I have learnt something about myself. I have learnt that I only write (poetry, prose etc) about emotions and events I have processed.
This has in the past caused me no end of agony. You are supposed to write your feelings out, and use that technique to process and deal with things, but it doesn't work for me. And numerous times I wanted to write something to commemurate an event or convey some emotion only to find myself buried in a tonne of cliche and unrhyming monotony.
But now I know the answer. I write when I have processed. So my poems of passion never occur at the start of a relationship, but months after. I can't write a eulogy effectively, it may be years till I can commit anything that doesn't sound like rubbish to paper. I guess my mother taught me too well not to speak in anger, now the anger doesn't show till it is gone. At my most intense moments there are no words... words are something that come with silence and time.
And what this means, in my self discovery, is that if I have written about it, I have dealt with it. If I can write goodbye, I mean it. I am optimistic about that, a rare state for me.
"I have found all that glitters in this world is sure to fade away again"
Monday, December 21, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Forgetting
It amazes me, the things I forget. Things I shouldn't be able to forget.
How beautiful, surreally beautiful the world is.
How peaceful it is to be surrounded by the people you love.
How amazing it is to have a pet that adores you.
How relaxed I become when I am doing something I love (even if the something is not an inherently relaxing thing to do).
How familiar the faces are of the people I cherish.
How much the world can hurt, and how easily that pain yields with time.
How a broken heart always seems like the most painful experience ever... until someone you love passes away, and you find a wound that never fully heals, over time it becomes a dull ache that you learn not to touch or dwell on. And you learn that you can forget the curves of your lovers back and the feel of their skin, but the laugh lines around your grandmothers eyes and her joyous laugh stay with you forever.
How much I miss music, how the words of the song always come back to me when the music starts.
How easy it is really, to forget.
"Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
How beautiful, surreally beautiful the world is.
How peaceful it is to be surrounded by the people you love.
How amazing it is to have a pet that adores you.
How relaxed I become when I am doing something I love (even if the something is not an inherently relaxing thing to do).
How familiar the faces are of the people I cherish.
How much the world can hurt, and how easily that pain yields with time.
How a broken heart always seems like the most painful experience ever... until someone you love passes away, and you find a wound that never fully heals, over time it becomes a dull ache that you learn not to touch or dwell on. And you learn that you can forget the curves of your lovers back and the feel of their skin, but the laugh lines around your grandmothers eyes and her joyous laugh stay with you forever.
How much I miss music, how the words of the song always come back to me when the music starts.
How easy it is really, to forget.
"Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Oh?....
Does this make me... a writer?
Regardless, I think there might be truth there.
But more importantly, click the picture and check out the website - Surviving the world - it makes me laugh.
While we are there, if you haven't tried them already, check out xkcd and Kawaii Not. If you have tried them, do so again. There is no getting out of this! :D
Thursday, December 03, 2009
influence
I remember when a friend of mine told me about a girl he liked, until he realised that the things he liked about her were thoughts and opinions and styles that she had adopted from someone else, that she didn't have anything that was her.
I remember thinking at the time (with my awesome psychological background) that we are all just social constructs, that we are all influenced by other people, that most of our opinions and likes and dislikes are introduced to us by our society, our friends and family. I remember thinking of music as an example of this, I like blues and jazz and rock and roll, and 60's pop music and early rock/metal because my parents liked them. I brought Nirvana's Nevermind not on the cover art, but because My-Almost-Big-Brother (who I totally idolised) owned it and said it was good, and I wonder if I could have had the capacity to dislike it given how much I cared about his opinion.
But I am now starting to see something more to what my friend said.
Yes we are social constructs. Yes we are influenced by the people in our lives toward the songs we listen to, and movies we watch, books we read, and the ideas we interact with. And it has to be that way, because there is so much content in the world and some of it is terrible and some of it is wonderful and we just don't have the lifespan to find everything on our own.
BUT
We don't have to like everything our friends like. We don't have to love the song because that dreamy so and so suggested it. While our knowledge can be influenced by what we are exposed to, in the end our tastes are up to us. Intolerant people who live in isolated places and hate other groups because they don't know better - that can be understood. But people who live in the advanced society of today with all the benefits of technology to broaden their horizons who still manage that intolerance of others... People like that exist, enough people to ban gay marriage in California no less. Of course, there are plenty of these mirror people who aren't about intolerance. They just go through life liking the songs that their friends like, reading the books that their teachers give them, liking what they think other people like, and disliking things that others dislike. And then changing their minds as soon as they realise that other people have. AND hating the people who have the oposite idealogy.
Example 1. There are a set of people obsessed with Twilight. There are a set of people who hate twilight. Cool, each to their own, I understand both sides of the arguement. But there are a set of people who love twilight only because their friends do. And there is a much larger set of people who hate twilight because their friends do, without reading or watching or knowing anything about it. Now, I don't really care what your twilight opinion is. I think everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But it does piss me off that some peoples opinions aren't even their own!
Example 2. People who start dating and suddenly change what music they listen to, books they read, games they play, movies they watch, topics they talk about, people they talk to, opinions about things are just as bad. Surely the relationship didn't begin based on the desire of each party to date themself? I understand that over time, with as people combine their lives, they do tend toward similar tastes because as we have discussed, we can't help but influence each other. But mirror people do so at the start of a relationship, less than a year in, they are a clone of their partner. And it strikes me as a bit sick.
Anyway, that is what bugs me today.
I remember thinking at the time (with my awesome psychological background) that we are all just social constructs, that we are all influenced by other people, that most of our opinions and likes and dislikes are introduced to us by our society, our friends and family. I remember thinking of music as an example of this, I like blues and jazz and rock and roll, and 60's pop music and early rock/metal because my parents liked them. I brought Nirvana's Nevermind not on the cover art, but because My-Almost-Big-Brother (who I totally idolised) owned it and said it was good, and I wonder if I could have had the capacity to dislike it given how much I cared about his opinion.
But I am now starting to see something more to what my friend said.
Yes we are social constructs. Yes we are influenced by the people in our lives toward the songs we listen to, and movies we watch, books we read, and the ideas we interact with. And it has to be that way, because there is so much content in the world and some of it is terrible and some of it is wonderful and we just don't have the lifespan to find everything on our own.
BUT
We don't have to like everything our friends like. We don't have to love the song because that dreamy so and so suggested it. While our knowledge can be influenced by what we are exposed to, in the end our tastes are up to us. Intolerant people who live in isolated places and hate other groups because they don't know better - that can be understood. But people who live in the advanced society of today with all the benefits of technology to broaden their horizons who still manage that intolerance of others... People like that exist, enough people to ban gay marriage in California no less. Of course, there are plenty of these mirror people who aren't about intolerance. They just go through life liking the songs that their friends like, reading the books that their teachers give them, liking what they think other people like, and disliking things that others dislike. And then changing their minds as soon as they realise that other people have. AND hating the people who have the oposite idealogy.
Example 1. There are a set of people obsessed with Twilight. There are a set of people who hate twilight. Cool, each to their own, I understand both sides of the arguement. But there are a set of people who love twilight only because their friends do. And there is a much larger set of people who hate twilight because their friends do, without reading or watching or knowing anything about it. Now, I don't really care what your twilight opinion is. I think everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But it does piss me off that some peoples opinions aren't even their own!
Example 2. People who start dating and suddenly change what music they listen to, books they read, games they play, movies they watch, topics they talk about, people they talk to, opinions about things are just as bad. Surely the relationship didn't begin based on the desire of each party to date themself? I understand that over time, with as people combine their lives, they do tend toward similar tastes because as we have discussed, we can't help but influence each other. But mirror people do so at the start of a relationship, less than a year in, they are a clone of their partner. And it strikes me as a bit sick.
Anyway, that is what bugs me today.
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