Wow! Where the hell did this week go? GeordieKeith, occasional comment leaver and uni mate of mine, came over for the weekend meaning, as always, long blurry nights and spaced, eerie mornings, no sleep and as much of everything else as you can take.

My other super tight uni mate suggested a trip through Huxley's Doors of Perception with a little mescaline but we didn't sort that out in the end. This weekend however, definitely, I'll let you know how it goes.

Anyway, spent the first half of the week in a daze, utterly knackered, and thought maybe I'm getting too old for living the life. Of course I quickly realised that the problem isn't staying up all night, it's having to get up for work the next morning. Working for a living is a mugs game.

So, on with the post. Three quick examples of something I've been thinking about recently and, off the top of my head, have decided to call the terminal two step:

"Don't be such a spaz!"

Offended? I think we're supposed to be, but then I try not to pay too much attention to 'the rules'. Why are we supposed to be offended? Well, the 'thinking' seems to go, if you're using a word as an insult then you must believe that what the word denotes is also a bad thing.

ie.
IF calling someone a spaz is a bad thing
THEN being a spaz must be a bad thing,

A clear cut and straightforward argument in two simple steps. Indeed it's this very simplicity that lends the notion an air of credibility. It's so 'obvious' that it must actually be some of this 'common knowledge' or an example of mass consensus.

The thing is, it's bullshit.

Firstly I just disagree, and here's why:

"Don't be such a little girl!"

Does this mean that there's something inherently bad about little girls? Or is it in fact not about little girls themselves but rather how appropriate it is for someone who is not a little girl to act like one? If a little girl got scared and began to cry you'd be sympathetic, if a six foot paratrooper behaved the same way you would be less so.

I'm sure we'd all agree that pretending to be disabled, eg. using a wheelchair, in order to gain some kind of benefit for example, is a pretty shitty way to behave. If someone has a mental or physical condition that causes them to have spasms it would be unnecessary and malicious to call them a spaz, they have no choice about their level of dexterity. Calling a perfectly capable person who is just being downright cack handed a spaz is simply pointing out that they're not fulfilling their potential.

Now that's my own take on this kind of language and it's a general rule I would apply to my own speech. To say that this theory is a replacement for the earlier 'twostep' would be to mimic the twostep's fundamental flaw which comes...

...secondly. I presented the twostep in that particular format to draw attention to the very logical way in which it works. This is because there is, I suspect, another underlying vibe that seems to lend an even greater feeling of instinctive correctness, and that is an almost religious conviction that logic is infallible.

Technically it is correct that if something is truly logical it cannot be 'wrong'. The key here is that any logic operation takes place under a set of specified conditions set by the person performing the operation. If something's logical then it's right, WITHIN THE CONSIDERED CONDITIONS.

In the case above logic is being applied to a process, namely the development of language, that is not itself obviously logical. It could be that it's not logical at all, or simply that there are too many contributing to factors for us to fully comprehend and so it appears without logic.

Either way the fact remains that the system of thought applied in the twostep, while very alluring with it's easy answers, is not appropriate for the situation it is attempting to describe. More examples? Ok.

Feminism. I've always found this to be one of those causes wherein I agree in principle but find the champions, or those speaking loud enough to be heard anyway, particularly irritating. I especially resent those feminists who decry the evils of sexism in one breath and then make generalisations about all men in the next.

Anyway, here's the twostep:

IF the traditional role of women is a bad thing
THEN the traditional role of women has always been a bad thing

Now our society is absolutely slanted, as I've said many times, not just in favour of the guys, but also the rich and the white. I'm not disputing that that's the case, or that it shouldn't be. My point here is that, again, something very important is missing from the operation above.

We have this picture fixed in our heads of 'the olden days' wherein the man goes out to work/hunt whatever, while the woman stays at home with the kids. Why was this the case? Well traditionally we'd say because the man's better at working/hunting, but I'm not sure that's really true.

In terms of physical ability guys do, overall, have the edge, but I'd say this is the RESULT rather than the cause of the traditional setup described above. In 'the olden days' working/hunting was far more dangerous than it is today. The woman stayed at home not because she was less able but because she was MORE VALUABLE to the family.

The simple fact is that the ability to have kids made women more important to the overall survival of the family/tribe/etc. Now clearly while this bit is still true, the physical conditions we live in have changed dramatically.

The setup that made sense all that time ago has become part of our culture, a tradition we follow out of habit, the actual inspiration behind it long since forgotten. As with all other prejudices the key to fixing the whole thing is to remember that being 'equal' does not being the 'same'.

Men and women are not the same and our society will always reflect that. This is no reason, however, for them not to have the same rights and opportunities. Treating the situation as a 'war of the sexes' is ridiculous as it can clearly never be won.

Again the simple nature of the argument and the nice simple chords it seems to strike are very tempting, but the fact is that this twostep is leading nowhere. Both sexes need the other to survive so we can only fix our problems together, it's just tough.

And finally, one inspired by the practices and nature of the ALMO(1) I work for:

IF a private company performs better than a public sector organisation
THEN the public sector organisation should try to be more like a private company

Yep, this one could just run and run, there's a whole lot to be said to be said here. Unfortunately I'm having to work extra long days at the moment to make up the flexi time I've had to take to visit the dentist. The result of this is I can't be arsed to get into this whole thing now so here's the short and the skinny of it.

There's some great stuff about economics, and in particular why economists refuse to include political or social factors in their work, in the current issue of ADBUSTERS, everyone go buy a copy right now.

Got one? Good.

The glaring error with this one is a spectacular omission, namely the complete refusal to acknowledge that private companies and public sector organisations have inherently different aims. This means that their performance cannot be measured or compared on a common scale.

A private company's prime objective, ultimately overriding all others, is to make money. This is something that can be very accurately and easily measured. This also means that overheads have to be kept as low as possible to ensure as much profit as possible. The quality of products and services is a consideration but only within the limits of what will sell in sufficient volume.

For a public sector organisation the quality of product and service is the prime objective. This is very difficult to measure, not least because the better it performs the more it blends into the background. When it comes to giving some little girl a heart transplant it's about providing the BEST POSSIBLE service, not the most cost effective or competitive.

What it comes down to, and the reason public institutions always struggle, is that there actually are some things more important than money, despite what some people will tell you. This twostep, in one form or another, has devastated the globe and continues to do so.

Yet another idea that sounds so simple it must be true, easy to latch on to with plenty of prejudiced bells and proud whistles. Under the slightest serious scrutiny however, the whole thing just falls apart because, like all other twosteps, it's utter nonsense!

You may as well put a fish and a puppy on a race track and declare that the fish could be in the race if it would just stop thrashing about and get up and run. (I thought about that other way round but I find the image of a dying fish less upsetting than that of a drowning puppy.)

So, in conclusion, I guess I could have saved us all a great deal of time and effort by simply typing:

don't trust easy answers.

footnote

(1) ALMO - Arms Length Management Organisation, a private company wholly owned and run by the city council, a kind of half privatised council department basically. It seems to me by the way that the only thing being held at arms length is liability, a pretty cosy setup for the council.

DON'T FORGET TO TURN OFF YOUR TV: APRIL 24th - 30th

My girlfriend and I went to the cinema yesterday, (yeah she came back, we're seeing how it goes.) We were unfortunate enough to catch 'An American Haunting' which was so utterly shit in so may ways that spending time and space detailing its flaws is too good for it.

The only thing that bugged me more than the aforementioned unmentionable was the HALF AN HOUR of TV ads we had to sit through before even getting to the film trailers let alone the feature. Now, being the kind of person who's quite willing to go and seek out information when I want it, I have a passionate dislike for all forms of advertising which I consider invasive and gravely detrimental to our society.

I particularly resent paying £6 for the privilege of watching such dirge, especially via a medium as overwhelming as cinema, it's not as if you can change the channel or even really look away, you're immersed.

Now the latest issue of Adbusters(1) mentions that, by some counts, we in the west are exposed to over three thousand marketing messages every single day. Any surprise you may feel at that figure serves only to demonstrate that we are not aware of the majority of these.

Just to leap off at a tangent here, as tends to be my way, allow me to share with you one of my favourite facts about the human brain. Apparently once you perform the same physical action two thousand times a new, dedicated neural pathway is completed. This means you have 'learned' that action, ie. don't have to consciously think about doing it.

When I think about how overwhelmingly complex driving seemed when I was first learning and then compare that to driving today this makes sense. I no longer consciously think about depressing the clutch or changing gears, my body just does it for me when it needs to happen.

We're all so very busy these days that the idea of repeating something over and over often seems like too much hassle. Can't we just get a machine that'll do it for us, or pay someone else? Well unfortunately millions of years of evolution has given us repetition as a learning tool.

Given our combination of long term memory and the ability to record experiences outside our heads, eg. through text like this, it's tempting to think that once we've heard or done something once, we 'know' it. Repetition here might even seem an insult to our highly vaunted intelligence.

So have we got out of the habit of using repetition? Have we forgotten how to use the most fundamental system of self growth? Well no actually, not all of us. Those three thousand marketing messages mentioned above may well be for hundreds of different products and services but there is one very obvious common denominator: "BUY STUFF".

Scary as it may sound we probably have specific neural pathways, ie. physical shapes in our brains, that have grown in direct response and for the sole purpose of consumer capitalism. While we may not be making full use of repetition ourselves the big corps are and they've gotten pretty damn good at it too.

Regardless of what your conscious mind may 'know' repetition to the subconscious can be devastatingly effective. (I'm hoping for some informative comment about mantras from my most excellent friend MSM here by the way, no pressure mate ) So what can we do? They're all around us, even inside our heads, are we helpless?

Well I say no.

Those ads at the cinema not only really pissed me off but actually made my feel a little nauseas. Like all tools repetition is blind and can be used by anyone for anything. When I see ads I think about capitalism and pollution and famine and mental illness and poverty and misery. It's unpleasant, and there's certainly nothing new about the thoughts I think each time, but then that's rather the point.

It's all about building up associations, imagine Pavlov training HIMSELF to salivate at the sound of a whistle. It takes effort and that's what the advertisers rely on, they count on you not being arsed to think about what they're saying to you, they bank on you just allowing it to slip in under the radar.

Well on top of all those terrible things listed above that lurk behind the products and services being sold, there's something else that i remind myself at every opportunity. I have never given my consent, written or verbal, for these companies to access my mind.

Now fair enough, if I choose to watch a certain TV channel or even open a certain page in a magazine I have a degree of control. I have no such control over ads in public space, like billboards, however and I simply don't believe that I could function in society while at the same time shielding myself from exposure to each of those three thousand daily marketing messages.

We are being violated, our minds are being raped over and over. I promise if you can bring yourself to think about that every time you find yourself watching an advert you'll find the effect ads have on you will start to change.

Of course something worth considering is the fallout of training yourself to be disgusted at adverts. They are all around you after all, can you really live your life in perpetual disgust? The answer is no, it's just too hard, but I've found that I tend to deal with that by switching off the TV.

Ads making you queasy? Read a book, write a blog, go for a walk, have a conversation, make something, do some decorating, dig the garden. Basically all those things you know you should do for your own good, the things you actually want to be doing but for some reason find you can't be bothered. Maybe this is the spur you need.

The world is, it seems, full of bastards trying to get into your pockets with their greasy little fingers. It's a depressing picture but there is hope when you realise: they can only do it if you let them.

footnote

(1) Adbusters: The Journal of the Mental Environment, if you like my blog you'll probably dig Adbusters too, they're more than just a mag with a whole variety of projects and campaigns ongoing such as Turn Off TV Week and Buy Nothing Day, check them out @ www.adbusters.org

You might not agree with everything they do or have to say but one of the very best things about them can be found in their letters pages where they always print readers' criticisms as well as complements and comments.

DON'T FORGET TO TURN OFF YOUR TV: APRIL 24th - 30th

Had a minor revelation yesterday while writing one of the short stories for this collection I've been signed up for. Been a bit bummed recently, as some of the last few posts make pretty clear, but the last few days have been especially frustrating as I've been without my good friend Mary.

Now I know there're some of you out there who, for all the best reasons, probably wouldn't consider an abject lack of weed as being a bad thing for me. Well the great thing about communication between reasonable and caring people like us is that we can utterly disagree with one another without it being a whole big thing.

Basically, Easter crept up on me, I didn't plan ahead and now al the students have gone and with them their friendly dealers. This leaves only the street dealers, ie. the guys who sell only dope as a sideling to smack and would cut you soon as look at you. Now that's really not my scene so I'm doing without, but I'm not happy about it.

Anyway, I do admit that my relationship with my beautiful green lady friend has changed over recent times and become dominated by escapism rather than self exploration. Before we all get a bit Harry Anslinger(1) however and start hysterically denouncing the evils of substance abuse let me tell you about me revelation.

As regular readers will probably have worked out, I tend to do a lot of thinking. In fact I've been told by a wide array of people throughout my life, 'friends', teachers, bosses, that I think too much. Well yesterday it occurred to me that I've always been this way, I've always found myself lost in the abstract, analysing, pondering etc. but why?

Well something else I've experienced all my life is depression, 'a simple chemical imbalance in the brain' apparently. Sitting here typing away roughly twenty-four hours ago I was describing a character when I put the two together for the first time.

I've developed thinking skills over my life not through any inherent talent or intelligence, but simply through a great deal of practice. How have I motivated myself to such cerebral dedication? By running away. Being in the here and now, feeling my everyday life has always been painful so I escaped into my thoughts.

I remember writing as a teenager, struggling with the new edge that the typical angst added to my mental illness, that escaping was ok as long as you brought something back, as long as it produced something. What running away to me thoughts, and with Mary, has produced in me are habitual thinking skills and a powerful back burner.

Quite regularly when writing or thinking I will reach a point where I know I just can't go any further. Over time however I've learned that such impasses are but temporary and come to trust deeply in my back burner.

Basically I know that if I leave it alone the thought process will not stop but bubble away somewhere towards the rear of my mind. I give it a few days then look again to discover the fruits of my unconscious mental efforts. There are things that simply cannot be forced but require time to fall quietly into place.

I've sat here a couple of times over the last three days to try and write a post, I could feel one brewing, but just couldn't make it happen. Waking today however, it was just all laid out like a great and golden path. So here we go, enough intro, let's get right to the heart of this thing.(2)

Like all my favourite ideas this draws various apparently unrelated strings together, how many? Hmm, three I think

Firstly a post I wrote recently called 'inside the outside'. I wrote about the feeling of being excluded from society, a feeling of utter isolation, of being, to quote a most excellent Phillip K Dick story I read recently, 'out of phase with society'.

I went on however to outline how this beautiful online community we have here, among other things, had helped me to see that I was not the only one out here in the darkness. Actually, it seems, most of our race are outside the bubble of the bright, feeling lost and alone.

Such an observation causes a fundamental shift in the unavoidable questions of life. Fear and sadness and 'what's wrong with me?' become anger and hope and 'what's wrong with society?

Now a lot of things i read in Adbusters stick in my mind, it's that kind of mag, but one particularly relevant piece recounted some statistics about mental illness. I mentioned this in response to a comment from my good friend oojamaflip the other day but it's interesting enough to warrant repetition:

in our society you are more likely to suffer from mental illness if you re:

female rather than male,
young rather than old,
poor rather than rich,
from an ethnic minority rather than being white,

Simply put, the further away from being a rich, middle aged white guy the more likely your mind is to be scrambled. Could this be because our society is run by and for rich, middle aged white guys? I say yes, yes it is.

Ok, so there's string number one. String number two? The most beautiful place in the world: YORKSHIRE. Yes, if you were to crack open my head and pull out the all the things that make me who I am you'd find a pure white rose in there, among other things.

Before I really get into this, yuo may notice I'm not in any great hurry today, I thought I break with tradition and recount a couple of cheesy jokes.

#1 A US tourist is visiting Westminster Abbey when he notices a large gold telephone on the wall. He finds a guy in a dog collar and asks what the phone is for.

"Why that's our direct line to god," he's told, "for just £25 a minute you can speak to the lord himself."

Amazed the tourist continues on his tour of the UK. Stopping at Lincoln Cathedral he spies another phone and asks if it's the same thing.

"That's right," he's told, "£25 a minute and you can speak to god."

Finally the guy is looking round York Minster when he overhears someone asking about the gold phone on the wall. Proud of his own knowledge he ambles over and explains the purpose and price. The guy in the dog collar interrupts to correct him however.

"No no, it's only 50p a minute to talk to god from this phone."

Puzzled the tourist asks why. The man of the cloth looks at him in some confusion before explaining.

"Well it's a local call isn't it."

#2 An elderly Yorkshire man is dealing with the unenviable tasks of arranging his beloved wife's funeral. Among all the other things that need to be sorted is the tombstone. He ponders long and hard over a fitting epitaph, considering his wife's life long devotion to the church. Having spent her life loving and serving the lord he decides on "She Was Thine" as being both simple and dignified.

He tells the stonemason what he's after and turns his attention elsewhere. The night before the funeral he pops in to check on the progress of the stone only to find, to his horror, that a terrible mistake has been made. Beautifully carved the stone reads: "She Was Thin".

"No, no, no!" he tells the stonemason, "you've missed out the E!" The stonemason apologies and assures the upset gent that he'll work through the night to ensure it's right for the next day.

The funeral arrives and the mourners make their way to the grave side where the modified stone is sat in place. "E, She Was Thin" it reads.

Ho, ho, ho.

Anyway, there're plenty of stereotypes about Yorkshire, and Yorkshiremen in particular. Now my late grandfather was a great old Yorkshireman who made things last. When I visit my grandma these days we sit on furniture he bought over a half a century ago. Nothing would be replaced if it could be fixed.

Just as I can't help but look both ways when I cross a road thanks to relentless brainwashing from my mother, I can't help but close doors after me thanks to both my grandfather and father both being obsessed with 'keeping the heat in'.

Yes this plays right into the cliché of the tight fisted Yorkshireman but over the years I've found myself arriving at a similar place along a different route. My persistent concern for our environment together with my inherent dislike of capitalism and consumerism both inspire me to conserve resources.

It's not about having to pay for new furniture or heating bills, it's about recognising that the fuels and materials that go into making and transporting these things are terrifyingly finite. We're so locked into this 'financial freedom' trip that the idea of not buying something you can afford simply does not compute.

It may be old fashioned and clichéd, a hangover from a different time, but the tight fisted Yorkshireman still has something to offer our current world of rampant consumerism.

So, the third and final string. Remember the shambles that was the fox hunting ban? All that parliamentary time and money and all the media effort to convince us that this issue was more important than terror laws or invading other countries.

And what about the "CIVIL WAR" promised by the Daily Mail? The deep divide between the our urban and rural populations that was to tear the very fabric of our society asunder? Possibly one of the largest scale and most successful acts of polarisation in recent times. The two opposite were laid out, there was to be no sitting on the fence, you're either with us or against us.

In the red corner we had the young, urban activists, Guardian readers all about animal rights and anti-capitalism, railing against the oppressive old ways, determined to see a new era of justice and equality. In the blue were the old school country folk, Daily Mail reading, anti drug types in silly costumes, clinging fiercely to their ancient traditions.

Of course the hunting bill was nothing like the assault on their way of life that the media presented. In fact the actual content of the bill restricted nothing but the most minor details of their pastime. Of course in this society that we're all so very proud of, the actual details of the laws governing our land never actually make it to the people they affect. Instead we just get the most controversial bits before falling back into the good old us vs them scrap we seem to enjoy most of all.

Seeing as how this is shaping up to be the longest post I've ever written let's pull these three strings together and make some kind of bow with which to play this damn tune. My point here is that we, all of us, have been both divided and conquered and we don't even seem to realise it.

We're all here, hiding our mental illnesses from one another in the belief that we're the only ones. For some reason we think there is, or should be, some great difference between the frugal attitudes of our grandparents and the oh-so modern ideal of sustainable living.

We've got young people in hoodies trying to save the world from the very farmers who, if given half a chance, could pull the whole capitalist machine down around our ears. If we want communities and small scale businesses, local produce and healthy food, our rural communities are the people with the know how.

We sit at our PCs amid the urban sprawl, reflecting on the detrimental effects of removing ourselves from nature, mourning the loss of a deep connection with the earth and all the craziness that brings with it. At the same time we look down our noses at those old fashioned country types who we think represent the establishment, the posh and bigoted.

What fools we are! Those are the only people in our society who've managed to retain that connection we miss so much. The fact is that the 'mainstream', the 'norm' actually consists of a very small minority of people.

The rest of us have somehow allowed ourselves to be split into further minorities, fighting one another when actually the root of all our problems is the same. If we could just get past the petty differences, overcome our snobbery when it comes to 'damn kids' or 'old duffers', and work together there is nothing we could not do.

There's just so much more that unites us than divides us, not least the unbelievably ignored fact that we're ALL suffering at the hands of the same people. Those kids on estates for whom there is no meaningful work or opportunity are getting fucked by exactly the same people and in exactly the same way as all the farmers who top themselves each year.(3)

Now it's tempting to say that's it's all down to the politicians but this is giving them far too much credit. Regardless of how puffed up their chests may be when they start banging on about the noble 'democracy' we 'enjoy' in this country they have less power today than ever before, they can't change a thing.

No, they are just bitches to the money, and that's where the real problem is. The people with the real power when it comes to employment or quality of life etc etc are the suits, the guys chasing the dollar. We're being royally fucked people, all of us, and until we stand together we're just going to keep bending over.

footnotes

(1) Harry Anslinger was a US puritanical christian and high profile prohibitionist. It was his belief that people had to be saved from themselves and that making drugs and alcohol illegal was the way to do this. He was the guy who, eventually, managed to convince each of the US's states to sign up to a law making marijuana illegal, against the advice of the American Medical Association by the way.

He also founded the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), which later became the dreaded Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) who shoot quite literally hundreds of innocent US citizens dead in their own homes every year by going to the wrong address with their 'no-knock warrants'.

Anslinger also managed to get UN member states, including the UK, to sign up to the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotics, which was the first step in this country to the outlawing of dope, even though cannabis is officially NOT a narcotic.

All in all he was, in my opinion, an utter scumbag whose breathtaking arrogance and wilful ignorance has caused more pain and suffering than can be calculated or even imagined. What a twat.

(2) HST RIP

(3) apparently farmers have the highest suicide rate of any profession in the UK, given the fact that our political system over the last century or so has systematically fucked the agricultural industry of this country at every turn I cannot, unfortunately, say I am surprised.

And so it begins. Even though everyone who 'knew' said it wouldn't happen, we are taking the first, sickeningly familiar steps down the road to an invasion of Iran. Why? Well the easy answers are because the guy running the place is a little fascist nutter who may have some technology that may allow him to develop nuclear weaponry.

While I think it's patently ridiculous for us to swagger abut the globe insisting that peoples do as we say, not as we do, eg. nuclear power and weapons, I also think it's patently obvious that he is a dangerous psycho. As you may have guessed however, I suspect there's much more to this story than one weird little bloke. As you might also expect I'm going off at a tangent to found out what.

So Playboy recently published its first editions in a Muslim country, Indonesia to be precise, and provoked some pretty wild demonstrations. I suspect that we won't hear from most of the usual champions of free speech on this one, censored by their own taste they'll make an exception to their principles when it comes to the Heff's freedom of expression.

Though I've never held a copy, I have a certain respect for the famous skin mag, for being more than just that. In 1980 it was Playboy, and in particular the researchers they paid for, that helped NORML(1) debunk the Heath/Tulane study of 1974.

Basically if you've ever heard that smoking dope kills brain cells, you've heard of Heath/Tulane. These guys strapped Rhesus monkeys into chairs and forced dope smoke equivalent to sixty-three joints into the small simian lungs over just five minutes through gas masks. There was no oxygen mix, just five solid minutes of incredibly dense smoke.

Amazingly enough when the test monkeys were compared to the control group, (all having been killed and dissected,) the test monkeys were found to have far more dead brain cells. But then repeated asphyxiation will do that to you.

Anyway, back to the point, which is that while the outrage over the first Indonesian Playboy at first appears to be just another rant from a minority of puritanical Muslims it is actually something quite different.

According to BBCN24, Indonesia has a free press and native men's magazines contain far more suggestive and revealing images. The outrage is actually directed at what is perceived as a cultural invasion, the global dissemination of US customs and products.

So where's this going and when do we get to the Hitlers? Well I've written before that everything and everyone has strengths and weaknesses, nothing and no-one is 100% good or bad. Two things fascist nutters often have going for them are a proud sense of their own identity and unflinching determination to achieve their aims.

Now when you live in a country that is under the shadow of potentially overwhelming foreign animosity, when being born where you were is practically a crime in itself in the eyes of many around the world, these characteristics become much more appealing in a leader.

Plenty of people in every part of the world know all too well that the US and the rest of us western gangs, will not be negotiated with. Why then would you elect or support a peacemaker, a diplomat? Of course you want someone who's prepared to send a big fuck you to the arrogant bastards who think themselves better than you and yours.

After the first world war all European parties involved were pretty much financially knackered, (the US knows how to make war pay its way,) not to mention having lost almost an entire generation of young men. The very armistice that ended the war came about in recognition of the fact that neither side could afford to take any more.

This said however, we stripped Germany of not only most of armed forces but also huge sums of 'reparation' money. On top of this the Germans were expected to be ashamed of themselves for daring to fuck with us. This led to a lot of people living bare and miserable lives with both the form and the thought of their nation in tatters.

Of course this meant that all Hitler had to do to get elected, and he was democratically elected, was offer jobs and national pride. He didn't say 'Vote for me and I'll kill all the Jews,' he just said, 'Vote for me and you'll be able to feed your kids and be proud of your country again'.

Basically we gave Germany to Hitler on a plate. Had we shown a bit more class at the end of WWI and allowed the German people a bit more pride and opportunity no-one would have listened to the little loon with a weird tash.

As with many other terrible, terrible things we just haven't learned our lesson and are repeating this mistake all over the place. Everyone acted surprised when the Iranians elected the hardline outsider, why?

By ramming our free markets and popular culture down everyone's throats we're simply pushing them into a corner. Once there, it is almost inevitable that they will turn to either a fascist government or terrorist group to fight their way out again.

Is it really such a crazy concept to just say, 'if you don't fuck with me I won't fuck with you,' and let people get back to what they're really interested in, their lives and families? Apparently it is. Apparently it's worth the cost, the spread of western ideals throughout the world is worth all this seemingly endless hassle and potential annihilation.

The question is, worth it for who?

footnote

(1) National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws

As might be expected there are recurrent threads of thought running through these posts, things that regularly crop up seemingly regardless of the specific topic in hand. One of these comes from my determinedly anti-materialistic perspective on life and surfaced a couple of times in the recent debate about consciousness etc.

Now on the face of it anti-materialism seems a pretty simple concept, usually involving a deep dislike of McDonalds. Really getting my teeth into it however I've found it's not as straightforward as it may first appear. Let's start with what seem to be the basic tenets of the thing:

The word 'materialism' is usually used to mean prioritising the physical over the non physical. Anti-materialism then comes from a deep and instinctive feeling that people, and their thoughts and emotions, are actually more important than 'things'.

Moving further in this direction we find a more long term view of the same idea. The material is seen as a dangerous distraction, albeit sometimes a necessary tool, from the pursuit of ideas and ideals. There is a sense of duty, that it is our purpose to think of solutions to our problems. The physical implementation of those solutions is just the same old animal act of physical labour.

Another way into this whole thing is to consider the practical implications of what we think of as 'materialistic' lifestyles. Rampant consumption stripping the world clean simply so that the global elite, (that's us,) can experience fleeting instances of pleasure and/or convenience.

These are all arguments that get my blood up, I can feel the siren's call for self righteous passion, but this isn't the end of the line. As tempting as it is to take what we have so far and start throwing old fruit and older insults, there's still more to this.

I'm a child of Thatcher and have been seeped in capitalist dogma pretty much every minute from birth. I get the urge to spend, sometimes if I'm feeling really shitty I'm assaulted by a random conviction that going out and blowing a load of cash will make me feel better.

You get in shops too, you see something and for some reason you're utterly taken with it. In that moment it's vitally important that you buy that thing, you must have it. Walking away however, the mood usually passes and that most precious thing in the universe is easily forgotten. Now I've come to recognise these feelings and, through that recognition, attached other feelings of revulsion and violation to them. I don't like the sensation that my strings are being pulled.

So far this is just more ammo for the opening gambits above, here comes the point. Right now I'm surrounded by shedloads of books, newspapers, magazines, CDs, videos and DVDs. While I vehemently believe in those first points I also consider the communication of ideas and work in these various media to be another fundamental role of our race.

And so the list of exceptions begins, these are ok because they do this etc. Watching the absolutes fray let's look again at the definition of material. It's the physical, specifically the physical over the non physical. I was thinking about this getting off the bus the other day.

Once off the bus I walk down the side of the ring road until I get to the business 'park' containing our offices. There are small grass verges on either side of the pavement and I've noticed recently that there always seem to be a lot of worms stuck on the path.

The first time I spotted one I almost picked it up and put it back on the grass. I didn't because I saw another, and then another. Then I realised that the weird, dry little C shaped things all over the place that I'd assumed were leaves or seeds or something, were actually dried up worms. It was horrible and really moved me. I didn't pick any of them up, just tried not to stand on any of them.

Then yesterday I was using the rowing machine, (everyone keeps telling me it'll make me feel better,) and I noticed that the sky outside was the most brilliant blue. Despite everything that's happened over the last week and how utterly down I was, it still felt really nice to look at the sky.

Now in terms of the physical and the non physical, the worms and the sky are quite definitely Big Macs, not brainwaves. Where they came from doesn't matter, the fact is that in that moment I was being confronted by purely physical things. In fact the naturally occurring environment is even more purely physical than any man made object to me as I don't consider it to have been made to any conscious plan or design.

How can I claim to reject the physical in favour of mental pursuits when I find myself feeling so inherently moved by and connected to the physical? As weird as it is to write it, McDonalds aren't the problem here.

Being anti-materialistic actually has nothing to do with a rejection of material things. At the heart of this concept the objection is to the thought, or lack of it, that lays behind those objects. It is materialism not materials which we are seeking to oppose.

It's unfortunate but understandable that while our noble motives might be considered left wing, we have fallen into the same habits as our increasingly fascist mainstream.

Now it's obvious to some that a great deal of crime, while being absolutely wrong, is also a symptom of a problem with society. How do we, as a winner takes all democracy respond to this? By wielding the law as a lonely club to punish the results while ignoring, or even actively feeding the causes.

Simply attacking people's lifestyles, telling them they're wrong and bad doesn't serve any useful purpose, neither does pretentiously hiding behind a vague idea that we haven't fully explored. My most excellent friend MSM proposed over the last week or so that there was no evil just a varied degree of good.

While I can't sign up to this fully I think it's a great concept that fits very nicely with my general aversion to being 'anti' anything. Defining ourselves as 'anti-materialistic' may tap into powerful feelings of tribalism and conflict that bring confidence and conviction but ultimately it won't achieve what we want.

Forget 'anti-materialism', if we're going to walk under a banner let's make it a positive one. From now on I'm 'pro-thought'.

PS.

In the spirit of being pro-thought here's a tidy little thought that occurred the other day following on from earlier in the week. Another concept that starts out feeling inherently simple and understandable is the definition of life.

Now plants are considered to be 'alive' because they respond to their environment and reproduce. The thing is that, thinking back to my uni days, I see the universe as consisting of matter and energy that respond to that around them and, ultimately, continue to exist through a series of different forms.

Exactly where is the line in the sand that divides the great systems pulling planets round stars from the various biological machines roaming the Earth? It is my conjecture then that what we call 'life' is actually an illusion. We're just machines in a machine.

The immediate reaction here is to consider the whole universe and everything in it to be dead, like a dusty old clockwork model, but I dispute that that is only alternative. I don't think reality fits into our clumsy definitions of life and death, it just is.

Maybe we'd get further if we could start concentrating on just what is happening rather than spending all our time trying to decide what to call it.

The truth can be a tricky concept, for example what exactly is a lie? Yesterday I promised I wouldn't do anything 'stupid' yet earlier this evening I did just that, so was I lying? I believed what I what saying at the time, there was no intent to deceive, but it wasn't the truth.

My girlfriend left me today, packed her shit and went while I was at work, sent me text to let me know. On the phone this evening she said she needed space and that maybe she might come back one day. I'm damn sure that's not true, but again she sounded like she believed it herself, so was it a lie?

Was dreading work today but things turned out ok. I'd been proved right in my absence and my boss was all smiles, as if nothing had happened. I guess I could have held a grudge but I was too relieved at the absence of palpable tension.

It's funny but yesterday, when things weren't going well at work, everything else in my life seemed insurmountably awful. Leaving work this afternoon after an ok day however I knew things still sucked but I told myself that I could see it through, that all the other problems would turn out ok just like work had. Was I lying to myself?

Tried so hard on the phone tonight, knuckles white on the reins of my temper and fear. Tell her how you feel, I thought, but phrase it right, don't give in to the petty urge to lash out, walk the line. My father always says communication is in the senses of the receiver. I've always taken this to mean that if I want people to get me I have to translate myself into a language they understand.

She didn't.

She's been out a lot recently, spending nights with friends etc. only really here when she had nowhere else to be. So many recent bus journeys home from work have been underlined with dread at the thought of spending yet another long, long night here utterly alone, you'd think I'd be used to it by now.

I finally realised that this was really happening, that she'd gone and there was nothing I could do about it. Oh she was crying, and I do believe she is genuinely upset about hurting me, but it suddenly started to dawn on me that from now on every night would be filled with those aching empty hours and that really scared me.

So yeah, I lost my temper, finally. Was I not communicating how I felt about her and our relationship effectively, or did she get it but just not care? Either way I just couldn't stand anymore frustration. I'm so sick of playing everyone else's game, of having to be what others think I should be just to get by.

Fuck them.

What's the point of me trying to pretend I'm mature and sensible and above violent tantrums when actually, that's how I feel? First off came the tears, great wailing sobs, keening at this fucking ache in my chest that won't go away.

The only thing that made this particular shameful breakdown different to any previous episodes was that, while my body and part of my mind was lost in hysterical misery, there was a part of me sitting just behind my eyes that was numb. I could here and even feel myself screaming and crying but felt utterly detached from it.

Wedged the key in the door to stop (her) anyone getting in, drew all the curtains, tore all the phones out of the walls and killed my mobile, smashed up one room then another and finally found myself back in exactly the same hole I was in a decade ago:

on the floor, in the dark, guzzling JD and slashing my arms with a thoughtfully sterilised razor while listening to Soundgarden.

Again there was a slight difference, that same weird feeling of partial detachment, a quiet corner of me that felt simply nothing, just watched the blood run as if it was some weird work of modern art. Not sure what this segmented numbness means or what it may lead to but I don't really want to think about it right now. An entirely bleak picture huh?

Well if I said that, it'd be a lie. I've spent so long fighting the urge to do that, to just give in and fuck myself up. I promised her I wouldn't do it because hurting myself was hurting her, but I guess that doesn't matter anymore. I promised myself I wouldn't do it because it wasn't the kind of person I wanted to be.

Laying there, the long forgotten feeling of wet holes going delicately crispy and uncomfortably stiff, that amazing voice tearing out those heart rending words, I felt free, just for a little while. I even found myself smiling. It wasn't healthy or constructive or pleasant, it was just me and in those dark, desperate moments I wasn't pretending anymore.

Of course it passed after a while. I changed the CD, fed the cat, dressed my wounds, tidied up, fed myself, plugged the phones back in and retrieved my mobile. Lot's of missed messages, but only from my Grandma. My Granddad died last year and her Alzheimer's is pretty bad now. She forgets she's rung so calls again and again to leave the same message.

I'm going to see her tomorrow, as I do every weekend I can, and she just wanted to check I was coming as she'd found a note in her diary (that she'd written,) to say I was. It tears my fucking heart out to see her like this but she needs me and I love her.

To be honest when I heard the new message tone I hoped it was my girlfriend, sorry, my ex, and even now I can't help checking my mobile every few minutes even though I hate myself a little more each time I do. I'm such a fool, why can't I just take a fucking hint!? With the adrenalin long since gone I'm left with the same old dull ache, albeit with the volume up yet another notch, and the same old tears I'm too tired cry.

I guess one thing we can definitely say is that this post, while true in content, is a lie. I've tried to present this as a relatively normal post, with a line of enquiry and examples to consider. The truth is I just have to get this out and I'm too embarrassed to ring the Samaritans or my friends.

Think I'll go to bed now, alone, again. I have nightmares when I sleep but it's still better than being awake. Wish I could have a smoke but I'm as dry as the Gobi desert and my regular dealer's not answering his phone. On top of this the random I met in the street the other day has his phone turned off so I don't even have Mary to keep me company now.

On a more practical note, I've just remembered that this PC is actually my ex's so when she comes back for the rest of her stuff it'll spell the end of my publishing deal. I can still blog from work I guess, though I'm always a bit paranoid about people reading over my shoulder and I only get half an hour for lunch. I'll sort something out I'm sure, I usually seem to.

I read a book once in which one character tells another a fable. Although it had a profound effect on me I forget the details, but the salient point was a simple yet powerful phrase: "this too will pass". It's an interesting one because while it is indisputably and absolutely true, when I let myself feel how I'm feeling, everything in me tells me it's a lie.

Had a post all planned, following on from the great discussions of the last few days, but that'll have to wait. As much as I love pondering and discussing the wider vagaries of life I have to admit that at least part of that is escapism, somewhere nice and emotionally neutral to hide from my fucking life.

Came this close, ][ to quitting my job today. Over the past couple of weeks I've been bollocked by my line manager, in public, several times for either not completing an impossible task, (eg. ringing a guy who doesn‘t have a phone,); for doing exactly what I was told, (turns out they told me to do the wrong thing,) or for doing my bosses’ jobs for them.

This last one refers to paperwork I’m supposed to receive from the surveying team. Basically they’re way senior to me but under my bosses. My bosses have told me that if they tell the surveyors to do something they won’t do it, so it’s up to me to make them and I‘ll be getting the disciplinary if I don‘t.

Now this afternoon I could hear my boss taking a phonecall and gathered that the person on the other end was mentioning my name. Before the phone hit the cradle my line manager was balling me out across the open plan office, again, for something I’d had nothing to do with, again.

As regular readers may guess I’m not one to roll over in these situations. Up until now I’d managed to swallow it down, got rent to pay and all that, but today I’d had enough. Instead of making non committal grunts and waiting for it to be over I bounced up out of my chair and squared up.

Interrupting her once I told I hadn’t done what I was accused of. Unimpressed she tried to continue with her ignorant rant but I cut her off again, this time demanding that she speak to me in private. Out in the corridor she kicked off again and I let her run.

Once she’d wound herself down and grown tired of patronising me, she made to go back into the office but no way was I letting this go. I explained what had actually happened and told her that I wasn’t happy that she hadn’t at least asked for my side of the story first.

“I’d appreciate the benefit of the doubt,” I told her.

Walking away she replied, over her shoulder, “bear in mind it was a senior supervisor who told me that.”

Even if there’d been nothing else to piss me off, I can’t stand bad manners. Enraged but still in the measured tones of someone with a decent upbringing I called after her, “bear in mind he was wrong.”

I’m applying for other jobs and I know that storming out of this one won’t make that any easier. What worries me is my temper as I know that if my boss had had the manners not to walk away from me mid sentence and the conversation had continued a few minutes more, I would now be an ex civil servant.

I know this blog is usually about broad political or philosophical issues but today it’s about me. Sorry, but tough. My counselling finished a couple of weeks ago now and, while I’ve been referred to another course, it’s going to be over a month before I can even have an assessment with them. I’m really missing the opportunity to vent and be listened to.

I’ve been working out regularly and taking St Johns Wort three times a day for a few weeks now. It doesn’t seem to be doing a lot of good but who knows, if I hadn’t been doing that maybe I’d feel even worse. The fact is that while I am raging about how I’m treated at work there’s a whole heap of other stuff bubbling away underneath.

If I’m brutally honest, and what’s the point of being anything else, I hate my life. My day job, my career, my love life, my social life, my family life, they all make me fucking miserable and I hate myself for not doing anything about it.

One thing that came out of the counselling was just how I got out of such a funk last time it got really bad. In my mid to late teens I was self harming and even had a couple of suicide attempts. Just talking about it with my fantastic counsellor, (hello by the way if you‘re reading this ) I realised that moving here to Leeds and starting Uni pulled me out it.

I didn’t stop being depressed, but the monumental upheaval, the complete change of lifestyle and surroundings, somehow made it easier for me to deal with things. I must admit the thought of throwing my life in the bin, fucking off and starting again feels really good, of course actually doing that is another matter. Also, say I did, what happens in another three or four years?

I hate feeling like this, I just can’t calm down, I’m SO angry and it’s been hours. I haven’t smoked yet today and that’ll make me feel better, but I hate using Mary as a crutch. She used to be my mate, I used to hang with her and we’d go to amazing places in my head. Now I just hide from the world behind her fragrant skirts.

All the old feelings crowd in on me, the urge to self harm muttering persistently in my ear. I’ve never truly understood that urge, even when I was its bitch. I don’t consciously want to hurt myself but my desperate desire to escape the dull sickening ache of being here just seems to lead me instinctively in that direction.

After those first couple of times, I dismissed suicide as an option, deciding I just couldn’t do it to my parents. At the same time however I sometimes, like currently, find myself tempted to cross roads without looking or similar, somehow the fact that it wouldn’t look intentional makes it feel more ok.

Now don’t panic, I won’t be doing anything ‘stupid’, I just need to get these feelings off my chest. As pathetic as it may sound this blog is one of very few reasons I have to stick it out. This is one of very few places where I feel I can really be myself.

It’s also one of even fewer places where I can not only talk about things I’m interested in but, more importantly for me, encounter people with something to say in reply. If I ever did summon up the effort to jack in all this shit and start anew, I’d be taking this blog with me.

Who knows, maybe in a few years I’ll be a successful writer and actually feel like I have some control over my life. Maybe I’ll look back on these times and think, it was worth it, I made it out the other side. That’s what I have to hope because I can’t bear the thought of the rest of my life being like this.

Hell, just ignore me, everyone else does. I’m just a very lonely person with a mental illness, barking at the moon. I’ll be back to nice, clean cerebral matters next time, no more self indulgence. Back to being a thinker and a writer instead of the universally dismissed ANGRY YOUNG MAN.

Managed to do a bit of work last night, then did some shrooms instead. Just the wrong amount as it turns out, basically enough to give me the usual few hours of mild but irritating nausea but not enough to produce any more than a slight change in spatial awareness. Knackered tonight, had a tough day, so here’re three brief things I thought I’d say:

I took some of last night's pizza to work for lunch today and was eating it while replying to some of the excellent comments being made. What drops off the pizza onto my employer's desk? A cheeky little psilocybe cap. I'd put the shrooms under the cheese in my pizza and had thought I'd got them all last night.

I just brushed it away but not before having a weird little moment. I'm sat at work in a bastard shirt, surrounded by a busy office, and I'm discussing philosophy online while what I believe is now a Class A drug sits openly on my desk. I often feel like I'm in a bubble at work, but that was the most extreme instance so far, a world within a world.

I've written recently about people exploring their own heads, also worlds within worlds, and that I believe that's all there is. I wanted to describe a particular take on the idea of an afterlife that I heard a few years ago. I've always been quite taken with this notion, not least because it fits in with my own ideas, but I do have a nagging feeling that it's perhaps a little optimistic.

Imagine you've just woken up and glanced at a clock before nodding off again. Nice and comfy you slip back into sleep in seconds and begin to dream. You have a vast and complex dream that is, you realise, actually a series of dreams, it goes on and on, dragging through a variety of detailed landscapes and casts of characters.

Eventually you find yourself fading back into consciousness after what feels like years. You look at the clock: less than two minutes have passed since you last looked. I'm sure you see where I'm going with this. The human brain continues function on some level for a little while just after death. Could eternal life actually just be what it feels like to be on the other side of the fading glow in a dying eye?

Now I wish I could take credit for such a great concept but I have to be honest and admit that my this occurred to my girlfriend a few years ago. Much to her annoyance the concept is also outlined in what I think is one in a line of cinematic jewels, "Waking Life" written and directed by Richard Linklater.

There're some great ideas in WL, some relating to the discussion that's been unfolding here over the last few days. The visual vehicle for these messages however is just stunning, I’m excited as I’d forgotten all about it, think I’ll dig the vid out tomorrow night.

Anyway, it was filmed as normal film but the each individual cell was hand painted afterwards! The result is an absolutely unique cross between live action and animation that does a fantastic job of fulfilling what seems to be the main aim of the film: to present a dream in film form.

I remember seeing “Slacker”, another of Linklater’s, on TV in the early hours of the morning as a kid. I didn’t what the hell it was but I was mesmerised. The camera roams freely through a town following a person or persons for a few minutes, just enough to get a tiny glimpse into their lives, then moves on. Through this intriguing format he manages to present a kind of snapshot of small western US towns at a certain point in time.

Of course his most famous film is “Dazed and Confused”, which follows a wide group of seventies high school kids over their last day of school before the summer holidays. This guy seems to have a great passion and talent for taking everyday situations, familiar atmospheres and, instead of using them as backgrounds for stories, translating them in their pure form in the medium of cinema.

This is the extreme end of a common denominator throughout all human art and culture. It’s all about us, even the stuff about the world is really just about our relationship with the world. We’re in everything we do and in everything we see as we increasingly surround ourselves with manmade environments.

In fact we’re all inside the inside, all the time.

God damn it, where has my weekend gone? I spend all week just hanging on for these two days when I can get some rest and then they just fly past leaving me more tired than I started. Have to get some writing done, my publishers are waiting, (how good does it feel to be able to say that ) so this will have to be a quicky I'm afraid.

Thought I'd use the momentum of the last couple of days to lay out some other thoughts about religion. In the post before last I described how I thought religions got warped over time and I'd like to give some, well three, examples of what I mean. Despite my ultimately negative view of religions I do recognise that they include some great and valuable concepts. The following examples demonstrate both this and how these concepts become corrupted:

The Garden Of Eden

I've written about this one before. It is my belief that the story of the garden of Eden is actually just a record of a story passed down verbally from a much more distant past. Forget god and sin, this is about the evolution of mankind from hunter gatherer to farmer and from ignorance to awareness.

It's fascinating in so many ways, not just that it describes one of the most fundamental transitions in our history but also the fact that it demonstrates how knowledge could be maintained over vast periods of time even before written language.

Of course now it's considered, at best, a metaphor for sin and punishment and guilt. At it's worst it's considered as a factually accurate and historic record of mankind's origins. A great and important idea that gives us an insight into just what makes us what we are has become a blunt weapon with which to compel the masses to subjugate themselves.

Karma

My main problem with the concept of Karma is that it rests on the assumption that individuals are distinct beings each with some special significance in the wider universe. I'm afraid I really can't get on board with this, the idea that each human is so special as to each have their own cosmic scoreboard is just too self absorbed for me.

My own view is that we are just parts in a machine, cogs in the human machine, which is in turn just a cog in the Earth machine, which is a cog in the Sol system machine etc etc. I do believe however that what you give effects what you receive.

If you walk about with a frown on your face, knocking into people and being generally anti-social and obnoxious, you're going to piss people off. Now some of those people will express their new found bad mood in the same way and thereby pass it on.

Being nice and friendly is likely to put people you encounter in a better mood and make it more likely that they will be more positive in their own lives. So if you do something good you won't necessarily get something good back personally, like some commercial transaction, but rather if you contribute to the greater good you'll probably, and indirectly, reap the benefits.

The main difference between traditional Karma and what I'm talking about I suppose, is the guarantee. In order for a religion to be successful it has to offer people something, it has to sell itself and it's very tempting to believe that you can somehow dodge bad fortune and unhappiness by following certain rules.

If Karma was described as I see it, ie. being a 'good' person will improve things for everyone but is no guarantee that you won't get shat on, isn't dogmatic or attractive enough to enthuse people into a life long commitment. Karma is basically an observation of life that could prove amazingly useful but has been twisted into a fairy tale in order to get more people 'in our gang'.

Reincarnation

Now I've spent a fair amount of time mocking the US Christian right for their literal interpretation of the bible but it should be remembered that they're not the only ones making such an error. The concept of reincarnation is, I feel, a hugely significant one that can make a real difference to people's lives.

As I've mentioned over the last post or two, the idea of individual forms, people, objects etc, is an illusion. There is only energy and the infinite number of forms it changes through. Now the basic idea of reincarnation expresses this, form is not important, we are all one and none, an incredibly powerful perspective on the world.

Again however, we see the folly of man, as someone somewhere has chained the abstract down with a basic animal perspective thereby losing the essence of the idea. Instead of reincarnation being a way of understanding how everything in the universe is connected, it becomes another personalised game show like the cosmic Karmic scoreboard.

Despite the heart of the thing being about the illusion of the isolated form, reincarnation has somehow absorbed the illusionary importance of the individual. Depending on how you behave in your life you will return in another form, as if you are some distinct and independent being.

So there you have it, some snacks for thought if you will. The metaphor is a very human concept, relying as it does on an ability to consider things that aren't real in order to gain insight into t