Into the Unknown

(Celtic Circle, Mystic's Dream)

I have been sitting there for a long while, eyes locked on a map of the world. Is this really happening, my mind keeps asking. My eyes shift to the boarding pass freshly printed and yes, it must be.

How, when, why... They say when you fly so far away you skip a day. I'll never really have tomorrow, most of it will be 'skipped'. By the time I arrive and call my mother, she will be waking up with bleary eyes while the land that greets me will be falling asleep, ready for the next day.

My eyes are locked again on a map of the world. Lost in a vague mist of thoughts is my mind. Dreamy, dazzled... highly-strung. Is this really happening?

Walking straight on into the unknown, I have stopped wondering about 'what happens next', focused only on the present and embracing a reality based on the unexpected. If I know that nothing can be expected, then I cannot be taken by surprise, I can only be prepared - as strangely as that may sound.

How will it feel like, what will I feel... I am bemused.

I glance at the clock tucked shyly in the corner of my computer screen, and as each minute ticks by a mix of trepidation, anticipation and excitement grips my whole being in a tighter embrace.

Your surname starts with an A and your website starts with wiki. There are many leaks in the world, but yours meant the world. No matter what they say about you, we know they just want to shut you up.

Control

The ball of nerves that weighs heavy in the pit of my stomach won't go away. It's unhealthy, I know it, yet no amount of deep breathing can relax me. I spent the day feeling faint, my stomach twisted in that awful knot that made me wonder for a moment if I wasn't suffering from some form of heartburn. And then the queaziness would seize me, a cold wave washing over me, making my lips quiver at the thought that maybe I was getting ill. But I'm not ill, it's the stress. This phantom threat that lurks within the mind, stretching dark fingers across my whole body, seizing me, twisting my entrails, making me gasp for air at times.

I feel as though I've lost all control over what's happening in my life. Lost in a daze, all I can do is move forward, but I'm petrified at the same time. The knot of nerves in the pit of my stomach spreads further... it tastes like acid at the back of my throat. I take a swig of water to calm the burning sensation. The wave of sickness envelops me whole, making me shake deep from within. I move from my desk at work, pale, thinking I must look ghostly, eyes sunken in their sockets, a livid expression on my lips, but as I reach the elevator I catch a glimpse of myself in the full-length mirror. I see myself looking just the same. I lean forward, closer to the reflection. There's no one else but me inside that lift. There's a sign in the corner warning of a surveillance camera. I force a grin directed at my own reflection, shuffling my hair in place. How come the awful twisting inside isn't showing on the outside, I wonder to myself. The reflection stares back at me with dead eyes.

I sit back at my desk with some sushi and a small sandwich. I eat the sushi, staring vacantly at my computer screen, watching emails pop up from time to time. I take a bite of the sandwich and feel my stomach contract. I drop the sandwich back on the desk, pushing it away like a sulky child her toy. Before I know it I'm back on my feet throwing the rest away in the bin as my stomach lurches closer to my mouth. But nothing happens, the phantom threat tightens its hold over my whole body as my mind feels about to expire.

I sit back down, willing the ill-ease to go. It doesn't work, it gets worse instead. I blink and realise that time has somehow passed, allowing me another stroll out of the office. Tip-top, tip-top, tip-top is the sound my heels make in my wake as I cross the corridor looking at no one, my gaze fixed on the door ahead. I'm back in the elevator but this time it stops on the next floor and a tall man enters. I throw him a swift glance - he looks familiar. I see a flash of recognition light up his eyes, too, but I can't remember who he is and where I've met him so I look away with tight lips. He's way older than me, maybe 15 years older, but his bright blue eyes strike me in the way he looks at me.
"We met at the conference," he says casually, his eyes laughing as he seems to guess at once I've failed to recognise him.
"Oh -" and at once I remember. I don't know what takes over me but my face lights up with a beaming smile - no, a light chuckle of faint embarassment ending with the smile. He smiles back, but what puzzles me is his gaze on me. He doesn't look afraid of me, nor does he look distant. He looks at me like someone... who likes what he sees. Bright blue eyes that give nothing away, and neither does his smile. I feel something strange course my veins, but I'm not sure what it is. It doesn't feel like the acid I've felt churning in my stomach all day. Finally, the doors open and we both part ways swiftly. I breathe out slowly, relieved in the knowledge I'm unlikely to cross path with him again. I remind myself that I don't like people who make me feel the way he just has because it scares me. But as I sit back at my desk I find myself wondering what darkness could lurk behind those bright blue eyes. I feel myself blush as I realise I'm imagining what he's like in bed. A boring, repetitive type, or an adventurous? Somehow, he looked way too controlled not to be a beast. I know that because I'm always so controlled, yet my thoughts can be darker than night, beastly. I shake my head, willing the thoughts away. I've started a new social experiment and I can't allow my dark, twisted side to take over. The thoughts vanish.

That new experiment involves elevators, believe it or not. Whenever I find myself sharing a lift with the same person more than once, I make eye contact, smile, and then strike up a conversation. It suits my social anxieties because I know the chit-chat cannot last long - only a few seconds, a couple of minutes at best. I can bear that. I can bear it because I know it can't last, and as soon as I reach my floor I can escape.

It's in that way that I've started to finally recognise more people I work with. It's also a memory challenge, for I sometimes forget the faces despite my best efforts, or I'll confuse them. It happened the other day, actually. I kept meeting the same blond guy inside the lift, and then I mistook someone else for him. I went: "Hey, so where do you work?" and when the guy turned to look at me I realised it was someone I'd never seen before, but he wasn't phased. He said: "I work in sales." My face gave nothing away as I glided away out of the lift as soon as the set of doors opened.

It's all about control in the end. I'm not a control freak but I can't cope when it slips away from me, as is my whole life right now, moving in a direction I did not dictate. It's the scariest feeling of all. It makes me want to curl up in a ball on my bed and never move again.

I am strange.

Meeting Strangers

Despite the many scars accumulated in my attempts at being social, I still find myself experimenting, searching endlessly for explanations and a true understanding of social dynamics. What makes us who we are, if you like, but more in terms of the mechanics.

The stress and angst from work made me keener to reach out to the people around me with whom I felt 'safe', with whom I could be myself without fearing a constant backlash that never fails to leave me feeling like an alien. But as always, when something goes wrong in one area of life, all others seem to follow suit as one. Not only am I having a hard time at work, but the few friends I have happen to be way too caught up in their own lives to find time to just meet up. The irony is that when everything seems to be going ok, then everything really is. But in your moment of need... nothing, and no one. Funny thing, life.

Last week, I found myself perusing the flow of statuses from people on my Facebook and there was one that stood out for some reason. It was one from a girl I used to work with in the only workplace where I'd met actual nice people. You know, people who really behaved normally. People with whom you could have a relaxed social rapport. People open-minded enough to like you just as you were and where I met some of my best friends - which reminds me that there are some 'normal' and actually nice, well-rounded people out there, it's just that the majority isn't at all. This girl had started not long before I left that job, so we never really got to know each other that well, and there was also something about her that just didn't make me want to know her. I guess you could say I never felt any kind of connection.

In that status she had written that she was reading a very addictive book. For some reason, I felt emboldened enough to ask her what she was reading, and she replied with the title of a book I'd never heard of. I googled the title and found that it was a story based on very explicit content. Part of me was rather surprised that this girl didn't seem to mind the fact that she'd posted for all to see that she was reading a very kinky book. It intrigued me - the simple fact that she didn't seem to care what other might think, for instance.

Then I remembered how we'd bumped into each other completely by chance last year on the tube -in a very crowded train - on my way back from work. We'd told each other we should meet for a drink soon, but I simply forgot about it, and then I just didn't seem able to find any reason why I would meet her. We hadn't seen each other in four years - ever since I'd left the job - and even while we worked at the same place we'd never really clicked at all. She was just one of my colleagues, really, and I remembered only that she always came across as grumpy, or always with something to complain about, which was a turn-off for me.

Last week I thought: "You know what? What the hell, let's meet up." And so I sent her a friendly message and she agreed to meet on the weekend. As I got ready to go and meet her yesterday, that's when it sort of dawned on me that I was more or less meeting a stranger. It felt odd. The only thing to explain why we'd ever want to meet up was the fact that we'd worked together years ago. That's it. The realisation gave birth to a slight pang of anxiety as I found myself dreading the possibility of meeting up and, well, having absolutely nothing to really talk about.

We met and decided to have something to eat. As we were crossing the road, I said with a smile: "We can go to a Chinese restaurant, or something."
"Hell no, I hate Chinese food," she replied at once. Her tone of voice was cutting, to say the least. I was thrown off, while at the back of my head I just kept thinking "Oh-oh, what did I get myself into..."
"Um... ok," I said. "You really don't like Chinese food?"
"No."
"Ok... well, what do you fancy eating then?"
"I don't know. Anything but Chinese. I don't know the area, you picked it so you tell me."
"Ok... um..."
We ended up walking around  for a while and I kept asking whether this place or that suited her, till she finally agreed on a particular restaurant. In my head I thought: "Wow... my gut feeling was always right. There was a reason why I never felt drawn to her... that grumpiness... wow. This girl takes no prisoners."

We go in, and as the waitress greets us, she just throws a dark look around even the waitress finds unsettling for a second. I smile at the waitress almost apologetically and I ask for a table for two. We take our seats at a table and look at the menu, but even that seems to fuel her bad mood. "Jeez... grumpy much?" I think to myself, amazed. I attempt to make small talk, but she looks utterly bored. She cuts me off and asks me in a rather brash and dismissive tone: "So, what is it again that you do?"
I tell her about the title of the obscure publication I work for and she just stares at me, impassive. "What's that about?" she asks.
I attempt an explanation, but she seems intent on throwing me off all the way with cutting remarks that leave me rather at loss. "That girl really takes no prisoners," I keep thinking, deeply unsettled and yet at the same time fascinated by this strange character sitting opposite me.

The waitress comes to our table and I ask for a glass of wine. She scowls, looking at the drinks list, undecided. The waitress asks her what she'd like, and she just snaps: "I don't know yet." The waitress blinks (and I think: "Yep, it's not just me, here") and hurries away from our table. I keep a polite smile on my face and patiently tries to help her decide. Finally, after maybe another 10 minutes, she decides on a beer. As soon as I get my wine, I take a large gulp for courage.

We continue talking, and as I remain stupefied by her brash and almost rude way of behaving with me I sort of realise by then that it's just the way she is. It becomes a fascination rather than an awkward situation, and with the help of some wine, I find that I'm able to grin and bear it, so to speak. She helps herself to a load of starters, eating away as though she hasn't eaten in days. I'm a slow eater, so by the time she'd gone through five different min dishes, I was still on my first one. She glowers at me and says: "You're not eating anything. I'm the only one eating so much."
"Oh... um... I'm just slow, really, but I'll get there," I say, feeling as though I need to justify myself.

The conversation shifts to her job, and how miserable she is at work because she can't stand her colleagues. I tell her I can certainly empatise on that one because I, too, have issues of my own. She blinks and doesn't really take me seriously. Her problems are obviously worse than mine. I think to myself "ok, maybe her problems are really worse than mine."

She keeps on talking and by then the flow of conversation is at least set in motion. I order a second glass of wine. Since I'm at loss I might as well be merry. I realise that so long as she's the one talking, she stops making cutting remarks, so I play the role of the listener for the most part. By the time we leave the restaurant, I'm tipsy enough to offer going for another drink in a pub next door. She agrees.

Off we go, finding a table outside where we sit with our pints. We keep chatting, with her doing most of the talking, mostly going into the negatives of various things, till we realise it's already past 10pm. I walk with her to her bus stop where we part ways with a hug and as I make my way home I'm just left speechless -clueless as to what to make of that meeting.

It's such a strange experience... that of meeting people with whom you just can't connect at all. But I have to say her personality was rather fascinating. I just found it hard to adapt to her brash and very upfront attitude. There was no glimpse of social effort. No social script whatsoever, actually. And that's what fascinated me, I think. I'd never met anyone who didn't follow social conventions like politeness and chit-chat - or even the shadow of an hypocrite effort. And this time I got caught in my own game - this girl made me realise how much I do use all these social conventions.

There was this person, raw and brutal in her way of expressing herself, upfront and stinging. Not a trace of trying to please or caring about what others thought. My own anthitesis, I realised. It was like staring at an upside-down version of myself, in a strange sort of way when it came to social behaviour. So now I wonder: what does it tell me about myself?

Fascinating, truly... It makes me realise that I far prefer meeting strangers than I like building relationships. I like observing and experiencing as many different types as humanly possible. And with that in mind, I get closer to who I am, removed from all those layers of social contritions. Beyond that, it seems that one can learn much more by meeting as many different types of people than remaining immersed within the same group. It makes sense, and maybe that's why I was always the way I am, never keen on staying with the same friends for long. I have always craved constant diversity.

Knowing this it makes me wonder why the hell I have this longing to fit in. This is not who I am.

Void

Smells like Teen Spirit, Nirvana

The man who Sold the World, Nirvana

Capturing the shadow side of modern life

Nirvana, Come as You Are

Kavinsky, Nightcall (Drive movie soundtrack)

Massive Attack, Safe From Harm

Metallica, Enter Sandman

Haunting places

There are some places on Earth that, for one reason or other, seem to beckon your person. Icelandic places and cold reaches further North have mesmerised me for as long as I can remember.

When I was little, I used to spend most of my free time either exploring the neighbouring parks all day long, searching for magical portals in the midst of bushes (as one does, obviously...), or I would be found in the library with a stack of books on the table, notebook and pen in hand as I lost myself in the picturesque landscapes contained within those books.

If I remember correctly, there was method in my 'research'. I would research different regions of the globe based on their climate, for instance. The ones that stood out - or that I still remember to this day researching when I was 8 or 9 years old - were Arctic and temperate regions (especially forests and other grasslands). I'd first make note of each region's characteristics in terms of climate - and this I also did because I truly thought I was going to visit those places, so I had to be prepared. Once I had a good enough grasp of the climate itself, I'd move to the vegetation to be found there in detail, including the types of animals that lived there. I remember making lists of the things I should pay attention to the most; which animal, in particular, I wanted to be able to spot in the wild.

Looking back, I definitely had an inquisitive mind from the start, but then school got in the way and put me off everything I first loved to 'study' by myself. Biology, geography, ecosystems, you name it - these were the things that used to float my boat as a child, without forgetting space exploration. Black holes, in particular, got me hooked on the subject from very early on. It was the mystery of it all, you see, that attracted me.

By the time I turned into a teenager, I had drifted away from these research activities, focused instead on the wondrous universe of prose. Yet these days, memories of my earlier fascinations have been coming back to haunt me, and the beckoning of the far North remains.

I was losing myself in pictures last night, reading here and there on such places as Iceland and Greenland, for instance.And then I realised that it wouldn't make sense for me to go unless I could drive. So here I am now, thinking: "Shit, I really need to start learning..." Because you know what? Some day I'll be hiring a 4x4 to explore these regions.

On Writing

(Twilight and Shadows, LOTR soundtrack)

A strange thing happened in my attempt to resume the writing of a story I started almost 5 years ago. I hadn't touched it for well over a year, leaving it aside as I grew busier with such things as exams, and then work. I remember thinking to myself at the time that a break from the story itself could only be a good thing, for it would show me whether it was worth pursuing or not when I did decide to carry on with it.

In the last couple of weeks or so I began to take shy looks at the story again, wondering if I could slip back into the story's universe by editing the first part, which constitutes the first book of a... three-part story. And that's when I realised how much time had passed since I'd last touched the story. It used to be so close to me, and I felt so much as though I was immersed in that universe I was creating that ideas and words used to flow out of me without restrain. That's how I was able to write over 300,000 words in just about a year, pretty much writing a chapter a day.

There was a first draft, clumsy and missing many 'in-between' chapters, where most secondary characters stood more like vague shadows than anything else. I remember reading back that first draft and seeing names pop up in one place, never to be seen again in the rest of the story, or the name of one particular character would end up a different one in a later chapter. I remember this prompted me to start tracking the names of all characters, but also that of places, until at some point I felt the need to start drawing up maps, too. I found myself trying to draw each character, intent as I was to make them 'grow' as much as possible so my writing would flow the right way when describing them. Needless to say, the task also involved an insane amount of research sometimes pertaining to the most minute details you would never care to know in daily life. But in a story, each minute detail counts - the equivalent of a tiny stroke of paint in a very particular mix of colours on the canvas, without which the whole of the painting would be missing its depth.

There was less and less room for free flow writing and mere imagination - now I had to start catching the loose ends, and the more I did that, the more the story itself was taking a life of its own, meaning that I could no longer just freely add occurrences in the story because everything needed to follow certain patterns and chains of events. And that's at that stage that one starts to see all the obvious plot holes emerging. You can't just erase them and replace them, though. Sometimes it requires a hard look back at the story's unfolding process, its structure, before you can have a better idea as to what to do.

Anyway, I had faced all that and found myself stuck in a corner when I began to feel as though something else was missing. At that point, I was just about to take my final exams at university, so I decided to take a break from writing to concentrate on those exams. That break turned into an almost 2-year break before I knew it. It's not like I'd forgotten all about the story I'd written... but the more I left it alone, the harder it was to bring myself to look at it again because every time I would be reminded of the many plot holes, and all the other things that bothered me about the writing of that story so far.

These days, I have a better idea as to what else I felt was missing. My own voice, or rather a strong enough conviction as to what it is I want to convey. Without that underlying voice woven into the story like some invisible thread, the story itself remains the equivalent of an empty sack. A random amalgam of events that might look like some adventure with no real purpose or sense. No underlying messages, nothing beyond the unfolding of clichés following the well-trodden route of fantasy stories. And that has been bothering me SO much that it made it easy to leave the story alone for so long.

A part of me still thinks I'm wasting my time, but the reason I stubbornly attempt to work on that story again is simply because, if anything, this constitutes much needed practice.

How else can one learn to write well if not through the sweat and growing pains of practice? Just as I discovered that real journalism is best learned by practising it hands-on in the real world rather than within the confines of a lecture hall full of theories, a writer is only a writer when writing. The more practice, the better the writer.

Anyway...one big mistake I made out of sheer laziness was to stop reading - not reading merely for pleasure, but reading to observe and learn from the masters the same way a painter will learn. One of my favourite pastimes, I discovered, was to read the dictionary, jotting down words and expression in a little notebook without really caring whether I'd remember to use those words or not. Out of a 100, I knew at least 10 would stick. But it's a pastime I gave up right around the time I stopped working on the story out of sheer laziness and mental exhaustion.

And now... Now I've started editing the story all over again from the very beginning, and though it still remains very much close to my heart, I realised that I, myself as a person - my mind and ways of thinking - have changed in the past of 2 years... so much so that I found it incredibly difficult to slip right back into the story to add more, mainly because I am no longer able to slip back into the mental and emotional state I was in when I first wrote that story.

It's a very odd thing to experience, I have to say. There you are, still enjoying the story you've written so far despite its many shortcomings,  but you are no longer in the same frame of mind and even your 'voice' has changed somewhat, or your style, if you like. I spent most of the last  two days editing the first chapters, until the weight of such a mammoth task got to me. I went out for a long walk, my mind fully occupied with trying to come up with ideas and thoughts on how to improve the story. The fact that this occurred is a good sign - it's a first step towards slipping back into the writing mode, I think.

By the time I got home and sat back in front of the computer, I didn't care to continue with the editing itself. Instead, new ideas had burgeoned ever so shyly within my mind and I found myself opening up a new word document where I started typing up a scene as it unfolded in my head. I just kept going, writing what turned out to be a dialogue that would fit more in the middle of the story than its beginning, and before I knew it I had written a full chapter and had spent 4 hours straight typing away. I read it back to myself and realised that perhaps it wouldn't even go into the story at all. It was like...

An 'in-between' to allow me to explore the story in so much more depth. So that's where I'm at now. Writing what looks like extra chapters whose sole purpose is to help me explore not just the story itself, but its characters. Imagining it all in the detail 'in-between' the main events contained in the story.

We always talk about 'writing', but when it comes to it, it's really all about rewriting - over, and over again. The process really is just like painting or composing a piece of music, or even akin to building a house with Lego blocks. One layer at a time, starting over for as long as it takes till the whole thing stands steady on its feet.

My recent trip to the south west reminded me of something that had crossed my mind a few weeks ago; the idea that beauty is really everywhere, so long as we are open to seeing it even in the most unlikely places. Much like the light a camera will catch, so can the mind when it comes to beauty when seeing what surrounds you under the right angle for beauty to dazzle you.

Miss the right angle, and all you might see is a few dark clouds, bland patches of green grass and boring birds gliding across an empty sky... and if that is all that you can see, then no matter where you are, no matter how striking the landscapes, and no matter how mesmerising the people or events, it will never be or feel like it's enough.

And as I look around, intent on capturing beauty even in the most unlikely places, I find it. And as I realise that it really all comes down to my own capacity to allow myself to see it, I realise that I never needed to look so far away from where I was. It was all always right there, dormant or waiting for me to see it from the right angle.

I used to dream of far-away reaches, but now more than ever I find myself growing more neutral. I don't need to 'see' the world, my own lifetime wouldn't be enough already to see all there is to see exactly where I'm at. So why hurry to see the whole world when the whole world can be experienced just where we are? Sure, the landscapes and striking experiences themselves can differ in the detail, but the basis remains always the same. I could hop from one exotic region to another and collect glimpses of beauty but I wouldn't be experiencing it deep within. I'd just be collecting, and I am no collector - I am an explorer. And exploration starts right where you are.

I remember growing up in a beautiful country whose landscapes have fascinated many a tourist throughout the ages. That country was France, but all I ever saw was mostly its capital, and even as I lived there as a child, I remember feeling mostly boredom - taking for granted the city I lived in, as so many of us do. We never really had enough money to afford going on holidays, either. The best we could afford was to send me to summer camps for a couple of weeks each summer, and thankfully so because they turned out to be my only occasion to see some of the country outside the capital.

The result, though, is that I know less about that country than most seasoned travellers. And now that I have been away for over a decade, I am not sure I feel the need to explore it. I feel instead that incredible urge to explore the places around me on the island I've been living all this time and which has become my home. There is something about this land - the unstable weather explaining the deep green of its rolling hills, the craggy outlines of its cliffs and seashores... There is something there that resonates with me on a much deeper level than I could have imagined. It is something that has served to inflame my imagination at times, and I know it is something that will continue to inspire me.

Don't talk to me about far-away beauty when I now know that beauty's intrinsic value is the same absolutely everywhere. It's all about the angle in which we regard things. Beside that, I've also grown more aware that people are also intrinsically similar even in their differences, meaning that even differing cultures and societies hide in their midst the same underlying sameness I can already find right here, outside my door. This awareness means that I no longer wish to 'escape'.

Beside landscapes and pure beauty, however, is the human value that needs to be added to the equation, and I have yet to get over that one. I'm only half-way through, so to speak. I understand the value of places - the environment as such - but I know that to make the experience complete beside the ability to appreciate Life's pure beauties, the people that populate one's life are just as important. For now, I am mostly alone, or my path puts in my way a lot of negative or challenging influences. More often than not, I find myself surrounded by solitude, but I have a feeling that is just part of my path for now. Without it, perhaps I would never have gone as far as I have within myself. And maybe, just maybe, it was part of my own growth process and some day I'll find that I'm able to see people in the same way I am now able to see beauty from the right angle.

These inner 'visions' I am experiencing are changing me... slowly, much like sea waves rolling onto shore will erode the cliff face over time, making for new forms, effectively moulding the old anew... And what I'm learning has all to do with learning to live, nothing more and nothing less. Learning to be alive rather than merely exist.