In Blackest Night – After The Darkness

Hey folks.  So I haven’t written in a little while and it’s not from lack of trying.  In my teen years I discovered that I could only write when I was in the depths of despair.  The darkness fuelled my writing similar to the monsters behind Sutter Cane’s addictive series of books in John Carpenter‘s ‘In the Mouth of Madness‘.  I fucking love that film.

As I’ve grown older (and uglier), I’ve come to realise that my mind jams up regardless of my mental state but when it’s in a ‘better’ condition I have less to write about.  Or it feels like it at least.  I’ve recently spent time reading up on stuff and studying and [trying to] put into practice in regards to mindfulness.  One notion I came across and it really got me thinking is that creativity isn’t something that can be learned.  Children pick up pens pencils and whatever the hell else they can get their grubby little hands on and they draw.  They write.  They create.  As we grow older the majority of us succumb to the constraints of life.  We adapt and conform to the rules life imposes us with and we lose that freedom.  Creativity has to be unlearned.  It’s easier said than done.  Like most things are!

So, here I am.  My head is in a much better place and thoughts of suicide, hopelessness and all manner of negative and draining thoughts pushed away.  I could say they are gone but I know they’re not.  If I lie to myself I’ll go back full-circle.  During my first proper bout of depression, I failed to fully understand it and when I came out the other side I thought I was cured.  The naivete can be forgiven.  After all, how was I to know?

I still don’t understand it fully and I’m under no illusion that I ever will.  And I’ve stopped trying.  I know, as I always have, that there will be good times and bad.  There will be days I will struggle to get out Of bed or spend a stupid amount of time getting dressed or doing other basic tasks.  There will be days where I will feel on top of the world and that I have so much energy I’m spoilt for choice as to how I can expend it.  There will be days that I hope I don’t wake up the following morning or regret that my eyes opened.  And then there will be days that I’m glad I’m awake and look forward to tomorrow.  In all honesty, I don’t think it gets any easier.  It just gets different.

I’ve had a number of ideas for projects to undertake  over the past week or so.  I have no idea how to start them or what to do with them.  At times it’s very difficult to form an idea and other times it’s easy to form them but I’m still none the wiser as to how I’m supposed to execute them.  Sometimes I blame time (or the lack of) but a lot of the time I’m busy doing nothing.  Not many people seem to understand how hard it is knowing you want to do something but have no drive to do it.  Motivation is not something that you can learn or accumulate through osmosis.  In my opinion, you either have it or you don’t.  If you don’t then it’s a hard slog to rewire your brain and reroute the network in your brain.

It doesn’t help when I read back what I’ve typed and feel like I’ve missed the point I wanted to make or to see my ideas mash up in to an indecipherable mess.  I can feel things slipping away.  My grasp on words is as fleeting as the ideas in my mind.  Verbally, my ability to form coherent and articulated sentences has, at times, become as limited as my concentration span. It’s not so bad when writing as I set the timescales and can come back to it later but in a conversation, it can (and has) lead to some awkward moments.  I’ve recently come to struggle with names too.  This past week or two I have gone from being the personification of IMDB to a stumbling mess unable to recall actors’ or characters’ names.  I’d normally worry about it but it is what it is.  If it’s temporary then cool.  If it’s a sign of my faltering/failing mind then there’s not much I can do about it.

Boy, this post seems to have taken a turn for the worse, eh?  Case in point.  Once my mind starts running it runs away like Forrest Gump.  But I think this Gump is all outta steam and shall draw this post to a close.

 


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Craig Stewart

Craig is a father to three daughters and works full time in the telecomms industry. He has a passion for comics, movies, TV shows, tech and games. Craig is a HUGE Batman fan and is a Playstation fanboy. He is also somewhat of a Kevin Smith fanboy too. Latest hyper-focus: Slogging through 2000AD and publishing a daily post as he makes his way through almost 50 years worth of comic books.

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