You Are More

Sometimes, life can be downright unfair.

But “unfair” is an overused word when talking about this. So alternatives could be prejudiced, one-sided, biased, cruel, discriminatory, unwarranted, unjust, unethical, unreasonable, unjustifiable, and shameful.

Evidence of this can be found all around us, in the fact that alcohol causes hangovers, pizza is unhealthy, and that the most beautiful people on the face of this Earth are so wrought with insecurities that they are unable to see their true worth.

A lifetime of rejection, exclusion, insults, being made to feel like they’re worthless just for having the courage to show a part of who they are to an unrelenting society has made them believe that there is something irreparably wrong with them. That they’ll never get the happiness they’re entitled to. That they will never accomplish their goals or reach the dreams they work so damn hard for.

And this brings me to the point of this. I'm here to tell you, yes, you reading this, whoever you are, wherever you may be, however good or bad your life may be, that you are worth more than you think you are. You are worth more than your race, gender, sexuality, body type, religion, your hobbies, your taste in music and movies, what car you drive and what clothes you wear. You are more than the problems in your life. You are more than your past choices, mistakes, and failures.

You are worth more than what you've been lead to believe. You are worth more than society may make you out to be. You are worth more than your family, friends, acquaintances, and lecturers may say you are. You deserve all the happiness, love, appreciation, and respect you give to, and wish for, everyone around you.

You deserve to reach your dreams, you deserve to do what brings you joy, whether it’s designing clothes for Beyoncé, directing Taylor Swift’s new music video, or working at Mc Donald’s. You are worth it. You deserve your dreams, you deserve to be with that person you think about at night, you are deserve to be loved, and you deserve to be alive. You are more important than you realise.

And most importantly, you are beautiful. You are earth-shatteringly, astoundingly, breathtakingly, bewilderingly, stupefyingly, overwhelmingly, wondrously, stunningly beautiful. Not only on the outside, but on the inside as well. Your soul has the ability to blind the world with its depth, beauty, and bring a new light to a society that so desperately needs more people like you.

I know you’re thinking that I don’t know you, that I couldn't possibly fathom how much of a failure you are, how disgusting you are, how you've done something so unforgivable that none of this applies to you. But you’re wrong. Whether you believe me or not, it’s true. And I can only hope that one day you realise this, that one day you find the love you deserve, that you find the happiness you so deserve.

So don’t give up. Don’t spend so many sleepless nights pondering all your failures. Don’t look for your happiness at the bottom of so many bottles, between the sheets of someone you've just met, or in the cheap, false euphoria of a drug, even though the appeal of these things cannot be overlooked. Believe that you are capable of being the person you want to be.

I know this probably won’t change anything, but I wanted you to hear (read) this at least once today. And I hope that one day you will believe me when I tell you these things.

Your life will not go unnoticed. I will notice you. I will be your witness. 

Skies on Fire

Grahamstown skies have been doing some pretty cool things lately. The kind of cool things that deserve their own Instagram account. Here are a few of the best sunset shots, taken from my bedroom window. The way things have been going, I'm sure there will be more to follow.

All Dressed Up and Nowhere To Take a Selfie (Part 2)

If you’re not careful, this life will destroy you.

Hell, even if you are careful, it will still destroy you. It will destroy your self-esteem, your sense of self-worth, your self-image, and everything else that has the word “self” in it. It may even destroy everything you use to define yourself, effectively reducing you a broken, dribbling mess, a mindless shell of the person you should have been (a depressing start I know, but bear with me and it will get better. Maybe).

I know this isn't an original point, and that there are countless other, and probably better written, blog posts out there with truly inspiring messages about how you shouldn't always focus on the negatives, how you shouldn't let other’s opinions influence you, how you shouldn't compare yourself to others, etc. And that’s true. However, much like this exact post, those posts/messages/quotes don’t actually stop people from doing those things. And nowhere is this more obvious than in the deep, dark, wretched abyss that is social media.

When our lives basically consist out of content marketing campaigns for social media, it becomes impossible to live free. Our news feeds get flooded with posts of people who seem to ‘like’ (yet never actually love) their lives. We get lost in photos of people’s parties, holidays, adventures, and status updates about lost love, but new-found wisdom, and we wish that our lives could be as cool as those of our friends on Facebook.

Our lives become restricted by the frame of an Instagram photo, and by the 140 character limit of a Tweet, and we start to feel inferior and unimportant if we don’t have countless photos of our own lives and achievements plastered all over the Internet. We start to feel like we’ll never be as cool as everyone with 600+ photos in the “2015 – The Good Times” (or “lul GuD TymEZ”) albums, as pretty as the people who always have really beautiful selfies, as popular as the people with over 800 “friends”, or even just as generally happy as everyone else seems to be (although some comment boards may leave you feeling slightly more intelligent, but also fearing for the future of humanity. So pros and cons).

It consumes our lives, and leaves us thinking that “if it isn't online, it never actually happened”. We’re even conditioned to believe that our lives are terrible and worthless because we aren't tagged in a fresh batch of photos every Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday morning, documenting the previous evening’s shenanigans while you sit alone in your room, all dressed up and nowhere to take a selfie. Even if it’s not a conscious occurrence, it’s still a belief that I know sweeps through your mind as surely as it does mine.

We start comparing our lives to the false realities of what we see on the Internet, not only those of our friends, but also those of the pages we follow. We also start comparing ourselves to the posed, heavily Photoshopped photos we’re bombarded with on a daily basis, and we start thinking, and eventually believing, that we’ll never be able to accomplish anything close to what the people online have done. We believe that we’ll never be able to make anything of ourselves, and we genuinely believe that we may as well stop trying, because everything we attempt will fail.

However, the lives of all those bright, shiny people might not be living as easy as they appear to be, because the people with 1 056 friends and 5 674 tagged photos are filled with just as much self-doubt and loneliness as those with 384 friends. Maybe even more. It truly is a vicious cycle we subject ourselves to. This makes me (and probably only me) wonder: are we not more than this? Has human nature sunk so low that we value our lives based on what others will see on our Timelines? Are we really allowing ourselves to be destroyed by a society where cats get more appreciation than those who are actively trying to make a difference in the world? Is 1984 becoming a documentary instead of a warning? Can an octopus see colour? Does a hedgehog know how adorable it is? Was Gravity really that good? But I digress. (This is almost finished, I promise)

We have become filled with the crippling self-doubt that humanity seems to impose on its populace nowadays. When taking all of the above into consideration, it becomes significantly less surprising that levels of anxiety and depression are on the rise. And I know this post isn't going to change anything. I just wrote it that it may raise this single thought in your mind: Are you going to let the social media life destroy you, or are you going to rise above the squalor and live a life free of social pressure?

I really hope so. But probably not. But one can always dream. And on that note, I release you. Be free. And if you've actually made it this far, well done. You must have been really, really bored to read that dribble.

Now I'm off to have a drink and take a selfie in a club bathroom. 

Design Things

I like to pretend I'm good at using things like Photoshop and InDesign, when really I have no idea what I'm doing. I usually end up with up to 60 layers for one image, about 15 errors on a page, and and jumping up and down like a moron when I do something resembling what the smart person in the tutorial has done.

The following images are the results of much swearing, hours of face-melting frustration, hand cramps and copious amounts of caffeine consumption. Hopefully they aren't too much of an insult to the senses.

A project for the actual course.

Alternate design

Something extra-curricular.

Left Alone

I was going to provide a detailed context, then I realised that you probably don't care, and I couldn't be bothered to type out the story.

She says he's going straight to nowhere
He should buy a ticket home
She's a straight line in a sharp bend
And he's an ending on her road
He's got no time to be a frontman
Tie his shoes or wear his clothes
She'll find a way to twist his fingers
He'll find a way to break her bones
And he's a doctor
He says he's certified
But she knows that is wrong
When she just looks into his eyes
He'll mend her heartbreak
She says that he has the cure
But that medicine don't kick in
Like it used to any more

But God loves a trier
And the devil loves a sin
And I guess he'll be a liar
And she'll take it on the chin

He's left alone
And he doesn't know
She's in control
And he sees her ghost
Every time he looks into her eyes
And what he knows is wrong
Is what she'll say is right

He knows she means it
When she says "I love you" back
She knows just how to tease him
Keep him happy, it's an act
And in the arms of all mistakes
Comes the collision of a word
From the fragile sense of "sorry"
To the promise he misheard

But God loves a trier
And the devil loves a sin
And I guess she'll be a liar
And he'll take it on the chin

He's left alone
And he doesn't know
She's in control
And he sees her ghost
Every time he looks into her eyes
And what he knows is wrong
Is what she'll say is right

But God loves a trier
And the devil loves a sin
And I guess I'll be a liar
And I'll take it on the chin