Save Yo Self

A little post on saving yourself

People will disappoint you. Life will be shitty a lot of the time. I think I’ve reached an age where funerals are just as normal as weddings. I talk about life in a positive way because I was a sad girl for a long time. There’s a lot of hard stuff that we navigate as we move through this life. I don’t think we should invalidate the tragedies that come with living.

Yes, those things you survived were fucking hard. And I don’t demand you be something more or less from them. There’s no heal-all balm for the nightmares life has handed any of us... read more

Transformation, A New Creation

Choose Life, Choose the challenges, Become a new You.

The initial coming to life wasn’t a choice we got to make but living our lives is one of the most beautiful choices we could make every single day. Not everyone’s living situation is a walk in the park where everything comes easy. Some people may dream of a certain type of life while others believe that life is below them. This post isn’t to turn my back on situations where life is tormenting and inhumane. This post is to acknowledge the beauty that comes with choosing life.

And now the question is what is the beauty in living?

For me it’s transformation. What does it take to transform?

A seed of truth alone can send someone into a rabbit hole until they find enough information to satisfy themselves. It’s usually one thing leading to another until finally someone learns about a dead language in the middle of a desert that was once flowing with milk and honey. You go into that rabbit hole as one person less aware and come out someone new. Someone who understands there was bliss where there is now nothing to show for it. These deep dives of curiosity open our minds to new worlds that maybe no longer exist.

Our perceptions transform and in turn we transform into something new, maybe even a little more unhinged.

Transformation

When we transform, the old falls away and it’s this beautiful becoming is all that’s left to share. Subtle transformations in writing are my favorite. I think Henry James depicts this with skill in his works. In Portrait of Lady, it was the change in the man pursuing the main character. He had never met a woman like her, and she made him quite curious.

Transformation is also biblical if you’re into that type of thing. There are specific instances of Christ’s transformation. There’s one when he is first baptized and there’s one when he returns to heaven called the transfiguration. This is when he is turned into a glorious state on a mountain.

Those are just a couple examples. Transformation is universal. We don’t come into this world knowing. We come into this world learning and adapting to our environment. People reach a point in their lives where they don’t rise or sink below a threshold. They no longer seek out different ways to learn and grow. And they die just like that. That sounds tragic but I think it’s important to point out that they didn’t go their entire life that way.

The beauty I find in transformation is that it’s possible for humans to do often and they don’t have to be very good at it. They just have to stay curious and find interest in life. Being released into the world without his creator transformed Frankenstein and each small event changed him more and more over time.

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”

― Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein

The challenges that transform us are cumbersome and sometimes debilitating. Yes. They don’t have to be the end of it all. Challenges can be invitations to become something new and unfamiliar even to yourself.

The Magical Bean

“I like coffee because it gives me the illusion that I might be awake.” –Lewis Black

I didn’t realize how much coffee helps until I played a cat sudoku game right after a long nap and a cup of coffee. I was whizzing through those puzzles.

It’s funny because for a long time, I was jealous of coffee drinkers. They’d talk about how much coffee was a magical bean and how they could not have written a book without it. Yes, I started drinking coffee to increase my writing abilities, which makes me laugh now.

It didn’t happen overnight. I didn’t like the way it tasted for a long time but then I realized I just had to learn how I liked my coffee. It did take quite a bit of trial and error, but now it’s a part of my daily productivity.

What I have learned is that coffee does not aid in pumping out novels faster, but it does help corral a short burst of decent working brain cells to finish at least a paragraph and in some cases that require research, a properly worded sentence.

How is coffee part of your daily routine?

The Dance Between Chaos and Order

We know that showing up with discipline and consistency changes us, but we forget sometimes that not showing up changes us too. If we choose not to show up, we simply succumb to this thing called entropy. It happens even when we’re showing up and there’s no real way to avoid it. Entropy is the idea that the state of our world is always moving toward maximum chaos. According to entropy this is the natural state of things. When we choose not to bring order, we simply succumb to the nature of this world.

We bring order into the nature of our world.

When we show up to our disciplines, we bring something human and I would say divine into this world.

I have a deep appreciation for thoughtful order. Not generalized one size fits all order, but mindful and intimate order. (That sounds unintentionally like a kink and that’s not my intention here.)

Human beings create order from chaos. Is there some moral way to handle chaos and order, that’s another topic for another day. But I do like how far we’ve come with indoor bathrooms and cleaning products and the different ways we’re able to survive disease. I appreciate architecture and the humanities that inspire us to fight regardless of impending chaos. We did those things. We’ve brought humanity this far with our curiosities and obsessions.

With all the being said, I also love a little chaos to wrangle up. Generally, on spreadsheets or disorganized placement of people. But I love stars. I love the way nature spreads but how it also easily makes way for a path walked daily.

It’s the dance between order and chaos that I have a deep appreciation for.

A Badge of Daily Experiences

We all have been through all sorts of things in life. It’s an honor to have a badge of daily experiences to share, even the mundane ones. I often get caught up in works of art that shine light on the mundane because it’s the most forgotten aspect of living. Doing the same thing every day is boring. Eating the same food every day is boring. At the same time those things hold discipline and consistency even when everything else in the world seems to be going sideways. I am coming to believe that a boring life is a luxury even more than 5-star restaurants and traveling across the world. I think those things are wonderful and I do enjoy both when the opportunity arises. But those experiences don’t take away from the daily walk of life as we transform into something new one day at a time.

Liberated Bird

A bird at flight slips down into the

the rushing movement around town.

He can lift to the sky at any moment

to get away from it all.

The scent of fresh roasted coffee beans

marinates the free bird’s feathers

before he lifts again to the open air

where the busyness of the town can’t reach.

Saschia ✨Jayne✨ Johnson