The things I left behind

We live lives that are forward... always getting new things... new friends... new experiences. In all of this push, we leave many things behind. I want you to think about something that was significant to you when you were younger and write about what it meant to you and its abscence in your life now.

Hey, What's up? Yeah... um nothin...

Please write down five things that have happened in your life.

Please partner up with someone, randomly if you're brave, and pick one of the things on their list. You will have two minutes to interview them about the thing you chose. Now, for the next ten minutes, try your hardest to recreate what happened in story form. Include tons of detail and even dialogue if you want. Read it to your partner afterward and see how close you got it! :)

Round Robin

Everyone today will start their writing with this sentence:

"I walked out of my door this morning, and through the glare of the sunlight, I saw it, and it was moving."

Then after three minutes has passed, you will exchange your books with the person on your right. They will read only the part that was written right before them and continue the story. Every once and a while, I will choose one of the following subjects below for you to include in your entry.

subject 1  subject 2  subject 3  subject 4  subject 5  subject 6  subject 7  subject 8

missing

Please list out the five most important things in your life. Be general, like friends, family, etc.
No start a small fictional piece about someone who is missing one of those things.

Please write a dialogue between the two characters in this picture. Use correct dialogue form and be creative!

Here is a quote from seetheperfection.com, someone's blog. Actually, here is the full link for anyone reading this out in interville.

7. All people operate from the same two motivations: to fulfil their desires and to escape their suffering.

 

Learning this allowed me to finally make sense of how people can hurt each other so badly. The best explanation I had before this was that some people are just bad. What a cop-out. No matter what kind of behaviour other people exhibit, they are acting in the most effective way they are capable of (at that moment) to fulfill a desire or to relieve their suffering. These are motives we can all understand; we only vary in method, and the methods each of us has at our disposal depend on our upbringing and our experiences in life, as well as our state of consciousness. Some methods are skilful and helpful to others, others are unskilful and destructive, and almost all destructive behaviour is unconscious. So there is no good and evil, only smart and dumb (or wise and foolish.) Understanding this completely shook my long-held notions of morality and justice.

 

If this is true, what implications does it have for you in school? What are your real goals for being here?

Today's writing prompt is easy... but it is important as well. Today, consider this journal to be a diary. Write what is on your mind.