Journal

The start of week 4 in my switch from smoking cigarettes to the use of an electronic cigarette and I haven’t had an analog (regular cigarette) since last Monday so it is my first full week without smoking. Since I received my Joye510 from Heaven Gifts http://www.heaven-gifts.com/index.php?gOo=goods_details.dwt&goodsid=200&productname= I’ve been trying to retrain my brain to receive it’s nicotine fix from a personal vaporiser rather than combusting tobacco. The advantage of using a personal vaporiser or electronic cigarette, e-cig for short, is that rather than burning tobacco and inhaling the 4000 chemicals that are included in the combustion process I’m instead inhaling a vapour that consists of maybe 10 or 12 chemicals. Nothing is being burnt  in an e-cig so I’m essentially inhaling a mist of what is called E-juice or E-liquid. Electronic cigarettes consist of a battery, atomiser and cartridge (a place where the juice goes into). A small wick is joined to the atomiser to allow the juice to travel from the cartridge into the atomiser, where the liquid is heated producing the mist we inhale. Pretty simple and easy to use.

It is considered a safer alternative to smoking but has yet to be fully tested and vapers the world over are essentially  guinea pigs, myself included. Although it may seem foolish to risk using an untested device, it does seem that inhaling PG instead of Tar, Carbon Monoxide, Ammonia and the 3900 other chemicals is logically a safer proposition. Considering Propylene Glycol is a common additive to many foods and medicines, it seems reasonable that it is safe. Whether inhaling it continuously is safe is yet to be determined but the quantities we are talking about is anywhere between 1mL to 4mL a day. The only unknown is the flavourings but that is where the superiority of using  a PV comes into play. Rather than being stuck with a few brands of tobacco, which more or less, all taste the same, we now have multiple flavours to whet our palettes with. From tobacco to fruity mixes, sweet or bitter, the array of flavours to choose from is more than enough to keep everyone happy.

E-juice is a mixture of predominately Propylene Glycol, Nicotine and food flavourings. My growing collection of paraphernalia associated with my  e-cig is pictured above. The bottles in the picture are the E-juice and you can see my Joye510 Personal Vaporiser (PV) in the case and on top of the Oksmokey box as well.

The Oksmokey bottles with orange lids actually came this morning and include some Extra-High and Ultra-High nicotine strengths which translate to 30mg/mL and 38mg/mL juice respectively. The other bottles are HG (Heaven Gifts) 24mg juice. I was having trouble getting satisfaction from 24mg so I thought a few 38mg juice bottles wouldn’t go astray. I was right, the 38mg juice does satisfy my cravings for a longer period of time and works well when I’m at work when I can’t just whip out the 510 for a hit when I want, which is often

In my quest to refrain from smoking tobacco I’ve also imported some Swedish Snus and have been using portions of the stuff tucked under my lip – since Saturday anyway, when I got it.  Apparently it is considered 98% safer than smoking and in Sweden where it is manufactured, they have the lowest rates of cancer in the European Union. Smokers in Sweden have substituted combustion in favour of snus and as a result Sweden is a healthier place.

The only downside to all this is, because we live in Nanny state, I have to import all my smoking alternatives. Although electronic cigarettes or at least e-juice is illegal to sell in Australia, I have to rely on the tedious process of ordering and having to wait for shipments to arrive. Customs appear to allow it through for personal use but there is no telling how long it is before there is an outright ban where none of the components and liquid nicotine will be available. Snus is legal to import but there are heavy taxes if customs decide to inspect the parcel. Snus should be available to buy at Australian retailers like it is in America but we decided to make it illegal to seel back in the 90’s for some absurd reason.

It would a great loss to the health of smokers who have made the switch from combustion to vaping all because some do gooders believe it is in our best interests to either quit or die from smoking. Electronic cigarettes offer another alternative – vaping for nicotine. A better way for those unable or unwilling to quit. NRT is an option but is essentially no different to what an electronic cigarette achieves, except we may very well continue to vape instead of aiming to be rid of nicotine altogether. Maybe that infuriates the anti-smoking lobby but vaping does no harm to anyone except maybe the user – so it seems a little over the top to not make it available when cigarettes are and they are known to harm others and users alike. Makes no sense at all.

It doesn’t take long before the grind of another week gets the better of you. And the irony is, I’ve just had a long weekend – yet I am in no better shape than before going nowhere to my one day vacation. I must say it was fun while it lasted but today brought home just how tired I am. It perhaps doesn’t help when the start of the working week is met with a sleepless night. I just don’t know what it is about Sunday’s that produces this inability to sleep. It’s extraordinary, all day I’ve been battling to keep my eyes open, however once I get home I have this resurgence of energy – rarely is the day that upon returning from a days toil do I find a droop in energy, it is quite the opposite. Right now my mind is more lucid and clear than it has any right to be and I’m beginning to fear that tomorrow is going to be even more challenging.

The problem is that I want my cake and to eat it also. It’s been a long standing fantasy of mine that sleep is one of life’s little nuisances and I ought to be able to go into extended durations of alertness without consequence and as much as I wish it to be, it just doesn’t work out the way I desire it to be. You may well wonder what is so great about staying awake and I haven’t a good answer. Sleep just seems like a waste of time and lets face it, time is a limited commodity in the world of work and commute. Although days like today remind me that I am still grounded by the laws of nature and in her infinite wisdom she has decried that all mammals must rest.

So why is that it’s 11:20pm and I’m manic when I ought to be fast asleep catching up on the sleep I lost to last night’s pixies? Over tiredness comes to mind. Stubbornness is another. I just don’t give myself time to unwind and I purposefully try and cheat sleep for no good reason. Maybe I’m a masochist and punish myself for being a bad little boy. Don’t know but I do suffer because of my pig headedness in trying to fulfil an unobtainable desire.

But there is some method to my madness. If I sought to get my eight hours sleep then I’d have to be up at around 7am to get to work at 8:30am,  so be in bed by 11pm. I’d then leave work at 5pm on a good day and be home at 6pm.  Get changed and stuff around, 6:30pm. Work out what dinner I should cook and then cook and if I was efficient it’ll be 7:30 when I eat. Wash up, again if I was efficient I’ll have it all done by 8pm. Then three hours to muck around with me time. Ok it isn’t so bad, but I can’t see myself getting tired for the 11pm shut eye deadline, so how do I train myself to get tired by then? That is going to take a concerted effort and more than a little discipline to formulate a regimented early start, everyday – no sleeping in on weekends, routine. And a definite cutting back on caffeine. Oh NO!!!  Will I do this or even attempt it? Probably not. I’m too set in my ways. So looks like no sleep till Friday…Ah well at least I know what I’m in for and certainty in such uncertain times has got to count for something? Well at least I can delude myself with this small solace.

On the train home I saw one of those homeless people standing on the platform at Central Station as the train slowed to a stop. I was in the front carriage whilst this unknown and nameless man was standing at the rear end of the platform. You know the type, dishevelled and dirty with long grey hair and beard. The sort of person we pass on the street, stirring a sense of disgust or maybe a touch of pity but generally making us feel uneasy and perhaps a little anxious and fearful. The ones we go out of our way to avoid and hope they don’t approach us. It’s definitely a sight we’d rather not see, maybe because we know that they are just a person, probably not too dissimilar to ourselves at one time, but somehow ended up standing on a train station platform looking the way they do – not fitting into what is socially acceptable and who are isolated from the rest of us or we may like to believe anyway. We can be pretty sure that they live rough and we can assume that they are mentally ill or addicted to drugs and alcohol or maybe both. We might think them insane even.

Anyway we do know that we don’t want anything to do with him and we probably wish we didn’t have to witness such an unsightly soul on our way home from work. However, it got me thinking while I sat in the train, wondering just how much different are we, really, as we sit staring into space or out the window on our way home? I don’t know how many people sit in a carriage of a train, 50 or 100 maybe? We may be dressed appropriately, clean and probably not smelling offensive but we sit there avoiding one another if we can. We don’t want to have to interact with the person next to us and at least on the train we are pretty isolated from one another. We may have lovers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters or friends when we get home but on the train we are separated and isolated. I know the kind of isolation we may or may not feel on a train is far from the social isolation a homeless person of the kind standing on aforementioned platform, it does make an interesting comparison nevertheless.

The kind of isolation this homeless man must experience is what we fear the most and is probably why we feel so uneasy when confronted by it on the street. We could easily end up in a similar situation. If things turned sour and  in a serious of events we found ourselves with no money. If we somehow lost our social standing and thus our friends, we could be standing in a big city with no where to go, sleeping rough. What if the event somehow made us acutely aware of the superficiality and fragility that social norms are? What if  we turned to alcohol for comfort, to warm our souls in such a cold heartless place? A city filled with millions of people but no one willing to lend an ear? What if in such unaccommodating circumstances our perception changed and our mind snapped or broke and we lost the ability to adjust back to the norm. Would we then be standing on the platform, dirty and wretched?

Would you then be insane? Mentally ill and forgotten? Lost? Would then someone like me, sitting on the train look out the window and see you standing there, wondering who really is insane? Is it you standing there or is it me sitting on a crowded train, who will be there again the next day and the next wondering why exactly I am there? Doing the same thing day in and day out so that I may be seen to be a part of norm and not really knowing for what purpose? Is it really so important to be a part of machine that cares so little apart from the economic wheels I can turn? Who is alone peering out at my fellow human beings wondering if we aren’t all just as insane?

Did that homeless man see something we couldn’t that made him just a nameless agent standing at odds against a society that herds together for no apparent reason, other than appearing to be just another part of a norm. A norm that shuns and forgets and is threatened by something outside that norm? I wonder if anyone today will ask that homeless man if he’s okay or wants something to eat or maybe just be willing to hear and lend a sympathetic ear? After all that’s what we all want, someone who’ll take a minute to ask how we’re going and to care.

Monday is over and done with and the countdown to weeks end has begun. Four more days to contend with before we are given the sweet taste of freedom once again. I’m in desperate need of time off, yet I continue with the grind that seems to achieve nothing but weariness and resentment. We truly are a strange creature and unless I am completely mistaken I’m surely not the only one in the universe who finds work to be truly uninspiring, repetitive and plainly put, repulsive? Maybe I am. A woman at work is always so happy to be there and I am sincerely perturbed at my total incomprehension at how anyone could be so ecstatic to be at work. It’s down right demoralising and so totally not right that I’m sure all could agree that such “happy” people have no place in the workforce. Surely it should be mandated under the Mental Heath Act as just cause to be scheduled into one of our fine Psychiatric facilities for re-education?

Anyway it is not her, it’s me. I just can’t fathom the idea that work could be an enjoyable experience but then again this woman is the antithesis of me. She is so extroverted and is constantly jabbering away and I’m genuinely surprised she gets any work done with her mouth working overtime the way it does. I have to confess that sometimes I just wish she’d just shut her fucking mouth for five minutes. It can get a little grating to have someone yapping so incessantly, asking questions all the time, after all there is a F1 function key that pulls up a help menu. Maybe more people could make use of it. They might even learn something without having to ask questions to break the silence and hear the sound of your own voice.

Well I can thank the merciful technology for creating noise isolating headphones. All I’m saying is that sometimes its good to drown out the background noise of extroverted individuals who need constant attention to enliven themselves.

Luckily today was a day free from too much extroversion and if nothing else, I at least have something to be grateful for. Although Monday’s are the worst day of the week, tomorrow the said woman will be back with her ingratiating cheerfulness and who knows maybe it will be contagious and the meme may even spread to a sour puss like me. Yeah I know, and pigs may fly. 

I’m being stalked by some random guy who has decided to make me his pet project. I stupidly opened the door to this churchy type and had a friendly conversion but I’ve opened Pandora’s box! Every weekend he seems to come knocking to see if I’m home. Luckily I was out last weekend so I missed him. Nevertheless he left me a Church pamphlet under my door with a hand written invitation for me to attend church on Sunday.

I must have been mad when I first chatted with him and had I known I’d be stalked, I would’ve been a little more discerning. I certainly would not have been so friendly. But what’s done is done and now I have to scheme a plan to get rid of him. He piqued my interest if I am to be honest and he seemed friendly enough. But is it a case of looks being deceiving, for all I know he could be a total nut case!

Anyway it makes me curious as to why someone feels compelled to knock on doors espousing a belief and touting it as the one and only truth. Why is it only particular creeds that feel it necessary to harass neighbourhoods with proselytising? Does anyone ever convert because some random knocked on their door?

He gave me a Bible because one of my complaints was that the Bible is so hard to read. I have the King James version and although I’ve read bits and pieces of it, I find it hard going. Due partly to the way it’s written but more truthfully,  because I don’t believe it and so seems pointless to expend time on something disinteresting. So I now have some modern version and it is no better, I still don’t possess an openness to receive the gift of salvation, namely because I think it’s absurd and silly to believe such things.

I was told to start with Mark and I started reading but it holds no appeal to me. It’s just words on paper written in what seems to not be any particular sequence and in somewhat fragmentary pieces. I would like to read the whole thing, one day, but it requires a concerted effort in concentration and focus to complete. A time consuming endeavour and one that isn’t particularly enjoyable. But are any history texts ever really an enjoyable read? Because that is what the Bible represents or so we are led to believe, that it is a document describing the history of Jesus and all the prophets and martyrs before him.

I can understand why religion appeals to people but to claim every word in a piece of text is the absolute truth and that one need only suspend disbelief is not so appealing to someone who wants to just know what the truth just for truths sake, without appealing to extraordinary supernatural phenomena to gain it. Is it reasonable to believe that the laws of physics can be arbitrarily suspended just for the sake of stirring devotion? Do religious people truly believe every nuance and miracle recorded in the pages of the Bible? Or is religious belief just a way to commune with one’s fellow human beings? Is it just a social club or does one truly have to believe literary that a Man rose from dead, or that a man built an ark to house millions of species? Or that Jesus walked on water, made the blind see and lame walk? Or that a man lived in a whales mouth for three days? 2000 years ago these things were perhaps believable but in the 21st century is it still possible to believe such things as the literal truth? And if they aren’t meant to be taken literally then what are we to make of it?

So having someone proselytise by door knocking may seem quaint but is it anything more than them expressing a desire to have their own existence validated in some way? I think the real reason why I naively opened myself up to this experience was because I was feeling lonely at the time and it was kind of nice having someone show a level of concern even if it was based on a deception. I’m not going to convert and he is unlikely to offer friendship without conversion. I could be wrong but the randomness of meeting is not some divine intervention but rather two egotistical entities colliding for a moment. There are two agendas that are not compatible. On the face of it, the need for belonging is a basic human desire so perhaps on rare occasions, when someone is vulnerable and alone there is a possibility that such clashes of ego be mutually beneficial but this random event is probably not one of them.

Still it’ll be a curious how this little synchronicity pans out and how long my stalker will stalk before he realises that it’s a lost cause. I somehow doubt he’ll ever see things in the exact same way as I see them nor will I be likely to adopt his point of view. But stranger things happen and we both may walk away with something interesting anyway.

I’ve been thinking about quitting the durries and let me tell you, even thinking about the concept sends an anxious knot into the pit of my stomach. It is something I conveniently place at the back of my mind when ever I think about  giving them the flick. This addiction is a mighty powerful one and one that seems to need constant reminding that it is exactly that…an addiction. The only regret in life I have, is ever picking the damn things up in the first place. Trying to conquer the fear of putting them down is the hardest part. I am able to quite easily avoid the fear by postponing the quit day indefinitely, just by not thinking about quitting, but surely it is time that I lay this demon to rest….before it is too late. I have one packet left sitting there waiting for me to smoke…do I make the plan to quit once that packet is finished or do I wait till the doctor tells me I have throat cancer. The answer is simple I quit.

However, do I mean it when I say it? Will I have the strength to carry out the plan. Have I even made a plan? What exactly do I fear about quitting, the pain of withdrawal? I don’t know. It’s the fear of fear. The fear of feeling anxious. The fear of feeling deprived, stressed, angry and lonely. My companion will be gone. But surely these fears are irrational and how can I even feel fear now when I’m still smoking. It’s outrageous that such a pesky stimulant can provoke such negative emotions. Will withdrawal even be all that painful, after all, half my life I spend in a state of anxiety as it is. It’s just thinking about how hard and difficult things will be that gives fear its life. What if I think about how good I’ll feel once I don’t have stinking cigarette smoke choking my arteries with lead, tar, carbon monoxide and a thousand other vile chemicals.

I get nothing out of smoking except a sore throat and a case of worry that those little nodes at the back of my throat are something I don’t really want to deal with. And yet  I still smoke. Happily I want the nicotine to sooth my worry away but it always wants more and never fulfils its part of the bargain, to give me the flight of light headedness it once did. Apart from the slight reprieve it offers before reminding me that is needs another feed I get nothing but headaches, legs that feel like lead, guilt and fear. Like a wretched little infant crying incessantly to be placed back into the warmth of its mother’s womb, to be cradled and fed and not face the cold and harsh reality of birth, this addiction beast just doesn’t want to leave the nest I provide. I have to kick it out!

So procrastination and waiting for it to leave isn’t going to work, that much is for sure. Motivation is unlikely to come until it’s too late so what is left? The Plan. The Big Plan. To walk through the door that says Non-Smoker and what can be easier than walking through a door? I’ve cracked open that packet now. Will I lay this beast to rest once it is finished. That leaves tomorrow and fuck I’m scared to walk through that door. But what’s more scarier the door or the morgue?

Australia Day is nearing an end and what that means is another week is beginning. I didn’t get all I planned on getting done this long weekend and another week will go by with my flat in a semi state of cleanliness. I wanted to get everything put away so all the bits and pieces were out of sight. I never did get around to initiating that desire except for a last minute dash to have some things out of the way. I did play around with my Hi-Fi rack for my desktop and I even sketched up a 3D  model of what it will look like. Not sure if it really looks that good but it is a hybrid rack I came up with from odds and ends found in Ikea and Bunnings. I found a couple of spice racks and some grille thingy in Ikea which will form the base and the first top layer and then I came across aluminium flat plate in Bunnings which forms the top surface and will be screwed to the spice racks to hold everything in place.

3D Hi-Fi Rack

After messing around cutting the aluminium flat I realised that I needed more so another trip to Bunnings this afternoon. I initially thought of only having one at each end to hold the Ikea grille into place but then I changed my mind and thought I’d have a series of flats on top instead.

Once I’d finished cutting the rest of the flats instead of cleaning up properly I proceeded to make some audio cables out of some antenna  75 ohm co-axial cable I had lying around and also with some RCA plugs I picked yesterday. My soldering job was pretty shocking but they seem to work, although I’m not sure if they made any improvement sound or if the sound is actually worse. I thought they did actually have some impact for the worse but I can’t be sure if that is merely because I made them and I didn’t pay hundreds of dollars on some audiophile super duper silver impregnated specials.

Happy New Year! Today marks the passing of the first working day for the year and it didn’t get off to a good start. No siree! Another night tossing and turning not being able to sleep. I’m somewhat frazzled now but hopefully tonight will cure me of insomnia, although  I have no real reason to believe it’ll be any different tonight considering it is dreadfully hot here in ol’ Sydney town. In fact this year is proving to be difficult to get enough sleep. For some reason I just can’t get enough. The only good sleep was the last week of 2008 and then bang the new year came and out went sleep and in with my mind in the grip of mania that won’t give me wink until the morn. Well I can probably look forward to another tiring year if it is going to be this same hyper jabbery of restlessness. Oh well if I don’t make some lifestyle changes then can I reasonably expect the Sand Man to grace me with his magic dust?

Apart from that my head is up to its same old tricks, doing the same miles it has travelled countless times, as soon as the same old routine begins it jumps into gear with the tired worries that have no business entering into another year. Well I’m trying some REBT in defence and it is something I can use as armour against the thought processes that are hard-wired into the  fabric of my brain. The trick is not giving the beast an inch cause he’ll take a mile if I allow it. It has become such a bore, listening to the same anxieties that I can’t control so why put up with nonsense and why not just STOP THOUGHT! Do I need to spend my free time worrying about things that aren’t happening right now and that are only figments of my imagination? Imaginings that aren’t real, and only present because I create them so I feel bad and for no other reason than to muse the beast that feeds off the lowly sub terrestrial fungi that has festered for way too long unchecked.

Enough! Time to end the tape and put a new one into the cassette player. There! My unintentional New Year’s resolution. To change the tape.

I keep thinking how bad the economic downturn will be next year and it is easy to envisage a dire scenario where unemployment will be a reality. Already the company I work for are laying off contract staff and by the end of this year they’ll all be gone. Next year’s outlook doesn’t look very promising and I’m left wondering how long before it’s my turn to start queuing up at the dole office? I also wonder if I ought to be putting in extra effort to brown nose to give myself some edge or in some way a level of confidence and assurance that I won’t be the first person given the flick but is it a strategy that will really work? I somehow don’t think it will bear a great deal of significance one way or another, although I should be giving more effort than I have been regardless because I can tend to become a little unfocused and slack. When push comes to shove I can put in extra to achieve an outcome but it seems that it is becoming increasingly more apparent to me that I am slacking off a little too much. Can I pull myself out of this rut I keep finding myself in?

I don’t know but what I do know is that my heart and soul has long evaporated from the job that I do and I fail to see any compelling reason to sell my soul to a corporation that really has it’s own self interest at stake and no matter how much one is willing to give, when the threat of survival is present, it will serve its own benefit before those that rely on it for survival. That is simply the nature of the beast and is no different from the individual perspective. There are no assurances when the shit hits the fan and if things become that catastrophic then perhaps there will be people who pull the shortest straw and those that don’t but depending on how bad things go the straws will invariably become shorter and shorter.

In the end what good will worrying do? None! Unless I gain access to a reliable crystal ball then all the speculation regarding future events are merely mind games that only detract from what is real and that is today, right here and right now. With the games I play in my mind, imagining a possible future where catastrophic events are inevitable I only do myself a disservice by adding anxiety that is unnecessary and undesirable. When my mind goes into the future it is never a pleasant place so why do I do it? To prepare myself for the pain I will feel I guess but it is a pointless waste of energy that could be better placed with more constructive expenditure. Although employment security has been playing on my mind it is not the most pressing concern or activity that has taken my mind hostage, that is reserved to researching audio equipment that has preoccupied my thoughts with something other than doom and gloom.

What if? The question that is possibly the most futile question to ever be asked. What if? What if I lose my job? What if I can’t find another? What if I haven’t got an income? What if I lose everything? What if I become homeless? There it is the progression of what if. What if I become homeless? Well a question that is rather unpleasant to contemplate but even more difficult to imagine in any real sense considering I’ve never been homeless. I can imagine that I would be feeling pretty low, depressed and scared. I’d probably feel like the worlds biggest loser and possibly inhuman in some way. I might feel totally destitute and hopeless. I might even feel angry, lonely and hungry. OK so what if I feel all those things? What would it mean in the grand scheme of things? Could I survive? Others have and have regained their status for what it’s worth. Would I somehow be less capable than those that have survived such devastation? What if none of that is likely to happen? The worst case scenario is that I lose everything but do material things define who I am? Or do they merely give me a false sense worthiness by superficially declaring to the world of my status and success? That’s what the fear of losing everything amounts to, the loss of social status and of being looked down upon as being unworthy, along with the pain of the existential experience but I’d say more so because of the former. Some people even choose to end their lives because of it and it is sad that so much of our lives and identities are tied to the status of being enslaved to consumerist materialism, of being seen to be enmeshed in the grid of capitalism and how far up the ladder we are in the pyramid scheme. It is understandable that some people would rather die than face the possibility of being turned away from the social group they are accustomed to being in. It may seem absurd but surely that is why suicide rates increase with economic loss and it certainly makes one wonder at the the fragility of life when a set of seemingly superficial and extraneous circumstance can compel someone to rather die than experience loss of status. We all have our self destruct button even if we like to believe that we are immune to such folly. Press the right buttons and even the best of us is liable to crumble, nature will take care of it once it realises that our usefulness has expired.

It is a fearful proposition and it is not something enjoyable to presuppose but it may become reality in a particular set of circumstances. The head games that leave me contemplating the absolute worse possible outcome in any situation often robs me of the moment but it isn’t without some intrigue as well – to imagine in what way I could survive. Although I wouldn’t want to experience it first hand it is the domain of many in this world and one that could, given a set of unprecedented circumstances, eventuate; although unlikely given that I do have a place to go in the event of catastrophe and that is with family. In a way it curbs the worry of uncertainty because what can I do if things became so bad as the worst happened? Not much and besides there is an awful long progression and journey for it to end in this way and trying to imagine all possible happenings requires far too much energy and creativity to think about so I’m left with no option but to think about something else.

So the moral of this story is; when the question of what if begins to rear its head, cut to the chase and think of the worst possible outcome. Now try and construct the whole journey to that end and see how long before you lose interest and say Bah! What nonsense!

Today was a hard day. Although my thoughts seem to observe everyday as a hard day, it was particularly difficult today. On a scale between 0 and 10, with 0 being “slashing wrists time” and 10 being the rare “sheer ecstasy…I don’t want it ever to stop”, I rate today around a 3 or 4. It started when I looked at the clock this morning, my eyes flick open with a start and I look at the bedside alarm clock to see what time it is, certainly things seem ominous and the feeling I have closely resembles panic even before my eyes focus on the red digits glaring its mocking indifference and the damn thing is reading 9.03am. My next thought is what day is it, Saturday? Fuck no! It’s Tuesday! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Not good.

I jump out of bed, adrenalin surging through my nervous system, the fright or flight instinct is confusingly present and I’m disorientated by the influx of wakefulness that is abnormal for this time of day. My head starts scanning the options and after walking around aimlessly for a couple of seconds I make myself something to drink. Pouring the water in the glass reminds my bladder to take care of business. Even when the piss is gushing I’m panicking and in disbelief that I’d slept in, cursing myself for being..being what? Tired? Somehow it is my fault and it is, but what good is telling myself how wretched and inept I am? Well I tell myself that what’s done is done and proceed to continue with the usual routine, sitting down with a cigarette and a drink, dragging hard on the cigarette trying to make up lost time by smoking fast, but it’s pointless. I’m late! Smoking, thinking about how I can wind back time so I don’t have to face this predicament, so I don’t have to feel the shame of sleeping too much and not being an “early bird”. Then the crushing blow hits as the thought “fuck I hate this life” stirs from the abyss of self pity. My life force slips as I exhale the venomous fumes or perhaps the adrenalin surge ends and I seriously contemplate this thought, my focus narrows on these five words , savouring the truth of how wretched it is being enslaved to a clock. It reminds me of Camus’s Sisyphus rolling the rock up and down and the absurdity of doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result but the result is invariably the same. Each day I’m usurped from oblivion into a world that is governed by the hands of time.

The five words wrecked my day and I curse my insight and pessimism for revealing the truth of life. I say “truth” facetiously but the idea of being ruled by the cruel master of someone else’s time is one that I am constantly battling with. Acceptance is the crucial element in overcoming this formidable foe however it is one that frequently is overcome by the “truth”. I’m constantly racking my brain for escape from the slavery of the clock but am dumbfounded and almost beaten into submission and in effect that is the sense I get from life. Submission and Servitude, the great theme attached to working the nine to five grind, making my masters wealthy while the reward I receive is meager and unassuming, without passion and joy. Yet I am bound to at least appear grateful in my subservience but it is merely an appearance and it can’t be anything but a superficial acknowledgment that I serve in order to receive. However it is not without the acknowledgment that life is passing by while the clock hammers the seconds away, counting production output while the cashiers registers ka-ching the rhythm of profits filling the executive bonus pool with gold.

Like I said, acceptance is key to grappling with the existentially absurd and something I am yet to embrace. I keep trying to find the fortitude to foster the mind set of optimism required to ease the load of absurdity but pessimism prevails for the most part and days like today reinforce the possibility that I may be in for pain and suffering for a while to come and that my master will be the red digits on an alarm clock for the better part of the rest of my days. In truth accepting my plight or resigning myself to adapt to the long haul of many days and years performing the same scenario is probably the only source of relief that I possess but one that merely manifests in cognitive dissolution, a dissolution yet to resolve itself one way or another. The constant nag in my mind tells me that I only have thirty more years before I can own my time but the dread this vision stirs in the soul is unbearable and intolerable to entertain as a form of consolation.

Well the clock is telling me that it is long past the hour of calling it a night and the fear of a repeat of the calamity I faced this morning is now in the cortex of frontal lobe tissue, but my body is seemingly working on a different clock than that of the nine to five grind and it is why I feel so repulsed and helpless when staring at those menacing hands who unaware just circle in loops for the sole purpose of marking episodes in history.