World Suicide Prevention Day [2015]

Nothing major for contributions today, just want to recognize the international day for Suicide Awareness and Prevention is 9/10/15 this year.

I've been working on a pretty elaborate piece about the S-word that I'll probably just scrap and free-flow instead. Remember a few things today.

It's okay to not be okay.
You don't have to fit into anyone's archetype.
It's absurd to measure yourself against another's successes and failures.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline for the USA is always available, for any reason.
1 (800) 273 - 8255
www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org

If you're in the Rapid City, South Dakota area a great resource is the Crisis Care Center, any time, day or night.
(605) 391 - 4863
www.crisiscarecenter.org

I got my hands a little dirty tonight in the local art alley.

Self Deprecating Buzzkill

I just spent the better part of the morning squinting underneath my own judgmental eyebrows as I picked apart my past posts postmortem.

I know that recollecting and reciting past emotions and events can distill wisdom and clarity on where we've each come from, but, man... man, most of this is an unrelenting buzzkill and a cry for help. There's a part of me that itched to just whisk away those past collections of words and pretend they never existed. Part of me wants to deny that I could be that big of a wet blanket.

But I was. I still will be, sometimes.

That's the clarifying realization I've made. I've said before my reasons for posting any of this. It becomes readily apparent reading things from a different (distanced) perspective that events just aren't that dire all the time.

Emotional pain is real pain, and I'll be the first person to tell anyone that writing about it or telling someone about it lets that pain out. Eases the pressure against the metaphorical dam. This being said, I struggle with the value of putting more negativity out into the world for my Earthly co-inhabitants to chew on and digest on my behalf. Should a man suffer in silence, or is it further proof that life is best experienced as part of a collective? I'm not sure yet.

I've been bred my whole life to live with a certain level of machismo as a primary driving force. It seems very perplexing to place my strength as man in my ability to allow myself to be heard. It seems a stronger test of mettle to air my grievances and sorrow instead of shoulder the cross alone. Does that make me weak? Is relative strength a completely moot point in any of this? What is strength anyway?

Questions, questions, always more questions.

I continue to slam these keys in a wayward sense, in hopes that somehow I will forge a literary voice that doesn't goad would-be readers into killing themselves. (Don't do that, that's absurd.) Whether this happens via the mediocre writing and prose, or the sheer multitude of overwrought depressing analogies and anecdotes. My inner critic (who's an asshole, beteedubs) is always saying that this is a giant waste of time and bandwidth, continuing to construct these borderline absurd articles. The other part is blissfully unaware, nay, intentionally hoping that this will all serve some greater good for someone, anyone.

Starting from Scratch

I know this is pretty much par for the course anymore, but it's "been awhile."

There's good reason for that though, instead of typing terrible words on this blog, I've been typing terrible words into a word document for a would-be book of sorts. Good news though! I just decided to scrap the whole 120,000 odd words to come back to a medium that I'm more worthy of. That's right, the confines of this underwhelming (but oddly popular for the quality of content) site.

I second guess every sentence I write. I hate every paragraph and every page of text that I squeeze out of these gangling fingers. Who am I to think my thoughts or experiences warrant a proper published book? What a farce.

In any case, now that I'm done bashing myself... let's talk a little bit about the state of said blogspace. I'm going to try to write a lot more and a lot more often. While the content will shuffle to more of a journal-type format instead of these past philosophically half-baked ideas. I'm sure those will show up in some fashion, but I need to find my footing again when it comes to writing and being vulnerable before I attempt to dive into the deep end of a pool that's much colder and deeper. Back to the kiddie pool of melancholy thoughts for the time being.

With this change comes another though. I'll be writing about the entire aspects of my life, not just the depressing stuff. While clinical depression and other brain type ailments to plague me on a day-to-day or minute-to-minute time frame, I'm growing rather irksome of labeling myself solely for my expertise on the despondent and woeful.

There is much more to this entity I call myself than just being a wet-fucking-blanket all the time.

It was difficult to destroy hundreds of hours of work and writing, but certain times in life call for a fresh start. This, ladies and gentlemen, is one of those times.

After all, the Buddha says something about letting go and being happy or other such something.