[Gossamer's Scrapbook] The Ethereal Canyon I

[Cachet]

Oh man I've been hiking around here it's been sunny and warm but I don't mind sweating some to see the beauty of nature. It's been a long time since I've hiked to a mountain top and just been at peace with myself. Really looked around and just nodded and for a few minutes everything was wonderful. I love the summer here even if it is like 90+degrees. I will post pictures here for you sometime Jen you'd love them I believe.

[Gossamer]

. A Sign For A Day Off I feel bold today. I feel good enough to tackle new stuff and like I want to get some things done on Mizahar. I want to try and outdo myself and the world. I'm not sure I can, though, because its been a bit since I've wrote anything truly interesting. I feel recharged because I took the day off to please no one else but myself. That's an awesome feeling and I have to admit its one I need to partake of more often. .

[Paragon]

You go Jen! Just remember you're awesome!

[Gossamer]

. Conjure One Do you know them? If you don't you should. I can write or develop to this group all day long. They have fantastic song after fantastic song. .

[Cachet]

Jen I had a week-end just like that day. My wife and I took off for our anniversary and hid in a bed and breakfast in Hot Springs near the Tennessee North Carolina border. It was absolutely recharging and I will indeed drop some pictures here for all you to see in my scrapbook when I get the chance but here is my absolute favorite one.



That was taken near the peak of a bald mountain known as Max Patch. a 360 degree view of nothing but the surrounding mountainside. Makes you feel kinda small even standing at the top, but I love that my wife let me take a picture of her at the top. In all it was a great moment to just take a breath and refresh. I've NEVER seen anything like that before in my life and in all it was a wonderful sight.

[Gossamer]

I'm glad you guys had fun. It looks very beautiful there!

[Gossamer]

. Doing What You Love Fearlessly Do what you love, even if it is not cool. Care not what other people think of you while you’re doing it as well. And feel free to talk about it, instead of hiding it like a dirty little secret. A lot of people are afraid to do this, whether its talking about their love of writing on Mizahar or walking through a park at the crack of dawn with a pair of binoculars birding. Birders will tell you that the act of lifting the binoculars to ones nose is opening one up to vulnerabilities. Why? Because while you are looking at something fascinating as a birder, something unseen and unnoticed to most people, those ‘most people’ are staring at you and looking at you thinking ‘what a dweeb’. Writing is the same way. Most of us write like crazy, both on sight and off site. Some of us write what we think will be cool. Others of us take chances and write what we want to write. I remember once seeing someone who called themselves a ‘professional’ writer commenting in their scrapbook here in a complex and lengthy way about defending their reasoning for posting on Mizahar instead of putting their writing energy into their professional work. I just shook my head because they sounded so snobby and so defensive. I thought the more simple answer was “I like to write. I’ll write almost anywhere because it makes me happy.” Don’t you want to be happy? If you do, then care less about what others think and care more about what you yourself think and do whatever it is you want to do and keep doing it until your fabulous at it. I honestly don’t care what it is. Just go out, gather your courage, and do what you love. Enthusiasm is infectious. If you love it, others will love it, and maybe you can inspire them to be happy as well. The world would be a whole better place if we were just all who we were rather than being who society dictates. Think about it. And make the right choice, the happy choice. Life is too short to do otherwise. . .

[Verilian]

Unless what you love is poking me in the ribs. If so.. please stop. *looks at wife*

[Leigo]

Being in the above mentioned enthusiastic fanatic region of humanity, I felt this scrap speaking to me in many ways. I’ve been reading this scrap like most of our other players pretty much since the day I joined. It’s weird – even though I found many things I could comment on and felt a distinct connection with, this’ll be my first comment to your scrap. I guess I’m just the type who leaves many things to himself. And that’s kind of something I wanted to speak of in regards to this post. I’m not quite sure if I’d call it irony, but I found the circumstances laughable. Anyways, I’m digressing so let’s get on with it.

I agree with everything you wrote above and more! There is no reason why anyone should dictate what you do and how you do it. I’m a hedonist in this department and do whatever the hell pleases me, but my interest here never lay with actions – it’s the words.

If you ask any of my friends, they’ll flat out tell you how much the very mention of Mizahar gets on their nerves. It’s probably because I talked too much about it at one time, not giving them much space to navigate the mostly foreign topics. Hell – I even schooled a couple of them on the lore here so they could join up and give us something more to share. One way or another they’ve all dropped off before even starting really, a few clung for a few dozen posts and disappeared as well. At another time I might’ve taken their way out as a sign from above that it just isn’t their thing/style/they just don’t know how to write (which is a lie obviously – everyone can write, setting up a story can be a bitch sometimes though. Still creativity is a skill, so that too can be trained. Bottom line, we’re all writers – I just never said all of us are great ones.) – I forgot where this sentence was going before the brackets so we’ll end that here.

My friends have taken up many parts of me (and I them obviously), yet they never shared my interest in this place. I found that sad, disheartening even. Yet as I am an optimist, sending it all to hell and going forward on my own seemed like an incredible idea. I guess along the way I just became cynical enough to seriously doubt I’ll ever have a bunch of RL friends working alongside me here. It was the dream – but dreams change at times.

I never really got around to what it was I was trying to say. The thing is, I believe my over enthusiastic approach to the very topic of Mizahar shooed people away. Now that I think about it – makes sense. But how do you even downplay something you really enjoy in a conversation – beats me, but I’d sure like to know.

So enthusiasm – right! As infectious as it might be, I don’t believe in it being universally positive. That does sound bad – but I think it’s more my fault than anything I had such experiences. It’s probably because I never was tolerant enough to let them slide into their roles peacefully. With me it was always “OH, LOOK, FUN!” And that probably killed it for them.

I like basketball – I got people to play it with me.
I like hide and seek – I got adults to play it with me.
I like talking endlessly about imaginary designs and concepts which could be listed under the mad scientist tent – I got people to speak my language.
I absolutely adore Mizahar – I never did anything right with people I tried to recruit.

Sometimes it seems that loving things too much can ruin the marketing. And sometimes less is more, which is a concept entirely foreign to me, or it was. Now it’s too late to restart their brains anyway.

I still believe I’ll get some friends to come here and stick. I just don’t believe it’ll be soon and am even more so confident that it won’t be any of my current ones.

I might’ve gotten entirely off topic, but this is what your post got me thinking about.

[Gossamer]

. Response Ron - She obviously doesn't need my advice. She already gets the 'do what you love until your fabulous at it' because we can all tell by the tone in your post that she's good... really good. Leigo - My grandmother always used to say that age and wisdom will bring you to the place where you can figure out the difference between enthusiasm and shoving something down someone else's throat. I haven't learned that fine line yet because I stare at people that 'don't like' horses like they are daft and then immediately try to convince them why horses are wonderful. One of the storytellers here once admitted to me she was scared by a horse early on in her life and wanted nothing to do with them now. I thought this was the cruelest thing one could ever do to oneself and proceeded to try to convince her otherwise knowing full well and good that without a said horse standing there charming her itself, my words would never have any affect. So... I wouldn't worry or overly dwell too much on your failed recruitment. Instead, to add to my grandmother's advice, I made you this sign. . .