A holiday for the brain

I went on holiday this month to the Norfolk Broads on a boat for a week with two friends. Relax and unwind! With the boat and life travelling at a top speed of 4 miles an hour, these tasks seemed positively energetic. Life slowed to an apparent stop and I was able to write about it.


“Endure all that has gone before, then enjoy any that should remain. Modern life is simply penance and scant reward, with neither particularly preceding nor following the other. It is a constant cycle of appeasing needs through selfishness and paying high prices for things that are rarely a privilege. There is no safe middle ground that can support us for any length of time. The only modus operandi for surviving life in these times is submersion or flight. We either sign ourselves up to doctrines that govern our every breath and thought or we escape to the emptiness we somehow know underlies it all. Indeed there is nothingness in these very words, the fact that they exist in a somewhat understandable order dictates that any truth they may carry is marred by the condition and perception of both the reader and writer’s language. Yet, despite the apparent loss of inherent purpose for this document – where there is existence and therefore suffering and happiness, there should also be explanation, comment and analysis. Particularly if that discussion should acknowledge the nature of it’s own reality. All of which only defends the material existence of this work, it’s content will hopefully go on to give it materialistic value by enriching the reader.

Take a holiday from times and dates, from the responsibility and worries of a modern mind living a modern life – and do this regularly. These escapes can exist where ever you are, whatever you are doing and may last anywhere between a split second and a life time. Recognise then capture your freedom in the present moment. Upon doing this it is important to keep your eyes firmly open and acknowledge the false realities that plague us, rather than hiding from them. Moreover we should, in times of clarity see the greater picture of all life’s falsehoods & inequities and meet it with sorrow and empathy. We should do this for all beings, not just our own lives. Through this projection we may see that our place in the world is perhaps not deserving of the attachment and importance we place upon it. Should your mind return from holiday bring something back with you, it may ease a path through modernity.

Once you subscribe to it, the suffocation of modern life makes for constant unwanted company. It engulfs us in obligation, routine and responsibility - often at signed contractual agreement. To consider this level of submergence highlights the need to leave our crazed existences behind once in a while and gain perspective, morality and a greater understanding of what each of us should both expect from and give back to our world. Hopefully, if I have been successful in my aim in writing it, by taking the time to read, consider and understand this text you will return to the reality of modern life with something to ease the incumbent suffering.”

Of course life is now back to the usual groundspeed of 900mph and I am always due a holiday, but it all made sense at the time and, as ever, is therefore worthy of our attention now.

rise with cries

It is impossible to say where I found the motivation to get up this morning. Perhaps it was the thought of not slipping into another nightmare of faces I'd rather not see. Some how though, I got up, showered, dressed, drank green tea. Running on empty, running on routine I left the house and made my way to the train. Duty bound to my employers and my bank manager but nothing else. I would give anything not to be on this train going to work this morning. I would take anything else. It plagues me daily this chemical imbalance between my ears.
It all falls to pieces so easily... I changed jackets before leaving the house, leaving my tobacco, rizlas and lighter in the pocket of the other garment. For a man as dependent on smoking as me, with as little money as me - this is an earth shattering revelation. It is fashion, self image, self esteem that has brought me to this. I swapped a jacket for a jumper because my only clean t-shirt which I'm wearing is quite tight fitting and therefore shows off my slightly build and detested body. So instead of having to walk around a hot office all day in a coat to hide my meager muscles - I put a jumper on, forgetting to transfer the contents of the pockets. Now My credit card will get put into action and I'll be even later for work.
Of course none of this matters really, but none of it makes anything an easier. It's just getting harder to go on and on. How or why will I get up tomorrow?

the best policy

if you can't be honest with yourself or the world at large, then life is wasted upon you.
Welcome to my world, where truth rules all.

Depression, Dreams, Euphoria. Repeat.

Stephen Fry had a documentary on BBC2 tonight about manic depression. I pre-empted him with my own 4 hours of mental chaos earlier on today.

After 5 hours of drink induced sleep I awoke at 4.45 this morning, initially just confused as to why my alarm had not woken me up to watch the overnight football game from America on Channel 5. It took 10 minutes of fumbling and stumbling to locate my alarm system / mobile phone beside me beneath the duvet, having searched the entire house, the alarm was set but not activated for 2am. After that I spent 5 minutes stone cold sober and wide awake watching the preview of next weeks game on the TV. Returning to my bedroom my head became a chaotic mess, twisting, turning from debt, to heartbreak, to work, too illness to general matters of life, love and death on grand scales. Unslept an hour later I was naked screaming, banging my head against the foot of the bed - "Get out - Get out! Just let me sleep" But my brain was far from finished with it's torture of my soul and body. Ten minutes later there were the sounds of those readying for work and I had reached what all insomniacs will know as no return, bird song. Then the magic words kick in, Don't just lay there - Do something. So as the crescent moon faded away to the sun's rise I made a list of all the things racking my brains, smoked a cigarette in the garden before returning to bed. Eyes firmly shut, duvet, over head and brain blanked I slept. I woke to my reset alarms a mere hour and a half later to find the world and my mind had changed. I had just lived, vicariously through a myriad of wonderful lucid dreams. Each bathed in sunshine and none containing anything from the list. There had been dreams within dreams. Laughter with loved ones, swimming in the ocean with seals, fighting off playful puppies and a universal sense that everything was as beautiful as my own self image in my unconsciousness. I awoke with such a feeling of bliss I couldn't help laughing to myself as I went about my morning routine; even at my near death slip upon entering the shower. Inexplicably I then smiled all the way to the train station. I was at one with the world, my mind, my life - or moreover they were at one with me. I sat on the train at a table, I position I never normally feel worthy of and put the last 4 hours into these words. Now it is after a day in the office and the list is creeping back to my brain. Each item plagues my waking mental state even if it does not reside in my unconsciousness world and mind.

I watched the documentary and every word spoke to me in some degree, there is no doubt now in my self diagnosis - rapid cycling, that is me. I know my manic episodes do not last long enough for any real concern - I don't have the financial capacity to disappear for months at a time. But I know I would if I could. What would I score in the test? What cocktail of meds would they select to overt my madness? The grip of depression never really leaves me, even when manic, I am still living for the lows. My inner world with it's delusions of grandeur. The struggle to find get up and go, the struggle to sleep. The all encompassing sense of it all.

Self diagnosis. Self medication. Self harm. Self destruction. This is what makes me, me. And no Mr. Fry I would not trade it either. It gives me these words.
I'll need something to sleep. I need something to be sad about. Then it will change again and I may escape to bliss. Be atop the world, driven, adept.
Knowing always disaster awaits at each turn. But I go on, ever on.
My self worth too low to inflict the pain of my demise on others. Or is it a lack of courage that one day will evaporate? Surviving for survival's sake.

Find a level, keep it there.
To be stable is everything.
But there are no drugs, nor anyone's to steal.
And it all just reached the surface.
Because there really is no more money for booze.
I don't subscribe to alcoholism,
but is preferable over suicide.
I may well sleep tonight
but if I should, it is more than likely
that recurring nightmares
and madness will wash me over board.

Should I find myself with your attention. Read on to “Make our home Utopia”

There seems to be an incumbant feeling in my geration that it is already too late to change our ways and save the planet for future generations. An assumption there is no point, the Earth is done for anyway... Not only would I assert that this is pessemisstic but also wrong.

Regardless of global warfare or natural disasters, with the current level of human civilisation, evolution and pollution, I’d estimate our world has about 200 years before it’s too late to ever reach a state of universal bliss.
Which apparently is what everybody, deep down, really wants.

I know I’m special because I am the first to experience everything that is happening to me at this particular moment. More importantly though I am one of many befitted with a language and access to tools that can learn and then spread word to every inch of our ailing planet.
So, since I have not heard it said recently by anyone on any grand scale:

With every breath we each live a life never felt by another, before or after.
Whilst our every step treads new ground, do not trample on past, present or future,
Tell each other we should know better and think on our own actions.
If you understand this, you are privileged; think about yourself less and others more.
Then go forth. We have 200 years to right too many wrongs and make our home utopia.

over evolved / cloaked in drama.

I’m having trouble writing about myself. It is not that I can’t put my life into words, more that it goes by with such drama and speed it is difficult to hang on to it and get it down. Short sentences. Quick fingers, tell it like it is - so they all said, “Beauty and art come from truth, honest expressions of souls.”
“You’re Gay!” others will say.
“No, I am metro-celibate.” I shall proudly respond.

Four sentences with four things from the last four weeks: I took a diving catch low down to my left fielding at shortleg to dismiss a batsman for a golden duck. I took a picture of myself giving a two-finger salute to the White House. I took a £10,000 loan out over the Internet without meeting a single human face then cancelled it an hour later. I took cover from one of my best mates and my ex-girlfriend, who just got back from a year in Australia; where they miraculously ended up together. If I needed a fifth example: I took back my MP3 player to my electronic retailer for the third time this year.
And people say all I do is give.

My case: Supposedly living the height of civilisation, modernity and evolution I have been gifted with a generous, if not extravagant upbringing and education in the home counties of England. Turning 21 and graduating in the year 2000, I was raised through Thatcher and Blair by my divorced Mother under the reign of QEII.

Many humans throughout the world and all of history would look at the technologically and industrially enriched, even manicured life I have lead and long for it, perhaps in place of their own existance. Increasingly though it seems, I care less and less for our continual advancement - we have already come too far - too quickly. I claim to be part of an over evolved generation; it makes one unhappy because the advertised world we were raised on is not ready for us, nor seemingly will it ever be. No wonder there are many that realise this truth and simply give up. My work here is to explain, through the sum total of my own education and life experience, the plight of the C21st man. How the luxury of modern life breeds unhappiness in model male citizens, as they make their way through it.

To put forth an initial thesis, I blame Darwin and Freud. The former for my ability to observe the complexities of my own modernisation and evolution; the latter for my analysis and explanation of my place in this civilisation. My understanding of the process of putting my modern life in to words comes from a more cotemporary range of literary, philosophical and metaphysical backgrounds, HH The Dalai Lama, C. Bukowski, D. Adams, HS Thompson, to throw some names out with considered abandonment. You may know none of them, it could be argued that the correct one is still currently living, but it is not a debate that I, nor any of those fine gentlemen, would get involved in.

metro-celibate – Despite the fact I’m attempting write poetry for a living I never crossed my mind to be a homosexual. Indeed I was a practising heterosexual, but seeing the errors of many ways I chose to bypass metro-sexuality for metro-celibacy. If nothing else it’s safer this way. Cheaper too.

Marcus Woodrow's shortleg catch

A. Falkon of the Ancient Mariners was bowling accurate wrist spin to the feet of novice batsmen and it was working. He’d just clean bowled the last fellow, clipping the leg bail with a ball that pitched on at least off stump if not outside.
Clapping the new man toward the crease from a squarish mid-on, I was sure there would be an attempt to get bat on the next ball. My stride towards the wicket widened as I saw the chap taking guard with inappropriate black training shoes. This was every inch a village cricket number 10 batsmen.
Walking in, I was perhaps 8 feet short and square on the leg as the ball pitched, turned with a pop and was glanced down to leg by the backfooted batsman. It was with a jump and a stretch but not a leap I descended towards the path of the cherry projectile.
My knee dug in to the turf as the ball would have grounded, save for my fingers underneath it. The prize came up in the claw and was offered to the umpire, but the sighs of the batsman and cheers of the fielders spoke for him.
I looked to see the new Primary Club eligible walking, distraught, his plight shared by all who have also suffered a first ball dismissal. Still, catcher and bowler, then fielders celebrated on, “Mariners! Hat-Trick Ball…”
Though the master spinner never got his hat-trick, he got his fifer and it was a winning performance which made four victories in a row. Our late august form was blossoming. Jugs anyone?!
Also See: Cricket.