A long long time ago, I was an ignorant fool. I thought I knew everything there was to know, and that everyone else was an incompetant, idiotic imbicile who could hardly be trusted to breathe properly. I didn't care what they thought, or bother to understand why they thought that way, all I knew was that I hated them for being stupid.
There was a problem in all that though. My world would have been perfect, blissful harmony if not for one little thing... Those stupid idiots I hated were always right! No matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried to prove otherwise, it seemed like I was always wrong and they were always right... My parents, my doctors, my teachers, even my classmates... No matter what it was about, no matter who it was, whatever they said, whatever told me was how the world inevitably worked out to be.... It never did what I said, never what I wanted.... No matter how much sense my argument made to me, it always took the other side... the "wrong" side.
I spent many years screaming at adults, defying their rulings, sabatoging their works, trying to make the world work the way I thought it was supposed to work.... But every time I tried, it seemed like the world would counter back. Every little success I had in proving some trivial little point was overwhelmed by the consequenses of the bigger picture of life.
I got discouraged and frustraited, which made me angry, which made me more defiant, which led to even bigger mistakes and worse consequenses, which made me more afraid of others, more angry, more resentful... It spiraled upward on and on, until I was at war with the whole universe. It finally reached a point where it couldn't go on anymore, and that rightious certainty I had about how the world was stupid and wrong snapped like a twig, and my whole life changed....
In one gloriously painful moment, I realized I was the one who was wrong.
Everything I knew, everything I was, fell apart. I started to question, started to wonder how and why they were so different from me, and how against all my best efforts, against all the odds, they were right in being different.
I didn't realise it then, but I had just broken out of my first mental box, and broken through the limitations of my ways of thinking for the first time. From that moment on, I drew up a new constitution for myself, a new set of rules and morals to live by. I set out to explore the differences we have as a people, to understand and learn about how it's possible for people to have two completely different points of view in an arguement, and still both be correct. I set out to understand what it's like to be a different person than who I am, to feel and think and see through the mind of another.
All of this happened well over a decade ago, and since that time I've reached out with my senses - with my creativity, and most of all, my curiosity - to explore the world for what it is. Each time I break through the barriors of my preconcieved delusions, it's like breaking out of another box that I was trapped inside of. And each time it happens, I remember it. I have countless memories stored away, thousands of experiances and emotions buried away inside, memories from even way back when I was an infant or a toddler. I've seen the changes that have occured in me, I know what it's like to have the viewpoints and opinions of any one of a thousand different people. Heck, I've even learned how to justify ANYTHING, and believe in it sincerely.
The one thing I've never been able to do so far, is document it all. I've never been able to describe what it's really like, never been able to express the exhilerating madness of steping outside of your own boundries to take on the perception of somebody else. Nor have I ever been able to write down what that perseption is, what it means, what it stands for. Frankly, I don't know if I ever will get around to documenting it... but I'd like to try to, if I can ever find a reason to do so.
The one other thing I haven't been able to do for a long time now, is engage in these feelings, memories and perceptions.... until now. For the past three years I have been on strong enough doses of medication to keep it all buried deep away, out of reach. It was necissary for my survival.... But now, as things are starting to change and I'm breaking out of my long term isolation, I find myeslf immersed in an incredible array of feelings and senses, and I've only just begun to explore them all over again...
Finally I have the key to open the basement vault, where I find all these treasures stashed away in boxes, waiting to be broken out...
Amoung these treasures are creative ideas, novel notions, and little fragments of inspiration I hope to share as I find them along the way. Poised in questions and riddles are som surprising answers I think you might enjoy discovering for yourself. As I go along, and hopefully get a handle on all this, and work it into a managable reference, I'll start posting ideas and food for thought for you to nibble on as you contemplate your own projects. At least... that's what I'm hoping for right now.... It still remains to be seen what kind of outlandishly mad creature I come out of from this transition... I hope this will at least be an active part of it!
Sincerely,
-Ronwe
