Silence

Silence is something I've noticed a lot of lately.  Not necessarily a bad thing, but when you have silence constantly around you, there are things you begin to notice more.  You notice the clicking of the clock on the window sill, you notice the times that cars tend to go past more frequently, you notice that motorcycles make more of a presence than cars as they sweep past...and you notice how people come and go just beyond your door.  I think silence is a great equalizer in thought.  It makes people see the world more like I do all the time.  It makes people notice more.  Most people disregard little things all the time, they focus on the world just in front of them.  It's evolutionary beneficial for our species to do so.  Those who were able to set on the task at hand - ie: hunting - were more likely to survive.  For a caveman to get distracted by a pretty bird as an animal was on their trail....well, those people don't exist anymore.  Anyway, I think I got a dormant gene, and not an ADD type...but I see the world with another level than most people.  I see things I don't think others see.  I notice more.  It's not always a positive...actually, it's a very lonely type of experience...and it's one that doesn't help in school.  I got in so much trouble in elementary school for "skipping words" because my mind moved too fast for my hand.  I used to skip entire sentences at times.  Thank God I live in the generation of computers....my typing can keep up with my brain far better than my hand can.

I see the world like a writer.  May not sound that different, but writers are a unique breed...real writers.  Those of us who can't escape what many consider a gift.  Yes, I consider my skill with words a gift...but it's not always a burden I like.  Having characters in your head, seeing every day life literally in the form of another story and experiencing emotions that aren't yours...that isn't always pleasant.  It happens so I can write it, so I can record part of the human experience.  I don't know that I do it justice by any means, but something beyond the physical feels I need to be at least a mediocre medium for experiences turned into everlasting text.  Words survive.  Feelings, moments, life, it flies past...but words survive.  I love words.  I love writing more than almost anything else on this planet.  It's a part of who I am.  I'm me when I can write. I experience life so that I can write and because it makes me feel like a more whole person.  It makes me more complete to experience - the good and the bad.  Probably why I didn't make a very good, devout religious follower.  I don't believe in maintaining a "moral" life in regard to preventing experiences.  I believe in being a MORAL, good person...an honest person, but I don't believe in limiting my experiences on this Earth.  I don't think any divine being who put us here would want that.  I think we're here to experience.  And I believe I'm here to experience and record that experience.

I'm not a religious person.  I'm a spiritual person, but I'm not religious.  I question my beliefs constantly.  I believe that by questioning my beliefs, having others question my beliefs and present their own to me is the only way I discover what I really believe.  That's why I find religion so interesting.  I want to learn what motivations people have for living the way they do.  I don't know what it is that guides me when I write - a muse, a collective thought-process, a beam of energy - but something does.  How do I explain it?  Maybe it is just the way my brain is wired.  Maybe I was just born to notice more.  To feel more.  I love people that I'm not even that close to more deeply than most people can understand.  People don't understand why I get so invested.  Even I don't really know why I do.  But I meet a stranger at work and I become invested just because I sold them a sound system and talked to them for an hour.  I care about their anniversary and send them a card (from work, not personal - not a creeper...well...not always).  I remember people I meet at parties.  I remember the lady at McDonalds who told me she just found out she had breast cancer.  I remember to call waiters by their names.  I just build these connections that I crave.  I need connections.  Connections teach me so much and feel like they make me more complete.  It's a weird sensation, but for me, I feel a rush like most people only feel with their close family or friends.

The sad part is that I get invested...so when those connections break - which naturally they do at times - I feel it very deeply.  The same goes for my writing.  For those of you who have read anything I've written, you've read my feelings.  I don't just get the ideas for stories, I feel the stories.  Every time characters kiss, I feel the rush of adrenaline as I write the words.  I feel the sensation of bricks on their backs as they make out in the alley.  Every time I write a scene where someone is crying, I've cried at one point or another because of it.  I feel their pain.  I hold the emotions of dozens in me, because I'm a writer.  I can't escape it.  I can't escape that my mind doesn't want to stop - full of things I notice in the world - at night when I just want to fall asleep.  Honestly, I don't know that I'd want it to stop.  I can't imagine who I'd be without writing.  It's like breathing for me.  It's something I can't even imagine my life without.  Words give me life and they give me a purpose.  I'm here to record life as I see it.  I'm here to try to relay the ten levels of symbolism I see in a commercial to people who don't even notice the main actor.

A lot of things I've learned to put aside, not think about.  But it's a forced, learned behavior.  I can't be a philosopher all the time.  Socially, that's not exactly the best trait.  I've learned that the hard way.  Those of you who drink with me know she comes out more intensely when I drink...but what can I say, I can't stop it in those moments. ;)  What I want to get through in this post is the way that writers see the world.  For people like me, it's more than just the world, it's levels.  It's understanding metaphors, seeing a beautiful scene full of meaning and texture when you look down a downtown street lit for the holidays....it's noticing the couple sitting on the stairs with eyes just for each other.  It's connections and seeing meaning in everything.  When you walk on campus or to work...take out the headphones, or at least look around.  Stop getting lost in your to-do list and walk a minute in my shoes.  See the people who pass you, think about their stories.  Think about where they come from - because that's what I do.  I wonder.  I see.  I feel.  I see my characters in the streets as I walk.  I imagine scenes from my books playing out like movies in the trees beside me.  Just feel, breathe and experience.  Trust me, it'll open your eyes to a world that didn't even know was there.

Live, Laugh and Above All....Love.