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.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
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...
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...
Sunday, September 18, 2005
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...
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...
Saturday, September 17, 2005
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.
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.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
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?
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!
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".
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".
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
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...
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...
Saturday, September 10, 2005
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...
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...
Thursday, September 08, 2005
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
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...
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...
Monday, September 05, 2005
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%.
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%.
Thursday, September 01, 2005
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Another day #2
As I'm here and free at a normal time rather than the usual 3am I thought I'd use the time to write here rather than when I am now intending to be in bed.
I have actually learnt a number of important things from my recent stress, and as long as my health, physical and mental, returns to at least close to how it can be I'll see them as useful lessons. But I still wonder whether people have to suffer forst before they'll learn. Like the plan has a big gap in it. If I survive the suffering it's something, but I still can't work out why it's there as a valid means to learn when in itself it can spoil much of the actual life that's learning from it. I remain in limbo on this one until I discover more. Nick Roach says the suffering is the 'old way' of gaining maximum emotional power, and I am certainly prepared to trade every emotion if that can go as well. But watching when you are suffering doesn't stop it usually, if it does it may take hours, though if the techniques work for people there's less to dissolve as you go along. Still strikes me as a strange system, suffering for experience. But as Harry Hill says, I don't make the rules...
At the moment I am fairly free, have plenty to do at my own pace (painting my front door, then all my window frames) as well as mounting my first two now complete pictures for displaying. I am literally so tired I can barely stand in a queue at the moment (always one of the most tiring things for me anyway), and as long as there's no nasty physical cause besides stress for the chronic tiredness I'll just have to regain my energy by conserving it, and if not, then have the usual tests, which I doubt will be necessary somehow. I've had it twice before and that's what it was then and it's pretty similar now with plenty of causes.
It's gone a bit quiet on the people front this week (after the last two very social ones) but there's not a lot I can do about it, people are busy and some live too far to come here very often and vice versa. Of course the inevitable lack of a girlfriend issue means this is always going to be similar, and that's been left to its own devices as whatever I do seems to make no difference.
And finally, Esther (who remembers that? I was meant to be on That's Life once but they never showed the bit they filmed when they came round), though the retarded style of comments are not included, I've hardly had any comments here for weeks. Certainly the profile searches have changed, putting up mainly members with no posts and missing out half the people who ought to be on it, so that doesn't help. I have had a couple of emails rather than comments, but some of the other blogs I read have been reaching double figures in some cases, though many have now shifted to mainly news related, which I 'don't do'. This is my diary, so my life. If an item in the news affects me, as some of the worst do ($80 oil, coming shortly, for instance) I'll tie it in that way, but our own lives and those around us are far more interesting than the repetitive, cynical and depressing cack that is forced on us all day every day by the media who would rather make money than actually tell the truth most of the time. Anyone involved with a newspaper story will tell you how little is actually accurate, they really don't care and just want something people will read.
My life is one view of the world out of billions, and I can't report anything excpet what's going on in it. If that's boring, then the whole concept of blogging has to be as well, as without making it all up I can only say what's actually happening, within limits I'd rather not have to use. So my last point is as long as it's not abusive, more comments are welcome, even if just to say hello. I haven't got a site meter here, so there's no guarantee anyone's even reading it (except to say thanks for my friends at JV who have been, and all help keep me sane).
I have actually learnt a number of important things from my recent stress, and as long as my health, physical and mental, returns to at least close to how it can be I'll see them as useful lessons. But I still wonder whether people have to suffer forst before they'll learn. Like the plan has a big gap in it. If I survive the suffering it's something, but I still can't work out why it's there as a valid means to learn when in itself it can spoil much of the actual life that's learning from it. I remain in limbo on this one until I discover more. Nick Roach says the suffering is the 'old way' of gaining maximum emotional power, and I am certainly prepared to trade every emotion if that can go as well. But watching when you are suffering doesn't stop it usually, if it does it may take hours, though if the techniques work for people there's less to dissolve as you go along. Still strikes me as a strange system, suffering for experience. But as Harry Hill says, I don't make the rules...
At the moment I am fairly free, have plenty to do at my own pace (painting my front door, then all my window frames) as well as mounting my first two now complete pictures for displaying. I am literally so tired I can barely stand in a queue at the moment (always one of the most tiring things for me anyway), and as long as there's no nasty physical cause besides stress for the chronic tiredness I'll just have to regain my energy by conserving it, and if not, then have the usual tests, which I doubt will be necessary somehow. I've had it twice before and that's what it was then and it's pretty similar now with plenty of causes.
It's gone a bit quiet on the people front this week (after the last two very social ones) but there's not a lot I can do about it, people are busy and some live too far to come here very often and vice versa. Of course the inevitable lack of a girlfriend issue means this is always going to be similar, and that's been left to its own devices as whatever I do seems to make no difference.
And finally, Esther (who remembers that? I was meant to be on That's Life once but they never showed the bit they filmed when they came round), though the retarded style of comments are not included, I've hardly had any comments here for weeks. Certainly the profile searches have changed, putting up mainly members with no posts and missing out half the people who ought to be on it, so that doesn't help. I have had a couple of emails rather than comments, but some of the other blogs I read have been reaching double figures in some cases, though many have now shifted to mainly news related, which I 'don't do'. This is my diary, so my life. If an item in the news affects me, as some of the worst do ($80 oil, coming shortly, for instance) I'll tie it in that way, but our own lives and those around us are far more interesting than the repetitive, cynical and depressing cack that is forced on us all day every day by the media who would rather make money than actually tell the truth most of the time. Anyone involved with a newspaper story will tell you how little is actually accurate, they really don't care and just want something people will read.
My life is one view of the world out of billions, and I can't report anything excpet what's going on in it. If that's boring, then the whole concept of blogging has to be as well, as without making it all up I can only say what's actually happening, within limits I'd rather not have to use. So my last point is as long as it's not abusive, more comments are welcome, even if just to say hello. I haven't got a site meter here, so there's no guarantee anyone's even reading it (except to say thanks for my friends at JV who have been, and all help keep me sane).
A bit of everything
Nothing special today, except I've passed through a little gauntlet of chaos/demands, and maybe I'll have a break from it for a while now. I am at least learning how to manage my own reactions to it at last, which is quite a big deal, and have been forced to restrict my obligations to a level I can handle, 'or else', as my body's recently told me.
The second painting's now ready, and both should be on their way to the gallery as soon as they've been copied for my own collection. They can all be seen now in the pictures section at www.kingsbury.tk rather than post them here as well each time. So my unpaid and recreational occupations, as predicted in 2000, are finally beginning to be used properly, and proved my point that not working does not equal wasting time. Quite the opposite. If most people had a choice they'd drop out as well, and probably create the things they never got the chance to do when they were working. We can't help it, we're designed to learn and study and create, and though some will piss around or commit crimes when given total freedom, they would probably be doing that anyway one way or another. OK, we need people to do essential jobs, but many are not essential, eg advertising, marketing, doing ridiculous surveys, Elvis impersonators, headhunters (people look for their own work), cold callers (ditto with shopping), and many insurance staff (as if each company paid their own client's claims each would cancel the others out eventually). This method is already used in a few countries as it happens but never caught on worldwide. I could keep thinking of jobs that had only ever existed as people were forced to use their imaginations not to fill holes in the market, but create new and pointless areas in a desperate struggle to earn a living somehow.
Anyway, I can expand on that another time, it's an old grouse of mine and one I can argue from every angle as thank goodness enough individuals do exist who can work as long as slaves and seem to have no human qualities at all otherwise they couldn't carry on. Not the poor, but the rich, who want to be very rich by working 100 hours a week. Good luck to them, I can't imagine how they do it but I come across enough to know it must be a different species, as I probably am...
Otherwise little has happened of any note, I suspect one project is as the November the 5th rocket that sits in the bottle for a few minutes fizzing before it goes out and you realise it's a dud. My heart unfortunately is so far ahead of other's heads, let alone mine, my almost total lack of restrictions in affairs of the heart means I regularly come up against total negative reactions to my interest as what's suitable for me, as I said recently, is rarely felt to be suitable for them, as they see the restrictions and I see the possibilities. So the possibilities are always there, but those who only see the restrictions avoid thinking about them.
Whether this will continue till I'm as old as the recently late Scotty from Star Trek, (just discovered he was Canadian, for gawd's sake!) and literally go out with a bang. As Woody Allen would have said had I not got there first, I lost my virginity at 16, I got it back at 24... He'd probably have said he was the only boy at his school to suffer from penis envy, but thank goodness I never had to worry about that one!
So can I come to any sort of conclusion from today's mixed pile of confusion? I have just experienced another coincidence typical of the synchronicity I experience more and more. I have been writing a 30 question live trivia quiz for my weekly group, and while I was scrolling through the player's names, clicked on one and saw a quiz I liked, and at the end was my question. Both were four multiple choices, and she'd evne got two of the three same wrong choices as well. She'll probably take my quiz next week, and I wonder if she'll wonder whether it was her question, considering I've only taken 100 quizzes and the total choices are about 70,000 I could have taken.
OK, a conclusion, like many spiritual seekers, my greatest goal is to never feel I am alone. Technically it's called 'God-realisation', as anyone who has passed a certain level in meditation is aware of a greater presence, and having been gradually more alone in life until total, knowing somehow I was connected to something with an awareness, aware of what I was doing and me aware of its presence would make me feel a lot better in life. Synchronicity implies that power is guiding your day towards certain experiences and opportunities to learn and help others, and one day, when you've passed their test, they let you see them. But the test is unlikely to be what you think it is, as what they look for before you qualify for higher awareness is not something we can really guess at, as the qualities of those claiming it are a pretty varied bunch, some getting it with no effort at all, others simply through years of effort and little else. I, at least, have reached the second stage of seeking, where I have all my tools and teachers, and am just committed to use those tools in the hope they do what it says on the tin. Sometimes I am quickly made aware they are opening up an awareness of something better, which is really the third stage I suppose, but so rarely yet after a day or so I tend to doubt as I'm back to my normal crap consciousness. So I carry on and it's quite possible these moments will increase in frequency or intensity, and when you reach the pivot point, you then realise you're there and it is real.
Then you write the book!
The second painting's now ready, and both should be on their way to the gallery as soon as they've been copied for my own collection. They can all be seen now in the pictures section at www.kingsbury.tk rather than post them here as well each time. So my unpaid and recreational occupations, as predicted in 2000, are finally beginning to be used properly, and proved my point that not working does not equal wasting time. Quite the opposite. If most people had a choice they'd drop out as well, and probably create the things they never got the chance to do when they were working. We can't help it, we're designed to learn and study and create, and though some will piss around or commit crimes when given total freedom, they would probably be doing that anyway one way or another. OK, we need people to do essential jobs, but many are not essential, eg advertising, marketing, doing ridiculous surveys, Elvis impersonators, headhunters (people look for their own work), cold callers (ditto with shopping), and many insurance staff (as if each company paid their own client's claims each would cancel the others out eventually). This method is already used in a few countries as it happens but never caught on worldwide. I could keep thinking of jobs that had only ever existed as people were forced to use their imaginations not to fill holes in the market, but create new and pointless areas in a desperate struggle to earn a living somehow.
Anyway, I can expand on that another time, it's an old grouse of mine and one I can argue from every angle as thank goodness enough individuals do exist who can work as long as slaves and seem to have no human qualities at all otherwise they couldn't carry on. Not the poor, but the rich, who want to be very rich by working 100 hours a week. Good luck to them, I can't imagine how they do it but I come across enough to know it must be a different species, as I probably am...
Otherwise little has happened of any note, I suspect one project is as the November the 5th rocket that sits in the bottle for a few minutes fizzing before it goes out and you realise it's a dud. My heart unfortunately is so far ahead of other's heads, let alone mine, my almost total lack of restrictions in affairs of the heart means I regularly come up against total negative reactions to my interest as what's suitable for me, as I said recently, is rarely felt to be suitable for them, as they see the restrictions and I see the possibilities. So the possibilities are always there, but those who only see the restrictions avoid thinking about them.
Whether this will continue till I'm as old as the recently late Scotty from Star Trek, (just discovered he was Canadian, for gawd's sake!) and literally go out with a bang. As Woody Allen would have said had I not got there first, I lost my virginity at 16, I got it back at 24... He'd probably have said he was the only boy at his school to suffer from penis envy, but thank goodness I never had to worry about that one!
So can I come to any sort of conclusion from today's mixed pile of confusion? I have just experienced another coincidence typical of the synchronicity I experience more and more. I have been writing a 30 question live trivia quiz for my weekly group, and while I was scrolling through the player's names, clicked on one and saw a quiz I liked, and at the end was my question. Both were four multiple choices, and she'd evne got two of the three same wrong choices as well. She'll probably take my quiz next week, and I wonder if she'll wonder whether it was her question, considering I've only taken 100 quizzes and the total choices are about 70,000 I could have taken.
OK, a conclusion, like many spiritual seekers, my greatest goal is to never feel I am alone. Technically it's called 'God-realisation', as anyone who has passed a certain level in meditation is aware of a greater presence, and having been gradually more alone in life until total, knowing somehow I was connected to something with an awareness, aware of what I was doing and me aware of its presence would make me feel a lot better in life. Synchronicity implies that power is guiding your day towards certain experiences and opportunities to learn and help others, and one day, when you've passed their test, they let you see them. But the test is unlikely to be what you think it is, as what they look for before you qualify for higher awareness is not something we can really guess at, as the qualities of those claiming it are a pretty varied bunch, some getting it with no effort at all, others simply through years of effort and little else. I, at least, have reached the second stage of seeking, where I have all my tools and teachers, and am just committed to use those tools in the hope they do what it says on the tin. Sometimes I am quickly made aware they are opening up an awareness of something better, which is really the third stage I suppose, but so rarely yet after a day or so I tend to doubt as I'm back to my normal crap consciousness. So I carry on and it's quite possible these moments will increase in frequency or intensity, and when you reach the pivot point, you then realise you're there and it is real.
Then you write the book!
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Business and pleasure
As said already, business is picking up, though no projects are finished yet they are all started and ongoing. As a friend explained years ago when I said why I wasn't happy, she said I had what I needed but not what I wanted. Similar now. No, not just women, add to that friends (improving now), living alone, lack of progress on the supernatrual and enlightenment fronts, etc etc. I have just, after a couple of years of dead space, heard my first new investigation project on the supernatural front though, the Hutchison effect. Discovered by engineer John Hutchison, he claims to have repeated the Philadelphia experiment of using high powered radio waves to cause a rift in space-time, and this allowed poltergeist activity, levitation and matter to melt, as well as his two versions of the ark of the covenant (large and small) which also allowed aliens in from other dimensions.
This is clearly either the most important discovery ever or a total load of bollocks. The fact he did this experiment 8 years ago and claims even a school lab could do it implies the usual conclusion, but as I can't find the plans and pictures yet I can't see what the machinery even looks like, let alone how it's put together. I am now going to try and find out, keep watching.
On the women front, I did come to a realisation that despite being quite prepared to go into it fully myself each time, most of the women I've ever met (almost all in the last 10 years as ages progress) have had a fatal flaw which either stopped anything happening or finished things before they took off. I've probably had the lot as far as flaws go. These range from a homicidal mother (killed the relationship, probably thought about killing me), alcoholism, born again Christian, religious Jew (that is hardly a surprise but they won't stick my ways very long), one who was about to emigrate after our first date but didn't tell me, every mental illness from depression to manic-depression to obsessive-compulsive to a variety of schizophrenia, and others I may mention when it's safe to... I have my own skeleton as well, anxiety, but the minority of women I admitted it to didn't seem too bothered and didn't chuck me out as a result. Certainly none of these list put me off either as I said, but fully explained why things fizzled out as basically it was near as hell impossible for these women to maintain a relationship the way they were. Do nearly all people have these issues, or just the people I meet? I think I know the answer.
I do know there's a network of people I know (at least) locally who all met in mental hospitals, and believe me, there's a complete social circle there. One of the girlfriends who stitched me up the most was eventually tracked back to the 'committal connection' (as many had been as well), as my friend who I'd originally got out of hospital by saying he was OK (he was before) and then discovering he'd become schizophrenic suddenly (how it often appears unless there are earlier subtle clues) introduced me to her sister who was one of the strangest people I'd ever met. It took me ages to discover they'd met there, but it came as no surprise. Talk about blind date and big brother romances, I bet there have been quite a few marriages on the back of committal proceedings, talk about a silver lining!
I do NOT intend to take that route to romance, by the way, in case anyone was imagining me asking to be admitted and then spending the time checking out the talent. Almost an inviting idea, but I needn't go there to meet them, they find me anyway.
This is clearly either the most important discovery ever or a total load of bollocks. The fact he did this experiment 8 years ago and claims even a school lab could do it implies the usual conclusion, but as I can't find the plans and pictures yet I can't see what the machinery even looks like, let alone how it's put together. I am now going to try and find out, keep watching.
On the women front, I did come to a realisation that despite being quite prepared to go into it fully myself each time, most of the women I've ever met (almost all in the last 10 years as ages progress) have had a fatal flaw which either stopped anything happening or finished things before they took off. I've probably had the lot as far as flaws go. These range from a homicidal mother (killed the relationship, probably thought about killing me), alcoholism, born again Christian, religious Jew (that is hardly a surprise but they won't stick my ways very long), one who was about to emigrate after our first date but didn't tell me, every mental illness from depression to manic-depression to obsessive-compulsive to a variety of schizophrenia, and others I may mention when it's safe to... I have my own skeleton as well, anxiety, but the minority of women I admitted it to didn't seem too bothered and didn't chuck me out as a result. Certainly none of these list put me off either as I said, but fully explained why things fizzled out as basically it was near as hell impossible for these women to maintain a relationship the way they were. Do nearly all people have these issues, or just the people I meet? I think I know the answer.
I do know there's a network of people I know (at least) locally who all met in mental hospitals, and believe me, there's a complete social circle there. One of the girlfriends who stitched me up the most was eventually tracked back to the 'committal connection' (as many had been as well), as my friend who I'd originally got out of hospital by saying he was OK (he was before) and then discovering he'd become schizophrenic suddenly (how it often appears unless there are earlier subtle clues) introduced me to her sister who was one of the strangest people I'd ever met. It took me ages to discover they'd met there, but it came as no surprise. Talk about blind date and big brother romances, I bet there have been quite a few marriages on the back of committal proceedings, talk about a silver lining!
I do NOT intend to take that route to romance, by the way, in case anyone was imagining me asking to be admitted and then spending the time checking out the talent. Almost an inviting idea, but I needn't go there to meet them, they find me anyway.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Oil price #2
Another example of why governments are not our friends.
I suppose the relative price of oil had to go up worldwide as it inevitably starts to run out, with no alternative known to the public (but allegedly around for years in secret). But the eventual fate of 'rip-off Britain' now puts us (I think) at the top of the world with prices of around $7.60 a gallon, at the latest exchange rates. That's because in our complete isolation world markets have long got us used to paying around double world averages for clothes, cars, CDs and the like as (as I discovered in many years of retail) we are a tiny market and they are 'doing us a favour' selling here at all as they 'barely make a profit for all the extra effort involved' (quote, Nike rep, honestly!).
So knowing we are the joke market of the world, our totally corrupt 'left-wing' government whine about global warming and pollution, we have a public transport system the level of Romania (if we're lucky), with rail companies raising prices to stop motorists switching to the trains as there aren't enough of them! So as far as I know, after laughing at the French in 1982 (while feeling sorry for them as well) for having petrol maybe double our own price (my maths wasn't able to cope with the litres and the Franc conversions at once) we are now paying more than anyone on Earth simply because our government make us.
In 2000 the lorry drivers went on a blockade when petrol hit 80p a litre (whatever that is), now it's up to around 93p and all the transport industry apparently believes as oil prices have risen, [i]it's not Tony Blair's fault this time.[/i]
Hypnosis? Subliminal messages? Satanic help? I don't know, but apart from the fact our housing is also at a level with higher price to income ratio than even the last boom (just before prices dropped long-term for the first time in memory), British resources are now stretched to their ultimate capacity, and the British temperament (as opposed to our local neighbours, the French) is at such a comatose level they'll be queueing up at Downing street offering Blair their testicles next if he says it'll help the country. I never believed brainwashing was possible, but the 'dead cat' pose the British public are presenting in reply to an economic situation that may rival Germany before the last war makes me wonder how long this country will be driving cars at all.
High mortgage payments + high fuel prices + low interest rates (which balance the benefit to the borrowing poor with the loss of income of the investing rich)= a recipe for economic disaster.
Analysts are fairly unanimous the oil price will stabilise around this level for a good few years (by when we may have little oil left to price anyway). If I did my homework I could give the current projected reserves, but I do know it's not just refinery capacity, long term we need an alternative, as it is actually being used up probably within our lifetimes.
Transport is something the Soviet Union used as a wonderful weapon in keeping its citizens in line. China as well. Basically make it as hard as possible to move around the country as you can, make cars prohibitively expensive, make people apply for permits to travel (compare with London's congestion charge, a limitation in a more subtle form), and next, restrict foreign travel to a minimum in the same way (more likely to occur from rocketing air travel prices on the back of the oil price). Britain is leading the way in travel restrictions borrowed from the communist countries worldwide, and having travelled on a number of urban public transport systems abroad, I can say how incredibly easy it is for a country to run a cheap and efficient train system, quite the opposite from our worse-than third world and fifty times as expensive London Underground. The provincial services are far less frequent, just as expensive (I think we also got the highest price per mile in the world in a recent survey), but slightly more civilised (they have toilets and you can see land out of the windows rather than a tunnel). So though Blair and his lot want us off the roads, the alternative is enough to make anyone with a three figure IQ as neurotic as I am within a few weeks unless they spend the time pissed.
The oil price will creep into everyone's lives the same way sooner or later, but due to our higher taxes and diabolical public transport we're seeing the effects larger and sooner in Britain, and unless someone in the know kicks some serious butt, we're all going down the same toilet.
I suppose the relative price of oil had to go up worldwide as it inevitably starts to run out, with no alternative known to the public (but allegedly around for years in secret). But the eventual fate of 'rip-off Britain' now puts us (I think) at the top of the world with prices of around $7.60 a gallon, at the latest exchange rates. That's because in our complete isolation world markets have long got us used to paying around double world averages for clothes, cars, CDs and the like as (as I discovered in many years of retail) we are a tiny market and they are 'doing us a favour' selling here at all as they 'barely make a profit for all the extra effort involved' (quote, Nike rep, honestly!).
So knowing we are the joke market of the world, our totally corrupt 'left-wing' government whine about global warming and pollution, we have a public transport system the level of Romania (if we're lucky), with rail companies raising prices to stop motorists switching to the trains as there aren't enough of them! So as far as I know, after laughing at the French in 1982 (while feeling sorry for them as well) for having petrol maybe double our own price (my maths wasn't able to cope with the litres and the Franc conversions at once) we are now paying more than anyone on Earth simply because our government make us.
In 2000 the lorry drivers went on a blockade when petrol hit 80p a litre (whatever that is), now it's up to around 93p and all the transport industry apparently believes as oil prices have risen, [i]it's not Tony Blair's fault this time.[/i]
Hypnosis? Subliminal messages? Satanic help? I don't know, but apart from the fact our housing is also at a level with higher price to income ratio than even the last boom (just before prices dropped long-term for the first time in memory), British resources are now stretched to their ultimate capacity, and the British temperament (as opposed to our local neighbours, the French) is at such a comatose level they'll be queueing up at Downing street offering Blair their testicles next if he says it'll help the country. I never believed brainwashing was possible, but the 'dead cat' pose the British public are presenting in reply to an economic situation that may rival Germany before the last war makes me wonder how long this country will be driving cars at all.
High mortgage payments + high fuel prices + low interest rates (which balance the benefit to the borrowing poor with the loss of income of the investing rich)= a recipe for economic disaster.
Analysts are fairly unanimous the oil price will stabilise around this level for a good few years (by when we may have little oil left to price anyway). If I did my homework I could give the current projected reserves, but I do know it's not just refinery capacity, long term we need an alternative, as it is actually being used up probably within our lifetimes.
Transport is something the Soviet Union used as a wonderful weapon in keeping its citizens in line. China as well. Basically make it as hard as possible to move around the country as you can, make cars prohibitively expensive, make people apply for permits to travel (compare with London's congestion charge, a limitation in a more subtle form), and next, restrict foreign travel to a minimum in the same way (more likely to occur from rocketing air travel prices on the back of the oil price). Britain is leading the way in travel restrictions borrowed from the communist countries worldwide, and having travelled on a number of urban public transport systems abroad, I can say how incredibly easy it is for a country to run a cheap and efficient train system, quite the opposite from our worse-than third world and fifty times as expensive London Underground. The provincial services are far less frequent, just as expensive (I think we also got the highest price per mile in the world in a recent survey), but slightly more civilised (they have toilets and you can see land out of the windows rather than a tunnel). So though Blair and his lot want us off the roads, the alternative is enough to make anyone with a three figure IQ as neurotic as I am within a few weeks unless they spend the time pissed.
The oil price will creep into everyone's lives the same way sooner or later, but due to our higher taxes and diabolical public transport we're seeing the effects larger and sooner in Britain, and unless someone in the know kicks some serious butt, we're all going down the same toilet.
Yes, no or maybe?
More updates on my little system, the list I usually have running in the background of all possibilities to improve my life that are still alive.
Firstly- now I've just had both my articles accepted, and I now know they're going in a proper magazine. I don't know exactly when it's coming out as its the first edition, or whether I'll be in which of the first three as they're all being put together at once, but that was definitely worth the wait! The second painting should also be finished tomorrow and delivered a day or so later to await the opinion of the gallery. I see it as building up a growing level of creations that may eventually break into the mainstream media level and even start paying my bills (as I said, rather than moulder in a shop or grow whiskers in an office). That side of my career is very positive, and knowing I can create things not based directly on my actual courses studied, but taken up out of personal interest is very satisfying. My grandpa spent his whole life playing and writing for the guitar, having his last book accepted by the publisher the day before he died at 89, and more posthumously. That was his whole life, his major interest, and was one of the world's top players composers and teachers, totally untrained, but a natural and driven totally by his enthusiasm for the subject.
My enthusiasms are spread out, top being psychic research, simply because it offers to break the boundaries of our everyday life and give the chance that literally anything can happen. Comedy is number two, something I did all the time at school, performing for our assemblies and drama classes, then for cabarets at local dances and functions with my friend the DJ. As my ability to concentrate and study needed total application the comedy had to remain in the background once I started my degree, and was then both occupied working and studying part time for many years after, but unless I kept up the cabaret would be unable to do any TV work as I couldn't join the Equity union. All other creations follow, and these have only taken off in my 40s, since I lost my last job and followed the path told by the psychic John Starkey, who said 5 years ago I'd end up getting paid for my following interests. Technically it's still a potential from the paintings, but pretty likely now. So, basically, the business side is looking good, and far less real business as it's all stuff I do anyway as I like it.
On the 'no/maybe' side (not certain but almost put it in the bin), my typical 'long shot' (the one that cannot be told, please email for details in private), I suspect that's ready for the Jewish 'mourner's kaddish', as they say, that would confirm my fantasy has bit the dust and made me feel a right twat for even thinking it could happen. Never mind, that's the penalty for, as Basil Fawlty said, imagining I could actually experience some pleasure for a change. It may still happen but it's off my mind now. I did receive another compliment from someone I value a great deal. It was incongruous but still adds to the idea I may actually be what I need to to attract women who are not mad, bad, sad, or aliens (or all four).
I may one day post my other story here, as my bollocks may be valuable to me, but can't be removed literally by angry readers. My pride and self-respect may take a beating, but unlike losing your bollocks, they always grow back again.
Finally, I rarely comment on the news, but 'Pubic pants'? What the fucking hell has our society come to? I imagine Rebecca Loos, Abi Titmuss, Max Clifford and probably Jade Goody working for at least ten minutes in a meeting to conjure up possibly the lowest point in world culture we will ever experience. It can't get any worse than that. I haven't seen them yet, and will probably be as unimpressed with the actual goods than their description. Anyway, if a nice lady wanted to show her toonarmy or front bottom that much, why not just let it hang out altogether than fiddle about getting on an item of clothing that apparently does its best to do just that while masquerading as a pair of trousers. Will men be wearing them as well? I will just point out that men's appliances are designed independently from their height, so an average whanger on my 5'5'' frame will proportionally look bigger than on the average 5'9''. Not that I'm saying mine is the average size, but at my height, any displaying of my (potential) wedding tackle will put me at an advantage. I've waited long enough for my height to ever become an advantage, and if the ladies 'pussy pants' (just a guess what many others will probably rename them once tomorrow's papers come out) cross the divide (not literally...) to the men, I reckon I'll be the oldest swinger in town (before I get arrested...).
Firstly- now I've just had both my articles accepted, and I now know they're going in a proper magazine. I don't know exactly when it's coming out as its the first edition, or whether I'll be in which of the first three as they're all being put together at once, but that was definitely worth the wait! The second painting should also be finished tomorrow and delivered a day or so later to await the opinion of the gallery. I see it as building up a growing level of creations that may eventually break into the mainstream media level and even start paying my bills (as I said, rather than moulder in a shop or grow whiskers in an office). That side of my career is very positive, and knowing I can create things not based directly on my actual courses studied, but taken up out of personal interest is very satisfying. My grandpa spent his whole life playing and writing for the guitar, having his last book accepted by the publisher the day before he died at 89, and more posthumously. That was his whole life, his major interest, and was one of the world's top players composers and teachers, totally untrained, but a natural and driven totally by his enthusiasm for the subject.
My enthusiasms are spread out, top being psychic research, simply because it offers to break the boundaries of our everyday life and give the chance that literally anything can happen. Comedy is number two, something I did all the time at school, performing for our assemblies and drama classes, then for cabarets at local dances and functions with my friend the DJ. As my ability to concentrate and study needed total application the comedy had to remain in the background once I started my degree, and was then both occupied working and studying part time for many years after, but unless I kept up the cabaret would be unable to do any TV work as I couldn't join the Equity union. All other creations follow, and these have only taken off in my 40s, since I lost my last job and followed the path told by the psychic John Starkey, who said 5 years ago I'd end up getting paid for my following interests. Technically it's still a potential from the paintings, but pretty likely now. So, basically, the business side is looking good, and far less real business as it's all stuff I do anyway as I like it.
On the 'no/maybe' side (not certain but almost put it in the bin), my typical 'long shot' (the one that cannot be told, please email for details in private), I suspect that's ready for the Jewish 'mourner's kaddish', as they say, that would confirm my fantasy has bit the dust and made me feel a right twat for even thinking it could happen. Never mind, that's the penalty for, as Basil Fawlty said, imagining I could actually experience some pleasure for a change. It may still happen but it's off my mind now. I did receive another compliment from someone I value a great deal. It was incongruous but still adds to the idea I may actually be what I need to to attract women who are not mad, bad, sad, or aliens (or all four).
I may one day post my other story here, as my bollocks may be valuable to me, but can't be removed literally by angry readers. My pride and self-respect may take a beating, but unlike losing your bollocks, they always grow back again.
Finally, I rarely comment on the news, but 'Pubic pants'? What the fucking hell has our society come to? I imagine Rebecca Loos, Abi Titmuss, Max Clifford and probably Jade Goody working for at least ten minutes in a meeting to conjure up possibly the lowest point in world culture we will ever experience. It can't get any worse than that. I haven't seen them yet, and will probably be as unimpressed with the actual goods than their description. Anyway, if a nice lady wanted to show her toonarmy or front bottom that much, why not just let it hang out altogether than fiddle about getting on an item of clothing that apparently does its best to do just that while masquerading as a pair of trousers. Will men be wearing them as well? I will just point out that men's appliances are designed independently from their height, so an average whanger on my 5'5'' frame will proportionally look bigger than on the average 5'9''. Not that I'm saying mine is the average size, but at my height, any displaying of my (potential) wedding tackle will put me at an advantage. I've waited long enough for my height to ever become an advantage, and if the ladies 'pussy pants' (just a guess what many others will probably rename them once tomorrow's papers come out) cross the divide (not literally...) to the men, I reckon I'll be the oldest swinger in town (before I get arrested...).
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Censorship
Yes, blogging isn't the free-for-all it could be when you open your first posting screen and feel you can fill the space with anything and share with the world. But then you get comebacks.
The obvious point is, besides rattling the cages of those who belong in them, people you know hopefully read it as well, and you're writing in many cases about those very people. So what do you do? I can't imagine warning everyone involved each time I'm going to refer to them, plus I also literally have to avoid some topics I'd love to share as it's stuff that may well bugger up the very issues I want to share.
So of course there are one or two hot (as in potentially interesting for readers, not actually occuring in my life, god forbid...) issues going on at the moment, and my innate desire to share stories is being crushed cruelly by larger circumstances that activate my discretion.
Otherwise business is going well now, two articles I sent off have just been accepted, and I'll post a link once they've been published. I'm building up a wider readership now, and I hope eventually will have written enough in the voluntary sector for a professional outfit to pick me up. So would the bank account. I've worked in all sorts of places already, and having been unable to for a few years through no fault of my own, would now prefer a job where I could work from home and send things in as I did them. Plus the odd TV and radio appearance which I would welcome- should the nerves allow...
My final point today is regarding miracles, the sort where the most unexpected but possible event actually happens. Technically not a miracle, as they're 'supposed' to be impossible by normal means, but I can't think of another word.
Every attempt I make on the pleasure side (business is a lot easier to control) tends to be of the unlikely sort, where I am (apparently) aiming too high and expecting too much, and appear doomed to inevitable failure almost every time.
OK, to start with, the women I ask do not know how much I like them, but for some reason the ones that turn out to be not such a catch are the ones who like me, and hardly ever the others. Now to me, that's not even aiming too high, though asking a 28 year old probably is. But either way I can seem to guess that once that switch in me has 'clicked on' that they're my type, theirs will then do the opposite. So the first part of my miracle is for once that will not happen the next time.
But generally any decision other people in my life make that'll either help or spoil my life by default will go against me. These include political decisions, like the London congestion charge arrival, increase and extension. For someone terrified of Central London already (long story), stopping people driving in for most of the week is one way to stop me going there almost ever again as without the car I'm not likely to go there otherwise (not that I often wanted to).
I don't know whether all potential life-improving projects are long shots, but the miracle I'm after is, can some of the starts I've made recently on the pleasure side actually end in success this time instead of melting into nothing as time passes.
Currently this is mainly woman related, but can extend to friends, local political decisions like allowing Barnet FC to have a legally acceptable ground, petrol prices ever going down again, houses being built that don't look 100 years old, results from my meditation, health, not ever being able to get broadband despite living in one of the biggest cities in the world, almost never being chased by a woman (as opposed to failed attempts by me), people replying more to my letters & emails, people I know dropping hints about possible plans for me and then doing nothing (eg one woman's been saying she wants to take me out for 10 years now but only calls when she has legal problems, which is fairly typical), and I can go on. Of course I sometimes come across a person from the past and we both say we'll meet up and never do, but that's not really what I mean.
So instead of the odds being stacked against me, I'd like even one of my little projects not to go the bleedin' obvious way they nearly always do (ie nowhere) this week, but get an unexpected but possible good result. When I was 12, the girl I met on holiday blew me out on the last day, and I was round at my friend's house moaning about her all day when I got a message from home she'd just called. That was the first and best example of what I mean, and I really hope it happens more often than every 30 or more years. If I was in charge, I'd switch the odds on everyone's chances to about 60% in favour, and wars and breakdowns would probably reduce accordingly. I never ask for something I can't get, or something for no effort, these are all reasonable attempts and ones I know many others have succeeded at so not impossibly ambitious.
The obvious point is, besides rattling the cages of those who belong in them, people you know hopefully read it as well, and you're writing in many cases about those very people. So what do you do? I can't imagine warning everyone involved each time I'm going to refer to them, plus I also literally have to avoid some topics I'd love to share as it's stuff that may well bugger up the very issues I want to share.
So of course there are one or two hot (as in potentially interesting for readers, not actually occuring in my life, god forbid...) issues going on at the moment, and my innate desire to share stories is being crushed cruelly by larger circumstances that activate my discretion.
Otherwise business is going well now, two articles I sent off have just been accepted, and I'll post a link once they've been published. I'm building up a wider readership now, and I hope eventually will have written enough in the voluntary sector for a professional outfit to pick me up. So would the bank account. I've worked in all sorts of places already, and having been unable to for a few years through no fault of my own, would now prefer a job where I could work from home and send things in as I did them. Plus the odd TV and radio appearance which I would welcome- should the nerves allow...
My final point today is regarding miracles, the sort where the most unexpected but possible event actually happens. Technically not a miracle, as they're 'supposed' to be impossible by normal means, but I can't think of another word.
Every attempt I make on the pleasure side (business is a lot easier to control) tends to be of the unlikely sort, where I am (apparently) aiming too high and expecting too much, and appear doomed to inevitable failure almost every time.
OK, to start with, the women I ask do not know how much I like them, but for some reason the ones that turn out to be not such a catch are the ones who like me, and hardly ever the others. Now to me, that's not even aiming too high, though asking a 28 year old probably is. But either way I can seem to guess that once that switch in me has 'clicked on' that they're my type, theirs will then do the opposite. So the first part of my miracle is for once that will not happen the next time.
But generally any decision other people in my life make that'll either help or spoil my life by default will go against me. These include political decisions, like the London congestion charge arrival, increase and extension. For someone terrified of Central London already (long story), stopping people driving in for most of the week is one way to stop me going there almost ever again as without the car I'm not likely to go there otherwise (not that I often wanted to).
I don't know whether all potential life-improving projects are long shots, but the miracle I'm after is, can some of the starts I've made recently on the pleasure side actually end in success this time instead of melting into nothing as time passes.
Currently this is mainly woman related, but can extend to friends, local political decisions like allowing Barnet FC to have a legally acceptable ground, petrol prices ever going down again, houses being built that don't look 100 years old, results from my meditation, health, not ever being able to get broadband despite living in one of the biggest cities in the world, almost never being chased by a woman (as opposed to failed attempts by me), people replying more to my letters & emails, people I know dropping hints about possible plans for me and then doing nothing (eg one woman's been saying she wants to take me out for 10 years now but only calls when she has legal problems, which is fairly typical), and I can go on. Of course I sometimes come across a person from the past and we both say we'll meet up and never do, but that's not really what I mean.
So instead of the odds being stacked against me, I'd like even one of my little projects not to go the bleedin' obvious way they nearly always do (ie nowhere) this week, but get an unexpected but possible good result. When I was 12, the girl I met on holiday blew me out on the last day, and I was round at my friend's house moaning about her all day when I got a message from home she'd just called. That was the first and best example of what I mean, and I really hope it happens more often than every 30 or more years. If I was in charge, I'd switch the odds on everyone's chances to about 60% in favour, and wars and breakdowns would probably reduce accordingly. I never ask for something I can't get, or something for no effort, these are all reasonable attempts and ones I know many others have succeeded at so not impossibly ambitious.
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Tommy Boyd
The title is in honour of the latest radio presenter who has kindly allowed me to mention this site, this time on BBC Southern Counties Radio. Tommy, if you're reading this, please say hello!
As well as that, Tommy is one of the only truly intelligent people I've ever come across. Many people are bright and on the ball, but few can see past every illusion the world puts up, and understand most concepts if explained to them. Nick Roach, my spiritual teacher, and Prem Rawat, my meditation teacher, as well as Peter, my ex-biology teacher were three others with this quality, so from four people, three are teaching and one is discussing a wide range of subjects with callers on the radio. No Tommy, I'm not BS'ing, I wanted to work out who I could think of with this quality some time ago, and you said it yourself yesterday, you're a highly intelligent guy and I can spot it as well.
Back to Kingsbury, last week was such an improvement over the rest of the year, I saw more friends in a few days than I'd probably done since my little new year's get together, as well as all the usual duties and business. I also broke my weights record today, after trying a 50kg barbell and finding it fairly easy, tried 60, and managed three lifts. A year ago I couldn't even move it! I can't lose weight for the life of me without almost starving, my chest measurement has stubbornly remained the same for about 7 years, but my arms and shoulder area are bigger- after nearly 3 years at the gym I'd be pretty fed up if they weren't.
I am learning- there's no point ever looking ahead in life. You either can't see the good things or worry about the bad things that also may not be bad, so basically there's no point in looking ahead as we can't be there or experience it till it happens. It's a well-installed habit, and needs to be well put behind me as it's really not just a waste of time, but totally destructive. I'm still learning lots of things, from being forced to by circumstances. Without any details, I also now realise never to compare what I can do with what others can't. Another bad move. We're all made differently, and I now accept what we can do today there's no guarantee we can do tomorrow, so not to compare what I can do with others as it can change from moment to moment potentially, and not really within our control.
Sylvia Browne, the medium, explains every situation in our life has been chosen for growth and experience, and another member of our forum confirms this as it all actually happened to her in a near death experience.
So all my problems, disasters and other major and minor events are supposed to be for a good reason, and some of the points here I've realised recently do show that sometimes life can only force these lessons out of you if there's no other way for you to get it. Counselling allows this process to happen directly, but for me there's nothing specific I'd go to counselling for, I only find out there's a problem once I'm in the middle of it and have to drag myself through it on the spot. Also, like a doctor, I think if there was anything in my life that would respond to counselling I'd have picked it up and done something about it. Unfortunately this amounted to a course of tablets for my anxiety, as no other treatment had worked, and it is as simple as a machine being tuned to the wrong frequency and being reset with the tablets.
So, that was the last week, nothing known ahead, which is probably a good thing, a few hopes but no point elaborating as the times things have turned out based on any previous hopes can be counted on one hand. But not impossible.
As well as that, Tommy is one of the only truly intelligent people I've ever come across. Many people are bright and on the ball, but few can see past every illusion the world puts up, and understand most concepts if explained to them. Nick Roach, my spiritual teacher, and Prem Rawat, my meditation teacher, as well as Peter, my ex-biology teacher were three others with this quality, so from four people, three are teaching and one is discussing a wide range of subjects with callers on the radio. No Tommy, I'm not BS'ing, I wanted to work out who I could think of with this quality some time ago, and you said it yourself yesterday, you're a highly intelligent guy and I can spot it as well.
Back to Kingsbury, last week was such an improvement over the rest of the year, I saw more friends in a few days than I'd probably done since my little new year's get together, as well as all the usual duties and business. I also broke my weights record today, after trying a 50kg barbell and finding it fairly easy, tried 60, and managed three lifts. A year ago I couldn't even move it! I can't lose weight for the life of me without almost starving, my chest measurement has stubbornly remained the same for about 7 years, but my arms and shoulder area are bigger- after nearly 3 years at the gym I'd be pretty fed up if they weren't.
I am learning- there's no point ever looking ahead in life. You either can't see the good things or worry about the bad things that also may not be bad, so basically there's no point in looking ahead as we can't be there or experience it till it happens. It's a well-installed habit, and needs to be well put behind me as it's really not just a waste of time, but totally destructive. I'm still learning lots of things, from being forced to by circumstances. Without any details, I also now realise never to compare what I can do with what others can't. Another bad move. We're all made differently, and I now accept what we can do today there's no guarantee we can do tomorrow, so not to compare what I can do with others as it can change from moment to moment potentially, and not really within our control.
Sylvia Browne, the medium, explains every situation in our life has been chosen for growth and experience, and another member of our forum confirms this as it all actually happened to her in a near death experience.
So all my problems, disasters and other major and minor events are supposed to be for a good reason, and some of the points here I've realised recently do show that sometimes life can only force these lessons out of you if there's no other way for you to get it. Counselling allows this process to happen directly, but for me there's nothing specific I'd go to counselling for, I only find out there's a problem once I'm in the middle of it and have to drag myself through it on the spot. Also, like a doctor, I think if there was anything in my life that would respond to counselling I'd have picked it up and done something about it. Unfortunately this amounted to a course of tablets for my anxiety, as no other treatment had worked, and it is as simple as a machine being tuned to the wrong frequency and being reset with the tablets.
So, that was the last week, nothing known ahead, which is probably a good thing, a few hopes but no point elaborating as the times things have turned out based on any previous hopes can be counted on one hand. But not impossible.
Friday, August 19, 2005
Correct!
I just got a call from my grandma telling me what I was really thinking myself. Because of my doubts this woman was a crook, she had another look, and guess what, the missing watch had fallen fallen down in some of the stuff the person had moved while nosying around.
Sometimes inconsistencies are too much to be real, and the unlikely scenario of a born-again Christian missionary stealing from someone she's working for, rather than the person mislaying the article wasn't one that looked right to me. And I'm glad to say I was proved right on this one.
OK, it's not 'Neighbours', but real life is really far more interesting than soaps if you take out all the boring bits in between the events.
Sometimes inconsistencies are too much to be real, and the unlikely scenario of a born-again Christian missionary stealing from someone she's working for, rather than the person mislaying the article wasn't one that looked right to me. And I'm glad to say I was proved right on this one.
OK, it's not 'Neighbours', but real life is really far more interesting than soaps if you take out all the boring bits in between the events.
Waiting
Three themes today:
Waiting, painting and pinching. Let me elaborate.
Waiting, for an income and for news of my ultimate appearance on TV.
Painting, the door and windows of my house, and my second picture for the gallery.
Pinching- this is a good one- The Jesus freak I wrote about recently was staying at my grandma's after she left hospital as a carer. Though I can't quite believe it my grandma's watch went missing this week and only the carer had access to it in the time it disappeared. Can someone be 'born again' and still ignore 'Thou shalt not steal'? A bit of a mystery to me.
I also had another friend round I hadn't seen for 2 years since his marriage broke up, and finally I am replacing my social life after Peter left for America so many years ago now. Instead of seeing the same few people all the time, this time each person I hadn't seen for a year or two came round one by one, so at least things are picking up there at last.
As it's only a day since my last entry little else is that interesting to report, I spent most of the day with my grandma after delivering some shopping I did for her, though she is planning to drive as soon as she has the tube removed from her kidney area next week. She was actually wishing I'd come over as she had nothing to do, and a little later I opened the front door. I was also rewarded by her new Slovakian claeaner, Ivana #2 (Ivana #1 recommended her after taking an office job). She proceeded to strip off half her clothes on entering the house, and carried out her duties in a pair of shorts and t-shirt. I was impressed! No, I won't be going after her, she probably has a chain-smoking biker called Vladimir at home who would feed me to the wolves if I even asked her where she lived. But anyone can be appreciated from a distance, and if only real life was like the porn movies (what, he watches porn!?) she'd have deliberately dropped something near me and climbed over me to pick it up. But if it happened in real life, we wouldn't have to have people doing it in movies, would we... Well, it's late and that was the nicest image I had all day, I may as well milk it for all it's worth...
Waiting, painting and pinching. Let me elaborate.
Waiting, for an income and for news of my ultimate appearance on TV.
Painting, the door and windows of my house, and my second picture for the gallery.
Pinching- this is a good one- The Jesus freak I wrote about recently was staying at my grandma's after she left hospital as a carer. Though I can't quite believe it my grandma's watch went missing this week and only the carer had access to it in the time it disappeared. Can someone be 'born again' and still ignore 'Thou shalt not steal'? A bit of a mystery to me.
I also had another friend round I hadn't seen for 2 years since his marriage broke up, and finally I am replacing my social life after Peter left for America so many years ago now. Instead of seeing the same few people all the time, this time each person I hadn't seen for a year or two came round one by one, so at least things are picking up there at last.
As it's only a day since my last entry little else is that interesting to report, I spent most of the day with my grandma after delivering some shopping I did for her, though she is planning to drive as soon as she has the tube removed from her kidney area next week. She was actually wishing I'd come over as she had nothing to do, and a little later I opened the front door. I was also rewarded by her new Slovakian claeaner, Ivana #2 (Ivana #1 recommended her after taking an office job). She proceeded to strip off half her clothes on entering the house, and carried out her duties in a pair of shorts and t-shirt. I was impressed! No, I won't be going after her, she probably has a chain-smoking biker called Vladimir at home who would feed me to the wolves if I even asked her where she lived. But anyone can be appreciated from a distance, and if only real life was like the porn movies (what, he watches porn!?) she'd have deliberately dropped something near me and climbed over me to pick it up. But if it happened in real life, we wouldn't have to have people doing it in movies, would we... Well, it's late and that was the nicest image I had all day, I may as well milk it for all it's worth...
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Taking it easy
Following my little health scare, I've limited what I do to the bare minimum for the forseeable future, I am still called onto do the odd job which will probably be unavoidable, but I suppose the minimum that's actually practical. And unlike before, I am telling people, as I have little choice if that's how I have to operate, and they are so far very understanding.
What I can do though is house related work. I've started the doors and windows which the builder saved for me to do to save some money. The windowledges are now a very nice shade of pale blue, soon to be followed by the doorframe area, though the door itself being wood has to have a different paint which will be unlikely to match exactly. I can also keep playing sport/gym work, as it seems to actually help, I'm used to it and can always stop if it's too much. But waiting even 5 minutes in a queue at the moment takes it out of me more than an hour of tennis. I've just shown it's not physical exercise that makes me tired, but stress.
I've just started my second of three pictures to go to the gallery, and even though some of the features are up to an inch away from their actual positions it looks good and I'm not moving them for the sake of photographic accuracy. I hope it'll be finished this time tomorrow. Meanwhile I've managed to have a run of friends visiting. Maybe it's because I can do fuck all else they've decided to come to me, some were just passing by but the amount of take-away food deliveries arriving is increasing three-fold, I just had an extremely good pepperoni tomato and onion stuffed crust pizza after a Chinese last week and Indian the week before. I appear to be drifting to the 'I had a bowl of soup and a slice of bread at ten-past one, just before the phone went and then I went to the toilet and used four pieces of paper' type story my grandma is well-known for, but as I eat those pizzas regularly this one just happened to be a cut above the usual high standard. I apologise for my autistic attention to detail and will try not to let it happen again.
Today's visit was from an old friend of the family, one who lived two doors away from us until the year before I was born, and I now live two roads away from where we both live. He remembered a lot from then, though he left at 3, as I do who left at 5. He hadn't been here before and we traced a path around all our old haunts, including meeting the woman who now lives where I used to. Very nostalgic. Tomorrow's plans, as I said, are painting both inside and outside, and another friend I've known all my life coming in the evening who I haven't seen for a couple of years since his marriage broke up.
The recent illness has forced me to reassess how I both spend my time and make arrangements with other people. I have no choice now but to put my foot down, as I physically can't do very much and interestingly both my friend today and I had spent a lot of time over the last few years looking after another family member, and both agreed it was far better to not be working and so be available for them at any time instead. If I'd been working two people in my family would have missed a good number of shopping and hospital trips as well as gardening and other work. If I had a choice of working and someone in the family having to call in strangers to help them (which they would have) I'd rather be there for them, why work for a stranger for money when you can do something for people who looked after you for years in earlier times? There are no other people in my generation, I was the only grandchild of both sets of grandparents, so there is no one else available if I'd been working as I used to. It's not an excuse, and my friend had to stop working as his mother was so ill, and money can come from many other sources than a regular job.
In the time I haven't had a job, besides bits and pieces I did in my chosen profession, I spent a year taking the home courses that allowed me to become a professional counsellor and psychotherapist, and took two terms of weekly shamanic practice courses at college, only stopped as the time changed to an odd one which apparently no one else could manage either so it was cancelled. Of course I painted a few watercolours which are now all neatly arranged on my general site www.kingsbury.tk , and of course spent many happy hours with my girlfriend who was also not working, during our better times. I'd rather have done that than had the money any time! I have also been able to write articles fluently, which in my case means starting one and only finishing when it's done at maybe 4 or even 5am. But it keeps the flow going, I email the results and have had every one accepted as it was written.
But the original and commonly held view work=stress is proved wrong. I had a job for 5 years with annoyance at times, but little stress. If I had a similar job, I wouldn't have stress from that either. Stress is everything else that happens at random to us all from time to time, and if it comes in bunches as it has to me, is too much and pushes us over the edge physically and mentally. Family illness, major house, tooth and car repairs, and financial disaster all within a few months make no difference whether or not I had also been working. In fact a cushy job would have kept me out of the way some of the time and also solved my money worries providing a regular, though minimal income. So, I have reinvented my priorities, and been forced to change the way I do things purely to survive. Adding to that a positive attitude which I've proved to work, that is whatever my body does to rebel, I'll do whatever else it lets me do has let me focus on the 'can do's' rather than the opposite, which makes a lot of practical difference when you can't do very much. So besides avoiding longer trips in time or distance, I've done most of my usual things and got just as much done as I did before, thank goodness, due to my attitude. I am learning, it's never too late and critics of my negativity in the past here will see I haven't been floored by the latest run of shite, far from it.
What I can do though is house related work. I've started the doors and windows which the builder saved for me to do to save some money. The windowledges are now a very nice shade of pale blue, soon to be followed by the doorframe area, though the door itself being wood has to have a different paint which will be unlikely to match exactly. I can also keep playing sport/gym work, as it seems to actually help, I'm used to it and can always stop if it's too much. But waiting even 5 minutes in a queue at the moment takes it out of me more than an hour of tennis. I've just shown it's not physical exercise that makes me tired, but stress.
I've just started my second of three pictures to go to the gallery, and even though some of the features are up to an inch away from their actual positions it looks good and I'm not moving them for the sake of photographic accuracy. I hope it'll be finished this time tomorrow. Meanwhile I've managed to have a run of friends visiting. Maybe it's because I can do fuck all else they've decided to come to me, some were just passing by but the amount of take-away food deliveries arriving is increasing three-fold, I just had an extremely good pepperoni tomato and onion stuffed crust pizza after a Chinese last week and Indian the week before. I appear to be drifting to the 'I had a bowl of soup and a slice of bread at ten-past one, just before the phone went and then I went to the toilet and used four pieces of paper' type story my grandma is well-known for, but as I eat those pizzas regularly this one just happened to be a cut above the usual high standard. I apologise for my autistic attention to detail and will try not to let it happen again.
Today's visit was from an old friend of the family, one who lived two doors away from us until the year before I was born, and I now live two roads away from where we both live. He remembered a lot from then, though he left at 3, as I do who left at 5. He hadn't been here before and we traced a path around all our old haunts, including meeting the woman who now lives where I used to. Very nostalgic. Tomorrow's plans, as I said, are painting both inside and outside, and another friend I've known all my life coming in the evening who I haven't seen for a couple of years since his marriage broke up.
The recent illness has forced me to reassess how I both spend my time and make arrangements with other people. I have no choice now but to put my foot down, as I physically can't do very much and interestingly both my friend today and I had spent a lot of time over the last few years looking after another family member, and both agreed it was far better to not be working and so be available for them at any time instead. If I'd been working two people in my family would have missed a good number of shopping and hospital trips as well as gardening and other work. If I had a choice of working and someone in the family having to call in strangers to help them (which they would have) I'd rather be there for them, why work for a stranger for money when you can do something for people who looked after you for years in earlier times? There are no other people in my generation, I was the only grandchild of both sets of grandparents, so there is no one else available if I'd been working as I used to. It's not an excuse, and my friend had to stop working as his mother was so ill, and money can come from many other sources than a regular job.
In the time I haven't had a job, besides bits and pieces I did in my chosen profession, I spent a year taking the home courses that allowed me to become a professional counsellor and psychotherapist, and took two terms of weekly shamanic practice courses at college, only stopped as the time changed to an odd one which apparently no one else could manage either so it was cancelled. Of course I painted a few watercolours which are now all neatly arranged on my general site www.kingsbury.tk , and of course spent many happy hours with my girlfriend who was also not working, during our better times. I'd rather have done that than had the money any time! I have also been able to write articles fluently, which in my case means starting one and only finishing when it's done at maybe 4 or even 5am. But it keeps the flow going, I email the results and have had every one accepted as it was written.
But the original and commonly held view work=stress is proved wrong. I had a job for 5 years with annoyance at times, but little stress. If I had a similar job, I wouldn't have stress from that either. Stress is everything else that happens at random to us all from time to time, and if it comes in bunches as it has to me, is too much and pushes us over the edge physically and mentally. Family illness, major house, tooth and car repairs, and financial disaster all within a few months make no difference whether or not I had also been working. In fact a cushy job would have kept me out of the way some of the time and also solved my money worries providing a regular, though minimal income. So, I have reinvented my priorities, and been forced to change the way I do things purely to survive. Adding to that a positive attitude which I've proved to work, that is whatever my body does to rebel, I'll do whatever else it lets me do has let me focus on the 'can do's' rather than the opposite, which makes a lot of practical difference when you can't do very much. So besides avoiding longer trips in time or distance, I've done most of my usual things and got just as much done as I did before, thank goodness, due to my attitude. I am learning, it's never too late and critics of my negativity in the past here will see I haven't been floored by the latest run of shite, far from it.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Catching up
Not in the good sense, but as in stress catching up. My body has finally decided to shut down in protest. No, not totally (I'm here, aren't I?), but in a way it did on two other occasions in the past 20 years when I was seriously overdoing it. Unfortunately at 45 it takes a lot less for me to react this way as it did at 25, when the combination of a new teaching job, rewriting notes I left at college the previous year by accident, and spending two evenings a week doing a master's degree made me almost collapse two weekends running. As I already had a reasonable teaching job I decided to earn my money and let the master's go, as I would have had two more years with no income had I stayed on, which was too much of a luxury. I swapped it for a three year counselling course which only took up one morning a week and no effort at all except the long journey.
This time all the dentist and following hospital visits, combined with the constant letter writing and form-filling to try and get my income reinstated (don't ask!) and worry about having no income with a flurry of massive bills eventually took its toll and allowed the germs in and the energy out until I found it very hard to do anything. I'm going to have to cut down massively and have little choice in letting down all sorts of people for a while if they want me to do anything beyond my current limits.
Meanwhile life goes on, and I do what I can, as I still seem to pick up later in the afternoons. I've played a mean set of tennis (lost, but to a far better opponent and was up 4-3), am about to start two more paintings for the gallery, and have seen my house transformed to the 21st century, with all the whitewashing being done next (it's a white house of course...). I also extended my weightlifting record today, not by weight but repeats at my top level. Though it's almost 3 times the weight I started with one of the younger and newer members just walked in and lifted the one up from mine, so though I am impressed it's only a relative landmark and nothing impressive in gym terms... (50kg overhead lifts if anyone knows the system).
I have no idea (as always) what crap may be ahead. The trouble is it's not evenly or logically distributed, and just because there's none expected and I've dealt with most of the previous mountain doesn't stop any new surprises coming.
Of course, though great minds agree the bias in life is towards failure and loss, it could be different, and money may miraculously appear to fill the space and other people may fill the space in my life where presently they are also missing. I'm learning a new technique to improve my life at the moment as well (not the first but the best looking from a logic point of view). It's not a secret one (for a change) so if it works I'll mention it more, otherwise this is all I'll add!
I did go briefly to this year's Big Brother final's party (outside) as I did the last two, after an hour held up in road works, but the buggers had covered the window so it was impossible to see anything. There were still a few groupies outside who appeared to be watching the studio car park like a small flock of sheep. I have no idea why, all the housemates got into vans with darkened windows in the rear car park previously and were impossible to see once the cars left the building. But anyhow we didn't care as we saw them all partying, plus they came out to talk to us last year. Meeting Harry Hill was more the next step on the ladder for me after fulfilling my top celeb ambition, and though I did dream I met Craig and Anthony on the final and following nights, it wasn't possible in reality this time round.
This time all the dentist and following hospital visits, combined with the constant letter writing and form-filling to try and get my income reinstated (don't ask!) and worry about having no income with a flurry of massive bills eventually took its toll and allowed the germs in and the energy out until I found it very hard to do anything. I'm going to have to cut down massively and have little choice in letting down all sorts of people for a while if they want me to do anything beyond my current limits.
Meanwhile life goes on, and I do what I can, as I still seem to pick up later in the afternoons. I've played a mean set of tennis (lost, but to a far better opponent and was up 4-3), am about to start two more paintings for the gallery, and have seen my house transformed to the 21st century, with all the whitewashing being done next (it's a white house of course...). I also extended my weightlifting record today, not by weight but repeats at my top level. Though it's almost 3 times the weight I started with one of the younger and newer members just walked in and lifted the one up from mine, so though I am impressed it's only a relative landmark and nothing impressive in gym terms... (50kg overhead lifts if anyone knows the system).
I have no idea (as always) what crap may be ahead. The trouble is it's not evenly or logically distributed, and just because there's none expected and I've dealt with most of the previous mountain doesn't stop any new surprises coming.
Of course, though great minds agree the bias in life is towards failure and loss, it could be different, and money may miraculously appear to fill the space and other people may fill the space in my life where presently they are also missing. I'm learning a new technique to improve my life at the moment as well (not the first but the best looking from a logic point of view). It's not a secret one (for a change) so if it works I'll mention it more, otherwise this is all I'll add!
I did go briefly to this year's Big Brother final's party (outside) as I did the last two, after an hour held up in road works, but the buggers had covered the window so it was impossible to see anything. There were still a few groupies outside who appeared to be watching the studio car park like a small flock of sheep. I have no idea why, all the housemates got into vans with darkened windows in the rear car park previously and were impossible to see once the cars left the building. But anyhow we didn't care as we saw them all partying, plus they came out to talk to us last year. Meeting Harry Hill was more the next step on the ladder for me after fulfilling my top celeb ambition, and though I did dream I met Craig and Anthony on the final and following nights, it wasn't possible in reality this time round.
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Why are people atheists?
I was just asked this on Funtrivia, and thought I'd put my answer here. Makes sense to me anyway!
I'd ask the opposite question. Surely a child brought into a religion free environment would be unlikely to think of God exisiting, but would question nature and life, and either find scientific answers or none. Then they'd think, OK, there are many things in the world no one understands. One possible route would be to imagine a higher power could have created everything, which would be God, but only, what law would call, by using circumstantial evidence. IE 'I can't make living creatures with complex organs, rocks or gases, so maybe someone else can'.
The second level is one many people report here and elsewhere of 'Feeling God', which is a direct experience which leaves the person no longer doubting the existence of God, bit still unable to prove it to others. Like UFO sightings, once you've witnessed something you no longer wonder, you know.
But as the present nature of God is intangible, except to the very rare few who have touched God, I'd say atheism would be a natural reaction to life without outside religious teaching.
I'd ask the opposite question. Surely a child brought into a religion free environment would be unlikely to think of God exisiting, but would question nature and life, and either find scientific answers or none. Then they'd think, OK, there are many things in the world no one understands. One possible route would be to imagine a higher power could have created everything, which would be God, but only, what law would call, by using circumstantial evidence. IE 'I can't make living creatures with complex organs, rocks or gases, so maybe someone else can'.
The second level is one many people report here and elsewhere of 'Feeling God', which is a direct experience which leaves the person no longer doubting the existence of God, bit still unable to prove it to others. Like UFO sightings, once you've witnessed something you no longer wonder, you know.
But as the present nature of God is intangible, except to the very rare few who have touched God, I'd say atheism would be a natural reaction to life without outside religious teaching.
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