It took about an entire year of on/off depression, low motivation, lack of vitality, tears, world-weariness and general apathy for me to realise: "maybe I shouldn't actually be feeling like this."
Somewhere along the way, my lifestyle routine transformed into one where my days are spent stressing about things I have no control over, my nights are filled with slacking off and sleeping in, and my weekly trips to this corner of the web are naught but a distant memory.
My brain seems to reverted back to a state it once held throughout huge chunks adolescence. A state in which it likes to censor itself for fear of outsiders not understanding what it means and thinking less of it as a result. And as the brain is simply the control centre of the rest of me - the drunken captain at the wheel of this mortal vessel - I end up becoming a complete misery at my ultimate lack of expression.
I write this (as you might've probably guessed from, like, the first line) as a person who's somehow managed to survive the last twelve months, dispute numerous sporadic instances of hopelessness and clarity on how shit life is. There were, like, genuinely, days where I was convinced I'd just waste away. For someone so insistent on keeping the inner child alive with wishes of endless days out, constant video games and snacks full of E-numbers, it's not exactly been an easy ride being thrown into the world of boring, responsible adulthood and constant philosophical crises without so much as a pre-emptive "oh, by the way..."
There's no warning for when the universe/chaos/your choice of deity (delete as applicable) is about to shower you with niceness or shower you with bricks made of cyanide and despair. I don't know if I'm about to spend the next twelve months putting more strain on my scalp with continued hair-tearing, or if I'm about to be given the year off for being a good sport and putting up with a spot of mental crushing.
Perhaps some sentient force somewhere out there - some drunken captain at the wheel of the universe - actually deals in some sense of balance and would see it fit to grant me an easier time soon. Or perhaps that same balance-enforcing chaos master has judged that I've had enough youthful enjoyment for this lifetime and has decided to hurl lions, vultures and piranhas at me in one go to make up for lost time.
Yes, these sentences are far too long. What do you expect though? I've barely written this kind of shit for the best part of a year.
There's nothing like discovering that even your own stream of consciousness isn't working as well as it maybe once did. Maybe I should stop doing this altogether. Maybe I should stop leaking my brain all over this bit of web and stick to staring blankly at a wall in my spare hours.
Or maybe, I should tell my brain to shut up and stop censoring itself. I suppose we all have that appropriateness filter built in to our minds and it just seems that mine's been dialled up to a level on par with the content output of CBeebies or a devout convent. With that filter working overtime for me, all the thoughts I'm producing are being held back and, very much like a USB stick full of pirated Game of Thrones episodes, my head's quickly running out of storage space to hold any more.
Stop doing long sentences, idiot.
The problem is, I've gotten so good at keeping things to myself over the last year or so, I'm struggling to know what thoughts are actually appropriate for unleashing upon the world. Or, realistically, upon the seven or so people I know personally who'll actually see this because they happened upon a link to this that I shared as they were idly scrolling Facebook.
Then again, if you actually knew what was going on inside my head, you'd probably agree that none of the thoughts were appropriate at all, and that this brain censoring service should continue as normal.
Saturday, 13 June 2015
Wednesday, 31 December 2014
Glitch
It always used to freak me out when machinery went a little haywire. I've spoken (typed?) before about my childhood wary of a PlayStation that may or may not have become sentient, intended to switch itself on in the middle of the night and secretly want to eat me. That's nothing.
The following story encompasses several computerised, electronic devices and, in keeping with the holiday season, we're about to be visited by three ghosts of the machine age.
The Ghost of Machinery Past
In the pre-PlayStation era of my childhood, I recall possessing an electronic educational toy, presented in the vein of a laptop computer. This is before laptops were really a thing, mind. Sure, laptops existed but they were nowhere near as widespread and commercial as they are now. You know, like when you see the first mobile phones in existence, looking like a brick with a hand-crank that only about seven people in the world could afford.
The inner workings of My Little Laptop effectively amounted to that of a tamagotchi with a keyboard. A tiny screen composed of black and not-black pixels alongside a robotic lady voice would teach me things like letters, numbers and what apples most certainly didn't look like. Sadly, one day, Madame Voice-Bot clearly couldn't be arsed with her day's teaching any more, froze the screen and droned out a never-ending "AAAEEEERRRHHHHHH".
Pressing the power button did nothing. Closing the laptop did nothing. Mindlessly bashing the keyboard did nothing. Crying and pointing did nothing. Somewhere along the way, the batteries came out and freed Lady Drones-A-Lot from her glitch, but the lasting damage to the real boy was already done. I suppose that's quite possibly where the fear of malfunctioning technology came from. A couple of years later, a PlayStation only exacerbated the issue.
The Ghost of Machinery Sort-of Past but still Present
In my teenage years, I'd learned to deal with the fickle quirks of technology. Sure, we'd had our ups and downs but by this point, laptops were common and mobile phones were essentially pocket GameBoys capable of only playing Snake. Technology was capable enough of behaving most of the time now.
One summer, I recall surfing all seventeen pages the internet had to offer then, whilst playing various music files I'd unscrupulously acquired from those dark corners that have long since been cut off, reincarnated and cut off again. At some point, for some reason, silence instantly descended as the game of Bejeweled (or whatever the hell was popular at the time) transformed into a blue screen with white text in that boot-up font nobody likes.
I sat stunned, almost paralysed. Not particularly through fear, more through shock. How could this flawless piece of mid-2000s, Vista-based technology possibly glitch out for no apparent reason? Drawing from my childhood experiences, the battery was ejected, put back and the whole thing worked fine again. However, I never did play the same song file again, obviously believing it to be cursed.
The Ghost of Machinery Present but Comparably Futuristic to the Other Two
For the last two years, I've owned an iPad mini - essentially a laptop without a keyboard. Incidentally, mobile phones can't get any smaller now that they actually have to go back to being brick-sized and digital games are plentiful, even though I still willingly choose to repeatedly battle level 512 of the never-ending Candy Crush Saga.
Of course, two human years is about 86 in digital years, and my once sprightly touchscreen-based assistant has recently been struggling to keep up with the demands of modern life. The poor guy often cuts out on me occasionally, like he's opened an app and forgotten what he went in there for. He goes blank and, with nowhere else to go, sits back down in his best armchair, I mean, home screen.
The glitching doesn't scare me so much, nor does it render me immobile. Instead it's just become an annoying standard; the norm I have to put up with. All I manage to do these days is tut, moan and stare angrily at the touchscreen keyboard that's still about three or four letters behind what I've just tapped. And when the screen defaults back to home, I'll pick up from where I left off again as soon as my waning willpower lets me.
Epilogue
'You there boy! What day is it today?'
'Today, sir? Why, it's a few days after Christmas of course!'
'A few days after Christmas? Fantastic! Now sod off, you're doing my head in.'
He stopped. He tried to remember himself. He couldn't. He reset. He remembered, sort of, then got angry at himself, then at other people for no reason other than his blanked out mind told him that was what to do next.
He soon realised he was transforming, becoming less of a human and more of a cold, logical robot. But with 25 human years on him - that's positively, you know, like, thousands in computer years - his wiring is a bit knackered, his circuits worn down and the logic is making less and less sense to him.
Feeling older and more weary than his years, he opens up search tabs and after another half hour, he searches terms like "Depression", "Coping with depression", "Losing my mind" and "Seriously, what the hell is wrong with me, Oh my God what's going on".
Whenever the mood strikes him, he contends with the internal fear, paralysis and ultimate frustration that he had to face when past machinery spazzed out.
He deduces that he's badly in need of a mental upgrade but either the right patch hasn't been released for his firmware yet or some hack technician - in this world known as doctors - will want to give him some temporary boost that'll ultimately cause him to malfunction further later on.
In the meantime, he attempts to play that copy of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U he got himself for Christmas, but the online connection is often a bit laggy and occasionally kicks him off for a bit.
Merry drinking period to all.
The following story encompasses several computerised, electronic devices and, in keeping with the holiday season, we're about to be visited by three ghosts of the machine age.
The Ghost of Machinery Past
In the pre-PlayStation era of my childhood, I recall possessing an electronic educational toy, presented in the vein of a laptop computer. This is before laptops were really a thing, mind. Sure, laptops existed but they were nowhere near as widespread and commercial as they are now. You know, like when you see the first mobile phones in existence, looking like a brick with a hand-crank that only about seven people in the world could afford.
The inner workings of My Little Laptop effectively amounted to that of a tamagotchi with a keyboard. A tiny screen composed of black and not-black pixels alongside a robotic lady voice would teach me things like letters, numbers and what apples most certainly didn't look like. Sadly, one day, Madame Voice-Bot clearly couldn't be arsed with her day's teaching any more, froze the screen and droned out a never-ending "AAAEEEERRRHHHHHH".
Pressing the power button did nothing. Closing the laptop did nothing. Mindlessly bashing the keyboard did nothing. Crying and pointing did nothing. Somewhere along the way, the batteries came out and freed Lady Drones-A-Lot from her glitch, but the lasting damage to the real boy was already done. I suppose that's quite possibly where the fear of malfunctioning technology came from. A couple of years later, a PlayStation only exacerbated the issue.
The Ghost of Machinery Sort-of Past but still Present
In my teenage years, I'd learned to deal with the fickle quirks of technology. Sure, we'd had our ups and downs but by this point, laptops were common and mobile phones were essentially pocket GameBoys capable of only playing Snake. Technology was capable enough of behaving most of the time now.
One summer, I recall surfing all seventeen pages the internet had to offer then, whilst playing various music files I'd unscrupulously acquired from those dark corners that have long since been cut off, reincarnated and cut off again. At some point, for some reason, silence instantly descended as the game of Bejeweled (or whatever the hell was popular at the time) transformed into a blue screen with white text in that boot-up font nobody likes.
I sat stunned, almost paralysed. Not particularly through fear, more through shock. How could this flawless piece of mid-2000s, Vista-based technology possibly glitch out for no apparent reason? Drawing from my childhood experiences, the battery was ejected, put back and the whole thing worked fine again. However, I never did play the same song file again, obviously believing it to be cursed.
The Ghost of Machinery Present but Comparably Futuristic to the Other Two
For the last two years, I've owned an iPad mini - essentially a laptop without a keyboard. Incidentally, mobile phones can't get any smaller now that they actually have to go back to being brick-sized and digital games are plentiful, even though I still willingly choose to repeatedly battle level 512 of the never-ending Candy Crush Saga.
Of course, two human years is about 86 in digital years, and my once sprightly touchscreen-based assistant has recently been struggling to keep up with the demands of modern life. The poor guy often cuts out on me occasionally, like he's opened an app and forgotten what he went in there for. He goes blank and, with nowhere else to go, sits back down in his best armchair, I mean, home screen.
The glitching doesn't scare me so much, nor does it render me immobile. Instead it's just become an annoying standard; the norm I have to put up with. All I manage to do these days is tut, moan and stare angrily at the touchscreen keyboard that's still about three or four letters behind what I've just tapped. And when the screen defaults back to home, I'll pick up from where I left off again as soon as my waning willpower lets me.
Epilogue
'You there boy! What day is it today?'
'Today, sir? Why, it's a few days after Christmas of course!'
'A few days after Christmas? Fantastic! Now sod off, you're doing my head in.'
He stopped. He tried to remember himself. He couldn't. He reset. He remembered, sort of, then got angry at himself, then at other people for no reason other than his blanked out mind told him that was what to do next.
He soon realised he was transforming, becoming less of a human and more of a cold, logical robot. But with 25 human years on him - that's positively, you know, like, thousands in computer years - his wiring is a bit knackered, his circuits worn down and the logic is making less and less sense to him.
Feeling older and more weary than his years, he opens up search tabs and after another half hour, he searches terms like "Depression", "Coping with depression", "Losing my mind" and "Seriously, what the hell is wrong with me, Oh my God what's going on".
Whenever the mood strikes him, he contends with the internal fear, paralysis and ultimate frustration that he had to face when past machinery spazzed out.
He deduces that he's badly in need of a mental upgrade but either the right patch hasn't been released for his firmware yet or some hack technician - in this world known as doctors - will want to give him some temporary boost that'll ultimately cause him to malfunction further later on.
In the meantime, he attempts to play that copy of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U he got himself for Christmas, but the online connection is often a bit laggy and occasionally kicks him off for a bit.
Merry drinking period to all.
Saturday, 1 November 2014
Squeaky Office Chair
As I write this, it's Wednesday morning. Hello future! How are you doing over there in November? It's October here. Sorry to be writing to you from the other side of Halloween but I'm a bit stuck over here. Let me clarify, the Internet's down in work. Well, by now it probably isn't, but for me, right now, making these words, it is.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not slacking off from work. I could've started writing this at 9:20. 9:20 rather than 9:00 because the ever-so-reliable trains evidently don't like the oncoming winter and have stumbled over more times in the past few weeks than I've had hot dinners. Incidentally, I almost wrote the phrase "winter is coming" in that last sentence, but corrected myself for fear of looking too Game-of-Thrones-referencey. Perhaps if I stop reading the damn saga, bit by tiny bit, on my train journeys, winter will go away and the rails will behave a bit more.
Alas, I'm writing this on or around 11:30 and I've done as much of my work as I can do without web access thanks to yesterday's research notes. As it currently stands, I'm sitting in my squeaky office chair, furiously tapping this out single-fingeredly onto a tablet in draft form. All the while, I'm looking up at my desktop screen every 40 seconds or so, hoping that the little yellow triangular warning icon over the Internet access icon will magically disappear.
I'm also about to be given what feels like my twelfth cup of tea of the day because what really else is there to do other than watch a kettle boil. I'm having just as much fun watching that yellow triangle perpetually denying me web access, even though I'm assured that whatever provider provides us is doing their behind-the-scenes magic to bat those little yellow triangles everywhere into oblivion.
In the meantime I'm left to ponder what to do for the rest of my time whilst stranded on a non-WiFi enabled island, shaped like a squeaky office chair. What should I have for lunch? Perhaps I could buy something nice from town whilst I'm out. Actually, on that front, how much money do I have in my bank. Hang on a sec, let me just log in and check.
DAMMIT!
Okay, new plan. How are you? Seriously. I never ask. Mostly because no one really comes here, but if you are here, hi, welcome, etc. How are you? Sorry for being so selfish all this time. I only ever come here to moan about things. My, this chair sure is squeaky. But it'd be nice to hear from you one, see how things are going.
Of course, you can't get in touch with me now. This friendly greeting hasn't been posted yet. I'm still in the past and you're all the way over there. And should you get in touch, chances are I won't receive your response now. I'll receive it sometime in the future, when I'm surrounded by all the web access I can swim through, and probably nowhere near a chair that makes incessant, high-pitched creaking noises whenever I shift my arse a bit.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not slacking off from work. I could've started writing this at 9:20. 9:20 rather than 9:00 because the ever-so-reliable trains evidently don't like the oncoming winter and have stumbled over more times in the past few weeks than I've had hot dinners. Incidentally, I almost wrote the phrase "winter is coming" in that last sentence, but corrected myself for fear of looking too Game-of-Thrones-referencey. Perhaps if I stop reading the damn saga, bit by tiny bit, on my train journeys, winter will go away and the rails will behave a bit more.
Alas, I'm writing this on or around 11:30 and I've done as much of my work as I can do without web access thanks to yesterday's research notes. As it currently stands, I'm sitting in my squeaky office chair, furiously tapping this out single-fingeredly onto a tablet in draft form. All the while, I'm looking up at my desktop screen every 40 seconds or so, hoping that the little yellow triangular warning icon over the Internet access icon will magically disappear.
I'm also about to be given what feels like my twelfth cup of tea of the day because what really else is there to do other than watch a kettle boil. I'm having just as much fun watching that yellow triangle perpetually denying me web access, even though I'm assured that whatever provider provides us is doing their behind-the-scenes magic to bat those little yellow triangles everywhere into oblivion.
In the meantime I'm left to ponder what to do for the rest of my time whilst stranded on a non-WiFi enabled island, shaped like a squeaky office chair. What should I have for lunch? Perhaps I could buy something nice from town whilst I'm out. Actually, on that front, how much money do I have in my bank. Hang on a sec, let me just log in and check.
DAMMIT!
Okay, new plan. How are you? Seriously. I never ask. Mostly because no one really comes here, but if you are here, hi, welcome, etc. How are you? Sorry for being so selfish all this time. I only ever come here to moan about things. My, this chair sure is squeaky. But it'd be nice to hear from you one, see how things are going.
Of course, you can't get in touch with me now. This friendly greeting hasn't been posted yet. I'm still in the past and you're all the way over there. And should you get in touch, chances are I won't receive your response now. I'll receive it sometime in the future, when I'm surrounded by all the web access I can swim through, and probably nowhere near a chair that makes incessant, high-pitched creaking noises whenever I shift my arse a bit.
Saturday, 25 October 2014
Drained
My feelings towards modern technology have taken a downward turn. I awoke yesterday morning to two text messages I'd received overnight. This is notable considering I never get messages unless EE decide they suddenly want to offer me tickets to a gig, stand-up show or other miscellaneous event I'm really not interested in. It's got to the point where feeling that little vibration in my pocket invokes a sense of anger and weariness within me, where normal people may feel elation.
Considering the barrage of marketing messages I have to contend with attack me during daylight hours, I was mildly surprised to see that two things had tried to alert me between the hours of 11pm and 6am. My slowly waking mind raced (well, as much as a slowly waking mind can race) wondering which of my friends or family had felt the urgency to get my immediate attention at such an unspeakable time.
My blurrier-than-normal eyes and drained-from-early-starts mind did their best to work together in the early morning dawnlight and focus their dwindling energies on the phone display. I'd soon discovered that the two messages had arrived within an hour of each other, both from an automated number. The first read something along the lines of thus:
In my quest for answers, I managed to discover that a single app on the phone had gone rogue and, much like an obnoxious teenager pirating every film and TV show that ever existed during the small hours of darkness, stayed up all night inexplicably abusing that connection in the background.
In the background.
Background downloading.
And not even anything useful. Just a browser I'd closed from the screen but hadn't properly closed down and exited the entire app, probably refreshing itself every couple of minutes so the ad banner could keep changing and marketing lots of stuff to me, which I couldn't see anyway because (a) it was off the screen, and (b) I was asleep.
Never mind the fact that I usually do all I can to prevent background apps running and eating data. I know it happens and I like to think myself cleverer than the evil technology makers and a savvy saver to boot. However, in my one moment of long-week-with-little-sleep induced tiredness, the devil got into my phone and rendered it useless for the next two weeks or so.
Of course, it's not useless, it's still a phone that can make calls and receive text messages. Heck, it can even use Wi-Fi to access the web. It just can't get data whilst on the go. Trouble is that's what phones do these days and without such an important feature it might as well be considered useless. Imagine, for example, that all spoons were integrated with a pencil in the handle. Now imagine that pencil bit breaks and all of a sudden you resent the spoon for its inability to make notes and the fact that the only thing it's good for any more is eating soup.
Having had the allowed data mercilessly leached from the device totally behind my consciousness - my over-processed, under-rested consciousness - I've been forced to come to the conclusion that the planet Earth is, in fact, an ageless vampire, constantly sucking the life out of everything and not really giving much of a damn. All the while, in this world-as-uncaring-vampire scenario, I've been playing the role of the emotionless and expressionless girl who can't act but still wins awards anyway. I so desperately want to believe the world actually has the potential to be a good place and I also hope that the world will love me in return, only to realise that the cold, harsh world doesn't really have the capacity to love me and is only really interested in draining me of my life-force and mobile data, most likely through the big vein in my neck.
Sadly, that analogy doesn't totally fit. I never win awards for having an unchanging, mopey face.
Considering the barrage of marketing messages I have to contend with attack me during daylight hours, I was mildly surprised to see that two things had tried to alert me between the hours of 11pm and 6am. My slowly waking mind raced (well, as much as a slowly waking mind can race) wondering which of my friends or family had felt the urgency to get my immediate attention at such an unspeakable time.
My blurrier-than-normal eyes and drained-from-early-starts mind did their best to work together in the early morning dawnlight and focus their dwindling energies on the phone display. I'd soon discovered that the two messages had arrived within an hour of each other, both from an automated number. The first read something along the lines of thus:
You've now used 80% of your monthly data allowance. Whoa, steady on there, and such.Less than an hour later, something like this was sent:
You've now used up all of your monthly data allowance. Why not give us more money so you can keep fuelling that excessive downloading habit you seem to have there? After all, your next month's allowance doesn't start for another couple of weeks. Ha!I found the content of these message to be quite odd. Not because they'd were written like that. They weren't, that was just me capturing the tone of smugness. What I found odd was that I hardly use much mobile data, if ever. I don't trust it enough. Data usage is difficult to measure whilst you're out and about dealing with other real world events. And I like measuring. I like knowing. It took me years to finally agree to using a monthly tariff instead of pay-as-you-go because I liked that I could hear a robotic lady voice telling me I had a specific amount left to spend. I could do the maths and plan my future phone use accordingly. But data is difficult to measure in spontaneous moments and I tend not to use it often.
In my quest for answers, I managed to discover that a single app on the phone had gone rogue and, much like an obnoxious teenager pirating every film and TV show that ever existed during the small hours of darkness, stayed up all night inexplicably abusing that connection in the background.
In the background.
Background downloading.
And not even anything useful. Just a browser I'd closed from the screen but hadn't properly closed down and exited the entire app, probably refreshing itself every couple of minutes so the ad banner could keep changing and marketing lots of stuff to me, which I couldn't see anyway because (a) it was off the screen, and (b) I was asleep.
Never mind the fact that I usually do all I can to prevent background apps running and eating data. I know it happens and I like to think myself cleverer than the evil technology makers and a savvy saver to boot. However, in my one moment of long-week-with-little-sleep induced tiredness, the devil got into my phone and rendered it useless for the next two weeks or so.
Of course, it's not useless, it's still a phone that can make calls and receive text messages. Heck, it can even use Wi-Fi to access the web. It just can't get data whilst on the go. Trouble is that's what phones do these days and without such an important feature it might as well be considered useless. Imagine, for example, that all spoons were integrated with a pencil in the handle. Now imagine that pencil bit breaks and all of a sudden you resent the spoon for its inability to make notes and the fact that the only thing it's good for any more is eating soup.
Having had the allowed data mercilessly leached from the device totally behind my consciousness - my over-processed, under-rested consciousness - I've been forced to come to the conclusion that the planet Earth is, in fact, an ageless vampire, constantly sucking the life out of everything and not really giving much of a damn. All the while, in this world-as-uncaring-vampire scenario, I've been playing the role of the emotionless and expressionless girl who can't act but still wins awards anyway. I so desperately want to believe the world actually has the potential to be a good place and I also hope that the world will love me in return, only to realise that the cold, harsh world doesn't really have the capacity to love me and is only really interested in draining me of my life-force and mobile data, most likely through the big vein in my neck.
Sadly, that analogy doesn't totally fit. I never win awards for having an unchanging, mopey face.
Saturday, 11 October 2014
Projects
Three birthdays ago, I made a list of things I wanted to accomplish with my life. I turned 22 and the idea of numerology stepped into my brain, making me believe that the number 22 was special because it consisted of two twos and because I was born on a day designated the 22nd of a month by ancient people.
That superstitious part of my brain likes clinging onto crap like that; it's somewhat comforting to cope with living when you're safe in the knowledge that the arbitrary positions of stars in the sky have some influence. It's nice pretending that magpies and black cats can bring changes in an individual's luck by their mere presence to that person. And it's fairly satisfying to hold the belief that those who have wronged you in some way will, at some point, be wronged themselves in some act of universal karmic retribution. It's nice to have that because the only other alternative is the reality - the reality of cold, harsh chaos.
Initially, the idea with the list (oh yeah, I'm back to the list now, sorry for the lack of seamless transition) was that once I'd actually gotten around to accomplishing something, I'd use it as the basis of one of these little waffles. The fact that I never actually finished a single one (including the last one, which was to finish dragging the list out to 22 items if I remember correctly) proves one of two things.
a) I've been extremely unlucky in getting personally set projects finished
or b) I've been extremely lazy in not getting personally set projects started
Because it's nice to live in a world of pixies, clovers and eyelash wishes, I'm adamant to believe that the first statement is true. Sadly, reality, in all its infinite chaotic shitstorm, tends to point me in the direction of the latter statement being more accurate. Despite possessing the knowledge, the believing and accepting portions of my brainspace still refuse this and have caused me to become conflicted - forever arguing with myself, trapped inside half a skull-ful of bone matter.
Ultimately, this has led me to a third-life crisis (assuming I'll make it to 75 and strictly not a moment sooner or later) in which I'm realising that all of my time up to this point has been wasted on thinking about doing things. Now that my youth has found the escape hatch and left the rest of me to sink with the submarine made of chaos and lifestuff, I feel as though I've been doing everything up until now completely wrong, and that the time for getting things back on track is long gone since I derailed years ago. Also I find myself inadvertently mixing metaphors. Apparently life's a train now, not a sub. Sorry for the prior confusion.
As time flows ever-onwards and the numbers of days and years I've accumulated keeps growing pointlessly larger, I somehow have to find a way to pick up the withered and fractured pieces of myself whilst watching every other bugger on the planet skip merrily on. Perhaps I could set myself a list of life goals, only to completely neglect it and spout off some more text-based self-pity and crap a few years later.
Until then, I'll just keep sitting here, in an upturned submarine, miles away from the nearest train track.
That superstitious part of my brain likes clinging onto crap like that; it's somewhat comforting to cope with living when you're safe in the knowledge that the arbitrary positions of stars in the sky have some influence. It's nice pretending that magpies and black cats can bring changes in an individual's luck by their mere presence to that person. And it's fairly satisfying to hold the belief that those who have wronged you in some way will, at some point, be wronged themselves in some act of universal karmic retribution. It's nice to have that because the only other alternative is the reality - the reality of cold, harsh chaos.
Initially, the idea with the list (oh yeah, I'm back to the list now, sorry for the lack of seamless transition) was that once I'd actually gotten around to accomplishing something, I'd use it as the basis of one of these little waffles. The fact that I never actually finished a single one (including the last one, which was to finish dragging the list out to 22 items if I remember correctly) proves one of two things.
a) I've been extremely unlucky in getting personally set projects finished
or b) I've been extremely lazy in not getting personally set projects started
Because it's nice to live in a world of pixies, clovers and eyelash wishes, I'm adamant to believe that the first statement is true. Sadly, reality, in all its infinite chaotic shitstorm, tends to point me in the direction of the latter statement being more accurate. Despite possessing the knowledge, the believing and accepting portions of my brainspace still refuse this and have caused me to become conflicted - forever arguing with myself, trapped inside half a skull-ful of bone matter.
Ultimately, this has led me to a third-life crisis (assuming I'll make it to 75 and strictly not a moment sooner or later) in which I'm realising that all of my time up to this point has been wasted on thinking about doing things. Now that my youth has found the escape hatch and left the rest of me to sink with the submarine made of chaos and lifestuff, I feel as though I've been doing everything up until now completely wrong, and that the time for getting things back on track is long gone since I derailed years ago. Also I find myself inadvertently mixing metaphors. Apparently life's a train now, not a sub. Sorry for the prior confusion.
As time flows ever-onwards and the numbers of days and years I've accumulated keeps growing pointlessly larger, I somehow have to find a way to pick up the withered and fractured pieces of myself whilst watching every other bugger on the planet skip merrily on. Perhaps I could set myself a list of life goals, only to completely neglect it and spout off some more text-based self-pity and crap a few years later.
Until then, I'll just keep sitting here, in an upturned submarine, miles away from the nearest train track.
Saturday, 27 September 2014
The Individual
This has taken a bit of a backseat in my life lately. Actually, if anything, this has been dumped in the furthest corner of the trailer hitched up to the back of my metaphorical life-mobile. You know, the life-mobile. Like the Bat-mobile only with less men in tights and more spiralling entropy. Anyway, the essence of this paragraph is that I haven't written here much for a long, long time. It probably shows.
By semi-sort-of demand, I'm back doing this, though how long I can keep it up remains a mystery guarded only by the gods of time itself, the ever-knowing, pre-determined path of destiny, a Magic 8-ball in the loft and the fictitious Ghost of Christmas Yet-To-Come. I suppose that if I do keep this up as regularly as I'd like to, there'll probably be more and more kinda-being-used-too-liberally-to-string-words-together-to-form-some-kind-of-adjective hyphens.
I've come across some real-life people in recent weeks who've spoken of this little mess of crap I've built here and it's transpired that many of those people feel let down that there isn't more crap here to distract them from their slow, yet inevitable, decay. Also, I suppose it's nice to look at someone else's crap and realise "hey, at least my crap isn't as crap as this guy's crap".
My crap (read "life" [read "the continuous string of time I spend existing"]) has taken me to various places over the last however long it's been since I did something here. Mostly it's work, where I spend my days writing enough words that I don't have many left in me by the time I return home and have to resort to a series of grunting noises and hand gestures if communication of ideas is required at all. Yes, I work in Writing now. I actually have a job that relates to what I've spent years of my life working towards. The only real downside is that I've neglected this thing, despite me initially setting the damned thing up to keep me writing, to keep the creative juices flowing and to keep the clichés and metaphors cliché-and-metaphoring. Ironic, really.
I fear the socialising time of my life has come to abrupt stumble, though, as I'm effectively living an adult whilst stuck with the mind and soul of a child. I like to play with interactive televisual softwares. I'm often thanking the gods for making Netflix a thing. I enjoy the idea of socialising and the individual people who make up such company. Chances for satisfying any of these are rare, meaning I often feel as though I have a frustrated child being stifled within me, which doesn't exactly seem to be the best sentence to be writing on the Internet.
As part of my rare outbursts, I recently visited Manchester for less than 24 hours, in an attempt at rekindling some social fires. For the most part, it worked, but as the imposing adult life dictates, they didn't last for too long before the train dragged my inner child away, internally kicking and screaming. I was, however, introduced to the city's Chinatown district during my brief stay. Of course, "district" is a bit of an over-stretch, where in fact "three streets or so" is probably more accurate. Still it's more extensive than Liverpool's Chinatown, which is really one street, and Chester's Chinatown, which is really a Wok&Go.
The inner child now hates the rest of me and the outside world for limiting its potential for fun. The inner child also wishes for me to communicate to you that it feels extremely lonely. I keep telling it that it's not special, though, and that compared to the other billions of folks out there, it's pretty normal. Everyone's just as stifled and lonely in their own ways, and that they all just have to make do. It's around this point that the inner child sticks its fingers in its ears and screams, thus allowing me no chance to reason with it like an adult.
This is rambling. See, this is what happens when I suddenly come back to this with no set topic or focus on what it is I'm actually typing purple banana lamppost. Let's try to sum up, shall we? I'm a child. I'm actually an adult. I'm lonely in the wider world. So is everyone else. I'm not special. Time will eventually kill us all. I like Chinese food.
By semi-sort-of demand, I'm back doing this, though how long I can keep it up remains a mystery guarded only by the gods of time itself, the ever-knowing, pre-determined path of destiny, a Magic 8-ball in the loft and the fictitious Ghost of Christmas Yet-To-Come. I suppose that if I do keep this up as regularly as I'd like to, there'll probably be more and more kinda-being-used-too-liberally-to-string-words-together-to-form-some-kind-of-adjective hyphens.
I've come across some real-life people in recent weeks who've spoken of this little mess of crap I've built here and it's transpired that many of those people feel let down that there isn't more crap here to distract them from their slow, yet inevitable, decay. Also, I suppose it's nice to look at someone else's crap and realise "hey, at least my crap isn't as crap as this guy's crap".
My crap (read "life" [read "the continuous string of time I spend existing"]) has taken me to various places over the last however long it's been since I did something here. Mostly it's work, where I spend my days writing enough words that I don't have many left in me by the time I return home and have to resort to a series of grunting noises and hand gestures if communication of ideas is required at all. Yes, I work in Writing now. I actually have a job that relates to what I've spent years of my life working towards. The only real downside is that I've neglected this thing, despite me initially setting the damned thing up to keep me writing, to keep the creative juices flowing and to keep the clichés and metaphors cliché-and-metaphoring. Ironic, really.
I fear the socialising time of my life has come to abrupt stumble, though, as I'm effectively living an adult whilst stuck with the mind and soul of a child. I like to play with interactive televisual softwares. I'm often thanking the gods for making Netflix a thing. I enjoy the idea of socialising and the individual people who make up such company. Chances for satisfying any of these are rare, meaning I often feel as though I have a frustrated child being stifled within me, which doesn't exactly seem to be the best sentence to be writing on the Internet.
As part of my rare outbursts, I recently visited Manchester for less than 24 hours, in an attempt at rekindling some social fires. For the most part, it worked, but as the imposing adult life dictates, they didn't last for too long before the train dragged my inner child away, internally kicking and screaming. I was, however, introduced to the city's Chinatown district during my brief stay. Of course, "district" is a bit of an over-stretch, where in fact "three streets or so" is probably more accurate. Still it's more extensive than Liverpool's Chinatown, which is really one street, and Chester's Chinatown, which is really a Wok&Go.
The inner child now hates the rest of me and the outside world for limiting its potential for fun. The inner child also wishes for me to communicate to you that it feels extremely lonely. I keep telling it that it's not special, though, and that compared to the other billions of folks out there, it's pretty normal. Everyone's just as stifled and lonely in their own ways, and that they all just have to make do. It's around this point that the inner child sticks its fingers in its ears and screams, thus allowing me no chance to reason with it like an adult.
This is rambling. See, this is what happens when I suddenly come back to this with no set topic or focus on what it is I'm actually typing purple banana lamppost. Let's try to sum up, shall we? I'm a child. I'm actually an adult. I'm lonely in the wider world. So is everyone else. I'm not special. Time will eventually kill us all. I like Chinese food.
Saturday, 26 July 2014
Balls In The Air
Juggling was never really a specialty of mine, which is weird because I went to juggling club in high school. Oh yeah, my high school ran an after school juggling club, run by the maths teacher who wasn't the old man or the Indian woman everyone struggled to understand; it was run by the other woman who, evidently, juggles. It ran in the same vein as other extra-curricular, after school events, like chess club, drama club, art club and trying to make friends with absolutely-anyone-through-some-kind-of-shared-activity-club. Naturally, I dabbled a little bit in each of those too.
The aforementioned juggling took place in the temporary drama space provided by what was essentially an open plan static caravan parked in the field. The interior walls had been painted so black that what little light came through the windows was instantly killed off before reaching us and the carpet was evidently comprised of gravel and string. The main door also suffered a broken hinge, allowing me to give a very convincing performance one time, when my drama group decided to re-enact a typical soap opera. This ended with me being fake punched in the face and falling backwards, bouncing off the door and playing dead on the floor. And for those 20 seconds in between me 'dying' and the rest of my acting troupe looking sheepishly at the class sized audience and mumbling "that's it", I managed to make a trainee teacher genuinely think her teaching career had just crumbled to bits. I digress.
I'm bad at juggling. Maybe I should've just opened with that.
Doing multiple things at the same is, well, let's say "difficult, but not unmanageable". Actually, let's not say that for the sloppy use of a double-negative. But you know what I mean. So much to do, so little time, yadda yadda death. Having a hectic lifestyle means I'm a) tired all the time, and b) officially a grown-up. Incidentally, I haven't used my Nectar card for a while; I have far more grown-up-ly duties to attend to.
I work a weekday 9-to-5, office-based lifestyle these days. Also it appears I like hyphens. Look-at-all-these-damn-hyphens! See? Anyway, back to reality, I've been keeping a lot of metaphorical balls in the air lately and often dropping them when I feel like I want some free time to, you know, look at rocks or something. In all fairness, the office work isn't even bad. I read stuff then write stuff. It's like my normal life but more topic-specific and less rambl-o-matic like this thing usually is. Also, I don't get to use as many hyphens. You know, unless it's necessary.
The struggle stems from my daily commute, which has frankly become more exhausting in temperatures that qualify as "positively Saharan" to a pale, ginger northerner. Being torn away from my bed earlier than I'd like often allows me to tap into my inner zombie as I shuffle about a bit and grunt at a self scanner when all I want is breakfast and it refuses to co-operate. In conclusion, work's going well, it's the to and fro that's tiring me out.
I know what you're thinking. This commute would be so much easier if you didn't have to rely on public transport. Come on dumbo, you're 25. Learn to work a car for yourself. Way ahead of you. I've been taking weekly lessons and am progressing positively. But much like juggling, there's lots of things to keep your eye on and think about (and then actually do something about) before gravity takes hold and makes a fool of you when those balls hit the floor. Except in this scenario, it's not balls but motorised heaps of metal. And should you mess up somewhere, it's not gravity making you a fool, but velocity making you dead. Stakes are bit higher up here. Perhaps I should've mastered juggling first to be honest.
Still, I managed to be alive enough to type this so I clearly I've been doing something right.
The aforementioned juggling took place in the temporary drama space provided by what was essentially an open plan static caravan parked in the field. The interior walls had been painted so black that what little light came through the windows was instantly killed off before reaching us and the carpet was evidently comprised of gravel and string. The main door also suffered a broken hinge, allowing me to give a very convincing performance one time, when my drama group decided to re-enact a typical soap opera. This ended with me being fake punched in the face and falling backwards, bouncing off the door and playing dead on the floor. And for those 20 seconds in between me 'dying' and the rest of my acting troupe looking sheepishly at the class sized audience and mumbling "that's it", I managed to make a trainee teacher genuinely think her teaching career had just crumbled to bits. I digress.
I'm bad at juggling. Maybe I should've just opened with that.
Doing multiple things at the same is, well, let's say "difficult, but not unmanageable". Actually, let's not say that for the sloppy use of a double-negative. But you know what I mean. So much to do, so little time, yadda yadda death. Having a hectic lifestyle means I'm a) tired all the time, and b) officially a grown-up. Incidentally, I haven't used my Nectar card for a while; I have far more grown-up-ly duties to attend to.
I work a weekday 9-to-5, office-based lifestyle these days. Also it appears I like hyphens. Look-at-all-these-damn-hyphens! See? Anyway, back to reality, I've been keeping a lot of metaphorical balls in the air lately and often dropping them when I feel like I want some free time to, you know, look at rocks or something. In all fairness, the office work isn't even bad. I read stuff then write stuff. It's like my normal life but more topic-specific and less rambl-o-matic like this thing usually is. Also, I don't get to use as many hyphens. You know, unless it's necessary.
The struggle stems from my daily commute, which has frankly become more exhausting in temperatures that qualify as "positively Saharan" to a pale, ginger northerner. Being torn away from my bed earlier than I'd like often allows me to tap into my inner zombie as I shuffle about a bit and grunt at a self scanner when all I want is breakfast and it refuses to co-operate. In conclusion, work's going well, it's the to and fro that's tiring me out.
I know what you're thinking. This commute would be so much easier if you didn't have to rely on public transport. Come on dumbo, you're 25. Learn to work a car for yourself. Way ahead of you. I've been taking weekly lessons and am progressing positively. But much like juggling, there's lots of things to keep your eye on and think about (and then actually do something about) before gravity takes hold and makes a fool of you when those balls hit the floor. Except in this scenario, it's not balls but motorised heaps of metal. And should you mess up somewhere, it's not gravity making you a fool, but velocity making you dead. Stakes are bit higher up here. Perhaps I should've mastered juggling first to be honest.
Still, I managed to be alive enough to type this so I clearly I've been doing something right.
Saturday, 12 July 2014
Hiatus
Once upon a time, I wrote weekly entries for this bit of internet right here. Having chosen the path of a writer, I needed some form of keeping my brain and typing fingers active. I also liked to kid myself that people would read this, I'd get noticed by some big city recruiter type - complete with giant cigar and monocle - who'd say "hey kid, I like your work, you have such a unique style, I can give you money" and so on, but you know, slightly muffled because of the cigar.
That didn't happen. Sure, people read the crap I put here, but mostly because I put links on Facebook as if nonchalantly dragging a free-standing cafe chalkboard into the vicinity of a neon arrow and strolling away pretending to look at the sky. Of the people who have read it, several have sprouted words of praise and flung them my way, which my brain doesn't know what to do with because I suddenly become overwhelmed with a strong sense of smugness I keep masked under modesty. These words are my life, sure, but in my eyes they're also pretty crap and anyone caught reading my words should pray to whatever deity they may believe in for salvation straight afterwards.
It probably feels redundant to say this in a space I've left neglected, once again, for a terribly long time, but I'm finding it a struggle to write. Okay, let me clear something up, I don't necessarily find writing to be the struggle, it's more the commitment; the commitment I made to myself that I'd stick with this so regularly. Take right now for instance. I literally just stopped mid-sentence after the second mention of "commitment" so that I could have an imaginary conversation with thin air and take a leak. I then had to force myself to pick up from where I left off when really I'd just rather go to sleep.
The actual writing aspect isn't the problem though. In my web-based silence, I've managed to secure a job that involves me typing words. Hooray, etc. I've also moved into a small room in the parental home, driven a considerable distance under the guidance of a man with the appropriate pedals on his side, and cried uncontrollably whilst curled up on a bare carpeted floor because a devastating bout of depression struck again. But they're all stories for a different time... probably. Except for that last one. I'll do that one now.
It's rare, but the feeling of absolute emptiness and carelessness (i.e. devoid of caring, not clumsiness) came worse this time, and there's no sure-fire way to kick start the damn feelings again. I even rolled around the floor thinking I'd rather feel sad than feel nothing. It's difficult to describe feeling nothing, you just stare vacantly ahead and let your brain recite every word it knows simultaneously, thus causing white noise in your blank head. I can't remember what got me out of it again, probably a song, or dinner. But even so, I ended up getting my wish and started to have my monotony replaced with constant sadness, which I suppose is some kind of a win.
I'd like to go on hiatus for a bit; not on the blog. Hell, I can handle the blog, although I've made an executive decision (I'm the executive of this blog, I've just decided) to switch "New Post Day" from Wednesday to Saturday. I work full weekdays now, I'm a grown-up, somehow that happened. But back to the hiatus, I really just want to fall off the radar for a bit.
I spent a week not posting to Facebook. Odd, because I've come to recognise myself as a bit of a status whore, just giving it away to the Matrix. It's also occurred to me, however, that I've become a bit of a clown. Any time I share something with the Facebook masses, it's usually some form of amusing observation, anecdotal aside or use of the word "bum" to make people laugh. And it works, evidently, if Likes are anything to go by. As for comments? Very few people speak to me these days and the loneliness of the virtual realm has started to set in. Like I said, I haven't made an update for a week, but nobody really seems to have noticed.
At the risk of sounding all angsty, emo, attention-seeking teenager with black dreadlocks and lip piercings, it's really hit home how much I want to be cared about, and how much I haven't really been getting that recently. There's really no other way to say that (trust me, words are my weapon of choice) without drawing criticism, but I want to be open and honest. I also want an overflowing bank account and to be fed grapes whilst lounging with a wreath on my head, but the openness and honesty are the bits I actually have control over.
I'll do my best to keep this thing updated once a week again, but chances are I'll be keeping away from many other forms of social interaction, virtual or otherwise. I have issues I'd prefer to moan about rather than talk about; I'm human and I just need a break.
That didn't happen. Sure, people read the crap I put here, but mostly because I put links on Facebook as if nonchalantly dragging a free-standing cafe chalkboard into the vicinity of a neon arrow and strolling away pretending to look at the sky. Of the people who have read it, several have sprouted words of praise and flung them my way, which my brain doesn't know what to do with because I suddenly become overwhelmed with a strong sense of smugness I keep masked under modesty. These words are my life, sure, but in my eyes they're also pretty crap and anyone caught reading my words should pray to whatever deity they may believe in for salvation straight afterwards.
It probably feels redundant to say this in a space I've left neglected, once again, for a terribly long time, but I'm finding it a struggle to write. Okay, let me clear something up, I don't necessarily find writing to be the struggle, it's more the commitment; the commitment I made to myself that I'd stick with this so regularly. Take right now for instance. I literally just stopped mid-sentence after the second mention of "commitment" so that I could have an imaginary conversation with thin air and take a leak. I then had to force myself to pick up from where I left off when really I'd just rather go to sleep.
The actual writing aspect isn't the problem though. In my web-based silence, I've managed to secure a job that involves me typing words. Hooray, etc. I've also moved into a small room in the parental home, driven a considerable distance under the guidance of a man with the appropriate pedals on his side, and cried uncontrollably whilst curled up on a bare carpeted floor because a devastating bout of depression struck again. But they're all stories for a different time... probably. Except for that last one. I'll do that one now.
It's rare, but the feeling of absolute emptiness and carelessness (i.e. devoid of caring, not clumsiness) came worse this time, and there's no sure-fire way to kick start the damn feelings again. I even rolled around the floor thinking I'd rather feel sad than feel nothing. It's difficult to describe feeling nothing, you just stare vacantly ahead and let your brain recite every word it knows simultaneously, thus causing white noise in your blank head. I can't remember what got me out of it again, probably a song, or dinner. But even so, I ended up getting my wish and started to have my monotony replaced with constant sadness, which I suppose is some kind of a win.
I'd like to go on hiatus for a bit; not on the blog. Hell, I can handle the blog, although I've made an executive decision (I'm the executive of this blog, I've just decided) to switch "New Post Day" from Wednesday to Saturday. I work full weekdays now, I'm a grown-up, somehow that happened. But back to the hiatus, I really just want to fall off the radar for a bit.
I spent a week not posting to Facebook. Odd, because I've come to recognise myself as a bit of a status whore, just giving it away to the Matrix. It's also occurred to me, however, that I've become a bit of a clown. Any time I share something with the Facebook masses, it's usually some form of amusing observation, anecdotal aside or use of the word "bum" to make people laugh. And it works, evidently, if Likes are anything to go by. As for comments? Very few people speak to me these days and the loneliness of the virtual realm has started to set in. Like I said, I haven't made an update for a week, but nobody really seems to have noticed.
At the risk of sounding all angsty, emo, attention-seeking teenager with black dreadlocks and lip piercings, it's really hit home how much I want to be cared about, and how much I haven't really been getting that recently. There's really no other way to say that (trust me, words are my weapon of choice) without drawing criticism, but I want to be open and honest. I also want an overflowing bank account and to be fed grapes whilst lounging with a wreath on my head, but the openness and honesty are the bits I actually have control over.
I'll do my best to keep this thing updated once a week again, but chances are I'll be keeping away from many other forms of social interaction, virtual or otherwise. I have issues I'd prefer to moan about rather than talk about; I'm human and I just need a break.
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