blog series is now a cornerstone project for my freelance writing portfolio–a fitting ending…
Scared of Being Okay
One thing scares the living daylights out of my soul as a creator, and that’s being okay. Or having my work described as “average”, or “nice”, or with such other platitudes. It might as well be unimportant, insignificant, worthless. It might as well be discarded—or better yet, never been made—if it isn’t something another soul…
Order and Originality
A month or so ago, I came across a quote by Gustave Faubert, which goes like this: “Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” I’m not sure if this correlation between one’s approach to regular life and approach to creation is true for all…
Too Alive?
I used to be afraid of being viewed as too philosophical. Or too extreme. Or too unconventional. Or too emotional. Or too whatever. As if “too” was an objective stamp of shame, instead of the infinitely subjective and personal concept it is. What more does it mean than imbalance? And isn’t life made possible by…
Love, Simplified
One thing that’s always fascinated me is the difference between the traditional and simplified Chinese characters for “Love”. Here’s what they look like. The four red strokes in the character on the left represent the word “heart” in Chinese. It’s replaced by a single stroke in the simplified character. In traditional Chinese, the heart is…
Only The Dead Have No Problems.
The graveyard’s both the most expensive real estate on the face of this earth, and the only place you’d find people without troubles. “Only the dead have no problems.” Three things about that statement: My shrewd Christian readers would note that it’s not theologically sound; if one dies without Christ, one spends their after-death existence…