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July 2011

Trust30 – #30 – DeFault

This is it. The last one. Thank goodness. I think. Here’s the quote.

I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

And here’s the prompt.

Think of all the things that are not working in your life. That job you don’t like, that relationship that’s not working, those friends that annoy you. Now turn them all on you. Imagine that everything that’s not working in your life, is your fault. How would you approach it? What would you work on to change your life to the state that you want it to be?

Oh, thank you, Carlos Miceli, author of the flavor text and writing prompt to finish up Trust30, for feeding the very thing that I was trying to kill off yesterday. Of course it’s my fault. It’s all my fault. But that’s what’s killing my ability to move forward right now. So maybe fault isn’t the right word here. It’s not my fault. It’s my responsibility.

This is a preview of Trust30 – #30 – DeFault. Read the full post (588 words, estimated 2:21 mins reading time)
Shooting for "Leopold".

Trust30 – #29 – I’m Just a Soul whose Intentions are Good…

Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The prompt for this talks about posting an embarrassing picture of yourself online. Like the one I just put up. Look at that hair. The baldness. The unsightly… is that a chin? Are you sure? It just sort of… gently wanders town into the neck, doesn’t it? Egads.

I’m not going to compare myself to Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, or (heaven help us) Jesus. There’s really only one person I can compare myself to… and that’s my own vision of who I SHOULD be.

And you thought your potential audience was bad…

This is a preview of Trust30 – #29 – I’m Just a Soul whose Intentions are Good…. Read the full post (427 words, 1 image, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Trust30 – #28 – Hard Words

Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Writing is one of the ways I figure out what I’m thinking, and while I haven’t been doing a lot of it here (or in my fiction projects), I have been doing quite a bit of it in other, more private venues. And it’s been fascinating, on one hand, to get to the bottom of some issues that go right to the core of who I am and what I think. It was this Trust30 challenge that I’m horribly late on that got me started down this road and I’m grateful for what I’ve learned through the process. And at the same time it’s been hard and a part of me wishes that I’d never started.

This is a preview of Trust30 – #28 – Hard Words. Read the full post (985 words, estimated 3:56 mins reading time)

Trust30 – #27 – The Triumph of Principles

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The prompt for this day says to take a big hairy life goal that you haven’t started yet, or that you have been having a hard time with, and write down three uncertainties – fears – that you have concerning it. Then break that down a little further and write three reasons for the fear. That’s a good idea, and I may get to that in a future post, but first I have to address the quote. I have a fundamental problem with the first part of this little couplet, because I believe it may contradict the second part. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself? Yes – By submitting to and following correct principles. Because it’s too easy to use that first part to say that “I am a law unto myself.” Without the appropriate perception and attitude, you can spend a lot of time beating your head into walls and thinking that you’re pursuing peace. You don’t get to the moon and back without an understanding of life sciences, gravity, metallurgy, navigation, physics, etc. With the right understanding of the principles involved, even the sky isn’t the limit.

So, what are the principles that we have to adhere to? What principles exist that we can cling to? Are there any?

This is a preview of Trust30 – #27 – The Triumph of Principles. Read the full post (611 words, estimated 2:27 mins reading time)

Trust30 Not Quite Complete Review

I’ve taken some time over the last few days to start reading the actual Ralph Waldo Emerson essay, “Self-Reliance”. While there’s a lot in here that I agree with and find admirable, there are things in here that I find myself disagreeing with. That’s going to happen, and it’s nothing to worry about. It wasn’t really the point of the #Trust30 exercise in the first place. The main value of Trust30 to me (which admittedly I came up a few posts short in) has been in discovering what I think, and what I believe, and what I hold to be bedrock foundational true. And disagreeing with Emerson is probably something Emerson would have been totally okay with, looking over what I’ve read of his essay so far.

This is a preview of Trust30 Not Quite Complete Review. Read the full post (379 words, estimated 1:31 mins reading time)