Always loved Rod's voice. Remember the days when the audience used to yell Rod Is God!
6/16/23
6/14/23
6/11/23
HAD ENOUGH OF PEOPLE WHO DISMISS YOUR EXPERIENCE BY TELLING YOU TO BE POSITIVE
I'm not exactly pissed. But I think I have to give up a friendship. I feel like screaming You Are Not Hearing Me. I realize only the most superficial and untrusting relationship with her is possible because when I tell her what I'm thinking and feeling - and why - she usually gives me a dose of Toxic Positivity.
I wonder if she has had a life sheltered from similar problems.
6/9/23
6/7/23
WHAT THEY DON'T GET ABOUT PRINCE HARRY and HIS TESTIMONIALS : the STIFF UPPER LIP and TOXIC POSITIVITY
I just listened to a video of a broadcast out of Britain in which an unrepentant journalist admitted that he and his peers at a particular newspaper DID INDEED HACK and PERFORM OTHER ILLEGAL TACTICS TO MONITOR - STALK - AND GET INFORMATION ON THE ROYAL FAMILY. Further, a "journalist" from another such tabloidish paper said, in so many words, the battle was already won because these papers are extinct or on their way out, based on sales of the publications and WHY DOESN'T PRINCE HARRY GET ON WITH IT.... These two are not part of the court hearing. They are unashamed of their illegal behavior and took to slinging at Harry. SHAME ON THEM.
Journalists MUST hold to professional standards - not stalking, not spying, and not hacking - or there will be no more HONOR in being a journalist. Their illegal and unpunished behavior lowers the standards for privacy in society as a whole.
I've heard the criminals blame the victim for the damage done to them in many situations and basically, if nothing else, Prince Harry is processing the damage to his psyche, which he likely stuffed to survive for many years. Perhaps the British "stiff upper lip" is all about emotional repression. Think about what you have stuffed in order to appear unhurt.
Further the Get On With It and ignore the crap, is very much part of TOXIC POSITIVITY. Is British culture all about toxic positivity?
C 2023 Christine Trzyna
6/6/23
I STAND WITH THE HOLLYWOOD WRITERS STRIKE (WRITERS GUILD OF AMERICA) and WITH PRINCE HARRY
Enough is enough.
It's time that the public stand for professional standards.
Think about this: You need to know about politics, national, state, local, because DECISIONS MADE EFFECT YOUR LIFE. You do not need to know anything about celebrities who are not in your life. If they are friends they will tell you themselves about themselves; at least what they want you to know. Unless you are among them, working for or with them,what is happening in their personal lives, IS NOT LIKELY GOING TO EFFECT YOUR LIFE.
So should you be reading about politics or celebrity gossip?
The studios and most actors make extreme incomes. It is the writers who provide the scripts, and give them the dialogue, who are essential to film-making. Maybe every writer has a script they're working on in a drawer of their desk at their "real job," so I was told years ago when I typed my creative work on a laptop at a coffee house where I heard one of these Hollywood writers call me "the girl who types." I was an adult woman who had just graduated from a writing program that was not easy to get into and there was this sexist jackass trying to turn me into a secretary. He was there hoping to get my ideas having run out of his own. Those guys are everywhere.
A script writing hopeful one showed up at my writing round table and took everyone else's work home with him to critique and never showed back up. We thought he was a script thief. That was why I told the group we should never admit anyone who didn't first submit their work to us - to prove they had some.
I have reason to think a couple of my ideas were stolen over the years.
That or there is a collective consciousness.
Women and the work of women creators in all the arts do not at all enjoy equality with men. It's still very much a boy's club and the boys in the boy's club are still playing the "if you have sex with me I'll get you the break you need," card with women.
Someone who worked for Steven Spielberg said writers called him Thieven Steven because, they said, he was fond of claiming, when being pitched, that he had already had that idea... I have no idea if this is actually true as I never wrote a script in my life to that point and did not have a script in any drawer, but I heard it more than once. The script writers would show up at one coffee house or another and when they chose to move to a new location to write - well you never knew why they showed up or vacated a location.
One said that if you did it right, you could even sell a shitty script, just so someone else could have your idea more legitimately.
There were stories of certain writers taking a script and spilling coffee on it and stamping it with dirty shoes to make it look like it had been sitting around a while...
A man who told me about Thieven Steven, sent me an e-mail that said, "I know you're writing naked. I know you do." I was appalled. I e-mailed back, "Never contact me again."
I remember going on a walk in the Hollywood Hills with someone who told me to sell a novel and likely someone would buy the film rights for $40,000 which they called "bathroom remodeling money."
Pay for writers in Hollywood is often a joke.
But the cost of living is no joke.
So though sexism and sexual harassment is very much Hollywood, I stand with the writers on strike.
And I note that Prince Harry is taking a beating in the British media for speaking up about his own experience with privacy invasion and being spied upon. They are circling the wagons but if it did or did not happen is not so much the point. It should NEVER happen. Journalism had standards and that was WHY it was an admired and proud PROFESSION.
Like other professions, it's up to the PRO's to keep it PRO. So rather than focus on beating up Harry for speaking out, check into your own tactics.
C 2023 Christine Trzyna
PS: Re true crime on YouTube. Avoid NewsNation. They are shit stirrers.
Listen to Surviving the Survivor! Best guests in true crime, owned and hosted by a Journalist who has guests from many points of view.
6/1/23
5/29/23
5/20/23
I'LL DO A DANCE INTERPRETATION ON THE LAWN and MS. VAGUELY DISSATISFIED
I once had a friend who, when I asked her what her religious beliefs were, said ennegrams. She also said, with a shrug of one shoulder, she once attended the seminar (induction into) for Lifespring. In general, if you had to run a quote under her picture that typified her, it would be "No Bullshit. Just get it done." She was (and probably still is) one of the most productive people I've ever met. But that also meant that she would cut you short when you need to talk. Single-minded. Focused. Busy. Selfish. People always said she was "such a personality" because of her positivity.
I read a book about ennegrams and decided the 9 personality types were simplistic. I thought that she was probably into it because she felt that knowing what type of person someone was would help her communicate with them the best way. She had the tendency to blurt whatever came into her mind, child-like, and had been offensive in general and had personally hurt my feelings more than once with the blurting. Maybe she knew it.
I couldn't decide which ennegrams best fit her or myself.
As for Lifespring. Well, here is an explanation from Wikipedia...
The training consisted of a series of lectures and experiential processes designed to show the participants a new way of contending with life situations and concerns and how other possible explanations and interpretations may lead to different results. Some individuals complained that they felt harangued, embarrassed, or humiliated by the trainer during the training. A few individuals chose not to complete the training. Additionally, the trainer used many English words in a manner different from their usual meaning. "Commitment", for instance, was defined as "the willingness to do whatever it takes". "Conclusion" was defined as a belief. Also, words such as "responsibility", "space", "surrender", "experience", "trust", "consideration", "unreasonable", "righteous", "totally participate", "from your head", "openness", "letting go" were redefined or used so as to assign them a more specific meaning. "Stretch" was an activity that was outside the participant's comfort zone. During the advanced course the participants were sometimes sent out to perform certain tasks. If any participant did not complete their task the group was considered in "breakdown," ...(How's that for a 'reveal' of applying new meanings and uses for words? I hope that the following words, being misused in the media, will be rescued; Deep Dive, Push Back, Down the Rabbit Hole. If you use these try Research, experiencing opposition or conflict, and Explore.)
Ennegrams and Lifespring : Seems to me the point was to change your thinking and that such programs were about Self Actualization - an aspect of the whole New Age Movement in which instead of having a relationship with God and depending on Him , his Will, his Design for your Fate, a person dared to decide what they wanted for themselves and who they were and then strove to get just that. Such people in the past were burned as witches.
Ah, who was it that said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making plans." ? or " That's Life." or "Go with the flow?"
It seems to me that some people are better at applying the "Just do it" philosophy and most of them have no patience for others who have life happening to them or who experience life as it happens.
It seems to me that over time I've encountered many philosophies and religions, ways to encounter life, as well as ways to create - actualize - ones needs and desires - often as an encounter with other people who are trying on this or that. It seems to me that this search for a way to live life better is part of being in a rapidly changing world in which it's not always easy or possible to get your footing before you can dance. Self help books - especially about finding the Right One, dating, and relationships; who has not been tempted to write one?
.
Positive thinking - which I tried earnestly at one point - brought me to the conclusion that I'd run smack into the Cement Wall of Denial.
It also seems to me that there are a lot of "thought" emphasis programs - Scientology being one of these - in which emotions are to be done away with - denied, discounted, eliminated. In these philosophies of how to best succeed in life on earth (and in space) we are supposed to rid ourselves of the essential humanness of feeling.
I recall another of my friends, years ago saying, also with a shrug, "Who knows what's really true?" and "Do whatever you want."
We're supposed to be All Brain and No Heart. That in itself is an imbalance. So profound is the influence of these thought process religions, I dare say that few humans alive in California (I want to avoid saying "on earth") have not encountered the notion. We were to be the precursors of AI.
Emotions, particularly ones that are "negative' or 'difficult' are to be eliminated. Even being happy is thought to be about one's thinking rather than what one is feeling.
I encountered a couple pre-Simpson's cartoon books by Matt Groening, the creator of the Simpsons cartoon. Square and thin, to fit in with record albums in cardboard covers, one called Love is Hell and another Work is Hell. I thought these were funny. I bought them and then passed them along to friends, who also got a howl.
In Love is Hell I encountered the nine (or was that twelve?) types of girlfriends. Like I had when trying to decide which ennegrams fit me best, I tried to decide which of the types of girlfriends typified me. I decided it was between the two in the title of this post. I was, at the time, some part the girlfriend who said something like "To show how much I love you, I will do this dance interpretation on the lawn" and Miss (make that Ms.) Vaguely DIssatisfied, who said something like "I don't know, should I change my hair color?" (I never changed my hair color. I did try to bring back my childhood blonde at one point, after all that had been all mine.).
Today I learned there's was (is?) club for those who could relate with Ms. Vaguely Dissatisfied harkening back to 2017. A Matt Groening cartoon inspired club. The rights to the cartoon belong to Matt and coming from Tumblr the Life is Hell archives, here is the induction:
No Problems? No Problems? We still love you!
C 2023 Writing by Christine Trzyna
Cartoon C Matt Groening - Found in Google Images
5/12/23
OLD WRITING AS INSPIRATION : EXPERIENCE THIRTY-SEVEN : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP
Pull out some OLD WRITING that you did a while back - months or years ago - and read it.
What do you think about it now?
Rewrite it or rewrite a portion of it. Maybe just let a few sentences that you find especially important send you into a flow of writing.
Go where it takes you.
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.
5/3/23
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