The past few weeks have been a ridiculously busy time in my life - busy, yet somehow I still feel like I've accomplished very little. My move is coming up and I'm nowhere ready to get out of here; yet I couldn't be more ready.

My house is at my feet. The rest of my life is in ambiguous packing boxes. Much of it I need to get rid of; but almost all of it is unavailable. My brain is in an exasperated lull and my heart is somewhere else.

These words aren't meant to be cryptic they're just all that I really can come up with as I go on realizing more and more that the people I know are no longer who they used to be and that society's mold has hijacked many of their more genuinely humanitarian beliefs. A term I've begun to use a lot is "exulansis", and the more I think about the word the more it resonates with me. I don't exactly know if it's a "real" word; and by that I mean you probably won't find it in a dictionary. But why should we let that define what words we use? From birth we are trained to believe that if we speak, write, think, look or do differently than our historical counterparts that we are doing something wrong. A side effect of our educational systems is the deterioration of free thought and individuality. It might seem like a bleak look on things; but it isn't intended to be. Anyways, awhile ago, one of my best friends PJ sent me a link to the "Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows", and among other terms that I found incredibly interesting, there lied Exulansis; which they define as

n. the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it—whether through envy or pity or simple foreignness—which allows it to drift away from the rest of your life story, until the memory itself feels out of place, almost mythical, wandering restlessly in the fog, no longer even looking for a place to land.

I have spent so much of my life living in what is seen as an "abnormal" way and it has caused my view on many things to be incredibly difficult for my friends and family to wrap their heads around. I remember as a kid, after several traumatic experiences, telling myself to rid myself of inhibitions and formalities in an effort to make myself less afraid of the world. I'm not sure if I kept up with the inhibition aspect of things; but it certainly worked.

But I can't talk to people anymore. When a person asks why I just don't do things normally to make my life easier I have no answer for them. I've chosen a difficult life. But I've done so because it is impossible for me to follow the sycophant lifestyle that harms so, so many people in ways that we've been trained to turn a blind eye to. The vagueness of which I speak of this is a direct result of exulansis; and the word has replaced my normally feeble and frustrating attempts and explaining my brain to others.

Thirteen

The vagueness of the previous few sentences will be much more expanded upon at some point in the near future. Over the past few weeks, I've been writing a "book", which thus far has a working title of Thirteen. It is a handwritten, ink and paper collection of 13 different stories, poems, philosophical rants, word exploration; whatever you want to call it. One of the 13 is titled Exulansis, in which I've expanded on my own understanding of the concept quite a bit.

Part of the inspiration for the book was due a recent misfortune that happened to my friend Marc. Marc was diving off a dock one day awhile ago and fucked up some vertebra's in his neck. He doesn't have health insurance, and my friends have I have been putting on a series of "art shows" at our houses to raise funds for his hospital bills. The art shows really just consist of all of us pumping out random stuff and selling it either to our friends or drunk strangers; and 100% of the cash goes to Marc's funds. I've been contributing random woodburnings, drawings, masks and clothes I've made; but I figured it was a good opportunity to make something I could actually be proud of. Many of my friend's know I enjoy writing and general language-toying, and encouraged me to write something we could sell hard copies of.

Thus, Thirteen was born. It's about 6 and a half chapters done, and will be scanned and bound for a limited run for Marc's recovery fund. Afterwards, I will probably post the scanned images in thirteen different parts here on Steemit, and contribute any rewards from them also to his bill. Due to the complicated nature of withdrawing from here(and the fact I don't want to, haha), I will most likely just match the rewards in my own cash and contribute that way rather than going through the whole process. I will do the same with this post; and pretty much as many as I can until he's not in this nightmare situation anymore.

Which brings me to a question. I have always enjoyed writing fiction. Thus far I've used Steemit to practice writing skills through writing about interests of mine; and to promote the artists behind those interests. If I began to post my fiction to Steemit, would you all want to see it? Or, should I instead create another account for all of that and keep this account specific to the different promotional series I've started? I just want to know what y'all think.

Short post; no shame. I figured if I didn't continue to ramble there's more of a chance y'all will read the whole thing(haha). Whatever. I've been meaning to make time for writing but things have been hectic. Stay gold.

<3