On Writing And Blogging Healthily

Posted on 12/19/2011 by Harry

When is there time to think? Or rather, when is there time to write? When all the hours of the day are spent concentrating to create feats of engineering how can I then kick back and let the literary imagination flow?

I’ve long struggled with these conflicting desires. Throughout the day I code. I wrestle with logic and math to bring to reality the ideas of how a website should behave. And more often than not when then day is done I’m left exhausted, my mind wrung out and needing some valuable time to rest undisturbed.
Continue reading →

Typing On An iPad

Posted on 11/30/2011 by Harry

I love my iPad. It’s one of the most portable and versatile devices I have ever known. It can seamlessly switch from being a web browsing device to a full screen video game without much effort. I’m able to check my mail on it as well as read a good book.

Due to its size and portability I also try to get work done on it as well. The type of work I do nowadays makes great use of a keyboard to type either code or words. The iPad has a pretty darn good onscreen keyboard however I’m not sure what’s the best way to use it.

Typically when I want to type on the iPad I hold it horizontally and tap the letters with my thumbs. Each letter I hit one at time until the word I want to write appears on the screen.

Compared to my laptop this is horribly inefficient. On my laptop I have all ten fingers going, moving to hit keys and make words fly on the screen.

I can’t do that on my iPad. Am I even supposed to do that on my iPad?
Continue reading →

The Early Stages Of Success

Posted on 11/08/2011 by Harry

It isn’t always possible to get something right on the first go around. There’s a lot of factors at play that could push the success of a project to become a failure. It’s no fun to work on something that ends up being a failure. A by product of mismanaged time that cannot be replaced.

Yet for the most part we are surrounded by and interact with successes. Of course there are wide interpretations of what qualifies as a success. Far and wide what we see and touch every day was at one point declared a success and shared with the world at large. Yes, one man’s success is another man’s failure, however the impetus to contribute something meaningful to society lurks from the outset. That is why we are bombarded by commercials exalting the release of a new product fated for success, only to reflect on its tragic demise after some months pass.
Continue reading →

Happy 25th Birthday To Me

Posted on 10/11/2011 by Harry

Today I turned twenty-five. That could also be written as 25. Two digits, two hyphenated words. It could also be said that I am a quarter-century old. One quarter of a full 100. That still makes me 25. 25 years old and I get a quarter.

When I turned 21 I celebrated. It was a great year. I could go into a bar and drink. I could go into a liquor store and buy some whiskey. Twenty-one is the year of alcohol: not because I love drinking but because of the drinking laws in the United States. Twenty-one is the legal age at which a person can purchase alcohol in the U.S. and the years of being told ‘no’ explode in a shower of liquor when you hit 21.

So 21 was great. The U.S. government gave me the gift of legality and in many ways I was considered an adult in the eyes of the law. Party on till the lights come on.
Continue reading →

Consume or Create

Posted on 09/20/2011 by Harry

When consuming a lot of media it makes the process of creating media very difficult.

On an average day I read about 250 blog posts. This done with the help of the very excellent Google Reader which centralizes all these posts to be accessed in one location. Without it I would not be able to keep up with the flood of posts created everyday. Lately I’m realizing that despite GReader’s help I am still unable to keep up.

That’s not entirely true. I can keep up with my RSS feed. I do everyday. However the time it takes me to get through all the posts is time that I don’t get back. More and more frequently I’m wishing I had that time back.

Continue reading →

Video Games

Posted on 07/11/2011 by Harry

There was a time in my life when I was constantly playing video games. It started when I was near six years old and introduced to my first video game, ‘Bubble-Bobble’. It was a simple Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) game, with simple mechanics and addictive gameplay. You lived your life as a little square monster who projected bubbles at enemies, trapping them inside the bubbles, which then allowed you to jump on top of the bubbled monster to bounce them off the screen and conquer the level.
Continue reading →

Why Creative Writing Is Scary

Posted on 05/12/2011 by Harry

Every time I sit to write I’m looking for the perfect start. The perfect way to begin my first sentence that’ll encourage (and in large part demand) the reader’s continued audience. I commonly find myself at a loss for words, a phenomenon seldom experienced in real-world rapports. How strange is this static written medium to choke the chattiness from me? How strange it is that I find myself with an endless stream of word and story to share with my neighbor, yet the effort to do the same via e-mail results in horrible and uncomfortable stagnation.
Continue reading →

Interests, Focuses & Accomplishments

Posted on 04/15/2011 by Harry

Computers, Words, Music, Movies

There are only so many things a person can accomplish during their life. Trying to do too many things can result in one of two outcomes: nothing gets done or nothing gets done well. Both of these options more or less terrify me which is why I take the weaker option of not getting anything done.

Sometimes I feel like I try to accomplish too many things at once, and that feeling overwhelms me. I get extremely flustered and apprehensive as I approach my mental mound of self-directed duties that I give off a slight jump and yelp as I then scurry off to cower in the unproductive shadows.

Yet it’d be far wiser to approach my inner tasks as I do my outer ones: breaking down the mountain that is the project I want accomplished into small goals and milestones. With the milestones I can then see my successes and be that much more proud and aware of my accomplishment. After only a few milestones the task is complete and all the previous feelings of anxiety simply fall to the wayside.

So I guess this means my first task is to put down my first milestone I need to meet. Fortunately for me I know just where that sucker belongs.

As I Regress I Will Assess And Subsequently Progress

Posted on 03/25/2011 by Harry

When writing one of your strongest assets is that of concentration. The ability to start and finish a sentence without pause during its construction is one vital to strong literature. When a break is taken between the beginning and end of a sentence’s creation its fluidity is jeopardized. However there are no tautologies to this claim – some sentences require pause during their creation, demanding rest before made whole.

This past week I have put myself at creative jeopardy for a host of issues related to the one discussed above. At every opportunity I saw this past week to record word I blanched – fearing interruption and the sea of hardships that would come in tow. Instead of seizing what five minutes I found to stitch words together that I could then save to eventually revise and share, I made swift detours from ever opening a document to begin any attempt at creation. It was not five minutes of time I would have to write: it was five minutes I would have to try to write which would inevitably end in interruption and frustration.

This fear of frustration has resulted in the remorse of frustration I am currently experiencing as I solemnly look back at the week and see all the times I could have spent writing instead of wringing my hands in fear. That is ultimately what held me back from writing anything I could be currently viewing as valuable. Yet it has given me these words of reflection that will steer me straighter and truer in the future. So as I regress I will assess and subsequently progress – concentrating all the while.

Two Matters of The Mind

Posted on 03/07/2011 by Harry

The mind is a terrible thing to waste. Yet the wasting of one’s mind cannot always be prevented. There are only so many hours in a day and attempts to complete all desired tasks are unattainable. I won’t dare to state the impossibility of such feats for I am sure those of more unique positions are capable of fulfilling and living their dreams daily, however for myself the possibility of completing all that I wish on a daily basis is close to impossible and far from easy.

It seems that my mind daily rotates from topics of extreme rigidity such as programming and coding, to those of fanciful imaginings such as the poems that I write and sometimes post to this blog. Yet for me to enjoy each of these passions in one day is hard to obtain, for the time spent on each focus – and done well – detracts from the time allowed for the other (all this without concern for the time taken to switch between).

So what am I to do? What I have been doing: working on one topic to its completion and then journeying over to the other focus and resume or begin a work that is otherwise incompatible with the former. Coding and writing both make use of my fingers on the keyboard however the intent and focus of each are at odds. The former requires precision whereas the latter demands freedom. To write a line in a program and then a line in a poem is a feat I have yet to perform nor seen done with seamless integration.

And so I will go forward, as only one can, completing tasks as I am able, learning from all my persuasions and incorporating them while remaining stable.

Harry Wolff

Personal blog of Harry Wolff. Web creative with passion for novelty.

Category Archives: Essays