Epiphanies. On distant shores of countries far far away words floated back and forth yesterday. As the blue water crashed endlessly against the white cliffs .. My vision floated .. Like the seagulls over the pale blue skies. Within and beyond my sight lay only infinity and the thought that all these people walking the grassy lands and enjoying the wonders of nature, would be gone someday. That they are but specs on the windshield of eternity. The cry of a passing gull blown away by the endless wind of eternity. When one looks up and sees the scale of things.. The microscopic event called a human lifetime versus the punctualness of the sea.. One does wonder… I looked up from the keyboard yesterday. Looked away from the puny world that is called humanity and its digital progress and looked around me. Gazed into the start blue eyes of the horizon and listened to philosophical thoughts carried over the wind. Thoughts that seemed to come from far away and yet where very familiar. Thoughts and feelings that had been lost in the maelstrom of my life. And these thoughts lifted a weight that was on my shoulders. Something that has been dragging me down for months.
Dark days of last. The burden of progress. The weight of technology. The digital doom. Call it what you want .. It has been all around me over the last year. Life on the edge of real and cyberspace has been replaced by a life dominated by cyberspace. Shoulders weighed down by demands of others for support and help. A back burdened with keeping in touch with recent events and staying on top of the ball. Hands grasping the fleeting sand of failing operating systems that needed to be salvaged. Feet stuck in the mud of an overloaded calendar. A cyber citizen.. A digital wizard heaving heavily under the weight of his own potions. Technology was not something that works for “me”. Somewhere along the road of last year I have become enslaved by it. Thoughts crushed out by constant incoming communications. Silence blasted away by incoming phone calls. Concentration obliterated by the myriad of things to be done. Peace of mind burdened by the stress of having to keep up. The thin ice of ones personality cracking under the pressure of it all.
On distant shores…. They say somebody can be crushed under the weight of work. Of things to do, Things to keep up with .. Things to conform with. Where the pressure of being in high demand turns the air we need to breathe into damp oppressive steam that is hard to gulp down. Where we try to grasp too much.. Try to conform and say yes to every demand. Find ourselves dancing to the same corporate beat of having to preform. To sell .. to fix .. to please.. Yesterday I started to see just what I was doing. If conflict is the motor of progress we shall blame it on its bittersweet head. I dragged myself upstairs to our silent attic and started to write. Not to type .. but to write. The light of a single bulb pierced the darkness.. The sound of a pen dancing over a peace of paper floated through the silence. And words came.. No .. words came BACK. Soon the words scattered over once peace of paper after the others. It was like a doorway to the past had been kicked open. Because I remembered the writing style. I recollected the lyrical equations, I looked into the eyes of the writer and it where my own eyes. This is how I used to write.. This is how I used to be. Before I was pushed away from myself by the pressures of modern day life. The next day was the final key to unlock it all. A escape from reality without email, cellphones, or any means of communications. Just my love and I .. and a country where they do not speak our tongue. And slowly the thoughts came back. Watching nature.. Bouncing my thoughts of the wall of knowledge she has of me. Reflecting who I have become versus who I was.. and trying to find out just why things have changed to much..
Creativity in order to state who we are At the bottom of the ocean lies a drop of truth. The key to this myriad of troubles that has been haunting me these last few months. My very core buckling under the pressure of my own choices to please everybody. Say yes to almost every request. Forgotten who I was in favor of what I do. Drowning out the one thing that makes us who we are. That sets us aside from the beat of the marching drum. That gives us color in the shades of everyday gray. Our own creativity. For setting free the art that lives inside us is just what makes us who we are. What lets us add our own touch of color to the perpetual sunset. The one thing that lets us define ourselves in a world that wants us all to be the same is that creativity. And that is something I found no more in myself. I became conform.. I said yes and thank you.. I forgot that what we do in life is not who we HAVE to be. For in order to be happy .. One needs to vent his creativity.
21 days of change. Tribute to the three words. Veritas Passio et Diversitas. Enscribed not only on the back of my dear Ipod they are words that are the cornerstone of who I am. Veritas : Be true to yourself, be hones in what you say and do. Passio. Do what you do with passion of leave it be. Diversitas. Never be pinned down to one thing. Redefine yourself ever so often and surprise others and yourself with the dynamic nature of who you are. Looking back at the last few months I have seen little of these words in my own lifestyle and I now see the cracks that have been crawling throughout my own happiness. In order for things to thrive they sometimes must adapt to their surroundings and yet, they must also stay true to who they are. A difficult tightrope that must be walked. Yet it must be done. So that why I write these posts. In 21 days one can change they say. Keep something up for 21 days and it becomes a habit. So i'll try .. in 21 creative posts to find back the way that was lost. A little battle against the tides of modern life to make me think about what I want and how I want my creativity to reemerge. And perhaps to inspire you as well.
Pictures are from our visit to Wissant and Calais. More can be found in the Flickr section of Knightwise.com