Creative writing: "Homeless Dog"

We were asked to write a quick description (5 - 10 minutes) in my creative writing class today. One of the prompts was just "homeless dog." Somehow, I was the only one who wrote with this perspective. There was one mailman, but most went with an omniscient narrator 🤷‍♂️

Anyway, here's what I wrote:

That man again. The nice one. The one who brings treats, and sometimes lets me sit in his car for a short time when it's cold out and the white stuff falls from the sky.
This time, he holds a long strip of chewy leather in his hand as he approaches. A toy? I'd rather something to eat, but it might be nice to have something to chew on between the man's visits.
As I lower my head for the pats, the man slips the toy around my neck. Huh?
Saying something about a vet and shots (sounds scary!), the man says "we finally have room for you at home. Would you like that? Huh? Would you like that, Snowy?"

Twitter break

Hey. In case you didn't see the tweet before I deactivated my account, I am taking a break from Twitter for a few days so I can reestablish my focus on other things without that distraction.

I'll probably be back on Twitter soon enough. Peace☺️

The Storm

A poem about composition

The storm that is always Inside, raging,
want to catch a microsecond, photographing

The only way to capture the violent action
To explain it to another, to share apperception

Is to cut a slice of it, by writing
Engaging in composition.

---

Not exactly it, but definitely related:

I started mentally composing a poem or something yesterday about pictures of storms and this is an excellent picture. https://t.co/mIYkmAtHMh

— MTL (@MTL613) September 5, 2018

See also these pics from later in the day:

pic.twitter.com/xsgnuQzNzb

— MTL (@MTL613) September 6, 2018

"A Hierarchy of Needs for People With Diabetes"

Earlier today, I posted a tweet in response to an Eli Lilly tweet that mentioned equity and fairness.

Lilly is committed to ensuring pay is administered equitably across our workforce – today, on #EqualPayDay - and every day. https://t.co/DhLQHWOsfl #WeAreLilly #BeGenderFair

— Eli Lilly and Company (@LillyPad) April 10, 2018

This is good but could you also focus a little more on the bottom parts of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? People are dying because they can't afford your insulin.

Talk about fairness and equity...how about fair pricing for insulin? #insulin4all https://t.co/vl8urHbr7T

— MTL (@MTL613) April 11, 2018

Laura Marston suggested an amazing idea for a cool advocacy graphic, based on that tweet.

I propose “@MTL613’s Hierarchy of Needs for People with Type 1 Diabetes”. Just saying. It’d be cool to post a graphic like that.

— Laura Marston (@Kidfears99) April 11, 2018

So...I went ahead and made one, with some input from @iamsqueeisback and others :-)

I present: "A Hierarchy of Needs for People With Diabetes."

(Adapted from https://t.co/y7ySZAgtNZ, with permission. @iamsqueeisback helped with ordering the layers of the pyramid.) #insulin4all pic.twitter.com/VmPP15T1sB

— MTL (@MTL613) April 11, 2018

This image is adapted from FireflySixtySeven's original .svg creation for Wikipedia, depicting Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. (Thank you, Psychology 101 🤓😎.) That image was shared under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license, which means that I can share and adapt the image, as long as I give appropriate credit, indicate whether changes have been made, and release the image under the same license as the original. Done, done, and done ;-)

Get in touch with me by Twitter or blog comments (I should get an email notification for those, but I don't think that anyone has left a comment here, yet) if you want the .png file, or my .svg file.

---

[Update: 6/22/2018]
I was very gratified when Renza informed me that this image was being used at the 78^th Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association in Orlando. I thought that was so cool!! 🤓

Thanks also to Amy Tenderich for using it with attribution.

Hey @MTL613, you’re on the big screen at #DData18! pic.twitter.com/KsMtk6ZOgY

— Renza / Diabetogenic (@RenzaS) June 22, 2018

---

[Update: 3/20/2019]

It has come to my attention via Twitter that another hierarchy of needs for diabetes was previously created in 2013 (full paper here).

 

I truly appreciate the friends (Melinda Wedding in particular) who stood up against possible plagiarism on my behalf. Thank you! 💙

On pens and power

Everyone knows that "the pen is mightier than the sword." This is, however, not true...or at least not the whole truth.

The difference between the sword and the pen is not quantitative (the amount of power of each); it is qualitative (the type of power). Pens may grant us power, but that is not what they're about. "The pen is mightier than the sword" implies that the only advantage that pens give us is increased strength, when really, the pen (and writing) gives us so much more. I remember childhood discussions about this phrase, in which we concluded that the greater strength of the pen was contained within judicial death sentences (and whatever a "license to kill" might look like), but that is not the strength of the pen. A more sophisticated view of the greater strength of the pen highlights the pen's utility in written arguments; changing minds, crushing opponents. And this, too, is not quite right.

The "strength" of the pen is not its value as a combative weapon -- to kill, or to crush your opponents in a debate. While these qualities certainly lie, latent, within the Bic ballpoint on your desk, these are not the greatest features that it has. The pen, to me, is about expression -- poetry, describing a sunset, emotion. Novels, fiction and non-fic, big ideas. These things are on an entirely different axis than the "might" of arms, and considering only the relative strength or weakness of various tools available to us can blind us, tragically, to the greater number of better uses for the humble pen.

I think that this misconception about pens and power is related to society's approach to strength in general. I think we all, individually and as a society, focus far too much on strength. But this wider discussion is, perhaps, a topic for another day.

Einstein's paper clip

There's a story that I've heard about Albert Einstein that contains a very powerful message and parable.

Google tells me that the story comes from Ernst Straus, “Memoir,” in A.P. French, ed., Einstein: A Centenary Volume, 1979. The version of the story told here goes as follows:

We [Einstein and Ernst Straus] had finished the preparation of a paper and were looking for a paper clip. After opening a lot of drawers we finally found one which turned out to be too badly bent for use. So we were looking for a tool to straighten it. Opening a lot more drawers we came upon a whole box of unused paper clips. Einstein immediately started to shape one of them into a tool to straighten the bent one. When asked what he was doing, he said, ‘Once I am set on a goal, it becomes difficult to deflect me.’

‘Once I am set on a goal, it becomes difficult to deflect me.’ I think about this story every once in a while, especially when I encounter a roadblock en route to a larger goal. Remembering this story serves as my cue to reconsider the bigger picture — is this the most efficient path to take? Or was my attention focused solely on the first path that I saw, blinding me to better options?

When working toward a goal, it's good for us to pause and reconsider if we're focusing on the right things. Are we looking for a usable paper clip? Or are we trying only on bending the first paper clip back into shape?

First blog post!!

Hello

Hello! My name is MTL. You might know me from Twitter, from Stack Exchange, or from school. Welcome to my blag!

I decided to start blog-sort-of-thing so I'd have a place to put pieces of writing that don't fit on Twitter. (I probably won't do many more 40+ tweet threads; that case was somewhat exceptional, anyway.) I may post some school essays that I'm particularly proud of, ramblings on a variety of topics, and/or life updates. (Creative writing, perhaps? 🤔) There is no plan here. Not even a little bit.

Anyway, with the introductions already made, I bid you welcome to my blog. Hope you find something you like! :)