The Modesty Writers Guild

well i must say how sorry i am for the neglection of modesty. the last three and half months have been crazy, to say the least. i have seen the country twice, and met a ton of people. thanks to all the friends and fans i have met these past few months, you have made this one of the most exciting times of my life. thanks to: the oviedo kids, the Irmo clan, jim jack andrew anthony and tim from bayside, chip casey brett chad josh josh and brucy from juliana, seth allen roberts lane etc from the wa, youwithoutme *sorry about the crickets, josh and his amazing keyboarding and emoryboard, number one fun and their pride mobile! ashmabash, adam for helping @ otown cornerstone, tay tay, melbourne per diam seth, stewtwizat, jimmy and naomi stori, andy!! *see you soon (soty!), amy for the haircuts, bob from hey mercedes for never returning phone calls! chad johnson for mt hood! phil from story of the year *the best halo player ever! christine husmilo for my LV wallet, clayton fergie for indian ...

Advertising: creating needs and wants where none previously existed. What do we really need? What do we really want? and what are the differences between the two? America is consumed with consuming! we are rich in material possessions but poor in quantity of time. Do your realize that you purchase out of fear? think about that for a moment, we purchase the most modern trends so that others (who we don't know) will find us socially acceptable. Try buying something you like instead of trying to impress people you don't. Stop trying to impress people with your stuff and start impressing them with your life. Simplicity is the answer, become a minimalist. Why are we so attatched to our possessions? do we control our possessions or do our possessions control us? "You are not your khakis" -Tyler Durgen (fight club). 3 ways to kill materialism in our daily lives. 1. buy things for usefulness rather than status 2. reject anything that produces ...

i don't know if many of you know that i have a website where i have put up a couple of my songs. i know they are old but i have not had the chance to record any more recently. but i will, soon, i hope. my friend Ben Harben did this website for me for free, so if your in need of a website contact him at benharben.com thanks -stephen

I was in 5th grade, my dads job took us everywhere around the United States, I never really had a place to call home until we moved to Florida later down in life. We had just moved to Irmo, South Carolina and I had met neighbor friends who were around me and my brother Paul ’s age. The invited us to go skating at “skaters choice” a local roller skate rink where frequent all night skates were exercised. My parents allowed my brother and I to attend one of these such events, so on a Friday night we left home, with enough money to rent skates, but not enough for speed skates. It is amazing how that our perception of fashion and self-worth seem to adapt to how others view us over time. We slowly evolve into the words and actions of others pushed upon us in our young lives. We are like a statue, slowly being built by family and peers, the concrete; words. The chissle; our self worth. But I marched to my own drummer in Irmo that night. Skating to the beasty boys “you’ve got to fight...

"the book of love is long and boring, no one can lift the damn thing it's full of charts and facts and figures and instructions for dancing." -aimee the cynic. Then my dear aimee you have never been in love. One who is in love could never describe love, it is not boring or long at all. It hits you in the same way a prize fighter would strike, it is unpredictable like weather, it sees neither race, creed, or background... It sees what is truly there; uninhibited passion. Do not force yourself to fall in love, love is something designed by our maker it comes in due time, and in due season. do not search for it, It is not a treasure to be hunted or won, it is free and audacious like wind, or God. We can't see it but we know its there. Many wars have been fought, many lives have been lost, many hours have been spent, and days wasted on this complicated theorem called "love". You think it is facts and figures, I say it is simple and inna...

"In the song amazing grace (which I have found memories of from St Joe, laying in grandma's lap and having her sing it to us in church) it says "how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me". I believe many Christians have forgotten that we are STILL that wretch and the only thing that saves us, or makes us different, is that we have accepted Gods grace... We may change and attempt to seek God but that does not make one "good" or better, we are simply STILL that wretch, but a wretch that has exercised grace. Most Christians believe (as I am guilty of in the past) that they are no longer that wretch but one who is simply found and therefore transformed with no association to those who have chosen otherwise." -Christian Winterset

"life is not a problem to solve, but a reality to be desired" -kirekegard

"i'm new at this writing about 'deep thought' etc....but i'll give it a shot: i guess i can call your entry on original thoughts a catalyst to what has been a continuous stream of thoughts of my own--all in one day. One of the more difficult questions i have asked myself is possibly the hardest and the easiest question to answer. "Who am i really?" what type of person am i? i have been observing people lately, and have noticed how many people change according to who they are surrounded by. my immediate reaction is 'why can't they be themselves around everyone? they are being fake.' and then my hypocricy smacks me in the face. i am the exact same way. i am my own chamelion--changing to fit in wherever i am. i have tried to counteract this by telling myself that i am going to start being myself around everyone. i will voice my opinions as i see fit. i am going to go up to that person who is causing problems for everyone...

'Dear Stephen, There's been a lot of talk about fated love and even love at first sight on the Modesty Writer's Guild and that really got me thinking about what love is. How do you distinguish between infatuation and true love? Both sentiments, you feel viscerally down to the marrow in your bones, but which is which? I crush really easily. I remember my very first one being in kindergarten, however as I got older I started to have these consuming crushes that I easily mistook for fated love. Those crushes where you can barely function and you spend you days dreamily lying on your bed thinking of this person, looking at their pictures, mapping out your future together, and making silly little connections that deem your infatuation written in the stars. Along with this is that anxious feeling that drives you insane--this is not love. It's more like mad cow disease where your brain turns into mush. Oh how I've suffered. So I'd venture t...

how amazing to meet new people. to hear new ideas, new passions, new loves. sometimes i think im alone in thought. but i wonder now when the day of the last original thought was. every thought that i conjure has probably been thought many centuries before. thoughts of love and war, breaking hearts and getting heartbroken, of philosphys and theologies, etc. the beautiful thing is talking with others and hearing things that they have learned in their lifetimes which is proabably not an original thought but, it is an original thought to me. I just learned that St. Patrick was not from Ireland after all but from Whales, he was taken into slavery and escaped several times. amazing. he converted Whales and Ireland to Christianity, (therefore converting pagans whose symbol was the snake) and that is why it has been said that St. Patrick "drove the snakes out of Ireland." It was a metaphor, but a beautiful symbol. what are some of your original thoughts, or what have you hypoth...

new favorite movie, endless sunshine of the spotless mind. i dont know how much to elaborate on since many of you have yet to see it. so in about a month i will post more on this topic but until then. "OK"

Life is so sudden, and then its gone. Sometimes the only one I have to hold on to permanently is not people at all, but memories of those people. Scott Silcox, 5th grade, Mrs. Adams. He was more hyperactive than I. He was shorter than I, we got along because no one else got along with us, we were always in trouble together. I remember we both liked the digital underground, and he showed me that sitting in the back of the bus was to the advantage for boys like us. I moved to Florida shortly after 5th grade, never heard or saw him again. David Koontz, we were both 13 years old, he lived outside the city limits, he lived in a trailer, but his home was like an empire of activity. We built forts, burnt He-Men in epic battles, and even swear to this day that skeletor almost came out of the fire at us. We talked of girls as if we knew what we were talking about. We would go camping, and he taught me about the outdoors, and still to this day those were some of my favorite memories. He ...

Minnesota, looking forward to a train station. had a great talk tonight with my friend aaron. the peace that that man has obtained is incredible. how honest. love emanates from his being, i think he is the closest to meeting the persona of mohat Gandhi that i will ever come. why do we work so hard to gain the attention of the opposite sex. ruth! listen to me, if you really want to attract those of the opposite sex know yourself, know what makes you operate, be passionate about something. passion is contagious, embrace life, stop looking for mr. right and become mrs. right. the time, the place, ...fate itself comes together on its own accord and does not hurry any faster because of a nice outfit, a flirtatious smile, or cosmetics. be who you are and in that attraction lies. why work so hard to become what other desire, because that only leaves you desperate, wanting, and lacking of any true happiness. stop looking to others to measure your own standards or beauty, realize that you are b...

' "i want love how it is... a sleep deprivation pain in my chest that is only filled when her voice rings through my ear, touches my hand, or slows down to catch a red light so we can have one more second in each others eyes, and lips." i wish i had said that. that sums up my thoughts about what i want from love so well. but isn't love also that comfortable silence sitting in the car while driving through the nite? no touch is needed, no whisper spoken. it's an ideal, to me at least. i long for love in the sense that i want to know for certain that i want no one else ever again in my life. to be able to say without needing another's assurance that i love one person more than i love myself. i want it all and nothing less. will i ever attain that goal? i can honestly say that i don't know. i don't know for certain if it even exists. but what good is it to not dream? i'd rather dream of a false ideal than live without a dream ...

denver, colorado how very presuming that you would think these posts are about you? oh hast vanity inspired your eyes?! my world does not revolve around you, never did. come clean. another heart full of lackluster dispointments. why were you even here? there is a voice inside my head. is it yours? obviously not, the messages still seems so unclear. there is poison in your drink so you desire to pass it across the table tword me. but i tasted that cup a year ago, and i will pass kindly dear if you please. to advance you in age, to be taught by solomon, to taste life all on your own, it is not the years that seperated... but the expectancy of life that i am so deporting prone. it is not commitment that i feared, though it does bite, but the level in which your mind has wondered. i think your in love with having someone there, not me. and i am disinterested in what in life you have pondered. so take the chance to find your own way for it is what your passionate for that i desire, do...

san francisco, california. sitting here, i can hear the rain beat the roof of this place. U2 sings in the background and i think melancholy describes the mood here. i have not got a good feel for this town, and don't believe i will this time either. but this isn't about this place any more, actually not much in life has grand importance like getting to chicago. there is a world between me and the future now... but this is the first time i have ever been able to calculate its time table. 12 days, 2 hours, and a couple of minutes. i have been humbled these last few shows where people come up to me and tell me that modesty "says what they feel" amazing and humbling all at the same time. so let me expound on my new theory of "everything in balance", which aaron from me withoutyou said was a good philosophy (often denoted by rumi) but can get misinterpreted with being warm and neither hot nor cold on any one idea. i agreed, a little miffed that someone had found ...

just completed LIFE AFTER GOD it actually has nothing to do with the title, actually the character believes in God. If you liked CATCHER IN THE RYE or PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER then you will enjoy this book. -stephen

please excuse the sudden urge to ramble. but its instant gratification. time moves on and so my feelings for anyone else fade, like sinatra. like a memory you forget until someone brings it up, like someone who lived and died 20 years ago with no fame. we all die the same, we are all born the same so what is fame? what is money? what is a promising future? what is this we call life. a dramatic interlude into the next life... i love it though, i cant lie. i go to sleep at night in anticipation for the sun to rise again, for the day to be broken, for new experiences to collaborate upon me. and now i have someone to share them with, but in all reality i have had someone to share them with. how easily we overlook our own family when calculating how lonely we truly are. i look at my youngest brother and realize that the state of mind that he is currently in reminds me of myself at his age. oh how i don't want to depress him any further by telling him the truth that no one ev...

"Ignorance is abounding always fresh within me. or, rather, it is more like parched ground. in which I must always water it with learning and studious reading. I am young, it is true, but I have a mind that longs for so much more.beyond the stereotype-like prison this society has built for my age. I have had a most blessed life, and have been raised in such a way that knowledge and wisdom has never been denied of me. (But I digress) Although I cannot share wisdom, for wisdom is of something learned through experience, I can share something I have always been taught by those whom I trust to be some of the wisest, most Godly people I have ever had the privilege to meet. God has a drawn up plan for our lives, the perfect plan. (I like to think of it as a strait line drawn on a plain white surface.) We can follow this strait line, or swerve off. When we sin, we are not following God's will for our lives, what he wanted us to do. (Although, the dramatics of this case m...

A Confused Identity "Pen names, a stage name, an alias, all conceal the identitiy of what is real. Hidden behind another name, preconceived notions and misconceptions are laid aside. Finally, freedom is obtained to be anything because nothing is expected. One becomes new, untainted by the past. For the past has faded away and only freshness remains. Samuel Langhorne Clemons is my hero for he understands my position. I like the brilliancy of writing to write rather than writing to be someone or something in someone's mind. For when one reads and knows not the person behind the words, it is only the words that are heard. And words want to speak without being judged. But eventually the pseudonym becomes someone and a warped reality prevails leaving the truth behind. Is it Samuel Langhorne Clemons or is it Mark Twain? And if he is Mark Twain, then who am I? Goodbye Modesty Blogspot" ~Katrina Marie Blank touche, it is not the writer but the writing...