Therapy

I haven't paid for therapy for 15 years now and never intend to again. I benefit just as much from unloading here, it may piss people off to the point of turning over to another channel, metaphorically speaking, but I now look forward to coming home and composing something usually as I write, as I am now. It's only a day since I last posted, but in blogs a day is a long time... I didn't do a lot more than work today (makes a bloody change) but I have finally discovered how to replace the dodgy knob on my front door that had meant it was possible to push it open for weeks unless I used the deadlock. It now clicks shut like a Rolls Royce door, and only cost me £12! I also started fixing the metal windows now the doors and bricks are more or less repainted, and filled all the old putty with new stuff, which is essential to maintain as if the windows rust it'll cost as much as a new house, well more than I want to spend anyway. And my mum told me she did all the same work 45 years ago when we lived over the road in an identical bungalow. That's one advantage not having a top floor as you can reach much of the easy DIY areas you can't on a house and save the money you then spend on the double stretch of guttering compared to on a house, ie you can't win.

I have relayed my 'love history' on the new blog, and looking at it seen how incredibly repetitive my situations have been, and still can't understand how. I have (no names so no readers embarrassed) admirers abroad who are quite unlike the weird and wonderful array of misfits I meet in London, who I believe would still like me in person goes to add to my view it's not something I do that leaves me terminally single. In fact, getting to know people online means by the time you do eventually meet you already know each other so well there are unlikely to be any new faults left to discover. I have no reason to hide my own weaknesses online as we all have them, so what's so clever about pretending you haven't if you have? That's the British way and means people of my age or so don't realise their problems are shared with anyone else, let alone common, so I do my bit to balance this pathetic situation and after pretending I was OK for many years, now try and educate people it's OK to have problems.

So, I've done the little jobs I had to do more or less, and painting the windows will follow when there's time, but there's nothing urgent left thank goodness till the next crisis god forbid. Even though it's still September, I almost feel like an annual review as I've had such a shit year besides the media and creative side of it. I have met and pursued three women of varying qualities, with even less success than average as usually at least one will go out with me a few times before saying I'm only a friend. This time one said she would and didn't, one asked me to travel with her, and when I couldn't never offered me anything again. And the third was a bit like Barnet's chances at Manchester Utd coming up, it's possible to win but no one expects it. The result I had was unfortunately the expected one, though she was not only the best but the only one without 'issues', which is almost unheard of in the women I go after. And many things I still had have now gone, most of all being my income, with dodgy health from all the stress of the year's situations. When you're in a legal dispute over your very financial survival, the post provides the equivalent of about three day's work a week. You get a letter, you try and dispute it, needing legal help, compose letters, print and copy them, and then get a reply repeating the previous one. This happened continually for four months and is still going on, and in all that time I haven't earned a thing. For a while I offered my services in various suitable places, but unless you're from a particular field with a consistent work record no one in London will touch you with a barge pole, they'd rather get school leavers or women with kids who don't expect much out of it compared to a man who may actually want more than the minimum wage as he hasn't got a partner to earn the lion's share. This is not my opinion, I emphasise, but most employers looking for part time staff. Men don't get a look in. I worked part time since 1989 simply because I was at college one morning a week and not a place in Britain would let me take the morning off. So I worked probably 25 hours a week altogether over about three different places. Then when I finished college I spent a year and a half applying for full time jobs, being free at last at 31! After I think 150 applications and 3 interviews I ended up working three days a week in my friend's shop. This paid my bills for 5 years and allowed me to work another day or so elsewhere If I could. After that I couldn't imagine full time work again and never got another job save for a few days in another shop I knew which closed from lack of customers after my first week.

I used the time after that (another 100 plus applications and about 3 interviews) to study from home, and in 2001 became pretty well qualified. I applied for about a job every month (counselling is not often offered as regular paid work, certainly not enough for all the applicants looking) and I got one interview after over a year, and that was it. In the end I went back to looking for shop and similar work, but I've run out of friends and family with businesses, and that's where I am now. In reality I doubt I can go broke, but as that's an assumption at most, it's only too easy to imagine it, as going by my past record it's near on impossible to get a regular job I'd be able to do for more than a week without cracking up. Ideally by now I'd be married, looking after the kids at home while my wife worked, if that's what we could agree, and if self employed media work ever came my way I could do most of it from home along with painting. To think, had just one of the jobs I applied for in 1991 had come up, I'd never had stopped working full time and become used to it. I was so flexible the only criterion I had was not to work inside the London ring road, as the journey there in the past had been like a day's work in itself. Sadly it's still the custom to locate about 90% of the offices in London within the ring road, so I was restricted to the few left that everyone else wanted as well. But I was prepared to do anything in an office I didn't need secretarial training for. I'd done despatch work and computer entry before, as well as accounts and filing, and every firm needed that, so I thought. What did they need? Shorthand and fucking typing. Not just the typing I do now (32 wpm, consistent for 20 years) but double that minimum. I went for a job thinking it was clerical legal work to find out they wanted the office manager of the clerks. OK, I thought, a bit more work to do but some authority. What did they do in the interview? A bloody fucking typing test, again! I was interviewing for a manager of a whole legal department at the council, with a law degree, and all they wanted to know is 'How fast can I type?'. My spelling and accuracy, as anyone can see, is almost 100%. Anyone reading my work may complain about the layout, but it'll always be accurate. Who really cares if I may have to stay late the odd day to finish it?
So for all the people in the past (you know who you are, if you still read this) who criticised my evasion of work, it wasn't my choice. In fact, I chased work for years and ended up with one job that lasted 5 years and one 3 days, both part time. After about 300 applications. This is rapidly becoming like an eastern bloc economy, and soon at this rate crime will become a bigger requirement for success than qualifications. And if you don't believe me, remember who said the oil price would ruin the world economy a month before Gordon Brown finally admitted it. I live in Brent, I see it happening around me.

Complaining

My recent conclusion why my readership seems to have dwindled to my own checking is because the common theme since I started appears to be complaining. There is a logic here, as if I don't complain I become even more burdened with the stresses of life than I already am, plus when I write I try and make it entertaining in a Tony Hancock sort of way. So if I complain here it should also stop me doing it with friends and family as I know they can do without it, and maybe it makes the odd poor sod feel better when they see how life can take over your long held plans and piss and shit all over them.

I don't intend to depress anyone, Shakespeare's tragedies were no less entertaining than his comedies, and unlike Shakespeare I never intend to write tragedies. It probably comes out like that most of the time, but unfortunately many aspects of my life went downhill, and this year all at once. Had I lived in a small town or community they would have not only helped, but probably taken much of the situation away in the first place as much of my trouble is being isolated within a 40 mile stretch of urbanisation where even the few people you see regularly usually pretend they've never seen you before. So, there's the background to why I whinge like a geriatric Jewish grandma, whose sadly biggest weapon of tedium is repetition.

I know one who is younger than me, but since I met her at 19 was old before her time and never acted a day under 80. I would greatly love to weave my own and their stories into a screenplay, though Jerry Seinfeld did it in America, he had to remove the Jewish element (by ignoring anyone's Jewish identity other than his own), rather than sacking the all-Jewish cast (except Kramer). I could easily create a weekly soap of London Jewish neurosis equal to Woody Allen and Jackie Mason, and maybe in my next major hiatus in time will have a go. It's something I used to do long ago so worth a revival after some 30 years off the case.

I have joined another blog for losers in love which I would link only the name is too rude for my regulars (ex-regulars...?) so I'll simply attempt to link it here if I can find how to hide the name. my other blog.
I may need to read the help and advice page on inserting links. The method here is one that only primary school kids could work out as they were fluent in HTML by 7. I think the next level would be to start some more specialised blogs, including the complaining blog. I know I'm not alone, and personally enjoy reading complaints as it tends to make me think others are also aware the world isn't perfect and they may do something about it as a result. Constructive criticism. So to end with a good example, our lovely government are now planning to extend congestion charging nationally, and the pinnacle is the M4 motorway at Heathrow airport, and unless I misheard, the charge isn't going to be the £8 for driving in London, but... £40!
The politicians are now using global warming as another excuse to tax air passengers (read 'flights have become so cheap there's a chance to jack up the prices and still sell tickets'). The congestion charge is also going to be extended within the whole of London and inside the M25. I personally have begun not to care how far I travel any more, and maybe the restrictions that will come with only being able to travel when essential will force people to find more to do in their local areas and possibly even get to know a few people there.

I thought that Tony Blair has actually gone beyond anything politicians would have done in the past. Neither Stalin or Hitler, and as far as I know Castro haven't and never would charge to drive anywhere. OK, cars were not quite as widespread in those times and places, but had they been, I don't believe the toughest regimes of last century (and this one) would try a scam like that. Will the Chinese and North Koreans decide to have a charge to drive anywhere once enough people own cars to create a market? I don't think so. OK, it was Ken Livingstone, London's own mixture of every historical figure we were happy to have abroad and not here. But he's only captured Labour's general attidude to private freedom, and beat them to it more as an experiment to see if he could get away with it before being adopted nationwide as it now has been in theory. Road pricing is now in the Labour manifesto and as they'll probably be on the throne for most of my future life, anything Tony wants Tony gets. Then when the world becomes colder (as it possibly will) he will take some credit for it from all his anti-travel policies to control greenhouse emissions. What a twat.

A bit more of everything

Various small issues going on at the moment, nothing of any importance probably but what I find boring is often what others may find interesting. It certainly seems the other way round here...

There was a very rare occurence today, a woman, my sort of age and nice actually came and spoke to me in Syon Park garden centre. I saw her in a furniture shop there and when we came out (I went with my father) she came and spoke to us about the furniture, and was very friendly. This (especially in London) happens so rarely it really makes an impression, though she sounded like she was from Newcastle or Norway (can be hard to tell...) where they would speak to normal looking people in furniture shops they didn't know. Then we saw her in the cafe but we weren't eating yet, but though I said hello again she didn't draw me back into conversation as I was considering getting her contact details if she had. But it just shows if you wait long enough and mix with people things can happen eventually.

The current two supernatural issues Howard Hughes has turned up for me on Talk Sport radio are on my system now until they die as all before them have. Paul Hellyer was meant to speak to a Toronto conference on governments holding secret information on aliens. Mr Hellyer is a Canadian ex minister, now 82, who is on the side of disclosure, and now I have to discover if he indeed spoke before the powers that be could shut him up, and if so what he said.
Major Ed Dames, another US military official (retired) teaches remote viewing, but before he reitres wants to film a meeting with an alien, by February 2006. My 'loony radar' went off at full power, besides the fact he is an accredited and official expert, but even the mighty can fall. Once this does or does not occur Howard Hughes and myself will report the result. But I won't be getting very excited in advance.

Finally, I was just reporting these issues on a forum, when I realised the only supernatural events in my life have been my own abilities and results from meditation. Neither took the slightest effort, I simply did as I was told by a teacher and certainly the first times they worked. How they tailed off after that is probably subconscious mental sabotage, as if you can do something once, it's possible. I can still do some things but the big stuff like seeing auras has evaded me most of the time since I first managed it.

Being right

This is really more of an article than a blog entry, but as it relates to where I am at the moment, there isn’t anywhere else I can put it.

I read this twice in two different books within about a week, and realised how true it is. Being successful and being right doesn’t necessarily make you happy. I spent time since I was doing my A levels having to discover principles in life to pass my exams, which then became incorporated into my booklet on counselling in 1995, and I’ve been finding new ones ever since, which I post here as well now. But I did realise, though they are very useful, particularly for my therapy clients, being right doesn’t make you happy. When I was a child I knew none of these principles, fucked up all the time but I was happy. Now, at 45 I have more of a guide to life, and understand situations at a level few do (believe me, I can show you). The people who know the most about these principles of situations we all face in life and can learn to both recognise and utilise are TV producers.

I’ve never seen so many complex and perceptive awareness of human situations than in good TV programmes. Childrens’ programmes, which have a particular educational aspect often put these principles in deliberately. I have now updated my list (written in assorted notebooks in whichever room I’m in when I think of them), and will put them into a second booklet (for my own use this time) as soon as I’ve found them all.
So, in the past, I used to go around blind, and not know what to do in any situation, wind up all sorts of people to the extent many wouldn’t speak to me again, and failed most of my O levels on the first attempt. Occasionally a friend would spot what I was doing and fill me in on simple principles, but most was trial and error, and working out the particular from the general. This allows me to use cognitive therapy at work as I have a database of strategies for most situations, and my clients (who are nearly all far far more successful than me) haven’t. They realise they are more interested in clearing up the few bits of their life that aren’t working, and my principles can do that. But my own life is so incredibly controlled and organised and a complete failure!

Let me explain. Some success lasts, others are temporary. So I picked up some lasting successes, with my qualifications and my house. Oh. That’s it. The house, over what tomorrow will be ten years, is now full of every piece of furniture and technology I need and have room for. Yet it’s an empty house. I sit either in front of the computer, TV or radio, all upgraded to what were pretty good models when I got them, but alone. So business wise, though while I had money coming in I was able to collect items, I now have them all and so what? I am able to keep myself vicariously occupied listening to other people on the radio or online messaging, but unless people come over, it’s an empty house the rest of the time. There is no principle on earth (to expand my friends point) that can bring suitable people into your life. Sure, spend as much time meeting people as you can until you do. But as many more mature people say, they went out to meet people so they needn’t go out any more. Discos were not places I went to for fun, but to pull women. Parties were a laugh sometimes but if you don’t pull the fun wains by the second hour. Courses are for education. Since my degree I’ve never met a proper friend on all my part time courses, besides the fact I did travel 15 miles to them, which doesn’t help, though there were many very nice and interesting people there, by the time people are reaching 30 they already have their lives and unlike at school don’t care to pick new friends up by then. I also went to meditation and psychic groups, and the people there were often on the borders of mental illness. Many people use them to try and find a way out, and though affluent and frequently educated, none had anything for me. So I learnt counselling, meditation, psychic development and shamanic practice, but none of these provided new friends.
At the time, my old friends from school were still around but I always add new ones where they arrive, but it didn’t happen.

But to return to principles, I have now a list of new ones that keep coming to me with no effort on my part to look for them. I just see a situation and realise what’s going on. Quite an asset really, especially if it was part of a job, but each time I recognise a new formula it makes no apparent different to my life besides being able to understand what’s going on and handle it properly. So, by writing this, I’ve actually worked it out. Understanding skills are only marginally connected with acquisitive skills. Therefore you can be the most understanding person but not gain a bloody thing from it as actually going out and getting things is as different as switching from juggling to crosswords. The skills seem totally different. Interestingly as in the wider world, this applies the same way in blogs. I’ve been deliberately leaving comments on blogs I read now to use as links back here. Did it work? Did it bollocks… I really wonder what people like reading besides news comment, which can already be read in every newsagent on earth. I read numerous styles, from the teenage ramblings I know I never made when I was a teenager, to similar ones to my own, and others I can barely follow. There are also the geek blogs which only analyse the latest geeky boxes with new displays and rams, and I can, again, read a magazine in the library if I want a review of the latest technology. So why the fucking bloody hell do only a few people seem to read my blog, least of all make comments? I have to show off for a minute here just to make my point, I have been writing all my life. It has got me numerous commissions in professional journals and qualifications, so is clearly good enough academically to stand up. The difference is here it’s about me, as I always say, because it’s my diary. If I want to write about almost anything else it either goes in the forums or in an article. And enough people say they like what I write in forums to affirm my ability. I had one critic who said I went on too much and was boring, but from where she was coming from she clearly preferred a more tabloid approach and found anything more serious totally boring. But there have to be other nerds out there like me who write and read deeper stuff, so now I’ve done some more marketing, where are they? As I discovered recently, I wrote to try and open a new career and painted for relaxation, but ended up with my paintings being the only area that may make any money. Of course a successful TV appearance is above all but a best selling book or major newspaper article, possibly even equal with. That could break the inertia of my career to the professional from the amateur level, but as I said before, until its shown I have to work on it from all other angles as well. None have any guarantees so all have to be pursued equally until one or more pays off. So though I have reached an unavoidable level of understanding, I have near non-existent marketing and acquisitive skills, as can be seen in my situation. Let’s see if I can start from the beginning on that course now I know what I need to learn.

Oh no!!!

Fuck me, what's the worst possible thing you can turn up with a search engine?
I think a Russian 404 error must take the top prize for the last thing anyone outside (and possibly inside Russia) would ever want to see. Bastards!
(if I can be arsed to work out how to do a full screenshot I'll add it later)


404 - Page Not Found





Рубрики раздела:

Новости »

Политика »

Война и мир »

Антисемитизм »

Наши люди »

Интервью »

Культура »

Религия »

Делу время »

Криминал »

Sem40-Панорама »

Обратная связь »

Полезные ссылки

Обмен ссылками













Приносим извинения, но запрошенный Вами документ не найден на сервере.


Если помните, с какой страницы вы сюда пришли, cообщите об этом нам и мы исправим ошибку.
Будем признательны, если в теме письма вы укажите "404".

Чтобы найти нужные вам материалы воспользуйтесь поиском или картой сайта.

Use it while you can

As my car won't officially be back till tomorrow, I thought I'd use the time to visit here early again, last night was a long one, as you can see by the lengthy post below, and I'm feeling the effects today. A week without a car is about as much as I would want, I do have things I have to do now and can't use the few weights I have in the house to make up for missing the gym.

So while I spent yesterday on the computer most of the time, though I've done my usual correpondence already, I am getting back to chores which I can cross of the list one by one while I have nothing else to do. There's actually some TV worth watching tonight, including the Cinderella of all that comes only every 7 years, 49 up. For those who don't live in the UK, it's followed a number of children from what must be 1964 to the present day, in true pre-big brother fashion, watching what they do every 7 years. I actually remember the first one, though as they weave the old with the new it may be the repeats, but I watched TV all my life and probably did see it then. Unfortunately one or two have dropped out, which is always a shame, but it carries on with the second half tonight after the other last week.

So the front door frame's had another coat of paint and I've mowed the lawn, and may start another picture soon as there's no TV for ages. Yesterday I only spoke to the people in the late night grocers, and today I spoke to my neighbour for a minute. I'm becoming a fucking hermit at this rate, and for someone as social as I am means I'm forced to either do what I always did and find ways to amuse myself, or email and phone people I can't see in person. It shows it can't make people strange, as if anything was enough to turn someone peculiar my life would be. I haven't ever talked to myself or any objects, made a shrine to a celebrity, stalked anybody, started a fringe political party or taken drugs, all the things isolation is often blamed for. It's the wrong way round from the weirdos I know at least. They start off relatively normal and then become isolated after they've gone funny as a result rather than a cause. And for me, living in a city makes it far worse as you barely know anyone around you, and there's no small community to get involved with, especially when you all grew up together. I would have been perfect in a small town somewhere where everyone knew each other's business and except for the trips to Newton Abbott or Paignton once a week or two, everything you needed was contained within a couple of miles. Im mention those places as I spent 21 years in Devon every summer plus four easters as well, and people in Totnes, the nearest town, would remember me whenever I arrived though it may have been a year since I was last there. So if I can fit in in a community after a few weeks a year since the age of 8, imagine if I'd lived there all that time. The funny thing is how isolated Dartmoor and beyond into Cornwall is. I used to go riding there and exploring, and now I guarantee some of the farmer's cottages up a mile of tracks a few miles from the nearest other building would be on broadband now, while half of North London isn't. The women are a damn sight easier out there as well, by the way.

Wednesday, all day

Well, after two very busy and tiring days, and sleeping badly I had a day off today, and with no car was again limited in my ideas. In the end, the only stuff available was boring housework/diy, and as I'm likely to be free the rest of the week decided it didn't matter whether I did any or not today as long as I was happy whatever I was doing.
It started with an old Funtrivia acquaintance blasting obscenities all over the site and in emails, and she was using my name in half of them so I was kept occupied keeping up with all the devastation in her wake. I will say I believe the signs of weirdness or dodginess are pretty easy to spot on internet forums as, like Big Brother, you can't hide yourself that well after a number of conversations, and actually writing things down gives you a chance to notice them more as they sit and look at you till you notice. So very few people I know online have 'turned' really. If they seemed nice to start with, they were, and the ones like her today who went off on one had all the signs from day one.

So, in the whole day, what else did I do? Apart from that affair, there was barely a thing on TV so that was out, and little reason to leave the computer. My letter from the TV company arrived today as hoped for, no dates yet for transmission but virtually confirms it's going ahead. As I said already, it's funny that when you have actual contributions accepted (articles, paintings and TV filming) but they haven't happened yet after months in two cases it feels of course just the same as if they never existed. But thank god at least one of them, and all if go well will happen, but it shows you can only live for the present and the future will take care of itself.

So I had a rest all day in the end, as I needed. I wasn't bored, didn't see anyone except when I had to go and get some shopping, but certainly don't feel guilty for it. I hope the car will be back tomorrow. I'll be able to go to the gym, and it's the first time since I started I've missed a week, though if I get two extra sessions in I'll only have missed one in the end which is nothing. It'll be three years in November, and the progress, though incredibly slow on the physical changes, is there, though the actual size of weights I can lift has more than doubled. No other projects on the go now, business or pleasure. It's hard to always have something on the system for possible progress, and most comes out of the blue anyway rather than being planned for, especially pleasure. This year I have met three women with major drawbacks, but all acceptable for me. I have mentioned the rough details already, and on the plus side it means single and acceptable women still get to know me though I barely go anywhere we're 'expected to go' to meet them any more. But that's because since I was about 30 I barely ever met anyone at those places any more and realised it was far better just being in places for other reasons and bumping into women naturally.

That rarely happens in reality either, but does mean no effort getting to know someone when it does, as knowing someone well before you ask them out beats picking up strangers at social events hands down. By the time you take them out you're already comfortable, and have passed all the embarrassing stages you usually go through when dating someone you've only met once. Fine for kids (under 30 to me...) but not now. My latest love interest is now probably like the leaves will soon be, dried up and fallen off the tree. The trouble is I know the odds of many of my attempts in anything important in life besides technical areas are always phenomenal. The trouble is you can't transfer the knowledge you gain through passing exams and courses into success with people. I'll give an example here of the overlap, one I learnt as a result of being kicked out of my course for failing it, economics.
Economics: The border between academics and humanity. Economists teach it as if it's a science, until you put it into practice. Actually, as well as the discovery economic behaviour depends on people's choices, which are as reliable as a 90 year old bladder, the remainder is actually the political choice of those deciding the policy. Its actual success then depends on the peoples' reactions to it, and whether they actually behave the way they're 'supposed' to, and they rarely do. So though taught like a science, economics in fact relies almost totally on human nature to affirm or contradict each theory, and that is why what people are taught to expect and write in their essays is very different when applied to reality.
It's a subject I just passed at A level, so I know just enough to understand the basic principles, and then failed it twice at degree level as part of a larger course (the only time that ever happened to me, thank god). I now see similar random elements in trying to pin down dating after 30, as there aren't enough singles any more to have a structure as those under 30 have and I exploited in full.
The few activities that are available are sadly for waifs and strays, and have not been able to provide me with anything but good looking women with mental illness. So I am left to the vagaries of 'Brownian motion' (it can be useful going to school for such trivia...), where particles move about in the air at random, bumping into others by pure chance and going in the direction they're pushed in. And the end result is meeting women who have reasons that, even though you like their looks and personality, it just can't work.

One day when I have nothing to lose I'm going to go in detail of some of these people. I think the only real benefit to come from this dead-end job has been my ultimate realisation it can't be me. I have laid out my wares in full view, and calculated, like the majority of men on earth, I'm averagely endowed with qualities for women. There are a few of the flash gits at the top end of course we all know, the Steven Bogens of the world (I had to mention that name) who just walk into a party and the girls queued up to dance with him. That image made me feel inferior for years and I still find it hard to believe something like that can happen at all. Then at the other end we have the no-hopers, the wets with huge noses, no personalities and make poor jokes they think are funny. I know some of them as well, and many frequent the same circle of events they did over 20 years ago, and have never been seen with a woman. I'm neither of those, like 90% of men. I have some major faults, some major assets and the rest is average. Like everyone else really. I just fail with women I like, even when they like me, though a recent analysis showed the last time that happened was about 25 years ago so my power may have gone downhill since then.

One thing my continual repetition of similar ideas does (yes, I know I do it, I am intelligent enough to notice) is to help me organise my chaotic thoughts. And if I think I'm saying the same thing I have already I won't do it. Half of it is because it's the same life with the same situations, so it's actually different stages of one life. The other half is rearranging stuff in different ways and angles to see if I can make sense of it. There are only a few themes in life for everyone, and we all hope to succeed in as many as possible in order to be happy and content. In my case I've always tended to do things either way before the rest or after (if at all). So I'd bought a flat long before most people my age as I planned it all, but am still not married or with children when my friends will soon be grandparents.
I'm not competing with anyone, as I wanted that when they did and still do, it just hasn't happened. Other parts of life such as careers grow at their own rate and as long as you're alive anything can happen, especially if self employed or creative. As long as you can perform, what other people do with it is up to both them, and your manipulation of the market to promote your creations. Van Gogh was the best example. He is recognised as the most valuable painter, and one of a very high and rare quality. He always painted, showed all sorts of people what he did, and sold bugger all while he was alive. Did that make him a failure? What would you say? What's better, some mediocre celebrity with a good manager who makes millions selling average stuff, or a genius who turns out something of the best quality, but hasn't the resources to market tham. I think that makes my point. After the celebrity artists die, people will invest in their works for business, but it won't last critically and will be forgotten soon afterwards. No one in 300 years will have their works in art books as they do now for 300 year old art. So it's not how well a person does from their production that counts for the world, but what they produce.

So, to try and tie up every loose end I've left, the main thing we can control is what we can make and do. What we can't control is what other people choose to do with it. This applies to success in business and pleasure, in all its aspects. And bribery will only work in business, it won't do much to make anyone happy by paying Max Clifford to make you successful for being high profile. Money won't make what you do any better, it'll just be able to show more people what you make than others. But nothing more. Goodnight.

Friends

Up till recently, I've always had close friends, but since the closest went abroad in 2002 I realised the others were too busy to hardly ever see, as they'd excluded me after marriage and children, where the other had included me as a family member. So, after a lifetime of having friends around me, and never having planned how to get one in my life, I'm now faced with the position of having to go out and make new ones somehow.
Up till now, friends just came into my life, a certain formula was required where someone just felt right, and then they stayed from a few years to indefinitely. Since I was five there have always been one or more special friends who became like brothers (and one wife) and as two, like me, were only children, the requirement for a brother was greater as we only had the regular company of our parents and their generation. 'People' are not the same, having ordinary people around me is sometimes just a nuisance, as if they're not on my level but want to hang around they just get on my nerves. I'm not desperate for company, but interesting conversation and laughs, which sadly few can provide. So having just sat back and attracted friends like cats pick up burrs on their fur on the garden, I'm pondering on what to now do to go and find one actively.

On the supply side, I both know suitable women and suitable friends exist in large numbers. I've met and been rejected by tens of suitable women, and come across hundreds of potential close friends, but they nowadays nearly all live abroad. Of course if I was married it would cover both bases as I would never marry a woman who wasn't a best friend as well. Just to cheer myself up, I'll now tell the story of the girl who was like my wife, including the bossy aspect.

When I was five I moved from Kingsbury, where I live now, to Hampstead Garden Suburb, a foreign but very affluent area about four miles to the east of me. Though I loved my old area as we were in and out of the neighbours, and knew the names of all the shopkeepers, the place was far too small and we had to move. Very soon after arriving in the new place, the girl two doors away introduced herself, and we were soon stuck together as if we'd known each other from birth. She was a year older than me, and we often slept over, and believe me, anything went, though we didn't have a map and were only exploring out of curiosity, it was a journey of discovery that only allowed me to want more. A few years later she moved away and I hardly saw her after that except for the odd visit. She always pushed me around but I didn't really care unless it was with her friends and they joined in. But when it was just the two of us around locally we had a whale of a time. In fact, long before proper girlfriends, I was already imprinted with how it felt to be with a female partner where everything was comfortable and felt right.
She grew up, got boyfriends, qualified as a lawyer, got married, and ignored my email on Friends Reunited. Fucking typical, everyone else moves on except Muggins here. Mind you, don't people join it because they want to drag up the past?

Well, life for me started good, built up to a peak around 1972-5, and then slowly went downhill. I'm not asking for sympathy, just looking back from 2005, and then ahead from 1967, and that's what I see.

Alien news

Good news! A letter has arrived at one of out TV programme trio, giving details of the forthcoming series we were filmed for. No dates, but forward plans of videos, followed by scheduling dates coming in further correspondence, so it seems like all systems go! I hope I may get my own letter, though I know what they say already it would be nice to be remembered. Things seem to be happening to plan.
The second alien detail is Paul Hellyer, an 82 year old canadian MP. On Sunday he's scheduled to appear in front of a Toronto UFO conference this Sunday giving details of the government's secret alien files.
Well, as a relatively passive UFO researcher (I have managed to get to one conference though) I can say this is a first. Though it's not apparently officially sanctioned as long as the data's coming out, it'll be official data either way.
But I am terrified it may never happen, as lesser revelations by people I know have been able to attract shots from guns, threats and all the usual persecution you hear happens to UFO whistleblowers. Sad but absolutely true.

Giving advance notice and revealing this information in a public forum is totally reckless. The guy's 82, and god forbid he dies of 'natural causes' in the week before giving his lecture, not a soul on earth could prove otherwise. Unless he's deposited a number of copies of his data elsewhere, if anyone wanted to stop him performing they've got every opportunity to do so. The world is not always a nice place and if the government do in fact have such secrets, they will want to keep them so. Therefore unless this has been unofficially approved, I am terrified he will never make the speech at all, unless it's another damp squib like every one previously. But no one has claimed to reveal this type of information before. You can see why I'm worrying...

Told you...

"High mortgage payments + high fuel prices + low interest rates .... = a recipe for economic disaster."

David's Kingsbury Blog 24/8/05

"Britain is being hit by a global slowdown as a result of high oil prices"

Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer, 18/9/05

Well, it looks as I got ahead of him by a good few weeks, maybe we should swap jobs...

Falling into place?

Gestalt. Wholeness. Fritz Perls thought that by destroying your world, it could be rebuilt properly. Not an original view, shamanism has been using it for thousands of years. It is funny how apparently new ideas can often be traced back to pre-history, but that's for my PhD thesis (in my dreams...).

So, what's falling into place? The ultimate blockage in life is suffering. I was pushed into this decision by the 2005 from hell, and I now realise, like the person run over by the bus, oh my god, it can happen to me. Next time I see anyone in trouble I won't imagine 'that won't happen to me' as it can. We all know that in our minds, but block it from going any deeper, but that goes when it happens to you.

Anyway, there is a point. Phases. Phases are the clues there is something going on behind the scenes for a point. My insights gained from these events has become more and more spontaneous, obvious messages coming from turmoil, and then reading Nick Roach, Neale Donald Walsch or another great writer has said the same thing. That's both a phase and a confirmation it's not in my imagination.

So, if there's really someone guiding my life (Nick's taught me not to include anyone else in that statement), technically it can only be me. But within the illusion of separation, if it's subconscious it's a part of me I'm not aware of so may as well be someone else. If I can get beyond the stage of awareness of suffering to understanding of it, I'll be enlightened or liberated. It's called the dark night of the soul, and often comes at the time before the breakthrough. I don't believe it's happening to me yet as it's still the dark time, but the clues that it all fits together should mean the light will break through just as spontaneously as the insights come.

A PS, if there's a person or two around who understands what you're going through and cares enough to help, it makes the journey a lot easier regardless of the rocks in the path.

Loose ends (or screws?)

An early entry today, as bedtime is being advanced by a few hours before my health suffers any more.
A few updates on the psychic research. Firstly, the crop circle video showing them forming from nothing has just been admitted as a hoax. They used two films, and covered an existing circle with another field, then removed it. Very clever. The balls of light were just that, balls.
It also appears we have senses behind our senses, that is subonscious counterparts that work undetected, giving us information not from our sense organs but perfectly accurate. It operates a different part of the brain that makes us react to these stimuli without being aware of them, and they don't know how it works! A possible alternative unmeasurable explanation I wonder?
Secondly, on my alien abduction TV project, the time is officially here for the unveiling, and all three of us (myself [the hypnotist], the subject, and the scientist helper) are jumping around waiting to hear of news of our breaking our virginity as TV personalities. I've also asked the person who set it up to see if he knows any more than we do (nothing) as everyone's getting excited but hearing no news. There have been growing telepathic communications between my subject and his alien guide Zaphos, and the name he gave for mine (which I'm still unaware of) is Zarg.
I didn't actually look it up directly but wanted to find out about the Hutchison effect, another potential failed claim of miraculous events from simple electrical equipment, when the first page I found had 'Zarg', an experiment in collective consciousness. Now how about that? Tom Bearden had named his entity, made up of the collective consciousness of a group of experimenters, Zarg, and it's Zarg who's said to be communicating to me. That's a three-pointed coincidence, where the result was found not by looking and discovering its significance, but looking for something else and having it force its way into my awareness. Zaphos is now reaching the 'overshadowing' stage, where many famous authors such as Neale Doanald Walsch and Ruth Montgomery were literally 'written through' by higher intelligences. Whether again this was their subconscious of actually a link with higher beings who can tell, but can only be judged on the quality of what is produced in the writing.

My final loose screw is a result of necessity. In this year I have had the stress collected for what could have been a whole lifetime, well it feels like it anyway. I know so many intelligent and gifted people (not that I'm including myself here!) who suffer depression, mental illness, physical illness and family illness while all the yobs, bastards, thickos and dullards seem to drink smoke and fight their way through life relatively unscathed. The good people contribute usually on a voluntary basis to helping lots of people, teaching them, supporting them, and generally giving the world riches while often feeling like shit themselves. Now suffering is the hole in the argument for God's existence. A design fault allowing physical and mental suffering (hell) at an infinite level to me buggers up the whole theory and equation. Excuses (reasons) have included 'Well, once you realise it's not real like a dream you relax with relief'. Haven't they heard of post-traumatic stress? Veterans from Vietnam 40 years ago or so are still suffering flashbacks though a bomb hasn't fallen near them in all that time. We keep the scars. So that argument holds no water. The next is 'It's not what's happening that matters, it's how we react to it' Uh-uh. Physical symptoms are not allowing anyone to 'react' as they so simply put it. They are just there and come and go as they please. Argument two: rejected. Oh, they've run out of arguments. Others, such as 'It's not up to us to understand God's plan' both rely on the existence of God, and if so, his sadism, to justify suffering. Goodbye to that one. And finally Buddha, 'Suffering ends when you become enlightened and accept everything as it is'. That's the only one left standing, and relies 100% on trust. Trust your enlightened masters are both enlightened and above suffering. So that's all that's left for my own spiritual route out of suffering, besides the practical efforts of becoming forced to search for practical ways out of situations of it. I am in the process of making a list, and oddly enough analysing and sharing the information is one of the best ways of handling it. Sharing. Fancy that. Well, I'm off to share more, I know two more places that should hear it.

Today's updates

I'll start with the errant Hurricane Ophelia. Yes, it's almost a hurricane, but it's managed to follow the South Carolina coastline, thus avoiding anything newsworthy. By the way, all hurricane activity has been following a long and predictable pattern, totally independent of human or supernatural activity (source, Charlie Wolf, TalkSport radio). Disastrous, yes. Unusual, no. And building a city below sea level on a flood plain in a hurricane district is somehow an accident waiting to happen. But not a surprise or a man-made effect, only a man-made cause.
Not cynical, but scientific.

Otherwise I am using the time I have as usefully as possible, with Man Utd on Sky soon in their first round proper in Europe. It's a week of housework ahead, which is both easy and satisfying, with actual results you can see and appreciate. There's a new pile of important but annoying little items (especially as the cleaner's a couple of days late), the bombsite situation has gone past the level she normally allows it to reach, and I can't let her sort out such a pile or she may not want to do it again. I have a list of phone calls that are as much duty as anything else but can't be avoided. So all I can do is get on with it and if anything interesting happens I'll feel a lot happier. Still incredibly tired so working within my current limits. The email situation (send-reply ratio) has become a little thin recently, one just sent may raise some useful information but the rest are now a lost cause. Star signs, apparently. Some people are meant to take duties seriously (Cancer, Capricorn etc) where others are more guided by what feels more interesting at the time. I'm Aquarius and find all duties come automatically except those I really can't stand (especially carpet cleaning).

Finally after 30 years I realised I may have been on TV one more time, as I watched England win the ashes, as I was there for the same event in 1974, and ran on the pitch. It never occured to me to watch it afterwards in the highlights, but as they followed the team off the pitch, I was one of the little crowd around them. I wonder if the tape's still around?

Today's caca

I have split myself in two pieces today, one for spiritual matters and this one for everyday matters, ie every day I wade through more setbacks and manure with the odd diamond glinting in the piles of it.

I wonder why I never became a poet...?

Anyway, hopefully the spiritual will affect the everyday (as that is what it's there for) and it won't carry on producing a regular supply of setbacks and disadvantages but something that reflects my new inner being. But today was in the old model. A complete waste actually, no one could make it including the cleaner, so though that was temporary certain stuff has to be cleared up by me or the health inspectors will close me down.
I also have to mention a few news items for a change, as they are partly affecting me so worthy of a mention. Of course my gloom and doom predictions of fuel crises some months ago proved on the button. Sadly when I see a massive turd on the horizon heading this way I tend to be right, as I have studied the news most of my life which is why I discard and dismiss most of it. But not this story. It's been building up all year, and the official story is the one I've been waiting for since the 60s. Oil is finally running out. There's not as much as people want to use. The economy, my friends, is fucked. End of. (Acknowledgements to Craig Coates, UK Big Brother 6 for said catchphrase).
Unless we are given the free or cheaper alternative fuels the companies bought up over the 20th century, it'll be horses before 2012. No joke. As soon as the Chinese got enough money to buy cars, that very prosperity seems to have tipped the balance between supply and demand, towards demand over supply and the associated shit hitting the fan. Unless the buggers at Opec are lying (quite possible) that is it. They can't find enough to supply the world's needs. So we are back to petrol queues and protests, Gordon Brown saying it's not his fault and the petrol suppliers saying it's not theirs, and basically it's stuck. I have enough to do here for the next 30 years so bollocks to going anywhere...

Hurricane Ophelia. Don't blink as you may never see those words again. After Katrina, the next wasn't far behind. But only on one radio station. Hurricanes seem to happen (to quote the phrase) maybe one in every four starts (going by the last few years' news reports). So they name and shame one after another just in case, but only a fraction ever mature into the real deal, and Ophelia is looking like one not to watch. I may be wrong, but if not, at least you read about it here as it's been dropped by all other media since Saturday.

One day those wankers at the BBC will be paying me to talk about the news, but till that day comes, it's only available here. Sorry everyone!

What God wants

Following on from yesterday, in said book, I tried the simple exercises proposed a couple of times, and you know what- they seemed to work! You replace random thoughts and feelings with chosen ones. Feelings should follow the thoughts, so you simply decide what to think about instead of all the usual shit, and the good feelings seem to follow. Part three (the miraculous element) says this can actually create the events you are imagining in reality! That will be a real bonus!
But to start, it does appear to work for the first two stages. Feel as you would have IF you already had anything you want on the list.

A second item I read confirmed my decision already conformed by Nick Roach, that heaven and hell are here, and God does not punish. Who said this? Some hippy professor in California stoned on LSD? A heretic preacher from India? Try again. This profound statement, which apparently got as much publicity as the mass sightings of UFOs recently in Mexico, or was it Brazil (see how they let us forget)- no, it was The Pope.

Catholic teachings going back a thousand years or more were killed in one speech by the infallible Pope's statement on July 28th 1999, to the Vatican.

"Damnation cannot be attributed to an initiative of God, because in his merciful love he cannot want antyhing except the salvation of the people he created" He added hell is not a place, but "As a situation in which one finds oneself after freely and definitively withdrawing from God, the source of life and joy".
The "inextinguishable fire" and the "burning oven" were symbolic and metaphorical, to "indicate the complete frustration and vacuity of a life without God".

So, to summarise, God does not punish us, and hell is right here while we're alive, a symbolic state of separation from God. So next time I tell someone this, I'll say "Don't argue with me, argue with the Pope".

On ice

Frozen. Of course I get bored. Though I have three conditional yesses to my three media projects, two won't happen for months and the third has no time attached to it. I'm delighted they are on the system, but they are set up for a time in the future and I can't use them right now. So what do I do (no, not smoke dope...), I read about what to do. Nick Roach reflects my wisdom (ie proves some of the insights I have here and elsewhere may actually be sensible by saying them himself), within a couple of days my latest insight 'I don't have to be right on everything as long as I'm happy' or put the other way round 'I can be wrong and happy' turned up in my book, 'What God wants', about number ten in the 'Conversations with God' series.

So one more up to the guru (my forum name), and he also gave a formula which feels right to me, of using positive imagination. This means feeling as if you'd got what you wanted already. Not only does he say it makes you feel better (at least it takes your mind off anxiety issues) but actually attracts these events into your life!.
Well, coincidences have shown me (including my last three insights being repeated by teachers within a day or so) there appears to be a control out there beyond the chaos of random life we assume is all there is. I can only profit from this change of attitude as the previous one was the one that was taking me on a one way trip to a lifetime of medication, especially with none of those very events happening to possibly drag me out of the lowest mental states.

I had to be right for every exam and essay I ever wrote, at work in all its forms, and of course it continued into my ordinary leisure time as it was required the rest of it. Now I have let it go. I needn't correct people every time they misquote a fact. I needn't help each individual heading for possible disaster in their social or family life as a matter of duty. I needn't give opinions based on fact and logic to people who can do nothing about it either way. And all the rest. The boundary has been drawn at work and the rest is now anarchy. Which leads me nicely on to my second influence of the weekend. Why I was a hippy. I just saw the David Frost programme for the first time when the hippies took over, from about 1971. I instantly remembered why, at about the age of 8 or 9, had I totally taken on the hippy ways and values (can you imagine a ten year old shopping around all the boutiques to get the latest clothes? It was what we had to do back then!). Well, the values these guys offered, anarchy, freedom, sod the rules, long hair, free love, the lot (except the drugs...) was just how I felt at the time. I had the hair (when allowed to for very long), the clothes and most of all the attitudes. I ran campaigns at school to change the rules, told people not to do what they were told, challeneged more or less everything I didn't agree with as it appeared (quite correctly in many cases) to be restricting my freedom for no good reason.

I haven't changed, just learnt. Learnt how to communicate and express these ideas better. The views, they are identical. That reminded me, and regardless of the age, if you were part of any movement and can remember it, your age was irrelevant. I was a hippy child, but a hippy no less. My au pairs friends were sometimes hippies, we went to some parties with them, the people on TV and in the streets were hippies, and in the papers. The girls I knew (not the boys, I went to prep school...) often dressed as hippies as I did when I could get hold of them. That culture in what was, at times, swinging London was very real for at least three years from about 1967 onwards. I remember seeing an article about hair in the Observer magazine, with men with hair beyond their shoulders, and deciding 'that's for me'. Once I could get away with it, for most of the next 20 years that was the case, till the damn stuff began to leave me. Now I look like your local trainspotter or even worse village idiot, but inside I've got the long hair, beard and flowery clothes I would have had had it been 1968 again and I was the same age as now. But scratch the surface and now I know it's still in there somewhere. I wish there were a few more though, it's lonely being stuck in the past...

Bored yet again

Bloody hell, I am so bored right now, I've done all my business as required, and pretty well thank goodness, but coming back to an empty house and diary with only business arrangements is not fun. One little balloon I sent up to the universal fruit machine has probably got me a mixture of worthless fruit as mixed as the metaphor I just used. No surprise, just another nail in the coffin of actually finding a way of having any fun in this once green and pleasant suburb.

Waiting is not on the schedule. There's no point considering anything potential that's months ahead as all that would do is kill the time dead until then, rather than facing the fact right now and tomorrow and the day after that I see nothing nice happening. Listening to 'stress week' on the radio, the biggest cause of stress is being out of control. I agree with that, though being trapped is an even bigger aspect of that situation to me. But like a nightmare, where you realise it's a dream and still can't yet wake up you panic. If I was lazy, incapable or otherwise disadvantaged somehow I'd have accepted I'm missing clear but possibly tough escape routes to my predicament, but the bottom line is 'This is how it is, you can only make the best of it, but you can't change it!' I know when I can fix a situation one way or another, and this one isn't one of mine, no way.
I make the starts, my balloons with notes on waiting to be picked up by a stranger across the world and send me a reply, but most get caught in trees or land in the sea. And I rarely waste time either, I realised recently I am more than compensating for my lack of work/health at the moment by pushing myself even more in the areas I can do.

As a result, I have four paintings I am very pleased with (as are all the others who have seen them), two articles about to be published, lots of new paint on my house I had the time to do, and many other little things. My sheer embarrassment in barely working pushed me to do more, and it may even earn me some money without even leaving my house as I said yesterday, which is one heck of a result if I pull it off. But behind all that, life is becoming dull as the grave. Repetition, as we nearly all do, week after week, but the worst aspect is hardly (?) ever do I (or anyone else really) get one of those nice surprises where we either get something completely out of the blue, or an attempt we made which was so way out actually ended up happening.
New agers claim (as would the devil) by being aware of what we don't have, we bring more lack towards us. Cack. All we do is see a situation with big holes in. Of course, if you start a project, you hope to succeed. If it's a long shot (as most of mine are) you know it's almost impossible, but when every letter you send which could lead to success in any area is either replied with a 'no' (mainly in business), or in personal matters generally ignored, how the bloody hell can you not focus on it in quiet times. I could have gone to bed half an hour ago, at an almost sensible time for a change, but I would have felt so pissed off I'd rather have come here and let it all go so though you poor reader (I only know one person left now!) has to share it instead!

So, out of control for sure, I start projects, the universe finishes. But the dice seem a bit stacked to me at the moment for some reason, and I'm not happy...

Bits and bobs

Apart from getting up so late not a lot of today was left, I was mainly involved watching cricket on TV, and one reason for my lateness was completing Nick's proofreading job in two days flat. It's now on its way back to Surrey, and as far as I'm concerned a very hard proposition to argue with. In my own experience, I don't think it's actually because my own problems are so serious I have barely shifted, but there's no quick route to enlightenment except maybe LSD, but I can do without the brain damage you get as well.
I spoke to a new Funtrivia friend for the first time as well, and showed friends are friends whether you see them all the time or have only spoken online. You do get to know them just as well, probably more as believe me if you're with most people they hardly talk compared to having nothing else to do online. And if they do it's usually a one-sided rant about either their biggest current dispute or family problems. Very little philosophy or deeper personal stuff. But online, all the gossip and drivel won't get very far in writing, and so people have proper conversations.

Well, I have, like on Blue Peter, already prepared a little piece for today, as I had a bit of time to fill before. Basically, I moan all the time about missing out on 99% of all the pleasure in life I used to have, and am I expecting too much from it?
All I know is the entropic effect has meant that the quality of life I had has gone downhill ever since the early 1980s, and nearly everyone I know of my age and even over 30 is or was married, some a few times already. So it does happen, and I haven't got that many faults that put people off, or have I?

OK, I decided to analyse from small ads and the like the plusses and minuses women say they're looking for. Tall, dark, handsome, hair, solvent (like Domestos???) and like to party.

Well, I can knock off the whole fucking lot from that list- I partied till I was about 25 and then fizzled out. That never impressed the women anyway, I took them everywhere they could imagine but dumped me invariably nonetheless. But after all these years my conclusion is had I had more of that list I'd have had about three times the hit/miss ratio I did, with much smaller gaps between relationships, but everyone regardless of their paper score gets someone dead right for them eventually. The odd ones just have huge gaps waiting as they don't pull so easily in between, though I know if I'd done exactly what I did for the last 30 years I'd have pulled three times as much had I been over 5'9''. That's just life and I can't change those rules. But ultimately, all the other men without the qualities women claim to value above all others do settle down with someone who looks beneath the inside leg measurement (something in my analysis most women value the most, whether they realise it or not), but unless I'm a true alien, I haven't for no more reasons.

Of course a few experts can pull using a script worked out scientifically, regardless of anything else. But it takes a skill beyond most normal men to do that, though for a period in the late 70s I went out so much that once I'd been introduced to a woman (the one area I still stick on) I could keep her attention as far as the phone number stage. They still usually fucked me off afterwards half the time, as if while I was talking to them they'd become hypnotised but wore off by the time I called them. Do some men just put women off? My father always said I'm peculiar, so no normal woman would touch me, as my grandma does sometimes as well. I wonder if peculiar=not conventional? Like every woman wants a robot using a script, knowing exactly what to say and do in every situation. I improvise, and if I get on with someone it drives itself.

Anyway, I'll let you ponder on that theory and end with a rare exception to my severe failure with anyone who passes my own test of total acceptance. Back in 1974 I had just walked onto a cruise ship, and saw a beautiful Glaswegian girl with blonde ringlets down to her bum, and saw a label on her case 'Georgia McCambley' (in the hope one day someone will know her here and tell her where I am!). A few days later I was with girlfriend two within that period, when a girl came up to me with the line we all die to hear, 'My friend likes you'. Well, being only 14 I dropped Christine on the spot (sorry Christine, I was young and immature and she had imprinted on me before anyone else) and went for Georgia like a magnet. The next day it was all over, and while chasing someone else who had a boyfriend, was set up with her very ordinary friend for the rest of the cruise until the coach home where I met a local paragon of feminine quality who lasted about a week after I got home.

But the points from this are, one, at 14 I was average height and had all the hair you have at that age. So I was an equal. Now I'm still average height, had I stayed 14, and half my hair if that. And I haven't had a woman ask me for many years. Sadly ten years later (sorry, I've told this story before, but this contained the whole beginning as well), I was reunited by phone with Christine, and as she sounded a bit soppy the 40 mile plus distance was just too far at the time to consider, though she still remembered the whole lot and still wanted me after all I'd done at the time. She even had nice parents who wouldn't put her off seeing me and I let her go, not once but twice! And the fallout never ended.

So all these years later I don't believe I'm unreasonable wishing and believing things should be better. Why? Because it's normal. The amount of resources I've created to fill empty time since I was a few years old means I have a house comparable with the nerve centre of any museum or college worldwide (except for the broadband connection, but this is the third world here). I have started a cottage industry writing and painting, and link with friends everywhere except nearby via the computer. I haven't left a job voluntarily since 1991 (which made me happy for months after, so was a bloody good decision), and had two since, after over 300 applications (we had to keep a list). Basically I did my bit, on the business and pleasure side, and after years the business side is slowly picking up though I haven't earned a penny from it.
So, with all the evidence I present, am I expecting too much from life? You tell me.

Neighbours

No, it's not about my neighbours, but refers to the daily instalment of the soap opera, the last one left worth watching, and how my blog is updated in a similar way, with banal and sometimes (to me, at least) fascinating events from Kingsbury and around.

After the build up, the various duties this week have now either been done or in the case of one, delayed for a while beyond my control. At least this has given me a bit more chance to have time both for myself, and a fascinating project (see, they do happen here sometimes) of proofreading the script of Nick Roach's book. This is a great honour for me, actually working with my teacher, and the part I've read so far addresses every aspect in depth beyond of course what can be taught in a few hours, and is really something of a work of genius. I must have read ten or twenty books on non dualism/advaita as well as many others on enlightenment, and though inspirational, are not what I'd call academic or technical in many ways. This book (so far and no reason not to continue) doesn't miss a thing. Every question I've heard and had in the years of following the circuit is answered, not in a quick dismissive way as some do, or even worse using words in such peculiar and complex forms no one can actually follow it at all. It feels like a residential course with Nick without either having to leave the house or even have him here in person, and it's already deepened my understanding threefold from seeing the teaching behind the teaching I've already had.

Otherwise the other really good news is both my paintings are on their way to the gallery wall to be put up. Both were accepted, and I've just been out taking photos of the next locations. Especially as I am barely earning a penny now, the TV, writing and painting careers would be exactly what I needed to start an income again, as having bills for thousands of pounds with nothing coming in to replace them is a new experience and one I have no desire to continue with. These projects will pay little or nothing, but if successful will mean a media presence, which any of Max Clifford's clients will tell you, is worth thousands in itself, and people pay him even more just to get to that position (having absolutely fuck-all talent themselves, or wouldn't need to be 'made' famous for doing nothing useful).
Ahead are the windows to be painted, but the rust on the metal ones, and the rot on the wooden ones means a lot more has to be done first before the paint finally goes on. But no money's being laid out to do it except for materials when I can do a perfectly good job myself, which is one way of saving a bit.

Well, one by one our radio presenters are reading blogs on the radio, I wonder how long it'll be before some blogs become as valuable as other earlier sites like friends reunited, now worth millions, and some writers be elevated to celebrity? It's not even a joke now, having even seen a page of online forums reprtinted in The Times, for crap's sake! One day the Kingsbury blog could be serialised in a daily paper and I couldn't say I had no money any more in it, as the very thing I have so much time to do could end up paying for the time I have used. That's how the art began, and the writing came from courses I did that asked me for more when I'd finished. Now if my love life was building up strength in a similar way I'd have something to really celebrate. Though good news is always good news, it's always better when shared with a partner. And not one with fleas...

On ice

That's it, there's a growing list of projects where I'm 'nearly' there. I have two paintings about to be presented to a gallery on my debut as a professional artist (though I have painted two cabinets for a magician with cartoon characters, which could count). I have two articles now set up for the new year, and my TV debut as well.
I have to train myself not to look ahead at any potential bad things (as I tell my own clients), but it's a lifetime's habit I'm shlepping my kishkas out to break (see a Yiddish glossary...). Technically the week ahead is average, within what I know, and after the middle should be greatly improved. So I'll wait till then to see if the week was as mediocre as expected.

There is some unconfirmed very good news on my grandma, who has just had her hopefully final tests and treatments, that the tumour was actually benign. I'll have to check as it's not yet come to me directly, but if that's the case we can stop worrying about the source of any more symptoms she may have.

Otherwise nothing much has happened either way, which after a month from hell is probably a good thing. A bit of dead space has to be better after illness, hospital visits, huge expenses and a car crash. I've literally been stretched to my limits. To think I used to imagine once someone had passed their exams and got most of the foundations in their life things would settle down. The hell they do. Disaster and stress can come at any time in any form, and there's really no way we can prepare for them if they come so worrying in advance is a waste of time as I said. Yes, I still do it, generated like a little radio programme coming and going in my head as if knowing what to expect will somehow mitigate the results if it happened. All it does is create an imaginary set of disasters most of which won't happen, to ruin the bits where nothing else is going on.

So, where's the good news? Good question. If there is a way we can find an idea to hook into, like meditating on god or anything else that could take us out of the lions den of life though we're in the middle of it I'd like to know. Though simple observation is my official method, it doesn't have any quick results so though it may well be the best long term route to enlightenment, it's not a quick fix for the very blockages to it. As we're taught for hypnotherapy, a lifetime's habits can't be undone in a few hours. Actually, one or two at a time can, but not the whole blanket of emotional addiction we nearly all apparently have, until, like me, we have enough. But real, solid good news is pleasure first, business second. Business success can sometimes lead to pleasure, but anyone familiar with 'inappropriate feeling syndrome', where you feel happy at a funeral or a disaster, has proved a good state within is the highest level anyone can be on and are not affected by what happens outside automatically. The rest is extra.
I'll introduce a new concept now (to me, anyway). Entropy. That is the opposite of evolution, where something starts perfect and then falls apart until nothing's left. That's my inner being emotionally so far. I began perfectly happy as a small child, only upset by upsetting things but basically over a 20 year period bouncing back from any number of setbacks we all have at one time or another. Gradually the setbacks got bigger until they ate into my basic foundation of peace at around 25, where I started developing anxiety and started having a list of places I didn't like going to.

20 years later it's been up and down, but I do now realise I never had agoraphobia as I thought I could have, by just not being able to do a few things others could, rather than not be able to do almost anything which is the true condition. Thank goodness for that, at least. But to relate it to entropy and not myself, how many people start of thinking they're fine and OK, and then pick up more and more negativity over time until they develop a complex? That is actually the norm, people are happy and confident until life starts to knock it out, and then it can be hell's job to sort it out again. I say this as a therapist who does this work, and it's a depressing fact no one needs to learn how to be inwardly at peace, it's usually there and taken away or covered up. OK, we mature and learn a lot, but if we're not content or at peace all that does is make us very useful robots. I know I see myself add a growing number of insights into life that are often very useful to both myself and other people, but being right doesn't make you happy, as it's business. I remember when I was wrong an awful lot, but I didn't care. Now I can see intellectually many more things than before and make far fewer mistakes but none affects my quality of life, just my scoresheet, which has no connection with it. I think I'd be prepared to throw all my principles in the bin and plough through life like a bull in a china shop if I didn't care either way and was happy regardless. Now, I have a pinpoint attention to detail developed over years of college and further training and practice which does help me and others enormously in business, but if inwardly everything's all over the place I do wonder if one may even block the other, as well as certainly being independent of it. Maybe not, but I do know attention to detail comes in when observing the negative as well, when you spot details better not spotted, and realise possibilities better not realised, that as I already mentioned, do exist but rarely happen. But knowing they can are the seeds of madness. So yes, the sharpened awareness can drag the heart down in some ways. But no, I don't intend going for the lobotomy. It's taken me so long to get the brain trained up I don't want to waste it. But something has to be done on the heart and mind it connects with, as I'm fed up with the inner chaos that reflects the outer chaos. Of course, an end to the outer chaos would be my best start, and a piece of really good news on the pleasure front. I even have an item or two in mind, though unlikely and possibly even miraculous, but if any balance can come in after what a great commentator of the 21st century (my mother) described as a terrible year, I'll appreciate it 101%.

Two hours

Honestly, some things actually wouldn't have registered on my mind at all if I wasn't thinking of what to write here as well. For instance, what you can cram into a small time.
Today, in just two hours exactly, I bought the mounts and material for mounting my first two completed paintings, came home, put the first coat of paint on the front door, the last on the garage door parts that had been repaired, cut the front lawn and only stopped to do this and have my tea as I can't paint again till tomorrow when the coats are dry enough.
I am then going to get a crack at tidying my desk, filing, and clearing as much junk out of my spare room as possible, bearing in mind that as the garage still leaks after 10 years (as no one can bother to fix the asbestos roof as it's such a pain in the arse with the regulations involved)I can't put much in there and have no loft since it was converted. This meant half the stuff I never brought in the house on arrival has long since rotted, and what the rain didn't get, the mice did. Yech...

So today, like last Thursday, was free from beginning to end and last Thursday I also got a pile of stuff done, including finishing painting all but one of the windowsills and brickwork round the front door. As one uses stone paint and the other wood paint, I couldn't be bothered to get a match done, and now have a wedgwood blue door and pale blue surrounds. I'm just waiting for the first rude comment so I can feel bad about my work again...
Well, my exhaustion is teaching me lessons on a regular basis. As I knew I'd be free today, I came home last night around midnight literally knackered and should have gone to bed. I checked my usual emails etc., and then discovered some Japanese model cars on ebay. An hour and a half later I'd searched almost every model on my list, found a couple and bid for them, and of course it was 2.30 again. I am now suffering the penalty. Though my current condition has little effect on DIY, housework and amazingly weightlifting, standing in queues and driving in traffic is almost impossible. I can't go into a medical analysis as I'm not qualified, I just know I have to go to bed early for a couple of weeks and carry on missing arrangements. I have no other way of improving.

So, the paintings are off to the gallery in a few days, and before the public have a chance, the boss there will have to decide whether to take them or not. Either way, my first two are going nowhere however much he may like them, they are on the wall and staying there for me! I just hope my energy picks up sooner than later, but I can't do more than I am and try not to worry about it which does no good either. And I'll never take the piss out of certain members of my family when they're tired either, it's caught up to my generation now. Bugger.