Got Change?

Why is change so uncomfortable?

Being adaptable seems to be universally advantageous, and being shook up by a change to our comfort zones is only going to slow us down, so why is it that so many of us are opposed to change unless it feels like progress?

Just when you think you know the world you live in it can reshape itself, but the world is malleable, and I’d bet that most of the people who get scared in the face of social change know this, which only makes things more curious.

I don’t want to bullshit my way out of this question but we are social animals with tribal origins; perhaps the tight-knit group idea of social interaction stems from there and perhaps it’s harder for us to accept that the modern world needs to allow for some leeway from that idea because it’s so ingrained in our brains, whether culturally or otherwise.

And sometimes it’s the simplest of changes that can make you raise an eyebrow, that slight misalignment in what you though was your world can be all it takes to make you realise that the world you’re living in in reality isn’t as comfortable as one your brain imagined for you.

But without illusion we’d be much slower creatures, unfortunately.

Industrial Resolution

So, new years resolutions…

If I’m being honest I’d almost forgotten about this tired old topic completely, with its tangled mess of empty promises and the lack of people actually intending to keep them.

But really there’s no reason why we would need to give things up at a certain point, I can see in many cases, that if people lack the strength to give up something they truly enjoy all year round, it’s not going to suddenly click into a different gear when we add one number to the Roman calendar.

If you really want to change, it takes a lot more than just making a promise to yourself, it takes courage, commitment and most of all it takes really wanting the change to happen.

For example, if you want to give up chocolate because it’s fattening, but you don’t want to give up the taste (terrible example I know but I’ve started now so I’ll just keep on going), chances are you probably won’t be all that up for giving it up in reality, you might go without it for a few days or weeks sure, but once Easter rolls around and there are chocolate eggs on the shelves for a pound someone’s going to have to chain you to a pole in your basement to stop you breaking that resolution.

If you enjoy your life, there’s no reason why you would have to give up anything if you don’t want to, if you believe you have a major problem you need to strike out of it then be my guest, purge away.

But long term solutions to problems don’t come with a split second decision, lifestyle changes need more than just a whim to get themselves moving, and it would be just as valid to give up that whatever it is when it’s not winter and you still don’t have a whole ton of that stuff lying around in the post-Christmas debris.

The Ghost of a Story Never To Be Told

Good evening internet.

A year and five months ago I decided I wanted to start writing a book, this book, like many a story created on a whim and badly thought out, never made it passed its twelfth page, and by that twelfth page, more had occurred than should happen in 50.

At the same time however, nothing happened, there was no pull of the story, the power was in its introduction, one that I posted here many moons ago.

(If you can hunt it down and match it correctly to the following I will buy you a drink of your choosing.)

Going over it today it became apparent that my writing ability has actually made a bigger improvement than I had previously thought, just look at the length of the sentences in this thing.

Be prepared for this to be terrible by the way, as I say it was a long time ago, and I promise that I have improved a lot since these days.

‘A deafening crack overtook the air and the acoustics of Cathedral Hall enhanced the sound to an almost painful level as four unfamiliar people became present in this ancient sanctuary. The Hall was all that was left of a once beautiful structure; it had been somewhat converted into a church before its fate had finally been accepted, there was a vast and intimidating organ scaling the whole circular room from the glossy floor to its impossibly high ceiling, glorified with worn paintings of archaic deities and their angels; they once glowed in a marvellous blue hue; but had now faded into the brown of a dying leaf in the last days of autumn. In the middle of the hall lay an altar; pearly white except for the red/brown of blood running from the top down the sides in sinister trickles, this had come far from being the holy place it once was. The organ lay on the north side of the circular room and to the west and east sides there lay confession boxes that were gathering layers and layers of dust. These too, worryingly, were stained with the same blood as the altar; and as June Ashcroft observed this she came to the conclusion that this was not pagan sacrifice; this was a brutal murder.
For June her sudden apparition into Cathedral Hall had been more of a distraction than a shock. She had been deeply immersed in thought; her mind was always endlessly turning from one book she had read to the next, looking for hidden meaning; she had always considered herself an intellectual and in this situation liked to think that the reason she wasn’t surprised with this strange occurrence was due to her vast capability to learn, but deep inside she knew this wasn’t the case. Having lost her grip on reality many years ago when she stopped writing; fictions had become her reality, the ‘real world’ was nothing but a vessel in which these scriptures could be accessed. Cathedral Hall, however, held no such scripture, and as she scanned the room from her place in the pews where she had appeared she observed these scriptures occurring all around her; three others had appeared in the hall; each on the edge of their own story, their expressions revealing their immersion in the life they had forcibly left behind, and their terrified reactions to their sudden apparition spoke volumes about the world June had considered mundane and inert. She stood up and left the pews; unable to ignore her fascination with the new world she had found herself in and half-ran towards the blood stained altar where a neglected Bible lay central to the red pool, still fresh and dripping down the sides of the altar not unlike how her mother’s ponds flowed into each other in the inert world; it was then that she finally took in her living surroundings. As she followed the blood leaving the altar and toward a large skulking figure turning towards her; looking almost demonic with its reptilian skin and spiky appendages; but there was also something very human about the bleeding figure, as it looked at her she spied its crimson eyes and the terror they retained. She doubled back with fear and slipped backwards on the blood trail, landing on her behind and banging her head on a flat side of the altar. She waited for the pain of the collision to cease before opening her eyes but by that time the figure had disappeared and left behind nothing but blood and a slamming door.’

A bit of a mouthful isn’t it? You need to take more breaths than I allowed there and for that I apologise.

For some reason though, that’s not the reason I stopped the story, I stopped writing it because I could tell it was just going to end up being LOST, thinking more and more about the little pieces I had planned they were far too similar to my favourite television show to even consider writing out.

Whereas now, well, I think I have originality on my side at least.

Ch-ch-ch-ch

CHANGES!

No, the change is coming!

Come senators congressmen etc. etc.

Because the times they are a changin’

and people don’t like that much.

I will admit to that too, I’m not a big fan of change usually, however, when you get to a certain age it’s somewhat exciting as long as you’re gaining a new experience rather than losing something but seeing as that statement’s blindingly obvious I’ll move on.

Change as a spontaneous (scary) or anticipated (scary) thing will always loom over people like a giant with his cock out, because we can’t yet see the consequences of the as of yet untravelled path.

Because humans are scared of what they don’t understand.

This is a nice way to explain fear of the dark, fear of death and creationism among other things.

But what happens when we do understand it?

Well then the nostalgia will set in and really you’re gambling there for whether it’s going to be that good, warm, mushy nostalgia that makes you want to play pokémon cards and wear your old buzz lightyear costume, or the bad nostalgia where you remember that that guy said he never wanted to speak to you again, you know, sometimes it’s hard to believe they fall under the same umbrella of nostalgia despite them being even closer than two sides of the same coin, they’re on the same side of the coin, fighting for space on the tip of the Queen’s nose and only one will survive, let’s give the pokémon cards guy a lightsaber and swing the odds in his favour shall we?

Change is a big black spot in front of us that we can’t peer into without just being faced with obscurity and the only way to get rid of that fear of things that we can’t prepare for efficiently is to jump into the lake and hope that the water’s warm and that if it is, it’s not from urination, because nobody wants to smell like that when they’re moving forward to new horizons.