This is the BEST blog post ever. Believe me. It’s the best…

It took a significant milestone in my son’s life recently to jolt me back into reflecting on what really matters to me. After all, that’s why I started this blog – to consider those things/ideas/people that energise me and, by doing so, bring some life affirming kindness into my life. But in the weeks prior to that last entry I seemed to have been inhabiting a confounded dream-like state, holding me back from writing. I couldn’t find my mojo; plenty of ideas but no will or energy to see them through. Each time I’d decided to sit down at the keyboard my train of thought dissolved faster than my fingertips could get to touch it. It sometimes felt as if I had suddenly run out of breath and  was forced to stumble outside, gasping, to avoid passing out.

Having experienced this a number of times over a few weeks I conceded I needed to look a little deeper. Ironically I needn’t have bothered with the heavy duty psychological machinery. The answer lay very close to the surface. Donald J. Trump.

As my family might attest, I’m somewhat of a closeted political junkie. Over the past few months I have been quietly, though quite single-mindedly, cultivating an obsession with the man who  would be Caesar. Every article, left and right, every podcast, every commentary. Anything that might help me sketch a more complete picture of a man who, left to mainstream liberal media, is perhaps one degree away from the Antichrist himself. This obsession started innocently enough – an attempt to break out of my own echo chamber. I have now learnt there is a clear price to pay for trying to burst the bubble of my carefully curated, one-dimensional social media feeds: oxygen.

Anyone who has ever experienced a lack of oxygen, or perhaps an acute shortness of breath, knows how this goes. As the realisation that your body lacks oxygen, that it is struggling to even remain conscious, a deep swell of panic begins to take over. Thought and reason disappear and are rightfully replaced by instinct – a primal drive to survive. And lets face  it, there’s nothing like an unrelenting barrage of “alternative facts” to knock the wind out of anyone trying to keep their head above the waterline of truth.

This is what Trump has been doing to me, to many of us, over the past few weeks. His virtual omnipresence has had the insidious vigour of an inert gas expulsing any remaining oxygen out of the many nooks and crannies of my inner life. He leaves room for nothing else. He insists there is no more room.

The autonomic nervous system exists so that we don’t have to worry about the basic things our body needs to simply survive. My body needs to breathe. And if I were to draw an analogy beyond my physical wellbeing I’d say I need to harness a similar system for the survival and protection of my intellectual, emotional and social health. There are things I need to do and people I need to be with, so I can feel centred and balanced in my own life. These are not negotiable. They must continue to be part of my life no matter who or what threatens to interfere, including the clear and present danger of a hostile take-over of my rightful oxygen.

I’m talking to you, Donnie.

And so my challenge is to ‘stay the course’. Not that I’m out there agitating or protesting against this disturbingly surreal pantomime. Such direct action is not the only way to reassert a semblance of sanity back into our cultural discourse. My ‘staying the course’ is about living my life, on my own terms, and resisting the daily sense of outrage, the perpetual rolling of the eyes and the familiar compulsion to stare agog at the unfolding circus masquerading as a new political order.

I want to use my oxygen for more useful things, for kinder things.

Tilting at windmills

“When you get on a horse you don’t just sit there, you ride the horse. I mean, what’s the point of getting back on a horse if you don’t actually go anywhere?”

So goes an increasingly frequent rebuke aimed in my direction by my increasingly wise son. He is referring to a post I published in early August, after over twelve months of not publishing anything. Since then (I think it was the following day) I published one thing – a shaky missive on my decision to disengage from Facebook. It was OK.

More telling was how it felt to write something again. Unfortunately not as cathartic as I was hoping. In finally broaching my own publishing silence, I was clinging to the possibility of a more enlightening experience, something that would help break through my barnacled creativity.

I’ve realised that my son is right. I can’t just sit on the horse, I have to go somewhere. As delusional as his adventure may have seemed, even Don Quixote had the courage to continue riding.

Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them.

Time to battle.

Hi Ho Silver!

Time to get back on the horse…

Kinder than Fiction

You may have noticed, my sharp-eyed reader, some recent flirtations with the rather intimidating world of fiction. I say intimidating because it’s a world I really know nothing about, and my foray into its murky and boundless delights has been a rather naive one – an adolescent romance at best. But such naïveté is less a point of embarrassment than it is an open invitation for further exploration. I may have been bitten by the sinister and mysterious beast of language’s own lunar cycle. I can’t yet tell whether the wound is deep or a mere graze, but I wouldn’t be kind to myself if I didn’t scratch this itch just a little longer.

I’m not going to suddenly launch a new fiction blog site (featuring my latest masterpieces), nor am I going to stop writing the sorts of reflections that simply need processing in that unusual brain of mine, but thank you for your concern nonetheless. I do, however, think it prudent to give you a ‘heads-up’ in case you begin to notice an increased peppering of those little linguistic indulgences. And “little” is very much the operative word.

I believe the ‘technical’ term is micro fiction. Yes, that’s right, micro. Basically it’s an attempt to tell a story in 100 words or less. Aside from my other little sorties into fiction on this blog over the last few years I think, at least at the moment, that’s all I have in me, and it may give me an opportunity to learn and expand that skill, if indeed I have a little to begin with.

More than happy to share the journey with you. And thanks in advance for joining me!

The moment where I take an uncharacteristic step…

When I started this bloggy thingy it really was as a means to ‘self heal’ – a conscious and self-reflexive choice to use writing as a means to be kind to myself. I was confident I could string a few sentences together; I’d been doing it for years – film reviews, academic papers, another blog focusing on my ad hoc travel ‘adventures’, and other bits and pieces here and there. I can’t objectively say if my writing is any ‘good,’ but that’s precisely the point. I write as a way to process thoughts, observations, emotions, states of being and, as such, it’s likely that it won’t always be engaging to anyone but myself, let alone be considered ‘good.’

And I’ve really enjoyed it. Certain gaps in continuity notwithstanding, it’s been a most rewarding journey. The ‘healing’ process has taken me from straight up reflective pieces on subjects as diverse as fatherhood, memory, death and dying through to attempts at short fiction, even poetry! All this, out ‘there,’ for people to read, comment and, to a certain degree very much outside my control, pass judgement.

As I suspected, but had never actually experienced before, the most rewarding aspect of this type of endeavour is the connections that can be made with those who take the time to read my words. To begin with, I feel humbled by the very fact some people actually take time out of what I can only assume to be busy lives to actually read anything I have to say. And then there are those moments where what I say resonates with the lives of others, and they take the time to say so. I wonder if that’s anywhere near the feeling a musician gets when they hear their audience sing one of their songs back at them? Perhaps I’m overreaching but hey, it’s my blog, and my fantasy!

So first and foremost, thank you. For taking the time.

Now, what is this “uncharacteristic step” I allude to in the title of this post? Well, I’ve entered this little blog in the Best Australian Blogs 2014 competition. It’s held annually and sponsored by the Australian Writers Centre.

Entering a blog that is very much about me and my own thought processes into a competition feels a little counterintuitive. But it’s the very possibility of discomfort that this deliberate journey in writing seeks to court. And so I welcome it and the opportunity of letting others hear my voice – for what it’s worth. And whilst I’m realistic as to my prospects, I am thoroughly enjoying the possibility of engaging with new eyes and seeing how, or if, this process impacts my writing. And I trust you, my dear reader, will keep me honest. But no pressure, of course…

Oh, and there’s a People’s Choice Award too. If you’d like to vote for this blog you can click on the badge to the right of this post (if you are reading this on a PC and/or it’s visible to you), or click the link below.

www.surveymonkey.com/s/BAB2014

And thanks again!

streamofconsciousness

I wrote the following very quickly, though not in the one sitting. Just thought you should know, for the sake of full disclosure…

Is it possible to write a blog such as this and not censor oneself? I doubt it, as I can already tell that my fingers cannot keep up with my mind and, in this instance, even the punctuation betrays any intent to write as quickly, and as freely, as my mind dictates. And it’s not only the mechanics of writing that betray my intent at removing any possibility of self-censorship; I am also deeply aware of grammatical structures and the need to make sense. But why this need to make sense if all I am really doing is expressing myself and whatever thoughts happen to come out of my very noisy head? Well, part of the issue is a paradoxical relationship between wanting to express myself without self-censorship and the deep desire to communicate something of myself – whether it be an idea or a portrait of myself – via the written word. I write because I want to connect with someone. In this case you, dear reader. And I write also because I wish to unburden my mind of an accumulation of thoughts that, after a while, begin to weigh heavy on my mind. But in order to cultivate this connection with you, I cannot afford to alienate you. And alienation can come in many forms – poor writing, poor grammar, poor expression, poor choice of topic, and a general sense of meandering meaninglessness. I must acknowledge your time is valuable and, for whatever reason you have chosen to take some time out of your busy day to spend a little time with me, you may not be as freely predisposed to literary (please excuse the aspirational intent) experimentation as I am, whose time is perhaps less valuable than yours. However I can’t help but wonder whether the possibility of ever breaking the shackles of my touch typing limitations, together with a fear of losing that connection, as well as the likelihood of writing nothing but pure dross, would eventually furnish me with a freedom of expression that would be tantamount to the feelings experienced during surfing, skiing, riding a motorbike on a country road – or perhaps free-falling from a very high altitude. It also strikes me the pursuit of such  freedom in this writing is really another expression of a broader search; a search that might yield a similar experience in other walks of life – imagine a sense of unencumbered movement and decision making in the pursuit of our own careers, our own passions, and our own destinies. Too lofty? Perhaps, but I do think these little micro-speculations, at least for me, point to bigger aspirations. This is especially the case for me at work, where it is often difficult to align my desire for freedom and creativity with the often mundane, but necessary, aspects of the daily work routine. And I’m sure I’m not alone. But at the same time I try similar ‘micro’-experiments at work, trying different things out and seeing how they fit, how people react and, most importantly, how much I can get away with. You’d be surprised. Or perhaps not. But I do believe that by maintaining at least a very thin thread of creativity that weaves through the every day, then the outcome is often delectable subversion. Try it sometime. It’s a welcome reprieve from the mundane. Self-censorship is often a social necessity, but when that necessity morphs into a moral imperative for everything we say, do or write, then I think we need to rethink. And if we cannot think outside the square, then try thinking really really fast inside it. Something’s bound to spill out.

Move on, nothing to see here… (It’s now OVER THERE…)

Well, your wait is [almost] over…

Pop over to my other, perhaps happier, place, for some regaling tales of travelling misadventures. I’m just hoping to survive to tell those tales…

Go here and all your Christmases will come at once… (too much??)…

A week away from blogging (not a countdown, just an observation…)

I know, there’s an inherent contradiction in telling you that I have taken a week off from blogging – especially as that week is not yet over. I have, at least in my mind, successfully re-framed writer’s block as a holiday.

In fact, I’m considering lobbying for an official national holiday: Writer’s Block .. err.. something or other… I really think it’ll catch on.

See you in a couple of days!

Death by Numbers

I keep thinking to myself, “How did this blog become so morose? All this talk about death. Surely it’s not doing anyone any good.”

Well, dear reader, that’s probably true of your good self, or perhaps other passers-by who read on, then look away before they succumb to the inevitable pull of some of my most melancholic moments.

But I can’t help it. And I don’t fight it. Mostly, if not entirely, this, for me, is one sure way of processing the melancholia out of my system. As the title of this blog continues to tease, this is my way of being kind to myself. Writing does it for me, and so I’d be an idiot to avoid it, regardless of the reflective paths it takes me – depressing or otherwise.

These types of posts are also my way of outstretching my middle finger in faux (and certainly not too convincing) defiance of what my life journey can sometimes throw at me.

Consider the following: 70, 48, 27, 90. Can you see the pattern?

These are the ages of the people whose funerals I’ve had to attend in the past 11 months. If that isn’t a fickle set of numbers, then I don’t know what is. And the more I think about this seemingly random sequence, the more I feel the need to write. Like someone with a nervous tic – a condition that manifests itself during periods of high anxiety, where the only way through it is to either talk incessantly (at accelerating speeds and increasing volume), or to make one lame joke after another, hoping one of them might just break the tension.

And so here I am, with nothing to say but with a deep and compelling urge to say it – to write my way to a place of greater peace and centredness. It is a way of maintaining momentum, my way to keep moving, and thereby avoid the stillness inherent in death  – physical or otherwise. I write to stay alive – parts of me at least, if not all of me. And, by extension, I am also hedging my bets on the possibility that it’s harder to hit a moving target.

Thanks for keeping up. I appreciate the company.

To babble, perchance to write…

Does writing about the fact I forgot to write count towards my weekly writing commitment? Yes, I realise it’s a complex moral conundrum, but I really didn’t mean to forget. I just… forgot…

Well, actually, that’s not wholly true. I did write something. In fact, it was a rather flaccid attempt at continuing my passing flirtation with ‘fiction’ which seemed to leave a rather satisfying impact on a few readers (satisfying mostly for me, if I were to be honest). Trying and, in my opinion, failing to once again capture the mood, or essence, of whatever was in my head at the time has served to point out to me how fickle this whole enterprise is. In fact, for us amateur writers, it often feels rather random.

No ideas. Just a blank screen.

And so I revert to the writer’s greatest cheat – writing about their own writers’ block. But, once again, that is not entirely true, as I did write something. It just wasn’t very good. And I hope that, by simply sharing with you, also in a rather random way, my little struggle, I can squeeze a modicum of creativity and perhaps write my way out of this funk.

You know what? I think I’ll return to that little piece of fiction, give it a shot, post it up, hold my breath and see what happens.

See you in a couple of days.