The Renegade Press

Endgame

Chris Nicholas

November 21, 2016

“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.

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?

Devil

Chris Nicholas

113 comments

October 8, 2016

A few months ago my partner and I bought a puzzle. We were in a bookstore stocking up on novels and she turned to me and said that she’d love to buy a puzzle and spend some time sitting down as a couple and putting it together. Ecstatic just to be spending time with her, I agreed, and we brought home one thousand little cardboard shapes that when aligned together in the correct sequence would show a view of the Amalfi coastline. I thought it would be easy. And that it would be fun. But while she could effortlessly match pieces together and allow the picture to take shape, I struggled horribly just to find two interconnected pieces, swore a lot, and eventually gave up.

I didn’t realise it at the time, but that puzzle wasn’t just a way for us to spend time together, it was a symbol that represented my life, who I was, who I am supposed to be, and just how much I love the girl who sat patiently with me while I steamed with frustration at my inability to perform the most simplistic of tasks.

Agh. I need to stop for a second, and just get something off of my chest… Before I go any further I just want to acknowledge that what I am about to say is going to hurt so fucking much. By the end of this post I’ll be an emotional wreck. I’m about to tell you that I screwed up. Bad. And that I’m a fake. Because despite all of the pretentious bullshit that I post on this site, I’ve only just figured out who it is that I really am, and it took losing the woman that I want to spend my life with to realise that.

For twenty-seven years I have been trying to piece together the puzzle of Chris Nicholas. During that time I have been sitting in the darkness of my bedroom staring down at thousands of little cardboard shapes spread across the floor that define who I am, struggling to make sense of how they all fit together. I have been a son, a brother, a writer, a friend, a student, work colleague, and so much else. Yet I have never really understood how one piece of my life was supposed to fit into the next.

And then I met Sofie. I met this beautiful woman who was so much smarter than I could ever be. And before I even asked for her help, she came into my bedroom, switched on the light and sat down opposite me and helped me to start sorting through the little pieces of me that were scattered across the floor. I watched in amazement as she found pieces of who I am that were connected, and slotted them together, slowly allowing a picture of my life to take shape.

It took a long time; two years in fact for her and I to work together and take the little cardboard shapes and put them together, but as each piece fell into place I began to recognize the picture that was taking shape. It wasn’t really the image that I had imagined, but who was I to question the universe and the way that my life was destined to unfold?

I saw a wolf, bearing its fangs, with what looked like the world clutched between its paws. It looked strong; fearsome even, and I saw Sofie standing beside him with a look of astonishment on her face. As I looked at the picture positioned between us on the floor, something inside of me changed and I became the beast that I saw staring up at me from the half completed puzzle. I saw a monster, and I became him. And I have never fucked up so badly in my life.

I started to call myself a wolf; and I became headstrong and stubborn. I saw the world held within the paws of the beast inside the puzzle, and I tried to follow suit. I pursued my writing with reckless abandon, amassing an audience and producing a lot of self-indulgent bullshit. And all the while, Sofie watched me with a slightly bemused look, and kept putting together pieces of my puzzle as though she didn’t understand what I had become, or why I seemed so angry.

Then, just over a month ago she left. She told me that she was tired, and that I had let her down. So she stood up, and walked out of my life, taking a single piece of the puzzle we had worked so hard to create with her. I cried a lot that day. And I’ve cried every day since. Because when she left I stood up and I shifted myself into her place, and looked down at the puzzle of my life from where she had been sitting and realized that we had created an ambigram; an image that when looked upon from different angles shows an entirely different picture.

Sofie wasn’t putting together a puzzle of a wolf, or a world eater, and we were never putting together my puzzle; it was ours. From where she had been sitting the image that stared up at her wasn’t of a vicious beast bearing its fangs; it was me: Chris Nicholas, down on one knee with a smile of pure joy spread across my face. In my hands was a box, not the world, and inside of that box was a piece of jewelry designed to be worn on her finger that said “I want to spend my life with you.” From this angle she didn’t look bemused, astonished, or afraid. She was happy, and her lips were pursed together as though she was about to make this version of me the happiest man in the world by uttering one simple word.

From where she had been sitting, our puzzle was complete; except for the final piece that she had taken with her. I had spent two years looking at what we were creating from the wrong angle, and while she was piecing together an image of a future filled with happiness, my own stupidity made me believe that in order to provide for her I needed to embrace the devil inside of me.

For the past month I have spent my time sitting in the spot where Sofie used to sit, staring down at the image of her and I with a huge smile spread across my face, and tears streaming down my cheeks. It’s a beautiful image, and one that makes my heart flutter. When I close my eyes and imagine the future it looks just like the image in the puzzle of us, and knowing that is so bitter-sweet. Sofie is the only woman I will ever write about; the only woman whose achievements I will ever celebrate as greater than my own; and the only woman that I would ever want to love and spend my entire life with.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get a chance to see her again, but I hope and I pray every day that eventually our worlds will collide one more time and she can come and sit down on the floor beside me and place the final piece of our puzzle; the one that represents my heart, into the image of her and I. If that day never arrives… Well, at least I can say that I spent two wonderful years with the woman that I love more than anything. The memories that we created together will last a lifetime, and the love that I have for her will continue long after she has forgotten about the time we spent piecing together the puzzle of our lives.

Now that I have seen life from the other side of the ambigram, I know that I don’t want to be the devil anymore. I want to be the man in the picture that Sofie has always been able to see. The hopelessly devoted romantic, down on his knee, allowing himself to be totally vulnerable in front of the woman that he loves more than he has ever loved writing, or anything else. I screwed up because my perspectives were all wrong; I was never meant to be a wolf, I was only ever meant to be a man, and a lover to the most incredible woman that I have ever met.

I’m writing this to say that I’m letting go of the love of my life for a little while. Because as cliche as it sounds, sometimes when you love something (or someone) you have to set it free. But there will not be a day that passes where I don’t look at the almost completed puzzle of us and whisper a silent prayer that she comes back and we finish what we started together. I have never wanted anything like I want a life with her; and I have never been so willing to be vulnerable and unafraid to embrace who I am. In the past month I have realised how wonderful my life is, and how hopelessly in love I am. For the first time in my life I know exactly who I am, and exactly who I want to devote my life to. And while letting go hurts like hell, I have never been more proud the man that I have become, or more determined to be the person that I should have always been.

Roses

Chris Nicholas

74 comments

September 7, 2016

Two years ago I met Sofie. She was so beautiful, and I knew that I loved her from the very first time that I saw her. She had this smile that was just infectious, and the most intoxicating love of life that I had ever seen. I used to make up excuses just to talk to her, and somehow, in some way, she fell in love with me. Not long after we met she went to Europe, and we spoke almost every day that she was gone. She’d get home after a day of travelling and text me as soon as she could, and I would wait in eager anticipation to hear from her, and know that she was safe.

When she came home, we started dating. It wasn’t easy. She was so loving and kind, and I was the angry boy that I had always been. I let her down; over and over again. I would prioritise my writing over the woman that I loved, and when she asked me about the future I would try to play down just how much I thought about it. I never told her that the reason I would kiss her tummy in the middle of the night was because I dreamed of having a family with her. And I never told her that I loved her so much that if I ever had to choose between writing and her, she would win every single time.

I always assumed that Sofie would know how much she means to me. I just expected her to realise and understand that I would do anything for her. But I was so bitter about my past that when I opened my mouth to tell her that I was proud of her, I would screw it up and say the opposite. She made my heart swell with joy so much so that I began pushing myself harder than ever to become a writer that she would be proud of; but I was so foolish that I never even realised that she was already proud and loved me with the kind of love that lasts a lifetime.

rose

I recently had an epiphany in which I realised how much I had taken the woman that I love for granted, and how willing I am to devote my life to her. But before I had a chance to tell this wonderful woman that I wanted to spend my life with her, and move in together, and help her reach her dreams, we parted ways. I broke my soulmate’s heart, and I took her for granted for so long that she eventually pushed me away forever.

Many readers may be asking why I am writing this. It’s far from my usual style. But there are two reasons why I needed to do this. The first is that I want to take a short hiatus from blogging. I have been pushing myself so hard to become someone that the woman I love can be proud of, that I have devoted far too much time to delusions of grandeur, rather than to her. I want to take some time out to stop and smell the roses in my life, and appreciate just how much I have to be grateful for.

The second reason is that I want to acknowledge just how much I have let down my soulmate and my best friend. When I think about the future, there is only one thing in the world that I want; and that is the girl who has given me the two greatest years of my life.

I don’t know if I will ever get another chance to be a part of Sofie’s life, and I fear that I won’t. But I do know that the love that we have for one another is more than a passing fancy. It’s the kind of love that lasts a lifetime and never diminishes with age. It took me twenty-five years to find the person that I want to spend the rest of my life with, and it took me another two to finally tell her how I feel.

If I have to wait a lifetime for her to let me make amends for all of my mistakes, then so be it. Some things are worth waiting for, and I know in my heart that I want to make Sofie smile every single day for as long as we both shall live. I am so sorry that I ever pained her, or made her feel alone; she is and always will be, the apple of my eye.

The Woman With The Little Blue Hearts

Chris Nicholas

57 comments

September 1, 2016

I never really thought that I would understand what it felt like to be happy. When I first started blogging I was a broken man who believed that my time on this earth would be spent wallowing in self-pity as I created manuscripts riddled with despair. But two years ago everything changed. I met you. And you became the best thing that has ever happened to me. You are the love of my life: the person that I would fall onto my own sword a thousand times over to protect. You are the woman with the matching little blue hearts tattooed on her ankles; a soul of beauty, compassion and intellect that leaves me weak at the knees.

When we met I was fractured; a horrible man hell bent on his own self-destruction. But from the very first time I placed my hands on your hips and watched as you smiled at me and tucked your hair behind your ears, I knew that you had stolen my heart. I should never have treated you so poorly. I should never have brought tears to your eyes. I was a fool, but you helped me to become a man. You have always been so patient with me; even when I fucked things up over and over again.

I can never repay you for the kindness that you have given me. You have stood by me through the passing of friends, the chasing of dreams, and those horrible months when I thought that I was dying. People often say that in their darkest days their loved ones walk beside them. But you never have. In my lowest moments you have carried me; you have been the blood that courses through my veins, and the sun that lights up my world.

You have suffered in silence for so long while I searched for happiness in all the wrong places, and for that I am sorry. I thought that becoming a literary superstar, or landing a new job would make me feel complete. But everything that I have ever needed has been right in front of me since the very first day we met. All I have ever needed is you: the woman with the little blue hearts tattooed on her ankles. You complete me. You make me smile, and you are the most important thing in my world. I would give up everything that I have, throw away my successes, and lay down my pen, just to hold your hand, kiss your lips, and hear you say that you love me.

I want to grow old with you. I want to become your fiancé, your husband, and eventually the father of your children. I want to watch as those little blue hearts fade over time as our years together pass. I want to devote my life to you, and spend the next eighty years repaying you for all the love and kindness that you have given me. I want to kiss you before you roll over and drift off into slumber, or hear you tell me that I chew too loud, or that my clothes don’t match, or that I need to start cleaning up after myself.

I want to give to you the happiness that you have given me. I’m tired of being a wolf. I’m weary of being an eater of worlds. I want to be the apple of your eye, and the man who stands proudly beside you while you achieve your dreams.

But talk is cheap, and actions speak louder than words. I have told you all of this before. So let me sink to my knees, or fall on my sword and swallow my pride. Let me show you that I want to be yours. Let me prove to you that for the rest of my life, I want to be the man hopelessly in love with the woman with the little blue hearts tattooed on her ankles.

Remembered for Something

Chris Nicholas

56 comments

August 15, 2016

“We have been to the moon, we have charted the depths of the ocean and the heart of the atom, but we have a fear of looking inward to ourselves because we sense that is where all the contradictions flow together.”

-Terence McKenna

It’s no secret that I have been struggling to write lately. Over the past few months the aggressive creativity that usually floods my mind has dissipated and become more of a slow leak than a torrent. Despite my absence of inspiration I have persevered as best as I can, producing a handful of blog entries, and fleshing out the admittedly shaky blueprints for two separate novels. At first I thought that this writer’s block was stemming from a sense of nostalgia as I finalised one manuscript and began to transition into the next. But it turns out that I was wrong. My inability to write had nothing to do with nostalgia; I have been suffering from writer’s block because at some point in the editing process of War I lost sight of who I was, and why I was writing in the first place.

It happened far easier than it should have too. See, I have always had this theory that there are two types of people in this world. There are those who want to be famous for nothing; and those who want to be remembered for something. Despite devoting my life, and my career to becoming the later, I have increasingly found myself slipping into the idiotic mindset of longing to be renowned and celebrated for what I do.

The humbleness that keeps this wolf grounded vanished, only to be replaced with an insatiable desire to fuel my own self worth. I sold out and became a fucking fake who was more concerned with the idea of being famous than being true to who I really am.

When I finished the first draft of my sophomore novel I sat back in my chair and looked at the rough outline of a manuscript that I had created and found myself setting benchmarks to achieve. I knew that I had created a story that left my original novel Midas for dead. I had taken my protagonist and dragged him through hell; crafting scenes that I as a consumer of literature would love to read. So I set myself a goal: I wanted this novel to outsell the first. I wanted to improve upon my first efforts as a published author and continue to establish myself within the creative industries.

The plan was solid. But my ego allowed my creative mind to manipulate my aspirations and turn them into something horrible. Within days my benchmark wasn’t merely to outdo myself; it was to outdo everyone. My humble desire to grow as a man became an urge to look down upon others from a throne of literary success. I didn’t give a shit about whether or not people enjoyed reading my novel. My only concern was that they paid for a copy and I became illustrious in my success. And in that shift of mindsets from seeking personal achievement and remembrance from my peers, to desiring fame for the purpose of fame, I created a contradiction within my own microcosm that fractured everything that I stood for as a writer and killed my creativity.

When I started blogging the idea of securing an audience as large as I have been fortunate enough to amass had never even crossed my mind. I wrote to clear my head, to fight my demons, and to try and leave the world in a better state than when I found it. And yet just four years later my minor successes had momentarily gone to my head. Armed with a freshly produced manuscript and a head full of outlandish thoughts, I started reaching out to some of the largest public relations agencies in the country requesting professional representations for my talents.

The first two companies shot me down quickly, delivering generic rejection letters and emphatically stating that they do not review their original decisions. But a representative from the third agency provided me with a much needed reality check, composing an email that read:

“You need to realise that you’re an indie author. You’re not writing to sell products or to find fame. You’re writing because you have a story that you want to tell. Unfortunately it is because of this that it doesn’t matter how well you write; to an agency like mine, you have no marketability as a writer ”

The words hit me like a fist in the pit of the stomach, causing me to gasp in horror at what I had just read. I had spent months creatively frustrated as I pursued this bullshit concept of notoriety and fame. And then this stranger took one look at my work and found the contradiction inside of me that was causing my intellectual exacerbation and clouding my judgement. I have become so used to calling myself a world eater and a wolf that I temporarily lost the ability to know when my desire to write was causing me to bare my fangs and pursue goals that ran incongruously to who I really am.

Thanks to the brutally honest words of a stranger I now realise just how easily I could have identified the place inside of my head where the inconsistencies in my rational were flowing together and causing me pain. If I had stopped focusing on chartering oceans swelling with my own delusions of grandeur, or examining the heart of my writing, I could have looked introspectively inward and found where the contradictions of who I am, and my foolish desire to be famous for nothing were causing my artistic blockage.

Today is the first time in months that I have sat down at my laptop and felt like me again. I haven’t continued blogging at The Renegade Press for the past four years because of a yearning to be revered. I have done so because I have fallen in love with sharing myself with the world and touching the lives of strangers; however briefly that may be. I blog because I would rather be remembered for something than famous for nothing.

The next time that I lose sight of who I am, I will remember to take a look inside of myself and remove the contradictions causing me pain, so that my creativity can flow once again.

Introspection & Loss

Chris Nicholas

162 comments

July 25, 2016

I recently celebrated my fourth anniversary of blogging here at The Renegade Press. As with the three anniversaries prior to this one, the moment was a bitter-sweet affair of pride and introspection. Blogging has become a passion, and a source of endless pleasure that I approach with great reverence as I attempt to pour my heart and soul into everything that I create. But it hasn’t always been this way. This website was born out of a need to find myself, and to overcome my own internal torment. Four years ago I was emotionally shattered, creatively stunted, and questioning the validity of my own existence as I battled my own private demons. I was lost inside my head, desperately searching for a purpose amongst an endless torrent of fractured, self-depreciating thoughts.

Thankfully I found that purpose; and I found myself through my writing. With each new post that I create I learn more about myself and the world than I ever thought possible. Writing is continuously helping me to become a man of tolerance, compassion, loyalty and fierce determination. But perhaps the greatest lesson that I have learned in the past four years is that the conversations that seem the hardest to have are oftentimes the ones that are most important.

In November 2015 I lost a friend to suicide. This month I lost another. For a man as petrified of death as I am, it can be incredibly confronting to lose a friend or family member. To have to accept the fragility of their morality, as well as my own scares me. To lose them to mental illness, the very affliction that pushed me into blogging in the first place, opens a chasm of sadness inside of my soul that will forever haunt me.

Recent studies compiled by the World Health Organisation suggest that global suicide rates have risen by sixty percent over the past forty-five years. This violent spike means that suicide is now one of the three leading causes of death for males and females aged 15-44. This statistic alone is staggering. When you then take a moment to consider that ninety percent of suicides worldwide can be attributed, or associated to mental health, a picture of sadness and vulnerability begins to take shape. There is a flaw in the manner in which we approach mental health and suicide. We are losing so many friends and family members prematurely.

That flaw is startlingly simple: we as a society are not communicating effectively enough about mental health and illness. Sure, people are more open to talking about suicide and depression than ever before. There is an abundance of mental health initiatives across the globe providing people with the support to overcome their own turmoil. But as a society we’re still not communicating. If we were, those organisations that are desperately trying to help strangers find beauty and meaning in their lives, or fighting valiantly to empower the vulnerable to face one more day, wouldn’t be struggling to prevent global suicide rates from reaching epidemic proportions.

OK. I want to stop for a moment and double back over that last comment and try and break it down a little. There was a linguistic sleight of hand in the preceding paragraph that may, or may not have found its mark. But it has to. I need you to understand where this flaw in our approach to mental health and suicide stems from. People are talking; or at least they are more willing to do so. And yet no one is communicating. What we are hearing when we talk to one another is the fake sound of progress. God, I hope that makes sense.

umbrella

Talking and communication are two very different things. Talking is typically defined as the oral projection of one’s voice. Whereas communication is imparting, exchanging, and receiving information through a variety of means. Communication is listening, watching, comforting, and talking when needed. Organisations can talk to sufferers of mental illness and try to create and stimulate change. But we as individuals can communicate with them. We can hold their hand when they need a friend, or lend an ear when they want to talk. We can tear apart the idea that mental illness is something to be ashamed of and instead create a culture of support and understanding that praises someone for having the courage to seek help.

As someone who has suffered from depression and anxiety, I know how difficult it can be to admit that you are struggling. I know the crushing feeling of despair that settles into the back of your mind and pushes down on your chest until you feel as though you are drowning underneath a sea of hopelessness. But thanks to blogging, I also know the feeling of release that comes with being able to open your heart and mind and communicate with your peers. There is no shame in admitting that you are vulnerable, depressed, or alone.

Mental illness is claiming far too many lives, and for me personally, it has taken too many wonderful people away from me far too soon. While I adore and admire the hardworking organisations that fight valiantly to save lives, I believe that we as individuals can have a far greater impact. We can start having conversations that might seem uncomfortable, or difficult to broach at first. We can stop turning a blind eye when we see a friend, or stranger struggling. We can give those in need an ear to talk to, or a hand to hold, instead of a cold shoulder and a diverted glance. And maybe in doing so we can stop people from feeling so fucking alone, or depressed, or broken that suicide becomes their only answer.

In my lowest moments it was the kindness of strangers who stopped by a shitty little blog originally called Chris Nicholas Writes that became the catalyst I needed to confront my sadness and find myself once again. To know that my friends were not so fortunate as to find the inner peace that I did brings me to tears. If my only accomplishment as a writer is to inspire someone, somewhere to communicate; to speak and to listen about mental health, anxiety and depression, I’ll die a happy man.

Memento Vivere – Memento Mori

Chris Nicholas

75 comments

July 13, 2016

Agh. I hate myself for doing it. Opening a post with a title written in Latin makes me feel like such a fraud. This isn’t ancient Rome, and the fact that I write from my heart, rather than my head means that I can hardly be considered to be a scholar. So to use an adage as historically significant as I have in a vain attempt to pass myself off as some kind of well-versed academic just feels wrong. And yet I did it anyway. I chose a title written in a dialect that I will never fully understand and tried to claim it as my own. Memento vivere – Memento mori.

Remember to live. Remember to die.

Lately it feels as though I’m dying. At least from a creative standpoint anyway. I have been plagued by a writer’s block so nauseating that I haven’t actually written anything for weeks. Instead I have been opening up my laptop, or staring at a blank page in one of my many notebooks and wondering where the hell my creative impulses went.

When I finished writing my sophomore novel War, I was on a high and ready to take over the literary industry by force. Yet at some point during the editing process I lost all confidence in my ability to create and fell into a frustrating void of nothingness where it became impossible to find my creative spark. It may not seem like much to some, but it is a pretty serious issue for a writer who defines himself as being aggressively creative to suddenly suffer from an affliction that leaves you devoid of the inspiration to write. If I take away the creative, I’m just aggressive.

Writing is my passion. It’s something that I have spent a decade struggling and striving for, living and dying by my work. During that time I have experienced success: winning competitions, curating my own website, and publishing a novel. But I also know better than most what it feels like to fail. Throughout my writing life I have been overlooked for more opportunities than I can even remember. In my formative years I was repeatedly told that I wasn’t talented enough to make it as an author; nowadays I’m continuously told that that my style isn’t palatable by industry insiders and other authors. Hell, just last week I was told that I’m not marketable as an individual, and that I fail in comparison to others because of this.

While it hurts to admit, these failures have taken their toll. There have been moments where I have suffered a crisis of confidence so grand that I have given up and walked away from my dreams. I have cried in wardrobes, set fire to manuscripts and called people horrendous names while struggling through spates of depression. At times I have I felt so emotionally shattered due to circumstances beyond my control that it has been a struggle just to crawl out of bed and face another day of feeling like I wasn’t good enough. But every single time that I have failed and fallen, I have eventually picked myself up, dusted myself off, and set out to achieve my dreams all over again.

I have always assumed that I had been blessed with an iron will. I’ve spent years believing that there was something remarkable about me that allowed me to keep striving forwards even when I felt completely hopeless. But the truth is that I’m no different to anyone else. My ‘unwavering desire to succeed’ was merely a by-product of my life moving through a series of ebbs and flows as it unconsciously followed an idiom uttered by Roman servants to remind generals that they were fallible. Memento Vivere: Remember to live. Memento Mori: remember to die.

What that means is that for every single moment of triumph in my life, there will also be a moment of great pain. Last year I received news that a health scare that had me contemplating my own morality wasn’t as serious as I originally believed, only to discover a few months later that a close friend had taken his own life. I have seen my debut novel released, and have had my writing featured on websites run by literary geniuses; only to suddenly suffer from a lack of creativity so stifling that it feels as though there is a weight is pushing down on my chest.

These transitions from success and elation to inevitable heartbreak and failure are cycles of life and death that are occurring within my own existence. I’m not referring to death in the physical sense; I haven’t met my maker just yet. But death in the sense that opportunities, circumstances and relationships come to their natural, or sometimes premature endpoint, so that I can progress onwards to the next.

At first this can be hard to accept. I’m yet to meet a man or woman who enjoys seeing their relationships falter, or who finds solace in watching circumstances and opportunities that they have fought valiantly towards fail. But these deaths are quite possibly the most integral component of the human existence. Without them, how could we ever know the wondrous ecstasy of life and success when we experience them?

It seems ridiculous that it has taken me a decade of moving through these periods of life and death within my creativity before I actually realised the importance of suffering from writer’s block and creative lapses. Without them I would never know just how amazing it is to be blessed with the ability to write in the first place. Unfortunately, I have spent the past few weeks mentally and emotionally beating the shit out of myself for not being able to create anything; when in hindsight I should have used that time to allow the journey that was writing War to come to its natural point of closure, so that the next stage of my writing career could come to fruition.

But angst and self-regret caused by retrospection is the curse of the damned. There’s no point beating myself up all over again for failing to recognise an opportunity to reflect and refocus. All I can do is move forward from here and learn to remember to live, and to die spectacularly at whatever it is that I do.

As for the industry insiders that have told me that my style of writing isn’t palatable, or that I’m not talented, or marketable enough to make it as an author… Their words may have shaken my confidence and caused me to doubt myself at times, but I’m ultimately stronger having lived through their criticisms. At twenty-seven years of age I have a published novel and a successful website which is frequented by some of the most remarkable and passionate people that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. I have friends and family who are proud of the man that I am, and I’ve beaten depression and found happiness in myself.

My writing might not necessarily be palatable to some; but I’m not only talented, and marketable; I’m a fucking juggernaut too.

Roads

Chris Nicholas

72 comments

June 19, 2016

Contrary to what some readers may believe, I am a man who at times can be crippled by self-doubts. It may sound strange to hear that a writer who refers to himself as a wolf and world-eater can be emotionally fragile, but it’s easy to portray confidence when manipulation of the written word is your craft. The truth is that I’m my own harshest critic, and often find myself writing from a place of pain or discontent rather than happiness. I question myself, my decisions and my talents every single day. I ask if I am the writer and man that I long to be, and what I have to do in order to become that person. I deconstruct myself and my works over and over, constantly pushing myself to become more, and to give more of myself to my dreams and to others.

But living your life this way is foolish. When you continuously deconstruct and scrutinize every aspect of your life you either end up accomplishing nothing, or sending yourself insane. For me personally, I feel as though I’ve been spinning my wheels as of late. After finalising the editing process of my sophomore novel ‘War’ two weeks ago, I’ve struggled to find the creative drive that usually consumes me.

I’m not really surprised to find myself feeling stifled. It’s a bitter-sweet feeling to complete a manuscript that has taken almost eighteen months to create. And it’s a scary thought to think that I’ll now have to open up a blank document on my computer and start penning my way through an entirely new piece of work. And yet, I know that once I do, the creative urges that are currently escaping me will come flooding back in waves.

When I find myself stuck in a slump like this I am notorious for being abrasive and difficult to be around. I internalize conversations with myself, picking apart my life more vigorously than I already do. My self-doubts can cloud my judgement, and leave me feeling crippled with anxiety and the fear that I’m not good enough to start over again with a new creative endeavour. And yet, it’s often when I reach this point of frustration and defeated self-loathing that I find the inspiration to create once again.

…Which is exactly what happened when I found myself staring at the road.

People often tell me that the path or road that I choose to travel ultimately defines who I am. The proverb usually comes as a result of a conversation in which I try to define what it feels like to constantly be treading the fine line between being fulfilled, and feeling inadequate in one’s accomplishments. So while I know that my friends and family aren’t referring to a roadway in a literal sense (I’m not going to become a new man by taking a different route to the grocery store), the comment leaves me frustrated and often creates a point of contention between us.

Road

But as I recently sat inside a café and stared down at the roadway outside, an idea settled into the back of my mind and made me realize that maybe there is more adage than I had previously realized. The thought went like this:

At some point, every single road within the country is connected. You can choose the wrong route and find yourself lost, or at a dead-end. But with the right direction, you could end up anywhere you wanted.

In a purely physical sense, if I was to walk out onto the roadway right now and stand on the two unbroken yellow or white lines that mark the centre, I could theoretically begin a journey that took me to just about any location within the country. In a psychological sense, if I were to close my eyes and envision those same two lines as my starting point, I could embark upon a journey within myself that is limited only by my own imagination and the routes that I decide to take.

It sounds like the plot for terrible children’s movie doesn’t it? The man whose imagination allows him to follow the roads he creates within his head; all his dreams are connected and within reach. He can be anything or anyone he wants to be… If he follows the correct route.

And yet this is essentially how we all live our lives. Inside of our heads we are constantly exploring the roads of life, making decisions that have the potential to alter our psychological location just as much as our physical one. As children we walk alongside our parents and guardians, holding their hands as we take our first delicate steps and begin to map the contours and gradients of our own life maps. With their help we learn the rules of the roads of life, and understand that poor decisions can lead you down alleys and laneways of frustration, angst, heartbreak or regret.

Then as we grow older and our carers release us from their grasp, we begin to forge our own paths. We follow highways of conventional thinking, and explore side streets and back alleys that are traversed only by minds inspired to do so. We become lost, and are forced to trace our steps backwards until we become found again. And we find others to explore the land with, forming relationships that allow us to experience love and companionship.

But we can’t wander forever. There are moments when we need to stop and assess where we are on our maps, or to appreciate the beauty of the roads that we are choosing to walk upon; or maybe even to admit that we are a little lost. There is no harm in standing still. There is no problem with arriving at a fork, or a T-intersection and taking the time to understand where each decision will lead us. When I feel as though I am spinning my wheels, or I begin to over examine my talents and desires, I shouldn’t beat myself up. This is just my mind’s way of saying that it needs a moment to refocus, and see where I am verses where I want to be.

So while I may have had a couple of slow weeks creatively, my mind has consulted the map of where I am and where I want to be, and I’m ready to start following those unbroken yellow or white lines inside my head once again. I might take some detours, or end up off course, but eventually I’ll reconnect with the writer that I want to be and we’ll start creating a new story together. Until then, I’ll appreciate that no matter where I am physically or emotionally, the road beneath my feet has the ability to connect me to wherever it is that I choose to go.

Philocaly

Chris Nicholas

34 comments

June 8, 2016

You once told me that every single man, woman, and child lives in their own unique version of reality. You said that the way in which we interpret the world around us creates a realism that is uniquely ours. It cannot be replicated, nor shared. These idiosyncrasies of the heart and mind shape our thoughts and feelings, defining who we are. I cannot see the world through the eyes of another. I can never witness the beauty of an unfurling rose, or observe the elegance of a constellation of stars as they do. I cannot feel what they feel, love what they love, or loathe the things that they have learned to despise.

Nor would I ever want to.

For in my reality you are beautiful, and you are perfect. In my reality I could never imagine loving anyone like I love you. I have tried so many times to immortalize you in my words, spending hours trying to capture your beauty through prose. I have laboriously crafted allegories and odes written just for you, but nothing I do ever seems good enough. How could I ever do you justice? How could the words of a man ever encapsulate your magnificence and splendor? Every time I try to write for you I conjure images of unrestrained inhibitions and lust. But my love for you runs so much deeper than flesh.

My love for you is a love of beauty; the affliction of philocaly.

I place my hand upon your cheek and feel myself becoming lost in your eyes. You are the universe; the constellation of stars that guide my heart. I am the intrepid traveler enamoured with the endlessness of your grace. No man could ever love you as much as I do. I have pined for you for so long, and yet my hunger for you has not wearied with time. With each passing embrace my hands have grown more adept at holding you, and our souls have become intertwined.

Your body has always been a curvaceous landscape that I have longed to explore. I crave your sensuality now more than I ever have before. But where my hands once trembled with excitement as I fumbled and fondled, I have learned how to kiss and tease, until exhilaration causes your skin to prickle and turn to goose bumps. I have learned how to place my hands upon your hips, and to interlock my fingers with yours as I hold them above your head. I have studied the faintness with which your breath catches in your throat as euphoria floods through you in waves.

I want to hold you, and make love to you. I want to feel your breath against my skin as you press your lips against my neck and whisper my name. I want to uncover your innermost thoughts, and take away all of your pains. I long to feel my fingertips trace faint lines against your hips. Let me confide in you; let me jettison all of my insecurity and fear into the cosmos until there is nothing left but you and I. Let me feel your heart beat as you writhe beneath my sheets. I want to fulfil your desires and become your reason to breathe.

In my reality you are beautiful, and you are perfect. I am a man awestruck my philocaly. You are the woman that I desire: the one who I have chosen to give my heart, and my body to for all of eternity. Do with them as you please.

The Construct of Time

Chris Nicholas

79 comments

May 22, 2016

Time is just an agreed upon construct. We have taken distance (one rotation of the earth, and one orbit of the sun) divided it up into segments, then given those segments labels.

-Author Unknown

Before man decided to differentiate between the periods when the sun had risen, and when the moon had taken its place, there was no such thing as time. Before days, hours, and minutes ever existed there were merely rotations of the earth that brought about phases of light, and periods of darkness. But our quest for intellectual enlightenment, coupled with human curiosity urged mankind to quantify and label the earth’s rotations.

Early Egyptians divided the day into two twelve hour periods, erecting huge obelisks that rose into the sky, allowing them to use shadows to track the sun’s movements. The Greeks and Persians used water clocks called clepsydra. And Plato even went as far as to develop one of the first alarm clocks utilising water, lead balls, and a columnar vat. This creation of the clock bought with it acceptance of time and structure. The periods of light and darkness were broken down into days, hours, minutes, and seconds.

Nowadays we have wrist watches, stereos, smartphones, and numerous other devices that act as clocks. We live according to the sexagesimal numerical system established by ancient Sumerians; measuring our lives down to the nearest second, believing that time is one of the most precious commodities that one can amass.

I for one, constantly tell myself that I need more time. I convince myself that if I could just find extra hours in the day I could write more, or make a better effort to see my friends and family, or be healthier. On the surface these grievances with my insufficiency of time seem justified. I’m a busy man. I work, I run a website, I write novels, and attend university. On top of that I have to maintain my health and fitness, spend time with my partner, and so on.

But those grievances are nothing more than excuses. Time is a creation of man. It isn’t, nor was it ever intended to be our ruler.

I recently attended a seminar where the lecturer stated that within every adult is a child, and in the heart of that child lays an unanswered question, or questions. They are the compulsions that drive us, the insecurities that cause us to lose sleep at night, and the reason we hide behind excuses like time. These questions claw at our subconscious during moments of high tension and cause the fragility of our ego to rear its ugly head. We ask ourselves about our own importance, or question our safety, or query the significance of our very existence.

steampunk-eye1

But because our minds are not programed to interpret and quantify such harrowing questions, their manifestation is interpreted by our brains as fear. We fear failure, embarrassment, uncertainty, success, and a million other things. But our ego prevents us from acknowledging that we are insecure, vulnerable, and afraid. While we wish that we could tell ourselves and others that we are struggling, we refuse to accept our own weaknesses. We blame our failure to launch, or our refusal to extend ourselves beyond our reach on bullshit excuses like time.

When you cast some objectivity on our willingness to limit our own potentials and refusal to acknowledge the unanswered questions of our innermost self, it seems ludicrous that we so often choose to hide behind a construct that started with obelisks and clepsydras. And yet, people do it every day. I do it every day. I tell myself that I am too busy to relax with my partner, or to see friends, or that I don’t have enough time to stop and enjoy life.

At times this foolish notion that I can’t squeeze anything more into my days leaves me frustrated and ashamed. I look at the lives of others who are spending their time with family, or writers that don’t need to work as hard as I do to survive and it makes me bitter. I have been known to cuss out strangers before, believing that their lives are easier than mine, because they have more time than I do. But the truth is that they don’t. It is illogical to think that these strangers have somehow found a way to defy science and create more hours in their day than I have in mine.

The reason that I look at these people who have seemingly made it in comparison to me with such loathing, is that despite all of my successes as a writer and a man, I’m still petrified of failure. I have devoted years to writing manuscripts and blogs, and at times it has felt as though I am on the verge of creating a career through literature. Yet I’ve never quite managed to become the massive success that every artist dreams of becoming.

My unanswered question forces me to continuously ask if I am good enough, and how it would feel to fail. When panic and self-doubt starts clawing at my subconscious and undermining my confidence, I play the time card. I tell myself that I am too busy to fully embrace my dreams and become the man I have always dreamed of becoming.

The truth is that at age 27, time is still my friend. I have already come a long way from the emotionally fragile man that created this weblog four years ago. When I started blogging I had a list of unanswered questions and insecurities a mile long, but through writing I have managed to discover the answers to many of them. I’m no longer afraid of accepting my vulnerabilities, nor am I afraid of exposing heart and mind to the world. There are posts on this website that I wrote with a smile on my face, and there are many that I wrote with tears running down my cheeks.

Nowadays my list of unanswered questions has been whittled down to the two entries mentioned above. I ask myself am I good enough to be positioned alongside the literary elite? And am I willing to strive so hard for my dreams that I am prepared to risk spectacular failure? When these questions cause me to doubt myself I still tend to shield myself from heartache by saying that my busy schedule and lack of time is holding me back.

But using time as a means to avoid your unanswered questions will ultimately leave you feeling unfulfilled. The construct born through the creation of obelisks and clepsydras should never stop anyone from achieving their dreams. For me personally, when I hear myself use this act of deference to protect myself I need to be conscious of what is really causing me pain. Am I really complaining about a lack of hours in the day? Or do I need to dig a little deeper and confront the fear of failure that is really holding me back?

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