Writing – the reason for being!

Some people turn to politics. Some turn to religion. Some develop past-times or indulge in sport. Many resort to the TV or drink vast quantities of alcohol.

You either have a purpose in life or you find ways to fill in the time.

Creativity is a good way to use the seconds of a life. At the end of it you have produced something that did not exist before. You have produced beauty and enriched life. For many their creativity is appreciated by others and they have the warmth that comes of making other people happy. For others the self-fulfilment of producing something you have conceived and worked hard to produce is sufficient.

Some turn to art, dance, pottery, music or drama; I spend my life writing!

Right now I have started working on a book I wrote when I was a young stripling of 53. It was an anti-novel – a biofiction – a new type of writing. It is titled ’53 and imploding’.

Here is the foreword. I would be interested to hear what you think!

Foreword

I am 53 years old. That astonishes me. I am growing old. Already my body aches and shows a strange inability to co-ordinate itself and a lack of suppleness that makes me almost doddery. My mind is not as nimble. I am overweight and unfit and have little desire to be otherwise. I am constantly tired. The wild creature of my youth is distantly glimpsed as a crazy rampaging fool I envy but am detached from. It seems that I am fast becoming an old fool. No sooner have you orientated yourself, got started, than it is almost over. How can that be? Life stretched on forever. Days were eternal. We had time to sit and dream. Ah, that we have lived so long to see our dreams destroyed.

Seconds. Can’t you feel them ticking. Seconds.

I can’t write ends. What is an end? Nothing ends. I can only attempt to write beginnings. Even that is absurd. I can write within mere seconds. All of them are now. Each second is an action; a thought; an idea; a memory; an almighty beginning and an almighty end.

There is nothing in the past. Even my memories are new. I make them all anew. They are events seen through these old eyes, thought through these old neurones. Each memory is refined and twisted. We remember the bits we want and some of the bits that we don’t want but most is tossed into the sea of forever. We have no history but the one we build for ourselves.

Seconds. How many left? A few? A few hundred? A few million? It’s not he seconds that count; it’s what you fill them with.

I love old things: rocks; buildings; trees. I love old things because they speak to me of forever. I can sense the magic in them; the hands that have touched them, the imagination that created them and the minds that wondered at them.

Our minds are so puny. We are so arrogant. We think our lives important.

It’s strange how we conveniently forget. We build huge cities and think they will stand forever. We excavate old cities and wonder at their splendour without realising that all our cities will burn, be toppled and forgotten. New cultures may wonder over them and marvel at our cunning – the things we have done with our seconds. They may wonder at our stupidity and how we could possibly have let it all slip between the cracks we created through our selfish greed and vanity.

Archaeologists will carefully brush the dirt from the remains of our lives and piece our dreams together.

This is how we filled our seconds.

We are not forever. We are only a brief second in forever, a blink, a swearword, a gasp and ….. gone. We may only ever see a few of the countless zillions of stars blink out. In time they all will run down like drained batteries and the lights will slowly fade into darkness. There will be no one around to pull the cord or flick the switch or ponder the eternal stillness.

Ha. Ha. Ha. I laugh at your vanity of forever. What a fool it makes of you. Genuflection to your gods – it takes seconds. Seconds that could have been full of life.

Sex and death. That’s all there is. A bit too simplistic? It’s the things you do with your seconds that makes the difference. Do you live your life with merit? Is each second of choice well decided? Is there purpose in your existence or do you drool and stagger round like cattle? ‘Pretty cool here. Get pissed, get stoned, fuck and dress to impress.’

Fine lines – there’s only fine lines between cool and fool, smart and fart, bright and shite.

Fun comes before the fall. Fuck your mind and fuck your heart. Yet it matters not. Pleasures taken carelessly or considered; excess or moderation; purpose and pomposity – it’s all the same. It is all the same worms, same stars blinking, same journey, same end.

No. It is not where you are going that matters. Religion has really fucked up there. Our imagination likes to create tidy purpose. Life is not sufficient. There has to be more. I am no good at endings – neither is reality. It’s the journey. It’s the way you travel that matters. It’s what you do with all those seconds you are busy squandering. Now don’t get me wrong. At the end of a story who is to say if it was the hero, villain or bit player who had the most worthy part to play? Who is to judge the value of a few seconds spend watching football on the telly, reading a novel or writing? Who indeed?

I choose to write. I pluck these words from the holes in my brain.

The novel is dead. There are no stories. There are no beginnings and ends. Reality is continuous.

These words are my reality.

There is only sharing. I am sharing some thoughts in a one way conversation for no purpose other than to stimulate response. I shall not be aware of that response as likely as not there will be no one to read this and if anyone ever does I’ll likely be already dead. That makes me smile. Still it has the same validity as you watching Brazilian magicians juggle bladders immaculately.

That is the essence. Whatever you do with or in those seconds we call life I urge you to make each one of them a honed jewel. They all count. Do it with all your spirit. It’s all we ever have.

I am writing into a mirror. There are no pretty stories, no vignettes, no cameos and no ends. Even the very end, when the whole universe is a bunch of cold cinders and dissipated heat, will go on forever.

But I deceive you. This is not a beginning. This is not even a middle. This is merely somewhere down the road.

Opher 8.05.02

If you are interested in my style you may like to try one of my books. They are available on Amazon. There’s a lot to choose from:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Opher-Goodwin/e/B00MSHUX6Y/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1431777738&sr=1-2-ent