~sharkoftheday

I have only recently seen a night so dark to be devoid of light. I have recently only been to a place so quiet to be deplete of human treads. A few weeks ago i went on vacation to a house by a lake. Outside the back window was a view of a mountain range just south of the Smoky Mountains. It was beautiful, it was silent, and the night had such cloud coverage that not a single star shined. I sat out once and watched the sunset and the successive evening only to come in a few minutes before all light faded (hisses at self for that). There is also a picture of this mountain view with fog across it.

The place was inspriing.

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I have organized the levels of poets into four general categories. Granted this does not actually work because, by my definition of a poet, a poet cannot necessarily even write poetry. That is to say, a poet or artist in my view is someone who challenges standards, conforms to their own, takes a step back from the flow of the world to get the perspective of one not involved in it, and is considered quite insane by "normal" society for all of the above. Anyway...this is written in relation to the "rules" of poetry. One who:

1) Ignores the rules.
Nearly all poets start out in this category. In starting, someone cannot place limitations on themselves. First they learn to develop their own way of writing (such as the form, the words, how they express themselves) and, after so long of doing this, move to become...

2) Follows the rules
The poet has developed a writing style more or less and now that the basics are covered they attempt to expand their ability. They learn the different techniques that can be used and experiment until they are comfortable with them. Each experiment moves to successively harder concepts and different forms of writing are used (especially structures). After following certain rules for so long, the person more than comfortable with them moves to the next level.

3) Breaks the rules
Bored or merely looking for something different, the poet bends and eventually breaks the rules that they learned and adhered with devotion. This tends to be characterized by much experimentation outside the ordinary boundaries and has many things based on the manipulation of the traditional concepts of poetry. After years of this rebelliousness, the person comes back to these rules and becomes...

4) Redefines the rules
After so long of breaking the rules, a person sees they have developed their own set. They have an innovative approach and have come back to introduce it into the traditions of poetry. They write of these new rules, of their developments over the years and, if they are popular by now, there are groups that form to emulate every aspect of their style. If they are not popular by this time, the most they can usually do is know they have accomplished something for their own self and hope that their work reaches someone who is either already great or find someone who will be great. If this is the case, they will acheive some post-mortem popularity and glory but, more importantly, their style will have its name written in history as influential.

Of course, by the nature of poetry, not everyone follows this form. Some decide to go so far and stop, being content with what they have. After all, poetry is about being an individual above all else, something which has been affirmed, denied, or ignored by poets over the course of time.

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As for me, I believe myself to be following rules currently, but also bending and sometimes breaking them at any point possible (especially at line structure).

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Concerning a paradox:
The world is filled with such things, especially when human tempering is concerned.

The Catholic church holds two beliefs that will be focused on:
1) There is no such as pre-destination (that something is to happen in a specific way by fate)
2) God alone controls our death
The paradox by now should be obvious, but why miss a chance to write it. This was better as a fresh thought.

If God alone controls our fate, then every aspect of our death is destiny. The problem is if this is destiny, then it was as such since before our birth, meaning it was predestined. The church says that god alone controls death because otherwise they could possibly be advocating suicide, euthanasia, mercy killing, murder, and things of such manner. However, the church generalizes. It is true that we do not have control over natural death; however, we can influence it greatly by our the way we live. That is, the ordinary aspects of a lifestyle: diet; care of the body and mind; exposure to stress; where and how one lives.
On the other side, the fact is, whether the church says yay or nay, that we do have the choice of death, although not the choice of life, we can reproduce but beyond the act everything else is out of our hands. We cannot choose who we are, we can accept or deny it, but not choose. Anyway, by free will we can choose to continue living until something kills us or end life by taking it into our own hands. It is a choice; after all, life is composed of variegated physical processes, each one working working in conjunction in order to sustain the body at every second.
In religion this year the textbook, which if it was not preachy i might have taken it seriously, said that the church does not advocate the use of extraordinary means to preserve life. Taking this out of context, it is seen that what our body does every single second of the day to preserve life is an extraordinary mean because life itself is extraordinary. When considering that it arose from simple chemical reactions (or at least i believe as such) that repeated and combined with many other chemical reactions of like nature, it is vexing that it could even happen or, worse, have come this far (but i feel this way about reality in general). So to say that extraordinary means is not necessary, in my little devilish heretic's mind, is the same as admitting that humans have the right to confer death upon their own person.

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I really must get off, I made arbitrary plans to go shopping.