The Nature of Suffering (by sarah)
Ok for a start I am running on less than 2 hrs sleep here so this is unlickely to make much scense to be honest!
Now pain and suffering have been pondered since the times of ancients just look at concpets like reincarnation and karma. Now I dont know whats what with all the spiritual stuff to be honest but what I do know is my life is both really really good and really really bad - I assume that in some cosmic balancing effort I need to have the bad to have the good - fair enough. I would hate never to have the good things - but if I had never had them would I know that?
Would average intellagence be a boon? Would no drawing talent be a boon? Or am I being egotistical here? - probably.
I am not a polymath - Al probably is but I'm not - I am not a genius at lots of things - oh no - I am mearly good enough I am the jake of all trades master of none - this means I have to work hard to gain my skill but have a little natural talent. This means that focusing on one aspect of life - ie say being career driven is unlikely to happen to me!
At the moment I feel that none of this matters as most of my skills are laying in shreds, I am trying to piece things together again. I have started writting and painting in earnest - the art work was back shelved after GCSE's much to the Art teachers destress (though I have just been going though the GCSE portfolios and it is all quiet frankly poo - I was horrified at the state of most of the work!). The writting - well as most of you have probably gathered I am dyslexic and have a spelling age of an eight year old. However, this is mearly I feel, food for the muse but more on that point later! I did a creative writting course during my A'levels and even before that found English teachers entering my stories and peoms into compatitions like the Royal Mail one where at 13 or how ever old I was I was a runner up - this was way more than I expected! Many peoms have found their ways into anthologies and collections - but this again all wnet on the back burner to do science! To become a geologist!
Now I find myself stuck, even at the early stages of being ill I begain to write once more - of course I have kept a diary most of this time anyway but I mean what I term actual writing!
Of course I am now in the adult areana with no confidence in my own work, not too mention chronic spelling and gramma destroyed by taking note at 90 miles an hr in lectures!
However you are all probably thinking what has this got to do with suffering?
Well the key to poets and creative writers as far as I'm concerned is an ability to put themselves in the place of writting - weather as a characterisation or as an actual place or indeed as a concept! Now this is going to need a certain amount of empathy. Empathy as those that have studied the human condition have sumised is born out of adversity - some truma, some horrendous scarey nasty thing you have gone through and survived. When we were in little clans and villages pre towns and citys there were always coming of age rituals - this is echoed still in our culture today but mostly within religous contexts - countrys with national survice also find that their crime rates are lower as the young men have more empathy with potential victims.
This means that to a certain extent we need suffering, we need something to strive against - however the old clans and tribes had it right - it was scary but generally (not always mind!) not really dangerous ie staying out in the dark on your own all night as epitamised in that childrens story of American Indians (Erm I cant cope with political correctness apologies if I offend). So this means that within our modern society lots of people have low levels of empathy with a few who have really been put through the wringer of life - being over empathic, over sensitive to peoples emotions etc...
I feel this is a bad dipole to have occured but again I dugress from the reason I am actually writting!
Mainly I have been to hell and back and even before that was always on an uphill struggle but this has provided me with a rich colourful world, a wealth of experiences good and bad which I can draw on in a creative way. Add to this the forced slow ness of my life at the moment and it is a creative spawning ground.
I feel the nature of my suffering is to be a spring board for ideas and creativeness.
I am still a scientist mind which is good as I feel it means I analise and prevent myself from being all consumed by the paint or story!
I am also looking for honest peeps to help me with my stories and poems - I want them ripped to shreds, I want them harshly ananlysed. If they suffer this treatment then they might just be a much better peice of work at the end of it.
I tend to write softish scifi (not startrek esk I hope). Warning there does tend to often be an erotic element/at least reference to a sexual relationship in some stories. I occasional write sort of love story things - not really sure genre wise, and sort of I suppose drama? I am clueless and its just so much dross at the moment.
As some of you know I also started on some stuff for kiddies - I've run the one complete story past the intended age range and they liked it but I am still working on the illistrations. Who knows maybe this career disastor may result in getting this aspect of me up and running. I hope I can run things parralelle with each other in the long run.
I cant really post storys on the blog as for some magazines/publishers it counts as electronic publishing and may void the piece from compertitions and or publishing!
Tue 8th Aug 2006 11:13 am 
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By Charlee, Tue 8th Aug 2006 @ 7:35 pm
I'm happy to proof-read anything, but please, if the "relations" are obviously about people I know I'd really rather not 😉