Mistakes

As is human nature, we will sometimes do things that are...well, stupid. We will sometimes make mistakes. Some small, some not so small. Its just one of those things that we go through in life - to learn you've got to do some stupid things. Otherwise how will we know that we have use something like a tea towel to get something out of the oven?

Sometimes, however, we do really stupid things. I have a friend who is a nurse and some of the patients she gets in sometimes amaze me. Some people do things, seemingly not caring about their safety or health. And for the longest time I thought how insane and stupid they were to do such things.

But then I realised. I was one of those stupid people.

Last year, something happened I got extremely angry with myself. So, in my anger, I decided the best way to release it was to punch the wall. Three times. The wall, it was fine. Nothing happened to the wall. My hand, though...my third Metacarpophalangeal joint (otherwise known as my 3rd knuckle) got damaged. It was swollen, bruised and the skin had scraped off which, according to the internet, means it was likely fractured.

I didn't go to the hospital to treat it, despite the fact I was in so much pain I couldn't move my hand. Bad move. I've hit various things (for example, my old chair with a wooden backing) and each time I did that the same thing happened: it got swollen and bruised.

Yesterday I knocked it on my door by accident. And the results were instantaneous  It got swollen and sore. It was only a slight knock. That made me, the idiot, angry with myself of how much I'd damaged my hand over the last year that I hit it again.

I have issues with anger, and also with hitting thing. I've been working on it, and yesterday was the first time I did something like that in almost five months - quite a feat for me.

The point is, sometimes we do very stupid things in life. Some is riding a skateboard with no protection. Others is getting angry and punching the wall several times which has most likely caused irreversible damage to my hand. But its okay. We all make mistakes in life. None of us really know how we're supposed to be living, it's all done through trial and error. And it that's how we learn.

I, for one, have realised that my hand is very much messed up now. And I hope you have all learned in this post that if you want to punch something, punch your bed. Even my doctor told me we all need a release...but just do it on a soft surface (which I will also try to do).

Art and Society - Part 1

“Every child is an artist, the problem is staying an artist when you grow up”

~Pablo Picasso

As you may have realised from the title, this post is dedicated to creativity and art. It's the first one of this topic I have planned (hence the part 1.) I have a bit of a bone to pick with society: what constitutes as ‘art’?

The definition of Art, taken from Dictionary.com, is the quality, production, expression or realm, according to aesthetic principles of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance. And that sounds like a pretty good description, doesn’t it? But the problem is...what defines something as beautiful or aesthetically pleasing?

The problem I find in art is that it’s all up to your own perception. You may think something is beautiful and an amazing piece of artwork while someone else may think it’s ugly and useless. And it can go the opposite way. There are some paintings that I’ve seen that I’ve thought are gross, weird and just plain ugly but they may be some of the most famous paintings in the world. For example, I’m no fan of Salvador Dali. However, he’s well-known and well-liked, so my opinion, it doesn’t really mean much, does it?

So, that’s the problem that I find with art. I may hate it. But another person may love it. So how can society really determine what is a piece of artwork or not?

I started thinking this belief when I was at school. I loved art. It was my favourite subject. I’d go into that classroom every day and be happy...until the parent/teacher interviews. My mother and I were both told by my art teacher...that I had no talent at all. None. My brother, though, apparently did.

Her words crushed me and I stopped doing art. Ended up leaving her class because why should I waste my time there if the teacher thought I was no good? But even after I gave up, and believed her words, I had the one thought in my mind: how can she say I’m not good when her definition of ‘good’ may be different to someone else’s definition?

She can’t, really. I may not have been the best art student at school, but that was when you had to create your work to be complaint with a list they give you. Just because she may have hated what I did didn’t mean everyone else would. In fact, when I went into the other art class (there were two levels, I switched into the simple one) I had one of my artworks, a dream catcher I created, selected and shown at the Regional Art Gallery. So that means I’m good, right?

Well, I was good enough for their panel. I still didn’t get a good mark on it.

Years on, I started to get into art more and more. I started off with drawings of celebrities, such as Jared 

Leto. I used just shades of grey pencil for it, and I thought there were...somewhat decent. And then someone suggested I do a drawing of a building. Now, those can be annoyingly complicated so I had the sudden idea of using just a black pen against a white page, doing the outline and various types of detail marks. I discovered after I did it...that I loved drawing like that.

That was actually only a few months ago. And I realised that not doing art because something a woman once said to me was stupid. I’ve been enjoying what I’ve been doing and I’ve actually had some really positive feedback, even on the pieces I thought would fail and look terrible.

So if you’re out there right now and you want to draw, sculpt, or whatever else...forget about being perfect. Forget about what other people have said to you in the past and toss away the thoughts of how you won’t ever be as good as Picasso. Just...start drawing. Start doing whatever. Ignore the world and just make art.

“If you hear a voice within you say, ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced”

~Vincent Van Gogh

The above is my own drawing. If you wish to check out my other stuff, along with photography and just general stuff from my life, check out my Tumblr - http://scoops-stuff.tumblr.com/

The Thorn Method

She slowly walked up the front path of her prey’s house, unsuspecting to him. While she was a big girl, she’d discovered the art of moving slowly, using the night as a cover. She had become a pro at stalking; it was, after all, her third time doing it.

She moved to the window and crouched below it. She could just see him inside, watching some show on television; it sounded like boxing or something like that. Trust him to be into violence, she thought.

A momentary panic washed over her – what if he knew how to box? That would make her job so much harder, and she wasn’t entirely sure if she’d be able to take him. Then she shook her head. She was bigger than him, and probably stronger, too. She’d trained a lot for what she had to do, and getting worried or nervous wouldn’t help.

 I can take him down, she thought confidently. I have to take him down.

He was completely unaware of the fact someone was outside his window, watching him, but that really didn’t surprise her – after all, he’d been oblivious all those years ago about the fact that his actions would one day come back to haunt him.

And they would haunt him, in a very big way. That’s why she was there.

She looked down. In her hand was a long object that ended in a point. It was the instrument that she intended to use on him. She gently slipped it into her pocket, making sure not to scratch herself with the tip, because it was poison.

She crawled out from underneath the window and went back to the front door. She knocked on it once, and then waited for him to answer it. She almost smiled in anticipation of what she had to do.

It was time for him to pay...

 *

Oh hello, what was that above? Was it...was it the start of a story? Yes. Yes, it was. But what could it possibly be part of? Well, ladies and gentlemen and anything in between, I’m pleased to announce that I, Scoop (Or S. Cooper, however you want to see me) has published a book!

I did it through CreateSpace and Kindle. If anyone out there wants to self publish, go through them. CreateSpace made the process easy and it was actually really rather fun to do. Now you don’t have to check my book out. You don’t have to read it, you don’t have to buy it.

But if you want to support this poor (I am unemployed, after all) self-published author, check it out. If you liked what is above in italics, click the link below. I dare you.

 *

No blood. No fingerprints. No murder weapon. Hardly any trace evidence. It’s a nightmare for Detective Sara Cambull and her team…but they need to find this killer before another gets murdered.

Before one of their own gets killed…

http://www.amazon.com/The-Thorn-Method-ebook/dp/B00F9YWAR8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1381469412&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Thorn+Method

When Websites Become Toxic

As you may be able to tell from the title, this post is dedicated to websites. And not just any old websites, I’m not talking something like 9gag. The most that can happen on a site like that is you spending way too much time online and getting addicted to checking the content. And while that isn’t the healthiest thing in the world to do, it’s a lot better than what can happen on other websites. These other sites I’m referring to are forums and chat systems.

Don’t get me wrong. Not everyone’s experience3 will be like this. Some will go through their life not encountering the toxic side of things. It depends, I think, on your own personal feelings, and also the type of site you’re on. What I’m writing here is from my own personal experience, so it may be…somewhat lacking in the way of positive-ness, if that’s even a word. It doesn’t really look like one…

Okay, let’s talking about forums. For the last year or so, I’ve been on a certain type of site. I’d looked at the content a year before I made the account and I thought it was a great thing to be a part of. I’m not mentioning its name, or the subject it talks about, because I’m not writing this to blow the whistle or incriminate anyone. In fact, if anyone from said site are reading this – hi and don’t worry, I hold no bad feeling to anyone. And I’ll get to why at the end of this.

I’m writing this so that everyone is aware of that can possibly happen. Because, yeah, there is a good side to these sites…a sense of community, talking to likeminded people…but there is a danger and that…that I found out first hand.

So this site I was on. It started off well, really well in fact. I talked to people on the forums and after several weeks I got up the courage to join the chat systems. And that, my readers, is where the trouble began. Most people should know that certain…precautions need to be made when talking to random people all over the world on the internet. I went into the system with these in mind but other things…other things never crossed my mind.

Looking back, it was actually probably my fault that this all happened. I believed what people said and I thought real connections were being made. More importantly, I trust what was being said. I trusted them. And that was my first mistake, because honestly, how can you fully trust someone you talk to through a computer screen only?

In my opinion, which I learned the hard way, you really can’t. You can’t fully trust the word of people you’ve never actually met because…they can lie to you and not feeling bad about it. And I know many will disagree and say I’m overly negative but as I said, this is all my experience.

I won’t go into any details over what happened, but suffice it to say, I figured out that there was some…stuff going on. And once I figured that out, everything else opened up in my mind and I could suddenly see what I was once blind to: I suddenly found myself surrounded by people that lied, that bullied each other this.

I’m writing this so that everyone is aware of that can possibly happen. Because, yeah, there is a good side to these sites…a sense of community, talking to likeminded people…but there is a danger and that…that I found out first hand.

So this site I was on. It started off well, really well in fact. I talked to people on the forums and after several weeks I got up the courage to join the chat systems. And that, my readers, is where the trouble began. Most people should know that certain…precautions need to be made when talking to random people all over the world on the internet. I went into the system with these in mind but other things…other things never crossed my mind.

Looking back, it was actually probably my fault that this all happened. I believed what people said and I thought real connections were being made. More importantly, I trust what was being said. I trusted them. And that was my first mistake, because honestly, how can you fully trust someone you talk to through a computer screen only?

In my opinion, which I learned the hard way, you really can’t. You can’t fully trust the word of people you’ve never actually met because…they can lie to you and not feeling bad about it. And I know many will disagree and say I’m overly negative but as I said, this is all my experience.

I won’t go into any details over what happened, but suffice it to say, I figured out that there was some…stuff going on. And once I figured that out, everything else opened up in my mind and I could suddenly see what I was once blind to: I suddenly found myself surrounded by people that lied, that bullied each other people that seemed to find joy in making others feel uncomfortable…

And then I reached my breaking point. I obtained a…well, perhaps “stalker” isn’t the right word, but someone who actually made me fear for my safety, despite me knowing that this person had absolutely no clue where I lived…much to their dismay.

It took me a while to realise, but I discovered something: my mental health, my emotions, they were going downhill because off all this stuff going on, and sadly, a good friend of mine bore the brunt of those effects.

And that, my friends, is the definition of a toxic website.

Don’t get me wrong. I had some good experiences and I met some awesome people. But one awesome kind new friend doesn’t make up for possible stalker situations. That scared me and I wasn’t going to hang around and wait for it to get worse, awesome people or not – I come first.

I’ve now blocked my access to the site, thanks to an amazing Chrome extension called Stay Focused. I’ve had to use this because, despite all the bad stuff, I was rather addicted to going on that chat system.

So that’s my experience with a toxic website – but what about everyone else out there? The last thing I want is for more people to go through those few weeks of emotional turmoil because of some twit behind a computer screen. So how can we prevent such a thing from happening?

Here are a few tips:

·         Treat everyone with respect, whether they derive it or not

·         Be nice to everyone, whether they deserve it or not

·         Don’t hold grudges. Be scared, be worried, don’t trust them but don’t hate them. There could be something more going on than what you know and just because they treat you bad doesn’t mean you return the favour – be better than them

·         Keep your mind open

·         Take what they say with a grain of salt

·         Remember that some person halfway around the world doesn’t know the “real” you, just an online chat version

·         Don’t fight back; they want a reaction

·         Don’t let anyone make you feel less than a person

·         Remember you’re worth more than what people on the internet treat you, and your self-worth isn’t determined by them

·         Number One Rule – you come first. If you’re uncomfortable, if you’re scared, if you’re worried, speak up or take action. Your health and wellbeing should come first in your mind

As for knowing when a site is becoming toxic….that is for you to decide. But I think if it’s starting to impact on your life in a negative way – worry thoughts, sleepless nights, doubt, etc…it’s time to stay away.

Influences

The picture that you may or may not be able to see above (depending on if I get it to work right) is a drawing that I worked on today. Now it’s been a while since my last post and I do apologise for that, but I wanted to do something really good. And when I got the idea to do this drawing, I also got the idea to write about this.

Now, last night I was terribly bored and didn’t know what to draw. So, I went onto Google and typed in “things to draw” and selected “I’m Feeling Lucky” with a slight nervousness. I didn’t want to get some lewd suggestive thing. What I got, to my delight, was a website full of drawing prompts. I scrolled through them and came across one that struck my interest: a baby smoking. So I did a little thinking and the drawing started to form in my mind. I soon discovered I sucked at drawing babies. My first attempt made it look demonic. However I kept on going and I’m somewhat happy with the results.

Anyway, there’s a message along with this one. Now, as most of everyone will know, there is a lot out there on the Internet, on television, in video games that people shouldn’t be allowed to see until they’re a certain age; that’s why movies are rated, to protect the innocent minds. And there’s nothing wrong with not letting your kids see or play some stuff until they are that age; in fact, I think it’s the right thing to do.

But what I don’t agree with is the whole notion that you’re going to become a violent person, or get into bad habits, or get depressed, or grow up with a negative body image from these television shows, these games, heavy music. Sure, they don’t exactly help, especially not with things like body image. But are they to blame? No. Is the fast food place to blame for getting fat? No. Who is to blame? Us.

Before you get angry and stop reading, hear me out. We complain we’re getting to be an obese country and all that, but who are the ones that are making it that way? Us, the people. Is it the media? Well, if we totally went by the media, I think we all would have stopped eating at McDonalds years ago when Supersize Me came out. I mean, it was enough to make me feel sick. But I’ll admit, I still eat the stuff way more than I should. Why? Because I want it, because I like it. Not because of their ads (in fact, the current one they’re running…I find it to be horridly annoying and always feel like turning the TV off) and I’d still eat the stuff if they raised their prices. And I’m pretty sure that there’s more than just one of me.

As for something like a video game making us violent…no, I don’t believe that. If there are some people that start to act out after playing something like that, then it generally means the urge has always been there and would have come out sooner or later. Some crimes are done for greed, some are done in the heat of the moment and some are done purely because someone thought it would be “fun” to do. This has happened for years and years, long before any game system was even invented. Who can we blame the wars on, if its games and movies making us violent? There is no one to blame because that sort of thing wasn’t out then. It kind of puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?

It’s my belief that yes, while some games, movies, tv shows, songs…the list is endless…can influence us, but it’s never the main cause for it. It’s not the full reason why. Take myself for example – I don’t give a damn about the media, I hate fashion magazines, I don’t care about any slim celebrity…yet I’ve had body image issues for years and years. Who do I blame for that? My mind…and people around me.

We seem to place a lot of blame in these external sources, yet I feel that we’re overlooking one very important thing…we do what we’re taught. As a kid, I was bullied because I was different. That’s why I have body image issues. Not because I saw some ad about how we’ve got to be skinny. An abuser most likely followed the pattern of that from their parents, or their brother, or their uncle, or grandparents…kids are impressionable and will follow along with what they’re taught. You can’t deny that.

We blame a game for kids getting into fights, but do we blame the people that glass each other outside the pubs? Generally not. When we hear a kid swear, do we generally think of, “oh, someone in their family swears”? No, we don’t, we think of what television show they could have heard that from – Family Guy, perhaps?

I believe we need to be more mindful of how we, as humans, behave, than how people are behaving in some game, because we could be the problem. Not some made up content.

Journey of Hills

Last Monday, I went out with a friend of mine. We had lunch and went out for a walk afterwards. I live near a creek and park, so it’s always nice to wander around and just relax. There are two rather steep streets leading to the street which leads to my house. One is closer than the other. On that day, my friend and I took the one a bit further away, because it pretty much was continuous from the path we were already on.

Now, walking up this path brought up a lot of memories. See, it never used to be paved. When I was younger,  it was grass and nothing else. And then one day, we woke up and looked outside to find people working there at the end of the street. The result of that, goodness knows how long later, was that it was a nice, clean, white new pavement. My brother and I were super excited, just because it was something new, something that had changed, because nothing ever changed in my area.

So this brand new path hadn’t been there for long at all when we got a brilliant idea: to get our bikes and ride down it. We only had the one, and that was his. But for some reason, we were able to share it for that activity. We could never share before. But when the path came into it? It was a whole different story.

Over the years of our childhood and teenage years, we would go to the top of this path together. We’d go with our bikes, our scooters and even the skateboard which I bought one day to fit in with the other kids at church. And we’d ride down this steep hill, going at alarming speeds (or alarming for us, as we were young) without even a helmet on for safety. Looking back, we were probably a bit stupid to do that, but neither of us got hurt. In fact, any injuries I got came from riding on a flat surface – figure that one out!

Anyway, so this hill…all my memories came coming back when my friend and I walked up it. She mentioned about how steep it was, and I laughed and told her all about how my brother and I had great fun going down it, trying to be faster and faster each time.

It didn’t hit me what that meant until earlier today, when I was once again walking. I had to go to an appointment, so it was quite necessary to trudge my way up yet another horridly steep hill. And I got to thinking: why put myself through that?

The end result, of course. I needed to get to this appointment; it was with a careers councillor and she was going to help me figure out my future. I needed to get there. So it was worth putting up with heat, and the insanely steep hill, to get there.

And then I got to thinking. See, this hill…when we were kids, we’d go down it. And then my brother and I would get to the bottom, and moan and groan about how we had to not only drag ourselves, but our bike/skateboard/scooter up as well. Did want to do it? No. Was it fun? No. Was it hard? Yes. Especially if it was summer, and it generally was the summertime. It seemed to be the only time my brother and I got on, funnily enough – during the winter we’d fight, but during the summer? We’d go outside and play games. I actually miss those times.

Anyway, back to the point of this entry. Now, going up this hill, back then, last week and today, it was hard work. But what would we do when we were kids? Get excited over how steep it was and go down all over again.

The point to this is that sometimes, we’ve got to go up some huge, horribly steep hill. Sometimes that hill is physical, like it was for me today. Sometimes it’s a mental hill, like trying to climb up out of depression or anxiety. Sometimes it’s illnesses or physical injuries.

And sometimes, we moan and groan about how horrible the journey is, how hard it is, and how we want to just give up. But if you are going up a hill, physically, emotionally or otherwise, just remember: there is generally something good waiting at the top, whether it just relief, a solution or…anything else you’re searching for.

So keep on plodding along. Tough journeys suck but we generally have them for a reason: to obtain knowledge, understanding, good health, happiness, anything.

So just keep on going.

Fathers

If you live in Australia, then you will have known that yesterday, 1st September, was father’s day. In the past, to me, it was just another day. I never got on all too well with my father. I used to think he was annoying and pretty damn stupid. Let me tell you how that started to change.

Last year, the company my dad worked for changed hands and the new owners decided to get new staff. He wasn’t kept on. He got a redundancy package, sure, but that wasn’t enough to sustain us. I didn’t work and neither did my mother. Luckily, a competing company stepped up and put on all staff they could, including my father. We were of course incredibly grateful, but that meant a family of four were living on my father’s twenty-five hours a week wage, my brother’s weekly board (which didn’t count for much considering he ate like a freaking horse) and both me and my mother both on government support.

We were never a rich family but we suddenly had literally no money for the extras. Most of the redundancy package went to fixing the car, buying a new washing machine when ours broke suddenly and just general things we needed. Times were hard. My brother, who’d only just gotten engaged, was saving up to move into a place of his own so he couldn’t help out much.

Times were hard. Instead of being the only one at home, it was either my mum or my dad at home with me at some stage. Sometimes both of them – his hours were only casual and mum…well, she didn’t have a job. She did have a social life, though, unlike me.

That wasn’t where things started to change, that’s just a bit of background. Mid last year I started a course which ran for six months. I was out of the house three days a week, which I found to be brilliant. And then it ended, as all things tend to do. I was supposed to go back this year…but the government rejected the funding thing, and I didn’t have the money myself, so I was left with having no plans for this year.

It wasn’t until recently that things started to change. By some stroke of luck, my mum got a job. Around the same time my dad’s hours of work changed, and he working mostly in the afternoon. I’d wake up each morning to find mum gone and dad pottering around doing…something. Our house isn’t huge so it’s not like I could hide from him. Day by day, he started to become less annoying and a little funnier. We ended up getting into a sort of routine – we’d watch the televised re-runs of Friends before lunch, and then he would get ready to go to work. On Thursdays he’d go get the paper and, if I gave him money, he’d bring back a bottle of Coke and a Snickers bar.

I didn’t realise how enjoyable everything started to be until this past Saturday. We were at the grandparents’ house and, as usual, they were as boring as everything. They ask the same questions over and over. So my father and I started to act like complete and utter idiots together and we had fun.

Sometime during this fun, I had a sudden thought. A friend of mine lost her father around this time last year, and it all of a sudden hit me: what would life be like without my father? The good and the bad…I would put up with it all over again.

I guess the point of this is to honour your parents, and to actually spend time with them. You don’t know when that time will run out. My friend didn’t know. 

So, if you’re living with your parents…go and hug your dad. If you’re not, give him a call. And if, like my friend, your father has passed, then remember them - the good times and the bad.