Tags
blogging, coping, Fahrenheit 451, healing, Life, random, randomness, Ray Bradbury, work, writing
coda [ˈkəʊdə]n
1. (Music / Classical Music) Music the final, sometimes inessential, part of a musical structure
In recent weeks, I’ve been feeling rather…. without.
Without inspiration.
Without imagination.
Without freedom to speak.
It started with me posting something about being angry one day. And someone read it. Surprise, surprise.
Someone was upset and offended.
And I was taken to task for posting my feelings, on my blog, because it hurt someone else’s feelings. Because they visited my blog, of their own free will and intent, and took exception to my words.
So – I’ve been quiet.
And the few times that I have posted… haven’t felt the same. Always worried that I will get called on the carpet, hauled in front of some offended party – I stay silent. Or I edit my own words until they lose all meaning and form.
Trying to work out my own feelings, without benefit of the blogosphere, hasn’t been a treat. It has always helped me to vent, to express, my feelings “out loud”, as it were. When I was a kid, I wrote all these things down in notebooks. Most of them were never seen again, consigned to anonimity, because once the words were out of my head, they weren’t important anymore.
The teapot blowing off steam.
When I began this whole thing, it started as a simple place to lay these feelings down. Late night thoughts, ruminations and questions I asked myself, personal experiences and memories – some good, some not – were all placed here in an attempt to “lay them down”. To get them out of my head, to a place where they wouldn’t dog my every step all day long anymore.
And it worked. Brilliantly.
Until the day when people decide that they have a say in how you say what you say.
Say what?
When you seek to curb the flow of words…
To “edit” and “pretty-up” the thoughts…
To make sure that it’s all PC and non-offensive to everyone…
You lose what made it unique in the first place.
There’s no flavor here, anymore… just soggy cardboard and ink – run into illegibility by the rain of outside interference and tongue-clucking disapproval.
So… I’m going to be closing the doors on this chapter.
Oh – the pages will remain – archives to a better time.
But the spirit will move on. Elsewhere. Elsewhen.
Beyond censorship, beyond disapproval of the few.
I. Will. Speak. My. Mind. And what I do, when I’m off the clock – ain’t nobody’s business but my own.
Mr. Ray Bradbury, one of my favorite authors, said it so eloquently…
~In sum, do not insult me with the beheadings, finger-choppings or the lung-deflations you plan for my works. I need my head to shake or nod, my hand to wave or make into a fist, my lungs to shout or whisper with. I will not go gently onto a shelf, degutted, to become a non-book. All you umpires, back to the bleachers. Referees, hit the showers. It’s my game. I pitch, I hit, I catch. I run the bases. At sunset I’ve won or lost. At sunrise, I’m out again, giving it the old try. And no one can help me. Not even you. ~ Ray Bradbury (Coda to Fahrenheit 451)It truly was a pleasure to burn, Mr. Bradbury. But this flame is naught but ash now. The spark seeks new tinder, and a breath of fresh air.
The air here… carries the mustiness of the old library, familiar, comfortable for browsing on a late afternoon… but no new excitement. For that, you must seek new horizons.
And so, I shall.
Thanks to all of you who have made this the wonderful experience that it’s been.
And to those who want to know where I go from here?
Try some of My Dandelion Wine
I’m always several days late and many dollars short, but I like dandelion wine.