Learn Something New Each Day- LOST Edition

It has become a cliche of sorts to teach your children to try and learn something new each day. It is the kind of thing that some people say without any real regard for what it means. It is not so different from people who ask how you are doing but are truly uninterested in your response.

I am not one of those people. I don't say that to make myself look good but because I don't ask you how you are doing unless I want to know. I am a grouchy old man who doesn't care whether you like me or not. Social pleasantries are for the kind and dimwitted. Unfortunately I am merely dimwitted and bereft of the kindness gene.

Anyhoo, the series finale for LOST has come and gone and though it didn't hit the mark that I hoped that it would it did serve as a good teaching tool for myself. I expect that it will help me to achieve some of my goals.

I am a guy who dreams of being a minstrel or bard, a traveling storyteller who can spin a good yarn and then sing a song or two about life. Now I may never become the bard, but I think that I can become the published author. I have a few books living inside my head. I have a few screenplays too. They need to be written. They need to be turned into something tangible that doesn't exist solely in the province of my dreams.

One of the tools that I am using to help me take them from fantasy to reality is this blog. I write a lot of fiction, quite a bit of which is never published here. I rarely edit it and more often than not I compose it on the fly.

The finale made me realize that I have to rework my approach. The finale fell short because it left too many questions unanswered and because they took the easy way out. I don't want to do that. I want to be better. So if I want to avoid falling into those traps I think that I am going to have to create an outline and or mental map of what I want to happen.

I need to spend some time developing the characters and the challenges they face. It is a little bit foreign to me to do so. I really do prefer to work things the way that I always have. But then again if you do things the same way every time than you should expect to get the same results.

It is a lesson that I have already shared with my kids. Now it is time for their dad to do a better job of living it.