Friday, July 31, 2009

"Dream.Crush."

Crushes exists to allow us to live our lives vicariously with another person without actually having to realize what the reality of that relationship would be like. Crushes allow us to understand what the fantasy of being with another person would be like, but without all the messiness of actually getting involved with them. Crushes seem to always be resultant in an immediate and sometimes intense physical attraction, but the beauty of the crush is that the imagination lets the mind run free in fulfilling the idea that both physically and mentally this person is perfect for you.

To crush is the ability to fall for someone from afar, or sometimes even several people at once.

A crush is also a defense mechanism. It's a way to recognize that you'd never be able to actually initiate anything with these people, because you feel they are completely unattainable, or the more popular phrasing of "out of your league". So in a way there's no pressure to fulfill a crush because you don't think you necessarily have a chance with them, being that you don't think they would ever be interested ore that the timing is wrong or whatever the case may be.

Much like a crush, a dream can be fulfillment of the libido or attraction in the subconscious. Some dream analysts explain things representing other things as a call out to subversive things brimming underneath the surface of your conscious mind.

I say this is bullshit.

Dreams are manifestations of our subconscious to be sure, but they could also be a manifestation of positive thinking, something we want to make happen, something we think we can make happen.

Obviously in this case, the things have to be normal to the material world. Of course most people don't dream about unicorns and magic. Most people dream about themselves in the most abstract terms, whether they be metaphoric or literal.

So, what happens when the crush, something that can be determined as unattainable intersects with your dreams, something that your mind believes, at a subconscious level at least, is attainable by you.

I don't usually dream.

Strike that. I don't usually remember my dreams. At least no in any sort of vivid state. Usually it's very small fractured pieces that are largely gone from my memory by noon of the day after I had the dream.

Last night I had a dream that I remembered vividly. Well maybe not vividly, but I remember the intensity and memory of it sticking with me when I woke up this morning. Details aren't necessary, but it's caused me to think seriously about what it means, my above (perhaps now former) thought and conceptualization of the crush versus the concept of the dream.

My mind seems to be trying to tell me something (that sounds kind of crazy but true at the same time) that my fears and insecurities have help me from doing.

It's a weekend for thinking. Maybe too much so. But I feel like it also is some sort of muse to something creative in my near future.

That and it conceptualized how much more emotionally transformative simple kissing can be to sex.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

"Writer's Block."

What do you write when you're not sure what to write?

A riddle wrapped in a question wrapped in a conundrum.

Or something like that.

I've been sitting wondering about word for the last week.

Writing and re-writing.

Re-writing. Not revising.

I hate revising. One thing I've learned to this point is to never deny your first instincts. Instincts are all we have that tell us whats ultimately right and wrong for ourselves.

What we say can be infinitely different from what we write. Saying things involves depths of speech and words and actions that can't be interpreted on the page. A good writer is able to translate the emotions and motions of speech onto the page but it's never the same.

It's artificial.

I always prefer to write out things because I always think it explains my thoughts so much more vividly than if I'm placed on the spot and have to emote them through the little orifice on my face, which always always seems to betray me by either saying the wrong thing, deleting things, or saying nothing at all.

The only place where we can perceive things being more brilliant than on the written page is in our heads. Thinking about what you are going to write or say is really the precipice of meaning in what you are trying to convey. Thus it never gets any more pure than what's in your head.

Rarely have I ever heard a writer say that what they get out of their imaginations is exactly as they wanted on the written page. Sometimes it's better, some times it's not quite as good, but rarely, if ever is it the same. This also seems to take for granite that better or not as good is the same as pure.

They are not. Purity is as close as you can get to perfect in some aspects.

I'm not scared to write or say things, nor share them with othr people and yet there's an invisible undefinable wall that sometimes keeps me from doing so.

It's probably the inner critic in me saying that no one will like any of it.

Or maybe it's the inner critic in me saying it's not even worth comment, which I suppose is worse than being loved or hated.

Currently, there's all these things going in a million directions, and it's difficult to keep track because none of them have endpoints right now.

Or they could have endpoints...it's just the endpoints have not been placed.

Or something.

I want to be honest at it's core. I want to say what I mean and mean what I say.

I want to mean what i write and write what I mean.

But what if I don't know what that is?

Square one.

So...what do you say when you don't know what to say?

"Nothing."

At least right now.

Thanks.

Monday, July 13, 2009

"Rejection."

True story. I asked Tina Comeau to dance with me while Love Bites by Def Leppard played at the 7th grade dance. She said no. She said no because I never asked her to dance when we were in the 4th grade together. Tina and I had gone to school in Amesbury together, and then I moved, and then two years later she obviously convinced her parents to move to Haverhill to chase after me. Anyways, back to the story, her reasoning was fine and logical. Except we didn't have dances in the 4th grade. SO there is no way i could have asked her to dance.

This was just one in a long line of rejections I suffered early in my life with girls due to their not making any sense and me taking the rejection harder than I should.

Recently, I decided I wasn't going to be obsessed with the rejections of my youth any longer because it had gotten to a point where it intertwined throughout my life where starting and finishing things in general have become a gargantuan task. It started with my recent graduation, that for whatever reason, I have had as a monkey on my back for many years. I think it stems from not knowing what comes next after such a huge achievement being finished. But part of it also seems to be the inability to finish because not finishing in some way is better than the rejection felt by failing at something.

My second stint at school recently was much more streamline and easy than I remember the nightmare of my first stint. My first stint seemed a constant stressful game of procrastination and last minute papers tat didn't get passed in because they just weren't good enough. Rejection reared it's ugly head. This was compounded by a massive meltdown on my part due to a massive downfall and rejection of a relationship at the end of that first stint that seemed to all funnel the perfect storm of one of the lowest parts of my life. Depression followed, with the inability to get out of bed for a couple of months.

Then I told my self to stop it. And slowly but surely I've been building myself back up ever since.

I guess I at some point, beyond my immediate academic pursuits, like many others, would like to fancy myself a writer, a wordsmith if you would.

But until recently, I have never be able to get beyond conception of the ideas beyond my head. I say recently, because some of the great scholars at UMass-Boston actually helped me to bust through that fear of rejection just a little bit. The greatest thing a professor can say to a student who wants to write is "This is not up to your usual high standard of writing." Another thing, as said to my sibling, "Your parents read to you as children. It's how they turned out two fine writers."

So I want to teach. I feel an affinity for it and think I can help others realize their potential.

But I also want to write. For myself more than anybody else. But, the ego in me does say, for other people too. Because the greatest compliment in the world is people embracing what you've spent a long time sweating and slaving over, putting these words together in their oh so important and relevant order.

Great novelist and comic book scene setter Greg Rucka once said in a seminar I went to that, and I'm paraphrasing here, to become a good writer you have to write. Everyday. It doesn't matter what it is, if it's good or bad or indifferent. You have to write.

I guess the idea of rejection has kept me at times from doing this. But I'm sick of rejection.

That's not accurate. I'm tired of being scared.

The last few months I went through this whole thing were being afraid and not myself cost me a lot, whether it was my fault or not. More and more I think it wasn't my fault and fear and rejection were just and excuse for me to justify how things were.

The rejection, as it was, had nothing to do with me. Most of the rejection I self-harbor in my life in actuality has nothing to do with me.

A friend of mine in high school always had these girlfriends and I could never understand why or how. And one day I realized he was fearless. That was his key.

As it needs to be ours.

So in life, rejection is just an excuse. We all need to push it aside and no longer let it define who we are, but rather redefine it as any number of negative and needless things in our lives...it's just an excuse.

Live life. Do what you want to do. If you see something, try to reach for it. If you miss, you get other chances at bat.

Even Ted Williams struck out once in a while. But he still got back up to the plate.