Category: Life

What Makes a Teacher Great

The best teachers have no interest in being loved. Does that surprise you? Do you think that a teacher should want to be liked by his pupils? But that is not a teacher’s duty. Teachers teach. Easy lessons, hard lessons, the things that make a student stretch out beyond his comfort zone to grasp. A teacher pushes. Students do not always like being pushed.

Teachers are willing to endure ill-favor if it means the ones they teach are able to grow. Whether the elementary teacher who hushes whispered chatter and silences cell phones, the music instructor who demands the apprentice practice hours a night without fail, or the drill sergeant who shouts in cadets’ faces to strengthen their nerves, the best teachers do not mistake pleasantness for effectiveness.

Pleasant feelings are fleeting. Lessons well-learned are forever. A teacher who truly cares is one who places little value on popularity, and everything on the education of their students. Teachers lay a foundation in the minds of the taught. They ensure that deep roots are sunk, and that knowledge and experience grow ever higher. They nurture the student’s mind, and they test it. They see far beyond today’s temporary comforts. They see their student as they could be in ten, twenty, thirty years’ time.

What makes a teacher great? The desire and ability to make others great.

***

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

When I Retire …

How do you want to retire?

It’s never too early to plan for retirement, is it? Well, it’s never a bad idea to think ahead, at least.

How do I want to retire? Alive would be a good start. Wait, that’s kind of morbid. Let me start over ….

When I retire, I want to be healthy, active and with the ability to continue sallying forth to enjoy life. I really look forward to being able to travel more. And to do that, I need to be in good shape physically and psychologically. I also need to have money, of course, but that’s what saving up for retirement is all about.

But I don’t just want to engage in fun activities. I want to have fun with other people. What’s the point of retiring if you’re going to be alone, anyway? Friends and family get old with you, right? So why not enjoy a life without workdays together?

Retirement is something that I do look forward to, and I want to be ready for it. I want to be the sort of person who can get the most out of a life where weekends are a strange, distant, obsolete concept.

***

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

Literature Adds to Reality …

Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.

C . S. Lewis

***

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I sometimes post cool quotes by writers.

Thoughts on The Giving Tree

Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?

I can’t say it was my favorite book as a child – I have too many of those to choose just one – but I remember The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein with fondness. A sweet story of self-sacrifice, though as an adult I realize that it is controversial. But most stories are, especially when we pry them open, dissect them, and boil them down.

Maybe I’m just a sentimentalist who likes stories that are bittersweet. Maybe I’m naive. Or maybe I never perceived the concept that the boy was exploiting the tree because I grew up in a family where I was taught to say “please” and “thank you” and learned about responsibility. Maybe a story’s interpretation depends on the context of the reader’s life and experiences. We all see something different.

Either way, I liked the story. I was young and innocent and hadn’t received a college education yet, so I saw only good in it.

***

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

Bachelors Need to Clean, Too

What’s one small improvement you can make in your life?

Consistently cleaning my home every week.

The stereotype about bachelors is that they’re messy fellows living in pigsties. Cleanliness is supposedly a foreign concept to the unmarried male. Well, I don’t live in a sty, nor do I have a pile of unwashed clothes taking up half my bedroom, nor do I have strange species of mold growing in my refrigerator. I’m … adequately tidy. But I could stand to clean just a bit more often.

Go figure. Some of us grow up being taught to perform our daily chores diligently every week, then we become adults, move out, and regress into Neanderthals. Maybe independence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s certainly no excuse for lack of self-discipline.

Regardless, performing my cleaning chores on a regular basis is a small but significant improvement I can make in my everyday life.

***

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

One Day of Horsing Around

What’s a job you would like to do for just one day?

I’m content with where I am in life, but if I could choose a single job to do for just one day, I would like to work on a horse ranch. I like horses, but I’ve never really been around them that much (so maybe I just like the idea of horses). Plus, my day job involves sitting at a desk all day, so I would very much appreciate being able to get off my rump and do something more physical, for once.

Of course, not really being a person who works around animals much, while I say now that I like horses, I can’t guarantee how much I’d like them at the end of the day! But that’s the point. I want to do something different and see what it is like for me. I want to challenge myself by stepping outside my comfort zone and seeing what it’s like on the other side of the fence. Is the grass really greener, or would I go running back to my office?

***

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

Bats Are Cute. Prove Me Wrong.

Sometimes, daily prompts are quite wonderfully bizarre. For example:

Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind.

Okay, you asked for it. The very first thing …

Bats are cute. A lot cuter than people give them credit for.

Maybe I should have waited until Halloween to do this.

Anyway, bats are adorable and get a bad rap for being scary, bloodsucking, grotesque monsters akin to rats on wings. This is untrue and unjust to bats. Even ugly bats wrap around the event horizon and come shooting back out into the realm of cuteness. Bats deserve to be respected.

I mean, look at this. Is this the terror that flaps in the night? No, it’s a cute little baby bundle of fluff. Or this. And this, too. Respect the bat!

And that’s all I have to say about that. The first thing that came to mind for today’s blog post.

***

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

Reasons to Laugh

What makes you laugh?

I laugh at irony. I laugh at observations on the absurdities of life. I laugh at wordplay and cleverness. I enjoy sardonic jokes, jokes that push themselves up from the common denominator. I like humor that people put effort into, that has a setup and a punchline that makes you think for a moment, scratch your head, and then break out laughing.

I like being a bit of a gadfly. Nothing taken too far, but I get a giggle out of throwing people for a loop. Maybe I’m a Groucho Marx at heart, with a sharp tongue that I need to keep in check. But then, sometimes I’m laughing inside, watching politely and quietly as the world goes insane and carries itself with the utmost seriousness like a toad in a tuxedo being interviewed on the red carpet. Inside, I’m roaring.

The world isn’t getting madder; it’s always been mad. Lewis Carroll knew, and so did Abbott and Costello. Jonathan Swift was dead certain and let everyone know it. The Three Stooges made it abundantly clear. Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse proclaimed it with pomp and ceremony. Life is weird, and all the more so because we pretend it isn’t. The world goes on in utmost seriousness, and that makes me laugh, because if you ignore the layers of respectability, the jokes write themselves. An innocent child laughs at what adults believe is the most important thing in the world.

Most of all, I laugh at myself. We pretend that we can’t laugh at ourselves, that we are serious people on a serious Earth, but often that is who we should laugh at the most. So, laugh a little.

***

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

A Little Room for Failure

Heeded my words not, did you? Pass on what you have learned. Strength, mastery. But weakness, folly, failure also. Yes, failure most of all. The greatest teacher, failure is.

Master Yoda, The Last Jedi

Leave it to the most controversial Star Wars movie to present one of the best lessons in the series. While people debate and rage over The Last Jedi’s merits as a film, an extremely valuable and important real life lesson slips by unnoticed. Somehow appropriate, in a poetic sort of way.


Failure is a fact of life, and it sticks with you more than success. It has a knack for engraving itself in your memory, whereas success is more like a sticker that peels off easily.


But what wise Master Yoda says (and many, many others beforehand – the quote didn’t originate with him) is true: Failure is a teacher. Do we learn from success? We are supposed to succeed, says society at large, and thus we tend to take it for granted. The shock of failing is a slap in the face. The wise person takes time to evaluate this shock and think over what went wrong.


When you fail and learn how you failed, you understand how to avoid making the same mistakes. You also learn generally uncomfortable truths, such as the limits of your abilities, your blind spots, skills that you need to practice or simply don’t have. So, you can either fail and learn and move on with life, or fail again and again in the exact same way, refusing to learn at all. Which is worse?


Failure is good and, dare I say, healthy. Kids should be allowed to fail at school. We shouldn’t be scared to let our children flunk exams. They’re in school to learn, so let them learn. And we adults aren’t so infallible, either. We mess up and trip over problems and don’t always make the right choices. We’re always learning, from our own mistakes and from others’.


So, don’t be afraid of failure. It will happen. When you goof up, it’s better to learn and move on than brood over a missed victory. Life has plenty of victories, but they tend to stay mum over their secret. Failure is always eager to teach.

***

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

A Letter to 100-Year-Old Me

Write a letter to your hundred-year-old self.

Well, Jake, I have a few things to say. First of all, since you’re such a worrywort, I just want to let you know that if you’re whining and cringing over how much worse society has gotten, let me remind you that it always had problems and they’re probably still the same ones. Get over it and carry on.

I am curious, though, if someone finally invented functional jetpacks or rocket cars. Are they affordable? Do they make traffic better or worse? I kind of doubt they’re around though, are they? Back to the Future thought we’d have hoverboards and weather control by 2015, after all. And that Jaws would still be getting sequels.

Speaking of entertainment, is virtual reality still a thing? If it is, are they making VR movies yet? I don’t mean demos, I mean full, 120-minute films. I’d love to know how those turned out.

You’ve lived a long life and seen a lot of things happen. More than most people in the last millennium could expect to see in their lifetime. A lot of it is amazing and wonderful. A lot of it is probably scary and disappointing. But that’s life in general – good and bad, sweet and sour. Some people bemoan modern times as the downfall of civilization. I imagine they said the same thing when the Roman Empire fell, and when the Normans invaded England, and in between the fall of every Chinese dynasty, and when Disney bought Marvel Comics.

You’ve lived a long life, and I know you’ve learned to make the best of it. Maybe you managed to do everything you wanted to do. Maybe you didn’t, but knowing how life goes, you’ve probably been surprised by good things you never saw coming. Either way, just remember this tidbit: Life is too short to spend in regret and frustration. Relax, take what comes, and do your best. Enjoy it.

Best regards from 2025 A.D.

***

My latest book, The Trickster’s Lament, is currently available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback format.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.