Rule #1

Don't write to please by writing something so above the ordinary and grandiose, yet at the same time writing something that's not even believable to yourself.

It's a Wonderful Life (the scene at Martini's bar) 1946

"Dear Father in Heaven, I'm not a praying man, but, if you're up there and you can hear me, show me the way. I'm at the end of my rope..I... Show me the way, God."

Same movie (the scene with George Bailey on the bridge, toward the end of the film)

"Please, I want to live again! I want to live again! I want to live again! Please, God...let me live again"

How many people have been there?
Have been at the end of their rope?
Have cried out like this?
Were convinced that their life was over?
How many people felt like George Bailey?

I ask, because I've been there.

No, life is not exactly like this movie, with neat and tidy, cheerfully, heartwarming endings. Nevertheless, there were some profound themes there. Our lives do matter. We are here for a purpose other than the daily grind. A fruitful life is God's desire for all of us, and we are to come to Him in the good as well as our desperate times.

In a world that often seems so cruel and dark, we can be a light to others. We don't have to be someone special, someone that makes the news.

I don't have any books published in the bookstore, or any upon a library shelf, but I humbly write (when inspired), and I use my God-given talents. We not only can be blessed by others, but we can also be a blessing to someone else.

Nobody's life is a bad mistake.

"Be yourself"

But who am I?

I might be just an act, formed early out of survival  

Maybe, I grabbed bits of this, and bits of that

Whatever role kept the wolves at bay

Throw in a pinch of people pleaser to the recipe

Pepper it up with a rebel with any cause


Did I borrow this persona?

What did I inherit?

Am I more like my mother than I'd like to admit?

Maybe I am performing

Indeed, the world is a stage

Am I curtsying to the audience?

All the world is so Hollywood now

We seem to be scenes in one movie after another

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!

...Dead silence...


Uh-oh, caught

Hands up?

Okay, I surrender!

"Please, God, show me who I am"

Its beauty inspires art
Well honored in song
In poetry and writing
For its marvelous self
The rose

You want to pluck it
The perfume scent
Lifted under your nose
Placed in your vase
Admiration

But those thorny stems
Like a mamma bear's claws
Prepare for a fight!
Protecting the weak
The bloom

Yes, a contradiction
Lovely and fragile
But every seeker knows
That fierce jab!
The battle

Just as the penalty
For that sweet honey
From a hive to an intruder
Is the sting of the bee
Revenge

No flower is as renowned
The gem of them all
Perhaps, they're designed
To trick us all along, being
Irresistible

Dignified
And beautiful
Ladylike
Yet capable of
Drawing blood

Oh, that paradoxical Rose!

The time that I decide to write to get all the "likes" and "hearts" that I can get is the day I need to not write something public at all.  I shall remind myself that I'm not writing to be trendy. I need to get it out of my head that I'm not in it for the popularity. It wouldn't be genuine to me, anyhow. I wouldn't be proud of it. The ego doesn't need to be fed, for it's never satisfied with just enough. It wants it all.

That's my concern with wanting to be trendy.