A Cup Of Courage and a Gallon of Gratitude

I’m usually up early, by three most mornings, and after I post my Facebook greetings, I usually settle down at my dining room table, laptop in front of me, a cup of coffee to my right, and I write.  I start with a little writing practice, ten minutes of free writing, sometimes I do a second round in order to wake-up my mind, and then the hard part begins, trying to write something tangible, something worthy of publishing.  It’s a noble goal but one that I don’t accomplish every day.  On a good day I manage to begin a few stories, or add to my works in progress, on a bad day, I struggle to begin even one story.

My writing time is at a premium, I work full-time, twelve-hour shifts, and I rely on my early morning or afternoon writing time to produce.  My inner critic follows my schedule and tends to intrude on my writing time, urging me to change a sentence, question my use of punctuation, and sometimes demanding that I start again from the beginning, writing is hard work when you have a critical inner editor who’s a boisterous loud mouth, but I persist.  I tackle my inner writing critic the same way I tackle any other problem or situation I face in my life, with a cup of courage and a gallon of gratitude, this recipe tends to serve me well.

Now, courage is not about scaling high mountains or skydiving out of an airplane, it’s about facing fears and problems head on and persisting despite them, it’s about reminding yourself that you will either succeed or learn a valuable lesson.  A cup of courage is all that is usually needed to silence the inner critic, or at least to muffle its voice long enough so that you can carry on.   Sure, things may not go as well as you planned, but they won’t go as bad as you thought either.

Gratitude is the fuel for your courage, the more grateful you are, the more courage you will have.  Be grateful for your life and for every success you have enjoyed.  Be grateful for your gifts and talents, and for the opportunity to face this challenge head on.  Be grateful for this perfect day, for the will to persist, for the willingness to fail, and for the valuable lessons you have learned by trying.  The more gratitude you can muster up, the easier it will be for you to face the current challenge.  Be forewarned that a gallon of gratitude will carry you beyond your current problem and have a positive impact on the rest of your life.

Fill your heart with gratitude, and courage will come.  I haven’t encountered a problem yet which a cup of courage and a gallon of gratitude hasn’t helped me resolve.  Not convinced?  Try it!

Love you all!

Luc

Tipping the Hatred Bandwagon

I made a decision a few years ago that I would eliminate negativity, anger, and hatred from my life, and it’s worked until now, but the world has changed, and anger and hatred now permeate all facets of society.  Friends who have up until now been mostly positive have shifted towards the hatred bandwagon, and I find myself caught in the crossfire.

As a writer, I am a strong proponent of freedom of speech and expression but such freedoms were never meant to be extended to those who propose violence and persecution towards any class of people.  I’ve witnessed people on both sides of the hate debate violate the intent of freedom of speech and expression, and it saddens me that violence has become an acceptable norm on both sides.

I find myself angered by the racial slurs, high level of intolerance, and violent tendencies of the far right, and I know that I must speak out in favor of unity, acceptance, and peace, but I must ensure that when I do, I do so in a way that is congruent with my beliefs.  I must resist all urges to attack those who believe differently than I do, and respond with truth and in the spirit of civility.

I’m not a pacifist, I will fight the war against oppression, but I will not raise my arm against a man’s word, only against his actions.  If I could, I would attend all counter rallies against hatred, and my shouts would echo along with others because what is under attack is our way of life, not freedom of speech or expression.

History, they say is doomed to repeat itself, and I’m afraid we are repeating it now. These are scary times we live in, war is imminent, and fascism is in again.  It’s only just begun, let’s kick its ass before it gains momentum.  And while we’re at it, why not throw in a prayer or two to whatever God, Deity, or Higher Power we believe in, the collective conscience of all has been known to be fruitful.

Hats off to all my relations, we are all relations, who stand up for the collective rights of all people.  I walk with you in your struggle.

Love you all!

Luc

Where the Ghosts Aren’t

I’m strange, I know, but all writers are, aren’t they?  I’m also both envious and desperate, and by now my predicament is sad, sad, sad.  I am staying in a haunted Hotel, the Fort Garry Hotel in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and I was hoping to be able to write about ghostly apparitions and strange occurrences, but the haunting gods have been less than kind to me.  My experiences so far have been peaceful and relaxing while others at the Conference report ghostly happenings.  What’s the matter with these ghosts, why are they discriminating against me?

One of my travelling companions, and several others I might add, have felt a presence climb into bed with them, another saw a white gown hovering around her room, and a friend says his computer turned on in the middle of the night, and they aren’t even staying on the supposedly haunted floor, I am.  There have been recent reports of ghosts in the bathroom, strange knocking in a few rooms, and even a sighting of the ghost who roams the halls, for me, nothing.

I have two nights left in this hotel, and it looks like I’m cursed to spend the next few nights sleeping comfortably in what is probably the only non-haunted room in this hotel, and as a writer in search of adventures to write about, this is totally unacceptable.  I guess I will have to steal other people’s experiences if I want to write about ghosts. 

Seriously, though, the hotel itself is worth the experience, with or without ghosts.  It is old, built in 1913, has a classy feel about it, and I am enjoying my stay here.  I may be disappointed with the ghost situation, but I’ll get over it, and who knows, I may be back again someday to try my luck again.

Love you all!

Luc

Go Ahead and Haunt Me

My life has been a series of adventures with some misadventures thrown in for balance. I’ve been kidnapped, held hostage, chased by a woman with a knife, and accosted by a pervert on the bus.  I’ve lived through death, a car accident, a flood, I have a knack for attracting strangely curious people, and if there’s an adventure around waiting to happen, you can bet that I will attract it.  Most of these incidents end peacefully, and all of them are fodder for future blog posts, or stories, or both.

I usually don’t get advance notice to prepare for these adventures, that’s why my upcoming adventure is so exciting, I can look forward to it.  Tomorrow I start my journey towards Winnipeg, Manitoba, and believe it or not, I am spending a week in a haunted hotel, how thrilling is that.

One block away from its Union Station, the Fort Garry Hotel was built in 1913 by the Grand Funk Pacific Railway and has stately charm but that’s not all it’s got, you guessed it, it has ghosts.  A tragic story indeed, and the ghost of the wife is said to not only haunt room 202 but also to roam the halls in a hooded gown.  There are also accounts of staff seeing blood drip down the walls when entering the notorious room, and of a male apparition at the foot of the bed, and in the dining room.

As the story goes, a young couple checked in to the Fort Garry but never checked out, the husband died in a car accident, or coach accident, depending on which version you read, and the wife, being completely devastated by the death of her husband, hung herself in the closet of room 202.

Folklore? Maybe, but I’m looking forward to finding out for myself, and you can bet there will be a blog post if I encounter either of the ghosts that supposedly haunt the majestic hotel.  I would even welcome a stay in room 202, given the chance, yes, I’m strange like that.  Winnipeg, here I come!

Love you all!

Luc

An Introvert’s Introspection

I was a shy and lonely child, a loner by every definition, who preferred to spend countless hours in my room either reading, writing, or fantasizing, to being outside playing with friends.  I didn’t have a lot of friends really, a handful at most, and they were mainly my go-to people when I was forced to spend time outside because I never felt that I fit in with people.  I was a dreamer, plain and simple, and if I could have found an isolated cabin somewhere, that would have suited me fine.

It was a sad existence but I had nobody else to blame but myself.  Sure, there were problems in my family, which family hasn’t got them, and there were the neighbourhood bullies who liked to pick on me because I was different, or maybe because I thought I was, but I had zero social skills back then and I’m the one who chose to isolate, wasn’t I?  I was more comfortable living in my mind than living in the real world, and somehow, I didn’t feel deprived.  In my mind, I was happy.

During my second go at high school, I had quit for three years and started back in the tenth grade, things changed.  Somehow during my three-year sabbatical from high school, I matured and overcame my debilitating shyness, and for the first time, I made some real friends, friends that I enjoyed spending time with.  I moved slightly on the introvert scale towards the extrovert side, and then I alcohol entered the scene and my extrovert side took over, not always in a good way I assure you.

Alcohol became my new best friend and took me to places I would have never dared to go, one drawback though, it also turned me into an asshole.  My romance with alcohol lasted about eleven years and while it had been fun in the beginning, near the end of my drinking my introverted side resurfaced and I became a closet drinker, drinking myself to oblivion in the privacy of my own home.

I quit drinking on August 8, 1991, and for a while, recovery carried me back to society and taught me how to live without drinking, and I had a social life again, I was having fun.  Once an introvert though, always an introvert, and I find myself isolating again, not as bad as in my youth, but isolating just the same. 

Reading, writing, and learning has become my thing again, when I’m not working or sleeping, I’m actively engaged in one of those activities, and I’m comfortable with it.  I have a few good friends that I connect with regularly, and I’m active in my Union, and they provide a welcome distraction but the fact of the matter is that I’m an introvert, that’s who I am, and that’s okay.

I can say in all honesty that my life is good today, I have a good connection with my Higher Power, and I am doing the things that I love to do, what else could a guy ask for.  Who says that being an introvert is a bad thing, it has its drawbacks of course, but it has also provided me with a rich life, no, not financially, and has fulfilled many of my dreams.  I am absolutely grateful for who I am and what I am!

Love you all!

Luc   

A Learning We Will Go

As passionate as I am about writing, I am also quite passionate about learning, any learning at all, and I am always actively involved in some kind of course or another, most of them free thanks to Creative Commons and Open Learn.  You’d be surprised at what you can learn on the world wide web, and I lap as much of it up as I can.  Of course, I also spend considerable time studying books about writing but the mind needs a break from writing every now and then, and it’s time to follow a different course of study.

I recently received a Diploma in Mental Health Studies from https://alison.com/ , my favorite learning place for free courses, ranging from computer studies to languages, to health, and so many more topics.  Be forewarned however that while the courses are free, the parchments aren’t, but the courses are great quality, and purchasing the parchments, if you are so inclined, helps to keep this great resource free, and it is not necessary to purchase the parchment to study there. Parchment purchase is in Euros but can be converted to your currency.

Another fantastic resource, or resources really as there are two different ways to learn through them, neither are free but I find them reasonably priced, are http://www.thegreatcourses.com/ and https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/ both by The Teaching Company.  The Great Courses offers individual courses in Science, History, Literature, Hobbies, and even cooking.  Each Course is a series of lectures by top notch professors from top notch Universities and organizations.  The courses go on sale frequently and that is the best time to buy the courses which are available in both audio and video formats in both standard and digital versions.  Each course comes with a comprehensive User’s Guide which comes complete with questions and assignments.  If you are an avid learner, like me, a better deal is The Great Courses Plus which is a subscription service that grants you unlimited access to a great selection of their courses.

Another great choice for free learning is the free learning branch of the Open University http://www.open.edu/openlearn/free-courses# where you can find learning materials on such subjects as Psychology, Sociology, UK History, etc., all worth checking out.  There are no teachers, no grades, just an opportunity for self-study.

https://www.oercommons.org/ is another great place to find self-study materials.

Finally, if you are looking for more detailed self-study which comes with a reading list and lecture notes, you will find that most Universities and some Colleges have an Open Learning department but these may be a little trickier to navigate and some courses have extensive reading lists which can set you back a few dollars.  Try the following: https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm , https://www.extension.harvard.edu/open-learning-initiative , http://oyc.yale.edu/ , and https://www.edx.org/school/oxfordx .  You can find more free open courseware courses by browsing at http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses .

The learning possibilities are endless, chances are that by using these resources, you will find a course that is well suited to you.  Happy Learning everyone!

Love you all!

Luc

Suicide - Be a Fork in the Path

It’s tragic, really, all these suicides we are hearing about these days, what’s even more tragic is people’s response to them.  I’m deeply saddened when I hear people referring to victims of suicide as cowards because suicide is far from a cowardly act, it takes a lot of courage to reach a point where you actually take your own life.  They are victims just as certainly as if someone had taken their life from them, because they slipped through the cracks of society, of a broken mental health system that is hard to access, and of their own mental health issues.

Unless you’ve personally walked the path of major depression, you just can’t understand that suicide is not about the break-up, about the financial collapse, about the loneliness, or about the fear of facing something, it’s about walking an endless path of despair, looking desperately for that fork in the road that may lead to some comfort but the fork never appears.  Suicide is never about one let-down, it’s about a series of them, it’s about intense pain brought on by the act of living, and about believing, delusional or not, that nobody cares.  I know, I walked that path and I reached that point, but fortunately for me, it didn’t end in suicide.

I am absolutely grateful, and always will be, that a benevolent soul recognized my suffering and put a fork in my path which led me out of despair and into the arms of people who cared.  I still suffer from depression today, but I was given tools to help me cope with the bumps in the road, and for the most part, I have a pretty good life today.

Suicide is preventable but only if we put aside the stigma of mental health and reach out to people instead of pushing them away, don’t tell people to get over it, help them get over it, and be an active part of their mental health treatment.  Be that elusive fork in the path for someone!

Love you all!

Luc