Tag: blog writing

Monsters

‘We stopped checking for monsters under our beds when we realised they were inside us.’
-Sam Steven

Confession time: I’ve been on a bit of a downward spiral as of late. Ever since my last post I’ve been struggling to find the urge to even turn my laptop on each day, let alone write something worth reading. In fact I could probably count the amount of times I’ve actually written anything on one hand, and the most I ever managed to produce in one sitting was about two hundred and fifty words. That, my dear reader, is hardly the way to go about finishing one of the multitudes of manuscripts currently sitting half-finished on my hard drive.

So why this complete lack of willpower to create? Why after coming so far with my craft of the past year and a half have I suddenly taken such a momentous step backward leaving me hopelessly floundering through a period of self-loathing? The truth is that it could be any number of things; or more likely it’s a combination of a few influences that has me suddenly apathetic about pretty much everything once again. There’s the medical scare that my partner underwent recently, plus the whole Christmas/end of year wind down that sees just about everybody making excuses for their laziness. Then there’s work matters, family issues, financial deadlines, and just about anything else you can think of that is currently plaguing my mind and literally killing off my desire to write.

These issues are my monsters. They are the things that once lived under the bed and occupied but a fraction of my time as I quickly checked that they were being held at bay before I resumed my everyday life. But somehow, somewhere, the monsters managed to crawl from underneath their shadowy caves and find themselves a home anew inside of my heart and mind. At some point I stopped needing to check for the monsters underneath my bed because they were already inside my head, and they were already fucking shit up.

One of the greatest issues that I have with being a writer is the sole crushing thoughts that usually accompany an overactive mind. I can deal with the loneliness. I can deal with the ridicule of manuscripts shunned, or even the distain of the fucking mouth breathers of the world that assume you are weird or different because you have the intellectual capacity to articulate yourself. But sometimes I really struggle with the monsters of my own mind that constantly over analyse everything. Sometimes I just wish I could step back and take something at face value rather than analysing it until I am certain that understand every minute detail of it. Sometimes I just wish I didn’t feel the need to question everything.

-But this isn’t a negative post. No. This is in fact a therapeutic addition to my ever burgeoning catalogue of thoughts. For you see, one of my greatest joys as a writer is that I do question everything. I love that I’m not willing to accept the world at face value, or that I wish to see more than one horizon in my future. All I am saying is that when times get tough and those monsters that once inspired you to create decide to turn on you instead… Well, you’re kind of fucked.

Right now I’m in that place. That frame of mind where I need to distance myself from my writing and I need to seek out the monsters of my mind and drag them back into the shadows underneath my bed where they belong. It sounds easy enough on paper; and the truth is that it is. The truth is that right now there are people all around the world facing situations that make anything I have ever dealt with feel like a fucking farce. And they are doing so with more gusto and determination that I am. These people are taking to their own monsters with blades held at the ready while I’m wallowing around in self-pity as mine eat my mind from within. I know that I can overcome them. We all can. But we actually have to want to. And up until this post I just haven’t even cared to try.

So, without further ado, here’s to the ensuing battle to come. Here’s to kicking the monsters of my mind in the teeth and dragging them back to the dusty shitholes where they belong. Here’s to me standing up and taking control of my passions once more. And more importantly, here’s to you my humble reader, for finding the courage to do the same.

Bench Players & Flowerbeds

As an aspiring author there are times when it feels as though you’re sitting on a bench in a school yard with your peers watching as the cool kids stand in front of everyone and pick teams for a game of hoops. You sit patiently with your hands in your lap, knowing that you’re all but a sure thing for an early pick. Everyone knows that you can play with the best of them. Sure there are people on the bench who can steal or block better than you, some can even hit a three pointer over a defender better than you can. But you’re consistent; you work hard, and are a solid all round performer who on any given day can showcase a stellar effort of skill, and most importantly, determination.

The cool kids start picking teams, you’re not their first choice but that’s alright. You don’t mind if someone else nabs the coveted number one pick, as long as you are eventually recognised for your talents. But the picks keep coming and the decent players all take sides and you suddenly find yourself seated on the bench with a bunch of ballers that aren’t fit to step on the same court as you. Ok you think. Here it comes, there’s no way that I won’t be chosen next. All that hard work you’ve put in honing your skills are about to be rewarded. The next pick comes, but it’s not you. It’s one of the fucking desperados sitting beside you; a guy that you know you can run rings around on a bad day. The move blindsides you. What the fuck just happened? What could possibly compel someone to bypass you when you are clearly the most deserving? Then the picks keep rolling and suddenly you’re sitting alone staring up at a team you really deserved to be a part of wondering what the hell went wrong.

Writing is often a harrowingly lonely process that is seldom filled with the kind of human interaction that our species so feverishly craves. As an aspiring author you spend hours honing your crafts, pouring through novels or text books, devouring poems, films, music and manuscripts as though watching the playoff performances of your opponents. You admire and you aspire, but at the same time a yearning to better them at their own game fuels a hunger inside of you that sees pens scrawl in frantic cursive across notebook pages or fingers tap relentlessly against keys. You learn everything there is to learn, you find faults in your craft through your constant examination, and work harder at perfecting what you do until you know that if you were given the shot, given the opportunity to enter your own playoff game, you’d blitz the competition and leave behind a legacy that will outlive you.

But still you find yourself stuck on that fucking bench. It seems like no matter what those cool kids calling the shots just won’t put you in the starting line-up. You’re the best damn writer there is and some fucking shmuck in a suit whose job it is to make or break an artist won’t take a gamble on you because there’s something different about you. There’s an unfamiliar element to your game that he fears to throw his support behind no matter how much his gut tells him that you’ll succeed. Your writing is different, brutal, unpolished, offensive, or not marketable. That’s not to say that it’s not good, but it just doesn’t fit inside the preconceived idea of what he is after. So instead of choosing you for his team and giving you the opportunity to run those assists or hit those deep three pointers, he chooses a safer option with less talent. Publishers and the cool kids are often terrified of the unpredictable or the truly unique, so they ridicule or overlook, passing up the opportunity to inspire greatness.

In this dilemma of the aspiring writer/baller lies a rather pressing question. Do I sell out and play it safe? Do I create a manuscript or a set play that lacks all real creativity and is devoid of any of the intricacies that make me who I am in order to be pulled off of the bench and into the starting line up? Or do I continue to be myself. Do I make the plays or the manuscripts that the team and the publishing industry don’t necessarily want, but that they truly need and deserve?

During my lifespan as an aspiring writer I have met many others just like me vying for the same ultimate dream of seeing their work in print. And in my time I’ve noticed that some of the greatest writers that I have met have been the ones most ridiculed or ignored by their peers. Oftentimes these men and women create pieces that are so beautifully unique that many fail to comprehend just how incredible they actually are, and although the author truly deserves to find recognition for what they have created they ultimately fail where others with lesser talent but larger lungs succeed.

I used to get upset when this happened. I’d kick and scream and tear my fucking hair out that someone so undeserving could be given an opportunity when another so talented could be left begging. But lately I’ve been thinking of the publishing industry in a different light. Maybe it’s not like a game of hoops at all. Maybe instead this whole crazy industry is more like a flowerbed. The cool kids are actually gardeners and the reason that they are picking other author’s over me (or anyone else truly deserving of success) is that they need to line the bed with a nice thick layer of shit before anything of substance has a chance to grow.

Behaviorism

mind
So it turns out that this blog, like many others just like it may actually be hindering rather than helping me on my crusade to become a published author. I started this blog a long time ago to overcome a few negative influences on my life and through outlining my problems I managed to triumph over the depression that was clinging to my heart and mind and become the man that I am today. Yet over time the purpose behind my posts moved away from overcoming the past and I set my sights towards the future.

I started to blog about my desire to become a published author and outlined the hurdles that stood in the way of my success. And when I did I felt great. With each successive view of my works by my followers or passer-by’s that stumbled across my site I felt a growing sense of success welling within me. I felt great when someone took the time out of their life to view my work and in that sense of elation lurked a hidden danger that could very nearly have derailed my journey to success.

I’m a TED fan. I enjoy watching videos of some of the world’s greatest minds as they stand before a congregation of their peers and share their research, their theories and themselves. Often times the talks I watch bare no direct correlation to my own life; I don’t have the capacity to see beyond the limitations of my own world, but I do enjoy watching others broaden my horizons ever so slightly. Yet every now and then a talk’s message will resonate deep within me and have me re-examining my writing, my actions, and my world.

Today I watched a talk by one of my favourite presenters: Derek Sivers. During the incredibly brief talk Sivers completely debunked conventional wisdom that sees us sharing our goals and ambitions with others – Just as I do on the pages of this blog. Sivers through the studies of social psychology’s founder Kurt Lewin (and subsequent theorists since) posited that through having another acknowledge your goals it created a social reality that tricked the mind into feeling as though the hard work required to achieve said goal was already done. But what the fuck does that even mean?

It means that when we experience the affirmation of our peers just for stating our goals we are less likely to actually follow through and actually achieve.

Take me for example. Every time I post a new entry I receive an influx of viewers to my site. They all read my works, and some choose to like a post or even send me a private message to tell me as much. When this happens it feels great. I feel as though I am succeeding and that my dreams of becoming a published author are within reach. But then after that sense of elation and success comes a dangerous slump; I get lazy. I become convinced that I’m getting closer to my dreams and can almost taste the success and further affirmation of my peers. I’ll receive a bunch of emails as testament of my small following growing in numbers and I’ll tell myself that rather than waking at the crack of dawn the following morning to write, I deserve to sleep in and give it a miss for a day or two.

But do I really deserve to take a break? Have I really achieved anything? Or is the mere affirmation of my goals by my peers creating a damaging behaviorism that if left unchecked will become the downfall of all my hard work? And if so, then how do I overcome it? Well, like any affliction the first step to overcoming is accepting. By accepting that I am allowing myself to fall into such a destructive thought pattern I can effectively neutralise the effects by making a conscious decision not to allow myself to feel accomplished through affirmation. That’s not to say that from now on I’m going to be a joyless prick, but rather I’m going to be acutely aware of the effects that positive reinforcement has on my craft.

Complacency has no place on the path to success. So with that being said I’ll be making sure that I set my alarm for tomorrow morning and wake up extra early to start pouring my mind out onto pages once again.

Singularity

Universe
Sometimes in life no matter how pure our intentions, or how significant our compulsions, we still manage to lose track of who we really are and what we are trying to achieve. Sometimes we become so concerned with what we are doing that we fail to recognise or pay homage to why the fuck we are even doing it in the first place. It’s a phenomenon as old as man himself. We take ourselves and our talents for granted, and often something we love, or something we aspire to, becomes a monotonous or menial aspect of our lives that we derive little enjoyment from. Continue reading “Singularity”

Wanderlust

gothere
Ever since I stumbled upon New York Hardcore outfit Every Time I Die’s 2009 album The New Junk Aesthetic I’ve been in love with the word Wanderlust. As a writer it’s not uncommon to fall in love with a word, phrase, or quote; my iPhone, laptop and notebooks are full of various screenshots and scribbles of words that inspire me to create. Yet few have ever managed to illicit the kind of reaction that the title of track four on the aforementioned album does. Wanderlust: Just the way it rolls off of your tongue ignites this writer’s desire to create. But what does it mean? Well, to summarise about a million different dictionaries and websites, a state of wanderlust is:

A strong desire for or impulse to wander or travel and explore the world.

Even its meaning gives me goose-bumps, and yet seems so inherently simple to grasp. A strong desire to explore the world: wanderlust is that impulse we feel to travel. It’s that compulsion that tells us to save up our pennies and jump on a plane, train or bus and venture to areas a new so that we may increase our awareness of the world around us. That impulse; that urge to travel is what has led me to be sitting on a deck chair in Thailand as I pen this very entry. My own desire to explore has seen me travel across boarders from my humble home in Brisbane, Australia to a world vastly different from where I live.

It seems so straight forward, doesn’t it? If one experiences a sense of wanderlust then they feel an urge to travel and explore the physical realms of this world. We commonly refer to this sensation as the travel bug, but what if there is more to it than that? What if this form of the sensation is merely skin deep? What if there are two levels of wanderlust that we can feel? Surely if this were to be the case than what I have just described could only be defined as feeling the emotion on a macrocosm level. My desires to travel to Thailand are universal; everyone at some point in their life is exposed to that unrelenting urge to travel, or to start afresh in a new or foreign place. It’s this feeling that inspires us to broaden our horizons. But there is so much more to our world than just the physical and the tangible.

Part of my journey overseas was to satisfy this feeling of wanderlust and itchy feet that has been growing inside of me since my last international journey. But for the larger part my journey has been sparked by a yearning to overcome the angst within the microcosm that is my heart and my mind. Confusing right? Well, let me simplify it for you: I’ve travelled overseas not so I can explore the world, but rather so that I can explore my own mind. I’ve taken a journey through the macrocosm of our globe so that I can better understand the microcosm that is me.

For as long as I can remember my heart and mind has been a volatile mixture of pure love and unrelenting hate for everyone and everything around me. If you’ve ever had the (dis)pleasure of meeting me, you will be acutely aware that I am quite a placid person. There is very little that seems to faze me on the macrocosm level. I try each and every single day to only expose my positivity to the world; yet internally there are fires raging that if ever unleashed would turn so much of what I love to ashes. My microcosm is a fucking nightmarish world of pent up creativity and frustration at a world that refuses to take my craft as seriously as I do. Most days my aspirations of becoming a published author are stifled by the mundane tasks of a man failing to live up to his dreams. I live in this bizarre world where I project a positivity onto others that I fail to project internally to myself. Shit, if you asked me to paint the insides of my mind you’d end up with a fucking dystopian image reminiscent of Botticelli’s Map of Hell. And the worst part of my mindset is that as of late it’s getting progressively worse.

For a few reasons outside of my control I’ve spent the past couple of weeks living in a state of high stress and constant anger, and if it weren’t for my current holiday I’d probably have fallen apart by now. The wanderlust that had been growing inside of me, urging me to travel, to explore, to understand is the very thing that has kept me from exploding into a tirade of uncensored rage. My journey into the world so that I can better understand myself could not have come at a better time. It allows be to take a step back from the life that sees me constantly putting my dreams second to someone else’s and reassess where I am in my life and where I truly want to be. Wanderlust is that feeling, that urge to travel and explore the world. But that doesn’t necessarily restrict us to the physical world. It also urges us to explore ourselves, to understand the catalysts and compulsions that drive us towards our inevitable success or eventual failure every single day.

With that being said, the next two weeks of my life are going to be extremely engaging. As I venture through a land foreign to my own I will also strive to do so from an internal perspective. I’m not trying to be the next Buddha, I’m not going to sit underneath a Bodhi tree and wait for a moment of divine clarity or an epiphany that suddenly sees me racing down a path to success or enlightenment. I’m just trying to better understand myself so that one day my dreams do ultimately become my realities.

Suffering

To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.

Today’s post begins a little differently than most. Today we open with a rather simple, yet incredibly profound quote from Buddha. But before you misconstrue this latest post as a misguided religious rant oozing with theology and profundity, let me remind you that I’m far from an angel and probably not the right person to be lecturing anyone on their belief systems (that’s a topic we might hold off on for another time). Instead today’s post opens with a quote by one of the holiest men to ever walk the earth because of one reason: I wanted to back up what I plan on saying today with the credibility of others, and the guy summed up what I’m about to say perfectly – and there are few people more credible than Siddharta Gautama.

We have all heard the adage Healthy body: Healthy mind. It’s a rather simple concept that to this writer seems to draw a startling resemblance to Laozi’s infamous Ying-Yang theory. That is to say that just as there is a little evil in every good, there is also a little cerebral function in every physical action and a little physicality in every thought process and synapse that bursts into our consciousness. But how many of us actively practice this incredibly simple ideal? How many of us actively move our bodies on a daily basis as a means of not only achieving aesthetic goals but also to improve cognitive function? Having faced off against depression on a bloody battlefield laced with trenches and shell casings once or twice before, I understand the importance that leading a physical existence has on my mental state, and continuously make a conscious effort to move my body in any way possible.

I grew up near the ocean and spent much of my youth swimming and surfing as a means of exercise. The water was an escape from the trials and tribulations of everyday life and an extraordinary physical outlet that quelled the darker impulses that lay dormant within my heart and mind. I was moving my body almost every single day and in that time could write with ease. However when I relocated interstate in a quest to chase my writing dreams I suddenly found myself landlocked and robbed of my physical mechanisms for coping with stress. It was around this time that I started to fall into a world of depression and anxiety and after a seemingly never ending hailstorm of shit I almost gave away writing forever. (For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of reading about some of my lower moments skip over to My first foray into the world of weblogs) So I changed tact, and instead of diving into the water to clear my mind I began frequenting gymnasiums and at one stage even took to running through a few local bush walking tracks until I found myself doubled over, out of breath and on the verge of spewing having pushed my body so far.

Thankfully as I began to return to a life of consistent exercise my flair for writing and my unique and rather obscure sense of imagination and creativity returned. Ever since then I have always been a firm believer in the fact that if I want that healthy mind I so vividly desire I really do need to have a healthy body, and by continuously exercising I have managed to continue to create. But as is so often the case in life, I took my creativity and my health for granted and until just recently I was beginning to think that I was indestructible. Then a few weeks ago I managed to damage the facet joints that connects my cervical spine to my skull and suddenly my whole world of physical activity and subsequent cognitive stimulation came grounding to a halt. I went from writing every day and being quite active to someone who suffered a migraine if I tried to bend down to pull on my pants in the space of a day and my imagination seemed to cease up just as quickly as my body did.

We often say that we suffer for our art, and after seeking the help of a physiotherapist I learned that that was exactly what I was doing. All my long hours slaving away over a computer with poor posture had literally left me incapable of repeating the action without the onset of a migraine, and nigh on the point of being incapacitated altogether. So began three weeks of headaches, continuous stretching, trips to the masseuse and physio, and a few fucking pathetic attempts at writing before the injury finally managed to subside. Thankfully I can now resume where I left off prior to my brief stint of injury; although nowadays I’m really focusing on my posture and am trying to avoid slouching over my computer screen.

So why am I telling you this? Why should you actually give a shit? Well… You probably shouldn’t. But nevertheless there is a lesson to be learned from my little tale of agony and inactivity. The mind is a powerful tool whose capabilities are virtually endless, yet the body itself is an integral component of the machine that is man. If I want to write, and write well, then I have to continuously stimulate the mind, and a large part of that stimulation comes from physical activity. I’m now exercising again and feel as though my creative flair has come flooding back; so much so that I’m considering attempting NaNoWriMo as a way to really test myself as a writer once again. I’ve only got a few more days to make a decision as to whether I will attempt the momentous feat and if I do I’ll probably spend the vast majority of next month at my laptop tearing at my hair as I try valiantly to produce fifty thousand words over thirty days. But hopefully with a little physical activity to keep me sane and keep my mind firing I can survive to ordeal and maybe even have a little fun at the same time.

Appeasing the Ignorant

Have you ever watched that scene in Joss Whedon’s theatrical adaptation of Marvel’s The Avengers when Bruce Banner reveals that the secret to controlling his rage is that he is always angry? I like the idea of concealing a deep rooted issue in plain sight, and in many ways my own anger and frustration operate in a fashion similar to Banner, aka the Hulk. For all of my talk of positivity and being the best damn person you can be, there will always be an angry arsehole living just below the surface of my friendly veneer. I’ve talked about it before in this very blog; I write better when a part of me is seething with rage, so I live in this strange limbo where I try to project positivity into the world whilst secretly stoking my own fires of angst and aggression.

But a couple of days ago someone else was stupid enough to stoke those fires for me, and now all that positivity and happiness has turned to ashes as my aggression rips across my soul like a fire through a dusty field. You see, at the risk of sounding arrogant I feel like I need to let all of you know that I’m actually a highly intelligent, aggressive, and incredibly unique individual; and much of my life is spent dumbing down my personality so that all the fucking knuckle draggers in this world don’t feel threatened or uneasy by my presence.

It’s actually surprisingly easy to dumb down one’s own intelligence and pretend that those around you are more intellectual than their I.Q actually suggests. Most of my days are spent appeasing the ignorant and manipulating those around me into believing that I actually give a shit about the nonsensical garbage that forms the cornerstones of their day to day lives. And for the most part people are happy to live in this fantasy world where they can wallow in their own inflated sense of importance. But every now and then my little social experiments go awoll and some fucking halfwit actually thinks that he is better than me, or smarter than me, or he catches a glimpse of what I am truly capable of and suddenly his bullshit world of self-worth is threatened by a man he once considered to be his lessor.

My recent instance of such a situation has left me scratching my head at where things went wrong after someone dared to question my integrity. I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, some of which haven’t been too nice, but until now I’ve never had anyone question my reliability and deem anything that I have done as unsatisfactory. I’m not just any run of the mill fuckwit; if I commit to a task I give it one hundred and ten per cent, and you can be damn sure that I will succeed in whatever I do. Which is why I find myself somewhat blown away that some fucking simpleton actually believes that he has the right to question or judge anything that I do.

Right now as I write this one half of me wants to remain in my passive Bruce Banner mode and continue down the honourable path of remaining the better man in this situation. The other half of me however would love to figuratively turn into a raging green beast and tear down the world of the ignorant misguided dick who actually thinks that he can compete with me on any platform. I know that the reason behind my aggressor’s recent dig is nothing more than simple jealousy; when a man as weak as he is threatened he often resorts to petty torments as a means of justifying his own worthless existence. So rather than let another’s petty bullshit bring me down I’m making a conscious effort to be the bigger man here. I’m making a conscious effort to walk away.

Sun Tzu said that ‘in ancient times skillful warriors first made themselves invincible, and then watched for vulnerability in their opponents.’ So that’s what I’ll do. I’ll make myself invincible, and when I have, and when I’ve achieved everything that I deserve, I’ll run the little piss ant into the ground and turn his entire world to ashes.

Sheep

Haruki Murakami once wrote that ‘If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.’ Powerful huh? And it’s actually scary just how profound and factual this simple sentence is. If we were to live our entire lives consuming nothing but the literature, music, and films that everyone around us is, then how can we realistically expect to be original and creative in our own existence? Yet nowadays in society we have created this whole creative bubble for ourselves in which we consume merely a small portion of the wonderful and ingenious innovations that our poets, writers, musicians, and artists bestow upon us.

But why? Why do we do this? In a world where we are forever pleading the importance of individualism and the power of self, why do so many of us blindly fail to actually allow ourselves the opportunity to cut through the film of that creative bubble and experience the true meaning of individualism and creativity? It’s because we are fucking ignorant arseholes who seem quite content with turning ourselves into sheep. That sounds harsh doesn’t it? But think about it for a moment. Out of the last ten novels that you read, how many of them were in the best sellers lists or came from the staff recommendations section at your local bookstore. Of the last ten films you watched, how many were as a result of what you were told was great. And music… Well let’s not even get started about the fucking travesties filling the sound waves of commercial radio.

The point is to be different. My posts are usually long winded affairs in which I try to slowly build towards something of meaning, but today I feel as though short and sweet is really going to drive home the importance of what I’m trying to say here. If you want to write, or if you want to create you need to be different; and you’re not going to be different if you are thinking the same way as those around you. Different doesn’t mean weird. I’m not saying that you should start dressing in strange clothes and sacrificing livestock to the gods in order to find a new creative path. I’m merely suggesting that you step outside of your creative bubble and consume something totally left field. You might hate it (and on your first attempt you probably will) but give it some time. Allow new thought patterns to ferment inside of your mind and allow yourself to open up to the ideas of being truly unique and not just another misguided sheep who thinks that his coat of wool is somehow profoundly different than the next.

There’s an old cliché that says ‘today is the first day of the rest of your life’ and it really is. Today is the day when you stop pretending and truly embrace creativity and individualism. Put down your popular literature or turn off that fucking cacophony of shit on the radio and consume something new. So often we bitch and moan about a world who has lost its way yet we so blindly consume the second rate trash that we are told is great. Let today be different. Let today be the day that you shed that coat of consumerism wool and become more human than sheep.

Constellations – The de-motivational blog post of the year

photo (1)

The picture placed in the header of this update serves as a very visual reminder of a dream conjured long ago by yours truly; a dream that I still one day hope to achieve. See when I first started writing, long before I begun to believe myself capable of seeing my work in print I ran through a rather impromptu goal setting session with myself surrounding my new found craft. During that session I asked myself how I would gauge my success as an author, and in my humbleness I came up with a few rather simple and very achievable measures of success. The first measure was modest. I would consider myself a successful author when I could sit in my own office, a space devoted entirely to my own creative processes and construct my tales of ruin and woe. I told myself that the walls of my office would be adorned with the workings of those who inspired me, and that perched on my desk would be a crisp white notepad, a lavish ballpoint pen, a laptop, and a lamp in the shape of the world.

My second measure of success would come when I could journey to the far corners of the earth, and find a spot just like the picture above where I could sit, surrounded by nothing but the vast emptiness of the wilderness and create and consume literature. My first incarnation of this dream saw me sitting on a jetty stretching over a lake in Alaska dressed in a hooded jumper, lost in my own thoughts as my pen scribbled frantically across a tattered notebook. But overtime there would be various incarnations of this dream; sometimes I was airlifted onto a windswept summit, sometimes I was in an African jungle surrounded by the very real possibility of death.

I’m sure that if I was to ask a mental health professional about my imaginings they would tell me that there is something very sinister and somewhat unnerving that my dreams almost always had me in total isolation, but fuck, we can’t all be socialites can we? The point is that at the time of writing I’m still yet to achieve either one of these rather simple benchmarks that I set for myself and the only person to blame for that is me.

A few days ago I was afforded the opportunity to attend what was called a future leaders motivational talk run by the company that I work for. It’s a seminar styled workshop that they run sporadically throughout the year for the up and comers like me to explore our minds and challenge our way of thinking and doing in the hopes of achieving personal development. Now although I’m usually captain sceptical when it comes to things like this I actually found the whole experience rather beneficial. Over the course of the day I learned a few techniques for goal setting and how to become a better leader in the workplace and beyond. And when I walked out the door at the end of the day I found myself questioning my whole take on this writing thing that I’m constantly chipping away at.

As I drove away from the seminar and returned to the workplace, and even as I lay in bed that night I began to understand that my whole approach towards becoming successful in this game was flawed. The publishing industry is a highly competitive and cut throat business where only the best manage to rise above the sludge piles of shit and have their works printed on a commercial basis. And from there only the elite manage to find any kind of notoriety for their works. Yet here I was trying to strike it rich by occasionally dipping my toes into the oceans of agents, publishers, and literary houses and wondering why the hell I wasn’t actually getting anywhere. When I started this blog I wrote in post number one that it was time to sink or swim, yet here I was twelve months later doing neither, instead I was merely bobbing along with some fucking floaties strapped to my arms to keep my head from going under.

But why was I doing this? Why was I holding myself back from fully immersing myself in something that I want so desperately? Well, there are two reasons. The first is that I was a little afraid to commit so completely to an ideal. Because I had only ever constructed a rough set of goals for myself with no logical plan of action to get me there, I was too afraid to fully commit to my craft. The possibilities of failure were endless when the goal was about as clear as a bucket full of mud.

Then there’s the second reason. I’ve never fully committed because until this moment I never really believed that I had to. For some fucked up reason I had this misguided sense of self-worth and entitlement that led me to believe that I didn’t have to give it my all; that I didn’t need to bust my arse chasing down agents and publishers, or pushing my wares onto unsuspecting audiences, because shit was just going to fall into place for me. But here’s the kicker: life isn’t like that. Right now I’m not worth shit in the literary community, and unless I get off my arse and start really striving towards my goals (that are now more clearly defined) than I’m never going to be worth more than that. We as a species have reached a rather strange point in our evolutionary progress, a point where the youth no longer believe in the value of hard work, but rather that they are special and deserve everything.

It’s a counterproductive mindset to fall into, and one that has had me spinning my wheels for a while now. We are told each and every day by our families, our friends, and our media outlets that we are deserving of all that life has to offer, and that makes us lazy. Why goal set and bust our arses to achieve what we are already told that we deserve? It’s toxic to our souls to be spoon fed such contrived notions, but we relish it and inevitably fall short of our true potential as a result. Michael Jordan didn’t become the best basket baller of all time by simply being told that he deserved to be. Steve Jobs didn’t revolutionise the technology world because his parents told him he was better than anyone else. No, these men worked themselves to the bone and poured their hearts and souls, their blood, sweat and tears into their respective fields and made themselves the best. And if I ever want to find success as a writer I need to be prepared to do the same.

The title of this post originated not because what I chose to write about was pessimistic or overtly negative, but rather because I want each of you to step away from it and question yourself, question those around you, and question every aspect of your lives and discover if you are where you truly want to be, or if you are falling short because you’re simply not working hard enough to accomplish your goals.

Right now I, like many others, am nothing more than tiny blip amongst the constellations of stars vying for a career as an author. I believed that I was better than the other stars and I got nowhere because I mistakenly assumed that my light was bright enough to capture the attention of audiences and draw them towards me. But the honest to God truth is that if I continue to believe that I deserve everything whilst contributing nothing than I will never achieve. But if I goal set and if I work my arse off and become the best damn author that I can be not only will I see my work put into print, but I’ll also be able to make time to journey to that lake and sit by the water with my hooded jumper, my notepad and pen, and stare up at the sky and know that I’ve achieved everything I ever set out to do.

Oh the irony! (Social media & whingers)

Here it is; the post where I wallow in my own self-importance and hypocrisy and take aim at well… pretty much everybody. See I’ve got a bit of a bee in my bonnet at the moment and it’s all because of a little thing called social media. Now before I start my completely one sided degradation of the entertainment medium, I will acknowledge that a great deal of my followers have come from social media, and that in its own bizarre way social media actually has a place in modern day society. However, there are limits to what social media can offer society, and it’s only so long before mankind takes a good thing and devalues the living shit out of it to the point where it becomes just another soap box for us to preach our own ignorance and self-indulgence from.

There’s a lot of rubbish associated with social media. There always has been and there always will be. From people’s continuous need to post endless torrents of pictures of themselves, or to update their status so that the world knows every miniscule detail of their (mundane) day to day lives, and I can deal with that. I’ve resided to the fact that we live in a very superficial world where people can justify their own existence by gaining the approval of others through likes. But the thing that really frustrates the living shit out of me is people who feel the need to air out all of their problems on a platform where the whole world is privy to their self-pity and babbling bullshit.

The thing is… I don’t care about your problems. If you are fighting with a significant other or an ex-lover, or are just having a bad day, then that’s not my fucking concern. So stop force feeding your miserable updates down my throat every five minutes. It really is that serious. Sometimes my life is so overcome by the incessant whining of others that I feel like my eyes are on the verge of bleeding out, and all it would take for them to do so is one more ludicrous post. Social media is a form of entertainment. We check our Facebook, Twitter, or whatever else as a means of amusement, meaning that when we venture into the world of social media we are searching for light hearted posts and pictures. We want to see our friends (and I use the term loosely here) enjoying themselves so that we in turn can feel good about our own lives. But lately there are more and more moaning whingers taking to social media in an effort to have their opinions heard. And what’s worse is that other serial complainers are actually justifying the existence of these fucking depressing posts by liking them or commenting with even more heinously pathetic shit.

I do realise how hypocritical and ironic this all sounds. I take to this blog every so often in a fit of rage and unleash my frustrations at the world through a tirade of words that leaves the reader feeling like I should probably seek professional help. But I justify my own rants by following the train of thought that what I do on this blog is creative and a form of art. The readers who view my posts actively seek out my page and settle in for a thousand word slice of what’s on my mind at any given point in time. When I post an update I aim to provide posts of substance rather than merely producing useless entries that are only skin deep. More often than not I pour my very heart and soul into what I post and at times I can be left shattered by the lack of response from my reader base (although more often than not the response does surpass my meager expectations).

So why do people do it? Why do they feel the need to take something like social media and turn it into a fucking soapbox where they can hang their dirty laundry for the entire world to see? The answer is never going to be simple. But one of the biggest reasons behind this is mankind’s own insecurities and yearning desire to feel accepted. In days gone by when we felt down we would call a friend or seek them out to talk through our issues. Nowadays we live in a world so vain that we no longer feel satisfied to divulge our hopes, dreams, frustrations, and angst to our closest associates; we need the acceptance of the world as a whole. We need everyone to know just how miserable we are so that they can offer their condolences and justify our desires to be heard. And we have created the ultimate platform to achieve this: a little thing we call social media.

But the truth is that the only people who respond to these trashy posts are people of the same intellectual mindset. Damaged is as damaged does. Life is what you make it and if you choose to whittle it away complaining endlessly on social media in a desperate attempt to be noticed than you’re probably going to end up a sorry state in your later years. Take it from a guy who has been through the whole depression rigmarole; life can be hard at times but all in all it truly is an enjoyable experience. For those out there who feel the need to constantly clog up social media walls with their petty gripes against the world I want you to really stop and think for a moment…. Right now there are children in third world countries who are starving. There are countries at war, where the constant threat of death has the population in a state of perpetual fear. Even closer to home there are men and women sleeping on the streets within a five kilometre radius of your comfortable house because they don’t have the means to support themselves. Your problems: your fights with your partner, your inability to afford that holiday you want sooner, or your overall stance that the world is out to get you, are so insignificant and often so self-centred that if you were to view them from an impartial viewpoint you would probably laugh at your own shallowness.

Life is a gift and social media is just a form of entertainment. So next time you wish to take to your keyboard to bitch and moan about your life I want you to remember this: shut the fuck up, turn off your screen and if you have a problem go and face it head on. I know that sounds ironic for me to say, if it wasn’t for this blog I’d probably still be the emotional wreck that I was twelve months ago. But the truth is that I just don’t care about your depressing posts and updates. Show me light hearted, show me life. And please, for God’s sake stop force feeding me your negativity.