On The First Day Of Christmas

Oh dear, nearly falling back on my routine already. So there will be another post tomorrow (as Saturday is the only definite day).

What is today's thought? Well, thoughts are few and far between at the moment. I'm bouncing about with spontaneities that may turn into something or may just whisper away in the wind, to be forgotten forever.

There is one thought that solidified and inevitably begins tomorrow. This post, it should be noted, is almost verging on 'diary form'. But only in the loose term that I can manage.

Let me start at the end. Some of my family (mother, brother, and myself) have a tradition with our surrogate family (siblings my age, and their parents) that Christmas shall be stretched across both Christmas eve and Christmas day. On the 'eve we all have a meal together. My brother, mother, and I open our presents after the meal (as is Scandinavian tradition, so I'm led to believe) and we all have a hoot. Christmas morning we awake and me and my brother bring our newly acquired 'toys' to the surrogate family's house and they will have opened their presents by then, too. Christmas day, as a whole, is a pyjama day. We walk over in our pyjamas (or onesie, depending on the mood) and have our breakfast (which was chosen earlier that month to be whatever we wish) spend the whole day doing whatever we want (board games are often a favourite) and then we bring the climax to the Christmas dinner. It's a very enjoyable couple of days. Boxing Day is Christmas at my father's. We vary between watching a film of sorts or playing cards or who knows! Anything at all. This year a fourth day is being added, which will be my Flat Christmas too. I'm not entirely sure what is going to happen, but any elongating of these days is something to be enjoyed.
Now, that's the tradition from the 24th to the 27th. There's something happening before this. A film festival of festively epic proportions.

Christmas normally starts pretty early in people's minds (the shops are sure to point this out to you in October that it's coming) so along with my flatmate I am hosting the 23 Days of Christmas. Every single evening (1st to 23rd, if you need that explained) there is a film being shown of Christmas connotations, either because it is Christmassy, or full of familial joy (E.T, Chicken Run etc). The event is open to those invited, they can arrive any evening they wish, with or without R.S.V.P-ing. At first I thought it would be smart to invite lots of people simply to guarantee someone would show up, but it sounds now that if anything there's going to be an abundance of guests.

The event works on the basis of Bring Your Own Whatever You'd Like (BYOWYL) in the hopes that there will be a steady share of all sorts. It also works on the basis of Bring Your Own Bauble. Which is pretty important. The Christmas tree wants to look better every night.

So the invites were sent out, the event hyped up to some degree, with certain nights looking more promising than others, and now all there is left is to tidy this mother-frigging flat. Instead of that, though, I have found that I am almost behind on the blogging front. Priorities!

 So why have I bored you with this? Well, I really like the idea of it. If it works, this may become somewhat of a tradition (with changes depending on what did and did not go well). I'd like to know if you have any traditions that you quite like, if there are some personally created events that fill you with childish glee.

Strive For The Universe and Everything

There's a strong argument that we don't know ourselves. I have a name, like you. I can recite it but that would add nothing to our little monologue here, would it? I have things about myself that would differentiate me from others, but I'm not sure if that's what counts as being the characteristics that make up my person.

    Is it our mistakes? I'm sure that was said somewhere by someone at some point in time's history. It is not what we do that defines us, it's the mistakes we make and how we pick ourselves up that make us the person we strive to be.

    Oh what am I going for here? You have to know your limits when it comes to writing. I believe failings can be beneficial if you can take them as such and move on. I used to try writing about impossibilities. Not exactly. I liked to put myself in a literary tangle and try to escape from it in the same universe. I imagine that's what Douglas Adams enjoyed doing. He was probably the most eloquent escape artist I've ever read.

    The case of his death is not mine to tread over. Why should I allow myself to messy up something that was someone else's ? I can't imagine for a second what his wife went through, I can't imagine the true nature of death itself. Douglas Adams wasn't the focus of this post. Nor was death. But thoughts like to creep in, they like to settle down on something they were not meant for. Sometimes our best works come from the accidental interconnectedness of all our stray thoughts.

    I consider again the art of being yourself. I don't know quite what that means. Do you draw up on all of the hobbies that you partake in, all of the deeply held views and opinions you carry, and the past experiences you have had, and pull them all together, knead them into a dough and bake a cake you call Myself?

    I don't believe in boring people, but I believe in both Incompatibles and Unawares. I still call certain people boring, because it slips off the tongue like a spiritual marble. But what we all mean is one of the above. Either their views will not work alongside yours, therefore the former. Otherwise these people are not fully formed in themselves and you simply cannot find anything to latch onto. They often seem bland. I often think of myself as an Unaware. I surely have a lot to say, but nothing seems to stray farther than a few bookish remarks. I think about strangers and I don't know where to begin.

    There was one night in a pub in Pitlochry I was speaking to a German girl whose name was Marie (if my memory serves), and I found myself getting bored of myself. I could not strike up anything quite so interesting and meaningful as I'd have liked. We talked of differences of countries and her travels and I simply felt very 'small town'. Where are my stories? Where are those revelations of life that spark a tale to entice even outsiders to listen in? I guess I want to be someone I am not. It was a lovely evening, and she was beautifully interesting, but I guess in my ego-centric ways I still wanted to be more to her and others.

    So here we are, looking at what a person is. Palahniuk says, and I assume this is an Eastern Philosophic paraphrasing, "It's only after we've lost everything that we are free to do anything." So self-destruction is one way to begin afresh. But I don't want to start again, I just want to chisel away at the block I am right now. But what is it to be anything? Why do I want any of this? Surely we just want to be what we are, then we are already achieving our goal - a noble way to be.

    Sometimes it is just easy to want what's outside of your reach. That way there is no reason to try, and more reason to moan about it.

    This reminds me of the man who wanted to live for ever. He would never know until he didn't die.

Hypocrisy In The Kitchen

    I broke a rule today. One of my stricter rules I try to abide by. I don't shop in supermarkets anymore, except I just did. I don't know how long I've had this rule, it feels like forever but it's probably only been a month or two. I don't consider myself a local yokel, but I do believe that community livelihoods are important. I am of the strong opinion that variety is one of the many favoured spices in the spice rack of life (yes that was much more convolutedly put than I could have done, but so be it). It's ironic, then, that people shop almost solely in supermarkets for their variety.

    This town has a tesco a little out of the way of the high street. Most don't enjoy walking from one end to the other, which is understandable if you have other things to do, or are elderly or such. So if you need an overall shop, the obvious place to go is Tesco.

    Before you get to this monolith there is a smaller Coop store. It's quite a quaint little establishment (yet there are three in Blairgowrie itself) and I shopped there as an alternative for a while. An oft-put argument against it and in favour of Tesco is that there is not very much variety. You simply can't get everything you need.

    As I work in a newsagent I shall use this as a comparison. Tesco has a vast selection of magazines, that area alone probably constitutes most of the size of my shop, but their variety is not quite as vast as ours. We allow customers to order in any magazine they'd like, we'll put many new and odd choices out on the shelves. The T-dawg will not allow customers choose anything not already on the shelf, and there is no ease of access when it comes to getting anything peculiar you'd like. My point here is that choice is only what you're given, and they don't give you anything other than what's there. If you go into smaller independent shops more often than not they'd be happy to get something unusual in for you. I was given an old fashioned typewriter not so long ago (and what a gift that was) and I feared that when it dried up that was me ruined, but the local stationery shop was happy to get me some typewriter ribbon, no problems at all.

    I like to chat. If I'm in a comfortable situation where a subject I am passionate about crops up (books mostly), there's little to do but to run away. There's a niceness to being able to chat to workers in small shops, you get to know people, you find a sort of regularity and routine. The bigger a corporation gets, the more employee turnover there is, you don't see the same face as often, you don't get to know people as they're not around enough for you to form any common ground. I understand that not everyone intends their shops to be social areas but we have the internet if you really want to be faceless, and not everyone must chat anyway. I'm not yet sure what I feel about internet shopping, I appreciate the ability to browse quirky items and for the ease of getting things that may not be in stock in other places, but I am not comfortable with the proposed idea that most shopping will all be done over the internet. We are creatures who came out into the light, only to find that we are bringing ourselves back into our caves to stay.

    I'm not trying to say that everyone must shop in small stores. I'm fully aware that it is often not cost-effective, I'm absolutely aware that it takes longer flitting between shops than staying in the same massive all-consuming superstore (no bias, I swear).

    I just want the option considered. I mean really considered, look at what you could get in different areas of a town, compare the smiles of people working in modest establishments to those in the gigantics. I just want it made clear what the real variety available is.

    And now I go back on all that I just said, because the reason I shopped there, breaking my rule (of which I set many and break many, was the problem of not being able to get what I needed for this single day. Cream cheese of all things, and golden castor sugar! Of course variety extends to every shop, and I am not blind to the fact that I am cutting my choices by not shopping in a building that is more a warehouse. But if I am to be strict about my rules then sacrifices have to be made.

    I'm a hypocrite and I won't go back on my word, except when I do.

    I should state I am simply attempting new ways to do things, I'm not claiming to be anything special, I don't mean to waste your time here. I don't know quite what I'm trying to gain from any of this, but I won't be giving up just yet. I'm interested in your thoughts (yes you) even if they are ridiculing all of the above.

    This cheesecake better be worth the guilt trip.

A Short Pattern On The Back

       Regularity is something we find ourselves falling into. Patterns are comforting, knowing what's around the corner can often ease our frantic little selves. But the patterns we fall into and the patterns we want to achieve are two very different things.

I am attempting a new pattern. To blog a little more often, to keep some sort of rota going with myself as the time passes incessantly. I could not divulge with you what this blog is trying to or going to achieve, but simply in the habit of doing I feel will be better to discipline my writerly habits. If I am blogging then I am writing, if it involves my current projects then so much the better. But I don't want this to be simply a vessel for my current work (if work is what I can call it). I want to tell stories, but I don't want to bore you with snippets of tales, teasers of possibilities. I also don't want to stand for too long on my soapbox ("blowing hot air and bubbles" as a nice lady elaborated a possible meaning to me) battering down my thoughtless opinions, trying to seem like some sort of authority figure on intellectual qualms. Please don't use my word as  definitive truth.

The internet has this method of throwing so many opinions our way that sometimes it seems counter-productive to create any of our own. I find myself falling into the habit of checking out countless movie reviews to confirm my own thoughts, as though my opinion only matters if I can cross reference it with others. It's dangerous to read about a film before it opens up before your eyes. I think the best reaction to a movie is made from a blank slate, but I don't know the last time I truly did this (actually I do, Machine Gun Preacher was watched in a game of Awful Film Chicken and it turned out to be bloody fantastic).

So I'm going to try this blogging thing out properly. Sometimes telling others your plans makes them more important to achieve. Is it the same if you blog about the intention to blog? Does that constitute telling someone? I am not sure.

I am going to write a blog on a Saturday, every week, no exceptions, and I am going to try and write one on another mixed day of the week. Maybe they should have meaning before they're uploaded, like Saturday is mindless ramble, and Xday is writery pondering. We shall see how this shapes up!

Whoever you are, reading this for some reason or other, I hope that this is alright "for a blog". I don't really know what constitutes a great read when it comes to these little moments of textual snapshots.

       

        Again, I think this had a different initial intention, I can't quite navigate the bumpy track of my train of thought. Someone keeps changing lanes. 

Post-Poetry Pangs

Tell me that humans are stupid. Explain that we are living a dumbed down culture. Wave your hands around, patronise me about how people are reading worse material, how shit sells.
Turn me in a circle, pretend I just symbolised humanity going nowhere. Take a deep breath and ponder to yourself whether you might be wrong. Accept that there are definite steps forward. Science is getting better, our overall accumulation of human knowledge is expanding (because with all our capabilities of holding information it would be nearly impossible to learn less).

You still have only a small glimmer of hope that our society is doing well. Worldwide we have crime, poverty, endless varieties of societal -'isms, and we all suffer for it. Most of us, anyway.

I am often of this mind. I look around (but not at you) and I am saddened. My mind doesn't want to stimulate itself, I don't want to be confined to mental masturbation, I want full-blown theological orgies, I want worldwide hypothetical soggy biscuits. If you don't know what that is, in its physical form, then don't find out.

Of course there are dumb people in the world. It's all opinion, and we are all dumb and we are all smart. But the truth is, we couldn't acknowledge ourselves if everyone was the same, and sometimes you just need the little lift to know that "Yeah, maybe I do think I am better than this person." Of course you are told not to do so, and publicly stating such a thing would be detrimental to your reputation as perceived by others. But we do this in other things, in sports, in numerous competitions, in politics even.

I am not telling you to go around saying you're better than anyone else, I am just trying to put forth an opinion that if you want to argue that people are so stupid these days, maybe you should not stick to the thought that they are the problem. Maybe you are too smart. If you want to argue anything, remember all the pieces, don't dismiss yourself just because you are you. Maybe somebody is out there telling their friends that people are way too smart these days.

You can lose faith in people, you can lose hope in humanity. It happens to us all when we stop to think, because life isn't exactly what we imagined it to be. It's shocking, I know, but this isn't each our own garden. It's a shared thing, and sometimes you just have to accept how certain things turn out.

We can play on the generalisation of "Dumb Americans" or "Neds" and of course because you don't consider yourself a part of either group you think they are something else and perhaps a setback to society's progress in whatever grand scheme you imagine. Just because these people exist shouldn't distract you from the fact that there are amazing people in this world. People that can move you, that can make you want to change, people that appear in your life for no apparent reason but you just know they are going to do something awesome. These are the people you should focus on. These are the people that should be real to you. Listen to what they have to say. Tell them what you want to say.

Give credit where credit is due, and if you have nothing constructive to say, try not to take away from the pleasures of others.

Questions In The Ether

-What do you want your life to be?

I spend a lot of my time writing notes to myself. The whiteboard has minimised my paper trail. I ask questions and state facts. I describe a fictional being, I improvise an opening. Nothing is solid, everything changes as time does the same.

-If love is dead then what do we have left to fight for? Are memories in themselves a worthy cause?

I am of the firm belief that we are managing to bore ourselves with too much entertainment. The scale to which our options expand before us is daunting. Are you bored? You could watch a film, a tv show, read a book, play a games console, play a board game, cards, create something, edit film, music, the written word. Et cetera. But of course that's plainly obvious. Those are the basics. Now we have this online presence to play with, too. For starters there are social networks, blogs, user-submitted video sites, and the same with writing and music, but there's more. All those films you would watch, if you don't own a copy, you can stream whichever one you want, anytime, on so many devices it's kind of terrifying. I didn't realise how close to boredom we humans were, but thankfully we've cured that. Any book you want, album you'd like, film you need, piece of art you'd like to peruse, are all available to you. Yet, online presences and real-life situations still develop into "I'm bored".

-How far will we go to find something that doesn't exist?

We have endless choice, but something tells us that none of these options are fitting. Something tells us that we could do something else.
I like to imagine that the good ole' days were black and white. You knew that there were only a select few things you could be doing, and you did them. But I think it was different in another sense. I think people were less aware of their choices. You would figure out what to do. Adverts weren't so hungry for your attention to make you have fun. You made games up. You created amalgamations between one or two things you had played before.
I think creativity is key to enjoying yourself. Bending the rules of fun given to us. If you are playing a console that's open-world, run around and do something that's not part of the script. If you are playing a board game, change a few rules. We need to create our own options instead of checking out what's laid in front of us.
It doesn't matter how much is available, it only matters what you can do.

I don't know what I'm getting at. This was going to go in at least three different directions. But sometimes you can't just plan a thing in a straight line.
I wanted to refer to my recent trip to Oban. We played amalgamations of Monopoly, Articulate, and general quiz-games. We would barter outside of the rules. A funny dance was payment for rent. Being able to guess 15 Nature cards was payment for landing on a hotel. A monopoly pound was enough for a chocolate bar.
I don't know why this all seems important just now. I apologise if this seems patronising. I just want people to be less open to being 'bored'. Don't use that word. Be quirky. Be spontaneous. Be obscure.

-We have so many distractions in life now. Sometimes I wonder if we even know what we're being distracted from.

I write those pieces on the whiteboard, snippets of nothing and everything, as my endless options, to distract me from my real goal. It's me saying that the novel can't be written because there's just one more thing I need to write beforehand. Another sentence. Another word. So many letters that are just aimlessly important.

So what do you want your life to be? You are the teller of your tale. The chronicler with the power to bias the shit out of your history. You can be great. You should be fantastic.

 Just don't be a bore.

Fall and Rise of Ideas

Well, this is me from the future writing. A different fellow to some degree, but we were all our past selves at some time.
 That brainwave I had became something non-existent. As excitable as it made me, it was detrimental to the story.
 So hello! Two years on and a few steps of progress. I still talk of the Nine-Novel-Trilogy, but somewhere along the line I may accept that I'd prefer to write them together and maybe even (cue gasp) not stretch them as far as the epic book saga of neuf.
 Mon dieu!

 Anyway! I've been sitting in the best Cafe in the world most of this morning (my morning consists normally from 11am to 2pm) writing a few snippets and researching a few others. But what could you research, when it is all in the mind? Oh, I see, you've been researching cranial studies of madness, the inner workings of the mind. No, dear Giraffe, I have been reading about Bhurma and North Korea.
 Of course! says the uneasy Giraffe. That makes sense, somewhere...

 Well, I have been studying my characters. I have looked at optimism, at pessimism, at the wary Nothing (so badly named, but I'm sure he doesn't have much to say about that), and I have lumped them together meaningfully. We all love our dystopian fiction, and I am looking at it. I am looking at speculative fiction and attempting to write a society that looks just out of our reach. Able to relate but not quite grab at it.

 Optimism is living at the forefront again, his happiness is his weapon. Pessimism is a miserable bastard, but where there once was cynical strength, he is now weak. Nothing, well, nothing hasn't done much since.

 So what does this mean to any of you strangers out there? It means that I am again one step in a direction that makes me think I can write this fictitious piece of reality. Give me ten years, I might even have a few sample chapters!