Finding time to read is sometimes a challenge, but podcasts help. Lightspeed is outstanding, but recently came across Escape Pod and listened to Water Finds Its Level by Matthew Bernardo and read by Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali.

Wow.

Great writing, but what I loved most is how cerebral the whole story was. In an age where so much is written to be filmed, this story is (nearly) impossible to film.

You can also read it over at Lightspeed Magazine.

Let no one tell you otherwise- creation is a consuming and messy business, and she’s a selfish, petulant siren. 

Relationships bound by selflessness stand fast against even the storms of time, because of the trust that cements them, like mortar. That’s why hierarchies – worker and manager – sow discord. If only one wants something from the other, trust withers. 

Desire invites power, and power corrupts. 

Around me orbits a black hole of creativity, tugging and distracting me and always pulling my attention from the present. Denying it is like denying an addiction, like denying lust. Containing it, though, is bottling lightning.
Which always destroys the bottle. 

Crafting the refined and elegant and simple is a sloppy, messy, consuming business. 

Maybe winds of change are amoral. Maybe they seek only change, oblivious to good or bad. Who would’ve thought a year ago the Cubs would win? 
Or he would win, this week?

“If one lights a fire for others, it will also brighten one’s own way.”  The Dalai Lama writes brilliantly about selflessness and the desire to help for the @nytimes http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/opinion/dalai-lama-behind-our-anxiety-the-fear-of-being-unneeded.html

Tell me a story.

What a personal and private invitation that is. What an intimate way of inviting someone into your mind, a way of saying, “Hey, I’m dropping my guard. I’m suspending disbelief. I’m going to let you in and I will, for a short while, believe all you say. Mess with my head. I don’t even care if it’s truth or lies, fact or fiction. It just needs to be plausible, and not even plausible in my real world! It just needs to make sense in its own context.”

Tell me a story.