From The Jar... #38

Hi there. Remember me? I'm Clancy's little Jar she's been ignoring for the last lots of weeks. (Hey, lay off! I'm a Jar! I don't know how many weeks it's been since her last jar post! I can't do math in my brain because I don't have one.... just little slips of paper with questions on them.)

I've missed feeling useful. For these last lots of weeks, I've simply become a dust collector. (and there's a LOT of dust around Clancy's computer.) I feel so alone and neglected. She used to be excited to remove my lid and pull little questions from my innards. But now, she just pretends I'm not there while she mumbles 'seven years!!' under her breath.

Well, today, I'm taking back Wednesdays! I shouted and shouted with all my Jarness until she heard me. And then I reminded her that I'm here sitting, waiting, crying, pining away for the relationship we once had. And guess what? It worked. She pulled a question...

And the Jar says... (kinda gives new meaning to that statement, doesn't it?)


Tell about your favorite books as a child, youth or adult. Who is your favorite author?


Well, well, well... this is an interesting question for me at this time. It just so happens that one of the main reasons I fell from my lofty perch atop the blogging wagon was because of a massive series of books that I started reading a month or two ago.

As you well know, I love books. I devour books. I eat them up and lick my little fingers after I've finished reading them because they are just so darned tasty and satisfying!

My favorite books as a child had to be, GO Dog GO!, but Bears on Wheels was the first book I ever read. I don't really remember learning to read. I just remember reading that book and showing my parents and they were shocked. Maybe my memory is off, but that's how my neural filing system has it set up. Correct me if I'm wrong, Mom. (if you read this...) I also loved Danny and the Dinosaur, and that book about Harold and his purple crayon.

I remember by second or third grade I loved the chapter books. My first picks were scary books by John Bellairs, my favorite author for many of those childhood years. I also loved Nancy Drew books and anything with a mystery. I loved Where the Red Fern Grows but I think I love that even more as an adult reading it to my own children. Powerful book...

As a teenager I loved almost all of the books I was assigned to read for English classes. Rebecca was one of those, as was To Kill a Mockingbird, Dandelion Wine, The Human Comedy, and Great Expectations are among my favorites.

As an adult I read everything from every genre. I have read several fantasy series, ie., The Wheel of Time, The Sword of Truth, A Song of Ice and Fire. I've read lots of non-fiction self-helpish books. I've read Diane Mott Davidson's "culinary mysteries", Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series along with The Host. I've read a lot of Orson Scott Card... the Alvin Maker series is my favorite. Too many books to list. I read a LOT.

I have to say that my favorite book of all time is Atonement by Ian McKewan. This book holds my aspirations as a writer. To write like he does is my dream, my goal, my aim. I'm a far cry from it, but I love it. Each word is considered. It is beautiful and powerful and dives deeply into the psyches of the characters. LOVE IT!!!

Currently, the large series that has me very distracted from blogging is Outlander, by Diane Gabaldon. The first book is the best, but they are all very well written and engaging. The first book, Outlander, sucked me in emotionally in a way that I've never before encountered. It pulled everything out of me and wrung me dry! The characters were that well developed as well as the relationships. It was great. I read it twice in about a week and a half. If you decide you want to read these books, you are hereby warned: They have some steamy parts in them, so if that offends, be ready to skim them or just skip these books.

As far as my favorite author, I don't really have one. Just favorite books.

Now I'm going to get a little philosophical on you. Do you know why books can be so powerful? I just told you that Outlander tore me up emotionally... ripped me apart and then put me back together. I felt like I got hit by a train before I finished it. That is power! I thought a lot about it over the last few weeks as I've been reading and I've wondered how that can happen.

Here's another scenario. When I first read the Twilight series I was deep in the dark crevices of the January blues I've been dealing with in recent years. Those books offered me escape from those crevices. I read them quickly. (devoured. inhaled. consumed.) In less than 72 hours, I finished all three of them. They provided light in my dark place. I relished in living someone else's life for 60 hours. Then, they ended. I finished them. And, I cried. I mourned the loss of the lives I had been living in. I really and honestly felt like someone I loved had died. It was 2:00 in the afternoon when I closed Eclipse and I was depressed the rest of the day. The next morning, my depression was still there. It was then that I had a brilliant epiphany! I could just read them again, and all those characters would live once more! Over the next two weeks, I read the first book 5 times, and the other two books three times. (Breaking Dawn wasn't out yet.) Silly, you might say...pathetic is the word I used many times, but I'll tell you what.... Those books were my lifeline at the time. For whatever reason, I needed to be in those books and by reading them over and over again, I burned that need out of my system and I felt better.

So, what's my point? The point of all this to illustrate the power of a book. It's just words on a page, but why are they so powerful? In my mind, it's because those stories become a part of who we are. We subject our mind so completely to all the thoughts of the author. We experience the emotions of the characters as they go through their joys or struggles and we take them on as our own. In my own mind I lived through the struggles of the characters in Outlander, and my mind now holds the memory of all that emotion. It becomes my own experience. That is so powerful! I don't really know what to do with that, but as someone who wants to write, it seems very, very important. And I have no idea if that makes any sense whatsoever, but it's actually helped clarify my thoughts, so thanks for 'listening'.

And there you go, Jar. Now maybe you'll let me sleep peacefully at night. I'm so tired of listening to you sob through the floorboards. :-P

"I am"

In my previous post, while I was fascinated by a statement from A New Earth, I believe I posted it a little preemptively. As I read further, I realized that I took it out of context. I don't know that I can make it make sense concisely, but I will make the effort, concise or not...

The very next paragraph (after the one I posted) says-

'The word "I" embodies the greatest error and the deepest truth, depending on how it is used. In conventional usage, it is not only one of the most frequently used words in the language (together with the related words: "me", "my", "mine", and "myself") but also one of the most misleading. In normal everyday usage, "I" embodies the primordial error, a misperception of who you are, and illusory sense of identity. This is the ego.....

[I am skipping a bit here]

What you usually refer to when you say "I" is not who you are. By a monstrous act of reductionism, the infinite depth of who you are is confused with a sound produced by the vocal cords or the thought of "I" in your mind and whatever the "I" has identified with. So what do the usual "I" and the related "me", "my", or "mine" refer to?

When a young child learns that a sequence of sounds produced by the parents' vocal cords is his or her name, the child begins to equate a word, which in the mind becomes a thought, with who he or she is. At that stage some children refer to themselves in the third person. "Johnny is hungry". Soon after, they learn the magic word "I" and equate it with their name, which they have already equated with who they are. Then other thoughts come and merge with the origianl I-thought. The next step are thoughts of me and mine to designate things that are somehow part of "I". This is identification with objects, which means investing things, but ultimately thoughts that represent things, with a sense of self, thereby deriving an identity from them. When "my" toy breaks or is taken away, intense suffering arises. Not because of any intrinsic value that the toy has- the child will soon lose interest in it, and it will be replaced by other toys, other objects- but becasue of the thought of "mine". The toy became part of the child"s developing sense of self, of "I".

And so as the child grows up, the original I-thought attracts other thoughts to itself: It becomes identified with a gender, possessions, the sense-perceived body, a nationality, race, religion, profession. Other things the "I" identifies with are roles - mother, father, husband, wife, and so on - accumulated knowledge or opinions, likes and dislikes, and also things that happened to "me" in the past, the memory of which are thoughts that further define my sense of self as "me and my story". These are only some of the things people derive their sense of identity from. They are ultimately no more than thought held together precariously by the fact that they are all invested with a sense of self. This mental construct is what you normally refer to when you say "I".'

There is so much more beyond that... but in the interest of trying to be somewhat concise, I will stop there. Just FYI... beyond that he does allow that he is not saying that any of this is good or bad, it is just the ego. It is simply the structure of it and how it gets created, which I completely agree with. If this interests you in any way, get the book and read it, and then we can discuss it, each with our own interpretation and understanding of what is being said! :)

So, in my previous post "Food For Thought", the main part I was fascinated by was the part I bold-typed. Do you believe some combination of such basic sounds could ever explain who you are? I was, in no way, negating words. I love words. I love to read them and I love to write them. I am passionate about putting them together in a way that is pleasing. But I am also starting to understand that the words that flow through my head... the constant chatter I hear... the harsh voice that pummels me when I feel inadequate (which is most of the time)... is NOT who "I" am. That is just my past. That is just the combination of circumstances that has helped shape me and give me the experiences I need for growth, but who "I am" is not the collective of those experiences. I came to this earth who "I am". I was a unique individual the second I took a breath (and even before that!). I hadn't had any of those experiences that I "think" define me, yet I was still who I AM. "I am" a piece of God. I have Him in my spiritual genetic makeup and that is what I am figuring out how to access. And to do that, I have to tell that chatter to SHUT UP sometimes. I can't hear who I really am when all that chatter is going on.

So... it's all a process. I certainly haven't even come close to "figuring out" what I am trying to explain here, but there is an awareness there which is the first step and opens doors to learn more.

I don't even know if I am making sense, here. I can't tell you how it terrifies me to think of publishing this post. That is one of those fears that my "ego" screams at me about. It tells me that I am an idiot to think I have a "voice" in this world. And to that, I am learning to say, "SHUT UP!"

Gotta Get Me One!

Ok.. this is the coolest thing ever!!! Have you ever heard of the AmazonKindle? I WANT ONE!!! This is the new technology for books and it looks way cool!!

Of course, this will never substitute for a real, honest to goodness hard-bound book. I love the way a hard-bound book feels in my hand... the weight of it... the smell. I love books. I am passionate about them.

But.... :) The convenience of the Kindle could be darn cool!

Check it out.... CLICK HERE!!! (watch the video demonstration, too)