Tag: blogging

The Construct of Time

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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The Liberation of Lambs

‘Liberty for wolves is death to the lambs.’

            -Isiah Berlin

People often speak in similes and metaphors. We find comfort in symbolism and allegories, creating a sense of spatial separation in our minds from that which we desire and those that haunt us. Business men refer to themselves as lions when they wish to appear dominant or king-like; school children degrade one another by calling their peers a chicken, a dog, or a pussy. And a person of low morals can often be labelled as a rat or a snake.

Even free thinkers are not exempt from this kind of hackneyed pigeonholing of their peers; labelling those that they consider to be mindless drones suckling on the bosom of society as lambs or sheep.

It’s no coincidence that we choose animals to explain or understand our behaviours either. After all, we are merely another creature that rose from the primordial depths and evolved into the beings we are today. Though we may try to deny it, we are primitive creatures trying valiantly to adapt to a world that is developing at an ever-increasing rate before our very eyes.

In today’s modern society, with its abundance of threats (both perceived and legitimate), relating how we feel about ourselves, or how we perceive others to animals recognised as being courageous, dastardly, or cowardly, allows our brains to easily establish opinions about who to fear, and who to trust.

This act of association allows us to pursue other ventures such as art, education, business, and romance. While this may can seem like an intelligent concept; free your mind of primitive tasks to focus on modern obsessions, it is in fact fraught with risk. Why you ask? Because that thing you call an imagination; that beautiful part of the brain that allows us to dream, also causes us to fear.

Hmm. Now that there’s a little perspective around what I’m about to say next; it’s time to hit them with the sucker punch. Let me shake out my hands for a second and stretch out my wrists. Here it comes…

You’re not a lion. You’re not a dog, or a rat, a pussy, or a fucking snake. But you are a lamb. And you are surrounded by sheep. Whether you want to admit it or not, you are afraid to be the best version of you that you could possibly be. Why? Because you have been conditioned to see the weakness where there is strength, and convinced that the art of survival lies in finding safety in numbers. The great shepherds of society have created an illusion of fear that keeps you suppressed and afraid to be an individual, rather than one of many.

It’s not difficult to do this either. It’s been happening since the birth of mankind. Society is defined as an aggregate of people who function in an orderly community. What better example is there of societal order than a shepherd controlling a flock? What greater illustration of mental suppression and conditioning than a small few influencing the actions of the many? Moving them through a mundane existence and uniformity before they are finally led to the slaughter.

Controversial? Maybe. Reality? You better believe it. But we’re not quite done yet. 

Here’s the kicker: You are the shepherd of those around you; just as much as they are the shepherds that keep your own thoughts, feelings and actions in check. Our desire to be socially accepted and valued means that we are consistently watching over one another to ensure that we are subduing those that threaten to move incongruously to the flock, whilst simultaneously striving to do so ourselves.

Shepherd

We look at those who are strong and independent as threats: wolves at the door that should be feared. And we look at those beneath us as lambs who long to be led. Lambs and sheep are instinctively fearful creatures who thrive off of social awareness. They are placated when they can see the rest of their flock and are afraid when they are forced to stand alone. When we view one another in such a way, anxiety plucks at our heartstrings and inhibits us from being all that we can be. We condition ourselves to feel discontented if we lose sight of our peers, so we shepherd and we suppress.

Inversely, a wolf is a highly intelligent, fiercely loyal beast with a desire for freedom and faith in its own instincts. They roam in packs, but are comfortable in their ability to hunt alone. These are characteristics that any collective of individuals should aspire to, not quash. And yet our imaginations; the very thing that affords us the opportunity to think, feel and act, convinces us to fear a strength that we fail to acknowledge is within all of us.

Imagine if you will, a society where individuals didn’t feel the need to play shepherd over their peers. Where instead of devoting attention to watching over one another in fear of the successes of friends and strangers, we instead focused on developing and inspiring the characteristics of loyalty, intelligence, and the desire to be free within ourselves. Imagine the emancipation from an anxiety-fuelled societal philosophy as we celebrate the successes and positive attributes of others, rather than focusing on reigning them in so that we can feel a sense of control and security as we watch over our flock.

For some readers this idea is going to sound like a bunch of contrived bullshit. They’ll screw up their nose and say that a society of wolves is dangerous. They’ll argue that we equate the wolf with fear for a reason, and that we are better off as lambs and sheep. But they are wrong. They really, really, are.

I opened this post with the quote liberty for wolves is death to the lambs, and I pray with all my heart that the mindset of lambs does die within our society. It needs to. There are so many brilliantly talented people living out their lives denying themselves of the opportunity to be great because they are fearful of standing out from the flock. We have created a bizarre culture where fitting in is more important than embracing oneself.

And yet, just as sheep and lambs move in flocks, so to do wolves move in packs. The difference between the two is that the latter move according to their own whim, not at the direction of others. They move with a pride and a purpose that the lambs of the world will never understand.

Our minds are faculties of consciousness and thought that enable us to experience the world around us. But the imagination can play tricks on us. It can convince us that we are small when we are powerful beyond all measure. And it can allow us to believe that we wish to be lambs, when we would be so much stronger as a pack of wolves. Intelligence, loyalty, and a desire to be free are traits to be revered, not abhorred.

Athazagoraphobia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clichés & City Lights

 

Sometimes as a writer you can’t help but feel as though your very existence is a clichéd hybrid of all those who have come before you.  You write about feeling like an outcast, both revelling in, and despising the idiosyncrasies that form the microcosm of you. You are volatile, temperamental, a deep thinker, quirky, a workhorse, a masochist, and about a million other things. You yearn to be accepted, yet when those moments of companionship with your fellow man arrive, your anxiety craves independence. You write to fight demons, to understand the world, to question the illogical and voice an opinion that needs to be heard.

You write because you are different. Yet by doing so you prove that you are ultimately the same as almost every great writer throughout history. You’re still a minority, and you deserve to be celebrated as such. But the eccentricities that define you are a collection of all those brilliant authors whose works inspired you to create and compose in the first place.

You’re nodding your head; yet you’re sceptical about where this is heading. I don’t blame you. Those opening two paragraphs are nonsensical bullshit written by an author trying to astound and astonish with his philosophical thoughts and linguistic repertoire. But, as always, there is a point to this. I promise. 

I have a confession to make. Just like literary heavyweights such as Hemmingway, Capote, Wilde, and countless others, I tend to spend a lot of time in bars.  The great Ernest Hemmingway once declared that he drank “to make other people more interesting.” While I haven’t quite reached that level of disinterest in the people around me, the truth is that actually I fit into a lot of the categories outlined above. I’m temperamental, an emotional masochist, and a deep thinker that yearns to be accepted yet thrives off of being alone.

But perhaps one of the most clichéd tendencies that I have developed throughout my life as a writer is a genuine love for the social setting of bars. While I often feel isolated and alone in this world, there is an undeniable allure to dingy dive-bars and poorly lit nightclubs that I can’t deny. The combination of people, music, and liquor, leaves me captivated. It’s not necessarily that I have a desire to drink myself into a stupor either; I could whittle away hours watching strangers hang their hopes and dreams on relationships and interactions forged on a cocktail of inebriation and camaraderie. A bar is such a unique societal backdrop that brings together men and women from various colours, creeds, socio-political, and economic backgrounds, creating a melting pot of humanity and raw human emotion that any writer would find intriguing.

I know that it must shock readers to hear that a writer finds solace in bars and nightclubs, in fact, I can imagine a few readers furrowing their brows right now. How could someone ever be drawn to such a place? Yet if it wasn’t for this love affliction with lady liquor, I never would have found the window.

There’s a window? For a moment you thought this was just about liquor and inebriation didn’t you? You thought that I was going to wrap this up by saying that I have my infatuation with the nightlife under control and that all is well in the world. But alas, there’s more to this story than you thought!

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It’s midnight. I’m in a bar with my family and closest friends. I excuse myself and walk towards the bathroom, cutting down a narrow passage beside the counter, moving past the kitchen where chefs cuss at one another over open grills as flames lick towards the ceiling. The passage continues, until I reach a single door with a sign signalling a unisex bathroom pinned haphazardly against it. I push open the door and step into a cubicle roughly the size of an airplane bathroom. There’s a toilet, a hand basin, and the tell tale smell of a public restroom. The hygiene is questionable at best; grime clings to every surface like a thin layer of film. But despite the cubicle’s terrible state, there’s also a window.

It’s roughly the size of a shoebox, and looks as though it were never meant to be more than a small section of wall removed at eyelevel to provide a source of ventilation within the cramped space. But through that window is the most beautiful view of the city that I have ever seen. The moon sits above a sprawling metropolis of lights, illuminating the city in an ambient glow. Buildings rise from the earth and form streets and suburbs, providing shelter for the millions that live within their walls. I’m supposed to be quick. There’s a line of people waiting for me to finish, but I am so captivated by the thought that there are people I have never met moving through their own existence somewhere in that sea of lights that I can’t move. Here I am standing in a dingy public restroom staring out at the cityscape feeling a sense of hope coursing through my veins.

I am incredibly hard on myself. In addition to afflictions with night clubs, being temperamental, and longing for camaraderie whilst simultaneously yearning to be an individual, I have a proclivity to push myself until breaking point on a regular basis. I want to be a great writer. I want to create a body of work that transcends time and genres, becoming part of literary history.

But sometimes my quest to constantly redefine and improve my craft can leave me blinded, bitter, and miserable. I can become so focused on achieving my dreams that I forget that there is an entire world of wonder and possibility around me. I need to constantly remind myself to stop focusing on my failure to be successful right now, and instead turn my attention to everything that I have already achieved and remember that there are millions of other men and women all around me who are desperately working towards their own dreams.

Things often sound so simple when you break them down to the ridiculous. You’re not alone. Sometimes you are just so focused on walking your own journey that you can’t see how many others are moving through theirs. We often sit at our desks, or on busses and trains, or even lie beside our partner in the dead and wonder why they can’t understand our dreams. We ask why they can’t see that we are struggling, or that we are hurting. We become so consumed with this idea of self that we don’t understand how anyone could ever care about anything but what is afflicting us. The sad part is that the person next to you is thinking the exact same thing.

I struggle every single day to fathom just why people don’t understand or appreciate the sacrifices that I have made to write. I’ve given up friends, relationships, careers, and almost everything else in my pursuit of greatness. But greatness isn’t achieved in the blink of an eye. It takes years of development and continuous redefining of what one considers to be great before such a entitlement can be reached. But we unfortunately live in an era where we bombarded with the idea that dreams and achievements are often realised overnight. But the honest to God truth is that this is rarely the case.

Clichéd or not; writers are creatures of great emotion. We break our hearts over and over again so that we can show the world our vulnerabilities and humanity. There’s nothing wrong with this. There is great beauty and release in allowing ourselves to be naked for the world to see.  But sometimes our extreme vulnerability can cause us to internalise our perspectives and forget that we are never really alone, no matter how much we believe otherwise. For me it took standing in a shitty public restroom that smelled like ammonia, beer, and regret to remember that.

The camaraderie that I chase through my writing might never come, but the intimacy I feel with strangers who I know are living through their own successes and failures is just as meaningful and rewarding. There’s a silver lining to every situation, and a lesson to be learned in every day. Sometimes you just have to shift your perspective away from the immediacy of your surroundings and ignore the filth and grime of the cubicle, and find that little shoebox sized window with the view of the entire city instead.

Purpose

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Despite all of our intricacies and inherent idiosyncrasies, mankind is in fact quite similar in many respects. While the thoughts, feelings and desires that motivate us vary quite dramatically from one individual to the next; the fundamental desires that create these compulsions are a common thread that binds us. We are motivated primarily by survival. We require food and shelter to live. So we seek out jobs and career paths that allow us to earn an income and satisfy these basic needs. Once we have done this, we look for like-minded individuals to create a community with. We make friends and have families in the interest of self-preservation and safety.

Yet while our subconscious mind skews our motives towards basic needs like survival, our consciousness urges us to take risks, create dreams, and envision beautiful futures. Oftentimes this sees us trying to extend beyond our reach in an attempt to rise above our own circumstance and perceived limitations. After all; there is no reward without risk, and there is no hope of success without the motivation of potential failure.

It’s these conscious desires to be more than we are that make us differently the same. It is our pride and our ambition that spurs us towards greatness and encourages us to keep pushing towards our dreams.

On a personal level it is pride and ambition that keeps me striving towards my goal of creating a career out of writing. Because being a writer isn’t as easy as many people would like to believe. People seem to have this misconstrued idea that as a writer you spend your days sipping coffee in cafes while creating whimsical prose and intellectually rich web content. But the truth is that we writers are often isolated; hidden away from the world in dank rooms as we rummage through endless pages of research or journey through the catacombs of our minds in search of that elusive muse called creativity.

It’s a tough gig. Especially when you take into account the bouts of writers block or the fact that you are effectively juggling two full time jobs until you can find a way to earn a decent living from your works. So why do it? Why continuously aspire to create when it quite literally means you are isolating yourself from the world you aim to inspire?

Because every man and woman needs a purpose. Everyone one of us needs something to be proud of, and an ambition to work towards.

For me, that purpose is obviously going to be my writing. I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to devote my life to anything but creating beautiful literature. I have spent the last decade pouring out my heart and soul for my readers, and through doing so have managed to liberate myself from the fear and anxiety that threatened to consume me. On a whole my journey with writing has been a resounding success. But it has certainly come with it’s trials and tribulations. At times it has seemed that the dream I chase and the pleasure it brings has also caused me great pain.

See, I’m a very lonely person. I have a beautiful partner, wonderful friends and a loving family, meaning that in many ways I am more fortunate than most. But my intellectual endeavors and my endless desire to change the world through literature often leave me in a place of ideological and moral solitude. I strive to write with purpose and refuse to cheapen my own product in search for fame and fortune. Unfortunately in the modern age of entertainment that means that I am competing with a world of overexposure and subpar content thrown together haphazardly through shitty formulas designed to capture public interest. And while I will confidently say that I am better than the bullshit I’m forced to compete against, at times it leaves me feeling as though I am failing.

I once read a quote by graphic novel writer Alan Moore where he supposed that there were two types of writers. There are those who craft a formula for success and continuously reproduce their own works over and over, bastardising their product as a means of making money. Or there are those who continuously push themselves to become better through exploring with different genres and ideas. Some of those experimental concepts and pieces of work would find an audience; most would fail. But the writer would becomes increasingly versatile is driven by passion and purpose and is therefore ultimately more fulfilled than the one chasing money.

The idea has stuck with me ever since I first stumbled upon it, allowing me to keep believing that I am going to leave a mark on the world when I am feeling defeated and alone. When I feel the ache of longing for more pressing down on my chest as I try valiantly to succeed through talent and hard work, I find comfort in knowing that when I do eventually become the writer I am destined to be I can say that my purpose and my ambition allowed me to succeed.

But I’m not as lonely as I often believe. After all, I did open this post with a celebration of the ideal that we are differently the same. My purpose and desire to create content that outlasts the near instantaneous expiry date society places upon formula driven work is something that is shared throughout the minds of individuals just like me. And the anxiety that I have felt over the past decade while trying to carve out my niche is shared upon all men and women alike. Whether an individual has a dream of being a writer, a parent, a basket baller, doctor, or whatever else, the persistence and determination we feel is a universal gift to be celebrated. The anxiety that comes as a result of that is merely a byproduct of our future happiness.

Our fundamental desires are similar, yet uniquely ours. Our ambitions and dreams vary, but our yearning to grow and succeed unites us. We all have the ability to achieve anything that our heart desires. We all have the ability to be more. We just have to define what we value most and remember that success and monetary wealth are not mutually exclusive. For some of us, success comes from knowing that we have created a body of work to be proud of. It comes from knowing that our thoughts and feelings were powerful enough to change the life of a single person.

Success lies within the eye of the beholder. It’s governed by our purpose and our pride. Your passions are uniquely yours. Celebrate them. Learn to love the anxiety that they bring, and relish the happiness that they bestow upon you.

Creativity and Corkboards

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

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

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

It goes like this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hellion

Hold up. Did you just try and walk up on me? You’re just a bottom feeder and you think that you have what it takes to front up to a wolf?

Alright; it’s your funeral. But let’s get one thing straight right from the start. I’ve taken down bigger motherfuckers than you before. I’ve buried bodies in the dirt and washed the blood from my hands without so much as a second thought. If you think that this is going to end well for you are sadly mistaken. I’m going to tear you apart.

You have to laugh at Internet trolls don’t you? You know the type: backwards pieces of shit who believe that they are clever because they sit behind a keyboard and demean or defame others. More often than not they are armed with a plethora of facts from reputable sources like Wikipedia or offer highly intellectual taunts like questioning someone’s sexual orientation or telling people to kill themselves…

I’ve had a few trolls in my time. From religious fanatics who believed that equality is the devils work, to scholars who thought that the ideas presented in my posts ran incongruously to what they understood to be true. At first the idea that someone could be so repulsed by my work that they felt the need to actively try and damage my reputation upset me. A lot. I’d sit for hours at my computer and read through the nonsense that people were writing about me and wonder how I could appease rather then offend. I didn’t want to be hated. I wanted to be loved!

But after a while you start to realize that the reason a lot of people turn to trolling is because of jealousy and fear. Through this site I have developed a sphere of influence that outreaches some and threatens to eclipse others. For those that envy what I have created they try to break it down, while those that I am threatening to out produce try to ridicule.

After you’ve been trolled a few times you start to enjoy it.

And why shouldn’t you? You’ve touched a nerve with someone to such a degree that they feel the need to try and belittle you on their own forums, unintentionally providing you with free publicity. I’ve been called out by conservative Christians, psychology scholars, other bloggers, business directors, and even a politician who resides half a world away; and every single time someone has tried to break me down their attempts have backfired.

You let the wolf lose inside your head you piece of shit. Now I’m going to eat you alive from the inside out. Can you feel me clawing at the back of your eyelids? Can you feel my fangs tearing apart your fragile mind? You started this. You stepped into the hunting ground and now you’ll be buried with the others. You wanted to front up to a world eater. Now I’m going to take yours away from you.

Let’s pump the breaks a little. This post isn’t about me sinking back into bad habits and trying to tear the head off of everyone who wrongs me… Well, not entirely… It’s about trying to ask at what point in history did it become acceptable to try and belittle and destroy someone’s hopes and dreams from the comfort of your lounge room? When did it become common practice to hide behind a URL, proxy-server or avatar and heap shit on others? It’s about asking where do we as a community draw the line against online bullying?

Because it has to be drawn somewhere. There has to be a moment in time where we as a society stand together and say no to trolling and the degradation of our fellow man and woman. There has to be an end to the faceless attacks against artists, writers and everyday people that leave them feeling broken and alone. Society has turned its back on humanity, decency and compassion in favor of bullying and faceless tormenting and it has to stop. It’s disgusting to see someone’s life or ambition shattered by their peers simply because we feel comfortable to harass from afar. If you don’t have the guts to step away from your keyboard and say something to someone’s face then you need to shut your mouth before someone breaks your fucking jaw.

Brutal? Probably. But as someone who has suffered through depression (and still lives with the knowledge that it will forever be apart of my chemistry) I know first hand the devastating effect that the words of a complete stranger can have. I understand better than most the hollow void that can consume your soul when you feel lost and abandoned. So if I have to get a little aggressive to rouse the masses from their blind acceptance of bullying then so be it.

There are far too many brilliant people out there who don’t have the belief in themselves or their abilities because they’ve been broken down and belittled by some piece of shit that hides behind a keyboard and thinks that it is funny to destroy lives.

For someone has arrogant as I am, the pathetic attacks from online bullies are worn as badges of honor. But the knowledge that there are other artists and ordinary people living in our society who feel threatened, lost and abused by faceless fucks makes me feel ill. Trolling and bullying has to stop and we as a community have to understand that belittling others destroys our humanity. Mankind is limited only by its imagination, so it seems counterintuitive to our progression as a species to be intentionally crippling the ambitions of one another through faceless subterfuge and online harassment.

If we abandon hate and focus on praising our fellow man and woman than there is no telling what we are capable of achieving. If you aren’t brazen enough to take your messages of hate to the streets, then it’s time to stop posting it online.

And if you really want to be a hero then try and walk up on a wolf again. I’ll happily rip out your throat, you ignorant piece of shit.

An Interview and Apology

I feel as though I need to apologise as my posts have been a little sparse as of late. I recently put life on hold to go on an overseas adventure, but now I’m back at home and ready to start posting again really soon.

In the interim I recently completed an interview over at TJ Talks Writing. If you’d like to check it out just click here.

If you would like a hint as to what’s in store with my next post all I will say is this: Close your eyes and imagine a lion, a dog, and a stick.

Fire & Ice

‘No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.’

-Aristotle

I often have days where I contemplate giving up. They’re the kind of days where I sit down at my computer to write and think to myself why the hell am I doing this? I’m twenty six years of age and I’ve never had a career, I’ve never finished any of the multiple university degrees that I’ve started, and despite having served more than a decade in the workforce I don’t really have anything of substance to my name. I really struggle when those moments arrive. I sit at my computer for hours and stare blankly at a screen clouded by my own insecurities and self-doubt wondering why I don’t just give up and become happy like everyone else. I want to be a writer; I am a goddamn writer. But in those moments I question whether I have what it takes to make a career out of this.

I hate those days. I hate when all the bravado and bluster is stripped away and the lost, lonely little boy that I once was is left sitting naked before a computer he bought with labors that make him feel ashamed. However for every day of isolation and insecurity that I suffer through there is a day of contentment. For every hour of self-doubt there is a period where my fingers dance so effortlessly across a keyboard, or my pen scribbles frantically against pages in a desperate attempt to keep up with the thoughts spilling from my mind.

I’m a man of contradictions. I’m a wolf; yet at times as vulnerable as a wounded beast. I’m a world eater, yet at times I’m afraid of my own realities. I’m a man, but still a child. And I’m a writer. Yet I still feel like I haven’t quite made it. I’m succeeding, but at times I look around at the life I’ve tried to create and all I can see is the decaying carrion of opportunities squandered.

Someone once told me that I must be crazy to try and create a life out of writing books. They were right. The truth is that I’m frigging insane. No one of a sound mind would ever spend ten years chasing down a career with no clearly defined path and no guarantee of success. They’d think that such a perilous decision was insanity. And it is. But after ten years I couldn’t imagine living my life any other way. I’ve become so used to being lost in my own thoughts that to lead a normal existence where I’m just like everyone else seems too difficult to comprehend.

So while everyone else I know lives in the present; I live in a world of fire and ice.

In those down days when I feel alone my mind is ablaze, yet my heart is frozen. While an inferno of self-doubt melts away my confidence and cripples my desire to write, coldness settles over my chest until my heart becomes as fragile as glass. If I were to cradle it in my hands and let it fall to the floor it would shatter into a million pieces and the dreams that I’m fighting for would be lost forever.

In my brighter days my heart burns with a force capable of turning the entire world to ashes, while my head is icy, calm, and methodical. The fires of my soul feed upon failures of days gone by and leave behind a head of dispassionate clarity. My heart ingests all the self-loathing and negative thoughts like oxygen, turning them into creative fuel. In those days I watch the world burn in the eyes of my peers and I know that I am good enough; and that if I just keep fighting for my dreams one day I will achieve them.

Lately I’ve been feeling pretty down. I’ve been struggling to find the inspiration to write and have felt the bitterness of winter turn my heart to ice while the firestorms of my mind have reduced my creativity to dust. I feel like I’m forever on the cusp of success and as though I’m always chasing something new. I wanted to write a novel; so I did. I wanted to see my work in print; and now it is. Now I want to do it all over again; so I am. I feel like I’m stuck in this perpetual cycle of fighting for my dreams and I’m so goddamn tired. I’m tearing myself apart every day just to thaw my frozen heart and hopefully lay the foundations of future successes. I’m stuck in a terrible case of writer’s block,  but I’ve been trying. I promise that I’ve been trying.

I’ve been sitting at my computer and forcing words onto a page. They’re not very good and none of them will ever appear in any blog post or book. But at least it’s something. And with each word that I manage to write a little piece of my heart softens and I begin to melt away the ice that leaves me feeling alone and set the world alight once again.

I may feel a little lost right now, but I’m never going to give up on this. I’m never going to quit no matter how lonely those darker moments may feel. Writing is so ingrained in my soul that without it I wouldn’t be half the man that I am today. We all have self doubts and moments where the odds seem stacked against us. In those times others may look at us and believe that we are mad to fight so valiantly when all hope is lost. But the only madness is giving in and throwing away a dream you want so badly that it hurts. Self-doubt will always pass. You just have to keep your head down low and work through the negativity. Keep pushing and refuse to give up. After all, there’s no point in coming as far as I have only to give up just because of a little fire and ice.

Landscape

landscape

I lie beside her and watch her back rise as her lungs fill with air. She breathes so carelessly in her slumber. She holds her breath deep in her lungs for the faintest of moments before she exhales and her body melts into the softness of the bed. A smile creases her lips as my fingertips graze her shoulders; firmly enough for her to feel my presence, but light enough so as not to rouse the muse twisted between my sheets. Her lips curl so gracefully in the corners, her cheeks dimple in response. This woman, this muse of mine is beautiful; from the crown of her head down to the tip of her delicate toes. And as I lie beside her and watch the rhythmic movement of her breath I can’t help but imagine how glorious it would be to shrink myself so that I can explore every inch of her not as a woman, but as a landscape.

I would start in the small of her back. To my north would lay the bottom most ridges of her spine. Small vertebrae visible beneath the smoothness of her skin, stretching away into the distance until they slip between the rolling expanse of her shoulder blades and vanish beneath her silky hairline. To my east and west her sensual hips arc and curve beneath her sleeping frame. And to my south the gorgeousness of her buttocks rises beneath a fragment of crisp white sheet that is draped across her. Such choices. Such wondrous journeys await me as I discover her beauty inch by glorious inch.

I would move south, slowly venturing to the crest of her round buttocks. I would cherish my climb; pausing to inspect a freckle, or to marvel at the intricacy of a birthmark. Her skin would be so smooth; my calves would ache rewardingly as I journeyed to the summit. I’d stand atop her rear and pull the binoculars from my hip, casting my gaze down the seemingly endless legs that stretch across my sheets. Oh how I would die to walk the length of her luscious legs I would think to myself before realising that in my miniature state I can do just that.

I’d march across the suppleness of her hamstring, descend the hollow at the rear of her knee, and traverse the concave of her calf. My journey would take hours. I’d stop to note pigmentation here, a scar from a youth filled with sport there, until I arrived at her ankle. I’d follow the runway of delicate bone past her padded heel, through her arch until I reach her toes. Her nails would be painted brightly, my footsteps tickling her slightly as I walk right off of the tip of her big toe onto the sheets before journeying across the bed and climbing onto her opposing limb, reversing my long walk back to her buttocks.

My journey would take me across her hips. Her gorgeous rounded hips would be like walking across a beautiful knoll. They’d rise gently from her back and roll across her side before delivering me to the firmness of her stomach. I’d reach her navel and camp by its edge. I’d dangle my weary legs over the edge and I would marvel at the feeling of her stomach muscles beneath her tantalizing flesh.

Rejuvenated, I would journey on to the base of her sternum. I would take my time to walk beneath her stellar breasts, running my palm against their curves before ascending each one to marvel at the loveliness of her areola. My, they are beautiful. Their pinkness so perfect against the whiteness of her untanned flesh; it is so exquisitely her. I can’t help but imagine how my loins would cherish this moment atop of my muse’s chest.

But my travels would not cease, I would venture on to the nape of her neck, and descend into the crevice of her collarbone. I’d track a path across her neck and over the precipice of her jawline until I arrived at her lips where I would plant the smallest, most fragile kiss she had ever received against them. I’d move to her ear and whisper into it just how completely she moves me as the scent of her hair fills my senses. I would move around her hairline and descend her occipital ridge until I arrived at the upper echelon of her spine between the two matching crests of her shoulders.

I’d begin to walk slowly now. More aware that my journey across the luscious landscape of her if drawing to an end. I’d run my fingertips across her shoulder blades and kneel to plant the softest of kisses against her skin. And when I finally arrive at the small of her back once again I would turn ever so slowly to view the beauty of her once more. My eyes would fill with tears. Neither of sadness nor those of joy. But the tears of a man who has witnessed something more extravagant that he ever believed possible. The tears of a man who believes in God, for he has found the true magnitude of his work in the flesh of a Goddess.

But alas, I cannot shrink to such a minute state of being. I cannot worship my muse as a landscape and venture along her supple flesh. I cannot plant those miniscule kisses against her skin, or stand atop her buttocks with a yearning within my soul. But I can lay beside her as she sleeps and watch as her lips twitch and eyes fritter with the makings of a dream. I can hold her tight as she stirs, and tuck the loose strands of hair that fall loose behind her ear as she wakes. I can be hers, and she can be mine.

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