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.

Filed under: Existence, Future, Happy, Lonely, Love, Sad, Strangers, about me, anxiety, art, hopes, influences, other people's lives, solitary , 4th plinth, afternoon, art, desire for change, escape, Happy, idea, interviews, liverpool, one and other, oneandother, photography, quest, sorry, stylized, sustenance, twitter, writing

oneward and upward

Okay. RIght. Testing, testing. Hope this is working.

It is.

Right.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to this whole One and Other thing. I’ve done my smart thinking now, I’m over that. I’ve reasoned out things and I think I’m going to be okay. Just going to get up there, pose my ideas and then breathe it all in.

Been having a few emotional tantrums recently – my heart all a flutter.. ex-cetera … It all comes from me putting too much stock in this thing.

The truth is, I don’t need to get it ‘right’ or do anything to ‘please’ anyone. I’m smarter than needing to take my level from other people’s figures.

I wrote a little piece last night for my novel – “Feel bitter, feel like you want to hit me; but don’t deny the fact we made each other pretty happy. In the time we had.”

That’s what all this means, it is getting up there and just saying ‘This is me. What are you?

I am the art that can ask questions of itself, as much as of the observer. Now that is a revolution!

This morning I got a call from a mental health team member and they have invited me over to get checked over on Wednesday. I’m going to go along and tell them everything. I will write a little something for them first. A little history maybe. Something to explain better than I might be able to.

Oneward and upwards with things.

Filed under: Competition, Day-to-day, Depression, Existence, Family, Friends, Future, Happy, Re-Genesis, Reality, Sad, Training, about me, anxiety, connection, genius, genus, hopes, influences, news, novel, other people's lives, sermon, solitary, writing, writing the novel , 4th plinth, art, desire for change, escape, greet, Happy, heart, idea, london, mental health, novel, one and other, oneandother, quest, questions, revolution, truth, twitter, writing

what is the point of change?

What is the point of change? Is it for yourself? Or for others?
At what point do we change? When we learn our lessons? Or when we act on them?

I’m growing. As ever, I’ve been reflecting on self again, but in way of a preface to this post I will say something.

I believe, or am coming to believe, that a major reason for my ongoing difficulty lies in my inability to resolve myself to myself. I have been brainwashed by a religion, and by relationships I have had, into thinking that I care only for myself and no one else. That to do what is best for you is to act out of self-interest and that is inherently a bad road to take. This is a hard thing to wriggle free from. However I think I have reasoned toward an explanation.

I am aware of myself and my impact on the world. That does not make me egotistical. I am not self-interested as much as I am interested in myself and what I am. I am capable of love and adoration for people around me. I close myself off to those around me so that I do not infect them with my sadness. That is a selfless move. I am normal.

So many things are driving my change. As ever the continued focus is self-development, whether I should consider myself egotistical, or if I am not unreasonable to assume that I must be aware of myself. Is it really egotism or just an important self-awareness?

To that end I’ve started a new blog askyourselfaquestion in which I will pipe my enquiries and ask questions and see through the investigation.

Very quickly here I will explain two main inspirations. The first being Socrates ideas. 

Socrates theory is that the soul is ‘mutilated by wrong actions and benefited by right ones.’ He means those actions undertaken by the self, rather than those undertaken by others.

One striking thing about it is that it doesn’t appeal to the altruistic, but rather to the germ of self-interest.

His idea cannot be realized by the greedy and self-interested alone; but instead putting self-improvement above all other motive. Neither does this unusual ethics rest on any hope of heavenly reward or the fear of its opposite conclusion.

The benefits of virtue are reaped more or less immediately, for ‘to live well means the same thing as to live honorably’ and ‘the just [man] is happy and the unjust miserable.’

Tough idea to swallow. It doesn’t hold water in the way you think. He is highlighting the idea of the health of the soul being paramount, above the importance of the body.

His idea is of practicing moderation to secure a future of good health, instead of hedonism to secure a few more immediate ones.

This strikes me and asks fundamental questions of me. Namely my own motivation of change – do I act solely for myself? Or does it bring a greater good? By being more aware of myself and my impact on the world, will that make me more sympathetic to others. I think it has so far. I feel a lot more in tune with things by being more comparative in my reasoning.

The next point is to talk about how I will develop myself. I think it is not nearly enough to tone one part of the self. So… Frank Harris puts it like this.

I made up my mind to train my will by exercise as I would train a muscle, and each day I proposed to myself a new test. For example, I liked potatoes, so I resolved not to eat one for a week, or again I foreswore coffee that I loved for a month, and I was careful to keep to my determination.

Celui qui vuet, celui-là peut: ‘He who wills, can.”

To explain this in its effect on me is to say, ‘I have realised pretty late that I need not punish myself for not being immediately able to control myself. I need to train myself to be slowly and accumulatively better.’


So I’ve set myself the aim of exercising my mind first, as it is the part of me that is most refined to this point. Hopefully the change and development will be reward enough to insist that I continue with my project. Next will be the body. I feel it is something I take for granted. I’m not sure I can say I’m healthy now, certainly more so than I was, but I do want to be more of a temple and treat myself with more care.

So ‘mind.’

Indeed – questions i’m wrestling with are… 

Why do I sway toward the conclusion of a divine creation/will? – Is it childhood teaching; or a force-infomed conclusion, like gravity?

What does a creator mean? Does it require worship? Does it define goodness inherently?

My question for today – why do i want there to be a god?? To relinquish responsibility for my existence? or to have an explaination for it??

Does my wish for there to be a rule or order to things come from a spirit of self-interest? Do i wish for rules so i can learn/utilise them?

Filed under: Depression, Existence, Future, Happy, Lonely, Reality, Sad, Training, Youth, about me, anxiety, hopes, influences, prose, solitary, writing , desire for change, escape, Happy, idea, oneandother, prose, writing

“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.

Filed under: Depression, Existence, Poetry, Sad, Strangers, Today, genius, genus, influences, men, other people's lives, poem, poet, published, tom lowe taylor, tribute, undervalued, writing , genius, genus, influences, men, poem, tom lowe taylor, tribute, writing

ignore this post, it is the same as the others

‘I’m in a winter cave of blankets. I haven’t eaten in days. I feel defeated, because I have been. I’m lying in bed looking at a white ceiling. I’ve been lying here for 72 hours, I’ve slept for the usual 22 hours but I have no energy. I’m thinking about so many things, most of all I’m wishing I had the courage to drown myself in the lake down the hill.’ – Scribbled on a scrap of paper.

This was me after my first year of university. This was me during my first break down and I’ve lasted this long. Five years later and I’m still in the grips of this god-awful pattern of rise and fall.

I’ve measured it out in poetry and so many pages of notes and writing. I’ve tried to explain something of it. I’ve tried exercising, eating well, not drinking, being around friends and now pills and it isn’t working. I’ve tried thinking of it as ‘who I am’, ‘what I have to endure’ and the ‘price of genius’. I’ve attempted to seal it away with so many vices and then tried virtues when it came to nothing. I have my ups and I have my downs. I’m currently in the swell.

I think the thing that bothers me most is how I already know life wont get better/easier for me. Save for me rising from this pit, I’ll only wander helplessly toward another. If anything I’m worse than I was, but I’m in a better place to be ill. I’m not putting up as much of a fight against it as I usually would. I’d usually skate by one or two bouts of depression before a third managed to floor me. I think that this is a little less severe than my usual episodes. With my parents I don’t have the added stress of having to pay rent and all the other wonderful things that come from being alive in these times, but I also don’t need to pretend. I think I already know that the best I can do is get on with things. Except that this resignation in itself is a source of disparagement.

‘It is all in the mind.’ – Who said that? I’ve no idea, but it is painfully apt.

I’m desperately in need of passion and direction. Then again, when have I not been?

I think about what I want to do with my life and I decide that I’m going to use it to [insert anything here]. Except that there comes out of my own logic a painful futility.

I don’t seem able to exist alongside the idea that I might one day perish and that has given me the lazy and pathetic outlook that perhaps it isn’t worth my effort. I’m a boat afraid to sail for the fact that I’ll one day sink. No matter how ridiculous it seems, I can’t do anything except float through life on whatever wave picks me up. When I’m happy there are things that make me do other things and I just get swept along with those little whims. I want an aim/heading, except that the fact it will accomplish nothing is too unfathomably bleak a truth.

That is what gets most of us, I think. The depression takes the sparkle out of life and it is only that sparkle that keeps us on track in the hard times. It is the horizon, the painting, the music, the soul, the god. It’s what we need. It sustains us because it cannot be captured. It is desire to capture that which cannot be captured that grabs us. I want to be grabbed.

Now I’m roundabout thinking about the devil and if he were a real being, how it would be a perfect way to get rid of us. Just as hell is separation from God, rather than fire and brimstone. So too suicide comes as a result of hopelessness.

I turn my attention to the idea of enduring the bad to get to the good. Of working out some way to keep my awe alive whilst I am in turmoil. I know that I’ll be defeated by my own hopelessness one day. That if I waited some days past the unbearable day, I might have turned my luck around.

If I believed in God then I would view this as a punishment for something.

If I were the character in a book I would be the tragic example of man’s mind becoming the noose with which he hangs himself.

I made a comment to my mother this evening that I’d love to be insane. She found it strange, but you all know what I mean. You can believe what you tell yourself rather than what is empirically true. We, to some extent, are rather insane already – believing all manner of falsehoods. What I want for, is a lot more acute. I want to convince myself that my life’s purpose is this or that and go at it, blind to the fact that I am mortal and that my efforts to achieve anything will start to be eroded the moment I die.

So many more people are better at casting aside their uncertainties. Everyone I have met has managed to keep up their masks. I’ve never been in a room with anyone so sick and slack-spirited as I was in that room five years ago. So that gives me the impression that I’m unique, though I know it not to be the case. Nevertheless it leads me to self-delusion. That the whole world is a disney movie, whilst I’m feeling my very spirit being drained out of me to feed it.

When I am high I am drawing power out of the world, when I am sad I am the battery which feeds it.

I’m not sure what to do, I can’t hold on to the theories I’m being taught by the great thinkers of our world. I’m a victim of what I make myself believe and I seem unable to control what I think. What a kick in the nuts, hey?!?

I’m really sick of this.

Filed under: Depression, Existence, Reality, Sad, about me, anxiety

Wide Sargasso Sadness

“Very soon she’ll join all the others who know the secret and will not tell it. Or cannot. Or try and fail because they do not know enough. They can be recognized. White faces, dazed eyes, aimless gestures, high-pitched laughter. The way they walk and talk and scream or try to kill (themselves or you) if you laugh back at them. Yes, they’ve got to be watched. For the time comes when they try to kill, then disappear. But others are waiting to take their places, it’s a long, long line. She’s one of them. I too can wait – for the day when she is only a memory to be avoided, locked away, and like all memories a legend. Or a lie…”

Last page of Part Two. Wide Sargasso Sea. – Jean Rhys

What wakes in me is the knowledge that I am very similar to Antoinette in this novel. (Perhaps we all are and that is the glorious moot point to this whole journey. Each of us have our own yearning for a place to be comfortable. Each of us, the need to escape persecution from a life we have not chosen.) I dread to go on, as I do, about Bath – except that it is still at the core of my subject. The centre of my recent sadness. So I must re-conjure it, yet only in the explorative sense – no hint of the nostalgic.

Bath is a picture to me, a movie, a reel of film. Non, it remains as a negative for me to hold against the light. Raised as a sample. A solution, contained within a petri dish, which I will match against a depression I cannot hope to master. Trying to determine if it would make for a good culture of inoculation. A vaccination against future bouts of restlessness. I know I cannot change who I am, though I can choose a lesser pain and use it to vaccinate myself against further heartache. Allow myself to learn; teach my immune system a way of fighting off every sign of sadness.

I get restless when I am not fulfilled – as we all do – I begin to fear a lack of feeling. Then a fear of feeling too much. I rush around and try to re-ignite my own passion for life. Distract myself from what is undoubtedly on its way. I start to sit and contemplate how I have reached this point in my life. Then I am overwhelmed.

In Bath – after I realized my lack of romantic love for Much – it became clear that I was rushing around and burying myself in other people – so that I wouldn’t lose my good mood. In January things took a nose-dive out of that revelation. So that I wouldn’t dip any lower than I was I buried myself in drink and social things. Invited myself along with American students that I met randomly. Got numbers from them. Planed on sleeping with one. Except even that didn’t save me, it was too late to raise myself.

It didn’t work because, when I reached the understanding that I’d only been treading water – that eventually I’d be drowned, I couldn’t help but reel back and lose control.

So home I went. But I packed away that understanding of myself. Took it with me to pull it out when I was strong enough to look at it. I only need to refine it now. Learn from it. Move forward.

I know what helps me.

Nightingale helps me, she understands my weakness because she has already begun the journey I am now starting. I’ve learnt from her, or rather… her voice is allowing me to hear my own.

Exercise helps me. Just a little a day helps keep those blues away.

Chemistry helps me – understanding that to help myself I need to believe I am simply a mess of chemicals – that there is an equation behind and yet controlling my emotions and I can curtail any lowering of it by simply adding more seasoning. A hint more distraction. A pinch of passion. A sprinkling of spontaneous energetic activity.

As clear as it is that I am preoccupied with Bath and the last few months. As mad as it makes me appear. As obsessive and compulsive and nostalgic as I might come across. I can’t help thinking that actually, it isn’t a negative thing to examine a sadness that could save me. If I didn’t – if I just buried it – then I’d only make the same mistakes.

Much like I did many years ago, leaving the Wirral for university (leaving my first girlfriend), I buried the pain and ignored it. I became a new person like a snake shedding its skin. I’m good at it; I’ve done it many, many times since. It was the wrong thing to do. I should have been smart enough to work out that there was something to gain from understanding ‘why’ I was unhappy with things the way they were.

Maybe it is maturity. Another plateau reached on the struggle to the peak of wisdom. You know, before I lose all logical cognitive function and fall off the other side into senility.

Antoinette moved from her island home – into marriage – and back to her island again. A honeymoon in a hell that she loved. It was her, as she was it. What I read from that decision is the old idea of returning to the scene of the crime.

As she, I have come back to the place of my childhood – a place that has forced such unnumbered pains upon me. As she, I have managed to find a renewed admiration for such a wonderful place. As she, I will face my hardships head-on.

Unlike she, I will overcome the forces met out against me. Unlike she, I will bow to the unconquerable, retreat and repair, so that I may return with redoubled vigor. Unlike she, I  will win a real victory – rather than surrendering to a fact that is unreconcilable.

Antoinette had a childishness about her that never fully lifted. Antoinette retreated into herself – rather than healing, for her, came the notion of hiding. I mean to break the spell of madness.

The book held a lot of goodness in it. I will write more on it.

“Do not be sad. Or think Adieu. Adieu. Never Adieu.”

Filed under: Bath, Depression, Drinking, Existence, Friends, Future, Girls, Home, Lonely, Nightingale, Sad, Strangers, Women, about me, anxiety, books, childhood, hopes, novel, writing

broken…

Something I promised myself (and I will keep that promise) was not to stop taking my medication if I starting feeling better. I haven’t. I wont. This is a slight slip, but it acts as a good indication of how seriously I need to take things.

Yesterday I forgot to take my pill. Today I forgot to take another. I told myself it was ok and it was just because I had other things on my mind. About 20mins ago I started feeling rather awful.

Its like a creature is waking up in me and my heart is fluttering in my ribcage. I’ve got this real nervous feeling and I can’t concentrate. I’m spacing out slightly too. Headache on the way.

I honestly didn’t mean to. What will I do?

I’ve set up my mobile phone to let me know when it is time to take my pill. I always have my mobile with me, so its not a hard to be reminded by it. Not sure why I didn’t already. I guess I just thought that once I got into the habit, I’d be okay.

Anyway, don’t worry about me – I’m going to take a pill in order to sleep tonight – then wake-up and make sure that I drug myself up good.

Filed under: Day-to-day, Depression, Drugs, Existence, Sad, anxiety, cracks, sleep

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.

Filed under: Amy, Coffee, Day-to-day, Depression, Drinking, Existence, Food, Friends, Future, Girls, Happy, Reality, Sad, about me, books, burslem, hopes, nightmare , cult characters, desire for change, escape, fiction novella story writing author guardian article J, meal, men, minx, polartropic, sustenance

coming out of the cocoon

I got an email from Laura today. I got another one too, but i’ll post about it later.

It amounted to a ‘what is your problem?’ email – asking me what I’m doing.

Long and short is I can’t be fussed with all of this back and forth crap. That I would get an email asking how things are, then send a reply within a day and wait another week for another reply back. If it really was of interest, my health and life’s well-being – then pull your finger out.

On parting she and I had said that we’d be friends and my god is it just a fucking pain in the ass! There is no reason for it, why would I want to keep up with her life only to give her an excuse to comment on mine. So I cut her loose a week or so back and she has only just now, a week later, caught up to the fact. I didn’t email her and tell her anything bad, or good, or explain or anything when I did it – just did it – and rather than think.. ‘Fuck, wonder if he is ok’. She gives it over a week and then doesn’t even decide to flesh it out with more than a few sentences.

To put things in perspective – I didn’t delete facebook solely because of Laura – but it was a major factor. I ignored her email because it was basically ‘I’m living in Bath after all, with my new boyfriend… yay for me.’ There is little one can say about that, that wouldn’t be hideously false sentiment.

How do I explain this so that we are all on the same page.

She thinks I’m a serious screw-up because I was pretty screwed-up at the end of the relationship – so now I guess she thinks that I’m the same weeping mess that I was. Or I’m now just bottling things up.

Instead, I don’t feel the need to waste my energy making her feel better about herself. She’s off with a guy, she’s having fun… so why can’t she leave me be? Because I’m having more fun than she is – end of story.

I think that she wants me to break down again, tell her that I want to go back to how things were three months ago. Boo Hoo Hoo.

No, I am having a great time now. I’ve gotten over a lot of shit.

All this thinking is just made me muddled.

Bath just upsets me – that I wasted so long there. In these two months I’ve achieved more than in the past 2 years. Read more, written better, connected with more like-minded people, had better sex than ever before, gotten to head off to random parties etc…

It’s like the me before Laura has just come out of the cocoon again. Unleashed upon the world and making no apologies.

Writing is going wonderfully, saving to go traveling, no outgoings anymore, debt evaporating, new friends, lots of sex, lots of drink… wondrous…

However this afternoon I was struck by a sad feeling. It came about because all this thinking took me to the point on my existence and I still don’t have one. But never-mind. I’m just going to get on with things.

Filed under: Girls, Sad, Sex, Women, much

The most heartless man to ever own a pulse…

Consider the weekend dust being bitten. And so, another one shows her lack of understanding. Another deems me the villain in my own story.

I had a good weekend and then the whole thing is destroyed when the girl gets all emotional. Bloody women. Oh well.

Seriously these pills, my god, these pills make everything ok. I can think about things, but it is like there is a filter that is removing the emotional significance of it all. Right now I should be deeply hurt that a woman I shared a lot of myself with determines to hurt me by calling me a ‘user’. I mean, that’s the catch-phrase of the moment. Ex-friends, Ex-lovers… ex-cetera… all of them calling me a ‘monster’. And what for, I hear you cry?

For telling the god-damned unabashed truth.

For saying, ‘you know what, this isn’t working.’ Or ‘I never loved you, so I’m going to start hitting the field.’ Or ‘I’m going to start drinking again, because you made me out of be an alcoholic when really I was just unhappy.’

All these wonderfully monstrous confessions. How I can say… ‘i enjoy sex.’ And that is read as, ‘i used you for sex.’

The thing I’m learning is that people feel too much, too little and too late in the reverse order. They don’t realize their own objectives. This latest one took a last ditch effort to change me into a man who could love her. FAIL. It’s temporarily beyond me.

The only thing that the text gave me… because I know you’ll read this… is a distinct dislike for you. You learnt me well enough to say something hurtful to me… you don’t care for me if you treat me like this, so I’m not going to waste my time on you. Goodbye. Great life.

Onwards and outwards. Another thing that the weekend has afforded me is a closure on my sexual-escapades… or for now, anyhow… I’m tired out at the thought of randomly shagging my way around Liverpool… so now my objective is to stick it out as single and just do some fun dating. No sex, just relax, take things slowly and stop saying no to feelings.

I think slowly is the key. If I keep things nice and arm’s length for the time being then it will at least stir me into the right type of thinking, without hurting anyone in the process.

Except god knows every woman I have ever been out with has always fallen for me inside a week and is confessing their love not long after. Its a symptom of being too irresistible. Don’t protest… I joke, I jest, I play the fool.

Today I started reading Miller again to perk up what little chauvinistic skill remained intact. I read about his life and the ‘rosy crucifixion’ portion of his existence – where he moved away from everything he knew to begin again. Much like myself. Actually there is quite a lot of parallels to see when it comes to his prose. Certainly his life speaks a direct epiphany.

Regardless this is just one more reason I should be grateful for being free. At least I haven’t gotten myself in too deep. Gotten used to loving anyone or anything like that. That would be tragic, the old Jensen might well have taken to some model he managed to discuss marxism with. Or taken the number from a girl only to call her the wrong name down the phone. Or similarly fallen into the trap of some honey with a mind of mush and a great body, one that he couldn’t help but wish to be with because of their ‘connection’ and then, not long later, finds she’s dating another guy too. Spreading the odds. As well as her legs.

I’ve done nothing I can really be upset about. Instead I’ve held it together pretty well and… if I don’t have any more undue surprises… I think I’ll be well on the way to a happy day with some beaming broad one day soon.

See, the more time that passes without me needing to apologize, the less I have to be sorry for.

No man in a sorry-state can be happy, nor can he attract someone to share an evening with… in any true format of proclivity.

Filed under: Drinking, Existence, Friends, Future, Girls, Happy, Home, Lonely, Love, Lucy, Melissa, Nikki, Sad, Sarah, Sex, Steve, Strangers, about me, accusation, hopes, lissa, much, solitary , heartless, jen jen, pulse, sorry