Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.

At last I am beginning to totally understand that it is up to me to determine how my life turns out. If I carried on drifting on, as I did in my adolescence, I could easily have ended up in prison or dead. Now that I have found something I enjoy doing, something I value. I can see I wasted all the years that had gone before. You see, time is so very precious, it’s gone in a flash, and it’s far too valuable to fritter away getting pissed and stoned. Perhaps I could have achieved so much more if I had of applied myself earlier instead of fucking around for so long. It has taken me a long time to learn how to really start living, instead of just biding my time.

Life can be like walking through a maze filled with booby traps, with dead ends, wrong turns and false leads. I have made many bad choices, walked straight into a tripwire and what feels like the weight of the world comes crashing down upon me. Ultimately though, everyone makes their owns decisions and has to live with the repercussions. Although if I never made these mistakes then I would never have really learnt to live how I want to, and truly living is the greatest gift you can ever give yourself.

Everyday, every morning I have a choice, either: I feel sorry for myself and end up becoming bitter and depressed and attract the same sort of people or I choose to have a good life and inspire the people around me, to not let shit ever get me down and never take my blessings for granted. When I think of it like that, it becomes an easy decision. Everyday I need to make sure I live my life to the fullest. Get the good things and positive people in my life, amass them and hold them close to my heart.

To hell with dwelling on the negative aspects. Negativity is a vacuum in which nothing else can exist. It has no usefulness and I have banned it from my life. I have no fear of failure, because if I want to do something bad enough, I will bite into it and hold on until it’s accomplished. Yes, I’ll definitely do all I can, to not fail, but life is tough, so I just make sure that I am tougher.

Occasionally I will let my mind slip and catch myself thinking, what if? But then I just give myself a mental punch in the face, and say ‘No fucking way!’. I can’t go down that road. There is no point to it. Life is here to be lived. With the right attitude and utter willingness to overcome the hurdles, it really is the most awesome experience.

If I do find myself stuck in some God-awful circumstance or other, then it is up too me up to improvise; to make the best of the situation. If that is not an option, then I adapt. And if those kinds of compromises are impossible, then the onus is on me to overcome – by either changing the situation to suit myself, or getting the hell out and building a better life for myself somewhere else or with someone else.

Changing the course of your life can certainly be tough at times. But hell, it’s very important to put yourself outside your comfort zone – how else are you ever going to discover what you are capable of? The next step is to learn to enjoy the challenge, the adrenaline, the excitement and the thrill.

If you are scared of something, that’s not a reason not to do it; it’s all the more reason to do it! Courage is the cure for all of lifes’ fears.

The only limits to living an extraordinary life are the ones that we place on ourselves.

Picture Me.

Picture me in the morning.
Picture me far off, somewhere foreign.
Picture me way up high, soaring.

Picture me in the night.
Picture me as a star, so bright.
Picture me. I am the days last light.

Picture me, saying goodbye.
Picture me, walking away, head held high.
Picture me for the last time.

 

Don’t Look Back, You’re Not Going That Way.

Some are lost, some are scared, sometimes you will feel trapped in a dark place like the sun is scarce. That is fair, that is not abnormal, for we cannot part the sky and no one else can take your sorrow and make it feel normal. You have to experience it, you have to live with it, and most importantly, you must learn to deal with it. Nevertheless, always believe it will get better, because life ain’t nothing if it is all clear weather.

You will always remember the moments you have been wondering without a clue, but you must withstand them, for that is how you gain the strength to push on through. Every person, every situation, every feeling has, at times, beat you black and blue, but that’s the way it is when you don’t want to live like you are trapped in a zoo. It’s not you against the world, it’s you against yourself, and if you do get thrown to the wolves, believe that, tomorrow you will come back, the leader of the whole pack.

You see, resentment is a waste of one’s self, just as regret is like digging a hole that can never be deep enough. Forgiving is the only way to rebuild what everyone else has broken.

Your life is the ocean, infinitesimally wide and open, and all of those who have tried to drown you, will see, that every crashing wave will shape you, and every shipwreck will build a throne, upon which the whole world will be able to see you sitting on.

Mari-goner.

For far too long I inhaled my ambitions inwards and blew my potential outwards.

I was a ‘functioning stoner’.

That is the ultimate fallicy. It is a reality I built to mask my inner tragedies. The parody is that it is at a great loss I have finally become aware of my inadequacies. 

I guess though, I have been told that before, that only the biggest blows can awaken the deepest changes. Although it doesn’t make the bitterest of pills any easier to swallow. 

I am sorry I wasn’t better to those around me, because I know I have a lot of love to give and that was masked by the smoke and mist. I know I could have been more of a man sooner than this. 

But.. 

This is the last time I shall write of this because I have come to terms with who I was and my attitude is to constantly improve upon my faults. 

The past is a hard bastard to get past and I’ll need to take a few more knocks to find the real reason I traipse upon this rock. 

Not that I am concerned with becoming ‘enlightened’. I am just conscious enough to know that I am more then just a city dwelling, stand still in the same spot, kind-of, sort-of.

Now, that’s fulfilling.

To know, I know enough, to know that I am already way better then I was. 

Nothing Has Changed.

Sometimes I wonder, what have I done? Who have I offended?
Did I do something in a past life to earn this?
Well, if you wonder this, then your question is endless.
Because I believe everyone has wondered why them.

Well this is the hand you were dealt, and there isn’t any more to it.
This is what you must deal with. So take a step forward and revel in it.
One day you will realize that you are better than questioning the flaws in it.

You can blame Karma, and lend a hand to superstition, just like the ‘blessed’.
That will get you to the dead end of a street, where the rest, rest.
Have a chat with your ego or your lost affections.
They don’t care they are just happy to be given some attention.
Somewhere out there is something better than this.
Happiness cannot be found in a place that does not exist.

In a past life you were wondering the very same thing.
And in that sense we are all the same mindless beast.
So study the recipe that is hiding within this script.
For I haven’t got many years, but I have many lessons.
And the things I have learnt are better than these silly questions.

Living Is A Habit!

Isn’t it funny how life passes us by? Well, I think it is funny, because one second you are here and the next, you are there, one moment is here nor there, one moment you are here nor there. It’s as though you are a perpetual decision, but I am trying to see how I cannot make a decision and see where the world will take me but then I will see that the world will not take me anywhere. At the end of the day, when the sun has shared its final ray, you must look too tomorrow because in that space you will find the only thing that will keep you going, keep you forging on, to that new found smile, to that new opportunity. As a motivated, determined, curious, resourceful human being, you must use all of that past, god-knows-how-many-years of evolution, to set a new precedence, a new instance of pushing ones owns boundaries. Without this push, without this urge, you will forever feel that little niggle at night when you get home from work, every weekend when you feel the desire to take a deep breath amongst an emptier space than the one you are currently in. Well, I will tell you something, I am no master, and I know very little, but I am a believer and I know something very important, that if you don’t think you will, you won’t.

“It” Is What You Make “It”

There’s some people who will only teach you what greed is. There’s some people that will just kill you dead. There’s some people that will fill your head. There’s some people who can make a change. There’s some people who will live their life afraid, but when your backs against the wall, and the odds are stacked up tall, you must not give up. It’s easy to fall if you’ve never learnt to stand up.

You were born to be more than just a pawn in a game, but your desire can easily be lost along the way. Lost until your face falls flat in the mud, and the only thing left to do is pursue what you originally set out to do. Roam the hallways of hospitals, scour the isles of libraries, travel the greatest distances, and make your way through the deepest cesspits, but don’t abandon the search until you have found the best way to deal with whatever it is your dealing with, because when all that’s left is, all that you never did, you will be left with only your disgrace.

Drunks in bars know how it feels. Sad boys with guitars know how it feels. Birds in the parks know how it feels. Self-sabotage knows how it feels. A tub full of lard knows how it feels. The invention of the wheel knows how it feels.

Too many problems exist, on this planet’s surface, to know which ones are actually worth it. It can be easy to have a duty, and desert it. It’s not your responsibility unless you own it, and what you need is, too face it. As the days go by, who do you want sitting by your side? How do you like what’s in sight? There goes your moment, blink and you’ll miss it. Every day is a lesson that you live in and learn in. You don’t need any another reason to keep on breathing, than being. Never do it for the money, do it because you don’t have a lot of time on your hands. Make it a habit to grab it and go at it. Even if you lose it, own it.

It all breaks down to a search for what makes the ride worthwhile, look for the content, look for the style, make a wrong, a right, strap your shoes on and run that mile. Keep your fire inside alive, because the world gets cold, and it can pass right by. Take all sorts of risks and you will be dealt the biggest hits.

Chance. Choice. Change.

I donated my most recent piece of work to a dear friend, and fellow life enthusiast.

If you want to have a peek at it, and his work, check out! He’s doing good things.

http://abluvionphotoseaart.tumblr.com/

 

Just Another Tree In The Forest: Chapter 2

The lonely nights have never been so cold. There is no summer. There is no spring thaw. His eyelids part. The surrounding darkness becomes all too near. The stars are his only guidance out here. Dragging himself from the homeliness of his couch, he stumbles over to the door of his cottage and shoves it open. Stepping into the moon’s shine he feels a calm wash over him. Peering into the shadows, he receives no friendly sight. As a storm crowds the sky above, and the rain starts to fall, his breathing remains steady. Starting off into the night, he could be heard muttering, cursing his torturous life. “The rain will never stop for me,” he repeats and repeats, his hunched form disappearing into the forest. The life that we have is something that we should never let go, but he did and now he must wander alone. It’s another wet day again, another day in the depths of his past.

In the freezing cold, in the dead of night, even the trees fell silent, and their branches hung solemnly by their sides. The clouds bellowed out their first thundering roars, sending shudders rolling across far-flung hills. Heavy black clouds rose from the deep, misty valleys. Pulling his coat close around his neck, he continued on into the woods. His bones were aching. His body was shaking.

Somewhere the stones lay like bones by the ocean, and the waves crashed with contempt on the land, it was there he was trembling with emptiness. Wishing somebody would silently reach for his hand. Somewhere the trees stand up like thrones beside the ocean, and the water crawls angrily up onto the beach.

The tide clung like an anchor to his feet, and though he tried to make the water line recede. It pulled him out into the sea. Someday not far away from here he hoped he would be able to set himself free.

Mist smothered mountains flanked the horizon, a red sun rose and silently consumed the land. Crows circled in the bright, morning sky jockeying for spot in a lone pine.

So she said, friends are all we will ever be. So life said, tough is all I will ever be. So he figured, black clouds would be all he would ever see. He walked on past the the decisions, the possibilities, and the lost opportunities. She walked on past him long ago; a broken man is all he will ever be. A dream is all she will ever seem.

Amongst the grassfires of a wounded land, beneath the dark beauty of a thunderstorm, a proud man roams. Where the winds sing in a chorus forlorn, echoing the notes of a tune written long ago, he found only temporary relief in each shaking breathe. Considering every brave step that he was yet to take on a journey that he’d laid ahead; he wondered if this would be another journey he should never have stubbornly decided to endure alone.

I Can.. Do Anything I Bloody Well Want To.

The trees whistle and creak with the wind. The trains screech ever onwards, continuing on their ceaseless journey. The cold air pierces the walls and grabs at my skin. Lazily gazing out the window I can see the towers of the city peeking over the horizon. Everytime I return to my city of birth, it feels as though I have been away for years, like a forlorn soldier returning from a forgotten war. I’m returning to a place I know doesn’t know me anymore.

Falling every which way, rushing to and fro, the crowds jostle past, and nothing ever seems to slow. Sheltered by my usual youthful innocence, I find it difficult visiting those whose time is running thin, because before I can even picture it, I’ll be him, sitting in that courtyard, helpless ‘till the end. And as our wrinkles begin to fissure, we wonder what else we could of done with those chances we watched fade into cinder.

It’s me and myself needing a rest, the windows are shut, snowflakes settling on the sill, aspirations swelling in my chest. I used to feel hopeless. Now I feel so grateful. Leaning back in an armchair, eyes reflect in the firelight, I’m smirking, giving thanks I’m alive, because I’ve come a long way since my days of sleepless nights tossing and turning, trying to get every thought, thought right. Now I just glide. Feeling the wind in my sails. Dreaming of the opportunities that will balance lifes scales.

Now some want to pop bottles, chase naked models, swallow pills in an attempt fill what feels hollow. They whisper in our ears, that all you need is the attitude of a winner, but there’s more to it than a whisper.

Slaving through the heat, filling with excitement at the thought of what all these long afternoons are coming to mean, idle dreams return to me, and no longer are they just in my head, they’re being lived out, like I always dreamt.

Every morning I push through doors frosted and stiff. I briefly brave the cold that hungrily snaps at my heels. Surrounded by coffin sized lockers and like-minded colleagues, we gear up, soothed by the shelter our threaded shell brings. Spreading out to our different parts of the mountain, the day and night routine contrast. Tracked monsters groom the slopes, preparing the harsh wilderness for the civilised horde; as ski doo’s slice about, transporting assistance and experienced hands.

Carving my way to station, all around me the mountain lies quiet and peaceful, only disturbed by the wails of the wind or the roar of a machine. Weaving my way ever-down, I arrive at the hut. After scampering inside I fidget with zips and fabric, attempting to seal all entrances against cold that always manages to creep in.

Mountains as far as the eye can see, that’s what I need and that’s what I got. Freedom exhaled with every foggy breath.  Invigorated and warmed by the reality of where I am, and what I am doing, I exit the hut and step outside, into a land of snow covered peaks and faces exuding life, a land that will never be cold enough to keep me away, and so starts another day in the company of Mother Nature’s wintery ballet.

A forest with a thousand trees, like our world with a thousand different opportunities. My beating heart, racing harder than a surging mountain stream. I can’t believe this is actually happening to me. Is it all a dream? If it is, I better not wake up, because I feel I kinda deserve to sleep.