Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1216: Day Shapes

Posted on February 1, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

Fatigue rears its head once more but I can get through it. I can persevere.

Wind and all that, sitting here, feeling warm, feeling cool, feeling a lot of things but the day contorts into shapes I do not recognise. Suddenly it is no longer a day but a series of shapes and now I don’t know what to do with myself.

I guess I’ll just sit here and think about shapes for a while.

Of course that has no practical purpose right now but these shapes are floating in front of me and I need the day to come back so I can deal with work as work is here and I need to take care of it and get it out of the way and I don’t know which of these shapes it is contained within, so… I’m feeling a bit screwed.

I guess there is a practical purpose for thinking about shapes right now.

Anyway, I don’t know how to get them back to being a day and I don’t know how to go about doing anything about this. Most of my thinking will be trying to work out what the shapes are and in doing that I might just be able to find the answer to the problem which will be a key for the lock, but there is no lock so it will be a key for the day.

I can’t sit whilst working this out as I don’t know where my chair has gone and there’s not much of a floor, but I don’t quite like the idea of floating whilst doing this either. Sure, I’m not going anywhere but I don’t feel as though I’m anchored and it’s not a pleasant feeling, let me tell you. It would be more pleasant if I happened to be floating in the sky and there was a breeze behind me and I was going places but that is not what is happening here. What is happening is that I’m floating in nothingness and I’m trying to work out how a day managed to turn into a series of corporeal shapes.

What will happen when the next day comes? This is going to cause a few issues. Surely there are others in the same situation as I am but I cannot see them. There isn’t anyone here that I can locate, but I can’t quite go anywhere, or at least it doesn’t feel like I’m going anywhere so I could very well be here on my lonesome and that is less fun than I would hope.

These shapes are ones I do not recognise and I’m not sure if I could describe them in a way other than that they have a form. They are here in front of me and I don’t know how to make them become the day again and it’s all rather annoying and frustrating, and also a little hopeless. Some sort of despair.

On the plus side, I think they’re quite interesting.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 06:24:85

It was early into this that I realised that I needed to veer away from what I was writing and so I did. In terms of something better I don’t think it paid off, but it was a learning experience of sorts.

Most, if not all writing can be a learning experience now that I think about it, but in this case… anyway, yeah.

Written at home.

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Self-Blur

Posted on February 1, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

I often get strong praise for my photos and I’m glad people get something out of what I’m doing. With that said, I need the praise translating into paid work far more often than it does. Without the income

I’ve been thinking about calling it a day and selling the camera gear. I’ve been taking photos since I was around thirteen, so I’ve had a pretty good run. I love photography, but if I were to stop now, whilst saddening, wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. However, as said here I’ve decided to kind of tear it all down and rebuild, so to speak.

I think that, regardless of one’s experience, you’re never too good to relearn stuff and rethink your processes.

With that all said, here’s a photo I took recently. I was playing around with self-portraits and motion. I could say that I’m exploring a sense of self, but with this photo I don’t feel that that’s quite the case.

This is my submission into Leanne Cole‘s “Monochrome Madness” for this week. Participating is pretty straightforward and something I recommend. If you do, then include the tag “monochrome-madness” in your post.
If not participating, then at the least check out Leanne’s photography as well as what other people submit.

A lot of what people are submitting will likely end up here.

I hope you enjoy.

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A View Hidden From the Road

Posted on January 31, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

Something I like about getting away from the city is that sometimes you get a sense of stillness and solitude. There’s a sense of stillness in this photo, I think, and there also is a sense of solitude.

It’s a vast stretch of land that’s visible, and yet it’s also a pretty small area. A significant portion feels untouched but there’s visible change from human impact.

In the distance large areas are visible. Parts can be made out but they are mostly silhouettes and present as a mystery. The areas are almost illusory.

I hope you enjoy.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1215: Thinking About Outside

Posted on January 31, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

Once more the sound of cicadas reaches my ears and once more it is something that I do quite enjoy. It is nice hearing life out there whilst I sit here and procrastinate the day away until I grow ancient and refuse to leave the room due to being so ancient that I know the room far better than I could ever know the outside world.

The reason why I know the room so well? I’ve thought about and analysed it a lot.

Well, to be truthful I only know the room in one way and that is in the way it makes me think about the room rather than knowing all of its properties, though I’d know some of those too… I’d hope.

But anyway, the sound of cicadas is out there, I’m in here and I’m enjoying the sound they produce, and I wish there were more of them. I wish they were louder and drowning out everything. There aren’t enough trees and there aren’t enough cicadas to hold them, and perhaps there aren’t enough birds to chase after the cicadas.

The light glows outside and it is almost overbearing but it does not drain the world of colour, though I’m not sure as to how it would. Maybe it would if a greater presence of light somehow desaturated colour, but as far as I’m aware it doesn’t; at least not in reality.

I think what I have today is a series of thoughts that run around each other and don’t quite connect, but there still is some sort of relation. What that relation is is not something of which I am quite aware, though maybe I am and I’m just overthinking thinking once more.

Anyway, the street is quiet but the cicadas continue their pleasing drone. There is a light breeze and it is there but it is subtle. It’s more apparent at a distance, but now that I am thinking about it and looking out my window a it more it is apparent that the breeze is picking up. It’s not picking up but much and it seems to change in gradual pulses. It also is not something I’m feeling much of so in a way, at least from where I am seated, it seems more suggested rather than stated. It is seen rather than felt and so in a way it seems more like I’m being told that there is a breeze rather than experiencing a breeze.

The light is changing and it is due to the clouds above. They continue their drift and variance in heaviness, and there are a few holes that escape their grasp, but they continue on as they threaten to release themselves and change into rainfall but they do not. They just change the way the light falls upon this area and they drift onward to somewhere else.

The sound of garden machinery spreads out from some location and it cuts into the sounds of cicadas droning and birds chirping.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 08:32:79

Very shortly after I finished this the sunlight became much brighter. From the position of my desk I was unable to see where the gap in the clouds that allowed the sun to shine through was, but it was pleasant.

Anyway, a series of thoughts that are quite clearly connected and more of the relaxed variety, I think.

Written at home.

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Spencer Nilsen: Title Screen

Posted on January 30, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

One listen for this one.
Had a couple of restarts early on, then kind of struggled my way through.
I think I was thinking too much about trying to write something that captured the song instead of letting the words come out and it shows a bit in places.

Spencer Nilsen’s “Title Screen” is from Ecco the Dolphin, the soundtrack for Ecco the Dolphin. To be more specific, the soundtrack is comprised of rerecorded tracks from the game.

I hope you enjoy.

—

An oscillation arrives. It is steadfast in its motion, even as another sound quickly passes through. Deep rumblings form underneath and for a moment the oscillation disappears. It comes back for a brief moment and disappears once more. The low sounds continue on with their slow moving and they grow in their prominence. Something above shines and seems to scatter, and comes back and scatters once more. The oscillation briefly returns before disappearing and something else descends.

The focus is now on that descending thing and far above the oscillation comes back in parts, far more distant than before. Percussive sounds sound out here and there, and eventually a pause. Things seem to stretch and appear here and there as glimpses and a new oscillation appears, lower than before. There’s a richness in this deep; it is subdued, but it is there through all the sombreness.

Soon the sounds resume their movement and they keep things low, but not for long. Something rises up and seems almost massive, though it is ambiguous. Something is reaching, reaching upward and spreading out and seeking, but before anything is revealed the sounds stop and the song ends.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1214: Reducing Heat

Posted on January 30, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

The rain is falling down and it provides a heat and a coolness that is as refreshing as it is not and that’s okay right now. It’s okay as I am ponderous and procrastinating and feeling a heat rising in me and it’s making me sweat and I’m not sure why.

It may have to do with all the pepper-based product I’ve consumed over the past few days. However, I’m going to ignore that possibility, even though it is likely the most likely possibility of the whole thing. Regardless, it is creating a weird situation where I can feel the cold but it is almost as though I am not experiencing the cold.

I sweat and I feel some breeze and it gently moves around me but I keep on heating up. I am getting hotter and more sweat is pouring out of my body and it is not pleasant, and maybe I’ll soon need to have a shower but that can happen later. Right now I need to focus on sitting as still as I possibly can so as to avoid getting any warmer. All activity is off the table. I must become like a stone.

So I sit here and I am still and I am moving in such a subtle manner I appear to be not moving at all. I become one with the space around me as I no longer disturb it, except for my being within it and thus reshaping the space by being present. I am mostly still. I am mostly motionless.

Soon something starts growing around me but I do not move for I don’t want to grow any warmer. I want to grow cooler but it is not working. This thing grows around me and soon I am unable to get up and walk away, not that I want to.

My skin grows firm and gradually it becomes firmer. Things seem to combine and they become heavier and I feel as though I am becoming encased within whatever it is that is growing around me. I am porous and I can see and I can feel an eternity but I am yet to grow cool and the rain outside continues on in its unrelenting assault.

I no longer have a desire to move and am content with what is happening and I am left to my thoughts but it remains warm inside and I am still yet to experience the cold. I am yet to see anything change other than myself. I have grown coarse and still and I am watching the land change around me and I am unable to do much else other than watch. I am ruminating on what is happening as I find myself as little else than a protrusion in a house that will slowly decay over time, and so be it, but I’d much prefer it if I were able to stop sweating. The cold is there and it tries to touch, but it cannot reach.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 08:23:66

The more I wrote here the slower my writing became and I think that’s okay. I might rewrite this tomorrow or another day without the constraint of a word limit against a timer and see what happens as I feel the idea could work if done a bit less on the fly.

Written at home.

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Running Swans

Posted on January 29, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

I’m fairly certain I took this photo in 2020 and I’ve held off on sharing it since, in part due to wanting to submit it to competitions and in part waiting for the “right” time. Not submitted it to anything (yet) and the right time is always now.

This was taken at Sydney Olympic Park at the brick pit. It’s not a great photo it makes me think about our need to think more about how we impact the environment, and how we need to do more to take better care of it where we can.

This is my submission into the two hundred-and-thirty-fourth Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “Messages“.

The host of the Lens-Artists challenges cycles weekly between the following people:

Week 1 – Tina

Week 2 – Patti

Week 3 – Ann-Christine aka Leya

Week 4 – Amy

Week 5 – John Steiner

Week 6 – Sofia Alves

Week 7 – Anne Sandler

Week 8 – Guest host

Donna of Wind Kisses, who has joined the Lens-artists team this year is curating this one. Next week Patti is curating and the theme has been announced in advance. Next one’s theme is “Shadows & Reflections in Monochrome”.

I recommend participating in the challenges. They’re open enough to allow for a fair bit of thinking about approach and closed enough to keep focus on meeting the theme of each one. If you don’t participate, you should still check out what others of the Lens-Artists community are submitting.

I hope you enjoy.

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Various Erosions

Posted on January 28, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

These were taken around the same time as these two photos.

There’s a bit of erosion in these photos. I think the first one shows the most tragic, though it’s likely unavoidable depending on your views on bush management.

The others are more natural and perhaps in a way they also are tragic due to the impermanence of form, but they are less so, I feel.

This is my submission into the two hundred-and-thirty-third Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “A One Lens Walk“.

These were all taken with a Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM. These photos don’t do much to promote the lens, but they were fun images to take.

The host of the Lens-Artists challenges cycles weekly between the following people:

Week 1 – Tina

Week 2 – Patti

Week 3 – Ann-Christine aka Leya

Week 4 – Amy

Week 5 – John Steiner

Week 6 – Sofia Alves

Week 7 – Anne Sandler

Week 8 – Guest host

This one is curated by Anne. Donna of Wind Kisses, who has joined the Lens-artists team this year, hosts the next one.

I recommend participating in the challenges. They’re open enough to allow for a fair bit of thinking about approach and closed enough to keep focus on meeting the theme of each one. If you don’t participate, you should still check out what others of the Lens-Artists community are submitting.

I hope you enjoy.

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One Thousand Word Challenge 200: Some Complaining, a lot of Rambling.

Posted on January 28, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

And so once more I sit here and I wait for the sweat to happen and it certainly does happen. It is pouring out of me but I battle through it and I need to battle through it in order to think about what I’m writing about, though really I don’t need to do much of that as I’m… anyway…

So I’m planning on writing a little longer than I recently have and I plan to keep it up for a while but I need to dig into things. I need to dig into who I am but there is no journey here. There is no adventure of discover as all there is has already been and so I’m just reaffirming what I already know. That said, there is the chance that I might uncover something and in uncovering something then I guess I’d have to change this whole bit of writing into something else.

That’s not something that I want to happen.

If I am to prevent that then what I must do is sit here and keep on sweating and let the sweat get to me. That also is something I don’t want to do so I can only wonder if it is possible for me to split into two and deal with the issue that way. The whole thing will resolve itself and then I will have more time on my hands and in having more time on my hands I can get on with some other things and all that other stuff. You get the idea.

This heat is not the worst heat I’ve experienced. This is not that bad and yet it seems to pull the energy right out of me. It beckons and manipulates and I am here, limp and insipid and trying to push my way through a tunnel that is yet to form. Still, I must persist as there still remain many an hour in the day and so I need to get through it all and get to the end of it so as to be able to and so on and so forth for the nth time.

Still, it’s not pleasant. Not the worst; not the best. It could be much worse and it has been much worse so for that I am thankful.

Once more I’m trying to think about things and maybe the issue is not so much that I need to think of things so much as it is that I’m trying to think instead of thinking. I’m putting a barrier up and that barrier doesn’t need to be there, then I’m trying to work out how to get around the barrier. Of course you could argue that this is a good form of exercise but right now it does not serve me well. Still, it is a mode of functioning and it is a mode that I’ve made use of far too much and so maybe it is time to tear it down.

Like many things that I need to tear down this also is one and so I should start working at doing so. Maybe what I should be doing is chipping away and seeing if I can make it a gradual thing, or even reshape it entirely. I could get around it that way, but I also need to beat the heat and that is something that I cannot just beat that easily, though maybe I can. Maybe if I put my mind to it I can get around that too and if I can do so, then perhaps I am set. Perhaps I am ready to conquer all and then rise to the challenge and rise to the occasion and from there I will finally take off and reach for that which I delude myself into believing is rightfully mine. I think.

Then again I could just get on with reading the things that I want to read and forget about all of this fanciful delusion and just get on with the getting on. I could just also stay here and complain about the heat and not go anywhere with anything and that too would certainly be a decision.

Where was I going with this?

So I think that now that there is a bit of of a breeze the day might find itself settling down a bit and that’s nice. I prefer it when it gets cooler and I’m just complaining now but I think that in doing this I’m buying some time and I need some time so as to get a lot of time and with a lot of time I will get all the time so then I can work out what is being said here.

That all said I think that perhaps this is just about the act of writing; at least, that is what I am claiming and so I hope that claim sticks. If it doesn’t, then, well, I guess I could say that this is actually about self-sabotage as in a way it is. Of course it can be about many things and none of them really matter but that doesn’t matter.

Now I’m trying to work out what matters here.

When I started writing this I was hoping for something a bit more introspective and a bit less rambling but that’s not what I got. In a way that’s on me, and I guess all of it is on me, really. What can I do about this, other than sit here and accept that this is what came out? I guess I could do a lot but now it is too far into the writing to turn things around, but I’m fine with that. It’s a process of learning and exploring and growing and hoping that you get better, though some people are happy to not and that’s fine. There’s a lot to get from writing and there’s a lot to get from really digging into one’s sense of self.

Still prefer less heat.

The time it took to write one thousand words: 11:49:37

This was a struggle mostly to fatigue. That said, I don’t think this would’ve been improved by writing with more energy in me.

Written at home.

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Yuki Kajiura: Le Grand Retour

Posted on January 27, 2023 by Stupidity Hole

One listen for this one.

The first time I heard this song was a somewhere around the early to mid-noughties as part of a flash animation. I’ve listened to it here and there since as I find it enjoyable enough. Decided to write about it due to being up to it in a playlist comprised of a massive amount of music I’ve acquired over the past three years.

Anyway, I think it’s good that I was able to get the amount of words out that I did, but I don’t think I say much. A lot of this feels disconnected. It describes the song, but it doesn’t flow.

Yuki Kajiura’s (梶浦 由記) “Le Grand Retour” is from Noir Original Soundtrack II, one of the soundtracks for the anime known as Noir.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Rumbling, rattling and sound spreads out with a graveness. Soon woodwind comes in, uplifting, rising, looking to wake and bring forth. Percussion rolls out in parts; soon it all moves to a livelier state.

The beat is steady and sounds move forward, carrying a sense of adventure and openness. There is a grandness and perhaps spectacle and there is a beauty in it all, and perhaps also a sense of innocence, but soon that all suddenly disappears.

A greater tension; a menace comes through. Some sound draws long whilst others stay short, and they seem to crest over the previous landscape with a greater heaviness. It’s a different form of the same sense of dramatic.

The sounds grow heavier; the beat stays steady and more minimal whilst guitar plucks and chugs away, and it all moves to a point in which it can dissipate.

In the aftermath a bell rings out, strings draw and piano keys roll with a fragility. It seems all is lost and the keys are revealing those last moments, but it’s not long before the woodwind returns, heralding a second wind.

Soon the sounds return to the joyous and adventurous, moving beyond the heaviness. In a sense it is celebratory here and they all rise to that final moment and strike as the song ends.

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