Tag: blogger

Use What You Got

To enhance productivity…

shutterstock_87396893From the moment the sun drifts away into its secret chamber, until the moment it rises again, fresh from having used the night to rejuvenate the energy it now pours into our window sills, every day is new. And with newness comes an opportunity to start fresh. Opportunities to revise, reflect, and enhance. Opportunities to grow. What great possibilities await us for tomorrow? What possibilities are there today? Every day ain’t beautiful, but everyday can be productive. What I’ve come to learn is to take advantage of what I understand and use that toward improving on my day, my business, or even my personal endeavors. We spend so much time looking out, that we forget to look in. Often, when you hide something in plain sight, it becomes amazingly difficult to find, and I suppose the same is true for our individual lives. Many of you possess talents that you could use toward the enhancement of your writing or of your books. Take Book Trailers for instance. With the exception of some major movie production, I would never pay for a Book Trailer. Not because I do not think they are worth it. A book trailer can help push someone off the edge where the cover just did not work for them. But I will never pay for one because I make my own videos. I am familiar with computer software that could assist me in being creative in that aspect. In this way, I am using what I got to enhance productivity and that also saves me money. I can take this skill and apply it to so many different aspects of my life. From blogging to lessons, to book trailers to movies, whatever it is that requires this need.  For a moment, think about what you can do that will help improve your day by looking into what you already know how to do. Increase productivity by learning to tap into skills you already possess.  You’ll be surprised.

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(OK so, I just realized that this post was just one long drawn out definition of what it means to be creative. Interesting.).

I Wonder

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I wonder what would happen
if I threw my pen into yesterday
let it scribble up the past
and teleport those memories
to the edge of my fingertips
If I splashed this page with infinity
so that you remember forever
where you came from.
Or what if I just thought about it
wirelessly sent messages across dimensions
bringing back roots
and read your thoughts before they reached you
replace futility with the integrity of substance
create worlds out of nothing
create soldiers out of nobody’s
a ghetto child that’s restored to his place as a King
I wonder
If I could.
Would you let me
transcribe history
staple its pages to the roof of your mouth
let your tongue unfold like ancient scrolls
saliva running like living water
and dripping like liquid foundation
stand in the backyard of Eden
and hide no longer between rocks and hard places
find your place here
inside the body of this pen
along the lines of this page
I give you permission to bleed
all the crazy reasons why
you matter.

Upgrade Your Value

 

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Sometimes we base our self-worth on what we see; what him and her and they perceive to be important. Played against the heartstrings of others, the media is direction to our chorus. Splattered images of what success looks like echoes off the tops of dreams we conjure under the blankets of perception. We reminisce on fantasy like the touched up portraits of celebrities. It is the pride of a man serving seven years in the military. His Purple Heart medallion waves and smiles at passerby’s before he does. We know not what beats inside his chest, just the striking forest green of his uniform. It shines like it does on the TV and in the magazines, and our jaws drop with awe. This is a man who could not have received more awards. Could not have been a better example of an outstanding citizen. But when the uniform comes off, and the glory of sacrifice cripples away into the concrete; when the intoxicating fragrance echoes off the numbing high of a man now staggering to the next corner. When the alcohol melts this Purple Heart against the insides of his soul like skin clung to flesh, what is left of the perception now upon him? What of this hero turned homeless Veteran? Does his value weaken like the washed up fade of an army uniform? Or is he now nothing more than another brother worthy of our disrespect?

Today, I encourage you to upgrade your value. Be not limited to the rotting fabric of tangible things. Be not awed by the signs of achievement and circumstance. Hurry not to praise people only when they have accomplished something society thinks is worthy of your respect. Judge instead the content of a person’s character. Judge their resolve, their kindness, and their warmth. For these, if truly possessed by them, will never rot away.

Forced Post

Blank notepad and pencil

You feed yourself on unrest, as the words slide through the creative pockets of your thoughts for a chance to make it onto the page. The thirst for its shadow will not leave you to ponder the body of an elegant post. Will not wait for you to soar into the heavens and back down again to at least tickle the funny bone of those listening reading-these soulful melodies, these crafty closed forms or these smiling similes.

They say that patience is a virtue but dear post, you are obviously far too anxious. Time ticks away the sorrow of accelerated thoughts as this moment is snatched away by the whistling hurry of your footsteps. I can hear the coughing warnings of immature images and symbols just waiting for a chance to spread themselves over the white area of WordPress readers. I didn’t know thoughts could be so open. Fingers just itching to dabble in the beating of keyboards, to fulfill the empty space with black ink and collective letters that makes no sense. They are only there because you need them to be. And where would I sit with these words? With these thoughts scattered all over the bed? Who will clean this up for me? Is it you? Will you vouch for me? Can I count on you to explain the degradation of an unequal post?

While I wish to linger an instant longer within the creative workspace of these meditations, it is the forced post that entices me to distribute half talent and fragmented passion but I choose to wait until the creative energy renews itself. For ideas to blossom into something of value before obligating myself to this blog. Why snatch away the inspiration from a beating heart? I have not the water to waste on these words. My cup is only half full. I can’t be spilling stuff all over the place. I will wait.

Must Reads

I think I’m gonna start incorporating more book recommendations to this blog. I want to build a neat bookshelf but I’m not sure if there’s much room in here. I’ll have to move the furniture around, don’t want it to get all crowded and whatnot. So anywho, every now and again I’ll recommend a book I think will provide a thought provoking jolt if you will, to our daily lives. Most of them will, naturally, come from my very own book shelf.

Today’s Must Read is:

Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America by Lerone Bennett JR.

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“Before the Mayflower” traces black history from its origins in western Africa, through the transatlantic journey that ended in slavery, the Reconstruction period, the Jim Crow era, and the civil rights upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s, culminating in an exploration of the complex realities of African-American life in the 1990s. Here is the most recent scholarship on the geographic, social, ethnic, economic, and cultural journey of “the other Americans, ” together with vital portraits of black pioneers and seminal figures in the struggle for freedom, as well as additional material on historical developments in the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton years.”
Find it on Amazon

Writer’s Quote Wednesday – Do What You Are Fitted For

My Writer’s Quote Wednesday pick for this week comes from Abraham Maslow in what I like to call: “Do What You Are Fitted For“:

Maslow-Quote

I wasn’t going to post a Writer’s Quote this week  as I have a meeting to attend in exactly two minutes from now (I better write fast!). I was, however,  struck by Maslow’s words and I definitely had to share it. This is an interesting quote. I think we all have a unique skill that is given to us for the purpose of contributing to the world and until we learn what that ability is and how to live for that purpose; we will always feel incomplete in some way. A lot of people have succeeded a lot in their lives per the definition of man’s success and yet they are not content with the lives that they are living. I think it possible that each person has to eventually give up what they think is happiness and just do what he or she was fitted for. Some call this destiny, striving to master the ability to use the skillfulness in which we were  specifically created for as our contribution to the world. Something to think about.

 

Abraham-Maslow

“Abraham Harold Maslow was an American psychologist who was best known for creating Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization”
– Wikipedia
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And that’s it for my contribution to Writer’s Quote Wednesday, hosted by Colleen of Silver Threading.
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