The Party has to End Sometime

This past Halloween night marked my 27^th birthday. The ghouls and ghosts, awkward goofy pumpkins, skeletons and comically large spiders that share the annual celebration of my birth feel like familiar old friends, and I always enjoy taking the time out to sit with them at some point in the night, usually after a period of happy inebriation of some sort, and reflect with them on my life up until that point. The ungrudging, soulless sockets of carved vegetables and plastic decorations make fitting mirrors for me to drunkenly bounce back thoughts I have about the direction of my life. I think for the first time this birthday was a real testament to my adulthood, and real kick in the pants to wake the fuck up and realize, know and understand all the way down to my core that childhood is over. ‘It is over man!’ I wailed to myself late into the night, desperate for the words to sink in to some fitting place in my soul where they could make a difference. ‘Let it go. It’s time to grow up, and start acting like a man. Like an adult!’

My thirties are fast approaching and not for the first time I reflect with humiliation upon my accomplishments up to this point. The short end of the stick states, quite simply, that there are none. I haven’t done a single thing worth noting, and it is a fact that weighs heavily now upon me, already so late into my life. ‘It’s okay’, I’ve been deceiving myself, ‘I’ll get around to it. Now how about another beer!’
As far as I can remember the years since I did anything worthwhile (a short stint in College after High School) have been a grand ol’ time. Partying and feeling good and absorbing the world with wide-eyed wonder. Experiencing the highest highs and the lowest lows and loving and winning and losing and constantly, constantly on adventures of ultimate importance. We felt like we were doing something, and that was all any of us ever needed, the feeling of elation knowing we were the centre of our universe and all that would ever matter was the here and now. We were living it out to the fullest and riding the wave of intoxicated selfish gratification all the way through life, never to slow down, never to surrender. Perhaps my 27^th birthday was when that wave finally broke for me, and started rolling back. Because now, upon reflection of all the years gone by, I recall a haze of mix-matched memories, foggy moments I can’t find dates for, lost assorted emotions and conversations that once seemed so incredibly necessary to the grand scheme of things. All of it already becoming lost to the murky depths of time.

27 felt like 21 again. 22 again. 23 again. Nothing has been changing for so long now and if I don’t, right now, make the effort to change my world, to grow up and take on the real responsibilities of adulthood, it might be too late. But thanks to my blatant disregard for anything in life that has not instantly gratified me, I find myself desperately ill-equipped to face my uncertain future. And that is why last night I was to be found once again deep in the 10^th pint of domestic, desperately drowning my despair and contempt in the dregs of yet another impressive and frightening bender. It doesn’t even matter what it is in those moments that intoxicate me. Anything to fuck me up enough to escape the darkness careening around my skull leaving a trail of tormented carnage in its wake. Of course the ironic part is only ever-present the next morning, when some semblance of good judgement returns. Upon waking up encrusted with last nights grime on some couch, the sun threatening to make my head explode, the realizations appear that you can’t escape any of it, just blur it enough to hide it deep enough to be able to procrastinate a proper fix for another day. The reality of it all is you can never escape from the despair you’ve caused yourself, so hiding from it ass deep in a bottle is about as effective as running as fast as you can in one direction tethered to your starting point by a bungee cord. Eventually, you’re going to come hurtling back to where you started. And you’ll probably throw up on the speedy return journey.

The rest of the day was spent coming to terms with the fact that I must no longer do this. That also means I must distance myself slightly from the people who have made my life so profoundly significant for so long. My wonderful friends, they are stronger than me. They know what they want in their lives, and they’re out there getting it. It’s time I did the same, and that means a breakaway from their paths. Off into the dense thick underbrush I go, machete in hand, hacking my own route into the heart of this life.

The benders are over. The drinking, well, I’ll cut back. Real life is about to start and I need to have a fresh head on my shoulders

As my wonderfully understanding Mother wrote in my birthday card: “Let’s hope 27 is ‘THE ONE’.”

Et tu, Amanda?

I didn’t really know what to say to her. After all, there’s not much interest an incredibly talented, and extremely busy, artist like Amanda Palmer can take in my simple recognition of a comment. So, after contemplating the moment for far, far too long, I decided I’d just make a note of it here instead. I suppose that’s what a blog is for. So it goes.
Amanda Palmer is, perhaps, currently my absolute most favourite musician alive. I find her rapturing, her music enthralling, her energy invigorating. Amanda and Brian Vigilone make up the duet band from Boston The Dresden Dolls, and I’m not afraid to say their music got me through some incredibly hard parts of my life this year.

Wait, I’m gushing here and that was not my intention with this post. I only wanted to mention one thing, because I couldn’t believe, at the time that I saw it, that Amanda’s post was appearing like that in my Twitter Feed. Perhaps I have a tendency lately to desperately search for meaning in the most useless, random places, and perhaps I find it too easily, and perhaps I spend far too long wrapped up in my silly little head mulling thoughts over that really don’t mean anything. But after a day like today, when all I really needed was a sign, somewhere, that things will be okay, Amanda gave it to me. And it probably wont make sense to ANYONE but me, but here it is.
Amanda posted, quite simply, “11:11″.

And I knew, not for the first time, that everything will, one day, be perfectly okay.

I suppose I’m just a simple Bokononist looking for whatever lies I can construct my universe with that make me feel damn fine about things. And if such, if there’s nothing else going on with 11:11 than that, then I’m damn happy to see it that way. No matter how silly it is.

Thanks Amanda. 11:11 to you too.

Check out The Dresden Dolls here: http://www.dresdendolls.com
And Amanda’s site here: http://www.amandapalmer.net/afp/

Hard Truths

I go through strange stages of writing. Sometimes I feel that I only write when I’m really down, and then I get happy and stop writing. Other times I only seem to be able to write when I’m happy, and when I get sad the art seems alien and terrifying to me.
Perhaps it’s always the opposite mood of how I feel that I seem to be able to write best with. Well, this blog has been somewhat neglected lately, and I wish I could say it’s because I’m in a ‘only writing when I’m sad’ mood.

I’ve been struggling with myself lately. We’re at odds, myself and I. I feel so lost and directionless, I’ve lost my home, my job, and my friendships are wavering. Living on a couch in a party house for two months does not leave me feeling particularly creative, so my writing has come to a remarkable halt. I’m constantly drained and so anxious, the whole world feels overbearing and blinds my tired eyes. And so on.

I didn’t want this to be a place of empty whining, but I know these are just some hard times I’m going through, and they’re helping me to look inside and really reflect on how things have gotten here. For one, I’m happy to state that I know fully well every aspect of my unhappiness with my life at the moment falls squarely on myself. The hard truth is, I’ve been fucking around for too long, lost in a happy fog of relative comfort while riding on a cloud of intoxication thick enough to prevent introspection. The fact that I’ve needed to take responsibility for my directionless rut has been picking away at the back of my skull for quite some time, but instead of doing something about it it’s always been easier to drown it, deal with it later, and continue the self-destructive cycle of instant gratification. After all, I’m comfortable, I have a job that maintains my lifestyle, I have a home, what else do I need? Well, that worked for a few years, but that hole in my head just got bigger. So I tried to do something, to change my ways. And what happened? I ended up without a job, without a home, and an uninteresting burden on those closest to me.

All I’ve had to cling to is a dream of writing. Of writing great things that I’m proud of, that gives others joy. But the writing life scares me as much as doing something drastic, like moving away and starting again or taking a job that I might fail at.

And that’s the hard truth that I have to own up to and face. I’m so fucking afraid.

What the hell am I afraid of? I’m an intelligent guy with experiences spanning several countries under my belt. I’m likable, confident, eager to learn. At least, I thought I was these things. But as of late it’s becoming more and more apparent that when all the masks are peeled away, I’m just a scared guy with no idea how to properly live, instead of just exist. I want to build a great life, but I don’t know how to start. I’m afraid of taking the leaps, the risks necessary to change my world and lay the foundations of what I want my life to be. I’m afraid of change, and especially, I’m afraid of failure. I’m afraid of mistakes and confrontations, maybe even afraid of success (although never having a taste of it I don’t know for sure).

My constant second guessing and doubting and (occasional) fear and loathing of all things that combine to make the essence of 21st century living have left me so empty, so lost, so alone and so incapable of breaking free of these negative thought cycles. I know I need to rise up to the challenge of creating the me I really want to be. I know I have it in me, that greatness is just around the corner if I really, truly apply myself. But I’m so beaten down I don’t even know where to start.

The hard truth is, it’s time I stopped passively waiting for my perfect life to fall into my life, and it’s time I started really working hard at creating my perfect future. It’s time that past Curt worked in conjunction (instead of constantly warring) with present Curt to give future Curt a good shove in the right direction.

That’s what I got. The hard truth is, I is tired of being unhappy, and there’s only one person that can make I happy. So here’s to getting back on track, one small thing at a time.

And fuck Curt, stop neglecting your writing. If that’s what you’re truly passionate about, you’re a fool to not be doing it.

Bringing the Story to Life: Creative Writing and Brainstorming

I’d like to write a segment of the story tonight. I’d like to describe a night, as I write tonight. It’s going to be the kind of night that’s still and silent and warm and bright. It’s going to be a night like tonight, with a vibrant white crescent moon shimmering in the sky between lazy clouds. A night punctuated by the crickets; natures tiny violinists. And fireflies; natures magical lanterns in the dark.

I’ve been writing my story so far in a rather unusual way, I believe. Or perhaps not; perhaps many other writers progress their stories in a similar way. Instead of having a muse, or characters, or a situation or a setting or anything before starting out, I just sat down and started writing. At first I was going to describe some icy cold horror set in the winter time, but the blazing mid summer sun, being ignorant to my creative desires, made describing dark winter nights rather difficult.
Several blind writing sessions have passed and now I seem to have some sort of story formed. Some sort of post apocalyptic, tragic love story written rather apathetically from a male protagonists perspective. There’s some interesting scenes that have formed, some places described and some plot elements that move the story along. However there are parts of the story that are beginning to contradict each other, so it’s time to get a few guidelines together and help myself continue with a clearer idea of what I’m writing. What follows is a creative writing brainstorming session.

One question I still haven’t been able to answer for myself is the nature of the apocalypse I appear to be basing the story around. I know it starts before the apocalypse and follows the relatively quick succession of death to a significant portion of the human population. I also know, now that I’m properly addressing the point, that the story is presented to the reader through detached observings of the world from the protagonist. I’m fairly certain that all human life is pretty much considered by him to have been wiped out, and he doesn’t really bother to question why he is still alive. Or her, the other character. It’s just one of those things.
What I’ve yet to answer is a question about abundant life in this new world. Are there butterflies in the warm summer air, and frogs and birds and fish and wolves and leaves and grass and flowers? Or has the world (world being relative to the protagonists perception of the world, mid USA) been reduced to a cracked, starved wasteland? A beautiful world for them to explore alone, or an empty dead world without colour or life? We still haven’t quite figured that out. Contradictory to each other, I have backdrops of bountiful nature and of skeleton trees under a constant dull gray sky. I suppose there could be some dead zones and some living zones… I’ll come to that when I’ve written more of the story.
And there are people in this world, it just takes a while to encounter them. Perhaps some of the people are friendly but some are most certainly not.

So, what do we know of the characters so far? Well there’s the boy. Or simply ‘him’. He seems to be an apathetic version of myself. Work with what you know right? I might as well use my rather bleak perception of the world as a foundation to build this character. I’ve been on a strong Kurt Vonnegut kick lately and find his apathetic, go-with-the-flow characters to be irresistible. So perhaps the protagonist is a cross between a fanciful mix of how I view myself and Billy Pilgrim. That is to say, Kurt Vonnegut is the biggest inspiration I have for my creative writing right now, so no doubt that’ll seep into the story. And it was good to admit all that to myself about the main character.

So he’s mid 20′s or so, kind, polite and brave. Foolishly fearless, wandering into situations he has no business being. Somewhat nihilist, but we probably all would be if everyone else just died. Tragically in love. Running from the scars of the past? Or just having never confronted them? Wide eyed, curious, contemplative, excitable under certain circumstances… that will do for now.

Then, there’s her. The girl. She. She doesn’t have a name either, not yet anyway. Maybe they’ve never told each other, having met only in the post apocalyptic world. Nah, I don’t like that idea. More like they were together before the world ended, a few years back or so. And they lost contact for a while. Then all the people died, and then they found themselves again in the new world. What are the odds, I know. She’s, let’s be honest here, my idea of a perfect woman. Of course she is: as I mentioned before it’s just easier to write about what you already have a pretty clear idea of.

I actually made myself laugh at that.
I vision her to be short to average height for a woman in her mid twenties: about six inches smaller than him. A little older perhaps. She has dark red hair, like the fall, and it can do all sorts of lovely things like fall down straight around her face and down her back, or be worn up in a way that makes it curl and fall down in random places. It’s untidy and exotic and plain all at the same time. Thin face, thin pursed lips that look like forbidden jewels to him. Eyes so sad though. Green eyes, deep and weighted with the worlds pain that remind the protagonist of love songs he’ll probably never hear again. Let’s give her some words: strong and capable. Occasional moments of delicate weakness. Aloof, hesitant to talk about what’s going on inside. Scared but wont admit it, passionate, impulsive, determined but tormented by something that will become significant to the story. Oh, neat, I just came up with that now. Perhaps just survivors guilt. She’s got good travel boots on and warm black shorts and tank under a tattered casual dress of sorts.
They’re both Scorpios. Cause Scorpios are the best.

Well, now that I have a clearer image of my two main characters perhaps it’ll be easier writing about them. There’s also the potential of the duo to be joined on their travels by a man, who might start out as part of a murderous crew scouring the wastes for resources and women. I’m throwing around the idea of the man having a change of heart and saving the two from a rather inconvenient and very certain death. We’ll see.
The places they go, like the deserted ghost cities of south-western USA or a forest clearing before the apocalypse where we all get introduced, will also have characters and personalities of their own. The lakes and the buildings have a certain character to the protagonist, as if they’re filling in for his loneliness after months without seeing another living human being, except her. Perhaps it’s just from his perception that places have character, because he’s slowly succumbing to insanity in this pointless existence.
All just random brainstorming really.

So he loves her, and I suppose the story is written from his perspective which means he has no idea how she really feels, of course. He knows when they were together things were different. Life was easier and more innocent and they only had eyes for each other. They fed ducks and made love and pushed each other playfully and fought and loved and lied and things started to get hard and there wasn’t much to say after a while and that was it. Then the world ended and they found each other again. Sometimes he feels she wants to be with him, sometimes he feels she just wants to be on her own or dead. Does she leave suddenly at some point? To save him from hurt? Or because she wants to be parted from him before something bad happens to one of them? It hurts him and it excites him and they make love and they part ways, maybe often, and they constantly move with or without each other Moving south and west and becoming accustomed to a life of tents and campfires and canned food and keeping a pistol for protection. Just in case.

So that’s them. Maybe something will happen in the end, like she’ll die. Something really tragic. Wait, I’m writing a tragedy here? Well, just how cliche would it be to have them weave in and out of each others lives and eventually end up in some discovered paradise full of people like them? This story is doomed from the start if I take that route. Undeniably I have a lot of answers to find to help push this story along, such as where it’s going and why. Although I suppose not every story needs to have profound observations of society embedded in the ending. Perhaps it’ll just be a story, and that’ll be that.

The real question looming in the back of my mind, of course, is simple: Will there be zombies?

<3 Zombies.
I’ll find out along the way I suppose. I do know that writing a story this way, surprising myself and becoming emotionally invested, is exhilarating. The story being born into existence through my fingers as they idly zip across the keys of the Red Shark (my laptop writing companion) feels so amazing. I think I’m going to try and keep the freewill of the characters intact for as long as possible to keep this feeling. Let them show me the way.

I’m enjoying the story too, and that’s all I really wanted out of this particular experience. Perhaps some others will share my tastes and enjoy the story as well, and that’ll be great.

Time to describe a night, the kind of night that’s still and silent and warm and bright.
Good luck to all aspiring writers!

As I See It: Religion

I know tackling religion is a tricky subject and has potential for offending a great deal of people, but sometimes that’s what writing is about: unabashedly stating your controversial ideas regardless of backlash or lynching as to spark the kind of debates that give way to progress. Great men of the past gave their lives to speak out against higher powers, and (eventually) progress was born of their convictions. I think we can all agree there are certain aspects of our human culture today that are stagnant and desperate for progress. However, as a general disclaimer to this post I just want to mention I have absolutely nothing against anyone who chooses religious practice as their lifestyle. I know a great deal of wonderful people who consider themselves religious or part of a religious community who are good, honest and intelligent and an asset to my life. That been said I’m not religious myself, and I’m going to address some of the stronger points of why I personally turned away from a religious path.
I should also make it clear that I hold quite a distinction between religion and spirituality. I suppose I could consider myself a spiritual person; I do in a sense believe in a perspective of god and enjoy something of a personal relationship with my place in life that could only be considered spiritual, if my understanding of spirituality is correct. I do not believe in a conscious entity riding a throne of clouds and frowning upon my denial of his existence, and have not since longer than I doubted a Santa Claus (at least Santa bought me real gifts). Rather, I believe that existence in itself is god. The intricate way light, gravity, physics, human perspective, life and death all come together to create the beautiful dance of a leaf falling from a branch to the ground, and my enjoyment of it; that is god to me. The animals, and their incredible journeys of evolutionary adaption, the bountiful oceans, the distant stars, the magic of kissing or good conversation, touching the sand with your fingers; all this is ‘god’. And we are each individual gods with the power to observe and interact and contemplate all these things. We are god, and everything is god. I guess you could say I’m just using the word as a substitute for what I don’t understand but absolutely love about life, and that’s just dandy with me.
How is kissing such a delightful act that could be considered anything but god?
So now my perception of god is clear, on to the tough stuff. Religion, in the organized sense, is a tool for human slavery. The submission of individual conscious will to those who claim to speak on behalf of an absent omnipotent entity to control the lives of a large mass of people. And I believe that’s exactly how it was designed right from the get-go. A cultural monument to the ease of human manipulation when preying on fear.
I believe organized religion, as we know it today, was started upon the stamped out-heels of genuine spirituality that came before it. Before Christ, as a general time frame, religious spirituality was practiced as a general oneness with the natural world that some people obtained through certain rites such as dancing and open sexuality. The developing civilized nations grew to distrust these spiritual rites out of fear or misunderstanding. But the people still needed faith in something: something easy to understand and simple that kept people in line and all acting the same way. So the rising Catholic Church took the spirituality of the old world, stamped out their practices (the witch hunts), bottled the faith in resealable containers and sold it back to the people as a restricted and intolerant conviction of the one true god. And all at the low-cost of their lifelong, strict obedience.
Organized religions, especially Catholicism and her various spinoffs, are a very successful business practice. One doesn’t need to closely examine the loosely concealed bureaucracy of Vatican City to come to such a conclusion, although the endless corridors of richly decorated offices and filing rooms throughout kind of give it away a little. It’s a business that preys on the need for spiritual guidance in people, preys on their fear of death and the need for a meaningful life, and promises them a ready-made concept of salvation that’s just so easy to accept. Do all that we say and once you die you’ll have a special place in paradise forever; your true life will begin. Deny what we say and your life will be worth nothing, or worse you’ll suffer eternal torture. That part always gets me. Are we really so barbaric as to need fear of suffering to keep us in line?
Once you have the people hooked on your ideas, you need to build their loyalty and the Church did this masterfully with intolerance of all other ideas and beliefs about the divine. The ‘Dark Ages’ are marked with almost constant examples of how the Church preached absolute conformity. Anyone not sharing the identical views, beliefs, worships, habits and overall lifestyle they deemed necessary by the word of god were to be converted or put to death. The price of not conforming to the ideology set forth by those interpreting the supreme will of god? Long, agonizingly painful, humiliating public death. The idea terrifies me and I don’t have to worry about it today, so I’m sure it was a much easier option to live by the strict code of religion than face the many diabolical torture chambers.
Fortunately in this day and age there are far more people who are able to bring their own concept of god into their lives without the need for the murderous intolerance of others beliefs. There are still a few bands of barbaric hooligans that the ‘word of god’ to an absolute extreme, but I hesitate to lump those people in with the majority of religious persons these days (living in North America, that is). The simple fact is that you’ll find extreme enthusiasts in every lifestyle, religious or not. Fred Phelps and his band of travelling hate mongers would have found a different organization to hide behind while spurting his disgusting intolerance throughout America if it wasn’t for Catholicism, for example. Some people are just naturally inclined to be, and I hesitate to use the word but can think of no other, evil.
Today, with the progress of scientific understanding, the mingling of many cultures and our (debatable) evolved humanity, spirituality has been given free rein to move away from the business model of organized religion. It’s been given a free rein to be individual again, to be more of a personal relationship with our humble and exciting continued interaction with reality. For some there will always be a need to fit into an organized group of worship in human culture, faith is about connections after all. But at least the ones doing all the lynching are the most extreme and ugly examples these days, and not the absolute norm as it was until very recently in our history.
Religion has been an oppressive force on the mental maturity of our species, and that’s somewhat regretful. I often wonder where we would be today if people were allowed to ask and examine questions about our world much sooner than the last two centuries, or if the intolerant bigotry of the past was instead replaced with open hearts and minds to all free thoughts and ideas. However, I also consider what our current world would be like if religion had not been such a strong force in the past and realize what a loss of architecture, art and rich, vibrant history it would be.

I didn’t particularly touch upon the practices and general mindset of religious people outside of North American and Europe here, partly because I can only discuss what I know and partly out of fear of painful public death. But middle-eastern practices and, especially, their intolerance of other cultures/lack of respect for women etc are a perfect example of how religion, in the wrong context, can be a tool of hate, intolerance and murder. I hope we as a planet wide human civilization can soon come to forget our differences, both as different races and with different perceptions of gods, and more forwards into the future together rather than segregated.

“I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest,
‘If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?’
‘No,’ said the priest, ‘not if you did not know.’
‘Then why,’ asked the Eskimo, ‘did you tell me?’”

-Annie Dillard.