Life unfolds in mysterious ways, following paths we cannot conceive and revealing to us truths that were never known of ourselves. Such is the way of the world we live in, perpetually chaotic, ever changing, and we seek to control it.
I cannot rightly say I plan my time down to the minute, doing everything as I intend. Far from it. I set aside a week of my life to write a book and finished the actual first draft with a half a day to spare. I planned to spend only a day on the cover and the book trailer, and spent a day and a half at it. I planned to spend two days editing, and took the second day to format. The impossibilities at organising my time follow an inability to know what life will throw at me, difficulties in surviving an anti-social period of time, and trouble with the tools of my trade.
Yet, I survived that week, mostly unscathed, to release a book. (You can find out more about that here: http://paulcarrollwriter.com/balor/) This post is not about that book, because there will be so much about it to come in the next week. This post is not about my time on camera, mysterious myths, or the actual writing process.
This is, for all intents and purposes, about my inability to decide some of the most important factors of my life. I cannot decide who remains my friend, and I cannot stop those doubts plaguing my mind. I cannot decide when others are available to do anything. I cannot decide who I get to talk to and when. Life is too chaotic for this, and it remains to be seen how, outside of a day structured by an institution, I will ever find the means to maintain the relationships with those who matter to me.
Survival has thus far depended on the various institutions that govern my life and time, and an ability to let my own desires fall into place with those of others. This, I imagine, is how most relationships develop, when one person out of two can fit his or her time and desires around those of another. In the animal kingdom, those like me may be determined as part of the pack, while those who make the plans are the alpha males (or females). In a more social observation, I call it a means to an end, submitting to another's requests for the benefit of both parties.
Where does this leave me? In one instance, my attempts to formulate plans with another fail. In another, by submitting to another's availability, I ended up finding the means to do what I have wanted to do for some time now: I am to visit a haunted castle. This may kill me. We've been joking about it for some time.
However, it arose over a cup of tea over two months ago. This idea has developed into something wonderful, out of nothing, and it has become central to part of my life: when I will be able to fulfil a social desire.
I did not make these plans, just as I did not plan for a number of things over the past few months. Life, however, unfolds at random. The things we take for granted can tear away, while unexpected events can unravel before we realise they are happening. Every fold in life has the potential to be deeper than we imagine, hiding secrets from us, and it isn't until we realise that each life is connected, that each time one person's life unfolds, it is usually and often the result of another's decision.
There are no alpha males in this life. Order is often difficult to grasp, and more difficult to understand. Life is a chaos guiding us towards an un-knowable end, unfolding at a pace we can never determine. Keep going as you are, and let it unfold around you.
Showing posts with label social animal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social animal. Show all posts
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Monday, May 14, 2012
Freedom and Conquest
The great gift of literature is its examination of the world we never knew. Preserved in time from the moment the words reach the public, we are given a looking glass through which we can see the worlds of freedom and conquest in the history of humankind, from the white woman who 'knows her place' to the black nation that succumbs to an idea by a great Caucasian empire.
I generally love the idea of getting to discover the trials and tribulations of our race through literature. In preparation for my exams, I found myself studying The Awakening and Heart of Darkness, two radically different stories. One tells us of freedom, the other of colonialism, and neither paints a very good picture. What should have been a life of joy and creativity turns to a life of extremism, loneliness and desperation.
It doesn't paint a great picture of an artist, does it? Free from a repressive relationship, genuinely successful enough to live on her own, and still unhappy.
Or how about the Brit that got away? Takes a nation by the horns and ends up dead.
Neither freedom not conquest end well, not in these cases. It poses a question for life: are we better to conquer or to escape? It comes down to the context of our lives, and how we plan on getting by.
Edna flees a life she was never happy with it. She does it boldly and bravely, but with a knowledge that she had a gift she could earn from. Even with company, even with this gift, however, Edna must come to a realisation: in running away from everything she once knew, she has no way of surviving when her last safe-guard falls apart.
Kurtz, on the other hand, rules with an iron fist. And where did that get him? Right... not very far. Just like Edna, he finds himself an early grave in a heat of madness, taken too far from the life he once knew.
Is there a middle ground between freedom and conquest? I imagine there is, but it seems difficult to tell how one might tackle the world without going insane. Alone, separated from the world we know, what chance do we really stand?
While we might take baby-steps online into the great unknown, there are some that take bigger steps and leave altogether. They escape to America, or Canada, or Australia, and they live a new life, working in a new industry or trying to make it alone. Others simply run with no end in sight, trying to be free. The unfortunate nature of freedom, however, is that it has particularly isolating qualities. In the loneliness of the great unknown, be it freedom or conquest, the odds are against us.
Can we simply hide in the books and learn from life that way?
Something tells me that there's more to us than that, to some of us at least, and the great dangers of the ever unknown and the horrors that await can only be found in the action of leaving. But leaving alone? It remains to be seen whether, as a people, we can survive. The social animal in us doesn't know how to breathe loneliness.
The suffocating madness doesn't seem worth it, and I suppose that's why I keep my friends close when I write. While I may be at home, while I may be safe, there's still that loneliness that likes to creep up. The simple thought that there are people somehow involved in the process before it begins somehow makes it less terrifying to embark on a journey into the unknown. That's just my way of reconciling my dream with the reality, before I face the horror (the horror).
I generally love the idea of getting to discover the trials and tribulations of our race through literature. In preparation for my exams, I found myself studying The Awakening and Heart of Darkness, two radically different stories. One tells us of freedom, the other of colonialism, and neither paints a very good picture. What should have been a life of joy and creativity turns to a life of extremism, loneliness and desperation.
It doesn't paint a great picture of an artist, does it? Free from a repressive relationship, genuinely successful enough to live on her own, and still unhappy.
Or how about the Brit that got away? Takes a nation by the horns and ends up dead.
Neither freedom not conquest end well, not in these cases. It poses a question for life: are we better to conquer or to escape? It comes down to the context of our lives, and how we plan on getting by.
Edna flees a life she was never happy with it. She does it boldly and bravely, but with a knowledge that she had a gift she could earn from. Even with company, even with this gift, however, Edna must come to a realisation: in running away from everything she once knew, she has no way of surviving when her last safe-guard falls apart.
Kurtz, on the other hand, rules with an iron fist. And where did that get him? Right... not very far. Just like Edna, he finds himself an early grave in a heat of madness, taken too far from the life he once knew.
Is there a middle ground between freedom and conquest? I imagine there is, but it seems difficult to tell how one might tackle the world without going insane. Alone, separated from the world we know, what chance do we really stand?
While we might take baby-steps online into the great unknown, there are some that take bigger steps and leave altogether. They escape to America, or Canada, or Australia, and they live a new life, working in a new industry or trying to make it alone. Others simply run with no end in sight, trying to be free. The unfortunate nature of freedom, however, is that it has particularly isolating qualities. In the loneliness of the great unknown, be it freedom or conquest, the odds are against us.
Can we simply hide in the books and learn from life that way?
Something tells me that there's more to us than that, to some of us at least, and the great dangers of the ever unknown and the horrors that await can only be found in the action of leaving. But leaving alone? It remains to be seen whether, as a people, we can survive. The social animal in us doesn't know how to breathe loneliness.
The suffocating madness doesn't seem worth it, and I suppose that's why I keep my friends close when I write. While I may be at home, while I may be safe, there's still that loneliness that likes to creep up. The simple thought that there are people somehow involved in the process before it begins somehow makes it less terrifying to embark on a journey into the unknown. That's just my way of reconciling my dream with the reality, before I face the horror (the horror).
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