Focus

The last couple of months have been a little odd for me. I get the feeling that at about this time of year, lots of other people feel the same. Thoughts arise about New Year resolutions and collectively we feel the tiredness of winter.

My problem right now is that I have so many ideas, so much I want to say, I don’t know how to order it, present it, show it, demonstrate it, work it out. A lot of the problem is that I’m still working it out myself. That said, I think I’m starting to get a clearer sense of the ideas I want to communicate:

• Advertising is theft. This shouldn’t need explanation, but in a society where advertising is so prevalent, I think people have forgotten this. Life is short, and every thought stolen from us through distraction so somebody can make some money, is to my mind theft. Doubly so because we pay for it every time we make a purchase – where do you think the money comes from to pay for the interruptions if not through the purchase price?
• Religion is fine. Organised religion is hypocrisy. Did you know that the Vatican reported in 1994 that they had $24 billion worth of gold in their bank vaults. Just sat there, doing nothing. Meanwhile, half the planet is trying to survive on less than $2/day. Millions starve. So much for good Samaritans. It’s not just the Catholic church either – Islam is a fine and noble religion until it reaches the hands of people who want to make a career of it.
• Art is more important than money. Any clear expression of emotion is something we should be grateful to receive, no matter how small. It helps us communicate amongst ourselves, and helps solidify our own thoughts. Payment is merely a form of applause. It not the end in itself.
• Blind faith in Science is as ridiculous as blind faith in anything. Did you know that scientists don’t really know how anaesthetics work? That evolution is as impossible to prove as the idea of an original creator? Most scientists don’t bother doing experiments any more – they just do maths on a piece of paper. If the maths don’t work, their egos are too delicate to accept that they must have made an error, and instead alter the model of the Universe to fit, disconnecting themselves and society from reality – this is the truth of dark matter. We spend billions of dollars a year answering questions few people care about whilst billions suffer.
• Most people are full of potential that they’re too stupid or afraid to use. I look around and see people who are clearly intelligent, articulate and full of talent. And yet they seem to waste their lives. Watching TV, getting drunk/stoned, hating their existence. Why?
• I’m angry, stupid and too afraid to be humble. So are you. This one is the biggest lesson I need to learn, and change. Without it, the rest is meaningless.
• World Peace is easy. Admit you’re wrong.

There are lots of plans for the next year, but right now I’m too confused to know if any of them will come to anything. I know I need to find a clear focus and fly with it. Writing random ‘woe is me’ nonsense here won’t benefit anybody, myself included.

A belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.

Dance of Arrogance

It’s easy to look at a picture of a bullfighter and have gut reaction to it. Death. Cruelty. Barbarity. We all feel it.

The goal of a matador is to dance with the animal. Watching a fight can leave you entranced, not because the matador is executing their moves with grace – although many fans of the sport will tell you that is the point – but because the bull moves with grace.

It is impossible to not watch and develop an empathy for the spirit of the bull. Its impending death is harrowing not because it is is a piece of meat like the beef had for dinner last night, but because the watcher is suddenly aware of the animal as a thinker, a graceful beast that feels something real that humans undrestand.

The dance is sometimes graceful. It is sometimes painful. It is known for audiences to pelt matadors with seat cushions if he acts without honour, and for the bull to be cheered if it shows aggression and determination. It is brutal, it is barbaric and horrific. But it is also art.

The curious thing about bullfighting to my mind is not that so many are happy to be entertained by barbaric acts, but rather that all participants, including the audience, so often fail to see the irony of the entire affair.

The matador is meant to show mastery, control and determination. The animal’s fate is sealed, time being the only barrier to death. And that’s the crux. Death.

The matador will die one day. We all will. The supposed mastery we take over the animal in spectating, or indeed fighting it, is nothing more than arrogant delusion. The matdor dances around taking the audience along in a journey of denial, and yet staring everybody in the face is the imminent demise of the animal. The connection withour own destiny is removed. For now at least.

The bull is the only soul present dealing with reality. We should remember that.

Who do you listen to?

I remember when I was a child thinking that my Mum and Dad must know everything. There wasn’t anything I was curious about that they couldn’t tell me. It was a genuine shock when I asked my Mum a question one day and she replied “I don’t know”. For years, I struggled by myself, thinking my parents ignorant: I now knew things they did not. It is only now that I realise that true wisdom comes from knowing that really you don’t know anything.

What is interesting to me in this thought is not the arrogant attitude I took in terms of knowledge, but who I chose to listen to.

First off, it was my family: people who I listened to because I have no choice.  Then, when I realised they were empty and couldn’t give me anything else, I went about listening to myself, supported through a bit of research. Now I’m happy to listen to everybody and anybody, or even, nobody.

Even more interesting is that my attitude to general media is following a similar path: first it was TV, authority, ‘official’ publications. Then I started doing my own research and became a cynic. Now I don’t know if I want to listen to anybody any more.

There are no nations

You get up on your little 21-inch screen and howl about America, and democracy. There is no America; there is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today … There are no nations; there are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems; one vast, interwoven, interacting, multivaried, multinational dominion of dollars.

– Arthur Jenson, in Network

Tree in front of billboard

Click the image to see the series of photos.

Work out the meaning for yourself.

A Strike of the Soul

We don’t often notice change within ourselves. It happens over the years, slowly but surely. We mature, age, experience new things and subtly develop in new ways.

Occasionally though, it all feels like a crack of lightning, throwing itself around inside our bodies.

Right now, I’ve been feeling the rumbling of a clap of thunder roll through my for about two years. I occasionally get a new bolt of lightning, and it renews and refreshes me. Each time, I move forward in my understanding of myself, of society, of my family and friends, of how the World works.

It’s an odd feeling at times, and not one I can describe easily. Some people call it an awakening, but to me waking up is an act of a few minutes and then you feel awake until you decide to fall asleep again, and this doesn’t feel like that. It’s more like a growth, a surge in awareness, a move to tolerance and empathy and understanding.

I used to want to fight the World. I was just angry, and even angrier that nobody else seemed as angry as me. Now I don’t want to fight at all – I want to inspire. I want to produce things that make people stand back and think “I can do something about this” and to get that same feeling within themselves as I do.

Some of this reminds of how I felt as a kid when I was at school. I was brought up as a Catholic, and there was definitely a moment when I felt a change within myself, that people told me sounded like “being touched by the Holy Spirit”. It was an inner calm and confidence, a connectedness and awareness of the World around me and the inner beauty of people. It was beautiful but it faded. I’m starting to feel that way again, but without the need for religion. Or is it? In recent months, my mind has turned back to spiritual matters once more, and my mind seems more settled the more I think about it. I don’t declare knowledge or love of God, merely an openness to the World around me. It’s a very strange phenomenon.

Anyway, regardless of where I end up going, it’s time to start the real work at hand, and to push forward with my aims for this project.

Over the course of the next year, I will be producing a series of short videos to be distributed online that quickly and easily communicate a series of messages to people that make people stand back and think “I can do something about this”. This blog will move from being about me, to being about you. It will hopefully develop to the point whereby people start conversations about the things I think about a lot of the time: society, and its structure; the corporation and its places in the World; the true cost of human greed; the move away from liberal intellectualism within politics; the self-delusions that affect us all.

When those conversations start, I hope people will start getting the feelings I do – the lightning strike within their souls that drive them to do something. Let the journey now begin, proper.

Oh Boy. Pavlina on “Lighworkers”.

I like Steve Pavlina a lot. His writing always makes me… think.

This time though he misses something at the start and the post feels like it’s going nowhere until the very end:

You came here to do some serious good for this planet, so get busy and go do it. You’re not fooling anyone by standing still. You’re responsible to do what you came here to do whether you do it or not. And if you’re going to be responsible, you might as well accept and embrace the power to do something about it. Staying small serves no one, least of all you. This planet needs you now, not tomorrow… not someday. Don’t let us down, and especially don’t let yourself down.I shall leave you with a quote from Marianne Williamson:

“…Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

See? Wasn’t that wonderful?

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Do you know what it took for the Universe to conspire to get you here right now? Don’t think about God if you’re an atheist: think about the fact you’re made of stardust and you are one of the greatest creations of the Universe we know about. You are amazing. Do something with it. Now. Not someday, now.

Alcohol

A few weeks ago, I awoke one morning with a sore, dry throat. I felt sick. I had a headache. I was ill.

The illness didn’t need a doctor to diagnose though. I knew what the problem was, I knew how to fix it, I thought it would be hard (it wasn’t). I had been drinking daily for the previous two weeks, and to excess. Living as I do in Manchester (England), pubs are open until the early hours all over the city and it’s not hard to find enjoyment in the high life. I had been over-doing it though, and had been binge-drinking myself to sleep most nights.

This wasn’t the first time I’d ever “gone on a bender”. It was just the latest episode in a decade of heavy drinking. I certainly didn’t consider myself an alcoholic – I wasn’t drinking before four or five in the afternoon, and rarely alone – I just felt I was drinking heavily at this point. I was fed up of feeling down and wanted to feel better, and started thinking about why I was using alcohol the way I was. I knew, deep down, I needed to get it back into check.

Some years ago when giving up smoking I had read Alan Carr’s “Easyway to give up Smoking” which had helped no end – I gave up almost immediately, and everybody I let have a read of it, also gave up. At the time I made a mental note he had also produced a book on “Controlling Alcohol”. I ordered it from Amazon, it turned up a few days later and I started reading.

After the first few chapters, as it was with the smoking book, I could feel the scales starting to fall from my eyes. I have read half of it so far, and already I know I never really want to drink alcohol again. A new chapter in my life is opening, and I figured I may as well share some of the journey with you.

Firstly, let me explain to you I am not a “lightweight”. I can happily put away a half dozen pints in an afternoon, have some curry and set myself up for a night out of serious drinking. I often didn’t stop drinking before midnight – usually later – and sometimes might have had a bottle of wine on top of it all.

Nor am I “completely out of control”. I can happily put it all down and go sober for weeks at a time – I normally give up booze for a few weeks once in a while anyway. I just sometimes let my occasional bouts of depression and stress get to me, and let the booze have a free run for a couple of weeks.

This is all behind me now though thanks to this rather odd little book. What I now realise is that alcohol isn’t something that helps me relax: it just numbs the pain. It’s not trendy and cool: it’s just peer pressure telling me I should behave a certain way. It’s not something I enjoy the taste of: the other stuff in the glass used to mask the flavour of alcohol is what I’m really enjoying the taste of. I don’t enjoy getting drunk, I actually dislike that bit quite a lot: it’s the friends I’m hanging out with I like. I certainly don’t enjoy the hangover the next morning: my body is reacting to a poison that my liver hates, dehydrates me, and leaves my stomach feeling awful.

Will I say I’ll never drink again? No. Because I’m only half-way through the book, the deal is that I carry on drinking until the book tells me to stop, but I doubt I’ll enjoy the drinks I have this weekend whilst finishing up and moving on to the next – more sober part – of my life. I can’t right now think of a reason as to why I would want to drink alcohol again in future. That doesn’t mean I never will drink again, just that I can’t see the point. It’s not about ‘giving up’ or ‘I’m one drink away from oblivion’ – I just now think alcohol is a trap, propped up by views of most of Western society.

Time, decay, sacredness

When I look at most people walking down the road, this is how I imagine their souls might be. Once loved, sacred, places of quiet contemplation, they’ve now been ravaged by decay, sadness, neglect, and external forces beyond their control.

All they need is a caretaker to come in and do some cleaning, but the longer they leave it, the more work they’ll need to do to restore order.

That said, it’s still pretty beautiful from a certain angle and with a certain lens.

That Letter

When people see TOTGA, and hear me say “I’m The One That Got Away” they might think I’m referring to this rather famous article:

The One That Got Away
Source: The Manila Times
By: Mark J. Macapagal

In your life, you’ll make note of a lot of people. Ones with whom you shared something special, ones who will always mean something. There’s the one you first kissed, the one you first loved, the one you lost your virginity to, the one you put on a pedestal, the one you’re with…and the one that got away.

Who is the one that got away? I guess it’s that person with who everything was great, everything was perfect, but the timing was just wrong. There was no fault in the person, there was no flaw in the chemistry, but the cards just didn’t fall the right way, I suppose.

I believe in the fact that ending up with someone, finding a longtime partner that is, does not lie merely in the other person. I can actually argue that an equal part, or maybe even the greater part, has to do with the matter of timing. It has to do with you being ready to settle down and commit to someone in a way that goes beyond the little niceties of giddy romance.

How often have you gone through it without even realizing it? When you’re not ready to commit in that mature manner, it doesn’t matter who you’re with, it just doesn’t work. Small problems become big; inconsequentials become dealbreakers simply because you’re not ready and it shows. It’s not that you and the person you’re with are no good; it’s just that it’s not yet right, and little things become the flashpoint of that fact.

Then one day you’re ready. You really are. And when this happens you’ll be ready to settle down with someone. He or she may not be the most perfect, they might not be the brightest star of romance to ever have burned in your life, but it’ll work because you’re ready. It’ll work because it’s the right time and you’ll make it work. And it’ll make sense, it really will.

So that day comes when you’re finally making sense of things, and you find yourself to be a different person. Things are different, your approach is different, you finally understand who you are and what you want, and you’ve become ready because the time has truly arrived. And mind you, there’s no telling when this day will come. Hopefully you’re single but you could be in a long-term relationship, you could be married with three kids, it doesn’t matter. All you know is that you’ve changed, and for some reason, the one that got away, is the first person you think about.

You’ll think about them because you’ll wonder, “What if they were here today?” You’ll wonder, “What if we were together now, with me as I am and not as I was?” That’s what the one that got away is. The biggest “What if?” you’ll have in your life.

If you’re married, you’ll just have to accept the fact that the one that got away, got away. Believe me, no matter how fairy tale you think your marriage is, this can happen to the best of us. But hopefully you’re mature enough to realize that you’re already with the one you’re with and this is just another test of your commitment, one which will just strengthen your marriage when you get past it. Sure, you’ll think about him/her every so often, but it’s alright. It’s never nice to live with a “might have been,” but it happens.

Maybe the one that got away is the one who’s already married. In which case it’s the same thing. You just have to accept and know that your memories of that person will probably bring a nice little smile to your lips in the future when you’re old and gray and reminiscing.

But if neither of that is the case, then it’s different. What do you do if it’s not yet too late? Simple…find him, find her. Because the very existence of a “one that got away” means that you’ll always wonder, what if you got that one?

Ask him out to coffee, ask her out to a movie, it doesn’t matter if you’ve dropped in from out of nowhere. You’d be surprised, you just might be “the one that got away” as well for the person who is your “the one that got away.”

You might drop in from out of nowhere and it won’t make a difference. If the timing is finally right, it’ll all just fall into place somehow and you know, I’m thinking, it would be a great feeling, in the end, to be able to say to someone, “Hey you, you’re the one that almost got away.”

If you know that person in your life – the one you want to be with forever – grab them, tell them, let them know. Tell them you’re scared of getting old without them, that you want to be friends until you die, that you will love and respect them forever. Make sure they feel the same way, that they’re not going to abuse your love. Then keep to your commitment. Telling them that, then splitting on them at a later date just makes you a bad person – unless they break the commitment first.

So am I that person? Kind of, yes, I am, but not really. I am talking about being that person in a way that might not make sense right now. But not a love, a romance, a friend. I’m not the guy who left you – I left society because it felt wrong and started writing, filming, and recording it all from the outside.

I’m the guy who saw through it all, and loved you all anyway but realised it would never be reciprocated. I want to show people the World as I see it, because I know it’s not the way they see it. Pretty arrogant, eh? Well, give me a couple of weeks and maybe it’ll start to settle in. For now, just realise that this isn’t about me thinking of myself as being arrogant, or full of myself. I’m not any of those. I’m an escapee of your prejudices, that’s all.