Tuesday, July 24, 2012

What If?

While writing, I often get the feeling that more is going on than the mere juxtapositioning of words.

I may feel lighter after I write, and not just lighter, but I seem to have much more clarity. I'm not a neuro scientist, but it suddenly occurred to me that my brain possibly knows how to defrag. I realized how important this is since there seems to be little room available in the right hemisphere for more information. So defragging the brain has not only made more room but helps to find things quicker and gain more clarity at the same time. Who knew? 

I hear my  reader thinking, "This is ridiculous." You may be right. But it makes me feel better knowing I can exercise my brain with greater efficiency and put new things in it. I always felt that it took forever to remember things. It wasn't dementia but my brain taking longer than usual to find the right signal and wait for the neuron to arrive along the neural pathway.

So?

Well, for starters, I have a better sense of what I want to write and how I can set the scene in a new way. Best of all, I've become a programmer of sorts, which is very strange for someone who doesn't understand words with the letters t-e-c-h or n-o-l-o-g-y in them.

Just because others say, "You can't do that because the brain isn't wired that way" or,"You can't do this because you're not a scientist," doesn't mean I can't. I actually talk to my brain cells. Do I know which compartment? No. What each cell's job is? No. Do I know a special language to use when talking to those cells? No. What I do know is that I won't know until I try something or believe something to be true or some combination thereof.

Scientist? No. Curious? Yes! Wildly!

I always wondered why humans couldn't grow their own limbs back when they were removed surgically due to an accident or war injury. If the lower animals could do that, why not humans? All animals, human and beasts, have consciousness and, in the main, many of the same elements such as oxygen, nitrogen and carbon they share with us uprights. It's been hypothesized the reason humans cannot regenerate limbs is that the process is much more developed in the lower animals such as hydra, starfish, planaria and lizards. Humans can regenerate the liver, blood, and bone. And now we know that brain cells can regenerate. Recent experiments have found that limbs outside the human body can regenerate with stem cells. All of this to say, the only reason it hasn't been done before, is because no one thought it could, so they never tried. No one said, "I think we ought to look into this."

So I proffer my peculiar version of finding a way to make room for more information. Since I've been on the planet for a while, I've collected a lot of data. I'm just trying my best to make room for more. And later, more defragging allowing more information to come in.

I'm constantly asking myself, 'What if?' 'What if I could use my mind to make something happen? What if I could create something I thought was possible? What if I could see things that are in front of me that I never saw before.' And so, today's what if brought me to thinking about a computer's ability to defrag and transferring that to my mind's ability to clear out what is no longer useful and putting it on a virtual platform, such as a blog making room for more what ifs. 

On my last day of work in a corporate environment, I was telling the new hire taking my place that I needed to learn how to defrag my mind so I could put more into it. "Oh," she said, "that's real easy. That's what we do every Friday night."




Wednesday, May 30, 2012

THEY LOVE THEIR JOBS


When the workmen arrived this morning, I had just started my final edit. It was 9:30 and new hurricane proof windows and doors were being installed on both adjacent apartments. For the next seven hours, I heard the scream of grinders, the pounding of jackhammers and hammer drills, chiseling away whole walls in the front and back of both neighbors' apartments. 

At the same time, the Blue Angels, who are in town for a show over the weekend, decided to practice their runs, not down the street, but directly over Essex Gardens, my building, dive bombing from above as performance art. All this in some demonic way to advise me I'd better not become a writer. The timpany and jets didn't stop for seven hours.


So I didn't either. I felt compelled to prove something, though I couldn't be sure what or to whom. I was driven to edit all 15,000 words, not once, but twice. And each time I did a drive by to check for mistakes, I'd find typos, subjects not matching verbs, and better ways to tell the story. Somehow, the noise grew softer, the scream of drilling quieter. Only my body understood - and I finally got - that I was in the zone.


I went outside to ask one of the workmen about the noise. Was he opening and closing the door hard on purpose? I was frowning. He was smiling.


"No, that's the noise it makes. When you get your windows, you won't hear it. The doors are very heavy. It'll go away when you get your new windows on Tuesday."


Another workman came up. I asked them both if they liked their jobs. Their faces lit up.


"Oh, we love our jobs."


"Really, because I noticed you're always laughing and singing."


"Wouldn't do nothin' else."


Just then the third worker started grinding and chiseling and I couldn't hear anything else.


Later, by the pool, one of the workmen asked me if I'd heard any other noise earlier.


I laughed. "Of course, that was the Blue Angels flying overhead. Didn't you hear them?"


"I was wondering what it was, I could barely hear it."


I find it odd, that they love their work, and odd they can't hear a noise that could break the sound barrier. But they love the high pitched whine of drills. They love the pounding of the jackhammer blasting through their ears, the sound of shattering glass.


I decided to write about them and see if I could come to any conclusion about why they loved doing what they do.

The next day, they came to tear out the windows and front door of my apartment, leaving me to seek the peace and quiet of a nearby park. When I came back in the afternoon, they were finishing my apartment, jovial, laughing and cutting up with one another.  There seemed to be no answer as to why they were so happy, why they loved their jobs.

Years ago, working at 35,000 feet, I put up with angry passengers, being away from home for long periods of time, never getting much sleep and never having a holiday off. But I loved my job. How do construction crews manage to work at such dangerous heights while building skyscrapers? And how do lawyers, doctors and CEO's manage to make risky decisions putting their positions and corporations in jeopardy? It's what they and I and the workmen installing hurricane proof windows love doing.

That was it. They were in love with their profession. They loved living on the edge, some of them literally. The workmen loved the sounds of their profession, I loved the smell of JT9 fuel on my clothes when I got home from a long trip and the CEOs, doctors and lawyers loved the adrenaline kick they got from living at the cliff's edge.

Yes, that was it. And maybe that's why I write. For me, it's the leading edge, the whine of my own heart pounding out iambic pentameters, lazy syllables failing or triumphing to get my heart's soul on twenty pound bond. It isn't the money. No, not even close. It isn't the stretching of my talents crystallizing my thoughts and it surely isn't about fame. I do it because something inside me wants to do it, wants me to acknowledge my own prowess, my wit, my appreciation for the gifts I do have and to share those.

So it boils down to one common denominator. We do what we do for the love of it. Nothing else. Nothing more.

Monday, April 23, 2012

DEBT, GRACE AND HAPPINESS: HOW TO BECOME DEBT FREE ON YOUR TERMS



A BIG DAY IS AHEAD FOR THOSE OF YOU STRUGGLING WITH DEBT.


AND, NO, I'M NOT A CPA, FINANCIAL PLANNER OR A FINANCIAL ADVISOR WANTING YOU TO BUY SECURITIES. IN FACT, I FLUNKED MATH AND HAD TO TAKE IT OVER AGAIN IN COLLEGE, WHICH STILL DOESN'T MAKE ME AN EXPERT. WHAT IT DOES MEAN IS THAT I'VE BEEN THERE, JUST LIKE 30 MILLION OTHER AMERICANS, AND FOUND A WAY TO GET OUT OF DEBT WITH EASE AND GRACE.

"DEBT, GRACE AND HAPPINESS: HOW TO BECOME DEBT FREE ON YOUR TERMS" APPROACHES THE DEBT ISSUE FROM AN ENTIRELY NEW AND INSPIRING PERSPECTIVE. AND MORE GOOD NEWS, IT'S NOW AVAILABLE ON  SMASHWORDS: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/159234 .
READ, RELAX AND BREATHE BECAUSE NOW YOU HAVE ANSWERS ON HOW TO BECOME DEBT FREE ON YOUR TERMS.


IN DEBT, GRACE AND HAPPINESS, YOU'LL LEARN HOW I GOT THE CREDITORS TO REMOVE ALL INTEREST AND THE IRS TO FORGIVE $2800. BUT THAT ISN'T ALL...


YOU WILL LEARN HOW TO:
  • MAP OUT YOUR STRATEGY FOR GETTING OUT OF DEBT AND STILL PUT ASIDE MONEY FOR A RESERVE ACCOUNT AND SAVINGS
  • NEGOTIATE WITH CREDITORS ON YOUR TERMS
  • CREATE A STRESS FREE SPENDING ACCOUNT AND PAY BACK PLAN ON YOUR TERMS
  • SPEND MORE LEISURE TIME WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS
  • FIND OUT IF YOU'RE A COMPULSIVE SHOPPER OR ANOREXIC SHOPPER
  • REPLACE DEBT AND STRUGGLE WITH SOLVENCY AND PROSPERITY
THERE ARE MANY MORE TIPS IN DEBT, GRACE AND HAPPINESS. WHETHER YOU'RE IN DEBT LIKE DONALD TRUMP WAS TO THE TUNE OF 99 BILLION, OR HAVE A $5,000 DEBT, YOU'LL LEARN, IF YOU DON'T ALREADY KNOW, WHAT DEBT CAN DO TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY.


I'M HAPPY TODAY WITH A NET WORTH IN THE PLUS COLUMN. BUT I WAS VERY UNHAPPY FOR MANY YEARS BECAUSE I HAD NO ANSWERS. THIS BOOK IS A QUICK READ AND CHOCK FULL OF INFORMATION FOR THOSE IN A STRAIGHT JACKET OF DEBT. IF DEBT IS THE PROBLEM, THIS BOOK IS THE ANSWER.