Original Copy

Very often my brain falls out with my mouth and the ability to use my words to form coherent sentences breaks down, causing a huge backup of 'information traffic'.  As I stare into space searching through my vocabulary library people often look at me with a mix of wilful expectancy, confusion and disgust.  This frustrating inefficiency to communicate verbally has forced me to find other means of expression.

Although my natural endowment for expressing myself through the medium of dance is a useful talent to have, using it to get across my point during a high pressured business meeting is for some reason 'frowned upon' - damn societies constraints, damn them all to hell...

So what do I do?

This blog post is example number one.  I write.  Not very well but at least I do it, which is better than being one of these people that tells everyone I'm a writer with no evidence of the fact.  Granted, this blog is new, but I have short stories, scripts, poems and even songs should you require proof this isn't just a fleeting hobby of mine but a passion.  That's not self-promoting arrogance talking, I'm still trying to find my voice and part of doing so has been to explore how my writing style might work in a number of different formats.

In any creative endeavour it's incredibly difficult to be original, stand out or have that next great idea.  Everyone is in such a rush to be the be the first person to do something for the second time, thinking if they apply their idea to a previously successful model it will amass the same success.  You can reduce most narratives down to 5-6 fundamental templates; my better half examines this in a blog post entitled 'The Death of Original Thought' and that got me thinking.  We all borrow, at times unashamedly steal peoples ideas, wrap them up in our own thoughts and feelings and... wait, just wait one darn minute!!!  I'm doing it now, I'm recycling the words of my partner when it would be easier to just quote his far more articulate musings: 'Maybe the template is just a means to insert your own attitudes and beliefs into a fantastic setting through which you engage the reader, and in doing so put across those beliefs without feeling contrived or preaching. Who knows?.'  Of course it is; it's a perfect delivery system.

I found myself recording voice memos at 2am this morning detailing what I wanted to talk about in this post, but just before I went to type it all up I watched a YouTube clip posted by Ze (rhymes with 'say') Frank (rhymes with 'tank') on being a creative professional and it was if the universe was trying to prove my point.  He spoke of fears, doubts, how we speak with others voices as we try to find our own and even managed to describe what I believed to be the private emotional states I often find myself in as I struggle to determine what it is I really want to say.  But he said it better than me! 

This of course made my head implode.

Of course it's naive to think that anything I say or do is unique, that the feelings I have are mine and mine alone, but I'm still taken aback when I look at other peoples work and feel exposed; like pages from my diary have just been posted on the internet - in one hand I hold a welcome sense of relief, rewarding me with the comfort I'm not alone in this world, not crazy to think the things I do and somehow giving me permission to offer up my emotions to complete strangers. But in the other I hold an unnerving sense of dread and quickly fall into a spiralling panic of nihilistic reflection where I find myself saying 'well, what's the point?' and begin a familiar decent into a place where I question the meaning of life and the meaning of it's end...

At the end of the day passion drives us all and it doesn't matter what stokes the fire.  Don't feel like a fraud by adopting another persons viewpoint, be inspired to take existing ideas to new places, reform them to fit around what it is you want others to hear and make them listen. Try things, embrace failure, use it to grow and focus your direction.  And if you have something to say, say it, and say it with conviction.  Find a passion and be passionate about it.  TODAY.  Who knows, you may even inspire others to do the same.

In other news a transvestite has just moved into the house across the street from me.  I'm yet to see him, but apparently he went door-to-door letting everyone know he was queer and he was here.  Fair play.

Also, I baked chai muffins.  My love of chemistry and food coming together in the most wondrous union of cake and butter icing.  I made 12, which isn't enough to share.  Sorry...