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.)

on gardens and old mythology

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway this is my cycle.

And… well… what’s more like life?

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

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

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

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

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

Fuck it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m tired.

I want to wipe the slate clean.

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

Here’s who I want to be.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’ve never held anything back from this blog.

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

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

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.

The rowdy lives of poison arrow frogs.

 

 

Talking to Fritz, I couldn’t help but swing my face to the sky. Almost completely smoothed over in black smudges – there was only the clicking of the pennies in my pocket to distract me from the depression seizing my chest – It’s always made me upend a smile when I see a good sky turn ugly. Much like it has always weighed my heart to find people who wish to remain forever unremarkable. Fritz and I are not those types of people. We are boundless in energy and ambition and likewise, for the moment, in struggles. Then again, ‘suffering has its benefit – to those who can read the brail of higher significance’, as Fritz himself once said.

 

So to lead you into a tale I will explain that Fritz joined me on a weekend away. It was a training weekend for a new job I had lined up working for The Cellphone Distribution Hive. The C.D.H. sent me on this trip to learn how best to distribute said devices and I needed a means of transport, hence the appearance of Fritz.

 

So both of us, sent forward by our buxom rarity, jittered our way to Stafford, myself in the back of Fritz’s steed ‘Bike’ (and yes we are aware it is an irregular name for a car). For Fritz any day is another chance to score some saccharine slut, the trip to Stafford meant that he’d be rid of those he’d already tried to pull. In his mind this was only adding to the likelihood of a lay. To myself, thinking more deeply on the scenario, I imagined carving a great path forward by mimicking the local slang – I figure anywhere away from home is a chance to be someone you aren’t.

 

High-tailing it to the second stop on a five stop journey – Fritz pulls into a road named after some long dead factory manager, one of them own-the-homes-of-the-poor-bastards-that-work-for-you-type roads – we take ourselves out of our car and I say ‘our’s knowing full well it was entirely his, except for the CD in the stereo.

 

Did I mention God’s hungers for our words? I don’t think I did but it matters so little anyway I don’t think I will carry on with that. When it is a duly considered fact, that most Gods are jealous of our brief intensity.

Anyway, Fritz and I made it to a bar quick enough to escape sobering to aching heads and dry tongues. We walked into a local joint with a pinch of talent in one corner – the rest populated by 30-somethings in tracksuits. There was a fully staffed bar, but most of them were standing like citrus fruit in the light of a lack of orders, so we offered our services as patrons and sat on the stools.

 

While we knocked back some sauce – increasing our devil-may-care attitude toward the notion of wandering over to said talent in the corner – we chatted about the heavy anchors in our chests. Always pulling us down. Always bringing down the mood to stringence and then to restlessness – or else, always tearing at the seabed of our sanity, while we used a gust of drink or drugs to fill our sails and push us onwards regardless. It was Fritz who hauled anchor for us, pitching the keel suddenly to shake me awake. It was Fritz who turned our eyes back to the shore; return to conquest.

 

 Interminable in courage – or foolishness – we made our way over to the flock of skirts with a view to pealing them free of what little they had on. Further and further became nearer and nearer and then we were upon them. Well I never saw – before that moment – a collection of shinier women. Hair was slick to their scalps and pulled back – amateur face-lifts – to ponytails. Their skin shimmered and looked to melt at their foreheads. In a flash we were greeted with glossed lips – parted periodically to partake in greedy gulps of beer. We could see their navels; pushed forward by their paunch little beer bellies, a little stud in each. There was, from each, a clicking noise, which we later learned was their tongue piercings flicking against the backs of their teeth. Each girl was as slimy as a newborn lamb. There is something to do about such things and that is to take each to your room, run a bath and chuck them in; like unwanted puppies. Its all fun and games to them, water is a novelty, so while you introduce them to soap and shampoo, you are also bringing a degree of hygiene to the proceedings. First you had to resolve to desire them. So while I looked on in horror and questioned whether my eyesight had somehow been tampered with, Fritz simply licked his lips and put forward a salutation.

 

We learned that their names were Rach, Tina, Chlo, Law and Sammi and that each had a laugh that shuddered your vertebrae. Why fuck them? The only answer is that ‘it is in our nature’. We taught them by example and the only homework was revision – oh yes, they would replay this night in their minds for a long time to come! Ours was a diploma in satisfaction and you got honours for demonstrating give as well as take.

 

Now you can – from the get go – write off Rach and Tina as both were none too kind on the optics, even after a sousing. As for Sammi, well she was so far gone she’d never remember consenting. Chlo and Law were nightclub get-up angels with halos of cigarette smoke and right for worldly education.

 

We chatted wasteful hours away, in-between gulps and tokes – you noticed frank want and need in their eyes – and time came for retirement to bedrooms and sofas, by this time Fritz was beside himself with the libido quivers. Thighs pulsing, faces flushed – like a kid on Christmas Eve, dreaming dreams of unwrapping new toys.

 

So two parts of Bath’s Literary Barbershop are slipping knickers off two saccharine sluts – when there is a knock at the door.

Fritz lies on the sofa with Law – well into intimacy with no regard for the caller, or for me – while I greeted a smile with more gaps than teeth. The stranger – dressed in a suit and slick smirk – just uttered two words, ‘Too Loud’, before walking away back down the hallway. Fritz can’t help but shout at me as I stood there – in disbelief with door wide – in my boxers. ‘Cunt, you should have told him he was a Twat!!’

 

At that moment a sticky soberness came over me and I felt sick and sweaty. A grim reality hit me. Chloe, well she is a Virgo. This in itself mean very little to me. It wasn’t fair to say that I trusted in superstition. Failure appeared to me in a vision and then sped off into my future – so I watched the path of it with my mind’s eye – until it flickered its last embers and faded out as it went beyond range. Virgo or not, she was a ready and willing catastrophe.

 

I left the girls at his mercy and wove a path down the hallway – palms assisting me – before I turned the corner, took the elevator and dropped to ground level to the sound of crap music. In my life only two things hold any real certainty; death and the occasional re-emergence of a soul-crushing feeling of listlessness. Utterly – achingly – awful. In my life, also, two things can pull my head above the surface tension of misery. One involves primal urge, the other… a large measure of any given liquor to lighten the spirit. There is nothing more wholly satisfying than a one-gulp start and a second to finish. Back in my room the mini-bar screams for me. That night I tried to calculate my future, the equation was simple – the outcome fell on the sword of Jensen’s Inequality Formula.

better off in bed

 

‘Then again’ has got nothing on me. My every waking moment is a sermon on any mount you can count.

 

 

I’m not sure where to start today, tonight, this morning… it has been, and is, all these things.

 

 

I’m lying in bed with two towering bookshelves to my left. Scores of books, some read – most just flipped through. All those words, all that information and, though I hunger for it, I can never seem to find the energy to begin any real campaign – no winning this war of attrition, there will always be backup coming from somewhere; always a cavalry of classics lined against the lip of the sky.

 

 

Nest Chick is out with her Cuckoo Tweeter and so I’m a pidgin shy of all alone. Beak-to-beaking-it together and I don’t get a look in – she and she got no me, no me at all – one wonders how they cope; yet cope they do.

 

 

No one else is awake these days, I seem to find them sleepwalking through life and I quickly get sucked into that mentality. Follow suit in the very outfit myself. Tonight I found myself stupefied and so had to evacuate the house party before my brain oozed out of my ears and my heart sank like a shipwreck. Compass set to sheets and a shower, I got home in quick pace – then all I needed was a spot of sleep… or the spiders to leave… whatever. I made a cup of tea and waited up for Nest Chick. Snuggled down under downy sheets.

 

 

Tie-dyed was the style of my first bed-sheets, second hand at the point where they reached me, and I loved them. For all the non-dye stains, for missing buttons and its cheesecloth hem – all raggedy ends – for all those things I loved it. I knew early on that it mirrored my view of myself, that even now I want someone simply to love me as foolishly as I loved those bed-sheets. For all faults can be found endearing. Most blemishes the results of a life lived, rather than a life kept in an airing cupboard.

 

 

Now I wish I had those damned sheets, but mostly I miss the pillow. The was worn in the middle and the fabric had bobbled slightly. It wasn’t rough on the face, but soothing when it warmed to my temperature. I’d get to sleep with my head nodding. Rubbing my cheek against the soft-rough surface. It was heaven. It was comfort. Now I wish I had that damned pillow because I need some easy comfort. Hard to find nowadays, where most things flash and blink but are none-too-good against the cheek.

 

 

I liked things the way they were a good few hours back, when we were easy in each other’s presence. Perhaps I should have stayed, simply sat there in silence?

 

No, I think I’m better off in bed, with or without the pillow.