“Don’t charge me any money to go back home, it’s familiar to me, I’ll go it alone” -  Circle of Sorrow.  Various Artists  (Link in Quote)

2008 was a time of great failure.  I became everything I never wanted to be.  Afraid, lost, and arrogent in the face of that fear.  I became a braggart and bitter when my fear stopped me doing what I wanted or needed, I’ve let people who tried to listen down, by taking their words and no action then demanding more words of comfort and I’m sorry for that and a whole lot more.  I hope everyone can forgive and forget anything that may have offended them, it was unintentional.

I have a lot to carry, and it’s not fair to share, to complain if I don’t do everything I can to prevent the things I ask for help with.  I must be prepared to carry more if I am to hope to lose somthing along the way.  I thought I was was doing well to regain some of my memories, but I allowed the holes to fill with the broken coping mechanics of people I never want to be.  What I’ve been told is I’d won’t be able to access happiness unless I allow myself to face pain.  I have to take the step and take that path alone.  Once I know my actions are pure, and I’ve honestly tried all I could, then I could happily ask for help again.  But I have to be honest.

People say a lot of people have no idea what they want to be like, where they want to go.  I have a hard time believing that.  I’ve always known where I wanted to go, when I was 6, before my mind added holes there were guest speakers in my school.  They were writers.  Some crappy childrens books, of course, with a very simplified example of what writing was, they asked us to use our imagination complete a scene and I was enthralled.  Imagination had not yet become an escape.  It was pure.  Now it’s a double edged sword.  Sometimes imagination is a joy, sometimes it is tainted, but writing… That was from before and I always thought I’d defend it, fiercly.

When I first started University, I fell in love with it again and there were other people who loved it in different ways.  I discovered one of my favourite writers and found a forum through which we got to know him and two others.  It was like lessons beyond anything my tutors were teaching, and I never trusted the tutors no matter how good they said I was because I wasn’t trying my hardest.  They loved my writing or I think they claimed to because I was lazy.  But one did tell me I was good and to work like a dog, but I now that I think about it, my emotions were or are not where they should be and that further caused insecurity.

Now, the last year, without the company of other people who loved writing, I allowed fear and doubt rule.  My self image distorted and still may be, it coloured everything I did, especially SL, it became a cycle of self pity, and I hope I can remedy that in 2009.  Second Life became more than I had intended it to be, and I stretched it thin and strained a lot.  To that end I will be on it less, but I hope when I am on, it’ll be because I have nothing else to do or I want to be on, because I have met some wonderful people who’ll never know how much I appreciate them.

If I were to have resolutions, it is to step up, learn to be sad so I can truly be happy, work until I am satisfied I did my best to not have another year like this or go down swinging.

A picture depicting my fears

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” – John Milton

To know most people you have to know their fears.  But their fears are precious to many people, because who would they be without their fear?

As a writer, I should be exposing myself willingly to being destroyed by my emotions, writing  and living until my heart is a void, still I am more guarded than a lot of people I meet and I could envy how easy it seems until I meet somebody so guileless it hurts.

What better way to introduce myself then to expose some of the fears I see in the picture?

• Colour:  Apart from the skin and aura effects, there is not much use of colour in this picture as one of the dipictions of the way the struggle between the dark and light side envelops my world, but also fear and hope.  The colour schemes of the angels and myself show this struggle, I am wearing a grey t-shirt and the world itself is in black and white.  Caught between black and white and I have yellow in the soles of my shoes, like the angel’s aura, but even the angel has a little darkness in him at the same time as being a source of light.  The black smoky boarder shows how I am trapped inside this struggle.
• The Figures:  The positioning, poses and clothing figure in a few ways.  Traditionally you’d have the angel and devil on your shoulders.  Left and right.  But here I’ve shown the dark angel central and in focus, a powerful figure, the angel’s movements could be autonomous or he could be taking commands from the dark side, so my hope could be driven by my fear or my dark side.  Finally the human has clothing with aspects of both of the angels, he has the gloves of the fallen, but not the bracers and he has less torn jeans and shoes, not boots.
• Inside Information: The way the location is closed off show how worried I am that I’d never break free of this struggle.  That I’d have to embrace a darker nature, because there is an efficiency to it.  I seem to get things done when I go dark-side.  I’m also afraid of my light side, the side that tries to be everybodies friend, tries to do everything I’m told to without much thought, tries to understand people until they figure they can take advantage of that.  I’m afraid that to be light, I have to be dumb, and to be smart I’d have to be coldly efficient.  I’m afraid that I am used to letting people walk over me and I don’t let much of myself out, because I think the part of me that can navigate the world won’t be someone anybody knows.  So like Rrish noted, I am afraid of redeeming myself, acting how I want too, because I simply have no idea who I’d be because of this gulf between who I show and who I think I am.  So I keep myself trapped in this struggle I fear  and I fear myself.  Who would I be, without fear?