Am I Doing This Write?

One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value by living.

Forgive me, for I have been away for a long time. I think now is the time for words.

I’m going to write today about what it means to write. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.

I can only consider myself a writer insofar as to believe that I pen my thoughts for others to read. I cannot, however, claim that my writing is any good. With the advent of social media sites, there are far too many young people today who feel a sense of entitlement to have their opinions heard. Unfortunately, most of them don’t deserve as much. Writing is in a sense, the art of losing yourself. Like accidental poetry.

What is it about certain books that make us fall in love? That transports us to alternate dimensions? The difference is being a genius in writing – to immerse oneself in it, separate its numerous strands, and appreciate its subtle nuances. Art exists as a medium for other ends. We want only to create, and THAT is what art is. The creating; not the product. Unfortunately, this escapes most would-be writers. But it is a characteristic of wisdom to not do desperate things.

“Writers aren't exactly people… They’re a whole bunch of people trying to be one person.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

The trick is to exist within your characters. Inhabit their souls. One needs only to be perspicuous enough to breathe some semblance of reality into them to create something, someone, worth falling in love with. It shames me to think that a writer can claim to have no attachment to who they create. It’s a part of you, ffs!

Fleeting moments are what create stories. Even renowned writers have to start from a nagging idea that can only be fully formed in the process. The idea is to be relatable by being human. There is no extreme happiness nor extreme sadness; only the verisimilitude that exists in life. Translate that and expose it. You will be commended.

I hate to admit that I know of some people who are strong believers in their writing ability and this is rather unfortunate. No young writer has the liberty to have such an ego about their work. Only, I’m not brave enough to tell them so myself… WOW SUBTEXT. This is for you.

To summarise: Your writing is never as good as you think it is. I'm not exempt.

P.S.  I hate that the font that gets posted doesn't have serifs. I ought to fix that.

There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

I went for a birthday party some time last year (ages ago, I know) and it was my first real experience. I wrote about it in my book, and thought that perhaps it was time to share it with you.

 It goes:

When I arrived, I felt as if I'd been introduced to the land of the living, the home of the free, and the bungee-jumpers with no strings attached. What is this place? Are these real people?
I was cascading in the colourful darkness of alcohol-induced lust and the necessary pain of walking in heels. We were elegant peacocks, all of us; comparing plumage and strutting with airs. It was a facade, of course it was, but it was new and I was enjoying it.
Is this what it means to take your life into your own hands? What is this intense compulsion to give yourself away to all the other free souls?
Adulthood is never awarded gradually.
There is no simple way to become accustomed to it. It is a mechanical beast that feeds on uneasiness, peer pressure, the desire we all harbour to fit in - and this beast is relentless! It sucks you into this spasming chaos unrestrained and the vortex doesn't become apparent until you are drowning in it. But it's almost as if it can't be helped; you must endure. You must pull through, because adulthood is on the other side of it. You'll only know you've reached it when the buzzing world has become merely a sickening thought and the sticky sweetness of nostalgia is the only reminder.
I've only just arrived.
I'm not ready to leave yet.
This is the transition state of my being.

Addict

The desperation of an addict.

I know it only too well. It reeks of regret, nostalgia, and obviously, depression.

It is the feeling one gets when everything can seemingly only go downhill. It is the painful process of realisation and consternation, a pleading desire to not go into the light. The wanting of change – and the stubbornness to not want to pull through. It is a monumental Everest that I don’t have the breath to climb. It is the inane fear of not being able to survive it.

But perhaps this time will be different. Oh, how I will try! But do I want to?

“Although many of us think that we are thinking creatures that feel; we are, in fact, feeling creatures that think.”

I am ashamed of myself. Ashamed of my body’s craving. It is a ridiculous notion to think that my physiological being overpowers my mental one. I simply cannot be that weak! I have the willpower, I have the desire, and I have the shattering glass.

It must end. It ought to have ended before it began, and this is what pains me. I’m done creating futile excuses for my weakness. I’ve experienced the hypnagogic jerk that has reawakened me to who I’ve been.

But I’m better than that.

Will Freely

The entire debate about free will seems to rest on shaky ground. It is possibly one of the most ill-defined concepts of the modern age, and branches into almost every scientific faculty thinkable (physics, biology, neuroscience, statistics) but let's go about some philosophy bashing first. My argument is with myself, as I've found reasons to believe that free will is existent, and reasons for why it isn't plausible at all. Let me share them with you.

To say you choose not to choose is contradictory.

Is it theoretically viable to consider ourselves in a world that is both deterministic and chaotic?
See, Chaos Theory actually doesn't defend the concept of free will in the slightest. Even though chaotic systems are unpredictable, their behaviour is considered deterministic in that despite their movements being far too complex to be calculable, they still are determinable.

Perhaps free will is illusory. To believe in free will means to imply that my thought processes act outside of my environment, i.e. not a reaction to stimuli. But the truth is, I can only react. If the universe is deterministic, it means that everything we have done or will do stems from long lines of causation that extend beyond a single individual, from before we can even be born.

In order for free will to exist, we’d have to get rid of both determinism and indeterminism, which by then we would have nothing left. The rules of chance say that an event could happen or it could not happen. There is no in between. There is a Latin term that describes people who exist outside the rules of all we know: 'causa sui', it means 'creators of their own cause'. None of them exist.

What's a scientific discussion without some God thrown in, eh?
Theists believe that God awards them free will. Yet they also believe that God knows the future. They demonstrate free will cannot exist simply by believing it does. If God fails to know the future, He'd lose his godlike nature. Free will's existence would contradict the very idea of an all knowing 'God'.

 Does this mean that life is meaningless? Not at all. It means that although I don’t have any choice in the matter, I am able to experience life, beauty, variety, a slice of unpredictability and love - which makes life worth living.

But maybe we can live in a deterministic world and still have something that resembles free will...

Perhaps the notion of free will is truly subjective and depends on from where in spacetime you look at the bigger picture. If we accept that the universe operates in either a deterministic or indeterministic way, we essentially understand that this means the future (in principle) is fixed. But this future is only knowable from the outside, if the past can be evaluated simultaneously with the present. From where we are - imbedded within spacetime - we cannot know the future. The future always appears unpredictable from our stance, and this is what creates the illusion of an open future. Of free will.


We are slaves to the butterfly effect.

Human and Haunting

This holiday, I read a non-fiction book titled ‘Children of the Holocaust’ by Helen Epstein. It details the unexplored plight of the first generation born of Holocaust survivors. It is an interesting perspective to consider – what were the effects on their children? What must it feel like to know that your parents were part of some atrocious act that is the subject of so many history books?

Reading accounts from this generation has enabled me to better understand the human psyche. Each one of those children could relate to the need to do something about the holes in their lives that were a result of having lost a part of their parents to a war they could not fathom.

In some sense, I feel as if I am a part of this clique. We all are children of survivors. I’ve grown up hearing my parents’ somewhat morbid stories of their childhood, everything that determined who they became. My father would always conclude these stories by telling us that his children are now his life, and he’d never want for us to go through the things he has. As would any parent.

But this left me with more questions than answers, more uneasiness about how I wanted my life to develop. Does it disappoint my father when I take food for granted after having heard his experiences of not having had food for days? Of course it does. But I feel as if I’d lost the carelessness generally awarded with childhood. I sometimes feel as if my life is the replacement of my father’s misplaced one, and that I must take advantage of every moment to be happy, in his stead. This is burdensome.

The effort is like trying to graft a foreign branch to a native tree. The graft would not take. Sometimes I need to be sad.

My life is little less than a cosmic blip on the universe’s radar, fading before it can even be seen. This life of mine is so tiny in the greater scheme of things; but I still would like the chance to live it as I see fit, instead of living within the boundaries that are forced upon me. Do I consider the expectations of others, or do I disregard them in the name of individuality? Is the real me lost between the yellowed pages of my parents’ past?

The truth is that we have only one lifetime to live, and we cannot spend it searching through the past for ourselves, because we’re not there. We’re here. My parents were different people before I came to be, and I’ve come to respect that. In the same manner, they ought to respect that my lifetime is mine. I need to make my own mistakes.

I do not want to live just because I happen to be alive. Routine bothers me. I want to be alive so that I may live.

It’s just, no one gives me time. Time to discover who I am right now so that I have an idea of who I want to someday be.

When I Arrive, I Bring The Fire

‘There is in all things a pattern that is part of our universe. It has symmetry, elegance, and grace – those qualities you find always in that which the true artist captures. You can find it in the turning of the seasons, in the way sand trails along a ridge, in the branch clusters of the creosote bush or the pattern of its leaves. We try to copy these patterns in our lives and our society, seeking the rhythms, the dances, the forms that comfort. Yet it is possible to see peril in the finding of ultimate perfection. It is clear that the ultimate pattern contains its own fixity. In such perfection, all things move toward death.’
                                                                                                             (Excerpt from 'Dune')

I have done some light reading on the Greek philosophers of old, and their perceptions about the nature of the world, how it fits together, and why it works the way it does. Here are a few of them that still resonate in my head:

Empedocles believed that there were only two forces in the world – Love and Strife. Love brought things together, whilst strife pulled them apart. He claimed that this explained how things could change and yet the world could stay the same.

Thales said the world floats like a log on endless water, and that all things are full of gods. But when people think of things that are full of gods, they always think about death, and sunsets, and the Niagara Falls; never of doorknobs.

Parmenides was conflicted about reality not being real. He made the beautiful observation of noting that reality could only be understood by thought – which is a disastrous notion in itself. The rational mind is a terrible tool for the job, as it only seeks logic. It searches for justice, and never considers that there may be none. It has this notion, which it clings to, that the truth would save us, though it is quite obvious that precisely the opposite is often true.

Heraclitus was bothered by the fact that everything changes. This perpetual change in the world happens whether or not we notice it. He concluded that since fire changes everything it touches, fire is to blame. Everywhere we look, the world is on fire, burning invisibly, changing before our very eyes.

What senses do we lack that we cannot see or hear another world around us? How do we know we know what we think we know? And if we find that after all we don’t know what it is that we once thought we knew, how do we know we are who we think we are, or thought we were yesterday? You follow?
The thing about being alive is that we have a false sense of control. The world works, whether or not we are an active part of it.

Newton’s Third Law states that for every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction. I’ve taken this out of the mechanical physics context and applied it to what we know as karma. Let me clear something up: It does not work in the future tense. It works pretty much as Newton summed it up – everything you do to me is already being done to you.

I Want To Breathe

I want to breathe as I want to write.
I need to write as I need to feel.
I must feel as I must live.

I hope things are beautiful. And when they're not, I hope to remember this moment in which they are. Someone you haven't even met yet is wondering what it'd be like to know someone like you. Can you understand? For all my despair, for all my dejection - my life is still a myriad of colours that I cannot comprehend. As soon as you think you are done, you are. So keep learning. Never be done.


What does it cost me to share my life with you?
What do I lose by giving you all that is me? You may have my name, share my knowledge, bask in my humanness. This will seem precious for all of three seconds, but then what will you do with it? What will you die protecting?

We feel that to reveal embarrassing or private things, we have given someone something. That, like a primitive person fearing that a photographer will steal his soul by taking a picture, we identify our secrets, our pasts and their blotches with our identity, that revealing our habits or losses or deeds somehow makes one less of oneself.

But it's just the opposite. More is more is more - more bleeding, more giving.
When you find someone with whom you feel you can share your words with, you stop in shock at all that you are - it all feels rusty, feeble, everything you are seems meaningless from having been cramped in the small, dark recesses of selfdom for so long.

"Life has been some combination of fairy tale coincidence and joie de vivre and shocks of beauty together with some hurtful self-questioning."  ~ Sylvia Plath

Who you want to be is not nearly as important as who you are right now.
I see skies that aren't there, and I read words that were never written. To have a mind that is so beautiful and full, it is annihilating. I need to breathe so that I may share myself with you. All of this so that you may have a part of me in you, and I will never die.