pleasefindthis's Blog: Written On The Side Of The Page , page 38

He made lists of things he wanted to feelwhen he was younger, big things, small things, ice, snow, the sandat the beach, someone else’s hands holding his, feeling him feelingthem, a feedback loop of feelings, which is what happens when twopeople make love. He wanted to feel things that made him feel safeand scared and things that ripped his heart out of his chest, thingsthat made him want to go home and things that made him want totravel, things that made him proud and things that made him regrethis choices and he, like all people, slowly ticked these things off thelist in his head as he lived, as the world turned until soon, there werevery few things left to feel.He believed the last thing he would feel, would be nothing, as thatwas nearly impossible to feel unless you were dead or hadn’t beenborn yet. He wondered what it’d be like to not be able to wonder.He’d once wanted to know what it felt like to be able to talk topeople properly, to be normal but he’d given up on finding that feeling, figuring no one ever really found it.
Amazon has jumped the gun a little and the kindle edition of Intentional Dissonance is out! You can get it now and preview the first few chapters here.

[Editor's note: You won't hear my voice when you open the file, the sound of my voice changes the way each cover looks, nothing else - I'm sorry if anyone was confused.]

Dear you,

If you didn't know this yet, I live in South Africa, Jon, the photographer for I Wrote This For You lives in Germany (previously Japan), my publisher lives in Canada and my books are printed in England. The vast majority of my readership resides in America, Asia and the rest of the world.

This is great because I’ve always believed in creating things that are universal and this setup helps keep me true to that.

The problem is, besides a brief book tour at the start of this year and online, I don’t really get to interact with the phenomenal, kind and wonderful people who read what I write.

My new book, Intentional Dissonance , like a lot of the things I do, deals with finding meaning in chaos. It’s about finding something in the noise. And it’s a very noisy book. There are trees that talk, the main character is addicted to a drug that causes sadness and the entire thing takes place in the last city on Earth, 10 years after the official end of the world. There’s also a bunch of ghosts, people caught in horrible teleportation accidents that force them to repeat their last moments over and over again, forever. It’s not I Wrote This For You. It’s something else.

I wanted to do something special for the launch of the book that celebrated and made real the feeling of finding meaning in the noise and so, in currently limited quantities, I have ‘signed’ several digital copies of the book with my voice.

I took the cover design, imported it into an audio editing suite as raw data, then read my name and a few sentences from the book over the noise. The audio was then exported as raw data and converted back into an image. In a time where everything digital is impersonal and generic, it’s a way to do something that makes each copy special.

And it’s the closest I can get to giving something personal and unique back to the readers who have done so much for me.

The book comes out on amazon, iTunes, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else on the 7th of December but you can preorder one of the digitally signed copies right now from here.

 This is what they look like.























The original.





























Thank you for your time and for reading,

 Me

Dear You,

My new novel, Intentional Dissonance, is launching on the 7th of December.

I've got something special planned for it and that's going to keep me busy for the next 48 hours or so.

The image below is a hint.

Stay close,

Me

The seconds take a part of me with them. Hopefully to you.

If you're strong enough to take that blade and draw it across your skin. 
If you're strong enough to take those pills and swallow them when no one's home.

If you're strong enough to tie that rope and hang it from the ceiling fan.

If you're strong enough to jump off that bridge, my friend.

You are strong enough, to live.

Shhh...

Danger isn't always loud and angry.

Red, fire engine, fire, clouds.

A fight doesn't always end when you've been knocked down.

Fight, punch, fruit juice, islands.

Sometimes, the world will try and convince you that dying is the most polite thing you could do.

Please, thank you, no I don't mind at all, go ahead. 

Sometimes, they will make giving up feel just like going to sleep.

You've done enough, rest now, there's no need to carry on. 

You are not in your bed. You are on the street. And you need to wake up and fight.

Now.

I'm only quiet because I'm worried that if you push me too far, one day I will open my mouth and I will scream so loudly, it will shatter and break the whole world.

I know you think you define me.

But each brush stroke thinks it's important when it's on the canvas and each brush stroke thinks that it's the last and that the painting will be done when the brush leaves the canvas again.

But it isn't. You are just the shading. You are a dot. And I am the one holding the paintbrush.

Do practical things if you want your tombstone to read

"They were practical."

Do what makes sense if you think it should say

"Their life made sense."

Do what the world wants if you believe in the epitaph

"They did what the world wanted them to do."

But if you want it to read

"They lived every second they were given 
and touched the sky every chance they had, 
they burned and blazed in all the colours the eye can see 
and left a hole shaped like them in the world 
when they left."

Then do something else.

I'm not Allan Carr nor would I pretend to be but I do have some respect for the guy, or for anyone really who spends their life trying to save the lives of others.

I'm also not trying to lecture anyone, I had a personal dislike for anyone who tried to lecture me when I smoked and I'm a huge believer in personal freedom - you're free to do what you want to do as long as it doesn't impede on my freedom to feel happy, as far as I'm concerned.

There are two reasons I'm writing this. The first is that in the video trailer for my book, there's a short clip of me smoking. That's because this was shot 3 months ago. I can't afford to have the video professionally re-edited so it's staying in but I want to do my best to mitigate any impression I've created that smoking is fun, cool or sexy.

The second reason I'm writing this is that ever since I've quit smoking, I've been hanging out on a bunch of smoke-enders and quitting websites and forums under a different identity, doing my best to help other people who want to quit, quit and apparently many of them have found what I said to be quite effective or at least, poignant.

So let me start by saying this: I quit cold turkey. I quit because I had what an alcoholic would call, a moment of clarity.

Before this, I'd tried patches, gum, e-cigarrettes, the Allan Carr books - nothing worked.

And one Friday night, after having a few drinks with those I work with at my studio, finishing another packet of cigarettes and going home, I found myself laying on the couch at home, clearing my throat with what felt like little success.

I do not know why it struck me then or exactly how but I was struck by a thought.

I was a chronic smoker. My choices were simple:

Smoke every single day for the rest of my life or never smoke ever again.

I could never be a social smoker. I could never reward myself after a large meal, an achievement, a drink with a cigarette, ever again because one cigarette would always lead back to a pack.

As soon as I accepted that my options were either smoke until the day I die or never smoke, ever again, suddenly things became a lot easier.

Before that, I'd always tried to quit without actually quitting. I'd tried to say to myself "I'll just smoke at home." or "I'll just smoke at work" or "I'll smoke an e-cigarette instead." or "I'll slowly cut down with gum/patches and eventually quit."

All of that is bullshit if you're a chronic smoker.

I woke up on Saturday morning and didn't smoke. I didn't smoke on Sunday. On Monday, when I was back in the agency, surrounded by coffee-fueled-chain-smoking-psychopaths, I wrote the letters "NA" on my left hand, which for me stood for "Never Again", which was my reminder of when I would be allowed to smoke again.

And slowly, the illusions fell apart.

Your brain is the biggest scumbag there is. It will tell you some incredible lies in your lifetime: No one likes you, you aren't good enough, you're good, you can sing, you can't sing but feed it nicotine and you will turn it from doing simple card tricks to a full on David Blaine/Derren Brown stage show.

Here's what your brain tells you when you smoke and I know because this is what it told me:

If you ever quit smoking, you will be depressed for the rest of your life. There will always be an emptiness. A void. Something that needs to be filled - an endless yearning.

This, is bullshit. I haven't smoked for two months and when I do think of cigarettes, it's in the same manner I think of the Titanic or a chair or a box of chocolates: It is arbitrary.

I know some people have said that they do occasionally have cravings but to them, I imagine being a non-smoker with occasional cravings is much better than being a smoker with a constant, relentless voice at the back of your head, screaming at you

"You need to stop this. Oh my God, you need to stop this. Can't you see what you're doing to yourself? When are you going to stop?"

The amount of mental energy that voice takes up is astounding and prevents you from following many of your life's goals and dreams simply because you always have this massive obstacle in your mind.

Once you do quit, your brain will then do everything in its power to convince you that one more cigarette is ok. It's always one more cigarette. You can have one to help you quit (this makes sense in the grand illusion), you can try and quit again tomorrow, you hate the world and you're raising a middle finger to it every time you smoke, smoking makes you sexy and less awkward.

All. Bullshit.

Do you have any idea what it's like for non-smokers to watch smokers scratch around in their bags/pockets for a cigarette as soon as there's a pause in the conversation? Your brain tells you that you need it. Your brain is tricking you.

It'll tell you that it feels good to have one after a meal, after a long day, that it relieves stress (having to constantly dash outside to have a cigarette gives you less time to do your work and causes you more stress) that it relieves boredom (sucking on a paper tube is exciting?) that it does a myriad of different things for you that it simply doesn't.

It is the grandest, most amazing illusion I have ever been privy to and I have spent my entire adult life never knowing how sick I've always felt because of it.

Because when you always feel a little sick, you don't know that you always feel a little sick.

Life is fucking incredible and beautiful on the other side of the looking glass and if you're ever ready to lift the veil and walk through that glass, there is so much beauty on the other side, in terms of what your body is actually capable of, in terms of how you'll sleep at night, in terms of what you'll be able to devote your mind to, that you will weep with joy.