“The surest way to corrupt a youth…”

Yesterday evening I had a pretty in-depth discussion with Ash about my personal insecurities, which allowed them to surface quite unexpectedly. It overwhelmed me, and actually quite upset me. It made me feel fairly angry at both myself and the system that had developed this rather cancerous conditioning, and continues to do so with children across the Country.

I’ve always placed myself in between two types of mind. On the one hand, there is the creative mind of humanity, that effortlessly sways away from the material World and places an almost spiritual sense of self manifestation through art and poetry and photography and creative writing, above material needs. Sylvia Plath could turn ineffable feelings into beautiful poetry. Diane Arbus could take a photo that ran deeper than it first appeared.

On the other hand, there is the business mind, which seeks profit above all else, so poor that all they own is money, the material mind, which may not in all honesty be driven by what it sees as pure greed or an institutionalised perpetuating inequality, but nonetheless contributes to it every day. I place myself inbetween the two. Always have. I wish I had the creativity to be able to turn feelings into words, or inject my sense of self onto a photo, but I can’t. I wish I could produce a photo that lives on through posterity and everyone sees and says “that’s incredible“. I do not care for the material wealth it may bring, I just wish I could leave my mark creatively and not be simply forgotten when I die.

I have never considered anything I have achieved creatively, as being of any worth whatsoever. It frustrates me to even write about it now. If I take a photo, and people tell me that they like it, I immediately think I must have manipulated them somehow into the assumption that my photos are any good. It must be my fault. I must have forced them to believe what they are seeing is of any worth. If an essay achieves a high mark, I automatically assume that there has been a mistake, or that perhaps my lecturer just likes me because I say hi to him most mornings. I don’t doubt their sincerity. I accept that what they are saying as a compliment, is perhaps true in their eyes, but I automatically assume that I have clouded their vision somehow, and I don’t know how to stop it. This feeling of a lack of creative self worth does not affect me consciously, but subconsciously, I’m discovering, it has quite an enormous affect.

I blame school.

When I was younger, a teenager, I grew up surrounded by friends that I didn’t really have all that much in common with. I made excuses as to why I couldn’t go out with them. I had no desire to spend my days getting stoned and drunk constantly, or talking about fights and graffiti, it just never suited me. I always had a rebellious mind. Those kids who were quite clearly rebelling against their parents, or their school, or any kind of established rules, wanted to stick two fingers up to that establishment. I on the other hand, wanted to rebel against the established rules (as I still do), and also against the kids who in their quest for individuality had inadvertently become simply one big group of sheep. They appeared to have attacked the old “rules” and instead become victim to a new set of rules, aimed at destroying all individuality in much the same way as the old rules did. You got drunk, and stoned simply to fit in. You smashed windows and had fights, simply to impress. You spouted racist bullshit and talked about who you’d shagged, after spraying inane, illegible curse words on any walling you could find, simply to appear the alpha-male, like a group of mindless dogs. It never appealed to me. Drugs, burnt out stolen cars, joy riding, shouting in the streets at 3am, fireworks, fighting. It fucking disgusted me more than anything else. It wasn’t a “lifestyle” choice though. Neither was it teenage rebellion. It was expected. It was social conditioning. Kids were made to believe they were useless, and had no real future. Their parents lived in rented council houses (we rent our house) and lived on the dole, because they themselves came from broken homes and didn’t understand any different. They were called lazy because they weren’t top of the class in Maths. They were told “you should have worked harder in school“. The system then directed funds and investment away from those poorer areas and toward the more attractive areas, with the better schools, and so the cycle continued, from one generation to the next. The system wasn’t blamed by politicians or by businessmen, the people were blamed. They were “useless” and “lazy“. You’re simultaneously taught that ambition is pointless, but if you don’t try hard enough to attempt to obtain that which is unobtainable, you’re lazy.

And whilst it never appealed, it meant that I felt kind of detached, constantly, from the way of life around the area that I lived. I could never understand to the best of my ability, why the kids who were famous on our estates for stealing, or street fighting, or spray painting, or generally being little shits, were the popular kids, whilst the kids who could write music or paint a picture beyond the normal capibility of kids our age, were simply ignored at best and bullied at worst.

A teenage life of drugs and drink and fighting and lack of ambition and lack of knowledge and aimless, soulless “living” frequented the area where I lived, and so inevitably I was always going to fall into that way of life, if I wasn’t careful. So I resisted. And whilst it has meant cutting certain friends out of my life, i’m proud of myself for doing it. For years, I felt I was having to pretend to be something that I just wasn’t. I wasn’t the kind who wanted to fight, and drink constantly, and smash a bus stop to pieces. I suspect, the majority of people I knew felt the same as me, but just felt they had to take the plunge, to “fit in“.

On my old school’s website, it reads:

“Our aim is to ensure that all students reach the highest level of achievement, that all students reach their full potential and succeed.”

I feel this quote is horrendously misleading.
School merely perpetuated the problem. I had written down on my “choices for GCSE courses” application sheet, that I wanted to take History. I have always loved history. They wrote to me to tell me that History was full up, and they had instead put me on a business studies course. What the hell do I want to take a business studies course for? I do not have a mind for business, I’m appalling at maths, and most importantly, it isn’t History. Our school didn’t have the widest of choices for GCSE courses. I have always loved Religion, History, Politics and Philosophy. I studied Maths, English, Religious Education, Science, Business, French and Graphics. I had no interest in any of those subjects other than Religious Education…….. which I got an A in. A diverse curriculum costs too much, and is far too problematic to engage. And so, a limited curriculum where a limited few are appeased whilst the majority are uninterested, is the way we do things in England. We then tell the unhappy majority that they just aren’t good enough. We don’t encourage them to find out what it is that interests them. That would create rebels!

We were placed in a hierarchical system within moments of starting this new school. We were told that these next two years would be the most important of our lives. The pressure was quite immense. Those people who loved Maths were placed in “Top set“. Those of us who enjoyed other subjects other than Maths were placed in “Bottom set” for Maths. The linguistic phrasing of top and bottom is a hard thing for a kid to take. It has an impact. We all associate top with the best, and bottom with the very worst. If you are unlucky enough to be placed in the bottom set, you soon realise what it is to mean for you, over the next two years;

You are, within seconds of starting a new school, not good enough. You’re constantly told that you can expect a D or a C at best, but nothing more. You are shoved in a class with disruptive kids, and teachers who really aren’t that bothered with you. You’re never going to achieve anything, and so you’re almost forgotten. The top set kids mingle with the other top set kids, and the bottom set kids mingle with the other bottom set kids. The system is so fundamentally wrong. Yet, I am positive that if we studied History and Philosophy ahead of Science and French, my teachers would not have made me feel like I was useless and incapable of achieving anything beyond a D grade.
Exams were never about accumulated knowledge, or the ability to theorise, or explain, or expand on theories. Exams were all about what language you had remembered, and what equations you had memorised. You didn’t need to understand, just regurgitate what you had read from a text book. You may aswell have just taken the textbook into the examination with you.

“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”

We were taught not to question. We were taught that if you failed at Maths or Science or French, that you would fail in life in general. There was nothing beyond the four walls of that very limited scope of subjects. Take everything the teacher said as fact. Don’t bother investigating for yourself. Those of us in Business Studies were force fed economic theory as fact. We weren’t to question, just learn certain business “laws” that were highly subjective and open to a lot of questioning, and just memorise them for exam time. We weren’t to question anything, because that would take up too much time. Just acquiesce to everything we were being told.

The Country was therefore filled, half with people who were amazing at remembering equations for Maths exams and specialised language for Science exams, who would come out of school with top grades, and half with those who did not find Maths or Science the least bit interesting or mentally stimulating, and left with mediocre to crap GCSE results. I was, quite unapologetically nowadays, in the latter. How different would the marketplace and the Country in general look today, if everyone’s interests were catered too? If you were not simply shoved into an education that acted not to educate you in what interested you but simply to create good little workers? The worst thing is, I was told I could not go on to further education to study Philosophy unless I achieved a high enough grade in Maths and Science. I also got a school report from my English teacher when I was fourteen explaining to my parents that I’d never be someone who reads, or understands the significance of literary classics, or writes anything of any worth when it comes to creative writing. Ten years later, I read at least two books a month, I write constantly on here, and my personal bookshelf looks like it’s about to collapse under the weight of my books. I am well read in Roman history, I can tell you about the Presidency of George Washington, I can recite elements of the speeches of Abraham Lincoln at the time of the Douglas debates, I adore reading about the reign of King Edward VI, i’m currently reading a book on the historical importance of Muhammad, and my next book will be The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici. Bukowski enthralls me with his detached sentiment, Plath intrigues me with her unique ability to turn feelings into language, Camus has transformed my World view and Vonnegut stuns me with his masterly grasp of simple prose. In short, “Mrs English” (that was her real name) can go and fuck herself. She genuinely made me believe that when it came to English language and literature, I was utterly useless.

I went back to college when I was 20, and when I was old enough to understand the horrendous hypocrisies and general bullshit spouted by the education system, and the good little workforce it aimed to produce. I had to travel an hour to college and an hour home again every day, because that was the closest college offering courses I enjoyed. I studied for my A-Levels; 16th Century History, Philosophy, Politics, and English Language and Literature. I left college with A,A,A,B.

I myself, would like to be a teacher. I worry that the institutionalised inequality of the teaching service would simply mean I would be keeping alive the inequalities that I hate so much. I do not want to be a teacher who makes children who aren’t too keen on Maths, think that they are useless. I want to be able to tell a child that they don’t have to be good at Maths. I want to tell the child who is obsessed with Photography but has had no chance to study it, that he can throw his Maths homework in the fireplace, and go and take some fucking amazing photos instead. I want to tell the little lad who feels pressured into taking drugs and getting into fights, that having to prove your masculinity to a group of thugs, should be pitied and vocalised with a simply “awww, bless them, the little idiots” more than anything.

When you have spent most of your years being made to believe that you are below average, and will never match up to the clever kids, and never produce anything of any worth, it comes as quite the shock when someone praises your work. I love Photography, I love to write, and I love expanding my knowledge. My school did not educate me, my school held me back. I learnt last night, that subconsciously, I feel utterly worthless. It is an insecurity that is rooted in childhood. I will now work to correct it.

Life, Work, Love and 2010

I haven’t blogged at all recently, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, my computer died, and i’m forced to use a disastrously primitive piece of computing equipment, which could blow up at any given second. And secondly, I don’t really have much to say. So, given that it is fast approaching the end of the year, I thought i’d sum up my year, for those who happen to be interested.

Life:
I discovered a significant amount about myself this year. I appear to be both growing up, and becoming what some would describe as immature. According to the unwritten rule, to be mature means to accept authority without question, to accept the framework on which we are all born, without question, and to give in to a chase for money, without question. To be mature, means to join a race for more, never satisfied with what one already has, we only reach maturity when we have accepted that we are greedy by nature (which, I do not accept). Therefore, I am immature. I would also argue that the most enlightened minds on the planet, exist for those very few seconds after birth, when we see the World as it supposed to be seen, with wonder; untouched and unnamed by humanity.
I like the idea that when a new born baby sees an ocean, he or she has no idea what it is, they do not have a word for it, they do not understand it’s characteristics, they do not know who put it there, what it’s purpose is, they don’t even have a concept of “purpose”….. which, to me, means the new born baby, is the purest and most Worldly form of life, they see the World with a beauty that you and I lost a very long time ago. When we grow up, we concoct these silly little absurd concepts, like “purpose” to suit our economic needs. Along with “purpose” other concepts, that just did not exist before human beings ridiculously invented them to suit certain economic, money making needs, include “race”, “Nationality”, “religion”, “self discipline”, “Sir”, “Boss”, “deserving”, “work ethic” and hundreds more. Who invented these terms?

Anyway, I digressed a little there. As you can probably tell, Philosophy played a huge roll in my 2009. I took a bit of a depressed stage, not understanding the point of me, earlier this year. I struggled to understand why people and friends can live life comfortably, and securely, blindly acquiescing to the notion that those who do not question, or think, or criticise, or employ a sense of reason and logic to the World around them, or even read a book at all in their lives, are able to live an uneventful, secure, blissfully ignorant life. I have no practical skill, no practical skill that is worth anything to the community that I live in interests me in the slightest. I do not want to manage a team, nor do I want to run a bar, or sell houses, or offer legal advice. In fact, I have no real idea what I want from life. I just know that when I’m at work, behind a bar, selling alcohol to rich people, there is a constant voice in the back of my mind saying “what the fuck is the point of all of this? What good is this? Why do you care if someone complains that their coffee isn’t warm enough? Where is the incentive to make money for a socially shielded man who doesn’t know your name and does nothing but criticise you? How fucking absurd is life. ” Yet, those who do not question, and just accept that “that’s just how it is“, will get on just fine throughout their lives. Then, I discovered Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, two beautifully eloquent and logical Existentialist Philosophers, who taught me in 2009 that the little voice in the back of my mind, was searching for meaning and purpose, in a Universe void of meaning or purpose. They taught me that the entire notion that a bigger picture exists, is so horrendously arrogant of humanity, that to embrace it, means we will never be happy, we will always want something more. And so, there is no black and white, no objective realities, just a mix of meaningless, dead, redundant ideas.

Work:
I started University this year. So far, so good. I study Politics and Journalism and Italian language on the side. The one issue I have with University, is it doesn’t seem to be teaching me much. Lecturers appear to be reading out loud, something that someone else has said. They seem to expect our essays, to be full of things someone else has said. Nothing is original, or requires original thought. Even a question titled “What do you understand by the term…….” does not particularly want to know what I understand by a term, instead wanting me to write down what somebody else has said about a specific term. Any form of subjective thinking, and critically analyzing an idea or concept, feels somewhat forbidden.
Despite this slight issue, I do really enjoy University.

Love:
I’ll simply copy exactly what I wrote in my previous blog entry, for those who missed it.
I want to meet someone, who makes me feel like Byron felt when he penned “She Walks in Beauty”. That’s not to say that I haven’t already met her, i’m pretty sure that I have. But, it’s far more complicated than not.
I worked out this year, that my own slightly promiscuous past was the result of my horrendous desire to feel wanted. It wasn’t an attempt to impress friends with my list of “shags“. I’ve never been one to give a shit about impressing people. I have spent the past six months going on date, after date in an attempt to figure out what it is I want. And i’m only human, I have my flaws and my insecurities. One of which, as already mentioned, is my need to feel wanted. Which, I accept is disastrously arrogant of me. But, on a deeper level, feeling wanted does not just resign itself to intimate encounters with nameless blonde haired brown haired black haired blue eyed green eyed tall short thin fat women from nowhere and everywhere, it’s a need to feel that as I person, my existence is not completely pointless, or absurd (blame Camus and Sartre for my assumptions on absurdity).
I do miss having someone to talk about my day with, or to cook with. I miss affection. I miss the feeling of not remembering how life existed without that person. I miss watching a film together, or becoming addicted to a TV show with or play fighting with. I miss planning holidays together. I miss spending weeks before her birthday trying to figure out what she wants and panicking right up until the last minute that she might not like it. I miss it all, especially the bond which certainly doesn’t exist with one nighters. But, in the search for that lasting feeling again, the tendency to let my guard down has crept in, which has never happened before. I discovered in the past couple of months, that I have a fickle heart, in that a simple smile from a beautiful girl gleamed in my direction, has the ability to make me think I’m in some sort of romantic comedy in which we’re going to end up happily married together by the end of the movie.
I do not want to end up like the couple who don’t trust each other. Or the couple who ban each other from talking to exes. Or the couple who claim to love each other within a few days of getting together. It is extraordinarily rare that I meet a couple who appear to actually belong together, often my instant reaction in my mind is quite pessimistically: “they wont last long“. This feeling of rarity affects my own life. It’s incredibly rare for me to see someone, and smile simply because they’re there. I’m constantly dating people I know just don’t suit me, or maybe it’s my fussy nature finding flaws.

Entertainment:
I discovered quite a deep love for poetry this year. Lord Byron, Sylvia Plath, Wordsworth, Keats, Kerouac, Ginsberg and Dylan Thomas, among many more.
Plath, for the way she dealt with turning a tortured mind, into the work of genius, is by far my favourite poet of all. To have the ability to turn ineffable feelings into beautiful language, is something I’m in awe of.
Lord Byron, Wordsworth and Keats, for the ability to romanticise the World on a level that speaks to me quite profoundly.
On January 9th, I intend to make my way down to The Tate Britain in London, to view the Turner and the Masters exhibition. To have works by Turner, Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt and Canaletto in the same place at the same time, is far too good an opportunity to pass up.
On a more superficial level.. I have a horrible addiction to The Sopranos and Lost. Seriously addicted. I could talk about them both, for hours on end. I’m counting down the days until the final Season of Lost begins. I want a Dharma tshirt!

Beliefs:
When two or three Muslim men blow themselves up in England, we suddenly decide that Islam itself, and it’s believers should be viewed with a degree of suspicion. Yet, when two, three, four, five, or more white British middle aged men get convicted for child abuse, we do not practice that very same logic, and decide all white middle aged men should be viewed as potential paedophiles. Why is that?
I’m not entirely sure why the City that I live, is very much more racist and Nationalist than it’s ever been before. The war cry of the stupid: “I’m English! I was born here! I’m a second class citizen in my own Country!” Is more and more common. Why? For what reason? White British, or Pakistani Muslim, it’s all a social construct, it isn’t based on science or fact or anything other than divisive mechanisms that humanity put in place. Cut us open, and we’re all red, the same red. Science has pretty much proven that biological determinism just doesn’t exist. We cannot distinguish intelligence, or work ethic, or a need to be criminally active, with a race. What we consider to be distinctive “races” are simply social constructs that we as humans, have invented. Therefore, racism and nationalism are largely futile, pointless, and fantasy, as well as being moronic, meaningless, useless, and childish.
We now in fact, put working man against working man. The BA strikes have left most working people deciding that the workers are in the wrong. They chose to ignore the fact that greedy incompetent management is solely to blame, instead choosing the blame the workers. Another social construct designed to keep the masses obeying whatever the top guys say.
It’s a new phenomena. For Centuries, the whole concept of white and black, did not exist. It was used as a tool of Capitalism in the early days of the USA and Colonial Africa and India, in order to divide white working class people and black/Asian working class people from forming alliances and challenging the powers that be. Before that, White Brits were killing each other, because one section was Catholic, the other was Protestant. Or one section was Royalist, the other Parliamentarian Republicans. We have always found pathetic excuses to hurt each other. Race, religion, and ethnicity is relatively new in that regard.
The cry of “They’re taking all our jobs!”. For every one Pakistani gentleman that gets a job over you, another ten White Brits will be given a job ahead of you. Are you starting from the rather moronic premise that White Brits deserve first consideration for a job, before any other colour or religious belief purely because they were lucky enough to be born here? If you owned a business, and a Muslim candidate for a job was far more suited than his White counterpart, why on Earth would you chose the White Brit? Why is colour, ethnicity and race even an issue? What the fuck is your problem? There is absolutely nothing British or English about the EDL and the BNP. They are utter scum.

Religiously:
I disregard all organised religion as highly divisive illogical myths filled with flaws, that just would not exist, had an all powerful, all knowning God actually created them.
That said, I do not disregard the idea of spirituality. In fact, I find the essence of humanity to be at odds with the essence of the materialist World that we inhabit, and so spirituality; as a mechanism to take ourselves away from that materialist nightmare, is a wondrous thing.
To find out just who we are, our strengths and weaknesses as human beings rather than good little workers, has been of monumentous importance to me over the past year. I’ve submitted myself to books on Taoism and Buddhism, I fill my bedroom with candles and incense sticks, which have a profound relaxing affect on me, much like the feeling I get, with the mellifluous nature of a serene mind, when sat overlooking an ocean void of all human touch, on a warm summer evening. The feeling of carelessness, unattached from reality for a tiny moment is so incredibly important to me. And so spirituality, and getting to understand myself has worked to both relax me, and paradoxically, make me more conscious of my shortcomings, unable to figure out (as of yet) how to correct them.

2010:
I want a weekend in Paris.
I want a weekend in Venice.
I want to fill my brain with relatively useless information, about Roman history, and Art, and Tudor history, and Political Philosophy.
I want to love someone.
I want to continue to question everything around me.
I want to read more Sartre.
I want to embrace romance much more.
I want to eat healthier and become a bit fitter physically.
I want a better job, that I actually enjoy and involves helping those who need it, rather than those who don’t.
I want to take up Photography again.
I don’t want to turn 24.

Too much to ask? One can dream.

The Mirror of Sylvia Path

It was inevitable, with my current state of mind, that I’d be drawn to the poems of Sylvia Plath. It isn’t just Plath I’ve been reading. I’ve spent the past couple of days reading the works of Existentialist Philosophers such as Nietzsche and Sartre. They appeal to me, because they start from the precept, that the Universe we inhabit, and thus, we ourselves, lack order; that we attempt to make order out of chaos, and it completely destroys our sense of self. Which, is how I currently feel.

However, Plath strikes more of a cord with me, my sense of sympathy and my love for those who are different, because she appears to have been so mentally disturbed and unable to escape such deep insecurities that it reasonated in such a timeless and beautiful creative talent.

The opening stanza to the poem “Mirror” immediately provokes a reaction of “wow” within me. I remember studying it at College, but not really taking too much notice, because I couldn’t actually relate slightly to it. I struggle to understand that which I cannot relate to. The moment I start feeling a little different, and really looking inward, I immediately search for something to relate to. Some claim to relate to rock music, some claim to relate to hip hop, others claim to relate to particular artworks or politicians. This poem, does just that for me.

MIRROR:
“I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
What ever you see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful—
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.”

The idea that strikes me about this poem, is that on the surface, it is merely Plath describing what we all identify with a mirror. Beneath the surface, I’d argue that the mirror, is her mind. And therefore, the narrator, is her mind, almost separate from Plath herself. The mind is letting us know, that she is stuck entirely with it, and cannot change reality. I find the most powerful image of this stanza, is “The eye of a little god”. The mirror here has been given a power above all else. It is all knowing and all seeing. It is the perfect representation of the self. And as the second Stanza suggests, the perfect representation of the self isn’t always something we can deal with.
The second stanza continues:

“Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.”

The idea of a lake, and of a woman (Plath, herself) searching for herself when looking inwardly (at the reflection on the lake) is striking. A lake’s reflection is quite fluid, and easily manipulated by the ripples that devour it. Could this suggest that Plath is attempting to manipulate what she once considered to be “The eye of a little God”, to something she prefers, a version of reality she can deal with, despite that fact that it isn’t actually reality?
I was then haunted by the idea that Plath, unable to manipulate her perception of reality, has chosen to ignore the honest reality reflected back at her, and instead turned to “those liars“. She’s searching for a different explanation to whom “she really is“. She feels trapped by the reality, by the honesty of the mirror/lake and by what it shows. She clearly hates the constant inward demons that haunt her, as suggested by:
“I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.“
She is searching for happiness and reassurance, even if it means turning to dishonesty, instead of an honest view of herself she just doesn’t like. And although the happiness that is perhaps found dishonesty toward her own reality is certainly there, it is always overrun by the horrible feeling of what is actually real, the reflection she cannot overcome. The mocking feeling of unmanipulated truth, that wont leave her alone. Mocking, yet honest.

I suppose I should explain why I feel I relate to this poem. The mirror Plath speaks of, is the hard honest cold face of reality. It’s a reality I do not understand. I do not like. And whilst most people unquestioningly get on with it, I find myself feeling forced to embrace it, rather than doing so of my own free will. Conflictingly, a part of my mind; I suppose you could call it the “candles or the moon” as Plath does, insists that life does not have to be the miserable way it appears on the surface, that there is more to people and more to me than the lugubrious solemn bubble we’re all born into and educated to accept. But all the time, the mirror amplifies it’s presence, it grows in size, refusing to reflect back at me, anything that I consider to be the essence of me, but instead reflects back what I’m “supposed” to be, insisting that life is forever going to be one big basket of disappointments and worries. The Mirror, is always there. The conflict never ends.

It’s a magnificent poem, harrowing and tragic, up for much interpretation. Of the poems of Plath I have read, this one speaks volumes about her mindset. That isn’t to say that “Lady Lazarus” and “Edge“, and even “Words” which starts quite disturbingly with the disturbing line “Axes after whose stroke the wood rings” to convey the feeling that words have on her, aren’t as stirring, but “Mirrors” spoke to me on a much deeper level. I actually sat reading it again and again, and every time, something new jumps out at you. This, is why I consider Sylvia Plath, a genius.

Purpose isn’t

“Where am I? Who am I? How came I here? What is this thing called the world? What does this world mean? Who is it that has lured me into the world? Why was I not consulted, why not made acquainted with its manners and customs instead of throwing me into the ranks, as if I had been bought by a kidnapper, a dealer in souls? How did I obtain an interest in this big enterprise they call reality? Why should I have an interest in it? Is it not a voluntary concern? And if I am to be compelled to take part in it, where is the director? I should like to make a remark to him. Is there no director? Whither shall I turn with my complaint?”
- Soren Kierkegaard

I do apologise for banging on in this tone, but I really do need to try to articulate myself as fully as possible, just to try to understand myself. Writing on here, is like untying what seems initially like an endless plethora of knotted thoughts.

I really do want to start concentrating on my political opinions again, but it’s a monumentously difficult task, when I feel like I’m descending into madness. Okay perhaps it isn’t that serious, but I cannot think on my usual level, I feel trapped in some kind of whirlwind of thoughts and feelings that just cannot be articulated in any particular way, or any particular outlet, as my previous blog entry proved. Chances are, I wont be able to concentrate on actual Political issues for a week or two. I hate when I go into this odd mode. It’s a little demoralising.

My mind becomes a mix of thoughts, surrounding the eternally unanswerable existential question; what the fuck is the point of me?. I’m coming to the horrible realisation, that perhaps there is no point to me. Perhaps “purpose” is a man made concept that outside of our quite ignorant version of reality, is actually a big empty nothingness; meaningless. Perhaps I have no purpose. Perhaps every hour of every day I spend either working or learning, is ultimately pointless. Perhaps all I’m doing is existing. Perhaps the laws of cause and affect apply only to the past and the present, there is no future goal. Perhaps, there is no future. Professor of Law at Harvard, Roger Fisher, once remarked “There is a fundamental human need for guiding ideals that give meaning to our actions”. Perhaps there is no absolute, black and white meaning to our actions. And so, by that logic, perhaps purpose is, as previously suggested, merely another man made concept designed to worry each one of us. Even if I’m horribly wrong, that’s how my mind currently operates, and I don’t know how to change it. Perhaps absurdism is in essence, making an important point that man’s search for harmony and reason, is at odds with the very nature of a chaotic, disorganised and ultimately meaningless universe that he inhabits. Perhaps the smell of the Office at 9am every morning, is as potent and soulful as life for some of us is ever likely to get. Perhaps the only worthy purpose, is the preservation of the species, improving the quality of life and maximising the chance of happiness for everyone. Because as once stated by Buddhist Philosophy Gyatso in “The Art of Happiness” – the purpose of life, is the chase for happiness. The chase itself though, is fucking difficult, especially for me. It’s confusing. It is the only aspect of life, that can bring me close to tears, because I’m forever locked into this relentless battle in my mind, that I cannot escape. However, and quite the juxtaposition, the realisation and acceptance that your existence is relatively nonsensical is almost a great weight off of your shoulders. I want more from life, and yet, perhaps there isn’t more.

This isn’t to say I’m depressed, or emotionally woren out. I do love life. I love the subtleties. I love people. I love the natural World, which I’ve started to appreciate a hell of a lot more recently. I love the feeling of extreme tranquillity. And I love how calm I am. I wonder though, what my value is to anyone. If anyone actually gives a shit. And I just absolutely hate that there’s a set path we’re all expected to take. There is almost a framework that we must all cling to, and build on. We must all be educated a certain way; jump into a career that we’ve been pressured into choosing for quite some time as soon as possible; earn lots of money; have a holiday once a year; feel utterly demoralised by a job you hate; ignore or embrace as little as possible any externalities that actually make us who we are; retire; die. I do not like that framework, and yet that’s the only way to live. It’s forced upon us. We are told how the World works, forced to understand beauty and serenity, and yet, no one understands it. Not me, not a scientist, not a businessman. The World, humanity, is a great mystery.

“With me, the present is forever, and forever is always shifting, flowing, melting. This second is life. And when it is gone it is dead. But you can’t start over with each new second. You have to judge by what is dead. It’s like quicksand… hopeless from the start.”
- Sylvia Plath

The only way I can describe my need to question everything around me (which by the way, irritates me endlessly) is to compare it. I had this conversation with a friend the other day. I do not see anything in black and white. There are no absolutes with me. There are multiple shades of grey. Everything is obscure. As pointed out in another blog I wrote not too long ago, language itself confuses me, and demoralises me, and strips away beauty for me. It is like viewing the entire World through a frosted window. Nothing is obvious. It is a skewed reality. But then, my argument is, that my frosted window reality, may be just as ridiculously meaningless as what others consider to be their clear windowed version of reality. Someone said to me not too long ago “do you always have to question everything, can you not just accept things as they are?“. I was quite taken aback by it. I immediately thought “My way must be wrong“. It added to the confusion. When people challenge my vision of life, I tend to worry that I’m horribly wrong.

I constantly need attention when I start to feel like this. And I start to feel like this every few months I constantly need to be listened to. I constantly need to be reassured. But a paradox of wanting to express my deeply mixed feelings, in a fountain of words, at the same time, forcing myself to keep quiet through the unnerving fear that I’m disastrously boring everyone around me, is quite the challenge to overcome. An incessantly tormenting empty feeling, like I have nothing to cling on to, or put my full attention into. It’s almost hopeless, like standing in the middle of a twister, where everything around you is chaotic; and yet you’re in blissful ignorance and the calmness of the centre, but you cannot get out. You’re stuck. You can either jump into the madness and hope you keep up, or you can exist on this quite serene yet ultimately isolated and lonely plain. Either way, you’re stuck.

French Author and Philosopher, Albert Camus once said “There is not love of life without despair about life”. It’s a voice I find myself deeply fond of, because it speaks on my current level. Not a suicidal, angry, depressive level. Simply a questioning, reasoning level, like a child trying to figure the World out.