What Worries the Worried Man: What worries the worried man, #1

By Albertas Dvirnas

This is a first volume of a collection of stories about many worries of a worried man, including his stories, poems and other writings.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Albertas Dvirnas
• Release date: Dec 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386708322

Book preview

Prologue

Some of the words you are about to read have been written more than 10 years ago. Some of the other words have been written yesterday. Some of the things that are written here about I do not believe in anymore. Some of the other things I have never believed in. Some of the sentences I wrote not thinking that someone else might read them, therefore they are difficult to grasp. Some of the other sentences are like chocolate, they melt into your mind. Some ideas are rushed, some others I have thought about for years before writing on them. This might be noticeable from different styles of writing, different words, thoughts, questions, and issues that are discussed throughout.

There is a connection to all the stories that have been written, all the words that have been said. All the thoughts and all the struggles, all the laughs and all the cries.

It was a warm summer, and I was visiting my grandparents in their village. Usually I would have spent my time there by reading books, since that was the most interesting thing for me to do back then. But I haven’t braught any books with me. So I started thinking instead. Thinking about friends, about peers, about other individuals. I though about how grumpy and full of worries the people in the streets appear. And I decided to create something. Something that would help me solve my worries and get genuinely better, happier, less grumpy person. Something that others could contribute to, or take something from it for themselves, and become better, happier, less grumpy persons themselves.

As we skim through the things I wrote through the years, a huge pile of notes, sketches, stories appear. So it appears that I have written a lot of short works on many subjects ove the years. There have been many things that worried me, and to the best of my ability, I wrote down what worried me and why. I would be much happier if I was able to write about all those worries in one continuous text, which would be involving the reader from the beginning to the end. Which would begin by me being a grumpy, sad, annoyed, worried person and end up in with me being in a much better state. But I was not, and am not capable of that. Very few texts are capable of absorbing my attention from the beginning to the end. Rather, I am struggling with opening the second page for most of the time. Then why would my words, my works, my world be different?

I’ve limited myself to short works, short stories, short essays, that rarely last for more than a thousand words. And I don’t see that changing soon. It has not changed from the beginning of my days as someone who writes things. A short text can captivate attention, and if it does, you are likely to stick to the end. If you’re not captivated, there is always a possibility to find something for yourself in the next text. You have an alternative to just closing the book and moving to some other activity. Besides, in the beginning of every story you can feel confused about some thing, worried about something, and by the end of it, hopefully, you will become, if not less confused, at least more aware of what is happening.

I have had many attempts on writing a book containing my stories. Containing my worries. A book about hopelessness and fighting against the society and reasons why we fight against things, and why we fight against fighting against things. Partly fictional and imaginary, but partly non-fictional and based on my day-to-day experiences. Each story whichever way I would consider better to go by. But in the end I wanted this to be a bit mathematical, a bit comical, a bit scientific, a bit nonsensical, a bit philosophical, and eventually a jolly fun to read. A work that defines who I was, who I am, who I want to be, and who I want others to see me as. I wanted to open up about the state of my many flaws and my inability to act upon them. About things I fail to notice or ignore them even if I do, the bad things I do and how I can not stop them. The imperfections, the stupidity, the law breaking, oath breaking, breaking things, doing illegal stuff, going beyond the borders of being legal or illegal. Going out of comfort zones. Writing in long sentences and in sentences which were only one word long. About breaking relationships, friendships, being shy, shying away from things around me. I knew though that about some of the things I wanted to write about I would never be able to, or incapable of, but I had a lot of empty sheets of paper and a lot of thoughts and ideas and worries about everything in my head in the beginning, and hopefully, one by one, even the hardest topics would soften and the ship could sail through.

I wanted to have some structure but not follow a very well known structure. To be something that I, a person who doesn’t read that much recently, would read with as much pleasure as possible. Something good, but not too good. Something that even people who didn’t know me would find something meaningful and relevant, and wouldn’t have to spend hours looking for it. To that end I am usually shying away from writing about myself. About my feeling, emotions. I leave mostly just my worries for the text. Yet my thoughts, my actions, my ideas, my inner world tries to reach the daylight with my words. Tries to scream out of this book into the world. Even though no one may be listening. Even though no one may care.

So what is this book about, in the end? It is important that I do not blow steam off or get stuck before finishing, or before even writing the first chapter, or even before finishing the prologue. It happened too often for me before, therefore I should avoid it. It would be good to write a list of things to be done in this book, and then try to carefully follow them. As carefully as possible, with some variations. But that is what the table of contents was for?

Chapter 1

Birth of the worried man

PIC

1.1

The first step

It begins with a first letter. A word. First sentence. First snippet about something. A poem. A letter. A short story. An article. There have been many over the years. It started with writings that were not independent at all. Trying to copy a letter from the alphabet to your notebook. Patiently listening to the teacher and trying to write down what the teacher says. Now I feel that it has finally come a time when I can write something really independent. I have copied what others have said over and over again. I have asked the same questions over and over again. I have been repeating the words written in books in my head. But here and now is time to try to break a little, take a pause from the learning how to do things, and grow a little. Ask a new question. Move a topic of a conversation to a direction of your choice. Write while reading.

I feel that I am more concentrated when I try new, untried things. This new kind of food I started to eat, makes me more healthy, or so I feel. And I feel myself getting stronger. Getting closer to that challenging, really worrying task of taking the first step. In some ways I am already becoming weaker, almost falling, forgetting the mathematics of things, but I try to ignore the weak spot, the possibility of falling, and concentrate on the strengthening. Document it.

There is not a very big audience around me, and they are not making this into a competition. I hope to make the first step in a meaningful, joyful, disgusting impossibly to understand how way, or just a little silly way. As long as it is a step. As long as it is a new letter.

It does not matter that a step is not what I really want to do. If I want to fly, being able to make a step is not that important, is it? If I want to deviate from the things I already do, there must be a hidden meaning in making a step. Clearly it is not something you do with your feet.

I would think that what it is exactly does not matter that much at this point. It could be that the first step just means the first worry. The beginning of the long list of worries of the worried man. Or it could be just some side project to a side project. Draft to a draft.

It had a different name at some point. The first spit, I called it. I had gone too much over the edge, and in my attempt to make a first step, I have, with the sound of the full orchestra. Fallen. I have become a man who sweats from all the ridiculous things he says, rather than a man who worries. And the mystical first step has become a mystical failure. And even though I was trying to write genuinely honest things, I just couldn’t go beyond the simple, uncomplicated notions, as I was flat faced