Chapter II: Foreword

This was first posted on Instagram in March 2019 and the original idea was to complete all texts and post them to Instragram before sum them all together here as done with the first chapter. However, since the texts often goes against the good advice you will read about below and go well past the allowed amount of characters on Instagram I have no other option than to dive into the blogosphere with their full versions earlier than expected. I thought I could find a way around it but it would involve either editing out a lot of the texts on occassions or breaking the pattern of completing one segment withing the 3 x 2200 characters available. And I kind of liked the three piece format so this is my compromise.

My two cents is a bargain

I recently received some good advice from a dear friend, or perhaps he unknowingly reminded me of something I had already been told many times before and often thought of myself. The first thing was that I should write more and the second was that I should get to the point quicker. A seemingly contradicting request in a way since there wouldn’t be much need to write more if I could get to the point immediately. I can talk and am happy to give you my two cents on a subject but I often feel like the backstory and the fringes that might wander off track at times are important for the context and if not included leaves whatever conclusion I may end up at flavorless and empty. Admittedly the punchline rarely weighs in heavy enough to require the eloquent support of the maze-like structure that I build to support it but I like to see it like a journey where a series of perceptions together pave the path to a shrine, if ever such a small one, of clear insight. Clarity is a process and I have always been more interested in the art of how a stone is cut and polished than the shimmer of the diamond itself. It makes me appreciate its shimmer even more. So with that in mind, if I feel I have something that is worth sharing I also want to include the story of how this has come to happen, perhaps not always in the most straight forward and simple manner but what fun is it without a few red herrings and some self interpreted poetic deductions that makes your own mind spin a bit on the way as well? 

Another thing to take into consideration is that I might have absolutely no idea of where the story is going. To me, the dialogue is an investigative process, a tool in itself, like a sieve that helps to clear the dust from the lumps of rock pique my interest. It is through the bouncing of ideas in a conversations that I most often find lumps that look interesting enough to hold onto. I take stock of these rough rocks with the intention to, at some point, clean, cut, carve and polish them. Perhaps this is in one sense a hoarding of ideas that with time has left me with a collection of dusty lumps that I see some potential in. When the tools are available and sharpened, or in other words when I am inspired enough, I begin to cut and carve to find out what there is in inside. Far from all conceal a diamond and even fewer reach the phase of polishing as my attention often fades when I am able to visualize and sense the shimmer it would produce.  Granted, a visualized shimmer is not much more than speculation but again, the rough cut and the process to find out what could be is more stimulating for me and with all those other lumps collecting dust on the shelf I rarely finish the thought before starting a new one. The cut and carved pebbles of potential land in my pocket to be polished later and over the years they have started to add a fair bit of weight to my mind. As a hoarder of thoughts this has felt normal, to walk around with pockets full of question marks and ponders. But to remain a sense of sanity, to not be weighed down too heavy and to make room for new ideas from time to time it is necessary to get around to polishing these ideas and see if they actually shine in the way that I believed they would. If they don’t I at least I know and that gives me the freedom to toss them and if they do I can place them where they belong, in their own little shrine on top of a maze-like path where they can cast their prism of clarity. Right now, is a good time to start polishing. 

So that is what this is, chapter II of relentless ranting. If conversations are the sieving process then the writing is the polishing, where the pebbles and kernels from conversations that were caught in the sieve make their first public appearance as a somewhat polished piece of mind. It is one thing to do this in notes and journals and another thing to present an idea to the rest of the world. However, by doing it via a self published social media channel (originally posted to Instagram) that is about as ephemeral as the pause between breaths is a good place to start. A temporary showroom that many probably visit as an excuse to procrastinate their pursuit of actual truth will have to do for now, even if it is a bit like cataloging a collection of poetry in the comics department it is still the closest I can get to archive my thoughts in some kind of public library. Very likely to be ignored and scrolled by but maybe for you who chose to give your time to read further it could hopefully be a morsel that fuels the thought and inspires you to close this tab and actually get to work, not with your emails and daily tasks but with your own dusty lumps that definitely deserves a bit of investigation. 

My friend with the kind suggestions to write more and cut to the chase also suggested that I’d leave myself out of it, I guess to not make the texts too self reflective and a bit more accessible to anyone, even those who are more interested in themselves than in me as a person. As great advice as this is I still felt like starting this chapter with the above discourse to provide a setting for the following passages. Perhaps consider it a disclosure statement, a reminder to the reader as much as to myself that whatever the prisms show once they have been polished are still worked on through the lens that I placed in front of my eye. It is also a testament to the fact that I still find it challenging to cut to the chase without describing the tools I used along the way. This is self initiated, I know you didn’t ask me for my two cents but let this be an example that if you ever do, you’re in for a bargain as I am likely to give you a dollar even if I’m down to my last dime. 

So let’s get to it. Feel welcome to reach out with comments, protests and questions. Good advice is always welcome and I rest assured I have plenty of room for more lumps of potential on my dusty shelves.