A Succession of Victories

"To see victory only when it is within the ken of the common herd is not the acme of excellence."

- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

There's tensions between all points in the universe - that of the educated person schooling the fool and getting only resentment in return, the kindness of a stranger that's taken advantage of and original thinking being lauded until declared dangerous by powers that have heavily invested in maintaining the status quo. 

In our world, we strive so hard not to do what is right, but what is correct - to tick boxes that have been arbitrarily created. Our world has been abstracted beyond our current understanding. We have made for ourselves a world of words, symbols and commands. Anything else would be deemed "subversive" or "strange."

It feels incomprehensible to me when parents and elders tell me "when" not "if", that my path has been pre-determined. In this world, so many paths bear the footprints of legions of fear-wracked men and women that never dared and unfortunately lost. I defiantly say "No!" when told that I must and ought. The only must and ought comes from a divine source - a wellspring that I am not convinced to exist. We have choice and using this choice we can find what is best for ourselves. It took me a long time - and will presumably take even longer - to realize victory is a feeling that arises from within; it does not - and never will - come from the approval of others.

Sense Data from the AGS

Here follows a summary of the activities of the Australian General Semantics Society National Conference and our attendance at the UN DPI-NGO Conference "Advancing Global Health" held in Melbourne, Australia.

The 1st Australian General Semantics Society National Conference
27-29 August, 2010 held at the Initiatives of Change Center, Toorak, Australia

The first day of the conference on Friday Night was muted - just a dinner held in the stately Armagh manor in Toorak. A federation mansion, it boasted a ballroom, two libraries and a conservatory - the focus point for our discussions. I met some of the AGS members - David Hewson, Pauline Heather as well as Dr. Earl Livings, Laurie Cox and Robert James and his wife Jeanne. We talked into the night before retiring for the big day ahead.

Saturday Morning saw President Robert James and elder statesman Laurie Cox make their keynote addresses and Earl make his talk on Fiction and GS, particularly A. E. van Vogt and the World of Null-A and Nexialism, a sort of fictional applied GS that has even been applied in the real world.

I then gave my talk on Overcoming Conservative Characteristics, a research into a little known chapter in Korzybski's Science and Sanity.

In the Afternoon, David gave his talk on GS and Happiness to the general public as well as another one on GS and problem solving using other sciences. Laurie talked briefly explaining GS to beginners. Robert James prepared a talk on a "sense of purpose" that GS brings as well as bringing in Initiatives of Change volunteers to give their perspectives.


Sunday morning we reconvened for a talk by David on "Identity, non-identity, then what?" which was originally published as an article in ETC. Confusing facts with inferences was a warning to us all. Earl then presented his talk on the nexus between Edward De Bono's work and GS which proved very useful, in my estimation.


31st August - 2nd of September - the United Nations DPI-NGO Conference: "Advance Global Health" held at the Melbourne Convention Center, Melbourne, Australia

Though I only attended one of the three days at the UN conference, I thought my time to be more interesting than valuable. It was admirable to see the United Nations and affiliated NGOs work to advance the Millennium Development Goals. However, the milieu of the delegates was centered around a select few organizations and their booths (we at the IGS were not given one) as well as "Workshops" which focused more on guest speakers, established players and government officials rather than opening up the debate to people like myself or even the youth delegates. Though we met many people interested in GS, its hard to explain "What GS is" since GS principles are more like verbs, not nouns. I can explain How it works or why one should use it but emphasizing "clear thinking" or "sanity" will invariably draw glances of indignation - "How dare you imply I am unsane!"

Nevertheless, it was a rewarding experience and I would like to thank the members of AGS for affording me these wonderful learning and networking opportunities.

Like Silent Birds of Prey

Selected Observations from Adelaide - 18-22 June, 2010.

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Letting the right one in is like a process of lying to the brain so one can salve a bleeding heart. More mechanically, its like abstraction from the point of entry and acting blissfully unaware of its process. Lips taste sweet without any flavor. The sun pierces through the blades of my eyelids without mercy. The cold rattles the bones within my fingers as smoke billows to the top of the room, hazing the glow of yet more horrible television.

At the end of the longest night comes day. With the rising of the sun, laments for miseries past and cheers for enjoyment yet to come can be heard. If we cannot compromise with time, we remain its enemy. We put up arms but we are always overcome.

If there's one thing I've learned during my travels here and elsewhere, its that people are as unknowable to me as they are to themselves. Probing, demolishing and intimating - all general theories; conjectures just itching to be refuted at some later point. Maps are never territories and are in constant need of rewriting. I cannot watch and report for you - the feelings I encounter flow deep within are everpresent like the lightness of our being. A process of my own assisted design from Mother Nature. Nevertheless, I do care in my own way. All ways and none; unique in their expression. For what it's worth, at the end of the world, it's a small step in the right direction.

Wreck Ignition

In my daily self-reflection, I was thinking about some points raised with my therapist Geoff. We hit upon past relationships and how I felt about them now, after so much time had passed by. He suggested that if I still had residual feelings, I should write them down or initiate a conversation with the partner. I told him, in all honesty, I have little desire to do so. What is done cannot be undone - I doubt it would make any difference to my emotional well-being (especially when I have chronicled relevant parts in my blog on occasion).

Thinking back, I thought all of my partners were unequivocally "amazing" and beyond reproach - I would refrain to enforce boundaries with them even to my own detriment. As I rose from the bed today, I hit a salient point - the mistake I and others make is seeing their partners as "special" rather than unique.

This is not to say my current or former partners weren't interesting or pleasant or etc. - I loved them, I cared about them and strived to treat them with the respect and devotion that I expected within a romantic relationship. But keeping the irrational thought that their partners were somehow imbued with an almost sense of the divine - that they were so fantastical that another one like them surely does not exist anywhere else in this world - will only lead to heartache and counter-productive behaviors such as pining for the good old days when you and your partner were together and waiting for them to magically return to you.

Of course, affairs of the heart are seldom ruled by the head, but the aftermath certainly can be a rational, cognitive process. Its a case of differentiating from "a" girl (or boy) and "the" girl. We can evaluate them as a complex matrix of both good and bad attributes, viewholders, etc. and accept them all as part of what makes them unique - but not special (in the aforementioned sense), of course.

Swedish vocalist Krister Linder in his song "Mixed Blood" sings thusly:

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not depressed / but my melancholy is existential / no remedy or antidote / Don't bother with a cure or rescue"

Some people cannot grapple with the thoughts of the "givens" of existence - that life is chaotic and nothing has inherent meaning apart from the ones we ascribe to events and people. Even a married couple of many years must concede that their encounter was dependent on chance and at one point, they were oblivious to the existence of one another. If a relationship goes sour, one can take comfort in the fact that it was yet another FGE (fucking growth experience) and perhaps even learn from their mistakes.

During an acid trip, I once wrote down that the "universe was created so me and Elyse (my former partner) could meet that one time and carry on together into perpetuity" - while that cannot be proven or tested, it's an irrational belief that cannot be held up by any real fact. I am the only person I have to please - it was not my responsibility to solve her (or anyone's) problems or take care of her as if she were dependent on my benevolence and love. As human beings we all have the ability to choose and mold our own destinies; be it with work, hobbies, interests or even intimate partnerships.

A Static Flame

Looking around this society of ours, we have become so preoccupied with time and its forward motion we have become afraid of its very existence. In one respect, we in Western countries have strode headlong into a complete disavowal of change. We fear it, we reject it and we try to cover it up to the best of our ability.

As Marcus Aurelius said in his Meditations, "The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it." We sell bottles of anti-change, we charge money to keep change at bay and we legislate change away in parliament.

In my view, I feel that the fear of change is another source and cause of so much misery and discontentment for so many people. They fail to recognize the only constant is the thoughts of the self and his actions and those too are subject to change. People jump unabashedly into work, into relationships and into commitments that prevent or minimize the chances of change. People foolishly believe that some institutions are forever; that once one problem has been solved, it cannot resurface in another guise as it evidently does in many cases.

Politicians are even scrambling to cover up the fact that change is inevitable; they use scientists with dubious rationality to insist that climate change is a myth; there is no credible reason for things to constantly change, even at the submicroscopic level. Just like a belief in God, they believe that humanity has no agency for change; all is predetermined, all will reveal itself in God's own time. This divine control is filtered down into religion, into politics and even into households that follow the words of God, Allah and Yahweh.

So we attempt to control change and re-label it progress. Like unconscious Marxists, we believe that progress towards higher standards of living and technology will lead us into utopia. With all changes, there are winners and losers. We focus on minimizing harm rather than maximizing utility associated with change; we irrationally suppress all change just in case something bad happens.

And shit does happen; it happens to every one, some more frequently than others. Sometimes shit happening allows us to learn and lead us in a new direction. To embrace that rather than shy away from it is the challenge we must all face. To recognize a life in four dimensions can still lead to one of fulfillment and happiness is the one change I believe that everyone should make.

What was once a great love is now deadened; what was once a routine hobby lies in the corner of a room. There's change everywhere; its ultimately up to the individual whether he stands amongst it or walks along with it, tempering it to his own needs.

Strategies for Unsanity

In my dreaming last night, I saw more literal signals than symbolic, i.e, conversations in their entirety without adulteration by my unconscious mind (which would have to be taken with a grain of suspicion anyhow!)

A friend of mine called me out of the blue - he wanted something from me and I figured as much since I had never received a social call from him before. We got to talking and he hit upon his recent feelings about being depressed. I had noticed after much self-reflection that his depression was not innate or a priori, but learned and reinforced throughout his life.

If we maintain that the Structural Differential holds true-to-fact, then language shapes thought and thus behavior. So at which point can we define the fundamental causes of undesirable or depressive feelings being generated? In my opinion, identification at the evaluation level and its confusion with the event level effects on our feelings with greatest impact.

My friend would say (i.e., utter and most likely subvocalize) that his pursuits both for his work and pleasure were nothing to be commended; that they were "adequate" at best. He would mostly downplay his achievements and enforce irrational restrictions on his well-being.

The maps he had internalized in the past now bear claim to appearing as "reality", using broad and vulgar terms. Despite his activities being "neutral", he identifies them as good or bad by holding them up to unattainable comparisons (i.e., his writings are not read by millions, therefore it is a failure or inherently bad) or believing them as so instead of evaluating them as they are in their environment, or liking/loving them unconditionally as an extension of himself. He continually struggles to feel happy by placing demands on the universe when realizing it is neither benign or malignant but indifferent to his needs.

If you wish to feel inadequate or worthless, I recommend you start or continue to do the following:

• Need rather than want, or have second-order needs: i.e, "I need my need for love."
• Misidentifying others' problems for your own.
• Reversing the order of abstraction by mistaking your evaluations of reality for reality itself.
• By thinking either too negatively or positively in absolute terms.
• By tying your well-being to external events and external evaluations (i.e., verbal praise)
• By using outdated maps (i.e., past situations) to navigate present territories.
• By merely hypothesizing and never testing situations to gain the facts.
• By thinking the universe owes you something for services rendered or intentions pure.
  

I do not claim to be a psychologist; I do however claim to be a student of General Semantics. By using the GS approach, much of his needless self-imposed suffering could be avoided and effectively remedied.

Life, Death and Rebirth

When the last word uttered out of your mouth is untruth, it drips with slime. Each hanging thread crashes towards the ground and oozes self-hate throughout the room. Then as you walk away, you feel as if you have gotten away with a grand deceit, an amazing feat of sheer cunning overcoming integrity. The lie had been sealed and delivered and there's nothing more that can be done.

These last few weeks in my personal development, I've not learned the value of being truthful to others - others will invariably deceive themselves in a variety of ways. No matter how much truth I can tell them, they won't see, hear or feel what it is that I have communicated to them totally; or they shall choose to ignore it completely. Even if I endeavor to tell the truth, there will be instances where I inadvertently and deliberately "haven't."

The cleavage between false knowledge and complete fabrication is where my endeavors lie. To remain true-to-fact about my own life and my own feelings is where my aims are set. To respect these boundaries that I've created by holding fast to them and expecting others to honor them and step back from them when they are violated. I think that's an important step.

Talking to people about relationships and their own experiences, I think that being truthful to oneself and remaining realistic and rational about that truth affords a newfound respect for the truth as a language and behavior in action. Once one can learn how to speak the truth inside his own mind, he can speak it just as easily to others; be it pleasant or unfortunate, wonderful or terrible. When I am truthful to myself and others a great burden has been lifted from me; thinking becomes clearer and the cloud of trying to fool everyone disappears.

Those who are over-concerned with fooling others are invariably fooling themselves; their intense, darting eyes and contrived mannerisms almost seem like a concerted effort not only to convince others of their lies, but themselves; that if they can believe totally and utterly in their bullshit, others just might too.

My angst and worry about being caught out as a fraud that plagued me for so long no longer persists; I am no longer counterfeit and thus have nothing more to fear.

The Age of Bad Decisions

A couple of months ago, I decided to go back to university to complete a Masters degree in Media and Communication. I had been back in Australia for a month, was on the verge of being dumped from afar and had no job, car or money to speak of. Wrenching myself out of bed, I made a few calls and photocopied a few documents. A few weeks later I was accepted. Then I told some of my friends about my news and they just replied with blank stares and asked, "why?"

I figured that further study was something eyed with favor among most people. But then I remembered where I was living - when I was living - and was reminded that I dwell in the Age of Bad Decisions.

Generation Y was one of the economically blessed generations in modern history. I remember when getting a job was merely a formality - if you didn't like it, you could always change. Taking that sojourn abroad was as easily said and done. Study? Well, if it didn't yield you your dream career at the end of it, there was something deficient in your character.

Working hard was optional and strategic thinking even more so. Fuck it, buy that big screen TV on credit. Spend the extra money at the pub. Another pair of designer jeans never hurt anyone.

But what it fundamentally contradicted for so many people was that their love for economic risk didn't match their confidence in all other areas. The material abundance wasn't an indicator for abundance in more abstract yet just as valuable things; such as love, brotherhood and knowledge.

Even a decision in and of itself to return to study, to expand my skills and really concentrate my know-how seemed like a ludicrous one in the face of the Bad Decision Maker. It has no obvious monetary benefit; it does not glisten; it does not come with 3G; it does not make popcorn in less than three minutes. We drown in oceans of abstracts but we cling to the material for comfort. We stay in "loving" relationships even though our partners may treat us badly and cause us despair. Our arrangements are less than ideal because we allow them to be. We utter words like "don't" and "can't" and think this is the end; that nothing more is possible.

For some, their tunnels of reality have shrunken down in this Age to only allow a pinhole of light to rush through. Some have merely forgotten that we as humans can do so much more than earn and spend. We can think, we can do and we can live, too.

A Distant And Worn Road

"All humans are out of their fucking minds – every single one of them." - Dr. Albert Ellis, Ph.D.

One of my favorite authors on psychology was attributed with that quote and after reading Watzlawick and Korzybski, I tend to agree; as humans, we are intentional creatures and our consciousness creates the perceptions of the outside world that largely govern our actions.

Talking to my dear friend Catchy and his housemate Tom about my new personal journey to becoming an integrated male, we discussed Albert Ellis and his Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Tom, a strident practitioner of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy hit upon one concept that had eluded me almost all my life; unconditional self-acceptance.

This basically means that no matter what one does, he accepts himself as perfectly imperfect, lovable just as he is, and able to handle all situations in a number of diverse combinations, probabilities and even uncertainties.

I applied this to my thinking as I continued to work through Dr. Glover's exercises that week. I have to say, I have never felt happier. By being honest with myself, I became honest with others. I spoke my mind; my befuddling, negative and toxic thoughts shined with renewal. By no longer tying my self-esteem to external events, it has afforded me a creativity that I have never previously experienced.

In walking down this distant and worn road, I also pick apart and deconstruct the sources and causes of all my misery and self-limiting beliefs. Its a liberating feeling. I also think that one of the major causes of the failure of my engagement to Elyse broke down because of my inability to know myself. To be intimate, one must know himself, knowing someone else, knowing you. I hid so many parts of myself off to so many people for so long, I seemed to dissolve among the ether, residing as fragments with no whole to base myself on. I'm slowly gathering myself together. For the first time, I'm doing it with a smile on my face and warmth in my heart.

"You'll have to take me just the way that you find me - what's gone is gone and I do not give a damn." - Peter Gabriel - I Don't Remember

Here's to Liberation

"Nice guys don't finish last - they rot in middle-management." - Dr. Robert Glover

This was one of the lines in a book I bought about a few days ago. The book is entitled No More Mr. Nice Guy, by the author of that line. I can safely say it has changed my life in such a profound way that I never had thought possible.

I was in a bookstore while a friend of mine was getting her ears pierced. I was actually looking for a copy of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, but chanced upon this slim book in the psychology section, perched on the top shelf facing all the others. I read the first few pages and I was stunned - literally stunned. This book, in detail and without too much overgeneralizing, described how had been acting and behaving during my adolescence, young adulthood and through my relationships both intimate and platonic.

It described, with almost overwhelming accuracy, the decline and fall of my most important relationship I have ever experienced with another woman. Everything was there. My unconscious forgetting, my trying to fix things by doing more of the same, my passive-aggression, dumb insolence when confronted with conflict, trying to avoid fights, timidity, unwillingness to lead, getting pissy and moody, threatening to leave, caretaking instead of caring (i.e, doing things for a payoff instead of altruistically) emotional stonewalling and all the rest. It was all there. I could give mental examples this behavior - my behaviors - as I read along - and I was so switched on I read the entire book in about an hour and a half. She lost trust in me because I failed to be the measure of a man that she had expected, that she deserved. I had buried my masculinity for so long, my long held belief that keeping it hidden was a blessing - instead it had turned out to be a black and soul-destroying curse.

Although I didn't have an agenda set in place for 2010, I have one now - it's to stop being a "Nice Guy." Of course, our Aristotelian minds immediately jump to the conclusion that I would become the "opposite" of nice; a complete arsehole. As it turns out, my "niceness" seems only thinly veiled by unconscious anger and spite, which manifests itself in a variety of unpleasant ways. Instead, I plan to become a more integrated, open and honest man and to put my needs first instead of blindly following others and their perceived expectations of me.

So I saw my doctor and we set out a plan, using the book to get myself back on track after so much living through "toxic shame" and attachments that made me fear the world around me. Even though he assured me that technology will continue to make everything better ("We have bionic ears, soon we'll have bionic eyes," he said, reassuringly. "Give it five years and we'll have bionic vaginas...don't tell my wife but I'd be first in line to test one.") I was determined to see this through until the end. Within hours I was following the therapy plan we'd set up, doing the exercises, signing up to the support group online forums and setting up meetings with "safe people" to discuss my progress and help lead me through this journey of self-discovery and personal development.

I can say with all honesty, I have never felt better. I not only see a future, but a great one. I'm going to enjoy 2010 and every year that comes afterward. I don't promise this to anyone except for myself; so let's go!

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Addendum: For anyone interested in the book, I am willing to set up a regular discussion group in the Melbourne, Australia area. The online support forums can be found here.

The Last Throes

So here I am, foreigner in his own land, struggling to comprehend what he has done and what he hasn't done. A tunnel surrounds my eyes that are slowly being hacked away at a meticulous pace. There's a heart in there somewhere that cries out in agony every single second of the day, but I try to muffle its screams. My mind's eye flashes guilty images and perversions and trials gone wrong. I check the time again. I am no closer to my destination. Impatient, I look for an exit. The door, I fear, is an escape to a place I cannot return from. There’s no where I want to go, except to go back again.

The rattle from an old air conditioner cools the sweat beading from my head. I'm draped all over the ratty couch with no regard for anything in particular. As sleep approaches, I bask in a feint afterglow that diminishes with every breath. A black clad woman fades into obsidian. She's haltingly removed from view as the all consuming darkness claims her. I fall away, shouting out blessings and apologies. It all seems so hollow, now, those words. I can't grab at them, I cannot cage them. I want to, all those cowardly, stupid, undesirable words. Seconds go by for no good reason, each one of them threading together some kind of life. Each path I draw out in the sand gets blown away by the tumult of a mind in rapture. Worse still, I don't even know if she heard any of them. I don't even know if they were true.

I sit at the periphery watching the decline of those I know and those I merely see. Sitting on another couch, I heard voices. In amongst the doorway, I saw people streaming in and out, panic darting across their faces. A girl with glassed over eyes briefly glanced at me. Her face changed every minute. More faces than anyone could ever have imagined. She didn't say anything. No one ever does. My eyes stare and burn themselves into the other side of those walls and they never say anything. A sudden chill snaps through the room when I walk through, even though the heat from my breath fills the air just the same as everyone else.

Then the pleasantry and hellish reality of another beloved enters my view. The decrepit, the weeping, the gently decaying. She's making the best of it but she can't take it any more. She's seen too much pain behind those grey eyes, too much and too soon. Life wasn't short, it was a painful excursion with ever weakening flashes of solace and comfort. Oh, how I feel for you. If I felt at all, I would. Now that's been farmed way out of here by incomputable combinations of chemicals, smoke and mirrors. It would take me years to count all of the particles in a storm that changed every second, even in the insignificant space between the blink of an eye. We lose sight in that second, we lose so many sights. Add them all together and you have a life thats merely been lived between sheets and dreams.

Fear presents itself at the doorway, restricting my entrance. I want to go back. I plead with him. But the seconds pass by he keeps slinging those arrows into my sides. I see them piercing you too, but I say nothing. Doing so would cleave another immeasurable part between the folds of our shivering bodies and you would never speak to me again. Don't worry, it's fine. In every single scenario, you walk down that marble hallway. You dry your tears. Then you walk away.

When the flags have blown away

And the footprints start to fade

Will I find my way again

Or lose the path before me?

I saw the leaves go brown

I saw them falling down

All my dreams lying on the ground

With nothing to assure me

Threshold - Hollow

Christmas Straight Up Sucks

I figure that the most irritating holiday of the year requires input from yours truly, because we seem to be the generation that has perverted it to such a degree no one knows why we sit around a table, eat a damn bird that no one eats during regular times and other shit that we only care to think of during December. Surely, this process could all be mediated instead over Facebook, somehow?

If it were up to me, I'd probably order Chinese food with hell of egg rolls and chicken wings instead. (Provided I was somewhere that did that kind of order.) I'd sit around, download more episodes of The Wire and watch them on a big screen TV, oblivious that my local bar, CD store and Discount Tyre outlet were all closed. I lead an interesting life, dammit - I exist as an eternal mixture of intrigue and backwater sass. (Hah, who am I kidding.)

Talking about The Wire, its cerebral television; it has this uncanny ability to draw you to its narrative, even though the bulk of it is ego-driven political dialog the likes of which Aaron Sorkin loves to masturbate over, losing his jive whenever the characters say "fuck." (And they say "fuck" quite a lot!)

If you can imagine your best friend - as complicated and imperfect as they are, you can get a handle on how compelling and brilliant The Wire is. You probably met at some time in your lives where you both had the same interests and conversation flowed so freely you didn't even notice the sun rising after spending all night on the phone, greeting their brothers and sisters and tagging along to strange as hell events like their Dutch migrant piano recital or application for tags at the DMV. (Er, VicRoads? Screw it, y'all know I want to be seppo)

The Wire is the televisual equivalent of your best friend - the tension between their own self-interest and your need for attention - exists like allegory on the screen. You see cops beating on their own, drug dealers aspiring for the average life and the corrupt, perverse nature of institutionalizing humans at their worst, at their most demonized. As it plays out, you understand and feel everything it offers in and of itself and beyond - much like your best friend does - without even realizing.

Next year, we should all watch The Wire instead of having Christmas.

2009: A Collection of Failures

As time wears on, you lose parts of yourself. You are consumed and you move with arrows pointed ever forward. Depositing innocence in childhood, leaving behind the safety of home to venture somewhere, to meet someone even though the destination was never set. This year has to be the hardest I've ever faced. It held a mirror up to myself, and showed me my limitations, my downfalls, the things I truly cared about and how not to care about them in a meaningful way, in a way that makes a difference. It shattered a faith in something that I had clung to since adolescence; like a dwindling flame from a candle held between my shaking fingers finally evaporating in the air. Then my little room grows dark. Silence ensues. My flight away from myself was folly; it only brought me closer to realizing I cannot escape myself. I'm stuck here, and here's everywhere.

Focused on one thing and one thing alone, I set off to preserve the flame at all costs. It shined so bright, it touched a part of me like nothing else had before. For the first time, I dozed peacefully without care. Wind blew through my hair for the first time and the hand clasped within mine brought a smile to my face. I was so scared of losing it, I guarded myself against it. I had purchased a ring to symbolize a bright new future for "us" and wore it. Every time I stared at it, I was frightened by happiness. My inner fortress eventually fell under the weight of fear and I returned from battle, wearied and scarred. The ring was seemingly lost. Why was I fighting? For peace and love? It made no sense. Being left alone for with nothing but a hound and a cat for company, a(nother) fissure appeared in my psyche. One that's in the process of a lengthy and complex repair. One night I crept around my apartment, lost and confused. 2AM. A shot of Jagermeister. 4AM. A Beer. Eventually the sun rose at 7AM and it felt like the walls were collapsing in and around me. A lone tear streaked down my face. I knew it was the end of something but the beginning of nothing. "Oh," I muttered under my breath to passing joggers and nervous workers in the morning twilight, "nothing seems right." But then again, what did? What will?

Although there was a lot of good done and so many tears shed for the near departed and for my own departure, it doesn't act as a counter to what I have lost, so irrecoverably. Its a loss that was so total and so complete, only the memory of what I once felt remains and not the feeling itself. Rationally, how long can you beat yourself over the head with it? Minutes? Hours? Until your final breath? Distract yourself with something of no consequence? Redefine what's important? Deconstruct and reconstruct your perceptions ad nauseam for some great reward? Thoughts come without repentance; in my case they flood and break down the banks of an otherwise decent mind, leaving me in a heap of nerves.

Perhaps I can steel myself against what the world throws at me. I can stand at a window and watch shadows lengthen in the sun before the moon's pale light emerges and touches silvery leaves at night. I can do it until I can sigh no more. Just pick up your things and carry on with everything. Its all the rage at the moment.

When I sleep and dream, I dream of lesions forming on my body and blood spilling out. They open up everywhere; I'm stunned into position and I cannot move. I figure its my unconscious telling me that the wounds are still fresh and that I am still alive, I still feel, I still breathe. Perhaps one day they will turn to scars and the haunting will stop. It reminds me to believe in nothing, that the preservation of self will only lead to a wooden box or a copper urn on a mantelpiece - from stars we are born, to stars we shall one day become again.

With each success, I feel nothing. With failure brings defeat and emptiness, but familiarity. There's a map with failure written across it and a territory that doesn't mean anything when you turn your back on it. With success, I feel alone and scorned, waiting for the day it all comes down. No amount of riches or fame or "success" by any measure would salve me; I would never feel satisfied. Something would be missing and I'd search high and low to plug the void - even though what wasn't there was benign to begin with; it was a fictitious concern at best. There were more earthly and pressing matters to attend to. I can see that now. Now all I feel is the hot sting of being told I'm second, third, fourth best after an effort to prove my worth. I can empty my pockets and strip myself of clothes and the only wealth I'll seek will be the touch of another and the sound of a forgiving voice in the dead of night; even then, I will still feel poor and wretched.

I would cast me out into a great cold distance too if I had to live with me, so I can understand the reasoning behind the decisions that were made by and for me all those months ago. It's fine, really. I am an observer, not a participant; I write the stories down and try to make sense of them, even though I never ever will. The struggle isn't to elicit the words of care and love, to preserve them in the fabric of time; the struggle is to act in their spirit, day after day. I do; she's gone and happy. In a perverse and seething way, buried under fear, anxiety, hate, despair and remorse, I am glad she is. I'll take everything on face value; don't worry about it.

So I, like you, move on from another year into the next, and then from that, another. Why? Its impossible to tell. Will it unleash another fresh hell from my mind's eye or a pit me in a quest for an unattainable heaven? The ultimate tension between the two creates that void in the pit of my being; once filled with a light that's now gone. May it one day return under a different guise. It doesn't matter who lights it. It became starkly apparent this year that it doesn't matter who does it, it just has to be done.

The limits of my search were defined and promptly conquered. It feels like I've returned from the frontier and found nothing. I just feel like apologizing to everyone concerned and slinking off in any given direction. Then I'll sit myself down at a bar, smoke cigarettes, sip whiskey and say nothing. I will delude myself that people will ask me why I am there, what I am doing; but no one will ever talk to me. The boiling pulse of anger will rise within and evaporate as sweat taking each earthen-colored drink from the bartender. The color of my money will be the wrong shade, the whites of my eyes streaked with red, the dark circles around them growing in strength with every passing hour.

Potentialities abound but none of them seem like they have purpose. I can't see the wood for the trees; I can't even see why the trees are there in the first place. For all the books I read, the trials of academia and knowledge I cultivate, I still feel like a god damned fool. Driving up the highway with a bad transmission, carrying a raving lunatic in the passenger seat and trunk full of garbage with one thought on my mind.

Not all is lost. Nothing can be all lost; I have succeeded and failed - done both, and neither. Whoever showed me that; I am in your debt. But I cannot pay you, you are gone now. I was of no consequence to you and shall remain that way. I feel as I was of no consequence to myself. Sitting up in bed smoking a cigarette, confessing the sins of my being. It's a sobering and sad thought. Like an unwitting clown that doesn't remember telling any jokes but finds himself being laughed at all the same.

Goodbye old year, goodbye. It still feels that things need to be done, therefore I will do them as best as I can. There's a freedom in that; there's none in idleness and despair. Onward into battle my friends, onward and upward.

The love for life once bright
(Out of sight)
A burning fuse
The only flame I have
Fate's spiral down this curve
(Shall only serve)
The seeds growing my misery
These wounds kill time
My struggle sublime
Idle the blood
A black state of mind

All dreams left behind

Katatonia - Idle Blood

Stalker Alert

If you're like me and on an income that is instantly gripped in the talon-like fingers of debt and arseholes, you can't really spend $1.50 on newspapers with copy that doesn't stink of the wretched cologne-soaked keystrokes of PR "mavens", social media'd or otherwise. Therefore on the train, the mX is an alternative to mind-numbing boredom of train travel and the accompanying whines of kiddies who are similarly bored and love the sound of their own attention-making hole. In every edition, the "talk" section showcases snippets of Melbourne's overwhelming stupidity in about 160 characters or less. Even more fun is the "Here's Looking at You" section.

An outlet for the dateless and (very) hopeful, the HLaY section boasts vague 'missed connections' from commuters on the Melbourne train network (for my Amerifriends: it works about as well as our internet does.) Pleas for "the cute girl on the 6:32, I liked the cut of your jib, lets go to coffee" are routinely heard, as well as the occasional, more detailed clip, like this:

Oh sorry, did I say detailed? I meant stalkery. The proximity required for Mr. iLike to make these observations would be mere inches - millimeters even - unless iLike is an actual cyborg manufactured by Apple Computers, replete with digital zoom and programmed to recognize the human emotion we know as love. (read: lust.) However, his memory banks also have brand recognition and like any functional Apple design, the brand is the advertisement. (classic iPod? Oooh!) Fair enough that he can remember what clothes she was wearing - even that she was eating food. Shows that he's attentive. But this dude can even smell the firmware crack on her iPod touch - amazing! Here's what his brunette beauty should say, even though we all know she never will.

"Dear iLike, remember when you bought your first iPod and after about a year, the little sad face appeared on the screen? Well, that's how I feel about you. You're like that sickly little computer confined behind an LCD screen. While I feel sorry for you, it doesn't translate into boom-boom sexy time action. I guess your credit card will be charged with another months subscription to Big Busty Interracial Grannies.

Take care,

Normal Girl"

There are websites and courses that can turn your ownership of a lonely heart into a broken heart. Don't say I didn't warn you, iLike.

Also: see my latest "magnum opus" on YouTube.

Twenty-three

It rained on the day that I fell asleep
I never returned
Searching for something I'd lost on my way
I never came back
To life
Green Carnation - Rain

1.

It was a day like today. Hot. Sticky. Humid. There was a thickness hanging in the air. Him knowing him, he was already sweating as he closed the door to the apartment. With jack in hand and tyre iron under his arm, he clambered down from the garden bed and into the small car park. He oversaw the pond in the throes of a disappearing act, sludgy and decaying at its banks.

Walking around to the back of the wagon, he opened the boot. There, a 155 R, 14" custom wheel. He heaved it on to the ground, tapping into an upswell of perspiration. Cranking the jack underneath hoisted the car above the asphalt, inches at a time. Then, rain began to fall, drops landing on his head, streaming down his face.

A black dude in a tow truck calls out, asking if I need help. He shouts back that "I'll be alright." The look of confusion spreads across the driver's face; the unfamiliar twang in his voice sounding ever more foreign when it entered into conversation.

So there he sat for a brief moment. As more rain fell, he labored, pulling those lugnuts off until his muscles hurt. Yanking at them, grunting as he could feel his flesh weaken and the grip slacken. Every time a nut clinked to the ground, it was like a moment of triumph. He gave himself a wipe of the brow as a reward.

He fitted the new tyre on, keeping it there consuming all of his patience. He fastened it with care. All he could think about was getting it done in that all consuming heat, while it was still light. Kids were locked away texting or playing games instead of walking past a disheveled, browbeaten yet somehow grown man struggle to change a tyre for his love. She was working, as he was forced to sit alone, unwanted by the land in which he wished to reside.

As he slinked up the stairs, breathing heavily, he pondered this strange act of love; it seemed like the love throbbed in the cavity of his torn biceps, aching as he slumped on to the bed. His mind raced downward, mulling over one thing, then another, intoxicating himself on delusions and unsane half-truths. He bound himself up in thinking that the day was soon coming where it would all come down. Needless to say, he was right. But he was the one that would be pulling the string to unravel it.

2.

It was sunny and fresh. His mouth tasted like the aftermath of a plate of meatballs. John Cougar Mellencamp was playing a little ditty about Jack and Diane on the radio. The three were all still abuzz from running amok in the furniture store, bemused shoppers staring curiously at their madcap antics. Baby was smoking a cigarette, lost in thought if only for a second. The breeze caught the wisps of smoke and blew them away from the car. The butt hung from the side of her deep red lips as if she were playing a colossal joke on everyone; trying to pull the wool firmly and completely over our eyes. Then her friend made a comment. She repeated it back adding her assessment of "awesome." An eruption of laughter.

The light turned green. Pick-up trucks the size he had never seen before sped off in front, peeling off to thunder down the Interstate. We took the exit, 78 South to Chattanooga and Greenville, S.C. Apparently, America's friendliest city is just next door.

As buildings and billboards appeared proclaiming the low, low price of $499 for an uncontested divorce, he soaked in his surroundings. As unbelievable as that seemed, it overwhelmed and he can't refrain from engorging on everything this wondrous land had to offer, despite the grip of fear wrestling him to the ground. His strength was still intact; he resisted the temptation to implode for another day.

She was so cute and small, the cars she drove made her look like a toy doll. Driving along she was prone to anger and bouts of unavailing frustration. In some people's lives, the search for equilibrium never ceases. The decisions we make aren't good or bad, but we convince ourselves that they are, long after the fact, long after it matters. Whatever happens, happens; the feeling resides within, sheltered and warm, far away from prying eyes.

Up until the uninterrupted ride toward Spaghetti Junction, he's hid those fears that had all but but evaporated until they were displaced by something much less benign. It was a fear in him to overcome that fear. Then anger rose with all its five elements; fear, anxiety, hate, despair and remorse. He pushed them down until they lay dormant, all coming to haunt him in those ceaseless dreams that felt like a harbinger from a decaying psyche. There was just no avoiding it. It was there to stay, just like it had always been. Comforting him from that chronic lack; that inability to feel the colors and contours of life; the hues of spring-time love, a sting of loss, the empathy for a fellow man, the meaning of sacrifice, the notion of another reaching out in the dead of night to wrap her arms around him and declaring love for him. It was precious and real; not some kind of ploy, not a mere ephemeral phenomena that was conjured in a studio of fantasy.

Pulling up to the friend's work, she reluctantly marched off, battle face painted on smartly. Something stirred at the core of his being, a flutter in his chest. He'd never experienced it before and he found it unsettling. It was a feeling of pure calm after months of antagonizing himself, sleepless nights spent wondering if this all had some kind of sad ending. He was just setting himself up for that day. The day it would all come down. Baby asks if he's okay; he replies with a joke. He likes making her giggle. The calm rested in the pit of his mind and flowed throughout his body as the refrain from the song assured him: "Yeah, life goes on / even after the thrill / of living has gone." It had gone. But right here and now things seemed fine. That intolerable relentlessness of life had yielded to a strange contentment. For the first time, in that fleeting irrecoverable moment, he felt alright. It felt right being him. He had a useless, futile life ahead; something he had suspended belief in for those crucial, visceral seconds when he looked over at his sweetheart. For the first time, on that sun-parched and violent freeway the knowledge that she was there made him feel. If he could do the same for her, he'd have felt accomplished, despite and in spite of everything.

3.

Rushed with fresh casualties, the triage nurse was directing traffic in the ER. As the lights streaked across the polished linoleum floors, a sense of urgency crackled through the halls. A man caked in soot and smeared in blood approached on a gurney, wheeled through by two paramedics.
"Massive blood loss from a laceration on the torso. There's also some head trauma," one of them said dispassionately.
The nurse inspected the stocky man, ripping open his jacket to feel for injuries. He flashed a light in his eyes and asked him some standard questions. His head encased in yellow foam, he answered them, straining all the while. The paramedics looked at each other nervously.
The triage nurse heaved a sigh and hooked his stethoscope around his neck.
"Take him to Room 103," he snapped. "Head trauma? There's nothing there. You just imagined it."
By then, the medics had already turned their backs, uninterested in what he had to say. An orderly whisked the patient away as the nurse prepared himself to witness yet another twisted and wrecked body.

4.

When he was there, it all felt natural. Its like he had always been there. It felt as familiar as the family home where he spent his childhood, the schools of yesteryear, the friends from day one. It felt that familiar if he didn't think to hard. Him knowing himself, that's exactly what he did.

If his life was a movie, even he as a spectator would still manage to ruin the ending for everyone concerned. He gorged another piece of toast down. A minute ticks by. "I miss my baby," he thinks. The same thought, over and over. There's no where else to go, why not stay here? Its not comfortable but it seems just right to him. Even the path of least resistance doesn't seem as attractive to waiting right here and preparing for the inevitable hard slog. He couldn't wait until his sweetheart got home. Yes sir. He could not think of any other place he'd rather be. He was convinced. But was she? A few hours later, she emerged at the door. A void emerged in his mind. So he leaned over and reached out for that string...

Bulwark Against Desolation

Most of the night, I stare at my ceiling. The indigo darkness crushes against me as I take another breath. My eyes can roll back into the back of my head but can they push my thoughts even further away? I wait, I wait, I wait. There's another familiar tick of the clock. More waiting. Then I realize; the wait is over, I have nothing left to wait for.

I shift about, looking from side to side watching only darkness creep by. There's no siren responding to the call of emergency any more, there's just a numbing silence. There's no murmur of slumbering companions in any direction. As the break of day sweeps away the night, a glow shines through my blinds. I've seen this sunrise before, but somehow it seems unfamiliar. I twist myself upright, moments away from collapse.

I can see that sunrise elsewhere, hitting a thicket of trees as their shadows lengthen in the sun. It felt like my last day on earth, again - my last day on an earth that I had a hand in creating and destroying all at once. I shake my head. Don't worry son, my father would say. Just don't worry about it. I'd nod in agreement, usually. Speeding through this defeat can't kill me. On the other hand, if it does, I just might let it.

I swallow a bulwark against desolation and wait for it to calm the tempest and storm. The swell subsides, the screams extinguish. In giving up a wound, I slip into stupor. I walk across thorns, I fall to the floor, I play my favorite record. They all end up wretched and blinding; barely there. Just like me.

In Heavy Consternation

There's no internship to work as a freelance journalist. You don't go to a "somewhere", train yourself and go do it. (Perhaps there is; I'd sure like to know about it.) Sure, you can do a university degree in journalism but that doesn't 'qualify' you, so to speak. Like any profession, you learn on the job. The job for me as a freelance copywriter/journo/PR dude is the job (or jobs) you push yourself to get. I've been writing since I was in high school. It didn't dawn on me that writing as a job was a viable option until about the fourth year of my three year university degree. I never thought doing something I enjoyed could actually earn some money. Well, it doesn't. The economy's rooted and so am I. To a certain extent.

But just like riding bicycles and sexy time, things get easier with practice. The more you venture out from your comfort zone, the more hardships you will find and the more rewarding the pay off. The vocation I have chosen for myself will not make me any significant amount of money for a while. I know that. I won't be driving Beemers or drinking G&Ts in penthouse apartments. (Because that's gay.) I'm still in my "internship" - writing for free until I gain a name for myself. I have contacts, I have drive, I have ambition and I have knowhow but not enough clout for subs to rush to their editors and exclaim, "I have Tom Valcanis on the phone! He wants to another piece about how much Facebook sucks!" Close friends and my partner will attest; I'm an egotistical son of a bitch and I hate being rejected. I even get childish about it at times. But as Korzybski, Watzlawick and Ellis have taught me, failure is feedback - try and try again, improving each time.

In my isolation since my return to Australia, I've actually found myself. Being in the US showed me what was important in my life and the lives of a significant other and now I know where I want to be. I have moved past my "grass is greener" mentality; I want to work, I want to improve and I want to be proactive. Getting my arse-kicked the day I took off from Hartsfield-Jackson Airport has left an indeliable indentation on my bum and it will always remind me that there are things bigger than myself that I want to be a part of and have to work towards to be included in again. I've done wrong but I am working to make things right. I believe in second chances and gradual transformation. As one of my favorite authors and philosophers, Robert Anton Wilson says; "I'm not a noun - I'm a verb. I'm always changing, never staying the same from one moment to the next."

Walking Away Scathed

I sit in front of a computer sometimes and before I know it, it's 2AM. It isn't where I'd like to be, but its where I sit.

In this position, its like you're being held under a constant fear of a great pain to be unleashed across your entire body; like an intense and chronic anticipation of ripping a sticking bandage from your skin. Its an overwhelming, nauseating feeling that accompanies you on the bus, on the walk toward where you live, in the job interview, talking to friends and even when you sleep.

You just wait and wait and hope that it's ripped off soon - then you'll know if your insides come spilling out or if the wound has healed. Or maybe it's even more complicated than that; a feeling of hopelessness yields to one of longing, one of renewal. I don't feel like my old self, I don't want to be that old self, I am in a process of change.

The confluence of distance and immediacy, the amalgam of thinking that another sits at the same computer, another coughs up her medicine in the middle of the night, this shattered heart cannot bear. I hold the shards of it in one of my bloodied hands, the other gripping a hammer of my own making. What is done cannot be undone, even though a repair might come too late, I will endeavor to make it all better. I hope I get that chance, love, even if it takes me all my life.

Inward and Closing

I'm just sitting around. Sitting on the computer, filing number after number of job applications, waiting. I visit my grandmother and her thinning hair, waiting. She tells me not to worry. I ignore her. What am I waiting for? I send some messages. My SMS machine lays idle, so I wait for it to go off. I'm stuck in the house of my childhood, waiting. I have an inkling to what I'm waiting for but I don't like it one bit.

I miss my love so terribly it hurts to sleep just as much as it does to keep awake. Then my mind turns to my love, all alone, hurt by me in so many innumerable ways, each one another regret on my mind. I want to share another joke, another glance, another kiss, another chance; anything. But I'm here waiting. I'll tape together a million shards of a broken heart if it somehow brings that giggle back. And I will wait forever if I have to. I love her that much.

Crushtor's Guide to Annoying Everyone You Know on Facebook, Part II

Crushtor's Guide to Annoying Everyone You Know on Facebook, Part II

Only the chart is doin it rite

If there's a second-string guide to casually stirring that barely noticeable irritation that you feel every time you see something you irrationally yet unashamedly dislike on Facebook, this would be it. If hell seems like sharing this planet with other people, then Facebook is where those people project themselves digitally; together with all their bullshit tendencies that annoy the fuck out of you.

Worst Photos Taken with Ugliest Camera

First off, apologies to the closest thing we have to Oscar Wilde with a WACOM tablet, Mr. C. Onstad, for the appropration of his witticism. If you are unattractive, then you have no place on Facebook. At all. Please do not disgrace it with photos of your grotesque person, you are not suited for having images of yourself for consumption on any medium that can broadcast itself to more than three people simultaneously. The test: If you tend to smile and your face still appears rude to most others, then you just know.

Smug RSVP Regrets

OK. The event function on Facebook can often be a convenient tool for informing friends and potential business contacts about functions, parties and often times, "meta-events" such as "Hugs for Slurpees" day which makes next to little sense to me. However, the potential for RSVP abuse runs rife; selecting "Maybe" tends to result in a "No" (admittedly I have elected - once - to go to an event I said I'd "maybe" show up to out of possibly scores or even hundreds) and "No" requires a believable and perfunctory excuse - one that reflects a genuine-sounding lament for your non-attendance while aggrandizing oneself at the same time. "Oh sorry," most people write, "i'll be overseas." Yes, of course you are. Because your shitty travelogues and awkwardly framed pictures of downtown Stuttgart aren't reminder enough of your woefully generic adventures.

Complaining "to" Facebook about Facebook

I'm sure many users on Facebook are seldom satisfied with the layout of Facebook; any opportunity to complain about something using the service about the service will be seized more quickly than FREE MONEY NOW!!11 or WORK FROM HOME? EARN $92 AN HR!!! - likewise these users are terribly concerned for their privacy, fearing that monetization means the wholesale pillage of their credit card details and porn fetishes, all sinisterly uploaded to a waiting cabal of Indian data-entry operators that have little regard for calling you about a "free prize" just as you were about to tuck into a hearty bowl of Mac & Cheese.
Complaining about Facebook in the vain hope that Facebook (in this instance, the admins and mods of the service, not the seemingly self-aware robot that we thought operated the site) will somehow take heed and whimsically repair such gross crimes against intuitive web design for them is like the internet equivalent of saying "Get your stinking government hands off my Medicare!!!" Irony, unconsciously uttered on the internet? That's unpossible. Is Joseph Heller still alive? Someone should tell him about this, probably.

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I should really blog about something I'm doing at some point. Oh well.