Head in the Clouds?

I've wanted to be a writer since e'er I remember. It's been a dream of mine which I've longed to turn into a reality. It has always sounded to me like fascinating work, living off my creative juices and filling the world with my ideas and inspiration.

But whenever I told someone about what I wanted to do I always seemed to get the same reaction - a dubious look on the listener's face and a wash of comments like "That's nice, but what about doing something serious with which you can eke out a career" or "Head in the clouds again? You know that it's a tough field, millions of challengers, and your chances of success are very small."

For many years I allowed myself to be swayed by these opinions and forced myself to settle down, get a "normal" job, and forgo my dreams. I lived this life for quite a few years and was even very successful at it.

But one morning I was lying in bed and I took a look at my life. I had it all: security, friends, food and shelter, and a job where what I did mattered to people. I had it all - so why wasn't I happy? Wasn't this what I'd worked so long to achieve? Wasn't this the life I was told to expect, the life I had strived to create? Wasn't this the promised land?

It then dawned of me that my peers had been right about one thing: I did have my head in the clouds. But I've had my feet firmly embedded in the bedrock of the promised land. What this meant was that I was hopelessly stretched like a man on the rack, and in the same type of agony. I had gained the customary wealth of a bourgeois society, but lost the light from the treasure of my dreams - and only because I had been too afraid to lift my feet from the stability of the ground and allow myself to fly.

I believe that there's nothing wrong with having your head in the clouds. This only becomes a problem if you have yourself deeply entrenched - irrevocably rooted - in the ground. If you want to aspire to more than the mundane, everyday man, you need to be able to uproot yourself and let your feet leave the ground so that you can soar through the sky of the clouds.

There will always be people who will warn you of the dangers of flight. There will always be those who try to keep you grounded. But if your head is "in the clouds" - and you like it there - then be willing to join it up in the stratosphere. Know the dangers but don't be ruled by them. Take a risk. And fly...

Life's a Beach

I love going to the beach, don't you? I thought I'd make a few comparisons between beaches in the UK and in the US.

Coming from a land-locked country I had only ever seen beaches on TV. And the ones they generally show are the fantastic white sand beaches of the tropics. Can you imagine my disappointment when I arrived at Brighton Beach?

Have a look at this picture. Here we have the world-famous Brighton Beach, along with the equally renowned old pier in the background. It is, I'll admit, quite a breath-taking scene, the way the pebbles slop down gently into the ocean, the soothing sound of the waves softly stroking the coastline. You even find an occasional fruitcake surfer who has decided to brave the icy grip of the North Sea.

Drive a few minutes down the coast and you are rewarded with a view the like of which you'll never witness anywhere else. Here I'm talking about the majestic cliffs of Beachy Head. Looking out from these you are immediately caught up in the splendor that is England. Where else can you get scenic pictures like these:



I found that my disappointment soon turned to wonder at the opportunities with which I was faced here. Sure, I wasn't going to be able to go swimming in the sea (unless I wanted to turn into a meat popsicle), nor would I be doing much sun-bathing. But there were so many other - new - things to do. Things I hadn't even imagined doing at the beach.

On the other side of the coin, I recently had the chance to live on the far side of the Atlantic, in Florida, for a while. Here you have a completely different view of things. Take a walk on a beach on the Gulf Coast and you have the classic white sand beach, complete with tonnes of tourists, weird and wonderful umbrellas, and countless other odd and ends customarily associated with beach life.

This is where you go if you want the hot sun, the cool waters and the genuine "summer holiday" feel of the beach. It's what you would expect of any tropical getaway, replete with all the warmth so typically absent in an British resort. I also thoroughly enjoyed myself here.

So, are they really that different?

It is my opinion that the thing that makes them different is solely viewpoint.

What I mean by that is this: if you are going out to the beach and have determined to have a good time no matter what, and if you are of the frame of mind that you will not be disappointed, come what may; then it doesn't matter where you go, or what you do. All the fun and enjoyment that you have in your life comes from within you.

Look back at your own life. Haven't there been things that made you mad or sad, and when you look back on them you can only laugh? Haven't there been times when something happened and you reacted, and other times when the same thing elicited a different response?

Well, what was the difference?

Our lives are filled by many varied and sometimes difficult situations. What really matters in the end is how you view them and what you let yourself think about them.

Well, that's my opinion, for what it's worth.

What's new Today?

Okay. Now to get down to updating the Big Blogger diary.

Today's been kinda interesting. As you can see I've made a few modifications to this blog-page. I added the menu on the right so that you can easily access the articles you are looking for. I'll have to add another button for photos as I've now empowered myself by learning how to upload photos. Yay! So I'll soon be adding a section for "Picures and Thoughts". It'll have random pictures I've taken and my opinions and ideas on them. Look out for that.

The "AcerJay Diary" button will give you just the diary entries on the blog. Use this if you want to catch up on what I've been up to recently. The "Poetry Selection" button will have, as it suggests, a random selection of poetry.

The "Work" button will be for more serious articles that I write. These will be things that have some actual meaning and scope - more than just my daily musings.

If you have any suggestions for me on what you would like to see on this blog just drop me a note in the CBox on the right. I'd love to hear from you.

Anyway, enough about the blog.

To the diary: Today saw me enduring the unpredictable English weather. I awoke at 9am but only got up at 9:30. I have to admit that I'm enjoying not having to follow a set schedule of when to go to bed and when to get up - especially the getting up part. Then I stepped out briefly to run some errands. The sky was gloriously clear and there wasn't even the faintest hint of chill in the air.

After ambling down the road for a few minutes I noticed a dark shaddow looming over me. After a bit of inner reflection as to whether the shaddow was just my mood, the light pitter-patter of raindrops brought me from my machinations and gently reminded me that there is nothing as fickle as English weather.

So, After completing my errands, about an hour later, I managed to get back home, completely soaked to the bone. I'd love to have a picture of the event to show you but I was in no mood to start breaking out the camera to get a shot of myself looking like a drowned rat.

A warn cup of coffee soon had my spirits back up and I sat down to work a bit on my book. It's coming along quite nicely. One day I'll put an excerpt from it on this blog - just to give you a taste of it.

The book will eventually, after copious amounts of blood, sweat and tears have flown from me, be a work of speculative fiction - Fantasy. So, if you're into that kind of stuff stay tuned.

Norse Mythology - and life...

I thought I would start off the day today by adding a few spice-ups to this blog. That shouldn't really be too difficult. Following that I was to do a bit of research and then get down to the business of writing Chapter 3 of my book.

So, I logged on and got to work. And in the end what really got done today?

To be honest, not that much.

Did I do a lot of creation on my writing? No.
Did I get a lot of research done? No.

So what did I do? Where did all those hours in the day go?

The truth of that is that I spent a large amount of time trying to get my head around the subject of Blogging. For those of you who are relative newbies in this field I think that you will be able to appreciate my frustration.
Let it never be said that I am web-wise, for I'm most certainly not. In fact only yesterday I was very proud of myself for learning how to download videos for my iPod!

Pathetic, isn't it?

Well, the one good thing that happened was that, in researching my story, I needed to look up a number of websites having to do with Norse Mythology.
While I didn't find anything that I was looking for I did find the following site.

This guy's an artist of note. Here are some samples of pictures on his site. Aren't they absolutely gorgeous?!

Site address: http://www.howarddavidjohnson.com

Anyway, there you have it. No actual work done, but I'm happy I had the chance to view these pictures.

What do you think?