Journal

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.

I’m in an agitated state of intoxication. And what intoxicant am I on I hear you ask? Well my primary drug of choice is nicotine but that is not the drug that has so scrambled my brain cells into a mash of hypertensive jitteriness. That pleasure can be given to the exquisite elixir of the Gods, the black nectar; Coffea arabica . It is pulsing through my arteries, twitching and stimulating the fibres of my soul with heightened awareness and wakefulness. I bought a new coffee maker tonight and I just had to test it out and am now so caffeinated that I’m about to burst with jitter bugs.

Well I exaggerate but don’t let that stop you from brewing up some of your own, just to experiment a little and develop your tolerance just that little bit more. It’s Thursday night and a sleepless night before Friday isn’t anything you haven’t experienced before right? I had to make it sound more extravagant than what it really is just for proprietaries sake but it will undoubtedly give me untold nights unrest, considering I can brew up some ultra strong coffee in this new fan-dangled contraption and take caffeine toxicity to new extremes. I’m excited by the prospect of taking sleep deprivation into unchartered territory, although my limitation is around three nights without sleep, reality begins to shape shift into hallucination and delusion after that period however it might be different this time (famous last words of any junky).

A friend of mine has one, not exactly sure the technical name of it but I’ll call it the stove top brewer upper-er, it produces some nice coffee and I saw one at the supermarket and on impulse I had to have it, to add to my collection of caffeine paraphernalia. My leg is moving at the moment so I’m far from detoxed from that last hit. Writing seems to be boosting the hyper activity and now both legs are twitching in unison, the rhythmic dance of the wired.

Just thought I’d share the trivialities of my ever so ordinary night. If it’s good enough for Facebook then it’s good enough for twistedtripper.com

Goodnight ‘n’ don’t let those jitter bugs bite

As it says, presumably buried deep within the Bible, “No rest for the wicked” and so it is for this wicked soul. My apologies for the ignorance I exhibit to sacred texts but never fear coz Wikipedia is here which has confirmed the origin of the aforementioned quote as The Book of Isaiah. Although the Bible is oftentimes praised for its poetic and beautiful verse, I admittedly find it somewhat tedious to read and for the most part, my aesthetic is too base to find admiration in a series of books that speak in colourful language to articulate the meaning of existence. That is ostensibly defined as the glorification of God. Well that is the impression I get from Bible Bashers and from my limited knowledge of religious matters.

It has been pointed out to me from the most unlikely figures that the Bible is fundamental reading in order to appreciate some of histories great literary figures, like Shakespeare, whom I’m lead to believe, sources Biblical texts in many of his plays. I’m fond of some classical literature but I seem to have an aversion to Shakespeare, perhaps because I have shady memories from High School where we attempted to de-construct and analyse a couple of his plays, Othello was one and I also recall Macbeth, but it all flew over my head. Interest in poetry was pretty non existent at the time and even today it isn’t too appealing. Having to decipher Old-English and to then decrypt metaphorical speech into some contemporary point of reference is too hard for a simple and feeble minded person such as myself. Perhaps I could go back now to acquaint myself with such great literary heritage, now that I have a better grasp on language, however care factor is essentially zero and I have more pressing matters that need fulfilling. It isn’t to say that I wouldn’t mind possessing greater awareness of cultural heritage but it is something that requires extensive research and study to make gains, a big call in these times of idle distraction and the fast pace to nowhere we seem driven by. The best I can do is the occasional reading of poetry I find compelling and pleasurable, The Rhyme Of The Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a favourite and the beauty of it is that Iron Maiden has a cut down version of this lyrical beast, set to music – I recommend having a listen if you are metallurgically minded. I was also directed to Faces In The Street by Henry Lawson when I was doing a short course in creative writing as something that would be up my alley. I found Faces In The Street chilling, provoking a profound sense of sorrow but the lecturer was right, I did find it fitting to my aesthetic. Perhaps one day in retirement the classical aesthetic will draw me into examining the gifts to be garnished from the masters of yesteryear.

Anyways more to the point, my weekly dose of insomnia has been fulfilled and I have no real idea if my wickedness has been attoned for by the sleepless angel keeping watch over my weary body but I sure could use some sleep regardless.

Another day goes by and nothing has happened. Events happen but it seems that each day is essentially the same. Sometimes I’m eager that something should happen but nothing ever does and when I think about it, there is absolutely nothing that can happen. That sounds a little over dramatic or excessive, boldly stating that nothing can happen but what is there that can? Seriously? Isn’t that why we create dramas within our minds, imagining some terrible outcome about arise and preparing ourselves for some misfortune. I’m pessimistic so I’m endlessly embodied within some catastrophe about to unfold but it could be that the opposite is true that you, the optimist, may be be confabulating the great fortune that you are about to receive. Perhaps I am merely projecting my own fanatical thinking upon a wider population which is totally errant and ill conceived, however I am of the opinion that human beings are for the most part selfish in nature and more often than not preoccupied with self. Well there are perhaps exceptions to the rule but the majority of people, I think, are in a constant dialogue with themselves over the events that are taking place and how it relates to them.

Call me cynical and I won’t deny it, but in all honesty if you examine the last 24 hours how much time was spent thinking about yourself? I’ll confess that pretty much the whole of the time that I’ve been conscious today has been thinking about me. But I’ll grant you that I am an exceptionally self absorbed individual and I’d say even narcissitic but that wouldn’t be correct in the true sense of the word. I know I am not painting a flattering image of myself and it is probably a caricature of my  flaws and how I see myself at moments of weakness but it is perhaps a telling indication of the level of involvement that I place on self. My excuse is only that I derive some senseless satisfaction from it and that it is a nasty habit I’ve developed and perhaps even a malady of my depraved mind,  like a parasite that has attached itself into the deepest caverns of consciousness, feasting upon the abundance and indulging itself on self.

But that isn’t to say that something won’t happen tomorrow, I know that I can certainly imagine some abominable event which could befall me and give me something at least to justify my deepest fears. But I can also imagine that it will be just another day. Now I’m not sure which is the lesser of two evils, nothing happening or something happening. You can begin to picture the anguish I face with having this uncertainty. That terrible something or that equally mediocre and deadening nothing. Which would you choose? I bet you’d think that tomorrow will be a great day but how can you be sure, isn’t there something that could go wrong? Just a tiny little thing that you couldn’t try and inflate and examine with a fine tooth comb, looking for the forensic evidence to prop up the self indulgence of thinking about yourself?

Back down the coast for the obligatory long weekend family visit and as always the trip down is filled with trepidation and anguish. For the last few days I’ve been cursing myself for promising to pay this visit for the labour day weekend and it loomed heavy; this thought that I was to spend a couple of days back in familiar territory. I’m not usually one to break a promise and on this occasion I didn’t stray from commitment, however  I really struggled with the turmoil of not wanting to come and the obligatory nature of “family time”. Almost as a premonition, the struggle I was waging with myself was in some way a sign of times to come.

In the course of a matter of hours, since arriving, all hell has broken loose and the picture was vulgar to say the least. Such are the ways of family and I’ve come to expect as much but I never seem to fully grasp the lesson that such visitations instill. The anguish I face, pretty much every time prior to making this pilgrimage into “family values” is invariably filled with despair and often the clairvoyance of statistical averages fulfills the imagined anguish with a striking uncanniness to experience and reality. But do I heed this “sign” or warning? No. That is the trouble though isn’t it? It isn’t morally acceptable to become estranged from the “family” and even when the whole family affair is bordering on the absurd and comical in some tragic sense, we are still bound by the “virtue” of so called family values.

Human beings are such a comical creature and the gods surely have a laugh at the absurdity of our plight. We suffer and struggle with the self importance of our lives even though at the best we are here for only seventy odd years. The universe continues with its 14 billion year old quest to find some answer to the question of why it exists while the gods reign in the heavens overlooking the absurd comedy of the human condition. Perhaps that is why we are here, for the absolute amusement of the gods, like watching some soap opera as they sit eating cosmic popcorn onlooking the frailty of human relationships as they turn to mire because of some trifling event that in the course of things is meaningless. But from where we sit these “events” define or enact the feelings that we hold so dear to our hearts.

Sort of reminds me of this movie, “Gabriel”, which was about the Archangels descending to purgatory to save the souls of those trapped and to do battle with the forces of evil in this never-never world, which in my opinion had a symbiotic parallel to this world, there was an unnerving likeness to the decadence and misery that lies underneath the surface in this reality. As it turns out they become corrupted, apparently acquiring this new found sense of feeling is a crushing experience and one can imagine that in the seedy world they find themselves in that the depressing sorrows and awareness of hopelessness becomes overwhelming even to the purity and longevity of Angels.

Of course at the end of the show the protagonist, the Archangel Gabriel saves puragtory from darkness and allows the sun to shine the light of righteousness but does this always happen in reality? Does the light always overcome the shadowy world we find ourselves in? Or is the light sometimes extinguished never to shine? Sometimes I wonder whether there is some light at the end of this tunnel of family reunion.

I’ve never realised how much my identity is tied up into how I perform in the working environment and today proved that I have a lot of self esteem invested in this identity. It really is quite appalling how I can so readily condemn myself for not being able to live up to the expectation that “I” set. I presume that this high standard is the norm, however in reality I suspect that the bar is set so high that it is impossible for anyone to live up to let alone myself. Sure I can make improvements but I’m struggling to make any improvement while my enthusiasm is slumping. Today I realised that I had made a mistake that I possibly shouldn’t have made but in my mind the course of action I set upon was based on sound logic, however as it turned out it was wrong. Automatically my already depressed state plummeted further into the abyss and try as I might I just couldn’t resist the urge to start with the negative self appraisal.

It’s a common thing, these automatic negative thoughts, I know where it stems from but it is so difficult for me to stop it once the process has started. I’ll remind myself of whether the self deprecatory dialogue is actually beneficial or is it really just a method to punish myself for not being perfect. Of course it is the latter and I remind myself to stop it but the ever persistent inner voice persuades me to continue with the diatribe of self hatred. The consequence is not at all pleasant but the little demon within seems to revel in such monstrous and monotonous conversation. I’ve managed to stop the “voice of the wretched” for the time being and it took some hours for me to finally put it to rest. It still is lurking in the back brain waiting for the morn to revive and begin a new assault.

This identity that is enslaved to a system that I don’t even like is the most disturbing part of the absurdness. Work is just a tiny part of who I am and for some reason I feel compelled to magnify its significance to the be all and end all of where I begin and end. In truth, the only reason I get up in the morning and travel the hour it takes for me to sit in front of a screen is to make a few dollars so I can buy food, pay rent, the other necessities of life and have some extra for toys and amusements. Do I like it? No. I’d much rather not have to go and do something that for the most part is numbingly repetitive and boring. But I’m too afraid to let go of it and travel a new path. Or I’m too “trained” into domesticated slavery to leave it behind. I’m dependant on it for the things that I don’t necessarily need but that which I feel compelled to have, to escape mundane reality and feel an illusory validation. That’s the madness of it all, I keep thinking that all the luxuries and possessions I acquire determines my value as a human being and these are the least of what defines my value. I could have the world but what would that leave me? I would still desire more to relieve the existential abyss. The value I possess is precisely because I exist, that I am alive and am able to give something, even if it is a small amount to other human beings who share the same existential awareness. That is what is truly important, however it somehow takes second place to an illusion.

Will I upset myself tomorrow – probably. I will more than likely fall again into the same dialogue that plagued my day today. Will I remember that what I’m doing is not the most important thing in my world – I hope so.

Fatigue has plagued me and I know not the cause. Depression? Disaffection? Both? Even so, my mind is still active in perpetual dialogue and for the most part it rallies with a stream or rather, a diatribe that wishes an end to the hopelessness that it seemingly is stuck in. How can I change the outlook for the future when the horizon looks the same as it did yesterday? Tomorrow it will look the same as it did today, that I am sure of even if everything else is uncertain. How can I predict the future? Well I can’t really, but seeing that we actively look for patterns and meaning, it is the human condition after all, I can only arrive at the conclusion that the pattern will resume from where it left off, considering that I’ll be doing exactly the same thing tomorrow as I did today. I can with 99.9 percent certainty predict it improbable that some existential shift between now and then will occur. Perhaps the only hope I can hold onto is that the damn Pilgrims will leave, at least then my journey to the mundane and predictable will be less flustered with superfluous others cramming the rail network.

The disaffection that haunts me is not that uncommon, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that “Aussies regret work choices” and according to a survey performed by Kelly Services -

71 per cent of Australians wished they had studied further while 48 per cent wished they had studied something totally different.

I can feel somewhat comforted by not being alone in my disaffection, although in all honesty it matters little to me that so many are in the same predicament. What matters is how do I get out? Two options are either I change my mentality or perception or I actively pursue an exit strategy. At the moment the grumbling and moaning isn’t working – my solution seems to be founded in a rather extreme and detrimental solution, namely that I pass away in my sleep so that I need not face another crippling day of sameness. If I follow this strategy I’ll spend a long time with unhappiness that is probably preventable. So which method am I to follow? Do I change my perception or do I pursue a new course to affect a new path?

Such are the dilemmas we face in this extraordinary ordinariness!