A Note

Well, I seem to have gotten side-tracked as I haven't written anything on this blog for nearly three years and only wrote one post in the past four years. Hm. I should start this up again and write more posts regularly, but we'll see if that happens. There a few different reasons for me wanting to write this blog. The main reason is that I do like to write and want to keep at least somewhat practiced at it. One of the original reasons was also that I wanted to relay the stories of (mostly) "the crazy days" and it was fun to be able to share them with the people who were involved in these stories. Well, four years later that's not so relevant anymore because as we've moved on with our lives (and are no longer living a period of 'escape') most of them have lost touch with me. A few of the people I was closest to still keep in touch on occasion on Facebook, but that's about it. None-the-less, I was mostly writing it for me not them anyway.

One thing that I do want to note is that though these stories are amusing to me and some of them did get kind of crazy in a fun and reckless sort of way, the reason I'm writing them is not to try to highlight myself or boast or brag about a few fun and crazy times. There's nothing worth bragging about here. It was just fun times during a period where many of us were in transitional periods of our lives and were looking for very entertaining forms of momentary escape. I am writing it because I do want to keep a record of it while much of it is still fresh enough in my memory. I also want to record it because these are real-life stories of events that did happen and I'm thinking that I can use these stories to perhaps combine into works of fiction. I always have enjoyed writing and think sometime I will eventually try my hand at writing some stories or even books that I can try to get published. Some of the characters and events in these stories are quite interesting (to me if nobody else anyway). I think I can take composites of these people and events and combine a few things together/ modify a few things slightly, add some additional creativity and create some decent works of fiction that have a lot of real-life flavor to them. That's one of my plans (or thoughts) anyway.

Another thing that I want to record is the fact that though some of these events were somewhat zany and fun, what I really want to make a note of is why or how these events came about. I don't think any of us were living what we considered our 'actual' lives. We were just (as I've said) escaping and 'acting out'. Living a different world and being different people for a time. Something I believe most people do. Some people's whole lives are that way I suspect. The other thing that I want to note is the whole 'process' of it. From these experiences I went through periods of escape and then through periods of perhaps denial and finally started to understand things more and started to look for ways to get back to being 'me'. I guess I was trying to figure out who 'me' was and through many of these experiences I learned things about life, about other people, and about myself. It opened my perspectives on many things. I learned much from these varied experiences and it shaped me and allowed me to understand and grow in ways that I never otherwise would have. In the end the journey made me a more aware, rounded, and more complete person. I think so anyway. And the journeys and experiences that I continue to live also continue to shape and mold me into who I am. Before my 'life' fell apart everything was stable, 'proper', and financially comfortable. I though I had it all, and I thought I was complete and happy. I wasn't though. It was naive (but quite normal) for me to think so. Varied experiences give you different perspectives. Allow you to consider things in a different light and open your mind and perceptions to different viewpoints. They also expose you to different people, places, and scenarios that allow your perceptions and mind to expand. To grow. I recognize that without a lot of these zany experiences, events, and people I would not be nearly as aware as I am now. In the end I learned and grew from all of this and that is not something that I would have ever initially expected.

One thing I want to record as well is how much things are affected by people's perceptions. I've touched on that in a prior post and will continue to expand on that topic in future writings. Even now as I spend time with a number of people of different ages/ generations I note the huge differences in perceptions as well. I'll talk about all that at other times as well. One thing I will note now however is the fact that as much as I considered myself not living my real life during those crazy times, and in my perspective was not really 'being myself', rather I was just 'acting out', following the lead of the people around me, and acting out the lives that they live for the fun and variety of it. BUT meanwhile, so were they. I assumed that they were living their 'normal' lives and I just followed their lead thinking they 'knew what they were doing'. Most of them (who I haven't even got to yet in my posts) were also 'escaping' and living a 'different' life. Same as me, they just assumed I was the zany person with the zany life and they were following my lead. In the end, we fed off one another and ended up living some crazy fun experiences all the while assuming it was `the other guy` who actually lived this way. When I talk to a few of the more prominent players from those times now and we reminisce they have the perception that I was the `crazy` one that lived a crazy life and they were only following my lead. That`s how I think of them though. Probably none of this crazy fun would have ever occurred if we didn't believe that the `other guy` was the one that lived that way and `knew what he was doing`. In reality it was the blind leading the blind and we were all just making it up as we went along. Too funny.