Go team Jamie!

When you’re endlessly struggling to understand yourself, or your purpose, you eventually just start to give up placing yourself. Luckily, I’m not quite at that stage. I’m still searching for a reason to be. Perhaps purpose is the wrong word; as argued in a separate blog a while back, I’m pretty certain there is no such reality as “purpose“, it is simply a man made concept designed to keep our minds focused on something that doesn’t involve any form of rebellion. So perhaps purpose doesn’t suit me, perhaps “different” suits me.

With this in mind, I’ve been mapping out each road in my distinctly annoying mind, and deciding which of those possibly roads is likely to cause the greatest incalculable source of happiness on my inner hedonistic calculus, if I were to take that specific road. At first, I thought of a month around Europe; hostels, new people, new places, on my own with no one else to worry about. Then, came the idea of a Far East week. A week exploring the seemingly perfect and tranquil setting of Halong Bay in North East Vietnam; a different World to the one I’m struggling to understand here in England. The Communist Revolutionary Ho Chi Minh once said of Halong Bay; “It is the wonder that one cannot impart to others“. And whilst I’d give my right arm to spend a week within a wonder that “one cannot impart to others“, it would only be a holiday, it would offer nothing of substance, and spiritually, would appear to be slightly pointless.

So, I’m currently saving every last penny of my punitive income to do what I should have done years ago; Volunteer work abroad. gapyearforgrownups.co.uk offers some magnificent opportunities. From orphanage volunteering, to natural conservation work. There is something for everyone. Costs are the problem. The program I’m currently considering deeper than the others, is called the “Tanzania Reach Out to Children” project, in which volunteers help with the education and development of Tanzania’s orphaned and disadvantaged children. Nursery and day care centres, and primary to secondary education. A four week program, costs £879. That price doesn’t include flights or travel insurance or the £115 Class C Permit Visa, or the £25 tourist visa. Costs start mounting. Flights to Dar es Salaam from Birmingham, come in at £650 at least. It’s a hugely costly program, but I’m certain I can do it. It’s almost a dream job, because it involves helping those who need it most, and so is satisfying by definition; as opposed to making money for the pretentious rich ignorant self important idiots in suits that I usually waste my time demoralised for. This, is the only rewarding aspect of life I can possibly think worthy of my time and effort.

So, this is my new goal! I feel ridiculously better about myself today, for even having a goal. But then (and here’s that little annoying mad man in the back of my mind again, Sylvia Plath’s mirror haunting me constantly), surely my motives are all wrong? Surely my motive is self gratification and a need to create a sense of spiritual bliss, rather than a genuine need to help those who require assistance the most, even though I do feel and always have felt a distinct sympathy for the less fortunate peoples of the World (hence why I’d never bring myself to vote Conservative). It’s a tricky predicament. Do motives even matter, if someone who needs help is being helped? Hmmm. Either way, this is my new goal, and I’m going to do it. I have decided that when I do it, I will take my camera, and document it, as my own personal Photography side project, because I’ve given up recently on my Photography, and I really should start up again. This, is the perfect opportunity. I intend to show, through my Photographs, that despite the claims of the ridiculous Right Wing, humanity is not intrinsically selfish, and that the forgotten regions of the World need all the support they can get. It’s an idea I’ll keep thinking about and evolving, as time goes on. Especially as I’m embarking on a Journalism degree this coming September. It all makes perfect sense.

Go team Jamie!

Making a hell out of heaven

I appear to had forgotten just how unreasonable a vindaloo is a few hours after you’ve eaten it.
It’s like an incredibly attractive female, who, after you’ve “enjoyed” her, tells you she’s got herpes.
It sits there, staring at me, begging to be eaten, and so owing to my great incapability for saying no, I eat it. Savouring every last beautifully cheap and greasy mouthful (the curry, not the attractive female), I’m too deep into the heavenly taste, that I don’t think about the consequences of these actions. I go to bed satisfied.
A few hours later, and I wake up feeling like someone is about to blowtorch my arse.

I’ve wondered recently, what heaven is. What it’s like. Who it pleases. Who decides what universal perfection and happiness is. I mean, I understand that Heaven is the perfected perfection. It’s also very Conservative, in that it doesn’t like change or social progression. God spits at the Gays! Like an angry redneck scared that the sanctity of his second marriage to his second cousin may be undermined if we let the “fags” marry. It’s also very undemocratic, what with one guy ruling the entire place, very heavy handedly I might add, Bush will be invading heaven before January, I assure you.

If, as Christians tend to suggest, no homosexual person, or no person who questions Christianity, or no person who hasn’t accepted Jesus as “their lord and saviour” exists in heaven, then I do not want to go to Heaven. If the Christian heaven, void of anyone who happens to have a different view of life exists, then it’s indeed a very good advert for going to Hell. Hell seems much more diverse and accepting.
A Christian at Speakers Corner, Hyde Park, once told me that unless you accept Jesus into your life, you are destined for hell. I asked him, “what would happen to an Aid Worker in the Sudan, who dedicates his life to helping others, all his money goes into helping orphaned children live a better life, but is Atheist, and Gay?” The Christian, told me that man would go to hell for being a non believer. Yet this Christian stood in front of me, aimlessly condemning good people to hell, will be going straight to heaven? This same Christian, who will act morally, purely to appease his God and maybe get on the path to Heaven, whereas that Gay Atheist aid worker, acts morally, because he wants to do good, he has no one to impress, no God to appease, he does the right thing, for the sake of humanity, is going to hell? I think that’s a brilliant advert for hell right there.

Surely Heaven is different for everyone? My idea of the perfect eternal World will be entirely different to that, for example, of a White Supremacist. Their idea of heaven, may very well be void of all black or Asian people. Whereas, my idea of heaven would include every ethnic grouping, every coloured skin, every sexual orientation, every Nationality, every class, and every walk of life on the planet, living in a place without a whisp of fear or bigotry.
The idea of the perfect World for a Priest, may not include sexual salacious bliss, or may only include sexual salacious bliss for couples who had married in the material World. This, is my idea of hell.

Everyone is different.

A Vegetarian may find that his or her idea of Heaven, is never having to find another restaurant that actually caters to Vegetarians in a respectful maner. A table full of beautiful Vegetarian dishes. Whereas, my only edible wish for Heaven, all I ask of God, if he truly is merciful, would be a Vindaloo that doesn’t set my arse on fire.