I began writing rap lyrics in grade 8.
I was going through a really tough time with some personal things, and I missed a lot of school because of it. I lost a lot of friendships, gained a lot of enemies, and suddenly became immersed in the music of Eminem. Rap became an outlet of sorts, where I was able to express a lot of the pain I was feeling in an artistic manner, and get decent support because of it.
This continued through grade 9 and grade 10. Whenever I felt the need to vent my frustrations, I would either pick up a pen and paper, or open up a new notepad document on my computer.
I even got pretty good at it. I got to the point where I was mixing different rhymes inside a sentence or two, and they all had a really good flow to them. I viewed it as art and as expressionism. I viewed it as a way of getting people's attention. Sometimes that attention was good, and sometimes it was bad; but it didn't really matter to me, because all I wanted was the attention.
Those raps were very dark, because for years even before I left school I think I was in a fairly dark place. I really didn't like myself, and felt that I needed everyone's approval to be considered a worthy human-being.
So eventually the lyrics of my raps sort of came back to bite me in the butt, and the blatant "misinterpretation" of some of the lyrics was one of the driving forces in me leaving school, fueled by someone's extreme distaste towards me, but that's a totally different story.
When I left school in grade 11, I continued to write raps for about 3 or 4 months, until I got to the point where I felt I sort of plateaued in terms of my ability to express myself through them. The constant need for rhythm and rhyming sort of hindered my ability to truly express what I was feeling, so I turned to blogging.
I've been blogging for exactly 3 years now, albeit infrequently. As times got darker, my blogs became not just a place where I could write and then post those thoughts to the world, but where I could read over my own thoughts and see from a different view what I was going through. Reading my own pieces often brought me to tears, just seeing how dark of a place I was in, but it helped me better understand that place and has continually been a source for helping me appreciate how far I've come.
I've written a lot about mental health. I've typed the words "anxiety" and "depression" multiple times. I've written about what happened that caused me to leave school. I've written a letter to myself from 5 years ago, outlining some of the struggle I'd go through, but that I'd ultimately make it through it.
I've gotten a lot of feedback on my pieces. One blog I remember writing in particular got retweeted by a fairly big mental health advocate, and I remember getting probably a solid 30 @ replies from others who had struggled with anxiety as well. That's something that I'll never forget, because as much as I may write for myself, hearing other people take comfort in that someone else has gone through something means the world to me.
Writing is this beautiful, powerful thing that we've been given. To make up words, and now, in this day and age, to put them onto a large platform gives us this extraordinary amount of power.
Writing, when done right, is more than just words. It's a big "I'VE BEEN THERE" to people who struggle with things you're writing about. It's a big "CHECK THIS OUT, WE SHOULD PROBABLY CARE ABOUT THIS CAUSE" when writing about something people may not know about or fully understand. And in my opinion, being good at writing really only comes down to one thing: Humility.
You can use all of the big, eye grabbing words in the dictionary. You can spin a yarn for miles on words and majestic images that people ohh and aww at in their minds, but nothing will ever beat having the ability to say "This is who I am, these are my thoughts. I'm not perfect, but I'd like to share my opinions with you." Writing isn't about who's better at painting pictures with words, it's about how you can connect on an emotional and human level with the people reading what you wrote. Making those people feel what you felt; making people care about about the subject you wrote about, is exactly the power that we have with writing.
I'll end on this quote:
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”- Ernest Hemingway.
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
That Creative Itch
I get this itch when I'm not doing anything; this itch that drives me to want to create something new, or say something different.
Every night, when I sit down at my computer, I stare at it long and hard and decide if tonight is the night. Is this the night I express something that's weighing on me? Is this the night I publish a blog? Or go on a social media rant about something I care about, hoping to garner people's attention?
One of my biggest struggles when I was out of school was finding ways to be productive. Sure, I could have done online school like I was supposed to, but that wasn't any fun! So I went through this daily battle, much like I do to this day, figuring out how I'd express myself.
Problem is, there becomes a point when you say so many things and express your thoughts on so many topics at so many times that people stop paying attention. The more you say, the less people will listen; the more you write, the less people will read.
Fact is, people begin to take less & less stock in what you have to say the more you say it. That doesn't mean that you should be hesitant about saying anything, or strategically plan saying certain things at certain times, but I think it does mean that you should at least think through if what you're about to say is really worth other people's time.
But this becomes hard. As a guy who fights this itch every night knowing that he can't scratch it, it becomes unbearable at times. It's this constant battle between A) I really do have something to say, and B) I just want to post something so that people will read it.
I was naive in thinking that being in school would erase that itch. If anything, that itch has gotten stronger, because I'm in school where I have the opportunity to create things occasionally, then I get home and I don't really have that anymore. It becomes this obsessive need to be doing something; to, in my eyes, make something of myself and my time.
So it becomes this battle of wills. In the blue corner, we have the part of me that wants to be seen. In the red corner, we have the part of me that wants to be heard.
Being heard should ALWAYS be the top priority. There are people who say and post things constantly out of wanting to be seen. We know who those people are, and some might even say there's a special place in hell for them.
But seriously, there's a reason why we know who they are, and lets be honest for a second, do we EVER read their stuff? No! It sort of becomes this case of the boy who cried wolf, except nobody cried wolf, they cried attention. And when that happens, something of actual value or importance may get lost because nobody bothers to pay attention to that person. If 1/20 things they say are of actual interest to others, what are the odds of people seeing that one thing, when they learn to scan over the other 19.
Anyways, I get the sense I might sound like a bit of jerk in this, and that definitely wasn't my attention. All I'm trying to say is that I have this itch, and I have a feeling of needing to be doing something because if I'm doing nothing, I feel less important. I think other people probably feel that way too, a lot more than we'd like to admit.
Every night, when I sit down at my computer, I stare at it long and hard and decide if tonight is the night. Is this the night I express something that's weighing on me? Is this the night I publish a blog? Or go on a social media rant about something I care about, hoping to garner people's attention?
One of my biggest struggles when I was out of school was finding ways to be productive. Sure, I could have done online school like I was supposed to, but that wasn't any fun! So I went through this daily battle, much like I do to this day, figuring out how I'd express myself.
Problem is, there becomes a point when you say so many things and express your thoughts on so many topics at so many times that people stop paying attention. The more you say, the less people will listen; the more you write, the less people will read.
Fact is, people begin to take less & less stock in what you have to say the more you say it. That doesn't mean that you should be hesitant about saying anything, or strategically plan saying certain things at certain times, but I think it does mean that you should at least think through if what you're about to say is really worth other people's time.
But this becomes hard. As a guy who fights this itch every night knowing that he can't scratch it, it becomes unbearable at times. It's this constant battle between A) I really do have something to say, and B) I just want to post something so that people will read it.
I was naive in thinking that being in school would erase that itch. If anything, that itch has gotten stronger, because I'm in school where I have the opportunity to create things occasionally, then I get home and I don't really have that anymore. It becomes this obsessive need to be doing something; to, in my eyes, make something of myself and my time.
So it becomes this battle of wills. In the blue corner, we have the part of me that wants to be seen. In the red corner, we have the part of me that wants to be heard.
Being heard should ALWAYS be the top priority. There are people who say and post things constantly out of wanting to be seen. We know who those people are, and some might even say there's a special place in hell for them.
But seriously, there's a reason why we know who they are, and lets be honest for a second, do we EVER read their stuff? No! It sort of becomes this case of the boy who cried wolf, except nobody cried wolf, they cried attention. And when that happens, something of actual value or importance may get lost because nobody bothers to pay attention to that person. If 1/20 things they say are of actual interest to others, what are the odds of people seeing that one thing, when they learn to scan over the other 19.
Anyways, I get the sense I might sound like a bit of jerk in this, and that definitely wasn't my attention. All I'm trying to say is that I have this itch, and I have a feeling of needing to be doing something because if I'm doing nothing, I feel less important. I think other people probably feel that way too, a lot more than we'd like to admit.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Don't Fight Alone
I'm not the most frequent blogger out there. In fact, it's taken me since march to figure out something I wanted to blog about.
But I feel particularly inclined to write. I feel like I need to express a part of my life and something I did to help myself, so that others will hopefully take that advice and get the help they need too.
First off - If I sound a little "newsy" or whatever you wanna call it, please excuse it. I haven't blogged in months, and I've done a lot of news writing pieces for school since then, so this might be a combination of news writing, opinion, 3rd person, reflection, and whatever else you can throw into a blog.
Now, I want to talk about anxiety. The height of my anxiety was around Spring 2011. I had been out of school early for about 5 or 6 months at this point, and way behind because I wasn't doing my online school work. My anxiety riddled me, and it was a battle I was fighting alone because I was too ashamed to admit to anyone what I was going through.
There's this stigma that surrounds anxiety, and mental illness as a whole, that if you have a mental illness you are either A) Weak B) Unstable or C) Crazy.
All three are false.
While I can't deny that you encounter some interesting characters in the waiting room at a therapist's place in a hospital, I can say that you aren't crazy, weak or unstable for having a mental illness. Having a mental illness doesn't emasculate you; it doesn't bring down your worthiness as a human being.
Unfortunately though, there is that stigma that surrounds it, and that stigma is the exact reason that people never come out to others for support about what they're going through. You don't want to tell people that you shake like a leaf at all hours of the night, sweating and having a panic attack with tunnel vision, thinking you'd rather be dead than where you are right now.
You don't want to say "Hey mom, listen; don't take this the wrong way, but I fucking hate my life right now. I can't stand it. I dread every second of every day because I fear life. I fear anxiety and I fear every minute that comes because I don't know what it'll bring, so don't even get me started on the future."
Nobody wants to do that. Hell, even as someone who has done that, I wouldn't wanna do it again.
I'm not going to sugar coat it - it is HARD to admit to someone what you're going through. It feels like this rush of everything that you've gone through up to that moment, but it's all happening in one split second. You can see the person's facial expression, as they soak it all in. You can see the pain, and the empathy in their eyes and maybe you love it, or maybe you hate. Either way, it is SO necessary to come out to someone about what you're going through.
Mental illness is such a tough battle. It's a big opponent, and one that you shouldn't fight alone. Nobody deserves to go through it. Nobody deserves to be feeling like every day is a new day trapped in their own personal prison cell - that prison cell being their brain.
It is so essential for you to seek help. It is so essential for you to battle this head on, but to battle it with others by your side. Don't let it linger, don't let it continue to get worse to the point where you can't take it anymore.
When I admitted to my mom that I was having severe anxiety, things didn't get better right away; in fact, they got worse.
Because I had admitted everything I was going through to her, we began to face everything head on. I stopped pretending that it was okay, and really went after my demons, which is probably the most difficult part of the battle. It's hard to face what you're going through, and it's hard to dive right on in and tackle it head on, but when you do that, you slowly start coming up to the surface. Slowly but surely you begin to understand that you're not in this alone, and that there are solutions and fixes to what you're going through. Slowly but surely, you begin to heal.
So please, don't be afraid to open up to someone. Whether it's a friend, family member, or someone that you feel wouldn't pass any judgement; Just please, do it.
I'll end on this quote:
"You don't have to control your thoughts. You just have to stop letting them control you." - Dan Millman.
But I feel particularly inclined to write. I feel like I need to express a part of my life and something I did to help myself, so that others will hopefully take that advice and get the help they need too.
First off - If I sound a little "newsy" or whatever you wanna call it, please excuse it. I haven't blogged in months, and I've done a lot of news writing pieces for school since then, so this might be a combination of news writing, opinion, 3rd person, reflection, and whatever else you can throw into a blog.
Now, I want to talk about anxiety. The height of my anxiety was around Spring 2011. I had been out of school early for about 5 or 6 months at this point, and way behind because I wasn't doing my online school work. My anxiety riddled me, and it was a battle I was fighting alone because I was too ashamed to admit to anyone what I was going through.
There's this stigma that surrounds anxiety, and mental illness as a whole, that if you have a mental illness you are either A) Weak B) Unstable or C) Crazy.
All three are false.
While I can't deny that you encounter some interesting characters in the waiting room at a therapist's place in a hospital, I can say that you aren't crazy, weak or unstable for having a mental illness. Having a mental illness doesn't emasculate you; it doesn't bring down your worthiness as a human being.
Unfortunately though, there is that stigma that surrounds it, and that stigma is the exact reason that people never come out to others for support about what they're going through. You don't want to tell people that you shake like a leaf at all hours of the night, sweating and having a panic attack with tunnel vision, thinking you'd rather be dead than where you are right now.
You don't want to say "Hey mom, listen; don't take this the wrong way, but I fucking hate my life right now. I can't stand it. I dread every second of every day because I fear life. I fear anxiety and I fear every minute that comes because I don't know what it'll bring, so don't even get me started on the future."
Nobody wants to do that. Hell, even as someone who has done that, I wouldn't wanna do it again.
I'm not going to sugar coat it - it is HARD to admit to someone what you're going through. It feels like this rush of everything that you've gone through up to that moment, but it's all happening in one split second. You can see the person's facial expression, as they soak it all in. You can see the pain, and the empathy in their eyes and maybe you love it, or maybe you hate. Either way, it is SO necessary to come out to someone about what you're going through.
Mental illness is such a tough battle. It's a big opponent, and one that you shouldn't fight alone. Nobody deserves to go through it. Nobody deserves to be feeling like every day is a new day trapped in their own personal prison cell - that prison cell being their brain.
It is so essential for you to seek help. It is so essential for you to battle this head on, but to battle it with others by your side. Don't let it linger, don't let it continue to get worse to the point where you can't take it anymore.
When I admitted to my mom that I was having severe anxiety, things didn't get better right away; in fact, they got worse.
Because I had admitted everything I was going through to her, we began to face everything head on. I stopped pretending that it was okay, and really went after my demons, which is probably the most difficult part of the battle. It's hard to face what you're going through, and it's hard to dive right on in and tackle it head on, but when you do that, you slowly start coming up to the surface. Slowly but surely you begin to understand that you're not in this alone, and that there are solutions and fixes to what you're going through. Slowly but surely, you begin to heal.
So please, don't be afraid to open up to someone. Whether it's a friend, family member, or someone that you feel wouldn't pass any judgement; Just please, do it.
I'll end on this quote:
"You don't have to control your thoughts. You just have to stop letting them control you." - Dan Millman.
I
think we all have blocks between us and the best version of ourselves,
whether it's shyness, insecurity, anxiety, whether it's a physical
block, and the story of a person overcoming that block to their best
self. It's truly inspiring because I think all of us are engaged in that
every day.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/anxiety.html#TKv285J
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/anxiety.html#TKv285J
I
think we all have blocks between us and the best version of ourselves,
whether it's shyness, insecurity, anxiety, whether it's a physical
block, and the story of a person overcoming that block to their best
self. It's truly inspiring because I think all of us are engaged in that
every day.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/anxiety.html#TKv285J
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/anxiety.html#TKv285J
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Sometimes We Need To Listen
Earlier on I got into a bit of heated chat with my mom about things such as people in our lives, and where I'd go to school. With everything she said I quickly turned it down with a smug, smartass remark. This continued for about 2 hours, until something inside of me finally told me to shut up.
Every smartass comment I made was something to bring her down. It was me telling her "I know what's better for myself and for you than even you do." Just like in many spirited debates, you exchange blows; trying to knock the other person down, make them vulnerable, and then win the debate with one final punch.
But as we reached the 2 hour mark, something inside of me finally made me listen. Instead of having this stone heart and these closed ears that I had been using for much of the conversation, I finally opened up to listen. And as I listened I learned something very valuable. We all know we're very quick to criticize others on their way of life, and as they defend their decisions, just as quickly, we turn down their defense. We continue going at them for their reasoning for things, and we keep telling them why they'd be better off living another way, or approaching something from a different angle.
But when you stop to listen, and I mean TRULY listen, you begin to get an appreciation for what someone is saying. And as she went on saying what she felt needed to be said, I realized that life would be much easier if we just stopped to listen every once in a while.
See, we tend to get the notion that we know what's best for people. For some reason we believe we know the magical answer to everyone's problems, and if their logic doesn't match ours, then frankly, it just isn't logic.
I feel I'm struggling to get my point across, so let me describe it in the best detail possible: As I sat there silently listening to her talk, about her opinions and her feelings, why she has done certain things the way she has done, I realized I was wrong for questioning her. Everything she said made perfect sense, she had the perfect reasoning for doing certain things, whether it was why she's going back to this church we've tried to attend multiple times, or the way she's going to go about life now that she's healthy. She believed strongly in what she was doing, so strongly in fact, that listening to her really humbled me. Maybe it's hard to get across from reading. Maybe it's just one of those interpersonal moments where you're just hit with that "Wow" factor, but it really just shut me up and made me think to a degree in which I haven't done lately.
She also mentioned about being thankful for the little things, and I know I haven't been as thankful as I should for so many amazing things in my life, here are some of them
So, moral of the story is, sometimes we really just need to listen. We need to stop assuming we know what's best for people, and let them live their lives based on what they feel is best for them. Just as I want people to back off me for my decision making, I need to back off others. Just as I want people to trust that I'll go in the right direction, I need to trust others.
Every smartass comment I made was something to bring her down. It was me telling her "I know what's better for myself and for you than even you do." Just like in many spirited debates, you exchange blows; trying to knock the other person down, make them vulnerable, and then win the debate with one final punch.
But as we reached the 2 hour mark, something inside of me finally made me listen. Instead of having this stone heart and these closed ears that I had been using for much of the conversation, I finally opened up to listen. And as I listened I learned something very valuable. We all know we're very quick to criticize others on their way of life, and as they defend their decisions, just as quickly, we turn down their defense. We continue going at them for their reasoning for things, and we keep telling them why they'd be better off living another way, or approaching something from a different angle.
But when you stop to listen, and I mean TRULY listen, you begin to get an appreciation for what someone is saying. And as she went on saying what she felt needed to be said, I realized that life would be much easier if we just stopped to listen every once in a while.
See, we tend to get the notion that we know what's best for people. For some reason we believe we know the magical answer to everyone's problems, and if their logic doesn't match ours, then frankly, it just isn't logic.
I feel I'm struggling to get my point across, so let me describe it in the best detail possible: As I sat there silently listening to her talk, about her opinions and her feelings, why she has done certain things the way she has done, I realized I was wrong for questioning her. Everything she said made perfect sense, she had the perfect reasoning for doing certain things, whether it was why she's going back to this church we've tried to attend multiple times, or the way she's going to go about life now that she's healthy. She believed strongly in what she was doing, so strongly in fact, that listening to her really humbled me. Maybe it's hard to get across from reading. Maybe it's just one of those interpersonal moments where you're just hit with that "Wow" factor, but it really just shut me up and made me think to a degree in which I haven't done lately.
She also mentioned about being thankful for the little things, and I know I haven't been as thankful as I should for so many amazing things in my life, here are some of them
- I'm not thankful enough for having a mom who always has my back, even in my darkest times.
- I'm not thankful enough for my grandparents, to both of whom I am like a child to them, and they're like parents to me.
- I'm not thankful enough for getting accepted into colleges, despite only having my grade 10 education at this time last year.
- I'm not thankful enough for my sisters. Who I know will grow into amazing, beautiful people.
- I'm not thankful enough for my friends. While it's a tight circle, it's an amazing one.
- I'm not thankful enough for my job. Where I get to interact with others, and golf for free.
- I'm not thankful enough for the roof over my shoulders, and food on my plate.
- I'm not thankful enough for where I am, and even for where I've been.
So, moral of the story is, sometimes we really just need to listen. We need to stop assuming we know what's best for people, and let them live their lives based on what they feel is best for them. Just as I want people to back off me for my decision making, I need to back off others. Just as I want people to trust that I'll go in the right direction, I need to trust others.
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