Author: ------_-------

and a happy New Year

I spent New Year’s Eve alone, for the most part anyway. I did watch a film with my dad earlier in the afternoon/ evening, but he went to sleep several hours before midnight. So when the time came, I was in my room on my own. I had my “friends” on r9k to keep me company, and this isn’t the first time I’ve been alone to witness the year’s end, but it was nevertheless quite sad. Most years I’ve spent the evening with these family friends I think I may have very briefly mentioned in a post from a couple months back. After I went to dinner with them and then my co-workers the night after that. It was a pretty bad entry, but the original plan I had for it would have been quite good I think had I been able to pull it off. Oh well, not everything goes according to plan. Anyway while this is the third time for me (last year I just went to sleep before the clock struck 12 so maybe that doesn’t count), I think it was the most upsetting. I don’t mean to be melodramatic, it’s just another night people will say and they are half right. It wasn’t that bad, I’ve had far more upsetting moments just this year. Of course the most obvious being the whole situation around which my early posts revolved. I didn’t have an emotional break down, but as I was sitting there leaning against the forest green wall in my room listening to John Frusciante’s The Will To Death and waiting for the year to be over I did get a real sense of despair. Weirdly it hit me as I was reflecting on a feeling of hopefulness I’d had all day.

Going back a bit I mentioned how people will say “oh it’s just another day”, etc. Talk about how it doesn’t matter, there’s no significance. I remember speaking to my friend about the idea of having a New Year’s resolution last year (or two years ago I suppose, you know what I mean), and he dismissively just laughed at the idea. Because it is indeed just a day literally speaking, no divine being floated down to tell us otherwise, the decision to start anew here is arbitrary. Nevertheless this is where we start, and this starting point has a long history going back to republican Rome. So while maybe in January 153 BC when an uprising in the provinces led to new consuls being selected earlier than the usual date of March 1st, the day did indeed have no significance, now two thousand years and several calendars later I think it’s earned some.

People are lazy, me especially so, and people like order and ritual, again me especially so. If they need to make a change in their lives, however small, they often look for a significant point to both start on and also to track with. The day they can point to years down the line as the turning point. So, the first day of a new month, or just a new week even. Maybe a special date, their birthday perhaps, or the day following some significant event in their lives. Maybe something bad happened as a result of their bad habits, and the following day they decide to put it behind them once and for all. Or they choose an easily memorable date, and give themselves the time until then to indulge for the last time. So with all this understood, is it any surprise that the start of a new year is so commonly chosen as the time for such a change. So common is it in fact, that the idea of the “New Year’s resolution” is something we all are aware of, especially in the west but in some way all over the world. Something that has it’s own Wikipedia page, for what it’s worth. These people who dismiss the importance of this date are in a way being so cold and rational that they’ve taken an irrational position.

This is the first year that I’ve really seen things this way though, other than as a child I mean, I guess it’d be more accurate to say this is the first year after losing my teenage cynicism. It’s been a gradual process, every year I see my worldview as being different to the year before, but I mean in regard to this particular thing. So because of this I was thinking throughout the day about perhaps taking the opportunity to change some things in my own life. I should read more, maybe then I won’t be flailing around in the dark so much when I talk about complex issues and ideas. Reading used to be something very important to me, but I fell off as so many have. I should actually commit to doing exercise, even if I just do simple bodyweight exercises at home I should have an actual routine and goals rather then the irregular and unplanned sessions every few weeks I’ve been doing the last few years that have not really made me any stronger or well disciplined.

I should continue this blog, and try to have less shitty entries and more that are worth reading. I’ll try to get more regular readers, but other than outright shilling which I don’t feel comfortable with I’m not sure how best to do that. Not that I’m making any money from this, or ever intend to. It’s quite a shame really how unusual I seem to be in this regard, just wanting this as a small hobby. It seems once again I’ve fallen for a romanticised view of what blogging is. See as I never was a part of the “blogosphere”, until I started this I suppose (of course I’ve read blogs before, a certain post that I got a link to or found through a google search, etc.), I had this clearly completely false idea of what it was. Even that term, blogosphere, it’s just a relic of something that didn’t even really exist a decade ago but certainly doesn’t now. This image we have of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people with personal blogs where they share thoughts and ideas, just as a hobby maybe they work on a couple times a week, is not representative of reality. Sure there are probably plenty of those, but the overwhelming majority of “blogs” are just completely soulless attempts at making some extra cash. At least that’s been my experience since starting here, because the last half year or so I have been occasionally checking other blogs. Sometimes through the referrer thing, but also whenever I get a like or someone “following” me I will check their stuff.

In all but a few cases, they’re not even what I’d ever have called a “blog” a year ago. Of course, they are. They fit with the dictionary definition, but they don’t fit the cultural definition. I think it should be fairly clear what I mean by that term, given the context, but if you read my post about school shootings (it’s one of the first I ever wrote) you’ll get a better rundown of this idea of mine. I know that’s a bit cheeky of me, but I really don’t like saying the same thing over and over and I quite like the idea of there being a continuity or evolution in this blog, with my posts building on one another. Anyway as I was saying, this idea I had of the blog as art is a fantasy. I swear I’m not even sure if half of these are written by real people, they could just be using a bot to manufacture a new post every day and then putting an expertly crafted title on top to scrape as many people as possible off of search engines. There are also way more fucking daily recipe blogs than necessary too in my opinion. I don’t want to appear to be shitting on people, the people who make these aren’t really doing anything wrong, if there’s a gap in the market someone’s gonna fill it. What I’m saying is I suppose I have this sense of loss or longing for something that never existed, and you could also say that I’m trying to achieve it myself with this blog. I’m hoping for this blog to almost be an archetypal example of what I always thought blogs were.

I went on a complete tangent though, not that that’s a problem I was hoping for it, but I should try and finish what I started talking about at the beginning eventually. So, I was talking about what I could do to improve or make the blog more appealing to people. Not just anyone of course, I want the people who would appreciate what I’m doing now but might overlook it currently because it’s a little rough around the edges. Some pruning or polishing is fine, but I don’t want to lose the identity that I believe has developed. For example I don’t want to change what I was talking about just now about how the posts build on one another. I like the idea of “being there from the start” being rewarded, and also I think it gives a good reason to go back. There are a few things I could change that might make my stuff more digestible or easy to read, I could change the way I’ll type how I talk in some cases (how I talk when I’m comfortable that is) and then more like I would for an essay at other times. I can see how the inconsistent tone would make it annoying to read, even if people aren’t fully conscious of it specifically it will just “feel off” in a way. At the same time though I don’t want to lose the identity that I’ve developed for the blog, maybe the weird changing tone and style is appropriate because I myself (who this blog is supposed to reflect) often have quite sudden changes in mood and regularly experience feelings of awkwardness or things being not quite right. I don’t want to sound like an annoying pseud, this is just a crappy blog with only a couple of regular viewers at this point (back up from only one at least), I shouldn’t kid myself with this grandiose talk. Oh and of course I could have shorter paragraphs, I know these giant blocks of text are offputting and I am in fact already working on it a little in this post. It’s a weird idiosyncrasy of mine.

So this kind of stuff is what was going through my head, resolutions and new plans, things I should stop doing and things I should start. Then this scene in the film I was watching earlier in the evening came on, it was The Return Of The King and the scene in Mordor where Sam sees a star shining through the clouds. Light and beauty, hope, shining through in even the most desolate and evil places of the world. Tolkien’s world and stories are very dear to me, and perhaps I could write about that more in future, but I will say I think the LoTR films don’t deserve the shit they get from “purists”. Of course they’re not perfect, but I think one should view them as a love letter to the original book. There’s no major motion picture with a budget like that and a big studio backing it with anywhere close to the same passion and care put in to the project I can think of. I also think that the philosophy and depth of the original story isn’t lost like some people say, and even if it’s not expressed as beautifully or as well the films led to millions going on to read the books anyway who wouldn’t have otherwise. Getting to see the beauty of middle earth and experience the most touching moments of the story every year is something I’m glad for. I do plan to re-read the Lord of The Rings and some more Tolkien in future, but I wouldn’t want to every year.

So, that scene, I’ve always appreciated it but this year it really stuck out to me. Of course, I suppose because as I’ve explained I was feeling rather hopeful that day. Maybe hope is the wrong word, too strong, but I was feeling positive about the future. I often get carried away on a specific feeling, probably because there’s so little of anything good or bad in my life. I will seize upon any kind of change or potential change unthinkingly, and get wrapped up in a romantic daydream. So when in the cold light of day I realise this, it is always very unpleasant. Not only is there this disappointment or longing for something that never was (seeing a pattern) but I’m also ashamed to have fallen for it yet again. So after the film finishes I’m thinking about that scene, and I realise that while that star may be shining far above the clouds, down here I am still in the land of shadow.

Merry (belated) Christmas my friends

I’m not really sure how I feel about the MBTI test, more specifically the 16personalities.com test which is the one everyone uses, because on the one hand it’s clearly not much more than a glorified horoscope. Yet so many people take it seriously, for whatever reason and despite the obvious flaws. I suppose because it was influenced by Jung who is this figure that so many hold in very high esteem today. Anyway, I’ve taken the test a couple of times before and of course I got two different results. Now yes they were a few years apart, but still I feel like with this test you could take it twice in a month and get two different results. Anyway I was about to start the test a third time because I’ve been reminded of it a lot lately and was almost immediately annoyed by the questions, and then I remembered I have a blog now (even if no one ever reads it) and an outlet for me to talk about things that bother me. Also I have less free time this week so this will be something easy to do and still stay on top of my one post a week schedule. So here we go, this should be the last time I do this test and I’ll have it recorded somewhere. The test is quite simple, there are several pages with about six statements each. For every statement you have seven options, which are not labelled very helpfully at all. See it’s a series of dots with agree on one side and disagree on the other, the dot in the centre is grey to represent “neutral” everyone assumes even though it’s never said anywhere and the coloured dots (green for agree, brown for disagree) get larger the further out from the centre you get. Maybe this will lead to me doing to test wrong somehow, but I’m going to call the largest dot “strongly agree”, the middle one “agree”, and the smallest one before neutral “partially agree”. Hopefully this is a little interesting for anyone reading.

You find it difficult to introduce yourself to other people. 

This one is fine, and I’ll put strongly agree.

You often get so lost in thoughts that you ignore or forget your surroundings.

Ok this one bugs me a little bit, see I put partially agree because that’s the honest answer but I had to think about it and I very easily could have put something else. Like I was saying earlier, if I took this a month from now or after just long enough to forget this question would I put something different? I’ll put partially agree because I can get lost in thoughts/ end up daydreaming while walking or doing something that doesn’t require much thought, however it happens less often than it used to and even then I wouldn’t say it happened often. There can be several days where I’ll walk to work and do my thing there and not really spend much time dwelling on anything other than surface level crap and immediate concerns. Also though, this particular part of the test is clearly trying to get at something bigger through this statement. The real question is, are you a particularly thoughtful person? Which I would probably put strongly agree to, but certainly at least agree. I’ve actually written quite a bit about this, in Thinking about thinking about things. I understand the importance of thoughtfulness as a personality trait and maybe that’s why I recognise what this question is really about. So because of certain circumstances and learning to control my thoughts more over time, by answering this question more honestly I may actually be answering the “real question” less honestly if that makes sense. This is a big problem with this test, there are similar questions later that have the same problem. They use these irl examples of things they think would express a certain trait, but often the examples aren’t a perfect parallel as in this case. Still, I think the best choice is to answer the question honestly and if that leads to a clearly inaccurate final result that will better show the issues with this test.

You try to respond to your e-mails as soon as possible and cannot stand a messy inbox.

Firstly this is really two statements at once, which hopefully everyone can understand is really stupid. So I kind of had a hard time answering this one and while I ended up going with partially agree I again very possibly could have gone with something else, in this case neutral. See if it was just the second part, I’d say I agree or even strongly agree maybe. I do generally feel kind of uncomfortable with mess and clutter but I’m also admittedly quite a lazy person. I’ve also struggled with finding motivation even for small things like cleaning up my immediate living space or studying for tests etc. for as long as I can remember. So not only is this just a missed opportunity, because had this been separated into two questions they could have had one be about orderliness and the other about.. I don’t know industriousness maybe, but also if your answer is yes to part but no to the other it’s just difficult to find an accurate answer. See I do prefer to keep a clean inbox if we’re sticking with this particular example, but at the same time unless I’m expecting an e-mail it might take months or longer for me to check it. I also have several “lost” e-mail accounts because it’s been so long since using them I forgot the passwords. I know they have the word “try” in there for a reason which does make it a little less annoying but it is still two separate statements.

You find it easy to stay relaxed even when there is some pressure.

This one is also a little more difficult to answer, because it’s so vague and I react quite differently to being under pressure depending on various other circumstances. I’m not the kind of person to hyperventilate or have panic attacks, but I wouldn’t say I react well to stress I just retreat or avoid it whenever possible. Yes, it is cowardly of me and possibly my worst character trait. I shouldn’t be reading into these too much though, so while I do think this question is more generally asking if I react well to stress, they asked if I stay relaxed which is generally true I usually can keep my cool even when cornered with responsibility. The only exception being certain social situations, then I can get pretty shaky and visibly nervous. I’ll put agree partially for this one as well because of that last thing.

You do not usually initiate conversations.

I’m going to put partially agree yet again, I imagine these partially agree/ disagree options are going to be used a lot throughout this. See if you were to collect a record of all the conversations I’ve ever had then yes probably quite a lot more were initiated by others than by me, and yes I also am very shy and have a difficult time talking with most people naturally, but at the same time with the few people I am totally comfortable with I’m far from reserved or guarded. Now I know to take only the conversations with those people might seems somewhat arbitrary but think about it. Another word we use for shy people is “inhibited”, the Oxford definition of which is “Unable to act in a relaxed and natural way because of self-consciousness or mental restraint. The keyword being “natural” there. So while it is on the one hand true that I don’t initiate conversations usually it could be argued that, seeing as with the few people I am comfortable with I will actively seek to chat, I do and there’s an outer shell I wear when facing the outside world which isn’t my real personality. This is something I’ve thought about giving it’s whole own entry actually, and if I end up writing a whole paragraph for every question this one will be absurdly long, so I’ll save it for now. Point is there are two ways I could answer this and while I’ll go with the more “true”, materially speaking, answer in this case it’s another bad question.

You rarely do something just out of sheer curiosity. 

This one is actually perfectly fine, and also fairly accurate so I’ll put agree. First page done.

You feel superior to other people.

I’m genuinely wondering what kind of person would actually say agree to this statement. I’m pretty sure even the most contemptible fedora tipping neckbeard strawman you could think up would hesitate to do so. I’m convinced that the real idea behind this question, what they’re really trying to find out with your answer, is how much self awareness you have. I’ve talked about the whole NPC meme before and how it’s the most recent expression of the “sheeple” joke, and I suppose the kind of people who without thinking would use that might say they agree but most of those people are teenagers who are still mentally developing. I understand that way of seeing the world because I’ve been there, in fact I think it was also Thinking about thinking about things in which I talked about this I believe. On the other hand though it could be argued that I am superior to many people. I wouldn’t say I’m superior to people as a general rule, but by any standard that would be used to judge such a thing (intelligence, athletic ability, raw strength, whatever) there will be people I’m superior to, and of course inferior as well, the same goes for pretty much everyone on the planet. I feel like a stupid person just reading that back, because it’s so obvious but I felt it was necessary to mention. I’ll go with partially disagree.

Being organised is more important to you than being adaptable.

This one is really difficult for me for some reason, it’s just odd to see these two things placed in opposition to one another because I don’t feel like they really are. If anything being adaptable requires someone who is organised, someone who doesn’t have their shit together isn’t going to be ready when a situation that requires them to be adaptable comes up. I think I have to put neutral, I hope that that choice actually tells the test maker something and isn’t just thrown out. I do wonder how much the neutral answers given are taken into account, especially because they literally suggest to never do so. Why would they even give the option though, and why should you have to try at all with these questions? Seriously, this is a personality test and the answers should be immediately apparent to the person going through it. The fact that I have to question what they’re really asking for almost every question really exemplifies the issues with this test.

You are usually highly motivated and energetic.

This is a much better question, easy to answer and doesn’t seem to have any kind of hidden meaning, I’ll say disagree.

Winning a debate matters less to you than making sure no one gets upset.

First of all this one is just worded really confusingly, not something I’ll go on about but it’s just easy to think you might be giving the wrong answer without realising it. I’ll say disagree partially, because of course I’m not an edgy “dude facts don’t care about your feelings lmao, trigger the libs epic style” faggot but at the same time I wouldn’t be in a debate with someone if I didn’t believe in what I was arguing for. So of course while I generally try not to upset the people around me, and like I was saying earlier there’s only a few people I’m truly comfortable around and would end up debating or arguing with, I wouldn’t be willing to hide my beliefs or fold on something just to make them feel better.

You often feel as if you have to justify yourself to other people.

Very strange question indeed, if it said explain instead of justify perhaps it’d change the entire implication but it’d make way more sense to me. I can’t think of a single instance in my life where I’ve felt the need to justify myself, maybe justify certain decisions but it doesn’t say that. I’m going to have to go with strongly disagree.

Your home and work environments are quite tidy.

Well this is difficult, because I certainly prefer them to be and generally try to keep them that way but due to the laziness I do sometimes let mess build up to a point that would disgust some people. I’ve improved a lot, it’s been over a year since I had any piss bottles in my room for example, but I still have a pizza box in the corner that’s been there for three weeks. I do have this desire to live in a clean environment though and when I stay on top of things my mood is noticeably better, every once in a while I’ll get a sudden burst of motivation and spend a few days really sorting things out and usually I can maintain it for some time after that. I’m going to have to go with neutral again, even if that might mean they throw this answer out too.

You do not mind being at the centre of attention.

I don’t see anything wrong with this one, disagree.

You consider yourself more practical than creative.

I don’t quite see these two as opposed personally, and frankly I wouldn’t ever choose to describe myself as either. I suppose I am the kind to deliberate and spend a great deal of time thinking about something rather than getting to work and fixing things, so I’ll say partially disagree.

People can rarely upset you.

The word “can” here is really what makes this question tricky, because were it just “People rarely upset you” then I would agree or even strongly agree, but the thing is if they really wanted to it would be very easy for someone to hurt my feelings if they wished to. It is true that a lot of what would probably bother most people doesn’t get to me at all, I’m not a prideful person at all, but I have old wounds that hurt when prodded. I’ll go with partially agree.

Your travel plans are usually well thought out.

This is quite similar to the question about the e-mail, but done much better. I have very little experience in this regard (or any for that matter), in fact I’ve really only organised one holiday and that was very poorly thought out. We got lost multiple times, once late at night trying to find out way back to our camp and quite a lot else went wrong, but I’m glad it went that way looking back. So, seeing as any trips I take in future will likely be not much better planned I’ll say disagree.

It is often difficult for you to relate to other people’s feelings.

Strongly disagree, I think I’m a particularly empathetic person and I hope that this blog has so far given that impression.

Your mood can change very quickly.

I’ve also talked about this before here I think, strongly agree.

In a discussion, truth should be more important than people’s sensibilities.

This is a tricky one, but like with all of these I’m never sure if I’m just reading into it way too much or it really is just too complicated for what it’s supposed to be. I really wonder what they think they’re learning about me from my answer to this question. They keep creating these weird dichotomies that just don’t make sense to me and this is another case of that. I mean it really depends on the nature of the conversation. I mean if you’re having a heated political discussion you might feel differently than if someone you care about asks your opinion and you don’t want to hurt their feelings. Maybe I’m just nitpicking here though, I think I get what they’re really asking. So agree, because I do think honesty is something important.

You rarely worry about how your actions affect other people.

Disagree.

Your work style is closer to random energy spikes than to a methodical and organised approach.

Unfortunately I’m going to have to say strongly agree. In fact I’m waiting on one of those spikes of energy right now, I feel I started this entry really strong but now I’m finding it difficult to find something intelligent to say. I should have just pushed through on Christmas eve when I started this. Now I’m just trying to wrap it up so I can do a proper post again. Maybe this was a mistake..

You are often envious of others.

I don’t actually think I am, I’m going to go with disagree.

An interesting book or video game is often better than a social event.

This is another tricksy one, the word “better” really makes it difficult to answer. See social events are not something that come up often for me anymore. They’ve become incredibly rare in fact, and while I may still turn one down in favour of being alone with a book or video game (and isn’t that an interesting thing to put in the question, rather than say a film, given the associations it has) I’m not sure it’s because those things are “better”. I really don’t like that choice of word, it’s just completely inappropriate in this context. I suppose those things are preferable, but I’ve got to be honest I prefer them in part because they’re easier. A social event is always intimidating for me, but as much as I romanticise the solitary lifestyle I do long for the company of others. When a social event goes well, it puts me in a better mood than any book or video game could do nowadays. Not to say I don’t have many fond memories of spending time alone with various things like that but ultimately there is something rather dissatisfying, and unhealthy as well, about having so many of one’s fondest memories being of spending time alone with someone else’s art. I could go on about this one in particular for quite a while honestly, but I’m just now realising how long this entry might be. I’m not yet half way through the test and already I think this is one of the longest posts I’ve ever made, even though it has taken very little time. I mean it’s been a good while since my last upload, but I’ve spent very little time actually writing this week for obvious reasons. I might just speed through as many as possible now, whenever it’s been longer than a week since my last post I start to get worried. It’s good to know I can get a lot more done when there’s some kind of a prompt or thing to spring off of though, I’ll keep that in mind. I chose neutral.

Being able to develop and plan and stick to it is the most important part of every project.

This is a far better version of what they were trying to do with the organised/ adaptable question. Only partially agree, because of the word “every”, there are always exceptions.

You rarely get carried away by fantasies and ideas.

Strongly disagree, getting carried away with ideas is why this blog exists.

You often find yourself lost in thought when you are walking in nature.

Partially agree.

If someone does not respond to your e-mail quickly, you start worrying if you said something wrong.

I’m going to substitute “e-mail” for “text” because it makes a lot more sense, and agree.

As a parent, you would rather see you child grow up kind than smart.

Again I reject the two things being placed in opposition, and the weird contrivance of them being mutually exclusive. In fact if the child is more intelligent I’d expect them to also be nicer, the two things seem to go hand in hand from what I’ve experienced. Probably because more intelligent parents will of course have more intelligent children, and more intelligent parents will probably do a better job of parenting. I’m going to say disagree, but I know they’ll take that as an agreement with the reverse of this statement which it of course isn’t, rather than a rejection of the premise which is what it is.

You do not let other people influence your actions.

I hope this is another question that is just testing how self aware/ honest with themselves the person taking the test is. Because the answer is the same for everyone, and that’s strongly disagree.

When you sleep, your dreams tend to focus on the real world and it’s events.

I’m thinking strongly disagree, the forms and shapes of the real world are certainly there albeit distorted and entirely new. It’s not “the real world” though, it’s an entirely different kind of place every time.

It does not take you long to start getting involved in social activities at your new workplace.

Strongly disagree.

You are more of a natural improviser than a careful planner.

Ok, they’re really starting to beat a dead horse now. Partially disagree.

Your emotions control you more than you control them.

Disagree.

You enjoy going to social events that involve dress up or role play activity.

Strongly disagree.

You often spend time exploring unrealistic and impractical yet intriguing ideas.

Something about this question makes me very sad, there’s this particularly unpleasant view on things that’s just there under the surface. I know this is becoming a pattern, but it really does come through thanks to a couple of words. “Unrealistic” and “impractical”, as if all thought has to be leading to some material gain. Even the idle thoughts you might have while you’re busy doing some menial task must be, it’s like the person who made this statement can’t appreciate thought as anything other than a vehicle for some real world impact. It’s just daydreams about what nice thing could happen, or whatever. I’m not explaining myself well at all here, and I even left this one to come back to because I thought I’d have something intelligent to say but I can’t. I forgot what I said as well, probably agree even after everything I had to say. I do daydream a lot after all.

You would rather improvise than spend time coming up with a detailed plan.

moy face wen

Partially disagree.

You are a relatively reserved and quiet person.

Strongly agree.

If you had a business, you would find it very difficult to fire loyal but underperforming employees.

Agree.

You often contemplate the reasons for human existence.

It’s questions like this that make me wonder if this test was designed for stupid people, but at least this one isn’t as bleak as the other similar question on the last page. I hate to say that, because as I’ve said before I don’t think of myself as an especially intelligent person, but the way this statement is worded conjures up the image of a total simpleton spending hours of time making no kind of progress. No, I don’t often contemplate any one thing for long at all. You could say I do I guess, I can see it, but it would be a complete simplification. I’m going to have to say partially agree, even though that will probably give an inaccurate result, because again what they’re really asking is whether I’m thoughtful or introspective. It’s so fucking transparent, they ask several questions getting at the same thing and most do a pretty bad job of it.

Logic is usually more important than heart when it comes to making important decisions.

No, I disagree that it’s usually more important, I’d say it’s sometimes more important. Of course I’m going with the dumbed down normalfag way of using that word. So, partially disagree, so they don’t again assume by disagreeing I therefore agree with the reverse.

Keeping your options open is more important than having a to do list. 

They just won’t fucking give up with this one will they, disagree.

If your friend is sad about something, you are more likely to offer emotional support than suggest ways to deal with the problem.

Disagree.

You rarely feel insecure.

Strongly disagree.

You have no difficulties coming up with a personal timetable and sticking to it.

Disagree.

Being right is more important than being cooperative when it comes to teamwork.

Partially agree.

You think that everyone’s views should be respected regardless of whether they are supported by facts or not.

I suppose we’ll just ignore opinions/ views that are neither supported by or in opposition to the almighty “facts” here, something that the materialist menace doesn’t seem to be capable of dealing with. So I’ll say disagree.

You feel more energetic after spending time with a group of people.

If the interaction went well then I will, but then after a few hours or maybe the next day I’ll feel quite drained, so partially agree.

You frequently misplace your things.

Disagree.

You see yourself as very emotionally stable.

Strongly disagree.

Your mind is always buzzing with unexplored ideas and plans.

Strongly agree.

You would not call yourself a dreamer.

I don’t think if asked that that is how I’d choose to describe myself, but I wouldn’t say it’s inaccurate either so I’ll say partially disagree.

You usually find it difficult to relax when talking in front of many people.

Strongly agree.

Generally speaking, you rely more on your experience than your imagination.

Partially disagree.

You worry too much about what other people think.

Strongly agree.

If the room is full, you stay closer to the walls, avoiding the centre.

Agree.

You have a tendency to procrastinate until there is not enough time to do everything.

As recently as half a year ago I would have said strongly agree, now I’ll just go with agree. This blog is what is really helping with that actually, of course it could all fall apart at any moment.

You feel very anxious in stressful situations.

I feel like I already did this one.. Partially agree.

You believe that it is more rewarding to be liked by others than to be powerful.

This is tricky, I would say agree but I know that were I already liked by many people I’d disagree. It’s not a personality trait but rather a consequence of my current circumstances which could (although don’t seem to be any time soon) change. I’ll still say agree I suppose, because I do, but I don’t really like the question.

You have always been interested in unconventional or ambiguous things, e.g. in books, art, or movies.

I really don’t like how a lot of these are worded, I mean for God’s sake in what way are those things unconventional. If anything it would be unconventional to not enjoy art of some kind. I’ll agree, because again we all see what this question is really getting at.

You often take initiative in social situations.

Strongly disagree.

Anyway I’m done, half regretting this but it was already too late when I realised it was a bad idea to go back as I’d made quite a lot of progress towards finishing it and it had been a while since my last post. This is actually the result I got the first time I took this test, but not the second time, weirdly enough. So maybe I’ll talk about it briefly in another entry but I just want to get this one out so that’s why I’m doing that here. To whoever decides to read this at some point in the next few days, good luck in the new year and I hope to see you there.

Sleep like a pillow, no one there

I had another dream the other night, two separate dreams really but in one night. It’s funny how that works, you’ll have long periods of time sometimes with no dreams worth remembering and then when you do have those more vivid experiences they come all at once. When it rains it really does pour, in the etheric realm anyway. Like an anthology of stories almost, I do believe there were a couple more dreams that night but a few days have passed and these are the two that I’m still thinking about. I don’t really know if there’s anything to actually glean from either of them, despite my fascination with dreams and the ethereal (which I suppose we all have) I’ve never really studied or read a great deal on the subject. Therefore I’ve also never really been too interested into looking for “meaning” in my dreams or anything like that, like how people say if you see certain images/ symbols or find yourself in certain situations in dreams it can supposedly reveal something about yourself. I don’t think there’s any truth to that, I’ve come to kind of disregard that whole idea. What I think is so fascinating is the alternate state it puts you in, where the physical rules of the universe no longer exist. Time is convoluted of course, the physical environment morphs constantly and the thing that really gets me is how you will just be entirely unfazed by any of it. It’s a world of representations of material things, they exist to ground us just enough but no more. Because without some kind of material reality or at least the perception of it there can be no cohesive thought. Because our own method of thought developed in such an environment we need something like it to stimulate the mind perhaps. Not that all the environments of our dreams are always places we have personally been to, or even seen, but they resemble a world that is familiar always. Often in fact you’ll believe (or at least I experience this) you’re in a location from your own life, a school, workplace, park, library, your own home, etc. and yet when you wake up you realise that the place you were in looked completely different and had a layout of some entirely different place. For whatever reason, it had some kind of essence of that real place that made you believe you were there despite it actually being some creation of your unconscious mind that might not have any equivalent in the real world.

I don’t really like Jordan Peterson but I have to credit him with making me aware of this in his lecture series about some of the bible stories. I don’t remember exactly which one but at some point he talks about how early attempts at artificial intelligence where they believed they could create a metaphorical “brain in a jar” were unsuccessful because all thought is filtered through material experience. In a somewhat paradoxical way I suppose, in order to have any kind of objective view on things (or at least be trying to get there, if in vain) you must have a subjective/ limited cognitive experience. If there’s no starting point to work from, you can’t form a worldview or come to an understanding about anything because you’re all possible interpretations and conflicting information at once. I mean even the idea of an “idea” is something that would be impossible for this hypothetical disembodied intelligence because something that doesn’t inhabit the material world can’t possibly categorise and separate. That’s omniscience right there, that’s God I suppose, or enlightenment. You know because if we go back to my favourite subject, the ascetics, a lot of them (particularly eastern ones) have this idea that by rejecting the physical/ material world and their worldly desires they will achieve enlightenment. Well I suppose maybe they were getting at something, it seems to me anyway when you take this idea into account. It’s interesting when you think of how heaven, or paradise or similar ideal “end points” I suppose you can call them are described and represented. They’re places you can do no wrong, an eternal bliss. I remember my dad talking to me about this when I was quite young, and he said that to him heaven (I think he was really just talking about the Christian or more specifically Catholic conception of it, being born to that background) sounded like an opium den. Now that’s partly his typical Gen X cynicism talking (something which I think he should have done a better job of keeping more contained around me growing up) but there is something to it. Opium, heroin, and other similar drugs do have that effect of detaching one from their instinctual desires. People will go days without eating or sleeping, or doing anything at all, and on the surface it does seem a little like the behaviour of the ascetic monks of the world. It’s not actually if you dig a little of course, the addict is not rejecting these physical needs out of sheer force of will but rather tricking the brain into thinking such needs have been satiated because it’s overloaded with pleasure. It’s cheap, a false prophet you could say. See even in Christianity the end point might not be enlightenment but it kind of is because they say heaven is where God dwells. Only in death (losing your body) can you lose that restraint which keeps you from having a total understanding. Everything can very easily be confused for nothing, because it isn’t something.

In an article I read about the subject (artificial intelligence and how they need to give it a body in order to get anything we could actually recognise as intelligence or even just consciousness) on some online science journal they talked about this ancient idea of the separation between mind and body and how this somehow proves it to be the wrong way of looking at the situation. I disagree though, if anything it’s further proof of such a separation. Because we’re flawed aren’t we, we’re fallen. We may have eaten of the tree of knowledge but we are not knowledge unbound, we’re just something more than mere beasts. Speaking allegorically of course, I don’t believe there was an actual Adam and Eve. I hope whoever reads this understands what I’m getting at, because I know I’m not very articulate or intelligent and I’m just scraping at the surface of subjects which are far beyond my understanding, because it’s fascinating stuff and to read or listen to the people who really know what they’re talking about is very satisfying for me. I suppose there’s this arrogance in that conception these scientists (or more accurately the science journalist who wrote the article) have that bothers me, because they forget that the material form which grounds us and gives us a starting point for understanding also limits us. Because knowledge builds on itself, ideas build on other ideas, and so if you have no starting idea (food keeps you alive, etc) you can’t get anywhere at all sure. Also though, you’re always going to be constrained, it’s not that there isn’t a greater unlimited intelligence but rather that we just can’t interact or even really comprehend it because it is completely intangible. I’m reminded of something I mentioned briefly before in a different entry, about language. Of course the idea is something plenty of people have talked about, and it’s something I’ve thought about for years before starting this blog, but the idea of language as both our liberator and jailor. I think it was in “Living up to my shitty blog title” which is still in my opinion the best post I’ve made so far. Because without language you can have all kinds of ideas but can’t express them, and also there are ideas and ways of expressing things that are now locked away from you at the same time. So your potential is expanded greatly and yet also given a limit. Hopefully that helps explain what I’m getting at here, a body provides the gift of perception and yet will always prevent you from having a total understanding of things.

I ended up going down a bit of a rabbit hole, but I’ll give that description of the two dreams I had. The first one had me in this sleepy town, or maybe it would be more accurate to describe it as a large village. I don’t know where it was, but it was snowing heavily and there was only one way in or out. There was this huge road that wound all around and up above the town, along the edge of a cliff almost. I arrived down from this road and came to this small church car park (I was able to drive in this dream) which was completely desolate. It was the first place I saw after coming down from the road above, and other than that there were just narrow streets. There were only a couple other cars, and maybe double as many empty spaces. All the cars were kind of old fashioned looking and clearly aged quite a bit, even mine. I don’t exactly remember getting out and moving but I remember being in the graveyard right after this, and in the centre as it snowed around me I stood and looked up at this great granite statue of an old woman holding up a celtic cross with both hands almost like that scene at the beginning of the lion king. It was dark, with just the light of the moon to help me see, and so I couldn’t see her facial expression. Also in the background there were some houses, terraced it looked like, so I felt fenced in in a way. The graveyard itself was very small, but other than that I don’t remember anything else about it. I don’t even really know why I was there, I vaguely recall being sent there for something but I don’t remember much more than that. I remember walking along one of the few streets there, and none of the houses had their lights on. My memory is hazy I’ll be honest, I remember waking for a moment not long after this and feeling kind of disoriented before returning to sleep.

The second dream was entirely different in feel, instead of the spooky and silent streets of cobbled stone we were in this bright and warm building at mid morning. I say we because I wasn’t alone this time, with me was one of the girls from work. Not one I’ve mentioned before here, or ever had appear in a dream of mine before. This building we were in, a huge room with two levels under one roof, kind of like I was talking about earlier was work to me. It was the shop, even though it wasn’t even a shop. If anything it was more like a library, a big old library with an old stone façade and this wonderful art deco interior. Rich mahogany furniture, bronze cladding on the small escalators that took you to the second level and chandeliers with misted white glass. Now looking back this is really weird, but in the dream it made total sense to me, again like I was talking about earlier. My co-worker, the girl who was there in the dream with me, said that the manager had told her it was my job to make some mayonnaise. There was some kind of meeting or lunch and I had to have it ready before then at midday, luckily this library also had an open kitchen. Now the funny thing is I don’t know how to make mayonnaise and I don’t really like it very much, but there’s this scene from a tv show I watched as a kid that has for whatever reason stuck with me to this day. I mean seriously I was maybe six or seven years old at the time I first watched it. In the scene this kid who wants to be a chef when he grows up makes some mayonnaise when the party or whoever he’s with run out, I don’t remember the details, and it only takes him a few minutes. I’m pretty sure he used eggs and maybe vinegar or something (yes, it’s been over a decade and a half and despite telling myself that day I’d learn to make it too I still haven’t even got around to checking the recipe) and this kind of blew my mind at the time. See to me it was just this white goo that came in jars, like one of those jokes people make about americans who think food “comes from the supermarket” in a way. Of course I was aware all non naturally occurring food had to come from somewhere but this moment made it real as opposed to some abstract thing I didn’t ever give any thought to.

So in the dream I still didn’t know how, but I was too prideful to admit it and I think I just threw some eggs in a blender without even cracking them open. I left to go to the second level where the toilet was, and there were two small cubicles. They were right in the middle of the room, and weirdly shaped like big books almost. Long, but really narrow so inside both walls were pressing on you, and in turn both the cubicles were pressed against one another. As I went in to use one, she followed and went into the other, and as I left she left hers. It was very strange, she gave me this really odd and kind of villainous grin. I went back down to the main level and she said something about how the omelette better be ready soon as I was running out of time. It wasn’t until I woke up later that I realised something had changed, not that it mattered because soon after that things had changed again and now there was no kitchen or lunch to prepare for. I noticed there was a huge back area around the side of the escalators and somehow a bunch of people had got inside. They were sitting all separate from one another at these long cafeteria tables reading books or newspapers or magazines and I started shouting to get them to leave. “We haven’t opened up yet, how did you even get inside?”. Now we were librarians, and always had been. I distinctly remember coming down the escalator earlier in the dream before this now looking back and appreciating the emptiness though. In fact it’s that specific moment which has really stuck with me, it’s been four nights now and every night since before I go to bed some part of me is hoping to go back. It was a really comfy environment, and also it was nice to get to know this co-worker of mine better as well because I’m quite shy and reserved and I never speak much with any of them. I didn’t mention it before, but we also got to chat a bit in the dream and it was really nice. In a wholesome way as well, not ruined by the primordial urge. I’m not saying she’s not a pretty girl, but for whatever reason I’ve just never seen her in that way, which is why that whole weird bit with the bathroom freaked me out so much.

There’s not much purpose to this post, it’s admittedly aimless but so am I right now. It’s not a bad one though I don’t think, if you like what I do here this should be enjoyable. I haven’t had any real ideas of my own lately, but the stuff I talked about in the first half has been on my mind a lot. I almost didn’t write this entry at all, after the last entry which I thought was one of my better ones got no response for days I thought I had been totally abandoned. I still practically have, for just under two weeks I didn’t get a single person despite there being two new uploads in that period. I get it, most youtube channels I take interest in (the closest thing I have to compare with this blog) I also lose interest in after a short while and stop returning to. So I really do understand why people aren’t coming back anymore, I’m not entirely on my own yet but it seems inevitable now. I don’t want to stop though, and shit if having people read what I post is so important I can shill on r9k and pretty reliably get one or two anons to give me a read. That’s how I got this entire blog started, and also I linked my post about school shootings in a thread on a similar subject once and people seemed to appreciate it. I like having this little hobby, something to occupy my time when I’m not at work instead of just mindlessly refreshing the catalogue. The lonely journey is preferable to returning back to stagnation.

The still beating heart

We have these /comfy/ threads on /r9k/, I’m sure most of you already know what I’m talking about. To the one or two who don’t though, essentially people will post art, photos, music, and tell little anecdotes that in one way or another have this common feeling of “comfy” linking them all together. Of course the word comfy, or comfortable, is far older than 4chan but the way it is used makes the /comfy/ of 4chan a unique idea. It’s a little like this Danish word. See in Denmark they have this word hygge, and there doesn’t seem to be a direct translation to English but from what I’ve read it describes a general feeling of cosiness/ warmth gotten from certain activities. So, drinking a hot chocolate while it snows outside or sitting near a fire place and listening to the crackling sounds as it gets dark out. Apparently this is a large part of Danish culture, the best way of putting it that I heard was from this one guy Meik Wiking who said that “Hygge” is to Denmark what “Freedom” is to the US. Now I don’t know how true this is, after all this guy is trying to sell this hygge idea it might be entirely manufactured but it certainly illustrates the concept quite well. The word exists in other Scandinavian/ north Germanic languages or something very similar but it doesn’t have quite the same weight to it. So in Norway it’s just their way of saying cozy or homely, at least that’s what I’ve gathered, whereas in Denmark it’s this central idea. You could say there’s the lower case and the upper case hygge. Similarly you have “comfy” as it’s used by normal people every day and you have “Comfy” the romantic ideal.

Now the two aren’t synonyms, I’d actually say that /comfy/ is far larger in scope. See /comfy/ is a bit different for everyone. The different things people put in those threads reflect their own sense of it. Sure there’s a lot of overlap, in fact a lot of things that would be pretty hygge would also be /comfy/ for many anons. You see a lot of the same images reposted often, but there’s quite a lot of different kinds of things. Deckard’s apartment from Blade Runner, a group of anime girls living in a caravan, a photo of a cup of coffee near a window. Ambient music, or folk, or something that just has nostalgia value and most wouldn’t find /comfy/ at all. Some anons like an old timey aesthetic and others prefer a futuristic place to imagine themselves in, hobbit homes and personal space ships. Even though there’s quite a lot of variety, and almost everyone is going to find things in those threads that they don’t get or understand why someone considers them /comfy/, there’s an understanding that the feeling experienced is the same in substance. I’m not really too happy with my explanation, but the explanation isn’t the purpose of this entry it’s just some preliminary information. Hopefully you already know what it is I’m talking about. No, what I’m here to talk about is the only real through line I can identify that connects everything that /r9k/ might consider /comfy/. Yes, the term is used site wide and in fact even outside of 4chan nowadays as it’s kind of spread out like everything does, but it did originate there. I know the /adjective/ meme is a more general thing too, but I’m not here to talk about 4chan shit. Honestly the “culture” for lack of a better term there isn’t something you can give a quick rundown on you have to just live in it, that why the whole lurk more thing came about. I mean I first started visiting maybe late 2011 and I still would be considered a newfag. Of course even that whole new/ old thing is only half serious, it’s literally just a website where people post pictures and make the same stupid jokes over and over. I don’t want to get side tracked here, these recurring /comfy/ threads are what I’m talking about and the idea may have spread and become diluted or changed but it doesn’t matter because I’m not talking about those cases.

One huge thing though is the amount of artwork or oc that taps into the greater board mythology, I’m using the term loosely but it’s definitely something that exists. I mean you have these figures, and yes the more famous ones are not board exclusive or even site exclusive, but they are most developed on /r9k/. The thing is, pol9k is a real thing and that demographic (not the best term, but the best I can think of right now) absolutely dominates the site now. The radicalised virgin, the 2010s upgraded version of the 00s neckbeard caricature. Very few if any individuals embody all of the traits associated with such a character but as a collective all of them show up frequently. So of course a lot of what develops kind of organically on /r9k/ is spread out quickly because /pol/ is so huge now and there’s that overlap thanks to this demographic and gets picked up by normals. Maybe the most famous example is the virgin walk image which existed as a standalone joke that was posted for years. One day someone made some absurd response image to it, the chad stride, and now a couple years later you have some facebook boomers making “Virgin thing I don’t like, Chad thing I do like” memes who have only ever heard of the hacker known as 4chan through fox news segments. Anyway that’s just another tangent, my point is that I’m well aware that most of these characters (pepe, wojak, spurdo and the various variants that have become their own characters after a while) both existed before the current “culture” on the board had developed into what it is today or even before the board existed at all and exist beyond it. You don’t get stuff like pic related anywhere else though, do you?

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Yes I know it’s an edit, the original was from the poopoopeepee days though and that whole situation was an earlier part of this board mythology I’m talking about anyway. In fact that whole thing was a response to the characters becoming adopted by so many normies, which further goes to show how these little cartoony beings are inextricably tied up with the place. It’s such a lovely little comic strip as well isn’t it, really warms the heart. You see, these various characters seem to me to form a pantheon, and much like the gods of ancient Hellas these characters show up all over the artwork of various creative robots. You couldn’t really create a serious canon from all of these drawings and things, with a continuous story or something like that, it’d be impossible. These characters just are, they exist in all these separate stories and none of them at the same time, just like the hundreds of poems and plays and works of classical art featuring the Olympians. This is ongoing and like I said earlier organic, I deliberately chose a more recent and kind of shoddy image for the main picture of the post to help show this. There’s stuff like it being made often and by all sorts of people. Well, all sorts of robot anyway. These characters have certain traits we all kind associate with each of them, and we know when one is being used over another what they’re trying to represent. These characters personify various aspects of ourselves, and can be used to create a feeling of sadness or melancholy, of joy, of anger, and most importantly of being /comfy/. The funny thing about the things that feature these characters though is this sense of friendship or being at ease around one another these characters all seem to have when two or more are put together. Even in the ones where they’re messing with one another, and sometimes those can get really fucking weird, there’s this sense that they’re still part of this great and unbreakable friendship or even familial bond. Which again I can’t help but see in parallel to not just the Greek pantheon but Norse mythology as well. See a lot of people think there was this codified story of the gods in these societies, and all the famous folk stories featuring them were believed to be true. Of course that’s a very materialist and modern way of seeing things, and it misses the whole point of these ancient mythologies and the characters they feature. No, there’s stories where they fight and die and betray one another and come together to deal with greater threats and there’s so much no one could possibly believe it all happened and in some kind of order. Some stories might even outright contradict others, but yes if you want to see how the gods of antiquity were used in stories and sagas you should think about how gondola or wojak or that retarded version of pepe are used.

It’s funny to me because this sense of there being a friendship or bond is almost exclusive to the art featuring these characters, in the /comfy/ threads I mean. Almost everything else posted, photos or artwork or music etc. feels very solitary in theme. Maybe this isn’t surprising at all, this is /r9k/ after all it’s filled with isolated and lonely young men, but remember these threads are meant to be about what we find comfort in. So it is interesting that it is often (admittedly very pretty) art of empty bedrooms, or isolated winter cabins, or small ships floating through space. Fuzzy lo-fi music, usually pretty melancholy, that brings to mind the idea of a summer stuck indoors. All tied together with the things that people in the thread talk about, how they’re getting /comfy/ themselves. Naturally because it’s a bunch of NEETs and hikkis or sometimes wageslaves who are still very shut in the rest of the time like myself finding this comfort in old video games and films, simple things enjoyed from home like a hot drink and most importantly these threads themselves. Both alone, and in good company. In the wizards tower with a nice heavy blanket, with the Palantir at hand. See, I first started thinking about this when I made that post a couple of weeks ago. Why I like to romanticise my situation, cut off from people and it’s not merely cope or an attempt to make it more bearable. It’s because, I actually in some sense quite like it. I mean I long for good company sometimes to be sure, but I also take solace in being away from people when things become too stressful. I think I mentioned this before here but I actually used to have a very romantic view of the hikikomori archetype when I was a lot younger and still not necessarily on the path to aligning with it so closely as I do today. It’s because I (and I think it’s fair to say you can extrapolate to a lot of other robots too) have always been drawn to similar figures. The wandering ronin, the chivalric knight-errant, the wizard cooped up in his tower on the mountain, the drifter afloat in space and of course as I’ve mentioned before the ascetic monk. It’s these kinds of characters, sometimes drawn as variations of the /r9k/ pantheon I was talking about earlier and sometimes just reposted pics found anywhere online, that are the second major kind of figure that appears in these threads. Often as well, there’ll just be empty rooms, or city streets with no people (or blurry silhouettes) and similar stuff too. I know it’s a stretch to say that the modern hikikomori (as an archetype, just like I said earlier about something else it’s rare you’ll find any person in the real world who embodies all associated traits) is the incarnation of what all those other figures are for the modern world, it’s just a loser who can’t get laid you may say. Maybe you’re right, but I see a connection there.

So I said that the only time you have depictions of a more social existence in these threads is when the frogs and cancer patients etc. are used but that’s not entirely true. There are also occasionally pictures of children, there’s two images which I can think of right now. One is this drawing of a bunch of Japanese schoolkids doing some kind of project near a big window during what looks like a summer break, the other is of three or maybe four boys playing on an N64 in their pyjamas. I think it’s clear why this is, it’s a case of looking back on childhood with rose tinted glasses. I’m absolutely guilty of this, I’ve made several posts on here in which I’ve done it. When I think of friendship, I think of being a child. Why wouldn’t I, it was when I was a child that I actually had friends. Well, up until my mid teens anyway. Of course I still have friends now, a few anyway although I had many more when I was little, but we see each other at best a few times a year. Clustered around the summer as well, so most of the year I don’t see anyone. The only real group of people with whom I can engage in friendly activities with, laughing about stupid jokes, arguing about anything from politics to art, sharing feels both positive and negative, is /r9k/. Who, that’s right, are best represented by this pantheon I guess I’m calling it now. Again, I think I’ve spent enough time with the robots to say that a lot of them are very similar to me in some fundamental ways, and therefore it’s fair for me to extrapolate my way of seeing things onto them I think. So I think that this is why it’s those characters or children who are necessary stand ins in order for most robots to see any kind of social gathering as /comfy/. A lot of normalfags might see a pub or bar with “interesting” strangers to talk to as comfy, but to any robot such a place would be the exact opposite. Because these threads represent /r9k/, and not only that but they get at the fundamental robot truth more than any other. The only other recurring thread I can think off that comes close would be those Frog and Feels threads but they seem to have stopped or at least become way less common over the last couple years. You can’t help but see these /comfy/ threads as basically the church, or temple, of the board when you think this way. The place where the soul resides.

Flailing

There’s this weird thing I’ve noticed and it seems so fucking clear to me but yet I can’t recall anyone actually trying to stop these people talking past one another. I’m talking about the whole “Born this way” slogan that the “community” of homosexuals and associated degenerates so often tout. I don’t hear it so often now, but even half a decade ago it was still fairly common. In response the right wingers who oppose this crap (the Christian-right types, the furthest right wing you can get while remaining in the overton window) will of course disagree and pandemonium ensues. Well, only sometimes but it certainly pisses the homos off a great deal every time. “My sexuality is not a choice” and similar things are chanted and everyone claps for the poor put-upon gay people. The thing is though, not only is homosexuality almost certainly not simply a hereditary trait, the people disagreeing with the whole “born this way” meme aren’t talking about homosexuality as being attracted to men. I don’t know a great deal about this to be fair but from what I understand the current scientific consensus is that it’s definitely not exclusively a genetic thing like eye colour or some shit. It may be partially genetic but also require certain circumstances in order for the trait to express itself, I’ve got to be really careful here because I’m completely scientifically illiterate and don’t know what I’m talking about. Also I’m not here to talk about whether being gay is inherited or not in fact my whole point is really that it doesn’t matter.

Circling back, the Christian-right moralists aren’t talking about homosexuality as being attracted to men but rather the choice to act upon that desire. I mean come on plenty of them are attracted to men themselves, the irl meme of the militant homophobe who turns out to be into all kinds of gay shit in his off time does exist for a reason. Rather they are talking about exercising restraint. Homosexuality is an entirely lustful affair, anything other than the missionary position with the lights off for the sole purpose of recreation is really, but if you view it as a spectrum these two are at the complete opposite ends. People trying to argue against anti-gay Christians will often bring up that famous Leviticus passage and say something like “you know in the same book it also says eating shellfish is degenerate too so why don’t you care about the seafood problem?”. Haha, gottem! The thing is that passage doesn’t matter, I think it’s meant to be a quote from a set of laws at the time rather than a commandment for people reading the book to follow even, of course nu-atheists being complete materialists assume everyone else is like them and so argue only against literalist and fundamentalist idiots who are just as much a cancer as them. The real and deep issue that any true Christian has with homosexuality (again that being the act not the desire) is because of something not even in the bible. The seven deadly sins, of course each of them is talked about many times throughout the book but famously the cardinal sins as an official list is something put together later by the catholic church, and of course you find similar things in traditions the world over. After all what are the capital sins? They are an argument for restraint, to resist your baser instincts. You could say, although wording it like this is kind of teasing, that homosexuality is the purest form of lust.

Now for me personally I’ve only very recently given any thought to homosexuality or sexual deviancy. Not just because of the “live and let live” culture I was raised in although that played a large part but also because I just don’t really want to be someone judgemental or imposing. Nowadays I’ve been convinced of the stupidity and naivety of statements like “the government should stay out of the bedroom” and similar empty platitudes. In fact any position of any kind that can be boiled down to a snappy statement like that is suspect to me now. I don’t know what I think about what should or shouldn’t be done about this issue in the real world all I can say is that this misunderstanding has to be solved. See there’s this implicit assumption in the “being gay isn’t a choice” argument that because you’re attracted to men you absolutely have to act upon it. The idea of restraint or god forbid abstinence as a virtue just doesn’t exist, at least here in the greater popular culture in Britain and seemingly the rest of the anglosphere. I really find it hard to talk about these subjects because there’s a very easy point someone could make and I’m not even sure myself if it’s not partly true. They could say that I’m just a bitter incel who’s angry about not getting laid and just lashing out at people who can. The thing is though, even if that is correct to a degree and a part of my unconscious force affecting my thoughts I still believe completely what I say. I can say with a straight face that me being a loser isn’t a conscious motivation for me espousing the ideas I do. Anyway, it’s not like I talk about this kind of thing often at all. This is really the first post on this blog talking about my reactionary viewpoint and I’m not planning on making this a regular thing. Honestly I’ve just not written anything at all for like a week and trying to rush to get something new up tonight and this was on my mind today. This is the kind of position on things I hold as well, and I wanted to remind anyone who might have forgotten or just didn’t know.

I don’t have a list of points I wanted to talk about or even just an end point in mind, and whenever I don’t it always makes finishing a post difficult. I think my personal take on this ties in with the idea I’ve been talking about a lot on this blog. This conflict between instinct and the innate feeling that such behaviour is somehow wrong. People are able to engage in activities that not only aren’t merely for the purpose of survival and reproduction but may even be in opposition to it, art and suicide. The pleasurable release of chemicals into the brain we get from eating nice food, from winning a competition, and from orgasm seem to me to show that clearly people need more motivation than merely the result as motivation. Resisting such gratification, such temptation is something that has been held up as virtuous all over the world across cultures forever. Maybe I’m just stating the obvious, maybe my explanation and view on this is completely shallow. I don’t know what to think, and I don’t know what to write. This is something I can’t help but keep returning to in my thoughts at the moment, but I don’t actually think about it very deeply now I look back. Maybe this isn’t an idea that doesn’t go very deep, after all I believe it to be this universal thing. I need to take my mind off of this for a while, and I need to start writing longer posts again. I’ve been reading back over everything I’ve uploaded here today, and I feel like the quality is getting worse not better. I mean some of my favourite entries were right at the very start, and while the first time I went into this recent obsession of mine I think I made a really good post since then it’s been downhill. I may upload less often for a bit, but I’m not going anywhere.

Above the sea of lights

So one of the customers asked my age today and it fucking threw me for a second. I’m 21, but for a good short while there I wasn’t sure. It’s easy to work out because I was born in 1997 so it’s just le current year XD plus three. Still, it’s the first time I’ve not just been able to recount it without even thinking. I don’t know if it really tells me anything, but I just can’t help but feel quite sad. I’m so detached from everyone, I even live in a rather isolated place. I mean I still live in a busy part of a busy city, but to get up to my building you have to walk up off the street onto an elevated and most of the time almost completely desolate area of land. Just to get to street level takes a few minutes, it’s almost nothing when put like that but you’d be surprised by how such a minor inconvenience can change people’s behaviour. See, I moved a few times before finally coming here when I was nine. We lived at three different places, plus my dad lived separately from me for a long time and so lived at two more places. All of them were normal places, walk out and onto the street etc. So growing up it was normal for people to be visiting, family or friends of my parents or the people my dad lived with or friendly neighbours or my own little friends. People being around was normal, and then I moved here. I’ve sometimes jokingly referred to it as the wizard’s tower because that shit stopped after coming here. I remember a noticeable change, not immediately because people made an effort at first, but after a year or two they gradually all stopped visiting. My uncle and cousins and their mother/ his partner (who was actually a good friend of my mum before the two ever met actually) for example came here a day after we moved in for a housewarming and would visit fairly often. By the time my mum died though and my dad moved in we were seeing them a few times a year at most.

It’s interesting that this change in a way rhymes with a greater change in my life in many other regards. I can almost sort my life into pre and post 2008 with the actual year of 2008 as this weird transitional time where things were all going crazy. Of course, I’m not the only one who feels this. Not only did my life and perception change quite significantly, the world at large seems to have. This idea of 2007 as the last good year is quite popular on /r9k/ at least and anywhere on the internet inhabited by my demographic really. I’m not going to go into that though it’s been done to death, you know the basic idea, obongo, financial crisis, social media, smartphones, new console generation, etc. It’s the usual thing, new decade new trends and a couple years before the new decade starts is usually when you see the ripples in the water it seems to me. A good example being in music, which in the second half of the 20th century was a defining aspect of the various decades’ identity. So The Pixies debut album and their best work (in my opinion obviously) Doolittle which sound 90s as fuck were actually both released in ’88 and 89′ respectively. Pretty Hate Machine was also released in 1989, Kate Bush’s debut was 1978 and there were a bunch of pop singles in those eights and nines which defined the coming sounds. Baker Street, Heart of Glass, Fortunate Son (It ain’t me, meme song 2bh) etc. I don’t know what I should talk about though, I’m kind of just going for a stream of consciousness with this entry so there’s no real plan or idea in mind. Another entry I write in a couple of long sessions again and then maybe I’ll go back to my more drawn out routine after this.

Anyway it makes me wonder how much this physical separation from the rest of the people around me has affected my mind, and how my mind has developed. I think this weird romanticism I had in my early teens for the modern archetype of the hikkikomori or NEET is something I mentioned before so I’ll just assume you already know about it. Well it does seem to have come about around a year or so after moving to the wizard’s tower. See I of course get upset about being lonely, loneliness bothers me a great deal and yet at the same time I find it very nourishing. I have grown dependent on some loneliness and this job I have now has taught me that. If I have a busy few weeks where I’m doing 5 days of work in my days off I just want to get away from everyone, I need some time to be away from people. When I go outside into the real world, especially after a longer period of isolation, I feel very strange almost like a mild feeling of intoxication. My head sometimes feels like it’s spinning and I get shaky and I can’t speak to people properly. I literally can’t bee myself, it’s like I’m inside a cage and the cage is what is interacting with everyone in my stead. I grasp the bars and see the interaction take place, I know what I want to say and I feel like I could be normal and accepted by people but can do nothing. That’s all an aside though, as I was saying by being isolated I grew to not just enjoy or be comfortable in loneliness but view it in this romanticised way. Of course anyone who’s been following me here will be aware of my fascination with ascetics, that’s another expression of this. I of course took a long time to fully embrace such a lifestyle myself, but had I have never developed this outlook would it have happened at all? I’m really not sure, I always hesitate to say there’s one crucial reason for any complex situation. I know that the year between September 2013 and 2014 had a huge affect, because I finally really came to terms with my mother passing away around that time and also because the isolation drastically increased. I moved to a new school, which at the age of 16 everyone does here, and I didn’t get to bring friends.

That year wasn’t all bad, even the darkest clouds have a silver lining. See I stopped going to classes but my dad was often at home and I had to get to registration in the morning so I wasn’t missed. After that I’d go to the library and just wait there often the whole day until school was over. I’d go to a few classes a week just to keep up appearances but I never got any work done and by the end of the year I knew I was so totally fucked I didn’t even show up for most of the final exams. I didn’t make it into the second year, of course. I read a lot though, given that the library computers had 4chan blocked and I didn’t have a smartphone at the time. Speaking of that phone I had, I only got rid of about half a year ago. There was one teacher who would actually send me a text message every time I didn’t show up to his lesson and I kept all of them (seeing him slowly get more and more frustrated as the months pass is really funny) saved right until I got rid of the phone. It wasn’t all the best stuff to be reading, I read Heavier Than Heaven because I was still quite a big fan of Nirvana at the time. I read this absolute unit of a book, Stalin, which was another biography obviously. It was written by such a fucking blatant commie sympathiser looking back, but I guess so was I at the time (forgive me), could you even imagine an equivalent tome about Franco or Mussolini being left around for kids to read. I read The Republic by Plato which kind of went over my head, and I intend to go back to. I read The Prince by Machiavelli, The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer (and jesus is she mentally ill, I’m not going to reveal my misogyny power level today maybe some other time, but this idea of ugliness as empowering is  something I could go on about for a while). I also read the ASOIAF books, all that have been published so far anyway. I know it’s genre fiction and I’m a pleb for enjoying that stuff but I do enjoy it and I’m looking forward to The Winds of Winter. It’s a shame Elliot will never get to read it, he was quite a fan of the books too. The show Game Of Thrones is unfortunately not very good past series three, which is a shame because those first three seasons were admittedly fantastic and the reason I decided to read the books.

I think I read more in that year than any other, I just had nothing else to do. There’s probably some other books I forgot to mention as well. I don’t know how much of this blog should be me talking about other people’s art, because while I have of course in my years up here in the tower experienced a great deal and much of it has influenced me, I don’t just want to regurgitate other ideas. “Me like this film/ book/ etc.” isn’t anything worth your time, it’s hard to tell if I could do something worthwhile talking about art because I don’t know what anyone thought about the Cure posts which is the only time I’ve done something like that. I do wish I got more comments, I’ve only ever had one. I know I have very few regular visitors, although I think I’ve got a couple more since last time I complained about it, but it’d be nice to have some idea of what you people are enjoying about these. Of course I don’t want anyone to be uncomfortable, I hesitate to comment or write anything online that isn’t a 4chan post (because the total anonymity there makes me feel safe) so I get it, but if that’s not what’s stopping you but rather something else maybe you could reconsider. I do wonder why I don’t get any comments. At risk of sounding like a total self important dipshit, one reason I’ve considered is that because my posts can be quite thoughtful and in depth (for a short blogpost that is) and maybe people are thinking they need to have particularly lengthy or thoughtful comment but really that’s not necessary at all. Anyway I’m not sure what else to say here. I’m still finding it kind of difficult to write for some reason, even though I have a few ideas. I really find it relaxing to write though, this blog is becoming a nice little hobby for me so I just decided to start writing this evening and see how it goes. The shroom spores I think I must have mentioned before have been developing into a mycelium bed nicely. Perhaps in a few weeks or so some actual fungi will have grown as I get into the final part of the process and they’ll give me something to talk about.

Your weekly dose of total claptrap

I mentioned a woman in my second part of The Cure retrospective thing I did, and that I remember her so fondly specifically because I didn’t ever developing feelings or oneitis or whatever you want to call it. It’s hard to explain exactly, but I think what I said in that post was that the acquaintanceship (kind of a weird term, but it would feel strange to use the word relationship for someone I only knew a few weeks) will never feel tainted or impure. See I always feel gross or perhaps… sinful whenever I am attracted to or interested in a girl. I’ve had plenty of oneitises, I can’t even remember all of them very well at all. I always feel like I’m doing something wrong, that my mere interest is a great crime of some sort. Of course I know it’s not, but it’s one of those deeper things that can’t just be rationalised away. I’m really struggling to explain things in a way that makes sense, I’ve already had to delete several paragraphs of a different attempt at this post. See I’ve developed a technique for this blog thing now, when I started I was completely unstructured and would sit here writing for 6 or 7+ hours in a row and start and finish a post in one frantic session. Now I’m generally writing for an hour or so a day and that’s why I’m sort of keeping to a schedule by finishing a new one early every new week. The problem is that my mind doesn’t work that way, my mind will be racing with ideas about a subject when I start but I can’t just turn that on and off or even direct it. After a few days with something I’ll start obsessing over something else and it’s hard to stay focused. I know I have to though, I know that whatever I started a post about fascinated me and inspired me to share it for good reason. Surprisingly enough finding ideas to talk about is not getting harder like I was worried would happen after a month or two, if anything it’s getting easier. Having an outlet and having to be thinking about things more has stimulated my imagination and I find myself monologuing internally about all kinds of pointless things more than I have in years. It is helping me to feel like a child again in a way, and that is something I’ve longed for greatly for some time.

I am getting a really bad case of writer’s block though, not that I would call myself a writer but you know what I mean. I’m trying and trying and today I actually have been here for a good three hours with nothing to show for it. I’ve written quite a lot but it’s just going nowhere or I can’t get to what I really want to talk about. I don’t know what it is, I just need some kind of in. I had this for a little while with some other posts but I eventually always managed to get on a roll and write some of my favourite stuff from this blog in some cases all in an evening. Right now it’s like a night when I struggle to get to sleep, I roll from side to side and it’s getting later and later and that makes me more stressed and less likely to get any sleep. I’m having that exact same frustration right now, I know exactly what I want to talk about but I just can’t do it. I have all these ideas for a really clever entry that ties all these seemingly unrelated things together and has a central theme and usually I think I pull it off but I don’t know what’s going on today. Well today and yesterday, I started writing yesterday morning but got nowhere and deleted what I did have written when starting today. Essentially I had a surprisingly busy weekend, both evenings I went out to a restaurant. Nothing particularly special, but I am kind of a shut in so for me anything I do outside of work or hanging around at home is noteworthy. The first evening I went with some family friends and the second it was a social thing for work. I was planning for this post to go over some thoughts I was having over the weekend and link the two evenings in a few interesting ways. The problem is that for every little thing I feel I have to preface it with loads of information and that just bogs me down and I end up with a bloated mess that just has to go. I think I’m losing track of what I want to even be doing with this fucking blog thing. I got carried away with this idea of it being my own spiritual successor to My Twisted World, but that was never the original intention and it’s already something entirely different. It also is affecting what I do and don’t write here, because there’s this part of me thinking maybe don’t talk about certain things because I don’t want people who might one day read this to see me in that way. I think I should just stop disregarding my original title for this blog, even though it’s a kind of cringy title, because it’s when I follow that that I do my best. This isn’t a fucking biography, it’s not Anon’s manifesto, it’s just me collecting my thoughts as best as possible and spilling it out in (figurative) ink on a page.

I mean the idea was never a good one, that whole embarrassing situation that kicked this fucking blog off would be the worst first impression if I wanted someone to get an accurate picture of who I am. Just the fact that it was what motivated me in part to start writing here will make it seem way more important than it is. No, I think I got a little carried away with myself. This is really freeing actually, I’ve also felt like I need to try and make this more biographical over time trying to gradually tell all the more important stories that have happened to me over the years. I don’t need to do any of that, you don’t need to know a bunch of useless sob stories. I should stop writing for an imaginary group of people who don’t currently exist and do what has been going down well with those of you who read today. Of course when these stories about my life are relevant to what I want to talk about I won’t avoid them, but I should never be trying to fit my ideas around telling the story it should be the other way around. The information about me should serve the ultimate goal, of expressing what I’ve been thinking about. Because my whole life I’ve been plagued by excessive thinking, and I think that in a “throw enough shit at the wall” kind of way it does sometimes lead to interesting places. So this should just be a catalogue of these thoughts, a simple idea and hopefully actually worthwhile to anyone who chooses to read. It’s what I said I was going to do in my original introductory post after all.

So on this second evening, the less enjoyable of the two but probably the more interesting one, I remember that same feeling of disgust or maybe disappointment in myself I talked about right at the start hitting me. If you read all of these you might remember me mentioning not too long ago some new people started, and one of them I almost started to develop feelings for but luckily found out she had a boyfriend before that could really grow into anything. Luckily really is meant here as well, I realised this at the restaurant while there with her and of course all my other co-workers. It was because, and I know this might sound silly, I was enjoying myself. I had a really nice time, and I was able to enjoy being around them and chatting (not that much I’m still incredibly shy, but I’m warming up to them all a little and spoke more than the last of these certainly) without anything else. I wasn’t enjoying it like I’d enjoy conversations with one of the many oneitises I’ve had over the years, where I would be glad it went well because it felt like “progress” of some kind. No instead of it being a means to an end, and my gladness being for having achieved that, my enjoyment was of the actual conversation itself. I just liked talking to her, to all of them but of course for the context of this issue I’m talking about she’s most important. I feel really bad that those feelings of mine were ever developing at all, so soon after meeting someone. It just goes to show how false they were, like I’ve said (not that it’s any revelation) before it’s just my lizard brain or instinct trying to find a mate and my conscious self trying to rationalise it.

The problem is what I talked about in a lot of detail before in another post, Living up to my shitty blog title I think it was. That we’re essentially all God having an animal experience, and asceticism and rejection of many natural behaviours being so universal is because the explicit rejection of instinct is the easiest way we can perhaps get in touch with our divine aspect. So a buddhist sitting cross legged up in the Himalayas without eating for days and a nun taking a vow of celibacy really are getting at the same thing. The idea of artistic integrity I think ties in to this actually, another thing which seems to almost have universal importance to everyone. Why? Well I think because all art, anything which doesn’t just serve survival but has a more abstract purpose, is again an attempt at getting in touch with this higher aspect of ourselves. So the reason you see so many people who think “pop music sucks” or “modern Hollywood is trash”, etc. all feel that it’s a product designed to materially enrich certain people masquerading as “pure” art. Whatever original artistic vision there was has been corrupted, it feels wrong to them in a way they can’t fully explain. Now of course it’s far more complicated than that like all things, but I can understand their attitude I think. This is a complete tangent though, I was talking about work wasn’t I? The problem, as I was saying, is this conflict we all have between our instinct and our better nature. Id and super-ego? Maybe I am more off in the clouds than most, because any kind of behaviour motivated by instinct alone bothers me on principle. Being a human though, means I am still ultimately subject to this instinct. So to keep me from going fucking insane I convince myself somehow of all this crap that isn’t true. It’s not just desire to “go forth and multiply” I care about this person I know nothing about deeply that’s it.

It’s complicated, because I really do still even now kind of doubt it’s just sexual desire. In fact it’s definitely not that exclusively because often my oneitis at any given time isn’t the most attractive woman in the environment. I suppose like those major motion pictures that feel so hollow to everyone I need something real and true to manufacture the product around. To create this person in my mind, I have to know just enough and see some hint at a person I could like or even love. Still, I’m actively searching all the time and I still kind of am manufacturing this purely to satisfy the better nature. The beast is still the one who’s ends are being served, even if totally unsuccessfully because I’m a fucking incel haha… Anyway, I’m doing a really bad job of expressing myself. I say that so fucking often it’s like a recurring joke at this point. Maybe this will illustrate things best, an example. Often people will say “I wish I had a girlfriend” or that most famous line of poetry “tfw no gf”. Now something about that has always got under my skin, really bothered me in a way I couldn’t quite explain. See it might not be purely a sexual thing for the person saying it, they aren’t saying “I want to get laid” or “tfw no sex” they want someone to love but still they look towards “the gf” almost as a metaphysical ideal rather than any real life person. It’s dehumanising. I guess what I’m saying is that.. I don’t love. None of us do. I think I’m trying to say two things at once, and failing to communicate either. To try and somehow bring things back to the start though, I found something out about that woman from my days training at that social event for work. I thought I was her replacement but it turns out she actually got fired. Something I found amusing, anyway. Next post will hopefully be a lot less shit.

 

Maybe I’m just a schmuck

Some guy tried to scam me the other day, or maybe scam is the wrong word because it gives the wrong impression. It was more of a quick con, a clever little trick. It seems not to be that clever when you think about it, but then after thinking some more you go back to your original position of it being quite a clever little ruse. At least that’s my experience and I’ll explain. It worked on me once actually, this was the third time someone has tried this on me in the year since I started here. See, it was at work and it starts off with someone paying for what they want with a £10 note. The actual value isn’t important here for the trick, the number is, so you can substitute a note of your own currency that is a ten of something and this should still make sense. So they pay with a note for something very cheap maybe a pound or two, and then complain to the guy behind the till (me, in these three instances) when he gives them their change that they don’t want to carry around a load of coins and then they ask if they can give back all the coins along with some others they have adding it all back up to ten for the original note back. Now it should raise some suspicion already at this point that they have enough in change to get back to ten in coins, after all doesn’t this mean they could have just paid for the original item with coins alone. Yes, it does but you don’t realise this and in fact I only realised this after the third attempt was over when going over it. Because they’re quick, and they keep talking and can be very friendly. They know to try this when the shop is busy, so you’re not taking your time with each customer but trying to finish as quickly as possible and move on to the next person waiting in line and they know how to gain your trust.

The first time was the most “professional”, the guy actually asked me to double check the coins he was giving back to me definitely added up to ten “take your time mate, no rush”. Now of course, it takes a lot less time to give a note just handed to you back then it does to fish coins out of your wallet. So you always end up giving them the note before they’ve finished scraping £10 in coins to give back to you. Again, this extra few coins they find is what could have been used to buy the original item, they literally have to get specifically the value of the original item in coins to make it back up. It’s so fucking obviously suspect at this point I’m shocked I didn’t even realise this until after the third attempt was over. I mean like I said not until my time thinking about this yesterday, which is basically going to be what this entry covers, did I realise it. So then with the coins all counted, he then hands you back the original note as you’re putting it back into the till and says now he’s given you £20 (half true, he’s just handed you that much, but of course half of it is yours) can he get a £20 note back. I know I know it’s so fucking insane that I or anyone ever fell for this, but I promise going through it all step by step and being there in the moment especially when you’re just not expecting to be scammed (which I will get back to in more detail later) and it’s all happening so fast are two very different things.

The first time this happened to me, I didn’t even fully realise until the guy was long gone. I kind of knew something felt wrong during the last step, as I handed him the £20 note, but there were customers waiting and I suppose I didn’t want to bother the guy in case my suspicion was unfounded and no mistake/ scam had took place and I’d just be slowing down the queue. I kept going over it in my head as I was dealing with customers though and after half an hour or so it slowed down and I had a brief moment with no customers waiting. Then it all made sense, and I just paid £10 of my own money into the till so I wouldn’t be accused of stealing from the till or something by the higher ups. It’s not a huge deal, just over an hour’s work at this place, and it serves as good motivation to not let it happen again. So even though I didn’t fully realise until it was over my suspicions were raised at the point where he asked for the £20 note, the very last step. This is one of several crucial points, and I keep changing my mind over which is most important. These several points being places both where the scam can fall apart, and yet have to happen in order to pull the scam off. In some ways that might not seem immediately obvious as well, there is a surprising richness to it all. I almost have to respect those who can pull it off properly, the first guy in my case. I mean sure in part he got away with it because it was my first time, but I’m not so sure the other two would have been able to pull it off even if they’d got there first. They just didn’t have the adroitness that he did, the second guy was a balding manlet who was with his mother or perhaps she was his sister (or both probably) and I ended up throwing the money over the counter at him when he wouldn’t leave and the most recent guy the other evening got all pissy with me after being called out and I was a little worried he might get violent. He called me really rude and told me to never touch his hands again (because I’d pushed the hand holding the note away when he kept trying to reach over the counter and put it in the till) then kept staring at me from outside the shop for a while. In fact the second guy and the old bitch with him also did the same months ago when they tried it, scowling at me from just outside. The totally unjustified indignation of these people is really something to see.

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So speaking of these crucial points there seems to me to be three of them. Firstly when you hand them the note back, which has to happen before they give you your coins. The most recent time this didn’t happen, he was maybe not so experienced and handed the £10 in coins to me pretty fast. I, at this point recognising the motions as well also was deliberately holding onto the note so that was a factor as well but if he knew what he was doing he’d have at least tried something to get the note off me before handing me the coins. “Yeah, so just pass me that note mate while I get the rest of the coins out” or something, it would also work as a distraction. After all if I’m busy getting the note I’m not coming to the realisation that he has enough coins to just pay for the item with those. Which I didn’t anyway I know, but someone sharper than me might. See it’s important because if he then has all the money, when he hands you it all together there’s the psychological trick of it seeming like it’s all his to give. This entire scam falls apart if each step is done in a slow and deliberate fashion it has to be snappy, which must make it difficult to practise now I think about it. There’s this kind of unspoken rule in shops that the customer hands you the money first and then the person behind the till reciprocates by giving them what they paid for. So that could be the item, a receipt, everything together placed in a bag. The point being that the final action taken is by the person behind the till. So when the guy hands you all the money not only is the psychological trick playing on the fact that it seems like everything they handed to you (all £20 in both note and coins) is theirs but the natural ending to your customer interactions is almost always with you handing them something. It’s not something that is taught, when I did my training both where I am now and at another place I worked for free that I’m sure I’ve talked about here before it was never mentioned. It’s just something you end up doing, it’s cultural maybe or just some kind of natural law idk. What I do know is that it’s never really something you’re consciously aware of until you have to be, like in the case of overthinking this scam. So when you get handed the money you’re thrown for a second because the interaction seems to be over but they and not you made the last move. I suppose in this state you’re more suggestible, and then they come in and ask for a £20 note for it all and without enough time to think it through rationally you just go with it.

That’s just one thing though. Of equal importance is the moment when they take that extra amount in coins to add to the change you just gave them making it of equal value to the note. Like I said, they literally have to get exactly the amount in coins for what they bought which means they never needed a note in the first place. It should be obvious, so why even in the two examples of this scam failing to work on me did I somehow miss it. Well there’s this idea of the big lie, in Mein Kampf (which again I haven’t read in full, I’m just aware of some ideas talked about inside) Hitler speaks about a lie so brazen and obviously false that people just accept it. After all, would someone lie about something like that. Every step of this scam is done right in front of you, right fucking there less than a meter away, and this step is the most obvious of them all. Because people are looking to catch a lie, somewhere something sneaky is taking place. You might smell a rat, something might seem suspect. You’re entirely unprepared for someone to tell you the sky is red, or whatever, and if you’re not really concentrating you might nod your head and go along without even realising it. Of course they target the kind of person who isn’t expecting to be lied to or tricked at all, in a sneaky way or a totally open and upfront way. I’ll get to that later though. If you do call them out at this point, if you’re one of the sharper tools in the shed, they haven’t yet done anything wrong. They can say they just didn’t realise until after paying they had that extra change, or something along those lines. This is the most obvious point in the scam and it’s before any real wrongdoing has taken place, if you don’t say anything they know they can probably get away with the rest of the scam which is less obvious until the very end and if you do they can exit the situation without any embarrassment.

Now the third and final crucial step, which is probably the obvious one, is before they even walk in. They of course need to figure out if they think they can get you to fall for it before they even start. I don’t think it’s entirely just a stupid person they’re looking for (because I don’t believe I’m a stupid person, although maybe I appear to be?) but more someone who seems to have a certain naivety or innocence. Which is definitely something I’m aware of about myself, I look very young I get told this often and not only that but because of my shyness/ timidity it’s exacerbated even more. I hate this faggy term so much but you could say I suppose that I lack, or at least look like I lack, street smarts. I’m an easy mark I know, a good target, someone that you can take advantage of. I’m aware of this weakness at least, but nevertheless as much as I think about it I can’t just logic my way out of this one. I’m a pushover, I’m better at standing up for myself now than I was but I still have a way to go. Maybe I’ll never get there as well, there’s part of me that doesn’t want to for fear of losing some part of myself. Think about it, I am this way for two reasons. First of all because I want people’s lives to be easy, within reason I will do what I can to help. Secondly because I would never scam or take advantage of someone myself and I’m honest about my intentions with people I’m kind of expecting the same from other people. Yes I know it’s stupid and to keep being this way after being taken advantage of is… even stupider, but it’s who I am. So I’d have to either become a scumbag myself in order to become not a pushover or at the very least become way more mercenary and cold to people. Which I rationally should do, I mean sure some people are nice to me but no one (well, my dad so one person) cares about me really. So why should I care about anyone else? I do though, it’s just instinctual I want people to be happy.

I think about this a lot, obviously, and I guess the real problem is that my ingroup is just way too easy to get into. You should be aware of the idea of ingroups and outgroups, but you can look it up on Wikipedia if you don’t. Basically most people have a relatively small group of people they care about, which would be their ingroup. Family, close friends, etc. To these people they are far nicer than everyone else. Now because of various circumstances both within and outside of my control I don’t really have many people in my life. I have my dad, my uncle and his partner and their children, a couple of close-ish friends and a few other people with more unusual roles in my life. So I have this idea which could be complete conjecture but seems to make some sense, that perhaps because I have so few people around me, on some level not fully consciously (I know, I say that way too much) I’m way more open than most to letting people in. After all we are social animals, as I’m sure you’ve been told a thousand times before, so perhaps in some attempt to build an ingroup like everyone else has for myself my lizard brain takes the wheel and despite me knowing that being like this with everyone is not a good idea at all for all the obvious reasons I still do it. Of course ironically, because being completely spineless just disgusts people, it actually ends up having the completely opposite effect from what is intended. This could take me back down the whole “nice guys” rabbit hole again if I let it, and it’s a complete tangent anyway, but it’s something for you to think about if you want.

To wrap things up, they target people look like they can be taken advantage of because they’re more inclined to trust them and they need to be trusted for that final part. Remember when they hand you all the money and ask for the £20 note, that works because you’re kind of thrown off by the order of things being wrong and they then come in to bring order almost by asking. If you don’t trust them that doesn’t work, and that’s why they act so friendly and do little things like that first guy asking for me to make sure all the change he handed me was correct. None of this even works if you’re not already quite a trusting individual. See looking at all of this it shows to me how purposeful it all is, sure you can say I’m overanalysing this but given that these crucial parts were not done properly by the other two who didn’t get away with it I don’t think I am. Moral of the story, at least in my view? Everything is deliberate, and I really do mean everything. At least, I think I do. Anyway I’m listening to The Killing Moon by Echo and The Bunnymen right now, it feels appropriate for some reason.

My favourite band: Part 3

It’s funny that only recently I was talking about dreams, because dreamlike is the first word that comes to mind when I think of Disintegration. It’s touted as this great return to the gothic gloom and doom of earlier Cure records, and it’s certainly more similar to those than the more poppy albums I talked about last time, but it’s quite a different experience to either. It’s more like a third direction, and the following records which sound very similar to me (especially Bloodflowers) further support this idea. Another thing I like so much about this band is that in most cases if asked what a specific album sounds like you can point to the art on the cover and say “well it kinda sounds like that”, and Disintegration is a perfect example of this. Sure the general goal seems to be to capture the feeling of the record visually with most album art, but in my opinion it’s not usually successful. It all makes sense even if everything seemingly doesn’t fit, just like in a dream. The colour palette as well is so perfectly suited, the deep blues and greens further draw you in to this spectral realm. Listening to this album is like taking a lonely evening walk through a haunted fairy tale forest, the navy blue shallow pools reflecting the gradually darkening sky above you, and the details on the leaves becoming harder and harder to see as night slowly falls. It’s just undeniable that Robert Smith (and yes it really is in this case mostly just Robert, this album was initially planned as a completely solo project) makes his best stuff while taking lots of drugs. In particular, psychedelics like LSD, which his return to regular use of in part inspired him to create Disintegration. I think this view of Disintegration as a concept album of sorts, telling the story of a pensive evening stroll through the woods just really adds something to the experience. There’s certainly a common theme, this anxiety over reaching the age of 30 and not having a real legacy to leave behind which is partly what makes this album while similarly gloomy like the early gothic trio feel more mature, and it gives this album more wide appeal than those also. After all this concern is a natural part of the human condition, think of the famous (and probably quite embellished) story of Julius Caesar weeping in front of a statue of Alexander the Great.

The album starts with a mostly instrumental intro, with only some echoing and reverberating vocals coming in towards the end. There’s a good ten seconds of dead silence to start with and then slowly a twinkling sound can be heard, at first so muted you might not hear it unless the volume is up fairly high (which it should be, the original copies came with a little note specifying that the record was meant to be played loudly), then after gradually getting closer to you it explodes. The effect is like fireworks in audio, it’s beautiful and you just want to focus on it and ignore whatever else is going on. There’s the occasional heavy drum being beaten in the distance somewhere, not like a consistent drumbeat throughout instead it’s quite sporadic. After a couple minutes the vocals come in, it always seemed to me like someone going over a past conversation in their head. With the “you said” being repeated over and over and there’s also the echo effect adding to that. Then the singing comes to a stop and the guitar (I think it’s a guitar) which had been there most of the track but not prominent becomes the focus as the song closes out. After that is Pictures Of You which I don’t like so much, maybe because I find it harder to relate to the things he sings about on here but then again I really like Lovesong which is much more explicitly a song about romantic relationships. Anyway it’s not really the lyrical content that is the issue here, in fact when listening to this album with my friends last spring this is the one that we were all singing along to. Maybe that’s it actually, this album is kind of meant to be listened to alone I think I even remember reading an interview where Robert himself said that, but this song is clearly better enjoyed in good company. So it’s a little out of place, although it still has a very similar sound to the rest of the album. The twinkling chimes, the specific kind of effect he gets with his guitar, etc. Third in the tracklist is Closedown, which is a kind of conflicted song in my opinion. The words are not very cheery at all, describing the state of being Robert was in while recording the album. Sleep deprived and back to regular drug and presumably alcohol use, it’s not too different from the environment which led to Pornography although this time more deliberate and controlled. Speaking of Pornography, the way the words are actually sung also reminds me of some of the songs on there quite a bit. The rest of the music though is quite uplifting, it sounds almost like something from The Lion King at first before the guitar comes in. Lovesong is exactly what the title suggests, if it wasn’t for that trademark undertone of melancholy which can completely change your interpretation of the lyrics it would feel totally out of place on the album. I’ve heard a couple of covers of it and they demonstrate this perfectly.

Other than Plainsong though up until this point the album is at it’s weakest, the last two thirds are the real experience. Last Dance is what starts off this run, and it’s so integral to my experiences with this album (especially the first time hearing it, which was the first time listening to a Cure album in full) that I was really surprised to find out that on the original releases it wasn’t even included and only later in CD copies was it put in. Another drawn out and minimalist intro starts this off, before the song really kicks into gear and you realise the huge scope. It sounds like it’s all around you, like you’ve floated up into the stars and there’s so much empty space between all the different parts. It’s very reminiscent of the last section of Pornography which starts with the song Cold and very cleverly this song includes a hidden line from that song whispered softly “your name like ice, into my heart”, which I never noticed myself while listening but read about online. Lullaby is next and is one of my favourite songs from the band and just one of my favourite songs generally speaking. I don’t think I really need to go into detail talking about the music, overanalysing might have a negative effect if anything. It’s just so… pleasant. I can’t really explain why, it just has this calming effect on me so I suppose it’s appropriately titled. The lyrics talk about this “spiderman” creature, a half man half spider which ate little children and was a regular feature in the bedtime stories of Robert’s uncle according to interviews. Fascination Street follows immediately after and completely changes things up, being much faster and energetic. The drums are much more prominent on this than the rest of the album, and these bell things like maybe cowbells are used as well I’m not sure exactly what they are but they work really well. It has a really triumphant feel to it, which carries on onto at least the intro of the next song Prayers For Rain.

Things slow down again here, and the lyrics are the most depressive and gloomy on the entire record “I suffocate I breathe in dirt and nowhere shines”, but the drumbeat throughout feels like a lifeline of sanity that will allow you to come out on top. The hopelessness of Pornography is not really present on this album, the next song The Same Deep Water As You is the only time it slightly approaches those depths of despair. I’m not really talking about the lyrics here either, a lot of people have read into and wrote their ideas about the lyrics on this and I’d only do a worse job so I won’t bother. The music itself though, the way it drags on for almost ten minutes and captures this feeling of total emptiness reminds me of Faith (the song and the whole album) a great deal. The “prayers” were answered as well it seems, as there’s this rainy/ stormy effect on this track so it sounds like you’re sitting in a small wooden cabin or under a thicket of tress with the drops hitting something above you. Then a smashing sound, like a window being broken and this upbeat drumbeat hits. The title track is actually surprisingly cheery, although after the last song most songs would seem to be. The guitar offsets this a little with a more melancholic melody, leading to that trademark undertone I mentioned earlier. It’s something they’d been doing since the Japanese Whispers era, but was perfected on this album. Honestly this album is where they perfected everything they’d been developing and doing, it is the first album with the famous Cure “sound” and everything after while enjoyable mostly feels derivative or when they do try to experiment it fails. It’s the band’s peak, and this song is the best representation of the album as a whole so it feels appropriate as the title track. It’s not the end though, Homesick and Untitled are what end off the record. Another two long drawn out songs that go for the gloomy vibe, but don’t quite do it as well as The Same Deep Water As You in my opinion. If it’s not obvious I love this album, I don’t really have any specific memories tied to it other than it being my first Cure album and getting my friends to listen to it in full also for the first time for both of them last spring. I have maybe listened to it half a hundred times and still keep going back.

Next came Wish, and as I just mentioned it does sound very much like Disintegration. It’s just missing the soul of that record though, Robert Smith managed to forge the legacy he was so concerned he wouldn’t manage to do with that record and it’s like since then he’s been trying to recreate that. The song Trust is a perfect example, it seems to have all the components of the classic gloomy Cure songs but just doesn’t stick the landing for whatever reason. I can’t really explain it, it’s just an intuitive thing. On Wish he seems to not want to fully commit to this anyway though, so there are also tracks that feel more inspired by the stuff from Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me which just makes the album feel tonally inconsistent. There are some tracks on here that are absolutely fantastic of course, both moody and cheery ones, but it feels more like a compilation of songs rather than a proper record with a distinct identity. The opener, Open (haha), has this great mechanical sound to it. From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea, Doing The Unstuck and the closing track End (haha) are the highlights here certainly. A whole album of stuff like these three would have been something special. It’s only really on these where the balance between Disintegration and Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me is actually handled well. The singles from this album I really do not like, other than Friday I’m In Love which is actually quite catchy. High and A Letter To Elise are the ones I really have a problem with, the sounds just all seem to be mushed together so you can’t really pick anything out, they don’t reward you paying closer attention. It’s like they were designed to be background noise while driving to work or walking around in the supermarket. Apart is another song which tries very hard to capture that Disintegration spirit, and does a much better job I will say. If it had been included on there it wouldn’t seem out of place I don’t think, as Trust would. It has the whispery vocals from some of the songs on there, and the eerie feeling to it that was all over Disintegration. In fact if this song and Pictures Of You swapped places it’d make more sense. To Wish Impossible Things is one I’m coming around to, the violin is really nice on it and an instrument quite rarely used by the band. In fact I’m warming up to the album more generally speaking, there’s definitely a few songs I doubt I’ll ever be able to enjoy but having to listen to it a few times for this entry and more closely too has given me more of an appreciation for it.

Wild Mood Swings which came after is certainly an attempt to go in a new direction, which is appreciated, but as I said from this point forward it’s mostly attempts to relive the glory days of Disintegration or failed experiments. This is one of the failed experiments, and not just in my view there seems to be a consensus that this is one of the worst Cure albums. A lot of people say it’s the absolute worst, and I think I might agree. It’s certainly fighting with Three Imaginary Boys for the bottom spot, I can’t decide for sure. It’s very similar to The Top in my opinion, both in the frenzied or even wacky vibe it goes for and the various influences from all over the world. The 13th sounds like there’s a mariachi band backing Robert, Gone! has these brass band style horns in the background, there’s an oriental sound at the very opening of the song Numb etc. However unlike that album which grew on me quite a bit after a few listens, a lot of the tracks on here still just sound abrasive and even grating. I had to go through it again for this of course, and I did kind of want to skip a couple. The second song Club America is one of the worst and a great example of what ruins this record, it has this awful electric guitar that’s way too loud and keeps schizophrenically switching to play a completely different tune. It’s so loud and at the forefront it makes it impossible to focus on anything else, in fact this is kind of a problem all over the album. Almost the complete opposite of Disintegration in a way, with that feeling of spaciousness it created, everything on here feels so close like you’re in a small room with the band playing live all crowded in and squeezed in there with you. All the different components that make up the music don’t get any room to breath, you can’t focus in on something in particular you really like on certain listens. Even on the tracks on here I quite enjoy, Want, This Is A Lie, Strange Attraction, Gone!, and Trap (notice the quick snappy song titles, which does kind of reflect the faster pace of this album) that problem still exists the different parts just seem to fit together more harmoniously so it isn’t a total mess. They’d still be better given some space I feel anyway, but then again I’m not a musician and I don’t know anything about how to make a good song I just know what I’ve liked and disliked. I guess it doesn’t really need to be said, but I rarely put this on and don’t have any real memories or emotional attachment to it. I’ll certainly listen to it again on occasion though.

Bloodflowers is the most similar to Disintegration, it’s basically a sequel. I’m not saying it doesn’t have it’s own identity at all, there are some elements specific to this album so it doesn’t just sound like a collection of songs that didn’t make the cut first time around, the acoustic guitar being so prominent throughout for example. Which is something I’ve heard and even agreed with at one point, but after getting to know it better I’ve grown to appreciate this album a lot more. Robert Smith has said in interviews that it along with Disintegration and Pornography are the three albums which best represent the band overall, or something like that, and he calls them his trilogy. I would personally say there are four essential Cure albums, Seventeen Seconds, Pornography, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me and Disintegration. Although I’ve read another interview where he says Seventeen Seconds is his favourite, I suppose in a four decade long career he’s gonna change his mind a bit, and of course whenever there’s a new record coming out you have to praise that. There is a feeling I get that the melancholy/ moodiness is played up a little here, which is fine because I like that kind of thing but it’s just done more maturely on Disintegration I have to say it. It’s not that it doesn’t feel genuine or that it’s coming from a real place, just that things are… well played up a little like I said. Anyway, onto the songs. The intro sets the mood pretty effectively, it’s nearly seven minutes long and that was after being shortened supposedly. The longer six and seven minute songs are something else borrowed from Disintegration, along with it’s overall sound and mood. Again though it’s something I enjoy, long drawn out songs that bring you into a different world. You have that acoustic guitar being strummed throughout like I mentioned earlier, and while I’ve never really payed close attention to the lyrics on this album you can pick up on the wistful vibe from snippets here and there. The second track on here is probably what prevented the album from clicking with me for so long, it’s this huge 11 minute epic that takes ages to build. It should be perfect for me, I’ve listened to Carnage Visors (mostly on nightwalks) a bunch of times, which is this half hour instrumental/ ambient thing which has only recently been so easily accessible to people since the re-release of Faith. For decades it was like a bootleg cassette tape you had to track down. So I really dig the longer stuff, but this song just really doesn’t work for me. The intro as well, but this track in particular just doesn’t resonate. I wish I could explain why, but I can’t it’s just how it is. So together what with the long length that’s almost 20 minutes. A really weak first part, and an obstacle that really did stop me from relistening to this album in full after the first time because I kept giving up during this song.

It was worth pushing through when I did though, because from here on out it’s much more enjoyable. Where The Birds Always Sing which is the highlight of the album absolutely and I’d already heard it plenty of times before hearing it in the context of the full album from the early days first discovering the band. If Disintegration was a twilight wander through the forest, Bloodflowers is a walk home during the sunset at the beginning of autumn. That’s the feel I get, maybe because that’s what I was doing when it finally “clicked”. In fact that’s definitely why, it’s been almost a year and that image is still firmly what comes to mind when I hear this record. There’s even a song on here called The End Of Summer, it all comes together quite nicely. It wasn’t a very eventful period for me, just before I got the job actually. I was pretty aimless, I still am but this was the peak, there wasn’t any kind of future in my mind. I was living in a haze staying indoors for often two weeks straight and I might’ve stayed inside without leaving the flat once for that entire five month period (between losing my voluntary job which I took after falling for the “experience” meme and finding my current job) if not for the fact that I had to go to the jobcentre to get my NEETbux every couple weeks. I’d wake up late, I’d struggle to get to sleep every night and then to force myself out of bed in the morning afternoon. I had more free time than ever to play vidya/ watch anime or films/ read all those books I’d been meaning to get around to and yet I ended up doing less of all of those and just scrolling through the catalog on one of my main boards for ten hours a day or wasting my time listening to idiots on youtube repeat the same stupid shit over and over. I’m not trying to whine or feel sorry for myself I understand that I choose to be the person I am, but it was fucking miserable back then. Probably the second lowest place I’ve been in, for an extended period of time that is. Maybe the first I could go into another time. I will take being a wageslave over that any day, even when I have a really busy month and it’s going really shit I have felt far more spiritually satisfied since starting work. So this album and it’s association with the changing of the seasons is symbolic, because it also brings me back to a time when I entered a “new season” of my life in a way.

After Bloodflowers the next release was the self titled The Cure, which is quite ironic because this album to me is the least Cure sounding album of all of them. It’s the least definitive one in their entire discography, and I know I said that Wild Mood Swings and Three Imaginary Boys are fighting for the worst spot but after relistening to this today it might have just snuck in and snatched the title. It’s not terrible, and there are some really good songs, but as a whole I really didn’t enjoy listening to it again. Which is weird, I remember about half a year or so ago I quite liked it and was listening to it quite  a lot. I listened to it for the first time maybe a year ago or something, then kind of forgot and after going back to it I found it a nice change of pace from the other Cure albums. It was released in 2004 I believe, and very much seems to have been influenced by some trends in music at the time. Like a lot of the really accessible nu-metal bands, korn, limp bizkit, and was even co-produced by Ross Robinson who produced for those bands apparently. You can find this shit on Wikipedia if you care anyway, and the influence isn’t that strong you don’t have Robert doing harsh metal vocals and wearing those cringy Halloween masks when performing this stuff. It sounds like The Cure still, but you can feel the influence in subtle ways that are hard to explain for a pleb who doesn’t know shit about music. The tracks where the influence is most noticeable are actually my favourites on here though. Us Or Them has this great really heavy guitar which feels really present throughout and holds everything together, Robert’s yelping fits perfectly and even makes the edgy lyrics “Get your fucking world out of my head” … (gonna be a yikes from me) not sound completely cringe. Labyrinth sounds like a Nine Inch Nails song, which is a good thing because NIN is fucking rad. This grinding sound, like a motor or something is fantastic. Great angery music, it’s like if you took the bitterness from some of the pornography tracks but without the gloom and introspection there to tame it. The intro Lost as well I quite like, with the words “I can’t find myself” repeated over and over like a mantra getting more and more aggressive and the music spiking out at you alongside it. Everything else is forgettable or outright skippable, I hate to say it because I really don’t like skipping tracks when listening to an album but there it is. There’s another over ten minute “epic” right near the end, which again just doesn’t do it for me. It doesn’t totally suck like Watching Me Fall, the long one from Bloodflowers, but it’s still not deserving of all that time being given to it. At least it’s at the end as I said so it doesn’t create this obstacle just for you to get started with the album. It’s still worth listening to in my opinion, every single Cure album is even if just once or twice, but it might have the most duds. I have no problem with angery Robert, and when he does it well it’s great.

Finally, 4:13 Dream, the last Cure album at least so far and almost a decade old now. Supposedly there’ll be another one, I hope there is. It’s not that this album is bad, it’s pretty good at least as good as Wish. It’s just for a band with such a fantastic career one last hurrah, another real masterpiece if Robert has it in him, would be great. This isn’t that, it’s not a masterpiece it’s kind of unremarkable honestly. Maybe they just don’t have the desire to make new music, in fact they clearly at least didn’t for the last ten years because of the long gap. They still perform, but I’m not and never have been interested in live music so it doesn’t matter to me. I actually completely agree with Varg, the studio release is the version of the music that is truest to the artist’s vision. Also music fans of all types are generally fucking trash, crowds of annoying faggots and concert thots singing along to the famous tracks would just make for a shitty evening. I’m not saying music is always a completely solitary experience, sometimes with the right people and the right choice of music the opposite is true, but I find most music is indeed best enjoyed alone. The first track on here Underneath The Stars is very Disintegration (I’m saying that a lot I know), it even has the twinkling chimes sprinkled in at one point. Most of the album is a lot more upbeat though, supposedly this was originally a double album like Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me but they scrapped most of the songs and this album collects the more cheery ones. Which becomes apparent on the second track The Only One, which has this bouncy guitar sound that I really like. The guitar playing is really nice on this record overall, it’s what saves the song Freakshow which would otherwise really not be my thing. Then you have a bunch of really unmemorable songs in the middle, which just drag on. Sirensong, The Real Snow White, Switch, The Perfect Boy and This. Here And Now. With You. You also have the song The Hungry Ghost in there somewhere though, with this really nice sound effect with the guitar. I had to look up a video of a live performance to figure out what it was they were doing. The guy, some bald dude don’t know his name, waggles that bar that’s on some electric guitars. I forget the name, my dad did tell me once because he knows how to play but I forget. The record finishes with It’s Over, which has this chaotic and really loud electric guitar drowning out the vocals so you can barely understand what he’s saying if you’re trying to pay attention. A mediocre end, to a mediocre record, hopefully not but very possibly at the end of a career that is anything but mediocre.

I’ve been thinking about why I consider The Cure to be my favourite band more seriously since I started this back in part 1. I remember reading this article a while ago, I’ll link it but archived because it’s the jew york times, although in the current year of 2k18 who still isn’t using adblock http://archive.is/poojo. Now the idea that the music we listen to in our youth, the age it gives as most important in the article being 13-16, isn’t groundbreaking news by any means but it’s nice that someone took the time to collect some real data on this. It’s worth reading, but I’m not really here to talk about the article just use that as a jumping off point. See most of the other bands who’ve made music that really emotionally resonates with me are all from that period of my life, 13-16 years old. Not that they were all formed or making music in that time necessarily, but rather they were just what I listened to regularly in that period. Kasabian (specifically their debut album and Velociraptor), Nirvana, The Smiths, Blue Oyster Cult, Summoning, The XX, and some others. The Cure are the only band that affect me just as much and aren’t associated with that time period. In fact they’re kind of associated with a really shitty period of time, listening to the music from the band was an escape in a way. Also the weird and changing mood and style of their music, from completely miserable and depressed to manic and energetic, really makes a lot of sense to me. I’ve spoken here before about how I can get mild mania sometimes and of course this feeling of mental desolation. I don’t think it’s that bad, like people who have actual mental illnesses, it’s not something that negatively impacts my life in any meaningful way. It is there though, and something I have to work with. Honestly though, I can’t really explain what it is about The Cure and their music that just so perfectly works for me. It’s something intuitive that I can’t explain, it’s almost something spiritual. Those other bands I just mentioned can take me back to a happier time, but The Cure and no one else so far can take me away from all the bullshit entirely. Not unlike a dream.

The truth hurts

I saw her again even though I thought I never would and had mentally moved on a lot quicker than I expected to, for reasons I’ve already speculated about in earlier posts. I’m talking about the girl, my “oneitis” for a time I suppose, who left the place we both worked at a few months ago and just before I started this blog. From what I can tell we were at some kind of daycare centre or some place like that, looking after the children supposedly but I can’t actually recall any kids being there now when I think back. It was strange, the walls were a flaxen yellow and there were colourful childlike drawings all over the walls. A rainbow with a pot of gold, a dinosaur or monster of some kind, an attempted self portrait, and plenty more. It was from what I could understand one room in a larger building with several purposes. The daycare/ children’s area that we were in was one big rectangle separated into two halves almost by these metal beds and some wooden book and toy shelves. So there was a little narrow pass near the wall halfway across the room, but the shelves were all quite low of course because kids can’t reach high up so you could see the entire room from either side. There were also toys strewn all over the floor. I remember holding one for a moment, a little painted wooden train.

I can’t even really remember how or why I was in this situation, I just was. I had been trying to send a message to someone else, another woman who I’ve never met before or since and was supposedly lost in a forest. She had an internet connection though, because she managed to contact me somehow and was asking me for help to find her way out. She wanted me to give her the directions which I must have known at the time and they had to be in the form of several brief vocaroo messages. Even though I couldn’t see her as I was in the daycare centre, although unaware of it at the time, I somehow knew what she looked like. She was sitting down against a giant oak tree trunk with her hair in a ponytail, wearing that kind of middle class outdoorsy style of clothing. A quilted jacket and check shirt, wellies without any mud or dirt on them, fine leather gloves and a woollen hat, you know the look. So I sent the first message and then listened back to it as you do, but I had the very common experience of hearing your own voice recorded and it sounding way different to normal. So feeling uncomfortable about that I put my phone away and decided to just forget the whole situation, and realised I was here in this daycare place. In there with me was oneitis (maybe ex-oneitis now, idk what to call her) and another third person I didn’t recognise. The third person never said anything, I think she just faded into the background after some time. I was surprised to see her as I’ve already said, and she seemed surprised as well. She asked me how I’d been, and what I was doing there (I had a reason at the time I’m sure, but it escapes me now) and told me this was where she worked now. She was so friendly, it was just like when we were both working together. Actually no it wasn’t, but it was like the few times when I was actually able to hold a conversation with her. So we were cleaning up or doing something else menial for some time, and she just turned to me at one point and said she got the note I left behind the last day I saw her. I said I was really glad to hear it, I’d worried for a little while if it had blown away or somehow not been seen for whatever reason and it was nice to know that not only was it seen but it was appreciated and didn’t come off as creepy or weird. She told me she had wanted to reply, to text me a quick thank you but had been so busy and after a couple days worried herself it would seem weird to reply because of the time gap and decided to leave it. The whole thing came out of nowhere, a real sense of closure but only after I had first accepted there wouldn’t be. I mean it, I felt a genuine satisfaction that this whole embarrassing lapse in judgement was behind me for good even after waking up and realising it was a dream.

It’s weird, we think of a dream as “not real” and sure it’s not “real” but we’re still definitely in there. When you wake up it isn’t a hard cut, often after a particularly vivid or intense dream it can take a good 20 minutes to fully separate the two worlds. Usually it’s less, maybe a few seconds or a minute, but nevertheless it still disorients you waking from a dream however briefly. So that’s what I was getting, that warm feeling of knowing my message had been seen and getting to say a proper goodbye which I’d missed remained with me for some time as I was slowly coming around. I went about my usual morning routine, made a cup of coffee and sat down in front of my laptop and immediately wrote the first line for what would eventually become this entry. “The walls were a flaxen yellow”. I knew already the dream was important, but I hadn’t even had time to process it completely and I didn’t actually go back until this afternoon and start writing again. I know it’s been a while, I’ll be honest I’ve been playing Red Dead Redemption 2 in almost all my spare time when not at work. I haven’t been this invested in any kind of vidya since Dark Souls 3, it’s so fucking comfy. I have been thinking about the dream and this lingering feeling that stayed with me though, and I realise it’s been a week since I’ve uploaded so I’ll try to get something finished. See, it might not be materially real sure but that feeling I had was as real as if I’d have bumped into her walking around one day and had a similar interaction. At least for a time anyway, after waking that is. I already talked about this before, but I kind of fell for a character anyway not really the person herself. Not an entirely separate person sure, but I suppose the best way of explaining this is to say that when she wasn’t actually around is when I got to know her best.

So what does it matter if the thing that inspired this feeling in me wasn’t “real”, because the feeling itself certainly was. If anything it’s appropriate that an interaction in my head is what it took to bring me some closure. It didn’t last forever, I eventually woke up completely and that feeling had faded. Still I know I felt it, the feeling was as real as can be, the brain processes that would have taken place following a similar interaction irl happened in my head just because of a dream. It was real, real real, materially real, I can’t think of another way to put it. It makes me think of this video I saw a while ago, maybe a year or two. There was this youtube e-celeb I followed for a while, I always tire of these people eventually but he lasted quite some time, and he made this video about a lighter he bought while visiting the US. It might be one of my favourites of his, a brief 10 minute thing. It’s the delivery that I appreciate, he presents things much more intelligently than most on the platform and especially in that sphere of it. Instead of the constant and irksome authoritative statements most of the dunning-kruger faggots on there constantly shit out, he tended to present things as if he was not entirely sure himself. Some would say that shows weakness or cowardice because he’s not willing to commit but that’s misguided in my opinion. I think people who are more intelligent (or at least more thoughtful, I’ve already gone into the distinction in some detail before here) do linger at this earlier stage in the thought process. So anyway he talks about how he kept this lighter, misplaced it for a while and then one day found it again. This lighter, which he’d bought in the US, was like a keepsake. So while the lighter itself was had no real material or monetary value (it had even run out of lighter fluid) it had the good memories from that time tied to it and also served as a little reminder every time he looked at it to one day return there. He had also been to one of the Scandinavian countries since then though, and they have 7/11s as well, in that period between losing the lighter and finding it again. That trip had been more brief and hectic, so he might have picked another lighter up and forgotten all about it, and now he thought he’d found the original but it was actually just another empty plastic lighter among millions. Those memories that were brought back from looking at this maybe-not-the-original-lighter that first time finding it again were just as real as if he knew for certain it was the original. If anything, knowing for certain might sever the connection and so the truth would only be a negative thing. I’d agree because after I’d fully woken up I lost that sense of closure again, but when I was coming to and still between two worlds the connection remained. It was the last thing to go actually, I suppose because I wanted to hold onto it far more than the flaxen yellow room and that little toy train.

There is one crucial difference between the two anecdotes of course, his original lighter and holiday were very much real and if there was a second it was also, whereas my dream was all in my head. Why do I have this attitude that my feelings being a response to a dream make them less.. meaningful though? I mean dreams can be very powerful, plenty of real world decisions made by various important figures throughout history were inspired by dreams. From my own experience, I know I’ve seen a different side to people I know in dreams (as I’m less spergy and more comfortable around people in them for whatever reason) and it has genuinely made it ever so slightly easier to be around them irl. This other side has even turned out to be quite accurate to how they are somehow in some cases. So dreams aren’t just the refuse dump for our subconscious as some people say, they clearly have at least the potential to be a powerful tool of intuition. You can learn something about yourself by looking at the content of your dreams as well, often something you dwelled on very briefly will shows up there weeks later while things you in your most sober waking moments think to be most important never do. It’s rather unusual, at least for me anyway, for something to feel worth paying attention to in both states. I’m not quite sure, I feel like I could have done a better job with this but I’m having a small mental block. It’s really late (or early) and I’ve been sitting writing this for hours. I know, for several hours of time I haven’t got much to show for it. This is what’s been really making me think this week though, maybe I’ll come back to the subject another time more prepared.