Tag: Writing

Halcyon

He looks just like me. It’s as if we are the same. But we’re different. We are two men walking underneath a sky so polluted with halogen that there are no more stars to guide us. Our feet pound at the concrete; our hands are jammed deep into pockets and our shoulders are hunched to avoid the rain that’s already soaking through our coats. We pass so close that our shoulders almost touch. I take a sideways glance and scowl, but he smiles a smile so pure that it cuts like glass through the chambers of my soul.

We’re wearing the same coat, the same pants, and have matching rain soaked shoes. But where my brow is furrowed so deep that rain water runs through channels and leaks down my face; he grins like a Cheshire from ear to ear. It’s as though this stranger is completely oblivious to the tears of the gods splashing against his features.

We are so alike. So similar, but different. He looks happy. And I’m…

…I’m not even sure what I am anymore. But I know that I’m not like him. I didn’t get that promotion today. I never wanted the position. I just needed the money. I never even wanted to be a businessman. I never wanted to sit tethered to a desk crunching numbers or filing complaints until my hips seized up and my wrist began sounding like a cement mixer whenever I tried to move it. I wanted to be a free spirit. As a child I wanted to be an artist and an astronaut; I wanted to change the world. As a teenager I wanted to travel. I told myself that changing the world wasn’t nearly as important as walking across it with strangers by my side.

But when I became an adult I screwed everything up. I made stupid decisions, ruined friendships and accumulated debts. Before I knew it I was trying to convince my employer that I gave a damn about their strategic vision and business objectives. I started selling my soul for a paycheck that would inevitably be whittled away on material possessions or by my ever amounting irresponsible choices.

But I bet this man before me never had these problems. I bet he got the promotion. He probably didn’t go searching for happiness at the bottom of a beer glass or by eating himself into a stupor.

I raise my hand and flex my fingers, feeling the tendons in my arm pinch as he mimics the movement; except he does it pain free.  He looks like a family man. One of those successful self-driven types who manages to balance a day’s work with raising a household whilst still finding time to stay in shape. His kids would love him. They’d call him daddy and throw their arms around him when he arrived home from the office. My children don’t even exist. They’re part of a dream that I pray will one day become my reality.

He straightens his shoulders while mine hunch further to protect my tired body from the heavy rain. We’re so similar. But we’re so different. He’s just like me. But a better version. A doppelganger walking the same streets as I am, only he does so with a heart swelled by providence and emotional wealth. Whereas mine feels like a stone sinking towards the bottom of a sea so black that not even light can reach it.

‘How?’ I ask in a voice so weak that I doubt he can hear me above the sounds of pedestrians jostling around us. ‘How did you do it?’

He cocks his head and throws me another disabling grin, as though my question perplexes him.

‘You’re just like me. We look alike. We dress the same. And yet you’re happy. You’re caught in the pouring rain and you’re smiling. But I’m standing here and I can’t even tell whether the water on my cheeks is from the rain or because I can’t hold back my tears. You look so happy. I’m so fucking tired.’

I raise my hand and pull back the sopping wet fringe that has fallen against my face and try to wipe my eyes. He mimics my movements, pushing his hair from his forehead until it’s semi-styled and dries his eyes for a few precious seconds before the rain assaults them again.

‘I bet you have a great job. You probably followed your dreams and travelled the world. You’re in love. It’s obvious. There’s a euphoria in your eyes. You idolize her. She wouldn’t ever dream of loving someone else. You’re fulfilled and confident. You’re intelligent and respected by your peers. Shit, you are truly happy and I just don’t get how you did it. You found the secret to contentment and I need to know how. You have to tell me. Please, I need you tell me.’

Rain-Room-1.jpg

A passerby strikes my shoulder and causes me to stumble. My feet slip against the rain-slicked footpath and I have to use my hands to catch myself. I stand slowly, and wipe my filthy hands against my coat, catching eyes with the stranger once again. He has taken two side steps so that we are still facing one another. His smile has tightened in the corners of his mouth and he looks down at my hands. There’s blood on my left palm. I’ve grazed it trying to stop myself from colliding with the concrete.

‘Please,’ I beg again. ‘Please tell me how you did it?’

‘I didn’t do anything,’ he says slowly. ‘I work a job that leaves me unfulfilled. I have no children, and I have dreams that I have spent my life making sacrifices for. I struggle and strive, and sometimes I feel like giving up, just like you do. There’s no difference between our lives. How could there be? I am you. And you are me. I just choose to look at things differently.’

He steps towards me, and this time it is I who replicates him. We’re barely a foot apart now. We are so close that if I were to reach out we could touch each other. I give it a try and feel the coolness of his wet fingertips and the sensation of his palm press against mine.

‘I don’t focus on the negatives. I don’t look at my behind the scenes and try to compare them to the highlight reels of others. I hate my job. It hurts my hips and screws up my wrist. But I’m healthy. I have a family that loves me, and I have a roof over my head and food on my plate. I don’t have kids, and I haven’t managed to achieve all my dreams. Not yet. But I have a girl who looks at me like I’m her hero. It doesn’t matter to her whether I’m worth a ten million dollars or ten cents. She loves me. And I love her. We’ll have a family one day. I know it.’

He steps closer again, and raises his spare hand to meet mine so that we are standing palm to palm, staring one another in the eye.

‘Life is about perspectives,’ he says. ‘It’s about whether you chose to focus on the good stuff or let yourself be eaten alive by the bad. It’s about celebrating your strengths and accepting your weaknesses. And it’s about allowing yourself to be vulnerable and afraid. Those same people that love me; they love you to. They want to see you succeed. But they are there for you when you fail. You just have to be prepared to let them know when you’re not OK. If you can learn to do that you’ll be truly happy.’

I open my mouth to respond but before I get the chance a door flies open and a woman in her early forties steps out from her business and looks at me through concerned eyes.

‘Sir, are you OK? You’ve been talking to yourself for the last fifteen minutes. You’re scaring my clients.’

I turn away from her, startled by the intrusion. But the man is gone. The open door has disturbed the lighting and I can no longer see my own reflection. Instead I can see through the plate glass window where her client’s faces watch me with fearful eyes. To them I am just a crazed man with his hands pressed against the glass talking to himself while the world passes him by.

‘Sir,’ she says again. ‘Are you OK?’

‘No. No I’m not,’ I say with a smile. ‘I’m really struggling with a lot of things right now. I feel lost. And I feel alone. But I have friends and family, and a beautiful partner who will listen. They want to see me happy. More than anything, they want me to be happy. So no. I’m not OK. But I will be.’

With that I let go of the shop front window and continue my walk down the street as the woman watches me go. The rain no longer bothers me. It makes me realise how lucky I am to be alive.

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Humanism & Violence

One of the greatest curses of being a writer is that I can never accept anything at face value. I can’t read a news article about a war in a foreign land and blindly accept that my Government’s reasons for doing battle are all morally righteous. I can’t palate bullshit television shows about strangers who are married at first sight, or appreciate subpar art created for the soul purpose of marketing and product distribution. And I especially cannot tolerate, nor accept the mindset of fucking cowards who hide behind their religion or creed to spread messages of hate or fulfill selfish agendas.

Oh yes…It’s been a little while since we’ve tackled religion here on The Renegade Press. I’ve had a brief reprieve from having my face plastered across religious websites where they label me as a monster or a heathen for promoting tolerance. It’s about time that I give the close-minded another reason to vilify my work.

A religion is a set of philosophies concerning the nature, cause, and purpose of the universe. These beliefs are governed by a moral code, and include upon other things, ritual and devotional observances. Yet while we typically equate the concept of faith with a God; religion need not include a divine entity in the skies above, or buried in the earth below.

For some, their religion is science, or literature, economics, family, or any number of other credence. One of the most disheartening statements that any man or woman can make is to say that they are not religious by nature; because in doing so they are stating that they believe in nothing. And to believe in nothing is to live an existence so hollow that one can only imagine the depths of their loneliness.

But that’s enough of the fancy introductions. Let’s cut to the chase and get to the crux of what this article is meant to be about. Despite my sincere belief that the concept of faith encompasses far more than gods and deities, for the purpose of this post I am focusing primarily on society’s conventional definition of religion and taking a swipe at men and women who use their god(s) as a means of justifying their own bloodlust.

Contrary to popular belief there is not a religion on the face of this earth that wishes for its disciples to bring harm upon another being. The easy target when trying to debunk this statement in our current geopolitical climate of fear and hostility would be to target the Islamic faith. Every single day the media bombards us with stories of attacks against non-Muslims by militant forces and lone wolves. By simply watching the evening news one could easily become convinced that these entities are waging a Jihad against the western world. We are told that we are being drawn into a holy war based on ideology and extremism. And yet the word jihad has absolutely nothing to do with warfare.

In a purely linguistic sense, jihad means to struggle, or to strive. It is the practice of religion in the face of persecution and oppression; the idea of military effort and the often misquoted concept of spreading the word of Islam by sword is referenced as a means of last resort in the Quran. When we consider the manner in which western media often treats the Muslim faith, this definition of devotion in the face of adversity says more about the fortitude of the observer than it does about extremism and bloodlust.

So how is it that society has come to equate an idea of serving one’s beliefs in the face of ignorance and bigotry as extreme? Well, it’s simply a result of a few bad eggs tarnishing the name of a faith that has led us to see evil where there is none. The Quran explicitly forbids Muslims from instigating hostilities, indulging in acts of aggression, violating the rights of another human being, or harming the innocent.

When you see an act of aggression carried out in the name of Islam on the evening news, it has nothing to do with faith or religion. It’s a malicious deed committed by a morally devoid piece of shit who chooses to use a misunderstood culture as a scapegoat for their own wicked urges.

Any man or woman who thinks that their religion or their God wishes for them to harm another human being, or to inspire terror in their fellow man is a bottom feeder. Any person who believes that the best way to spread their ideology is through aggression and force, be they a Muslim, Christian, Police Officer, Politician or whatever else is not only misguided, but fundamentally and morally damaged. To judge the value of someone’s life based on their color or creed is sickening. And to target the innocent because of an ethical or political grievance you have with their country or government is the deplorable actions of a fucking pussy.

Oh shit. Did Chris just call out a bunch of overzealous religious crusaders and lend an olive branch of tolerance to a religious ideology that he has no ties to?

You better believe that I did. After spending the better part of twenty-seven years trying to understand my own religious compulsions I am coming to the realization that I am a humanist. My religion celebrates men, women, and children, valuing them based on their individual characteristics and not dogma and petty superstition.

I refuse to pigeonhole people based on their spirituality and faith. Instead I judge an individual based on their willingness to be selfless and provide benefit to the lives of their fellow man without expecting something in return. If you are a bigot, a cheat, or a liar, what faith you subscribe to has no relevance in my distaste for you. Likewise if you are an honest, caring, and compassionate human being; your creed won’t influence my admiration of the positivity of your traits.

As a humanist I deplore closed minds and struggle to associate with people who are unwilling to accept another belief structure simply because they don’t take the time to educate themselves and understand it. There is no such thing as a violent religion. But there are violent people who misconstrue their own faith and take what is supposed to be an understanding of the universe and turn it into cause for warfare.

Jihad is not a holy war. Hatred is not a viable future for mankind. And violence is portrayed by the bitter angels of our nature. Whether you choose to agree with me or not, the truth is that only a coward would dare maim another in the name of their religion.

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The Liberation of Lambs

‘Liberty for wolves is death to the lambs.’

            -Isiah Berlin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shepherd

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Athazagoraphobia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clichés & City Lights

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

brisbane-city-lights

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Redamancy

I rest my hand against your chest and feel it swell with a sharp intake of breath. Your skin is warm against my palm as I map the contours of your flesh. I marvel at the symmetry of your breasts; tracing my fingers around their curves and feel your heart beat against them. I breathe in your scent and watch you exhale as your lips break into a smile and your toes curl beneath the sheets. Your allure is intoxicating; I am inebriated by your scent. My hands tremble whenever you leave me. My soul feels bare when you are gone.

I move towards you and hold my lips an inch from yours. I want to stare into your eyes and peer into your soul. I want to understand the divinity that lies beneath the exquisiteness of your skin. Your eyes flicker across my features; your chest rises and falls with every breath. We are two lovers in the throes of passion who have become lost in each other’s eyes.

But there is more to my love than a mere carnal hunger. My yearning is far too intense to culminate in a fleeting moment of physical release. You are ingrained into my soul; as much a part of me as the hands that caress you. You are my reason to breathe. The reason to rise after I fall. To have and to hold you; to kiss you, is more than this lost soul ever deserved.

I stare into your eyes and pray for redamancy. A love returned in full. I long to know that I have captured your heart just as surely as you have captured mine.

I press my lips against yours and feel our souls collide. I pine for you. My heart skips a beat when I hear you breathe my name. I am man lost for words. How can I ever show you that you complete me? How can I ever repay you for capturing my heart and setting my soul free?

You are the exquisite landscape that I long to explore; the only woman I have ever wanted laying beneath my sheets. Our fingers interlock and you close your eyes and sigh. I kiss your neck, hold your hands above your head and feel your weight press against my hips. Let me be the man of your dreams; let me fulfil your wildest desires. I could die knowing that I had lost myself within you, never to be found again. I could spend a lifetime worshiping your flesh or studying the intricacies of your heart and mind; and when the angels come to claim my soul they would see that had never truly been mine.

I watch you sleep beside me and feel your warmth as my lips press against your spine and kiss the dimples of the slender muscles in your shoulders. You murmur and mumble, stirring lethargically as you dream. The tranquilness of slumber has never looked so divine. The peacefulness of fantasies has never been so alluring.

The act of of loving one who loves you in return. Of lying awake at night to protect you while you dream. It’s a romance that reaches beyond our physical chemistry and plucks at the mystic chords of my heart. I am a man intoxicated by your beauty and at a loss for words. I will never be able to articulate my love for you. There are no words sweet enough to capture the elegance and sophistication of your splendour. But in my romance induced drunkenness I can promise you my heart. I can give my life to you and pray for redamancy. I can hold my breath as I watch you sleep and dream of the day that I become ingrained into your soul, just as you have become ingrained into mine.

Glass Houses

I was recently told that my writing has the ability to cause great harm. According to one visitor to my site, my mindset is damaging and shows a proclivity towards destabilising social order and pushing boundaries. While it is a compelling argument, and it is true that I do try to disrupt societal preconceptions; to say that I am a destructive force within the blogging community seems a little far fetched. Don’t get me wrong, I’m flattered that my work could affect someone to such a degree that the felt the need to contact me in an effort to degrade it. I just believe that those in glass houses should not throw stones.

A hush falls over the crowd as a collective sense of anticipation builds. There was an undertone of malice laced through those words. You can almost taste the tension in the air. Hell hath no fury like a writer scorned…

…True. But a wolf doesn’t concern himself with the opinion of sheep. I’m not bothered about the judgement or belittling bestowed upon me by the ignorant or close minded. So rather than descended into a petty diatribe about why someone offering bullshit advice as a life coach should be careful about criticising others for giving people hope, I thought it would be better to take the high road and comment instead on the paradoxical logic that leads people to make such assumptions.

Telling a writer that their work is damaging to the mindset of the reader is merely a poorly conceived assumption that the writer’s purpose or intent is exactly as you perceive it. And that every single consumer views a piece just as you do.

We live in a world of unprecedented exposure to art. Gone are the days where great artists created works to hang in prestigious galleries, or musicians crafted masterpieces to be played to amphitheatres of patrons dressed in their Sunday best. Even literature has become a living, breathing entity that moves through trends and creates successes and swallows failures.

Nowadays the creative arts are just a click of a button away on our computers and phones, allowing us to constantly immerse ourselves in the new and exciting. Music and movies can be streamed, literature can be packaged as an eBook or weblog, and art can be created or captured through photo sharing applications.

The benefits of this are obvious. Creativity is all around us. One can connect with an author or artist half a world away and be educated and enlightened by the works they produce. As an artist we can accrue an audience of similar minded consumers who we would have never had met without this widespread coverage. The audience that I have amassed here at The Renegade Press would not have come to fruition without having the ability to expose my works to the world through social mediums. Yet while I am grateful for the exposure, I am also aware that we are blessed with a curse.

The abundance and availability of art has created a devaluing of the work in the eye of the patron. Society has developed an insatiable lust for the new, bold, and creatively brave, meaning that artwork doesn’t undergo the same maturation process it once did before becoming a masterpiece. A song, film, book, blog, or painting is viewed, appreciated, then forgotten with the swipe of a thumb or the refreshing of a browser. Rather than creating works to last a lifetime, we now create pieces to capture an audience for just a fleeting moment.

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This lust to discover and consume, coupled with technological advancement and mankind’s desire to feel valued has allowed anyone to create and share through social media platforms. In our efforts to fit in or perform, we have unwittingly become venomous critics and hypocrites ready to disparage others to make ourselves appear greater.

Take me for example. I am a writer/author who has created a website through which I can create pieces of social commentary for a readership that chooses to coddle my creativity. Yet there are times when I will read through the blog posts of a like-minded writer and think that their work is sub-par in comparison to my own. Sometimes I will even pass judgement on them for making a stand for what they believe in. I’m not proud of that fact; it’s hypocritical of me to make such absurd assumptions. It’s ridiculous that I could believe that no one anywhere could find value in another writer’s words, or that anyone anywhere would derive the same meaning from it that I do. In those moments I’m standing inside my own glass house constructed through creativity hurling stones at my neighbour.

Thankfully, because I refuse to voice such negative opinions, my thoughts and feelings don’t hurt anyone but myself. They make me close-minded, arrogant and a bit of an arsehole without battering the fragile individuality of the artist in question. Yet this conceited judgement is a common practice in modern day society. We critique with bias, misconstruing both our perceptions of ourselves and of others. Teenagers call their peers a slut when they post a photo in their bikini, yet litter their own social media accounts with similar pictures. Musicians call another artists music dreary while haphazardly slapping together shoddy riffs and generic lyrics of their own. And sometimes fuckwit life coaches trying to swindle people with pyramid schemes or get rich quick plots dare to deem the works of another blogger as damaging to their readership. Yep, even the snake oil peddlers in their infinite wisdom dare to throw stones from inside their own glass houses.

So how to we counteract our penchant to throw stones? How do we dispel with this mentality of mass consumption, devaluation, and our proclivity for judgement and volatile critique? It’s actually rather simple. Stop being that ignorant consumer who believes in belittling another person for pursuing their own dreams. Stop throwing stones from within the confines of your glass house. All you are going to do is break a few windows and cheapen your own image.

If you want to be an artist, be an artist. If you want to be a writer, be a writer. And if you want to be a doctor or a lawyer, then be that. Just don’t be a hypercritical arsehole who disparages others for wanting the same thing.

Wolves & Sheep

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‘The price of being a sheep is boredom. The price of being a wolf is loneliness. Choose one or the other with great care.’
– Hugh Macleod

If you were forced to make a choice between living a life of boredom, or one of loneliness, what would your decision be? Would you choose a stifled existence of mundanity in which you are forced to conform to the whims and needs of the masses? Or would you be comfortable in a life of isolation? Could you find comfort in the knowledge that you will forever be without inspiration, surrounded only by the mediocre and the monotonous? Or would prefer a life of seclusion and segregation?

The truth is that you wouldn’t wish to be afflicted by either. If I pushed you into a corner and forced you to make a choice, you would probably shove me back and call me insane. Why would anyone want to make such a ridiculous decision? No matter what avenue you pursued, you would be damning yourself to a life of frustration. And yet, on a subliminal level many of us have already made this choice. I’ll get to explaining why in a moment, but first I want you to ask yourself what you would decide. When your back is against the wall and you’re forced to decide between being a wolf or a sheep, what are you going to chose?

A life of boredom sounds well… Boring. But a life of loneliness sounds heartbreaking. Only a sadist would wish to spend their life utterly alone.

The human brain is preprogramed to pursue a life of boredom over one of isolation. We rely on chemicals and endorphins flooding our mind in order to feel accomplished. We establish friendships, set achievable goals, and pursue larger dreams so that we can succeed and our minds can be flooded with hormones that leave us feeling contented. Mankind is for lack of a better expression; a reward centric species reliant on self actualization and social fulfillment. On a subconscious level, we have a yearning to fit in, so we create communities of like-mindedness and consume products and ideas that fall in line with our beliefs and ethos.

We move like herds of sheep. Not because we are unable to stand alone, but because we are compelled to move together. Our behavior is indicative of boundless successes and our greatest accomplishments as a species are born out of this togetherness. We are all connected, regardless of colour, orientation, gender or creed.

But this herd like attitude can also lead to a lack of originality. When we all move in the same direction, we all think, feel, and act in an identical manner. We believe that we are exposed to beautiful literature because we are told by our peers that something is groundbreaking or unique. We believe in the faux realities portrayed to us on social media because we are afraid to ask questions. And we fail to understand or appreciate truly original thinking because it doesn’t fall in line with the rinse and repeat mentality of the modern era.

We become bored with ourselves and the world we live in, yet are somehow perplexed as to why anyone would dare to create something new and exciting.

Hold on, let’s take a break for a second. I keep throwing out the expression ‘we’ and yet I have never really subscribed to this type of behaviour. In fact, I have never really found my place within society. I’m still a lone wolf wandering adrift amongst sheep. Even after twenty-seven years of trying to understand myself, I am still the loneliest son of a bitch that I have ever known. Not because I am without peers, but because I don’t share the same ideological constructs or accept the same realities as those around me.

When you break down society into the two categories of sheep and wolves I fall firmly into the classification of the later. I would rather die of heartache than live an existence plagued by boredom. I would rather strive towards greatness than settle for the mundane. And I would rather fight for a dream than be handed a bullshit life suffocated by monotony and tedium on a silver platter. When I look at myself as a man and as a writer, I would rather be a fucking wolf than a goddamn sheep.

But in a world as fickle as this how does one find sanctity in loneliness? How does one chase a dream without succumbing to despair and isolation?

…You can’t. It’s not possible to be a wolf and to stand for what you believe in without learning to grift and grind when life gets tough. I am a twenty-seven year-old writer who suffers from anxiety. Why? Because I want to be something far greater than who I am. I push myself to produce and create so hard that oftentimes I find myself frustrated, angered, or crying in a wardrobe. Shitty literature, tacky mass produced music, and shoddy films break my heart. And the fact that celebrity and marketability has replaced talent and hard work feels like an affront to everything that I stand for.

And yet I write. I keep pushing through the loneliness because I believe that I can be better. I believe that through my words I can change the world. When I first started blogging I was an extremely unhappy, and tremendously lost individual. I was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, floating through an existence that left me feeling broken and unfulfilled. But writing saved me. It became a reason to dream, a reason to love, and a passion to live for. Four years later, The Renegade Press has grown into something far greater than I had ever imagined. What started off as a way for me to embrace my inner wolf and peel off the layers of sheep skin that clung to my frame, has now become a medium through which I can connect with like-minded souls who believe that there is more to life and art than boredom and bullshit.

The price that I have paid to make it as far as I have in this industry (admittedly I’m still scratching at the surface) has been huge. At times I am so fucking lonely that I contemplate quitting. Sometimes I pray that I can start over and decide to be a sheep rather than a wolf. I tell myself that I would be happier if I learned to accept rather than question. But then I look at how far I have come, read the kind words of my readers, and look at my name on the spine of a novel and find my courage return. I am a wolf. And when a wolf finds himself backed into a corner he bares his fangs and fights his way out.

If ideological loneliness and heartbreak is the price that I have to pay to be a writer, then I welcome it with open arms. Because even though loneliness can be devastating, it is better to die having spent one day as a wolf than have lived an entire lifetime as a sheep.

Purpose

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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In 1484 Italian printer Aldus Manutius published the semicolon for the first time. Manutius used the punctuation mark as a means of separating opposing words to allow an abrupt or rapid change in direction of differing yet interrelated clauses. Nowadays the mark is commonly used when creating lists or linking ideas and clauses in literature. A semicolon is a slight pause. It’s not a definitive endpoint. It is merely an opportunity to digress from one thought into another.

So let’s digress. Let’s leave semicolons behind for a few moments and start talking about depression, anxiety, mental health and suicide. We’ll come back to punctuation mark eventually, but let’s build a little context first.

A friend of mine recently passed away. A victim of mental health, he ended his life at the age of twenty nine. His passing left behind two loving parents, two sisters, a brother, a partner, and a group of friends so close that to call them anything other than family would be an affront to the bonds we share. We have always been a rare breed; a band of brothers whose unity transcends age, geographic location, surnames, beliefs, and anything else. We grew up together as kids, and we always assumed that we would grow old together as men.

We’d heard about suicide. Many of us have been through depression or suffered through anxiety, but we never thought that one of our own would take their life. Until it happened. We lost a brother to an illness that can destroy from the inside without any of the discernable physical side effects we often rely upon to detect disease.

And we’re not alone. The unfortunate reality of the world we live in is that there is an increasing prevalence of suicide and depression within our society that continues to grow with each passing year. Some studies are predicting that by 2030 depression and mental illness will be responsible for more disability and death than cancer. Break that down even further and compare genders side by side and the statistics are even more alarming. While mental health is statistically 20-40% higher in women, men are four times more likely to end their life as a result of a depressive state of mind.

Why? Because men are stubborn. We’re arrogant. And we are quite literally killing ourselves as opposed to accepting and acknowledging that we are struggling. We live in a society that is supposed to by highly intuitive, intelligent and ultimately accepting and accommodating. Yet for some bizarre reason men across the globe still feel as though emotions and angst are matters to be suppressed rather than spoken about.

But we have to talk. As difficult as it may seem we need to create conversation on a global scale, and perhaps more importantly, we need to talk in our homes. We as men need to find a way to put to rest our archaic beliefs and macho-mentalities and start having open and honest dialogues with those closest to us. There’s no shame in admitting that you are not OK. There’s no indignity in asking for help. There is however, honor in being a voice of reason or an ear of support for someone in need.

In my lowest moments I have contemplated my own death. Questions about my own morality usually strike at the strangest of moments. I once found myself driving down a highway wondering what would happen if I were to crash. Would the world simply go black? Would I feel anything? Would it almost feel as though I had fallen asleep? Before I knew what I was doing I had shut my eyes for a few moments just to imagine the blackness of the end while I raced down the motorway. But I opened by eyes and the world was still in front of me; and my life continued. I didn’t want to die. I just wanted to know what it felt like so that I could tell myself that whatever I was living through was better than not living at all.

It took me a long time to overcome my demons, and even now I struggle to accept the person that I am. I often wish that I were more like everyone else; that I didn’t want to make a difference, and that I could move with the vast majority rather than dig my heels in and strive to be a voice of change. Yet even though I still have moments of loathing and self-doubt,  things eventually got better for me. They always do.

Which brings us back our lesson in punctuation. A semicolon is not a definitive endpoint. It’s a slight pause: an opportunity to link and digress. Anxiety and depression can be tough, and at times a situation can feel hopeless. But there is always a light at the end of the tunnel of despair. There is always an opportunity to create a semicolon in your life and digress towards something new. Suicide is an endpoint. It is an act that cuts your story short and ruins the opportunity for your life to get better. But that funny little dot and dash that we often misuse in literature provides us with the opportunity to transition from a state of anxiety and depression to recovery.

Life is a beautiful gift, and one that should never be taken for granted. If you are down, or if you know someone who is struggling I implore you to reach out. Ask for help, or lend an ear to someone in need. It’s all right to not be OK. It’s not OK to bury our heads in the sand and pretend like anxiety and depression aren’t killing people. It’s time that society, and men in particular, find their voice and start talking about mental health. It’s time to move past our chauvinistic habits of suppressing and ignoring psychological torment and anguish. Find your semicolon, or become one for a stranger or someone you care about.

Life can always get better. You just have to give it a chance.

**Author’s note. Aaron Sorkin once said that ‘Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from the outright.’ The concept of the semicolon was stolen from a brilliant organisation called Project Semicolon. If you ever need a ray of hope, pay them a visit. If you ever need help or someone to talk to, there are countless organisations across the globe who can assist.**