Category: thoughts

thoughts

~ Embracing the Gift ~

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~ Embracing the Gift ~

“Stumbling and staggering down the streets of life, staring into skies and spaces – into the eyes of pretty girls passing me by. My mind always entertained the same question. Was there a home out there for me? In this society? Inside the heart of another? The more I interacted with the others, the more I felt that the answer was a resounding no. There was something that would just not grant me the same peace that came so easily to others. My mind was corrupted by a strange madness; my heart possessed by a wild force. I lived a life of constant isolation and separation. I observed the world around me as a spectator, never feeling like I truly belonged to something or anything. The disconnection weighed heavy and whenever it all became too much, I retreated to the spaces beyond the borders. The woods. The fields. The streams and solitary spaces. It was out there in that nature where my courage returned. The mystery and magic of the natural universe was like a drug to me. Seeing something as simple as a singular leaf dance in the breeze or the ripples skate their way across the pond surface gave me enormous strength. Then there were the twisted patterns of tree branches. The smoky transience of cloud formations above. Even the birds’ songs told me something important that I could sustain myself with. Life itself was profoundly beautiful and worth living, and although a few times I had considered the alternative, I knew it was a foolish throwing away of the gift I had been gifted.”

man hiking

thoughts

~ A Writer’s Path ~

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~ A Writer’s Path ~

“I took a few wrong turns, made some bad decisions, got lost along the way. But I look back now and realise it was the totality of those things which eventually led me home. I am living proof that fearlessly following your heart will eventually take you to where you need to be. My words come from that soul-searching wilderness; of walking alone through dangerous places with only my heart to guide me. It hasn’t been easy, and yes – there were some troubles along the way – but I now feel a completion in my soul that eluded me for so long. That completion has come after finally making it to the place I always knew I belonged. This is the linear way of life. We can only live it in one direction and our journeys usually only make sense when we look back upon them. Our lives are the culmination of many twists and turns, ones which leave marks upon us which we end up treasuring. It’s those scars and scratches which tell our story. It’s those cuts and bruises which make us the people we are. And it is our pain and our mistakes which eventually lead us to the lands which make our hearts sing and our pens dance.”

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thoughts

~ A Message to Writers ~

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pen

~ A Message to Writers ~

Well, it’s true I guess. Most people can’t write an honest sentence to save their lives. They project themselves onto the blank page the same way as they project themselves into the world. There’s a certain fear, a filter, which hinders them from truly expressing themselves from their heart. Instead, they offer well-tidied words in pretty fonts; little flicks and tricks of the pen that give the appearance of self-expression, but are as contrived as the pop stars who sing songs written for them. Many are fooled by these pretend poets – these Rupi Kaurs of the world – but look closely and you will find that their words lack any real blood and substance. That substance is all we ask for when we read a writer’s work. Hemingway said it himself: “there is nothing to writing; all you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed”. Sounds so simple, but it is still so very rare to find writers that have shown us every last bit of emotion – every last dirty thing they would be ashamed to admit. The sheer amount of pain that fills the average human heart should mean that there are millions of potentially great writers out there. Yet, the world is full of writers who have been afraid to truly take off the mask and show the world every last detail of their blood and guts. If you are one of the ones crazy enough to live without a filter, then keep writing and keep getting the shit kicked out of you by the world for simply being yourself. Living a life with your heart wide open will definitely leave you bruised and beaten, but it will also allow you to create more authentically than those who keep their defences up. This is the secret. True writing comes from pain. It comes from sitting at a keyboard late at night as the world stands against you. It comes from having to write the words down to stop the demons from closing in. It’s a crazy way to be and good luck to anyone else who has this curse cast upon them.

“Writers are desperate people, and when they stop being desperate, they stop being writers.” – Charles Bukowski

 

thoughts

~ A Certain Type ~

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~ A Certain Type ~

“There is a certain breed of person in this world who is destined to always be in conflict with society. They are the type that does not accept a way of life simply because it is ‘traditional’ or expected of them. They are the type that feel a thunder in their heart whenever they’re asked to change in order to fit in. They are the type who will not let themselves be influenced by slogans such as ‘the real world’ or ‘growing up’. Watch out for these people. They are the ones that will not bow down to peer pressure. They are the ones that will not be bought off with money or possessions. And usually they are the ones that will cause others to reflect on their own life choices as they fearlessly chase their dreams without regard for others’ opinions. But know that more than anything, society will always need and depend on this type of person. It is those misfits who saw things from new angles, who charted the uncharted and made new discoveries. They are also the ones who bring us the books and artworks we love. Without them, humanity would have been deprived of many treasures and riches. We weren’t all born to fit into the same mould, so let the wild be wild and the weird be weird. Some birds were not made to be tied down in the same spot.”

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thoughts

~ The Burden of Sensitivity ~

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~ The Burden of Sensitivity ~

“And it emptied me. The hopelessness in my heart staring into her eyes. The lack of chance for any real connection. The thought that no matter how many eyes I stared into, there will always be this empty space inside of me that would never be filled. I knew somewhere inside of me I was destined to be a loner till the end. I could feel it in my bones. It was a world not made for those whose hearts hung open like broken screen doors. Such sensitivity will see the storms flood into you without compromise. Your heart will become drenched; your interior ripped and torn apart. You will sit alone in that cold wondering how to find a way to warm up and dry off. In the meanwhile, you’ll look out at the world around you and feel like you’re cursed. You watch the people stroll through life so easily. You see the hands of lovers connect. You observe their smiles and their laughs – that out of reach happiness that never comes, but arrives so easily to the others. To be a feeler in this crazy world is to suffer tremendously, but in a way you end up depending on your suffering. It shapes you. It defines you. Drenched in the unrelenting deluge of your own emotions, you will go through life feeling the weight of every moment. The sadness of the sunsets. The heartache of the years. The loneliness of the crowd. The pain will become almost like a companion to you as you stagger on through the years. In a strange way, I guess I couldn’t even imagine another way to be. Without this state of being, I wouldn’t know where to go or what to do. Without that pain in my soul, I wouldn’t even recognise the person staring back at me in the mirror.”

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thoughts

~ Hardened by Pain ~

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“I looked at the eyes of people around me and saw inner worlds of sunlight and peace. Meanwhile, inside my skull the ceilings dripped, the rats scurried. The world inside my mind was a scary place and I knew it was one that no other person should have had the misfortune of visiting. The darknesses I had descended to and the demons I had faced were not for the faint of heart. Still, sometimes when their non-understanding eyes stared at me once again, a part of me wanted to imprison them inside for just a day. I wanted to see the looks on their faces when they had seen the world behind my eyes; the looks on their faces when they came out screaming and crying. Never again would their ignorant sentences fall my way; never again would they think that their troubles were troubles. Of course, I wouldn’t have done this to my worst enemy. This prison inside was reserved for me and for me only. Only by some strange miracle had I managed to endure it all these years. By all rights, I should have been destroyed, but I had survived and now had this strange sense of invincibility flow through me. Words of hate did nothing; fear was laughable; storms were easily weathered. In the meanwhile, the others cracked and crumbled at the slightest exposure to such things. Their vulnerability made me reflect and come to appreciate my past sufferings. I had been hardened by pain and toughened by madness. I was able to walk through the fire without flinching. A strange courage filled my heart and I went through life no longer fearing the shadows or any monsters. Having lived in the darkness for so long, the demons were only companions to me.”

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thoughts

~Staring at the Red Light ~

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~ Staring at the Red Light ~

“You’re looking for something. You’ve been looking for it your whole life. You know there is something missing, and you struggle to understand how so many people passively drift through the years following the herd, settling for the mundane, never daring to be different and follow the things they feel deepest. You don’t want to be like them: that static existence that slowly steals the light from the eye and the joy from the heart. So you keep looking for something, but as time passes by you find you’re still waiting: sitting in that traffic jam, staring at the red light, scrolling on that phone. It’s a hard reality to escape and a relentless obsession with safety and security has presented us with a strange new equilibrium of being. We now live in a system where we don’t have to worry about dying from a cold at thirty-five, but we are stuck in mundane realities that do not allow us to experience the adventure of life. We work jobs we hate to spend the money on therapy and drowning our sorrows on the weekend. We sell off our dreams and desires in exchange for materialistic things. We close our curtains on the world to sink into comfortable sofas of submission. The staleness of the system is all around us and maybe the only way out is to take a leap of faith. To have the courage to break free and try something a little different. To start writing your own script. To stop waiting at that red light and to stop staring at that screen. To have the guts to put your foot down. 

To have the guts to go green.”

red light

 

thoughts

~ What We Need ~

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~ What We Need ~

“We don’t need more graduates, more executives, more professionals. The streets of society are already full of overly sane people and what we need right now is a little more explosion and colour. Right now what we need are the painters, the poets, the crazy ones. We need the ones who are not afraid to shake the world into life; the ones not afraid to share their soul’s contents with the world; the ones not afraid to spew out their passion and pain onto a blank page or canvass. We need those erupting hearts bleeding themselves dry. Those erupting hearts bringing some colour back into the mix. And in the end it’s those erupting hearts who remind us all of what it is to be human – the ones who voice that fierce inner nature of the soul which tells us no matter how much greyness society pours down, there will always be some wilderness left untouched in the hearts of us all.”

“Art’s task is to save the soul of mankind.” – Terence Mckenna

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thoughts

~ A Piece of Me ~

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~ A Piece of Me ~

“They say broken hearts can’t be healed, and it’s true. They can be pieced back together, but always they will show their scars. Those scars tell my story and it is one of pain and madness. I have stood in rooms of darkness staring into nothingness. I have crawled through swamps and sewers of desperation. I have screamed out alone in the torture chambers of my mind. My soul has been ravaged and destroyed by a world in which I didn’t belong. Into those morning mirrors I stared, seeing the latest damage being seared into my soul. Often, I couldn’t help but look at that reflection and wonder what would be left of me? When the years had run their course. What would be left of me? When the storms had rained their rain. What would be left of me? When the demons had had their way with me one more time. I didn’t expect there to be much. The storms would continue and this heart of mine would continue to bleed out over the years. Still, sometimes I collected that blood and poured it into a poem or story. It gave me relief and some people out there even seemed to like it. This was our nature. We were all parasites of each other’s pain. The blood and guts of others give us the fuel we need to continue on. It is our nature to feast off the scraps of another’s soul. I hope that this piece of mine gives something to you.”

man alone

thoughts

~ Your Path ~

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~ Your Path ~

“Your path may not look like their path. Your path may not be so smooth or straightforward, paved or predictable. Sometimes it may lead you away from the herd. Sometimes it may get a little twisted and turbulent. Sometimes it may fill you with apprehension and fear and doubt. But if you feel your heart pulling you towards it, then it is a path you must follow. There is a wisdom within our flesh and bones that knows where we truly belong. When everything connects and you’re walking fully in line with it, you will feel yourself overcome with an indescribable feeling. That feeling is the entire universe letting you know you are where you’re supposed to be; that your life is in flow with the total rhythm of the cosmos. The world around us shows the beauty of doing what comes natural and as the river runs fearlessly to the ocean, as the spring trees blossom and the bird makes its first leap of freedom, you too must do what comes inherently natural to you, even when those around you might not understand. For it’s when you exist in harmony with the grand order of things, that life is at its most beautiful. It’s when you have the courage to follow your heart through the wilderness, that your path runs through places more beautiful than ever before.”

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