...the play-station... [capitalize this if it's the product, if it's not and you're being general, maybe it's just a regional kind of thing but we just call them gaming consoles over here.]

It's been a long time since I've read from this vignette collection. These four paragraphs are very introspective and I think they hit the point of sacrifice home in a way that's blatant and easy to understand. There are two paragraphs that are completely devoted to different examples, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. On one hand I think it would be a great way to expand the piece (but I recognize that's not what this is meant to be) and on the other hand I think almost it gets to a point where you're just hitting the reader over the head with the same concept. Yes, sacrifice, we understand what it is.

There's nothing here that really pops as far as, "Oh, I'd never thought of that before" for me, and I kind of wish there was. Although I'm also not sure that's the point of this either. It just kind of exists as a meditation, I think - and that's the best way to describe it, so I like that you do spend a moment looking at this concept but it harkens back to what I sometimes tell my students with their papers - what's the answer to the "So what?" question with this.

The strongest example I liked was the having a child one because I thought that was very current and a constant throughout time - it transcends cultures in a way as well, and I liked that element of it. The weakest example is probably the smallest one, which I think perhaps makes sense too, but I would've liked a better and clearer example of sacrifice than framing your brother.

Overall though, an interesting companion for "Potential", I think, and I think it accomplishes what you want it to as a meditation, so a job well done! I'd be curious to see what might come up next in this series of contemplations...so you should update soon!

I like the practical speech of this. You use metaphor and you use it well but it never clouds or litters the prose. I think this technique works especially well here because it mirrors the subject matter so well.

I'm completely on the fence about the length your working with here. On the one hand it didn't feel like anything was missing and you said everything you needed/wanted to say. Yet, on the other hand it was so short I couldn't really get into it and because of the sparseness I think you loose quite a bit of the impact.

Juliet.

Your story-writing style is great- I like it. The sentences were smooth and visualisation was great. However, in my opinion, it was a little too short. It could have been longer, seeing that it has a potential to be a great piece :)

Keep it out.

I really love the opening to this. The first two paragraphs read without a hitch - very smooth and very...existential? I don't even know the right word to describe it, but they definitely get the brain working while flowing like poetry at the same time.

Something about the second half doesn't seem to flow quite as well. I feel like the tone lost a little of its grandeur and became more conversational. Phrases like "In a sense", and a few others make feel more informal. And I don't quite understand how the last line fits in with what came before it. XD

But other than that, it's a neat little piece as a whole. Nicely done. :)

- Moonstar

This is truly an exercise in contemplation. I like the stream of consciousness of this piece, the way you go from talking about other worlds to musing about potential. The connection is the potential or possibility of there being other worlds, I think. Then we move on to talking about God and his connection to the previous thoughts. It's a well done transition.

I like the ending, it connects very well to the part about the natural instinct of life and needing to grow. My perspective: trying to stop something from growing, or reaching it's potential, is a near impossibility because it destroys everything around it.

I'm having trouble pin-pointing what exactly this is about, considering in the first paragraph you're talking about life and death and then you immediately jump into talking about "potential." I feel like this is kinda all over the place... like I notice how you try to tie these two concepts together at the end, but I don't feel like the bridge is developed enough. This subject is, I think, too large to cover in just 260 words. I'm left scratching my head and trying to figure out what you're saying - and not in a contemplative way.

Perhaps better defining "potential" and in what way you're using it might be something to consider, too, because I don't know if you're using it in the conventional sense of its definition.

I like the image of the garden plants. It brings to mind that whole procedure of burning a dead crop in order to make the ground fertile again. Perhaps utilizing that metaphor closer to the beginning and really building on it before getting into the more abstract concepts of planets and space will help ground the reader as to what you're going to be talking about. It'll give them a specific example before you branch out into the larger concepts of planets and universes and black holes. I know you state your theme in the beginning, but like I mentioned above, you start going off into another direction with "potential" before I'm really sure what you're trying to discuss, and I end up confused and wondering what the theme (or themes) is supposed to be.

I liked the motivational speech angle in this. The narration was unique in that because on the one hand it was clearly prose but it was also a hybrid creation all its own. I liked how you molded that together here. The only thing I didn't enjoy was how you kept going back to death. Death is very literal but I feel like you used a lot of strong metaphors i.e. the weed reference at the end and I find myself slightly confused on what you wanted your overall message to be.

Short! Like a little seed, haha. This was a nice little reflection moment, kind of like the beginnings to a nice nonfiction essay that meditates on death and life cycles. Or actually - a nonfiction essay as it is, anyway. I think I liked the second paragraph the most. I liked that it introduced the concept of potential because that seems to be the center of this essay and I thought it was easiest to follow. I'm not so sure about the very last line - is it saying that we regard potential like a "weed" that we try to pick out of our lives, but we should actually cherish it? I don't know if I agree with the "weed" analogy as potential - but maybe I just didn't quite understand it in the last sentence. I'm glad that this was short as far as using analogies - any longer and I think it might've dragged on too long, perhaps (at least in the analogy-sense). Some of them worked well though. I liked the third paragraph in comparison with potential being god-like and everything. A good meditation!

Okay, I didn't really understand this. That's my main dislike-I know you were trying to convey something with all the metaphor you were using, but I don't think it's just me that wouldn't understand. Maybe not, but I feel like you just made this too philisophical.
I did like all of your metaphors. They were really poetic and beautiful, and you were using more understandable language. (I was thrilled, lol) So it just seemed like a very philisophical poem. Reading it again, I can understand it better, but I still think maybe you should try and clarify a bit?
Anyway, nice work.

My only two complaints:

1. This was so short.
2. There are lots o' fancy sentences and anologies.

I'd have liked this a lot more if this had been longer, because, well, I like long-ish stories. I want something that will grasp my attention and slowly make me demand more. I thought this was something for poetry at first. :'D

Normally I don't mind when people have nice and descriptive sentences, but it gets boring and confusing after a while. This whole thing is really philosophical, and I get that that's intended, but you need something that won't make the reader go 'lolwut'.