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.)

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.)

not happier but doing something

Today is just the same as yesterday in terms of mood, but something happened last night.

I know it is a tired fact that I start a new novel every week, but this one isn’t new.

This one has taken shape in my mind over the last three years. This one I have lived.

So everyone who has known me over the last three years, you might feature in my new novel.

I’ll not be posting anything up. It is far too sordid to do in anything but a clean surgical incision.

Publication is the aim. I have written the outline already (I usually never have a plan).

The first line is a gem. It isn’t making me happier to write it, but it is at least something to do.

on reviewing the recent and the far-reaching

“I am disheartened again. It’s busted I think. My heart, that small seed was the start of my unhappiness. It is my heart’s doing. It sulks. It languishes in the pit of my chest. Fallen from a branch of bone. I ache for comfort, for encircling arms to close around me, to hold me. I want to be secure with a warm someone. A hug. An embrace. To hold on for dear life. For how dear that person is to me. For not wanting to let go. For wanting everything to melt into the atoms they consist of and leave us, untouched, as we are. For wanting alone. For the wanting. The passion. Lust. I want for everything that comes of wanting deeply. Of wanting so deeply that there seems to be no part left of me that does not exist for that other body. That there is no stitch, no essence, no section that is not saturated with the flavor of them.

Taste is something I think I am currently obsessed with. I’ve learnt the value of herbs and spices. I’ve started to take care of myself again. So by that, I mean I’m eating but doing nothing more to prolong myself. Sorry if you thought this was me turning around and grabbing hold of life or something equally benign. But have no fear, I’ll not starve. You all understand why I neglected myself; too many other people to save and “When you over analyze, you tend to neglect your own well-being? as I have said. So really, it was spending time and money on people, rather than on food; and doing so because people are more interesting to write about than pasta.

Due to my months of eating next to nothing, I am now down to nine and a half stone, which I am secretly proud of, because it was that weight I was before I got with The Smile Reverser when I was fifteen-years-old. The first reason I became The Raining Man. I can do the same trick with a scarf; wrap it around my waist to show how skinny I am. To show how clothing alludes to me being in them and really I am only half there.

Bad points? I am starting to see signs of muscle wastage. My sheer skinniness puts me at a disadvantage when confronted by anyone on nights out. I have very little strength at all, to the point where I have to move chairs one at a time, rather the trademark, grab two and go. When I went to buy food this week I could hardly lift the bags.

Good? I do have more of a regard for the workings of the human body. It seems that bone and muscle does indeed move us, as I am now lifting and flexing my arm to see the motion actualised.

So yes, taste does tie in quite well with the need for someone. The fact that, that someone would have the grace to look after me. To feed me, or at least make sure I feed myself. It isn’t that I can’t do it, rather that I will not, I’ll neglect to, it’ll slip my mind while I am writing about how sun warms the stems of dry grass, how the wind makes music from them. Or something equally picturesque.”

I wrote this some 3 years ago – I wrote that I was depressed and wanted someone to love and look after me. It happened and it didn’t save me to have it happen. I still had the same cycles, I just had someone there with ‘the grace to look after me.’ At least, for a short time.

I maintain, and always will, that I don’t need someone who will be a carer for me – just someone to care. I’m worth keeping around, I shouldn’t wonder. If only for the amusing tales I can tell about the time this girl did this, that girl did that, or another girl almost didn’t but did.

Life has gone back to a worrying simplicity. I wake up, I read, I write, I go for a walk, I flirt, I drink, I come home, I flirt via text/IM, I sleep. Scatter in some screnzy madness in there and that is existence and I’m pretty bored of it. The sex is good, but its not really making me want to stay alive and active. I guess only apathy is the force that is keeping me breathing now.

a water-balloon meets a bee

So, knowing – as you do – that my girlfriend and I broke up on the 26th of last month. Well… where to from there?

I came home and took up the task of mending myself. I’ve something, which I suspect can best be described as manic depression, though i wont jump the gun too much until the fact is settled.

I was having a depressive episode about a week before my relationship collapsed. In fact, I think it was a major element that swung my ex-girlfriend’s mind in favor of separation.

20th of Jan and I’m flat-lining on one of the worst depressions in my most recent history and so I ask her to stay around for me (in the sense that she stick in the house to keep my spirits up) – she goes out, which is fine (i figure she’ll be back) – she’s gone for pretty much the entire week – under the banner of band rehearsals. Which I guess was just her way of saying ‘i’m not really feeling the whole caring thing right now!’.

I’m not saying that I’m that sick I need a carer, but I was pretty sick and I just needed someone to watch dumb movies with and eat junk to keep me high on sugar. The Great Distracto!

I’m a sad little muffin – such a pathetic creature – regardless I held it together like a water balloon meeting a bee for the first time.

I hit rock bottom and she had a talk with me – I figured there was no point fighting it (i was beyond the capacity to want to save myself or any part of my life) – so I let her go and GOD do I feel better for that.

I do. No word of a lie, its done me good. I’m certain that the feelings I had for her wasn’t real love – just a deep caring and I know that that will change shape shortly. It’ll go the way of so many past loves, there are stages that I wont go into detail about.

So a few calls later and I’m back in Liverpool (the Wirral to be exact, i have no scouse accent [in fact none at all]). I’m pretty even right now – level as a spirit, you could say. Or maybe not.

I still get these ups and downs that last maybe an hour tops – just little blips before I lose the thread of them and wander off to distract myself with something new and shiny.

For the most part the pills are working and I should be referred over to see someone more specialistic soon.

Until then, I’ve written quite a bit of stuff that I’m going to post up here. That line between genius and madness is pretty thin after all.

p.s. I ask ya, who wants normal anywho – I’m so much more fun nuts than i am on these bloody pills – *yawn!*

Blather like you mean to say what you’re saying…

 

Not long ago – days ago even – my imagination had me many leagues below an ancient ocean.

 

I dreamt I had returned to my long estranged hometown and, to recover long ignored memories, had ventured onto the sandstone hill I had played on as a child. I knew, as I had not then, that I was walking on stone that had once been a seabed. So, walking this same stone – this one-time seabed now turned sun-heated baking tray for every unlucky mollusc that lost its way. So walking this same stone that trilobites would have scuttled over – and now lie buried within – I wished wholeheartedly to take my time and engage with this feeling and the easy sustenance I found from it. This effortless meal of fantasy and immensity stretching out before me, that made me at once feel small and insignificant and then, in the same moment, made me feel integral to the world.

 

All this felt as if I were bringing all this life back, what had once been teeming and had laid for so long, that it might perhaps crawl up and out of the rock and start again the toil of existing.

 

Whilst standing there it became clear that, though I longed to join in with this aqua sutra – though I wanted to move back in time and occupy the same space as now, feel the cool water around me. Though I wanted a fantasy, for the pressure would have crushed me and I could not bring myself to accept that. Though I wanted so desperately to be a part of that world I know that if I were transported back I would not join, as a drop of water would, that ocean. Instead I would join it as a slick of oil.

 

Always wholly separate, that is how I am. That I would not fit in with prehistoric creatures is little surprise, that I could never fit in back in my hometown had the same ring of sadness to it – even now.

 

It is at this point that I find myself outside my childhood home, a shed on that same hill. The rusting roof, the doormat, the seats and that table made from a tire and a stop sign. I walk in and everything is upended. I walk out and find my old tools, a spade and some sheers, broken and rusting.

 

The day carried on, the sun pressed down on my skin, filling each pore with a rock pool of its own and glittering on the stone as its rays met the occasional polished grain – just as it glistened when the rays hit my moist skin. It had been like this all day, hardly a breeze to stir the stale air. Up in the endlessly blue sky unknown birds circled; too small to be vultures, not to mention unlikely for England, but still my imagination ran away with itself and I prayed swift deliverance from their greedy gaze. The song of crickets in the dry grasses sounded like the sizzling of eggs in a frying pan. The only other noise was the far off sound of engines on the duel carriageway, about two miles off in the distance, their survival ensured by our reliance on them.

 

Coming back to my hometown is like looking at fossils. There is no way to resurrect those old memories, or travel back to meet them. I must clarify that I wish to rewrite, rather than repeat those memories. They are now just fossilized, unearthed with careful thought. I can remember quite a bit about that old world I used to be a part of. Can see myself, undeveloped, like our ancient ancestors that would then have simply been curious looking fish.

 

Purpose seems to be the theme of these thoughts. That I have no purpose is an ever-present concern. My tools, rusting, are no longer able to do what they were meant. I have my wishes, aspirations, and targets. The trouble is that there is no impression in the stone for these things. I cannot trace the outline of a body. Cannot work out how they will move and come about. The ancestor cannot trace the family tree forward.

 

Realising that I have been standing on this almost lifeless mound for the last few hours breaks the spell. I walk down, first through brush – shoulder high and thorny – then down through greener ferns. Eventually I reach pavement as I leave the hillside and venture down through the winding streets and some time after that I arrive at the train station to board a train for my home, some 300 miles from this world.

 

As I look out of the carriage window there is a great rumbling – straining to see further down along the train – my face is pressed flat against the glass as I see uncountable tons of seawater fall onto that hill and rush down to greet me.

perhaps not irreparably so

 

Even when she’s caught out I am still short of beckoning any remorse from her. She doesn’t feel it and it hardens me. I move on in mind and heart. Now I no longer sense her pulse in my future, no longer allow myself the comfort I have grown to take for granted.

 

 

She’s done wrong and she doesn’t beg forgiveness or plea for sympathy at her apparent weakness. There comes no, ‘I’m sorry I was drunk’ – no, ‘I’m sorry to have worried you.’ – In fact, all she’d said on the matter was, ‘I don’t want to argue.’

 

 

Who was? I was going to let her speak her tongue numb. My question was simple; why didn’t you tell me?

 

 

And with that comes the thought of high windows, sun comprehending glass; et cetera, et cetera… ad nauseam.

 

 

I never had a Father who taught through explanation, mine was a Father who I learnt from by example. It was pos-neg right from the fire up. He was someone who taught me to be good, honest and courageous; and thought I didn’t pick up any of those traits, I do feel that I, at least, know what they are. He was someone who showed me what it was to give up on a dream; he was the victim of consequence and apathy.

 

 

So I had to pick up on, more conversational, lead by example sorts that were closer to my own heart.

 

So enter Larkin, my Papa Phil, the father who taught me real, candid and gritty lessons. ‘Collected Poems’, is my New Testament, ‘Juvenilia’, my Old. Papa Phil is a brutally honest father, with a clear motive of deft truthfulness.

 

 

So… should I take my own advice, from previous posts? Should I call time on a forgone conclusion?

 

 

I’ll have to consult with old Papa Phil, to answer that one. As I said, not long ago, and learnt it well! – I trust in luck, not other people’s integrity.

 

 

Last night I was sorely disappointed but perhaps not irreparably so.

 

 

Office Warfare

Held in the middle of a trench-like avenue of office desks; the air all around heavy with the purr of perfunctory phone calls ringing out a dull-Somme chorus, I am struck by the speed of my heartbeat. For a moment I can feel it beating against my ribcage, but what shocks me more is that this isn’t any different to any other day. The stress I am under now is sizable, but then there are days like this quite often. It seems that right now, in this instant, I’ve had all I can take.

 

 

 

And then stillness…

 

 

My breathing slows; pulse thickening to a glutinous slick through the tubes in my wrists and through all the mapped networks below the skin of my entire body and I am still again. No fear. No sweating. No deafening din. This isn’t a moment of insanity. Not a moment where the protagonist ebbs out of reality and into a world of their own. The phones have simply stopped their onslaught briefly and I have been able to catch up with myself again.

 

 

60 calls hitting me each day. I’m ready for another round. Fire at Jensen.