On Photograp...Gotcha! On Attitude. On Meditation. sort of?

Who Knows, really?  


     I have two months of blog post topics planned, laid out, and in a format for me to stick to, but each week I look at it and just give it the finger. I might be the most irresponsible blogger of all time. Do I count as a blogger if I'm the only one who reads it? Well...the answer to that is addressed in this blog! Sort of.

   Today it's all about attitude. Objectively speaking, my life sort of sucks. I was living the dream as a world renowned thespian in Los Angeles when out of no where my colon was tickled by the kiss of cancer. I had to throw away my dream, abandon the progress I've made, and move back into my parents' house in Arizona. I've also been unemployed for over a year, which sounds great, but it gets old. I'll address that in the forthcoming photography post.

"My colon was tickled by the kiss of cancer."

    That was the most satisfying use the a) the quote function, and, b) Comic Sans.

    I think everything is awesome. I'm awesome, you're awesome, my dogs are awesome, your dogs are second place awesome, everything is awesome. I don't always show it, but I truly, truly love everyone I meet and everything that's come into my life. I know that sounds like hyperbole, but the amount of appreciation that I have for literally everything that I've experienced is...large. How's that for a adjective based let down?

     I meditate two to three times per day. Mindfulness Meditation when I wake up and before bed and various moments of self reflection drizzled in throughout the day . The two MM sessions keep me focused, grateful, and open, but the fleeting moments of loneliness that I spend with myself are where the real magic happens. I quickly, deliberately draw upon every problem in my life and deeply focus on each one. I then let them all go and quickly, deliberately draw upon every blessing in my life and deeply focus on each one. If you're being honest, it will be overwhelming and incredibly emotional.
I'll do a quick on on having cancer: I was swimming in the ocean of cancer past all the things about it that I can't change and I arrived on the shore of Friendship Island.

“…fleeting moments of loneliness that I spend with myself are where the real magic happens”

Honestly, and I'm crying now, cancer has been one of my biggest blessings, too. It threatened so much of my year. It threatened to not let me see my best friend marry the love of his life, it threatened to not let me meet my brand new nephew or to see the unadulterated look of happiness on my sister's and mom's faces, it threatened to abandon my loving girlfriend in a desert by herself, it threatened to take my parents baby boy from them, it threatened to take Brody and Gertie's dad away from them.

     Friendship Island is my favorite place in all of Cancer Ocean. To use my buddy's wedding for example; I was a walking ball of happiness and anxiety the entire night. I was so, so, so happy for him. periodically though, as I looked around at everyone dancing, I broke down into a peculiar dump of emotion. You see, one of the doctor's that I first sought an opinion from gave me a pretty fresh three month time line. I said no to her or course, but oncologists don't just make up their estimates, they do come from somewhere, so the severity of it all was very apparent. When I coupled that feeling of surrealism with the happiness I was experiencing, it made me realize: I almost wasn't there, I almost wasn't able to watch my best friend walk down the aisle. I almost wasn't there for my best friend if he needed me. That idea brought me to tears whenever it came to mind (currently) but the benefit of it all...I am still here! Just that very brief thought, and it is brief, has opened my eyes to just how much I care about those in my life. It's a very vague description and I'll elaborate in a forthcoming YouTube Channel with the BruCrewBros, but it allows me to participate in each moment deliberately in ways that I could never have imagined.

“Friendship Island is my favorite place in all of Cancer Ocean.”

I truly believe that this method of deeply experiencing your sorrow and following that up with deeply experiencing your happiness is one of the most refreshing things I've ever done and can be scaled accordingly, of course, because problems are all relative.

     Stay Tickled

-Safford McGivens

On Writing: Alliteration

Hey, team,

     It's my first post! The point of this blog is to give you all a view through the window to my heart, mind, body, and soouuullll baby while also providing myself an outlet to freely express my thoughts and emotions in a way that's meaningful and practical to me. It will typically revolve  around various things going on in my life like writing (today's!,) my relationships, my adventures, and dealing with my back and forth dance with the devil (Cancer. More on that later. It's pretty juicy.)

         Writing is a beautiful tool that everyone can used as an art form to express themselves, use as a journal for stress relief, or assist you in telling a story. Like everything, everyone can be good at it if they try hard enough. You may never be GREAT, but you can definitely be GOOD through constant practice. In conjunction with this blog, I like to give myself periodic writing exercises. They can be little things like writing a short poem, writing a story with alliteration (today's!,) or writing a micro story about an inanimate object on the desk in front of me (or you?) 

   The reason I like to do alliteration exercises is because it puts your brain under duress from constantly looking for seldom used words for familiar ideas. It thrusts you into unfamiliar territory and really makes you flex the ol' vocabulary to get some extra use out of your words. It allows you to keep your head full of ideas and forces you to keep the tip of your pen wet.

"Living life lavishly lately, I’ve looked longingly

 for the fictitious forces being fantastically fabricated from our own flight of fancy. I’m fastened to the

 insightful illumination that inspiration is an illusion, intelligence is insincere, and intellectuality is an invention. Ingenuity, intellect, and imagination are extinct. 

I may have lost my marbles by milking my mind dry from meditating on all of the misery and misgivings of the masses.

 I've potentially given some punk the power to pillage and plunder my proclamations. He’ll push back my prophecies as punitive and penal. When that happens,

 the world we wanted without exception will be wrecked. The wallowing, the woeful, and the weary will rise up while we wait like wax statues wondering what went wrong. 

Reality is repeatedly in front of you rightfully resting for a revolutionary to reach for a rifle and reignite a new renaissance to reinvigorate the rank-and-file to decipher their new, 

distinct delusions as day dreams or as dire designs for a new de facto destination."

   

     It's always tough showing anyone something personal and writing is no exception. Even something as simple as the above exercise is deeply personal and a reflection of my skill as a writer and of my feelings. It feels good to get it out there.

So, remember...

Keep your head full and your tip wet.

-Safford McGivens