Non-Existent Thought

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So I’m not sure what today’s piece is going to be about and I’ve only got forty minutes to write it. I’ve just eaten a raw mushroom. It was a portobello and I have a second one I’m probably going to munch on raw too. Someone once tried to persuade me about the benefits of a raw food diet. Apparently you have incredible amounts of energy from it but are hungry more often. I can’t help but feel it would be a lot of effort, and the question must be asked whether the time taken to successfully eat this way would not be more than the time gained by the desired extension of life. You might get hit by a car at sixty five and then you would have missed out on a life of tasty cooked food. At least you would have had loads of energy and run around a lot.

I am really scraping the barrel of non-existent thought tonight.

I fixed my washing machine today. In reality I just connected it up and started it for the first time but I had been putting it off for about a month as I had never connected up a washing machine before. It’s amazing what you’ll finally do after a week of no clean underwear. In my mind it may have been a complicated and difficult task, and this can be how I respond to things I have never done before. It took me about two months to make the home brew. I would say that that was easy, and I thought it was, but considering it didn’t ferment or carbonate properly, as well as made me befriend the toilet for a week I can hardly call it a success. Here’s to hoping the after effects of the washing machine prove infinitely more positive.

Is this mental indiscipline tonight? I have the physical discipline to write but not the mental to take my time and write about something interesting. It is what it is but I don’t feel it is any less disciplined than when I just talk about my day. Unless something worth sharing has happened then it is no more interesting for others than this is tonight.

I used to write the odd piece like this before I started publishing them but that was more because I was being lazy, tired or uncreative, this feels more that with time short I have just prioritised other things today. If this writing experiment is to last the full year then there will be days when I cannot prioritise it but must still stick to the one condition of success and that is to write one piece per day.

And this is todays piece. It was created while I continued to live my life as I felt fit.

Prioritise Dreams

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There was an article on the BBC today which I found very interesting in how it allowed for different perspectives of how we view society. The article discussed how the hopes and dreams of youths are at odds with the type of jobs that will be available to them. Apparently “five times as many seventeen and eighteen year olds in the UK want to work in art, culture, entertainment and sport as there are jobs available” and that equated to over half of those surveyed only wanting to work in this sector. Seemingly the industry that requires people the most is accommodation and catering, unfortunately for them they require seven times the number of students who expressed an interest, wholesale and retail appears to suffering from similar disinterest. According to this article, the report believes “young people’s career aspirations need to be constructively challenged”. The article then moves on to how certain young people potentially feel they cannot achieve career goals because of their gender, ethnicity or social-economic background.

Now this article can be viewed two ways I would suggest. On the one hand it can be seen that the youth of today need to embrace a little reality, that they won’t always be able to do the jobs they want, must stop being fixated with being either Instagram models or footballers – terrible gender stereotyping I know but humour me – but also not allow the barriers of their own existence to hold them back from a more serious career. On the other hand it appears that the majority of young people want an interesting, creative career in the arts and entertainment world, and not to be working as waiters or hotel cleaners. To completely dismiss the first idea would most likely expose a glaring ignorance about the realities of life for many people, “destined for disappointment” as the article put it, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some truth in it. However what the article seems to not take into consideration, and this is understandable given the angle it is written from, is that if the young peoples desires “do not meet the demands of the economy” then perhaps the economy should not be the factor that dictates what work people do, perhaps society has it’s priorities wrong.

I would love to see the numbers of people wanting to be artists and musicians, over Instagram models and footballers, because that could change my perspective slightly. That is though my take on value in the creative arts world and I would be an ignorant man to not see the folly in that. There are many reasons young people will not get the jobs they want in life, but they don’t mention that perhaps these jobs just don’t satisfy people, maybe if people could choose they would not endure jobs that exist for no other reason than for the sake of existing, bring no real benefit to society or the earth, and are nothing more than ways to pay tax and kill time as we wait to die. Surely it needn’t be this way. Money, economics and business are not fundamentally bad things in their own right but misused and corrupted they lead to the real needs of people being either ignored or dismissed as childish dreams. We all dreamt of something when we were young though, why is we can never seem to remember our dreams?

The Hobbyists Dear Diary

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Although I am starting to become concerned that I may just be turning this into a glorified diary I’m seemingly on such a self indulgent enough trip at present that I’ll continue.

Dear diary,
Today I started a new hobby. You see dearest diary I love hobbies, in fact I’ve seemingly been treating too many things in life as hobbies. Some call it not sticking to anything, but for me I really really wanted to be a yoga teacher so I did a course and got a certificate, a tree surgeon so I did a course, a sailor so I did numerous courses, an English teacher, a philosopher, carpenter, engineer, proofreader and I’m in no doubt there were others that I have forgotten about. I loved learning all these things with the intention of turning them into a career, and in a way I did, just my own version of a career. Oh dear diary I just love to refer to them all as a series of hobbies, my life appears to be one long hobby and it’s just such fun. And now I have a new one. I’m going to learn computer science and become a coder. The ultimate jack of all trades has finally tried to pick up a computer and turned it on successfully. Isn’t that so exciting dear diary.
love you love you love you love you

But yes that is that. I’m a grown man with a diary online. It’s funny how things naturally evolve and I know I take the piss out of myself but I don’t mind or care what I am writing about or where I am now. In truth there is so much time for a hell of a lot of evolution in this thing and currently this is where I’m at. The diary phase.

Coding though, for someone who has prided himself on being a technophobe all these years and forever too cool for school, this is quite the corner to have turned. Who knows though, I’ve got to stick to something one day and this allows for a hell of a lot of flexibility, freedom and creativity. It may just be something that grabs my attention when I’m not sailing or getting beaten up by girls.

With all that in mind it is worth pointing out that there is always more to anything. We are put under so much pressure from society to achieve X, Y and Z, and to have done it by a certain age. For sure there are many people out there lost, with no idea what they’re doing or where they’re going. It is a stressful existence and it disgusts me that people have been allowed to slip through the cracks, forgotten and ignored. They may feel alone but they’re not, that’s almost the worst part. Stand up my brothers and sisters, societies outcasts who have not, can not and do not want to achieve success in a style unnatural and forced upon them. Be free and embrace your freedom. Realise you are the lucky few. And while you’re at it, why not take up a hobby or two.

An Unexpected Beating

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Well lads it finally happened, I went and got myself beaten up by a girl. Cheers of delight ring out across the skies from all the girls who have crossed my path and been wronged in the process. That would be silence obviously because it is zero girls. Back to the beating though, I got kicked in the head. Let’s try and create an image shall we. I’m tall, six foot three, and not big with muscle but I can hold my own. Not tonight though, for I’ve been doing some martial arts and attended my second kickboxing class. My New Years resolution involved jiu jitsu but events have evolved into kickboxing instead. I’m not a fighter, my instincts are to talk my way out of the trouble I’ve just talked myself into on the rare occasions it tries to find me. I don’t get the raw angry appreciation of hitting someone but when you see people fighting with talent and technique it feels like a majestic art form unfolding.

I did Krav Maga for eight months when I lived in Athens and I really enjoyed that too even though it was in Greek and I had to guess most of what was being said. You can’t spar in it though because there’s no gloves, it’s self defence and it’s designed to be rapid and brutal. Interestingly enough there are elements of kickboxing involved, I can see this in the technique already, but in kickboxing you spar and you actually need to learn how to defend yourself in a way you can’t in a Krav Maga beginners class. It gave me the taste required to search out more though.

This girl was good. It was the last practice of the session and the guy I had been training with had to leave so I went with her. She was small, reasonable skinny and an advert for not judging people by appearance. Interestingly enough when I kicked her she asked me to kick a little softer which is fair but it didn’t stop her coming in with some crazy combinations. In fairness to her though she never really tried to connect too much, misjudged that head kick though. And in truth she kicked though my pathetically positioned glove and hit me so it wasn’t too painful just a shock. She was all apologetic but I felt I needed to act tough, especially as I had to ask the coach for a sticky plaster in the first class because I cut my finger.

On a more serious note though martial arts are a very interesting form of practice, dare I say sport. As I said I’m not a fighter and I find most people who go to these things aren’t. What they do though is get you fitter, stronger and mentally train your mind in a way few other things do. You need to concentrate on what you are going to do while not letting your guard down, not letting your focus drop for a second. There has been a lot written about it but it creates a mental discipline and if you haven’t noticed by now that appears to be the long lost Holy Grail my life has suddenly started searching for. Maybe next time I’ll put aside my assumptions, learn to defend myself and accept that just this once it may not be an embarrassing thing to be beaten up by a girl.

Angry Football Fanaticism

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I’ve just been to the pub. My team lost in the football. I’m feeling a varying raft of emotions. I find this sport absorbing for many reasons and at the same time still find it to be some kind of a dirty pleasure. Watching people at the peak of their abilities is incredible to see. If we could we would watch and be amazed by anybody at the top of their game who can do incredible things. Listen to a genius poet reciting their best poem, the greatest circus acrobat flying though the air catching and balancing people, someone who has mastered parkour bouncing their way across a city skyline, surfers, musicians, intellectuals…it doesn’t matter what it is, watching anyone who has mastered anything is a joy to behold.

At which point we embrace the tribalism involved which is simply fascinating. I would comfortably say I have met many people in my life and I have got on with everyone to a varying level. I can comfortably say that there is nobody out there that I actually genuinely hate, I even find the concept questionable until rival my football teams enter my mind. Being Scottish, or this is my excuse at least, I support two teams. My father supports Manchester United so from about six years old I supported them, it coincided with them winning their first title in twenty six years and then another twelve subsequently, so it was until recently a pleasure to experience their games. In Scotland I support Celtic who also have been winning everything recently but when I started supporting them their biggest rivals where in the middle of winning nine titles in a row, they were an underdog of sorts, socially as well as in sport. As I said I don’t think I hate anybody but without a doubt I hate their rivals, Liverpool for Man Utd and Rangers for Celtic. For me it feels rational, there is something vile and disgusting about these clubs and their supporters, I wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire as the old saying goes. I really angrily hate them but I don’t feel that in any other realm of my life, and genuinely don’t think I could for any real extended length of time. I also know that there is too much emotion involved for it to ever be an actual rational issue but if I don’t try to think otherwise it feels completely justified.

Why is that though, how does this angry rivalry evolve in people who are not necessarily angry emotive people the rest of the time. There is talk of it being a primitive tribalistic thing, but we have evolved beyond that and I don’t really feel we’re still controlled by our tribal past in quite that way. If it’s going to be argued that it’s a male thing, that would be highly contentious but I certainly see more angry male football fans than female ones, whether that is because they are male as opposed to women that makes them angry and tribalistic is contentious and highly questionable though. So it rests upon whether it’s simply a release and the most socially acceptable version that men have been conditioned to embrace. The vast majority of people have something in their life that makes them unhappy and that is for various reasons but theres nothing quite like spending ninety minutes once a week screaming and shouting for and against a team, it is cathartic and it’s healing qualities cannot be overlooked. Still I suspect theres more, and it’s this knowledge that I lack the answer that keeps bringing the fascinated child back. What football has become is ridiculous but it has still managed to maintain it’s tribal element and people may try to make everyone play fair, nullify the aggression and play it for the sake of the sport but were that to happen I’m of no doubt the game would lose a huge part of it’s appeal. I for one hope that never happens. Come on, lets get excited, swear, scream, get angry, release and get on with it because until anything else comes along, this is all that the vast majority have that keeps them feeling grounded and human.

Different Shades Of Grey

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It is interesting what methods people use to work or be creative. I remember I used to know someone who when studying preferred to be in busy noisy areas as it allowed her to concentrate; so the cafe section of the library over the quiet floor. I’ve often known people to play music while they study as it seems to help them focus and there are numerous studies backing this up. I have tried with classical music, which is usually the style of choice in these research, and found that of all types of sounds I could listen to it is probably the one that helps the most. It has something to do with the affect it has on your brain or something like that, the internet could probably inform me accurately but I am lazy to check. Certain music though I can’t study or write with and that is when I can hear words because I find them distracting as I follow along. In reality though I’m a silence man. I wonder what it is that leads one person to favour one way over another. I can only imagine it has something to do with upbringing and the environment you grew up studying in. My inability to study and use any possible excuse to be distracted probably led me to my silent necessities and I imagine someone who grew up in a noisy domestic environment but still studied around this probably searches this out.

That is the setting though but what about using certain things to assist us. I’ve met many a sophisticated wanker who loves the affect a glass of red wine has alongside a good book or while scribbling down words. He takes a sip out of his cup of red wine before continuing. Certainly though too much alcohol only hinders this process but I remember reading something a few years back that suggested the best combination was to have an alcoholic drink to relax the mind subsequently allowing it to be more creative and then a cup of coffee to give it the energy and focus required to implement the creativity. It’s not impossible to see some validity in this. I sometimes enjoy a little smoke and then attempt to write down some thoughts, but I could never study this way as the mind is all over the place. Equally if I am attempting to write something that I don’t want to be illegible nonsense despite appearing to be wisdom at the time then I really couldn’t smoke. I could though play the guitar as I just like to mess around on that and do it for the pleasure in the moment not with the intention of attempting to create anything for anyone else. I don’t though feel the desire to pick it up when sober so definitely smoking helps this.

It’s just interesting because everybody is so different and requires such different surroundings to achieve the same end result. We are also so varied in the way differing things affect us and how we manage to respond to them in regards alternate versions of output. Maybe I should have a smoke one day and try writing something on here, that could be an interesting addition, it may also be pretty obvious but also magically creative. It is just fascinating to see how different everyone is and depressing to see how we try and force everyone into boxes or group them all into either black or white. Education has a lot to do with this and it’s always very interesting to meet people who have been through alternative types of schooling because they have such different ways of resolving issues that arise. Time has many answers, hopefully we someday stumble upon the one which allows us to discover whichever shade of grey we are in between.

Corrupt Politicians

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I have just been listening to a podcast on which the subject of the American Democratic candidates were discussed. I try not to talk too much about another countries politics because I am not from that country and there’s a chance I may miss some nuance I would otherwise get were I from there. There is one element of politics though that we can freely talk about no matter which country is the subject of discussion. The issue is corruption. Now I accept politics is not unique in suffering from this ailment, all countries have corruption in different forms. I’ve heard since Tuesday that the World Championship Scotch Pie Awards are fixed, not blatantly but there’s a reason the same few bakers seem to win everything. That is corruption. When people profess to being good moral honourable people though, they should be held up to higher standards. I will often criticise charities more than companies when they both do the same thing; there is no pretence with capitalism once you scrape below it’s wafer thin veil but the aid sector pretends something different.

The same situation exists with politicians and I can see why people like Trump because he doesn’t pretend to be a good guy, his whole act is about being a prick and that must be refreshing. People are tired of politicians, they don’t trust them and rightly the establishment is being called out and challenged. Trump of course is the establishment, just as Boris Johnson is, which shows the con job that has been pulled in both countries. However it’s when people like Elizabeth Warren come out with things like this absurd claim that Bernie Sanders told her in a private conversation that he didn’t believe a woman could be President. After giving it the whole good person who cares about people act for months, it is a legitimate response to want to tell her to go fuck herself. The mainstream media have jumped on the story claiming it to be fact, half of the supposed witnesses where not even there. It’s a hatchet job because he is threatening to upset the Democrats and actually get the nomination. It’s like Britain, the Neoliberals in the Labour party actively tried to sabotage the party and prevent it winning rather than see Jeremy Corbyn be elected Prime Minister. Elizabeth Warren has exposed herself as a dirty liar, she is corrupt and after playing the saint who cares card for so long she deserves the inevitable fallout. She doesn’t stand a chance of beating Trump, neither does Joe Biden, who is also corrupt as this Ukraine investigation exposed. Who knows about Bloomberg, but just ask Trump, you don’t get to become a New York real estate billionaire without embracing a little corruption along the way.

Yet we still follow these people. We accept them as our leaders, allow them to take all they want, subject us to a life of servility while not even leaving us with our dignity. Are we scared to stop and say we’ve had enough? Are we so scared of losing our lousy lot in life? Do we fear those below us taking our position? Has the old carrot lie of one day being them really deceived us that much? We vote for laws to protect billionaires but not poor people. That is fucked up. We will never become billionaires, it just won’t happen, we are not voting to protect our future selves. Let’s stop accepting and being complicit in their raping of society and the hurt that causes. Look after your neighbour and your neighbour will look after you, it’s time to come back together as a community. Having looked after politicians and billionaires all these years it seems there’s a distinct lack of them watching our back. Yet despite there being no genuine prospect of change we carry on making the same choice and expecting a different outcome. We continue to imagine that it will be all fine with this new one, he looks like the kind of guy who could lead this country and give us the life he’s promising. He’s definitely not like that other fella…what’s his name again?

The Idler

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A weight becomes ether, the mind is free,
The Idler will no longer come to me.

I would have liked to have written more lines but I couldn’t think of a third. I cancelled my subscription to a bi-monthly magazine called The Idler. As previously hinted this was a weight on my mind; to cancel or not. I enjoyed the magazine, it had some very interesting articles, I have read a great book on beekeeping that they recommended, listened to some new music they reviewed. While I don’t have the most hectic of lives it reminded me sometimes to put my feet up and enjoy the liberty of such a moment. The editor and co-creator is a man called Tom Hodgkinson who wrote a book called How To Be Idle, my reading of which led to a darkly amusing moment while at university. I lay on the sofa prior to a drinking session in the last year of a course I made the minimal effort in, reading this book as my housemate came in from one of her two jobs before going in to university to study. Let’s say the moment wasn’t lost on her although the relevance and my understanding of a true idler life seemingly was on me. It saddens me then to not continue my subscription but I am doing so for two reasons. Firstly I’m not around enough to actually read it and I suspect may spend a chunk of this coming year abroad again, and secondly it is a question of whether I relate to the perceived target audience. There is something middle-aged, successful in their field and southern English about the magazine and while I have nothing against any of those things, there is something about them I don’t feel I can connect with and relate to.

I accept I’m not middle-aged but that doesn’t mean I haven’t read and enjoyed things aimed at that market. The southern English thing relates to the type of southern English; comfortable, village life, gardens, good weather, kids in grammar school type of thing. That sounds horribly middle-class, but it isn’t entirely that type of magazine. Tom Hodgkinson is a self-declared anarchist with many of the articles supporting his ideals, although in a lovely soft type of way over the stereotype typically portrayed. I’m almost scared to admit it but this type of life is desirable in many ways and I’m sure a lovely time is had by all. Saying that though it isn’t me now and I’m not actively chasing it even though I don’t doubt I would enjoy it. Finally the successful part is a strange one because it isn’t aimed at super wealthy successful business men but Tom Hodgkinson is in his early fifties now and his magazine gives off the air of someone that age who is happy and has achieved what they set out to achieve. While I’m not unhappy in life now, I am not necessarily happy with my current lot either, and having stopped wanting to simply achieve endless travel, am yet to find success in many of my new desires. It is not uncommon to read things by, to copy or fill our lives with things by those we want to emulate. Are we being true to our own story if we merely try to replicate another’s, or am I misunderstanding what it is to be inspired.

The point of all this is just that it was interesting that a magazine I enjoyed could represent all these things that clearly I am rejecting. Perhaps it was aimed at a niche I secretly want to be a part of and my current existence makes it too hard to endure. It is interesting really because we fantasise so much about what we want, where we want to live, the work we want to do, the types of people we want to hang out with but it’s all such an illusion. We have no idea what the reality of anyone else’s life is, people suffer in private. When we fantasise enviously about being another person, which is what it is, we forget to be ourselves and enjoy whatever cool things are going on in our own lives.

Thank you Idler. I really enjoyed you, got a lot from you, hope to revisit you again one day; but right now, you’re just not me and I’m too busy being me to be you.

A Manipulated Mass

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It is very hard in this day and age to know what is true and what isn’t. The internet is arguably the fount of all knowledge, and when we’re not looking at pictures of cats and stalking ex-partners we are quite simply blessed with the opportunity to discover – or to google which is a disturbing example of the evolution of language – the answer to any question we may want to ask. The problem here is that it seems very easy to get a variety of answers to one question. On the one hand that is great, difference of opinion will further debate and understanding within and of society. On the other though you have powerful financial interests manipulating which arguments are most easily accessible, the only inevitability is that debate becomes inaccurate and corrupted. There are few long term positives of such things unless you are the one doing the corrupting.

While this is all seemingly quite obvious, what appears to be the outcome are articles using public opinion to validate the argument, angle or narrative they are attempting to push. For example if you want to push a news story about public perception of an issue, it is very simple to go on the idiots validator – Twitter – select a few tweets – cringe – and post them within your article as proof of your argument. While it may seem obvious that people will dismiss the arguments of morons or people who are clearly not experts in the field – a corruptible concept too – people for one psychological reason or another seem unconsciously more likely to agree with the article if they believe it to be the majority opinion.

I saw an article recently describing how the left have disowned George Orwell because it had come out that he gave the names of suspected communists to the British government in 1949. The article was backed up by a few angry tweets criticising and disavowing him from people who clearly missed the point and didn’t understand the background to why he may have done that. This was in The Independent too which is a left wing British newspaper but it was total bullshit being validated by total bullshit.

The same could be done on the news. When a segment presents interviews with three people in the street for example, we often see two or three with one opinion that supports the overall message and one who doesn’t, how do we know that they only ever interviewed them and not ten others. The point is the media is as corrupt and untrustworthy as the politicians have always been yet we take what they say at face value. With eighty-three percent of mainstream media in the UK owned by three corporations, they can pretty much convince anybody of anything with enough coverage. They can be corrupt and it doesn’t matter. We have vaults of information online but who really looks beyond supposedly trustworthy news sources such as the BBC, or their equivalent in other countries and cultures.

Ultimately we’re as much a pack animal as dogs and if we believe the majority think something we’re more likely to go with it to remain part of the group. If you have such an array of opinions all appearing to validate something it has never been so easy to convince people even when it is in your interests and actively against theirs. The internet is arguable the greatest invention since the printing press, and with such knowledge comes the opportunity for rebellion and sedition live never before. Unfortunately it also seems to bring rise to the polarising and manipulating of peoples the world over. It is though early days, the internet is but a baby in the long history of information. There is still time yet.

The World Championship Scotch Pie Awards

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It was a big day in pie related news today. I took my seat at The World Championship Scotch Pie Awards today and had the pleasure of watching James Pirie & Son from Newtyle being crowned world champions for the second time, their first success being in 2018. What an honour I’m sure you’re thinking, for me and for them. Despite being born in Scotland I wasn’t born with an inbuilt love of Scotch Pies, but being Scottish has certainly allowed for the opportunities to sample my fair share over the years and develop suitable levels of admiration. It was in that case a real pleasure to try last years winner from The Little Bakery in Dumfries which was served for lunch.

The man sitting next to me at the table was a two time world champion himself and it was interesting to hear him describe the pie as slightly too meaty, he preferred his filling to ever so slightly crumble apart. I took this in while devouring mine and deciding he was probably right but that I was too much of a philistine to really worry about these finer things. I love meeting people who take these kinds of things so seriously, it’s never just a pie you know. I was hoping it would be more of a funny humorous event but the comedy value seemed lost on most folk there. The big bellied old bakers took the whole event very seriously, as they should, but still it’s always good to take the piss out of yourself when you’re at the world pie awards.

The presenter Carol Smilie, reasonably famous twenty years ago and still a total babe, cracked a few jokes about pies and spent the whole time taking photos with each winner as they gave her the old reach around. Bakers, by the nature of the extreme intensity of their job, are quite often total crazy characters and I enjoyed watching them come onto stage, some milking the adulation and giving Carol a good squeeze, some completely uncomfortable and putting their arm around her but barely making any real contact and the odd old perv clearly pushing the boundaries of whether they were copping a feel or not. It must be said she was a consummate professional throughout.

I, or more precisely my mates bakery that I was there representing, won the bronze award for best quiche lorraine. Their quiche comes in a pie shell, you see what they did there, very smart. Unfortunately there were more than one bronze winners each time so I had to share the stage with someone who despite my best efforts, got up there before me and next to Carol. I was really looking forward to giving her a good squeeze, if only I could remember the name of this other persons bakery I would officially boycott it forever.

All in all though the day may have lacked in pie related anecdotes and there was no Ricky Gervais to create any controversy but I got to eat a one time best pie in the world, win someone else’s award and meet a celebrity from the nineties. Can’t think of many better things to do midday on a Tuesday in January.