Every Year I Like To Lick An Architect In The Cow

A friend of mine said this recently.
I could try and explain it or just leave it as it is.
Most things don’t survive dissection.
I’ll leave it as it is.

Permanent Revolution

So I'm sitting in a bar and I'm looking at her.
In the darkness, we are sitting quite close.
I'm looking at her and I'm thinking.
Outside, rain falls and the wind rattles it against the windows.
She stares at me.
There's a look in her eye which I can't make out.
I turn the beer glass in my hand, round and round.
She opens her mouth then closes it again.
Rain rattles against the window.
Later, she sends me a text.
I don't respond.
In the darkness, I lie on my bed and listen to the rain.

Enfant Terrible vs Poète Maudit

I can't figure out if I'm an enfant terrible or a poète maudit.

An enfant terrible is a young 'genius' who is often unorthodox, innovative or avant-garde in his field.

A poète maudit is a misunderstood poet living a life outside or against society, often abusing substances which results in an early death.

I'm too old to be an enfant terrible and still too alive to be a poète maudit. Plus I don't write poetry.

Godammit.

Maybe just stick to what is written on my business card.

Is Solitude The Result Of A Lack Of Imagination?

I was alone and bored so I went along to a philosophical discussion I saw taking place at a local café.
The topic, serendipitously enough, was Is solitude the result of a lack of imagination?
Now, it was a loaded question -obviously- so the first issue was to argue if it was well posed. It suggested that solitude was negative whereas solitude could be positive. Solitude could be suffered or chosen, pathological or essential. Furthermore, solitude was a state whereas imagination was a function so could the two be equated? Ironically, it could be argued that solitude lead to imagination, all great ideas having come from moments of quiet seclusion. So the question was already hanging by a thread…
Flipping it around, imagination could help lead out of solitude through thinking of ways not to be alone, much as I had just done. Although thinking also lead to anxiety which could lead to feelings of aloneness. Or, an old man asked, was it not imagination but understanding that was the real issue: if solitude is often the result of a lack of interest in things is it simply because we don’t understand them?
I didn’t have an answer to that. I didn’t have an answer to any of it. But I sat there, alone with other people, forming ideas and thoughts and buzzing.

We Are Being Infantilised Into A One-Click Culture

Like.

Know Thyself

‘Hey, Seb, do you think that you can ever know yourself?’
‘Who said that?’
‘Funny. But seriously, is it possible to know thyself?’
‘Well, Seb, if you don’t understand your own motivations, aren’t you just copying other people’s?’
‘Yawn. I didn’t ask you why you should, I asked you if you could.’
‘Well critical thinking is tough, you know, it’s tempting instead just to watch kittens wearing hats on YouTube.’
‘But what if your life is like a pair of glasses? Maybe you should just be looking through it, not at it…’
‘Have you been smoking?’
‘I mean, you can’t take yourself in isolation. What are you going to do, talk to yourself?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Seb. But what if what I see is not necessarily what there is? How do I know unless I challenge it, unless I ask myself the question?’
‘Like right now?’
‘Um, yes.’
‘Good question. I don’t know the answer. Maybe you’re asking the wrong person.’
‘Er… well… should we go look at some kittens on the internet?’
‘Yeah. And some tits…’

I'm Just About Hanging On By My Fingertips

I met this attractive girl the other night.
We had a drink and were talking and I started thinking about Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda.
One of his theories on manipulation was: “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it”.
It's a simple yet successful technique which has been used time and time again to manufacture consent and make anyone pointing out the fact that something is a lie appear to be a fruitcake.
“So,” the girl asked, “tell me about you.”
“I am brilliant. I am brilliant. I am brilliant...”

Sed Non Satiata

There was a chill wind blowing that night. It kind of caught you off guard as you turned a corner or crossed a road. As long as you stayed close to a wall you didn’t notice it so much and the evening almost seemed mild. But the evening was deceptive. One minute you’d be fine, walking along, watching the show around you, watching mini-dramas play out, then the wind would catch you. It would stroke your skin and ruffle your hair. It would make you shiver and turn your collar up. It would blow other people out of your mind. The wind would throw cold water in your face and you would stop and look at your reflection in a window. You would look at yourself as Christmas decorations blinked on and off. You would stand there and look at your face and feel cold and alive.

Your Life Has Timed Out Due To Inactivity

It was a mild, clear day. I was walking my mind in the local park. A light wind blew dead leaves off the trees. Gravel crunched under foot.
They were sitting opposite each other.
One had dusty clothes and scraggly hair. The other wore an oversize jacket and had a nervous twitch.
I stopped next to them. One of them smelled. I watched them.
They didn’t care. They were too engrossed.
They played fast. I had a hard time keeping up.
They exchanged piece after piece, hitting the little clock after each move.
They were engrossed. Here they could forget it for a while, keep reality at bay. Here things were black and white. Here things weren’t confused in different shades of grey.
One saw that his king was trapped and resigned. They set up the pieces to play again.
Here it was binary, win or lose. And if you lost, you just played again.
I watched them play and forgot it for a while too.

Public Opinion Doesn't Exist

Bourdieu said that public opinion doesn't exist.
His point was that it is a created phenomenon. Opinion polls produce an answer to a question created by the agency which asks it, it's not an answer to a question which individuals ask themselves.
And if it is created then it is manipulated, it is not genuine and so it lacks validity.
It's a convincing point, don't you think?
But if you agree or disagree, haven't you just been manipulated by the argument and question? In which case, the answer lacks validity.
So how can we get a public opinion on whether public opinion exists or not?
Thinking about it, who gives two shits about public opinion.

Movie Idea

Movie opens on our hero, Sebathius, in bed with a beautiful woman. They are making love. He is a talented lover and she screams in carnal pleasure. But, at the moment of climax, our hero is hit by an overwhelming feeling of guilt at his petit-bourgeois lifestyle and he flees into the night wearing nothing but his socks. Here follows a powerful scene of him looking at his reflection in a river -the Seine? The Thames? The Bosphorus?- as he awakens to the concept that his life has been based on false needs and he wonders if he has ever had a true feeling apart from his current one of cold. The camera pans back to reveal a wise, old homeless person staring at him with a tear in his eye (Note to director: play Yellow by Coldplay). We cut to the next day and our hero is sitting at his desk at work but still struggling to find moral authenticity in a culture of distraction and still wearing just his socks. The next sequence needs finessing but, to show his resistance against dominant ideology and to draw in a younger public, the outline is that he meets a sexy female scientist on the bus and they decide to build a giant robot together (montage scene to Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi). The movie ends with our hero in bed with the scientist. They are making love. But, at the point of climax, she wonders if they can really subvert existing culture or if they are just feeding it and she decides to run off with the giant robot. Our hero is left alone in bed. In his socks (to Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees?).

All Black and Bleu

I'm in a bar in Paris on a Sunday morning watching the Rugby World Cup taking place in New Zealand.
It's the final, All Blacks v France.
"Allez les Bleus! Allez les Bleus!" chants the room.
All Black try. Chanting goes quiet.
Second half come back by the French. "Allez les Bleus! Allez les Bleus!"
Final whistle. One point in it to the All Blacks.
The room is sad. Then... applause. "Allez les Bleus! Allez les Bleus!"
I walk back home via Montparnasse cemetery and pass Beckett and his words come back to me...
"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."

I Used To Be Disgusted And Now I Try To Be Amused

I was walking through the streets the other day thinking how we like routine because it gives us the illusion of stability in a random world when I saw a man with no arms. He was begging. It made me think that he probably didn’t give a toss about the illusion of stability. That he was probably more concerned with just feeding himself. Then I thought what the hell did I know about what he was thinking.
***
You know, the more I know, the more I realise how much I don’t know.
***
His T-shirt said Startling Tales.
It was the cover of some old comic.
It had the picture of aliens carrying human prisoners across a landscape.
The people looked scared. They were being carried along. They didn’t know what was going to happen to them.
I stared at it a moment then I looked around at other people in the street. They were being carried along. They didn’t know what was going to happen to them. They didn’t look scared.
***
Am I reading a book or am I consuming content?

A Monkey In A Jacket

I was in the Louvre, exploring the upper floors, and I came across a little painting by Decamps.
Le Singe Peintre. The Monkey Artist.
I was transfixed. A little monkey in a jacket painting.
Decamps was having a go. Any monkey can paint, he was saying. Any monkey can imitate. Putting a monkey in jacket doesn’t mean he’s not a monkey.
Trying to do something different was hard, he was saying, not because of the effort but because it was simply easier to be a monkey in a jacket.
I thought about the little painting as I walked home, hands deep in my jacket.

Exotic Perfume

When, on an autumn evening, with closed eyes,
I breathe the warm dark fragrance of your breast,
Before me, blissful shores unfold, caressed
By dazzling fire from blue unchanging skies.

There, upon the calm and drowsing isle,
Grow luscious fruits amid singular trees,
There, men are light and strong,
And women startle with eyes of candour.

Guided by your scent to these fair climes,
I see a harbour thronged with masts and sails
Still weary from the tumult of gales;

And with the sailors' song that drifts to me
Are mingled odours of the green tamarind,
And all my soul is scent and melody.

-Baudelaire

How To Lose Two Billion Dollars

So let me get this straight...
I work hard and deposit my money in a bank. The bank pays me a pitiful interest rate and meanwhile lends out my money to other people/companies at a much higher interest rate. At the same time, a trader in the bank uses my money on deposit as collateral to trade on financial markets. If he makes more money for the bank, he gets paid a big bonus which he splurges around town driving up the cost of living and reducing the value of my money on deposit. If he loses enough money for the bank, then the State steps in to support the bank to make sure it can pay me back my money on deposit. The State uses money that it takes from me in tax. It uses my money to guarantee that my money gets paid back to me in case some trader loses my money.
What’s wrong with this picture?
What’s wrong with it is that I don’t do anything about it.
What could you do about it?
Take my money out of the bank and stick it under the mattress.
Why don’t you do that?
Because I’m scared some idiot in a hoodie will break in and steal my money.
Isn’t the idiot in the suit just as dangerous?
Yes. But he won't hit me, just destroy my financial future.
So what do you suggest you do?
Uh, go watch telly and stuff…

Joining Separation

'Hello Seb.'
'Bonjour Seb.'
'How's life in the City of Light? Living the dream?'
'How can you live the dream? If you live the dream then it becomes reality...'
'Nobody likes a smart arse. Especially not me.'
'I'm living the reality.'
'Aren't we all?'
'No. Hermann Hesse said "There's no reality except the one contained within us. That's why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself." '
'Maybe Hesse needed to get out more...'
'Why go out when you can go in?'
'Well, you stay in, I'm going out.'
'You do that.'
'I will. Bye.'
'Bye.'
'Uh, can I lend me some money?'

Cy Twombly Sucks!

You find a better class of graffiti in the toilets of art museums.

Life Is Elsewhere

His T-shirt said Startling Tales.

It was the cover of some old comic.

It had the picture of aliens on a distant planet carrying human prisoners towards a spacecraft.

The people had looks of horror on their faces.

The aliens looked like insects. Like big flies.

The people didn’t know what was going on. They were being carried along. They didn’t know what was going to happen.

You stare at the picture until your stop comes then you get off the bus. You buy a bottle of wine on the way home.

You have a glass. You switch on the television and see pretty people doing stupid things. You have another glass. You watch the news and see someone with immaculate hair and perfect teeth tell you about death and destruction. You have another glass. You switch on the radio and hear some god-awful song about having your heart broken. You have another glass. You look out of the window, you see people walking by, see them being carried along, and you think What the fuck…

You have another glass.

You look at your reflection and remember reading ‘ideology is the way people deal with reality’ and you wonder how many of your ideas are actually your own. How many you just adopted and let yourself be carried along.

Then you switch on the television again and watch some movie with pretty people blowing up things so that you don’t have to think about it.

Cod Philosophy

It’s easy to appear smart by casually mentioning people like Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard.

It’s easy to quote a great thinker to make one seem smarter than one is. Emerson said ‘the next thing to saying a good thing yourself, is to quote one’.

It’s easy to appear philosophical by making ambiguous comments. Often, the more there is on display, the less there is to see.

Cod philosophy is reflection that passes as insightful but is actually devoid of any real depth.

I get lost in Paris. The city exists, it is mapped, it is not new. But it is new to me. I am exploring where people have been before. I am cod exploring.

My exploration may not have any real depth but it is insightful to me…

Real Things Are Invisible

It was a weird kind of weather.

Not dry but not wet. Muggy.

I didn’t know if I should wear short sleeves or take an umbrella. It didn’t feel right taking both. I took short sleeves.

I wasn’t going anywhere particular. Just out. I was feeling suffocated. It was one of those days.

It started to rain. A light drizzle. I was along the river and sheltered under a bridge. Some ducks swam by.

There was nothing under the bridge. Nothing but time and space and air to think.

Often, the more there was on diplay, the less there was to see.

The rain continued.

I was lucky I hadn’t brought my umbrella.

Notes From The Not So Seine

I was in a café today and there was a parrot in a cage that said, ‘Ça va? Ça va?’
Wow, I thought, a French speaking parrot…
***
I went to watch the finish of the Tour de France the other week.
All of France stops for the Tour.
Near me, an old lady remonstrated with a gendarme.
‘I don’t give a fart about the Tour de France,’ she told him. ‘I want to get across.’
All of France stops whether it wants to or not.
***
I was in a supermarket.
‘Bonjour,’ I made sure I said to the man on checkout. I like the manners of this formal society.
‘Bonsoir,’ he said.
Damn. It had gone after six. I should have checked the time. Stupid formal society.
***
‘I used to think that work was the most important thing in my life,’ she said.
‘Don’t tell me,’ I said, ‘then you fell in love, right?’
‘Yes.’ She smiled.
‘It’s a bit cliché isn’t it?’ I said.
She frowned at me.
My circle of friends in Paris is not expanding as fast as I thought it would…
***
I went to see Sartre the other day.
I had some questions for him.
I stood there and looked down at him.
He didn’t say anything, of course.
They were stupid questions anyway.

Report On The Construction Of Situations

I was listening to an interesting discussion on the radio the other day.
It was about how Paris was one of the most visited cities in the world but, although this brings in a lot of money, it stops the city from developing as no-one wants to change anything that might deter tourists from visiting. It becomes a city in aspic.
And the danger here is that real life drains away. The spectacle takes over.
This is true of many major urban tourist destinations. They become just a mass of shops and restaurants catering to tourists. And for many of the latter, the point of the visit is now to show that one has been to the city rather than the being there itself. There is no real engagement with the surroundings. A quick photograph next to the Eiffel Tower or Big Ben or the Statue of Liberty and seen it, been there, done that…
Baudrillard said that we are now living in a society of re-production and not production.
I agree. And I do it myself. Especially when it comes to re-producing other people's ideas...

The Doors Of Perception

‘Bonjour Seb.’
‘Bonjour Seb.’
‘Ça va?’
‘Ça va. Plume de ma tante.’
‘How’s life is Paris?’
‘Well, I’ve been thinking…’
‘Oh, sacre bleu, do you never stop?’
‘… that if the actions, values and attitudes I consider normal in England are different in France then what makes them normal?’
‘Quoi?’
‘Who determines the way of life that is considered normal? I mean, why do a majority adopt certain attitudes and habits especially when many of these are absurd?’
‘The attitudes and habits are from the culture…’
‘Are they? Why do something simply because someone else is doing it? That sounds abnormal to me…’
‘Have you been up the Eiffel Tower yet?’

Je Ne Sais Quoi

'Why do you speak French?' she asked.
'Why?'
'What’s the point? It’s not a useful language.'
We were in France. She was French. We were talking in French.
I didn't know what to answer in any language.

Farewell Leicester Square

Johnson said, 'When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.'
I said, 'I'm just tired of life in London.'
And as Balzac's Rastignac said, 'A nous deux, maintenant!'

Harsh But Fair

'Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.'

- Einstein

Illusion Of Reality

‘You look fucking intelligent.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You do.’
‘Well, I’m not.’
‘Hm.’
‘It’s just the glasses.’
‘Right.’
It’s strange that I should feel the need to defend myself. Actually, I don’t mind giving the illusion of intelligence. But, more importantly, I want to give the illusion that I don’t care that I give the illusion of intelligence.

Pointless Chatter

I don’t have anything to say.
And I think it’s best when one doesn’t have anything to say that one doesn’t say anything.
There’s enough pointless chatter as it is.
Unfortunately, I’ve just said that I don’t have anything to say.
I’ve just made pointless chatter.
Damn.
It’s hard to make a silent point when no one is listening.

Criticism Of Critical Critique

I can’t sleep.
Just as well as I’m not in bed yet but, meanwhile, I’ve been thinking that if critical thinking is the 'thinking about thinking' then what about the criticism of critical thinking? Would that be the thinking about the thinking about thinking? And if I’m thinking about it, does it then mean that I’m thinking about the thinking about the thinking about thinking?
I mean, critical thinking is all well and good but one should be free to criticise it. In fact, I would argue that one must criticise critical thinking otherwise it isn’t critical thinking. But, thinking about it, if without criticism it then becomes simply thinking and I’m thinking about it then I’m back to thinking about thinking which is critical thinking…
The more I think about it, the more I think critical thinking is a bad thing, which is a good thing to come out of my critical thinking.
I’m going to bed.

Opinion Piece

"Well, that's just my opinion."
"Is it?"
"Is it what?"
"Is it really your opinion? I mean, are you an expert on the matter or did you just read or hear the opinion somewhere and agree with it? Did you apply original and critical thought to the issue based on knowledge and experience? Or did you just feel that you should have an opinion and so picked one out of a few simplified alternatives?"
"Harumph! Well, what's your opinion then?"
"I don't know. It's far too complex an issue. It's not black and white. And besides, I don't see why I should have an opinion anyway, I don't see why I should have to limit my thinking..."
"Well..."
"Well what?"
"Well, that's just your opinion."

You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense Part II

My stomach is cramping.
I think I may have eaten something bad.
Sometimes, I have a knot in my belly caused by a gaping sensation of being alone. That damned feeling has nothing to do with company, it also hits me when I’m with people, friends and lovers. It hits me during those moments when I’m trying to pretend that maybe I’m not alone. It reminds me that my experiences are my own and aren’t shared. It’s a feeling that won’t leave me alone.
But in this case, I think I may have eaten something bad.

The Flower That Smiles Today

The flower that smiles today
Tomorrow dies;
All that we wish to stay
Tempts and then flies;
What is this world's delight?
Lightning, that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.

Virtue, how frail it is!
Friendship, how rare!
Love, how it sells poor bliss
For proud despair!
But these, though soon they fall,
Survive their joy, and all
Which ours we call.

Whilst skies are blue and bright,
Whilst flowers are gay,
Whilst eyes that change ere night
Make glad the day;
Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
Dream thou - and from thy sleep
Then wake to weep.

-Shelley

Why Is The Sky Blue?

The sky is blue because molecules in the air scatter blue light from the sun more than they scatter other colours of the visible spectrum. At sunset, the light path is so long through the atmosphere that red is the stronger colour.
Antonio Gramsci put forward the idea that the values of a ruling class come to be seen as the norm. That over time, these values become accepted as normal and, as a result, people are born into a society in which they do not question the status quo but adopt these values even if they cause conflict within themselves.
But normal doesn't mean natural. The colour of the sky is only the colour we see.

The History Of The Present

‘Hey Seb.’
‘Hey Seb.’
‘What have you been up to?’
‘I’ve been wondering how knowledge is acquired.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Exactly that.’
‘Exactly what?’
‘That. You just asked a question. Because you want to acquire knowledge.’
‘No, I don’t. You just said something I didn’t understand.’
‘So you want to acquire knowledge.’
‘No, I don’t.’ I glared at me. ‘And it’s not knowledge if you’re talking crap.’
‘How do you know it’s crap?’
‘Because it usually is.’
‘But how did you acquire that knowledge?’
‘I’m going to hit you. I have knowledge that that hurts.’
‘And besides if my knowledge is crap then it means that your knowledge about it is crap too so maybe it isn't crap after all...’
I hit me.

The Eye Of The Beholder

The funny thing about your image is that it isn’t yours.
You meet someone over brief moments and the way you look, the way you dress, and the way you act creates an image in that person which then escapes beyond your control. You then become branded someone nice or smart or funny or intense or some other reductive adjective which they use to describe you.
Sometimes your image has nothing to do with you, it just depends on the other person’s mood.
Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder but what the hell is going on behind that eye?

All That Is Solid Melts Into Air

It’s messy. Confusing.
You want to see clear but it’s difficult. You can only see the little bit that you can see.
You want to find the truth, what’s solid, so you can build on it.
But the ground is always moving.
So you make your best choice, do what you can, try and get by.
Sometimes you fall over. Sometimes you run.
The truth is in the chaos.
You want to see clear but it isn’t.
It’s messy.
That much is clear.

How To Change Your Life

Well, you can’t, of course. What’s done is done.
But you can change its future direction. And you do that every day anyway when you wake up and do whatever you do. Even if it’s the same thing you usually do, because you are not doing something else, you are choosing its direction.
So I’m off in a new direction. An opportunity has come up which I'm taking.
I’m not changing my life, I’m just taking it with me somewhere new. I’m unsettling down.
And I’m taking another digital detox to focus on it. Not sure when I’ll be back. Thanks to those of you who've been reading along so far.
By the way, I hear the timpanist got engaged today.

Where Is My Mind?

I found this on The Onion and it sounded familiar:
Journey Of Self-Discovery Leads Man To Realization He Doesn't Care
FLAGSTAFF, AZ—Three months after setting off down a long spiritual path to find himself, 38-year-old Corey Larson arrived at the conclusion Tuesday that he does not care. "I spent many long hours meditating, studying the works of great thinkers and spiritual leaders, and delving deep within myself for some kind of answer, and then it hit me: I couldn't care less," Larson said of his soul-searching journey. "Fuck it. Fuck it all." Larson briefly considered writing a self-help book to make the journey easier for others, but decided that he also didn't give two shits about whether other people arrived at the same conclusion he did.
(theonion.com)

On Our Modern World

'The darkening of the world, the flight of the gods, the destruction of the earth, the transformation of men into a mass, the hatred and suspicion of everything free and creative, have assumed such proportions throughout the earth that such childish categories as pessimism and optimism have long since become absurd.'

- Heidegger

Pretty Girls Make Smart Men Do Stupid Things

So, not so smart after all...

How Not To Apply For Backdated Unemployment Benefit

I recently sent the following letter re my request for backdated unemployment benefit:

Dear Sir/Madam,
I recently received a correspondence from you re my appeal for backdated Job Seeker’s Allowance.
I asked the JobCentre in a recent letter what formed ‘good cause’ -as stated by them- for not making this back payment and, in response, they sent me a short novel of 18 pages. English is my mother tongue but I must admit that I was defeated by this document and could not make head or tail of it and certainly did not see any response to my query.
I then received the correspondence from your office saying that my appeal had been forwarded to a Tribunal Service. For the princely sum of £261.80, they are willing to waste an enormous amount of people’s time, including my own, to deliberate on what justifies ‘good cause’. I’m sure this effort will cost more than £261.80 but then perhaps the Department for Work and Pensions needs the amount they are withholding from me to actually pay towards the process of not paying me. That perhaps forms a ‘good cause’ for them but less so for me.
You kindly ask if I need help completing the form but what I really need is help understanding the Department for Work and Pensions. As a tax payer for most of my adult life, I am baffled by their inability to explain what constitutes ‘good cause’. By all means, let us all continue wasting our time with this appeal but I, or any representative, will not be attending the hearing.
Yours etc.,

Needless to say, they turned down my appeal. More annoyingly, they still didn't answer the question re 'good cause'...

Subjectivistically Speaking

"We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are" said Anais Nin.
Between puzzling over what my next business card will say about me and shaking my head at the commodification of love that is Valentine’s Day, I have also been pondering if one can see things as they really are without the distortions of one’s own views and emotions.
I mean, is it possible to have objective knowledge when the only way to gather knowledge is subjective?
I’m asking myself this because I was chatting to this blonde the other night and objectively she was attractive but she then talked to another guy which subjectively made her a skank.

Interview

‘OK, well I have no further questions, Sebastian. Is there anything you would like to ask me?’
‘Yes. Do you think I’m here because social determinism dictates that I should be?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Well, I guess I’m wondering if embracing absurdity and lack of meaning is more valid than trying to slip into the straightjacket roles that society offers us…?’
‘I’m not sure I follow…’
‘I mean, why try so hard to be someone? If you have to try then surely it isn’t really you…’
‘Uh, well, we can come back to that… Do you have any other questions?’
‘Yes, do you offer luncheon vouchers?’

Stupid Young Man

I tried to pass her on the left but she drifted that way.
She was elderly, had a cane and walked slowly.
I stopped, then started to walk past her on the right.
She decided she wanted to go that way and turned. Her cane hit my leg.
"Stupid young man!" she said.
I looked at her.
What was I supposed to do: engage her on the fact that frustration with her situation was nothing to do with me or rugby tackle her yelling 'Who's your Daddy?'?
"Sorry," I said.
I walked on, shaking my head.
Still, she did call me young.

Constructive Criticism

The motto of the French newspaper Le Figaro is an interesting quote from Beaumarchais: ‘Sans la liberté de blâmer, il n'est point d'éloge flatteur.’
Without the freedom to criticise, there is no genuine praise.
It’s a good quote but a shit newspaper.

Play Idea

The main character, a bland office worker called Sebathius, quits his job suddenly after feeling the pointlessness of his existence when someone steals his lunch from the fridge. Filled with self-doubt, he walks the streets of London and rages against the world by ringing doorbells and running away. He returns home and there follows a clever long silent sequence in which he ponders if life is an illusion shown by his watching daytime television and frowning. His girlfriend leaves him after a big argument in the meat section of Sainsbury’s and he decides to go travelling and books a bus ticket to Margate. Walking along the beach, he is lost in the contemplation of his own insignificance and only stops when he realises that he has waded out to sea up to his neck. Here follows a brilliant long soliloquy on the alienation caused by consumer culture and the price of cheese. He visits a prostitute and quotes Nietzsche to her for which she charges him extra. He tries to argue that he doesn’t actually exist and she charges him extra for misquoting Heidegger. In the final moving scene, we see him finding authenticity by returning to his old office and unflinchingly asking who took his lunch.
Notes to self: perhaps turn it into operetta with a chorus of nuns? Give it a Chekhov like title, perhaps Uncle Vanya's Sandwich? Replace prostitute scene with vampire fight?

Empirical Ego

“Hey Seb.”
“Hey Seb.”
“How are you… er, I mean, me?”
“I’m concerned.”
“There's a surprise. About what now?”
“That I have nothing to throw myself into.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, when people don’t want to think about things, they throw themselves into their work. I don’t have any work so I have nothing to throw myself into.”
“So you want to throw yourself into something to stop yourself from thinking about why you need to throw yourself into something?”
“Er, yeah.”
“Have you ever thought about writing about these things to try and address them?”
“That‘s crazy talk.”
“You’re right. Hey, I hear the timpanist got engaged today...”
I throw myself into beating myself up.

General Public

Must have experience of dealing with the general public.
This was written on a volunteer position I was looking at.
General public.
Hmm. On reflection, all of my career had not been dealing with the general public. I had been dealing with professionals in certain fields and not with the ordinary man on the street.
Jesus, I had no idea what the general public was like.
Who the hell were these people?
Perplexed, I went for a walk -just an ordinary man and part of the general public- while I tried to figure it out.

It’s An Original Fake

I read recently that there are two types of artist: decorators and revolutionaries. (Although this possibly misses a third type, like Emin and Hirst, who are just shit.)
So it made me think about if to be original one has to be revolutionary. This is, of course, talking in the creative arts sense, not in the overthrowing the Equatorial Guinea government sense. And being revolutionary sounds like it requires a lot of time and effort, trial and error, failure and re-starts, whereas I’m more inclined towards instant gratification, like Pot Noodle. But then I came across the following quote by Jean Cocteau: An original artist cannot copy. He therefore has only to copy to be original.
This took a load of my mind. There I was, trying to write something different and new when all I have to do is copy. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to pop down to my local library to find what will become my first novel.