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toscrollperchancetomeme · 4 years ago

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Lestat de Lioncourt - A playlist

So, guess who made a Lestat Playlist (like there aren't enough already) and decided to sit down for 4-6 hours to find some excerpt corresponding with each song? Featuring 80s and 90s music (clearly showing my age...) as well as many european songs and showtunes. Enjoy!

1. Cathedrals – Ramin Karimloo (Original by Jump, Little Children)

In the cathedrals of New York and Rome There is a feeling that you should just go home And spend the lifetime finding out just where that is

And that was not a good year for me. I was wandering aimlessly. I was sick of things. I was furious with myself that the „beauty“ of life wasn't sustaining me, wasn't making my loneliness bearable.

I wanted to join them. Always do want to join them and never do. „Go home,“ he whispered. - Prince Lestat

(I actually feel like there are quotes that would correspond to this song in every one of the books and indeed have not yet found any other song that captures the general spirit of The Vampire Chronicles as perfectly.)

2. Edge of Seventeen – Stevie Nicks

Well, I went today Maybe I will go again tomorrow Yeah yeah, well, the music there Well, it was hauntingly familiar Well, I see you doing what I try to do for me With the words from a poet and a voice from a choir And a melody, and nothing else mattered

He sat next to me, hugging me and asking me why I was crying, and though I couldn't tell him, I could see that he was overwhelmed that his music had produced this effect. There was no sarcasm or bitterness in him now. I think he carried me home that night. And the next morning I was standing in the crooked stone street in front of his father's shop, tossing pebbles up at his window. When he stuck his head out, I said: „Do you want to come down and go on with our conversation?“ - The Vampire Lestat

3. I ain't scared of lightning – Tom McRae

No I ain't scared of lightning And thunder never killed I was born in a summer storm and I live there still

I wasn't part of the world that cringed at such things. And with a smile, I realized that I was of that dark ilk that makes others cringe. Slowly and with great pleasure, I laughed.

And the labor that brought it forth was rapture such as I have never known. - The Vampire Lestat

4. Junge Roemer – Falco (Young Romans – Full Translation)

Don't ask for new old values See white light, see only feeling The night is ours till morning We play every game Don't ever let this journey end The doing comes only from the being Only from dimensions, that Are worth illusions and sensations Give me more, give me more, give me more...

... and again she laughed. „Ah, but we are splendid devils, aren't we?“ „Hunters of the Savage Garden,“ I said. „Then let's go into Paris,“ she said. - The Vampire Lestat

5. Running up that hill – Candy Says (Original by Kate Bush

If I only could, I'd make a deal with God, And I'd get him to swap our places, Be running up that road, Be running up that hill, Be running up that building,

„Not even with Nicolas?“ „No, god, no!“ I looked at her. She nodded slightly as if she approved of this answer. „Why not with Nicolas?“ she asked. I wanted this to stop. „Because he's young,“ I said, „and he has life before him.“ - The Vampire Lestat

6. Florence – Notre Dame de Paris (Full Translation)

The little things always triumph over the large And literature will kill architecture The school books will kill the cathedrals The Bible will kill the Church, and man will kill God This will kill that

„I never lived in it. I push against the glass. But how do I get in?“ „I can't tell you that,“ I said. „You have to study this age,“ Gabrielle interrupted. Her voice was calm but commanding. He looked towards her as she spoke. „You have to understand the age,“ she continued, „through its literature and its music and its art. You have come up out of the earth, as you yourself put it. Now live in the world.“ No answer from him. Flash of Nicki's ravaged flat with all its books on the floor. Western civilization in heaps. - The Vampire Lestat

7. Go your own way – Fleetwood Mac

Loving you isn't the right thing to do How can I ever change things that I feel

If I could maybe I'd give you my world How can I when you won't take it from me

You can go your own way You can call it another lonely day

„Keep your promise,“ she said. And quite suddenly I knew this was our last moment. I knew it and I could do nothing to change it. „Gabrielle!“ I whispered. But she was already gone. - The Vampire Lestat

8. Désenchantée – Olympe (Original by Myléne Farmer - Full Translation)

If death is a mystery Life isn't exactly tender If heaven has a hell Then heaven can still wait for me Tell me how to handle this headwind Nothing makes sense anymore, nothing's fine

Laughter. That insane music. That din, that dissonance, that never ending shrill articulation of the meaninglessness... Am I awake? Am I asleep? I am sure of one thing. I am a monster. And because I lie in torment in the earth, certain human beings move on through the narrow pass of life unmolested. - The Vampire Lestat

9. A kind of magic – Queen

The bell that rings inside your mind Is challenging the doors of time It's a kind of magic The waiting seems eternity The day will dawn of sanity

And quite completely I understood that it was looking for me, this sound, it was seeking me out.

Blood like light itself, liquid fire.

It seemed beneath the roar of the flow he spoke. He said again: „Drink, my young one, my wounded one.“ I felt his heart swell, his body undulate, and we were sealed against each other. I think I heard myself say: „Marius.“ And he answered: „Yes.“ - The Vampire Lestat

10. La quête – Bruno Pelletier (French version of „The Impossible Dream“ from Man of La Mancha)

To try when your arms are too weary To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest To follow that star Ooh, no matter how hopeless No matter how far

I would remain in New Orleans if New Orleans could only manage to remain. Whatever I suffered should be lessened in this lawless place, whatever I craved should give me more pleasure once I had it in my grasp. And there were moments on that first night in this fetid little paradise when I prayed that in spite of all my secret power, I was somehow kin to every mortal man. - The Vampire Lestat

11. Wicked Game – Chris Isaak

What a wicked game you play, to make me feel this way What a wicked thing to do, to let me dream of you What a wicked thing to say, you never felt this way What a wicked thing to do, to make me dream of you

Yet Louis gained a hold over me far more powerful than Nicolas had ever had. Even in his cruelest moments, Louis touched the tenderness in me, seducing me with his staggering dependence, his infatuation with my every gesture and every spoken word. - The Vampire Lestat

12. Do I disappoint you – Rufus Wainwright

Do I disappoint you, in just being human? And not one of the elements that you can light your cigar on Why does it always have to be fire? Why does it always have to be brimstone?

„And suppose the vampire who made you knew nothing, and the vampire before him knew nothing, and so it goes back and back, nothing proceeding from nothing, until there is nothing! And we must live with the knowledge that there is no knowledge!“ „Yes!“ he cried out suddenly, his hands out, his voice tinged with something other than anger.

And then I sensed it. He was afraid. Lestat afraid. - Interview with the Vampire

13. Ordinary World – Duran Duran

What has happened to it all? Crazy, some'd say Where is the life that I recognize? Gone away

But I won't cry for yesterday There's an ordinary world Somehow I have to find And as I try to make my way To the ordinary world I will learn to survive

I do not remember when it became the twentieth century, only that everything was uglier and darker, and the beauty I'd known in the old eighteenth-century days seemed more than ever some kind of fanciful idea. - The Vampire Lestat

14. I'm still standing – Taron Egerton (Original by Elton John)

And there's a cold lonely light that shines from you You'll wind up like the wreck you hide behind that mask you use And did you think this fool could never win? Well look at me, I'm coming back again

But after the third night up, I was roaring around New Orleans on a big black Harley-Davidson motorcycle making plenty of noise myself. […] I was the vampire Lestat again. I was back in action. New Orleans was once again my hunting ground. - The Vampire Lestat

15. Catch my fall – Billy Idol

I have the time so I will sing, yeah I'm just a boy but I will win, yeah Lost song of lovers, fellow travelers, yeah Leave me sad and hollow out of words

It could happen to you so think for yourself If I should stumble, catch my fall, yeah

I've survived, obviously. I wouldn't be talking to you if I hadn't. And the cosmic dust has finally settled; and the small rift in the world's fabric of rational beliefs has been mended, or at least closed. I'm a little sadder for all of it, and a little meaner and a little more conscientious as well. - The Queen of the Damned

16. I want it all – Queen

I'm a man with a one track mind So much to do in one lifetime (people do you hear me) Not a man for compromise and where's and why's and living lies So I'm living it all, yes I'm living it all And I'm giving it all, and I'm giving it all

It is not enough any longer that my little rock band be successful. We must create a fame that will carry my name and my voice to the remotest parts of the world. - The Vampire Lestat

17. Let me entertain you – Robbie Williams

Hell is gone and heaven's here There's nothing left for you to fear Shake your arse come over here Now scream

I'm a burning effigy Of everything I used to be You're my rock of empathy, my dear

So come on let me entertain you

"I AM THE VAMPIRE LESTAT!" I shouted at the top of my lungs as I stepped way back from the microphone, and the sound was almost visible as it arched over the length of the oval theater, and the voice of the crowd rose even higher, louder, as if to devour the ringing sound. - The Vampire Lestat

18. La bien qui fait mal – Mozart l'Opera Rock (Full translation)

I can feel a violent urge I feel like I'm sliding towards the ground If I don't find out where this plague is coming from I adore having it under my skin Bewitched by mad ideas Suddenly all my cravings take off The desire becomes my prison Until I loose my mind

Yet I was in her arms in this chilling darkness, in the familiar scent of winter, and her blood was mine again, and it was enslaving me. When she drew away, I felt agony. - The Queen of the Damned

19. Tainted Love – Soft Cell

And you think love is to pray But I'm sorry I don't pray that way Once I ran to you Now I'll run from you This tainted love you've given I give you all a boy could give you Take my tears and that's not living, oh

„What do you think I am that I am so easily swayed? I was born a Queen. I have always ruled; even from the shrine I ruled." Her eyes were glazed suddenly. I heard the voices, a dull hum rising. "I ruled if only in legend; if only in the minds of those who came to me and paid me tribute. Princes who played music for me; who brought me offerings and prayers. What do you want of me now? That for you, I renounce my throne, my destiny!" What answer could I make? - The Queen of the Damned

20. Dancing in the Dark – Ruth Moody (Original by Bruce Springsteen)

They say you gotta stay hungry Hey baby, I'm just about starvin' tonight I'm dyin' for some action I'm sick of sittin' 'round here tryin' to write this book I need a love reaction Come on now, baby, gimme just one look

"I want you to put the book aside and come join us," he said. "You've been locked in here for over a month." "I go out now and then," I said. I liked looking at him, at the neon blue of his eyes.

"Do you love me now?" I asked. He smiled; oh, it was excruciating to see his face soften and brighten simultaneously when he smiled. "Yes," he said. "Want to go on a little adventure?" My heart was thudding suddenly. It would be so grand if- "Want to break the new rules?" "What in the world do you mean?" he whispered. - The Queen of the Damned

21. I want you – Savage Garden

Oh, I want you, I don't know if I need you But oh, I would die to find out

"You don't think you'll be back?" he asked. "I think you will, whether I call or not." Another little surprise. A little stab of humiliation. I smiled at him in spite of myself. He was a very interesting man. "You silver-tongued British bastard," I said. "How dare you say that to me with such condescension? Maybe I should kill you right now."

I thought of David Talbot's face, and that moment when he'd challenged me. Well, maybe he was right. I'd be back. Who said I couldn't come back and talk to him if I wanted to? - The Queen of the Damned

22. Lay your hands on me – Bon Jovi

I'm a fighter, I'm a poet, I'm a preacher I've been to school, oh baby, I've been the teacher If you show me how to get up off the ground I can show you how to fly and never ever come back down

I sat down on the bed beside him. And then I bent down and kissed his face again gently, as I had in New Orleans, liking the feel of his roughly shaven beard, just as I liked that sort of thing when I was really Lestat and I would soon have that strong masculine blood inside. I moved closer to him, when suddenly he grasped my hand, and I felt him gently push me away. „Why, David?“ I asked him. He didn't answer. He lifted his right hand and brushed my hair back out of my eyes. „I don't know,“ he whispered. „I can't. I simply can't.“ - The Tale of the Body Thief

23. 20th Century Boy – Placebo (Original by T-Rex)

I move like a cat, charge like a ram Sting like a bee, babe, I wanna be your man, hey!

He drew back with a speed that astonished me, cleaving to the wall. „Don't do this, Lestat.“ „Don't fight me, old friend. You waste your effort. You have a long night of discovery ahead.“ - The Tale of the Body Thief

24. Way down we go – KALEO

Oh, Father tell me, do we get what we deserve? Whoa, we get what we deserve And way down we go

„In chains, to my friend and my scribe, I dictated these words. Come with me. Just listen to me. Don't leave me alone.“ - Memnoch the Devil

25. Personal Jesus – Depeche Mode

Reach out, touch faith

"Don't tell me," Gabrielle said slurringly, "that it's a matter of faith." She sneered and shook her head. "You come like doubting Thomas to thrust your bloody fangs in the very wound." "Oh, stop, please, I beg you," I whispered. I put up my hands. "Let me try, and let him hurt me, and then be satisfied, and turn away." - The Vampire Armand

26. Papillon – Editors

Darling Just don't put down your guns yet If there really was a God here He'd have raised a hand by now Now darling You're born, get old, then die here Well that's quite enough for me We'll find our own way home somehow

"And if I spill my blood down into this coffin now," Lestat asked her, "what do you think will come back? Do you think it will be our Louis that will rise in these burnt rags? What if it's not, chérie, what if it's some wounded revenant that we must destroy?" "Choose life, Lestat," she said. - Merrick

27. Sunday Light – Choir Boy

Why, why, why, are you silent on the ride home? I'd love to see the temple with you Heavenly and bright, golden angel twisted scathing You were one of us, one of us, one of us, you were one of us

"Then come, Little Brother, take me to where you want to talk," he said, and I felt the soft squeeze of his fingers on my arm. "Why are you so kind to me?" I asked him. "You're used to people being paid to do it, aren't you?" he asked. - Blackwood Farm

28. Für mich solls rote Rosen regnen – Hildegard Knef (It should rain red roses for me - Full translation)

It should rain red roses for me All wonders should encounter me The world should rearrange itself And keep its worries to itself

I want to be a saint. I want to save souls by the millions. I want to do good far and wide. I want to fight evil! I want my life-sized statue in every church. I'm talking six feet tall, blond hair, blue eyes- Wait a second. Do you know who I am? - Blood Canticle

29. Constant Craving – K. D. Lang

Even through the darkest phase Be it thick or thin Always someone marches brave Here beneath my skin And constant craving Has always been

I was hunting, thirsting though I didn't need to drink, at the mercy of the craving, the deep agonizing lust for heated pumping human blood. - Prince Lestat

30. Kalte Sterne – Jan Ammann (Cold Stars from the musical Ludwig² - Full translation)

Get up, ride home, on your horse, through your land Across the morning with your reins trailing behind you Build a castle like a dream, build it with mighty hands And it shall be named „future“

Build a castle like a dream Up from the ashes and close to the heavens Build a castle like a dream And realise the future as king

If we wanted to survive, if we wanted to inherit the millenia […] then we had to meet the future with respect as well as courage and count fear and selfishness to be small things. - Prince Lestat and the realms of Atlantis

31. C'est une belle journée – Mylene Farmer (Full translation)

I'm going to bed To bite eternity With my mouth wide open It's a beautiful day

And I felt the cold numbing shell of alienation and despair which had imprisoned me all of my life among the Undead – I felt that shell cracked, broken, and dissolved utterly into infinitesimal fragments. - Blood Communion

32. Princes of the Universe – Queen

Fly the moon and reach for the stars With my sword and head held high Got to pass the test first time, yeah I know that people talk about me, I hear it every day But I can prove them wrong 'cause I'm right first time

„I know that you meant full well to bring Rhoshamandes down, of course you did. But you had no way of knowing that you could. And no one would have predicted that you could. And with the willingness to die, you gave yourself over into his hands... and you disarmed him and destroyed him.“ – Blood Communion

And finally, because I can, a bonus track:

33. Primadonna – MARINA

And I'm sad to the core, core, core Every day is a chore, chore, chore When you give, I want more, more, more I wanna be adored

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invisibleinorange · 4 years ago

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Chapters: 4/? Fandom: Bridgerton Rating: T Warnings: Presumed Character Death, Suicidal Ideation Relationships: Colin Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington, Eloise Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington(besties), Bridgerton Family Dynamics, Simon Hastings/Daphne Bridgerton Characters: Colin Bridgerton, Penelope Featherington, Eloise Bridgerton, Anthony Featherington, Benedict Bridgerton Additional Tags: Bridgerton, Polin Summary: Unexpected bad news arrives for the Bridgerton Family (and friends) regarding Colin's travels. This will be a series that is set after "The Duke and I" or season one of the show. It is a companion piece to "Goodbyes". (#I’mHereToKillYouAllWithFeels)

---

Anthony and Benedict had expected a lot of different reactions from their younger sister, dead silence was not one of them.

They stood there though watching as she read the letter, complete and utter disbelief and confusion clear on her face.

Eloise Bridgerton was certain that Penelope Featherington told her everything. Sure, Colin had always been nice to Penelope but so were the rest of her brothers.

If there had been something out of the ordinary, she would have picked up on it. If one of her brothers was taking more notice or spending more time with her, she would certainly picked up on it.

Colin had barely broken off his engagement to Marina before he departed. Why would he have been so concerned about Pen?

This whole thing felt ludicrous and the only rational explanation was that this was some cruel prank. Sure, she knew that Penelope was incredible but her brothers were all idiots. As much as she might have loved to have her best friend have become a sister, she’d never seen it as the remotest of possibilities.

Reading the letter, she felt almost guilty for having never given Penelope enough credit for being capable to grab the attention of one of her brothers.

After a long moment she raised a hand as if to tell her brothers to not even say a word. She was going to get to the bottom of this.

“You had both better hope that I don’t have cause to leave Gregory my only brother when I return,” she muttered and then with was gone, leaving the safety of the drawing room toward the one person who could answer any of the questions she had.

The reason Penelope Featherington could get away with more than most was because no one actually ever paid her much attention. No one cared what she did honestly and that was why it was so easy to keep herself shut away in her bedroom, convince herself that it would be so much easier for everyone involved if she just disappeared.

There were certain things that she had to get in order though. She had forced herself to sneak in the night to allow Lady Whistledown to honor Colin but after that, she’d begun to get her affairs in order.

She had every intention of it being the last thing that she ever sent to print. She intended to have the secret die with her so that those she loved could at least keep some self-respect.

There were other letters that she had debated putting together too but somehow the words that were the most important were the most impossible to put together. Her family wouldn’t even put on a show of missing her. The only person left who might actually miss her was Eloise.

She kept plenty of things from her over the years though and perhaps, it was for the best if she never knew.

The saddest part of it all was that her mother never learned. The necessary toxins were still easily accessible in the home. Penelope had listened when Marina had detailed what all she’d consumed. Surely, if that could nearly kill her if she doubled it, it would actually do the job. If it didn’t work, she was pretty sure she would just throw herself into the sea.

Her normally healthy pink skin was pale, her hands trembled as she wrapped her hand around the deceptively sweet smelling cup of tea. She raised it to her lips, prepared to take a sip.

Her plan was interrupted by the door opening with a slam.

The look on her face must have said it all because all 167.6 centimeters of Eloise Bridgerton came at her with a horrified force, knocking the cup out of her hands letting it shatter and spill against the floor.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” the brunette bellowed.

It was enough the send Penelope crumbling into the ground, curling into herself. She was shattering and a part of her felt selfish for this all. She no longer had the strength to lie though.

“I want to join him,” she sobbed.

Eloise was completely taken aback but she still descended to her own knees, wrapping her arms around the red-head trying her to best to calm the storm. She didn’t have to understand any of this to understand that there wasn’t a chance in Hell of her letting Penelope actually harm herself.

“You will not,” she ordered. “I won’t let you.”

“This is all my fault,” Penelope cried.

Eloise didn’t see a possible scenario where that could be true. The letter that her brother had written was still clearly imprinted in her mind along with the millions of questions that followed.

She was starting to think her brothers might have been right to share it.

A loud sigh escaped her lips and she forced her friend to look her in the face.

“My brother would not want this no matter what happened between the two of you,” she said resolutely, knowing that without a shadow a doubt.

It was Penelope’s turn for confusion to show across her features.

“Nothing happened between me and your brother.”

Eloise couldn’t help but wonder if this was one of those situations where someone protested too much. Sure, she’d clearly missed something but her eyes were wide open now and she just wanted to know the truth.

“Then why did he write to you?” she couldn’t help but ask.

If Penelope could have turned paler in that moment, she was pretty sure that she would have. Eloise wasn’t sure if she swooned, she’d have been able to keep her up right.

“He … wrote … me?” she asked.

Eloise nodded.

“Before he left,” she said. “It just doesn’t make sense to me because you’ve never given me any inclination that you had any passing fancy for any of my brothers and – I know I’ve been busy with my investigation but surely, I would have noticed something. Surely, if you were this in love with my brother, you would have told me.”

She didn’t say it because it was of no relevance now that Colin was gone but she was a bit hurt with the thought that she wouldn’t have been told. As much as it might have been weird, there was no one she would have rather had become a sister. In many ways, she’d always felt as if they were sisters.

Her words shamed Penelope.

“I didn’t tell you because he wouldn’t have felt the same. I’m not like you and your sisters. I don’t have Lords and Dukes fighting over my hand. The only men who ever dance with me at balls do so out of pity. Yes, I … believe I loved your brother but he never would have loved me. Maybe he didn’t marry Marina but there would be another next season or the next.”

Eloise’s loyalties were completely and utterly torn. Did she defend her brother’s character? Did she argue her best friend’s virtues?

“ You’re incredible, Pen. Maybe the men and the Ton are idiots but that doesn’t change the fact you are one of the smartest, kindest and most loyal people that I’ve ever know. Even if I am furious at you for not telling me all of this, I’ll keep telling you as much.”

There was a pause, the folded letter retrieved from where she’d stashed it in her haste to get there to investigate.

She extended it toward her friend after a long moment of thought.

“I was going to say my brother was daft but apparently you both are when it comes to romance. I’m sorry that he’ll never be able to tell you as much himself.”

My Dear Pen, Everyone in my family has a bit of a label to them. I love them all dearly. It’s sometimes a big heavy trying to live up to their accomplishments. Being clever has always been my method of disguising my discomfort in my own skin at times. If you are reading this, I was a coward who couldn’t be man enough to utter the very words that have taken to plaguing my every waking hour. When I am with you, you disarm me. I am in awe of you to the point that it terrifies me. I’m not completely sure that you recognize how magnificent you truly are. I know that you think that no one takes notice of you but I do. You’re also my sister’s most beloved friend and as such I may have taken for granted the fact you would always be there. I know that I have acted beastly in recent weeks, throwing myself head first at an ill-fated engagement with little consideration for your own circumstances, ignoring you when you sought to warn me and taking our friendship for granted. I cannot apologize to you enough. I am completely and utterly undeserving of the repeated forgiveness you have bestowed upon me. I had hoped I might throw myself at you for your mercy once more. I know that you are facing bigger issues than my own selfish need of your company though. I understand now that this is why you spurned my request at the ball. I was wounded when you took leave of me but struggle to find sleep, I knew just how foolish I might have been to think that you would even want to spend the night dancing and talking with a rake like me. You have always deserved the attention of a man not a boy. You deserve someone who would put you above his own boyish whims. You deserve to be cherished always. By the time I return from Greece, someone else will have seen how magnificent you really are. Perhaps one day, I will grow into the man that you have always had faith that I could be and when I approach you won’t feel need to take leave of me. I will never be as good as Anthony or Benedict but if when we can meet again you so much as deem me worthy of friendship, I will not take such opportunity for granted.

Your most humble friend, Colin

#⚜ writings — polin #bridgerton #colin bridgerton #penelope featherington

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tawakkull · 4 years ago

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Love and Mercy in Islam: Love of God.Part3

Never should one let others into these groans of the remotest places, which indeed are the launching pads to reach God, and thereby help those ignorant ones make fun of them. If this spectacular love is for the Omniscient One, then it should be kept in the most private sphere, not letting it fly away from its nest.

Telling of their trivial love, these conventional lovers wander here and there, proclaiming their love to all, acting like mad men, making their love obvious to all. Lovers of God, on the other hand, are sincere and quiet.

Leaning their heads on God’s threshold, they express themselves merely to Him. From time to time they faint, but they never reveal their secrets. They are at His service with their hands and feet, their eyes and ears, their tongues and lips and they wander in the places of His Sublime Attributes. Immersed in His Light of Being they melt and disappear as a mortal in His love. As they feel and sense God, they burn and exclaim, “More!” Much do they feel at the peaks of their hearts and still they cry, “More!” They are never satisfied with love though they love and are loved. “More!” they keep repeating. And as they continue asking for more, the Glorious Beloved uncovers veils for them, presenting to their wisdom things never seen before, and also whispering to their spirits many a secret. After a certain point what they feel, what they love, what they think of becomes Him. In everything they see they find graceful manifestations of His Beauty. Leaving their strength entirely, at a certain time they connect their will power to His, melt in His demands, and evaluate this high rank with how much they love and are loved, and again with how much they know and are known. With obedience to Him and faithfulness, they express their love. They lock the door of their hearts with bolt after bolt in such a secure manner that no stranger can ever enter that pure house. With all their beings they are witnesses of God, and their praise and appreciation of God is far beyond their comprehension.

Their belief, on the other hand, in God’s response to such loyalty is adamant. Their place in God’s Presence is in direct proportion with His in their hearts, which is why they endeavor to stand upright before Him.

Never do they act like a creditor when they love Him deeply; on the contrary, they are as embarrassed as a debtor. As Rabi'a al-‘Adawiya put it,

“I swear on Your Holy Being that I have not worshiped You demanding Your Paradise. Rather, I loved You and connected my slavery to my love."

As such, they walk with gushing love toward His Realm, keeping His blessings and kindness in mind. With their hearts, they constantly endeavor to stay close to Him, and with their reason and intellect, they observe phenomena in the mirrors of the Divine Names. They hear voices of love in everything, are mesmerized by the fragrance of each and every flower, and consider every scene that is beautiful as a reflection of His Beauty. For Him, all they hear, feel, or think of is nothing other than love, as a result of which they watch the whole existence as an exhibition of love and, again, listen to it as a harmony of love.

Once love has put up its sumptuous tents in the valleys of the heart, all opposite events seem to be the same, such as peaceunrest, blessing-calamity, hotsweet, comfort-discomfort, griefpleasure, all giving the same sound and looking the same way.

Indeed, for loving hearts, suffering is no different than pleasure. To them, suffering is the very cure, so they drink pain and agony as they drink from the rivers of Heaven. No matter how merciless the time and events get, they stay still with a profound feeling of loyalty. With their eyes fixed on the door to be opened, they lie in wait to welcome some manifestations and kindness in different dimensions. They crown His love by respecting and also obeying Him. Their hearts beat with submission and they shake due to the fear of disobeying the Beloved. So as not to fall, ironically, they take shelter again in the Unique Source of reliance and aid. This kind of quest for an agreement with and consent of God makes them in time very dearly sought by everybody both on Earth and in the heavens. The only thing in their consideration is nothing but God. For them, expecting something in return is a kind of deception, yet they regard it as discourteous not to accept the blessings they have not asked for. They give these blessings high esteem but, cautiously, each of them moans; "I take refuge in You from their temptations.”

An ardent longing is the highest rank for a lover, and to get lost in the lover’s desires and wishes is the most unreachable attainment. Love is founded upon elementary principles, such as repentance, alertness, and patience, whereas once introduced, selfpossession, familiarity, love, longing, and other principles are required in order to merit this position. The first lesson on the path of love is purification, to be deprived of personal desires, to relate all your thoughts and communication to Him, to be busy with things that hint of Him, to wait expectantly in case He manifests, and also to stay determinedly where you are for a lifetime in case He turns to you one day. In this path, love is to be madly in love; ardor is the gushing passion, enthusiasm and desire; when ardor becomes the true nature of humans then this is yearning; consent is meeting every act of the Lover with pleasure; selfpossession is being cautious against becoming intoxicated with the blessings of hearing or feeling His Presence, or being under His direct guidance.

The more people develop in themselves one of the above features, the more changes there are that can be witnessed in their behavior. Sometimes they seek quiet bays where they can confide in Him. Sometimes under the influence of a variety of considerations, they talk to Him and state their grievance concerning separation. They are filled with joy expecting union and relax with tears of bliss. At times, they do not see what is going on around them, for they experience unity in multiplicity, and sometimes they get lost in the awe of peace and cannot even hear their own voices.

Love grows and develops in the bosom of wisdom. Wisdom is nourished by knowledge of the divine. Those who are not wise cannot love at all. And those whose perception is weak cannot reach wisdom, either. Occasionally, God himself implants love in hearts and activates the inner mechanism, an extra blessing which most people long for. Nevertheless, relying on some marvelous wonders and waiting impotently is one thing; an active waiting in endless contractions is totally different. The faithful servants at the Gate of the All-Just One put their expectations on action, take up a dynamic stance and, therefore, they generate with that seemingly still position enough energy to suffice the entire universe, materializing awesome activities.

These people are loyal lovers incarnating certain characteristics. They meet every act of the Beloved with pleasure and display faithfulness all the time, as if repeating Nesimi;[ A famous Sufi poet from Baghdad, Nesimi is considered to be one of the first masters of divan literature. He has two divans (book of poems) in Turkish and Persian. ]

A desperate lover, I won’t, O the Beloved, abandon You,

I won’t do so even if You rend my heart with a dagger.

Despite the fact that they always seriously long for His Company, never ever do they whine. They remove all expectations that are not of Him from their minds, and think only of His Presence. Their conversations become those of the Beloved, and thus, their voices gain an angelic profundity.

For them, love is everything. They can survive without bodies; but without souls, they cannot. They believe that there is no room in their hearts for others, only for the love of the Beloved.

As such, even if they are the poorest and weakest of the world, they hold a status envied by kings as well. They are big in their smallness, mighty in their impotence, wealthy enough in their neediness to command the entire universe. Though they look like a puny candle, they are like an energy source rich enough to light up suns. Even if everyone were to run toward the loyal lovers, it is still clear to where and to Whom the lovers are running. With the wealth of their essential characters they transcend the entire universe. But when they turn toward Him, they become a spark, even less—they become nothing by forgetting all that pertains to their existence.

A life without Him counts little for them. A life without Him is not a life at all. Leading a life without loving is a wasted life, and the delights and pleasures not related to Him are nothing but a placebo. They ceaselessly talk about love and longing and regard those who are not familiar with these as being somehow different.

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mannatea · 4 years ago

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comme les étoiles dans le ciel, a Rose of Versailles ‘Ficlet Collection

005: Floue Words: 1,292 words Summary: Oscar reflects. Pairing/Character: Oscar/André Extra Info: First person ‘fic? In my repertoire? It’s more likely than you think! Rating: PG for this chapter! Genre: Angst, Romance, Character Study

More notes:

The original sat at a whopping 605 words, so this was obviously a fairly large rewrite.

I’m not saying that short and concise isn’t good, because it can be, but what I’m noticing as I work on rewriting this “drabble” collection is that most of the stories I wrote didn’t actually lend themselves to being short. At least...not naturally?

With the exception of La Promesse, the others just feel like messy simplifications of storylines or emotion. I dunno. I have this irrational fear when I add to ‘fics that I’m reverting back to my “over-abundance of detail” stage (from like, 2010 to 2012). At the same time, I feel pretty confident that doubling the word count for this story made it feel...much more cohesive.

Things I changed:

The ending! The original ending was sloppy and I wasn’t even happy with it when I posted it back in 2009. It ended with Oscar asking André if she was getting old and all he said in return was, “Only if you want to be.”

WHAT KIND OF ENDING WAS THAT? I mean it literally ended with that line.

I wrote this in 2009, before I was dealing with the worst of my chronic illnesses. I’m not sure if I subscribed to the “you’re only as old as you let yourself be!” mentality or not, because 2009 was the beginning of the end for my mental and physical health. Maybe it was a last-ditch attempt on my part to cope with what was happening to me?

So much of the original writing was Bad. I scrapped a lot of lines and rewrote nearly everything. I made a conscious effort to adjust the tone to sound more like Oscar as the narrator, and to make the words flow more naturally, as if it was all internal dialogue.

The original barely touched on Oscar’s childhood beyond the fact that she felt like it was all “a blur” to her. I added a lot more in about that and tried to weave in a pinch of the Lady Oscar live-action, because one of many things I felt it got right was the way it handled “everything is so complicated now, but it used to be simple and I miss when things were simple.”

I don’t know how 2009 me had even the remotest grasp of what it was like to be turning 33. Maybe it was all those chronic issues descending on me a full decade before I turned that old?

Either way, I’ll be turning 34 this year, and I think I captured the crux of the issue decently in the original.

Now more than ever I think I understand this aspect of Oscar’s character. If you’re young, it might be a little harder to grasp (ten years ago I was not emotionally capable of that), but growing up can be difficult for reasons that go well beyond Basic Adult Responsibilities. Paying bills and taking out the trash sucks, but I’m not talking about that.

As you mature you gain a new understanding of the world around you. You become aware of new things, many of which are terrible. Maybe it was easy to shrug off the realities around you due to your privilege (I’m looking at all the white people who might be reading this in particular), but at a certain point you become shockingly Aware of your privilege and the evils of others. Ignorance isn’t an excuse, and you can’t undo what you already know (nor do you want to), but there is a special kind of stress that comes with it. And a responsibility, too, to use your privilege to help others.

Boo hoo, poor privileged Oscar! This isn’t what I’m saying. Oscar’s entire character arc is about her learning about her privilege and using it to help others. She uses it early on to save André’s life when he would have died for letting injury come to the crown princess. This is why André swears his life to her. This is why André loves her. Because this is the kind of person Oscar is.

Even if you are not privileged, it’s difficult to avoid becoming aware of how other people (people who are not you) are oppressed. You come face to face with racism, misogyny, economic inequality, and how wealthy the rich actually are (versus how rich you thought they were).

If you are a woman, think about your understanding of sexism and misogyny as it is now, and compare it to your understanding of it 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago. See how it has shifted? See how much more you know now? How much more Aware you’ve become?

The point of all of this isn’t to say, “Hey, feel sorry for Oscar because she’s having a rough time wrestling with her privilege!” Rather, “sometimes being bombarded with terrifying and sad realities, being forced to challenge your worldview to the point of exhaustion, is frightening and difficult, and if Oscar feels like it’s overwhelming, that’s very understandable.”

Who isn’t tired of the news right now? Who isn’t sick to their stomach when they refresh and see another person has died, another terrible thing has happened, the US leader has said another insensitive, hurtful, awful, disgusting thing?

Again, Oscar’s character arc is about her processing her privilege and actively using it to try and do The Right Thing.

The journey to this point is difficult, but the truly awful aspect of it, and what I was trying to highlight in this ‘fic, is the sheer volume of Bad Things That Keep Happening That She Can’t Directly Do Anything About.

Notice that she doesn’t get angry at the peasants for attacking her and André. She spends the whole scene begging them to listen to her and stop beating André because he isn’t a noble, she’s the noble, if you have to hurt someone hurt her instead.

She understands their way of thinking and their hurt, and what makes this difficult isn’t that they hurt her and André! It’s the crushing knowledge that all of Paris is suffering, and she’s only one person who feels she can’t even protect the one person she should be able to protect on her own. How can she help? Nothing ever feels like it’s enough!!!

Oscar’s understanding that the things she enjoyed as a child would not be things she would enjoy now were both added in and didn’t really exist in the original. I hope this is relatable. I do feel that as we age we realize that some of the behaviors we engaged in in our youth were mean or unfair.

I also really played up Oscar’s love in the rewrite. I feel like in first person, and especially sloshed, Oscar would understand her own feelings a little bit better.

Sorry for this jumbled mess of notes. Hopefully they make sense, though! :)

#rose of versailles #berusaiyu no bara #berubara #mannafics

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dew-line · 5 years ago

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January 1, 2020 – Taking stock.

If one is to have even the remotest of chances to win a particular battle or conquer even the most minute of feats it is important that all you have an up-to-date inventory of your assets, that your weapons are sharpened and properly utilized – let me start here by addressing my English: being Swedish we learn British english in school; however, the impact of American english through movies, music, news and the omnipresent internet have a big impact too. During my formative years when I read books at an atrocious speed I didn’t know that there are a difference in certain aspects of grammar and of spelling between British and American english and i just gobbled it all down lika a hungry goose. So, for the purpose of this blog, and to prevent you, my dear reader, to suffer a brain aneurysm over poor grammar and spelling, i feel that I must make it perfectly clear that I am a language mongrel. Mistakes will be made. Constantly. Hopefully that won’t take too much away from the reading experience itself, as I am sure that I will commit even greater intellectual atrocities once I get around to thinking.

These first few posts will predominantly be about who I am and what I stand for. To make this clear is important – mainly for myself – as I will use this blog to challenge myself and to challenge my own beliefs. I want the topics I choose and the pieces I write to hurt, to grate, and nag, and nip, and tear, to wear away old beliefs and opinions and help replacing them with others, or to push them more firmly in place. What are we, really, if not walking, talking bundles of opinions, prejudices and various mild neurosis (ICD-10)? Many people – and there is absolutely nothing wrong with this – are perfectly happy going through life without even once consider their personal relationship to philosophy, religion or politics – or for that matter their own sense of what is morally right or wrong. The consequences of our actions are seldom of any concern to us, as if our actions do have bad or damaging effects we are usually separated from these effects but either emotional or physical distance – one example could be to say something in a tone of voice that lead someone else to be completely devastated/angry/sad, for instance – if they don’t act on their emotions we assume everything to be in order, and if they do act we assume them to be overly sensitive – as we didn’t mean anything negative with what we said or how we said it. We are an empathic animal, but our empathy is always limited by our own emotions. Another example could be shopping for clothes – we know that buying the cheap stuff from M&H or the latest sneakers from Mike probably mean that we enable child labour - but we don’t even think about it because it is so distant from us. What matters, however, is when the effects of our actions cause direct reactions in, or in close proximity, to ourselves: You jokingly trip someone and they fall over and hit their head on the concrete; you run a red light and you cause a a car accident where a child looses his parents or the parents their child, or you see a dead mallard floating in a pond wrapped in what looks suspiciously like the plastic bag you threw in the water yesterday after feeding breadcrumbs to the birds with your children. What I am saying is that we are hard wired – psychologically and biologically – to predominantly care for the people that are closest to us. If we were to feel the same connection with every living person on the planet we would be nothing but quivering lumps of anxiety – because someone, somewhere will always – even with the best intentions of all mankind – be in the shits. Naturally we will choose the path of least resistance. We go about our days, we do what we do, we buy our stuff: brush, rinse, repeat.

Naturally humans aren’t as simplistic as described above. Every single one of us are a bristling bundle of hopes and dreams, love and hate, joy and fear, thoughts and actions – all bound together by the strongest force know to mankind: complacency. I will leave the topic of complacency and the dreaded consensus to later posts, but I will say that the human ability to create and live in imaginary worlds are practically magical (Harrari).

Then there are the ones that don’t make due. People that abhor complacency and conformity. Some people are contrarians by nature – if you sit at a table with your friends having a conversation, and everyone agrees with each other the contrarian will take up the opposite point of view just for the hell of it. Some do this maliciously, to create conflict (if you are that kind of person – you’re an asshole), other do it in order to promote a reasonable discussion, to bring opposite views into light and strive to encourage critical thinking (if you are this kind of person – good on you! Keep it up! You will still be considered an asshole though). The difference between the first kind of contrarian and the second kind – a part from the purpose. Is usually the degree of understanding of various subjects. If you are to be able to question society and how it operates, you must know quite a lot about society and its constituent parts. Arguments without a factual base is basically bullshit. And we do not want to be considered bullshitters, now, do we?

And finally – after many a word and no breakfast – we have come to the point of this whole post: In the coming few weeks I will try to explain and define the basis for my world view. The reason for doing this is that I want to scrutinize myself and what i believe going in to this blogging endeavor so that I will be able to go back and compare if my views will change as I go.

I will focus on my opinion on the following subjects (in no particular order): Philosophy Religion Politics Morality Art Death

Reader: be warned. Bullshittery may ensue.

Now I will let you relax and enjoy the first day of the rest of the decade.

//Jimmy

#original thoughts #writers on tumblr #philosophy #the dew line

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wisdomrays · 6 years ago

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LOVE AND MERCY IN ISLAM : Love of God.Part3

Leaning their heads on God's threshold, they express themselves merely to Him. From time to time they faint, but they never reveal their secrets. They are at His service with their hands and feet, their eyes and ears, their tongues and lips and they wander in the places of His Sublime Attributes. Immersed in His Light of Being they melt and disappear as a mortal in His love. As they feel and sense God, they burn and exclaim, "More!" Much do they feel at the peaks of their hearts and still they cry, "More!" They are never satisfied with love though they love and are loved. "More!" they keep repeating. And as they continue asking for more, the Glorious Beloved uncovers veils for them, presenting to their wisdom things never seen before, and also whispering to their spirits many a secret. After a certain point what they feel, what they love, what they think of becomes Him. In everything they see they find graceful manifestations of His Beauty. Leaving their strength entirely, at a certain time they connect their will power to His, melt in His demands, and evaluate this high rank with how much they love and are loved, and again with how much they know and are known. With obedience to Him and faithfulness, they express their love. They lock the door of their hearts with bolt after bolt in such a secure manner that no stranger can ever enter that pure house. With all their beings they are witnesses of God, and their praise and appreciation of God is far beyond their comprehension.

Their belief, on the other hand, in God's response to such loyalty is adamant. Their place in God's Presence is in direct proportion with His in their hearts, which is why they endeavor to stand upright before Him.

Never do they act like a creditor when they love Him deeply; on the contrary, they are as embarrassed as a debtor. As Rabi'a al-'Adawiya put it,

"I swear on Your Holy Being that I have not worshiped You demanding Your Paradise. Rather, I loved You and connected my slavery to my love."

An ardent longing is the highest rank for a lover, and to get lost in the lover's desires and wishes is the most unreachable attainment. Love is founded upon elementary principles, such as repentance, alertness, and patience, whereas once introduced, selfpossession, familiarity, love, longing, and other principles are required in order to merit this position. The first lesson on the path of love is purification, to be deprived of personal desires, to relate all your thoughts and communication to Him, to be busy with things that hint of Him, to wait expectantly in case He manifests, and also to stay determinedly where you are for a lifetime in case He turns to you one day. In this path, love is to be madly in love; ardor is the gushing passion, enthusiasm and desire; when ardor becomes the true nature of humans then this is yearning; consent is meeting every act of the Lover with pleasure; selfpossession is being cautious against becoming intoxicated with the blessings of hearing or feeling His Presence, or being under His direct guidance.

A desperate lover, I won't, O the Beloved, abandon You, I won't do so even if You rend my heart with a dagger.

For them, love is everything. They can survive without bodies; but without souls, they cannot. They believe that there is no room in their hearts for others, only for the love of the Beloved.

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wanderlust-journal · 5 years ago

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Sam Manicom travelled the world on his trusty 1992 BMW R80GS, with his partner Birgit on her 1971 BMW R60/5, for 8 years. He has been writing for various magazines around the world since 1996. Those titles include: Motorcycle Sport & Leisure, Adventure Bike Rider, Motorcycle Voyager, Canadian Biker, Motorcycle Monthly, Motociclisimo, Motorcycle Explorer, Australian Road Rider, MCN and ADVMoto Magazine.

He is the author of 4 acclaimed motorcycle travel books. His first book was written as a result of readers’ letters to editors. ‘We like Sam’s articles. When’s he going to write a book?’ Until that time he’d been travelling with just new adventures in mind.

Over the last few years, I’ve got to know Sam Manicom through our talks while working at #OverlandExpoWest in Flagstaff, Arizona. I finally had a chance to ask him a few questions about his journeys and inspirations.

What got you into travelling like you do?

A drunken moment in a bar on the tiny Channel Island of Jersey! Beer is a very dangerous thing, isn’t it? For sure it has the ability to dull the senses, but it can also open up a world of free thinking.

I was working on the island, which is tucked in the English Channel between the UK and France, and following a career path, as you are supposed to do as an adult. I’ve travelled a lot during my life but had eventually settled down, thinking that perhaps it was time to grow up and to be sensible. After all, we are supposed to feather our nests for old age aren’t we. Besides that, developing a career was going to be a new challenge. I’d not really done it before, so why not see what it was all about.

I surprised myself at how well I did in my retail manager role. Taken on as a very junior manager, I advanced fairly rapidly through the ranks and had all the trappings of life that one is supposed to have with success. An apartment, a sports car, holidays abroad and so on. I think the keys were that people matter to me, I’m fairly organised, I find it easy to respect the people I’m working with, and I liked looking after customers.

Some say that selling is a hard-nosed business, but my attitude towards it was that customers needed help, not sales spiel. If a customer was in my store, they were either there looking for general knowledge, or there for a problem solving reason. I’m happy with the former; we all do it, its curiosity, window-shopping from the inside. As for the latter, my job was to make sure that the customer was listened to, and guided towards products that might be a solution to their needs.

My staff and I had fun and we were successful. The Jersey shop was the number four store out of hundreds of branches throughout the UK. But for me, there was something missing. I had itchy feet, and the itch was increasing dramatically each week. I worked on, telling myself that bunking off on another long trip was irresponsible. After all, I was 34; at the peak of my professional career.

One night in the pub over a bit of a solo celebration when the beers were slipping down rather wonderfully, my thoughts had turned to the itch. By the time I’d made it to the 4thbeer I’d realised some important points. Other than work I had no responsibilities, and I had savings. What a brilliant combination.

The next beer slipped down dangerously and I started to ponder that call of the road. Perhaps I should push off on a new adventure. Would I ever be in this position of potential freedom again? I’d be giving up a lot though…

I’d actually spent most of my life travelling in one way or another. I was born and brought up in the Belgian Congo in Central West Africa. I was 10 years old when my parents decided that it was time to take my sisters and me to live in the UK. I think that was a really hard decision for them. Life had revolved around their work in the Congo for so many years. It certainly was odd for me to go from my usual attire of a pair of shorts and a great tan, to wearing full English school uniform; even a tie and a cap! I was known as Jungle Boy for quite a few years as I came to terms with life in England. I must have been quite a strange little lad as far as the other kids were concerned. A python? So what. But apples, chocolate bars and the Beatles? All new to me.

I made my first solo trip as a foray into mainland Europe, age 16. I rode a brand new bicycle, that I’d worked doing odd jobs to save the money for. That first trip taught me that destinations don’t matter, other than as a plan. What matters is that you go, and that you appreciate the things and people you see and get involved with along the way. Back then I’d no idea that this was going to turn into a plan for life; value the moments.

On finishing school age 18, I’d no idea what I was going to do. Having been to multiple schools and spent most of my time trying to fit in with each new environment, and buzzing around on the sports field, my grades weren’t very good. University? With my grades, only a poor one and it’s just another school, isn’t it. I chose to work a retail management training course for three years with one of the UK’s leading department stores.

Of course, at the time I’d no idea how much the training, new skills and character building would stand me in good stead. I probably couldn’t successfully do what I do now had it not been for all of the training that was involved.

At the end of those three years, the open road was calling and I set off to spend a year hitch hiking around Europe. With that trip, life changed. It wasn’t hard to make this become a way of living. Work and travel; sometimes combining both. Many of the jobs were basic and low wage, but with each new job I learnt; about the role itself, myself, and the country I was in. I travelled as far as India and Australia. Over the next years I hitch-hiked, bused, trained, hiked, sailed and had a go at every form of getting around that I could. And then the career in retail management took over. The trouble was, at no time in my life had I felt as alive, as challenged, as amazed, as delighted and at times frightened, as when I was on the move in some different land. One of my favourite sayings is ‘Become a stranger in a strange land’.

As I was sitting drinking those beers, that saying was in my mind. I started to ponder the possibilities; where to go and how to go? What didn’t I like about the other ways I’d travelled? I loved hitch-hiking but I’d done that a lot. So what’s new? I’d really enjoyed the pace and challenge of bicycling, but yep, those head winds weren’t something I looked forward to. I also knew that I wanted the ability to cover more ground in whatever time I could make available. Cycling was out then, and so was travelling by bus or by train. Unable to stop, I’d zipped on past things, people and places that looked interesting.

My beery brain was hunting for a new way to travel. A way to solve the issues I was identifying, and give me new things to learn. Slowly my mind worked around to travelling by motorcycle. I knew I wanted to travel through Africa too. I wanted to see if my childhood memories about how things sound smelt and tasted were true. The only problem was, I didn’t know how to ride a motorcycle!

I handed in my notice to work the next morning. I had a bit of a hangover but I was convinced that I was doing the right thing. I then bought myself a little 125cc trail bike to learn on, and passed my test 6 weeks later. It wasn’t long before I’d made it to the edge of the Sahara. Sitting on my 800cc BMW motorcycle, I looked south over the sands and contemplated the point that quite likely I was a complete idiot! I mean, ride a motorcycle through Africa with just a few months experience? I must have been mad, but it was too late; I was there. And anyway, I’d told my mates in the pub what I was doing. I couldn’t deal with the loss of face if I turned back without even trying.

So the journey through Africa began. The original plan, if I dare call it that with things happening at such a pace, was to ride through West Africa. Just as I passed my motorcycle test, things went politically pear-shaped in Algeria, and all the borders in that part of Africa closed. No one had the remotest idea how long this situation was going to continue. I had a ticking clock in my mind. Because of the terrain and the extreme temperatures, there are only certain months of the year when it’s sane to travel across the Sahara. If I didn’t crack on I’d lose the opportunity.

The alternative route was through East Africa. The problem there was that Sudan had a North to South civil war going on, and Ethiopia had been at war within itself for the past 20 years. On the up side, some people were getting visas for Sudan, and the war in Ethiopia was just coming to an end. With nothing to lose, I set off with new rough plans in mind; I might as well try. After all, I’d given up my job, and sold just about everything I owned. What hadn’t occurred to me was that Mike, and Sally, who I’d met on the way, and I were to be the first people to ride motorcycles North to South through Sudan and Ethiopia for those 20 years. We’d struck it lucky. A window of opportunity had opened.

This was 1992. No Google, no GPS, no cell phones and no digital photography. If you wanted to find something out you went to the library or wrote letters. If you wanted to find the way, you hunted out the best maps you could, and you asked the way. Getting lost was a part of the journey, and instead of being a negative it simply opened up a world of the unexpected. Some of the best adventures happen on a road you hadn’t planned to be travelling.

19 fascinating countries and a year later, I decided that actually there was no good reason to head for home. There were plenty of reasons to carry on though. Travelling by motorcycle, in spite of being thrown in prison in Tanzania and 17 bone fractures in the desert in Namibia, was more than fulfilling my beery thoughts in the pub. Another favourite saying is ‘Stop worrying about the potholes and celebrate the journey’.

I booked passage for my bike and I to sail on a container ship across the Indian Ocean to Australia. And so, what turned out to be an eight year journey around the world began. My motorcycle by the way, is called Libby. That’s short for Liberty; it’s what she gives me. All these years later, she’s still my only means of transport in the UK. She does now have a younger sister getting me around in the USA on trips there. A 2013 BMW F800GS. That bike is still waiting for a name to grow. Who knows, it might be ‘Lucky’. For sure I know how lucky I am to have her, and the opportunity to explore more of the amazing land that is the USA.

What next? More travels but in shorter stints; I need just enough to keep scratching that itch and to give me material to write travel articles about. I also spend a fair bit of time doing travel presentations and book signings at motorcycle dealerships, libraries, clubs, schools and businesses. They are my opportunity to share the fun of the road, and perhaps even encourage others to head out and to explore for themselves. I’m keen that people really think about life, recognise the opportunities as they occur, and take advantage of them. This is such an invigorating thing, both at work and play. I fully accept that many people have responsibilities that will not allow them to head out into the blue for months even years at a time. I really value being around people like that who are accepting their responsibilities and making life zing as much as they can. I love it when people say such things as, “I’d love to travel, but I can’t, yet.” Adventures begin with dreams.

I think of myself as being a bit of an accidental author. I didn’t set out on my journey with the aim of writing magazine articles or books. With enthusiastic encouragement from others I thought I’d have a go. I’d kept a journal every day, so I had the facts and many of the descriptions. Long term travellers learn quickly about the risk of being on intake overload each day; it’s so easy to forget the dates, statistics, sights, sounds, smells, names and so on. The drama and the funny side to life do tend to stay in one’s mind though.

It would be a new adventure seeing if I could write a book, and so settled down to write my first; Into Africa. I was putting in 10-12 hour days working renovating houses and then after a quick shower and some food, I sat down to write. It took me two years. Learning everything about the publishing and print industries has been a side fascination and I’ll never forget the sensation of having my first printed copy in my hand; it’s a wonderful moment.I certainly didn’t expect the 5 star reviews my books have been collecting from kind readers and media reviewers.

Each of the four books takes the reader riding and exploring through a different section of the eight year journey and thankfully people seem to like them. ‘Thankfully’ because I wrote them as travel books, rather than specifically as motorcycle travel books, and I describe the sorts of things I like to read about as a traveller. Years later I read that authors should only write about things they know about and have a passion for.

I think of my books as being a way to share the fun of the open road with those who for the moment can’t head out on a long trip, with those who really don’t want to travel but love to read about it, and also as encouragement to those who think they don’t have the skills to travel in this way. I had few skills when I started, but I had an open mind, a strong curiosity, understanding of the value of respect and I’ve got a positive attitude to most things. It’s a great world and travelling by motorcycle, to my mind, is a superb way to see it.

Into AfricaTakes the reader on that first eye-opening year through the incredible continent that is Africa. There are challenges a plenty; it’s a genuine tale of the unexpected. Woven into this journey between Cairo and Cape Town are the riding, the people, wildlife, history, the disasters and the silver linings; there’s plenty of humour too.

Overland Magazine: ‘The word-pictures that bring a good travel book to life are all here; Sam’s perceptions of people, places and predicaments have real depth and texture, their associated sights, smells and sounds are evoked with a natural ease. Where other author’s detailed descriptions can sometimes get in the way, Sam’s style is engaging and well-tuned. I found myself in the midst of action rather than a mere fly on the wall.’

Under Asian Skies This is the story of just over 2 years travelling from Australia and New Zealand, up through SE Asia, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and through Eastern Europe. This without doubt is the most colourful and culturally diverse part of the world I’ve been lucky enough to ride. Every day was an adventure.

Horizons Unlimited: ‘Sam has the skills of the story teller and this book easily transports you into three years of journey across Asia. He manages to bring the sounds, scents and heat of Asia to life without wordy overkill and he has obviously researched his historical facts carefully. In places Under Asian Skies is sad, and in others it’s outrageously funny – look out for his battle with the Sydney port officials and the bus ride in Indonesia. All in all this is a really good read, whether you have been across Asia, or are planning a trip. This is true travelling on the cheap and not your everyday story.’

Distant Suns My third book has me linking up with a German lass in New Zealand. Birgit agreed to ride with me, but to Africa first, and on her own bike. She rode out of Mombasa harbour in Kenya with just 600 miles of experience on a motorcycle! Over the next 3 years we rode together through Africa, and on up through South and Central America. These continents may be on the same latitude, but the contrasts in landscape, cultures and the peoples are huge. The Andes? Simply stunning. Oh and I’d not told Birgit what a disaster magnet I am!

Motorcycle Explorer: ‘An epic ride that almost becomes secondary to the events that happen and the very human element of travelling. Always evoking the emotions of others, because Sam never forgets to use his five senses in his tales. Leaving you immersed in the sights, sounds, touch, smell and taste of a journey of true human discovery.’

Tortillas to Totems? This book takes you travelling with us through the 3 countries that make up North America. Three neighbours that are so wonderfully different to each other, make travelling this part of the world a delight. North America was in fact the part of the world that surprised me the most. When you read this book you’ll find out all the reasons why I keep coming back.

ADVMoto Magazine: ‘What I enjoy most about Sam’s method is his way of describing the moment. You feel it, smell it… you freeze, you sweat, and you see what’s before him like you’re along for the ride. You are very much there. It’s a rather intimate, honest style that easily carries you from chapter-to-chapter. I highly recommend that you add Sam’s books to your reading list.’

Fall Presentation Tour 2019:

GO AZ Motorcycles Peoria AZSeptember 6th(Friday). On this, my second visit to GO AZ, I’ll be talking about the delights of travelling across Asia. I’ll also be book signing. 6pm start

BMW Motorcycles of North Dallas TX September (FRIDAY 13th!) Feel like risking it for a Presentation Evening and Book Signing? Start time is at 6pm. My multi-media presentation is about Incredible Africa!

Adventure Motorsports of NWF Pensacola FL September 21st (Saturday) Africa Presentation Evening and Book Signing. Join us 5pm if you can – we will be starting the presentation at 5.15 pm.

Pandora’s European Motorsports Chattanooga TN September 24th (Tuesday) Africa Presentation Evening and Book Signing – 6.30 to 9pm

Motorcycles of Charlotte NC October 2nd (Wednesday) – Africa Presentation Evening and Book Signing. Doors open for food at 6.30pm and the presentation with be starting at 7.15pm

Overland Expo East VA October 11th to 13th in Arrington. I’ll be presenting, running Classes, in Round Table sessions and Book Signing.

If you would like to meet Birgit then please join us at Motorcycles of Charlotte and at Overland Expo East. She will be joining me for this section of the tour.

Signed copies are available from Sam-Manicom.com with free UK delivery, and with free Worldwide delivery via the Book Depository.com https://www.bookdepository.com/author/Sam-Manicom

Sam’s 4 books are available as Paperbacks, Kindles and as Audiobooks. Sam narrates the books himself.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kindle-Store-Sam-Manicom/s?rh=n%3A341677031%2Cp_27%3ASam+Manicom

https://www.audible.co.uk/search?searchNarrator=Sam+Manicom

https://books.apple.com/us/author/sam-manicom/id516565970

Facebook– Catch up with Sam via his two pages: Sam Manicom and Adventure Motorcycle Travel Books by Sam Manicom.

Twitter– You’ll find him on @SamManicom

Instagram– sammanicom.author

Website– If you’d like to learn more about his books and his presentation schedule please go to www.sam-manicom.com

Sam is Co-Host of Adventure Rider Radio RAW show. Hosted by Jim Martin, the show is recorded monthly with a panel of 5 highly experienced overlanders from around the world. Listeners submit topics for discussion. RAW has been described by listeners as akin to sitting around a giant kitchen table with the team, beers, wine and coffee in hand, discussing motorcycles and travel; there’s controversy, challenging ideas, top tips and plenty of banter!

https://adventureriderradio.com/arr-raw/

Sam says, “If you are a You Tube fan, have a hunt. There are various riding and interview clips to be found, including a recent chat with the phenomenal Ted Simon.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-658_CSkrA

He was the first Overlander Interviewed by Adventure Bike TV for their popular ‘Under the Visor’ series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bToV6paAEXM

In 2017 Overland Magazine awarded him the‘Roho Ya Kusafiri Spirit of Travel’ award for his contribution to Overland and Adventure Travel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1Y1BKPbp_Y

In 2011, Sam joined the team of advisors working with travellers supported by The Ted Simon Foundation.

I had to learn about book writing the hard way – there were few people in the world of publishing whose knowledge I was able to tap into. I’m delighted to have the opportunity to help other travellers get more out of their adventures, and to learn how to get their work published. We live in a stunning world that’s full of surprises, and what better way is there for a person to share those experiences than to write and publish a great book. The Ted Simon Foundation is the perfect platform to help this happen.

http://jupiterstravellers.org/

In Interview with Sam Manicom Sam Manicom travelled the world on his trusty 1992 BMW R80GS, with his partner Birgit on her 1971 BMW R60/5, for 8 years.

#advrider #rtw #adventure #adventurerider #Africa #Andes #Asia #dreams #expedition #motorcycle #Motorcycles #Overland #Sam Manicom #travel books #wanderlust #wanderlust journal

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mashainsync · 8 years ago

Text

специальные британские текстовые стикеры для телеграма

нашла книжку "Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases: A Practical Handbook Of Pertinent Expressions, Striking Similes, Literary, Commercial, Conversational, And Oratorical Terms, For The Embellishment Of Speech And Literature, And The Improvement Of The Vocabulary Of Those Persons Who Read, Write, And Speak English" и теперь хочу, чтобы в комментариях в социальных сетях разговаривали только так

An unfortunate comparison, don't you think?

By a curious chance, I know it very well

I am afraid I've allowed you to tire yourself

It sounds profoundly interesting

It sounds rather appalling

It sounds very alluring

It strikes me as rather pathetic

It was an unpardonable liberty

It was inevitable that you should say that

It was most stupid of me to have forgotten it

It was not unkindly meant

Thank you for your good intentions

That, at least, you will agree to

That depends on one's point of view

That doesn't sound very logical

That is a counsel of perfection

That is a fair question, perhaps

That is a question I have often proposed to myself

That is a stroke of good fortune

That is a superb piece of work

That is a very practical explanation

You see things rose-colored

You seem to be in a happy mood

You seem to take a very mild interest in what I propose

You shock me more than I can say

You speak in enigmas

You speak with authority

You surely understand my position

You take a great deal for granted

You take a pessimistic view of things

You take me quite by surprise

You will admit I have some provocation

You will become morbid if you are not careful

You will have ample opportunity

You will, of course, remember the incident

You will please not be flippant

You will understand my anxiety

Your argument is facile and superficial

Your consideration is entirely misplaced

Your judgments are very sound

Your logic is as clever as possible

Your opinion will be invaluable to me

Your request is granted before it is made

Your statement is somewhat startling

I admire your foresight

I admit it most gratefully

I agree--at least, I suppose I do

I agree that something ought to be done

I always welcome criticism so long as it is sincere

I am absolutely bewildered

I am afraid I am not familiar enough with the subject

I am afraid I cannot suggest an alternative

I am afraid I've allowed you to tire yourself

I am afraid I must confess my ignorance

I am afraid you will call me a sentimentalist

I am always glad to do anything to please you

I am anxious to discharge the very onerous debt I owe you

I am appealing to your sense of humor

I am at your service

I am bound to secrecy

I am compelled to, unluckily

I am curious to learn what his motive was

I am deeply flattered and grateful

I am delighted to hear you say so

I am dumb with admiration

I am entirely at your disposal

I am extremely glad you approve of it

I am far from believing the maxim

I am fortunate in being able to do you a service

I am glad to be able to think that

I am glad to have had this talk with you

I am glad to say that I have entirely lost that faculty

I am glad you can see it in that way

I am glad you feel so deeply about it

I am giving you well-deserved praise

I am going to make a confession

I am grateful for your good opinion

I am honestly indignant

I am, I confess, a little discouraged

I am in a chastened mood

I am inclined to agree with you

I am incredulous

I am indebted to you for the suggestion

I am listening--I was about to propose

I am lost in admiration

I am luckily disengaged to-day

I am more grieved than I can tell you

I am naturally overjoyed

I am not a person of prejudices

I am not an alarmist

I am not as unreasonable as you suppose

I am not at all in the secret of his ambitions

I am not capable of unraveling it

I am not going into sordid details

I am not going to let you evade the question

I am not going to pay you any idle compliments

I am not impervious to the obligations involved

I am not in sympathy with it

I am not in the least surprised

I am not inquisitive

I am not prepared to say

I am not sure that I can manage it

I am not vindictive

I am overjoyed to hear you say so

I am perfectly aware of what I am saying

I am persuaded by your candor

I am quite convinced of that

I am quite discomfited

I am quite interested to see what you will do

I am quite ready to be convinced

I am rather of the opinion that I was mistaken

I am ready to make great allowances

I am really afraid I don't know

I am really gregarious

I am sensible of the flattery

I am seriously annoyed with myself about it

I am so glad you think that

I am so sorry--so very sorry

I am sorry to disillusionize you

I am sorry to interrupt this interesting discussion

I am sorry to say it is impossible

I am speaking plainly

I am still a little of an idealist

I am suppressing many of the details

I am sure it sounds very strange to you

I am sure you could pay me no higher compliment

I am sure you will hear me out

I am surprised, I confess

I am sustained by the prospect of a good dinner

I am vastly obliged to you

I am vastly your debtor for the information

I am very far from being a fanatic

I am very glad of this opportunity

I am very grateful--very much flattered

I am wholly in agreement with you

I am willing to accept all the consequences

I am wonderfully well

I am wondering if I may dare ask you a very personal question?

I am your creditor unawares

I anticipate your argument

I appreciate your motives

I assure you it is most painful to me

I assure you my knowledge of it is limited

I bear no malice about that

I beg your indulgence

I beg your pardon, but you take it too seriously

I brazenly confess it

I can easily understand your astonishment

I can explain the apparent contradiction

I can find no satisfaction in it

I can hardly agree with you there

I can never be sufficiently grateful

I can only tell you the bare facts

I can scarcely accept the offer

I can scarcely boast that honor

I can scarcely imagine anything more disagreeable

I can sympathize with you

I cannot altogether acquit myself of interested motives

I cannot explain it even to myself

I cannot find much real satisfaction in it

I cannot forbear to press my advantage

I cannot imagine what you mean

I cannot precisely determine

I can't pretend to make a jest of what I'm going to say

I cannot say definitely at the moment

I cannot say that in fact it is always so

I cannot see how you draw that conclusion

I cannot thank you enough for all your consideration

I compliment you on your good sense

I confess, I find it difficult

I could ask for nothing better

I could never forgive myself for that

I dare say your intuition is quite right

I decline to commit myself beforehand

I detest exaggeration

I didn't mean that--exactly

I do not comprehend your meaning

I don't deny that it is interesting

I don't doubt it for a moment

I do not doubt the sincerity of your arguments

I do not exactly understand you

I do not feel sure that I entirely share your views

I don't feel that it is my business

I do not find it an unpleasant subject

I don't insist on your believing me

I don't justify my presumption

I don't know quite why you should say that

I don't know that I can do that

I don't know when I have heard anything so lamentable

I don't know why you should be displeased

I don't make myself clear, I see

I don't pretend to explain

I don't see anything particularly wonderful in it

I don't underrate his kindness

I don't want to disguise that from you

I don't want to exaggerate

I don't want to seem critical

I doubt the truth of that saying

I endorse it, every word

I entirely approve of your plan

I fancy it's just that

I fear I cannot help you

I fear that's too technical for me

I feel a certain apprehension

I feel an unwonted sense of gaiety [unwonted = unusual]

I feel it my duty to be frank with you

I feel myself scarcely competent to judge

I feel very grateful to you for your kind offer

I find it absorbing

I find it rather monotonous

I find this agreeable mental exhilaration

I frankly confess that

I generally trust my first impressions

I give my word gladly

I give you my most sacred word of honor

I had better begin at the beginning

I had no intention of being offensive

I hadn't thought of it in that light

I hardly think that could be so

I have a hundred reasons for thinking so

I have a peculiar affection for it

I have an immense faith in him

I have been constrained by circumstances

I have been decidedly impressed

I have been longing to see more of you

I have been puzzling over a dilemma

I have every reason to think so

I have given you the best proof of it

I have gone back to my first impressions

I have known striking instances of the kind

I have never heard it put so well

I have no delusions on that score

I have not succeeded in convincing myself of that

I have not the influence you think

I have not the least doubt of it

I haven't the remotest idea

I have often a difficulty in deciding

I have often marveled at your courage

I have quite changed my opinion about that

I have something of great importance to say to you

I have sometimes vaguely felt it

I have the strongest possible prejudice against it

I heartily congratulate you

I hope it will not seem unreasonable to you

I hope we may meet again

I hope you will forgive an intruder

I hope you will not think me irreverent

I hope you will pardon my seeming carelessness

I indulge the modest hope

I know it is very presumptuous

I know my request will appear singular

I like it immensely

I like your frankness

I make no reflection whatever

I mean it literally

I might question all that

I mistrust these wild impulses

I most certainly agree with you

I most humbly ask pardon

I must add my congratulations on your taste

I must apologize for intruding upon you

I must ask you one more question, if I may

I must confess I have never thought of that

I must refrain from any comment

I must respectfully decline to tell you

I must take this opportunity to tell you

I need not remind you that you have a grave responsibility

I never heard anything so absurd

I offer my humblest apologies

I owe the idea wholly to you

I partly agree with you

I personally owe you a great debt of thankfulness

I place myself entirely at your service

I place the most implicit reliance on your good sense

I prefer to reserve my judgment

I purposely evaded the question

I quite appreciate the very clever way you put it

I quite see what the advantages are

I really am curious to know how you guessed that

I realize how painful it must be to you

I recollect it clearly

I rely on your good sense

I remember the occasion perfectly

I resent that kind of thing

I respect you for that

I respect your critical faculty

I say it in all modesty

I see disapproval in your face

I see it from a different angle

I see you are an enthusiast

I see your point of view

I seem to have heard that sentiment before

I shall at once proceed to forget it

I shall await your pleasure

I shall be glad if you will join me

I shall be most proud and pleased

I shall certainly take you at your word

I shall feel highly honored

I shall make a point of thinking so

I shall never forget your kindness

I shall respect your confidence

I should appreciate your confidence greatly

I should be very ungrateful were I not satisfied with it

I should feel unhappy if I did otherwise

I should like your opinion of it

I should not dream of asking you to do so

I should think it very unlikely

I simply cannot endure it

I spoke only in jest

I stand corrected

I suppose I ought to feel flattered

I surmised as much

I sympathize deeply with you

I take that for granted

I think extremely well of it

I think he has very noble ideals

I think I can answer that for you

I think I know what you are going to say

I think it has its charm

I think it is superb!

I think it quite admirable

I think its tone is remarkably temperate

I think that is rather a brilliant idea

I think what you say is reasonable

I think you are quibbling

I think you are rather severe in your opinions

I think you have great appreciation of values

I think you have summed it up perfectly

I think your candor is charming

I thoroughly agree with you

I thought it most amusing

I thought you were seriously indisposed

I trust you will not consider it an impertinence

I understand exactly how you feel about it

I understand your delicacy of feeling

I venture to propose another plan

I very rarely allow myself that pleasure

I want to have a frank understanding with you

I was at a loss to understand the reason for it

I was hoping that I could persuade you

I was on the point of asking you

I was speaking generally

I watched you with admiration

I will answer you frankly

I will listen to no protestations

I will take it only under compulsion

I will tell you what puzzles me

I will think of it, since you wish it

I will, with great pleasure

I wish I could explain my point more fully

I wish I knew what you meant by that

I wish to be perfectly fair

I wish to put things as plainly as possible

I wonder how much truth there is in it?

I wonder if you have the smallest recollection of me?

I would agree if I understood

I wouldn't put it just that way

If ever I can repay it, command me

If I mistake not you were there once?

If I speak strongly, it is because I feel strongly

If I were disposed to offer counsel

If I were sure you would not misunderstand my meaning

If you don't mind my saying so

If you insist upon it

If you will pardon me the frankness

In a manner that sometimes terrifies me

In one respect you are quite right

In that case let me rob you of a few minutes

In what case, for example?

Incredible as it sounds, I had for a moment forgotten

et cetera

36 notes · View notes

billyniicholss · 5 years ago

Text

Economic Color Copies Printing near my place Springfield-Holyoke MA

Color Copies Printing – Springfield Holyoke Massachusetts

If you are looking to use color copies for your marketing needs, you need to know about the different color copies first. These days you find different types of color copies near me in Springfield and Holyoke City. However, as a businessman, you need to understand the best one that will benefit your business. In this article, we will discuss the most popularly used color copies and how they can benefit your business. You will also understand how to print the best color copies in the market. Let’s get started!

Understanding color copies

It would be wrong to say that color copies are just copies with content printed in colors. Of course, these are printed in colors; however, they come with a plan. You can print any document with colors. But if it’s for marketing, why will any customer want to look at it? To make your color copies get the required attention from customers, you need to make the color copies appealing. A color copy should have certain elements that will force people to check it out and understand what it is.

Why are color copies best for marketing?

Marketing is all about communicating with your customers. As a business, you need to communicate about your product, business or service to the audience. When they know about your product, they will make an effort to use or buy it. Now we come to the main question, which is why color copies are best for marketing.

Communicating with your customers near me and you in Holyoke City of Massachusetts is not enough. You need to make the communication an effective one. To make this happen the content of the campaign matters. If the campaign is a tangible one, it could get even more effective. Color copies are best for marketing because they are tangible.

When you hand over a color copy to a customer, they are more likely to see it. This is because they feel it directly with their hands. Color copies are affordable and economical too in Springfield City of Massachusetts. It is one of the cheapest options in the print marketing segment. Customers can go through the color copies for as long as they want. Unlike digital marketing or television, color copies do not change after a certain period. It is because of all these reasons that color copies work best for your marketing needs.

COLOR COPIES CHEAP – Holyoke Massachusetts

Benefits of Print Marketing

You will say that digital media has left no space for print marketing. But that is not true. Indeed, digital marketing methods have taken the marketing industry by storm, but it still lacks in certain areas. Some of the benefits of print marketing include:

Reaches remotest areas

The biggest advantage of print media is that it can reach even the remotest of all locations. When it comes to a television near me in Springfield City or even the internet, these will reach only to those areas where there is proper network coverage. Without a network, these platforms have no use.

It spreads easily: Print media has the power of spreading easily. You hand it over to one person and they might hand it over to others and it keeps repeating. It may not happen every time, however, the small number can result in a great business.

It is affordable: As mentioned above, print media is one of the most affordable and cheapest options in Holyoke & Springfield City. This is especially for color copies in different forms. Standard size leaflets are perfect for small businesses or startups. This marketing type fits in their budget easily.

More flexibility: Color copies are known for their flexibility. You can design and customize it in any way you like. You can even change your campaign design and style with time. It gives you the flexibility of keeping the campaign fresh and alive with every passing day.

Gives more time

No other marketing method will provide customers with more time than print media. It is an economical option for the business near my place in Holyoke City. But it also provides customers with freedom of time. It means customers can read and look at the campaign for as long as they want. There is no doubt why there are so many color copy printers close to my place in in Springfield and Holyoke City

Most Popular Types of Color Copies

There are different types of color copies in the market. If you are looking to use one for your marketing needs, you need to understand which the best is. Here are the most popular types of color copies that you can use for your business.

Leaflets

This is perhaps the most common of all the other types of printed campaigns. In your everyday life, you will come across a lot of leaflets. Do you remember the last leaflet you came across? Well, if you do remember, it means you remember the one with the most appealing design. Not every leaflet will make sense to everyone. However, if you design the leaflet near my place in in Springfield City with your target audience in mind, it will hit them.

Posters

Posters are bigger and they come with a purpose. Posters are best for promoting upcoming activities or events. However, depending on the location, you can also use it for advertising about your business. Posters are slightly bigger. It is one of the popular print marketing methods.

Door Direct Mail

Every door direct mail system or the EDDM is one of the most popular traditional print marketing systems. It may not be effective in urban areas. However, it is still one of the best methods of marketing in rural areas. The door direct mail system is another very cheap printing option within Holyoke City. It is affordable and comes in low cost too in Springfield City.

EDDM is affordable

It is very flexible with the design

You can print it on both sides

More room for communication

Reaches the customers directly

You can print it in bulk

The local postal services deliver it door to door.

Brochures

Brochures look interesting and they have the best features associated with them. You can use a brochure as per your needs. The modern brochures are far more creative than the other types. You will find plenty of 24 hours of printing companies within Springfield City that print brilliant brochures. Brochures can represent your company or business most professionally.

Print marketing is undoubtedly effective. However, the competition in this marketing method is too intense. Thousands of organizations and businesses are using the print platform to promote their business. Hence, you need to make a difference with the design. A great design has the power to attract all the attention to your campaign. Thus, if you are looking to choose a print marketing method you can choose the best one from the ones mentioned above.

Why not use newspapers?

After reading about the different print marketing methods mentioned above, you might ask why not newspaper. Well, newspapers also capture the most important area in print marketing. Major businesses and organizations look to advertise with reputed newspapers. They do not publish solo campaigns. But then why is it out from the above list?

Well, among all the print media options, newspapers are the most expensive. Not everyone can afford to promote their business through newspapers. It’s expensive and the campaign also requires a lot of planning. When you campaign with a newspaper, you might lose your identity as well. This is because you are not the only one to advertise with the newspaper. There are plenty of other brands using the same platform to promote their products. Unless your campaign is an extraordinary one, why should the audience spend time looking at your campaign?

When you promote your products with the newspaper, most customers will choose to ignore it. If you are placing a campaign on the most relevant pages, it is only then that the customers will look but not necessarily act.

If you want to give your campaign a special preference and do not want other campaigns to come with yours, the newspaper is not the place. In that case, you need to choose from any of the solo campaign methods. It will give special preference to your campaign. When people come across your campaign, they will primarily go through your campaign and try to understand it.

Quick tip

As we said before that print media is tangible. It is one of the biggest advantages of the media. To make it more attractive and appealing, you can choose to print your campaign in superior paper quality. Always remember that a glossy or photo paper has more weight than normal paper. The paper immediately tells your customers about the company standard.

Apart from choosing a superior paper quality, it can also choose cheap printing quality. Try to choose a printer in in Holyoke City that can provide you with top printing services. Make sure the prints are not smudged. They must appear clear with optimum clarity.

Color copies can take your business and brand a long way. With the help of beautifully printed color copies, you can reach your target audience with ease. If you are looking for the best printer near me and you, look online or visit the close to me. Give your business that much-needed boost with the help of a beautifully printed color copy.

FACT AND DATA BY:

Chimi Printing Deals and Discounts

The post Economic Color Copies Printing near my place Springfield-Holyoke MA appeared first on Cheap Printing Deals.

Economic Color Copies Printing near my place Springfield-Holyoke MA posted first on https://www.55printing.com

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bixshits · 5 years ago

Text

Lost Odyssey - A Thousand Years of Dreams - Story Four Transcript

In the Mind of a Captive

He knows that it is useless. But he can't suppress the impulse that wells up from within his own flesh.

He needs to do it—to hurl his entire body against the bars. It does no good at all. His flesh simply bounces off the thick iron bars. "Number 8! What the hell are you doing?" The guard's angry shout echoes down the corridor. The prisoners are never called by name, only by the numbers on their cells. Kaim is Number 8.

Kaim says nothing. Instead, he slams his shoulder against the bars.

The massive bars of iron never nudge. All they do is leave a dull, heavy ache in Kaim's superbly conditioned muscles and bones.

Now, instead of shouting again, the guard blows his whistle, and the other guard come running from their station.

"Number 8! What's it going to take to make you understand?"

"Do you want to be thrown into the punishment cell?"

"Don't look at me like that. Start resisting, and all it will get you is a longer time in here!"

Sitting on the floor of his cell, legs splayed out, Kaim ignores the guards' shouts.

He has been to the punishment room any number of times. He knows he has been branded a "highly rebellious prisoner."

But he can't help himself.

Something is squirming deep down inside him.

Some hot thing trapped inside there is seething and writhing.

"Some war hero you turned out to be!" says one guard.

"You can't do shit in here. What's the matter, soldier boy? Can't do anything without an enemy staring you in the face?"

The guard next to him taunts Kaim with laughter.

"Too bad for you, buddy, no enemies in here? Nobody from your side, either. We've got you locked up all by yourself."

After the guards leave, Kaim curls up on the floor, hugging his knees, eyes clamped tight.

All by myself—

The guard was right.

I thought I was used to living alone, in battle, on the road.

But the loneliness here in prison is deeper than any I've ever experienced before.

And more frightening.

Walls on three sides, and beyond the bars nothing but another wall enclosing the narrow corridor.

This dungeon was built so as to prevent prisoners from seeing each other, or even to sense each others' presence.

The total lack of a change in the view paralyzes the sense of time as well. Kaim has no idea how many days have passed since he was thrown in here. Time flows on, that much is certain. But with nowhere to go, it simply stagnates inside him.

The true torture that prison inflicts on a man is neither to rob him of his freedom nor to force him to experience loneliness.

The real punishment is having to live where nothing ever moves in your field of view and time never flows.

The water in a river will never putrefy, but lock it in a jar and that is exactly what it will eventually do.

The same is true here.

Maybe parts of him deep down in his body and mind are already beginning to give off a rotten stench.

Because he is aware of this, Kaim drags himself up from the floor again and slams himself into the bars over and over.

There is not the remotest chance that doing so will break a bar.

Nor does he think he can manage to escape this way.

Still, he does it repeatedly.

He can't help himself. He has to do it again and again.

In the instant before his body smashes into that bars—for that split second—a puff of wind strikes his cheek. The unmoving air moves, if only for that brief interval. The touch of the air is the one thing that gives Kaim a fragmentary hint of the flow of time.

The guards comes running, face grim with anger.

Now I can see human shapes where before there was only a wall. That alone is enough to lift my spirits. Don't these guards realize that?

"All right, Number 8, it's the punishment room for you! Let's see if three days in there will cool your head!"

Kaim's lips relax into a smile when he hears the order.

Don't these guys get it? Now my scenery will change. Time will start flowing again. I'm thankful for that.

Kaim laughs aloud.

The guards tie his hand behind him, put chains on his ankles, and start for the punishment room.

"What the hell are you laughing at, Number 8?"

"Yeah, stop it! We'll punish you even more!"

But Kaim just keeps on laughing; laughing at the top of his lungs.

If I fill my lungs with all new air, will the stench disappear?

Or have my body and mind rotted so much already that I can't get rid of the stench so easily?

How long will they keep me locked up in here?

When can I get out of here?

Will it be too late by then?

When everything has rotted away, will I become less a "him" than an "it," the way our troops count enemy corpses?

Kaim can hardly breathe.

It is as if the air is being squeezed out of his chest and the excruciating pain of it is drawing him back from the world of dreams to reality.

Was I once in a prison in the far, far distant past?

He half-wanders in the space between dream and reality.

He has had this dream any number of times—this nightmare, it might even be called. After waking, he tried to recall it, but nothing stays in his memory. One thing is certain, however: the appearance of the jail and of the guards in the dream if always the same.

Could this be something I have actually experienced?

If so, when could it have been?

There is no way for him to tell.

Once he is fully awake, those questions he asked between dream and reality are, themselves, erased from his memory.

He springs up with a scream, his breath labored, the back of his hand wiping the streams of sweat from his brow, and all that is left is the shuddering terror. It is always like this.

Now, too—

He mutters to himself as he attempts to retrieve whatever memory is left in a remote corner of his brain. "What kind of past life could I have lived through?"

#lost odyssey #a thousand years of dreams #1000 years of dreams #kaim argonar #seth balmore #jansen friedh #ming numara #cooke and mack #cooke #mack #sarah sisulart

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benrussack-blog · 5 years ago

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So why, exactly, do I need therapy?

“There are two types of people: those who need therapy and those who can benefit from it.”

Topping out at six foot five, the old man stared down at me from his tall chair with the gravity of a king from some ancient world. In 1989, at the age of fifteen, I became the patient of Seymour Radin MCFF, a Jungian analyst from Petaluma, California. As a man who had come of age during the Great Depression, Seymour had more than a few good stories, as well as good ideas, to pass down to me. Over two decades later, I still went to see him once a week.

“Can you expand on that, please?” I asked, knowing full well that he would not.

Throughout my adult years, I have spent an inordinate amount of time breaking the encryption of Seymour’s aphorisms. Only two types, really? If so, which type am I? The more I deconstructed the old man’s sentiments, the more I believe really no one should go: A person who needs therapy but clearly isn’t benefitting from it, has no business remaining in treatment. Furthermore, those who benefit but don’t actually need it have little cause to even bother going in the first place. Sadly, when further pressed, Seymour did little else but wait stoically with ancient, folded hands as I talked my way (stammered, really) through my own exasperated thoughts. Nevertheless, from this confounding chunk of so-called wisdom I now extrapolate the following:

The benefits of therapy, or perhaps the needs therapy serves are multifaceted. On a basic, day-to-day level, therapy opens us up to new ways of thinking and feeling about life’s challenges, ultimately assisting us to make better choices in the moment. That is, we learn to ask ourselves better questions, such as, “Should I go with my anger, which I know is a big issue of mine, and lay into my sister for failing to mind her own business, or should I express my dissatisfaction with her behavior honestly and authentically and without using hurtful language?” Normally, an individual holding on to a lot of anger would not even consider the second option. The same applies for someone managing difficulties such as depression, anxiety, or a lack of adequate communication skills. This is where therapy can help. Therapy can help us make the better choice.

Another way to improve our ability to make better choices is to figure out what we actually want. Towards this end, I often challenge patients to imagine the life they desire and work with them to remove the perceived barriers between themselves and what they want, or at least a realistic version of what they want. That means learning to replace “I want to sing like Selena Gomez” with a more realistic goals such as “I want to one day sing competently before a large and appreciative audience.” Fortunately, the barriers around us are largely self-created and, with a bit of focus and insight, they may be broken down or at the very least hopped over.

Again, do we need to make better choices, or are better choices available only to those who are simply able to benefit from them? Seymour once said to me, “I would stand on my head if I thought it would make you feel better.” That one, at least, made some sense: While therapy can’t solve all of your problems, as your therapist, I sure wish it could. Also I related to this statement on a personal level. Like Seymour, and as a therapist myself, I simply want to help people any way I can.

On a more internal and decidedly less measurable level, therapy is also about growth. This may be exasperating to hear, but just stay with me, even if this kind of talk isn’t your jam.

On its face, growth is a non-quantifiable process. Consider, for example, the difference between a child falling down and scraping his knee and an adult doing the same: The injury may be identical, but the manner in which the pain is handled is entirely different. That is, as we grow, we tend to be less affected when things do not go our way. Edward Edinger, a Jungian philosopher, described growth as an “Expansion of Personality.” Think as a childh, whose world one day may have briefly fallen apart as you sailed over a pair of handlebars and painted the curb with your knee. That child was still you, but a different you. A lesser version of you. Another way to think of growth is the experience of an increase in consciousness. Though Edinger also said that consciousness is impossible to define, we usually know an increase—or decrease—in consciousness when we see it. Usually such a shift happens incrementally, slowly and nearly invisibly, over many years. But sometimes it comes all at once, usually in a cathartic, painful fashion.

Here is yet another Seymourism:

“If it doesn’t hurt, it isn’t true.”

Ouch.

This brings us to the next obvious question: How do I grow? Well, picking up the phone and getting yourself into therapy might be one way to go about doing that. There you may experience growth by vocalizing events or feelings you have never spoken of before. Think of how physical therapy works. During recovery from a significant injury, often a part of the body has atrophied or is failing to heal due to lack of use—that is, due to lack of blood and energy reaching that space. Once it does so, the body’s natural healing processes will finally be able to tend to the injury. The same applies to the mind. A childhood trauma, which is probably far more serious than a bicycle accident, may too atrophy aspects of our psyche. As an adult, it is as though certain memories and feelings are blocked up, penned in, unable to be released or processed. For example, I once knew a woman who refused, under any circumstances, to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge. This phobia was understandable, as she had been nearly killed several years prior during a head-on collision on the same bridge. It was as though the psychic wound left by the accident never fully healed—or never healed at all. The memories were too painful to relive and therefore remained unchanged, fragmented and stuck within her. In theory, talk therapy might be one way for her to process the accident and shepherd those horrific memories towards the light, thereby allowing the natural healing processes of her heart and soul to do their work.

On the other hand, I feel the term trauma to be somewhat limiting, as it may pathologize the patient. For while exposing buried and traumatized parts of ourselves is essential for deep change, I am less interested in how you were traumatized and more so in how you were Shaped.

Allow me to explain:

Shaping refers to any childhood, teen and early adulthood environmental pressures or events, traumatic and otherwise, that Shaped your personality. Your Shape is akin to a hillside tree whose trunk and branches reach out in strange angles due to the steep gradient and strong winds. Like yourself, and so many of us, though the tree may appear different or odd, it is perfectly functional. A Bonsai figures into this analogy as well: A fully mature, entirely healthy entity appears to us in miniature due to a lack of available earth in which to spread its roots.

My job as your therapist is to discern your Shape.

When we discover our Shape, we can know our Work.

When we know our Work then we can Grow.

Imagine a household which eschewed and repressed all discussion and expression of feeling, a household where crying was a form of weakness and anger a capital crime. A child reared in such an environment may be Shaped into someone with an oversized focus on intellect. Think of a Spock or the Trekian android, Commander Data. Think of a man who tries to solve every problem instead of addressing how his partner actually feels. Work with such a patient may involve simply helping him get out of his own head and accessing his feelings, his body, or his intuition. The Work of this patient is to explore, access and utilize the realms that thought does not touch. It is my belief that such a practice will initiate Growth.

Here is another example: A friend of mine is currently undergoing a long and protracted divorce. A self-described feeling type, this person leads with her emotions. Her decision tree is less influenced by cold reasoning and more so by her mood or inner temperature. As the divorce dragged on, visions of repairing the marriage kept cropping up for her. Every time her soon-to-be ex showed the remotest bit of decency, she would attempt to reconcile to give him another chance. Every time, of course, his old habits would swiftly resurface: belittling, dismissing, ignoring. (A real catch, no?) His intermittent kindness reminded her how much she actually loved him. In those moments, her thought process would go something like this: “Today I love my husband, therefore we should be together.” In this instance, my friend’s executive functioning—that is, the driving seat of our decision-making process—was being guided by her emotional world. Feeling was the rule.

I recommended my friend write herself a letter about what she should do and not do the next time one of these moments cropped up. In the letter, she could also describe in detail her husband’s true character, this shadow of a man who occasionally threw her his scraps of kindness. I asked her to write from her more grounded, thinking self to her less grounded, feeling Self, a Self that was clearly suffering from feelings of abandonment and hurt due to the steadily crumbling marriage. Postmarked from the realm of thought and addressed to the land of emotion, this measure of Work would hopefully allow my friend to access her thinking function during times of emotional turmoil.

(Note: I do not mean to imply that feeling is any worse or better than thought. Rather, in a well-balanced personality, the two work in concert to arrive at optimal solutions.)

So what happens when we discover our Work and begin to Grow? What changes, exactly? Here is a straightforward but woefully incomplete list: make better choices; attract healthier, kinder people; learn to better and deeply appreciate and experience our lives on a day-to-day level; increase our vulnerability; increase our capacity for intimacy; acquire a broader, stronger community; learn to ask for help; increase our productivity and therefore income; increase our well-being; gain a wholly unquantifiable sense of inner growth and increased consciousness; feel a sense that you have taken the red pill.

Let me bring all of this to a personal level: as a child, and well into my teens and twenties, I was deeply socially maladaptive and grossly overweight. As one may well imagine, such a platform proved to be the source of considerable strife in my adult life. Dating, friendships, income, self-image—nearly everything was affected. By age twenty-eight, I lacked self-confidence, had formed very few friendships and had had even fewer girlfriends. I feared conflict and in both public and private arenas I felt constantly unsafe and physically vulnerable. How I came to be this way, how I grew into this Shape, is not germane to this discussion. Needless to say, my Shape stood out in stark relief: to anyone with eyes, my pathology was obvious.

Then one day, some time after my twenty-ninth birthday, a friend (a real friend, the kind who cared enough not to listen to my BS) dragged me to an introductory class in Brazilian jujitsu. The next day, I quit my gym and never looked back. This extremely intense, full-contact grappling art afforded me several opportunities, all of which were connected to my Work. First of all, daily controlled conflict built my self-confidence. In addition, the high-contact sport allowed me to blow off a considerable amount of repressed anger, which I am sure was stunting my emotional and psychological development. Jujitsu also whipped me into the best physical shape of my life. Lastly, and probably most importantly, I benefited from the tight brotherhood that forms amongst Brazilian jujitsu players.

Let me paint a picture of the Growth I have experienced due to fifteen years of hard training and focus on my Work: Today I am one hundred pounds thinner; I am part of a vast community of truly fabulous men and women; I feel safe, confident and centered in just about any situation. After fifteen years, I can finally hold my head up and smile. I would call that progress. And am I saying that jujitsu is the answer to everyone’s prayers? Well, no (but really yes and hell yes), but let me add that during this fifteen-year stint I partook in a host of other activities related to my Work: I attended therapy, started dating and went back to school for an advanced degree in Counseling Psychology. I mean, who knows, maybe the jujitsu didn’t do a damn thing and my self-improvement came from digesting all those god-awful textbooks. Regardless, whether it is simply talking it through with a professional, analyzing our dreams or swimming the Strait of Gibraltar, like countless streams filling a vast reservoir, our growth may come to us from a thousand directions.

In the years before his passing, I would spend hours with Seymour on his vast, serene ranch. I can’t stop picturing his hands, stiff and crooked from his street fighting days during the Depression, and how he stared at me with a mixture of determination and compassion from beneath a set of white, overgrown eyebrows.

So folks, need or benefit?

Even now, I still can’t say which camp I belong to, and I have stayed awake nights wondering if there is truly a difference. Perhaps that’s what he meant, that there are no differences, that therapy is for everyone, that there is really only one type of person, and only one way this goes:

Shape. Work. Growth.

That’s everything I know.

Now give me a call.

#marriage #therapy #therapist #relationship #counseling

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anniversary-magazine · 5 years ago

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Q+A with Marzena Skubatz, the Photographer Capturing Remote Places Far From Home

Coming from Poland, currently living in Berlin, yet she will still tell you she lives “here and there”. Photographer Marzena Skubatz has travelled to a myriad of remote and inaccessible places around the world to captivate unspoilt landscapes and environments. Through photography, she explores the intimate lives and persistence of people in isolated places, where the senses of places are translated into pictures that oscillate between outer and inner landscapes. Due to her personal background, Marzena is investigating the notion of home in communities around the world facing ecological dislocation.

We recently took the time to ask her a few questions to delve deeper into her work as a photographer, the fascination of travelling, and environmental issues.

MH: Can you tell us a little bit more about what came first, the fascination of remote places and nature or the fascination with photography? Did anyone or anything in specific inspire you to pursue what you are doing now?

MS: The fascination for remote places came first, as I grew up in one. It was not as remote as the places I visit today, but it felt like it. I rarely spent time inside when growing up. I was that kid that likes to be on his own, climbing on trees or sleeping in the fields. There was not much technology around me back then. No phones, not many TV’s and no cameras. I got my first camera when I was twelve years old. I think the way I work with photography today and the way I choose my projects is in a wider sense somehow connected to these experiences.

MH: You have stated that due to your personal background, you investigate the notion of home in communities around the world facing ecological dislocation. Can you tell us bit more about your background, and what led you to explore and document this direction of photography?

MS: Sure. I grew up on a farm in a quite small village in Poland during the cold war. My parents decided to leave the country and start a new life in West Germany in 1988. This was one year before the Berlin Wall was opened and therefore still illegal to do. To limit the risk of being caught as much as possible our parents decided not to tell us (me and my brother) that we were leaving our home for good. I guess it was back then that I have started to think about the notion of home and places, and space in general. For example in my project “Heima/t“ which is a project about women who immigrated to Iceland after World War II, the notion of the word “home” within this context was romanticized and therefore instrumentalized by the nationalists. The traumatized young girls who left Germany to start a new life in Iceland knew nothing about the island. In “The Weather Report I“ I investigate the influence of weather and talk about a woman dealing with her everyday life at one of the remotest places I have been so far. In “The Weather Report II“ I take a closer look at the place itself and its micro cosmos. So I am interested in the sense of place in a wider sense.

MH: Since you currently live and work in Berlin, what role or impact does it have on how you create and tell stories?

MS: Berlin is obviously a hard contrast to the nature dominated places that I talk about in my personal projects, but it gives me the freedom to pursue my work and to look at it from a different angle. I do not find or develop the ideas for my projects here, but I like to do most of my editing here. I am surrounded by great colleagues, and we talk about photography a lot. These exchanges are very important for me and the development of my work.

MH: One thing is where you live and are located, but your work often takes place far from home, in unorthodox destination shaped by raw and vast nature. What have been your favourite destination so far and why?

MS: I spend a lot of time in Iceland, where I live at a place next to the sea with no Internet connection and no mobile reception. I love to be near or by the sea. It just fascinates me to look at the surface of the ocean knowing that there is a whole different world beneath it, we rarely think about.

MH: Your work seem to be rather colorless and conceptual, yet how do you work conceptually when shooting images of untouched nature? Since you can’t stage nature as if you were doing it in a studio, how do you prepare an image series?

MS: Every vegetation has its own characteristics, so I do not need to stage anything, I only need to know what I want to tell and how. So I guess the preparation is basically knowing the story that I want to tell and the mood I want to create and then I just focus on finding it. Working outside within nature is of course unpredictable most of the time, specially in countries where the weather changes very often. And with the increasing impacts of climate change, it doesn’t seem to follow any rule anymore. But the unpredictability is also what I like about my work. I get bored very easily and like to challenge myself.

MH: Recently you have been visiting many places in the cold North. Howcome?

MS: The raw nature of the North has something mystique for me. There are those long winter nights and the cold temperatures. I am fascinated that humans are able to live in those habitats and how they adapt and cope with those circumstances and if or how it reflects in their personality and lifestyle. I think areas with low or no population like the arctic tundra create a certain feeling of freedom.

MH: I imagine your fascination of nature, and specially remote and untouched places as you have visited, also reflects your personal awareness, care and love for nature, yet I can’t stop thinking your love for the natural beauty also makes you concerned of the current situation regarding environmental issues? If so, what concerns you? Do you experience such issues while travelling to these places or even shared concerns with locals living there?

MS: Regarding the current situation of our environment, there is unfortunately not a single thing that doesn’t concern me right now. The climate crisis is the result of aggressive destruction of our planet for industrial reasons in a radicioulsly short amount of time. It is such an important yet complex topic that I don’t even know where to start. The fjord where I live in Iceland is still dealing with the consequences of overfishing thirty years ago. This is a very small fjord, but it is still recovering from two years of aggressive industrial net fishing. Another example would be the Icelandic Forrest. In the 9th century, Iceland was covered with at least 60% of vegetation until settlement areas were developed and timber industries operated. Above all, the imported sheep were grazing their pastures that vegetation could not recover in the short polar summer. Climate changes and strong volcanic activity between 1600 and 1900 led to increased erosion due to soil changes. Today’s landscape of Iceland is thus the result of one of the earliest cases of drastic environmental destruction. So the history of humans destroying our planet is unfortunately a very long one and the current situation is already a disaster, I have hopes that the coming generation might do things differently as the awareness for that topic seems to raise, but we need to act now!

MH: How do you feel your work, when exploring and addressing the importance of raw nature not yet harmed by humans, can contribute to a better understanding of our threathen environment?

MS: Photography is a medium that has the beautiful quality to document the reality and create an emotion at the same time. Whenever I am surrounded by raw nature I feel very insignificant. This feeling is the key to understand that we as humans are only a very small part of something much bigger. In photographing landscapes the way I do, I try to capture and somehow communicate this feeling. I try to do it not necessarily by dramatizing the landscape, but more by creating a feeling of connection to the place. I would love my work to have the quality to sensitize the viewer for the beauty and uniqueness of our environment and therefore raise awareness of the importance to protect it. I also try to address environmental topics in my editorial work whenever I get the chance to.

MH: Would you be interested in documenting places defined by the opposite such as metropolitan lives, industrial areas or intensely cultivated agriculture to mention a few in order to address the environmental impact made by human activities?

MS: I am interested in places or spaces in general and do not want to limit myself in my work to a certain region. Industrial areas have a massive impact on our environment, the quality of water, air and our health. Intense agriculture and monocultures destroy biodiversity and the chemicals used poison our food and our soil. We can’t talk about environmental issues without addressing the most problematic ones at first, as these have the most impact in the climate crisis. For that reason I would be very interested in documenting those places. Personally I feel that the key to fight the arrogance of those industries is to focus more on solutions. We need to stop ignoring what is happening and start to support inventions and support the scientists who work on environmentally friendly solutions. There are already so many concepts to reduce the destruction of our planet. It will remain a difficult fight and I feel that we need to inspire more people to act immediately, and this could be done by showing and talking more about solutions. I recently worked on Assignement for Greenpeace and hope to get the chance to do more work for Environmental Organizations and NGO’S in the future.

MH: Sunrise or sunset?

MS: Sunrise.

MH: Rainy weather or blue sky?

MS: Both, but if I have to choose I would put blue sky first.

MH: Mountains or forests?

MS: Something in-between.

All images courtesy of Marzena Skubatz

#Photographer #Photography #Landscapes #Nature #Featured #Marzena Skubatz

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rulystuff · 5 years ago

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https://servicemeltdown.com/is-the-united-states-at-end-of-empire/

New Post has been published on https://servicemeltdown.com/is-the-united-states-at-end-of-empire/

IS THE UNITED STATES AT END OF EMPIRE?

America’s economic primacy is pretty much behind us. And, I don’t believe there is any chance of reversing a trend that began thirty plus years ago. The best-case scenario for the nation is to arrest the rate of economic decline – never mind social and cultural decline, which are probably lodged in irreversible decay. As Robert Kaplan says in his book, The Revenge of Geography, we might prolong our position of strength by preparing the world for our own obsolescence and thus ensuring a graceful exit. But even this outcome will require the strength of will that has yet to be demonstrated by leaders in business, education, and government.

Economic primacy might be measured along many fronts – income per capita, rate of growth, productivity, foreign exchange reserves, among others – but if one looks at Gross Domestic Product (GDP), perhaps the coarsest measure of a nation’s economic well-being, then the United States has lost its economic primacy to China.

China’s GDP on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis is superior to that of the United States. The PPP approach levels the GDP calculation to each country’s relative price of goods. So, if a television set costs $500 in the United States while the same television costs $250 in China then, theoretically at least, we’re undercounting China’s GDP by $250. Using the PPP rationale, China’s GDP was approximately $23 trillion in 2017 compared to that of the United States which came in at $19 trillion.

Some politicians, economists, lobbyists, and others, like to use a different measure of GDP to suit their own purposes. The nominal GDP, which looks at the total of goods and services produced at current exchange rates yields a substantially different calculation. The nominal GDP of the United States in 2017 came in at $19 trillion. By comparison, China’s nominal GDP came in at $12 trillion. If we only look at nominal GDP, it is clear we are being lulled into a false sense of economic security.

Diplomatically, China might also have an edge on the United States. In the 1980’s, the then leader of the People’s Republic of China, Deng Xiaoping, enunciated his famous maxim of tao guang yang hui. Interpreted variously, the maxim is meant as a foreign policy directive that regardless how muscular the nation might become economically, geopolitically, and militarily it is always best to keep a “low profile diplomatically.” No more beguiling example of Deng Xiaoping’s maxim is in evidence than in China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Simply put, China plans to build one “road” from China to Europe and thus control all manner of transcontinental commerce. Already, China controls or has a presence in ports that handle about two-thirds of the world’s container traffic. In Greece, the port of Piraeus is mostly in the hands of the Chinese which makes Greece a strategic entry point for China into the heart of Europe.

IF WE’RE NOT MAKING STUFF WHAT ARE WE TO DO?

Let’s face it, manufacturing was lost to our shores for all intents and purposes many years ago. There are now roughly 12 million workers in the United States engaged in manufacturing down from approximately 18 million in the 1980’s – President Trump, to his credit, is determined to revitalize manufacturing, steel, and coal but despite gains in these areas total employment numbers will continue to slip on a trend line basis. China, by comparison, has approximately 80 million manufacturing workers. Further, in 2015, China displaced the United States as the top manufacturing nation in the world with a total value-added manufacturing output of $3 trillion compared to $2.2 trillion for the United States.

Services is the new game in town accounting for roughly 80% of our nation’s GDP. And, as a nation, we better excel in that new cycle reality. But from the way we treat our veterans, clients, patients, students, donors, and citizens – customers, all, to my way of thinking – you would think that we are flush with options on which to fall back. We are not. The United States does run an annual balance of payments surplus in services of about $250 billion – compared to a goods deficit of approximately $800 billion – but don’t let that fool you. In the all-important Computer and Business Services category, as we noted in an earlier essay, imports are within earshot of total exports. Moreover, unless we accelerate the rate of growth of exports – the rate of growth is about even for both imports and exports – we might soon be facing a deficit in this sector of the economy so crucial for the good health of the nation in the twenty-first century.

In the Introduction, we referenced the Accenture survey of 2007 which showed that 41% of respondents described service quality as fair, poor, or terrible. Perform any human endeavor at that level of proficiency and you are an abject failure. In the services sector, however, that is par for the course. In the Far East, cultural determinants do not confuse service with servitude. As a rule, suppliers will go the extra mile to please a consumer. In the West, and particularly in the United States, the most that a service worker can muster when asked to perform a personalized service is to utter something like, “no problem.” That kind of indifferent attitude is ingrained and certain to keep our level of service quality from clambering out of the aforementioned levels of mediocrity. In the meantime, off-shore locations feast on our indifference to service and do whatever it takes to secure and maintain a customer relationship.

The oft-cited explanation for the comparative advantage of off-shore locations, namely, their low cost, is a facile response to a more complicated dynamic. It is true that off-shore locations enjoy all-in cost advantages vis-a-vis the United States. It is also true, that President Trump has worked hard to enhance our competitiveness on the world stage by reducing the oppressive web of regulation; reducing our world-leading corporate tax rates; negotiating better trade deals; offering a tax holiday for repatriated corporate profits, among other initiatives. But my experience is that, particularly in technical disciplines, services delivered by off-shore locations are superior to ours. The President’s apprenticeship initiative, if it were aggressively expanded to include science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) occupations, might make us more competitive in this area. In the rarefied world of supercomputers so critical to pushing the frontiers of science and technology, for example, the United States is out-produced by China on the order of two-to-one. So, until and unless we grow a much larger crop of more competent technical workers we will continue to be outperformed by nations more determined, better educated, more dedicated, and hungrier than we are.

THE NATION FACES SOME VERY STIFF HEADWINDS

The United States economy has structural defects which will not go away simply by holding rallies and mouthing rhetorical flourishes in the halls of Congress. Decline might be inexorable but we should not stand by as mere spectators. The will and purpose to restore our economic vitality must be marshaled by every American. It must begin, first and foremost, by demanding of our leaders, our institutions, and ourselves to be unafraid to serve. It is the remotest possibility that we can salvage the service economy and consequently our nation unless our standard of performance is nothing less than service excellence in everything we do.

We don’t have a lot going for ourselves. Labor productivity growth is stalled at near zero levels; the rate of household savings is paltry; regulation and taxation still suffocates businesses and individuals despite President Trump’s initiatives; unemployment – not the nominal rate but the U6 rate which measures the unemployed, those that are not looking for work, and those who have had to settle for part-time work – is mired at levels of near 8% (during the Obama years the U6 rate never got below 9.2%); the national debt is in the stratosphere; entitlement spending well exceeds 50% of our budget dollars and is likely to increase with both a growing number of baby boomers reaching retirement and the population’s longer life expectancy; and fraud and corruption run rampant among other serious afflictions. Perhaps the most troubling portent for the nation’s future is its inability to clamber out of a deep and black hole in education. Among the 35 industrialized nations which comprise the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), for example, the United States ranks 31st in mathematics and roughly in the middle on science. Clearly, all of the monetary and fiscal policies in the world will hardly fix this crippling deficiency.

Prior to Mr. Trump’s coming to office, the federal government was hell-bent on redistributing wealth rather than getting out of the way so that risk capitalists could create wealth. We’ll just have to see if the President’s reforms bring back a full-throated free market approach to the nation’s issues. Meanwhile, in the corporate world, business leaders are fixated on how quarterly earnings affect their pay packages, and when push comes to shove, cutting corners and worse. It is rare to see business leaders get compensated for delivering excellence in service to those from whom they benefit the most: the customer. But don’t expect any changes in this area until there is an all-out shareholder revolt that devolves power back to the rightful owners of these firms.

As I argued in a previous essay, The United Kingdom Is Resurgent, the former world economic power, lost its supremacy because it failed to adapt to the winds of change which buffeted its shores long after the economy reached its apex in the early twentieth century.

It is also provocative to think that there might be a “natural” life cycle to nations as there is to human beings that is irreversible. Regardless of one’s view in embracing one or another theory that might explain the demise of nations, there is no reason to remain indolent in resisting such decline even if there is only the remotest possibility of such an outcome. Keep in mind that the demise of Rome was hardly cataclysmic but the result of a long succession of imprudent decisions made by the Empire’s leaders.

CAN THE UNITED STATES GUARANTEE THE PEACE?

If the nation has ceded its economic primacy, its military primacy is being severely tested. United States’ land-based forces are heavily committed to counterinsurgency operations to fend off non-state actors while conventional warfare strategic planning appears to be dead. In Europe, a likely conventional hotspot, NATO and U.S. forces are outgunned and outmanned by a factor of at least ten to one by Russian forces.

Our ocean defenses are in no better shape. The nation’s principal bulwark protecting our shores is in steep decline. The United States Navy is but a ghost of its former self. The nation now has fewer vessels than it had before World War I. Most notably, our aircraft carrier fleet which must number sixteen in order to patrol three separate ocean theaters now numbers ten or barely enough to protect two theaters. In the Mediterranean, the U.S. Sixth Fleet is a non-entity the result of which is to have created a vacuum that is now filled by the Russians, Syrians, and Iranians. In the South China Sea, where American Navy vessels seem unable to sail without colliding into tankers and containerships, the United States is being challenged by a territorially aggressive and technologically advanced Chinese Navy. Already, an armada of sophisticated dredging vessels is reclaiming land from the sea for the sole purpose of building military airfields and naval port facilities.

Former U.S. Undersecretary of the Navy, Seth Cropsey, in his chilling and sobering account, Mayday the Decline of American Naval Supremacy, reminds us that China was the naval hegemon in the fifteenth century. Under the leadership of Admiral Sheng He, Chinese sailors coursed the oceans from their territorial waters to the Strait of Hormuz. Chinese vessels of the time were of a length and tonnage that were not to be seen in the West until centuries later. China’s naval supremacy only came to an end when civil servants forced severe budget cutbacks on the kingdom. Does our own budget sequestration of 2013, with its mandate to, in effect, disarm the military, ring a bell? The results of each nation’s budget missteps are eerily similar. China, for its part, will probably not repeat its mistake.

In all likelihood, it will take the United States a generation, assuming proper funding and political will, to restore the U.S. Navy so that we can confidently state that the nation can project power and protect seaborne commerce beyond the horizon.

Just as troubling as the rickety state of the nation’s military naval forces is the state of the United States Merchant Marine. The Merchant Marine fleet hauls cargo during peacetime and is attached to the Defense Department during wartime to transport troops and supplies into war zones. The United States should hope it does not get into a major conflagration oceans away as it has experienced a dramatic attrition in its Merchant Marine fleet and manpower inventory. In 1960, the United States had nearly 3,000 vessels in the Merchant Marine fleet. Today, the nation has fewer than 175 vessels or less than one-half of 1% of the total vessel count worldwide. Worse, United States-flagged vessels carry a mere pittance of the total volume of goods and materials that transit through the nation’s ports. The consequence of what is obviously a weak flank in the nation’s defense posture is that in the event of a major outbreak of hostilities the United States would be reliant on foreign-flagged vessels to carry troops, armaments, and supplies with all of the attendant security risks.

In sum, if as the great military historian B.H. Liddell Hart suggests, a nation’s Grand Strategy is a composite of its political, military, economic and diplomatic tools in its “arsenal” which can be brought to bear to advance a state’s national interest then the United States appears to be convulsing in its gradual decay.

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essaysbyalexa · 6 years ago

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A Mercurial Player

Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet is not completely original, strictly speaking, as this theater adaptation is based on Arthur Brooke’s 1562 poem The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet. That is not to attack Shakespeare’s creativity, or accuse him of plagiarism—to do so would conflate the modern notion of “intellectual property” with the looser conception of authorship and ownership in Shakespeare’s time—but rather to suggest that any discrepancy between Brooke’s poem and the play stands out as a deliberate choice. With regards to major plot and structure, Romeo and Juliet is actually quite faithful to Romeus and Juliet, save for the recasting of a single character: Mercutio. He is present in Brooke’s poem, but is only mentioned in passing as a rival suitor looking to seize Juliet’s hand in marriage between his own icy palms.[1] Brooke’s Mercutio has no dialogue and is described as “courteous of his speech, and pleasant of device”—certainly not at all characteristic of Shakespeare’s Mercutio, who has an abundance of spoken lines and is often conducts himself in a less than courteous manner.[2] This change does not alter the course of the play as a whole, as it ultimately ends in the same tragedy of lovers, but certain events are considerably different, and Mercutio’s presence is integral to the play. Therefore, as one of the few deviations from the original source material, it follows that Shakespeare’s decision to emphasize and embellish the role of Mercutio in his version of the story is of great significance.

Everything Mercutio does is a theatrical act, both in the sense that he is a character in a play and quite a “character” to the inhabitants of Verona. Although Romeo had no choice but to disguise himself in order to attend Capulet’s party, it was completely unnecessary for Mercutio to follow suit. In fact, he was formally invited to the party, and was explicitly listed on the invitation given to Peter, as the servant was requested to contact “Mercutio and his brother Valentine,” among others.[3] Thus, he attended the party as a gatecrasher purely for its own sake—perhaps in solidarity with Romeo and Benvolio, perhaps as a sort of performance, but not to protect his identity. He delights in the melodrama of it all, calling for “a case to put [his] visage in,” and jokes about covering his own “visor for a visor,” excited to hide behind a mask and assume a new persona.[4] However, as it happened, Mercutio’s masked persona was indistinguishable from his normal self. Perhaps his failure to mask his personality is because his everyday disposition was already an affectation, or because he was already as theatrical as possible—or perhaps he forgot. Either way, Mercutio’s pointless disguise could not mask his trademark wit. In his excitement to attend the banquet, Mercutio chides his friends’ sluggishness and complains that they are “burn[ing] daylight,” which Romeo remarks is untrue.[5] Mercutio takes Romeo’s lack of excitement as his failure to understand a figure of speech, to which Mercutio responds with a whimsical pair of rhyming couplets explaining that they “waste [their] lights in vain,” and therefore must be on their way.[6] It is ironic, but not out of character, that Mercutio “clarifies” his previous statement with an even more complicated remark; though he may be acting facetiously by further cloaking his language in lyric, both Romeo and the audience are made aware that everything Mercutio does is a form of performance.

Mercutio is markedly more theatrical than any other characters in the play; sarcastic, gratuitously poetic, and witty to a fault, he is always acting for the sake of an audience. This audience is actually twofold: partly he performs for the citizens of Verona, but he also performs for the people of England who are watching these Shakespearean plays. Mercutio’s very presence is what makes Romeo and Juliet distinct from Brooke’s poem, what transforms the poem into a play—other characters in Romeo and Juliet speak in verse and use elevated language, but Mercutio sets the standard of theatricality and inserts himself into the events of Romeus to make it distinctly Romeo. Even within the play, other characters are perplexed by his lines: Mercutio goes on a tangent about Tybalt’s excellent fencing skills, “the immortal passado, the punto reverso, the hai!”—to which Benvolio simply replies, “The what?”[7] In some sense, Mercutio is Shakespeare’s creative force acting directly upon the Brooke poem, an interloper who is both the character and the actor playing him.

Mercutio’s death at the hands of Tybalt is purely Shakespeare’s creation, and it is this death that “furnish[es] an entirely different motive from that assigned by Brooke for Romeo’s slaying of Tybalt,” though the end result is ultimately the same.[8] Mercutio’s death almost feels staged—not just as a scene in a play (although of course it is), but artificial in a way that other scenes are not. Tybalt originally intended to fight Romeo, but falls for Mercutio’s taunt and duels with him instead. Immediately upon Tybalt’s entrance, Mercutio becomes aggressive, threatening to bring out his “fiddlestick” that “shall make [Tybalt] dance.”[9] As a neutral party between the feuding families of Verona, Mercutio’s hostility stems not from the fact that Tybalt is a Capulet; Mercutio is personally offended by Tybalt’s word choice, taking “consort” as an insult, even though the rather simple Tybalt likely meant nothing by it.[10] In a play full of deep-seated familial hatred and ancient vendettas that would rightfully warrant a thirst for bloodshed, Mercutio is so volatile that the remotest chance of being insulted is grounds for a swordfight. He does have some stake in the familial rivalry, given that his two close friends are Montagues, but this is not what motivates him to bait Tybalt into a fight—he simply wants to be part of the action, a participant in the great battle waged upon the stage. To him, fencing is “simply music carried out by other means,” which proves irresistible to one “for whom all is sport, artifice, masque, wit-contest or body-contest.”[11]

Playing the role of an actor, Mercutio believes that the fight’s pre-scripted outcome will guarantee his victory; at first, this does seem to be the case, but Romeo’s well-meaning yet unexpected intervention threw everything out of balance, allowing Tybalt to deliver a mortal blow. This is one of the few times in the play we see Mercutio “break character” by being completely serious, even if just for a moment. His accusatory remark towards Romeo is buried under humorous quips, but is ultimately quite blunt: “Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm.”[12] This rare moment of sincerity betrays Mercutio’s genuine surprise, for he had not considered the possibility of defeat; this was not written in the script, so to speak. Or rather, it was written in the script for everyone but Mercutio himself, who is suddenly clueless with regards to the stage directions of the players around him. Now Mercutio finds his role reversed, leaving him wounded on the stage floor while the actors around him continue reading from the script. One literary critic suggests that his death could either be “a consequence of the exceptional vitality of his character,” or else serve a greater function within the play—but these do not have to be mutually exclusive possibilities.[13] Mercutio’s death was necessary lest he overshadow the titular characters’ presence, but also very clearly marked the play’s transition from mild humorous tension to outright tragedy. In his last hour, Mercutio attempts to jest that Romeo will “find [him] a grave man,” punning on his ever-encroaching end, but ultimately ends on a note of bitterness as he casts “a plague a both [Montague and Capulet’s] houses.”[14] And yet, for all his grandeur, Mercutio dies an unceremonious offstage death. Romeo then kills Tybalt, leading to the same tragic chain of events that befell Romeus. For all Shakespeare’s intervention and adaptation, the play ends just as the poem did.

Dead by the third act, Mercutio is by all means a secondary character never even written into the original narrative. Yet, through his commanding presence and theatricality, Shakespeare propels Mercutio to the forefront of the cast, if only for a brief time. If Mercutio seems like an odd character to be in a tragedy, that is because he was never supposed to be in the story in the first place, or at least not as more than a passing reference. Though Mercutio may be more suited for a comedy, his inclusion in the play is distinctly Shakespearean—to have a character with elevated language, clever allusions, and a sense of metatheater is Shakespeare’s trademark, even if said character cannot live through the whole play. Looking beyond the overt misfortune of the eponymous lovers, Romeo and Juliet is tragic in part because such an effervescent persona was snuffed out so suddenly. Whereas Brooke’s poem presented the story as unilaterally doomed, Shakespeare’s play is made all the more depressing by the stark contrast between its most dramatic and humorous aspects and its unavoidably grim conclusion.

[1] Brooke, Arthur. Romeus and Juliet. (lines 261-2: “That frozen mountain ice was never half so cold, / As were his hands…”)

[2] Ibid, line 256.

[3] Act One, Scene Two, line 68.

[4] Act One, Scene Four, lines 29-30.

[5] Act One, Scene Four, line 43.

[6] Act One, Scene Four, line 45.

[7] Act Two, Scene Four, lines 25-7.

[8] Law, Robert Adger. “On Shakespeare’s Changes of His Source Material in ‘Romeo and Juliet.’” Studies in English, no. 9, 1929, page 89.

[9] Act Three, Scene One, lines 47-8.

[10] Act Three, Scene One, line 45.

[11] Albright, Daniel. “The Veronese Social Code.” Musicking Shakespeare: A Conflict of Theatres, NED - New edition, Boydell and Brewer, 2007, page 42.

[12] Act Three, Scene One, lines 101-2.

[13] Utterback, Raymond. “The Death of Mercutio.” Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 24, no. 2, 1973, page 105.

[14] Act Three, Scene One, lines 97, 105.

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literatelobstersareliterate · 7 years ago

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[Aristotle], On Trolling

Extract

That trolling is a shameful thing, and that no one of sense would accept to be called ‘troll’, all are agreed; but what trolling is, and how many its species are, and whether there is an excellence of the troll, is unclear. And indeed trolling is said in many ways; for some call ‘troll’ anyone who is abusive on the internet, but this is only the disagreeable person, or in newspaper comments the angry old man. And the one who disagrees loudly on the blog on each occasion is a lover of controversy, or an attention-seeker. And none of these is the troll, or perhaps some are of a mixed type; for there is no art in what they do. (Whether it is possible to troll one's own blog is unclear; for the one who poses divisive questions seems only to seek controversy, and to do so openly; and this is not trolling but rather a kind of clickbait.)

Well then, the troll in the proper sense is one who speaks to a community and as being part of the community; only he is not part of it, but opposed. And the community has some good in common, and this the troll must know, and what things promote and destroy it: for he seeks to destroy. Hence no one would troll the remotest Mysian, or even know how, but rather a Republican trolls a Democratic blog and a Democrat Republicans. And he destroys the thread by disputing what is known to be true, or abusing what is recognised as admirable; or he creates fear about a small problem, as if it were large, or treats a necessary matter as small; or he speaks abuse while claiming to be a friend. And in general the troll says what is false but sounds like the truth—or rather he does not quite say it, but rather something very close to it which is true, or partly true, or best of all merely asks a simple question about the evidence for climate change. Hence the modes of trolling are many: the concern-troll, the one who ‘sees the other side’, the polite inquirer into the obvious. For the perfected troll has no need of rudeness or abuse, or even of fallacy (this belongs rather to sophistic or eristic, and requires making an argument): he only makes a suggestion or indication [sêmainein].

And this is how the troll generates strife. For what he indicates is known to be false or harmful or ignorant; but he does not say that thing, but rather something close. In this way he retains the possibility of denial, and the skilled troll is always surprised and hurt, or seems to be, when the others take his comments up. And so he sets the community apart from each other, and introduces strife where before there was scarcely disagreement. For each person who takes up what was said grasps only a part of it, and insists on that, and is annoyed when others affirm something different. For some indeed see that the troll trolls, and are harsh; but others think that they ought to be more gentle, and others again do not even see the falsity, but grasp the truth which is nearby and insist that the troll ‘has a decent point’. And this is excess of charity and the death of the board.

The end of the troll is not in his own speech, then, but in that of the others, when they take up his comments in as many ways as bring regret. For there is excess or deficiency in each response, and then more again in each response to that; and every responder chooses his own words lightly but demands exactitude from the rest, and while correcting the others he introduces something new and questionable. And so resentment is built up, and the slighting begins; and the strife is the work of the troll but the origin is not clear.

Trolls differ primarily in their for-the-sake-of-which: at any rate some troll for amusement, and a few for profit, but most as enemies and members of a faction. (Hence the troll is thought to be weak, and one who sits in pyjamas: for the advantage to the faction is not worth much, and a courageous enemy would fight in some other way.) And of these the amusement-troll is in a way the worst, for he aims only at his own gratification. But this one is also the least harmful; for he is careless and easy to discern, coming close to being a lover of controversy. And since trolling is in each case a matter of choice, no one is ever a troll involuntarily or by accident, but only an idiot who has posted in the wrong thread.

One might wonder whether there is an art of trolling and an excellence; and indeed some say that Socrates was a troll, and so that the good man also trolls. And this is in fact what the troll claims: that he is a gadfly and beneficial, and without him to ‘stir up’ the thread it would become dull and unintelligent. But this is incorrect. For Socrates was speaking frankly when he told the Athenians to care for their souls, rather than money and honors, and showed that they lacked knowledge. And this is not trolling but the contrary, exhortation and truth-telling—even if the citizens get very annoyed. For annoyance results from many kinds of speech; and the peculiarity [idion] of the troll is not annoyance or controversy in general, but confusion and strife among a community who really agree. And since the one who does this on every occasion must act with knowledge, and on the basis of practice and care, he has a kind of art—just as one might speak of the art of the hack or of the grifter. But it is not really an art, being without any function; and it belongs not to the serious person to be a troll but to the one who lacks education.

What the troll is, and in what way he trolls and for what, has now been said. And it is clear from this that there can be trolling outside the internet. For every community of speakers holds certain goods in common, and with them the conversation [dialegesthai] as an end in itself; and the troll is one who seeks to damage it from within. So a questioner can troll a political meeting, and academics troll each other in committees when they are bored; and a newspaper columnist may be a profit-troll towards a whole city. But blogs and boards and forums and comments sections are where the troll dwells primarily and for the most part. For these are weak communities, and anyone may be part of them: and so their good is easily destroyed. Hence the saying, ‘Trolls <are> not to be fed’. But though everyone knows this, everyone does it; for the desire to be right on the internet is natural and present to all.

Journal of the American Philosophical Association, Volume 2, Issue 2

Summer 2016 , pp. 193-195

RACHEL BARNEY (a1)

(a1) UNIVERSITY OF [email protected]

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

https://doi.org/10.1017/apa.2016.9

Published online: 03 May 2016

(via [Aristotle], On Trolling)

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