Category: blog posts

Why We Can’t See What’s Right in Front of Us

People tend to fixate on the common
use of an object. For example, the people on the Titanic

overlooked the possibility that the iceberg
could have been their lifeboat.

Newspapers from the time estimated the size of the iceberg
to be between 50-100 feet high and 200-400 feet long.

The Titanic was navigable for awhile
and could have pulled aside the iceberg.

Many people could have climbed aboard it to find
flat places to stay out of the water

for the four hours before help arrived.
Fixated on the fact that icebergs sink ships,

people overlooked the size and shape of the iceberg
(plus the fact that it would not sink).

From Why We Can’t See What’s Right in Front of Us, Tony McCaffrey, Harvard Business Review, 10 May 2012. Submitted by Emma Rae Lierley.

Stroke

In case you don’t know me, Hi. Im Diana.
I’m a 30 year old lady.
Itallerthan your average girl,
thinner tha your average girl,
and and active than your average girl.

Yeah I run an ice crea business for a living,
but like to thing
I’m healthier than your average girl too.
No priorn medical history. Nothing.

my first ever ride in an ambulance
was uneventful – the hops;ital
is a 5 minute drive from my folks’ house.

By now I had somehow regained some ability to sspeak
and answered the EMT’s incessant questionsining.
still stuumbling over my words,
even laughin at my mstakes.

(From Bad Year for Boars, an immediate account of suffering a stroke)

Deep Blue

To my shame, I prefer playing chess
against a computer than a human opponent.
It’s less risky. There is no shame
in defeat. Cheating is not unethical.
Attention to it can be sporadic.
You can simply suspend
a game or start over if
you think you are going to lose.
Even when I am beaten soundly by
a computer opponent, I don’t feel
outwitted; instead I take away a
feeling that my thinking has not become
sufficiently machine-like to compete,
which is more reassuring than anything else.
I get the gratifying feeling
that being lousy at chess is
a mark of my indelible humanity.
This despite the fact that I
am playing computer chess because
I can’t bear the pressure of human interaction.

Taken from En Passant, a blog post published by The New Enquiry, 27th July 2013. Submitted by Marika.

What Goes Wrong With Poems

Tom once told me
a poem had to capture
his attention
in the first four lines.

Or perhaps it wasn’t four.
Perhaps it was within
the first twenty words.
Or perhaps I can’t remember
precisely what he said
and am wilfully recreating
the memory.

But I am sure he spoke
about our shared expectation
that poetry (Poetry),
that finest form of writing,

should do something
dynamic early on.

(From What goes wrong with poems. Submitted by Angi Holden)

I was playing D&D when I Came Out

and I don’t know if
I would have
been able to

had it not been
for the positive influence

that the game had
on me.

Why?

Because
it taught me
to be self-reliant.
It taught me to not

stand around

waiting

for some man to rescue me.

It taught me to always,
always,

check the ceiling
before entering a room.

From the LiveJournal blog of wyrmwwd. Submitted by Veronica.

Ontology

And
painters don’t
know they are.

Not
Ed Ruscha.
Not Robert Indiana.

They
just don’t
know. But they

are.
It’s good
they don’t know.

They’d
be impoverished
by their art

if
they knew.

Taken from a blogpost on the blog dbqp, 12th November 2012. “They’d” has been contracted from “They would”. Submitted by Andrew Bailey.

Redemption

Then I got up to leave
and said Stand up.
He stood. I said: Look at me.

I’m a middle aged man
with a limp and a wheeze
and a son and a wife that I love.

I’m not just a little avatar.
You’re better than this.
You have a name of your own.

Be proud of it.
Don’t hide it again
and I won’t ruin it.

Now shake hands.
‘I’m sorry.’ he said,
and looked like he meant it.

Then we shook on it.

From the blog post Meeting A Troll. Submitted by Angi Holden.