friday fluff

Friday. Time to take a break from my therapy sessions and ponder the real issues in the world. Like...

Where does my mind go when it turns off?

How is it I can sometimes look with my eyes and for some reason it feels like I'm looking out of green eyes instead of dark brown?

What is it about coffee that it will first make me sleepy instead of awake? It is very tricksy.

Why does the scent of a man's neck put me in a stupor? Do they hide the pheromones there?

Will humans ever learn the art of telepathy? So much quieter.

How do the tiny little birds survive big raging storms?

Why is procrastination such a long word?

mmmmmm…

…coffee

fame, ergo, ego

So much noise! So much chatter! So much ego! The ego has to be the loudest thing on the planet. It screams from everywhere, in every language, through every form of media. Mine screams in here. How can it not? Nasty little parasite it is.

 

Even those who begin a life in the spotlight seemingly ego-free, manage to fall victim to it. I speak of Susan Boyle, the so-called 'scottish singing sensation' who has failed to move me even slightly with her singing or her story. I don't know why; I surmised it must have been because I was a cold hearted b-dog. Everyone around me spoke of weeping, of the joyous rapture moving within them when she opened her mouth. The only thing moving with me, was me, out of the room.

 

Maybe I exaggerate. I'm happy she's found her voice, good on her, and for a voice, it aint bad if you like that sort of thing. I'm just over the exposure she's receiving because seriously, it's just totally over the top. That and the eyebrows. The eyebrows scare me, truth be told.

 

It seems now she's had a potty-mouthed paddy over a 12-year old boy being given praise on a semi-final of Britain's Got Talent. She has found her ego, and its ever growing presence is demanding more room. Ego no want share space.

 

Of course, the spin doctors are doing their finest wheeling and spinning, and as it always is with fluff stories, we never know the full truth, but if it is true, I do feel sorry for her. She finds herself thrust into the public domain within an astonishingly short period of time. She doesn't really seem well equipped for it. Her ego, which may have previously been in the back seat, has now become a back seat driver.

 

Such is the pendulum of life: after being too far one way, you swing too far in the other direction. It's a lesson, no doubt. If you let your ego rule your life, you lose your essence. Here's thanking the scottish singing sensation for reminding me.

i’m on my own couch

Self analysis is really quite hard. And kind of fun. You have whole conversations with yourself – question and answer, arguments, debates. Makes you look kind of spacey. It really is a freaky thing when you state something and then turn around and totally disagree with yourself.

I’ve been doing it now for two days over a question recently posed to me by a wise locust: “Why do you think you don’t deserve happiness?”

My first reaction was – that’s not what I think. Second reaction – well maybe it is what I think and I don’t know it. Maybe it’s what my subconscious thinks and it hasn’t yet filled me in.

And so started a long conversation with myself.

---

Me 1: It’s not that I think I don’t deserve happiness, it’s that I doubt my ability to successfully find it.

Me 2: Why do I think I can’t find it?

Me 1: Because I don’t even know how to answer the question “what makes me happy?” What gets me up in the morning? I strive to think, and come up short. I have no idea. I really have no idea why I bother getting up in the morning. I just know I have to.

Me 2: Well think harder. If I had a reason to get up in the morning, what would it be? Has anything in my life ever made me even slightly more excited to get up in the morning?

Me 1: If I have a good idea in my head and I want to write it down, I’m excited to get up and start playing…

Me 2: Boom. Creating. I like creating things. I like creativity.

Me 1: yeaaah… but I don’t know yet if I can make a life out of that.

Me 2: Back to question one then eh?

Me 1: shuddup.

Me 2: no you shuddup. It sounds like I’m doing the ‘don’t deserve it’ thing again.

Me 1: Noooo… For me, happiness just seems hard to obtain. And I don’t want to fuck it up. It’s like happiness is a butterfly I’m creeping up on and I’ll probably end up scaring it away.

Me 2: Touching imagery. So do I just believe that it’s too much of a yin yang thing? Maybe I can’t have happy without a good dose of the sad?

Me 1: I guess. Probably stems from happy times in my life that have turned to pot. Is this where I get to blame my childhood?

Me 2: If I want. But I thought I’d squared away the whole ‘father figure’ fiasco.

Me 1: Unless I haven’t, and there’s issues of abandonment still going on? I did have an 11 year relationship straight out of high school with someone 7 years older than me (so that’s kind of father figurey), and that got totally screwed over. Kind of gave me little hope of ever finding a good male figure to share my life with.

Me 2: Yeeesss… let’s blame the ex.

Me 1: Seems too easy. Got to be more to it than that. Do I feel like whenever there is happiness in my life, it ends up abandoning me?

Me 2: I don’t know. You’re asking me?

Me 1: It’s like I’m waiting for happiness to be handed to me. Like I don’t want to put in the effort to go out and find it. I’m inactive instead of proactive. Is it a sense of abandonment? Do I believe that happiness, even if found, will inevitable abandon me?

Me 2: Or is that because I feel I’m not worthy of it? Or am I just lazy? Is my happiness having a sleep-in, head under the covers, refusing to get up until I poke it enough?

Me 1: Yeah I like that – My happiness is covered. Isn’t it strange we ‘search’ for happiness as though it is somewhere outside of us? Reality is, happiness is within and we just have to work out how to recover it – or, uncover it.

Me 2: – and be happy in any situation. How do the ascetics do it?

Me 1: Sigh. I know not.

Me 2: Yes I do, I know I do. In Buddhism and Hinduism they talk of the ‘divinity within’ – the idea that we’re all divine, we just have many veils covering it. We already know everything. We just have to remember that we know it, by slowly lifting the veils. We walk around in a fog unaware of what we are, believing everything and everyone is somehow different to us, when the truth is we’re all from the same divine spark – we are all divine.

Me 1: Dude, deep. So happiness is within.

Me 2: I still haven’t answered the question.

Me 1: Well, you get that. How about, I do think I deserve happiness, I even know how to obtain happiness, I just don’t put what I know and believe into practice.

Me 2: – and so I need a good kick up the arse.

Me 1: Don’t get cocky.

Me 2: Do you know what I’ve forgotten?

Me 1: What?

Me 2: This quote I once fell in love with:

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

- Goethe (possibly)

Me 1: True that.

---

Probably goes without saying I’m a work in progress…

a book bind

I’m in a literary quandary.

When I decided to up the tempo on this writing thing, first thing I did was buy a moleskine and carry it everywhere to scrawl down whatever came out of my head. Second thing I did was revisit the masters. My masters -- the ones who get me excited about words: cummings, Kerouac, Burroughs, Gonzo, Hesse, Marquez, Irving, Kesey, Palahniuk. I devoured their inspiration and flicked the switch on the ‘let’s play with words’ room in my brain.

So when about a month ago, on yet another second-hand bookstore scavenge, I bumped into William Burroughs’ The Ticket That Exploded, it was like getting a whole new lego set for my words room. I was yea excited.

Surely Burroughs, beat poet, word maestro, would come play lego with me? Surely a novel heralded as a perfect example of the cut-up technique of writing would give me some ideas? After all, I loved Junky.

But, I. Am. Struggling! This book is too much! I’ve barely managed to push myself through 50 pages, most of that done with a facial expression whose verbal equivalent would be, “ewwwww”. Do you know how hard it is to read with one eye closed and your head turned to one side while your face is screwed up like that? I’m scared to read it in public in case someone else sees it, knows exactly what I’m reading and thinks me a total pervert.

I could describe this book (so far as I’ve read) in three words, but I can’t write them here because together, they will definitely not google well at all. The first two might be ok – gay, and alien. The third rhymes with horn. I’m not kidding. And there seem to be a lot of boys in it. I don’t think that’s right. Amazon’s key phrases for the book might give you an idea of what I’m talking about. Or maybe not.

What I do know is that I’m not getting the connection yet between what’s on the page and what the book is actually meant to be about, which I think is some sort of P.I trying to get to the bottom of an intergalactic takeover occurring through mind control and technology (and a lot of man-man loving).

The thing is, I really believe it has something to teach me about playing with syntax. The whole idea of cut-up is fascinating – take text, physically cut it up, put it back together to create new meanings through juxtaposition. Force the readers to make sense of it themselves instead of force-feeding them the meaning.

Some sentences go for whole paragraphs with no punctuation at all. Then there are whole pages of short grabs. That is the fascinating part of this book. The actual story – so very not.

Like this…

“Murder under a carbide lamp in Puya rain outside it’s a mighty wet place drinking aguardiente with tea and canella to cut that kerosene taste he called me a drunken son of a bitch and there it was across the table raw and bloody as a fresh used knife . . sitting torpid and quiescent in a canvas chair after reading last month’s Sunday comics “the jokes” he called them and read every word it sometimes took him a full hour by a tidal river in Mexico slow murder in his eyes maybe ten fifteen years later I see the move he made then he was a good amateur chess player it took up most of his time actually but he had plenty of that.”

Or this…

“In the open air a boy waiting – Smiles overtake someone walking – The questions drift down slowly out of an old dream – mountain wind caught in the door – the odor of drowned suns trailing her linen sweat in the final ape of history – Like I’d ask alterations but blue sky on our ticket that exploded”

- The Ticket that Exploded, William S. Burroughs

Both passages are pretty much, ‘wha??’ and yet I understand his play and manipulation.

So, my quandary is this: do I keep reading this – persevere as it were – through the severity of the story matter, in the hope of gleaning a new way of looking at words and syntax, or do I give up and go wash my brain out with soap?

Is it even possible to ignore subject matter altogether, and just focus on construction? Can you look at a painting of something awful only to admire the beauty in the brush strokes?

It feels wrong to turn my back on one of my masters. But seriously, he’s coming across as a dirty old bugger! Maybe I’ll give him 50 more pages.

Oh no! I flicked ahead! It gets worse! ewwwww!

i persevere, therefore i am not

Persevere is such an interesting word.

According to the dictionary, it’s from the latin perseverare: per=through, severus=severe. Oh yeah, it’s severe alright.

Why do people persevere with situations that are toxic? Let’s poke me some more and find out.

My life has become a holding pattern and it’s starting to suck. I drag myself through the same miserable job, day after day, to what end? I’m not going anywhere. What am I gaining? Perseverance? Why? I persevere, then I die, then what? (well sidenote -- i think I'll float around for a bit, assessing the fact that i just did a life of nothing, then come back and try not to do nothing again, but that’s just me, and probably a whole other post waiting to happen…).

On all sides I have people telling me to stop doing it, stop persevering -- my own little voice agrees, and yet I do it anyway.

It’s fear. I don’t back myself enough. I’m afraid to step off the edge of the precipice into the unknown because I can’t see how far the drop is. The catch is I’m never going to find out until I just take the damn step. Who knows, I might have a latent ability to fly that’s been waiting to surface since I hit puberty. Maybe I’m a lost X-Men.

This must happen the world over; scores of people stuck in lives they have no care for, doing tasks that bring them no joy, in jobs that hasten their sad slide into death through fatigue, misery and depression. And they keep on at it, because they think they have to, because that’s what they think life is.

Everyone agrees with the vague idea that the main goal in life is happiness, and yet we so often turn our backs on what makes us happy to persevere with what is, instead. So many unfulfilled people with so many dreams collecting dust. And I’m one of them.

Our poor muses must be banging their heads against the wall they skated out from, waiting for us to wake up (hmm, Xanadu flashback…).

There’s another thought that holds me back. I’m afraid if I start doing what I love it will turn into a ‘career’, a ‘job’ and I will grow to hate it. After all I’ve had such bad experiences with careers and jobs up to now, who’s to say it will be any different? The odds are against me.

But I think that’s just another excuse conjured from my brain to make me feel ok with my perseverance. It’s my brain offering up the blue pill of ignorance in order for me to keep functioning in a listless life. Heaven forbid I take the red pill, hop on the rollercoaster of the fulfilled and finally see the view from the top.

Sometimes I feel I have to kick myself in the proverbial and be reminded that this world is here for me too. The world doesn’t need anymore wallflowers. There’s only one Me, and I’m sure the world would appreciate a bit of Me.

The next hard bit is finding out what the Me is. When I do, you’ll be the second person to know.

the peril of possessions

It’s Sunday, around 2 in the afternoon, and I’m still in my jimmy-jams, on my fourth cup of tea, feeling very procrastinatory.

Sure, I finished reading a screenplay (‘Vanilla Sky’ by Cameron Crowe) and knocked off a couple of drafts for future posts, but still, it’s a beautiful calm sunny day outside after a week of torrential rain, which had the added benefit of pointing out the gaping rusted holes in the gutters by my bedroom window. Freaking Niagara out there. Had to get the earplugs out and pretend I didn’t have to add that to the list of things that must be urgently fixed in this place.

So what’s my task going to be for the afternoon? Spring Clean!

I’m always set on northern hemisphere time when it comes to the good spring clean. For some reason I only ever feel like doing it when we begin our descent into winter. It seems to make more sense. The world (well this half anyway) winds down and gets ready for hibernation. What better time to trim the deadwood?

As I look around this place I’m disgusted with the amount of clutter, junk, trash, dust-collectors and useless things I haven’t pointed my eyes in the direction of for at least a year. I feel like throwing everything out. It’s so claustrophobic.

Possessions become the possessor. We buy things, which require more things, which require us to work more, so we can buy more things, which require more things, and around it goes.

We can’t take any of this with us, yet we build up an impressive amount of junk anyway. Why? Are we crazy? Quite possibly.

Mental peace and a mountain of possessions are mutually exclusive. The more crap you have, the more crap you have to worry about.

So I’m going to be ruthless. Start at one end of the house and put everything I own through an interrogation – do I use you? Have I used you lately? Well then what are you doing here?

This might take a while. I only hope at the end of it I feel like I’ve also cleaned out a corner of my brain in the process. Too much clutter! Inside and out!

i’m inspired

There’s so much creativity around at the moment! A massive pond of inspiration I’m trying to dip my toes into as much as I can. Ah who am I kidding – I’m heading in for a skinny dip.

We’re all here to create. We create ideas, visions, happy places, sad places, problems, solutions, music, words and everything in between. Look at anything solid or ethereal, it’s been created by someone or something. We even create whole people out of ourselves (just add stardust).

To live is to create; to create is to live.

Creation opens our eyes and expands our minds. Creation is evolution, both personally and universally. It’s the spark that runs this whole operation. When you create, you contribute. You give something to this life and those in it. It’s the gateway to the soul and the core of your being.

So with all this creativity coming into focus, I’m feeling the spark; I’m feeling the push onto better paths as I wind my way up this pretty thorny mountain called life. I can’t get enough of it!

When I come across someone who’s found their perfect niche of creativity I get so excited. It’s easy to see their spark - they just freaking glow with it. They resonate. It’s inspiring, invigorating, slightly intimidating. It challenges and reminds me to quit my faffing about and actually create something. It’s a kick up the arse and a mighty get-a-move-on in neon lights.

On that note, I hope you’ll permit me to share the creativity of two glowing, sparkly people that blew me away this week -

an original piece. www.myspace.com/simonfisenden

"Swing" from Liam Underwood on Vimeo.

It’s so easy to see they’re doing what they love. I’m always in awe of clever people. Maybe one day I’ll drop the fear and get into gear myself.

friday foto finish: seagulls

Continuing the theme of the day thing that seems to have sprung up in here from god-knows-where, I hereby dub this Friday Foto Finish day, and will have a rest from the writing thing.

Anyway, looking back at the posts from my first full week in here, I feel like I should rename this blog “the mel stripped bare”. I’m feeling a little raw and exposed at the moment! Poking and prodding away at the soul does that, I guess.

I have at least two blogs simmering in the saucepan of my mind and I think they deserve more attention than I can give them tonight, so for now, here’s some pretty pictures to look at, courtesy of friends that hang out at my usual lunchtime haunt, Port Beach Fremantle:

(ps i think I have another blog brewing on the serenity of seagulls…)

thursday therapy: dreams and anxiety

Lately I feel like I’m advancing towards some sort of danger and all I want to do is run away. I don’t know for sure what, or why, or where from, but the anxiety is there, rippling under the surface.

I’m reminded of a dream I had in Sri Lanka maybe 16 years ago, which is still clear as day now (It seems even more profound knowing what happened in the exact same spot I had the dream, 11 years later).

I was on the beach walking towards the water and suddenly a massive tidal wave formed and started roaring towards me. It was so high it covered the sky. The sound was a slow suspenseful booming crescendo.

The panic rose to my throat (I can still feel it now just thinking about it), and I scrambled backwards trying to run away from it, only to find myself jumping up in my sleep and running headlong into the wall, which promptly woke me up and scared the crap out of my partner. It’s the one and only time I’ve ever become mobile while dreaming. I had a graze on my head for days after.

(Begin therapy session…)

If I was to lay back on a couch with someone behind me going “mmhmm” at regular intervals, it may be discovered that my anxiety is related to my job and my unhappiness there. I’ve recently made my misery crystal clear to those above me and it’s caused a chain reaction of meetings and decision-making pow-wows to try and fix it.

My anxiety may stem from thinking about what the end result of all this will be. I’ve created a tidal wave from which I now want to run away. I’m unsure what the outcome will be and whether I’ll be able to handle it. I’m not just talking decisions made by others, but decisions I myself might make about the situation.

It could also be the fact that my character is being discussed in great detail. Not the nicest thing to be going on when you have some idea of what might be said. Kind of ups the self-loathing.

Then again, what if, like my dream, I just run headlong into a wall with the panic, wake up, and realise it was all just a dream after all? I might be imagining horrors to occur, only to find out it’s all fluffy bunnies in the end.

Maybe I just need to learn how to surf.

wednesday whinge: hating the love ballad

What is it about soppy music that makes me want to kill things? Slowly. Like bunnies. And I’m a pacifistic vegetarian.

I’m talking bad love ballads. When I hear that kind of music, my teeth clench, my eyebrows knit together in a dark thundercloud of rage, and I feel the need to start thumping anything in my reach. I feel my heart rate rise, my muscles tense, my whole body prepare for war. It’s an auto-response over which I seem to have absolutely no control.

Whitney, Mariah, Celine all make me convulse. Lionel Ritchie, Chris de Burgh and Roy Orbison will have me clawing at the walls. I can’t help it. Someone else might get the same response to death metal, or classical music, or anything with a cowbell in it, but why do I go ape over such benign, placid music, as the good old fashioned love ballad? Why do I get angry at a form of music that seems to calm most people?

I suspect it is an old trigger from childhood, perhaps a blocked memory where something god-awful happened to me accompanied by the woeful warblings of “Endless Love” or “Unchained Melody”, or worse, “Tonight I Celebrate my Love”. Such is the power of music that even though I say this flippantly, it’s a totally feasible possibility. Music can trigger memories, just like smells.

Music can either soothe you, or send you insane. Today it’s used as a weapon and a torture device. Here’s an interesting article from 2003: Sesame Street Breaks Iraqi POWs

“Uncooperative prisoners are being exposed for prolonged periods to tracks by rock group Metallica and music from children’s TV programmes Sesame Street and Barney in the hope of making them talk.”

Well. Perhaps I shouldn’t have leaked my musical weakness. Now it can be used against me…

the love ballad murdered, in the key of cheese

the philosophy of angelic sky-farts

I’ve been pondering clouds a lot lately. I don’t know why. Just one day realised I hardly ever look up, so I did, and then I couldn’t stop. There’s a lot to learn from clouds.

Every cloud I admire will never be seen again. A cloud is the epitome of impermanence. It’s the random gathering of billions of little water crystals for a bit of a slow dance before going their separate ways… a lot like the souls on this planet.

You can get fat clouds, thin clouds, white clouds, grey clouds, tall clouds, short clouds, big lumpy clouds, tiny wispy clouds, and they’re all made out of the same stuff… a lot like the souls on this planet.

A cloud is an endless cycle of condensation and precipitation, birth and death… a lot like the souls on this planet.

A cloud can take the beauty of a something like a sunset and amplify it, or hide it away and bring disappointment… a lot like the souls on this planet.

Clouds are the best invention ever… a lot like the souls on this planet.

perceiving the peeve

The sadness and the grrr came back a bit today, which is a little scary and a lot annoying. Where is it coming from? Has my body adapted to the little herbal happy pills already?

After cruising through such a fantastic day on Friday where everything went right, today I found myself getting irked with hold ups, fools who don’t know how to drive, things going wrong, boredom, annoyance, and I think a little sprinkling of my old friend despair. The return of the rara, after happily announcing in the last post that the rara was gone (jinx!).

I started thinking whether it was possible that everything today was happening just as it did on Friday, and it was just my perception that turned it into a FFS day, or whether it really was just the series and sequences of events and I should have just left home 5mins earlier/later/not at all.

I remembered a time when I was on a train travelling home after a bone-tiring day, kind of zoned out, almost between-worlds-vague, standing near the concertina where two carriages joined. On my carriage, I felt as if I and the carriage were hardly moving, but the other carriage was bouncing all over the place and swinging left and right as we rounded bends. I suddenly realised that someone standing on the other carriage looking my way would have been thinking the same thing (if they weren’t already thinking “why is that scary looking person staring at me blankly?”). If only I got more than a C in physics I would be able to tell you the scientific whys and hows of that, throwing in words like velocity, and vector, and motion. Yawn.

It made me realise that I can only ever see the world from my standpoint, through my two eyes, with my brain and all its nurtured and natured wiring. The world just is; it is I who pivots.

So happy days and bad days are both the same and I just have to somehow work out a way to get the happy eyes blinking all the time. Dang that’s hard. Sometimes my happy eyes are hell red and tired…

enter the brave…ish

The last post was a bit of an open wound for me, a pull-apart of the sides on a deep and usually private cut, to gawk and poke. Got me thinking of something a friend said to me yesterday about the bravery of laying it all out there in the public domain.

Blogs are funny things. Everyone’s got something to say, even if it’s just about potatoes, or loom weaving, or a 365 day journey through what they eat for dinner.

Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere has some awesome facts, citing around 133 million blogs in 2008 (to give you an idea in growth, in 2006 this was around 50 million). There are close to 1 million posts happening a day. The blogosphere’s a noisy little party.

So is it bravery, or is it just the act of hiding in public? Maybe I just don’t need to be brave yet because my list of readers is pretty poor (though it must be adamantly stated, of astoundingly high quality). Why did I start this?

As I’ve mentioned in a couple of posts, it’s my therapy session. I take myself off to this, my therapy room, and let fly (I’m thinking I need some pot plants in here to brighten the place up). The act of having to put my thoughts into some sort of coherency, selecting and placing words just so, seems to be having the effect of organising my brain into a semblance of peace and stillness. I’m definitely discovering a new quietness in there. I haven’t had a rara since I started. I find I go “hmm” now to things that usually push my buttons and start me off on a tirade of tourette-themed soliloquies.

There’s another reason: I need to know I’m normal. I believe, almost as a form of self-preservation, that I’d be guaranteed to find at least one other human being going through, or thinking, the exact same crazy stuff as I. Somewhere. Surely. Like the driving off the bridge thing. Scared me half to death. I mentioned it to a couple of people and got a response of “oh yeah, I’ve been there, I’ve thought that, and this, and even this”. Phew, crisis over, I’m not alone.

I don’t think I’m brave. Self-indulgently crazy perhaps, but neh, not brave. Not yet anyway.

a universal green light

I’m starting to come out of a period I now think was mild depression.

I closed off from the world, pulled everything inward while I tried to untangle the massive ball of string that was my mind. I struggled to stay sane at work, became morose even when I tried my hardest not to be, spent most days weeping at my desk. Pretty much sad-sack central.

The low point came when my black thoughts started to scare me. In particular when I drove over a bridge and calmly pondered what it would be like to drive off it. Straight through the railing, nose first into the water below. I even imagined what kind of injuries I would get on the way down, what would happen when the car hit the water, whether I would be able to get out before the car went under.. on and on it went but it seemed only for a millisecond.

At the other side of the bridge I suddenly realised what had just passed through my head. I muttered, “that’s not normal” and burst into tears. I wept for myself, almost sympathetically - oh you poor thing.

Black thoughts had been blowing across the lake of my mind for a while, and I’d been watching them like a passive observer, but this one was louder than usual. The survival instinct didn’t pipe up as much as it should when your brain suggests a mortal-danger-scenario. Not that I would have even remotely followed through with it, but the scientific calmness with which I thought about it was just not right.

I realised I hadn’t just lost the plot, I’d lost the whole freaking book. It was time to do something about it.

My burnout at work was a major contributor, so I started trying to find ways to make that stop. I reconnected with reading and writing -finishing unfinished novels, carrying a notepad around to write whenever the mood arose, spending small fortunes in second-hand bookshops. I started taking a herbal remedy and scratched out this little corner of the interweb for my own personal therapy sessions.

I became pro-active, and something strange happened, something a friend reminded me of today: when you become pro-active in your quest to try and fix something in your life, the universe steps up to help you.

Last week seemed to be ‘conversations with randoms’ week. Total strangers on the street felt compelled to open up to me. I don’t know whether something had physically changed in me, or whether my aura had changed, maybe a little of both; in any case I seemed to be subconsciously transmitting an approachable vibe.

The universe was telling me it’s time to reconnect.

Today I started a book called “Shoot the Damn Dog – A Memoir of Depression” by Sally Brampton, and what do I read on the first page but this:

“Life is about connection. There is nothing else. Depression is the opposite; it is an illness defined by alienation.”

Two messages in one – not only time to reconnect, but time to realise I’m coming out of whatever funk had me in it’s grip. No better way for the universe to tell me I’m on the right track.

thud thud

We just had mother’s day. A strange time of year when I get to remember I’m not a mother and lots of other people are. Not in a sad way, just in a detached “should I be?” way. I am getting on a bit, after all.

My mum’s such a sweetie in that every mother’s day she’s taken to giving me a little present from the cat I rescued from certain death and she adopted (since I wussed out - can’t even look after myself you see). This year it was a 3-pack of foam earplugs, the most awesomest present ever, since I suffer from a syndrome known as ‘the loud neighbours’.

The first time I put them in I discovered something – my thudding heart.

It was glorious. An awakening, a sudden clearing in the fog of my existence. I realised I’m alive, not just as an abstract thought but as a thudding being. I thud therefore I am.

We don’t get to hear our hearts enough. It’s so comforting, relaxing, grounding. Humbling. There’s no better way to come back down to earth than to realise how tentative your existence is. It’s just that tiny thud thud that keeps you alive. Without it, there is no you.

There is no sweeter sound. It may be why I crave the occasional drum and bass, the soothing thump of downtempo, the deep bassline drive behind dubstep - I really just crave the thud thud going on in my chest.

Everyone always talks about what we take for granted. Surely our thudding hearts should be at the top of that list.

put the earplugs in to listen to your very own personal version of this

a gift

What is it about friends that they seem to bring you exactly what you need, right when you need it, without even knowing it’s exactly what you’re missing?

I’ve been on the black side of grey for a while, trying to claw my way up to happyplace again, and today I got an email from a close friend I’ve known for about 17 years, but who in the last 7 or so years I talk to only occasionally. He just wanted to say I rocked and that I was a good friend. How awesome is that?

At a time when I feel without value and alienated in this world, drifting around like a freak tied to the end of a kite, someone is compelled enough to reach out and give me value without even knowing what’s going on in my head. It made my day.

Maybe that’s why souls gravitate to each other the way they do, because we know that soul’s going to help give us with what we need to get through this life. There are no chance encounters.

It seems we have two sets of guardian angels: those we can’t see, and those who walk among us. I love it when I’m given a chance to remember that.

a lesson from someone smarter than i

A man stops me as I walk from my car to the train. He wears the fluoro vest of someone who works in the nearby food factory.

“The car. Crash. Someone crash. In the car. Blue car. Bash. Car.”

He’s disabled.

Hand gestures which urge me to understand. I nod. I make sympathetic sounds. I smile. I thank him for passing on his knowledge. Concern floods me and I worry about what he wants me to do with this knowledge. I walk away. He’s just happy he let me know. He smiles, nods.

I walk past the blue car and the driver’s window is smashed. Not even 7.30 and already one casualty. I chant an extra mantra over my car as I head to the train (ganesh please sit on my car / keep the bad people away from it / make it be here when i get back). Such a bad parking lot. Pot luck, every day.

I realise as I get on the train my messenger has left an impression on me. I think about his life. He’s going to work, he has a job. There wouldn’t be many opportunities for him. He most likely beams every day when he heads to the repetitive factory job many others would find unrewarding. He contributes.

My eye turns inward. What do I do every day? I complain. I bitch. I moan. I kick and scream and rage against the machine. I throw tanties in the padded room of the unfulfilled. I blame my job for turning me into a brain-dead automaton through constantly repetitive tasks, day after day after day. I complain I’m just like a factory worker – shit in, shit out.

Have I disabled myself?

I want to be able to beam every day at the thought of going to work and just quietly contributing to society. But if I don’t strive for more, what kind of life am I going to end up with? But aren’t I just meant to strive for happy? But is happy at the end of wherever more is? What’s this guy done to my brain this morning? It’s turned into a tennis court.

Oh thank christ we’re here. Doors open. The train vomits us out. Hands in pockets. Start the power walk. Autobot on, for another day.

angels and demons and demons

I have to go do the client schmooze thing tonight while watching what I am expecting to be a god-awful piece of celluloid, ‘Angels and Demons’. I hate schmoozing. I also hate Dan Brown.

I’m having massive issues at work involving burnout and depression, but that’s a rant for another day. I see my clients every day in that I’m an implant (as in, I work for company A, but sit in the office of company B, the client). So every day I’m in their face, and unfortunately they have seen me miserable as a wet cat lately; they’ve seen me lose the plot. Not something a client should see, but there you go.

I don’t need the meet and greet. We’ve met, we’ve gret, they’ve seen me fret.

My other problems are this: I can’t be two-faced, and I don’t bend over and lube up with a smile on my face for anyone. If I don’t like someone or they’ve caused me pain, they’ll know about it, I don’t care who they are. I don’t kiss butt. Also one of the people coming tonight hates me with a passion. Not sure why, just does. Looks right through me without a word when I open the door for her at work. Gives me the evils. Turns the nose up whenever I walk past. Don’t get me wrong, I respect her for that. At least she’s not being two-faced about it. I know where she stands. No backstabbing, just frontstabbing. All out in the open. But now I have to schmooze her? bleh.

So how am I going to approach this? Where am I going to find the happy place in this?

It’s certainly not my client's fault they bombard me with more work than is humanly possible to do unless you’re a hindu goddess with a plethora of arms at your disposal, it’s just the work they need done so they can do their work.

There it is – I have misdirected angst. A nasty little affliction, cured through smiling sweetly in the face of what ails you.

Can I do it? Tune in next time. Oh, if I’m not here and all you get is static, you’ll know it went badly.

one point oh

The first. The fear and loathing setting in. It’s all good. This is my therapy, yes?

And so, ‘philosphorescence’ is born. Man I love neology. The definition? Still trying to decide…

Ok, what’s philosophy? Collins dictionary defines it as the ‘pursuit of wisdom; the study of realities and general principles’. And phosphorescence? Well.. Collins dictionary circa 1975 doesn’t see fit to include it (but I now know what a phossy-jaw is, wtf?), so it’s time to wiki: ‘a process in which energy absorbed by a substance is released relatively slowly in the form of light’. Like a glowstick perhaps.

Here we go then: I’m going to try and make sense of the randomness of my life, suck some philosophical marrow out of it, and hopefully end up glowing like a raver, yes?

Maybe I need to work on that definition a little…