Of Truth and Spleen

photography: Dystopia by Ian Hemingway

 

I cower at your feet – 

A docile body – 

With no thoughts of its own

But those of your creation.

Identity depleted 

Of jagged edges all:

I am like him

And he is like the next.

In this – our condition –

Of quieted un-freedom 

We are amalgams of the same.

Are these the truths you seek?

Are we – such things of pity –

That you crave power over?

Yet know that yours won’t be

The only truth to reign

And we shall turn

The tide against itself.

And should our power fail us

We shall imagine sabres –

Or teeth of steel –

To give home to our spleen.

 

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Writing Challenge: The Ray Bradbury Noun List Twist

2. Your nouns. Create a list of at least ten nouns. (If you can think of more, great, you’ll have more nouns to choose from.) Write a new piece using at least five of the nouns on your list.

My list: Modernity, Freedom, Identity, Creation, Condition, Action, Rulers, Power, Truth, Existence.

Who do you think you are?

Why blog? Why not keep a journal instead: a private escape for one’s thoughts, a keeper of secrets, a chalice to hold one’s innermost fears and desires. A journal will not be subjected to the scrutiny of anonymous readers. It will not open itself to judgement and criticism. Unless… it is discovered.

Like journal-writing, blogging is in many respects a private affair. We pour shards of our existence onto the page. Our words reveal as much as they conceal. A narrative develops over time and new truths are weaved into the old, at times displacing them. As for the elephant in the room? Ah yes. That small issue of it being public.

I was a child tiptoeing into adulthood when I started my first journal. Two weeks or so into the attempt I gave it up as a bad job. “Life is dull” was my swift conclusion. Or at least, this I thought of my life as it squiggled in ink on the page, and there was little fun to be had in chronicling pedestrian trials and tribulations. The following day I invented a story instead. My fictional alter-ego surpassed all expectations. There were adventures to be had, mysteries to be uncovered and unknowables to be explored. And, there was something else that appealed about this alternative: I could take others along on the journey by sharing my stories.

And this is the advantage any blog will always have over a journal: it is created to be shared, an endeavour that connects us with others and in doing so, it enriches our experience of story-telling, be that in the guise of writers, photographers, or artists.

There is a degree of danger associated with blogging: we can never be certain of our audience’s reaction. As a writer I am all too familiar with those negative voices in one’s head, the ones that whisper from the empty page, challenging: “Who do you think you are? What makes you think that you have something to say worthy of being read?” These demons do not discriminate. They haunt the greats and beginners alike.

Defining what constitutes good content will always be an exercise in subjectivity. Each blogger and reader are likely to have their own view of what is “good”. My first steps into the blogosphere were digital footprints of former experiences and creative passions. In time I learnt that good writing is never self-indulgent and always aims to serve the reader rather than yours truly (the writer).

There is one stumbling block that I ought to acknowledge before I say my goodbyes. Of late my blogging and writing commitments have been vying for mastery over the most precious of all resources: Time. There is a catch to being a writer: you have to write. The same goes for blogging. I am searching for a formula that will accommodate both without damaging the quality of either. When I discover it, I will be sure to let you know. Then again, you may be “in the know” already. If so… Care to share?

 

Zero to Hero, Day One: Introduce Yourself

Writers… we are all Outsiders

A stranger to the moods of the land where I first saw the light of day,

An alien to every place where my foot has left an ephemeral imprint since,

I’ve learnt a long time ago that I do not belong…

An outsider.

Once I believed this lack – an affliction. I searched for the certainty of a home,

The security of an identity that is fixed, immutable.

Not so today.

I’ve made of this prison an ocean; for its shell I have fashioned a sail.

Hear the tempest howl. Listen to the silence shatter. 

Shards cutting deep, until words pour crimson from my fingertips.

A soul adrift. A writer. 

A world in flux. Its secrets – ours to unveil. Its pain – ours to render intelligible.

It is a beautiful place when a crisp line makes it so,

A torrent of despair when ink carves through its darkest corners,

Bruising out truths we would rather forget.

Yet every line is enveloped in precarious indeterminacy –

It is here to be read for a moment only – a glimpse of light

Before the night sets in.

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Daily Prompt: The Outsiders

On Race, Gender and Difference.

On Race, Gender and Difference.

NB: Below you can read my reply to a Project O’s fellow-contributor. Click on the link above for her article.

Dear Tee,
Thank you for a great post. I enjoyed the sarky undertone too. It suited the piece I think.

     Regarding race. May I be so bold and agree with your PolSci prof? I don’t know what arguments she brought forward to support her position, but this is how I see it. Yes, people’s skin colour differs. It differs from person to person, region to region, continent to continent; and if there are humanoid aliens out there, perhaps from galaxy to galaxy too. We are not blind to those differences, and the French I think proved quite well that state-ratified attempts at such blindness fail to bring about equality of treatment.

      However, I do believe that race is a social construct. To think in racial terms is not a ‘natural’ occurrence. The doctrines were invented by those who sought to justify rapacious private and state-led enterprise outside the limited confines of European territories. It is easier to rob peoples of their possessions if you do not think of them as your equals. You don’t need to come to terms then with your own failings as a human being or society.
Before that happened, attitudes did not differ towards people whose skin colour differed any more than they differed towards people using different hair-grooming products.

      Race is a social construct in the same way in which gender is. Yes, there are two basic sexes: male and female, with many nuanced in-betweens when discontinuities between biology and psyche occur. But other than the strict biological differences that can be observed, all else is invention. It took two world wars to show Europe that at the end of the day there are no differences between what men and women can do work-wise, that equally well educated men and women are equally capable of rational argument, that politically engaged citizens are militant no matter what their sex.
However, I am also painfully aware that the above does not change on-the-ground realities. Just because something is imagined or invented, if it is adhered to, then it is as real as it can get.

      I count myself fortunate in that I have always seen difference as an inherent good. I am fascinated by it, not in a “let me inspect you as if you’re some museum piece” fascinated, but as toddlers find the world around them new and wonderful and exciting, and everything they have not encountered before is another adventure: an explorer’s dream. Every person I meet, irrespective of background, gender, skin colour, nose shape and whatever-have-you, is to me a new world I am eager to discover. I wish it was the same for everyone.

     Sadly, I know that not to be the case. But I hope that what you shared in your post will make at least one person think twice before they make another racist joke thinking ‘big deal’.

     Thank you again. Look forward to more of your writing x

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Should you like to peruse my original contribution to Project O, follow this link: https://shardsofsilence.wordpress.com/2013/08/26/project-o/ or alternatively, you can find it on Project O’s home-website at: http://aopinionatedman.com/2013/09/03/project-o-article-12/

For more deeply held opinions, there is an interview with vicbriggs and OpinionatedMan coming up in October. Watch this space!

And thank you for stopping by 🙂

Name That … You!

Do you know the meaning of your name?

Photographers, artists, poets: show us IDENTITY.

Victoria

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like Latin? I am Victory!

Or Nike, if you’re Greek.

A goddess winged and doubly strong

I conquer all I seek.

 

A Titan was my father

By Water birthed with wit.

Strength, Force and Zeal – my siblings made

This family complete.

 

Join forces on my father’s side.

By Zeus I swear then

With fame and glory to provide

The bravest of all men.

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http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/09/02/daily-prompt-identity/

http://angloswiss-chronicles.com/2013/09/02/daily-prompt-name-that-you/