“Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite — inspire fear and insecurity. Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power.”
Volume 2 Post 2
3/24/2017
“5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.”~James 1:5-8, New International Version
Greetings, my dear readers. As time goes on, I have grown to love my blog post title because it is the ultimate irony. The Daily Bonkers is never daily, hell, not even weekly nor really monthly. However, my writing muse has been triggering the brain and I do believe it is time to offer a proper update, as well as a preview of the future projects cooking inside the brain.
First of all, I decided to shake things up with the Quote of the Day. In addition to the usual word-of-mouth quotes, I will also feature passages from different books that I treasure and revere, such as the Holy Bible and more classical works over time. The purpose of today’s quote is to address the issue of doubt. Even I consider this a major weakness of myself. One major flaw of the times we live in, is the fact that there is an increasing and suppressing presence of doubt. People can attribute this to many different reasons and I will leave that up to you, since we all see things differently. Social media gives us a unique window to get a peek into the daily struggles and successes of our closest friends, family, maybe co-workers but be careful on that last point. One thing that I have been seeing, and also one thing that I have been doing myself is doubting my potential and success thus far. Those of us that have some challenges up front in life right now such as finding a job or maybe some relationship trouble or even perhaps a family member in distress, are constructing a mental harbor for doubt to dock and reside.
Just for a real life example, take my experience trying to land that first steady job upon completion of college in May. I have applied to all the companies around, interviewed with few for various internships or full-time opportunities just to get my foot in the door. Rejection after rejection even when these companies consider me a good candidate has beat the living hell out of my confidence, my spirit, and my emotions over time. It has been a slow recovery in contrast to my usual quick recovery. This has allowed doubt to reside in my mind and wonder “am I really qualified?” Therefore, the rest of the people I see with other problems are probably wondering “is it my fault things are going bad? Can I do more to help those in distress? What am I doing wrong?”
Most likely, just as I have had to realize, we are doing everything we can in our situation. It is not necessarily our faults and more of a victim of circumstance. The economy sucks right now and companies are severely restricted on expansion, it’s not me. As for other people, it is not you. Just know that if you are taking care of someone in distress, you are already doing a mighty thing that many cannot or will not do and you should find joy in that. Someone almighty and above has been watching you and will acknowledge your heart. When life throws curve-balls, just refer to the Quote of the Day above and fight off the doubt. I have learned the hard way and wanted to share to you the simple methods of finding self-confidence, hope, faith, as well as other things that the modern distractions of the world try to prohibit us from seeking, mostly indirectly.
As for the rest of this blog post, I am going to ramble briefly on some literary ideas cooking in my brain in the next section. I do thank you for reading and hope you enjoyed.
~Shane
– This is the big project cooking in my mind. Also, it is still at the mere brainstorming stage. I don’t have anything written on this subject as of yet. The central idea is that this will turn into a massive collection of short stories that I write over time. With that being mentioned, it will involve a plethora of recurring characters doing various things. It will probably be a Southern Gothic style of a read with a Hunter S. Thompson layer embedded and encapsulate the former days of the region I grew up in. These are mostly going to be whimsical and fun reads because if you know people such as my Dad, who grew up in the 60s and adventured as a young adult in the 70s, you should already know they have thousands of stories about their wild days and they as well have recurring friends and family involved in their adventures. The central character will be based on him and some stories will be carbon copies of the ones he told and others like the first one I have in mind will be original tales I cook up using characters he knew back then. I am really looking forward to this one and I’m just letting this idea stew for a bit before I really start.
– This will be a series of blog posts that offer information that I will be compiling together regarding Masonic symbolism. It is no secret that I am a Freemason, nor should it be. Both of my Grandfathers were and my Uncle is one currently and they all were and are exceptional men. As a disclaimer, no goats have been harmed in the process of degree works. 🙂 Anyway, I wanted a good starting point and I do believe that the working tools are the most common symbolism even non-Masons see in the real world no matter if they know it or not. The first one will be the 24-inch gauge and I am currently at the stage of gathering information from various places so that I can bring in many perspectives and give an encompassing (yes that was a pun) view of these tools and what they mean to us and how they help us construct our inner temple. Later on, I will branch off to more symbolism that appears in ritual so that the Masons can enjoy the perspective and that the non-Masons can get a sneak peek without anything being revealed that they should not be privy to and hopefully encourage someone to explore their curiosity by becoming a Mason and seeing these symbols appear in their learning and rituals. Also, I might convert some of these into power-point slideshows and brief presentations for my own Lodge just to give something new to the table.
-This will actually start tomorrow on this blog and I will post once a day for 48 consecutive days about this topic. The current plan is to start out with the Law of the given day and then offer a brief personal comment about it, mostly an interpretation or even at the most basic block just the first thought that comes out of my brain when I read it. These posts will be quick reads, unlike this current edition of The Daily Bonkers. Also, it will be independent from The Daily Bonkers and I will probably create a page on this blog to collect and house these blog posts over the next 48 days for your reading pleasure.
The Blog of Shane 