Well hello there. You're looking good, I must say. Yes, I know, it's been a while. Sorry about that. Things keeping me busy.
If you're feeling neglected (I'm sure you're not) then bear in mind that whilst it has been just over 2 months since my last blog post, I have yet to meet my new cousin, born nearly 3 months ago, and now won't until he is basically 5 months old. So stuff your guilt trip - I've got worse sources of guilt. And anyway, you can get your fill of my regular meanderings on twitter. @MrRV for regular twambles, rants, musings and sarcasm, the almost defunct @HYMRV for oddities, and of course the group accounts @Cantburyplayers for all the latest on the am dram group I'm in and @commandertours for the updates on the regular 'cultural' trips arranged by The Commander (latest confirmed destination; Munich, this September. I understand there might be a beer festival on at the time.). So don't say I don't update you. Combined with my Facebook and less well tended g+ profile, this blog is just part of a multi strand assault on you with my opinions. So shush.
In any case, both Miscriant and the Demon Gin (read their blogs. Follow them on twitter. Please. Or they'll stick me with the pins again. Especially that Gin woman) are already, or will be, covering this is greater detail, hence lack of detail here, one of the reasons I've been quiet. I've been working on a play. Yes I know. After Wyrd Sisters I promised myself a break. But I hadn't acted, or at least my version of acting, in over a YEAR! And I got talked into it by C. I'm still ambivalent about Hobson's Choice as a piece of drama, but under Sally's direction (fresh from being my Granny Weatherwax), and with a top cast, I think we made quite a show of it. I was average to mediocre (no self deprecation here, I was - I have been better and I will be again. My average is still okay to pretty good, I was just disappointed not to get more laughs for a role that was essentially just a sequence of comic cameos. So sue me) but there were storming performances from the rest of the cast, not least the aforementioned Miscriant and Demon Gin (seriously, follow them, they are brandishing pins at me RIGHT NOW!) and Miscriant's t'other half, my oft time partner in crime, Stephen. And we sold out the theatre the final night and came close on the other two. So yeah, I've been busy.
Don't think I haven't been blogging. No no. I've just not been publishing them. This blog remains a Titanic killer of a blog, with just the merest snowy tip poking above the surface. Mainly, the reason I don't publish posts is that I start boring myself and don't finish them. Sometimes, as has been alluded to before, I realise that there are a group of fractal, in progress, blogs which all have a common theme, so I scrap them and write a single missive on the theme. Often, they are cathartic releases, free writing rants which are my new version of shouting into the void (my last blog post. Go and read it. It will be, at least obliquely, referred to again). Mostly, they are simply bad (and the bar isn't high - look at the dross I've published before!).
But to business. I'm procrastinating. Doing some unnecessary house keeping while I sidle up to the topic. This is a hard blog post to write. Not for the same reasons as the last one. Although that was surprisingly easy. Despite the consciously confessional tone, and revealing of a more directly personal side of myself than even a committed 'sharer' like me usually does (I make no secret of my struggle with certain things, but I always try and be oblique about them as a I don't want to make them define me, or, frankly, put people off knowing me), Shouting into the Void tumbled out of me easily. And I think I've been doing better. I have not posted a 'woe is me' Facebook status this year (and if you think I have, you've simply misinterpreted my occasional, flippant, self deprecation or the meaning of obscure statuses). Some of my friends have observed a tendency to grumpiness, but this has largely been related to specific events, or sheer basic tiredness rather than damaging wallowing and introspection. I still have downs, and have bent the ears of a couple of sympathetic friends when I find myself overthinking, but less often. And I try and do it straight away, and listen to the advice.
But no, this is more difficult because I need to keep some details private. Because they involve....other people, some of which, as is undoubtedly their right, don't like details of their life splashed across the net. So forgive me if this is detail light or allusory.
I'm happy.
On two occasions in my Facebook 'life' I've posted a status which simply, baldly, stated that. Well, one fluffed a bit by pretending to forget how to spell it, but the joke aside, it was the only message. Those two statuses are my most 'liked' to date. So either people want me to be happy, or are just pro happiness in general. Or both.
Or maybe, it's because I have previous for seeking to temper or undermine my own happiness. I've been doing that lately. And I've just figured out how to stop. Hence the post. But we need to go back a year.
The story of being happy, and of the three buttons, starts a year ago. Sort of. When historians come to discuss this (and they won't), there will be a school of history which suggests that it actually started in 2011 (the same people who view the Great Depression as the guarantee that World War II would start). There will be yet another which looks to 2010 (Treaty of Versailles simply ensured that another war was inevitable). Others will point to 2006-7 as making the set up of 2014 inevitable (there was only one world war with a VERY long cease fire in the middle while we all regrouped). And even a few will say that, whilst not inevitable, my current state of happiness and the events which led me to get there, and nearly prevent myself getting there, started in 1997-8 (the world wars were simply Europe resolving matters which the 30 Years War had raised but not resolved).
But let's stick with the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland shall we? Last year. (Incidentally, whilst I'm quite proud of my schools of history allegory, using the world wars and genuine debates I studied at uni, I realise that I have inadvertently cast myself as Hitler and my friends and loved ones as the rest of Europe, undeserving of the evil about to be visited on them. Please try and look passed this). Last year in conversation with some friends I identified it was time to stop prevaricating and procrastinating and make happen. I narrowed this down to three things, which I referred to as buttons which needed pressing.
Okay, stop. I'm lying. Ish. The meaning of the three buttons wasn't originally that. It was a reference to something else. It evolved. Mainly as when people clocked my reference to buttons on twitter, I had to come up with an answer. And as the original meaning had moved on, I came up with that.
So, I got proactive about pushing the buttons which would change the parts of my life. Outside of a very flattering internet meme (which now adorns a badge, a baseball cap, has appeared on set in a few Canterbury Players plays, is the inspiration for my text alert, and the URL for this very blog), most people would not have noticed any difference. But believe me, it was there. I was doing things which I would never have done. Being confident. Having confidence.
And, though it took a while, it worked. Better than I'd ever expected. Seriously. I ended up with something I've wanted for years which I thought I wouldn't get, and didn't deserve. Even though pretty much everyone who knew about my desires thought they were achievable if I just manned up.
And I could not STOP worrying about it.
I won't go into the details of my worries. That's unfair on pretty much everyone involved. And to everyone affected. But suffice to say, regardless of how it manifested, what the issues boiled down to was a logical extension of a simple conceit.
I could not believe my luck.
People say that all the time, right? Try saying it with low self esteem. Suddenly it becomes riding your luck, looking for problems, waiting for the. Other. Shoe. To. Drop. In some ways, this is a good instinct in any situation in your life. It stops you getting complacent. But it can also become very much a self fulfilling prophecy.
I made a promise in my last blog to relax and be happy, and enjoy myself. I've been doing that. I've gained something honestly better than I'd ever thought I would have by being proactive in the last 12 months. And recently I've stopped worrying about that being in some way false. Or that as I reveal who I am more and more, that it will end it.
I know there is a danger this blog will become a bit 'self help' like. But stuff it. Some advice.
There are a great many things that can go wrong in anything you do. If you don't feel happy, whether you feel hard done by or not, it is your responsibility to change it.
But if you feel like you are happy, there is a decent chance you might actually be happy. Who would have thought it.
Have a good one kids.
OWWWWW! Oh yeah, and follow the blogs and Twitter accounts of the others. Because pins are sharp.
PS - I mentioned 3 buttons right? But, whatever their original meaning, I've only mentioned 1 here. Time to get proactive.
