Escapism at its happiest hour. Part imposter, part narcissist – poured into glasses that romanticise everything.

The Chapel Street Kerouac – without the books (he wishes).

Why does he do this? The lack of routine is certainly a factor. Being your own boss is liberation without reward & motivation comes equally from desire as it does necessity.

So where does indulgence come from? It quenches a thirst that begins within the ideal lucid dream & awakens in self loathing. What a cycle – what a lob-sided trade! – 10 hours of ignorance in exchange for the next 4 days of your mental wellbeing.

I’ve lost days to my ignorance, always have. I’ve unfortunately been here before many times. Functioning, fuelled by escapism on behalf of my realism, I delve into a liquified mind to achieve my kicks when I can rationalise doing it. Undoing that is half the battle, but I’ve done that before, too.

See you on the other side.

A kiss on the forehead for your hangover.

C.f

I’m searching for another independent thought. An independent voice to speak back to me. Not something that waits, or plans with no regard for action.

Show me, don’t tell me.

I have this overarching guide that sits above my head. I don’t know exactly how to explain it, but it’s always there, and it shouts when I work. It’s always governed my thoughts, and when mixed with intuition, it let’s my whole being know when I’m close, and guides me in that direction. It’s a map to somewhere you’ve never been, or heard of, but you know when you get there. Only found with process, not plans. Starting out of focus, then slowly getting clearer before click.

My creative process is destruction. I start with something, and then I break it with ‘me’, and my desire for what I want it to feel like. It really makes no sense, and I’m sure everyone has that internal ‘focus’, hanging above them at all times like the sky. How the fuck do you know when to stop? How do you capture a feeling of ‘done‘? Which part to leave in, and which part to delete? There isn’t logic, and two people could start identical and finish miles apart. Jackson Pollock said “How do you know when you’ve finished making love?” In reply to someone asking him when he knew he was finished with a painting – probably the closest, or if you simplify it, it’s when you just know. Your body, mind, surroundings, universe whatever you believe in, all align. That’s the guide above you, and it’s driven to find things that you like. Maybe the feeling it gives you. Mine is strong, and until recently, I struggled to find it internally through my own design. I needed help.

So with that, I feel like I’m indebted to the world. I belong to the process of many other people who were able to teach me aspects, or images, or feelings.

Not because I’m superior, or in any way above anyone else (I’m not, neither are you). But because I’m here, and I can do things. Why wouldn’t I do that? I’ve loved what has come into my path simply by ‘trying’. The mixture of idea, vision, and then finally with time, the skill to accomplish it. I wouldn’t be feeling like this, if I didn’t know what not feeling like this was like. It’s a unique gift that comes when you invest time. I’m nowhere near where I will be, but for now I’m learning the the universal language of creating and using it to learn more from amazing people who speak it fluently. I’m starting to hold a conversation.

So, as I search to understand more worlds in the universe of creation, my thirst for where my mind goes to drink is almost unquenchable. Being able to finally make my ideas the way they look, and getting the satisfaction that comes with that (momentarily at least) has been a grateful revelation. I have to thank many great minds, the internet and at this moment, time in solitude, for helping me get here. I’m enjoying piling up the pieces and sharing – for nobody else, but because I want to, and I like it, and I made it, myself.

Put it out to the universe and you’ll find me doing the same, I’ll meet you there.

C.f 

taken from my backyard, 2020.

These past few months were rough. Capsizing in a boat in torrential downpour, amongst wind that shifts the objects not fixed to the ground or heavy enough to lay inanimate on shore. How did I get here?

I just turned 30, and I began writing this the night before. I was pouring myself into words, a culmination of the storm striking chaotically through my thoughts. I had a panic attack, and then became consumed by it’s lingering repeated threat for months after. The mind is so powerful, and mine let me know that I was ignoring the whispers and decided to yell. It took my conviction and turned it into questions. Mentally, it was all about weathering the storm to hopefully get back to who I was accustomed to being, with no regard for what the future would look like until it was resolved.

You don’t plan for a future when each day is a battle.

Chaotic, a little emotional, confusing. I digress, it was the easiest way to start. I often spotlight my flaws and failures, but on the cusp of a new decade, the approach became the steps I took to get better, hoping that I don’t need to return here to find out again.

I never really thought much further ahead than 30. I see kids, and other images, but not on the timeline, as they aren’t targets, but assumptions. It always concerned me that I didn’t think too far ahead. I felt ominous, but it’s probably because I idolise so many tragic tales who I’ve already passed in age. I don’t really feel 30, but that all depends on what 30 feels like, which is different for everyone, obviously. The expectations change on the audience. Young kids think you’re old. Old people tell you they’d kill to be 30 again. Context, and perspective, ultimately a sign not to be too influenced by your audience as it’s always changing.

Breaking down the number 9 is the last step for turning 30. It’s the last single digit, so when you see this number it often represents a cusp. The clock is about to tick over and start at the numerical base again. Makes you think of a list of items and goals as a theoretical and emotional deadline approaches. Who enforces this? Is it yourself? There is no answer, maybe it’s just easier to say time is the decider. The most valuable currency, after all (before energy and money – of course.)

29 taught me resilience, as I needed to grasp weakness and stare it in the eye. I cried for the first time in 5 years. I received lot’s of different advice, and most was cut from the same cloth:

“You don’t get rid of it, you just deal with it”.

Anyone who knows my personality, knows that isn’t my approach to anything. Build the wall and I’m going to run through it. Except, that headspace wasn’t there, and if it was, I couldn’t reach it. My mind was a shaken watered down version who found belief in these statements. What? Forever? Like this? Please no. 

How can I be so different to how I had known myself forever; where was my madness of conviction? That false sense of security that felt real, now seemed like a lucid dream. Something that I yearned to return in reality.

There was a lot going on in a short timeline, and I guess I was looking in a crowd for a resolution. I couldn’t identify it, so it felt more overwhelming – anxiety. I lost some close confidants near me, some who I held dearly and wanted to help – pain. My motivation dropped when I wasn’t around people who had ambition. I said it to an ex once:

“hang around with shit people, you become one.“

Mediocrity was tapping me on the shoulder, as was it’s close friend, complacency. The safety became appealing. My creative drive seemed to vanish overnight, and it took all my future thoughts. My notes of old lost the context. Days were a blur of nothingness, frustration, resentment. How do I find myself, where did he go? It wasn’t like I wasn’t looking, but my impatience ate me like an apple. I couldn’t stand to wait, so I didn’t know where to start. Truth be told, there is a way to get rid of it, but it’s not a defined path. It’s long and winding, however it’s worth it.

So, to find the old me, I had to take care of the present self first.

The mind is powerful, it creates the blocks that stop you, which is the ultimate pain of entrapment. Falling into the middle of the ocean at night, without any direction where land lays.

Instinct is often the first choice, so follow it. It’s your outer layer that surrounds your body, it’s fighting for you, not against. Once it leads you and you discover that you can trust it, the ability to break down blocks returns. The land will appear, and the fear of drowning starts to recede, slowly, slowly, slowly. 

My typical approach of aggression wasn’t the way, and neither was alcohol. They’d worked for awhile, but as wisdom grows in time, so should patience. Lay still, lean back into the water and listen to your heartbeat. Now breathe. Emotions last 20 seconds, and we amplify them, or we let them pass. Choose the ones to let pass methodically. Hear them, feel them, and release them. Light rain, no thunderstorms.

I was the one who built the wall, nobody else. Of course it’s going to be more difficult. That’s the thought process. But, if you built it, you can go through it. Your mental hands can only create using the bricks that exist inside, so what made them, was made by you. Acknowledge them, and break them. One by one. There’s a fine line between breaking it down, and having a break down. Don’t forget.

As much as you can weather the storm, you are the storm.

C.f

jump in.

When you start something, you usually find this superficial pride in merely talking about it.

It’s ironic, as most who talk, rarely act. The mere act of talking about it satisfies the brain to believe the rest will fall into place. It’s a false sense of gratification. Yet, if you were looking for feedback, would you take food to the table when the people you’re asking to judge you aren’t eating? They can criticise, but they have nothing to lose. They’re immune to the loss, yet benefit the win. Don’t be fooled.

They can be convincing too. Like a cut through cloth, they find it easy to break down those who have made things real that didn’t exist before. Originality is often shunned when there is no comparison. Usually the comparison is close, but not that close. Top level won’t find it, but if you dug a little deeper, you’d find it.

It isn’t perfect, but it is real. I like it, and it fit the mould I built, as if scratching an itch that only I felt. Others too, but it sounds better that way. There was no other motivation, it wasn’t fuelled by money, or status, or anything else. That shit means nothing if the your mission has no substance. You’ll be discarded from your industry and that’ll be it. Decision makers don’t buy hype, they buy stories, experiences and people.

That isn’t particularly a shot at anyone, but more of a reminder to myself on how much is still to be done. Don’t judge yourself to harsh, don’t be fooled, just work. The highs & the lows, they can’t be controlled, but the work can, so keep going, man.

This world we live in, is filled with fake praise. Fake honesty. Fake everything, as we yearn for the approval from others who stand on insignificance, based on a following of lifestyles that don’t exist, and lose focus on what actually feeds oneself. Wages that feed mediocrity. What if I told you, that ideas cost money? Things you suggest, cost time. Most would shudder doing the work. That’s cool, because weakness exists in leaving ideas to waste. Recognition follows those who invest, even in bad ideas. The learnings grow the brain like roots. They penetrate the ground and begin the flow.

When you choose your meal, nobody else really cares what you’re eating, but they will if they’re comparing it to what they’re eating. That’s as close as I can get to hitting it on the head.

Anyway, it’s cool, and it’s brutal, and that’s at the same damn time. Things that can ruin a morning, fuel the afternoon. Podcasts have replaced 90’s hip hop. Lunch breaks are filled with to-do lists. At first I loved the independence, now I hate it. There’s nobody else to blame. Liberation exists in that though, as controlling the choices is what motivated me to start.

Who am I kidding? I love it.

Keep going man, keep going.

C.f

Your biggest enemy is typically any version of yourself that doesn’t feel good.

Maybe it’s all the energy you invest, time wasted, critical analysis, to figure out what other people are doing and using it as a tool to bring yourself down by comparison.

Maybe it’s that you just don’t understand what your purpose is, and feel that what you’re doing isn’t meaningful enough yet.

The measuring stick always changes. We hold ourselves to a high standard for what we believe we’re capable of. If you think you’re capable of more, and you receive praise for below it, you’ll feel shallow. Our ego’s are usually tied to effort and ability, but we solemly use the latter to the fullest.

I used to feel it all the time from my parents. My creative endeavours weren’t understood, but a 9-5 was pride in their eyes. Different generations have different focuses.

What I really want to touch on, is probably a greater personal breakdown than the inner enemy inside us all (of comparison or complacency), but rather loss.

Loss is commonly the feeling of missing out, or grief, or maybe that hollow feeling you have when you crave something that isn’t in reach. Maybe it’s rejection? Theres so many unique ways it can find you.

If i’m being honest, I feel it the most when I think of my family. It makes me angry, and a little lost. It keeps me constantly repeating the same memories over and over, until I’m sure I got them right, or close enough to when it happened. Forcing myself to find the details by concentrating on whatever cues I can find. I focus the most on sound. I can close my eyes on any plane and hear my grandfather cough. I feel a pain in my chest so deep that I cannot put into words. That nobody can see me properly without first seeing him.

If I’m being more broad, I really feel it more as technology evolves, as the desensitising of our everyday communications. Our responses are so plain to 95% of interactions anyway, but I see it happening more and it hits the same nerve as loss.

“Hey, how are you?”

-“Good thanks, you?”

The conversation usually begins & ends the same, and even if you aren’t feeling ‘good’, you reply it because that’s whats normal & easy. I’ve become more and more aware of stuff like this lately. I guess I’m looking for meaning in things that I didn’t care about before. I have a feeling of loss from the deep minds I’ve encountered before in real life. Not just the authors of my favourite books, or messages in film, but day-to-day in person moments. Lately I find most people too consumed in their own tedious tasks that they only skim the surface when talking to someone else. I’m a passenger on their conversation, I’m never in it. It’s fluff.

Where did this really fall off?

Maybe it’s my reluctance for alcohol and nights out? That plays a part.

Alcohol got the best of me for awhile and I found out that you can in fact be broken and function simultaneously. However, I persevere that it exists sober.

This feeling of loss makes me crave it like an addict from a variety of angles.

Work, home, in strangers and in ideas.

I’ve often found it in books, paintings and photographs, but that isn’t something I’ve been as drawn too lately. I want to take a step even further away from that. Before the work, and find where people were at before any steps were taken. When ideas were feelings. Or scars.

There was the idea, or intuition, that existed before the product. Let’s meet before it all.

Before the photo, someone was looking through the lens. Before the painting, the canvas was empty. Blank pages of a published book. How do I get to right before then? It has to mean something if it’s strong enough to form the final. I feel it all the time. You get where I’m going.

What is that person thinking about then? What motivates you? Not a pay cheque, or your colleagues, but the inner fibres of pure creative ideation.

That’s the conversations I’m searching for, before the outcome. Not just the finished work. So many people can talk about things, and can ideate from others, but what ever happened to the conversations of passion that were sparked outside of employment. Not strategy, but pure blissful unedited freedom that hit a nerve within someone else? It’s so fucking rare, man.

So as I search for depth, I’ve created a method to co-exist with a mantra of mine:

‘time spent waiting, is time wasted‘

It’s essentially this, which can be applied to more things. I believe in consequence of action, and non action. Such as, waiting, in both a positive and negative sense. An example would be if you have an idea you think is good, and don’t act, you’re simply waiting for someone else to beat you.

That fear should stimulate you, rather than your own personal fear of loss. Reality and history has shown, if it’s any good, someone else will do it. They’ll get to it before you.

If you’re not going to try, wait and see. If you relate to that for an idea in your mind right now, that should make you feel unsettled.

If that’s the formula for ideas, how do I extend this into other ways to find depth? They say patience is a virtue, but I’m impatient. My sense or urgency exists for no reason.

Ideas turn into work. Strangers become familiar. Passion becomes projects.

The only constant is change.

So as my mind searches for depth and meaning in normal tasks, I revolt when I don’t find it. I feel lost, and feel the loss of time in bad ideas.

I hope that doesn’t sound cocky.

I find that so much time in life, or what everyone tells you is ‘normal’, is just listening to other peoples problems about stuff that is completely in their control. I’m not full of great ideas, or interesting topics, but I don’t hold anybody else accountable for what I desire. If you don’t listen to me, I guess I’m boring to you, but I feel so often that I listen to others discuss their issues when to me, the answer seems simple. Just fucking do it.

I guess I’m looking for other deep humans, who don’t identify with social constructs, and other tedious excuses. I don’t think I can paint how many pictures changed after someone decided to save or buy a house. The way I see it, someone else will live in that house after you die. If you want substance, leave something behind that isn’t going to stop the rest of your ideas from being able to grow.

I’m looking for other people who agree with me, so I don’t feel alone with my thought.

I feel the loss, of something that I’ve felt before in others that I don’t feel anymore. I feel sad for those who lose it. I guess time makes most people less ‘dreamers’, and more serious. More conscious of society. More strategic in the boardgames of life. I think the only thing that will get me there is my seed, but I look forward to that when it happens.

So my loss is not only yours, but mine. I miss the deep souls who’ve turned shallow. I’m sick of listening to everyones work problems. I’ll listen. Deep down, I’m stewing. I’m looking for my escape. I want to have conversations that make me feel or inspire. I want to talk about things that matter.

So after work tonight, I put myself in an environment of young interns. I had a few drinks, and spoke freely.

I pushed them to thought by asking them deep questions that I had no idea would lead to. Not from a sense of hierarchy, but purely because when you’re 21 and speak, you genuinely believe it. They started sentences and somehow finished these huge dreamy sentences.  I loved seeing the complete conviction. It’s before ‘reality’ bites I guess.

It’s this beauty that exists in people who haven’t been written off into a corporate grid. At 21 you genuinely feel capable of anything, like a job, or an experience, or a goal, regardless of what anyone else has told you. When you find out for yourself later through experience, it is tarnished, and eventually vanishes in most when they take more humble steps to progressing through life. It’s this crazy thing that disappears so quickly. When do we start accepting normal? Or boring??

At one point we think we can just stumble into where we think we should be, and the next we start talking about climbing the corporate ladder, pending on our boss recognising us, and others who are older opening roles for us to move in to. At 29 most people start facing the sense of reality they deem to be normal based on their peers in society.

To be honest, I don’t think I ever lost it. I have this sense of security for my imagination, that it defeats reality when I’m forced to fight internally. I still dream, constantly. Maybe too much. I write them down, and pending my mood when I read it back, sometimes I feel so cliche. Like, how lame are you? And other times it hypes me up. It’s like music, context of environment is the same. It gets you differently. But as I said earlier, listening to the message and writing the message is so different; writing is believing. Listening is accepting.

When I turned 29, I remember weighing it up.

‘I don’t feel 29 though…’

It’s because 29 is supposed to feel so grown up and different, or allude to others that you are because of the number. I have all the tools to play that card, but I really don’t care or feel it, so it’s not really organic & authentic. I still search for things, and feel depth in scenarios, I just don’t experience them as frequently. I guess that’s why I feel a bit of loss.

Like a junky slowly dropping dosage of an addictive substance.

The double edged sword exists in my constant state of non-satisfaction. I wish I could find it, but I can’t. It’s probably why I can’t sleep. But it’s also why I want more. I said a few years ago, that realising I could create was the biggest hurdle I every had to face. As soon as I realised I could create, I kept changing my mind and never finishing something properly because I would start something else.

Now my loss is not in starting something and not finishing, but searching for the same symptoms in others and not finding it where I thought it was.

C.f

Have you ever romanticised sleep? Staring at the ceiling, wondering how it’s possible to be this tired, but seemingly stuck awake? How ridiculous, to be so tired, you can’t sleep. Frustration seeps through the cracks in logic. This doesn’t make any sense. My mind is awake but my body is asleep, and it was the opposite during the day.

The birds outside sound the same, no matter what age you are. They never change, even though they aren’t the same. There is so much consistent beauty in this world. We become immune & desensitised when we see it too much. A little nostalgia brings back the real feelings though. Nostalgia of refreshed mornings that taunt in the distance.

It makes me reminisce to waking up on Saturday mornings years ago, ready to do anything. I wonder all the time if I’ll get there again, with that kind of unknown hope of each day potentially filled with a random kind of excitement. No structure.

I mean, if I wanted to, I could.

I’ve pictured myself on boats, planes, trains and buses somewhere in the middle of a foreign country. How did I get here? Steve McQueen said ‘I would rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than any big city in the world‘. I guess I could be homeless. Since I was little I’ve always documented spots I encounter, and mentally plan it as shelter if I was homeless. Instinct, maybe.

So let’s say I was on a bus, in the middle of somewhere, how would I avoid the normalcy of the questions (my girlfriend, where did I get the money, my job, my bills) and avoid the system to see where it takes me without those limitations? That’s the feeling, even if it’s unattainable anymore, that the Saturday mornings created, with 2 parts imagination and no responsibility.

The first tram arrives. It must be close to 6am. Damn, it happened again? Eventually the frustration comes back and I’m further from sleep than I was distant in my fantasy.

The light eventually enters the room from outside, and soon the ‘time to rest‘ window closes, leaving me to enter a new day the same way I finished the last. Sleepless.

Even those who dwell in isolation will idle through the morning hours alone. The mind puts the body in jail. It feels like 2 people having a conversation next to you whilst you eat alone. Whatever they say is going to steer your thoughts, as you’re a captive audience. But why are they here at such a strange hour, eating now? I guess if the restaurant is empty, the voices seem louder.

Precious sleep, you allude me for now. I’ll get take-away, or just away, next time.

C.f

As I’ve gotten older through many professional roles, I’ve always been told I’m a perfectionist. The detriment to being a perfectionist is time. It takes more time to make something ‘perfect’ (it does exist; in the eye of the beholder). The key to unlocking my capabilities at full potential then lay in finding things, skills or people who can help me save time without loss of quality. An expert who could get inside my head and understand the process and execute. That is key to any vision; process & time for the result.

So why is it so rare? The ability to get inside someone else’s head, without needing hours of structure/teaching & to just simply ‘get it’.

It’s usually so much simpler than that when you’re only at work for a living:

‘I need this done’. ‘Here are your goals’. ‘KPI’s and budgets, hit these targets’.

Most people work as helpers for big organisations, striving a mix of their own strengths into a ladder of common goal. Maybe striving to climb the ladder over time. It’s letting someone or a group dictate your entire life schedule and career. Don’t you think it’s a little crazy that as grown humans we have to ask permission for leave? How is that normal?

So if I was a perfectionist, why put in the extra effort when it costs me time on production? Why watch tutorials and read about problems when it doesn’t need to be fixed? Why are you reaching out to people for help, knowing that it will take so much time to explain the process when it could all be so plain? Warning signs, usually it means you’re channeling what you want to do into the risk-free availabilities you have inside your job. The reward still goes to the common goal, not you. You still need to ask for permission, and like art, not everyone will understand why you’re doing something what could be seen as unnecessary.

It’s why we place such value on people’s work with superior talent. It’s very rarely duplicated in high volumes, as time restricts the effectiveness through age and ticking clocks. If their were 50 James Dean’s all at the same time, he wouldn’t be remembered. Basquiat died at 27, so his body of work died then too. It all comes down to time. What you do in the time you have is what you want to be remembered for, if remembered at all.

I know things need money. But what’s after that?

I would kill to have the money I have now, with the ambitions and romance I had at 21. I felt like I was going to change the world, all while using my old soul to write poetry to the girls I yearned for, or make music, or a skateboard brand, or play basketball somewhere, maybe make music and tour. Heartbreak was coldblooded, and felt like it would never go away.

Over time, all of these things changed.

It happened again and again, that things got simpler as I had the variable of more experience. I made more money. I had goals and took smarter decisions to reach the steps to get them in time. But what does that lead to? To be a cog in life? How can I influence anything if I’m 1 of 100’s of moving pieces inside something. The burning was to move at will, 1 of 1.  I’m 27 and 21 seems so distant in mindset. It’s easy to speak a creative dream but to actually do something is another story. At 21 the world seemed infinite with time. You’ll always have more. Structure places us in cogs of High School, Uni, marriage and homes. But how about we just simplify this instead of what the school system/life steps has taught us:

We learned to talk through failure, and learned to walk by falling down. That is the variable. Yet we get to an institution where failure is now bad. Grades are given for creativity by one person who marks it. I got a HD and a P2 in essentially the same course with 2 different teachers. One stressed fundamentals, the other stressed freedom. It was photography.

We’re dumbed down to fall into a system and it works on the majority of people. Einsteins famous quote about judging a fish by it’s ability to climb a tree – is essentially half the TV programs that numb our minds. MasterChef should be subjective because I fucking hate tuna, but my girlfriend loves it. We would have two different opinions. It’s like reading the newspaper and seeing an article on something you have expertise in. You see the writer has made many errors and you disagree, thinking this person is an idiot. You turn the page, and read an article about something you have no previous experience about, and believe everything it says.

I don’t really care for money. I like the superficial things, but I don’t want to be superficial to get them. Would I rather the safe route, which daily gets more appealing, or the romantic madness that comes with trying something that steals my time in a positive way? Investing in something that will buy me the freedom from regret later in life. The drunk hangover story I tell when I’m feeling fresh. The pain that leads to the story. Where is that anymore? Where is the burn?

I grew up with strong people, with kind hearts and was never handed anything easily. If you knew my mum, there is no such thing as an easy question. My current status inside employment makes my parents beam with pride. It’s satisfying, and easy to forget that I don’t feel challenged or completely passionate about the work. I don’t burn for it.

Now I need to find what will give me that sense of pride, even in small pockets of time I choose to dedicate to it. I don’t want a complacent life, I want to burn for ideas. To use my young blood whilst time classifies me as so. Before I have the responsibility of children to blissfully consume parts of my time. Mark my fucking words, the burn of competition that fuels me to do things better than par for no reason will work in anything I choose to invest in to, and only in the past 2 months have I become so very aware of how much time exists in each day, by moving to a new city. We are consumed with conventional nothingness for hours everyday. So turn your damn phone off and do something, those games are day-eating-beings. Buy whatever gadget or pay whatever person who will help you save time to achieve something you like because the feeling will in fact fade and go away if you don’t act, and complacency will get you. Words are pretty but action isn’t. I’ll leave you with this.

Remember in school, when the teacher would ask the class a question, and immediately you thought the answer and said nothing, only to see another student eventually say the same thing and get the kudos for being right. That is happening right now, except the other student is your time, and fear of failure is slowly turning you complacent.

Watch out for the coffins with scratched ceilings.

C.f

As I began to pack up my necessary clothing items on the night before moving, it probably hit the most.

Man, change can be scary.

I like where I live, my friends, my comfort zone. It’s something that is difficult to alter, without force. So what was forcing me?

Potential, or more specifically; wasting it.

I speak to a variety of creative individuals in different places, both professionally & locationally, and surround myself with great people with ambitions at home. But what separates those who talk and those who do? Potential exists in both. The rat race of life can sink you faster than anything, it’s slow day to day but routines are formed in months and years. Restraints that shouldn’t exist anymore, such as the commodity of needing to buy a house after securing a job, ‘settling down’ with someone leads to marriage and kids (and you better buy a house). All these things can get you, and grab you easier when you’re in your comfort zone. The pressure to do the attainable is far heavier than the idea to do something more. These things should and will always be reachable when the rest of your life has a groove & timing is right. This is necessity for change, when you reach here.

Properties will come, and love, and children.

They all have restrictions, either financially, stability of environment and family, but what about before that? It’s time to grow myself, before I grow anything else.

I was so bored at times. I would look at my phone hoping to see or receive something interesting. Work was easy, I was able to work creatively within a restraint of someone else’s approval, and get paid. I was really bored some days, and needed a challenge just to see glimpses of what I was capable of doing. Truth be told, many of these things aren’t necessarily changing drastically, but the environment and people I meet- are. That is everything. I’m not bored driving home because I literally have no idea what exists on any of the streets yet. Even getting a coffee is new. So why did I take so long to put myself here?

I was caught up in work, and hoping it would just happen to me, without the idea that it would. Maybe I’d think & speed forward a few years and all the change was just better and awesome. The idea in my mind eliminated ‘the process’, and just showed results. I didn’t proactively think I would be somewhere else, just wanted to. I never did enough about it. It’s easy to realise you’re wasting potential, not just of yourself, but of what else is out there, and I’m barely moving 10 hours down the road. I don’t like to imagine if I did this years ago, where I could be, but instead plan ahead now and enjoy what I’ve been able to thus far. My base is stronger than ever and it’s probably why leaving gets more difficult.

I’ve always had this painful realisation that started when I was about 17. I began trying creative endeavours, and my photography class was so satisfying. I realised I could do anything, and it was rewarding to try and talk about with anyone who would listen, but individually you never complete anything fully because you get distracted by the ability to create something else. Orson Welles said “The enemy of art is the absence of limitations”. Honestly, you can get by with most things without using your full commitment. It’s 90 percent without the extra 10 of ‘no turning back’ or safety net. So I started dabbling in many ideas and never committing to reaching it completely, just visioning how it would happen and feeling like I could, without the risk; researching busy people I admired who did these things. That’s a bored way to live, man.

So if my life was a startup business, my mind was to become the accelerator for reaching my goals, in real time, rather than what I think I’m capable of later. A change of scenery to eliminate one facet of standing still. The extra 10 percent.

Adelaide is home, and I will always love you. This next chapter is Melbourne, and if I grow the way I plan to, it will lead to the next step on the ladder to where my capabilities take me. Knowledge is the only thing you can chase infinitely, but you won’t get far if you look in the same place, so get lost.

C.f

“When was the last time you felt like this?”

My mind went deep into my dreams to talk, but I woke up, which ended the conversation before I had time to hear the answer. I walked over to the window and watched outside quietly move behind the glass wall, which kept me inside the 25th floor. A few cars crossed the bridge, it was nearly 4am. The people in their cars, what were they doing? Sometimes I find myself wandering into the car, just to find out where my imagination would reveal ‘why I was driving so late’. Just like my dream, I transported to the car on the bridge, I saw the dashboard and streetlights. I felt the chair. But I soon realised I was in the passenger seat, and wondered why, which snapped me out of the daze.

I touched my phone to see the time, and my chest & face briefly appeared in front of me in the glass, floating above the water on the other side. Why do I feel so full of strange thoughts all the time? I feel like I’m wasting them sometimes. Like, if I figured out a channel to make them useful, I’d feel with more purpose.

I remember when I started this site. It was a communication tool, mostly, and not just to myself. I didn’t want to forget the way things felt at the time, because I knew I wouldn’t always feel like this. Nostalgia traps windows of those feelings, it’s like holding a lobster (they’re biologically immortal) but holding it by it’s back. It can’t grab you, but can try.

I don’t remember the last time I was nervous. It’s not an arrogant comment, but I truly don’t remember being nervous. I get anxiety sometimes, but it’s usually self-inflicted. Maybe I drank too much, maybe the fear caused from a non-decision. I love to be in control of things, it burns me to lose it. But nervous?

A few months ago I was turning right at a set of lights, waiting for the light to change into orange to complete the turn. There was a large 4WD in-front of me, which semi blocked my vision, but I knew I would wait until it was safe to turn. The light changed, the 4WD took off and out of nowhere a red Ford came flying through the red light, splitting between the 4WD & me, forcing me to swerve into the otherside of the intersection to miss it. It was probably going 80km/h and the red light camera flashed. I saw the face of the guy driving, he looked angry. As I completed the turn, the 4WD had pulled over. He must’ve believed a crash was imminent. In the milliseconds, I didn’t think at all. Not one thought popped into my mind. It actually gave me anxiety thinking about it afterward, that I didn’t feel anything, just moved. It’s why the search for capturing how to feel is so important to me, on retrospect it can be even more moving.

I hate the idea that mistakes can be made which can alter trajectory or lives. It creates a sense of urgency whenever I feel the pinch of deadlines, because the control has a timeline, yet it forces you to do something. Shouldn’t that be all the time then? I’m very impatient,  and recently when I was driving behind an older person, I had a thought. Are they driving so slow, because they weren’t ever in a rush anymore? Is being in a rush correlated to age? When does the clock tick over to calm?

As I’ve gotten older, I find it harder to correlate my thoughts into depth. It seems the more brief I can communicate, the more authentic it can be. I once needed 10 words to describe something, now I just need the first.

It makes me feel that most people around me don’t speak ‘real’ in text anymore,  it’s like music. Words are becoming lost in an overly stimulated world, that half of what actually works is only top-line & vague, whilst raw honest thoughts are more likely to be misinterpreted. The guy who writes poems is intense, whilst liking someones photo or syncing on tinder is exciting. The top-line superficial generation are easily fooled by profile pictures, It’s really not that complicated anymore. Only fools don’t know that words mean more.

How can I possibly write in such a way that is read the way it was written? Take the a-cappella off the drums, and tell me does it make you feel the same? No. How do you write something that has beat? It’s hard. I want to reach you with written words, because I can be the most vulnerable here. To be honest, I don’t really care, as I can speak the language of the shallow; I just enjoy the depth when I swim further out.

It’s why writing is so subjective, and honest. The sad song on the radio can make you relate to something, because it has tone, emotional instruments and if done well, pain comes through the vocals. But to write, to genuinely write and make people feel, seems brutal by itself. It seems more distant to reach people, when the message is dependant on your mind creating the scene, rather than a filter. It’s why there are emoji’s, bitmoji’s, and social media – where ‘romance’ is broadcast. I’ve always felt, the line between romance and cheese is split by a toothpick, and social media is most commonly fake – #nofilter. Romance is about listening and the nervousness of love- not likes.

They say you fall in love hardest the first time, and you spend times searching for the feeling again if you lose it. Searching for the same feeling, but with someone different. Please tell me that isn’t Einsteins theory of insanity? It’s less genuine when you place it like that, which I didn’t mean to, but what is the variable? Put that a-cappella on a different beat and it will sound different. That’s better. Einstein probably had it better when he said –

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

See, I am a romantic, stick with me.

So maybe the 4am reflection was to remind me, that in-front of the phone, I’m alive? Being the passenger shows me that I don’t have control over where that person was driving, which is trust. Being nervous is a good thing, it shows you really, really care and don’t have the control you’re searching for. And the answer to the question in my dream isn’t meant to be known just yet, it’s not that easy.

C.f