Anyone who knows me well, understands that music is a part of my vocabulary in a way. It allows me to apply my pallet of preference to encapsulate volumes of information without the need for explanation as the music provides that.
The powerful imagery that can fill us when we hear a certain song, the flood of memories from sight, to, touch, to sound. Or a song may capture an idea very personal to us, better than we could ever say in our own words.
As is the trend after I experience live music I start to listen to the discography of that artist for a while. Needless to say, I’ve spent a lot of time listening to Billy Joel. A lesser known track of his is one of my favorites.
Where’s The Orchestra, (The closing track on side 2) expresses to me a perfect analogy for being, out of place. Unique, different, somewhat misaligned with status quo. This is truly a beautiful soft anthem to the misunderstood. The reprise of the song “Allentown” on the clarinet at the very end, offers a gentle reminder to the opening track. Enjoy 😉 ❤️❤️🎵🎶🎼
This is an excellent question, each day these are great and today is no exception.
In anticipation of a career change 6 years ago I made the decision to pursue my Master’s Degree in English. This was a real departure from the 22 years I’d worked in information technology. Not to mention the 25+ year hiatus and going to school/college. I enrolled at GCU (Grand Canyon University).
At first, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to get it done. Learning about the new for me new APA writing format was so difficult to adjust to versus MLA which I used pretty much up until that point. Assignments were awkward class participation, and threaded discussions was such a new thing for me.
But once I got into a good flow, everything fell in the place, and it was pretty effortless to be honest. I wrote my papers if not all of them the night they were over 3 to 4 hours each time. And as crazy as it may sound I got “A”s on everything I touched.
It was weird. It was like I’d go into almost a trance and just go stream a consciousness, and my essay/papers would just take shape. And to deal with my problems with the new APA format I basically would take my previous paper, gut it rename, it save it, and then put the new content in there. this assured that I would not have any issues with format or design of my assignments.
Since my masters degree, was online, one new and challenging part was submitting each essay for originality. There’s actually software out there that will compare your paper to other papers written for the same courses and scan all the text and give a score. The lower the score the higher the originality so I was always shooting for under 10% and often got it. 99% of the students in my classes were teachers versus me, coming from technology perspective, so as a result, my papers were very unique.
Before I knew it two years gone by and I finished my 11 classes and gotten my masters degree in English. I’d leverage that degree for writing jobs and even change careers and write full-time now (as well as part-time here).
In conclusion, I must say that the risk was worth worth it all. Writing is my passion and working in it for a living is a dream come true and far more lucrative than I ever imagined…
Write about a time when you didn’t take action but wish you had. What would you do differently?
This is a more difficult question for me to answer. I was in a situation where I was forced to not act out of an agreement with my ex-wife and I had to endure some terrible things in front of me and not act on them.
You see, before we got together or got married, my ex-wife made me promise that no matter what happened with her kids and her that I was not to interfere, ever have her to contend with.
My ex middle stepson would suffer bouts of narcissistic rage brought on by damage to his head caused by an accident when he was five and bipolar disorder combined. These resulted in some very scary events that I was not allowed to act on and I’m gonna share one now.
I believe the argument was over shoes. my daughters best friend was dating my ex stepson and I guess she was jealous over some shoes that my stepdaughter had gotten that she didn’t have.
My ex stepson acted like the enforcer and basically got into a physical confrontation with my ex-wife. He head butted her and pushed her on the ground and of course she got furious and attacked him, and I had to stand there and watch it and not act otherwise she would’ve attacked me. I wanted to jump in do badly and felt so helpless watching the terror unfold. 
Not a good arrangement I would advise No one ever agree to an arrangement like that if they ever get married. No violence should be tolerated from anyone. Being asked to ignore it while it’s happening in front of you is the worst kind of torture.
Do I regret that I didn’t act?? You’re damn right I do. it killed me to see that happen and it happened like five different times I should’ve just called the cops and had him arrested for it. Hindsight being 2020 but that’s the same for all of us.
Violence is never the answer to anything, and if you are in a relationship where violence is a common occurrence, be it with your partner, or your partner’s children/family you should just get out of that relationship and never look back. Toxic and traumatic experiences such as these and may lead to years of therapy from PTSD or worse.
There are a great many things that make me nervous most of which I think are quite practical for many or most of us. We need to remember that being nervous is just a feeling and doesn’t mean that anything bad is going to happen. It just keeps us really really focused.
Below are just some brief examples of items that I have found that made me nervous and how I have dealt with them.
Life Changes
Change of any kind makes me nervous. We all have a resistance to change and it’s not easy specially in life when we have lots of changes happen to us. However, I’ve come to find that all these changes in life that are difficult lead to the best growth and the happiest life possible.
Site Reading Music and Public Speaking
I could recall when I used to site read music that I’d be nervous about making any mistakes, but that just kept me frosty and on my toes and ready for anything. Sort of like when you’re going to make a speech or speak in public, you get nervous before you do that speech, but that keeps you on your toes and sharp.
Meeting New People Dating
Dating is never easy, especially in this day and age with all the technologies that are out there to use. So when you meet someone for the first time in person, you’re definitely very nervous and wondering how people will be in person. Whether they act the same as when you’re chatting or talking on the phone. Results were mixed on this one and will be expressed in subsequent writings by yours truly.
The World at Large
Currently, there are a lot of things going on in the world that are not great that also make me nervous. Potential climate change global warming seems to be getting worse. The politics in our own country here (US) have gotten more dysfunctional than I have ever ever seen in my lifetime or right about even in any books. Wars people, dying famine disease so many things out there that aren’t so great keep me nervous pretty much daily. But, I try not to let it bring me down because there’s only so much we can do about it and again this kind of goes back to everything. Just roll with things and do your best to get through them all.
Ergo
At the end of the day, feeling nervous is just that a feeling. A mere interpretation of our reality. just our minds telling us to stay sharp and be ready and that’s not such a bad thing. We just get caught up in feeling “nervous” where it would be best to enjoy the ride see what happens. See how the song comes out how the speech is delivered how the world is going to cope higher life change. “Just keep going”, which is my daily/hourly mantra…
I think I am becoming a sentimental old fool at 52. I Happened to catch Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory streaming on TV and was suddenly 6 years old again watching the movie for the first time.
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Relating to Charlie Bucket and the isolation he felt from his peers. His character was such a pure soul and he loved freely and fiercely even in the face of a rejection of the test from his most beloved idol.
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He is then rewarded for his suffering and his family’s as well. That line at the end of the movie always gets me and light tears come down “What happened to the man that got what he always wanted? He lived happily ever after” He then tightly hugs Charlie and I just tear up every time.
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Like I said, a sentimental old fool but I am who I am. The book was good but was more a lesson in behavior than the first film on which it was based. I even believe that I read somewhere that Dahl was initially unhappy with the film but later grew fond of it. It will always be one of my favorite movies somewhere inside I am that same child with older eyes…❤️
Another great question I truly enjoy these daily questions/thoughts. After a trying day at work, I have a few rituals that help me unwind.
First, I like to hit the gym. Fortunately my apartment complex has a nice gym and 65 minutes and nearly 3 miles on the treadmill gets my blood pumping. For these workouts, I have a playlist called “Ants Super Workout”, loaded with songs across many genres that are all fast. The music takes me into my own world and truly motivates me. I also do a 20 minute workout with dumbbells and other machines doing several superset reps on each. Then I drag myself back up to my apartment for the next ritual.
I draw up as hot a bath as I can stand and drop a bath bomb or two in and soak away the pain and sweat from my workout. I then dry off and prepare for the next ritual.
I cook myself dinner and enjoy it while streaming some great shows on my tv. I have a quesadilla maker (recent Amazon purchase) that allows me to cook up some low carb tortillas and veggies and cheese for a tasty meal.
At that time I write some, check my blog (here), and often talk with friends in the evenings. Also I try and recall what I was grateful for that occurred that day.
Performing these steps/rituals/habits whether I have a good day or a bad one, assures each one ends great.
I love social media and use it for what I believe are the healthiest reasons.
I use it to stay in touch with family, friends, present and past coworkers, college classmates, and even some classmates going back to kindergarten.
I repost motivational quotes and imagery I encounter. I also use it as a sort of diary sharing my highs and lows with the closest people to me. I share photos and my adventures and trips as well.
Sharing these moments and memories really makes them all the more real for me.
Lastly I share my revelations and lessons learned in the hopes that my past mistakes might help others.
Interesting question as usual. The first thought I had today is wondering what I’ll write in here.
I use a combination of previously written material of mine often augmented with new writings.
I am truly challenged and enjoy using my creativity to meet the need for more and more material for hopefully several books of poetry, ideas, and crazy stories from my craft life. 😊
Describe a random encounter with a stranger that stuck out positively to you.
Another intriguing question and I’ll answer it in my own unique way like I always do.
I’m a very sensitive empathetic human being and I pretty much wear my vulnerability around me like armor or lack there of.
As a result, lots of people tend to feel sharing many aspects of their life with me. It’s like they just trust me and feel they can reveal their innermost, secrets, desires, fears, etc..
It’s never been I just except that people will talk to me sometimes and these people are pretty much perfect strangers to me.
I think that everybody looks for someone they can trust even if it’s someone they don’t know that they need to share something with so they’re just not sharing it alone with themselves. I don’t mind being that person.
Describe a decision you made in the past that helped you learn or grow.
The winds of change wisp through the clouds
I past decision I made that has forced more growth than a good part of my life before was to leave and divorce my most recent lesson (ex wife).
It was a toxic relationship pretty much from the start. Loving a covert narcissist will really crush your very existence down to your soul itself. Finding your way out I’ve analogized as similar to trying to find your way out of a casino very difficult and you get lost for a long time.
Leaving meant not saying goodbye to many people I really cared about deeply and missed this day. However, divorce is ugly and vindictive. People will use children, grandchildren, and other relatives and friends against you.
Leaving met embracing a ton of change I’d say at least 10 or 15 significant changes in my life since an including leaving and divorcing my most recent ex-wife. And that is the point of this response, change.
I have been through more change in the last 27 months that I have in probably the 50 years before that. Immense growth immense opportunity for success and greatness and failure all at the same time my mantra throughout this process “just keep going “.
The greater the change, the greater the challenge, the greater the reward. A lot of this journey was pretty vertical, but that’s where the changes are and I would do it again the same way. Taking control of your life and happiness is something we all have to do and sometimes we have to take very drastic steps to achieve it so lots and lots of change.
What place in the world do you never want to visit? Why?
This is yet another interesting query. I like many, am going the abstract route here. I will never ever ever ever ever (lots of evers lol) fall in love with a narcissist ever again. No  amount of love, sacrifice, time, or anything, will make them turn around and love you back. They’re just not capable of it. 
Unfortunately in my younger years I did not know or enforce (boundaries) my true worth and as a result I spent the better part of 30 years in three long (8-10 years each) serious (2 marriages and 1 long engagement) relationships. All three were narcissists in different ways but the results were the same (A broken heart and wallet at the relationship’s end).
Now after a lot of healing and soul searching (2-3 years several books read and journals written) I know my value, have self love, and some firm healthy boundaries, to assure that I never go back to those toxic soul destroying relationships.
Anthony’s Crazy Love and Life Lessons in Empathy 