Bringing Abstractions To Life

Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter — What If? Writing Exercise for Fiction Writers prompts

The Exercise — Make several of the following abstractions come to life by rendering them in concrete specific details or images.

racism, injustice, ambition, growing old, salvation, poverty, growing up, sexual deceit, wealth, evil

The Objective - To learn to think, always, in concrete terms. To realize that the concrete is more persuasive than any high-flown rhetoric full of fancy words and abstractions.

When talking about 'Racism', this definition makes the most sense to me as 'prejudice plus power'. As an elder American Indian, I have no power in this country. It really is those with white male privilege who can be racist. Others can be and are prejudiced.

Injustice is seen with this current presidency. The name-calling and criminalizing of a people based on skin color, culture, or country of origin is unfair and undeserved. With that logic, no one should be in this country except the indigenous people who were here before the 1400s.

Then familytree.com states, "The British were noted for transporting prisoners out of England to be made to work at their numerous colonies. From 1615 to 1870, more than 200,000 criminals were conditionally pardoned, exiled, and transported to penal colonies. Before 1775, more than 50,000 prisoners were sent to America—primarily to Virginia and Maryland."

Writing a book takes much determination and ambition on the part of the writer. Regardless of who may read the book, being an author takes ambition to get it done. Some people will take years, while others have a system to get it done in a matter of months, and it can be done in less time depending on the ambition of the writer.

Growing old is not for weaklings. You have to be strong to age. There is nothing easy about getting older. The benefits outweigh the alternative. Rewards like grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even great-great-grandchildren are the best thing about growing old.

Then if you are lucky enough to grow old with a life partner, even better. You have memories to share and someone to go places with and do things with. Someone who knows you, inside and out, and loves you anyway. Someone who looks at you and you can tell the love they have for you.

Life is such a gift. Some loved ones have done so much in so few years that you know that if you live to be 106, you won't accomplish all that they did in their short 53 years. You remember them and get to celebrate them. You will miss your cheerleaders, but can feel their presence and hear their words as you go about your day, saying, "You can do this!"

Salvation is to be delivered from evil. Amen. And it can be less dramatic. Delivered or helped from 'harm, ruin, or loss'. Some people are saved from alcohol and drug addiction, which has meant harm, ruin, and loss prior to their finding salvation. Still others recover from deadly illnesses and diseases like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, which are all related to harm, ruin, and loss.

Living in poverty is not something that anyone wants to do. Once there, it isn't easy to get out of. Education helps. Some people will do what they can, and there are so many roadblocks to getting out of poverty that they will give up. Others fight poverty for most of their life.

This country has way too much poverty, with 35.9 million people living below the poverty line according to the most recent statistics available. Those statistics were improved statistics from 2022/23. How can such a wealthy country have so much poverty?

Older people, alive during the depression, remember when growing up, how there were very few people who had more than others. They remember being all the same, and that was during the depression.

Sexual deceit - certain plants mimic insects to attract male pollinators, in much the same way that males and females have actions and behaviors and use words to attract sex partners, or in some cases, victims.

Wealth often means having a lot of money. A lot of money at one time was a million dollars, and now it is billions. Some people will talk about being wealthy due to their culture, growing up with love, and the love they have in their life with family, friends, career, religion, etc.

Evil - immoral or wicked thoughts and/or deeds. Most often, the opposite of good.