Just to add a few more to the list:

Wiin: Ojibwe. He/she him/her.

Wiya: Cree. Broad 3rd person term that can refer to people of either gender, animals, or objects. I thought this was an interesting one because it is so different from the way we catergorize things.

Two-Spirit: Is the general aboriginal term for a person with both a masculine and feminine spirit. Called “winkt” in Lakota.

Pain can wake you up.

Pain can shut you down.

It can fill you with manic energy.

Or leave you so exhausted you can’t think.

It can be fast and jarring.

Or slow and agonizing.

Fueled with numbing adrenaline.

Or nerves firing with the slightest move.

It can make you feel strong.

It can make you feel weak.

It is a double-edged blade.

Navigate the world? I still haven’t figured that out. Most influential? I can’t just choose one. There are just too many. Its dizzying. So many perspectives that give me a kind of funhouse rush of confusion. I don’t know which way’s up or down, or which direction to go, next. Like I am forever standing at a crossroads of ideas and perspectives. But, that’s part of the fun.

The Diary of Anne Frank: I read when I was close to Ann’s age and couldn’t imagine living through something like that. It made me sympathetic and sometimes angry in a way no picture or museum has done. Accounts of bravery and sacrifice, evil and betrayal to rival any fiction book.

The Classic Slave Narratives: Left the same kind of impression. I cringed and recoiled more than once when reading these vivid, personal stories. It is one thing to understand cognitively how terrible it was, another to almost feel it (even if on just a superficial level, as reading does not even come close to the actual experience).

Mama Lola: Took a mysterious and unknown Religion, and made it feel familiar. Showed me another way to try to understand and navigate the world. A way to cope with suffering and find strength in faith and each other.

Firebringer, The Sight, and Fell: A series that all takes place in the same forest. ‘Firebringer’, is told from the perspective of a deer, and his kind hates the wolves that hunt them. The Sight and Fell, make a shift to wolf perspective. Suddenly, I sympathized with predator instead of prey. Neither is right or wrong, really. They are just…trying to survive.

Enders Game: Where a child genius goes to space to become a solder, in a battle against an alien aggressor that is fought video-game style. Nothing is as it seems in this novel, including the perceived aggression of the enemy. I suppose life can be like that, too. One revelation, one tiny change or bit of new information, can change everything.

Hominids Series: A parallel universe is discovered where Neanderthals became the dominant species on the planet, instead of Homo Sapiens. I loved the subtle but important differences between the two species of intelligent primates. Like the fact that Neanderthals do not cry, but still display the same depth of sadness in their eyes.

All of these books have expanded my mind and reminded me to always try to see the world from every possible angle and viewpoint. For me, there can't be only one. Each book adds to a mosiac that creates a bigger picture, and my mosiac is nowhere near complete.

Sometimes, new and exciting is the best thing ever.

My new puppy: He makes everything feel lighter, and is so cute and enthusiastic about waking me up in the morning, I can’t even get annoyed about it.

3D building: Promises to be a better, cheaper, faster way to build houses. I hope this technology makes the housing market more accessible to millennials and gen z.

Sometimes, the old ways are the best.

Grass fed cattle allowed to roam in fields all day.

The traditional way of making olive oil.

Farmers markets and farm to table.

Or, a mixture can be amazing.

Old songs remixed by new bands.

A modern house that’s reminiscent of a log cabin.

These are some things I have appreciated, lately. ^_^

I can’t think of one single memory that was the most joyful in my life. Not because I haven’t experienced joy, but because I can’t compare them and say one was better than the rest.

I think, in times of true joy, one is too enraptured in the moment to think and compare one instance of joy to the last.

Standing at the top of a mountain after a 12-hour climb; clouds, valleys, lakes and mountain-peaks spread out in dizzying vastness all around.

Hit a stride while running, and suddenly I feel weightless, legs propelling me forward so fast it feels almost like flying. Somehow, the burn in my chest makes it even better.

A harmonious zone when working on a restaurant line; body moving with dexterity and precision that the mind can barely keep up with, every team-member in tune to the other, working in a flow that is almost a dance.

When I get so lost in writing a story, that my hands can’t keep up with the thoughts flowing out of my mind, the words I am writing, always a few seconds behind my imagination.

Maybe it’s because I overthink things all the time, but for me, joy is being completely engaged in something, so much that I stop thinking and contemplating what I am doing, no longer wondering where my life is going or comparing this time to another.

Joyfully lost in the moment.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, lately:

If the main thing that separates a sociopath from a normal person, is lack of empathy, what does that say about how feelings and emotions guide us as a society?

Some hard-nosed cynics will say feelings don’t matter. Only facts. But then why does that one single feeling of empathy, make such a difference?

Virtyrant

Also can be called, Virtyrannical

A virtue tyrant, also known as a moral tyrant, uses virtue signalling as a weapon to discredit and demonize another person. They will accuse someone of the most horrendous of characteristics, while implying that they themselves are good and right. Ironically, the reality is often the opposite.

I’ve seen the argument so many times. Writers block doesn’t exist. Do construction workers get builders block? Do professors get teachers block?

No, claim the naysayers. They don’t.

But, I’m not so sure. Maybe they just call it something different. If a construction worker injures themselves, they can’t work, because their job relies so much on physicality. We call that workplace injury, but it’s the same idea. The body’s broken, so they can’t do their job.

The mind can break, too.

There are ways of overcoming this. But like a physical injury, sometimes you just need time to heal. The trick is, figuring out when to rest, and when to push through.

So, an idea for the times you want to push through:

Find something, (like builder’s block), that people claim doesn’t exist. Find something that people say is impossible. Then think, well, what if it did exist? What if it was possible? Turn conventional wisdom on its head, and that might jumpstart creativity. Just one possible technique you might want to try, to get past writers block. ^_^