Hasta La Gadget!

We all have secrets, things we may not be proud of, things we keep to ourselves because we don’t want to risk hurting someone we love. In Latino culture we are taught from a very early age not to air our dirty laundry. Los trapos sucios se lavan en casa.

We are never to discuss in public that which happens behind closed doors even if it’s at the expense of our mental and physical health. It is better to keep secrets and remain silent than to have people think ill of you or your family. In our culture perception is everything, which forces many to spend their lives pretending to be well when really, they’re falling apart inside.

There are some secrets however (like sexual abuse for example) so detrimental to our own well-being that the weight of holding onto them slowly breaks a person down from the inside out. Generational conditioning forces many to continue this cycle of self-sabotage until there is nothing left resulting in decades of abuse, trauma, and self-destructive behavior. Most of which could have been prevented if only someone had the courage to speak. In her essay, How We Rationalize the Silences We Invade, Vanessa Martír states,

I’ve dissected these stories, written and rewritten them, sat with them, prayed with and for them. I’ve thought about how it’s going to affect my family, my mother more than anyone. These are her secrets I’m revealing, her shame, that silence that has eaten through us like gangrene, a flesh-eating bacteria. This silence killed my brother.

Family ties are so important that protecting the family name becomes more essential than protecting the individual. For writers, particularly memoir and non-fiction writers, this is one of the struggles we face because how do we tell our stories without telling the stories of others? How do we keep the work authentic if we begin to cut out bits and pieces because we’re afraid to hurt those we love?

So many of us tell ourselves that if we remain silent and hide our pain, that it will make our lives, and the lives of those we love, so much better. We force ourselves to believe that what happened to us in the past has no bearing on the present or the future, but it does. We are the sum of our experiences up to this point. We readily let others off the hook for having to carry the burdens of our narratives, and instead choose to carry that burden on our own; oftentimes turning to drugs, alcohol, and other self-destructive behavior to assuage the pain. In his essay, We are storied – together, Kevin Dow says,

Stories are what bring us together, what bind us together, what change us together and what tear us apart.

Sometimes the tearing apart happens internally. Years of unraveling trying to protect others while simultaneously destroying ourselves. I have seen this first hand happen to some of the people I love and I wonder if their lives would have turned out differently had they let go of the years of guilt and silence they carried with them.

Something beautiful happens when we decide to break free from the silence. When we tell our stories we begin to reclaim some of the power we lost. We begin to heal our wounds, our cracks, and our brokenness and begin the journey back to being whole.

How do we name our pain? How do we represent ourselves in a society invested in our silence? We don’t heal in one fell swoop and then are suddenly free. Instead, healing takes time, and is often accomplished in layers; one step at a time, one day at a time. Rachel Freed says “We tell our stories to transform ourselves; to learn about our history and tell our experiences to transcend them; to use our stories to make a difference in our world; to broaden our perspective to see further than normal; to act beyond a story that may have imprisoned or enslaved us; to live more of our spiritual and earthly potential.”

Each one of us has a story to tell, to share; stories that will come crashing into the world with an intensity that begs to be heard, to be felt despite what others may think of us. Our words hold more power than we think. Our stories demand to be told, if not for any other reason, than to set us free.

Toni Morrison said, “The function of freedom is to free someone else,” and if you are no longer wracked or in bondage to a person or a way of life, tell your story. Risk freeing someone else. Not everyone will be glad that you did. Members of your family and other critics may wish you had kept your secrets. Oh, well, what are you going to do? ― Anne Lamott

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Since 2009, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has been on the ground in Taiji, Japan, documenting and bringing to light the atrocious dolphin drive hunt taking place from September to March.

Originally dubbed Operation Infinite Patience, this Sea Shepherd campaign has volunteers on the ground enduring constant police harassment and surveillance, physical threats and criticism, all while suffering personal trauma from witnessing the brutal slaughter.

These volunteers are known as Cove Guardians. They come from all over the world, at their own expense, to bring attention to this dolphin drive — a drive which sees cetaceans being killed, molested, torn apart from their families, and transported to life sentences in aquatic prisons called marine parks where they are forced to perform tricks for tourists.

Killers remove a drowned dolphin from the nets. (Photo credit: Sea Shepherd)

In recent days, there has been a great deal of speculation on social media about Sea Shepherd ‘abandoning’ Taiji and shutting down the Cove Guardian program. That is wrong. Sea Shepherd has not abandoned any of its campaigns and we remain true to our policy of never giving up until we achieve our goals. We have Infinite Patience!

For the naysayers, there was never any question of not being in Taiji. We even have a film crew already scheduled to be there. Our challenge this year is how to proceed with the Cove Guardian strategy in light of the fact that all veterans, including Cove Guardian leaders, have been denied entry to Japan. These logistical obstacles are not to be misconstrued as Sea Shepherd quitting Taiji.

I began the Taiji campaign in 2003 when I sent Sea Shepherd crew member and photographer, Brooke MacDonald there to get the first images shown to the world. This was before the Academy Award winning documentary The Cove, before the Dolphin Project and before anyone even knew about this slaughter.

The cove water is red with the blood of slaughtered dolphins. (Photo credit: Sea Shepherd)

Brooke’s pictures and video remain the best images, for the simple reason she did not encounter any obstacles in taking those pictures. For 13 years we have been on the forefront of the Taiji campaigns. We are the only group to have actually released dolphins when 16 pilot whales were freed after we cut nets and two Sea Shepherd crew members spent a month in jail for doing it.
 
My own involvement goes back to 1982 when I went to Japan’s Iki Island and negotiated the end to their dolphin slaughter. No dolphins have been killed at Iki in 34 years.
 
My life has been dedicated to defending dolphins around the world, especially in Japan. For people to criticize me and Sea Shepherd for not doing enough is insulting. Sea Shepherd has done amazing work within the boundaries of practicality, the law and the resources available to it. I would also venture to say that it has done more to oppose the slaughter than anyone.

A dolphin is lifted by crane in to a tank for sale and transport. (Photo credit: Sea Shepherd)

Last year, Operation Infinite Patience was renamed Operation Henkaku, which means to reform, to change, to transform. Changing strategies, enhancing strategies and exploring new strategies is not quitting. It is adapting. That is what we are doing.
 
There was never any question about ending our work in Taiji. The Cove Guardian program is not over. However, it must adapt to Japan’s policy of denying entry to veterans, especially Cove Guardian leaders. Sea Shepherd USA is committed to ending the slaughter of dolphins in Taiji and we will continue to have infinite patience to see this commitment through.

For all the Cove Guardians who have participated, the reality is that they made – and still continue to make – a difference. Because of the Cove Guardian program, the world is far more aware of the situation than it was before the program. It is my belief that all the Cove Guardians who witnessed the atrocities in Taiji have had their lives profoundly changed. Their passion continues. My passion continues. Sea Shepherd’s passion continues.

Operation Henkaku, as part of the enduring Operation Infinite Patience, continues and there will more announcements coming soon.

Butchering dolphins. (Photo credit: Sea Shepherd)
 
 

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 Apple is about to announce the next iPhone on September 7, and the plot thickens. A new leak spotted by Nowhere Else shows the hypothetic packaging of the iPhone 7 Plus. This cardboard leak shows that Apple could sell the iPhone 7 with Lightning EarPods, replacing the good old EarPods with a headphone jack.
More surprisingly, it also says that the iPhone 7 might come bundled with a… Read More

How does a new writer find a reliable publisher? originally appeared on Quora – the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.

Answer by Peter Swanson, Crime Novelist, The Kind Worth Killing, on Quora.

First things first when finding a reliable publisher. Find an agent and the agent will try to find a publisher.

So how do you get an agent? There is no secret trick. First, write the best book you can write, then compose the best query letter you can compose. Then, send out that letter and hope for the best.

So that’s what you did, right? Actually, no.

The way I got my agent is that he read one of my short stories on the web, then contacted me to tell me how much he liked my story and to ask if I had representation. After Googling him and discovering that he was an actual, successful New York agent (and not a Nigerian prince looking for a bank account), I told him that I’d love to work with him.

I sent him some of the novels I’d previously written, and he liked some and didn’t like others (one thing about my agent is that he will always tell me exactly what he thinks), but what he was really excited about was the possibility of turning the short story I’d written (The Girl With a Clock For a Heart) into a novel.

It took me about a year and a half to write the book, bouncing ideas back and forth with my agent, and it was hard-going. At one point, after delivering a full manuscript, he suggested I change from first person to third person, and restructure the time frame of the whole novel. It was this particular revision that was the hardest to do but the most productive. The novel began to work in a way it hadn’t before.

That September, my wife and I went to Bermuda for a week. Just before leaving, my agent told me to check my email while I was there because he might have some news for me. I don’t usually bring my laptop with me on vacations but I brought mine along. We had rented an apartment in St. Georges and the internet was spotty, but one afternoon I got an email asking me to call him right away.

When I called him, he told me that I had a two-book deal with William Morrow. It took me a while but finally I believed him. That night we celebrated (Dark ‘n Stormy’s were involved), and my wife and I felt like we had suddenly entered an alternate reality. We hadn’t taken a trip in two years for financial reasons, and suddenly we were on this beautiful island, and celebrating a book deal. It didn’t feel like our real lives.

So that was how I found a publisher. My agent was key, not just because of his connections, but because he helped me to write the best book I could write.

This question originally appeared on Quora. – the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

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