Tag Archives: Writing

Writing Our Own Life Story and the Perils of Giving In to Society.

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We find our way through our life,
trudging through marshes of depression, storms of regret and earthquakes that shatter who we believe ourselves to be.

While we’re searching, our lives become something other than who we are, what we wanted out of life and whether we choose to live a life we’ll be happy with when we close our eyes for the last time.

The life we view through our lives is something different from what we’d dreamed of as kids.

The day I realized I was no longer following my way, I discovered my life was full of plot holes and in those holes I’d put things, hate, regret, rage, pain and loss.

These things led me to a life of bitterness, which, throughout my life caused me to do things against my beliefs, which have changed as I’ve grown older.

I’m still a believer in who I am and who I want to be, but sometimes the plot of the story has gone missing.

For my next life I believe that I want to be judged not by my earlier failures, but by my later triumphs.

Within my soul I’ve discovered a writer, husband and father I believe I’d never be. I have no idea why I believed these things, only that I have.

As a species humans are told to believe who they are, what they believe and are taught we shouldn’t question these things for fear of reprisals.

What this does is take away our ability to choose and to be the person we’re supposed to be rather than the one society prefers.

This societal preference stops our feelings of ownership over our lives from a young age.

Our lives seem to be phantoms searching the world, wanting things, but never able to have them.

Our having of the things we want..e.g. family, love, career or finding meaning in our lives which corresponds to our childhood wish of wanting to be a superhero, police officer, soldier,  nurse or doctor.

The difference is in the desire and ability to attain what we want.

As a child our desire is irrelevant, because as children most of us are taught we should desire to be things. It’s imperative at a young age that we desire things.

But, as children our ability to achieve what we want is controlled by parents and their belief that we are unable to make our decisions, and that we’re too immature and because of our immaturity we must be guided by our parents, sometimes to the detriment of our abilities.

As we grow older our ability to attain our childhood dreams grows with the acquisition of the monetary means to chase those dreams.

But also as adults we’re led to believe (by society) that chasing our dreams isn’t what we should be doing, and that childhood dreams are a falsehood and must be squashed with whatever means necessary.

There are those who go against the belief we’re to give up our dreams, they are the artists, scientists and dreamers who truly create society.

The rest of society is built for those who give in to the belief you can’t follow your dreams. They do this because they’re told enough times, “It can’t be done!”, what this says about society as a whole is that dreams are only good for a certain group of people and those people have the drive, ability or are given a break by some divine power, or that they know someone, which is hardly ever true.

As we become adults, not always at age 18, we find that there are things we could do to influence life in our favor. This includes writing even when we’ve been told we won’t be published, following our heart into a profession we’ve always wanted to do or trying something we’ve always been curious about.

We discover with age that our lives are our own and we must control them and not let those who’ve told us things, “Can’t be done!”, in the dust and do the things we’ve always dreamed of.

Our way through life has its perils, but in the end we’re controlling the helm through the storm, we’re the one writing the book, creating the plot lines and delivering the life we wanted when we close our eyes for the last time.

Be the Writer not the Person Living the Day Job.

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We find our lives in creative things by experimenting and finding a happy place that we call our own.

Just as I don’t believe I’m the person who goes to a day job and slings drinks for tourists on the Vegas strip. I’m the person who stays up late writing words on the page for me.

I was listening to a song the other day, “Wild Again” by Starship. It’s on the Cocktail soundtrack.

But the lyrics in the song struck me, “Is this life I’m living mine?”

The life I’m living is that of the person slinging drinks for tourists because it pays the bills. But what if I start living like the writer I am. If when I meet someone and they ask me, “What do you do?” and instead of saying, “I’m a bartender at a Strip Hotel”, I answer the question with, “I’m a writer.”

I’ve read the once you start calling yourself a writer, others will see you as a writer.

I’ve always thought of myself as a writer, but it was the little things I neglected about being a writer.

Saying your something, but not following what that “something” is are two different things.

Believing you’re something you’re not, at least that you’re not giving your life to. That is where the divisions lays.

You need to believe wholeheartedly that you’re this person, or do like Neil Gaiman says, “Act like a person that would be able to do that thing.”

I like Neil’s idea, and in believing you’re a person that would do something the other person wouldn’t do, for me it would be being the writer and not the person who works the day job.

For you it could be, Being the artist not the College Student, or being the actor not the Single Mom.

Each of us are different in our lives, that’s what makes us unique and it’s also what makes us who we are.

Be the Person you are supposed to be and ignore the person you have to tolerate in order to be that person on a permanent basis.

Writing with the Cheshire Cat staring at me.

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Sitting upon the ridge behind where I live the moon sits, its Cheshire cat grin a notice that life isn’t supposed to be fun all the time, neither is writing. If you’ve ever spent a night staring into a white screen, blank pages or miles of edits, you’re aware of the not so fun parts of being a writer.

Yesterday was my birthday, and with every year, I look back at where my writing’s gone and where it hasn’t.

I started this blog last year to help writers who’ve gotten lost in the delusions of what writing is and isn’t.

Initially I talked about the little things, but it became clear (through my own writing) that I something else was needed.

Moons come and go, followed by the sunrise, but in between the two is a pleasant darkness. It’s not the death throes of depression that I’ve been dealing with the past six months, it’s a darkness where things just are.

The animals scurry across the desert landscape, their bodies oblivious to the knowledge that their lives are short. Because they’re not cognizant to realize this, they don’t care about crossing that street or running through the field where coyotes reside.

They don’t care, they just live.

As humans we care about crossing that street. We know where the coyotes roam, and we steer clear of that area, but if we’d only let go for just a little while of how uncomfortable we are in thinking about that street or those coyotes, we’d do something great.

The Grin on the moon’s surface is only a reminder that its part of its cycle, that in a few weeks there will be no cat staring down, it will be the man himself staring, his face aglow with the sun’s rays.

Stepping into the Cheshire Cat sky I look up at the cat staring down and wonder if this will be the year, then I quickly forget it, walk back inside, sit down and finish my word count, because regardless of what pays the bills, I’m a writer and finishing word counts or page counts are what get me to the next birthday.

Writing and Dancing in the Puddles.

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When the clouds get dark, the rain decorates the valley and the sun finally comes out, life feels better, though without thinking about it, our lives follow this path.

Life gets dark, bad things happen, but the bad things eventually go away, as do the bad people.

Throughout our lives we’re left with the people we work with, live with and are associated with one way or another.

These people can be forgiving, loving and supportive, but then there are the others.

The other people, they’re the ones who criticize what we do. They think we’re wasting our time writing and creating. They ask us when we’re going to be published, not because they’re curious, but so they can mock us.

Each writer has dealt with this, sometimes there are multiple people like this in our lives, we have to get rid of them one way or another, only then can we create without the unneeded distractions of being told we can’t write, we do that enough ourselves.

After a rainstorm the desert smells fresh, the cacti look greener and the animals are scurrying about, almost seeming to be playing in the puddles the way my kids do.

We only see the day in front of, the storm, but afterward our lives are greener, we see things clearer and we’re free to dance in the puddles left over.

Enjoy the rainstorm, seeing clearer and the puddles, without every rainstorm we don’t see life as something to enjoy, instead of something to tolerate.

Get out and enjoy the puddles.

 

The Pool and the Pen

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I learned to escape in middle school, first it was the pool class we had, then it was writing.
I was bullied in middle school and the pool was the only retreat I had. None of the bullies had that class, and because of that I felt at home in the water.

I felt as if I was meant to be in the water, not just as an escape, but that it was something I should embrace, and I did for a long time, but I haven’t been a pool in years, not for lack of desire, but for lack of access.

Just after I got used to the pool I started writing, only for myself out of fear. I started filling notebooks and would use money I’d gained from doing chores for notebooks.
These notebooks are lost now and though I wish I’d retained them for myself. I’ve thought about them recently, only because I’ve begun feeling out of water again.

I’ve started writing more—a lot more—and because of it I’ve been thinking about when I’d sit up writing in bed, only the light from outside to fuel my frenzied scribbling.

There were a lot of stories in those notebooks which I don’t remember, a few poems too.

When life got out of control I had the pool and writing, both of which have always given me the comfort of escaping my life.
The pool was a physical escape from the troubles I faced in the halls of the middle school.
Writing has always been my mental escape, my way of getting my mind off the things that distracted me from living.

Today things are distracting me which I’m trying to control, but like middle school the writing, much like the meditation I practice, keeps me grounded in the now and makes my life complete, at least in my mind.

The reality of life is nothing is ever as perfect as we want it to be, not our writing, our personal lives or the relationships we have with our family and friends.

With perfection we’d have nothing to write about.

With the troubles of daily life, we keep our heads down in our laptops, notebooks and PC’s.
Writing is an escape from reality that I need, without it I know I wouldn’t have made it through middle school, without the pool I know I wouldn’t have gone home every day in a good frame of mind.

Without the pool and the pen I’m not sure where I’d be today.