The Writing Page of Ryan Millward
‘Over the Fence’
Wide-eyed and wild
I roam these haunted woods
living off the carcass
of my own
madness
this is me now:
nowhere left to fit into this farm
so out on the edges I linger
like a poisoned one of the cattle
away from the herd; over the fence
slowly dying – but then again
aren’t we all
may as well have fun
may as well feel good
may as well get lost and go insane
before the butchers and slaughterhouses
have their way with us
~ Post-College Rebellion ~
So I finally arrived but the businessmen say the journey has just begun;
twenty years of transitional education to be bottom facing the gun.
With a loss of direction I lament the system and nation;
for what use is this knowledge – without imagination?
And I got that post-college rebellion rushing through my veins,
spewing out my mouth and flowing down the drain.
I got that post-college rebellion bleeding from my eyes,
dripping onto newspapers as I read the daily lies.
I got that post-college rebellion weakening my knees,
got me hiking with a backpack in the mountains overseas;
post-college rebellion and I look up to the skies and plea:
is there more to life than this – is there something more for me?
‘cause I know there are forces out there that want to put me in a box,
to kneel down faithfully and kiss the finger of the man;
to place me into a cubicle where nobody ever knocks,
and dress up nicely – a component of society with a plan.
Yeah maybe one day I’ll be more conservative,
and chase the money and the power, and build a castle to live.
But now I gotta do the things that fan the flames of my desire,
the ones that kill this twitch inside and set my soul on fire.
That’s why I got post-college rebellion burning up my skin,
igniting my anxiety and turning my flesh thin.
I got that post-college rebellion choking me like dust,
got me spitting out the mediocrity of this decaying social rust.
I got that post-college rebellion wandering into the wild;
got me sleeping on the floor and playing like a child;
post-college rebellion and I look up to the stars and plea:
is there more to life than this – is there something more for me?
“There I stood on that city sidewalk once again: haunted and disturbed, my mind stained with Monday morning madness as the weight of this concrete world pressed down upon me. All around me the human race persevered on like normal. The traffic jams slowly stuttered by; the shoppers trudged on with their plastic bags; the cranes of doom loomed over me constructing our grey future. The insanity was relentless. We were a species stumbling recklessly toward the future. The rainforests fell as the skyscrapers rose; the rich bought $5000 suits as the homeless begged for money; the sociopaths flourished while the most intelligent sat in therapist offices paying for the right not to go insane. When you opened your eyes and really looked at it you could see something wasn’t quite right; something had gone wrong. In our undying quest for the good life we had become confused, deranged – dangerous. We had lost ourselves to illusions of success and future and wealth. But what good were those things when the air was poisoned? When the streets were littered with the homeless? When the buildings burnt down violently because the development agency skipped on fireproof materials to save money? The chaos of it all tormented me. It left me isolated on streets of thousands. Often I worried about ending up in the madhouse – but then I looked around and realised I was already in it.”
“On your deathbed you will look back on your life, and the question you will ask yourself before the curtain is drawn will be whether or not you danced a good dance. As the light of this life fades away and you leave the transient vessel of your body, the question you will ask yourself is whether or not you actually lived your one life upon the stage of planet earth. In this world there is no greater tragedy than a life that was stubbornly not lived – than a flower that never bloomed out of the fear of showing its true colours – either to itself or others. Too often we hear of elderly people regretting decisions about working too much and abandoning their passions. Too often it’s too little too late for so many. The question of whether you danced a good dance is the greatest question you will ever answer, and only one that can be truly answered in the last moments of your life. In all of life’s hustle and bustle, did you remember to move? Did you remember to live? Did you remember to dance?”
“At the end of the day I stood looking out at the ocean, watching that ball of fire burn brilliantly as it always did. As its light flowed through my veins, I thought about the trivial things in the world that continually consumed us all. I thought of stress – of anxiety – of worry. I thought of the busy people rushing past me, looking down at their phones while completely missing the sunset. Here we all were: little creatures living in an infinite universe, and yet always we would choose to instead exist within tiny bubbles of thought. We’d worry about the future; we’d worry about the past. We’d worry about what other people were thinking and what they weren’t thinking. We’d worry about worrying too much about worrying too much. In a moment of realisation, I let go of it all. Yes, maybe I didn’t have a plan, or much money, or a way back home – but with my one-way ticket and a trust in the unknown – everything was going to work out. “Hurl yourself into the abyss and discover it’s a feather-bed” one of my favourite philosophers had said. As I watched the sun finally set upon the water, I knew I was going to do exactly that.”
“One day it’s all going to turn to dust. The diamonds will turn to dust; the streets will turn to dust; the cities will turn to dust; your bones will turn to dust. The star that now gives us life will swallow everything whole. Nothing will stay solid; nothing you could possibly build here on earth will last the outgrowing fire of our burning sun. It’s all going to crumble and be incinerated in a great cosmic bonfire which will turn everything into smoke flowing throughout the galaxies of our universe. In fact, most things in your life will turn to dust just a few decades or centuries after you die. Your car will become dust, your clothes will become dust, your jewellery will become dust; you and everyone you ever loved will become dust. If this fact scares you, then it shows that you are perhaps too attached to the idea of a permanent material reality. No matter how much you cling to power and permanence, the cosmic drama of the universe will pay absolutely zero attention to your illusions. So many of us out there ignore the basic fact of transience – that we are mere matter momentarily manifested as living organisms for a brief amount of time. No doubt many of us are not ready to face this harsh fact. But if you ever have a particularly stressful day at work, then you might want to give it a try. You can look at those problems as mere dust. You can look at those hateful faces as mere dust. You can look at those mountains to climb as mere dust. With profound humility and appreciation for temporary conscious existence, suddenly life becomes a momentary dance – fleeting and free flowing. Suddenly life becomes as magical as an early-morning dream. Suddenly life becomes precious and beautiful and wonderful beyond words.”
~ The Voice of Insanity ~
“Back again from the road, looking out at that grey, grey world. That concrete world. That mechanical world. At another crossroad of life, once again it seemed like I had all but two choices: to join the herd, surrender myself to the system and let the normality of everyday life slowly suffocate my soul, or to just let go further and go more and more insane. It was true that by now I was sure I was in some strange minority of the human race. Sure, I had done all the personality tests and tried to psychologically analyse myself, but it really wasn’t necessary. The fact that I was allergic to every cultural task, to every bit of small-talk – to every social expectation and tradition that surrounded me – meant there was absolutely no chance for me to ever fit into my surrounding society. The searing pain I felt at even the smallest task of convention told me that trying to be a part of that world would probably leave me as a future suicide case. I didn’t want that to happen, and I wasn’t going to let that happen. A haunting voice whispered inside my ear and told me to keep on going on my path – to keep on wandering towards some sort of personal salvation and nirvana out there in the wild. Perhaps it was the sinister voice of madness trying to lure me over to the other side of sanity, but at times it seemed that voice was the best friend I had – the only one to reliably guide me through the dark swamps and forests I so often found myself in.
It was funny when I thought more about it – those voices you followed; those voices that guided you; those paths you walked. When I also looked at my idols – the writers, philosophers, adventurers and artists – and thought about their story, it seemed like they too had followed that same voice through the wilderness. Perhaps that’s why those souls had appealed to me from such a young age. In many ways they were just like me. In a species that requires individuals to conform and lose their adventurous spirit and creativity in order to uphold the mechanical system of society, the ones who are possessed by the need to express themselves and perpetually explore their inner and outer worlds were destined to lose their minds among the static masses. When walking those concrete streets and facing out at the grey absurdity of it all, I understood why they chose instead to go insane. It made sense why they chose to sit in dark rooms and write until their fingers bled, to try every drug and meditation under the sun, to climb the mountains, to live in camper-vans, to play the blues – to create great works of art and then blow their brains out with a shotgun. This is what had to be done; for some this was the only way to save oneself from the pain of a scripted life, to escape the automatic life on the cultural conveyor-belt – to fiercely protect the wild soul inside of them from being captured and killed by the mundane requirements of everyday civilian life.
Yeah, maybe they were madmen, or masochists, or simply deluded – and maybe I was too – but for me they were the only people I truly understood in the core of my heart. No matter how many years passed me by, I still couldn’t stomach or accept the life society expected me to live. And coming back again from the road once more, it was clear that I probably never would. My basic realisation each morning was always the same: I was a conscious, living organism riding a spinning rock through a universe full of exploding stars, black holes, and infinite horizons. The possibilities to life should have been endless, but mostly you we were subjected to a life of routine and monotony and trivia. Why was it like this? Was it all some kind of cruel prank? Maybe I had I got off at the wrong stop, or the gods had made a mix-up in the planetary warehouse when sending me here?
Whatever the case, it was clear that the only thing for me to now do was to keep on following that voice through the misty wilderness. For me this is what had to be done; for me this was the answer. I was to continue on my path. I was to abandon myself to art and adventure. I was to keep on following that voice through the wild. And yes, maybe it would lead to me madness, but I simply no longer cared. For some that place of madness is the last refuge of freedom from the machine. For some that place is the only realm in which the free spirit can survive. For some – in a world where sanity meant a life of slow suffocation – going insane is the gasp of fresh air that keeps them alive.”
(taken from my book ‘The Thoughts From The Wild’ available here)
“I always found it interesting how we all united in contempt whenever there was a story about poachers in the news or on the television. Nothing was more disturbing than seeing a wild animal tamed, thrown in a cage, shot or hacked down for their personal treasures. But so often we were blind to the fact that the same thing happened to us. While migrating across the plains of life, so many of us were captured and thrown into the cages of fear, doubt, dogma and a constant chase of security. So many of us chose to live lives that were safe and acceptable, rather than living the life we truly wanted. The danger was relentless and the poachers approached from many angles. They didn’t always have guns and spears – but instead they were the people putting their hands on our shoulders and telling us to forget about our dreams and passions. Sometimes the poachers were the advertisers, the politicians, the teachers, the parents. Sometimes the poachers were those closest to us; some negative voices ridiculing and dragging us down. Sometimes it was even yourself – the man or woman staring back at you from the mirror – who was the greatest poacher of all.”
(taken from my book ‘The Thoughts From The Wild’ available here)
“The blocks flew open and suddenly I entered into a race I didn’t even ask to be a part of. My immediate thought was of escape, but everywhere I turned it seemed the coordinators were there to usher me back onto the track of the rat race. I looked and looked for the alternative but it was near impossible to find. The people who called themselves alternative wore hippy clothes and tattoos, but were still tied down with careers and cars and televisions and credit cards. The track was hard to leave and even if you wanted to – the warnings were there. The homeless people on the side of the street. The mental asylums. The prisons. The cemeteries. Abandoning the arena of normality may have sounded grand in my head, but the reality was that it a dangerous and even deadly affair. Many a man or woman has hit the bottom after leaving the state-owned racing track towards death. Such an undertaking was not something one did lightheartedly. But on the other hand, what about the others who found the gold in the wilderness? What about the Kerouacs, the Dylans, the Edmund Hillarys? The wilderness of the world had many dangers, but the static life of the suburbs that awaited me seemed like a death sentence. Anything seemed better than being silently imprisoned in an invisible prison which no one else could see. How could you explain the pain of a prison which many people aspired for? The pain of a prison where the fridge was full but the soul empty? The pain of a prison which came with a shiny automobile, a high credit-rating, and a HD television?”
(taken from my book ‘The Thoughts From The Wild’ available here)
“It doesn’t matter if you die in a ditch or a mansion; both have the same end result. The only that matters – the only thing that ever matters – is what you do with the time you have here. We all grow out of the universe but many a life is denied its full blossoming due to the fear of failure or being different. Too many of us abandon our passions due to the influence of others. Gripped by an urge to fit in amongst the tribe, we instead choose to dwell in the darkness of living a life untrue to ourselves. We settle for the mundane and our homes and buildings become populated with the ghosts of the lives that were not fully lived.
For me it was that haunted darkness which drove me out into the world. Whenever I was on the road, I often witnessed the blossoming of a wilted flower. I looked into people’s eyes and could see people finally shining in the light of an overdue dawn, living life with the kind of inner joy they knew they deserved. The air was filled with electricity and there was a sense that anything was possible. It was in moments like that when you realised the true power of picking up that backpack. It was in those moments when you realised the value of wandering over the horizon. It was in those moments when you stepped back and realised that the real journey – the real adventure – had only just begun.”
(taken from my book ‘The Thoughts From The Wild’ available here)
~ A Voice From The Wild ~ 