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