Latest occurences

The Smell of You

Good afternoon ladies and gentleman

What is it that triggers memories? What thing causes you to disappear into the depths of your unconsciousness, to a memory you may not have replayed for years. Yet- there you are. Front and centre in the most unique, wonderfully awful, gut wrenchingly embarrassing moment from your past. Tears form in the corner of your eyes as you grimace or pull a curt half smile as you remember the laugh that person you were with let go. Then you remember, no matter how embarrassed or cringeworthy that memory is, you wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

That smorgasbord of powerful feelings and emotions are all born from something, from the battle for control of your emotions. No matter the level of control you’re trying to wrangle- like a bull and its rider, the only inevitability is hitting the hard cold sand of the ring floor.

The majority of us possess 5 basic senses. Sight, Sound, Touch, Taste and Smell. These senses are the key for us finding our way in the world and understanding what we are doing as we go. Its this understanding, beyond basic unconscious reflexes that have allowed us to evolve into the semi-conscious beings that walk the earth today. All of them have their qualities, but all in their own way illicit memories.

Memories of a great meal can be bought back with the taste of a similar food, the touch of silk remind you of a beautiful dress you once wore to the ball, a song remind you of a great gig that etched itself onto a corner of your mind, the sight of a long brunette mane shocking your system into thinking your past had finally caught up with you and then there is smell.

Smell, I believe is the same- but different. The other senses will undeniably powerful, but very instantaneous in the reactions they cause. See something, remember it. Taste, Touch, whatever. Smell is as powerful, but more. You could catch the smallest smell of perfume on someone as you wander through a crowd, the lightbulb flickers as if the dragon of familiarity had stirred, but is yet to be woken.

It can get at you, the smallest smell. Minutes, hours, days can pass with this problem wittering at your brain, trying to remember why you know that smell and without knowing why it seems to affect you so much. Then, in the most random of moments, when you least expect it- you are overcome by a confused sadness and realise where that smell had come from. The aroma of a past happiness, a past love.

The Smell of You.

In my experience, smell brings about the most powerful memories. Flashbulbs of powerful familiarity, fleeting moments of happiness combined with sadness of where it all went wrong. You know, I know, we all know that bad things need to happen for us to appreciate how good the good things are. This applies with happy and sad moments just as much for without sadness, happiness would be a dream, nothing more than an idea of a feeling, much like the idea of love being much more appealing than love itself.

I think we are very easy to dismiss these feelings that are created by our senses, in particular by smell. Its as if we have developed this need in society to constantly be re-inventing oneself, convinced this “next” version will be the one that gets to be happy. Its these memories of pain, of love loved and love lost we work so hard to forget, to move on from and pretend it never happened. We can’t bare to look back at that day, that moment, that memory. A smell, an odour, an aroma has the power to sit on the very surface of your mind and make you feel so much of what you’ve lost because when you first experienced that moment you hoped it would last forever.

They don’t though. They never do- maybe that’s why we avoid creating those memories. If you don’t ever have those moments you wish to last forever then you never have to deal with it all flooding back. What if that wasn’t the idea of that smell though, the idea of the taste of that food or the touch of that silk. What if that smell, that positively confusing, terrifying moment when that powerful odour wafts up your nostrils and them memories come back to you in a tsunami of painful inevitability. “It’s going to hurt and the idea of smiling is not going to be possible for a while. “

Yet, without realising, they do make you smile. Those memories of lying across from someone as they stir to a smile, laughing so hard tears are streaming down your face, that meal that blew you away, the sunset you watched as you walked down the pier. We focus so badly on avoiding pain and all the memories that come with it- but no memory really causes you pain. You cause you pain.

Be proud of how far you’ve come and never wish to go back to the past. Nothing lasts forever, so be so in the moment at times of outstanding happiness that feel like they will never end. Perfection is a dream chased by people who don’t understand how beautiful it is to be flawed and forget that imperfection should be revelled in and never feared. Your senses remind you of a time long gone and be happy they are gone but be happy that you were there too. Memories give you the means to create the person you want to be, so don’t hide from them. Let them hurt and let yourself enjoy that moment.

That small fleeting moment, in a cold winter, trudging to the train station, leaves underfoot and the smell of autumn in the air.

The smell, that unmistakable smell, and remember a time

A time that was truly outstanding.

And smile. Maybe only for a second, but for that second you were so very proud of you.

Yours, with love as always.

D.R x

Tired

Good evening ladies and gentleman

So, all this talk of the omicron variant of COVID spreading through central Europe and now the country is stirring once again as another lockdown looms. Now i’m not one for politicising what i write, satire is best left to the comedians and not something i wish to throw my hat into the ring on. What i found more interesting is the symptoms of the new variant. The list of ailments that if you have them together, the likely scenario being that Omicron COVID wreaking havoc within you as the bodily defences go to war once again.

There were the usual things. Night sweats, sore throat- the sort of thing that would make you genuinely feel and think you were unwell. More interesting were the next two, headache and tiredness.

Tiredness… (symptoms can vary slightly this is just from my research)

So now if you didn’t get enough sleep you have a symptom of COVID. It made me think how i am tired almost constantly, trying to get enough sun in this bleak midwinter as you try and eat at least one of your five a day while trying to drink enough water and never getting there. Then as you work to get through the day doing without even seeing the sun through a window, let alone a moment to yourself you wander. You wander why you carry on, or even how, without getting stressed and worked up over something that you cannot control.

COVID is making you tired. What i think is that it’s a lot simpler than that. Life is more tiring than ever, in a world of noise, so much going on, constant and persistent stimulus being poured onto the surface of your consciousness at a near constant rate, it surprising we keep up at all.

Control is king. I’ve always believed that. Control everything and no outcome can curveball you to the strikeout you believed impossible. I feel like we have been bought up as a collective to believe we are supposed to control everything, because everything outside of your life seems so out of control. This constant overthinking, the persistent overstimulation of every synapse in your brain constantly trying to understand and overcome everything while trying to run your life, avoid misery, drink enough water, eat healthy and get your exercise in.

“Stuff to do” can very easily slip slide down the mountain to a “lot to do.” From that a lot to do becomes too much to do.

This is where tired comes in. Trying to do everything at once- it gets so overwhelming, ironically when you’re out here trying to make so much happen at once as it kills you mentally, it means you’re getting less done. All this control, but no result. From this you start wandering why it’s not happening, so you rest less, work more, pile it on more, less fun, see less people. Resulting in a run down one path to burnout.

You remember when you were a kid you see them clowns spinning plates? They would do 4 or 5 and blow your child like mind away at the feat of magnificence in front of you. Astounded by 4 plates and here you are trying to keep 20 spinning at the same time. No wander you’re so tired.

So. Control is king, but what you’re trying to control is the issue. It took me years to figure this out but you then realise how much you are capable of. It’s not about controlling what happens- its about how you react to it.

You choose how you deal with your life. One of the most important things to remember is that life- in all of its connections- is a one player game. You remember that your feelings and your decisions are yours. Everything you do is your choice and yours alone. Its not about controlling everything, it’s about how you react to things you didn’t expect. Understand you can’t change everything and can control even less. The world is happening around you right now, whether you’re lying in bed reading this or stood at the top of a mountain. Your friends are doing stuff other than hanging out with you, some people love you, some can’t stand the sight of you and others have no idea you even exist.

And you know what? None of it matters. Not unless you want it to.

When you put your emotional energies towards things and beings that make you feel good and will be able to offer that same energy in return, you will find yourself getting less tired. You’ll spend less time tossing and turning, more time resting. I honestly believe we have to conserve emotional energy and give it to what can bring you joy. Focus on what can provide you something positive, because focusing on everything is just making you so, so tired.

It isn’t a life if you’re too bleary eyed to enjoy it.

with love, as always.
D.R x

Communication Breakdown

Good afternoon ladies and gentleman

What is it when the monotony of life gets at you? What happens when you feel like your stuck in an endless cycle of daily tasks and the same conversation with the same people- the sort of people that say so much and nothing at all?

People will tell you, society will tell you that it’s life and you just need to suck it up. Life is painful and you just have to deal with it- just like the rest of us. Why do you think the drug problems are increasing at an exponential rate and have been so for the last 3 decades, why the pubs and bars seem to be more and more full come the weekend and the fear of the next lockdown is driving anxiety levels in the country higher than ever before.

It’s easy to feel like your losing it. I often think part of this feeling is in the balance society is trying to strike towards our obedience. About how we are supposed to just “suck it up.” They communicate what they want us to believe, to feel, to love- and we obey. Chase this thing, work towards that goal, make sure you’ve done this by then, if you don’t do that there must be something wrong. And so on…

This is the way the world communicates these days. Either through shouting and telling you that you’re wrong without offering any sort of explanation, or just not at all. Fuck up and i’ll come and tell you how much of an idiot you are later. It often feels like the latter is used more, because it feels as if your life has been written out for you before you take your first breath.

“Have this by then..”

“why haven’t you done that yet?…”

“if you haven’t done that- what have you been doing?..”

It goes on, but even thinking about it is just draining. The world doing all it can to weigh you down and write you off, this pursuit for you to be nothing more than a statistic, to not cause problems, to do as your told and tell everyone how great it is this way.

So what is it? What makes this feeling that something is missing when you find yourself just going through the motions? As i understand it, at the heart of it is a communication breakdown. Between you and society? No.

Between you and you.

The part of you that is presented to the world, the conscious aspects of your personality are very easily influenced by the pull of the “easy route,” of the pull that is “falling into line.”We are pulled to this because we look at other people and think they are happy- so will imitate them in an attempt to get that good dose of happiness we think we want so badly. We think moments will rectify our lives, the achievement of that goal will mean life can really get “started.”

Yet, in the vast chasm of our obsessive consciousness, so lost in trying to figure out to be happy, be rich, to have women in your bed or keys in your pocket, there is something else, a calling, a voice, a niggle you are just unable to ignore. Some call it a soul, a voice inside your head, or perhaps in contrast to consciousness, the unconsciousness.

I know this is a vague term. Frankly- all three of them are. What is that feeling though? Things are going well, your job is manageable, you’re trying to be sociable and as present as you can. You continue to work towards your goals and have a general idea of how you intend to progress and eventually achieve them. As it stands, you have nothing to feel upset, sad or depressed about- from the outside. From the outside people would and do assume your happy with how things are.

I’ve waxed lyrically about all sorts of things over the years, but this has always played at me. Like a voice in my head screaming, shouting, doing all it can to attract my attention. A persistent and sinking feeling i was missing something, so close to me yet so far away, hidden just beneath the surface of what felt familiar.

It eats at me, however hard I run, it persists- just behind my eyes. It’s corrosive.

Except it’s not. It’s a communication breakdown.

The person you want to be, the way you want to feel, what you want to achieve and the legacy you want to leave lives just beneath the surface, the aspects of your unconscious personality you don’t think the world should see because you’re scared the world will try and take it out of you, that you wont have as many friends or because you won’t be accepted. You fear the opinions of others, so keep your true nature locked away, hidden beneath the surface and do all you can to break ties, to breakdown the communication between what you see and all that you don’t- even if its mentally exhausting because the alternative doesn’t bare thinking about.

Take music for example. If a guitar string isn’t properly connected at the top and bottom of the instrument, would you be able to play that instrument properly? Would the great musicians and lyricists of the last 5 decades or so be able to sing of the pain, torment, love and sadness they feel so powerfully without the added level of communication that a well played guitar provides? The guitar is an extension of their personality for it provides them with a connection to themselves that words cannot express.

It is the same here. Your conscious and unconscious mind need to talk, they need to communicate. That information flow needs to be consistent and moreover than that persistent. The breakdown can be repaired- more than that it has to be for you to gain true knowledge of who you are and what you are capable of because in truth its so much more than any of us can possibly imagine.

That voice inside your head, the very nature of your being is calling for you to be brave. The communication breakdown is a difficult thing to fix, the repeated and constant assault on your senses throughout daily life in society is becoming a much harder thing to combat. Someone i know once upon a time told me a story about persistence. She talked about consistently working a plan to the same method, over and over again proving to give no result. So simply put- do something different.

Offer that olive branch to yourself. Tweak that guitar string- hear the tension rise and see if it sings a note that feels like you- unfamiliar but you all the same. Nobody is expecting a full solo straight away. Start on that path with a single note. A breakdown isn’t the end of everything you are.

You can rebuild and come back stronger.

Learn to recognise that person in the mirror. And listen to them.

Yours, with love as always.

D.R x

Muy Importante

Good evening ladies and gentleman

What does it mean to be important? What is it when something- or someone, is important to you? I personally have spent many years doing all i can to avoid giving anything or anyone such monikers, bar the few people i would without a doubt call very important to me. The majority of the time, i try to refrain from believing things, or people are necessary, that they are important, that without them this page of my life would be a lot darker one.

It has meant i have kept my sanity (almost)- or this is how i have rationalised an undeniably rash set of behaviours. In the last few months my understanding of myself has started to waiver though, for the simple reason i have come to realise that beyond this, beyond writing, beyond poetry and expression there is a lot more going on. A lot more that i know absolutely nothing about. This though, is where the idea of something becoming important can very easily fall into a coping mechanism, or a strategy to avoid losing a grip on what you know, or believe to be true.

9 letters. I M P O R T A N T. Meaningless by themselves, say it in Spanish and it means even less to many millions of people across the world. When you use a word like important to convince yourself of a truth you know to be far from it, it loses shape and with that- meaning.

“That’s not important”

“It doesn’t matter”

“She’s not relevant”

“He’s just a man”

However you wish to spell it and in whatever phrase you wish to spin it in, the right circumstance will leave phrases like that meaningless and you open to causing pain to people in ways you are too afraid to perceive possible.

Why? Because the idea of someone seeing you as “Muy Importante” is so hilarious to you- its naturally seen as ridiculous. Beyond that why would you offer someone the privilege of believing them- when its impossible for them to be genuine, implausible beyond all comprehension.

So you hit that phase, the big red button. The alarms flare, men in hard hats start running up and down the steel corridors of the palace, jumping up and down ladders preparing for a break in the walls surrounding your Palace of Darkness. Someone is trying to break through and if they do it will ruin everything. All that hard work, the Palace of Darkness would be brought to its knees by the implementation of a single flicker of light.

You do it and you’d do it again to “protect” yourself. Why? Not to protect yourself, that word holds no more weight than any of those phrases in this context. Then it becomes a battle of convincing yourself of something you know not to be true.

You do it to maintain control- to maintain the illusion. The illusion that you are in control. In control of what?

Everything.

Control is king. Of your emotions and what affects them and what is “muy importante.” A stranglehold, a tyrannical ruler convincing you he’s doing it all to help you. Keep them all away. You don’t need them. An illusion presented to display strength in the face of adversity limited only to ones imagination- allowing the ego to roam free and without restriction as the weak continue to hide in the shadows. Its hard when you’ve been doing this for so long it becomes second nature, when the mask has been on for so long you don’t now who you’re looking at in the mirror anymore.

You are so confident that you have the illusion, that the whole world is fooled by you, the swagger, the arrogance, the unquestionable ethic that you are actually brilliant and untouchable by such menial ideas as people, as someone holding any sort of power over you and not seeking to simply destroy you. The last ditch attempt to maintain control.

In the end- you are the only one falling foul of an illusion. You are the architect of all of your suffering, all of your thinking, all of the belief that control is the only way to come out on top- to master life and achieve everything you have ever wanted.

The illusion you are hiding behind- what if someone sees through it? No matter what you do, no matter what sort of stunt you pull, tricks you play, evils you akin them too… they persist.

Well these people are an alarming, but fucking wonderful excuses for human beings. They see through it all and are patient enough with you to still be there. I have always done everything i could to avoid people being important, because then it wouldn’t hurt. It’s petty and its childish and i have learned the last few months i owe these people more of a debt than i have cared to consider for years now.

Important isn’t something that can be measured, or explained- because in truth its not real. It’s a social construct, like everything society is built on. Important is a friend bringing you food first thing when you’re off for a road trip, bringing your favourite tea for after dinner. Important is remembering to compliment the girl on the checkout when you bought your morning coffee and smiling simply for the sake of it. Important is someone willing to make you a cup of tea simply because they wanted to do something nice for you.

Important is being there for someone when they lose someone so close to them they will never feel the same again. Its showing up for your friends when they’re down and out, no matter what. In that moment, no matter how you feel, they need you as their friend to be there for them when they can’t be there for themselves. Doesn’t matter how high your walls are and who is important. None of that matters. Show up for your friends. That is important. The small details showing you have a second thought about someone throughout the day, whether you are with them or not.

As much as i strive to this, i have often fallen short of the mark. Fearing some people, convinced it’s easier for them to hate me, even though they never have done. Just because you convince yourself something is true- doesn’t make it so.

Be better than me. I am far from perfect but let every misstep you have ever made be  a lesson in what’s important. Not even to other people but to you. People are subjects of your emotions and your situation- the behaviour is uniquely yours to control. Your behaviour is a personal reflection of yourself- to yourself. So why not be the best person possible? Do as i haven’t but as i continue to try and do now. Learn. It’s all we have. Be there for your friends- be the best for them as you want them to be for you.

Its Muy Importante.

Regards, with love as always.

D.R x

Moments lost in time- but never lost to you.

Society & You

Good evening ladies and gentlemen

I read a lot about where ideas come from because I spend so long wandering about what to write about. It plays on my mind, impossible to ignore until i get to the screen or sat with a pen and a piece of paper. The constant companion of trying to think of something meaningful to say in a world so desperate just to say something.

The cycle of trying to fight the cloud of noise and find something you connect with or someone who sees you for who you really are and want to be is endless. It’s a hard thing these days, everybody is so connected, yet so isolated. Loneliness is a parody of life and not something people really understand, considering it’s something so many of us experience on a daily basis.

Being invisible is a funny thing, because it makes you think you’re broken. You aren’t broken, just built differently. You blame yourself because the world tells you that because if you don’t fit the mould it designed for you then you are the one that’s wrong.

I got thinking about how a lot of aspects of our culture could be explained this way.

Take this. I have 2 cars, both of them at different stages of broken, in different ways. One drives, one doesn’t. Both vastly different to one another, if they were 2 people the chances of them ever meeting would be so small it would probably never happen. One is quite small, one is huge. It’s very easy to believe those from these 2 car cultures, even if these 2 cars were living entities, wouldn’t get along.

These cars couldn’t be more different. Both have a following in society who are I’m sure very diverse, open people to loving something and a having a passion for their particular car, be it of the larger or smaller variety. Some of their cars work, some of them don’t. Some look at a broken car is a problem to be solved, an inconvenience to be irritated by, a project to be grafted on or an expression of individual creativity- even if only to be revered by the owner themselves.

The point is, in everything, the noise, the broken cars, the working cars, the big ones, small ones,- is its not dissimilar to people. They are all trying to be seen as the best at something, the nicest, the most good looking, the highest quality, most powerful. Just like people. Cars compete for your attention just as much as humans do.

My cars are broken. Some see that as stupid. “What is the point of a tool that doesn’t work?” and so on.

Point is- who decides what is the best?

Define broken

Define “not working?”

Life, as i understand it, isn’t rational, so looking at the objects and places in your life as objects, will create nothing more than that- objects…stuff. To one person a broken object is an inconvenience, to someone else is an opportunity to grow and learn a new skill. I maintain as i learn more and more about cars i relish the anticipation of the satisfaction of a car not starting, then i figure out what’s wrong and for it to start after i’d fixed it. Not because i want to show anyone, you , my friends or even myself how brilliant I am at mending stuff. No, i look forward to the pride of making something better.

Maybe that’s what our aim should be- maybe that’s what my cars would be like if they ever met. We all are so very different. We are all living entities trying to forge our own path through society in our own way. Society has always been this demanding demon to me, requiring productivity over creativity, just get the numbers on the paper and forget how well you have written them. We are all forging our own path and this will never be rational, not fully.

You think you have to compete for attention. You are only competing for your own attention. The satisfaction of making something better on a car, is how we should feel about people. We should live to make our life better and more enriching. Through this, we are able to do the same thing for other people. Those you love, those you do not understand fully yet and maybe some you don’t even know.

No matter the competition and society trying to squeeze the individual from you- its important to remember one thing.

There is society

and there is you.

Without you, there is no society.

And you are unique. If my cars were living entities, they would know that too. Just wanting to improve. Just as i think we should be. In our own way.

Yours, with love.

D. R Xx

The End of The World

Good evening ladies and gentleman

I think that as a species , we are very emotionally hysteric.

It’s as if everything is the end of the world. I am not speaking as someone who doesn’t suffer from this, forever fearful that my life, seemably held together by sellotape and bolts that have fallen off my car will fall apart at any moment. I wander through life, convinced I’m one step from some sort of disaster and when it does finally happen, i’m not going to know what to do. I’m scared of the End of the World- that never seems to come.

I suppose if not anything else, it makes me think about dreams. I should explain i’m not going to bang on about chasing dreams or some gleeful cliche, but it does make you think about what a dream is- a goal is.

What do you want from your life? Not what you are supposed to want, not what you aspire for because you’ve heard people talking about it, not even what would make you happy. We all have the capability to be happy right now, even me. Yet somehow i remain comfortably miserable for days on end, consumed by this idea that trying is folly because the result is inevitable. The world is rigged, the game I’m playing will come and smack me in the mouth and there i will be on the floor, a bloody lip and wandering why getting up is worth investing any effort in at all.

A dream isn’t something to make you happy. Far from it in fact, for i think if you or I were to place all of our ideals of happiness into a single dream we would be left bitterly disappointed.

So what is a dream for? What are goals for? How does one stave off this creeping feeling of the End of the World as I know it? A dream is an idea, a goal is a step to get to it.

A dream? The car from your childhood.

A goal? Find a way to make enough money to get that car

The goals are, in essence, your reason for living. They are why you get out of bed in the morning and what keeps you moving in the times you feel like the End of the World is nigh. When “what is the point?” is the thought rolling around your head, this is where the dream plays its role. The dream is keeping you motivated to achieve the goals and through this keeping your over active mind in check to make sure you get there.

This isn’t about being happy, its so, so much more than that. Happy is an idea and comes back to the issue that our society has been the creator of for sometime, the “easy” way, the instant satisfaction.

Why cook your food and feel the satisfaction of working your ingredient book you’ve used once for all its worth? Don’t need to, three clicks on my phone and the food will be here, i can sit and watch another episode of my favourite show that i’ve probably already watched 4 or 5 episodes of today. Why open yourself up to a relationship? All it’s going to do is create pain, the End of the World will feel so much closer when you can go on your laptop and “get it out of your system.” Nobody needs skills, because with the right amount of money i can sit on my ass and pay someone else to do it for me. Then we wander why life isn’t going anywhere and the dreams remain just that. Months or years could have passed you buy in a blurry, chicken tikka stained blur and you weren’t even paying attention. Daydreaming endlessly about something that is destined to be nothing more than a dream.

Throughout life, it isn’t the dream people want, even though i don’t think they realise it. I’ve said it before about the chase in a relationship, people dedicate so much of their mental and emotional time to this person, to this goal to the point where they are unable to think about anything else- so much so they cannot it makes see the bigger picture. You should have many dreams and many goals for life isn’t all about one thing. It’s not just about the money, or relationships or family or business, travelling or nice cars. It’s about about all of these things.

The issue with one thing and one thing alone is burnout. It doesn’t just come at you suddenly, it hits you like a fucking freight train.

Consistently with burnout, you never see it coming. Its like blowing out a candle- there one second lighting the path towards the next stage of your evolution and gone the next. Leaving you there, alone, in the dark, not sure what happened and not sure what went so wrong. The End of the World has finally caught up with you. I have tried to fight burnout, so many times. More times than i care to count. Push through and carry on. All that.

Truth is you just get tired in the end. Tired of living, tired of life. When you are hammering in a nail and it starts to bend to a right angle, you don’t keep hammering in the hope it will fix itself. It comes back to a principle i’ve championed for years:

“Listen to yourself. Make your voice so loud you can’t ignore it- and be a part of a Thinking Evolution.”

So what can I do to change it? What can you do?

Bring it on. Bring it all on.

The End of the World isn’t all of that phrase and giving the full sentence changes its meaning drastically. The full phrase is the End of the World Right Now. Let it happen. Stand there- head up, shoulders back. Wipe those tears away and stand tall. Be ready for what’s coming, it’s going to hurt. You may shed a tear, you will feel so broken you will never imagine being able to stand again. They are those moments where you see what you can do, you can show the world that you will not be broken, you will not be defeated. Burnout is a process- which means there is an end.

The world is strong but you are stronger still. You will power through the End of the World and still win. Listen to yourself and respond to your body and mind when they need you. It will feed your soul and your creativity. These parts of you are so important. The End of the World could come and go so many times. Let it happen. Again and again it will come, and you will overcome it.

Be ready.

Fight

Retreat where necessary

Come again

Overcome

Evolve.

The End of the World has got nothing on you .

Love, as always.

DR

Fade to Black

The smell is always the first thing that hits you when you walk into the cinema. As the aroma of warm freshly made popcorn darts up your nostrils, you excited with anticipation to see the latest film. Maybe with your friend, your man, woman, whoever- just looking for some entertainment on a rainy winters evening. I find myself thinking about all i have taken for granted, missing the smallest of actions in a time where we weren’t really allowed to do anything besides the shops, work and home. 

It got me thinking about movies. In their simplest way possible, a movie is made of three constituent parts. When put together in the correct order you get the plot line of the movie. We have the beginning, where you are introduced to all of the characters in the movie and are able to gain an understanding of them. Most notably this is the period most important for forming that emotional, empathetic connection with the character, from the hero shining a light on all that’s good to the anti-hero questioning the motives of modern society. If the writer wants you to notice someone or something in that movie, they have to find a way of showing you how important it is without telling you. Telling you will only serve to lessen from the experience of watching the movie and make any sort of investment in the character lost to being “told” how to feel. 

The middle is where the plot line starts to be hashed out more. We know who the characters are now, so what are they going to do? How will these characters interact? Will their interaction be a positive or negative influence on these characters ? We can all see from the films that Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler are both heavily influenced by one another, but are both are fully aware of the soft spot they have for one another. Positive or negative reactions to growing events isn’t something that the writer gets to choose, no matter how badly they wish to dictate the terms of this growing chemistry and connection. 

The ending of the movie is a complex algorithm to solve, for as much as the beginning is the most important part of the movie, the ending is often the one thing that people will remember the most. This will be the part of the movie that people will post on social media about, the part of the movie they will talk to friends about. This is the part of the movie that will mean “:you have to see this movie!” or “don’t bother- the ending is just dreadful.” This, ultimately, has to be your big finish. This is what you want to be known for, remembered by. 

In the end though, as is the same in every movie, the last words are spoken and the camera pans away for the fade to black…

And silence prevails.

Movies give us the means to tell stories of a life well lived in a short space of time, showing us that as much as we want them to go on forever, everything always ends with a fade to black. There will come a time when you will close your eyes and never open them again, this the only thing you can be sure about in life. Death and taxes are guaranteed, but everything else is yours. 

Take any character in a movie. Imagine if they were a real person, they have no idea that thousands, millions of people are watching the story of their life. Why not live your life in the same way? Sherlock Holmes loves Irene Adler, this is undeniable, if someone sat the other side of the screen disagrees- is this ever going to stop him pursuing her as he does? No. If you didn’t think Captain Jack was ever going to find the treasure- would he stop looking?

Of course not. So why do you stop at the first idea someone else thinks you shouldn’t do something?

Some movies are amazing, filled with action. Some make you clap with joy, some will make you cry harder than you ever thought you could. As it fades to black, just before the credits roll, it ends. It always ends. Everything you have ever felt, every experience you have ever had is another movie in your franchise. Maybe you got beat up in that movie, maybe your heart was so broken it may never be put back together again. It made you feel like you will be alone forever, or surrounded by those who love you. It will be everything, and then it will be gone. Moments, blown away like smoke, like sand through your fingers or breath on a mirror.

The thing about everything that people want to forget is that it’s going to end one day. It may be today, it may not be tomorrow, a few decades from now or even in 60 minutes time. Everything has a time limit, nothing will last forever. The joy of a great movie, the glory of good food with someone you love or an experience with friends you will remember forever. In the end, just like every movie, there is a fade to black.

But just because there is an end, doesn’t mean we don’t get to dictate the architect of the movie. You are the producer, director, writer and the main star. What movie are you writing for yourself? Would you go and watch it- or are you writing in fear of that silence…

and the Fade to Black. 

Yours, with love as always.
D. R x

Truth or Fear

Good evening ladies and gentleman

I will be the first to admit i spend far too long lost in my own thoughts. I could spend hours up there, barely even noticing the world happening around me. It’s as if I’m wandering the skies of a rainy day, jumping from cloud to cloud, thoughts coming from here and there, left and right dodging as if the rain would melt my soul.

I’ve never thought much of it because i thought everyone was like it.

I am an over thinker, in simple terms. I have never been a fan of such a contrived, rather simplistic way of explaining something so notoriously complex, but that is how this is understood or defined by our wider society. I look to understand, for without understanding, we cannot learn. I welcome mistakes and expect anything but perfection, for a desire for perfection will make only for bitter disappointment.

The thing that i often struggle with is what if you are never able to understand? Maybe there are aspects of life, love and everything in between you are not supposed to understand, or should just never expect to be able to? Moreover than that- what happens if your understanding is just…wrong?

The only way i can think of it to describe this issue is for it to be akin to a cycle. Again and again, doing the same thing, the same way for the same length of time and expecting a different result. This in itself is the definition of madness, yet its something I’ve stuck to in the same bloody minded fashion for so long now. Truth is after a certain point it’s hard to know and harder still to believe there can be anything else.

It’s from this lack of understanding, created from an obsession in gaining understanding (irony) that creates fear, an anxiety that builds the walls higher and pushes everyone you know so far away you feel like you’re going to be alone forever. This life I have created, this idea of myself, the cycle i feel like i’ve been living on for so long, is all my own doing. This is what i’ve always said about Thinking Evolution- we must learn to understand and then critically the part i’ve been missing- we must then evolve.

For from this evolution comes surprise.

Surprise is a mad mad thing because to an anxious mind surprise it is a powerfully terrifying concept. Surprise is often not part of the vocabulary of the anxious, it generally being substituted with”unpredictable.” When you feel like you need to be ready to go and be prepared for any situation or possibility, when you spend a long time thinking of every possible scenario, however ridiculous you imagine them to be because the alternative is you wound up in an “unpredictable” situation. This can never happen.

In my experience is this no more appropriate with people. There are a lot of people that have a role to play in my life, that serve a purpose and are useful as an acquaintance. Do i know that many people? Do many people know me- the real me? I am as close as to myself in these words stretching out across the screen, but does anybody really believe that- what would they ever imagine me to be?

Those i know, those i trust- i love them dearly, would do anything for them and trust them with anything. Those wonderful, mad, eccentrically brilliant human beings are proof the cycle isn’t the only method for learning about life. They really are the best of me and i wouldn’t be half the man i am today without them. What if there was another way of breaking through those walls i’ve built so high- surely they are proof of this?

So, this may have happened. I’ve always believed you make mistakes for a reason, so you can rectify and improve from them. I do what i can to gain impressions of people, then, because trusting someone is a remarkably rare thing for me to ever do and then maybe they become something more to you. To come back to an earlier point- what do you do if you may have been wrong- what if you fell for a ruse she plays so people can’t see her- the same way you have been for longer than i can remember.

Maybe i do it to protect myself- or my “peace.” Or maybe I’m just scared of caring about someone i don’t know a whole lot about? I’ve been off the mark with this person so many times its near impossible to pinpoint. She, in many ways, broke the cycle. It’s happened before, but only now have i realised the cycle of behaviours has been a consistent issue for this long.

I wanted her to be something she wanted me to see, because the alternative is someone i might just care about. I’ve always wanted to not care- about anyone. Instead just on the “let them live and ruin whatever they do for as long as they like, but i’m just not built like that.” I wanted her to hate me, because hate is predictable and can be explained. I once treated people like broken jigsaw puzzles, tasking myself to be the one to put the pieces back together. This time, someone surprised me, thats all she did. She surprised me.

She broke a part of me ultimately. Im not saying we are going to be the best of friends but between her and a friend talking it through with me, something needed to change. Breaking a cycle thats been in place longer than i can remember.

Again, my friends, always the best of me.

Fail better…be better – Peter Dinklage.

Yours, with love as always.

D. R x

Zombie need Brains

Good evening ladies and gentleman

Have you ever wanted to just watch something ridiculous and tune out of life for an hour and a half? Just literally get to the point of being hassled all day, stressed, hot, tired and overworked… on the edge of snapping at some poor sod who really doesn’t deserve the both barrels you’re going to end up giving them.

Afternoons like that are times to watch zombie films- purely because they are utterly ridiculous. These sorts of movies are never going to win an academy award, never destined to be revered by audiences up and down the streets of Broadway or throughout London for just what a remarkable motion picture “Evening of the Living Zombie” is or mention any Oscar worthy performances by “Zombie 243.”

They are just literally for the purposes of taking some time off from the world thats becoming ever increasingly more stressful. The sights, sounds, seemably constantly fluctuating emotions and endless confrontations over what Carl Sagan infamously referred to as “a fraction of a dot.”

It did however forge a particularly strange connection for me between the idea of the “undead” and a theory developed by the famous psychoanalyst from the early part of the 20th century Sigmund Freud. Think of how many hundreds of zombie related ideas and shows have taken off the ground, even since the dawn of the millenium.Through this you have a good idea of what a zombie is and what its existence entails.

In essence, it’s one thing- survive. How does one survive?-

Food. Eat, and when there is potentially more food, get it and eat that too.

Freud had a theory which highlighted a similar idea in the following of instincts. Instincts are the base formula for our continued existence as a species and without it we would have been wiped out generations ago, no matter the lengths we are going to destroy each other anyway. This, according to Freud, is the work of the Id- a part of your mind that is a slave to these instincts, the part of you looking for your DNA to survive and for you to have enough food to carry on ensuring that DNA is passed on. The Id isn’t interested in risk, the Id will go to lengths most people wouldn’t imagine to achieve its goal.

Hence why we see the pack mentality, and food arguments in the zombie films, the desire to feed reigns supreme when following these instincts so blindly.

Freud continues this theory with the existence of the superego. This the one one trying to fill your mind with fear, with the social constructs and obsessiveness of the modern world. A stickler for the details and avoiding the debilitating anxiety of a surprise. The over-thinker is at home here, understanding these feelings of needing to know everything and driven by the fear of never knowing enough. The superego is fuelled by the self conscious, the media savvy, the one who cannot live with the idea of someone disliking them. Driven by the fear of life, but too fearful to live.

In between these two wildly contrasting theories is the ego, the parent of the two unruly children if you like. One is impossible without the other, the level is the key to what makes you a human being in this modern day and age. The ego is the puppet master if you will, this one pulling the leads on the other two to keep your instincts and obsessive self control in check.

Freud wrote this theory of the id, superego and ego in the early 20th century. Put Freud in front of the world you can see from your phone screen right now- would the theory still stand? Or in many ways, are we becoming more and more driven by instinct? The need to peacock, to show how impressive we are, to display how worthy of continuing this bloodline to the next generation? In the end, as much as the superego is trying to stop you thinking about these instincts…without them- what is it all for?

The more i think about- maybe human beings are all zombies. Maybe what we are just driving for different things, the instincts that drive us have evolved from the need to eat, because for so many of us in this world food, water and shelter aren’t even something we give a second thought for because a store or a restaurant is never more than a few minutes away. Maybe what we strive for is different- as the zombies we have become, acceptance is the nourishment so many of us desire so badly.

So many of us think the acceptance has to come from other people- but most important is to accept yourself. It almost has to be like an instinct. You are who you are, evolution, pain, stupid mistakes, broken heart, dark soul and all.

We feed ourselves to survive. With love, hate, pain, loss, lust, loneliness and green faced envy. These sensations are all a part of you, a part of us. Without them, maybe we are just flesh eating morons…

Yours, with love as always.

D. R x

The Scheme

Good evening ladies and gentleman

It’s very easy to get lost in schemes, ideas and in the “greater good.” I myself have suffered from this hedonistic heroism, this whimsically hopeful, bloody minded pursuit of “when i get there happiness will prevail” and so on.

During a scheme, the only way to succeed is the scheme. In the grand scheme of things, this is all that matters. So much time is wasted in life- preparing for life. Then as Alan Watts famously quipped when you retire you have all the time and money in the world, but a bad back and rotten prostate- so can’t go and do anything.

This idea of existence in order to live, punishing yourself to get to this place of higher power, working endlessly awash with misery believing it will get better and “life can begin.” We all aspire to this idea of living, but not realising the path we forge in order to “live,” in order to be “alive” in the way we understand it- is what gives life the meaning we all crave. The goal is the result of a culmination of decisions, work and self belief to get to that “life.”

Through chasing life, in the grand scheme of things, we are living “life.”

It is undeniable that as a species we are goal orientated, it is our design, it is the game we have all been manufactured to play. Like it or not, we are here, so hating the game is pointless because you are in it. So we may as well play. There is sadly, a fundamental flaw with this idea, a critical piece of the puzzle missing that without this final tiny little piece, the picture will never make any sense.

When you have a goal, it’s easy to want it all to happen overnight. You have to control the whimsical part of your imagination running away and taking you with it. How you are going to be able afford that car, go get that house, afford to go on holiday there, whatever it might be. It’s like i said about saving the world before, the world is full of instants and to expect this to be no different as you stand at the base of the mountain, will lead to that same sinking feeling of familiar disappointment.

One giant leap.

How possible is that ever going to be? Sadly limited to the realms of fantasia.

There seems to be this rather peculiar relationship forming more and more as time goes on between the size of the goal and the level of the supposed satisfaction that will come from it. We believe that if we were to win the lottery or buy a dream car or get the dream girl it will be the most wonderful spectacle. Whatever this huge goal is, the idea of how wonderful it’s going to feel is so alluring, often so much so you are unable to focus on anything else.

So, if these goals are so wonderfully alluring, yet seemably so far out of reach…how does one ever attain this dizzying height of satisfaction? It can often feel impossible to figure out how to get to this “life” and away from this existence we all fear so painfully, into a headspace where life is at a point of apparent happiness.

How does one do it? It is impossible- so in the grand scheme of things, is happiness like the carrot on a string, to a donkey running on a treadmill? Or is there a way?

It is, in my experience- to simply pay attention to the little things. The small, apparently insignificant acts that before went without a second thought. Say for instance a friend sending you a text on a Friday after you’d had a bad few days- congratulating you both for getting through and wishing you a happy Friday. In the grand scheme of that Friday, I started on a much higher ebb because of that person.

That is how those huge goals become a more reasonable reality. She is doing the best she can to be a positive energy and to put as much of that into the universe as she can. One of the most genuine, kind people i have ever met wanting only to share in the joys and pains of the world with you. It probably took her less than 30 seconds to write that text, but it made me smile, which was something i hadn’t done for some time.

Something as simple as cracking a smile seems so small, but in the grand scheme of things it has the power to be remarkably revolutionary. Through this you feel prepared for the long haul, you are happy to live and respond to energy of that calibre, working hard to give as much as you receive in this way. This way you have a group of hard working, genuine, wonderful people wanting only to help each other, not competing, but congratulating as they work to see not only themselves happy, but you too.

This, as i understand the grand scheme of things- is truly living. This energy is fuel for life, to own who you are, what you want to be and who you want to be, to enjoy what you love and work on how to get there. Learn new skills, respect those with more and work to get where you want to be. Learn and teach, listen and love, be a part of the grand scheme of life. Play the pivotal role in your life and then this fear of existence becomes all it ever was.

Just an idea.

And here’s to a smile once in a while too.

Yours, with love as always.
D. R x