I’ve thought a lot recently about what makes somebody a good person. I don’t consider successful as a requirement: in fact, there’s a definite detriment the more successful someone becomes. A strong grip on reality is absolutely crucial, and an unalterable seam of honesty within them is also a bonus. However, my number one requirement is consistency.
For someone like me, whom it is often easy to fool because my brain does not process information as others do, knowing someone is not lying to you is absolutely essential for trust. It’s why, in the last decade, I’ve done a lot of work on the emotional resonance that individuals present. I read work very closely indeed, as that’s often a subconscious marker of intent, both obvious and subtle.
It’s why poetry becomes a better explanation of motive than many people realise.
A good story is often not that at the time, and by this I mean that when you’re stuck in the middle of an emotionally hurtful situation, you’re not ever capable of thinking past that moment to see what’s happening to you as a learning experience. Stories are all written as learning experiences, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Some people call it entertainment, but they’re wrong.
They might be wish fulfilment for the author, sure, or an exercise in technical competence. However, the stories that stick to you, that create new ideas within and drag the mind outside the confines of its own restraints are the ones that challenge you to help others. All religious doctrines are also an instruction manual to what their creators considered an ideal lifestyle.
Every good story has the potential to permanently alter the reader.
This post is the beginning of a new story related to my contest-winning pamphlet. I’ve always been of the mindset that contests and awards are only as good as the organisations and individuals that create them: the last six months hasn’t altered that mindset one iota. Yesterday, someone asked me a question about Forest Management and I didn’t have an answer I could immediately provide.
I spent the vast majority of Thursday working out what that answer was. Now that this information exists, it is impossible to unknow. I knew, in my heart, that the reality was there, it had simply not been considered objectively. Now it has been, there’s a new journey to begin. I need to give a massive hug to Louise Longson at this point, and thank her for becoming both motivation and support.
Louise is also the person who unlocked in me the ability to get this far.
Louise is an amazingly good person. We first met a lifetime ago in a Zoom room. Her support for Substack has been a massive comfort in what has been a very difficult time, and her poetry is a reminder that your work is a mirror of your own value. I know she will be reading this too. Without her, this journey would probably have never begun at all.
She saw me, and made me feel known. At the moment it happened, it was exactly what I required to move forward. Yesterday, another female poet saw me, and made it clear she wanted to help, and has done just that. This post could therefore become a prologue to a story that, as yet, does not have an end. However, what matters most of all is not where this narrative will end up.
What is more significant is that it has begun for the right reasons.