Omen of Return: The Road Not Travelled

 11 Years. It's been 11 years since I last dusted off the keys to this vault.

I've visited more recently than that, it's true. Talked about it. Thought about it. But the voice that lives in these halls is much quieter than it used to be. Accepting that this is the road now is a part of my process, I suppose.

Still, I woke up this morning with a desire to explore and archive some more steps in the journey. It's been 11 years since I last wrote in this blog, but it's been 20 since the first time that I posted this character exploration. I've reposted it a few times as I've travelled, but the fact that I can use this as a time-piece for 20 years of my life is a curious opportunity. One I have to take.

So here we go.

Who am I? I'm just a traveller

Where am I? Sitting in a home I rent by myself in Brisbane, Queensland.

What am I doing? Retaking an old character exploration for myself on my 40th birthday.

What is my name? Steven Wayne James (last name omitted for privacy reasons)

How old am I? See, I forget how self-referential this is. As I said before, 40.

Where was I born? Canterbury Hospital, Sydney, Australia

Where do I live? Hmm. Brisbane, QLD.

What are my social, financial and political circumstances and beliefs?

Social : We've had a whole pandemic since the last time I was here. And I'm still the person I've been most of my adult life. Socially anxious, subtly desperate for connection and terrified of it when I find it. And yet, the quiet moments where I am alone are not as deafening as they used to be.

Financial: The world is trending in a dark direction as I write this post. The rise of fascism, the slow meandering death of capitalism and the clawing struggle of my generation to make something of the ruins of the world our parents exploited to death are all somewhere in my mind. And yet, I'm independent, healthy and able to feed myself, and these are all things that many on this planet can only imagine. I am privileged to live where I do and when I do. 

Political: Reading what I wrote at 19 compared to now is a stark reflection of the journey we all find ourselves on as we mature in this life. Politics is a dirty word for the responsibility we have as citizens to lend our voice to the shaping of our futures.

To be privileged enough in your comfortable conformity to not only be disengaged from the direction of your world, but also lacking in empathy enough not to exercise that privilege to help those who are disadvantaged by it is a surefire way to permanently lose my respect.

If I were an animal, what would I be? A cat. Solitary, spoilt and moody. Also now, probably kinda old.

If I were an element (earth, air, fire, water) what would I be? I so desperately wanted to be fire as young person. It's true that I was born under a fire sign, and creativity and passion were my road for a long time, but that's a different chapter of a different book now.

Sometimes, when I see a great body of water, I am moved to silence. It's most obvious when it's the ocean, but it happens with lakes and rivers as well. Flexibility, communion, and adaptability are humbling qualities.

What are my physical characteristics? The temple is dilapidated, the altar overgrown. I can sit here and make excuses, I have a few good ones, but physically I've never been worse and it's all downhill from here.

What are my likes and dislikes?

Likes: I'm still a sci-fi and fantasy fan, and I still ostensibly support the performing arts, but many other things about my preferences have changed. I love being intellectually challenged, or being moved by a piece of art; the success of my friends and their growth; and the first day of a year where it's cold enough to get under your good doona at night. 

Dislikes: Naivety and disengagement in the affairs of the world; that feeling of being overwhelmed by heat when it's hot and humid and you've exerted yourself; ambiguity; and sleep and everything on either side of it.  

What opinion do you hold dear? We are all a messy bundle of our thoughts, feelings and experiences. True empathy is understanding how complex and contradictory we ourselves are, having the grace to accept that and then being wise enough to extend that grace to others.

What do I do to achieve this? Being aware and living this are challenging, but get less so with age. I am so unkind to myself, and empathy towards others is much easier for me than that self-same grace internalised. Life is a journey...

What do I do each day? Eat, work, game, sleep, repeat. It sounds worse than it is, but I think the reality of wage-slavery is that your mind needs to find a way to accept truths that it cannot change. I don't resent the life I have to live, but I am always dreaming of a different road.

What are my hobbies? Games, both digital and tabletop have been my escape since I first wrote in this blog and well before that as well. The games may have changed but the man stays the same.

What am I wearing? Why? A maroon shirt and black shorts. It's hot and I don't have to be anywhere for the rest of the day. I don't really think outside of that.

What is in my pockets? Why? Legitimately nothing, once again. When I'm out and about, I have my phone with attached wallet, my keys and usually some earbuds in case I feel like music. 

What are two extreme points of my personality? The casual cruelty I subject myself to and the basic position of empathy I afford others. I think at some stage I ran out of real life bullies and felt a bit lost, so I started to audition for that part myself.

But other people deserve my patience and my understanding until such time as they show they are undeserving.

What is my life objective? Twenty years of self-reflection have shown me the power of change, and the catalysing effects of pressure and struggle. I want to see the world twenty years from now and look back at the road and see more change, more growth, more waypoints. Who knows. 

What is my status/relationship to other people? I have a circle of close friends that is more of a spiral than a circle, and an orbit of trojans I stole from other systems. Whether any become full satellites or not is anyone's guess.

What are the three most important events that have occurred in my life? Reading my responses at nineteen to this question was a bit of a come-to-Jesus moment for me. Perspective is a hell of a drug, and where I stood back then on this road compared to now is wild to me. Before I answer this question in earnest, I want to explore the answers from twenty years ago because some things have changed.

Firstly, although me fucking around at school and finding out that discretion is the better part of being a homo was formative, like so many things in high school it felt bigger than it was. It lead to some interesting people, some wonderful experiences, but even those were transient.

Tammy is no longer in my life anymore, and Ned is on a different road now. But this events power over me has dwindled with distance.

Jarrod. Huh. What a difference time makes. I want to be empathetic here, to understand that his life and his actions are just a reaction to the life he has had or his circumstances, but that empathy extends only so far, and our roads diverged recently.

Finally, while I would argue that plugging myself into the internet at the tender age of thirteen probably still is one of my most important formative moments, the reasoning is a bit more mature these days. I don't speak to any of the people I mentioned in my first run through this quiz anymore.

So the current list:

• Having unfettered access to the internet at the age of thirteen gave me community and understanding at a time I needed it more than anything. It allowed me to explore my thoughts and desires, meet and communicate with people who shared them, and create and collaborate on a scale that would have been impossible in another age and time. It hasn't all been a positive thing, obviously, but even today I'm still meeting wonderful people from the internet. It's been so important to my life.
• The death of my Grandfather feels like the end of my childhood. That's an immensely privileged thing to say, I wasn't young when he passed, but things got more real much faster after the fact.
  
• Finally, I think moving to Brisbane changed my life in a way I'll always remember. The city is something I was always leery of as a young person, which is a shame because I missed opportunities I might have had otherwise. Different road, different person, I suppose.

The most beautiful part of my body is... my mind. Cop-out? Yes. Willing to elaborate? No.

Happiness to me is... a smile for shared emotional beats, a moment of connection, a laugh at a terrible joke. Happiness is the flash of light in the dark.

The thing I most want to do before I die is... be someone worthy of love.

The most embarrassed I ever was... I have a half dozen embarrassing stories I could dredge up on here, but all involve crashing and burning in social situations which sets off my social anxiety.

The ugliest part of my body is... The temple has fallen.

The thing I like best about myself... every shitty thing I tell myself and every horrible note I have written that hangs around my monitor encourages me to be a better person to other people. I know how dark it gets, I've seen it, arguably still do, so to want to still be a candle in the dark for others I think is moderately commendable.

Pain to me is... a memory. Multi-layered response, and efficient enough to leave.

My mother/grandmother/female caretaker or w/e... Taught me... so much. I could and should do an entire post on my Grandmother at some stage. But any part of me that is good is from watching her.

The thing I regret most is... It's funny. I don't have time for regret much these days. That's not to say I've conquered the ones I had, but it all looks the same from where I'm sitting. The positive spin on that is that we are all our experiences and I wouldn't be who I am now without them.

I'd be better, richer and have a bigger house. I jest.

The most secret thing about me is... probably the person I am when I am with no one else. I'm a mess of a person for mirroring the energy of others. It's a useful work tool and it's the only way I can function socially, but the person underneath it all is not in most peoples periphery. 

I can hear my father/grandfather/ male caretakers voice speaking through my own when I say... Twenty years without a person makes any words they have echoes of echoes. He certainly taught me what not to like about myself and a lot of the meanest shit I say to myself has his inflections, but despite all that I don't believe he was a bad person. If he'd lived another decade or more, he might have come around. Or I'd be a meaner person. Either, or.

Love to me is... an exercise in hope. It's all any of us ever do, hope that our hearts are treated well by those we love.

The thing I am most proud of is... the people in my life and their achievements. That's still the same, even today.

Every time I don't get what I want I tell myself... that I get what I deserve, not what I want. 

If you could hear the music in me... you'd probably have to google aeolian tones.

I want my epitaph to be... the same as it was the last time I took this test. "Nothing has meaning until it changes what we think, or who we are".

This alone wont bring me back to this place, but it was something I wanted to do. Darker days loom ahead for us in this life, but to all who find this, know that I've loved travelling this road, and I've loved being me. I'm always going to want to know what happens next, even if the pages sometimes wind out of time.

“‘When people don’t express themselves, they die one piece at a time. You’d be shocked at how many adults are really dead inside - walking through their days with no idea who they are, just waiting for a heart attack or cancer or a Mack truck to come along and finish the job. It’s the saddest thing I know.’”

- Laurie Halse Anderson; "Speak".