Tag Archives: Learning

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Of Mines and Experiments

English: Image of American philosopher/poet Ra...

Image of Ralph Waldo Emerson. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

It’s a phrase writers should certainly live and die by. Stagnation is, after all, the death of art, complacency the the great oppressor of the self. Without change, without experiment, there is no learning, and if we aren’t spending this life learning–what exactly are we doing?

Of course, to actually survive in this atrocious economy (can’t scribble if you’re dead, right?), that concept of experimentation is just as important for the job market. That said, I’ll be undertaking my own little experiment starting this week. Training, training, training…and underground, too. I recently took on a mining job up in Colorado’s lovely stretch of the Rockies, and while it’s certainly an abrupt shift from both my passion and my usual, I certainly hope there will be a lot to take away from it after a hard day. More insight into the underground for my scribbling, for one thing; a whole bigger dose of patience and endurance for another.

Will it be hard? Yes. Will I have less time for my real passions? Yes. Will blog posts likely take a hit over time? Almost certainly.

But I will have powerful new experiences to draw from, steady work, and undoubtedly, a whole bunch of good stories to tell.

I’m ready. Are you? Start churning the wheels in that head of yours. Think of some new matter you could turn to this month, anything, and make it so…you never know what might come of it.

Lead mining, upper Mississippi River

Mining… (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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The Great Matter: Rejection

“There is no failure except in no longer trying.” 
~Elbert Hubbard

Elbert Hubbard

Elbert Hubbard (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Rejection, they say, is the path to any success. Somewhere in the trial, a trail is dug so deep, honed to such a true and sharpened progression, that no great winter or man could tear it back again.

Yet there is an issue with the process.

Writing, it is known, is the field built upon this trail–that is to say, that rejection is a natural piece of its process. All will face rejection in one form or another before they find their “in-road,” be it to great or little success. in its way, it makes sense. Rejection teaches us endurance. It teaches us to weather the bad weather until truth will find us out.

The problem: how do we know?

Much as children are told: oh, you can be anything you want to be when you grow up, there is a certain lie hidden in the equation. As most can attest, not everyone can write–just as not everyone can do quantum physics or fly a plane. You wouldn’t want them to. God help you if you do. If our entire industry is based on rejection and the light at the end of the tunnel, however, then what if that light never seems to come? When do we know it is just another rejection on that trail to something more, or simply rejection of inferior work?

In our system, rejection is supposed to strengthen us. Harden our determination. But what if it shouldn’t be hardened? Are we bad writers or merely struggling writers–the question we all must ask.

A pickle, if ever there was one. Try, try again whisper the mouths of the successful. Edit and review, your English teacher lectures. Do as we do, boast the self-help brigades. Do anything else, announced the rest of the world with a shrug.

But passion won’t allow such desertion, and frustration is the end result. All men, after all, have their breaking point.

The simplest answer, I know, remains: never give up. But I know as well there is more to the wisdom, a greater and more profound explanation this young mind–known often to failure but little, as yet, to success–has not the words to lend it. So, blogosphere, if you’re out there and you’re reading, I turn this post to you in the form of a question: what is your advice to the writers of the world? Because I’m not so silly as to think I have the answers.

“In a world flagrant with the failures of civilization, what is there particularly immortal about our own?” 
~G.K. Chesterton

Related articles
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Learning

Shadowed longing stretch

beyond the holes that tripped us.

Destiny, always said to glitter,

blinds the ones that know,

stumbles the ones that reach,

damns the ones who care–

in Autumn colors ride our fall,

blue skies sapped in the browning rush

to victory.

Would that someone said before the journey,

her plains are not a prize

but a path best

learned

before the setting of our day.

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For the World’s Mothers

My own mother and I, featured here at my graduation.

Raise me up

From breathless sound,

The song you sing—life’s song—

The motions and the rhyme

Ring in lessons, tender

Borne on emerald winds

The flowering will always be remembered,

The bloom you brought

With hands held and patient eyes,

Even in depths of mathematical madness

Where children were not meant to play,

Even balancing worlds upon slim shoulders,

Step softly so little eyes won’t see and—

Ever, always watching you

Stir what might otherwise dwell

Hidden in the reeds.

* A special dedication for mother’s day – I know some other corners of the world have already had theirs, but the sentiments remain. For all those amazing women out there that put up with so much (I know we can be a handful)…here’s to you.

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Never seen Mountains

Keeping to a “short but sweet” theme that seems to be overarching my poetry this week, I give you a Haiku. Enjoy:

Never seen Mountains;

the inner is higher than

without: nothing known.

 

Posted in conjunction with the Thursday Poets Rally.

And by the by, as a part of that, I nominate Kavita! Read any of her stuff. You’ll quickly figure out why.

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Contained

The walls arise,

stacked atop a pile of numbers–

lettered maze

enfold the secrets of the world

between thy shifting corridors

of papered thoughts

and novel dreams.

Fight your life to be entombed

in shadowed corner fair

locked beneath the earth–

a cool, a dusted prisoner

handled only vacantly

by young eyes consumed

by deadlines foul.

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The Wisdom of Life

On every thorn, delightful wisdom grows,
In every rill a sweet instruction flows.
~Edward Young

Not to know at large of things remote
From use, obscure and subtle, but to know
That which before us lies in daily life,
Is the prime wisdom.
~John Milton

The fact is, that to do anything in the world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can.
~Robert Cushing

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The Labyrinth

Commit unto me

the ability to See;

there is so much I wish to Learn,

no longer shall I simply yearn.

Commit unto me

the secrets of the endless ages

bound by the winding passages

of your shadowed mystery.

Let all be bared to me

as I commit unto your halls—

winding, coiling in a countless web

of one path, bound to a single center.

Take my eyes

and let the darkness grace,

eyes blind but arms outstretched,

with mind open to embrace.

Cast aside the clinging tatters

for immaterial metamorphosis

from the chains of that society

that barred me from your gates.

Lo! No more bound

I float into your grace

and rapture myself

upon your delicate caress.

Shut out the light,

stretch out existence;

the senseless path becomes

alighted by reality, purified.

In you the sky is my solace,

dancing and diving through clouds,

limitless in my exploration,

but grounded—finally connected.

Others jeer amidst

the fickle insecurity

bred into imprisoned forms—

bound body, mind, and soul.

No fear, march unhindered—

their rage is not for you;

still wrapped in grim conformity,

blinded minds bar ascension.

Noise topples as I touch the center

and everything falls away;

complete, I breathe at last—

Your corridors have set me free.

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Betray not my Way

Never may

I sing of Day

When I have gone astray.

The Night

Gives many such a fright

Yet it is no haunting blight.

Such a sight!—

I hope to write

Of such delight,

Excite in disarray

Neither madness nor decay—

Betray not my Way.