Personal
Merry Christmas to you, whoever you are. Have some emotional encouragement wrapped in cryptic rhyme.
I invented another terrible joke…
What does a bodybuilder do when he or she doesn’t know the answer…?
Shrugs.
There are some dreams worth telling other people about.
Here follows one.
A little like this.
I dream vividly. Often about the end of the world (yes). My dreams rarely make much sense. But often, everyone dies. I have been a lucid dreamer in the past (I practiced) and though I don’t generally talk about the occasionally worrying stuff my subconscious mind throws up, two days ago I had an imaginary encounter. It was with an evil black planet and it is worth talking about…
As in most dreams, the imagery is like recalling a memory but even less reliable. Very vivid, but what exactly happened, I can’t say. The ominous image that I have swiped off of Google is a good summary of what I saw bearing down on me.
Obsidian Planet
A great obsidian black planet had taken up residence in orbit around the earth, and moved through the sky, slowly at first. It began to pick up speed every time it repeated a trip across the horizon. Every time it became visible, it’s gravitational pull would increase and I would become disorientated. Like that feeling you get from freefall or negative gravity.
As it sailed by, there was screaming,the entire world was screaming. Like the kind you hear as a rollercoaster takes a dive, except everybody everywhere. It was almost Armageddon every time it passed by. And with every increasingly fast sweep, it drew closer and larger. Right to the end of the dream where it nearly completely obscured the entire skyline, and darkened the sunlight to a pale eerie glow. It seemed to have grown in size to eclipse the Earth and was swallowing us all up.
The dream ended, as always, just before impact, and as the gravitational effects where almost completely disorienting and sickening. Everything was moving so fast. And then nothing…
Fucking awesome. What a way to die.
But what the hell could this mean?
This isn’t the first time I have dreamt about giant planets colliding with the Earth. The last I recall was of a purple colour and grew smaller and larger in a yo-yo like motion, one minute it was small, the next, looming and massive. Back and forth it went. That dream also ended just before impact and there was screaming.
But do they even have to mean anything?
Lucidity and Dream Interpretation
There are those who believe in dream interpretation. I think that there is some credence to this. It’d be nice to think that all of this vivid imagery and ridiculous mental subplots could be studied or understood. Perhaps we could use it as a kind of self administered psychotherapy and diagnosis. I think it would be more of an art than an exact science. Perhaps as tenuous as many of the other fields of psychology.
SIgmund Freud was a believer in dream interpretation (amongst other esoteric things)
Me? Though these dreams are enjoyable and therefore perhaps therapeutic, I use them for inspiration. In dreams it feels as if you have been there. It feels authentic.
And if you can control your dreams (in some way) through lucidity, you can have almost any experience. I have been to many places and met many people in my mind. I’d go far enough to say that through exploring my dreams and directing some of them, I have learnt a lot about myself and had quite a few important realisations and changes in perspective. It seems funny to write it.
So it’s not just entertainment or your own private disaster movie, but an exercise in directing imagination. And Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge (and I don’t know about you, but I agree)
Still, lucid dreaming is a skill, and is one I have neglected of late. There are many people who do it far better than me and take it more seriously. I’m just taking occasional trips to what Maxwell Maltz (of Psycho Cybernetics fame) described as ‘the theatre of the mind’. And it’s pants destroying fun.
If I followed up on the cues my nightmares were giving me, I’d be one hell of a music video/short film writer.
Something for the future perhaps…
“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.”
- Lewis Carroll
Image Credit: Psygnosis
Today I had a moment of total realisation that shook the very core of who I was and forced me to examine the years I have left on this planet. It was a realisation about the passage of time and it was caused, funnily enough, by a video game about police helicopters (yes, really).
I could explain how it affected me, but I think it were more useful to you if I first explain why a game about police helicopters affected me so much. And how that relates to similar experiences you’ll have had/will have as you get older.
And we all get older…
Humans block time into segments using memories as milestones.
Or perhaps put another way; memories are like reference points in how we measure the ethereal phenomenon of time.
Bear with me, I’ll explain…
Today I was researching an article for a major gaming website about Psygnosis, a now defunct Liverpool based games publisher and developer. The company is much beloved by me and countless other gamers who grew up on the epic digital storytelling that this little firm churned out over the years. One of my favourite games they released was G Police, a shooter for the Playstation.
As of this date (at the end of 2011), G Police was published a little over 14 years ago. For me, as a 23 year old, this means that this game came out over half of my lifetime ago.
To you, 14 years may not seem like a long time, but for the less experienced, like me, it really is.
Its simple maths…
If you are 80 years old and you divide life up into 4 chunks, each one is 20 years.
If you are are 20 years old and you divide life up into 4 chunks each is 5 years.
- Ugly but I hope it conveys my point
(Note I’m not saying we divide life into 4 chunks, it just simplifies it a bit)
You feel/perceive each chunk in the same way, but a lot more time passes between chunks for the 80 year old. Therefore a chunk of time for an older person feels the same, but in physical terms, is represents a lot longer span of time.
And it’s why when we get older, time seems to speed up. The chunks are getting bigger!
Memory is selective and unreliable. Your subconscious may record everything, but what you can feel, regardless of the length, feels the same. Time, in the objective sense, remains the same, but our perceptions change.
Why I almost fell off my chair…
What today’s gaming related realisation meant for me is that the chunks I measure time in are growing in size as I age.
Or to put it another way, time has put me a lot further away from that 1997 milestone than I had realised.
Our lifetimes are marked by the memorable milestones of our lives
Our intuitive feel for time’s passage is made up in milestones lodged in our memories. The strong feelings and good times associated with this game mean that G Police was one of my milestones.
Today the perspective it gave me was literally shocking.
I think this is a preview of the shock that very old people get when they realise how long has passed between now and a certain milestone.
Life’s not short, but it’s fast.
And it gets faster.
When was the last time you were shocked by such a realisation?
Why was Baruch Spinoza’s house so dirty?
Because nature abhors a vacuum cleaner.
lol
Why am I writing this? Partially as a personal reminder to stop being such a hardline, inflexible person with my time and to embrace outcomes and events as they are. One of the things that I most detest is having my time wasted. I think it is above all other things a hatred of boredom.
So here’s one for my fellow super-uber time micromanagers and personal power control freaks. If you ever feel yourself going insane with boredom when stuck with lost time, this is for you. If you manage your time so much that you’ve forgotten how to enjoy the simple pleasures you once did, this is for you. If you tear ahead through life so fast that you are starting to feel it slipping through your fingers, this is for you.
Don’t be so good at time management that you grow four arms. It’s just not healthy
So, here’s another look at time management and outcomes. Or as I like to call it Time (un)management for neurotic people.
You may not always be the best judge of how your time is used.
Before you hit me with a brick delivered via the internet try and hear me out..
Consider - sometimes things won’t be going your way and you’ll feel disappointed or frustrated. If you are like me you may feel like these small moments are melting the substance of your life way. Painful, isn’t it? But later on you may come to realise that what first seemed to be a mistake or time wasted may have actually been a blessing in disguise.
With that in remind, try to remember that when things aren’t going your way, that this is not necessarily a bad thing, though it may seem it at the time. There are hidden blessings in every mistake and misfortune, if you are looking closely enough and are ready to exploit them.
Sometimes such blessings are obvious, you miss your train and as you stand in the shivering cold, full of resentment for National Rail, you meet a very interesting person for a life changing chat. Sometimes you might not see the good that comes of a situation so clearly, but it is always there, and you can always believe that it is.
Remember that you cannot predict or know all the sources of your good or bad fortune. In embracing the uncertainties or the things that have gone awry you do not leave yourself too vulnerable to disappointment or the despair of loss. An open heart and mind and a flexible approach to life will see you through short-term struggles or temporary discomforts.
Sometimes you’ve just got to put your faith in fate. Or the Greek gods
Disappointment – it is a bollocks lie that your mind plays on you and it rots if not addressed..
Disappointment is a poor substitute for seeing the positives of a situation. Often we make it too easy to be disappointed. You probably shouldn’t feel so bad just because you didn’t get 100% on the final exam, the exact job you wanted and the perfect girlfriend/boyfriend/bodyweight/hair day/weather. Sometimes you have to be a little more realistic for the sake of your own happiness. Sometimes you’ll get what just you want, sometimes you’ll get more than you want, and sometimes you’ll get less than you want. C’est la vie!
Disappointment may be useful if you can use it as a motivator to change your future actions for the better, but brooding on it too much may be ruinous to your dreams and sense of well being. Surely you know of somebody who tried something, had it fail spectacularly, and never risked anything again? I do. They used their disappointment as an excuse to never try doing anything great again.
Complete Control: Illusion
In the same way that disappointment does not serve you, you cannot be a complete ‘control freak‘ and realistically expect to be happy.
You are responsible for your life and what you make of it of course, but you cannot influence every factor in your life. If you try to, then when something moves out of your influence, the frustration or disappointment is back!
Yes it is wonderful that you are able to steer your own ship, but every now and then trusting your direction to something more than yourself may be the best thing for you. That’s what letting go is about. That’s faith.
Sometimes we steer the ship wrong.
There is a happy medium between aimless drifting and relentless goal setting.
So, remember this also when you feel your time being wasted or something went badly; What can I get out of this? What did I learn? What was the good in this situation?
Helpful tips for recovering lost time:
Spare moments are not lost and are always opportunities for either getting shit done or having some fun. Here are some things you can do anytime you feel unhappy that your time is being wasted.
- Sometimes just enjoying a situation is time well enough spent. We all forget this very often.
- If you don’t want to just contemplate the moment, have things to do in your empty time, such as;
- Handle your email on a smartphone. Or find interesting people on Twitter.
- Complete a writing assignment on your laptop. Or write something creative.
- Practice your penmanship on a notepad. Or draw sharks.
- Meditate on compassion. Or think about things that make you happy.
Drawing sharks. Definitely not wasted time.
TLDR;
- You direct your life yet whatever will be, will be.
- You are entitled to everything in the world, but don’t expect other people to give it to you.
- What you may not want to do might be the best thing for you at that time.
- Serendipity is usually disguised by it’s nature, so be more receptive to it and accept that you can’t plan for serendipity.
- Stop trying to micromanage every mundane aspect of your life. It’s not possibly, so trying is just a waste of your energy.
- Opportunities come from everywhere, usually and often. Expect them.
- Having power and direction over you own life is the greatest thing, but nobody knows everything for sure.
- Advance confidently in the direction of your dreams and trust the specifics to providence.
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.” - Reinhold Niebuhr
Winter was yesterday
Summer is tomorrow
I missed spring altogether
Where did it go?
I am still here..
Just a bit old.
tell me bro what happened to your flow
where did it go?
its all disjointed, i’m dissapointed
and you lost your mojo
guess ill pick up where you left off
before the next verbal bullet bites the rest of your cleft off
kleptocrat? you’ve probably heard enough of that
pillaging rhymes in your viking hat..
you hear me talk and ask yourself
pointless..
what the fuck was that?
i’ll respond in tongues
cough up my lungs
do a backflip into the face of the sun
you can have the mic back now
i think i’m done.
Text exerted from an open mic I haven’t attended yet.
Image Credit: Seo2 | Por Puro Amor Al Rap