Title is a reference to a Puscifer song: Green Valley.
Had a thought earlier today that I'd like to share. Simple premise really, I was thinking about those little situations you have with people, those tiny circumstances that you forget about literally seconds after, situations like when on a side-walk trying to figure out whether or not to turn left or right, when you're at a restaurant table and trying to figure out how much money to pay for your share of the meal, when trying to determine how many slices of pizza to take that falls within acceptable limits of etiquette.
At the time, these thoughts completely take over your mind, sometimes they're uncomfortable, sometimes they trigger negative emotions that you'd rather not deal with. And yet you have to, otherwise you freeze, you deadlock a situation and the situation goes from something really minor to something much bigger. Most people don't have problems with these types of situations, but most people, I've found, do succumb to various anxieties, fears, and de-inflated feelings of self worth that work to truly color our attitudes about the world and those around us. These almost always feel as if we're working actively to cripple ourselves, and people almost always don't like it, but don't know how to move around it.
I find that 'deadlock' is a good way of explaining these situations. Successful people, and I use that term loosely to define virtually any situation that you walk away from with a feeling of accomplishment, seem to have an innate understanding of how to circumvent these situations, and I've come to theorize that the only way to truly walk away from any situation with any degree of success is be malleable. To be able to go with the punches. To be able to walk around obstacles rather than mull over why they're there in the first place and why that's so unfair.
In short... success is determined by accommodation. Judo, usually associated with the martial arts, actually means "The gentle way", and its core philosophy is to follow the path of least resistance to victory, never to be impeded. Alan Watts actually wrote a very interesting article about this philosophy which you can read over yonder. Also, if you want to have an innate understanding of how to achieve true mastery and victory over obstacles, and especially if you want to know more about the principles of group coherence, go read The Art of War... just do it.
The world's an ever-changing place, it's quickly heading towards a technological event horizon, social networking is finding ever creative ways to increase inter-connectivity and exponentially increasing humanity's collective knowledge and capacity for understanding. The business world is currently fighting an earthquake, where the bigger buildings are throwing as much money as they can at securing their foundation, but in the end, the newer buildings will pave the way to a brighter and ever more lucrative future. I can't imagine a more unstable future if I tried, and I certainly can't imagine a better time to learn the principles of malleability.
Anyway... exciting times, hope we can all make the best of it.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Yar har fiddle dee dee
Poor blog... I kinda want to revive it and devote some writing to it. Maybe I'll do that. Yeah, sounds good.
The thing is, lately I've been using my netbook for all my writing purposes. I got hundreds of documents in there, most of them being inane ramblings and journal postings... some of them are script ideas, or details concerning some stories I'd like to work on eventually. Others still are business proposals, since I had some ideas for start-ups, which are indefinitely on the back burner until I feel the proper motivation for them. Point is... almost none of it serves any purpose, I kind of doubt anyone else will ever read them. I mean, I'm not going to delete them, but, y'know, I wouldn't fret about it if they got destroyed or some such. Most of what I write about that's worthwhile sticks with me anyway, ready to be regurgitated.
This blog however, does serve a purpose... I haven't served that purpose very well, but the purpose remains, still cradled in secrecy, unknown to anyone but myself. I like that the blog is here, it's almost as if it's... calling to me... it wants me to just, y'know, do what I do best.
Whilst in San Francisco, I had an idea for a short story, a story that could only be read a certain way that I'd have to code for to make it work properly. However, in order to do the story justice, it should be thought out and outlined before I put the effort forth, because it's a vision I have. I thought to myself, well, okay, I know what I want, I just have to hammer out the details, make sure it works so I don't come across any problems later, then I just take a day and do what I need to do to make it work.
Then I kind of laughed to myself, because I knew it wasn't going to happen. I didn't have much proper motivation to write a simple short story I had a few days prior, what makes me think I'm going to put forth enough effort to code my own module and write out a pretty sophisticated story? I'm starting to know myself enough to know that if I'm not spending enough time writing regularly, that I'm not gonna just out of the blue finish some big project.
What I really should do is just... write. Every day. About whatever. Ease myself back into the fiction writing scene. More importantly than anything else... just have fun with it. Don't worry too much about it. Don't 'not write' until something amazing or worthwhile comes to mind... I mean, shee-it, I have a few dozen stories on the backburner already that I could give you the plot for right now, probably a few dozen more if I cared enough to search for them. I've been stock-piling these ideas for more than a decade, my 'magnum opus' if you will has been in the making for 14 years, and there's hundreds of smaller stories that it encompasses. Ideas aren't the problem here... motivation on the other hand... heh.
See, that's the thing though, I enjoy writing. People can comprehend what I write fairly easily, without too much struggle I hope, whatever, I'm not too worried about the readers, they're smart people, they'll figure it out. I can be conventional whenever I want, or I can entertain my more eccentric mannerisms at the drop of a hat. Writing is... enjoyable for me. I get some weird kick out of it, and I'm not sure why.
So... is there a reason I'm posting all this on this here blog? Well, yeah, not because anyone will read it, but because it's my little way of officially telling myself that I don't need to adhere to some strict standards of perfect preparation before I begin writing something, especially of something of so little consequence. If someone wants to read through my minor postings and short stories, y'know, that's great, good for them, maybe they'll learn something, but that's not why I do it. I do it because I enjoy it, and I want myself to *know* that I enjoy it, so I don't have to succumb to some irrational social anxiety about it.
Granted this blog is originally intended to be a place I hosted little short stories pertaining to the greater story of Ailsglyph... well, it still is kind of about that, but it's also something more.... something I'll probably get into at a later time.
The thing is, lately I've been using my netbook for all my writing purposes. I got hundreds of documents in there, most of them being inane ramblings and journal postings... some of them are script ideas, or details concerning some stories I'd like to work on eventually. Others still are business proposals, since I had some ideas for start-ups, which are indefinitely on the back burner until I feel the proper motivation for them. Point is... almost none of it serves any purpose, I kind of doubt anyone else will ever read them. I mean, I'm not going to delete them, but, y'know, I wouldn't fret about it if they got destroyed or some such. Most of what I write about that's worthwhile sticks with me anyway, ready to be regurgitated.
This blog however, does serve a purpose... I haven't served that purpose very well, but the purpose remains, still cradled in secrecy, unknown to anyone but myself. I like that the blog is here, it's almost as if it's... calling to me... it wants me to just, y'know, do what I do best.
Whilst in San Francisco, I had an idea for a short story, a story that could only be read a certain way that I'd have to code for to make it work properly. However, in order to do the story justice, it should be thought out and outlined before I put the effort forth, because it's a vision I have. I thought to myself, well, okay, I know what I want, I just have to hammer out the details, make sure it works so I don't come across any problems later, then I just take a day and do what I need to do to make it work.
Then I kind of laughed to myself, because I knew it wasn't going to happen. I didn't have much proper motivation to write a simple short story I had a few days prior, what makes me think I'm going to put forth enough effort to code my own module and write out a pretty sophisticated story? I'm starting to know myself enough to know that if I'm not spending enough time writing regularly, that I'm not gonna just out of the blue finish some big project.
What I really should do is just... write. Every day. About whatever. Ease myself back into the fiction writing scene. More importantly than anything else... just have fun with it. Don't worry too much about it. Don't 'not write' until something amazing or worthwhile comes to mind... I mean, shee-it, I have a few dozen stories on the backburner already that I could give you the plot for right now, probably a few dozen more if I cared enough to search for them. I've been stock-piling these ideas for more than a decade, my 'magnum opus' if you will has been in the making for 14 years, and there's hundreds of smaller stories that it encompasses. Ideas aren't the problem here... motivation on the other hand... heh.
See, that's the thing though, I enjoy writing. People can comprehend what I write fairly easily, without too much struggle I hope, whatever, I'm not too worried about the readers, they're smart people, they'll figure it out. I can be conventional whenever I want, or I can entertain my more eccentric mannerisms at the drop of a hat. Writing is... enjoyable for me. I get some weird kick out of it, and I'm not sure why.
So... is there a reason I'm posting all this on this here blog? Well, yeah, not because anyone will read it, but because it's my little way of officially telling myself that I don't need to adhere to some strict standards of perfect preparation before I begin writing something, especially of something of so little consequence. If someone wants to read through my minor postings and short stories, y'know, that's great, good for them, maybe they'll learn something, but that's not why I do it. I do it because I enjoy it, and I want myself to *know* that I enjoy it, so I don't have to succumb to some irrational social anxiety about it.
Granted this blog is originally intended to be a place I hosted little short stories pertaining to the greater story of Ailsglyph... well, it still is kind of about that, but it's also something more.... something I'll probably get into at a later time.
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