|
BergerWasTaken
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: Berger
Country: United Kingdom
Metro: London
Gender: Male
Interests: WHY, ethics, philosophy, politics, computers, technology and current events. I read, write and think. I enjoy sleeping.
Expertise: Thinking and brief moments of clarity. Finding problems in systems and poking them. Asking awkward questions. Fixing computers. I'll let my blog decide whether or not I'm good at writing.
Occupation: Being me.
Industry: Thinking
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
10/18/2004
|
|
| Observation
I’m an observant sort of fellow. I very nearly wrote “absorbent” and I don’t
want to come off as a sponge now. Or
that kitchen towel with ‘thirst pockets’… that’s good stuff. I enjoy noticing things and I like it when
other people notice the same things because then you can have a conversation
with them – to everyone else you can just say “oh, you wouldn’t understand.”
So I lost the background to my blog. The observant ones would have noticed
that. I let it expire. I found out that my webhosts were still
charging me the same exorbitant rate they were charging me four years ago. When I asked to be changed to a new, cheaper
price plan they said that I couldn’t and that I would have to close my account
and open a new one. Fuck that. I might as well shop around for a new
deal.
I’m in the process but at the moment it’s a bit like looking
for a flat when you don’t really need to move out. I really don’t use my website and the lustre
of having my own website wore off some time around when I realised that it was
really kinda useless. It looked pretty
in its cute, hand drawn, it-looks-bad-intentionally style but I got bored of
it. Only ever used the webspace.
Right now I’m just chilling out from everything. I still haven’t properly unpacked and I’ve
only done one load of washing since getting back. I feel like I’m ignoring Clarey while she’s
away, I don’t know what’s really going on over there. Last phone call didn’t work out as the signal
was so bad.
Things are good and things are bad. | | |
| It's weird...It's weird when someone you know dies, particularly when you are young and so are they. I am yet to experience what it is like when someone very close and personal to me dies - the closest I have come are 'great' relatives like grandparents and their siblings - and perhaps the closest encounter so far came to light recently. Someone who I knew (we were never really friends or talked much) in school and college was stabbed and it's of particularly consequence, not because he is the first person I knew in high school to die (because there has already been a small handful sadly) but because it has been pounced upon by the media.
Stabbings, particularly by young people on young people, have become somewhat popular in London recently and it's particularly sad to hear and read about it at arms length on the TV or in the newspaper and then to have it rammed home to read that one of the people involved was someone you knew. I had respect for this guy, quite frankly, he was talented, down to earth and very cool and it's sad to see him go in such a cruel and unforgiving way.
Death and I have only ever courted in the briefest moments - we have only just gotten in the same room and exchanged glances - and this, though I did not know him well, has brought us closer to perhaps exchanging a courtesy remark of acknowledgement. I know now that Death is here and it knows that I am too. With these old relatives there was perhaps a certain 'knowing' that well... it was their time. A young person dying is a sad time and it is said that no parent should have to bury their own baby.
I talked about death with some colleagues earlier for a brief moment and death at the hands of another or through natural causes seemed to have a mildly acceptable status - in that we could still agree that it was sad, not their time etc but when compared to suicide: the wilful taking of one's own life, a great sadness and misunderstanding envelopes it. It leaves friends, relatives and all those around surprised, bewildered and lost. I know that if someone I knew personally took their own life without the slightest of hint of suicidal tendencies I would be totally taken back by it. However, I think that over time I could learn to understand their reasons however personal they may be.
Once again I am reminded of the great power and mystery surrounding suicide. Death, particularly suicide, seems almost unnatural and I feel ashamed to say that because of what a big-mouth at Speaker's Corner had said once while I stood there eating a mint choc ice cream cone. He was talking about Christianity in a historical context and he said that death was unnatural... and I remember I paused both mentally and physically before cocking my head slightly to the right and thinking "bullshit." Death is a very natural part of the cycle of life: without death there cannot be life. All life depends on the organisms perishing to provide nourishment for others, whether this is through natural decay or carnivority. Nevertheless, death is 'unnatural' because it can become the most disruptive part of life – it can change so much in someone’s life and despite being totally surrounded by it everyday we only really let close, personal attachments that die really affect us. It blindsides us and sinks us into an ocean of despair. It grinds our life to a halt – for a day, a week, a month or an eternity and yet the strangest thing is that we never experience our own death. We can never be sure that there is nothing after our bodies are pronounced physically dead nor can we even be sure that as individuals we will die: though there is plenty of evidence that other human beings die, there is no guaranteed certainty that I will die – I can assume that I won’t be able to experience my death if I were to have one and all the other evidence to suggest that I will is merely inductive, meaning that it LOOKS like I will, but you can’t be mathematically certain.
Suicide remains a great puzzle to me, one that I hope to study in my time as soon as I develop the will power to sit down and read those books that I’ve always wanted to. Until then Death encroaches ever closer and perhaps one day we will be introduced face to face and I can stare into those grim eyes and tell you all exactly what I see | | |
| Do you ever have elaborate conversations with yourself about imaginary situations?
Sometimes I find myself drifting into it when I'm particularly bored. In a way it's like a daydream though I am aware that it's happening... maybe it's just like I can let my imagination take over without becoming totally overwhelmed.
I will admit though that this relies on my senses and recently I think I have become more aware of a slight deafness, particularly in my left ear. Perhaps I should try and get an appointment to get my ears syringed. Plus my sight is certainly not what it was like when I was eight or nine. I wear glasses often resulting in weak peripheral vision. I do wonder what it would be like to have finely attuned senses again. An improved memory would certainly be of great benefit.
Who knows?
| | |
| There it is again, that headache. That headache of another person you let into your life for fun and relief who suddenly demands more. It's a stringent ringing in the ears, a cooing of raised voices over text messages. The portrayal of one's needs as more important than the other, the changing of plans, the modification of facebook status. Well, the last one is new and something I've left alone. I was going to go to bed earlier because I have to work (again) tomorrow and although it is not hard work per se, it is hard to put up that façade of ever-happiness to customers, the sitting up straight and always-willing attitude of the service industry.
No job is without it's downers but the quiet repetitiveness of mine sometimes gets to all of us and it can make us short-tempered, lazy and sometimes very unwilling to even carry on the job. Combine that with the seemingly low pay and you get an idea of the British Americana. Middle-class, young, white boy thinking he has it made until things start falling apart oh so slightly.
It's not my fault things turned out this way but the situation is a place I put myself in. It's the proverbial put-your-head-through-the-railings: it's not your fault the railings are too tight to squeeze your head out of but it is your damn fault for putting your head through in the first fucking place.
Summer is meant to be a mystical time of alteration, relaxation and self-identification. So many either jump and make it or fall down the ravine trying. Others just walk the bridge across, put to me the easy way it's not always the best. Doing the 'hard' work, putting in the hours and doing it well gets you noticed by the successful jumpers, gets you on the radar. Whether or not this job will turn into a career is something not to consider - not because I don't WANT a career in it (far from it really) but because it's not a decision to make right now. I still think of the future of my degree, of education, of the final year of philosophy. I still contemplate and think about what I'm going to dedicate 10,000 of my precious words to over the next few months. Arguably this is far more important than the contemplation of the current bread-winning activity and that is currently more important, in terms of the commitment I've made, than any casual relationship that has been forged in the mean-time. Again, this is not to say that it is not important to me (and I'm not sure why I need to keep qualifying this) but it is merely that I always believe that once you make a commitment to something you agree on the level of commitment you're going to make and you stick to it, and it only changes when the time is right and the right opportunity presents itself.
Tonight was not that night and any feeble excuse I can think of won't change my mind about it.
| | |
| Summertime BeckonsIt's May, nearly June. We've already had hot and bright days, the sun prickling my skin. We've already had thunderstorms, the humid air tiring me. It's summertime again.
University is nearly over for another four months and so the beckon of solitude and friendly fun, of part time work and smiling faces ushers me closer.
My dear Clarey has gone away, to a far away land. I will miss her and I'm sure she will miss me. We do have fun together and she's always there doing her thing, whether that is working hard or relaxing hard. She is a full time human being and that is a reason to hold her in high esteem. I'm proud she finally got to realise an old dream. Good luck to her.
I do enjoy the summer. It's not just the pretty girls wearing summer dresses, or the promise of meeting old friends again. It's something mystical. Summer has a profound affect on everybody, it's as if there had been an endurance of the cold nights and at best mild days and now we wait in anticipation of the warm languishing of long summer days.
I do get melancholy, consider the old times. Of lying on grass, my head on my old compatriot's lap, muddling over vagueries and future plans. Of hopes and desires. Of places we would rather be - together.
I'm lucky man, though, this year I don't have to hope or pray. I don't have to sigh or feel melancholy any more. I have met a lovely woman who is affectionate and funny. We're going away soon, we're going away to the country. For a few days we will just be a man and a woman, under a four poster bed, looking out to the coast and we won't have to wish. We'll have everything and everyone we want in that room.
Summertime beckons and this is what it wants me to have. This year it wants me to be happy. I'm getting regular supervisor work at the events I want to work. I'm working hard, earning money and working my way up. I'm earning more than money, and it's something between respect and tenure, something between happiness and contentment.
If my final piece of coursework goes well and I do well in my exam, I will certainly be more than content. This year has been a trying year but preliminary feedback is good.
If my weekend away goes well and we leave feeling pleased, I will certainly be more than happy. This year I have found something worth looking for and something worth holding on to. She is special and she makes me feel special.
This summertime has such potential. Let's not let it down, hmm?
| | |
|
