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I HAVE NOTHING TO WRITE ABOUT?

I had a professor, in my creative writing class, who told me that, there is no such thing as “writers block”. I don’t know how much of that is true, but I do see what he meant. He kept explaining how we all have something to write about, like writing about the day, about ourselves, write about how we feel because we don’t have anything to write about. I personally like to go outside, take a bus and describe in writing everything I am seeing. Sometimes, when I look at my Facebook, I see so many things, that anyone can immediately find something to write about, but also lots of things which can piss you off. I never had writers block in my life, and I never used it as an excuse not to want to write. The reason I never had writers block was because I am not a writer, well, at least I don’t think of myself as one, writing is an art that does not come easy to me, but I never give up trying, but I can admit, I am lazy at times though. I do find myself getting lost. I get lost in words and I get caught up in my emotions. I wonder how many people out there, had felt something so strong, after watching it on TV, in the internet, on the radio or on social media, to then be pondering about it, all day on your mind. Social media has giving us an opportunity to write a response as soon as we feel it. That’s writing at its best, when you see a pissed off comment about someone disagreeing with someone else’s opinion on the matter, hilarious!

What is this all about anyways, why is writing so important? It is though, through writing we have learn so much about different eras, civilizations and great people, who used to walk this earth because of the power that writing has left behind. Manuscripts and scrolls, journals and diaries, masterfully written work about things we never saw and people who we never met. If writing is such an important part of our lives and our legacy, why is it so disregarded?

Cursive writing has been taught in schools for many years, my grandmother learned it, my mother learned it and many schools still teaches to its young student’s the art of Cursive writing.  My generation was probably the last generation to learn Cursive writing. It’s said that the majority of schools in the US are not teaching students this format of writing, they teaching them typing. Why is cursive writing important? It is imperative to our cognitive response. I’m not making these things up, look it up.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/04/30/should-schools-require-children-to-learn-cursive/the-benefits-of-cursive-go-beyond-writing

In a vast technological society/world, we are more likely to leave no trace behind of who we were, and no trace of what we went through or our legacies, because soon the idea of writing or real penmanship will disappear. No more will someone pick up a note book and write on a sheet of paper.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/04/30/should-schools-require-children-to-learn-cursive/cursive-handwriting-is-a-cultural-tradition-worth-preserving

We are constantly being smothered with tons of information, and therefore we are not really focusing on our response to things. We are not thinking because, a simple thing as writing, listening and reading, requires focus. Media does not focus because its images repeats at 24/30 frames per seconds, for hours, that is as much as we can handle without completely overloading our brain and shutting down. It is hard to focus when there is so much around us we forget about the human anatomy, the person, and our selves. Writing is thinking, reasoning and most importantly it is discipline. If our cognitive response slows down, we are more likely incapable of writing or having anything to write about at all.

Many are debating that Cursive writing should not be used in schools and should die out, but I want to quote someone that made a strong point:

“We are not all going to be artists, but most people agree that art is a legitimate subject for grade schoolers. Cursive is another way for a person to express himself… You have to teach cursive for at least one year. A good hand can come naturally to some people and can be a source of pride for them. Refusing to give them the chance is just not right.”

I’m on the side that believes Cursive writing should continue to be taught in schools, we are losing our art and music classes in most schools, it will be a misfortune to remove completely the discipline and the skill that can benefit a child in the future. Why not teach our children to be free? Let’s teach the new generation to express themselves, to think for themselves. Why not teach our children the benefit of a good penmanship and the art of thinking without constraints. Please continue to write, because it’s a beautiful and substantial skill to have. Not just in typing but in handwriting, we can all learn to master a coherent sentence and believe that there is always something to write about, in which will always be worth preserving for generations to come.

A MONSTERPIECE THANKSGIVING

The Holidays are approaching and I am happy to say that I am looking forward to 2014, but only because I have a master plan or should I say, MONSTER plan.

Monsterpiece is here and I want to talk a little about the celebration of Thanksgiving. When I was a kid, I was told that the Pilgrims came on the Mayflower and created this entire feast and celebration, they sat together with the Native Americans, sitting side by side, and giving thanks for the hospitality that the Native Americans offer to these strangers who came to this strange land, that we call today America. Pilgrims and Native Americans thanked God for new friends and opportunity. Let’s be VERY honest, what is Thanksgiving?  Well, later on in my life, I was then taught by the history books, that it is a celebration of the intention to slaughter an entire race and of a nearly abolished culture. I am thankful to know that I can voice this opinion. My question too many is, can you agree with the reality?

I am not against Thanksgiving, but throughout the years, Thanksgiving has become a sort of propaganda in consumerism, and with that being said, it stimulates other thoughts in our mind. We think about family and we think about what we are thankful for, we think about how we can come together as a family and we prepare ourselves for Christmas and the New Year. It is the coming together and the joy of seeing family we have not spoken to or family we have dislike, and far, far, far in our minds we even thought of slaughtering at some point too. Still, it’s the arrival of aunts, uncles and cousins, brothers, sisters, and grandparents that we have not seen since the whole year or in months. Thanksgiving is the food, the laughs and the appreciation of all those things we have that we don’t take for granted very much, family.

 

In my family, we celebrate Thanksgiving by dancing, partying, we celebrate it with lots of food and noise. I am Dominican and Thanksgiving is something that’s not part of my culture, but it is part of where I have been raised and where I was brought up in. Although Thanksgiving is something extremely different from what the history books lay it out to be, it is still something we cherish as Americans and citizens of this country. When we put a side all the past and the history of the holiday, there is something special about this day. But the truth is the truth of this holiday, and how it came about, how we have revolutionized it and how it has evolved throughout the years to mean something so much more, leading up to the end of the year and to another chapter in our lives. Let’s agree that ALL things have a past, a history. The truth is that although we know what Thanksgiving is all about, we still celebrate it because we love our families and we love coming together to celebrate and catch up and laugh, eat and sometimes dance, and that after the holiday is over, we will go back to wanting to kill each other. You see, just like the Pilgrims and the Native Americans, let’s pretend as though we are this one big happy family, for once, until the end of the year.  HAPPY THANKSGIVING everybody!!!

MY FAVORITE THANKSGIVING COMMERCIAL BY AT&T! ENJOY!

"WHAT'S MY AGE AGAIN?"

Hello everyone! Monsterpiece back again, this time I am talking about age, old vs. youth. I am turning 26 in December and the older I get the more I come to realize that, I want to be older because my 20s are tough and I am not feeling like I should feel. There is so much I have experience and seen, and things just aren't the same, plus, I know in my 40s I will be GREAT! 

I snatch these quotes from Goodreads.com and hopefully you can agree with most of them. I couldn't juts settle on one, these were all by far my favorites. If you are like me, who believe older is better, you will probably love all of these too. ENJOY!

“The good thing about being old is not being young.”
― Stephen Richards

“At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.”
― Salvador Dalí

 

“I don't believe in aging. I believe in forever altering one's aspect to the sun. ”
― Virginia Woolf

“You get old and you realize there are no answers, just stories.”
― Garrison Keillor, Pontoon: A Novel of Lake Wobegon

“At 50, everyone has the face he deserves.”
― George Orwell

 “It's paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone.”
― Andy Rooney

 

“Age isn't how old you are but how old you feel.”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, Memories of My Melancholy Whores

 

“By the time you're thirty, your worst enemy is yourself.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Choke

 

“Sometimes I get depressed about my age. In March I’ll be 26. If man weren’t measured in numbers, but rather letters, I’d be turning Z. And then I’d be dead.”
― Jarod Kintz, I Should Have Renamed This

 

“Old age ain't no place for sissies.”
― Bette Davis

 

“I'm gonna enjoy being old I think I'll be awesome at it.”
― Craig Ferguson

 

“It is a mistake to regard age as a downhill grade toward dissolution. The
reverse is true. As one grows older, one climbs with surprising strides.”
― George Sand

 

“The error of youth is to believe that intelligence is a substitute for experience, while the error of age is to believe experience is a substitute for intelligence.”
― Lyman Bryson

 

“I believe that maturity is not an outgrowing, but a growing up: that an adult is not a dead child, but a child who survived. I believe that all the best faculties of a mature human being exist in the child. . . . that one of the most deeply human, and humane, of these faculties is the power of imagination.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction

 

“You don't stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing.”
― Michael Pritchard

 

“Old people really do have a secret though. You wanna know what it is? Luck.”
― Craig Ferguson

 

 

 

WE'RE NOT LOOKING, WE'RE SEARCHING

Hello everyone! I'm Victorious Monsterpiece, I'm 26 years old, I was born in the Dominican Republic. I was raised in Harlem, New York City before I moved to the Bronx (but I'm back in Harlem, YAY!!). I have a bachelors in Fine Arts, majored in Film. I'm a bit of an opinionated soul and I would like people to refer me as Monsterpiece, I will speak more about the name soon in another blog, lets just say the name has deeper meaning than what you think. First, I would like to talk a little about what I am doing here, why I am blogging and what made me start a blog. Well, evidently, I like to express myself a lot, thus hence the opinionated person I am, and I feel as though a blog can help me share those opinions and hopefully inspired others to express themselves adequately, away from unpolished social media. Let's see now, when Facebook and other means of social media bombed our generation and generations to come, we all became some sort of "bloggers" and writers (some better than others) but we all started to write our thoughts, ideas and feelings, constantly talking about our day, our personal lives, our likes and dislikes in a very mediocre way. We have become less detailed to things, less attach to reality and more prune to be less physically social. Although is nice to know how some of my friends are doing, how my family and colleagues are getting by day to day, I have come to realize that it is not the same to know how some one is doing based solely on Facebook. I believe strongly that Facebook has revolutionized how we connect intimately with one another. To care how someone is doing is based more on actions than in words, that you actually took the time to go and see them, talk to them and feel each others presence, maybe share a hug or smile, but instead we go by what words on a screen say. Sometimes, not all is what it seems. We are not looking, we are searching, trying to find something bad or something good in our daily lives. But we are not looking at the bigger picture, we are losing legitimate connection with one another, which is ironic, considering the fact that social media, phones and gadgets "connects us". We are slowing our minds and allowing the machines to take over... umm, let's discuss that in another blog.

The story goes on, I am here because of so much I have to say, so much I want to share. I am not going to tell you how to think and what to believe in. I just want you to feel inspired or to feel like there is someone (or something.. wink wink) out there who shares your same ideas and values. I am here blogging because, I took it upon my infinite wisdom to do something beyond the FACEBOOK hole, in which I feel I have deeply sank myself in, and not in a productive way, where I feel I am using it for it's great abilities and potential. I am not happy knowing that I am sharing ideas that aren't really going anywhere, although my friends and family's opinions matter to me. I want to impact people's lives in a whole other platform. What I am doing here, is simply blogging, and I would do my best to bring as many topics as possible. LET'S REALLY CONNECT! I am not here for the social aspect of it. I am here because I rather spend my time wisely. I want the world and I would do everything it takes to achieve it (figuratively speaking). I want to help others and I want others to know I can feel the same way they do. I am not asking for fame, I just want to know how you think, what ideas you have and how we can make the world a better place, basically I WANT YOUR COMPLAINTS! We're not looking, we are searching. We are searching for something, whatever it is, we are not going to find it through zeros and ones. We are not looking at what we need to look at. The truth is always in front of us, but never with US. I am going to be honest, notice how I never mentioned I am writer, although some of us make it a career, in all senses, we are all writers (sometimes... some are better than others). I am not here to be a selling author, but I do want to reach out to you. Let me connect with you, tell me what really 'grinds your gear'. Let's stop searching for something we can't see, because is right... under our noses, hahaha. :-)