The Wrong Herd

There are times we must question whether we are right. Nobody is ever one hundred percent right of course but let’s say more right than wrong. Someone who goes through life always believing themselves to be right in everything may not end up with many friends but could likely have successes in other respects. If someone goes through life always believing themselves wrong, would it be the opposite outcome? Probably unlikely. It must be important to be aware that we may just be wrong though. Is that humility? Maybe self-awareness?

I was thinking of discussing something in the news. One of those fallback pieces in which I decide to deride some politicians for their ineptitude, or an evolution in something on a geopolitical level that arouses some dissatisfaction within me. Usually a complaint of some sort. We’re less likely to be drawn to stories that have a positive and happy narrative remember. Maybe there’s something in that we could learn from. We’re drawn to stories of misery while living lives of misery. Like creates like as they say. Perhaps I should do a new ten day challenge and only write about happy positive things. I’ll probably pass on that one.

Usually the political stories I’m drawn to involve ones bashing the current government in the UK or the US, and commonly the opposition to both governments too. As you can imagine I’m not full of much belief in the political legitimacies of these two countries. Other people though must be. I say must be because not only did enough people vote in the two buffoons holding power but it also appears enough people want to vote in the establishment representatives who will most likely replace them at the next opportunity. When we see a large group of other people doing things we’re inclined to believe they may just be right and we may just be wrong. Herd mentally amongst many other names. It is easy to dismiss these people voting for these two sides as adherents of such a mental state but it’s likely I’m just swayed by another herd that I want to be part of. It’s likely a much smaller herd and one that feeds certain things in my fearful sense of survival but it’s a herd none the less.

With all this then we must all admit we’re being played one way or another. This huge game of power is rattling away as different groups battle it out for moral superiority and likely financial gain one way or another. Money corrupts, power corrupts, everything seems to corrupt, especially morality. Perhaps we’re just a corrupt species and we need to accept it. Or maybe we just need to stop worrying about whatever wrongs are happening in the world and focus on life as it unfolds before us. One extreme to the other yet again. It’s just exhausting that these arseholes continually manage to win power. More so when they’re clearly morally bankrupt and doing a bad job. It’s even possible to imagine things like this could finally defeat me and I stop giving a shit about the world. Maybe just give a shit in a different way. A detached way perhaps, or one that doesn’t get caught up in the hyperbolic nature of power. Or even my own perceived role within all this power. There’s got to be an answer somewhere. I’m sure we’ll see it too when we can finally figure out what it is that has been in front of our eyes all this time.

A Common Moment

I’m not feeling overly inspired tonight. It’s already hard to think about much other than this virus and I’m bored of writing about it probably nearly as much as you are of reading about it. I could just read up on something else and write about that, I found an interesting looking article on nihilism I’ve been meaning to read and write about for a while but I don’t feel inspired to make the effort. The show must go on though and I must write in here daily. How will I manage if I get this virus, ooft that will be a strange series of pieces. That is the problem with creating the only rule that there must be a daily piece. I’ve been in front of this screen now for a few hours avoiding writing anything and I don’t feel any more inspired having started. I’m just not feeling very positive that’s all and not even in the way that allows for a rant about some corruption or injustice facing the world. Nor the way that allows for the deep ramblings of the wannabe philosopher. Or even the desirous child missing his football.

Really it’s a lack of energy and inspiration. It will pass, all things come to pass but in the meantime the mind is bogged down with little other than an overload of fear. I really can’t wait for this to be over so I can go off on an adventure. I fancy some sailing. That would be nice. In the meantime I’ve just started a new book; One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and that is my current pleasure. Unfortunately it’s about a man in a Stalin era gulag so not exactly something to take my mind off the possibilities of different versions of suffering. I am also not comparing the potential of being stuck alone in a flat for the next month or two to ten years in a soviet gulag but fuck it’s all relevant…an ambiguous phrase as you’ll hear me say today. Actually you know what, fuck this…self pity and self indulgent bullshit and nothing else…right I’m over it, let’s get on with it. Moping around is going to help nobody and certainly not me. I’ll put it down as one of those moments. That was a quick turn of events. And breathe.

Chi Nei Tsang Me Baby

I’m keen to give an update on how I feel after the cleanse I wrote about on Saturday. I’m wary of going on about how great these things are and how simply magical I feel because the mind is powerful and can convince us of many things, but mainly because I’ll sound like a wanker. Yesterday I didn’t feel a great difference in mood but today I have felt energised and like a weight has been lifted. It is one of those things that were someone else to read it, it wouldn’t really mean anything to them, and I can accept this because I would probably be the same. Like I said I’m wary of getting carried away but there is a distinct difference between today and this time last week or last month. I am sure you’re questioning how I can possibly give credit to a salt water cleanse for this but the gut is such a complex organ, our second brain some describe it. When it is not functioning at it’s peak then holistically speaking, we as one entity cannot either.

I back this up by an experience I had in Thailand years ago, actually just before that time I went to Burma and got the super farts. It was off the back of my travelling India and she had been a hard mistress. At one point I had spent three weeks really ill, everything passing through me and losing weight rapidly. I was down to sixty-five kilograms, or about ten stone depending where you’re reading this, and I’m six foot three or about one metre ninety. This was not a healthy look, I could see the ribs in my back. That three weeks took it’s toll on me mentally, for months afterwards I felt a heaviness to life. When I got to Bangkok, on the recommendation of a friend I tried an abdominal stomach massage called Chi New Tsang. When she had had it she said she just cried through the whole thing, I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. The premise of Chi New Tsang is that by massaging your internal organs in a particular way you release all the blocked negative emotions which have been stored within them. This idea of the body storing pain is one you can find in many eastern therapies and healing practises. I’m naturally a sceptic but I also want everything that could be good to be real. I will try most things and hopefully with an open mind, some therapies I’ve not got the same response others have from them, but this stomach massage was incredible. I never cried or anything like that but I walked out of there and especially the next day felt like a new person. I had spent the previous weeks hiding away in a dark corner but for the last week I was there I got involved with things and was happy again. I took a beating and I stored it all in my gut. This was the release.

For some bizarre reason the Chi New Tsang massage is not that easy to find in Thailand, everyone just wants beaten up by attractive young girls as they crack your body back into position. I found one practitioner in Edinburgh but she was on maternity leave when I tried to contact her, a few in London and none in Athens so finding anyone is not going to be straight forward. The point is this massage works on a similar principle to the cleanse, you’re not just purging the physical detritus from your guts but in actuality the mental waste too.

The next mission is to keep myself from storing this suffering. I’ll start by hopefully listening to what my second brain tells me about what I’m putting in it. Unfortunately I have noticed butter has been making me itch which is a shame because I love it, I haven’t touched milk or cream, and I have lost all desire for coffee and alcohol. Why must those that we love most be the ones to hurt us so. Again, all I do is give my experience and as I said I have got little from things others have had strong responses to so there is no guarantee either the cleanse or the massage would do anything for you. These things are out there though, sometimes it may just be worth giving them a shot, the ol’ fuck it moment.

Trumps Misery

I was thinking a little more about what I said yesterday about why people act in ways seemingly detrimental to others, such as assassinating a leader despite the inevitable risks of what will follow. I mentioned Donald Trump and how he just wants to be happy and I will elaborate on that further. It is also worth mentioning the two big events coming up in American politics which could explain why such aggressive and dangerous actions in search of happiness were undertaken.

Firstly there is nothing quite like a war to give someone a boost in the polls ahead of an election. Trump himself warned Barack Obama was going to attack Iran just prior to the elections in 2012 so as to boost his chances of re-election. It’s a time honoured tradition by leaders and it appears Trump has simply fulfilled his own premonition with the 2020 election coming up. Secondly there is the small issue of him being impeached. While invading a foreign country, going to war or just making the move they did will not make impeachment proceedings go away, they will certainly draw some of the attention away from them. Theres the old adage of look for what they’re not reporting and it’s very easy to hide some bad news with something exciting, triumphant and reportable, it certainly takes the heat away from his current ordeal at home.

None of that takes away from my statement that he just wants to be happy because both of these incidents if played out as he would desire should give greater opportunity for some element of happiness in his life. However it is never as simple as that and it’s now that we try to find a way to describe that approach to life while avoiding using words like wrong or unacceptable, as ultimately that is my version of morality and a discussion on some kind of universal morality is probably best saved for another time. Such behaviour though is certainly selfish, self-serving and uncaring. If somebody acts in a way which is uncaring and destructive then it is not far fetched to suggest they are born out of anger and unhappiness. Trump may just want to be happy, which is looking compassionately at his actions, but if it is the negative emotions inside of him driving his actions then it will only lead to further negative emotions for himself and others no matter how much happiness and gold he believes lie in wait. Actions like yesterdays assassination are nothing more than another moment in the perpetual cycle of misery for people like this. While that may be his trip, the problem as is clearly evident, is that when someone on such a bad trip holds such power, it is impossible for us not to be dragged into it and into his reality. Unless we can separate ourselves, difficult though it is, our search for happiness will involve nothing other than being dragged into a world of fear, paranoia, misery and pain, because make no doubt about it; that fat cunt has it all.

A Shinning Moon

To carry on the misery, the deeply held pain myself and many others are feeling about this election gone bad, like milk but not the good stuff you can turn into something tasty if you know how, the bad stuff good for nothing, the stench so bad it goes straight in the bin, lumps floating on its surface like the boils of decay on putrid skin, the skin that covers up corruption and wanton self-serving betrayal. But I won’t, how about something more positive to mask the disappointment of hope smashed on the rocks of despair. What do we do when we want to forget pain, we stuff it deep within the folds of our soul, or we drink, we drink in search of the perpetual warmth of alcoholism or at the very least a nice whisky to take the edge off it.

If my phone hadn’t run out of battery and I hadn’t lost my charger now would be a great time to add a photo. In fact if you are reading this and there is a photo attached it means I went back to it and added one subsequently. To add photographic evidence of my successful attempt at creating the elixir of forgetfulness, the murky liquid gold, the self made man to the Etonian heir, the home-brew to the hipster microbrewery. You guessed it? Well understandable if not, but today I took my first step on a (continued) journey of suppression and made myself thirty-five pints of beer. This may be the start of something life changing, especially if my mate gets his way and we start producing enough to sell, but for now its just a combination of curiosity and pleasure. It is unclear whether it’ll be a success and I’m not necessarily excited as I’ve managed to convince myself that somehow I’ll mess it up, I just can’t quite believe its going to work somehow. All the same I’m pretty pleased with myself.

In about six days it should be suitably fermented to bottle and in a further two weeks after that it should be perfect to drink. Therefore in roughly twenty days from now I’ll be able to start on the road to suppressing my emotions and living in a world of denial and ruby ale drunkenness. In between then though we have three weeks together of me either twiddling my thumbs or feeling sorry myself. I could just get over it of course and get on with life but then where’s the wallowing, where’s the self-pity, what would be the point of making all that lovely beer.