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thoughts: what the world needs most - Written Life

New Author's Note

January 18th 2008 09:23
Hey-
I'm the new author of written life.
Hope you enjoy the changes in the site- if not, hunt down loz and tell her to return


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Originality

December 7th 2007 06:21
Her favorite word to type was reference. Typing reference mostly took place by using only two fingers. There was a nice rhythm to the typing of reference. She moved aside a text on narrative to look at the clock. 6.04pm, ninety six hours before it was over; Before the plague of assignments ceased and she was handed a piece of paper mostly unscathed by the locusts. The CD had finished. She put her hands in her hair and felt the warmth of her scalp. Would she give this to him to read when she was done? The CD began again.

She was girl. She was hungry. In a spiritual and emotional and intellectual and sexual and relational way. She did not feel this in an agitated, desperate sort of way, but with a resigned, thick, thoughtful floating translucency. Anyhow. This morning she had eaten an apple Danish and talked to Jaydon. They had sat side by side on the wooden bench at the local pool after training and watched two competent lap swimmers stroking their arms lazily through the water and listening to their own voices soaking quietly into the pool. He was eating cherry Danish. She wished she had got a cherry one too. She liked Jaydon in some ways; he was surprisingly perceptive at times. He reminded her of a daddy long legs, she was always afraid of his six foot five frame collapsing as it realised that its legs were actually only that of a spindly arachnid. Earlier in the afternoon she had wondered on what grounds she had begun to think he was dull. She didnt know. Spindly spider man Jaydon talked to her a lot about Simon


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Humility

September 7th 2007 08:17
Humility

Some things make me very angry at myself. Some things make me very angry at humanity. Some things make my chest contort and my stomach push against my lungs. I once did a survey that was posted on a psychology website about listening. There are some questions that you know the correct answer to before you see the test results. This one shook me to the core: “It is ok to interrupt someone speaking if I have something relevant to say. (Strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree) ” My heart knew the correct response: Strongly disagree, but I clicked on ‘agree’ because that is what my behaviour displays


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Faith

August 6th 2007 23:40
Faith

Like a bicycle with no wheels, some things just don’t work on the road. I once found faith to be one of those things. Once I came to the point where my faith meant nothing to my soul except a series of fences stopping me going over a cliff, at the bottom of which was hell. The fences were: don’t swear, don’t have sex, don’t drink, don’t listen to bands with grunge music and names like ‘orgy’, and don’t under any circumstances miss a ‘quiet time’ with the Lord. There are often two versions of relationship with Jesus. The first is where you profess faith and an answer to the big questions in life; but then when you lay your head down on the pillow at night and the tears start to come, and you feel scared and alone, your mind numbs the pain by depreciating others or eating food or buying a new dress. This was (and is often) my faith (and my no wheel bicycle) because it is faith that does not change the way you see and deal with issues in life. The other type of relationship with Jesus is one where the big questions are answered, and this changes everything. Is there a God? Does He care? Who am I? Am I lovely? Do You see me? Does my pain matter? Is my pain dealt with? Can I have a centre of stability when nothing seen is stable? Can I have a relationship unmarred by my failings that satisfies my yearning to be known and accepted anyway


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Irregularity

August 6th 2007 23:39
Prologue:
Sometimes I think we need to hear stories of people's everyday moments that capture something of the essence of life. It makes me feel alive and awed by the intricacy and simplicity of joy.

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Selflessness

August 6th 2007 23:37
If we were selfless we wouldn’t need traffic lights.
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Respect

August 6th 2007 23:36
Respect

I have a bad dream almost every night. I’m not even sure why, but whenever I close my eyes chaos seems to ensue. This weeks’ themes have included not turning up to work on time, a fat man who had just eaten a cookie trying to kiss me, and Nazi Germany coming to Sydney University


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Interlude

August 6th 2007 23:35
Interlude

When I am sad I think of this story and it makes me laugh. I have a friend called Oliver. I swim with him in the mornings in a squad when I am not lifeguarding at the local pool. He says this story does not make him laugh it makes him shake his head and put his hands over his eyes. One day I was hanging out with him and he needed to return a video. We drove to the video shop and he asked me to jump out and return the video. I am (surprisingly) often aware of the culturally appropriate thing to do in a given situation. In this situation, because it was daylight on a Saturday and the video shop was open, the appropriate cultural norms dictated the course of action- just put it in the slot right? Right! Unfortunately for everyone involved my brain understood the last part but not the first. I went up to the open video shop and put the video through the after hours shoot on the door. I saw the video fall to the floor and someone look up from the adjacent aisle. I realised what I had done and raced back to the car where Oliver could not be consoled. Sometimes it is hard for him to appear in public with me


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Love

August 6th 2007 23:34
I love to swim. I’m not being facetious, this is not one of those illustrations which ends up with “so I learned that love was deeper than objects or activities and began with people.” That may be a valid conclusion, but not the one I am firing at. So- I love to swim. I love the feeling of gliding through the water, I love the rhythm of butterfly, I love the power of breastroke kick, I love how freestyle feels like home. I hate backstroke, but that’s really irrelevant to the discussion, for the most part I love swimming. I teach it and train for the competitions I hate to keep motivated. Teaching and training becomes this microcosm for my life and I think I learn a lot about myself and others from it.
I swim with a girl called Celeste. Here’s what I know: I love Celeste. Here’s something else I know: Celeste loves me. We have never communicated this fact but I know it’s true. How? (Thinking music and appropriate props such as grid paper and those puzzles where you shift tiles around.)
Did you know that 55% of communication is body language, 38% is tone of voice, and 7% is what you actually say? It’s true I heard it on TV or from my friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s boss. It’s weird because it’s so obvious whether people like you or not, but so rarely is anything ever explicitly said about their/your feelings. This is amusing in regards too swimming because I’ve come to realise recently that it doesn’t often matter what you say when you teach kids to swim (Do not misconstrue that sentence!) but it matters a great deal whether you respect them and communicate you love them. If you do this, the swimming part is easy(er


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Mystery

August 6th 2007 23:33
Sometimes, in my head, I have so much stuff flying around that I can’t think straight. The unfortunate thing about the way I’m wired is that I can’t turn my brain off. Actually I fib there; I certainly am able to turn my brain off (as evidenced in my atrocious listening skills.) However, if I genuinely care about an issue, or am concerned about something, I can’t stop thinking about it.
I’ve never been comfortable with mystery. I want a logical explanation. I want universal principles to apply to relationships. I want to know secrets held within people’s hearts. I want to know. Recently I have begun to tend towards an acceptance of mystery. When, in rare moments, I am comfortable with my intellectual limitations, it becomes fun not to know things. I walked along a road at sunset and the sky was streaked with colours. And I thought, why? Why is the sky streaked with colours? I know the sun does something that interacts with the atmosphere or whatever but it’s deeper than that isn’t it? Why do the particles have to interact that way, and why is the sun like it is and why is it this (odd orange ball of gas) that’s gives light and why couldn’t light just come out of the ground or have no source- just be light? And there’s a physical sensation within my mind like my brain is pressing against my skull and almost overloading. My mind is so steeped in culture and so finite- it simply copies what others think and do, and when I try to break out it actually physically feels tingly in my mind. Even when I do try to break out I can only copy and adapt the ideas I’ve heard from others. Isn’t it mystical? Isn’t life intriguing? Why does it have to be the way it is? Why is fear? That is, why does fear exist? Why is racism? Why is beauty? Why is music? Why was I born in the top 2% of wealthiest people in the world?
Why do I love guys’ shoulders


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Courage

August 6th 2007 23:32
I drew a picture when I was 18. Now with approximately 1000 more bleary-eyed alarm turn offs, I somehow feel I know more about the inner workings of my existence. It is after looking at old journals and seeing pictures like this that my youthful arrogance is somewhat abated: I really have not changed at all, I still don’t know anything about anything.
So this picture. It is the black outline of a very simple man, with each arm outstretched to the side. In the middle of his chest, there is a flower, but instead of the cartoonish circle that the petals normally join to, there is a heart. And there is one word written underneath this picture: courage. I suppose this may need something of an explanation. When I drew this picture it felt simply like a nice sentiment, but every time I glance at it again now, it rings so true it hurts.
Here’s the thing: to show someone your heart, the reality of your brackish being, is truly courageous. I read a brilliant quote once: “If I am afraid to show you who I am, it’s because this is all I have and you may not like it.” Conversely, there is nothing as peaceful as gently exposing what’s underneath your role self and having someone gaze into your eyes and love you for who you are. I had this happen to me recently with a girl named Alice


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Acceptance

August 6th 2007 23:31
Recently I was on the phone to Clari and she was telling me about a girl we know from school. Truth be told I had often been at odds with this girl because she always seemed to just be telling people what they wanted to hear. I would often feel like shaking her and saying- “Just sit down and show me who you really are.” I do not like insincerity and falseness. I know she is a truly beautiful woman. I know that. I just have found it difficult to communicate with her authentically. So Clari was saying how when we had seen said girl two months before, she had lost a substantial amount of weight. Then Clari said in this voice full of weight and compassion, “Jen, it looks like she hasn’t eaten since then, she looks sick, her cheeks are hollow and her shoulder blades are sticking out.” This did not surprise me, knowing the amount of pressure this girl puts on herself to please everyone and perfect every sphere of her life. But what Clari said next left me reeling: “Imagine what someone must be going through to do that to themselves.” And then I stopped putting on my “well I knew that would happen” voice and started to see this girl as a human. I am a proud and dispassionate person sometimes. The emotional trauma that someone would have to feel- to be that fearful of their imperfections that they would starve themselves- is monstrous.
Acceptance. This is what it comes down to: I am so fearful of what others think and want them to believe in me so much that I will try and wear the funkiest clothes, be intelligent, funny, skinny and nice, so everyone will scream my name at rock concerts. So everyone will worship me. No that’s a hyperbole. But do you understand the depth of our hunger? Eldridge and Eldridge say that a woman’s deepest question they seek an answer for is, “Am I lovely?” and similarly a man’s is, “Do I have what it takes?” and people will answer those questions, naming and categorizing us throughout our lives, resonating ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Meanwhile a child you do not know will gaze at you with a smile that resembles summer skies.
My friend looks like an Ethiopian famine victim. I do not presume to know anything about her situation because I have not talked to her personally. But perhaps she is skin stretched over bone because her deepest question, “Am I lovely?” has been answered by herself and others with- “You are only lovely, beautiful, worthwhile, if you become school captain and receive a UAI of over 99 and are offered a place in a prestegious Uni course.” (All of which she has done by the way) But it’s still not enough. The tears continue for a place where one can sit and rest and be free from striving


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Honesty

August 6th 2007 23:30
Clari. When I met her in year three at Sunday school, her name was Claire. And she offered me a sticker or I told her I liked her hair and we became friends. I forget exactly how it goes, but we ate meat pies in her tree house and wore pants on Sundays for a few years. Clari’s a feisty sort, and for a while I was quite nervous around her because she was so confident in making decisions. But that’s neither here nor there really. Eventually we both ended up at Hornsby Girls’ High and were in the same group of friends by the end of year seven.
This was also the year we were inspired by Mr Pratt’s science lessons and decided to name human beings with the same pin point accuracy as the botanical categorization of plants. Therefore, Anna became Annadopholas, Emily Ommolettosophos, Caroline Protuscarolinous, Briggite Brigetiouslarinious, Kass Kathonianaphaaphalot (probably our finest) and of course I became Jenniferianrataphorious, and Claire became Clarispoohoffin, later shortened to Claris p h, Claris, slightly lengthened to Claris works, before finally settling on Clari (pronounced like the beginning of ‘clarity’). And this, in a round about way, was the beginning of, as Clari would describe it, “Our platonic soul-mate-ness”. I would synonym that and describe it as love.
This is the weird thing though: How did it become love? To be honest I didn’t really mind if I was friends with Clari in year seven or not, I do not have the faintest idea why but I remember feeling that I wanted to disassociate. All through high school we were friends, I would say good friends too, but I would not say I knew her, as in, with the sort of gut wrenching honesty I do now


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The Intro Bit:

August 6th 2007 23:26
I have issues organising information.
When I used to write essays at Uni I always managed to get off track. I just can’t differentiate the important from the trivial, and that’s where it gets tricky trying to write coherently. The thing with writing is there are two hundred and sixty five thousand different ways to write and a similarly large number of ways to start writing. Here I am, immersed in the crucial opening paragraph of my debut piece of prose and I just can’t decide what would be the best way to grab a reader’s attention. Should you summarise your intent in the first paragraph? Should you tell a witty story in which you play the wise-friend, helpful bystander, embarrassed audience member, informed cultural critic, or Greenpeace speedboat (whale-poacher-stopper) driver to establish yourself as some sort of trendy vagabond? For that matter why write? What can another treatise on anything bring to anyone? Surely all the great writers are done expounding the philosophical. Surely western culture’s brilliant minds are finished advising our fretful modern psyches on the ‘how to’ (of being happy, thin, married, independent, concerned, efficient, and rich). Surely this is not what you need- I am not what you need.
I apologise- all this deliberation is getting rather messy. Can we start over? Would it help if I defined an essay topic for this piece of writing? Here is one I prepared earlier: “What is it that the world needs most? Discuss.” I had to put discuss there because otherwise it gets a bit Sale of the Century. So my intent is to highlight the important pieces of our existence. Inevitably however, when one decides to make any claim to offer any world-view, there will be conflict. This is how I imagine it taking place: Someone will stand up as an audience member (Preferably in Dr. Phil, but Jerry Springer could also have the desired effect) and say: “Who gave you the right to write about the things the world needs most? More than that, who are you to define what those things are?” (Then Dr. Phil would say, “See this is the kind of confrontation you are going to need if you are to succeed in this area of your life, Jennifer.” (To the camera) “Jennifer has had issues owning her opinions and accepting constructive criticism for most of her life. Now Jennifer’s housemate’s have written in to the show saying that Jennifer’s dislike of criticism and refusal to be responsible is destroying their house. Let’s bring in Jennifer’s housemate’s. Please welcome Lynda, Liz and Tanya


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