Tag: suffering

A Strava Wanker & A Pint

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Something remarkable happened to me today. Firstly I promise I’ll never become an exercise wanker, apparently they’re called Strava Wankers in honour of an app that allows you to record your run and post it online for all your friends to see how great you are. I admit I do have the app but it allows me to take the piss out of my friend when I run faster than him which probably makes me a hypocrite in some way. Anyway the point before I went off on one, twice, was that something remarkable happened today. While running I stopped hating everything about existence in that moment, usually the twenty five minutes worth of moments I run for, and found myself looking up and around myself at the sun and the fields, and realised I was actually enjoying myself. I felt that happy feeling I’ve heard people get from exercise. Apparently it’s not all about pain, suffering and just wishing you could either walk or magically be at the end of the run or life. It’s possible but I might actually get something from this exercise thing other than competitive pride sores on my feet and ego.

What my ego doesn’t like though is the realisation that I am not unique. I’m thirty-four and I’ve taken up exercise. It makes me want to vomit. I was cool once. Soon I’ll be wearing lycra and high vis jackets, and leaning against the bar in country pubs on a Sunday talking too loudly about the incredible milage I’ve just done on my super duppa bike. Well I probably won’t but I never thought I would take up exercise either. I must say though that I really can’t wait for the pubs to be open, to just drink a nice pint in a beer garden or in a nice cosy corner by a fireplace. Chat a little shit with people and stumble out into the night air. The worst thing is I can’t see this happening until the end of the summer just in time for rain and cold dark nights. Fireplace it is then. Maybe someone can create Strava for drinkers although I can’t possibly think how quickly we would get distracted from it and move on to being interesting again. Interesting in that drunken and barely interesting kind of way but you’re drunk so you don’t give a shit. I’m hardly in quarantine, I still work and while some things have changed not a great deal has; but my god I hope this bloody thing ends soon. I’ve just about had enough of it now. I want a pint.

A Tall Tree In A Dark Forest

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I was lying in bed this morning feeling frustrated. I’ve not been sleeping as well as I usually do and that usual is to close my eyes and suddenly the alarm is going off nine hours later. I’m not sure why I’m not, but for whatever reason I find it understandably annoying. The frustration I suspect is like a wind that gives the fire oxygen but it’s a lack of something that’s the kindling.

I’ve led a reasonably interesting life so far, been to a few places and met many faces. I don’t really feel proud of it like it’s some accomplishment despite the positive response I get when I tell some people. There is certainly a lack of contentment and despite how it may appear I feel a constant drive to achieve things. I often see some of my friends or really successful famous people and I’m envious of their lives. They seem to have a success I don’t. Careers, homes, families and bank balances yet I’m thirty four and my instincts have rejected all of these things until now. In fact I still see the futility of some of them and I know the things they have sacrificed to achieve them, things I’m seemingly still unwilling to as I plan my next adventure. Can we adventure forever though? We can’t eat our memories, we can’t shelter under them and eventually we just become those repetitive old travellers others avoid because all they have is their stories. I don’t often tell my stories unless they come up as a relatable anecdote, I don’t want to be that person.

So why the frustration? I hope you don’t feel me to be self indulgent with this piece but it’s simply I know expressing thoughts like this can help others with their own thoughts. I’m not saying my thoughts are anything special but more that I’m not unique and we all suffer the same things just through different eyes. The frustration stems from a lack of something in life as I said. I’m not sure if it’s a home because I have one now and it’s great and safe but it’s not going to bring me happiness on it’s own. Maybe it’s a family? A wife and kids. Again I’m unsure of that, although I don’t doubt it would be nice to have a woman in my life. Perhaps it’s just wanting it all, or more precisely wanting an idea of how I imagine it’ll be.

I was thinking that for all the knowledge I’ve learnt over the years; meeting wise people, reading wise texts, experiencing moments of understanding; I still don’t seem to put much of this into practice in my own life. It would explain why it is still knowledge within and not wisdom. The only thing I’ve learnt is that unlike twenty five year old me I try to avoid giving wise enlightened advice or talking in that empty way people do when they think they know it all. I feel an immediate inclination to end the conversation, or I’ll carry it on but sometimes it just feels stupid. I know it can impress people, and you see people taking it in but it doesn’t feel real. Unless you start living it it’s just a series of empty words.

A series of desires about something we imagine we want and a series of empty words then. I know the rhetoric about contentment and desires but I’m not content and I still desire. I know the words that give the impression of a level of enlightened but I feel as far from enlightened as I’ve even been. This is the frustration then. Why what I know doesn’t correlate in any way to how I act. This is why I feel confident I can say this aloud and it will resonate with others, another thing I know is that others don’t act on what they know either. Perhaps it’s just part of being a fallible human. Perhaps we just need more than knowledge of words. This drive to achieve life, live it to whatever fullest version we choose. Again this is just an idea of a desire. I think I need to end this here because I can see myself going in circles. The answers aren’t attached to my tail. Maybe the answers aren’t attached to anything. Maybe there are no answers. Perhaps that’s what I’m missing, but what does that even mean? Just empty fucking words again.

Trumps Misery

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

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.