Tag: thoughts

thoughts

~ Hunted ~

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~ Hunted ~

“Forget that “you can be anything you want to be” bullshit they told you in school. This society cannot stand true individuality; it cannot stand seeing an empowered individual being happy while living an alternative lifestyle. I know this because I decided to live life my way and not society’s from a young age, and for that I have been hunted relentlessly. They have come after me with their stabbing stares and piercing comments. They have come after me with their nets of fear and hatred – with their weapons of degradation and mockery. Life can be a relentless struggle, but I have learnt how to survive. I have even began to enjoy the thrill of their hunt. I am out on the wild plains and I run with the hunted. I run with the wild horses. I run with the madmen and maniacs – with the artists and adventurers. My hair is messy and my spirit uncombed. I warm myself with the fire in my heart. I feast off the carcass of my own madness. I experience great periods of isolation and solitude, but I will never quit. I will never let them capture or tame me; I will never let them drag me down. I shall run with those wild horses until the setting of the sun.”

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(taken from my book ‘The Thoughts From The Wild’ available here)

thoughts

~ A Natural Medicine ~

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~ A Natural Medicine ~

“Never stop staring up into those starry skies; never stop looking out at those vast oceans. Be wide-eyed to the sheer immensity of it all and let it sweep over you. Yes you are small in comparison, but spend enough time in nature and you will realise that it is not there to intimidate you, but rather to teach you love and humility. In the shadow of the mountain is a temple of inner peace for the soul and spirit. So if life is getting you down a bit then get out into the wild and let the immensity of nature turn hatred into humility, anxiety into laughter, stress into mindfulness, boredom into wonder. Let the wonderland of our natural universe remind you that life is a mystery to be experienced, and not a battle to be won.”

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thoughts

~ Starved ~

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~ Starved ~

“After another day at work, I came home and faced the man in the mirror. The reflection showed a tired stranger. His face was pale and his eyes timid. I could see the visible effects another week of drudgery had done to me. In an instant I felt the weight of this concrete world pull me down stronger than ever. I wanted out but in a society which left you starving for freedom on every street corner, where else was there to turn? It seemed like either you starved from hunger in the gutter, or you starved from monotony and routine in the offices and suburbs. From where else could you fulfil yourself? From where else could you nourish yourself on the flesh of existence? The bars and clubs offered a temporary escape, but ultimately left you further in the pit the next day. The shops and malls offered momentary material pleasure, but ultimately left you empty and decaying on the inside. If you kept your eyes open then those grey streets told a sad story. A great famine was upon us and you only had to look into the eyes of the commuters on those rush-hour trains to see how bad the situation had gotten – to see that we had become over-civilised and under-fed with the fruits of life. Whatever ‘growing up’ and ‘finding your place’ in this strange society meant, I was certain that I was a galaxy or two away from it.”

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thoughts

~ Into The Wild ~

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~ Into The Wild ~

“The choice between a conventional life and an unconventional life was one we all faced at some point. The period of your life where this happened was mostly in the post-education years. The first part of your life, you don’t have any real agency over – you simply follow the law and go to an institutional education facility for the best part of two decades. But when that was finished you suddenly were given an opportunity to walk whatever path you wanted to. Although there are many vehicles, there are essentially only two roads: A) You start a career and follow a linear and safe path of mortgage, kids and retirement, or B) you go down the rabbit hole and try something different. For me, the only desire I had was to travel and so, two months after my graduation, I caught a one-way flight to South America to begin my journey into wonderland. Over the next few years I continued walking down that path. The way took me to peaks of mountains, to seedy hotel rooms, to erupting volcanoes, to almost dying stranded with a friend in the woods of winter.

While it was thrilling and invigorating, I would be lying if I said at sometimes I wasn’t anxious or worried. Often I reflected on everyone else back home busying away, building their nests and bank accounts while I basically had nothing but a backpack and a worn-out passport. At my lowest point I was on the other side of the world with $50 to my name, sleeping in an airport lounge with no plane to catch. Suddenly I began to question myself; suddenly the homeless people on the sidewalks became society’s warning about where I could end up should I drift too far from the road of normality. Where was I going? What was I doing? Was it all really worth it? Yes, I won’t lie. I won’t lie and say sometimes I wasn’t apprehensive, or concerned, or that I didn’t think about turning around back onto the safe path, but it only took the thought of me slowly dying inside in a life I hated over many years to pick up that backpack and continue walking wide-eyed into the wilderness of the unknown.”

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(taken from my book ‘The Thoughts From The Wild’ available here)

thoughts

~ In The Madhouse ~

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~ In The Madhouse ~

“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.”

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thoughts

~ The Dance ~

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~ The Dance ~

“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?”

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thoughts

~ A Sunset Moment ~

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~ A Sunset Moment ~

“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.”

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thoughts

~ Before The Bonfire ~

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~ Before the Bonfire ~

“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.”

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short stories

~ The Voice Of Insanity ~

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~ 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.”

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(taken from my book ‘The Thoughts From The Wild’ available here)

thoughts

~ The Poachers Of Life ~

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 ~ The Poachers Of Life ~

“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.”

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(taken from my book ‘The Thoughts From The Wild’ available here)