clinging to the wreckage

  It is 40 degrees Celsius, 100 Fahrenheit, and I worry constantly about the cat. We try our best and yet we still make mistakes. For example, has it been a mistake to feed this cat for years? Would it have moved on and found a better life? Would it have perished? Is it perhaps living its best life right now? I don’t know.   I think of my family, how much my parents did for my brother and I, how differently we turned out. Why? I miss my mother tremendously. My dad has become a friend, and each day I talk to him and try in some way to repay all that was done for me. The concept of family was smaller for us, we moved away from the larger family and, even though I think of my childhood as a wonderful time, I never wanted a family of my own. I love peace and calm and quiet… but I also get lonely at times. Then I chat to friends who are married and they tell me they are horribly lonely and feel trapped in a nightmare loneliness. That is worse. It’s true that the good people disappe...

  Slow, solemn, and sad, thus begins the day. A few calls and discussions before deciding to change the scenery and walk to the office. Ridiculously, the decision comes down to the items in my fridge versus the cafeteria in the office building. I love to support the cafeteria, but I also need to utilise my groceries because I refuse to throw food away, and I want to reduce costs.                     I sit in the cafeteria now and, as always, I am astonished by people. Fridges in public spaces have glass doors so that customers can make a decision before they open the door to select the item they want. However, as I sit here for 20 minutes on most days, I observe that at least 80% of people open the door and stand with the door open trying to make a decision. And people do not make decisions very quickly. Typically, before I even enter the building, I know what I want from the fridge. It is not...

  In researching pictures and places and searching through notes for traces of the places I went and the words that were used I discovered something completely removed from my memory. This discovery was that, when I had been in Hollywood, it was to fulfil a dream of seeing Bad Religion at the Hollywood Palladium, a dream I’d had since they released a DVD of the same in 2004… but the thing that had completely slipped from my mind was that I saw them there two nights in a row. Seeing the pictures revived the memory of how it had happened. I had gone with one ticket to one night but, while I was there, they added a second show, so I decided to buy tickets and go again. I had not done this, like a groupie, since I lived in England and I watched Bad Religion in London on Friday night, close to my home, and then took the train to Manchester, close to where I was born, to watch them the following night at Manchester University. Before the Manchester show, I met Greg Hetson, a legend, and ...

  Drifting through the parking lot at 04:30am, looking for the cat. Unable to sleep. A few minutes earlier a group of people arrived, talking and laughing on the top of their voices in the corridor not seeming to realise that the doors that surround them are the doors of people’s homes and that it is 4am. Selfish people empowered by selfish people, a perpetual cycle. Questioning the value of education because ‘it won’t help to get a job’ and not realising that it brings self-development, critical thinking skills, understanding, tolerance, independently formed worldviews, etc. If your only concerns in life are cheap ‘gas’ and large salaries, you have lost before you even start.                     After going to Ojos for lunch, I watch England beat France in the ‘losers’ final of the world cup. It brings me very little joy because England were 4-0 up, then conceded 3 goals, and the tactical dec...

  The fan spins with a monotonous hum, a vaguely audible hum. There is peace and calm. Sauntering towards the door I make a bowl of food for the cat and step outside into the 6am morning. A wall of violent sound greets me as a tow truck idles right beside the door, inspecting cars in the car park that might not be legitimately parked. This is the modern world. We spend more money and effort trying to protect and punish unnecessarily than we spend contributing to helping people. People like punishing people, they prefer it to helping people. We spend money on war but not food. We spend money checking if people are in the office but not on incentives that will promote office attendance and engagement. We prefer fear over respect. It’s why some places choose religion over science… it is fear over understanding. It is control over education and freedom.                     That being committed to ...

 Every page is blank… and yet every day is a play that brings us emotion from events that occur, events often stirred by those who are unable to sit still. Nevertheless, we should wish to live deliciously and taste every moment as it arrives to the fullest. Not to be dull and conventional. To avoid dogma and tradition and convention. By this, I do not suggest cruelty, I suggest fun and growth and learning and compassion.   A part of modern convention that I see as a negative is that of people being told that they are ‘too nice.’ This results in waves of people refusing to show any level of kindness or vulnerability because they want to be the ‘stronger’ one.   Tradition often results in debt and depression because people believe that they simply have to have a home and a spouse and a child… if they don’t have it, they are depressed. And, even worse, if they do have it, they often end up struggling to pay for the home and/or the family, which in turn results in a feeling o...

  The tumble dryer spins as I stand beside it waiting for the cycle to end. ‘The only way it will end is if you walk away and do something else.’ I walk to my bedroom, climb into bed, pull the covers ups, the tumble dryer stops. I get back out of bed, walk back to the tumble dryer, and take out the towels so that I have a fresh one in the morning when I shower. A 7am meeting awaits. Every day there is a 7am meeting. It’s not so much 7am that I mind, it is more the fact that most meetings are simply not needed. To see a face, to exchange stories, that would be worthwhile, but, in most meetings, people leave their cameras off and the read numbers or ask for numbers. That could be a presentation sent as a message or linked in a webpage.                     AI is rampant, and yet people are working more than ever. That is, of course, until they become a number struck from a list and no longer have...