Sticks and Stones

On the Tenth of December, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 5 of that Declaration included the following:

"No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment".

This unfortunately means that, prior to this, there wasn’t a universal declaration condemning torture, inhuman treatment or degrading punishment. Of course, some countries adopted such laws a little earlier or a little later - America’s Eighth Amendment condemning “Cruel or Unusual Punishment” was adopted in 1791 after all - but these laws were neither universal nor timeless.

Torture, at one point, was considered a tool of the ruling class to keep people in line either by shaming, severely harming or disfiguring those who stepped out of line, and by judicially murdering those that crossed the line. It is also sometimes used by terrorists or secret police, but today I wanted to look at some of the disturbed mechanisms that people once used to torture people.
It fascinates me that people can dedicate themselves to pain to such a degree that they can design and build devices specifically to hurt someone. So, I’ve done some research into different torture devices, and created a list of the top ten most gruesome tortures, in order of . . . well, in order of how horrible they are.

Now, as a head’s up, I didn’t think this was too “disturbing”, but whenever I spoke to people about my research, they tended to feel sick, and even I found one or two of these devices a little stomach-churning, so you should keep in mind that this list might not be for the faint of heart. But, with that in mind, let’s begin with . . .

Before we begin, I have a few Dishonourable Mentions:

i. DENAILING
Device: Sharp Metal Skewers; Pliers; Heat; Oil & Sulfur
Method: After restraining your victim, you dip your sharp, metal skewers in sulfur, and drive them under the toenails of your victim. You then remove the skewers and dip them in boiling oil and repeat the process. You do this until the skin is loosened by the heat and repeated skewerings, then you remove all of the skewers, take the pliers and rip the nails from the victim’s toes.
Horror: The fact that this is such a slow process is pretty disturbing, and the fact that at the end you’ll have a constant reminder of the torture is pretty disturbing. But, ultimately, as much as this churns my stomach, it wasn’t enough to make the list.

ii. CROCODILE SHEARS / BREAST RIPPER
Device: Crocodile Shears, a set of half-cylinders, lined with sharp teeth and designed to open and shut, like a pair of shears; Breast Ripper, although sometimes attached to a wall, this could exist as a pair of tongs, each with two spikes facing each other, designed to be clasped shut.
Method: For both of these devices, the function is simple - clasp it around the genitalia of your victim, and pull. For the breast ripper, the genitals involved were almost always breasts; for the crocodile shears, it was most commonly the penis. This would either tear off the offending body part, or severely disfigured  your victim.
Horror: This is a device specifically designed to mutilate your genitals. If that’s not horrifying, I don’t know what is. Unfortunately, as much as it makes me cringe, this also wasn’t harsh enough to make the list. Also, the fact that this is in fact two different devices was a bit of a let-down. I just felt that it was appropriate to include both sexes in this horrifying torment, but they still didn’t make the cut.

iii. THE BRAZEN BULL
Device: The Brazen Bull, a large, bronze bull with a hollow interior, and a door to allow a person (or more) to fit inside; A source of heat, often in the form of a logfire.
Method: Simply place at least one victim inside, lock the door, and start the fire. You continue to cook your victim until the screaming stops.
Horror: This would be a terrible way to die, if it existed, but I am not convinced that it did. Most people who mention this form of torture like to go on and on about how the Brazen Bull included a set of pipes specifically designed to make the screams of the people inside transform into the sounds of an angry bull. And the legend surrounding this device claims that the sculptor who built it was the first to die within, as the tyrant who commissioned was so disgusted by it. It sounds a lot like a made-up story to me; not to mention, a large intricate sculpture made of brass wouldn’t be a very efficient torture device. And even if this did exist,from what research I have done, you can die from asphyxiation or blood loss or even just from heatstroke pretty quickly in a situation like this. That’s definitely not a pleasant way to go, but it’s not exactly the torture I was hoping for, so it doesn’t make the list.

iv. THE GARROTE
Device: The Garrote, a device composed of a pole (or a chair stood up next to a pole) with a metal band around the pole that can be adjusted to the height of your victim’s neck, with screws to tighten it.
Method: Simply sit your victim in the chair, or stand them by the pole of your garrote, then fasten the metal band around their neck. You then simply tighten the metal band until the victim dies of asphyxiation, or their neck breaks.
Horror: To me, the most horrifying part about this is that people thought it was more humane than the guillotine. I am not exactly keen to die, but having your head sliced off would be a lot quicker than having a metal band tightened around your throat. Hell, at least with a guillotine you get to lie down, but some garrotes don’t even have a chair. It is a terrible form of torture, but it wasn’t terrible enough to make the list.


These devices are just the ones that don’t make the list . . . so, let’s move on to -


The AWN’S TOP 10 MOST GRUESOME TORTURES

10. THE RACK
Device: A Rack, a large table with two large rollers underneath, often turned with a crank; Ropes.
Method: Simply bind your victims arms and legs, lay them on the table, then wrap the ropes around the large rollers of the rack. Once they’re secure, you begin turning the crank, tightening the rollers, and thereby pulling the ropes. You should keep turning until the victim’s arms are dislocated, but you can also continue turning until the limbs are torn off entirely, if the ropes are strong enough.
Horror: This torture could kill if a limb was torn off, as the victim would bleed out, but this torture was not designed to kill, but to cause severe pain by tearing muscles, dislocating bones and stretching the skin. But even if you survive, you may never be the same again. Not only would this often break bones, but if you stretch a muscle far enough, you can rip out the tendons or shred the muscle fiber, rendering them useless. So, after this torment, a victim can be left with stretch marks, and limbs like limp noodles. Also, since this torture involved strapping the victim to a device by the arms and legs, torturers often combined it with other tortures, such as denailing. However, on its own, the rack is only gruesome enough to make the bottom of this list.

09. RAT TORTURE
Device: A Large Ceramic Bowl; A Burning Fire; Rats (optional: a sharp knife)
Method: There are two methods of rat torture, but both are based on the same principle. In the first, you lie your victim on their back, then simply place one or more rats on their stomach, then trap the rats there by placing the upturned ceramic bowl on their stomach. Then, you take some hot embers from the fire, and place them on the bottom of the bowl. This will cause the rats to panic and try to claw their way out, through your victim. In the second method, you simply cut open your victim’s stomach, then stuff rats face-first into the slits, forcing them to claw their way through the victim. Either way, your victim is being burrowed through by rats.
Horror: Rats are disgusting. A domestic rat is cleaner than a mouse, but if you grab a sewer rat or a rat that is racing around a torture chamber, that’s a different story. So, if one were to climb around someone’s insides, even if they didn’t die from the blood loss, the infection would kill them. That alone may not seem relevant, as rat torture wouldn’t give much time for an infection to set in, but the fact is that an infected wound tends to sting and burn, meaning that during rat torture, alongside the pain of an animal gnawing on one’s skin and organs, every wound would be an angry, stinging gash, gushing with blood. Not to mention that rat teeth and claws aren’t very big. Imagine someone pinching you so hard that they draw blood, then ripping out the bit of skin. If that sounds painful, imagine them doing it so much that your intestines fall out, and you’ve understood why rat torture is on this list.

08. THE HEAD CRUSHER
Device: A Head Crusher, a form of standing vice with a bar on the bottom, and a bowl-like cap on the other side, and a simple handle on the top which, when turned, lowers the bowl-like cap.
Method: Simply restrain your victim in a way that prevents them from escaping, then place their chin on the bar, tighten the cap over their head, and then keep tightening as the victim’s skull is crushed. You can either stop once their teeth break and their eyes pop out, or continue tightening until their skull breaks and they die.
Horror: Every time I think about this device, I get a headache. Just the thought of it makes me feel unwell. Your head is such a vital bodypart, and having it slowly crushed makes me feel sick. Worse is that this clearly wasn’t used for interrogation since it requires the victim’s jaw to be clamped shut on the lower bar, so it was just a tool for pain. But, more disturbing for me is that this wasn’t always used to kill. If you keep tightening until the skull cracks and the brain is smooshed, then the victim is going home in a coffin. But, after enough turns on this device, their teeth could crack and come out, and their eyes could literally pop out of their head - in fact, I’ve read that some devices would include little cups to catch the victim’s eyes when they popped out. So, if they survive, they would be left a blind, stammering slackjaw with a squashed, disfigured face.

07. PITCHCAPPING
Device: Pitch, or boiling tar; a Cap, a large, cone-shaped “dunce cap” large enough to fit on the head.
Method: Simply invert the cap and pour the boiling pitch into the the cap until it is full, then slap it onto the victim's head. For added pain and humiliation, wait for the pitch to cool, then rip off the cap. Due to the scalding of the skin, this should effectively scalp the victim.
Horror: There aren’t many burning or boiling tortures on this list, and that’s because - as I explain in the dishonourable mentions - fire tends to kill pretty quickly, which means that as agonizing as it is, it rarely lasts, which puts it lower on this list compared with prolonged tortures. However, because pitchcapping doesn’t kill its victim, and also requires putting boiling tar on a victim’s head, potentially allowing said tar to drip down their face, neck and into their eyes, the burning pain lasts much longer. Add onto this the pain of having the pitch-cap removed, ripping out your hair or even the skin on your scalp, and it makes number seven on this list.

06. CRUCIFIXION
Device: Crucifix, a standing pole with an interlocking crossbeam; Nails or Rope (or both).
Method: First, you strip your victim naked, then secure them to the crossbeam, either with rope or nails, depending on how much pain you want to inflict. Then, you lift the crossbeam up and connect it to the pole, so that the victim is hanging from the pole, and then you can secure their feet to the pole with more rope or nails through the ankles. You leave your victim until they die of asphyxiation or exposure.
Horror: I almost didn’t want to include this on the list because Christians like to go on and on about how dramatic crucifixion is. However, I honestly couldn’t leave it off because crucifixion is one of the worst tortures. Even without the nails or a “crown of thorns”, having one’s entire bodyweight hung from the wrists is very painful. But what puts this so high on the list is the fact that crucifixion tended to kill by asphyxiation - the victim will run out of breath. As hanging puts a great deal of pressure on the chest, breathing becomes shallow, and as the victim’s arms stretch from hanging, the ribcage is pulled tighter and closer. It can be even quicker if they become tired, as drooping the neck would close off their airways further, meaning that a victim would be unable to live more than a day in this torture. The victim will die slowly, painfully, struggling for breath. But, I have to say, it’s not the most gruesome form of death by torture. Instead of a cross, consider . . .

05. EXECUTION BY ELEPHANT
Device: Elephant, well-trained; A stake with a chain attached .
Method: There are two methods of Execution by Elephant. In both, you begin by chaining your victim to a stake in a large courtyard. Then, you can have your elephant enter the courtyard and, on command, grab the stake and throw it high into the air, with the victim attached and attempt to then catch the falling victim on their tusks, goring them in the process. Or, with victim tied to stake, simply have your elephant slowly trample them, step by step, from foot to head. For a well trained elephant, they can even apply pressure slowly, prolonging the torture.
Horror: This was mostly done by royalty to flaunt how much power they had, and I can see why; but, that’s not what gets it on this list. Your average adult elephant weighs between two-and-a-half and five tonnes. A human bone will break if a mere five-hundred kilograms - or half a tonne - is placed upon it. This means that if an elephant steps on your leg, it can basically turn your bones to powder, and crush your muscles to mincemeat, which is both gross and painful. Now, add to this the fact that the elephant not only starts at the feet and slowly walks up their body, crushing thelegs, then the pelvis, then the stomach and ribs - but also that it can take those steps slowly and carefully, if it’s trained well enough. It can even be trained to slowly step on the head, applying pressure slowly but surely, acting like the Head Crusher described above - except face-first.

04. DEATH BY SAWING
Device: A two-man saw, serrated; a tree or hoist slightly taller than your victim; Rope, at least two.
Method: Simply tie your victims feet, and hang them upside-down with their legs spread apart. Then, hold the saw between their legs, at the groin, and begin sawing downwards. Your victim will usually die when the saw reaches their heart.
Horror: The reason why this is so high on this list is because it requires the victim to hang upside-down. That might seem odd, so allow me to explain. To begin with, this means that blood and guts would fall down over their head and face, which is pretty disturbing. Secondly, this means that the sawing begins at the crotch. I’m not adding this because I think it’s funny, or I want to see guys cringe; I’m adding it because genitals are very sensitive, and damaging them in any way is extremely painful. But, much more important than both of these is that, when someone is hung upside-down blood rushes to their head (inside their body) and it teds to keep you conscious. This means that, although the victims often lost a lot of blood, they would still remain conscious until their heart was sawn through. So, you would feel your genitals getting ripped apart by the serrated teeth of a long saw, then get the bodily fluids of that spilled all over your torso and head before the saw starts struggling through your pelvis, rattling through your bones as it slowly cuts through. Then the teeth would tear through your your intestines, guts and stomach, grating against your spine, until finally sawing through your heart, spilling blood everywhere.

03. IMPALEMENT
Device: Pole, tall and sharpened to a point; Razor; Mallet; Clotting Paste
Method: Simply strip your victim naked, grease your pole, slit open their anus with the razor to widen the entry wound (using the paste to prevent them bleeding out), then drive the spike through your victim up their anus. Once inside, you use a mallet to drive the pole deeper until it reappears out the other side. Most commonly, it will appear from the victim’s shoulder or chest, but for truly unlucky victims it will come out through their neck or mouth. Once the point emerges from their body, stand the pole upright, in public, and wait for them to bleed out or die of exposure. Other forms of impalement included impaling through the stomach, spine or heart.
Horror: Crucifixion is pretty nasty, but it could be worse. What if, instead of nailing you to the pole, the pole was nailed through you? This torture is everything bad about crucifixion, but worse: Instead of pain in your wrists and ankles, it’s through your anus, up through your stomach, puncturing your windpipe and oesophagus. Instead of trouble breathing due to pressure on your chest, it’s trouble breathing due to the wooden pole in your throat. Instead of exhaustion from your arms stretching out, it’s exhaustion due to the immense pain caused by a pole in your anus. Also, did I mention that the pole would be slicked by anything and everything it penetrated? Blood, intestines, stomach acid & bile. And it could take anywhere from a few seconds to three whole days to die, especially if the pole was driven along the spine and missed most vital organs.


02. KEELHAULING
Device: One sea-faring sailing ship; Ropes, long and sturdy.
Method: This is a simple but effective torture. Simply take your victim aboard your ship whilst it is at sea, and get a length of rope so that it goes under the keel (bottom) of the ship. Tie your victim to one end of the rope, then pull it, dragging them under the water, across the hull of the ship, and then out the other side.
Horror: Dragging someone under a ship might not seem like a very harsh form of torture, but there are three key factors to keep in mind. Firstly, ship hulls aren’t smooth. They begin rather smooth, but after just one month in the seawater, algae, barnacles, worms, mussels and seaweed can begin to cover the hull of your ship; mussels and barnacles are quite sharp, so being dragged across the hull of a ship is like being slid across a cheese-grater. Secondly, seawater is very salty and dirty. Rubbing salt into a wound is itself a form of torture, but seawater is also often full of microorganisms; not only would every cut, slice and scrape sting relentlessly, but the likelihood of infection is almost a certainty. Thirdly, most people can hold their breath for less than a minute. Holding one’s breath is hard at the best of times, let alone when being dragged through cold water, as barnacles flay your skin; for this reason, keelhauling could and did kill a lot of people. That’s why it’s so high on this list, but I can still think of one thing even worse.

01. SCAPHISM
Device: Two boats, specially designed so that they can seal together, with five holes for arms, legs and a head respectively; Milk and honey, or other sweet, organic foodstuffs.
Method: First, you seal your victim into the boats, and seal them together. Then, feed them (by force) milk and honey until they are bloated (you can also pour milk and honey over their body, if you desire). Then, take your victim to a body of water and leave them floating on the water until they die of exposure.
Horror: Being stretched, stabbed, crushed, burned, suffocated, gored, eviscerated, impaled or drowned are all pretty horrendous. But, to me, worse than all of these is being trapped, and left to slowly rot. Now, starving alone is a pretty bad way to die, but scaphism isn’t designed to starve the victim - they’re even force-fed to prevent it - rather, the honey and milk is meant to attract bugs. That’s why they’re left on the water, since bugs often live nearby. Not only does the sweet food attract stinging, pollinating bugs, but the milk and honey fed to the victim is also meant to cause diarrhoea in the victim, which would encourge flies and other waste-feeding insects. Essentially, the goal is to cause the victim to begin to decay and decompose before they die. The victim would be stung and gnawed upon, their muscles cramping as they can’t move, dehydrating, all alone in the elements. The worst part is that, according to one of the few historical reports of scaphism, the victim died after seventeen days.

— — —

On that note, what tortures do you think were the worst? Do you agree with this list? If not, feel free to comment below. If there are other which you think I should have mentioned, even if they don’t belong on this list, I’d love to know.
I’m the Absurd Word Nerd, and until next time, I’m going to go lie down . . .

Nailing the Colours to the Man

As I write this blog post, my nail polish is chipped. It is a dark purple, and the colour is rather pretty, but because I have been pretty rough with my hands, the purple has chipped off near the edges of my painted ring finger, but I wanted to write this blog post first. I figured that since typing requires me ramming my fingers into these plastic keys, even if I let it dry, it would be a bit rough to put a newly painted nail through that, even if this post is about my nail.
If you’re confused as to why a man is wearing pretty, purple nail polish, allow me to explain . . .

I am a Polished Man. 

This is to say that I have polished one of the fingernails of my right hand a vibrant colour as part of the 2018 campaign, hosted by YGAP (Y-Generation Against Poverty), called Polished Man.
The aim of this campaign is to help manage and prevent violence against children by starting conversations regarding domestic violence and child safety, and also by raising money for trauma recovery and prevention programs.
By signing up, I’ve actually been given the opportunity to raise money for Polished Man, and if you are willing and able, I - and of course, these vulnerable kids - would appreciate it if you would donate money towards this great cause. You can do so at this link:

https://my.polishedman.com/kelnius

But, why am I talking about this during my Halloween Countdown? Well firstly, it’s because this campaign goes through October - I coloured my nail on October First, and will maintain it until October Thirty-First. But, secondly, it’s because not only does this tie in with this year’s theme of pain and torture . . . but, I personally find this entire situation horrifying. The reason why this campaign asks people to colour one fingernail, whilst the nail polish was inspired by a young Cambodian girl named Thea, is because according to worldwide statistics, every five minutes one child dies as a direct result of violence against children.
That is over 100,000 violent deaths every year. 100,000 murdered children.
Also, despite the fact that both men and women are encouraged to take part in this campaign and paint their nails, this is called Polished Man for a reason. According to statistics, 88% of sexual violence is perpretated by men. Now, the campaign isn’t about demonizing men or pointing the finger, but rather asking men to lead by example. Not only does a Polished Man raise awareness and perhaps money, but this campaign asks men to lead by example. When you paint your nail as a part of this campaign, you dedicate yourself to being a good man and encouraging others to do the same, and you take a stand against violence against children.

But, that is why this is so disturbing. This campaign exists because children are being beaten, raped and killed, worldwide. This means that this is happening - right now - in your country.
I live in Australia, and I have looked up some of the statistics from the campaign’s website. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, one in six Australian women and one in ten Australian men report having been physically and/or sexually abused as a child. According to the Australian Institute of Family Studies, a new case of child abuse is reported to authorities in Australia every 90 seconds (355,000 reports in 2015-16). According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Indigenous Australian children are seven times more likely to experience abuse or neglect.

These are just the Australian statistics that I have verified, but these issues get worse for children who live in poverty, as they often don’t have the resources to get help. In this country we have child protective services, but in places where people are isolated or rural, they are often cut off from healthcare facilities and protective services . . .
The Polished Man campaign began in September 2013 when Elliot Costello, the co-founder of YGAP, visited Cambodia to get to know some of the people from Hagar International in Cambodia, one of the beneficiaries of their fundraising efforts. They visited a restaurant on the Mekong river to have dinner with twenty-one young kids who they had helped. Elliot sat at the table next to a young ten-year old girl named Thea. She spoke little-to-no English, but she enjoyed playing games and so she played noughts-and-crosses with him for hours. At the end of the night, Thea took a blue texta pen, and drew a blue heart on the palm of Elliot’s left hand, then she turned his hand over and coloured all of his nails in blue. After this dinner, Elliot came to learn that the reason why Thea was in the care of Hagar International was because at the age of eight her father had died and she had been sent to an orphanage as her mother couldn’t care for her. Whilst in this orphanage, she was sexually and physically abused on a near-daily basis for two years at the hands of a Western man who ran this orphanage.

This is a child who was sent into care, and as a result of that was abused for two years, and has been left with mental and physical scars. But, thanks to the help of campaigns like Polished Man, Thea was given the opportunity to have a childhood, and is now fifteen years old.

Thea, and the other twenty kids in that facility, have a better life as a direct result of the help given by YGAP and the monetary support provided by campaigns like Polished Man. But this is just one of their beneficiaries - funds are also directed towards some of the best trauma recovery agencies in the world including the Australian Childhood Foundation, SAMSN, Hagar Australia, and the New York Center for Children, as well as YGAP's own accelerator programs.

So, with that all that in mind, I want to once again ask you to please donate if you can. I won’t see a cent of your money, in fact I’ve donated some of my own money towards this campaign because I think it’s the right thing to do. Because it shouldn’t hurt to be a child. You can help end violence against children, by donating money to this link:

https://my.polishedman.com/kelnius

You can help save vulnerable children from this torture, at the hands of cruel men and women. Even if you can’t afford a one-off donation, I would appreciate it if you could help spread the word either by sharing this blog, or links to the Polished Man website at PolishedMan.com. I think that together we can help to end violence against children.

I’m the Absurd Word Nerd, and until next time, I’m going to go put on a fresh coat of nail polish . . .

The Torment of Tartarus

Good evening and welcome once again to this dark crevice of the web. For those of you tormented souls that frequent around this morbid time of year, I hope you are looking forward to the coming nights of the macabre. For the rest of you that are unaware, or otherwise mentally impaired, I invite you to celebrate with me, for tonight is anniversary of my ill-fated birth.

For, I was born thirteen nights before Halloween, and so in celebration of this dark time, I count down the nights with a post each night, like a grain of sand trickling down the hourglass.

But this year, to me, is especially sinister, because I am twenty-seven years old. And twenty-seven happens to be my favourite number . . .
I’m not exactly sure why, but it has always appealed to me. It could be because 27% of the universe is said to be Dark Matter, in the standard Lambda-CDM model of cosmology; it could be because there are twenty-seven bones in the human hand; it could be because the titular being of pure evil from Stephen King’s novel, known only as ‘IT’ returns to Derry every 27 years; it could be because Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain & Amy Winehouse, as well as every other member of the 27 Club died at the age of twenty-seven.
Either way, tonight it is my birthday, and so we are beginning the Halloween Countdown:

A count of the days, counting down from thirteen,From today, thirteen nights till we see Halloween.

In the last few years, I have noticed that I have a tendency to prefer psychological horror. The words that have corrupted these countdowns with their theme have been “ignorance”, “anxiety” and “waste” - words relating to sickness of the mind, absence of thought and how people waste the time that is their life. Even when the words were “bloody” and “monster”, I spoke more about the horror of thinking like a monster, or how the the thought of blood and weakness. I’ve never truly embraced physical horror.
For this reason, this year, the Word of the Day is: ‘TORTURE’

Torture /’tawchə/ n. 1. The act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge, as a means of getting a confession or information, or for sheer cruelty. 2. A method of inflicting such pain. 3. (often pl.) The pain or suffering caused or undergone. 4. Extreme anguish of body or mind; agony. 5. A cause of severe pain or anguish. ♦v.t. 6. Tor·tured,Tor·tur·ing. To subject to torture. 7. To afflict with severe pain of body or mind: My back is torturing me. 8. To force or extort by torture: We'll torture the truth from his lips! 9. To twist, force, or bring into some unnatural position or form:trees tortured by storms. 10. To distort or pervert (language, meaning,etc.).

This year, rather than spine-tingling, blood-curdling, disturbing horror, I want to traverse into the realm of blood, pain, gore & viscera. I want real harm. So, rather than a “dark crevice”, this year, the blog is more of a “deep chamber”, a torture chamber for these sad and innocent victims.
I have this obsession with psychological torture because, to me, it's the more robust kind of torture. As someone who occasionally suffers from his own insanity, I feel a very clear and present danger from the demons that lurk within my psychoses. And as someone who has lived a very privileged life - privileged enough to have earned 27 years of it so far - pain isn't something that I encounter in my life. At least, not pain inflicted upon me, anyway.
As well, since writing is the passion that I've been cursed with, physical pain feels much less meaningful in a story. I can't exactly stab the reader when I want them to empathize with my characters, but I can potentially make them feel a little scared, a little worried, a little lost and alone. Psychological torture is more transmissible in words, and thus it seems more powerful in writing. After all, if I do nothing but cut my characters into pieces, then the story will be rather boring. After all, there's only so many times you can swing an axe before your arm gets tired . . .

Not to mention that there are some who can brave the blade, face the firestorm and come out moderately unscathed. It's often seen as a kind of heroism to face torture and come out the other side. Survival is, after all, a virtue. And, unless you're the kind of person who giggles at cripples, even those amongst us scarred and dismembered by physical torture are seen as whole and valid persons. Whereas, if you are scarred by psychological torture, it can change the way you live your life.

But, this point of view is narrow. As though someone had stabbed an apple-corer in my eye, I am not seeing the full picture. People are not merely "scarred" or "unscarred"; writing isn't merely about "feeling" or "unfeeling" & torture is not simply either "psychological" or "physical".
The world is painted in shades of grey - dare I say, more than a mere fifty - and where these ideas all intermix in an unmitigated gradient is the place that we'll be exploring in this Halloween Countdown.

I have plans for lists and editorials about pain and tortures both old and new; works of torturous fiction; melancholy explorations of the true horrors of torturing the innocent & explicit writings of tortures that we inflict upon ourselves.
If that pleases you… then you are one sick individual, and exactly the kind of person who will enjoy the next fortnight or so. Stick around as we count our way down to Halloween.

Until next time, I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and I'll be seeing you again real soon. Sleep tight.

Cruel to the Kind, or Abusing the Civility of Retail Etiquette

I don't like talking about myself too much, since it seems pretty egotistical. Even if this is my blog, I want to appeal to more people than just . . . well, myself. However, something I've encountered in my life lately has started me thinking about mental health, power and control. See, very recently, I got a job. Two, in fact, one in retail and another in hospitality. Now, my bosses at both of these places are fantastic, and unusually short women, who otherwise have little in common. I think they are great bosses, especially since I have worked at a much worse venue in the past. Since I don't work there anymore, I don't really fear telling you that I once worked at "Tuppy's on the Riverside" and I quit after three weeks because my boss was verbally abusive, and I decided that I would rather leave than have a panic attack.
But, in both of these workplaces where I currently work, I enjoy the work, the employers and the staff . . . however, I have noticed an unusual trend amongst a small subset of the customers, which I find mildly offputting. Now, as these are service industries, I get an awful lot of customers who walk through the door, a fair chunk of humanity that uses these venues. They peruse and occasionally purchase and/or consume the food and beverages or wares that my workplaces supply. However a few people, probably few enough that I could count on one hand, seems to abuse the customer/provider relationship. I don't believe that they are doing this on purpose, in fact in some cases I know that they definitely are not, but it doesn't change the fact that these people are abusing staff, not by swearing or being violent or offensive, but by exploiting the enforced - and often purchased - civility of staff. The Word of the Day is: 'SERVILE'

Servile /'servuyl/ adj. 1. Weakly allowing another to have control; obsequious: Servile manners. 2. Of or relating to slaves; abject: servile obedience.

If you're not a part of the hospitality or retail industry, you may not be aware, but there is a kind of customer that tends to spend more time socializing than actually buying or even attempting to buy goods. In some workplaces, these people are colloquially known as "Counter Monkeys" (as they tend to hang around the counter), or when I spoke to my older brother who has worked in Games Workshop for many years, he called them "Time Vampires", as they tend to absorb quite a lot of your time.
Now personally I don't mind these people much, because I work in an Op Shop and a Cafe respectively, and being a friendly part of the community is part of the appeal of these places. We can't always offer a steak, or the latest brands, but we can offer something friendly and cosy unlike those bigger stores. I like a good chat as much as the next person, and I can learn a lot about the community, as well as life in general, by chatting with customers.
The problem with this is that it creates a kind of stilted relationship between customers and staff, especially if you frequent a store regularly. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my interactions with the people that come into my store, but there is an unusual imbalance, based on the fact that I am trying to sell you something.
I want my store to be appealing, I want to seem as friendly and open as possible & I want you to feel comfortable so that you will give me your money and not regret it. I don't lie to customers, but I don't give them the truth in the same way I would if I was being perfectly honest. So, when a child picks up a fragile piece of crockery or glass, I don't say "put that down, it's fragile", I say "that's expensive, my dear, please be careful", and most of the time their parent hears the word expensive, and makes them put it down. Or, when someone asks for three sugars in their coffee, I don't say "ugh, that's way to much sugar", instead I say "we can offer honey, if you like your coffee really sweet", or, if I know them well enough I just say "okay".
You see, it's not lying, it's just sugarcoated. I add a layer of nicety upon what might otherwise be a bit obtrusive. Because you're not paying to be judged or ridiculed or spoken down to, you're coming to have a need taken care of, and I am the caretaker. In fact, moreso than that, because I work in service industries, I am your server. I am serving you, and whilst I have certain powers to remove you from the store if you break an obvious rule, I am still essentially under contract to serve you, I am basically a retail/hospitality "servant".

However, one of the most insidious things that happens in my workplace is when customers, or simply "perusers", take advantage of the fact that I (and my coworkers) have to be nice. There are some people, that come into the store, and whilst they do occasionally purchase a thing or two, they spend the majority of their time - and I am talking between half an hour to two hours - chatting. And I can tell that they are coming more for the chat than the products. But, it's not just a civil conversation or a bit of local gossip, but rather the person is lonely and they don't have anyone else to talk to, so they are talking to me because I am unable to walk away.
I call it Retail Abuse.
Now, I'm not trying to be all dark and edgy saying "this is the worst thing in the retail industry". No, far from it. I know that sexual harassment, verbal abuse & drug abuse are rife in several hospitality and retail venues. Thankfully, nothing of that sort has taken place in my workplaces (at least, not that I'm aware of, and I hope it never happens). But, I use the word "abuse" because, these people are using retail for their own purposes, using it wrong. The customer-retailer relationship exists so as to facilitate sales without conflict, and with a degree of comfort, but they are using it to suit their own selfish needs.
And don't get me wrong - like I said, I enjoy a good conversation. If you live on your own and like having a chat with local businesspeople, or you are friends with the local cafe owner, you are not what I am talking about. So, if you like to be friendly with staff when you're out and about and in a good mood, please don't think that I am trying to tell you that you're doing the wrong thing by being nice. It's not chatting with staff and trying to be friendly that is the problem. It's taking advantage of the fact that I have to be nice.

Here's the key difference, and some major red flags that you're dealing with customers who are abusing your hospitality:
- They will come straight to the front counter before looking at anything in the store, or the menu.
- When they aren't speaking to you, they will stand awkwardly near the counter and glance around.
- They will always want to talk, but never about you, rather about themselves or their experiences.
- If you speak to another customer, they will attempt to interrupt, or even join the conversation.
- They will bring up personal issues, such as medical, personal or family problems, apropos of nothing.

As I hope you can tell, the problem is specifically that these people aren't treating you like a friend, but rather they are self-medicating their loneliness with these social interactions with service staff.
See, these people aren't being friendly, they don't want friends. If I was the friend of one of these people I would honestly tell them "look, I understand that you're lonely, but you're smothering me with how needy you are. There are other ways to socialize."
Or, if it was one of my best friends, I would either sit them down and have a heart to heart about their serious issues; unless they were just spending hours talking about nothing, I would simply say "Fuck off, I have shit to do. Talk later, okay?".
So, either these people don't have friends, or all of their friends have already given them the "I have shit to do" speech, and so they've ended up on the other side of my counter - or someone else's. But, since I'm not their friend, rather a paid employee of a business, I can't tell them "fuck off". Instead, I have to make small talk whilst they make idle conversation for hours at a time.

I am not trying to be unfair to these people, so I won't give you names or identifying details for the Retail Abusers I know, even though they've definitely told me plenty enough to share. But, I know for a fact that amongst them are alcoholism, acquired brain injuries, mental illness & physical disabilities.
Where I work, there is a methadone clinic, a hospital, a care home & a mental health facility all not too far away. The fact that we have so many healthcare services nearby probably explains why I know half a dozen or so of these people, but I am sure that a few other people with other undiagnosed issues must also abuse the friendliness of staff in other suburbs and in other venues.

And sure, I get that these people may not recognize that what they're doing is socially toxic, and the only thing stopping me from telling them to go is away is the fact that I am a paid employee and I am sugar-coating my conversations. And I guarantee that they don't fully understand that, by interacting with me in this customer-provider relationship, I am essentially their servant and they have a certain level of control and power in this dynamic which means that I cannot tell them how I really feel or - in some cases - how little I actually care.
Worst of all, because I am there to be hospitable, and not make people feel uncomfortable, I cannot tell these people what they really need to hear - which is that I can tell they have some underlying social or mental issue and that they need to seek professional help, rather than self-medicating their issue by chatting to strangers about nothing.

I understand all these things. But, that doesn't excuse the fact that I feel exhausted, trapped and abused when I am forced to talk to these people due to the social contract of the worker-client relationship.
That is Retail Abuse. I'm sure it happens in other industries, but retail is where I encounter it most, and retail is most often typified by the "employee stuck behind a counter, interacting with customers" dynamic. If other people like this term, but think it deserves a better name, I won't complain, but this is what I called it when I spoke to my boss about it, and she understood what I meant.

Lately, when I encounter customers like this, I do what my boss told me to do: I do my job. Not in a dismissive "stop whining and get to work" way, but rather, I price donations and sort shelves. I clean shelves or tables and I rearrange the cups and plates again. Because that way, the person can see that I am at work, I am not their friend at the store, but I am a paid employee doing a job.
And look, this isn't the worst thing in the world. It doesn't happen that often, and I still love my job. This is just one aspect that bothers me, and I do think it shouldn't happen especially for the sake of the Retail Abusers themselves - I may be a stopgap for their loneliness, but I am not a real friend, and surely someone else can help them more than I ever could. And if you find yourself the victim of Retail Abuse, I hope this has helped, and feel free to leave a comment below detailing your experiences (although I advise against naming names, for legal reasons), as you shouldn't feel like someone's amicable servant, just because you've picked a job where you are serving people.

I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and beyond everything I've detailed here . . . I absolutely love my jobs, and I look forward to the experiences, skills and financial support that it will bring me in the future. I also hope to complete more blog posts, as I've been gone for a few months. That needs rectifying.
So, until next time, I am going to work on a new blog post, well, now. I hope you get to see that sooner rather than later.

Re$urrection

A few years ago now, I wrote a blog post called Party Mu$ic all about a particular singer I'm rather fond of, formerly known by the stagename of: Ke$ha
There were some jokes peppered throughout, but it was a serious character analysis of a singer who seemed to deliberately evoke a partygirl character, and rather than deconstruct it, she expanded it to encapsulate the character in all of its depth, despite how shallow that depth ultimately may have been.

It was a fun character piece of a singer whose music I rather like, and it's not something I ever thought I'd find myself writing about again. However, the real world has not been kind to any of us, let alone the woman who performs Ke$ha.
And that's something we need to remember, "Ke$ha" is a caricature, but she is performed by a real woman called Kesha Rose Sebert (for the sake of clarity, I will refer to the real person as Miss Sebert, and the singing persona as "Ke$ha", even though Miss Sebert has dropped the dollar sign from her stage name). Whereas Ke$ha is an unemployed, partying, simply-minded, functional alcoholic, singer and occasionally mildly romantic and sexually explorative young girl . . . Miss Sebert is an unconventional, highly-educated, Californian, talented, young musician and artist. Unfortunately, whereas Ke$ha is a fictional character, an exaggeration of reality impervious to conflict beyond that inflicted by her medium, Miss Sebert is a human being, and so when she was abused and assaulted by the hands of those in the music industry, in particular a man who goes by the name of Dr Luke, born Lukasz Gottwald (the record producer that owns Miss Sebert's contract), she was hurt in more ways than one.

[Blogger's Note: It occurs to me that, throughout most of this post, I include the accusations, and in some case explicit details of actual claims of rape, assault and abuse. I don't want to go triggering a panic attack or PTSD episode in any of my readers, so if you have reason to believe that will happen, please consider yourself warned and take necessary steps to avoid that.]

In October 2014, just a year after I wrote my original post in fact, Miss Sebert filed a civil suit against Dr. Luke -  for infliction of emotional distress, gender-based hate crimes and employment discrimination. She claimed that Dr. Luke had sexually, physically, verbally and emotionally abused her for the entirety of her professional singing career, and that he had drugged and raped her on more than one occasion; made threats against her and her family and called her derogatory names which were directly responsible for an eating disorder that she suffers from.

Unfortunately, her suits have all been denied by both the courts and the alleged perpetrators. However, some of these have been thrown out due to technicality, such as the statute of limitations and insufficient evidence. So, whilst you or I may have enough reason to believe that she is the victim of abuse, there is legal precedent that shows these reasons would not stand up in a court of law.
But, I'm not here to condemn or redeem alleged abusers. Not because I don't think it's important, but because I'm underqualified and uninformed as to many of the facts of these cases, so I hope that someone else might have more information in this regard.

All you need to know, for the purposes of this blog post, is that Miss Sebert is a musician who performs as Ke$ha, she claims to have been a victim of assault and as a result of the legal battles she has undergone, did not produce any music for four years (early 2013 to mid-2017) as a result of the prolonged legal proceedings.

See, after all that time, she finally released a comeback single on July 2017, called Praying which has thinly-veiled references to her abuser and the suffering she was put through. The song managed to reach #22 on Billboard's Hottest 100. Not long after on August 2017, she released her third studio album, called Rainbow which debuted at #1 on Billboard's Top 200.
It may not seem like a big deal at first, but there was a very high likelihood that after these allegations surfaced, Miss Sebert would never have been heard from again.

There have been several cases in the past whereby being the victim of abuse, assault or suffering was career suicide, especially if you went public with it.

Taylor Swift is a famous singer who claims that during a photo-shoot she was groped by David Mueller, a morning radio host, and when he sued her, calling her claims defamatory, she countersued him for the assault. Despite the courts finding in her favour, and also donating $250,000 to Miss Sebert after she lost her own court case, people demonized her actions, and the only possible "reason" seems to be that Taylor Swift wasn't very popular at the time of her trial. She had a reputation in the media for being a liar [you can look this up for yourself, but  her latest album, Reputation is about that controversy]. Despite winning her case, several people (including some celebrities I won't name) claimed that having a man forcefully grab your butt without consent "didn't count" as sexual assault.
As a direct result of retaliating against her assaulter and responding to sexism, Swift was publicly criticized and her image suffered.

Janice Dickinson is an actress and model who claims to have been raped by Cosby in 1982. When Dickinson wrote a memoir which included the details of this rape, she claims that Cosby and his lawyers threatened legal ramifications if she did not remove said details.
As a direct result of being raped, she was threatened with legal action. If she had gone ahead with the memoir, she could have lost a great amount of time to that case, which for some performers can be the end of their career.

Corey Feldman is a former child star who claims to have been molested as a child by several different people in the film industry, amongst which he has named Ron Crimson, Marty Weiss, Cloyd Jon Grissom & Alphy Hoffman. He also claims that he has good reason to suspect that paedophilia is rampant in the film industry.
As a direct result of these abuses, he and fellow child star Corey Haim fell victim to drug addiction, as one of his abusers was a dealer. This led to his co-star's death in 2010 from an overdose, and due to being sent to and from rehab throughout his life, his acting career has suffered.

Timothy Heller is a female musician (with a "boy" name, but Miss Heller is a girl), who claims that on or around the date of June 25th, 2015, she was raped by her best friend, Melanie Martinez, a fellow singer. After being solicited for sex multiple times over the course of two days, and saying no in every way she could imagine, the two smoked cannabis together and Heller claims that despite rejecting Miss Martinez's advances, she was molested and penetrated with a sex toy without her consent. Because the accused is also female, it appears as though Miss Heller's claims of assault have been largely ignored, but more importantly, because both of these women have a large online following due to their indie music reputations, an allegation of rape appears to have become a bizarre fandom rivalry. But, in a very sad twist to this tale, it appears that Miss Heller still held some favour for her rapist, to quote her directly: "I still love them in a fucked up way", and so seeing the accused suffer backlash from these allegations - despite how slight that backlash has so far been - has also impacted Miss Heller negatively.
As a direct result of being raped by her friend, Miss Heller (who already suffered mental health issues) struggled with codependency and insecurity. Her own reputation has been sunk as she is continuously called a liar, and a fake by zealous fans of her accused rapist.

And these aren't just my own speculation based on hearsay - the Guardian wrote an amazing piece with firsthand accounts from several women whose media careers were ended or derailed as a result of being sexually harassed or assaulted.

As it turns out, that whole "rape culture" thing that people talk about isn't just something feminists made up. Because I was so right it almost hurts, I'm going to go ahead and quote Festering an Unclean Culture, my blog post about rape culture:

"Rape Culture is the concept that certain attitudes and practices of a society - especially those which are sexist and promote inequality -  can normalize, excuse, tolerate & even condone rape and sexual violence.When I say "certain attitudes" I am talking about sexual objectification, victim-blaming; misandry/misogyny; rape trivialization & desensitization towards sexual assault."

—The Absurd Word Nerd, 2014

But, I'm not here to congratulate myself on my genius . . . well, not exclusively. Rather, I'm actually here to congratulate Miss Sebert, Kesha herself.
See, it appears that not only has the greater majority of Miss Sebert's reputation remained intact, and her credibility has not waned, despite the length and difficulty of her legal battle. Not only does it appear that she has overcome the greater pain and personal struggle of what she has suffered, in whatever capacity that took. But even moreso than that, she appears to have defied the odds and returned to her career without waning in quality, or (perhaps more importantly) losing her audience.
Don't get me wrong, at time of writing her legal battles are still ongoing and the legal system seems to have, again and again, failed to achieve anything resembling justice. But, the unstoppable partygirl is dancing again and making new music which she'd been prevented from doing for several years due to her contract.


I admit that when I first heard about the Kesha v. Dr. Luke lawsuit, I thought she was a goner. For the reasons I've already written about, and because of the history of past victims that I've just listed. In fact, there is an amazing piece written for the New York Times detailing the contractual limbo Miss Sebert found herself in, since her producer was unfit to do his job. I thought that she would disappear, perhaps return with a fizzle, but be lost to the mainstream and hidden. And since I had found her so fascinating (and because I'm a decent human being that doesn't like it when people suffer), I was saddened by that.
So, when she came back not only hitting the ground running, but when she came back swinging with an album that is an anthem for the oppressed; that celebrates female empowerment; which expresses her rage at those who made her suffer, that encourages self-worth and self-forgiveness & promotes moving stridefully into the future . . . that's not just a comeback, that's a goddamned resurrection.

My personal favourite song from the album would have to be Hymn, an anthem for the irreligious; with Praying, her visceral, heartfelt open letter to her abuser a close second. However, in regards to this whole mess - including what I've spoken about in this post - it is most fitting that the song which gives the album its name is Rainbow, a song all about how she has learned to move past depression, suffering & stress in her life, and encouraging others to finding the rainbow on their horizon after the storm.

And since Miss Sebert has changed a lot herself, Ke$ha, has as well. Whereas in the past, Ke$ha was singing about liquor and glitter, and enjoying the life you can live in them, now she's singing about rainbows and monsters and aliens, adding a touch of magic and fantasy to her repertoire of things that makes life more exciting. But as well as the fun and excitement, she has songs about sadness, anger and pride.
She has changed quite a lot, I can still see that same partygirl in there, wanting to get up and dance. But this time, Ke$ha is a little older and a little wiser. Sure, she's still just as refreshingly crude and she still just wants to live life to the fullest and dance, but now she also wants to encourage others to dance - especially those who have fallen off the dancefloor . . .

You'll find a rainbow, rainbow, baby
Trust me, I know life is scary
But just put those colors on, girl
Come and play along with me tonight . . .

You gotta learn to let go, put the past behind you
Trust me, I know, the ghosts will try to find you
But just put those colors on, girl
Come and paint the world with me tonight . . .

And the most amazing part of this? The Ke$ha persona we see now is much more akin to the character that Miss Sebert always wanted to encapsulate her music. To quote from Kesha Rose Sebert herself:

“I was like, ‘I am fun, but I’m a lot of other things.’ But Luke’s like: ‘No, you’re fun. That’s all you are for your first record.’ . . . To this day, I’ve never released a single that’s a true ballad, and I feel like those are the songs that balance out the perception of you, because you can be a fun girl. You can go and have a crazy night out, but you also, as a human being, have vulnerable emotions. You have love.”

—Kesha, Interrupted by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Oct 2016

The reason her partygirl persona intrigued me so much was because I could see artistry and depth in her despite how unashamedly shallow she was, and I wanted to see more and as it turns out, so did she. Now, that depth is more than just a shadow, and she's portraying a rounded, human experience. I wish I could say that I expected that, but I genuinely didn't, I just thought that person writing the songs was incredibly talented, and it's fantastic to see that realized to a greater potential, when all I was hoping for was just to hear more from that glitter-soaked partygirl.
In fact, I still do. I hope you do too, because this isn't the last we'll hear from her. . .

The Meaning of Life, An Analysis

I have a lot of fun on this blog, crafting fiction; telling personal anecdotes; writing editorial think-pieces and analyzing stories. But, I want to offer people more than just that on this blog, so what about answering one of life's supposedly most difficult questions? Personally, I don't see why it's so troublesome, but people like to overcomplicate questions when they think it's "profound".

What is the Meaning of Life?

And no, this isn't a joke, I'm going to answer it. But, you see, the reason this question is so difficult to answer is because the question is vague. I mean, we've all heard that joke-response: "If you want to know the meaning of life, look it up in a dictionary!". Haha, yes, very funny... and I will offer that answer as well, but the reason people can give this answer to the question is because "meaning" is an ambiguous term. The answer to that question depends entirely upon the context of what you mean when you say 'meaning'.
When people say "what is life's meaning" they could be referring to life's worth, origin, purpose, or in fact definition. But, if you know the context of the question, then the answer is pretty easy. In fact, I answered this over 11 years ago now, I actually covered this in a note on my computer, and that's where some of the content of this blog post comes from (although, I couldn't help but update some of the information to reflect my greater education). So, today, I will answer every single possible interpretation of the question "what is the meaning of life" starting with...

What is the Definition of 'Life'?
Well, if you're curious. Luckily, the Word of the Day is: 'LIFE'

Life /luyf/ n. 1. The condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally. 2. The sum of the distinguishing phenomena of organisms, especially metabolism, growth, reproduction, and adaptation to environment. 3. The animate existence or period of animate existence of an individual: to risk one's life; a short life and a merry one. 4. A corresponding state, existence, or principle of existence conceived of as belonging to the soul: Eternal life. 5. The general or universal condition of human existence: Too bad, but life is like that. 6. Any specified period of animate existence: A man in middle life. 7. The period of existence, activity, or effectiveness of something inanimate, as a machine, lease, or play: The life of the car may be ten years. 8. A living being, especially a human being: Several lives were lost. 9. Living things collectively: the hope of discovering life on other planets; insect life. 10. A particular aspect of existence: He enjoys an active physical life. 11. The course of existence or sum of experiences and actions that constitute a person's existence: His business has been his entire life. 12. A biography: a newly published life of Willa Cather. 13. Animation; liveliness; spirit: a speech full of life. 14. Resilience; elasticity. 15. The force that makes or keeps something alive; the vivifying or quickening principle: The life of the treaty has been an increase of mutual understanding and respect. 16. A mode or manner of existence, as in the world of affairs or society: So far her business life has not overlapped her social life. 17. The period or extent of authority, popularity, approval, etc.: the life of the committee; the life of a bestseller. 18. A prison sentence covering the remaining portion of the offender's animate existence: The judge gave him life. 19. Anything or anyone considered to be as precious as life: She was his life. 20. A person or thing that enlivens, cheers, or brightens a gathering or group: the life of the party. 21. Effervescence or sparkle, as of wines. 22. Pungency or strong, sharp flavor, as of substances when fresh or in good condition. 23. Nature or any of the forms of nature as the model or subject of a work of art: drawn from life. ♦adj. 24. For or lasting a lifetime; lifelong: a life membership in a club; life imprisonment. 25. Of or relating to animate existence: the life force; life functions. 26. Working from nature or using a living model: a life drawing; a life class in oil painting.

That's one possible interpretation of the question, but it's not what you meant, is it? See, people asking this question tend to mean something more spiritually or cosmically significant. But, now that we know what life's definition is, it's meaning can refer to its , origins, nature, significance, value, or purpose. So, let's have a look at some of the more existentially pertinent questions regarding the meaning of life . . .

Why does Life, the Universe & Everything Exist at All?
This is a fascinating question, most commonly written as "why is there something, rather than nothing?" and whilst we may think that the cause or circumstance of how something can exist may be cosmically significant, as Lawrence Krauss has pointed out, this is is actually a question for physics, not philosophy. This theory takes into account the expansion of the universe, dark matter, spatial geometry and Einsteinian equations . . . so, I have to simplify it. If you want a more educated explanation, check out Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing by Lawrence M. Krauss. But, for the sake of this blog...
There is "Something" because Nothing is incredibly unstable. When you remove all matter from space, it isn't weightless, in fact empty space accounts for around 70% of the weight of the universe. This is because on the subatomic scale, Empty Space is full of virtual particles which appear, exist for a miniscule amount of time and disappear, and in large enough volumes of space, gravity can act upon this energy, resulting in these energies coalescing to create matter, such as in the big bang.
Of course, this answer has some interesting questions, but I'm not here to explain theoretical physics, I have several more iterations of an existential question to answer!

What is the Origin of Life?
Well, lo and behold, once again, we no longer need philosophy, but science. I thought that, perhaps, I could at least switch to biology. However, biology is the study of life and prior to life biology is irrelevant, just like how prior to to the invention of language, spelling is irrelevant. Technically, the field of science we need to look at is chemistry. Because, that's all life really is, complex carbon-based chemistry.
So, what is the origin? 38 Billion Years Ago, we have evidence that Life began, and what evidence we have suggests that it all began with RNA, which is a kind of polymeric molecule that encodes genetic information on a single strand (as opposed to DNA's double-helix), Just like DNA, RNA can store and replicate genetic information, but it is also a molecule which can arise through simple chemical reaction with materials which we know to have been common on the prebiotic Earth. Because RNA is capable of replicating through a catalytic reaction using ribosomes (or perhaps an intermediary molecule), once you bring replicating genes into the picture, then you have a kind of chemical evolution. Molecules can get larger or smaller and change over time and natural selection comes into play. Molecules which reproduced using abundant elements were capable of reproducing more. In fact, there's evidence to show that this would lead to the development of cells, as molecules with some kind of protective layer would have an advantage over more vulnerable molecules, and in an aqueous environment, molecules can naturally coalesce into a lipid bubble, a kind of oily substance that molecules can stick to to create an outer wall for a cell. These lipid bubbles over time and further replication can evolve into a cell membrane which would then protect the RNA within from the competing RNA molecules that are consuming them.
Now, I freely admit that I don't know at which point you would call that "life" however, nature doesn't care, because once you have these cells, then they can continue to evolve into multicellular organisms, which can become sentient, then sapient, then . . . well, us. It takes billions of years, but it all started with a chemical reaction.

What is the Nature of Life?
By nature, life is ordered chaos. Life is the randomest of random, spreading out with high extremes and low extremes, from having no legs to having fifteen; being colourful and glowing to almost totally transparent; from the size of a hillock to the size of an angel dancing on the head of a pin. Life is completely wild and untamed and crazy . . . but, there's some order to it.
Because, if things becomes too big, they will collapse under their own weight, things too small won't have the necessary space to grow a brain; if something is too aggressive, it will either starve itself or kill itself off, but if something is too passive, it will be eaten alive. The nature of life is kept in check by the nature of . . . well, nature. Natural selection is the force by which life is kept in balance and allowed to truly evolve. It is the great equalizer.
But, this doesn't apply just to biology. In art and culture, we create anything and everything, but the forces of the zeitgeist decides what is appreciated or depreciated as the case may be. Ideas are shared, discussed, adapted or rejected based on critical thinking or subjective approval. Even in science, you can hypothesize any claims, but once it is tested the results of that testing determines whether a claim is accepted or rejected.
That's what all life boils down to, ultimately - absolute chaos.

What is the Significance of Life?
Finally, we approach, not science, but philosophy. In response to this, I think it was best said, in The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus (apparently that's pronounced 'kahm-oo', not 'kam-iss'):
"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest— whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories—comes afterwards."
That's quite the statement, and I feel that it's apt. After all, what is being discussed here is whether or not life is worth living, and ultimately, if it isn't, then death is the only logical solution. Now, if you personally are suicidal - please, seek help, there are some great mental health hotlines available internationally.
For, you see, life is significant because we experience it. But, more importantly, we give the universe significance.
I'm not being grandiose, far from it, rather what I'm saying is, significance is a quality that is inherently subjective. A rock cannot tell you how significant something is, because a rock isn't a thinking subject. You can't "measure" significance, you can't "weigh" it or put it under a microscope. That's because quantities, things you can measure, are objective, undeniable, unchanging. But, qualities such as significance or worth, can vary from person to person (or, subject to subject), it depends on their perspective. In a sense, significance doesn't "exist" except in your mind. So, if you remove that mind, where does the significance go?
Well, it disappears. Without Life, significance isn't possible, because there would be no one who could discover what they consider to be significant. Even if no one was alive to see it, a beach two kilometres long would still be two kilometres, because that's objective. But, if no one were alive, then no one could determine the beauty, serenity or significance of a beach, because the universe itself doesn't care.

What is Valuable in Life?
Okay, now this is just foolish. What is valuable to you? What is valuable to your neighbour? What is valuable to anyone? It is all different. Just like significance, value is subjective. This is the one which mostly rolls down to opinion. Value in Life is up to you. What is valuable in life to me would have to be truth, love, freedom and happiness, but people can, and most definitely will, disagree, so there is no wrong answer to this question, just what you believe.

What is the purpose of, or in, (one's) life?
The purpose 'of' your life? Well, that's simple . . . there isn't one. Scroll up, I went through a simple explanation of abiogenesis above. So, we weren't created "for a reason", since chemicals don't have agendas . . . we were created "by a natural, chemical reaction". In a sense, I guess that technically makes me a nihilist, I don't think life has an inherent purpose.
But, that doesn't mean that I think life can have an inherit purpose. Which is to say, although there's no objective purpose, that doesn't mean you can't have a subjective one.
So, the purpose 'in' your life? Well, that depends entirely on what you find valuable in life. If you find family and community valuable, then your purpose in life may be to have a family of your own and become a part of your community. If you find money and success to be valuable, then your purpose in life may be to earn money through becoming successful. Personally, as I said, I find truth, love, freedom and happiness to be of value. So, I consider my purpose to be searching for and teaching the truth, finding and sharing love, promoting and securing freedom for myself and others, and being happy (through writing, since that makes me happy).


Anyway, that's my answer . . . or, I guess, answers to the ultimate question of Life, the Universe and Everything. I can see why people prefer the answer 'Forty-Two', it requires less knowledge of physics, biology, philosophy and language. Although, very few people seem to get the joke that forty-two is literally "The Wrong Answer to a Meaningless Question". And, that's kind of the point isn't it? I honestly don't think the answer matters that much, that's how I came up with these answers eleven years ago. I didn't bother putting in the research, I usually just said "ask a scientist", but, at the end of the day, the meaning to life is either something complicated, fascinating, but ultimately useless for most people or, "Well, it depends, what do you think?"

So Very Close

Paige’s suitcase was packed and sitting beside the balcony door. Her passport sat on top, with her cell phone. She was sitting beside her computer, plugged into her virtual console. The printer on the other side of the room started blinking, then began filling the output tray. A printed ticket with travel time, destination and cost; On top of that slid a printed map & on top of that, a typed out note. It read:

Dear Mom & Dad,
Stay calm, I’m okay, I haven’t run away. I’ve
gone to see Mohamed. He’s in the hospital
because he was shot. I need to go see him.
Don’t worry, I’ll be safe. I’m taking the drone
with me Please whatever you do, don’t panic.
From Paige

Disconnecting herself from the interface, Paige ran over and grabbed the pages, then the bag and everything atop it. She extended the handle, then wheeled the bag behind her as she headed to the kitchen. Finding a stray magnet, she posted the note on the front of the fridge.
Stuffing the other pages in her jeans pockets, she headed over to the white, squat quadrocopter; a flattened cube with lots of slots and components, and round, shiny, metal edges sitting on the end of the bench on its charger.
  “Hoverfly, wake up,” she said. Two little blue eyes on the front of the Rusties™ Hoverfly switched on and glanced around. The propellers started up, whirring softly, and the drone lifted off its charging station and hovered in place.
  “Hoverfly, I need you to chaperone me,” said Paige. The drone tilted forward, as though nodding, a little green light beeped and the drone flew up and hovered a few feet behind her shoulder. Ever since the legalization for automated drones, they had become very popular since they were relatively cheap, especially within the film industry and delivery services; but for families with latchkey kids, it brought a whole new meaning to the term ‘helicopter parent’. Paige headed for the door, with the drone following behind keeping her in its sights. Paige grabbed her vest from the coatrack by the door and headed outside.

From her apartment, she went downstairs, across the street and started heading towards the Long Beach seaport. It wasn’t too far, but it felt like miles as thoughts kept spilling through her head. What if he’s seriously hurt? Will this be the first and last time I see him? Or, what if he’s fine? I’ll get in so much trouble spending my savings if I’m just worrying over nothing. I hope Mom and Dad don’t freak out when they see I’m missing. They can track me on the Hoverfly, so they’ll see I’m okay . . . I am going to be in so much trouble. It’s weird though, I don’t care. I usually care, but it’s not like I have a choice. Moh needs me, and I can’t leave him alone at a time like this.
Paige headed for the seaport and saw several excited people with cameras and bags clustered on the concrete docks around cafes, spilling orange light through the blue dawn, or taking photos of the set of aqualiners that lined the shore; each one looked like a mix between a jet ski and Concorde. Made by Rolls Royce®, the latest update in seaborne travelling was the speed-cruise ship, a jet-boat the size of a cruise liner which was fast enough to hydroplane. It still isn’t as fast as a Boeing 747, but what it lacked in speed it made up for in luxury. Paige wasn’t looking for luxury, though. Due to the war in Africa, Somalia was a no-fly zone, the only ways to get there internationally was to fly to Europe and drive down, or go by sea.
Although her worry made her feel sick to her stomach, Paige was tired and hungry and the liner wouldn’t leave for another 15 minutes. So, she bought a small coffee and a ham ‘n’ cheese croissant from the cafe and stood by the concrete pillars and chains separating the people on the dock from the water’s edge. She watched and waited, her tears stifled. She wasn’t scared anymore, because she had a goal. She was going to see her Mohamed, and she was going to kiss him. It was the promise she had made to herself, and she intended to keep it.

When she boarded the boat, it was surprisingly easy. She thought that the people at reception would be suspicious of a sixteen year old travelling alone. But thanks to the chaperone drone, everyone let her straight through, barely batting an eye. She headed on-board the aqualiner, named Silver Goddess, and headed up the stairs to the flush deck, and headed to the aft theatre. She was one of the first on-board, so she sat in a velvet seat near the back of the room.
  “Hoverfly, I need to put you away,” Paige said to the drone, and she held out a hand. The drone blinked its blue eyes, then flew to her hand. The helicopter blades spun down, then the extended propeller arms folded in and collapsed within the body of the drone, leaving just a little white box in her hand, about the size of a whitebread sandwich. “I’ll be okay, don’t worry. I just don’t want you to fly into a wall from the momentum.”
The drone beeped, then went on standby, She tucked the drone into her bag, then stowed the bag under her seat.
The ship was boarded efficiently, and soon the entire group of passengers was aboard and people filled the theatre, chatting excitedly amongst themselves. The ship’s MC stood on the stage and introduced himself, giving the safety demonstration, but Paige was uninterested. She’d been aboard an aqualiner before, so she merely did up her seatbelt and waited. She felt the ship begin to move as the MC gave his presentation. After 20 minutes, the audience applauded and he left the stage to sit down and do up his seatbelt as well. Everyone was strapped in and waited. There was an announcement from the captain over the PA system, he gave a brief weather report, wished everyone a safe trip and warned everyone that they were about to accelerate and that they should be seated with a belt on.
Then, after a few seconds, Paige felt the jolt of the ship’s jet engines, then severe turbulence of the whole boat getting up to speed. It lasted for two minutes before the boat successfully managed to aquaplane and everything smoothed out once more. The captain announced that they could remove their seatbelts, and wished them a good day. Paige merely headed straight for the lido deck. The top deck was surrounded by a bar, a stage and several deck chairs as well as a pool in the middle. Because of the speed of the ship, the top deck was surrounded by a sleek, glass dome to protect from wind shear, but the view was beautiful nonetheless. The ocean whipping past like rolling, blue fields and the seaport behind them slipping into the horizon. It was so dark in the early morning, and although it was peaceful and beautiful, all it did was remind Paige of how far away her boyfriend was. It was early afternoon in Somalia, and she probably wouldn’t arrive for a whole day. She hoped that Mohamed would be okay. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a piece of paper. It was covered in scribbles and crossed out words, but it had two lines of poetry which weren’t scribbled out, written in Somali. She had written it for Mohamed, and last time they spoke, she wanted to read it to him. He loved her so much; he had put most of his effort into speaking English, just to speak with her. At the very least, she wanted to return the favour by trying to learn some Somali:
  Labada Waxaan aad u fog, oo weli laga dareemayo si dhow;
  Bishii riyadeeyda, adduunka inagu dhexeeya kuma jiro
Even if it was a terrible translation, she still wanted to read it to him. The last time they spoke, he said he wanted to read it, but then he’d had to go to the hospital. She put the poem back in her pocket and went to lay down on one of the deck chairs by the pool.
She opened her bag and took out the Hoverfly drone once more.
  “Wake up, Hoverfly,” she said, holding it out in her hand. The drone extended its arms once more and, whirring softly, flew up in the air to keep an eye on her. Then Paige laid back, and looked up at the sky, wondering whether or not Moh would be alright when she finally found him. But it was so late, she’d been up all night playing a v-game with her friends, she hadn’t slept. Then this had happened, she hadn’t been able to sleep, but now she felt so tired. Her eyes started to close . . .

Paige opened her eyes to the sound of her ringing phone. She rubbed her eyes, and felt her face, stinging red from the heat of the sun. She was sweaty from her jacket and threw it off herself, then rummaged through it before she found the phone. She read the screen: ✆ HOME
Paige hesitated. It was her parents. She didn’t want to answer the phone, unsure what they were going to say, she might be in trouble. But, she’d probably be in worse trouble if she didn’t answer the phone. She tapped “answer”.
  “Hello?” she said.
  “Paige?” said her father. “Paige, where are you right now?”
  “I’m on a cruise liner,” she replied, rubbing her eyes, “did you read the note I left?”
  “We read it, what does this mean? You’re headed for Africa?”
  “Yes, I’m heading to Somalia. I’ll be back soon enough, I promise.”
Her Dad didn’t respond for a moment, but she heard a crackle in the speaker as he sighed.
  “Paige, we want you to come home. Do you have any idea how dangerous it is in Africa?” asked her Dad.
  “I’ve got Hoverfly with me,” I said. “And it’s not like I can turn the liner around. I’ll be at the port in less than a day, and the return trip isn’t for two days. I’ll go to the hospital to see him in that time.”
There was another pause. Then she heard her mother’s voice.
  “What were you thinking, Paige? You leave in the middle of the night; you take a suitcase and run off to a warzone?! how can we even pay for this?”
  “I used my savings, but I can make it back, I promise. Mom, I’m sorry, but I have to go. I have to make sure Mohamed is okay. I’ll be back in a few days, I promise. I love you.”
Paige hung up the phone. She felt ashamed, but trapped. She didn’t feel like she had any other choice, she had to go, she had to find him and make sure he was okay. She stared at her phone, anxiously, but her parents didn’t call back. Perhaps they knew they couldn’t talk her out of it, or they knew it was pointless, since she couldn’t turn the boat around, or perhaps she’d convinced them, but that was unlikely.

Paige spent the rest of the cruise wandering around the ship, taking lots of photos on her phone. She even managed to watch some of the theatre shows and observed some of the on-board activities; as she got closer and closer to Mohamed, the tight knot in her stomach felt like it was beginning to loosen and it felt okay to enjoy herself. No matter what, things would be better when she could finally see him, and hear his voice. And she looked forward to telling him what it was like on an aqualiner and showing him all of her photos, since he’d never been on one before. On the night before their arrival, there was a party on the lido deck. Paige didn’t want to dance, but she had a mocktail and sat by the pool, with Hoverfly nearby, listening to the music. Some of the young boys asked her to dance, and she couldn’t help but smile when she refused, saying that she already had a boyfriend.
After the party, Paige had trouble sleeping, she was too excited, so she walked around the promenade deck and looked at the night sky. It was like an infinite black, stretching onto the horizon, as though ship were speeding through shadow, but above her the stars shone brighter than she’d ever seen from her apartment window. She watched the water flying past, and couldn’t wait to see Mohamed’s homeland.

†

Mohamed woke up feeling a soft ache in his side. Although dulled by anaesthetic, he could still feel a warm pain through the numbness. He could hear a soft buzzing sound. He opened his eyes, and when he saw the white ceiling, he quickly remembered that he was in the hospital. Taking a deep breath, he stretched his back and rolled onto his side to get more comfortable, but then he saw her. She was sitting at his bedside in a plastic chair. She smiled when he looked at her, and it took him a moment to recognize her. So used to her avatar with the pink and purple hair and the cherryblossom dress, he was surprised to see her beautiful red hair, and wearing jeans with a light blue, long-sleeved shirt.
  “Jeclahay?” he said.
  “Mohamed,” she said, scooting her chair closer. “Hey, it’s good to see you’re awake.”
  “Come here,” he said, and he coaxed her forward with a gesture of his hand. She leant down and he raised a hand, he touched her cheek. It was colder than he expected, but soft, smooth and most importantly real. “What are you doing?”
  “I had to see you,” she said. “I didn’t know what had happened to you. And when you said goodbye. When you left for the hospital, I realized just how precious our time is, and just how much we would miss out on if one of us were lost. So, no matter what happened with you, I decided to come here, and kiss you. To make sure that we wouldn’t miss out.”
  “Then, please,” said Mohamed, “Don’t wait any longer.”
Paige bent down and pressed her lips to his. Mohamed ran his fingers through her fiery hair as he finally kissed her for the first time.
When they finally parted, there were tears in Mohamed’s eyes.
  “Thank you,” he said. “I love you, Jeclahay.”
  “I love you too, pumpkin,” she said. And she took his hand to hold it in hers.
  “Did they tell you, though?” he said.
  “Hmm? Tell me what?”
  “I’m fine,” he said. He wriggled back to sit up on his pillow, and lifted his shirt with his other hand to show the bandage on his hip. “I need to stay, to rest. I was shot kidney, it was . . . cudurka. Hurt bad, broken up. They took it out.”
  “Did it hurt?”
  “No, not so bad.”
  “Oh, that reminds me,” said Paige. “I wrote you a poem. I wanted to share it with you.”
  “A poem?” he said.
  “Yes, promise you won’t laugh, the translation might be a bit bad,” she said, taking the note out of her pocket.
  “Never at you,” he said.
Paige cleared her throat, feeling a little nervous:
“Labada Waxaan aad u fog, oo weli laga dareemayo si dhow;
Bishii riyadeeyda, adduunka inagu dhexeeya kuma jiro.”
  “We both so far, yet we feel so very close;” Mohamed translated, with a smile. ”In my dreams, there’s no world between us.”
  “I hope it’s not dorky,” she said.
  “It’s not dorky,” he said. “It’s beautiful . . . like you.”
  “Aww . . .” Paige swooned.
After a moment, he glanced up in the air and frowned. “What is that?”
  “Oh, that’s Hoverfly,” said Paige. “He’s my chaperone drone. Just keeping an eye on me to make sure I don’t get into trouble.”
  “It’s watching us?” he said.
  “Yeah, don’t worry. It’s cute and clever, but it’s just a robot.”
  “Okay. Could it go away? So we can have privacy. I don’t want any more technology pulling us apart.”
  “It won’t,” said Paige. “But if you want . . . Hoverfly, Sleep.”
The robot flew down to the foot of the bed, switched off with a beep and folded up its propellers. Paige picked it up and put it in the bag under her chair. Before she sat down, Mohamed spoke.
  “No don’t sit,” said Mohamed, shuffling over in the bed and patting the sheet beside him. “Come, join me.”
  “What?”
  “The chairs are not comfortable, come on,” he said.
With a smirk, Paige climbed onto the bed beside him. As she settled in, Mohamed took her hand in his.
  “I have to tell you,” Paige said softly, so only he could hear, “I do have to go home in a few days, when the boat leaves.”
  “I don’t mind,” he said. “This, now, is as close as I feel to you. Always. So very close.”
  “Yet, so far,” said Paige.
  “It is good to finally kiss you,” said Mohamed.
  “We can do more if you want,” said Paige. “How long do you have to stay in the hospital?”
  “They should let me go home today.”
  “Then we can have our first date,” said Paige, excitedly.
  “So long as it’s safe,” said Mohamed, with a frown. “I wouldn’t want you to get shot.”
  “It’s okay, I thought of that,” said Paige. “When I got directions to the hospital, I asked one of the staff on the ship about coming aboard. They said that they can give you a visitor’s pass. You have to leave before we disembark, but we can visit a restaurant or cafe on the ship, so long as it’s not the buffet.”
  “That would be perfect,” said Mohamed. “I’ve never been on a ship before.”
  “Oh, right!” says Paige, taking her phone out of her pocket. “I wanted to show you my trip.”
She took the phone out of her pocket and opened up her photo album, then began showing it to Mohamed, with commentary on each image as to what she had done. She nestled her head on his shoulder and leaned towards her so he could see each picture . . . and the two of them couldn’t have been happier in that moment.

The End

Closing the Book on 2017

Today is the New Year's Morrow - the Second of January, 2018. One of the many days in the coming year, but I'm not all that excited for it, to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I'm not dreading it, but I don't really feel all that great. It's another year, another day. I seem to be percolating a nostalgic melancholy.
However, I do appreciate a good milestone, an opportunity to look at how far we've come, and maybe even have a glimpse at where we're going.

See, last month, I was wondering if I should even "do" a New Years post, since I don't always do them, and I don't even really have resolutions.
But then, I remembered my blog post for last year: New Year's Retribution.
I made a promise there, to write posts specifically against the horrible shit that happened in 2016. Now, I didn't actually plan to, since after that rant, I didn't have too much to say. However, I did respond to all three of the points I made.
In opposition to ISIS in 2016, and how religious bigotry had lead to meaningless murder and pain, I wrote a post about the folly of religion that I called Your God Does Not Exist.
In opposition to Racism in 2016, and how it was lending to xenophobia and hatred, I wrote a post about racism in horror, and how it is dying out in a post called Hatecraft.
In opposition to Trump in 2016, and how it lead to unrelenting stupidity and ignorance, I wrote a post about skepticism and how we can be smarter, called Skepticism 101.

However, this year wasn't so horrifying. It had its moments, but nothing like 2016, so whereas in 2017 I wanted retribution for the things the previous year had done to me . . . this year, I want to make reparations for the things I've done to myself in the year prior.
See, in looking back at the year, I've started to realize how often the things that disappoint me about my blog, are caused by me - or uncaused by me, as the case may be.

The GameBlog, that was a blogging event I promised almost five years ago, in Late Spring Cleaning, yet that's still scarcely even been attempted.
Duke Forever, has fallen drastically by the wayside. I have recontextualized it several different times, and at present moment, I feel as though I will barely finish Volume One.
I've even looked back on the posts in the past where I've promised upcoming posts . . . and absolutely failed to deliver.
And on a more personal level of my writing journey, I have not had very many of my stories published, even though that is a large goal of mine.

I keep doing this to myself, and I don't like it, since even though you, as my readers, are often either complacent enough, or not vocal enough to complain about these unfulfilled blogging/writing plans - I'm self-critical enough to feel the weight of those unfulfilled promises, nonetheless.

So, for this year, my goal is to rectify these mistakes:

• I want to write my GameBlog, and publish it on this website
• I want to try to bring Duke Forever towards some kind of conclusion
• I want to have some of my longer writing Published.

Now, three seems to be the traditional number of goals I do for these things, but that's because these are my writing goals. I also have the goals of living healthier; getting a job; finding a girlfriend . . . and whilst all of these are fun, I don't think they are as relevant to you, since I don't really talk about that on the blog.

Ironically, getting Published is the easiest part, since I already have set those plans in motion, and I have some anthologies and magazines in mind, as well as stories to write for them. And if all of those plans fail, I have many fallback plans to get back on my feet.
I have high hopes for the GameBlog, but I know it will be quite difficult, as in previous attempts I experienced how hard it is to structure a branching story. But, I have a plot idea, so I have my fingers crossed.
But, the hardest of all will be Duke Forever. I have struggled with that story the most, because I've written it for so long that my writing abilities have exceeded what they were when I began to write it, so its hard to face that story once again. However, I don't like the idea of leaving it unfinished. I recognize that I will never write as much as I originally planned, but I want to bring the current volume to its conclusion. I owe that much to my readers but, moreso, I feel like I owe that much to the Duke. It's not the character's fault that I wrote him when I was younger and more prone to simple mistakes. And, even though it will require a lot of time on my part, and I'm not even sure how many people still enjoy my fanfiction blogserial . . . I still like the stories I have planned for Volume One.
The future stories? Later Volumes? They could be cannibalized into other stories I write. But, that's another story for another day. For now, if I can just finish this one volume, then I can be happy with it.

At least, that's what I tell myself . . .

Also, I liked my "at least one per month" writing goal, however, I have one simple, little goal in regards to blog-writing. I want to write more this year than I did last year. Sounds simple enough, let's see if I can pull it off.

I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and it seems as though I've left some threads unsewn, some knots untied. I plan to rectify that, this year, starting by writing some short stories for upcoming anthologies. I'll let you know how that all pans out . . .
Until next time, what are your goals for the upcoming year, and do they have anything to do with your writing? Let me know in the comments section, and I hope you've had a Happy New Year.