Phil's Random Thoughts
This page is just a dumping ground of random ideas I wrote down on paper. Some of it is made up of letters I've just copied into html, som are little writing assignments I did to tease myself. Whatever.And that's another thing: why do people put "Americans" on the same playing field as "Muslims"? "America" is politics, but "Muslim" is religion. They are different things. America -- as a political entity -- contains people of many different religious backgrounds. I think it is a fallacy to call the two things similar in any way. To me, a religious war against a country doesn't make any sense. I think of a political entity against another political entity, not against a religion -- or vice-versa. This brings me to a topic: a religious war. What do you think about declaring a jihad (is that the correct usage of that word?)?
You see, bankruptcy is not an ending, it is a step towards something else. Bankruptcy is part of a process, the same as paying monthly bills is just part of a process. This is an option not everyone chooses, but it is an option a lot of people take. And isn't it better that we are filing while we are young? At this point, only Avris and I are really affected (that, and some credit card companies who make billions a year anyway). If I waited for fifteen years -- until I was really "desperate" -- I could affect a hundred families (like when the owner of the business I worked for declared bankruptcy and all those employees had unpaid insurance and no income all the sudden; it happened to everyone at CMSI, not just me). Avris and I have reviewed the options, separately and together. Then we reached the decision to go down the path of bankruptcy. Have you considered how much courage it takes to declare bankruptcy? You have to be brave enough to admit to the world "I can't do it like this. I am not making it, and I need another chance."
I know that some people use bankruptcy (and other legal loopholes) to mooch off the system. They become Welfare cases, societal leeches, and deadbeats. Some people, though, use bankruptcy as a spring-board. Wiping the financial slate clean can help to launch these people into the stratosphere. Without the worries of past bills, some people can make it all the way to the top.
I honestly believe that I am one of those chosen people. I have lofty ideas and extensive goals. I won't let bankruptcy push them away (it may delay things, but it stops nothing). I am not going to let bills keep me down. When I'm a hundred and three, I want to look back on my life and not see the creditor who hounded me through the entire century. I want to see a full life -- one that in many ways will start after I turn twenty-five.
"perhaps you should also consider a career as a writer!" I have considered it, but one does not get a career by "considering" it; one must also work at it. I've started writing a dozen short stories and a few novels. I have written several bazillion poems and had a few published (in my college literary magazine, on websites, and in a fatty poetry anthology). I have finished writing one screenplay and I had a one-act read on stage in college. I submit articles to newspapers and magazines occasionally, and I write extensive letters (before the extensive dawning of the internet, I had penpals in several world countries and a twenty-page handwritten letter was not uncommon). I have several thousand written pages of diary and journal entries. That is not enough.
To make a career out of writing, you must have more time to work on it. Doing it on the side the way that I do is fine, but it isn't a career. Writing is work for most people. Hard work. Sometimes after writing a couple pages, I'll be exhausted. It can take a lot out of me. I will never stop writing. Never. It is a slow process when ten hours out of the day is spent going to a job, working, and coming home. It is slow, but not impossible. Like many things I have mentioned, my writing had slowed down quite a bit -- there were times in high school I could bang out two long letters, a couple poems, and a short story in one week -- but it has not stopped. I still write. It takes a lot of discipline to write. I don't have a lot of discipline, so my writing is slower than the average Joe's. Someday, I'd like to have the freedom to write for eight hours out of the day, and not be completely dead to the world the rest of the time. That will take an income, though.
Say I finish the novel I'm working on in six months (not too unlikely, seeing as how furious I get at writing). Maybe someone will buy it in two years -- after rejection letters from a dozen publishers, no doubt. They may send me a $50k check as an advance for my next book. I won't be able to retire from the rat race, but I can cut back to working somewhere else part-time and spend more time writing. After a bestseller, my family would be financially set for life. All I'd have to do is pursue writing -- something I love.
Or maybe I'll be noticed in a newspaper. Maybe I'll send in a massive letter-to-the-editor and he'll want to see more of my writing. Maybe I'll get a weekly column.
Look at Stephen King. He is one of my favorite writers. He has written fiction novels, screenplays, short stories, and a memoir (which I am reading now). Thirty years ago, he was clawing his way through the working world, too, but then he started getting royalty checks. It took a while, but eventually he was a Career Writer. Now, even if he wrote trash (which, in my opinion, he rarely does), people would read it. He has a *reputation* as a good writer. That is something I would like; it is something I believe that I can achieve.
Oct 5, 2001
One of the things I always tell Sarah is to color what she wants to see. Elmo is red on TV, but maybe she wants to color him blue in her book. I think about what Billy says in Billy Madison when he colors the duck blue. "I've never seen a blue duck, and I wanted to know what a blue duck looks like, so I colored the duck blue" (or something like that). His creativity motivated him to step outside the box. That is what I think about a green sky. I also think about the color of a sky before and during tornadic storms.
Oct 5, 2001
The topic of "Talking Cows" makes me first think of the cows in Gary Trudeau's "Far Side" comics. He used the characters in his comics to point out the foibles and flaws of humanity. His comics made people laugh at their own idiocy � often without realizing that they were the butts of the jokes. This was achieved by the creation of subhuman-looking characters and by using talking animals. These characters were abstract versions of actual people and possible dunces.
There were quite a few talking bovines among Trudeau's characters. Who knows why he chose this animal. The only animal he pictured more often was the chicken. Perhaps these two species are just the funniest looking ones he could think of. Or maybe they are easy for him to draw. Maybe he thinks humans most resemble these creatures. Whatever the case, they frequently made appearances in his comics.
The next thing I think of when I hear the topic "Talking Cows" is the ad campaign you see on TV a lot now about chocolate milk. I can't recall if that ad is for the Dairy Producers of America, "got milk?", or Hershey's. I guess it really doesn't matter. It's just funny that a cow is talking at all. Why does it want to produce chocolate milk? Does it think people will like it better if it's chocolatey?