Big splurge

And then I had this idea that I could map the story of my life onto Joseph Campbell’s Myth Blueprint and make it a fictionalised account. I went through the stages and most of it was there and in order; I’ve thought that before. I did it with three different interpretations of his ‘formula’ and the third time I snagged on the last three points and it made me think perhaps I hadn’t quite reached the end: hadn’t completed ‘elixir’ and ‘home’ (which I translated as ‘publishing my story’ and ‘the mysterious unknown thing that follows that’). Also, mapping my life to that formula gets me thinking about the alternative lives that I’ve led: the one that I did lead wherein I believe I took all sorts of wrong turns and got stupidly lost and distracted; and the one that I didn’t lead but I sometimes create in my head, thinking that was the life I should be looking back on if only I’d been a little bit smarter. And that then sent me on a big mad midnight typing frenzy...

MY LIFE

Everything was smooth right up to meeting Brad. Then I should have gone home. But I didn’t, I went to Mexico.

Eventually I did go home – perhaps five or six weeks late.

Back to Lindsay, Vipassana, India – which led me on to Mother Meera and the job in Amsterdam: THE CALL TO RETURN.

REFUSAL OF THE CALL: quit the job, tried to fly back to America, ended up meeting Eve (very lost and high by now).

Eve brings me back to Earth. Sophie completes the deal. Early 2002. But, even before that – summer 2001, when I was back in Wakefield and met Laura – there was the call to Bretton, to writing. And again in Ireland, the need to be a student in order to further the writing. RETURN completed by going to university.

Doing the undergraduate. Sidelined by living in Canada, by going into teaching and then Oxfam and then other jobs. But September 2011 I begin the masters – 5 years and 5 months after Patricia first suggested it to me. Five years! What did I do in those five years? I worked, I shagged Perlilly, I wrote a failed book, I had a go at London. I returned to Mexico and found a part of my soul. I finally went to Israel.

Israel. Completion of the journey. Final realisation. Should have done that a long time ago. Done now.

Perhaps it should have gone like this:

Go to uni in 2000/2001. Graduate 2003/2004. Do a masters and graduate from that 2004/2005. Write the book and spread it out into the world. Win the girl.

Dear God, did I totally screw this up? Will you help me get back on track? I feel lost with all of this: it doesn’t feel like part of the plan, it feels like opportunities lost. Although I can’t deny I learned a hell of a lot on the way – though, really, it was almost stuff that I should have known all along, and would’ve if I hadn’t been such a tool, had listened to those wiser than me, hadn’t been so mental and lost. Six or seven years! Maybe eight. I’m 35 now – I’ll be 36 when this is done. I could’ve still been in my twenties, full of piss and vinegar and real belief, not cynical and jaded. I got distracted from the path. You never told me what to do.

Mother Meera: get a job (May 2000)

John Milton: get a job (February 2001)

That Buddhist monk: get a job (October 1999)

Plus plenty of others besides. But I didn’t get it into my thick skull until April 2002, until I reached rock bottom. I didn’t get to uni until September 2002 – with Your blessing. And I didn’t get to start the masters until 2011 – again, only with Your help. Mexico 2009 was meant to be – but was that not maybe just help from without pulling me out of the mire once again? Coco, Cuauhtémoc? Yair – and Yair finally drawing me on to Israel, when I missed the opportunity at the end of 2008, with Perlilly and her song. Israel. When should I have gone there? 2000 instead of flying Shawn over to the UK and blowing all my dosh on gadding?

Back to England for Christmas ’99. Then to Israel – no real signs for India – though India is what brought me Mother Meera (no, Paul and then Glastonbury did that) – and then the mad stupid Jesus walk in the rain laughing and realising it was all bobbins and back to my true desire: to have a wife, and to write.

But where does Sophie come into all this? Matt and Easterly? All the other mad things I’ve done – like Peony’s finger, Guatemala, Paris and Amsterdam and London? Canterbury, China, Guelph? Was it all just barking up the wrong tree? Stupid lessons to teach me not to do stupid stuff? Any of it of any worth? Or just running around in circles wasting time till I finally got myself back on track? And am I on track now? Just women, pussies, fingers and panting and orgasms – fleeting moments of satisfaction so short, so ultimately pointless. Just money and earnings and paying the rent so that the body can sleep under a roof and have fripperies to entertain it – but time ticks on for no noticeable reward and the body slowly crumbles around the soul that has long since stopped moving. Just dalliances and ‘fun’, run around a field to kick a ball every week – and that’s okay, it’s good for you – but it shouldn’t be what your life is built around. Nothing will happen, I feel, unless I pull my finger out. But, God only knows, I need some help in this. I’m all alone. Nobody wants me. Haven’t I tried pretty much everything.

Well try again. Never give up.

That means write once more to agents in America. See if you can get them interested in your book. On The Road comes out in 2012 and the market might be ripe for your kind of thing.

You procrastinate.

Could I stop?

Yes. You could. With an almighty display of willpower.

But then…there’s the question of doing it too soon, tugging on the grass, not allowing things to take their shape naturally: I do believe in that, feel that I’ve experienced it.

Yes. That’s true. But having the writing prepared won’t be any negative for you. Man Woman Sex Love. All your ideas. Sure, it’s true nothing can happen until the time is right – until the fruit is ready to drop. And in any case…

It’s the course requirements I need to be dealing with now. My short film draft. My research proposal. My script. I’m leaving them unfinished, sort of sated by being 95% there. But I still need to do them.

I wish my tutors would encourage me. I wish they would tell me whether they thought I was any good or not.

I wish somebody would.

Some people do.

But how the fuck can you really tell for sure? They could be idiots. I could be an idiot, for pursuing this so fervently.

Sometimes, you just have to believe. Follow your passion. Go out on a limb.

But then I look at all the time I’ve wasted…

Time wasted working, trying to be normal! And what you’re saying you should have been doing was following your heart, your path, your dream: writing! You know what being normal feels like: a waste of life. Does writing? No. You love it with all your heart, with one hell of a passion. You know that never feels like time ill-spent. You look back on it with such fondness, such pride and joy. You love it.

You’re right. In my head I think: let’s get it on – let’s ignore everything of the world – let’s get disciplined. A vision of me knuckling down, shutting everything else out –

It’s what you have to do.

– but then the reality of what I know myself to be –

What you have been thus far.

– and that scares me. I know how easily distracted, how difficult I find this –

But you don’t find it difficult.

– difficult to start, to stick at when the going gets tough –

The mind is hard to control: the body less so. Luckily it’s the body that does this work. If there’s nothing else for the mind to do –

You mean force it.

Yes.

I could do it, couldn’t I? Even if nothing came of it at least it would be done. I could write like a mad fool the whole doo-long-day – and then at least I’d be free, one way or the other, by the end of it. Otherwise I’ll be sat here again come September faced with the prospect of a shitty job, a desire to get away – and all these writing ideas hanging over my head and torturing me and me knowing that I couldn’t be free unless I dealt with them. America will certainly have to wait until it’s done. Bah humbug.

Anyways, there’s nothing much more to say, is there? You simply have to sleep on it, and have a think, and in the morning – either get it on – your uni work – or not. But rest assured: there is no end to the number of mediocre films this world has provided for you to watch. And when the time comes for this life to end, if that’s all you’ve done, you’re not going to be satisfied.

Freedom from distraction. Easier said than done.

An email I just wrote

Hey grand pooh bear, been thinking about you lately. How's tricks? Gee, I miss America sometimes - got so much nostalgia for that place and it's always so fresh what with various writing projects I have on the go aiming to look back and revisit and always dreaming that something might come of my 'Discovering Beautiful'. Been reading more Kerouac too of late and...well so many things bring my mind around in that direction. Such a shame I was such a tool and got myself banned! But...all will be well, right? Right place, right time and everything.

And, of course, all is groovy here in Leeds and I'm for once in a sustained period of feeling where I ought to be, doing what I ought to be doing, not worrying about the future or provisions or being bogged down by anything I hate (jobwise, for instance). My girlfriend Ali and I rent a cheap ass little apartment not far from the uni and I reckon my fairly paltry savings will pay the rent for a year - and a little job I've got (refereeing soccer!) takes care of the rest. Couldn't really ask for more than that - on top of getting the degree paid for - so, as ever, I'm blessed. Do tell myself it's a bit 'last chance saloon' as far as the writing goes - but then I've said that before. If only I wasn't so lazy...if only some damn publisher had wanted my book. I pick it up every now and then and think, wow, this really is awesome and can't understand why nobody wants it - but then, maybe it's just not time (and, hell with it, it has sold something like 600-800 copies through Amazon, which is actually pretty impressive, I'm told, given the lack of marketing I've done - ie, next to zero). Still...one has dreams.

I was thinking recently about something you said - "you could be the new Kerouac" - and I always took that to mean the roadtrippin', and to a lesser extent the hedonism, the wildness, the seeking of the IT - but then lately I've come to believe something different: for what Kerouac was ultimately, I feel, was this: a soul who explored life and felt driven to share every little bit of it with the world through words. That's I guess what I am - in my ideal vision (which lies beyond the lack of work ethic) - and what I want to do: just simply this: to explain and share every little thing I ever felt and experienced and did. That's all. Other people want to steer me into fiction, television, short stories - and maybe I will give it a try and see where it takes me - but really it always comes down to autobiographical longings and I suppose that's probably what I'm best at too. Lucky, that: that the thing I want to do most is the thing that I'm best at. One day, I'm sure, this world will give me a break - it's either that or giving it up once and for all forever. Hard to imagine that, though - often I feel like old Jonah who just has to do the job he was born to do or else: this whale won't leave me alone. Be nice if it would though - then I could get back to drifting and swap computers for sunny skies and mad adventures in countries as yet unexplored and ones I have. Mexico...Peru...a sneak across the border into Washington state and the whole grand mad America all over again. More dreams - but first gotta do this.

Seems like for one of my uni writing course projects I'll be looking at reworking the last third of DB and certain times that followed into a fictionalised faction 'based on a true story' book about hitching around and having wonderful things happen and being provided for. You'll no doubt be in that too - though I might, if you'll permit me, have to splice you with a few other groovy people and create one Super-Shawn (with a new name), if you know what I mean. I wrote a synopsis for it the other day and I was quite pleased: felt like it had a good solid story arc (as they say in the trade) and a cool ending: that's the thing about 'faction': it's like you get a chance to re-write your life the way you would rather it'd went. When I wrote the synopsis I found it revolving more around women, and a certain woman - as well as all the spirituality longing searching stuff - and that's where it ended, with her: 'twas the woman - if you remember rightly - that I met in New Mexico in weird mad circumstances back in '99, in a supermarket and a gas station and had strange mystical times and connection. I was thinking about it and working it into the synopsis and re-reading that bit from Discovering Beautiful and - wow! - I wanted to bash my head at the realisation at what a dummy I was for not getting into the car with her the second time. Don't know if you remember but it goes something like this: me and friend driving to Albuquerque to see Amma for second time; friend suddenly whizzes around and heads back whence we'd come powered by sudden urge for soda; in gas station mysterious mystic girl pulls up beside us; my mind gets blown; we get out our cars and hug and kiss; she tells me she's off to Colorado to see her 'teacher'; I say same - only the next week, after Amma, and...and I bottle it. Some quote from the Alchemist hinting maybe we'll meet again - but truth, behind that, only seen later, is that I was afraid. Tom Shit! What a fool. And: alas, alack, what to do about it? Nothing - 'cept swallow and accept and learn from and resolve and - yes, but how I wish I could live it again. And I suppose rewriting it as fiction is a way to do that: there's my life, as it actually happened - and then there's my life as I believe it should have happened, and would have happened if I hadn't been such a mad crazy pumped up on delusion idiot. Once an idiot, always an idiot. And being, no doubt, right here in this moment, an idiot once more: but it's all good: I laugh when I type that: 'tis just the life.

Anyways, I think I just ran out of steam, lol! Hope to hear from you brother, and hope that all is well and groovy in groovy California, and the bairns, and the wonderful woman, and everything else in particular.

Lots of love,

Rory

introversion

Ay, I seem to have gone a bit rubbish with the old blogging of late: and I can’t really blame time, for time is something I have plenty of. Could be that I’m not doing owt. Could be that it’s winter and I’m getting all cosy and hibernating. Or could be that my brain has shifted into a different writing gear, things from imagination, from my past, rather than the blah blah of the present here’s what I ate for dinner moment. I guess it’s just one of those things that things come and go. Like the tides, the moon, randyness, etc.

Still, I do want to write something today, and I suppose the best thing to do is start with a quick recap; to say: a) my girlfriend’s still away; b) it took me three days before I could get out of bed without screaming after the back thing (and it still hurts); c) I may have been watching too many movies; I’ve discovered the uni library and been walking out of there with like ten at a time; d) when girlfriend’s away, I get rather messy and slack, pee a little bit on the floor; throw clothes everywhere; just eat sandwiches and crisps and spend most of my free time in bed with films and books and my own daft typing. It’s great: ten days of slovenliness but because it’s not that extreme – ie, I’m not dirty, just messy – I can fix the whole thing in like an hour; e) it’s a shame I can’t play football or squash: no more going in for potentially crippling challenges; f) if only I wasn’t such a lazy writer; g) whizz. If you know what I mean.

Anyways, none of that is what I wanted to say today: that’s just me doing my pointless duty thing and clearing my brain: no, main thing I was thinking of was this wonderful link my dear good friend Eric sent me – Eric one of the few people I still find interesting; he’s always sending me interesting stuff – and although I’ve only scanned a wee bit of it I already know it’s something I want to address. What is it? Well, it’s this:

A man in his blog writes about a book he read on introversion and says that the guy in the book show how neuro-transmitters follow different dominant paths in the nervous systems of introverts and extroverts – introverts being overly sensitive to dopamine, with too much external stimulation exhausting them, and extroverts craving it, necessitating the seeking of adrenaline so that their brains can create it – plus other things besides. “How interesting,” I think, believing myself an introvert, “that this stuff may actually be quite literally hard-wired in our physiological make-up.”

The man – let’s call him ‘Carl King’ (for that is his name) – then muses on what he calls ‘common misconceptions about introverts’ and there I leap in my seat, and think “Yes!” and hasten to come back some later date – probably only having read about three – and muse myself. And this is what I shall do. His list:

Myth #1 – Introverts don’t like to talk.

He says: This is not true. Introverts just don’t talk unless they have something to say. They hate small talk. Get an introvert talking about something they are interested in, they won’t shut up for days.

I say: Yeah man: especially of late. It’s like I just hear people say the same things over and over again and it’s so dull. I long for someone to say something interesting, something new – but they very rarely bother so I’d just rather opt out. Conversations, shmonversations – most of them seem to be about nothing. When I talk about things I’m not really interested in – just doing the social thing, avoiding awkwardness – it’s like I’m pretending and everything feels stilted and whack. But like he says: get me on a subject I care about and – as you can see from this lovely ol’ self-indulgent blog – I’ll wax the lyrics till the ass has fallen out of the donkey.

Myth #2 – Introverts are shy.

He says: Shyness has nothing to do with being an introvert. Introverts are not necessarily afraid of people. What they need is a reason to interact. They don’t interact for the sake of interacting. If you want to talk to an introvert, just start talking. Don’t worry about being polite.

I say: I don’t know if anyone could accuse me of being shy – but certainly I ain’t no life and soul of the party, and in a group I’d most likely rather keep quiet. I like to wait for the spaces to open up in a conversation, as they should do if people are paying attention to the dynamics and not just blabbing for the sake of it, or losing track of what they’re really trying to say. I guess that’s why I go for one-on-one more often than not.

Myth #3 – Introverts are rude.

He says: Introverts often don’t see a reason for beating around the bush with social pleasantries. They want everyone to just be real and honest. Unfortunately, this is not acceptable in most settings, so introverts can feel a lot of pressure to fit in, which they find exhausting.

I say: Yeah, I suppose I do worry about appearing rude: I guess I just blurt stuff out and get down to the gist of it – when I’m living naturally and not pretending to be something I’m not – and I sometimes worry about that, wish I was nicer, more able to do the smalltalk thing. But I’d mostly rather hang out by myself than have to have the same old boring conversation all over again. Which brings us to...

Myth #4 – Introverts don’t like people.

He says: On the contrary, introverts intensely value the few friends they have. They can count their close friends on one hand. If you are lucky enough for an introvert to consider you a friend, you probably have a loyal ally for life. Once you have earned their respect as being a person of substance, you’re in.

I say: some truth in that – I’d say I was pretty loyal – though as for “intensely valuing” I don’t think I’d do that far: mostly I seem to forget about people (all the moving) and skip on the next friend pretty easily. As long as I’ve got people in my life that fit certain criteria – the sports buddy, the confidante, the stimulator – I don’t mind too much what body/face/name they happen to be wearing. That’s cold and harsh, right? Oh well: maybe if I didn’t change town every 6-12 months things would be different.

Main thing around this point though is something I’ve been musing on lately when I was questioning myself and why I don’t seem to value people very much or crave human interaction – particularly with relation to my former spiritual self when I used to love other humans so much – and the conclusion that I came to was this: that it’s because I love other humans so much that I tend to avoid them, because what I’m after is deep connection of the heart and the soul – and what I tend to find is smalltalk about things that don’t really matter, pointless material interests, stuff in shops and petty worries, etc. It’s disappointing – I find other people disappointing – and so rather than suffer that I just don’t bother, and tend to concentrate on those that I can find some deeper connection with.

Although, having said that, you all know how excited I can get by discussing such shallownesses as half-price cheese and football...

Myth #5 – Introverts don’t like to go out in public.

He says: Nonsense. Introverts just don’t like to go out in public FOR AS LONG. They also like to avoid the complications that are involved in public activities. They take in data and experiences very quickly, and as a result, don’t need to be there for long to “get it.” They’re ready to go home, recharge, and process it all. In fact, recharging is absolutely crucial for Introverts.

I say: I think it’s true that for quite a few years I haven’t been too bothered about going out in public. For me, it feels like there’s nothing there: there’s bricks and buildings and traffic and noise and crowds – and crowds are generally unappealing things – and mainly just more of those fripperies that I was talking about. If I ever go to a bar – which is about once a year – I’m bored within minutes: I know exactly what he means when he talks about taking in data quickly. You walk in, you see what’s going down, you see that nothing’s going to happen: let’s go. Same with most things I suppose. Public is the masses and the masses do strange things: they listen to weird noises (thinking it music) and they pour toxins into their bodies (thinking it fun). Fuck the public: that’s what I say. (The guy who wrote the original article is obviously much nicer than me.)

Myth #6 – Introverts always want to be alone.

He says: Introverts are perfectly comfortable with their own thoughts. They think a lot. They daydream. They like to have problems to work on, puzzles to solve. But they can also get incredibly lonely if they don’t have anyone to share their discoveries with. They crave an authentic and sincere connection with ONE PERSON at a time.

I say: Yup, being alone is fine. But I dig what he says about sharing – after all, why write? Why want to experience deep and eventful connections with others?

Myth #7 – Introverts are weird.

He says: Introverts are often individualists. They don’t follow the crowd. They’d prefer to be valued for their novel ways of living. They think for themselves and because of that, they often challenge the norm. They don’t make most decisions based on what is popular or trendy.

I say: Some people do think I weird: but in my own head, I feel perfectly normal, and I guess there ain’t too many people that can say that. Can’t say, though, that I have any interest in being valued for any supposed novel way of thinking – being valued don’t even come into it. Main thing is just feeling okay and satisfied and unbad. If thinking like everybody else could give me that then I’d have no qualms in doing it – but I guess I tried that and it didn’t quite work.

Myth #8 – Introverts are aloof nerds.

He says: Introverts are people who primarily look inward, paying close attention to their thoughts and emotions. It’s not that they are incapable of paying attention to what is going on around them, it’s just that their inner world is much more stimulating and rewarding to them.

I say: Sure, I’m an aloof nerd – no denials here. Half the time I’d rather be with my laptop than other humans – at least that don’t disappoint and pull on my energies in annoying ways. And when I say “half the time” I guess I’m being conservative. But he’s right when he talks about the inner-world: nothing boring there. That thing is a bottomless pit of wonder and intrigue and amusement and madness...

Myth #9 – Introverts don’t know how to relax and have fun.

He says: Introverts typically relax at home or in nature, not in busy public places. Introverts are not thrill seekers and adrenaline junkies. If there is too much talking and noise going on, they shut down. Their brains are too sensitive to the neurotransmitter called dopamine. Introverts and extroverts have different dominant neuro-pathways. Just look it up.

I say: Actually, I think that’s true that I don’t know how to relax. I mean, I feel pretty much relaxed all the time so the idea of relaxing isn’t something that I can relate to. How can you relax when you’re already relaxed? Why wouldn’t you just be relaxed – ie, tension-free – in everything you do? No reason why a person couldn’t be relaxed while working, playing, being busy. But it has concerned me because I have this image of, for example, holidays, where you should just be able to sit there and breathe out and think, “isn’t this marvellous?” and not have another thought in your brain – and I’ve never been able to do that. Thing is, it’s the inner-world: it’s always with you. And if the inner-world is your life and your hobby and your passion then why would you switch it off?

Likewise, fun: I guess I don’t really understand the concept of going “to do something fun” because I feel like: a) I’m already having fun; and b) doing things doesn’t really provide fun. Most things just seem sort of empty and tiring: though I suppose I do get a lot out of sport. Is that fun? Is “fun” what sport gives me? Or is it something else? Like the way it gives me a break from my brain and my thinking, the sheer presence and simplicity of putting your all into chasing a ball? Or maybe, in my case, the myth is actually a truth: that I don’t know how to relax and have fun – I mean, I honestly can’t think of a single thing, outside of sport or some other sort of game or competition, that one could do with a girlfriend, for instance, that I would class as “fun”.

Myth #10 – Introverts can fix themselves and become extroverts.

He says: A world without introverts would be a world with few scientists, musicians, artists, poets, filmmakers, doctors, mathematicians, writers, and philosophers. That being said, there are still plenty of techniques an extrovert can learn in order to interact with Introverts. (Yes, I reversed these two terms on purpose to show you how biased our society is.) Introverts cannot “fix themselves” and deserve respect for their natural temperament and contributions to the human race. In fact, one study (Silverman, 1986) showed that the percentage of Introverts increases with IQ.

I say: Hey, you is what you is – and the more you can learn to help you accept that, the better you feel. I dig his point that we live in an extrovert-dominant world and that the man who would rather sit at home with his books or his words or his movies or his lego is perhaps seen as a loser, a loner, and a failure – and that if he were only to get out there, do something fun, stop being so cooped up he’d be happy – but the real point is this: his unhappiness doesn’t come from not doing certain things, it comes from the expectation that he’s put on himself – and allowed others to put on him, accepted from them – that he’s somehow living life all wrong. Anything that encourages you to break out of this way of thinking and say, hey, the way I live is just fine and dandy, I am what I am – an introvert, a scanner, a contemplator, a recluse – and that’s the way I was made and there ain’t a damn thing wrong with it – is just grand. So long, of course, as there ain’t a damn thing wrong with it and that beyond trying to live up to expectations you really are satisfied and happy and content inside. By your own measure, of course: only you can decide whether you're living your life right and have need to change.

Something like that....
PS Do you think we should represent other people?

Nah, I reckon just represent yourself - and if other people want to come on board, the more the merrier.

Like you can lead a horse to water?

I suppose. But more like: hey, horse, I'm gonna dig this well and I'm gonna dig it good. You're welcome to join me. But if you think I'm gonna spoonfeed you - lead you, even...well for all I care you can die of thirst if you're too dumb to take a sip.

That's not very nice.

Don't worry, it's just a game with words: s'not real life, not me.

Phew. That's good to know.

;-)

quick update (kwupdate)

Wahoo! Got my first MA grade today and it was a 71 for that Gladwell essay. Nice: I was thinking something like 63-68. So I guess I needn't have worried.

(To convert English results to American, by the way, add 20.)

In other news...Ali's away for ten days doing Vipassana (lovely girl)...I'm a little bit crippled after football yesterday (scored 2, made 1 then early in second-half landed real bad on me back: took five minutes to crawl off pitch)...all's going well in the writing (done first thirty minute script for Wayne Mercedes TV show; plus the rest of it)...and Leeds continues to be wonderful, despite lots in the news about students getting bashed and attacked and mugged (hopefully I don't look that much like a student).

Referee's course starting next week! And I also did a spiffing open mic. Sorry no blogging, all time taken up: a) with uni; b) with girlfriend; c) going to sleep early; d) watching movies and comedy; e) football and squash (before back destroyed); f) reading; g) doing favours for my dad; h) yup, that's pretty much everything.

Cheers!
Rory

Fabricationally Challenged

Got an email the other day to go tryout for University Challenge. Fuck it, why not? Not that I'd ever get on but I likes me quizzes and I had a couple of hours to kill. Also wanted to see what kind of people would be going - the students at Leeds these days are all pretty generic (not like back in the nineties, when everyone was in bands and listened to Ozric Tentacles and did the patchouli thing) and I couldn't imagine any UC-types lurking round here. But, lo and behold, there they were: awkward kids; kids with spod haircuts; kids in tweed jackets and older-people's shoes farting about like poor men's dandies; geeks and goofs and twats and swots: ya know, the kinda kids that give a monkey's whether past-participle blah blah blah (I got that question wrong).

Anyways, nothing to lose. So I answers the questions, gets a few right here and there, and, sure, I feel a bit thick but it's a decent use of the time (better than wanking into the neighbour's gutters, like some people do). Me and some asocial kid swap papers and, luckily, he's done rubbish, scored only like 8 out of 60 and at least I've beaten him. I got 21. The quizmaster tells us the average is 15. Hey ho, at least I'm very slightly above average.

Then, outside, the spoddiest, twattiest bunch of little student kiddy-winks are talking and I decide I'm going to ask them what they got and then tell them I got 31, just to wind 'em up. One of 'em had been complaining that the questions were all for old people (tweed jacket arsehole) and I suppose I wanted to prove him right. Thing was, brainy fuckers though they obviously were, they all did shit, got like 10 and 12 and maybe 15. Damn. No need to lie. But I did so anyway. If they were bothered by the outrageous score I claimed they didn't show it. Hopefully later.

Thing is - wow, I felt bad about that stupid little lie! All it was supposed to do was amuse me - but it wrankled in my brain like a rattling loose turd: you know how it is when you tell a lie; it just don't sit right. Man, I know I ain't told any sort of lie in years - but you'd think I might get away with that one, something so puny and small and harmless and daft that don't cause no one no harm. But there it is: I just can't lie. Ah well.

To cap it all, the email comes through that I've passed to the final round. 300 students quizzed and I'm one of twenty-eight to score twenty and above. Top mark was 33; the lowest - don't laugh - just 3.

Not a chance in a million I'll get on there. And not even an ounce of wanting to - you think I wanna look dumb as I stumble and fall under Paxman's mighty glare and the crushing intellects of Spod's College, Oxwank next to three weird-haired toff's ass Leeds kids? No ways. Like: zoiks.

But first round were fun. And I learned something about lying. Which is nice.

Football

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Cheese watch brigade

One of the best things about living in England is the supermarkets: seriously, they're everywhere, and they're lovely, and even if you don't need anything your day can be brightened by a leisurely stroll up and down the aisles of a Sainsbury's or a Tesco. You think I'm being facetious - but I'm not. I love 'em. They're warm. And they're full of people who aren't afraid of you 'cos they know you're shopping and they're shopping too, and we've that in common, at least. You can smile and say hi and laugh over something daft or comment on the contents of their basket. You can even let them squeeze in front of you, if "that's all you've got?" and be all chivalrous and good like some knight from Victorian times. I rest my case. BUT ---

The best is yet to come - and this is where all you Americans and Canadians and even Mexicans and Australians will weep - 'cos the deals they offer in our supermarkets are enough to make you want to piss out your own eyeballs. Buy one get one free? Sure, we got that in spades. But what about all the half-price offers we're swamped with every week? And what about - hold your pants and shit on your hands in anticipation - buy one, get TWO free? Really. It exists. Okay, so it's generally only on something shitty like Pringle's - I've learned my lesson there - but it paints a picture, no? And what with shit and piss and pants and eyeballs already mentioned, it's a pretty picture indeed.

Mostly what I buy is this:

Half-price or buy-one-get-one-free Cheddar cheese

Half-price pizza

Half-price or £1 margarine-type spread

Half-price or £1 fancy crisps

There may be other things too. Apples are always on special, so there's no point buying them when not. Likewise olive oil. Satsumas I got for a quid the other day when they're normally £2.19 - this isn't stuff that's almost out of date, by the way: that's a whole 'nother kettle of bargainous fish - and if you're into ice cream, and I'm talking Ben 'n' Jerry's or Haagen Dazs, then that's generally on half-price offer somewhere too. Thing is, though, the deals move around, and some weeks they might not have them at all - you may well be put in the position of either having to fork out full whack or, perish the thought, sacrificing pizza night. But, generally, it's only a matter of time, and a matter of snooping. Which is what brings me here.

Ye, let it be known that up until this day I have always relied on good fortune and standard popping into the shops to get my cut price groceries. But, from this day forward, no more! For, with the advent of the internet, I have come to realise it's but a simple matter of wasting thirty minutes or so to browse the various websites and spy on their cheese in order to ensure their deals. Voila! And if that's not enough good news for one millennium - I'm going to share it with you here. Starting right now. So.

Cheese

English/Scottish/Welsh Cheddar (350g) - half-price at Morrisons (£1.74)

Lake District Extra Mature Cheddar (400g) - half price at Morrisons (£2.14)

Cathedral City Extra Mature Cheddar (350g) - buy one get one free at Tesco (£4.28)

Spread

Clover (5oog) - half-price at Morrisons (£1)

Utterly Butterly (500g) - buy one get one free at Tesco (£1.80)

Pizza

Goodfellas (340-490g) - half-price at Morrisons (£1.24-£1.34)

Goodfellas (414-428g) - half-price at Tesco (£1.21-£1.34)

Fruit and veg

Satsumas (7) - better than half-price at Sainsburys (£1)

Mangos, clementines, plums and apples - buy one get one free at Sainsburys (£2)

Pineapple - special offer at Tesco (£1)

Giant persimmon - half-price at Tesco (50p)

Broccoli (335g) - buy one get one free at Tesco (97p)

Big leaf spinach (400g) - half-price at Tesco (£1)

Finest Elfe potatoes (1.5kg) - half-price at Tesco (£1)

NB Don't buy fruit at Morrisons - it's cack

Also

New Covent Garden Soup (600g) - half-price at Morrisons (£1.07)

Haagen Dazs Ice cream (500ml) - half-price at Morrisons (£2.29)

Linda McCartney's Sausages (6) - half-price at Morrisons (99p)

Plus a million other things besides that I'm not that interested in (turkey, biscuits, etc).

Alright, so that's enough of that nonsense - I've grown pretty quickly tired of looking and cutting and pasting and I think I've proved my point. In a nutshell:

1. You can always get most of what you need at half-price or buy one get one free or better.

2. Morrisons is leading the field when it comes to deals that're practically steals.

3. There ain't much going on in the pizza world at the minute. For Goodfellas, as we all know, is rubbish pizza.

4. The cheese market has gone mental! Where did all this half-price cheddar come from? (I don't think I want to know is the answer to that.)

5. Not all my ideas are good ideas: I don't think I'll ever do this again.

6. If you can, it's best to just never buy anything that's not half-price.

7. I need to get back to doing other things.

8. I'll bet if you're North American and you've got this idea that your country's somehow cheaper than mine you're weeping into your pumpkin and peanut butter Wonderbread sandwiches right now.

9. It pays to look at things online: wouldn't have known about those Linda McCartney sausages otherwise. Bet I'm eating Linda's real soon! :-)

(PS I do eat lots of other things besides - this is just the offer stuff. In case you were worried about my seemingly atrocious diet.)

J.D. came to see us

So Jeremy Dyson, one of the writers of the BBC's jolly successful weird comedy The League of Gentleman came to lead the seminar yesterday. Was mighty awesome and inspirational. And made me want to write my thoughts and share them on our group blog. Which is what I did. And what you can read below...

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What a wonderful talk by that nice Mr Dyson! Seems like, for me, he’s put everything in place, and given strength to that timid little voice that says, but I just don’t think writing works like that, Mr McField: I think it’s something more organic, something more magic, something that almost gives birth to itself. Sure, I dig the work ethic – I ain’t some mad bohemian who thinks everything should come out fully-formed in one great flash of good-feelin’ and inspiration and if the world don’t want it it’s ‘cos the world is crass and idiotic – but all your talk of structure and inciting incident just leaves me cold. And let me ask you this one fine question, oh God of screenplays: how many scripts you had put into production anyways?

This was the sentence that summed it up for me: “all those things are tools of analysis, not tools of creation.” The 3-act play, the story arc, the plot points and moments of crisis and false climax and full and final climax: they all came about after the fact, through reading and studying the huge body of literature that works. Nobody sat down and plotted it out in that manner: not Dickens nor Austen nor Vonnegut nor Carver. And that’s not what I want to do either. Sure, you can look back when the story’s over and say, oh yeah, this is plot point one, this is the protagonist and that’s his need: but that’s all in the reflection, not in the writing. Ultimately, surely, the only question is this: does it work? And maybe analysis can help in the rewrite when the answer’s “no” – or maybe it can’t, ‘cos it might all be obvious anyway. Is it dragging? Chop it down. Is it missing something? Then find out what it is and put it in. Is it shit? Well just start again.

All this talk of what makes a story…to discuss the requirements of character, of protagonist…that’s just saying that it’s going to be about somebody, which is kind of a given. And to talk about narrative, about plot: that’s just saying it’s made up of words and that something happens – ideally, something interesting. But as for specifics, formulas, demands and rules? No, I don’t think so.

What else did he say? He said that often it’s our subconscious that does the work, and, indeed, that the best parts are written by our subconscious. That sometimes things arrive more or less fully-formed and we are more like midwives helping to bring them into the world – implying that they are gifted to us, that they come from elsewhere, which is certainly something I’ve experienced and agree with. He said the key is to follow what you love, what fascinates you, and to be the most pure you you can be on paper. He said writing takes faith and letting go. I dig it all.

None of this is to say, however, that I believe writing is purely inspiration, that there’s no place for forethought, and that hard work doesn’t play its part. Sometimes a piece may appear to write itself – but I’d say it’s a rare story that doesn’t involve a hell of a lot of grind. I don’t know who it was that said writing is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration but I think they must’ve been pretty smart.

I never wrote fiction before I did my BA: I was always strictly a memoir/blogger-type person and I didn’t think I had it in me. But I did a class on reading and writing the short story and, lo and behold, there was stuff in there that, with a bit of pressure and necessity, came out not so bad. The first story I wrote was okay, nothing special; the second…I remember sitting down on the morning it was supposed to be handed in and I had this thing I was gonna write all planned out. I started, I got a little ways in, and…it stalled. It just wasn’t working. And the clock was ticking. I deleted everything I’d written and next thing I knew some whole new idea had come out of me and within a couple of hours I had a complete piece of work that I felt pretty pleased with. Tutor liked it, and after a lot of editing and redrafting I submitted it to an anthology and it got published. The editor of the book said it made the first guy who read it cry. In a good way, I think.

The point is, I don’t know where it came from. I do know that a seed had been planted when the creative writing tutor had said, “short stories are about little things: you wouldn’t write a short story about the end of the world, for example” – and I’d thought, oh yeah? That’s what I’ll do then. But other than that, nothing. It seemed like it came out of thin air, that it kind of wrote itself. But I suppose the subconscious must’ve been working on it all along. And the other point is this: even though it may have seemed to fall out of me pretty much effortlessly in the space of two or three hours, and arrived on the screen more or less complete and already good, it took another two or three weeks of editing the arse out of it, right down to the last lousy comma, before it really started to shine. I learned something grand in that. Writing really is work.

So thanks Mr Dyson: I feel more inspired than ever to write what I feel is in my piss and bones, even though it may not be trendy or palatable to Hollywood or get me great grades. But I do believe it’s good, and works, and that somewhere there’s an audience for it. And, for now, that’s what feels most crucial.

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Note: "McField" is the quick way of typing "Syd Field and Robert McKee". Their philosophy seems to have dominated things thus far in our learnings.

Bohemia

1.

Being a summary of the final chapter of Alain de Botton’s ‘Status Anxiety’

At the start of the nineteenth century a new type of person began to be noticed in Western Europe and the United States. He dressed simply. He lived in the cheaper parts of town. He read a lot and valued art and emotion above material success. He was often of melancholic temperament. He came to be known as ‘bohemian’.

The bohemian is defined, primarily, by what he is not: bourgeois. “Hatred of the bourgeois is the beginning of wisdom,” wrote Flaubert. Whereas the bourgeoisie accord status on the basis of commercial success and public reputation, what matters to the bohemian, above all else, is to dedicate himself to feeling and art. The martyr figures of bohemia sacrifice the security of a regular job to paint, travel, make music, and write. He may never have comfort, may struggle sometimes to feed his body, but it is not the body he is to be concerned with, it is the purity of the expression of his soul. Lack of success in his field is no indicator of failure – for the world is governed by idiocy and prejudice and it is only natural that it should reject and misunderstand the refined sensibilities of the artist. That he is not understood is a sign there is much to understand. That he is neglected and even tortured emphasises his superiority and dignity. The poet is almost fated to a life of poverty and despair, perhaps even suicide. Like the delicate flower, he does not fit into this world of crassness and soul-destroying work. Like the albatross that soars majestic, once landed his great wings render him unable to walk. Like the crucified Jesus, he stands above the mass of men, loved, then hated, then loved again. His life is a spiritual life and a life of non-conformity – yet merely not conforming with the bourgeois is not enough: he must actively oppose. He should irritate, annoy, shock and offend: devote himself to anything so long as it is taboo to Mid-Westerners, pharmacists, and judges.



2.

Being a long and stupid failed attempt to reflect on my own life with regard to bohemia.

Reading that chapter reminds of something I once was, and am, and have now passed through. Certainly, to value feeling and creative expression above all else – through travel and writing – is a large feature in my life. And to shun material wealth too. And yet, there is so much about the bohemian philosophy that is not only laughable, but also a little ‘primitive’. One can only go so long defining oneself by what one is not. If hatred of the bourgeois is the beginning of wisdom – and by this I understand hatred of the aspect of oneself that is conformist, unoriginal, unthinking, merely habitual – then perhaps love of the bourgeois is the end. Live and let live, that’s what I say. Each to their own. You do your thing and I’ll do mine. And a million other clichés besides. I have no need to make anyone come around to my way of thinking – all go where they need to go in their own time – and it affects me not how others live their lives. If I want to be poor, to create, to travel, to live simply: all well and good. And if others want to devote themselves to money and fancy cars: that’s okay too. Sure, there are certain aspects of the world as it has been set up that make my chosen existence seemingly more difficult than it needs to be – but then again, it’s not that hard to work around it. One can, for example, get a job: they ain’t so bad.

It seems a prime tenet of the bohemian life to avoid work. “All jobs, other than poet and warrior, are soul-destroying,” Baudelaire declared. A hundred years later, Kerouac spoke out against “tight-collared commuters” and praised bums and artists who watched freight trains pass. Well, I don’t know about Baudelaire but I do know that Kerouac ended up a miserable mess of man who drank himself into an early grave. The thing that they don’t seem to have realised is…jobs are okay. I know, I know: we’ve been taught all our lives about the drudgery and wretchedness of the 9-5, the office cubicle, the shirt and tie – that ancient symbol of imprisonment – but as one who has journeyed to that land, I want to tell you that it’s not that bad. Number one, there are a lot of nice people there. Number two, it gives you a reason to get out of bed every day and gives structure to your week. And, number three, it pays the bills, puts food in your belly, and gives you a place to sleep.

In the ideal world, of course, we wouldn’t have to work to do those things: all that’d be taken care of and we’d be able to devote every second of our day to what we really want to do. But, again, that’s another land I’ve been to and I don’t think it works like that. With endless free time, there’s no real pressure: tomorrow will always be there – as will the day after that. I’ve never been more creative than when I’ve had a deadline or had to squeeze in what I wanted to do around my forty hours of work. Conversely, I’ve never been less creative than when I had months of nothingness and a home and a bed and ample money in the bank.
Another surprising thing about work, I’ve found, is that it actually frees me up in certain ways. Without structure, I can be prone to overly think about what to do with my time, where I should go, perhaps what I need to change. Should I leave town? Should I get a job? If so, what job should it be? I start looking for things to do, places to go, and that becomes my life. Even if I have a little bit of money and aren’t going hungry, I may wonder about the future, worry about how I’ll survive when that money runs out. The future looms so much larger when there’s not much of foundation in the present. Work answers all those questions for the mind – and, like I say, it ain’t that bad.

My last job was as a landscape gardener: I quite literally dug it. I remember one time I hadn’t worked for a bit and I was moping around feeling a bit lost and bad, even depressed. And then my boss called me up late in the morning and asked if I could go in: within the hour I was happily digging away and a life that had seemed so dreary had suddenly become filled with joy.

Another great lesson to me was that offices are actually really cool: I worked eight months for the Canadian government in Guelph – filing, doing admin, sitting in little cubicles – and, I swear, it’s the only job I’ve had that I didn’t want to leave. Sure, there were times when I hated it – but there was a point, maybe five months in, when something clicked and work became joy. I decided I was going to do it my way, that was part of it. But perhaps it was also that I stopped fighting, came to accept my position. The people were good people. The work wasn’t hard. And there were plenty of opportunities to make it fun. All my life I’d believed that offices were death – but had I not been at the end of my visa I may have still been there.

I guess what I’m saying is, hey, bohemian, don’t underestimate the value of work. It’s not only good for body and mind but it can also be of benefit to the soul.

No longer opposing the world of work is just part of my not really opposing anything. I just don’t see the sense in it. Okay, I’m lucky that I live in a free country, and have a passport that affords me passage to almost every country in the world, and am not tied down by familial commitments or fear. But at the same time I think it’s more than that: because, for sure, there are a hell of a lot of people in my position who can find plenty of things to oppose. It all strikes me, though, as naivety – let’s not say ignorance – and a certain lack of psychological development.

Let’s look at protests, for example – which I’m immediately conscious I know so little about, and judge quite superficially, which is sort of what I’m protesting against here, irony of ironies – and try and peer a little deeper. Because, for me, it’s mostly just a lot of angry people finding things to project there anger at. When a million people marched on London to protest the Iraq war were they really horrified by what Blair was doing or did they just want someone in power they could pick on and make fun of, and have a jolly day out shouting at the police and climbing on statues? No doubt there were some who felt deeply moved by what was going on and needed to express their voice – but I’ll happily and confidently wager any hat I’ve got that it was mostly just people doing something for a laugh. Students and the rise in tuition fees? Well of course they don’t want to pay any extra money, who would? But that’s hardly a reason to change policy. Why should they be supported? What’s the alternative to raising fees? Those are the questions I’d like to see protesters answer, not mere whines that it’s not fair.

But I’m getting off the point: the point is about opposition. And the thing is, with the bohemians, it was like they had an obsession with the so-called bourgeois that didn’t seem healthy. So they didn’t want to live them: big deal. But why go out of your way to piss them off? Why not just let them be? I mean, what harm are they doing to you? But perhaps it’s all just a way to avoid going deeper into one’s own psychological makeup – into their precious soul – and it was just easier to find an enemy in the outside than to do the demanding work of looking within.

The bohemians – if we can massively generalise – were hedonistic and carousers. To me, that will always designate a certain basicness of development. A man who sucks a carcinogenic smoke into his lungs, or imbibes a toxic liquid such as alcohol until it causes him significant impairment is lacking a very specific kind of intelligence and awareness, and it’s a sure sign that he is not operating anywhere near the depths of his being. Finding multiple enemies in the world, likewise, is, in my opinion, another of those signs.

All the world is a mirror and every man is your brother. It is not important what he does to you, but what you are to him. If you hate your enemy, unpalatable as they may be, you are still hating. Anger is not necessarily an unhealthy emotion in its place, but when it becomes hatred it becomes an ugly and poisonous thing. That the bohemians hated and sought to annoy and upset the bourgeois – the “pharmacists and the judges” – says nothing about the bourgeois and everything about the bohemians: namely, that they were hateful people. And, for me, that’s something to get over.

So, hating and being an ass to others only reflects badly on yourself, even when those others are perhaps asses too. But, more than that, it also demonstrates a certain shortsightedness – as though the office worker in the suit and tie who stresses and strains at work and goes home tired is all there is to the man. But perhaps he is a loving husband and father also. Perhaps he goes home every night and meditates three hours – or paints – or supports an aged mother and drives a hundred miles every weekend to see her. Perhaps, too, he has come to know his soul, and knows something of beauty and truth and love, and has chosen his work because it suits him. Perhaps none of that is true and he does hate his work, and hate himself and the world at large, and is deeply unhappy, as our mythology would have us believe. It’s quite possible, of course – but I’d like to consider all options.

I went a few weeks back to a talk by a few people associated with the arts and one guy who pricked my ears – not with his prick, I hasten to add – was a fellow who worked in association with Leeds council in setting up various arts-related events. One of the cool things he did was talk to local property owners and persuade to let artists use empty shops and offices to do exhibitions, installations, etc. Sounded like a great and beautiful thing: a real utopian, bohemian vision come to life in the middle of the city. He said it was hard to bring art to the city, that the cities were becoming more and more generic and that all the councils cared about was opening more shops like Primark. All sounded very sad. Anyway, that night there was a thing going at an empty space in The Light – Leeds’s newest shopping centre – and I decided to head on down. I was new to town and still filled with those visions you have of meeting awesome people that you might want to spend time with.

Well, in a nutshell, it was shite. Usual modern art kind of nonsense – a pile of tinned beans; some Argos catalogues arranged in a certain way; boards painted in ponderous, pretentious prose – plus a series of cacophonous, ‘avant garde’ (I suppose you’d call it) ‘music’ (I suppose you’d call it: noise is more like it) that is surely only of pleasure to the ones who are in their jazz trances making it. I don’t believe anybody there enjoyed it: just bodies wondering around looking for things that might be of substance but finding nothing; a gathering of minds gone wrong yet thinking themselves right. Happiness? No. Disappointing? Yes.
Little wonder that people prefer Primark to what the local art world has to offer if this is the best they can muster: I’ll take a Primark over the permanent establishment of a place like that any day, and I shouldn’t think I’ll enter into a Primark as long as I live. But it was shite, unappealing, dull and stupid. Which brings us right back to the bohemians.

Again, defining oneself by what you are not – even if the thing you are attempting to not be is ‘bad’ – doesn’t necessarily make you and what you do ‘good’. Most people walk dogs so Gérard de Nerval walked a lobster tied on a piece of blue ribbon. Posh people can be arses so the Dadaists interrupted their meals and shouted “dada” in their faces. And bankers and corporations can be greedy so protesters wear movie masks and camp in front of cathedrals. I see nothing commendable in any of that. I see attention-seeking, youthfulness, obnoxiousness, disrespect. How much more worthy a vision of truth and beauty that can leave everyone smiling.

I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore. Am I just typing words that fit with the ones that came before? Am I uttering utopian platitudes that speak of a way of being I am incapable of embodying – and perhaps one which is in total contrast to the way I live my life? Am I hateful and shallow because I mock and disregard protest and bohemia, think them lacking something that I think myself to have? Perhaps. The more I type, the more I feel like no more than a brain attached to a screen, something devoid from the reality of the package of body-mind-emotions that go to make up the living being currently known as Rory. But, no matter: I’ll go on.

Kerouac. Beatniks. Bohemians. Lee Miller and Man Ray. Neal Cassady. Bill Burroughs. All these souls, living their desperate, expressive, struggling lives. But happiness is where it’s at, for me. Number one: it is the happiness of your own soul. I like writing and I like it a lot – but if you could promise me happiness in exchange for my never tapping out another word, I’d take it. I don’t care, to be honest, what I do, as long as it fulfils me down to the tips of my toes. But the man who sucks on cigarettes, on whiskey bottles? Or the woman who rails against the status quo, the government, those who live their lives for material opulence and luxury? Can they really be happy and fulfilled? As I’ve said, hate is hate, whatever its target, and it simply ain’t good for you. Neither is liquor, intoxicants – you wouldn’t do those things if you truly loved yourself. Have a game of squash, Jack: you used to love your sports, captain of the team an’ all. Feel the air in your lungs. Run about. Put a tackle in. Go home dirty and aching and full of endorphins, some natural high, not just sitting there feeling bitter about the world and your life and wishing it would all go away. You don’t feel good, Jack? That ain’t the world’s fault, it ain’t society’s doin’. Society changes the way you want it and I’ll bet you’ll still feel the same, still find some other thing to blame for your woes. Look in the mirror, baby: it’s all you, it’s all your own doing. You gotta take responsibility, you gotta work out your own salvation. You don’t feel so good, you say? Well get off your arse. Get therapy. Put the cigarettes away. Go a little deeper into your soul. There ain’t no mystery to finding your joy – it’s all been written long ago – you just ain’t doin’ the work, keep thinking that the wrong things’ll bring you what you want, even though I keep telling you they won’t.

And what about you, Rory? Where you at? ‘Cos it weren’t that long ago all you could think of was hatin’ London – that’s right, I said “hate” – and there wasn’t so much in your life either…

You’re right, of course. Wow. I been thinking of that the whole time I been writing this thing: that I had hate, that I had fallen. Damn, it’s a whole lot better now: now that I’m up in Leeds, doing something I enjoy, with a nice girl to come home to every night. Without that…sure, I wouldn’t be so happy: a big part of life is what you come home to, you know I believe that; and, sure, I ain’t got no job – that I been speaking so highly of – but it sure feels like I got me an occupation. Studying. Being a student. And I like that.

Yeah, life’s all right. I don’t even know why I got to railing on them bohemians. I read that chapter and it fired a few things in my head – make me think about what I once was, all mad and idealistic and thick – and it made me think about where they fell short, all those despairing poets and suicides and old Jack, drinking himself to death when he had the chance to break on into something new, that Buddhist thing he flirted with but ultimately ignored for his love of bitterness and the bottle. It’s a shame what people become, just ‘cos of art. Number one: make yourself happy. Be decent to other people. Fix your own heart. Pissin’ people off ain’t no way to make good things happen. They’re all hung up on shaking the status quo, being controversial, as though that was an end in itself. And, sure, some good things have been weird and shocking to your standard Joe – but it don’t mean that every little thing that shocks him will be outstanding. That talk I went to also had this woman who seemed to think all theatre – that was her gig – had to challenge people, get in their face and make them think. But why not just make something lovely? What’s wrong with that? So much of it is just diseased and twisted minds revealing themselves to the world: it ain’t evolved. Cassady and Ginsberg, much as I loved their joie de vivre, mainly just talked shite. Bill Burroughs had a head half cracked – and it shows. What people see in that stuff, God only knows. James Joyce? Well there’s a man who never appreciated the benefit of an hour’s 5-a-side. Poor, poor souls, the lot of ‘em – but then maybe they were doing what they needed to do, just as they needed to do it, and it’s all somehow served me for the better in my own journey towards joy. Kerouac takes one path and reveals to all the misery of too much art and too much liquor and we all see it ain’t such a good path to take. Meanwhile, the rich banker goes down his way and, despite his yachts and big ass houses, we see the lies in his eyes and the stresses on his face, and we think, no thanks, we’d rather just be happy sitting in our little basement flats popping fifty pees in the metres and having hugs, weaving rugs, strumming our gee-tars and – oh shit, I’m still a bohemian.

Okay, I’m still a bohemian: and when I started churning out this shite I think I knew that’s where I would end up. But a modified one. The latest model in a long line, stretching right back to the start of the nineteenth century, when the first white young male decided to toss off his career for a life of substandard poetry and woe; and then when the woe didn’t work he thought maybe he’d get up to fight, get in the faces of those that had what he secretly wanted (security) but didn’t want what he had (poems); and then when that didn’t work – when he realised that fighting society was still being in that society – he dropped out, and left it all behind, took to the road and learned the joys of nature, touched his soul and found self-expression, wildness and freedom; and then he said, let’s go beyond that: let’s be healthy too, dig ourselves a little well of happiness, not piss people off, and not be bad to our own bodies, and not harbour hatred in our own hearts; let’s be hippies, and love each other and the world; and let’s go beyond that too, because that doesn’t work, and keep adapting and shifting and changing till we find something that does; let’s go back to the world; let’s take our art and our love to the world once more, and if they won’t have it, fine, ‘cos we’ll have it and we won’t need them to have it, we’ll still keep on doing it and we got our little day job to take care of all the rest ‘cos, you know what, we sort of dig that too. Hey, don’t you feel healthy? Don’t you feel balanced? You can go to yoga and you can go to football; you can paint and make music and you can turn up for work in the office the next day too; if you want to, you can do on holiday, go live on the beach for a while; you can raise kids; you can learn love. You can do whatever you want: even write long and pointless blogs that so few people will read and still get that feeling that you’re expressing yourself to the world, that you’re being heard, that you’ve found an audience. So you won’t get paid: so what? The reward is right here, in the expression, in the sharing – and if I want some money, there’s plenty of ways to do that. Not all work is soul-destroying, you know. But then again, some things are. Not living the life you want to live, for example. But what’s stopping you? If you can dream it, you can be it, I promise you. Just don’t expect – you substandard poet, you writer of pointless blogs – for the world to suck your cock and tuck you into bed at night too. Sheesh. Now that’s asking a bit much.

It’s a good old life.




3.

Being a short story I might make up, in which a group of young people growing up in a small town form a club that embodies the history of bohemia.