As Led Zeppelin as that title sounds, it’s not meant to be a title at all. I called my page Mind Dweller because that is precisely what I’ve been doing for the last year.
When I moved out to remote Gravely Bay, I made a lot of changes in my life. I quit drinking (as I briefly spoke about in my last blog entry) and I stopped smoking, also. I halted these vices because my health was declining rapidly. I have a disease that one day I may talk about here (that day is not today). It is a particularly embarrassing one and comes with it some issues that make it very difficult to do anything social. As a result, I have unplugged from all of the social things I used to partake in.
But it’s not just that. I’ve always been a super-introvert. It takes me far more energy to make small-talk than I care to spend. I am also not a big fan of touch. I may be on the autistic spectrum somewhere but I don’t know for sure. I have always been this way. I often had plenty of jokes to tell but lacked the confidence to tell them. I always wanted to be outgoing. I always wanted to make people laugh and enjoy it without sweating the small stuff. I wanted to talk to people normally without memorizing mechanical steps I contrived by observing others. I was a good little guitar player, but no one knew. I was a full-on creative type, but no one knew that either. No one knew me at all.
When I was 17, I had beers one night and found out I could be just like everyone else if I simply controlled the flow of alcohol at the moments I needed to. This worked extremely well, and I did a lot of cool things for 25 years that I most definitely would not have done if I didn’t have alcohol. I thought hid it relatively well for many years, but after staying sober for almost a year, I can tell you it likely wasn’t that well-hidden after all.
The reason I’m revisiting the alcohol thing here is because it’s very important to my entire creative life. You see, I have been creating art of some type for as long as I can remember. I used to sit and daydream new movies staring characters I created in my head. I’d make them up all the time and sometimes I couldn’t wait to finish school so I could come home and get lost in my imaginary worlds.
I also spent a lot of time mastering new impressive skills so I could do things others couldn’t and thereby have something to offer that was different. Thus, I learned how to juggle, perform ventriloquism, do tricks with basketballs (like the Harlem Globe Trotters), and Yo-Yo’s (like the Smothers Brothers). I taught myself world accents and worked on celebrity voice impressions. I wrote short stories and read all kinds of books. The music thing came naturally as I was born hearing symphonies in my head.
DISCLAIMER: Other than my parent’s love of reading transferring to me, I credit my excited love of the world of books to the 596 times I watched The Never-Ending Story as a child.
Also, I was fascinated by metaphysics as a teenager and spent a great deal of time meditating and experimenting with astral travel and other such goodies.
All of this was inside me and there was no way for it to come out… until Mr. Booze came along. I thank him for helping me get out of my head and allowing me to present some of what I did to the world. I would just be some guy you sometimes saw on the street otherwise.
When I quit drinking, I suddenly became the same person I was 25 years ago. As if that quarter century never even happened, and I turned 18 again (except now I’m older and fatter).
When I quit drinking, all the things I said and did these last few decades seemed ridiculously stupid and tremendously embarrassing to recall. I lost most of my false confidence pretty much immediately and retreated once again.
As of the time of this writing, I have not resolved that issue and have no hope of doing so, really. But something else happened: I went back inside my own mind again and this time the creations flowed so fast I could not adequately keep up with them. New ideas pop in and it creates worlds. I enjoy it in there so much that I have to tear myself away just to write it down.
Here is what I’ve been into for 25 years:
-Music (writing, producing, performing, learning several instruments, scoring, engineering, teaching, advising)
-Video (writing, performing, directing, producing, promoting)
-Writing words (articles, sales manuals, product-testing, educational series).
-Selling (time share, internet packages, colloidal silver, cars, electronics, teaching the art of closing sales)
So now I’m a novelist? What the hell do I even do exactly? Everything? Nothing? The non-drunk me thinks calling myself anything except an asshole is stupid and presumptuous. I struggled with even doing anything public at all because I lost all that self-respect when I poured it down the sink. But am I worth anything? I don’t know yet.
I have no idea what I will call myself tomorrow or a decade from now (should I live that long), but I decided to put all the stuff I do in one place and call myself what I actually am: A Mind Dweller. Because at the end of the day (or life), that’s all I really do when my sails aren’t full in the strong alcoholic wind.
More to come…