Five Star Friday's 236th Edition Is Brought to You By Daniel H. Pink

This week's Five Star Friday is brought to you by the importance of longer form writing online, a Boston Marathon spectator, a call for more mindful communication, the effects of culturally ingrained white social advantage, knowing when to walk away, the value of storytelling, dealing with the darker emotions that come with breast cancer, a struggle with self-image, and Daniel H. Pink:


photo credit: CIPD

While complying can be an effective strategy for physical survival, it's a lousy one for personal fulfillment. Living a satisfying life requires more than simply meeting the demands of those in control.

     — Daniel H. Pink

Happy Friday!

"We Used to Speak In Essays" by Sarah Dopp at Dopp Juice:

Broadcasting distilled, emotional battle cries without background context to our entire Rolodexes is further polarizing us as a community. And aren't we polarized enough as it is?

I want us to speak in essays again, to connect compassionately over our differences, to listen, to be respectful, and to learn from each other. The fact that our audience has broadened to everyone we’ve ever met makes it that much more important to be real, human, and long-form about where we’re coming from and why we feel the way we do.

"When Is It Time to Walk Away?" by Jen Hatmaker at JenHatmaker.com:

There is a tipping point when the work becomes exhausting beyond measure, useless. You can't pour antidote into a vat of poison forever and expect it to transform into something safe, something healthy. In some cases, poison is poison, and the only sane answer is to move on.

"Quaker Mode" by Mike Monteiro (NSFW) at The Pastry Box Project:

As the world seems to be falling apart, and social media introduces a new level of cacophony of misinformation, speculation, and downright venomous bile — we should ask ourselves, is what I am about to say better than silence? Am I adding anything to what's already being said? And possibly most importantly, is my desire to say it keeping me from listening to what is already being said. Because waiting for your turn to talk is not the same as listening.

Have I actually improved the silence?

"Why Do You Write?" by Vikki Reich at Lesbian Family:

After the birth of my second child, I started blogging and, again, had no idea why I was putting words on a virtual page to be read by strangers (if at all) but I did it and I am still doing it seven years later.

But blogging changed me. It helped me realize that every piece of writing is a story unfolding, that my life is a story unfolding.

"First Impressions" by Ashley Austrew at Zebra Garden:

And then the tears are rolling down your cheeks, silent and warm, and you hate yourself for it. Your husband comes up to check on you, see how much longer you'll be, and you duck into the closet, pretend to be looking for something. You don’t want him to see because he wouldn't understand, he couldn't understand. How could he ever understand how something as simple as getting dressed can make a person cry?

"Boston Marathon Snapshots Take On New Meaning" by Lauren Crabbe at Digital Photography Review: Connect:

While it's not surprising that civilian photos are being used in an FBI investigation, the potential amount of raw footage under review may be unprecedented.

"The Sound of Startled Agony" by Lisa Boncheck Adams at LisaBAdams.com:

Perhaps I feel the written land of the upbeat is for others. My niche is here, in the agony of this disease. There is so much emphasis on "being positive" and all of that; I feel the compulsion to show the flip side, too.

"I'm Not Your 'Black Friend'" by Crystal Sykes at The Bold Italic:

The thing that is hardest to explain is that these jokes are coming from a position of privilege my white friends don't even realize they have. This social advantage is so ingrained in our culture that they aren't aware their comments are coming off the backs of centuries' worth of hardship and oppression. The tipping point for me was about two years ago, at a friend's house, when I was introduced as "The Black Friend." As my friend laughed off his statement, my heart dropped at this oversimplification of me as a person. I quickly realized that the joke was on me, and the punch line was my race.

Please come back and share good writing with us over the coming week to be featured on the next Five Star Friday. If you have read a really good piece on someone else's weblog, submit it by Thursday at midnight CST to have it featured on Five Star Friday.

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Five Star Friday's 235th Edition Is Brought to You By Rebecca Solnit

This week's Five Star Friday is brought to you by a call for compassion, notes from a trailblazer, a personal story of living with Alzheimer's, looking for the good, a more critical look at Dove's advertising, failure and competition, rolling news, a beautiful mother, a kickass game about ducks, and Rebecca Solnit:


photo credit: shawncalhoun

Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth's treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal... To hope is to give yourself to the future — and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.

     — Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark

Happy Friday!

"'There are times to have a guide, and times to be the guide.'" by Jen Lee at Jen Lee Productions:

I wish every trailblazer had someone to follow, the way I wish every new mother had someone to mother her. This is the hardest thing about pioneering anything — this staring into the blizzard in bulky snowshoes with not a single neon sign or rabbit track before you. Just this swirling uncertain future. Trust. Hope. And the knowledge that there's no going back now.

"Watching the Lights Go Out" by David Hilfiker at DavidHilfiker.com:

It may seem surprising that I feel almost no apprehension about exposing my mental decline and my reactions to it. The value of my books on rural practice and on inner-city doctoring, after all, lies in my willingness to report candidly, so I have some experience in sharing the messy details. In my lecturing, speaking and teaching, I have tried to be open about my depression, believing that the millions of people who are shamed into hiding their diagnosis should have some models for self-revelation. Likewise, I hope that others with an early diagnosis of dementia and those who are in relationship to a person with dementia (including medical people) will find my experience helpful.

"Rough, Raw, and a Bit Unedited" by Maia Toll at MaiaToll.com:

Words are small things, and yet they are everything. They are intention and action. They are the signposts that remind us to look within and begin change through small do-able steps.

"My Promise" by Louise Gleeson at Late Night Plays:

It's not about tolerance, my loves. It's about living with compassion and understanding—for your world and its people—before ignorance or fear or hate ruin the view.

Always make the choice to look around the ugly to find the good.

"Why Dove's "Real Beauty Sketches" Video Makes Me Uncomfortable… and Kind of Makes Me Angry" at Little Drops:

...my primary problem with this Dove ad is that it's not really challenging the message like it makes us feel like it is. It doesn't really tell us that the definition of beauty is broader than we have been trained to think it is, and it doesn't really tell us that fitting inside that definition isn't the most important thing. It doesn't really push back against the constant objectification of women. All it's really saying is that you're actually not quite as far off from the narrow definition as you might think that you are (if you look like the featured women, I guess).

"The Bluebird Playbook: Watch the Good Dancers and the Bad (No.1)" by Courtenay Bluebird at Bluebird Blvd.:

I’ve failed in competition; and I’ve succeeded in competition in equal amounts. Neither one makes you a stronger artist or a better human being.

Being successful in competition serves only to make you a better competitor.

Competition is not life. It’s just competition.

"Behold the Age of Emotional Hijack" by Lena Semaan at Woman of Experience:

Things need time to settle down and clear. But now we don't have time for that. We have to find culprits, heroes, miracles and peace in the same moment as the event.

"I Wish You Could Have Known Her" by Alexandra at Good Day, Regular People:

I wish you could have known her when she was 30. She was beautiful. She wrote poetry for the newspaper of her country's capital, Bogota, Colombia, a city even then of over 500,000. Her columns penned anonymously, all beginning with the same three words, A Mi Amante. To My Lover.

"Call Me Ducky" by Cenobyte at Centre of the Universe: The Dreaming:

The Nipper has the Best Ideas Ever Invented. He said, last night on the way to rehearsal, "you know what would be cool, would be if they made a Call of Duty™ game that's age-appropriate for kids and they called it Call of Ducky..."

Please come back and share good writing with us over the coming week to be featured on the next Five Star Friday. If you have read a really good piece on someone else's weblog, submit it by Thursday at midnight CST to have it featured on Five Star Friday.

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Five Star Friday 234th Edition Is Brought to You By Maile Meloy

This week's Five Star Friday is brought to you by the laziness of adjectives, the surfaces of things versus the reality, accepting manhood, a coming out, a plea for inclusion, good truths about early motherhood, the gutting of Canada's ability to differ with its government, prejudice and bigotry, a deeply broken heart crying for justice, and Maile Meloy:

You can’t tip your hand if you don’t know yet what your hand is.

     — Maile Meloy

Happy Friday!

"What Prose Writers Can Steal From Poets" by Matt Debenham at debenblog:

Adjectives, especially, are words that have given up. They are in sweatpants all day. They are on the couch smoking pot while the nouns and verbs go to work.

"My Son Spent the Night In a Cardboard Box" by Matt Chambers at Ethoshift:

The hope is that people think we're ok, so that's how we package ourselves. And, we're brilliant at pulling it off. A quick scroll through Facebook or Twitter will testify to that. Yet, all the while, a quick scroll through Pinterest will remind us at how much better packaging often is than the finished product.

"I Can Finally Say I Am Proud to Be a Man" by Laurence Best at The Good Men Project:

I could hardly breathe as I stared silently at the floor. And then the lump that had been growing in my throat turned into tears, and the tears into choking sobs. Coming to grips with what I really thought of myself was like the floor giving way beneath me.

"My Name is Zooey" by Zooey Parker at Saving Pixels:

We seem to have an inexplicable need to box people up and categorize them. And in the end, we draw lines around ourselves; lines we turn into walls and walls that become our own closets.

"An Open Letter to the Church from My Generation" by Dannika Nash at Faith, Feminism, and Major League Baseball:

We want to stay in your churches, we want to hear about your Jesus, but it's hard to hear about love from a God who doesn't love our gay friends (and we all have gay friends). Help us find love in the church before we look for it outside.

"Being a Mama" by Beth Fletcher at I Should Be Folding Laundry:

Every day, from morning to night, there are people who love you more than they love themselves. Even with your imperfections, your lack of patience, even without makeup, you are so loved.

"Muzzling Scientists Is an Assault On Democracy" by David Suzuki, with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Communications Manager Ian Hanington, at Science Matters | David Suzuki Foundation:

In a truly open and democratic society, ideas, policies and legislation are exposed to scrutiny, debate and criticism. Information is shared freely. Governments support research that makes the country stronger by ensuring its policies are in the best interests of the people. A government that values its citizens more than its industrial backers does not fear information and opposition.

"No, Dude, It's Not Bigotry" by Bon Stewart at Crib Chronicles Theory:

We live in strange times. Everybody gets to have a public opinion and 700 channels to share it on and I for one welcome our new Bedlam overlords.

But there is a strain of discourse rising in the cloud that is starting to permeate a great many of the conversations I happen on. It’s the idea that women critiquing men is oppressive and equates to bigotry.

"Rehtaeh Parsons Was My Daughter" by Glen Canning at GlenCanning.com:

The worst nightmare of my life has just begun. I loved my beautiful baby with all my heart.

Please come back and share good writing with us over the coming week to be featured on the next Five Star Friday. If you have read a really good piece on someone else's weblog, submit it by Thursday at midnight CST to have it featured on Five Star Friday.

And because you are a fan of finding good new writing on the internet:

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