A huge thank you goes to Mike at Mikes Film Talk, who thinks more of me than I think of me. By giving me this award, he has honored me while simultaneously depriving me of someone on whom I would have liked to bestow this award. Mike certainly deserves it. He has a great site that is only partly film-centric. Mike is a lot more than a film critic. He is a literary omnivore, writing everything from personal history and fiction, to book and movie reviews. And such excellent writing it is. Please make sure to visit him. You’ll be glad you did.

I owe a debt of gratitude to the folks over at Moment Matters for originating this unique award. They’ve also created a fine logo for recipients to display on their walls. There are words and music to accompany it. I’m sorry I don’t have the music, but following are the words and they’re lovely:

Awarding the people who live in the moment,
The noble who write and capture the best in life,
The bold who reminded us what really mattered –
Savoring the experience of quality time.

Pretty nice! As with most awards in the WordPress Blogging community, there are a few rules. Simple guidelines. Not onerous, but specific. Since this is my first encounter with this award, here they are. They are simple:

Rules:

1. You can reuse this post, altered to reflect your nominees and including your acceptance speech. You can reuse as much of this post as makes sense for you.
2. Your can write your speech or put it on video.
3. Winners have the privilege of awarding  The Best Moment Award to chosen recipients. Your post should contain the individuals and blogs you are nominating.
4. There is no specific requirement for number of new recipients.
5. Inform your winners you’ve chosen them.
6. As a courtesy, please link back to whoever gave you the award.

Resources:

I’ve included these since they are a legacy from Mike’s post and provides guidelines if you need help:

• What makes a good acceptance speech?
  • Gratitude. Thank the people who helped you along the way
  • Humor. Keep us entertained and smiling
  • Inspiration. Make your story touch our lives
• Get an idea from the great acceptance speeches, compiled in MomentMatters.com/Speech
• Display the award’s badge on your blog/website, downloadable in MomentMatters.com/Award

Acceptance Speech:

I’m genuinely touched by this award. Touched and grateful. Receiving appreciation from ones peers is a special kind of recognition. It means more than I can easily express.

Living in the moment has become a way of life. After finally admitting I have no control over the future, I relaxed, stopped trying to push the river, and began to enjoy whatever came, even stuff I would have considered “bad news” in my misspent youth. I’m a lot happier since I stopped trying to force life to go my way. Living in the moment and going with the flow takes a whole lot less effort than fighting the current. Whatever chills and thrills come with the ride, I’m ready. Remarkably, I keep discovering it’s fun. Live and learn. I wish I’d learned a little earlier!

This moment — this exact moment in time — IS your life! This is the day you’ve been waiting for. It will never come again. Enjoy it.

I am delighted to accept The Best Moment Award originated by MomentMatters.com … another site definitely worth checking out.

I never stop being awestruck when I realize I have influenced someone in a positive way, maybe even made a difference in one or more lives in this mad, mad world. Again, thank you Mike!

Blogging has become very important to me. I have always been a writer, but until I started blogging, I never wrote about personal things. As a professional, I wrote what I was paid to write. Now, I write from my head and my heart. It has been life changing. Everything inspires me. Other bloggers — especially Mike — have influenced me in more ways than I can list. But in the end, all of  life is inspiration.

To all of my friends and followers, thank you for taking time out of your busy lives to share mine. The blogging community has given me a sense of purpose, participation, comradeship and a much broader life-view than I ever had before. There’s a lot of ugly stuff going on everywhere. Scary stuff, unfair, wrong, dangerous, evil. We haven’t the power fix everything, but we have some influence as individuals and collectively. We can help each other through difficult times, rejoice with each other over triumphs (they are few enough), and maybe give something  back to our human community.

Everything we share has value. Knowledge, memories, pictures that express beauty or expose evil. Stories we write, books we read and recommend. Movies we see and share. Humor that banishes sadness. It’s not just big ideas that matter. Small things resonate and change lives too. Never think the ordinary parts of life are not worth exploring. They may be the most important of all.

Anything we do to make someone feel good, help them think in a different direction, see the world in a new way, is a deed well done. By giving of ourselves, we continue to grow the chain of good will around the world. If blogging has any ultimate purpose, that’s it.

I have saved every “like” I’ve ever gotten and will continue to do so until my email explodes. I am so glad you like me . What a miracle this virtual community is to me. You touch me. I love reading your comments, love answering them. Love writing them, too because I want you to know I appreciate your work. That people follow me makes me glow in the dark. No really, it does. It saves a lot of electricity!

For all of you who I follow, each of you enriches me. Your views about the world, your pictures of it, your understanding and your humor brighten my days, keep my mind alive and make my world exciting.

Like Mike, I have felt the wings of the dark angel brush me. Life is infinitely precious with all of its perils and problems.

Thank you all for making my world a better place to live, and thank you Mike for appreciating the best of me.

The winners for the Best Moment Award are:

I have had to think hard about this one because I can’t give it back to Mike, who I would have given it to. Like Mike, I’m going to limit this to people who really actually truly have influenced me and changed me way of thinking, writing, looking at reality or unreality, as you would have it.

• For Sharla at Catnip of Life – She’s having a rough patch and I know she’s not really online right now, but eventually when her life is less fraught, she’ll be back and this award, so well-deserved, will be waiting for her. With all the wretched difficulties going on in her world, she is endlessly kind, caring, and good. Deep to the bone, a good person. You don’t meet so many of them!

• For Rarasaur who has a name, but I can never find it when I need it. She shares my somewhat addled and bizarre view of life, has overcome much and has much to overcome. With sense of humor intact and flags flying, she’s challenged me to match concept and vision in new ways.  and I’ve been having a great deal of fun with her various blogging challenges that force me to put pictures and concepts together and make them coherent. Better yet, she makes me laugh.

• To Hot Rod Cowgirl whose photo essays make me yearn for a life I’ve never had and has become something of an icon and a living hope for me … to be in the mountains surrounded by nature and horses and sunsets is a dream and it makes me glad that someone is really living it.

• To Tyson at Head In a Vice. It’s not about movies, though he writes great reviews — mostly about movies I’m unlikely to watch. It’s how he brings people together. Starting with a fondness for horror movies, he has created a community of inclusion, involving all kinds of people in his projects and always having something kind to say about everyone, no matter how strange their choices or taste. He has worked hard and deserves recognition.

To everyone else, I know you and appreciate you. I’m trying to follow the leader in making this award specific to people who, as they live in their moment and in sharing them, have made their moments mine.

I apologise in advance to anyone who may feel slighted. Most of you have gotten awards from me in the past and will again in the future. This one is specific; I hope I’ve chosen well. There are a few of you to whom I don’t give awards because you don’t want them. But I appreciate you anyhow! I have many wonderful followers and I don’t like having to choose. But sometimes — and this is one of those time — that’s the way it is.

My awardees are a varied bunch, but each is great in his/her own way.

The last part of this Award process is the instruction to share this with your followers and to tweet your “success” with the hash tagged  #MomentMatters. And as soon as I figure out how to do that, I will!

Congratulations to all my winners and I want you to know that you have touched me.

–

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Tags: Arts, awards, Blog, gratitude, Humour, influence, Live In The Moment, prizes, words, writing