Are you Famous or just Remembered?

I don’t even remember when it was the last day I posted on this thing. Every so often,  I stop by my blog and read over the things I have written. It’s during those same times that I wonder if I’m actually any good at writing. I sit in my chair and ask myself if anything I’ve posted on here is actually worth reading. Will anyone actually care about what my thoughts are. But then, just as many times as I ask myself those questions, I always find the answer.

A friend of mine told me the other day that he decided he wanted to become “internet famous”. Immediately,  I wondered if he was going to do something insane and post it on Youtube. Thankfully, he doesn’t want to become famous by doing something embarrassing, but he does want to do something.

I suggested to him that because he was so opinionated, the best thing for him to do would be to start a blog and let people read those opinions for themselves. But in the two days that I’ve been telling him and encouraging him to do something with his sudden burst of energy, I didn’t stop to even think if maybe this was a sign to me.

When decided to pick up a pen and put down all the ideas I had in my head on paper, I knew that I was doing this for a reason that I could not understand. There was something inside of me that needed to be placed into words and I had to get it done. It was, gosh, fifteen years ago that I started writing. That was when the urge hit me for the first time. I stayed up for an hour hand writing the opening parts to the story I am still working on to this day. It still bothers me everyday that it’s not done.

But there’s something about fame that not any people often stop to think about. Do you want to be famous or do you just want to be remembered?

There are moments in life when as we’re growing up, we do something that other people are wowed by and for those few moments we are famous. We have done something in the moment that people have in the forefront of their minds and will remember you. But a majority of those times, they’re not incredibly momentous. We’re popular for a day or so, but when the next incredible thing happens, we’re easily dismissed. There go your fifteen minutes of fame.

There are rules when you start doing what I do and what I love to do. Writers who are truly writers aren’t writing for the money. Writers write in the hopes that they will be remembered. A story, a speech, a script, a play, they’re all creations of writers that they hope will be used to make them not only famous once they’re out, but will live on the memories of the people who read or saw those stories.

On top of not writing for the money, you have to be writing knowing that there is a chance that people will not like what you wrote and you might get turned down. And that’s fine. Not every story is going to be one that people are going to want to read. It’s the job of the writer to put the effort into his craft to get people to read his creation. The problem in the world today is that we are infested with writers. People who aren’t writers by trade or by talent. They just have something to say and just want a place to say it. That’s fine, but don’t expect every Tom, Dick, and Harry to stop and listen to you. Originality is key. The same rant told the same way by a 100 different people is boring after the second interpretation.

If you’re going to write and your determination is to do something, then write because you know you can write and not because you’re trying to impress anyone. Writers are people who are tormented by the stories in their minds that they just cannot keep locked away. When you write, write for yourself. Write as if you are the only one that you have to entertain with you creation. If you’re entertained then you’ve done well and someone else might feel the same way. But if someone waves a dollar in your face and tells you they want a story done and done yesterday, than you are no longer a writer. You’re just a living, breathing, dictionary and thesaurus. Sure, you can put words together into a story, doesn’t mean it’ll be any good. It doesn’t mean people will want to read the next part of your story after the first one.

I will always remember the advice of the teacher whom I have mentioned in a previous blog. It takes years to become a writer and even then there is no guarantee that you’ll ever be one.

So now that I’ve reminded myself of the rules of writing and talking about what makes a writer, I do now understand what I feel every time I re-read something I’ve written. I didn’t write it because I was hoping someone else would like it. I wrote it because that is what I wanted to say. That is what I needed to say at that moment. My dream is not that what I say in this moment will make me famous for right now, but that something I’ve posted will stick with someone and they’ll pass it on to someone else who will find my work. I’m writing because the fear of not being remembered is a fear worse than death.

Until next time.

Sometimes You Don’t have to Ask Out Loud

One would imagine that writing under a name like Archangel would mean that I do have a strong sense of faith about me. Indeed, I do have a powerful connection to God. While I don’t practice religion in the sense that most church going people would, I could never deny that my place on this earth is only because he allows it. My destiny, my talents, my abilities are all because he is my designer and my architect.

But the name is just that; a name. It only has as much power as I want it to have. It only has as much meaning as I want to give. There are times in my life, and as in everyone’s life, when we falter and we forget about the things that are most important to us. We take the problem that is right in front of us and it must be dealt with somehow or another. Otherwise, life just isn’t what it’s supposed to be.

Life hasn’t been exactly easy for me. I’m pretty sure that there are some who had it pretty worse than I did, I’m sure. But I wonder about those times in my life when I went through the things that I did. I wonder why it was that God would put people through things that might turn their hearts against him and make themselves believe that he doesn’t exist? That answer wasn’t very hard to search for once I stopped to think about it.

I was raised as a Roman Catholic. Then at the beginning of my teenage years I became and atheist. When I was in seventh grade or so, a music teacher taught me the value of faith and the strength it could give a person if they truly believed. So from then I knew there had to be a god. But at some point while I was in high school, I gave up on the idea of religion. I know some of you are going to have an issue with that, but I really don’t see the point of religion. I do however, see the point in having faith. When you break the Christian religions down, that’s pretty much what it comes down to. We all must believe in God, there are things that science can’t explain even with all the technology that we have and so there has to be some outside force that is controlling things that we can’t.

Despite feeling those things within myself, there are moments in my life where I honestly don’t believe God is listening to me. There are points where don’t believe he’s listening to anyone, really. It’s like a prolonged suffering that we have to go through so he can see that we’re worthy of his ear.

That was happening to me recently. I had hit a brick wall emotionally and I just wasn’t going anywhere. I’m still emotionally blocked now but not as bad as I was before. It was a Wednesday night when I was just sitting in my computer chair watching something on TV, when the words they were speaking felt like they had been picked for me to hear.

I searched for the clip I had just seen and referenced the quotes that they had made and all of a sudden, for no particular reason at all besides the fact that I was just so damn full of spirit, I began to cry. It was as if the things I had been asking and wondering about in my mind had been answered by something and I hadn’t been expecting an answer. God had made himself known to me and was telling me what he wanted me to do and what I needed to understand.

So in a moment of weakness and feeling like I had lost all favor with God, he decided to show me that he was right there with me still. He was just hoping I would figure it out for myself. I guess that just proves to me that I should never go back on my beliefs just because times got a little tough.

The Urge: May 3, 2010

My mind wrestles back and forth with ideas on this cool night. It’s not a battle. It’s more of the urge to explain the ideas of life that never once came to mind, but when all is peaceful in the world for moments in time that we might never get back, it’s best to leave behind knowledge we can come back to.

At what point in our lives do we reach the event horizon? The point of which life begins and all that came before this point will not longer exist? I have dreamed many a dream, questioned many thoughts and ideas that have been brought to my attention or by my own creation, and experienced parts of a life I wish I hadn’t. But at what point did my childhood end and the realities of this world begin? Have I only grown in the physical body of a man and remained with the child spirit in side of me, or has the child grown and the man is what I must ultimately discover?

It’s become strange to me. The sensations I have felt over the past few years. Feelings of isolation, feeling of love, feelings of complete desire for one human being, and the demand for the complete destruction of others. As a child, I thought not of these things, but I was ever more the creator. Visiting places in my mind I had convinced myself at one point before my physical existence I had once seen and visited. Even now, when all is quiet in the world, I can still see those places. They are not locked away in the dreams of my mind, but in the ink and paper of my notebooks and journals. They no longer exist in the world I once felt safe in. At some point in my physical existence, I reached the event horizon of childhood and my mind was taken somewhere where logic was the dominant force and the world forged by my imagination had been removed or at least my visitation was limited.

This world, this real world, is so strange to me. It is as strange as a science I’ve never studied, a peace of music I’ve never heard before, or a language I’ve never heard spoken. This world robs people of the mysticism of their dreams, bans them from the comfort of their imaginations, and rapes them into accepting only what they can see and what others want them to believe. What world is this? In who’s imagination have I become entrapped in? People here can be killed, they can be hurt, they can be destroyed, dreams can be shattered, ambitions can be made hopeless, and people no longer believe, they only follow those who have created ideas before them and create none for themselves.

I long for the nurturing safety of my former thoughts. I beg to be brought back to the sanctity of the society of my mind where no one can be destroyed but only changed. Where dreams still mean everything. But demand as I might, I have crossed this event horizon. I must remain here and accept that which I did not ask for, I did not request, but it has been given to me. I must accept that my powers are useless here. My mind can only create on canvas and pieces of paper because even my dreams have been robbed of their special places they had once taken me. Now they’re filled with visions of this world. This world where I am a stranger. This world where happiness must be found and sadness is readily available for the taking. I must find myself. I must find the dreams I may not have left behind. Perhaps, I have yet to cross over….

If I Fell, Would You be There to Catch Me?

I haven’t posted on my e-journal in quite some time now. Sometimes the habits of the past are just too hard to break. But, at least I came back this time after only a few weeks instead of a few months.

I’ve come back to write about something that has been bothering me over the past few years. Ya know, there was a period in my life where I spent every daylight our helping people who I didn’t know. I gave up college and the ability to start my life right away because I felt there was something I had yet to experience about my life. And so, I took years off of my life after I graduated high school to become a volunteer.

Those years that I volunteered at my old high school’s library were some of the most memorable moments of my life. I learned so much over the course of those four years. I’d met so many interesting people, made more friends after I graduated from high school than while I was actually a student, learned a lot more about myself, took in so much wisdom from people who’d experienced so much more than me, and left my mark in a place I now know like the back of my hand.

But it wasn’t until I decided that the days of high school were over, that I learned one of the most cruelest things about life: No matter how much time you give to your one part of the world, there will always be people who are ungrateful for the time you’ve given. Part of the things that I learned while I was there was that teachers aren’t perfect. They’re people just like everyone else and the image that we see them for as students is just something they have to do for us. Behind the scenes, their worlds aren’t always complete, they are in disarray, or they’re still trying to find their place just as much as you are.

I related this to my own personal experiences with my friends. I stopped to wonder, of all the friends I have made over the past few years, how many of those would be there if I needed them. But furthermore, how many of those “friends” aren’t really friends at all? Instead, are they just people who kept you because you were handy and once your usefulness was over, you could be quickly forgotten about like a passing stranger.

While I want to believe that the people I know would never do that to me, I must accept the fact that I have dealt with people who were indeed just like that. Once I had completed a task for them or once I had been used as the shoulder to cry on when no one else would listen, I was casted off as nothing more than someone they knew of, but didn’t know. As I think back on it now, that’s pretty much the way most of my friendships and relationships have been. I serve my purpose and people expect me to move on and hope that I will no longer  be a part of their lives. Only, I’m a fool enough to believe that those people actively sought me out because they knew I would listen, offer my advice, and then when they felt better, they would have no problem having me be a part of their lives. All in a days work for being a guy with a big heart.

But there is much to be said about those with big hearts who really are trying to help and don’t mind to help. God bless those who do so much and expect nothing in return. Who would work day and night to build someone who lost their house a brand new one in sweltering heat and only asking for food and drink until it was done. A simple pat on the back, a thank you, maybe even a prayer for them every Sunday. Even soldiers who give up much to defend our country. Their families conform so much and sacrifice to give us protection. Even if you thought on the most minor of scales; a stranger in a store who sees you drop something from your purse or sees you drop your wallet. Instead of keeping it for themselves, they find you and give it back to you. There are still people like that in this world. I know, I’m one of them. It’s becoming harder and harder to stay one, but I know that there are still people just like me out there.

But once help is given, there are people who would constantly expect it and those that have received it, might do anything to hold onto it. Using the weapon of guilt on someone with a big heart is the cruelest weapon of all. The expectation that a good person is always supposed to be there for you after they’ve done something for you perhaps out of their good nature or just because they’re a good friend is a very misguided idea. But the sad reality is that there are people who never understand they’re being taken advantage of and a cycle that is nothing less than abuse begins.

What took me four, almost five, years to understand is that before you can help others, you must help yourself. Before you can take care of the needs of those that could use your help, you must make sure that there is nothing going on in your life that must be taken care of first. If in time, you are spending more time taking care of someone else’s issues when you have more important things to worry about, then the balance is off and the only person who is going to suffer is you. Those who would take advantage of you would never want you to do the things you have to do in your own life. It is in their mentality that you are only apart of their life to serve them and make them happy. You and your priorities, to the abuser, are a very distant second. The second you begin to show a sign of responsibility for yourself, the abuser uses guilt or calls you selfish for thinking of someone else other than them. If you’re not strong mentally to deal with this attack or you’re blind to realize what is happening, you will fall like a house of cards in an earthquake.

In the end, I guess, I’m thankful that I understand all of this now. I could have spent the rest of my life wondering what I could be doing while still giving up my time somewhere else instead of using it for myself.

I’m not saying that people shouldn’t help people. What I am saying is that you shouldn’t take advantage of the kind nature of people. For sake that there aren’t very many left in the world, give the ones that are still here a reason to keep doing what they’re doing. Let them be happy in their own lives. For having their own lives in order and being able to give back to others with their free time could be their little slice of Heaven that we all wish we could find.

Prisoner to Unreal Thoughts

I had trouble sleeping last night. I’m not really sure on what to blame it on at this point because I don’t really know what the cause was. There is one thing that I do understand though. I was blessed with a mind that not only has the ability to create stories and people, but also given the ability to remember events of my past vividly.

You might be telling yourself that this isn’t a very big deal. That’s great that I can remember things pretty clearly. I’m sure there are some people who would love to have the ability to remember things from their past that were worth remembering. I on the other hand, I have the opposite effect. I can remember things, but they aren’t really things that I want to remember. And though I can remember them with almost crystal clarity, my mind often warps them into visions that didn’t actually take place.

It’s my curse, I guess. It’s a course that own mind has taken memories from my past and used them to create a sort of mental prison. It doesn’t matter how far back the memory seems to be. As long as it was a memory that I would have rather forgotten because it wasn’t important or I just didn’t want to remember it, it will use it.

So what’s the big deal about this? People often remember the bad more than they remember the good. But what makes my experience different is that it leaves me worried. It leaves me worried to the point to where I have trouble sleeping at night. The memories created in my mind are so real, that I often must talk myself out of them in order to calm myself down. I could create a situation in my head that would probably never take place and yet my mind would make me believe that it’s a very real possibility that it would happen. The experience is completely exhausting to say the least.

The one thing that seems to set it off is boredom. If I find myself bored, my mind wanders. Without little or any warning at all, my mind will be jumping along at memory after memory until it creates a situation. When that situation is blown completely out of proportion, the anxiety sets in. It’s this rogue anxiety that bothers me so much. I really don’t know how to get rid of it. At best, I can channel it into another work like working on the blog that I’m working on now. All I can do is let it run its course, until the facts that I know to be true, become too overpowering for the anxiety to exist and it goes away.

Sometimes, I honestly think I’m going insane. I like to consider myself a rational person when it comes to my own ideas. It’s just strange to know that my mind does this to me. Perhaps it’s God’s way of showing me I’m still human. That I can still hurt even if the ideas aren’t real. All I know is, I’ve only managed to successfully channel this strange energy only a few times. I only hope that it doesn’t ruin me from all the times it was too much to bear.

Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.

The Urge: February 15th, 2010

This is about right for me. Still awake in nearly the middle of the night and feeling that I need to create something before I lay my head to rest for the night. It would be possible for a normal person just to shake off the feeling of leaving something undone for the day and getting to it the next day, but that feeling doesn’t easily disappear when you’re a writer. Or, at least in my case, having the mind of a writer that desperately wants to be crafted every single time it commands.

It’s been difficult over the past few years to get a handle on the things that I want to write down. I’m not really sure from day to day on whether or not the urge will hit me at all. If and when it does hit me, I’m not even sure what it is I’m going to write about. That’s golden for a writer. Having the will to write and not having something to write about. At that point, the paper becomes a blank canvas and you can make it into anything you want without a pre-determined idea of what you want.

It downright sucks sometimes. I never know what it will take to set off my Urge to write and when it goes off, I often have to find the time to work it in. I’ve always been a procrastinator. But The Urge doesn’t understand that. It doesn’t understand sadness or bliss. It doesn’t understand sickness, it doesn’t understand tired. It is because that is what it is. The basic need to create once it knows you have the ability to give it what it wants.

For the longest of time, knew that certain types of music would set it off. Classical music would set off a wave of images in my head of places I’d never dreamed of or even thought of before I’d heard that particular song. Sometimes it’s a wonderful sensation. It can put me in a state of euphoria to know that I have this ability.

But this feeling, as much as it is, is my curse. For as much as I’ve kept and honed this craft that I have been given, there are certain traits that I must keep in order for it to stay alive. The Urge has thrived on making me remember things that I’d rather forgotten. It makes me remember people that I wish I had never met. And it makes me remember feelings, I wish I didn’t have.

As much as live in this fantasy world of mine, I wonder if it is my escape. I wonder that because my life has been the way it has been, if somehow, some way, something more powerful than me has given me an escape. It’s given me something I could turn to that I could control myself and none of my creations could feel the same emotions or deal with the same ordeals that I dealt with early in my life.

(sigh) I really don’t know anymore. All I know is at this point in my life, this is what I must be. I must be what I have the abilities to do. No matter how much I might feel that it has always somehow managed to get in the way of my life, I must own this ability that I have and hope that one day I will be able to put it to good use and that it might take care of me for the rest of my life. If not, hopefully it will do me the favor of always being there to listen when my real life must be listened to first than that of my fantasy world.

May it be the ultimate best friend.

Remember What it Means…to Love and Some Wedding Vows if You’re Stuck

It’s half past Midnight here in Texas. It’s St. Valentine’s day. The day when people buy expensive flowers, gifts, and candies to give to the ones they love the most. Because, of course, nothing says loving like an empty wallet on Valentine’s Day.

Ahh, but of course I’m joking. There’s a lot more to this holiday than just what the stores would want to obviously shove down your throat. It’s a lot more than just roses and cupids. It’s more than pink strings and diamond rings, it’s more than candies and all things more fancy. No, it means much more than that. Today is that one day when love is almost as perfect as it’s going to get. If today, if you’re not in love you will either be looking to find love or be cursing up and down about how much you hate this holiday. If you’ve found love, you’ll either be rushing up and down store aisles trying to find that perfect gift, or planning a perfect night with the one you share your love with.

No matter what you’re doing on Valentine’s Day, remember that there is nothing that you can pay for with cash or with your debit cards that are ever going to make you or someone else happy or love you even more. The power of a gift fades, the shine of gold dulls, and even the thought of the gift will lose its meaning eventually.

That’s why Valentine’s Day shouldn’t just be the only day you tell that person you love them with all your heart. Everyday should have a little bit of Valentine’s Day. It shouldn’t take a holiday to tell someone you love them.

What does love mean, Archangel?

I think a question about love is just as difficult to answer as is asking the meaning of life. What exactly is love? Why do we need love in our lives and why is it that when some people have it, they don’t look like they deserve it, and those who do deserve it, are the ones that never seem to have it at all?

Love is that which can’t be touched or bought, it can only be experienced. Love is when that place in your heart is finally filled with the essence of something that you could never fill it with on your own. Love is a pact you make between your heart and your mind in which something you never had before in your life has now come into it and you’re willing to keep it close to you. It’s a person, an animal, or even an inanimate object which brings you such joy that you’re willing to do things you wouldn’t normally do for someone or something else. It’s a bond of trust or understanding.

But telling someone you love them is very much different than being in love with them. When you’re in love, you’ve crossed that final border between, “I will do things for you that I wouldn’t normally do for someone else” to “I would give up a part of my life to do things for you and only you because you are the part of my life that I can’t live without.” Marriages aren’t forged by people just loving each other. They’re bonded by people being IN love with each other. That’s why 50% of marriages end in divorce. You may have loved that person at one point or another, but could you really say that you were in love with that person? Did you know them well enough to know that the things they do in their lives you could live with in yours? Did they meet you half way enough that you knew they would be there for you when times would be tough? Did they ever feel the same way for you that you were feeling for them?

I’ve known several people in my life would would love to be in love. Who would love to have that sort of connection to someone, not just physical, but on an emotional level that most people forget about. You can’t build on a relationship on just what you do in the privacy of your bedrooms. A relationship and the love that holds it together must be built by conversation, mutual agreements, and long term promises that can never be broken. If in those moments when you are building that foundation, it doesn’t seem it will ever be able to be built up, it doesn’t mean that love is hopeless. It means that you just haven’t found that person you’re in love with. Love is never hopeless. Trust me, the promise of love is worth walking a million miles for. Because at the end of that journey, there will be someone willing to take care of you and hear all about it.

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As I said in my title, there would be wedding vows. For those of you guys (or ladies) who are up right now who just can’t find the words to say to that special someone, I think I can help you out a bit.

(enter name here), on this day, I make promises to you that I will never make with anyone else on this Earth. I make these promises in front of friends and family and in the eyes of powers greater than me.

With you, I wish to spend the remainder of my days and have them blessed by your spirit in my life everyday, from this day forth. I swear to you that on this day, you can hold me to every promise that I will make to you. I will keep them etched into my soul as long as you keep my heart safe for me. I vow, as your (wife or husband), to do my best to give you the life that is within my power to give to you and to give you every ounce of love and honor that you deserve.

I make no promises that the road we will travel on will be easy, but I promise you, that I will not walk down a path you will not join me on. I will not falter, if you will hold my hand the whole way. If you will be my partner, we will walk through this life with love in our hearts, and hope in our souls, that everyday will be brighter than the last. And we will love each other more than the minute passed.

If you used these lines, please feel free to leave a comment, and congratulations. Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone.