Fiona again

Drawn compulsively towards the empty envelope on the screen, I felt something had to be said but until I typed wouldn't be revealed to me. So I begin with the same wonderment as if I'm opening an email from a loved one.
Ah, maybe that's it. I received an email yesterday from friends reunited, a rare occurence nowadays, except though this lady clearly has the same impeccable manners as she did in 1969 (she's not British you see...) she hasn't a clue who I am. I sent one back with a list of clues so maybe she won't reply once she remembers.

That wasn't really a loved one and she's 10,000 miles away so big deal, maybe after 46 years the onslaught of Fionas is coming to a point. Each (besides two) has lead me from one rejection or missed opportunity to another, but one thing that has continued is the supply of them. Each just as good as the last. There are celebrities who go on missions for their careers after people with a certain name, so maybe it's something for my social life? It would certainly make the ads stand out, only asking for a special name, and people would notice it. And as there have been so few naff Fionas in my life it's a pretty good gamble any new ones would be well worth meeting.

"Agoraphobic but otherwise functioning male, single, is on a mission to meet the right Fiona for me. All qualities and qualifications irrelevant with right name, North London only"

Romantic? No, neurotic, yes. But it's not the route that matters but the result, and all the normal routes got me nowhere.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, I've emailed the strange woman from the dating site who actually seemed very nice (though not a Fiona) and never phoned me. As I wasn't well I didn't follow her up as there wasn't much point, but now having finally found where I left her details (yes, there's a dating site which doesn't show on search engines!) I emailed her again. I would have thought anyone with the brass neck to say they'd phone and then piss off into the darkness will not come back but at least I've tried.

As for the Fiona, I won't be hearing from her, but as long as she knows out of maybe 200 girls at my primary school she was easily the best I don't really need a reply. Apart from being married and 300 miles away she may have changed a lot from then and though some (one in particular) retain their qualities many more turn into gorgons.

Even if all this had been made up (which it never is, real life beats any fiction when presented well) it would make a good story. I wouldn't be the first person to publish a book from a website, and while I've been typing a couple of pages a day for nearly two years that's easily enough for a full length book. At least I can't say i'll have nothing to do for a while if I take that challenge up, though of course not a penny is likely to come my way from it! But some things are for more than income, in fact in my case nearly all of them. Another reason why 'normal' women avoid me, so I've been told.

If you're going to open a safe it's always better to know the combination than try random numbers for the rest of time. Maybe my problem has been trying to succeed in certain areas without the slightest idea how. I see others do it and assume it 'just happens', when in fact there may be more to it. Every now and then it seemed I may have had it but that was just because I punched in so many numbers a few actually worked. But none held the whole combination.

My only similar experience was learning meditation, where I have to admit having to wait over a year to do so, my curiosity managed to discover bits of it in advance (not much use on their own and no benefit picking it up early seeing as I'd done the course and was unlikely not to be taught it). But that's my nature, but in meditation there are teachers and we never need to work it out ourselves. In other areas some people claim to help, but they just get rich from our misery, like the current prat on LBC saying he can turn ordinary people into Richard Branson by coming to his seminars. There's no single key to success. You need talent, persistence and luck. There are no secret tricks, they just want you to think there are so they can earn lots of money selling you them. They can't guarantee them so can't expect a refund. There is no short cut, but when it comes to women, not even a long cut. They are truly impossible.

Technical data- am I right?

Well, as my mum taught me, I must make sure I get all my facts right before I frame a theory.

I have found two Fionas who are decidedly dodgy, which while I can't yet think of any others I know still makes an 80% hit rate, with also a 100% miss rate from the ones I tried (or didn't even waste my time knowing the result..).

Then I decided to do a control name to see if it worked for any name. I chose Catherine/Katherine as that was the name with the most girls attached to it I knew, and here are the results:

Total names found: 17
From which top quality: 13
dodgy: 1

comparitive percentage: 76% (pretty close), while the other 3 were OK but not division one.

Then I tried Sarah, who was also a fairly popular target for me over the years but not so many generally.

Total names found: 9
Top quality: 6

Top percentage 66.6%

Alison: Total names found: 7
Top quality: 5

Top percentage: 71%

Caroline: Total (so far, probably more): 7
Top quality: 5 I think

Percentage 71.4%

Karen: Total (so far) 8
Top quality: 3

Percentage: 26.6%

There is my favourite name but only a small sample, which is Sophie but I can only think of four, all who were top quality. But at least I had a little success with one though it was at a party where we all swapped around officially so she was left with little choice!

So the system isn't perfect but still pretty spooky. I haven't fully checked all the last few names but it still seems some are connected and most of the others I don't think I know enough but will try a few more as this is a fascinating test, and one Tommy Boyd already did a rough version of a few months ago. It also keeps me out of trouble...

The key to it all?

I had a fairly unexpected day today, besides the fact I'd booked someone's appointment a week early so stayed around for nothing I was going to completely veg out (it's been a fairly heavy week) and Sharon asked me to paint a picture for her. Though I've got stuff gathering dust in the gallery this will be my first ever sale. I think with so many similar ones behind me, it is taking less time as painting hedges is something you get the hang of after a few. You wouldn't think there were at least 6 colours plus shading in many hedges, and then you have to add the leaves.

I spent most of the day doing that, and technically it was something I rarely do, working! I'm going back to do another hour before I go to bed in a minute.

Meanwhile the coincidences plus some total weirdness continue. As I explained, none is helpful, just means maybe things are actually going on outside our normal science.
Have you ever seen a film or read a book with a keyword in it from start to finish? Well I've found mine. It's Fiona.

Technically someone's first name ought to have absolutely no connection with what they're like. But this is how I discovered my keyword. Every so often since 2001 I go to Friends Reunited to look for new names. Back at primary school my favourite girls were Fiona B and Dawn G, in that order. I was good friends with Dawn's sister but both her and Fiona were two years ahead of me so well out of reach, unlike crush 3, who was Isobel, my first kiss (and bloody good) who grew up to become a lesbian. She actually had to fuck off all the way to Australia as her family disapproved, so I heard. Well add me to that list as I wanted her myself and what use is it if she's gone the other way!
I digress. Nostalgia does that, wandering off into the happy land of the past. Anyway, Fiona was my number one gal at school and one of a few left I hadn't located. I got my reminder from FR to look up new names, and at last, there she was!
I was fairly surprised a few more new names were up as they are tailing off now, and then when I saw each profile discovered each was 3 years old! The bloody system had hidden them for 3 years! I am about to email tech support as in 6 years online they are the only site I pay to use and expect better.
But once the shock wore off from that discovery, combined with the expected let down she's married and living 300 miles away, I realised something. I'd never met a Fiona in my life I wasn't crazy about! I already knew that applied to Sophies, but that was only a few I knew pretty well plus one from a party, but I'm already up to 8 Fionas and haven't found one exception. Plus I've never got anywhere with one! Unlike Catherine (and variations) where I made 7!

So how the bloody hell (to use Victor Meldrew's little expression) can you expect people with a certain name to have more than one quality in common unless we're actually in the matrix? Add to that when imagining children's names always had Sophie chosen for one and Fiona for two. Like films with a key word, just what is Fiona trying to tell me? If I can unlock its meaning it ought to hold my purpose in life. I'd pick the reason being to marry the first Fiona that shows an interest as it is the guarantee she will be the right one, but these messages are always cryptic or I'd simply have married Charlie Clore's niece 20 years ago had she not already met someone else.

Before I go I suppose I may as well run down each Fiona just to get a nice warm feeling.

Not quite in an order, Fiona B was probably the first, and also introduced me to ouija boards and showed me clairvoyance was real at 9. Fiona L was a year or two older than me as well, and one day at teatime (we all went to the same place next to school) put her hands all over me as a joke. It was not a joke to me, it was like the hand of God. But she was into older millionaires who were also airline pilots, and apparently married one soon after leaving school. Fiona M was there as well, went home on my train and rambled on about rubbish from door to door, and then frequently on the phone afterwards, but never wanted me. Fiona S was the almost silent member of my art class, had a witche's nose but I soon got past that, and probably a lovely person had she ever said anything. I don't think I even risked chatting her up as it was too hard work.
Then Fiona C, who I met via her friend at the fair, and then called her friend who said she had a boyfriend already. I actually checked again every few months for over a year as she struck me so heavily. Then I went to college, and for two years I never minded going as all I thought was I could see Fiona H, who also never got on with me and later was told became sexually ambiguous...
I also met one at a party who was the nearest thing to my first girlfriend, but with a personality and even better looking. I was on the verge of proposing to her the next day when my friend told me she'd travelled over 100 miles to be there and by the time I decided to follow it up she was living with someone. I think she was the only one I may have had a chance with.

Is that a pattern or what? Maybe if I do an ad only asking for Fionas I'll get my perfect match at last. But I'll probably get three replies, one with a beard, one with a husband and one with an insanity certificate. And it would also bugger my theory totally. But it makes a pretty good case for synchronicity.

Freedom 3

Well, after a pile (almost literally) of work (and not all paid HM Government) it's all been done!!

I still have my usual couple of clients but that isn't an issue as I enjoy most of that work. But all the papers are gone! Accounts, forms, and any of the other crap that is part of my life with no secretary, cook, sex object or other helpers have all been cleared. I have a bit of time now before another lot of arrangements so here I am. For those who worry (I am included) my health and energy have picked up the last few days, so shows something is working. Long may it last...

I can walk, shop, meditate, tidy, file or even mow the lawn, but apart from now I see computer and video filling the next 2 hours. Short of having my female sex object available, which always takes first priority in any options, what else? I don't want to wear myself out going to get essential supplies (both TV remotes have now gone dead, something which happens every few years and coincided in the same week), toilet paper is down to the last couple of rools and I've got no stamps, but sod it. Let my non-existent secretary do it. That is, if I don't do it, I don't have any. Maybe later when I return from grandma's. But I can still poke the actual TV and cable box and that'll do for a while yet.

So, with my main tasks done and the rest with no time limit, it's also a chance to 'just be'. That's when life becomes a meditation. Technically it's supposed to be possible when stressed as well, but all you feel when you do it then is usually stress. It's supposed to dissolve it but doesn't seem to happen though it is if you persist long enough. It's OK arsing around the house after clearing the decks, but I'd rather be sexually occupied, or even just someone to talk to here. Not a lot to ask is it? I'm watching a new DVD of the Secret Garden from 1975 which I don't remember seeing, which is a very good example. I'm half way through and it's about a rich orphan girl living alone in quarters in a stately home. She has all the money and food and shelter she needs, and sod all to do. The poor people who work for her have a full family life, not enough to go round materially but are happy. We need both! Occasionally I encounter jealousy for my material status (christ knows why) and point out it's a start but never a finish, and everyone can earn money if they work hard enough (yes, even I did once) but can't bring the right people into their lives.
I thought there were things wrong with me, why I repel literally every woman (since 1984) I like, but realised all my faults are minor, come and go, and seen men far worse happily married. I am just unlucky as I do not (as my family say) avoid places I could meet women. Then I wouldn't be rejected, I just wouldn't meet any.

Following yesterday's proposal list, I remembered a few more women I can't be bothered to add there but mention here. One is about 9/10 in the looks, but certain gaps in other areas. Another is about 3/10 in looks and very few gaps and would probably make a very good companion as her body makes up for her looks, and I think that would be good enough in practice. I'd drop to division two's as well, those I would have gone out with but only as they were there and convenient. But at 46 my standards are now compromising every year. There is a bottom line of boring/getting on my nerves I could never marry, or women with under about 2/10 looks, but I'm lonely, not a masochist!

I originally assumed unless a woman would have to be perfect like Vivienne in 1975 before I'd marry them, but compromise if single at 40. Now I think of the women I've been open to this decade and realised as long as they are reasonably attractive and good company I'd still be 99% better off than I am now. Simply being practical. Love has crept in where a few were concerned (one especially) and has in the past as well, but I no longer expect or require it as well, it'll be a bonus. And it can wear off I'm sure. Or grow. So comfort and attraction is it. But do I get even that? Bollocks I do. And I don't expect too much, want too much or do too little. I just seem to be outside the system somehow, as if I'm trying to make contact with people in another dimension. How long will it last? The bookies favourite is 'forever', but I hope I get lucky while everything's still working...

Going for the record

Yes, it's late and I'm back, with so little else to do I've time to get more thoughts together here, as many others find, it helps. It's a shame blogger chooses to wait so long to publish posts, as my set still has Saturday as the latest post, which is pretty inefficient.

Anyway, I had a half day off today, and after a little walk up and down the hill (it's almost all hills here but the steep one) am back and a little too early for bed. Especially alone as I always add.
One weird thing last night was I dreamt I had an out of body experience. So, think about it, you're in a dream, go for an oobe, shoot out of your body, float towards the ceiling, along the wall, and are then sucked back into your body lying in bed. Except it was while you were in your own mind and never actually went anywhere, probably.
But it actually felt like I was flying and fairly real. It was more or less what I'd expect it to feel like, and hope it means after years of hoping my awareness is finally loosening from my body and I may soon know the freedom of life without the restrictions of a physical weight.

I haven't meditated for months. Last few times produced nothing and then courses and paperwork took up the time I'd usually do it, and I also have my 'active meditation' where I can be aware of where I am at any time. I've had to prune a few of the less inviting offers I've had recently for the sake of my sanity. I'm past caring who I offend or not as my closest friends can take it and the rest frankly are of little importance to me. Considering people I had as close friends, including having sex with in some female cases, who I discovered on Friends Reunited who ignored me, I'd say the little sidesteps I've had to make to avoid too much on my plate are nothing.

Meanwhile business jogs along while pleasure evaporates. The TV filming number two is all but confirmed for June, my car is on its way to being sold, and my paperwork is up to date. But all work and no play, as they say, though I play, playing with oneself so to speak has never been considered good for you. Talking to yourself follows and who knows where that route ends.

If I was rich, mad (I mean literally thank you) and had no career to lose, I'd put an ad in a major newspaper listing all the single women I like and proposing marriage to the first one on the list who accepts. I guarantee two results. One, I'd get at least an article about me and probably a spot on the news, which would be worth every penny, and two, none of them would accept. But I know who they are, and at least two have this site, so I'll drop some hints and no names.

One has already been asked by me and is having none of it. One would probably laugh so much she'd have a heart attack. One I really don't know her opinion yet. One even I'm not sure about but wouldn't lose the chance if she was interested as the advantages would still outweigh the downsides. One is already in a relationship but if he won't marry her I will, actually I think the tatooed lady is also in a similar position and though we've only exchanged a few words I've seen enough to accept. One is with a friend of mine but he won't marry her whereas I said I would years ago. One is about as suitable as a wooden leg compared to a real one, but I'm running out of time here... One I last saw in 1974, but got back in touch with last year and she looks even better. She's abroad with someone but not married so still gets the call-up. One may not be married, and she was the only mutual relationship I had but her mother sabotaged it before anything really occurred.

I can't imagine complaining if any one of these women said yes and wouldn't ever intend to look elsewhere, but have a preference. The top three would have to be (probably hard to separate without actually trying out first) the one who would laugh, the one who may even be interested and the one who's abroad. She is the only one of the lot besides the last I have a little experience with, and though the one not seen for the longest know enough of her recent self to confirm all her qualities have blossomed very nicely.

I've seen or heard loads of public proposals in the papers or on the radio, but I doubt there have been any using the 'machine gun approach', but practical it is. If I wasn't such a cautious bugger I'd name them all but I have too much to lose. It would make a good TV programme though, fact or fiction. A bit like the people looking for a house but checking out people instead of plumbing. Or people's plumbing. I should be so lucky...

From the natural to the supernatural.

My imagination is running free at the moment after talking about fantasies. Having slept badly on Monday today is the day after the night before and I am recovering after sleeping properly again.
I just mowed a foot high lawn in the back, the front grew 6 inches in a couple of weeks after I cut it, and I hadn't done the back at all.

So, I've realised that unlike a computer, when life freezes there's no way it reboots. I certainly haven't got the switch to do it anyway, and neither has the supernatural. My father, relatively down to earth, read the same books I did about angels but actually believes them. I can't as the times I've needed outside help the best they did (which wasn't too bad, but in a negative way rather than creative) was to cancel arrangements for me when I didn't want to do them. Occasionally they present something I'd lost when I'm looking for something else, but I think that's the limit.

The synchronicities are real but neutral, that is they don't help me, they just are. They do help the people who ask me a question just after I've read the answer, but not me. I've got an appointment soon, then the rest of the day (not much left) is mine. There's nowhere to go besides a walk which I'm sure I will do, but a lot on TV later on. I'll also have a crack at all the papers which have piled up again as that's ideal in a blank spot.
But at least I've cleared the toughies last week, and tough they were, and vitally important, my career and my health. My annual renewal for my certificate has been sent off now, as I can only practice for a year at a time and have to keep studying to retain it. I also had an unusual number of visitors last week for a change, which I can't see happening this week somehow.

I am left with a formula. I have researched the supernatural for 14 years ever since I left college. By 'research' (people often have varying ideas) I mean a year of weekly classes in a batch of two halves, in 1991-2 and 2001. Then setting up my own practice group with a few very talented members to test the limits of what we could do. I also follow up as many claims as I can, including spending hundreds of pounds at exhibitions to test equipment (some actually seems to work as well).

The conclusions seem almost over. I can guarantee there is a field of information open to all and containing all we just have to tap into, called the Akashic records. Not only do I use it but many people I know have been shown or inspired to as well, and amazes the many skeptics who now find they can pick up information they shouldn't know.
This extends to telepathy, which is as poorly developed in man as a mole's sight, but there and improves with practice. Everything also has an aura as I was allowed to see them a few times with the help of my teacher but almost impossible to without her presence.
Energy is real, and can be transmitted from person to person regardless of distance, and as kundalini can be felt as powerful sexual energy anywhere in the body, though I've come across no changes as a result of it being raised.
And then the coincidences. All the rest can be explained by science, extending forces we know to human abilities. But coincidences are the bridge between normal and paranormal. Out of our control and random, but as real as anything else that happens to us.

I no longer expect to find more than one more power, which is apporting. That is transmitting matter at a distance in the same way as thought, and I can't do it but met people who have. It was explained as using the same channels to move denser energy, ie matter, as well as thought and kundalini/chi energy, so again would be totally scientific and possible now at quantum levels in laboratories. So I have to exploit what I know to its furthest degree, and forget the aliens, ufos, entities and spirits and other dimensions. God wasn't really a part of this and my meditation/enlightenment path is a separate one not requiring any psychic powers on the way. I have to deliberately use my own clairvoyance whenever I can so it becomes as natural as my other senses, and develop any telpathic links I have with others I know to try and send and receive messages verified by third parties. And to link so well to the Akashic records I could aim to copy Yogananda who said we can all know anything just by tuning in to it, which is true if the lines were better. And like the gym these are improved by exercise. So I have a plan now, and if suddenly I get a surprise and find one of the 'dead areas' awakens as well, all the better. But I've stopped looking. If there's such a thing as levitation or spirits they'll have to come to me now. I've spent too long looking in the wrong places, and don't believe anywhere is right really at all.

Carpets

I've been following one of my hobbies, looking at houses online. One thing that has amazed me is most now have polished wood floors, and look like no one's living there. Now if I want to live on a boat I'll save 75% of the cost of a real house and buy one. But if I live in a house I want carpets. When I was young only rich people had wall to wall carpets, the rest like us had to make do with buying standard sizes and cutting the long parts to fit the room. Our first fitted carpet (white shag pile, around 1970) felt like we'd moved into the big time, and now all the same houses are putting their huge, bad taste pseudo antique furniture on bare wooden floors, barely even adding a rug or two.

OK, it's lazier to sweep a hard floor than hoover or clean a carpet, but it looks like a warehouse. Garden sheds are made of wood, or log cabins, but why make a room seem cold and empty by removing all the carpets? Maybe it reflects the inner being of the people who are cold and hard inside so make their houses the same. What next, no pillows?

Tuesday part two

Blimey, technically there wasn't enough for tuesday part one, let alone two, but I started so I'll finish.

I am slipping into fantasy now. Reading blogs about Iraq (you know who you are!) almost seems a similar form of escapism from life in reality, as it's a long way away, a bunch of savages killing innocent people (no, not the Americans, I mean the terrorists that make the Americans insist on staying for reasons unknown to all but them and Mike Mendoza on Talksport) in an extremely backward country with pots of oil money.
Well Iraq has as much relevance to my life as the fairies at the bottom of the garden. As it does yours (unless you're actually there) but I doubt the new government has stretched to the internet for most people there, who are probably lucky to have electricity and a roof over their heads from all accounts, or have a relative there.
But escapism is inevitable when reality freezes over and though the worst is over there's little left to replace it except dreary routine of making the best of not a lot. The stupid thing is that there are some amazing people out there. Those on Funtrivia would have replaced my missing friends long ago had they not lived all over the world. And some of my professional clients would but that's verboten. And even the cleaner if only she spoke English (or I spoke Portuguese). She does show an interest in what I do, but besides hold up paintings I've done and show her my new kitchen there's little I can do without an interpreter. Some visitors who speak Spanish get a shopping list from her for cleaning supplies from time to time, but my one friend who is also Brazilian is guess where, Florida.

I at least have stopped beating myself up over what I don't do. I don't have a job, I don't go to many places at the moment, and avoid certain jobs as they're still too much for me. Big deal, who doesn't? Guilt is pointless, unless it stops you hurting someone again, including yourself. But feeling embarrassed for not doing unpleasant or impossible tasks has no benefit to anyone, so I no longer carry that burden unless I forget myself sometimes.

So what does fantasy have for me instead? Not real fantasy as in nostalgia as that's even less possible than present imaginings. But imagining things are different to how they are now. It's not the big deals that matter once you've experienced some. They are usually events which lasted a few hours and provide a lifetime's story telling, like when I met all my celebrities or saw an international football match including Audley Harrison giving prizes at half time. It's not really an achievement to decide to choose an event or holiday and turn up at the right place at the right time. Speaking to the guys is usually more luck but still have to remember they're the celebrity and not me, so until someone spends the rest of their life telling people they've met me I shouldn't dine out on those stories either.

It's little things that either used to happen or have never happened. I keep notebooks of old unused diaries where I write whatever comes into my mind, much like here but with drawings. But only for me to look at afterwards. Though we are all human so would probably write about similar weirdness I suspect few people would believe the levels I sink to there and probably avoid me as a result. Oh, they do already... Anyway. Like my house, nothing isn't mine. The element of others things around isn't just the lack of being alone, but the random element of other people's things compared to the choice of your own. I can't write anything in my books by anyone else, and can't control what anyone else would write. That's the second interesting element of it. Something in my house and my notebooks not by me. And that is the tallest order of all. I'm not trying to levitate, climb Everest or become an astronaut. Two are bloody difficult and one apparently impossible, but could be attempted even the levitation if you believe some people. But getting another persons traces in a house (without the stress of strangers living there which is not the same) is interfering with others free will. That's the boundary of our own power in life, other's free will.

OK, I haven't had many fantasies so far, but I can add some more. I'd like two or three people I used to see back in my life, (no one in particular, just from the list), living where I used to or nearby, having a job for just enough hours a week I liked doing so people wouldn't look down on me, living in a community where people actually know each other in the street and shops, something major supernatural being real rather than just reported in books to be discredited afterwards, a few people I know actually having more problems than me for a change, and finally (before I run put of paper) a woman I like actually chasing me for the first time since er, oh I can't remember when...

I reread a little of a book by David Cousins recently that spelled out the philosophy I liked. Give away your problems and expect everything with no limits. The universe can change and allow us to tap into this level where nothing is impossible or unwanted. He sells thousands of books, which are either stoking sad peoples' fantasies or inspiring them to have a lot more. But in my mind I can't be stopped from imagining. And if even one thing on my list happened life could be a lot better, and he says to ask for it all. There's no such thing as a small miracle!

House clearing

I've been sweeping the cobwebs from my mind over the last few weeks, fonding so many habits and concepts I'd had were unnecessary and able to be dropped.
I realised besides renewing my annual professional membership I didn't have to impress anyone besides a prospective partner, and then had to analyse which of my personal negative qualities were likely to put them off.

On that front I think there's a sliding scale of opinions, and have to hope if the one who may have ended up with me otherwise isn't put off first by them. I have no concern about what a woman can't do, as it doesn't affect me. It's what they can do and want me to do that has always put me off as that's active not passive. I can't see how anyone not doing things is going to bother someone as they can still do them if they want to. Being pushed to do things I didn't want to and doing them made me claustrophobic in the first place and if that's my worst quality I don't think I'm that bad.

I've also dropped any concern with my own role in the world, and will carry on without thinking about it now. But I also had to drop any possibility there was a higher power guiding us, as if there is it'll show me, otherwise it's pointless to think about it. But I had to look at each of these ideas before I could know what to do, and will continue to with any new stuff that raises itself. Most people are too busy living and don't often stop to think about the whys and reasons unless they're in trouble. Luckily someone else had come across the same phenomenon and wrote an article saying anyone with an interest in something they follow with enthusiasm is told by those who eat, sleep and party to 'get a life'. I think the actual response to them is to 'get a brain'. At least a life can be got but they'll never be able to get a new brain! And their idea of 'a life' only appeals to those who don't have a brain as those who do like to look at the reasons behind things and learn about all the details of their world instead of littering it, fighting it and throwing up over it every week when they get pissed.

The other house clearing I've done was the list of essential nasty jobs I finished last week. What each of us consider nasty is a personal one, and some include seeing people I'd rather not see, which I suppose is pretty universal. Had I slept better last night I'd be in a more upbeat frame of mind, I've got the rest of today more or less free and it's more or less stopped raining, the cleaner's here and whatever she's wearing makes her body look even better than usual, and if she understood more English I'd have to see if she was married or not in case. At least there are no rules about shagging your cleaner...

My Dad had the brainwave to look at our old house online, and I've now seen what it looks like from the inside after 13 years, and hope to arrange a visit as it's the same agent we used. I've now filled my Flickr album with the 200 quota, and really have few more places worth taking to warrant paying for it. I could probably even make a new one in another name but they'd probably do me if they found out and would want to link them anyway as otherwise all my groups couldn't keep up with me.
It's 3pm now, I have few if any plans now though can always carry on with my course essays. Like the blog I'll just see what happens and maybe it'll be more interesting than it seems.

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Three possibilities

There are only three possible versions of the universe:

1) Things are exactly how they seem

2) There are higher powers who protect us

3) There are higher powers who rarely protect us as we are supposed to suffer

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My mother says'1'

Religious people say '2'

I suspect and hope '3' but accept '1' as that seems far more likely and sensible.

But the evidence is as follows: People who have actual experience (faith isn't included) of higher powers are either liars or deluded. But some seem genuine. The system is designed to only choose individuals to reveal to, while all the others are not permitted to know. So you have a few (moaybe one in a million) people who know, and the rest may as well be in another universe as it's impossible to show another what you know.

Otherwise if '1' is correct, every one of these few people is wrong. Certainly there is little or no evidence (including solid aliens as well as spirits), but of course they choose their beneficiaries, and hide the rest of the time. Luckily the priviliged few don't care others frown and pat them on the head as if retarded, they know (or think they know) and are happy.

But being a lawyer, I have to accept until there's evidence I'll have to assume there's nothing, (though today the powers did get me out of a situation I didn't want, so who knows?) As the judge would say, only circumstantial evidence.

Make it so Data

Sharon just made this picture of me on the bridge of the Enterprise standing in for Data. And though it wasn't this close, I have been in the same room as the esteemed captain while he was rehearsing for a play. Amazing experience.

blue train

blue train
Originally uploaded by satguru.

Just a nice picture of a little train (not in standard colours) passing my old road from Canons Park in Edgware. Suburban North London with all its elements.

Superhuman tasks

Still looking for a point, I do see where the area may be though. My own suffering may actually have a purpose I have yet to discover, as whenever one thing stops another one starts within not very long. I used to fear the worst, and one by one they became real, until I feared life itself.

Not being able to rely on my own constitution I had to rely on medication to fill the gaps, and now take on the odd job one by one I may not be able to complete. That in any terms is a journey to hell and back, and money is no real element. Rich and poor people get the same troubles besides financial ones, and most are down to health and people, which don't respect money. Not that I'm rich, I just manage, pay my bills and buy the cheapest of everything.

Now if I gradually learn strategies after each situation that allow me to cope with previously nervous situations, simply because whatever drives my life is a perfectionist, that would be a logical answer. I had to face every fear I had (not including permanent disabilities) or they'd just give me the same situations over and over again until I did learn what to do (as in many religious stories). Having a wife or partner must then be earned, as presumably imposing my inadequacies on one, meaning she couldn't share holidays, restaurants or theatres, let alone be visited in hospital, should I be 'on one' at the time. By that I mean if I get claustrophobic you won't get me near any confined space unless a cocktail of tablets so effective I think I'm on Jupiter. And I am forced to either learn how to or get more of the same.

There would only be a point if I needed such superhuman qualities. Most people with weaknesses who can function just do their best within their limits. Just because you could lift a car with one hand if you trained for long enough doesn't mean you have to, and overcoming the worst of my weaknesses would be possible but would then mean I was immune to more or less every awful situation known to man, which would make me a saint. But what a training to be so! I didn't ask for it, or care much whether I had problems or not if I could avoid their worst effects in a practical way. Making me not care when I catch something nasty or have to spend a day on a course is of little practical use to me as I have finished taking courses and if I get ill I'm in the same boat as everyone else who has been.

Moreover, my strengths are pretty good as well, and given a choice to swap them (or even half of them) for more peace of mind I doubt I would, as I'd be like a castrated cat. I'd be less bothered about life and produce very little. Wasting talent is such a shame, so when I was young and showed talents in various areas like the piano, I'd be very disappointed with myself if I couldn't do at least one or two of them properly as I can now. And if I suddenly found I couldn't use my logic or memory properly (like after a stroke) I'd have lost something I no longer take for granted. I'd remember I could do it and never be able to again. That's too much to lose for a trade. So in order to keep my strengths, rather than be accepted with a pile of both at extreme levels, something is setting me every situation one or two at a time so I can't avoid them any more. And some aren't common ones, and others are the sort you could do a lot better if shared. But I have no armour, no reserves and not even any prizes if I win a task, but instead another, usually even worse.
So should I sound like a broken record, it's because each week as my resistance to stress lowers another point, the stress continues in every imaginable form. I imagine balance, where at least if one bad thing's happening a good one is as well. But that's not real life which isn't organised like a machine. There was one time I had to go to a wedding (a whole day's work) and I'd just met a girlfriend, so was so high thinking about that it got me through the travelling and the reception (though I bottled the rest of it in order to manage going at all). That's the one time it happened I can remember, and by the laws of chance wasn't significant.

So, anyone now in any doubt why I complain a lot, here is the picture in cinemascope. It seems I am being put through a set of tests to face my worst fears and learn to overcome them. That or I'm paranoid, but at least it explains how it seems from here, with just the odd day or two off until something spoils it yet again. One good reason I get so tired.

Today's experiences.

Routine and manna from heaven do not run together. This is today's 'diary' post, separated from the philosophy. When you're in the desert you dream of water. When you're in a vacuum you dream of pleasure. I imagine and fantasise over any nice event just landing in my day, using the 'unconditional miracles' principle, as it's the usual way it happens for me, in my imagination.

Instead the inevitable and much hinted at email that my friends will be remaining abroad indefinitely arrived today, so that (it never really was on) is off the system. The day was punctuated by a cancellation which allowed me to nip out and do my chores (shopping and tablet related). I was tired, this time not from lack of sleep but an alternation of bad nights and catching up nights. Clearly irregular sleep takes as much out of you as not enough. I would always go to bed early if with someone else, but otherwise it's like a little death every night. So rather than accept things as they are (a good Buddhist I'd have made...) I imagine lists of what I wish would happen when it goes dead.

From the email I received today (but in reverse form) to hearing from old friends and girlfriends, good news (whatever that is), and basically getting anything nice I haven't worked for or earned is how my mind works. Masturbation on non-sexual subjects and just as pointless. But that's our lower brain, the animal part and the one that stops us being spiritual and good Buddhists. I am on the lower path clearly and haven't a zen master beating the crap out of me to keep me on the right track (that's what they do).
I accept my mind is doing what you can call 'self medication', making up stories as a distraction to reality, which is the same as having imaginary friends, which would also be an asset at the moment. This isn't depression speaking, it's a description of a place as near to photographic accuracy I can create using words, just as when I do a painting.

A house is half what it appears. Empty it's not anything as you aren't there to experience it. So it's either occupied by you or you and others. So technically an empty house is one you enter and is empty. It's like a corpse. When a parent dies and you look in the coffin (as many cultures do) it's not a person. It looks like them but there's nothing there. Same with a house. If you enter an empty house it's dead and can't be any more. It's like a lucid dream where you know there's no one else really there, just you and your imaginary army of people. So I am affected by entering a house which has the chill of death on entering and after 10 years (and a few elsewhere) alone is beginning to get through my spiritual clothing. It's the situation many people I've spoken to recently are in, and they showed it's not a 'David' reaction but a normal one.
The bed represents the coffin the best, so going to an empty bedroom is like going to ones grave night after night, where the reality is hardest to avoid as the silence (besides the radio) is no different to that in a coffin.

I reckon I'd have to be superhuman, or at least have a brother or sister alive as a connected human being in spirit wherever they may live. That helps many people who are alone I think, if they get on at least. Otherwise you're literally on your own full stop, and I could envisage an experiment where 100 people are made to live on their own plus (as it's the killer part of the situation) imagine it's for life. If you knew it was temporary it would be a lot better. But it isn't. Then watch their mental decline, phobias and emotional problems develop gradually as loneliness ate away at their being. A few would rise to the occasion, but my intuition (proved reliable enough times to trust) most would go downhill till they ended up like the ones I know. It's simple cause and effect.

By the way, anyone who watched the new House Doctor programme I said after 20 minutes the couple would split up before the end of the hour, and they did. That is intuition and why I trust it. It pisses of rational people who want lab experiments but works for me. Sorry!

There may be a point

There are two parts to this post. The prelude, which is planned, and the point, which I am writing the prelude to hope to discover. There are two sorts of people, those more satisfied with life now, and those who aren't. Now I am clearly not, and due to that look for ways to fix it, while those who are stand back and wonder why I talk such rubbish.

Well, eventually, behind all my variety of complaints and possible solutions, there may be a single point. What it is seems to be a fuzzy image now (previously it was nothing) and may come into focus. I hope it is, as it's almost as if I've been set a puzzle and maybe I'm finding the solution. Writing it down here (even if not read) is where I do my working out. You are looking at as much personal unscrambling than anything written for others. It didn't start like that but became my way of doing the mental maths working out.

So my apparent aim is to solve a problem behind dissatisfaction with life as it is. How it happens and how to undo it. This applies to those not happy now, but many who are (as even I have been) but won't be in the future. It's as if somehow I was put in every situation I feared one after another as I had the determination to learn ways out of it. Me, down? Hardly surprising... But I wasn't much of the time people thought I was, bored maybe but I try not to talk about being depressed as no one can do much about it and just brings other people down. But if my physical health would be more reliable that would be the main thing for me.

As I haven't got to the point in my own mind yet, just suspect there is one, I'll write what I was going to about manna from heaven, and let any point come to me as I write. Magic is apparently the aim of my mission, so I'll bear that in mind. The other half of active improvement of life is outside events.

Manna from heaven is rare but we all get a little occasionally. Usually when we don't need it the most but that's its random nature. I'll describe the childish but perfect new age concept of unconditional miracles.
This means we do not need to earn anything, it'll come to us. Being alive is our only qualification for it. No pain and gain, just gain. How childish is that, and how perfect? How they expect it to happen is another story, but it's a nice dream.

I still would like to know what my own point is. I feel all my blogging has been leading up to it. A simple and obvious solution. One people will understand and relate to. Currently I come across as a released mental patient with an intellect but no direction. It isn't quite like that. I look back and see what I write and realise to hook the few views I need to agree I'll alienate the majority of the rest. I see how pointless some of my ideas appear, and that's because they're still a work in progress. Buddha was on a mission to end suffering, and somehow I seem to be in a more modern version of it. Something that will help everyone. Also because I've searched the elite of teachers, and gained a few pieces of the jigsaw. Only Dr Who seems to know it all, and he's not actually real. I have collected their pieces in my picture, but it's still nearly all space.

One example is enlightenment. It's so rare and such a long path if you get it, you actually need something else to relieve the pain until you are. Otherwise you spend your life doing whatever you do that may allow it to happen, but still suffer just as you always did. Meditation is a good escape when it works, but the times it didn't mean it's the best of a pretty average lot. Drugs rob Peter to pay Paul, you may (apparently) feel great for a while, then pay for it afterwards, often until it kills you. Not a good route.

My original mission was bullshit busting, allowing others to see it and maybe force some of the rules that keep us from enjoying life to the full (including speed humps) are removed one by one. But anyone with time on their hands and their heart in the right place can do that and no one ever does a thing when you do anyway. So it can't be that. I have also had a collection of people with my own collection of problems so I can firstly see they are generally present, and also to look at ways to fix it. Knowing an answer may exist means I'm more than half way there, as I am pointing towards a destination possibly.

So while people with happy and normal lives (it seems the majority I come across) look at me with pity (at best) and contempt and embarrassment at worst, I am busy doing what I have to regardless as I've been put in that position. Unlike my ego question which has been dealt with, this is 100% practical. I could say I'll accept no one actually cares what I say and give up, but it's free to write so I'll carry on, plus I've got nothing more interesting to do instead anyway. But critics aside, I saw how apparently confused all my writing appeared since I started this mission, and and maybe the clouds started to clear and just knowing there may be a point will start me aiming to find it, actively when I can and passively if it just comes to me.
But I've prepared and cleared the ground for it with this series of blogs, and my personal wish is to get the point by tomorrow, but getting it at all is fine.

It's a mystery

Firstly I’ve dropped all ideas about being special or anything else. It seemed this was in me, came out and has now been released. I’ll leave it now for other people to decide and have no concern about it left myself.
Otherwise it seems that despite being ‘released from jail’ or the equivalent, having completed my long list of unpleasant tasks, I am not happy. That lasts the day or so after the last is over, and then the emptiness of what’s left must take over, showing me that as long as I’m alone I won’t get much joy out of life even when free.

So, for the first time ever I’ve made a list of things of nice things to do instead of jobs. Not very long yet but a good idea. Hope is overrated as well. What gives you hope? Speculation. Any major event in my life hasn’t been built up to or forseen, they just happen. No clues ahead very often so little or no hope.

Last week was 95% predictable, reaching closer to a level there’s no room for variation, which may come this week. Nothing seen either way good or bad, just a week. But at least I’m free of caring what I prove, as I realised last week I’m not answerable to anyone. Not as easy as dropping my ego which was like laying an egg, but an old habit I need to break.
The trouble is life and the blog that follows it repeats itself so becomes a slight variation of previous entries. What can I do? Even holidays (which my nerves do a Dennis Bergkamp-like shudder when mentioned or imagined) only give me another chance to get stressed and something to talk about for the rest of my life for a week or two’s experience. (To non-Europeans, Dennis is one of the world’s best footballers who won’t fly).

Now I struggle to liven up this blog sometimes, though I enjoy reading other people’s boredom, banality and misery, most people want a laugh. That’s not to order with me, and what makes me laugh tends to either be shared with primary schoolkids or repressed Jewish intellectuals like myself (and Will Self- a natural pun there!). Connections in the media usually work as long as you have the minimum of talent (I think a few lessons in writing and I will do), and imagining Will Self and Toby Young knocking around with me in my 40s instead of my teens and before may have improved my work prospects no end, as well as probably having a bloody good time as well. I doubt Harry Hill would have kept in touch should I have tried last summer, as I was just a loyal fan who happened to live near where he was filming for a few days and took under his wing (probably out of pity!). All he needs is a dribbling fan following him around as he tries to get on with his life.

What pretends to be hope is a few weeks ahead. Changing my car, a possible female visit which I still aren’t 100% sure if business or pleasure in her view, another which may happen once we find her phone number, and a dwindling chance of my next TV filming in June. The car is the most likely and least exciting of those, the two women can be divided into a definite visit that’s almost definitely business, and a possible one that’s almost definitely platonic. Story of the last 25 years. So no point wasting my attention looking unspecified times ahead to things that are almost impossible.
I did find one book on my ‘missing’ list last week, which was on the proper shelf but between two albums, so camouflaged a little. The second I looked for another book I haven’t seen for years (and probably didn’t survive the move) I saw it immediately. As always, if you look for any specific item you probably won’t find it (same with people). Look for something else and there it is. The second last person on my missing persons list was found (via his sister) and never even replied. Unless he’s not on the list as he’s dead, but the last one was and someone still had the decency to let me know.

So I really only want to live in a family again, with a girlfriend/wife and other friends, and hopefully a regular income. Seen that experiment at the science museum, where the coin sits on the table and falls in a hole as soon as you try and touch it? That’s the same as trying to control people. They aren’t designed to follow each other’s needs. We each go in a unique direction and only when lucky enough to meet another that is better than the other things in our life and they feel the same way will it work. And share a house with someone? You may as well try and knit smoke. As for getting more than we deserve, a few new-agers say ‘think big and the world will respond’, but finding another person I approve of who has the cash to buy half our old house so I can move back is the equivalent of trying to get a degree without taking any exams. You don’t get the prize without putting in the effort, and the amount I paid for my own house was almost a miracle at the time, so double that and more is only available to those earning about £40,000 plus a year, not on the dole. Now if anyone wants an example of a miracle, just imagine any of that list ‘just happening’, like in a film.

Liz Jones of the Daily Mail finally splitting from her husband and giving me a try. She could buy two of my old house and at least I’m the right age for her and am faithful. She may even have read this blog though working about 1000 hours a week (her estimate I added a zero to) I don’t think she’d still have the time. It’s not like I want something without working for it. I studied for years for letters after my name, and then went to endless classes to learn assorted other things, and then years of writing about them for unpaid journals. I have enough professional experience to know enough about people to lecture or present programmes about. I’ve learnt art and music nearly all my life and have only chosen not to use music for money as when I tried it ruined the pleasure of playing (unless I was in a group playing rock and roll, which I never managed). You don’t need a three year apprenticeship in a local paper any more to write. A degree in more or less anything opens most doors, and a backing of a professional career should make me a fair candidate for consideration. So I’m not asking the earth by any means.
On the female front it’s totally the opposite. I have had more girlfriends than most people I know, not because I’m any good at it but never got married so kept adding to the list. And incredibly persistent due to a phenomenal sex drive. But they never lasted, like staff working for a rogue employer. The turnover was very high. But it meant one thing. There couldn’t have been enough wrong with me not to get them hooked.
I don’t think there are reasons women dislike men once they get to know them, though they try and find them to justify themselves. One said I didn’t wash my hands when I went for a pee. That appeared to be the actual reason she dumped me despite showering me with compliments about my important qualities. If it was true she’d have just told me to. But as she didn’t really like me it was her excuse. What has that effect time after time beats me, and seems to be a magnetic reversal that when I’m positive they are repelled and vice versa. It’s really getting on my nerves…

Am I boring you?

One thing stress and boredom can do is allow you to investigate life in great detail, which can be bloody useful but most people can only take so much of it. Even if you read my blog some time ago philosophy only crept in sometimes, but as some people get paid to do it, you're getting mine for free. But it's not all I do by any means. Life almost creeping to a halt at times shifts your focus from telling interesting stories to analysing what's not happening and why. At least it helps my clients as they suffer frequently from the areas I am looking into, and when I begin to see patterns it helps them as well as there's only one truth behind each issue, however complex or hard to find, but few have the need, time and patience to look for it.

Personally anyone with a blog like that would have me reading everything and waiting for more, as I find it all fascinating (as with Nick Roach's site, now becoming his second book). But we are few and far between and besides practicing for working for an obscure publication doing this on my blog will probably have alienated the majority of regulars as the comment count seems to have almost hit zero. I don't think I can stop looking for answers, but I suppose I can do waht every comedian and entertainer has never been able to do to order, 'make me laugh'. When I do that it's never planned and never has been. I can write 10,000 words nowadays on many subjects off the top of my head as like a computer disk it's become so organised and expanded by filling it constantly with information it's now a natural process to waffle. I actually want to be paid for it as it would solve my job prospects in one go, especially as I can work mainly from home as I've been used to for years. So though I can't be funny to order (ever try to piss when the nurse gives you a bottle for a sample?) I will avoid the philosophy every day as I can see when I've worn out my welcome.

Change of subject change of colour:
So, what did I do this week? Better than that, how can I make a week of the expected routine (it reached closer to 95% predictable this time, possibly a record, like the oil price) and I've already mentioned the main parts previously. So can anything be salvaged from a typical Kingsbury week, combined of a few hours work, seeing family and sitting at home or gardening?

Mirages are a bastard and I have many that appear in my life, raising my hopes only to turn to dust almost every time. My trouble finding another girlfriend has meant whenever someone looks even like they'll talk to me who I know and like it feels like they're all ready for marriage. Like a starving person eating almost anything, I blow up their passing interest (before I have time to think) into a romantic novel where the man proposes after a week, she says 'of course I will' and they live happily ever after. What then happens is they ask 'Can you help me with a legal problem', bore the arse of me, and then fuck off when they've got what they need to know. Every fucking time. Except the one who wanted me to accept Jesus as my saviour. At least she was original. Not like the one with a speeding fine, or the other list almost as long as my dick (did I ever tell you... never mind) with long-running battles that I (without the full training) was adequate to handle, as I was free. So though my heart says 'yes!' whenever one of these long-lost women waltzes back into my life after a two year gap, my head sees a technical problem that they know I can sort out before they bugger off for another two years. That's always been the same so why should it be different any time in the future?

Well, it gave me something to fantasise about, which does (like heroin) raise my spirits in a totally false way. All it means is possibly if such a condition actually ever does materialise I will be happier than I am now. That's useful as when you're way down you often believe that's how it'll be forever. Again it's the brain's illusion, as for weird reasons when you feel OK it seems like it'll last forever, and the same when you don't. It also means many people who are can't relate to you when you're not and vice versa, and you tend to expect people to feel like you. This is not me bullshitting, it really happens to many people, and the logic is that of childbirth pain. We are designed to forget the worst feelings or we'd be haunted by them. That's fine, but it works the same for both, and doesn't seem to have realised we only need to forget how we felt when we weren't ok, not when we were. That means when you're down you forget you were ever anything else, at least can't recall how you felt better though you know you did. It's how we're designed and besides the useful side is a darn nuisance. As it's my job, I do see enough cases to know when there's a phenomenon, and this is one.

Is there a point? Not yet. But one point I did get this week (I had a lot of spare time alone) was I no longer need to impress anyone. I can relax and not do a thing for anyone else's opinion as long as I pay my bills, that's it. I have to renew my professional qualification every year as well, and that's all. I don't need to show myself or anyone else anything. I was so used to having to bring back results (mainly to my grandparents) that it became a habit that drove me without realising it. The trouble was it makes you check everything you do and feel you've missed out if you 'waste' a week. Well, as long as you are alive and being looked after, ie eating sleeping etc and have a roof over your head, you're OK. There is always more anyway but without the new criteria of a family after qualification time, I got stuck in limbo and felt if I wasn't working I ought to be compensating in some other way. What pressure that is! Well I won't now. It's nobody's business, except British Gas etc who will cut me off if I don't pay. Though money had been tricky as well not that long ago, I doubt I'd ever get in that situation. So I should live the hippy ethos I apply to others and sit back, relax and enjoy life not caring what anyone else thinks so long as I don't hurt anyone.

They showed some old hippies on TV tonight, I was so pleased they hadn't all given up 30 plus years ago as their views would have averted most of the wars we've had since 1970 if adopted by governements. They may have had their crazy element, but their core philosophy was hard to beat. People think if you let everyone free and make their own rules we'd end up like savages, so look at the world now- what have the rules done? Made doing certain acts a crime. But the acts are still done, you just risk punishment for them. The criminals don't actually care about the rules, they are always going to do what they do as they know nothing else. But (as some have told me) take them out of their environment and shove them in a commune and how many people can they rip off or kill? Unless they're criminally insane most would be so lost in one that there just wouldn't be the banks to rob or old ladies to mug as they'd be in a small isolated community where they had everything and shared it. Why steal something when you can have ot for nothing? By the way, even with a small garden I managed for a short time to grow a lot of my own food for almost nothing. Had the gardener not destroyed the patch by dumping his rubbish on it I may have carried on as it was there when I moved in. And home grown vegetables and salad are a lot better for you than ready meals. And organic.

Well, I started by saying I'd leave out the philosophy, but I did so little this week that it left the space for me to think, and I reckon I did pretty well. Just a shame my grandma won't let me grow the little hair I have or I'd have looked the part as well. Remember, why do you think Jesus looked like a hippy?

Make it so...

Due to lack of sleep I'm here now as I don't intend to return to the computer when I get in again later. I even planned to play my first round (9 holes) of golf since the lessons from my Dad last summer but was too tired. But the alternative fairy was around and my gardens needed a lot of attention, and with the first warm day of the year cut the front lawn, weeded the back and then finally removed the 3ft box from behind my kitchen and put everything in a tidy place to await a wash before returning to the new kitchen units. So the golf may have been nice but those jobs had to be done and have been now.

Last night I did my first 'blank slate' post on Funtrivia's blog, bearing in mind the lack of censorship here and not to run free and vulgar where kids are watching. I ended up discovering that I do meet wonderful women despite only going to strange places, and though not a single one has wanted any physical contact with me they still remain friends. Mind you, in the cases I mentioned I haven't actually tried yet so who knows? But like the alternative fairy who makes sure if your plans are jammed you always do something instead, often even more useful. Not going to singles dos, or even worse, holidays (a week with them?!) does not and never did mean I would never meet anyone. And when I went to courses over the last 20 years I rarely met any single women let alone ones who clicked, besides most courses being miles away as well as the women who attended them. I did see a couple but the trouble with being a counsellor is once people know what you do any decent looking woman can pretend she wants to see you simply to unload all her problems on you when she does and then mention 'didn't you know I had a boyfriend?' Bitch... And that one had the incredibly weird 'Body dismorphic disorder', where people believe they're deformed. I kid you not. Current research likens these disorders to a programming software fault in the brain, which would also make them a damn sight harder to cure with therapy.

I see so much weirdness in my job, where reality is bypassed by an inner view which may be impossible to penetrate with logic. Now if God creates us all in his image, he will also have paranoia, anorexia, social phobia and every other crossed wire he inflicts on us. If he did it. However, God is by definition perfect. We are definitely not. So when men build a new car or camera and it goes wrong we learn from our mistakes. We can never be perfect and are continually evolving our creations. God however we are told got it right first time, as he can't make a mistake. Pardon? Look at the evidence. We create, we do our best, we get it wrong and try and fix it.
God, if he did even do all this, has to be the same. Instead of being the perfect and omnipotent being we wish we had as our father, he's a higher entity pissing about in a lab somewhere hours after everyone else has gone home, and looking through his microscope at the next virus he's trying to remove from the mix. And if you buy into that, you'll add the other entities on his world who, just like the internet, sabotage his work for fun, creating better viruses (eg zango) that poor God keeps having inflicted on his creation, like bird flu. That we call the devil, but unlike the bible the real devil is God's equal, and constantly fucking up everything God tries to do. Doesn't that, if you must believe in creationism, look a lot more logical?

I will give a few reasons I am not fully agreed with the view we were created at random. Certain sexual factors are so perfectly designed (no, I won't go into detail, read Havelock Ellis!), that it implies if that is the case, there must be an element of design involved. Then some of the higher meditative states appear to be too good to be an accident, and most of all synchronicity, which despite the chaos in between, connects every part of the universe all the time, otherwise it couldn't work.
If I read a book and then a day later someone asks me a question I just read the answer to you'd say it was coincidence. I've been doing this for about 15 years and how do people wait till I've learnt something before they ask me? That's just a typical example, but it's a way of life I'm as used to now as knowing most things set in a psychic reading. There are tiny gaps in the chaos, and my assumption that once I discovered there was more I'd be happy.

The trouble is the effects are rare and wear off once the outside world takes over. Despite knowing a lot more than I did, none of that information makes the world a better place when the effects stop. Maybe even if I met an alien or had an out of body experience my life would return identical to before just as it did sooner or later after my little experiences. The same as people with a flash of enlightenment, some can hold that memory and raise their life afterwards even if it never happens again. That is one thing many people are fixed by, as in improved permanently. And why I still practice what I do as that is one area which offers the ultimate prize though only a tiny fraction of students seem to get a thing from it. It seems like either an unnatural state or one reserved for those chosen to have it. Or all a crock... I have the rest of my life to find out but if it's real I don't know what I'd tell everyone as not a soul can convince me it's real so how could I?

Well, that's plenty to think about before I leave for grandma soon. Maybe one day someone will tell me I've taught them something. That would be a bonus.

My requests to the universe.

I wonder if deliberately changing my style to something more upbeat for a change would reflect in my outer life, putting the cart before the horse? I read a book that said if you make a request to the universe exactly as you want it with as much detail as possible, feel as if you've got it, bind it (using 'amen', for instance) and then forget about it you'll bring it into your life.

It's based on the theory we create everything, but chaotically until we learn to control it. If we make a watertight formula with little room for variation we may create that, just as if we were in a dream. I know my exact first formula, as I've worked out the best situation that would both provide me with the personal contact I need and a protection from the more hostile situations life faces me with.

I would pick a woman who is sexually compatible for me (no shortage of them I'm glad to say, they have so far just avoided any with me), good company, caring, sense of humour, and accepts me as company over material and social interests.
This means no demands to go out, do things and all the other crap most women expect throughout a relationship as a given. I don't know what other men want besides sex, but suspect as long as that's good if they never took their partner out again it wouldn't be to soon. Just an informed guess...

So if I put my CV from an earlier post in front of her, and she just said 'Who cares, I'd rather be with you than do all those other things without you'. Not unreasonable- I often took women out as they wanted it or they were so boring there was little to stay in for with them. Now if and when I feel like doing something, fine, I will. But not with the sword of Damocles hanging over my head 'I want to go to...' and a major mood if I don't go along with it. I have plenty of interests that got me out of the house and hardly ever went with anyone else. When I go to a market, football match, film or any other activity I'm too absorbed in what I'm doing to need anyone else with me. I don't mind either way, but at major exhibitions you lose your friend/s within five minutes and have to stand by the door to wait for them to pass by when you want to go. So it's not that I won't go out, I just don't need a woman to make that a requirement as having two sets of tablets to take to cover such situations after panic attacks that could win the panic attack olympic gold I can't do with that sort of pressure at the moment.

It's also a bugger as I came across a really nice woman on a dating site, and realised if I met her I'd have to risk such an attack as the pills are not yet infallible, being in the 'beta testing' stage, to borrow the internet term. When she didn't phone I wanted to meet her but thought what's the point of following it up when I wasn't well enough to do much anyway, as the tablets hadn't arrived then. Now there are a few women who I've known some time around as friends, who would all be a potential for more. I could even engineer it for one or two to read this so they wondered whether I was referring to them or not. But they know me well enough to have been able to see who I am regardless of problems and may be prepared to take on a hard case, especially when compared to the others (alcoholics, hooligans, schizophrenics etc) the worst thing I could ever do for them is leave an event or place as I couldn't take it. In fact in all my 20 years of genuine claustrophobia I almost never did leave anywhere when I got an attack. I froze myself and they normally passed. The effort involved in fighting them took it out of me for the next day or so, and the old tablets almost removed that mechanism.

The new ones don't. Besides not being taken all the time (different design) they were not really meant for that sort of thing, but to stop my heart from losing regulation. The tranquiliser part seems to have little effect, having taken two at once (it was part of the testing procedure) to see the right strength needed, but that made no difference. The beta blockers however work directly on heartbeat, and the monitor I use every week shows a drastic reduction to normal, and that was clearly the cause of most of the tiredness and more sinister symptoms as my blood pressure became low and oxygen wasn't getting through to my brain. That was not a phobia or phobic response, it was a physical failure where my brain had jammed the response in whichever part sends adrenalin to run away but stayed on a lot of the time. To run you need a fast heartbeat, and I was getting it up to around 180 just walking into a shop at times. That sort of experience over a few months scares the shit out of you, as especially when you don't know the cause I was already thinking of letters to send my friends in case I was on the way out. It felt like it.
Now it rarely does, about 2 months on. But I have to make tiny steps in where I go in case the panics return. They are not the plateau ones I used to have now, but peak at a point nearing unconsciousness. It has never happened (I reckon if it did it would be a lot more than a panic attack) but when you've been out a few times and had that you don't dare stay anywhere long in case. So back to my point, how many women I know or may know in the future can be arsed to cope with someone scared to leave the house at times? As a man I have no idea, as in a woman such a quality would make her marriage material for a lot of men. No more restaurants or crappy films? Hooray!!!

But women seem to like eating out in the way vampires need blood, and go to concerts and films like a heroin addict in some cases. I went to see a film, and if I'm out and I'm hungry if I don't get a roll from the bakers, I'll go to a cafe or a pub and that's it. Eating is a bodily function, and sitting in a crowded shop and wait ages for food that costs 15 times the price of buying it from Tescos and making it yourself seems like a scam to me. My version is the 'Kingsbury dinner party'.
Though I also did this at my friend's house when he lived here now it's more or less confined to here. I can't cook so invite about 4 people over every now and then and order as much take away food as we can (Indian, Chinese or pizza), spread out the little tables I have across the open plan lounge, and eat for Britain. Then I usually get the video camera out and do a quick version of Big Brother, and watch old editions I've made with them in the past. It's basically a miniature version of my birthday parties when I'd have 30 people here but more civilised (for me at least as organiser). The only bit missing is the swinging, mainly as that requires couples and one of the only times I was with someone at the time I was trying to get rid of her...

So, given the money I'd become a millionaire recluse, have a huge house with a pool and sports facilities, and invite endless strings of people over to have fun. I've spent weeks on similar holidays and as long as the people are good you never get fed up. Apparently Elvis became a lot like this in his final years, and I wonder how many people given the millions would prefer something similar as well?

Tuesday again

Firstly I want to clarify my question about being special. In a profession you are given a qualification, a clear remit, and told 'you can do it'. There's no need to have any outside validation besides a bit of supervision for therapists. But when it's a quality you can't be sure you have or qualify in, what do you do? ask people.

Just like anyone qualified gets the odd drop in confidence and needs to be reminded they can do it, when there's no qualifications for what you may be able to do you can't spend years wondering, so use any means at your disposal to ask, as I did.

Otherwise it's been a nice day (passes out in surprise)! Didn't leave the house or garden (mainly as raining) but had nice people around all day and that made all the difference. Then I had some bulbs to plant and discovered someone had emptied their bin all over the front garden. Why I cannot say, besides the fact I don't pay the dustmen every Christmas (it's illegal now) and that's the usual result. So I had a whole rubbish sack filled with someone else's packaging to fill as well as the actual little jobs I had to do there.
Part of living in the suburbs, no doubt. So, Mr Blogger.com, why does your software revert to default every time you press the shift key?

Why am I writing this? No philosophy or much else, just amazed to have a nice day so may as well share it. Can't think beyond for tomorrow and more, and no real need to.

Neutrality

After the last two weeks, I have freedom from stress right now (as in how long for?), but as I went from ech (as in feh, yugh or blech) to nothing, I wasn't ecstatic just because the electrodes were removed from my testicles. I also seemed to get a rebound effect the next days when this happened where I seem to have expended so much energy over the previous week I am worn out and feel physically and mentally like shit instead of happy and relieved.

So with a basically free week ahead, and my kitchen finished a few hours ago (last missing bits) it is a start, but I need more. My health has been so ragged since the summer I reckon if all my energy was back and I had no panic attacks that would overshadow anything else that was absent on the positive side.

It's a lot better than it was of course, but I am testing my pills every few days as I have no idea which activity will trigger an attack till I'm there. The old pills almost took the tendency away, these are very different and are mainly targeted at physical symptoms.

Last week's review included a little work, gardening for my mum (which I enjoy) and my monthly accounts work. It was also still a little early considering the clocks went forward and I really felt I was up an hour earlier than usual up to two weeks afterwards. Then I did almost sod all for three days, I bought the third or fourth power supply in about 6 years for my radio and then realised the reason the last ones had blown is the ampage was way too low. I didn't unpack the new one so it's back to Surrey to get the proper one and hope it works. Otherwise I saw Manchester Utd wallop Arsenal on Sky TV, and sport coverage for four solid days (golf, rally etc) which was something.
Little this week beyond dull and boring chores not worth reporting, and predictability tells me 90% of what I usually expect happens as the routine is so fixed. Boring is the word.

I had one dream which provided a little insight to a few things so I'll both report it and its meaning to me. I have been struggling to think of a way to share a house, especially when my old one went on the market last week, and the dream involved asking a woman if I could move in, and she said yes and kissed me.

It was very realistic (pardon the font, I'll let the blogger system win this time), not that good but told me a few things about life. I used the dream to extend to imagining living with this woman, and realised if you can fantasise about anything you like and enjoy the fantasy, you aren't suffering from clinical depression. It's a good test. Clinical depression isn't affected by life. You could win a million pounds and get offered sex by Carol Vorderman you'd probably do it but feel exactly the same. But if even imagining anything like that clearly enough and finding it makes you feel happy means there's nothing wrong with you. You just have good reasons to be depressed that would depress most people.

I know enough people with lives much like mine who feel much like I do. Cause and effect. Every year buries the certainty deeper, and though we're not in prison we don't have a release date either from isolation, if at all. Isolation seems to appeal to some people from big or dubious families, and good luck to them. Just don't expect anyone to be there for you when you change your mind. There's an exception to every rule and just because a minority do the exact opposite to the norm means nothing to those who don't. 'I enjoy pain' or 'I like the rain' (sorry Sharon, but it was a good example!) won't make it feel any better for those of us who don't. Masochists do exist, but it's not recommended. As for the Buddhist 'end craving' I can add wanting the end of pain is not the same as craving pleasure. And what's wrong with pleasure anyway? Whoever made us gave us that bias and we aren't designed to override it.

I am not bothered about much in a material way nowadays as I've never done too badly on that front, but it is people I need. Just one or two special ones. Teachers promise (after 10-30 years of work minimum) you can become enlightened and not be affected, but what about all those years where you are almost guaranteed to be? Being told bias towards pleasure is an illusion is little use until it's already happened, in which case until then knowing it is of no practical use at all. How can you step outside of your nature? My yogi teachers agree, and ignore enlightenment for pleasure. My heart is split between the two, as I was recently told pleasure is step one on the ladder of enlightenment, implying enlightenment is beyond even pleasure itself, like being told about new colours you can't yet see.

Teachers can become stuck up their own arses. I have seen so many patronise and criticse students for daring to want to feel good. Telling them pleasure and pain are illusions is no different from telling someone who's depressed to snap out of it. Just because something in them snapped and they have a bypass of all the crap 99.999999% of the rest of us are stuck with doesn't mean we can all relate to it. I am referring to a hard core of teachers who appear to have used mistranslations of eastern languages and trying to convey concepts very different from what was probably intended. One simple example is concentrate on the tip of your nose. In fact it's the third eye point, translated from various languages to English, and some were expected to focus on the end of their noses as the teachers didn't have the basic theory to work out the meaning logically. If that got through imagine the other mistranslations that only challenging and questioning a teacher personally can get sorted out.
Otherwise you are pointed in some very odd directions and likely to go mad long before you are enlightened.

Nick Roach, being my current teacher (as in been through a few but not intending to keep looking), agrees with an approach I would take. If I became enlightened I'd find a simple method, work out how long it may take to work, and what to expect as it does.
Nick's means take up two lines (maximum) and writing hundreds of pages. Why? Because the mind wants to know why we are doing what he askes us to, and as soon as it finds a gap it feels like giving up. He has to plug as many holes in the mind as possible or our practice could give up purely from lack of trust in it. My old meditation works so drastically the first time for most people that's it. Unfortunately it can wear off or tail off and we stop through lack of time and patience. Nick's practice may not work quickly or obviously. It does work on trust and we need to know why it's better than what we were doing before. So every question that can be asked (plus a whole raft of my own) has to be written and answered or people simply won't believe it's worth the effort.

Well, I have in my head expected 90% of the week ahead, being mundane, relatively harmless, and totally free of joy. My dream could bring that person into my life (for she is a real and desirable one) and maybe I would have that joy if it did.
But a final note, I used to think 'If I had x/y/z I'd never have problems again'. I got x and y, not z or w, and as x and y took the edge off my problems rather than cured them, I no longer expect anything to have evn a short term effect on my life until it's happened. It's far better and more realistic except you can feel very happy imagining something nice even if it never happens. Now I am cured of expecting anything to be good until it is, I still expect other things to be bad. Only half way there, and need less time to worry about all that shit. I have to clear up mistaken thinking when I spot it, but all I do is find the next and the next. I'm getting to be too old to use it at this rate...

Week's review 8/4

It's been a busy week and no mistake. Hard and busy and today is the first one off. But work is work and though I feel guilty for not doing much, I realised 1) I thought about doing nothing but still did it and 2) the more major things I haven't done are because I have to get back to things gradually and test the tablets to see what I can do now.

But I'm so glad that week's over. A lot of small events can wear as much as a few big ones, in their own way. And I judged myself unfairly for thinking about doing nothing, imagining I'd done nothing and then finding I hadn't. I'm forced into the present now, mainly as I have few decent plans or projects and absolutely nothing to look forward to. But there's nowhere else to focus your attention but now so it's happening whatever the reasons.
Two large books and two plastic footballers are now missing, the books are too big to go and the footballers appear to have tempted one of two people who should know better, but how else could they vanish? The books are a very rare 60s poster book and my art pad from the 80s I still use and put in a 'safe place' months ago. I hope that will turn up first though I've more or less given up hope for the others, I really just want to know how two free models can go missing from a shelf in such a bleedin' obvious way without the person expecting a comeback?

I may be back later with some inspired satsang, otherwise it's goodbye from me.

Adding colour

One thing I believe I do quite naturally is add colour to the world. So many people play safe and easy and bore the pants off you. I would rather exploit the playground that is life, saying and doing whatever I do that is interesting and harmless, as if it can be done why not say and do it?

That is not being insane or delusional, just eccentric. I'd always meet people who are sane but interesting, not afraid to explore peculiar ideas and speak their minds like children do. I know so many people like this, mad as hatters sometimes but always worth going back for more and a constant source of entertainment.

In art you have the surrealist, psychedelic and op art movements, the best examples of artistic freedom I know, like them or not, and I like to be the personal equivalent. Painting the world with psychedelic rainbows of words and pictures, and possibly even finding escapes from the mundane banality life provides most of the time since 1974.
So even if people accuse me of writing rubbish, I am exploring every boundary of words and creation, and maybe find something others have missed in doing so. And even if not, I won't be forgotten. And in the media, being known is all that matters. No one remembers a bore but they all remember a weirdo. And I can live with that label.