I've found that I've been asleep for a long time. Twenty-eight years to be presice; and, seeing as we're being presice, my entire life. Waking up was difficult. The sun scorched my face and almost blinded me. I felt the lethargy of the last twenty-eight years coursing though me and saw a life ahead of me that would be labourious, unenticing, and uncertain. I've been waking up slowly over the past two years. Slowly throwing off the blankets and rubbing my eyes. Getting myself up to have a shower and cook breakfast. The water was cold and when I opened the blinds I saw that it was raining outside as I looked back on my life thus far, taking stock. The eggs were rotten and the toast was mouldy and hard, but I scoffed it down.
The sun is now breaking through the clouds; Southern Electric have decided to gift me with a small measure of hot water and I've been to the shop and bought fresh eggs and bread. The full weight of the world is beggining to hit me and I've finally begun to open my eyes to the infinite possibilities facing me. Positive thoughts have begun to infiltrate my mind over the last week and I've started to see myself and the world in a completely different light. A light not glazed over with a lense of negativity.
My true self has started to shine through; and my neurotic, possessive and negative self has slowly started to die off in a beautiful shower of flame. I've started to open up my heart and mind to let the sun in. The side of me I thought I'd lost was old and dirty, but I've begun to clear away the cobwebs and have seen that there is no reason not to let it out. The negative thoughts which enter my mind are now vehemently challgnged and I've started a battle against them for my mind. It was Bob Marley who said; "Emancipate yourselved from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds." It has now fallen to me and me alone to challange the negativity which has degraded my mind to this point. I now have the power to change. Free yourselves from degrading thoughts which cage you in a vicious cycle; killing your will. Spread your wings and soar as high and wide as you want to. Absolution is clearly within reach.
Peace, love, revolutions...
Sunday, 24 May 2009
Saturday, 16 May 2009
Man Killng Man
I picked up an Eastern European man off the street this morning. Everyone was passing him by and just looking down at him. He was drunk, and soon after I'd picked him up and found out how he was (he apparently wanted a cigarette and thought the only way to get one was to lie down on the pavement and pick a half-smoked butt off it) his friend (another Eastern European man) came over and started talking to me in a language I didn't understand. I asked the second man if he was friends with the first man and he said he was, by nodding. They both looked like hardened gangsters so I felt it necessary at that point to make a swift exit and go about my own business (my own prejudgements coming in).
It did get me wondering where the common universal connection I've believed we all share had gone at that point. Fear had stopped others picking the man up but when I stooped down to grab his hand, everyone around looked down at me as if I were doing something wrong. I must admit that if I thought I were doing something wrong I would have gladly left him there. But what's wrong with getting another person back on their feet, both literally and metaphorically?
I'm very discouraged now, especially with the state of the universe. If things are, indeed, in perfect balance and if the universe does indeed know what it's doing then why is the world not climbing on board and succumbing to their base instincts to help one another, whether known to them or not? When we're children we're told never to talk to strangers, and rightly so, but I fear that this concept is being (and has been) drummed into us too harshly for it has now created boundaries between us; divisions which we find hard to cross. We now feel the need to know someone on some level before we can help them. Surely, I could have stooped down this morning and asked the man where he was from, how many children he had and whether he liked sports before I picked him up. I could have lunged into a light conversation about his life, and shared my life with him, but that would have taken too long and wouldn't have changed the fact that he needed my help (if only just to pick him up off the floor).
Even worse, I think, is the fact that that if my Eastern European friend was soaked in blood on the street people would have been even more reluctant to help him for fear of contamination. They would have stood aside and called the authorities, probably thinking it his own fault to be in such a state, while other might have looked at him in disgust and whispered amongst themselves about the possible causes of his misfortune. Why, then, do we expect others to help us when we are down? Perhaps I'm being overly pessimistic about the current state of human nature but my incident this morning only acted to highlight my position. We are often taught to stand on our own two feet; that no-one will do anything for us and that we have to create our own opportunities in life, but when it comes down to it and the proverbial shit hits the fan it is still a human instinct to cry out for help; when we are in the most dire of circumstances perched in a pool of our own blood and sweat at 3 AM on a Saturday morning.
Next time you're walking down the street; notice how many people don't look you directly in the eye for fear that they may have a connection with you; that they may, in fact, allow themselves to be sucked into the unknown. I hope it changes. I envision a world with no division, where people realise that we're all part of a universal system and that we're all connected whether we like it or not. I envision a world where we pick Eastern European men off the street and anyone else for that matter, and where we lend a helping hand to anyone who needs it. In revolutionary spirit, I reject circles, squares, triangles and cliques. I reject personal space, and I reject the constant and unnecessary compulsion to run away from human connections unless we're intoxicated.
By the same token I think that if necessary (which they're not), wars should be fought while under the influence of non-violent substances. If this were the case there would be no more man killing man; a war would be just one big piss up, with all manner of substances, where soldiers, civilians, and their supposed enemies would lay down their arms and hug one another saying "I love you, man" in their stupors, and where they would arm-wrestle to settle whatever disputes they have. It was one Christmas day during the first world war when British and German troops came together in no man's land to play a game of football. All grudges were set aside for that day, and arms were laid down in one big event during which all those involved implicitly said, "my fight is not with you, my brother. I'm just following the orders of an old twat three hundred miles away with a big chip on his shoulder." It was a glorious display of man helping man.
I think anything is possible, a trait which has made me the target of some criticism recently. But is it so hard to believe in this type of world, and pass it off as mindless idealism? I think not.
Peace, love, revolutions
It did get me wondering where the common universal connection I've believed we all share had gone at that point. Fear had stopped others picking the man up but when I stooped down to grab his hand, everyone around looked down at me as if I were doing something wrong. I must admit that if I thought I were doing something wrong I would have gladly left him there. But what's wrong with getting another person back on their feet, both literally and metaphorically?
I'm very discouraged now, especially with the state of the universe. If things are, indeed, in perfect balance and if the universe does indeed know what it's doing then why is the world not climbing on board and succumbing to their base instincts to help one another, whether known to them or not? When we're children we're told never to talk to strangers, and rightly so, but I fear that this concept is being (and has been) drummed into us too harshly for it has now created boundaries between us; divisions which we find hard to cross. We now feel the need to know someone on some level before we can help them. Surely, I could have stooped down this morning and asked the man where he was from, how many children he had and whether he liked sports before I picked him up. I could have lunged into a light conversation about his life, and shared my life with him, but that would have taken too long and wouldn't have changed the fact that he needed my help (if only just to pick him up off the floor).
Even worse, I think, is the fact that that if my Eastern European friend was soaked in blood on the street people would have been even more reluctant to help him for fear of contamination. They would have stood aside and called the authorities, probably thinking it his own fault to be in such a state, while other might have looked at him in disgust and whispered amongst themselves about the possible causes of his misfortune. Why, then, do we expect others to help us when we are down? Perhaps I'm being overly pessimistic about the current state of human nature but my incident this morning only acted to highlight my position. We are often taught to stand on our own two feet; that no-one will do anything for us and that we have to create our own opportunities in life, but when it comes down to it and the proverbial shit hits the fan it is still a human instinct to cry out for help; when we are in the most dire of circumstances perched in a pool of our own blood and sweat at 3 AM on a Saturday morning.
Next time you're walking down the street; notice how many people don't look you directly in the eye for fear that they may have a connection with you; that they may, in fact, allow themselves to be sucked into the unknown. I hope it changes. I envision a world with no division, where people realise that we're all part of a universal system and that we're all connected whether we like it or not. I envision a world where we pick Eastern European men off the street and anyone else for that matter, and where we lend a helping hand to anyone who needs it. In revolutionary spirit, I reject circles, squares, triangles and cliques. I reject personal space, and I reject the constant and unnecessary compulsion to run away from human connections unless we're intoxicated.
By the same token I think that if necessary (which they're not), wars should be fought while under the influence of non-violent substances. If this were the case there would be no more man killing man; a war would be just one big piss up, with all manner of substances, where soldiers, civilians, and their supposed enemies would lay down their arms and hug one another saying "I love you, man" in their stupors, and where they would arm-wrestle to settle whatever disputes they have. It was one Christmas day during the first world war when British and German troops came together in no man's land to play a game of football. All grudges were set aside for that day, and arms were laid down in one big event during which all those involved implicitly said, "my fight is not with you, my brother. I'm just following the orders of an old twat three hundred miles away with a big chip on his shoulder." It was a glorious display of man helping man.
I think anything is possible, a trait which has made me the target of some criticism recently. But is it so hard to believe in this type of world, and pass it off as mindless idealism? I think not.
Peace, love, revolutions
Wednesday, 6 May 2009
Face Cream
A positive change will be effected when we realise the importance of positive thought. However, we are now more than ever subjected to the worst kind of negativity imaginable. When we walk we are bombarded by billboards telling us in no uncertain terms what we’re not – listing our imperfections in a detestable catalogue of insecurity. When we sit at home we are flooded with messages feeding our negativity; big corporations and giant conglomerates telling us what we need and what we want in elaborate advertisements showing off the latest in perfection-bound accessories – the face cream for her, the shaving gel for him; promising exotic locations and infinite of attention from the opposite sex usually portrayed as the universal beauty. And we succumb to these symbols of our downfall – we ache to be just one step closer to their portrayed ideal, and we berate ourselves when we fail to achieve their impossible goals. And while we watch our lives waste away in an endless stream of persuasion, we tend to miss the one most important fact – the one unadulterated truth which binds us in our striving – which is the cycle of life; we age, we die, we eventually lose all we’ve built up, and there is not a product that yet exists which will stop it. Eventually the billboards teaching us to think in terms of what we don’t have will rot and fall to the street, and the television advertisements will cease to pollute our airwaves, and only then will we realise what we have become? Think and live in positive terms for the eternal optimist is not a fool but a hero in this revolution of the mind. Live, love and reach out to everyone. Stop sitting in your own mind curled up in a ball of negativity waiting and wishing. Touch the world, and you’ll be surprised at what you get back.
Peace, love, revolutions
Peace, love, revolutions
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