• Phone Post

“Have you ever read that book?”  She paused for a good two minutes before the question found its way out of her mouth.  She looked completely out of place.  Homeless?  Possible, but somehow doubtful.

Sitting outside the coffee shop at Main and Ashland, I was pausing from my  read of “Illusions” to take a phone call from a dear friend.

She looked like she was from Europe, but she had no accent to match her look.  Conservative, warmly dressed as the winds at this time of year are whipping off the ocean to bite unprepared or unsuspecting passersby.  Maybe a wool skirt, some sort of shawl, and a scarf, all drearily clad in black, save the light (probably faded?) blue scarf around her neck.  I paused from my telephone conversation.

I just bought the book tonight.

“It’s a great book.  It’s true.”  She said the sentences one after the other, but to her there was a distinct difference between the two.  It was both great and true, together and separately, but mostly separately from the way she said it.  “Have you ever read any of his books?”

No.  This is my first experience with Bach.

My friend graciously held her breath in the earpiece as I casually indulged this random woman.  I shifted my feet from the low stone and mortared wall that might only be capable of thwarting a Dachshund’s attempted breach and not much else, to the ground as I leaned onto the white, plastic cafe table in front of me, getting a little closer to this woman.

“Well, it’s good.  And it’s true.  Just don’t let it lead you down a path you don’t want to go down.”  She clung awkwardly to the corner of the brick facade of the coffee shop for a moment before she swept herself inside.

I went back to my friend on the phone.

That was interesting.

We chatted for a few minutes as I recounted precisely what happened.  I watched and narrated to my friend as I watched this woman walk to the counter of the coffee shop, stand, turn in a circle or two, then exit through the other door on the main face of the building.  I was explaining how strange and interesting it all was, when she suddenly appeared again.

Her fingers gripped the corner of the building like “Kilroy“, but at an angle as if there were gale force winds sweeping her off her feet.

“I know I’m just an old woman, but what I told you was wisdom.  You will take it or leave it as you choose.”  And she was gone.

I read a few passages from “Illusions” to the woman I consider to be a part of my heart’s twin before I hung up the phone to allow her to sleep.

How interesting was that little scene?  I was fascinated.  I returned to the book and breezed through the first 80 or 90 pages.  I wanted a beer.  I needed to see Jill.  I didn’t know why, but I did know why too.  Jill was supposed to have this book.  I knew it when I bought it.  And when I bought it, it was one of those magical moments (surprised?) when I didn’t see the book where I thought it should be, but the book called to me and practically jumped off the shelf at me as I was turning away, dejected that it wasn’t there, to leave.

I found Jill where she typically is on a Monday evening, at the pub, behind the counter.  Jill doesn’t know it yet, but she is a pretty good doppelganger for my heart’s twin.  The same heart’s twin to whom I was speaking on my phone when the mystery woman showered me with her unusual blessing.

I ordered a beer and continued to read.  About 35 or 40 minutes later, I read the passage at the beginning of this post for the first time.  My eyes met with Jill’s right before I read it.  I already knew, it’s the biggest part of the reason I go to the pub, but the validation made me avert my eyes in some weird feeling of embarrassment.  Does she know?  It’s hard to know or be certain of such things, but I know what I know.  We have met somewhere in some place in some time and known each other well, but not yet in this time and place.

I finished the book in a couple of hours all told.  Subtract the distractions and the time spent watching Monday Night Football, and the telephone conversation, and it probably took me all of two hours to read.  I set the book down on the bar.

Jill took a step to me.  “I have picked up and shelved this book several times!”

Have you?

“Yeah.”  She said something else, but I didn’t hear it all because my mind was swimming and racing about how she was clearly supposed to have this book.

Do you own it now?

“No.”

Then yes you do.  This is yours.

“Are you sure?”

Completely.  I knew it when I bought it that I would be giving it to you.

Jill didn’t even blink when I said that.  Maybe she hadn’t heard.  Maybe she was ok with that type of thing.  Hard to say, really.  She took the book and placed it on a fax machine that sits next to her POS system.  I continued to field questions about finishing a book in a couple of hours and why I would then give away a book that I had only purchased three hours past.  Jill moved about in her regular fashion attending to those who required her help, paying no attention to those who seemed to be fascinated by my gesture.  I liked that about her.

Jill!  Can I have the book for a moment?  I want to earmark a page for you.

“Sure.”

I found the passage and earmarked it and placed it back on the bar.  Another stranger sauntered up and made a remark of how wonderful the book was.  I was a little surprised at how many people knew the book, quite honestly, but I was enjoying the whole thing too much to dwell on that for too long.  I donned my white “old man” sweater and my knitted charcoal scarf and said goodbye to my new friend from Montreal to my right, to Jason and Jill, and started out the door to my car for the drive home.  I wonder if Jill will understand.  I wonder how much I do.

• Phone Post

I was bouncing off the walls when I reached Dr. Ken Best’s office.  I was happy, excited even, to see Ken and experience whatever magic and wonder might await me.  He asked me what was going on today, and like a child with ADD chasing every bell and whistle and light at a  carnival , I quickly spat out ten, or maybe twenty, or perhaps it was a thousand different things that were happening.

It all boiled down to one thing.

I feel stuck.

“Stuck?  How?”

I feel like my spiritual and mental and emotional bodies are flying along at such a great pace, but that my physical body is lagging sorely behind.  Like I want to make my physical world and self the manifestation of my spiritual self, and I haven’t quite figured out how to do that.

(Easy for me to say now.  It took me ten minutes and 157 different verbal angles to get that out for him in that moment.)

I feel like I’m on the precipice of something great, but I have felt like this for a very long time, so I don’t know if I’m on the same precipice or a different one.  I just want to jump off and fly.

“It’s always a different precipice.”

Ken turned out the main overhead lights, leaving just the lamp on in the corner as if to signal this was about to get serious.  I actually prefer it that way; it adds to the magical ambiance.  Then he took me through the usual rigamarole of cracking and twisting and popping.

“Did you read the book?”

Kybalion?  No, but I haven’t gone to look for it yet, either.  I’ll go tonight.  I’m going to the beach, and The Mystery Annex is right there.

“Don’t get it.  I won’t have anything to give you for Christmas.  Besides, I have another book for you.”

Oh?

“Illusions, by Richard Bach.”

Ok.

I gave my neck and head completely to Ken, trusting him with a child-like heart.  This was the first time I had ever given over my neck and head so easily, and the cracking that followed proved as much.

“Life is about jumping off the precipice.  Say it please.”

Life is about jumping off the precipice.

My fingers pulled apart.

“Life is about always being on the precipice.”

Life is about always being on the precipice.

My fingers held.

“I can have enlightenment now.  Say it please.”

I can have enlightenment now.

My fingers almost held together.

“Maaaybe.  Would you like to know that you can have enlightenment now?”

Yes.

We worked through several things all pertaining to my enlightenment and the bringing of my spiritual understanding into the physical world.  I was lying on my back, per usual, with Ken seated to my left working my left ring finger and thumb to mark the truth of the Thetahealing.  Tears filled in as small pools under my closed eyelids before they began to find less and less room until, eventually, they overflowed the negligible space of my sockets and trickled down the sides of my face.

We were finished, or so I thought, and I think Ken probably did too.  Then something happened that had never happened before.

I opened my eyes and Ken was staring directly at me, although it honestly felt more like it was through me.  I met his gaze and did not let go.  Something was happening.  His face began to shape-shift on me as is common when staring at someone or something with a softened focus.  I could see he was experiencing something, seeing something, and I could only dream of having that power (or more accurately, I had not yet fully given over to the belief that I already have that power).

I struggle in those moments to not comment, thinking about how I will write this moment in my blog later on, how it will sound or what approach to take, and a hundred different other things before I stop myself and realize I need to just be in the moment.

Somehow the magic was lost on me as I wrestled with my brain to be quiet and still.  I could see in Ken’s face that whatever had been happening was over.  I sat up slowly as Ken moved around behind me to wipe the table with a sterilized wet-wipe of some kind.

“Wake up…wake up…wake up.”

The words hung in the air like ghosts haunting me.  I moved to a chair next to Ken’s desk to put on my shoes, and suddenly I was overcome and began to cry.  It was slow at first, but wave after wave after wave crashed over me, and I could no longer hold it back.

I don’t know when it happened, but Ken was sitting on the table directly across from me.  If I hadn’t been in his office, I would have forgotten all my dignity and I would have cried aloud in my sobs.

I must be strong.

“Don’t fight it.  Walk into it.”

It was another moment when I wanted to be freaked out by Ken seemingly reading my mind, but I apparently have become accustomed to such things with him, and instead, I only allowed myself to go deeper.

Ken allowed me my space.

I have been hiding.

“Yes.”  It was neither a confirmation or a question.  It was an invitation to expand.

I know who I am.  I know what I’m supposed to do.  I know what I can become, and, yet, I have been hiding.  I’m so tired of hiding, Ken.

His next client arrived.  I had to pull it all back together and walk out now.  I did my best.

According to Aristophanes in Plato’s Symposium, at the beginning of creation, men and women were not as they are now; there was just one being who was rather short, with a body and a neck, but his head had two faces, looking in different directions. It was as if 2 creatures had been glued back to back with 2 sets of sex organs, four legs and four arms.

The Greek Gods were however jealous, because this creature with its four arms could work harder; with its two faces, it was always vigilant and could not be taken by surprise and its four legs meant that it could stand or walk for long periods of time without tiring. Even more dangerous was the fact that the creature had two sets of sex organs and so needed no one else in order to continue reproducing.

Zeus feared their power and split them all in half, condemning them to spend their lives searching for the other half to complete them. He said: ‘Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and improve their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two and then they will be diminished in strength and increased in numbers; this will have the advantage of making them more profitable to us. They shall walk upright on two legs, and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet, I will split them again and they shall hop about on a single leg.’

So, after Zeus split the creature with a lightening bolt, the resultant creatures were men and women. The split dis-oriented and weakened them, because now they had to search for their lost half and embrace it, and in that embrace regain their former strength, their ability to avoid betrayal and the stamina to work for long periods of time and to withstand hard work. That embrace in which two bodies re-fuse to become one again is what is called Sex.

—-Richard Bach, The Bridge Across Forever

Nu exista un lucru
Pe care sa-l numesti problema
Care sa nu poarte un dar pentru tine
In mainile sale!
(Richard Bach)

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“Sometimes when learning comes before experience It doesn’t make sense right away.” — Richard David Bach

“A name is a label, and as soon as there is a label, the ideas disappear and out comes label-worship and label-bashing, and instead of living by a theme of ideas, people begin dying for labels… and the last thing the world needs is another religion.”

–Richard Bach

Natural? by GA Rosenberg

Thanks BlackLullaby & Polka Dots for the tag. I’ve opted to use a term from Richard Bach when he wrote a letter to his younger self in The Bridge Across Forever because it is essentially things I really wish I knew then, which I’ve learned now.

Dear sandwich of 17,

You turn 30 this year and it’s been a long journey. Most of what you’ve done is pretty darn good between where you are and where I am now. Here’s just a few things to look out for along the way :

You’re going to skip an A/L exam. It will make for a pretty neat story to tell when you’re older, but it will also prevent you from getting the aggregate you need to go to Uni. You’ll regret it but you ought to know that you do pretty good for yourself career wise until you wake up one morning close to 30 and realize that you’ve been selling soap for a living, albeit in much prettier terms.

Your save-the-world complex never really goes away. It converts itself into a mother hen variant though. You are a nurturer through and through so don’t you ever doubt it when your own mother says you can’t even take care of yourself. There’s plenty of evidence out there to the contrary.

Don’t be such a prude about sex. 23 is way too late in the day to give it away. Trust me, when you finally find someone you can completely open up with sexually, you’ll be able to unlock doors within you that you never knew existed. In my case it was fairly late in the day that I discovered that. Go out there, get laid, enjoy it. You don’t have to worry about becoming promiscuous; we just aren’t built that way

Your mum was right though. You don’t really take care of yourself. Especially your heart. As a result it will lead you to making the worst relationship decisions of your life until you turn 29 and finally discover otherwise. It will also result in the terrible friendships with people who walk all over you. But you finally learn to stand up for yourself at 29 too. You get married way too early and it takes you away from the person you are now at 17. But rest assured, 29 will come with you rediscovering your former self and your former passions like never before. You’ll have someone perfectly unorthodox to thank for it. I’m not telling you who though. It’s someone you need to discover for yourself. And trust me, the surprise will be startlingly pleasant. The friends I have today and the people I love in this very moment, I wouldn’t trade for anything else in the world.

You look for the poetry and romance in everything. You’ll watch a masterpiece called 2001:A Space Odyssey and feel all warm and fuzzy inside when Dr. Floyd video conferences his little daughter & feel like crying when HAL 9000 is disconnected. You’ll watch AI and curl up in a ball and cry because the robot is abandoned. Don’t ever regret your ability to feel so intensely even if the fact that no one gets that about you will bring you down. You will hurt a lot. But you will also love a lot. Don’t ever deny the intensity and the capacity of your heart. You feel everything. It’s rare. Treasure it.

I know you’re in a rush to grow up, but I have some bad news for you on that front. You never do. Live with it. Your child-like optimism will get you through some pretty dark days and trust me; the decade ahead will be the darkest of your life. But you will come through it and learn to live and love again.

Irrespective of what anyone tries to tell you, you’re a good girl Nat and that’s important to know. I’ve watched you for years, seen how you’ve handled things that would have turned most others stark raving mad or the epitome of bitchiness, to say the least. You’ve just stood there with so much grace and smiled through it all, opting to hurt alone. No matter how hurt you are, you try your hardest to keep things peaceful for anyone else involved, both victim & villain. You have a fierce sense of loyalty that seems unparalleled sometimes and woe unto anyone who hurts someone you love.

Your strengths are your weaknesses and what hurts you most is the lack of reciprocation of feelings. But it’s all-good. You’re going to get through it all. People think you’re superwoman because of how strong you come across but you’re a bloody softy on the inside. I repeat : You’re a good girl. Don’t you dare forget it.

I won’t promise you a storybook ending, but you’re going to have the kinds of adventures others only dream of, every step of the way. Now go out there and live it!

Love,

Me, now aged 29 years, 10 months and 16 days.

P.s. Stop looking for the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Doug Adams already did that. The answer is 42. Go figure.

I hereby tag Hissyfits/Drama Queen/ The mad cat woman etc & the lovely ladies over at Aappa Thachchiya

A Feedback letter to the Course Administrators of the RKF International Screenwriting Course, lectured by Anjum Rajabali and K. Hariharan (with a dissertation on dialogue writing by Atul Tiwari). Conducted by Kamal Haasan. Not only a review of the lessons in the course, but also an in-depth analysis of the many discoveries and revolutions in screenwriting that I have come to understand through the span of 10 years:

I suppose the first step here would be to explain a little on where I am coming from so that my feedback on the Workshop will have a clearer perspective for you. The first screenwriting course I did was back in 1998, in Canberra University, Australia. I distinctly remember the lecturer expounding on the 3 Act Screenplay, but most especially I recall that being my first introduction to the Hero’s journey. Perhaps it was a lack of life experience and foresight, or perhaps it was the nature of the course itself, but I remember the Hero’s journey being a weak and finicky set of guidelines lacking in any real sense of depth. I quickly forgot all about it and moved on.

Now it has been 10 years, and I feel I have come full circle – once again revisiting the Hero’s Journey through Anjum Rajabali’s crystalline insight; and suddenly it is made clear to me at a point where I have the capacity to better understand it. You see, 10 years ago I had an inkling of why I wanted to be a storyteller… I dreamed about creating paradigm shifts through my stories and films; shifts in the way people thought and viewed the world. Since I myself had a small taste of this profound effect that a few films can have, I was determined that the craft was a worthwhile investment of the soul.

But the idea of investigating life and its meaning through storytelling was functionally lost on me. It existed only as an instinctive knowing that yes – this is possible! But on the whole, as much as I exasperated, I was unable to fuel insight and wisdom into my stories. For that, I suppose, I needed to live a little. To fall down, and rise up – and understand the profound miracle of what it means to rise up. I went in search of experience, and gave everything up – travelled a lot, lived as a hermit for a few years and threw myself into strange spiritual paradoxes that ordinarily passes you by. In effect, I was merely gathering material. Which inevitably comes to a point where you empty your cup and realise the material was within you all along. Even for that, you need to come full circle.

Coming full circle, Anjum begins to explain the Hero’s journey like a flaming arrow going to the crux of storytelling itself: Mythology helps us understand interiority. I had pondered mythology like a lifeline, I had written compulsively to externalise internal thoughts… yet this insight was a vital link that I had hitherto not anticipated. It validated and made sense of years of rich material that I was waiting to put to use. Suddenly, under the very construct of Anjum’s musings on the Hero’s Journey, my mind cleared and everything seemed to fall into place – options were made available where none seemed possible. Perhaps it seems I am overstating, yet believe me, for one who is intensely passionate about going to the heart of any given thing, this was a revelation. Mythology was not merely good material for me – it has been the pulse of a mystical creation symbolically told. The idea that we can fathom our own existence by our stories was always present, the door was visible and closed – but I needed the key.

After that moment, the course became transformative. At this point let me retrack a bit to set the scene… The second course on screenwriting I did was in 2004 with an Australian writer/filmmaker named Leslie Oliver. He brought a unique insight to storytelling that I don’t think I will ever forget – not merely for the fact that it is so simple but also that it is so revealing. He explained that “character is story, story is character.” I know we speak often in screenwriting circles about the importance of character, but few go so far as to state this inexplicable link. Most of the time, we find a difference between our stories and our characters, but not with Leslie. His technique was to observe the obscure moments of life by which to fathom a character that invokes us to explore him or her, and in placing that character into a conflicting situation, we see them develop. He felt that nothing else is really needed except this, in order to tell a powerful story. He spoke about writing as akin to sculpting; what you are doing in effect is chipping away on a slab of stone to uncover the nightingale already waiting within it.

This was so far removed from my first course in Screenwriting, which was formulaic in comparison, that after the course with Leslie Oliver, I seemed to find most of the other available courses were expounding mainly on the dastardly “character arc”, and I lost interest in going to any more workshops. Of course I was developing stories along the way, and getting stuck with some. Festering – I should say, living with my stories for years, developing them slowly. Time passed. Much happened.

I felt a certain knack for creating a breathtaking symmetry in skeletal framework for my screenplays, and it wasn’t until recently that suddenly my entire understanding of storytelling was shattered by an American playwright/screenwriter named Billy Marshall-Stoneking. At the culmination of 2008, just as I was arranging to come to India, I stumbled across Stoneking’s advert for his screenwriting course. He spoke of mediumistic, tribal storytelling. Mediumistic?! Tribal?! These words resonated deeply, as quite a part of my life was engaged in mediumistic spirituality – where ethereal beings were simply “channelled” into the body (the owner of the body handing control for a few moments), whilst the visitor inhabited. And it rang true, the moment I read two otherwise unrelated words grouped side by side. Mediumistic storytelling. Billy was a man who had spent a large part of his life living with aboriginal tribes and assimilating a sense of universal storytelling through a powerfully primal form – from the very origins of tribal consciousness.

Yes, it made sense. I had passed across several writers who spoke of living with their characters, of their characters voices in their heads, of their characters existing in their own right. I had always found this very intangible, as I only heard one voice in my head. Mine. No one elses (or so I thought). So, the entire idea of having a conversation with someone other than myself in my mind was more than a little unfathomable. Yet I longed for that intimacy I had read authors speak of in interviews – that profound intimacy with their characters where they even speak to them. Until then the sort of intimacy I shared with my characters were more the fodder of potent emotions begging exploration, rather than voices. Yet that is semantics really. Where the emotions manifest as thoughts, or vice versa, is almost seamless.

I decided to be honest and emailed Billy, explaining to him that I’ve been through a whole load of courses on screenwriting and have hardly come across anything new these days, so I would very much appreciate it if he would be forthcoming with me whether he’s got anything new to say or not. Yes, I was blunt, but respectful. His reply was to enigmatically encourage me to come along. And, as curiosity always gets the better of me, I went along to see what he had to say – without judgement.

What transpired was my mind shut down – not in any negative sense, but in the profound realisation that every rule I seemed to have set myself about screenwriting flew out the window. Because Billy was speaking of “dramatic storytelling” in a freshness that invoked, provoked the listener to drop their ideology and approach screenwriting with utter vulnerability. Let me summarise the kind of thinking he directed at you to confound everything you thought you knew for a fact:
• The whole thing is about transforming: every scene should hold a transformation.
• Dramatic intelligence is the art of becoming present.
• The intersection of the origins of the characters with the origins of the writer is what brings freshness to a story.
• You’re dealing with dead people, and you’re trying to make them alive. You are also dead. You become alive by writing… They are dreaming you, and you are dreaming them.
• The fundamental question you must ask yourself: What is your character fighting for?
• Drama is really an exploration of frustrated desires. Drama is essentially about anxiety and overcoming anxiety.
• Who is it that you are speaking for? Or more intimately: who is speaking through you?
• The truth is revealed in the face of opposition.
• We must journey on as if we are blind – if we look down, we will fall.
• Write the story that terrifies you the most. Go into the mouth of Kali.
• The screenplay world and your world are inexplicably connected… And whatever you do in one world will impact the other.
• Art never explains. Every time you explain what you are trying to do, you are trying to avoid a fear!
• The one thing of no use to a dramatic storyteller is knowledge, because knowledge gets in the way.
• This is the art of the invisible! In what is not said. In what is not shown.
• There are characters that want to come out. That are imprisoned by the writer’s fears. We project our fears and that drops the potential the characters actually have.
• When we hit the wall, we have to drop our expectations, because the wall is a manifestation of our expectations.

It is this aspect of hitting the “wall”, that was the crux of his unique way of seeing this ancient artform. That, inevitably, in every story, the writer and his characters will reach a point of critical conflict where he is forced to live it through his characters – and at this point most writers take the cowards way out. They resort to some rationality, some formulaic way out of the insurmountable situation. And if they do, the story will lose all its power and worth. It is at this point – at this wall, that one must drop everything they think they know, and step into the unknown. Become intuitive rather than intellectual. I would say there is rarely a screenwriting course that approaches storytelling with such bravery. This bravery was deeply appealing, as I had always considered good writing as that rare gift of pouring the depths of your soul onto paper. It felt like a code of honour only wielded by the warrior-poets. For they will not succumb, even in their words.

So it came to be that when I was at the right place at the right time, and invited to attend the RKF International Screenwriting Workshop, I decided to come without any expectations. In several ways Billy had created more questions than answers, and I was unable to pick up the pieces myself. I was stuck as to understand how to push my story ideas forward because his course had demanded of me a complete relinquishing of myself. It had demanded me to set myself aside and let the characters write through me.

I succeeded, and through the workshop created stories where I was so utterly surprised by the outcome, and since my own transformation was honest, I could see its effect on the audience. But as for applying this methodology to stories I had already developed upto treatment stage, I was unable to find the balance. This is not to say that my previous stories were so manufactured that they needed to be discarded. Rather, I am an unrelenting perfectionist – and I wished to imbue my entire body of work with this newfound insight. I realised that I had been hearing the voices of my characters all along, yet my fear had been stifling them.

I think you may understand now why I opted to give this explanation of what brought me to the point of your workshop, as it does set the scene in revealing what transpired within me throughout the phenomenal six days.

Firstly, I did not expect for Anjum, Hariharan and the majority of speakers to extol this very same bravery from us in our writing. That took me by surprise, and it was then that I realised that I was right where I was supposed to be. To divulge step by step:

DAY 1: PREMISE/CHARACTERISATION.

I have believed for a long while now that the real meaning of “literacy” is not the assimilation of information, but rather – to learn the skill of questioning what is before you – not taking anything as a given, but discovering for yourself. For that to work, the uniqueness of the individual is imperative. It is this uniqueness that produces originality, and I had a deepening sense of relief to witness that Kamal Haasan and the lecturers were acutely aware of this and were giving it utmost importance.

For a long time now in screenwriting circles the premise had been taught to be the fundamental moral of the story – the core “message” of the film. Yet on day one of the RKFI Course, Anjum explained the premise to be something else entirely – although he acknowledged that it is often known to be a moral, he insisted that a premise is better known as the “lock” of the story. That is, the culminating incident to which the entire story is built up, and thus resolved.

At first, I didn’t see why this difference in definition was even necessary, but as I began to ponder the issue, and moreover, apply it to my own stories, it soon became crystalline that this particular use of premise is far more useful in the construction of a screenplay. Because we are then dealing with the crux of the story itself, its very backbone, and thereby are constantly aware of where we are going off on tangents, or staying true to the heart of the story. As opposed to a moral or theme, which may speak for subtext, but on the whole does not define the constructs and motivations of the characters.

It became apparent that this particular definition of premise is most elevating for a writer on his/her journey of discovering characters and the situation of conflict they find themselves in. It brings focus on the conflict in very specific terms – relatable only to the story being told – it enables the writer to be unique and fresh in the telling. Suddenly, the “premise” had a use in the process of writing, and was no longer a musing on the tale.

Hariharan then presented, in his analysis of characterisation, what appeared at first notice to be an opposing approach. Whilst Anjum was fused with conviction in the intuitive magic that exists within writing, and was presenting ways in which to allow such intuition to “reveal” itself to the writer, Hariharan seemed passionate about the mechanics – about construction in a surprisingly mathematical precision. I would guess that for most delegates at the course, this would have posed an element of choice – of deciding one way or another. It certainly did for me, as I felt at home with the fire of intuition that Anjum had spoken of, and had often dismissed the need to totally intellectualise or feign the mechanics of the writing process. I am certain others would have felt more at home with the mechanics, and perhaps even puzzled at the notion of giving so much importance to intuition.

Yet, I was sitting in the course with already a dilemma at the back of my mind. The one that Billy had created, by persuading me with fine fuzzy zen-like logic to do away with any sort of mechanical approach – which I had on the whole found next to impossible. No matter how intuitively culminated, there would always be a strong mechanics in the structure of my stories that I was unable to do away with.

Pondering the contradicting approaches of both Hariharan and Anjum, it eventually dawned on me that this is indeed a right brain/left brain issue. That is, the optimum function of an individual is when both are in balance, when creativity and logic are simultaneously active and complimentary to the other. Suddenly, Hariharan and Anjum did not seem so far apart, and in imagining how both can be applied to the process of writing, slowly a clarity began to settle upon me.

For this reason, I felt it remarkable that the course syllabus was formed to represent two (or more) seemingly opposing ideas as a tangible whole. This aspect of opposing ideas co-existing was a recurring theme throughout the course, and one of its crowning virtues – it oft reminded me of the tantric saying: “The truth can only ever be told in the contradictions. Or… in silence.”

If anything, it would have placed the attentive listener in the predicament of not walking away with set rules and constructs – but rather inspired an openness to the writing process itself. In a worldwide education system that is surely failing because of its spotlight upon memorising a panorama of rules (and soon forgetting them), I was kindled with a vigour to witness a better method of teaching.

DAY2: STRUCTURE.

The finely tuned exploration of how a dilemma is built to a critical mass – being the engrossing topic of the second day. A few of the things that really stood out for me and have instilled themselves implicitly are:
• Change can only happen in a person capable of change.
• The nature of heroism is unintentional – a man is provoked into heroic acts – and heroism is not in and of itself a grounding motive.
• Tragedies are where characters are unable to resolve their dilemma.
• Subplots throw light on hidden dimensions of the main plot.
• Theory of dialectics: The opposite of something exists within itself.

In essence, the fundamental lesson here was that there must be an internal conflict within every powerful scene or sequence, a conflict that reveals itself through subtext or subplots, all intimately linking back to the premise. At this point, the premise becomes infinitely pivotal – every moment of the film holds a premise, contributing to an underlying premise that drives energy to the entire story.

Ultimately bringing home the essential masterstroke of every piece of art – show, don’t tell.

Of course, this point is made almost always in writing courses, yet to demonstrate the point also requires a lucidity that gives the student enough breath to recompose and integrate it into himself. For this, reason, I valued Anjum’s approach – he had carefully highlighted the underlying facet of conflict as in itself revealing the subtext. This essentially enables the aspiring writer to not find subtexts so mysterious. Which meant only intuition would decide the immaculate and fresh circumstances in which the characters find themselves.

Yet even this intuition is more guided by observing life, rather than observing film – it is a dance between the two – of translating those obscure moments that are so definitive of life into the language of film. So, the premise is more about deriving meaning out of existence, meaning on existence itself – that is the invariable link between life and film – every moment of every situation becomes meaningful in stories, and thereby gives meaning to life. Stories become sacred because they eradicate the pointlessness of existence. They become mythic because they remind the lost about the forgotten.

Everything became tangible here for me – it is essentially about dilemma, and surprisingly, a dilemma of the soul, making it an exploration of spirit – even if, in film, it seems simply like a character exploration. For why else is a character invoked into heroism, and into changing, if not to better himself into something intuitive. Why else is a writer invoked to forsake all knowledge and write with a divining sense of intuition, had it not been proved through the ages that only this kind of writing creates timeless art. More than about character, it was about the spirit within the character. For otherwise, intuition (and instinct) would not be so crucial. It would simply be another word receiving lip-service.

DAY 3: DIALOGUE & DECONSTRUCTION.

This was the central letdown in the course. Through all that Atul Tiwari was expounding, be it the history of dialogue writing, and especially examples of the best forms of dialogue – the one thing, the primary thing – that he neglected to divulge was the PROCESS of dialogue writing itself. I did ask a few questions pertaining to his writing process, but did not get an insightful response.

The main aspect of dialogue writing (especially in Indian films) is that quite often screenplay and dialogue are not written by the same people. Yet Anjum had spoken at length about the necessity to spend an intimate amount of time living and breathing your characters, imagining them living alongside you and better understanding their motivations and characteristics. So much investment is made upon the characters to understand the emotions that rule them.

Having bled with your characters, finally you emerge out of the dark night with a reckoning screenplay, and are about to collaborate with a dialogue writer. I have full faith in the specific mastery of dialogue writing – I understand that it is entirely a different skill to writing screenplay or understanding time and space pertaining to plot. It is for this very reason that I wanted to delve deeper into this skill of the dialogue writer, to see how he is so quickly able to assimilate the characters that the screenwriter has been developing for months, and furthermore to understand their vocabulary and style and manner of speech. Hopefully in future courses this aspect of dialogue writing would be explored for the students. A greater focus on process would be far more helpful, I feel, rather than a demonstration of the history and evolution of dialogue writing (unless this evolution also is made to tie in to the “process”).

I am glad however, that the lecturers chose to emphasise that one must think of the characters as having an “independent” personality – that you, in effect, are not creating these characters, but pushing them, reacting to them, and evolving and transforming with them. You are walking beside them, not manufacturing them out of lego pieces.

The revealing of how subtext is used in films was quite instructive. It was a divulging into the “non-active” power that exists in films. The power of the silence, the power of what is not said. Nothing offers as much window into reality and the exploration of real dilemmas as the use of “what is not shown.” As Eisenstein would put it; “the art of the invisible.”

Which inevitably lead to the deconstruction of the screenplay, lectured by Hariharan. Immediately beginning with the proposition: Consider time also as a character. I was astonished to witness the detail to which the 7 minute intro sequence of Satyajit Ray’s film was broken apart and analysed with piercing and remarkable judgement. Without exaggeration, I sat mesmerised, and secretly hoped that Hariharan would continue to analyse the entire film with this prowess of film language.

With illuminating precision, the nature of the objective/subjective link in film was explored, coaxing the eager student to grasp the rudiments of great storytelling.

DAY 4: HERO’S JOURNEY, PROCESS & INDUSTRIAL ASPECTS.

“A writer’s inspiration enters you through your fingertips.” – Anjum Rajabali.

There are things we instinctively know – things like the virtues: no one ever disagrees that to be a hypocrite is a vice, not a virtue. And that to be honourable is a virtue. These aren’t social rules, or political ones. It is intrinsic to our very being. That is the essence of instinctive knowing – where suddenly your tribal or cultural affiliations, or where you come from doesn’t make you so different to the rest of us, because there is an underlying unification in our consciousness.

However, as much as we have this knowing, we are for the most part unable to see the heart of it, see the fodder from which it comes, and how it manifests. For this very reason, for a long time I believed in the power of storytelling, yet was unable to find the words to express its imminent role in one’s identity. Because for the most part, people would rather convince themselves that stories are merely a squandering type of entertainment to escape boredom. This superficial idea is often so powerful a paradigm, that entertainment itself seems to have succumbed to this very definition, and attempted to do just that – quell boredom.

The thunderous roar of the warrior-poets, who would weave stories in the hearts of their countrymen to inspire courage, to dispel fear, and to mostly, urge them to discover themselves – all of this innate power of storytelling is often forgotten. So it was, that when Anjum divulged the apex of the hero’s journey as essentially the facing of oneself (as proposed by Joseph Campbell), everything fell into place like the difficulty of a jigsaw puzzle being finally resolved.

Suddenly I had means in which to speak of that which I have devoted my life to – storytelling itself – I had means in which to speak of its dominating influence within society without being vague, or sceptical. Since that day, I had shared the very same insight I had learnt to several acquaintances during dinner gatherings, and have witnessed the clarity and power that settled over them to understand the real nature of stories.

Mythology in itself is a misunderstood word. I remember a few years back deciding to read about Jesus not as a historical figure, but as a fictional character – and was surprised to find how much more power he had over me, how much more influence. I then tried the same with the ancient Puranas, and to date have rarely come across stories so rich. Does it matter if it is fact, or fiction? More to the point, is fiction, by definition, a mark of what is not real… or is it that which signifies everything we value to be real! Therein lies its power.

Isn’t it so that the wisdom within the myths are more valuable than the question of whether it really happened? As Campbell repeats again and again, myths exists to show us solutions to our own dilemmas. Science itself is more an assertion of what has not been “proved” wrong, rather than what has been proved right. To the discriminating eye, there are no facts, and fictions become far more magical – magic itself becomes the reality. This is why writers give up the world, this is why they bleed, why they want to relinquish their own souls in order to discover themselves through their stories.

Just as the character discovers himself at the culmination of the hero’s journey, the writer is being transformed alongside him. But only if he is approaching it in an intuitive process! Which is why Anjum was insistent on this specific kind of writing, as was Billy. The hero’s journey, ultimately, is the visual representation of an otherwise invisible struggle of self discovery. Of facing your own fears. These things, quite often, happen in darkness, it happens often without anyone close to you ever discovering what you are going through. Yet with these stories, the world can intimately relate to you, because it is what they themselves are experiencing. This is why they revisit the majestic cinema!

Coming full circle – on this day, the pieces fell into place, and all the contradictions of storytelling that I had learnt became a potent oneness of expression.

The afternoon of the fourth day amassed a step-by-step analysis of how to create stories for the film industry. A tasteful and grounded counterpart to the deeply invigorating morning.

DAY 5 – DAY 6 –

I think what was very validating for the students was watching the guest lecturers speak about screenwriting within the same constructs and with the same approach as what was impressed upon us within the first four days. Especially since the guest lecturers/filmmakers were totally unaware of what transpired in the last four days in the course, the very fact that their own sharing and experiences corroborated with what was taught affirmed that we were not dealing with theories here, but applications.

Although the fifth and sixth day was an amalgamation of some brilliant minds within the international film fraternity, there is one issue that I wish you to consider: The writers/filmmakers who spoke to us did not seem so tuned-in to the kind of information we really wanted from them. It was not loaded with the essential wisdom a budding screenwriter desperately needs. It lacked the tightness of the first four days. Every now and then the celebrities would make a statement that was amazingly illuminating, but for the most part they seemed to talk in tangents. I think the purpose of having seminars in the last two days was to very specifically study the guest speakers’ process and development with screenwriting. Sometimes though I got the feeling the guest lecturers forgot this.

Perhaps if the prominent writers had it in their mind to speak to “themselves as beginners”, and to tell themselves the kind of things they would have wanted to know, it could improve the course immensely. Instead, for quite a substantial amount of the two days, what we received was a history of what these writers/filmmakers have been through… or worse, some industrial trivia that was no help whatsoever. Reflecting back on the mistake by Atul Tiwari in describing the history of dialogue writing, perhaps it is easier for a person who is unprepared to describe the history of things without ever going to the heart of it. I do request that you find some solutions to avoid this in future.

I must add here that this does not apply to the entirety of the last two days. Jean Claude Carriere, for example, seemed enamoured with naught else but the intricate process of screenwriting, and spoke lucidly about the mechanisms in which to understand it. Aside from that, each of the speakers every now and then delivered some striking wisdom that either affirmed or violently contradicted what was taught to us in the first four days. Either way, I took them both to be valid, because by then I had understood that the confusion that comes from contradictions is more helpful than harmful.

By the end of it all, I remember still being a little puzzled about what was said about dialogue writing, so I approached Rituparno Ghosh (his film from the night before, Dosar, still fresh on my mind), and questioned him about his prowess in writing such fresh dialogue.

I said, “How do you write your dialogues?”

He replied, “After a point, my characters write the dialogues.”

That seemed to summarise it all, and I have meditated upon that insight ever since.

Some unforgettable statements from the course:

“Mythology is the need to contextualise oneself. Mythology deals with denials and the understanding of denials.” – Shekhar Kapur.

“Scriptwriting is about how to catch the desire of the audience and how to hold that desire. What is credible is whatever the spectator desires.” – Olivier Lorelle.

“The rules of scriptwriting is nothing but a shortcut to a point of choicelessness.” – Shekhar Kapur.

“Language is a miserably inadequate medium to express the richness of emotions, and that is what makes its inadequacy a fantastic subtext.” – Balu Mahendra.

“Your local audience is your global audience. If you win the hearts of the locals, they can take you to the global.” – Bharat Bala.

“You have to enter the dark cave and come out of it all wounded to understand why you are writing the screenplay.” – Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra.

One word that cannot describe this course is: exhausting! Yes, it was an intensive plethora of hours spent, listening to discourses until evening, then analysing a movie during the night, and yet I felt more alive and invigorated, ready and anticipating the next day. Infact, after the movie, groups of us who were of like minds (and even staunchly opposing minds), would gather together to debate what we had learnt during the day – sometimes until 2am – before we decided to rest. And somehow wake up, ready to absorb all over again.

My deepest gratitude to everyone who contributed to a sure-footed step into redefining the standards of storytelling. I found Kamal Haasan, in person, to be wiser than I had realised, and his remark comes to mind, “when mediocrity is set as the standard, then to be a genius means very little.” I feel that several great minds felt a calling to improve things – and feel blessed to have been at the right place at the right time to take part in it. To bring meaningfulness back to storytelling has been my dream also, and feel extremely liberated to be offered the chance to dream it with others.

Thank you.

Vajra Krishna.

If you practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats. – Richard Bach.

Szerintem a világ egyik legszebb története egy sirályról szól. Fogalmam sincsen hogyan és miért írta meg Richard Bach de az tény, hogy egy zseniális történetet hozott össze.

Itt olvasható:
Richard Bach: Jonathan, a sirály

Eis um teste para saber se você terminou sua missão na Terra: se você está vivo, não terminou.

———————–

Não dê as costas a possíveis futuros antes de ter certeza de que não tem nada a aprender com eles.

———————–

Valorize os seus limites e por certo não se livrará mais deles.

———————–

Se desejas tanto a liberdade e a felicidade, não vês que ambas estão dentro de ti? Pensas que a tens e a terás. Age como se fossem tuas e serão.

———————–

Quantos vivem toda a vida sem descobrir o que sabem e amam?

Tantos.

Não ser um desses é essa a tua missão.

———————–

Uma alma gêmea é alguém cujas fechaduras coincidem com nossas chaves e cujas chaves coincidem com nossas fechaduras. Quando nos sentimos seguros a ponto de abrir as fechaduras, surge o nosso eu mais verdadeiro e podemos ser completa e honradamente quem somos. Cada um descobre a melhor parte do outro.

———————–

Nunca te é concedido um desejo sem que te seja concedida também a facilidade de torná-lo realidade. Entretanto, é possível que tenhas que lutar por ele.

———————–

O que a lagarta chama de fim do mundo, o homem chama de borboleta.

———————–

Amar alguém incondicionalmente é não nos preocuparmos com o que essa pessoa é ou faz.

———————–

Existem todas as possibilidade, a mais absoluta liberdade de escolha. Como em um livro, onde cada letra permanece para sempre na página, mas o que muda é a própria consciência que escolhe o que ler e o que deixar de lado.

———————–

Se buscas a segurança antes da felicidade, a segunda será o preço que terás que pagar pela primeira.

———————–

Durante anos procuramos encontrar alguém que nos compreenda, alguém que nos aceite como somos, capazes de nos oferecer a felicidade, apesar das duras provas. Apenas ontem descobri que esse mágico alguém é o rosto que vemos no espelho.

———————–

Não precisas de muralhas! As muralhas não te protegem, te isolam.

———————–

Tua única obrigação em qualquer período da vida consiste em ser fiel a ti mesmo.

———————–

Não é o desafio que define quem somos nem o que somos capazes de ser, mas como enfrentamos esse desafio: podemos incendiar as ruínas ou construir, através delas e passo a passo um caminho que nos leve à liberdade.

———————–

Aprender é descobrir aquilo que voce já sabe. Ensinar é lembrar aos outros que eles sabem tanto quanto você.

———————–

Qualquer idéia poderosa é absolutamente fascinante e absolutamente inútil até decidirmos usá-la.

———————–

O PODER DE NOSSAS ESCOLHAS

Coisas ruins não são o pior que pode nos acontecer. O que de pior pode nos acontecer é NADA.

Uma vida fácil nada nos ensina. No fim, é o que aprendemos o que importa: o que aprendemos e como nos desenvolvemos.

Traçamos nossas vidas pelo poder de nossas escolhas. Quando nossas escolhas são feitas passivamente, quando não somos nós mesmos que traçamos nossas vidas, nos sentimos frustrados.

Uma pequena mudança hoje pode acarretar-nos um amanhã profundamente diferente. São grandes as recompensas para aqueles que têm a coragem de mudar, mas essas recompensas acham-se ocultas pelo tempo.

Geramos nossos próprios meios. Obtemos exatamente aquilo pelo que lutamos. Somos responsáveis pela vida que nó próprios criamos. Quem terá a culpa, a quem cabe o louvor, senão a nós mesmos? Quem pode mudar nossas vidas, a qualquer tempo, senão nós mesmos?

Deus sabe que isto é verdade

———————–

Estou aqui não porque deva estar, nem porque me sinto cativo nesta situação, mas porque prefiro estar contigo a estar contigo a estar em qualquer outro lugar no mundo.

Richard Bach

Richard Bach publica nueva novela. En una de las entrevistas de rigor, se refiere a sus principios al escribir, que aprendió de Ray Bradbury:

1º. No pienses, deja que las ideas fluyan.

2º. Diviértete.

3º. No te preocupes, sigue el impulso y cree que la historia te ha venido dada de algún modo, no te preocupes por lo que pueda pensar el editor o los lectores.

Megint bebizonyosodott, hogy a hasonszőrűek vonzzák egymást. Richard Bach nem a levegőbe beszél. Ez jó érzés!

MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS OF THE MODERN AGE:

A Cancer Therapy: Results of 50 Cases and the Cure of Advanced Cancer. – Max Gerson. M.D.
Audition. - Michael Shurtleff.
Autobiography of a Yogi. – Paramhansa Yogananda.
Cosmic Voyage: True Evidence of Extraterrestrials Visiting Earth. – Courtney Brown. Ph.D.
Hands of Light: A Guide To Healing Through The Human Energy Field. – Barbara Ann Brennan.
Hatha Yoga Pradipika: Light on Hatha Yoga. - Swami Satyananda Saraswati.
Hero With A Thousand Faces. – Joseph Campbell.
Man’s Search For Meaning. - Viktor E. Frankl.
Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance. – Abraham Maslow.
Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing. – Jed McKenna.
Stranger in a Strange Land. – Robert A. Heinlein.
Tantric Quest: An Encounter With Absolute Love. – Daniel Odier.
The Bible Code. - Michael Drosnin.
The Holographic Universe. – Michael Talbot.
The Lost Teachings of Atlantis. – Jon Peniel.
The Only Planet of Choice: Essential Briefings from Deep Space. - Phyllis V. Schlemmer.
The Starseed Transmissions. – Ken Carey.
The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. – Carlos Castaneda.
Where God Lives: The Science of the Paranormal and How Our Brains are Linked to the Universe. – Mevin Morse M.D, with Paul Perry.
Who Am I. – Ramana Maharishi.

SOME FAVOURITES (An introduction to the Author):

A Man For All Seasons (A Play) - Robert Bolt.
Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown.
Duino Elegies – Rainer Maria Rilke.
I Am Jackie Chan - Jackie Chan.
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah – Richard Bach.
Life of Pi – Yann Martel.
Lion of Macedon & Dark Prince - David Gemmell.
Microcosmic God – Theodore Sturgeon.
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer – Patrick Suskind.
Rainmaker – John Grisham.
Red Dwarf & Better Than Life – Grant Naylor.
Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie.
Shantaram – Gregory David Roberts.
Siva: The Siva Purana Retold – Ramesh Menon.
The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl – Roald Dahl.
The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho.
The Bourne Identity – Robert Ludlum.
The Celestine Prophecies – James Redfield.
The Doomsday Conspiracy – Sidney Sheldon.
The Godfather – Mario Puzo.
The Lost World – Michael Crichton.
The Sirens of Titan – Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Thief of Time - Terry Pratchett.
Twelve Angry Men (A Play) - Reginald Rose.

‘Allow the world to live as it chooses, and allow yourself to live as you choose.’

- Richard Bach

“We are each given a block of marble when we begin a lifetime, and the tools to shape it into sculpture. We can drag it behind us untouched, we can pound it to gravel, we can shape it into glory.”

Richard Bach

(Image Source : Flickr.com Silvia De Luque)

Last year around this time my brothers relentless calls to convince me against my wishes, exasperated me no end, I knew things could get sticky with his pushy and persistent nature and so the ONLY way was, i pluck myself off from my spiritual soulmates life. I had caused my family enough trouble once, didnt want them to go through pain once again, so this time i gave precedence to their wish than mine.

Much against my wishes i physically moved out of our relationship. Having given up somebody i so beautifully resonated with, little did my brother know…that none of his emotional pressure would ever work on me.

He had called again, thinking he could pursue me to kiss motherhood now….and he had chosen the soft spot. While i am on my sabbatical, I draw my income from investments in one of his ventures, its enough to sustain my major financial commitments, …he knew if he could hit this nerve….i would flutter and agree.

If you dont kiss motherhood till March 2010, i will return your investments, so you can fend for yourself… He knew once i kiss motherhood, he would be clipping my wings…..i could understand his genuine intentions, but his concern for me was laced with fear …i smiled and thanked him mentally, for having given me an opportunity to feel ’squeezed’….these days i welcome experiences that ’squeeze’ me, they give me an opportunity to stir up all residual, deep rooted emotions i have been trying to deal with…..fear, pain, insecurity, anger.

I could understand where he was coming from. As an elder brother, he was concerned about my well-being and wanted me to remain safe and follow what every other woman of my age would do…he knew his little sis had always lived her life on her own terms, societys rules were not her rules…. I appreciate his love and concern for me…but i believe when you love someone truly…set them free.

But this time i had made up my mind…to not live my life based on fear….the true purpose of every soul, is to evolve and overcome all deep rooted fears….we are responsible to observe-investigate-identify and work on our fears and release them….i could only empathize and help them overcome their fears.

Having received ‘labels’ galore in life, i have made a pact with my true-self to, NOT JUDGE and LABEL others; I welcome people without judgment who operate at different frequency, and ignore the pleadings of those who want me to lead my life their way. I see my family members on their own path of evolution and still love them for being there, just the way they are.

I called my mom, and calmly spoke about my intentions and tried assuaging her fears as well. I knew she would flutter and be anguished to hear it…i could see fear operating in her….it this fear which makes one follow the crowd and not chart ones own path,,,.i stuck to what my “inner truth” is…i tried soothing her fear with compassion….patience and empathy was the buzzword.

I sensed a huge release, for having spoken about my intentions….a sense of freedom for having spoken the truth and not living my life based on their fears.

I luvvv babies….they are succch a source of joy!!! But these days I find joy in sooo many little things of life that my life is fraught with joyful moments.

I personally dont think i need to be a mother, to experience those joyful moments and feel as a complete woman….When i pet my dog, i feel as much as i would have felt for my baby…. i speak to the birds who fly down to my balcony, just the way i would have spoken to my kids…. When i tend to my plants, i feel as much a mother would feel, when she takes care of her babies….right now i dont feel like being one, maybe the day i feel like, i will…but no compulsions.

I had to choose between my inner truth and their fear…the choice was obvious.

“If truth is leading you, it will also make decisions for you. And since these decisions are right, they will also make you feel right. Remember that truth will never lead you into a circumstance without also showing you exactly what to do while within it. It is truth’s very nature to reveal clearly to you your needful actions. It is impossible for truth to abandon you. If you feel abandoned, you should see that you have carelessly led yourself into the circumstance. This insight allows the cosmic compass to correct your life-direction.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Not Johann Sebastian Bach, the prolific Baroque classical composer, no, today’s words of wisdom are from the pen of Richard Bach.

Richard Bach is my all time favorite spiritual/inspiration writer, author of such great, timeless classics as Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, and One.

Put these sayings in your peace pipe and smoke them, and please leave your thoughts and reactions in the comments. 

“Avoid problems, and you’ll never be the one who overcame them.”

“Bad things are not the worst things that can happen to us. Nothing is the worst thing that can happen to us!”

“Can miles truly separate you from friends… If you want to be with someone you love, aren’t you already there?”

“Don’t be dismayed by good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.”

And one more, just can’t resist, one of my absolute favorites-

“Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you’ll see the way to fly.”

***

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Isaac Hernández / El Mundo

Un momento mágico, el hombre y el mundo. La inmensidad del mar y el horizonte. El reflejo del sol y la mirada humana, desafiante, relexiva, que evoca a lo trascendente. Mirada senil, todas las experiencias, felicidades e incomprensiones acumuladas en el aire, en la posición del espectador que observa su vida y las vidas. Sensacional fotografía que no podía dejar de colgar. Cuando la veo pienso en los sueños, como lo hace Richard Bach (el piloto de la foto), autor de la famosa novela Juan Salvador Gaviota, que publica ahora un nuevo libro.

I decided to share my own difficulties and struggles about my life and having to hide what I am. I feel that being  a Psi Vampire is something I have to keep hidden and in the shadows.     Always  there but, not easily seen.

I am sure, that most people.. vampire or not…can identify with feeling different or not fitting in.
I have felt that way as far back as I can recall.

My life has been filled with wonderful events and horrible events (that I hope to never have to repeat.)
I have found that my darkest of times , which are moments of extreme despair and struggle have also, been my greatest teachers. (yes , I know..sounds a bit New Age but, still it is true.)
I have to admit that learning I was a Psi Vampire has been liberating but, also a very difficult process.
I have had to redefine my realities and how I fit within them.
All things are relative.

 A favorite saying of mine is : “What the caterpillar calls the end of the world,the Master calls a butterfly.” ~~Richard Bach

I have also, found that being a Psi Vampire seems to be just one more label or condition that separates me from my friends and family.
I wish I could be that person that shouts from the rooftops and does not care what others think but, I am not at that point. yet.

I love my husband very much and we share everything. Yet, I find that in this area .. Psi vampirism.. I am not able to talk to him about it as openly as I would like.
Yes, he understand the concept of it and yes, he has seen the positive changes in my health. He has even allowed me to feed from him and also , has given me energy. He will offer to go out for dinner in a busy place… in order for me to feed on more than just food.  *grins*  ( He is doing is his best to accept it in his own way)

I recently told him I have a long distance donor. He is not comfortable with the idea. He does not ask me to stop or try to control if I do or dont. Which, is good .( Plus, we both suspect that years of me auto feeding from him has taken its toll and he is just now only recovering.. since I no longer am tapping his system on a daily basis.)
He has asked me to not talk about it. When I do, I can see how uncomfortable it makes him and one of us will change the subject.
I have tried to explain  energy deficiency and such and offered to answer any questions he may have.
He has not taken that step yet. *sigh* I hope , one day that will change.
For now. I do not speak about it in detail or at length and try to spoon feed him the info.
I find myself growing weary and wanting to talk to him. I have faith that the love we share will help to bring us to a mutual place of understanding and that it will become  easier for him to accept. We have been through a lot in our 20 plus years of knowing each other. I can’t imagine this issue being impossible for us to overcome. All I can do, is be patient and respect his comfort zone and hope that he will come around.

I also, have found that my friend(whom I knew even before my husband, she is one of my closest friends.) Is having a  hard time accepting  what I am.
She is somewhat in the same thinking as my husband. She understands it and thinks it makes sense. (She has seen  what I have experienced throughout the years.)
She still loves me and will always be my dearest friend but, it will take her time to accept this about me.

Again, I find myself wanting and needing to confide and talk to someone .. yet unable to do so.

On a more positive note, I have found great comfort and acceptance from another dear friend.( In fact , I suspect she may be a Psi Vampire. ) I am able to talk to her about my struggles and experiences.  I really appreciate her friendship and her understanding.

I have also, met new friends on the internet. Other vamps Psi and Sang and Donors.
I am honored to count them as my friends . They have been a great help to me. Knowing they understand.

I urge anyone who is feeling as though they do not fit in..to look online for communities that understand and identify with the same things. They are a great source of information and support.

This post has now become a heartfelt, Thank You!   

 To the people I have been able to connect with. (you know who you are).
And to my donor. She has been a great friend …along with helping me to live a higher quality of life. Without her …I would not be as healthy in body, mind or spirit. Thank you! *smiles*

For once, it is not the middle of the night .

I hope this helps someone . We may all be dealing with different issues , but in reality, we are more alike than we are different.

Sweet dreams.
Angel

Coisas ruins não são o pior que pode nos acontecer. O que de pior pode
nos acontecer é NADA.
Uma vida fácil nada nos ensina. No fim, é o que aprendemos o que
importa: o que aprendemos e como nos desenvolvemos.
Traçamos nossas vidas pelo poder de nossas escolhas. Quando nossas
escolhas são feitas passivamente, quando não somos nós mesmos que
traçamos nossas vidas, nos sentimos frustrados.
Uma pequena mudança hoje pode acarretar-nos um amanhã profundamente
diferente. São grandes as recompensas para aqueles que têm a coragem
de mudar, mas essas recompensas acham-se ocultas pelo tempo.
Geramos nossos próprios meios. Obtemos exatamente aquilo pelo que
lutamos. Somos responsáveis pela vida que nó próprios criamos. Quem
terá a culpa, a quem cabe o louvor, senão a nós mesmos? Quem pode
mudar nossas vidas, a qualquer tempo, senão nós mesmos?
Deus sabe que isto é verdade