#'what a coincidence! i did the same - was it st thomas aquinas?'

[natequarter]

it's a bit hard to identify name trends as such in the past, but the first half of the 1500s definitely had a thomas surge, right? there were so many fucking thomases

[tommorowmeedghie]

Understanding the Self: I am like Socrates, Merlau-Ponte and St. Thomas Aquinas

Who are you?

Everyone is unique. Everyone have their own personality, behavior and characteristic. As a person I also have different personality that could coincide the various philosophical perspective of the Philosopher.

Sometimes at night, I questioned, "what happend to my day?", "did I do something wrong?" , "did everything went right?" and many other question. Just like Socrates, I sometimes examined myself. Yes I do examining and sometimes if I know I did wrong it gets me frustrated. I also believe what Socrates said that unexamined life is not worth living for. I believed that if you examined your life clearly, it is worth to live.

But most of the time, my perspective is just like Merleau-Ponte, the integration of all. I always believe that it is insperable, your mind, body, soul, thoughts, emotions and experience are all one. You cannot separate them.

Also I believe that we are unique as inviduals, we have uniqueness that can separate us from other living and non living things. Just like St. Thomas Aquinas said that body of human is similar to animals/,object but what makes us is essence. We have essence that makes who we are.

I know just like me you have personalities that could coincide to the Philosophers. Maybe you are like Rene Descarte, or Plato or many more. Maybe we are the same. I don't know. Just tell me which philosophers that could coincide your personality.

[carmeninguanzo]

How Writing Found ME, and How Through My Writing, I Found MY Purpose...

“It’s crazy how we could walk through life staring at the gifts we were born with right in the face and not realize that what we’re good at, is exactly what we’re suppose to be doing.” ~Carmen Inguanzo  

I remember at five-years-old in my kindergarten class being the child with the best penmanship.  I would take so much pride in writing all of my letters perfectly, and if the letter didn’t look perfect, I would erase it and write it again until it was perfected.  When the scholastic order forms would arrive, I would not only order books, but also workbooks to practice my penmanship.  Then, I didn’t know why I was so obsessed with writing so neatly, or why I had this impressive keen eye for picking up punctuation errors.  I could spot them without even trying, and it would drive me crazy if someone didn’t dot their I’s or cross their T’s.  Or not put a period after a sentence, or indent when they started a new paragraph.  Or when people would use capital letters in the wrong place, or lowercase letters where the word was suppose to be capitalized.  I mean, I was seriously compulsive.  By the time I was in first grade I was the teacher’s assistant helping my classmates how to print legibly and already, how to cursively write in script.  It was my favorite part of the entire day and I would take my time with each student making sure their penmanship was the best they could produce.  Throughout my entire education and until today, I aced all of my Penmanship (yes in the 80′s penmanship was still taught as a course), English, Literature, Writing and Spelling (and yes, so was Spelling) classes.  And boy, was I thrilled to participate in Spelling Bees.  Spelling also, came naturally to me.  And when I attended school in the Dominican Republic for two years in an American School where Spanish was taught as a second language, I aced those classes too.  By the time I graduated high school, St. Thomas Aquinas in the Bronx, I was equally fluent in writing, reading and speaking both languages.  What was crazy about all of this is that I did not have the same love for reading as I did for writing, but I was naturally, also, a fluent reader.  I was the girl in class raising her hands every time the teacher asked someone to read out loud.  Most times I could read without making a single mistake, and before I knew it, I was speed reading, and still today, I speed read. Not only did I always speed read as a child, but I also loved changing my tone to get into character.  I would imagine the scene, and act it out as I read it out loud, just like some of my teachers did. Why am I sharing all of this you may be wondering?…  Because I spent my entire life searching and searching for my life purpose, my gift.  And today, 42 years later, for the first time, I am really embracing and owning that this is what I’m suppose to be doing- Writing and Editing.  Just this past year I was one of two editors for a wonderful friend of mine writing her first book.  The publishing company who picked up her book gave it a 5-star rating.  I was astonished and in awe of what transpired from the months and months of editing after editing after editing after editing.  The shaving down process being the most difficult because when writing a story, or a book, we tend to want to include almost everything, as if we need to give the reader a step by step play of every-single-thing that happened.  This was exactly what my bff Egli did, she included EVERYTHING leaving NOTHING out, and boy, was it hard to get her to allow me to shave!  This is the hardest part for every writer; deciding what to leave in and what to cut out, or what to put aside for another story or book.  It was during this process when I first realized I was not only a writer, but also, an editor.

Rewind six years ago, was the first time I took a creative writing class and began to study the writing craft.  Looking back, I thought I was writing because I needed an outlet to express my emotions about my son’s autism diagnosis, since journaling was the only way I knew how to express myself throughout my life.  Literally.  And here I am today, six years later, 10 in-class writing workshops, one online blogging for beginners course, 2 one-week workshop at VONA, plus all of the writing classes I’ve taken and am taking in college with English and Creative Writing being my major.  I realize today that this journey was no coincidence.  I realize today that though it took me so long to get here, this was the path I was born to walk, and though I’ve been slow to walk this path because of the paralysis that comes with depression, today I am committed to writing an essay a week for the entire year of 2017.  In knowing I am a major procrastinator alongside having ADHD, this is the only way I know I will commit to my craft.  The only way that through my own personal stories, I will write about mental illnesses and raise awareness.  The only way I will fulfill my purpose of becoming an advocate for those that cannot speak for themselves.  The only way I will do what I LOVE!

~We spend a life time asking the same question a million times, in a million different ways, yet the outcome is always the same. So here’s the lesson.. Instead of looking for life’s purpose how about we lead a life with purpose and strive after something we believe is worthwhile.~