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.

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.

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.

23/10/2018

Another band who’s music I quite enjoy is Radiohead, in fact I first started listening to them after that night with my friend which I mentioned before where we started to speak more regularly again. Like I said we were just playing each other what stuff we’d been listening to and he put on Daydreaming at some point (a song from their most recent album which had just come out) and it made me give them a second try which I’m really glad about. See I was aware of them before that but I’d kinda just written them off as another generic 90s alt-rock group. This friend of mine had been a fan since the time we were 14/15 and we were both into similar stuff like that (Nirvana, Meat Puppets, etc) but I’d just found the Creep/ The Bends era Radiohead which was all I knew them for not my thing. So after hearing that track I ended up exploring the stuff they made after those first two albums and had a great time, in fact I even have come to appreciate The Bends a bit more as you can hear the early stages of their evolution in that record.

That’s what I’m going to talk about briefly, a song on that album called My Iron Lung. So of course almost everyone has heard the song Creep which was the lead single for Pablo Honey their debut album, and the overnight success of that single in the US made international stars out of the band. My Iron Lung is a song about that song, and about the effect it had on their lives. In one sense it was incredibly liberating, they were able to become full time musicians and easily make a living performing and yet it also kind of kept them in a creative box. Their record label of course was pushing them to manufacture another hit just like it and the screaming fans at performances seemed to want to hear nothing else. It almost certainly would have been very constricting, but yet they were “living the dream” in a way as well so it’s not something you want to complain about without appearing totally obnoxious. See the song is named after an old mechanical respiratory device which from what I understand is a sort of metal coffin you lie in and it allows you to remain alive after losing muscle control in your throat and chest, but you can’t leave. The machine saves your life while also taking away your freedom completely. I’m sure you can see the point they were trying to make, and it’s a really great way I think of expressing their feelings without seeming ungrateful. It’s this metaphor I’m really here to talk about today, not actually the band or even the specific song. Sure I’m doing that series on The Cure but generally speaking this isn’t a music blog and that’s not something I’d want to do or be capable of doing well.

Anyway I think I have a situation that is somewhat similar in spirit to the one that inspired My Iron Lung, and for a long time I was also unsure how to bring it up or talk about it for fear of seeming ungrateful. When me and my mother moved to the current place I live, she decided to agree to a shared ownership program. Essentially they’re a scheme wherein you purchase part of a property outright (in this case 40%) and then rent the rest with the option to buy more in future if you wish. So in late 2006 when we moved here that was probably a fantastic option, instead of buying a place outright that wasn’t as nice we got to live here and still have some savings left over as well as the at the time likely seeming option of buying the place completely one day. After she passed away I inherited the 40% of the flat (apartment), and of course people were quick to tell me how lucky I am to be on the property ladder at such a young age. This city is one of the most expensive places to live in the world and the value of the property has gone up significantly since I moved here, also I only have to pay rent for 60% which is a lot easier to manage. I am very fortunate I understand that, but just like the iron lung I am restricted also. In the most literal sense, I can’t ever really leave for more than a month or so because how will I pay the rent. I can’t just not pay and get kicked out like someone just renting normally because I’d lose the place. There are still rules that the housing association who own the other 60% make me stick to you see, and they can take it all away. This includes letting it out to other people, so it has to be me living here and paying the rent. I can’t just Airbnb it or something like that like some people do with their home when going on long trips away. Going back to the increase in the value, as well as the fact that I am earning of course far less as a 21 year old drop out than my mother was in her 40s and in a long term career, the idea of me ever buying the other 60% is laughable now. Right now I pay for all the food, and some of the rent while my dad pays the rest with his goverment gibsmedats. He hasn’t worked once since moving in with me, but before when I was still in education the benefits were enough to cover all the rent and food. I find it beyond humiliating having to survive on government handouts at all though, and if I were here alone I could afford to get by without them.

I don’t have much I want in life, but I do want to travel. I know it’s the most normie thing ever, you can just picture the legions of Eat Pray Love whores when anyone mentions how they’d just love to go travelling and see the world/ experience new cultures etc. but there are some places and things I’ve wanted to see since a young age and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still. I could talk about that some more in another post perhaps, but the thing is it just seems quite unlikely. I have this admittedly unrealistic idea of a several months long trip covering the various places I’m most interested in visiting, but that’s basically impossible with my current living situation. It’s not a huge deal, the idea is kind of a pipe dream anyway, but it’s a good example of how this somewhat peculiar arrangement I find myself in restricts me. Of course I also would need to get my two friends to somehow agree to and find the time for such a trip, which seems very unlikely. I’m not sure what I’m doing, I felt like there would be more to talk about on this subject but I realise now how boring this all is. I’m just not sure what to write, but I want to try and stick to having a couple new entries a week and I did think this was something that was kind of important about my life but I see now it can pretty much be summed up in a couple paragraphs. It’s also been on my mind lately, because the idea of my dad leaving and me being here completely in charge of everything is becoming more and more real.

I suppose I said I was going to treat this blog like a diary/journal in part, so I guess this’ll be just a general entry. So what else has happened lately? I finished Space Dandy, which was a great show especially the last few episodes. I’ve started listening to the History of Rome podcast, I got about 100 episodes in just over a year ago but gave up. Listening to it at work in the quieter hours is pretty comfy, and even though I’ve heard all the stuff so far before I’m still enjoying it probably more so than last time. I ordered some spores and a grow kit in order to grow psilocybin mushrooms, and that arrived yesterday. Supposedly in a week or so the mycelium will be ready and I can start the main process, maybe when it’s all done and if I’m able to successfully complete the process I’ll do a whole post on that. See I’m trying to think of ideas now because I want to keep posting regularly, but I’m just not that interesting so I’m not sure what to do. I could slow down and maybe just have one scheduled entry a week, and if for whatever reason inspiration hits me occasionally more. I just don’t want to suddenly go from two or three a week to a huge gap, and lose the few of you who read these regularly. I know some days from the stats page that people will visit and see nothing new and eventually that’s going to get tiresome. I’ve been thinking the last few days and I really think that my second most recent post “Living up to my shitty blog title” is the best thing I’ve uploaded on here so far but the fevered mental state that inspired it isn’t something I go through that often. I think that a general rule of one post at the minimum a week is something I can hold myself to, I hope this isn’t disappointing. At least that way there’ll be more of that and less of the crappy ones like today. Is there anything else, I can talk about..? Music I guess, what I’ve been listening to lately. I really liked the album Tears Of Mortal Solitude by Forest Stream which was like gothic/ black metal, I’ll definitely give it another go and try their other album. Also I’ve been listening to Dead Meadow’s self titled debut a lot, which is really good. I actually first heard of them because a customer recommended I give them a try, and I really appreciate it. I listened to the rest of the Cure albums that I haven’t covered in my series yet as well, as a reminder. Disintegration is as fantastic as I remember, and Wild Mood Swings is actually growing on me surprisingly. I was recommended by the spotify algorithm this post punk band called All Your Sisters and both their records that are on there have been in my regular rotation while walking to and from work the last few weeks, they remind me of The Soft Moon who you should definitely listen to if you’re into that kind of thing. Speaking of Radiohead as well, Amnesiac is quickly becoming my favourite album of theirs which is funny because for a long while I really didn’t enjoy it. People say Kid A is a very wintery album, and I think Amnesiac in contrast has a very autumnal feel which might be why I’m enjoying it so much lately.

Living up to my shitty blog title

The problem is that I can’t fucking accept my damn role, I know who I am and who I’m meant to be. I already talked about this, I am a loner and I’m always going to be. If I could just accept that I’d be so much happier, and I want to but it’s instinct to strive for otherwise. That’s why I keep getting obsessed with all these people who wander through my life briefly. That’s what they’re doing, that’s how it’s always going to be for me. People passing through, if I really try hard I’ll keep my two close friends but I will very likely never form another lasting relationship with a person again other than that. That’s what me falling for these girls at work is, it’s the desperate grasping of my reptile brain. If I was some thick dick PUA chad who had women throwing themselves at him I wouldn’t care about any of these people most likely. I know it sounds shocking but it’s true, because look how those people are. I’m timid and nice because it’s some kind of strategy my inner nature cooked up to try and push my genes. It’s not in my control, I think I’m nice because I like being nice but I like being nice because my brain dumps positive feelies in order to incentivise this false niceness which doesn’t feel false. I mean seriously, I struggle through smalltalk with these people that’s fucking it. What I do know about them, the opinions they have and the art they like etc it’s all unimpressive or uninteresting and I see myself latching onto whatever it can but frankly it’s reaching. I want to assume command, my rational thinking conscious mind or ego if you will wants to start making the decisions around here. I’m just not eloquent enough to express myself, I have the vocabulary and the ideas are bouncing around in my head as words but I can’t quite put the puzzle pieces together when I want to record this stuff more permanently in ink or on the internet.

I’ve been thinking about what would happen if any of the people I’ve written about were to read this blog, would they be shocked and disgusted? Would they think, what a fucking loser how dare he be attracted to me or think about me like that without me even knowing? Or maybe they can all tell, and it’s all some big joke pretending to act normal around the weirdo. I don’t know what people are saying about me, it’s all women other than me and one other guy who just started so they’re probably gossiping about all kinds of shit, at least that’s what popular knowledge would have me believe. Someone said in a post on r9k the other night that if you work around mostly females and they aren’t shit talking around you, you should be concerned. I know I make them uncomfortable, I know I make everyone uncomfortable. It’s a fucking joke, I understand that it’s evolutionary for us to dislike/ distrust the weak but circling back onto my earlier point can’t we exercise some control over our baser instincts given how we aren’t living in caves anymore. I’m not saying I think I want anyone to give me some succ, I actually don’t feel entitled to sex like a lot of people would claim about incels or whatever I am. I just want people to maybe not resent me or feel weird around me, maybe even make a little more effort in conversation if they can tell I’m having a difficult time. It’s not hard to tell, and I do the same thing when I get customers who I know are a little awkward or nervous. There’s a university not too far from me see, so I occasionally get a few guys who I can tell are a little similar to me. Around the same age, and carry themselves in a way that I can just tell, if that makes sense. They usually come in alone and don’t speak very loud and might have their change ready before coming in so they don’t have to get it out at the counter. I always try my best to make them feel comfortable, again because it gives me the good feelies thinking I might have made life just a little more bearable for a minute for them. It’s really not much to ask for, but almost no one is willing to do it. When they do, I’m so deprived of human warmth I immediately become way too grateful and can’t keep them out of my thoughts. They don’t know this though, or at least I don’t think they do. You’re shunned because you don’t know how to act, which brings me onto the subject of this Wizchan screenshot that really activated my almonds the other day.

It’s all interesting stuff, but the second post is the one that really kind of changed how I think a little. This idea that I and people like me are unable to tap into this secret tongue, which I suppose is a combination of body language and the right kind of eye contact and tone of voice and a bunch of other things, just makes so much sense to me. It also builds upon this idea that has always kind of fascinated me, and which I kind of got close to talking about before in my “thinking about thinking about things” entry. This conflict between our nature and our “spirit” I suppose. I don’t know, spirit might not be the right word here maybe intellect or higher being I can’t think of any one word that expresses what I want to without being potentially misleading. I think it’s clear what I’m trying to get at though, hopefully. I mean it’s not something that only I think about, clearly this question has been asked since we’ve been capable of asking it. We know that something separates us from all the other animals on the planet, but yet we know we are still alike also. Intelligence works maybe, but that’s another tricky word because it has a few different ways of being used so there’s still potential confusion. In some cases it’s used to describe the general characteristic which we think separates us from the rest of the animals (like how we say we’re looking for “intelligent life” on other planets) but often it’s also used interchangeably with cleverness which is a completely different thing. That confusion is what was blocking my progress on the issue I talked about in “thinking about thinking about things” actually, because sure being thoughtful or engaging abstract ideas is what we mean by that first definition of intelligence so it’s understandable that I and I’m sure plenty others assume that more of that is “more” intelligence but it’s this other use of the word which was getting me stuck. You convince yourself you’re some misunderstood genius, when in reality you can be a total idiot but just very thoughtful, and all because of this quirk of the English language. That’s what the “smart but lazy” thing is, ultimately. Language is both our liberator and our jailer, but this is again not some great insight plenty of people have talked about it.

Anyway, I’m really all over the place here I’ll try to get back on course a little. You might remember me ending that “thinking about thinking about things” post by saying that what ultimately links people like me together isn’t social alienation or introversion or lack of interest from women, although those are of course often things we have in common, but that we both spend so much more time thinking about things than normal and respect others who do. I also said that this is why those of us who are like this but lack self awareness gravitate to this idea that is right now best represented by the NPC meme but before in terms like sheeple, etc. Well I basically think that there’s kind of a spectrum (not the autism spectrum, although it is funny that autism and autist are terms so commonly thrown around in places we congregate, like r9k) which kind of covers this nature/ reptile brain aspect of humanity and this “intelligence”, for lack of a better term. I don’t think it’s new, like I said it’s something that I think is very common to think about. See, when I was in my /pol/ phase (not that I’ve put those ideas behind me, I’m still influenced by my time there) Evola was brought up a lot. He was a thinker of the Traditionalist School who were apparently a group that believed in this idea called the perennial philosophy. I never read anything from him, maybe I will one day in fact I plan to, but from what I understand the idea of the perennial philosophy is that all the major religions and belief systems found the world over are all trying to get at the same fundamental Truth. So, maybe I’m completely off here but it seems to me that in order to get an understanding of this Truth, one should look at what these religions share in common and discard the rest. Well, something that stands out immediately is how seemingly independently these religious orders have in one way or another arrived at a kind of asceticism. Whether it’s drug and alcohol abstinence or fasting or more extreme things like buddhist monks who meditate in extreme climates or the Japanese monks who mummied themselves while still alive by deliberately dehydrating themselves. Of course it’s the Japanese who took things to the absolute extreme, they really do as a people embody this end of the spectrum I’ve imagined, which might be why so many people like me have this obsession with japan and Japanese culture actually now I think about it but I can’t get sidetracked again now. The idea is always that these kind of activities bring you closer to God/ Enlightenment/ Truth/ whatever, and really what they all are is you deliberately going against your nature or instinct to indulge. The seven deadly sins are all instinctive/ animal associated behaviour. Perhaps that the idea of man as fallen, common in Christianity is getting at the same thing. Our intelligence, this thing that separates us from animals if unrestricted by our nature is God. So we really do get closer to it, the more we choose not to indulge.

I don’t know, maybe I sound like a total idiot and none of this makes any sense. I’m always so self doubting, it’s hard to commit to anything without feeling like a fraud. I’m not sure anyone is even capable of an original thought nowadays, we’re so bombarded with information it’s probably just us riffing on something we heard or read and thought we’d forgotten about. I think what people call the crabs in a bucket mentality of 4chan doesn’t help someone like me either. They say that during a Triumph in ancient Rome, which was this parade celebrating a major victory, the general leading the procession would have a slave who would stand right behind him and whisper “Memento mori” in his ear over and over. That translates roughly to “remember you are mortal” I think, and in moderation I think 4chan has the same effect. Unlike basically any other major forum or social media platform or whatever which is basically a complete fucking hugbox in comparison you actually get called out on your shit and I think that’s healthy. Most of the users though, especially in the /pol9k/ sphere of the site which doesn’t just mean those two boards but anywhere else that group predominates, aren’t casual users at all they’re there for several hours a day. After so much time around it does become less of a positive and more like the crabs in a bucket, and you can kind of tell who is and who isn’t steeped in this after a while. You really can sense this “newfag”, or nowadays I guess people will call you reddit meaning the same thing, aura from certain posters. I think I have more to say though, going back to that wizchan screenshot. Maybe the opposite end of the spectrum from the ascetic detached thoughtful end are the normalfags, the people who just are tuned in to this secret tongue.

I also have something to say in regards to that third post on there, the one at the bottom which talks about intuition and instinct. See his initial response was quite different from mine, an equally fascinating way of looking at this though. Whereas I kind of think that maybe it is just instinctual for people to tap into this secret tongue, and that being people who are more on the detached/ unbound end of this spectrum I’ve imagined we can’t tap into it. He says it’s something learned, and the reason we can’t tap into it is I guess because we never went through that learning process. In his view the normalfags actually agree with me as it being instinct, but they believe that it’s universal and anyone can tap into it unlike me. It’s probably because there are normalfags who suffer from social anxiety and things like that, I mean every youtube e-celeb seems to have it and every soundcloud rapper and every millennial normalfag with a platform anywhere really. It’s more common than fucking toxoplasmosis at this point, but these people still manage to have friends and romantic relationships and careers so naturally to incels and robots that’s all a little suspect. I’m not going to get into that issue right now though, perhaps another time. The point is that for those people bee urself does kind of work, and so it’s just assumed it must work for all people with “social anxiety” which is a term I think we should just kill off because as I’ve explained it clearly is used to describe two groups of people at once and that’s having a negative effect. Once again with the tricky nature of language. So you’re shunned for not being able to communicate using this secret tongue, you feel “off” to people and therefore you never have any opportunity to get better. If we’re sticking with that anon’s metaphor of learning the piano, you won’t ever be able to become a maestro if you don’t start learning from a very young age, but you can still learn to play competently as an adult. What do you do though if no music teacher will do lessons with you? I think that some of us are just meant to be alone, but even though we might be less in touch with out beast nature it is ultimately still there and it roars at us in hunger constantly.

I don’t know what I’m talking about, I just had to loosen the tap and let this stuff out it’s not a cohesive piece of work. This isn’t a thesis or an academic paper, and yes I’m doing that cowardly thing people do who want to hide from real criticism by saying “I’m just throwing ideas around man, don’t take me seriously”, it’s just what’s been on my mind. I kind of had to get it all out, I rushed my last entry because I felt I was taking too long between updating. I think I’ve got it all out of my system, I hope this is interesting or entertaining. I’ve been thinking about this blog itself some more too, I’ve finally decided what I want to do. You probably already have heard of the album ITAOTS (I know I’m an entry level /mu/ hipster faggot, pls no bully), well after it was done the main guy behind the project Jeff Magnum never recorded again as far as I’m aware. He knew when he was done, he knew that record would be the peak of his artistic career. Well, one day I suppose I’ll be done with this. Elliot Rodger left behind his “manifesto” before he went on his shooting, My Twisted World (I’ve both read through it myself and listened to a reading, if you haven’t already it’s worth at least a read) and I understand exactly why he did. It’s about having some control over how you’re remembered, see it was called a manifesto but it was more of an autobiography and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t actually referred to as a manifesto in the document itself. I’m aware of plenty of normies who actually read through the thing, and pretty much every last one of them had some sympathy after, but the many more who only heard what was said about him on the news or in a few short interviews with his family tended not to. If you read it you get an idea of his thoughts and beliefs and how they evolved, a rundown of all the important and meaningful events in his life and a real sense of closeness/ humanity. It’s hard to hate anyone you know so intimately. I don’t give a shit about the normalfucks he killed so that wouldn’t bother me anyway, but of course for most people that’s an issue, without an understanding of the guy they hate him.

In a way Elliot still lives on through MTW, I mean I remember there was a weekend a couple of years ago where some anon had found like 300 never before released photos of him throughout his life and was releasing them slowly over multiple threads. Well at one point I was suddenly reminded, this guy is dead. Not only is he dead, I’ve only ever known of him after his death. Yet I feel like he was part of my life, I know I’m not the only one what about that mullato guy who’s built a whole youtube channel on talking about Elliot. I’m not saying I plan to commit a mass shooting, there are no guns here. But one day when I finally feel like I’ve finished. When I feel that this blog taken as a whole truly represents who I am and was, I’ll switch it from most recent at the top to the reverse and be done. Or maybe I’ll do nothing of the sort and decide to keep going forever, or maybe within a year I’ll stop getting any visitors and give up, but I have this little romantic vision right now and if I stick to it that’d be cool. I find it so hard to talk to people you know. If everything is all in one place, all my concerns about context and being taken the wrong way will be gone. People have this tendency to ascribe a motive for something you do because it happened recently, and they miss the bigger picture. For example in Elliot’s case if we didn’t have MTW but just some events we knew of, we might think that that night when those guys broke his ankle and robbed him at a party was what made him decide to perform a shooting. It might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, but with My Twisted World we got a detailed description of all the other straws that didn’t. It’s only with this knowledge, that at last we can understand him. Of course by the time I feel finished I imagine this entire thing will be a lot more daunting and all over the place, because I’m not streamlining at all or in a rush to get it all out, but it should provide a complete picture. How I think about things, how I got to be the person I am, etc. Of course it’s totally narcissistic to assume anyone will give enough of a shit to read everything I publish, but I would do it for someone I found interesting or engaging and I think I can be those things to some people. So that’s the plan, maybe.

Finding my mind

I’m trying this for the third time because my mind is all over the place and I’m tired as shit. I think I’ll just try and say what’s bothering me/ been on my mind lately and not try to tie it all together anything tricky like that.

Firstly, yesterday (for me right now, but by the time I publish this probably not) was the first day I got no visitors. I mean technically I must have because I had someone “like” one of my posts but they must have come through the referrer thing which means they don’t show on my stats page as a unique visitor. It’s more of a symbolic thing, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t disheartening, because one of the main reasons I do this is so it will be seen and appreciated by people. I am fully aware of my own narcissism here, but it’s ok to be as long as you’re self aware right? I said either in my introductory post or the initial thread on /r9k/ that if no one was interested and I couldn’t get anyone to read I’d give up. It’s clear to me things are more complicated than that now. I do have a couple of you who are reading every upload and I really am glad you’ve stuck around and enjoy these, although it’d be nice if I knew your thoughts beyond that. Is it sick fascination, or do you find what I have to say relatable, or do I make you think? It’s such a huge drop though, because in those initial first few days I got a completely unexpected amount of people reading and by the end of that first week most were gone as I expected but there were still a good seven or eight who seemed to be interested and checking back. What I’m trying to say is I wouldn’t want to give up now that there is a very small group seemingly looking forward to what I post next, I don’t like leaving people hanging, but I am kind of disappointed that this group is so very small now. I know how I sound, but that is how I feel whether I like it or not. It’s just harder to find that initial enthusiasm I had in the first few weeks, because in the first few weeks I had three times as many regular visitors after that initial burst died down, or at least I thought and if they got bored everyone will inevitably. I was more than happy with that number, I want a pretty small audience but just large enough that if one or two get bored that’s not the end. Having only one or two (or maybe three right now, I can’t exactly tell) is a really precarious place because once you’re gone it’s a fucking wrap. This isn’t an attempt to emotionally blackmail anyone in to staying, I just realised how that sounded. The day this is no longer interesting you should stop visiting, and not feel bad about it at all.

It’s not a huge deal, I am getting people finding me from time to time thanks to that referrer thing and I think one of the current regulars was though there. So I’m probably not as close to oblivion as I convinced myself, if it hasn’t become clear yet I can get into these negative thought spirals really easily. It’s seeing the situation written down and being able to view it from a third person perspective that I’m finding really helpful for breaking out of them actually. Which is why I really don’t want to lose this, I really am finding it very therapeutic to have an outlet and know someone is hearing me out in full. I fully appreciate that if I want more of an audience I have to give people what they want (whatever that is, it ain’t this) but I just want people to love me unconditionally for who I am because I’m an entitled cunt so I will continue down this doomed path instead. Again, if you’re self aware it’s ok. Last thing on this subject, the “likes” system bugs the absolute shit out of me. It’s perhaps a benefit in some way I don’t understand right now, but they just feel completely meaningless. The option to “like” a post is (at least in the default layout) at the top so you don’t even need to scroll through what I wrote never mind actually read it. I know that’s happened as well because on a couple of occasions all my posts have been liked by one person in way less time than it’d take to read them all. Again maybe there’s some benefit and they’re doing me a favour like perhaps it’s more likely to be seen idk, but I don’t know that so it just cheapens all the other “likes” I’ve received. Did these people go on to read every post, or had they already? I’m not sure, the whole stats page is set up in a way that makes it difficult to tell because it doesn’t count all visitors. I can tell one thing though, the two people who I know keep coming back don’t ever feel the need to “like” my posts, and frankly their returning says far more than any “like” ever could. The only comment I ever got, which if it wasn’t from one of you was still from one of the original visitors who found me through the thread, again meant far more and encouraged me to continue far more than any “like” possibly could. Maybe it’s an imageboard/ chan background that’s the reason I feel this way and the reason my real niggas who I’m pretty sure are from that thread also don’t “like” things. There’s no upvote, thumbs up/ down or any other equally gay system on 4chan, the closest thing is maybe reaction images but even those convey far more than any of the usual generic positive symbols that are easily exploited. You know with a reaction image the guy read what you have to say.

Ok, second thing was more of a big deal when I started this two nights ago (I know I’m really getting lazy with this) and also now there’s some distance my thoughts have changed. There are two new people at work, I’m sure I’ve mentioned it. So, naturally given how I’m a completely desperate loner it took almost no time for me to start seeing one of them in “that way”, the female one of course I haven’t gone prison gay yet. I know, I really do know how unbelievable it is that I’ve been at this place for just under a year and this has happened three times, it’s beyond pathetic. What can I say, my standards are basically just be pretty and be nice to me so now I’m finally out of my NEET cave I’m coming into contact with plenty of people who fit that description. Anyway I decided to check her social media the other night while bored, something I’m worryingly becoming way more comfortable doing lately, and she has a boyfriend. My immediate reaction was surprising even to myself given how unsurprising the information was, I took it quite badly. I’m over it now, in fact I’m pretty relieved as this should hopefully prevent me from developing serious oneitis but I’ve mentioned before that there’s this hope you live with when you have oneitis and I think the real sting is always that being taken away. Because let’s be honest, anyone who’s been in a similar situation knows they’re never going to make a move or they already would have and the girl never will. So there’s only one way the thing ends, which is as it always does. That hope though, that fantasy you know is completely unfounded that she’ll just confess her love for you one day or something, is enough to work with. In fact, it’s actually quite nice in a way like waiting for a package from amazon. One day life will just sort itself out and all my problems will be fixed by other people. So, I think looking back I got so upset (I wasn’t yelling out loud or banging things like an autist, I just mean internally) because I was starting to get that feeling again and it was prematurely killed in the womb. I got over it pretty quickly though, the very next morning I woke up and felt pretty good and I’ve been in a generally good mood since even though I had to do an extra day at work. Not manic either, not all of the time anyway, just generally positive vibes. I think I’ve already said this somewhere but, I feel like I just got out of a prison sentence but it’s one of those comfy Scandinavian prisons where you can play videogames all day. I feel like there’s more I could say about this, but I’m trying to speed up a bit because I’ve been posting way less frequently the last couple weeks. I’ve just been working a lot more, when I started this it was way less busy and I had a couple of two day weeks. I can write more in an hour at home than I will in an entire day at work.

Third and final thing is less related to any event or ongoing issue and more just a general idea I’ve been having. I’m not sure what sparked it, actually that’s not true it’s these new co-workers. I find them a little easier to talk to and be comfortable around, not much easier I’m still incredibly awkward but it’s not like with the ones who were there when I first started. I’ve got more comfortable around them having to work with them for a year, it’s not like at the start where I was more timid than someone with AvPD (maybe I actually have that but I’m not going to self diagnose because people who do that are insufferable) but it’s still really bad sometimes. Whereas these new people I’m already as comfortable around if not slightly more so than with the original crew. So I was thinking about it, and it reminded me of something I was wondering months ago about how I am actually getting a little better with people, which was why I deliberately looked for a customer facing job, but it’s only new people. I’m way more confident now, well not way more but certainly more so than before I started, but not with people I have already gotten to know. Basically, and I’ve always known this really but these recent things made me very conscious of it, I strive to maintain the first impression I make with someone. I don’t know why, but I’d find it so much harder to speak louder or gesture more or just be open with one of the people who’ve already decided I’m shy or quiet etc. than with some stranger I was meeting for the first time. Realising this, I see myself constantly following it throughout my life. Once someone sees me in a certain way I find the idea of going away from that terrifying, and I don’t know why because it sounds so ridiculous reading it back. This is with people who in many cases don’t give a shit, or would prefer me to be more confident and talkative.

I wrote something down on the back of a receipt because I thought it sounded clever at the time “We embrace the assumptions people have about us, and become who we are”, I don’t remember how I made the jump from this being just a personal problem to something universally applicable but it made sense to me at the time. Maybe this is relatable, I really do wonder now if this is just a problem for me or if it’s more common. It’s not just a personal thing either, I have slowly embraced many of the stereotypes about shut ins/ hikikomori even if originally I wouldn’t have wanted to. I was never a weeb in school, or even a casual anime fan despite the opportunity being there. I mean there was an anime/ manga club, but it’s only the last couple years so since I’ve turned 19 that I really got into it at all. I just wasn’t interested, in fact I hated those kids and I thought it was faggy shit. I was quite into western comic books though back then, luckily I seemed to jump ship on that interest just as it totally went to shit. I listen to a lot of metal, I sometimes piss in bottles, I almost never actually go outside aside from work, I’m into weird nazi mysticism, I’m racist and honestly the term is overused but if you called me a misogynist it’d be fair. I could go on but you get the picture, I’ve very slowly crept closer and closer to the basement dweller NEET caricature. Luckily I’m not fat or ugly and I stopped being a NEET, but still in many other ways. I’ve always done this, I don’t know whether it’s fear of being considered a fraud or what it could be. So, there is something to the idea of beeing urself because I’m maintaining a bunch of slightly different selves with all the different people I know and none of them are quite me. Even in this blog it’s not a completely accurate representation of who I am, but more because of the limitations of the medium rather than me hiding or acting a certain way. Ah I remember now, I was thinking of the idea of “flanderization”, which is this weird phenomenon in television. Basically a character, usually a secondary or less important character but I can think of one example where it’s not (Bazinga!), is introduced as fairly well rounded with some odd traits and eventually those traits become more and more pronounced and after long enough the two are basically completely different people. So, I’ve gone through an irl flanderization almost. It’s not a perfect fit, it’s been much more natural and slow me becoming the person I am today, but television and film is always hyper real. I’ve been aware of the fedora wearing daki clutching stereotype for as long as it’s been going around, before I had even hit puberty or really got into video games. Yet I always kind of felt like something about that spoke to me, and while I avoided anime and some of the other more superficial trappings associated with such a person for a time I think I knew I’d end up like this. When I was a little kid, I idolised the loner and I had a romanticised view of shut ins/ omega males/ hikkis.

I feel like I have more to say, but I have to go to work again soon and I just want to get this out today it’s been long enough. I’m still here, still blasting Loveless erry day, still keeping it D R E, still not loving police etc etc. I’ve got plans, finishing that Cure project, and there’s this Wizchan screenshot I’ve been thinking about a lot I think I want to talk about.

Thinking about thinking about things

I always hesitate to give the spur or catalyst for one of my internal monologues when trying to share these thoughts I have with someone. Not that I get much opportunity to do so, I’m not comfortable enough around most of the people I know to want to tell them what’s on my mind. When I do though I’ve learned it’s best not to tell them about whatever it is that got you started on this train of thought. Oftentimes it’s something trivial but they’ll latch onto it and it’ll become impossible to stay on point. I understand that a conversation is not a lecture and you’re going to drift, but this is before you can even get into the ideas you have. I want things to go in an unexpected direction, I want the opinions of other people. I don’t want to be told “Why are you thinking so much about X?” Well perhaps not those exact words except for one which is absolutely used frustratingly often, about. It bothers me so much because it devalues my ideas, no longer are they original thoughts but merely a response to or worse a regurgitation of what was presented by another person’s art or action. If I tell them how I feel about this, about that word in particular and everything it communicates to me I’m told I’m overthinking something trivial again. I’m told that but yet continue to not be taken seriously. I’m told that but they continue to focus on whatever silly thing it was that got me thinking in the first place rather than the actual thoughts I’m trying to share and have a conversation about. This is why I believe there’s no such thing as overthinking. Just because the person isn’t intelligent enough toto consciously imply everything they do with each word they utter doesn’t mean the language doesn’t reveal things if you pay close attention. So with that out of the way here’s what got me thinking recently.

I was at work as I’m sure most of these will start and this guy and his girlfriend came in. Now I honestly don’t mean this insultingly but he was an entirely unremarkable man. Wearing a graphic t-shirt and a denim jacket, soft spoken and looking ever so slightly uncomfortable. He was exactly who I picture in my head when you say “man” or “guy” other than perhaps his height. He was rather short, in fact the girl was taller than him but she did have heeled boots. Speaking of her, she was essentially his female equivalent. Pretty but not especially so, dressed in a way that didn’t stand out at all (although it would have shocked people a century ago) and wearing minimal but still very noticeable makeup. What I’m saying is that they were the very definition of generic, sure if you get to know them they might prove to be a fascinating and unique pair but given their gormless expressions and what I could pick up form their conversation I doubt it. I don’t like this new NPC meme because I think it’s just the most recent expression of the modern phenomenon satirised in the image above this paragraph, however I feel like if you ran around a street corner fast enough it’d be people like this you’d catch rendering in. So after I’d processed all that for a second I remember my first thought being that these two in this moment were perfect for each other. In this moment specifically that is the key here. As she looked up from her phone to answer his question about what they should get “yeah babe, whatever” and he shuffled up to the counter to pay, that’s what I thought. Outside of that it’s a void, I have no idea how a relationship like this begins or ends, I just cannot visualise it. I can’t picture this relationship progressing into parenthood or marriage when she clearly resents him (you’d know what I meant if you heard her tone of voice and saw her expression when speaking to him) and I can’t imagine how they ever got together in the first place when he’s such a fucking beta male. I really hate that term, I find it so vulgar and I’ve always avoided referring to guys that way even in anonymous 4chan posts because of how ugly it is to me, but this guy was the archetypal beta male and I’d be dishonest if I didn’t say what I truly thought at the time.

I suppose it says more about me than it does about them. I don’t know a thing about these people and I’m judging them completely based on a very brief encounter. I just can’t understand it though. There’s this real contradiction in my head in that what I’m seeing when they’re there in front of me makes so much sense but yet no sense at all. This isn’t that unusual for me either, I get a similar feeling from time to time in regards to completely different things. Things that are completely normal for many people, which is why I don’t find them unusual but I haven’t personally experienced which is why I find it so hard to understand how they happen in the first place. I’m doing a really bad job of explaining this so I’m going to try giving an example here. Think of how career criminals are represented in films (or in pop culture/ major Hollywood productions at least), they’re these jovial or suave characters. Beautiful intelligent women who can pull the wool over any man’s eyes and charming smooth talking men who can get out of any fix. When you get thinking though, it doesn’t make any sense that someone like that would end up with such a life for a number of reasons. People who look like models and movie stars can become models and movie stars and be making far more money without the risk factor of robbing places and other criminal activity. I mean look at actual real life famous gangsters, they’re all busted up middle aged men who grew up in poor/ lower class areas and rose up through petty crime and local violence. It makes people uncomfortable to say this but beauty is an asset just like wealth or intelligence and it concentrates upwards socially. I could go on but this is a complete tangent, my point is that when you try to imagine how these kinds of people in these films ended up where and as they are you can’t. The whole situation is so absurd and it takes you out of the film entirely. So that feeling is what I get, except without good reason like in the case of the film. That feeling of it not making sense is there but at the same time in these other cases it also makes perfect sense… I don’t think I’ll ever be able to properly share what this situation is like with someone unless they’ve experienced it themselves and just know what I’m talking about. I don’t have the vocabulary to properly express myself here and it’s really frustrating.

This feeling I have though is very unpleasant, it really worsens my usual sense of detachment and separateness from society. To most people normal things just are. They don’t seem to think about how, they don’t put any thought into trivial things it appears. In fact it annoys them when you do or they believe you do as I talked about in the beginning. Life just happens and they never really put much thought into it, you could even say it’s like they’re following a prewritten program. In fact that’s probably in part the reason everything just happens so smoothly for them, the more you think about something the more complicated you realise it is and the more daunting it seems. I don’t seem to have a choice though, it really does seem like ignorance is bliss. I’m reminded of this one time, I was watching a video on youtube that was titled something like “I don’t have any friends” or “I’ve never had any friends”, you might find it if you care to look but there’s probably a bunch of very similarly titled videos so it’ll be like a needle in a haystack. Anyway after dishonestly whinging about his lonely existence and “lack of meaningful relationships” for a while he said something like at least he had his girlfriend to keep him company without blinking and then kept on with the video. That’s information about him that completely changes the entire video, should cause any sane person to re-evaluate everything he just said, but he didn’t even fucking blink. I mean call me crazy but surely a romantic relationship is also supposed to be meaningful, if anything more so if you want to perhaps raise a fucking child with this person one day. Apparently not though, I hear people talk about their bfs/ gfs like a meal or an item of clothing or something completely boring and mundane. I’m focusing in quite a lot on this one thing because it’s obviously something I care about being a khv but it’s the same in other areas of their life. People talk about doing drugs or going to parties or whatever normalfag shit they enjoy doing and then wonder why I can’t relate to them. This is including people that know me and know I live a completely different life, and that used to be much more like me. It’s like everyone was able to transition into adult life completely seamlessly and without instruction and I don’t know what I’m even talking about anymore.

I’ve stopped making sense, I don’t want to put off finishing this entry another day though. I think what I’m trying to say is that the NPC thing is a really tempting way to look at the world and it helps a lot to cope with the fact that so often everyone around you can appear totally soulless, but you should be careful because maybe they’re right and you’re just a faggot thinking about pointless shit while everyone else is busy getting laid and doing fun shit. I mentioned earlier something about putting thought into trivial things, and that’s always been a lens I’ve used to judge people, I’ve always personally felt that putting great thought into trivial things was a sign of intelligence. I don’t think I was even entirely aware of this, I know I say this a lot but it was probably not something I was completely conscious of but was just going on under the surface. I think a lot of people like me have a similar thing, in fact I think that’s what binds us together more than anything else. Robots/ incels whatever term you want to use have no other trait quite as unifying. You have short and tall, ugly and handsome, overweight and skinny, rich and poor, and even both clever and stupid ones, but we all seem to spend way too much time thinking about everything. I realise now that I’m am conscious of this that it isn’t necessarily a sign of intelligence after all but rather a sign of someone like me. I don’t know if I’m intelligent, I often feel like a total fool and to be honest I’m a fucking dropout working a dead end job too, but I have so much to say I can’t be that stupid can I?

Anyway, I’m done for tonight I’m not working for the next four days so I’m going to stay up late drinking and listening to Dead Meadow. I know there are two or three regulars who are actually checking every couple days for new posts so hopefully this is another satisfactory read. I’ve started writing some notes for my post about The Cure so maybe that one’ll be next.

Rambling as promised

I was at work today, I still am this was moments ago actually but by the time I re-type and publish this I won’t be, and from the window I could see a remarkably underweight woman. She was truly anorexic, not what americans and bitter middle aged women would call anorexic (that is, a healthy weight) but honestly so skinny it’s probably a health concern. She had one of those big puffy down jackets and a really short skirt or shorts with no tights or leg coverings whatsoever. Really doing everything to beat the cold, but seriously it was ridiculous she looked like one of the balder knights from dark souls with her knobbly knees and this huge jacket. Anyway after being unsure what to write about since finishing my last entry I’m seizing upon the first interesting thought I have and miss spooky skellington is the one who inspired that thought.

She got me thinking about anorexia more generally, not the slang use of the term which is just another word for skinny people but the actual medical condition. See from what I understand it’s considered a mental illness. The girl, and it is a girl you picture when talking about anorexia, claims she still looks fat no matter what. She can be stick thin and will claim she sees something entirely different in the mirror. Supposedly anyway, although I imagine this is just tween girl hyperbole and what she means but doesn’t know how to say (or feels uncomfortable saying so explicitly) is that she doesn’t look like the models who are on magazine covers, advertisements, in music videos, etc. You know, the “unrealistic body standards” that get a certain sometimes overlapping group of women to go completely hysterical every once in a while. The thing is though, and it’s something I’m fairly certain most little girls aren’t told about, the women who have that kind of look aren’t just skinny they’re fucking built too. That’s some of my own hyperbole, but they’re certainly doing serious muscle building exercises. Something almost every boy will learn growing up, but a shocking amount of females never did I’m realising, is that how you look at a low bodyfat percentage will change drastically with only a relatively slight increase in muscle mass. I’m far from a fit person, I try to do some bodyweight exercises when I can like push ups/ pull ups and sit ups though and after doing that irregularly for the last couple years I certainly look more slim now than I did then despite slightly increasing in weight. I was what is called skinnyfat, I still kind of am now but I was for sure then, and I looked ever so slightly chubby in my mind when looking in the mirror despite my BMI saying I was underweight at the time. So here you have all these girls being diagnosed as having hallucinations when maybe no one considered that perhaps it’s just an epidemic of skinnyfat-ism.. I’m only half serious, but I do think in some cases there is definitely something to what I’m saying. I mean think about it muscle/ strength training is widely seen as a male thing, maybe in this instance the feminists have a point about how gender roles can be harmful. I think for the most part I believe fairly rigid socially enforced gender roles are a good thing, but on this issue I suppose it is having an actual measurable negative affect. Most robots/ incels would ask why I give a shit, but remember a lot of these girls haven’t even hit puberty so they haven’t become evil yet. I hope it’s obvious that’s a joke.

I knew that once I found something to write about it would easily lead me into other topics. I just finished copying the previous paragraphs from my notebook onto here now I’m home from work and was thinking it gave off a kind of creepy vibe. I had to stop because it got a lot busier and customers kept making me stop, writing while at work was quite comfy though before that though. I had the Hibernaculum EP by Earth playing in the background which was really easy to write to. Anyway staying on topic, talking about kids like that, even ones around the age of puberty and well into their teens makes me uncomfortable. I know I’m not a creep or a paedophile so it doesn’t bother me really, but if I saw that written by someone else I imagine I’d get those kind of vibes while reading. Maybe not though, did you? I think the anti-paedophile feeling is especially powerful in contemporary western society. So much so that we get uncomfortable and this weird spidey sense kicks in over oftentimes completely innocuous things. Maybe it’s because of the Jimmy Saville case (maybe not such a big deal outside of Britain) and other high profile cases like the catholic priesthood stuff that was going on for who knows how long. Whatever the reason though, people are so incredibly oversensitive and on the lookout almost. Of course paedophilia is monstrous and the strong visceral reaction people have to even the thought of it is normal, and I mean specifically the sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children not hebephilia/ ephobephilia which is a separate and way more complicated thing. I just think that this collective feeling of so many things being kind of weird or “a bit pedo” was never a thing when I was a kid. Of course when you’re that age you miss so many little social cues and details about adult life, but still I think adults could talk about children and liking children or children’s issues without being seen as weird.

Think about this, one day I want to have children or at least one. I would hate to have one now, but when I’m a lot older and can more easily take care of one I think I would like to do so. I’m talking like a decade from now, though my feelings might completely change. I might decide I would make a terrible parent, I certainly would now why assume I’ll be any less unstable in future. As I’ve already talked about quite a bit and probably will continue to I’m a complete loser though. I’m incredibly awkward and can hardly manage a conversation with most people, it takes months for me to even get kind of comfortable around people and that’s when they’re making as much effort. Which will likely never happen to me again, as a kid there were some people like that (the friend I talked about before being one) but as an adult it’s unlikely. I may have spent too much time around incels and their ideology online but I’m starting to really believe that as a male the only people who will ever genuinely care about you are your immediate family and the friends you make in childhood, everyone outside of that is just making a value judgement. I’m not even able to bee myself around some of my own family. I’ve never had a girlfriend and seeing as I have no intention of making a real effort to if I’m honest with myself I don’t see why that will ever change. So if I want a child one day when I’m older and settled I’ll have to go the surrogacy route or adoption if either of them are even legal for single men in this future. Don’t tell me that the idea of a single man wanting to adopt or have a surrogate born child doesn’t at least make you a little uncomfortable.

Well, it’s the morning now I was pretty tired and had to cook and wash up the last few days dishes so I wasn’t able to write as much last night as I wanted to. I still want to add some more to this post though as it’s been a few days since the last one and probably will again until the next. I’ve got to get the shopping later and think of something to cook, but there’s not too much rush. I should be able to finish this up now, then later find a fitting picture and title and upload it. I’m listening to Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me by The Cure, my favourite band probably for the last two years but I’ve recently started listening to them again quite a lot after taking a break for the last few months. I think I could write a whole post on why they’re so important to me. In fact I think what I’ll do to end this post is come up with a few ideas for future entries. If I have an idea in mind already I can work on them in my notebook while at work like yesterday which I enjoyed doing. So, I could definitely try and write about The Cure. Why they’re so important to me, how their (or more specifically Robert Smith because he’s the only member who’s been with every incarnation of the band) music affects me, some memories associated with them etc. I also have had this idea of writing about regret, specifically a select few major regrets of mine or potential turning points in my life that I fucked up. That could be a bit too self indulgent though, it’d just be talking about myself and nothing else, I don’t want to feel like a complete narcissist. I think the best posts I’ve made had a good balance of talking about myself and other people/ things I think about. I also would like to talk about death, specifically the death of my mother when I was 14. I’ve never really said much to anyone about it, but of course this is the biggest thing to ever happen to me and I have a lot to say. I know when I started this blog I said my parents were going away but it was just my dad who I’ve lived with since that age. He’s away right now, looking for somewhere else to live actually. The day where I really am living completely on my own isn’t that far off anymore. Speaking of my living situation, I think I could write about that too, again it’s all very self focused though fuck.. See because of my mum passing away and inheritance I’ve been living in a bureaucratic nightmare for years. Well, that fact combined with some decisions that were made years before too.

Ok, so ideas that aren’t about me. It’s tricky because usually they hit me quite spontaneously and then I’ll just sit there thinking for hours, I don’t really plan ahead what I’ll be thinking about. I could try and write something political, but I’ll need to think about what my politics are because I’m really not sure anymore. I’ve been a kid on the internet, so naturally I’ve spent a lot of time flirting with fringe political ideas both left and right but nowadays I’m not sure where I stand. I can’t shake this idea as well that a lot of what you believe is shaped or informed by things outside of your control. Our ideas and opinions don’t exist in a vacuum, we are genetically predisposed to a certain way of looking at things and also the attitudes of those around you in your formative years have a huge influence. There’s definitely something to the stereotype of the people attracted to extreme politics as losers and social rejects. Looking at the early lives of Hitler and Goebbels or just being aware of /pol9k/ really cements this. The leadership in these movements are fully aware of this too, so that means they target this demographic. George Lincoln Rockwell was quite explicit about this, shit even Hitler in Mein Kampf (not that I’ve read it but I’ve seen this passage posted online) talked about it. It kind of makes me second guess myself whenever I take a stance on something. I think the only thing I’m pretty confident in is the social conservatism I’ve slowly come around to. All the wacky esoteric crap about the eternal spiritual battle between aryans and semites, is a little silly if fun to get into at 3am in the morning when you should be asleep. Even more mundane things, I don’t know a thing about economics even after reading several genuinely quite tough an in-dpeth books on the subject in my “libertarian phase”. I basically have to treat all my political views with a kind of detachment, maybe I actually believe this maybe not kinda thing. I’m not sure, hopefully ideas will come to me. They always have, I just hope that now I’m actually anticipating them so I can write about what I think they don’t become less frequent. That would be just my luck.