Carry me away
Let me float
or don’t let me down gently

Thoughts
Watching them go by
Wondering how to rejoin

Just you

and I

and us

and them

lost together.

Walking a forever staircase
Happiness sits far away

Forwards to the other side?
A bit like my mind

Lately
Everything is flat
No textures to touch
Tastes are bland
Breaths are disappointing
Colours or none
Instead of scratches and prickles
I want things to stab
And shatter

Click on the cover to view the book… and click your way through the pages.

The little book tool is pretty simple and if for any reason you can’t view it, let me know. It isn’t suitable for small screens at the moment, but any smaller and it would not be readable anyway. It’s difficult to effectively show a book online.

The physical version is 12 x 12 inches, hard cover and 52 pages.

An illegible message carved into the sand: perhaps the name of a stranger; the symbols for peace; for love. The sand’s texture is thick, grainy, inconsistent. Not the kind associated with pure, white, clear-watered beaches. Its colour is a dark brown. The same shade in clothing might be called chocolate or coffee. But here it reminds of dirt, mud, filth, shit. Yet it’s teeming with life; with more beauty than could ever be found on a white holiday-friendly beach.

I watch an ibis go about its business. I remember a time when I thought they were ugly. I thought they were a pest sifting through bins. It was the religion with which I was brought up that lead me to believe a bird was inferior. That humans were the centre of the universe and animals were simply put here for us to make use of. But I now know that I am not above such a creature. As long as I had that mindset I was far inferior.

So I see ibis walking along concrete and digging through bins. I wonder if there used to be a tree in the bin’s place. Did the bird nest there? Feed there?

I wonder if while we were evolving into a more "civilised" being, maybe the ibis stayed much the same. It had no need for anything more. Surely the greatest influence in its evolutionary history is happening right now thanks to mankind…or not so kind. To reach our place at the top of the food chain I doubt much kindness was responsible.

Often when I’m lying down hoping to get to sleep, it occurs to me I’m not breathing in much air. My nose doesn’t seem to be allowing in enough oxygen.

I try to take in deeper breaths but I need to exhale before I’ve finished inhaling. I begin to panic. I have to sit up and try to relax. This can only happen when I stop thinking about it.

Eventually I calm and lay back down, hoping it doesn’t happen again. But hoping means I’m thinking about it.

Sometimes this exhaustive cycle is what eventually gets me to sleep.

Every time I read about somebody with depression, they say how if it was not for their partner/their kids/their friends/their pet, they would not have made it this far.

I wonder what I have. I do have things. I have people. I have a pet. But nothing makes me feel like everything will be alright. This makes me wonder if I do have something.

So what of those who don’t have anything to keep them from sinking? We don’t get to hear about them? Did they not make it this far?

Something different.
Something unusual.
Something new.
Something a little less ordinary.
Something strange.
Something to heighten the senses.
Something to whet the appetite.
Something to shake up the bloodstream.
Something to brighten the mood.
Something for a moment.
Something while it lasts.
Something worth remembering.

When the skies open up and the power overcomes, my heart beats rapidly. It’s a chance to witness something above our species. A force we cannot tame.

I always get an urge to stop the car when I see roadkill. Sometimes to move the animal to save it from endless tyres. But often I don’t really know why.

Society today seems to shield us from being face to face with death, yet we’re exposed to so much more from a distance.

When I walk back from my car towards the animal, I don’t feel sad. Sometimes there is a fear that I’ll see something hard to look at, but generally I just curiously want to sit beside reality.

I don’t worry about small things. The superficiality of everyday modern living becomes insignificant. Something usually ignored seems more important. It holds more purpose than our petty concerns.

To society common, I’m seen as strange for prefering this to going home to watch CSI on television. But the more I think about it, the other way around just seems strange. I suppose the difference is that I am thinking, whereas the alternative is an exercise in preventing thought.

My only motivation to write is to interrupt the pure, blankness of the page. It’s a struggle to bring myself to the task. A task… That must be why I fight it.

During those several weeks I never saw it as a task. To pick up a pen and paper was a relief. It was a way to catch the overflow; a way to stop the drain.

Sometimes I try to draw comparisons with the ringing noises. Crickets? Cicadas? Screams? It’s not an easy thing to do. Rehearsing in my head… for my head… using memories from my head… while my head screams at me. It feels like I need to reach beyond consciousness. But it’s hard to focus. And it’s hard to think about focusing.

Until… reboot. I can’t remember what I was thinking. I can’t think of what I’m trying to remember. Yet I can see it falling away. But it’s dark. Well it’s not even physical. There is nothing to see. Though I keep trying, and every grasp to hang on further shakes the foundations. Sometimes the tremor plateaus. Sometimes the plateau breaks apart.

Personification has always been somewhat of a fascination for me. The human brain operates by relating information to a database. It makes sense that in trying to understand the world around us we draw comparisons with what we know about ourselves.

This process involves projecting human characteristics onto animals and inanimate objects. It is also possible to suggest that we apply familiar notions of the self to other people. This perhaps does not satisfy the definition of personification. The term ”selfification” may be more appropriate.

Although the photograph is a very recent invention, it has already cemented itself into our familiarity as an object and as a concept. Its ability to capture the moment is unrivalled and this is particularly true in the case of the person as the subject.

It is my argument that through its close relationship with portraiture, the photograph itself prompts an unconscious tendency for us to project a personification (or indeed selfification) onto the subject of the image.

I hope to draw attention to this behaviour such that people might become more aware of how their mind perceives a photograph, an inanimate object or another person.

What does it mean for us to compare almost everything to ourselves? Are we hoping to better understand the other for the sake of this other, or so we can be content in understanding for ourselves?

Tunnels seem to personify unhappiness.

I think I know her. In a city of two million, I wonder if that’s coincidental, or if those of a similar mould tend to seek out the same places for the same reasons.

I’m sure it saddens many how the more people there are the less they seem to communicate. It’s a nice feeling driving down a country road and an old man waves to you. Not because he thinks he might know you, but because there aren’t many people out that way and he is being friendly. Or maybe it’s loneliness. Or I sometimes wonder if it’s just easier to make the effort less frequently.

I walked around the city for a few hours and nobody spoke to me. But I never opened my mouth either. I often feel invisible, so I try to embrace it and become that fly on the wall, except hidden out in the open, amongst the masses.

I always thought I could never be one of those people who go to the cinema alone. The fact everyone else was with somebody would just upset me. Yet when I see others alone in there, I envy them and realise it’s not so bad.

I remember going to a concert on my own. It wasn’t easy for me. But there were lyrics the artist sung which had given me so much strength, so much wisdom…I had to go. Even if I didn’t know of anyone to take.

I stood with little wriggle space on the floor beneath the stage. Row upon row of disorder, I felt the hot, sweaty, smelly, hairy bodies of those around me.

We all shared in the wait for the show to begin. Most seemed to fill in the time with interaction…with talking…with yelling. I don’t like yelling. I’ve had an automatic reaction to it for as long as I can remember.

Music was playing during the interval, as if it were needed to fill a silence. No silence seemed possible with so many people. Each yelled – almost screamed – at one another…at a volume common to aggressive confrontations. I don’t like confrontation. Yet they were all friends. And the yelling was all part of friendly conversation.

At this moment of assessment, and of contemplation, something changed. Amongst the anxiety of the awful din, I discovered a silence. It was as if I’d reached a sort of enlightenment, like the Buddha in a rock garden.

I recall a lonely bushwalk along which I experienced an aural sensation of comparable intensity. A number of cicada bellowed a chorus from the trees. Not at once but incrementally at intervals seemless to the human ear. It was as if the defeaning noise triggered a safety switch in my head, shutting off my hearing ability altogether.

The same thing seemed to happen at the concert, except I’d simply switched focus. Listening became unnecessary. I had found peace in the chaos.

I stood a head above everyone, periscoped above the sea of sweat-coated bodies. As I looked around I couldn’t find anybody taller than my shoulder. Like an isolated obelisk my skin should have been itching with discomfort.

Yet I strangely felt the opposite. When swallowed up by such a crowd, the beating hearts of those around feel reassuring. Much like how the sound of rain is meditative, whereas a dripping tap is unnerving.

In the bustle of big city life, I often seek out others who seem to be escaping through invisibility. I usually just look at them and wonder what they are thinking, what we have in common. In a sense I’m looking for someone I can use as a mirror. I am not, however, only interested in exploring myself. The only person we know with some surety is ourself, and therefore, we must look to ourselves in order to understand others.

So I wonder again if I know her. In the sense that I wonder if I have met her, I am still uncertain. But in the true sense of knowing, I think I do…at least as well as I know myself.

Loneliness may inspire poetry. Isolation may be a good time to write poetry. But there’s nothing poetic about the feeling of being alone.

My image was used on the cover of a book entitled I Made You to Find Me by Jane Hedley.

When the designer asked to use my image for a book on poetry, I wondered if they’d really comprehended my title and accompanying text. I realised the words “poetry” and “typewriter” brought them to my image. I just felt that my title did not exactly paint ponies for poetry.

I decided that it probably made no difference to them. I have always insisted my work should be read for the individual and that there is no correct method of interpretation. However, I have a volatile memory and forget to be myself at times. So I was eventually content knowing everybody would see it from a different perspective and no title could change that.

Much, much later on I received a package in the mail from Ohio, USA. I sat down and scratched my head for a little while wondering what it might be. I could have just torn it open, but for some reason we peculiar beings take a moment, don’t we?

When I found myself staring into a photograph I had captured (one which I’d never actually printed), I finally allowed myself to see it as an object and an idea. Not only had I not been open to ideas outside my own selfish thoughts, but I had never really comprehended my own title.

No sooner than I had set eyes upon the contents of the package, I realised the very nature of the author’s work, I Made You to Find Me, illustrated the connection to my image.

Can they live in harmony? If you answered “yes”, you’re probably an extravert. If you’re an introvert you probably didn’t answer at all so as to avoid an argument with the extraverts. Everyone has a general idea of the difference between the two, but does either one understand it better than the other?

Generally speaking those who are introverted prefer to keep their problems to themselves. Even if the problem is significant and even if telling someone else might make it much easier with which to deal, they usually choose to handle it alone. Extraverts, on the other hand, opt for announcing even their minor problems to just about everyone they know. We seem to coexist, so does it matter if extraverts get all the attention? Don’t introverts prefer to keep to themselves anyway?

A few issues arise. If extraversion is about craving the attention of others, then if voicing one’s problems results in attention, comfort, sympathy and affirmation, is it not reasonable to suggest this encourages the sharing of problems (no matter how minor) and even encourages some people to create problems for themselves?

Introverts aren’t all innocent. Often extraverts assume introverts have it easy as they never complain and never seem to be stressed or have problems with which to deal. This is at least partly the fault of those keeping everything to themselves. Hiding the truth and always putting on a relaxed, happy face projects such an appearance. Introverts tend to indicate the truth with various subtleties, but extraverts need them to be a bit more obvious. It’s a bit like a stereotypical man trying to decipher the mannerisms of a stereotypical woman, or vice versa.

The problem comes down to the fact that introverts behave …well …introvertedly. They’d prefer to avoid any confrontation and move on. Whereas extraverts act like they’re supposed to and, unless it whacks them in the face, just keep worrying about themselves.

Are we all really completely and definitely one or the other? Definitely not. Just as with something like sexuality, nobody is 100% one or the other. I suppose it is just easier to identify with one party rather than claim to be 90% introverted and 10% extraverted.

It’s human nature that most of us tend to choose a side. Like with a political party. You’re kidding yourself if you truly support one party unconditionally and agree with everything they stand for, yet at the same time disagree with everything the rival party stands for. The party names don’t even make sense. Aren’t they all Liberal Democratic Republicans? But that’s a discussion for another day.

Getting back to the topic at hand. It’s simply more interesting than if we were all omniverts. In fact, the world would probably be a boring place. Either that or the opposite would reign and we’d all be crazy freaks. Hmm…maybe it would be no different after all?

If you made it this far, you may be curious as to what prompted this rant? Well let’s say Jack and Jill (the genders don”t matter) were doing what they do every day and fetching a pail of water. On the way up the hill Jill kicks her toe, but realises she has to keep going so doesn’t say anything to Jack. Shortly after, Jill gets stung by a bee. Rather than bother making a fuss, she rubs it and keeps going. Jill feels like nothing ever goes her way, but prefers to keep this to herself as she feels Jack would not understand.

On the way back down after discussing why they didn’t bring two pails and save another trip, Jack pinches his finger on the old wooden pail while taking his turn to carry. Jack spends the rest of the walk down the hill complaining about it. He claims it’s going to hurt for days and lets out loud moans when it aches. Rather than tell Jack about her earlier injuries, Jill keeps quiet and insists on taking a look at Jack’s finger, and carrying the pail for him so he’ll stop complaining.

A silly story, but one that occurs every day in reality in one form or another.

So which one is this author, you might ask? An introvert or an extravert? Well if it wasn’t already obvious from the unescapable bias, think about this: would an extravert really notice so much about introverts?

I sit in front of my camera in 1000 pieces. I use tweezers to ever so carefully place the tenth and final aperture blade in place on top of the previous blade and underneath the first blades. They sit above another plate, which covers five more delicate shutter blades. It’s difficult to line up the blade to sit in the hole, so there usually requires some light prodding to lock it in. This final one is no different. It’s so close to dropping into the slot, but each push seems to narrowly miss.

Keeping my nerve I persist like with all the others. But this time it’s all pointless. The aperture and shutter blades are made to interconnect so that they move as one. So now that I’ve reached the final one, a small bump the wrong way, like I’ve done many times before, is much more crucial.

At that moment… all ten of them come out at once. I know after chipping away at it for so long, after having figured it all out without any reference or help, that if the first one moves, the second one prevents easily pushing it back in to place. And so on. Therefore with all of them out, I know it’s a redo.

I’ve always reacted calmly to these sorts of situations. I just swallow it down and press on. What good would dwelling on it do? Everyone always says I don’t have a care in the world; that I’m always stress-free. I’ll just take a deep breath, a quick break and start over. Well that all sounds logical, but as much as I hate to disappoint everyone, I have many cares in the world. I am far from stress-free. I react to disappointments with sadness and anger. It is simply that I prefer to keep my emotions in check rather than make a fool out of myself like almost every person who tells me that I’m stress-free. So how did I react? Let’s just say there’s a dent beside the existing hole in my wall.

Oh well this is just a particularly frustrating case. I can forget about it and do something else. That’s what one voice in my head tells me anyway. Unfortunately I don’t have much influence on ensuring the positive voices prevail in my head. As much as I’ve tried, I don’t believe myself. The most common advice people give is to “think positive”. To me that would be like believing everything in the Bible, or believing everything I hear during Parliament Question Time. How on earth am I meant to fool myself?

I try to base my beliefs on evidence and facts. It is certainly the most logical way. Sometimes I think maybe I need brainwashing to be happy, because day after day I present myself with evidence in the hope of looking forward to a brighter future. But evidence suggests every year is getting worse than the previous.

I begun writing this with the story about trying to fix my camera for two reasons: 1. It had only just happened and I wanted to get it out of my system…and hopefully find a way to deal with it. 2. It felt awfully familiar. I’m at a point in my life where it feels like I’ve climbed every ladder once again, but instead of being on the home stretch, that biggest snake at the top row of the board is looking more and more frightening, and it feels more and more possible that I”ll fall back down to the bottom. Not only that, it’s as if every time I play the game there are more snakes, and the ladders are even missing a few rungs.

Thankfully the year is almost over. But I have grave fears for the new one.

“I Need Someone To Walk Me Home” is a line from “Storms and Fevers” by The Grates. The song has helped me more than any one or thing this year.