If You Don't Keep Your Feet

It's been a while. So what's the point in coming back?

1.Going full circle.
2. New perspectives of the beginning and where you are now.
3. Never leave something incomplete.

Really, that's three ways of saying nearly the same thing.

Returning to the beginning always brings fresh perspectives which, when you're deep in an adventure, whether it's physical travel, a mental goal post or something else entirely, it's very easy to forget about where you are going. Your feet get swept off.

In other words; sometimes you are so close to a particular situation (your life) that you cannot see where the road is going, or where you actually want it to go, or where you had originally intended it to go.

Since I last wrote I've had a bit of that. Loosing my feet, getting some perspective, going back to the beginning (when I went home for a visit) and loosing my feet some more, getting more perspective and currently still existing in a state of slightly lost feet as the clock ticks on this particular experience.

I've been calling myself a writer and a photographer for a long time now. People give me envious looks. They cheer me on for being a creative individual. (As if it's some sort of select cult that only those with an intrinsic gene can enter. Ha. I'm creative because I like expressing myself differently and I've done it long enough I've had oodles of practice). 

Yesterday I just told someone I am an imaginist. As in, my job, my career, my life. All in one. They looked at me oddly but with envy again.

The ability to freely choose your identity, your time, your life. That's the ultimate for all people (dictated by society to keep us unsatisfied), and yet, very few ever step onto the road and let themselves get lost in the imagination, the wonder, the "who knows what will happen next week or next month."

Letting go of your feet is one of the most frightening things you can do. And this is coming from someone who has only done that halfway. To fully let go of your feet, letting go of friends, family, home and belongings for a time or longer would be more true to that way of life but, despite the ultimate (dictated by society to keep us unsatisfied) belief of freedom to choose your identity, time and life, you really don't, and don't want to, because certain things exist, such as cars, buses, trains, airplanes, theatres, restaurants, parks, pools, books, films, chocolate and computers, that most would not give up.

Thus one must play into ladder of employment, of government documented identity and a life rotated around mental misery because "freedom" and "happiness" are untangible and definitely individual ideals but also, ones which, if you've been born into society, you'll inevitably be influenced by the definitions which society formulates. Even if you scoff at the current ideal of "high-paying job, marriage, car, house, kids" thing which has been around since the early 20th century.

Oh please. All of that is desperately passé. Also, it's the 21st century. 'Bout time we made our own ideal. And it's there. A bit. Struggling along with most of us millenials who saw the lives of older generations and put our feet down. With a stomp.

Thing is, all that stomp is still very much just the moon rune riddle on a map. Not even the map itself, let alone a decent trail.

The first step is solving that riddle.

Start by testing your limits. How far can you give things up? What can you give up? How much control do you want over your freedom, identity and life?

Freedom being defined here as: The ability to create a living.
Identity being defined here as: The overall image you associate yourself with. (Yes we all wear different hats, but ultimately, everyone can boil their identity down to one word which encompasses all the hats. Try thinking of emotive language, of active language; a maker, an inventor, a saver, a helper, a planner etc).
Life being defined here as: The event you choose to make up each day, week, month and year.

Spend an hour this week making a list of all the things you could give up and all the things you could not. Give a reason for each.

Think too about what single word defines you. This is your job. This is what you are here to do and be. Not a chef, not a manager, not a lawyer, not a archivist, not a customer service agent or an artist. No, you are more than that.

You are also your feet. Take a look at where they have taken you this past year. It's autumn and nearing the best time of the year to curl up in a chair with a cup of tea. This time to reflect on where you have been and where you are going.

Don't let your doer feet get wild, don't let your inventor feet get distracted. Focus next on your freedom and life.
Can you create living with at least some of the events you fill your time with?
Do the other events support this living by expanding a part of your identity and freedom through knowledge, connections or other faucets?
Does frustration play into any of your answers? If so, why?
How will you cope with the frustration?
Where will you go from here?

Everything out there means something if you look at it hard enough but also, sometimes a leaf is just a leaf and the wind just blew it in a direction which made it hit your face.

When you step out your door today, don't be afraid to look away from your feet, but know that they will sweep you off toward directions you might never have planned for.

When you step into your door today, look down at your feet. Thank them and then get yourself a cup of tea, a writing implement and get on with drawing that map.

Moony

Unpacking People's Perspectives

"A philosopher once asked, "Are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at them because we are human?"

Pointless, really..."Do the stars gaze back?" Now that's a question." 
— Neil Gaiman (Stardust)

I love to imagine the sort of people statues like this one in Athens see on a daily basis.

Haven't done a quote of the week post in a long time so this is me getting back on that particular train after I stumbled across this gem, scrolling GoodReads between writing CV's the other day. 

Today's feature is another one of my favourite authors. Known for Stardust, Coraline, American Gods, Neverwhere, episodes of Doctor Who, among many other things. This is one of my favourite quotes because depending on how you read it or what you focus on, you could take it multiple different ways. Sometimes I take it to mean we should wonder, we should imagine. Today I took it as being aware of the perspectives of ourselves and others in the world.  

I'd don't have any piquant tale, nothing that deals with dark and cruel issues, from the world's and my own perspective I am a middle-class Caucasian Canadian female; in reality, I should have nothing to say in terms of bad perspectives, I have no right to say anything really. I'm one step down from the top of priviledge, which, if I had been male, would have been it.

Then again, I am writing this as me, authentic with my "curious way of viewing the world" as someone recently said to me. I couldn't tell you what is so curious about my perspective though, because it is my perspective. I can however recognize there are faults in my perspective, and at the least, that is a good start to always learning how to having a less judgemental one, whether the perspective is being turned on yourself, on others, or one which others turn on you.

I have two experiences which involve someone's perspective of me and how I took the words from my perspective. From your perspective you might feel they were completely deserved and I overeacted and that is your perspective and that's okay.

"You're too mousey. Fix it."

One of my managers said this to me a couple years ago. It hurt. Badly. It hit all the corners I knew were holding me back, all the corners which had always left me in shadows, forgotten, even by individuals I called friends. I know I am an Introvert (yeah, blog title a giveaway much?), I know I have a tendancy to be shy and it takes time before I'm comfortable with a person, especially when I am aware they are sonic-scanning my every move for some fault. Like not giving good eye-contact, apparently I visibly shake, rambling, mumbling and speaking in a breathy voice. I've been shot down all the time because of those first impressions that failed, even though I know, give me time to get comfortable, get me focused on something, so I forget I'm being stared at (like with piano performances or Irish dancing), and I'll be a fantastic at whatever you want me to be. Sadly, the business world doesn't have the time or patience to allow that and I live in fear because of that knowledge, when logically I know, they are just as human too.

After all, I look back on that experience now and I realize, she said it probably to help me. She was a blunt individual and working in the Wal-mart PhotoCentre as your main job is going to do that to anyone after a while anyway. Businesses don't have time or energy to be quiet and kind. She also might have just been having a bad day and I was a week into being new and wasn't "perfect" enough with a few of the processes. It happens.
 
What have employers said to you in your past that hurt? Why do you think they said it? How did you react? Have you let it go or is it still dragging you down? 

"Hahaha! Stupid elephant ears! You shouldn't wear it up."

Second day of high school, my hair in a French braid. I wore a pink collared shirt, practical beige shorts and Teva sandals. I look back on it now, mortified that I didn't have a better backbone to not just wear what I thought my mom would want me to, or that I didn't have enought of a perspective to know what I truly wanted to wear. Either way, I was thirteen, impressionable and still very, very shy.

That didn't go very well with the boy in science class who sat next to me and made the comment when he saw my hair (and ears). I later pegged him as a trouble student who was always mouthy to teachers, got suspended a lot, somehow graduated and I haven't a clue what he's doing today. Either way, he was my bain of existence for the first few years of high school, after which he got bored when I would just mumble a response back or ignore his shoving and pushing.

I know now he probably said that stuff because he was trying to make himself feel better for who knows what reasons. He might have done it because he thought he was funny. Most of the guys in high school tended to say rude or mean things, flat out ignore me or would gang up to pull my hair at my locker (yay for curls, not). I still haven't cracked their perspectives and don't know what prompted those words or actions, but I moved on. I ignored it and stuck it all into a box in my mind.

However, I never, ever did wear my hair up again in high school or around high school people. (Nor have I spoken to many since graduating). It took until about two years ago that I finally was confident to wear it up in public. I let someone else's words dictate me into a state of fear.

Fear. That is all perspective come down to. It might be your self-perspective, which is actually by far the harshest because it takes your own voice and the things you've learned and experienced in the outside world. Then it becomes internalized, running a marathon of self-hatred 24/7.

It might be the perspective of others on you, which comes out of their own internalizations of self-perspective and of their present emotions, because humans are quite fantastic at just blurting things without thinking of the ramifications first.

It might be your perspective of others, which could be skewed because you are not that individual person. I'll never know why that manager said what she said or why she was the way she was, let alone whatever went on in the head of that hormone-raging trouble boy (and his friends). Even my friends of the time. Though they are a huge anomaly of confusion and misunderstandings that will probably wait for another day to explore.

It has however kept me aware that I am a very shy individual who finds it hard to be comfortable around people until some time and acquaintance passes. Get to that point and I'm an intuitive and intelligent conversationalist. However I'm also abnormally sensitive to words, invasions of space, and especially jabs on my ability to perform exceptionally at whatever task I am set.

For now, I invite you to think back on things people have said to you, or how they've acted around you.

How have those words or actions impacted you?

Think about what they may have taught you about yourself and your own perspectives. Grow from these experiences. However small, however serious. Grow. Don't stop. Open your leaves to the sun and learn lots.

Always observing.
Moony. 

Walking the Edges (How to Make an Impact?)

"When you come to the edge of all that you know, you must believe one of two things: either there will be ground to stand on, or you will be given wings to fly."
— O.R. Melling (The Summer King (The Chronicles of Faerie, #2))

I believe in faeries. Do you?

I also believe we forge our own fates. Do you?

There are two parts to today's post: Part one is a bit of forward looking as I stumbled across an interesting mixed list of people recently released by TIMES. Found here. Part two is a lot of past nostaliga, in the form of a childhood which contained a lot of faeries and very little to do with locating a source of monetary income that had more purpose than showing me a lot of numbers in my bank account.


While I was browsing GoodReads for a quote to use today I got a google alert about an article from the TIMES about the 100 Most Influential People of 2014, so I checked it out.

It's a fascinated browse through pop-singers and politicians. Actors and activists.

I was shocked at some, in total agreement with those I knew, inspired by many and interested to discover others.

I haven't a clue what the TIMES uses as a bar by which to compare, contrast and weed through to these 100 individuals but whatever the case may be, it made me think about how I want to form my future. Currently it's all a bit of a cloud of stuff; tangled as I am with far too many creative endeavours (a friends recently convinced me to compile my personal encyclopedia into a wiki which is no small feat) in addition to being required to function as a useful member of my family, since I am back living with them.

Since there were many individuals to admire on the list I'll just focus on the two similar and yet, opposing figures who stood out to me in the same professional area which I wish to enter. Authors.

John Green. Have you heard of him?

His most recent novel: The Fault in Our Stars, is coming out as a movie this summer, though he has authored numerous books before that one. He is also one half of the famous brother duo on Youtube known as the Vlogbrothers who started up a group called the Nerdfighers. The Nerdfighers maxim is "Don't Forget to Be Awesome" and ultimately is all about being empowered and empowering others.

I have yet to read John Green's novels but the vlogs he and his brother do are hugely inspiring and I will leave it at that, otherwise I'll never get around to the rest of my post points. You can check out their channel here if your interested: Vlogbrothers Channel.

The other author who I stumbled across as I randomly clicked some of the 100 individuals who I could not recognize via their thumbnail portrait was Donna Tartt. Do you know her? I didn't. Still don't really, seeing as I just discovered her a couple hours ago.

Anyway, what stood out for me, between her and John Green was that she has been much quieter on the front of notoriety and being recognizable via a single image as many of these 100 figures were. (Not all, but many). Also, she has only published three novels, having a decade sitting between each, and during this period, the individual who wrote the tribute to her on TIMES, suggested Donna used that time to become her characters she would get so deeply immersed in them which is, in my opinion, the act of a true artist, speaking not just from a surface level, but an experiential heart level. That is not to say anything other authors, like John Green, or my favourite and highly prolific author, Terry Pratchett, are any less artistic, it's just that her's is perhaps a more sedate art that resembles a stroll along one of the foggy beaches of North Vancouver Island rather than the vibrant flash of culture and art found in the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul.

All that said, it made me think about who I am and the sort of impact I want to leave. Will I do what I am most passionate about and disregard all my other interests for the sake of succeeding in one area or will I dabble in multiple things and remain rather mundane and just another blip on the radar of human births and deaths. Like John Green, Donna Tartt, my university friends pursuing creative writing degrees and getting their scripts made into plays, or any other person I happen to know and admire, so I have what it takes to be anything more than a rambler in a corner?

So I sat with my faeries (and this is where Part two comes into play).

If you give a faerie a book. She'll ask you to read it outloud. If you read the book outloud, she'll ask you for...

I sat with my faeries. Outside. In a grassy corner supported by a rock wall on one side and cedar bushes on the other. I closed my eyes, soaking in the juice of sunlight and thought back to the days when the grass was a great jungle, when under the birch tree was a great forest and the only thing I, the faeries or my fellow adventurers were concerned with was exploring new lands, running a lot and imagining what those places looked like.

As I said at the beginning; sadly, those sorts of imaginings do little for the reality we live in which requires much more than a strong imagination to create the right order of pixellated numbers on your computer screen which determine whether you are broke, in poverty, comfortable or a rolling billionaire. How much should I worry about that though over doing one of my creative pursuits, like writing?

In reality, if I want to go much of anywhere, like with anything, you have to put in the same amount of effort and time you hope to get out in rewards. Or, at least, that is what we are always told. I'm not convinced that is true, at least not anymore. Not when grabbing information and expressing ourselves can occur in a couple clicks. On the other hand, that also inspires a lot of laziness and desire for things to happen *now* which tend to also only get augmented when you view lists like TIMES 100 Most Influential People of 2014 and you come across individuals who are not just ten, twenty, thirty years old than you, but a mere five.

And so I return to my faeries. Being faeries, there would often be a lot of imagining around flying; soaring through the blue sky, bouncing of bulbous clouds and zipping over the deep greens of the lawns below. In those times there was never any thought, any fear really, of falling, of crashing to the ground and ending in a horrific splatter of guts and forgotten bones. Unfortunately it's much easier to exist in the land of the imaginary than it is to face reality; even when it is literally screaming at you in the face, in the form of the general noise that occupies large families.

I was told 2014 would be an amazing year for me. So far it's turning into a lot of backpedaling and doing things which are keeping me stuck in someone else's chosen lifestyle rather than my own. Really, me be stuck on this edge is my own choice. I've said before, there is always a choice. I could up and leave and live homeless. Whether it is fear, or a ridiculous amount of rationality stopping me, who knows.

Regardless of what was said to me, I personally made resolutions on New Years (like most people). I hoped to actually complete them this year. Whether or not that remains to be seen, comes down to two things. The second half of this year and whether or not I'll try flying again, like I did with my faeries as a child and do what I am most passionate about, regardless of how long it takes.

Loitering in corners and walking sideways through edges.
Moony.

Quotitarian Quiffery (or: Life and the Universe though Terry Pratchett)

Due to this thing called Life which does tend to fly through you rather than with you. Like a regular old aeroplane, I missed my usual Thursday quote muse. Not that there is much of a problem with missing it seeing as Time just sits there until you do something with it. Though just sitting there tends to make it melt a too quick. Sort of like leaving your ice cream cone on a table. Ice cream and tables are a bad combination. Stick them together for even two seconds and you'll still find yourself having to frenetically lap up the drippy bits.

This is a wall. It is built of bits from other walls. The Question: Is it an original wall or just a lazy one?

Anyway, I've corraled Time with some velcro-strapped Semtex just to keep things interesting. I'm actually supposed to piling up the desserts for Easter tomorrow. Whoever decided Easter required desserts is probably trying to sell you something and frankly I cannot see the point of it. (Well, that part at least). I can and love the part of Easter which involves solving a series of elaborate riddles in order to locate the years stash of chocolate eggs.

Easter is one of those events which can be aptly summed up by the following genius:

"The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it."
— Terry Pratchett (Diggers (Bromeliad Trilogy, #2))

Whether it is how one is supposed to celebrate the events listed on your mass produced calendar (if you roll that way), or if it is what events your are even supposed to celebrate, the entire point of humanity seems to be a race to make the bathwater of the brain overflow with ideas and thoughts that are not actually your own. How do you know you even have your own thoughts? They are so influenced and effected by your surroundings, the people, the place and the things in it. Plus those people, the place and the things have all had influence from other sources as well. So really, your brain is a bathtub in which all sorts of scented bubble soaps are dumped, in attempt to create another individual who can carry on a certain idea or concept. That way, of course, the originator doesn't have to be alone. Right? Well, that's just me trying to find a positive reason behind the exploitation that drived 99.9% of everything in this society.

Before these pillars. A building existed. Orginally, of course.

 Then again, some format of bathwater is needed and no one can survive as an entirely blank slate simply because humans also happen to be descended from animals who do not necessarily think before they act. Which is why the classic snap trap with some sort of tasty food beneath it, will always work, unless you're dealing with a cat. They have opinions. And schedules. Don't Ever, Ever, mess them up. They are masters at the death-ray glare. So, perhaps it is okay to be influenced because it's going to happen, unless you have decomposed into dirt and by that point you're probably just weasling around greedy roots that are trying to squish you to some alternative form of death that only dirt can have. That said, once influenced, humans stop at nothing to poke things. It's hilarious to think about, I mean, who cannot laugh at a phrase like this:

The Doctor: "...there's something that doesn't make sense. Let's go poke it with a stick." (Doctor Who S5.7).

If you didn't at least chuckle there must be something wrong with you and I suggest you check in with your local automaton shop and request an upgrade in your humour lobes. Then again, poking things with sticks is also highly dangerous for the indivduals involved in the poking and, if you want to get dark, the individuals or things being poked could also be at risk. Don't go pressing any Big Red Buttons unless you are absolutely certain of the consequences. The great Terry Pratchett agrees with me these counts.

"Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry."
— Terry Pratchett (Thief of Time (Discworld, #26))

Well, he mostly agrees. On the things that should count, like that people have an insatiable curiousity and regardless of the apocalyptic, planet-blowing-up consequences, 9.99999 times out of 10, humans will race to the finish line of "Who Can Poke That Thing First" and proceed to cause problems for the Universe. Then again, he prefers switches over buttons and that I cannot quite agree with, after all, what's more inviting? A giant red button you could dramatically pump your fist down on or a switch that you could twig up and down with a pinky?

Spot the Moon. It's been the Big Button in the Sky since humanity's post-ape days.

Then again that really is entirely up to the Kettle of Esthetics. Which (conveniently) leads me into another point regarding the Limbs of Human Thought-Processes which are just asking to be tickled to a metaphorical death. See, esthetics, being basically how pretty something is to an indvidual's eyesight, leads right back to that whole idea about individual choice. Just how much of your esthetic choices are truly your own? Probably nil. Tragic thought isn't it? That none of your thoughts are probably originally yours. Even if you were raised by wolves and lived like a hermit in the middle of the tundra you will still be influenced by that lifestyle. And wolves. So perhaps the idea of not having a single one of your own unique thoughts is okay. Because everyone and everything is sitting in the same boat (minus any tigers).

I finally got around to watching The Lego Movie recently and it rather deftly deals with ideas of originality, the freedom of the individual to create and what happens when you are influenced to create certain things in a certain way. But I'll not go into here as I'm attempting to focus on Terry Pratchett in this particular ramble. Though even with Terry Pratchett you could spend hours to years analysing his works because of the piquant universal insights he has wrapped in a genius fantasy world of endless humour. Sadly it is because of that particular choice of wrapping paper that universities have yet to add him onto any reading lists.

Then again, in a hundred years Terry Pratchett might very well end up on a reading list, after all, Jane Austen and Dickens were considered to be the sort of leisure reading done by young girls or working class individuals lacking in morality or intellect. Nowadays anyone who reads those two are considered almost as high-nosed as anyone who as actually read (and I mean cover to cover with no skimming) James Joyce's Ulysseys for example. Though anyone who hasn't and still says they have are about as worse as the depth of Mariana's Trench, which is to say, deeply worse. 

The day a cat treats you like a Freshly Laundered Pile, you're probably famous. They don't associate with grass-stains.

In a messy bow-tie of all my musings around these scant few Terry Pratchett gems I entreat you to keep your eyes always moving. When you are trekking through whatever dusty, muddy or tidy concrete sidewalk you happen to be currently on, don't just look at the path so you can skip the cracks or the roots, make sure you avoid other people moving in other directions, or branches, branches are violent. They'll poke out your eyes. If you aren't looking first. Be aware the things you celebrate are largely a mass social construct devised primarily to eat holes in your wallet and make them less about stuff and more about imagination. Make up stories to explain why you do things that have nothing to do with bunnies or baskets or even the religions you follow. Try making up your own personal mythology. Make sure to do a taste test, like baking cookies, you cannot bake your own mythology without making sure it tastes good to you first. Once you've done so, add this mythology to whatever else existed first, whether it was related to bunnies and baskets or your particular religion.

Guess what you've just done? You've created something new. Sure, it might still sit the the trappings many other people follow, but there will be parts personalized for just you. That's how you can keep an open mind and still poke things with sticks without causing too much of a baking soda and vinegar explosion. It's as simple as that stereotyped science project. Except now, maybe instead of placing that mixture in a volcano you've dropped it down cardboard toiletpaper tubes and have it aimed at your bath tub. After all, in the words of Terry Pratchett (through the voice of Death):    

"Death: Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know, that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom."
— Terry Pratchett (Hogfather (Discworld, #20))

Don't fall prey to boredom. Keep that life interesting. Keep creating. Though in case of boredom, know this:

"A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read."
— Terry Pratchett (Guards! Guards! (Discworld, #8))

Also this: 

"He'd been wrong, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was a flamethrower."
— Terry Pratchett (Mort (Discworld, #4))

And don't forget: 

"Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving." 
— Terry Pratchett (A Hat Full of Sky (Discworld, #32))

Tickling away Time. And sort of, but not really, apologizing for the conveyor-belt of quotes that are meant to provide pithy insight into things like missing socks and broken pencils.

Moony.

P.S: As an admirer of Terry Pratchett's genius I also follow his environmental consciousness regarding the use of the English language. In other sentences, that is all just to say: 

"This [post] was written using 100% recycled words."
— Terry Pratchett (Wyrd Sisters (Discworld, #6))

Redefining Creativity (A Quote Contemplation)

Today's Thursday Quote: 
"Creativity is just connecting things." Steve Jobs

I've mentioned before I generally avoid lists because it is always so hard to choose the best/the worst/most interesting/most challenging etc. I see all those things in everything. (Okay, some are more definite than others, but that is beside the point).

I suspect this dislike of lists stems from being an individual who (in general) likes and does a lot of different things. I stumbled across another interesting label yesterday that made me think about my personal qualities versus the qualities society says you should have. This label could peg me as a low level multipotentialite. Though in a way it is comforting (like my Introvertedness), to have a term for what I have always considered my personal failing, it is not one I will be sticking on my forehead anytime soon since it is far more business oriented than I feel at the moment.


First I have other aspects of myself to look through and appreciate but it was a fascinating find to have another perspective on my status as someone who is good at many things but not superior; in the way someone who specializes would be. I've always looked on the people who have one single interest, passion and success with great envy. The few friends I had through my school years were all that specialized superior sort who are now going on to become opera singers and doctors.

I would include a list (ha, oh the irony) of all the things I can do or am interested in but who wants to read about someone else's skills/interests? If enough people reading this actually have a desperate curiousity to know, then I would definitely share, otherwise, I will refrain from inflicting you with even more of my scatterbrained rambling. 

The point regardless is that I always seen myself as a Jack-of-All-Trades-Master-At-None. I have seen myself as average, boring (insert further negative self-identifications here).

Always though I'd be a fantastic spy. Plus that's all I was between ages 9-12.

Are you a multipotentialite? Take a moment and think about it. Would you have been one had society not pushed you with the old 20th century ideal of specialization?

Upon stumbling on that quote by Steve Jobs and the multipotentialite movement I am thinking more on what can we, who have multiple skills and interests, do, with all of them at once. Not everyone is happy doing one thing for their whole life, and nor should people be forced to choose. Then again I have always dreamed of being a published author, soley living off my writing,  so I am perhaps not a true multipotentialite (hence the addition of "low level" earlier) but I am the sort of person who would get bored if I only wrote, day in and out. (Plus as I aim for that dream I have taken many detours so that I might have things to write about when I get there).

I want to take up Irish dancing again, I will always be a pianist and definitely a swimmer. I hope to develop my artistic skills further and my writing is always changing. Ideas are endless after all. A month ago I had an idea for a dramatic podcast a la Nightvale crossed with a BBC Radio drama which is still composting around my novel and contest work. I have also done numerous blogs in the past which were written entirely from the perspective of a character and even tried out epic poetry a few times. Dare I mention I have a Tumblr entitled "A Series of Disconnected Thoughts" which is really just a way for me to collect images I find interesting in one spot. See, it's all about the connections, even when you are using societies love of specialization to create ironic humour.

Pumpkins look seriously uniform but in reality they are enormously diverse.

That brings me to this: everything may have already been done but everything has not been done the way you might do it. I feel that's some of what Steve Jobs is getting at with his quote about connectivity and creativity. Namely, we have access to so many things, absolutely everything and anything really, that all we need to do is make some sense of it, find the common denominators, and from all those disconnected things, a new things will come, a new thought, a new phrase. A a new product.


The other part about creativity and connectivity we cannot forget either is connecting with each other to make something new. Yes, brilliance has come and always will come from single minds and forces but brilliance also comes from connecting with the right people in order for those single minds to share their brilliance, or, perhaps, to make it better. However, I will just say here that I strongly believe no one should be forced to work with others when creating, just as no one should be forced to work alone when creating. We are all different people, with different skills and interests. Yes, some of us have many, but, if you write down all your skills and interests just see if you cannot find a connecting theme through them all. I guarantee you that there is one.

For example, the theme which runs through everything I am skilled at or interested in is: grand storytelling.

Everything I do or am interested in tells a story in some way and usually it is a story that has many layers, that spans centuries, a single day in the life of many and always, always has some sort of message. William Blake once said "to see a World in a Grain of Sand" and to me, even a rubber duck has great things to say about life. After all, the innards of a rubber duck have a great eloquence on the state of ones childhood.

Think about that for a moment. (William Blake's quote, not rubber ducks, unless you like them).

One drop of thought is all it takes.

All in all, what I want to leave you with is a drop of water through which you might reflect back on your past interests and skills, current interests and skills and how they all connect together to say something about you as a person. Humans are complex creatures. We are not meant for specialization. (Generally). (Cheers to exceptions!).

What a dull world that would be if we came out like cardboard cutouts.

Though if that were so I would probably take scissors, paint, string, a lightbulb and that infamous horror of all child projects, glitter glue, and create something new.

What is your brand of creativity?

Making messes and occasionally sense.
Moony.

“Creativity is just connecting things.” -Steve Jobs - See more at: http://puttylike.com/4-skills-that-will-dramatically-increase-your-chance-of-thriving-as-a-multipotentialite/#sthash.Lgwvsc8T.dpuf

“Creativity is just connecting things.” -Steve Jobs - See more at: http://puttylike.com/4-skills-that-will-dramatically-increase-your-chance-of-thriving-as-a-multipotentialite/#sthash.Lgwvsc8T.dpuf

“Creativity is just connecting things.” -Steve Jobs - See more at: http://puttylike.com/4-skills-that-will-dramatically-increase-your-chance-of-thriving-as-a-multipotentialite/#sthash.Lgwvsc8T.dpuf

There“Creativity is just connecting things.” -Steve Jobs - See more at: http://puttylike.com/4-skills-that-will-dramatically-increase-your-chance-of-thriving-as-a-multipotentialite/#sthash.Lgwvsc8T.dpuf

“Creativity is just connecting things.” -Steve Jobs - See more at: http://puttylike.com/4-skills-that-will-dramatically-increase-your-chance-of-thriving-as-a-multipotentialite/#sthash.Lgwvsc8T.dpuf

“Creativity is just connecting things.” -Steve Jobs - See more at: http://puttylike.com/4-skills-that-will-dramatically-increase-your-chance-of-thriving-as-a-multipotentialite/#sthash.Lgwvsc8T.dpufthtawtehjhejklsetse

“Creativity is just connecting things.” -Steve Jobs - See more at: http://puttylike.com/4-skills-that-will-dramatically-increase-your-chance-of-thriving-as-a-multipotentialite/#sthash.Lgwvsc8T.dpuf

“Creativity is just connecting things.” -Steve Jobs - See more at: http://puttylike.com/4-skills-that-will-dramatically-increase-your-chance-of-thriving-as-a-multipotentialite/#sthash.Lgwvsc8T.dpuf

“Creativity is just connecting things.” -Steve Jobs - See more at: http://puttylike.com/4-skills-that-will-dramatically-increase-your-chance-of-thriving-as-a-multipotentialite/#sthash.Lgwvsc8T.dpuf

Thought of Thursday

I like challenges. I live for competition. It has led to some dangerous family Scrabble games and brutal soccer showdowns. It has led to me comparing myself to everyone under the sun since the age I had enough consciousness to do so. That said, challenges can be healthy and since I haven't been the healtiest in terms of being kind to myself I figure the best way to do it is to challenge myself to write about some sort of meaningful quote I dig up for every Thursday.

So with that, welcome to the first Thought of Thursday and today's thinking quote. This week I jumped to goodreads and turned to my authorial hero, the one and only father of fantasy *epic swell of music* JRR Tolkien. Since I've been blabbing vaguely about "fear" lately, here's a rather fitting quote from one of my favourite female characters of Middle Earth. Éowyn.

"What do you fear, lady?" [Aragorn] asked.
"A cage," [Éowyn] said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire."
- JRR Tolkien (Return of the King)

A cage. Would anyone want to be in a cage? Whether literal, or in the case, very much a figurative sort of object, no one wants to be trapped. This is one of the things that I adore about Tolkien's Middle Earth. So many events, people, actions, words, all still apply quite strongly to today.

What world is beyond the window?

Yes, there are certain points when you can tell terribly that he was writing from an early 20th century white, English male, professorial perspective, such as with his tendancy to have only male characters, like "The Hobbit" or that his famous trilogy has Arwen sidelined to the Appendices. She doesn't even actually appear in the plotline itself except on brief mentions. Éowyn herself is refering to how women in her culture are meant to stay at home and keep the fort strong and safe until the men come home from whatever valour-filled expedition or war they went off on.

This is just touching the rather obvious, and yet, if you dig into "The Silmarillion," "The Unfinished Tales" and the reems of notes that often contradict, contradictions, in the twelve volume "History of Middle Earth" (HME) you find powerful female characters and so many intricate details, I learn new things every time. I am planning a post on the conversation between the wise woman Andreth and the elven lord Finrod about mortality/immortality from the HME Volume 10, "Morgoth's Ring" (in case anyone actually cares...). Anyway, in this brief, off-side rant about one thing people bash Tolkien for, just keep in mind his time period and that he wrote Middle Earth as a mythology for England in the style of the epics of Norse mythology.

Anyway, in Éowyn's quote about fearing cages, I see today's world, and I know it is something many people fear. I certainly do. The fear of being trapped somewhere or in something we do not want to be trapped into. Whether it is a job, a relationship or a general lifestyle. Somewhere there is something we are not happy with that we cannot get out of. We feel we are meant for better and greater things. We dream and daydream. We make lists. We compare. We make more lists. Resolutions. Goals. Read self-help books and chart our progress with lines, graphs and so much math it is like people want to be back in high school math class, falling asleep at a desk or hitting their forehead in the desperate hope the answer might leak out one ear like water does after going swimming.

Is life just a series of notes to hop to?

So right there is the easy relatabilty to Tolkien's world and characters, despite it being "fantasy" and in a culture and time period far removed from ours. Easy enough right? Good, because next I want you to take a moment and think about your definition of "great deeds." For Éowyn, a great deed was being a part of a great battle, preferably facing down and defeating a terrible enemy. She did in fact end up doing that as the one who defeated the Witch King but then, she gets a bit sidelined when she and Faramir meet in the Houses of Healing, fall in love and get married. I always wonder what sort of wife she would be. Would she be content to stay in Ithilien while Faramir acted as Steward and advisor to King Elessar? Maybe. She did do a great deed. Then again, maybe not. Not like she got a medal.

So what is your definition of a great deed? Mine is this: a great deed is an accomplishment I have been striving toward and that which recognizes the effort I have put in toward achieving said accomplishment. It is a definition that is both simple but hugely self-centered. I know most of society says great deeds today are ones which make a different to humanity at large, they are ones which are for the larger social good. To that I say, I am an Introvert. I don't take well to parading my face in front of crowds, let alone speaking to them. I have no need of being recognized by society as some fantastically great person worthy of a Noble Prize. No, I just want to accomplish something that is important to me personally and whether or not anyone else sees that accomplishment and recognizes the effort I used to achieve it, great, but at heart, I need to recognize and cherish the accomplishment for it to matter.

Caring for other living things. Is that a great deed?

 If I don't stop and recognize the accomplishment then it is just a piece of paper. Like my recent degrees, achieved in the space of five years. Few manage even one in five years. I pulled off two. It was something I wanted to do so I did it. Not as well as I could have. There were certainly moments I am not proud of. But in the end I did it. At the end of it all though I realized parts of it felt hollow. That is because I achieved those things with the recognition of other people in mind. I fell back into the social fault of needing others recognition to feel validated. Which is, to turn back to Éowyn and her desire to do something great and not be stuck where she would end her days in regret, what I believe even Éowyn fell into in part. After all, she achieves the great deed but then ends up in a rather typical situation of marriage. Is Éowyn as guilty as some of us with being caught up in our respective culture's ideals of what makes for a meaningful life? (Then again that is where fanfiction is brilliant because it addresses the whys, wherefores and aftermaths of things like the marriage of Éowyn and Faramir).

Following that train of societal influence and expectation I wonder: Do we even need to "great deeds?"

My mom for example, recognizes society cannot keep going down the path of consumerist waste that it is on. However she has no grand ideas of enacting good changes for the population like one of my brothers, no, instead she is just concerned with her immediate family and self-awareness. She wants to have a life on a self-sufficient farm. To her, a great deed is more about doing the best for her family than changing the lives of humans somewhere else in the world. 


So to wrap this ramble up, I, like no one else, wants to be caged, trapped, cornered, whatever synonym you feel like planting there. I, like most people, seek to do something meaningful with my life, something that will mean I don't end it with regrets or forgotten with dust bunnies under the bed. (Though anyone who can forget dust bunnies has obviously never lost any socks to them).

Éowyn as a character, and this quote in particular serve as reminders to me to always be conscious of never letting myself get trapped and ultimately making sure whatever I am doing will not lead to any regrets. That is not to say I am a lazy individual who won't work hard and things I don't necessarily enjoy. I do. However, the difference is that I know as I slug through boring schoolwork, or a lifeguarding job with terrible coworkers and bosses that I focus on why I am doing it. How whatever I am doing will contribute to my ultimate goal of a great deed. Whatever the great deed might manifest itself as at the time.

Wandering in circles but always going somewhere.
Moony.

An Avalanche of Detour Signs

Into the West we will all go.

"You are not seperate from the whole. You are one with the sun, the earth, the air. You don't have a life. You are life." Eckhart Tolle

I like to think I embody the pastel colours of the above photograph, taken on an equally pastel temperature sort of day, mid-February, three years past when some things where similar to now and other things were mostly different.

Taking the above quote into account (and herein excuse my intentional misuse of it), I assume I am mostly different, but not entirely, from three years ago because I am part of the whole. The whole of yesterday, yester-year, tomorrow and two years from now. In reality the quote means you and I are, in alchemic terms: One and All. All and One.

Frankly that gives as much comfort as the night I deluded myself into hoping the frog (brought into my bedroom by one of my cats) that hopped into and knocked over the beside lamp before disappearing under the bed wasn't going to do any more hoping until I woke up in the morning more prepared to return it to a habitat with more water than the glass on my desk.

I have to wonder, as I sit down from the high of yesterday's celebratory day of birth (and leftover homemade Greek food), if I am life, are the ups and downs of my life so far meant to mirror the dramatics of volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and tripping over the sunbathing cat sprawl of pine tree roots? Probably not. One, tripping, on the scale of a potato beetle to the Eiffel Tower, is about as important as the stink bug. Two, why does tripping matter when a billion people are suffering the aftermaths of an earthquake? How do you reply to that?

One, everybody trips. Even your cat, or your neighbours cat (if you don't have one), or your neighbour's neighbour's cat. Two, if everybody trips, then everybody is life and life is tripping. Therefore every time someone trips a domino falls and knocks the next one over.

(This is the point in time when we reach me explaining the title of this post and purpose of this blog because why else would you bother coming here? Okay, maybe you get perverse amusement laughing at my naivitie, rambling, hideous grammar, or something, because like tripping, there is complaining, always). This tripping will manifest itself as a life resembling an avalanche. An avalanche of detour signs. This blog is both a reflection on the detours I have made in my domino track of tripping and what sort of impact I have made because I may be a potato bug on the scale of important humans but I am a perfect little bug, rolly polly tripping along as I navigate my next set of detours toward, maybe, just maybe forming one of those brilliant domino picture constructions you can go look up on YouTube now. 

Okay, not now. Almost. See, I just have one more thing to say before I let you run off into the purple. I am a nearly mid-twenty-something Introvert, Geek, Bookworm, Pianist and numerous other labels. Mostly though I am, as much as I would prefer not to admit it (so cherish this moment), human. A human who is simply trying to trip her way brilliantly through a series of avalanches that make up her Coquihalla Highway of Life.

Now, run off, gorge yourself on brilliant domino displays and think about how your detours have made an avalanche somewhere, somewhen, somehow.

Always adventuring,
Moony.

What is your impact?