GOODNESS OF HEART : EXPERIENCE FORTY-NINE: CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

 

In my series of snack endorsements, I write that I was not PAID to say it. Well, being paid, rather than volunteering or doing something that one could be paid for but one does for experience or as an internship, or out of the goodness of their heart is ... different. 

What have you done out of the goodness of your heart, without expectation of pay, reward, or credit ?

When and why? (Be honest!) 

(Remember that you never have to show anyone what you wrote about this or any other subject in this writing workshop!)

Christine Trzyna

This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop. 

C 2018-2025  Christine Trzyna 
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love.  It's karma.

GRAHAM WALLAS on CREATIVITY : WORTH REPEATING

GRAHAM WALLAS on CREATIVITY

"According to Graham Wallas, a sort of re-ordering process takes place in the brain during creativity, which he calls incubation. A creative person develops interest in a particular subject, gathers supporting material, and studies everything possibly related to it. He calls this first stage preparation. After some time, the accumulated material reaches a boiling point and something incomprehensible goes on during the period of incubation that forms a prelude to the next stage, illumination. In three stages - preparation, incubation, and illumination - the creative person receives a new insight and finds a solution to the problem, or can rearrange the accumulated material to put it under an all embracing principle."

As mentioned in THE KUNDALINI BOOK OF LIVING AND DYINIG
Gateway to Higher Consciousness
Ravindra Kumar and Jytte Kumar Larsen

Worth Repeating:  First posted September 25, 2010

THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS TIED INTO THE FREEDOM OF THOUGHT AND EXPRESSION

This post was triggered because someone clicked on and read my 2014 post about JULIAN ASSANGE.

***

NOTE  September 23, 2025  I followed the Julian Assange saga for YEARS and well, it seems he was allowed to go free - in his home country of Australia.  Like the Edward Snowden saga, which I also followed for years - Snowden has married and has a child but looks to be permanently in Russia - it seems these men's stories have fallen out of media interest.  

As of today, the Freedom of Speech is being challenged in the United States.  Of course it's not like the Freedom of Speech isn't tied into Freedom of Thought or overall Expression through Art, Ideas, Interpretations, and so on.

The other day I spoke with a "conservative" friend of mine about POLITICAL CARTOONING and showed him some cartoons printed in publications - even before he was President - of Thomas Jefferson. Every President is controversial to someone, some more than others.

My favorite President is Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Controversial. He stepped up into the chaos of the Great Depression and found ways to put people to work and have money circulate again. 

Yes, we should be worried.

Get out there and vote. Vote those who oppose your IDEAS ABOUT HOW LIFE IS BEST LIVED - which includes, not just us as individuals with our "own" concerns but others - OUT OF OFFICE.

I know how frustrating it can be to even research who is running and what they stand for. I do it every election, especially looking into what various newspapers and organizations such as the Teachers and Women say.

***

I loath the idea of persons being assassinated for their  opinions or ideas...

AND

I do not hold the values of a Charlie Kirk...  

Never heard of the man actually, until he was assassinated. So, I find it almost unbelievable that he is being held up as a Hero of the Crazy Right Wing Conservatives.***

C 2025 Christine Trzyna

***My conservative friend seems to think there are only Crazy Left Wing Liberals, no middle of the roaders.

THE BEATLES : LIVE AT WASHINGTON D.C. 1964 THIS IS WHY THEY WERE GREAT!

The Beatles were my first "favs" and, though I rarely post videos of them and their music on this blog, I do return to them time and time again. Sometimes one of their songs comes to me. When first did I hear a Beatle's record? I think some of my older relatives had their 45s and played them... or maybe it was the hip mom of a childhood friend who lived on the same street... or my best friend in high school who used a lot of her babysitting money to buy the albums... that contributed to my fandom.

Recently a friend invited me to hear a Beatles music concert in Long Beach California at an event called First Friday. The band that played (which included one woman singer) was very good and 'a good time was had by all.'

Looking at the comments that were posted under this video... I excerpt from this one:  

@Myguitar-y2e1

No drum mics, no vocal stage monitors, no ear monitors, no guitar pedals, no backup row of instruments, ready to play in case of a broken string, only two roadies, no banks of backing vocalists, No fireworks, no smoke, no string section, no huge video screens, no spotlights or stage lighting,, No electronic guitar tuners, no synthesizers, no digital mixing board, no Guitar techs, no amp techs, no personal assistants, no make up and hair, no costumes, bodyguards, masseuses, lawyers, drivers, personal chefs…. ….. am I leaving anything out?

*****

THEY WERE TIGHT AND THEY WERE HOT...

*****

Excerpting again:

@cmwfeb65

Being able to play anywhere near in time AND in harmony, in the middle of a screaming arena, without stage monitors is miraculous. These guys were road-worn pros after a solid year of European Beatlemania, as well as a thousand gigs in noisy, crappy clubs in the previous 5 years.

*****

I note that they had to clumsily turn Ringo's drum platform, which was wobbly, but that meant they could face the audience in each direction over the time of the concert, that three of the songs they did were cover tunes, and - have we forgotten? - harmonies! And George's musicianship, especially! 

C 2025 Christine Trzyna  BlogSpot

slight edit October 9 2025

FIRST GRADE : EXPERIENCE FORTY-EIGHT : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

Go back to first grade. Tell your experience story in the mind and language of that first grader.  Are you reading?  Do you like your teacher?  Is there homework? What are you wearing?  Do you take the school bus?  Keep going...

Then, as an adult, answer this: How did first grade influence your education from then on?

Christine Trzyna

This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop. 

C 2018-2025  Christine Trzyna 
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love.  It's karma.

MY FAVORITE BACKGROUND MUSIC TO WRITE BY THESE DAYS : COZY LIBRARY COFFEE SHOP : LOFI MUSIC

KODI LOFI YOUTUBE STATION : COZY LIBRARY COFFEE SHOP 

Damn but this one makes me want to own a coffee shop, maybe near some beach.

A FRENCH PERSPECTIVE OF THE SUNSET STRIP MUSIC SCENE

WHY DID THEY FAIL TO PUT THE YEAR = 2025 =

 ON THIS POSTCARD TO ADVERTISE THE EXHIBIT?

BREAKING SOME OF THE RULES OF CREATIVE WRITING

 BREAKING SOME OF THE RULES OF CREATIVE WRITING

By Christine Trzyna

Here are some of the Rules of Creative Writing I've heard in various classes that I've found published authors have broken successfully.

1) Never use italics or bold or fancy fonts as a means of expression. You should use adjectives and adverbs.

2) Never have more than a few characters. The story is too complicated and difficult to follow when you load up your short story or novel with too many.

3) Don't use run on sentences that are overly descriptive with fancy language. If you can't read it without taking a breath, the sentence is too long. (Strunk and White advocates simple, clear, communicative writing.)

4) Use standard punctuation. This is not the place to get creative.

5) Don't write your life story and then try to publish it as fiction.

(This post was first posted September 4, 2008)

C 2025 Christine Trzyna

C 2008-2025  Christine Trzyna 
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love.  It's karma.

ANDERSON PAAK and THE FREE NATIONALS (THE MOST EXCITING PERFORMER TODAY!)

  Yes, I do think Anderson Paak (with the Free Nationals) is the most talented and exciting performer, musician,songwriter, etc. in existence today. That said, I WARN YOU THAT THERE IS A HELL OF A LOT OF WHAT WE USED TO CALL FOUL LANGUAGE IN THE WORDS USED (MUSICALLY AND NOT) IN THIS VIDEO. 

Southern California claims him - and most of his musicians - as our "own."  He grew up in Ventura County, just a little north-west. 

SANTANA : PUT YOUR LIGHTS ON (FEATURING EVERLAST)

PARENT'S WORLD VIEW : EXPERIENCE FORTY-SEVEN : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

 

Put yourself into your parent's world view and explain it in their voice. What did they or are they saying to you now (even if they have died)?

Christine Trzyna

This exercise is part of a series of writing exercises and to bring up the whole series use the tag Christine Trzyna Writing Workshop. 

C 2018-2025  Christine Trzyna 
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love.  It's karma.

THE SCREAM by EDVARD MUNCH

 

THE UNITED STATES UNDER THE DICTATORSHIP OF PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP BOMBED IRAN'S NUCLEAR FACILITIES AS A FAVOR TO ISRAEL

That's my take.

I woke up in the middle of the night and checked the news - and was appalled. I'm worried sick this morning after not being able to fall back to sleep. Not only did Trump bypass Congress but ignored United Nations agreements when giving the military orders to bomb Iran's budding nuclear facilities. We are living under a Dictator who rules, not a President who leads.

I AM for a strong DEFENSE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA on our OWN LAND.  We may now NEED IT. 

So here is what we need to be prepared for:

Terrorist attacks on our own land which will likely kill, disable, or traumatize Americans.

Cyber attacks on all systems that run on computers including military installations, hospitals, energy grid, government, and all else.

Individuals and families who are here from Iran or come from Iranian heritage being targeted for bullying by individuals who favor war.

"Christians" who WANT World War 3 as a harbinger of the END TIMES and THE RAPTURE.  (I've already encountered some of these blood thirsty "Christians" at the library.)

More Pro Palestinian versus Israel protesting here in the United States and in Europe. (I wonder if the vegetarian "Peaceniks" are celebrating this morning.)

More Anti-Semitism. In the United States this term is usually applied to Jewish people

"The term "Semite" refers to people who speak or spoke a Semitic language, including Akkadians, Arabs, Arameans, Canaanites, and Habesha peoples. It is also used to describe people descended from Shem, one of Noah's sons in the Bible. The term is primarily associated with the Middle East and the Horn of Africa.

***

Less than ONE SQUARE MILE of Los Angeles was WRONGLY REPORTED as AN ENTIRE CITY IN RIOT AND INSURRECTIONS very recently, and the Federal Government sent in thousands of National Guards and Marines ... Further the emptying of the country by CRIMINAL ILLEGAL OCCUPANTS of OUR COUNTRY - which we thought meant gang affiliated violent criminals who lost their souls - is now interpreted to mean just anyone.

Here is the truth about the size of (and relative peace) of Los Angeles:

"It is significantly larger, covering approximately 502.7 square miles. This area includes both land and water, with 468.7 square miles of land and 34 square miles of water. "

C 2025 Christine Trzyna  

DEVALUED PENNIES : WHY THE REPORTAGE ON PENNIES IS ALL WRONG : CONSIDER YOUR PIGGY BANK : OPINION BY CHRISTINE TRZYNA

DEVALUED PENNIES : WHY THE REPORTAGE ON PENNIES IS ALL WRONG : CONSIDER YOUR PIGGY BANK

Ever buy an expensive coat and think "but it's a good investment because I'm going to get years of wear out of this?"  You're not thinking about single use, you're thinking about REUSING the item.

Let's say the coat is a stretch for you, your budget, because it's a couple hundred dollars. You start thinking about the classic cut, the winters ahead, and that, so long as you don't get too fat or too thin, you can wear that coat hundreds of times.  If you wear that $200 coat fifty times a winter, for five winters, you can see how little it costs PER WEAR. ($200 divided by 250 =?)

You might also do this when you thrift shop and are buying used clothing. You might think "Someone else shrunk these pants and they are not new off the rack, but at only $10, if I wear these pants ten times that's only a dollar a wear.  (Jeans that fit are often a great value per wear. The designers changing the essential shape of them, the length, the width of the leg by year is the only thing that makes a purchase of jeans questionable value-wise.)

So what I'm getting at is THE COST OF MANUFACTURING A PENNY IS NOT THE POINT AT ALL. It's the FACT that pennies are reused thousands of times.  If they were not, we would not have so many years of them STILL IN CIRCULATION. Pennies may cost more to make them than a penny, but if you consider REUSE they are a terrific value.

The devaluation of the dollar makes the value of pennies so devalued some people don't think we need them. But that is not the point.

We do. We do not need prices or taxes rounded up to a nickle.

Once there are no more pennies, the nickles will be next to be exterminated.

Here is a true story.

When I got my dog, and had to watch for hazards such as broken glass, rotting meat on discarded chicken bones, and so on, while walking her, I began to find pennies.  I stooped to pick up her poo. I stooped to pick up pennies.

I had a piggy bank in my closet and I threw the coins in there and forgot about them.

I was using a library further from home than most people would travel. The library closest to me had become scary, requiring constant security and visits by the police. I traveled to this other library which was quiet and underutilized until about three in the afternoon, when the school children came in. That branch was supporting seventeen schools!

One day the head librarian, anticipating a lack of funding for their summer reading program, told me that she was not going to be able to give participating children the things she had in the past. They usually got back packs, school supplies, even new shoes for gym. I said I would try to help.  I called office supply stores and tried to get the school supplies, but was told they needed months to process such requests.

One day I walked into a 99 Cents Only Store on the way to that library. I asked for the manager and she was willing to give me things people had returned.  However, while some of these things might work as prizes, there weren't school supplies.

I went home and while laying in bed, trying to figure out how to get what was needed, I remembered my piggy bank.

I'd never counted how many pennies I'd stooped to pick up while walking my dog.  I opened the piggy bank and there was over $40 in it! (40 X 100 = ?)

I called the manager at that 99 Cents Only Store and asked her if she would be willing to take this amount to provide me the school supplies. She was. I warned her it was all pennies.

I turned over the piggy bank and she gave me so many boxes of crayons, pens and pencils, color markers, notebooks and diaries, and so on that, when I got this all to the library, I was told that it would be enough for several summers. Maybe even years.

That was the true value of pennies.

C 2025 Christine Trzyna

REAL PEACENIKS DON'T CHOOSE A SIDE

REAL PEACENIKS DON'T CHOOSE A SIDE

A while back a man I met, who was an important person in a Peace nonprofit, invited me to go along with him to one of their events. It was at a beach city rather far away and he promised he would provide transportation and get me back home on time, which was important to me because I'd agreed to pet sit for some other friends who were leaving town that evening. 

He did come and get me and he did get lost on the way and he did drive through an area that posted that there was no parking, so security guards gave chase, but he got a space near their set up. ***

Soon I realized two things. One was that I was expected to volunteer rather than just sit there and listen to some speakers. And I was through volunteering. Second that it was assumed that, without really knowing anything about this Peace nonprofit, I was joining them. No, I was just checking them out. Along for the ride.

At one point they got a group to take hand made posters on a walk-around because they had heard media would be there. I kept sitting under a tent. I didn't like hearing that locals called them Anti-American, but that was not my beef with them.

It was that a woman speaker, who I'd known about from another setting, tied Peace into Vegetarianism (or as that Veganism?) and not eating beef.

Yet, as a chiropractor once told me, we have carnivore teeth and carnivore intestines.

Yet, hunger and starvation are so common on this earth that I can never put someone down if all they eat is what they can afford; five for a dollar instant noodles, 7/11 hot dogs, cat food without owning one, dandelions and mud. **

I hate it when I hear people talking The Liberal Mob but in this case it really as. What, I asked myself, was that walk-around actually doing to create Peace? Nothing! These people were calling attention to themselves as superior in knowledge and intelligence.

Since then the war between Israel and Iran broke out, on top of the war between Russia and Ukraine. And the man starting tucking a Palestinian flag into his hat just to become a walking advertisement and sided with them or, you could say, Iran. Yes, this broke our friendship.

This was followed by my sudden understanding that the small group of protesters that proudly gathered on a street corner every Friday night so cars going by them could honk had also sided with the Palestinians. And the above mentioned woman speaker who tied Peace into not eating beef was one of them and had also wrote a letter to the editor of a small liberal newspaper and he, a Jew, published it.

Ah... choosing sides and cheering for ANYONE committing war is NOT the ideology of a REAL PEACENIK! Destruction is evil. It doesn't matter who has started it or who is doing furthering it, or who is winning. It's a horror upon this earth. It wastes people's lives. I have no way to cause PEACE ON EARTH but I do wish for it. And there's that song that goes "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me."

It's not easy to restart a homeland.

You do not have to be Jewish or even like Jewish individuals or culture to understand WHY there's an Israel. "Complications" have been pointed out to me such as that there are so far fewer Jews than Moslems, or that biblical prophecy says God gave Jews their homeland back after centuries of wandering, but, true or not, when it comes right down to it, people like me think who we're looking at when we see Pro Palestinian protesters on street corners is...

NEO NAZIS

That makes us very uncomfortable.

We know there was a Holocaust in Europe in World War II. (And we do not look forward to World War III and do not believe in End Times and The Rapture.) We know Jews were blamed for a bad German economy and ours is failing. We know Adolph Hitler was a mesmerizing speaker and that at rallies people were excited by his message just like some are excited by President Trump's. We know dehumanization started with comparing Jews to rats, and people started believing they were not humans but needed to be exterminated. And we know that the murders started with people who were disabled in care homes, people who were gay, people who were dependent on the state for income being euthanized as undesirables for their weakness and expensive dependency; our homeless could be next. We know this one:

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

According to AI, "This is a famous passage from a sermon by German pastor Martin Niemöller. It is a powerful statement about the dangers of indifference and apathy in the face of oppression and the moral interconnectedness of all people."

Am I saying that no Jew is at fault for furthering war? Hell no. But, a real PEACENIK doesn't cheer when buildings fall and innocents lay under them. They aren't watching the media and yelling "Kill them all!" If you're for PEACE, you'll suggest trying to come to an agreement or staying out of each other's way until another agreement can be reached.

The Friday corner protesters are especially horrible because that neighborhood is full of Italians who have Jewish roots. So in that way it becomes a small town spectacle designed to aggravate and since when does a protest for PEACE turn out to be so passive aggressive if not obviously violent?

Don't think I'm claiming to be a PEACENIK but I sure am trying to be. I'm reminded that there is no glory or beauty in what's going on in these wars. These wars are ecological disasters for the whole planet and have and will effect all participants negatively, especially the children, for generations forward. In those ways there is no winning.

Christine Trzyna

C 2025 

Additions on June 22, 2025 First Day of Summer

Slight edit July 15, 2025

*** No he did NOT get me home on time.

** It used to be said that it was less expensive to be vegetarian due to the price of meat but I don't think that's true anymore.  My experience with vegetarians is that they have become a new elite due to the affordability of expensive supplements as well as the cost of organics and other "special" foods. 

In Los Angeles one child in five goes to bed hungry.  School lunches are sometimes a child's only meal.