If you had to ask most people what really makes them happy, they wouldn’t be able to give you a straight answer. “Different things, being with family, hanging out with friends, going to new places, trying new things, meeting new people…†that’s probably what they’d say.
Me, I’m wired differently from that. Sure, I like those things too and of course the feeling of being madly and passionately in love, the company of good friends when life is shit and you just want to be around someone you don’t have to put on some kind of act for, those things mean a lot to me.
But if you asked me what makes me happy, what feeds my soul and makes me fucking come alive I’d tell you straight, it’s writing.
Words are everything, whether they’re spoken, sung, whispered or written. They’re so deeply entrenched in everything we do that we hardly stop to think just how fucking powerful they are. Take language away from us, the ability to communicate our thoughts and feelings and we’re back scratching in the dirt, hunting animals with sticks, dumb as mud.
What I feel on most days, if I had to be totally honest with myself, is a deep dissatisfaction with what I’ve landed up doing for a living. I shuffle into an office looking like my mom dressed me and sit down in a cubicle farm so quiet, all you can hear is the sound of people typing.
Here I spend hour after hour trying my hardest to please every fucking person I come into contact with while secretly all I’m hoping for is someone to get up on a boardroom table one day, in the middle of some big important meeting and at the top of his or her lungs scream, “THIS IS ALL BULLSHIT!â€
Truth is I dug myself into this hole. Me. I did it. And now, instead of making a living doing the one thing I truly love and am good at, I’m fading away, turning milky-white under the fluorescent light, the best fucking years of my life wasted, an hour at a time, working my ass off for other people.
So what do I do? I blog. And somehow it makes me feel better because every post feels like I’m clawing my way, an inch at a time, out of this hole and towards something better.
I haven’t been posting lately. I’ve let life kick me squarely in the guts and rolled over like a fucking pansy and felt sorry for myself.
Well, fuck that. When life gives you lemons, you take those lemons and you fucking throw them back as hard and as fast as you can and you tell life ‘FUCK YOU’.
The Tiger’s back and he’s fucking angry and ready to fuck some shit up.
And yes, THEM’S fightin’ words 😉
-ST
Fuckin great post, slick!
Came at the right time too.
I was out on the town the other night, went to see some bands.
Now i’m also not doing what makes me happy, not doing what i’m good at. I’m selling shit to the very people i would rather be.
So i watch these bands, and some of them are cool, but on the whole, nothing special.
So it got me thinking again about my current situation (what? I think about that EVERY FUCKIN DAY!), and i tell you, some shit is afoot. Some shit’s gonna go down. Not tomorrow, not next week. Slowly, slowly the wave is rising, building and gathering momentum.
And when it breaks, there will be rock.
Fuck everything else, none of it matters. Not your car, or your lovely little house with your sweet-ass HDTV, iPhone, intelligent-mirror-fridge. If i hear one more person say, “Yeah, but i have rent to pay.” i will throttle them. That’s no way to live.
Yeah, good rant, i feel better. Thanks
GJ
FUCK Yeah!
Rock on ST, you throw those fuckin lemons!!
Hey ST,
Is it the plight of the creative to be burdened with the need to create, to procure something from themselves which does not already exist in society, while having to live and work within society’s boundaries and rules in order to survive? Its almost bi-polar the way inspiration surges and sucks. Roll with the punches man, accept the compulsion with the disillusionment, you writing makes a difference to all of us.
This TED talk may strike a chord with you:
Bowlphilosophy, I don’t know who you are and we’ve never met before (as far as I know), but I think you may have just changed my life.
Thank you for the comment and vid, they couldn’t have come at a better time for me.
I agree 100% with the notion that true creativity comes from somewhere outside the self, the ‘collective unconscious’ as Yates used to call it, and have often experienced it earthing itself through me and my work.
What Gilbert says is right though, unless you’re ready for it when it comes, it slips away and there are no guarantees it will come back.
Bottom line is I appreciate the support and yeah, rolling with the punches is the only way to eventually land a few of my own 😉
-ST
Hey ST,
No we haven’t met, somewhere down the line someone sent me your “Guide to Klapping Gym Boet” which floored me, I’ve subsequently been reading you blog in fits and bursts. I identify with a lot of what you say,like your take on SA and find myself in a similar, occasionally one-oared, boat with regard to writing and blogging.
Drop me a line: bowlphilosophy@gmail.com