[I wanted to write something non-fictional, so I did:]

At a time when I was expressing my worries over my college GPA, a friend of mine said that I was looking at my assessment too critically. I argued that it would be very difficult for me to get a job with my GPA and he asserted that it was not as hard as I was making it out to be. Now my friend is employed and has been so happily for some time. We had this discussion before, and the only defense I could argue for my reasoning at that time was "Well, other people tell me differently;" however, this fails to meet my standards of reasonability. If I forsake my own experiences as good representations of truth, then I will certainly reject other's experiences. How much more therefore must I reject that claim on pain of unreasonability when there are contrary experiences of the same occurrence.

For this reason, I have spent a good bit of time thinking about this matter, endeavoring to find the truth of it. In the end however, there is no metaphysical proof that is apparent to me that evinces the truth of this matter. I am left then to physical philosophy (which I do not deal in) and ethical philosophy. While the latter usually provokes thoughts of determining morality, more generally it is the branch of philosophy dealing with how one should conduct oneself based on their logical findings.

Now for some time now I have called myself an optimist. I like to believe that I can focus on the good and ignore the bad so that I will attain a better state of happiness even in the most adverse situations from joy in ill circumstances. When now joy in ill circumstances is perseverance, and perseverance in ill circumstances leads to good circumstances. When joy and good circumstances are combined, happiness is produced.  And when perseverance and good circumstances coexist, success is produced. And when success is produced, the betterment of the person and perhaps the world comes about. Ultimately, and by definition, optimism, I believe, is the hope that this betterment of person and society will one day reach completion, which is perfection, or the certainly that ill circumstances will no longer come about. This is the way I like to look at the world.

Thus, having recently heard several times of people talking about “the power of negative thinking,” I immediately dismissed those people as pessimists. However, when I consider my worldview, I begin to see flaws in the wording. Yet in the wording, there is meaning (for words are the means to meaning), and meaning is the conveyance of truth. Through this, I am brought to “perseverance.” When I attempt to discern the nature of perseverance, I find that is connotation often has a deceiving likeness. Perseverance almost seems to imply waiting out the storm, so to speak, hoping (expecting/waiting) for circumstances to better themselves. However, the issue that follows here is a matter of causality. If one desires circumstances to change, then they must be waiting for some kind of effect brought on by a cause, for change does not come about uncaused.

“Perseverance,” therefore, seems to suggests that a person sits around and takes the beatings the world deals out to them, lying in wait for the beatings to stop because of something that causes them to stop, but this hope presupposes that there will be a cause of the cessation in the first place. As David Hume would argue, just because something has happened continually in the past, it does not necessarily have to happen again. This assumption then makes out perseverance to be a cowards term, but this is not the proper one. “Perseverance” is by no means the trait of a coward. The true nature of perseverance is the active seeking out the end of bad circumstances, utilizing all possible resources and taking all options available save those which trespass upon moral boundaries. Furthermore, it is also the resolution not to give up trying to find good circumstances, no matter how hopeless the possibility of their ending might seem; for it is through action that causes come about, and through causes there come effects.

Moreover, even if one is experiences good circumstances, there is a near certain probability that they are headed into ill ones, for there are two phases of life: good times and bad times, both of which I have already referenced. If one is an optimist, be definition, they should hope that there is a way to avoid entering into bad times; however, if tendency shows that bad times follow good times, then optimists should seek to stop this. But they cannot simply wait for a cause exterior to them to stop the bad times from happening; for this is a contradictory assumption: to think that bad times will naturally come, but to suppose at the same time that something will cause the bad times not to occur is mere unreasonability. Thus, in order to prevent bad times from happening, internal action must be take on the part of the persevering person. Therefore, perseverance requires action.

This definition at its very heart appeals and relates itself to practicality, which is the forsaking of all things being done without a purpose and the focusing on those things which will best lead to a purpose even though they might not have aesthetically pleasing value. Now if I pride myself in optimism, but I think negatively, I would have before claim that I was a liar. However, I have come to see negative thinking with the limitation of having the right mindset as a characteristic of practicality and perseverance which is compatible optimism. Returning to my anecdote, I heard some people speaking of the power of negative thinking and thought them pessimistic; however, in light of this it turns out that the opposite is true. The link here is that optimism first requires the hope for improvement in both good times and bad, and the nature of hope is much more certain than desire. If one desired for success and good circumstances, it might be fine then to just sit and wait for an exterior cause to enact a pleasing effect, but it follows, therefore, based on all I have just established that if one is an optimist, then they will hope, and thus they will actively seek to enact change themselves.

Now in order to enact change, one must identify purpose, and the identification of purpose is the recognition of injustices and ill circumstances in the world coupled with the plan of action to resolve them. Yet this recognition requires negative thinking, because it demands the suggestion of both current ill circumstances, and ill circumstances that may be brought about in the future by some cause that must be discovered (for if the cause is prevented, then the effect too will be prevented). Therefore, I propose that negative thinking, the focusing on the bad circumstances, is a characteristic inherent of optimism.

In direct response to this particular situation, which came to mind as a result of my friend’s assertion, as an optimist, I choose to think the best of this situation and hope for the best, but I think also of the negatives implied, preparing to remove the worst causes. Thus my motto: “Prepare for the worst; hope for the best.”

Just to let you all know, I've paused writing for the moment, and I'm doing some editing. Expect some minor changes in my work soon enough. I'll give you the heads up if you should be aware of anything.

I will be heading back to college on Thursday, which effectively marks the conclusion of my winter break. I had hoped to complete Filling the Gap during this time, but instead I had to settle on a measly two chapters. As many of you are well aware, despite my promises of unwavering passion, I have a tendency to let then more amusing pleasures of life consume me, so the following has pretty much been the last three weeks in a nutshell

That said, I'm going to have a little time to write before college starts getting hectic. Hopefully, I'll have one more up and will be back on a role before then. Also, I've acquired an editor, and I apologize for any grammatical errors that I've ere missed. Also, I've changed a few of the triple-diamond symbols that indicate a shift in perspective in Filling the Gap to Vinyl's cutie mark. If anyone has a text version of the treble clef, it would help me out if you let me know.

As a few of you who actually take the time to read my overly elaborate and tedious blogposts, being so full of words and without cute pictures of Twilight, know, for the majority of the most recently passed school year, I was extremely busy, and therefore, unable to do pretty much anything productive, specifically in regards to ponies or writing about them. (Also as you may be able to see, because I've been studying ancient Greek, I think I may have completely lost my ability to form simple sentences.) Although, now that my winter break has set in, I believe many of you have also noticed that I am making the best use of this respite. Unlike my previous summer, whose time I so regretfully squandered, playing through Skyrim repeatedly, I have been intensely trying to complete this story, FiIling that Gap, to the best of my ability.

Here's Twilight being cute to break the tedium, for a moment.

I have accomplished the chapter that I have been working on since mid-August just last week, and I am now midway into the next chapter despite a number of perseverant hindrances such as the continuous war between my flesh's desire and my spirit's desires, the duties of preparing for and participating in the activities of the Holiday, and ignorance pertaining to certain scenarios to which I might be referring. Yet I still press on, and if I accomplish only the completion of this story by the end of my break, I will be more than satisfied. Be patient, my followers, and hope with true hope that escalation and reconciliation of great conflicts will come in their due time.

By an unexpected series of events, I have found today that I didn't have an overwhelming amount of work to do over this weekend. Therefore, I'm letting you all who are patiently waiting for the next chapter of FIlling the Gap, that I've been brainstorming and outlining for the past three hours, and the ideas are still coming as I force myself to think logically. After I know what I'm going to write, writing it will be the easy part. Heck, I can work through the night at that point. Just letting you all know that I'm still alive and having forgotten about the work.

Let me first convey my thanks to all of my watchers. Every time I receive a notification that someone is waiting for my next installment, I feel a great sense of success. I have not failed at everything. My pains have bore fruit.

Let me also thank you who are watching for the next chapter of FIlling the Gap and are reading this post because the story was tagged. I want to please all of you. I want to give all of you a great story of conflict and romance simply for having clicked on that "favorite" button.

Those of you who have been following my recent blog posts know that I have been extremely busy for the past three weeks. My workload has sadly not let up since. Weekend after weekend (to say nothing of the horrid weekdays) I think that I may have an hour to work on Filling the Gap, but alas, something new comes up, and I lose the chance. I know that you all have been waiting patiently, and that of all of my works, this has been the one that has been the most annoyingly outstanding, the one that I have procrastinated on the most. Yet unlike with the summer, I am now truly trying to find time to write this story.

I will not say that it has entirely gone untouched. Not five days ago, I spoke with my editor, who may as well be my adviser for this story. With her help, I reformatted the chapter, and I am now pleased to say that this chapter will probably be what all of you have been waiting for. I've been holding out for a while, but now that our heroines are where I want them, the plot can truly start moving towards its theme and the actualization of its ending.

I can't say when I'm going to get to work on it, but I really want to for a number of reasons. In the first place, I want to stop tantalizing you all with these long waits for chapters. But secondly, I have so many stories with monumental conflicts that I have already planned out, and just need to be written down. As soon as this story has been  completed, I will have accomplished the final story that has been remaining since the spring. And so much has happened since then.

Well, now I'm rambling. Back to work then.

For those of who who read my last blog post, after two weeks I am still insanely busy the only reason I have the time to write this blog post is because I'm waiting for the members of a group I'm in to respond to a message so we can get somewhere with a school project which has over-demanding deadlines. I also know that it's been over a month since I last updated FIlling the Gap, I still have not forgotten about it.

I actually did have a small window of time yesterday and did some thinking, and now I think I have a solid frame for this next chapter. However there's still between one and five chapters chapters until the end of the story, and I'm not sure how I'm going to reach my intended ending. Anyway, I've got to get back to it, but know that I may have at least the rough draft of the next chapter done within the week if I decide to run with this idea.

Thanks very much for all of your patience.

The workload is getting piled on. I was working at schoolwork all day. Didn't have time to do anything productive on the writing side. Maybe tomorrow after I start cleaning out my to-do list.

Also, for those of you who haven't gone to college yet, make it easier on yourself and go ahead and get Microsoft Outlook. You will need it.

This week was Labor Day, so my parents came into town and I didn't get anything done. But losing a weekend isn't so much of a big deal when compared to what follows. I've never had writer's block before, because I've always been able to plan things out quite well. I always have had an ending and a couple scenes in the middle, and then I just had to fill in the blanks. This is not the case with Filling the Gap where I had to through out everything. I've probably thought for about seven cumulative hours on this thing and I've made very little progress. Just now though I think I may have got a possible way to advance the chapter.

As some of you may have noticed, until now my goal was just to have the characters not faff about, and that was the goal of each chapter. Yet now that I'm a ways into the story, I have to make sure that I am pursuing two goals: I have to make everything work towards the ending (the moral) as well as introduce and tie up subplots in a manner that doesn't make my readers want to ragequit like a guy who knew nothing about Stephanie Meyer and started reading Twilight. Anyway, I think I just came up with an idea that may fulfill both of those goals. It's still just an idea, but at this point if it gets me out of writer's block, it'd be good to look into it. I'll spend tomorrow fleshing it out probably.

Also I have a really good idea how I'm going to end this story. I just have to make the details clear so I can plan effectively. I'll keep you guys posted.

I have not forgotten Filling the Gap. I have not posted an update until now because I originally planned the story to go quite differently than it is now. Therefore, quite frankly, part of the reason why the chapter updates have taken so long is that until just recently, I had no clue where the plot was going. In retrospect, the old story line sucked and was good enough for a one shot, but the story that I have written thus far, I think, demands more than that, and so do all of you taking the time to read it. I am currently in the process of re-outlining the story, and will update again when I have clarity of mind and readiness to compose on to the very end which I have a hope [that is to say, a certainty to believe] that this will be a valuable tale as well as an enjoyable one.