Sojourn II: There Were Always Dreams of Leaving

We're moving out, 2009, Sint Smeding

It's been two weeks since I came back from London and I've had time to reflect on the trip and also where I want to go next. If you want to take that as literally seeking a destination then I guess that would be New York City as one of the earliest films I can remember is Ghostbusters and dozens of other films over the years have impressed parts of the city in my mind (nearly all of which are in Manhattan, so I apologise to the other four boroughs). My thoughts about where to go next are actually life questions. The sojourn down south was one of three desires that arose earlier this year. You could call them goals or aims, but I've never thought of myself as pursuing very clear objectives which is why I've always had a problem answering questions about the extent of my desires - which sounds too passionate but intentions sounds too immediate so I'll roll with the former. The issues raising themselves mark this as a 'quarter life crisis'. I thought I'd gone through a quarter life crisis back when I started flunking college in the early days of the blog though in hindsight it bears more resemblance to angst, still how I went through it did warrant calling it a crisis. On the other hand whilst what I'm describing now is far more contemplative than a mental car crash, it is far more of an actual attempt to find personal direction in my twenty fifth year. Thus, this post is labelled as if it were the second part of the London travelogue.

Try Not To Bleed On My Couch, I've Just Had It Steam-Cleaned

Ethon (Incomplete), Prij, 27/04/06

Shit, I slept-in - I had to meet my history lecturer today. I threw open the curtains - argh, it's already dark... must be 4 o'Clock, the Sun's set. I dive over the bed to the alarm clock: 04:00 AM?

We talked for an hour, initially about my absence and what I had missed, but quickly it became an informal chat - views of the world, interesting things we'd read in the newspapers. A good lengthy face-to-face chat is something I always enjoy immensely - something I haven't really done in about two years since leaving school. Thinking back to our discussion, my history lecturer (sociology last year in the NC course, and more importantly the class guidance figure over both years) holds a very unique position - guidance-wise she's almost a second more like-minded mother, but otherwise the only person over 40 who comes closest to being described a friend. I particularly got on with my politics and communications lecturers, but not nearly the same level of personal exchange. On an egotistical note, this seems to validate the claim that I was far too mature-minded to be 15 years old.

We came to agreement that there was no point in returning to classes, since there's nothing left to teach so close to the end of term. I'm completely disillusioned with college, so I'm not doing another course - so back to square one. There may be a summer job on the horizon. What lies beyond?

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The Push and Shove

Selbstmörder, Édouard Manet, 1877

I can't summon the will to go to college. I went in this afternoon to read the papers (as last Friday), but I didn't go to European Studies, even though I like that class. I'm not going to Psych or Sociology anymore, since I wasn't enjoying those and when you've failed the course, like moi, you can go to whatever classes you want: It's only after you lose everything that you're free to do anything. At least until June 9th. I should probably use all that free time to write that optimistic series of posts I've been meaning to write for about 3 months - might go some way to explaining why I, and the rest of society, can't be bothered with anything anymore. I'll need to go in tomorrow since my brother doesn't have another exam until Tuesday.

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Why Do You Say No? (I Refuse)

I fail to see why I should write at length about something I have verbally demonstrated that I know, and that everyone knows I know - just because the SQA is an inhuman statistical analysis machine, stratifying adolescents into the dysfunctional society their predecessors created. If that doesn't demonstrate education isn't about learning, you really haven't learnt anything.

So I'm supposed to bite my tongue, pass all the subject outcomes, go through uni... and then I can go down the different avenues of thought posed by the regimen topics of formal education.

I just failed Intermediate 2 Modern Studies, but they let me do Higher Modern Studies. I almost passed NC Social Sciences, but they let me do HNC Social Sciences. The teachers at school and the lecturers at college actually know me and my intelligence. The SQA, however, knows me as a 9 digit number with letters assigned by the percentage of correct answers from exams. ie, it does not know me.

"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." – Albert Einstein

Based on a drafts written 20/10/05 and 09/02/06
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Transition/Transmission

Last night's thunderstorm must have been cathartic, either that or I went to college because The Padre was off work today, thus being unable to stay at home. Yes, venturing out to an education establishment I haven't been near since April 18th; and before that March 30th - not that I actually went to a class, I just read the papers and did a pit of personal research on World War II.

In fact, my light and (by my standards) happy mood - I'd fatally overdose on happiness if I had a girlfriend, though that would probably ruin this blog - could very well be attributed to the clear and unheavy skies today. I might actually be in the mood to write about humans in a positive fashion - just don't expect that series of posts anytime soon.

He's a European Legacy, a Culture For Today

Roses, Henri Fantin-Latour, 188x

The past week has gone by quite slowly, rather than it's usual thundering pace, which tells me I'm out of another depression. The obsessive tendencies of the past two weeks have stopped.

Last Thursday I sat up in bed at 0340 and wrote another (less vague) hash of Low 4/4, mainly for myself. It was one of those 'teenage disappointment' style pieces I seem to write too often these days - I don't want this to end up a diary. Anyway, it helped me get a number of things off my chest (or more accurately, one person out of my mind). It's somewhat disturbing how easily you can cease to hold particular feelings toward someone overnight (at least, consciously - whether my dreams will betray me...).

I'm thinking about getting my hair cut... On an almost totally unrelated note, I'm just thinking, did Bowie make instrumentals fashionable (particularly ones that flow into the next)? The Human League's first two albums (1978 and 1979), Spandau Ballet's Diamond (1982), Simple Minds' Empires and Dance (1980), and Ultravox's Vienna (1980) have them.

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Away 0.5: Exploration

Arguing with the birthday-taxpayer yesterday evening, I hit upon that the present is infinitely crappier than the predicted future because his generation failed to change anything: namely, going to the Moon (or not going, to be more accurate). The taxpayer brings in the cost - because they started analysing everything for cost-effectiveness. 'People are starving in Africa' - because you insist they pay back ridiculous loans from the 60s despite the people you elected holding the G8 summit and agreeing to ease the costs - that was only last fucking June. 'Let's fix the problems on this planet first' - You've had over 20 years to do that. 'There's nothing on the Moon' says the Six-O'Clock News viewer - oh, apart from Helium-3 which, though fusion, would slash Carbon emissions from energy production immensely.

Having won that, as indicated by the line of discussion ending, I later broght in the fact that Columbus did not discover America: not because the people living there already discovered it, not because the Vikings stumbled on it, but because Columbus died denying he had found a new continent. I then posed a question: Should Columbus have gone to the Americas when the Old World was still plagued with a myriad of economic, social and political problems? We agreed the Americas were better off unknown - but we needed something to distract the people from the aftermath of the Reconquista.

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Arguments with the Taxpayer

What does the taxpayer know about intelligence? They work in challenging jobs which use up any thought potential they have, in calculating for the corporate fuckwits (who have the interest of the world at heart in the same way an amoeba is a loving parent), and they claim that I have to produce evidence that I'm learning at college because they're paying for it. If i want the fucking taxpayers opinion, I'll lobotomise myself and then get down to their level and converse. The tax payer is an idiot, bereft of the ability to remember what happened in politics the other week, and unfit to tell me that my politics are nonsense and that 'communism works in theory'. Have they ever even encountered a theory outside school? Do they even understand what theory is?: Concept > hypothesis > theory > fact, in increasing order of veracity.
I tell the taxpayers I'm intelligent; you only have to ask my lecturers and look at the essays I write in my own time. The taxpayer doesn't want to know because it wasn't marked, graded and filed. In effect, the taxpayer does not know anything. Go run to Pete Townsend and rock and roll's new corporate sponsors.

Almost (If I Get There I'd Find That I'd Change My Mind )

I can't remember what prompted it, but a whole host of memories from secondary school flooded my head yesterday evening - probably another wish to return to the security of compulsory education in light of my increasing irritation with college.

Egg Timer/Stream of Conscience

I woke up on Monday. Shit, what time is it? 12:30PM! Fuck, nobody woke me up - at least I had a good nights sleep. I hear the door open and everyone come in. They must be bringing the kitten back from the vets - having his testicles removed, don't you know? My brother comes in and tells me to wake up - to which I reply that I am awake - not that anybody bothered to wake me when I asked. Everyone leaves almost as soon as they got in. I'm wide awake and get up to open the curtains - hmm, that's odd... The Sun isn't in the usual place at this time and the shadows are awfully long. I went into the hall to see how the cat was... Hmm, the cat's not here. And the clock says 8:45AM. I go back to check my alarm clock - 0845. What? Why did it display 1230? Why did it display the time I used to get up on Friday? So it was 0845... I suddenly felt very tired and slept until 1430. Fuck, I meant to get up to go get more CD-Rs.

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Low 1/4: Parenthood

I've often thought of myself as having a strong paternal instinct. I'd rather not view myself as subject to biological drives, nor do I wish to believe it's a big egotrip to have a mini version of yourself. Regardless, there's something that makes me want to have a child... I think the video for Will Smith's Just the Two of Us brough it on. That's in an ideal and lovely world. We don't live in that world. I know I hate being born into this world, and I deeply resent being on a planet in which I have to prostitute myself to capitalists to stay alive. How can I possibly introduce a child to a planet which has received hardly any praise from my own blog?

Low 3/4: Animal Farm, Calling

I have an irrational wish to shoot all those who defend this cattle-market economy in all its degrading splendour - namely, the Neo-liberal asinine pricks that are my parents and their generation.

It was their generation that saw 2001 in the cinemas, yet this generation was condemned to a year and resulting decade that never achieved anything near its cinematic namesake. I can't say I didn't enjoy watching the live deaths of 10,000 Americans on TV (as was the figure on the day), but now I think it was awful - not that, the bit where American Imperialism rose again.

Low 2/4: Planet

The people you can see walking down the street are not looking up into the sky and wondering who is out there - instead, they mindlessly watch people with the intelligence of cockroaches on empty-content TV. You can travel 13,700,000,000 Light Years in all directions*, yet we (and by we, I mean Americans) haven't been to the Moon since December 1972. It's only 3 Light Seconds away (384,400 km on average). What was done in the meantime? We built Concorde. Then we scrapped Concorde. Humanity moves forwards. Humanity moves backwards. Politicians build more bridges.

Like a can of sugar-water Coke®, humans arrived and unscrewed the cap on the equilibrium. At this moment , I would truly welcome this species' extinction - the only tragedy would be if the means resulted in the wipeout of the less destructive species.

*The distance to the edge of observable space. Anything beyond that is irrelevant to us
Based on barely-legible depressed rants written in the middle of the night on 19/01/06

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La Tristessa Durera (Scream to a Sigh)

Listen, you fuckers, you screwheads. Here is a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. Here is a man who stood up.

Never a moment allowed to be admired. Never a pause to think without being pushed along. Never a moment to recover from the event. Never to see the present again. Washed downstream by a relentless wave, a relentless wave, marching all over everything at a steady 1s/s. Everything must be done now. Every piece of work is ascribed a deadline. Every deferral to a later date counts. Every allocated time runs out. Every time it's zero hour. And right now, I'm tired.


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Introspection

My 11 month old cat, Leila, is dead - runover like the Squirrel. I am not happy. I was originally going to write today about whether everyone is [mildly] bi-polar, rather than just the mentally ill. Instead, I'm expanding on it to include some new thoughts on the subject.

Freud theorised that the human mind is split into three parts: Id, Ego and SuperEgo.

Essentially, the Id is instinct and unable to comprehend logic or reason. The SuperEgo is morality gone awry, and the Ego attempts to regulate both in order to fit into society.

Taking this partition theory of the mind, I've also drawn from Gene Roddenberry's commentary on humanity - Star Trek.

[Heavily edited for privacy]

Vulcans (the evolution of their culture can be viewed as a victory of SuperEgo over the Id) and Klingons (vice versa).

In between these two is Humanity. I could also bring in thesis, antithesis, and synthesis for even-greater analogy. Suffice to say, humanity is a mixture of the two extremes of instinctual aggression and evolved logic. Our personalities derive from this conflict.

EuroSoviets has been investigating culture in NS over at SD, and Black Adder said:

Being a Mason is supposed to be 24/7. Game or not it is part of what we are so it translates out into how we react. Masonry isn't an ideology so much like Socialism or Libertarianism, its a moral credo.

I disagree and say that ideology also something that is part of people 24/7. Christians ask "What would Jesus do?" and Marxists try and understand society through the history of humanity.
If NEDs go on a rampage, I - as a Marxist - don't say it's because there isn't enough investment in the community. I say it's because society is rotting under the pursuit of money, clamouring over each-others' malnourished bodies. My worldview is also in conflict.

My comments on society above are humanist - the side that still has "faith" in humanity, and believes that NEDs can be changed and that false-consciousness can fall away for them. Then there's my misanthropist side. Last Friday I was talking to a fellow student about how humans were 'a disgusting virus intent on the destruction of this planet and everything on it'.

It's confusing how I can have two opinions of my own comments... The humanist says my comments are only true of certain individuals in society - eg, that only the capitalists are destroying the rainforest. The misanthropist says my comments are entirely accurate and the faster we destroy ourselves the better it will be for the rest of the species on this planet. The misanthropist has also declared an interest in the sterilisation of NEDs. I believe this is also the side that found Nazism fascinating as a Tweenager - only with my discovery of Lenin at the age of 13 did that end.

This is probably a very difficult article to read, and in all likelihood I've written it just to straighten-out my mind and thoughts to try and understand them. The only resolution available right now, is to refer to humanity in the third person. Must get around to that emotion-suppression experiment...

Leila: nth November 2004 - 15th October 2005

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