Of Vietnamese First Names and Mine

https://digitalcitizen.ca/category/writing/This is a writing contest entry I had submitted that did not place. Instead of tweaking and/or submitting to other contests, I have decided not to do this to motivate myself to write more and other content for future contests. I’m not trying to make a living on this, or even earn extra cash, so there’s no need to judge value based on how much time I put into it. If anything, it’s only about minimizing losses of contest entry fees to what’s been “proven” to be “unworthy” of recognition. :)

I hope you like it. 2000 word limit 2021 CBC Nonfiction contest.

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Inverse Charisma, Crown Shyness, and Foodprint

https://digitalcitizen.ca/category/vocabulary/I am learning about five terms per day in 2021 from what I read and podcasts I listen to. Of those, not all are interesting, or potentially useful to try to retain in my vocabulary since I can’t remember all the terms I learn. However, every now and then, I find upon terms that I deem to be both, interesting and useful, to me, and will write more about them to share with readers, as well as help retain them in my memory since writing about things helps me retain things better. I will also include the sources from where I learned of these terms, which I always catalogue as tweets on my DigitalCitizen Twitter account that you can follow if you like learning about new terms on an almost daily basis. Today’s terms for sharing include inverse charisma, crown shyness, and foodprint, each with definitions.

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Definition: Sonder

Sonder

The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

 

The profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passed in the street, has a life as complex as one’s own, which they are constantly living despite one’s personal lack of awareness of it.

 

This seems to be a word created rather than an actual word, but who cares? If it gives you a profound concept there needs to be a word for, then add it to your vocabulary! In this age of unprecedented narcissism with social media, a realization and appreciation of the complexity facing others is a very good thing!

What Symbolic Meaning Would You Give Stitches?

That title probably has a lot of people asking W? If not with the additional two letters. It was an accidental idea I just had upon seeing some graphic about tattoo symbols meaning various things, but which resembled stitches on a sewing machine stitch guide!

Life is full of symbols. I don’t have to enlighten anybody to that. But there are none for stitches so I figured, what’s a few more? So try this exercise. Look at the stitch graphic below and tell me what symbolic meaning you would assign to various stitches (by their number)

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