B is for Blogging

This is starting to sound like a children’s ABC book, I’m starting to realize!

And it’s awesome.

Okay, we aren’t on a streak just yet, but we’ve made it to step two of this blogging bit. Time for some deeper thoughts and moments to myself that I can bare publicly.

Heh. I said, “bare.”

My point? I’m lucky. I’ve noticed that I have something that, well, it should be, cheaper than therapy. I’m a gigglesnort. I’m an optimist, regardless of what the media wishes you to think. I’m fully aware that crime, in all honesty, is on it’s way down (and that one idiot who shoots up a public location gets all the attention); that the economy is rebounding; that things are actually okay.

Yet I write about horrible, horrible things.

Monsters. Throat slits. Violence against fellows.

You know, those kinds of things. Even my sexy scenes tend to be, well, rough.

Here’s the thing. We all have dark sides. I’ve seen tykes going all out with a stomping fest on an ant’s nest, long before they are exposed to a Fox News hate-parade. It’s pretty much inante. Make sense. Primal human had to break the necks of their food as they were learning to stand upright. They needed to have a violent place to go, before they could invent drive through at the local Stuckey's.

It’s in all of our brains. It’s the reason we ride rollercoasters. It’s why we buy tickets to The Conjuring 2. To feed that part of the brain. Not to keep it fresh. But to keep it satisfied.

Does society corrupt? Well, yes, yes it does. Research shows it left and right. How does it do so?

That dark side seeks expression. When you watch a violent programme? Sure, it might be satisfied. My thing is, if media corrupts, the numbers don't add up to the profound ratio. Too many people are exposed to the angst that is Trump.

Expressions are awesome.

Wait, okay, maybe the numbers DO add up.

It’s why scary stories tend to sell better than romances.

But those have a place, too, on the other end of the spectrum.

Today, however, we’re talking about the Dark Side.

And I’m lucky, because I’m an artist. And I’m married to one, so I’m able to see this better than most. The power of the arts is expression, mild to wild. We have that outlet. So, when the blues from my everyday job flit into my skull, I’m able to kill a room full of kittens (in the literally sense, please. Nothing wrong with kittens, natch). I’m able to have that horrible date that ends up with chains and lost eyeballs. You, dear reader, just read about the eyeball. But, keep in mind, I reached said eyeball long before you did.

As such, my husOtter is very much the same. When things are going well? He paints. When things go south for a bit? He’s painting with blues and blacks and browns. It’s all equal.

And it is much cheaper than any therapy. And, in that way, I save money. I don’t need to go to a psychiatrist. Well, I don’t need to go to one right away. Nothing wrong with talking to a therapist every now and again, my friends. But, see, even this little open-ended journal entry hits me where I need it. Like keeping a diary for the open minded. Fiction or non, every bit helps the one that created it.

If you buy the book, it really does help, too, like, with the money and such.

So, when you create, think of the cleansing that’s happening and how vital it is, not unlike water, fiber, exercise, and a decent sneeze.

I get that now.

I bring this all up as I'm reading my book. There's angst galore, to be sure, but there's a bouncy-ness to it all. A happiness and, really, it's because things, in the end, are truly going well. A Star Wars movie, to be sure. Let's be real here, a war is raging, there's always conflict of some sort, within and without, but that omnipresent in ALL tales. How it plays out says volumes about the author, on several levels.