When I was 5 years old , my mother m y always told me that happiness was ththe key to life. When I went tpo sxc chool, they told meto write down what I

wanted to be when I grow up. I wrote down "happy" . They told me that I 

didn't understand the assignment and I told them they didnt unde r stand

life" -- John Lweeennon (I wrote some pa --------------- ( I wrote one sentence in my words

instead of using what he exactly wrote 

Remebering how to use one of these archaic machines. I'll never again regret being born in the digital era. 

I adore my digital arsenal of verbal recording tools because of their abi

ability to help maintain my flow. As i appreciate celebrating

history, I can't imagine having to labor away at such a cantankerous machine. No touch typing, no dictation, no cloud storage...but plenty of hand exercise

...and auto-save!!! As long as you don't lose the sheet...

I seem now to have developed at least a modicum of flow. Can't quite say

I'd be able to use this to the full effect that I use a computer, but 

it'd surely produce some interesting work.   This method is a reminder that progress is always evident, and also that 

new tool do not always help Perhaps I'm leaking out valuable brain juice each time I take to my computer

and convert the torrent into a stream of words. Perhaps this machine is allowing

 a more meditative side of myself loose. Perhaps just a more frustrated one.

Although I can't deny the brilliance of using a machine l ke this to record

my thoughts.. Its just so strange. Perhaps I'll try cuneiform next.  so now...what to say? regardless of the tool, that forever remains the question.

do i speak of ugliness or beauty? success or hardship? own inconsequential

plight or someone else's? I know well that none of it matters in the end...but this is not th end.

This is all there is: the infinite, eternal now. And so I leave this typewriter

with nothing quite new in mind but a greater appreciation for the tools

I wield today. And now...to do sopmething with them...

true joy rests on strength and firmness within, manifesting itselfoutwardly as gentle and yielding. Three pennies laid in front of me echothis advice, and at once I understand that softness does not require

smallness. I used to face life with my teeth bared, and I had a knack for

figuring out the exact combination of words to kill the people I loved. I

was rarely spanked as achild because my parents could never catch me. I knew

what it was to have my blood on fire with the adrenaline of fierceness. As

I grew up, the world taught me it was in my best interest to be small. At

fourteen, my breasts were just mosquito bites, but men still stared at the

silhouette of my nipples through my shirt, so I started hunching my shoulders

forward to bring my chest in. Once the tallest in my class, my shoulders

began to slope until my head was lost among my shorter classmates. I learned

that "no" was not a word I had the privilege of saying. I learned it the 

hard way. Every woman knows what I mean when I say "the hard way." Here, I

am years later and still using euphemisms because I cannot call it by name.

The world said, "Be small because we want to keep you in a cage. You rare,

beautiful bird, we want you to sing for your supper. We will hover so close

to the bars you can feel our hot breath on your neck, and know how much we

want you. It's a compliment." I did not want to be seen sometimes, didn't

want to be noticed. I perfected the art of walking around on marshmallow

feet, startling my mother with my sudden presence in the room. My father

started chiding me for mumbling. I wanted to be small. But the thing about

being smaller is you get stepped on a lot. Some people are like animals, 

it's like they can smell it onyou. They can sense how easy it is to convinve

you you're small. Theye can't help but take advantage of it. I'm really good

at nurturing, everybody says so. My aunt says, "It's a thing that runs in

the family. People used to tell me, 'you are too kind.'" My best friend says,

"You are supportive to a fault." The world says, "You are SO nice." And I

did want to be nice. I am so softhearted but the world is full of vampires

that drain you of things more vital than your blood. I thought I had to kill

my softness if I was going to survive. Tenderness was weakness. But trying

to be hard, to deny my nature, killed me in a different way. I felt stuck 

with no answers. Desperate for advice, I cast thre pennies into the air

and consulted what their pattern meant in my Book of Changes. They said,

"True joy rests in strength and firmness within, manifesting itself outwardly

as gentle and yielding." Softness is not smallness