Stress, And All Things Related

I need to write, my fingers are aching to, my mind is about to explode and burst out streams of words unless I jot them down. As usual I'm trying too hard, thinking of too many things at once, trying to make sense of the chaos in my head.

Lately it seems everyone has come to me with their problems. I guess I should be taking this as a compliment. Like Dear One said, I've got all the pieces in the right places, and that's why. I don't know. I appreciate that I am regarded trustworthy and sensible, but at the same time there's a voice deep down in me just screaming out loud, rageing inside. Who will tell me everything will be alright? Who will give me suggestions of how to work things out? Who will be for me, what I have become for everyone else? I don't know. Like I wished for once, I wonder what it'd be like if there was someone else out there like me. Would I find this person to be great, would we have so much in common? Or, more likely, would we hate eachother's guts because both of us are so damn impossible to understand? Don't get me wrong. My friends are the best in the world and always there for me. It's just that sometimes I seem to be unable to talk of the heaviest things weighing on my heart.

I had a dream last night that bothers me. I dreamt of talking to an old friend, when we were joined by someone who once left me to the wind after a great betrayal committed by someone she was covering up for. (I'm aware this sounds like something from a TV drama series.) And she just sat there, staring at me, as if she was asking me to explain myself. As if she was asking me to lay all my cards down on the table and show her what I've managed in life, where I've gotten to without her. The truth is, once I realized what she and everyone else I used to be around stood for, how blind they were to reality, and the amount of time and effort they were all willing to spend on forgiving unforgiveable things; I haven't missed them, any of them. I don't feel I owe any of them an explanation of my life or the choices I've made. And still, when confronted with this in a dream, I had nothing to show for myself, and couldn't find the words. Analytically speaking I'm thinking this might be a sign of all my busy thoughts about the future that I've been going over lately. Everything's so uncertain. What will happen after I graduate? When I have to stand on my own feet again? When I have to fight and struggle my way through life again; standing without any form of safety, again. I have already studied here for two and a half years. Already at the end of my education. A program I never thought I'd even get to start, back in that year when everything went to hell and back. I've been taking loans for these years, and after I'm done here, it's not possible for me financially to study anymore. It's a shame really, because one of my options was to study for the master's program. Now I'm going to have to look for work instead, something I both dread and look forward to. With any bit of luck, I can get a job in the industry, and I'm working hard to make that dream come true; but there are no such things as guarantees in this business. Hell, there's not even a guarantee there'll be a position I'm qualified for somewhere. My best hope is to make the best of my thesis next term, and take it from there. I dread having to leave the industry and the creation of games and life in my animations. I dread having to resign myself from this apartment, from this life, move back home and take a job that will kill braincells in my head for each day that passes. I dread the future so much right now, and that's despite the fact that Dear One now considerably brightens my future. But in some ways that's exactly what fuels my fear. I'm afraid that Dear One will leave me, that I'll leave Dear One, that we'll fall apart, that love will cease, that one of us dies and leaves the other. I'm afraid of every one of these things, and still, right this moment, I feel like I can do anything when Dear One is with me. 

It's confusing, frightening and pleasant at the same time. Maybe that's how love's supposed to be, and I didn't even know it until now. Who knows?

To top off all my post-graduation stress, we're nearing the deadlines in two term-long project courses at the same time as we're preparing intensely for our thesis work. I'm quite proud to announce I'll be writing my thesis in cooperation with Ludosity Learning, a local game studio. I'll be looking at how a given human personality can be implemented practically in the movements of an animated non-human character. I'm pretty excited to get started with that in January as I'll be joined by two terrific classmates of mine also doing their thesis at Ludosity. However, before that can happen, we've got the project deadlines coming up. I'm basically finished with my individual project - I just need to light and render my scenes - and I'm making a lot of progress in my mini project as well. For that project, I'm lipsyncing a character to a voiceclip, and animating him in a modeled environment. So far I've modeled the environment, and completed about 80 percent of the basic lipsyncing. I'll have to tweak the timing and poses a bit once the basis is done, but it'll be fast work. After that, round about next week, I'll be working with animating the rest of his face and his upper body. The result will be really cool I think. A friend from the sound design class helped me record the voiceclips and the result was great, and it's been fun to lipsync to. I only hope there's still time to tie everything together into a good-looking result.

Since all our deadlines are set to mid-January, holidays over Christmas will feel incredibly stressed if I don't get as much work as possible out of the way before then. There's been so many discussions with my family regarding me not coming home for Christmas. But say I'm Hermione, and I'm spending this Christmas at the Burrow. I don't know when I might have time to go home and visit, but it's looking grim to have time for it right after Christmas and I might have to go home after New Year's. All I want to do is visit at home when I have time and energy to. Since when was it so important to stick with dates?

But yeah... I think I've ranted enough for now. See you on the other side of exploded-worry-head-land,
POET IN THE JAR

The Hammer

All these images of you
All these connections
And strange associations
I thought I had assassinated
Every thought of you, for now
Thought I had eliminated
Every image of you, for now

But the sight of a streetlight can hammer into my chest
Pounding, beating, every mile into my heart
Every minute ticking down, like time does best
Clubbing, whacking, deep angst into art
I channel the voices, channel the words
My only means of protest
And what I do best

These thoughts are too brittle
To withstand my inspection
My inward reflection
I thought I was in control
Of my treacherous self, for now
I thought I had a hold
On my traitorous self, for now

But the sight of a streetlight can hammer into my chest
Pounding, beating, every mile into my heart
Every minute ticking down, like time does best
Clubbing, whacking, deep angst into art
I channel the voices, channel the words
My only means of protest
And what I do best

Can I force you down if I try
Can I sink you down if I try
Can I repress you if I try
Until I'm blind
And I've forgotten why I tried

All these puzzle pieces of us
All these shattered shards
And stitched-up hearts
I thought I had validated
Their existence, by now
I thought I had evaluated
Their emergence, by now

But the sight of a streetlight can hammer into my chest
Pounding, beating, every mile into my heart
Every minute ticking down, like time does best
Clubbing, whacking, deep angst into art
I channel the voices, channel the words
My only means of protest
And what I do best

The very moment I'm away from you
Everything fades, like memories do
All the affection, thwarted transparent
All the confidence, gone insignificant
But when I'm curled up in my most malicious doubt,
Unwillingly neglecting what it's all about,
Every image of you that I consciously reject
Fights its way right back again
Finds its way right back again
Into my chest

And then, the sight of a streetlight can shiver through my chest
Shining, shining, every smile into my heart
Every minute ticking by, like time does best
Beaming, beaming, my longing into art
I channel the light, channel the world
My only means of comfort
And what you do best

POET IN THE JAR

Eliminate Self-pity

I just read this quote by Stephen Fry about the way to happiness. Fry says he wants to publish a self-help book, entitled "The way to happiness by Stephen Fry". In the beginning of the book he would write "Stop worrying and be happy." The rest of the book's pages would be empty. According to Fry, self-pity is what stands in the way of people's happiness.

I started thinking about it. Self-pity is an emotion that encapsules many other emotions. You consider yourself unlucky, the circumstances unfair, whenever life doesn't go the way you would have wanted; it's easy to blame it on other people and on the world, considering how unfortunate you truly are. It's easy to fall down the path of self-pity, feeling unwanted, underachieving, unlucky, mistreated. But what if you eliminate your self-pity? Would that automatically make you happy? Or would the lack of self-pity simply pave you the circumstances you need in order to be happy?

I pity myself more than I would like to admit. I constantly think of my own failures in life and how I could possibly correct them. I think of all the things I never have the time to do, all the things I can't afford to do, all the things that are impossible for me to do, all the things I once did and that I regret. All dreams dead. All happiness suffocated.

But when I peel all that off, I'm left with a strange sense of calm. Apparently, it took me some time to figure out what Stephen Fry phrases so perfectly in his quote. Without self-pity, without self-blame and self-loathing, the foundations of happiness seem clear. The road seems wide enough to walk. You seem to forget about what goals await at the end of the road or if you'll ever get to see them. You become aware of the air you breathe, the steps you take, the amazement inside your mind.

This is the moment I have wanted to treasure for so long, that one second of insight, awareness, and calm. What I have always meant when I've said, "live in the present!", without truly understanding it myself. When I force the negative emotions out of my thoughts, the voices clear, the fog clears, I feel aware, I feel at ease, or at as much ease as I'll ever be.

Stephen Fry, huh.
Clever guy.
Thanks for the tip.
POET IN THE ANTI-DEPRESSANT JAR

Little Dear Sister

Hello there, little sister. Little, dear sister.

I know that in fact you're my older sister and I'm the youngest of the bunch, but I'll always remember you as little. I know that you are dead and can't hear these words, and that if you were alive today you wouldn't understand them. But what if, what if things had played out a bit differently, little girl? What if you had been born healthy? We might be playing through the LEGO video games right now together. We might have spent each moment together as we grew up. Things, for the both of us, for the rest of the family, might all have been easier.

Little sister, I miss you sometimes, even though I never knew you, even though I barely remember you. I keep wondering what might have happened if you hadn't been ill, if you hadn't died. Would I even be alive? Would our parents have called it quits once you were born and never given me the chance to live? Once I was told that the reason I exist is because the doctors adviced our parents to get another child while they could. I was told that if it weren't for you, love, I wouldn't be here today. Sometimes those words ring true in my mind. Other times it feels useless to dwell on the past.

I'm sorry I didn't come to see you on All Hallow's Eve. I would have liked to come over and light a candle to chase away some of the storm. I would have liked to drop off some flowers like I did on Midsummer's Eve. I would have liked to pay you my respects, because in all essence, the roles could be reversed. I could have been the one born a year before you, I could have been the one to carry all your pain and burdens. You could have been the one to live my life, and maybe you would have done better with it than I have.

You see, I feel a lot like a failure even when the wind's blowing my way. Even when there's no sorrows to bother with or when my problems are so, so small compared to the world and the great scope of things, I can feel so low, so under-achieving, so hopeless. Like I can't fight the demands I set up for my own demise. Like it wasn't voluntary of me to caress the busy moments, so I wouldn't have so much time to think.

But sister, I would like to take some time to think every once in a while. Take a breather from all the stressed out routines. And maybe then I might light a candle, here in my own home, and take a moment to think of you, or to talk to you.

How come it works so well, talking to someone who's dead? Is it because there are no replies? Is it because what I really want to do is just to spill my heart out, in any way, to let the words flow through my fingers when I'm too sore to speak?

If you had been born free, free and healthy, I'm just certain that everything would have been different. I'm certain you and I would have so much in common. With just one year, one tiny little year, to set us apart, we could have become eachother's comfort, eachother's heals. Maybe in some other dimension, some alternate reality where this option really did play out, we're comforting eachother as I speak. Maybe we know nothing of hardship or death there. Maybe we know all too well, but can find comfort in our loneliest moments. We can stand against this whole world together, in that reality.

If everything had just played out differently.

I won't take more of your time now. I'm sure there are greater, grander things in play where you are right now, than my small and insignificant problems here. In many ways, sister, you won this game. This world has gone insane. So full to the brim with evil that you would be too innocent to understand. It would just harm you. Leave it to me to fight these images in this age of information. I promise I will fight for you, and I'm sure your memory will give me strength to pull through. We never give up, little sister. In this family we never give up.

I love you. Even the faintest memory of you. It reminds me how brittle everything is. How quickly it all can just go away. And it reminds me that even when the odds seem impossible, we can keep fighting. Keep fighting until the last drop of blood, even when everyone believes the war has already been lost.

Until next time, little Carolina.
POET IN THE JAR

Sleepless In Scandinavia

I'm up sleepless again and I don't know why. That is to say, I have a few qualified guesses but then there's only so much I can do with those. A lot of things on my plate right now is causing my stress level to skyrocket and the less I sleep, the harder it gets to sleep. I'm tired, in the way that I can't really focus or have patience for anything, but when the time of day comes when I'm supposed to let my head fall down on the pillow and my mind enter the dreamworld, I am reluctant to sleep. Reluctant to let go, I suppose. Usually happens when I've got too many things to get all worked up about. I've slept so badly since Tuesday that my left eyelid has been twitching for the last two days (that's my body telling me I need sleep). Unfortunately, I won't be able to really enjoy this weekend, because I'm attending a writer's retreat all day tomorrow and have to spend Sunday on an assignment I never handed in at the beginning of the semester. I just spent the last hour and a half on the phone with my nearest and dearest. There're no words for how much I appreciate calling a friendly voice, someone who knows me and keeps me at heart, and hearing their encouragement and love flow through time. Through the distance that sets us apart.

Damn, it gets dark early these days. Bloody winter indeed. Next winter I'm emigrating.

I figured, since I can't sleep (or as of right now, don't want to attempt it), I might as well come here and rant on about a few things so I can get them out of my head. Perhaps my head will clear a bit and allow for sleep to invade my world once these thoughts have been jotted down.

At least one stress element was eliminated today as I found out I passed all four assignments on the first half of one of my two main courses this semester. Passing those assignments means no extra work or details to complete, but I can now focus entirely on what's remaining. In our individual projects, work has been progressing since day one, but in the advanced 3D course, our mini projects are just starting. I can't start working on it quite yet as I've chosen to work with lipsyncing and I'm still waiting for my voice clips (busy as everything's been, I sent the script way late to the sound designer, so it's my own fault). I'm excited to work with lipsync again and to work with animation not intended for ingame uses. I'm sure this will look good in my portfolio and if I manage to do it well, it might be the one piece of work that decides whether or not I get a position I apply for. So I really want to put in some hard work into it. Apart from lipsyncing and animating the character's face and upper body, I also want to model and light the environment he's in, so that the material in the end will have true potential as showcase material. I'll start working on it next week. In the individual project, I'm about a week behind schedule, but not really worried. I've planned about one week for each animation and just yesterday, I created a cycle in less than two hours, complete with fine details and followthrough. Today, I've finally gotten a base worked up for the "ride elevator"-animation that I was scheduled to work on. I've looked over it all week and just been stuck, which has added to my stress. At last I put the animation on hold and went ahead to create one of my bonus animations, a "scout ahead" for ingame camera tilts (the animation I made in less than two hours). This seems to have done the trick and served as a break from my usual work, since it was considerably easier to pick up the elevator animation again today and achieve quite a lot of progress in just a short matter of time.

Other things are troubling me as well. Sudden memories awoken. I feel like I'm walking down a long hallway with door after door and I have to open each one to look inside, and some doors should be left closed and locked. I worry, for family, for friends.

I worry about me. About the future. About aging.

I argue. I argue inside my head constantly.
It makes me feel like I'm Zach, the office guy (which is probably partially true).

Once upon a time a life blossomed in a little white house on the mountainside, near the forest and the lake. Tunes were sung in these halls and instruments played delicately, echoing between the walls. Words were written. Walks were taken. Smiles. Many, many smiles.

I think of my nearest and dearest.

I saw a commercial on TV today showing an elderly couple standing on a beach in the sunset. They're smiling, ruffling eachothers' hairs with their towels, bringing out wine. Standing in the sun and in the breeze, in the sand. 

I think of my nearest and dearest and I become certain, convinced, that I want to grow old with you. That you are unusual. Special. Because you never tried to take a part of me. You never wanted to overshadow the sides of me that were too dark for your liking. You never cease listening, even when the words just spill out of me without reason or context. Even when I'm so full of words that I'm about to burst and I have to interrupt what you're saying to do so, you listen to me. You give me more than I deserve. You let me be me, without trickery. You give me freedom. Do you know what freedom is to me? Do you know that with everyone else I came close to, made me feel like I was shut in a cage, wingless and dead? Do you realize how unique it makes us that with you... this feeling of imprisonment is completely absent?

I think I can deal with pretty much everything life may serve me, if only you're with me.
Without you I'll die. Once and for all.
So just don't go and get yourself all dead, and we should be good...

Loved one.

POET IN THE PICK AND MIX RANT JAR

Rains & Trains

Falling rain. Passing trains. Thinking time.

Currently, I'm thinking about the many projects I want to do or am in the process of doing. It seems like just managing my courses is enough workload to kill a fullgrown horse, and still I'm inspired to keep working, keep developing outside of school and improving miscellaneous skills. One project I'm particularly keen of, I've drawn a character concept from my neverending novel project "Chasing Ella". I'd love to create a few orthographic images, turn them into a 3D character and then texture and animate it. It's the typical kind of project that I feel I could really be proud of once it's done since I'll have been responsible for all the stages of the process, from concept to animated and textured model, and it'd look really neat in my future portfolio. Which brings me to my most highly priored project for the time being; the creation of my portfolio. What I want to do is collect the work I've done within the field of animation and put it together in a showreel that will then work as my portfolio. I plan to create this collection towards the end of my current courses when I feel like I'll have a lot more material to showcase. Also I want relatively recent material in the reel that I can stand for, you know. The problem with this plan is that I'd like to apply for a trainee position at one of the local game studios while I study my last term, and to do this I'd have to put material together much sooner than the end of this fall, and write to possible studios as soon as possible. My friend gave me a pretty good tip though, to just put together some samples of the work I've done so far as a 'placeholder portfolio' and use that when I write to the studios. Hopefully what it'll show is my passion for learning animation without the content having to be perfect, and it'll beat writing to studios without any material to showcase. So that's also a project on its own, putting together a temporary showreel.

Not to mention all the writing projects... two contests coming up that I wanna participate in, one assignment for my writer's group, and then of course, the annual Nanowrimo hovering on the horizon far, far away. I have no idea what I want to write about for this year and even less of an idea how to pull that off in time. Got. So. Much. Work. Ahead.

Without much further ado, might see you on the other side of the dreamscape. Until then, rested sleep to y'all.

POET IN THE JAR

Journeyman

Weren't you my journeyman

Didn't we watch the stars together

Didn't we map the world together

Weren't you my journeyman

When we set sails together

For ages we rode the vast uncharted sea

You still remember the oldest fragments of me

You should be able to see patterns, pictures

I should be able to see constellations

We should still be charting the seas

Somehow we both wandered

Somehow we lost ourselves

Among the islands

Weren't you my journeyman then

Weren't you always

What happened to us

When the falling snow draped the landscape

When the northern lights were what lit our way

When the mist tried so desperately to lead us astray

We navigated together

Through reefs and cliffs

Cleaving the waves

Journeyman,

We could have been saved

You should have held on to every silver key

When I drifted, you should have held on to me

I can't trust a journeyman who'll let me drift

Who'll let the winds carry me away

Did you know I lost everything

In those storms

Did you notice,

Journeyman?

What have we become by now but caricatures

Hardened hearts and dying desires

Drenched in salt and scorched by fires

What have we become by now but stone

Stone statues with memories of old days

Carved into our withering hands

Weren't you my journeyman

Didn't you explore the fields with me

Didn't we search the forests and hills

Before we wandered, before we lost ourselves

Didn't we laugh together, and gaze at the glimmering, frozen water

Weren't we on the same crew, the same ship

Hurdling together with shivering fingers and freezing lips

Now I'm fighting with a loneliness

That slowly kills

There's nothing left for us to chart

Nothing left for us to say

Even thoughts are obsolete

When time has swallowed everything that was

It's too late to save us

Too late to find our way home again

Too late to be my journeyman

Inaudible Music

Why do we care what other people think of us? Are we that narrow-minded, as human beings, that we think it really matters? Are we even individuals, capable of thought and emotion, are we anything more than specks of dust against the universe? We strive and strive for an image of perfection that we'll never achieve, try so hard to maintain this image of ourselves as intelligent beings, while in essence we aren't much more than animals equipped with a certain level of self-consciousness. We're dependent on the world around us to even be able to breathe, we're dependent on the sun to be able to live our small, small lives. Our whole life's order is arranged after day and night cycles created as the world spins around its own axis. When we lie down in the grass and stare at a blue sky we're still staring into space, all stars visible at night hidden by the sun and disguised as a cloak of color and clouds. That man exists is a wonder in itself and yet all we can focus on are trivial things. When you think about it - what should one achieve with life? Is the meaning of life to be successful, to be liked and respected, to have a job and a house, to be free of drugs and addiction, to contribute to society? Why can't the meaning of life, viewed by the masses, be to fulfill your own dreams and to live by a code decided by your heart? When I think about how fragile man is, how easily we die, how easily we live, it seems foolish and primitive how people tend to turn the most insignificant things into problems weighing in heavily on their lives. I look at the people around me and watch them dance as though to inaudible music, watch them prance as though they could achieve immortality that way. They drink themselves senseless, backtalk eachother, sleep around, in every photo it's the same shallow story being told all over again. I can't even say I'm not like them, not even when I spend my time with friends and games and writing and other things I'd like to call intellectual. In the end I'm equally primitive and equally worried about what rumors run around, how others see me, and I adapt myself equally much to avoid being seen as out of place. We divide ourselves into groups of us and them when we're actually the very same. Who can control when their hearts bleed, who can grasp the emptiness with open arms? The same way we're all the same, all watching the stars and thinking of what infinity is like, one day we'll all die, and these moments will be gone. I don't want to spend my moments of consciousness, moments of awareness, moments of living and being a breathing, feeling creature, living up to other people's standards. I want to spend my moments being safe, expanding my train of thought, experimenting, discovering, learning. I want to spend my moments around people I trust, people with mindsets like my own, people who don't dwell in silly pictures they can't remember when they were taken.

POET IN THE JAR

Everything That Shines Isn't Gold

So what if my shoes are a bit worn, if I don't own more than a handful of towels, if I have to wait for my salary to buy paint to restore my wall? So what, what does it really matter? As long as I've got my music, got my friends, got a roof over my head and food on my table, as long as I'm ambitious with my studies, trying to learn outside of school, trying to develop myself as a rigger and an animator, as long as I've got words to get me by. It's like everything else is just distant, like I'm pushing all other responsibilities away. I've made the calls I need to make, I'm taking care of the details of moving to a new apartment, I'm taking care of myself and my life. I just spent a whole month on the west coast, near Strömstad, working at a nursery home, earning enough money to pay for my bills in both July and August. It's only right now that I don't have enough, only now that I'm living on borrowed money, only now that I'm really treating every penny with respect. I'm living off of money lent to me by Mom, which I feel bad about, because she had just scratched half of the debt I already had to her... I wish I didn't have to intrude on their money. I don't think of myself as poor, just the way every student is; but I do wish that sometimes, for once, I could buy something without gasping over the price tag first, that I could buy something that was brand new and wasn't found on a sale rack, that I could join a friend for spontaneous lunch; just every once in a while. I'm so scared I won't find a job when I graduate from university, so scared I WILL find one and fall back into the comfort of having a job, forgetting everything I strived for when I knew what money was worth. I'm so puzzled and worried about distant things, at the same time I can't seem to get myself together and sort my remaining stuff before moving or washing a plate after I used it. I hope that I'll be able to stick to all my principles, stick to all those beliefs I have about the world and the people in it, about myself and about what living is worth.

What if I wake up, years from now, and realize I've become a vegetable, completely deadened to everything that used to cut and tear?

POET IN THE JAR

Haphazard, Chaotic Attic

Isn't it easy, delving into your own mind when the world peels off the better of you? Isn't it done by magic, in a matter of only seconds, when everything you see becomes too sharp, too real, for your own liking? Isn't it easy to head blindly into imagination, when reality hurts, when mortality knocks on your door, when you're reminded how frail you are?


LIVE LIFE, you can read on my knuckles, Absolution, you can read on my wrist. Illusion and dream is written in my neck, turtles and lotus flowers are drawn on my arms. All of this art I've inked onto my skin, all of it on such different occasions for such different reasons, and still their message seems so incredibly similar in retrospect, seems to ring so incredibly clear. It all seems to come down to the same thing - reality, mortality, and making use of the moment. So why is it so hard to stay on the outside, to not float off into a daily dreamland, drenching ourselves in daydreams when we aren't allowed to sleep and scaring ourselves awake with nightmares when we're supposed to?


I wonder if everyone's dreamers, if everyone dreads to be entirely present, entirely absorbed by what is happening around them this very second. I want to be more like those people who forget everything but what needs to be done this here and this now, want to be more like those people who can care so much that they can forget entirely about themselves. I want to be in the moment, want to be here, want to be now. I want to be less forgetful, less abstract, less enclosed in a prison made of moving patterns turning me sea-sick, less chased by constant inner arguments, less troubled, less worried, less afraid. More than anything else I want to be less afraid. I'm so tired of waking up in the middle of the night scared half to death by my own nocturnal and haphazard visions, so tired of twitchingly tricking myself into sleep, so tired of counting minutes and seconds until the next time I'm required to present myself somewhere, so tired of not being able to choose what to think.


Is it supposed to be this chaotic? Is it supposed to be this dizzy? Am I supposed to shift this swiftly between emotional extremes? Am I supposed to spend this much time inside the messy attic I call mind? Am I supposed to latch on so easily to what lives and breathes?


"What you live and breathe is why you're dying"
~ Poets of the Fall


I'll leave you with those words for now...
POET IN THE CHAOTIC JAR

Dollhouse World

It's throwing your dollhouse world in disarray... so you can rebuild or conform

Isn't that the ultimate truth for me right now, with all these thoughts whirling about in my head. What's new, you say, what's new about having a buzzing head, isn't that what the Poet in the Jar's all about? Well, you have a valid point there. But I'm thinking differently about things now, more heavily, trying to rationally argue with the voices inside. Trying to make rationality beat tradition, beat instinct. Not logic thinking... rational thinking, thinking that makes sense. Taking a problem and weighing its pros versus its cons, looking at it from afar instead of from right in the middle of it. Trying to think objectively. Maybe it doesn't sound as hard as I find it, hell, maybe to some people it isn't hard at all. But it's a slow and sometimes painstaking process, for me, and Poets of the Fall's words just... fit. Dollhouse world, a world of perfection, the truth I thought I could deduct by observing the world - thrown into disarray, into disassembly, into disorder; turning every conclusion upside-down, even the ones I had made about myself and about my past.

It's a strange feeling to wake up one day and decide to start looking at things differently... if that's even what happened. I can't really describe what happened. At one point I just looked at my past in a different light, and at everyone who had surrounded me up until that point. Things started to click into place. I wouldn't say questions were answered, it was more like questions were added. But now I could tell which questions mattered and which were less important. Which to try and answer and which to let be. And that can make a hell of a difference, to a pondering poet.

The past few days I've been thinking of a few things, trying to "solve" them in my head. The first major issue has been what should qualify as love, is it measureable, what happens when love falls out of society's norms, and does love really need to be physical? The other major issue has been whether you should trust your head more than your heart when they want two separate things, and how to balance your own life with the lives of others. How can you be a pioneer and an individual if doing so constantly pushes you out of the social context? Would you still go for the higher cause, or would you sooner or later long to be part of the herd? Tricky philosophical questions indeed.

Other than all my heavy mental workload, there isn't too much on my table right now. I'm staying at my cousin's house for the majority of the upcoming three weeks, my aunt got me a nice job at a home for the elderly. It's going alright, learning as I go, doing my best. I don't think they can expect miracles from a summer worker who's only staying three weeks. If they like me enough and I do a decent job, they might ask me to come back, though. I haven't really decided how I feel about that, that's for a later decision.

Oh, I don't know, I just want time to be frozen... frozen like a bubble in a moment from the past of my choosing, possibly December 2nd 2011... frozen there and forever. Untroubled. Safe. Complete.

And I wish friends didn't have to move so far away and that it didn't have to be so goddamn hard just missing them. I really feel like having a second family in your friends is the way to go, and if you've got a setup like that, count yourself lucky. And treasure every moment you get to spend with them, young and carefree.

I wish time didn't go by so fast. I swear time goes by faster for each year that passes. Soon I'll be a hundred years old, still having a go at the typewriter.

With that I bid you goodnight,

THE HUNDRED YEARS OLD

POET IN THE JAR

Robotic Machinery

I've noticed my automatic replies to your questions
Like sometimes I can't even force myself to listen
Can't keep track of your rollercoaster ride
As it speeds along, with me inside

Can you hear how cold I can be
How warm I can be

Sometimes I care so much that it hurts
That it feels like I'm about to explode out of love
Out of recently acquired respect
The moment I stopped thinking of you as kin
And started thinking of you as human

But I'm always taken aback by your robotic machinery
Your generated voice that covers for your absence
Turning me cold again, turning me into steel

Did you ever stop to think how it would sound to me
How your words might look, their shape, their pretense
For the one who's supposed to listen, to receive, and to feel

Strange how I always said I'd be different than you
I said I wouldn't look at things in your narrow way
And never become so unpredictable and unstable
Strange how I found I'm so similar to you
Shifting between cold and warm just the same
Eventually gaining the exact same label

I'm hoping I've got more control of it than you
That my awareness will prove to be part of the solution
And I'm hoping I can bloom at some point,
Before my whole life has gone by
I hope I can blossom,
I hope I can try

And every time I long for you,
For comforting arms and soothing words,
I'll remind myself I shouldn't turn to you,
Your attempts of comfort will only hurt
I'll turn to what I know as true
To my own diversions
Away from you

Inefficiency

Today has been so long and felt a little bit like an emotional rollercoaster ride. In some ways I've become very efficient in when to turn off my emotions, in some other ways, I'm more inefficient than ever. Just another one of those constant conflicts roaming in the back of my mind and perhaps a story for some other day. So many things going on in my mind right now, two things more than anything else. One thing - why it has to be so hard when someone important to you leaves, no matter for how long... Second thing - why you always have to choose between what you should do, and what you want to do. Choosing between your dreams and what's actually possible to achieve.


Off for late night pondering.
POET IN THE JAR

Speaking To Pages

What happened to my conception of time
When did minutes turn into days, into weeks
Every moment losing magic, losing shine
Can I mimic the real
Is the present mine

It used to feel like an ocean to cross
Like every passage took a toll on our lives
And every wave was a precious mime
Where thought wouldn't rule
Where emotion would thrive

I started speaking to pages
Started cutting through silence,
Through lonely rooms
For a while you felt alive
For a while I cut through my own
Designated gloom
Cut through the self-assigned
The realigned

The intertwined

I turned to another kind of journey
A journey that was only mine
I gave it false meaning
The original purpose
Redesigned
And I found I can't go on
Not when insights are based on lies
Everything artificial, even the most authentic
Of details, wandering my mind
I can't go on, if I don't speak to pages
If I don't speak to silence

They're the only ones who aren't too tired to listen
The only ones willing to accept my flood of words
Sometimes I have to speak into the moment
Sometimes I feel forced to share my voice
And they don't judge me
Although they never answer me
Or encourage me
Or really hear me

What happens to all the things I can't channel anymore
To all those fragile whispers that I used to share with you
What happens to my misdirected loneliness
That I knew I bought myself into
What happens when I speak
And all I want to do is listen
All I want to do is listen to you

But all I can do is speak
Speak until my voice is sore
Sore from all those things
Unchanneled before

Cleanse You

It can tear me to see you broken,

Like a coughing and spluttering machine

At least if I could wind you up

If you were mechanical

And didn't run on batteries

Could you let me fix you

Not change you,

not alter you

Just fix you

You won't let me see what you've hidden inside

Like it was a treasure you had to protect

You won't let me close to what ripped you apart

What made you label yourself as defect

If I could wind you up

If you worked that way

Could I fix you

Would you let me

It's like you're tangled in a spiral

That no one can unwind

Like your voice is immortalized

On a tape you can't rewind

Like a lost fragment of thought

In your mind

Could I fix you

Would you let me

I already know the answer

It feels like I've already tried

Although most of my confusion

Derives from sad illusions

From melancholia

From my visions

What did I get myself into, what did you

I didn't sign up for madness, did you

I knew you weren't undamaged

But none of us really are

Does that explain anything

Do you ever feel like you need explanations

I can't pinpoint who you are or what you've been

There's a darkness inside of you

I think only I have seen

I wouldn't change you

I wouldn't alter you

Just cleanse you of the darkest darkness

Just fix you

Would you let me

Symmetry

Your scent is still everywhere,

draped around me like a blanket

The way your voice is still everywhere,

whispering to me in the dark

I told you I'd follow you anywhere

Follow your broken heart

Like a tourniquet

Like a fresh start

Consider everything that happened until this point

Everything that made you change inside

Will you cherish those moments,

So sweet and invaluable

Learn how to rip them apart

So I couldn't project my life views on you

Couldn't apply my experiences on you

Here I thought I had become wiser,

With my insights

Weren't you more

Didn't you prove my hubris

You always make reevaluate what I see

But I never have to pretend that I'm not me

Do you realize how much that explodes

Into energy

Into symmetry

Algorithms

Is this the truth you wanted

Tell me - is this what you fought to uphold

While every memory told you not to

While every fiber told you to let go

Is this the truth you fought for

The truth you sought for

When did you involve me in your social experiment

Convinced that you could overturn your own experience

Pull the right strings, make all your puppets dance!

The invisible music in your mind that's built of algorithms

Will suit their every step and put them all in trance!

Isn't that a quite modified truth,

the one you pull out of reluctant puppets

Isn't it a quite molded reality,

the one that's reflected in their eyes

There was a time I let myself be swayed by you

I let myself fall into that hypnosis I despise

And a time I told myself I needed you

But I got tangled in my own feeble lie

I made a mistake, trusting the wrong solution

I made a mistake by trusting you

Who can claim ownership of what's true

Claim to own the underlying meaning

Behind every word, every thought, every reaction

Who can claim they know how you feel

Claim to have seen what you are seeing

Painting your new, improved way of thinking

Across your face and across your heart

Across your soul

In place of your own

There's only paint

There's only pain

I've created a refuge, my own little settlement,

Where I will stand for my every sentiment,

Where I will forge my own non-religious beliefs,

And distance myself from everything that drains me,

Where I will dress in words my every thought,

Until you're convinced it's the truth I've caught

The truth you sought

Just Another Valley

Maybe I'm just climbing another hill

And there's just another valley on the other side

Maybe there's another hill beyond that valley

Maybe I miscalculated everything

Maybe I misread the signs

Could you tell me

Could you tell me I'm going the right way

Maybe I'm just following the same fragmented instructions

That kept leading me to other valleys

Some valleys deep enough to cut through the crust of the earth

Some valleys darker than anything you could imagine

Some valleys making me blind,

stumbling with every step

Wherever did the wild flowers grow

Whenever was their scent carried to me by the wind

I fear that I'm climbing just another hill

And when I reach the top a part of me will die

When just thinking of pushing on

This unforgiving landscape, I've always pushed through

But I can't do it this time without you

I can't do it if you turn into a valley

Will your walls be steep

Will your stone be cold

Will I be able to recover

Or will I only age inside

That's left to uncover

Don't turn into a valley, please

I'm already losing my way

Among these hills

Intellectually, Emotionally

It's 4 AM and I feel the spontaneous need to write down some of my thoughts. I came here looking to write some poetry, but while I'm waiting for that, I might as well go on... about other things. My current dilemma is that intellectually, I've never felt this at ease, never felt this challenged and stimulated. But emotionally, I've been living on a rollercoaster for the past few weeks, hell, even months, I haven't kept count. So much has happened for me in my private life. I've had a few revelations, at the least; and while risking sounding like an old and wise lady, I thought I'd just write them off my mind, to start off what I suspect might become a long (and partially coffee-fuelled) post.

I need to look at people when I talk to them. I look people in the eyes when I'm listening to what they're saying. I tend to look away and flicker with my eyes when they're not talking about anything interesting, and when I'm telling my own anecdotes. I've been told that if I look people in the eyes more when I talk, what I say will keep people's interest better.

I don't have to share my every little idea. My mind is constantly racing and I'm always coming up with and discarding new thoughts and ideas. Out of every ten ideas, maybe I'll follow up on one of them. It's not relevant for everyone to hear about the other nine.

I have gained some new-found respect. I've given a lot of thought lately to how I've been shaped and become who I am. I've re-established my respect for people around me, especially people in my family, who are the only ones who have been with me through all this time. I rediscovered the love I have for them, no matter what their flaws are. I have flaws too.

Bad people aren't necessarily bad people. I've lifted the lid off the jar to many things, people and events from my past recently. I've forced myself to remove the blindfold made of pain that I've kept on for so many years, and look to see what's behind it. With this new perspective, I can judge people in a new way. I think that people who have done bad or unfair things to me, aren't necessarily bad people. I think they were also shaped by the people around them, and perhaps bad and unfair things were made to them first. I don't mean to forgive more easily. Only to try and understand, that we're all people, after all, and we're all molded by who surrounds us.

I need to visit the outside world sometimes. This is an advice that is a little specifically for me (and others like me). I spend so much time inside my own head, thinking things over, or just drifting among memories, among thoughts. I'm rarely fully present in the present, so to speak; I'm always operating on another level of my mind at the same time. What I've found is that when I step outside of that world and consciously try to live in the present, to appreciate what surrounds me this very minute and to be fully aware of what's going on, I feel more alive. I feel relieved to come outside, where I can react to things that are actually happening, instead of what's going on inside my head. Being outside my mind is a bit straining because it requires conscious effort from my part, but it's also rewarding, and I'm trying to do it a bit more often. I'm not looking for enormous change. I'm just looking for small changes. Slowly improving my own existence in this world, and how to deal with myself.

I can't keep running from the voices. Before you label this as crazy, I'm of the notion that everyone has their inner voices; how they work might vary from person to person. But my inner voices (there's two of them) are always bickering. If they aren't bickering, they are usually completely absent. One of them spews out negative statements and comments, and the other tries to make the first one shut up. If I tried to listen to what these voices are really saying, I might be able to deal with them. I have to try and read between the lines.

These are all of the revelations that I've deemed important enough for me to spend further thought on. I'm doing a lot of thinking at the moment.

I'd like to talk about the intellectual aspect now, for a while.

I've been asked to take part of a few projects and running a few personal ones at the same time. One of these projects is being a student ambassadeur for the university during visitor's day. I did this last year as well, but this year I was asked to assist in the Motion Capture studio instead of showing visitors around; and it was really educational and fun to get a first insight into the workings of motion capture. I'm also part of a recently started project at the University which aims to recruit more women to the game industry (and to the education as such). We're hosting a couple of events over the next weeks that aim to draw interest to the programs and to games as such, among others a game night which I'll be responsible for. It feels good to be this involved in university business - it's fun, a good merit and a chance to do some networking, all at once.

As for the writing group I'm in, things are going alright. I've picked a book and a chapter for inspiration, and now I only need to write the text itself. I have a pretty clear image in my head of what it'll be, but if I know myself well enough I'll be writing it on the day before submission; not that it's really a problem. I work well under pressure.

Speaking of pressure, the second game project is coming up, starting on Tuesday. I'm really excited to work on a full 3D game for a span of ten weeks and really hope we'll be able to create an impressive and good-looking result. I'm hoping my ambition and level of hard work will be enough for me to make an imprint on the people I'll be working with, and to contribute to the final product.

And at last, we have our side project as I like to call it, the platform sidescroller I'm working on with a selected few. Things have been standing a little still, we're trying to learn some new software and haven't really developed the game further from there; but I'm in no rush. Tomorrow I'll be working on a rig and refreshing my rigging skills, hopefully that will inspire me to do some work on the platformer as well.

It's 04.48 now, and I think I'm gonna try and close my eyes now and get some sleep so I'm relatively rested tomorrow when I'm going to rig. I just wanted to get all of this out of my head and of my heart for the time being.

Long time no see,

POET ON THE SHIP IN THE JAR (NO, NOT A BOTTLE)

Blanket Of Denial

Every time you resurfaced I shunned you away

And pretended you weren't there, you didn't exist

I've been too scared to even look you in the eyes

To acknowledge our brewing connection

I covered you up in thousands of lies

Wrapped you in a convenient blanket of denial

Every time you reached for me I turned away

I didn't have the strength to deal with this condition

I don't have the lengthened arms to fully embrace it

There's my old bravery that I've been trying to hide

Like I've forgotten how to control my darkest moments

How to face them directly and steer them towards the light

Instead I've been isolating myself from you

I've run at every given occasion

Like you were a contamination

In my system of classification

Don't remind me again that you're dormant in my mind

Always sleeping in the outskirts of my conscious thoughts

Don't show yourself again, now you've been successfully fought

Your return will only get you burned and caught

You don't know who I am anymore

I've become dangerous

You don't know me but I've learned every aspect of you

I know every clouded corner of you, every scar

I know how to patch you up and how to resist you

You've made that absolute, you've set it in stone

You've written it in the largest readable letters

Your greatest fear that I might miss it

That I might, for a moment,

forget that you're still alive

And I can tell there's something behind your idolized ideas

As it's seemingly impossible to treat you with denial

Every time you resurfaced I shunned you away

and pretended you weren't there

You reminded me again

And wrote those large letters

And every letter hurt

I was hurt by every word

Still, I can't seem to remember how to face you

How to look you directly in the eyes

I can't remember how to deal with you

Or how to reconquer my control of you

Still, the only thing I seem to be capable of is decadence

The only thing I can achieve under your influence

And I'll run at every given occasion

I'll run, run away

from depression

Deep Inside Insomnia

We bought some time now, didn't we

before the world as we know it will end

Just extending this temporary haven

for a few more precious moments

this temporary solution

Did I willingly drink this delicious poison

And buy into this familiar phenomenon

I convinced myself I would cherish it, relish it

That this time the taste wouldn't be bitter, but sweet

It wouldn't eventually lead to my defeat

I knew what I was buying into, didn't I, didn't you

I knew there was a chance the world might come tumbling down

Shattering everything, every hard-earned feeling

Paid for in blood, in tears, in agony, in memory

It was part of the mechanical calculations

Carried out inside my tired mind

Deep inside insomnia

We don't live forever, do we

There isn't really time for calculations, is there

Better to follow your intuition, deeply buried

Buried beneath pride and social constructions

Rather than any actual restrictions

We don't live forever, do we

But we bought some time

Didn't we

The Nest Of Fear

Well if I haven't fallen back into the same dark dream again

Fallen back into the same dark abyss, sprawled on my back

Pain spreading through my core and attack through my fingers

Slowly mingled with an insight of mortality that lingers

And only gradually is worn out

So that every time I've fought it down

It's strong enough to heal itself,

strong enough to return

Knocking me off my feet

This eternal circle,

isn't it familiar, doesn't it burn

Oh if I'm not dreaming again

This tight knot of worry that I'm quite failing to repress

That entangled little knot of unspeakable threat

With the ability to endanger our entire situation

With the ability to render it extinct

Is that what you think, that I've lost all instinct

That I've lost all comprehension of what links

us all together in a series of metal rings

In a neverending chain,

isn't it familiar, isn't it pain

Oh, if I'm not dreaming again

Could I pinpoint the source of this inexplicable outburst

Could I circle with my fingertips my anger at my own thirst

Could I extinguish just that little flame that you awoke

Only that I thought I was dead inside,

thought I had taught myself the blunt, the dull

How to become a wall

Oh, haven't you learned how to tear those down with fire

Haven't you learned how to tear those down with catapults

Haven't you learned, haven't you learned

That nest of fear that's lived in my chest for years

That dark little monster that fed from abandonment

It's that shipwreck of mine that's now resurfaced

Complete with sails that were never tried at sea

Complete with the salt water pouring right through me

Like waterfalls, like vertical ponds of sorrow

This nest of weakness,

oh, isn't it familiar

Isn't it

Haven't I gone and fallen back into

the same dark dream again

Clarity Disabled

I've put myself in a hopeless situation

Willingly marched towards my own destruction

Knowingly fallen deep into addiction

Licking every last crumb off my fingers

Clutching my head, clutching my hands

Clutching my head

I can't stop perceiving these visions

Can't protect my mind from the intrusion

I'm only addicted, addicted to the infusion

Alarmed whenever my head clears

Whenever it's unclouded

Clarity is enabled

You didn't always fear clarity, did you

You weren't always consent with ignorance

Wasn't there a time you fought for innocence

When did you exchange it for vengeance

When did you exchange it for

Indulgence

I don't even think I'm equipped for defense

Even with the right tools I'll be unmotivated

There's no reason for me anymore to resist

Why not simply give in to permanent decadence

Whenever your head's unclouded

Clarity is enabled

You didn't always fear clarity, did you

You weren't always consent with ignorance

Wasn't there a time you fought for innocence

When did you exchange it for vengeance

When did you exchange it for

Indulgence

You told me I had betrayed my past self and inner child

That while my mind grew dull, my heart grew wild

Am I now supposed to adjust these regulations

Force myself back into ancient patterns

So I could fit with your intentions

Without any compensation

Is that part of your current implication

I'm divided within my own moral framework

Undecided between the young and the old

Undecided between what was only thought

And what was really told

All I can guarantee is that the two halves

Together, seem to make a whole

Complementing eachother

Compensating one another

Until I'm clutching my head

Clarity disabled

Lovely Bones

I don't know how to describe my current state of mind if not dull, blunt, encapsuled in a bubble where I feel enclosed from the world, isolated, alone. It's like I've forgotten everything I used to care for, forgotten what used to be delicate, what used to be valuable, how the smallest things could triumph over the daily and trivial. I can probably blame this mood on stress, big deadline coming up this week and everything; but it does trouble me. Not bother me, I'm too closed off from everything to feel like it's bothering me... but the thought of it is slightly discouraging. It's hard to describe, but for someone whose belief is that emotion is key, feeling robbed of your emotions is like giving away one of your arms... I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels like this. It's strange though. I used to believe that what you did in the daytime didn't matter as long as the rest was deep, was meaningful, being with your friends, listening to that music, going to this and that place, travelling... and now it seems my whole life revolves around school, I don't even have time to do laundry or clean my apartment, everything is so frantic and I feel like I've been walking around like a useless zombie ever since I came back from England. Something happened to my level of ambition while away; I can't seem to get back into the right focus and I hate myself a little for that; I'm sure I could have been more efficient than I have been since I got back here... But I think it'll work out... and hopefully, eventually, I'll feel that I can feel again, so that I'm not this deadened poet walking the streets and randomly sleeping at off hours as I was some fucking cat. I even feel bad because my Mom called me earlier and I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about because I was still so tired, and she said she just called me to say she and Dad loves me and I felt horrible for not paying them the proper attention back. But I'm just so monotonous and my post-three-hours-on-sofa mood was pretty intense and like Glenda said, confusi-fying.


To just please change the topic, I'm currently reading Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones" and it's so, so saddening. You'd think this clashes with my previously described lack of emotion but in my world it definitely and easily coincides. It's saddening in itself that a piece of fiction can be more touching and real to me than everything I see and feel around me. I guess I'm a little tired of reality, simply...


That's really all I have to say now... see you in some other, less exhausted stage.
POET IN THE JAR