Just start typing.
Hello there!
I don't know how to start this, so I told myself, "Just start typing", so here it goes!
I wrote a lot as a teenager, but was thoroughly bullied out of that. Mostly "thinking" pieces, as much as a 13 year old teenager could think he knows about the world; a kid trying to reconcile the "why's" of the world around him, but nothing creative (I couldn't stand the critique!). I thought I was such an awesome little philosopher.
I used to think I didn't care what anyone thought about me back then, but as it turns out, I did, a lot.
And that's ok, to a point... isn't it?
What was meant to be a "private" tumblr account ended up spreading through the school/postcode/inter-area-school-district so it went from a teenager wanting to express himself in writing into another reblog-cool-image-or-post/quote-page and deleting a lot of early writing I did. Something I genuinely regret (the deleting, not the writing). Now that I'm older, I'm not going to pretend like I don't care what people think, although I certainly care a lot less than I used to, which could be a separate issue in itself.
But I won't allow that to rob me of the joyful relief of spewing words onto a page.
Anyway, as you can expect from any future writings, I've got no plan or topic sentence here, enjoy the rambling:
This is probably going to sound incredibly cliche, but there's something oddly intimidating about a blank screen with a blinking cursor isn't there? I had the same feeling about an empty page or canvas at school. I remember being asked in both Art and English at the start of Year 8 (after being transferred from previous Art/English teachers for various reasons), draw/write whatever you want. You have 30mins then pens/brushes down. For English I wrote a story about a kid that was bullied at school, rejected by his girlfriend and scolded by his parents which ended in tragedy. Unsurprisingly this landed me in the school counsellors office, where all they seemed to want to know was:
"Is this kid you? is it someone else at the school?? What's their name? It's nobody? Are you lying to me?!" and "If it is you, will you promise me you won't off yourself?". It all seemed so disingenuous, and further entrenched the idea in me head of "lmao look at this loser trying to express himself".
For art I drew a car like this:
The fairly simple geometry and mostly straight lines, I thought of a simple objective and executed it. Not exactly the way I went about the writing task, which confirmed what I felt like I already knew, I'm not great at visual art haha. Luckily, later that year, dad introduced me to the bass guitar, and I guess I was able to use that as a private creative-outlet, although the bass guitar isn't exactly a fantastic solo instrument (it can be, but I'm not quite that good yet!), I still love it though.
I have a genuine envy for real creative types. Among a sea of cookie cutter influencer types, among the 8.3 BILLION (wtf) people in the world, there must be just as many unique perspectives on anything and everything, and to have both the courage and ability to bring them to life is inspirational, and every uniquely interesting way that artists do it is incredibly impressive. I'd wager that this blog won't win any awards but that's not what it's for. So what is it for? Well, great segue:
Back to why I'm writing this again... Almost exactly the same reason I did it as a teenager. On this day 18 or 19 years ago was the first of what would be a few traumatic life events, and via some morbid nostalgia, I felt compelled to just start again. Another big reason is the seemingly unlimited dysfunctional, nonsensical and ridiculous happenings all around the world. I can't make sense of any of it. In an attempt to reconcile this I delved back into philosophy, and whilst that has been helping me try to formulate a healthy perspective which isn't just "ignorance is bliss" or "it is what it is", it's not the silver bullet I thought it would be (I would love some book recs though if anyone has any!). Finally writing this, writing ANYTHING has made me feel a lot better. To anyone reading, I definitely recommend it. If you're sitting at home, like me, without any idea of what to do, just sit and write, pick up the guitar again, grab some pencils or crayon or whatever you've got and draw something, and if you've got the courage to do so, share it! If you just want to share it with one person, do that! Share it with me, I promise I'll be nice (can't be worse than my car!!).
Just now as I'm finishing this, "Remenissions" by Avenged Sevenfold has started playing in my ears. I discovered A7X when they released their self titled album in 2007 - as I started year 7 - and that set me down an awesome musical path (including their criminally underrated first album, Waking the Fallen!). I'd listen to music like this all the time when I'd write. What a funny thing to happen!
As they say in the song: "A good friend once told me, we are our memory, without them we = nothing"
I'd better publish this before the song finishes. If any of this has evoked any feelings in you, you want to make a comment or a suggestion or just chat about any of this, please reach out! @leighman8 on instagram.
Peace and love, be kind to one another, and to all the wonderful mothers out there, happy mothers day this weekend, you truly have the most difficult, most important, most beautiful job in the world.
D