H. D. Thoreau: To build a deep path, walk again and again, think over and over

With the holidays and finals for students around the corner, it’s a really stressful time for many. In California, this has been compounded by gunfire and wildfire. In the past few weeks hundreds of thousands of Californians have been displaced from their homes temporarily, many of them permanently, adding to the numbers of those who lost homes in the wildfires of 2017. Air quality in much of the state requires air filtration masks impacting even more people.

Henry David Thoreau reminds us: “As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”

What are the thoughts that dominate our minds? What have we planted in the soil of contemplation?

Have you noticed how stressful thoughts simply make you feel more stressed?

NOTE: If it’s not going well at school or in general, talk to a friend or a professional. There are lots of free and low cost counseling services available in every community. In the meantime, check out these suggestions.

Similarly, if we make the same mistakes in our writing, we burn pathways in our brain that are convinced that doing it that way is the right way.

Practice makes permanent: permanent pathways in our brains.

That’s why it is so hard to change bad habits or fix mechanical errors in our writing: we must literally burn a new path in our brains!

Has this ever happened to you?
You work very horde on a paper for English clash
And then get a very glow raid (like a D or even a D=)
and all because you are the word1s liverwurst spoiler.
Proofreading your peppers is a matter of the the utmost impotence.

This is a problem that affects manly, manly students.
I myself was such a bed spiller once upon a term
that my English teacher in my sophomoric year,
Mrs. Myth, said I would never get into a good colleague.
And that1s all I wanted, just to get into a good colleague.
Not just anal community colleague,
because I wouldn1t be happy at anal community colleague.
I needed a place that would offer me intellectual simulation,
I really need to be challenged, challenged dentally.
I know this makes me sound like a stereo,
but I really wanted to go to an ivory legal collegue.
So I needed to improvement
or gone would be my dream of going to Harvard, Jail, or Prison
(in Prison, New Jersey).

So I got myself a spell checker
and figured I was on Sleazy Street.

But there are several missed aches
that a spell chukker can1t can1t catch catch.
For instant, if you accidentally leave a word
your spell exchequer won1t put it in you.
And God for billing purposes only
you should have serial problems with Tori Spelling
your spell Chekhov might replace a word
with one you had absolutely no detention of using.
Because what do you want it to douch?
It only does what you tell it to douche.
You1re the one with your hand on the mouth going clit, clit, clit.
It just goes to show you how embargo
one careless clit of the mouth can be.

Which reminds me of this one time during my Junior Mint.
The teacher read my entire paper on A Sale of Two Titties
out loud to all of my assmates.
I1m not joking, I1m totally cereal.
It was the most humidifying experience of my life,
being laughed at pubically.

So do yourself a flavor and follow these two Pisces of advice:
One: There is no prostitute for careful editing.
And three: When it comes to proofreading,
the red penis your friend.

Mali. Taylor. “The the Impotence of Proofreading.” What Learning Leaves. Newtown, CT: Hanover Press, 2002. Print. (ISBN: 1-­‐887012-­‐17-­‐6)

So build a deep path with correct citation, powerful words, strong paragraphs and more!

Get your grammar going in the right direction with workshops on discrete skills at Ventura College including these (just added by my request!) evening workshops!

Similarly, if we use the same words over and over, we don’t find new ones, more interesting and expressive ones. We have to pay attention to the verbal path in our brains to become more articulate. It takes time to develop vocabulary, to build these new paths and to use them.

So what are some words you’ve discovered that are adding meaning and clarity to your work and your life? Please share two or more words below in the comments and tell us a little bit about them!

Please share two or more words in a comment! Please include in the following order:Your name. Your blog url (if you have one). The word. The definition for the word. The source of the word: title of the text, author, page number in parentheses. A comment about the word and why you chose it.

And speaking of paths, here’s one of my favorite poems “A New Path to the Waterfall” by one of my favorite writers, Ray Carver.

IMAGE with Thoreau quote is by Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo: “One of the only westerners trained in the rare Buddhist art of silk applique thangkas, she is passionate about the preservation and evolution of this Tibetan cultural tradition. His Holiness the Dalai Lama gave his blessings to Leslie’s work and encouraged her to make images that speak to the spiritual aspirations of people across religions and cultures. Leslie’s work is simultaneously traditional and contemporary, and her fascinating story is the subject of the acclaimed documentary film, Creating Buddhas: the Making and Meaning of Fabric Thangkas. Leslie mentors a select group of students around the world through her Stitching Buddhas Virtual Apprentice Program, and her Weekly Wake-ups provide a thread of inspiration to set your week on the path to awakening.”