More interesting than the following silly words, I posted the pictures from this past weekend.

I’m still in bad form for this writing thing. Yesterday’s travels took a bit out of me and I’m recovering. I haven’t looked back at my entries for the last couple of weeks, but I have a feeling that if I did, they would lean toward filler. Creatively, I’m drained, and today will be more of the same. I jotted a few notes down during the flight yesterday that I’ll try to expand to fill at least a page before calling it a night.

I remember when I spoke about not wasting any more time; using my free time to better myself, or some such bullshit like that. While my words were rather weak, I was genuinely inspired by Arnold’s biography. Today is an example of why I’m incapable of that type of output. After a busy day of work, I feel there’s nothing in me for writing. Sure, I could have written before I watched more of Zoolander (a surprisingly good Ben Stiller movie), but distractions found me, and I’m not sure my output would have been much better before the relief of distractions.

My problem (one of many) is that I keep looking for the magic bullet that will allow me to write. I realize, of course, that there is no magic bullet, but I keep searching for it. I tell myself that if I find it, I’ll have all the energy and dedication I need. If only this were true. For the record, I didn’t make it to the gym today either. My dedication lasted up through the step of making it happen.

I’m still stuck on this story. I know I’m spending too much time thinking about it and not enough time writing it, but I can’t find a time where my energy and desire are both at high enough levels to write more of this story. What else is new? Staying with the decline of the city-state, I wanted to bring in the concept of how modern media has changed the way countries act. If you view how people in most democratic countries view wars, you begin to see a certain distaste of violence. (This is not a bad thing, just an observation.) The older the civilization, the greater the distaste. I can see the ends of this: a pacifist civilization that abhors violence. Taking that to the extreme, a civilization that is not willing to defend itself is in decline.

That’s what happens to Jake’s society. It’s why the ghost ships are paid off instead of fought against. Fighting and innocent deaths shock the people, and they’re willing to do much to appease the aggressors. That wasn’t my original idea. Let’s take a look at that twist: What if a civilization developed where people were not shocked by the killing of innocents. The treaties that govern most of the world’s “developed” countries state that the countries should not target innocents during warfare. But that wasn’t always the case. Look to the bombings in WWII, particularly of London and Hiroshima. Bombing innocents was part of war: if you weakened the infrastructure enough, people would not fight—or at least that was the theory, which failed in London but worked in Hiroshima.

A country (or civilization) that does not follow that rule has a certain advantage over a treaty-abiding civilization. It’s decadence in the form of aggression over a pacifist civilization. This brings to mind The Simpsons Halloween episode where Lisa wishes for there to be peace on earth and all of the people destroy all of their weapons. Two aliens land on the planet and with a pitchfork conquer earth. I’m making little sense today; don’t think I didn’t notice.

Story Idea: “I am the last lastname,” I said with the conceit of a young monster, sure in my own special-ness. “That is ridiculous,” my mother responded and went on to explain all the other lastnames in the world.

Theme: Difficulty of listening to others speak; embarrassment for them but not e.g., radio hosts.