Category: Inspiration

Endgame

“Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

I used to be really afraid of death. For as long as I can remember I have been petrified by the knowledge that life is finite, and that each passing year brings me closer to the inevitable moment when I pass away, drifting into a state of eternal nothingness as my body turns to dust. Throughout my teenage years and early twenties, I would lay awake at night crippled by fear as I contemplated my own morality and questioned what kind of legacy I would leave behind when I died. I suffered panic attacks, cried a lot, and often felt isolated and alone.

At times my anxiety was so great that I was afraid of my own birthday. The annual event marked another step towards my death, and as I grew from a boy, into a teen, and finally into a man, the fear that I felt towards aging grew with me. I became afraid of the world, and petrified of leaving it. I was so fearful of being forgotten that I turned to writing as a means of creating a legacy that would allow me to be remembered long after I was gone.

Writing became an act of solace, and a means to combat my anxieties and fears…

…At least initially anyway. But as the years progressed and my creative skillset improved, I allowed myself to be driven by my fears and wrote with a maniacal obsession that became all consuming. Before too long I wasn’t just writing to fight fear; I was actively seeking to create anarchy inside of my own head because I believed that in doing so I could push myself to become a greater writer, and a stronger man. In my desire to outlive myself through my works I sacrificed friendships, destroyed careers, lost the love of my life, and became so closed off to the world that my own family questioned whether or not I loved them.

Eventually I became so caught up in this cyclic state of fear and anxiety that I pushed myself too far. In an effort to overcome the demons I was actively creating and allowing to live inside of my head, I lost sight of who I really am. I became angry and bitter, and while I wasted years believing that I was becoming a man; the truth is that I have spent my life hiding behind masks of wolves and world eaters while trying to convince those around me that I am strong. But I have been weak; and the only person that I ever fooled was myself.

Since The Renegade Press began four years ago I have received an endless stream of correspondence from readers who have been genuinely concerned for my health and wellbeing. I have always written from a place of pain because I thought that to be a great writer I needed to accentuate and exacerbate the fractures within me. But my loved ones and my audience saw that I was capable of being so much more than a bitterly angry little boy with a quick wit and a tendency to lash out at anyone and anything that he feared, or didn’t understand. When they looked at me they never saw the strength of a wolf that I envisioned they did. They saw a man who was hiding from his own insecurities and lying to himself.

They were right. And I was wrong.

Anyone who has been following this site for a little while will know that a few months ago the woman that I want to grow old with walked out of my life. She left because the man that she fell in love with had become so caught up in a frenzied desire to become a wolf and a world eater, and to fight away his fears that he let her down. Despite loving Sofie with an endless depth, I was so driven by fear and fuelled by a horrid desire to become more that I made her feel alone and question just how much I actually cared.

I cared more than she ever really knew. The proudest moment of my life was when I published my debut novel in February 2015 and she gave me a hand written letter telling me how proud she was, and how much she loved me. It wasn’t until she left that I realised I had spent almost two years pushing myself relentlessly to produce another manuscript just so that we could experience that moment together again. In doing so I destroyed everything that we had, and everything that she had expressed within that letter. I thought that in order to make her love me I needed to continue to allow my fears to drive me to become better. But I didn’t. I had my entire world in front of me, and she already loved me. I was just too stupid to realise it. I still have that letter; and I still read it from time to time.

Since she left I have walked through my own version of hell; taking time away from writing to rediscover myself and put to rest the horrible traits that I had allowed to fester within my heart for far too long. In doing so I have discovered an inner strength that I never knew I was capable of possessing. It hasn’t been easy, and I still think about her every day, but I have had to let go of the person that I’m going to love until the day that I die. At the same time, I have learned that despite best efforts from both parties, my sophomore novel War will no longer be released by Meizius Publishing.

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At first I crumbled, and I cried. I have spent years wanting nothing more than to marry the girl who stole my heart from the very first moment that I saw her, and fought desperately to recapture that moment we shared together by producing another book. But losing her and learning that I will be parting ways with my publisher has made me stop for the first time in almost twenty-eight years and actually question just what the fuck I am actually doing with my life. In doing so I have come to realise that I’m no longer afraid of death; I’m afraid of experiencing an un-lived life.

As I walked through the hell inside of me and experienced the cacophony of disharmony that had consumed my mind, I realised that I was allowing myself to be driven by fear, rather than being led by my dreams.

I know that sounds like a bunch of bullshit written by a man trying to open up himself and be vulnerable with the world he lives in. But what I am trying to say is that I have finally figured out the answers to those harrowing questions we all ask ourselves, and which until just recently have eluded me: What is the purpose of my life? And what is my endgame?

The first question was actually surprisingly easy to answer. The purpose of my life, and yours, and everyone else’s is this: to be happy; no matter what happiness looks or feels like to you. The objective of the entire human existence is to be happy; and to be led by your dreams, rather than pushed by your fears. Since realising this and letting go of my fear of death I have learned how to smile again, and the importance of slowing down to enjoy life for what it is. I have come to the realisation that I don’t need to pen a best seller in order to consider myself a successful writer; by having just one person read this blog, or pick up my book, I have already exceeded my own wildest dreams.

The desire to drive myself to the dark places I once longed for is gone. Because of this I’m not the man I was a few years, or even a few months ago. I’m not a wolf or an eater of worlds, nor am I ever angry anymore. I’m happy; and for the first time in my life I can say that I am genuinely proud of the man that I have become, and will continue to become from here on out.

As far as my endgame is concerned… She first appeared on this website as the inspiration behind a post titled Landscape, and is the only woman that I will ever write about. She will continue to be the most exquisitely beautiful person in my life until the day that I die, and although I don’t know if I’ll ever see Sofie again, I still consider myself the luckiest man in the world. Because of her I know how it feels to fall madly in love with another human being, and to want to spend every day of the rest of your life making their world just a little bit brighter.

I would throw away everything for that girl. I would give up writing, pass up all my earthly possessions and walk through hell every single day from now until eternity, just to see her smile.

The eater of worlds is dead; killed off by his own fears and insecurities. But in his place stands the real Chris Nicholas; the one who became lost inside of his own head for a period of time and forgot what matters most in his life. That man is a writer, a lover, a brother, a son, and a friend. And most importantly, he is happy.

I don’t fear death anymore; I fear looking back on my time here on this earth and realising that I missed out on so many wonderful opportunities because of such a naïve notion of allowing apprehension of the inevitable to destroy the wonderful gift of life that I have been presented. I don’t want to grow old having squandered my time, or having lived an un-lived life.  No matter what happens from this moment onwards; whether I ever publish another book, or have the opportunity to grow old with the woman with the little blue hearts; I can say that I am happy, I am proud of the man that I am becoming, and that I know just how wonderful it feels to experience true love.

After my time walking through the hell in me I have learned not to be driven by fear, and that my dreams are as simple as they are powerful. At just twenty eight years of age I have my happiness and I know my endgame. What else could a man ever want?

Athazagoraphobia

Let’s start this off with a fact: In The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin uses the word love ninety-five times. He uses the iconic phrase survival of the fittest just twice.

Take a moment and think about what you just read. And I mean really think about it. Let it settle in your mind. In a book that is widely recognised as being at the crux of the ideological divide between science and religion because of the writer’s notion that the development of the soul is a normal process of evolution, and not the the works of a divine being, he mentions the idea of love ninety-five times and natural selection as we perceive it only twice…

Twice. It’s mind boggling to learn that the concept that society believes to be the defining declaration of a body of work that sent a fucking firestorm through literature, science, and religion alike, is just a miniscule part of a larger knowledge of human evolution. Yet from a young age the idea of survival is bred into us; we work as individuals and in teams to win prizes or recognition. We align ourselves with strength and dispel those that we consider to be weak. And perhaps worst of all, we allow society to cultivate a belief that we are in constant competition with our fellow man and woman in our quest to be remembered and revered.

…Let’s rewind a little and start over. When I first started planning out this post it wasn’t supposed to sound like this. It was more of an expletive fuelled stab at societal flaws that capitalize on our insecurities and feed our fears. So, let’s add a little context and flesh this out some more…

That funny looking word at the top of the page has a very poignant meaning. Athazagoraphobia is the fear of forgetting; of being forgotten, replaced, or being ignored. The idea probably doesn’t seem too foreign to most readers. Unfortunately, thanks to civilization’s rather skewed modern day philosophies it is an illness that is threatening to consume the societal collectives and subcultures that define us. Someone recently wrote to me and asked what it felt like to be a social influencer. The question came from a brilliant young writer who has a great career ahead of him, and was delivered with the utmost sincerity. Yet while I should have been thrilled to be bestowed with such a title, it actually left me feeling cheap.

When I envision a social influencer I find myself conjuring up images of vanity and social media posts aimed at generating revenue for businesses through spamming newsfeeds with sponsored posts. Here’s me influencing in my new sweatpants. Here I am taking a photo of coffee, or food, or a whatever else. The product isn’t important. But the imbalance in our logic is. We equate the idea of influence with marketing and misconstrue the lines between being educated and informed, with merely being sold a product. An influencer should be someone who is stimulating creativity, or inspiring social change; not hindering individualism and authenticity by capitalising on society’s ever growing desire to be irreplaceable and unforgettable through slick marketing gimmicks.

There is a very big difference between a brand ambassador and a social influencer; or at least there should be. Because marketing and purpose driven content has its place, but our cultural inability to distinguish between the two can have damaging repercussions to our mental and societal health. The idea that we should be persuaded to not only consume, but to compete in doing so, can lead to feelings of isolation, frustration and depression. We shouldn’t be forced to feel as though we are in competition to out consume and out replicate the influencers that we aspire to. The result of this logic is that we become miserable drones blinded by own desire to maximise self interest that we can no longer see the beauty and value of the people that we see as our rivals.

Alright. Let’s get back to Darwin and the battle between love and survival.

I dream of the day where I can refer to myself as a social influencer. I really do. As a writer there a few thrills more rewarding than knowing that the workings that you have produced have the power to inspire the reader. But I want don’t want to encourage my readers to compete or consume. I want to inspire them to be great; not in the bullshit sense of greatness that is pushed upon us on a daily basis either. I don’t want people to believe that my vision of greatness has anything to do with money, or power or status. All that crap is just superficial nonsense that is keeping you distracted and diverting attention away from what is really important.

My vision of greatness is more akin to happiness. It is a life filled with love and contentedness. It is having a heart free from angst and anxiety, an open mind, and an understanding that we are all connected. We aren’t in competition with one another; we never have been. It’s just a bullshit lie that we have been spoon fed for so long now that we are actually beginning to believe it . We don’t need to subscribe to the philosophy of survival of the fittest. We need to practise love and human compassion instead. By doing so, we will find a happiness that will render any fear of being forgotten and replaced obsolete.

I spent years suffering from a form of athazagoraphobia; I have always been riddled by anxiety and depression. One of my greatest fears is that when I die, I will simply cease to exist and will eventually be forgotten. This phobia is one of the many reasons that I write. I want to be happy. I want to love, and to be loved. Yet for so long I thought that happiness would come through being the best. Just like so many others I misconstrued the idea of greatness with being better than the people that I believed myself to be in competition with. I spent years convinced that if I pushed myself  to become the best writer in existence, then people would have to love and remember me. But I was wrong.

It wasn’t until just recently when I stumbled upon the fact that opened this post that I realised that the only person I need to be great in comparison to is the person that I was yesterday. If I love, I will be loved. And if I focus on inspiring my fellow man rather than competing against them, I will touch them and I will be remembered not as the greatest writer that ever lived; but as the greatest version of me that I could have ever been. If following this logic makes me a social influencer in some respect; then I will take pride in the title bestowed upon me.

Creativity and Corkboards

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Imagine that your mind is a corkboard. It’s brand new; you haven’t yet amassed any photographs, receipts, or quotes to affix to it. Which means that right now it is lacking of any pinpricks, thumbtacks, or sticky notes taped to its surface. It is almost smooth to the touch; but if you run your hand over the cork there are small imperfections that snag on your palm where the face of the board is split to allow pins to sink into it. And there is a thin veneer of pine acting as a frame.

It sounds exciting doesn’t it? When someone asks you about your creative cognizance aren’t you just dying to tell them all about your plain brown corkboard that is completely devoid of any imagination or creativity?

…Probably not. But in actual fact so much of our creative impulses are unconsciously developed upon a mental corkboard nailed into the walls of our minds. It sounds obscure doesn’t it? So let me explain.

It goes like this:

You start off with an idea. Often it’s something quite small. Maybe you decide you want to write a book. So you take the idea and pin it on your board. This moment marks the inception of your creative map. From there you start to build upon it. You take a piece of string and stretch it out to a second pin where you begin to fashion your protagonist. A third pin represents the antagonist. A forth exemplifies their conflict, and so on and so forth. As each new idea is tacked against the board, a piece of string reaches out to connect this new thought process to the last, creating an ever growing junction of thread.

Before too long your corkboard is overflowing with pins that represent ideas, plot points, research, characters, historical fact, intellectual and cultural bias, and a myriad of other concepts. As your learning and creative process begins to grow you start pushing thumbtacks into the pine veneer, desperate for more space. Eventually your thoughts outgrow your corkboard and spill across the wall, cover the floors, and in some rare instances, even the goddamn roof.

The pine frame of your board represents the preconceptions and creative limitations that you initially bought into the project. Like all intellectual boundaries, they need to be tested and broken. The pins and strings that stretch out onto the walls and floors of your mind characterize what you have learned through your creative pursuits. These pins are your creative freedom. They are what makes you and your concept both original and great.

It all sounds brilliant. And it is. It really is. As a writer I love creating mind maps and plucking my fingers along the strings stretched across my mind in an effort to breath life into characters and plotlines. But sometimes your mind maps can become convoluted. Strings can tangle or break, or you can find yourself venturing so far from your original concept that you feel more confused than creative. When this happens, all you can do is start to remove pins, coil up your string, and slowly work your way backwards until you eventually stumble back onto the thought pattern that you originally embarked upon.

It can be difficult to destroy your map. Sometimes we creative types can invest so much time in constructing these elaborate artworks of thread and string that it almost feels like you have failed to admit that the ideas are actually holding your imagination at bay. But there is something quite cathartic in clearing off a completed mind map, wiping your corkboard clean and starting over again.

But this process of mind maps, pins, strings, boundaries and starting over needn’t be limited to limited to the creative arts. It can be applied to our every day lives. It already is. We just aren’t consciously aware of this fact. Each and every day we experience new highs and lows, learn new information, forge new friendships, and add to the various corkboards that make up our minds.

We have boards dedicated to our employment; others represent friendships, dreams, likes and dislikes, religious orientation… The list is endless. For many of us we continuously add to these boards, pushing pins into veneers that represent societal, financial, physical or psychological constraints. But we stop there. We never dare extend our aspirations and learning across the threshold of those imposed restraints. Instead we continue to loop strings between an increasingly clustered series of pins and tacks until tangles wreak havoc across our corkboards, knots form, and we become disillusioned with the startling difference between our desires and our realities.

When we reach this level of confusion it can be difficult to remember how we even got here in the first place. A desire to obtain a degree, or fund a community arts project, or even write a book somehow evolves into working an unfulfilling desk job, chasing money to clear debts, and trying to force a square peg into a round hole. But all hope is not lost. Just like the writer mentioned earlier in this post, you can clear your corkboard, refocus and start over again.

Rather than write a typical New year: New me post in which you the reader rolls your eyes as I dictate my hopes and dreams for the coming twelve months, I though it’d try something a little different. Instead I will simply close out this entry with a statement and a challenge. 2015 was a fantastic year that came with both dizzying highs and harrowing lows. But that is now in the past, and the time has come to reset my creative corkboard and start afresh once more.

Right now I have two manuscripts in production (one of which is nearing completion), and this site to attend to. These three projects combined are my first pin. My objective is to continue to grow as a writer and see the sequel to Midas put into print. Where the next twelve months takes me from here is at mystery at this point in time. But with each passing day I will grow and develop and weave strings between newly acquired pins affixed to my board. As always I will continue to pluck at those strings and continue to learn until my dreams can come to life.

My challenge for you, my dear reader is this: reset your own corkboard. Remove all the tangles and knots that have grown and developed over time and start afresh. Create a new starting point as of today and grow and develop from here on out. Work towards your dreams, just like I am. And no matter how far you travel or how much you learn, never lose site of the reason you created a board of memories and experiences in the first place.

Turning Tricks

It’s amazing how often the best of us undermine ourselves and sell our dreams short. We live in an age of unprecedented creative expression; the Internet and social media (while seriously flawed) has afforded ingenious minds the opportunity to connect with audiences far beyond their physical reach. While my blog is relatively small compared to some, I still have followers in counties like India, Libya, Egypt and a myriad of other places I had never imagined my words would reach. Yet for all this creative expression and acceptance of art, so many of us are so full of self-doubt that we unwillingly commit self-sabotage every time we post something.

Counterintuitive isn’t it? How can we be expressing ourselves and amassing an audience in far reaching locations, yet lynch our efforts all at once?

The answer: by degrading ourselves and our works through by using bullshit words like aspiring or would-be.

Every single day I receive countless emails from bloggers all over the globe who are reaching out hoping to connect with a like-minded soul. I try to respond to as many of them as I can, but the truth is that sometimes I’m stretched so thin that emails pile up and it takes me weeks to get back to that beautiful soul who took the time to contact me. My time management has always been fairly shit, but I try my best. I love hearing from people; even the ones that choose to rat me out or create malicious posts about me on public forums. But after three years of reading and responding to countless emails there’s a definitive trend that I’ve noticed in the contact I have with others.

It goes like this:

Dear Chris,

            I am an aspiring writer/musician/artist/entrepreneur/whatever…

Or like this:

Dear Chris,

            I am a would-be writer/musician/artist/entrepreneur/whatever…

…Fuck that. You’re not an aspiring anything. If you have a blog, or a band, or a half completed manuscript or business plan then you’ve made it and you’re selling yourself short by placing a bullshit adjective in front of whom you really are. You’re a goddamn writer, or musician, or artist so quit allowing your self-doubt to sabotage the brilliance within you. Stand up and show the world who you are and what you are creating because chances are it’s magnificent. And even if it’s not, you should stand proud knowing that you have breathed life into a labour of love.

There’s a real disparity between the truly talented and the snake oil peddlers who would love to convince you that they are. Trust me, it’s a lesson that I’ve learned the hard way. Take a look at the URL at the top of this page and you’ll note the word would-be in it. Even I was an aspiring writer at one point.

While these snake oil peddlers occupy space and become recognized not for their talent but their smooth tongue, the best of us tend to hold back; we toil over our crafts and work towards our dreams in near silence. We want to be heard, but we want to save face and distance ourselves from the possibility that our works won’t be well received. That adjective aspiring allows us a safety net if we fall short when reaching for our dreams. We can give up and say ‘I was an aspiring artist once. Sadly it didn’t work out.’

And so often it doesn’t. Not because we’re undeserving, and not because we aren’t talented enough to succeed. But because you allow yourself to be comfortable with the idea of failure by saying that you never quite got there in the first place.

Alright. Let’s pause and take a moment, because I’m sure that I’ve upset a few people. Let’s just cool off. You can swear at your screen if you want to. Call me names; tell me I’m being unfair. But I’d be willing to wager a bet that if you look within yourself you would struggle to tell me that I’m wrong.

So why do it? Why put yourself through that degradation that breaks your hopes and dreams just as they’re coming to fruition? Why limit yourself to just being someone who aspires to be more? Why not stand up, pull back those slouched shoulders and say ‘I’m not aspiring towards shit. I’ve already made it?’ Why not embrace that you are a writer/musician/artist or whatever else? Why keep turning tricks and selling yourself short?

You’re talented. You’re brilliant. And you’re beautiful. But you’re your own worst enemy. You can be whoever the hell you want to be. You’ve just got to stand up and show the world who that is. I love hearing from my readers. I really do. I love hearing of their successes, their lessons learned through failure, and their hopes and dreams for the future. But the thing I love the most is when someone sends me an email that starts by saying:

Dear Chris,

            I am a writer/musician/artist/entrepreneur/whatever…

Because I know right from that very first line that the man or woman contacting me isn’t afraid to open their heart to the world and let their creativity flow. They’re bold enough to be themselves and stand proudly beside their accomplishments.

It’s time to let go of your way out and ditch that shitty little adjective. Quit turning tricks and selling yourself short. Stand up and stake your claim. You deserve it.

Bragging Rights

Every now and then I’ll branch out and attend a writer’s conference. My reasons for doing so usually stem from a bout of writers block or shear frustration at my own inability to move forward within the industry, so I throw my hands in the air and venture out to see what others are doing to carve out their own success. I become disenchanted with my own abilities and stupidly start to think that the only way to succeed is to emulate, instead of innovate.

Whenever I do show up to an event I have a blast. I meet a bunch of great people, listen to a range of interesting talks, and find a renewed love for what I do. But no matter how much I enjoy myself I never walk away from an event with that piece of elusive information that will see my writing and carer soar to new heights.  Why?

Because it doesn’t exist. The whole concept of emulating what has worked for someone else and expecting it to yield similar results is flawed. We are all unique and we all approach similar goals and aspirations with our own set of circumstances that impact upon the inevitable outcomes of those dreams. It’s great to listen to someone talk about their pillars of success or foolproof methods of being successful, and many of us are able to draw great inspiration from this. But the truth is that there is no one who can tell you how to be successful, because there is no one who has lived through the same circumstances or developed the same idiosyncrasies as you.

You can draw influence from the successes of others, but if you truly want to achieve you have to create your own path. You have to wake up every single day with a hunger to achieve and be willing to bust your arse to make it happen. We live in a society drowning underneath a never ending sea of instant success stories or celebrities that are born out of a minute amount of talent and damn good timing. But rather than recognise that many modern day successes are born out of unique opportunity and circumstance, we start to criticise ourselves for having to fight tooth and nail for what we want.

We misconstrue the concept of celebrity with success and convince ourselves that the only measure of our accomplishments is our notoriety. If I’m not famous I mustn’t be producing works that are good enough right? Wrong. Some of the most stirring pieces I’ve ever read, watched, listened to or viewed have come from artists virtually unknown amongst their peers. They are men and women who have carved out niches in their chosen fields and although they aren’t instantly recognisable or celebrated within their fields, they are consistently redefining what it means to create wonderful art.

Excellence comes not from the praise of others, but from a continuous honing of one’s talents. Words of affirmation and celebrity within one’s chosen field is nice, however real satisfaction and success comes from knowing that you have created something beautiful and lent a piece of your soul to a work that will live on forever.

Bragging rights don’t equate to shit if you’ve won the praise of your peers for producing second rate work that belies your true potential. We all have the ability to excel at whatever we decide to. But we have to want that excellence with every ounce of our strength.  We have to consistently redevelop and redefine our craft and who we are over and over again until we become who we are born to be. You want to write? Write. You want to make music? Learn to play an instrument. You want to be a ball player? You better lace up those kicks and hit the court.

The very best of us earn our keep and blaze a trail of success that is uniquely ours. We don’t rely on the pseudo-helpful never fail theories of others, and we certainly don’t wait for pure chance to pluck us out of obscurity and hand us our dreams on a silver platter. We reach, we fall, and when we are knocked down we get back up and tell life that it hits like a bitch. This persistence and determination; this unending love for our crafts and passions is what forces us to aspire, create and ultimately achieve.

Bragging rights are earned through grit and determination. Success is achieved through hard work. You can become a legend in your own right; it just takes a lot of hard work.

Five Years

Anyone who has been following this site for a little while will be aware that I’ve undergone a metamorphosis of character over the past twelve months. The aggressively creative arsehole that I used to be has grown up and become a man. I would still call myself aggressive in my creative tendencies; when I get into the zone and start writing I lose all touch with reality and slip back into the mindset of a world eater. But I’ve stopped pushing myself to become a prick and have started trying to be a better person instead. I’ve still got a bucket full of angst and a tongue laced with acid but I’m learning how to channel them into something positive rather than trying to destroy myself.

To be honest I never imagined that I would become someone who could be happy. I had spent so long fuelling the anger within my soul that to suddenly quell my demons and instead aim to inspire surprises me. While there’s been many reasons behind the shift in my mental state and subsequent successes through this page there’s a story that really inspired me to make a change. It made me pull my head out of my arse and realise that I am an extremely fortunate man who has the world in front of him.

It goes like this: There’s this woman I work with. Her name is Gina and she’s incredible. See, Gina is blind. But even though she can’t see she works as a switchboard operator taking inbound calls and redirecting them to the relevant departments within our organisation. Every single day she comes to work with a smile on her face and works harder than anyone else. Inspiring: yes. But that’s not what makes Gina so special. It was a story that Gina told during a training session that really moved me.

Five years ago Gina had a necklace that she loved. Then one day it went missing. She put it down on her bedhead, forgot where it was and it simply disappeared. She searched for it. But when you don’t have the ability to see the world you live in something as simple as locating a necklace you have misplaced becomes quite difficult. So after a while she resided to the fact that the necklace was simply gone and moved on. Then one day she was cleaning her room and managed to work her hand between the bedhead and the wall. Guess what she found? The necklace that she’d lost five years earlier.

As she sat in our training session and told the story of how she had been reunited with her necklace Gina broke into a smile that brightened the whole room. Here was a woman who spent every single day moving through a world that she couldn’t see and she was happier than I was. Why? Because she knew how to take solace and find beauty in every single day. She understood that every day is a gift and that to be anything but happy is to deny ourselves of something truly incredible. Something as small as finding a necklace bought a smile to Gina’s face.

And there I was sitting across from this woman baring fangs at a world that I thought was trying to stamp my face into the dirt. When the training session was over and Gina returned to her desk I couldn’t shake the story. I took it home with me, thought about it over and over and cussed myself out for ever thinking that I was hardly done by. In a moment of complete vulnerability this woman that I worked with broke apart every single preconception that I had about myself and made me want to be a better man.

It turns out that even though I have been through some shit I actually live a very fortunate life. I have two parents who love me; three healthy siblings and a partner who adores me despite my ability to disappear into myself or become an abrasive prick at the drop of a hat. I live in a country without war, and have a roof over my head. I have no reason to be angry; no reason to want to tear myself or anyone else apart.  I’ve never lost a necklace behind a bedhead and spent five years searching to find it, so surely I could find happiness within the life that I live.

Just like that I decided to change. I let go of my hate and set myself free.

I don’t want to be known as an angry child. I want to be known as a man with the capacity to be brilliant. I write because I love. And I love because I write. I haven’t achieved everything I set out to do when I started writing, but as long as I continue to evolve and embrace myself there’s no telling just how wonderful life can be.

Sometimes we need to look beyond ourselves to realise just how fortunate we truly are.

Thanatophobia

‘This is hell. You bought a candle to burn?’
-Keith Buckley.

I’ve been thinking about my own morality a lot lately. I’ve had a pretty frustrating case of writers block and whenever I do I start to contemplate the space in time I’ll occupy between birth and death. I get caught up in a mindset of frustration and start thinking about the choices I’ve made, opportunities I’ve missed, and how I will spend the moments I’m still yet to experience. To be frank, I hate when I get like this. I’m fucking petrified of growing older and knowing that I’ll one day kick the bucket causes my anxiety levels to skyrocket until my heart is hammering in my chest and I become short of breath.

I guess a large part of the anxiety I experience comes from the fact that I feel as though I still have so much I want to accomplish in my life. I am forever working against my biological clock to achieve my goals before death wraps his talons around my heart and squeezes until it becomes still. I want to be successful writer and make a career out of what I do. I want to see the world. I want to be loved, loathed and revered. And I want to know that when I’m a rickety old man with a busted hip, gruff tone and permanent scowl, that I’ve lived a good life and made a positive impact on those that I leave behind.

I’m trying to leave a legacy of words. Through my writing I want to create something worthwhile that allows me to reach out and connect with people. In reality I’m a pretty emotionally stunted individual. I keep even my closest friends at a safe distance, and while I’ll protect those that I care about till the bitter end, I rarely feel the need to reach out for their help. But through writing I can be vulnerable and I can be beautiful. In a weird kind of way I’m liberated in my madness through writing. Even my closest friends tell me that they read this site on the regular as a way of understanding me.

So I’m frightened of death. It’s occupying my thoughts and stressing me out. I’m suffering from writers block and stuck in a hellish state of frustration. So what can a writer do when they’re in hell? Bring a candle to burn. Turn up the heat ever so slightly and make the inferno their own.

Yep, after a brief hiatus from the world of my character Jason Dark, I’ve started penning my way through a follow up to Midas. It’s a tale that will undoubtedly focus on the idea of death. Ruin and woe are central themes that I’m trying to explore quite heavily in the four book story-arch and having the ability to do so allows me to further immerse myself into a mindset that both troubles and inspires me. I’m afraid of dying. It’s my hell. So why not create a story that gives me the ability to really engage with the concept and overcome the hell within me?

The way I see it is this: I’m pretty lucky. Every single person on this earth has some form of fear or phobia that has the ability to leave them crippled with anxiety or worse. The fact that I fear growing old and failing to carve my name into the sands of this earth seem to fail on comparison to the afflictions of others. I have a unique opportunity to use my fear to create not only wonderful art, but a beautiful life. I can use my fear to propel myself towards success.

Fear is hell. But fear is also easily overcome; you’ve just got to be prepared to embrace it. If you’re stuck in hell make sure you’ve got a candle to burn. Take ownership of the very place designed to break you and make your hell a place you can thrive in.

If you’re afraid of death; explore it.
If you’re afraid of change; embrace it.
And if you’re afraid of fire; light and candle and learn to control the fear that binds you.

If you do that you can set yourself free. For me right now that freedom comes from my newfound lease on life and from shaking off this frigging writers block and get back to what I do best: writing. I have the ability to create hell through my literature and I take solace in knowing that my protagonist is arrogant enough to embrace it, light a candle and turn up the heat ever so slightly. And if a product of my imagination can be so brazen, surely I can too.

If you spend your whole life fearing death, you may as well already be dead. Step into the inferno you fear and set it alight. Set yourself free.

Day 57

For a blog that is supposedly about writing I’ve noticed that I don’t spend a great deal of time actually producing articles specifically for writers or even aimed at the craft itself. While many writers and authors have created wondrous platforms where they write about self-publishing, grammatical structure, or establishing an audience, I have taken a different approach to this site. It’s an approach that I believe is more important to my own creative journey than producing pieces on growing an audience or the likes. Here at Renegade Press through postings of wolves, broken windows, floods and catastrophes I have created a space that is uniquely my own. In this space I can be vulnerable, arrogant, aggressive, creative, and above all else it’s a space where I can be free to express myself creatively.

I’m not knocking those who choose to write posts that are logical, well thought out, and coherent; I actually admire many of those writers and follow their sites. I’m merely suggesting that the idea of producing such posts doesn’t really feel right for me. I’m too erratic in my thought processes and not yet accomplished enough in my craft to be handing out writing/publishing advice to anyone.

I’m a dog chasing cars. Or more accurately a literary wolf chasing fragments of ideas through the shadowy contours of my mind.

One such idea was to change the way I see the world. I’ve forever been known as narcissist and a bit of a prick so on January 1st 2015 I decided to focus on sowing seeds of positivity into my mind rather than allowing the oppressive weight of hate to rest upon my heart as it had done for years. The experiment came around after I read an article detailing a study released by the European Journal of Social Psychology on creating habits in which the researchers suggested that the average time it took for someone to adopt a new habit was sixty six days. It sounds easy enough doesn’t it? Practise optimism for sixty six days until it becomes so ingrained in your mind that you’re constantly searching for the positive in life rather than brooding over shit that’s outside of your capacity to control.

So how have I found the experience?

Well, at times I’ve struggled with remaining positive. There have been a few moments where I’ve gnashed teeth and threatened to break someone’s nose or flown into a verbal tirade of expletives. At one point over the past two months I even found myself hell bent on returning to my former state of perpetual hate as a means of rousing myself from a momentary creative slump. But for the most part I’ve remained upbeat and embraced life and my fellow man with a vigour that surpasses any I have ever had before.

I’m now at day fifty seven of my experiment and I’m actually stunned by what I have managed to achieve during this timeframe. My altered mindset has seen me embrace new concepts and ideas and abandon much of the narcissist bullshit that was hindering my progression as a writer and a man. I’ve started reading a more varied series of blogs and texts, re-enrolled in university after a hiatus, and have even started developing a social media presence through Instagram. In addition to this I’m continuing to grow more tolerant of people and have stopped being an arsehole just for the sake of it. This openness of heart and mind has paid huge dividends as my debut novel Midas is now available on Amazon, my followers here at Renegade Press is now five times what it was on January 1st, and people are starting to see me as something other than a insensitive dickhead with an axe to grind.

All of which is overwhelmingly positive. The experiment has been an overwhelming success, but as I draw ever closer to the climax of my sixty six days I’ve began asking myself where do I go from here?

Publishing my novel actually left me a little dazed and confused after the goal I’d toiled away at for close to a decade suddenly came to fruition and I’ve kind of struggled to reignite my motivation to create and understand where my career as a writer is headed next. But now I’m starting to put together another series of goals that will consume my existence and with my new mindset I believe that I can achieve them. I’ve got the world in front of me and even though I have quelled my arrogance somewhat, I’m still egotistical enough to believe I can achieve anything.

On day fifty seven I have set my sights on grandeur and excellence in my field. As I begin penning my way through a follow up to Midas as well as continue to work on a myriad of alternate scripts I’ve also set my sight on becoming a name synonymous with modern day literature. It’s not an easy feat to accomplish; nor should it be. I aim to inspire but I also aim to challenge myself at every opportunity. So while I have a incredible amount of work to do just to begin to become well-known in this industry, I feel that just by knowing that someone is reading this post I can say that I am already on my way to achieving my goal.

Here I stand at day fifty seven with the world in front of me.

Sowing Season

Have you ever noticed how in times of need humankind turns to phrases and expressions to justify their emotions or the circumstances that they find themselves caught in? We utter such clichés as everything happens for a reason, or what doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger, and countless other little phrases to get us through a tough time. Even when everything in our life is going fantastic we try to pigeon hole the experiences afforded to us by saying I’m so blessed right now, or that my hard work is finally paying off. It seems as though we as a species need this validation of our thoughts, feelings and experiences. We appear to almost struggle to function without being able to justify every moment of our life through spoken and written word.

Sometimes it seems as though no matter what the circumstance, there is an expression ready to be recited in an effort to inspire, motivate, and aid you in overcoming it. Personally I love that mankind is so determined to understand itself. I’m even more thrilled that it has chosen spoken and written word as the vessels through which it seeks that understanding. My dreams of being a successful author would be all but screwed if we were more comfortable in taking the world and our experiences at face value. Without this thirst for knowledge and understanding there would be no writing, no art, no music, or creativity in general.

However, these expressions that we are so willing to affix to our situations can be dangerous. Too many are submissive and allow us as a species to flounder and fall short of our true potential. Shit happens. Yeah it does, if you’re prepared to let it.

Let’s back track a bit. This whole post came to fruition because of an article I recently read which detailed a study released by the European Journal of Social Psychology on creating habits. The study followed ninety six people over a twelve week period, during which they determined that the average time required to develop a habit was sixty six days. I found the article incredibly intriguing; the study suggested that through conscious implementation of a new movement or thought pattern for sixty six days it would become so ingrained in one’s subconscious that it would inevitably become habit. Being the inquisitive person I am I decided to take this idea give it a shot. I picked an expression that I could relate to and aspired to make a change.

You reap what you sow. At least that’s what I have been told. So I decided that for sixty six days I would sow nothing but seeds of positivity and determination into the fabric of my life. I resolved to cut the negativity from my soul and instead focus on finding the silver lining in every situation. I sat at my computer and I punched out articles of hope rather than angst, I stopped actively trying to cripple people and instead focused on being a better version of me.

The result? Well right now I’m on day eighteen of this little experiment and so far things are looking pretty damn good. I’ve been running this blog for a couple of years, amassing a somewhat decent audience of followers and likers to my sporadic ramblings. But with focus, positivity and determination I managed to double my readership by day eight. By day twelve I tripled it. And just today I received some exciting information that I can’t wait to share with my readers.

That’s not to say that the experiment hasn’t had its moments. I’ve nearly cracked a few times and reverted back to the narcissist arsehole that used to run this site. I’ve upset a few people close to me over the past three weeks, and to those that I have I truly am sorry. I love you to death and although I will undoubtedly slip again, with your help I will forever strive to be a better person.

You reap what you sow. Perhaps one of the most overused expressions of all time. But for this writer truer words have never been spoken. I’ve spent years walking around with clenched fists and a mind fuelled by rage, searching for my next victim. During that time all I have found is resistance, unhappiness and despair. But after just eighteen days of positivity and focus I’ve achieved more than I ever did during those times of shame. When you’re sowing seeds of hate or submission into your life, you’re going to reap resistance or dominance from life itself. But when you open your heart, free your mind and start sowing positivity the payoff is so much more rewarding.

As a writer you spend your entire life trying to create something new; something fresh. And at times in can become difficult to prevent yourself from falling into the trap of clichés. There’s the old Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch theory that states that there is only seven basic conflicts in literature, and to consistently try to think outside of the box and create something fresh and relevant can be exhausting. Add to that the fact that oftentimes you’re also trying to avoid drawing reference to clichéd expressions and you can find yourself walking an intellectual minefield of potential story ruining one liners and plot points. But as a man or woman who seeks to find enlightenment and their path in this world those same clichés can offer hope and guidance. You just need to pick the one that works best for you.

Shit happens to those that let it. But you reap what you sow. Sow shit and it’ll come back tenfold. Sow seeds of love, tolerance, determination and positivity and your crop will be more beautiful than you ever thought possible. We as human beings are forever going to subscribe to these expressions and clichés; but it is up to us as to how we draw inspiration from them. If you want to be submissive then you can continue to recite your tired adages of acceptance. But if you want to be the best damn person you can be than subscribe to a viewpoint that inspires. You reap what you sow. So chose your crop carefully.

Paper Tigers

tiger

‘The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.’
-Amelia Earhart.

Beautiful isn’t it? Elegantly written and inspiring in its construction, Amelia Earhart really did create something lovely here. In a fluency reserved for the masters of prose, she confesses as to how she managed to be liberated from the self-imposed fear that she placed upon herself and became something more.

Seriously, take a moment and cast your eyes back to the top of this post and allow the beauty of Earhart’s words to sink in before you continue any further. And while you’re there, think about what you want in your life more than anything in the world. And I don’t mean bullshit superficial or material possessions, I mean what you really want. Do you want to be loved? Do you want to be successful? Do you want to get your damned novel published and start leaving your mark on the literary industry? Or do you just want to craft the perfect ending to a manuscript that has been years in the making?

That lust that you feel, that flame of desire that flickers in your soul when you imagine everything that you could have, that you could be, or that you could do; it’s insatiable isn’t it?

Now think about what is stopping you from actually obtaining those goals. It could be money, status, ego, peers, or a million other reasons. No matter what it is, it’s all just shit; trivial, superfluous shit that we use as excuses to safe guard ourselves against our own fear of failure. They are faux threats to our success and happiness that we create in our mind’s eye so that we can live in the comfort of our own mediocrity and tell ourselves that we are happy there. We are living our lives afraid of paper tigers, foolishly telling ourselves that there are lions at the door.

The term Paper Tiger is a literal translation of the Chinese phrase Zhilaohu, and refers to something that seems threatening, but is actually ineffectual and unable to withstand challenge. It is a rather interesting concept when you stop and consider the connotations of its meaning. How many times in your life have you told yourself that something was hard, dangerous, or impossible, only to overcome that hurdle and see just how easily your transcended above the challenge? That hurdle, that insurmountable mountain you had to climb to succeed was a god-damn paper tiger. There was no threat; you were just mentally screwing yourself into believing there was.

The troubling thing is that we as a species do it so well. We create these mental barriers and blockades to hold ourselves back from our true potential. We tell ourselves we aren’t good enough, that we are undeserving. But true brilliance is within our grasp. We just have to front up, stare that risk in the face and take what we want by force. You deserve to be so much more. We all do. Take it from a guy who has spent a lifetime creating the most exquisitely repulsive paper tigers imaginable, every single threat you perceive to be standing between you and a brighter future can be overcome.

Let’s be honest, I’ve screwed around a lot in my life. I’ve made mistakes and I’ve cost myself some incredible opportunities. For the most part the reasoning behind those stuff ups and my flaws come down to the imagined threats that I have allowed to fester within my own mind. I’ve told myself that I’m not worthy of a publishing agreement, that my writing isn’t as strong as others, or that I am just simply not cut out for the life as a writer. I’ve allowed manuscripts to defeat me as endings eluded my grasp. And I have watched potential representation slip through my fingers because I told myself that people are out to screw me rather than aid my successes. I’ve cowered like there were lions tearing down my door, when in reality there was nothing but fictional beasts running rampant in my head.

So how do we overcome the illusory creatures that claw at the back of our minds and threaten to devour every ounce of creative freedom, success, or wonder that we long for? How do we throw caution to the wind and say ‘fuck it, I am good enough, I am deserving, and I am beautiful?’ Well, I’m not about to claim to know all of the answers to overcoming our flaws and rediscovering the better angels of our nature, but I will say this: When the lions are at the door, take a deep breath, shut your eyes tight and try to differentiate between the roars of true danger, and the purrs of those ineffectual voices within your own head.

History’s greatest minds, people like Amelia Earhart, all had their versions of paper tigers, but they learned to overcome them. As Earhart says, ‘the most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.’ All you have to do is defeat the monsters you are creating in your head, then persevere, because everything you ever dreamed of is closer than you think.

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