An exploration of music, mountains and soul

So, in September I have been given the opportunity to go trekking in the Jungfrau region in Switzerland.

Google tells me it looks a little like this...

But I guess I'll have to wait until I get there to know for sure.


This trek is not in aid of anything other than my Dad proving that at 62 he's still badass. And yep, he's still badass. On a very personal level though, I feel that now is my time to "shine?" God that sounds cliché. You get the picture though, by this I mean that I want my trek to be more than just climbing some big mountains, I want it to have a goal.

• I want this prove that I have the will-power and self-control to get where I need to be to satisfy the thing inside me that keeps me chained to my computer writing music like if I didn't I'd die.

• I want this to prove that I can overcome the feeling of frustration that I don't always have control over my muscles and learn that if I can trek six days at vast altitudes, it's ok to have off days.

•  I want to learn that if I stop searching and start practising what I preach I will encounter religious experiences.

To do this I am going to need music. Lots and lots of music.

I am going to be walking for about 6 days straight (I'll check with trip organiser soon and confirm) and I intend to fill each day with a wondrous selection of music from chilled-out-ambient to dubbed-out-techno, to dubstep, to drum and bass to tribal, to trance to weird, and back again.

Thing is, while I have a very large collection of music I don't actually have time to trawl through it all and while I've not directly listened to it all I am still looking for new and fresh ideas.


But that's just music. And music will only get me so far. I'm also going to be attempting some kind of spiritual cleansing while I'm up there. You know, so I can stop saying I'll do crap and actually do it. So I can stop being a hypocrite and start with a more positive outlook on what I need to do to get to where I need to be.

In light of this I am going to be starting some kind of gnostic, meditative, Right of the Bornless One-esque 'routine'. For that I'm gonna need pointing in a general direction as well because sadly I'm lacking in much knowledge of where to begin.


So basically. Fire away with suggestions for music and if you know anything about gnostic-win then chuck something in there as well. I will listen to/read anything people suggest and if it fits then it goes in the playlist/routine. The reward? I'll try and take loads of photo's and if I do encounter anything spiritual up in the mountains I'll let you know.


That's all for now. Time to get some sleep before an early start for tomorrows training walk. Here goes.

xx

I'm on a bloodbuzz

So. This weekend has been filled with weird. And by weird I mean... weird. There's no other way to describe it. It's a combination of missing my friends/girlfriend and being in a four bed-room house by myself. In a previous post I detailed how I don't like being alone, it just happens a lot. This post is further proof that being on my own makes me go a little crazy.

The reason I'm home alone is because my sister's still at uni and my parents have gone on holiday. This has happened for a few years now and so it's not unusual for me to spend varying amounts of time on my own over summer. Usually though it's not this bad. Usually I get up, lounge around the house, eat food, watch films, make music, drink jd, stay up until sunrise, sleep, repeat. Usually this doesn't bother me at all. Usually I enjoy it. This time it's different though. I have no idea why. And it sucks.

Of course deep down I get the feeling it's down to my F.E.R.S. (Fuck-up Emotional Response System)* that I'm feeling like this but I don't really want to admit it.

Before I came home from university I spent three weeks hanging out with an amazing person sharing music, films, food and a joie de vivre that I've only found in a handful of people other than myself. In the final week I didn't spend a single night alone and tried mind-bending, emotion expanding substances. It was amazing.

The downside (if indeed there can be a downside to such an amazing few weeks)? I went from being who I really am (a vibrant, confident, mind in the gutter kind of guy who enjoys laughing and doesn't enjoy tidying or washing) to being my parents son (a shy, lazy, guy having to filter every thought and every single word) to being on my own (a lonely, bored, guy who would probably talk to walls to stay sane).

Now I understand that everyone has different "modes" they adopt around different people. I don't think anyone is the same around their parents as they are around their friends, and we all know what we can mention to certain family members and what to keep to ourselves. I mean I definitely don't think I have to hide "everything" from my parents (for which I am incredibly lucky) but I do feel like I become a drastically different person around them.

This combined with my F.E.R.S. has made the weekend far more stressful than it should have been.


But what exactly is a F.E.R.S? It stands for Fucked-up Emotional Response System and is a by-product of my dyspraxia. Dyspraxia is a developmental coordination difficulty which manifests itself in a lack of fine and gross motor control resulting in a lack of hand-eye coordination and depth perception. It also affects learning, thought and memory. As well as this is also affects my emotions.

And by "affects my emotions" I mean I find it really, difficult to decipher my own emotions let alone the emotions of others. This has improved over the years through being depressed (in many ways it helped me understand what being sad felt like) and through helping friends through difficult situations but it's still not easy.

Some of the symptoms that dyspraxics may experience are;

• Impulsive. Tendency to be easily frustrated, wanting immediate gratification
• Tendency to be erratic and have 'good and bad days'

 Yeah. That's me. Through and through. Relating this back to emotions it makes sense that I would fall in love easily (something that I heartily encourage anyway), and be prone to days where I'm fine on my own and days where I'm in need of emotional support.

The tendency to be erratic is something I feel that most people can relate to on some level so it's not something that bothers me too much. The falling in love so easily, however, isn't as simple.


Case in point, I currently have a girlfriend (in case you hadn't guessed). We've been officially dating for about three weeks, got to know each other properly for about a week before that and have been acquaintances all year (bumping into each other at uni events etc.).

I really like her. I have from the moment I realised she had an awesome taste in music, and films to the moment she died her hair blue and I realised she likes to party hard. But we've only been dating for about three weeks. Of course a lot can happen in three weeks and strong emotions can definitely be (and have definitely been) formed. But how strong? Can you fall in love in three weeks? Can this emotion I'm feeling be love? And if so, have I loved everyone I've dated? It's a complex issue, one that I've yet to find an answer for. And yes, I'm trying not to care about the answer but it's difficult when I'm spending large amounts of time lost in thought and when I know that hugs and kisses would make this loneliness disappear in the blink of an eye, when I know that sharing my joy of sunny days and bike-rides, films and new bands would make everything better.


You know how there's polyamory (which can mean infinite/many love)? There should be something similar but for people who fall in love quickly, like, "celeramory" or something.



Is there a point to this post? Let's find one.**

1. I'm going through lots of "emotional awesome" at the moment and simultaneously having a difficult time deciphering these emotions.
2. I'm home alone in my parents house pandering to their standards of living (because it is their house after all).
3. I really, really miss my friends/girlfriend.

So the waves of awesome and shit and emotionally weird and loneliness will come but for now I'm going to revel in the fact that I am surrounded by awesome people who are just as weird as me and as such haven't figured out they should probably be running in the opposite direction to me. :P
 
Plus as my dad always says "You only get wet once." and I'll be dammed if he isn't right.

Quote of the day:  "We're all a little weird, and life's a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love." - Dr. Seuss

Song of the day: The National - Bloodbuzz Ohio



*That made me giggle far too much for some reason
**Internet points if you get the reference

I'm going out for a while...

Here's some more poetry. It needs a bit of editing but it's mostly there.

Enjoy.



I took a lot of life today,
I found some in a draw,
if was better than I Remember and it slowed the oncoming train of old self-doubt and procrastination, masturbation for the soul,

The sunshine I ingested tasted bitter, not too much,
but it was better than the self-harm and it didn't burn to touch,
and though it feels to wrong to be perpetually high,
I'd rather fly kites than sit tight and await the shakes of withdrawal,
I'd rather ride bikes and see sites than believe I wasted a second of it all,

And so I hit the ball for six and out,
bowed as the crow rose and washed away the self-doubt,
took a running leap and grinned
that I was floating downwind,
downstream,
turned off my mind and relaxed,
kicked back,
took a knapsack full of dreams
and sowed stars into the seams,

It wasn't long before regret kicked in,
like needing a piss after too much gin,
but I was long gone up shit creek with a bike a view and a desire to run,
far gone like a madman with a shiny gun,
and when life,
holds you at the point of a knife,
it's better to say "bring it"
than fall to you knees and pray that there's a way to stop the incessant dream of breaking the cage,
to stop old age and relieve the glory days, and youthful ways in which we'd fuck with vigour,
take a slice of 3.14159 and wish it were bigger,

and so continue we mush
straight into the sunrise and sunset,
dive into the pool of wanton regret,
that one day I'll look back and remember the sweat,

and,
I will make the toes of life curl,
make her black-out for fifteen minutes and come back for more as the joy unfurls,
lick the soft inner thigh of pleasure,
take the leisure to afterwards enjoy the embrace
and whisper about how her face,
is the most beautiful explosion in the cosmos of the human mind,
that the ties that bind can keep us coming back for more,
and that there is more to give and more to take,
hearts to love and hearts to break,
with a road to follow, shackled to its twists and turns, wandering with a soul that yearns,

I put on travelling shoes and headed east,
to feast upon the wanders of this green and pleasant land,
to stand hand in hand with a different ghost of a different coast,
and once my feet were ensnared to the road I was free,
only taking with me a smile and a whole lotta love,
one white dove,
and a peace song for Palestine,

I took a lot of life today,
I almost overdosed,
but it's riding bikes
not doing drugs,
so I'll gladly do the most.


Quote of the day:  "Life is just a ride..."
Song of the day: Baths - Hall

Did you forget that yellow bird? How could you forget your yellow bird?

I've never made friends easily. I have no idea why. Yes, it sucks. No, it's not a choice.

That said it's never been too much of a problem. Of course it made high-school hellish but I immersed myself in books and music and it wasn't so much the lack of friends than the fact that a large proportion of my peers were dick-heads that made my time hellish enough to warrant depression.

Throughout college I made some of the most fantastic friends I could ever meet and while my social group was never very big and I wasn't always busy seeing friends in town or going to the cinema or whatever it was still a very happy time and being socially inept never posed too much of a problem for me.

Yeah. That all changed when I went to university. Having lived for 18 years in a small village with nothing to do at night except read books, watch t.v. and do work, moving to an environment where every-night there was something new and exciting for me to do was a bit of a shock. I don't think it helped that during the day when I wasn't in lectures I was in my bedroom, on my own.

The dynamics of college had made it so that when I wasn't in lectures/the library I was with friends, chatting or eating or whatever. Not having this kind of contact with people during the day meant that all my social activities were pushed to the evenings. Of course at first, during freshers week, this wasn't a problem. Then when actual university started, things went from "not as bad as I'd thought they were going to go" to "holy-fuck why am I going so insane? I need to see people now!" Oh and it turns out that when you're feeling like that, sod's law kicks in and everyone's busy.

Now there's a few fundamental things you need to understand about me to understand this;

1) I need human contact or I go crazy. Almost literally.

2) I'm not very good at organising.

3) I never learn.

 Put all three of those things together and you get someone who spends their nights, in their bedroom, on their own, going crazy, trying to just relax and read/listen to music but not being able to. This normally leads to a shitty mood and some kind of weird/crappy art. (My art = music, poetry, drawings).

I have no idea why I haven't changed but I guess it's because I'm not too sure what the problem really is. Is it that I'm crap at organising and need to arrange seeing people in advance so that they're not busy? Or is it that I need to get more friends so that I don't constantly feel like I'm harassing the same people for company all the time? It's probably a combination of both.

Even if I can come to the realisation that only I can make a change and do something different then I wouldn't know how to make those changes. How does one become more organised? I've spent 22 years trying to figure that one out and still not come to a distinct conclusion. As for making more friends well how the hell do I go about that? I mean I could you know, start talking to those people whom I met a few times added on Facebook but never really became friends with. That might be a start. But then that begs the question well what the heck do you talk about? I mean there's a few people who are totally awesome and whom I'd totally be friends with, if I
a) had the courage to actually meet up with them in real life
and
b) knew what we'd do/what we'd say/how we'd not get bored.

And so I've just come up with solutions to my problems and immediately shot holes in all of them. Seems to be a common occurrence. Maybe I like being on my own?

*insert tumbleweed*

Nope. NopeNopeNopeNopeNope. Been there, tried that, got the t-shirt, went crazy and then ripped it to shreds.


So, we've established that I don't like being on my own, that I don't have very many friends, that I'm crap at organising and that I feel really bad for "harassing" the same people all the time for attention.

Oh and I've just come to the realisation that I also have a distinct lack of fun things to do with people. I used the phrase "we could just stick on a film" far too often.


I reckon it's time to change all of this. Like seriously. It's made my life hell for approx. three years now and I'm going to go insane if I don't do something about it.

Where I'll start I have no fucking clue. What I'll do and where I'll go I'm not sure. Is it going to be one hell of a fun/scary ride? Yes. Am I ready to board the train and never look back? Erm... fuck it. YES!

Here's to the future.

Quote of the day: "So I raise my glass to symmetry
To the second hand and its accuracy
To the actual size of everything
The desert is the sand" - Bright Eyes - I believe in symmetry

Song of the day: Above and Beyond - Tri-state 

The Official Soundtrack and More

So, I'm busy thinking about how I should get back in touch with my inner-poet and this just came out of nowhere. It's meant as a spoken word poem so how it looks/sounds written down might be different to how I perform it but you get the idea.


We're only psychedelic,
entwined at both the ends,
a swirling folk-a-delic
and my baby caught the bends,

We're only here in slumber,
only in the night,
half the conversation,
not a single bed in sight,

We're only just a memory,
falling through the flow,
there's a feeling here so grasp it
try and find the sky below,


They say we only have one life, and I know that's it's a cliché,
but I've danced upon the knife, to try and keep the hounds at bay,
tried to tell the wandering hands of love and of hate to go away,
but,

We only have one life,
and the jaded voices of our parents can't change the world we live in,
though they try to shed some light,

So let's drop the acid of our chemistry,
and forget the brutal way in which our life is under scrutiny,
not forget that life is just a game to play, try to just be true to me,
because the things that I will do and see, won't matter when I'm gone,

except of course the wars we fight, the way we're dropping bombs,

and if time has taught us anything,
it's that dead and gone means dead and gone,
not three days gone then resurrected because some pompous prick objected to Adam and Steve,
and the lives they lead,
because joy is a sin and we need to bleed,

and,

forgive the extended metaphor,
but life is so much more,
than the potential trip
to a gleaming palace,
I'd rather take the trip on earth,
and fall right down like Alice
through a wonderland of hope and joy where light meets dark,
and dreams can spark the flames of creation,
where the fires of damnation
are no worry
and bitter hearts can fly,

and,

far be it from me to vomit on your beliefs,
but, when it's happiness or heaven, take this gun and tell me then,
that hedonism is a sin, that love needs a place to begin, that come rain or shine this life of mine is wrong,

All we have right now is this,
just, fucking this...

and if pain can be transformed to bliss,
then put me down for hugging ever person on the street,
sharing love with everyone I meet,
because if smiling uncontrollably can take the pain away from me,
then I'd like to take the pain away from you,

and if you think that I'm weird, then grow your hair and grow your beard,
put on some Hendrix and fall in love with the aesthetic of life...

So remember,

We're only psychedelic,
only here the once,
you're my future, then my present,
then my past and then you're gone...

Changing of the seasons

Right now everything is sublime. It is all tinted with a rosey colour, smells like freshly cut grass and sounds like Nick Drake. And there is a reason for this. That reason is embedded in the turning of the wheel, in the sort sultry slumber of spring that signals the awakening of the world from it's long winter hibernation.

Now as someone who suffers from the symptoms of S.A.D. the coming of spring is always welcome. Now I don't know anyone who doesn't suffer some kind of winter blues in some form or other, even if it's just the cry of "eurgh it's winter, it gets dark early." and as such I don't see myself as being special. That said I do notice a remarkable difference when the weather changes from "weak-as-piss-rain" to "not so much warmer and only slightly less cloud". (By which I mean I live in the U.K. and that the change from winter to spring isn't always a dramatic change.)


When spring does eventually, well, 'spring', I notice a dramatic change within my mood, my ability to rise early, my music taste and the frequency with which I try and get away with wearing shorts. This is due, in part, to longer daylight hours but also to a shift in something more profound. I believe that the changing of the seasons can be equated to the turning of a wheel, something that always returns to the beginning, over and over again, cyclical and ever spinning. It is this turning of the wheel that I feel connects me to the changing of the seasons, and is responsible for the feelings of elation that I feel every time I can feel spring around the corner.


Most of the time, this changing of the seasons is greeted by myself with a few whoops and cheers, some trips to random places in my car with the stereo blasting, and a fair bit of partying but this time around something feels different.


This time around I feel like I am right on the precipice of an experience so sublime and wonderful I feel my outlook on life could be changed forever. I am standing close to the edge, can hear the sea and am ready to dive into it's blue, calming waters with the confidence and courage I lacked as a child. The only way I can describe it is as though I'm standing at a door with my hand on the handle, not knowing what is beyond the door but still being excited to step through anyway.


I can see this taking shape in a few forms.


Firstly I am finally coming to grips with my sense of self-control. I once saw the quote "Everything in moderation, including moderation" by the Buddha in a fantastic (though sadly closed) Buddhist cafe on the island of Gozo and it seared its way into my impressionable teenage brain and has stuck with me ever since. Except that of late I have noticed (via my ever expanding waistline) that I've forgotten about the first half of that phrase "everything in moderation". Now before you all get worried, this doesn't mean I'm going to be any less crazy than I am or that I'm going to party any less, it just means I'm going to start being aware of it more and hopefully strike up a good balance between work and play. To this end I have started Yoga classes once a week to help (for want of a better word) 'un-stiffen' my incredibly stiff muscles, to help me ache less, to help give me some confidence and to one day be able to touch my toes.
I have also started on a journey of getting back in touch with my Paganism. Now you'd think that being the chair of an "Earth Religions Society" for the year I'd be more in touch with my Paganism than ever before. That's where you're wrong. Going away to university, and being partially-diagnosed with A.D.D., put me out of touch with my spirituality and for a while left me a nervous wreck. This extended to me loosing my ability to focus long enough to meditate, work magik/rituals, or to visualise. I am finally learning the ropes of this whole life thing and slowly am able to start taking some of these things back. Starting with meditation.
As a mild-chronic-insomniac meditation helped me in the throes of my youth when I am sure I was destined to become far more depressive, and downright weird. It's been a long while since I actually sat still for longer than 15 minutes (like I used to) but I am slowly learning that I need to take the time to become in-tune with my needs and that taking a few paces back from life can give you a wonderfully new perspective on everything. 


Secondly, is how I treat people. Now I'm going to sound egotistical staying this but who cares. I have always been (or at least tried to be) the nicest, sweetest person to everyone. Yeah. Then high-school happened and post bullying and in the throes of depression this went straight down the drain. Once I'd picked myself up, I regained my composure and became all sweet and lovely and trying to liking everyone. Then out of nowhere... *KAPOW* I was hit with this sudden urge to bitch about people. Not everyone, but just those who I deemed annoying enough to warrant a slap around the face. Gone was the idea that if I got to know them they'd change, and in came the callous words spoken only in the company of friends. Fortunately I stopped, took a few steps backs and realised what I was doing. Yeah. Time to change that. And change it I will. Tim Minchin said "I will judge you for no reason but your deeds." and I agree wholeheartedly.




And on that note it is time for me to bid you adieu, and leave my desk to enjoy the last remnants of this sunshine.


Peace


xx


Quote of the day: "What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? It's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies." - Jack Kerouac, On the Road


Song of the day: Nick Drake - Pink Moon