Distance

Always at a distance, no matter how close. As obvious as it seems, it will always be at a distance.

Talk and chances had and lost. They are now distant memories, or they should be anyway.

'Should does not apply' because it rhymes with 'would',  and that's too hypothetical for idealists.

We want to see the world we know fall, and the one we dream of, flourish.

Dreams are so distant.

So real, but like ideas, they are distant.

Watching and waiting from afar. Watching and waiting for the next drink from the fucking bar.

"Are you ok?" "No, and you?"

I don't like this question. More often than not the answer is, "yes, you?" Without even thinking of the implications of what we've just done. To be fair, the question itself was asked equally automatically so the person who started the brief exchange also doesn't realise what he's possibly done.

We are rarely actually concerned about how we feel as individuals. We don't have time to feel anything or to listen to how other people feel. And if we ask a person if they are ok and they say no, now what? Do we ask a follow-up? Or simply wait for them to elaborate. And what if they don't want to elaborate? Sometimes that is a really shit question to ask.

How am I after such a long pause from writing? Shit.

It is unfortunate that for two individuals who at a point years ago seemed perfect suddenly find that, for the sake of personal progress, they must be, slowly at first, and then suddenly torn apart limb from limb. Or at least that's how it feels.

In short, no I'm not ok. But nobody has time to sit down and be bothered with being honest about their feelings. Nobody really cares, do they?

That being said, I try to care. If I ask you how you are, I'm not doing it to fill the time. I would love to sit down and listen to whatever is bothering you because I know that at a point, most people who I will listen to will in turn listen to me if they ask the dreaded question.

Me. Me. Me. Always about me in the end.

Good morning, the interwebz.

(As a sidenote, I am going to attempt to start writing in this again in case anyone still cares about my rambling)

Progress

I have been roped into new technology.

I am genuinely impressed by all advances made in this sphere, however I do remain a bit of a technophobe in the sense that embracing new things in general tends to give me the willies. Like most people, I am one who does not seem to look at change with a 'bring it on' kind of attitude. I am hesitant at first, albeit most times it is such a brief moment of hesitation it is barely noticeable. It's there though, I promise.

I find myself inspired to write something purely to try my hand at a new keyboard which sounds like a typewriter and yet seems entirely absent of any of the qualities of one. Well, all apart from the letters and the relationship between my fingers and the appearance of one of them on a likewise entirely absent paper.

Speaking of change and new prospects, taking on a road to professional discovery and a clear step towards what is shaping up to be a potential career is terrifying. I'm not inherently a responsible person and yet I'm seemingly fitting into that role quite nicely. Of course, that is, if I completely ignore all the mental anguish that is constantly present. My strong senses of pessimism, failure and self-destruction are constantly present but then, one can't assume to make a full change. One thing at a time, Mathias. Steady now.

Yes I have bought an iPad to help with my new professional image and looming tasks, most of which must be electronically presented, as the educational world progresses. I am attempting to progress with it. Find the key word in the previous sentence.

It's been a while. Good night, the interwebs.

Piece of Paper 3

The shapes and shadows form the usual faces on the walls. They're always the same. They never judge, they simply regard in silence.

The faces seem somehow different tonight, however. They are cold and unwelcoming. But don't get me wrong, they never judge, they simply regard in silence.

Mad men hear voices. I only hear my own. It offers no comfort. It only offers judgement and tormented yells.

Sometimes I wish the faces would answer me. They're ever so silent.

I am my own worst enemy yet I am also my most welcomed company. Misery loves it, or so I've heard. I've heard plenty. I've heard way too much, yet I can never hear enough.

My inner ear must be going deaf while my inner child lives on forever screaming for attention.

I wish he would just shut the fuck up.

Maybe then the faces might offer some consolation? I don't assume they enjoy the ramblings of an attention whore child.

Children hate being regarded in silence.

I'm sure there are a few children who enjoy silence. Indeed, they perpetuate it.

At first we call them well-behaved. Angels, even. Then we start to worry because we all know there are no such things as angels and demons. Not in an ethereal state, anyway.

It's like we can never really decide what we want. Do we want to worry about a silent child, or do we feel comfortable scolding a rowdy one?

I really do wish the faces made up their minds. They are becoming rather irksome, albeit silent.

Can silence be a solution? What about all that's left unsaid? Then again, what about all we wish we hadn't said?

What's the worse kind of regret? That of regretting an action of the lack of it?

Perhaps we should just be content with the faces. Maybe they too have regrets.

Do they regret their silence? Or do they regret the fact that their silent regard has been driving me mad since I was a child?

I hate the faces. I wish they were alive so I could wish death upon them.

Ramble on a scrap of paper. Part 2

Everyone writes about love for the sake of writing about it. Love tends to be a subject which inspires some sort of reaction. Whether the reaction includes flushed cheeks or a groan of cynical rejection is arbitrary.

Artists - of whose group I do not wish to be included in - feed off attention. If one is to assume that we are all artistic, then this attention-seeking is also to be attributed to every single one of us, no?

If so then what about the quiet ones? If good guys always finish last, could it be that they genuinely don't give a fuck?

This is without assuming that an artist can never be an introvert, or rather that an artist does not require love.

I believe I have just found a paradox within my rambling.

If an artist does it for attention and approval, which in turn feeds and clothes him, then how can one explain introverted artists?

I believe the answer lies somewhere within the dichotomy of the artist as a normal person, and the person communicating via their chosen medium of expression.

These two distinct personalities can always make AND break anybody simultaneously.

Think of all the drug abuse and inanities that artists are known for throughout history.

The personality of the artist could be trying to take over from the introverted personality which the person exhibited before he found his craft.

Now the person is entirely unhappy and the only way to reconcile the two is to try to numb the feeling of the gaping metaphoric wound caused by the rift.

When someone tells me about wanting to be some sort of artist, I have two distinct reactions which tend to fight to get out at the same time.

1) "That's great! Follow your heart and see where it leads you!"

2) "Run."

I figure those are my two - or rather, two of my - personalities. On one hand I want the person to success. Who knows, maybe the next Hendrix is just around the corner.

The other reaction comes from my years of struggle for minuscule success and even this marginal victory is negligible.

Bottom line, art is work. Love is pain. Work and pain are all we have to look forward to is we are to have marginal success.

It's worth it.

The Lucky

The first to be picked, yet the last to be smoked.

It is lucky because it is initially spared the fire.

In the end it is lucky because after seeing all the others burn, it doesn't want to be left behind.

Perhaps it is lucky because it is the final cigarette I will smoke. Until the next one.

Perhaps it will be the one to ultimately lead to my lucky breath.

In the end, it is lucky for the brand. Once it finishes, I have to buy another packet.

Thus the cycle returns to its starting point.





[I have decided to start posting even the random rambling writings I occasionally produce and keep to myself. I have plenty of those, you see?]

I'm not back, but I try.

Two phrases have popped into my mind this morning while conversing with a good friend and nursing one of those hangovers which makes your whole body tremble as you try to nurse what's left of your pride from the night before and its aftermath.

1) "We are all victims of circumstance"

This to me makes a lot of sense and puts people into two categories. The first being people who seem to be shat on by life in general because they simply fall flat against the wall which circumstance represents. These people seem to lack the lucidity needed to make their own lives work. It's unfortunate but very real and, in fact, most people fall into this category. It's worrying to me that we have some such a long way as a race but only because of the few people who fall in the second category, hence why we are still so far behind.

The other group of people, the rare ones, the ones I envy greatly, are the ones who look circumstance dead in the eyes and take control of it. Those people who we tend to see in the films who have an epiphany and then make their lives their own. I have yet to learn how to do this. Maybe one day.

2) "Luck is there for people to rely on when they lose hope"

If you know me well enough, or even if you have read a couple posts here, you will know that I am cynical about many things. One of them being luck. I hate the idea of luck, I think it's nonsense. I imagine that the reason why I believe it is nonsense is because I wish so desperately that it were real. Then I could blame all my fuck ups on bad luck instead of knowing that they are my fault.

Kind of like how humanity always needs hope so they create false hope just to convince themselves there is still some after they've really given up. Luck is a waste of time. It's false. It kills you in the end.

On that note I would like to thank the handful of people who still visit this page. I haven't actually been on it for the last 5 or so months but it seems that I still get regular visitors hence this post. I still write, I just don't publish anything. I am too defeatist nowadays. Circumstance dictates that this is a waste of time, but then again writing has always been on the borderline between public art and personal escapism.

Good afternoon, the interwebz

Maybe I will write soon, or maybe I will wait another few months, who knows.