Helpless

"You know what powerlessness is? It's when you have to promise your imprisoned wife that you're not going to do anything about a psychopath who's terrorizing her." -Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed

There are many instances where I have felt powerless. As the person I am now, I very rarely ever submit my power to somebody else. Even when I feel at my lowest, I fight the urge to let the depression own me. I control my depression, the depression does NOT own me.

There are places where you are faced with helplessness on a daily basis, if you work there. In hospitals, there are people whom are powerless to leave for an extended period of time. In psychiatric hospitals, there are some who will be living there for the rest of their lives. In hospices, you will find men and women whom are powerless to the fact that they will be passing soon.

Prison is the best example of a human being succumbing to powerlessness, in America especially. Nothing can leech someones empathy and tolerance of their fellow man quite like being thrown in the clink.

Prison has always been a topic that causes me to bristle. It is my opinion that our society breeds criminals in the first place, then hauls them off into a system that fundamentally treats them like animals. You can't spoil a child and then get upset at their throwing a tantrum when they don't get what they want. You cannot treat a person as though they were misbehaving cattle and then get angry when they act as such once you released them back into society.

A person who is in a constant state of powerlessness will do whatever it takes to gain their power back. If that weren't the case, there would be no inmate suicides, no gang wars, and no prison breaks. Some people would rather be dead than give up their freedom, even for a little while.

Fluff

Light reading

Some books are inspirational. Others are intellectually stimulating or emotionally comforting. Then there are those juicy, mindless reads that are only good for a plane ride or the beach. Which books or authors fall under this last category?Submitted By fixnwrtr

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The first books that always come to mind are the "Chic Lit" genre. While there is some pretty hilarious and well-written chic lit, it always counts as "fluff" for me. So does the Twilight series. I am too much of an Anne Rice fan to ever put that series before her. I'm sure Stephanie Meyer is a great writer, I am fine with giving credit where credit is due, but you really have to be something special to write vampires the way that Anne Rice did. Twilight is more of a soap opera, so it's perfect for the crowd who is into that whole "romance novel" scene.

Another is the "UK Chic Lit" genre. Bridget Jones, Jemima J., and the like. The UK wit is something that I gravitate more towards than my own Western, American wit. It is much less likely that you will find a UK writer whom is as content to wallow in their own ignorance as those you come in contact with across the pond. Add to the fact that they put much bigger emphasis on being polite and civilized in their day to day life, it seems to give them much more creativity when they sit down to write a novel script. All that repression can do your imagination good, I suppose.