Witt's End

I am obsessed with a perfectly sharpened pencil. The thinnest lead or finest point I can manage. Usually slightly harder than the mean. I don't need it super dark. I need it fast. Sure. Almost forcing a light touch. Scratching not scribbling my prose. One that feels right. Probably moving this way because my handwriting is so damn small.  Recently I've started using fountain pens for my inked needs. Some people choose fountain pens for gravitas or luxury. My change was arguably a more practical one. Being able to write with lighter pressure. Hand injuries build interesting needs. So after a little experimentation I settled on a plastic student and a plastic pocket pen. Both Kawecos with a fine and an extra fine nib respectively. After all of that I came to a realization. I was chasing a first love. A continuing subconscious obsession. The finer and firmer nibbed fountain pens were about chasing the feel of a smooth freshly sharpened pencil. The evidence is obvious. Gravitating ...

I stopped writing for awhile. It was just too hard. There was a block between the pen and the brain. My fingers couldn't put together what I was feeling. And thoughts kept on racing by.  What was strange was it wasn't a lack of energy that kept me back. If anything it was too much. Which is probably strange to more than a few people.  There are times when my brain races. Ideas are a dime a dozen. They just keep coming. Normally I'd take the time to filter. Wait a second. But not at times like this. Every thought seems important. Worthy. I have to catch them all. Chasing until the point of decision paralysis. Every idea needs equal time I can't give.  So then the crash happens. And every idea looks like trash. Pure refuse. What's the point? Other than doubt.  I can't write in that pendulum swing. Not anything worthwhile.  I set a goal this year to write everyday. Develop the mental musculature, the discipline to push through moments. To increase productivity....

Spoken word is strange. Without a way to catch it, record it, what happens? It disappears. Forever.  Airwaves and vibrations dissipating as quickly as they appear.  For centuries, millennia we only had one way to record thoughts. Words. Language. We had to write it down.  We say we can hear the voice of those long past. But we can't. As much as I love the written word it misses so much. Inflection and tone. Breath. Accent. Vowels and consonants.  If only we could have a way to lift that from the written pages of yore. To hear their voice.  The closest is probably music right. Staff paper, notes and lyrics. Maybe that's what's makes it so magical.  I don't know.  I just wonder. What the voices of the past really sounded like. And how we can be sure.  To catch the fleeting thing. The thoughts, the feelings, the moments.  --- There's a reason Shakespeare has had more staying power in the public conscious than Thomas Wyatt or Edmund Spenser. Chri...

  I’m in the Water in the Dark Grasping at Straws I’m flying  Or I’m sinking No between Or so they told me I forgot how to float Or did I never learn I wonder if I have to tread water  Or if I’ll be ok For a moment Just a little while It’s getting dark out here I have to know It’ll be ok If I can’t make the shore 7/12/23

"Change your thoughts, change everything." I keep seeing variations of this quote or idea all over. And it's not horrible. But it's not universally beneficial either.  I don’t disagree with the idea that our thoughts can be the difference. That they can set moods. That they can make the difference in outcomes, mental, emotional, and physical. Thoughts matter. We have to learn how to control them. Develop them. Use them. It’s a more than worthwhile endeavor. It’s just not an equal one. All people have different struggles. Different trials with this.  Uncontrolled moods, intrusive thoughts, physical addictions, traumatic events, neurodivergent struggles, and even brain damage. They all wreak havoc on one’s cognition. Purposeful thought isn’t as easy for some as it is for others. The amount of effort required is different.  At one point in my life, I'd convinced myself I still had pain. There was racing anxiety that accompanied my every move. The line between physica...

 I'm writing this while I sit at 3,999 views on this blog. That seems insane. I'll be crossing 4,000 when I post this. The fact people actually read anything I write is astounding to me. Especially at the volume that's occurred over the last couple years.  I think the only thing I can say is thank you. Thank you all.  And I'm going to post a few links to those posts I'm proud of that got a bit overlooked.  Once again. Thank you all.  https://wittcase.blogspot.com/2021/08/how-hard-it-is-for-those-who-love-us.html https://wittcase.blogspot.com/2022/07/opinions-can-be-reason.html https://wittcase.blogspot.com/2022/07/experience.html https://wittcase.blogspot.com/2022/04/loving-unabashedly.html https://wittcase.blogspot.com/2022/04/its-way-my-mind-works.html https://wittcase.blogspot.com/2022/03/how-much-is-me-how-much-is-insert.html https://wittcase.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-mind-mouth-and-pen.html

We all have moments where we are screaming into the void. Times where we sound unheard. Where the cacophony of life just drowns us out.  I was there for a very very long time. I finally feel like I have the surety and confidence to be heard above that. I'm not who I was in the past. Part of what was holding me back could have been not knowing what to say. Not having something to say. It was not just the surety, but the lack that informed so much of the discourse that came out of my mouth, and from my pen. I'm struggling to express exactly how much it means to be a little more free. Physical fatigue can do that. But where my body is tired, my mind is not. It's free. It's free because I'm both standing true to my convictions, and I'm being more (almost radically) honest about who I am and what I'm going through.  I spent so much of my life crushing under uncertainty. Under trying to figure out not just who I am, how I belong, but how I'll express what I...

  I have some things I want to write that I don’t have the skill to put to paper. I truly feel like I can read it in my head, but I don’t have the technical writing skill to put in on paper. I’m in between quarters at school. I’m working on my mental, physical, spiritual, and relational help. It’s time to try something about it. For 52 days I’m going to do my German duolingo, workout, and write a post. It’s going to be scheduled. Possibly tedious and frustrating. But I hope it will bear dividends. It’s time to get consistent. I flit and I need to stop and focus. I have outlines, paragraphs, and half finished pieces galore. It’s time to complete them and get them out there. That means structure. Here’s my schedule: Monday-Blogger Tuesday-Blogger Wednesday-Blogger Thursday-Medium Friday-Substack Saturday-Blogger Sunday-Blogger I’m doing it this way to spread the load. And hopefully. Get more interactions and feedback. Because I want to get better. Those things that I don’t know how t...

I stared at a page tonight. I haven't done that in a very long time.  It's strange though. It wasn't for the lack of something to write. I had the ideas. I even have the outline. I just don't have the drive. I don't have the energy. I hope that it comes back. Soon.  But if not. I'll still try tomorrow.

  Winter’s coming but fall isn’t over yet. We have to remember that. The nights run shorter and shorter. The days get colder. Frost and cloudy skies are soon to be omnipresent. With the change imminent my mind pushes into overdrive. I’m writing nonstop. Leaning into the skid. Pens only leave paper so I can type on a keyboard. I don’t know why I have this push now. But I’m going to use the motivation to dig deeper and find out.

 David fell. Solomon fell. Judas betrayed the Christ with a kiss. Peter denied the Christ three times before the Cock crowed. Gideon rose up against insurmountable odds. Jonathan stayed faithful. Stephen stayed true a martyr. Paul redeemed himself from his time and actions as Saul. Which side of the coin am I on? Where does my character lie? At this time I'm struggling to know for sure. Am I one who showed great promise and falls when tested? Or am I steady? I don't know and that often scares me.

I've been writing more about my health lately. I feel driven too. Yet trepidation about it. I want to be open, honest. I want to reach out and share what this is like that I'm going through. Mental health, physical symptoms. I do it so people don't feel alone and so I can process what I'm going through. I'm not looking for sympathy or pity. I would despise that kind of attention. It's why so much of this has been staying on the blog and not making it to social media profiles. Tonight I find myself dealing with one of my oldest friends. The ceiling. I fell asleep for an hour tonight and boom. Awake all over again. Attempting to close my eyes all over again just makes my heart race, thoughts go crazy.  If I wake in the night, it's over. That's it. Sleep is done. There's a threshold I cross and I can't go back.  Since my teens this has been a problem. It got worse on my mission. Was essential to the Army. Now it drives me through graveyards.  Some s...

  I feel like things are just slipping through my fingers. I feel like I can’t focus. The meds help for an hour or two. Then the worry sets in. I’m falling further and farther behind. Every noise is happening in my head at once. Simultaneously I’m gathering information on five conversations, the TV, my water heater. My shirt is overwhelming against my skin. I don’t even feel like my body is in it’s normal proportions, the cotton feels like it’s ice on my skin. Sharp yet soft all at once. Breathing for a little while. It helps. For a moment. I scoff that I don’t have time to worry today. I’m struggling to get through the present. That’s a blessing in and of itself.  The exhaustion is gone today. The pain takes a back seat. Everything else is just overwhelming. I can’t process it. Going to the store. I hung on somehow. Yet everything was telling me to run. The whole time I was screaming inside. I’m sure my face looked pained, possibly deranged. I know I couldn’t manage a smile w...

  My tongue almost never matches my mind. It’s the honest frustrating truth. But luckily sometimes the pen can. For a lot of people who know me. That may be a bit or surprise. I’m sorry extroverted. I can make small talk easily. But I often just feel misunderstood. I have this thing where I feel like I can’t quite capture and express my thoughts as well verbally as they are in my head. I know I’m not alone with my his struggle.  Slowing down my brain with paper helps me develop the clarity None of us like to be tripping over words or to be fumbling around to express ourselves. But if often happens. I know my mind and my mouth get in a ridiculous race with each other. Taking it to my fingers eliminates that competition.  It allows for more processing and contemplation. A more completeness in my ideas. That doesn’t say I entirely ignore racing ahead to jot a note for something I want to say later, but it allows me to process the task more completely. As a really visually fo...

I don't know if I make a difference. I just know I've faced some trials. Trials I felt alone and isolated to experience. I just want to find a way to share that experience. To let people know that they are not alone.  I've struggled with faith. With doubt. Spirituality, my relationship with my Savior, with scripture. It's not always been smooth. It's something I don't always think has the tough discussions. Those tough conversations that need to be had. I may not always have the answers, but I want to ask tough questions, I want to have rough conversations, and I want to be honest and open about both my faith and my doubts. I've talked, written, felt like screaming about mental health. Especially the stigmas that involve it. I don't think people feel they can be as open or as raw about their mental or behavioral struggles as much as they could or even should be. Especially men and boys. I hope that in time we can change that. I've addressed some poli...

There is something about the quiet of fresh snow. The literal dampening effect that those thousands, millions, crystals of frozen water has is beyond compare. A dark night, no traffic, with some fresh snow, it's one of my favorite settings. I've always enjoyed the night. Felt more alive, more connected, more me. Winter seems to make it more so. Summer nights are just a continuation of what came before, never-ending. A night in winter, it's emphatic, it's an ending, a definitive punctuation.  Looking out the window at the current snow fall, it's made the night go faster. It's beautiful. Yet it still leaves the right touch of the melancholic.  It's time like these in the middle of December where I find myself running one of my two favorite Christmas songs in my head. That gem from Meet Me in St.Louis, with the line I love,  "Someday soon we all will be together If the fates allow Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow So have yourself a merry...

This blog is about to get a lot more use. I've got a lot of drafts I've been working on. So I'm going to start coalescing some of my ideas from scattered thoughts to a defined idea. And then share them with the world. One to two posts a week. Some of it may be spiritual. Some may be policy based. But all are going to be me sharing my ideas.

I’ve often written poetry and never really had a forum to share it. I went a few years without writing and last year it just started happening again over the summer and here’s some of the them. I’ll divide them my dates. Hopefully people enjoy them and we can see what happens. July 13th 2017 It's not as if I ever stopped writing before. But I need to listen Feel Put the pen to paper It's time again August 21st 2017 At once A darkened sky Reminds of light Even when complete Rays finger across the sky The day is never vanquished It can't be

I write a lot but a lot of people don't probably know that. It's cathartic for me but it's so much more than that. It's where I have found my voice and it's time I start sharing that. I hope that maybe some of these ramblings mean something to someone. Who knows if they'll even be read or not. I don't know. But this is something I've been really truly thinking about. It's something I feel I should do. And this is a fairly public forum but let's see what happens.