When you write a fiction story, compose poetry, paint a picture or simply create something great whilst in a fit of inspiration–do you get the feeling something otherworldly is going on? Do you force it out? Does it just magically appear in your mind?
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Posts Tagged inspiration
Stranger In The Mirror
Jan 27
What do you do after a lifetime of harrowing depression and you feel healed? It’s been a while since I’ve written about me as I’ve been so into fiction writing. This is by far the longest period of time I haven’t felt like dying in over twenty years. This is almost worse than being depressed in many respects . . . like being trapped alone in a strange new world.
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I’ve suffered from severe depression my entire life and experienced much sadness. Severing toxic friendships has been a necessity for me, but it has also nearly destroyed me. It is my hope that tis article will help someone out there, even if it’s only one person.
When I grew up, I never fit in to the normal cliques, I was extremely rebellious and my friends were too. All of my friends used drugs, I sincerely mean every single one of them. I can’t name a single person I know who doesn’t use drugs or have a severe drinking problem, except for my immediate family.
I’m not going get into detail – not because I don’t want to, but because I can’t. Actually, I’m not allowed to right now. Basically, my friends started going to prison. One of my best friends from highschool, Brian, lost his mind. He tried to kill his own mother with a butcher knife. His father beat him half to death with a baseball bat and saved her life. He was committed to a mental ward and is now a vegetable who lives on government disability.
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The Beauty of Friendship
Jan 8
I recently went through a phase where I felt uninspired with my blogging, and for me, I cannot write without inspiration. I almost forgot how much inspiration can be derived from other bloggers! I found the cure. My decision to write a weekly link love post was the best decision I’ve made. I will do my best to bring this to fruition every week.
Reconnecting with Fellow Bloggers
Euroyank
Often in the blogosphere, writers of important information go without the attention they deserve. The fact is, there are two types of blogs that get the most comments of any other blog, money blogs and certain types of personal blogs who have droves of close friends. I love reading personal blogs! Having said that, some blogs deserve being read because of their pertinent content about important subject matter.
Euroyank wrote a post entitled, Why Blog – The New Blog Evolution – this is a great post! He wrote this post because I posed the question of why important information goes largely unnoticed. He authors 15 blogs currently and they all are worth checking out.
Being born and raised in America, I admit freely that I am ashamed of many things we do as a nation. Euroyank’s new post USA #1 Highest Poverty Rate Among Developed Nations, is a must read. This post is no shock to me, I live here, I know what it’s like. I live around 100 miles from New Orleans, Louisiana. This city is so filled with poverty and starvation it is unbelievable. Not only that, the police department is extremely corrupt and it’s extremely dangerous just to walk down the street without being robbed or murdered.
America is in the process of getting a new president. It is scary just thinking about who I will vote for…how can I believe what any of them say? We prove the old saying, “Money is the root of all evil.”
Bill Gates, the owner of microsoft, has enough money to feed every person on Earth! This is only one person. I cannot believe there are people starving anywhere on this planet. The fact remains that the people and banks with all the money will not help these people in any real, effective manner. That is left up to the common working class to take care of, even though they have no money themselves.
Sure, Bill Gates gives millions to help people but that’s not enough. I say he should give billions, not millions. Another thing that is wrong with America is “minimum wage”. What is the absolute least amount of money people can be paid so they do not starve to death? Haha…minimum wage. I think minimum wage should be at least $25.00 per hour…especially if the company paying is a multi billion dollar corporation.
I don’t have health insurance, I cannot afford it. If I get sick…too bad for me. Health care should be available and affordable for every one. If I say it should be free for all, I will be branded a radical socialist…give me a break, there is no pure form of government anywhere on Earth. Writing about this isn’t enough, I am on a mission…learning about what I can do to help change things.
I want to say thank you to Euroyank for writing truly valuable articles. Some of you aren’t interested in reading about stuff like this. You all should pay attention to what’s going on in this world.
Shinade
I call her Jackie as many of you do! Her blog is The Painted Veil, a wonderful blog we should all read. She wrote a post titled I Think I May Be An Oxymoron, which expresses a feeling many Americans share. I applaud Jackie for being brave and writing this post as many bloggers are afraid to say things with even the slightest political stance.
She is a person who believes in God, but has many liberal views…just like me! I like people of all races, all religions and all nationalities. I believe in freedom and love. I am against war and greed. I don’t look at why we are all different, I look at how much alike we are. We are people, brothers and sisters from all across the world. Let us embrace one another and spread love, not war.
Final Thoughts
I’ll be reconnecting with many friends this new year. I have the wisdom to avoid burning myself out, something I didn’t have last year. I want to thank the bloggers who helped me through my depression, there are so many! When I think about how many bloggers I know, it is overwhelming. How can I read them all? Haha…all I can do is try. 
A friend of mine here in the blogosphere, Randy Maness , wrote about how he felt his life was going nowhere. He’s a young guy and is at a crossroad that many of us face in our lives. It stirred up a lot of memories and I have the answer to his dilemma. I have to tell you a little about myself so you all will get my point.
I have a great mom who taught me how to read before I started kindergarten. The first book I read was The Swiss Family Robinson and I was so proud I read aloud to all who would listen. It’s amazing how a good parent can make reading fun at that age, so I am fortunate.
I started college as a food science major, became bored and switched to a music major. I am a lifelong guitarist who can read music and improvise; I practiced sometimes ten hours a day every day and never became the least bit uninterested. As a music major in school I made good grades, but it sucked the inspiration out of me. You can’t teach art or music to anyone. You can show them the mechanics and theories but they must teach themselves in the end. You can only teach them how to teach themselves!
I switched my major to biochemistry and to this day I’ll never know why. I have but 17 credit hours remaining to earn my degree, but I had grown to hate how it was taught. Most graduates will have a job which will be factory-like work. You do step by step what you are instructed and you’ll retire doing the same thing. The lucky students or natural geniuses get all the jobs inventing and discovering. That is the education systems fault. They expect you to be mediocre and the few star students will shine. An example is students are taught formulas in math so they can solve problems. Just plug in the numbers and boom, there’s your answer. That’s the problem right there. They should be taught how to understand the theory and derive their own formulas. They won’t need to remember which formula to use and they actually understand how it works! However, when the system expects mediocrity they teach mediocrity.
I quit college my last semester and moved to Phoenix Arizona to study Luthiery. No, it’s not a religion; it is the art of building guitars by hand. I loved it and to this day have handmade over 250 guitars. Upon graduation I was amazingly hired as a guitar design engineer for Peavey Electronics Corporation in Meridian Mississippi. This was a great job and the company wanted to change their reputation for making the industries worst instruments. It was a dream come true.
Then came the political nightmare I sensed even before I started. There is a showcase of every music instrument manufacturer on earth every year in Anaheim California called the NAMM show. It was just after Christmas and we faced the impossible task of handbuilding 75 or so custom shop level guitars. Each must be perfect as most were signature models for famous rock stars. The big star at the time was Eddie Van Halen from the band Van Halen. I worked for one-hundred and twenty-seven hours without sleep only stopping to use the bathroom and eat. Thats 127 hours of misery I’ll never forget. My feet and calves turned black from all the weird crouching that happens doing this type of work. My hands were shaking and I was in a stupor of exhaustion. They told me to go home, shower and come right back to fly to Anaheim for the five day show! I was told I’d be fired if I didn’t go.
The owner of the company, Hartley Peavey, staged photographs of how he and Eddie Van Halen built the guitars and gave a speech at the show before thousands to display the pictures on a big screen. Now tell me that wouldn’t make you want to throw his body in a lake somewhere. Soon after, I quit the job I had dreamed of all my life.
I have dozens of other certifications in so many types of jobs, I couldn’t begin to list them all without some research. I have finally come to the answer I wish I had known 15 years ago. I want to work for myself. I am working on several things now that make me happy. I’m writing two books and learning the skills needed for success on the web. I love it and have found my calling! Do what makes you happy. Like my friend at that point in his life trying to decide, I stressed loving the job should be the criteria for choosing one. Remember, even if you love your job it may turn out to be a nasty divorce. I wish the real world weren’t full of these situations, but it is – and loving a job was never meant to be that hard.
