Tag Archive: journalism
Sowing Seeds
May 5, 2023 12:24 am Perhaps what I struggle with the most is finding that freedom. Freedom to be proud of what I’m building, freedom to build what I want to.
Filtered Through the Finite
June 14, 2022 7:50 pm There is something about life that feels more beautiful when it is strained through the filter of the finite. Some part of our beings is best at appreciating the good when we know it is running out.
Picture Perfect
February 3, 2022 9:11 pm How many layers of a “picture perfect life” are our true selves buried beneath? Perhaps the most pervasive question in my confusing life is which version of myself is the realest and where the edge between righteous discontent and selfish ingratitude really is.
Spilling Blood
July 24, 2021 1:32 am It is strangely soothing to feel the adrenaline surging towards the wound and to see the inner workings bubbling up to the surface. Perhaps this is the epitome of the conscious living experience, to have a few fleeting moments of heightened awareness where what’s before us is razor-sharp and what’s behind us is gone.
No Horns
January 12, 2021 6:02 pm
On the Border of Lonely
December 16, 2020 6:58 pm Where I stand, the world is quiet. Wind whispers through the ocotillos and the mesquite trees, its song through the thorns cooing the memories of love that hurts to remember and hurts to forget. There’s a ghost beside me, the absence of a soul to share these sights with.
Taller’n the Grass
May 12, 2020 5:22 pm Like the rootbound plant which withers when set free, we adapt to the particular habitat that sustains us.
Nostalgia
April 22, 2020 5:35 pm Nostalgia is the truest form of grief. It washes over us with deceptive warm waves of comfort and familiarity, reaching out with open arms to welcome us to the throes of something that never was.
I Can’t Believe This is Happening to Me
February 24, 2020 7:06 pm Oftentimes, the reality of life is difficult to believe. Not only is truth stranger than fiction, but there is a noteworthy disconnect between our expectations, our perceptions, and the unflinching march of time.
No Depression
February 4, 2020 6:12 pm The word ‘depressed’ is ridiculously complicated. Not that any word in any language means just one thing, but few words mean more things than depression. Everything from measurable chemical imbalances to tropical storm systems to underperforming stock markets can lead to depression.
We Live in a Simulation
January 31, 2020 8:29 pm For all the advancements our society has made, the world still rewards those who can separate their conscience from their actions. Close the deal, shoot the wounded, put profit before people. There is not a visible cosmic arbiter of justice and this means only that one’s ingrained sense of right and wrong is a hindrance in the earthly realm.
Lost in Translation
January 27, 2020 7:39 pm Ultimately, we are confined to the languages we share with others. The spoken and written languages of the world. The things we trade in. The artistic media that leave everything open to interpretation yet create fleeting bits of solace and solidarity.
Disappearing Act
August 7, 2018 2:20 pm Life does not ask if you want to see a dead body dredged from a river on your bike ride or if you want to wake up one day and realize that most everyone you thought you might marry someday is now engaged to someone else or if you were ready for another year to be two-thirds over, for everyone you love to be two-thirds a year older, for your checking account to be two-thirds a year emptier. The disappearing act forces you to put your thoughts in a centrifuge in a noise-cancelling vacuum and distill them and listen to them until you are aware just what they are.
A Nightmare is Still a Dream
August 2, 2018 4:09 pm I do not need distractions or white picket fences. I need to write. I need to push myself to the limits so I have something to say. And I need to read what others have said, that I may remember the vague, gnawing feelings I have all day have names.
Being Alive
July 16, 2018 6:39 pm Existing is a fickle thing, some combination of biological bare-minimums and feeling profoundly satisfied which ultimately makes us who we... View Article
Watering the Plants
May 4, 2018 11:33 am Spending too much time thinking may have its downsides, but that is only if you subscribe to the notion that there is such thing as “spending too much time thinking.”
Bear Country
February 27, 2018 12:17 pm In a way, it is a refreshing feeling to be constantly aware of your surroundings, to know what it is you are most afraid of. To have a common fear with all fellow men, to have a lingua franca that everyone speaks about dangers and preparations and the haughty laughs we must have if we are to survive it at all. In the Yukon, everyone has a bear story or ten. In Alaska, people speak more in “how bad” bears are than whether there are bears at all.
Sutherland Springs
February 11, 2018 12:34 pm As time passes, I am stricken by many things: the urgency a brush with death places upon us. Our ability to normalize and gloss over such a traumatic experience in order to ‘move on.’ The way survival is so fickle and random that it can all feel very pointless or extraordinarily meaningful. The difference a day makes.
Peeing in the Arctic Circle
October 11, 2017 2:58 pm I stood there in a long sleeve T-shirt and blue jeans, exposed in all the most vulnerable ways to the elements, and felt a certain type of ridiculous freedom that men often chase their entire lives. One would never explicitly state that they aspire to something as trite as peeing atop Atiguin Pass, but that may be part of the problem.
In Lieu of the Cosmos
August 26, 2017 4:33 pm We pulled into the shallows, and the dizzying pace of the water just beyond the barrier island gave me something to focus on. “I think that big eclipse is starting right around now,” I offered. “What eclipse?” he asked me.
Fifteen Minutes from Alaska
August 24, 2017 9:51 pm These snippets are always taken out of context, and they often make others feel inferior and the sharer feel isolated, as if their reality isn’t living up to outsiders’ expectations of it. Happiness is not guaranteed by the sight of snow-capped mountains, though they are never unwelcome. A smile in a moment does not tell the full story. One does not and cannot cross a border or climb a mountain every second of their lives.
The Middle of Nowhere
July 5, 2017 3:44 pm “The middle of nowhere” is a loaded idiom. It’s a vague-yet-precise phrase that invokes a certain situation or location, and which could be positive or negative depending on who says it. It offers up visions of amber waves and orange plateaus, of abandoned filling stations and faded glimpses of the past’s future. It is a place devoid of the decades of social construction required to populate a city with its traps and trappings.
Count it All Joy
June 1, 2017 5:55 pm A couple of weeks ago, I began to examine the oppressive idea that, “You can’t just do that.” Whatever that... View Article
Darkness, Light, and a Sunset in Maine
April 4, 2017 12:19 pm This moment turned out to be a subtle turning point in the narrative. Since picking up the Land Cruiser and having a hilarious Saint Paddy’s Day that was blessedly free of self-awareness sabotaging my enjoyment, I now presented the trip as not just a salve for the pained brain clanging around in my head but also as a concerted effort to rediscover the simple joys that make me who I am and thusly make me worth spending any time around.
A Place to Call Home: The Almost-Ghosttown of Centralia, Pennsylvania
March 27, 2017 1:32 pm Signs stood in the trees warning hunters not to hunt in this area. We were quite near a State Game Land, of which Pennsylvania has many, and I suppose if you spent enough time in the woods and chased a deer far enough, you could wind up here. Of course, if you missed, your rifle shot might go through one of the remaining houses in Centralia. Or its sharp crack may just be the straw that breaks the asphalt’s back and sends you or the deer into a deep, hot hole.
The Stories We Long to Tell
February 9, 2017 10:06 am I don’t want to tell myself a story about the woods while sitting under fluorescent lights in a cubicle somewhere far away from them. We needn’t delude ourselves that our masterpieces are just a few months away, if only we keep biding time.
Plans are Better than Goals
February 6, 2017 1:25 pm I’ve got a long list of regrets and a longer list of plans, and neither of those lists will get any shorter until I start acting the same way I daydream when I’m having a good day.
The Facts So Far
October 5, 2016 11:40 am The details of my road trip thus far. Less stories, more facts and figures.
Trusting Strangers
October 4, 2016 10:27 am Many of us remember being told as children to never trust strangers, or at least to never accept candy from them or get into their cars. I’ve long since broken all of those rules.
Town, Country, Action
November 6, 2015 3:57 pm There is so little practical difficulty in the day-to-day of most of us that we have to create solutions to nonexistent problems for our own entertainment, to provide that sense of accomplishment and satisfaction where none can be found... In comfort, so few demands are made of us that we can sit and pontificate until we unravel. I don’t have to wallow in sorrow and self-loathing to be at my artistic best—maybe I’d write a more poignant novel in the Modernist style if I allowed myself to keep feeling as I did two years ago—but I can be informed by that knowledge of high art as I create something filled with high hope.© JOHNTESI 2024 SITE BY ORCA