Blogging Drama

Lately - as you may have noticed - I don't seem to be blogging as much. But it's not because I don't want to. I just can't seem to be able to think of anything that I've realised or that I'm finding significant enough to post about. It's probably the trap of: it has to be brilliant for me to write about it. This, as we know, never leads anywhere good, as it tends to lead to nothing being written at all.

So, instead of blogging, I have been avidly reading the blogs I'm following. I have found myself compulsively checking my blogger dashboard throughout the day to find out what new posts have been written. Often I read the first few sentences and decide, no, I won't read the rest, but every now and again, I continue to the entire post. It seems that not many people I'm following are blogging about anything I want to read about - not saying that it's not interesting, just that I'm simply not in the mood to read them. And the problem, I'm led to believe, is drama.

Honestly, I find long rambling posts of complaining pretty boring to read, but without them, the lives on show suddenly become unbearably rosy. As for those posts that are about things going right - very often aren't that interesting. I'm thinking humans just have issues - and we like to share them - and we like to know that we're not the only ones with them. It is something I've come across quite a lot recently in my blog reading 'I don't have anything to write because I don't have any drama.' Is it really true that we need the drama to find our lives interesting? Personally I'm loving every second of my life at the moment, and just taking it as it comes, (no, I'm not writing about it either, but for those of you who read this blog often, you will know that this is not a personal blog and rarely includes anything important in my life). There is no drama as such - though I have been known to create some to make myself feel more comfortable - but I would certainly not say that my life was boring right now. But it seems we have forgotten how to find it interesting when there isn't anything worth gossiping about, when everything is following a not so clear, as happy, path, when we aren't on the brink of any mental break downs. Do we really have to complain to make our lives worthwhile? Why can't we just sit back and let the good come with the bad? Why can't we just stop and relax and enjoy?

The Power to Rock the World

I was watching The Princess Diaries and when Lilly has a go at her friend Mia because abdicating being princess would mean neither of them have the power to rock the world. Lilly's show only reaches 12 people. But I couldn't help wonder, doesn't it depend on who you reach. It is true that if you are famous, the chances are it'll be a damn cite easier to get your message to a larger number of people, but that doesn't mean that they'll hear you or act on what they do hear. Lilly may only reach 12 people, but those people may really listen and act and tell others - setting off a chain which is much more effective.

It also got me thinking about blogging. I mean, that is the reason we blog isn't it - to let people know our views, and we all hope that someone is reading and really caring - at least I know I am (if reading this blog has made you think about anything or changed your outlook I would really love to hear from you through your comments). But I have to question if too many people are trying to rock the world through blogging - it's so easy now to start one, slightly harder to keep one, and much harder to keep your readers (because there's so much choice for them to read). Anyone can let their voice be heard, but the chances are it'll be lost amongst the other voices. Yet we keep going, keep writing in the hope that we have made a difference and rocked the world for at least one person.

Motivate

Everyone needs motivation. If we didn't have any kind of motivation, we wouldn't get up out of bed, we wouldn't go to work, we wouldn't do anything at all. Some of that motivation is basic necessity - we need to eat, sleep, go to the toilet. But other activities don't seem to require as much motivation such as we want to see our friends, we like the taste of chocolate, we enjoy sitting in front of the television, while these activities don't appear to need motivation on the surface, it is still there, we just don't notice it as much because we WANT to do them, they are enjoyable. However if we only did the activities we absolutely have to do and those we want to do, we would still have a problem. No one would be going to work, soon you would find yourself without much money and the chances are your health would go down the drain.

So what is it that stops us from living in this way? What motivates us? Of course, there is the long term wants - we need to go to work to earn money to buy whatever it is we want. But it is my personal belief that most of what motivates is learnt. We are taught from when we are very young that we have to go to school so we can get a job, this is the way of the world. Everything we do is based on how we have learnt to behave, how we want society to perceive us. We either fall in line or rebel, but both are what we are expected to do.

So next time you feel oddly motivated to buy something, think 'do I really want or need this? Or have I simply been programmed by the t.v, magazines, friends and family to think that I need it?' And when you get up to go to work, are you doing it because you have to (yes, I realise that money is very important) or because you wouldn't know what to do if you didn't? Just a few thoughts today.

Smoke and Clouds

I am sitting here watching the smoke from my incense stick float upwards in a single line before disapparating into the room. It is soothing, slow and beautiful. And it reminds me of when I was a child and I used to watch the clouds in the sky for hours. I remember noticing every little change that happened by making them into shapes; playing the 'I can see...' game. Don't get me wrong, I still play that game whenever I look up at a blue sky filled with white fluffy clouds, but I no longer make time to just sit and stare.

Of course I don't, I have too many other things on my mind, and my schedule always seems to have things being added to it (including some that honestly aren't that productive, but I still do them). And perhaps that's what's wrong with our lives. We rush through them, we don't look for the changes and often even the biggest ones can go unnoticed, and we no longer have time for simple pleasures. We don't stop and enjoy the moment. We don't allow ourselves to indulge in games for any period of time, afraid that if we do, something bad will happen. Well, it won't. Life will still be the same. But if you take the time, it will seem so much more than simply one thing after another after another after another. Watch the clouds, hell, watch paint dry, but take some time out and slow down.

Rearranging Your Life

I have just finished rearranging the furniture in my bedroom to make room for the new bed that will be delivered this week. As I have only just done it, I'm not entirely sure what I think of the result - it's not quite as I had imagined it but neither have I done anything particularly radical. It's one of those things that I expect I will get used to, and probably relatively quickly, but for now it still feels strange.

As it happens my life has recently turned direction with the introduction of 'the boyfriend'. As someone who has been single for over 4 years and has never had a really truly grown-up serious (wow, can I fit anymore adjectives into that?) relationship I am finding that I am changing quite a lot of my life to fit him in. And I'm thinking that that's similar to moving the furniture in my room. At the moment I am unsure of what I think but overall it has made my room look a lot bigger which could be seen either as a plus or a negative of the change. I could decide that I don't want a lot of space and it makes the space too open and not homey enough and move everything back or I could decide that the perception space could be a good thing and I'll give it time to let myself adjust. It's up to me. The same is true of the changes I'm making for the relationship - I could decide that I was happy with the life I had before and run or I could wait and see where this new part of my life will lead.

In truth, I was happy with my bedroom the way it was as I was happy with myself and the life I had. But having a new, bigger bed and the furniture in a different, more spacious layout is probably going to be just as good if not better.

My point (and I apologise for the long-windedness of this post) is just because something is different or has changed doesn't automatically mean it is worse. It could be just as good or even better, but you won't find out unless you embrace it, leaving all doubt behind.

Missing the Moments

No one wants to miss the big moments in life. The first step of your child, weddings, dancing at the school prom. And thanks to technology it is now easy to preserve all these big things with the help of a camera. Most big events have that person in the corner happily taking many pictures for not a small fee. But what about all the other moments in our lives that we wouldn't want to forget - a first kiss, having coffee with friends, a family meal? These are just as easy to preserve with the use of a digital camera - and you can have the images up on your screen or printed out for not much cost and almost immediately. But someone has to be behind the lens.

It is rare for me to go anywhere without my camera. It's not a particularly great one but it does the job - takes pictures and preserves all those moments I might forget otherwise. But this isn't entirely true. It is almost impossible to take a photo of yourself and completely impossible to take a natural picture of yourself, so automatically I am cut out of most of what I create, so I wasn't really in the moment or if I was, I have had to come out of it to take the picture.

The other problem with constantly looking through a lens waiting for just the right moment for everything to come together is that I sometimes miss it entirely. I can only see what the camera shows me - it doesn't show the full picture. And taking the photo means I miss the moment entirely.

Will I ever stop taking the photos? I'm thinking no. It is an enjoyable hobby and the subjects of each picture, I hope, will appreciate the memories that are brought to the forefront of their mind. As for my own moments I have other ways of recording them - I keep a diary, others sometimes take photos and my memory still holds out, at least for now. But what I try and remember is that it isn't the big moments that make the difference - it's the little things that often go unnoticed, they are what I hope to hold on to for they are what makes a person who they are: their experiences, their memories and their feelings towards them.

I am awake, awake, awake!

Yes, it's half past two in the morning and I'm sitting on my laptop typing this. The reason? Espresso. I went for a meal at Pizza Express - absolutely brilliant pizza and worth every penny - and ended up having an expresso with my dessert. No, I didn't order it, it came with whatever it was I had. But who's idea was it to make it ok to have coffee after dinner? Surely having caffeine just before bed is never a good idea but I had to drink it as not only did it come with the food but I actually love coffee and rarely have the chance to have a decent expresso. So I'm not complaining about the fact that we have coffee, only the fact that it's common practice to have it after a meal. I know, I know, it's supposed to cleanse the palatte or whatever, but I stick by my previous statement - it just isn't sense to drink coffee a few hours before bedtime. And the result is clear - I am exhausted but my mind is hyper and I'm unable to sleep. Instead I'm using this time to play bejeweled on facebook and watch disney songs on youtube. At least it's a Sunday when I wake up and I won't have to get up at any reasonable hour - I'm going to exercise my right as a student to stay up in bed all day and get up just in time to watch Torchwood in the evening!