Resilience diary - pain today: 6/10. Photo: "Äḏāpṯ" I started writing poetry again through my fifteenth year, i was a normal kid living a pretty comfortable life but with some heavy stuff just below the surface that i had no reference point to learn from. My hospital days were indefinitely on pause until necessary (and would give me twenty years) and so i needed a way to process and understand myself, finding role models through my reading which was voracious. I read a book or more a week at the start and then grew that as i aged. School was a great place to hide from others and just read. I read mostly crime fiction such as Grisham or Dick Francis, but every now and then i'd peak back into my philosophy book and absorb a page or three until my mind went into overdrive and I'd be ok for a few weeks as the dust settled. I wrote poems mostly about my emotions and the challenges of my body though the meanings like much of my writings are hidden deeper in the words, like hiding a treasure in plain sightsight, poetry gave me a literary freedom by giving me boundaries and rules to make up and follow. So i wrote. I don't know where those books are today but i wrote for the next 5-7 years until real life stepped in and my focus was on working and paying bills which took energy away from writing, though the thoughts were there still, and the reading. #project117 #adapt #change #choices #learn

Resilience diary - pain today: 4/10. Photo: "Šøłvẽď" I'd continued my religious studies for another two years after my bar mitzvah finishing with something called a ben emunah. I throughly enjoyed those discussions which complemented my other readings in philosophy and it was strong this time where something clicked that gave me the answers to the contradictions i was seeing in religion and mainly the belief in God which i had fit a few years by then given up on. What i theorised as i was myself going through a existential period mentally so would have many peeled before me and the idea of creating an answer to this problem of existing and one of those answers being God i think is quite likely. Then bring in to that community the experience of the collective on how to survive that turns into stories as they are easier to remember and share and you have a group of people working together to live as long as possible. I could see the value in religion but couldn't believe anymore, living in a time of change i understood i didn't need religion to survive now, we had other ways of sharing survival tips. My path to nihilism was being formed but i'd learn to swing it slightly off its pure form, I'd learnt how to be happy, to be sad, upset, joyous, all the feelings that moments bring, and that's where my focus would be, on moments, in moments, and stuffing as many of them as i could into my life. I knew I'd die and couldn't see any reason I'd exist in some way after, this is what I've got, it's terrifying but accepting it helps, i don't always accept it and sometimes cry in the sadness of the thought, but then i Think backwards and i don't remember anything before i existed so let's stick with that and find my moments and be happy because i can be. #project117 #problems #solutions #answers #fear

Resilience diary - pain today: 5/10. Photo: "Šávěḏ" Overwhelmed is probably the best word to describe my fifteenth year. As the mind grapples with physical changes at the same time as trying to figure out what to do in life, the options are too many and it takes a bit to sort out and find what's right for you. For me it was scouts, i started to pour myself into every corner of it, becoming a leader of the unit myself allowing me to get into the relatively simple organisation structure and the decision makers behind policies and awards and things. I was finding that there were options that weren't physical which i struggled with and weren't academic which i found difficult to study as school and i disagreed on subjects i hoped for, these options were based around fun and people, connecting and talking to people and negotiating or mediating the topics that came up. This is where my most treasured skill was born, learning how to communicate, it's something i still work on as there is always a different way to share information and the more ways gives more options and understanding that makes daily life easier to navigate. We're a copy adjust paste bunch of beings and communicating is one of the advantages we have in doing this simple process, we advance together. #project117 #teenager #choices #overwhelmed #options

Resilience diary - pain today: 6/10. Photo: "Šǒłíṯűḏě" I asked my best mate who's currently visiting me what age we were when we met, he has a better memory for that sort of stuff that me and i was wrong when remembering it the other day and am a year ahead of myself there. I started work the following year at sixteen, not fifteen where my story currently lies. I think i found fifteen to be the most difficult year mentally in the first half of my life. It was the first time i felt depression and actually stopped walking over a bridge between home and the train station for fear of what i might do to myself. I think it's hard as a teenager where everyone older than you knows better and you want to know as well but don't have the experience to have the knowledge but try anyway. Figuring out that life is a once only option and it's short and complicated and difficult and seemingly based on luck no matter how hard you try. I hated school and had no friends and had a disability i was ignoring but knew it would and really was controlling my life and i hated that. I wanted to be free to choose what i wanted and my body didn't work like that. It took me a long time to accept it Abn's I'm still not there yet but I'm trying to listen. #project117 #solitude #lonely #choices #teenager

Resilience diary - pain today: 6/10. Photo: "Ğúêśṯbǒóķ" Part 5: The last day of this monstrous hike finished the loop by passing the hut we stayed in the first night before heading back down the incredibly steep hill to the car where we met our leaders who were driving us home. Each of the huts or most of them anyways have a guestbook to sign if one wishes to and is usually a good idea in case one gets lost. We had been signing the books with a rude name as we were young and stupid and we got caught out. There were other groups hiking the trails as well and one we met was doing a middle loop that happened to cross our leaders path where they were informed of mischief and subsequently caught us off guard when grilled about this when we met up again. I found it quite surprising that even in the middle of the Aussie bush coincidence and chance have plenty of opportunity to happen and that was a huge lesson for me. I accepted the mistake as i was co leading this trip and had to take responsibility. As i did i understood that anything can happen and to be aware of it, enjoy when it works in your favour and keep trying when it doesn't. Give life a chance basically, and so i started to. #project117 #guestbook #hikingstories #teen #stories