One Thousand Word Challenge 281: Always Been Grey

Posted on April 11, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

And so begins another round of finger punishment. Of hand destruction. Of finding the way through the pain and damage in order to churn out a load of crap. Always the crap, always a load of it. Always a lot, never enough. Never a dearth of crap around here. Perhaps carp, but crap, no. And that’s the way it must go. The crap must flow.

Down the river and around the bend, toward the waters resting in the valleys, boundless lakes bounded by mountains and greenery, fields and spread out so far and wide so as to be truly gargantuan. Beautiful, pretty and all of those sorts of things. It all flows toward lakes.

Lakes of crystalline water, seeing clearly until light can penetrate no more, and so lush and refreshing. Land truly fertile for nature, and so beautiful. So spread out, pretty… wonderful. Wonderful land. Beautiful land.

The sounds of birds and other animals spread out, occasional rustling, wind, stillness. Stillness and motion and vibrancy, all wonderful, all out there equal and great and wondrous. Wondrous, wonderful, lovely. Peaceful, even. Untouched.

Vegetation grows large, as large as is allowed, and it grows thick. It protects, it surrounds. It keeps everything safe and still, and the land changes and it holds things together. It stabilises and pushes an equilibrium. But everything remains in flux and everything changes. Movements, motions, tiny squawks and occasional growls from something bigger, all spread out, all wonderful. All lovely. All peaceful. All as is and as it should be, and that’s part of the beauty of it all, really.

And everything extends onward, into greater spaces. Into greater things. And the mountains rise up high, and yet not so high as to disappear into the clouds, and they too are flanked by various greens and clean, refreshing air. Air that we don’t get much of in urbanised areas. Areas full of crap.

Urban areas full of concrete hardness and jagged danger, of hurtling chunks of metal moved by those who do not respect the amount of awareness they require in order to pilot these contraptions. Areas full of suits and steps and solid paths locking away greenery and nature, and providing cold and unbearable heat at times. Areas where climate is manipulated on a small level to the detriment of the climate on a greater level. Areas where food comes in packaging that leads to more waste that encroaches upon the nature of things. Packaging that takes more than it gives. And it keeps going on and on, and little changes, and our world goes from greens to greys, and we are given token pockets of nature for our refreshment. We are given small areas with not enough trees or growth, trees that lead to monocultural habitats, and what was ours disappears over time. Slowly the earth grows quiet from all the crap that is being produced.

Natural areas, over time, change. They adapt, they might become something else, but all that is being produced encroaches upon them. Those areas, seemingly vibrant, grow quiet. Those rivers and lakes and mountainous areas, appreciated for their nature, slowly disappear. They become cleared, trees go down, more space is created, access is provided, and what once was no longer is. The draw of going to a refreshing, vibrant lake, full of life, full of stillness, was to go there and appreciate what it is. Now it’s just another area to visit, blasted away in the name of access.

The area grew quiet, and the cities grew louder. They grew louder, pouring more crap over everything, unabated, unrelenting. Continuous crap production, spreading everything out, clearing more land, blasting away more nature, compressing it, creating more stress, spreading things thin, removing resources, clearing more and more, stressing nature, diminishing nature, and gradually it all grows quiet. Gradually it all disappears, and there no longer is a unique space to appreciate.

And we keep on moving through our streets, along our paths, looking for something to bring in some colour, but we had that. We had it all and we let it slip away, and we long for it. We pine for it, but we keep putting out more crap. We don’t stop, we don’t give it a break, and little changes other than the shape of the land. Concrete and structure spreads, we keep producing and promoting the use of damaging items, and we don’t stop. And neither do the systems, and the world grows grey and grows quiet, and the beauty of it all gradually disappears. The beauty of it all starts becoming an idea that someone once had about things, but those ideas are far-fetched anyway, because how could that possibly happen? The world has always been grey and to suggest otherwise is just a dream. A dream of something not possible, because it never was and never will be.

And off to structures tall and barren we return, and we return in silent nights where insects once hummed among trees, and skies were highly visible, and stars were not hidden behind a weirdly purple smear.

There was a time where insects were numerous and spread out, and they attracted many animals to come watch and perhaps consume them, and there was a dance of life. You’d see so many buzzing about, landing on things, and you’d hear their calls, looking for something, looking for someone, moving all carefully and wildly all the same, and they’d trace paths that existed in memory. And you’d run around and maybe be scared of them, or maybe you wanted to see more and be curious, and with the loss of invertebrate life came the loss of our innocence, and gradually the earth grew quieter as the cities spread out, leaving select creatures around more as a monument to hubris, as a shallow recreation of what once was, and everything disappeared, leaving cold, colourless cities around, sticking out of an earth that had stopped moving, and just rotated silently, and without life.

The time it took to write one thousand words: 17:13:89

Another from a few days ago, and this one got far heavier than I anticipated.

Written at work.

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One Thousand Word Challenge 280: Many Mistakes You’ll Never See

Posted on April 11, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

It already a morning it is, and that’s because the sun has risen. That is how it works when you’re here and not there, where there is not here and here is over somewhere else, thinking about its life choices. It do be how it can at the best of life.

I’m really, really good at writing terrible opening paragraphs, and I’m fine wi0th that. What I’m not fine with is all of the spelling I’ll have to fix up once I finish this. I’m easy. I’m going all over the place. It’s not a good way to be.

I think the lack of sleep I’ve had over the past few weeks is really starting to get to me. I think that means an early night tonight. Let me get sleep in. Get some good rest. Then go n from there. Go on and wake up early and drive into the middle of nowhere, for tomorrow is a driving day. It is a day driven by the owner of the motor, and the motor will get m to where I want to be in pieces and shards. And then I’ll reform and I’ll become… the carmobile.

Actually, that’s really silly. I’m gonna drop that.

So it doesn’t seem like I’m functioning too well this morning. I’m writing this and I can see so many words being underlined, and I can see that a lot of them are spelling errors. Some are just the way words are spelt in Australia, but most are… actually I think all of them are spelling errors, so far. Oh god. Not going to be a good day. Everything is wrong and and odd and weird, and I’m stuck here, bearing the brunt of my mistakes. Bearing the brunt of my errors.

They keep on coming and they are coming faster than I can keep up. I don’t like this. I don’t like the way this is all spiraling. This could, of course, be so much worse than it is, but this is bad. This is bad and I don’t like it. I need to do something to change this around. I cannot blame lack of sleep, but I am blaming lack of sleep. I think that’s part of the best course of action that I can take, but right now… yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know a lot, really, but I don’t know where to go from here. I don’t know how to handle this.

This should be a day of celebration and it’s a day of suck. It hasn’t even started yet and I have so much to do. I have so much to churn out and catch up on and I’m going to burn out and be set on fire, and that will be that. This will remain this, but that will be that and I don’t know if I can even. I can odd, but I don’t know if I can even. And even that sucks. It could be worse, of course. It could be so much worse. However, my hands are not cooperating and they are not striking the correct keys. They are raining fiery injustice upon the wrong keys, and how do I stop this from happening? How? Why? Why is it happening?

How do sentences work?

So now I must part with my hands and find new hands, and I don’t know what to do with this information. I just know that it needs to be done, and I am crying internally. I am crying a sea of tears and they are filling this office space and I cannot even fathom. I literally cannot even.

But of course I just need to keep on going. My hands are refusing to relent. They are refusing to halt this serious miscarriage of justice. I cannot stop them. I am a slave to my hands and their refusal to be respectful to my time and lack of it, and they are refusing to cooperate and allow me to write what I feel like writing in a way that prevents me from needing to go through everything in fine detail in order to make sure that it’s all correct.

Oh, woe is to me. Woe is to me and I am merely a passenger upon this chaotic journey through tedium and boredom, and I cannot wait for things to change, for once they do, I will be free. Once I am free, I can then write what I so choose to write, and I will no longer have to clean up all the mistakes that I have left behind. All the mistakes you will never see. Or you will, depending on how lazy I am.

I can be a lazy person, but not today. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after, but not today. Today is all about getting the churning done, or so I keep saying, but today I really do say. However, I do have to admit that I am bound by the fact that there are only so many hours in each day and tomorrow I become the carmobile, and will be hurtling down the highways to wherever the next stop lies, and then I’ll be there and take up too much space and I’ll drive in a really bad way, and then… something else will happen. I’ll probably encounter my greatest enemy, known only as the hands that keep making mistakes, and then I’ll wake up and realise that I’m still here, writing this bit of shitty writing, trying to get to the end of it all and find where the answers all lie. Then the answers will cry. It’s the way it goes and it’s the way it keeps going, and sure, that’s okay. There are worse things out there. Still, I am not happy about it one iota, and therefore the next thing will be much better, unless my hands create more issues, which they will, and there’s not much right now I can do about that.

The time it took to write one thousand words: 11:06:93

Written a few days ago, and this was awful to write. I was making many spelling errors, and there probably are a few remaining but I don’t want to spend the time looking over this.

Written at work.

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Wall Corner

Posted on April 10, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

This is a photo I took for the challenge I submitted this for. I felt the one below didn’t work, but I still wanted to share it as I like it still. I think it’s just an interesting geometric photo.

I hope you enjoy.

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Mercury, Part 3

Posted on April 9, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

The third part of this NaNoWriMo attempt from a few years ago (part 2 here, part 1 here). Whilst looking over this I remembered why I stopped before completing, and doing so was good for my health.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Purvell arrived on time, or at least the time that they had hoped to arrive and looked around the pub. They saw Clay and Rigby already seated and made their way to the table.

There was some small conversation around how long the days had become, though of course none were necessarily complaining. There wasn’t much room for complaint, really.

Purvell decided to get up and get a drink, as well as food. They were behind Clay and Rigby who already had. He found that he felt heavy when he tried to stand up, as though all their limbs were being weighed down by years of fatigue suddenly catching up. They didn’t feel tired, but they lacked the strength they required. The tedium of the past few months were beginning to take their toll and they needed something more happening so they could stay busy. They were not used to this kind of lack of work and it was beginning to affect them.

With a bit of struggle they were able to get up and off to the bar they went. People were moving through pretty quickly so Purvell didn’t have to wait too long, thankfully. They soon ordered and went to pay, but payment failed. It appeared as though it was a fault of the machine – the bartender suggested it had been playing up that evening – and after multiple attempts it was decided to let Purvell drink and eat for free. It was how it had been for most of the patrons that evening and the bar could write off the loss as something to invoice the machine supplier for.

Purvell, still feeling weighted but perhaps a little lighter now, seemed to glide on back to the table with their drink. From there, the conversation between the three became livelier and perhaps a little more animated. Debates about what things meant, if they meant anything at all, debates about what their research indicated and discussions about future funding all went through the wringer of three people gradually growing inebriated, but of course there was only so far the conversation could go before it became stilted.

In an awkward silence Purvell decided to bring up what they saw. Despite trying to put it out of mind they found themselves unable to do so. It lurked in the corners, looking for the right time to creep on forward. Ultimately there was no fighting it and so it had to come out.

Clay and Rigby sat there, thinking in silence about what was being said, wondering about whether this was even worth pursuing. For them there was far less niggling, far less eating away at the corners of their thoughts. They hadn’t seen it. The most they saw was something that likely was footage glitching in the slightest, most minute amount. They could get on with things and their thoughts and desire to know more was much more easily suppressed. For Purvell, they didn’t have that luxury and so they just had to talk about what had happened, about what they saw.

Purvell was trying to work things out more than trying to discuss anything, and even though they had the right words and terminology to try and reach a scientific explanation, irrespective of how rough it was, they still were left puzzled by what they saw. Eventually Clay and Rigby decided to join in to try and help come to some sort of rough consensus to at least put the thing to rest, but they too were unable to reach anything all could agree upon. All that would come up was another theory, all of which were hastily scrawled upon the underside of a coaster. Otherwise it was nothing they could all find themselves agreeing upon, not due to disagreeing with each other, but none agreeing firmly on even their own theories that they’d try to posit.

Nothing revealed itself as being superior over the others and so, after the third coaster, Purvell gave up. It wasn’t worth considering any more at this point, but they still considered it for there was little else that could be done. It was just phenomena at the end of the day, but it was interesting phenomena that etched itself firmly into Purvell’s memory. Yet, try as they might, they were unable to remember it in the way that they saw Mercury moving through the retrograde path. Each time they tried to picture it, the form changed in some manner, as though their memory was allowing it to change form.

Purvell mentioned this and Rigby wondered if this was like trying to remember the experience of being on acid, not that they had tried any before of course. Purvell said that it wasn’t, that trying to remember things that were experienced whilst on acid just brought up the experience as though there was no tripping, though Purvell only had the word of other people. Clay wasn’t quite sure what the other two were talking about, but they were adamant that they had never touched any drug and so there was no further pursuing the line of thought.

They sat there in silence for a while, puzzling over various things, trying to work out others on their own and letting the thoughts on Mercury retrograde pass on by as though they were viewed from a train window. Slowly the pub emptied, for it was getting late, and it was not long before last drinks were called.

More people left whilst the three finished off their last drinks. The weight had expanded beyond Purvell and became something dank and almost nasty. It was no longer weighing so much as it was pressing down, and it limited movement, but movement had to be made and leaving the pub was soon required. Under immense pressure the three rose, one of which was to the bathroom, and the two others to the exit.

Soon all three were outside and so they began to make their way home. All three lived near enough to each other and so the walk continued with some sort of joviality. Maybe it was the pub’s atmosphere that was weighing things down, for being outside added a bit of a spring to the step, though the three of them remained sluggish. The three of them also had to work in the morning. The thought of going to the observatory and sleeping there for the night was floated, but quickly struck down. Were they more sober they probably would’ve gone for it, but they were certain that the night crew would not appreciate three people being loud before passing out and smelling like the pub.

Soon they parted ways and Purvell continued on their lonesome past a few blocks to their place. It seemed like an eternity, though it was one measured in a period of a few minutes, and by the time they got home they were sobering up.

Once they were in they saw the time and realised that it was later than they thought. They weren’t looking forward to the morning and what awaited them and so they stood there in the dark of their hallway, thinking about things that didn’t matter as much as getting to sleep did.

After a few more minutes of stillness they switched the hallway light on. The switch gave a slight shock, which jolted Purvell into sobriety a bit harder than they would have liked, or at least gave them a few moments of non-alcohol drenched clarity. The place was old and they needed to get a few things fixed; they’d been meaning to look at the hallway light for a while anyway as it had been a bit faulty, but it was still something they didn’t need, regardless of how minute the shock was.

Purvell realised that they were spending far too much time being annoyed by the shock and so got back on with things. They made their way quickly through their pre-sleep routine and hopped into bad as quickly as they could. They felt that haste was of the essence and so it was haste that they moved with, but they found their thoughts consumed once more by what they saw. They tried to puzzle it out for a bit and wondered if it held any merit whatsoever. It was quite possible that it was just an event, if it was anything at all, for the more they thought about it the more they doubted that they saw anything. They began to wonder if they would be thinking about any of this had nothing occurred and it had just been a regular Mercury retrograde, but they also knew that there was no point in thinking about that either.

The more Purvell thought about it, the more they knew it was pointless to consider and the more they wanted to think about it. As the minutes moved they became more stuck upon a loop of thought and it was readily consuming them. There was almost a sense of obsession in it all, and even though Purvell knew the uselessness of all this fixating upon one thing, they found themselves unable to think otherwise. Maybe there would be answers in the morning. Maybe there would be nothing at all. Maybe something would unfold over however long was needed to take for these things to unfold.

Purvell briefly floated the idea of heading to where the path actually was, wherever in space it was, to see if there was anything to see there, but they also knew that this was exceptionally silly to consider and so once more pushed something out of their mind. It was too costly and there was no way that Purvell could get around all the requirements to do it without the required people being unaware and so it was discarded, and once more the event itself was considered.

The event was considered for a long time, and carefully thought out, or at least it was seen as a long time, but it was over in a matter of minutes for sleep, finally having its way, sent Purvell into something deep that only an alarm coming off as a siren a few hours later could wake them up from.

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Austin Wintory: Nascence

Posted on April 8, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

One listen.

I was hoping to get this done at the start of the month. Didn’t quite pan out. Got it down now, however, and I’m happy for that. The result is fine, could be better. Could be worse. I think I captured the song well enough, at least.

Austin Wintory’s “Nascence” is from Journey, the soundtrack for Journey.

I hope you enjoy.

—

A string, possibly a violin stirs. Alone, searching, drifting along. Moving through a space. Moving at the start of it all. Soon other sounds come in, gentle, creating more frame in an arid space. Dry.

Woodwind follows and the loneliness of the journey comes down. Loneliness and conviction, and sounds swell and rise up. They rise and expand and express more, looking to affect. They minimise, show a tenderness, show the arduous nature of what is to come, carry the full story along, and they soon come to rest and the song ends.

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Photographing

Posted on April 8, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

A photo of a person taking photos whilst on sand dunes.

This is my submission into Leanne Cole‘s “Monochrome Madness” for this week. PR of Flights of the Soul hosts this one, and she has chosen the theme of “Minimalism”.

This challenge is open to all, and I recommend joining in. If want to, check out more information about it here, and include the tag “monochrome-madness” when you share your photo. If you’d prefer not to join in, then at the least check out Leanne’s photography, and what other people submit.

I hope you enjoy.

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One Thousand Word Challenge 279: Changing Space

Posted on April 8, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

It’s currently time for lunch and the space is empty. I believe it’s due to mid-semester break or something, but it’s still quote empty, and in a way it feels troubling that it is. It’s not, but it feels like.

I guess I’m just feeling a little lonely still. Alone. In this space usually filled with sounds and murmurs, but now just still. Machinery here and there, people shuffling about, but far fewer than usual. You can almost hear the silence. You can almost feel it. It’s odd. Or not, but I’m claiming it is as I can and am, so… yeah.

Just sitting here, writing. Trying to work out where to go next. Trying to work out how I carve a path from here to the end of the day. Trying to figure out a lot of things and figuring out nothing in the process. But that’s okay. It could be worse. Could be better, too, but could be worse.

So I’m sitting here and I think I can hear the sound of air conditioning. It’s so intensely a background noise that it could almost not be there. The sound could almost just be structural design. Another machine is humming, and it might be warming up. I don’t know; I’m not a machine person. At least with most things I am not.

Sitting here, thinking to myself. Does this place exist as a place if no one is here to experience it? Well, yes, but (sorry to repeat myself) a place is more than just its physical existence, I think. It’s also the people who participate in it. It’s the activity within a place that helps it exist as one, but this creates a secondary place. It’s still physical, of course, but it’s the structure of interaction and activity that creates a secondary version of the place, and I’m trying to think of the term I want to use that I feel best describes this, but I’ve got nothing right now. Such is life. It’s all good and it’s all groovy.

So I sit here I sit here in a place that is empty and a place that is still. And of course it’s not empty, but it feels empty, but I’m going with that. I’m sitting here, writing about it and writing about how it’s odd to me, but it’s all okay. It’s all fine. There are other, more important things to think about, like when the best time to go downstairs will be. After going down the stairs, I will of course have to go up the stairs later. I need to prepare myself for this. I need to make sure that I know what I’m doing and how I’m going about doing it.

And so everything continues on and I feel myself sitting here. I know that I am sitting here. I know that I am trying to take up space and words and weave them into something that creates imagery, and maybe I’ve just circled a little too much into a swirl that has gotten far too close to its final point, and so what is left? Other than the sound of a door?

And now I can hear voices, and it approaches as though a storm. It approaches as though heavy waters, and I cannot tell if it is coming from downstairs or somewhere else on this floor. It grows loud and almost joyous. It holds a certain passion, and it surges and heaves, and diminishes. It shrinks down back into a level, thick layering, and it continues on forever and ever, droning, cutting into the silence. Replacing the place with a new place. A new form, taking over, moving, moving, moving somewhere, spreading out and moving some more. It does not stop. It is unrelenting. It is not unpleasant, however. It strips back the sense of isolation. The sense of loneliness. That’s something I can get behind, but in a way it makes it more difficult for me to embrace some sadness and milk it for all it’s worth, and then some. Ah well.

The building fills with life and it remains as it always was, but the feeling of its colours and shades and tones changes. The structure no longer feels as cold and rigid as it did before. It no longer feels like an isolating place, uncaring about its visitors. And the building itself becomes more difficult to notice. Sure, it must still be navigated, but that’s something else entirely. That’s not something to be concerned with or worry about. It’s easy enough to do and it’s done on a regular enough basis, anyway. You learn the shape and where to walk, and everything starts coming easy, and then it’s all grand and nice and all that other stuff.

And now the sound is spreading further, having consumed downstairs entirely. It is now coming up here, spreading even further. Spreading thinner, almost. It is expanding, but it is stretching. It is not growing. It is reaching, and now there are holes audible from where most of it is coming from. It continues on, spreading further and further, stretching out, breaking apart. Fragmenting, no longer able to hold a shape. It keeps on fragmenting, it changes its form and the space changes with it.

There are holes of loneliness, of isolation, and they are avoided, but the change shape with the sounds. They are moving around each other and circling, spreading in and around and growing and shrinking, and it continuously changes shape. Everything keeps changing, and some of the sound now grows distant, moving away, dragging itself along, dragging and breaking apart, trying to survive and failing to do so. And it goes on and on, and then it goes on some more, and it slowly disappears.

More sound clusters here, growing loud, louder, and louder still. Loud in a mostly quiet space, when there is no need, and it feels unnecessary. It feels too much, and lacking thought. Minimally cacophonous.

The time it took to write one thousand words: 13:26:91

I had what I felt was some good thought going on when I was writing this. However, I don’t think it panned out as well as I thought it would.

Written at work.

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One Thousand Word Challenge 278: Slipping

Posted on April 8, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

Another day is slipping on by, but today I’m going to do my best to make sure that I don’t waste it. There is a lot to do, of course, but there always is.

Today is going to be a day of a lot of crap writing, but it’s only happening as there is something that I’ve been meaning to try and do for a while, and unless I get it done now, I won’t get it done. It’s sort of a “now or never” thing. I could reattempt tomorrow, but I’d rather today. I’d rather not keep putting it off, and if today goes the way that I hope it does, then tomorrow might just also.

So I’m sitting here. I’ve done all my work and I still have quite a few hours to defeat. I don’t know what to do from here, other than the things I’d normally do if I was not working, so that’s what I am doing. I am doing this and that, and then I’m doing the other things that follow. And I’ll get them done. I’ll knock them all down.

I know this place has been a massive roller coaster when it comes to quality and emotional expression, and I’m not feeling great right now. I’ve felt better. But I’m gonna be back on the road soon. I’m going to get back up and keep walking. I’m gonna keep moving. I can only push onward and get to the end of this and everything else that comes. I’m quite behind where I was hoping to be. I was hoping to be much further along, but life and other things. Plans don’t work all the time, or even half the time. Maybe some of the time, but really it’s none of the time. But that’s okay because you just keep on going. You push onward and look for a new day. A new down, a new tomorrow and you try again. I hope I do the same.

There’s so much pressing down on everyone right now. So much uncertainty about whether we have a tomorrow or not. Genuinely scary times. I feel that, however, now really is the time to live. Now is the time to be alive and live defiantly in the face of the sheer uncertainty that we face.

Now is the time to walk and travel and keep moving, and experience the world. Now is the time to look after each other, and uplift those around us. Now is the time to strengthen community and understanding and outreach, and now is the time to embrace what is around us with care and love. All this fucking hate won’t get us anywhere, and it’s failing to do any good as far as I can see.

Tomorrow comes, but if we do not rise to the occasion, then how can we claim we did anything? Joy as an act of resistance, but joy for the sake of our hearts and souls, and mental health too. We keep pushing on and we keep on living.

In a few weeks I’ll be on the road again and I’ll be heading down south. I’ll be heading away from New South Wales for the first time in far too long, and it will be a necessary trip. It will be one that’ll be good for my soul. Give me time for thinking. Give me time for rest. Allow me to recuperate a bit, and maybe sleep.

I’m looking forward to being on empty roads and getting brief glimpses of the landscape that I won’t be able to hold. That I won’t be able to touch, but I’ll stop and get out of the car and look at it all, and take it all in. I’ll experience the world around me, and I’ll find myself spreading across and becoming one with the landscape. It won’t be transformative, but it will be soothing. It will help me relax and unwind, and that is something I need to do more of.

Everything is pressing down, but my back won’t break, and neither will yours. We don’t have to necessarily push back, but we do need to understand that the weight does not have to crush us. We can choose to bear it, and we can choose to put it down temporarily. Or at least, when we have the right tools and structures in place we can. If need be, we might have to choose to walk away, and that’s a good choice to make in a lot of instances. It’s not one enough people make, and I know that I’m one of them.

I can almost feel the road calling. I can almost feel it rolling underneath me as I move along it, through open, empty spaces full of everything, and I can almost feel it as it winds through mountainous passes. Long straights across an old country, following bends and curves through tall, enclosed regions. And I’ll drive and drive on, and drive some more and I’ll keep going, looking for something. Looking for something that speaks to me in a way that I haven’t been spoken to in a long time. And I’ll bring it back with me and share it around, because life is too short and there isn’t enough movement and freedom given to people. There isn’t enough, and we need it more than ever before.

Where did we go so wrong? At what part did we send ourselves off of a good path to something better? To something that allowed us to breathe? I wish I could say, but I don’t know. But it seems to me that a lot of things are really wrong with how we’re going about life, and that worries me quite a lot. It worries me as we’re just going on and on, and we’re not allowed the time or space, and so we have to make it for ourselves and others. But we can have it, and we should.

The time it took to write one thousand words: 13:23:96

Good speed, but looks like I’m reattempting tomorrow. The day got away.

Written at work.

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One Thousand Word Challenge 277: Time Passes

Posted on April 8, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

Once more I find myself in Duoly Rob. I’m sitting here, thinking about my life choices. I’m thinking about where I’m drifting off to, and I’m thinking about the amount of writing I need to do between now and later in order to get later to now. All I really have to do is wait, but you know.

Time passes, there’s a few more white hairs on my head, and I’m tired and drained, but I feel alright. I feel a bit worn out and I’m trying to work on my posture again, and I’m sitting here full of worries and a sense of neutral expression at the same time. Something and nothing, I guess.

There is pleasant music playing, and the coffee I have next to me shakes with every stroke of the lkeys on this keyboard. There’s some traffic and the world is waking up, but I feel asleep. It’s going to be a long day. It always is, and it never is.

Time slips away like a fish, or an eel, or anything else that we might consider as being slimy. Time slips away and it doesn’t come back, so we need to make the most of it. Sometimes making the most of the time we have is doing very little, however. Sometimes we need to take it easy. Sometimes we need to rest. The body can only go so far for so long on very little, and if we aren’t taking care of ourselves, then we fall apart. We fall apart, and some things cannot be repaired.

Sometimes taking care of ourselves involves just heading out into the sun. To a park, somewhere. Having the space to relax the brain. Relax your mind. That sort of thing.

There are parks I haven’t visited in a while that I want to return to. Places I want to explore again, and I want to see them as I am now. See what they tell me about me, if they do indeed tell me anything at all. I want to go for a long walk, and whilst I want to see if these places tell me something about me, mainly I just want to see them again.

I used to do more walking and more hiking, and I think a good chunk of it is documented in this space. But I used to do more, and I have more room and space to do more but I don’t. And this is on me, really. I don’t move as much as I used to, and I have the ability to. I have the space to. But I don’t. I just hurt myself with this, really. I could do better, and indeed I will keep working to do better. Always do, always try. Right now, I don’t know.

Well mainly because it’s a day of work and I’ve other things to take care of, but you know.

But you need to give yourself space to relax. Relaxing is a good use of time, but everything needs to be in moderation. Too much of anything can be bad, and it depends on how much is too much of course, but you have to be careful. You don’t have to always be aware; you just have to be careful. You have to strike a balance. Keep things going and staying in harmony with each other. That sort of thing.

I’m going to start walking more again. Sure, I’m powering through a lot at the moment, but there’s nothing stopping me from stretching my legs more often than I do. But I’m going to keep going and working toward whatever and whenever, and get back to how I once was. I’ve been living without  enough respect for myself for too long, and I need to start taking better care of myself sooner rather than alter. This sort of fog that I’ve been in is something I feel I may have willingly embraced, though I’m not entirely sure. It’s a difficult thing to think about, and I’m thinking about it. I’m thinking about it and wondering. Thinking big things.

Before all that, however, I might just go to a park. A park I haven’t been to in a long time, and walk around and see what’s about. See who is there, see people enjoying themselves. Give my brain a bit of a rest. That’d be nice. Probably won’t, but I want to believe I will. Makes me feel better about everything and all of that and a bit of the other. Helps me feel better about things, at the least.

There’s such a lovely world out there, and it’s a nice day outside today. And things keep going and life changes, and time passes. And we need to make the most of what we can and where we can and I’m just repeating myself, as though that’s anything out of the ordinary. But things keep going. Things change, people get older and we do our best in a cold world to live a little better. To try and leave things better than they were when we were growing up.

And we try to look after ourselves, too. Try to be healthy. Do what we can where we can, and do our best to not push things too hard and too far. We owe ourselves our health, and we owe ourselves an obligation to maintain it. And… well yeah.

What else is there to say? I’m thinking about the steps that I’ll take between now and the next ten days, and I’m thinking about where I’ll go after all of this. I’ll be able to relax and sleep, and sleep some more. I’ll be able to take it easy, but there still are a lot of steps and that’s good, because I’m always moving to the next step, and then I’m always on the first of the rest. And it keeps going, and we keep working on ourselves, and I’ll walk through some familiar spaces again.

The time it took to write one thousand words: 13:08:89

Decent speed and there’s some stuff in here that I quite like. Could be better overall, but I’m not complaining.

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One Thousand Word Challenge 276: Wait for Nothing

Posted on April 7, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

So I’m currently waiting for someone to come around to grab something so then I can head on out, and they’re late. No real biggie. It happens. No given time for when they’re going to get here, however, and I do have stuff to do.

It’s annoying. It’s frustrating. It’s all of these things that I want to say so as to be able to get to saying other things. It hurts the glands and I’ve had glandular fever before, and let me tell you, that was not a fun experience. But this hurts the glands and I am annoyed and frustrated and all of those other things that help get across the sense of annoyance and frustration and… yeah.

Can’t do much other than kill time and so killing time is what I am doing. I am doing my best t9o kill time in the most inefficient way I can imagine, and I’m imagining horribly. I’m imagining terribly. It is the way this all goes, sometimes, however, and so on and so forth and here is some more space wasted in order to get to the thing or whatever.

I really am running out of steam.

I’m racing. I’m racing hard. I’m racing across spaces and expanses, and I’m racing against myself. I am thinking about what it is that I need to compile and compose, and I’m thinking about how to get from here to there, and from there to here. How do I get this bit of writing done in a way that is as satisfying as it is interesting? Is there anything interesting that can be said and can it be said in a way that ensures that it is interesting?

What I’m really saying, however, is that the wait is frustrating me and I don’t know what to do. It’s one of those situations where I know that there are things that I can do, but I’m concerned about starting and getting into a good rhythm, only to have it interrupted, thus causing me to not have the whatever it is that I need ti keep the flow going, and thus starting up again and that’s never fun.

It feels like a long wait. A wait for nothing. A wait for something but really nothing at all, and little is changing. Sure, the time of day is changing. The heat outside is changing. The stages of the week are moving from to the next, and the air in here is changing, but I feel like I am in a stilled space. A space that does not reflect much of anything other than itself, or rather a life that wants some sort of ideal state, but cannot get there. Could be many reasons as to why, and it’s likely due to trying to bring back what cannot be.

So I’m sitting here, waiting, waiting some more, and waiting forever and a day. I’m waiting with all of my heart and I’m trying to fill the cracks and find the time, only to see it slip away so easily, as it always has. It always has and it always does, and that’s the way it goes, sometimes. That’s the way it always goes.

I’m wondering as to how much of my life I have spent waiting for things to happen. I’m wondering as to how much of my life I’ve just spent waiting. Is my life on hold? Am I just here, stuck in some perpetual cycle of nothing happening? Is everything that has come across my desk not actually mine, but rather someone else’s? I don’t know. Do I even belong to my own life? IS this a question worth asking?

I think it is good to ask questions. Habitually, it helps us better understand things, but sometimes I think it’s good to ask why we’re asking something. Not always, but sometimes. Sometimes you have to let a question go deep and pointless, and you have to let it sit within you and tear you up, but you can’t let it tear you up too much. You still have to make sure you’ve time to look after yourself and going too far can prevent that.

So I’m asking questions about waiting and I’m asking questions about what I’ve done with my bedroom setup, and I’m wondering if I’m trying to give myself some sort of comfort in familiarity when the familiarity I want is not the familiarity I have, and so the questions just keep coming and nothing changes and so here I am, waiting and waiting and waiting for another bit of time to flutter on past, to go past my nose and drift away as it is subsumed back into the the great body of which it was always a part, and so everything continues and nothing changes, but changes continues and it’s all going on eternally, and I’m watching the light change. It changes from bright to dull and a little darkened, and it’s all sorts of pleasant. I see it through a window and I see my life slipping away, fading out of view. I don’t know what I can offer myself at this point, and this wait is starting to get to me in ways I’d hoped it wouldn’t, but that’s the way that life happens sometimes. You can’t do much to change it, and really I am not being left behind. Really, my life isn’t slipping away. I’m just here, waiting and the waiting is getting to me so I’m trying to eat time.

Still, it has been a pleasant day thus far, and there’s still a bit of time to go, and that’s all nice. That, being the day itself. Sometimes waiting is frustrating, but it can be pleasant. I just wish I wasn’t so concerned about getting into a groove and getting things done. It makes it difficult to wait when there are delays, but that’s life. That’s part of waiting for things, and it’s not so bad.

The time it took to write one thousand words: 12:22:14

Decent speed. Very much a mess, but a decent speed. I do like where this went, but I feel I may have been hesitant and veered away from exploring.

Written at home.

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