Fool God

Dreaming..



I’m in the place where old people go. Finally, I have found it.


I’m standing in some sort of lobby, in an area partitioned by red ropes. We’re pretty high up-the lift only brings special people to this floor. I guess I must have sneaked in somehow. I seem to see myself, a small, black haired little boy, standing right in the middle of the open space. There are officers all around.


On my left is a door, a red door. It is closed and guarded by sentries. Behind me is a green door. In front of me, beside the lift, a corridor leads to the other quarters. As soon as a new resident comes up in the lift, he or she is assigned to a room. I realize that they will stay here for the rest of their life.


A middle-aged man is ushered through the red door. And then a white-haired man is taken along the corridor. I see. The old ones go there. With a sense of complacency , I think, “Wow, I wonder what they’ll do with me..? Guess they don’t get people like me around.” I am fearless, because I know that they have no authority to touch me.



And then I see myself, white-haired, old and bent. And I realize I have grown old. I smile ironically before I watch myself being taken off along the corridor.




.....




Thinking ...


It is multicoloured and transparent. In parts, it is worn thin. I am afraid that one day holes will break out in those parts, if I am not careful. Some parts are covered in irremovable dirt and grime. I try to ignore them. Others are stained with blood. I avert my eyes. I desperately search for a clean area. It is a difficult task because my soul is knotted and entangled in many places. I try to unravel the mess, to sort out the confusion, but I cannot find its starting point. It just goes on, a long, messed-up soul.


As I hold it, I notice spiders spinning their webs between the dark spaces. Silverfish burrow through the silky material leaving tiny punctures. And at the edges, which seem to have been dipped in honey, ants greedily eat away at the helpless substance. I want to drop it yet dare not.


I contemplate putting it back in my body but shrink from the thought. So dirty.......I can’t possibly live with a soul like that. There is a nagging deep in my heart. It says, “Look what you’ve done! I can’t help you now.”


I don’t know what to do. Perhaps I can live without a soul.... After all, I’ve heard of people selling their souls to the Devil. No matter what, I won’t accept it back into my life. I seem to be doing ok with it out of my body, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t get along just fine without it. I remember Dorian Gray-it worked for him....


Or perhaps I can steal someone else’s soul. I’m sure I would use it to better advantage. So many poor souls wasting their lives, I’d be giving them a chance at a bright future....


Yes, after all, nothing is impossible. And I have the will to survive.


....




Believing ...


Fool God



A fool loves unconditionally

So perhaps, fool is he

Who gave his life for me

Fool, to choose to die

For a sinner such as I

I’ll walk away, and He’ll have lost

Wasted, the price it cost

Spilt, like blood on the ground

Money, when it doesn’t count

But then again, fool am I

To look a gift horse in the eye

Yet we’re free men

We can choose to lose

To forget sorrows in booze

With pride, I’d take my own way

Ignore every question of salvation

I’d do it, no problem


But I want to be wise

To think twice, to choose life

So pride will have to go

As I humble myself before his throne

And nevermore will I walk alone




- copyright 2001 -




It's like putting on dirty clothes.... imagine having to live each day with that same mucky soul. So just like clothes need washing, I guess hearts need cleansing; and God offers that. We all have our pasts; but God gives us a future worth living. A brand new soul.



"Come now, let us argue this out," says the Lord. "No matter how deep the stain of your sins, I can remove it. I can make you as clean as freshly fallen snow. Even if you are stained as red as crimson, I can make you as white as wool." (Isaiah 1:18)

Dead Men's Shoes- A Little Slice of Real England

I've decided to to do a review of this film for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, it's riveting viewing. It's a damn good- if brutal and violent- film to watch.

Second, it actually fits in nicely with Monday's post and the topic still being voted on in the sidebar.

But third, because so many of you AREN'T residents of the UK. I appreciate this might make this film hard for you to access. We actually make a lot of films in this country. But the only ones they want to see abroad are the ones which depict fantasy England. The England the Anglosphere wants to believe still exists and the continent likes to think we are. Four Weddings and a Funeral. James Bond.

Dead Men's Shoes is a dark and brutal film set in Matlock, Derbyshire. It's set in real England. Not amongst people who go to fancy weddings. Amongst people who live on council estates.
This film, shows you more about England than Four Weddings does.

SPOILER WARNING: Plot details disclosed.

Since the actors are largely unknowns, I'm going to dispense with the convention of using their names. I'm just going to stick to characters.

The film is directed by Shane Meadows, and you could say has shades of a Guy Ritchie film, except it's not funny and it's way more accurate.

I read an online review before I wrote this post which as far as I could see, totally missed the point for both reviewer and commentors. The thrust of the review was that it was a film with a good guy and loads of bad guys. The commentors seemed to agree, but had less sympathy than the reviewer for the good guy and thought the bad guys weren't portrayed as bad enough.

They missed the point. Because it isn't about a man with a justifiable mission. Not at all.
It's actually about the deeper rot within English life, a rot that seeps out even to the Derbyshire Dales. THAT is the point of the film.

The film starts with a confident, angry looking ex-soldier striding across the Dales into Matlock. He is followed cautiously by his younger brother. His younger brother is simple, or to be more PC, clearly has learning difficulties. We see them looking upwards at a semi-detached house.

Richard is the elder brother. Anthony, is the younger.

First flashback. Flashback to one of the group they have come to reckon with, a fat greasy old man in a vest shouting down and waving at Anthony.

The flashbacks go on throughout. You know from the start something happened. Something happened to Anthony and Richard has come to find those who caused whatever happened. But don't think you'll have a clue what happened, right until the end. And the point is, when you DO discover, you'll ACTUALLY be less judgemental than you thought would be, even though it turns out to be far WORSE than you thought it would be.
A little subtlety it seems, is lost on many viewers.



The set up of what might be described as the 'gang' is actually quite simple, if one reads between the lines. They're not gangsters, they might be loosely described as petty criminals, but even there the lines are somewhat blurred. There are two sets within the circle and we can kind of get a sense of the history of the group from the flashbacks.

Sunny is the ringleader- he seems to have a club of some sort, but whether it is a nightclub or a a snooker club is difficult to piece together. Not perhaps, that we need to. Point is, he is also a drug dealer and probably a handler of stolen goods. Certainly, he has access to firearms.

His inner circle consist of two dubious ex-bouncer types of late middle age who one guesses have probably served time and may, perhaps, have been his mentors in early life. Sunny is clearly the most intelligent of the group, he has intelligence, he has charm, in that underworld, he has it all. He still lives in a council house, but he is a true to life type.

The type of person who if you're looking for drugs or guns or anything in a local pub, the whisper will lead you to Sunny.

And if you mess with him, he'll have you dealt with, but his hands will probably not get dirty.
He has got on in this world because- he's suave. But hard.

The remaining three that we see (there is another one we see in the flashbacks, but that is something that you have to be on the ball to spot and you won't know why till the end), are twenty something youngsters.

Not even really petty criminals. One is certainly unemployed and sells drugs for Sunny. The other two obviously indulge but may well have day jobs. We don't know.

What we do know is that they ended up in this circle because they drifted into it when young.

We can see that from the flashbacks. Which mainly consist of drug taking sessions. And Anthony, Anthony is part of this group in these flashbacks. The butt of their jokes. How wasted can they get him.

A telling- if realistic- flashback is the one where Sunny bullies a weak girl into having sex with Anthony so the others can watch and laugh. The situation itself is- real.
It's plausible. The way people react to it sends a shudder through your spine.

THE CULTURE BEING DEPICTED IS TRUE.

It's the culture that exists under the surface for half of those who drink in my local pub. Because though I live in private rented accommodation, I live nextdoor to a council estate. My local is actually what most of you would see as being quite rough. And certainly a haven where petty criminals meet up.



The flashbacks depict not only a culture I recognise, but incidents in them are things I can see as being quite plausible.

And I guess this is what was missed by the review in question. Because the younger hangers on to the gang aren't bad people, just followers. Lads living in the underclass, on the edges of criminal activity in a small town where ambition is low and jobs are few.

They are weak, rather than wicked.

And as the film progresses, we see Richard terrorising the group. When it starts, we think he just wants to prove a point. Wants to prove he can put the shits in them. But soon, we realise he wants to take his revenge all the way.

Richard is not a hero, any more than the 'villains' are villainous, for all the interpretation superficial viewers put on it. He's a psychopath. Revenge is his sole motivation, but revenge for what?

Because when you know the answer, you THINK you'll understand, think he was justified.

But you're wrong. Because the revenge he seeks isn't founded on the motives you think it is. Inside, it's himself he is punishing as much as the guilty. He is visiting his owns sins as much as their own on them. There is a sense in which his brutal crusade, though it seems to be about them and Anthony, might in fact just be an excuse for him to vent his own self-hatred.



Certainly the ending would back up that viewpoint.

I guess, yes, the superficial attraction about the film is watching the terror unfold, see just how far he is prepared to go, see him tie the 'gang' up in knots, in a web they cannot escape from.

And you want to know why.
Why this is happening.

But actually, it's a strong bit of social commentary.

The whole point is the senselessness of everything in the film. The senselessness of the lives of everyone in the film. Everyone in the film is punished by the senselessness of their lives and their values.

Only one character escapes judgement. And not because he is less guilty.
But because he has escaped the senselessness. Because he has chosen life, not the empty world of purposeless anger that Richard lives, nor the life of callously exploiting others that Sunny lives, nor the aimless, getting by, ducking and diving, sitting around getting stoned life of the younger members of the 'gang'.



It is a shrewd observation of how life in a whole section of our society has gone astray, and if you're stuck within the pull of that world, it's hard to get out. The fact that it IS set in a small, grey little town in Derbyshire hammers that home. This is SMALL TOWN England. Not small town, picture postcard Southern England, but grim up north, hopeless England.

Even more hopeless than the cities, because life for the small town underclass hasn't even got the sophistication and the glitter of the cities. It's amoral, valueless pointlessness.

And this film is about the people it breeds.

Yes, the people in this film do squalid things. They lead squalid lives. None of them have much in the way of moral values.

But we still sense that they're not BAD people. Just people with nothing to live FOR, just exist BY. And that has made their lives what they are.

And maybe Richard's mission has nothing to do with revenge- maybe it's more to do with a recognition that the lives ALL the characters in the film lead, have led and will only ever lead if those lives continue, are all of them, hopeless. And there is no way out.

Every General Election in the UK, the commentators go on about turnout. It's usually between 60 and 70%.

And of course, from time to time concern is raised about the hardcore of non-voters. Those who choose to disenfranchise themselves.

This is a film about them. The people who have no values system, because the one that about two thirds of us buy into a greater or lesser degree, mainly out of a cynical sense that we have no choice, has no relevance to them whatsoever.

But they haven't actually got a fresh values system to replace it with.

This film IS an English film. It could only BE an English film. It's about the England that exists in every town, no matter how small. But they don't want you to see it, and most English people try to ignore and pretend exists in the town nextdoor.

But it's about the rottenness, the emptiness that exists for many in the UK.

It's about life, it's about meaning in life, it's about the emptiness of anger, vengeance and violence, it's about people having emotions they no longer know how to relate to in a society that no longer knows how to feel.

It's about good people turned into weak willed followers and psychopathic monsters.

It is a mirror held up to British culture, for all who want to look into it.
And learn.

Shame, Self belief and Integrity

I have thought carefully about how to write this post.

Because I have to write it, really.
Because in some ways, it's a happy post.
But it looks back on things- less happy.

Let's just start with a basic Crushed belief.
The only thing in life that really matters, is whether you can look yourself in the eye in the mirror every morning before you leave home, and be proud of what you see.

If you LIKE yourself, if you're proud of yourself and in your heart of hearts you feel comfortable in your own integrity, life will always deliver what you ask of it.

There are those who would say I have no sense of shame. That in some ways, I'm pretty shocking.
Certainly, my values system isn't that of everyone else.

There are plenty of things that others would find embarrassing to admit to or talk about which just don't bother me.
At one time, I kept these things off my blog. I had no problems at all talking about them down the pub to just about anyone, but I kept them off the blog in the belief that they might damage the blog.

To recap;
I'm not embarrassed by having served a sentence for Ecstasy. Because I see nothing immoral about using Ecstasy and I do not believe that selling Ecstasy is LESS moral than selling goods made in China.

There are other things I don't feel embarrassed or shamed about talking about. I'll put my hands up to them. They don't bother me. They might bother others, but not me.

The list is endless, but here's one You haven't heard before. You can have it, because I'm fairly candid person and it doesn't bother me. It doesn't embarrass me in the slightest.
I have in the past been treated for an STD. I really don't know why people still get embarrassed by this sort of thing. I'd say one in five males at least has picked up SOMETHING. I guess there's still a residual shame about how these things are caught, but I don't see why. I see no reason to hide it any more than if I'd had caught food poisoning.

You see, a large part of my self-belief actually rests in the fact I like being known as someone who basically, is always totally candid.

Like at work. Some people roll in at eleven and have a lame story about a traffic accident which turns out to have little evidence to substantiate it.

The last time I rolled in three hours late, I told the truth 'I met this bird in the pub, we ended up in bed and I only went to sleep at five and I forgot to set my alarm.'

Yes, my boss WAS pretty livid. But he forgave me, as he always does.
Because he knows I'll never lie.

Evade, yes. Lie, no.

You may not always get a straight answer to a straight question, especially if it concerns a monumental cock up on my part, but I'll never lie.

And I pride myself in that.

And I pride myself in my convictions. I pride myself in the fact that I have a sincere set of beliefs that aren't most people's, but I stick by them. No matter how others slate those principles. Because I believe mine to be correct. And I acquired them, not out of a book, but through actual living.

You see, I don't really care whether people approve or not. It's whether I live up to what I think is right. Am I behaving in a manner which fits in with my values?

Sometimes I've told an anecdote and the response I get from some quarters is 'You really have no shame, do you?'

And I smile. Because if I'd have had any other reaction from the quarter in question, I'd have felt I was doing something wrong.
There are some people I hope to God I offend, because frankly, to have the approval of people with their views on life, would actually offend me.

These are the people who call themselves 'The moral majority.'

I see sticking two fingers up to the values of the 'moral majority' as a worthy cause in it's own right. Because I find their Pecksniffian, holier than thou judging attitude sickening and I enjoy making them sick.

As far as I''m concerned, something is morally wrong if you can prove to me how. don't be pointing to some passage in Leviticus. I don't care. Don't be telling me about the law. That doesn't determine the morality of a subject either.

Show me where I interfere with someone else's path to happiness.
Or carry on being offended.
Your choice.

Now this brings me to my outlook on sex and relationships.

I think you all know I believe in Free Love.
I PASSIONATELY believe in Free Love.

Now, I need to break this down to how it actually applies in real life when I come to make moral judgements, or when people ask me for advice/support.

Because believe it or not, they often do. A lot of people respect my rather practical approach to morals, as in, does anyone get hurt, as opposed to feeling guilty because of some ancient scriptural taboo.

Firstly, my general advice, is if you can have an open relationship, without a commitment to sexual fidelity, but instead a commitment to total honesty with eachother, that's the best way. If both of you are mature enough and adult enough to deal with it and you are sure you can handle it. Most people still actually can't. The sense of wanting to own the rights to someone's body is quite ingrained in our culture. But if you CAN do it, do it. It's actually the best way.

Secondly is that I take a slightly different view to most people on the status of an 'undefined' relationship. What I mean is, I take the view that commitment is something opted into, not opted out of. In other words, the default status of a relationship is an open one, not one in which sexual fidelity- or exclusivity of any type- is to be expected.
If someone tells me they're thinking of cheating, or already have and are worried or feel guilty, I always ask them 'Have you either of you actually ever made definite promises to be exclusive?'

Because if no such agreement has been made, it's wrong to expect it as the default position.

Lastly, how do I view 'cheating' in a situation where it is clear such commitments and promises of exclusivity have been made.
Yes, it's a broken promise. And if compounded by lieing, worse still.

But on the other hand, it is also- in my view- an unreasonable promise to expect someone to make in the first place. Any specialist in contract law will agree, the existence of a contract doesn't mean a court will agree that contrct was reasonble. I've signed contracts for example, saying that if I leave the company I work for I cannot work in a similar sector within a twenty mile radius.

It wouldn't stand up in court.

And I regard contracts of exclusivity- especially for life- as being that kind of contract.
Unreasonable.

So when someone 'cheats', I'm not necessarily unsympathetic. If it was gratuitous, maybe. But usually, I tend to have a lot more sympathy for the errant partner than most. I would certainly never tell the 'deceived ' party, even they were my closest friend. And often I'll go further. I'm quite happy to assist in covering up the 'infidelity'. I actually see it as a white lie.

Because I don't actually see the infidelity as wrong, just the lieing. But I also believe that everyone is actually happier if the truth doesn't come out. I don't see what is served by the truth coming out. The fact is, it's one of those things, if you don't know it doesn't hurt you.

And I've actually been asked by friends of BOTH sexes IF they think they should cheat on their partners. And I don't always advise against it. There are times when I actually think they should. I don't approve of the fact they have to lie to do it, but I also don't approve of the fact their partner wouldn't allow them to.

I concede most of you think that last sentence is- way out. But that's how I see sexual exclusivity. An unreasonable and actually quite unpleasant and damaging human ideal.

How does this relate to my personal sexuality?
Well, time was when I paid lip service to sexual exclusivity.
But I never managed it. So now I have a clear cut policy on it.

Generally speaking, it is always my preference to have an open relationship- or at least avoid making a commitment to exclusivity. So I never actually feel I'm doing anything wrong when I play elsewhere. I don't lie about it, but if no agreement has been reached yet on an open relationship (which it rarely is), I consider that least I haven't broken any promises and what the eye don't see the heart won't grieve over.

So I just don't tell them.

But I don't deny it when others in a position to know, ask. Or people who know me well enough ask. Because I'm not embarrassed about it and also I'm happy to demonstrate I practise what I preach.

My mother and my grandmother know I practice this and in a way, I'd be ashamed for them to think I did otherwise. I find the idea of people thinking I live other than I do, something I'm not comfortable with.

Put bluntly, I would not want anyone I know, to think I practised sexual exclusivity. I would feel that they thought I'd betrayed my beliefs.
And that's crucial.

I'd never want it to be thought I'd betrayed my beliefs.

So her comes the crunch question you all want to know.

How would you deal with being in a relationship with someone you wanted to be in a relationship with, but expected a commitment.

Well.

If I truly loved them, I'd move mountains for them. Moving mountains is kind of unreasonable. For love, you'll do anything.
Including making a commitment that you yourself think is something people shouldn't do.

And I could, actually do it, if I loved them.
But that wouldn't mean I'd change the advice I offered everyone else.

If I truly loved someone, and they asked me to, I'd walk across hot coals.
Doesn't mean I'd recommend it to anyone else.

Nor would I expect her to walk across hot coals.

So this raises the point about her commitment back. One reader once suggested to REFUSE her commitment would be imposing a condition on the relationship- one where she HAD to sleep around.

No, not at all. She could make such a commitment if she wanted, but since I wouldn't have imposed it, it would really be a commitment to herself. If she broke it, it would make no difference to me, and I'd rather she just admitted it rather than lied about it.

There would be far, far, worse things a woman could do to me.



You see, one crucial point to remember is that I am quite vocal about my opinions. I stand by them. Having made such a commitment- in private- it wouldn't alter the fact that in principle, I am, and would always be, fundamentally opposed to such commitments and firmly committed to trying to convert people to NOT making such commitments or feeling that doing so was something they should do.

I believe human society will be better off when such commitments are a thing of the past, or at least simply practised by a tiny minority wedded to Mosaic law.

I look forward to the day when the open relatonship is the cultural norm. And publically, I want to be able to stand by that.

For example, I want this blog to be able to promote that viewpoint.

And therefore, to admit to having made any kind of commitment to exclusivity is not something I'd trumpet.
If was accused of having done so, I'd outright deny it.

Because I would feel it undermined the integrity of the position I aim to push, not just on this blog but in the statements I make in real life.

So let's just take a hypothetical scenario.
Let's just say early in the life of this blog I'd made commitments of some kind to meet another blogger. What those commitments were, is immaterial. I certainly could not answer for whether or not I'd find them physically attractive if we ever met, but I'm open about these things, and anyway personality goes a long way. Quite often the way we regard someone physically is affected by the how we regard the personality within.

Now, firstly this could not realistically be regarded as an actual relationship, but had this happened, then it is important to notice one point.

Had the other party hypothetically gone round e-mailing other bloggers or commenting at other blogs to effectively say 'This is my man', I would have felt degraded and humiliated in front of every one of those bloggers.

That to me, would be the ultimate betrayal.

Because it makes my principles look shallow. If I've got a woman running round laying claim to me and warning other women away from 'her' man, it goes completely against the ideals I'm trying to promote.

Because let's just say hypothetically that one of those bloggers was regularly discussing with me whether I thought she should 'cheat' on her boyfriend.

My view? She's been with him five years, only had one lover apart from him, she was twenty five, yes, I said. I thought she'd be missing out on life if she didn't experience sex with other people. I wouldn't be recommending myself, just that she should try it.

Ok, you may think that totally immoral advice to offer. But you have to respect that in such a hypothetical situation, yes, that's the advice I'd offer.

Now let's just say that the hypothetical woman who I have hypothetically committed to meet hypothetically e-mails said female blogger because she's worried that 'something might be going' on and lays claim to her man.

If asked by the second blogger, I'd deny all knowledge of what this woman was talking about.

Because there's no way I wanted to be associated in front of other people, with such a statement. It weakens my ideological position.

Her having revealed at all that we'd even spoken of meeting, certainly implying that she had some sort of claim to me, would, to me, be degrading and humiliating.

Why?

Because it implies that I haven't the courage of my convictions. A woman would hypothetically be stating in front of others that she had a right to expect some kind of exclusivity from me.

And that, to me, would be the ultimate betrayal.

Because you're making my beliefs look insincere. I'm offering advice to people I'm not living up to. I'm telling people to go round practising Free Love and I've got some woman wondering round telling just about everyone that she thinks she has some kind of exclusive rights to me.

And the idea that anyone would think that about me, is just about the most shameful and humiliating thing I can think of. So hypothetically, the more she did this, the more she'd start to revolt me. Till eventually, the very idea of her would physically repulse me. Because I'd feel publicly degraded. I'd feel as if she'd urinated on me in public.

In this hypothetical situation it doesn't matter whether or not the woman in question had reason to believe she had a right to exclusivity. The point is, if ever I made such a commitment to any form of exclusivity, what I would ask in return is that the person I made it to NEVER told anyone.
Because the public position in front of the whole of the rest of the world, would be that it hadn't.

Because I would have made it for their benefit, but would still ultimately regard the existence of such commitments as negative.

I hasten to add I've NEVER made such a commitment.

Anyway, if such a situation went on long enough, I would end up getting muscle spasms at the very sight of such a creature's name. Because the physical revulsion her actions were making me feel would start to mean that just thinking of her existence would make me feel as if I was somehow covered in human excrement.

And I'd try cut her off. And if she persisted in trying to contact me, say ringing my phone, IMing me etc, each time she did so, it would feel almost like a sexual assault. Because someone you actually feel total physical revulsion towards was forcing themselves upon you. And that is what it would be. Forcing you to remember the existence of a personality, the working of whose mind you find physically repellent.

And you would feel that everything they touched was somehow unclean.

Let's say hypothetically they started stalking your grandmother in the Old Folks home.

You'd feel that your relationship with your own grandmother had been sullied, polluted, was DIRTY.
Because it had been touched by that creature.

Every e-mail you received from them, every comment they tried to leave on your blog would feel like a man attempting to rape you.

And if such a situation happened, it would take a long time for you to get over it.

And a long time for you to recover your self esteem.

Because you would feel degraded and humiliated. Too embarrassed to retain relations with your own family because this pollution seeped into it.

You would find yourself sitting at work, and suddenly you'd remember the creature and you would feel a physical shudder of revulsion twist you into a spasm.

And you'd look at yourself in the mirror and be disgusted. You'd think of how people KNEW you'd been connected with that THING. And you were thoroughly, thoroughly ashamed that anyone would think you'd ever make an agreement to meet a creature who would behave in such a manner.
Ashamed that she had you crying in hysterics. Ashamed that she had you rocking on your bed in the foetal position.

Ashamed that she made you look disingenuous. Ashamed that she made you try defend yourself to people whose values you despise.

Ashamed because for a while there you felt you'd betrayed your beliefs. You'd failed to fight on your terms. You'd ended up a jibbering little child, sullied, polluted and degraded.

Of course, this is all hypothetical...

All a completely fanciful situation...

Anyway.

On a completely different note, I had a hard year last year.

A lot happened that was hard to get through.

And in some ways I fell apart. I forgot to pay bills, I let my personal appearance slide, I got drunk way too much, really it wasn't good.

But last few weeks, I've...come good again.

I look at myself in the morning and I'm proud of who I see.

I feel that I live up, every day, to my own beliefs- and I stand by them.



A friend of mine left me a message on Facebook yesterday I'd like to share with you. It made me smile. It picked me up no end.

Lisa sent you a message.

--------------------
Subject: What the fuck?

YOU? LOVESICK?

What the fuck is going on? You don't do lovesick! You don't do relationships. You don't fall in love! You love 'em and leave 'em. What's going on? Don't tell me you're maturing? lol

I'm in shock. Talk to me, tell me what's happening, cause this bird is stunned!!!

This isn't the ___ I know!! Who are you, and what have you done with ___?
--------------------

To reply to this message, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/n/?inbox/readmessage.php&t=1038070553707


And I smile at that. I wouldn't want to be seen any other way.

I've started preening myself again, I notice I've started walking the way I used to, (swinging shoulders, heels never quite touching the ground).

I feel pride in myself, I LIKE myself. I'm closing business, I'm getting female attention (admittedly NOT from the one quarter I want, but hey).

I like feeling like this. Half in love with myself, full of life, bordering on that brink between self confidence and arrogance.
Because I'm doing nothing I disapprove of and I don't feel that the way I like to see myself is being sullied or harmed.

I look at myself in the mirror again and what I see looking back doesn't feel sullied or degraded.
There is pride in those eyes. The pride of a free man who cannot be shamed because they have nothing to be ashamed of.

I see fire in those twinkling eyes, I see lustre in those curls, I see a haughty disdain in those lips. I see the knowledge that I'm going out into the world to strike 'em dead.

And I can see those around me see it, back to the old me, Prince of Darkness meets Dorian Gray, the lover and leaver, the shameless exhibitionist, honey tongued in their bluntness, brilliant in their logical deductions, full of themselves and will move aside anyone who gets in their way.

Hated by the moralists, loved by the hedonists, champion of the free, enemy of the system.

Yearning to die a martyr and come back for their own funeral out of sheer vanity.

I look in the mirror and once again I see the person I LOVE seeing. I wouldn't want to have been born anyone else. Because when I die, I'll have it all figured out.

I walk in to the pub, and no longer is my hand shaking as I order a Guiness and a Double Jameson's chaser. I no longer stand there staring, rapt, at the drip trays, stroking the glass.

I'm back. I walk in, shoulders swinging, purring 'Usual, hon', and I arch my shoulders back as I swing my eyes round to see what the savannah has to offer. Because I know, once again, that the world is there. There. For those with the guts to grab it.

I can feel it again. LIFE. EXISTING. The rush of the universe towards the end of time, carrying us all with us like seeds in a river, carrying us onward. I feel the rush of being IN it, part of it.

Back, at the eye of the storm.

Love me. Or hate me. You'll never erase me. And you'll never own me.

Violence and Weaponry

You voted by three to one that you didn't think hardcore sex acts should be considered mainstream in Art and Media.

What a lot of prudes you are! :)

Only joking, I love you all really.

On to this week's topic...

Like it or not, much of human culture is founded on the threat of violence as an ultimate resort.

And here, at the turn of the twentieth century, we see that fact confronting us in some rather unusual ways.

I guess the first is in looking at life today in the UK and comparing it to life in other European countries.

The UK is always held up as being a pacific country. Famously, the bobby on the beat has generally been unarmed, unlike his continental counterparts.
And this is a very hard country to legally own a firearm of any kind. We must have some of the harshest legislation concerning firearms in the world.

But that, of course doesn't mean this isn't a violent country. It is. Whether the guns are legal or not, people still get shot. Almost every week. And now the guns are harder to get at, we are becoming more aware of knifecrime. And now they've clamped down on that.
What are they clamp down on next? Glass bottles? Razor blades?

The UK is a violent country where a significant number of people have a way of life that makes them feel they need to be armed, one way or another.

And we seem to have woken up that fact. It's our culture. If guns were as easily available here as they are in the US, we'd have High School massacres too. And drive by shootings on the same scale. We get them anyway, but thankfully, only a handful a year by comparison.

Other European countries can afford to be more lax with their laws on weapons. We can't. Because if UK citizens carried guns, they'd be shooting eachother over who used the pump first at petrol stations. They'd be shooting eachother, rather than glassing eachother in pubs.

We probably WOULD have proportionally more shootings than the US.
In UK society, the threat of violence always lurks under the surface. It is in our culture.

Now I have a confession to make. You think carrying knives in school is a recent thing. It isn't. When I was at school, I carried one. Nothing fancy, and just within the boundaries that it could be passed off as having a legitimate purpose. It was a Swiss army knife attached to my key ring.

But I carried it with me all through High School. And on a couple of occasions, I opened it up, not to sharpen pencils with. To get people to back off. British schools are violent places. Our school had eighteen hundred pupils and was right by a canal. People were always being thrown in that canal.

And can you imagine doing prefect duty in a school that size? You have the power to impose lines. Lines. Whoopee doo!
How do you enforce that? You've got some little cross between Damian and Chucky breaking and entering the block with four entrances that two of you have to keep people out of during lunch hour. You can ask him his name and tutor group, he's going to tell you 'Wayne Kerr'.

It's not going to work.
The only way to impose the rules the School has asked you to impose is by giving him a good kicking.

I flung one of the little bastards so hard against the lockers once his jumper ripped. He said he was going to make a formal complaint. I said 'What you going to say, he ripped my jumper trying to evict me after I climbed through a second storey window?'

No, it's not that much fun, really. You don't get much reward except a different tie to everyone else and the right to use the front entrance along with staff. And I quit eventually.

But should we be surprised we have the police forces we do in the UK?

When school teachers abrogate playground discipline to enjoy an easy hour in the staffroom whilst senior pupils are left to enforce discipline, literally, by force, out in the rest of the premises.

When I had the back field duty, I caught them shagging, shooting up, the lot.

This was mid-nineties. It can't have got any better.



And we graduate in to our adult life in the UK, basically seeing all social situations as things that could become violent, potentially.

I think there is a powerful reason for this. Much the same one is why the US is so violent.
The tolerance the culture at large has to violence.
Because you can pretend that UK culture has a zero tolerance approach to violence, but get real, use your head, how can it do?

Tot up how many days since 1945 that British troops haven't been engaged in conflict somewhere. The UK armed forces are always crying out for recruits. They can't get enough. and they literally recruit in playgrounds. I can remember when their tanks were to be seen outside the second year block selling the joys of the military life.

Because the armed forces need to be stocked. Not stocked with semi-fit volunteers ready to raise a gun in defence of the mother country on the off chance they get invaded, as is the case in all but a small handful of the nations of the western world.

But ready to go decimating the cities of the Middle East, or rifling through the homes of Irish Catholics as and when required.

The UK has one of the toughest fighting forces in the world, poorly funded as it is, and in days when no one much wants to go and die for King and Country, it helps to have a sizable portion of the male population grow up thinking 'Yeah, a life of violence and killing, that sounds fun.'

So we glorify it all. We pretend not to, but we do. We love our war films, we love all that.

And hey, I admit that, because I admit I've grown up in it and love a film with a high bodycount myself. I love paintballing. This is a culture where testosterone can be tolerated. And in most of us, that's OK. But in the UK, those whose testosterone puts them into the psychopathic character have a role, and need to be encouraged in their growth, because the culture ultimately depends on them.

Because the UK is one of the few countries in the World which actually has an ARMED forces.
As in, an army that as a final resort, can be used to enforce the will of it, and the other members of that special little club.

Or perhaps, let's just call it the club of two. Big brother and little brother. Big U and little U.

Still, you say.
The UK is still much less violent than the US.

No. I think we have two problems they DON'T have in the US. Two problems that come from the way the problem is handled in the UK.

First, you've created a violent culture, so people are going to behave violently. And you forget, as a last resort, nature armed everybody with fists.

OK, getting punched isn't fatal.

But people probably behave towards eachother in a far more threatening way and with far less politeness in the UK than in most places. They behave nicely on the continent because they're not violent cultures. And they behave politely in the US because getting shot IS fatal. Here, we're used to acting within a violent undercurrent. We face eachother off, we invite people 'Outside, in the carpark NOW!'

Because our culture encourages us to see violence as a justifiable way of solving problems, but doesn't actually arm us enough to make it just that little bit too real.

But there's also the other more sinister aspect.

The US Second Amendment guarantees the citizen the right to bear arms. And we in the UK see that as being an appalling twisting of the logic of freedom.

We're fools.
Because that amendment was only inserted in the US consitution when someone looked back at the English Bill of Rights of 1689 and realised that actually, that was something the US needed.

It's in the English Bill of Rights.
In a typical disciminatory way, of course. It guarantess all PROTESTANTS the right to bear arms as an ultimte defence against the government to establish tyranny.

In other words, if they're armed, the citizen should be too. Otherwise, iof they get above themselves and start trying to take away our liberties, we can't get rid of them.

And this is what we forget. WE CAN'T.

We, the people of the UK, even we were in a majority, could not overthrow our government.

But why would we want to, you say. This is a democracy.

Is it now? Is it now?

I'm not saying we WANT to, not yet, maybe. But COULD we? And that's what we need to ask.

If they declared a state of emergency tomorrow, could we stop them?

This is the problem.

While they have weapons, we're stupid not to. This is the sad fact. It's a violent culture the UK and if we were all armed, we'd be mowing eachother down in the streets. That's how much rage and frustration lurks beneath the surface in this culture on the verge of the collapse.

But they, our masters, forment this social collapse as they make us more and more powerless as they build up the muscles of the forces of the state.

The real solution to the violence that is endemic across all cultures in the world, even in European ones, but most notably in those where the use of armed troops to enforce foreign policy decisions is accepted as normal, is not to disarm the civilian more and arm the state further at his expense.



The violence remains as an undercurrent, the culture that creates those violent sentiments still exists, just armed with empty Budweiser bottles, not guns.

And the power of the state to enforce whatever it chooses remains the greater.
And the wars fought not in our name blaze across the globe.

It ends when THEY are disarmed.

It ends when the UN passes a resolution calling for Universal Global Disarmament.

It ends when the nations of the world agree to abolish ALL armies aside from a UN peace keeping force whose sole function is to ensure things stay that way.

Violence breeds violence.

Armed governments and disarmed populations lead to tyranny.

Armed governments and armed populations are a little better, but still don't create societies of the type we truly want.

We need disarmed governments and disarmed people.

Or so I believe.

But it's up to you.

The poll is in the sidebar.

Have your say!

Hopeful Monsters For Sale

I set out in the previous post certain conclusions I had come to vis a vis my own existence.
Some thought them rather bleak.

Bleak, maybe, but true nonetheless.
There are certain facts about myself which must be accepted- at least by me.

jmb suggested in the comments that maybe I should stop seeking 'love' on such superficial terms. That maybe I need to let someone in to see the 'real' Crushed.

The irony is, the post was inspired by a private admission of what doing that leads to- can only ever lead to.

I have several close female friends, people I've let in to see that. And that is what they become, close female friends.
I've let in the only woman I think I'd really want to spend the rest of my life with and what do I now have? Probably one of the best friends I'll ever have, but that is all she'll ever be. She has shown through all this that I mean something to her at some level, clearly, but that can never be any more than platonic.

She could never see me as anything else. And this is the point. Seeing things from where she stands, she couldn't. Any more than any other woman I've let in that close.

So I have several close female friends, and I have no difficulty in attracting on a superficial level, but the two are and always will be poles apart.

And it needs to be understood why.

I don't think the face I present to the outside world is a fraud. It's me, it's genuine. But at first sight it bedazzles and blinds you to the hidden character flaws.

At the end of the day, I'm a salesman. Quite obviously I'm able to communicate well. And I'm actually a reasonably caring person in many ways. I tend to be nice to people, simply because I like them to be nice to me. And I'm good with words and good with gestures.

And I'm quite spontaneous. I get caught up in things very easily.

I guess generally, my sexual/romantic relations with the opposite sex fall into several broad types. A fair bit of casual sex which never even made it as far as anyone's bedroom, names not exchanged or if they were they never made it to my long term memory. Then we have the ones that in one sense or another one shared a bed with, sometimes for sex, sometimes just to have someone to sleep with. Sometimes, just for the night, sometimes it went on for a bit longer. But the fact it started in such terms usually precluded it from ever getting serious. Having said that, I slept with Joanna before I knew what her name was.

Then we have the ones you might term relationships. By these, I mean ones where they lasted for a period exceeding a week or two. And usually they fit into a certain pattern. There was an element of courtship involved before things progressed towards the bedroom and even when they did progress to the bedroom, sex rarely took place the first time we slept together.

And the average duration was probably between one and three months. That is the standard. When I say standard, I mean that of the women that I'd list as being in some sense ex-girlfriends of mine, I can only see two on that list that lasted over three months. And the vast majority are closer to one month than three. None lasted less than a month for the simple reason that these things take at least a month to see where they're going. Or actually that isn't true. Ultimately I always knew where they were going- absolutely nowhere, but that doesn't mean that these things don't have a value in the here and now.

Because I know. I always know that they're going to end. Within three months. I KNOW.

And within three months, they realise too.
The penny starts to drop.

Because it always starts well. I guess I impress on a first date. And I continue to impress, in that way. Being the gentleman. Buying flowers, getting them little gifts, paying attention to them, being sensitive.

And it's not long before we get 'I was telling my mother about you. She thinks you might be 'The One'.'
Or you get introduced to their friends to be evaluated. And when you turn back to look at them as you're at the bar ordering drinks, you can see you've been approved. Her friend is saying 'Oh, x, he's lovely! Just what you need right now.'

And this is when you start to worry.
Because it happens so fast.

I'm thirty now and I've been bitten in the arse by this phenomenon enough times to be wise to it, but I wasn't always. I guess it's kind of a buzz. You know they're falling in love. And you're not falling in love, but you're in love with the idea of someone falling in love with you, and you can't help BUT lead them on.



But you know in time they'll see the light. They'll tire of you. They will see, eventually, that you were too good to be true.

And it is those hopeful monster genes. They KNOW what they need to do. They know they will not be selected to be someone's life partner. Their best hope is to dazzle long enough (three months) for successful fertilisation to take place- or it would do in a world without contraception.

Because the facade they fall for, it isn't a facade, you really are being you. But not the whole you. And what they see encourages them to fill in the blanks the wrong way. They think that you are someone they can reform, someone they can rescue, someone who their love will turn into the person they always should have been if they'd had someone to truly love them. That's what they believe.

And time shows them they are wrong.

And sometimes, I think it hurts them. One or two felt deliberately misled. Most take it in a resigned way. Most of these relationships just fizzled out gradually, ending, not with a bang, but a whimper.

In some cases genuine hatred seems to have been the outcome. But more often, some strange kind of nostalgic regret seems to linger. I was stopped by a barmaid recently in The Star and she said that she thought I'd had a relationship with someone she worked with in her day job. It turned out she was right, but what was odd was that it happened a very long time ago and wasn't for that long, so quite how a barmaid at The Star I'd never spoken to before should know on first meeting that I was someone who'd once slept with someone she worked with in another place is a mystery to me. Then again, I think I have a reputation in that pub for having done the rounds a bit.



I suppose now we need to look at the other angle. and to do that, we need to look at how D and I ended up living together.
It started out as an exercise in cynicism. D lived with her boyfriend and it wasn't going well. I worked with D and figured out that taking her for a drink and being a shoulder to cry on was a good tactic to getting her into bed.

What actually happened was we BOTH got drunk and ended up crying on eachother's shoulders.
I told her what I thought was the worst thing I've ever done, the one thing in my life I'm THOROUGHLY ashamed of. And she held me close and told me it wasn't that bad, that anyone in my position would have done the same.

And I got quite attached to her in an emotional sense. Things got blurred.

We'd often go for a drink together- I'd keep pushing the going to bed together thing when I'd had a few, but D made clear it wasn't happening. She didn't see me that way.

And it culminated in a night that she actually did go out and find that kind of solace somewhere and I had a fit of pique which lasted...

...till she texted me and suggested going for a drink.

She'd become a mate. Yes, I went for a drink with her. She had decided to leave her man and find somewhere to live.

By the time we moved in together, we were good platonic friends. Nothing beyond that was ever going to happen between us. I think both of us separately 'christened' the flat within the first week.

I count D as being like a sister in some ways. She got me in a way so many women never have and never will. And was able to handle actually sharing a living space. There was always a huge trust between us.

I think sometimes she was quite protective towards me. As a lot of my friends are.

She knew what it took to get it to work. In many ways, there was something slightly couple-ish about it at times. And certainly, when she started seeing The Baker, when we went out it was often as if I was has stand in. I was quite protective towards her if strange men started chatting her up.

And I can remember one rather strange moment in the Westcroft. There is a curious tradition round here where 'The Proclaimers' are played last thing on a Saturday night and everyone dances on the tables topless. Well, I wasn't doing it until D shouted 'Come on, get your top off, you have a good body!'

And it was wierd. Because it must have looked to everyone else as something so very different to what it was.

Because yes, D has seen me countless times sitting on the couch in just my boxer shorts flicking through the channells with the remote. But that's all it ever was.

D knows me. As Dizzie knows me. And now, the way Haydee too knows me. And they all see me in the same light.
They're there for me as friends. Good friends. Closer friendships than usually seems to be possible between people of different sexes.

But they know why it would never be more. They see me at close range and they can see why I'm not boyfriend/partner material. Seeing me this close, they could never look at me that way.

In my case it really is true, being a close friend means you would never want to be my lover.
It is only possible to be my lover because you cannot see what a friend would see.

What is that?

It's what I am when I'm being myself. And once you're used to what that is, you can deal with it. I guess it can be unnerving and difficult to handle, something that in some sense you can feel something for, evidently, because I know those close to me genuinely DO care.
I think they accept they can understand, but never QUITE see through my eyes.

I am that precocious child. A precocious child with a fair bit of life experience, but still, someone ultimately vain, capricious, petulant and with no real sense of any time other than the here and now. Someone for whom life itself is fairly trivial. Someone who lives to be fascinated and amused, but ultimately is driven entirely by the need to sense and experience.

And causes. Someone who needs to be driven by causes, someone who thinks entirely in terms of ideals and structures.

And it's hard to reconcile that with the fact I am at the same time someone with high intelligence and good interpersonal skills.

But it's a theme that fascinates us in human myth and art.

The Elves of Germanic legend, perhaps. Wise in knowledge yet ultimately capricious.

I guess I am somewhat otherwordly to those who really know me.

And I guess any woman who knows me well enough to want to have me in her life as a friend can see that I'm not something she'd want, not in that way.

It is the mystery that fascinates, the mystery that attracts and when you know the answer to the riddle, you realise it was like El Dorado; You thought there was a City of Gold, but all there is, is a fetid swamp.

It's not that a woman who gets to know me that well is revolted by what she sees, just she knows that it's not attractive, not at all. There's enough there for her to want to be good friends, but the idea of anything more doesn't appeal- not when you can see from that close an angle.



And so I find myself where I do now. Haydee. She is perhaps now one of my best friends, certainly I talk to her more than most people I can think of. And we both know that if the choice was down to me, I'd spend my life with her. But it isn't.

Sometimes I think we should just end the agony, and just completely break contact. But I can't bring myself to do that. Because what I DO get from her is more, a hundred times more than any other woman could ever give me. It's not quite what my heart desires, but still, why cut off my nose to spite my face?
And anyway, I don't think she'd let me anyway. That's how special she is. She works to steer our friendship past this problematic obstacle that I'm madly in love with her.

And it will get steered past, of that I have no doubt. I guess we will talk pretty much everyday, maybe forever. And every day there will be a part of me that wants that something more but knows it will never be. I guess it will be something that will always be there, just we'll both get used to it. In time it won't even be talked about, it'll just be something taken for granted.

I've said to her that it may well be for the best. I guess in spite of my beliefs, I find it hard to escape that cultural conditioning that tells you that one day you'll find Ms Right and settle down. I found Ms Right and it turns out I'm Mr Wrong...

I suppose there is something ever so SLIGHTLY dispiriting about finally stumbling across that someone. It actually does feel like you loved them all your life. You didn't. It's just you had a hole in your soul that was made for someone to fit and one day you found someone that fit. But you don't fit into theirs.

It's the one thing we all kind of hope we won't be found wanting in; being the one the one we love, loves.

But there's no point throwing your rattle out of the pram about it. The responsible thing to do is admit to yourself and everyone else that that position is kind of closed.

The fact is, we all market ourselves in two ways. But you can't market what isn't there. You can only sell what you have in stock.

We market ourselves short term to get laid and we market ourselves to find a long term partner.
We do the first by dazzling ourselves like a peacock displaying his plumage, showing off the genes we have to pass on.
We do the second by letting someone into see what those genes have made us.

And the fact is, there are buyers out there for the first.

But not for the second. Not anyone I'd ever want to sell to.

So I think, really, I'm just going to stop selling the second. It's a White Elephant. It belongs to Haydee, kind of, but it's something she can stick in the garage with the rest of the junk.

As for the first, I reckon I've got another ten years left of selling that.

This is reality.

This is life.

My life, anyway.

The Hopeful Monster

Today I guess I've finally come to terms with something. And understanding the reason why it is, is some- though not much- consolation.

It's about genes.
It's about how evolution works.

I will die alone.
But I will die leaving descendants. I almost certainly have descendants already, and by the time I die - probably younger than most- I will have left behind more than the average person does.

It really is about that. I keep thinking it's about me, it isn't.
It's about what women want.

It all goes back to the reproductive strategy our genes thrust upon us. It's a numbers game. But for men, it's simple.

We can sow our seed wherever it is accepted. But with a limited amount of energy, our genes choose the genetic combinations they think will produce most variety. It is no coincidence I am attracted to women of other ethnic groups far more than I am to women of my own. As a general rule, the darker the skin, the more I'm likely to be attracted. It's my genes. Seeking diverse combinations.

Men, we choose to sow our seed wherever we think the combination stands most chance of survival. But push come to shove, it's a numbers game and we'll go for as many combinations as we can. We're selective insofar as we know (or our genes know) that our time and energy are limited.

For women, it's different. Evidence suggests women pursue a different strategy.

A study done in the UK after the Second World War found that in this, the most tight lipped country in the world, one in ten children had a different father to the one they thought they did.

And the evidence of nature suggests the same, amongst all species where males lay claim to women.
It makes sense.

Women want two things.
A man to BE a father to their offspring.
And men to father their offspring.

The evidence suggests human women are prone to 'cheat'.

They want a cuckoo in the nest.

That's their wildcard.

They want a man there for life to be with them to bring their children up. Mr Stable. Mr Responsible. Mr Caring.

But they secretly want something else.

They want at least one of those children he brings up to be the child of a wildcard. A hopeful monster.

Someone who loved and left.
Someone who has none whatsoever of those characteristics. A genetic risk taker.

Because Mr Stable is the man of today. Binding her genes to his, ensures the immediate survival of her offspring.

Including the offspring she has with the hopeful monster.

But her genes have an eye to the future.

And the future, that belongs to Cuckoos.

What is the cuckoo? What is the hopeful monster?

That bizarre genetic comination, that peculiar mixture of genes that fascinates just long enough for her genes to think 'This just might be the route to the inheritor species'.

Because in a million years, every gene that most of us carry will be extinct.

There will be no Homo Sapiens.

We will have descendants, for sure, but of all the genes that currently exist in mankind, the ones that live on then in our successor species, and maybe that will be several species spread across the galaxy, they will be a tiny minority.

And none of them exist in Mr Stable.

When a woman chooses the hopeful monster, she is throwing the dice for the future of her own genes.
Her genes are deciding 'This might be the route to the future.'

MIGHT.
It's a risk.
But a risk her genes one day must play.

Because the genes that live in us today made that choice over and over again. They are the survivors of risk taking genes. The genes that were passed on through hopeful monsters.

And so it is.

I suppose I've always found it slightly wierd and uncomfortable the way women (and sometimes men) react to me. I guess I've always seen myself as quite asexual and I must admit to finding it slightly unpleasant when people see me in sexual terms. I resent being seen that way, I resent the fact that anyone should be attracted to me on purely sexual terms, I like to think people are attracted to me on the basis of my intelligence and my personality.



I just walked in to the pub and got blatantly leered at by several of the women of a certain age and type in there. And I find it wierd in some ways. Because I'm so NOT the typical ideal of masculinity. I don't get this tendancy to obsess about me. Sometimes I actually find it physically repellant.

And yet, really, the only women I'd actually want to feel that way about me never do.

I realise now it's about genetics. It's about the hopeful monster.

I will die alone because any sane women can see that I'm not fit to be a father to her children. Not in that way. Not in the way of life that we live today. I cannot satisfy here and now. I'm not Mr Stable. What they do see, is a father OF her kids, a sperm donor.

Children to grow up themselves as hopeful monsters.

I've come to terms with the fact that actually, most women see me as just fling material. That's all they'll ever want from me. Or all their genes want.
This is what puzzles them as well as me. Because they THINK they'd only want a fling with someone who was physically fit, good in bed, etc, etc.

And then they can't quite explain it when they tire of me so quick. Or realise that I'm not the man of their dreams. Just an easy ride.

Because the fact is, they didn't want me, just the chance to blend their genes with mine. They don't- nobody does- want to grow old with me.

They know, deep down, that in the here and now, I'm not what they want as a person. That the bizarre genetic combination they want to take a risk on, is dangerous in the here and now. That I will burn myself out and die alone. That I will love and leave them, or die young, or they will find me too much and tire of me. Deep down, they know.

They can see what life will bring me. They can see how I am driven.

Here and now, the man to be with them, care for them, hold them tight and be around is Mr Stable. The Breadwinner. Goes to the gym regularly, has the physical frame a man should have, is in touch with himself emotionally, etc, etc. He's here and now, he's Homo Sapiens of today. The man who will pay the mortgage every month.

But in that frail, boyish frame, in those blue piercing eyes, that taciturn face, that tinkling giggle, that mind that is slightly beyond the norm with that heightened set of communicative abilities that beguiles in the short term, but pales in the long term, is the chance to play dice with a hopeful monster.

Because maybe the genes that pair with that hopeful monster will inherit the earth.

Because maybe those genes that seem such an out of kilter combination today, will be amongst the ones that make up the successor species.

I've realised now that women don't lust after me. It's not my body they want, they don't, it actually completely goes against the type of body most women think they want. But yes, even though they don't realise it, they do really only want me for one thing. Maybe it is my mind, but not so THEY can have it. Only so that mind lives on in their offspring. They'd rather another mind, perhaps less advanced, but more in tune with THIS life, actually was there with them to guard those offspring.

Their genes see the genes that make my own life so complicated as being the genes that might be the ones that survive.

One day a Dinosaur gave birth to a brood of eggs.
One of them was slightly wierd. One of them had strange, slight indentations on its limbs.

The descandants of all the other eggs are dead.
His descandants are birds.

Any woman with her head screwed on can see I'm no good for her.

But her genes can see a world a million years from now where a human species of tiny framed people, in a world technology has made the need for physically fit bodies an irrelevance and therefore tiny frames are more economical, where the human form has neotonised (Let's be honest, my figure is quite neotonous), where synastheastic conceptualisation and the like are the norm of human thinking. And her genes want to take that throw.

I tell myself that this life I lead is my choice, but it isn't. It is the choice of genetics.

I really am nothing more than a hopeful monster, a set of genes to be taken in and then the shell that carried them spat back out.

Because today doesn't belong to me. Today belongs to Mr Stable.

I will die alone, I know that. The only woman I truly want will die in the arms of a Mr Stable somewhere.



But I have my vanity to cling on to.

I will die knowing that there is a chance- a slim chance, but a chance nevertheless that my descendants will inherit the earth.

Is that enough?

Not for me, no.
I'd rather die in the arms of the woman I want.

But I guess my descendants will see it differently. Not that they will have a clue that I ever existed, except in the logical sense I must have done. I'll just be one of their vast number of ancestors.

Survival of the fittest is a funny thing. The present does not select me, but the future may do.

I guess that thought is some comfort, in a strange kind of way.

I guess I just give up on expecting it to be any different. I am what I am and no long term use to any woman in the here and now.

Guess I should just head off to the pub and hawk my genes as I usually do.
After all, it sometimes gets me some short time comfort.
That's the reward my genes give me for being a hopeful monster. Pointless sex and the odd stroke on the cheek.

I'm used to it now.
I accept it.
I no longer care.

I can live with it.

I have no choice.

Aesthetics

I wonder, do we all fight that inner battle between loathing our form and striving to be our own aesthetic ideal?

And are the ideals we hold in themselves flawed to others?

To me, this looks about right.

Right now, my figure satisfies my aesthetic ideals of what it SHOULD look like.

But is it, perhaps, obsession with fulfilling an aesthetic ideal, that is in fact actually unhealthy?

Because believe it or not, a part of me actually wants to lose more weight.
Though I know that really, it would be damaging to do so.