Deep and Meaningful

Is it just me, or is it a mistake to try and sound deep and meaningful in writing? Maybe it's just that I don't really feel about myself that way. I'm not talking about writing have multiple layers, mind you; I mean trying to enforce a philosophy in a book or a poem, trying to get an idea out there that only ever makes sense in the context of the writing.

Considering the poetry I've written this year, I've tended to go the opposite route, writing about personal experiences and thoughts in my head, and aiming to write about that very limited - but not necessarily shallow or meaningless - moment or relationship. (I've written a heck of a lot of poetry this year, rather than fiction, so there'll be something of a focus on the poetry in this post, I'm afraid.)

I've been writing a lot about friendships, more specifically the ones that didn't work out (more commonly than those that are ongoing and wonderful.) Sometimes, there have been explicit references to events in my life, other times it's been a more general "me and you" poem that, rather than dealing with the specific reasons that relationship imploded upon itself, I've tried dealing with the idea that a relationship, more generally speaking, has ceased.

This leads naturally on to wondering what it is about me that caused any of these friendships to fail. I try not to dwell on that - I know it's not healthy - but it does come up. I speak about myself in metaphors when it comes to that, but again: it's not an attempt to be deep and meaningful. I'm not trying to say something about life. I'm not trying to explain why X happens to everyone. It's a personal exploration of my flaws and faults, but in the context of everything else, what it was about the other person that might have made these particular aspects of my personality so...negative? Unbearable?

It gets to be a bit too much, but you know what? It's just me.

Maybe, you might argue, it is meaningful. And sure, I'll bite. There is - there has to be - some meaning to the poems. But it comes from me, and it's only as deep as anonymity and the vague essentials can reach. That, dear reader, is a shallow pool indeed, in a majority of poems.

What certainly needs clarifying is that I don't set out to write a poem to say something to the world. Often, for me, the poems just "happen". Yes, I do have to think about the words to use, but the essence of the poem is there already, and that's what makes me write it. There's something within me that needs saying, and the words slot into place more easily, even when I sit down and attempt to force something onto paper.

I've tried the grandiose statements about life and death before. Tried it, and failed it, because it doesn't come naturally when my experiences are what they are: mine. Attempting to speak about generally about something so universal as life and death, or the lackthereof of either, is to generalise about the billions of individuals, the uniquely constructed bodies, souls, minds and personalities of our species. There is nothing "general" about us but our anatomy and our surveys.

I'm not saying we shouldn't attempt to talk about life or death. I'm not saying we can't talk about our species. I'm not saying that, as writers, we can't be "deep" or "meaningful" with our work. What I am saying is that we shouldn't set out to do that, especially not if we haven't first lived a deep and meaningful life. While it's not always true that we should write what we know - because (a) that could be boring and (b) it's not necessarily going to be the best story/poem/article we could ever write, especially not if we've lived a sheltered life - but in thise case, maybe that's a good idea.

Near Death Experience

Yesterday was worrying. For the fish in the work. Yes, the fish. They almost died. Like, actually almost died. The pump stopped working. No more air was going into the tank. Sometimes people forget that fish need to breathe oxygen. And when the pump stops sending it into the water, that spells trouble.

First thing to do? Check the fusebox. The electrician's-brother in me did that first. The switch was down, and it wasn't staying up. (No innuendos, please.)

Next step? Check to see what's wrong. The fuse might have blown, or something else stopped working. It wasn't the lights, anyway. They would have just gone off. So we got an extension lead from the centre security guards, plugged the pump in and... nothing.

That gave us a new problem. It wasn't just a fusebox problem. It was a pump problem. An expensive pump. The natural reaction was to call the local (very local) pet shop for help, but they could only help us with the fish. So a fish-tank company were called. They arrived right before closing time, meaning someone had to stay behind (thankfully it wasn't me, because I wasn't in the shop at that stage!)

The new pump was installed, with the little note that if we'd waited a single day... well, the fish would have asphyxiated. You know what that means, right? We saved their lives! Super booksellers to the rescue! And we had our pet shop, security and pump-installer friends to help us! Hip-hip hurray!

The madness of the fish's near death experience was surrounded on all sides by screaming children, pouting adults and books being put in the wrong place... none of which were connected to the fish, of course, but they didn't help. It was an eventful weekend, to say the least! But it wasn't all bad. The fish were alive and well when we got into the shop (and when we left!), various assorted problems were sorted out and now my co-worker gets to enjoy a trip to Japan. I got almost everything ready for my website, so it won't be long before I'm ready to launch it! I'm hoping for a September 11th launch (I may have already said that a dozen times...).

In the meantime, I've secured my wordpress.com username for my X-Men story. I figured it was best to do that now, rather than wait and risk it being taken. Now I just need to actually write the story. I still think it's going to be amazing. Probably less disturbing than the fish almost dying, too. At least I'm in control of who lives and dies!

Death

I find myself in an inescapable moment of death, stuck reliving the horrid unfortunate deaths following my life, real and fictitious both. It seems, I might add, that my entire life is falling apart, piece by piece, with each loss contributing to a loss of my self.

I'm sure you're quite aware at the loss of my job. It's hard. It really is. Even with the inspirational message from Darren Shan, and the subsequent blog post about it, I find it hard to cope. I should be in work tomorrow, but instead I'm meeting up with my colleagues, where we may very well mope together over tea and coffee. My professional life as a bookseller has suffered a terrible death in itself.

A small number of you might also be aware of the missing Jonny Havron in York. It shouldn't affect me like it, does, as I've never met the guy face to face, but it does. The Internet has that strange power, the power denied by the ignorant masses, to bring people together as friends. Jonny was one of the early members of the Literary Den. I can never forget the important role he played in the building of the group. Without the participation of everyone in the group in the early days it would all have been for nothing. I don't want to think about the idea that Jonny might not be okay, but every time the thought rises, I pray to God that he turns up okay. Relatively speaking, of course. Whatever the case, it's the representative of the death of my ability to function properly online - I keep thinking about poor Jonny, and how there's no way of knowing if he's safe or not. I keep thinking that maybe, just maybe, he might be able to come back to talk to us, but that it might not happen, and that no matter what it will never be the same. We can never forget this week gone past.

Most recently, and perhaps most selfishly on my part, I feel the death of my iPod. This one seems to affect me most, or maybe it's the fact that it broke during the trust I gave to my brother to use it, but I promise you I'm not being selfish in the materialistic sense of the word. That iPod, it's screen, it's face, now shattered, was my way of easily keeping in touch with people. It was my access to Twitter and to email accounts, to Googling things when I needed to without the hassle of setting up my laptop. It's not entirely the fact that the iPod itself is broken, but the sense of loss I'm feeling regarding its loss, the inability to check up on things like the Jonny Havron story, or the story of my job, to see if there are any new developments. I feel almost entirely helpless without it. And to make matters worse, I've lost my main way of listening to music, which serves, for the most part, as my method of escaping from the world around me. I can drown out all the sorrow, all the noise, all my thoughts, in the music of artists I've come to know and love.

And then there's my own death. I have a problem with this, in that it's a fear, perhaps irrational, though perhaps not. I don't fear the dying. The lack of being able to fulfil my dreams, yes, I fear that. But mainly it's the idea of my dying, in that its in my head and at my own hands, by my own will. I've faced this problem before. I can't escape it, but I think by finally telling someone, anyone, I can at least try get passed it.

I see myself jumping. It has to be from a cliff, right after I've apologised for doing it, in advance of the leap itself. There aren't sufficient tall buildings in Ireland - only a cliff would do. I fall, I fall so far, and then I stop. I'm gone. And it repeats. It's a dream, and a nightmare, and a stray thought of the otherwise consious mind. It's a haunting in my mind I can't escape, and something that scares the living daylights out of me. I feel it in my stomach, in my heart and in my head, the pounding of fear and nerves as everything closes in on me, time pouring from my hands. No matter how hard I try to hold on to it, I can't. I lose it every second of every minute, of the hours in the days of the weeks that go by without so much progress as I'd hoped, and even less time left than I started with.

But I can't jump, not really. I have too much to live for, too much to learn both in college and about myself. And I've begun a journey of life, chosen the lonely path of a writer, but it's a path I freely accepted, knowing that even with my friends at the other end of a text or a call, or even right across the table from me, I can be the loneliest person in the world.

My real tragedy is that I can't tell them. I can't tell them how I'm absolutely terrified of every single thing I submit for my continuous assessment, and that's the reason I don't get the results. I can't tell them that I don't want to go to the ball because I don't want a repeat of my debs, where I really was the loneliest person in the building. I can't tell them that the drama society has begun more pressure than I wanted, and about the pain in my stomach when I think about how I might ruin the entire thing for everyone. I can't admit to the fact that I have problems to my friends, because I still have the other fear that my lonely life as a writer will become the lonely life of a writer who really, really can't get along with friends.

And every day I die because of it. I've never been so honest in my life, mind you. I lie every second of every minute I'm in public. I wear my silly smile every day, and make my annoying cheer of greeting to my friends every time I see them. Okay, so I'm not faking my joy at seeing them, but I do keep up a higher mood than I'm really feeling. I've been doing it for years. I can never, never, let someone inside my head, to let them know that I am, in fact, a complete loony toon, desperately depressed sometimes, torn between crying and just running away. Except then there'd be questions asked of me, and I don't think I could answer them, any of them. Because, and this is what I tell the world, there's nothing wrong with me. I'm just sick. I'm just tired.

I've been acting for years, now, and yet that fecking drama society has me struggling. The problem is that I do two things in life - happy, sometimes to an annoying extent, and serious, sometimes to a scary extent. I can never be that domineering person I'm supposed to be in the play, the one who strikes fear in his pupil, because I'm the one who, every day, has to pretend I'm not afraid of failing to meet the expectations of the world around me. When I try to be someone else, someone no one knows me to be, then they see the real me, the terrified boy who doesn't know what to do and who's frozen with his terror, so he can't act on it.

These are the truths of my life; these are the deaths in my life; these are my worst kept secrets, posted to you, with my name freely attached. I'm not looking for anything out of this... okay, some comfort would be nice. It would be bloody wonderful, in fact, but that's not why I posted this. I just... I think I just had to get it all off my chest. It's been bothering me for far too long to keep it a secret any more.

That's... yeah, that's all I have to say about this subject. I think I might finally sleep on this knowledge, knowing the world can know, if it cares enough to know.