Lemons

“We would rather be ruined than changed
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.”
― W H Auden, The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue

You’ve heard it all before. The story is no longer original – Silvia Plath, Hemingway, Isherwood, Oscar Wilde and William Boyd; all talented writers tormented by their own mind and persecuted for the simple fact that sometimes what they didn’t say was more than enough. Men and women who all shared a need to say what they thought, needed to be known the world over as a thinker, as a story-teller. Some were the cause of their own downfall and others almost celebrated that, by standards of the time, they weren’t a hero but they weren’t a villain either, they just were. Across the centuries they (and many others) have inspired and touched something within their readers and they would never truly know their influence. Luckily Gas ovens and shotguns aren’t so easy to come by. .. well for most of Europe anyway.

How many of us have falsely identified with a tortured soul, one that just keeps moving making all the wrong choices yet still managing to cling on to that last bit of humanity that is buried somewhere inside? I’ve written a lot about the connection to life and modes of transportation and also the means of being stuck on some kind of track but all the while I’ve only been writing about my view-point. With everyone, It is far easier to insert yourself into a situation and project what you feel as opposed to listening to how others feel, sometimes even to your actions. The idea of being a tortured artist has become and always has been a romanticized way of congratulating assholes for acting as such. When you boil it down, however, it’s hard to paint these people as heroes. Myself included.

Now I can hear you scream about the irony of this entire WordPress blog, one where i actively paint myself as a victim or some anti-hero that always tries to do the right thing but it’s not always simple. I like to think I’ve been honest as I can be, in as candid a way that I can be, to tell the story that happened and not what people, or even myself wanted to believe. So, I’ve devised a simple question; If you were to find yourself in Hell, would be surrounded by friends or enemies? Would it be family or strangers or would you simply be in a house of mirrors?

It’s very easy to blame other people, it is another thing entirely to admit that you didn’t know everything you thought you did, that you have absolutely no idea what’s good for you. Maybe you can’t tell the difference between right and wrong and maybe sometimes you just act because thinking would eat you up inside. That way you have the blame of ignorance if not another person. It’s ok though because ‘that’s life’ or ‘that’s just the way they are’ has become synonymous with the idea that someone is not nice or good in any way but you’ll excuse it because you’ve seen it all before and they’re never going to change so why bother? These sorts of people are those that accept the idea that when life gives you lemons you have to make lemonade, the truth is, fuck the lemons. Not every inconvenience can be turned in your favour, sometimes you have to make something entirely different to what is expected because the lemons you’re given will never be as good as the ones you grow for yourself.

Meanwhile, the lemons I’ve been handed will do and while some of you are thinking I’m wallowing in a lemonade of my own design, I know that I’m just waiting for something. A cloud that I can find a silver lining in just like everybody else.