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Originally uploaded by rehuxley.
* This is a work of fiction done for pure sake of creative exploration. The collage is from a new book of altered art called "This is Psychiatry."
"I am having a bad day", she said. It was right in the middle of breakfast and he still wasn't able to focus on much of anything. "Getting up this early is bad" was all he could grunt. "No, I mean I am having a really bad day!" Tears were in her eyes as she said this. The waiter hovered in the corner not sure if he should take their order or wait. Her friend signaled the waiter and asked for two Mimosa's. That should help he thought. She put on her 3D glasses and leaned back in the red cushioned chair. All she could think about was the doctors last few words: "I would give you 6 weeks." It repeated over and over again like an echo in her head. She didn't even notice the waiter leaving the Mimosa and asking if she needed anything else.
A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words.. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.
Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, 'Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?'
The man said, 'I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way.'
What he had written was: 'Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it.'
Do you think the first sign and the second sign were saying the same thing?
Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind. Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?
Moral of the Story: Be thankful for what you have. Be creative. Be innovative. Think differently and positively.
Invite others towards good with wisdom. Live life with no excuse and love with no regrets. When life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1000 reasons to smile. Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear. Keep the faith and drop the fear.
Great men say, 'Life has to be an incessant process of repair and reconstruction, of discarding evil and developing goodness. In the journey of life, if you want to travel without fear, you must have the ticket of a good conscience.'
The most beautiful thing is to see a person smiling…
And even more beautiful is, knowing that you are the reason behind it!!!
Source: http://www.oscarmurphy.com
Here today's quote:
"Secret Potion
this is a secret potion that makes you see the world differently & she's found it safest to use only on the weekends."
What's your secret potoin to see the world differently?
As an example, take look at Michael Kimball's blog Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard).
Use the submit/comment link below if you want...
We are now in what philosophers would call the Post Modern era. The Modern era was marked by industry and science and reason. Much was gained by that. Much was lost. One of the lost parts was the need for myth and story. The Ooze article I mentioned above is a web site for "emergent Christians" trying to make Christianity relevant to todays generations. A very simple synopsis of this is that people still like Jesus but they hate/repulsed by Christianity. For some good reasons, I might add... Christianity would be a "modern" design, filled with rigid forms and rigid ideas that have nothing to do with Jesus. Being a follower of Jesus and his life would speak to a Post Modern idealism.
All this is to say that our stories transcend our cultural forms. We have need of stories to make life meaningful and relevant. It gives us purpose and helps us find our way. We can "re-author" our futures vs being trapped by our past successes and failures. The past plot lines are still part of us, good and bad, but tomorrow is a blank page that we can write on as we see fit. I for one, love a story that has a nice twist at the end. Of course, I also love a happy ending although that doesn't always happen!
What has been your story so far? Who are the characters in your life? What plot and subplots have emerged? How would your author the future chapters in your life? These are questions that deserve reflection.
What was that? Flash fiction! I like to use this creativity technique to get unstuck from creative blocks. The narrative may be completely random or not. I don't like to script it out ahead of time, I start typing and just let the right hemisphere of the brain do its thing.
Here's a more thorough definition of Flash Fiction by Wikipedia:
Flash fiction is fiction of extreme brevity. While there is no universally-accepted word limit, generally flash fiction is a short story of 1,000–2,000 words. Most flash-fiction pieces run between 250 and 1,000 words. By contrast, traditional short stories are often as long as 3,000 to 10,000 words and can have as many as 17,500 words before being considered novellas or novels. Flash fiction is, however, primarily defined by the intent that it be read at a single short sitting.
Other names for flash fiction include sudden fiction, microfiction, micro-story, postcard fiction, and short short story, though distinctions are sometimes drawn between some of these terms; for example, sometimes 1,000 words is considered the cut-off between "flash fiction" and the slightly longer "sudden fiction".
The term "flash fiction" likely originated in James Thomas', Denise Thomas', and Tom Hazuka's 1992 anthology of that title. As the editors said in their introduction, their definition of a "flash fiction" was a story that would fit on two facing pages of a typical digest-sized literary magazine, or about 750 words.
History
Flash fiction has roots going back to Aesop's Fables, and practitioners have included Bolesław Prus, Anton Chekhov, O. Henry, Franz Kafka, H.P.Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury and Lydia Davis. New life has been brought to flash fiction by the Internet, with its demand for short, concise works. A ready market for flash-fiction works is ezines; however, flash fiction is also published by many print magazines. Markets specializing in flash fiction include SmokeLong Quarterly, Quick Fiction, and Flash Fiction Online.
One type of flash fiction is the short story with an exact word count. Examples include 55 Fiction, the Drabble and the 69er. Nanofictions are complete stories, with at least one character and a discernible plot, exactly 55 words long. A Drabble is a story of exactly 100 words, excluding titles, and a 69er is a story of exactly 69 words, again excluding the title. The 69er was a regular feature of the Canadian literary magazine NFG, which featured a section of such stories in each issue. Short story writer Bruce Holland Rogers has written "369" stories which consist of an overall title, then three thematically related 69ers, each with its own title.
Vignette
Flash fiction differs from a vignette in that the flash-fiction work contains the classic story elements: protagonist, conflict, obstacles or complications, and resolution. However, unlike the case with a traditional short story, the limited word length often forces some of these elements to remain unwritten, that is, hinted at or implied in the written storyline. This principle, taken to the extreme, is illustrated by Ernest Hemingway's six-word flash, "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."[3]
Try some....click on the comment link and share your flash.
His Father gave him a bag of nails & told him that every time he lost
his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence.
The 1st day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence.
Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the
number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down.
He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those
nails into the fence.
Finally the day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all.
He told his father about it & the father suggested that the boy now
pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper.
The days passed & the young boy was finally able to tell his father
that all the nails were gone.
The father took his son by the hand & led him to the fence.
He said, "You've done well my son, but look at the holes in the fence.
The fence will never be the same".
When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like these holes.
You can put a knife in a man & draw it out.
It won't matter how many times you say I'm sorry, the wound is still
there.
A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one.
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Where do these stories circulate? They get told around the family dinner table, at holiday gatherings, at bedtimes and during daily household activities. The autobiographical memories are more than "recalling" facts and events. They involve an interpretive element that makes them unique and powerful. They start to define the self and allow a way for us to make decisions about what we do, who we interact with, what limits we have and what dreams and goals will drive us. In other words, they have a filtering effect. Our future is seen through these family story filters.
This would lead us to feel that stories are negative because of how they limit us but they can be powerful tools in a parents toolbox. Parents can use stories to teach important moral lessons, increase attachment and reinforce positive attitudes and behaviors. One of the most powerful ways to promote healthy self-esteem is for when the child can see himself or herself from the positive eyes of the parent. Their self story is developed by what is told to them as well as what is experienced. One of the earliest attachment experiences occurs when the infant is responded to by the parent with excitement and joy. This creates an internal world of joy that is more about a feeling of "completeness" than "pleasure."
