Quotation Saturday

OPTIMISM

"Life is too short to spend your precious time trying to convince a person who wants to live in gloom and doom otherwise. Give lifting that person your best shot, but don't hang around long enough for his or her bad attitude to pull you down. Instead, surround yourself with optimistic people."
~Zig Ziglar
 
"I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter."
~Walt Disney
 
"Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many, not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some."
~Charles Dickens
 
"You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses."
~Ziggy  

PRAYER

To the lamp of love: may it burn brightest in the darkest hours and never flicker in the winds of trial. 
~Author Unknown

When we talk to God, we're praying. When God talks to us, we're schizophrenic. ~Jane Wagner

The Lord's Prayer may be committed to memory quickly, but it is slowly learnt by heart. 
~Frederick Denison Maurice

Prayer gives a man the opportunity of getting to know a gentleman he hardly ever meets. I do not mean his maker, but himself. 
~William Inge

REALITY

Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.
 ~Sigmund Freud

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
~T.S. Eliot
 
To treat your facts with imagination is one thing, but to imagine your facts is another.
~John Burroughs

Listening to both sides of a story will convince you that there is more to a story than both sides.
~Frank Tyger

It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought.
~John Kenneth Galbraith

 POSITIVE

"A strong positive attitude will create more miracles than any wonder drug."
~ Patricia Neal
 
"Our attitude toward life determines life's attitude towards us."
~ John N. Mitchell
 
"I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination."
~ Jimmy Dean
 
Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies.
~Erich Fromm
 
I have a simple philosophy: Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where it itches.
~Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Timeline

Luke 24:11 And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.
***

Well Facebook is at it again. This year was met with many changes at facebook and I heard so many griping people whine. Grown men and women, who for some reason, are so set in their ways that change rocks their world like a landslide! If you are a non-conformist like me, you won’t like change very much because it is like forcing a wet rag down your throat with no other option but to swallow!

That’s what facebook seems to do on a monthly basis. First the option of new security on who and who would not see your posts happened, new ads streamed the right of the screen like a frozen ticker-tape, people were subscribing and LIKING  things that their mothers would surely not be proud of (and it is streamed to all your friends) and the list goes on and on with the changes of 2011!

Are you a person who accepts any friend just because they request your beloved presence? Does that make you feel good standing at the center of all the likes, to where you don’t even realize you’ve accepted a stripper with lurid pictures on their wall which are then streamed to all your friends walls??? Do you even care who you ‘choose’ as a friend, just as long as the ‘friends’ list grows and you’ve won the popularity contest? Do you fear not being liked?

As we ended out the year of 2011, facebook was well on its way with yet another change in their pocketbooks! The timeline! They (the kingpins at facebook) want your facebook experience to be like a Newspaper of all your friends happenings. It’s much like the Enquirer, a mag that feeds you junk! Thank you facebook for choosing the junk of my friends that you will spoon feed me. Facebook (logical minds?) says, “is that if you’ve been away from the site for a few days, you won’t be in danger of missing the most important posts friends put up.” What? So it’s like getting an OLD newspaper, days out of print? Yippee?
 
This new Timeline was available to those who wanted to try it out before the new year, but come 2012, wet rag people, down your throat.
 
The NEW Timeline? :
1. Cover image: no more banners, just a big bold pic. (the new facebook is all about pics) Sorry blind people, you are excluded!
 
2. Friends, photos, maps, and likes. (the timeline is like a journal of all the things you’ve done on facebook, since YOU JOINED! And it is all SHARED with each and every one of your friends. How sweet! Good thing I seek all the Christian pages.
 
3. Choices in hiding the crud. (Yeah go back in time and delete the insane posts that your new facebook caused you to post)

4. Not much control on the settings, once again. (Facebook remains in the driving seat, YOU are their Truman Show!)
Who can find me? Everyone? Friends of friends? Friends? Where is the ONLY ME option, Zuckerbird? Can’t limit access either? CONTROL FREAK, ZUCK! And when someone POSTS on your wall? Whether you like it or not, you CAN NOT remove it!!! It 'appears' that you can, but try it. (possible glitch being worked on)

5. LIKE/UNLIKE button is still there as is the SHARE button. (the over-abused like button is the only thing you have in the race to popularity and having people LIKE you. It’s what facebook is all about. The SHARE button is again for personal use only to share things on YOUR wall and hope your friends come visit you to catch it. (What’s the point of sharing to yourself?) Oh wait it gets streamed (spoon fed) to others IF they’ve subscribed to your newspaper!

So the NEW Facebook isn’t all about networking, it is all about YOU, Socializing and being liked for it. It’s about sharing your pains, sorrows, laughter, and embarrassing posts. YOU are Truman on the worldwide web! To me, it’s all about stepping in poop barefoot and having everyone come and take a sniff. So you can see how much I like facebook, new or old!! I’m not whining about the ‘change’ The pics are pretty cool! But it is like the bouffant hairdo. Too big, and will wear out quick. For me, it already has, anyway.

Enjoy the new Timeline, the New Year, the likable You!! I’m out >>> ---------->>>

Truman: Good morning, and in case I don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!

1Tim. 5:13 And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not.

Techie? Not me!

"You will face many defeats in your life, but never let yourself be defeated." - Maya Angelou

I’m no techie, I’m a writer. But being such, I should have a little knowledge of this machine that does the majority of my writing for me. Well, it collects what I say and records me like some kind of futuristic tape recorder with printout abilities.  Yeah, typewriters are a thing of the past and some kids will say, “Man, you’re old, a typewriter?” Yes boys and girls, before the advent of this here thing called the virtual world of technology, we were like cavemen embracing the tools before us, and one of the tools was, a typewriter.


I often times miss the simplicity of my old electric typewriter. I could sit for hours upon hours, with a book; (yes boys and girls, a BOOK made of paper, bound into a front and back hard cover.) it was called a thesaurus and it was always at my side. Typewriter and book, things the tech world rarely comprehends.


Then a new dawn came and overtook our lives and we evolved from cavemen on typewriters, to techies, to surfers, to bloggers, to riding the shores of the information highway. It enveloped our lives like a tidal wave and we rode the swahbuckling massive wave like marshmallows, getting absorbed and melting our way through life.


When I sought change for my blog, since I’m not a techie, I went to my nearest and dearest, Master Stormcrow! He has a way with this thing that I truly don’t envy. Even when he was blind, he kept two blogs going, adding content, making a writer out of himself, embracing the technology of newness, just without 3-D color pixels. (Pixels, is that the right word?) lol Maybe he could see pixies, I dunno! But anyway, he can take a computer apart with his eyes closed (or when blindness owns him) but as soon as his sight was restored, the blog world and he met and he became enamored.


Yeah, sure he liked seeing my beautiful face *cough cough*, and the sky and trees *blah blah* and the grass and leaves *yada yada*, but what he enjoyed tremendously? Surfing the net and actually SEEING what it has been up to in these two years without sight, and that is when he took his blogs and made them  more appealing to the wandering eye.


If you’re a techie, you might appreciate seeing changes, if you're blind for ANY amount of time, you’ll appreciate the changes even more. So all these changes going on in our life and world around us, made me want to stand up for myself and make some necessary changes. And the changes are a rolling, with the grace and finesse that I actually look like a techie myself. Okay stop laughing!


In a world where darkness tries to overrun all that we’ve accomplished, as we embark on new beginnings and embrace the changes before us...we must not lose sight of the fact that WE are HUMAN first, not a computer. Our minds are our motherboard and our bodies the hard drive. Keep that in mind and maybe your future will be full of the LIGHT that God intended!

"Keep a diary and one day it'll keep you." ~Mae West

What a difference...

Rom 13:12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.

...a day makes.

Wow, all I can say is, WOW! I said I wanted change, and I just can’t stop looking at my blog page and thinking, Wow! Now this is change! Many years have passed through in my life and many have been full of change, but this one has to be the one that will stand out as one of the most exciting years of change. This is why I wanted the drastic overhaul of my blog, so you all can change with me.

I decided a few months back that things needed to change in my life. After I made that decision, oh about the end of September I’d say, that was when things began to swiftly change. I peeled off layers of pain, let go of the darkness that tried to swallow me, left it to build it’s own little playground of dark matter and I moved on, at a snails pace.

I was consumed with life! You know this thing we must live, in a physical world. Life, the reality of things in real-time happening, not virtually. I got off of the maypole, slid across the sand on gravel-burnt knees and embraced, LIFE.

Have you ever read a book, gotten so consumed with the character(s) that you lost track of time and space? That’s a writers job, to make sure you are consumed with their characters so much so that you forget your reality. That is exactly what the virtual world holds in its clutch. Sure, some folks will say, “There are some good things too, that the computer holds.”

Sure there is, and just like God himself is a struggle to find when you are in the pits of darkness, the computer wraps you in its tentacles, squeezes you real tight, until you are gasping for breath, never really knowing who you are or the insanity that has taken over your life. You dig and plow your way though the mire, stab through the muddy waters, and find pieces of the light as you surface.  What am I saying? That the computer, IN MY OPINION, holds more dark than LIGHT!

In October, a realization hit me, that it isn’t about consuming myself with the virtual world. Life is not about building walls of defense to protect yourself. You should be able to freely live and appreciate the snowballs that are tossed in your face, and with great strength, brush away the powder!

Life is about change, characters are about transformation, story line is about variations, so why would we not take the precious care of our lives as we do with the characters and worlds we form? You can not produce something of context, if you haven’t taken the time to shape the content of your life.

It’s not about consuming all you can of the virtual world, because change only comes when you’re brave enough to tackle your inner world.

Air-brushed

Proverbs 17:22 A merry heart does good, like medicine, But a broken spirit dries the bones.
***

Have you ever heard of the term air-brushed? That’s what is done to pictures whether in magazines, or photography studios. You go in, they put tons of make up on you, embellish you quite a bit, then aim and shoot, process, air brush, then print. The picture is then a perfect image, no lines,wrinkles blemishes. That zit you went into the studio with magically disappeared, and you are delivered a perfect picture of yourself.

Editors are the air brush experts of the writing industry. We writers write and it is their job to embellish and make the writers work nearly perfect for the publishers and then it is on to acceptance.

I was reading a King novel and his editor missed an air-brush moment. The characters name was Tad throughout the whole book and in one sentence he was called Ted. You know, an error like that can really make you trip over words.

You expect the errors from small time publishers but from big time publishers that are making millions from an author such as King? I expect perfection! Well, now I know not to because there is nothing perfect in this world.

Did you ever wake up to face the world feeling airbrushed until you smile at someone and they look at you weird, point to your front tooth and say, “Got a little something there.” You then feel awkwardly embarrassed and remove the chunk of yesterdays broccoli that you THOUGHT you had brushed away, (but broccoli is a stubborn veggie.)

Or did you ever wake up with a song in your heart and you just start singing it, not even caring if you’ve got the words right, or if it is in tune, you just want to rejoice in waking up, only to be told, “What is that?” By someone who doesn’t like your singing.

What I’m getting at is that the simplest of moments can ruin the bright and glorious ones. One comment can leave you bruised, one correction can almost shatter an already unstable personality, one incident can change the world you live in.

I’m in an airbrushed moment of my life. I feel like God is up there with a big eraser and saying, “No this isn’t right. How did I mess THIS up so bad?” And I know it is just my own insecurities seeing things that are not there.

God makes no mistakes! Life cannot be airbrushed into perfection. As much as we want this or that different, this is just the way God wants us. And as I set my priorities straight, facebook will fall to a glimmer in my eye, the writing world will dim to a low light in the fog. I will rise above the ashes and move on in the direction God intends for me.

Editors aren't perfect, publishers aren’t all that perfect either, and certainly authors are just human beings with flaws. Whether in words or in pics, we’re not perfect, life isn’t perfect.

I think I’ll climb into my airbrushed magazine and pretend all is right with the world out here.