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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Margin:0.0px or maybe ?0.o?

“  City of Birth

Much of the place is now just a flourish of the mind. Rivers and streets have altered position and where you might follow one in real life and come out at its proper exit, in my mind it turns about and you arrive elsewhere altogether. The whole city is a fading dream, less and less factual as the months wear on.

Except the truth is that I do not strive to remember, the death of it suits me. Rather than not leaving me at all, gradually is an accepted evil. However I lament that it could not have been torn away in one swipe. I wish the whole place burnt away, its ash caught and carried off by a wind of forgetfulness. I wish nothing ill on the inhabitants of that city in its real and present form, but its form in my heart is a solid lump that runs to the throat if I consider it for too long. I mean it not to remind me of my own failures.

In truth the city is merely the scapegoat for my own shortcomings, for my own mistakes. It is a laden creature, cast out and laboring under the burden of blame for injuries I’ve suffered. The city did nothing directly, supplant me and my life to another with the same set of circumstances and I’d be sure of similar results. The same progression of cruelty, neglect and eventual isolation. The same reasons for the breakdown of relationships with almost everyone. My own ego and lack of humility. My envy of other people’s talents and embarrassment at my own lack of courage.

No, I cannot blame a city for what was my own doing. The truth is that I lost my sight, my judgement clouded. Or, more rightly, my vision was distorted by a thin film over the eyes. An idea of how the world looked, except that in that way of seeing I could not perceive the slow corruption of my life. Each time I rallied myself and thrust forward with my creative projects, I was in fact just shuttling along in a blinkered, eager rush. I shut out the distraction of friends and lovers. Then, when I’d collapsed into the sense of futility that seems to run through me like a core, I was surprised that they’d moved on to better things.

It is a great and painful process for a man to learn of his own failings. More-often he might bury the facts under a layer of disbelief. Or else under the debris of the facts themselves; as he picks each apart with lies and self-justification. Delusion is the tonic for most things.

Myself, I’m no less the fool. Even knowing what I do I cannot bring myself to believe I was to fault. I too ignore these things and move on with what I do agree to take with me. So from these lessons comes the genesis of a new self. I do not wish to remember my sins, though I will learn from them. It is hypocritical indeed to ignore the legitimacy one’s crimes and yet still take wisdom from them; though to have the position reversed would be far worse an error.   “

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The above is the beginning of the novel I was speaking of, not too long ago. The tale of my life. A way to purge myself of the old crimes and explain how things progressed and perhaps absolve myself slightly through showing how I’ve bettered myself. It will however be ‘warts and all’, I hope – if I have courage enough to paint myself in my true (past) monstrous form. All names altered, no great revelations about the other people involved. I will stay in the bounds of my own head, the things that I saw and thought – I will not attempt to second guess the people around me, nor anything of their opinions of me at that time. What I do not want it to be, is a way of explaining away the evil I have done, but rather to seek to hold onto it – lest I forget – and remind myself of how far I have come so that I do not retrace the same steps. I also don’t want it to hurt anyone from the past, hence the only alterations will be to the unsavory portions of lives of others and not to my own life, wherever possible.

The NaNoWriMo novel is far more accomplished, though I do wish to return to the previous novel soon. I’m a little behind in terms of the monthly goal – though it has proven itself as necessary and so I will be moving forward with it. I’m not all too bothered about the NaNo win because NaNo has been a bit of a joke as far as I’m concerned. There’s been no proper management or communication with those involved, so the community fun was sucked dry long ago. I’m just glad that I’ve got a wonderful manuscript out of it and I can break on through with the knowledge that I can write about 2,000 words a day with very little hassle, so long may it continue. Fuck NaNo.

Nevermind.

I’m loving quite a few bands at the moment.

1) The Bicycle Thieves

2) Cocoon (‘Hey Ya’, ‘I don’t give a shit’)

3) Soko (‘I’ll kill her’)

4) The Thermals (‘Now we can see’)

5) Fresh body shop (‘My artificial sun‘)

And in terms of poetry?

1) Derek Walcott (‘Elsewhere’, ‘For Adrian’)

And I’m reading…

1) 2666 by Roberto Bolano

2) Omeros by Derek Walcott

3) The Book of Shadows Don Paterson

4) Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels (again)

In other news. I’ve made a promise with myself to write a poem, take a roll of photos (34 photos), make a short film and read a book every week from now on.

Further updates will follow.

“And even later, more recently.”

“And even later, more recently.”

Tribute to Tom Lowe Taylor

You wrote to save your ass

from a dark emptiness

that followed its own linguistic urge.

What was obsolete

you sought

to write and newly sort,

unconscious

but wholly wary of yourself - 

a drunken rage of self-righteousness to overwhelm.

Made afraid to be alone

with your own genius,

or genus,

who can say?

But one word after another

one in another’s wake

to fuel the next

and on and on toward that

unfurnished house.

~~~




Will work on this some more – this is my first draft.

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.

have a heart? almost.

[the stops are because I can't get the formatting right. sorry.]

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I’m going to answer a couple of questions about my progress this year.

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• Think about what has gone well this year. What are you happy with? What has been successful — & how did it come to fruition? What have your greatest achievements been so far?

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This year has taken me up and down further than any year before it. I’ve evolved so much I’d swear I was in new skin, if it wasn’t the same damn face staring back at me every morning.

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Success is measured in so many ways, but I’d have to say making my emotions level out has been the biggest success. Learning to drink in moderation. Making lasting friendships. Two more things that I’m greatly thankful for.

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Great achievements have been getting published (and paid!) in The Times for my photograph of One and Other in London.

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Surviving a massive breakdown isn’t something I’m going to sell myself short on either. I’ve done a hell of a lot of work toward easing my mind and heart. I’ve been up and down, but I’m flying along at the moment.

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I’ve no stressful job, a roof, a great girl, creative expression out the yin-yang. Photography is great, designing and making clothes and jewellery is wonderfully fun, writing is triple kick-ass. I’ll have a collection knocked out in a couple more months.

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So, yeah. Lots of stuff.

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• Think about what could have been improved upon. Could you have tried harder in a couple of areas? Of the things that didn’t go well, what could you have done to change the outcome of that situation? If you had taken 100% responsibility at the time, do you think things would have played out differently?

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I could have done a lot better at making money. I’ve let quite a few opportunities slip by me. I’m not really sorry that I did, more just that I could have made a bit more cash and had a few more nights on the town with people.

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If I hadn’t been a coward, then perhaps things might have gone better. I wimped out on things because I was being overly careful after a few setbacks.

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• What were your goals at the start of the year? How are they going? Are they 20%, 50% or 100% completed? If they’re not checked off yet, why not? (Don’t be afraid to admit they’re no longer important to you if that’s the case.) If they’re still things you want to make happen, what could you do to speed up your progress? Who could you ask for help? How can you break up the goal into manageable chunks to make it easier to achieve?

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I didn’t make any real commitments at the start of the year. If anything things all changed pretty sharply, so if I’d completed the goals that I had, I wouldn’t even be in Liverpool. So I think rather I’ve adapted well and when my goals flew out from me, I took the opportunity to put a bit of distance between myself and making goals.

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Some things I did decide on quite quickly was to make better friendships and invest myself in people more. Be more honest with myself and others. 100% complete I’d say.

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• When you look at the people around you, what have they achieved that you’d like to do too? How can you make that happen? Can you ask them for assistance or advice?

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I haven’t considered this, but there are a few people I have met which have made a real impression on me and I do intend on emailing them for advice and simply to make myself known to them. Some are local, others are netweb people, but all are fantastic people.

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• How are your finances looking? Are you making as much money as you want? Are you saving any money or just spending it as soon as you get it? Should you ask for a raise, start a savings account, cancel your credit card, stop obsessively trawling eBay… ?!

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My finances are in better shape than they ever have been. I’m usually crippled with debt and spend more than I make. Right now I’ve lowered my bills and have made a few streams of revenue. Plan is to get into seasonal retail to get enough cash to pay back my parents and take a trip to a few places in Europe. Venice and Rome are on the plan. Paris is a place best kept for a romantic escape. Maybe Berlin too. Cheap travel with only a satchel and a few empty journals. Definitely taking my camera too.

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No one is ever making ‘enough’ money. But I’m making enough to keep me comfortable.

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Credit card is cleared off, long ago.

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There is nout wrong with internet shopping!

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• Are you happy with your career? Do you feel stuck? If so, why? How could you alter that? Is it time for something new? How can you improve your situation? Where could you grow? How could you branch out?

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I’m LOVING work. Whatever I earn is from art. Whatever I make is from something that I have made. It’s a wonderful feeling. I’m not stuck at all. I’ve got to do some seasonal work, but there is no stress because I can jack it in after I have the cash saved up to travel. Then when I get back I’ll only have to get some part time work to keep my head up, earning more money from art as I go.

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• What do you do with your spare time? Are you constantly playing catch-up & running errands with no time to relax & just do nothing? Is there a class you want to take? When was the last time you took a holiday? Are you in control of your free time or is someone else?

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Spare time. Well, I have it all to myself now. I’m running about doing things, but having fun doing them.

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After doing my bit around Europe I’m hoping to enroll in University again, but starting again from Year 1. I figure it gives me a year to get into shape and then I can play the last two without pressure.

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Going to study either writing or photography – I haven’t decided which. I figure that photography gives me more earning potential. Writing is still my main talent though. We’ll see what the world offers me as direction.

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Last time I took a holiday was prolly down to Falmouth. Can’t wait to go back. I think I’ll be heading off down there again to see a mate later in the year. Just need to get some cash.

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• How does your body feel? How healthy are you? What are you eating? Do you exercise? Are you drinking or smoking more than you’d like? Do you need a spa day? What positive steps can you take towards a lifestyle you feel happier about?

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Damn, these are loaded questions. Can I just say that people seem to like it? OH!

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Yeah, healthy. I get a good lot of walking done. Sailing keeps me fit enough.

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Not smoking. Not drinking much.

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I totally need a spa day.

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I need to get my bike in action, so I can start racing around this tiny slip of land I call home.

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• Are you getting along with the people around you? How are things between you & your lover? Your workmates? Your kids? Do you ever see your best friend? Do you ever get personal emails?

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Things are great with people. I’m getting on with my friends well. Set to meet more shortly when I start doing the shoots I’ve got arranged.

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My ‘lover’ is fine.

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My workmates are quiet. I’m solo, but it means I have less nights out with the crew.

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Best mate is many miles away.

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I get a personal email pretty much every day, people from my past, people who like my blog, people who hate it, people who want to meet me in Liverpool. I’m in demand.

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• How about you? How do you feel about the person you’re becoming? How’s your personal integrity? What are the attributes you hold in high esteem? Are you embodying them? What can you change? What can you begin accepting?

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I feel i’ve answered this already. I’m 100% wicked, wicked, wicked.

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Personal integrity is at an all time high. Which is as much a surprise to me, I can tell you.

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Truth now is paramount to me. I will not lie.

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Totally embodied.

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I can be bolder, more courageous.

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I can begin accepting every given opportunity.

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• Are you involved in your community? How are you helping the people around you? Do you know your neighbours? What could you do to improve the lives of people in your immediate vicinity?

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More and more involved with the people in this fine and grubby little city.

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I like to feel I’m here if people want to make use of me. I could get more involved helping people (note to self).

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I do know my neighbours, but I want soon to have new ones.

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My new motto for improving lives is :- Give more, take more.

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It improves mine and other people’s lives. Wonderful.

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photo-journalist AWAY!!!

Hello world. Again he returns with stories about his half-lived life.

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So, where to begin?

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The beginning of this month started fantastically with the #oneandother carnival rolling in to Trafalgar Square. @thespyglass did her time up there and I took photos.

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The whole place was theatrically dark, the curtain of dawn rose as she took her place and the photos were epic. Ones taken by Photographers even made their way to Grazia Magazine in fact.

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I’ve still not gotten around to editing and uploading mine of @thespyglass‘s time up there. However ones that I took of another #oneandother contestant actually ended up in a Times Supplement. So I’m over the moon and my wallet is packed with £20s thanks to the amazing fact that they PAID!

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The rest of the month has seen me writing quite a bit in two new novels (not unlike me to have more and more projects flying around) and also taking photos and making things. I’ve taken to putting my energy into easy to finish projects. I’ve written a short story, fixed things… you get the idea.

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I’ve recently started making a range of jewelry. Just necklaces and rings and bracelets for now, but my abilities are increasing all the time. I’ve also taken up designing clothes. I think I’m pretty good at it!

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Another cool thing was the Liverpool photo walk sponsored by these guys WWPW – Starting at 5:30, we walked about taking photos. It, personally speaking, wasn’t that enlightening from a technical point of view (but then it wasn’t meant to be). I guess the best thing about it was just getting to see other people working creatively. Seeing the types of people that live in the anthill of this fast-paced city.

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I’ve certainly been a lot more thankful for living back on the Wirral. It is just the best place to be. Quiet and beautiful on this side of the water, but a mere few quid away and you get a sprawling, decaying, developing, waking, groaning, creative and infinitely exciting city. Not to mention beautiful cafés and funky people to photograph.

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Another big change has been that I’ve gotten a new phone to help me with my business endeavors and emailing and blogging on the move. I already had a bluetooth keyboard from a long time back and I’ve paired that to it, so I can now be the photo-journalist I’ve always wanted to be. Best thing about it is that I’ve managed to slash what I was paying. I’m now paying Orange pretty much half the price of the phone! Not to mention I have the mins I need and unlimited data and texts! Sometimes it pays to have a really, really shit job in a phone store, just to learn how to negotiate.

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Okay, signing off.

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The PolarTropicals

Chatting, in Cafe Nero, on a bright morning with Fritz – it was so damn stuffy we had to pries open the window, use a coffee cup to hold it from shutting, just to breath clean air – we were chatting about the simplicity of horse racing; each omitting the fact we’d lost near a years wages between us, because it was – all said and done – just down to luck. It was when we were in the middle of a gripe about Jack Quick – a heavy against, which had proven itself a loser time and again – that we noticed Erin. (I’ll not pretend at this stage that we knew her, it was simply a name that we later held on our tongues and savored.)

Cupid lifted our chins at the moment she swaggered in – the cruel bastard drew our eyes from sandals to hair clips, before he sent us – inert – towards the figure of her boyfriend. It was Charlie – a three time runner up, in each of the three fights we’d had – a thin branch of an arm lay at her hip and the other pressed a cellphone into the side of his face.

Clean shaven, clean spoken and whiter than white teeth, that was Charlie entirely summed up. A cocky little inbred, with Daddy’s notes in his wallet and Mommy’s ‘love ner-ending’ and her looks to-the-letter. The two of them took a seat, hidden in plain view, and the waiter breezed over to take their order – taking special care to drop his gaze down her top – then scuttled away. Erin was a sweep of shoulder length black hair – slender neck, with a dark mole elegantly placed on the cusp of her shoulder-blade – and eyes, god she had eyes, eyes I can’t describe.

So we watched them, Fritz and me, in-between more mindless chatter, until something lifted her chin to look at us. With a greeting of smiles, we knew that she knew our game. We were fans – were connoisseurs  of her curves – aficionados of her attractiveness – enthusiasts of her elegance – et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam… in summery, your honors’, we meant no harm – it was flattery. 

Still unsure of what devil lifted Charlie’s chin – made him wise to the happenings – I’d like to say he took it on what he lifted and turned cheek. That he knew our jest and we had no real gripe against a man we could easily do in. Sadly, no, he took offense and put up fisticuffs, for a fourth attempt at victory. It was Erin that made him re-think the equation – two against one – so he simmered down after a spattering of reassuring kisses. Charlie invited us over, not to get a better look, but to catch up.

His plan became an example of clarity – he wanted us next to him, because comparison was a given – he imagined, it would undoubtedly lead to Erin taking heel with him… the lesser of assembled evils. His plan fell at the hurdle of book titles.

Erin is a well-read broad – a fanatic when it comes to the well-known Subterraneans – we aching-jawed it, until closing time and dragged Charlie to a bar to continue until last orders were swallowed. (This is where the main focus of these scribblings hones to an ant-burning precision.)

We tell her about our new love for the self-titled ‘stylized interview’ form. How we gleaned it partly from the form taken by the few articles you can unearth between the tundra of advertisements in men’s mags. Took a pinch of the noir in detective fiction and mixed it with our over-wrought idolization of musicians and movie stars. We aimed to write ourselves and our friends into the next cult characters of a changing era. 

“Then you should put up a site for yourselves!” She protested.

The idea stuck, we’ve started up on our quest. Fritz and me have already bought the domain and started on the first few articles. (This is an invitation to join, a sort of reward for reading this far.) Charlie wont be involved, but we have recruited Evan, Nicholas, Gene, Ginny and Laura from the ‘Literary Barbershop of Bath’, otherwise known as our friends.

Let it be made clear… This is a call to arms for ALL – no matter what country you live in – those who are underprivileged, rejected, denounced and demagnified when it comes to literary endeavor, all who are looking for a leg-up to notoriety. We’ll write so skillfully and with such magic that our friend’s bands will be signed a day or two later, our writer friends will be published and our photographer friends will have something to do.

We’re starting slowly – slowly and lowly – but we aim to rage against our dying lights. Here’s to creating a new destiny. Here’s to the PolarTropicals.

Here’s to getting Erin’s digits and an open-ended invitation to her flat.

www.polartropic.co.uk

Floating in the vacuum of space

 

Whatever falls in my path I have fun with it. I’m still not sure what to do with my life, but soon I will need a job. I will again return to the pits. Prepare myself for some personal agony, personal anxiety, and get hook up with a healthy dose of personal apathy to get me through each day.

 

Personally, I think it is rather cheeky to request eight hours of my time a day for the five out of seven, and only give me near-on one thousand pounds for the privilege each month. Then again, I’ve not met anyone willing to pay more, so I guess I have to put up. Cruel and unfair, this world, but there is nowhere else to go.

 

Pause for a moment thinking of the young Jensen floating in the vacuum of space with an ever-increasing bank balance.

 

I see a lot of people ahead of me, not altogether fairly either. I look at their work and scoff and turn cheek. That’s the luck of the draw though, someone must like that tripe, otherwise why would the author have had it published.

 

This week I trust in publisher’s and their amazing knowledge of great literature… or not.

 

Regardless, I have the distinct feeling everyone undervalues. Taken for granted, rather than picked for Granta.

 

I need to focus on writing these bloody stories I have in my head.

 

Continue with The Coconut Stopwatch, Trip, The Pack, The Boy Who Entered Dreamtime and The Formicary. The problem is picking just one to really focus on. I love them all like children and love the pace I’m going at. I have more ideas that I want to start on as well!

 

Too many ideas and not enough time to write them all.

 

I think I’m going to focus on The Coconut Stopwatch, as it is a collection of short stories, which means there is at least fourteen opportunities at accomplishment before the grand accomplishment of finishing the compilation.

 

I have my computer hooked up to the printer, a big yellow folder to hold the drafts, little bulldog clips, a new ergonomic pen. Now I mean business. I’m going to write the epics out. Place sections on here.