Steven Barnes's Blog, page 54
June 16, 2017
June 15, 2017
Parable of the Shmoos: Violence in America
[image error]https://thesocietypages.org/feminist/2015/07/23/masculinity-and-mass-shootings/
This is a very strong article on gun violence in the United States read it.
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Because of the thousands of hours of research and thought I’ve put into racism, always careful to relate EVERYTHING to universal human traits, it feels as if some of those conclusions can help to peek beyond the “Matrix” of illusions driving human behavior, the “emergent strategies”, simple commands that lead to complex results.
I...
June 14, 2017
“Better Call Saul” is amazing
Monday on “Better Call Saul” Jimmy took another step toward becoming a professional criminal. He extorted a guard, enabled a drug dealer and committed an insurance fraud. Meanwhile. His mentally ill brother is being kicked out of the firm he created because in a previous week, Jimmy “accidentally” revealed the depths of his illness in a fit of pique. Let’s see…what else did he do? I don’t even want to go into it. But I thought that, as he makes his progress toward being “Saul”, the fix...
June 13, 2017
Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of the women. But smile.
My primary intent is philosophical: “who am I?” and “what is true?” rather than political, which I interpret as “how can we win?”
That intent is about personal evolution, awakening, advancement for the species. Unfortunately, only truth can take you there. And “People will thank you for making them think they are waking up, but they’ll hate you if you actually do it.” There is that risk. But my commitment HAS to be the actual awakening. Some of these things can be proven logically....
June 12, 2017
What do all these movie have in common..?
What is the connecting thread between all of the above movies?
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Well, there may be several, but one is that in every one of them, all the black people, or a...
June 11, 2017
“Naigung” and the inner art of Sijo Antwione Alferos
I realized at a very early age–perhaps seven–that the reality I was offered by family, society and church organizations was not the real world. That realization caused me endless grief, and probably was the origin of my interest in fantasy, the stories that we tell ourselves, and others, to define, empower, control, or destroy.
I knew that if I accepted the stories others gave me, I’d be limited by their concepts and goals. Deciding to find my own, I asked “where can I find the role mode...
June 8, 2017
Writer’s Block and the Writer’s Journey
The advantage of looking at The Hero’s Journey is that we have absorbed MILLIONS of stories. We already understand the pattern. As a tool to plan or organize resources, I’ve never seen anything like it. Yesterday, I was asked about writer’s block–is it a real thing, and how to deal with it? Let’s walk through this, using The Hero’s Journey.
I teach this stuff because I believe there is something inside each and every one of you that can change the world with your stories. If I can ge...
June 6, 2017
A sentence a day to a book a year
A long time ago, I watched a writing student struggling with all the usual excuses (“I don’t have the time! I don’t have the energy! I’m not talented! I don’t know how!) change completely as soon as he thought of himself as a character he was writing about in a story about the early days of a successful writer.
Bang. Instantly, he understood EVERYTHING that can stop accomplishment, and began to organize his imagination to see how he could turn problems into advantages.
He could take...
June 5, 2017
Hidden Figures/Ancient Secrets Part 3: Katherine Johnson
(Note: This is the third essay connected to the “Art of Science” class I am preparing with project manager and 3rd degree Judo black belt Victoria Whitlock, designed to apply martial arts principles to women in STEM fields. The feedback we’ve been getting is gratifying.)
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“Generally in war, the best policy is to take a state intact; to ruin it is inferior to this….For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is th...
June 4, 2017
Are you “worth it”?
At the end of this essay, I’m going to give you the secret to having anyone you want. No kidding. But you have to read the whole thing for it to make sense…so don’t skip ahead.
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On another thread, Anasa Troutman proposed a “new rule” for relationships: “you get to interview the last two people they dated.”
Someone mentioned that T and I had done that, and when they tagged me, it brought the post to my attention.
I answered that we’d not QUITE done that, but close enough. The first...
