Books 46-49! Almost there!

Three books left to meet my one and only resolution for the year--read 52 books; one for each week! From my most recent adventure, Old School, I'd like to share one quote:

"Without stories one would hardly know what world one was living in. It has to do with self-consciousness. Though I’m no believer, I find it interesting that self-consciousness is associated with the Fall. Nakedness and shame. Knowledge of ourselves a thing apart, and bound to die. Exile. We speak of self-consciousness as a burden or a problem, and so it is—the problem being how to use it to bring ourselves out of exile. Whereas our tendency is to love ourselves in the distance, wouldn’t you say? Lost in the distance. It’s a wonder we’re not all barking. And of course we would be if we hadn’t any way to use self-consciousness against itself, or rather against its worst inclinations—morbidity, narcissism, paranoia, grandiosity, that lot. We have somehow to turn a profit on it. Which is, I must say, exactly what that story of yours does. “Summer Dance.” A marvelous story! Pure magic. No—no—not magic. Alchemy. The dross of self-consciousness transformed into the gold of self-knowledge.”
- Mr. Ramsey, Old School, Tobias Wolff

Book #49 = "Old School" by Tobias Wolff, 4/5 Stars
Book #48 = "Firmin" by Sam Savage, 3/5 Stars
Book #47 = "The Devil and Miss Prym" by Paulo Coelho, 3.5/5 Stars
Book #46 = "The Shack" by William P. Young, 3/5 Stars

GOAL: 52 books in 52 weeks!

Book #45 = "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, 3.5/5 Stars
Book #44 = "The Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli, 1/5 Stars
Book #43 = "Highlighted in Yellow" by H. Jackson Brown, 3.5/5 Stars
Book #42 = "Warrior of the Light: A Manual" by Paulo Coelho, 5/5 Stars
Book #41 = "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd, 1/5 Stars
Book #40 = "It's Not About the Bike" by Lance Armstrong, 2/5 Stars
Book #39 = "Dragonfly" by K.R. Dwyer (Dean Koontz), 3/5 Stars
Book #38 = "Teaching a Stone to Talk" by Annie Dillard, 1/5 Stars
Book #37 = "Something Wicked This Way Comes" by Ray Bradbury, 5/5 Stars
Book #36 = "The Illustrated Man" by Ray Bradbury, 2/5 Stars
Book #35 = "The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway, 3/5 Stars
Book #34 = "Now & Forever" by Ray Bradbury, 4/5 Stars
Book #33 = "Coincidence" by David Ambrose, 2/5 Stars
Book #32 = "The Discreet Charm of Charlie Monk" by David Ambrose, 2/5 Stars
Book #31 = "Fish" by Lundin, Paul, Christensen, & Blanchard, 4/5 Stars
Book #30 = "Purple Cow" by Seth Godin, 3/5 Stars
Book #29 = "The System's Bitch" by John Wright, 3/5 Stars
Book #28 = "Twitter Power" by Joel Comm, 3/5 Stars
Book #27 = "The Cluetrain Manifesto" by LLSW, 3/5 Stars
Book #26 = "What Kind of World Do You Want?" by Jim Lord, 5/5 Stars
Book #25 = "The New Rules of Marketing & PR" by David Meerman Scott, 4/5 Stars
Book #24 = "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell, 3/5 Stars
Book #23 = "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King, 1/5 Stars
Book #22 = "My Favorite Place on Earth" by Jerry Camarillo Dunn, 4/5 Stars
Book #21 = "Wisdom 2.0" by Soren Gordhamer, 4/5 Stars
Book #20 = "Oath Of Gold" by Elizabeth Moon, 5/5 Stars
Book #19 = "The Age Of Engage" by Denise Shiffman, 3/5 Stars
Book #18 = "What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20" by Tina Seelig, 4/5 Stars
Book #17 = "Animal Farm" by George Orwell, 4/5 Stars
Book #16 = "Divided Allegiance" by Elizabeth Moon, 3/5 Stars
Book #15 = "The Curious Incident of the Dog..." by Mark Haddon, 2/5 Stars
Book #14 = "The Sheepfarmer's Daughter" by Elizabeth Moon, 3.5/5 Stars
Book #13 = "Love Is The Killer App" by Tim Sanders, 4/5 Stars
Book #12 = "Fight Club" by Chuck Palahniuk, 4.5/5 Stars
Book #11 = "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger, 5/5 Stars
Book #10 = "The Finder" by Colin Harrison, 3.5/5 Stars
Book #9 = "Veronika Decides To Die" by Paulo Coelho, 1/5 Stars
Book #8 = "By The River Piedra I Sat Down & Wept" by Paulo Coelho, 3/5 Stars
Book #7 = "Stiff" by Mary Roach, 2/5 Stars
Book #6 = "Love in the Time of Cholera" by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, 1/5 Stars
Book #5 = "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy, 3/5 Stars
Book #4 = "Eleven Minutes" by Paulo Coelho, 2/5 Stars
Book #3 = "The Good Guy" by Dean Koontz, 3/5 Stars
Book #2 = "My Ishmael" by Dan Quinn, 2/5 Stars
Book #1 = "The Zahir" by Paulo Coelho, 3.5/5 Stars

Wordz from Friendz VII

My friend M said...

"I love when a writer, especially a poet, has the ability with words to bring to life my senses, making me envision and feel what the words are describing. Well done BigBadBobby!"

[Awww shucks. Thank you!]

Disease in the Dark

I close my eyes in the Light to see the Dark.
I close my eyes in the Dark to see the Light.
Lightning forces open my eyelids—
A brilliant jolt that slaps me with sudden lucidity—
But my addiction to the puzzling peril remains.
Afraid of the show, but eager for it to return,
As if the symptom of some addicting disease,
I close my eyes to return to the Light.

Volunteering Inspiration

I spent a few hours at the Gillis Center this morning wrapping gifts for underprivileged families. The Center provides a great service as the exchange point for incoming donations and outgoing smiles (presents). I'll be the first to admit that my wrapping skills aren't the greatest, but a humble moment never presented itself since all of the families were so overjoyed to have something to give to their loved ones. This is something that I will plan to do for many seasons to come.

This would be a fun blog post if I simply left it at that, but there is much more to tell about my morning. I met a gentleman, a bit disadvantaged in life, but advantaged in other areas, so I was to learn. Towards the end of my time there, he began to frantically write on a piece of stationary once he'd heard that my dream was to become an author. I could tell that he wasn't thinking while writing; he was regurgitating words that he carried with him at all times.

Here they are...

"When is the most recent time I hear the word 'mental'
without the word mental being followed by the word 'illness'
the word 'mentally' without the word 'mentally'
being followed by the word 'ill' or 'retarded'

Mentally Polite Mentally Politely Polite Mentally
Mentally Rude Mentally Rudely Rude Mentally
Mentally Wise Mentally Wisely Wisely Mentally
Mentally Foolish Mentally Foolishly Foolishly Mentally
Mentally Honest Mentally Honestly Honestly Mentally
Mentally Deceiving Deceivingly Mentally Mentally Deceivingly

All people live with mental manners
People being mentally labeled mentally ill
will live with mental manners
in better manners mentally
with better mental manners
than many other persons mentally live
with mental manners mannered mentally."

There is much, much more, but I need to spend some time thinking about his longer writings before I share them with y'all. I'm thankful that he felt inclined to give me such a wonderful gift--unexpected compensation for the time that I'd volunteered.

For the sake of...

I don’t have an answer today—haven’t had them for a few weeks. The concept of knowing has escaped me. Or, perhaps I’m simply waiting for you to know, so that you can give me all of the answers... if only it were so simple.

Image via Wikipedia

Oddly enough, things are often more simple than we make them out to be, if we can find the straight line to the solution. I once had an architecture professor who said that we should pull all-nighters on our projects the first nights after we get them, not the last nights before they are due. For those that don’t know that world, the last two or three nights before a project is due, students are always pounding out drawings, burning their fingers on the hot glue gun while slapping together models, and imbibing in their preferred caffeinated beverage, coffee or Mountain Dew since they had the highest caffeine content back before we had energy drinks. The reason I used to stay up all night when I first got a project was so I could find the philosophy behind it; the philosophy would give me the template for design decisions that would have to eventually be made. Ultimately, having a theoretical template for a project also made it easy to endure the often intense critiques by visiting professors.

Is life really so much different?

In other words, when we are trying to accomplish something, shouldn’t we figure out what we want before we make a plan to get there? Take the time to sit down and understand the emotional need that must be met. Once you have that, then the decisions along the way are easy to make; does this get me closer to meeting my emotional need, or not? We put way too many variables into life. What will he think? What will she think? What will my friends think? What will my parents think? I have been just as guilty as the next person, until I started to write; writing has helped me to simplify. I encourage everyone to do whatever task they have in their life that is synonymous with “writing;” the task that allows you to think.

If we don’t know where we are going, then the odds of getting there are minimal.

Maybe you’re an optimist. Maybe luck has been in your favor for most of your life. Maybe sometimes you drive without direction and still end up in the right place. But seriously, is that how you want to live your life? Doesn’t flipping a coin everyday get really fucking old?

I believe in opportunity, which can be defined in many ways, but with all of them you must be ready to take advantage of them. We have decisions in life that we regret, hopefully we learned from them, and if given the opportunity to mend them or relive them, most would say, “Yes, I’ll take it!”

When asked if you’d go back and do it over again a different way, would you? What if you didn’t have to go back, would you take the time to make things right in the now?

I would rarely go back because I think there was something that I had to learn from my previous decision. You know the verse, “You take the high road and I’ll take the low road?” I might have gotten here before you, but the point is that both roads go to the same place. While each teaches something different, they both bring us back together.

For the sake of... what? If your reason to do something is “for the sake of,” then you’ve put yourself in a position of regret, unless you finish the phrase with yourself—for the sake of yourself. I don’t mean that in a selfish way. You can only know what you know, and you’ll never be able to address all the future variables in your world; what everyone else will think. However, you can make decisions based on what is fully under your control—all that makes up you. By making your good heart happy, you make everything and everyone around it happy.

If you refuse to get caught up in the rest of the world, but vow to do good in it, then it really is that simple.