WORDS [LIFE] WORDS

Echoes

by shane

Echoes struck me, this past weekend as I rolled through my old home town on a bus. Everywhere there were phantoms and echoes and I felt altogether besieged in that moment. It didn’t matter how high my walls had grown, or how distant the experiences of those moments remembered, suddenly it was in front of me and I was brought to my knees by it.

Mostly, it was a confluence of events. It was night, heading home for Mother’s day, I had just roused from my usual travel-narcoleptic slumber. The lines between all the parts of my brain and reality weren’t yet re-established fully. I used to be okay, drowning in memories, lost in my past. I’ve since moved into a state of existence that is trying to be more concerned with the moment each moment. I’ve come to a realization that the more you self-reflect without looking outward, the more light you trap within yourself. At least, I have a tendency to just go into a spin. Sometimes.

I don’t even know why I’m writing this. Committing it to the web at large. So it is written.

Just venting is all, I suppose. It struck me hard and fast this past Friday. Knocked my wind out and got me thinking about friends and family lost. In hindsight, lost to my isolationist self, my social anxiety, and my head in the sand on relationships.

I still have nothing to complain about in life. Nothing. Shit. I have a well paying job in a time where north America (and elsewhere) struggles with finances. I have some close friends that I count family. I have a close family that I count friends. I have hot water when I want, and I have cold water when I want that, too. Air conditioning, living in a great neighbourhood in the city, and I don’t ever want for anything. I don’t ever ‘need’ for anything.

Talking with a friend of mine on Sunday, and more recently my Dad, even. I admitted that I’m not really happy. All my life, I’ve steadfastly let people know that I’m happy. I’m always happy. Everything is going to be okay. The thing of it is, I think I’m split. I mean, I think I’ve been confused. Happiness is something I’ve known for a long time that I SHOULD be feeling, given all I have. So I say I’m happy. In truth, it’s not the feeling that I feel, except in moments strung with scattered people with whom I share time.

I don’t know what that means for me, either. I saw, when I was a child, The Bluebird of Happiness. A Shirley Temple movie. She sought the bluebird of happiness. The point of the movie was illustrating that there is no ‘one’ object or thing at which happiness exists or is found. No pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

In combination of my realizing that I’m conflicted, that I have social anxiety and at the same time desire to be close to people, maybe therein lies some of the problem. So I try and fight, constantly, my social anxiety. I try and push myself in uncomfortable situations so that one day all those situations will not be so uncomfortable. Is that the way to do it?

I don’t have the faintest idea. For all my self-analysis over the years, I don’t think I’ve uncovered the core of me, and I’m the person best able to find out, no?

It makes me wonder if I stayed stuck in some phase of development. If the following poem that I wrote in high-school remains true to this day:

I am simply an enigma
changing every day.
Nobody knows just who I am.
Not even I can say.

At the time I wrote it to try and deal with the fact I didn’t know who I am, and now it remains a constant reminder that I still am not sure. My 16 year old self wouldn’t recognize who I’ve become. Though I realize how common a situation that is.

I think, perhaps, I’m going to wrap this up for now.

Peace,

Shane

Freewriting

No Comments »

001 – Through the Swamp

by shane

It seemed to have been an age, at least, since he had seen the blue sky. Trudging through the muck of the swamp, little light found purchase on the ground and murky water through which he trod. The underbrush, colourless from lack of nourishment, fell low on the patches of ground that did manage to rise above the surface of the very still water.

Though he walked primarily alone, the swamp was far from lifeless, and he had encountered many a curious soul while trekking through the vast tracks of wetlands and dark forested swamplands in which he now found himself.

His most recent travelling companions, he could see off to the side in the distance, a giant Bear, seeking his own forested lands in drier climes; and a young woman, dark of hair, who walked alongside the Bear and seemed to talk on end to it in a language very close to English punctuated by wild gestures and often laughter.

Beside him floated a will-o’-the-wisp, a sometimes mischievous creature with whom he spoke from dusk to dawn some nights about all manner of things. For herself, she sought solidity again, having drifted as a will-o’-the-wisp for quite some time. The product of a curse that befell her long ago, though of that she could not speak. Somewhere, her body lay sleeping, and she told him she meant to reclaim it no matter the cost.

This morning, and he could claim it only as such due to the faint haze up in the canopy that dawn always brought, was brighter than normal. Brighter than it had been in quite a while. The Wisp had told him that the forest was starting to thin. She had been this way before; the path he trod was not solely his own. He found it hard to believe in the moment. The darkness was oppressive, the stench of the swamp overwhelming, and all sense of time had long since left him.

This morning was different; something had changed. The forest really was starting to thin, and the sludge beneath his feet was changing too. The ground more solid, the stench less vile. He could see patches of light reaching the swampy earth, and patches of grass and smaller plants littering where the sunlight shone.

Perhaps he’d find the City after all. If he could get through the swamp, perhaps he could restore the machinations of the abandoned City he only ever saw in dreams.

Today, as he inhaled the faint smell of pollen amid the decay, he felt that anything was possible.

Artsy Fiction or Prose The Adventures of John Fearing

No Comments »

PAD 12116 | Acceptance

by shane

i’m sleeping, again

deep sleeps full of dreams
the way i did
before i came to know turbulence
intimately

locked in a fight with myself
my own mind wrestling with demons
of my own invention
or at least of my own realization

these things which all people face
which all faces, feel,
at sometime or another

about face

about faces. clocks, people, masks and hands
time marches across all faces
i know this to be true;
and i know that this,
these things with which my mind has been caged
cannot be changed by me with any amount of effort

no wrestling in the night affects
the rising of the sun, come morning

so i’m sleeping again

as though my years
of warring with myself
and the universe

had never happened

+++

if i could only stop dreaming of you
while i sleep as i now do

+++

SDF

Artsy Poetry

No Comments »

Monday

by shane

This Monday creeps.

It seeps into my open pores, to suck the marrow from the weekend, passed.

Dearly beloved. Goodbye.

As weekends go, it was one of the finest in a while save for escapes to the north; and yet in contrast, today now weighs all the heavier against my flight.

It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed recreation. I mean, true recreation. Recreation without construction. I mean, just taking some moments to not pursue anything and to be okay with that.

That’s what made this past weekend so perfect. That I found it in myself to be okay, again, with just taking some down time and not feel guilty about it.

I’d blame society, but it’s something that’s happened in my head that hasn’t let me really enjoy doing nothing at all sometimes. I didn’t construct, and I had no obligations. It was recharging.

Still, while I sit here at work, my guitar calls to me from its stand in my room. I’ve found a voice recently, more confident in singing. I sound better when I don’t try and make my song quiet. When I pass more air across my vocal chords. When I sing higher.

Right now I feel a little bit like grass thrown into the wind to see what direction it’s blowing. I’m okay with that.

Peace,

Shane

Freewriting

2 Comments »

Guitar | Good Vibrations

by shane

I’ve brought up my guitar in the past. About a year and a half ago I started learning how to play. After about 6 months of regular practice I had mastered about three chords and a couple of songs, shakily. I put the guitar down and recently picked it up again. I’m glad that I did.

I was raised with a string instrument of a different sort. Piano, and while I showed ‘potential’ (a word for which I have much disdain), I let it fall to the wayside as I dove into writing and singing and other creative pursuits in high-school. I always seemed to have trouble on the piano making my left hand and right hand work as they should on a Piano. I think it has something to do with the fact I’m a little ambidextrous, but in a weird way.

With my right hand, I can write words normally. With my left hand, it feels natural to just write words backwards from right to left. Same words, almost the same messy writing I have with my right hand, but backwards. If you hold the page up to the light, from the other side you can read it. My left hand always wants to do the opposite of what my right hand is doing or something.

Guitar was different. First of all, the rich steel sound of an Acoustic guitar is something that makes my ears smile. The feel of the vibrations through my fingertips. I haven’t ever played with a pick yet. It doesn’t feel right. I figure I’ll have to learn and get comfortable with it some day, but I love strumming and plucking with my fingers. As close to the medium as possible.

I haven’t had the issue of my left hand mirroring the right at all. I think, mostly, because they’re in very different positions. With a piano they’re in front of you, touching the same keys for the same purpose of pushing down on the notes. On a guitar it’s become much more of a place of comfort. They both have very different jobs. Different enough that it feels like one action. One joint motion.

Nearing Completion:

Rivers of Babylon – Sublime
Trouble in the Fields – Sarah Harmer
Ring of Fire - Johnny Cash
Where Do the Children Play – Cat Stevens
Father and Son – Cat Stevens
Hideout – Sarah Harmer

On the Docket:

After the Gold Rush – Neil Young
Sweet Home Alabama
Your Rocky Spine – Great Lake Swimmers
Wonderful Tonight – Eric Clapton
Heart of Gold – Neil Young
Joy to the World – Three Dog Night

And, painfully, later:

The B and F chords. Just need my fingers to be half an inch longer…

Artsy Guitar

No Comments »

Social Anxiety and Introversion

by shane

A ‘challenge’ I’ve had to face in my life is my extreme introversion, or social anxiety. I say ‘challenge’ because of the nature of society and their general lack of understanding towards introverts. As such, I’ve found myself more thirsty for one on one conversations or generally less stimulating environments. All that body language and talking becomes too much to take in. Too much to handle.

A friend of mine sent this article to me, and I like how it steps through some of what I’ve felt or gone through. Especially the parts about some introverts trying to ‘fix’ or ‘change’ themselves to be more in line with the ideal of society. A society that is largely in love with the extrovert:

Revenge of the Introverts

Last night I found myself at a social event a friend of mine was involved with. As I was sitting there, and the crowd started to swell, I found my usual tricks hadn’t worked. I arrived early to try and give myself a sense of new people coming into my space. I picked a table farther back so I wouldn’t be in the middle of the worst of it. I had a drink, and I chatted with my friend.

Normally, these things would have given me a sense of ease, but one thing with introversion is it really does draw from the battery of stored energy to be social in a crowd. Last night, I had no energy to spare. Having slept poorly the night before, I was frazzled and without excess to give.

I wrote the following poem, scribbled it out and it’s really rough around the edges but it was my trying to escape the moment for a short amount of time. Unfortunately, I couldn’t recover any energy and left the event early. In reading the article above, maybe next time I really can just find a quiet place to catch my breath. Grab some air.

Heavy

a crowd of people always look the same
an ocean of faces I don’t know
people I don’t recognize; hostile;

even now as I sit here wanting to escape
the sound of them is a din
a cacophony of words I can’t understand

I make up meanings for motion, movement;
body language,
but today I think maybe its a little like
trying to understand baby babble
rich with meaning
but none that I can discern

how do they not all collapse from
the weight of it?

Peace,

Shane

Artsy Poetry

1 Comment »

Ruby on Rails 001 | From the Ground Up

by shane

Preamble

I’ve dabbled for some time, now, in learning how to do this or that. Procrastinating. Making CSS layouts. Writing poetry. Making more CSS layouts. Procrastinating some more. Reinstalling my web server. File that under procrastination.

I have a mind that was once very adept at coding. Somewhere along the way I lost myself from that moment. Since that moment in my life I’ve been scrambling to do everything and ultimately end up doing nothing.

While it’s been a pattern for me to keep making these kinds of ‘fresh starts’, something is different about the time and place in which I find myself THIS time. I’m here, in the moment. I’m present HERE in THIS moment. About four days ago I started keeping track of every time I left a moment I was in. Every time I was distracted or started thinking about something that led me away from my focus. It happens a great deal. What I found, though, with just this conscious effort to keep track of leaving the moment; I was able to bring myself right back into the moment again.

I’ve spent most of my life worrying about what other people think, and haven’t taken much stock in my own interests except where they drive me towards some inter-personal connection. I’m serious. My loves have always been the loves of the people around me. Almost always, anyway.

I’m rebuilding myself, and while I’m at it, I want to finally get to building a website that I’ve imagined in my head for some time now. A perfect medium is Ruby on Rails. A perfect time to start learning? Now.

Get him to the Geek

So. Ground zero. Sort of. I’ve already brought my server up to speed, but this time around I wasn’t lost much in any murk and mire. I found rather early a place that led me down the garden path of getting the environment set up.

I highly recommend Ubuntu for working with Ruby on Rails. I recommend it because it’s one of my favourite distributions and has made great strides in bringing Linux to the masses. I’ve tried many distributions that have tried to achieve the same thing, but Ubuntu hit the nail on the head.

Further to their being my favourite distribution, there also happens to be a plethora of help in getting started with Ruby on Rails within an Ubuntu environment. If you’re uncomfortable with Linux right now but are interested in learning to code in Ruby on Rails, I do recommend you start with an Ubuntu setup.

That being said, I’m going to have a decidedly Linux\Ubuntu centric lead-up to working with the code since it’s the way I decided to proceed.

In the Beginning

So. You’ve got an Ubuntu setup and now you want to work with rails? You’ve just gotta get prepared. Ubuntu out of the box will need some love to get you what you need to start working:

RVM
Ruby via the RVM installation
Rails
Java Runtime Environment

RVM – Ruby Version Manager

Honestly, I only bring up RVM because it seems to have become fairly standard AND if you really get going and start building, there’s a chance you’re going to one day want multiple RUBY setups. I’ve opted to go this route as I’ve already got a friend’s website built in a fairly old Rails and Ruby setup. RVM allows me to separate my workspaces completely to allow various different RUBY versions with various difference RAILS versions.

This site got me to the goods, and explained various installation methods. It also walks you through installing a Ruby version. I went with ruby 1.9.3 for the project I’m starting.

<strong>Pitfall: </strong>Because I often start running before walking, I often fall down.  When I went through the above installation, I skipped the
part where I'm supposed to install the 'requirements' listed when you run from the command line: 

<strong>Input:</strong>
rvm requirements

<strong>Output:</strong>
Requirements for Linux ( DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=11.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=natty
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 11.04" )

NOTE: 'ruby' represents Matz's Ruby Interpreter (MRI) (1.8.X, 1.9.X)
This is the *original* / standard Ruby Language Interpreter
'ree' represents Ruby Enterprise Edition
'rbx' represents Rubinius

bash &gt;= 4.1 required
curl is required
git is required (&gt;= 1.7 for ruby-head)
patch is required (for 1.8 rubies and some ruby-head's).

To install rbx and/or Ruby 1.9 head (MRI) (eg. 1.9.2-head),
then you must install and use rvm 1.8.7 first.

Additional Dependencies:
# For Ruby / Ruby HEAD (MRI, Rubinius, &amp; REE), install the following:
ruby: /usr/bin/apt-get install build-essential openssl libreadline6 libreadline6-dev curl git-core zlib1g zlib1g-dev libssl-dev libyaml-dev libsqlite3-0 libsqlite3-dev sqlite3 libxml2-dev libxslt-dev autoconf libc6-dev ncurses-dev automake libtool bison subversion

# For JRuby, install the following:
jruby: /usr/bin/apt-get install curl g++ openjdk-6-jre-headless
jruby-head: /usr/bin/apt-get install ant openjdk-6-jdk

# For IronRuby, install the following:
ironruby: /usr/bin/apt-get install curl mono-2.0-devel

It looks more complicated than it is. Basically, it’s telling me if I want to operate in certain ways, I’ll need certain packages installed. It then gives me the command necessary to install each set of packages.

I ran the following command (adding sudo in advance of the apt-get to install to the system rather than just my user) Make sure it’s all one line without carriage returns or else you’ll miss packages. The line will wrap naturally in the command prompt of Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install build-essential openssl libreadline6 libreadline6-dev curl git-core zlib1g zlib1g-dev libssl-dev libyaml-dev libsqlite3-0 libsqlite3-dev sqlite3 libxml2-dev libxslt-dev autoconf libc6-dev ncurses-dev automake libtool bison subversion

After RVM and a version of Ruby has been installed, you can install rails with:

gem install rails

If you’ve installed the dependencies, you won’t have any issues in creating your first app:

rails new myfirstapp

Now, in my environment, when I went to start up my server I ran into an error. First you navigate to your new application folder, in this case it would be myfirstapp. Then you would kick off the server to get the test page:

rails server

Only, my server didn’t start. Turns out I needed a java runtime environment installed. Looking around the interwebs I came across:

sudo apt-get install nodejs

And I was off to the races.

Up next? Contemplating the requirements of my website.

Peace,

Shane Fera

Geeky Ruby on Rails

No Comments »

PAD2012 – 003 | Upheld

by shane

yellow smiling moon
upheld its end of bargain
inspired by muses

+++

SDF

Artsy Poetry

No Comments »

Focused Intent

by shane

I was thinking about distraction today. How I am not good at living in the moment. Most of my life this has been the case, if I’m honest with myself. I’ve been very good at living in the past, and worrying about the future. Since I’ve been that way through my developmental years to a large extent, I’ve got a brain that is given to such thoughts. It has channels built especially. Enter the age in which we live, with its many distractions taking away even more from the moment, and I’m ready to snap.

I’ve tried to be concious, today, about times when I leave the moment. It happens a great deal. Probably much much more than I caught.

I am changing.

This video I stumbled upon is catchy and is partly connected to some of the thoughts I’ve had today, and some of the distractions.

Digitals from Chris Crutchfield on Vimeo.

Peace,

Shane

Freewriting

No Comments »

WORDS [LIFE] WORDS

A Life in Words

Echoes

001 – Through the Swamp

PAD 12116 | Acceptance

Monday

Guitar | Good Vibrations

Ruby on Rails 001 | From the Ground Up

Preamble

Get him to the Geek

In the Beginning

RVM – Ruby Version Manager

PAD2012 – 003 | Upheld

Focused Intent

Archives

Categories

Recent Comments

Meta