Tag: literature

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.

Respect

Here’s the thing: Respect isn’t given. It’s earned. It doesn’t grow on a tree and doesn’t come attached to a label or title; it’s received as a reward for your time spent in the trenches of life battling alongside your fellow man. Lately it seems as the whole concept of respect is a recurring issue in my life as I stare down the barrel of the monotonous daily trivialities that we all face. I’ve been called an arsehole and an arrogant prick because I refuse to pay homage to someone or something just because they believe that I should. I once wrote a post where I callously referred to myself as the mother fucking greatest, and I still wholeheartedly believe it, which means I struggle to bow down and respect my peers just because they want me to.

Does that make me an arsehole? Probably. But here’s the thing. I don’t care. If you’ve been following my most recent posts you have probably noticed that my confidence as a writer and as a man took a hit recently. I had an opportunity that I truly deserved snatched away from me at the last possible instant because others perceived my inability to follow the status quo as both threatening and offensive. But I’m not offensive. I’m merely different (or better, if I do say so myself), and often misunderstood.

See my catalysts and compulsions are different from yours, and different from many writers who flood the platforms of social media. How many times do you hear a writer say that they write because they have a story to tell? If you’re like me the answer is probably way to fucking much. We all have stories to tell, but that doesn’t mean that they are all worth hearing. In fact, many of them are a downright waste of time. I write not because I have a story to tell. I write because it quells the demons of my heart and keeps my mind from tearing itself in two. I write because I have a story that needs to be told. I write because somewhere, on some level this fucking world needs me just as much as I need it.

But what does this have to do with respect? Well, a lot. See even though I am different and unique I can still appreciate the artwork and lives of those who truly deserve it. We live in a world where the ignorant believe that they are the centre of the universe and that the rest of us should bow down to them. But that’s a half-truth; a mindset that has been blown drastically out of proportion and manipulated to suit the needs of our own egos. You are indeed a singularity. And you are indeed the centre of your own universe. But if you want to be the centre of mine you need to first earn my respect and my permission to do so because it will never simply be granted to you based on premise or title.

If you’re still managing to follow along with this rather erratic train of thought then you are probably nodding your head right now in agreement. We are all singularities. And we are all the centre of our own immediate worlds. But we are also just peripheral entities in the universes of others. That doesn’t necessarily make us any less important than someone else, it just means that we need to take a little reality check and realise that sometimes respect isn’t going to be granted just because we think it should.

My life is a cacophonous collision of activity, thoughts, relationships, hopes, dreams, fears, and movements that somehow meld into the physical and emotional form that is me. I am one of a kind and I deserve the successes, failures, elations, and disappointments that are afforded me. So if your life, your ideas, or status doesn’t garner my immediate respect then you can either work a little harder to prove your worth, or you can reside to the fact that you will forever remain on the periphery of my existence just as I shall remain on yours.

-AUTHORS NOTE. For the first time in almost a month a feel as though I’m returning to form as a writer and feel as though I am once again hunting down my dreams of becoming a published author with an intensity that has been lacking for some time. The arrogance that makes me who I am has returned and my mind is ablaze with possibilities and plot lines.
I would like to offer a sincere thank you to Cristian Mihai for recently featuring my post Monsters, as well as everyone who has re-blogged my works since then. It’s better late than never, but I sincerely wish all of you a happy new year. May your dreams and aspirations become realities during 2014.

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.

Pushers & Pseudo-Philosophers

Imagine that you’re a heroin addict. It’s probably a bizarre thought, but just bear with me for a moment. Imagine that right now you’re not sitting over an illuminated screen reading the words of a frustrated writer. But rather you’re turning tricks on a street corner trying to earn a couple of bucks to chase down your next score. You’re entire being aches for another hit; your head is pounding and your stomach feels like it’s tearing itself in two at your unintentional starvation of that needle full of cooked rock that you so desperately crave. You’d do pretty much anything for the opportunity to shoot strings of happiness into your veins and after a few hours of lifting wallets from unsuspecting victims you’ve amassed enough cash to buy a little rock, so you hotfoot it over to your local dealers house.

The place is a fucking dive. If you were to try and take a shit and mould a house out of it you’re pretty sure it would look better than this. But you’re not here to admire the décor. You’re here to tap that vein in the crook of your elbow until it bulges and you can slip a needle full of H into it. There’s only one problem. It’s not your vein that’s tapped out. It’s your dealer. He’s run dry and you’re left staring at some useless piece of shit who can’t satisfy your needs. But he likes you. You’ve been a steady client for years so he gives you two options. There’s a pusher down town who has some of the best shit in the district. Only problem is it’s double the price of what you’d usually pay for a hit. Otherwise there’s a halfwit kid peddling a cut up version of the drug you crave around the corner. He’s known for his shitty wares that are usually spliced with a little washing powder or battery acid but with the money in your pocket you’d probably walk away from the deal with a hit and some change.

So what do you do? Do you feed yourself the watered down shit that may potentially kill you and will have you leaving unsatisfied? Or do you start turning tricks again to double your money and go score some quality shit when you can afford it? It seems obvious that if you were a heroin addict you’d try to double your money and hunt down the drug that isn’t going to leave your needs unsatisfied and potentially kill you. Yet when we trade out that heroin addiction for an admittedly less dangerous infatuation with literature we seem so ready to take a gamble and consume the watered down trash rather than track down better quality shit.

See I’m a Pusher. I’m that guy down town who’s peddling wares that are a little harder to come by but are admittedly of a far better grade than the halfwit trying to compete with me. But unlike a regular pusher you won’t find me standing in a back alley surrounded by hired muscle peddling high grade heroin onto junkies. Instead you’ll find me threaded throughout the online community of WordPress surrounded by pop-up ads and other pushers peddling my own inner thoughts onto you, my ever faithful literature junkie. See you’re not here because you want to shoot strings of happiness up your arm; you’re here because you want to fire strings of carefully woven phrases into your mind. It’s that desire to feel intellectually satisfied that keeps you returning to this blog and many just like it. You crave knowledge and perspectives and know that there is no better way to satisfy these urges than to open your mind to the world of literature.

But there’s a plight now facing the new wave of emerging literature junkies that are just starting to venture out of their comfort zones to track down the substances they so desperately need. The halfwit pseudo-philosopher masking himself as a pusher and peddling his cheap, poor quality shit onto the unsuspecting and the unaware. Bullshit stories on social media sites that play on human emotion are the new players on the scene in the writing world. They are shit quality, totally fictitious and often poorly written, but they focus on a simple formula that affords them widespread circulation: create some heart-wrenching story of human triumph and the baser human emotion of the reader’s compassion will do the rest.

But it doesn’t stop there. See that’s just phase one of the pseudo-philosopher’s cutting of the product. The tear-jerking stories are the washing powder. The battery acid comes in the form of the woefully uneducated trying to emulate the washing powder tales for themselves. We live in a world where everyone has a voice, which is great. But if you’re not a writer don’t try and pass yourself off as one. If you’re not a philosopher then stop trying to create insightful status updates or posts that are rife with poor spelling and grammatical construction. You’re battery acid is diluting the better quality shit for sale down town.

So now you’re educated. But you’re still a junkie and your dealer has nothing to offer you. So you need to make a call. You’ve got a pocket full of collateral earned from turning tricks on the corner. But this isn’t any ordinary collateral. You haven’t got a surplus of cash at your disposal, but rather time. You’ve got an intellectual itch that needs to be scratched and you’ve got just two options; keep turning tricks and chew up some time hunting down that elusive high quality pusher. Or start swallowing down the diluted shit readily available at every click of the mouse and risk an infuriating rush of blood to the head as the lesser quality product leaves you nauseous with disgust at its lack of originality and skill.

So what are you going to do? Well, just by reading this blog you’ve chosen the road that is unfortunately a lot less travelled. You’re hunting down pushers plugging a product they give a shit about and turning away from easier option of the pseudo-philosophers. There’s no reward for this. You’re still a literature junkie and you’ll forever have a need to be satisfied through the phrases of others. But by choosing your pushers wisely you’ll actually have moments where those urges of yours are actually sated. Moments when you can sit back in your lounge chair and close your eyes thrilled by the knowledge that a writer has opened up their heart and mind and found a place within yours.

Authors note: If you were to take ten writers (and I use the term loosely) at random and put them together in a room and dissect them, your break down would more than likely consist of this:

o 1 dealer (A writer who has cracked the big time)
o 2 Pushers plugging their wares in writer’s circles
o 7 Pseudo-philosophers who are standing around with nothing of value to contribute yet oddly preaching their worth to anyone within reach.

Literature is a drug. And like any drug, great literature is hard to find. But believe me when I say that it does exist, you’ve just got to be willing to spend the collateral to acquire it. So spread the word: pseudo-philosophers are on the way out, the rise of the pushers is here. We’re taking our wares to the digital street corners of the web, giving junkies everywhere a buzz that no halfwit piece of shit script or writer will ever be able to emulate.

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.

Suffering

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Appeasing the Ignorant

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sheep

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

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

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

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

Constellations – The de-motivational blog post of the year

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh the irony! (Social media & whingers)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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