A Thoughtful One

I'm into the thick of writing these days - the final throes of the novella. So all that tight plotting and sentence construction does rather tend to make me fall back on myself. I can be a very introspective person at the best of times - I've mentioned here before that I like nothing more than to examine conversations I've had with a microscope - or Fine Tooth Comb as my mother would say. Considering how a character might act or react leads me to consider my actions and the actions of those around me too.

I do wonder about the whole notion of Nature versus Nurture - you know the idea that we are who we are because of our inherited genes, or because of what we may have experienced. I'm inclined to think that our genes provide a starting block and nurture - our experiences give us the shades and tones of our characters. As a child I believed quite firmly that before being born we each were given a film show of potential lives and then told to chose one - none being necessarily better than another, but each with hardship and happiness and more importantly the opportunities for learning. I believed that everyone was here for a purpose - to achieve something, to learn something or teach something, and once that purpose was met then our lives would be over - we would return to the celestial waiting room and go through the entire process again. I think a lot of my ideas came from reading things like Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha when I was at school. So I suppose that proves my theory too - I am a product of my own reading and education, but only because I already had certain leanings because of my inherited nature from my parents - a great deal of books that I read as a child came from my dad's huge collection. I was always encouraged to read anything I could lay my hands on and subsequently by the time I left school I had worked my way through popular fiction in the shape of Stephen King, Jackie Collins and Danielle Steel (shared those ones with my mum) and I'd also dipped into some great literature like Hesse, Nin, H.G.Wells, John Wyndham,Orwell,Hardy and loads more. Reading and writing have always been fundamental facets of my personality.

Strangely enough this post was going to be about the effect different people have upon ones life...hmm...I've ended up writing about books. That says a great deal about me.

I've always been of the opinion that I'm a very straightforward person - I was once described as an Open Book - easy to read and with no secrets. But I was told the other day that I am a difficult and demanding character - not in a bad way, but nonetheless, not straightforward at all. I suppose we all become more difficult and demanding as life's experiences shape us and leave us a little more wary and afraid of being hurt again. I'm often saying that I wish people would be honest with me. Why can't men be honest with women? Or women honest with men? Just a few exchanges with my friends opens a whole new can of worms about lack of communication and honesty in their personal relationships.

Honesty is a wonderful thing but sometimes we don't want to hear the truth.

This post is terribly obtuse I'm afraid...unformed ideas appearing on the screen springing from lots of deep thoughts and the usual chaos of my life...and as usual I'm unwilling to come clean about quite what is bugging me...partly to protect the innocent (who would that be then?) and partly to preserve some weak façade of privacy which is hypocritical to say the least - I keep a blog for god's sake! Suffice to say things aren't straightforward, quite the reverse.

Not the usual playful post. Deeply thoughtful. Perhaps when it all comes out in the wash I'll be able to unravel it.