A Rain of Frogs

There is an old saying, that a tiger cannot change its stripes. It’s a saying I believe in. I believe people cannot change their fundamental nature.

We can change our outlook. We can change our education levels and even our responses to stimuli, but we cannot change the essence of ourselves.

An overbearing person will continue to be overbearing, in thought, at least, if not in fact. Their instinctive response will always be to take control of a given situation, and bulldoze anyone who stands in their way. While they may master the instinctive response, it will always be there, and situations of great stress will cause them to revert to their “natural” state.

The same applies to those with self-esteem issues. Even if they appear, on the surface to be confident, they are merely mastering their natural response to stress.

The arrogant, the meek, the loud, the rebellious, the sociopathic, all of these people are the way they are, and no matter how it appears on the outside, will continue to be that way in situations of great stress.

It is plainly visible in online communities, where a person previously abusive to any particular group in the community will suddenly settle into something resembling “responsible” behavior, only to lapse back into their abusive, attention-seeking ways at a later date. They cannot be changed, and any attempt to alter their behavior will eventually be to the community’s detriment.

How this has any relevance to the readers of this site is utterly beyond me, but I am sure everyone will find some connection. That I consider myself something of an authority on the dynamics of online communities is also irrelevant, not to mention arguable.

Anyone else have a head full of ideas that never seem to get out into the wild? A mind like one of those lottery machines you see on late-night local news, the ones full of numbered balls that spin and spin and spin around agitating the numbers, teasing them into something that approaches, but just fails to seduce, random?

That’s me.

My father once observed that because of this head full of inspiration I’d be dangerous if I had money. I nodded smugly when he said that, but totally failed to qualify his statement by noting that I’d also have to have some dedication or drive to make anything happen.

It doesn’t really matter though, I think. I have my list of 101 things, I have my ideas. Ideas that are coming to this blog, but not until I finish off the community site I run. The appetite of those at that site needs to be sated before I move on.

Once I get that site done, this site, A Rain of Frogs, will become my primary creative focus. I am going to try to expand it from a rather poorly designed blog to something more fulfilling, both from my side of the equation and yours. Something more fun to both read and write.

There’ll be games, and stories, and photographs, and all kinds of associated goodies. Then the only thing that will be missing is readers. Kind of like my community site, actually.

I don’t let that get me down. While the community site is for others, this site is all for me.

And that, my friends, is pretty liberating.

Apple and Intel? The world must surely be ending, and R.E.M. forgot to include it in the lyrics.

Who cares.

Does it really, cosmically speaking, matter if Apple changes to Intel processors? The world will still continue to spin, the sun will continue to rise, and set. Corporations will continue to buy our soul one fad at a time, and we’ll all smile and take it like good little consumers.

What needs to happen is that people need to turn off their televisions, turn off their computers, and go outside. That big burning thing in the sky is called the sun, and it’s the source of all life on this planet.

That green stuff under your feet is called grass, and it smells amazing when it’s been freshly cut. Those tall things? Trees. We make paper out of them. We make houses out of them too. But the best thing to make out of them is an afternoon of fun. Go climb up into one. Hey, I can see your house from up here!

Those colored things? The ones in a million different varieties? We call those flowers, and while you’ve all been sitting inside at your computers, electronically debating how the the end is nigh, they’ve been sitting right there waiting for you. Waiting for you to come and smell them.

I’ll be waiting outside for you. It’s hot, and sunny. I’ve got a beer with your name on it, and there’s two chairs out on the back deck. Maybe afterward we can climb that tree, and see if we can drop water balloons on people as they rush home to their televisions, their little prisons, and their eventual deaths.

We’ll still be giggling long after that Seinfeld episode is over.

The long dark teatime of the soul, Douglas Adams called it.

I am using it in a slightly different way than he did though. For him, it was rainy sunday afternoons. For me, it’s that time of day, usually between two and three in the afternoon, when my failure to sleep any healthy length of time the night before begins to make my brain twitch.

This deep cranial twitching usually causes me to start typing in strange and unusual manners which only pale in comparison to the way I start thinking. Bizarre, impossible thoughts occur, and eventually, while focusing my diminished cognitive powers on the task at hand, tunnel vision sets in. And then the out of body experiences. No light at the end of the tunnel vision though, unless you count the cheery glow of a computer monitor.

No amount of coffee can overcome the Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul. Fortunately for me, the episode is usually short in duration, twenty to thirty minutes, at which point perhaps adrenaline kicks in and I sail through the rest of the day with a slight tick under my left eye.

It’s always worth it though, even on Thursdays. Especially on Thursdays.

You should try it.

An Historical Downpour is a new featurette of Rain. It won’t be common, but once in a while I will feature something I wrote on a different blog under a penname. I hope you enjoy.

Originally posted as “The big black smear” at 4:45PM on February 3, 2004.

When you think about the Internet, you sit there and think of all the amazing things you could say if you had the time. You’re full of ideas, and there’s a massive audience out there. The potential!

And then the Internet gives you exactly what you want, a blog for which you are completely responsible, and the weight of the task suddenly becomes apparent.

It’s just another example of the “blank canvas problem.”

When I was in university, I remember staring at a blank canvas. Not just any blank canvas, but a huge canvas 60 inches wide and 30 inches from top to bottom. It was almost bigger than me. It was also terrifying. I had never before been stumped by so much empty raw potential.

At the end of the session, I was asked why my canvas remained empty. I explained to the TA that I was a failure as an artist, that I was afraid of the canvas. She laughed and picked up my brush. Holding it directly in front of her, she looked me square in the eye and said “You’re scared of yourself. If that much emptiness scares you, FILL IT!” And with that, she ran a great big black smear across the canvas.

I stared at that gash of blackness and suddenly ideas flowed into my head. I packed my stuff up, ran home, and painted all night. That particular canvas is now hanging in my parents dining room, and I consider it one of my best.

So, here it is, my big black gash in this otherwise empty space. Hopefully I’ll be able to create something as enduring and interesting as that university painting.