The Tragedy of an Oxymoron

I am a shy attention seeker. This is something I have come to realise recently and wish to do something about. But first, the background:

I have always been the quiet one. The one who stands in corners, doesn’t raise his hand. The introvert. When I was younger I used to say ‘mm’ and ‘mhm’ instead of yes and no; I would mumble words in the presence of adults. I grew out of that, but never quite got over the fear of speaking to strangers. I still get nervous when asking for things in shops and am infamous for not answering the phone. I guess some of this is a little unusual, but I             manage to get by in the world despite my differences. Except that this is not enough for me anymore.

I have also always been quite talented: I was the arty one, the musical one, the clever one. At an early age I enjoyed this and spent many hours doing extra things for which I was praised. But the older I got, the less special I became. Others surpassed me in and out of the classroom; I became lazier. Eventually I pretty much gave up trying to advance in the arts, resigned to my fate as a jack of all trades. I stuck with the education for mainly legal obligations. But the spirit never died in me.

More recently, I have been feeling particularly creative inside. I have had many ideas and even some forms of inspiration. Despite this, I have as of yet failed to create. My fruits did not flower or flourish; my wishful works wilted. I seem unable to substantiate my creative energies in any form other than mere thoughts. Doubt I did not, however, as I know the power of a metaphorical seed sewn in the minds of others. Words are my weapon.

Which brings us back to the present in the chronology of my narration. The here and now. The what and why, and the how. I want to put myself across, I want to share my thoughts with others and have feelings and beliefs reciprocated. But I am too shy. I am not willing to draw the necessary attention of others in the right form. So I hide behind words on a screen, hoping they might one day catch the eye of somebody willing to break that barrier and let me out of my bubble into the real world.

I Want to Be a Vlogger (kind of)

I must admit, I am a regular viewer, subscriber and general fan of some of the most popular YouTube vloggers, Charlieissocoollike, nerimon and communitychannel to name a few (well half really). I love their styles and personalities, plus the stuff they talk about is easy to relate to. And I know I am a bit emotionally attached sometimes (see Emotional Endings post) but they seem like the kind of people who I would like in real life.

This makes me wish I was part of that community. One major obstacle, or three, is that I am shy, socially awkward and kind of paranoid about peoples’ opinions, which means I doubt I will ever be a real YouTuber. I am too scared to talk to myself, never mind filming it and posting it on the internet. Why do you think I have  a blog? Anyway, I have recently started posting some videos of everyday things in slow motion with my new high-speed camera. Needless to say they are haphazard, poor quality and very little known. But I still want to do something noticeable.

Being a fan of Charlie and Alex Day, who both play songs in the form of Chameleon Circuit and solo singles, I have been kind of inspired to try to write songs. The fact that I play guitar (5 years but not very good) and piano (a few months) helps, but even so I have trouble. Looking at the chords for some of the songs that spurred me on, they are mostly very simple and I am able to play them fine; even doing harmonies and melodies isn’t too much hassle. But the problems come in two forms: vocals and layering. I cannot seem to write song lyrics without being unbelievably cheesy. Plus I get the feeling that if I could layer some tracks together, like a beat, chords, bass line and melody it would sound all but finished. The way I really want to do this is split screen video, but even just audio would be fine. The problem is that I don’t have the recording equipment to get more than one decent line; I have a digital camera which has pretty poor sound, as does my webcam. There is a digital recorder, but I don’t have the drivers to plug it into my PC and it can only play back one thing at a time. So I find myself unable to record and/or listen to more than one part of my so-called song.

This is why I want a Macbook Pro- for iMovie, Garage Band, and just generally because my laptop is awful and freezes constantly. If you are rich, can I please have £1200 for one? Thanks.

/self-indulged moan>

In Slow Motion

<brief post>For Christmas I got a Casio Exilim EX-FC100, high speed digital camera. I find it very impressive. So I have begun to upload videos onto my YouTube channel, in the hope of becoming a slow-motion-sensation. It is called Stuff Going Slowly (original, I know) and if you want to watch said stuff, you can visit it here. Your suggestions for things to film and post would be much appreciated also.</brief post>