Archive for May, 2010

The Lock and The Key

Posted: May 29, 2010 in a lonely journey
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The story of my life is a story of an endless struggle. It’s a story of victories and defeats, ups and downs, aspirations and crushed dreams. It’s a story of a quest for willpower. An endless, hopeless quest. Being human is hard if you want to live your life and not merely exist. It’s even harder if you believe in the core of your soul that you have a unique gift. And it’s even harder when day after day, week after week, year after year you realize that you may not have enough inner strength to unlock that gift and use it. You feel like a man who holds in his hands a box with a treasure, but has neither the key nor strength required to search for it. And you hear the clock ticking…

And you keep wasting time until one day you realize that maybe it’s too late. Has this day come? Not yet. But it’s getting closer and closer. There’s a choice to be made. To look for the key or let it go. But what if it’s nothing but delusion? What if there’s nothing inside that box? Just dust and old papers. What if you spend your life trying to unlock what’s not worth unlocking? Then again, what if you turn away just as you about to open it and find a real gem? There’s a choice to be made. The choice that sets your life on a course and your mind on a goal.

The choice has been made. Until that box is unlocked there’s only one path. There’s only one goal. The key.

Of Pictures and Words

Posted: May 14, 2010 in art
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Psst… Can you hear it? The soft sound of grass underneath your feet? That fresh lush grass you’re walking though as you approach the Mountain. It is trying to tell you something in its velvet whisper, but it speaks the ancient language of plants, which you don’t understand. Is it warning you? Encouraging? Advising?… A light breeze blows in your face as the dark Mountain closes in. You’ve been walking toward it for four days and you are tired. But now that your destination is so close you feel weariness oozing away from your body. And then comes the moment you’ve been waiting for, the moment you’ve been dreaming about for so many years. You set foot on the surface of the Mountain, that eons of years old, primeval surface that so many generations have described in their legends. All is left is the last mile. It will lead you to your goal. The hardest mile…

Are you still reading? Or seeing? Feeling? Wandering? Do you still realize that all you see in front of you is just a sequence of signs we call letters? Or has your mind already transported you to the foothill of the mysterious mountain? If it has you have just experienced the power of words, which in turn have triggered the most powerful force you have — your imagination. Words only form a key that unleashes that power. Now even the world’s most talented painters would not be able to paint the same picture you’ve just seen. This is why movies based on our favorite books are so frustrating sometimes. They are trying to recreate what your imagination has already created for you and that is a doomed mission. Your imagination is the most powerful artist in the world. All it needs is inspiration.

Some pictures are worth thousands words. But we still use words to make that statement.

Ladies and Gentlemen, May I Have Your Attention?

Posted: May 3, 2010 in 1-2-3 eyes on me
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With so many theories swarming around @unmaskd I feel obligated to deny or confirm at least some of them. At least occasionally. So far I’ve been mostly in denial mode. No, I’m not this person… No I’m not that celeb… No, I’m not that dude you slept with last month… At the same time I’ve been confirming some theories. Yes, I’m a beagle, playing with his human’s keyboard (and inspired by this). Yes, I’m The Riddler (the benevolent kind). Yes, I’m Frasier in hiding and I’m listening…

But now I’d like to step out of the joking mode and in absolute seriousness confirm one conclusion that has been tweeted around more than once recently. It is not about my identity. But it is about my goals, at least about one of them. Twitter is full of shrewd people, so it comes as no surprise to anyone that a few smart folks have already observed the following: “That @unmaskd is looking for attention!” Somehow it didn’t sound too positive, which is I’m writing this post.

I confess, I am looking for attention. And not for anyone’s attention. For your attention. And so is everyone else. Any writer who has ever written a line, any actor who has played a part in any show, any producer, any poet, any reporter, any news anchor, any company, any non-profit… So does a firefighter who is shouting “Leave the building!”, so does any politician, any teacher, any preacher, anyone and everyone who has something to tell to others. They are all looking for attention. You are looking for attention, otherwise you would not have ended up on Twitter. Because looking for attention is as human as breathing. Except, some need attention of a couple of people, while others want the entire world to listen to them.

Attention is our social currency. It is your social capital. And like any capital is limited. There’s only as much attention you can give to anyone and anything. Which is why everyone wants it. It is your attention that creates or destroys a star. It is your attention that solves a social problem or creates a social disaster. It is your attention that makes the world whatever it is.

So yes, I do want your attention. Now that we got that out of the way, you will probably ask, why I want it. Well, to find an answer to that question, you may have to stick around and decide for yourself.