Catch These Four Stories to Read with Your Coffee (or Wine)

Since you can't leave feedback or comments, yet, on Vocal, I feel the need to start sharing the interesting reads I have come across.

Jill (Conquering Cognitions)

Jill wrote an interesting piece about the scientific evaluation of swearing. Her piece, The Science of Profanity: Like most things in life, timing and context are key Part of what Jill writes about states based on one study, stop making up words for profanity--probably like I say spit when I want to say, you know, the other word.

I've never been a fan of the "F" word, nor support the use of profanity in front of children. I do understand its power against pain when used in certain situations. I don't understand it being used in every sentence that comes out of a person's mouth. Unnecessary, unproductive, but not uncommon.

Jill also discusses a study that indicates you release pain when you say the actual words. I do usually say "God bless it!" if I rammed part of my body into a piece of furniture, like my toe. I have never felt comfortable letting go of a bunch of explicatives as a method of expression. It might be because I grew up in the military, my parents didn't practice swearing, and I continued to set an example for my own children. The rule for children should be don't use adult words until they can handle the effects.

Give Jill's piece a read. It was interesting and worth the time.

Eric Dovigi

Someone Broke Into My Bedroom With A Gun In the Middle of the Night: Or; Zen and the Art of Running for Your Life written by Eric Dovigi is interesting and thoughtful. What would we do if someone broke into our homes? Early on in the piece, a reader gets a clear sense of his situation:

I’m running down the stairs, naked as the Lord made me, not wearing my glasses. Suddenly I see Jason at the bottom of the stairs. He tosses me a t-shirt and says, “Put this on!” I climb into the arm holes and pull it up around me like shorts.

As I kept reading on, however, Eric starts to explain his experience from another perspective that's interesting and worth the read. And, yes, he and his roommate were fortunate.

Angela Chanthalangsy

My Parents Should Have Divorced: The insidiousness of generational trauma through the eyes of an empath written by Angela Chanthalangsy is a story about her parent's relationship and the effects on her. Angela used one term I had not heard of before, emotional unavailability, which phrase has more power than emotional deprivation.

Angela describes her parents as supportive of her interests in education and cultural arts. They didn't seem to know how to express themselves to her emotionally though.

My parents brought their personal unprocessed traumas into their marriage and it manifested into more trauma within their marriage.

I thought Angela's story was so open and honest about how she describes "generational trauma." Check it out.

Md Fahad Alam

In Ryan Reynolds and wife Blake Lively to match a donation of up to $1 million to aid Ukraine's displaced, Md Fahad Alam writes about how actor Ryan Reynolds and actress and wife, Blake Lively, are helping people out of compassion, especially the displaced families in Ukraine.

Lively is inspired by their children. Md Fahad Alam writes about other efforts Reynolds and his wife are involved with.

The couple is matching donations of up to $1 million made to their GoFundMe page, which will benefit the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a global organization that helps people affected by war and conflict.

It's really interesting to read about the organizations this couple is involved with for their effort to help people.

Alam also has an interesting line on his bio page that reads: When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing.

I hope you enjoy reading the above as much as I did.

© Cathy Coombs

About the Author

Earning a B.A. in English Journalism & Creative Writing affirmed my love for literature, language, and writing, and I sought early retirement to write full-time. Connect via Twitter or LinkedIn or see my website.