truth

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Reena’s Exploration Challenge – 81 4-9-2019

It is time to peep into your creative processes once again. Welcome to Week 81!

PROMPT

This video inspired me. Maybe you like to see it or use it as a creative nudge.

https://aeon.co/videos/then-fit-our-vision-to-the-dark-exploring-sight-with-emily-dickinson

We grow accustomed to Darkness. Darkness is in our hearts. Our minds. Our souls. Anybody who has not been tempted by Darkness is a liar.

Some of us grow up in darkness. Some of us grow up in Light, finding Darkness when we realize Light is not all there is in this world. This is the Darkness which crushes the soul, destroys the spirit, leaving nothing behind but despair.

Some of us live in Darkness all our lives, never finding the path out. Never seeing even a spark of Light, our eyes so blinded by Dark.

Some of us are created of Darkness, some of us of Light. But it is the Darkness which finds us in our hours of despair, when the pain is so all-encompassing we no longer believe in Light. Some of us never escape the Darkness and drown.

Some of us…. all of us…. grow accustomed to Darkness.

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Reena’s Exploration Challenge – 78 3-17-2019

Today, we have a paragraph as a prompt. Do whatever you can with it. Reflect on it, twist it, break it into pieces and use a phrase or just write if you agree/disagree or whatever you think about it. As usual, there are no restrictions on length or format. Suit yourself.

PROMPT

“That proves you are unusual,” returned the Scarecrow; “and I am convinced that the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones. For the common folks are like the leaves of a tree, and live and die unnoticed.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Land of Oz

“Leaves of a tree, my butt,” grumbled the Flying Monkey perched in the tree. “Ill show him leaves on a tree.” But he wouldn’t. He was, after all, a kind Flying Monkey and not a bit of the meanness in him that consumed his brethren.
Still, he hated to be called a leaf as if he were no more than one Flying Monkey among a thousand Flying Monkeys. And he  hated, hated, hated, being called common. Hadn’t he left the Witch’s Castle and set out on his own, searching for a kinder, gentler, place among the vastness of Oz?
No, he was a failure of a Flying Monkey; hadn’t he been told that all his life? Hadn’t the others mocked him and laughed at him as he helped earthworms across the Yellow Brick Road and rescued ladybugs from the dank of the Witch’s Castle?
Dorothy had been a single girl out of thousands. Toto a single dog out of thousands. The Scarecrow a single scarecrow out of however many scarecrows might be around; the Tin Man the single out of the world of Tin Men. And the Cowardly Lion. How many lions were there in Oz? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? And yet, he was the only one of them who was scared and kind.
Was he maybe the Cowardly Lion of Flying Monkeys? Was he one of a thousand Flying Monkeys who wanted to be kind to those around him? Did that make him common? A leaf on a tree who would live and die unnoticed?
Could he be instead the catalyst of change among the Flying Monkeys? Could he be that one unusual Flying Monkey in a thousand who didn’t die unnoticed? Could he be a hero?
Spreading his monkey wings, he flapped from the tree, racing after the unusual band.
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What Is It You Are Avoiding At This Point In Time?

A fellow blogger, Reena Saxena, asked this question in her Exploration Challenge. This question stopped me dead in my tracks. Well, my reading, thinking, tracks.

It made me wonder – what am I avoiding at this point in time? How about a bunch. A passel. More than I could put into one post.

But really, this isn’t true. Saying there are too many things to count is just another way of avoiding. If there are too many, why bother? Let’s just toss the question aside and move on.

Which, in itself, is a cop-out. So is my life an endless circles of cop-outs?

I sincerely hope not, but what do I know? I can’t even list avoided ‘things.’

So, if I brave up and seriously think about the question, what do I find?

I find I am avoiding the world right now. But no, that’s quite true. I am avoiding myself. I am out of work and feeling like anybody else in the world can get a job except me. I am often told, so-and-so called this place and got a job.  She put in an application here and got a job. He interviewed here and got hired. And on and on.

I’m told, “With your skills, you will have no problem finding a job.” Truth is, I don’t have a job. Where are these ‘no problem’ jobs?

So what the hell is wrong with me?

Sorry, got carried away there.

But I hope you get the point. Which isn’t, by the way, me freaking out about the job, but that I’m avoiding the whys or hows or whens. I don’t want to face myself if I’m somebody who can no longer get a job. If a medical mistake had changed the entirety of who I am.

I don’t want to face myself as I stand on the threshold of financial failure. The Bi-Polar me doesn’t even know how to see myself anymore.

Who am I? This is what I am avoiding.

Am I better knowing this? Maybe. Maybe not. It’s safer to pretend.

So, then, the question is:

Am I willing to stop pretending?

I don’t know.

I do know I am thankful to Reena for asking the question in the first place.

What are you avoiding at this point in time?

 

Here is the link to Reena’s challenge

 

 

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Quote For The Day 6-25-2017

“Heroes know that things must happen when it is time for them to happen. A quest may not simply be abandoned; unicorns may go unrescued for a long time, but not forever; a happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story.”
― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn