Just to let you all know that I’m still alive, I thought I’d do a quick update.
Life is very average. I’m settling into a boring grind that has a many minor troubles and bores, that all add up, with some minor enjoyments that are forgotten quickly. But hey, that’s life.
Last Saturday a fight nearly happened in the pub. A friend of mine was getting abuse and being asked to “have a chat outside” with another guy in the pub. It was threatening but it never escalated beyond someone grabbing my friend and me pulling him off of him.
Work is… alright. It’s tolerable. But I couldn’t handle 9-5 there, that’s for sure. I’m happy with my current, low hours, and I’m getting paid more than I did at my old job, which was full-time 9-5:30 every day too, so it’s worth it I guess. I just wish I could do the things I want to with my money (have parties and drink, go out with my friends more often, buy more stuff to keep me happy, go on holidays etc) more often. Often I find my money sitting there, trying to organise days out with my friends is a nightmare due to work, their girlfriends, and general boringness. I’ve never known it to be so common for 18-19 year olds to say that they would “rather stay in”, or that they don’t want to drink too much or stay up late due to work the next day. You’re teenagers for God’s sake! Live a little and worry about sleep when you’re dead. You have too much living to do, and you have work taking up your entire daytime. You need to make the most of any time you have to your own discretion.
My love-life is non-existant right now, which is odd for me because I used to always have some girls in mind. There is someone, theres always been this particular “someone”, but unfortunately we’ve drifted too far apart. I know it sounds stupid, but if I had a girlfriend who I actually wanted to be with, someone who would put me as a priority, I’d have way more motivation for everything in life, even work. I don’t have a particularly solid reason to live and get up every day right now; I’m not feeling particularly needed these days.
I also applied to some universities. Mainly for Computing, but also I applied for two video game design courses.
All in all, not much to report. Hence the recent lack of blog posts; I apologise for that, but hopefully in the near future that will change somewhat.
It’s a human condition to look back on good times overly favourably when we cannot experience them anymore. It’s also a human condition to look back on the bad or embarrassing times in an over-emphasised way, purely because it’s easier to use hindsight when you aren’t under the subconscious pressure of the now, the present, and in 9/10 cases, the social environment.
I miss my uncle, and I regret deciding not to visit him on what unfortunately turned out to be the last day of his tragically short life. I took his life for granted, as it was my first adult experience with serious illness and death. I miss my gran and my great aunt.
I miss my friends that have drifted away from me over the years, I miss the people I ignored or never spoke to in my time at school, I regret not seeing my friends so much outside of school when I was younger. I regret not going to parties, being more confident and generally “living” when I was younger. I regret hurting those closest to me because of my own emotions and problems.
I miss ‘you’. I regret, in the past and present, not being able to say that I’m thinking about ‘you’, right now and countless nights in the past. I regret not trying my luck, just so I would have known where I stood. At least now I know where I stand; that is, I stand alone, without the hope that kept me alive for those months when we were close. I regret not keeping in contact with ‘you’. I regret not seeing you more often. I miss your smile, your personality and the feeling of understanding that I received from you. The feeling that we were equal human beings and that I was actually treated with a respect. I miss that I’ve never had this feeling since. I miss you.
I miss my family, after many arguments and the expected effect of aging, people drift apart, move out of the family house and such. I miss what we used to be. I regret not spending more time with my family when we were a more tight-knit unit.
I regret wasting so much time on a relationship that I didn’t want to be in. I regret alienating my friends and changing myself, more out of pity and to fit in with social norms. I regret falling for your dangerous lies and letting them hurt me.
I miss me. I miss what I used to be when I was at the summit of this downhill slope we call life; inevitably when you have travelled down for a while, you regret not making the most of your time at the top.
And yet, in living in the past and in regret, am I not taking the present for granted, hypocritically? Perhaps in a year, five, ten or fifteen, I shall look back to today and think very similar thoughts. Perhaps.
-A social commentary by myself, KoLdDoOm, based on and recalling my experiences in life, but relevent to many.
So, under the recommendation of a few people online, I bought myself a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale. And I have to say… It’s one of the best beers I’ve ever had. Normally I stuck to more mainstream pale lagers, such as Corona Extra, Budweiser and Peroni, so was a bit cautious about trying this, and as I opened it up, the rich beer smell really hit me, and I was expecting a bitter, overpowering flavour. Nevertheless, I tried a gulp of it… And it went down like water! Yet, the flavour was there, and strong, but not overpowering by any means.
It’s fairly refreshing, although I will say you should only drink it when it’s cold, it tastes much better to me.
I’ll definitely have a pint of it at some point when I’m in the pub. I’m more of a cider guy, but for a brown ale, this is very good.
Life
Thus far, my job is going pretty well. They are much more patient with me in comparison to my old job, and already they have told me that I’m a fast learner and that they “don’t expect [me] to sell anything on [my] first saturday” (which I didn’t, but my old job expected me to start selling stuff on my first day). I also don’t have to wear a uniform, only a smart shirt, trousers and work shoes, of which I have plenty of all three from my days at Sixth Form. It brings back memories to put on those clothes again!
I’ve got work again tomorrow, but it’s only 12-2PM so it’s not too bad. I’m not in the mood to go, but the short hours make it much more bearable.
I had to walk to work in the ice, snow and below-freezing temperatures all of last week, which was not nice, tiring, and scary when, firstly, it’s hard enough to walk without falling over in the slippery ice, let alone having cars driving far too fast and skidding near you; and there’s no grit on the roads in Guernsey, I believe because of the way our water system works, it would be a disaster to get salt in the water supply. So if it’s icy, we just have to put up with it. The worst day was Saturday, the shop was almost closed, but at the last-minute I was told to make my way to work (such an annoying feeling, to have a potential day off snatched away from you!), but at least had to work an hour less due to me arriving at roughly 10AM. The weather has been better and slightly warmer since Saturday evening so hopefully I can get a lift there, as my fingers were numb for ages after my 50 minute walk to work, even while wearing gloves. This might not seem like such a novelty worthy of a long paragraph on my blog to you, but these conditions are very rare in Guernsey.
Also, I’ve been playing some Left 4 Dead 2 with my friends lately, and I have to say, it’s awesome fun. I always had a bad impression of Left 4 Dead after only really playing it single player, or with random people well above my skill level online, but now, after playing it with my friends and discovering the true purpose of the game, I take back that impression. Just like Unreal Tournament would seem relatively weak if you didn’t play it online, L4D needs to be played with a bunch of friends with your microphones on. It makes for a great gaming experience.
Finally, I’ve noticed that my music tastes have been evolving of late. More specifically, you’re more likely to find me listening to Between The Buried And Me, Lamb of God, Machine Head, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Deep Purple, Dinosaur Jr., Muse and Modest Mouse, where previously I’d listen to more of Metallica, Dream Theater, Children of Bodom, Iron Maiden, Cacophony, Sonata Arctica and Franz Ferdinand.. (Not that I don’t still enjoy these bands and listen to them, just that they are taking a bit more of a back seat.)
And that’s my slightly dull life update for today. It’s roughly 2:48AM, so I’d better head to bed. More interesting updates soon, I promise!
This sums up how I’ve felt since I left school, and especially lately:
“Only when the last tree has died,
the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught,
will we realize that we can’t eat money.”
– Cree proverb
And my input: does nobody else think it is sick, morally unjust and hypocritical of todays so-called “advanced” “civilised” and “democratic” society, full of so-called “free-speech” and “choices”, that we as human’s don’t have the basic option to choose to live our lives without money? To live our lives fully and as we want to, without the bullshit propoganda of so-called “success” in working 9-5 every day for 45 years of your fucking life. 45 years, that’s if you’re lucky! Let’s generously assume that the average man working a 9-5 job is earning £32k a year, with 28 days of holiday, an hour for lunch every day and weekends off. £8-9k of that will be spent on income tax alone, let alone bills, transport costs, maintenance, gifts, items for yourself, VAT tax on mostly everything at 15-17.5%. You’re waking up at 7 or 8 every day, driving your car to work, getting stressed after 7 hours of work, coming home at 5:30-6, cooking your food and eating it, by which point it’s at least 7PM, now you finally have about 3 hours to do what you want with your life, before you must finish up for the night, make sure everything is right, and go to bed, ready to continue the cycle. Three hours a day. You’re being taxed nearly half your wage, you’ve got bills coming out of your ass, and you’re spending the rest of your money on other people or shit you don’t really need (that has its own tax associated with it). You’re working 140 hours a month and maybe 60 of those, if not more, are for nothing. You’re working for fuck all, you’re working those hours for absolutely fuck all as far as you are concerned. You’ve got just 3 hours a day to yourself and 60 or more hours of your month are wasted on an in-denial, oppressive government system. Money is a corrupt system, why can’t I just have the right to choose and live life my own way? Why isn’t it a viable option to simply live without money? The people who would want to do this would, for the most part, have the right idea and mindset to make it work, so why is it not seen as a legitimate lifestyle? Sure, people do it, but it’s only a hardcore few who go against the grain, not a solid choice in life that everyone gets, of “Yes, I’ll live soullessly for money to buy inanimate objects” or “No, I’ll live for something money can’t buy: my life, youth and happiness. Because once they are gone, I can’t get them back. I can’t afford to waste a moment.”. It’s a rhetorical question of course; I know the answer. It’s money. Greed. The desire for power. The problem is money, and somewhat fittingly, it causes people to force the lifestyle of hollow need for money on others.
Happy new year everyone! I hope you all had fun on the evening of New Years Eve, if you celebrated it. I went to a house party with a few of my friends, hopefully I will have some pictures to show for it later, it was a great night and it was very fun. One of my friends got extremely drunk and, although somewhat amusing at times, he didn’t really know what he was doing and was making a bit of a nuisance of himself, along with the possibility of him drink-driving. He was stumbling around, being offensive, and acting ridiculous, yet he still genuinely thought he was fine and could drive. A harrowing testament to alcohol and it’s effects on us.
Needless to say, the host was a little upset, so three of us took him home, as we weren’t drunk and knew roughly where his house was. He was sick a few times in and outside of my friend’s car, but we got him home in one piece, and returned to the party afterwards, so I feel that we did a good job, especially finding his house when only 2 of the 3 of us only had a rough idea of the area, late at night, after a few drinks (the 3rd was the driver, who hadn’t drank obviously, but had no clue where the guy lived).
My drinks of choice on that particular night were Henry Westons Special Reserve Cider, Buckfast Tonic Wine and Strongbow Cider. I stuck to those, didn’t mix too much, and ended up taking a lot of alcohol with barely any effect, which surprised me due to my recent lack of alcohol-taking ability. I must say, I can’t recommend Henry Weston’s Special Reserve enough, in my opinion, it really is the best, and closest to “real”, cider you can buy, bottled in shops. And at 8.2% volume, it ‘does the job’!
Also, I’m starting my new job today, in about ten hours time. I’m man enough to admit that I’m terrified. I’m really worried that I won’t fit in, won’t grasp some of the important things in the job, will make mistakes, and will disappoint my family and employers. My family were very understanding when I quit my last job so I want to make it up to them by keeping this job up, and paying them board finally, to help them out since money is tight right now. I guess I just want to do my parents proud.
[Sentimental, off-topic life-story, skip if bored] After all, I’ve always tried to do this. Being the youngest in the family, and the only boy in my generation, I grew up having the bar set by my sisters, and always trying to better it. I would hear my mum complain about my sisters after they’d done something wrong, listened to their music loudly, done something disappointing, acted like typical “teenagers”, went out with guys that my parents didn’t approve of… I suppressed all of my instincts to let it all go and be imperfect, and set out to be the best I could be, and more importantly, being the competitive guy that I am, better than my sisters. I was the goody-goody, the only one of siblings that passed the entrance exam to the Grammar School, I never had girlfriends, always listened to music on headphones, tried to be friendly and helpful at all times and do well at school… To impress my parents, to do them proud… Then eventually that began to collapse of late, as the pressure to be the good guy was too much. I slacked off at school, but it didn’t matter so much since I was at a level of education that nobody else in the family ever did. I started going out and drinking every weekend, taking more and more liberties in general life, and being more moody, just letting my emotions out, sometimes negatively. But my desire to honour and make my parents proud is still there, if only because I don’t have the desire to make myself proud, as I don’t have anything to be proud in the lifestyle of modern society. But my parents do. They want me to be a normal kid who ’succeeds’ by getting a job and supporting his family. So that’s what I’ll do. For them. [End of sentimental life-story]
So, where is this blog headed in 2010?
Honestly, in a very similar direction to where it’s been going towards the end of 2009 when I picked it back up.
Life/Personal: Anecdotes, philosophical thoughts on life, learning who I am as a person, my progress on my job.
Gaming/Technology/Reviews: Games that I’ve been playing lately, reviews, thoughts, previews, news.
Sports: Formula One rumours, thoughts on events and races.
Rants: My philosophies and reactions to recent/not so recent events.
Music/Guitar: New music I’ve discovered, written, songs I’ve learnt or written on guitar.
2010 is a new year, and with that I have a few goals to focus on. Some may call these “resolutions”, but I prefer to just call them goals. They may be big or small, long or short-term, important or just to amuse myself. A feature of 2010 in this blog may or may not be reports back on my progress on these goals.
These goals include, but may not be limited to (in no particular order):
Save enough money to either go to university, or travel a little in 2010/2011.
Modify my old guitar with gold hardware, new pickups, set it up, and generally make it something other than a space-waster.
Get myself in a state where I can be happily topless on the beach by the summer, which includes the following 3 points:
Do everything in my power to get rid of the spots that have plagued my back and upper arms for years (puberty thing, not hygiene. I wash regularly, and well.)
Work out a little and generally get more fit. Work towards toning upper body more.
Tan myself as much as possible (something which doesn’t usually happen, I tend to burn!)
Work more on my album and hopefully complete a demo version of it by the end of the year.
Improve my overall confidence, which can be done by completing some of the goals above, and by finding things that improve my appearance.
Have a less serious short-term relationship, rather than the seriousness and commitment that my previous girlfriend craved. This time it would be on my terms, with a girl who I genuinely would like to be with and find attractive, rather than last time, which was a play on my emotions by making me feel sorry for her, then roping me in with lies and threats about herself.
Go to Download or a similar music festival with a few of my friends.
Fix my sleeping pattern.
Work towards taking a lot of time out and travelling. I mentioned this before, but it really is important to me. I know I’m not old, but I’m burnt out already.
So I have my work cut out! But I’m more motivated to do this than I would be to do some of the more classic new year’s “resolutions”, e.g. to stop eating chocolate and similar things.
So that’s what I’m up to. Hopefully I achieve my goals. I honestly just want to fit in and succeed in life, but my brain doesn’t let me do that so much!
So I just finished this game. That has to be a record for me recently, I’ve completed two fully fledged games within roughly four days. Albeit they are relatively short (CoD:MW2 and GoW2), but still, usually my attention for any game wilts before the end, unless it’s something really special, especially since I’m usually more of a multiplayer gamer. The only other “recent” occasion that I can think that this happened was with the Orange Box, when I would have completed Half Life 2: Episode 2 and Portal within close intervals of each other.
Anyway, back to the subject. Modern Warfare 2. What can I say, it’s great, one of my favourite FPS games since my post-HL2 higher standards. It may not play with puzzles and physics like HL2, but it’s epic production, beautiful, immersive presentation and clever game mechanics fit the bill nicely for it to stand out. It also has one of the most hollywood-style epic endings of any war game, or any game, that I’ve played for a long while. The plot is a little love-hate, I honestly had trouble understanding the twists and turns, like many other people, but it is pretty good and is better than a generic war plot, which it could so easily have been.
All in all, I have to say this is well worth a purchase, and in my opinion, is an improvement over the still very good Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
On a different note, I hope you all have good, fun new year celebrations, this will likely be my last post of 2009 so, from me this is a somewhat sad goodbye to the noughties, my era of schooling, growing up, friendship, happiness and juvenile lack of worry, and a gloomy hello to the “tens”, and my unfortunate, unwilling adulthood. It’s essentially the last piece to fall until everything I’ve clung onto from that era is no longer part of my life.
Merry christmas all, I hope you all had a good one. I got an Xbox 360 as a gift from my family, predictably that’s seen some heavy-duty use over the past few days, I’ve already completed Gears of War 2, and got my teeth firmly into Forza Motorsport 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. All awesome games. Actually I was most impressed with GoW2, being an Unreal Tournament player I was largely disappointed with Unreal Engine 3 as it was the force powering Unreal Tournament 3, a relatively weak game in an otherwise stellar series, in my opinion. I’d played GoW1 on PC, co-op with a friend, but we both got frustrated with it and gave up. After that I’d formed a largely unproven opinion that it was a generic, murky, ugly game. Then I decided to start playing it again before Christmas, on the off-chance that I would get a 360. I enjoyed it and completed it, but didn’t really get my teeth in fully, and RAAM frustrated me to no end. *Spoilers? Who cares, if you haven’t played Gears 1 by now you probably won’t ever*
Not so with Gears 2. I realised the true hidden beauty behind it. People might call the plot and gameplay generic, they might call the graphics ugly, dark, too grey, brown and stale. To those people, I suggest you take the time to open-mindedly play through both games. The beauty is in its moroseness, it’s pessimism, its you-against-the-odds atmosphere which is present in games like Halo and Half-Life 2. *MORE POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD*. It takes place on a fictional, Earth-like world called “Sera”, and, long story short, there’s a huge race of monstrous creatures called “Locusts”, and, they’re pissed. It’s war. And they are pretty much winning. Queue elite squad of epic warriors; much battling commences.
And this is why I can see why it seems generic to everyone else. If it were merely explained, it would sound it. But it really isn’t. There are so many nuances in the plot, so many twists and turns that would take me a millenia to explain fully, while ruining the game for you guys. The game has very few “happy endings”. Remember the scene in Full Metal Jacket *SPOILER AHEAD*, when Private Gomer Pyle gets so demoralised from his bullying in the army that he cracks, acts all weird and quiet, then shoots himself in the head? Remember how harrowing and real that felt, how much of an impact that scene had the first time you watched it? The Gears series is full of moments like that. It feels like a Hollywood movie, but I gotta say, many of the action movie clichés are thrown out. There are precious little “second chance” moments. Just when you think it’s starting to have a soft touch, and theres some sort of romantic agenda, that’s thrown out and replaced with a story of extreme torture and death. It’s just like a big wake-up call, and in a way, to me, it has some relevance to today’s society. A metaphorical social commentary, if you will, with the plot added on around it. The brutality of everything, the extreme gore and swearing, the kill-or-be-killed attitude to everything, the lack of morals and happy endings, it’s just like… This is the truth beneath the happy veneer of life; deal with it. There are no second chances, no miracles and no happy endings unless you carve them yourself.
As for the gameplay… Well, its certainly addictive, and challenging. Perhaps bordering on frustrating on times, but still. Yeah it’s linear, but so were Half-Life and Half-Life 2, and that didn’t do them much harm. I can’t complain about any of the controls or game mechanics, the lack of jumping in the game can actually be explained by the fact that the characters all wear huge, heavy armour, and that Sera’s gravity is likely to be much higher that Earth’s, as the men are all huge (muscle-wise), it’s said that Sera has a 26-hour day, and when talking about a great war that occurred (I won’t reveal too much), it is said that 1/4 of Sera’s population was killed, and “billions” was used in the same sentence. Now, obviously a quarter of Earth’s population is in the billions, as there are well over 6 Billion now, but Sera doesn’t appear quite as densely crowded as Earth, so it’s likely that the planet is much larger. A 26-hour day obviously doesn’t mean, necessarily, that the planet is larger than Earth, it could just be rotating slower, and the distance from their Sun isn’t specified. But assuming the parameters of angular velocity, size of Sun and distance from the Sun were all the same, we could work out just how much bigger than earth Sera is. Hell, I could do it with my A-Level Physics, if it wasn’t 3:30AM. Maybe another day.
In other news, I’ve been listening to some Between the Buried and Me. I don’t particularly like the vocals, but the instrumental stuff is mental! If you’re into progressive stuff like Dream Theater, Dominici etc, you’d like it for sure.
Anyway, I’ve been playing The Sims 3 as well. No, I didn’t buy it or get it as a gift, I merely borrowed it from my sister. It’s actually quite fun, although it somewhat shames me to say it. I might have something to say about it tomorrow, but as it stands, I’m tired, ill, and my eyes are basically dying. Good night all!
Relevant song lyric of the post: Between the Buried and Me – White Walls
No relevant lyric, just an epic video of the ending of this song!
Closing KoLd Quote:
“This is the truth beneath the happy veneer of life; deal with it. There are no second chances, no miracles and no happy endings unless you carve them yourself.”
Just a quick update as it’s 3AM and I need to try to get back to sleeping normally within 2 days for Christmas (yeah, that’s going to work! Haha!)
F1
Firstly, F1. According to the BBC, who quoted German newspaper “Bild”, Michael Schumacher has signed for Mercedes for 2010 and it will be formally announced tomorrow. Good or bad news depending on which way you look at it, I will however be intrigued as to how he fairs after retiring in 2006, now being the ripe old age of 41, against young, fit, talented drivers such as Lewis Hamilton. With Ross Brawn again on board with Michael (Mr. Brawn being the brains behind all seven of Schumacher’s world championships, and the man behind 2009 WDC and WCC team Brawn GP), anything is possible. It should be one hell of a season, with the top teams that are likely to be competitive in my opinion, lined up as follows:
Mercedes – Nico Rosberg, Michael Schumacher(1994-1995, 2000-2004)
McLaren – Lewis Hamilton(2008), Jenson Button(2009)
Ferrari – Fernando Alonso(2005-2006), Felipe Massa
Red Bull – Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber
This really could turn out to be a cracker. McLaren were incredibly fast at the end of last season, and not much in terms of design rules has changed since then, other than the refuelling ban, which, due to the extra weight involved, should play into Jenson Button’s driving style, as he is easy on the tires due to his smooth style. Mercedes were Brawn last season, and we know that they along with Ferrari focused on 2010 fairly early on, the difference being that they were competitive during 2009 as well. And Red Bull were their main challengers, with arguably the best young driver on the grid other than Lewis Hamilton (Sebastian Vettel). Plus with Mercedes having the 7-time world champion Schumacher on board, and Nico Rosberg, another great young talent that impressed me in 2009 in the fairly underpowered Williams… Theres so many factors to consider. I’ll also be keeping my eye on Hulkenberg, I believe he’s got a lot of potential, and watching Kobayashi should be fun. He livened up the last 2 races of the 2009 season. Also, Bruno Senna. I hope he does well. All in all, 2010 should be a good year for F1, I just hope the racing’s decent!
Life
It’s nearly Christmas and I’m looking forward to it! I’m very nervous about my new job starting in the new year, but hopefully it’ll be okay. I’ve also been using Omegle lately. It’s a completely anonymous chat client where you can just talk to random people. It sounds stupid, but it is actually quite fun and I’ve met some really interesting people. Give it a go if you’re bored. You can always disconnect if the person is asking for webcams with 14-year-old girls or something, but you could meet someone really interesting.
Music
KILLING IN THE NAME GOT THE CHRISTMAS NUMBER ONE SPOT! Power to the people! It achieved over 500,000 sales, which was 50,000 more than Joe, the X Factor winner. Fantastic stuff. I was one of those 500,000; and proud of it to! To hear it on the radio (“The Christmas number two is… Joe.”) was so epic, I literally shouted “YES!” at that point, just by myself in my room. I just felt like I, amongst everyone else who bought the track, achieved something, against the odds, we proved what we really want from music. Usually, being in the minority for this kind of thing, I’m used to losing arguments and battles of this nature, but for once, I was part of the winning majority. And that felt great.
Relevant song lyric of the post: Rage Against The Machine – Killing In The Name
“Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!”
Closing KoLd Quote:
“The 2009 Christmas number one battle is a story that I’ll be proud of telling to my friends and family in years to come. Seriously, when people think of rebellion, of epic battles against authority, they think of riots and civil wars. Maybe I won’t partake in such things in my lifetime, but not many people can say they would. But not many people can say ‘We fought the masses, we campaigned for real music, we campaigned for soul over faceless corporate PR packaging, and we won’. I can, and that’s a great feeling.”
Just a quick post from me about something I support… Those of you in the UK, are you tired of how generic, pre-packaged pop from the X Factor dominates the charts, seemingly every Christmas? Why not buy a copy of Rage Against The Machine’s “Killing In The Name”. It’ll only set you back a few pence, but the battle is so close for number one right now between them and Joe from the X Factor. The song itself is way better than any awful music that the charts usually offer, and features lyrics about not doing exactly what we’re told by our so-called superiors. Fairly fitting.
If that’s not enough, some of the profits will be going to homelessness charity Shelter.
So, I passed my medical for my new job today. I’m literally average or slightly above average in almost every single way… And although that’s better than being well below average, it’s the rather depressing story of my life, and life in general. Being average. Normal. White bread. Boring. Mediocre. It is in almost every “normal” persons life, yet it seems so amplified in mine. Throughout school I was always the guy who did solidly in all subjects but never really excelled fully in anything. My looks, although not hideously repulsive, again were never anything special, and at my peak I’m woefully… average at best. I tried my hand at many sports, and was a typical benchwarmer, C or B team player in football, basketball, and later (with more success) volleyball. I had a long history of athletics throughout school but never recall either winning or losing a race. Always middle of the pack. Always lost in the crowd, never to stand out.
My family were never poor, but much further than that from rich. As a result, I never had the best clothes or gadgets when growing up, but I didn’t wear the same cheap clothes every day like some unfortunate kids.
I am and always have been “just a normal kid”. But being “normal” inherently flips the balance of happiness, as you lose your identity. Who wants to be generic? And thus, I attempted to change it all with image, personality and such. But that didn’t change my foundation stones, the things that I couldn’t change. My intelligence. My background. My eventual aim in life, like all good humans should have, right after they roll over and accept the stroke on the head from their master, the government, and modern-day society.
Man only got where we are today by doing extraordinary things, whether good or bad. Jesus Christ, Charles Darwin, Pythagoras… These, amongst many others, are the forefathers who broke the mold, who sought greatness, who spit in the face of their respective cultures and did things their way, with their own mind. And they are all remembered today.
Will the population of Earth remember me in 100, 200, 500, 2000 years time? Or will I be rotting in the earth as people tread, unknowingly, upon my grave? Will they remember you? Or will you willingly accept the regiment that you are fed, until you die? Are you born for a reason, or are you a regular case of born, live, work 9-5, die when you’re supposed to?
Of course, merely aiming high doesn’t achieve anything. You have to be able to have a reason. We are often told to aim high, we can be who we want to be, we can achieve what we want… But this is pure illusion, dreamt up by people who have a blind view of happiness. Indeed, the sad story is that for the vast majority of us, life is purely the aim of greatness, but the achievement of mediocrity.
This is living in thousands of years worth of development. This is the soullessness of corporations. This is the hollow happiness found in objects, not emotions. This is the ruthlessness of a subconsciously frustrated population.
