Jibber Jabber, Boo Boo Babber

Jibber jabber, boo boo babber,

This is how we write when we have to start writing,

This is what we do when we convince ourselves,

That we should be doing something,

Not resting, but racking our minds,

Forcing them to produce,

Anything sublime.

 

Jibber jabber, boo boo babber,

Comes out as bad as can be expected,

When you’re not inspired to write,

Maybe it’s better to just let it,

Simmer a bit, while you play,

Take your mind on a trip,

And come back

And finish it.

 

Jibber jabber, boo boo babber,

Keep trying, I’ll give you the same result,

Because you can’t get your mind off of her,

Even though you know it hurts,

You keep thinking of how to, in an instant,

Get what You want, when You want,

Gratification.

Enter the Realm of Darkness

Frightfully stumbling along,

You know that here you don’t belong.

Anxious and yearning for rest,

Enter the realm of darkness,

 

Squint and squat and wish and want,

Swear your love to all their gods,

For the flicker of a light,

“Save me from the cold of night”

 

Wond’ring why it’s you alone,

Which advice you should have known,

That you might again be blessed,

Spring from the realm of darkness.

 

Follow the Bread Crumbs

Follow the bread crumbs

They might be left by others,

Maybe you left them and forgot,

But they’re left for a reason.

 

Follow the bread crumbs

See where they lead you,

Otherwise all you can do is wonder,

And wondering isn’t learning.

 

Follow the bread crumbs

To hidden treasure, or to despair,

Either way, you’ll know you’re there.

 

How Much is Your Time Worth

Think about how much your time is worth. If you’re having a hard time then think about how much you would like it to be worth, let’s say, in a year. How about $1,000,000 a year? That seems like a very comfortable number to me.

You could probably earn $1,000,000 in a lifetime, if you work 45 years continuously, but in 45 years that money won’t be worth the same as it is today. So how realistic is it to value a year’s worth of your time at $1,000,000?

Let’s break down the problem a bit. A million dollars a year translates to $19,231 per week. That means if we assume you’ll work 40-hours per week towards your goal then you would want to value each hour of work at $481. That’s probably a little more than you are making now, but it’s not a terribly unrealistic number.

Now let’s take a moment to analyze our daily routine. In a 24-hour period we can assume we’ll be at work for 8-hours, and asleep for another 8-hours. That leaves 8-hours to spare. If you commute 40 minutes each way to work then you are left with 6 hours and 40 minutes.

Those 6 hours and 40 minutes can be fizzled away uncaringly, without having assigned to them even a passing thought of their significance.

However, if to those hours we attach the same value, or even more value, than the time we spend at work, then that gives us more time to achieve our goal. Now, if we add some hours from the weekend, another 8 hours divided between the two days, then we have an extra 416 hours a years to dedicate to our goal. That would give us an hourly value of $401 per hour. Even more realistic than $481 per hour.

If you really want to get crazy and do the damn thing, each hour of your day, the time you’re sleeping, the time you’re cooking, eating, watching the kids — if you value each hour the same towards your goal, then you would only need to pull in $114.16 each hour of the day.

So there you go. Now you just need to figure out how to average $114.16 per hour for the next 365 days.

Sometimes You Need to Sit in a Different Chair

Sometimes you need to sit in a different chair,
To look at things from a different angle.

When your back is worn out,
When the back of your chair is worn out,
It’s time to sit in a different chair.

How much are you missing,
Always looking at the same,
Things you could be missing,
Instead.

Maybe it’s time to get rid of your old chair,
Maybe have no chairs at all,
Use others’ chairs instead,
Wear out their backs, instead.

Otherwise,
The strain will remain,
For us both.

Coming of Age

So it seems that Generation Y is all grown up now. There was an article in the Los Angeles Times talking about how companies need to adjust their message to better relate to Generation Y now that the Baby Boomers have served their purpose.

The Baby Boomers are no longer the sought after consumer. The new consumer has matured, ready to assume his and her duty.

We are labeled as consumers, never as producers. We consume, consume, consume, everything that is placed in front of us. We have an insatiable hunger, kept at the trough by clever, alluring, and sensational marketing.

How did it become like this? It wasn’t very long ago that the population was still producing a wealth of products and ideas. But it seems that nobody is interested in producing anymore. There is no need to produce anything: our products are made cheaply by other people, our food is delivered prepared, and cheaply, to our tables, even our homes are produced in bulk cheaply which means we don’t have to make a community, rather merely move in.

1. What is a consumer?
2. What is a producer?
3. What are the differences in marketing between today and 100 years ago?
   1. How much has the media’s reach grown?
   2. How has the audience changed?
4. What are the benefits of a consumer society? What are the disadvantages?
5. What are the benefits of a producer society? What are the disadvantages?

You can’t turn back the clock to go back to the way things were, but if you’re smart enough to find out what happened you might just be able to stay ahead of the pack.

On Our Own

On our own we can create our image

We are free to interpret the world

On my own I stare into the mirror

Look past my eyes beyond lucid lies

The pale knowledge, knocking me on knees

On my own I find the way to get lost

Linger, want, need a spark

A mark, there, that let’s me know

Vanished, on my own, I find away

I look, avoid, the dark beyond

Start, the fire, and quickly turning

All in tune, we’ve come to see the mad’ning

Tumb’lin fear be gone,

And I return to see my eye, focus

On the center, pull out and find around

That on my own is too close to home

Love, Because I Promised Her

Sunrise over a body of water

Love, I promised her I would write about it,
To be in Love,
But how can I — a base man,
Pretend to know of heaven’s magic,

How dare I tame such a force,
By confining to words,
This sensation that so heavy-handedly,
Overwhelms me,
Spins me ’round,
Thrusts me up,
Raises me high,
Above all that;

How otherwise, would I describe a breath,
As it enters me, unnoticed,
And delivers to me my life

Or the light as I waken,
Quietly calling forth my lucidity,
And softly guiding my progress from afar;

I do not wish to dissect Love,
To chart its elements,
To give names to its components,
And map its orbit,

I wish only to long for Love in its absence,
And bask in its warmth when it arrives.

On Entitlements

I often find myself unable to fall asleep at nights, and it is during these frustrating hours that my mind naturally wanders, with no outer stimulation to keep it preoccupied, into avenues and alleys that a reasonable person would rather avoid but into which I am inescapably dragged.

On these most recent occasions we have frequented an arcade graced with tapestries from civilizations past and present, undoubtedly acquired through tremendous effort and expense, for the utter rarity and value of the most antique of these canvases speaks to the determination of their curator.

And upon these great kaleidoscopes, hanging on the cold concrete walls of this brief walkway, we can see the history of man as it has been recorded for us. The artists first duty is to his patron, and so it is that from one Diary to the next we see the Master exalted in his natural glory, assuming his role as God on Earth.

However, it is not enough to paint the Lord himself. The subject must be placed, for reference, and the artist inserts him into his Lord’s sphere, so that all can see and know to which they belong. And this is the natural order.

And although  we return repeatedly with hopes of finding a new exhibit, we are disappointed to find the same history — but even more so at how quickly we walk through it all.

The Wall

It was so inspiring those first few days,
I mean, everyone was out there together,
Such a large group,
And the energy was so powerful,

The wave of energy swept us all up,
We were all being carried on this tall wave,
And it moved so fast, so quickly,
And even though we all saw the wall up ahead
We were on our great wave,
And our great wave would carry us over the top.

And the wave carried us closer, and then we saw:
The wall was bigger than we thought.
And we got closer,
And the wall got bigger;
Some, frightened, turned and swam away;
We stayed, determined to jump over the wall.

We hit the wall with a strong force,
But the wall did not move.
Then there was shock, but from where did it come?
Was it shock that we had not made it over the wall,
Or shock that we had dared to believe we’d make it over?

Either way, the wave had receded,
Some saw the wall as impenetrable,
They turned to walk back that long way
But we stayed, stubborn, stuck to that wall.

And with our hands we dug into the mortar,

Loosening the seams, brick by brick,
Until our fingernails were filed down and our fingertips began to bleed.
And it took a long time, but we got very good at getting the mortar out,
And we got faster too, taking out two, three, four bricks at once.

Finally we loosened enough bricks.

And we would take long breaths in between digging,
And our breaths began to rock the wall,
At first very little,
Back and forth,
But slowly, the rocking grew longer,
Until we grew scared that the wall might fall over on us.
At that point we had to decide if it was better for the wall to fall on us,
Or if we were going to push it away from us.