Saturday 30 January 2016

Sending out signals.

I love all forms of communication. I am desperate to reach out, I always find new ways of expressing myself. I like to speak well, write anything, I like to act, sometimes I like to draw even though I can't actually draw, I love to dance even though I'm not very good at it. I don't even know what I'm trying to get out to you, I'm just reaching out my tentacles to touch the minds of as many as possible, and for them to reach back. I love long conversations. I learn French so that I can have more ways of speaking, and more people to communicate with. I read so that I can receive other people's reaching out, and so that I can talk and think about more. I have a naturally expressive face so already, without even thinking about it, I am trying to communicate with you. 

Really, I'm not quite sure what it is I'm wanting so badly to say. I've imagined colourful waves and light making lines to and from people, signals through conversation and art and movement. I'm just here sending out signals to anyone who'll take notice. Perhaps I'll learn morse code, or another language. Just ways, I think, to satisfy that strong human urge to connect. Human connectivity, love, that's what it's all about. That's what I'm trying to say. 

Saturday 23 January 2016

The good, the bad and the famous.





The idea of celebrity is neither all good nor all bad. It's mostly bad that we idolise actual people to a superhuman level and then follow them around in a self-selective big brother. They can do no wrong, until they do, and then we either hypocritically turn a blind eye or ostracise them for making a human mistake. It's okay to publicly humiliate people we've never met on a mass scale because they're famous. "Normal" people just don't have this problem. 

On the other hand, celebrities who contribute their art and insight to culture are often vital to a person's life. Especially a young person. In formative years the people we see, the music we listen to, the films we watch, the books we read all make up the personalities that are growing within us. We attach ourselves to celebrities because they attract us with qualities we like about us, or that we aspire to have about us. Young people who are totally unsure as to who they are need celebrities to make them feel even an ounce of normal. They need role models, essentially. 

I felt devastated about the news of David Bowie's death because I'd let him become a big part of my life. He'd been there in my parents' life for a long time so his music made its way into mine eventually. I don't have anything profound to say about him other than that his fashion, his music, his attitude so completely embraced art that I can't think of any other way to live well. He was there right in the middle of the colours and the instruments and the sounds and the waves of culture, taking it all in and throwing it all back out at us right up until the end. People threw street parties on the day of his death to celebrate that vibrancy of life and art. David Bowie was a "good" celebrity because he did it all his own way, and we all basked in his artistic glory. We didn't all follow his private life like dirty stalkers, but we took what he gave us and that was enough. 

People need inspirations like David Bowie to enhance their own experience of life and art. We don't need their body shape, or their last boyfriend, or the dress they wore to that awards show, but if they're handing out the brilliance of the inside of their mind for us all to share then they are important. We all need brilliance. 

Friday 8 January 2016

It's all in my head.

I am, as my brilliant dad likes to tell me when I'm down, in total control of my thoughts. This doesn't mean I am in charge of what thought processes enter my head - if I had that power I feel I would have unlocked the secret to life by now - but how I let those thoughts effect the way I react. I am in control of my own thoughts, which means I can let myself spiral out of control. 

On Wednesday I had that sort of dark feeling that creeps up on you out of nowhere and taints the rest of the day with a heavy grey hue. At one point my eyes kept welling up in the library so I had to escape to the toilets to have a cry. I felt horrible. It was like an existentialist firework had exploded in my heart and head. The world was a sea of nothingness, my life was pointless, I was a shoddy human being. And do you know how it felt? Strangely lethargic. 

It was almost as if by allowing myself to self-loath and self-pity I was giving myself a break from the opposite effect of avoiding these thoughts. It was ridiculously indulgent and in itself a ridiculous thing to do but I didn't gain nothing from it. For the least I gained this blog post, but I also realised that my dad was completely right. I wasn't in control of the initial thoughts I was having because they popped into my head unannounced, but I was in control of the amount of time I lingered on the worthless, self-pitying trite. It was all me, creating enemies out of thin air to attack my own identity from the inside. But I was exercising my power to choose how to react, and to be totally aware of what was going on inside my mind. At any moment I could have stepped in on myself and told myself to move on and shut up. Instead I chose to watch and see what would happen. 

Sometimes when I feel the weight of the world sitting on my chest and restricting my breathing and my wise old dad says that it's all in my head I want to scream at him. It's not my fault that I feel this way! And a few seconds later when I've evaluated the situation in my mind and inevitably calmed myself down by not letting my thoughts influence the way that I feel, I'm suddenly a little more grateful for the helpful advice. It still wasn't my fault, thoughts always happen one step ahead of when you're ready for them, but I was aware of them now and that stripped them of their influence. 

We have a staggering tendency to underestimate the power of our own minds by letting our own minds overpower us. It's all in our heads, this fight against ourselves, this letting ourselves down, this frustration over how we react, and we all have the absolute power to just let it be. 

Friday 1 January 2016

No to the news.

Sometimes, when I'm in a sort of mood, I can't cope with looking at the news. The bad news. I just don't have the energy all the time to let my heart bleed for far off tragedies I can do nothing about. It's exhausting. I am a sensitive, passionate person which means that I really feel for those who suffer in the news and I want so desperately to offer help even when I have no means. Sometimes I'm so sensitive about my own life that adding more anxiety and stress is like putting more and more weight onto a thin layer of ice.

Sometimes even when people bring up topics that I care about but are currently depressing or upsetting I want to escape the conversation. I'm too tired to get angry, to enter a fight against something that will help me achieve nothing. I don't want to let my mind dwell on something too dark. I have often wished for the conversation to move on so that my body doesn't tense and I don't bring myself down. There is so much in this world that I can't solve, or soothe, or abolish. I get scared. And frustrated.

Sometimes I just don't watch or listen to the news. It's not worth it. Other people's unsolvable happiness will not improve my own. I worry just enough with the unseasonable weather outside without heightening that fear with useless information. And it is okay, to not look at the news, or participate in heated discussion every day, because it's a strange business anyway. Developing your understanding of the world is good, caring about what happens in it is good, but making yourself stressed or unhappy when you can't do anything to help is deeply unhealthy. You don't need information thrown at you all the time. You need to take a break, and stop looking at the news every once in a while. It'll improve your mood greatly.