Good Love and Bad Love: A Killing Difference

By

Sara Niles

People marry for ‘love’ and they form relationships based on ‘love’-but does that mean that both parties in a love relationship, love the same way? There are two types of love. When I provided domestic violence prevention trainings for grades 1-12, years ago, in order to reach young children who were still in Piaget’s concrete reasoning stage, I had to simplify the differences in the two types of love as ‘Good Love’ and ‘Bad Love’:

Good Love is unselfish and unconditional

Bad Love is selfish and conditional           

Good Love is not controlling

Bad Love is controlling

Good Love would never hurt the love object

Bad Love can kill the love object-especially if ‘it’ dares to leave them; watch this 48 Hour Special:

https://www.facebook.com/48hours

Trolls in Cyberspace: The New Road Rage

By Sara Niles

10-10-2013

The term ‘troll’ originated in mythical lore at ugly beings that were grotesque and up to no good, and the term ‘road rage’ originated in modern times with the advent of automobiles and concentrated traffic on highways. Both terms have come into play in cyberspace as ‘trolls’ have populated almost every form of social media looking for ways to stir up discontent and provoke arguments.  A troll hides behind anonymity as an unknown person on a computer, just as those who are subject to road rage, release pent up frustration and anger on unsuspecting motorists by calling names and verbally abusing their fellow travelers. It is as if the Troll and the person venting road rage, both are projecting their own anger and sense of inadequacy by ‘picking’ on others to make themselves feel better.

If you have ever encountered this type behavior, it may have been puzzling to see the enormity of rage vented upon people. I was reading an online interview depicting a woman who had lost her son in death and the interviewer questioned her about how she managed to cope. The comments that followed were a true reflection of the compassion that most people are naturally capable of; however, there were a few trolls who actually demeaned the woman as a celebrity whose money and privilege supposedly exempted her form having the right to suffer pain. One troll mercilessly attacked her, entitling her response as ‘Oh Booowhooo” poor you with all your money!’.

If is a shame that some allow their own negative emotions and inadequacies in life to rob them of all natural affection, thus remove them one step away from civility and humanity. No wonder the term ‘troll’ is so fitting.

Interview with Sara Niles, Memoir Author

Question:

Sara Niles primarily writes nonfiction memoirs-Why is that?

I am on a mission to make a difference through The Torn Trilogy memoirs, which addresses family dysfunction, domestic violence, child abuse, mental illness and drug addiction issues, and the destructive effect it has upon human lives.

Most people read books for two reasons: to be entertained and to be informed.

 Many readers have been conditioned to view nonfiction writing as a medium that is purely informational and fiction writing as purely entertaining. The fact is, nonfiction can be both entertaining and it can pack a powerful informational message as well; as an example, the movie Titanic was filled with information about a historical event, but it was also highly entertaining; a fact that also holds true to literature, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote was hailed as a masterpiece in nonfiction literature simply because Capote wrote a true story as though it was fiction.

I have lived an extraordinary life in which the odds were heavily stacked against both me and my children, placing our mere survival at risk countless times. The element of rising suspense that captivates audiences was an actual part of our lives, and the unusual twists and turns that keep you on the edge of your seat, was a normal part of our survival.  When the saying ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ was coined, it aptly applied to our lives and the multitudes of people who have lived similar lives.

 Torn From the Inside Out, The Journey and Out of the Maelstrom, each tells a story that is filled with both entertainment value and informational content. Each of the memoirs can provide whatever a reader is seeking: a good read, insight and information, and entertainment. Regardless of the reason for reading The Torn Trilogy, the reader will come away entertained and enlightened and in the process, the dark veil of family dysfunction will have been lifted a little higher with each reading.

What is the greatest joy of writing for you?

The empowerment of writing life-changing memoirs that offer enlightenment and insight is the greatest joy and is most rewarding for me.

Knowledge and insight is like a light in a dark tunnel, especially if that 'tunnel' is years of denial. I delight in providing insight through my writings that empowers and enables people to change their lives for the better. Most people do not realize that knowledge can help a person forty or fifty years after a traumatic event but shedding light on hidden secrets and enabling people to reexamine the way they saw themselves.

A large percentage of drug addicts and a disproportionate number of the mentally ill are troubled by a past that involved domestic violence or some form of abuse during their childhoods. Light needs to be shed of those faulty perceptions and attitudes.

My writing enables me to become a light bearer in a dark place.

Oprah Winfrey: Lessons from The Butler

Once in a while, the world experiences a persona so powerful and utterly refreshing and inspiring, the  whole world falls in love with that person; sometimes, but not often, that person becomes an international symbol of humanitarianism and good will. The rarity of encountering such person in a single lifetime makes such a unique person stand out in your mind like a beacon.

In the year 1954, while right smack in the middle of rising racial tension and imminent social change, Oprah Winfrey was born  to a poor family in one of the poorest states of the union: Mississippi. When you consider Oprah’s beginnings, the odds of Oprah becoming Oprah, seems unfathomable: Born into poverty as the child of a single mother who worked as a housemaid, with the likely possibility of achieving anything great in her future appearing to be a far off shadow in the night.

I won’t trouble you to read the ending to this story since the world already knows Oprah and what she has become in life; what I will draw attention to, is the fact that Oprah is probably the most powerful woman in the world, Black or White, or of any other race. Oprah could easily forget her roots and her lowly beginnings and saunter off into her glamorous future and leave her past behind-but she didn’t. I greatly admire that fact that Oprah is still a Black woman, and obviously very proud of it; and Oprah remembers her past, and is also very proud of it.

I read the September, 2013 issue of Oprah magazine (the one with Oprah wearing a HUGE afro), and the article about Oprah’s role in the new movie, The Butler, had a paragraph from Oprah that moved me to tears. In this paragraph, Oprah recounted what the historical significance of The Butler meant to her personally. In essence, Oprah said she found herself thinking a lot about the history behind the movie and the many people that were affected by this history, including herself, the offspring of  three generations of housemaids because “That was all they could be”(Oprah). The choices that are held before all of us today, for both our sons and daughters, are much better choices than those that existed during the early days of ‘The Butler’ in his real life. But what must not be forgotten is the fact that butlers and maids, and the many other hard working Americans from the past, are the ones who paved the way for those choices we have today. We owe much of our hope to the future to those who lived in the past.

The need to recognize our pasts and where we come from is important because “If you don’t know where you came from, how do you know where to go?” (Oprah, 2013)

Sara Niles  Author of Torn From the Inside Out

War: A Costly Endeavor

By Sara Niles Author of Torn From the Inside Out

War is the most costly government operation of all time, because the currency of the interchange is human life and everyone loses in war. As the modernity of the times produced superpowers, the wars have become potential super wars: World Wars I and II were the first concrete examples of wars out of control. In World War One, over 37,000,000 lives were lost, with the greatest numbers of casualties suffered by the superpowers: over 65,000,000 were mobilized worldwide, with the greatest losses suffered by Russia, France and Germany (http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/resources/casdeath_pop.html ). When you examine the numbers from the Second World War, the numbers appear to come from a science fiction horror movie; because WWII was the biggest and deadliest war in all of human history. You would think the world leaders would have learned from the first war.

The dangers of declaring war versus the danger of not declaring war-now that is the question facing the world leaders yet again. Syria has committed the unthinkable and used chemicals to kill over 1400 people (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23906913), a mere harbinger of what they may do in the near future, if not stopped.

Now we are faced with a fearful decision that involves a two pronged danger: the danger of war from action and the danger of war from inaction- a critical dilemma of the worst kind. Will there be a need to fight to protect the good in the world? And what will be the end after all is said and done?

In the Lord of the Rings (Movie), Sam said to Frodo that

“… there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for”

Memoirs: A New Trend

Twenty-five memoirs made the New York Times bestseller list the week  ending August 17, of this year (2013), (http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/combined-print-and-e-book-nonfiction/list.html , with many of these memoirs having led the market as bestsellers for many weeks in a row. This count does not include the many self-published memoirists who have had success with child abuse memoirs such as Why Me by Sarah Burleton and Empty Chairs by Stacey Danson. The reading public is discovering that the stories of ordinary people who have lived extraordinary lives, or who have survived unusual experiences, provide the material for memorable memoirs, that is, when they are well written. The big publishing houses are beginning to see the light as they accept more memoirs into their elite collection of promoted authors, such as Brain On Fire by Susannah Cahalan, a story of a woman whose diagnoses of a rare brain disease mesmerized the medical profession. The landscape of the publishing industry has really changed, and so has the image of the simple memoir, since the early days of book publishing.

When I was young (never mind my age), only memoirs about mega stars like Elizabeth Taylor would gain enough interest to win a place on the New York Times bestseller list; and then many celebrities began to write memoirs about the mundane aspects of their daily lives, bringing their huge following of admirers into the book market. The publishing houses could get a two for one deal when they signed a big name star who came prepackaged for instant success, and the unknown memoirist did not stand a chance at that time…then the technological advances of our new cyber age, catapulted us into a raging eBook revolution in which many indie authors became overnight successes, and being an ‘unknown’ author no longer mattered. What did this mean for the memoir author?

Perhaps it was about that time,  the idea began to grow in the minds of those less well known, or even totally unknown, that their own lives of tragedy and chaos, disaster and suspense, might actually hold some value in the trained eye of the reading public. There are countless stories in life that are truly stranger than fiction, and some of these stories began to be told by talented authors, many of whom were unknowns, that is, until their lives were plastered all over the world in multiple languages.

So what is it that makes a memoir an appealing read?

The age old literary advice given by most writing instructors, is to “write what you know”, and the second piece of advice is to write it well. When the elements of a good story occur naturally in life, and the conflict, plot and timing is just right, you have more than a personal narrative, you have a ‘memoir’.  A well written memoir concentrates an entire life, with all of its obstacles, secret heartaches and successes into a literary capsule, gift-wrapped in a neat cover, and ready to open and read.

Sara Niles Author of Torn From the Inside Out (A Memoir)

Suicide: Societal Taboo by Sara Niles

Society operates as a group, and as a result, stigmas and social taboos are generated when things happen that are out of the control of society: like suicide. During the days of religious control and dominance by the Catholic Church, everything that could not be explained or controlled was 'demonized' and usually burned at the stake. Today, society uses silence, which is usually a sign of discomfort when in a group of people and an embarrassing subject com

es up.

Fact: Suicide takes more lives in America than homicides, yet little is said about it. Perhaps if the blanket of societal denial was whisked away by the open discussion of the presence of suicide in the societal room, then suicide may begin to lose its hold on American culture.

I will go first: My daughter courted the idea of suicide for over half of her life. When my daughter was in her late teens, I found her perusing suicide websites that offered ‘encouragement’ to commit suicide and glorified the ugly act. I was shocked to find that there were many similar sites out there in the cyber sphere, with voyeurs full of bloodlust and predators lurking on the sidelines.

The negative thinking that fuels suicide, has usually taken root long before a suicide occurs, and lies dormant until something goes wrong in the person’s life, which will invariably happen in every life, and in one stupid, and impulsive instant, a life is gone forever.