I am reading a book by J.G Ballard at the moment. It’s
called "Empire of the Sun" – There has been a Hollywood film made of it but I
have not seen that. This book has
affected me a great deal. It is beautiful and horrific and ultimately
fascinating book about war. I do
not always feel the need to be up beat and positive all of the time. It is ok
to think about sad things, it is ok to be disturbed by something. There is a
time and a place for different emotions. It is how we deal with life and come
to realistic terms with our own existence. Hence, this blog is about loss.
What I have not been able to get out of my head this week is
the frustrated thoughts of potential lost. We cannot choose what life or era we are born into and some
of us are unfortunately born into a time or place that stifles, freedom of
creativity, expression, and, well, life.
I have the imagined faces of the creative, adventurous and supremely
educated characters JG Ballard describes as wasting away in Shanghai war camps
branded onto the inside of my eyelids.
So much potential lost and starved. What would these people have done;
achieved; brought to the world if they had been dealt a different hand?
Just before you slit your wrists, it is leading somewhere...
These thoughts have since developed into a consideration of
the concept of luck and chance in life, and right now I feel bloody lucky. Despite not being a world famous music
producer (yet), I am in the extremely fortunate position of being amongst like
minded people who I can express myself creatively with, and more importantly,
we have the freedom to actually do it. Just need to keep reminding myself of this every time the
music business does my freakin' nut in.
Col x
I agree. It's the difference between free choice and fatalism. You have to ask yourself the question 'Are you free?'. If you believe that the answer is 'Yes' then you have to ask 'How am I?'. If the answer to this is determined by something outside of your control then you have a decision to make. Do I continue to operate within these boundaries and believe that I'm free or do I try to escape them and know that I'm free (of these boundaries)?
ReplyDeleteThe simplest thing to do is believe that you are in control. But the problem with this is that you have to prove it - at the very minimum to yourself...