The Green Grass

Now there's a tale about a place that too many long to be. Its the place we've all imagined ourselves in, hoped to reach, envy those we thought were there, and desperately strive to grab onto the things we think will get us closer there. We've convinced ourselves into believing that all of life, all our efforts and endeavours, all our successes and achievements must all grow towards the ideals and ideas of that particular place, and even if we couldn't get there, we would make whichever sacrifices were needed in order to get as close to it as we could and simply call the race the pursuit of happiness.

Yes we've all heard of the magnificence and the lush of the green grass in that place we call The Other Side, beyond our reaches, across the mysterious fence. Indeed, heard of it, but has anyone ever really been there? I can't understand what on earth the big fuss is about climbing a fence just to get to a place so that you could enjoy the 'splendours' of smelling the lawn and lying on turf! And then there are those who know they can't reach it, so they copy the Jones' and attempt to grow some green grass of their own, only because that's the idealised image of a rumoured success.

Yes, as the song goes...Someone once told me the grass was much greener on The Other Side, but I paid a visit, and it's possible I missed it, it's not different, it's exactly...the same.

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Weeds

In the lush of the Amazon, or the barren Sahara, from the frosty Everest, even to the scorching Equator, no set of conditions in nature has stopped the spread and devastation of weeds. They sprout out from the soil of the earth, grasping and clinging tightly to the ground, firmly holding their position and ensuring once they're there, they'll stay.

And like the common garden weeds, we sometimes find in Life and living, that the most dangerous ones, are those you can't detect at all. The grow in and onto your life, like parasites, stealing the goodness from the blossoming flora that you've nurtured in your life, tirelessly, endlessly, relentlessly and positively. Some of them impersonating the roles of good plants, and others just tangling their roots around yours, claiming to offer you a better Life with them, than that without.

But as any gardener will tell you, and any florist knows, it takes a good amount of pruning and weeding to grow. That only through experience you learn to tell the weeds from the willows, and you'll learn which flowers are there to benefit your Life, and which ones must go.

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Obstacle Course

Life, like an unending road, stretches on over hills, through valleys, over mountains, past rivers and along many seas. And as it winds around its curves and passes through its caverns, it too faces the harsh weathers that blow through life, unleashing many storms, scorching heat, cracks along its path and potholes in its paves.

But every now and then, we have to face the unnatural obstacles along the road of Life, the hurdles placed there by the people we encounter in our lives. And stretching over these countless hurdles can become immensely exhausting, but strengthens our muscles to better our performance as we journey along Life. So what benefit then do the other obstacles on that road bring us? Like the boulders we hit time and time again. And like the mountains we have in the world today, which have grown so enormous that we had to assign names, so do we too assign names to our obstacles.

I haven't many obstacles, but by now a fair few. Like "Failure", "Ugly", "Stupid", "Naïve", "Desperate", "Privileged", "Ulterior Motives", "Live Your Life"...But today I found that my most challenging one, caught me totally off guard..."Abusive". Hurdles can build us, and teach us to jump higher in Life...But what do we do with the weight of an unshakeable, unbreakable, heart-hitting boulder?
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Forget To Remember

Sometimes in life we reach a place where we realise that the only thing we're really doing, isn't living, but rather learning...and furthermore...learning how to shield ourselves, protect our hearts, avoid and run away from painful and traumatic experiences. And really, it's not the initial shock of the experience or the sting of a cold dagger puncturing our hearts, but rather the festering wound that we later have to live with. And every time you find yourself going through the motions of a similar experience, or find yourself treading on familiar territory, your mind wakes up and goes back to the place you once were before, and the icy discomfort of an anxious heart sends pins and needles surging through your body, and the only physical action you can possibly muster up, is the only thing you haven't forgotten how to do after your body freezes up and mind goes blank, is to empty your tear ducts...and cry...

Yes, sometimes your body, your heart and your mind, learns to develop a series of systems that are designed to safeguard your life from going through further traumatic experiences, by using your worst fears and your darkest memories like an alarm system to warn you when danger is near, and to keep the things that could potentially hurt you at bay. But how can we hold on to any new experiences, good memories and sweet, stolen moments, when our hearts are to full to accommodate anything other than the bad memories therein, like unwelcome tenants that are simply stuck in our lives...We cannot possibly catch a little bit of hope with hands grasping so tightly onto despair.

So I guess you could say that the only solution is to learn to move forward, to let live and let go. And yes, it never hurts to be cautious and careful, and to be wise in everything we say and do, it's just part of protecting ourselves against a very real and scary world. But we should never fool ourselves into caging our hearts into clear cut, glass boxes that we never use. Sometimes it's good to remember to forgive, to remember to forget, and even wiser to forget to remember...

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Test Pattern

As an absolute fan of all the latest and greatest in technological enhancements we find in the world today. Whether it be communication, accessibility, finance, medical, entertainment, art, commercial or residential...Everything has been turned into a three-ringed technological circus! As if humanity took one big bite out of a science-fiction novel, and regurgitated all the fancy stuff we see today...Now I have found that my life has become quite dependant on all this technology, and even my emotional stability and relationships have become reliant upon the international super highway...otherwise known as...the Internet.

You see, with everything becoming so convenient, so extravagant and so fast-paced, somehow we've all forgotten exactly how to communicate on human levels...Nobody talks anymore, we 'chat'...Nobody listens anymore, we 'download'...Nobody sees anymore, we google...Nobody is present anymore, we're simply 'Available'...Yes, everyone's kept their 'Busy' icons on for far too long in life, and now we've found that our 'Contacts' have all been reduced to a global social network, and that somehow the planet has shrunk...Everyone knows everyone, from some place nobody knows about...

But today I stand 'Blocked' from the world, left without that 'Wi-Fi' connection from the people and places I deeply care about...Or at least, not people but the one person I need...Left with only one thought "Subscriber Unavailable"...No, you cannot 'Unfriend' Life, and you cannot 'Block' Circumstance, and you'll never be able to 'Deactivate' yourself from the journey that you're meant to walk along...Try as you might, you have to be strong, and if you lose your signal, your beacon of hope...its easy to find, it'll always be the...Just turn the switch and look for the Test Pattern.

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Spare Parts

I've always been the type of person who enjoys being part of a project. Whether it be the one initiating everything, coordinating anything, facilitating something or forming part of a group of things, but one way or another, simply being involved...Just the idea and the feelings of knowing that you play a role in the happening of something that matters to someone...anyone...or maybe even everyone...Either way, I have always enjoyed being involved. I suppose you could call it a lack of attention, or a want to be wanted, but whatever it is, I have it.

And of course things couldn't be better for a person who needs to be needed, especially in a world filled with dissatisfied needs, and even more so, someone who enjoys building and bonding in relationships, since those are the types of projects that usually last the longest, require the most maintenance, and will always have capacity for another need...But unfortunately, like every other avid contractor, project manager and all-rounder team player, who all dread a single acronym in the world of construction and projects...D-I-Y...And the phrase "I can do it myself"...

No there is no " I " in "TEAM", and certainly not an "M" or "E" in "Unity"...So why then is it, that when emotions become unstable, and when a partner loses the drive, the ego boost, the utility belt in the 'Project', do the letters in "Relationship", curiously change to "D-I-Y"? And now suddenly I find myself feeling excluded, feeling un-involved, feeling like the last thing you find in a building project...Yes, all of a sudden I find myself simply feeling like "spare parts".
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Amplified Silence

I have learnt that everything in the universe emits a unique and particular sound...a series of vibrations, squashed together that form waves of sound. Now I have come to know a very particular sound in my life, and it too has a very unique series of vibrations, in fact it has one long flat line...it’s called the sound of silence. And it’s not the kind of silence you get when you take away all the noise, the music, the ambience or the voices in the room. It’s the kind of silence you get when you take away the beautiful sound that once came from a thing, a place, a person...that once occupied a special space.

Now unlike music on a radio, or the volume on a television...this is the kind of sound that cannot be toned down, or turned off, or drowned out or blocked at all. You see most sounds come from a place on the outside, in a place, in an environment, from an external source...but this kind of sound came from a place much closer to home, much closer to me, from me, part of me, inside me, the only part inside me that really counts...my heart...my soul...and it has a name...Love.

To make matters worse, the sound that once occupied the space, the place...my heart...was the one thing that drowned out the noise in my life, the distractions, the problems and the moments where things seemed like they couldn’t possibly get worse...and now the sound is gone, and in its place...Silence...the chilling hush of a scary hum...like the low frequency sound that comes from a speaker playing absolutely nothing. And lately the sound of the silence has been growing louder, becoming more apparent, and almost deafening. Yes there’s nothing more annoying, more distracting and depressing than the sound of the emptiness...when silence is amplified.