Dear Diary,

Is this where I have to run so I can be completely honest with myself?

Do I have to fluff my three pillows and down comforter and lay my body between the world and the unwashed sheets of the paper bed that I call my journal?

Is this where I can sincerely share my thoughts and feelings without being self-righteously judged in thirty different directions from thirty different standpoints from thirty different restless souls in thirty different worlds?

Where do I honestly begin?

Seriously!

The first step in being honest with yourself is to realize you are not perfect. The second step is to never forget the first step. The third step is to completely ignore those who cannot coexist with steps one and two.

Vernon Herring

I feel like if I was completely honest, knowing that I was just one man with one opinion in a sea of endless ideals, then I believe some people would not be able to listen to me, much less read my words, yet we live in a world where we are being brainwashed to believe that everyone else’s opinions matter more than ours and we should just bend to their rules, especially if our opinion goes against the grain of the next week slash month long trend, yet everyone is so enlightened and woke to preach that everyone’s opinions matter and are equal while knowing in the back of their mind that if it does not support their cause then you are the one who is going to be labeled ignorant and anti-‘whatever’ instead of them.

Entitlement has done nothing to this world but make notable issues seem like forged agendas, a false representation of facts that have merely become a back page topic in a world that doesn’t know which way to spin anymore.

Instead of having feelings, we are being taught to only have reactions.

Responses far outweigh reflection.

Instead of having emotions, we just pound our fist in the sand in anger and let our hollow tears fall in the ocean as we hide ourselves from the world and never face our fears and let our failures swirl with each beached wave, each one knocking us over instead of us triumphantly surfing them out with our surfboard bodies and enjoying the ride while we still can.

People claim to be open minded until you put them in a room by their own self and no cell phone audience, along with a group of other people who all disagree on a certain topic. In that specific societal group, there will always exist : the person who will not let anyone else speak, the person who crosses their arms, the person with a witty comeback and nothing of substance, the person who is stuck in their ways and pretends to listen, and the ones who are open to debate and can possibly change the world.

I wonder if you take away all our ‘stages’, will we quit acting and finally be real?

Nothing good came from rushing a decision. Except curly fries. I’m glad the person that made those pushed that idea.

Vernon Herring

People used to be afraid to have their picture taken because they thought they lost a piece of their soul in the process and now I’m sitting here, typing, thinking to myself as I scroll on social media,

oh my God, were they right?

When there is no attention, likes, or follows to gain, will people finally settle into who they were truly destined to be instead of playing the role of someone they know, deep inside their soul, that they are not?

We have conditioned ourselves to have to put on a public, daily display and reveal in posts to everyone the person we pretend to be instead of proving to ourselves the person we have always been since birth, even when no audience exists.

The simulation has always existed, except now the rules have changed and we have accepted the programming we have been subliminally brought into and we dare to glitch and be the one who stands out in an original, different, yet sane way.

Or at least that is how I feel.

Privacy is the new act of rebellion for some of us, and I see no reason to store your life in the ‘clouds’ if you cannot live it like you’re supposed to on Earth.

Hate without the ‘E’ is just hat, and I haven’t worn one in years because they give me headaches and I do not want my hairline to recede more than it already is.

Vernon Herring

Since the internet killed television and gave everyone, the philosophically informed and the idealess idiots, a voice and made it harder to distinguish the two due to sensationalism and misinformation and made it harder for the true artists to stick out amongst the crowd of endless filters and wannabes and auto-correct apps, what can the ten percent of real, creative artisans do next to put everything back in its ordered form and show others where their place in line truly is?

Or is this how things are going to be for now?

When did we exchange cautiousness for quickness?

Present reward for future risk?

Love, faith, and hope for vapid disdain, bitterness, and dumbed intelligence?

When did we quit ignoring our own soul?

Every time someone says to me ‘a penny for your thoughts’, I never give them my thought because the price isn’t high enough and I know they will not pay me anyway, so what’s the point?

Vernon Herring

The experts think that original creativity can be generated, but it cannot. It will not. People know this as soon as they watch, read, or look at an original work of art on a screen or in person because, deep inside their soul, they can feel whether the artist is or was genuine or not and life is too short not to be exactly that.

We have dealt in falsities for quite some time.

It is time to be real, not woke.

A taxidermied animal’s eyes are still open but does that mean he is alive?

The audience wants to be moved with dialogue, with camera angles, with good story lines, with realness, with characters that they can relate to, all of this being projected onto a screen and sent straight to their body, moving their eyes to water and their body to quiver and their heart to beat as they sit in a world that has ground them into the dirt while turning dark and cold in a matter of years and forgotten how precious they are instead of lifting them up and showing them how important they truly are in the grand scheme of things.

Right?

When I was little, Momma used to tell me that I was ‘smart as a whip’ and it just occurred to me that her statement does not make any sense whatsoever.

Vernon Herring

Dear Diary,

do I put my words inside of you for safekeeping because I know they will not listen, or, should I tear my heart out, page by page, and leave them scattered around, in pieces, like a treasure map?

I have a lot of questions, and something tells me that I probably do not want the answers to half of them. I know you have to feel the same way too. You have to! Right? Isn’t that why you exist for me and I for you?

One of the most off-putting things I have ever experienced, besides mayonnaise, pickles, and my toe nail wanting to fall off, is listening to someone try to breath while eating an ear of corn.

Vernon Herring

I have questions like:

Why am I rushing life to get to a future point in time when the present wants, needs, and desires my company?

What if I do not belong here, in this moment, with you, right now, much less deserve it because I can be the way I am at times?

Some of the places I’ve visited – I’ve never felt so much like a stranger and at home and at peace, all at the same time. I understand the concept of being in the world and not of it, even though the world is where I, a writer, has to exist and leave my stories behind for others to read so they can help me make sense of what we are currently experiencing, together, in our own way.

If you are wasting your time, the worst thing you can do is waste someone else’s in the process.

Vernon Herring

Would I be lying to myself if I didn’t admit,

“I miss not having to wait in line,”

“I miss uncluttered highways,”

“I miss living on an unpaved road,”

“I miss being young,”

“I miss being oblivious,”

“I miss the lie of when Santa Claus was real,”

” I miss me being, well, me.”

I wonder if ants look up at the sky and wish they could be a graceful bird while the graceful birds look down at the ants and think, sucks to be an ant.

Vernon Herring

My parents did not purchase satellite/cable television service until I was a teenager, and it was not because they could not afford it. For me, during that moment, it was frustrating to hear everyone talking about things they had watched the night or weekend before, things I had no clue about because we were still using an outdoor antenna that was the size of a small, two door Buick and could only pick up ten channels on a clear day.

Now, as an adult, I find myself, sometimes, with four different streaming services, wanting to undue what I had wished for back then and un-watch some of the things my eyes had seen and take back the innocence of waiting until Saturday morning so I could sleep in, eat cereal while watching cartoons, and play outside all day until the moon chased me back inside, and that is if we weren’t lighting a campfire that night and staring up at the moon beams and starlit sky, believing that tomorrow was going to be okay as long as the moment didn’t end.

People say, ‘can’t never could do anything’. I reply, ‘can’t can’t help that it can’t. Ease up!’

If one minuscule drop of my life experience was different than how it has played out, would it have destroyed my imagination, the one thing that separates my worldly chaos from my personal control, my fantastical reality from my realistical fantasy, my mental magic from my physical finger taps, my doubt from my confidence, my life from my living, my hope from my failures, my courage from my cowardice?

I have said this before and I’ll say it again, much to me disliking having to admit it and while being of sound mind and judgment,

“If you are a good writer, you will create fictional characters that are more real to you than some of the non-fictional people you currently know in your everyday life. This is not your fault. It is theirs.”

Vernon Herring

Does that statement of fact make me a good writer or screenplayist who will one day produce and direct good stories for people to read or watch on a screen or does that make the world seem like a poor substitute teacher for those of us who try to learn and live life to the fullest?

If you ever ask someone how they are doing and they reply, ‘can’t complain’, their response is a lie, so turn around and walk away. Life is too short for fake small talk and cheap perfume.

Vernon Herring

Dear Diary,

how about this!

Here’s my cause to rally behind – so, go design a flag, dedicate a month to it, and protest and advertise it’s importance in the streets :

‘SAVE KIDS’ IMAGINATIONS‘

a.k.a The SKI Foundation

– persevering a dreamer today so our next generation of adults will not be a bunch of self glorified whiners, hoping, one day, they will help people disappear from the problems of now, one story at a time!

Why force our kids to grow up so fast to where most of us are now currently living, people like us who would do anything to be ten years old again and the worst thing that happened in the span of a day was when the chain came off your bicycle and you could not get it back on and had to walk all the way home thinking that some invisible creature was stalking you in the woods or nearby bushes so you picked up a stick and it immediately turned into the sharpest and shiniest Excaliber in all of the land and you defended yourself and your steed as you progressed on your journey back to the motherland that you called your yard.

If a hummingbird hums and a mockingbird mocks and a woodpecker pecks, what does a sperm whale do?

Vernon Herring

Through all my observational interrogatives of the things that I see in the everyday world of the here and there, I understand why people are having a hard time existing and choose to have a stone heavy heart. The world has conditioned humans to have rigid disconnect, social isolation, and clouded doubt.

Then, like clockwork, just as I wrote that last sentence that you are about to hide for me, dear diary, the sun peaked through the clouds and hit me in the face as I sit at my kitchen table and type.

All I can do is smile and say to myself,

“I know… I know… take a breath. Don’t be so hard on yourself and them. They will figure it out just as you have and are currently doing. Maybe. In time.”

I realize that it is not my responsibility to tell the reader how to live their life or how they should interpret my writings. It is my responsibility to write, stay connected to my source, and be there for them when they need a helping hand because that one person was there for me when I needed it and the only way to overcome the past is to prepare the future in the present and bleed every single time I decide that I need to put letters and words and mental acuity onto paper.

Live your life like there is no yesterday because tomorrow is never promised and today is now!

Vernon Herring

Dear diary, I have questions like,

“How do I hold on for a little while longer when my fingertips are already so tired?”

“Is this what it means to truly be alive?”

“Why does it take a death or a sickness or a disappearance or a suicide or an accident for us to realize how much we miss someone or to understand how fragile life truly is, no matter how carelessly we waste each breathing second when all we have to do is reach out and say to someone,”

‘hey, I care about you, whether you like it or not…’

or

‘hey, I love you, unconditionally, no strings attached…’

or

‘hey, you are not alone! We got this! Stick with it! Chin up…’

Someone who says that actions do not speak louder than words has obviously not tried sign languaging with a deaf person.

Vernon Herring

Dear Diary,

I look into people’s eyes and, sometimes, I have to turn away. I see the pain. I see the confusion. I see how tired they are, and I’m scared if they look into mine for too long then they might see the same thing despite our efforts to camouflage the turmoil that exists inside all of us.

People ask me why I close my eyes when I tell a story. I do this because I’m accessing my soul. If we are going to share this moment in time, why waste it fiscally like everyone else is doing?

I want to remember the moment of that day as I turn it into a memory. I want you to remember the moment of that day as you turn it into a memory.

If the feeling is good and genuine and heartfelt and connected and breaks all laws of physics and gravity and universal demands, you will close your eyes, regardless of your setting.

The world needs more moments like this instead of closeting them away with the logical normalcy we used to possess before the portal opened and sucked all common sense and decency into it. You will realize this like I already have, if you have not already had your epiphany by now, which I believe some of you have.

There’s only one thing to blame for the world turning out like it has.

One thing and one thing alone.

If love is in your heart, nothing else will exist. Except blood. There will be blood.

Vernon Herring

Dear Diary, I have questions like:

Why do I write when there are millions of other writers doing the same thing as me?

What makes my words and thoughts and ideas and plots and scenarios and characters and emotions and originality more important than theirs?

Why not quit, right now with this blog post, and give up, disappear, and take up a more suitable hobby like wood sculpting with a chainsaw, stamp collecting, professional corn hole’ing, or just merely existing?

What happens when you ‘stomp a mud hole’ into another mud hole? Does it take it personally?

Vernon Herring

Dear Diary,

If I’m honest with you, like completely honest to a fault, I guess I’d have to admit that I’m not really scared of failing because that’s what dreamers do on a constant basis and learn from until their creative ideas are manifested into tangible adventures.

I guess…

….

We want honesty, Dear Diary?

Me and you?

The potential reader, you, and the hopeful writer, me?

I guess I’m scared I’ll succeed and my creative art will take off and my life will completely change and I’ll have to move away from everything that is familiar to me so I can be more accessible and I’ll soar and my life will instantly improve and over time I’ll start to miss home and one day I’ll be lounging in my hammock on my mountainside porch, thinking about my old family farmland days, wondering if my dream’s desire was worth the disconnected struggle and I’ll have to admit to myself that it was, no disrespect to the people that I love and love me back because who doesn’t want their loved ones to succeed in life while chasing their dreams, and a single tear will run down my cheek and sneak into the corner of my mouth and I’ll tongue it and taste it and it will remind me of my mom’s lavender hand lotion, my dad’s grilled steaks, my sister’s over-protectedness, my family’s togetherness, my hometown’s hypocrisy, my lover’s glance, then the breeze will stir and I’ll look up and that is when it will catch my eye for the thousandth time in my life.

Don’t wait for the time when you are finally ready, especially if that time is now!

Vernon Herring

Dear Diary,

I have questions like:

When did the world go from being so brilliant, intelligent, and trustworthy to wearing a slogan like ‘know nothing – deny everything’?

When did people become so selfish that, when they meet you and your giving heart, they act like it is something they have never encountered before in their entire life and they are scared to take advantage of it or use it as a weakness because they know, if they do, it will disappear, forever?

Something out there – call it the universe, call it God, call it angels, call it the unknown, call it a ghost, call it whatever you want – tickles my ear from time to time, catches the corner of my eye from week to week, taps my shoulder when my head is down, brushes my body with an invisible breeze when I’m wandering about, even when I think to myself on a constant basis ‘why me’, even when I start to consider my gift a curse when it should be vice se versa considering the world needs more people like me, like us, to do what we were put on this Earth to do and help lift people up while lifting ourselves up in the same instance.

I think we should reconsider wishing on shooting stars. They need to realize that violence is never the answer.

Vernon Herring

Dear Diary,

if my written words helped the reader disappear, did I do well?

If my written words helped the reader think and regain clarity, will you be proud of me?

If my written words made the reader cry, is that okay?

If my written words made the reader smile or laugh, did I succeed?

Will I ever know?

To be a writer, you must confide in loneliness and make it a companion. In doing so, when a lonely reader finds your words, it is as though you had been there for them the entire time.

Vernon Herring

I know in most instances, I accept that I will never know the effect of my words, and that is okay. If that particular reader reaches out to me, or any writer for that fact, and confesses something that the writing made them feel, it is my, our, obligation to hold that moment in time with the greatest reverence because the reader did not have to do that. We must respect the privacy of that moment because, in the most disconnected era of human history, these are the things that will keep the fire raging inside of you, inside of me, inside of us.

No matter how cold the world gets, our words will keep us warm, especially if we’re making out. Fires and blankets also help too.

Vernon Herring

Dear diary,

how many times have I wrote inside your lettered soul and said,

“I should give up, walk away, and settle.”

I have thought after vocalizing that statement, it would honestly be easier for me to give up than it would be to forge ahead. My life would be way easier now if I closeted my passion, put away my home keys, and numbed my emotions to everything I see and experience.

For the moment, it would work. For the moment, it would be bliss. For the moment, it would feel like a weight was lifted off of my shoulders because not caring is more tolerable than its counterpart. For the moment, I would be content, or at least I would pretend to be.

In time, things would start to break down. In time, bliss would slowly turn into the ignorance of how clear the path truly was for me. In time, my weightless shoulders would slowly become heavier and heavier due to regret and the ‘woulda shoulda coulda’ game. In time, discontentment would slowly seep through my stone visage and, at some point thereafter, I would break for the hundredth time in my life’s journey, except this time it would be the realization of a dream’s death because I was the one that abandoned it and left it shivering in the cold that one rainy night and turned my back on it instead of man’ing up, breaking out the umbrella, and walking beside it until I helped it find its way back home, which in turn was my home too.

There is only one thing that stands in the way of a true dreamers path and it is not death. It is himself. Or herself. Women deserve to dream too.

Vernon Herring

Dear diary,

I know you hold my secrets, and you do it better than anyone I have ever known in my entire life.

You have seen so many sides of me and have always been open to my many different temperaments and personalities. I came to you and looked at your nakedness and you smiled and whispered,

“go ahead! Bathe me with the ink that courses in your veins. Share with me the secrets of your soul. I dare you to scribble your temporary thoughts and emotions and, later on, undress me with each vulnerable turn of the page while learning something new about yourself and sharing it with others – if that is what you deem as necessary.”

Make giving up an impossibility! Instead, give down!

Vernon Herring

Dear Diary,

as I flip your pages, I realize that it was a rollercoaster of emotions for me and you.

One day, the world was against me. A week later, everything was falling into place.

One day, I did not know where to turn. A week later, I had every answer I could ever ask for.

One day, I was putting a rough draft fictional plot onto paper. A couple weeks later, it was actually unfolding in front of my eyes on the news.

One day, I felt like throwing my hands up in the air and quitting this ‘writer becoming a published author slash screenplayist’ nonsense for good. A week later, the fountain inside my soul was flowing and the words would not let me quit and hang my pen up.

One day, I wrote. A week later, I came back to it and read.

If you think being patient is hard, go talk to a tree. Shade and fruit doesn’t just happen overnight, nor does looking like a psychopath because, hey, you’re talking to a tree.

Vernon Herring

Dear Diary,

thank you for being there when the times were good and bad, when my thoughts were clouded and clear, when my world was together or crumbling, when, well, I was me or even when I wasn’t.

I’m still here.

They’re still here.

We’re going to keep fighting and pursuing because we have come too far to turn back now, and when that last page is finally turned I hope I have left enough memories and experiences behind that people will one day say,

“yeah, he certainly had a vivid imagination, regardless of how coarse he could be at times. No matter what he gained or lost in life, he always maintained his sense of imagination and connectedness to the universe. There was always something about his stories that I could relate to. He truly was ‘one of a kind’.”

People constantly tell me that the grass is always greener on the other side until you start crapping in it and I’m like, ‘ha ha, good one, have you ever heard of a toilet?’

Vernon Herring

Dear Diary,

when the moment is right, please ask the everyday person or struggling writer or disheartened artist – ‘what’s holding them back from allowing others to be able to say the same things about them one day when their story is finally over?’

The answer is simple!

I have so much faith in all of you doing what’s best for you and not wasting any more time on things that do not deserve you and chasing your dreams and never giving up and living life to the fullest and being the best person you can possibly be while changing the world in a positive way and being unselfish with your gifts while guarding your hearts and shining like there is no tomorrow.

It’s time for you to start believing in you.

Now, lower your eyelids and rise like the sun!

The answer is not what will we see when our eyes are finally open. The answer is what will we see when our eyes finally close.

Vernon Herring

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As a wise person once said:

“Everything you were destined to be, you were already born with.”

Except clothes.

You may need those eventually!