mewwrites.it.com

Category: Uncategorized

  • Keeping Child-Like Wonder in the Pilot’s Seat When Adulthood Wants to Fly

    That’s When Ya Lost (feat. Pep Love) – Souls of Mischief, Pep Love

    I was at the dentist today, and they just built this brand-new, bussdown, two-story building. So naturally, I grazed the newly minted children’s entertainment and came across a really good children’s book about a kid who collected and categorized words that interested him as a hobby (linguistic asf tbh). Then one day, the words became disorganized and were blown into the wind across his community, giving the gift of language to the people. The premise was fun and fresh, but one of the pages stuck with me when it read, “The more words he knew, the more clearly he could share with the world what he was thinking, feeling, and dreaming.”

    I legitca simpson just got back from the dentist about 2 hrs ago, and I’m sick to my stomach that I didn’t pay more attention to the author or the book’s title.

    [Google break cuz not knowing the details was driving me mad fam *Drake live stream with the buffs on accent]

    Back with some fresh particulars on the case. The book is called The Word Collector by Peter H. Reynolds, and the main character’s name is Jerome.

    Continuing on a new thread, I just wanna detour off the main road about being a children’s book author. I fully understand how much whimsy and *insert word for when you have to be really pliable and non-rigid with your thoughts and creativity (fluid doesn’t quite capture it), and be able to maintain that featherweight focus with your creative energy facilitating direction while keeping childlike wonder in the pilot’s seat as well (need to personally strengthen this skill). Whatever the word for that explanation is, you have to cultivate and harness that so well to take such large ideas, ideas that perplex adults, and break them down for a person under 8 to fully grasp and engage with. Both of those skills are mad impressive.

    The concept of my words limiting my ability to express myself is something I still get frustrated by to this day. I always think of my old yoga professor (s/o Joey) when he credited a German philosopher (or maybe Dutch, idk, in that general area of Europe) with saying, “The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” Hearing that for the first time was such a stab-the-blade-and-twist-it moment. That one phrase had encapsulated years of frustration in my body and anguish in my mind over not being able to use my main form of expression (verbal communication) to convey whatever I was feeling.

    Nietzsche also comments on this in his book On Truth and Untruth, asking, “Is language the full and adequate expression of all realities?” I respected the question being asked in the prelimary stage of the book because I was like, DUDE NO!! The gravity of art and self-expression is so colassal because if you feel emotions deeply, or emotions in general, at somepoint, you will fail to find the words to express how you feel.

    Communication is copiously stressed in childhood because that’s obvi when your synapses are firing fresh outta the box, and I respect the severity of that grind. However, I would argue that we need a push on that latter end as adults to continue expanding our vocabulary and communication skills. Language and communication are lifelong functions that impact how you navigate and live your life until it’s over. Since entering adulthood, it’s always perplexed me because it’s not like you hit 18, 25, 30, or whatever arbitrary number one could choose, and you just max out on communication improvement capabilities. Those are active muscles and skills that you need to continue to use, cultivate, and challenge.

    Really rode around the bend on that detour; nonetheless, I had a great read by Mr. Reynolds. Sidenote: I got a kick out of illustration style as well. Descriptive and colorful, but still conceptually manageable. Love when something grandly minuscule prompts me to think like this. Shoutout that book fr. Proud of myself for investing the time and infrastructure into my creativity. It’s always easier said than done.

    Action Items for Today:

    1. Seek daily opportunities to keep child-like wonder and whimsy in the pilot seat while navigating adult-level difficulties.
    2. Interact with or read at least one piece of children’s content a week.

  • What Is Fear/Fuck It, I’m Finna Start a Blog

    I Guess I’ll Hang My Tears To Dry – Eric Felton, Jimmy Knepper

    What has contributed most to my hesitation to start this blog is fear. An emotion as ancient as human existence. Fear of being perceived, fear of being judged or misunderstood, and the fear of stepping into uncharted waters. But I’ve decided that I don’t want to live my life behind a paywall of fear, with the only cost of entry being discomfort. 

    I’ve been faced with fear a fair amount in my lifetime. Becoming so familiar with it has led me to examine it whenever it makes itself at home in my heart or body. There are two types of fear that visit me:

    1. The more concrete and existential type, like change, death, and tragedy (which I am oddly more comfortable with because it’s always looming).

    2. The more intangible, mutating kind that transforms itself to nestle around my ideas and desires. 

    The core difference between the two is that the second type of fear is densely cloaked in doubt. Doubt is the lock to the chains that keep my ideas and dreams bound to my lowest self. Wherever doubt is present, I find fear lingering not too far behind, conditioning my mind to believe that doing something new and unknown is dangerous; therefore, it should be avoided. And what’s ironic is that it’s the second type of fear that is ultimately harmless. Logically, it seems that I would be more hesitant about the type of fear that’s so ultimate, so terminal, but I find I’m more afraid of the what-ifs than what’s definite.

    However, I find an incongruity in my thought process, as it implies that the unknown is inherently bad. There is certainly an amount of objective truth in “ignorance is bliss,” and I mercifully thank the powers above that I am unbeknownst to some of the worst days of my life. Yet, some of my best days are ahead of me as well, and I also don’t know what those entail either.

    Seeing doubt-veiled fear intrinsically tied to a negative outcome limits not only my ability to show myself what I am capable of, but also my subconscious belief in myself. I view subconscious belief as the most powerful level of self-belief. So why would I want to feed into the self-sabotaging theory that fear of the unknown is mutually exclusive with self-doubt?

    Therefore, I’ve started a blog as fuck!! I’m learning as I go, but the the 3 definite things about mewwrites.it.com are:

    1. The topic will always be my thoughts and feelings.
    2. I’ll always add at least one song that I listened to while writing.
    3. I vow to be honest and authentic, no matter how it makes me look.

    I’m writing exactly as I speak (and think, for that matter). There’s never going to be a predetermined format or length, and I will only censor myself to the extent it implicates the identities of others. Apart from that, I’m allowing myself the grace to figure it out while I do it. Ready isn’t a feeling, it’s a decision. I have so much discomfort surrounding this approach, but I think it’s what will suit me best in the long run. It’s like those videos when they throw babies into pools, and the baby is splashin’ around, but eventually turns on their back, crying, and starts floating (how it feels to do anything new in your 20s, btw).

    There’s so much I don’t know about starting a blog, publishing my writing consistently, or fuck dude, even life itself. However, I do know that I have so many thoughts and opinions that are perpetually being lost to the ether of fallen creativity, and I am the only one who can save them from that fate! Here’s to not letting the lifespan of my thoughts be limited to the time they occupy on my lips. Looking forward to decalcifying the atrophied mental muscles of writing :)).