It's not that I am lazy - but I can be so lazy.

Motivation is overrated. Success is a mirage.

Gimme a camel, some fresh dates and a cup of tea in the desert, surrounded by nothing, any day.

We aren't going anywhere. Nothing matters, ultimately, so why get caught up in it?

Because it's so seductively real-feeling. Our minds trick us - drive us on - this thing, that thing, the next thing. Want, want, want.

Why am I writing this now? Because I feel I should. A little. (Also, cause I do like writing these things - once I get going...) Why do I feel like I 'should'? Because I have been doing it for five years now and to miss a whole month would be - I dunno - negligent. Wasteful.  Some part of me believes I am building something. Something worthwhile. An artist's journal. Insights into my mind. 

At the same time I know it's nothing that original or deep. Just the free flowing ramblings of another survivor. I feel like a teenager right now. This is how I used to write at thirteen. Just put down whatever comes. (Which is actually a good way to write. But you are supposed to tighten it up later, edit, make it a little fancy, polished. Later never comes.)

We didn't have LOLs back then to punctuate our sentences. We didn't have lots of things. No blogs. No computers. I used to write in notebooks with a ball point. 

Where was I? Oh, yeah; forty four years back. Say hello to the new old me - or the old new me! 

I haven't changed much. They called me lazy in school. Labelled me. Underachiever. But why waste time on bullshit! I knew life was not going to be what they presented it as. I knew what was useful and what was useless (for future me.) Stuff like - physics, history, Latin (yes! we had to study it! OMG, right!) - most of the academic stuff. English was good. Maths - good. Art - oh, yeah! Choir, drama... now we are talking! 

I was right. I didn't quite know it back then, but I was a free spirit, a mini rebel, an artist. And nothing has changed. Well, lots has changed. I have lived a life. My best friends from school are all heading towards sixty now. Those great people I remember as vital, good hearted, zesty, lucid sixteen year olds. They're all doing things, they've been through it all, too. You don't know how it goes until it's mostly gone. Seems like a bit of a rip off in a way. But there's no point in complaining. Cause no one is listening. You're the adult now! The authority. If you can't fix it - no one else can. That much you know. It's beyond ironic.

So why do I bother? Same reason everybody else does. It's easiest just to go with the flow. Keep being who you are. Doing what you do. How you've always done it. 

And although I have very little in the way of material reward to show for my devotion to creativity and passion and self expression, to living free spirited, unattached, unemployed, still making stuff up, creating every day - although I have not found success in the current social definition of success - I have been able to keep it going for a long time. Been a bohemian, a drifter, a dreamer, a poet, a romantic. I have not given up.

I am who I am and who I have always been. Same kid. Feeling life deeply, strongly, wildly. Overwhelmed at times by the ferociousness of reality, the demands of a sentient mind. But coping. Making the best of things. Taking what comes and dealing with it on my own terms in my own way. 

I never had any choice. I was born to be who I am. That much is clear. I resisted, circumnavigated society's insidious pressures to constrain and contain me. I have eluded conformity. Things haven't turned out ideally but they don't. Not for anybody. That much I know for sure. But if you are lucky, you can hang on to yourself - be true, face it or flee it as the case my call for - but follow your inner voice, stay alert, aware, open, hopeful. Keep dreaming.

Sure, be lazy. Unless you feel like doing something. Unless you get a good idea. Then do that. 

Not into psychobabble
Quick new age cures
Life, by nature, is flawed, unstable
Replete with random potholes and
Sudden detours

Mistakes made over and over
Forgive yourself!
It’s human nature
Heightened states of threat
Prolonged exposure to distress

You know how it gets

Somehow, we survive
Adjust, reconcile
Do as we must
Metamorphosis takes a while

Ever evolving self
Often undetected or downplayed
Like a glacier
Or a slow cook roast
Over time we get philosophically remade

Restructured
Revamped
Upgrade

Dead or improved
One or the other
Get bruised, lose a tooth
Learn to suffer

There is always a lag
You’re never rid of those bags
The first few decades will fuck you up
Then a couple more to recover

Ever evolving self
The process is slow
Transformation ephemeral
Progressively we grow
But change is not always pleasureful

All faults excused
Face it - we’re fallible
Dead or improved
The hard lessons are the most valuable
​
Dead or improved
Don’t worry
You’ll get there in the end
One way or the other

​I'll be honest. 
I thought it would get easier.
I thought my life would lead somewhere, I don't know - grander, more bountiful, more integrated, more rewarding.

I haven't given up. I still may get there. Things still may turn out how I envisaged. 
I do have doubts, though. 
But doubts are nothing new. Doubts are like flies, mosquitoes. Everyone gets bugged by them. And everyone hates them.
You try and flick them off, squash them if you can but still, you carry on with what you are doing.
Annoying, though. 

My doubts I can deal with.
What I am attempting to come to terms with is the balance between being grateful for what I have and acknowledging my yearning for better things.
I accept myself as a person. I am comfortable in my skin. By no means has it been an easy entity to inhabit but I have endured and learnt to make the best of things.
Beneath my outwardly chilled demeanour there is a churning intensity. Much of my time and energy is spent attempting to channel it in positive ways, subdue it, make friends with it.
Over the decades I have struggled with anxiety and depression, addictions, weight fluctuations, close to the edge  life-threatening experiences.

I share this because it is the truth and I feel no need to hide anything. I know that many, if not all, experience some, most, all or even more of these things. We usually just shut up about them and endure. 
I feel lucky that I have found my way through to this point and can be open about it.
My storyline, in most respects, is not particularly unusual.
I can say that as someone who has always been sensitive, perhaps overly so, and hyper sentient (I can't turn it off), that were it not for the release and understanding, integration that has come from my various forms of creative expression - I would not have been able to endure. 
So, I ask myself, still, and often: What is the point?

Is it just about surviving?
What is 'making it'? 
When will satisfaction, peace finally come? 

It's a rigged game. 
The challenges, demands, the things that get you - they never stop coming.
Work out one thing and two more pop up.
There is no retirement from life. It's work, work, work until the last breath.
And we kind of fear death, at least prefer to stay alive - even if and when it feels like shit - because of the finality and incomprehensibility of death.
It lurks, taunts us sometimes. Even beckons on occasion. 
But our instincts are strong. We must continue. We must carry on.

Looking back, it makes sense how I got here. If I look at the steps, factor in the choices, the circumstance, the paths taken, the random, the coincidental - it all makes sense in retrospect.
But when we are younger - when we are formulating our dreams, envisioning our futures - we cannot know what lies ahead. We construct our ideals from the concepts at our desposal at the time.
And then, over the years, things happen - maybe from our own doing, but also from pure chance, due to others, or just because they do.
We adapt, we carry on.
We thought we knew where we were going but there are so many unexpected twists and turns, dead ends and surprise peaks that must be scaled that we become a little flabbergasted, weary. 

And all along, time slowly ticks away. Suddenly, years have passed, then decades. We are shocked to see in the mirror a reflection not of our hopeful, idealistic spirits but of weathered and battle scarred veterans. Any of us who are not suffering from or who have suffered some form of psyche PTSD is lucky and amongst the very few.

The world being in the state it is at the moment with the good people, the average population being hoodwinked and bullied by unscrupulous, selfish politicians and their greedy, morally vapid money and power accumulating cronies in big business doesn't help. We are oppressed, make no mistake about it. We are being twisted into submission through rules and laws and agendas set by the gang at the top calling all the shots, serving only themselves. There is still goodness and kindness but it is only to be found at ground level. The current set of people in power have little care for the well being of others. We're forced to struggle to survive on little or noting in a game rigged in favour of the elite.

So, the system is doing us no favours. We're becoming fragmented, frazzled, distracted. No easy paths to leading a simple, uncomplicated, pure lifestyle. And it's only going to get faster and thicker. 

I have no answers. I just take each day as it comes, wade through the swirling, pungent swamp of uncomfortable demands and try to find a tree branch to hold onto or a tiny patch of shore to crawl on and lay down for a minute, to snatch a brief day dream of how I thought it might have turned out or how I wish it would, knowing that any minute a storm will hit, the marsh men will shake me from my slumber and move me along, a gator will appear... something, something not to my liking will poke or prod me, bite or scratch me and force me to unwillingly get back in to the pit and carry on with the struggle.

Bleak?

A little. But not far off how it feels more often that not these days. Is it just me? Or does it feel unduly tough being a human these days?

Like I said, and I'm being honest - not what I expected.

20 Lessons Learnt While Not Losing My Extra Kilos

1. Those mini Snickers are pretty damn cute.
2. Eating snacks in bed while traditionally not encouraged by health advisors doesn't need encouragement to be engaged in anyway.
3. 'Why am I walking differently to when I was slimmer?' is a perplexing question that can and should not be pondered upon extensively.
4. Larger size clothes are much more relaxing.
5. Relaxing is good.
6. Starting a diet now would be too big a shock to the system and adverse to mental well being. Don't even think about it. 
7. As long as you aren't eating two pack of anything - chips, biscuits, whatever - in one sitting, you can retain your dignity.
8. I make other chubby people feel better about themselves. That is a good thing. A service. Selfless. Commendable. 
9. Who knew cheese would be a thing?
10. Everyone has their weakness. Mine just happen to be delicious.
11. Sometimes I'll see a cyclist or a jogger and actually feel sorry for them. It all seems so intense. They don't know what they are missing out on.
12. Cake is not just for birthdays.
13. If I eat salad and veges a few nights a week, I am keeping a balance.
14. Big bones.
15. Most people are too caught up in their own internal dramas to worry about mine.
16. You don't want to go too far, just a bit further than normal.
17. Maybe there's a part deep down that needs comforting, even demands it. I'm just looking after that part as best I can for the time being. 
18. Heft is humbling.
19. Manual labour was never my thing anyway.
20. As long as your face doesn't look fat, you're still OK.

I'm reading Amy Schumer's autobiography at the moment. She's the sassy comedian who loves to shock with her foul mouthed tirades and assertions to do with sexuality. She has that common American quality of being brazen and un-checked which can so often go wrong but works well if it's backed up by authentic talent and dedicated self edit. In her case, it mostly works. 

I wasn't sure what to expect but have been welcomely surprised by her honesty and the tale of her assiduous rising through the stand up ranks due to passion and a dedicated and focused work ethic, as well as plenty of tears and tear-me-down-and-I'll-get-right-back-up attitude.

There's some pretty funny stuff including a chapter titles "Letter to My Vagina" - which made me consider attempting a letter to my penis for fun and irreverence. But nah. It would serve no one. 

One thing, though, that I was somewhat moved by and did bring up some memories and long lost feelings of my own were her chapters on her adolescence. I was reminded of what a trying time it is - how emotionally turgid and confusing it can be. Everything is new and a lot of intense and bewildering thoughts and feelings flood in out of nowhere and catch you unprepared. It's fair to say my years from 13 to sixteen were no walk in the park.

I had to put up with some violent bullying at school. I was a long haired, mellow dude - peace loving and kind spirited. But I could also be somewhat cheeky and somehow drawn to provoking ire in thick headed, mentally imbalanced older and larger students resulting in physical attacks on numerous occasions. This eventually subsided (once I started lifting weights - hmmm - a correlation?) but I did have to endure a good five years of it.

As well as that, I was frequently a target for imbalanced and sadistic teachers because I would not bow down to their unjust displays of authority heavy manipulation. Nice teachers - no problem. Assholes - problem. A few times it was like the classic prison guard vs prisoner scenario. I refused to bow down and paid for my stubbornness in various forms of legal abuse. Sadly, on the home front, too, I was misunderstood and unexpectedly troublesome to my parents who were relatively young and unprepared for my esoteric and eccentric behaviours. As the eldest of three boys my artistic temperament was vexatious and at times troubling to my parents resulting in miscommunication and detachment. 

I'm happy to say that now, four decades later - it's all good. LOL. The rebellious, angsty kid has settled the fuck down. And, of course, can now appreciate how difficult it must have been at times to contend with such a mini maelstrom. (I love you Mum and Dad!)

But, yeah, all that. Done and dusted. So heightened at the time but then slowly surpassed and perhaps suppressed as new challenges presented themselves in my twenties - spiritual awakening, anorexia (what? yes. ahead of the curve!), an ill-fitting marriage, adultery, divorce... the usual stuff. 

So why am I talking about myself? Oh, yeah, just happened. It's because of Amy Schumer. She got me remembering. Got me thinking about how tough those years can be for most of us. And yet we make it through. .... to a different kind of tough. Eventually, the edge gets taken off, you become somewhat of a veteran, a long game player, and find that you have somehow lived a fair chunk of life.

It's just one thing after another, really. You do your best - even if it's not technically your best. You do what you have to. It would make a hell of a reality show. So dense, so full of twists and turns, so.... relentless. And only you know the full extent of it. It's your show. Ta daaa! Surprised? Yeah, me, too. (shrugs).

Melancholy and exaltation
Traversing though the emotional spectrum
Saturated in sunshine then
Dark clouds appear when you least expect them
 
White lace and promises
Tattered and torn
Do you remember when you believed in something?
Do you know why you were born?
 
Even in the quietest moments
You can hear the roar of impending
Travesty or majesty
Depending on the pure chance of circumstance
On which door you've selected
On whether or not you're soul protected
 
No triumphs
Never thriving
Nothing more
Than just surviving
Always searching
For that second chance
To make things right
To dance that dance
To walk the walk
Across the line so thin
Try, try, try
Do not give in, never give in
And one day soon you just might win
Win, win, win, win, win, win, win
If that is what you really want
But it seems not
It seems not
 
Melancholy and exaltation
So much to say, no forum to say it in
Immersed in daily detours
Straight out of the spa and into the sewers
Your course was set but you went askew
You've got self-sabotaging tendencies
Evident in what you choose
 
You're going to get dirty - that's a guarantee
The devil, so flirty, will bring you to your knees
Yet despite every knock down
You'll find new resolve, clarity, after all
A breakthrough is not a breakthrough
Till you've hit the wall at full speed
 
Melancholy and Exaltation
The miracle is in the mix
So keep stirring things up
Keep on doing it tough
Till less than you wanted
Becomes more than enough
 

Identity. What is it?

It's a paradox that while we constantly strive (consciously and subconsciously) to formulate our identities, to construct some kind of workable approach and ideology in regards to the demands and apparitions of daily life, that at certain points we come to the realisation that this internal system we have worked so hard to devise and refine is the very thing that is containing and limiting our true being. 

What was once crucial to our survival, adaptation, becomes a hinderance; almost a prison of sorts.

And in the moment of this understanding there is a wild feeling of despair, confusion and even anger. WTF, we ask ourselves. I have worked so hard. And all that, all struggling to work things out, all the coping mechanisms that I patched together from available strands of inner strength and learning- the-hard-way lessons... all that has become obsolete, useless?!
What am I supposed to do? Start again?

But, no. You have advanced. It's just that at certain points you plateau, then eventually arrive at the base camp for new ascents. For this you need new tools and strategies. Sure, it's admirable that you made it this far. But you have done so only to face an even more formidable level. And so it goes on.

It creeps up on you. The moment you get too comfortable.

That, in fact, is a good indicator that something is going to change. 

Some people, try to pre-empt the challenges by never letting down their guards, constantly attacking new slopes. It is an admirable technique, one that does offer some success, but it is not infallible and neither does it let you escape the inevitable curve balls, hidden trap doors, pratfalls that we all must endure.

Some go the opposite route entirely and try to minimise everything. Limit feelings, stick with routine, play it safe. This may seem to work for a while, too, but not for long.

So what can we grasp from this? Life is struggle, life is challenge. However you approach it, you are going to be tripped up, tested, put through the ringer. Assuming this to be true, then accepting it, what approach is best?

Hell, I don't know!! Ha ha ha. I'm no guru. I'm no expert. I'm just a minion, a foot soldier; muddy faced and bruised up - lucky still to be alive. Not sure, why I am even writing this. Like I've mentioned before, I just sit down and let it flow. Sometimes there is a resolution, a sensible form, and others, well, they just leave you hanging. 

Everything is a journey into the unknown. A step in the dark. We just tell ourselves otherwise in order to feel comfortable, to cope. We make habits, follow routines, stick to schedules. It seems to help. Chaos has a format and it is called 'Life'. Make up theories and rules and overlay plans and structures as much as you like - it makes no difference in the long run. 

Pop! You are born! Psst! You are dead!

The stuff in between is marshmallow.

​

I browsed through some of my poetry book from fifteen, sixteen years ago and I was struck by how much time and circumstance have changed my headspace, heartspace, outlook and inlook. 

I was reminded by the poems that I used to have quite the romanticised view of the world. Reading them I was moved by the sentiments and surprised by the depth of feeling and, to be honest, kind of impressed by the verbal dexterity and inventiveness.

A lot has changed. The last half a dozen years have served up a series of challenges, one after the other; financial, medical, emotional, physical, circumstantial.... all the 'al's.

In old school parlance - I was put through the ringer. So much so, in fact, that in sessions with my counsellor we have identified that I have manifested symptoms of PTSD. And it feels that way. Like I have been in the trenches, been bombarded. Worn down. Mettle tested. Stretched out and strung up.

I do believe I am making my way out of it. Some of the heavier blue-grey clouds have lifted. The notion of peace, of an occasional mild happiness is not implausible. 

Reading the poems from back then made me realise how I've been worn down by situations and circumstances beyond my control. In each case I have mustered up my best defence, dealt with things as best as I can, tried to stay positive. But I never anticipated just how taxing the cumulative effect would be.

I don't think there is any going back. At times i wasn't sure I was completely willing or even able to continue forward. But now, I am rebuilding. Using what I've got, dusting off some of the old tools, repairing the broken pathways, patching up the gaping holes...

And in doing so, finding and accepting a different me, an older and wiser self, a survivor, a veteran. I have come to terms with surrender. I practice gratitude. I strive to be more of service.

And slowly, day by day, my hunger and my hope are becoming reanimated, revitalised. I have missed them. My whole being has been compromised and my wounds have still not healed, but I am able to walk on my own again, the will is there again, it's stronger now and my only choice is to buck up and stand up and try again.

I tried hiding away, running away, denial, avoidance. I tried suppressing the emotions, subjugating the pain, rationalising the wrath. It may have worked partially at the time but now I need a new strategy. I need to forge forward with what I have got, gather up the broken pieces, the dream fragments and the shards of idealism and see what I can make.

This is the journey of a human. This is life. 

What a surprise.

In a way, I am lucky to have another chance. Not everyone does. Some beautiful friends have died already. Giving up is not an option I will again consider. I want to be there at the end. I want to write poems again.