Wise words

[dalekboy]

"...they don’t think they need saving. I mean, they haven’t changed for years, have they? They’re not designed to be wanted because they don’t want to be wanted, not really. They want to be left alone to do their thing, and they don’t want any loud new people in the room. They serve a dwindling audience, and they have to be aware of that — so they have to be in it to simply serve that audience, to provide that presumably cosy experience to their people until the last light goes out. Otherwise they would have done something different years ago."

That's Warren Ellis talking about sf magazines, but he could be talking about the majority of sf fan clubs and conventions in Australia.

Just because your friends turn up, doesn't mean it's good.
Just because it breaks even, doesn't mean it's a success.
Just because something runs, that doesn't mean it's still relevant.

More on this later...

Comments

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

Don't be silly, we all need to talk or vent now and again.

My first thought is obvious, easy to say and hard to do - If you've failed at every single thing you've tried, maybe it's time to try some new things. Or old things in different ways. It's scary and hard and you might fail again, or you might not.

But you're the only person who can change it. And I have no doubt that you're strong enough to do it, you certainly have the attitude at times. You just have to make the anger work for you, rather than let yourself sink into dullness and oblivion.

I'm doing NanoWriMo, the flash fiction version of NaNoWriMo. I've never written flash fiction, I have huge problems writing fiction now, I'm pretty certain I'm going to fall substantially short of a story a day, so in light of all that, I've given myself a realistic goal. Two stories. More than that was probably going to be setting myself up for a fall. But I know I can get two stories done in a month, just on anger and determination alone. They may not be good. They may suck arse. Everyone may hate them. I don't fucking care, because what matters is that I do something. If I've done two flash stories by the end of November, then that's two more than I've written in the last eighteen months.

I'm letting the anger make me a volunteer in my life, not a victim of it.

Don't get depressed about being petty and selfish. Get angry and do something! I have genuine faith that you can (as opposed to those new age fuckers who say "Oh I have faith in you, really I do") because I've seen your fury, I've seen the power there. I may hate what you do, I don't know, but it doesn't matter! I'll still be happy if you try something.

And if you fail, I'll kick you in the arse and tell you to have another go *grin*

[bigevilogre.livejournal.com]

Anger has always been a driving force, literally. It even comes out in the creation of my car. My anger is what's got the fire under my butt to get it back to it's fighting trim again. It's a race bred car, from the factory it was street legal, but not meant for the street. No turn signals, no windshield wipers, no horns or anything. (I added all those things myself since it was my daily driver) and my anger at some local street racers has me wanting to show them what a RACE car is. (It won't be on a street, it will be on a legal strip just like a fight should be kept in a ring. An event at the Sonic burger joint in my old stomping grounds woke me up to what is really at stake racing on public roads)

A wise man once told me that I can't be broken as long as I know who I am, and lately I have had a lot of doubt about that. I have meditated on every facet of my own personality, like, dislike, interest, and for every answer I find more questions. Eventually I think mentally and emotionally I overloaded and shut down and stopped thinking about it completely.
But the first step, and the one that I'm sure will be the hardest, is to forgive myself. As Ozzy Ozborne once said "The wreckage of my past keeps haunting me. It just won't leave me alone. I still find it all a mystery, could it be a dream? The road to nowhere leads to me."

Thanks for having faith in me, one thing i have learned in life is when one person has faith in someone who doesn't seem to have faith in themselves the faith of that one person can be like a pilot light in the furnace of the other person's soul. When the down and out is ready and willing the thurmustat turns on the gas and the fire lights back up.