Dread – Friday Fiction

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glasses of water The cold emanated from within. It spread from deep in his gut. Expanding up and down his torso to his arms and legs. It rose up his neck and filled his head like a glass bowl. Cold, and yet it brought sweat. Tiny beads of salt water appeared on is forehead. The cold within, now worked its way out. His skin felt like ice. It was pallid, the only tones made from grey.

He rubbed his hands together and felt their clammy texture. He rubbed them together, trying to rid them of the false damp feeling. Was he shaking? Yes, only just perceptible but it was there. Again coming from his gut. It was like his body had an engine inside, running, humming and juddering, waiting to release its full potential.

His mouth was dry. He swallowed, nothing. He ran his tongue round the inside of his mouth, trying to get the saliva moving. Nothing. He would need a glass of water. But he had forgotten to bring one. He dry gulped again.

He lifted his eyes and looked. He saw the three hundred or so school children seated in the hall before him. He hated public speaking, but as headmaster, assembly was his responsibility.

This is a short piece of Fiction. Written in Fifteen minutes, on a Friday. Unedited

How to banish the blues?

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It is better to move toward a dream that appears out of reach, than stand still watching a nightmare on the horizon I get the blues. I don’t know if it is a side effect of a creative nature, or just that I can be a little miserable. Being creative involves digging deep into our emotions. As such we share a lot of time with some of our deepest, darkest feelings. We also share time with the lightest and happiest moments we have. Creatives can swing quite easily from one feeling to another.

At times I find myself with an attack of the blues. I find my emotions just flip to the negative. I get overwhelmed and I find myself unable to see the positive in anything. I wouldn’t say it is depression*, because it isn’t a constant feeling. I just flit from being happy to flirting with sadness.

Unable to see the positive

During these moments I find myself unable to be positive. I find myself dwelling on an unknown future, and bringing it into the here and now. What if x does, or doesn’t, happen, then things will be terrible? What if I am still in this same position one, two or six months from now? I feel like things will never get better, will never change, things will always be this way.

Or, I do the opposite. I bring the past into the present. If only I had done this, or if only I had done that, and why couldn’t things have happened differently? It’s because of those things that I am here, in this situation now. It is all my fault.

Both the above are projections of events I have no control over in the present. I don’t know what the future holds and I can’t change the past. However, I am letting it affect how I feel. When the blues hit, I can be paralysed into inaction.

What can I do about this?

The solution is to let the present affect the future, and accept that the past is done. I can only control what I do here and now. If I am fearful of a certain future, then it is down to me to avoid it and make the necessary changes in the present. Dwelling on a future that might or might not happen has only one outcome, it makes it more likely to happen.

I remind myself where I would like to be, what I would like to be doing; I realign myself with my goals and desires. I then take the next practical step that will bring that goal closer. It may be something tiny, such as finding out a piece of information. What this does is push to one side the negative thoughts that were stopping me from from acting.

The story of the blues

The blues still return. I still fear certain futures and regret certain past events. These feelings will never be far from me. But I can stop them from controlling me, and you can too. This isn’t the only way to cure the blues, and I’d love to hear what you do, just leave a comment below.

It is better to move toward a dream that appears out of reach, than stand still watching a nightmare on the horizon.

I have uploaded desktop versions of the image above to pinterest for you to download and use. Currently in two sizes, click and download, 1920 x 1080 and 1024 x768

*If you do think you may be suffering from depression please talk to your doctor, or seek medical advice. This post is not written to be a cure for depression, but to add a little colour to the blues.

How to change your life

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This is your (my) life and it is ending one minute at a time

Fight Club had quite an impact on me. Though not in the physical sense. I am yet to ask someone to hit me as hard as they can, but that day may come. What it did was open my eyes to consumerism, materialism and the banality of certain things in life. It should have opened my eyes to the above quote, but that has taken a little longer.

A good old-fashioned mid-life crisis has helped with that. It is a truism that you don’t miss something until it is gone. Well, I have lost quite a few things in the last couple of years. I use the word lost with a little creative license. Some things I have given up voluntarily, and with intent. However, now they are gone, they are, at times missed. Or at least aspects of what they represented are missed.

Now, back to basics I have begun to appreciate what really matters. And what really matters is each passing minute of the rest of my life. I will be using those minutes to the best of my ability to achieve the following:

  • to reach my full potential
  • to help others reach their full potential

If you want to change your life you have to begin the journey. Take the first step and then continue step by step. Making the most of each moment, every minute that you have. Where do you want to be one year, two years, five years from now?

Decide, and then begin the journey, take the first step… and savour it.

How to achieve your goals and dreams

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This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away…to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless.

I don’t want to be a Jedi, but Yoda’s words are relevant. I find myself looking to the future far too often. In itself this isn’t a bad thing. I do want adventure and I do want excitement, there is nothing wrong with having those in my life. I believe we should have goals and ambitions, things that we want and would like to do. My problem, and perhaps yours, is that I often spend so much time looking at that horizon, I forget to look at my footsteps.

There is no point dreaming of a destination without wondering how you’ll get there. It is useless wanting to be somewhere else, without taking the appropriate steps. Once again, I find myself in that same situation. If I want to achieve something, I have to make sure I get the here and now sorted.

x marks the spot simple map

Currently point A, where I am, and point B, where I want to be, are a long way apart. I’m not going to sit back and just dream of what could be, to live in a fantasy of ‘if only’ and ‘wouldn’t that be nice’. I am going to get to point B. This isn’t about travel, but the metaphor works well. I will create a map, with the various steps marked out. I’ll use the map to guide my feet, to take each step, with the destination clearly marked and coming into view. That’s the metaphor, now for the practical.

How to get there, from here

  • Decide what your goal / destination is
  • Break the journey into small steps
  • Always have the next small step as a current focus
  • (But) Remind yourself of the big prize – keep it in view
  • If a next step is overwhelming break it into smaller steps (next actions1)
  • Take a next step every day, or as often as is possible
  • Reward yourself for the steps you take along the way
  • Be accountable – if possible have others who can prod and prompt you
  • Remove other distractions – you may have to give some things up, to take the steps

I have a dream, a goal and a destination. Time to draw my map. That’s my first step, what is yours?

1 Next actions are a much better way of looking at the the steps. David Allan’s Getting Things Done: How to Achieve Stress-free Productivity is a great tool for learning how to break things down into next actions.

What is the perfect relationship?

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What is the most important thing in any relationship?

What we can do for the other person, or what they can do for us?

I’m not exclusively talking about actions, it could be variations on that, like making someone happy, being attractive, exciting someone, and so on.

I’m sure we’d like to say it should be mutual. There should be a trade between both parties, a win win scenario, as they say. But how true is that in reality? Different personalities mean that we all like, want and need different things.

In a perfect relationship each partner knows what the other needs, even when these are different to their own.

Perfection and reality are often worlds apart. That’s why so many relationships fail, are dysfunctional or painful. Perhaps I am a little jaded from personal history. I know that I have certainly failed to meet the needs of others.

There are many types of relationship though, and that is where my initial thought began. I was having one of those spiritual philosophical moments. Specifically, what is the perfect relationship with the divine? Would it be one sided or is it mutual?

I don’t have the answer, but it kept me thinking for a while. Of course it all depends on whether you even think there is anything more beyond or within what can be physically observed.

I still believe in the perfect relationship, between humans and with the divine.

I still live in hope of finding both.

A self-fulfilling prophesy?

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One of my favourite songs is In Power We Trust The Love Advocated by Dead Can Dance. I recently got to see them play live. I had never seen them perform despite liking them for almost thirty years. So something to cross off the bucket list.

The song was one of the first I ever heard by them. Along with many other songs this formed the soundtrack to my formative adolescent years. As I listened to it recently, one line stood out, a line that I have sung along to repeatedly over the years. I began to wonder whether this line had been influential in my life. Can song lyrics have such an impact on us that they shape the way we act?

I am disabled by fears concerning which course to take – Dead Can Dance

I have often been unable to take tough decisions. I have chosen inaction rather than choose between the tough options offered. (Inaction is also a choice, but that’s not my point here.) Over the past couple of years this has changed. I have made some quite difficult decisions and chosen some paths that have led to life-changing directions. Hindsight will let me know whether the courses were the right ones to take, but I am no longer disabled through the fear of making them.

I am now searching the back catalogue of other bands who kept me company in the very early 80s. I have a sneaking suspicion that The Smiths, Soft Cell and Joy Division may have all had something to say.

Of course it may all be down to a risk averse personality. However, is our personality born of nature or nurture?*

*I’m pretty sure that personality is something we can work at developing. Just like being right or left handed, we prefer and find it easier to use one hand, but we can develop the other too.