Posts tagged with "writing"

hello? is this thing on?

The world still turns, even when it’s in lock­down, and there’s been much to say.

If only writ­ing came as eas­i­ly as it used to. The bulk of my entries have been a com­pul­sion, a way to sort out thoughts and feel­ings when I had no one to talk to.

Then I start­ed dat­ing Heather — my first time cohab­i­tat­ing with a roman­tic part­ner — and sud­den­ly had an out­let that was both acces­si­ble and val­i­dat­ing1. It became eas­i­er to turn to her than find the words for a screen that nev­er spoke back.

My time in ther­a­py has also giv­en me bet­ter emo­tion­al mod­er­a­tion; a skill to deal with the dis­tress that comes from depres­sion and trau­ma. Instead of spi­ral­ing into pan­ic or rage, I’ve learned to embrace dif­fi­cult feel­ings and let them pass through me. Scary thoughts and painful mem­o­ries don’t con­trol me the way they used to. A healthy trade for the loss of inspi­ra­tion.

In that sense, I hold an evolv­ing style and sub­ject mat­ter to be pos­i­tive devel­op­ments. After all, I began this blog almost 20 years ago. If I was fill­ing the space with the same things as I was back then it would be an embar­rass­ing sign I had­n’t grown at all. I imag­ine I’ll always have more things to say as long as I con­tin­ue learn­ing, even if the impe­tus is lack­ing.

It makes me won­der why oth­ers stopped blog­ging (or why they start­ed in the first place). Checking my RSS feed is still a habit, but nowa­days I’m left invari­ably dis­ap­point­ed and feel­ing more dis­con­nect­ed than ever. Social media has become too shal­low for my tastes. Medium too imper­son­al. YouTube too obnox­ious and osten­ta­tious and increas­ing­ly com­mer­cial, with Twitch being even worse on all those counts.

And yet there’s relief to be found in the fact that no one knows I’m writ­ing any­more2. This space is no longer sacred when I feel oblig­ed to or inhib­it­ed by an audi­ence. Self-imposed exile became an impor­tant step towards reclaim­ing the sense of con­trol I’d lost. My sto­ry isn’t fin­ished, and per­haps enough time away has giv­en me the dis­tance I need to be com­fort­able shar­ing myself again.

  1. The fact that she’s usu­al­ly on the same intel­lec­tu­al lev­el (or high­er) is also an impor­tant fac­tor. [↩]
  2. With a few notable excep­tions, I’m sure. [↩]

consider this place

It’s get­ting hard­er to write.

Not that the spir­it is unwill­ing, although that was the case for years, when the things I need­ed to talk about most were the exact things I need­ed dis­tance from. At this point, the flesh isn’t even that weak1, but a lack of cer­tain­ty in which to ground my per­spec­tives has become an obsta­cle. The biggest sign I’m get­ting old­er isn’t the white hair in my mous­tache, but the recog­ni­tion that I’ve shed some youth­ful arro­gance that used to feel like wis­dom.

FTL: Faster Than Light decision

Do I let fate reward my brav­ery with an extra crew mem­ber, or give it the chance to fuck me over by killing one? Or do I avoid the choice com­plete­ly?

It’s eas­i­er for me to accept a bad out­come if I remem­ber that every deci­sion is made with the best inten­tions, and the only goal is sur­vival.

HBO shows2 and games with con­se­quen­tial choic­es based on ran­dom­ized events3 have been a huge influ­ence on my think­ing. Media with mosaics of moral­i­ty, while char­ac­ters grow and evolve across sev­er­al spec­trums (along with my opin­ion of them). Where deci­sions have to be care­ful­ly made with lim­it­ed infor­ma­tion and resources, then bal­anced against com­pet­ing inter­ests from for­eign spheres of influ­ence. Situations where a per­son can make all the right moves, and still fail through cir­cum­stance.

Continue read­ing “con­sid­er this place”…

  1. Thanks to a remis­sion in col­i­tis, and con­sis­tent use of a SAD lamp. [↩]
  2. Game of Thrones, Six Feet Under [↩]
  3. Europa Universalis 4, FTL: Faster Than Light, Moirai [↩]

50/50

I’m writ­ing as a way of prac­tic­ing self-com­pas­sion. Weeks get lost to the cus­tomers and com­mute, and when time off involves not think­ing or being around peo­ple, it does­n’t leave much room for per­son­al growth.

The prob­lem is that noth­ing feels real or true unless I write it down. The changes are start­ing to flow togeth­er, and I’m at var­i­ous stages of progress on sev­er­al fronts. There are no begin­nings, no ends, no chap­ters, no dis­tinc­tive tran­si­tions I can sum up neat­ly in a title. The lessons stretch out to years instead of months. Development has giv­en way to evo­lu­tion. It seems sil­ly to write about a feel­ing that won’t last from the first time I hit Save Draft to Publish.

I’ve been reach­ing out to new peo­ple cause it felt like every­thing I was doing was wrong. Marie came to feed the cats, not know­ing I was back from the hos­pi­tal. I broke down in her arms, and she bab­bled at me over break­fast, excus­ing her­self for talk­ing so much cause she was ner­vous about not know­ing how to help. I asked if she’d watch a movie with me, some­thing to do that was nor­mal and not cry­ing. It helped.

Jason’s also been talk­ing me through the upheaval. Advice is eas­i­er to accept when it comes from a sur­vivor, espe­cial­ly one who nev­er pre­sumes to know what’s best for me. He’s become the stick prod­ding me for­ward one small step at at time, a voice of rea­son in my ear that reminds me to keep on doing this until liv­ing is like breath­ing again.

It’s a reminder that I’m here only cause peo­ple believe in me; they’re the ones tip­ping the scales when it feels like I might as well flip a coin and let fate decide what I can’t.

let us have our tongues

It’s not that I don’t want to write about how things are slow­ly chang­ing, I just nev­er seem to have the chance. Nowadays, my pri­or­i­ties are sur­vival else­where, and the writ­ten word isn’t the out­let I need any­more.

Besides, every time I try to get a thought on a page, I get lost in the scope. My think­ing con­stant­ly goes fur­ther and fur­ther, as my under­stand­ing of the world moves beyond the things that affect only me. It’s made me a more patient, com­pas­sion­ate, and empa­thet­ic per­son. But by the time I fig­ure some­thing out, the feel­ing is gone, and words are no longer rel­e­vant.

slider

I’ve been try­ing to leave my cam­era at home too, a way of forc­ing myself to savour each expe­ri­ence. It’s a del­i­cate bal­ance between that and my ever-present need to doc­u­ment every­thing. I’m dis­cov­er­ing that mem­o­ries aren’t as vivid as pho­tographs, but they live longer in the implic­it part of the mind, and both are food to an intro­vert nonethe­less.

Days with­out a way to cap­ture the world around me are nev­er easy. I want to take pic­tures of sun­light and sum­mer and sweat and sex, but life has­n’t been so much about events as the reg­u­lar­i­ty. The moments I share every day with the peo­ple I need, or the time between when I’m recharg­ing and heal­ing. The things worth appre­ci­at­ing are more fre­quent, but all the more fleet­ing too.

old heroes and new lives

My entries used to be filled with so many details, moments, thoughts, and emo­tions. I used to believe every­thing I wrote was impor­tant. Not that I was ever a par­tic­u­lar­ly good writer, only a per­son try­ing to be hon­est with him­self, and that was the way for me to sort out the things in my head.

Now that need isn’t there any­more. Instead, I write to keep track of where I am, know­ing that in time I’ll be won­der­ing how far I’ve gone, and let my pic­tures fill in the blanks.

Banc Sushi and cleavage

On my birth­day, Lisa treat­ed me to all-you-can-eat sushi at my favourite restau­rant, and cleav­age.

The new Leonard Cohen biog­ra­phy is out and Genevieve tells me it’s amaz­ing, or at least a great deal more infor­ma­tive than the course we took last year at Ottawa U about the birth of the roman­tic trou­ba­dour. I used to be com­plete­ly obsessed with this man, but now I can’t remem­ber the last time I put on one of his albums for a straight lis­ten through. I knew he was com­ing to Ottawa this Friday before tick­ets went on sale, but nev­er both­ered try­ing to get my hands on one, even though it used to be a goal of mine to see him per­form live before the booze and sex took him like a true rock­star. He rep­re­sents a part of my past I hard­ly relate to now, and it’s left me feel­ing like I need a new hero (who has some very big shoes to fill).

birthday boy

Little boy’s birth­day par­ties involve a lit­tle less sexy and a lot more chaos.

I have so many friends with their paths set out for them over next 20-odd years cause of jobs and kids, yet just as many who’ve arrived at adult­hood and are now won­der­ing what’s next. After find­ing a career, buy­ing a house, and get­ting mar­ried, they’re learn­ing that these were goals they nev­er want­ed for them­selves, only things peo­ple have always been telling them they should have. Now they’re won­der­ing where to go from here, and how to find a true sense of ful­fil­ment.

I went through the same cri­sis years ago, but feel no less uncer­tain about the future at this point. It’s only nat­ur­al to go through con­stant cycles of strug­gle and res­o­lu­tion if we’re deter­mined to grow and improve, not to men­tion the curves life tends to throw at us. I’m start­ing to view it with a sense of free­dom instead of doubt.