I have been writing in various forms since I was a child. I write about what is going on in my life, what I enjoy, and the struggles of dealing with chronic illness and mental health issues. I love live music, football (Scotland and Dunfermline Athletic), reading, Formula 1, Stock Cars, and eating lots of vegan crap.
It is that time of the year again. I am back from another exhausting shopping experience in the run-up to Christmas. I don’t mind Christmas. I love the warmth you get from showing love to those around you, and the knowledge that you have gifted someone something that someone truely needs or wants.
The thing I don’t like is the actual shopping, and how every person goes crazy. The shops are full, the salespeople are losing the will to live as the days get busier. Its just crazy. The whole experience leaves you tired, broke and sometimes depressed. The pressure put on people for buying the ‘right gift’ and the stress of even trying to manoeuvre around a shop.
It takes away the whole feeling of Christmas. It isn’t about store-bought cards and over-priced trinkets, its about showing love to those around you. The traditional meaning of Christmas has been lost over the last few decades, and it is sad. It’s the hardest time of the year for a lot of people, and a letter within a card, means a lot more than some cheap deodorant.
So spread the love this Christmas. Tell everyone you love, how you feel. Spread the positivity, in the hope that it will make a difference to someone’s Christmas. Write a well meaning note inside every card, and let people know how you feel about them.
I have always lived by the ideal, that if you need help you ask for it. If you are struggling with something, go and ask advice off someone you know that has had similar experiences to yourself. Get thoughts and opinions, to help back up what you think, and to help get you get out of whatever funk you are in.
But I do have a problem. And it comes into play, when people ask ME for help. As soon as I feel someone looking to me for guidance, I get nervous, my brain panics and scrolls through 100 thoughts in a minutes. And yet, I don’t know how to react. It is the one thing I go ‘rabbit in the headlights’ over. Since my stance on sharing thoughts, it seems a little strange that I can over-react to what is sometimes a straight-forward situation. But I do.
Whether it is asking for directions (something I suck at, avoid asking me this AT ALL) or advice on general, I panic. I try to be objective, and give useful advice, but I get a bit iffy when I know that information is not what that person wants to hear. It mostly happens when someone is being treated like shit by their partner, and I try to speak my mind, but don’t want to hurt the person. Love is blind, and it also takes away all common sense as well, it seems.
So I struggle over the words, mostly because I have to figure out how to say things. I am a fan of the ‘positive sandwich’, where I say something nice, then nasty and finish with something nice. It seems to not make me feel so vicious. In theory anyway. But after I give out my comments, I then think that if I had said the negative on it’s own, would it have made a bigger statement? Would the message have hit home better? Sure it would hurt, but sometimes the most beneficial things in the long term, do involve some pain.
I mean, I would hope people would be honest enough with me. Life sucks, but it would suck even more if every person was sheltered from the truth. What do you think? How do you deal with giving or receiving advice?
Changing your website seems to be something which is rather fashionable right now. Every website or internet based product I use seems to be doing an end-of-year update. Whilst, this is something I know is important, to keep sites feeling fresh, I just seem to see it happening a lot right now.
Maybe it is just the services I use. It’s not like the service provided by these sites are changing, just how I find things. It involves a change of habit, and those aren’t always so easy to change. I think that people’s negative opinion of change stems from the fact that people in general, are afraid of change. So, in defence, any change is met with an over-bearing sense of hostility, as if acting in such a way will get rid of the change that is threatening them.
Which as noble as your anger is, it doesn’t make the slightest difference, as change is going to happen. It is a hard fact of life that nothing will stay static forever. So the quicker you can accept change, the happier you will be. I mean, there is enough stresses in modern-day existence without creating more stress over nothing. I mean if YouTube stopped you from viewing and uploading videos, then fine, but they haven’t. Just changed the layout. Yes you have to learn new paths to get what you want, but the stuff you want and need is still there. So no need to be angry and vengeful against the site’s creators for trying to make things a bit different. Change happens to us all, so try not be so untrusting of it.
Listening to- Miss America by The Fates (watch the video below)
PS- Umm… the snow at the bar at the top is playing with my eyes. So strange.
Reading books, watching TV, listening to music, everyone has something that makes them want to better themselves. Something that makes you want to take on the world, and feel like you can win whilst doing so. This is something that is certainly not lost on me, as I try to gain inspiration from a lot of sources.
I am coming up with a problem though. I don’t know if it is a case of seeing ‘too much’ around me, or if it is because I just think too much. When you read a book you like or listen to your favourite album, they spur you on, as you try to emulate their success. But for success to be valid, there needs to be failure, to balance it out. Just like how you can’t get light without dark, you can’t get success without failure. And after thinking about this, I have been lead down the path that has me wondering if the balance between success and failure is applicable to the one person’s life, or if it is people who are deemed success or failure.
I guess it could be either, but my head tends to liken it to being a person by person kind of thing. So if someone is a failure, it means someone else can be a success. That always sounds a bit of a ‘glass is half empty’ kind of logic, and I guess that is always how I have thought. I have always preferred to look at the worst case scenario, rather than the best, as I feel it is a cushion for the disappointment I feel when things don’t go my way. Except, it isn’t a very good cushion, because it still hurts when I don’t do well in something.
There is a school of thought, that teaches you, that if you are thinking of the negative, you will not see the good things, for all the negativity. Now whilst I think that is a very valid point, is something that is very difficult to get round, when you are used to thinking in a certain way. To step away from the negativity, you need to re-train your whole way of thinking, and that is no easy task. Especially if you have been thinking in said way, for almost the whole 27 years of your existence.
I guess, I keep on trying. I keep on trying to be inspired, and change my mindset. I get days where things change for a few days, maybe even a week, but then it changes back, and I find myself back at square one. This back and forth is one of the hardest things for me to accept about myself. It’s like everytime that I reach a landmark, and really feel good about myself, something happens and I just fall back into a pile of self-doubt.
The good news is, that there are more good days, than bad days right now. Having a lack of motivation to be creative is a big weight on my shoulders. It has happened over the last few years, where I struggled hard with depression. It is a situation where I find myself, that I can’t be creative. I get ideas, but then think ‘what’s the point’, it’s not going to lead anywhere. And I think that is the thing that is derailing me the most. The fact that I can’t see where I am to go. I feel stagnant, that I am not moving forward, so what’s the point?
When you have thoughts like that in your head, it’s really hard to try and see the positive out of anything.
Music: Left Alone- City to City (feat. Tim Armstrong)
I think a big factor into posting things online is momentum. When you get into a run of posting, you do it again without much thought. Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, because obviously, especially in blogs, some kind of thought has to happen. But if you get out of habit of thinking up topics, writing an entry regularly becomes a cumbersome task.
That is the situation I have found myself in about now. Which is a pain, because I blog a LOT normally. It is not through lack of not trying, I have had many an open entry, which have gone unused. So I am doing this on my phone, because I am finding that if I want to do something, I should do it right then. Whilst the inspiration is there, I should take it up.
But I hope I still have readers somewhere who I want to say sorry to. If not, then this has been me talking to myself. Not that unusual, I do it all the time. Gets me a lot of strange looks.
The start of another week. Already. Sometimes I wish that the time would slow down a little, as it seems to go too fast. It feels, especially at the moment, that I spend most of my time procrastinating or lying in bed. Lying in bed, procrastinating. *sigh* I have no idea why I am like this, but it means that I feel the passing of time so much more. Mostly, because I have these ideas, which go nowhere because I am too lazy to put these ideas into action.
There is a good thing. I am currently very energetic (possibly thanks to the coffee). So I am painting things for my Christmas cards, drawing sketches for a project I am helping a friend out with, and I even tidied up a little. This is crazy. I am NEVER that motivated, so I have to make the best of it whilst it’s here.
So I am watching Rosianna and wishing that I had friends who used the internet and valued it as much as I do. Yes, I value the internet. It is there for every purpose. It is there when I need to let any aggravation out. And, if needed, I will get feedback from the internet when I want it. And the thing is, I don’t know anyone who thinks that me having two blogs is a good idea, they don’t see why I would want to record myself for youtube. Sometimes I would like to spend more time with people so that we could encourage each other to make better web content. Because, that is what most of what we do online is. Creating content.
Even if you post a Facebook comment once in a blue moon, or you write a daily blog, you are packaging a piece of yourself for the world to see. To me, I think it is great, but I know a lot of people don’t think outside their own profile page. I think it is amazing that we can document our lives through these avenues of expression, and that other people can see what we have to say. I created my original blog over on LiveJournal, way back in 2005. And it came with me, on a large portion of my life. I know that if I had written such thoughts down in a book, the book would be lost as would the thoughts. So it is nice to have them to document who I was at that point.
I think that is where the perception of ‘time’ hits me. I look back at what I have done, and it doesn’t feel so long ago, and then I look at the date. I realise how much I have done between then and now, and just reflect on it all. Which is great. I mean, I blogged about when I used to self-harm. And as uncomfortable as it was to read all that, it is great to know that I can deal with things a lot better these days. It makes me feel like I have achieved something fairly major in my life. And that although, I had shared my feelings over the internet, it really doesn’t mean anything to anyone other than myself. It shows me that I can do things, if I stick to it. And that, is sometimes just what I need to hear.
Are the noises my brain made, as I tried to shake it into s0me level of activity after it grinded to a hault. It failed, though I must point out, walking around the house shaking your head is frowned upon, especially when there are people in the house.
There has been a lack of everything being updated, because I have not been the computer. There has been updates to twitter, but I would say that is about it. I am having problems with NaNoWriMo, the first week was awesome, and I was so into things, but I just fell so far behind, after almost a whole week of ignoring the story. -.- Yes, this is not how you do this. It is two weeks tomorow, since it started, and I should be almost half way. I am at 10,000 words. So, I guess I need to stop ignoring, and start writing.
As an appology, please accept this gift of the firework display I filmed last weekend.
Getting in the way again. I have been a bad blogger over the last while. And I have no real excuse. I have been online, I just haven’t had anything to say.
Which is unusual, I’ll tell you that.
I am getting very frustrated with technology right now, whether it be website not loading, computer crashing or just not being able to get online. It has been a major pain, because I am trying to get myself motivated, and things are getting in the way, not making life any easier.
I am trying to lift myself up. Going to spend next weekend painting Christmas cards, as I need to get them ready. This is a trial. I want to see how the Christmas cards are received. If people like them, then I may look to selling them or something. I don’t know. I think it would be nice for people to get hand painted cards, and not store bought. I think the worst thing is the handicraft stuff. The make your own card stuff, that includes cut out pictures, with little foam sticky squares to stick things together.
It sounds terrible. I just think that if you are going to go to the effort to construct something, you may as well create the things from scratch. Yes, what you make may not be perfect, but it will be made by you. And that love and satisfaction that you get for yourself for making it all. It feels great.
I think my issue is, that the handicraft stuff reminds me of the things we used to be forced to do at Primary School, when the the teacher either couldn’t be bothered, or just wasn’t very artistic. Yes it was fun, but I used to always think I could do better myself, without the worksheets. I think that must be my problem with the things.
But then, if someone is expressing themselves creatively, who am I to berate what they like. I guess, if everyone did like the same thing, it would be a very boring life/
Coming under the realisation that everything from watching TV to keeping a note what book I am reading is done online, I am trying to think if I am spending too much time online. I guess the realisation was part of watching this video on youtube.
It is from 2009, so the issue with over saturation may be worse. In fact, the people who I know, who now use sites like Facebook, have increased since 2009. OK, a lot of people don’t seem to use these websites that much, and use them as another way to contact friends and relatives. And there is nothing wrong with that. The services that are used, tend to be free, and are so much more appealing than paying a phone call or meeting up, where you need to buy food, coffee, etc. But the issue is, which is what is covered on many avenues both online and off it, that we get so much more information from people that we may not be of particular interest anymore.
It makes it harder to decipher what is important, so that we should care about it, and what should we be ignoring. Everything from estranged school friend’s photos from a night out and alerts about browser games to heart felt messages from a friend in need. They are all posted with the same level of importance. And with the high volume of information, would a person look into their Facebook timeline enough to get the information to help their friend?
Probably not. We just blend all the nonsense into one thing, and if it isn’t at the top of the page, we just don’t see things. So, there is truth in what the video above states about our attention span. But the one thing I do disagree with, is the dislike of reading which is lengthier than the average status update. Maybe it’s because I fell in love with the internet, through using forums and blogging sites. And that is still what I do. *shrugs* So I guess, I am part of the exception.
I use social networking A LOT. Seriously, think I am kidding, follow me on twitter. I like the fact that I have different things on different sites. A lot of things get shared on Facebook. But that is easy, because Facebook is very good at linking together with other sites, such as YouTube, GetGlue and well, WordPress. So it adds more personality, in that it shows my blog posts and what videos I like, but it is, ironically, less personal. I don’t have to access Facebook to post things, and a lot of the time, I don’t go near the place.
But then you have Smartphones, with access to all the social networks. It makes it even easier to tweet what is on your head, and use FourSquare to show where you are. It sounds strange to most people, but to some it is great to meet people. Why? When in Blackpool over the summer, I went into a bar and checked in using FourSquare. FourSquare posted through Twitter, that I was at such and such pub. And the next thing I knew, Tanny, a girl who saw my tweet, came and introduced herself, and said that she, like me, was alone in this pub as her friends were passed out at her hotel. We had a drink, went for food. I made a friend.
Yes social networking gets bad press, but used well it can bring people together. It goes beyond function, and becomes magical. My relationship with the internet, is as well rooted as my relationship with music, which is the love of my life.
Yes, I am getting prepared for NaNoWriMo which starts in about a week and a half. Because I did so badly last year, I am going to use my notebook to try and keep a note of plots, what I want to happen, etc. So I am hopefully that will work out okay.
I have been getting back into Vlogging again, and actually have filmed 3 vlogs in the last week, which is a big deal for me. I am RUBBISH at recording videos. I think of an idea, and then never ever record. But I am making the effort to record videos again.
This is what I was talking about before. I seem to be all creative right now. And because I don’t know how long it will last for, I shall be making the most of it.
sueriot.com 