Thursday 19 February 2015

My knowledge Your knowledge.

I have just spent the best part of an hour writing a blog post I was at first excited to share with the Internet. And then as I was half way through I was overwhelmed with the sudden notion that I perhaps shouldn't share these particular thoughts with strangers and acquaintances in a manner that wasn't, for me, intimate enough. There was nothing especially private about the thoughts I was writing about, they were probably just another case of teenage angst, but it was my teenage angst and actually I don't want everybody to know about it. There was something about how I was spewing this often inward and private contemplation that made me want to keep it to myself, for now.

I'm often in awe of people who have the ability to keep things to themselves and not share every waking thought and idea with anyone you meet like I have a tendency to do. I love intense, passionate conversation and so to generate that I must subconsciously open myself up to people so that we can talk and talk until the sun don't shine. For someone who can contently spend hours and hours by herself and be in her own, secluded world I have the biggest desire to let people know me, and for me to know other people. And so when I get the feeling that I just don't want to share some of my thoughts, it's an interestingly powerful sensation. It's almost as if my instinct is letting me know that keeping that particular idea private is what is best for now. To keep your thoughts to yourself is sometimes much more exciting than keeping someone else's secrets.

Writing about this is reminding me of the common criticism of the nature of the Internet being that too much is shared. "I don't want to know if someone just ate a sandwich" or "I don't want people to know if I've just had a colonoscopy" are frequent comments worthy of banging one's head against a wall several times. There is no rule to say that you must read someone's tweet about the sandwich they've just eaten, nor that you must make a Facebook post about personal medical treatments and visits. The whole idea is that now this free flowing stream of information exists and that this information can be both good and bad. It is up to whoever participates to filter what they want to know and not know, what is good and what is bad and by distinguishing this for themselves they can then understand what they wish to contribute to this growing pool of ideas and feelings and facts and figures.

I, for some reason, felt it was not the time to express a particular private thought I was having and I feel good about not sharing it, but it doesn't stop the thrill of pressing 'publish' and sending my other thoughts out into this virtual world of free judgement and understanding. I'm just aware that I am in control of what I am choosing for everyone to know about me, which is healthy and good.



Thursday 12 February 2015

Films are like drugs (I imagine)

Source via

I love to watch films. I love to watch witty romantic comedies, classic 90s teen flicks, classic 80s teen flicks, beautiful indie films with a poignancy incomparable to any Hollywood film, black and white classics, anything with Audrey Hepburn, thrillers with some awful, painful message interlaced throughout, films too clever for their own good, off the wall films, and mostly all films I can both cry and laugh at. 

I love to watch films because, like books, you are completely and utterly immersed into a new world so far from your own it can be like living a short, wonderful second life. However, unlike books, films are quick and so the thrill of them only lasts a few hours. And so I suspect that much like the concept of taking drugs, watching films is like having a short blast of imagination to make you feel - anything. Whereas with books, as much as they are the most essential human necessity other than food, they take an investment of time. Characters you will have to spend days or weeks getting to know, depending on your reading speed, and stories whose endings are away in the distance and not definitely coming after an hour and 49 minutes.

Films are miniature worlds created for an audience unbeknown at the start of its creation but filled with absolute love from every writer, director, actor, producer involved. Without knowing the reaction it will receive a film relies on a band of people to give time in their life to create something to share with the rest of the world. If it flops, then a film hangs in a sort of limbo of a life that could have been lived, but if it succeeds then an international audience can connect through the world captured on the screen. 

Sometimes, if the film is particularly wonderful, one can watch said film so many times the lines and scenes become a part of your mind and someone else's world and creation can make its way into your own heart. The rush of a good film is an experience of a connection with an artist you've never met, but have understood on one level of their being. 

Unreal stories with unreal people in an unreal world can have a silly effect on my own world, but it feels wonderful all the same. And when I'm feeling down, or bored, or simply in the mood to watch a film, I can enter another realm for a short while. A realm entirely made up of every artistic medium available which, to me, is pretty beautiful. 

Thursday 5 February 2015

Hang your head upside down.

Source: Tumblr page 'Maudit'. 

It is all very well to say that, when in a chipper mood, one is able to adapt and control the intensity and significance of the emotions one might encounter. 'Happiness is a choice' you might declare as the sun is shining, or you've received good news, or you are inexplicably cheerful at that moment. But when a dull cloud appears over your head out of boredom, or a series of unfortunate events, or a long spout of sunless weather, that choice becomes a rather difficult one to make.

That opt for happiness is suddenly not so easy to muster up. It is far more effortless to remain in whatever bad mood you've found yourself in.  It becomes indulgent even to allow yourself to wallow pathetically in your own sorrows. Any emotion other than contentment is of course permitted, and natural, to experience both randomly and for good reason. It is perhaps much more pitiful however to remain in a less justifiable foul mood than to be genuinely inconsolable as a cause of some unfortunate circumstance. And yet both promote a challenge to regain a more pleasant sensation no matter the triviality of the blues you've acquired. Especially when the blues equate to the feeling of wanting to either bite someone's head off or dig yourself a very deep hole for yourself to never again come out of.

Happiness is, quite honestly, a choice. It just takes a few more minutes dancing manically in the kitchen or hanging upside down off the edge of your bed (both excellent ways of releasing endorphins) to let yourself chill out, observe your own bad mood, move on and enjoy the rest of the day. For one, it is far from desirable for others to be in the presence of somebody who finds themselves in a less than jolly mood.

 And so, if you'll excuse me, I will just be off to do some terrible dancing with my good friend David Bowie in my room for a short while.