Michael Finnegan

Most of my life I have kept a haphazard journal. Journal is a bit misleading in that you might expect to gain some insight into my life by reading the thoughts put to word, both in paper and digital form, however your expectations would be incorrect. Likely you would arrive at the conclusion that some ordinary guy, living a rather ordinary life put down a lot of random stuff for no distinguishable or meaningful reason. How is that for some inspirational self-affirming internal dialogue. I know and that is the PG version of things. My own debasement is not why I decided to write down my musings though. Too much I have become the consumer of entertainment and relied on the external to stimulate my mind and I have put off diving into my own mind for motivation, inspiration, and entertainment. Too often the dark thoughts spoke too loudly or I just allowed them to push back any desire to produce anything that wasn’t vapid or mindless. Passivity and repetitive things filled the little free time I have in the evenings following work. Phobos and Deimos have stood prominently in the way of my doing anything remotely creative. Plans fell undeveloped and even the encouragement from friends with similar interests lost their weight to move me toward producing anything and easy mindless things came up as alternatives to being creative. I could sense their frustration and my own at this growing apathy. Once before I had let “life” crowd out those things I enjoyed. I say “life” in quotes because it isn’t really the truth it is work which is not what I want my life to be. Life shouldn’t be work, especially my work. It is draining and spirit crushing and there are very few shiny bits in all the dust and grit. I’ve seen the toll it takes on people, those who consumed by their work and have nothing really to look forward to at the end of the day. Sadly, putting work before life is seen as a virtue by much of our society. Being alone hasn’t ever really bothered me because I usually would fill my time with art, stories, poetry, and a few other activities. I’ve shared more (but very little) of my art than my poetry (which is to say hardly at all) and rarely (once maybe twice) have I let anyone read any of my stories and no one has ever read a word of my journals. However, my online writing has been read by a few people. Most of that is censored and veiled so that there is a barrier to knowing me from the words I post. I am not completely an introvert but I share very little in common with extroverts, hence the censoring of the things I write. Language has been a kind of magic to me in that, I believe that words can change the world. The trick is knowing which words and who to speak them too. Unfortunately, too many people use words for the wrong reasons. The abuses of words by others has stifled a lot of the things I would write about. I don’t care to debate things with people in my online writing so I avoid many topics because people don’t care to see another perspective and the art of debate or informative argument is largely lost. The exercise of writing and reading for that matter are dying and I was one of the killers because I had stopped putting words into the world. What I write may not mean much but it is something I enjoy doing and who knows perhaps one day I will let someone read a story, but that means they must be somewhere other than in my mind. When I started my online writing over 15 years ago I mused on how does one begin this journey… with one entry and then another. So now to begin again. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it is your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it is not your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, follow, or give a like. Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Invisible Don PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards