Creating Vessels

Chabad of The Upper West Side Wins Approval On Landmark Project - News - Chabad Lubavitch World Head

2009-10-01T22:02:53Z

Chabad of The Upper West Side Wins Approval On Landmark Project - News - Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters

Shared via AddThis

Chabad is incredibly successful because they are mindful of their surroundings and involved in mundane life.

alien romances: Gift: Giver: Recipient

2008-11-18T22:33:36Z

Blog post on the mystical significance of Giving and Receiving, and what that means in terms of Writing Craftsmanship.

read more | digg story

Owning the Bastard

2008-11-10T22:50:34Z

I was invited to join a group blog where I post on Tuesdays, and decided that I liked it but had other things to say off-topic, so I started this blog on Live Journal.

I want to keep the subjects here centered on the more deeply philosophical angles, but I haven't turned out many posts of that kind lately.

I've been translating one of my award winning novels to screenplay format, writing an original screenplay in one of my other universes and doing my Book Review Column.

I just turned in my June 2009 Review Column, and my next task is to finish the first draft of the novel-to-screenplay effort.

For more on my various screenplay efforts see http://www.slantedconcept.com

At the bottom of that page you will find links to a number of the microblogs and social networks where you may find me. The list keeps growing.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

Owning the Bastard

2008-07-22T18:47:10Z

A friend of mine sent me a link to a blog entry that set me off into a philosophical tirade of major proportions.

This is extremely typical of my skewed response to normal, ordinary things and may clue some curious people in to where I get my much celebrated originality as a fiction writer.

http://www.john-carlton.com/2008/07/17/shakin-all-over/

If you read his blog entry before you read my analysis below, you will see more clearly how it is that I just don't think like most people. Not that I don't reach the same conclusions most of the time -- but that the path of reasoning I follow is not available to most people.

By John Carlton's definition, I'm an extrovert. He writes:
-------------
You can tell an introvert from an extrovert pretty easily: When the extro is around people, like at a party, he gets energized. The introvert finds it a chore, and leaves the event drained.

It’s all about energy transference.
-------------------

But I'm really, at core, an introvert. Given a choice, I'd rather sit alone in my office and wiggle my fingers over a keyboard, making stories. But I thrive on science fiction conventions! I've never had stage freight -- not even in grammar school plays, etc. I've been doing professional public speaking for decades, ran the Science Fiction Writers of America Speaker's Bureau for years.

I'm all about sharing what I've got with as many as possible, and I love venues where I get to talk to people one-on-one, group to group, with free flowing criss-crossing opinions flying, especially philosophical opinions. My biggest high, and what I draw the most energy from, is when I can bring a huge audience to share a good belly laugh. Shared laughter is food for my soul. But I'm an introvert, perfectly happy to spend vast sequences of hours all alone.

Here's the quote from John's blog entry that sends me into a philosophical tirade:

------------
As anyone who has gotten freelance advice from me knows, I quickly learned to walk into a new client’s life and OWN the bastard.
---------------

To me, this statement reeks of power abuse without a conscience. A bully feels good about "owning the bastard." In this blog entry, he didn't apologize for saying that. He's not ashamed of that "own the bastard" statement. He thinks it's GOOD. When you say to evil such as power abuse "be thou my good" you have turned to the left hand path. He is enticing his audience to the dark side of the force. Way below that comment John says:

---------------
What it did for me was immediately obliterate that old “defining moment” that I had regarded as my “fate”.

I wasn’t really a socially-retarded loser.

I just played one in life.

Cuz I thought I’d been… assigned… the role.
--------------------

Well, he's right, there are these "defining moments" early in life that really stick.

When I was relegated to my grandparents care for two years (age of 1-2) there must have been (no memory left) a real issue with my grandfather. He tried to "assign me" a role in life (Vacuous and useless girl).

The thing is I never accepted that niche. I've been fighting against being stuffed into this niche all my life. It's not true, it's not me, it's not what I'm about. I know who I am and I accept that.

Well, I proved what I really am decades ago -- that's history, a battle won. But subconsciously, I'm still fighting the battle somewhere. So it keeps manifesting symbolically. A friend pointed me at a tool that shows some promise of silencing left-over inner strife of this sort:

http://www.tapping.com/

So John blogs:

-----------------
However…

… the winners define themselves.
-------------

Which defines ME as a "winner" (since about the age of 2) -- the problem being I don't want to be a winner.

"Winning" implies a zero-sum-game world because for every winner there must be a loser. I don't live in such a world. In my world, you don't have to destroy someone else just to succeed. In my world, I don't have to force someone to get a B so that I can get the A because teachers grade on a curve. I don't have to "own the bastard" to whom I owe my living. I don't have to dominate to succeed -- or be dominated to lose.

In my world, you aren't graded on a curve. In my world, the only way to succeed is to make EVERYONE SUCCEED, to make the whole class get A's. My model of "life" is that the physical resources of "reality" are infinite. Life does not consist of competing for finite resources. When you cooperate instead of competing, resources expand to provide for everyone. When you compete, total resources shrink.

That the comments posted on John's blog are positive about what he says is what scares me. The exuberant joy of discovery evident among his commenters horrifies and repels me.

How could so many people be fooled so badly by a speaker whose thesis is just so obviously wrong? Does John erase the posts that expose the vicious power abusing underpinnings of his message? Nobody called him down for being a power abuser by "owning the bastard" who employs him? His whole orientation is to "win" by putting DOWN others by denigrating their parentage? And people want to emulate him? To learn from him?

I feel people shouldn't be emulating this man. Instead they should be extending respect, compassion and love to those who hire them, rather than denigrating others as "bastards."

I can't express how deeply that one little phrase horrifies and repels me. It defines everything there is about this blogger so clearly! What kind of person wants to dominate the people he comes to help? Can you imagine me ever writing that?

See? Encountering this attitude of "owning" that which you "deride" sends me off into one of my endless philosophical tirades. (which is good; it's the stuff of which novels are made.)

The general principle of Self-Esteem holds that only people of very low self-esteem want to "own" (possess as one possesses a "wife") a person who is less respectable, less formidable, less admirable than themselves. This is a basic principle every Romance writer has to internalize -- it answers the question, "What does she see in him?!"

What is John saying about himself when he reveals that he's learned to "own" the "bastard" who pays him for advice and that he regards this ability as Good? What do those who wish to emulate John say about themselves when they put his attitude into practice?

Is it really an innate attribute of Human Nature -- the widespread desire to "own the bastard" rather than respect and love him and ACCEPT THE BASTARD as you accept yourself because within you is likewise a "bastard" a "poor bastard" who needs love and acceptance, deserves it as a birthright.

As I see it, if you're stuck working for a "bastard," you probably need to learn to love and accept yourself so you can extend that high regard to the one who provides your sustenance.

In the Sime~Gen Universe, ( http://www.simegen.net ) this blogger would be a Freeband Raider tyrant or a very dead Gen -- over and over and over lifetime after lifetime until he learns not to want to "own the bastard."

In our real world, it may be that the lesson he must learn is where our true sustanence actually comes from and therefore the actual Identity of the "bastard" he's trying to own and why that effort seems so futile and sad.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.slantedconcept.com

List of 18 Now Deceased Active Star Trek Fans

2008-07-15T20:11:02Z

This compilation of memories of the origins of Star Trek fanzines, the creators of them, and their fates is a cornerstone of history. These are the people who changed the way TV professionals and TV viewers interact. Today we have online fanfic -- because of these people.

read more | digg story

Living History of Blending Genres

2008-06-23T19:10:16Z

Science Fiction and Romance are like oil and water, right? Well the laws of publishing are being changed, and here's how that change started -- leading to Indiana Jones saying, "I do."

read more | digg story

Finding the right retirement community

2008-05-25T21:09:22Z

When my husband and I were beginning to take retirement seriously, we discovered the oddest sensation -- FREEDOM.

Always, we had gone to live where the work was and just accomodated whatever there was about the place we didn't like. We took the house style we could afford, compromise locations, and just lived with whatever that meant.

There were two things we insisted on though. The best schools for our kids and an easy walk to a synagogue. But those things are just about everywhere in the USA.

Now we had to just decide where to live, and we could actually go live in retirement anywhere we wanted.

But where would that be? We had traveled the USA going to various Science Fiction and Fantasy conventions (since I'm a professional writer). But where would we go for retirement? We were like the caged animal looking at the open door and not leaving the cage. Confused.

I hit the internet and searched for established communities that would fit our requirements.

So for ten years we traveled from Seattle to Boca Raton and from Cape Cod to San Diego searching. We looked at hundreds of houses for sale and tried to picture retirement in such a place. We eliminated all but five locations, then eliminated all of them.

Bottom line, we didn't want to move. But then the dot.com bubble burst and 9/11 slammed into our world and we realized we couldn't afford to stay in our New York home.

So I hit the internet again, this time knowing we were leaving New York and needing to find a place to move to. One last time, one last move. It had to be just right.

And I found a new community that hadn't been in operation when we visited the Phoenix AZ area a few years before. It has houses with sidewalks in front of them, neat yards, nice wide streets with no potholes.

Our house sold the first day we had it on the market. And I discovered a friend of mine had just moved to Chandler, AZ. She put me up when I came to Chandler househunting.  I connected with the local Chabad Rabbi (Rabbi Deitsch) of Chabad of the East Valley, who connected us with a real estate agent, and in a week I bought this house that my husband had not even seen.

He walked in and said, "I love it!" (whew!) It fits almost all the criteria we'd worked out over years of househunting.

And now, a few years later, the community has grown, and meets much closer to our house in a storefront shopping center  The community owns the land on which we will build a Chabad Center for Jewish Life. And that is even closer to our house. Many nice houses in all kinds of sizes cluster around this Chabad Center and there are several good apartment buildings within walking distance.

Chandler Arizona is an ideal community. The city is luring many big tech businesses here with good paying jobs. Intel has several campuses in the area, and is opening a couple of new plants in Israel. They bring Israelis here for training, and they come to our Chabad during the months they are here.

Within a quarter mile, we have a wonderful city park with a lake where urgan fishermen gather every day. It has a little train that circles the park tooting and carrying the little kids who squeal with delight. It has a roofed play area and a rotunda you can rent for large parties to BBQ. Tennis courts, wide lawns, and paved paths make it a perfect suburban park. I walk around that lake every day I can (which is almost always because it seldom rains here).

The children commute to Phoenix for Hebrew School, and there is a local JCC school, too. Chabad of Phoenix and Chabad of Scottsdale are an easy drive up the road.

Since the housing bubble burst, house prices around this Jewish Community have become reasonable again, but I know that won't last once the new Chabad Center building goes up.  The foreclosure tsunami has not washed over this community, though there are two houses for sale on my block, and one for sale on the block adjacent to mine. It's still possible to make a retirement move into this community, though the majority of new families are young with small children.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.slantedconcept.com