Tales and Journeys

Now and then, I hear symponies playing in my head. Today I bought a book on composing music, so that I might be able to do something about it. As this ability returns time upon time, it makes me believe I was born with some kind of gift. Other attitudes of the community I grew up in, would rather denounce all possibility of me having any significance or ability in any field, but I spitefully believe otherwise. I might not have amazing abilities in performing music, but with training, I can make music. I will be an artist.

Music is just one of the things. Ideas pop up in my head frequently, around moments of inspiration. Those are moments of strong emotion; not necessarily intense, but clear. I can picture elaborate movies and dances while listening to music. Dreams are also interconnected into this complex construction. The core part of any inspiration, to me, is an atmosphere of another world, a subset of this world’s extremities gathered into a package. I find deep meaning and vitality in dealing with these packages — gathering,nurturing and creating them.

I even apply the abilities to my own future. When I am in love, which is one of the highest states of inspiration, I can’t help but picture special moments, somewhere in the future, that would make my life more complete. A touch, an exchange of emotion, a display of deep love, a fundamental understanding. Things I know I need and long of, things I understand the workings of, but things I have never experienced or managed to produce.

So perhaps inevitably, it comes coupled with a longing, and that longing turns into a sadness. Then I try to make these things happen, but I find my abilities cut short, like in the playing of an instrument. I see what could be there, but am unable to create it. This all boils down into a fear, the fear of failure and insufficience. This I deal with daily, sometimes, and it is the dark side of the coin that is my dreams of love.

Of the world’s many layers, it is the colors, the relative interpretations that we can never agree upon, that speak to me the clearest. Though I have sought knowledge about the logics and connections between the Earth and the Heavens, and though I understand it well, it has come to mean nothing to me, for I have found that the source of meaning lies elsewhere. Meaning lies in the yearning of the heart, in the longing of the soul, and in the wonder of the mind; and it is as real as can be within itself, in its own domain, the domain of colors.

My greatest joy lies in the pursuit of colors, the collection of sensations. I gather seperate universes and marvel at their exclusiveness. The sense of awe I recollect from experiencing vast changes of perspective, tells me clearly of the sheer size of the world of colors. Whereas all of the physical world, which could once fit inside a marble, can be overwhelmed by a daring imagination about a greater infinity, there is no trick of the mind that can envelope the world of colors. Whereas the passive forces of the tangible universe can be harvested by science, the exploration of art has never been able to bring the greater worlds of color to heel. Whether it be that we have been gifted poorly, or that the colors are truly unruly, the result is a humbling yet fantastic wilderness that ever allows new journeys, never taking hurt from the traffic.

Nobuo Uematsu – A New Origin

I’ve had somewhat of a revelation about shame. I got a lot of it, it is one of my greatest and most invisible evils. Its recipe is the fear to not be appreciated mixed with anxiety about one’s own worth. Shame is what makes many comform from being themselves, albeit unpopular, into being silent about their differences. I’m talking about teenage angst! It, and the war against it. But what is hostility, but a by-product of fear and ignorance? Distance yourself from something you don’t want to go through yourself, and it might disappear from your world, that’s what we like to think.

For a long while, I successfully suppressed the angst in myself, because I had become able to do it, and I knew that angst was stupid emo business. But I’ve changed my mind. Now I try to seek my sorrows, because they are there for a reason. Either I should resolve them, or I should at least acknowledge their existence.

The following text is made the way I prefer to write. It is not an essay, not a message, but a description of a fleeting chain of feelings, written while those feelings are strongly present. This is the kind of thing that makes me feel alive.

“One can’t expect too much from me. I’m no average person in an average state. Wounds have formed in me, and I need to heal. This is no illness, no fault in me, but a fact. I am depressed at certain times. All that has come to pass, has set its mark on me. The sorrow is part of me now, I let it reside in my being, because that is how I turn it into something meaningful. Because of this, there are now paths I must walk, phases I must pass through.”

“It is hard to do alone. I stagnate. Years have passed, and I am still not free from myself. Still I am impatient and anxious, but I am learning, the hard way. One day, things will be very different. Yet some emotions will never go away; I have responsibility for the sorrow, now. I must take care of it as I take care of myself.”

“The situation would be different, had I taken another course through time. There would be less sorrow. But that is not how it is. I am what I am, I have what I have, and I must start from there. Not from the level that the expectations of others would have preferred. They must understand this, respect it and help me to walk my paths. Without this, I can go nowhere. Without friends I keep on shrinking. To make it even harder, I have not been blessed with the ability to form close friendships. I retreat into my own sorrow rather than share it with others. I just don’t have that confidence in those around me.”

“And so I wait for the one person that I can truly confide in. The one person that can save me; set me free; turn me into myself; open my heart and stay with me. It is the only way I can feel, the only one that feels right. This is what my heart seeks, and if I do not listen to it, it will stop talking to me, as it has before.”

Sarah Brightman – Deliver Me

What does the world really feel like, and what is the most true way to feel? In the next paragraphs, I conclude that this difference in feeling, this paradox of the human soul, disappears when we realize what is really going on.

Not so rarely, I find myself engulfed in some specific emotional landscape. It can be the set of emotions found in a specific book, the strings pulled by a certain album, or even the emotions brought forth by the nature around me. While in this landscape, the similar emotions within me stand out more clearly and are easier to access. I all but settle down in the surroundings and become a part of the experience.

Like all works of art, emotional landscapes have an array of emotions, some more present than others, and put together in a unique way. So while no landscape relates to one single emotion, different landscapes can take up wholly different sections of the great continent of emotions. Also, just as a musical piece can be complete in and of itself, so can a landscape feel complete and un-lacking. In effect, two completely seperate landscapes can both feel like the “most real” one.

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Throughout my life, I have often been deviant. There are things I never understood, interests I never shared, phases I never visited. Luckily, I didn’t mind much being left alone, to do the things I wanted the way I liked.

Still, I have often contemplated on having missed out on several years of my life. Years I could’ve learned what all the others did, years I could’ve understood them and the world better. Instead of being alone in my room, I could’ve been in the company of good friends, doing something we all liked doing together. And in the presence of these good friends, I could’ve grown more as a human being.

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Don’t fall down into ignorance when there’s something that needs your attention. Doing nothing is also a choice, and sometimes the worst one, but oh, so easy to make.

The world is exactly what we make it into.

Anything we choose to nourish, it will grow.

And anything we choose to neglect, it will wither.

Neglect — and the loss is leads to — is the easiest to accomplish. It requires no hard work, it needs no grand plans and ideals. Do nothing, and withering will come to the world all on its own. Let it stay, and it will set root. Rely on it, and it will grow.

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The leashes, the leashes! Sometimes, and only sometimes, I can feel the tar around me, submerging me. Seperating me from myself. Sometimes, I feel I could break free of these restraints, these phony traits. The human shell.

And I would stop all I do wrong: all I am expected to do, but that I deep down know I shouldn’t. All for the sake of comfort, I risk resignation, I risk forgetting, I risk dying in life. I would stop it, and I would travel. To rediscover the forsaken, remember the forgotten. I would travel to visit my soul.

Not to find a path. Just to walk.

We are sometimes afraid of ourselves, conforming to what feels safe just to lessen our anxieties, our fears of the unknown, however good.

Why do we all hinder ourselves? Why do we hold back, in favor of being gray? Is is because we are afraid of loss?

Even when we know what can be, how life can be, why oh why do we still do nothing? Why do I do nothing?

Humans can be so special. Relationships can be so special. But we.. no, I. I am so afraid. I cannot hide behind mankind on this one. It’s childish, it’s introverted, it’s straight-out stupid, but I am afraid of letting anyone close. All my life, I have kept more distance from others than I can honestly say I’m happy with.

Why doesn’t matter. Whys are not just excuses, they are shields; shields of lies that you can hide behind and believe it’s okay that you’re doing something wrong. Psychology is an elaborate shield that lets us be gray with a clean conscience. I will not ponder on why I am afraid and distant, and then be happy with the reason I find most likely. I will not be happy with being like this for the rest of my life, with not being as I think people ought to be.

Difference starts somewhere. And then it spreads. We would all do best not to resist the kind of change that this movie inspires in us.

I have a never-ending thirst to provide it to others.

Every joy I feel, I want to share. Every good thing I discover, I want to pass on. If doing that was easy, I would be a very happy person, for I have so much to share. But it’s not easy, so I always try to refine my methods. It’s not like striving to be accepted, which is generally a bad thing. No, I strive merely to become a better person, a better friend, a better mentor. A better father.

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The world is full of possibilities, of treasures and pitfalls. I implore you to forget the latter and aim for the former, or you might find yourself going in the wrong direction altogether.

So many possibilities. So many worlds. So many futures.

Which will I live? What have I got to choose from? Is the choice even mine?

How many joys have I forsaken already, what happiness have I excluded?

And if I were born in another time? Or on another planet, or in another universe altogether?

Believe it or not, this kind of thinking actually makes me feel very secure. I suppose it is because it removes my worries about the life I actually lead, it takes focus away from here and now. I am a dreamer. At least, I was, once. Not too long ago. I haven’t dreamt all that much the past year. But I want to dream again. For without dreams, there is only here and now, and currently that’s not all that exciting and adventurous.

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