That’s Right, Still Here

Heeeelllo everyone,

It’s such a beautiful morning, and I just recently finished reading one of the books on my list, Zoli. So I thought I’d share an excerpt that I liked enough to underline and write a reminder to share.

“Stránsky once wrote that only when a man dies can his life acquire a beginning, middle, and an end: up until then we are constantly unfinished, even the midpoint cannot be located. So only the final word finds the middle word and this, in a way, becomes a verse—one’s death explains oneself.”
-Colum McCann

Again, I hope you all are doing and continue to do well,

Stephen R.

I’m Back Baby

My life as it is currently… cluttered and beautiful.

Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.

Yeah, it’s been awhile. But I don’t have much time for tear filled reunions and heartfelt, compassionate storytelling of the twists and turns my life has taken in the past months. (Also I don’t want to put you to sleep.)

But the important thing to remember is, this blog has been on my mind for pretty much the entirety of my time away. The problem for me has been I’ve felt limited with the current template/format for the blog as it is. I’ve had so many different things come up that I would love to write about: short fiction pieces, random story time, essays for the sake of essays, longer serial story ideas, the list goes on.

So what is a guy to do?

Well, change the dang format I say. So that’s exactly what I’m doing. You’ll notice a few changes already. First, I’m including a separate page to list all my current/future/past reading if you are interested in knowing that information. It will include what I’m currently reading (always more than one book), a list of books I’ve already read (starting recently… I don’t have the time to dredge up every single book I’ve read in life), and lastly a section for future reading. Check out the page and feel free to make suggestions for future additions to read as well. I’m always on the lookout for more.

Most other changes at the moment will be minor switches. I want to feel the freedom to write what I want and that’s what these changes will bring about.

Anyways, expect more things to come soon. I won’t lie, I’ve missed all of your youth filled, expectant, shining, lugubrious faces. And maybe that’s an exaggeration, my imagination, or an intensification on my part. And maybe you just had to look up the word lugubrious to realize I may have used that improperly for you. But I’m back and ready.

Lets get some stuff done people,

Stephen R.

Summer Reading (Book 1) – The Nicomachean Ethics

Have you ever had those one, two, three, or hell, every book assigned for a class that in all honesty you never really sat down and read?  (Thanks Sparknotes)  This usually happened to me towards the end of a semester, when the course load was really just too much to warrant reading through another ethics or philosophy book in what little spare time I had.

What does that have to do with this particular post?  Well as you may have guessed from the title, I’m starting a new self-challenge of sorts.  Namely, I’m going to be reading a fair amount, and I want to share what I’ve read sporadically in the coming months.  My first book is one I took off the shelf recently to show my little sister how difficult the readings can be in college.  Surprise, surprise however, I found that I not only understood the random passage I turned to in Aristotle‘s The Nicomachean Ethics, but I also found it both compelling and interesting.  I decided then and there that I needed to actually sit down and read through the damn book I couldn’t have been bothered with during the class it was assigned in.

That said, I have been sporadically reading through the introduction for the book (A somewhat long but I believe necessary summary of the book as a whole), which is made a little more difficult since I’m also reading two other books at the moment.  I may post sporadic updates or interesting tidbits I find when reading through the text in the coming weeks.  For now, I just wanted to share the concept of living in the mean, as I understand it thus far.

Aristotle argues that the goal for humanity is to live a good life.  To achieve this good, man has to find happiness, which can be attained through either “sensual enjoyment, political achievement, or intellectual contemplation.”  I’m not here to start writing some formulaic essay, but I do want to say that for me the intellectual contemplation is the most easily relatable for writing.  Aristotle stresses famously the ideal of living in the mean of life in each of the areas of potential happiness, which can differ greatly from person to person.  For myself, both reading and writing are two areas of life that I sometimes struggle to hold in balance.  Maybe you can relate to some extent.

Now, I don’t want to discuss this concept at length without first reading more of the text.  I just wanted to share what I’ve learned so far.  I know that this will be very applicable to my writing practices by the time I’ve finished, at least I hope this winds up being worthwhile.  We’ll find out.

Hope you all are happy and healthy,

Stephen R.

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Dorianne Laux – “Moon in the Window”

Hello everyone,

I’m feeling a little nostalgic as I’m writing up this post.  The poet Dorianne Laux is someone I’ve read for the past couple years and always enjoy.  I currently own two collections of hers: Facts About the Moon and The Book of Men.  This week’s poem comes out of the former.  As the title suggests, the moon is a subject that pervades a majority of the poems.  This poem in particular though really harkens back to when I was younger.

I hope you enjoy this poem as much as I do, and perhaps some of you can relate to it as well.

Stephen R.

Moon in the Window

I wish I could say I was the kind of child
who watched the moon from her window,
would turn toward it and wonder.
I never wondered.  I read.  Dark signs
that crawled towards the edge of the page.
It took me years to grow a heart
from paper and glue.  All I had
was a flashlight, bright as the moon,
a white hole blazing beneath the sheets.

– Dorianne Laux

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