Writing.

Writing is not a job for sissies.  It is a demanding job, something that can drain you, leaving you empty of all emotion, empty of any resemblance to a human being; and that is when it is going not just well, but great.  It is a job like no other, running you ragged for months. Then leaving you desolate for even longer, convinced that you are wrung dry, that not a sentence will ever be birthed from your mind, that you will die a mumbling fool, struggling to string single syllable words together in a manner a four-year-old child may understand.

It is also a passion that will keep you awake and writing for days, spitting out verbal photos, painting stories and imagining the truth in a new, articulate way, showing the way for the next generation of wordsmiths and connoisseurs of the written art.

Writing is not something you do, it is something you ARE.  You ARE creating a mindset, a space for an imagination to be, to share with other like-minded readers.  It is an art to draw in inquisitive minds, to sketch an outline for a person with an imagination, to GIFT a person with the ability to see an idea you had, but to allow them to fill in their own details.  It is a gift, and it is a curse that let you image and fill in the worst you can imagine.

The double-edged sword, the true love that hates you, the only true lucky packet that may have a diamond or an exploding turd, or both; it is the roll of the dice, the fall of the cards, the push or the pull; the smile or the frown; the helping hand or the fist.  Writing is like bungee-jumping; you are either falling with the certainty that this is to your death, or shouting with joy that the rope held this time.  There are the few moments when you are just slowing down, moving from sheer terror to exquisite joy, but these are just seconds, not stages in your life.

I am a writer, and none the better for the wear this fact of life is adding to my life.  It is not making my life any easier, it is not adding a lot of value to my life, and it is not even making sense in my life.  It is, however, complicating my life, ruining a simple life, adding stress to my life, making me despair, adding depression and unwanted emotional baggage.

Suffering, for my art, because of my art, through my art, is my reason for living; and it is not enough, so I seek out the dark, bleak, hurtful spots, and BLAZE with emotion through them, living every moment, FEELING every hurt, every pain, every slight, and reporting them as faithfully as possible, to fill bland lives with emotion.

I am a writer, and you are my audience.  We need each other, because we are a team.

We live a story

This is so true, but so difficult to process and accept.

Extract from 'The Name of the Wind', written by Patrick Rothfuss.

“You see, there’s a fundamental connection between seeming and being. We don’t understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be.” Chronicler relaxed a bit, sensing familiar ground. “That’s basic psychology. You dress a beggar in fine clothes, people treat him like a noble, and he lives up to their expectations.” “That’s only the smallest piece of it,” Bast said. “The truth is deeper than that. It’s…” Bast floundered for a moment. “It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.” Frowning, Chronicler opened his mouth, but Bast held up a hand to stop him. “No, listen. I’ve got it now. You meet a girl: shy, unassuming. If you tell her she’s beautiful, she’ll think you’re sweet, but she won’t believe you. She knows that beauty lies in your beholding.” Bast gave a grudging shrug. “And sometimes that’s enough.”

His eyes brightened. “But there’s a better way. You show her she is beautiful. You make mirrors of your eyes, prayers of your hands against her body. It is hard, very hard, but when she truly believes you…” Bast gestured excitedly. “Suddenly the story she tells herself in her own head changes. She transforms. She isn’t seen as beautiful. She is beautiful, seen.”


You become what you tell yourself you are.

I can remember believing in myself, KNOWING that I am more intelligent than most people, knowing that I am special, that I am unique, that  have a path that is mine and mine alone.  I did not compare myself to others, the thought did not even cross my mind.  How can you compare two people?  Each and every one is unique and special.

Years disappeared without any insight or growth on my side, because I started to compare, to compete, to judge myself and find myself wanting.  I started belittling myself, ignoring my strengths, focusing on my weak points, comparing them against the strengths of others, and finding more and more to worry about.  Until I believed my new story.

Suddenly I find myself with the insight to understand this, to realize that I have been living a lie, that I am better than this.  Unfortunately it is still just in my head, not written in my cells, and I am looking around desperately for a way to believe like a child again.  To have that unwavering confidence again.  Because I am worthy.

Winklespruit

A week at the coast, which basically boils down to two days travel and three days to spend some time enjoying yourself, is way, way too short. Luckily I spent three mornings watching the sun rising from the sea, and this made it a bit more bearable.

We were staying nearly on the beach, so we walked down to the beach to take these photos.

OK, I admit.  I spent three mornings looking at the sun rising, but only took photos the one morning.  Luckily the morning the sky looked the best, according to me.

This following photo was taken half an hour after the previous photos, but it looks like a photo taken at night.  No Photoshopping, still untouched. 

We went to a nearby bird sanctuary  the one morning.  Besides some domesticated ducks, there were hardly any other birds to be seen.  So I took photos of flowers.

Spent about two hours at this bird sanctuary,  about a third of the time running after butterflies.  They do not like to be photographed.

At least flowers have the good manners to stand still, or as still as the wind allows them to.  I like that in a flower.

Civil Servant

Definition of civil:
adjective

1)    relating to ordinary citizens and their concerns, as distinct from military or ecclesiastical matters.
        "civil aviation"
    synonyms:    secular, non-religious, lay;
        "a civil marriage ceremony"
    non-military, civilian
        "civil aviation"

2)    courteous and polite.
        "they were comparatively civil to their daughter"
    synonym:    polite, courteous, well mannered, well bred, gentlemanly, chivalrous, gallant, ladylike, gracious, respectful;

Definition of servant:
noun

1)    a person who performs duties for others, especially a person employed in a house on domestic duties or as a personal attendant.
    synonyms:    attendant, retainer
2)    a devoted and helpful follower or supporter.
        "he was a great servant of the Labour Party"
    synonyms:    helper, supporter, follower

Definition of civil servant:
noun

1)    a member of the civil service.
    synonyms:    public servant, government official, government worker, civil-service employee

I think I know why the reality of 'civil servant' is South Africa is so different from the idea I have of what a civil servant should be.   Very selective reading.  On my side, I look at civil, and see/understand "courteous and polite".  I look at servant, and see/understand "devoted and helpful".  In the mean time, the 'civil servants' themselves see/understand "government official".

Definition of official:
noun

1)    a person holding public office or having official duties, especially as a representative of an organization or government department.
    "a union official"
    synonyms:    officer, office-holder, office-bearer, administrator, executive, appointee, functionary

Obviously, the definition they finally have of civil servant, is as a person in government with an office.  I can see why we have quite different expectations when it comes to what they are supposed to be doing.

Liberty

Breaking with your family is the most dearly bought liberty. It means breaking with parts of yourself. Breaking off parts of yourself.

Read this a few minutes ago, and it struck a sore spot, like stepping onto a thorn that goes right through your shoe's sole.  The hurt is that much worse because you have already taken precautions, and you felt safely armored against it.  Wondering how to get rid of this without inadvertently stepping or sitting or pressing into another; and the whole time this pain is reminding you that it is still there, it is something that must be dealt with as soon as possible, and you are focusing so much on the pain that everything else is just background noise.

Firstly, I had to make sure what is understood by this word, liberty.  After reading all the long and confusing definitions as penned by much wiser men, I thought of the one sentence I have ever used with this word in it.  "I am not at liberty to say."  So, I see liberty as the state or condition of people who are able to act and speak freely.

I broke with my family because I was given the choice between them and my wife.  At that stage the choice was easy to make, and even though we talk to each other again, and have some kind of contact, the break was clean, and the connection we have is fragile at best.

I am a solitary type of person, and when people move out of my life, I do not spend a lot of time or effort to keep in contact.  Not something I am proud of, but something that I am aware of, and think about changing.  Sometime in the future, as soon as I feel the need to contact somebody from my past.

Breaking off parts of yourself.  I knew I have done that, I just never thought of this as one of those times.  The pain was not there; the rebuilding, slowly and agonizing, was not there; and the feeling of completing this 'rebirth', this restructuring of priorities and change of viewpoint, was never realized.

Parts of me may be stunted, broke off and was never replaced, never healed, never acknowledged.  It is scary, when I think of all the personal growth I achieved, or thought I achieved, without even realizing this chunk of me that may be missing.

Healing will be a nuisance, with hidden scar tissue a possible factor at any stage or moment.  Tackling it now is a given, but just to investigate, not to create a 'quick fix'.  Maybe it was healed in the first place, maybe the piece that was broken off was minute in the first place, but I'll look and find out just the same.  Rather be sure about something this important.

Emotions

Mine is haywire.  Completely.  I sit and read the news on the internet, and suddenly something grabs my heart and my eyes are full of tears.  I listen to the radio, and suddenly a sentence will grab me and squeeze a hiccup from my heart.  Random sentences, with no impact on me when I read or hear them a few seconds later.

I sit and talk with my wife, and there is nothing.  No emotion, no feeling, no feeling because I have no feeling at all, nothing.  There is not even the emotion I have when interacting with somebody at work.  Just this lack of any feeling at all.  And then, hours or days later, I crash because there was nothing at all, and it took me that long to notice it.

At one stage I was suicidal, but at the moment I am just tired of everything that is happening around me.  I do not want to do anything about it, because I have this big fear of failing at everything.  Fearing that I will make decisions that will be irreversible, changing my life, and the lives of everybody around me, for the worse.  Not as if nearly any change will be better than this fog I am living in.

Why is our perception of what others think so important?  It is not as if they think that much about us, I know I hardly think about anybody else at all. It is not as if it really mean that much, but we still convince ourselves that we need it.  Is it because we just need confirmation for our actions, something to indicate that we are as important as we know we are?

Emotions define the way you live your life.  It defines the way you interact with others, it adds impact to any and all  interaction you have with others and it is the driving force behind all conversation with yourself.  Internal and audible conversations.

I have grown used to, and afraid of, the failure of intense emotions.  Damping them to a minimum, trying to minimize the damage, the pain, the hurt of losing trust again and again.  Growing stagnant around them, bottling them up, trying to compress them out of existence.

Adding and compressing at the same time never works, so I am trying to have just a small hole to stop a complete explosion.  Unfortunately, as most people know, the hole tends to get bigger because the pressure inside is trying to equalize, as soon as possible.

What will be worse?  An empty shell, or a broken one?  Time, as always, will tell.

Change

Something you get handed back after you paid for something.  Something you only get by handing over something of yours to somebody else.  Something you only get by breaking something bigger, of more value.  Something that people throw in a jar and keep for a rainy day.  Something that, when you are using it every day, implies that you are in trouble.

I forgot that it may also mean that you are alive, not stagnating.  That you are evolving, innovative, inquiring, full of energy and ideas.  That you are prepared to think new thoughts, prepared to take a leap of faith, prepared to trust.

I am, have been, in a very dark place for a very long time, and have convinced myself that it is where I belong, that I deserve no better, that I must endure it.

Maybe it is not true, after all.  Maybe this is not the beginning of the end or the middle of the end, as I thought, but just a pause.

Change.  Which way to go, which step to take, what to do, what to think, what to prepare for; I am scared into immobility, knowing I must take a step, any step to begin.

At least I started thinking again.  Maybe that is a first step into something new.  Now I just need something to focus on, something to reach...

Something new...

I am reading a delightful book at the moment.  Dhalgren.  If you can find it, read it.  It is ... different.  Sometimes I have to go back and wonder if I missed a page or two, sometimes I have to reread a few pages because I have no idea what happened there, and it fits like a glove with the frame of mind I am in currently.

When we say that we want to do something different, something else, something new, we mean nothing of the sort.  We just want exactly the same, with one or two constants that changed.  Nothing more, otherwise it will be too much to take, and we will feel unable to handle it.

I panic when things change too much or too suddenly, when I lose my handle on the situation, when I no longer feel in control of my destiny.  As proven countless times, if it is applicable in my case, it is applicable to everybody else as well.  Just not always and/or to the same degree.  People like stability, we like some things to stay constant, that is why we break time up in years and days and minutes and seconds and it is defined and something that stays the same, even though your perception of it may differ all the time.

Something new, to me, is something that will be part of my normal life within a month.  Something that I will be able to fit around and make my own, even if it is only in my own mind, within one month.  At the moment it is quite a wide field, because I am living in my own mind.

Have you ever spent time in your own mind? Just sat and waited till you got so still that you could watch words form and look at the immense disorganization in the background that provide that specific output?  Have you ever silently slipped behind those sentences, tried to figure out how it works, what convoluted paths are followed by each thought/idea?  How it decides what to carry with, what to dump, what to combine, how to present this mishmash in a way that makes sense?

Reading adds a lot of available ingredients to this presentation, and while there is a lot of praise for the use of non-fiction, it is fiction that broaden the mind the most.  I think it is a way to get feedback from another person's imagination, input that change your outlook, your thought-processes, and it dares you to ignore limitations.  It opens up your world to options you never even knew existed, and by this, makes the stuff you are comfortable with more open-ended.

Moving out of your comfort-zone is only done in your head.  Your body is quite happy in any normal work environment, but moving your mind into a new environment can be quite horrific.  You have to interact with new personalities, fit into new structures, add new data and incorporate it with the old data in one new format and style that is appropriate and accepted in the new environment.

Science-fiction and fantasy.  I have thought a lot about my love for these genres, and I think I must mention one of the reasons why it stays a favorite of mine.  You can change the way people interact by changing the setting.  How will people greet each other when they cannot share the same environment, because they physically adapted to different environments?  How will we interact with others when you can accessorize your body and have software do most of your thinking?  What will our laws look like when we have digital copies of ourselves doing all our technological interfacing, with just the output reaching our physical bodies?

Aliens.  Have we been changed as a species to distrust aliens?  Are there aliens among us, monitoring the acceptance of aliens as intelligent life-forms, working hard to change the mindset of a whole species, or are they slowly replacing people, are all the conspiracy theories true?

Something new.  Is there still something new to be discovered?  Are we just starting to refine current ideas and combining them in different ways, or will we still discover or find the faster-than-light-drive, the transporter-beam, the aliens, the secret of life, if Elvis is still alive, ways to use re-usable energy on a personal level.  Or will it only be something old, in new clothing?

Truth is, I am not sure what I would prefer.  The one sounds great, but the other one is something I can cope with without too much trouble.  If only I could time-travel to an end, but as long as we have to do it the hard way, I do not know if it will be heads or tails.

Living between the lines

I have been hiding in plain sight for quite a while now.  Passing people in that weird space where everybody is going somewhere else, making no impact on anybody's radar.  It is a time, not a space, and nobody looks for you in time, they always expect you to be somewhere in space.

Living between the lines makes you aware of all the other people living on the edge of sentences, moving slowly from word to word, showing only the sides of themselves to others.  People remember faces, remember voices, remember personalities, they do not remember sides.  Walking sideways to reality is opening yourself to the others using the hidden passages in the walls, the crawlspaces beneath the floor, the employees' only entrances.

Realizing that I am living between the lines of my life, that I am not actively aware of what is going on in my life was quite a shock.  It is as if I have grown in different directions, and none of the versions is me anymore; I am more and less than the sum of me's.  I am looking at myself, and there are parts missing and unknown parts quite integrated that convinces me that I am looking at a distorting mirror, otherwise I am in deep trouble.

Communicating with people is about the same as well.  I am talking to, and hearing other people through a filter, losing some critical information along the way.  It is almost as if my words are trying to edge in sideways as well, and words coming my way have to turn a corner, bouncing back from some rough surface, losing some frequencies and getting a lot of echoes along the way.  If I do not focus very carefully, there is hardly any meaning, just irregular noises, leaving my turning around, trying to get a better fix on the sound.

Not knowing how I got here, there is no clear path going back.  How do I start, where do I start, and most importantly, where to do I go?  Do I really want to go back to the life I had?  Do I want to leave everything I acquired in this new life I live in?  Will I be able to combine the two, keeping the best of both, or will this make me lose both, putting me on yet another angle to mainstream life?

I am standing here, and will have to make a decision soon.  But then, I thought I would have to make a decision a long time ago, but I turned sideways, dropped into the rut and became somebody else's problem.  Or did I ?

Alternate universe-skipping.  Moving from one universe to the other, bypassing hundreds or millions a day, simply because I do not pay enough attention, do not care enough about any of them to stay there.  Only remembering oddities when I think back, wondering if it happened the way I remember it or not.  Maybe this is why memory is such a dependable commodity for some, and such an unreliable crutch for others.  Maybe our memories are always correct, but they differ from events in this current universe.  This would explain short-term memory-lapse as well.  Sanity trying to list memory taken across several universes into one continuous space-time event, begging for the chance to keep you from turning into a complete gibbering idiot, knowing that nothing is the way it seems.

I am inside, looking inwards, ignoring inconsistencies on the outside, taking my imagination as the only steady constant, and working from here.  Making sure that I am shaping my world, making sure that, when I am ready to face the outside, I will be using my reference framework, and not one that was suggested by somebody else.

I know who I am, and where I am, but I have no external references.  Not knowing how references may differ between universes, how meaning may change, I try to fit into each moment with caution, checking everything at once, ignoring everything that is not of immediate concern.  Living in the moment, for the moment.  And I do not feel alive, whatever that means, except if it is something like a weariness dragging you down, begging for a few minutes to just lie down and ignore all of creation, leave it all for a few blissful seconds, and completely relax for once and forever.

Letting go of everything, even, especially myself, having no responsibility to keep going, to keep to an unknown script, to keep plodding forward in four dimensions, to be restricted by time and space and self; but to just be.  Maybe that is life, maybe it is death, maybe it is the start, maybe it is the end, maybe it is not the anything, but just one of many.  Maybe I am already doing it, and this is my way of interpreting it, but I want something different, and maybe that is all I need at the moment.  Something different, something that will be new again, and I may be happy again.  Till the next time.

Everything can only be new once, and I am wondering; What will happen when there is nothing new anymore?  When everything already happened?  Is everything reset and started from scratch again?  And the scary part:  Are we already knee-deep in the rut of replay?  Or does everything only happen once, at the same time, in the same space, and life is just a way of examining all aspects of it? 

In the end, I think nothing really matters, nothing is of any importance, except that which I give it.  When I am the center of the universe, it is a fact in my existence.  When I am only an observer, that is my one and only role in life.  When life is exiting, it is till I want it differently.  When the end of the world is nigh, the end of all is waiting on my whim.  I am the creator of my universe, and everything and anything is done according to my wish.  Even me.

And we must never, ever, forget this easy truth.  For that way lies madness.  And any other way as well, but that is still open for discussion.  Maybe... only I know.