Saturday, February 26, 2011

Existential Crisis Averted

The past couple of weeks have been odd. Well, I've been odd these past couple of weeks, and by proxy the weeks have been odd.

I wrote, earlier this week, about chores and moaning a lot about having to do them, and - really - I understand that chores have to be done. I just didn't like the idea that all my spare time was being filled up with the never-ending list of things that parents seem to have for their children to do when they're not attending some form of educational institution and/or working, and looking ahead into the future I saw three and half months of that same never-ending list and I thought, "Is this really what my life is going to be like? Am I really going to be cleaning up dirty dishes for the rest of my life? I didn't even touch half the food that was made on these." That last one's true - lots of different dinners get made in my house, and from time to time you end up having to clean up someone else's mess, and everyone in the house moans about it.

But I get it - chores have to be done. The whole background to the moaning that most people failed to see (because they read the post, not my response to a comment left on it) was that I was having a sort of existential crisis these past couple of weeks. Some friends of mine can attest to me freaking out over some stuff that happened, and one alone can tell you - but he won't - about one of the biggest problems I was having in my life. Basically, I didn't feel I could write for the rest of my life. I was feeling miserable (and not because of the chores - this was to the do with the case in my post "Let it Slide") and things turned out getting worse and worse in my head. I lost the will to create anything.

That's over now. Long conversations in the middle of the morning have that effect on me, when it was a sort of lack of them in a pretty boring and often horrible week that drained me of everything positive. But I feel like I'm back to what I would commonly refer to as "normal", though the word itself is just a concept of humanity that works along the lines of conformity. I attest against conformity for conformity's sake; I understand that people can be similar, but if they try to be similar, then that's just wrong. That's changing for the sake of changing someone's opinion of you, not changing for the sake of improving yourself in your own eyes (the often groaned-upon phrase "Be the best you you can be" comes to mind).

I digress. I'm back to planning writing stuff. I have ideas whizzing about in my head and I've set myself a deadline for getting some stuff done. A lot of the work will be done in the summer months, when I have a lot of time off from studies and I'll most likely not get extra hours in work (books sell better in the airport alone during the summer months - high-street stores don't see huge boosts in sales except around Christmas). I'll be working on other things aside from a number of book-ideas I have in mind, but mainly I'll be writing fiction (to the max!) I'm determined to not let this summer be either (a) a repeat of last summer (boring and somewhat miserable) or (b) a repeat of this week (boring and somewhat miserable and filled with endless tasks from my parents!).

I won't be disclosing the full nature of what I'm writing about throughout the summer, of course, unless something comes out of it. However, I can tell you that I'll be having lots of fun finishing some books that I've told some friends about (if you are a friend reading this and don't know what I'm talking about and are wondering why I never told you, it's because you did not ask or were not there when the idea for the book came to mind - it's nothing personal!). By the end of the summer, I want to have done some work on quite a few books (which includes editing some stuff I wrote last summer to remove some obvious connections to this thing we call "real life", because I see some potential in the stories, but I don't want to have to deal with people who think that references made to things they did are going to be so obvious to every single person living on this planet - there's this thing called fiction, I write it, and sometimes it's how I interpret facets of stories told to me so that you also get this thing called coincidence! Oh look, I made an obviously snide remark at one particular person on my blog, I wonder who that could be!)

On a side note, I'm noticing a lot of brackets popping up in this post. I don't blame the middle of the night call for this. No, I blame the fact that I was awake for some time before the call, and for a significantly shorter but increasingly more irate time after the call! My mind isn't working the way it should. It's in a strange place where brackets make sense, because there's too much to say coherently. Little points are just getting thrown into the middle of everything!

Back on track, then... yesterday was awesome. Okay, work wasn't. That was boring. We get those days, sometimes (and quite a lot lately). But I got my nerd stuff in the post (t-shirts and CDs and an Esther bracelet from DFTBA Records) and a couple of books which will be reviewed some Wednesday in the future after I've read them. And I went to see Paul in the cinema with some friends - still waiting to get my chance to pick my "birthday movie", since that was how I planned to "celebrate" my birthday with them - and it was awesome! It took me a while to get into it, but that was mainly from being in a mad mood beforehand. Laughed a lot though, as I got into it. And then there was the phone call, several hours later. Yes, there were periods throughout that day when I wanted to punch people and things (specific people, I might add), and when I got frustrated and/or upset, but I got through it all and now I'm hyperactive but tired!

Tomorrow will be a TV day, I think. Unless I decide to go on a writing spree. I would very much like that. I'll see where the day takes me. I may end up just reading a lot. I've been reading Everyman by Philip Roth (because I got a hardback copy of it second hand for relatively cheap and there's basically nothing wrong with it, and I'm sure one of my lecturers recommended him as a good author) and I'm enjoying it too much to want to wait until I'm too busy to read it.

Come Monday, I'll be kidnapping Miley Cyrus. We've had these plans for a while now, so it'll be fun to see what happens. If we end up in the city centre, I may be on the lookout for a new bag. There's nothing wrong with the one I have except I may need something a little bit bigger to bring in the A4 binder that contains Meet Sam. I want to continue my edits of it, and I don't think I want to risk my hands and/or arms carrying it in in my laptop bag (which I also use to carry my bible to God College as it is, so it gets a little heavy... especially when the library books start getting packed in there, too!). So, I may have a new bag. Or not. I don't yet know. It may be that I'll just get a handy folder with a handle to carry it in.

Things are looking up, anyway, after the boring misery that has been my "Reading Week". I suspect I would have wasted the week anyway, even if I hadn't been upset and aggravated on and by Saturday, but I wouldn't have been miserable doing nothing. And who knows, I may have actually be productive, which was what I planned before the World Suck that was my Saturday last week got to me.

I'm moaning again. This time I have a justifiable reason, I believe. I don't think people should be allowed to get away with making someone hate themselves for something that they did that didn't hurt anybody. I don't think those people should be allowed to think that it's okay to be like that with somebody, either, because then they may become what people call "repeat offenders", or what I call bullies. I don't think that people should have to see bad about themselves, period, nor do I believe that the people who feel bad about themselves can justify taking out their misery on those who brought it about through vengeful, hateful means that can ruin someone's life in one way or another (such as reporting a bully who is otherwise a good person to a disciplinary board after one offence). But I do think that it's okay to give out about bullies and haters so long as you don't name them, least of all publicly and with potential to a lot of strangers. Some people already know what happened on Saturday, others may be wondering what I'm talking about, but at the end of the (very long) day, I'm not going to point out someone on my blog as having insulted, offended and upset me intentionally and through spite, because then I'd not feel bad about when I'd calmed down (fairly calm at the moment, mind you), I'd be worse than the offender had been.

I'm moaning, I'm tired, but I hope I am at least coherent. On top of that, I hope my point makes sense logically. And I hope I don't come across as being spiteful. I'll be honest, I'm annoyed, angry even, but I don't plan on letting that anger consume me or hurt anyone. And I use the word hurt rather loosely - I don't mean I'm going to get physically violent (aside from my detestation of physical violence as a form of dealing with problems, I would most certainly lose this fight), rather I mean that I could potentially hurt someone (a) emotionally or (b) hurt his reputation directly (I understand and appreciate he was not happy with me when he acted the way he did, and that it was out of character - I don't forgive him, but I know he's not always like that) or (c) hurt his future by taking action that may result in his removal from the college.

Anyway, back to where I began - I was having an existential crisis, stemming from the person who I shall not name and shame and his actions on Saturday, and I have conquered it somewhat. I say somewhat, because I had the problem of identity before all this anyway. I have to thank some people, though I won't name them either, but to the people who listened when I had to talk about what was wrong, and to the friend who called me at three in the morning, thank you for being wonderful friends. You don't know how much you all mean to me.

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