a broken mold

This is a declamation I wrote for Rhetoric class. The assignment was to write a lyric poem. I wrote mine on sleep, basing it on my extensive personal experience. Without further ado, then:


Sleep is Enigmatic

Sleep, you are cold-blooded, merciless,
an executioner.
You softly slit my throat from ear to ear
into a smile across my neck,
and spill my warm blood onto Calvin or
The Classic Hundred Poems.
Sleep, you are persuasive and insinuating,
loosening my aching ribs.
The caffeine candle lighting up my skull
can only last so long before
it flickers down and
fizzles on the table.
You charm my drooping head
with dark advances,
soft, beguiling.
And at the last you sooth my eyeballs,
burning, frozen orbs.
Forgiving, gentle sleep.

This is a productivity tip.

When you want to get something done (even if you don’t actually want to do whatever it is), either do it or schedule a time to do it.

If what you want to get done comes to mind, nail it on the spot.

If you can’t do it then or think another time really would be better, schedule it. I recommend setting a reminder with Google Calendar or some other such reminder mechanism. When it’s time to do it, do it. If something else came up or partway through you find you don’t have enough time to finish, set another time. Stay on it. Don’t let the reminder sit. Do it or trash the reminder. Ignored reminders are useless.

Update: Just wanted to say, these aren’t like the tenets of blogging I live by or something like that, they’re just what I could think of upon sitting down to think about it.

I write because I have things to say. Probably I think these things are not immediately obvious or thought about by everyone. Or perhaps some things are merely simple reminders or a fresh view on something.

I write publicly to share. To share my thoughts, to provoke contemplation and discussion.¹

I write to practice. One can often become discouraged comparing themselves to those they admire (for me, famous bloggers who write well like John Gruber, Anil Dash, etc. Not that I’m particularly a fan of those two, but it’s a culture and medium I like). But of course, one only becomes better at an art by doing it, and so I am here.

I write because I think what I write is worth reading. I don’t write copy. I write content (or try). No content = no post (with minor exceptions). Even if I do just “come up” with posts instead of them coming to me.

Why a blog? It’s linear. It’s a story. It’s a continuous outlet. Unlike some other types of publications, there is one thing it’s not, though: predictably published, something I like. It may have a pace, a predictable rhythm of sorts, but not a schedule per se. It’s a bit more freeflow that way.

I write because I want people to read what I write. I want them to laugh or think or be sad. I want them to be affected. Isn’t that why everybody writes, to affect? Even if it’s a textbook, the idea is to change by adding knowledge and know-how. What are blog comments then? Responses. And (see the footnote), if I disable comments, people who really feel strongly about what I have written might take up the pen themselves. It’s about effect, or at least it should be, more than comments or page views. If it has no effect, what is its worth?

And thus I want some readers, because that means people who keep coming back to hear what I say, and thus can be affected. Therefore, I should be worth it. Like I said before, no content, no post.

I am pleased to announce that Anna Hurley and Caleb Blume have passed the one and a half month mark at abm and are now here (more) officially (in some way or manner). Congrats.

I suppose I should also be announcing this somewhat sheepishly since I forgot about it and realized it today, a few days late. But you didn’t know that. So forget you read this paragraph.

Today I am starting a project. It is simply writing at least one post every two weeks. Forcing myself to write. I plan to keep it up at least until I graduate (June 5th).

As per Merlin Mann’s description of a good blog, I think the posts will mostly be about technology and spiritual/life issues, things which I think about somewhat often. The relevant quote:

Good blogs are the product of “Attention times Interest.” A blog shows me where someone’s attention tends to go. Then, on some level, they encourage me to follow the evolution of their interest through a day or a year. There’s a story here. Ethical “via” links make it easy for me to follow their specific trail of attention, then join them for a walk made out of words.

And there’s just a little bit more. I shall do my very best to write good, thoughtful posts.

Good blog posts are made of paragraphs. Blog posts are written, not defecated. They show some level of craft, thinking, and continuity beyond the word count mandated by the Owner of Your Plantation. If a blog has fixed limits on post minimums and maximums? It’s not a blog: it’s a website that hires writers. Which is fine. But, it’s not really a blog.

I don’t know what they will all specifically be about. I guess I’ll just have to note things along down the way, come up with ideas, and write. Even if it’s garbage at first.

That is all. (Oh yes, and expect a post or few in the next 13 days. If not, send somebody to dispatch me.)

So, I was looking at random studies done on lab rat children, and low and behold one came up on spanked children. Yes, the study was finally done! Hold onto your hats, because here is the results. It turns out that, if you were spanked as a child, you might show increased signs of aggression. “The researchers accounted for factors such as acts of neglect by the mother, violence or aggression between the parents, maternal stress and depression, the mother’s use of alcohol and drugs, and even whether the mother considered abortion while pregnant with the child.” But… “they could not explain all of the violent tendencies at that age. Further, the positive connection between spanking and aggression remained strong, even after these factors had been accounted for.” So, all of that is not as strong of a factor as spanking. Basically, you are more likely to be an axe murderer if you were spanked rather than completely neglected by your parents. Thank you, scientists, we now know that you are bitter about getting your tooshy booboo’ed. The study was conducted on an unknown number of children, and 2500 of that unknown number shone positive signs of aggression, like yelling at their parents, and then resisting being spanked.

I love studies like these, because most all of us, the normal, everyday citizens of 2010, were spanked as a child, and are obviously more prone to bashing each other’s skulls in than hippies, who never spank their children and are better off for it with their, *wheeze* weed. These studies also show how much we love to blame everything on our parents. “But your honor, you don’t understand, I was spanked as a child, I had to break the man’s knee caps off.” Scary part is… that sometimes works. Oh well, I guess now that I can blame violence on being spanked, I can take that guy out for his french fries. It was… uh… an emotional moment for me… and… uh… you should blame it on my parents. Duh.

I recently watched the movie “Snatch”; a movie about a diamond heist, illegal boxing and British gypsies. If that sounds confusing, it was. But what was even more confusing was the movie’s rating. Though this movie was violent, it was not so much so as to warrant the R rating it received, it was the language that brought the movie into those ranks. Why is it necessary to have such foul language in an otherwise PG-13 movie? Does it make the movie more gritty or realistic?

Proverbs says “Out of the thoughts of the heart the mouth speaks.” Now, I agree that there are people out there whose hearts resemble a soiled diaper and who carry it with them in their speech. When we watch movies in which every other word is an F bomb, we are voluntarily feeding ourselves with the contents of the character’s soiled diapers. Now tell me, what is wrong with this picture?