{"id":30895,"date":"2023-02-08T08:48:34","date_gmt":"2023-02-08T16:48:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=30895"},"modified":"2023-02-08T08:48:34","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T16:48:34","slug":"from-now-on-your-name-is-mufasa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/from-now-on-your-name-is-mufasa\/","title":{"rendered":"From now on, Your Name is Mufasa"},"content":{"rendered":"

The reading this week was terrific. King\u2019s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft <\/em>and Steven Pressfield\u2019s War of Art <\/em>are both full of nuggets for anyone willing to take a rip of faith and grow their potential against all odds. Pressfield, in War of Art, speaks of our two lives and the internal demon of resistance that stands between the two lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of us have two lives, Pressfield says, the life we live and the unlived life within us, between the two stands resistance.\u201d[1]<\/a> \u00a0On the other hand, King describes these demons in his colorful language; I got an audible version of On Writing<\/em> and could not stop laughing as I listened to the book. Steven\u2019s Colorful language and the details he includes in his book are simply unheard-of, yet the book is a treasure, a wealth of insights for any writing, whether fiction or nonfiction. He is a master of his craft, sharing great wisdom in a short and easy-to-listen or read book.<\/p>\n

I will attempt to share my takeaways and wisdom from Pressfield and King and will surely return to these books for more than an hour of summary and nuggets.<\/p>\n

Nugget number one:\u00a0<\/strong>Drawing inspiration out of adversity <\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking about his rejections, \u201cKing became passionate about writing his stories; he would pin each of these rejections onto his bedroom wall. However, the number of rejections became so extensive that the nail fell out under the weight. After receiving many rejections, King studied writing markets in the Writer\u2019s Digest.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

King\u2019s colorful language should not discourage readers from mining the gold out of his book. Everyone has a story, which can be a great source of inspiration, even when very painful; his story includes the struggles with drugs and alcohol.<\/p>\n

King described his addictions as equivalent to some of the murderous characters in his novels. King\u2019s challenges with drug and alcohol addiction did not become an end in his writing, but he kept on regardless of his challenges. He mentions that he does not even remember writing some of his books since he wrote drunk. [3]<\/a><\/p>\n

Nugget number two:\u00a0<\/strong>Don\u2019t simply work; seek intimacy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cSteven King describes the best writing as being intimate. This intimacy must apply to both the easy and the hard work. Therefore, King does not recommend stopping work just because you find it emotionally or creatively challenging.\u201d[4]<\/a> While reading On writing<\/em>, I was reminded of my challenges joining the United States Navy and my introduction to the colorful language of Sailors and later marines onboard Naval ships. After I enlisted in the United States Navy and left for my basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Station in Illinois, I thought I was in a different world. The little English I understood vanished, and I was left in dismay, wondering between adding to my language toolbox with these colorful expressions or simply maintaining my Ugandan refugee-born again clean English language. <\/em><\/p>\n

In his book To Swear Like a Sailor, Paul A. Gilje helped show me more about the culture of cursing. <\/em>Anyone could swear like a sailor! Within the larger culture, sailors had pride of place in swearing. But how they swore and the reasons for their bad language were not strictly wedded to maritime things. Instead, sailor swearing, indeed all swearing in this period, was connected to more significant developments.[5] <\/a>Gilje reveals that \u201cSailor culture was connected to the public sphere through language, writing, and imaginary that were understood, embraced, and altered by shore society.\u201d[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

From now on, Your Name is Mufasa.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had only been in America for a short time. A Naval recruiter met me at the Community College and narrated the wonderful benefits of joining the United States Navy. Descending from the full bus with other recruits, the Navy Chief in charge of my division screamed in my face what\u2019s your Name, recruit and I responded Jean de Dieu Mutabaruka Ndahiriwe. She shouted and mumbled my names but could not pronounce them. Out of frustration, she asked, do you know Mufasa? As you can imagine from the refugee camp of Western Uganda, I had not watched many movies and had never heard of the Lion King before. I responded, buy shaking my head in disagreement. She now shouted so loud in my face, from now on, Your Name is Mufasa; I could only respond Yes, Mom, and all the recruits laughed! I had no idea what I agreed to! But would later learn much more about the nickname; this was the first of many peculiar incidents that I can never forget. As King and Pressfield encourage, consistently pressing through challenges of all kinds will yield inevitable success. I will treasure these fun resources in my resource toolbox.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle<\/em>, 1st ed. ([New York, NY: Rugged Land, 2002).<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> STORYSHOTS, \u201cOn Writing Summary Review Audiobook | Stephen King,\u201d STORYSHOTS<\/em> (September 2, 2021), https:\/\/www.getstoryshots.com\/books\/on-writing-summary\/.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Paul A. Gilje, To Swear like a Sailor: Maritime Culture in America, 1750-1850<\/em> (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2016).<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The reading this week was terrific. King\u2019s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft and Steven Pressfield\u2019s War of Art are both full of nuggets for anyone willing to take a rip of faith and grow their potential against all odds. Pressfield, in War of Art, speaks of our two lives and the internal demon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2213,2198,2197],"class_list":["post-30895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-pressfiedking","tag-king","tag-pressfield","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30896,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30895\/revisions\/30896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}