Tag: inspiration

A weakness of flesh (Reach for the stars)

‘The weakness of flesh is to settle for less than we have the potential to be.’
-Jesse Leach.

When you read something filled with such profundity and insightfulness as the quote above you can’t help but stop and think about your own shortcomings. How many times have you settled for less than you had the potential to be simply because you didn’t have the courage to push that little bit further, or reach that little bit higher and grasp everything that you have ever wanted? If you’re like ninety nine percent of the world’s population then you can probably think of a handful of times when you’ve sold yourself short for whatever reason. Maybe you were tired of trying; maybe you were afraid of the success you were striving for, or feared looking foolish if you did fail. Whatever the reason is, at some point in your life you have settled for less than you were meant to be. We all have.

If this is true then one must ask why mankind has evolved with such a fundamental flaw in our design. Or maybe even ask how the fuck we ever managed to evolve in the first place. I mean surely if it is in our nature to fall short of our dreams then shouldn’t we have stopped evolving somewhere between a half-formed zygote and a fucking chimp? Whatever, the evolution of the human mind and body is a conversation for another day. All I want to know is if our weakness as a species is to accept complacency, then how the hell am I ever meant to achieve everything I dream about? How am I supposed to become a published author? How am I supposed to see the world? How am I supposed to form meaningful relationships? Or even be happy?

Well thankfully, this crippling weakness that has been bestowed upon us doesn’t afflict every decision or action we make. I can make friends, and I can be happy. I can even see the world if I bust my arse and rustle up enough cash to do so. No, this debilitating mindset of settling only rears its hideous face in the midst of moments or thought patterns that have the power to define our lives. Self-doubt as it is commonly known serves no other purpose than to derail our dreams and see us fall agonisingly short of where we really should be.

For those of you who have been following my web-log for some time now you are probably well aware that there have been times in my life when I’ve settled. There have been moments when publishers or agents have asked me to make minor tweaks to my works in order to make them more marketable or palatable, and in my infinite stupidity I’ve refused. I’ve told myself that I am a singularity (and I still believe that I am a highly unique individual), and that as such I shouldn’t have to change my works to suit the needs of others, no matter how subtle those changes actually are. But what if these poor decisions weren’t me refusing to change who I am? What if in actual fact they were moments of me settling for less than I had the potential to be simply because I was ultimately afraid of what would happen next if I did follow through with something?

It’s an interesting question. And the truth is that there is no real way of knowing what would have happened if I’d been smart enough to follow through with the advice that was offered to me. I could have had a book published by now, or I could have done heeded the advice of others and still failed to secure that elusive contract that I so desperately strive for. But no matter what could have happened, it now never will because I settled instead of reaching for the fucking stars. Because I was weak and I lacked the courage to push just that little bit further in order to achieve I now have to forge a new path forward in this world of manuscripts, agents and publishers.

-I realise that up until this point this post probably sounds a little negative. But I promise you that it’s not. See the thing is that I know I’ve messed up a few potential opportunities in the past. I’ve failed to follow up on rewrites; I’ve abandoned scripts, or burned bridges with publishers and agents. Shit, I even threw away writing altogether for a space in time. But without those mistakes or missed opportunities I wouldn’t be the writer that I am right now. I wouldn’t have the confidence to sit here and acknowledge my weaknesses and faults and I wouldn’t be able to make a conscious effort to learn from them.

Every decision that I make nowadays in regards to my writing I do so with a calculated mindset designed to constantly bring out the very best in me. Take my last post for example: I wrote about my desire to travel half way around the globe to hunt down an opportunity. And I did so because if I didn’t go public with my intentions then I would never have followed through. I would have settled for less than I truly deserved and come July would have still been sitting at home cursing my poor decision making skills for not having the balls to follow through with something again. But instead, I took to the screen and I made my intentions known so that if I pulled out I would have looked like a fool. Two days later my ticket was secured and trip confirmed.

I believe that the quote used to open this post is indeed highly profound and incredibly accurate. The weakness of flesh is indeed it’s acceptance of settling for less than it deserves to be. But you can overcome it. Once you identify a weakness you can turn it into a strength. You can train for it, adapt to accommodate it, and ultimately overcome anything as long as you have the fortitude to keep pushing forward even when you’re no longer sure that you can.

New York, New York

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‘The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it.’
-Jordan Belfort.

So there’s this opportunity that has presented itself. It’s a chance for me to actually grow a pair of balls and take my roadshow of misguided tales and prose across the world in the hopes of securing a contract with a publisher or agent. Imagine that: no longer would I be that disgruntled writer sitting at his kitchen table penning his inner most thoughts onto scraps of paper or punching them into a word processor. I’d have made it. I’d be a star…

…Well maybe not a star. But at least I’d finally be taking some serious steps towards my dreams.

This opportunity is the kind that comes along once in a lifetime. An opportunity that would see me sitting face to face with the men and women that could make my dreams come true. I would be afforded the chance to pitch my scripts to them in person; I would be able to field their questions, capture their interests and (hopefully) inspire them to believe in my visions as much as I do. It sounds fantastic. And believe me when I say that I’d do anything for an opportunity like this. There’s just one little problem: that opportunity is in New York City in July of this year. As of right now I’m over 9,600 miles away from where I need to be in roughly five months’ time.

At first this sounds like quite the hurdle. How the fuck does one travel almost ten thousand miles in order to chase his dreams? Well, all I can say is thank God for Orville and Wilbur Wright and their rag tag crew who made their own vivid dreams a reality. I don’t want to sound like a jukebox cranking out tired old clichés, but after taking a few words of inspiration from Mr Belfort above I’m telling myself that where there’s a will, there’s a way.

So rather than do what I would usually do and throw my hands in the air and curse at the world that such an opportunity should arise on the opposite side of the world, I’m trying to take proactive steps to reach out and grab my dreams by the coat tails. My theory is that if I can manage to make that momentous leap and grab the fringes of my dream’s cloak then then I should be able to claw my way forward from there until I’ve got the fucker pinned to the floor.

Right now my novel is undergoing another round of editing. This time I’ve enlisted the help of an editor located in (surprise, surprise) the USA. It seems to make sense to me that if I’m going to take a gamble and try and spruik my wares in the American market then I should get a little insider knowledge from someone already on the scene. While that happens I’m plugging away at my job; busting my arse to ensure that when the time comes I’ve got enough money that I don’t find myself sleeping rough in the streets of New York as I try and hunt down success.

And while all is that is happening I’m still trying to focus as much time and energy on the one thing that keeps me sane in times like these: my writing. I’m still putting pen to paper whenever I can, admittedly I’m currently doing so with a little more direction than usual; which is a small victory in itself. Whether or not I can make this small sliver of an opportunity work remains to be seen. But even if it does fail I’ll know that it wasn’t through lack of trying. For the first time in my writing career I’m prepared to cast aside that bullshit story that I tell myself is stopping me from achieving my goals and give this my all.

Creating your own roadshow

I think that you should click here. It’s OK, you can trust me. This isn’t one of those scam sites where you click on the link and you suddenly find yourself being directed to a site that offers you entitlements left to you by a long lost Zimbabwean cousin or the secrets to growing a bigger dick. Instead it’s a video; a video that runs for roughly two minutes that has the capacity to take this humble writer and transform his mindset from a defeatist who thinks that the world is out to destroy him, into a conqueror who believes that he has the ability to destroy the world if he were to so much as chose to.

Hmm. You say. I’m intrigued. Tell me more…

OK, here it is. Today’s post is all about rejection. It’s all about being kicked in the face when you deserve something so badly, by a universe that seems hell bent on breaking your spirit and denying you of the joy of success. Yep: rejection. We all face it. Each and every one of us has at some point been met with rejection and failure and often at times when we least expect it. As writers we spend hours developing our craft and creating a story that we believe in, that we know isn’t just good enough, but that is actually down right fucking incredible. Or we apply for a job or a university course that we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are the best person for. Yet for some crazy reason our manuscript is knocked back, or that dream position that we yearned for goes to someone else. We are told that we’re good and that we would probably succeed, but we’re not the here and now. We’re the next big thing, but right now we’re peripheral. We are left feeling dis-empowered.

Today I received one of those bullshit Dear John responses to something that I’ve been chasing for a while now. I was told that I’m good, but that I still need a little polishing around the edges. It rocked me, and it upset me. But it really shouldn’t have. You see it’s happened before, and I dare say that before I die I will be rejected again. It’s just part of life, and to rehash one of the world’s most over used expressions what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. I’ll bounce back from this and become even better…

…Actually, fuck that. It’s that kind of bullshit defeatist thinking that allows deserving writers, artists, employees or whoever else to go unnoticed and unrewarded in the first place. That whole rejection is a part of life mentality is literally choking the life out of people across the planet. A man by the name of Mark Graban once said that in life ‘you deserve what you tolerate’, and I’m starting to really buy into his way of thinking. If you constantly tolerate being called the next big thing, or being spoon fed rubbish from a publisher that you show promise but were unfortunately unsuccessful at this point in time, then guess what? You’re going to spend your whole fucking life treading water and accomplishing next to nothing, because you are forever playing the role of the submissive that doesn’t have the balls to reach out and claim what is rightfully yours.

…But I digress. Today’s post isn’t supposed to be a long one. I don’t want to prattle on about the intricacies of my own rejection. Rather I want to propose to you that there is another way to view the world than through the lens of those that we consider above us. We do quite literally have the potential to abandon all that we are told to digest and accept. We have the potential to, and really should, create our own roadshows. For the human mind and race to continue to evolve we must be willing to accept that tolerating the shit-brained way of thinking of others is never going to advance our own individual causes.

It is because of this idea that I’ve presented to you just a snippet of a talk by the legendary mind of Terence McKenna about cultural diversion. McKenna doesn’t deal specifically with the subject of rejection, but rather argues that we must become our own roadshows and we must become the centre of our own universes. We must become the most immediate part of ourselves and stop always so readily consuming the mindset and products of others.

So go on. Click here. Take two minutes out of your day to consider that maybe you could change something about the way you consume the world. Stop consuming the trash being fed to you both through media and through your life as a whole, and reclaim your mind. Reclaim your soul, and reclaim your life.

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.

The Writer & the Fighter

Sometimes this thing we call life can be a real fuck of a thing. We as humans can move from moments of pure elation to moments of sheer terror and uncertainty in an instant and our whole lives can turn on a dime. We travel through life as though we are racing towards something important; some kind of elusive goal that is always just out of our reach, and we rarely ever stop to live in the moment and realise just how lucky we are to be alive. By living in the moment I don’t mean going out dancing in a night club or curling next to your significant other underneath a blanket. Those things are great, don’t get me wrong. But I mean truly living in the moment and understanding just how wonderful it is to be who we are, where we are, and who we are with. Continue reading “The Writer & the Fighter”

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.

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.

Lend me your ears….

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As an aspiring author I am constantly devouring as much literature as humanly possible in an effort to continually expose myself to the endless world of words. Through my constant exposure I have read, listened to, and watched more wonderful stories than I could ever attempt to list here, and I am truly blessed to have had a chance to devour such an array of writing. Obviously in my journey through the wondrous world of words I occasionally find myself let down by an author’s craft; feeling jaded when a novel falls apart in the final chapters, or when a song or poem completely misses its mark. But then, every so often you stumble across a piece of writing that completely transcends itself above its author, genre, and medium and ignites a fire inside your heart and mind, leaving you physically and emotionally stunned at its beauty.

They say that inspiration often comes from the most unlikely of sources, and as someone who is known for disappearing into my own imagination at the most impractical of times I know this better than most. – If you need an example of this I recently had a massage to help with a sporting injury. While most people on a massage table try to relax and enjoy the experience, I spent the entire time crafting the blueprints of a murder mystery tale that commences with a man meeting his grisly end on the masseuse’s table. – But recently I was left stunned and quite literally lost for words by the incredibly beautiful, moving and downright brutal lyrics of a metalcore band.

For those of you that don’t know me personally I am a huge fan of music that falls under the banner of metal/hardcore/metalcore, and can regularly be found lost in a cacophony of manic drums, heavy guitar breakdowns, and lyrics growled, screamed and sung over rip roaring sonic compositions. But contrary to popular belief I don’t indulge these forms of music because I am full of angst or anger (at least not anymore), or because I am different or weird. I do so because popular culture no longer values true musical and lyrical genius anymore, yet some of the bands that I listen to have the most powerful, emotive, and downright beautiful lyrics I have ever heard. These days true musical genius isn’t found on the radio or on those bullshit talent search shows; it’s found in bars, mosh pits and garages.

The song that serves as the catalyst for this latest post is from Sydney based metalcore outfit Northlane. The lyrics penned and sung by vocalist Adrian Fitipaldes are among the most honest and emotive I’ve ever come across, and one of the reasons that I have chosen to blog about them is that through the bone crunching breakdowns and guttural screams Fitipaldes strikes a chord with this particular writer. With lyrics as open and unrestrained as ‘Here I am with all my insecurities, and imperfections, crying out to a world that just won’t listen’ Fitipaldes words really hit home. As a writer relentlessly trying to break into the industry and see my work in print there are times when it feels as though no matter how much blood, sweat and tears I pour into my craft (through blogs, novels, novellas, university essays, and writing competitions) I seem to be faced with a literary world that just won’t listen. I’m faced with agents, publishers, and fellow literary hopefuls who refuse to pay attention; who refuse to let anyone of the hundreds of thousands of amazing writers across the globe break into the limelight that they so truly deserve.

When Fitipaldes bears his soul to the world he asks his listeners to ‘lend him their ears, their hearts and their minds and discover what’s missing’ he exposes his strengths and vulnerabilities, his hopes, dreams, and shortcomings to a world that so often chooses to judge rather than understand. In many respects the manner in which he approaches his own failings and ambitions is similar to what I try and do here every single time I post. When I first started this blog I was a mess. My head was full of so much negative shit that it was literally impeding my ability to write or even function. My entire outlook on life was warped, relationships suffered, finances failed, and my self-confidence hit an all-time low. But through exposing myself, through allowing myself to become the test subject for the age old sink or swim philosophy, I’ve learned that not only that I can swim, but I can do so with the best of them.

Nowadays I’m emotionally, physically, and linguistically stronger than I have ever been, and the whole reason behind my transformation is my blog. Through taking a leap of faith and opening up my soul for the world to see, I’ve not only healed old wounds, but also learned some truly amazing things about myself and pushed my writing to new levels in the process. My original inspiration for creating this was to overcome obstacles, yet as I’ve grown and progressed as a writer my catalysts have changed to the point where now something as wonderful as a song, a picture, a quote or sporadic thought can trigger my desire to create.

Inspiration really does come from the most unlikely places. When I first started listening to heavy music I never thought that I’d end up blogging about my love for it. But then I never expected to stumble across a writer so honest as to acknowledge when he is ‘pouring his heart and mind into a world that doesn’t listen.’ Yet here we are.

So with that being said, my hope for all of you out there who read this blog each and every post is simple. For those who have stuck with me from the very beginning, and those who are reading my words for the first time, I hope from the bottom of my heart that my words have managed to inspire just one of you. For if it has, than my purpose as a writer is justified, and all the countless hours I’ve poured into this blog have been worth it. If just one person in this world listens, than that’s more than this writer could have ever hoped for when he first started out.

Smokescreens

In my humble opinion one of man kind’s greatest flaws is our constant acceptance to settle for the mundane, or for far less than we are truly capable of achieving. Sometimes our greatest failings are our own shortsightedness and inability to break free of the shackles that we cast upon ourselves through fear, uncertainty, and downright laziness. Right across the world right now men, women, and children of all races are pondering over their own dreams and ambitions, wondering why they always seem to fall agonisingly short of their ultimate objectives. Their stories will always be inherently different; the composition of their life experiences and their basic genetic makeup will always be uniquely their own, but their fundamental goals and ambitions as members of the human race will always revolve around one basic function. They want success. Mankind as a species yearns to succeed.

Now success comes in many shapes and forms. To a mother success means watching her children grow into respectable members of society; for a business mogul success is accumulating a sizable portfolio of companies and collateral. And for someone like me, success is the elated feeling of having anyone read my work and deem it worthy. I experience success every single time I update this blog. I feel an incredible sense of elation each time my Iphone pings with an email to say that I have amassed another follower, or that someone likes a singular post. To me success is measured in the knowledge of knowing that my creative workings are ever so slowly weeding their way into the worlds of blogging and publishing through one reader’s mind at a time.

But sadly for all my minor successes, I must say that I am becoming increasingly complacent with my craft. Each time I accomplish a small achievement on my path towards becoming a published author I feel a breathtaking rush of adrenaline and a renewed sense of focus towards my craft. But once that wanes it can be incredibly difficult to return to the mundane act of waking at 5:30am to write in the pre-dawn light of my lounge room once more. In my current workplace I would refer to this as the Yo-yo effect; when mankind notices a positive emotional or physiological change within them they are at their most vulnerable point in their journey towards success. The Yo-yo effect is what happens when complacency kicks in and you take your foot off the gas pedal, and all your hard work and dedication unravels, leaving you right back where you started.

So why does this happen to us? Why do we aim so high, only to shrug our shoulders and throw in the towel not because we are unable or undeserving of the right to achieve, but because we are unwilling to strive onward to what we are truly capable of? Why is it that the vast majority of us will never achieve what our heart desires purely because we refuse to cast aside the metaphorical shackles we bind ourselves with? The truth is that many of us do so because of fear. We fear that we are undeserving of our dreams, and we fear that once we achieve everything our heart desires there will be nothing left for us to pine for. But rather than acknowledge this we hide behind the idea that it is simply too hard for us to succeed.

Shit, I’ve said it to myself so many times over my life that one could almost be forgiven for believing the world is a terribly abrasive and bitter place. It’s too hard, or I don’t have the time, or any variation of that utter bullshit is exactly the kind of tripe that I’ve said whenever I felt like giving up. However I’m now coming to the realisation that these answers were nothing but smokescreens to hide the fact that I was giving up simply because I told myself that I didn’t have the will power to succeed.

Thanks to a never ending torrent of talent contests and instant fame programs assembled by the mass media, one can be forgiven for viewing themselves unworthy of success if we don’t stumble upon it immediately. There were times when writers, athletes, singers, actors, and whoever else were forced to toil away endlessly at their craft until it was perfected before they even had a shot a finding fame. Now however, in a society where everything has an expiry date of five minutes we expect immediate success and notoriety in everything that we do. We view ourselves unworthy or simply not good enough if we’re not the one per cent of people who blindly stumble into success or strike it rich.

So where has this whole rant stemmed from? Recently I awoke early to write, only to find myself seriously contemplating returning to the warmth of my bed over the laborious task of creating something with a mind recently shocked out of sleep. It would have been so easy to give up, to hit the snooze button on my alarm and try again the next day. But I forced myself to get up; I forced myself to sit in front of the computer and at least try to produce something. It didn’t go well. I wrote about two hundred words before I started sifting through the internet, searching for nothing in particular as a way to kill time and procrastinate rather than remain focused. But thankfully I stumbled across an article entitled Famous Failures and suddenly I began to understand the difference between the vast majority of us who fail and those who transcend above the odds and ultimately succeed.

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper for ‘lacking imagination.’ Oprah Winfrey was demoted from her job as a news anchor after being labelled ‘not fit for television.’ And Albert Einstein’s teachers are famously quoted as saying that the boy ‘would never amount to much.’ Yet every single one of these famous failures managed to rise above the doubt surrounding their abilities and become the very best in their respective fields. Their achievements aren’t the result of luck, but rather the result of hard work and a steeled determination that saw them push themselves beyond what was thought to be possible and overcome the adversity standing in the way of their success.

Every single one of us faces adversity, but the names above have proven that adversity is nothing more than a hurdle on our own individual races towards greatness. The only real limitation that we ever truly face is the limitations of our minds eye; the limitations that we place upon ourselves. The negative energy we project upon ourselves or the complacency we feel when we begin to scratch the surface of our own greatness really is the only thing standing between us and achieving more than we could ever imagine.

So with that being said, it’s time to cast aside the momentary complacency plaguing my mind and begin to immerse myself more fully in my writing once again. The minor successes that I have experienced up to this point in my professional development are accomplishments to be celebrated, but they are also just the beginning of a very long list of achievements and goals that still lie before me. To use the one of the world’s most quoted clichés; Rome wasn’t built in a day. I’m not going to become an overnight success with my writing and I’m ok with that. When I do succeed all the toiling, and the early mornings and late nights spent slaving over an illuminated screen and a notepad will be worth the wait.

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth…

lear

Wait. Slow down a second. Did this post really just begin with a nod to one of history’s greatest play writes? Do the illustrious words of King Lear really belong on the landing page of a blog based primarily around depression and my own artistic shortcomings? To quote an artist as prolific as the great William Shakespeare on this page seems to almost degrade the celebrated writer. But nevertheless for lack of a better title I thought that King Lear’s acid tongued dialogue directed at his thankless daughters seemed somewhat appropriate for where we currently find ourselves.

So why does Shakespeare’s delicately constructed dialect resonate so strongly with my own writing right now? Well… I think that I’ve been plagiarised. I think that someone has taken my works laden with my own flourishes and imperfections and tried to reproduce them and label the knockoffs as their own. I know that it sounds rather arrogant to assume that a writer would want to take what I have created and re-brand it as their own creative masterpieces, but sometimes shit just doesn’t add up and one can only wonder just how another aspiring author can suddenly produce a blog entry so similar to my own. The idea of plagiarism like this is a rather intriguing concept, and one that forces a writer to seriously contemplate the ramifications of such a dastardly deed.

If I have indeed been plagiarised then I certainly wouldn’t be the first author to ever have this happen, and I’m pretty damn sure that I won’t be the last. J.K. Rowling must have inspired plenty of Harry Potter knockoffs; and Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code would have undoubtedly sent writer’s desires to produce historical thrillers into overdrive. But what am I to make of this potential copycat? Am I supposed to feel jaded like King Lear? Am I to feel as though I have been betrayed by a thankless child? Or would a better title for this post have been the finest form of flattery?

Because there really is no finer form of flattery than to have a fellow writer attempt to reproduce your work. If a writer has actively gone out of their way to indulge themselves in the stylistic nuances that make your own pieces unique, then surely that means you are doing something right? Doesn’t it?

The article in question arrived in my emails a few days ago. I follow quite a few blogs and my Iphone is always pinging with arrival of another author’s works. But with this particular page I seem to have developed a bit of an unspoken mutual agreement with the aspiring author who produced it; it’s nothing too complicated. He follows my blog and I follow his. We have never met, never spoken, and in all honesty we never will. But we have found each other in the immense cosmos of online web logging through our mutual love of writing and desire to find acclaim.

This young writer is good. His pieces have always been fetching and unique. But our writing styles have always been inherently different. -Which would probably explain why his audience is roughly 50 times the size of my own- But recently he released a piece that was rather unexpected, unprecedented, and so unlike anything he had ever produced. Suddenly I found myself reading a post that had me seriously questioning whether or not I had been given a guest editors spot on another blog. I am fully aware that I still sound incredibly childish here. How arrogant it is for me to assume that anyone would wish to rip off the deranged fragments of thought that clutter the homepage of this site! But what if I’m right? What if I am King Lear and I’m being unwillingly usurped by an author who wishes to claim my workings as his own?

The truth is that I’ll never know for sure whether my writing has been reproduced. All I can base my theories off is the feeling in the pit of my stomach as I read an (unusually) sloppy post that sounded striking similar to my own story. And the strange look of my partner as she came to the same realisation and asked if I had indeed been the catalyst behind the unexpected entry. But I guess that is the world we live in. So often in life we are overlooked or outshone at something that makes us truly unique. It can be easy to take what you do for granted and to never find the recognition you deserve for your talents. It can be easy to give up and never push that little bit harder in order to be noticed. Yet feel defeated when a lessor opponent finds notoriety for doing so.

The young man who reads my wares and (possibly) feels the need to reinterpret them and label them as his own truly is the thankless child that King Lear spoke of. He has taken my ideas and idiocies and claimed them as his own. But rather than feel anger towards him I can’t help but feel like there’s a lesson to be learned here. I now firmly believe that when our talents are laid out and compared, I am the stronger writer; however I do need to apply myself a little more to this whole social media thing and establishing (and maintaining relationships with) an audience. And while it does sting to see someone else finding fame through pieces that are questionable in nature, there really is no finer form of flattery than to have someone try to reproduce what I create on the walls of this very blog.