I guess it's ironic
That I did all that writing yesterday
About no longer wanting to write
Posted it on a blog I declare
A pointless waste of time
Spent hours editing it
After extolling the virtues of
Pure
Unadulterated
Expression
Then wrote emails
Then sat all day on this computer
Then thought about books I wanted to publish
Feeling liberated by the knowledge
That I no longer had to
But more than that -
Change comes slowly
In the beginning, there is the feeling
Then the thought
And then the word
I may know what I want to do
Or at least have an inkling
But it takes time
To make it real
It's two years since I first admitted
That I was afraid of love
Exactly twelve months ago
That I first deleted this blog
And abandoned journalling
For all of ten weeks
Five months since
I really did stop it
Though here I am again
And pretty much exactly four years ago
That I fasted a week at the hot springs
And knew in the depths of my heart
That what I need is a wife
It occurred to me many years ago
That life has its own gestation periods
Quite often, actually,
Somewhere around nine months
Between time of conception
And its popping into the world
Still
I'm feeling a little like...
I'm stuffing the baby back up the chute
Holding it in
Prolonging the labour
Pretending it's never been born
I'm feeling like I need to break free
But can't
Forever stumbling into the past
And submitting to habits
Habits unfortunately not quite as damaging
As taking drugs
Getting drunk
Crashing cars
Gentle habits
But destructive nonetheless
How about some
New Year's resolutions
Evolutions
Ideals
Or at least suggestions?
1. I will delete this blog.
2. I will just talk instead.
3. Or at least handwrite and type just for myself, and not as a way of avoiding talking about something, but as a means of aiding expression, and getting down to the heart of the matter
4. I shall stop endlessly looking back on things previously written. Get it out of me and then move on. File it away if necessary. But maybe just "burn it", like the Bibles of yesterday's monk (I shudder).
5. I shall try to forget about writing books, and just live instead. And if Life directs me to writing books, I shall give it a go.
6. I will stop sending emails to people from the past. I often want to quit, and I get annoyed with how much I'm invested in that and when I have a backlog. But, truth is, it's mainly people just responding to me anyway. I so admire people who don't exist online. I know one person who has basically no online presence. I bet their life is lacking nothing.
7. I will quit facebook again and stay quitted. I will use emailing people just for purposes of arranging meetups, etc.
8. I will try to use the telephone more. I'm always saying that. But never actually doing it.
9. In a nutshell, trying to get back to how life was before the blasted internet. It was good back then. Things moved forward. Flowed naturally. Never really harked back. I liked it. It's my fault it's difficult now to be like that. The internet is too powerful for me. Too stimulating. There's always something going on. But as my time in Exeter and Mexico and Greece proved, it's just not as healthy as life in the outside world. I want to break away. Keep it merely for football results and plane tickets. I wonder if I can. Not easy.
10. I want to give myself to love. To not run away from it. To find someone who can deal with my madness, my vulnerability, my complexities - as well as all the good things I have to offer. To find that person and then stick to them like glue. Not in a smothering way, but in a sense of true commitment. I'm ready for that.
11. I want to work a good job. Be productive. Help others. And go home to a happy situation. Many years ago I decided "life is what you go home to." A difficult job can be tolerated by what's waiting for you at the end of the day. And a wonderful job can still seem empty if it excludes sharing your life with somebody you love.
12. I want to work my way up the football referee ladder.
13. I want to find a place to call home.
14. I want to be in a position where the making of one or two little people is not only possible but likely and even inevitable.
15. I want to overcome my inability to feel wanted and loved.
16. I want to stop looking at pictures of and reading about celebrities.
I guess the main thing is:
I want to quit the internet
Woohoo!
I'll betcha that's easier said than done
I've certainly said it before
But then what if I just tossed a coin?
"Heads, I shall completely obliterate this blog
By the end of the year"
I toss the coin
And heads it is
"Heads, I shall close my email accounts"
And this time it's tails
"Heads, I'll close my Skype account"
Heads
(I only ever used it with one person anyway)
And then I went and spent two silly hours
Trying to remove my presence
From dozens of years-old
Forums and arcade sites
Reading words like:
"Last login: April 10th 2003"
Friday 20 December 2013
Thursday 19 December 2013
Victoria, BC #5
I've come to Victoria
Ostensibly to write
But what I've realised is
Writing to publish
Striving to craft
Is a
Hateful
Objectionable
Destructive
Use of my time
I like
Pure flow expression
For personal growth
The rest of it?
Fuck it.
I thought the whole reason I came to Canada
Was to knuckle down and work
Write some books
Expunge long-cherished ideas
But really I came
To fall in love
To find a new way of life
Love is more important than writing
Happiness is more important than recognition
I would rather dig holes
And go home to somebody's warm arms
Than slave away on this computer
For such little reward.
How did it come to this?
Why do I try?
Wherefore the roots
Of this compulsion to write?
Well once upon a time
I wrote an online journal
It was therapy
Helped me heal
Allowed exploration of unseemly parts
That were accepted by others
I enjoyed the expression
And then I went on
To live an interesting life
Which others enjoyed reading about
Then came the leap:
You should write a book, they said
You should get published
You can change the world
Get rich
Find fame
We make this leap all the time
With musicians
With artists
With understandings
With feelings
But why do we seek to take something so pure
Something so natural
And concretise it
In a shape
That conforms to the world?
Habit, I guess
The way the mind slots into grooves
Follows well-trod paths
All those people saying
"You should write a book"
Thinking they're giving encouragement
Really they're placing a curse
Planting a seed
For a weed
That grows enormous
Dragging me in its spiny tendrils
To places I don't want to go.
This blog...
It's been a long time
Since it was therapy
And I suppose I continue it
Out of habit and compulsion
The joy of typing
And an unwillingness to
Let go
Not recognising
Things have long since changed
Does any good come of it?
Has it helped anyone in a real way?
I feel embarrassed when I think
Of the hours I've spent
In self-absorbed typing
And contrast it with people
Who do good in the world.
Likewise, my book
The urge to publish it
Placed like a bug in my brain
Fed by dreams of
Inspiration and change
Never having to worry about money again
Thinking
Because I'd found BLISS
- Incontrovertible evidence! -
Everyone one else would too
Such young, foolish delusions
Dreams I've dedicated years to
But - dig this:
It's out there and
It hasn't changed the world
Nobody cares
People read it and move on
Soon forget what's in there
And there are already a thousand books
Saying the same kind of things
And more advanced things than mine
I discovered one of them recently:
Michael Crichton's 'Travels'
He's a scientist and doctor
A successful and respected writer
He reports spiritual experiences
Impossible to deny
And yet
Denied they are
So where does that leave me?
I don't want to write
I don't want to waste my time
I don't want to be on this computer
Always wishing
For someone to discover me
I want to be in love
Learning about love
Living a simple life
Feeling happy and content
I know that works
And yet still I return
To these old ideas
About writing and words.
Two interesting things happened yesterday
The first was on a walk to a park
Where I climbed a nice tree
Sat in its branches
And pondered
I was emotional and fraught
At a loss with my urge
To abandon this writing
Plus having overdosed recently
On the great drug called LOVE
I hugged the tree
And thought of times trees had spoken
I said to the tree
"Oh, what shall I do?"
And the tree said
"This is your new life"
And I felt it.
The second was in a thrift store
Where I read a short story
About a monk on retreat
He forgot to bring his Bible
And the guestmaster said
"Why not write your own?"
He did, and it was useful
And then at the end of the year
The guestmaster suggested
Tossing it in the fire
Along with his journal
A whole year's wisdom and labour
Gone up in flames
When I read this
I suddenly burst into tears
Tears out of nowhere
Tears, I want to say,
I know not why
But I do.
Back in 2009
I lost a notebook containing
Many thousands of words
Of emotions and realisations
After briefly mourning
I saw quite clearly
That the greatest tragedy was not the loss of the words
Already expressed
But the loss of the blank pages
Never to be expressed on
It's true!
The pages were not for
Preserving
They were for
Unburdening
After losing that journal
I continued to write
But no longer thought about keeping
Everything was discarded
Sometimes immediately
And I missed it not.
Am I making my point?
And
More to the point
Am I picking up on it?
Acting on it myself?
It's hard
To break away
From such a
Long held
Compulsion
Especially with the weight of the world
Well-meaning friends
And my mind's own desires
Driving me along
To the edge of the cliff
But is it too late to
Change track
Step aside
And watch
The mad streaming juggernaut
Pass me by
And
Leave me free
Ready to walk
In a whole new direction?
What good came from
Facebook
This blog
My book
All those emails?
What
Return on Investment
For the thousands of hours?
The tree whispers
The mind wonders
The heart knows
But does the body act?
Ay: there's the rub
To force the body
To follow the feeling
To leave the known
To put a torch to the past
There's the faith
Faith in the face of the world
In the face of one's friends
In the face of one's dreams.
Ostensibly to write
But what I've realised is
Writing to publish
Striving to craft
Is a
Hateful
Objectionable
Destructive
Use of my time
I like
Pure flow expression
For personal growth
The rest of it?
Fuck it.
I thought the whole reason I came to Canada
Was to knuckle down and work
Write some books
Expunge long-cherished ideas
But really I came
To fall in love
To find a new way of life
Love is more important than writing
Happiness is more important than recognition
I would rather dig holes
And go home to somebody's warm arms
Than slave away on this computer
For such little reward.
How did it come to this?
Why do I try?
Wherefore the roots
Of this compulsion to write?
Well once upon a time
I wrote an online journal
It was therapy
Helped me heal
Allowed exploration of unseemly parts
That were accepted by others
I enjoyed the expression
And then I went on
To live an interesting life
Which others enjoyed reading about
Then came the leap:
You should write a book, they said
You should get published
You can change the world
Get rich
Find fame
We make this leap all the time
With musicians
With artists
With understandings
With feelings
But why do we seek to take something so pure
Something so natural
And concretise it
In a shape
That conforms to the world?
Habit, I guess
The way the mind slots into grooves
Follows well-trod paths
All those people saying
"You should write a book"
Thinking they're giving encouragement
Really they're placing a curse
Planting a seed
For a weed
That grows enormous
Dragging me in its spiny tendrils
To places I don't want to go.
This blog...
It's been a long time
Since it was therapy
And I suppose I continue it
Out of habit and compulsion
The joy of typing
And an unwillingness to
Let go
Not recognising
Things have long since changed
Does any good come of it?
Has it helped anyone in a real way?
I feel embarrassed when I think
Of the hours I've spent
In self-absorbed typing
And contrast it with people
Who do good in the world.
Likewise, my book
The urge to publish it
Placed like a bug in my brain
Fed by dreams of
Inspiration and change
Never having to worry about money again
Thinking
Because I'd found BLISS
- Incontrovertible evidence! -
Everyone one else would too
Such young, foolish delusions
Dreams I've dedicated years to
But - dig this:
It's out there and
It hasn't changed the world
Nobody cares
People read it and move on
Soon forget what's in there
And there are already a thousand books
Saying the same kind of things
And more advanced things than mine
I discovered one of them recently:
Michael Crichton's 'Travels'
He's a scientist and doctor
A successful and respected writer
He reports spiritual experiences
Impossible to deny
And yet
Denied they are
So where does that leave me?
I don't want to write
I don't want to waste my time
I don't want to be on this computer
Always wishing
For someone to discover me
I want to be in love
Learning about love
Living a simple life
Feeling happy and content
I know that works
And yet still I return
To these old ideas
About writing and words.
Two interesting things happened yesterday
The first was on a walk to a park
Where I climbed a nice tree
Sat in its branches
And pondered
I was emotional and fraught
At a loss with my urge
To abandon this writing
Plus having overdosed recently
On the great drug called LOVE
I hugged the tree
And thought of times trees had spoken
I said to the tree
"Oh, what shall I do?"
And the tree said
"This is your new life"
And I felt it.
The second was in a thrift store
Where I read a short story
About a monk on retreat
He forgot to bring his Bible
And the guestmaster said
"Why not write your own?"
He did, and it was useful
And then at the end of the year
The guestmaster suggested
Tossing it in the fire
Along with his journal
A whole year's wisdom and labour
Gone up in flames
When I read this
I suddenly burst into tears
Tears out of nowhere
Tears, I want to say,
I know not why
But I do.
Back in 2009
I lost a notebook containing
Many thousands of words
Of emotions and realisations
After briefly mourning
I saw quite clearly
That the greatest tragedy was not the loss of the words
Already expressed
But the loss of the blank pages
Never to be expressed on
It's true!
The pages were not for
Preserving
They were for
Unburdening
After losing that journal
I continued to write
But no longer thought about keeping
Everything was discarded
Sometimes immediately
And I missed it not.
Am I making my point?
And
More to the point
Am I picking up on it?
Acting on it myself?
It's hard
To break away
From such a
Long held
Compulsion
Especially with the weight of the world
Well-meaning friends
And my mind's own desires
Driving me along
To the edge of the cliff
But is it too late to
Change track
Step aside
And watch
The mad streaming juggernaut
Pass me by
And
Leave me free
Ready to walk
In a whole new direction?
What good came from
This blog
My book
All those emails?
What
Return on Investment
For the thousands of hours?
The tree whispers
The mind wonders
The heart knows
But does the body act?
Ay: there's the rub
To force the body
To follow the feeling
To leave the known
To put a torch to the past
There's the faith
Faith in the face of the world
In the face of one's friends
In the face of one's dreams.
Wednesday 11 December 2013
Canadian supermarkets
Fuck Canadian supermarkets!
Walking through their doors
Is like entering some
Parallel
Surreal
Universe
Like asking a man in a corner shop
For a can of coke
And the man says
That'll be eight thousand pounds please
Like those crazy strip joints in London
Where strippers dupe you into glasses of champagne
That cost more than they do
(Never happened to me)
I'm pissed man!
All those years in England
Honing my shopping skills
Getting my routine down
My
System
Home Bargains for ninety-nine pee
Eggs (free range; six; large)
Pesto (Bertolli, mind)
Jars of Patak's curry sauce
Four-packs of lovely triple-ply toilet roll
Two hundred and fifty gram
Bags of figs
And then skip on over to Morrison's
For a five hundred gram bag of dates
One pound twenty-nine
(Seventy-nine pee in Home Bargains
Though not as good)
A loaf of Burgen's
Often but a quid
A lovely block of mature cheddar
With nothing weird added
Three hundred and fifty grams
For one pound eighty
(That's not the cheapest, mind
But one must buy good cheese)
And pizza
And veggie sausages
And lentils
And all the other things I buy
(There are probably other things)
And now it's like
All of a sudden
Some fucker's gone and changed the rules
Placed numbers next to products that
Do
Not
Belong
Six dollars
For a dozen eggs?
Five bucks
For a jar of cooking sauce?
Four dollars
For a loaf of bread?
I had it down, man!
But the rug's been pulled
And the cheese is not only
Crazy Martian prices
But a crazy Martian colour too
It bounces when you drop it
You sink your teeth into
Spongy
Rubber
Plasticine
No flavour
No resemblance
To cheese
To food
To anything of this world
And nobody bats an eyelid
I'm -
I'm cross about other things, I guess
I need a victim to take it out on
The prices here are mental
But people I respect
If I ever dared tell them
Would only say pertinent things like
"Shut the fuck up, Rory"
And
"If you don't like it
You can always go home"
And
"Anyway, isn't it a small price to pay
For all the awesome things you get
By being here?"
I'm sorry
You're right
I just struggle sometimes
I'd be the same in Switzerland or Japan
It's just taking my brain a little while to adjust is all
Well I've whooped it up in places like India
Now we get
The balance
I just wish I had appreciated more
That I lived in the greatest supermarket nation on Earth
Kissed the Kettle Chips that cost eighty-nine pee
Hugged tight tubs of margarine
That are always half-price
And wept with gratitude
To see men on market stalls
Selling enormous bags of
Bananas
Satsumas
Aubergines
Courgettes
For one pound
One pound
Everything's always one pound
I bet even maple syrup's
Cheaper in England
I -
No
I'm wrong
I just checked
It's not
Woohoo!
I think I've found some thing
Some reason
To live on
(The above 'poem' is written with tongue firmly in cheek. As if I'm really that anal and uptight and grumpy. As if.)
Walking through their doors
Is like entering some
Parallel
Surreal
Universe
Like asking a man in a corner shop
For a can of coke
And the man says
That'll be eight thousand pounds please
Like those crazy strip joints in London
Where strippers dupe you into glasses of champagne
That cost more than they do
(Never happened to me)
I'm pissed man!
All those years in England
Honing my shopping skills
Getting my routine down
My
System
Home Bargains for ninety-nine pee
Eggs (free range; six; large)
Pesto (Bertolli, mind)
Jars of Patak's curry sauce
Four-packs of lovely triple-ply toilet roll
Two hundred and fifty gram
Bags of figs
And then skip on over to Morrison's
For a five hundred gram bag of dates
One pound twenty-nine
(Seventy-nine pee in Home Bargains
Though not as good)
A loaf of Burgen's
Often but a quid
A lovely block of mature cheddar
With nothing weird added
Three hundred and fifty grams
For one pound eighty
(That's not the cheapest, mind
But one must buy good cheese)
And pizza
And veggie sausages
And lentils
And all the other things I buy
(There are probably other things)
And now it's like
All of a sudden
Some fucker's gone and changed the rules
Placed numbers next to products that
Do
Not
Belong
Six dollars
For a dozen eggs?
Five bucks
For a jar of cooking sauce?
Four dollars
For a loaf of bread?
I had it down, man!
But the rug's been pulled
And the cheese is not only
Crazy Martian prices
But a crazy Martian colour too
It bounces when you drop it
You sink your teeth into
Spongy
Rubber
Plasticine
No flavour
No resemblance
To cheese
To food
To anything of this world
And nobody bats an eyelid
I'm -
I'm cross about other things, I guess
I need a victim to take it out on
The prices here are mental
But people I respect
If I ever dared tell them
Would only say pertinent things like
"Shut the fuck up, Rory"
And
"If you don't like it
You can always go home"
And
"Anyway, isn't it a small price to pay
For all the awesome things you get
By being here?"
I'm sorry
You're right
I just struggle sometimes
I'd be the same in Switzerland or Japan
It's just taking my brain a little while to adjust is all
Well I've whooped it up in places like India
Now we get
The balance
I just wish I had appreciated more
That I lived in the greatest supermarket nation on Earth
Kissed the Kettle Chips that cost eighty-nine pee
Hugged tight tubs of margarine
That are always half-price
And wept with gratitude
To see men on market stalls
Selling enormous bags of
Bananas
Satsumas
Aubergines
Courgettes
For one pound
One pound
Everything's always one pound
I bet even maple syrup's
Cheaper in England
I -
No
I'm wrong
I just checked
It's not
Woohoo!
I think I've found some thing
Some reason
To live on
(The above 'poem' is written with tongue firmly in cheek. As if I'm really that anal and uptight and grumpy. As if.)
Monday 9 December 2013
Victoria, BC
And now I'm in BC
Back with wonderful Eric
Eric of Christmas 2001
Christmas 2009
Eric the actual genuine published writer
Eric with a spare apartment he says I can stay in
To give some time to writing
To have long chats about everything
To eat and walk his dog
To -
I left Saskatoon Saturday morning
Took a semi-spontaneous flight
Rolling a dice right there in front of the check-in girl
And the dice said "buy"
Was weird to splash so much cash
On such a short flight
To skip out on the Rockies
To abandon the thumb
But perhaps it's time for a different way of living
Inspired by abundance
By thoughts of Charlie Chaplin
On the eve of his big break
And one or two other things besides
The love, by the way
Didn't die
Far from it
But I don't write about that stuff here anymore
Save it for elsewhere
I only write -
Well, what do I write?
I write
What happened
Where I am
I'm in Victoria, BC
I'm here with Eric
I'm here to
Write
That's the nuts and bolts of it
The long and short
The -
And now, ladies and gentlemen
My greatest fear
I've talked much about trembling
Trembling before random journeys into the unknown
Leaving behind safe good life
Flying on a feeling
But all that is nothing compared to the
Crippling
Overwhelming
Heart-breaking fear
When I contemplate WORDS
This is what I wanted
This is what I set myself up for
This is what is now available
The space
The time
The perfect environment
No more excuses
It makes me want to punch the wall
Beat my head
Collapse in tears
It's time to
Put up or shut up
But -
Offer me a chance
And I will quite happily accept the latter
Lord, take this cup away from me!
That sort of thing
The feeling is strong
But maybe it's just a trembling like all the others
A trembling that precedes
Quite happily doing it
Succeeding
And entering into a whole new sphere of existence
Or not
Fact is
I'm here
I've got what I need
I just need to start typing
And see what comes
If nothing else
Well at least I tried
And I can't say it hasn't brought me
Many other wonderful things
Four years ago
I sat in the hot springs in Mexico
And KNEW
What I wanted
And what I wanted was
A partner to love
And to write words on a computer
But
Love
Comes
First
Everything else is a bonus
Anyways
Shall we just crack on?
See y'all out the other side...
Back with wonderful Eric
Eric of Christmas 2001
Christmas 2009
Eric the actual genuine published writer
Eric with a spare apartment he says I can stay in
To give some time to writing
To have long chats about everything
To eat and walk his dog
To -
I left Saskatoon Saturday morning
Took a semi-spontaneous flight
Rolling a dice right there in front of the check-in girl
And the dice said "buy"
Was weird to splash so much cash
On such a short flight
To skip out on the Rockies
To abandon the thumb
But perhaps it's time for a different way of living
Inspired by abundance
By thoughts of Charlie Chaplin
On the eve of his big break
And one or two other things besides
The love, by the way
Didn't die
Far from it
But I don't write about that stuff here anymore
Save it for elsewhere
I only write -
Well, what do I write?
I write
What happened
Where I am
I'm in Victoria, BC
I'm here with Eric
I'm here to
Write
That's the nuts and bolts of it
The long and short
The -
And now, ladies and gentlemen
My greatest fear
I've talked much about trembling
Trembling before random journeys into the unknown
Leaving behind safe good life
Flying on a feeling
But all that is nothing compared to the
Crippling
Overwhelming
Heart-breaking fear
When I contemplate WORDS
This is what I wanted
This is what I set myself up for
This is what is now available
The space
The time
The perfect environment
No more excuses
It makes me want to punch the wall
Beat my head
Collapse in tears
It's time to
Put up or shut up
But -
Offer me a chance
And I will quite happily accept the latter
Lord, take this cup away from me!
That sort of thing
The feeling is strong
But maybe it's just a trembling like all the others
A trembling that precedes
Quite happily doing it
Succeeding
And entering into a whole new sphere of existence
Or not
Fact is
I'm here
I've got what I need
I just need to start typing
And see what comes
If nothing else
Well at least I tried
And I can't say it hasn't brought me
Many other wonderful things
Four years ago
I sat in the hot springs in Mexico
And KNEW
What I wanted
And what I wanted was
A partner to love
And to write words on a computer
But
Love
Comes
First
Everything else is a bonus
Anyways
Shall we just crack on?
See y'all out the other side...
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