I Wish You Could See Youself Through My Eyes

I wish you could.

Because in my eyes you're not 'nothing special'.

In my eyes you're not 'just a girl'.

I wish you could feel the warm rush and the cold butterflies that mingle together as I think about you at work.

You say you need to learn to love yourself first.
Perhaps you do.

But not too much.
Because there is something about your self effacing refusal to see your own beauty that makes me love you more.
But you don't even love yourself enough to believe you could be loved.

And that's the problem.

I don't know what you see when you look at yourself in the mirror.
But it's not what I see.

You carry too much pain for one so young, too much self loathing. At once so worldly and cynical, and yet, so fragile and innocent.

You judge. Not others, but yourself. And never was Minos so harsh.

I see...

I see the prettiest girl I've ever seen. You think you're hard? Not your eyes and not your smile.
Your eyes show your intelligence, your smile shows your heart.

And in there beats a heart. You kid yourself it's cold.
It's not.

I just don't think you have the heat pointed towards yourself.

Oh, there's those who wear their hearts on their sleeves and no, you don't do that. Because yours is too fragile, I think, for it survive there. So you guard it well, behind its iron rails. But beat it does, and it beats with a purity and integrity which others who trumpet theirs so much would do well to witness.



I don't think I've ever met anyone quite like you.

I admire your intelligence, I admire your dry wit, your quirky phraseology. A heroine of a nineteenth century novel, perhaps.

We talk for hours sometimes. And I don't think I've ever once been bored by it.

I never feel awkward with you, I've never argued with you, never felt angry towards you, never been fed up of you.
I miss you when you're not around.

I miss the solitary 'Ok' I get after going on at length about nothing at all in particular.
I like the fact you just say 'Ok'. I like the fact that everything you say is always true. I like the fact that 'Ok' means what it says. That you're Ok with what I said and if you had something to say, you'd say it. But you don't. And that is an integrity hard to find.

I'm amazed by the way you always know how to handle me, that you can predict my general mood from little things. I'm amazed at the ease of understanding that exists between us. I'm amazed that in nine months we've never really fallen out, though as you say, we disagree on so much.

You don't hurt me. And I know you never would. You actually do take care of me in a way no one else ever has. Sometimes I think you almost do know how my mind works. And it doesn't actually bother me.

I have never really felt distant from you. Never felt the need to hide things from you, never felt that you were trying to push me, never felt uncomfortable at anything you have ever done.
You're one of a few people I actually feel comfortable telling everything to.

You always make me feel GOOD. Good about myself, good about life, good about everything.



Because I'm lucky. Bloody lucky. Lucky to be the one who can see how amazing you are. Lucky to have as good a friend as I do in you. Lucky to have you play the part in my life that you do. Getting to love you really is a privilege. I really can't ask any more than that. I'm blessed already in having you as a friend, and double blessed that you at least let me love you. Anything more would be a bonus, but I have this sense that asking for me is the kind of presumption God throws lightning bolts at you for :)

I wish, I wish a lot of things. Not all of them can be true perhaps. Not all of them are realistic. I suppose the best way I can put it is, I know what I WISH would make you happy, but more importantly, I just want you to be happy.

You are and will always be one of the most important people in the world to me.

You already give me, every day, more than any other woman in the world could ever give me.

That I believe.

I wish you could see yourself through my eyes.

Then you'd know why it is, that it's you I love.

The Male Slut

I often think it's funny how men and women are judged in their sexual behaviour.

If a men of twenty has had thirty sexual partners, chances are his reputation rides high amongst both sexes.

If a woman of twenty has had thirty sexual partners, chances are she's called a fair few nasty words.
By those who know. Because she'll trumpet it less.

The man is seen as the conqueror, the woman the conquest.

A man who walks into a pub and regularly goes home with different women is seen in a different way to a woman who does the same.

We had a charming visitor here once, now, alas, returned to his taxi, who described this blog as being written by a 'sexually predatory male'.

Twat.

Sorry, that's pretty much all I have to say about that.

It's a ridiculous judgement based on gender stereotypes, not actually knowing the author, and not taking into account widely differing lives that people lead.

Firstly, let me state that from my point of view, life being single really IS better. Generally. Most people want to find that special someone. Deep down, I'm not sure whether I ever really have. A part of me has, but a huge part of me hasn't.

Up till now, anyway.

I think sometimes, people get the idea my life is one long orgy. Even people who know me. I wouldn't go that far.

I suppose over the last year I HAVE started to look at what I really want out of these sorts of things.

It's interesting that no one who actually knows me, refers to me as a womaniser. Tart, slut, Ho, slapper, yes. D calls me 'Superslut' and Lisa's two favorite phrases to me are 'You're so GAY!' and 'You are SUCH a SLAPPER!'.

Because, really, that's what I've done most of my life.

Anyway, I tried the whole being good and not being a slapper thing recently. And actually, it does wonders for your self esteem, in the main.

I remember on one occasion just over a year ago waking up with a sore head to see before the curtains an image which immediately provoked in my head the refrain 'What's that coming over the hill is it a monster, is it a monster?'

Because Christ, I felt like amputating my errant member and throwing him out of the window for sinking so low.

It's not so much that I ever go out looking for these things, just that after a few drinks the prospect of going to sleep in someone's arms- anyone's arms really- becomes appealing enough to override any other sentiments you might have.

I suppose some would say I've always had a slightly mercenary approach. For one thing, I've always had a tendency to give eye contact to pretty much anyone.

Then of course there was my standard 'party creation' approach.
You're all out clubbing, you have a flat to go back to, all you need for a post club party is more people.



What I used to do, is just any mildly pretty girl who got up on the stage, just say 'Party later, if you're up for it.'

About one in four will be up for it, but they'll bring their mates. Some of their mates will be male, but generally you'll end up with a party where gals outnumber guys by about two to one, and the night is still young.

But to be honest, that's just the more glamorous end of the reality.

GENUINE CONVERSATION, AGED 21.

Forty year old: If I was twenty years younger, I'd be all over you like flies to shit.
Crushed: Tell you what, if I don't find any other options by closing time, you're on.

I kind of regretted saying that by closing time, because I wasn't really quite drunk enough, but a promise is a promise.

And I've done that sort of thing a lot over the years.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I've had some one night stands which could almost described as little fleeting love affairs in miniature, where you sat up getting deep and meaningful and philosophical about the world for hours.

But then there's the others.

You can picture the sort. Plenty of Mascara, plenty of lipstick, black basque, black leather trousers.
Eldest daughter's minding the kids.

It's four AM.

Her: Right, I'm off.
You: You can stay, you know. I won't charge you rent.
Her: No. Prefer to go to sleep in my own bed. Better go now than in the morning.
You: Please stay. I don't want to go to sleep alone. You might as well.
Her: I'd love to, chick, but the kids, you know?

And you let her out, go back to your bed and lie there, feeling somehow cheated.

The birds are singing and you feel a slight sadness.

Was it really worth it?
Is this all there is?

It isn't all there is, no.

But that doesn't always make it nothing.

I've been thinking recently, that life really is pretty simple.

The fact is, I just have to decide what I want out of life. At the moment, I just sit on the fence.
For most of my life I've had a half hearted strategy of 'looking for the right person', punctuated with little binges of being a total male slapper.

And the conclusion I've come to is this.

Both are livable, if you do them properly.

But serial monogamy, is pointless. Completely unrewarding. Being in a relationship with someone if they're not right, is completely unrewarding.

I realise that it really would take a special type of person to get me to give up the independence I have now and actually contemplate a joint existence of some kind.

If I gave up looking completely and just reverted to total male slapper mode, turned up to full throttle because I wasn't actually kidding myself I was looking for more, I could cope, I think. I'd certainly have a much more active love life than now, because I wouldn't be plagued by guilt and the need to maintain standards, at least some of the time.



I could survive by just going with whichever of the charming ladies of our local pub haven't got a sleeping partner that particular night.

That isn't actually really what I want to do with the rest of my life, as such.

But it's preferable to settling.

So that's it for me, really.

The One or Nothing.

Because I can live with nothing.

I'd love to stop being a male slapper.

The only problem is, the idea of actually having sex with someone I actually love does scare the shit out of me.

And of course, the fact that it might take place without stimulants of some kind.

It's actually rather a scary concept to me.

I sometimes wonder if I'd even be able to do it.

But I think I'd like to at least try.

I'm damaged goods, I know that.
But not beyond repair, surely?

Do You Believe Islam is the Problem?

Ok, first the result of last week's poll.

Mutley won. In fact, on the basis of that poll, there's no point in even voting on legislation. Mutley holds every seat in the House of Commons.

Now on to this week's issue.
The war on terror.

What REALLY is it all about?

Because there are a good many people out there who see it in simple terms. A simple enemy. This is the war between the secular West and Militant Islam.

But is it? Or is not more a series of co-incidences?

It's happened before. Co-incidences. It happened in Germany in the thirties. Too many things to be blamed on one group of people. And it was all too easy to accept that simple explanation. That the Jews were all in cahoots, all plotting to bring down the western world.

During the cold war, they made it simple for us too. There was no independent struggle anywhere. Every human struggle anywhere took place in a cold war setting. So it didn't much matter who was right or wrong, the question was; Which side do the Russians back?

And so we didn't ask about the rights or wrongs of Israel. Because the PLO were part of the other side.
And we didn't ask about the rights and wrongs about a divided Ireland, because the IRA were Marxists, backed by Soviet funds.
And we could prop up Apartheid on the quiet, because the ANC were suspect allies of the soviet union.
It took the fall of the Berlin wall to end Apartheid. If that wall hadn't have come down, Mandela would never have walked free. We no longer needed to back Fascists any more.
It didn't matter what a tinpot dictator did, only whether the CIA or the KGB kept him in power.

And now they miss the Soviet Union.
What can we do without that evil empire sitting over there?
How do we scare the people into unthinking submission?

We tap deep into the western subconscious.
We tap into fear.
Richard the lionheart, sword heroically raised over the battlements of Acre, surrounded by those cruel Saracens with their curved swords.

Fear the infidel and his cruel prophet.

Islam, the cruel religion. The world faces a choice once more; freedom or barbarism.
And the foot soldiers of the new dark age are amongst us. They are your dark skinned neighbours.

And some of you reading this, believe this in your heart of hearts.

Ok. First let's have a look at some actual religious texts.

'the seven nations greater and mightier than thou; And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them.'

'And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.'



'So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the LORD God of Israel commanded. And Joshua smote them from Kadesh-barnea even unto Gaza, and all the country of Goshen, even unto Gibeon.'

The Quran?
No, this is the Bible. Calmly advocating mass slaughter. Advocating the slaughter of indigenous peoples so the Jews can seize their land. And don't tell me these passages haven't been used by Christians to justify their actions; they have. And some in Israel today no doubt see these passages as being fulfilled anew today.


Now;

'We gave the Scriptures to the Israelites and bestowed on them wisdom and prophethood.
On the Day of Resurrection your Lord Himself will judge their differences.
Therefore call men to the true faith...say: I believe in all the scriptures that Allah has revealed. I am commanded to exercise justice....'

'Be courteous when you argue with the People of the Book [Bible], except with those among them who do evil. Say: We believe in that which is revealed to us and which was revealed to you. Our God and your God is one'

'The day will surely come when We shall summon every nation with its apostle. Those who are given their books in their right hands will read their recorded doings, and shall not in the least be wronged.
My Lord has forbidden all indecent acts, whether overt or disguised, sin, and wrongful oppression. . . .
Children of Adam, when apostles of your own come to proclaim to you My revelations, those that take warning and mend their ways will have nothing to fear or to regret .'

'As for those that have faith and do good works . . . We shall take away all hatred from their hearts.
If there are some among you who believe in my message and others who disbelieve it, be patient until Allah shall judge between us. He is the best of judges.¹
Moses fell down senseless, and when he came to himself said: Glory be to You! Accept my repentance. I am the first of believers.¹
He said: I have chosen you of all mankind to make known My messages and My commandments. Take therefore what I have given you, and be thankful.'

'Allah does not forbid you to be kind and equitable to those who have neither made war on your religion nor driven you from your homes. Allah loves the equitable.
Allah is forgiving and merciful.
To those who commit evil through ignorance and afterwards repent and mend their ways your Lord is forgiving and merciful.'

'If you punish, let your punishment be proportionate to the wrong that has been done you. But it shall be best for you to endure your wrongs with patience.
Tell the unbelievers that if they mend their ways their past shall be forgiven. . . .
If an idolater seeks asylum with you, give him protection so that he may hear the Word of Allah, and then convey him to safety. . . .
So long as they keep faith with you, keep faith with them. Allah loves the righteous.'

'Believers, Jews, Christians, and Sabaeans‹whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day and does what is right‹shall be rewarded by their Lord; they have nothing to fear or to regret.
Can you believe in one part of the Scriptures and deny another?'

'Mankind were once one nation. Then Allah sent forth prophets to give them good news and to warn them, and with these He sent down the Book with the truth, that it might judge the disputes of men.'

'In the Torah We decreed for them a life for a life, an eye for an eye . . . But if a man charitably forbears from retaliation, his remission shall atone for him. Transgressors are those that do not judge in accordance with Allah¹s revelations.
To those who have received the Scriptures and to the Gentiles say: Will you surrender yourselves to Allah?¹ If they become Muslims they shall be rightly guided; if they give no heed, then your only duty is to warn them.'

'To Moses We gave the Scriptures, a perfect code for the righteous, with precepts about all things, and a guide and a blessing, so that his people might believe in the ultimate meeting with their Lord. And now We have revealed this Book with Our blessings. Observe it and keep from evil, so that you may find mercy and not say: The Scriptures were revealed only to two sects before us [Jews and Christians]; we have no knowledge of what they read¹; or Had the Scriptures been revealed to us we would have been better guided than they.'

This is what the Quran ACTUALLY says.



So to say the Quran is in itself a violent book and that jihad is a natural extension of mainstream Islam is like saying the Conquistadors were sent forth by Christ; they weren't.

The argument that the problem is with the Islamic faith itself, just doesn't hold water.

However.
It is undeniable that a canvas has been painted in which a guerrilla war is being waged against Western Democracy by Islamic fundamentalism.

How true is this?

Ok.
Let's look at the elements of this terror theory, this glittering composite that scares us so much.

1. Bin Laden and Al Queda- witness, the Twin Towers.
2. Iraq. Well, it's a Muslim country. And Saddam Hussein wasn't a nice guy. Well, not a friend to the west anyway.
3. Hamas, Hezbollah, etc.
4. Iran.
5. Radical Islamism developing in the sink estates of Europe amongst second and third generation Muslims.

Look at this image fleetingly, you'll believe it.

But they're like binary stars. Look up at them, they may seem to be next to eachother. But that's only because of where you're standing. Fact is, they're hundreds of light years apart.

Let's start at the beginning. There is/was, a bloke called Bin Laden. And he had an organisation called Al Queda.
We know nothing about it really, except they lived in some caves and made the odd home video.
And they managed to destroy the Twin Towers.

Has it ever occurred to you that in fact, this vast terror network doesn't exist?
Show me any other Al Queda successes.
What they did that day was their shot. I doubt we'll ever again come across any discernible act of terrorism actually traceable to Bin Laden.

Bin laden is probably not some great terror mastermind.
They got a lucky break. And that was it. Their only break.

But I doubt Dubya wanted to stand up after the Armegeddon of September 11th and say 'It was done by a group of two hundred nutters living in some caves.'

No, a terror network looks better.
And it can be made to serve a purpose too.

Because his father left unfinished business on the Tigris. It's that little two fingered salute from the big fat mustachioed man that gives the lie to American global dominance.

And thus, Saddam Hussein, leader of the Ba'ath Arab Socialist party- a party that before Saddam Hussein turned it into his private family gathering, was committed to a united SECULAR Arab state, Saddam Hussein, hated by Islamic fundamentalists as their bitterest persecutor in the Middle East, was rebranded as the backer of Bin Laden.

Well we didn't have an Islamic fundamentalist state there then.
We'll have one in five years.

And of course, it gives yet another excuse to turn a blind eye to the modern apartheid state that is Israel and the fact that if they couldn't keep citing the holocaust as an excuse, the actions of that state would place it lower in international contempt than Zimbabwe.

And now Iran is the new representative of the Islamic terror.
Of course, that's only possible now Iraq has been cut to ribbons.

Even Dubya and Blair couldn't sell us the idea that Iran and Iraq were in cahoots. Though they tried.
And remember when Dubya tried to drag Cuba in?

Yes, Fidel Castro, that well known regular at the Finsbury Mosque...

Ah, but what about these home grown terrorists?

Being recruited on our very doorsteps?

Ok. Recruited by whom? Because it certainly ain't Al Queda.

Recruited, yes, by other poorly educated Muslims in the belief we ourselves have created that a war is raging between Democracy and Islam.



We've told them they're the enemy. Are we surprised they decide to be the enemy?

Poverty and unemployment are higher amongst Europe Muslim communities than amongst any other immigrant communities.

It is poverty that binds them together. Just as poor whites on sink estates flock to the BNP, the Front Nationale and other racist groups across Europe, their darker skinned opposites do the same.

It's not about religion; its about alienation and poverty.

What we have is a few unrelated anti-colonial reactions and some disenfranchised communities in the west.

Anti-colonial, yes. Because by historical coincidence, it is largely the Muslim world which fell last to the monolith of globalisation.

And it hasn't quite fallen yet.

So it's not Islam that the west is fighting.
It's just people objecting to McDonalds and Walmart being forced down their throat.

The War on Terror is a lie.

It isn't Islam that's the problem.

It's the failure of the infrastructure western leaders control to truly deliver that is the problem.

This isn't about religion.

It's the start of the rebellion of the global underclasses.

But don't take my word for it.

Vote on it.
Poll in the sidebar.

Have your say!

Radiohead- Music For a Hardened Generation Looking to Find Hope

If you were a teenage male in the early to mid nineties, there was one track summed up how you felt over and over again.

Every crush you had, every rejection you faced, you played that song.

And when I lost my first love, Joanna, yes I had this song on replay.



Because I wondered. What HAD I been doing there? She HAD been too good for me.
But I wanted her to notice. That I wasn't around. And it hurt me that I didn't think she did.

Teenage agnst. Teenage heartbreak.

Perhaps we are an embittered generation.
I think we turn into cynics young.

Certainly for much of my twenties, Fade Out was my most overplayed Radiohead track.

I think somewhere within it captures the deep sense of having given up already that kind of characterised my life for much of it. Fade Out was an early Saturday morning song, a song you play back home with your mates, with your ears still ringing, your pulse starting to slow, the pills wearing off, the pot slowly sedating you. The early morning traffic slowly buzzes past and you face the jaded reality of life again now the soulless excitement of an evening's ersatz fun has passed.

Fade Out was the backdrop to your life, a life where you hoped for nothing and paid for everything, one way or another.



No one was too good for you, you were as good as what you could get and you no longer gave a damn who noticed you when you weren't around. And you were dimly aware that you were fading out again.

You were too hardened and cynical any longer to really relate to Creep.

But the mournful melodies of Fade Out provided a backdrop to that walk to buy some fags, flicking through the mobile numbers you'd picked up over the night and wondering which ones you could be bothered to call.

Creep is the song of someone who knows how to feel, but doesn't know what to do about it.

Fade Out is the anthem of bitter disillusionment, of acceptance, of embracing and revelling in hardened cynical day to day existence, in all its empty mundanity.
And actually taking pride in it.

And that, perhaps, is what life does to all of us.

But maybe, perhaps, we have to return sometimes to how we felt as we lay on our beds pressing 'repeat' on the remote over and over again, to hear Creep just one more time.

Because I think, there comes a time when we have to learn to feel like that again.
Because we've learned since then.
We cocked it up then. But we're a lot older and a lot wiser now. If we took the sentiments we felt then, with the knowledge we've got now, maybe we really will find that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

There comes a time to stop anaesthetising yourself.

Because when you do so, you find Creep is no longer the track for you.
It's this one.

Life on Mars- Part One

I'm going to apologise in advance for this series.
Because it is kind of my speculations on some of the more positive scenarios for our future.
And some of the implications.

This series, is a kind of a speculation on how human culture will develop.

To do this, I'm going to do things that may annoy you.

Firstly, I'm going to assume my own most optimistic hopes for the future changes I think are needed in our system, actually happen.

Secondly, I'm going to write the series in question from a fictional settings. So it can be done in the first person. For reasons that will come clear, I think that will work better.

I'm assuming this comes to pass.
I'm assuming the UN charter now contains this statement.

I'm assuming it's now 2200AD. I'm assuming that whilst the relationship of the eight states described here to the UN was that of the UK to the EU in 2100, now it is more that of Texas to the US. And by now there are ten states. Antarctica is a fully fledged developed and populated state of the human infrastructure, as are the 200 million human lives who live on the Moon. The Moon, home to all mankind's heavy and dangerous industry, home to its nuclear warheads, stationed in the Sea of Moscow, on the Far side pointing out to ward away the missiles of the heavens.

Now first, a little explanation at what sort of Earth culture we will see.

I'm guessing air travel will be the normal mode of travel. Smaller planes, possibly no loner needing wings at all, will mean that just popping into the plane, is the standard made of travel- the motor car as obsolete as the horse and cart. So, by extension, anywhere only two hours away by plane, is as near, relatively, as Birmingham now is to London.

So in relative terms, London and Rome are two CONVENIENT hours away. Popping to Rome for the day won't be a major mission for the twenty third century Brummie.

But nor will Sydney. Shuttle flight will be more normal. As soon as long distance (23 hour) shuttle flights have become regular enough to bring shuttle flight in to the normal human life pattern (which it will have done long before 2100 even, internal (as in, global) shuttle flights from London to Sydney will become the new form of air transport long distance. Catching the shuttle from London to Sydney, will be the twenty third century equivalent of flying London to Paris.

Nowhere on Earth will be strange. Nowhere will be far off. No one lives too far away for you to visit them.

And media will have changed. The internet will have become so much a part of life that it online communication is no longer seen- or even is- that much different from 3D communication. And we'll all be permanently connected to it. It will be mobile, on our phones, which will now probably be in wrist watch form on our arms.

No one on Earth can get lost or starve. The days when people on Earth could get lost and not be rescued within five minutes belong, in earth culture, to days of legend.

Nothing on Earth of significance does not hit the internet within seconds. And become known to the world instantaneously.

Human culture governs itself by being in perpetually in communication and consultation with itself.

And what sort of human culture will exist? Diverse? Or Monolithic?

Both. It is to the cities of the west today we must look. That much derided word, that's the key. Multiculturalism.

Because that will be the world of 2200. Because the ten states will be diverse cosmopolitan places. I don't think we'll all be one coffee coloured shade yet, but only historians will remember which of these many skin tones and types of hair originated in which location.

People will lead diverse lives I think, in some ways. Greater personal freedom plus the huge communication resources available will mean that personal beliefs and ideas flourish. With no MSM, merely a popular mode of disseminating information, the world will still have maybe as many Catholics, Muslims, Buddhist, Jedi knights, etc. And many more and diverse beliefs.

But they won't look so strange to eachother. Look to our cities now. It is here, not in the failures, not in the sink estates where frustration leads people to seize on the negative aspects of other faiths, but in your Muslim friends who you often forget are Muslim.

That will be Earth culture. Diverse in belief, monolithic in the system used. There will be a whole series of things which everyone thinks and accepts, because they are part of earth culture. Things that have evolved as being the way globalised earth does things.



Some of them will be things that developed as common ground between the blended cultures that have melted together. Others will just be unthinking assumptions you and I make today, which have just grown up. And we think them, because they work. Or they always have done, on Earth.

This post- or the rest of it- is supposed to be a blog post written- bit like Fusion is doing now- by someone visiting Mars in 2200. For something like this, blogging would be ideal.

Because Mars will still be far away. The nuclear rockets which leave the Moon to take travellers to Mars, will still take two weeks to get there. Radio and telephone conversation are not possible. The internet is, but still an eight minute time delay has to be taken into account between sending and receiving.

So ordinary dialogue isn't possible. But blogging is. An Earth Blogger and a Martian Blogger could get to know eachother as well as any of us do here via a-mail.

So this post is written by a Fusion of the future, up to visit a Martian blogger he's known for years, but just gone to meet.

Monday, Week Five, Quarter Three, 2208

Well, I'm at George's place.
Wow.
On solid earth- No, must remember that- Solid Mars. And that in itself is funny.

It's easier to get used to in some ways than the Moon. But you certainly are lighter here.

It's good to not feel cramped any more. I can't really complain about the journey- it wasn't like those twenty first century accounts you hear of being packed like sardines eating food cubes and the smell of sweat and waste. These liners have all the mod cons. But facilities are still sparse and one gets bored of pool and computer games. Plus, any form of stimulants is forbidden in space transit for reasons of health and safety.

I guess as Mars starts to get closer and it really dominates the observation window, you're just impatient to land. Nothing prepares you for just how long it takes to actually slow down and dock. Or the elaborate procedures leaving the liner and walking out onto the surface, into the ordinary life of Mars entails. You are entering another World, and they make sure you know it.

Right from the start, you realise this is a new world. It's just starting. This isn't a world where life is guaranteed. The system is still finding its feet and they can't afford the luxuries we on Earth have grown to be accustomed to. The security services are armed and prominent. No risk will be allowed on Mars. Martians can't afford to think first and act later. They will not allow you through to their surface until they know you will not threaten the delicate balance that is humanity building a system capable of independently providing for its people without needing the sustenance provided by the Old World.

And yet many come, millions every year. The majority of my co-passengers, as I have said before, were coming here for good. To build new lives up here, to give their labours to the building of the New World. To live lives anew, lives away from where the entire history of humanity until a century or two ago, were lived.

And that's the feel Mars has. Everything, is built entirely to serve today. Mars has only the past it brought with it. It exists in human memory, but not in the landscape. And that's the difference. Human cities on Earth are still built in ways which show where once streets were thronged with motor cars. Down on ground level, some of those old streets buzz still with conveyors and throngs of revellers. And others yet, can be traced with human knowledge, in the arcades and other features that are based on a streetplan that existed when ground transport was the norm.

Not on Mars. No Martian city ever needed those features. Martian cities are built to serve air transport alone.

Martian cities are designed to serve the movements of human thought and energy in a New world. A World without millenia of slow infrastructural growth, but a world importing the knowledge of how to build one.

As I sit in George's apartment here I'm still taking in the first glimpses of this world that I've taken in.

But one thing I'm sure of.

Back on Earth we regard the Martians with mild interest. Children of Earth, we think. Our experiment in creating a New Earth.

But that's not any longer what it is. It's the Martian's experiment. The people there are Martians now. Not New Earthlings.



And we find it hard on Earth sometimes to understand when the Martians 'answer us back', as I've heard some people call it. Refuse point blank to do what UNESCO, or UNASA tell them must be done, but decide to do it their way.
We look at the demands of the Martian Security Council to be accepted by Earth as an equal partner and for the UN to relinquish its remaining articles of control over Mars, and we say 'We can't let that happen'.

But after a few hours here, I'm on the side of the Martians.

Martians are ready to pursue Martian solution to Martian problems.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Epiphany

There is a feeling that can only be described by one word.

It is not euphoria. It is not based on feelings of a rush, hormones racing, pulse racing, a feel good, a buzz, a whirr.

It not suffering. It is not fear, or anxiety.

It is not relief.

It is not anger, or pain, or any emotion that can be explained.

It is that sense of total absence of self, that sense that you are still.

The sense that nothing rages, you have no pleasure, no pain, for at this point you feel that state the Buddhists call Nirvana.

And we in the west call Epiphany.

Portals of Ivory and Horn

Dogs dream.

We can have no idea what they dream about, but they dream.
Watch them.

The paws move, they make little huffing noises, the tail twitches.
What do they dream of?

Do even our domestic dogs dream back to a collective Jungian unconscious of chasing rabbits in a pre-human Doggie Utopia?

I doubt it.

What are our dreams?
Why DO we dream?

I don't think all our dreams are quite the same. I think maybe our dreams really do tell us a lot about who we are. I think that our dreams ARE us doing something, and we do it for a reason.

We spend a lot of time asleep. Even someone with what is pretty much a sleep disorder, such as myself. A long time, when you think what that means in the wild.
A long time to be prey.

Time in which our physical framework goes into overdrive using up the entirety of its energy in repairing nerve endings, healing wounds, building bones, etc.

The stuff it cannot devote full attention to whilst movement is ongoing.

The bodily equivalent of a factory shutdown.

And the body seems to need at least five hours.

But the mind? What does the mind do?

I don't think the mind ever quite shuts down. I've heard many people say they can't state for sure when they went to sleep. I always know, pretty much. I know, because when I wake up I find that as I adjust my eyes my brain pretty much hands me back the thought processes I was last occupied on. I know the time I dropped off, almost to the minute, because I know exactly how far down the line of a particular speculation I was.

And judging by just how quickly you can lurch out of sleep at the slightest warning, I don't think your senses are ever truly switched off.

Of course, I'm aware this is partly subjective. I think I probably physically wake up and check my surroundings every half hour or so. Gut instinct, learned in a place where you never sleep easy, because you never really trust the person in the bed nearby. One hand is always tensed to deliver that defensive blow to the neck.

I think sleep paralysis says a lot. I've posted on it once before, early in the life of this blog. I've had it, and it's downright scary. In the middle ages it was seen as demons come to get you, now the uneducated blame Aliens. I know who to blame. The computer game Halflife and Amphetamines. Basically, its walking up to a lucid dream in a jolt whilst your body still has all your muscles switched off. Of course it's freaky.
But it also tells us a lot about what dreams are.

I really don't believe anything Freud had to say about dreams. I don't think ties are penises, or going up stairs symbolises sex. My experience is dreaming about having sex, symbolises sex and walking up stairs suggests you're going somewhere.

So I look at my dreams and what I think they mean.

There was a time when I thought that our dreams might be us entering the lives of parallel versions of ourselves living in parallel universes. That somewhere in another dimension, lived another me- or multiple other versions of me, and that in our dreams we got to see those other days that the our other selves had.

The reasons I thought this were sound. I had- still have- many dreams where the dream has a self contained life- and more importantly, self contained memories, self contained awareness.

As in people appear who you do not know in real life. And you wake up not knowing who they are. Nor can you remember the name they had in your dream.

But in the dream they had a name. And a past. A past they shared with you. The dream you has a whole shadow past, which the dream you remembers.



There is a frequently occurring dream me. A dream me of a certain type which long made me believe it really was a parallel life I was looking into.

It was/is our world, but it was/is not. And that me is not me, not me as I am. And the divergence has grown wider over the years. But is he me as I might have been? Yes.

The world he lives in is ours, but it's not. It's a more openly corrupt world and the type of me who exists in these dreams is the me that I guess would exist in such a world, if he existed in such a world. I often don't like that me. For one thing, he always carries a gun. And he's used it. And when he does, he doesn't fire once. Three shots in succession, always.
He's a me as I might have become had I been subject to a mafia state and had power within such a society.
That dream me doesn't even like himself. He seems to live in perpetual fear.

These dreams don't show up often. But when they do, they're always vivid. With a clear plotline.

Other dreams I realise are based on hopes and fears. The dreams where you try to run, but can't move.
And haven't we all had the dream where we think we've woken, but are actually still dreaming? And aren't those always when deep down, you know it's time to get up, but you're bloody tired?

And school. How often do we dream about being back at school? Why?

I guess it's something we all look back on. Adolescence is a burden enough as it is, learning how to deal with discovering that in spite of the 'yuk' we felt about mating with the opposite sex a few years prior, actually we want to do it- oh- so- very- much. And pubs. And the rest of it.
And have to earn alphabetically graded bits of paper that would brand us with the mark of Cain for life. Adolescence as human society creates it today, is an ordeal we never forget. And it haunts our dreams for life. Or it does mine, anyway.

Some of the things I've done in dreams have really made me think when I've woken. I've never had a gun pulled on me in real life, but I know how I would react, simply from how it happened in my dreams.

Do we ever have happy dreams? I don't know. I think most people would say most dreams have a dark edge to them. For one thing, and I've asked this of many people- is it just co-incidence that in your dreams, its more often night time than day time?

Symbolism in dreams? No, I don't think there is. Not universal symbolism anyway.

I think its pretty much the same as a flight simulation. I think its brain maintenance.
I think your brain just does a systematic overhaul in the time that elapses between the time the brain says its physical processes are prepared to the time the rest of the body says its ready to switch on again.

I think it uses simulations, fantasy existences and the like to mentally test hypothetical situations, deal with underlying hang ups, work through problems- though not always in the way you'd notice, because it takes the shortcut of going right back to tweak the very roots of your thought processes.



And to do that it sometimes has to return to how you set those thought processes up in the very first place.

Those disturbing childhood memories you seek to suppress.

Your brain psycho-analyses you in ways a psycho-therapist never could.

I think dreams are good things. I look at my dreams, and yes, they often disturb me. But I actually do think that often, they are me coming to terms with me. That parallel me I described above, that's my own mind creating the worst possible me that could exist and exploring just what it is I really am, worst case scenario. I guess I know from my dreams exactly what I'd do in the worst situations my mind can conceive of. I know my mind is fully cognisant of its own systems- I know I COULD conceivably kill, but could NEVER conceivably rape. And that's reasonably comforting to know.

Your dreams really are your mind pushing the boundaries of who you are, dealing with every possible extremity that might come your way.

Of course your dreams are weird. It's like having a probe run through every image subconsciously sitting in your mind and rearranging them, so that when you wake up you're mind is fighting fit again.

You know when they say 'Sleep on it'?

They're right.