Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

Category: Miscellany

Anything that’s on my mind.

  • prompt 29

    Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.

    Dear Readers,

    There are many things I wish I had done but aborted by the yoke of life or through the vertigo of existential distress. I had to smother my true spirit under the duties and responsibilities of an elderly child of an immigrant family struggling to make a living in a land of people who do not like me very much. But I will say it anyhow in my blog because I am asked by today’s prompt to which I am willingly obliged.

    I wish I could have become more articulate in expressing myself in writing and speaking so that people could understand why I am the way I am and that they could be my friends, as many people seem to achieve the art of expression without effort. That would have changed my life in a brilliantly green way to happiness because if you can’t articulate yourself effectively, it is like being socially and mentally awkward, and people will ignore you and leave you alone, even if you hate being lonely. What a tragedy.

    I wish I could have realized that worrying will get you nowhere because it will derail you from the tranquility of the mind with multiple faces of a fool. That life is livable, even if it is unlikable sometimes or many times is what I wish to realize someday. To that effect, being serious every time will trap me inside the existential backrooms with a point of no return. I wish I could look back on the foot steps I have treaded upon in my life and say with a smile thus: “My goodness, was I too serious for nothing?”

    I still have a life that I haven’t forsaken, and I want to give it another try to make it as beautiful as possible. The words of St. Teresa of Avila could not have sounded more soothing and curing than any other time than this time: “Let nothing frighten you, let nothing disturb you. All these will fade away.” I hope to see the world around me as workable and achievable, and most of all, adorable in its own oddly enchanting way, which I hope to utter someday, “Oh, LOL! Was I too serious back them?” Why not? Wishes and hopes are free.

  • Prompt 28

    What personality trait in people raises a red flag with you?

    Hello there,

    So, I am finally back to my blog after a long suspension of the magical practice of writing. Blame the daily duty of earning bread outside the home, but most of it was a low level of will to write. Thus, I was happy to see today’s prompt topic that caught my immediate attention and galvanized my vapid spirit to put pen to paper.

    When I see people who ingratiate themselves with those in power or popularity, I am disgusted with the preponderance of the absurdity of humanity. The sight lays bare the Darwinian law of the Survival of the Fittest, the Victory of the Strongest at the expense of the Weakest Link. William Golding must have kept such unpleasant human characteristics in mind when writing Lord of the Flies. And I see the tribes of the id-driven adult children (or incalcitrant adolescents) ubiquitously, especially at work. They curry the favor of those who are outwardly meritorious and dominantly overpowering. And if you are out of their clique, you are invisible and ignorable. It doesn’t matter your depth of erudition is unfathomably deeper than theirs, for seeing is believing. It’s a tribal mentality still and always practiced across the strata of class, race, and gender. And I can always see it, but I can’t do about it.

    Be it ever so pessimistic, it is the most displeasing sight of the rudely annoying red herrings in the body of humans. They remind me of Yahoos from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Aristotle said human beings can’t live alone, and it’s true, but that doesn’t mean I have to supress my innate dislike of such ugly trait and accomodate my nature to the animalistic practice. Joan of Arc, Thomas More, and Socrates were never part of those syncopants.

  • Prompt 27

    What motivates you?

    Motivations are instant energizers that galvanize me to do things I highly wish but least actualize. They come from within and outside, but more often from the in-between of the consciousness and sub-consciousness of my mental realm, where the Muses perambulate around from their regular offices.

    Grand and pompous, though it may sound, motivations are of quite a common stock. For instance, I am motivated by good feedback on my work performance, whether for monetary purposes or personal interest. I am also highly motivated by the books that are relatable to me. Furthermore, I am strongly motivated by the stories of those who pull through despite the weakness of characters to whom I can relate because it gives me relief that my problems are not unique and that I am not flawed; thus, I can hope that the wishes are fathers to the actions.

    When motivated, I am highly delightfully productive with a high level of invincible confidence from within. Nothing frightens me, and nothing stops me. I am like a runway fashion model who swans around in a garb of confidence on the figure of art. Why would you want an illegal substance when all you need is a small dose of motivation that keeps you in high spirit?

  • prompt 26

    What is a word you feel that too many people use?

    There isn’t one but too many words I find too many people use, and they are all about one’s mental state, often over-generalized either by sheer prejudice or highfalutin malice against the subject of the remark. Here is a list of the words that prick my high-strung sense.

    Weird is considered charming, compared to psychopathic. Anti-social is a new parlance for a witch or a woman who appears socially adroit in public. Depression is an overused excuse for being fashionably morose or rude among peers. And what about bipolar for anyone whose emotional continuum is conspicuously distinctive among melees? But the basest and vilest word is “MAD.” It’s a most convenient word to accuse someone getting on your nerve with a not-so-pleasing face or personal charms that purchase indemnity for arrogance or incivility. Simply artless and innocent it may seem, the word underlines the most acrimonious intention to call someone whom you don’t take a liking to for whatever reason. Forget the key to open your storage of vocabulary in the mind. You use the word like a hidden dagger to do harm on the spirit of the other, and the effect is often long-lastingly advsere and deeply indelible.

    Indeed, you can be mad about your lover without reason, but you can’t call someone mad just because their faces always look agelast. There may be a mad scientist but never a mad, lonely person. If all of this makes no sense, let it be a tale told by an author, full of fury and sound, signifying something.

  • Prompt 25

    Describe one habit that brings you joy.

    Writing is a magical portal for me to escape from reality, a sort of near-astral body experience Dr. Strange does so effortlessly. It is a particular alchemy of literature where thoughts become images and then come alive, flitting in the garden of senses. Or I can fly across the blue firmament chasing the Sun Chariot and riding on the Moon Chariot and glide on the first ray of sunrise.

    Although these days I haven’t written as much as I used to because of work and other matters, a desire for writing always stays as an undying ember glowing in a phosphorous blue diamond so rare and beautiful in the abyss of malaise. I don’t believe that writing is not a prerogative of elites, nor a status symbol of the perfect grammarians. As long as you can communicate your spirits and souls in words and strike the chords of readers, that makes you a good writer, and that’s a joy to see your magic working.

    Writers- I mean whoever writes, not just professional writers- possess a spirit of poetic madness or a gift of seeing spirits in every living thing in this universe, akin to a Sybil or a Sherman. Therefore, anyone possessed with a desire for writing can see things that others can’t see and, what’s more, begin to form the shapes of the unseen. For these reasons, writing to me brings me the joy of being a wonderful white witch of beauty.

  • Prompt 24

    What are the most important things needed to live a good life?

    The three most important things for a good life are made of these: good stable employment, love of self, and a sense of humor. As we are both social and individual beings, the aforesaid are the essence of happiness in life that would provide me with a sense of security and a healthy environment in which I can find my inner potential creative power without worrying about the ills of reality.

    While money isn’t everything, anyone must sustain a livelihood, such as clothing, food, and housing. Without it, the deprivation of material necessity will impede a creative, lively spirit’s yearning and opportunity to express under the burden of life. Which will also lead to a despaire of oneself. IT is not to say that only those with secure jobs are self-confident, but it is also challenging to maintain a level of confidence when you are down and out, moving from one job to another, like a wandering nomad. True that even a panhandler can be content with himself, but then it must be he transacendes the ways of this world, completely detached from the needs of this world into his own earthly nirvana. Lastly but not leastly, a sense of humor is a handmaid to goodness that will change a heaven hell and a hell heaven. At the moement of despair, any humorous dialogue or scene from a comedy movie or a funny moment of life will moementarily take off the clouds of disappointment or depression.

    You and I deserve happiness and the good life because we are such starstuff as dreams are made of, harvesting sunlight from the heavens excellently brilliant. I hope my reader will have good lives because we are worth it.