Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Pros and Cons

An exercise done by many people who desire a change in lifestyle, employment, diet, etc...

I would like to do the Pros and Cons of something, but I am unsure as to what facet would be the least upsetting. And since everything relating to my REAL life could be offensive and unacceptable, I think it would be safe to do a quick Pros and Cons of my dreams. {Aspirations, true sleep deprived imaginings, hopes, etc...}

PRO - Sleeping deeply enough so that you dream allows me to experience an adventure that otherwise would never have happened.

CON - It makes me want to sleep all the time, and if I sleep longer then my body tells me too, I tend to develop headaches, achey muscles, etc...

PRO - One dream I ave is of flying. IF I could fly, I would never worry about gas, car repairs, or car insurance!

CON - The weather would be a bit tricky, and It gets colder the higher you go, of course, so I woul dhave to invest on layering my clothing.

PRO - BUT I would be able to fly. 'Nuff said.

CON - Unfortunately, none of my greater aspirations in life have come true yet.

PRO - BUT that only teaches me to keep going, and eventually SOMETHING has to happen, right?

CON - It is mildly discouraging, which induces certain amounts of depression.

PRO - BUT That depression can be driven out easily with the clever usage of exercising the skill I would so like to be made known to the world, Socializing with friends, holding a loved one close, etc...

CON - So in order to help me along the path of my aspirations, I have started another job, which as I have never done such before this point, I am a little anxious as to how it will effect my stress tolerance levels. (STLs)

PRO - BUT I will be earning so much more money at this point, and I will be able to pay off things that otherwise stress me out.

CON - Oh yeah, those loans kinda bring me down too, so there goes my paycheck.

PRO - But this extra job isn't very stressful AT ALL, and the people are ALL nice there.

CON - But gas expenditures?

PRO - Dwarfed by the fact I ALREADY drive around a lot!

CON - So... what are we speaking about again? Bad things? How about the fact that you haven't gotten published, nor have you every actually FINISHED a story?

PRO - Untrue! I finished two plays, thank you very much!

CON - BUT you haven't gotten either one of them produced.

PRO - BUT I did receive the OK for a 300$ Grant in order to have my play performed at MCLA.

CON - BUt you didn't have the time in your schedule to do it.

PRO - The point is, things can only go up from here.

CON - Er, but I could totally --

PRO - Shush. You're done.

-Oru

Saturday, January 23, 2010

All Work and No Play

As my new schedule stretches before me, vast and desolate as a sun-parched desert, I wonder what got me to this point. I wonder - but I do not turn to look. Because turning around to look implies regret, and if I regretted one moment of my past... well, that would make everything in my future seem hopeless, which is not what I want. So, I wonder about my past. The slip-ups, the oopses, the injuries, everything that scarred and forged me, everything that brightened the color in my own self portrait.

I realize that I had made certain mistakes; with money, people, my own foolish ideas and the like. But in the same vein I know that I have done so many other things right. For example - the abyss before me.

Of course the road will be long. And dull. And full of overbearing heat and itching sand, and an undying thirst. Of course it will have it's crap - but everything has a darker side. The trick is of course peering past it to the glimmer of hope that everything has tucked away in the folds of it's douchery. And if you think that's too hard to find, look PAST it to the good things that are surely coming.

My new schedule presents me with two things. Work and Sleep. Food is an option I will take before, after or in between while in the car, on my break, or in my dreams, which I have done before and can wrap my head around. But no play? For a split second I saw my own face in the splinters of the bathroom door, smiling maniacally as I hefted the axe for another strike.

I don't want to be a dull boy!

So I peer into the sands of the desert, trying to see something positive - and there! Coming off the dune pushed by the wind! Didn't you just see the shape of a dragon in flight? I did! And there! The night sky over this desert, so clear, starry, untainted by the city lights! And over there, by that wave of heat, was that an oasis? Surely despite it's desolation, there is more then enough room for an imagination to run wild out here in this void!

And as that hope leeches onto me, I decide to give myself a goal, something to see PAST the desert. And on queue, I see the mountains rising up in the distance, snowcapped and green based with a lushness of what can only be the shade that trees provide. And as I walk, though in the tiniest of increments, the Mountains begin to loom closer and closer.

I'm almost there. I can almost taste the water in the air before it is sucked out of me.

I'm almost there.

Oru

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Religious Experience

Perhaps 'Religious' is the wrong term. However, I feel I should explain before giving a reason why I would think so.

I saw a movie. Like many, many other people that contributed to the gross profit of the film. You may have heard of it: 'Avatar'.

I began by pulling on the rediculous 3D glasses and settling back in my center row seat. I gently pulled in some cherry coke from the gigantic cup beside me and allowed the chill of the ice-cold beverage to soothe my overheating body, crowded in among my family and strangers alike. The vision of flight was the first thing I saw in full emersion of the digital experience, and immediately I was won over.

It helps that my very first and very strongest wish was to have the ability to fly.

The film was long, but not Lord of the Rings redundant. There were no multiple endings - only one, the only one there could be. The linguistics were creative and wonderfully crafted, and the people (blue or not) felt as real as if I were at a staged production. And the part that sent my head spinning into the other world of Pandora was the story itself.

I was engaged. I was thrust head first into the warp-drive of my own imagination, and I rode the wave of the creative high that immediately followed. Not only did I marvel at the creatures and ideas that had spilled from the mind of James Cameron, but I too felt a stirring of creativity. A drive to continue the works that I had long since ground to a halt in my own self-depreciating mood-swings. I felt the need to show people my own visions as Cameron had shown me his. I want the world to dive deep into my own stories, and love the characters as much as I do, as much as Cameron's arrow of devotion killed me for his characters.

I was full to bursting, and even now I revel in the soft, sweet lingering afterglow of the inspiration. And with this energy I will pull back into this existance my New Years Resolution - one of the many unspoken desires - to keep writing. Finish my updates. Flesh out my skeletal stories and breathe life into flat, static characters.

So a religious experience? Perhaps in part. Perhaps the divinity of the experience as a whole could drive me to worship. I could thank the Supreme Being Above for minds as glimmering and faceted as James Camerons. I could thank them for the effect it had on me, the emotional uplift I was gifted.

But in truth - I think it more of a Spiritual experience. It was no God that granted me this feeling - it was a man. A man and his ideas shot lightning through my system, kicked my gears into creaking and sputtering into life. Only a man thought of these ideas and these stories and languages and places and visions and people. And those people effected me. And it is my faith in the miraculous minds of others and in the tiniest part, myself, that inspired me. And the spirit of this film, and the emotions driven behind it are what lights my mind today.

Thus ends my movie review. :)

Oru

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Disillusionment

I was catching snowflakes on my tongue today. I stood outside in the snow and watched each flake mosey down towards the ground, contentedly spinning in their own private orbits. And as I watched, I imagined I was one of them, dancing between their every spiraling glide.

I spun happily among them, giddy in the thought that I would float to the Earth and then meld with my kin into one perfect landscape - and then we would all melt together and disappear into the Earth as we were made to do. We would fall and join as one soft exhale of breath, exist as one and end together. Our lives a separate and unique as our construction but eventually becoming a whole.

And then I looked around with a smile at my brothers, admiring their forms, their many shapes. Then I saw one that was beautiful. It had so many gleaming facets, and we were dwarfed by it. It's icy tendrils flitted about the wind like a glider and soared to the ground like a butterfly wing, and there it remained. Alone.

With dismay, I looked at myself, and saw that I was coming apart, my delicate pieces starting to melt into the very air. The weather was not cold enough to sustain us as we fell, and none but the biggest would make it to the Earth! I would not be able to fall into the embrace of the others in the end for my end would come too soon, and I would be alone, drifting in this space until I was nothing.

I wailed into the night until I had no more voice, and then i cried until I had no more eyes, and then i was just... Not.

And I returned to myself, blinking. I dropped my eyes from the sky and felt the twinges of the reality of that thought slam me in the back of the head. I let the little contented flakes fall onto my nose and then vanish. I looked down at my hands and felt their cold intensity burning at my fingertips....

Will I drift listlessly in this mass? I am not the bright, magnificent snowflake that made it to the ground. I am not riddled with gleaming facets and mirrored micro-icicles. I am not the snowflake you will notice the most as you stare up into the sky.

Most likely, I am the one that falls onto the shoulder of your jacket as you walk away, then vanish into not even a speck of water the minute you run inside for warmth. I am but a little white speck in the sky, steadily falling.

I hope at least... I blend into the landscape of so many others, whiting out the trees and fields. I hope at least I do not melt alone.

Oru

New Year

I did not make a resolution last year.

It's unfortunate, I know, but admittedly, I was a bit the worse for wear, and probably would have broken it on purpose to be spiteful. And, not to be negative, but I feel that 2010 has not started positively for me. Oh it was great up until about 3 in the morning. Then the slow decline blossomed through my devoted prayer to the porcelin God, climaxed at a bit of a tiff with the one I love, and ended with nausea and exhaustion.

From there, I had $20 stolen right out of my wallet at work, severe muscle pain, and one of those sour, persistant depressions that is nearly a herculean feat to get rid of.

But That was my little portion of self-depreciation for you to enjoy. Enough of that. I know none of you surfers out there actually read this, which I guess, is why I bothered to post it to begin with. But for those of you who do, on occasion, read my little posts here, I've got some good news.

When I think about the crappy beginnings of a New Year, I remember one bit of Theatrical Lore: When the entire cast falls appart, and their Dress Rehearsal before opening night is a complete and utter disaster - it means that the first show will blow everyone away with it's grandeur. The lines will be spot on, the queues will be hitchless, and everyone will remember in what order they bow. So, with this in mind, I will positively view that New Years Eve stint of nastiness, and the following few days, as the Dress Rehearsal. Practicing for the year ahead. And Since this week is technically the first week of the New Year, I have concluded that thought the dress rehearsal was absolute shit, the Show itself is going to be fantastic.

So remember. If your New Years was crappy, cheer up. You've got a lot of time to make it amazing. And a note of worth on the opposite: If your new years was amazing (As it should have been) Have no fear. There is no reverse Lore in the Theater for a wonderful Dress Rehearsal. That just means that you're ready to go, and enjoy the show!

Oh and as for my new Resolution: I have a few. To make up for previous years without.

1.) Attempt to become Fiscally Responsible! (Don't we all?)
2.) Update more frequently!
and on the same lines...
3.) Create a regimen of writing that I can sustain despite my busy schedule!


Here Here for Positive Thinking!

Oru