Captured Thought: A Story

Over the summer (not exactly recent, but close enough) I had this whole day where I had this amazing idea for a story (I'd like to think it was amazing) and I just wrote and wrote and thought and wrote. At the time it seemed spontaneous, like I had just woken up that day with the idea somehow in my head, plopped down there by my own little muse. Whenever I have an idea about something to write I write it down on the closest available item (napkin, post it, my friend's arm) and put it into a box (after the necessary transferring of words from friend's arm to piece of paper) so that I can look at my ideas later when I want to write. Recently, I was going through my box of ideas and I found a lot of similarities between some of the ideas in the box and the story I had started over the summer. Almost all the parts of the story were in that box, just as separate ideas. Epiphanies seem to come to many people this way. So many important things have been discovered by people who just connected things that everyone knew, but no one saw as connected. I think we all have the ability to connect things that already exist and solve problems that at present seem unsolvable. Even though my little story is insignificant in the grand scheme of things, its comforting to know that the way to fix anything, big or small, is probably laying around somewhere. We just have to be tricky to find it.

iMedia: You are the Moon (The Hush Sound)

You Are the Moon is a song about the insecurities of the moon, the darkness of the night, and seeing yourself without burden, as beautiful. In the beginning the song talks about how the moon is all alone, except for gravity and stone. The moon can only see itself, its light and beauty, in lakes and seas. The moon's image of herself is skewed because all that she sees it those broken images. The first time I heard this song it reminded me instantly of a friend of mine who cannot see herself as beautiful (which doesn't seem to be that uncommon among teenage girls). The song has a very sad tune and it makes you empathize for the moon, or the person the moon represents. The last verse is what I wish I could do for my friend. So that the moon may see herself truly, a mirror is put in place of the sea. If I could do this for my friend she would see how beautiful she is, and be happy. I wish it were the easy. A truthful mirror would get inside your head and toss out a couple insecurities so that acceptance could have some room.

Lyrics
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Blogging Around: Leanne and Crystal

In Crystal's blog (360: Post-Secret Post-It), she talked about the blog post-secret, and how letting go of your secrets can help no only yourself but others. She also talked about how these secrets changed peoples live and how by letting them go they took their fate into their own hands.

I couldn't agree more with you Crystal, the secrets of others are strangely comforting. Whether they be uplifting, fanciful, life changing, wishes, or funny little anecdotes, they reinforce the fact that you are not the only person to have problems or secrets. The simple ones are usually most comforting, bringing hope and showing that your not the only one to possess hope (even though it feels like that sometimes).
Taking control of your fate is making sure that the things you want to happen have a good chance of happening. Your heart goes out to the person going to the post office because of their determination be happy, and it motivates you to do the same. Even though we may have pretty cushy lives compared to most, we have secrets that contribute to who we are. Even when they are not heard. I think what spurs a person to release their secret is weariness. It's possible to keep a secret locked up for you whole life, but its takes a toll. It's difficult. Sending your secret (or even just saying it) is taking it out of its cage and letting it free... even if no one knows it was your little secret, its out in the open. By freeing our secrets, we become free as well.



In Leanne's Blog (360, Love and other words), she talks about the overuse of the word love. She wonders what we could replace it with though, and how it affects our society in the ways that we use it. She also talks about the non-existence of age barriers for love. She also talks about swears and how they are confusing in their categories. She ends with use words with caution, which I think is a fitting statement.

Leanne, I thought your blog post was well written and brought up some very good points. Even though I agree with you fully about the love thing, I find myself falling into saying it too much because everyone else does. I say it almost without thinking and thats probably a bad thing. I really wish we had different words for different kinds of love. It would be more confusing to learn and understand, but it would make clarification unnecessary and we wouldn't fall into the problem of using love almost as a filler word. I also agreed on the point of how ageless love is. I think there are plenty of adults who don't know what love is, and plenty of children that never will know. Even though these people don't understand love doesn't mean that they don't feel it. You don't need to understand something to have it happen to you, thats why they say that love is unexplainable. You can truly and purely love something for your whole life but never understand exactly how or why.
At first I thought it a bit strange to put swears along with the word love, but it makes sense. The power of a word. I like your categories of nice and mean, it makes so much more sense. Why should we hush away those words, they are just another part of life, even if they aren't socially as nice to talk about as other things. I think the whole point you were trying to get across was that you should be careful what you say or write, think about it before it comes out. I really wish more people did that, or did that more often. Think about what they say will affect themselves and others and if it makes the point they are trying to make. Use words with caution. Its a good rule to live by.

360 Degrees: Afterlife

I know its a dangerous place to tread, but why not talk about the afterlife? Whats more controversial than something that can't be proven? Whats more diverse and questionable than something thats founded on belief alone? There is a wide number of people that believe in some kind of afterlife. A heaven, hell, purgatory, palace of the Gods, or something along those lines. These people put their belief in the promise of near immortality and live happy lives knowing that something waits for them after the not-so final end. Should you spend your whole life waiting for something that isn't guaranteed? Then there are those that don't believe in anything after death, that death is final, and all consuming. Wouldn't that be liberating in some ways? Knowing (or believing) that the time you had on earth was all you would have ever to experience all the things that you wanted, that there were no second chances. You would have to live life to its fullest because there was no guarantee that there would be anything else. It would be a balancing act though, because that belief brings fear of a final end, and avoidance of the inevitable. Could reincarnation be the right path? The horse to put my money on? Having past lives would be comforting in some ways, knowing that you had done this before, and gotten through it more or less intact. But to repeat a life over and over... is that the life (lives) you want? Maybe we're not meant to know, maybe we shouldn't think anything. Doesn't it affect our lives in positive and negative ways no matter what we think? But then again, maybe we become the earth, the sky, the air when we are gone. We could whisper our secrets to the next generations in the wind. Maybe we are destined to wander around our previous lives and see it as a ghostly presence. Never changing, only observing. Maybe we start a new life on another planet. A new species, new memories, new life, new world. Maybe we have to relive our lives, again never changing, but seeing all that we did wrong... and remembering what we did right. Perhaps though, when we die, each one of us goes to do what is needed of us... or what we ourselfs need... maybe some of us disappear forever. Does that mean that it all didn't matter? If death really is the end? Is life fruitless if eventually it does end in every way?