By Tom Merriman
The time: Earlier this evening.
The place: Somewhere in The Grinds.
The camera: On the mobile phone.
The subject: The Moon.
And the question: Can you see the little frog-like creature in the bottom left of the photo? Or the rather large dragon, lurking? The eyes, nostrils and mouth are clearly visible… if you look just beyond what is there!
The hardest thing to do in this world is live in it
That’s a roundabout quote from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, years ago. When I first heard it, I thought it a silly quote, but it didn’t take long for it to dawn on me just how true it is.
If we’re not destroying ourselves with toxic gases, we’re either blowing each other up, or shooting one another to death. We’re trying to take what isn’t ours, show our ‘superiority’, claim dominance, declare independence, publicly display our dirty laundry, turn blind eyes or threaten and control the masses with spoken or unspoken words.
In the midst of all this ridiculous chaos, everyday normal folk, folk like you and me, have to live in it and with it. We’re bombarded with all of this doom and gloom day in day out. We’re brainwashed into seeing just how bad it is to actually live in this world.
I think today I started to believe it.
Apparently, in December, we came to within a hair’s breadth of being eradicated out of existence. A massive meteor exploded over one of the oceans, away from prying eyes, but not that away. It has recently been discovered, so someone’s seen it. It was probably deemed unwise to tell us about it before the event; or maybe it was fed out to some of us but not all, and was swallowed up with some other gloomy scenario; or maybe there’s only so much bad news we can constantly be drip-fed.
I said I think today I started to believe it. I then thought again.
The world is a big place. The events we are being bombarded with are small in comparison. Even trivial to take things to the extreme. Next week something else will replace them, equally so important that we must be told about it every five minutes.
It’s no wonder our minds are warping when we’re given the ins and outs of every little detail from one side of the coin, and told not to share or discuss it on the other. Or we aren’t given the full facts, and then allowed to let our minds wander and fill in the gaps. Or we’re told what is right and wrong to think. All subtly, obviously. Major negativity needs to be subtle.
My. My mind has wandered. I blame the headache. In this country, smoking in the workplace is banned. Some of my colleagues think that doesn’t include e-cigarettes, so they smoke them in the office, even though they’ve been told that too is banned. I can’t stand the smell of them. They give me headaches. I mention it. I see blind eyes turn.
Toxic gases. Selfish people. Two sides of the coin. One world.
The hardest thing to do in this world is live in it.
But live in it I must.
I refuse to be swallowed up in the charged quagmire that I’m apparently living in. I focus on the positives I can find, when I can find them. Headache or not. I take myself off to my Place of Peace and Tranquility when I get the chance. I wrap myself in words; in imagination; in colour; in art; in creativity.
Someone negative will say I’m living with my head buried in the sand.
I say to them I’m living in my world. And my world may be flawed, it may be little, it may be confusing, but it’s fantastic. My positives outweigh any negative that is thrown at me. My light grows brighter in my world, and sometimes it’s good to just let it out.
Let it go.
And that goes for the negatives too.
Waffling.
The art of rambling incessantly about something or other in a meaningless or drivelful way. To prate on about nothing, in depth. Hardly a barn burner for discussion, yet a bingle of words that hardly divagate, even for a fugacious moment.
Might I be a hodiernal hoddy-noddy? Hunting-and-pecking out a post, hardly luculent in detail, and more of a lollygag for a Saturday post.
Still, an ogdoad and half again of unnecessary words on the subject.
I never thought I’d get here.
***
Words used in this post:
Drivelful – made up (I mean it’s a made up word, it doesn’t mean made up)
Prate – talk foolishly
Barn burner – a very exciting or dramatic event
Bingle – a collision
Divagate – to stray or digress
Fugacious – transient or fleeting
Hoddy-noddy – a foolish person
Hodiernal – of today
Hunting-and-pecking (Hunt-and-peck) – typing with two fingers
Luculent – clearly expressed
Lollygag – spend time in an aimless or lazy way
Ogdoad – set of eight
***
A wordy Six Word Saturday post.
I must now take a nap.
All paths stop somewhere
But others begin anew
Keep moving forward
Yes, it’s Wednesday, so that means another blogging challenge. This week, it’s the
The extra the was deliberate. The.
And so was that the.
This week’s challenge is so easy it would appear before the very first definition for the word easy in the dictionary, it is that easy.
Above is a photo of some grafiti graffitti grafitti graffiti (goodness me!) that some rotter has sprayed on the Wall that surrounds the Mansion. A terrible state of affairs, I know, but luckily the walls here are easy clean, what with them being part of the Mansion and all, but I digress.
This week’s challenge is easy – oh, I’ve already said that! – it is merely to write a post using the image for inspiration. Any type of post, any number of words, but the post – there is always a post but – must include the words somewhere. Whether in the title, as a sentence in the post or even as separate words, the choice is yours! Told you it was easy. Oh, the wall must feature as well.
As normal, the usual rules apply. Post your post on your blog, and link back to this post. I’ll sort the links out later. You do not have to participate, and you do not need to advise me if you aren’t participating, as I will be able to see that.
Have a go! You know secretly that you want to! The challenge runs until next Tuesday.
