The Self Enlightened Blogger

I think I've finally realised over this last week exactly what a revolutionary thing blogging is. People say it's a dieing medium.
It's not.

It's going through a change.
What's happened is that the first bloggers were people who did it, because they had nothing else to do.
Mostly, they wanted to get laid and lacked the skills to find that in Real Life. But once they found a way to make their real life more interesting- as in find a long term partner- blogging would get the boot.
And it has.

And the way the medium has changed has meant that sort of blogger isn't being replaced, because it no longer appeals to those sorts of people any more.

It's been taken over by people who have found something so valuable here they'd never give it.

I'm going to actually be honest and admit I enjoy blogging in a way I've never enjoyed anything else. It really has become the most important thing to me, in many ways. Because for the most part, everything in my life that makes me feel good, is relevant to it. If I go out and enjoy myself, it will either get posted on, or inspire ideas for posts.
For the most part my mind has become largely a way of writing posts. Very little now happens that doesn't make me think 'Hmmm. Is there a post in here somewhere'. Conversations generally tend to yield facts. Facts add to world view, world view shifts a little, your conclusions from that slight shift in world view, worth a post? The cogs start to turn...
And by the time I'm on my way home from work, a post is dimly forming.

And by the time I reach the keyboard, the post kind of writes itself.

I feel I'm doing what I enjoy best.
Because that's what makes me tick.
People of often asks me in RL what makes me tick. Everyone seems to find that so puzzling. What REALLY drives me?

And the answer is, adrenalin.
Pure adrenalin.

I love adrenalin rushes.
I live for them.

And what things most give me adrenalin?

Closing a deal. Public speaking, especially when you can see the audience agreeing. Parties. Any social gatherings, actually. Trance Music. Women. Not so much the love and relationships bit, more the chase. I love that feeling when you look them in the eye and just know you're getting sex tonight. Better than the sex itself. It's the thrill bit, the expectation. Fulfillment is always the anti-climax.

And writing posts, it's much the same. Pressing 'publish', is the anti-climax.

And when I come back to answer comments, I feel a warm memory to how the post made me feel writing it. And now I get to see how you felt READING it.
And let me tell you, it's a fucking powerful emotion I feel reading the comments. I feel pretty strongly emoted to all the comments, at this point. I'm being deadly serious when I say the opinions left really matter to me, I get really touched at the depth of thought and consideration people put into their comments.

And I suppose a lot of that, is because actually, that is the most powerful emotion I feel.
It goes back to, I guess, what it is I really want from people, and why I'm close to the people I'm close to.
What do they give me?

Because what I give my friends and what they give me, isn't the same. It never is for anyone. Friends give eachother things they need. Our bonds are formed in the fact I fill a need in their lives, and they in mine.
And for me, I only really form close bonds with people, if I can have conversations with them that exactly match this blog.

You see, the Baker and the Chimney Sweep, D, those favoured individuals in RL, instinct seem to know what it is about them fills a need in me, and are happy to fulfill that function.

Humour me with a bit of intellectual conversation. Though really, I'm not so much meaning it to be a conversation so much as me laying forth a set of ideas on stuff and you interjecting when you have a valid objection.

As in 'Hold on though Joe, by your theory doesn't that mean that..'
or 'One problem with that idea though...'

Those to me, are kind of the highlights of life. Thought provoking discussions.
Having those sorts of discussions with people, is what I enjoy doing best.

The Baker especially. Our friendship is almost entirely built on that. What we used to do for years was book the Monday off and just go out in Manchester, the pair of us. We'd do one of two things.

The first option was to get mashed on Coke go into Sankey's or Subspace and get 'take out', as in bring a party back. These parties would usually go on to the following afternoon.
And we'd usually get laid the pair of us.

The second option was just go for a few beers in Chorlton then come back, do some lines and watch porn (yes, mainly inter-racial stuff), whilst I expanded on; The fact the universe MUST be conscious and going into my understanding of what physics tells us; My Utopian vision; A world where all women are inherently promiscuous and interracial sex is actively encouraged; Nasty things caused by the capitalist system; re-interpreting historical events; discussing evolution and its possibilities; Music; Films. World politics; Human psychology and why people behave the way they do; Stuff in my past that screws my head up; Women.



These are things I like to discuss. And I find time spent NOT discussing this stuff to be time less well spent, than time spent discussing this stuff.

And my general aim in life is to spend as much time doing that, with as wide a group of people as I can.

And to me, the true test of how important in my life you are, is just how much of that, you give me. It really is, the more I think about it, the most important of my drives.

Which is why the writing of blogposts and the answering of blog comments is for me, the most perfect of all pleasures I can think of.
It really is something that satisfies in a way nothing else ever could.

So you're all special to me.

But in a sense, it also has lead to something else, in my case.

The fact is, there is one kind of relationship, I just can't really deal with in reality. Relationships where strong emotions exist in actual proximity. I just don't trust the concept and in real life, I can't do it.
I used think it really was just totally impossible for me to ever feel that bond at all. I've always known it's not because I CAN'T feel it, just I won't. I can conceptualise the feeling. I feel it watching romantic films, because I feel that electric shiver running through you, KNOWING, KNOWING that feeling like that is your deepest, darkest fear.

I hate romantic films, because they make me shudder. I can only relate to romantic films when they show broken people who conquer that fear. 'Leaving Las Vegas'. 'You Got Mail'. I relate to films like that. Because I kind of hope that could happen to me.

That I could get over it.

But I can't.
And I won't ever.

Not in Real Life.

These are romantic films, life isn't like that.

I can't deal with that stuff. I never have been able to, and I don't think I quite ever will. I wasn't brought up that way. I've arranged my life to keep it away from me. I can't deal with people expressing their feelings to me in that way. It makes me nervous.

I just want those sorts of feelings as far away from me as possible.

And I'm uncomfortable with the idea of looking someone in the eye and expressing feelings to them, and meaning it.
Hugging mates, all the male bonding, not a problem. Casual sex, not a problem. But to combine physical and emotional intimacy, something I'm pretty much conditioned NOT to do. Because I'm pretty scared of the idea.

Basically I guess I've always had a need to give in to desires of emotional intimacy in a way totally separate from physical intimacy. It's a necessary part of the life strategy I've built up over the years, to ensure the two don't combine, because if they do, you become vulnerable.
I cannot do anything about the fact I'm conditioned to avoid the two combining.

So mostly, I just get the physical bit. And I have a huge surplus of the other needing a home of some kind.

Now it's taken me a while to grasp why this is so- but know I know why- My brain prefers this way of conversing. It actually allows my brain to communicate better and actually feel more satisfied. I never used to enjoy the written word much. I'd read, but only ever to process information. I didn't much care for the one way traffic of the dialogue you were having.
But now the written word HAS become a multi-way medium, I find it provides ways of communicating far superior to the oral word.
You can go back to bits of it and quote. You can put in links to demonstrate your point. You can multi-task. You can have several conversations all at once. You can write a post simultaneously. And if you pop off for a fag it doesn't seem rude. They don't even know.
Far more possibilities than oral conversation.

So it's not a bad home life to have.

Home life has always been the problem for me, finding a home life I was comfortable with. Because you have to go home sometimes. The place you wash, eat, sleep, go to the loo. The more time you spend away from it, the less money you have. Finding ways to deal with the problem of actually going home to a place called home, has been something I never found an answer to. The catch 22 problem. Live on your own, you can't face the empty flat, have a partner, you can't face going home to them. Because I can't. No matter how much I think I love them. I just start to feel like my home has become a cage. It doesn't feel like MY home.

I want to have my home as mine, yet not feel alone in it.

I want to have a life where I never, ever have to cease being solely responsible for myself and a life where everyone else is kept at a safe distance.
And yet where all my emotional needs are still fulfilled.

The internet has allowed me to finally achieve what I've subconsciously striven for all my life.
To find somewhere to let off that need for emotional intimacy. To create a persona somewhere, a me that's kind of syphoned off from the flesh me, who is permitted to feel strong sentiments because those sentiments are protected by barriers from damaging real life.

It means real life can carry on in the way I live it, a way I can't change. I can't change the way I actually live. In reality, my physical need for intimacy is satisfied by girls who are everything I seek emotionally are not. That's why I choose them for physical intimacy. I choose them because there's no danger of forming a mental connections. Barmaids and check out girls.

And married women.

If someone is already attached, I'm generally more comfortable being intimate with them. They're less likely to cling onto you when you get jittery and decide it's time to move on.

I guess the internet has allowed me to emotionally connect with certain people in a way I just could never let myself in real life.

And it's about that seeing into minds. There is something powerful about getting to know someone through their mind first. That's why these blogging friendships mean all the more. They're based on mental connections. I think you can really discover the person within on this medium, because that's how we relate. And in a sense therefore, what you emote is more genuine. And certainly I find I emote to reading blogposts in a way I don't so often in Real Life. In Real Life, we give and receive far less, so openly. You get to feel other people more acutely.

And you let yourself emote to them easier. Or I do.

You find yourself allowing yourself sentiments you either don't know you had, or hadn't felt for years.

And you were resigned to a home life of take away kebabs and TV channel hoping, joint in hand.

But now I find it's nice to have people to come home to.

People to say goodnight to.

People you feel strong emotional attachment to.

That's not something I once thought I'd ever have.

But I enjoyed last Christmas.



Usually I go over my mum's for a few hours, but I can't deal with more than a couple of hours there without starting to get edgy, and one year I actually couldn't face going round at all.
So the day has always traditionally been spent spent channel surfing with a buffet for one. And a fair amount of pot.
I get several 'Merry Xmas' phone calls from a lot of really good friends, that breaks up the day, but I'm still always conscious that Christmas is the one time of the year, I've always been alone. Every other day of the year I've got people.

Just not Christmas Day.

But this year I had visitors :)

And that's the first one I enjoyed in years.

So of course this is the best thing I ever stumbled on in life.

It's kind of the missing piece on the puzzle for me :)

Love you all.