While searching for music to inspire me, I found something interesting. I’ve been working on a short story to submit to this anthology that required an overall theme of music and needed to find just the right kind of music to really drive me. But when I asked for suggestions, I found something else to inspire me that I hadn’t expected. I found a little piece of my own memory.
Continue reading Impact!Monthly Archives: March 2010
The “Little” Details
Over the last few days, my relatives have been posting on Facebook about how terrified they are of things going on in politics. They have this irrational fear that their world will be completely turned upside down in an instant. Sadly, it’s more common for changes to be incremental and gradual over time even if they’re desperately needed. So when they share those posts it’s usually not rooted in reality but instead in their personal fears.
Personally, what’s going on at a federal level doesn’t worry me often. I’m generally optimistic that, even if we backslide, we’re always headed in the right direction. And, if we aren’t, that there’s something we can do about it (…no matter how slowly).
No, the thing that bothers me the most in the last few weeks is going on in Texas. As of this writing, Texas has been doing their 10 year review of the curriculum. It’s a simple process, almost simple enough to have been explained by School House Rock, which I’m sure would have had some detractors today…
But, because it’s so simple that people don’t realize how big an impact it’s going to cause. And, as it happens under our noses, they’re doing some not so kosher things.
Continue reading The “Little” Details
But I’ve never been to Kansas
I’ve been, happily, calling myself an “aspiring author” for a long time. Saying it is my way of reminding myself that I’m still working towards my goal without actually having been there. I know I’m also a writer. After all, I’m doing it right now. But the term “author” so often carries with it that feeling like you’ve actually accomplished something and only arrogant jerks try to use it without having done so. Even some published authors have never actually referred to themselves as authors in public, it would be a “douche” move.
So I call myself an aspiring author, which is akin to saying I’m a daydreamer with a keyboard. Sometimes, that thought haunts me.
“Oh god no,” you say about now, “not another writer complaining about how hard their life is!”
Nope, not complaining. I’m sure I could and no one would notice, but I’m instead going to discuss what form this “haunting” takes! What form is that you ask? Tornadoes!
Continue reading But I’ve never been to Kansas
A Brave New World
Last week, I was thinking about how self-centered the human race is as a whole and how we tend to do things that put us at the center of our personal worlds. I got off on a tangent, ironically starting to think about myself. But I come back to it a week later remembering why I was thinking about it in the first place.
We’re starting to create new life.
It’s a cute little toy, but it represents the way we approach a lot of this. We make them look like us, we make them sound like us and, theoretically, to serve us. But there’s always this assumption that they would somehow think like us too. Why? Because many of us assume that our morality is an objective morality.
Continue reading A Brave New World