heavy fuel

If you want to run cool, you got to run on heavy, heavy fuel..

i'm always in dire straits when i need to get started. it doesn't matter where i need to go, or want to flow. there are so many models and process pipelines that outline the way from start to finish. but i don't need that. i need the kick in kickstart!

i need the momentum needed to get me off a state of inertia and firing on all cylinders. i need to revv my engines before i storm out of the starting line. it's always primal for me. raw emotion. passion. heavy, heavy fuel.

My life makes perfect sense, lust and food and violence...

Mark Knopfler's life makes perfect sense, so why can't mine? when i look back at my life past, i realise that i've lived by the FFF philosophy - feeding fucking fighting as long as i remember.

as an infant, all i cared about was feeding, suckling at my mother's teat for survival. adolescence transmuted that obsession to fucking; alone, in a pair or multiples. then as a young adult, i fought furiously, to hold my own in a world bent on turning me into another brick in the wall.

i never had trouble starting any task or project fueled by any of these primal forces. it was an obsession bolstered by a compulsion that propelled me like i was on NOS. if there's anything my quixotic adventures have taught me, it's that youth is unsustainable.

that and the fact that i can't sing like Knopfler even if i'm on some heavy fuel.

my challenge today is to harness that primal fuel, ride that propulsion and sustain the creative momentum long after the fuel has burnt out. here's how i pull that off.

feeding

when i sit down to write, the empty paper, flashing cursor or blank whiteboard all signify one thing. possibility. i draw first blood with emotion, not thought. let's talk about feelings, or better still let's write about them. a purge. of unbridled emotion. raw. unleashed expression.

anger is my goto emotion.

i'm always angry about something. something i've done. or something i haven't. anger is destructive. but anger too can be destroyed. i start taunting my anger. i question the source of that anger.

and i will not rest until i transform the impotence of ignorance into the raging erection of enlightenment.

through this psycho-analytical purge, i feed off my emotion. when it's all over, thoughts begin to flow of their own accord into that satiated vacuum where once a storm raged. but there's no reason to choose a 'negative' emotion like anger. i don't choose it, it chooses me. you could feel whatever is your predominant emotion.

don't think about what to write. let your feeling guide you. and follow it through till you destroy the blocks in your expression. my thoughts then flow on to the paper unfettered until i feel i can write no more.

fucking

now that you've broken through the blocks and are flowing with ideas, you may discover like i do, that my own unbridled expression is not nearly enough. this is when i bring other thoughts into the fray.

i will seek other's thoughts, opinions on my own, through books, music, movies and what have you. more often than not, it's live and interactive conversations that do it for me.

this might have it's own pitfalls. i'm often lost in the deluge of ideas unleashed. and i don't attempt to prioritise and favour one over the other, to secure one and lose the others.

so i choose instead to let them fornicate freely amongst themselves. there is no taboo, no sacred ground, here. the hallowed and the deranged both are allowed to engage eagerly in this playground of the profound and the profane. this is where my insights fornicate to create new ideas.

fighting

if some ideas take to each other with delirious desire, others might grapple with each other. they will fight tooth and nail for what they believe in. and surrender only to a clearly better idea.

may the best man win. may the best idea win. each idea must get it's chance at expressing itself assertively and aggressively against the other. the playground of combat is where conflict is resolved and ideas enforced.

combat is the most primal game. even children love nothing better than to engage in good ol' fashioned rough housing. playing in the mud; pushing, pulling, rolling, jumping, falling over each other. there's a fine line between aggression and violence, one that can only be discerned by engaging in it.

so invite a playmate to engage in playing with your ideas if you can't do it yourself. play the devil's advocate if you can and if you can't, find someone who can. give it everything you have. embrace victory with joy and defeat with grace. for both are immaterial in the grand game of fun.

I don't care if my liver is hanging by a thread
don't care if my doctor says i ought to be dead
When my ugly big car won't climb this hill
I'll write a suicide note on a hundred dollar bill

for all the mental models and precise processes in the world, nothing can replace the pure passion that stems from the fire of emotion. use those deep, dark emotions to fuel your creativity. dig deep, find your spark and let yourself be consumed. don't be shy to die, for from the ashes will rise your next idea, your next creation.

cause if you want to run cool
if you want to run cool
if you want to run cool, you got to run
 on heavy, heavy fuel
 heavy, heavy fuel
 heavy, heavy fuel