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

Tag: literature

  • Prompt 30

    What details of your life could you pay more attention to?

    Dear Reader,

    After a long and tiring day at work, I look back today and regret not doing things the way I wanted – yet again. Since I spend more time in an office full of strangers with nothing in common with me other than working for the same employer, reflecting on today’s memories and actions brings me a feeling of sorrow and sympathy. It’s always this matter of diplomacy of interacting with others without offending them, which is what I should pay more attention to.

    The art of social interaction is hard enough for me to achieve without having a poker face or a public mask – persona. I have seen people who ingratiate themselves with those whom they regard as socially beneficial and politically influential. I see them, all of whom are women, but I don’t see beauty in their visages, nor their minds and hearts. Those able-bodied, fair-weathered friends or sycophants are unashamed of their deeds, acting as if they were all above others, thinking themselves better than others.

    Not that I begrudge them such a skill of flattering, but I realize that having the diplomatic forte may help me to live a more comfortable life for me and my two beautiful cats. Indeed, smile is the best global language where no spoken words are required. I can smile and smile beautifully, but my beautiful smile is unrelated to currying favor from the powers that be, so to speak. Still, it would work wonders if I could pay more attention to my facial expression and the whole demeanor of my body in a polished way so people would not be rude to me.

    My wish is someone’s daily life or just a fancy, but it is still my wish to induce a good impression on me, no matter where you are from.

    Good night. Carpe Diem!

  • 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?

  • Words

    The soul in exile
    it seems as it were,
    keeps no friends or foes
    but a myriad of words
    weaved into a tapestry
    of stories live to tell
    with a spark of spirit
    at the thrilled touch
    thrust in passion’s flame
    aroused from the buried
    detritus of memories bygone
    and the fire that has gone
    ablaze with the delirium
    of delight in the magic
    of the words she has found
    keeps burning the dark
    reigning in her glass castle.

  • 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.

  • About Backrooms

    It’s gone viral. Sensational it’s been. The latest scare, the newest horror, comes in Backrooms, a YouTube phenomenon that has swept the world’s compass in muffled terror. I have seen it through an algorithm, and I think I have entered the door into the backrooms – willingly by the winks of intrigued moments. Is this the way people get lost in the maze of horror? Even if they are fictional, or so they like to think, nothing is purely fictional without some foundation in reality. Be it ever imaginary, a mental void, emotional distress, continual depression, or perpetual heartaches will be of their backrooms with seemingly no way out. And I think this feeling of utter hopelessness is where Christianity fills or saves the wretchedness of a soul with a promise of hope, the existence of a reason to go on in a seemingly purposeless life.

    Watching a few of the Backrooms series makes me realize that this is how the present-day MZ generation sees a concept of a labyrinth where King Minos of Crete at Knossos kept his illegitimate half-man, half-bull son Minotaur and feeds him on Athenian youths until the Athenian hero Theseus with the help of Adrianne’s thread ball came to the rescue and killed the monster. Is it considered too cheesy for today’s youths to think of Adrianne’s thread ball? Backrooms are all devoid of Christian hope and Greek wit because new generation kids are too smart to believe the existence of such saving grace because there is none of such nonsense, and because they are simply the best of all generations wallowing in the advanced civilization only countable steps below the most advanced extraterrestrial beings in the universe.

    Notwithstanding the ingenious idea of creating such terrifying liminal places within a minimal budget, the whole series will shine in its brilliance as a genre of online game series rather than a film in the fashion of a fake documentary as a new Blaire Witch Project. As civilization gets more technologically advanced, the people become more highly primitive, returning to the laws of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth with no signs of light-heartedness as if it were synonymous with simple-mindedness or backwardness. And I don’t know why Verdi’s “The Chorus of Hebrews” keeps playing in my mind these days.