Poetry

Poetry is a subjective medium. I write it for myself and without regard to “catching” the most favor with readers. I express it based on spontaneous impulse, intuition, and/or the niggling little wordsmith in the back of my mind who absolutely must speak no matter what I happen to be doing at the moment.

I’ve been writing poetry seriously for over 20 years, being mentored early on by the late poet Ruby Shackleford, teacher for over 60 years, including at the college level. She authored seven books of poetry and was an accomplished artist exhibited throughout Wilson County, NC. 

I have to give credit to this kind woman, who took time out of her days to speak to me one-on-one, share her thoughts and poetry and to point out things that might make my own poetry better. I had the benefit of chauffeuring her around and we were never in a rush. She was such a value to me. On the technical end she never said, “do this”, rather, she would say something like, “think about another word for this one,” and would even simply cross out parts of my poems that didn’t need to be there. 

More than the technical aspects of our meetings, she would go on about the wonder of words and how she always had dictionaries about her house to pull from. It was a craft, it required research and a way to define that in you which wanted to speak out, and to do it as succinctly as possible while retaining the whole of the experience. There was never thought as to how others would view your work, only that you express it clearly. 

She also “forced” me to try styles, like haiku, cinquain, acrostic, etc., to see how I would work in an “confined” structure. I did well, but my own voice tended toward free form, though I have my own particular style in that.

I share an excerpt of a letter she wrote to me:

“…is to tell you quickly that your fine letter & the poem was one of my season’s best greetings. You are my miracle! No other “student” I’ve ever had has grown so rapidly from a 1st grader to a college grad! Your poetry “sparkles”. You are really moving on. Please try to reach newspaper, magazines or any other modern public communications.”

How can one not like, or want to continue to do their best, with positives such as those?

Finding one’s voice is a difficult thing, it requires time, patience, the ability to listen to yourself and others (constructive), and repeated expression. It helps to come back to your expression later on, look at it with the objective eye that time apart from the work gives, and then, if with written word, read it aloud to yourself. Listen to how it sounds, how it flows. And feel completely free to chop it up and refine that which isn’t refined. 

Anyone can tell you they don’t like your work, your expression, but does what they say have any basis in reality, or is it merely something they react to simply because of their own emotional state, opinion of you, or other perception not really having to do with the work? Having someone say,”I didn’t like that poem, it made me feel sad” isn’t necessarily a bad thing at all. They drew something from the experience that triggered an emotional response. Your expression will have that effect on people one way or the other. If you did well.

There are those whose comments are simply a self-serving reflection of their need to feel good about themselves, even if it makes you feel bad. Those are often easy to spot, as well as those who are afraid to tell you their truth because it may hurt your feelings, so they only exude positives. 

The really great ones, from my perspective, not only tell you they liked it, or had problems with it, but also told you why, as it pertained to their experience. I love knowing how my work affects people. It tells me something about them, and I love learning about people.

As with most criticism, look at the source. If you value the source, then honestly look at the constructive elements of their response, how it can make you better at what you do. Getting emotional or letting yourself shut down serves no purpose to you the individual. Let not your light dim! I cannot express that enough. Remember: your voice is something no one else has. Express it.

So without further ado, I present to you a breakdown of some of my poetry, from my own objective view and then from my personal view as I was writing it. I have done this for a couple of people (on more personal or intimate poems) and it opened up an understanding, and beauty, they weren’t aware was there. Some poems are far too personal, and would reveal too much about the object/person of the poem without their consent, so you won’t be seeing those (probably). Others would reveal a great deal about me…I’ll think about it. At any point, here’s one that doesn’t expose myself too intimately.

I write these breakdowns somewhat stream-of-conscious, so please bear with me as I minimally pay attention to punctuation or grammar during this process. That is the only caveat you get : )

Breakdown: it’s work

mini chimneys burning

themselves before me,

decaying amid the

night sky and lamplight

purpose forward, the

Grind, spark illicit

thought, desire of the

genome and age of

rending that which

constrains, forbids the

freedom of our

nature

Objectively

It’s work implies struggle, moving through difficulty, or with some exertion. Mini chimneys implies small sources of smoke, people, walking ahead of the author…decaying amid the night sky, brings image of not only smoke wafting upward, but parts of themselves disappearing into the night, darkness, toward end of life..lamplight indicates light that isn’t the best source of illumination, not bright, or only bright in patches… purpose forward is a goal toward something, a choice based not necessarily on desire, but other motivation…the Grind, capitalized, it stresses the goal and its importance, a job, grind implying being crushed, ground up, parts of you tearing away…spark illicit thought indicates the previous generates thought not accepted by society or others…desire of the genome is base genetic expression, food, sex, safety and doing whatever it takes to maintain/acquire those…age of rending that which constrains, speaks of time when base genetic expression dictated action, where rending/tearing free of that which is constraining, be it any who impose constraints, or nature itself…forbids the freedom of our nature, again nature is indicated as base nature here, our constraints of job or accepted social norm forbids/constrains our base nature…ties in with title it’s work, implies then that it is not merely work, but work to keep our natures contained.

Personally 

Walking from the parking lot to work early morning (before 5am) my mind had great impulse to write what I was witnessing, people walking and smoking in front of me, their breath, their lives being burned up in the exhaust they put in the air, mini chimneys, the smoke, their lives, drifting up into the night sky where there was nothing more of them to be seen/experienced. They were unhappy, their mind on each step in front of them, doing something they had to do, passing under the lamplights overhead illuminated this unhappiness. I could see in their movements, men whose physical structure was meant for more freedom, more challenge than what they were getting, things that put their own life in their hands, where they chose their path and pursued it, an inspiriting that their genetic makeup knew, but had long since forgotten. It was there though, in their movement, their purpose and drive…it was controlling and containing that energy and base desire that was the actual work in their day to day lives.

Now, here’s your task: I will break down two other poems (or more depending on how many responses I get and the time I have). I ask that you contact me and let me know which of my poems from writerscafe you would like me to do this with.  I will select from the requests, and then post them at the end of this blog when complete. 

Thank you.

(Contact me on facebook, or with the email link at the right of the page)

Losing fat - The Ming Crunch

The Ming Crunch - How to lose fat (I did not say how to lose weight) in 12 weeks

GOAL: A healthy, functional body with lower body fat.

A lot of you aren’t going to like the suggestions I make here, but know that I have some extensive expertise in this particular area and know just what I’m talking about. This article is brought to you because a lot of people over the years have asked me for some quick information to help them get weight off. This kind of bugs the heck out of me. Anyone can take weight off, but wouldn’t you rather reduce body fat?

Most “diets”, especially “fast”, deal with dropping water weight and/or muscle mass. This is not hard to do. It is also not great for your body. And you will not be able to keep the “weight” off. Rebound is a reality. A conscious (that’s an important word, look it up please) healthy diet and exercise program is a choice. You want to make choices you can live with for the rest of your life (it’s your’s right? Who else is going to do it for you?).

First off

First things first: If you aren’t prepared to make a commitment to having a healthier body for rest of your life, don’t read further. Just go back to your cheese-covered nachos and leave the heavy lifting to those who can commit to a choice.

 (50% of you have left this page at this point, pulling your greasing fingers from the keyboard and are going to see what’s in the fridge you can take back to the couch. 40% of you want to do the same, but are so intensely curious as to what this guy is going to say that you stick around for the next part. 8% of you are determined to try the stuff this guy writes down for a whole 2 weeks, before succumbing to the aforementioned. 2% of you will commit to it like you do the changing of your kid’s diapers while holding a spatula in your hand making pancakes for your spouse, wearing super fluffy slippers on your feet so that you can simultaneously mop the floor while moving around.)

Cut it out

I’m not talking about stopping the poking in your sibling’s ribs while trying to agitate your mom with her annoying screams (okay all ready, jeesh). I’m talking about dropping the following from your vocabulary and food intake. (Do this. You’ll live, and life will still have flavor. Trust me.)

Drop the following 4:

Alcohol

Soda

Any fried foods (yes, I said any)

Cheese (don’t you fight me, I said drop it. “But what about..” No. “But?” No. “How about low-fat?” No. “Fat-free?” Yes. “But I don’t like fat-free!” Then why suggest it? And: too bad.)

All ready I hear the wailing, “but life will have no meaning, I’ll have nothing to live for! WAAAAAAAAH!”

Too bad.

I’m not called Ming the Merciless for nothing. You on this ride or not?

You also get to eat the other stuff not listed on the 4. That means pasta, breads (try choosing whole grain), cereals, vegetables (there’s a lot of these freakin things, try a ton of variety and eat the ones you like), baked foods, steamed foods, fish, chicken, turkey, red meat (try to limit to 2 meals a week of red), etc. 

Sweets

Limit this to 2-3 times a week. If you have a sweet tooth let it know when it can be satiated, not the other way around. Plan days that are “treat days” and stick to eating your sweets then. Mine is typically on the weekend. 

The secret

(You get to add those 4 thing back into your body after 12 weeks.)

Yes, I said 12 weeks.

The other secret

Sweat, or: working out really hard exercising.

(“WAAAAAAAAH!”) Cut it out, you’re only encouraging me.

Here’s the minimums:

Resistance exercise 3-4 times per week, 30-45 minutes per session (the heavier you train the less time, but man, you better be sweating and having 1-minute rest periods max). You must move weight. Isometric movements aren’t enough for this course.

Walking 90 minutes five times per week (2- 45 minute sessions if you can’t do the whole 90), or 35 minutes running 4 times per week. And I mean a BRISK walk (please look that word up), not some lollygagging mope. You made the choice, remember? Be happy about it. You should feel energized and have mild muscle fatigue from the BRISK walk. (Did I have to capitalize that word again? Oooh yeah, you know I did.)

Working out earlier in the day also kicks up your metabolism for the rest of the day. Train early if you can.

___________________

Awesome resistance training can be found with a good trainer, or bootcamp class that actually moves weight (whether it’s a car or kettle bells) and works plyometrics. 

And women, I know you love to work legs and butts (I love it too), but you’ve got to challenge yourself to working that upper body in the same frantic and possessed way.

And men, we all like looking at our big guns (biceps) and chest, but you need to blast the legs and butts too. Seriously. That lightbulb-shaped body just won’t cut it.

Who’s still with me? 

As I said, we’re all about losing fat, not weight. Muscle mass is heavier than fat. If you are training properly, you will increase muscle mass, so you’re actual weight number will go up at first (and girls, knock it off, the “but I don’t want to be bulky with muscle” excuse is ridiculous and doesn’t work with me. We should all be so fortunate to add muscle bulk as quickly as you image you would. As it stands, it’s an excuse that doesn’t hold up. You aren’t going to be Lou Ferrigno in 12 weeks, or 5 years for that matter. It’s too specialized and intense a field to pop that much muscle on.)

Though your weight number may go up during the first few weeks, you will trim down, as more lean muscle mass increases your metabolism. Clothes will fit better and you’ll feel better. You’ll be more mobile and niggling pains will go away.

The other other secret - how to eat, 5-6 times per day

Eat the pyramid method. No, I’m not talking the food pyramid. I’m talking about the following:

Eat your biggest meal in the morning (or start of your day).

Eat nutritious snacks in between meals, preferably with high quality protein.

Taper off your other meals to where your smallest meal is before bed. (This will also depend on when you train your heaviest: training heavy means you generally eat somewhat larger portions to help recovery)

Drink 6-8 oz glasses of water a day. I said water. You can have a sports drink on top of that. Don’t skip the water.

Add high-quality protein to your diet through protein bars or shakes. You’ll need the extra amino acids to help repair and recover from your training. (Eggs, and specifically egg whites, are a healthy and inexpensive choice for quality protein if you’re on a tight budget.)

Breakfast

Eat your breakfast! Over the couple of decades I’ve been training people, two things stand out for people who don’t eat breakfast: migraines and being overweight (or they just can’t seem to ever lose weight no matter how hard they train).

You goal is to increase your metabolism, make it more efficient to burn fat. When you starve yourself, or calorie omit for long periods of time, your body’s metabolism slows down. Calories are shunted to fat stores to help survive the “starving” period. Keeping your body supplied with nutritious (look that one up too) food every 2.5-3 hours, along with exercise, helps to increase your metabolism.

Our bodies are made for positive physical stress (exercise). Why else would you have muscles that respond positively to resistance exercise? Why else would the body, through it’s own pharmacy, produce chemicals and hormones to help you feel great as a result of the same? 

The opposite is true as well. Muscle atrophy and improper calorie consumption produces a whole host of short and long-term problems, most requiring mobility assistance later on, increased perception of pain, and the inclusion of harmful drugs required to counter a harmful lifestyle.

Calories

You can’t go anywhere if you don’t know where you are.

I’ve written (long ago) on how to work your calories, finding your basal metabolic rate (the number of calories you require at rest - that means the number of calories burned by your body even if you were to do nothing but sleep all day), etc. I’ve reproduced the article here: (http://corejkd.com/main/Nutrition_and_Core_JKD_Aug_2004.htm)

I cover “rest” there also, so I won’t add much to it in this article. Rest is important, healthy eating and plenty exercise will help you rest better.

Habits

If you associate your food intake with television, then drop television and pick up reading, writing, choir practice, painting, etc. In other words, find out what triggers an unhealthy association for food other than hunger. Emotional eater? Get a journal/diary and write with a hunger, rather than stuff feelings down. 

It comes down to paying attention, being aware of things you do, and their triggers. With awareness, there’s realization, and with that there’s the ability to make habit changes. 

People get overweight because of unhealthy habits. You get out of being overweight for life by making new habits.

After

After the 12 weeks you can start to slowly integrate those 4 elements back into your diet. But don’t go crazy. By the end of 12 you should have some new taste experiences and also have the awareness on what feels good for your body. With time away from fat, you lose a taste for it, or rather you develop an understanding of how horrible it is to feel it settling on your stomach and slowing you down.

Compensate/regulate your calories by reducing others if you add the 4. Remember, you are trying to maintain a fairly healthy daily calorie total, trying to keep fat to 30% of your diet or less. Remember, fried foods are calorie dense, and fat stores more easily as fat on your body than carbs or protein.

Keep up your training to compensate for your calorie intake. You should have a better idea how that works now. Calories consumed above what’s needed to maintain your current weight needs to be burned off. That means get your butt out and exercise off what you put in your mouth.

So to sum it up:

Make a choice, stick with it.

Drop the 4

Eat your breakfast and 5-6 smaller meals a day

Sweat with the minimums (you can go higher) of resistance training and cardio

Change to new habits






I include here a few picts of what my training and this does for a body (mine):

How to treat people

How to treat people

No major caveats here. Most (sane) people will respond to the following positively, and application of such would relieve a lot of tension, not to mention increase a synergy all around.

Who are you?

This is one of the toughest statements in the English language it seems. As humans we have a tendency to group people according to comparative reference, “that which you have experienced”, in an effort to protect ourselves or loved ones from physical or emotional pain. The descendant logic tree for this usually starts out with our senses, sight and smell first, then, if that isn’t offensive, we breach beyond to the next phases, categorizing people (in no particular order) according to height, weight, hair coloring, clothing, state of health, sound of voice, etc. There are some people who also place skin coloring at the forefront of this analysis, to which I personally find no value, other than in how different coloring adds to the beauty of the human visual spectrum. Skin coloring has no relation to character and personality. Think about it, really think about it…none.

It’s also somewhat of a shame that people put value in political stance or religiousness, or lack of, as priority when evaluating potential connection to others. Certainly, there are organizations and groups whose mandate is based on a foundation of hate or lack of understanding, thinly veiled, or blatant, and it is understandable to not want to associate with them. But when politics and religious or non-religious stances are used to support or express base fear (denied, disguised or undiscovered), then it becomes a tragedy for civilized structure. The “unknown” becomes a place we place our fears. There’s a lot of room in the unknown.

The next phase in categorizing people is broken down by the “defensive” investigator with questions like, “what do you do?”, “where do you work?”, “who do you know?”, “where are you from?”, “where did you go to school?” and so on.

If the person is pleasing, or at least acceptable in the physical aspects, then people add the other questions to define potential for supporting or advancing their own personal human network infrastructure. Beyond that, questions are asked based on personal preferences, comparatively, in order to find similarities with new people to establish possible friendships or deeper relationships.

What really matters though when connecting with someone? Similarities, commonalities, yes, but what else? What question can you ask someone to gain a meaningful understanding of them?

Ever ask anyone the question, “what inspires you?”. 

Now that’s a question that’ll give you a couple of pathways: flummoxed or not flummoxed.

Flummoxed:

A) the person has never thought of the question because they are not at a point in their life where they have examined themselves and what makes them “move” in this life, or they’ve done the personal work, but have never had anyone ask the question, so an answer was not readily available.

 B) the person has an answer they would love to share, or are uncomfortable sharing because of how they may be perceived or accepted.

C) they have never been inspired in their life (unlikely).

Not flummoxed:

A) the person has an answer they would love to share, and do. And you gain a deep understanding (if they are honest).

B) the person has an answer they would love to share, or are uncomfortable sharing because of how they may be perceived or accepted.

Accepting a person for who they are:

I have other writing I do, a lot on the human condition, my anthropological philosophy, if you will, to be published at some future date. (Yes, it has a name, just not for release yet). Here’s a little guideline from it that will help you accept a person for who they are:

Creed of the Individual © 

I am not my skin color

I am not my parents or siblings

I am not my sexual orientation

I am not my nationality/ancestry

I am not my religion

I am not your fears

The person in front of you is an experiential individual, no two humans share the same experiences. Each is relayed through the makeup of their physical chemistry, genetic expression, or personal interpretation and response. Accept them for that. Allow them their unique expression and interpretation, it will allow them to grow, and that growth colors the world richer. 

Many miles up, our earth looks fairly uniform in color and substance, not a lot of variety, browns, blues, whites, greens. As we move closer and closer, we realize there is nothing about nature that exists in complete sameness. People are like that as well. Time with someone reveals twists and turns in thought and creativity and expression that one doesn’t at all see from the package of skin and hair we are first presented with. The more honest a person is in their expression, the less time we have to deal with “weeding” people out, or into, our own experience. 

Now there are people who may read this and apply some righteous indignation about how one simply does not accept evil, or destructive people into their lives. To that I say, let’s have a little common sense here and keep our “obvious” heads on so I don’t have to state the same. 

Accepting a person for who they are means that you don’t project on them what you want them to be. It also means you don’t pigeon-whole them into containers because outwardly they seem to fit a certain category you or others have defined.

Have patience and demonstrate respect. Respect = to regard highly, and: willingness to show consideration or appreciation, and: admire (someone or something) deeply, as a result of their abilities, qualities. 

In the corporate structure (and I do have some frustrating experience here), the best managers and supervisors - and most productive as a result, allow their employees to be themselves within the confines of company protocol, safety and job description. They simply let the employees do their work - and they appreciate them for it. The worst managers and supervisors are those who love to micromanage, and who express that love to the employees under them. Micromanagement wastes employee resources or denies a person the opportunity to “shine”. Micromanagement is assuaging one’s own OCD by expressing it on another.

I could go on there, but I simply don’t have the time to delve into that particular brand of insanity; micromanagement, not OCD (I have a novel to finish after all). 

 Recognize and support their strengths

How do you recognize someone’s strengths? Patience, observation, and giving one the freedom to do “their thing”. When you give someone the safety net of letting them be who they are, they surprise the hell out of you with their ingenuity, creativity, and gifts - some they may not have discovered until you gave them the opportunity.

Once you recognize a person’s strengths, you can best support them by simply asking the question, “what can I do to help?”. Don’t assume you have the knowledge to know the particular internal pathways a person goes through to demonstrate a gift. If you want to support someone, ask that question, and then do it if you can. Especially if the answer is, “let me be”. An individual is such an internal exploration, they may not even know how to answer that question, but I assure you, you letting them know you are there to help if you can does wonderful things for the spirit.

Appreciate them

I’ve written about this before. This is where you showcase - without wanting to receive anything back - your respect, admiration and even love for someone. Do it. There isn’t enough of that in this life. 

We’ve all been there

One other obstacle to overcome when defining how to treat people is accepting the knowledge that we’ve all been there. We’ve all felt pain, we’ve all had hardships - some greatly more than others. In the end we all want what is best for ourselves and our loved ones and we all want positive life experiences toward a brighter, more connected, future.

Because of the land I was raised in, I value freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and prosperity for everyone. Because of my experiences in life, I have learned to champion and highly value the creating human individual. At our base, that’s what we are…no matter where you are.

(©Shaun Rudie 2011)