Resurrection

Resurrection - Neil McBride

Five years. That's how long it has been since my last blog post. Writer's block? Apathy? Life getting in the way? Who knows. Maybe just a combination of everything that makes us put off today what can be done tomorrow...or the next day...or whenever.

With this blog resurrection, I will be shifting a bit in my writing focus. As this is not attached to my artist website, I will be moving in the direction of describing my own creative process, sharing photos and the stories behind them, introducing you to my inspirations and muses, and offering up for your pleasure some of my writing.

I hope you will enjoy some of what follows and get a glimpse into who I am and what motivates me.

Was it all just a F.A.D.?

For a time, I was prolific; a condition that all too often crossed the threshold into sporadic. Now, as evidenced by my absence for months at a time, I have fallen into the ennui-bound realm of nearly non-existent.

Such has been the life cycle of this blog.

At the urging of a friend, I began my observances of life on the now defunct Yahoo!360 as a way to meet people via a medium that afforded itself greater latitude for personal expression. Many of those connections have stayed with me to this more traditional blogging incarnation and the social web of entrapment that is Facebook. They have read my rants with understanding; laughed at my stepping into the horsepiles of absurdity; relished my intelligent discourse on issues of the day (Ok, that was a bit self-indulgent…so sue me).

At the onset, blogging proved itself to be a catalyst for freshening my mind's eye, keeping perspective fresh and new ideas flowing. It spurred action on my long-ago-shelved novel. Dormant characters once again found their voices. My fingers tapped them into renewed and re-energized existence, only to find them tossed aside when faced with distraction.

On Facebook, I found the quest for pithy and obtuse status updates became more important than the emotions and conversations churning inside of me. Now, on a daily basis, I find myself lost in a sea of "friends"—those newly found and those I've re-connected with from the distant past—who more often than not know as little about the "real" me as I do about them. I find myself longing for more and yet powerless to change this reality. It is as if social networking has alchemized into my own personal Kryptonite, sapping the life right out of me.

The inability to scrape beneath the surface has left me bereft. Words barely seep through the sieve of apathy. It feels like I have abandoned my voice. Sent it packing on a cruise through the Parse-ifal Sea, where Word Sharks and Grammarcudas circle in for the kill, attracted to the scent of indifference.

It makes me wonder if the voices that have been screaming for so long to rise up like a revolutionary mob have been nothing more than a F.A.D. (Fraudulent Authorial Dream)? Only time will tell.

Explorations

Slowly, this page is coming together. I peel back the layers and find features that surprise and excite. I enhance. I delve. I copy and paste from previously created pages. It is a work in progress.

I sit on the sofa--Big Bang Theory playing on the TV (the perfect compliment to the ultimate in geeky computer guy activities)--laptop humming through multiple processes. Thom sits beside me, working on his own template for blogging merriment.

Occasionally, one or the other will peep with gleeful wonder...."Look what I found!" Or, glancing across the expanse, one might exclaim..."How'd you get that?"

We live such an exciting life!

Along for the Ride

Life seems to continually present us with challenges: high & lows affect our moods, hairpin turns jolt us in too many directions. The rollercoaster ride keeps pace from birth to death, even to the point of defying gravity and the laws of the universe.

Some of us laugh, some of us cry, some of us scream, and some of us will ride silently (paralyzed by either fear or excitement). Some throw caution to the wind--arms flung high in the air--while more hold on tight until the ride is over.

New job; loss of job. Marriage; divorce; dating; break up. Birth. Death.

Transitions; illuminations; metamorpheses; epiphanies.

How to survive? How to thrive?

Beats the hell out of me...

I'm just here for the ride.

I come to this venue from Yahoo 360: a place where I made some good friends, met my life partner, and unleashed my voice on the world of blogs. My energies for that social networking site have dwindled and ebbed. It is time to move in this new direction.

It is my hope that 360 friends will continue to follow my exploits on this page, as I will continue to follow theirs wherever they may be (if possible).

For now, I welcome readers (new & old) who choose to step inside this rollercoaster.
Dave