Tag: writers

Reaction

‘You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.’
-Winston Churchill

It appears as though I’ve made myself a few enemies with a recent post I wrote in an effort to promote harmony within our society. Seriously, if you’d like to read something highly entertaining skip down to the previous post and read through the comments. There’s some interesting banter between myself and another gentlemen (and one of his friends who decided to weigh in on the argument). But before you do, let’s stop and consider exactly what I was trying to achieve with my post that created an analogy comparing religion to stained glass windows…

Recently in Sydney Australia there was a siege where two members of the general public were murdered at the hands of a man from Islamic decent. In the wake of the tragedy there was an overwhelming display of support for the Islamic community throughout Australia through the hashtag #Illridewithyou; a concept where non Islamic Australians offered to catch public transport with members of the Islamic/Muslim community to promote harmony and prevent a racial fallout. A wonderful initiative that really cemented the concept that religious acceptance and multiculturalism can succeed in our modern world. I stated that because of a few bad eggs within the Islamic faith, the religion as a whole was unfairly judged within our society and suggested that we as a society should continue to support the community.

Interestingly enough, one gentleman didn’t appreciate my post, labelling it an appeal to emotion (ah, yeah, of course it was) and started listing a bunch of reasons as to why he disagreed with my logic. The situation escalated, and in true Chris Nicholas style I told him in not so friendly terms to get the hell off of my site and take his views elsewhere…

…Which he did. It seems that I pissed this particular member of the public off so much that he devoted an entire blog post to ratting me out, including my name and links to this very site. The funny thing about him doing this though is that I received a huge influx of visitors to Renegade Press, something I’m incredibly thankful for.

But I’m not here to be an arsehole and continue a feudal argument with a faceless adversary. I’m here to bury the hatchet, say let bygones be bygones, and move forward. To the gentleman named Citizen Tom, I applaud you; you are indeed a very intelligent man who knows a great deal about the religion you have devoted your life to. I did not intend to offend when I began to highlight discrepancies within the Holy Bible, and as stated I come from a Christian family very similar to you. What I did intend to do though is highlight that every religion and creed has its successes and its failures, even the religion that my family identifies with. I appreciate your stance on religion, although I do not necessarily agree with it, and you in turn do not agree with mine.

What I did not appreciate though was you taking up your intellectual broadsword and defacing my site with your viewpoint. I would never come on to your site and mar it, so when you did so to mine I bared my fangs and told you to disappear in terms that could only be defined as unpleasant. I am all for freedom of speech and believe that it is great that you have a following of likeminded individuals, but I am so firmly against cyberbullying or religious, intellectual, or creative condemnation that I will attack anyone who calls me out on the beliefs that I hold true. I read posts every single day that I do not agree with or find trivial, but I would never openly slander the writer on their own forum. This webpage is not devoted to religious ideals, rather it exists as an attempt to expand my own repertoire of entries as an aspiring author. If I chose to write about a topic such as religion or acceptance, I should feel free to do so without the prejudice of someone who shares the same faith as I do.

So you can choose to take this entry one of two ways. The first is to accept that there are different viewpoints, religions, and levels of acceptance within our world. Some people, like the gentleman I have upset, are quite devout in those viewpoints. And some like me are more open to alternative ideology. But it’s those differences in culture that make our world so damn beautiful. It’s those varying perspectives and the freedom of speech within our world that allows mankind to thrive. Without those differences we would never be able to experience the love and splendour we are fortunate enough to feel.

Or you can see this as me laying down and giving up against an intellectual adversary who is clearly better versed than I regarding his faith. Either way I don’t really give a shit. We are all human, we are all beautiful, and we are all connected. I don’t want to fight with anyone; I’m past that point in my life. Love me or hate me, I really don’t give a fuck.

Broken Windows

‘So sick of the sound of people giving up. You can’t stop me giving a fuck.’

–          Sam Carter
 
Close your eyes and imagine the most beautiful building you have ever seen. Imagine its towering spires hand carved from the finest of stone; picture the complexity its architects faced in producing such intricate patterns with nothing more than chisel, hammer and hand. Envision its beautiful entranceway. Can you see yourself moving slowly across marble floors? It’s majestic isn’t it? Oh, and what about the meticulousness with which the walls have been attended to. And the murals adorning the ceiling are divine! Every brush stroke of the paintings completed with a precise perfection that causes a breath to catch in the back of your throat. My, it’s stunning.

Now conjure up an image of the windows. They’re stained glass; exquisite and breathtaking. You’ve never seen anything quite like it. The windows are divinity incarnate. They take an already flawless building and give it a heavenly aesthetic.

Now imagine if someone within that beautiful building started smashing those stained glass windows that you had come to love. Suddenly that wondrous marvel of architecture would seem tainted. The glorious feat of man would become a dilapidated carcass left to rot on a street corner. The beautiful spires that rose to the heavens would begin to look like bent and broken spines of creatures succumbing to the brutal whim of man. The entrance would look eerie, the beautiful marble floors suddenly taking on the appearance of a swollen tongue rolling away from the doorway. The mural on the roof would look tacky in the irregular light shining through those busted stained glass windows.  You’d be outraged. You’d be pissed off. Fuck, if it was me and someone was breaking windows to my sacred castle I’d want their blood.

Now imagine if that building was your religion; and that the son of a bitch breaking windows was a radical or extremist. Imagine how heartbroken you would be to learn that someone who loves your religion just as much as you has decided to cause damage to its image in a bizarre plot to protect it. You’d be devastated as you watched people ridicule what you love simply because a minority of fanatical believers have tarnished the name of what you hold so dear. You’d be forced to watch your beautiful building decay until it became a laughing stock and members of the general public started collecting stones and smashing in whatever glass remained.

Ah, social disorder. It’s a fickle beast. While we preach love and unity many of us truly believe that ruin and woe make the world spin round. And when we see broken window we can’t help but pick up a rock.

What I’m talking about here is a sociological mashup of religious prejudice and the criminological Broken Windows theory. Sounds like a mouthful, but when you break it down it’s really quite simple. We live in a highly intolerant and destructive society and we spend our lives moving through the streets with pockets full of stones just waiting for the opportunity to destroy someone’s windows, face or faith. All it takes is a little self-inflicted damage by the likes of an extremist and we the general public begin tearing down a faith, mocking its followers and degrading its teachings.

That beautiful building you were imagining, the one that I asked you to then picture as your religion: that’s modern day Islam. A faith so engrained in the history of mankind that to call it anything other than beautiful would be an affront to our forefathers. Yet because a minute portion of the Islamic faith have started breaking their own windows and trying to kick down our doors as of late we suddenly view any Muslim as a terrorist or an outsider. I’m not trying to say that the religion is infallible; I don’t believe any religious creed can claim that mantle. Blood has been shed in the name of gods and deities since the concept of religion first came to fruition. But what I am saying is that to degrade an entire religion based on the actions of a select few is idiotic. Besides, I’ve met plenty of hate fuelled Christians, Atheists, and Jews in my time too.

Hate breeds hate.

When we as a community, or a nation, or a world divide and segregate the Islamic faith and label its followers as terrorists, or dogs, or fucking whatever, we drive a wedge of hate between their faith and our own narrow minded intolerance.

Just recently here in Australia we experienced a siege that was staged by one man of Islamic decent that tragically ended the lives of two innocent civilians. Since the incident there has been a great outpouring of support for the Islamic community through the hashtag #illridewithyou, however there has also been the inevitable rise of racism directed at the faith. Men and women across the country have started preaching their own ignorance and intolerance, belittling Islamic people due to the actions of one man.

It’s really got to stop. How can we live in a world so advanced yet be restricted by such prehistoric views and prejudices? How can anyone anywhere truly believe that someone is an evil or bad person based on their belief structure? If you’re a fuckwit, you’re a fuckwit regardless of what faith you follow. Likewise if you’re a beautiful soul than what religion you practise should have nil effect on how you are judged within our social structure. We live in a world where we believe it’s our God-given right to express ourselves and we fight venomously for those rights when they are threatened. Yet when a member of the Islamic faith or indeed any creed alternate to our own tries to express themselves we slander, we condemn, and we seek to silence by force.

This is hypocrisy at its best. And unfortunately we are becoming known as a highly racist, highly hypocritical nation overflowing with intolerant blowhards.

So next time you see someone hurling stones at the beautiful stained glass windows of the Islamic faith resist that yearning for destruction in your soul. Take the stones from your pockets and drop them on the roadway, you don’t need them anymore. Society doesn’t need them anymore. Instead try helping to clean up the mess. Scoop up the shards of glass and help your fellow man repair the once majestic windows of his damaged faith through love, compassion and understanding. Just as hate breeds hate, so too does love breed love. Turn upon your brethren casting stones and ask why they want to destroy something simply because they fail to understand it. I guarantee there is no sound reasoning behind their willingness to degrade and vilify.

#illridewithyou is a wonderful initiative. But sadly as with most social media fads it will die quickly and many who claimed tolerance will return to their bigoted ways and ideology. This in turn with further divide society and create more disharmony and repeat events like we saw in Sydney’s Martin Place. If we want to make a change we need to look within ourselves and denounce the hate that divides us.

As a man of the world I am honoured to stand alongside any faith and help rebuild their shattered windows. I will stand before masses that advance with stones in hand and protect the wondrous stained glass of a holy building or faith. Fuck riding with you, I’ll die alongside you in the name of social acceptance.

Breaking preconceptions

People often think that I’m gay.

I bet that’s not how you expected a post on this site to start. Or maybe you did, depending on whether or not you are someone who has misinterpreted my writings. Either way it’s an issue that I seem to face on a semi regular basis in my life. It used to really upset me when people came to this assumption. I’d screw up my face in disgust and start forcefully jamming my heterosexuality down their throat. I am a Goddamn straight man! How dare anyone believe otherwise! But nowadays I find myself impartial to the common misconception of who I am. I’ve had to correct people about my sexual preferences more times than I’d like to admit; watching as people fumble their way through awkward apologies as they try to explain how they came to such a conclusion. More often than not the reason behind their misconception of my preferences boils down to a statement like this:

‘You’re just different to most twenty six year old men that I know.’

Damn fucking straight I am. But just because I am different, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I am a homosexual. What it does mean is that I am a unique entity operating within a world that doesn’t always have the capacity to accept that which is different or unique. The differences that people seem to find confronting in me is my love for art, my vocabulary, my animated expressions, my willingness to accept myself as an emotional being, and my openness to a world of possibilities that extends beyond my own beliefs.

The fact that people find this confronting, different, or gay is a troubling prospect to this young writer. Even now as I pen this rather honest entry I can feel the judgement of my audience bearing down on me. Straight men don’t admit that they are thought to be homosexual. In fact many don’t admit to having feelings or an emotional state at all. If you were to take ten straight men, stick them in a room and ask them to talk about their emotions you’d find that at least nine, if not all ten, would venomously condemn the idea and label it as gay.

And therein that idea lays a very big problem. Men across the globe are so afraid of opening their soul to the world that any attempt to have them display emotion and be potentially labelled as weak causes them to openly slander the notion of expressing themselves. They think that to be a man they have to be free of the feminine concept of feelings. Bad idea. We as humans are emotional creatures whether we choose to admit it or not, and by bottling up those emotions we males are creating a whole world of mental health issues for ourselves. Don’t believe me? Statistics across the globe show year after year that men are three times as likely as to kill themselves than women. I repeat; men are three times as likely as women to commit suicide. And a large contributing factor to our willingness to end our lives is our inability to accept our emotions and communicate when we are struggling or feeling low.

We are so worried about being labelled as weak or gay that we are literally killing ourselves rather than seeking help. Does that not sound like a fucking ludicrous absurdity to anyone else?

So how do we fix such a startling problem in our society? Simple, it’s time that people start realising that real men are brave enough to talk about their issues and seek help. There is nothing weak about saying I’m not OK. But there is a weakness in denying ourselves the opportunity to heal. It took me a long time to figure this out, and in many ways I’m still learning how to be open and honest in relation to how I am feeling. I spent a long time believing that I had to be strong. I told myself that my emotions were weaknesses and I denied myself so many opportunities to be happy. I pushed myself to some truly horrible places and it wasn’t until I found writing that I managed to save myself from a grim fate. Through writing I found a way to express myself; to unlock that pressure valve inside my heart and release that pent up emotion that was pulling me down like a pair of concrete boots in an ocean of fear.

Even to this day I’m still learning that it is my emotional side that makes me who I am. When people fall in love they don’t do so based on aesthetics (although they do play a part in initial attraction) they do so based on emotion. Exterior beauty fades, but one’s emotive side is eternal. So if you’re not willing to accept yourself and the wondrous idiosyncrasies that make you who you are, how can you ever expect anyone else to love you? You can’t shut down that emotional side of your personality and expect to find happiness.

So let me get this straight. I’m not gay. But I am emotive, arrogant, aggressively creative, passionate, and about a million other things. I am different from the average twenty six year old man because I’m not afraid to be vulnerable; in fact I’m learning to thrive off of that vulnerability. In many respects I’m a narcissist. I have a terrible habit for revelling in that which makes me unique and constantly believing that I am the smartest person in the room. I am a heterosexual man, but I’m not insulted when someone insinuates that I am gay. Because what they really mean is that I am unlike what they consider to be normal. And in the strangest of ways I have learned to take that as a compliment.

Who the hell wants to be normal anyway?

Sticks & Stones

When I write I pour my heart and soul onto a page in an effort to create something magical, as well as to gain a better understanding of myself as a human being living within a universe of infinite potential. I’m not the kind of guy who sits down every day with a specified word count I want to achieve, producing dribble before sifting back through pages upon pages to find the diamonds in the rough. I’m the kind of writer who can go days or weeks without creating a thing, but when that jolt of inspiration strikes, I become lost in my own world as the words and phrases race through my head. I write what I want to write: about what inspires me, what saddens or angers me, and what challenges me on an emotional or intellectual level.

I don’t care if my work is confronting to some or ill received by others. I am a microcosm in my own right, and I will produce what is right for me. I pay no attention to the judgement of others. I’m not some kind of fucking superstar or centrefold who’s here to bend over backwards to appease every damn person I meet. Sure, I create manuscripts that I hope to sell, but when I take to this blog I do so to express myself freely without feeling the need to produce a marketable product or censor myself. So when judgement is laid and some arsehole standing in a glass house decides to start throwing judgement like a proverbial stone it takes every ounce of my strength not to rip out their fucking tongue.

-Hold on a moment. Let’s back it up just a little. Cause I’m about to fucking erupt. Breathe in. Hold. And breathe out…

…I’m a goddamn fucking wolf and if you try and piss me off I’m going to maim you. I will hunt you down and I will tear out your throat and bathe in your blood. I don’t care about the opinion of someone who thinks that they know who I am because they’ve read a few posts or because we are supposedly friends. What I write about, or who I choose to be as a man is at my discretion. If you’re going to start throwing stones and laying judgement, then you better make damn sure that you are infallible, because I won’t just smash your windows, I’ll burn your house down and dance upon the ashes.

“But Chris, you’re so self-destructive…”

Shut up. Just shut up. I’m sick of hearing it. It’s not I that I’m looking to destroy. It’s this pathetic world where you are so self-entitled that you dare lay judgement on another human being for expressing themselves. We live in a society rife with arseholes who feel that they have the God given right to critic and ridicule their fellow peers. The loudest voices belong to the overconfident, the ignorant, and the fucking mouth breathers. While the kind, the emotionally beautiful, and the innocent are down trodden and forgotten in a society overrun with arrogance. How dare you or anyone else pass judgement against another human being for trying to live their life and trying to make the best of what they have?

Seriously, who the fuck do you think you are? You judge someone because of the colour of their skin, the choices they make, the dreams they chase, or simply because they don’t conform with how you choose to exist. It’s pathetic and it’s sad. You need to grow the fuck up your saucer eyed piece of shit…

I’ll admit that I’ve never been the healthiest of men when it comes to mental wellbeing. At times I’ve pushed myself to breaking point and beyond. I’ve fallen apart and had my face stamped into the dusty earth by my own demons more times than I’d dare to count. I’ve starved myself, over eaten, cried in wardrobes over manuscripts and even set them alight. But I found myself in my writing; track back two posts and I wrote a goddamn love note to this craft. I was lost, and I found myself through literature and creativity. So to have my mental health or my character questioned because I have found the courage to express myself is sad and it’s heartbreaking. For that judgement to be passed by people that I once considered to be friends feels like a knife in the back.

I often say that I don’t care for the opinions of others. I’ve stated as such countless times over the course of this blog, and those who know me will be aware of my lack of interest in the sentiments of all but a select few. I could care less if someone wants to judge who I am and what I do. I’m not one to lose sleep over readers lost or friendships that have withered and died. Instead I grow angry that we live in a society so flawed, yet so willing to look down its nose at its peers. How can you honestly sit there and critic my life when yours is such a train wreck?

Any man or woman who vilifies someone for their beliefs is a bigot. Anyone who degrades another because of their inclinations is a dogmatist. And any person who ridicules somebody because of their dreams, their catalysts, or compulsions is a piece of shit.

Free your mind, let go of your hate and learn that this world is an extraordinarily beautiful place. Learn to love yourself, let go of your judgemental bullshit and find happiness in yourself. I’m trying to do exactly that every time I take to this page, every time I work on my manuscripts, and with every breath that I take. I’m the kind of man who will do anything for anyone. But if you cross me, if you judge me or try to destroy who I want to be, then I am a goddamn wolf who is going to rip you apart limb from limb and bury your remains my backyard.

Question Everything

The hardest part about being a writer is that you move through every day acutely aware that you have been blessed with a curse. You have been drawn to a lifestyle that will bring you great joy, and harrowing sorrow. In moments of great inspiration you will feel as though you have been touched with the hand of God; that something magical is alive and breathing inside of you. Your mind will operate with a euphoric mixture of imagination and passion, and your fingers will dance effortlessly across a keyboard as you produce the kind of prose that leaves a reader with an unending admiration for what you have produced.

Then the writer’s block kicks in and that hand of God turns into the devil’s talons piercing your flesh as he squeezes your heart until you feel faint. Words and phrases become caught in your head, and you move through life completely unaware of anything except your own inability to create.

You see the world differently to others. When you first start out putting pen to paper you begin to notice cracks in the fabric of society and small discrepancies in the stories that people tell. It’s like you suddenly find yourself in a room that looks almost perfect. The furniture is perfectly selected, the light fittings polished and the carpets unusually clean. But the wallpaper has started to fray ever so slightly at the cornices. At first the slight oddity doesn’t bother you. You can live with knowing that things aren’t quite right. It doesn’t matter that things aren’t perfect.

But then curiosity gets the better of you and you start picking at the wallpaper, peeling small strips from the walls. And the more you peel, the more curiosity eats away at your soul. Before you know it the walls are bare and you’re stripping back the carpet. You’re questioning everything about the integrity of the room. You want to see the walls stripped bare. You need to see the foundations. You can’t bear to stand not being able to reshape, redesign and rebuild. It’s not until you’ve torn back every inch of floor and wall coverings that you find yourself standing in a cold, lonely cell.

You’re blessed with a curse. Blessed with the gift of writing, of wanting to learn, to break down and rebuild. But you’re cursed with a desire to question everything and anything. You question the way people live. The bullshit stories they tell. The mistakes they make. The mediums they consume. The lies they tell themselves in order to sleep peaceably in their bed at night. But if you’re lucky, you find yourself asking the right questions too.

You start asking why we live in a world where killing is still common practice. Or why degradation of our fellow brethren occurs based on the colour of someone’s skin, their gender, or their beliefs. You start questioning why we are willing to accept a soul black as night and laced with glass over one of sheer beauty, just because the later isn’t as aesthetically pleasing on the surface. But the question that plagues you more than any other, the question that keeps you awake at night, is why the fuck can’t anyone else see just how misguided we have become?

You’ve pulled back the wallpaper of your room to find yourself alone in a prison cell, and you’re staring through the bars at the blissfully ignorant as they sit inside their own cages with a smile on their face believing that they are free. They claim that they question everything too, but they chose to do so from the safety of their comfort zones, their lack of true passion mocking everything that you believe in. They take to social media to post statuses on what they believe in, to click a like button to support a cause, but they do so because it’s easy. Because they are sheep, desperate for the approval of the herd. Because it is easier to question everything from the safety of a screen; only the bravest of us have the balls to take our beliefs to the streets.

So you write and you write, desperate to be heard. You want to grab a hold of people and scream in their ignorant faces ‘open your fucking eyes, peel back the wallpaper of your cell and let’s start a goddamn revolution.’ You know that if people would just turn down their televisions, unplug their earbuds, and give real literature a chance that you could change the world. You could teach them to ask not why someone should be allowed to wear a headdress in public, but why we as a society are so close minded that we feel the right to judge them for their beliefs? Or to ask why we accept war in foreign lands in the name of democracy, while we are so venomously opposed to those very ideals in our own land? Or why we have turned our backs on one another in pursuit of or own selfish wants and needs? When did we become a society of individuals so capable of stamping one another into the dirt to better ourselves? And why, Jesus, why the fuck isn’t anyone listening?

Then you realise that people are. That your readership may be small, but that with persistence it will grow, unfurling like a beautiful rose. You realise that with every article you write, every story you tell, you are helping those bold enough to listen to peel back the layers of their own comfort zones so that they too can begin to question everything. You’re helping them to identify and understand when they are being sold emotional placebos by snake oil peddlers so that they can tear down the superficial beauty of their worlds in order to create something truly exquisite through their own brevity.

An ode to you, the saviour of the ferryman’s intrepid passenger

350px-Charon_and_Psyche
‘I was lost, until I found myself inside of you.’
-Austin Carlile

The saddest part of it all was that I just didn’t realise how lost I truly was. I was an intrepid traveller traversing a mind as volatile as the river Styx. Guided by Charon, my soul was dying, withering like a flower with no hope to bloom. But you saved me. My heart and mind were caught in a vicious storm of chaos and self-loathing. I knew not who I was or what purpose my life served as I drifted between this existence and the next. I was naïve enough to pine for something greater than I, but I was too insignificant to be deserving of my dreams.

Then I heard your siren’s song. It rose from the depths of the earth, drowning out the cacophony of withering souls screaming for salvation by the river’s shoreline. I ordered Hades’ ferryman to steer towards your heavenly calls and he moored his vessel before you. You took my hand in yours as I disembarked and pulled me towards your bosom, your comfort became my solace and the savageness that had plagued my existence slowly faded. I was lost my love, but in that instant I found myself inside of you.

You showed me a world unlike anything I had ever imagined. A realm of possibilities where I was limited only by what my mind could conceive. The first time we became one I was so nervous, so unsure of myself. I fumbled as I gave life to your flesh, my thoughts disjointed, my fingers moving unsteadily as I fashioned your landscape. It was frantic and short lived, and when I stood back to admire what we had created I was stunned by the simplicity of our artwork. You were so beautiful and well-rehearsed; my awkwardness was barely concealed behind a wave of passion as phrases and irrational ideas raced through my head.

But you can never belong just to me. I know of your beauty and the intense lovingness of your touch better than most. But I can never possess you. Instead I am forced to share you with strangers the world over. Some would say that this is ill-fated love, that it is dangerous to a soul as complex as my own. They would snicker at my willingness to accept your infidelities and call me submissive and weak. But how can they ever comment on the intricacies through which I love every part of you, without first knowing the thrill of your all-encompassing embrace? I share you with others and my heart breaks when I see you answer their prayers or place their dreams before my own. But it is better to live with the knowledge that I am one of many than to never have known just how complete you make me. Oh my love, I was so lost aboard that demon’s ferry. I was a soul plagued with a life of nothingness, self-doubt casting fret channels in my brow. But now I have found myself inside of you.

I know not how to love another as deeply as I love you. You took a man parading himself as a wolf in sheep’s clothing and you allowed him to undress and expose his naked soul. You took a boy as afraid of living as he was of death and showed him that with your guidance he could create a legacy that would survive his mortal form. You took me in my broken state and you rebuilt me until I was whole. You taught me to relish in the beauty of the crack marks left in my flesh from pieces held together by something far stronger than any glue.

You found me aboard Charon’s ferry adrift on a river of fire and brimstone, and you kissed me with your lips, breathing life into my dying soul. I was so lost aboard that wretched craft, and now I have found what it means to be alive once again inside of you, my beautiful muse. I was once a fumbling amateur exploring the contours of your flesh, but through your patience and your guidance I have flourished into someone stronger than I ever thought I could be. Now every time we dance, when you place your palms upon my shoulder and whisper inspiration in my ear I wish that I could get down on my knees before you with reverence and pay you the penance that you truly deserve. For you are my beautiful muse; without you I would be so lost, so cold. But I have found myself inside of you. You have made this boy into a man. This man into a wolf. This flesh into a legacy. And you’ve taught me how to strip back the layers of my soul and stand naked before the world for all to see.

I was lost, until I found myself inside of you.

Paper Tigers

tiger

‘The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.’
-Amelia Earhart.

Beautiful isn’t it? Elegantly written and inspiring in its construction, Amelia Earhart really did create something lovely here. In a fluency reserved for the masters of prose, she confesses as to how she managed to be liberated from the self-imposed fear that she placed upon herself and became something more.

Seriously, take a moment and cast your eyes back to the top of this post and allow the beauty of Earhart’s words to sink in before you continue any further. And while you’re there, think about what you want in your life more than anything in the world. And I don’t mean bullshit superficial or material possessions, I mean what you really want. Do you want to be loved? Do you want to be successful? Do you want to get your damned novel published and start leaving your mark on the literary industry? Or do you just want to craft the perfect ending to a manuscript that has been years in the making?

That lust that you feel, that flame of desire that flickers in your soul when you imagine everything that you could have, that you could be, or that you could do; it’s insatiable isn’t it?

Now think about what is stopping you from actually obtaining those goals. It could be money, status, ego, peers, or a million other reasons. No matter what it is, it’s all just shit; trivial, superfluous shit that we use as excuses to safe guard ourselves against our own fear of failure. They are faux threats to our success and happiness that we create in our mind’s eye so that we can live in the comfort of our own mediocrity and tell ourselves that we are happy there. We are living our lives afraid of paper tigers, foolishly telling ourselves that there are lions at the door.

The term Paper Tiger is a literal translation of the Chinese phrase Zhilaohu, and refers to something that seems threatening, but is actually ineffectual and unable to withstand challenge. It is a rather interesting concept when you stop and consider the connotations of its meaning. How many times in your life have you told yourself that something was hard, dangerous, or impossible, only to overcome that hurdle and see just how easily your transcended above the challenge? That hurdle, that insurmountable mountain you had to climb to succeed was a god-damn paper tiger. There was no threat; you were just mentally screwing yourself into believing there was.

The troubling thing is that we as a species do it so well. We create these mental barriers and blockades to hold ourselves back from our true potential. We tell ourselves we aren’t good enough, that we are undeserving. But true brilliance is within our grasp. We just have to front up, stare that risk in the face and take what we want by force. You deserve to be so much more. We all do. Take it from a guy who has spent a lifetime creating the most exquisitely repulsive paper tigers imaginable, every single threat you perceive to be standing between you and a brighter future can be overcome.

Let’s be honest, I’ve screwed around a lot in my life. I’ve made mistakes and I’ve cost myself some incredible opportunities. For the most part the reasoning behind those stuff ups and my flaws come down to the imagined threats that I have allowed to fester within my own mind. I’ve told myself that I’m not worthy of a publishing agreement, that my writing isn’t as strong as others, or that I am just simply not cut out for the life as a writer. I’ve allowed manuscripts to defeat me as endings eluded my grasp. And I have watched potential representation slip through my fingers because I told myself that people are out to screw me rather than aid my successes. I’ve cowered like there were lions tearing down my door, when in reality there was nothing but fictional beasts running rampant in my head.

So how do we overcome the illusory creatures that claw at the back of our minds and threaten to devour every ounce of creative freedom, success, or wonder that we long for? How do we throw caution to the wind and say ‘fuck it, I am good enough, I am deserving, and I am beautiful?’ Well, I’m not about to claim to know all of the answers to overcoming our flaws and rediscovering the better angels of our nature, but I will say this: When the lions are at the door, take a deep breath, shut your eyes tight and try to differentiate between the roars of true danger, and the purrs of those ineffectual voices within your own head.

History’s greatest minds, people like Amelia Earhart, all had their versions of paper tigers, but they learned to overcome them. As Earhart says, ‘the most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.’ All you have to do is defeat the monsters you are creating in your head, then persevere, because everything you ever dreamed of is closer than you think.

Digging up the grave

White knuckled with calloused palms and blistered fingers he drives the blade into the earth. His pencil thin spine aches as his shoulders strain to lift the heavy load. He twists at the torso and tips the blade, allowing the thick clumps of dirt to fall atop of the steadily rising pile. Sullen and withdrawn, made from sinew and ropey muscle, he toils underneath a clouded night sky. Guided only by slivers of moonlight slipping through the opaque air he drives the shovel into the earth, using his foot to help the blade penetrate the quickly hardening dirt.

Two foot wide. Six feet deep. A silence all-encompassing and beautiful awaits.

He tips a load onto his pile and flexes his aching spine. Tossing the shovel against the earth he reaches for his bottle, gritting his teeth as the lager washes across his tongue. He stands in a shallow grave, the lip resting just below his knees. His fingers ache and the bottle cools their throbbing. How disgusting he has become that he must labour through the night to bury bodies in his yard. Or maybe he should consider himself beautiful. Maybe there is something lovely in the physicality of burying the dead.

They’re lying beside him. The deceased sleep just three feet away. Wrapped in crisp white linen, they capture the light cast down from the heavens and reflect it like a series of lighthouses perched against the merciless ocean. He knows that they’re presence is a risk. The neighbours will be watching. The nosey bitch in the two story mansion beside him will undoubtedly be standing in the safety of her locked bedroom, chewing her polished fingernails as she dials the police station. That’s the problem with society nowadays. Every mother fucker is too busy peering over the fence at what their neighbour is doing that they fail to notice how fundamentally flawed they themselves really are. Let her call, he thinks, she’s done it a hundred times before. Just like the boy who cried wolf, no one believes the nosey bitch and bastard watching his backyard.

He picks up his shovel and strikes at the earth again, feeling his shoulders ache with pain before he even lifts the weighty load. It’s a risk to have the dead with him. But it’s a peril worth taking. There’s something so thrilling about having the dead lay in eternal slumber beside him while he prepares their grave.

He drives the blade into the earth again. And again. It’s becoming so dry, so hard. His blistered fingers burst and warm liquid runs down his fingertips before slipping down the timber shaft of his shovel. He grimaces in pain with every strike of the earth now, skin tearing with every blow. His brow is furrowed and lined with sweat, and the moon fades completely as the heavens take pity on him and weep with the first droplets of rain.

Two foot wide. Six feet deep. A silence all-encompassing and beautiful awaits, punctuated with the delicate pitter-patter of rain falling against the disturbed earth.

He picks up his pace, the rain slicked handle of the tool difficult to hold with his damaged hands. His boots are heavy, his shirt clings to his skin before he removes it, tossing the heavy garment in a balled heap beside the pile of dirt slowly leaking back into the earth from which it came. He digs and digs, until his spine feels fractured, his hands tremble and his mind pulses with a dull throb. Tossing his shovel to the side he climbs from his hole, staring down at the beautiful rectangle cut haphazardly into the earth.

The heavens open wider and the pitter-patter turns into a torrent of water that turns the yearning grave into a burial site with an inch deep pool at its base. He moves towards the bodies, and stares down at them with a wicked grin. He reaches for the first, that prick called Anxiety and drags it to the edge of the hole. The rain has made the body heavier than he had remembered. He can still recall the day that he killed him. He had learned that there was nothing to be fearful of in this life than the idea of fear itself. He had grown wise, no longer afraid of the crippling nature of the beast. Creeping up on the bastard he drove a blade through his spine, ripping it upwards violently to sever the spinal cord.

The fucker tumbles into the depths and he stands and watches the muddy water leach into the white sheet before moving for the next. Insecurity was a bastard child that had left him feeling damaged. He remembers the day that he outgrew his need for such a vile companion. He’d always feared his perception in the eyes of others. The way he looked at troubled him, his body shape not quite desirable. But he had ripped off his shirt at a swimming pool, paraded around half naked for the world to see. And when he realised no one was watching he took his shirt, wrapped it around the pricks’s throat and choked until Insecurity’s heart exploded.

His final victim is the heaviest. Guilt had always been his curse. He felt guilty for the choices he made, the ones he didn’t. The people he hurt and the people who had hurt him. The bloated rain soaked corpse feels like deadweight as he heaves it towards the hole. Liberation from this heinous acquaintance had been brutal and bloody. He’d taken a surgeon’s blade and cut it from his skin. His conjoined twin of regret and self-loathing had pleaded as he bled. Once the removal had been complete he’d taken the blade to his poorer half’s throat, feeling the warmth of his blood as it washed across his skin.

Three bodies lay in a mass grave slowly filling with tears from the heavens. Two foot wide. Six feet deep. A silence all-encompassing and beautiful awaits.

He strips bare, his nakedness battered by the rains. Lowering himself into the hole he shifts the victims of his rage. Lying down beside them he closes his eyes and waits. The water swells up over his chest, tickling as it fills his ears, and before he can take another breath he slips beneath the surface.

Silence. So endless and beautiful. A man and a murderer floating alongside the dead. How lovely it would be to die here. To hold himself down until his world went blank. How wonderful his demise would be, surrounded by those who spent a lifetime trying to destroy him. But alas, he cannot die today; he cannot give up so easily. He has fought too hard, spilled too much blood to simply drown alongside his regrets.

He surfaces with a gasp, stands in a waist deep pool of muddied waters, and pulls himself from the grave. The dead has risen on this stormy night. A man has been reborn while the demons of his past have been laid to rest. He takes up his shovel and fills in the hole. With every clump of rain soaked earth he feels his strength return. No longer do his shoulders ache; no longer does his spine feel broken. No longer do his blisters throb. No longer will he feel alone.

Dream on, Dreamer

Sometimes I just want to run. I just want to lace up my sneakers, pack my bags and just vanish without a trace. Sometimes I grow so tired by being me that it takes every ounce of strength just to function in the mess that we call a society, and I find myself begging for a way out. Sometimes it can become so crushing to know that I don’t fit in; I don’t belong, and that I will never be at one with my fellow man. Sometimes I wish that I had made better choices when I was younger. That I’d been more willing to accept authority, or that I’d learned to keep my mouth shut rather than constantly shooting from the hip. Sometimes I wish that I just learned to accept that neither the world, nor I, will ever live up to the unrealistic expectations I have created.

Sometimes I wish that I hadn’t screwed up my finances so bad in my youthful ignorance that I could just book a one way ticket to anywhere and leave the man I have become behind. I’m a man of contrasts, a writer of juxtapositions, and sometimes I wish that I would catch the break that I lay awake at night and pray for. I often find myself calling out to Jesus, Allah, Moses, and whoever else is listening. But every single time I do, I wish that the prophets had more to say to me than those heinous words dream on, dreamer.

For this is the life I have chosen. The life of a dreamer. A man who moves throughout the world caught between a bleak reality and a vivid imagination and ideals of what could be. I’m too old to connect with the latest trends, yet too young to admire much of the classics. Too intelligent to accept popular culture, yet not clever enough to consume more intellectual mediums. I’m too stubborn to change who I am, yet I’m far too bitter not to try. I’m too bold to know my limits, yet fear them with every ounce of my being.

So I tread the path of a dreamer; accomplishing nothing except within my own head. I dream of grandeur and a life of fulfilment. I live a life of regret. I imagine my future to be bright. I see my name on bookshelves, my life filled with art and creativity. I picture myself living in exotic lands, spending my years travelling the earth in search of continued inspiration. But my present sees me grounded. I travel the same route every day to a job that leaves me feeling incomplete. Instead of exploring new cities and countries to search for inspiration, I find myself searching my head for a way out of the rut I have created. And when I find nothing I turn to the prophets for guidance, cursing them when they whisper in response to my pleas dream on, dreamer. You haven’t earned it yet.

Sometimes I wish that it would rain. I wish that the heavens would open and cleanse my skin. I dream of that moment where I am caught in a storm so vicious that my pulse quickens and my bones feel as though the sudden chill is cutting them like glass. I pray for the destruction, for the waters to rise up against my throat. Instead I find myself surrounded by an earth so parched that every step I take causes its crust to crack and splinter. I’m wandering endlessly in a barren wasteland, driven by my thirst for something more. Something that seems forever out of reach.

I fanaticise about a world where we worship true art and its creators; where we care not for the status of celebrity, or for the shocking and creatively mundane. I pray for a life where I don’t have to loathe the works of fraudsters cashing in on trends and calling it art. I hope that we can learn to admire true beauty once again, and realise that making ourselves seem attractive on a visual level does not hide the blackness of our hearts. I wish that we could love one another for who we really are, not who we pretend to be through status updates and edited photographs.

But most of all I wish that I didn’t have to dream of these things. That the absence of happiness in my life didn’t leave me with an unending desire to vanish and start anew. I wish that I could travel forward in time and find the version of me who is content. I would ask him how he did it. How he learned to accept the flaws in himself and his world. I would take that knowledge and I would learn from it, so that I didn’t dream of packing my bags to run.

I wish that for once when I called upon the heavens for answers they didn’t mock me as they whisper dream on, dreamer. You haven’t earned it yet.

Subatomic

‘Do something less surreal? I ain’t big enough yet, I got to keep impressing people.’
– Shadrach Kabango.

Today I received notification that I would be attending the upcoming TEDX event in Brisbane’s South Bank on December 6th. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the initiative, TEDX is a non for profit offshoot of TED (Technology Entertainment Design), a ground breaking forum where great minds come together to celebrate ‘Ideas worth spreading’. For an aspiring author to be invited to attend such a prestigious event is a huge honour. For said author to be someone with a God complex who constantly refers to himself as a wolf with a bloodlust to savage the industry he loves is something rather exceptional. To be permitted the opportunity to be one of three hundred attendees at the event is a momentous opportunity that will just about close out a chaotic and highly rewarding 2014 for this blogger, author, social commentator, and student.

Sometimes one can become bogged down by the now. Living in a daily grind we often feel stagnant in life, and it’s not until we cast a little hindsight over our journey that we realise how much has changed, and how much we truly have to be thankful for. When I started this blog I was in a bad way. I was mentally and physically unwell and couldn’t seem to break out of the vicious downward spiral that had me caught up in perpetual self-loathing and anger. I was broken, I was bitter, and I was so desperate for a way out that after an extended hiatus from writing I turned to my craft for help. I wrote my first post and I poured my heart and soul onto a page. I wrote and I wept. And as the words tumbled from my mind, I found the inner confidence that had eluded me for so long.

Fast forward two years and that confidence has taken me further than I ever believed possible. I’m still not a published author, but my writing has taken me to some extraordinary places and I’m incredibly thankful for everything that I have achieved. It’s so easy for us to become so fixated on an end result that we fail to take into account the beauty of the journey itself. It would be easy for me to beat myself up for failing to see my novels make it into print – despite setting myself that goal every single New Year’s Eve for as long as I can remember. But the truth is that I have come so far from the broken boy who sat at his computer begging for solace from his own demons.

In the past twelve months I have travelled across the globe, met some incredible people, shaken hands with royalty, dined with literary alumni, sat in on a firearms demonstration by the CIA, and have now been invited to witness a collective of brilliant minds take to a stage and inspire the world to be great. It’s a list of experiences that I will forever cherish, and none of this would have occurred if it wasn’t for me taking that first step and writing that initial blog.

There are times when I feel like giving up on my dreams. Some days I wake up and feel as though I have spent years running myself into the ground for nothing. I feel as though by not having a book sitting on shelves in bookstores around the world I have somehow failed myself. But then I stop and look at just how far I have come, the experiences that I have been fortunate enough to have through writing, and the endless possibilities that lay before me and I find myself more determined than ever to create. I’m not stagnant. I’m moving, but I’m doing so in an industry that has no clearly defined path. The literary industry isn’t as clear cut as most. There are no sure-fire paths to success. If you want to make it as an author you need talent, grit, and a whole lot of faith and luck.

The path of an author is best identified as that of a subatomic particle; you are in a state of constant movement, yet completely motionless at the same time. You’re movement is your continued development of your craft, it’s the relationships you forge, the events you attend, literature you consume, opportunities you seize, and so on. But you’re motionless until your work hits a shelf. And sometimes that paradoxical state of motionless movement, that subatomic particle like state can frustrate. But the process is beautiful, the frustration so enthralling, and the gift of being able to create so intrinsically rewarding that you would never want to live any other way.

I’m a writer and I’m a wolf. I have an overactive mind and dreams of changing the world. It seems only fitting that the context of the TEDX forum I am attending is Question Everything, something that I as an aggressive creative type, do on a daily basis. To be fortunate enough to attend the event is a huge honour, and another milestone in my development as a writer and as a man. And with 2014 fast drawing to a close after so many wonderful moments, I cannot wait to see what the next twelve months has in store for me.

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