psyche

I can’t guarantee you’ll have any idea what I’m talking about but I’ll still try. Basically, a recurring thing I’ve noticed in my life is that of the bathroom mirror. It’s always there. My face hurts - something about my diet maybe. It is pockmarked and doesn’t heal well and while the inside of my head becomes numb, my face is stung by the air that surrounds it. Sorry, random tangent. Basically, whenever I am sick or have a headache or am pulling an all-nighter, I tend to repeatedly visit the bathroom to splash cold water into my face and ask myself who I am. Also, when I’m in hospital or at the doctor or the dentist I’m there cringing with pain or embarrassment or horror and the walls are white and sterile and everything is plastic and disposable except the mirror and I stare at it.

I look into my own eyes and I know that whatever strange changes happen to me, and if later later my teeth are white and my nose is plastic and my hair is a different colour and similarly are my eyes tinted by lenses sitting on them I will still see into myself that way as my knuckles whiten around whatever sink there is and my brain cries out.

Failure - it’s like an old friend.

Pax

While maybe not always displayed, I think there is present a struggle between the high and low ends of self-esteem. I thought this was something that only affected me, being a narcissist, but interestingly everyone I’ve expressed concern to about this seems to suffer from a similar thing. I looked up “Superiority complex” on Wikipedia, expecting a redirect to “God” or “Messiah” complexes but it seems that it did in fact refer to something created to compensate for an inferiority complex! There appears to be massive confirmation of what I had suspected for a long time: as if parallel to bipolar disorder, these two conflicting complexes continue to mess up any stable worldview I might adopt.

Speaking of worldviews, I think it’s no longer possible for me to rationally assess the huge number of data being fed to me through various inlets (mainly mass media). I can’t really live my life thinking “I am upset about the very real and very horrific suffering of loads and loads of people” because it would eventually destroy me. Similarly, I can’t ignore most of the world. At the moment the situation with this is similar and probably connected to the superiority/inferiority complex thing; I am sometimes feeling very bad about poverty etc. and sometimes don’t care at all. My problem is that I can only embrace extremes of behaviour, motivation and performance (yes, those overlap a lot). I guess I’m going to have to find some middle ground eventually.

A final note on modesty and humility with regards to actual self-image: I don’t really think these words offer much for me to work with as they’re ambiguous enough as to become useless.

These are the distinctions I think ought to be made:

•  Acting in a superior way
• Acting in an inferior

Remember that your outward appearance is not necessarily a straight-up reflection of what you believe; you may act proudly and outgoing-ly when you’re in fact somewhat worried and nervous or act like a shy, modest person while in fact thinking about how you’re better than everyone etc. Of these, the most important distinction to make is the one between perceived humility (because someone acts modestly) and genuine humility (which might not be represented properly in someone’s actions - they might act proudly but actually be very down to earth and just have a slightly altered external personality).

It must take some really quirky but perceptive understanding to evaluate yourself properly as not all-important when you are by nature the centre of your own experiences!

Pax

I went to Will’s picnic. Hot Fuzz was funnier than I remember. So was Elliot. Conversation topics were thrilling (e.g. David Tennant’s eyes). First extended contact with Lucy and Claire; was disastrous - let Vivan down (promised him I’d be normal. Wasn’t.). Would like to explain myself; can’t, won’t, don’t need to. Had cake which Will’s mum made. Am disgusted by own failure in all walks of life.

Will not die quietly.

Pax

There is an old computer in a basement; it is not particularly dusty but it still exudes a sort of smell (which isn’t really a smell, but smell will do) which heavily implies that it is old. By old I do not really mean aged (although it has indeed aged), but more specifically I refer to that vaguely-defined state of oldness that exists in computer culture and probably in most other subcultures: the computer is a generic old thing and no-one knows precisely what it is but they know that it is from another era.

It had previously belonged to a man who liked it quite a lot and did some useful things and also, like any man, wasted a fairly large section of his life using to pursue things which ultimately meant nothing. Of course, he found out interesting things and his life was better but he also engaged in other things; he dialled into boxes ever so far away and played tricks on the telephone men and women and was occasionally proud of himself. The computer didn’t really remember him as such; certainly were there things on backup tapes still bound to it that had never been overwritten but, in a way that makes me sad, would probably never be looked at - in fact, I can confirm that they never were but, as you now know, they could have been. It now sat humming below the electronics shop. Its hum was permanent because it ran some antiquated but venerated software that required several hours which, according to its system clock, should not have harboured much human activity, for “housekeeping” tasks and so was left on by its more recent owner (a shop employee). It had been superseded by much, much faster machines.

Left behind by someone who found things out. I cannot really convey the strange tightness that I feel in my torso when I think about it; it’s like an edgy nostalgia: it had been left. Dark people in dark rooms had done dark things but found the way. Most left in a bad, lonely way. Others left in a way that was still lonely but they experienced a profound connection to something incredible. They broke many rules and, you know, I wish they would come back and help me but they won’t. I still sort of wait, you know. I sit here in my room at my computer staring at it and hoping something will come, although I know that I really have to make it come. I have to pull things to me.

Now, the light from the character bled into the darkness which might as well be considered part of the bigger darkness of the room. People had sat and done things but now no-one sat; I would’ve taken a melancholy photograph had I been there. No-one remembers the computer! It doesn’t even exist!I made it up! It died alone! I MADE IT UP.

Physics and guitar concert on Monday. Someone knows that I try!

Pax

I’ve just realised something that threatens to totally mess me up - forever:

Ethics is like psychology which is like quantum physics - the conclusions don’t seem right; they’re uncomfortable, inconvenient and go against everything I wanted them to be!

I just don’t know what I’m doing now.

Also, the good ol’ test (my results have worsened a lot since I last took this: perhaps I’m just more honest now? I think that’s it… I was expecting “Very High” for Histrionic, but hey…)

Pax

I think I’ve noted some more of my own major malfunctions. Firstly, I notice that most people are either so good at one particular thing and enjoy it so much that they know that that’s what they want to spend their life doing or of the other group which comprises those so good at so many things that they have a hard time making up their minds (and the really lucky ones are very good at everything but amazing at or particularly enjoy one particular thing and so have no trouble). I, alas, am simply mediocre. I can’t decide between computer science, maths and physics. Oh well.

Other people. The ones with friends you don’t know, secret girlfriends, interesting ambitions, good hearts. Everyone is like this, right? Not me. What you see is what you get. My time has come and gone. I stumbled and took faltering steps and tripped and messed up and pulled myself along the ground until I was out of the spotlight.

Know that I tried!

Pax

I keep getting annoyed at petty things that people do and also I’ve started to imagine things. Like, imagine that things are moving when they’re not. I also keep remembering some train with a fair few (but by no means full of) people. The people are all sort of tired and sad and they know it’s over and they see each other every day but never say anything and their stories are all as tragic as everyone else’s but they never share them. Some timeless sadness. It makes my heart sink and I don’t know what it is.

This world is in some way incompatible with my mind. Fuck this shit.

Pax

I’m laughing out loud and carrying no notion of what this is about. Make no mistake - no matter how many times you get patted on the shoulder and told that results mean nothing as they can’t tell you what really happened, they mean everything. This is a fight to the death. Sure, some people will have a harder time of it than others but what it comes down to is results. Real results are all the world should ever need. They can’t lie. They can be changed but that shouldn’t happen. The real result makes your brain lock up and your heart sink but it is the closest thing to God we have! It is truth! It is purity!

This is a game; a competition. Whether your overbearing or highly intelligent parents have shaped you into a winner from the day you could talk or are altogether more emotional about life, you are here and you are fighting. Everyone is fighting. It is the human way!

Stand fast on your podium because I am now hellbent and will not hesitate to throw you from it if it means getting closer to the truth and pulling humanity a little further back from the event horizon of decadence’s black hole. If it should slip, there will be no going back.

Pax

P.S. I am a little more confrontational than usual. You play your fiddle, I’ll play dumb.

Yes, I am ruined and I am here again. For all my complaints and motions against the enemy’s flaws, it has struck me down and charged me however many thousand yen it takes to kill an adult whale. No-one could tell me if I could be like the others! Don Jaime de Astarloa spins in his grave as I lose again and again. My heart blackens in the face of even petty adversity. However, tick, tock; I will never be all alone. I might just pull through.

“Hold your trump card till the end!” yells some purple-haired young-but-old man. What a joke! I didn’t realise that the whole world smiled cutely and lured me into complacency while preparing to strike. Now I do and let it be known that I will fight - I will actually fight - to beat this down. I put myself back together and next time is never.

I don’t even know what you want when you evangelise about your own power. Sometimes, I must confess, I want to shout. There is no way I can get A*s in every exam, by the way. Sure, everyone says it won’t matter, but if it doesn’t matter, why even try? For sport? Then it does matter, at least a little. This double-standard-mania-death should embarrass all of you! I will strive never to make you deceitful windmills proud. Never. I will die a number! I LIKE DYING A NUMBER. Make some room.

Hand me down. It’s better when I’m not around. I feel good and I look like I should, but I could never make you proud.
Pax

I fail at everything I want to be good at - and most things I don’t, with the principal exception of failure. I’m good at that. However, this ridiculous self-deprecating deathbag alter-ego cunt chutzpah Weimar reinstallation FUCK FACE RADIO FREQUENCY SHITBAG will not break me. Neither will the continued success of others slapping me in the face every day, or the death of everything I cultivate (that really happens). No! Because I am decadent! AND THE BOURGEOISIE JUST DON’T DIE.

You know what? FUCK THIS SHIT. I scapegoat no-one. I only have myself to blame, so I do. It’s simple - why doesn’t it turn out right?

Maybe this is how it’s meant to turn out.

League tables, pressure, depression, failure, hormones combined with comfy middle-class decadence. I’m not good at sport and I’m not good at academia. I don’t mean anything to anyone. If I studied hard I could improve and then be my reputation. They’ll grade us on a curve! They’re including everyone! Shit, fuck, fuck it. Fuck. Did I mention fuckshit? Well, I tried. I tried fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck cunts. I don’t believe your lies! I don’t even want this to swim cunt. SHIT. Don’t give up on me! Wait, do. That way it’ll be less disappointing. TROGDOR! You may see someone tonight. Will you be the one that saves my life?

:’(

Pax