mother and sisters are relations, but so are times, places and things. we cooperate with untold thousands on daily basis – we relate with a seamstress in bangladesh when we pull our trousers on, one leg at a time. with the worker in the sandwich factory when we eat our lunch. with the victorian engineers who built our sewers when we flush the loo.
it’s easy to be swept up by the self-fetishisation movement. to believe that you have control over your destiny. you do not. you merely have influence over it. so to do anything in the hope of an outcome – for me and my calculations anyway – is folly. to live a happy life, one must do the things that one wants to do for their own sake.
this was an idea that occurred to me a few years ago. i was coming up to the age my father was when i was born, and i noticed that there would be, during that year, a day on which i was exactly half as old as my father. and it isn’t a big leap from there to realise that for any two people who live at the same time, assuming both live long enough, there will come a time when one is twice the age of the other. whether it’s when they are two and four or 40 and 80.
i have sort of mystic beliefs about numbers. i can’t explain them really. i think they sometimes convey messages to me. of course, my lover and i, being a coincidental couple, share a day. it fell on 1111 999. how could it not be love?
i have a new verse out today – the text was previously published in edge of humanity magazine, so please check that out if you haven’t already (see link below). now live on youtube, spotify, etc.
every coincidental couple share or will share a day (assuming all live lives that lap over and aside) when one is either twice or half as old as their partner. we only live in relation to each other: brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, children we are all in second place again, lo siento, i feel your pain then a vow: to talk much more on the telephone hazy jane mountain range and a mouthful of blood the chip shop salt and vinegar on the edge of the breeze decline is the consequence of a millennium without conquest bring all ye visigoths, only the sack of london can save us now sometimes perspective illuminates sunny convalescence; can i modify my betrayed reaction? is there space for love without condition between event and response? the universe is comprised of information thoughts are but ephemeral forms deleted from the records for eternity, locked within an evanescent system but are some things unforgivable? let’s hope good souls can hold a grudge with compassion.
chorus
have you tried the toblerone, feckless bairn? it’s abysmally pricey, but so is everything else i have a theory that brexit is the effective sack of london, by hitler different, but the same
this bipolar love hurts so much round infatuated hertz bevvy bivouac, coke and jack in the sack i read about his suicide on teletext in the 90s a poet tortured, bill teller of the apple orchard never socrates unsatisfied nor pig in shit: we are socrates in pig shit, always and 4 real. i cut a lana del rey tattoo into my arm, is that self harm? each generation must make the material their own smell tomato paste and cheddar, my da’s cooking, my home a feeling of disconnection between body and homunculus post-prandial down-dumpsy meek remainderman rain run ink on scar tissue, perineum to the sun this isn’t a cover up, the red rose, the guerilla’s fist i am a loaf of bread, origami, a process in purgatory every pain and every pleasure you caused will be inflicted back and you will judge yourself getting there—a tired prayer to monotony four goes on the playstation then i eat the whole bloody toblerone all that’s left is our dismal materiel we all rely on the good souls who forgive us
chorus
have you tried the toblerone, feckless bairn? it’s abysmally pricey, but so is everything else i have a theory that brexit is the sack of london, by hitler different, but the same
another month ends. tomorrow it will be may. it’s the best time of year. the sun is out, the days are long, and the whole summer is to come. and i’ve got a new verse out tomorrow. and its a little bit different. let’s just say that last may was tough. we are hoping better. come what may
the donkeys are a reference to the philosophical paradox of buridan’s ass – the donkey is equally starving and parched. fortunately, food and water are close to hand. in fact, plentiful supplies of each are just 1 metre away. in opposite directions. so the donkey is unable to rationally decide whether to first eat or drink, and as a result, it dies of thirst and starvation.
i must be getting old. everything seems to expensive. £7 for a pint of beer? i remember when £2 was considered pricey. i don’t smoke any more, but i distinctly remember 10 packs of smokes for £1.36. they don’t even do ten packs any more and its most of £20 for a twenty deck. and the chocolate bars seem to have doubled in price in a mere couple of years.
i used to read about history, war, famine, strikes and all that, and think it was lucky i lived in the settled, modern world. sometimes now i wish i’d been born a million years ago. when human history does end, it will end with a bang, and not with the philosophy of francis fukuyama.
i had this big job interview. i really wanted the gig. i worked so hard on it. there was a presentation, a written exercise, and, well you know, like questions and answers. as is implied by ‘interview’. anyway, there was some other stuff going on in my life at the time, but i felt like i managed to hold it together and come across like a competent human employee hybrid.
but in the end i never got the job, and i pretty much had a breakdown in the evening after the interview – in a fever, despairing. it was a low. the month had started with a spring of optimism. it was about here that the year took a downward turn.
i love to see wild animals. bunnies are such charming creatures. and this is a good time of year for them. i haven’t cycled as much this winter as i used to. the winter is the worst time for animals. just dirty sheep. cows. geese if very lucky.
but are bunnies a good omen? i don’t think they are. for me, they are a consolation from fate for a disappointment i am due. they are a little message to say: don’t worry. this wasn’t your time. but we know you love bunnies. so enjoy these bunnies frolicking for now. and keep working on your thing. you have many great days to come.
my mantra comes from a strokes song. is it some day? it really is my mantra. i try and practice stuff so that when it comes up it hopefully doesn’t throw me. recently, mostly playing piano. maybe it will save my life one day. maybe it already has.
it is one of the main tenets of stoicism that you are best to focus your attention on that which you can control. and that means accepting that there isn’t much you can actually control. and your body is one of the things you can’t control. it gets sleepy. it gets ill. it carries you about and it will one day kill you.
all that i can control are my character, my actions, and my reactions. my thoughts and my judgements upon others. to some extent, as much as i may worry about trump, putin and nuclear war, no good will come of it as i have no control over the outcome.
stoics also embrace the temporary nature of living. things may be how they are today. but that doesn’t mean that its justified, or will be the same in the future. i’ve only lived 4ish decades and how many atlases have i seen rendered obsolete?
the love epochal. n.n. benn 