Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1413: Only so many hours

There are only so many hours and in those hours there are only so many interactions. The combinations may be close to unlimited, or perhaps they are unlimited, but there are only so many.

You think about these things and you think about how much you can get done, but there are never enough hours to do it all, but still, you try. You try with what you can and you get some stuff done, and maybe you’ll feel alright with it at the end of the day. Maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll stress yourself out, thinking you hadn’t done enough, but you should keep on trying where you can anyway. You also should try and get some rest. Rest is important; do not devalue the need for rest. Avoiding it when it creeps up is a bad idea.

But there are only so many hours, and you keep on trying. You keep on getting done what you can get done, and you keep going until there’s little else to do, and then you do some more anyway. You pile it all on, but it becomes so much. It becomes unbearable, but that’s why you have to keep on going and keep on trying.

Actually you have to keep going and keep trying because there’s so much life to live, and it’s never enough too. Time is limited, but we should definitely not spend every bit of it doing something. There is a virtue in doing nothing, and you’ve got to be willing to embrace that doing nothing sometimes. If you don’t, then… well, you’ve only got the path you choose to take to take.

Really that sums up the whole thing. There’s so many options in life, and at the end of it, can we really say how much of it was wasted? Sure, I know I wish I was more productive when I was a younger person than I am now, but I’m still doing stuff now and I was then. I don’t necessarily regret wasting my time; just wish I wasted less of it, but that’s been done and that time isn’t coming back so I’ve just got to keep on going and make the most of what I have now where I can and where I feel I am able to do so, and then keep going from there,

We’ve so much to see and experience, and we cut it off with our twenties far too often. Life keeps going beyond that. You likely have a good number of years to live after you reach thirty. Why assume that’s where it all ends?

Perhaps we put too much pressure on ourselves to have everything made and ready to go, and perhaps that pressure is borne of societal advertising of what is and is not achievable. Too many people who get some sort of massive success before thirty and even forty are advertised to us as the ideal. Most people don’t work stuff out until they’re older.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 07:02:03

Struggled around the middle. I think the rest of this is decent.

Written at home.

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Waiting Under the Clouds

Here’s a photo of my partner I took yesterday.
She was waiting for me to finish taking some photos of waves and so she had a slight rest.
I took this photo as I thought the view made for a good one. Just a person under the clouds sitting among the rocks.

This is my submission into the three hundred-and-nineteenth Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “Setting a Mood“.

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

Tina

Patti

Ann-Christine aka Leya

John Steiner

Sofia Alves

Anne Sandler

Egídio

Ritva

Leya is curating this one. The next one is curated by Sofia.

I recommend participating in the challenges as they provide a fun way to interpret theme. If not participating, then at least you should still check out what others of the Lens-Artists community are submitting.

I hope you enjoy.

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Changing Road

Not much to say about this photo. It’s just a road one and it’s one where I like the visible change in material, as well as the sense of distance.

I hope you enjoy.

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Masashi Hamauzu: March of the Dreadnoughts

One listen.

Threw myself in, had to play catch up for a bit and got there in the end. Not great, but parts of the song are covered well enough.

Masashi Hamauzu’s (浜渦 正志) “March of the Dreadnoughts” (“ドレッドノート大爆進!”) is from Final Fantasy XIII‘s soundtrack, Final Fantasy XIII Original Soundtrack.

I hope you enjoy.

Jaunty strings and percussion strike out brightly. Dims as keys and more percussion comes in, then brightens once more. The sounds then expand, sweep across and move through everything, moving around each other and spreading further before a quick military-type percussive strike plays out.

There’s a return to the first section, and it’s a bit livelier. That newer percussion continues, and it drives underneath, and everything sweeps once more.

A variation on the beginning. A little quieter, strings are more prominent, but it builds and stays firm and rigid, before once more spreading out into a smoothness; a flow that continues on, and it pushes the sweeping and dramatic, and it looks into the serious, but there remains some fun.

The sounds then fade, and the song ends.

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Land to Float

Here’s a goose and it looks odd due to the moment of capture, or something.
Not the best photo; not the worst, but I’m pretty happy with this one as it feels natural and feels odd at the same time.

This is my submission into Leanne Cole‘s Monochrome Madness for this week. For this one Leanne has chosen a theme, and the theme is “Reflections“.

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.

I hope you enjoy.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1412: Some Thoughts Bunched Together

A lot of things to do today. Going to be a busy one, but a busy one is a good one.

Need to write a rebuttal that won’t be a rebuttal. Need to fight time and day, and need to get on with the getting on and listen to some less Pearl Jam. Maybe I need to listen to more Pearl Jam.

Anyway, I think that things are in order and I’ll get through the day, and I think that if I start starting on things I’ll find my way toward the end of it all, and that would be pretty cool. That would be good.

Thinking about what things mean and what things don’t mean, and thinking about how I can go about using my words to write something that means something. Looking for meaning in the words that I use, and looking for narrative to construct bridges that cross all things and make things neat.

Characters in games often lack depth and rather it is suggested. In some games this is more obvious than others, of course. Often characters aren’t written as characters, but rather representatives of personalities and moods and emotions and concepts, and it’s probably due to the difficulty of writing someone as complex, because you only have so much time and money when it comes to writing characters for games. At the same time, you have to wonder if there can’t be more effort.

It often feels like the quality of writing improves, but not the exploration of character, if that makes sense.

Look, what I’m doing right now is throwing a bunch of thoughts together and I’ll flesh them out later. I just need to get it all down now as if I don’t, then I’ll forget and it’ll float on away, and that’s it. I need to make sure these are down because, perhaps it’s not that I want to make meaning, but rather I want to explore meaning. Does that make sense? I hope it does. It seems to, but I’m not entirely sure. I’m not entirely certain.

We try to get things forward where we can, and we try to looking for meaning and attach to things as time flows forward, and maybe we miss the mark a lot. But is that so bad? Where does personal meaning get invalidated? What is the cutoff point? I don’t know, and I wouldn’t claim to know either. I don’t think I can quantify something so easily, and I don’t know if I’d want to invalidate people’s personal views on things. At the same time, I do think there is often a foundational meaning to some things, and that shouldn’t be ignored.

Where am I going with this? This is too thoughtful for this hour of the morning. I just want to keep going with scattered crap that means nothing at the end of the day, and I don’t want to be exploring exploration. I just want to get my mess and silliness on.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 06:53:83

Another bit of a mess, but this one is okay. I’m not fussed with how this turned out as some of it is a set of building blocks, so to speak.

Written at work.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1411: October Racing

Doing another racing and doing it standing up. Want to see how I’m affected by the act of being more upright than usual. I don’t know if this will have an impact, but I guess we’ll find out.

Realising why I don’t do these too often, and it’s less to do with injuries and more to do with it not being very enjoyable. Not satisfactory. There’s only so many times one can do these before they go “Well, that was fun and now it’s time for something else”. But that’s the way it is sometimes, and all that other stuff that makes me sound smart.

Well, with that all said, tit’s time tow rap all of this up, but I don’t know as to how I can. I don’t know if I can really get this in under four minutes, which is what I’m aiming for, and I feel myself slipping, and it makes me wonder if my brain is okay, for I’ve felt it for a while and it has not been fun, but I keep on going. I persist with the stubbornness and I keep on going and pummeling the keyboard, and it’s not a great thing, but it is what I do and I keep on doing it, and I keep on going and hope for the best whilst expecting the least, and the words come forward and I use commas far too much, though sometimes not enough at all.

I wonder if this really is all there is, and perhaps I’ve passed the curve and now all I’m doing is dragging out an end that should’ve come years ago. I don’t know; I just want to keep crapping on at the moment.

I’m also just trying to fill the time and hope for the best, but I don’t think I’m there, but we’ll see. Maybe I will get there.

So anyway, I keep going and trying and I keep racing toward an unknown future and all those things that sound dramatic, but all I am and all I’ll ever be is little else other than what I am now, but perhaps a bit older and more injured, but I’ll keep on going. I’ll keep on striving for tomorrow, for that’s all I can do. There’s little else out there to do and there’s little else out there that I can be, so I just try to be me, but I try to be a better me every year.

Sometimes that isn’t enough, but I can’t do much about that. Sometimes you can but sometimes you can’t; you know how it is. I don’t know what I’m saying now.

So I think I’ll just think about things and prepare for the work day ahead, and I’ll get to the end of it and turn around and wonder how I did what I did, and that’s the end of it and… yeah. Or no. I don’t know yet. The certainty is yet to be determined, or it has.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 05:02:44

Bit of a mess, which is to be expected.
Wrote yesterday, uploaded today. Why? Don’t know.

Written at work.

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Changing Colours in the Sky

Another recent photo, and not the best it could be, but I think this one worked out nicely.

I hope you enjoy.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1410: Not a Great Sleep

Alright, let’s see if I’ve got the magic right now.

Not a great sleep. I tried to claw my way into rest, but rest rejected me and so I was left wandering the dark halls of sleep, trying to find a bed that I could call my own in which to lie my head and close my eyes. All was dark and the halls were endless; I’d go around a corner and it would keep going, then another corner and it would keep going, and so it seemed somehow that they would not overlap with themselves, and it was all eternal.

I stumbled and staggered my way through these halls, hoping for the slightest hint of light so as to be able to guide myself better, but nothing. Sound was absorbed and silence ruled all. I could feel and I could touch, but there was no guiding sound. No creaking floorboard; no shuffling slightly echoing.

And on and on it kept on going, and all I could do was my best, to try and find some sort of reprieve from the fatigue that sits heavy on my back, and there was little I could do other than try. Energy was not limitless, but it too did not run out, but the weariness grew, and so did the need for sleep.

Eventually I decided that enough was enough and so went to lie down on the halls, but the hall shifted every time. I’d tried to lie down, and suddenly the floor of whichever hall I was in was back under my feet. I tried to fall over; no luck. I tried everything, and nothing. I had no choice but to continue to walk.

Occasionally there was some sort of hope, but it was just the dark of the night hitting things at different angles. But there were no windows and there was no light, and so the ability to discern what I was discerning brought little comfort.

I tried to sit down and ruminate about what it was that I was going through. There was no sitting. I could not; I was denied the ability to do so. Continually the halls would adjust themselves and so I was denied further rest. All I could do was stand and walk, and I lost hope of a way of getting out of this situation.

So I continued to wander, and I continued to search, but I looked without hope; it had become routine. All I had was the routine, and I kept looking, and I’m almost certain that in that hopelessness I passed that which I craved, but there was nothing I could do about it as I hadn’t realised. I could only keep on going and searching, and my eyes closed and I kept looking and fumbling, and it went on beyond a day, and it went on as centuries through a minute.

Eventually I felt something, as though light passing my face, and my eyes opened, but it was gone.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 07:58:01

I think this could’ve been much better. The idea isn’t bad, but I dragged out parts when I could’ve moved on, I feel.

Written at work.

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Roots Against Asphalt

Here’s a photo I took today. I was photographing a theatre performance, had a few minutes of downtime, walked around a bit, took this photo. Found the contrast interesting.

This is my submission into the three hundred-and-eighteenth Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “Finding Beauty in Unexpected Places“.

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

Tina

Patti

Ann-Christine aka Leya

John Steiner

Sofia Alves

Anne Sandler

Egídio

Ritva

Patti is curating this one. The next one is curated by Leya.

I recommend participating in the challenges as they provide a fun way to interpret theme. If not participating, then at least you should still check out what others of the Lens-Artists community are submitting.

I hope you enjoy.

Posted in Photography | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments