A night of fun frolics and bonding

So i don’t really talk to my sister that much usually. We are quite different people, especially in our attitudes to people and work.. my perspective is that she is a far more.....uptight is the wrong word.....selective person of her friends and even more so when it comes to work. She works her heart out and i admire her for that. But it does mean that we are quite different. So we don’t really bond too well. As well as this we both have it in our heads that when we were younger we must have hated each other perfusely but when it comes to actually naming times or places when this was shown to be the case we dra a blank. However over the last couple of months we have grown steadily closer through no fault of our own. Its strange, it started probably when we went to see Derren Brown, a tradition of ours, and it sort of just escalated from there. I also think her recent trouble with her ex/boyfriend has shown her who her friends are as well as how much she needs her family.

Its good.

But last night we indulged in something we have never done before and by that I mean that we went out ad hit the town in Brrrrrighton. It was a very odd night indeed and admittedly it was the fact that she had her friends around which made the entire thing easier but it was so fun. I think we both saw a different side of each other last night. As if we both recognised that although we might not be the best brother or sister to one another but what we can be are friends because in the end, we both think the other is pretty cool. I think it also helps that our respective friends think the other is worthy of conversation. For example My sisters friends adopted me last night as all their respective younger brothers and the Lumberjack thinks my sis is funny so it all works.

I suppose we will see though, in a few weeks she is down to see Tim Minchin with me which should be fun. I do think our relationship will still contain its sporadic contact moments, for example I forsee not a great deal of contact for a few weeks and then we will see each other and then probably not a great deal of contact till Christmas. That’s just how we roll though. For the moment at least, things are really good between us though.

i know i know

i know i say it alot but things change so quickly. take for example how quickly i find my self in this relationship....yet....how blissfully happy I am. I dont know where it all came from and now I am slightly mournful of waiting. It has stiffled my holiday
But things like that are best not dwelled upon. No we are much better simply thinking about the here and now and the girl in my arms. Its fun how ones perspective on thisngs changes when one enters a relationship. everything adjusts around that person


But i find my self asking questions.
am I like them

everyone knows that sickening couple
the people you are so sure you are not


but its like i find myself thinking that i am like those people because f how people act. But i am so sure i am not one of them. i try hard not to exclude peole from our relationship, we are realtively cuddly out and about but i hope thta doesnt deter people from talking to us. But by that same token we are also very independent. We dont presume people to leave us be when we are together. In fact the opposite. Im very anti people becoming devoted to their other half as soon as they walk in the room. I find it abit insulting to everyone. as well as that in previous relationshios i have seen the down fall of people being blinkered towards their friends.
you become.....obssessed by the other person but yet we are still young and we have to be careful. Do we enter these realtionships no sencing that at some point we will know all there is to know about the other person. And when that happens it is sad, and i think that is what destroys so many young couples because they dont expect the newness to end, but it does eventually. So we spice up our relationship with other people. we are all friends so we include people and its gives life to us. We need that i feel, not at the begining of a relationship but its best to keep friends than shun them and then beg for them back.


i am happy

iv not felt like this for a long time, the guilt and pain is still there but i doesnt consume me as much, in fact its something of a novelty. Now it is just a sign post for my life, not an overbearing issue of my life. i am glad
and she is happy


so


good.


x

yesterdays

Its nearly been 9 months since things spiraled into doom with Bubbles and it does pain me to say it but there is still a void of unhappiness within me that holds so many memories of the events around it close to my heart. Its very strange. The feeling of incomprehensible guilt is still quite clearly there however its the memories of the night when things went the way of the dodo that I didnt know I still harboured. Just horrific images of the most heartbreaking scenes. The compleate personification of crestfallen and betrayed mixed into one horrible teary encounter. I think I deserve to retain such memories but what it does do is make me incredably wary of letting that happen again. Letting that level of closeness develop again. Which in itself for me is a punishment that is so hard to accept.

I still feel great pangs of pain for what I did and I think more for her than for Drippy. I dont know why but i think I swept alot of that guilt under the rug when it happened the first time and when the rebounded i had to deal with both problems together. Obviously my pain is probably incomparable to those who suffered at my hands but in some way I think there are similarities to be found. For example both suffer problems of selft esteem, their obvious problems as to rejection and for me a thought emblazzened in my mind as to whether i can actually conduct relationships. Both are long term problems in which forgivness must be felt in order for the pain to dissolve away; strangly perhaps in both situations forgivness must be given to the same person? This I am not sure of.

I cant really remember my experience of their situations. I think i was so caught up in misery my mind has just taken the images and feelings away. Dissolved them into the tapestry of my sorry existence.


But the question behind all of this is why today of all days do these memories have to haunt me?
Is it perhaps that feelings of inadequacy have lately begun to resurface heavily but not within any sort of love intrest or partner. No, instead I am left contemplating whether it is worth ever returning home for anything other than birthdays, festivals and of course rugby. I cannot live there anymore and thus it is not my home. It is not a shelter from the outside world and its problems. Increasingly it is the root of most of my problems such as motivation and self esteem as well as general health. Its sad. But I suppose its part of growing up in the end. God, that sounds terrifyingly immature, but in my mind we arent grown till we are independent. Perspective I guess

Oh woe is me.

ummm

Our minds are dangerous things. They function almost completely outside the realms of logic to a frightening level. Take for instance the way that we build events up in our minds to find out they weren't actually that bad. For instance the fear of a bullet wound would terrify anyone, but ask someone whose been shot who didn't know it was coming and the reaction is the same but the post shock is much less in most cases. Strange.

And it isn't even for life threatening events half the time. Simply ordinary run of the mill incidents which plague our minds as we mull over them.. Think about the multitude of times we lie in bed and think about what we will do and what we will say to someone and yet none of it, or rarely, does it come to fruition.

Humans are widely advance social thinkers who can predict social movements and trends in people, just take the amount of people who are investing in shares. It is scary how we are focused at second guessing each other on a rolling scale of never ending work. Does this detract from the spontaneity of life? I know people who seem to wander through life oblivious of the people around them yet they seem to be constantly amazed by the people and things around them, as children are.

Once we start to predict life perhaps its inherent joy is extracted. Once we have already run through what might happen it is less of an experience.
This I'm not so sure of but it's a thought.

But I think the ability to predict social movements is inherent. How can one stop the mind from wandering? Impossible. Perhaps we can ignore the messages our brain interprets but what an effort this would be. Some people can, some people cant, there are no real imbetweens. I suppose its just a God given attribute to allow yourself to indulge in a role play which may get you feeling oh so clever with yourself at your triumph of predicting events, or completely amazed at the situation you find yourself.

How do we keep life fresh and interesting? Do we have to constantly change our surroundings or can even the most mundane of things bring us new joy with the right perspective. Buddhism teachs us to live in the moment and avoid dwelling on the past or being fixated with the future yet Chrisitanity almost seems to be the opposite. With remembering past sins for which we must atone for and the ever present mythology of Christ emblazened on the minds of followers it seems that devouts are reminded of a time when the world was an alltogether more Godly time and when those who followed Chrsitianity had stronger and more resilient faith, meaning those in the here and now have only t stone themselves to prove themselves. Who was the last martyr? Not in my generation I know that. But then I am young and perhaps the world is full of people making the ultimate sacrifice to their eternal leader.

Religion is terrifying beyond belief. How someone can read a book and listen to a speaker and decide they would rather die for words than for something they can see, taste or touch is beyong me. It wold be like reading lord of the rings and deciding that Frodo was the eternal spirit who struggled for our sins in deciding to destroy the ring or sin. The level of devotion within mega churchs and (to a less informed on my part) in Mega mosques scares me. These are armies of people controlled buy but a few induviduals with impressive rehotic skills and powers of observation in which to find proof for their belief. Surely they see their logic is circular, I believe something because after discovering it I then found proof. Its funny how no one becomes a Christian because they found proof, they found a problem they could solve and turned to books or a community of support. That I can understand but why they have to be religious texts I do not understand but perhaps it is simply the case that I havnt lived long enough to understand the pressures one can face when squeezed into a religion teeming with inconsistency.

Well I think I have gone on long enough.

errr?

Friendships are funny things. they can form from bases of all different types and they can grow and evolve, or simply stay quite static in their formation. in any event i think everyone expects certain base characteristics of a friendship. the "being there" aspect; knowing that they will make themselves available in any circumstance is events require it. this ranks high for me i think. but it links heavily with reliability and this to a host of other qualities.
honesty, for me, is the sole reason i have friendships. i cannot stand people who are straight with me on relevant facts or figures. I suppose this develops from a previous existence of heavy lying that i indulged in a few years back that came and comes to haunt me even still. i think it is a british thing to try and store our feelings, to bottle them up and try to resolve them ourselves whilst ultimately making them much worse. like the events you replay in your head hoping to find what would have been the perfect response when really, whats the point, every moment is induvidual and unique from the next and secretly you know in your heart of hearts that if the same event traspired again, you' d have forgotten your model response.

yeah, honesty ftw

but its not always an easy thing to recieve. honesty can be brutal and painful but if it is sincerly honest then at least it has some merit. Hearing your fears confirmed, and by those who you believe are being truthfull with you, are extrordinarily hard to cope with. you know they are right and you know it makes sense, but you were just hoping no one else would notice. well you were wrong, everyone noticed. in fact they tried to tell you but you dissmissed them, foolish one.

but i suppose it could be worse. you could be decieved, shielded from the truth and go on living your life as if nothing had changed. i suppose there are two outcomes to that;
1.you believe you have conquered whatever fear you had as you believe it had passed
or
2.you find out at a later date, making the whole experience a thousand strokes more painful perhaps.

in any event, i suppose the thing with friends is that their comments tend to stick. A random can say anything to you in the street and it can almost instantly fade from memory but a friend can say something which can truly hound you for years. their words can stick like a splinter in you mind where you constantly refer back to it to confirm who you think you are, positive or negative, and that can be very destructive. Maybe not destructive but unhelpful, but redefining yourself constantly is tricky and time consuming, not to mention, neurotic to some extent.

we automatically assume honesty to be a good, or perhaps virtuous thing, but why? We associate honesty with truth and as we know it is the truth that will set you free. But in our day to day lives how much to we lie, in fully abstract terms, how much do we mislead? And really, how much pain does this cause? The majority of lies, I think, slip by unawares and into the darkness that surrounds us, harming/hurting no one? We claim white lies are fine, but surely not in an ethical sense. And surely that is simply and an excuse to the slippery slope of terrible lies.


Also, in a much more abstract view you could ask, what is true.the debate over the existence of a higher power or not has raged from the very begining yet no one side can come out and prove catergorically that there is no God, or deity of some sort. So who are we to trust? Perhaps honesty is different from truth, or fact probably is a better word to describe it. I dont know, I think Im abit out of my ball park in terms of philosophising about all this. Perhaps she'll know.

catching up

sometimes life is inevitable. Some things are simply inescapable. We all know the big one, death, and to a lesser extent fear. The unchanging nature of these entities is what scares us. In a world where people like to feel in control of their destiny yet passively wander toward it, these obstacles pose a threat to happiness. I cant do something because this is in the way. On has only to think of how different our world would be if there was immortality. Would the risks we take be the same. No I think.

Death is obviously the big one but I think illness ranks up there, I mean, everyone gets ill in some shape or form. Some people feel sad about it. Some simply feel frustrated. Its funny how we immediately feel that illness is bad when we are young, yet as we get older we perhaps see the benefits of illness. Its ability to give us a free day or a lie in. Terrible really that the UK workforce is so desperate not to work it will feign injury or illness; terrible, but understandable. I talk as someone with experience in the illness game and for my sins I am lumbered with a chronic disease of my own. Its not fun but I additionally live my life in fear of it returning. The slightest hint of a symptom sends me into a panic. Take now for instance. It would seem that I have a stomach bug or something; yet in my head I am analysing all aspects of my life to see if there is some sort of correlation with other parts of my body. in itself it is a disability in a way, living in fear. But I suppose if that is the case we are all disabled. Everyone fears something and lives in its shadow, rarely do we find individuals so free from this burden that we are drawn towards them.

I don't know, maybe it's just me that has this looming cloud of fear. I'm sure everyone has it but I wonder if it is as prevalent in their day to day lives as it sometimes feels in mine.

No one, it seems, ever talks about this much which is abit strange. Is it just and English thing to portray an appearance of everything is ok, until it finally boils over and the village people get covered with lava. Perhaps. But maybe it's simply a psychological thing; every individual on the planet is in competition with you in some way, appearing strong an resilient are laudable qualities and ones sometimes terrifyingly destructive; such as the Korean student in the US who never mentioned to anyone about the teasing he received until she shot loads of fellow students and then killed himself.scary stuff.

are the inevitable things in life God? or in a broader since religion in general? Do we fear these things because they represent the most powerful aspect of our existence? I am not a particularly religious person but I can understand why people take refuge in it when life is hard. Rather unfairly I have been dismissive of some religions, in some respect I find Christianity less of a religion and more.....dogmatic control over an unattainable goal shrouded in mystery. But, I recently read about Black African American Churches and was sort of inspired. Since I was young as I can remember I have known the images of singing, smiling, brightly coloured robes with persuasive discourse and how this linked to Black Christianity. But its more that that as the subtleties of religion are usually buried beneath the surface. There is an emphasis on community salvation, not simply personal; I like that, we sink and swim together. As well as that the importance of recognising one is always a human and one will always sin; everyone does it, but you can try to understand why and how and the ways in which sin can be reduced compared to the denial and persecution on some sins I see in other denominations. There is not strict difference between the actions of a church goer and someone who does not simply that you can better inform yourself on the reasons for those actions and understand you are supported by not only those around you but also by God. Now this is hardly swaying me towards a life devoted to J.C. but it does make for an interesting case study in a world where religion can be perceived as so incredably destructive. The ability to not understand another persons point of view is terrifying and in some circumstances completely understandable, yet....when it come down to lives at stake there has to be a point where one stops and contemplates. For some the choice is always the same, religion tops all and there are no buts or excuses and if lives have to be sacrificed then they will be. It gets you so depressed thinking about it really and for the first time only a few weeks ago I noticed how religion plays an insignificant role in government. In fact any interference from the church is viewed sternly by most it seems and I think we are lucky because of that. Obviously our heathen life's have made this possible as the UK has over the last 100 years dramatically lost so much of it's faith, yet the ability to be able to distinguish between religion and public policy is not always an option for some. Simply look at the US system in which the largest indicator as to whether an individual will vote Democrat of Republican is whether they go to church or not. Scary really, the same place people go to receive guidance on their lives from an almightily power (perhaps) is also where a majority of their political leadership. Now that really is terrifying.

clean

so i was in the toilets at work and it was clear some cleaners had just been in because next to the sink was a small pressurised can of some nice smelling chemicals. i picked the stuff up and on the side were the words;
"smells clean, is clean"
and this made me think. what is clean?
its funny how everyone has a different view of what clean is. For some its that smell of bleach and the whiter than white look of a bathroom. for some clean just means tidy, a common misperception. i suppose its like everything really, everything is subjective but with cleanliness it seems more importnat. like there should be guidelines. if a hospital is claiming to be clean, i want to know by what standards. pray not by the standards of my friend Candyman who leaves pasta out for so long mold grows to an extrodinary height. its sickening really especially in a time when the superbug MRSA and others seem so prevalent despite how ever much swine flu has taken the medical limelight away from it.
you know we never hear anything about other countries medical systems. obviously we all know that the US one is a pile of wank which vitimises the middle and lower classes locking them into work forever simply for the medical insurance. Its not fair and its corrupt. but then thats seems to be most of the western political and private enterprise anyway. But for example France is hailed as having one of the best health care systems in the world but having a great system is not the same as being treated well. Does the media constantly somplain about their healthcare and where its going wrong. I dont think I have ever heard a british stat such as "6month waiting list for new hip" compared with how long it takes to get one in Austria. Its a strange parallel. Most would argue you must compare like with like, there is no point comparing apples with oranges. But there are no two healthcare systems the same as there are no two countries the same. So what do you do? You take the closest. this has got me thinking i wonder how we compare.
There was a wonderful Micheal Moore documentary called Sicko which comapred the US systems with similar systems around th world showing how it compared....badly was the result. I wonder if there is a similar thing for the UK. It would be interesting. But then isnt the point of a documentary to for the most part critisise and not bestow the virtues of the subject. i dont really know i suppose.

Well its nearly 12.30 which means only one thing. Lunch.