Escapism/Escapology

Talking to the Creative Winch Buddies I mentioned in my last post has caused me to reflect increasingly on how and when we refine our techniques as writers. Whilst most of it is surely done in front of the keyboard or the blank sheet of paper, at least a small fraction of our creative development must be attributable to subconscious external influences. When I was pondering this, I focused on one such influence in particular – childhood. More specifically, inspiration blossoms in its most carefree manner when we are most carefree, letting off steam in the school playground. I was one of those children who never quite got into the traditional lunchtime games, such as Tag or Manhunt, since I preferred to make them up on the spot instead.

Anything went in my friendship group. If you wanted a spaceship as big as Planet Earth itself, you could have one. If you longed to become an immortal, all-powerful being, all you needed to do was assume the right persona. You’ll notice a sci-fi theme in our games! At the time, I only saw these improvisations as an effective way of killing the lunch hour, but I was perhaps also unknowingly nurturing myself through leisure. Experimentation was rife – as we were fans of multiple franchises, it wasn’t uncommon to find a Dalek facing off against Darth Vader in the same story, and the rules and parameters were just as fluid. It didn’t matter how many times somebody’s character had been killed off in the space of ten minutes, as they could simply devise increasingly contrived recoveries allowing them to be miraculously resurrected. Like I said, anything was possible, and it could all unfold in pretty much any space, regardless of whether it was the wide open expanse of the field or the tighter confines of one of the quads. When the space was smaller, it forced us to adapt what we created, and in hindsight this must also have been beneficial to my future endeavours.

Children do, of course, use their imaginations for things other than play or escapism – one notable example can be found in how they tell little white lies. I know from childhood experience how these can take the form of long-winded anecdotes, as I went to school with a boy who insisted to his classmates that he’d once defused a bomb to save a town, and that he’d been to the Monaco Grand Prix multiple times. Looking back on these now that I am older and somewhat wiser, they obviously seem ridiculous, but he told them so convincingly that we blindly believed him without question. Depending on who you ask, fibs can be good or bad for children, but these were just harmless fun – and if they encouraged my friend to use his very vivid imagination, they really can’t have done any harm. For some people, such conduct might just pay dividends somewhere down the line.

Mason

The Trooper

Just under a week ago, I picked up a brand new electric wheelchair. To the untrained eye, its somewhat unremarkable outward appearance and black paint job might make it indistinguishable from my previous one, but look deeper and you’ll find several improvements. The most notable of these is the addition of an extra set of wheels, so that it now has six instead of four. These have the effect of improving the chair’s agility – it is now much neater in its movements, requiring less input from me on the joystick when I need to get into a tight space. Furthermore, the two larger wheels that were previously at the rear have now been centralised, enabling me to turn on a sixpence more quickly. The chair does both of these things very smoothly, and is completely unfazed by bumps and kinks in the ground below – where its predecessor would shake and rattle dramatically in response to the slightest jolt, the new model is silent, the extra wheels allowing it to glide cleanly and gracefully around like a metal ballerina dancing on a bed of air. By this stage, you can probably tell that I’m very impressed with what I’ve been given!

The chair’s merits don’t just lie in the newer features, though. Since it is essentially a giant Meccano kit, which took an hour and a half to dismantle and reassemble before I received it, old parts can easily be screwed in amongst their replacements. When I first sat in the chair, its armrests were too far back and too short, making them inconvenient for me when driving. As it turned out, this wasn’t a problem for long, as the engineer was simply able to attach my old ones instead, easily rectifying the situation. Part of my old seat was also carried over to the new chair to give me a similar sitting position, adding to the Frankenstein’s Monster-style feel of the machine. As a result of these modifications, I have a chair that is practically tailor-made for me – even before it was ordered, we requested that it be exactly the same width as my old one, so that I could still drive it into the back of our car. The control panel and buttons are all the same too, so there are no new processes for me to learn. It’s as the old saying goes – if something ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Lying amongst all of the old and new abilities this chair has is a single, fundamentally important one that was the main motivation for having a new one. The University of Winchester’s main campus is rather steep, to such an extent that taking my old chair there would most likely have been downright dangerous. I have tipped up in it before on a much smaller incline, so steeper ones would have posed a much more serious problem. Thankfully, due to the two extra wheels at the back, it is impossible for me to perform a wheelie now, so I am equipped with just what I need to tackle a brilliant three years’ study without any accidents. This new chair will be my little trooper!

Mason

The Pull, Part 5

Ever since it was decided that I would be going to university in Winchester, I have tried to increase the amount of time I spend writing, so that I can be as experienced as possible in my chosen field before I start. The first three months of 2017 saw just eight posts published on Third Time Enabled, but so inspired am I twelve months on – in no small part thanks to the adventure I will embark on in September – that double that is here for you to read so far in 2018. You can at least be assured that these “The Pull” posts will continue until my arrival in Winchester, and I’m sure that as always, there will be much more to come besides.

I’m not just talking about this blog. Since Christmas I have also been working on a script for a short film, of which I almost have a complete first draft. In addition, I have missed writing about Formula One since my abrupt departure from F1Today back in August, and ahead of the new season getting underway next weekend I am considering getting back into the game. I spent part of this afternoon browsing the Internet for F1 websites looking for knowledgeable volunteers, and I quickly found one that I believe could be an open door for me. In fact, you join me as I am peering at a contact form for it, in front of the Punta del Este ePrix on TV. An email demonstrating my enthusiasm for my craft and the sport, and my previous experience, could pay dividends. I’ll never know if I don’t try, I suppose.

Whatever endeavours I attempt will be united by their contributions to my ultimate goal of versatility as a writer. Regardless of whether the task at hand is a poem, an epic 300-page novel or anything else, I need to be able to work comfortably and confidently. Anything I try on the way to my target will be enjoyable, such is my drive to excel in what I do, but to combine one passion with another once again – in the form of F1, the fastest and most dramatic narrative on the planet – would be even more of a pleasure. Let’s see what this email brings, shall we?

Mason

Minutiae

I often find that amusement and humour can be taken from some of the smallest things that life has to offer, such as the conversations we overhear or the quirks we find in the personalities of others. I look and listen out for these wherever I can, lest they provide my notebook with useful inspiration, but just every now and again something seems to fall directly into my lap, begging to be written about. Such a gift was presented to me yesterday afternoon, when I got home and read a text that had been accidentally sent to me earlier in the day:

“Hi Oli – sleepover numbers for 16th March. 56 children, 11 adults and 4 vegetarians. Thanks, Sharon”.

Once I’d opened this, I had three options. I could either ignore it, take advantage of the situation to pretend I was Oli and completely mess up Sharon’s plans (“the vegetarians have cancelled, sorry – meat only”), or politely respond that she’d simply sent it to the wrong number and leave it at that. Being the gentleman that I am, I went for the latter:

“I think you might have the wrong number 🙂 sorry! Mason”.

I saw the smiley face as an important inclusion. Without it, the text could have seemed snappy and rude, and I couldn’t have that. Since the original message had put a smile on my face – thanks to its random and unexpected nature – I had to convey as much in my response, and that was obviously the thing most likely to do the trick. Having released it to Sharon, I put my phone down, expecting the matter to go no further. Ten minutes later, however, she was back again, having also seen the funny side:

“Whoops! So you don’t fancy a sleepover with 56 kids and 4 vegetarians? LOL”.

I obviously knew that the offer wasn’t genuine, but I was relieved all the same. To be quite honest, I wasn’t sure how being surrounded by 56 overexcited kids – probably all bouncing off the walls with no intention of getting any sleep – could be at all appealing to the 11 adults who would be there. I certainly kept them in my thoughts, as they’d need all the willpower and luck they could get. All that was left was to respectfully and jokingly decline Sharon’s offer:

“I’m afraid not! Best of luck with it though :)”

That really was that. Part of me hoped we had started a chain of updates as the seemingly chaotic sleepover approached – events that would provide me with more potentially useful material – but it was not to be. This particular flame of conversation had burned all too brightly and all too briefly, but it had once again proved that life’s most enjoyable aspects don’t necessarily have to be the biggest ones. Thank you, Sharon, for showing me that and, in doing so, improving a stressful day to a small extent. What’s more, if you are due to be an adult volunteer on 16 March – tasked with the welfare of 56 kids – I hope reading this has made you feel a little less apprehensive ahead of the big day. Look on the bright side, you’re only going to be totally knackered for one day!

Mason

Accentuate The Positive

Politics dominates the news we wake up to every day, and in the last couple of years, particularly following the Brexit vote and the arrival of Donald Trump at the White House, the world’s focus on it has only intensified. Generally, it doesn’t make reassuring or uplifting reading, and whilst I do understand the importance of paying attention to the events that shape the future, I don’t feel I can write about them confidently on Third Time Enabled right now. This occurred to me only a short time ago, when I was looking over Angharad’s most recent post. It was incredibly well-researched and had been written with clear passion and concern in the aftermath of yet another terrible American school shooting. She did, of course, hit the nail directly on the head with her content – you can see it right here if you wish – but in seeing this I realised that I could never match what she had done, no matter how strongly I feel about the topic.

If you have read all of the posts I’ve written since the beginning of January, it might have struck you that life has been very good to me of late. University looms, accompanied by a fresh and exciting start, and in the wake of accepting my place, my mood has been lifted infinitely. A year ago, I wondered if my life was heading in any sort of direction at all, but now I feel as though anything really is possible. I’d like this new-found positivity to be reflected regularly in my writing, both in the lead up to my departure from Somerset and beyond, when I am fully settled in Winchester. This won’t be at the expense of the more hard-hitting aspects of life, as I will return to those on a day when I can bear to face them, but for now I will leave their exposure on this blog to those who are eager to speak about them, such as Angharad and Will. To cover them in a proper and well-informed manner, a lot of potentially difficult reading is required, and I can rest safe in the knowledge that both of them are capable of doing the job well. If I’ve mentioned it before, you may remember that Will once told me this blog has what it takes to save lives with its positivity. If this is true, I’d better make sure it lives up to the hype – and at this moment in time, I have more of a reason to accentuate the positive than ever.

Mason

Things I Wish I Knew As a Teenager

I’ve been an adult for a little while now and have spent some time learning a little bit about just what that means. Having said that, though, I’ve also had time to reflect on my time spent as a teenager. So here’s a few things I wish I knew back then.

1. People will bitch and backstab and gossip. As will you. Don’t take it to heart.

2. Work hard and save as much as you can. Trust me, you’ll need it.

3. Everyone has struggles. Everyone has their shit. Some just hide it better than others.

4. You don’t have to do things or squash yourself down just to fit in.

5. Before you stress about something, consider if it’ll matter in five years’ time.

6. Take pictures. Every chance you get. Everyone you love. You will treasure them.

7. It’s okay to not like things everyone else likes. And vice versa.

8. It doesn’t matter if you’re popular, unpopular or somewhere in between. It doesn’t make a blind bit of difference the minute you’re out of school and into the real world.

9. Find your passion and don’t let anyone laugh at you for it.

10. It’s okay to not know what you want to do with your life. I’ve already changed the career I was working towards three times, and gone back into education twice since A-Levels.

11. Honesty really is the best policy. People value it and you’ll value it in other people.

12. No one has it all figured out. I don’t now, and I doubt I will when I’m 80. That’s just life, I guess.

Emily

Wrong Number Stories

My line of work, like many people’s, involves answering the telephone on an hourly basis. As I’ve explained before, this is something fairly nerve-wracking for me, but there’s also a substantial amount of curiosity to be found in the task. Recently, at one of my two workplaces, we’ve been receiving a steady and noticeable stream of wrong number calls from various people. When you answer the phone to them, some pre-empt what you are going to say, admit their mistake and immediately hang up on you. Others are ensnared in a moment of confusion; I will open with my usual professional greeting, and they will question why they aren’t speaking to their mate Derek before the penny quickly drops and they leave me be. In my particular experience, there have even been elderly people who – mistaking my workplace for the local hospital – have proceeded to describe gruesome ailments in considerable detail before my awkward admission that I am not medically qualified to deal with their complaint. They can put you off your lunch at times, as it happens.

Whatever their reasons for calling (albeit unintentionally), these people do all have one thing in common, at least in my view. Because they’re totally anonymous – the calls generally don’t last long enough for me to establish their identities – I always do wonder who they are, and what their stories are. Why might a phone call to the aforementioned Derek be so important? Was it intended as a simple catch-up between friends, or was he being sought out as part of the resolution to a life or death situation? When I am mistakenly contacted by confused hospital-goers, how worried are they about the problems they face? Are they looking for an answer to a simple question, or are they frantically searching for a second opinion on something that could potentially change life forever? All I can do is ponder, as any writer might. Whatever the truth may be, that’s what this is good for – imagination and inspiration. As annoying, inconvenient and brief as some wrong number calls may be, they do make me think – so maybe the people on the end, whom I generally speak to for no more than a split second each time, do have a much bigger impact on my day than I could ever have anticipated.

Mason

A Stiff Drink

Last night, Mum, Dad and I had a drink in the kitchen – a glass of pink gin and tonic, no less – whilst dinner was cooking. I eagerly accepted this, even though I don’t tend to drink very often, and the glass felt cold and refreshing as I held it in my hand. Mum told me not to neck the gin too quickly, so I made sure to raise it to my parched lips sporadically, giving me the opportunity to savour it for as long as possible. Each time I swigged from the glass, I would look down into the bottom, where the ice cubes were floating, and whenever I did so I felt a twinge – a distinct stiffness – in the back of my neck.

I had been feeling this all day, and can attribute it largely to the fact that I spent most of it looking down at my laptop screen. Like many people, I probably do far too much of this, but on this particular occasion my body gave me a reminder that was both subtle and consistently noticeable. It had been there for several hours, and yet I never paid it much attention until I came away from the computer. If anything could tell me my priorities weren’t right, that was probably the most effective thing (I say, writing about it on a blog). When I received my current laptop in July 2016, I intended to use it primarily for reading and creative projects such as Third Time Enabled, but social media and video games had other ideas. I’ll have to try my best to consume both in moderation if I can – although those could turn out to be famous last words! I am helped at the moment by the fact that I have university plans to focus on. These have left me happier and more optimistic overall than I have been in some time, and I am filled with joy at the prospect of continuing my journey to September and beyond – such happiness is more than capable of making any stiff neck bearable. It’s the perfect cure.

Mason

Citizen Journalism

I often look through some of my past notebooks on a hunt for blog inspiration, and it was on the very last page of one particular book that I found the scribblings I wanted you all to read about here. They came from the last year of sixth form – 19 November 2014, to be precise – and an A2 Media lesson that saw us focus on “citizen journalism”, something defined by a quick Google search as “the collection, dissemination, and analysis of news and information by the general public, especially by means of the Internet.” I remember that it was a concept I found intriguing at the time, and something I definitely wanted to know more about. I liked the idea of these news vigilantes getting their hands dirty and plucking things the world needs to know about from under the noses of the big media corporations. Who wouldn’t want to be involved in something like that? Whatever we were saying about it in the lesson, we were obviously writing down some of the pros and cons associated with it, because these are what I found in my book in all of their black Biro glory.

The first pro I wrote is the one that caught my eye the most – it quite simply says that citizen journalism “allows normal people to create and collaborate”, and that this has the potential to “educate them in the process”. I like the fact that this is the first note on my list, because it immediately establishes that citizen journalism is a concept open to everyone, no matter who they may be. Furthermore, the “collaborative creativity” aspect of the whole thing is something I wanted this blog to aspire to when Will, Emily and Tamara all came on board, and I hope it can continue to do so as more people get involved in the future. Citizen journalism is already setting a few good examples for us, and we’re still only on the first bullet point on the page. The second says that it “reverses long-standing media hierarchies”. There’s a lot of very interesting stuff in the news, but we all know that there’s also a lot of bullshit which can heavily influence the unsuspecting victims reading it through widespread hegemony. With that in mind, it’s good to know that those who partake in citizen journalism can challenge this by taking it upon themselves to go solo and find out the truth. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that my notes end after this point and there are no cons in my book – because, unless everything goes catastrophically wrong, how many downsides to citizen journalism are there?

Mason

Ironic Sadness

Recently, I was asked to name one or more of my pet hates by a friend. Aside from the obvious things we all hate – racism, sexism, homophobia, snobbery and the like – every single one of my peeves escaped from my mind at that very moment. I definitely have them, but I couldn’t think of them when they were needed. I was, however, reminded of a particularly elusive pet hate through a chance remark someone made in front of the TV soon afterwards. As a Mastermind contestant sat down in the show’s famous black leather chair, they revealed their chosen specialist subject to the host, and it was to this that my companion uttered two highly infuriating words: “That’s sad”.

Upon hearing this, I felt an instant hot flush of anger. Sad? How dare you! To suggest such a thing is to fail miserably at looking big or clever, and to ruthlessly belittle someone else’s passion. Yes, there are plenty of differences between us, and we might struggle to understand what other people see in their respective areas of interest, but it is immature and needlessly disrespectful to criticise them for enjoying what they do. The mentality that leads someone to do this must be of the “glass half-empty” variety, and incredibly cynical. I pity those who are like this. Wouldn’t it be much better for them to listen and learn about what they don’t know rather than dismiss it immediately? Let’s not forget that this would have an added bonus, in that you’d be indulging their enthusiasm whilst doing so. What’s not to like? Above all, make sure you remember that the people who are unlucky enough to be ridiculed as “sad” are actually – and very ironically – the exact opposite. They will engage with whatever they love the most regardless of where they are or who might be watching, and it’s all because they’re not sad in the slightest. They’re drunk on pure, undiluted passion, the best possible natural high. There can never be enough of those in life, so if you don’t have anything nice to say when you witness them, don’t say anything at all. Especially nothing so childish!

Mason