Locked in our own Prison

Over a 7 billion souls on Earth, with over a 7 billion distinctive characters, yet each person behaves and acts in unison defined by one set of outdated rules: The norms of society.

People laugh and cry as society dictates them to… even implying when and where to show joy or despair.

We spend our hard-earned cash by joining the race to get the jobs noone really wants. Getting involved in unleashing creativity like doing arts, crafts, music, writing, film-making does not pay, having connections do… we do everything to please the society and just to be accepted.

Freedom exists only in schoolbooks, yet everyone is directed into thinking they’re free as a bird. But, aren’t birds are freer in so many ways we can’t anticipate? They can fly forward, backward, up and down demolishing physical boundaries and… and they’re never judged for any action by their own kind. There are bird parks where they live in peace but never societies where they’re stripped off what they are. And yet again, we have the expression “bird-brained” to look down on them in a world where they literally look down on us.

Even the language tricks us: “Free will” is two words in which the latter can be considered as an indication of the future… meaning not now, maybe never. We live in a dystopia disguised as an utopia… where there are no “Free Won’t”s… not even in the language.

The society deceives us, breaks us and shapes us as if we were mass produced. Some unaware people may beg to differ but actually we “differ to beg” for so many things that we want happening in our lives. Them; acceptance… us; total freedom.

But, how? How do we achieve total freedom?

Here are some ideas:

1. Be totally honest with everyone even if you don’t want to hurt their feelings. Wounds heal but deception does not. Besides, total honesty removes any kind of communicative barrier.

2. Have no expectations from anyone, anytime. Expectations only bring disappointments but receiving without expecting is true bliss.

3. Treat your happiness as a treasure. Treat your unhappiness to feel better. If you are happy, you make everyone around you happy. It’s highly contagious.

4. Watch kids and learn from them. They can do many things that we long for.

5. Try humor if everything else fails. Try it if everything goes well, too. Humor is essential.

The Overuse of Lexical Items in Describing Emotions

stop saying like

Language has never stopped evolving as more new words are added to the lexical pool every passing day. We are now using more words than ever, to express ourselves fully to one another. But, is it all necessary? Or are we simply dulling our senses and devolving ourselves, restricted by the limits of language itself?

In face-to-face encounters, language loses most of its function as actions take over the role of wordly structures. We never describe our actions in wordly forms when what we are doing at any given moment is so obvious. Imagine you’re in a cafe with someone, do you ever need the urge to make sentences like: “I’m now holding the cup of coffee with my left hand, preparing to take a sip.”?

Of course not, as each person is equipped with a behavioral decoder of their own. But, then again, why do we use words to describe our emotions to the other person accross the same table; saying we are happy, upset, depressed or scared… Have we disconnected and devolved so much that we can’t decode emotions without the aid of words anymore?

The joy of hugging someone and transferring our emotions in a silent harmony is what we should have been doing all along. “Wordless” does not mean it’s “worthless”, it’s just more. It’s actually feeling for each other.

We are taught to “apologize”, “praise”, “confront”, “encourage” and “congratulate” each other even before we start school… but even the words picked for such actions are random letters in tiresome, long sequences, …. difficult even to pronounce let alone understand each other’s feelings.

In writing good fiction, there’s one fundamental rule: “Show, don’t tell.” How come “showing” is more appreciated than “telling in words” at a medium where the reader and the writer is almost never in the same place?

Showing, not telling adds great value to writing, so, perhaps, we should implement this rule to our daily lives for a change to enhance our personal relationships.

Finally,

Who is the culprit for demoting our emotions, then?

Is it the gibberish rules of society we are dictated since birth?

Is it the technological advancements causing the daily rush we find ourselves in, to get pointless things done in little time?

Is it because we are becoming more and more selfish and ignorant?

Whatever the cause, it is never late to share our feelings in an entangling bundle of limbs, enclosing two hearts within…

Social Vampires

We all have that one friend, who sucks the energy out of our souls… They are most probably not your best friend as they are nobody’s best friend but still you may come accross them quite often. Whenever you meet them, they start telling you these terrible jokes, raving about uneventful events or asking for your opinion without giving you time or even a chance to interact. You listen and as it goes on, your liveliness withers and all the energy you had moments ago, abandons you without a forwarding address. They are better known as “energy vampires”, but I like to call them “social vampires” as I am doubtful that they could feed on the pure energy output of a simple generator. You should definitely avoid them but how do you know if someone is indeed a social vampire. Luckily, they are quite similar to ancient vampires in the lore and can be identified easily by using one or more of the methods below:

Just like real vamps, social vampires have the ability to hypnotize their prey. You listen to their nonsense and somehow have little desire to leave. As they are highly selfish and really don’t care about others, watch out for those who jabber about themselves all the time…
Real vamps don’t have reflections in mirrors. Social vamps are quite the opposite. (They like mirrors and do have reflections, but luckily, they are easily identifiable, as they are the blurry ones in the picture). If you are in a group, take a couple of selfies and be on the lookout for the one with the biggest grin and a blurry body. Freshly fed with energy, they would be the fidgety ones, as their bodies try to break down the excess energy and have a hard time keeping their body still.
Another similarity between the real deal and the social vampires, is the ability to alter memories. You never realize why you gradually felt exhausted and depressed after a couple of hours spent with a social vamp, and at the end of the day, you never blame that friend for the physical or the emotional drain. If you can’t find any reason for your sudden mood change at the end of the day, look nowhere else other than the soul sucker for the answer.
Still in doubt? Stalk their social media accounts for a bit. If their feeds are full of long depressing stories about themselves or if they had made hundreds of gibberish comments for every single photo posted by their “friends”, you have found your social vamp. The similarity? Well, real vampires, too, tend to moan about themselves a lot if you befriend them; talking about how immortality is boredom for life or that how, being not able to stroll under the sun is depressing and so on.

Now that we can identify social vamps, how do we defeat them?

Remember, they are just like real vampires. Although neither a braid of garlic nor a cross will help you defeat them, a wooden stake through the heart will work just as well. 🙂

Notes on rejection of most kinds

Being rejected for no matter what, is always depressing and we tend to get more and more rejected as we get older. However, It has nothing to do with the ageing process. It is just that the world population is out of control. With a world population of over 7 billion, there are always better versions of us, pottering around, waiting to be hand picked. We are dragged into a constant race against each other, where there are only losers.

Imagine that you were a blacksmith in the dark ages when the overpopulation was not an issue. How hard would it be for you to find a job? Or to get married with a decent lady?

These times, there are almost ten times more applicants for a mediocre job post, where every single applicant is qualified. Yet, one is most likely to be eliminated due to old age, being under or over-qualified or just the fact that your new boss does not like you.

But, how can we cope with rejection. Here are a few cases:

1. You are a writer and you are trying to get your first book published. You get an email of rejection with no viable explanation every time you submit your manuscript. You discover that you are not amongst the lucky few who succeeds. Do not give up! Wasn’t your intention was to be read by complete strangers? Well, the editorial staff is reading them for sure. Isn’t that enough? If it isn’t, you can always try self publication and become a best seller amongst family. No?

2. You apply for every job you are qualified to change your bad luck in employment. People with less qualifications and experience seem to kick you out of that list of applicants (Yes, I am talking about the HR). Well, it’s their loss after all. Try to go to a job interview with your own ideas and projects, make a difference and if they still cross your name off, don’t bother. They never deserved you anyway.

3. You are an average Joe in physique and you do not seem to have an attractive attribute for the opposite sex (or the same sex). People nowadays have high expectancies and with those high expectancies come huge disappointments. You cannot change people’s minds. After all, we are a dumb race. Use your flaws to your advantage. Flaws are sexy and make differences. Use them wisely. If you’re rejected, keep on going. You wouldn’t want to be with anyone who doesn’t like you anyway. Plus, being single has its own advantages.

Roses in a desert

Sometimes you just wander through an endless desert called life… Heat is intense and everything is far from being pleasent. Your constant sweating drowns you… in the slowest way possible. Drowning at a place where there’s no water. It’s hell on Earth without a parole… and you seem to be sentenced for life. Then, you come across a single red rose in the middle of the desert. It’s out of place but you don’t care… you realize that even the wildest dreams can come true and it has nothing to do with faith. It is rare but possible… like diseases that hit one in a million and you’re the sole winner….or loser. There are many more roses in the desert… oases…where there is water, too. Keep going or else you will be stuck stampeding your own footprints and you’ll sink…

Drift away!

You! The timid resident of middle of nowhere! Abandon your kingdom, leave your shell (or hell) behind and drift away… Liquidify slowly into the unknown beyond and embrace it with your most basic instinct. The unknown becomes familiar and the fear gradually melts away once you start exploring its boundaries. Drift away as when you are on the run from something, you’re actually getting closer to another thing. Choose wisely! But, even if you want to get away from negativity and all you find is more negativity in your final drift, remember that even two negatives makes a positive. Choose wisely! Choose change!

Get away with crime and make yourself and everyone else happy

The human kind has always had a darker side. A blotch in the soul fueled by violence, greed, jealousy, pride… and such. Our souls have long been contaminated. Perhaps, that’s why it stinks when we fart; it’s just the scent of our rotting spirit trapped inside a prison called ribcage. We all have moments when our evil deeds emerge… wanting just to be pure evil.

Well, good news!

There are ways to feed our dark side, be the evil incarnate and still get away with it even when we are caught.

Here goes:

1. Kill….. time with people you love. It really doesn’t matter what you do. Being together should suffice on its own…

2. Steal….. someone’s heart. Love is still the best medicine out there for our souls even if we do stupid things or it ends badly. Live for the experience.

3. Break all the rules….. of society. You are defined only by you and yourself only.

4. Lie….. on the meadows, watching clouds linger by slowly and spend time alone, just thinking. Sometimes, you only need yourself.

5. Hack…… life itself. Try to find easier and more convenient solutions for any problem you come accross.

6. Poach…… eggs in a frying pan. Nothing beats starting the day with a good breakfast.

7. Kidnap….. your own inner child and never let go until you die.

8. Bribe…. your loved ones with soft kisses and hugs as often as possible.

Soothe your demon…

The Alien Society

aliens

No more wars… Eternal peace on Earth… Is it even remotely possible? Not every human is fond of wars, as nothing good ever comes out of them. But, most are… Perhaps, not directly vouching for wars, but admiring violence in forms of entertainment. In ancient Rome, it was the gladiators and in modern times, through films, video games and paintball (The last one was a joke). Perhaps, that’s because we humans are ultimately divergent amongst each other; just like different species trying to live with each other. Imagine two armies of hedgehogs on a battlefield, with both sworn to crush the other or a huge field of sun flowers staring at each other with intentions of gutting (perhaps, this is not the right word to use for sun flowers) its opponent. It will never happen as they are the same species. But, humans? Have we evolved backwards on the way or are we different species amongst us indeed? I believe some of us don’t belong here and never have… Don’t the stars on a pitch black night amaze you? If yes, is it because you are into astronomy or simply… Do you feel homesick?

Some people always feel alone although they are surrounded by people (but of different species) all the time. We are constantly searching for fellow-minded people, but we are stuck on an alien world and bound by gibberish rules invented by the natives called “society”. The anagram of “society” is “yeticos”; a word that does not mean anything… just like the concept of society.

Reach out…

Or…

We are doomed…

Dead among the living

Living and dying…There isn’t much difference after all. We, the living are not that different from the dead!… if not worse. At least the dead are remembered, commemorated, idolized and valued while the living are trapped in a vicious circle of routine: working hard, paying bills for stuff that we can’t find time to enjoy, trying our best to be appreciated by society and looking for love in all the wrong places… We are defined and refined by society and cannot or will not act otherwise. We all die alone and that’s the only time we can free ourselves from the tight grip of the unspoken rules of society. Dying is a unique act that can be done individually. It’s like a one-person invitation to a posh party.

Don’t get me wrong! I am not suggesting that we should all die… but we should definitely do something to change our lives for the better. Ignore what society demands, and live our lives as we wish. The dead can do it (minus living)… we are much more able…we can tailor the society to meet our needs… Here are some tips:

1. Always be honest to people. We all need to hear the truth…

2. Do what you want not what the neighbours would like you to do…

3. Eat as you wish… your soul does not put on weight. It’s always 21 grams…

4. Feel pain if you need to. It differentiates you from the dead.

5. Try new things. You are not your great-grand father… Adapt…in a fun way.

6. Find like-minded people and spend time with them. Learn from them at every opportunity.

7. Make fun of things… life is not something that should be taken seriously.

8. Brush your teeth at least three times a day. (This is for my young readers).

9. Drop me a line… I always listen…

And…never give up…

Nobody knows

It’s our world now… we live in a realm where nobody knows anything. No one cares anymore; not the nobility, not the simple peasants, not even the nosy people you run into here and there. Nope. The hope is long gone and all that remains are the distant noises of some inner conflicts one might have, barely audible like northern winds on a warm summer night. Knowledge is what we lack and somehow we have no intention of reaching for answers even if it knocks on our doors. Answers are not welcome anymore. We have become noobs where once experts thrived in this world.

A change might be coming, hiding behind a simple yes/no question. You have to decide NOw….

Barış Cansevgisi

Author

Tag: society