What makes one think it is possible to achieve immeasurable heights in life?
I wonder if the notion 'immeasurable lows' adds up to the human race being conditioned into believing 'comes bad weather, sunshine will follow soon’? So maybe the extremity of lows and highs keep us balanced somewhere in the middle with each faltering or uncertain step we give.
Earlier this week and after much consideration, I sent the following reply to a magazine lady's question:
No, I haven't published anything yet.
Sending the reply to the editor, I thought how a real writer will joyfully give him or herself up for life-long enslavement of the pen and PC - just for the privilege to write. It also reminded me of the elation and down in the dumps feelings that comes with the tough job called Write. And to tail this I once again experienced that painful twist in my guts of a thirsty craving for becoming a successful and fulltime writer...
Writing has become my longterm tormenting lover and the unfathomable foe I must live with. It drives me to dizzy heights and terrible lows, and usually leaves me stuck in a place between nowhere and going somewhere.
I started writing at the age of nine and chucked away all of it either in a barbeque fire or bottom of the kitchen bin. Guess I'm somewhat of a purrr-fectionist. Then I enrolled for a degree in journalism and guess what? It been pending like a thorn under my skin for many years now. Do unfinished degrees have an expiry date?
I know that my Pa's father sent a couple of short stories to editors; done on an ancient typewriter - they were all rejected.
There are a lot of similarities between me and grandpa apart from an artistic streak going hand-in-hand that seems to drive us potty in a sometimes dull and mundane life. We're stubborn, generous, eccentric, don't walk with our feelings on our sleeves, we observe and cry when we're angry and we both kept diaries. I miss him because he died many years ago.
A stranger once illegally picked up my diary and leafed through the most secret contents of my life. Since then I haven't kept a diary and never will do so again. The very intimate act of touching those pages reminded me of a time when a sensitive 10 year old me voice-recorded songs on a tape-recorder. It accidentally got mixed up with other tapes and the wrong one was put on during a family trip from P.E. I nearly died.
One thing that stood out in Grandpa's diary, is an observation he made as he walked somewhere in town. A man in front of him was puking onto the pavement.
Don’t you think that it takes something to write at length about the contents of some unfortunate being's breakfast or lunch?
Perhaps it's all in the manner how we perceive life and the thrills it presents that determine how high and low we go or whether we stay in the middle-bit. For me it is about stories and opportunities lost in bins, or about a terminally ill stranger...
- It's all out there.
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2 comments:
I used to keep a diary too, from when I was about 11 through my years at Boarding School and then into the working world. It was about 15 years ago that I burnt them all, I probably should have kept them but I didn't. At that time I felt that I had left all that stuff behind me.
I loved your comment about your Granpa writing about someone vomiting against a wall! :-)
Thanks for your comment!
The 'break-in' to my diary in a small place called "Corran" in Glenelg (Scotland) convinced me to burn all my other old diaries under a tree in our garden. Last year. I don't regret it, but perhaps one day will!
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