>>> Reality...

What is real, and what is not?

Sometimes the things that happen in the world; relationships, work, life, death, interests and passion, happiness and sadness, isn't anything but a disembodied byproduct of what we see, touch, taste, hear and smell, and perceive to be as real as what lies ahead of us?

What if the very same people that stand before us are merely tricks of the unstable mind, illusions of a frayed thought distant from countless injections and foreign substances that ride the waves of our blood and fluids that we think we have? Do our experiences with each other, all that time and effort, even spoken words even matter a single bit? Friends, family, lovers, nothing but dust when we are left in our own shattered fantasy.

Can we even care anymore? Are our emotions, feelings and thoughts just a figment of a dried out corpse that lies buried in the ground, simply non-existent, past, and dead? Yet why do we still feel things like regret, lamenting over history and wishing that things had taken a better perception than what we see now?

Why even bother about our fellow brethren when we do not even know if they live and breathe like we do, and are just conjurations? Why do we even live and breathe when those pangs of pain, suffering and anger savage the heart like a pack of dogs over a leg of ham? why then do we still acknowledge that our own existence in this time is real, when it could in fact be an illusion, nothing more than ripples in a pond of cold red blood, faded, short, and dark like the depths of our catacombs?

Permit me to resurface the question: what is real, and what is not? The answer my friend, lies in you. Let your heart lead you not astray, but god help you if you fall down the depths of unending paths that lead to nowhere and everywhere. For once you do, there is little hope of return. And everything you know once real, shall disappear like a mirage of a sandstorm that will consume all that you eat, laugh, cry, sleep, think, smell, taste, feel, and live for.

Treasure what is real. You will never know when you might need to ask this question to yourself.

... is it really real? Or not?

>>> The block...

You would think that writing an article would be easy. After all, it's just a simple matter of putting pen to paper, fingers to keys, blood to walls with nary more than a thought and a moderate spark of imagination.

How wrong you would be.

It can often be a terrifying prospect to write something, in fact, anything really, that will be consumed by even the minutest of reading audiences (perhaps, like just your mother, for example), let alone the masses that comprise humanity. You'd be consumed by the need to perform to others' expectations, to reach your peers' levels of skill, to have your work acknowledged, accepted and perhaps loved more than the two-bit, two-cent writer that you consider yourself, to achieve some form of reassurance for your self-esteem and -worth through the adulation your writing receives and perhaps other forms of inner pressure and stressors.

Add to that the vise-like pressure of an approaching deadline which may or may not induce a hysterical, hyper form of panic. A boss breathing down your neck for the article that has you gritting your teeth and thinking of how to end him instead of concentrating on your work. The lack of subject matter or even too much free reign in terms of topic that has you pulling your hair out as you strain your brain for something, anything that may be worthy of your wordsmithing skills. Or even a combination of all the above plus a few other myriad other external little issues that leaves you in a desperate struggle of frenetic activity to lay down the quest of submitting an article worthy of print and publishing.

And, now, imagine, just imagine, that you're sitting in your favourite spot somewhere trendy and très cool, with a nice steaming mug of java (and that whole whirl of issues we mentioned earlier), gazing at your trusty laptop's glowing screen that displays the simulacrum of a fresh, white and very empty sheet of paper.

As empty as the sheet is, your mind is perhaps a tenfold worse, devoid of even the slightest sliver of an idea. Your inner vision, your mind's eye, is a field filled with white noise overlying endless planes of very white sand. And you would swear that you could just about make out the faint grind-like buzzing of static. Your set is working but not receiving anything, my friend, which in other words, means that you have gone just gone completely blank.

The horror.

The sheer abject horror that slowly dawns on your already overworked mind that basically sets you upon a regressive to the Stone Age with a vast amount of crazed gibbering worthy of a Cthulhic cultist.

What has caused this horrific occurrence of epic monstrousness?

That has made even composing a simple Facebook status or a fun-fact-filled tweet? That has reduced you to a drooling blank-minded zombie??

Writer's Block.

Dolorus scriptoris, by its binomial nomenclature, is the bane of not only writers but of artists, musicians and other creatives. However, they each have their own unique species of creative stoppages that cockblock their ideas from mating with their intended physical mediums. A dreaded yet familiar foe, a denizen that lurks in its favoured habitat of your mind, stalking its dark recesses, biding its time to strike.

And when it does, it drops in like the finality of a Thwomp Trap squashing that little idea that somewhat resembled Mario in hip-hop baggy overalls and neck-bling completely, utterly flat. You didn't really need it, did you? Oh, you did? Whoops, sorry! Cue rather silent evil laughter. Once sprung, it may never move. At all. Blocking off your reservoir of creativity and flow of ideas like the Hoover Dam on steroids.

This could potentially kill a creative's career if no one acknowledges the problem and accepts it. Especially if the block lasts an inordinate amount of time.

To make matters worse, it does not discriminate, it does not have a set schedule or follow the seasons. It can and often does strike at the worst of times. It matters not if you're normally filled with an abundance of creativity, inspiration and ideas. It will block them all from your reach and DEVOUR them for its continued existence.

In order to rid yourself of the horrid block, there are a few things that you can do. Firstly, do not panic. If you panic, it could potentially get worse in a very short period of time. That being said, just calmly cease all creative activity and pack up.

This is when you use your eternal lifeline: Call a friend. Or friends. Meet up with them, have a nice brew up and talk about it. It helps with the stress that it causes. Your friends, and perhaps even your family, can actually help in the removal of the block as your friends and family may provide ideas and sparks of brilliance that can carry you over the period of the block. And the block itself can't take the pressure of ideas and creativity coming in from both sides. It will inevitably crack like a bottle squeezed in a table vice.

You can also just sit in your favourite coffee joint and either draw or type random bits of things that will eventually collate into one large collage of, in my honest opinion, brilliant creativity.

Other than that, remove yourself from all the sources of stress, possibly search for a counsellor to help you deal with your internal issues, keep calm and drink something warm. Engage in sex if you think it may help since it's rather liberating. Just saying.

You can overcome it and break the block down, beating it back to its dark home.

Just keep calm, tuck that pen behind your ear and have a cuppa.

... is a trap!

>>> Them sounds...

Fuck this.

What's the meaning behind that statement?

Does it have to mean anything other than "fuck this"?

Something gets in the way of your desired path, what do you do?

Do you stand there staring at the obstacle thinking, "Why me?"? Or do you go, "Fuck this", and get that bloody obstacle out of your fucking way?

Only one person can decide what course of action is right for you, and that person is you.

There is no mountain that cannot be climbed.
There is no ocean that cannot be crossed.
There is no opponent that cannot be defeated.
Get in my way, and it will end badly for you.

by Pervalidus

... like fightin' words, son.

>>> Credit Control...

Everyone just loves money. But more importantly, everyone NEEDS money. But it doesn't just become a single person's daily affection and obsession; it becomes a family's, a company's, a corporate's, a country's, even the world's 9th wonder. However in my own personal humble opinion, words of a wonderful money needing monger, a corporate is dangerous with money. And it so happens that this same corporate is the same one everyone turns to everyday when it comes to cashing in that cheque you got from sucking off a guy's rancid PEN-cil colored shoes, when it comes to applying for that all new lovely shiny Visa or Mastercard that you plan on buying expensive DIL-bert comics that are not available in your country, and of course, to go to for wonderful free services that make going to find a PRO sound like an awesomely horrible way to spend cash yet get "expert" help on getting that fish stuck in your sink that is going into the same sandwich to the PROs for their wonderfully abstract job of mangling your kitchen sink.

For those who guessed right, no points unfortunately, it's the bank. And with it come the greediest people in the whole world short of Oprah Winfrey and Donald Trump(And a certain party last I checked). But these people do not get all the the shit of the day thrown at them, nor do Oprah and Donald lest they decided to do a stand-up comedy show with Colin and Ryan and have a hoedown about being rich and having something to do with all that money. That's right, I'm talking about the service personnel. Today however, i will be focusing on a group of wonderful people who keep the banks going, who however have their names blemished so badly under the mud, even mud is cleaner than their name. And these people are the Credit Control team.

Imagine yourself to be that person who was cashing in that cheque. What if that cheque was going to the bank for all the amounts of interest you had owed the bank? Oh you'd be so mad that you'd want to strangle a turkey and make it cough out foie gras? and if that guy's rancid PEN-cil colored shoes happen to also be PEN-cil flavored too? Now that would suck. You gripe and grimace at the ones on the phone telling you that payment needs to be made while they have to listen to your sob story about how much you had to suck on someone's PEN-cil colored AND flavored shoes in order to get the monies to make that payment.

Then imagine yourself to be that person applying for the wonderful visa card and purchasing that DIL-bert comic when you didn't realize it was more expensive with air, sea and land shipping, and when you pay for the amount of the comic, you suddenly EXPLODE with RAGE and ANGER when you find out the cost was much more than what you bargained for, and you RANT and WAIL at the ones on the phone informing you kindly that you have to make payment for what you bought while they listen to your crude control of the most colorful and probably most explicit english language that ever was spoken or shouted to their right virgin ear(or left).

Finally imagine yourself to be that person going for the wonderful free services thinking what a wonderful day it is to finally make a trip down to the red li-OH MY GOD THE SERVICES CAME WITH ANNUAL FEES??? AT 15% INTEREST TOO??? You get a call from that lovely lady you used to know as a friend and tear their ears off with the amount of noncenstry that "they" had done onto you when all they were doing were simply to give you a friendl-erm...Not so friendly reminder after you just took their ear off with nary a breath and a chorus of howls that can only be made by a single mammal alone. By now if you had the patience to follow the writing i have written, you'd have noticed that someone seems to have been missing from the equation of the hate and blame game.

Agreed, oh wonderful follower of the ATM card, that once someone breaches your sense of moral dignity and pride beyond all comprehension, that you stop using that ATM card no more. But do recall where your pented up anger, frustration, hatred, and unknown dictionary of cuss words went to at the moment of your much needed release. Nope, it was not up the bank's ass, it was up THAT credit control officer's ass that it went into. That's what she said, but please remember this the next time you decide to go ruin the credit control officer's day. Also note worthy is how one as a consumer often lacks the roll of 20 for spot when it comes to disclaimers that make the roll difficulty a grand difficulty scale of 50 to read, and a +10 to all of the above: everyday life x hrs spent awake.

They are just as much human as you are, and you are just about as human as YOU make THEM out to be, in their minds. It's a mutual hatred, generated by the obsessive compulsive need for the green, purple, red, yellow and blue notes that everyone has in their wallets. So everytime you look at that piece of paper, think about the people don't see it until once a month, but need to reclaim it everyday as their job not just for the sake of themselves, but for a corporate that also welcomes you, the consumer.

So before you as a consumer decides to thresh things out unreasonably or erratically depending on the spontaneous combustion your brain can take from all the day's wonderful lessons, pause for a moment to realize that on the line, is another person just like you, quite possibly spontaneously brain-combusted from another 28 of you before you. As a side note as well, please don't be a Credit Control officer. Very unhealthy for you, and for everyone else around you for at least 60 yards.

~NOTE:

disclaimer: Anyformofmaliceangerhatredwondersadnessorwhateverformofemotionthatthisarticlemakesisofnointentionwhatsoeveranditispurelyforthesakeofentertainmentmediafunlaughterpeaceandjoysoallyoupeoplewhoowncreditvisamasteroratmcardspleasedonotblameyourbankbecauseimjustasillyguywhohasnothingbettertodoatpresentstagetimewhateversojustreadlaughnodnoticeandwalkonstraightcauseyoudidntseeanythingnopenothingatallitsallanillusionitellyounothingbutanillusion!!

... is not your bitch.

>>> Friends and hope...

... are just tools for users.