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Entry #4

I didn't post random quotes in a while. Here are a few:

"Let me tell you a few things about regret… There is no end to it. You cannot find the beginning of the chain that brought us from there to here. Should you regret the whole chain, and the air in between, or each link separately as if you could uncouple them? Do you regret the beginning which ended so badly, or just the ending itself?"
-Janet Fitch.


"Just then, someone plopped down hard into the chair on my left, knocking me sideways into the wall; it was jarring, and I hit my elbow on the molding there, right in the funny bone, which sent a tingly zap all the way up to my fingers. And suddenly, just like that, I was pissed. Really pissed. It’s amazing how all it takes is one shove to make you furious."
-Sarah Dessen.


"Impossible is not a fact. It is an opinion".
-Muhammad Ali
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A year and a day difference

I wanted to do this yesterday but I think I was too lazy.
A year ago I posted a Kyrielle piece, exactly on the 3rd of January 2010. The poem was about Egypt, I was feeling patriotic and I wanted to write something that would make me feel different about my poetry, satisfied that I'm not just expressing, I'm writing my country.

A Kyrielle: is a French form written in quatrains (a stanza consisting of 4 lines), and each quatrain contains a repeating line or phrase as a refrain. Each line within the poem consists of eight syllables. Rhyme scheme is aabB ccbB ddbB

Rise [Kyrielle]

'Tween two thoughts in my mind lie you
A tranquil aura to pursue
A spring-deprived look in your eyes
Home, tomorrow the sun will rise

Charcoal tears make life incomplete
A dreamer's smile is bittersweet
Despair is destined to demise
Home, tomorrow the sun will rise

Ink shan't hold deterioration
Spring will be your one salvation
Tho' hope, away, a thousand skies
Home, tomorrow the sun will rise



2010 ended with people's wrath growing and growing after Khaled Saeed's terrible death by torture and the forgery of elections. And then 2011 came and everything was so fast, the church explosions, the Tunisia uprising, and Egypt was silent. People created an online revolt just to vent and cry in silence. But then I wrote another poetic form called Pleiades, poem entitled "Wrath", the date was the 4th of January 2011. Both poems were written at the same minute but not hour (:18)

A Pleiades: Only one word is allowed in the title followed by a single seven-line stanza, six syllables each. The first word in each line begins with the same letter as the title.

Wrath [Pleiades]

Wrapped in fury, thoughts burn-
Wringing the mind. Comfort..
Without ease, hunger to
Winter's wind. Breathe out your
Written revolution:
Words stained with their clean blood.
Wonder; a still revolt.


Finally, I am posting this just to show you my amazement, I don't write many poetic forms, and it happens that both were written in a specific form, about Egypt, and just when it was time for wrath and depression, Allah sent glory.
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6:59 AM

I know I usually don't post these kinda poems, but I love the simplicity in this poem


6:59 AM - Riley Dog


I’ve been told
that people in the army
do more by 7:00 am
than I do
in an entire day

but if I wake
at 6:59 am
and turn to you
to trace the outline of your lips
with mine
I will have done enough
and killed no one
in the process.

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Automatic Writing

Today I was reading a list of psychic abilities and I came across one that I really really like :D

Automatic writing:

Or psychography is writing which the writer states to be produced from a subconscious and/or spiritual source without conscious awareness of the content.

It would be a bit scary to write from a spiritual source. I guess there are always drawbacks.
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15 Ways of Distorted Thinking

So this basically talks about each and every one of us!

1. Filtering: You take the negative details and magnify them, while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation. A single detail may be picked out, and the whole event becomes colored by this detail. When you pull negative things out of context, isolated from all the good experiences around you, you make them larger and more awful than they really are.

2. Polarized Thinking: The hallmark of this distortion is an insistence on dichotomous choices. Things are black or white, good or bad. You tend to perceive everything at the extremes, with very little room for a middle ground. The greatest danger in polarized thinking is its impact on how you judge yourself. For example-You have to be perfect or you're a failure.


3. Overgeneralization: You come to a general conclusion based on a single incident or piece of evidence. If something bad happens once, you expect it to happen over and over again. 'Always' and 'never' are cues that this style of thinking is being utilized. This distortion can lead to a restricted life, as you avoid future failures based on the single incident or event.


4. Mind Reading: Without their saying so, you know what people are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, you are able to divine how people are feeling toward you. Mind reading depends on a process called projection. You imagine that people feel the same way you do and react to things the same way you do. Therefore, you don't watch or listen carefully enough to notice that they are actually different. Mind readers jump to conclusions that are true for them, without checking whether they are true for the other person.


5. Catastrophizing: You expect disaster. You notice or hear about a problem and start "what if's." What if that happens to me? What if tragedy strikes? There are no limits to a really fertile catastrophic imagination. An underlying catalyst for this style of thinking is that you do not trust in yourself and your capacity to adapt to change.


6. Personalization: This is the tendency to relate everything around you to yourself. For example, thinking that everything people do or say is some kind of reaction to you. You also compare yourself to others, trying to determine who's smarter, better looking, etc. The underlying assumption is that your worth is in question. You are therefore continually forced to test your value as a person by measuring yourself against others. If you come out better, you get a moment's relief. If you come up short, you feel diminished. The basic thinking error is that you interpret each experience, each conversation, each look as a clue to your worth and value.


7. Control Fallacies: There are two ways you can distort your sense of power and control. If you feel externally controlled, you see yourself as helpless, a victim of fate. The fallacy of internal control has you responsible for the pain and happiness of everyone around you. Feeling externally controlled keeps you stuck. You don't believe you can really affect the basic shape of your life, let alone make any difference in the world. The truth of the matter is that we are constantly making decisions, and that every decision affects our lives. On the other hand, the fallacy of internal control leaves you exhausted as you attempt to fill the needs of everyone around you, and feel responsible in doing so (and guilty when you cannot).


8. Fallacy of Fairness: You feel resentful because you think you know what's fair, but other people won't agree with you. Fairness is so conveniently defined, so temptingly self-serving, that each person gets locked into his or her own point of view. It is tempting to make assumptions about how things would change if people were only fair or really valued you. But the other person hardly ever sees it that way, and you end up causing yourself a lot of pain and an ever-growing resentment.


9. Blaming: You hold other people responsible for your pain, or take the other tack and blame yourself for every problem. Blaming often involves making someone else responsible for choices and decisions that are actually our own responsibility. In blame systems, you deny your right (and responsibility) to assert your needs, say no, or go elsewhere for what you want.


10. Shoulds: You have a list of ironclad rules about how you and other people should act. People who break the rules anger you, and you feel guilty if you violate the rules. The rules are right and indisputable and, as a result, you are often in the position of judging and finding fault (in yourself and in others). Cue words indicating the presence of this distortion are should, ought, and must.


11. Emotional Reasoning: You believe that what you feel must be true-automatically. If you feel stupid or boring, then you must be stupid and boring. If you feel guilty, then you must have done something wrong. The problem with emotional reasoning is that our emotions interact and correlate with our thinking process. Therefore, if you have distorted thoughts and beliefs, your emotions will reflect these distortions.


12. Fallacy of Change: You expect that other people will change to suit you if you just pressure or cajole them enough. You need to change people because your hopes for happiness seem to depend entirely on them. The truth is the only person you can really control or have much hope of changing is yourself. The underlying assumption of this thinking style is that your happiness depends on the actions of others. Your happiness actually depends on the thousands of large and small choices you make in your life.


13. Global Labeling: You generalize one or two qualities (in yourself or others) into a negative global judgment. Global labeling ignores all contrary evidence, creating a view of the world that can be stereotyped and one-dimensional. Labeling yourself can have a negative and insidious impact upon your self-esteem; while labeling others can lead to snap-judgments, relationship problems, and prejudice.


14. Being Right: You feel continually on trial to prove that your opinions and actions are correct. Being wrong is unthinkable and you will go to any length to demonstrate your rightness. Having to be 'right' often makes you hard of hearing. You aren't interested in the possible veracity of a differing opinion, only in defending your own. Being right becomes more important than an honest and caring relationship.


15. Heaven's Reward Fallacy: You expect all your sacrifice and self-denial to pay off, as if there were someone keeping score. You fell bitter when the reward doesn't come as expected. The problem is that while you are always doing the 'right thing,' if your heart really isn't in it, you are physically and emotionally depleting yourself.


Source: EWU