Absence Ended

It occurred to me that I haven't written a blogpost for sometime. It would be cliche of me to confess that my blogging had been suspended due to time spent in Goa, learning the language and the boundless opportunities of cooking with lentils. It would also be a lie.

In reality I've been indulging heavily in the habits that know me best, reading, drinking coffee and condensing my ideas into 140 characters. What a funny thing Twitter is. For years the world has stood in awe of writers and thinkers able to churn out dense diatribes but we're now content with the totality of thought being summed up in 140 characters (and an emoticon of our choosing).

Any-who, this is just a reminder to me that I have this space, should I wish to fully expand on the things that occupy my time here on earth. Like Skyfall. What a horrific escapade through mediocrity that was.




- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking.

Location:Eastcastle St,London,United Kingdom

Three Things I Learnt This Week

1) If you look hard enough, you'll find exactly what you're looking for. Not because it exists but because you will manipulate and often bypass reality until it meets your desires.

2) Excuses say more about the person then the situation they are facing.

3) Dwelling in knowledge other than that of yourself, only acts as an anchor.


- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking.

Location:London Bridge

Awake

Charles Dickens suffered from insomnia. He used the additional hours granted to him by this affliction, to observe the restless metropolis and the antics of its population.

I prefer to ride the night bus and alight at random stops, casually acknowledging the nocturnal societies, societies comprised of socialites, students, shift workers and ill-tempered mini cab drivers, a humbling and haunting cohort.

As much as a person may fear for their safety, there is a disturbing comfort that exists within night time. The city lies in limbo, between the routine escapism of the night just passed and the savage bustle of the day to come. These early hours of inebriation and hallucination are probably the most honest moments that can exist within a place such as this.



- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking.

Location:The N29

4 months later.

You can end up losing the best people in your life through being afraid, afraid to be honest, afraid to love, afraid of letting yourself be loved. People say and probably do understand but they will not enable it forever. Continue this for long enough and you'll find that even you want to escape yourself.

For all the shit I spout, I live with large amounts of shame, ignorance and fear and behave accordingly routinely, not to all people but to the few that make it over the wall.







- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking.

Location:Albany Close,London,United Kingdom

Do Words Matter?

Part 1

The more I experience and the more I increase my seldom interactions with others, I realise that we very regularly misuse words and have a tendency to completely deviate from their denotative meaning, instead focusing on the emotive. This is of course understandable, as we are humans loaded with emotion. The troubling thing is that once we replace the meaning of a word and consistently apply it within the parameters of our reality, it then becomes for us, the norm.

One such example is the word "skill". Culturally, we define and measure it comparatively, retrospectively or arbitrarily using barometers we have little to no knowledge of. While this may sound perfectly normal, this in fact runs counter to its definition:

"the ability, coming from one's knowledge, practice, aptitude, etc."

After contemplating the meaning of the word, I was taken aback, severely, as like most, my understanding and grading of skill always involved other people but in fact, the core essence of skill is that it comes from within.

If we interpret "skill" as a quality adorned by others, which needs recognition and quantification from others, we immediately render ourselves as understudies in our pursuits, interns in our own life who possess zero self-knowledge. Perhaps this is part of greater human ailments; a devaluation of self and a reliance on authority. Perhaps. What I am certain of, is that if we define skill as a personal attribute, one that combines our experiences and perceptions, then as people, we all possess skills, we all have skills that apply to us and only us but over time and through the commodification of skills, a static set of norms has emerged which we internalise and measure ourselves against.

Perhaps it's time we step firmly into tomorrow with belief and a heightened sense of self-appreciation and a resounding duty to value and nurture our own skills.



- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking.

Location: In Transit

Phonebook

Phone books are a Rolodex filled with reminders of the present and past. Scroll through and you will probably see numbers belonging to past friends, close colleagues and present loves. I randomly scrolled through mine and came across a strong memory:




- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking.

Location:In the past

Art I Like #6

Spotted a Banksy piece on a humble side road in Wood Green. The Union Jack bunting is real and a plastic case frames the entire piece.
If you see it, stare at it, long enough for you to think about what Britain's politically charged street artist is trying to convey.





- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking.

Location:Wood Green, London N22

Three Things I Learned This Week.

1) Be honest with yourself. Don't fool for the artistic trickery of your ego and the image it paints of you. Just see yourself. You don't have to like or dislike what you are but you must be able to see it.

2) There are not two sides to an argument. There is only an event and the interpretations that follow.

3) Lotus Biscuits contain magical powers.



- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking.

Location:The Usual Places

The new mantra.

There is a phrase being spouted by politicians. It isn't a new one, in fact I'd say it's been making regular appearances in the circle of professional politics for the last five months but in the run up to this weeks budget, it is everywhere - "Open for business." 

The three-word mantra is the basis for the bulk of the legislative agenda being hurriedly pushed through this year and will serve as a bedding for more to come. 

If you think this is the ramblings on an inebriated malcontent then watch this weeks news coverage, read the soundbites of every politician this week and you're guaranteed to hear something along the lines of: "taxation must be cut to show foreign investors that we are open for business", or "in order to boost the economy, we must do away with red tape, so that Britain can be seen as open for business.' The cosmic quality of that chant is that it justifies ideas and decisions that previously, would have been questioned and quite possibly would have met their death in early committee meetings. But its real power is that it shouts from the rooftops that everything is "for sale" and by everything, we mean all things public, schools, health services and soon roads and motorways.

I read an article in The Telegraph by a clergyman, he expressed concern over the governments decision to temporarily suspend Sunday trading laws. The root of his concern was that such an experiment was merely a litmus test for the eventual eradication of Sunday trading laws, something he believed would result in society spending the Lord's Day worshiping in retail dungeons, lapping up buckets of Costa lattes while shopping for boat shoes and iPads. What hit home about his frustrations was his dismay for the idolatry of 'the economy', the slightly confused patriotism of throwing all political motivations into being 'open for business'. 

As I watch the Budget announcements on Wednesday and read the final draft of the NHS bill, I'll take stock of the clergyman's anxieties. Hopefully others do too.

I want to be Vin Diesel

I watched Fast Five over the weekend and enjoyed it immensely. For those unfamiliar with the film, it’s about a team of Top Gear enthusiasts who use their knowledge of sparkplugs to exploit the criminal underworld of Brazil – or something of that nature. Any who, as I sat through ninety plus minutes of high octane car chases and urban slurs (big up Tyrese), I found myself slowly warming to the character Dominic, a moody protagonist, played by Vin Diesel, whose monotone exchanges and bland face make him the human equivalent of the colour used to decorate prison walls. That aside, there were three reasons why I gravitated towards him:

1) Bad dialogue notwithstanding, Dominic is a criminal with conviction and has an unbreakable allegiance to his team of chiselled bandits.

2) Beyond an endless supply of white tees, white vests of white jeans, his desires are minimal, the sign of a man who has mastered himself.

3) Dominic, like many a shaved head psychopath, is a man of his word. Whether it is enacting revenge on enemies past, or sharing his Tesco Petrol Points, he prides himself on being a man who lives by a set of self-compiled standards.

Another day at work.

You can't open your eyes without being bombarded by countless calls for changes in education. The calls are not unjust. It's a shambles. It's been a shambles for the last 15 years and then some and the proposed changes, which essentially see state education becoming a privately funded entity are worrying for many reasons. But that tirade I'll save for another moment in time. Today I'm more concerned with early years provisions.

I work in a nursery, in a ward that has two very concerning trends, one is high unemployment and the other is a high birth rate. At present, every nursery in this ward has nothing less than an 18 month waiting list, a list that once a child reaches the top of, they are in the final stages of eligibility for said nursery place. Independent nurseries in this area have closed due to funding cuts and due to staff and space restraints, contingency services such as crèches are next to non-existent. Which means there are a growing number of children who will begin school at age 5, without having any real stimulation outside of the home and minimal interaction with children their own age.

I had a conversation with a colleague about this and she was overcome with dismay. As a parent and a champion of education, she was saddened that children would be thrown into the schooling system in such a raw state, asserting that having a proportion of students in a class who are new to social interactions, new to formal learning and new to routines outside of the home, can affect not only their social development but also their examination progress, the bullion of today's education system. She laboured this point, wondering how this proportion would affect a teachers expectations and the overall development of a class. I agreed but before I did. I trawled through the folder of families that are waiting for nursery places, analysed their social circumstances and then wondered if this level of inadequate provision was prevalent in all wards across London.

There is a £45 million jackpot on the table for tomorrows lucky lottery winner. I'm thinking of buying a ticket and if I win, I'll open a nursery.


- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking.

Location:The office.

On being an ass.

I have a tendency to act like an ass. A colossal ass. I can't help it, it's the result of my inability to complete thoughts before acting coupled with a lack of fundamental understanding of the consequence paradigm. Whenever I behave in such a manner, my mind instantly creates a back story for my actions - a flamboyant and fictitious work of art so full of inaccurate facts and hyperbole that it warrants a place on the cover of some tabloid.

I think the reason my mind does this is because it hold a certain image of me, an ideal K, and whenever I behave in a way that contradicts this ideal, my mind becomes dumbfounded and in order for the ideal to be preserved and to avoid my mind entering a state of implosion, a world of tales is created. My mind appears to have an undeserving delusion of grandeur. Unhealthy? I think so.


The ideal K, like all ideals, is nothing more than a projection of hopes and a rummage through the possibilities of a situation. Nice. However the downfall stems from knowing that you are several thousand leagues below this ideal and it is that inescapable truth that my reality confirms but my mind cannot compute.





- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking.

Three things I learnt this week (insomniacs edition).

1) Hard and impossible are polar opposites. 


2) Distraction wears many masks.
 

3) Sleep isn't a human right but it should be. 








- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking. 

Monday Thought

Going to the gym is always an exercise in humility for me. Why? Because:

1) Being worked into a sweaty, breathless pulp by a machine that neither recognises or responds to sarcasm or insults, always ends the same way - me, skulking away from the treadmill, with my head hung low in a Bill Bixby homage, as the Incredible Hulk's 'Lonely Man' plays proudly over the tannoy,


2) My local gym is where those who lost their homes during last summers riots had to reside for a period of time. A gym that is usually busy with badminton enthusiasts, played home to distraught families, while the nation listened to the pedantic and trifling response of many a politician.

- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking.

Location:Post workout.

Parliament Square

Parliament Square is now almost protestor-free. No longer will it be filled with vocal members of the public as it is illegal to use amplified equipment or pitch tents on this turf. Instead, it will be become politically inane, an island whose inhabitants and intentions lie dormant in history books and press clippings.

One of the things I admired about the placards and statements of change that decorated Parliament Square, was that politicians, the public and tourists alike could not ignore it, on their way to the Commons, in and out of meetings, they would have to glance at the disgruntled dissenter who chose to go beyond the walls of web-domains and bring their grievances into the physical world.

A part of me believes that a moments’ glance of the late and unshakeable Brian Haw - an occupier who without question, inspired and motivated the current wave of occupiers - would claw into the minds of politicians and slowly trickle through to their conscience and over time slowly erode their political ambitions, an internal struggle that might shift their perspective and allegiance.

But to have that catalyst removed is to make their days and their decisions easier, and it doesn’t end there. Eventually, the plan is to have all demonstrations removed from Central London, leaving politicians to make decisions and frolic in a world where their immediate landscape is void of public opposition. Nice.


- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking.

Location:Dystopia

Three things I've learned this week.

1) Gorging on anything will result in desensitization. Whether its an excess of information, material wealth or lightly salted Kettle Chips, a person will soon become numb to the rapturous euphoria they chase.

2) Attaching your pride to external events will almost always result in pain. I've recently rekindled my mind with the premise that external events are neither good or bad, that those terms only surface once my pride has been successfully attached and subsequently stroked or quashed by said events. It's a strange phenomena pride, yet without fully appreciating its fragility, we pin it to a wealth of uncontrollable chaotic affairs and pray they decorate it with stars not skidmarks.

3) Time heals nothing. It distracts, it entertains but it doesn't heal. Truthfully, I think time, as we humans perceive it, is part of a system of constructs we employ to validate and add a dimension of meaning to the little time we spend on this earth. But that's another blog post entirely.



- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking.

Location: An empty office.