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fincalinde · 2 years

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Fandom has a tendency to conflate their own thinking it would be nice if JGY had something with JGY actually wanting that thing (regardless of textual evidence)

Wow this is an old one. Obviously I heartily agree, it's just that listing examples would be exhausting and I am only interested in commenting on trends rather than any specific fic. Individuals doing their own thing do not frustrate me. Trends do. Whatever I happen to mention below, just know that I am describing things I have seen repeatedly over the years.

As always, I have no issue with anyone who doesn't care about textual support. The ur-tropes that have developed in fandom are obviously great fun for many people and I certainly enjoy a lot of them myself. What frustrates me on the rare occasion I look over the parapet is that I see an overwhelming pattern of taking a cavalier approach to canon, in large part by privileging broader fandom ur-tropes over canon and yet trying to have one's cake and eat it by applying a purely cosmetic veneer of textual support to disguise fundamental incompatibilities.

What I mean by this is that a fic might throw in a line of acknowledgement of JGY's canonical goals and desires and then do what it wants with JGY anyway. Like a throwaway line acknowledging that the supposed HEA is not technically JGY's first choice and the scenario is bittersweet, while the content of the fic itself does not support that throwaway line and JGY is written as being perfectly satisfied with just a few swept-aside regrets about the path not taken. I see this most often when I accidentally come across Lan-furen type scenarios (and for the record, I consider a Lan-furen scenario to be any scenario in which JGY is taking on an ancillary role or is partner to LXC in the running of the Lan sect, regardless of whether the title itself is used). Other scenarios might be Xiyao running away together to be wandering cultivators, a situation that I cannot personally conceptualise as anything other than deeply and painfully bittersweet at absolute best for both of them.

I appreciate wanting the best for a character one loves, especially JGY, who was done so dirty in canon by the people around him (and by the narrative itself!). I just think it's a real shame when JGY's clearly stated desires and goals are not met and yet he is written as either being happy with that or coming to terms with it. If I thought JGY would be happy on the run with LXC or losing his position as Chief Cultivator or losing his place as member of the Jin in order to run away or to be LXC's right hand man in the Lan Clan, I would gladly write it because those are on paper interesting scenarios. But I just do not see any textual evidence that JGY wants that for himself, even unconsciously, and I do not generally see those scenarios written as engaging with how little they would satisfy him over the long as well as the short term.

I suppose I fundamentally can't get on board with any scenario that tries to tell me all JGY needs is LXC and a job to do. Let's not get into other pairings, as I don't see any textual support for them whatsoever so don't engage with that type of content at all.

Giving examples is difficult because again, I have less than no interest in citing identifiable content not just because I believe in letting people live their lives but also because what I dislike personally is seeing this pattern repeat itself to the exclusion of other approaches to creating transformative content. I'm not accusing anyone of not caring about canon, but I am observing that I personally am not seeing much content that is consistent with JGY's canonical goals and desires—and for the record, I do not think fics in which he realises he was wrong about his goals and desires are consistent with canon either. But individual fics are not the issue—we are all here to write what we enjoy. What saddens me is that this type of thing is near-universal and I don't see more of the kind of content I personally prefer, to be perfectly frank. Very much a me problem.

#ask #xiyao-feels #roquen meta

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billinthemeantime · 2 years

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Glossary:

I just wrote a bunch of stuff and it got deleted. I really really resent computers and the fact that I have to actively dissociate into a screen in order to be part of a workforce. Or not, I am doing an art degree so. On the bright side, this is actually a core theme of my practice:

Opting Out- I find it deeply troubling that we are not able to opt out of the digital age. If i were to delete my email account, which was made for me at the age of 10, I would essentially be screwed. I would not be able to have a job and all of the accounts attached to it would also be gone. I have tried to delete it, but it’s this cyber identification that I cannot go through ‘the real world’ without. The longer I have it the more essential it becomes. I also cannot opt out of any other digital practice. If I did it would come at the expense of loss of community, since no one knows their neighbours any more and everyone is scared of making phone calls. this is an ethical issue. It also doesn’t help that -

Addiction - is now central. It’s super profitable and highly effective in keeping the general population occupied, dissociated and inactive. Our two most popular drugs, Tv and alcohol, are powerful dissociatives, and are actively embedded into our social and personal routines. I would also like to opt out of these please. I have also tried. It is very difficult to do, and impossible to even start doing unless you catch yourself in the act of being addicted. which is hard to do when addiction is so proactively honed and encouraged from a very young age.

Magik - Magik is real and people have forgotten. I am very into the idea that magik is very present, but often dismissed. Coincidence is magic, the work of the mind, saying something at the same time, feeling someone watching you, the weather. Magik overlooked has led to a fun little dark age where media, material, money and idols are of central interest.

Others - Existing around other people is also an odd concern. It’s often a bit of magik in itself, random encounters, eavesdropping, finding other people’s stuff, caring for others and being able to connect with other minds. But it is also creepy. Most of the time, other people are specters that we walk around when they refuse to make space for you. They are lingering stares, or brief eye contact when they catch you watching them first. They are neighbours you never see but you know what’s on their playlist. They are beyond comprehension. It’s weird.

The Ego and intoxication - I’m pretty into the idea of intoxication, but it’s been done in a super weird way pretty much since partnership culture died out. I also find current execution of intoxication as partly responsible for the ego centrality that has emerged. Intoxication used to be a pretty good way of dissolving the ego too, so it sucks that the only legal intoxicant sucks on so many levels. If you couldn’t already tell, I’m a big advocate for psychedelics. Surprise surprise.

The world- The world is pretty much now, but through a different lens. There is curiosity in everything, even the stuff that makes your skin crawl. I find it so interesting that we have pretty much made our own ecosystem completely out of the human imagination. Every single thing has been conceptualised and redesigned and reimagined by such a long line of people. We live in this weird imagination place. Funny that it’s so much infrastructure. It’s more a matter of pointing the wack fantasy elements of the world out rather than making them up. Human stuff is so weird out of context. Imagine being a fox or something. What even is a brick.

The Cast - The ideas behind the cast and the world are very fluid. I like to leave myself as much space to grow the situation as possible, so generally it’s vague and lacking in cannon. They just kind of live ‘in the meantime’. At the moment I’m playing with the idea of them being the opted out. This is a progression of the ‘in the gaps’ existence they lead. Though funnily the things they opted out of are always lingering about it an out of context way. Due to being opted out they are relieved of being in the workforce, having a postcode and the privileges that go along with it. They are often criminals, and are very morally grey. They are detached from the usual unspoken rules of being a person because they pretty much refuse to interact with any sort of system that rewards that self regulating behaviour. They tend to adhere to codes of chaos and mischief. But what gives them any sort of structure is community. They care a lot. In all this moral greyness, villains become something more layered, people that you see everyday and learn how to react to. The code of conduct was thrown out and they are generally too odd to self regulate as a group, They are explorers, magik folk, postmen, kleptomaniacs, vandals. gardeners, drug dealers, nomads.

Things that are important:

signs

ownership of places

nature

what’s in your bag

Outside of the cast:

Bacne Jones and the archetypes.

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cheion-writes · 4 years

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Some thoughts

For the longest time, all I wanted was to be a writer. All I ever wanted was to publish a book. I wanted to write, to be amongst the writers who had stories that captivate and enthral. I just wanted to write, every single day, and eventually publish a novel under my name.

But here’s the thing.

Whenever I sit down, and will myself to write (especially when I have no inspiration nor motivation) - I can’t. I just can’t put words down to paper. My heart wants to; God knows how much I want to. But I just can’t. And trying to push my mind to write when it simply cannot just makes me detest my words. Everything comes out wrong and horrible, and writing starts to feel like a chore.

Much writing advice tells of how writing is a discipline, and that much is true. That if you want to be a writer, you have to write, no matter how terrible it may be. There’s no denying in that.

But when I sit at my desk, notebook and pen in hand, with absolutely no ideas - trying to force words out only leads to an endless cycle of frustration, resentment, despair and anger, because why can’t my brain do what my heart wants? And the more I try to force it, the more I hate it. The more I try to force myself to world-build, or to conceptualise characters... the more the process becomes unappealing and unenjoyable. The more I try to write when I can’t, the more I hate writing.

So what then?

I’ve given it some thought, and... well. I realise what’s missing is passion. A passion for stories that once kept me up at night, that once kept me occupied in little moments, that once called out to me in ways I could not ignore to share my thoughts to the world.

Somehow, where there was once imagination, there’s now only a fog of nothingness. Somehow, where there was once gleeful euphoria in sitting for hours on end and just reading or writing - there is now just nothing. How can I write, when I don’t even enjoy the process anymore? When I just feel empty inside, with no stories to share? No tales to tell?

So it made me think of some things. It’s taken me a long time to put my thoughts into perspective, but I think I finally understand.

I haven’t really been happy for a while; not really. I guess that’s a truth I never really wanted to admit. Dealing with health worries, and other issues that have happened, have taken a toll. I’m still dealing with them - and will have to continue to do so - and... it hasn’t been easy. The toll it's had is perhaps far bigger than I want to believe. And not being happy messes with the mind, with creativity, because it just drains away all the joy and drive until all that’s left inside is tired exhaustion.

It’s hard to write when the mind is in that place. And I’ve been in this place for a long time.

So maybe when I look at other writers, who have the ability to write impressive amount of words every day, who have the creativity to share so many ideas, who have the passion and drive to craft beautiful characters and worlds - when I look at them and feel so stupidly envious and jealous, so woefully inadequate and incapable - I’m not being really fair to myself. Because my mind is just unable to do the same.

If I can accept that I can’t perform as well as others when I’m physically ill, then why can’t I accept that neither can I when my mind space isn’t well?

So to those who have taken the time to message me about how they liked my works, to those who left comments, likes, reblogs, tags - the hugest thank you. They have gotten me through the days where I’ve been really down, and deep in the pit of wishing I hadn’t lost myself.

And to followers of Keepers of Fairfort (if any of you are still here), to those whom I’ve talked to about my new ideas, to those who read those snippets in rare moments of energy and inspiration - I’m sorry to say that those stories won’t be written. Not now. Likely not for a long time. Maybe not ever.

Right now, I will learn to stop pursuing something I know my mind can’t reach: of writing a novel and building a whole world and cast of my own. What I will try, is to continue to write. Shorter pieces now - perhaps with a foray into short original stories - at the pace my mind allows. Not the pace I’m trying to push it to be.

I may never be a prolific writer. I may never write a novel. I may never get the following others have, the ideas others have, or the way with words that others have. And I need to tell myself that you know what? That’s okay. I’ll just write, one step at a time. One word at a time.

#personal #cheion talks

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spamzineglasgow · 4 years

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(REVIEW) Isha Upanishad by Mario Petrucci

In this review, Nasim Luczaj considers the metaphysical wonders and linguistic oscillations of Mario Petrucci’s new translation of the Isha Upanishad (Guillemot Press, 2019).

> You know when you walk into a museum and either breeze through or get hit and pressed down to the tiles by the sheer age of everything? The latter, in my experience, is best facilitated by mummies, even when these are considerably younger than standalone stone or coral in the cabinet next door. Their shape recalls you; you recall death. You’re ever so transient but if you really try, an outline of your body might remain.

> For an ancient text, like a mummy, to be ‘preserved’, it must be adjusted to its onlookers while offering just the right level of peep into its age. The balance between affirmation of time gap and making contemporary is crucial to how we receive the work – to whether we breeze through, get hit, or something in between. What the thing to be preserved is (the frame? the possibility of movement? the weight?) and how much dragging into the current state of our language it requires will depend on the text as well as personal taste.

> There’s not much I can say about the original text of the Isha Upanishad. I have only just walked into this particular museum on a whim. I am walking around reading the plaques and exploring its reverb. I have no knowledge of Sanskrit or much in-depth acquaintance with Hinduist texts. What I do have are insights of an observer in a new beloved space and some sense for how a text might be performing the balance between overtly archaic and openly present. I will approach Mario Petrucci’s new translation of the Isha Upanishad chiefly in relation to how I receive this performance.

> The Isha Upanishad is one of the shortest out of over 200 Upanishads – ancient Vedic texts, some of which were written in poetic form, which lay out the central ideas of Hinduism. Mario Petrucci’s rendition, recently published by Guillemot Press and contained in a near-square, thick-papered book the height of a child’s hand, neither allows you to breeze past the fact of its age and sanctity, nor lets you worry about it too much. Whenever I read it, it’s like looking at a stone I know is old and savouring the opportunity to hold it in my hand, to choose how tightly I hold on. It shines with the grease we put on it by asking it back into our palms via translation and reading. The persistence of its stillness, its parallel timespan, carves its way into us. Just what we want. A stone carried out of a river, cool with current, balancing quaintness with a sense of refresh. Coming back from old renditions is like going back to reading a Sappho not translated by Anne Carson having already read If Not, Winter. You want to believe the original is this flippant. You want to trust the calm density of the translation, much like that of a body of water, and play its brim like a glass with your finger. It’s that kind of thinking, that kind of prompting, that kind of whoa you’d like to receive.

> Here, perhaps slightly too much quaintness is reinforced by regular capitalization, then counterbalanced, in places, by neologism. Some stanzas shout novelty, others hardly suggest our century. There is a charm and controlled purposefulness to this oscillation. Nevertheless, it forms a rift between passages. Creases emerge in their unity. Depending on the verse, you’re either ignoring the age of things as you walk through the museum, or you have your forehead placed against the glass dividing you from that time and also allowing you to glimpse it. You’re on one side of the valley or the other – the stream in between inconsequential, only a letter – but somehow the vegetation is noticeably different on either side, and the presence of alternatives, within smell and sight, distract.

Here’s one side – verse 3:

Ignorance is a form of possession

whose owner dons perfect sunlessness.

They follow death in procession:

those hollowed by flesh who bodily

deny consciousness.

The neological quality of ‘sunlessness’ adds to its no-caps feel, although this term is present in all other translations I have encountered and follows the original closely. The rhythm of the second stanza, too, oddens the verse – the sentence structure seems necessary but nicely impossible. It also withdraws our attention from death. Emphasis naturally falls on ‘procession’, the colon, the ‘hollowed’ sonically enacting the following. Then the denial is like a twig being bent very nearly to breakage but not quite allowing for it.

> That same death, in verse 14, surfaces capitalized:

The Eternal and its Effects –

those who place these two together,

by the Destructible need no rebirth,

by the Indestructible taste no Death.

Perhaps there is a difference between these ‘deaths’ that is supposed to be signalled here. In the Sanskrit original, however, this would not have been done via capitalization, which, to my knowledge, did not exist in their alphabet. The capitalization can be productive when demarcating ‘This’, ‘That’, ‘It’, which do require additional ballast for us to focus on them to the extent we focus on ‘Sun’ or ‘Cosmos’ by default. Nevertheless, Petrucci’s choice to capitalize more heavily in some verses than in others becomes stylistically confusing. I cannot read the original – perhaps there are differences in tone between parts of the Upanishad that are conveyed in this way, but I doubt it. You might end up longing for a striking off of pompous capitalization or for a more consistent marking of the more important concepts in relation to nouns of less stature, instead of taking the text in as a unified piece which does not admit tweaking. I found it dizzying to oscillate between verses, though each had a tremendously cohesive, complete, and self-contained air when read on its own. At times I would lose myself in testing comparisons – is this more like Anne Carson, Blake, Winnie the Pooh, or, God forbid, the opening paragraph of Lolita (an association I owe exclusively to ‘Pillar of All, / Lone Fire / Orchard-keeper’ – but still)?

> To my mind, the greatest strengths of Petrucci’s translation lie in aspects in which he has the most poetic license – punctuation, line breaks, stanza division. You can tell he is free. You can tell he is purposeful. There are fantastic clusters of dashes and colons, and full stops that you would just like to thread between your toes to look down on as you walk. My previous encounter with Petrucci’s work involved not his translations, but a poetry collection – i tulips – which I remember mainly for the daze of its line breaks – smooth mirrors sharpening up both all in view and all out of it. I wanted to read this Isha Upanishad if only to see what happens to such an angular style when confronting the mould of ancient text, an entity we may be prone to conceptualise as claylike, earthy, elemental, but must resort to try to get in touch with via Spark-Note-sharp-dull renditions. The poetically-minded translator can cookie-cut to whim, but to do so with the same cookie cutter as they use for their own work would most likely amount to getting carried away (when professing to be a responsible driver of a metaphysical tour bus).

> What makes this Isha such a nourishing reread – I’m really not sure how many times I flicked through, tasting the same lines over and over without the slightest loss of pleasure – is its staccato. Sentences never stumble, yet they are persistently gritty in the way they call out, firm while exhibiting an awareness of the inherent issues with conveying truths in words. Our words are like those toy cars set in their own rink for kids to collide with. Sometimes they need seizing and readjusting to true roads. This driver is slow with moments of clutch and then perfectly eager acceleration until a pedestrian – another thought – pops up and we’re clutchy again. My favourite stanza, which demonstrates clutch to perfection, comes from verse 5:

It is action – yet It

remains dormant. Beyond

all reach – It

is more intimate than blood.

I find no mention of intimacy, not a dash of blood or even just a dash, in other translations of the Isa Upanishad. There’s nothing of the velocity, the gift of oceans, rivers, the multitudes of loud trees, the ‘Orchard-keeper / of Karma’ Mario Petrucci offers as generously as he can while staying true to the philosophical content of his source text. The world comes towards our mouths. The world is our eyes coming towards world. The world is modernised through elementality, not technical fervour. You get to it and it turns out to be compact, just as you want more.

> The free meat-grindery translations I glimpsed online didn’t have a tree in them. They merely made me skim and mourn the insistence on the persistence of a dichotomy between light and darkness which never does darkness justice. This still hurts me here but is inevitable, an essential part of the original message that I can get past through focusing on the wonders of everything else. For example, of how the lines in verse 5 stop at ‘It’ to change gear and keep ploughing up a hill – a hill which actually stands for encouragement to stop trying to make it up anywhere. I’m not sure how far up I park in the shade of Upanishad, but park I do. Nothing left to read. I open the door and air comes through from somewhere, at some angle, some temperature, at some leg of mine, which is hesitant at the touch of something holy. Light hits all manners of dust, especially the broken CD input. I like being here. A seatbelt gleams like a hiccough of holiday sea. Everyone has moved on and maybe they’re wrong. It can be so fast to stop. ‘Take stillness from stillness: / Stillness still remains.’ It can take you everywhere, the halt. Thank you.

Isha Upanishad is available to buy here via Guillemot Press.

Text: Nasim Luczaj

Image: Guillemot Press / Cover design by CF Sherratt.

Published 6/11/19

#review #reviews #poetry reviews #nasim luczaj #Mario Petrucci #Isha Upanishad #Guillemot Press

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goodnighttheskye · 7 years

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“March was so jam-packed that one monthly round-up just wasn’t enough! In this episode, come with me to interview hotshot horror punks Creeper, perform at not one but two poetry slams, and watch All Time Low collect more bras than entirely necessary. March is back, and this time it’s personal!”

Welcome back! Honestly, March was such a whirlwind that it’s been difficult to keep track of everything, and this is by no means an exhaustive list. However, here are the highlights for the second act of the third month, and I would exchange any of this crazyness for the world. Make sure you catch up on part one before jumping in, and we can get started with March: The Sequel!

Wednesday 15th ~ All Time Low, Leeds

You know it’s a good week when you get to see not one, but two of your favourite bands in one week. I had seen All Time Low before, in fact they were the first arena show I ever covered as a professional journalist. This time though, the vibe was completely different. I wasn’t in work mode, I didn’t have to make notes on everything, I didn’t have to travel out of my home city, and most of all I wasn’t by myself.

It was a great mix. New friends who I had just met at uni, friends I had had since the end of high school, the wonderful boyfriend, and my best friend since Primary school who had travelled down from university. It felt like all the disjointed parts of my life were finally in harmony, and the cocktails we had pre-show didn’t really harm those vibes either. The show was, of course, amazing, but best of all I got to be there while some of my best friends got to see their all time favourite band for the first time ever. As the confetti rained down, I couldn’t help but think of all the times we had hung out over the years, and how even though we lived much further apart now, that wasn’t stopping any time soon.

Friday 17th ~ Interviewing Creeper // Memusi Benefit Gig, Wakefield

Creeper are one of those bands that weren’t on my radar for the longest time, but who I stumbled upon at a festival and couldn’t believe I’d gone without them for so long. Their blend of goth, horror punk and classic rock feels like it was made just for me, so when The Gryphon gave me the opportunity to interview them ahead of their debut album release on the 24th, I jumped at the chance. I’ll admit I was a little nervous, and I had to deal with too many tech issues to count, but it was more than worth it. Will (the vocalist) has such a unique approach to storytelling and aesthetics, and getting to dig into that a little bit was so rewarding.

You can read my Interview & Feature here.

However, I didn’t have much time to dwell on the conversation, as I had to rush straight to Wakefield for a friend’s charity benefit. The whole thing was in service of the Memusi Benefit Foundation, which was set up to provide girls with quality education in places like Tanzania and Kenya. The turn out to see bands like Slurp Dirty, Flash Bats and Avenoir was incredible, and I was lucky enough to be asked to perform as a slam poet in between sets.

I’m still fairly new to making my work public, so getting to perform for such a receptive audience was such a buzz. I slipped up a few times, but the paralyzing nerves I normally feel just weren’t there, and I got the thrill of getting to share my writing with Ethan, who is the best artist I know and whose opinion I respect so much. I even snuck in a cheeky John Cooper Clarke number, which is the hallmark of a good night in my opinion!

Friday 24th ~ Slam Of The North Poetry Competition, Leeds

Without a doubt, this was the highlight of my month. After the most truly nerve-wracking performance of my life a few months ago, I managed to make the top 5 out of all the poets competing, and so earned a spot on the competition team. I’d never performed before, let alone competed, so to be welcomed into a team with so little experience felt like such an act of trust on their part.

After numerous writing sessions, rehearsals, promotional materials being filmed and trips to the theatre, the day finally arrived, and I got the opportunity to slam with and against poets from Manchester and Sheffield. Everyone gave a stellar performance, and the guest poets were enlightening, but in the end we managed to snatch the trophy! Having conceptualised, written and directed a lot of the group poem, I felt really proud to have created something that other people not only related to, but thought was worthy of praise on that level. I definitely caught the slam bug that night, and I cannot wait to see what performances April brings.

And I’m afraid that’s all folks, for real this time! I hope you enjoyed seeing what I got up to this month, I’d love to know what made your month down in the comments. What were your top three favourite moments? What does April hold for you?

As always, you can submit your band or brand for review here, my previous reviews of Hidden Cabins and They Called Him Zone have even been used in websites and testimonials. Also! I’m still posting snippets of my secret project over on Niume, which is a great way to support your favourite creators! Have a good month, and of course:

Stay Different Your Skye

What Happened In March pt.2 // (All Time Low, Creeper Interview, Slam Of The North & More!) "March was so jam-packed that one monthly round-up just wasn't enough! In this episode, come with me to interview hotshot horror punks Creeper, perform at not one but two poetry slams, and watch All Time Low collect more bras than entirely necessary.

#all time low #blogging #creeper #daily blog #leeds #leeds university #memusi #Music #music journalism #poetry #slam of the north #slam poetry #travel #travel blogging

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attemptingtobeom · 7 years

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Train 23/3

Today I was inspired by a variety of different things.

I met two Italian men in my hostel, first a man that spoke of his experiences in the past, making youtube videos and raps with his childhood friends, of whom have become big producers in Italy. Nearing 30, and having dreams to eventually make his way to New York in pursuit of a film career, his avid sense of self confidence and lack of caring for what others thought of him was completely international and allowed me to see things from an external perspective. His ability to conceptualise and apply the theory that ‘reality is what you make it’ (as Sampa the Great has said before) was truly quite inspiring as I have felt my mind slowly become entrapped in itself in Beechworth; in the sense that I do not see myself, or my character, being seen by peoples from outside the small town. I am too internalised by this, wherein I constrain the things I do and say to contempt those around me within the town out of fear of being ostracised, and in turn am deeply trapped and tormented with a depression and fear of being myself. I feel at a base level this is what leads to a lot of my anxieties, wherein not only am I scared because of my past in highschool, with bullying and being an outcast etc but also in the fact that I have no peers that hold relative passions to the ones I have and so I have no validation of my views, beliefs and interests by my social circles. I also met another young man, from Italy, who has road tripped Australia on a motorbike, expressing that ‘being out there, alone, with just my bike, on hundreds of kilometres of empty roads; that’s the closest I have ever felt to freedom.’ This was another source of inspiration to me because it reminded me of the fact that there is always tranquillity to find within oneself once acceptance of being alone has come into place. There is nothing wrong with being alone and with oneself on this planet. There is no need for validation. The best things have always come from those who have not sought after it, and the most attractive, and personable people are those who do not seek validation of themselves within others and are rather happy to be who they are and accept the consequences of those who are not so fond of them for doing so. Family is the ultimatum of who to care for other than yourself and are essentially the only people that you can rely on at the end of the day to be there for you no matter what.

I was also inspired by Frank Xavier tonight when he came in to speak for the second half of my liveschool class; having over 20 years experience in the industry, and being heavily evolved with the development of electronic music within Australia, his keen eyes and quick lips were nothing sub of amazing to display after being in the industry for as long as he had. He had clearly not lost any interest for what he was doing and he clearly loved having the chance to pass the information on to others – a true scholar and possessor of knowledge. He was captivating to listen to, even if it was only for a short amount of time. It was less about what he was talking about specifically, but rather the essence he spoke of to us. ‘Don’t let it be robotic’, ‘Have dynamics’, ‘Make it interesting’. He surely prompted us to imagine ourselves to be the best we could be before we were mixing whatever we were making. We are doing this out of passion and not money; and if that was the case – we must do so mercilessly if we wish to do so well. Without realising, I think he was more inspirational than anyone else I’ve met at liveschool – purely because his intense love for music and it’s intricacies, and his undivided attention to it throughout the night and what I assume to be his whole life. He is good at it because he loves it and he does not care about what others think of what he does. He does it and he does it well, to his standard, and he knows best, and so he does well.

I think I’m definitely coming to a crux in my life. I’m 22, I’m still living at home, I’m inspired, but I’m yet to make any kind of leap, nor commit myself to any kind of field. I hold a strong sense of entitlement to my surrounds and I cannot seem to budge the resentment that lives in me for my childhood. I cannot speak to my family on such subject and my mind is In near constant disarray. I don’t know how to deal with myself and I don’t know if or how I should speak to those around me about my mind – at least I have recognised these things about myself now and am slowly starting to feel better again. I don’t know if I will ever lose the unsettling resentment for my Mum and her lack of speech and or input in the past bit – I want to get over it but I do not know how to. She has no idea how the way she has acted and spoken to me in my upbringing affects me now and I’m really really unsure of whether it’s something I should talk to her about as I don’t know whether I should pressure her with the guilt of being part of the cause of my fucked head. She means nothing but well for me and for everyone in the family but constantly fails to understand me, and I guess that’s everyone, because no one can understand me, for some reason, but I guess because it’s her I tend to think a little harder and more irrationally about it because I don’t know how else to deal with it because I can’t speak to my own mother. This is an ongoing issue and due to my distrustful nature I tend to begin to believe things have been hidden from me by my family and hence why they are unable to talk to me about it.

Go and eat another fucking snack, fatboy, and while you’re there stink the shitter out with your putrid filth of an excuse for foecal matter. I’m really not typing anything constructive here and it makes me doubt my capabilities to do so because if I can’t type here, in a solo environment, how will I ever? Will I ever be able to travel if I haven’t dealt with these internal issues? Will I ever be able to get rid of them without talking about them with someone and/or my family? Why did this essay start by me wishing to state some inspiration I’ve found recently and then trail back into the family and head issues I am dealing with at the moment? Who knows. I guess they’re somewhat intertwined. Back to the topic of inspiration. What the fuck some woman just got on at cootamandra and said that she’s smiling because her ‘brother left her mother in a paddock to die and paid to have me shot, so I’m smiling because I’ve done my time and I’m on this train’. She literally has her hair dyed black and pastel yellow in stripes. STRAYA

This past week has shown me many particular little things that have shown me inspiration in one way or another. The reddit post outlying ‘workflow’ and that it’s more to do with lifestyle and habits rather than the way in which you actually work. This ties in quite solidly with the way I saw and thought Frank had grown to the esteem he had. Through sheer love and ethic to make good music. There was also another post, linked to the reddit post, of a producer giving tips on how to be consistent. “Do what you want. Have fun. The chances are, if you think something is a good idea, then it is. Don’t do it for any one else, do it for you. I bump my shit all the time!”. I think this one, while primarily applying to music, applies to life as well in a different fashion to the first, in the fact that it can literally be applied to a persons entire character and social standing. Do it for yourself. See the people you love. Do the things you think are fun. Make the jokes you think are funny. Have the social media presence you think is okay. The world is yours, and yes, while it may be the digital age and everything on the internet will remain printed for **ETERNITY** who is to really care? We’re living in a more droning and less self aware society than ever before; money drives popularity and fame drives money; products rollover and kids turn into more worker bees to run about the hive. What’s so wrong with just being a child? Nothing. Be yourself. Educate yourself. Enough of the endless short term attention and mindless grabs at instant gratification. The world is a beautiful place with a select bunch of beautiful people, don’t ruin your mindset on the asset that the others will care. There is no second 2017. This is it. This is now. People have forgotten that. Despite the internet being ‘forever’, we aren’t and I feel like the vast majority are forgetting that,.

Make things, be passionate, break things, make people laugh, get money. This is extremely disjointed and I for sure don’t know what I’m talking about but heyoooo my negro lesgeddit

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