Basics

I wanted to talk about talking about thinking about thinking about things. And the reason I want to talk about it is just so that I can say that sentence. But really I'd just like to talk about thinking about thinking about things. Still with me? Of course not. Let's continue anyway. (Speaking of "let's," or "let us," Alex and I were talking about the phrase one time and how silly it was, so instead we insert "we." "Let's go" becomes "We go.") *Ahem* We continue.

I was thinking about the short story I would like to write for this month because, no, I don't have a story yet. Does that mean I will fail? Well, no. I could always post an old story you've never read. Who would know? (Alex and a couple others might know.) So, I don't know what to write. I wanted, basically, to write a love story. A good love story where not only do the characters fall in love, but the reader falls in love as well. In the process of thinking about the short story, I started thinking about it in relation to a long story, or novel, that I want to write. As I was thinking about the novel, I thought about it's complex design and how could I fix these things? I decided to strip it down, back to square one, back to the basics.

With that thought in mind... I started to think about myself as a human being. I was having a conversation the other night about how as a human being I have a desire to survive. Survival is food, water, shelter. But I decided to strip my being a human being down to it's basics too. What am I, first and foremost? I am human, yes, but I am something even more than that. Strip my body away and what am I? Consciousness. A soul, if you will. Of course, as long as we're referring to it as consciousness, it needs the body to be conscious. So my body and I are one and the same.

But what about that word usage? "My body." "My hands." "My legs." "My feet." "My. My. My." And at this point I've written "my" so many times that it looks to be spelled wrong. Oh MY mind's wonderful ability to lose understanding with repetition. And maybe that's the way life works. I see "my" so many times and ask: "Is that spelled right? Why is it spelled that way?" Maybe life should work in a similar manner with another repetition. Doing the same thing every day, waking up, going to work; maybe I should ask: "Am I doing this right? Why am I doing this at all?" Back to word usage... Why is it that we apply owner ship to body parts? I would say, I guess, that "I" is the collective body, because I can also say "my consciousness" and "my soul." So I can't really track down the source of "I." "Me." Who owns whatever is "mine."

If I strip myself down to the very basic consciousness, though, then food and water are only fuel for my body, my vessel. I know what my body wants. But what does my soul want? Love? Happiness? Perhaps. It's either God's cruel joke, or nature's. I'm trying to figure out a way to say the joke's on them. But either way, God or nature, the joke will always be on me.

And back to thinking about life and why I do what I do. Why am I doing all of this? Who do I go to work everyday? Well, I need money and job to get money. But why do I need money? So that I can buy food and shelter. Except, I could just as easily leave to create my own shelter and hunt and garden for food. Why choose this strange social life? Will someone come with me into the wild?

Why am I writing this blog? To hone my writing skills and keep myself on a schedule (a schedule where I write the posts at 12:30 AM the night before it is set to post).

Why am I writing these short stories? Also to hone my writing skills.

But what is it I want? I want to write novels. So why not write one? Maybe I will. Maybe I will.

Strip everything down
to its
basics.