The Plan

Sounds a lot more dramatic than it is, calling it "The Plan", as I'm planning some kind of Frankenstein experiment or a bank heist or something. The truth is, in case you don't remember or couldn't follow my 11-post explanation, the plan is this:

1 - Acquire money.
2 - Fuck bitches. Purchase open return coach ticket from London to Paris.
3 - Pack bag with one set of casual clothes, one suit, a laptop and any remaining money.
4 - Arrive at destination as early as possible, try to meet people who will let me crash for the night.
5 - Hitchhike somewhere else.
6 - Repeat 4 & 5 while working from my laptop and attempting to use my suit to open doors to fancy parties and cool jobs.
7 - Attempt to continue until I have enough money to actually rent a room.
7a - Come home
8 - Live the life I dream of rather than the one I've been dealt. Ideally be happy, but probably be marginally less unhappy.
8a - Be unhappy, try again some other time.

Ok, so step one is FINALLY out the way. I have around £100, which is enough for the ticket I want and about £10 spending money. In case you aren't familiar with our currency, £10 is not a lot of money. I currently spend £15 a week on food and that's considered pretty frugal by my friends.
The suit thing is optimistic at best, I'm not really expecting to get anywhere just because I look smart, but I do have faith in my ability to talk my way into and out of sitiuations (albeit in my native tongue, English) and so I'm hoping the suit will just make me feel good about myself while I do so. Shallow, I know, but why should I hide my shallow side? It's no great flaw to have flaws, and I shan't be kidding myself about mine.
Nor will I say "shan't" again.

I'm scared, terrified even, that this will become another failed adventure. Another desperate swipe at happiness that leaves me reeling when it fails. Even scarier though, is that I might succeed and become the novelist and journalist I want to become, living in the cities I want to live in with the people I love, and still be desperately unhappy.

I don't write about Depression much anymore, but only because I've run out of superlatives for how awful I feel.
Many of you will have experienced reactive depression, it's incredibly common considering how little it's spoken of, and it can be a crippling mess of a condition. It's the punch-in-the-gut strife that surrounds you like a hot bleach shower as you get your mind around some bad news, and it's the completely apathetic, empty, hollow zero-ness that comes with a terrible realisation or anti-epiphany. The events that cause reactive depression don't have to be typically "depressing" like a failed relationship or losing your job. It's the perceived scale of the problem that's important, not the scale based on the norm.

Short-term bursts of this feeling can be triggered by small things that have latched themselves in like a rusty key insisting on opening a creaky, cobwebbed door. This isn't reactive depression, it's just a similar feeling on a short-term basis.

My bleach showers come when I see a particular type of sunset, have contact with one of a few people (one of whom is possibly my best friend in the world), come across in-depth references to guilt and shame, I do something that I feel isn't authentic. I find these come crashing into me when I least expect it, although episodes don't usually last more than an hour or two. I'll often think of self-harming or have suicidal thoughts during these moments.
Incidentally, this is what I believe Winston Churchill meant by his "black dog".

My bedridden emptiness comes when I spend too much time with people, when I return from any traveling/journey over about an hour, when I have to speak to people about myself. I like talking about myself to be honest, but I just don't like having to do it.
I don't like having to do anything.
It's these moments that aren't so short term, occassionally last weeks at a time. I'm ok right now, but I can feel myself buckling, it's a little scary but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't comfortable when extremely depressed. These may be the times when I'm harming, thinking of suicide and hating me, the world and you, but there's a safety in the independence of depression. I can do whatever I fucking want, and if anyone notices, I don't care. It's completely careless. It's strange, you'd think carelessness would bring happiness and the freedom I'm always harping on about, but it's not the same carelessness. It's not carefree, which suggests I'm choosing not to care, it's careless, which to me suggests I don't have much say in it. It happens to me and I make the best of it while I can. I'd certainly rather be a selfish prick than a crying one. Sometimes anyway.

I hope to leave for Paris by the end of January. I'll keep you posted.

Also, I received two lovely comments on my last post and I didn't get around to reciprocating or even publishing. I've just been busy with Christmas and the like, and I will get around to publishing and replying to the relevant people soon, promise!
I think it's The Beholder and GB, who happen to be two of my favourites on this whole site anyway, so that's just plain nice.

Hope you all had merry Christmasses and will have happy new years! See you on the other side.

Amy and Chris

Well I wrote this about three weeks ago now, but it's set on Christmas eve and I'm feeling very festive so here it is! A little back story, although I like to think it's not overly neccessary, is that Chris and Amy have been together for a few years and are cuddling on the morning of the 24th December. 


As always, this is the first draft and hasn't even been proof-read or spellchecked, so bear with me if it's a little scrappy here and there!

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The couple lay on Chris’ bed for nearly an hour with the TV on, chatting, cuddling, kissing and more. ‘Home Alone 2’ played quietly in the background, with both Amy and Chris occasionally glancing over and giggling, there hips still close.
Their time together ended with a shared “I love you” and the warmest embrace of the winter so far. She rested her head on his chest; his heart was beating in her ear and his arms wrapped around her shoulders, twizzling her amber hair. Her natural smell filled his lungs with every inhale and his stomach knotted itself as she traced eights over his belly button.

Amy took a slow, deep breath and looked up to her boy, pulling a face close to puppy-dog eyes, that in reality was just an attempt to make him love her even more.
“I better grab a shower then,” she sighed. “My dad’ll want be back in time for dinner.”
Christmas Eve dinner was a big deal in the Vine household, although not as big as Christmas itself. Christmas itself was when Mrs. Vine really pulled out all the stops.
“Ah, ok then babe, go on. I’ll be in in a sec,” Chris said with a smirk. He’d told the same joke dozens of times over the years and it never got old, to him at least.
Amy barely acknowledged the comment, knowing he wouldn’t come in while his mum was awake.

Amy stood in the shower while the waterproof, wall-mounted CD player echoed out a compilation album she’d made and left at the house. Chris’ mother, Jan, didn’t mind Amy’s ever-presence, she even enjoyed have a girl around the house sometimes and prided herself on how welcome Amy appeared to feel.
Chris, still laying in bed, had taken his moment’s privacy to check his phone. He’d noticed it vibrate as the two were getting ready for bed the previous night but didn’t want to check in front of Amy. He swiped the screen and saw it light up with the name Kristy.

“haha i kno! Aneway im goin to sleep now bbz, txt me tomo! night sxc ;) xx”

Chris felt a small screw tighten in his stomach, where Amy had tied knots with her delicate tracing earlier.

“only jus got your txt, sorry! have a good day today babe, speak soon ;) x”

He wrote his text quickly and with the same frenetic excitement that he got from painting trains. His thumbs almost shook with nerves and his breathing became laboured until it had finished sending. The screw in his stomach was now clinging onto all around it as it ploughed deeper and his mind felt heavier and heavier as his gut churned over.
The water stopped falling in the bathroom.

Chris locked his phone and pushed it back under his pillow, he could hear Amy’s feet thud one by one out of shower and onto the linoleum flooring. He heard, almost amplified by a panic he’d grown to expect when texting Kristy, the whip of a towel being pulled from a radiator. The music stopped.
“My turn yet?” Chris called.
“Yeah, sorry if I was ages!” Amy replied.
“Nah it’s cool babe, you weren’t!”
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This is the first we hear of Kristy, and we go on to learn that her and Chris are sleeping together.


On a side note, are you all feeling Christmassy? I personally can't wait! I'll be helping my mum cook Christmas dinner, playing the role of a sous to her self-important head chef, but I love it! One downside is that I've had to more-than-halve my food budget for the last month to afford gifts, but at least it's kicked me into that diet I've putting off!


Enjoy, and criticism is encouraged and appreciated!

About time...

... I used a Churchill quote on here! 

"Play the game for more than you can afford to lose... only then will you learn the game."
-Winston Churchill.  


 I love this one so much; I think it's a valuable lesson. 
People are too scared to lose what they believe they have, when really they'd have so much more (and so much of genuine worth) if they just risked everything once in a while. The big bets pay off more, and losing out in life only leaves you at rock bottom, and where better to start again than from rock bottom?

On another note, progress with my book is as well as I expected, not perfect but not bad either. I'm nowhere near the word count I'd hoped, but I'm pleased with the quality at least to a degree I'm comfortable with for a first draft.

Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends! 

Let's backtrack a little..

Ok, so the writing is going slowly but well, at least I think it's going well.

The only chunks I've been posting before were following one character, Chris, and his escape from a chase. Running simultaneously to the chase, was this -

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Chris was a long way from his home in London. He’d met with Thomas, his friend that didn’t run, at their local train station at midnight so they could jump over the barriers and make the journey south for free. Thomas was already drunk when they met, having just stolen a crate of lager from a nearby supermarket for the two-hour trip.
The two boys were well versed in overnight outings and whiling away the hours until the return train in the morning. Chris had spent almost two hours preparing for the night: charging his phone, labeling his equipment, layering his clothes, updating his iPod. Thomas had a less thorough process, relying more on lager for comfort through the cold.
Thomas hadn’t run when the police had cornered them at the mouth of the alleyway. He knew that running was right, but he also knew that the conditions of his bail would mean going down without a fight reduced the risk of prison. Combing through his scraggly blonde his hair with a frustrated sigh, Thomas silently looked at the officer that stayed with him, and presented his wrists for cuffing.

He didn’t know how far Chris had managed to run, and so asked the officer as they lowered his head into the car.
“What’s going on with the other matey?” he asked.
“We’ll deal with him separately, thank you.” came the reply. He wasn’t sure what to take from this, but he knew he’d have time to think. A bag full of spray paint, a camera full of evidence and a wallet full of ID ensured a lengthy interview and as much of the 24-hour detainment allowance the police could pretend to need.
Slowly, and without sirens, the police drove to the local station. Thomas looked keenly out of the window and, long after the house which Chris had chosen, saw two policemen jogging towards a man wearing black. A moment of disappointment was short-lived before he realised it wasn’t his accomplice.

“Is that the bloke that ran?” he asked.
“We’ll deal with him separately,” came a firmer response. “So don’t worry.”
Thomas knew what to take from the exchange this time; the police thought they were on top. He knew better than to allow himself another exchange, and even tried to maintain a downtrodden mindset to prevent a telling smile. He knew it was time to assume a character for the evening, but he needed to decide which angle to approach.
Should he admit everything? Should he lie through his teeth? Should he cry? Be arrogant? Amiable? “No comment.”?
He knew he had an hour or two to gauge the type of police officers he was dealing with, and several hours alone in a cell to cement his plan in his mind before the interview.
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It also came to my attention that the account I signed up for this blog with is under the name "Chris".
That's not my name, and Chris (in the book) does not represent me, it's just the name I jumped to when I started writing! Same goes for Thomas, he doesn't represent anyone in real life. The story and characters, while based heavily in reality, are a mash of several events and people, with a healthy dollop of fiction thrown in.
This isn't an auto-biography, it's not even a semi-fiction, it's just fiction. I hope that doesn't spoil it for anyone!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy (as much as one can enjoy an out-of-context excerpt from an unfinished amateur book) and as always, criticism is welcomed and encouraged!

Another Little Slice

Title reccomendations are welcome, by the way. As of now, I'm writing under the title "Poole" for reasons I can only really explain post-reading. I don't like it though.

Anyway, sorry for dropping paragraphs on you without revealing much of the story. The brief build up to this is that the guy, Chris, who was running from the police in the first part is now home, having escaped successfully.

I don't proof-read before posting these, not even a skim, so forgive any glaring errors. The editing process will come later for me!

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"Hang on mate, I'll just grab it," he said. "Cheers for this, by the way."
The driver nodded and Chris chucked his phone onto the back seat before jogging up to his door. He let himself in and looked in the living as he passed it. He saw the DVD player's clock, it was 10:40. Peeling his jacket off and hanging it from a chair at the foot of his stairs, he glanced into the dining room. Neither his mum nor brother were awake. He delved a hand into his mother's handbag, sat on the same chair, and lifted her purse out.
Chris jogged back outside, a £20 note in hand.
"Here you are mate, cheers."
"Cool, there is yours," said the driver, handing back a couple of pounds change.


Chris jogged back into through the front door, pushed each trainer off with the other foot and kicked them under the stairs.

He rummaged in his fridge for a moment before he found some sliced ham. He defrosted two slices of bread  in the microwave, stripping down to his boxers while doing so, and piled his sandwich together as he walked into the living room.
Chris' mother loved chintzy decorations; she believed she was brightening the place up. On the faded powder pink walls hung ceramic cats with bow-ties, wooden hedgehogs with homely phrases etched in, and a flat, stick-on dado rail that ran a dirty gold smear across the room. His dad had always complained openly about how awful it was up to, during and after the divorce six months before his death. He was ill for years before he passed away, but his weakness didn't extend to politeness.
"I wish you'd take that shit off the walls," he'd say. "It's like a fucking time warp in here."
He was never overly aggressive or even angry, just brisk and honest to a fault. He cared more about saying what he wanted to say than he did about what the person listening might feel.
Chris flicked on the TV and looked through the listings. Nothing but the usual mid-morning rubbish.
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Ernest Hemingway

"I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?"

Chapter One... I suppose!

Well, to be clear, this is just a very short excerpt from the first chapter. Furthermore, it's the first draft of the first part of the first section of the chapter... as such, don't treat it too harshly! As ever though, I'm keen to hear criticisms or areas for improvement!

I understand it means very little without context, so I apologise. I'll give a brief outline of the story in the next post in a few days.

Thanks a lot guys, and thank you for helping me feel like I can do this!

-------
With a forceful shove, Chris had created enough space to get past. His Flailing hands followed him as he jinked to the left and began to run, but they missed; the police would have to run after him.
When he remembered back the chase was a blur, but in the moment he had clarity. He sprinted across the bridge, pulling further away from the pursuing officers with each stride. The shirt he had tied around his face was beginning to come loose and the cold December air was biting at his face as he glanced left and right, searching for the next opening to take.
He didn’t dare look back to see if the police were close, the mess of footsteps, shouts, clinks and clicks told him whether he was safe or not.
With a look into the distance, Chris spotted a house. He was growing tired already and the brisk weather had taken his wind quickly, and with a concern for his fitness and the house around 100 metres away, he chose it as a finish line.

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)

Yeah, it's a terrible name.

In case you're wondering (as I was, until recently) what NaNoWriMo means, check out this link and this wiki page to get an idea!
In case you don't have the time/patience, the gist of the idea is that during the month of November, a community pull together for encouragement and inspiration, with the goal being the production of a novel per member.


Now, the parts of my life I've mentioned fleetingly here in relation to my depression (I only capitalise when I'm trying to prove a point!) are something of a part-time occupation or pastime. Full-time(ish) I'm a writer. Well, I'm trying to be, with varying degrees of success.


What I'd love to do though, is write a novel. I've never written one, but like so many other people I feel like I've got ideas and potential. The writing I do currently is less creative, with an emphasis more on comment, opinion and news. I'd love to write a story.


I'm not at all interested in joining the NaNoWriMo community. It's just not... me. But, like any good idea, the concept behind NNWM can easily be modified to fit wants and needs. As such, I'll be writing my first novel over the next few months and, depending on how it goes, pitching it to some publishers.


My proposition to YOU, my beloved (and importantly, NOT NaNoWriMo) community, is:


Should it become something in the choose-your-own-adventure mold or not? I'd be asking you guys to pick from options, and if replies aren't timely I'll lead with what I'd prefer personally.

The story would be heavily based on my own experiences, and the experiences of those around me. Would you prefer the story to focus on crime, love, depression, education, work or the character(s) themselves? An exploration of the them, or the things they're experiencing?
The novel will hopefully cover all of those things, as that would be what I want to write about, but I'd love to know how I could emphasise certain parts to give the most to the reader.


I'll be posting short excerpts, a paragraph maybe, per day. If anyone should want a copy of the whole thing, please let me know and it would be my pleasure to send you a copy via email or something. I'd only ask that you keep it to yourself as I'd like to approach publishers, ideally.

Clearly I wouldn't even consider charging for my work here, but a dream of mine is that of a publisher paying me for my novel. Not because I'm struggling for cash (although I definitely am) but because... well, I just want it! Imagine it, being a novelist. I'm proud enough that I'm a writer, I feel like the luckiest guy in the world on occassion, but a novelist? Well, gee...

Part Nine

Hello everyone!

This is the final part of my long ol' clump of ramblings. Thanks a lot for reading and accepting my digressions and flaws, I liked writing it and I'm glad it's received the feedback it did!

I look forward to writing more for y'all soon. I have an idea for something more creative, and will be turning to the blogging community for guidance as to how I should approach it.

More on that next time. For now, here's the final part of 'Not a Suicide Note'.

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Part Nine
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Law is a disgusting concept, derived not by the masses, but by the powerful. The rich dictate the poor, and the poor accept it because it has no face.
Imagine this kind of behavior with the face of one man. Picture a scenario where the laws are written by one person and dictated to a group of 99 men. If one man breaks one of these laws, the dictator punishes him in the way he deems fit. The remaining 98 continue to abide by the laws for fear of punishment.
It would never be tolerated; it’s a dictatorship the likes of which we’re constantly told is abhorrent. Yet expanding the numbers from one to 1 million and 99 to 99 million shows that we do tolerate this.
There’s nearly seven billion in this world and I am just one of them, the policeman that tells me I’m not allowed to drink in a certain area is just another.
Why am I answerable only to 1% of the population, and why am I told that this is democracy at work?
By definition, this is a dictatorship.

Delegating power and spreading resources distorts the roots of it all. It buries the history, the past in which this deplorable list of Good and Bad was drawn up, blurring the source of corruption and masking the disgusting scent of control in a free land.
The justice system in this society is corrupt at worst and hypocritical and stupid at best.

Lying, cheating, blagging and forcing are the paths that any real career-driven man takes anyway; I’m just upfront about it. I’ll make something of myself, and I’ll do it my way. I’ll punch well above my weight and feel like it’s where I belong. I’ll fulfill my potential, but I now know I can do that and be happy at the same time.

I believe, with pride, that I can con my way to the top and I believe I’m justified in doing so. I believe I can con my way into big business with big clients, that I can spend my time enjoying life and doing what I want to do without fear. If what I want happens to differ with what the law dictates is acceptable, that’s fine with me.

If I get caught and arrested, so what? It’s not as if I was going to do anything anyway, I was living on my knees until I did what I wanted anyway.
Fuck that, I’ll die on my feet rather than change my ways… maybe then I won’t be so afraid when my time comes, because I’ll be one of the few people in the world that lived with his head up.

Ernest Hemingway

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” 

 

Part Eight

Hello again guys! It seems every time I promise more regular posts I get sidetracked and forget about this. Hopefully sooner rather than later I'll become more consistent. As always, I look forward to catching up with my favourite bloggers and commenters, and will be browsing all of your archives over the next day or two.
A little note for these entries: This isn't how I feel now, this was all written a couple of months ago. It remains relevant though, as these feelings and thoughts return frequently, with varying degrees of severity. That said, I do appreciate the helpful comments and advice that some of you have offered, so thank you!

Also, I don't like this new blogger layout, just saying!

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Part Eight
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I live in a world where kidnapping is a crime, but the punishment is a lifetime’s imprisonment. So surely, the police, judge and jury are criminals too. No, they’re enforcing the same eye-for-eye “justice” system that we readily look down on when we see Arab’s cutting thieves’ hands off.

The argument often thrown up by haughty would-be debaters here is “yeah but if your kid got molested you’d want the bastard that did it dead” or “if someone killed your mum, I’d bet you’d want an eye for an eye then” and other inane hypotheticals.
Of course I’d want them dead, it would take a will of cowardice or a heart of stone to want anything less, but that doesn’t magically make it the right thing. He wanted to molest the kid, he wasn’t right, so how does my wanting him killed become acceptable? Are we really so savage and ill-evolved that we believe in punishment over treatment?

Punishment on our terms, too. To the point where, when we see that another nation operates under different terms, we kill them! There’s outrage at the slightest hint of mentioning the induction of Shariah Law into England, yet we readily invade other countries with force.
I don’t like Shariah Law anymore more than English Law. This isn’t a case of me claiming that “we’re the real bad guys,” but rather a case of me asking “where are the good guys?”

If a child hits another, we teach them that slapping is wrong, if a man hits another we lock him in a cold stone room for a few years. Why not teach the man? Who are we to assume this man has been taught what we have? He’s got something wrong, forgotten a lesson. I’m not punished if I forget a maths lesson, why is this different? Because it effects others? All the more reason to teach.
What if he deliberately ignores the lessons like I really did in maths? Maybe there’s something wrong with him, like there is with me. Treat him, make him well.

Part Seven

Hello again chaps, sorry it's been a while. Busy with work and the like, hopefully I'll get back to posting every five days or so rather than the current eight. Anyway, I look forward to reading your comments (and apologising to those who feel this blog is too miserable, although if you read a few posts back you'll see that it's not all doom and gloom. More positivity to come, I promise!) and catching up on the blogs I haven't checked in on recently.

Incidentally, I love the Zapata quote towards the end of this section, it's a recurring theme in my life for both good and bad reasons. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it and what it might mean to you.

As always, try to bear in mind that this wasn't intended to be split into sections, it's one document that I've decided to milk for content during my busy hours.
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Part Seven
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Even without Depression, if all I felt was a slight melancholy and disregard for life, how is that any less valid? A problem is subjective; I would never attempt to trivialize your problem, no matter how feeble it might seem to me. I understand that a small thing to one man is a big one to another. One man’s rubbish is another’s treasure, and so one man’s unnoticed issues are another’s dominant feature.
If someone as shallow and self-absorbed as me can realise that, why can’t everyone else?

I hate me, I hate you, and I genuinely, in every sense of the word, hate the world.

I hate what I’ve done to me and what I’ve become. I was born a pleasant young gentleman and I’ve become a selfish egotistical cynic.
I hate you, for making me feel like I’ve done this to myself deliberately and for implying it’s common, reversible and exaggerated. No one can suggest I’m anything but honest, even in my deceits.
I hate the world for supplying constant ammunition for cynicism. Everywhere I look there’s something obscene and worthy of my deepest hatred.

Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata said, “It is better to die upon your feet than to live upon your knees.”
Maybe it’s an extreme view founded in my ignorance and stubbornness, but I feel like I’ve been asked to live on my knees. I see things in the news that make me ashamed to be human, and yet I’m told I should contribute to society. I see men who are imprisoned against their will for their entire lives for breaking laws written and enforced by the same people that tell me I live in a free country.

Part Six

The people that are crying inside are the same ones that flip and shoot up a school or hang themselves, these things are seen as shocking when they happen. Why? They’re inevitable with phrases like “everyone has their problems” indoctrinating the minds of the vulnerable at every chance.
This idea that Depression, and it is capitalized, can be baited out and exorcised like some kind of demon in the night is wrong on the most basic level.
A notion founded in outdated ignorance and an almost deliberate misunderstanding of mental health issues has fed the cycle of hurt and heartache across the world. If we were taught that Depression was a problem in the same was that Down’s syndrome is, we would help those affected and we’d do it without a hint of resent.
Instead, the stigma of Depression doesn’t resemble the stigma found in disability, despite its debilitating features, instead resembling the stigma attached to homosexuality or Asperger’s Syndrome. Like it’s somehow a minor issue, an aspect of a person’s self rather than the governing feature.

Depression makes a person think differently, right to the foundations of himself. It’s all-absorbing, a life is ruled and ruined by it. A decision can’t be made without forethought to future episodes of misery.

Winston Churchill likened it to carrying around a big black dog, a dark burden that weighs heavily and pushes against a man’s chest, suffocating him with pure… nothing.
Sadness and misery are estimations, a roundabout way of describing the indescribable. People assume they know what it feels like, being told they haven’t felt it is like saying a new color has been discovered; unimaginable.
The blackest punch to gut, a punch of guilt, shame, hatred, anger, sadness, tiredness, apathy, demotivation and the most profound sense of doom and dread possible, all multiplied to the nth degree and wrapped around you like the dirty hands of the angriest, seediest cunt in the world; yourself.

It never leaves. The punches draw back, but you know another’s coming and you know the grip’s coming back to squeeze you again soon. Always.

Part Five

Been away for a few days, lovely to return to so many positive and thoughtful comments. Thanks guys!

Part Five

People try to justify too many things by trivializing life, condensing the enormity of something so beautiful and grotesque into manageable nuggets of clichéd dialogue from the last rom-com they saw.
“Life is what you make it,” a piece of pop-philosophy from the pat-yourself-on-the-back school of “you can be like me one day” School of Arrogance. The implication being that one would ever choose to fail.

Being lazy and apathetic is never a choice, nor is alcoholism and nor is unemployment. If somebody is expressing the idea that they’re choosing not to “better” themselves, ask why. Don’t assume they’re bad, wonder why they’re making such a destructive choice. Why would someone willingly ruin his or her life? They must hate themselves to some degree to wish such a half-hearted fate on themselves, and if that’s the case then I believe they need to be helped. Not so they can contribute more to the world, but so they can absorb more of what the world has to offer.

We may be running out of resources in the form of energies and money and love and whatever else, but the jungles are still beautiful and the beaches are still idyllic. Birds are still majestic, so why can’t a man be happy in noticing these things?
If I knew, I’d be happy, but I don’t, so I’m not. Does that make me bad?

I was told a few days ago that “everyone has their problems.” I was expected to buck up and smile after hearing this. One of the most ignorant and idiotic attempts at a motivational line I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard plenty.
Yes, everybody does have their problems, but how is that a positive thing? I don’t hear that and think “wow, they have problems yet they smile and live life!”
Instead, I think “wow, they smile and live life and yet they’re still unhappy beneath it.”
That’s one of the ugliest things about this world, the perpetual lying. On top of the lies, come lies regarding the lies and then lies regarding those. If someone wants to cry, let them. Hug them while they do. Don’t make him feel like it’s the right thing to do to bottle feelings up until he implodes.

Part Four

I’ve realized recently though, with the help of my counselor, my editor, my dad, and my online friends, that I am good at talking. Whether it’s blagging a fiver from my dad, landing interviews and writing jobs that I’m completely under-qualified for, boldly attempting (although often failing) to chat up girls, or selling double glazing for Zenith - I can talk. I can lie.

Accepting this, I don’t feel my ego swelling or my heart sinking with the usual disapproving resentment of such arrogant self-aggrandizing. I feel proud.

I can do the things I want to do with this skill, such as it is. I can live on the continent; I can apply for jobs, chat up girls, sell my own personal brand and feel completely at ease with myself. Just the thought makes me feel happy. I don’t want to die when I imagine this, I want to live.

So it’s time to do it, I’ve found what might make me happy and so I’ll leave. I want to wake up when I want, sit in a quirky French café and write on my laptop. I want to harass the girl at the counter for her phone number in my broken French and smile even when she declines, and I want to blag my way into the biggest and best situations imaginable. Why would I do anything I don’t want to do? Because “life isn’t fair sometimes”? Bollocks, life can’t be summed up some second-rate quote from a straight-to-DVD drama; it’s too vast to comprehend and too small to waste.

Part Three

I'm concerned that these 'parts' are becoming completely intangible, as they were intended to be read as one. I didn't post as one because I felt it made an unpleasant read, I'm hoping to find the balance between too much and not enough as I post more.
Bear with me while I do!

Part Three

I had the potential, IQ-wise, to become something decent enough to pay my way in life and live in relative comfort.

In accepting this, I’ve become a disgusting egotist. I’ve been told to accept it repeatedly, and now that I do, I’m even more unhappy. I dislike it. I don’t mind being a bit clever in some aspects, but I mind knowing I am. I hate myself for it in a way that I can barely put into words. 
This expectation, the potential that everyone but me saw when I was young, has finally begun to make sense to me, but rather than free me it’s trapped me. I feel a self-loathing that never leaves. I’m utterly miserable.

I read back every word that I write, and I see smug arrogance, obscene egotism and a desperate need to assert my “intelligence” through my writing and into the mind of whoever’s reading. It’s like I think I’m some kind of troubled genius, a diamond in the rough, Will Hunting.
I’m not though, I’m of moderate intelligence and I’m unhappy. It’s simple.

All that realization does though, is raise more questions. If it’s simple, why am I complicating it?
As far as I can tell, it’s because I see things in a very black and white way. It’s a typically young and male trait, according to my doctor, so perhaps it’s unsurprising. Everything must have a solution.
I think about these things, and then I think of ways to end a misery I’ve found myself in. I think of suicide, researching some pretty easy and painless ways to do it, but I’m too scared. I think of running away, but I realise I’m too penniless for the train. I think of a relationship, but hurt is inevitable for everyone and I’m sick of hurting people that aren‘t me. I think of self-harm, but it’s a short-term solution to a permanent problem. I think of exercise, but I can’t motivate myself to run when I can’t even motivate myself to wake up.

I’m so scared that I’ll feel this for the rest of my life. Too scared to die and too scared to live.

Letter

I don't hate you, but I am angry. I'm not angry at you, I'm angry at just about everything.
Until the other night I'd only shown part of myself to you, it's still me, but it's edited.

I'm sorry, because I know I gave you little choice in anything, I know I'm difficult to speak to when I'm like that.
I'm so tired of people claiming to understand and appreciate how it feels. Whether they're correct or not, it's just not what I need to hear.
I KNOW I need to just... man up sometimes, but if I'm not doing so already then why would being told it change that? That's my view at the time of feeling those things I mean, not necessarily my view when I'm myself.

I'd had a lot to drink that evening and I'd taken sleeping pills, my pills are harsh and I tend to sleeptalk for the last 10 minutes or so before crashing completely. I wasn't sleeptalking to you, but I was certainly beyond the point of caring about you, and I stopped caring about myself a long time ago.

I hate to say this, because I DO understand that everyone has their own problems and hardships, but please don't underestimate how hard parts of my life have been.

Some thing I couldn't express to you at the time is my frustration at the phrase "everyone has shit to deal with." I still can't fully explain it, perhaps because my logic is basically flawed, I don't know, but here's my best shot:
When I'm depressed I don't care about ANYONE. I'm angry at the world for being such a hate-filled and cynical place, a place where people don't care. I know this is hypocritical, but I feel it anyway. Hearing that everyone else is unhappy on some level too doesn't cheer me up, it doesn't make me feel the world is a better place and it doesn't make me worry about them. It makes me angrier, angrier that so many people accept unhappiness like it's to be expected and that nobody cares.

This anger is what drives me in my work. I find it easy to blackmail people and hurt people and damage lives, because I can choose to stop caring when I feel like it. It's just easier to do that than have to feel the emotions related to causing pain. 

Blah blah blah, I suppose.

I'm just sorry, and I hope you can forgive me. I miss your sexy face and smartarse comments, genuinely. 

Chris.

Part Two

I have a cold, but I'm so hungover that when I sniff it up I can't even spit it out.
My mouth is so dry I dream of days when I could be spitting feathers.

Anyway, on with the self-indulgent explanation to an attention seeking plan! 

Part Two


I’ve been told since primary school that I have potential, that squandering the intelligence that was assumed on me rather than learned by me was somehow wrong. “People would do anything to have what you have,” was somehow supposed to inspire me to exert myself, to try to live up to my perceived potential and achieve in a way that those poor unfortunate mortals couldn’t possibly do for themselves… I’d be a hero to the idiotic masses!
Or not.
No-one gives a fuck if someone clever becomes a great mathematician or something, the family will be proud and his friends will be impressed, but those left behind in the factory jobs and building sites would barely remember a name, let alone feel anything positive about it. Why should they? The mathematician's talent is no more valid than their’s just because a teacher told them so 10 years ago.

Imagine a plate of food in front of you, something I’ve spent an hour cooking just for you. Unfortunately, it‘s disgusting. You eat a little, to be polite, maybe you even have enough to fill you up… but I give big portions.
You’re on the verge of vomiting, you’re full and you’re not enjoying the taste, it’s a horrible experience.
“There’s starving kids across the world that would do anything to be lucky enough to be blessed with a plateful of food.”
Does that make you want to eat it? Does it bollocks. It doesn’t stop you feeling overfed and doesn’t take away the taste; it adds shame and guilt and nothing more.

This Is Not A Suicide Note

So this is part one of around... I don't know. It's up to about 20 at the moment, but I'll keep the parts short.

This is kind of just a brief introduction to my plan. The coming posts (I'll try to update around once every five days) will explain why I've decided to take this action.

This will be my leaving note, because I'm too much of a coward to write a suicide note. The spelling and grammar wasn't something I tried hard with, nor did I attempt to make it an attractive piece in general, rather just an expression of my feelings in the clearest way possible.

Thanks for reading!



Part One

This is not a suicide note; I’m not dead and won’t be anytime in the foreseeable future.
I will be gone though; I’m leaving for another country. At the moment, the plan is France (because it’s closest) but I hope to maneuver my way across to Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland and Switzerland.
I’ll be trying my best not to come back. I’ll be sleeping in a tent and I’ll do what I can for money, starting with a “proper” job but hopefully moving into what I want to do soon enough.

I’ve been talking for years about how I want to move away, but have never done it.
I watched a film earlier (Cemetery Junction) and there was a similarly whiny yet lazy character. Someone who forever wished to cast his glorious and oh-so-superior nets the furthest, but never did.
Someone said something to him that resonated, “You’re scared to move away, because then you can’t be angry at everyone for holding you back. You’re scared you’ll move away from being a big fish in a small pond and realize you’re nothing.”

I am scared. When I’m here, I’m resting on the suggestion that I could make something of myself if I tried. That was enough, why try when I know I’ll succeed? 

Diary for a Visit

I have nowhere else to post this. God knows why a diary should be something that has to be posted somewhere, perhaps I just crave attention. Whatever the reason, here's today's post - my first official post.

The evening was setting in, but the June wind still carried the heat from the day as I looked up. The colours of the taped flowers were drained and blunted; the light wasn’t highlighting their brilliance and never would. With the bold force that was stolen from the flowers, the sound of broken glass crunching underfoot broke any silences.

I could see notes amongst the flowers, but I don’t remember what they said anymore. I read them in earnest but when my eyes looked away the words faded from memory.

The glass tried to glisten in the headlights of passing cars, but it was dulled by the solitary shadow of Big Tom. He stood away from us, looking from a different angle. His presence could never be ignored.

Tom stood tall, mature, Big. Arms folded, his eyes marbled and glazed while his mind raced and stopped simultaneously. He didn’t move. While my face was sticky from tears blown dry in the warm breeze, Tom’s was unchanged.

The group cried around me, some of the boys were comforting their girlfriends and some comforting each other. I stood alone, floating between groups before standing with Olivia.

I know Olivia least, but we hugged tightly for a moment between pulls on her cigarette. I’ve never known such sadness amongst adults; I’ve never seen my friends cry.

Winston's Dog

I suppose my first post should be something along the lines of an introduction and explanation, so here we are!

This blog will be my diary, but written in the style of a pretentious twat. I was asked to do a series of diary entries for work purposes a few weeks ago, but since then they've become useless to my employer. I found the writing process helpful and the sending/posting process liberating, so I plan to continue here.

The style isn't false, I just write like a dickhead, but I did put more effort in for the sake of my employer. She's a writer, if you're wondering.

First things, the title. Winston's Dog is a stupid title, that's obvious, but it carries with it a euphemism popularised by Winston Churchill - that of Depression likened to the burden of a large black dog.

Speaking of a doctor whom he held in high regard, Churchill said, ""I think this man might be useful to me - if my black dog returns. He seems quite away from me now - it is such a relief. All the colours come back into the picture."

I always thought it was a beautifully miserable notion, and it's relevance to this blog will become more clear as time passes.

More eloquent Churchill quotes in the next post, until then I look forward to exploring Blogger.com a little more and seeing who else is out there.

Thanks for reading,

Chris.