Café Philos: an internet café

Eryn, over a year ago, I posted a story that I wrote on my blog. Everyone seemed to like the story a lot. I created a category called "Stories" and thought, "That went well! I'll post another story next month." The category still has only 1 story in it. I would love to write more, but cannot seem to mount the level of concentration that is needed.

I only mention it as a lead-in to voicing the opinion that shame is something others expect of you. Be ashamed if you ever hurt someone for personal gain, perhaps, but for struggling with time and pain? There is no sin to forgive.

Congratulations on your objectionable content, btw! :-)

What's that thing in the picture, near the bench plz? scratchin' me head over it...

I'll assume you mean the ball of light. It was at one point a pocket mirror (the type they sell in shiny colors to little girls at dollar stores) It glinted in the picture (an accident on my part, since it wasn't my mirror) and I filtered it with some linux-based photo editing software. Just so people could scratch their heads about it.
Otherwise, the picture contains a bench, a garbage can, and part of a tree.

decrepitoldfool, thanks for your words of wisdom. I'm sure I'll be rid of my guilt complex one day. I suppose I'm just the type to need reminding every so often.

Ah, it could be an interesting thing to experiment with - different shape mirrors, prisms, ect.

Such techniques could be used by the unscrupulous to trick people into thinking it was something mystical - eventually it's going to happen.

And yeah, you're under no obligation, eryn, it's not as if we're somehow harmed, we should be grateful for what we do get from everyone - ideally people shouldn't burden others or themselves with expectations, because then people feel constrained and disappointed

Eryn, I so love your prose! But there's no reason for shame at anything.

We are chained to shame and guilt are from the first day -- instigating a life's work to free ourselves. Today I posted on my blog for the first time in a month. I've never been one to post daily, but a month seems like such long time these days. So today I choose to enthusiastically and adamantly revolt at the idea of time compression being beneficial.

Used to be, one could write a letter full of deep thoughts and superficial musings and expect it to take weeks or months to arrive at its destination and a similar period to pass before receiving a reply. Strangely both the letter and the response were written by hand using pen, ink, and paper -- physical things, things with a dear cost as dear as the education that enabled the literacy required to use them. A letter's content was enclosed in something called an envelope composed of paper and glue which protectively held your scriblings while providing a surface on which to scratch the location of the intended recipient. That envelope was actually picked up by a human being (!no shit!) who touched it with a human hand, and it went from bag to hand to bag to hand as it proceeded across town or between continents.

In those days both the sending and the receipt of written communication from another human being involved one's careful attention if not a certain celebration when the communication send-response protocol actually succeeded. Contrast that with the way we fire off email today and hit delete, delete, delete to clear our in-boxes.

"Death be not proud...." That is, fingers on my keyboard be not proud! I say stop, at least slow down! All this finger tapping accomplishes so little. We reach out across an emphemeral network to emphemeral acquaintances rather than knocking on a neighbor's door behind which is a real, physical human being who we might see, touch, and smell. And we think this keyboard fingering is meaningful?

***

Okay, I'll stop. I think I was channeling some better part of myself there for a moment, but now I'm back to the basic Trinifar, the blogger, the environmentalist wannabe, the sustainability advocate. Whew! Sorry about that. Damn those creative writing classes of decades ago!

And thanks a million for your honest postings here on Café Philos, Eryn. I really love reading what you and Paul have to say.

deep thoughts are notoriously hard to capture in words on paper, and are difficult to share to those who havn't already arrived at that thought, but sometimes someone who was heading towards that thought, and close enough, can understand (and you'd be the source of something profound)

It seems you never forget what you've explored (you retain and build upon the mental infrastructure that would incline you that way even if your memories are gone)

Sleepy Days when everything smells Pleasantly Dead

Lovely and too true. Your seasonal description are apt. You've inspired me to create my own.