It is intimidating, at first.

It’s there, resting on the countertop, all shiny and new, the cover in pristine condition with those elegant floral images, tribal designs, photograph of Paris, or embossed with that fabulous life-altering quote. All those pages are waiting; all crisp, new and clean.

You’ve wanted to journal many times. You’ve even started three, or five, or a dozen times before. You were enthusiastic at first, yet. after a while, or in a week or two, you forgot or couldn’t find the time.

Your mind went to other places and the journal eventually got left on the bus with the almost-new yoga mat, or tucked in that catchall drawer full of good intentions and bad ideas. We all have that sort of drawer, or a box in the basement or storage locker.

You know you have got things to say, you remind yourself daily of that quote you’ve been meaning to write down, or that life-lesson learned from a two-year-old. You realize you should take note of the conversation you had with grandma at dinner last Sunday; she is getting on, and becoming more forgetful, but that was an awesome memory she shared.

Life is like that: as full of moments and dreams and occasions as it is words, and sentences, and paragraphs.

So you bought this journal, a month back, and it is still sitting there. You had the courage to take it out of the bag. You even sat, held it, and admired it the other night while watching that TV series that started out good, and may get better if you watch a little longer.

Then Sunday, when you had the whole house to yourself, you made a pot of tea and put on that perfect CD (you know the one; it’s light, and inspiring) and the mood was perfect, but you just sat there.

Do you use pencil or pen? Is it printing or cursive? You used to have really, really nice handwriting (at least you did in high school), but then somehow it got a little messier. You use the computer more and more (at home and at work), and your thumbs are pretty damn good at texting those short bursts of brilliance, but your fingers get tired if you write too long.

Maybe your thoughts are more perfect, or more presentable (and correctable) if you use the laptop. And then, just as you decide you’ll write, and have decided you will use a pencil (correctable, if required), the kids come home from wherever they were, and they are hungry. Or your sister calls, or Beth (is there anything more mood-shattering than a phone call from Beth?), and you put the journal back on the counter, just until later.

Later comes and goes; days pass, weeks pass, and you even move the journal a couple of times to dust, or make room for a grade school science project. You even laugh at a few of the comments your daughter made while working on the project, and you remind yourself to write them down, in your journal, when you get the chance. When you find the time.

Thing is, you never find the time.

There is always something else that has to be done, whether it’s the report for the office, or historical group, or planning Evan’s 40th birthday. . . or, or, or, or. . .

Days are full of ors. This or that, now or then; damn it, there are just too many choices, and often they are made for you, or you don’t like the choices but go along with it anyway, or you make the wrong choice.

So this is the time you need to choose something for your self. You need to make the choice to give yourself the time to do what you’ve been meaning to do, and to do it for yourself.

This is what a journal is for. It’s time for all that, time for just you and your thoughts. It is writing from your heart and writing it out loud.

You need not worry about pen (ball-point or fountain), or pencil, or crayon, or how you write, or what time of the day you will find those stolen moments; you only need to concern yourself with making the time, and letting the journal do what it needs to do.

You will find a purpose for your journal if you give yourself nothing more than a reason to write. You do not have to worry about sentence structure, punctuation, dangling participles, or format; you only need to let your thoughts out.

Yes, the moment you put pen to paper you will begin to stain those crisp pages, but that is the purpose, and it may get messy as your mood changes, at the days go on, or as you find yourself either struggling with or containing certain thoughts.

Indeed, life sometimes is messy, and that alone should be enough of a reason to write. You know you’ve got something to say.

Say it. Write now.

©2017 j.g. lewis

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Old soul, that of a poet, voice
drenched in whiskey, melancholy
and grief. A long time to bleed the blues;
they don’t happen by themselves.
You won’t fully understand
until you suffer.

Long shadow of the darkest day
reaches out, a reminder always of
the brother you cannot forget.
Nothing and nobody will let you,
when the band
carries your name.

Decades of harsh addiction, criticism,
celebrity gossip and half-truths. A
survivor. More than a relic, more
than a footnote, not a turning point
but a sign on the
rock and roll highway.

Playing for yesterday, like he
meant it, heritage fills time with
old emotion and the truth. Resolution
comes only when allowed. Tomorrow
is no longer his, but
the voice rings out forever.

©2017 j.g. lewis

R.I.P
Gregg Allman
1947-2017

Is it the sunset you enjoy, or the shadows it casts? Have you stopped for a moment to figure it out?
   In reality, it is how you choose to see it.
   Perception changes, and you with it. It is not the reverse. To shift your perspective requires an influence, but despite what you hear, read or see, the viewpoint of the world surrounding you will come from within.
   Yes, we listen to others: educators, politicians, salesmen or solicitors, and whether we are told that the world is flat, which automobile is the safest, or how a policy will dramatically reduce carbon emissions over the next decade, it is the personal processing of this information that will determine your ultimate answer.
   We, all too often, rely on the words of others when trying to understand anything around us.   Explanation involves thinking outside of yourself and considering the consequences, values and benefits. In trying to listen to the flood of information coming at you, it is assumed knowledge that will form your opinion.
   What if I told you that when watching a sunset, you are actually paying more attention to the clouds, than you are to the actual Sun? Would you stop for a moment and wonder what you’ve always taken in?
   The Sun never changes (well, not in immediate terms); it burns, full power, 24 hours a day. We see it more or less, depending on where we are located in relation to the time of the year. It is us that moves and not the sun
   The Sun, quite boring really, is always there. Always in the same place. It’s always round, always bright, and generates radiation that is constant, and powerful enough to light up this world and any other star, planet and galaxy in the universe.
   As it appears to dip below the horizon at the end of each day, the Sun setting is not your focus. All those colours and the glorious view you scramble to capture on your camera or mobile device is more the result of the Sun’s light reflecting and refracting through the atmosphere, precipitation or condensation, or the puffy polluted haze of our ever-expanding cities.
   The view is altered, mostly by your perception. It is still the same Sun it was hours earlier, it is still doing the same bloody thing, but somehow it is more beautiful.
   Perception.
   The Sun glows, alters the shade of buildings, the shadows of trees, and even makes common weeds, like dandelions, appear magical.
   Perspective. It is how we see things. More importantly how we see ourselves, and how we connect with the context.
   Our greatest strength should be admitting we don’t know everything and being open to learning what we need to know. Change comes with knowledge, and challenging yourself comes with connecting to your soul, investigating your id and ego and, through the process, discovering your own mythos.
   Seek answers, or self-explanation for who you are, and why you do what you do. Discover solutions, or check your hypothesis for why something didn’t turn out the way it was supposed to, or why success is likely, in whatever area you chose.
   Context.
   You can make things happen, but you need to unearth what is happening and why. Those are answers you won’t get from teachers, lawyers or policy wonks. You may not even find the answers within, but you will be stronger for looking.
   The inner voice is an inner choice.

©2017 j.g. lewis

It still looks good, shines brightly, and responds intuitively to my touch. It is, at times, slow, but that’s to be expected with age.

Unfortunately, technology moves much too fast in this digital age and I’m being forced to replace the sexy laptop that has served me so well for almost eight years.

A 17” Apple MacBook Pro, with everything you could squeeze into it at the time; the fastest processor and the most memory. I bought quality that would last, and it has.

Even though it has been primarily used for writing (its intended purpose) I’ve filled it up with years and years of photographs and treasured music. It has become the home base for my website, and I find it hard to comprehend how many hours I’ve faced this screen.

Not once has it been in for repair, and the computer still has power in its original battery (though remains plugged in most of the time). A battery shouldn’t be expected to last forever, and I’m learning a computer shouldn’t either.

I’ve tried to keep up with the frequency of updates, changes in operating systems, and have added a few things, chosen an additional browser, and have learned workarounds with programs that can no longer be updated. Hell, I’m still working with Aperture, the photo software that Apple decided to not only stop marketing, but stopped providing support.

It is a problem, and it’s not only with Apple. Obsolescence is standard on every computer, laptop, or tablet manufactured. Four to six years is the expected lifespan.

Yes, the mercurial pace of technology has forced so much change. Much of the change is not because end users are demanding it; most of the change is simply because the computer companies are throwing it out there to prove they are can be more innovative than the others.

Innovation comes with a price, and a cost.

Each time a new feature, or model, is introduced, it forces the consumer to (eventually) stop using something that is still productive. For instance, the latest generation of Macs now use USB-C ports. What this means is that everything you plug into the new computer will have to fit into the smaller orifice. It also means that everything you presently own that operates with a USB (and this means anything from a thumb drive to a camera connector or iPhone cord) will not work with the new port.

What they are doing is guaranteeing you will replace the unit after a certain amount of time: even if it is still working fine. You will also have to replace other components because of changes with the change.

There is no trade-in value to this old Mac. I will still continue to use it for photography, until I can find photo software that will allow the creativity and consistency that Aperture does (or did).

And I will adjust to the new model. I mean, who doesn’t want something new, right? Right? But this time around I won’t buy the biggest screen, and I probably won’t upgrade the memory or maybe not even opt for the fastest processor. Whatever I buy is certain to be faster that what I have now.

I probably bought more than I needed eight years ago, so this time around I guess I’m not looking to get the most out of the machine. Or I’m not going to buy into the perception that size and speed means quality.

I like to buy quality that lasts, but I’m going to have to settle for quality that lasts four to six years.