Never follow the spiders.

Well I've decided to try and work through the writers block by churning out yet another poorly worded rambling onto this dusty old URL. I've been gone so long in fact that the layout of the website has completely changed and I can no longer make the font do that rounded letter thing I am such a avid fan of. The new color scheme is all fluorescent and orange, and it's hurting my eyes slightly. I'm finding it virtually impossible to be my dark moody self with this subliminal cheer glaring at me so maybe this will inspire me to be less 'glass half empty' and look on the 'bright side'. Unfortunately I'm also currently listening to Cinematic Orchestra and I haven't yet slept so the glass is entirely devoid of liquid and will be until I get some rest. 
  The lives of spiders repulse me. The things themselves aren't exactly aesthetically pleasing but it's more the idea of their existence that bothers me. These days I find myself doing a lot of waiting, mainly for forms of transport or for certain points in the morning where it is acceptable to make breakfast, but the problem is the overall atmosphere in which I wait. Waiting in itself is not that dull if, that is, you are waiting for an occurrence that either excites or scares you. An event which produces some kind of emotion, whatever it may be is at least producing a feeling and a thought process to occupy your mind as you wait. No, the kind of waiting I've been doing lately is the kind with a foreseeably neutral outcome. This particular brand of time wasting has
become somewhat of a pain to me. I think this is largely down to the fact that I have such an over active mind that when given a space of time in which I have nothing to occupy myself except my own thoughts leads me to think of things like the lives of spiders. Due to a recent infestation of the fuckers I've been observing them and I think it's safe to say I'd have more fun watching paint dry. My feelings of distaste for them increased so profoundly over time that I
am now somewhat enraged by their dull, parasitic nature. How can something with the potential to be deadly and so universally feared (by the most dangerous species on earth) be so infuriatingly intent on just sitting still and waiting for prey? I understand that by some standards they are 'beautiful' and the way in which they bide their time as they hunt and allow their naive prey to come to them can be somewhat admired. However from the way I see it they are just lazy. Lazy and unimaginative. Allowing a skill which they have been free to
utilise since birth create a trap for their food? If a creature simply bides it's time and relies solely on the stupidity and hyperactivity of a smaller, feebler being than where is the thrill of the chase? Where is the prowess? I think the reason I am so bothered by the spiders is because I am so much like them. I sit, and I wait for something interesting to fall into my lap, anything, and on the rare occasion it does I grab a-hold and suck the life, drain the enjoyment out of it just to try and feel something. I used to go exploring for adventure, nourishment for my soul, now I just wait for it to be handed to me. Cautiously, boringly. In some ways I suppose I am like them; I seek out the dark, I am constantly waiting, but unlike the revered arachnids of which I speak; I do not live in a structure of my own excrement. 

  I recently began to read a book of 'memoirs'. The story is fictitious however it is written in the first person and therefore when I am thinking about it I forget it's a work of imagination and perceive it as someone's real experiences. In this book the writer, Tom, is describing his teenage year in an all-boy's school and his clique from these days, later on he goes on to describe his elder years as he is now retired and divorced. As he does this he slots everything between the ages of 17 to 70 into one paragraph. At the end of this meager description of a whole existence he says "That however is not important to this story" and it got me thinking; just how important will my life be to my story? Will I dwell on a particular section of my past when I am rotting alone in a home, with no visitors, no prospects, not even the ability to decide when I urinate? Will I wish I had done something different, or even more daunting, everything? As we are young we predict the likely pains and bleakness that age might bring. We imagine being lonely, divorced, widowed. Possible children growing away from us. Forgetting one phone call, then one dinner, then being too busy altogether and it’s as if you’re already gone to them and in a way, you are. Having to quietly accept the loss of status, loss of respect and dignity, of desire – and desirability in order to ‘age gracefully’. It all must fade in the end until you are nothing more than a collection of failed ambitions, awkward sexual encounters and regret. I believe it’s not until the fear of death fades that the regret does. If we truly accept death then there can be no reason to wish we had more time to live, or the means to rewrite our lives. Only after we have come to accept that will we be no longer conscious or exist other than in memory, can we really start to appreciate all we’ve had in our lives. Be grateful for the wife we’re estranged from, the children who’ve grown and gone on to show no signs of psychological damage from our parental failures, cherish the status we once had and the respect that went with it and fondly remember the bruises and grass stains from that weekend in Guildford. However, unfortunately, not everybody gets to that point. The idea that the world can go on without us is something difficult to grasp, even to the least narcissistic of us because we’ve never known it. We did not experience the world before we occurred upon it, nor will we ever suffer it after we are gone. It seems an obvious enough statement to make but that is because at this age we can only think about death like something that happens to other people. There is no other way to describe it than; unfathomable. I am straying off course here and as I’ve already devoted a blog post to the subject of death it is starting to worry me that I am doing it yet again. I’m just twisted like that. 

 I am now sure at this point that my brain is no longer capable of forming coherent sentences and I think it’s time to wrap this up. I probably haven’t made any sense since I began musing over these unnecessary subjects but at least my grammar was correct. I hear a pot of coffee calling my name from the kitchen which either means those weren’t ordinary mushrooms in my dinner or the kettle’s boiled. I’ll let you choose which of those seems most feasible to you. Whatever helps you sleep at night children.

'You'll be sorry when I'm gone' - Blink-182 

Never assume you can define normality while sleep-deprived.

Well hello loyal subjects. Yes, it has been quite some time. You're probably all wondering what dark, twisty, satanic misadventures I have been embarking upon since we last spoke. Alas young ones, I am only able to disappoint as I am keeping that information to myself today. I have (very recently) decided that rather than being egocentric and petty I will instead be returning this page to it's former... something. By that I mean that I will not be burdening the public with my failed love life, my drug habits, or my venomous revenge plots. Instead I will hint and dance around all these issues and then do the adult thing and simply pretend instead to be interested in current affairs.
 Recently I have found myself very focused on the idea of normality. As you will all undoubtedly agree I am not what majority vote would classify as 'normal'. I do not mean this in the 'I wear tweed and listen to bands you've never heard of ' way, I mean it in the socially unacceptable way. I talk too much, my thought process is completely mangled, I have a very warped opinion of reality and i rarely adhere to social queues. Oh and of course I wear tweed and listen to bands you've never heard of. But why does this make me abnormal, what is the definition of normal? The Oxford English Dictionary defines normality as: The condition of being normal; the state of being usual, typical or expected. But does that apply to society today? Definitions of what constitutes abnormal behavior have changed dramatically throughout history. Before the application of scientific thinking in this area, any behavior that seemed outside of an individual's control was thought to be the product of supernatural forces. The way in which our ancestors dealt with abnormal behavior reflected their very different beliefs about it's nature and cause. Although we have moved on in our understanding of what constitutes normal and abnormal behavior (and therefore which requires treatment), the definition of abnormality itself inevitably remains a judgement call. We could spend hours trying to define this most elusive concept, what is evident is that no single definition is adequate on its own, although each captures some aspect of what we might expect from a true definition of the term. Unfortunately the ideal of normality can be heavily influenced by a number of presences including the pressure from social influences, the ability to function adequately and hate/love. Abnormalities manifest themselves in many different forms but not all of these manifestations are undesirable.  For example; having an IQ over 140 is abnormal, but it is not undesirable. However, depression is a common mental illness in the UK, making it normal to suffer from, but depression isn't desirable.
  With all this in mind, what constitutes normal behavior for every day life? Can we put our choices down to abnormalities in character? Can we say we made mistakes based on slips of judgement or pure accident? Or do we have to merely accept our follies and take responsibility for the things we simply can not explain away. Just how many times does someone have to repeat the same action before it stops being a 'mistake' and starts being a personality trait? It's normal to fuck up lads. But it's not normal not to recognize a mistake from a choice. Yes delusions come in much more serious forms, warped ideas of reality, tactile, auditory or visual hallucinations etc. but delusions can also be presented as megalomania for example, among other more mild delusions. Including not knowing when something is simply your fault.
  I've been blaming everyone else for the choices i've made recently and if you were a victim of my ruthless insidiousness then i am truly sorry. I have terrible luck, there is no denying it - i've never won anything by chance, I always call coins wrong and a lot of other more substantial and eloquent 'symptoms' which I won't go in to due to my new blogging rules. This downfall has caused me to be overly superstitious my whole life, almost to a crippling degree. However I can not blame the universe for my absent-minded nature. I will openly admit that one of my biggest character flaws is that I can  be trusted. I miss deadlines, I'm always late, I lose everything and I can decide not to listen to my conscious at will. This does not make me a bad person, in simple terms it just means I have the ability to be a bad person and often am mistaken for one. I never wanted to be like this, but over time things change and you have to learn that not everything is going to be rainbows and smiles. Your reality is going to look a lot different to how you imagined it as a child. And that's normal, in fact in my case it's a good thing because when I was a child i wanted to be a viral digimon named Diaboromon.
  I originally had a point about claiming insanity in murder charges and some other intellectual topics of discussion but after reading back the word 'digimon' I know that I am just too tired for this. I will advance more on this tomorrow because apparently I am no longer repulsed by my own writing anymore. I haven't really covered enough ground to be proud of my valiant efforts today - but I did throw a haribo in the air and catch it in my mouth so I don't really care anymore.