Discovery

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“Your twenties are for discovering who you are” said nobody today but to paraphrase Chris Ryan on his podcast I heard today, that is exactly more or less what he said. However I’m not entirely sure I agree, or do, and think one way or another I may be wrong. If none of that makes any sense that is acceptable. I agree with him because that is what many people do in their twenties and I know that because that is exactly what I did. My twenties were great and I had all sorts of adventures as I explored the world, life and myself but during this period I was sure I had evolved into a new person I’m not entirely convinced how much that resembles me now. As I write this I am also jumping back and forward between being sure of what I think so really I can’t offer you coherence unfortunately.

On one hand after all that self discovery I can see in hindsight that much of it was an illusion, an idea of myself within the world I inhabited. Does that mean it was not me though, or is that the person I am when in that particular environment? At the same time while I now appear to be back in the UK in a situation I arguably grew up in, how different am I now to how I would be had I never left? In reality I know I wouldn’t be this person and I know I am very much an outsider in this world, but arguably I realise now I was in many of the other worlds I explored too. Where I disagree in that case with the initial statement is that perhaps your twenties are for exploring other sides of you before you settle back into your true self, but a self fully inspired and shaped by all those things you discovered in your twenties. I may have just contradicted myself in that one sentence. No matter what happens I can’t unexperience and unlearn things, and would never want to, so everything else risks requiring hypotheticals which are completely pointless and valueless for this. In that case exploring all the other sides I hadn’t realised existed before means I now take all of them as one and find myself in my mid-thirties having discovered who I am. The more I write the more I suspect there may be some truth in this. Mentally too, to understand this seems to take some weight off my mind. It’s funny how heavy an understanding of oneself and ones own worth can weigh us down. What a confusing flip flop back and forth self-discovery and understanding seem to be. And it ends in your twenties you say?

Stuck at Level One

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Writing on a daily basis is an interesting exercise especially when you don’t have any fixed subject to write upon. Ultimately I end up writing about writing about something and seem less often to actually write about anything much at all. If people write regularly for example about politics, fashion or sport would it be a fair assumption to imagine they must spend large periods, if not the entirety, of the day reading or talking with others about such subjects. Does it in that case make it much harder to write about philosophy if I never discuss philosophy once throughout the day with anyone? I do listen to a large amount of podcasts on politics which would suggest that perhaps I would be advised to write about how much of a cunt Boris Johnson is and in the same breath how our obsession with personality politics allows those in power to distract us from their policies or on a larger scale how we’re being fucked left and right on a daily basis. I could talk about all those things and actually perhaps I should, that was quite enjoyable for a moment.

There has already been one Tomorrow piece and while the very next day was interesting I think, the following three just denigrated into at first me being hungover and then later being actually ill. Therefore tomorrow don’t expect me to fulfil something promised today but perhaps I just need to remind myself of the difference between physical and mental discipline. Another idea could be to create some structure over the subject matter. Political Friday could break down the week’s politics for example. Football Monday the same for the weekend’s football, although an unmentioned television channel already seems to do exactly that. For some reason I like the idea of philosophical Thursdays. Ultimately though when I get to the half way point of about two hundred words and realise I’m now warmed up and starting to think of some ideas, I need to delete what I have written so far and go with one of those ideas from the beginning. Clearly if you’re reading this I haven’t done that and am still all talk but it is certainly an idea worth exploring and hopefully one which will be explored one day, maybe tomorrow and you know what, if tomorrow I do exactly this and it’s any good you’ll be none the wiser.

Bureaucracy

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A bureaucratic nightmare is a phrase that you may not have said yourself but will have certainly heard said by someone else in a usually less than positive moment. Bureaucracy is one of those things that we all just love to hate. We spend three days filling out a one hundred page form to apply for a foot test or a visa to a foreign land, and bemoan the complete and utter waste of our time. At least you can enter those foreign lands I hear someone saying. Anyway when four months later we receive back a notification that we forgot to fill in Section 17 Subsection P which can be found by following the link printed at the bottom of the last page and will now have to pay a fine of four hundred and forty-nine pounds or be banned from ever filling out forms again, we forget about the waste of time, rejoice and decide now is the moment to finally tear down the state. We’ve all been there.

I’m going to Ireland for Christmas, how lovely. The dog will be coming along and it appears that despite Ireland being rabies free, she needs an up to date rabies jab if she wants to come with us. I can confirm she wants to go. Fair enough I hear you say. What I don’t understand is why she needs these things. I can understand requiring them coming from mainland Europe as this is an island and it is about keeping various diseases out, such as rabies in this case. However I don’t need any pet documentation to go to Northern Ireland, which while still being part of the UK is also coincidentally still part of the island of Ireland. I suspect very few people within the island of Ireland give much of a shit about taking their pet passports, or even getting one if they’re going back and forth over the border so what really is the point.

It makes zero logical and practical sense as it can be circumvented so easily which means it must be down to some political bureaucratic nonsense. This will be some EU law or regulation cooperative states abide by and I dare say this could be an easy moment to rant about the EU if I was that way inclined. That though would miss the point, this is more symptomatic of State, governance and institutional power. Regulations protect and eat away at liberties in different often polarised ways but we’re dealing here with the ultimate trip – time and money, and what they mean for power – bureaucracies most honoured of friends.

What was that again?

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At about 0630 this morning a wonderful idea for this entered my mind. Nearly three hours later the thought has completely left my mind and either will be lost forever or will one day appear on these pages as a fresh vibrant idea without me even realising it was concocted months earlier. The problem now though is not that I am unable to remember this idea but that what I am about to write about may have been mentioned in a previous post. That is not necessarily an issue but what may be is to what length it was mentioned. And again that is also not necessarily a major issue because repetition is only a bad thing if we misunderstand the evolution of ideas. It is not a problem to repeat yourself as long as the repetition is of a topic not the contents of the topic. However saying that there are plenty of times I have had repeated conversations with people and each time they just seem to go on and on about the same topic, perhaps it will be worth listening to them next time and see how and whether their ideas have evolved over time.

The problem now of course is that this piece is already half complete and which means there will only be a small mention of the previously mentioned topic. Also, I now seem to have forgotten what it is I was even thinking about before. How remarkably poor my memory is this morning. Maybe I have a little too much mercury in my system from the radioactive oceans I have been plundering. I’m sure I remember saying something previously about mercury affecting our memories and ability to recollect things. What the hell was I going to write about? Apparently stopping trying to remember helps remembering. If I had all day I’m sure I could just come back to this but we have to leave the flat in about an hour. We’re going for my Mum’s birthday lunch and then around a Christmas market. I hate Christmas markets. Over priced, touristic and bullshit but it’s not where you’re going it’s who you’re going with. Still nothing, I can’t convince my mind that I’m not trying to remember anymore, it doesn’t seem to believe me. I’m sure it’ll come to me, I’ll have to tell you next time.

Morning Page

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Good morning. My mother once gave me a book, which she had also given to my sister, about being creative, it is called the Artists Way and I’ll be honest I never got very far through it. There are short exercises and tasks you’re supposed to do and completing these tasks was how I went wrong unlike my sister who got so much from it she did it twice. One of the exercises, well the first and main in a way as it’s something that is supposed to be completed throughout is to write something called your morning pages in which you write three pages of whatever comes into your mind as you write. As it is first thing in the morning and nobody will ever read it it is usually even more guff that what I have been doing here but it is a way to get into habit and also to get the nonsense out of the mind so you can get on with the real creativity. I think that was the only exercise I did in the book and probably then only for a few days. Today I am doing my own version of that.

Time will be sparse this weekend for writing these pieces. I suspect tomorrow will be a late night when I’m back home but today is an early morning just-woke-up as guaranteed the only time I will have after now will be tonight when I am drunk and back from a ceilidh. Our relationship is not strong enough yet to share a me drunk moment. I did write a piece in advance for today because I never expected to be disciplined enough to sit down, or have the time to sit down, to write this but can now save that piece I wrote on Nietzsche and Amor Fati for another time. That was my subtle way of letting you know the first day I am unable to write anything. There will be a few, as previously mentioned I have accepted it.

For now though that is it, my day as a tourist in my own city is about to begin. My cousins and family will be around soon and we’ll have breakfast in this tiny little flat before going off and doing something as yet unknown. But enough of this, I have to get on with my day it’s tourist time!!

Tourist

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Has anyone ever been a tourist in their own city? While I have never necessarily lived in Edinburgh I was born here and grew up less than an hour away. It is my nearest city and therefore I class it as my city. Over the years friends I have met while traveling have either visited Edinburgh or have visited me but regardless the result has been me visiting certain tourist sites. Edinburgh castle is nicer from the outside, some interesting museums but nothing to get excited about. Arthurs Seat is worth walking up for an idea of the the landscape and terrain of the rest of Scotland as well as a pretty spectacular view of the city. The Royal Mile is worth walking up if you want to browse through tacky tourist shops and dodge throngs of foreigners. Edinburgh is largely foreigners these days, most actual Scots having moved to Glasgow long ago. The National Museum of Scotland, I think thats it’s name, is free and has some pretty cool things worth seeing, as is and has the National Portrait Galley. Ultimately what I am saying is that these are a few things you can do which I have done already, but my point is this weekend will be different to all previous times. For this weekend I will be actually staying in an airbnb in Edinburgh, going all out tourist.

My Mum is turning seventy on Monday which is nice, a decent wee achievement so good on her. We have some cousins, aunties and uncles or nieces, sister-in-law and brother from my mothers perspective, visiting and so we’re staying up here too. The point of all this is that while people may do tourist things where they’re from, and yes of course quite often people never explore their locale at all, very rarely do they stay in an actual hotel in their own city and go full on tourist. I’m quite looking forward to it, it will most likely be a lovely treat. Let’s see how many locals I can piss off by being an awful tourist, thats alway fun.

This is probably one of the more boring pieces I have written but I’m tired, its been a crazy couple of days and it will soon be the end of the day and I want to maintain my streak. Does that make this piece a fail. I’m unsure. At some point I may have discipline in action but not discipline in mind if all I am doing is writing a daily piece that is me simply filling space. Do you really care about me spending a weekend in Edinburgh? There are different types of discipline. To be positive though, it is all part of the learning curve because until now I had never thought about the fact there are different types of discipline, different values to what I thought was one thing. Another day, another lesson. Aren’t you just lucky to be going through this with me.

A Race

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Can I write a piece in the seven minutes between now and kick-off in the football. I doubt it. It can only be written with the most minimal of thought and that can not be a great way to approach something of this importance. But approach it in this way I must. This is an experiment and this is part of the experiment. How many times though am I planning on writing pieces of this nature, simply writing about writing but not really writing just putting words together on a page. Is that not writing? Well yes it is writing but it’s not writing. I just lost valuable time with that italics and that one. What am I doing?! Only three minutes to go and I have certainly not done over half the number of words in what has taken me over half the number of time. It was those italics I know it.

I am actually quite enjoying this as I rarely have to just think super quickly and write whatever comes into my head. It may appear as if I am just spewing word vomit onto the page but genuinely there is some thought actually put into it. Probably not as much thought always, no definitely not always, but sometimes there is. I have three hundred and sixty-five of these to write so it is not too unacceptable for a small variety of them to be rushed. Better that than a small variety of them being written with contemplative deliberation.

Only one minute to go!! Do I waste time with a word count? Oh fuck it only 268 words thats ridiculous I am never going to make it in seven minutes. And that is seven minutes now. Maybe I will extend it to ten minutes and miss the first three minutes, nothing has ever happened in the first three minutes of a football match in the history of football so I doubt I have anything to worry about.

Do you like football? I understand if you don’t because I know there is a lot dislikable about it. Sport too I guess, seems completely pointless sometimes but then everything has a point if we give it a point. Football has just seemed like my dirty little secret for many years but then I guess that depends on which world I have been moving in at any given time.

Four hundred and twenty-four words in ten minutes but with no corrections and not even a quick check over. I hope it’s good, I’ll never know.

Impractical Me

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Today has provided me with an interesting lesson. It all began with me deciding to construct myself a bed. I currently have a mattress and while I have slept on many directly on the floor and continue to neither mind nor give a shit, there is a part of me that is attempting to become more of what some may describe as a normal human being. That seemingly in my eyes involves having a actual bed.

I have access to a random mismatched pile of planks and beams, and in my mind am on par with Jesus in my abilities to work with wood. Several years ago I took an eight week carpentry evening course at at the local college. This may sound impressive but it was only one night a week and for various reasons I was only able to attend four classes. I did in that time though learn a little about joints and managed to construct quite a beautiful basket for my dog. She still appreciates it today. I decided then to put some of these skills of mine into practise and what I discovered was that I am no Jesus. My excuse if that the wood was all oddly shaped and of varying quality and a jigsaw power tool would have been ideal, my handsaw was not great for the finer work, neither was my clumsy and lazy use of a chisel. Theoretically I know exactly what to do but in practise it turned out to be anything but.

Getting back to my house with everything and ready to construct the pre cut by me pieces together, I received a phone call from a friend who had a bed for me if I wanted. Would it be a waste of a day to simply take this bed and discard all my hard work. I’m pretty proud of what I created, imperfections and all, but this bed is better. To proudly display my hard work and experience the achievement of completion or to put aside my pride and just embrace easy and better. I know what I’m going to do but I am unable to decide what is a better approach for my personal development, not that that is even what it’s all about of course.

Anyway with that more or less done, next on the list is sourcing some curtains, I’m sure the neighbours have seen enough. Maybe I can find a small tree, hollow it out and cut it into hoops for the rings before crocheting the cloth. That sounds like a typically practical and easy approach to this new desire.

Death

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Last night I awoke at about four and was unable to sleep again. Today I’m a bit of a grumpy bastard. I just watched a video of a koala that was badly burnt in the bushfires that are still raging in Australia. It had burns all over it’s body and was screaming in pain, blood on the towel, no fur left. I feel like crying. I’m not normally someone who cries and I don’t say that in a proud way as it would probably be good for me if I did. They had to put the little fella down today because his burns were too bad. This is heartbreaking. Think with all the fires this year that raged through the Amazon, Africa, Siberia and currently Australia how many millions of animals have died. In a way this one little koala is more upsetting because we can relate to it. We can see his pain, we can hear his cries. The rest are nothing more than a number, and numbers don’t really mean anything.

Is it an issue of compassion or empathy. As a species do we lack this ability to connect with animals, and that includes humans by the way. There are numerous arguments that we have become desensitised to suffering and death but I’m not sure how true that is. Computer games and films do display graphic scenes but they’re not real and there is no great clamour to watch actual execution or snuff videos. There is no way to know how people dealt with death in the past but it was more common then, for humans at least. That made it a very real part of peoples lives, and this is something we don’t have anymore, not in the west anyway. I still continue to eat meat but less and it’s starting to feel more and more like a weird thing to do. I love my dog, I raised her from a two month old puppy and feel a connection to her in a way that I don’t have with any other creature, not more or less but it’s unique. When I see the koala suffering, I think of her and it’s that relating which is what connects us. Have you ever tried looking properly into someones eyes, they’re the gateway to their consciousness, nobody can tell me other animals don’t have that. We can put ourselves compassionately in the shoes of another human but with an animal whose consciousness we can’t comprehend we need to find other ways to relate.

When I carve a roast chicken sometimes I think it looks like my dog. I ignore the thoughts but it freaks me out none the less. I don’t want to eat chicken anymore. Many people the world over have pets and as I’ve never expressed this reaction to chicken before I’m unsure if others have it too. How do they disconnect and detach themselves from the fact they’re carving an animal when they have another one sitting curled up sleeping in the corner that they love so much. Is it hypocritical, more behaving unconsciously I imagine. Perhaps people just don’t think like that, they just carve the chicken and see it for the chicken, not what it represents. It does represent something though, it represents existence. Until we start to understand this all it does is put in jeopardy all existence, ourselves included.

Poison

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It is a shame that having done so well and in a way turned the corner with my piece the day after Tomorrow – you see what I did there – as that was supposed to be the one which was the beginning of a new era in mini blog piece writing. Yesterday the mind was dying of death, an alcohol related death. Being thirty four years of age, the hangovers are different to just five years ago. It is remarkable though because when younger, those both hungover and older than I, sometimes commented on how easy it was for me regarding hangovers and how much worse they get as you age. While I didn’t disbelieve them it is easy to admit to not being fully appreciative of what they were saying. If anyone reading this over the age of thirty I am sure I have your understanding sympathy and for those below thirty ignore me at your peril. For now and for a few years my hangovers don’t just last one day, there is at least two full days of not feeling quite right after a good drinking session. After a three day stag party it is a week of actual genuine illness. The body has been poisoned, and we’ve done it to ourselves.

I was listening to a podcast today, the guest being someone whose name I have forgotten but he directed the documentary The Cove about the Japanese murder of thousands of dolphins each year. It is a famous documentary but if you haven’t watched it I suggest strongly you do. He was saying in the podcast about how the Japanese eat dolphin meat, even putting it in school menus and recommending it to pregnant women. Ignoring the fact that we just shouldn’t kill let alone eat such beautiful and intelligent creatures, dolphin meat also contain dangerously high levels of mercury. Ultimately the Japanese people are being poisoned and poisoning themselves. We have poisoned the seas, we eat cows full of steroids and hormones, soya from burnt deforested rainforest and puss filled milk which three-quarter of the worlds population don’t even contain the right enzymes to break down. Lets be honest, hit thirty and hangover may last two days but if it takes about three months to flush mercury out of your system I suspect those hops are the least of our worries. It’s times like these that I make numerous vows and very rarely follow them through. What is it again about being human, being human and self-destructive. Our daily mission to poison ourselves and those around us.