Steven Barnes's Blog, page 41
October 20, 2017
Bless their hearts
I remember seeing a girl crying at a science fiction convention. I approached her gently and we began to speak. I don’t remember the content of the conversation, but I know she stopped crying, and laughed, and seemed better. Many years later, I found out she was the niece of a friend. Even later, she told me that I was the only man who had ever helped her without wanting sex in return.
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I don’t like politics. I respond to the world from my instincts and feelings, informed by my intel...
October 19, 2017
Never Quit
When you admit you want something, inability to have it will cause pain. You will then either put that pain into working harder, or you will let it shut you down.
In my early days of martial arts training, I had great success, taking 2nd place at the National Korean Karate championships in 1972. I was feeling froggy. Then I saw Steve (Sanders) Muhammad at the Martial Arts Expo in 1974. The speed, power and precision of his motion in a “Mass Attack” skit were devastating. And just as impre...
October 18, 2017
What can you do in five minutes?
I think we’ve all been “down” at times. Other than chemical, clinical depression (for which you should seek a doctor’s help) our emotions can simply be balled into a knot. Remember the discussion of violence, anger and fear. Much violence stems from anger, and anger is the way we mobilize fear. We are never angry about things we are happy to have happen to ourselves, our loved ones, the people we empathize with. Remove the negative stimulus, you remove the angry response.
About...
October 17, 2017
Its not the menu
Once upon a time there was a couple who wanted to go to dinner. “Let’s go to the new seafood restaurant” the wife said.
“The one on main street?” the husband asked. Affirmative. “No, he replied. “I’m tired, and don’t feel like driving that far.”
“I’ll drive,” she said.
“I Don’t like that part of town at night,” the husband said.
“O.K., we’ll go for lunch tomorrow” she replied.
“I don’t really like seafood,” the husband said.
“They have steak and chicken too,” she replied. “...
October 16, 2017
Wedges and Webs
Tananarive boggles me, really. She just does what she does, and it can often look like nothing is happening, and then BANG, everyone from Entertainment Weekly and TMZ and BET are talking about her UCLA class, and opportunities are coming from unexpected directions. Powerful. Unpredictable. It fits into the M.A.G.I.C. formula, but because its coming from my peripheral vision, it just stuns me. I think there is a primary difference between “male” and “female” energies in this sense, and...
Evaluating Damage
I am going to be deliberately oblique here, so as not to fall into a politicized rut.
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In a recent conversation about a specific crime, I was asked if I believed in the death penalty. I do not, as I don’t trust society with that level of power over a human life. The other person thought that the death penalty was appropriate for Crime X, as there is no other way to be certain it will not happen again.
When I repeated my disagreement, I was asked how I WOULD punish Crime X. I said that...
October 13, 2017
Need Permission to thrive? Here it @#$$ is.
The Morning Ritual
THE FOLLOWING IS AN ADAPTATION OF THE MAILING LIST MATERIAL. IT IS MY COMMITMENT TO GIVE YOU EVERYTHING I CAN, AND EVERYTHING BASIC THAT YOU NEED HERE ON WORDPRESS. Got a lot more for you. A phenomenal amount more. The results of FIFTY YEARS of research, teaching, testing. The “101” is just the cream of all of that. Trying to get everything out of my heart and out into Cyberspace. At least a year of work. But…I think I can open your mind to the potential in a week.
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The free s...
October 12, 2017
An example of why I’m optimistic…
Want to know why I believe the South is changing regarding racism, and for the better? I’ve criticized it in the past, and it is only fair to mention an instance of why I believe it is healing…
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This happened in a Southern State…
A martial artist I know, a man of mature years, call him William, was standing in a bank to cash a check. Everyone in the bank was black. Except for two young customers ahead of him in line, one of whom began loudly complaining about “all the niggers” in...
October 11, 2017
Good Lord Willin’ and the River don’t rise…I’m ready to change the world.
About ten years ago, I returned to California from a decade in the Northwest. I figured that I would pick up the pieces of my career and barrel forward. I got some bad news:
My beloved agent, Jonathan Westover told me that in the time I’d been gone, that the structure of Hollywood had changed, and they were no longer buying scripts from freelancers–it was all done by staff. And that they didn’t hire anyone over 40 for staff positions! I was 55.
Worse…he was retiring from the business, a...
