There are lines everywhere.

Some lines were laid down after a group of people decided that what they all agreed on made sense, and which have been slowly reinforced by each succeeding generation, making the lines a little bit deeper and a little bit wider, till they're no longer lines but a deep chasm that forces you most of the time to stay on the side you are on, the side where everybody else is and where everything's known and comfortable, till such a time as you finally draw together the crazed courage to give in to the need to prove that it is possible to cross unscathed; and you ready and you ready and you ready and then rush down the slope as fast as you can, hoping that your belief-fuelled momentum will put a giant hand on your ass and push you as you struggle up the other side, only to slowly realise that it's not going to happen, because what you thought was a chasm is really a pit, a giant trap to snare fools like you who try and fight for themselves, who believe that they can escape when so many others never could, who believe they should be allowed to do what they want and not what they're told, only to run (willingly, mind you) into this place and stand here like you do, right down in the deepest part of the shadows, realising you may never get to the place you wanted to...and never get back either; and all you are left with are the others who wander the underworld, unwanted deserters who wanted to explore new territories, your new family.

Some lines run away from where you stand, splitting up and rushing away from your singularity, so that you see no point in trying to find a way around, but instead walk across, and keep walking and walking till you realise the lines have managed to sneak around, and you remember that a circle is just a series of infinitely small lines, and that you've been lured into the centre of one, into something that you have no idea about and want less to do with, and that you can only always be either in or out, and that there is no other side.

Some lines are drawn by your mind, signposts in a special colour that only you can see and which only you understand the significance of, laid down so that you prevent yourself from becoming the person you nightmare that you can be, so that they become a permanent challenge, testing you all the time, daring, wheedling, tempting, a challenge that you sometimes fail, which you try and negate by crossing right back and telling yourself that it didn't matter because nobody saw you crossing the line anway and besides you're right where you started, but which the line never lets you forget, as it smiles and tempts to double-cross yourself again.

There are lines everywhere.
And they lie.

The epiphany suggested,

There are two ways to write well.

You can invest all you are into your writing, put in all the thoughts and beliefs and hopes and dreams and prejudices and assumptions and emotions that you possess, and imbue the story (and the characters) with your presence. Tell the story as seen through your eyes, felt through your skin, remembered through your memories, thought by your mind.

Or.

You can write the story as it would appear if you were reading it. Be outside it, observing, narrating, analysing. Write what is, not what you think it to be**.

And that's it.

That's all there is. As long as one can remember that, and choose one over the other, all the conflicts and struggles in how to write can just....melt away.

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And it reminds me of one of my favourite quotes about literature (and writing) - C.S. Lewis, explaining his motive for writing, saying, "I wrote the books I wanted to read" (many thanks for the quote, Space!). Which struck me then, and still strikes me, as one of the most profoundly simple ways to approach any form of writing.

You should write something you would like to pick up repeatedly, and which would have the power to surprise and thrill you even after many re-readings. And, extending that theory, you should write something that readers of the category you're writing in, would like to read.

Yes, there is also a need for those who show us what we should/could be reading, instead of what we're used to. People and books who defy us to step outside our comfort zone and see what else there could be, and who end up being labelled as 'genre-defying'. But there are far too few of those, and too many pretenders to the label.

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....of course, all this doesn't really matter if you have no idea of what you want to write.

Learn thee patience

It's not so difficult. Despite what you may believe, and despite how you may be. This is for all you nervous wrecks, fidgets, insomniacs, and hyper-active types.

The trick is simple -
Learn stillness,
and patience will follow.
And, perhaps, even Patience.

Learn to sit, just sit, doing nothing but spacing.
Learn to teach yourself to sit.

Think of the stone, and the slow drip of the water. The long, drawn-out liquid cadences. Watch the drops fall, one after another after another after another. Watch them. A drop to a minute, crafting the stone into a pebble, smoothing polishing it round. A drop a minute, for every hour, for every day, forever. The slow drops of water on the stone in this cave.

See the cave. Stand in the vastness. The rock that stands, has been standing, will stand. Feel the emptiness, the dark, and hear the thoughts that take centuries to begin. With nothing but the gentle touch of a drop. A drop every minute.

See the plains. The horizon that seems endless, because it all looks the same. The level flats arcing away while no wind blows, and only one blade of grass grows. Watch the grass grow, sit and watch it live.

Feel them, be them.
Imagine every aspect and angle, as if you are taking a panoramic picture of them.
Focus solely on them, as if you need to write a dissertation on them.

And slowly, oh so slowly, you will learn to sit still.
Be still.
Just....be.

It's all about trying to be unique, isn't it? All of us with our little niches, our little peculiarities, eccentricities, peccadilloes, fetishes, phobias, nuances, schools-of-thought.

All trying to be different.
Individual.

Trying hard to convince ourselves that our life, our existence matters. That things will be different if we go on struggling, and fighting, and surviving. The brave underdog, the lone fighter, to the last-man-standing. Don't give up, fight, scrape....survive, survive, survive!

Shite.

Nothing matters. Everything that can be, has been, and even if something hasn't, it won't affect a damn thing in the wider world. There are no new emotions, no new events, no new thoughts.

Including these words.

*****************************
So you go two ways -
give up on the world, ambition, dreams, obligations. Decide it's pointless going through a treadmill that's been worn out over millions of years. And probably, end your life.

Or, learn not to care anymore. Not on a conscious, front-of-brain way, but in a deeper, underlying background. It doesn't matter - so why care? Sickness, poverty, death, broken friendships, betrayed love - it doesn't matter. It's all going to end one day, either with your death, or with the end of the world, or the collapse of the Universe.

Oh you still drool over a lovely dessert, or frown at litterbugs, or yell when your team wins. But there's a part of you that stands quietly against the doorframe, with the faintest twitch of a tolerant smile, knowing you're just hiding from the truth. You see the world through two eyes, and think two thoughts. Always.

You stop searching for 'higher goals', and 'ultimate purposes', and the 'why'. And just....exist.

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Trying to make sense of life is pointless. It's not some manufactured creation, which should be expected to follow rules. People are stupid because they are. Horrible things happen because they do. There's no sense, no underlying meaning to it all - everything just... is. And we just are.

And oddly enough, that makes it easier to live life.

Love, fresh air, food....anger.

All the homilies on anger eating away the soul, on turning you into Babayaga, on giving your face ugly lines, of affecting your judgement....true.

But that's not anger - that's fury. Rage. Wrath. It's the bright flame that eagerly devours everything it's fed, to burn as high as possible and destroy as much as it can, before it dies away itself, when nothing else is left to suck dry.

Anger, however, is the smoking ember which keep glowing for ages and requires just a little occasional stoking. Anger is the slow, continuous feeling of injustice that you keep wrapped up under a few layers of your soul - hot enough to warm, not hot enough to burn.

Anger keeps you going. Not anger at the perceived slight of a friend you've known for years, not anger at the seeming discourtesy of a fellow traveller, not anger at the luck you seem to have, not anger at losing a loved one. That's just selfishness, and self-pity.

True anger is anger at the world.
At life.
At life in this world.
Anger is about feeling disgust and outrage every single time you see -
People begging.
The piece of plastic on the pavement.
Massacre in the name of religion.
That person with Alzheimer's.
The flowers by the road for a hit-and-run victim.
Dementia, autism, ALS, polio.
The thought of a female foetus being discarded and abandoned.
Medical tests on believing, uneducated peasants.
Paedophiles.
Bureaucratic red tape which buries justice.
Money swindled in the name of charity.
Cancer, HIV, malaria, TB.
A tree cut down to peddle sun-tan inducing body lotions.
Women burnt for dowry.
A child working.
Seals being bashed to death with hammers.
The teenager killed for being sensible enough not to be in a gang.
The old lady shoved past by yobbish young girls.
A scarred victim of rape.
....take your pick.

Anger. A murmuring, quietly bristling background to the noise your mind is normally filled with. An onrushing current that never breaks the levees, but is strong enough to not be ignored.

That refuses to let you be apathetic, refuses to let you succumb to the belief that this-is-how-the-world-is, refuses to let you think somebody else will solve it. That makes you realise that, since you've decided to go on living this life, in this world, then you damn well better do something about it.

But an anger which keeps you sane enough to do that something.

An anger which you only give up if you've attained the Buddha's enlightenment - or have become the mindless product that society tries to shape you into.

Don't live in anger - live with the anger.
Anger....is good.