rioting and my thoughts

Because it is pertinent, I wish to muse slightly on the thoughts I’ve been having on the riots around the UK.

Whilst the majority of daily mail readers have been claiming that a breakdown of family values is to blame and the majority of guardian readers have been blaming runaway consumerism/poverty (which I was fully behind until I started thinking), I had a good long think this morning about it and came up with this.

The events of the last few days are really down to the concept of justice.

The rioters themselves, whilst perhaps not thinking this consciously, are enacting their own idea of justice. Flawed though it is, it is a retaliation to the injustice observed in authoritative bodies enacting power over them; be that the government, media, police or other less than ethical group. To the rioters the idea of taking things isn’t seen as a balanced equation, they are aware it is wrong but view ‘wrong’ as something which is corrected by the authorities and whilst the authorities are doing ‘wrong’, they think that their own ‘wrong’ is less wrong than the ‘wrong’ enacted by those higher in society. Besides, they are stupid enough to ignore the fact that something remains wrong if they are caught or not. A lot are self-justifying their actions. I shouldn’t wonder if this is an attempt to circumvent the guilt that they would be exposed to if they were to think about the people they have actually hurt (members of their own community and the next generation who will grow up with even less freedom).

Those in the media and those swallowing it are observing the events of the last few days and thinking about nothing except the present injustice. They are ignoring the fact that Cameron is a hypocrite who has himself enacted random acts of criminal damage in his own childhood. They are also ignoring the fact that there is an injustice at the heart of all this which, should one consider the issues, will uncover the real issue that society must face.

The idea of Liberty.

I am a person who is free to live my life as I see fit. My liberty is secure on condition that I do not impose force over another person and disrupt their liberty. It is ethically wrong to murder, enslave or steal from anther human being because these acts disrupt their liberty. It is ethically wrong to use force on anyone; whether is is by trickery, unfair transaction or by using violence. (*)

So now we come to government. I am at liberty to choose a leader. Those around me can choose to follow that same leader. In our country we have democracy, which isn’t perfect but it avoids a conflict of leadership amongst those in government. So leading from the idea of democracy, those that we choose to represent us are subject to the same rules as a single person. They are not above anyone, they are just chosen to do the job of protecting and providing a service to us.

They do not have the right to enact force against anyone in our name. (Lets ignore my thoughts on war in general, otherwise we will be here all day). So now we come to the crux of things.

People are calling for violence against those who are rioting and whilst we have the right to request others to defend us, we do not have the right to use violence done to us as an excuse to perpetrate the violence against another person/s.

People have lost sight of the purpose of the government and our own responsibilties as a society to ensure that the least of us are protected in every sense. We have a responsibility to walk through life with our eyes open.

So whatever the NUMEROUS causes for the riots (there will be as many reasons as there are rioters), let’s remember that we ignore philosophical issues at our peril and the longer we ignore justice and ethics the worse things will decline.

I’ve been thinking about a lot more, but I need a break from typing.

(*) I believe that the media tricks us and fools the masses on a daily basis, that the government steals from us in the form of taxes (more through the misuse of those funds to wage war and bail out bankers – actual schemes like the police (when acting ethically) and social care are a fair transaction), our employers are under the false assumption that they pay for our lives and not just our time and lastly that violence is perpetrated in our name on a moment by moment basis because we subscribe to an unregulated authority which does not consult us (though this is partly due to the shortcoming/failure of democracy.)

my nurse, put me to bed.

because i made a promise to blog, but my mind is a little scattered, this blog will be a blog based on random, seemingly separate, thoughts. a mind sneeze.

 

i have re-connected with a friend who i never really knew when we were in the same physical location, but thanks to the power of the internet we are now good friends.

 

i can’t believe that only one month (or longer) (or shorter) ago I was singing britney spears in a packed pub. it wasn’t even karaoke.

 

i will feel sad when i have to take my art down from the walls in my bedroom. i am no longer moving out, but i think i still need to take them down to motivate me to leave.

 

i want to make a home movie tomorrow.

 

i need to remember to finish doing the photograph for the aforementioned friend.

 

there are riots in liverpool and i really don’t care. i mean, i care that it is all pointless, but a lot of what we do is pointless. most of it is just walking around. i do that all the time; I, therefore, identify. or perhaps I really don’t care at all. I’m not sure and I don’t want to think about riots.

 

i would like to try my luck at moving away for a little while this year. perhaps i will move to a different country. then i can come back and start university somewhere.

 

i used to cry at night, when i was a kid – because i was convinced that i would never find someone just like me.

 

the dogs that i live with are howling. we are their pack, they are trying to locate us. we know where we are. they would know if they stopped howling and thought about it.

 

i regret not being able to be friends with The Grin, she was funny. i miss her story-telling voice. i don’t even think she knows that she does that.

 

i might just lock myself away from the world in a little room somewhere in silent contemplation.

 

my sense of ‘fair’ came from a kids tv show where the boys get £10 (between the two of them) for saving a man’s life. ever since i’ve found it hard to believe fairness exists in the world. if even fiction can’t be fair, who will believe the world could be better?

 

i am really tired.

 

i talked honestly with someone about The Smile Reverser tonight. i actually talked more openly than i do in this.

 

my home movie idea is me drinking something and then reversing the film. i hope it looks as cliché and pretentious as possible.

 

i am going to sleep.

a feeling not as fickle as love.

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I know that I write so that I can make a living, some day. But now I’m worried about my characters. Even if they are real.

God.

Most of the people I write about are real. So when they die, that is that. So I need to write about them, to capture them (if I can).

Most of the time I do that, in my journals. I write people as they are, no shields up, no gimmicks.

Without a single declaration of love, there is no one I won’t try to save the way I save people. Even the people I hate, I save.

Right, back to the work.

I do love you.

You know who ‘you’ are.

I love you, but I can’t say it to your face and will never allow myself that close to another living being. So in the absence of calling it ‘love’, I cannot live without you. Even if you are far from me, there will always be the show of affection. There will always be the place in my heart. A feeling not as fickle as love.

outgrowing your own skin

Well the Laura Marling gig was EPIC! Had an amazing time around Manchester that day and then she goes and plays a new song just for us!

Colour me happy! After about 12 months of not being able to listen to her without getting homesick for my old life and the Bath times, I’ve now got new memories of the songs and they’ve pretty much overwritten what was there before.

In terms of the missing of Bath. Its mostly gone now. I haven’t thought about the place for weeks and if I had it didn’t make me sad, it just made me happy that I had such a lovely time there. I’m no bitterness left in me for the ex. I’ve no sadness about old friends cutting me loose. I’m half-glad they ignored my illness and disowned me, otherwise I’d have had a link to that past life and would have felt the need to reconnect with it. It makes it easier to get on with things with a clean slate. Except, I sort of do want them to talk to me again, if only that they are aware of the novel I’m writing and can tell me what to put in and what not to, according to their feelings.

I guess the same goes for the ex, ex, ex… how many has it been since then… there’ll be no input from her, so I can just write, it doesn’t matter. Except I still respect her and don’t want to upset things. Even though it will be billed as fiction, its still mostly true.

I’d not really want to chatter lots to any of them. I am still a little upset that they were that fickle and cast a sick person out of their lives over a few mistakes. It just annoys me that I didn’t understand that, I just believed they were better. I was a fool. So no chattering but, the ex and the old friends would be okay as acquaintances. Just people that are there, that exist, that both they and I would just be amicable. Then I could forgive them. Forgive for a small sign of their maturity. It would only take their step first… one foot, one hello, one email, not even a sorry, just ignore everything and ask how I’m doing. That small act would allow me to forgive the old me. Prove that I wasn’t wrong for loving them, that they were worthy of that. That would help and it would be over completely. No hard feelings and a rounded, planet-like curve to things would end it all.

Overall, I guess I’ve just gradually dealt with things and they’ve healed up, but there is just one long seam that will remain open until I can finally forgive the old me.

Course, I’m still not healed up in the mental health sense. It is still a battle to get through life sometimes. Like tonight for example. Most of today was fine. I got myself a new pipe, some strawberry tobacco and even went out for lunch with a friend before taking to the green for a smoke of the new blend. Except when I came home, that’s when it all started. The panic again, this heart-droopingly sick feeling. I play a little Harmonica to take my mind off things. Still nothing. I go out and smoke some more. Still nothing.

I go to bed and I weep.

It does not help to weep, it takes me back through my past to every time I’ve wept before.

To Alpine Gardens on those final days, a kitchen knife in one hand and the other balled up and punching my heart.

To Henrietta Street, but I wont say why.

To The Cottage, weeping at the usual empty worthless life.

Through more and back to the end of the first year. Where death was as close to me as Alpine Gardens.

And right now, I sort of wish that I’d already given up.

translation from the drunken

Written last night… translated from utter gibberish.

Tonight I’ve ventured to the outer mindset. Instead of saying ‘no’, I’ve said ‘yes please’.

We started off to the sound of a text message ringing in the pocket. A mate… we’ll call him ‘Hung’ called me to sort out a meet at the Pilgrim. So we arranged to met there.

Only instead there was an hours gap between our arrangement and our actual meeting.

I took the time to run up to the second floor and see if there wasn’t something more interesting than the game going on. Indeed there was. Lovely live music. A bass player, a guitarist and a drummer. All slamming tunes. Who they were is not important, they really weren’t THAT good.

After a long time listening, I came downstairs to meet with Hung.

He brought along some friends. D, M and Dn. All lovely peoples. D was Irish I think, a cute girl who looked like she should be singing, not doing set design. M and Dn were both lovely guys, we all hit it off pretty quickly.

Ignore the next 3 hours of drunkenness. We all laugh, we eat chips, we chatter ceaselessly.

Then we are back at Hung’s house. We get bored there and then go out to a pub nearby. We meet with L and T. T is a busker and had just gotten off from a night doing just that. They we all wandered back to Hung’s house and drank cider, smoked, watched Withnail and I. Great stuff.

See, I would usually have called it a night. I’d have left after the third pint. I’d have wandered away and lamented. Instead, I decided that I’d say ‘FUCK IT’ and just do what I wanted to do. I actually asked myself the question. I said to myself ‘Do you want to stay out?’, ‘Do you want another pint?’, ‘Do you want to live? Or give up now?’. Its plenty easy to answer honest questions. How about this one?

Why do I dislike nights out with people, why do I go so early? Do I hate people?

No, I love people (as you well know) so I answer it honestly. I don’t like feeling out of control.

So I realise this fact and just cut back. I decline the next few rounds, start to sober up. Good. I get level again and I’m able to just be happy again.

I like nights out like these. Where everything is less about choice and more about how much you sink to indulge. I do so quite merrily.

We ended the evening with Withnail and I. How better to show the world how it can go fuck itself.

I really mean that. The whole wide world can go fuck itself. Or so we sang in Sunday School.

Joy. So much of it, that it might be known by another name. Happiness.

how to be free

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The book I’m reading ‘How to be Free, by Tom Hodgkinson is without doubt the best novel I have come across since reading Jay Griffiths ‘Pip, Pip’ and ‘Wild: An Elemental Journey’ – it’s packed to the brim with useful facts that do what all good books should: open the mind.
His ideas are recycled and collated, rather than being original, but that doesn’t make them unworthy. I would not have known half the information that he has presented without this tomb. So I give thanks for his care and passion in writing it.

Rather than a self-help book aimed at fixing a broken life, he instead demonstrates that there is an innate wholeness within everyone and that we need to overcome certain modern obstacles in order to access our inbuilt fullness. Obstacles like TV and working life. Like newspapers and the adverts that infect our world. Hurdles like bills and the need to outsource in order to fix our problems. He’s not a crank, not some preacher. He’s well aware of his own limitations.

What he presents is an example of the things we can do to better our position in life. By tuning out the TV’s attempt to entertain and rely instead on our own creativity; whatever that may be. Picking up an instrument, learning a language, learning a craft. We can exercise our mind and souls and come out the other side without the faintest hint of boredom.

He knows that our modern world holds a great deal of pleasures, not least of all: drink, sex, music, film, tobacco, dance, photography. However we are often at the mercy of our jobs and cannot devote the time needed to truly extract joy from life.

How, in a nine-to-five profession, can we do anything but wake, work, eat and sleep. We complain about not having enough hours in the day. His answer, do less. It’ll turn out that you’re actually doing more. We consume out of lethargy. So why not use our idleness to our advantage. Rather than going to the effort of toiling away at a job, why don’t we just spent a couple of hours a day making something we can trade or sell.

TV is just a wind-down before sleep overtakes us again anyway. Nowadays, music is something we buy, rather than something we create. Ask any musician what they would rather be doing, working or playing music and there’s an obvious response. We needn’t have to buy music to enjoy it, instead we should venture into the streets and listen to buskers and go to gigs. We should drink and be merry and bring back the tavern. We need to turn our creative out-put into a means of permitting an ongoing lifestyle. We need to start producing rather than consuming. Self-sufficiency becomes the staple, the ideal, the tool to keep the wolf from the door. The wolves of tax inspectors, debt collectors and all other deplorable types.

What I have taken, though not what was detailed, is that instead of ‘my’ pack of cigarettes it is rather ‘our’ pack. Instead of ‘my’ money, it is ‘our’ money. Money that changes hands as quickly as we eat, travel, play and read. If I make something it is only ‘mine’ for the fact that someone else hasn’t made it first. What sort of idea is that? That the food I am eating was grown on land that actually belongs to all of us, not some private force. So I’m learning the harmonica, I’m not doing that to only play for myself. So I can use that to enrich other people’s lives and they will in turn enrich my own.

So from today, if someone asks me for a cigarette I will say – “sure, you can have one of our cigarettes.”

I will work to chip away my debt and learn a new way of earning money after that. It might be hard, but it’ll be a damn-sight more enriching than working in some crummy retail space for less money than my life is worth.

Anyway, the book is a joy. It is enlightening. Go read it!

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on gardens and old mythology

They say that just after the beginning of our race. In fact, right after our exclusion from a certain botanically-themed Auschwitz of our pure origin. They say that there were angels who came down to teach us the ways of living. Those sweet, winged creatures who taught us how to smelt metals, how to use plants as medicine, how to write and the power of numbers. Those beasts that should have taught us one thing above all else, how to survive the god-shaped hole in our hearts.

Now, anyone who knows me knows that my ‘god-shaped hole’ idea (as well as not being original) is not literally a hole awaiting the puzzle piece of the almighty to complete it, but is in fact actually a inexplicably tricky void in my life that seems to contain limitless sadness and depression without source, nor any signs of ceasing.

To the void, I raise a glass. You have not claimed me yet, though you fought admirably.

I’m coming out of a depression right now, which is good, but the transition always leaves me waxing lyrical on the miracle that I managed to keep going. After all, anyone continually in pain would not be altogether unhappy to see an end to it.

The void is a lack of purpose. A lack of meaning. The void, for me, is made of the great unanswered question. The one that I feel needs answering, if I am to make it to a ‘Notebook’-esk ending to my life. The wrinkled splendor of closed-eyes, a spittle-wetted pillow and no further need for breath.

In short, I want to know why I’m here. I want simply to have a reason to go on. I want a flicker of passion for life. I want… nay! Recklessly seek out a purpose to this mess of life. 

Back to the bible, albeit briefly. In the garden of Eden there were two trees. The Tree of Knowledge (from whence we ate) and The Tree of Life (of which we did not partake).

So did the Fruit of Knowledge give us curiosity as a form of stomach upset? Do I ache, like many questioning minds before me, because there is one question we need to find some answer to. Even if it is ‘we’ who create it for ourselves?

The puzzle for me was in the choice presented. Here’s how I see it.

Would one choose the ability to understand the universe (The Tree of Knowledge’s boon) over, say eternal life (granted by The Tree of Life’s fruit)?

I would have chosen The Tree of Life because, simply, I have the long-held belief that we’d all be living in a paradise if we didn’t know anything of the world (or sin) – (We’d still be wandering about like children without a rusty Sword of Damocles above us. Or upturned hourglass, if you prefer that analogy).

Now, I’ve met a fair few who were greedy enough to say both and excepting that there was possibly that choice, I would have to say that would have put us in a worse hell than we’re in right now. With knowledge of the almighty but no way of connecting with him. More logically with this unanswerable question and a maddening progression of days to linger on it. Or in my case, with depression and no chance of parole.

Not that I’m religious. (How many times can I say that before it becomes clear that’s how I’ve been programed since birth?) But I do put things in this format, simply because it helps me form my arguments – I know what I’m saying with these words, so do indulge me.

Not that I’m suicidal, anymore. (Not at this point anyway.)

Anyway. In the beginning angels came and gave us knowledge of very little of value, we learnt a lot for ourselves and still we’re faced with a question that we must become delusional to answer. Only the problem is, I’m not all that delusional right now. I don’t hear god. I don’t believe in anything. Indeed, some of the smartest men and women in history were driven mad by it.

Not that I’m a genius – though I am a thinking man. A man who cares (who has no choice but to) and who cannot fabricate an answer to console himself with.

So that is where I am. Tired after so long holding back an escape from my problem. This is where I’m left. Dropped off with the refreshed attempt to live, but nothing to live for. So on with the parade, until I run out of the energy needed to keep the question at bay. Until the depression looms over me again and I slip back on myself. Until I again have to hold back the cowards way out.

Or perhaps the very answer itself, what if life is a puzzle box and the idea is to find the quickest way out? (Never-mind, I’m being silly)

Anyway this is my cycle.

And… well… what’s more like life?

living with a rock at your face and a hard place somewhere else…

So I’m going to cut to the quick with this and let the marrow show.

I’m not well. I haven’t been for years. Its not a constant illness, a lot of the time I have a hard enough time believing it is there myself – let alone the people who love me, who seem to settle on the idea of my getting better like I’ve got a broken ankle and just need to get the plaster off.

I can’t sleep again. I know the signs. I’m going to wake up one day soon convinced (like never before, but just the same as every other time) that I’m different.

Just like the million times it has happened before. I’ll take my head from the pillow and a new adventure will begin, one where I change my name, my loves, my taste, my friends… everything is thrown out and I just linger on the hinge of sanity.

Fuck it.

Truth is. Every few weeks I’ll have a down spell and I’ll feel worse than hell. Every now and then (Once or twice a year) I’ll wake up and do something about it. Delusion will push me into a new skin.

Right now, I’m in the grip of this nasty, evil, vindictive and destructive emotional state. I could, in this way, be very well described as bound and gagged by life.

I’m so distraught with the way I live. I’m always compensating for one or other element of my fractured character. Who the hell am I?

Am I Ric, the boy who wanted to be a grown up so bad that he sold innocent years trying every sin he could. Who was so in practice by the time that adulthood arrived he was driven to new and lower levels of sickness and depravity to get kicks, so desensitized to intimacy that he still now feels nothing from a kiss. That a fuck is a handshake to him.

Am I Richie, who traveled to many cities with a few people on his mind. Who got so close to giving in to a feeling that he jumped ship and escaped back to the city that was small enough that he was noticed, but big enough to get lost in. Who broke as many hearts as he did because love was meaningless – not least of all because its easy enough to kill it when you first feel it stir up. Who shaved his head to ditch a girl and met another the same afternoon. Who took out his upset at being ditched by his first university love, because she left him wanting more of her, on everyone he met who fell for his innocent looking blue eyes.

Am I Young Cup, the kid who had two dates lined up and shacked up with the one he got to fuck first. Who went out of his way to be a loving partner because it was easier to live with a happy woman than an unhappy one. Who two years later cheated on her out of spite and then went on a drinking binge out of guilt for something she never actually found out? The kid who knew she’d done the same to him, but he never spoke a damn word of contempt for it. Never treated her any less. Who had a down spell at the wrong moment and had the rug pull from his feet. Who fucked things up for trying his best to keep them going.

Am I Old Cup, the kid who being single and lonely found an anarchist to fuck senseless in the grip of such a life of senselessness. A girl who his best mate fell for (who she didn’t like). Who was outed by so-called friends for tearing an  Anarchist’s heart out and then (not one month later) fucking the same girl in my hometown because she was anything but heartbroken! She was a firecracker and sure she wanted more of me than I wanted to give, but that’s no-one’s fault! No friends left in the place he’d loved, because they didn’t have the good courtesy to ask me how it went down? A lost boy, who’s ex got the city and he got the boot.

Am I Jensen, the boy genius, who became an artist and traveled to the height of traffalgar square in support of some ill-thought out agenda? The boy who determined to surround himself with artists and writers of liverpool. Who went to every writers night and hippy hang-out and made friends with so many bands he was heavy with demo cds. Who’d live without a penny in his pocket, without a voice if he could wing it. Who wouldn’t eat for days because it mades him superhuman, and it still does. Who made a promise not to lie again and kept it.

Am I Richard, the friendly bookseller and lark-about who has no trouble making friends. If friends is what you call it. Who can deal with work for as long as it lasts. Who can just about shut out the noise of the rest of his life for the few short hours he’s in work?

Am I The Boyfriend? In a relationship where there’s never been a single crossed word, where we respect each other and anticipate most everything the other needs ahead of time. So in tune its a shame its anything but upbeat. The guy who can’t lie, so he just doesn’t tell her how bad he’s feeling. The guy who can’t hide what’s hurting, so he gives up the name of the lesser stress to hide the larger. The guy who still now doesn’t want to love, for the guilt and agony it causes him in his darker moments.

Am I The Fractured Man? Who wants so much for the world to melt away. Who is in agony for wanting the world to stay the same for just one day, to get to grips with the pace of it. Who can’t deal with an ounce of stress. Who buckles and flays his wrists at the first sign of depression. Who wants to shave his head, don rags, drink bottles and bottles of whatever booze he can conjure up. Who he has been since his second university year, where he gave up on living, but didn’t have the guts to finish his own sentence.

Truth is… there is far more of me than this.

Fact is… I fucking hate the lot of it and I don’t want to keep being so many shades of myself. Because I’m not stupid enough to think that I’m actually many different people, just I find it deadening to try to squeeze all of me into this tiny little slip of a body.

I’m tired.

I want to wipe the slate clean.

I want to hit reset and go back to year dot. I want to forgo love in favor of lasting friendship. I want to ditch desire for the better elements of feeling.

Here’s who I want to be.

The guy who cares enough and is courageous enough to say so. Who doesn’t hold back his feeling because he wants to look like he’s a tough guy. I want to be anything but a tough guy. I want to be a guy that doesn’t lie, because the truth is hard enough. I want to be calm, content and able to challenge myself. I want to be able to deal with a pinch of stress now and then without getting ulcers, quivering hands and headaches. I want to make friends and not worry that they hate me, because that’s what I’ve been faced with up till now. The sudden removal of faces from my life. I want to be able to rely on people, not just myself (barely). I want to make friends and not get paranoid about them changing team, becoming the enemy. I want to admit that I loved people. Not lie to myself and everyone because it means I failed at staying in that great way of being. I want to be the guy who doesn’t just chuck about ‘sorry’ but that adds a little weight to it with some honesty.

‘I’m sorry, I was sick’ just doesn’t cut it. Truth is, sickness is no account for action. I did some horrible things because I chose to do them, because I wanted to feel something, or I wanted to prove that I didn’t. I did things because if I didn’t do something I’d have lost the fight a long time ago. I have done awful things, but I need to bury them and I need your blessing to do it. Everyone should know that I suffer for my sins, if you read this blog at all then that much is clear.

I just roll the pattern over and over in my head. Or it is a bitter pill on the tongue. Whatever cliche works best.

I’m the cause of most every one of my troubles, yet I can’t seem to turn things around. I feel like a time traveller, like every mistake I try to fix causes a bigger one. I feel like everything I do just brings its own troubles.

I’m still here, a month away from the anniversary of my first real attempt to get some help, to get better, to change. I’ve not had any appointments because the NHS is shit. I’m not a woman and I haven’t actually tried to kill myself, so in the eyes of the medical world I DON’T EXIST!

Except, I’m still here aching. I’m no better, though I am better off. I’ve a great life, except I still don’t think I deserve it. I still want to end things before they’ve even begun. I’m 23 for god’s sake!! I should be half as experienced at life as I am. I know people who are 10 years further down the road of life and haven’t had 1/100 of the life I’ve had.

Except it isn’t a matter of pride. Its just disbelieve. I can’t understand why I’ve not cracked the code of life. I’ve gone through a run of combinations and still don’t know a single way that works. I want to have it easy, but easy is hard to find.

I don’t want to start my life 9 years from now, when I enter my own Rosy Crucifixion saga. (I’m reading Miller)

Either I’m a better man now, or I’m just not worse than I’ve been so far.

Only time will tell, but god help me! I want some sort of sign – I want some idea that what I’m after is achievable. Otherwise it’ll just be another few years of holding on, before I work up the courage to let go.

I’ve never held anything back from this blog.

This is truth, this is me (all of me), laid bare.

(This was written at 3am 09/12/09 – please forgive the typos and the lyrical style is just because I’ve been writing a lot of poetry recently.)

a break?

I’m going to take a break from my novel to write this. I’m doing well with the NaNoWriMo challenge, I’m on target for my 100,000 word personal target, so I’m more than able to hit the standard 50,000 word mark. I’m not stressing too much about it because I know that whatever I get out of it is something in the right direction.

At least I’m putting pen to paper with an aim in mind and I can stick at it. In the past I’ve been distracted by lots of things, but this time I have a focus that I can really only put down to maturity and real determination.

It is a while since I’ve blogged and I feel like I need to, to get some stuff out.

I got a job! I’m working at Waterstones and I have met new friends and everything on that side of things is great! I’m pretty good at selling books and helping people out. I’m very well read, so whenever people come to the till and ask about something I’m like… ‘oh you mean X, sure – just follow me’ or I’m like ‘I’ve read that actually, can I recommend this?’ Its lovely to have a job where being who you are really makes you good at it.

I’ve more calmness now, my character has altered and I’m able to see it clearly now for one particular reason.

I’ve quit my medication, both the fluoxetine and the sleeping pills.

I’m in a better place, so I don’t need them to keep me still anymore.

I’m starting to get back some of the old feelings again, but that makes me feel more like myself. There is the old nostalgic sense of a lost life and a part of myself that has fallen away. That had been hidden from me by the pills, they sort of alter you into a more carefree and less concerned creature. That’s not me, I know who I am and it is okay for me to dwell slightly. It is where I get a lot of my strength from.

I’m more focused, have more regard for people. I’ve done well. It’s almost like enlightenment, but not as sudden or significant really.

I’m getting back into the swing of being okay with being me again.

And just in time for new year.

My Hour as Art: The calculations of a Soft Machine.

One must always bare in mind the often overlooked power of a single thoughtful person. Though we are often unaware of the impact we can potentially make, we must attempt to prepare ourselves. This thought was brought to me from my recent experience as a plinther. That is, being a lucky participant in One and Other, Antony Gormley’s new art installation.

Being up on the Forth Plinth in Trafalgar Square was one of the most unprepared moments of my life. It was like approaching one of the seven wonders, or the peak of a mountain; there is simply no way of knowing how you will react.

When confronted by such opportunities, a more refined soul might have gone up with a speech prepared. I might have preached, screamed, recited or otherwise constructed some form of sentiment that would have undoubtedly taken the moment away from me. I might well have run for an hour like a robot, speaking words that I’d pawed over for weeks in advance. Not so for the willful creature that I am.

Instead I listened a little too intently to a small voice from within that said ‘you need only ‘be’!’ I decided to go up, no props, no gimmicks – just a lone soft machine, held aloft for an hour.

I would say even now, that was/is enough.

Art itself (for the most part) cannot alter its form to better suit the audience before it. Once it is produced it is cast in that form. The painting cannot gain another few brushstrokes, to add more colour here or focus the eye there, just because the person seeing it would find it easier to understand. It can but assume a lasting posture and only stand by and weather the praise and criticism it receives with equal solemnity.

I went up there to ask the world questions more directly than most art does, to be a mirror that might allow people to see something of themselves whilst speaking a language they themselves spoke in. I went up there to do what art does, not interact with the audience around me, but to get the audience to engage with itself.

The truth is we make art to remind us of what will always remain important. We don’t make it as a target for our insults, or produce it so that it will locked away. We want it to be shown to an audience, to tell a story, to make a point, to request more of ourselves than is polite to ask in person. We use art to crack open the human spirit.

Of course I am referring to art as generalized art, that of the gallery displays (paintings primarily, or perhaps music also, certainly the photograph), rather than the more innovative methods that artists now engage in. I know full well that art does not stick to its definitions, by definition it is endlessly re-educating us of limitless features.

So, I got up on that stone pillar with the idea that I’d more clearly do what art does. So that I might connect more directly with people and get the message across. My mission was to Raise Awareness for Awareness. I wanted people simply to start asking themselves questions.

Back to the experience itself, once up there I lost my words and almost my balance.

We cannot know our qualities until we have been tested to our limit. So all I could comfortably expect of myself was that I would continue to breathe and that my heart would beat (albeit madly).

When I got up there I had no idea that I would lose much of myself to nerves. There is a lot to be said for the written language (and much has been); however, I more admire anyone who can stand to speak and explain their message with clarity. I do not have the ability to speak easily in public, though I do now intend to improve.

In any case I am happy that, with that small sight of my limits, I was inspired.

I’ve come off the plinth with a renewed acknowledgment of myself, but also of the influence and inspiration I have to offer. I met and spoke with many people and the reactions have been incredible.

People do want to talk, people do want to learn why things are the way they are. Even those who initially became hostile in the face of art, grew later (after conversation/explanation) to understand. They too added their own voice and perspective to the endeavor.

I may have been alone, an example of a young man with a lot (perhaps too much) on his mind; but no-one was unworthy of a place there on that plinth and those who asked questions took their place alongside me.

Now uniquely aware of how much impact a single soft machine can make when placed in the right location. My plan is to go on putting myself in challenging places, to do what I think is good and right and just. To ignore the voices that want me down on their level and to use my own to lift others out of the flood of indifference.

I’ve shaken a dozen hands, hugged people who were strangers, dealt with the irrepressible masses and I have come out of the experience; not better, nor worse, but different.