Writing – Breakaway Consciousness

Poker, Writing, And Life – Seeing & Accepting Things As They Are | #Mindfulness | #Life | #Writing | #Poker

“Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality.”

“If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything, it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few. ”
― Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

BreakwayIndividual.com
Zy Marquiez
June 19, ,2019

Poker and life share many commonalities, as previously discussed.

That said, in this particular piece, we will also couple writing to it since this also shares many commonalities with the aforementioned, and in the original conceptualization of this write-up, writing and self expression were the main focus. Given the poker theme that gets addressed in this blog at times, I chose to merge all of these to expand upon the ideas a bit. Essentially, we are going to explore some of the commonalities that self-expression has with poker, writing, and how that delves into viewing things at face value and accepting things in deeper ways from a subjective level.

One vanguard commonality that poker shares with life (and writing) is the expression of an individual in the way they play their game. Just like an individual in poker expresses themselves with what they wear, how they speak, how they act, and how they ultimately play, in writing, as in life, it is no different.

In writing, however, the individual uses a different array of tools for self expression. Writers can employ themes, diction, metaphors, arguments, insights, and much more. Tempo, imagery and reliability are also things that can create a huge feeling of kinship between the writer and the reader. All of this allows for thoughts and emotions to be conveyed in countless forms, and for self expression to take place.

In my personal case, I find that when I subject myself to certain emotions conveyed through writing, or even news, and videos, my emotions can get quite affected. Not always, but enough that I have been cognizant of this for a very long time.

Now, allow me a quick aside that merges into what will follow thereafter.

Throughout the full latitude of my life, I have had certain issues with reading thoughts that people share which are negative (or could be seen as such) in nature. These types of feelings and thoughts people share that have a certain ‘negative’ vibe to it are merely individuals expressing themselves. And I say negative loosely, because perhaps a person is simply expressing themselves, and they are misunderstood. Some people might only want to express thoughts on a darker subject, not with the intent of creating a negative vibe to it, but perhaps in a cathartic way. And just because a reader (such as myself in this instance) takes it negatively, doesn’t mean the aim of the piece was to create negativity in its intentional nascent conception.

Though this above example talks about reading from my subjective point of view that stems from my willing exposure to those who express themselves in writing, the same can be said for poker and life in my personal case.

Instances where a player berates another at the tables, or a person mistreats another with disrespect and so on, have always bothered me at a deeper level. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t be affected, only that allowing your emotions to run you over if such is the case with me, isn’t exactly healthy. One can be bothered significantly by an issue without letting that issue overrun them.

Now, if you think about it, an individual’s ‘self expression, whether it stems through the medium of writing, in poker, or in life, that expression is simply one side of the polarity of positivity and negativity, albeit, through the gateway of emotions and the mind.

That a negative circumstance or thought (or my misperception of it) bothers me so much says a lot about me on many levels. Though, what I think it says more than anything is that, even if I have always found such things stressful since my youth, that doesn’t mean I need to let it affect me, if that makes sense. In other words, while every single person has the freedom to express themselves as they so desire, I also have the freedom to accept that in its totality, and NOT let it affect me, and even learn from it if possible, as I am attempting to do now.

I say this because I’m trying significantly to take a slightly more Zen-like mindful approach to reading certain things in particular, which I usually avoid in general due to it causing stress.

Then a thought struck me: just like I can lockdown my emotions in a game of poker and keep them in check, as well as the stress involved in it, why couldn’t I do that in reading or seeing something that bothers me? This doesn’t mean I excuse poor treatment of another human being in any way shape or form, if such has taken place. I am merely stating that I should not allow my emotions to override my logic center, which is something that can easily take place and it’s a social engineering weapon employed often by the mainstream media.

Why do you think the mainstream media nigh always appeals to emotions and nigh never to logic, or even better, a holistic approach? Ponder that one.

Individuals that are highly emotional are much easier to manipulate than those that have a sound and holistic mindset. But just like too much emotion can affect a person, too much logic can as well, which is why a delicate balance has to be struck.

Seeking a delicate balance and a more mindful Zen-like state of being coupled with acceptance of what I s taking place is the approach I have been slowly taking the last few days, and I am appreciating it because one thing I learned a long time ago is that, anything that bothers you says something about you. Anything that bothers you a lot, says even more about you. While obviously, this can be positive or negative, the point is that our emotional response to a situation has endless ways in the way it can play out, and being able to come to terms with it is incredible for seeing the world as it IS, rather than how you think (or wish) it could be.

The world, just like individuals, simply are. And just how I am okay accepting myself for me, as everyone should accept themselves as well, I should be cognizant of others and their thoughts, feelings, and so on.

That need not mean that I need to agree with them, not at all, or give a pass to something that’s downright wrong that goes against what I feel is right. It’s just that seeing things for what they are is one of those obvious, and yet, not so obvious subtleties life offers. It’s not unlike the sky, it’s there, but most people don’t pay attention to it. Not seeing the subtleties in life, is not unlike having a kaleidoscope at hand, and not seeing the countless intricacies that it offers due to its unique perspective. That’s missing out on a LOT of things one could see, and even learn from if exposed to such.

Is the glass half full or half empty? To me, that doesn’t matter.

What matters is what is inside, and what you can learn from it.

In this case, my cup has been half full with fear of myriad things, which has historically affected how I see and accept the world for it is, which is why my stress increases proportional to my inability to accept things, and which has undoubtedly has affected my health throughout my life.

But at least I am coming to terms with it. Hopefully, that’s a big first step in the right direction.

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Author’s Note:

[1] I know I meandered a bit hither and thither, but, there was just a lot I wished to address, and I just took a more instinctual way of constructing my thoughts, rather than a logically structured way in which I aim to follow at times, so if this seems like a lot of spaghetti got launched at the wall in order to seek what sticks, it’s EXACTLY THAT!

[2] I have posted an iteration of this elsewhere in the form of a letter, or perhaps, journal entry might be more precise. I have opted to share it here, though in a significantly more fleshed out way because I think the topic deserves some serious consideration.

This started simply as me putting my thoughts to paper based on many things I had been thinking about of late, with what is shared being that which I thought most noteworthy.

I find it highly fascinating how many points of views different circumstances can offer. Not learning from them when you can if you simply make an a proactive effort is leaving life lessons by the wayside. At least, for me that’s how I feel.

And what’s life about, if not about growth, to a certain extent?

Hope you all have a great evening.

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About The Author:

Zy Marquiez is an avid book reviewer, inquirer, an open-minded skeptic, yogi, and freelance writer who aims at empowering individuals while also studying and regularly mirroring subjects like Consciousness, Education, Creativity, The Individual, Ancient History & Ancient Civilizations, Forbidden Archaeology, Big Pharma, Alternative Health, Space, Geoengineering, Social Engineering, Propaganda, and much more.

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Emotional Bank Accounts: Emotional Self Expression | #Writing | #Honesty | #Life | #Obstacles | #Emotions | #Poetry | #Poems

BreakawayIndividual.com
Zy Marquiez
June 17, 2019

It’s been a while since I have written anything under the ‘Emotional Bank Account’ moniker, but today something rather significant took place.

Without going into details, I read the equivalent of someone’s thoughts in a way that really hit home. Although what was written was incredibly significant, what I want to focus on here is the actual act behind it, which is just as so.

When an individual puts their heart into writing a piece, as a reader, you can really feel it; this act resonates to a great degree. It doesn’t matter what it is, passion and emotion are incredibly easy to gravitate too, no matter what form of media, not unlike a moth gravitating to a flame.

As an individual, self expression in general is incredibly crucial for countless reasons, not the least of which is intellectual and emotional freedom. But on a deeper level, self expression of someone’s deepest and most closely guarded emotions can be quite cathartic, as I discussed with the person that penned this piece. There’s more than that though.

When an individual writes something, or expresses their emotions to be precise, no matter the medium used, especially where they in fact are putting themselves in an incredibly vulnerable position, it creates a deeper resonance still since such actions hit closets to home.

Haven’t you ever seen a piece of art, and been so incredibly overwhelmed with it, that it makes you ponder life at levels you hitherto considered? Haven’t you ever seen a romantic movie, and viewed a particular scene, such as the ending of the Notebook for instance, and just had your heart just absolutely let loose in a tornado of emotions that you couldn’t control given the power and gravity of the scene? Haven’t you ever read a love letter, whether it was addressed to you or not, and whether fictional or not, and still identified with it so much that you were overwhelmed with emotion in ways you never thought possible? Such is the power of an individual expression, and it’s one of the clearest windows someone’s soul.

The kinship that the act of self expression can foster in another person is one of the greatest instances individuals can experience, and such is the power than one individual can have with another, or with the entire world.

Don’t ever be afraid to express yourself with the world, whether emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, creatively, or any other way you see as important.

When it comes to really matters in life, there’s nothing more important than that which comes from the deepest parts of your heart and soul.

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Author’s Note:

My apologies for not posting regularly, I have just had a lot going on in many fronts. I have been writing non-stop, I just haven’t been feeling like posting things just yet, although I had started working on a lot of things and have a few ideas that are in in their final-draft versions; I just simply haven’t had the emotional drive to push through in all honesty at the current moment. Hope you guys are all doing great.

Passion Project: Book Release – A Kaleidoscope Of Possibilities by Zy Marquiez | #Writing | #Poetry | #Poems | #TheIndividual | #Life | #Obstacles

KOP1
BreakawayIndividual.com
Zy Marquiez
June 10, 2019

Life is fascinating in innumerable ways.

Sometimes, you have certain goals, and everything you try to do to carry out those goals seems to work against you. Other times, you seem to care not for those goals, and somehow someway everything flows into place like water settling down from a river into an ocean becoming part of something more.

This last week or so, I’ve been deep in thought considering many things in life. Some thoughts are in respect to personal goals, some are passion projects, some of it regards health, so on and so forth. Irrespective of that however, I find myself venturing in a thousand directions unable to pick and choose whether to continue tackling things on an instinctual level, or whether to take a laser-like focus approached into a particular goal or project. Time will tell on that front.

With that in mind, one of the projects that is officially complete, although it has been for nigh two weeks, is the book A Kaleidoscope Of Possibilities which was published on May 29^th.

KOP2
The poetry book A Kaleidoscope Of Possibilities is incredibly significant to me for countless reasons, not the least of which is because this book is in essence an overarching view into many of the struggles I have personally faced, or have seen others face, along with many other noteworthy issues. Also, unlike most other poetry books which feature only poems, this one features personal notations through and through of varying length as insights or personal notes. These can be as short as a couple of lines, or as extensive as a few paragraphs. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and might do something similar in the future.

Most of the poems featured in the book have been shared on many social media platforms, whether it was on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., as well as quite a few websites as well. Some of these poems go back to what was written when I was a teenager, up until early this year.

While most poets that I’ve seen usually wait until their best work is published to start off, I thought I would take a different approach. I don’t want people only to see ‘the finished product’ of what my writing entails as I wait for more polished pieces. If that is what you seek, I would suggest waiting for Halcyon Days, or another other book thereafter.

What I want everyone to keep in mind with this particular book, including myself, is how my writing has grown over time, so I can go back and reflect on that. I simply want people to read that and say, “Hey, I can’ do that too!” This type of can-do mindset is much easier to impart into others when they see your ‘skill’ in its most basic form, from the ground up. I say ‘skill’ loosely, for I am only an amateur writer, but no other words come to mind that seem to fit.

Many times, in life, society as a whole sees the finished product of someone. They see the movie star, the athlete, the Olympian, et al., in their latest form. What people don’t see is where they came from, how they started, how they struggled and so on. Autobiographies cover this to a great extent, but that is usually after individuals have considerable experience in particular field, which does a great disservice to people who want to learn from others to the utmost degree.

Excerpt from *A Kaleidoscope Of Possibilities.*

That said, some of the topics featured within the book that can help with an individual’s growth include love, pain, suffering, fear, abuse, mistakes, addictions, life lessons, mistakes in poker that translate to life, and much more. Almost none of the notations in A Kaleidoscope Of Possibilities delve into incredible depth unless absolutely necessary (as can be seen above), given that this is primarily a poetry book, but the insights that are there are included for those seeking deeper rumination of such a full spectrum of subjects. A handful of the notations really seep into more mindful depths, but in the full totality, there’s a little bit of everything [1].

In other words, the notations in this poetry book, which encompass nearly 3/4^th of the substance of the book, are just as important, if not more important than the poems themselves. This is because the insights that may be drawn from these for me personally, or for others as well, are just as important as the finished product, those being the poems, which is exactly what I was getting at earlier.

Either way, this information is shared so it can serve as a baseline for some of my future works, so I can see, and others as well, where I have come from so others can take a “Can Do” attitude from it if at all possible.

No matter where you are from, what you have gone through, what goals you have or what you wish to ultimately get in life, you always have options, there is always a choice. These choices encompass the full breadth and scope, the veritable kaleidoscope of possibilities that life offers every single day.

These possibilities that exist every single day, and the choices that may stem from them, are what life is all about. Good choices, bad choices, it matters not, for individuals will always have choices, whether to start something great, or rectify past mistakes. What matters most is that we DO have a choice to live a better life, a more meaningful life, a life of possibilities.

That’s what A Kaleidoscope Of Possibilities is all about; it is about gazing into the abyss of life, sifting through the deeper levels of your being and life itself for the significance of every single choice you make, no matter how big or small, and how that couples directly into the lifestream.

You, the individual, are a microcosm of that lifestream, and ultimately significant component of life itself. And as you make your choices on your path, life itself changes accordingly, your life, as well as those of others, contributing to the larger tapestry of wonder that the world holds.

This tapestry, this timeless art piece called life, is intimately woven within you. Don’t ever underestimate the power in your ability within this grand tapestry.

But to contribute to this grand tapestry, your grand tapestry, choices have to be made. These choices start with you.

You – The Individual – are the key to the kaleidoscope of possibilities, and will always be.

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Author’s Note:

[1] While that notation might seem obvious at first blush, and even simplistic, much of the advice in self-help books can be seen just as such, and still manages to help millions of people. Given that, one should never underestimate the power that an insight, not matter how seemingly ‘obvious’ it is, can do to help others on their path.

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#Quote Of The Day | #Writing | #Poetry | #Poem | #Prose

“If I waited for perfection, I would never write.”
– Margaret Atwood

#Quote Of The Day | #Writing | #Life | #Poetry | #Poems

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”
– Anais Nin

#Quote Of The Day | #Writing | #Poetry | #Poems

“Writing is an exploration. You stat from nothing and you learn as you go.”
– E.L. Doctorow

Book Review: The Elements Of Style [4th Edition] by William Strunk Jr. & E.B. White #SmartReads | #Writing | #Creativity

“If a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away.”
– Victor Hugo

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”
– Lous L’Amour

BreakawayIndividual.com
Zy Marquiez
June 2, 2019

Once rated “one of the 100 most influential books written in English” by Time magazine in 2011, The Elements Of Style [4th Edition] by William Strunk Jr. & E.B. White is a systematic book which employs a no-nonsense approach on enduring principles of sound writing.

Cogent, concise and methodical, The Elements Of Style provides the firm foundation upon which writers can construct or improve their repertoire.

Featuring advice that is as simple as it is timeless, the book’s easy-to-follow approach allows for the incisive individual to become more robust with the principles of writing, while honing their own individual style as well.

Undoubtedly, some of these tenets might be familiar to anyone that has dabbled within writing before. Even so, many of these tenets are oft-overlooked (at least by me!) and having them around to reference is quite convenient.

For a book that is nigh a century old, it still ‘packs a punch’. Incidentally, that prior figure of speech, “packs a punch,” for instance, dances along the line of Style Rule #18: Use Figures Of Speech Sparingly.

The reason that last bit is because, perhaps that figure of speech shouldn’t have been used, or perhaps so. But having read this book, as a writer, I am now consciously thinking of how the use of diction and phrases affect everything. Ruminating a bit, perhaps, instead of writing that the book still “packs a punch,” I could have written “this book provides a treasure trove of insights for writers.”

Even though the first sentence gets the meaning across, the second one is smoother, and accomplishes the same thing in amenable fashion. That is merely one example of the possibilities that this book will allow the shrewd writer to undertake once he begins to firmly inculcate its lessons and employ them therein.

Great writing, like a sound structure, can only take place with a firm foundation. The scaffolding for that will undoubtedly require the insights of this book. If you know all of them by heart, you’re one step ahead. If not, then ponder getting this book. And considering that these days, many people communicate with others through the written word on the Internet, it would be prudent to learn these tenets since they will undoubtedly help those who need to employ them.

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Suggested Reading & Watching:

What Is The Difference Between Education & Public Schooling?
Logical Fallacies Employed In Every Day Life
Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto
Weapons Of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto
13 Great Reasons To Study Logic
How A Generation Lost Its Culture – by Professor Patrick Deneen
A Different Kind Of Teacher by John Taylor Gatto
Socratic Logic by Peter Kreeft Ph.D.
Philosophy 101 by Peter Kreeft Ph.D.
Brave New World & Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley
What Is Education? The Elite Curriculum – John Taylor Gatto
Breakaway Guide To Censorship, Disinformation, Logical Fallacies & More
How To Read A Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren
History So It Doesn’t Repeat – The Deliberate Dumbing Down Of America With Charlotte Iserbyt
Classrooms Of The Heart [Documentary] – John Taylor Gatto
Sumerhill School – A New View On Childhood by A.S. Neil
Social Engineering 101
Dialectical Thinking – Zeno, Socrates, Kant, Marx by Tommi Juhani Hanjijarvi Ph.D.
Underground History Of American Education With John Taylor Gatto
The True Purpose Of Modern Schooling
Getting Things Done by David Allen
Open-Source Method: Genius Education – Examples | John Taylor Gatto
The Trivium – The Liberal Arts Of Logic, Grammar & Rhetoric by Sister Miriam Joseph Ph.D.
Cultural Literacy – What Every American Needs To Know by E.D. Hirsch Jr.
A Rulebook For Arguments by Anthony Weston
A Workbook For Arguments by David R. Morrow & Anthony Wesson
Drilling Through The Core – Why Common Core Is Bad For American Education by Sandra Stotsky & Contributors

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About The Author: