Dysfunctionally Functional

When I hear arguments going on in my home, not those mundane arguments over the TV or washing the plates but real serious arguments, I wonder how many other households are hearing the same arguments about weight or money or work. 'Of course they do' you'll instantly say. 'Everybody has the same problems', 'nobody is perfect'. Would you say this would make a family dysfunctional therefore? No, probably not. But then what do we define as dysfunctional? In the eyes of society we don't admit that our fathers have drinking problems, our brothers need to lose weight, our sisters seem to have a jealousy complex that makes them resent us, or that our mothers take on far too much and everyone suffers as a consequence because she IS what makes this family 'function'. It's easy to get lost in what can be defined as functional consequently. Maybe our perceptions of what society should accept are making us dysfunctional in our bid to be functioning. Or rather to try and be what we are expected to be only proves that we are not and provides as complete and desperate irony. The notion of a 'functioning family' has changed over time; a single-parent family is no longer 'dysfunctional', divorce is no longer 'dysfunctional', families where teenage daughters too have children is no longer 'dysfunctional'. Since when has any domestic sitcom given a prime example of a fully functioning family? In order to keep viewers entertained our aired faux-families often have to deal with incest, death, prison and adultery all under the same roof. Narcissistically we are gratified by the misfortunes of others for our own entertainment and pleasure. Likewise coming from a dysfunctional family has become an excuse for failure, a stereotype to describe the unruly or the bad and even glamorous in terms of what defines you as cool or popular.

I guess my misanthropy makes ME dysfunctional, I can all but wonder whether there is such a thing as a definite 'functional' anything, and whilst we can think our household lot is better or worse than our neighbours, friends or acquaintances from the outside we won't ever know. I hope after such soul-searching that I will never worry again whether my family is 'ok' or 'right' as I don't think such a definition exists. But wouldn't life be simple if a template could be applied to everything, and lest we be judged accordingly and know once and for all whether we exceed or fall short of what we are meant to be.

Three Lions or Three Rabbits?

The World Cup is in full motion and I'm euphoric with football fever. I haven't missed a game so far regardless of the fact that besides Germany's performance yesterday the play has been very VERY boring. I find it funny that the media have spurned a football pundit in absolutely everybody, even the saps who have never been into football before talk pitch technique... badly I might add. The swarms of girls/women coming into work with tight-fitting England slogan shirts (not actually England strips) is comical, a few slogans to take note of being 'want to score with me?', 'I'm a team player' and 'I'm a top shot'.... there aren't enough emot-icon winks in the World to satisfy those.

I feel so unpatriotic to say however that I don't have much faith in our team. It just isn't the sum of its parts. Individually the players fit in their premiership teams, but there is no cohesion as a national unit, too many big egos in my opinion. Prominent players of the past 15 years have been those that stay away from the media and paparazzi, who don't dwell in fast cars and promiscuity. Take Owen, Shearer, Gerrard and Sheringham (who bizarrely only became a media rat post retirement). I just think as the England squad they forget what playing the beautiful game is all about, the glory and hype of the keen English fans has completely gone to their heads. Rooney went on that pitch knowing the entire country thought he was the big daddy, I forgot he was even there on Saturday....

Football jargon aside, I wish more people would have a lion's confidence to be themselves, instead of succumbing to the headlights that are peer-pressure and trend, and becoming a fake entity that is not only completely obvious but dangerously vulnerable.

The Power of Three

Overhearing a phone conversation the other day between my mum and my aunt, they were discussing my aunt's current bad luck, and the fact that incidents like that 'always happen in threes. It got me thinking about my current affluence in 'luck' or if I dare to say it, my lack of 'bad luck'. There are 230945094 reasons why I hate my job, and my financial situation is anything but to be desired, but beyond the odd film evoking emotion in me or my short temper rearing its ugly head, I'm happy.

My failure to be understood is my biggest problem. I've got this ostentatious chip on my shoulder about girls outing each other, and physical appearance being so socially predominant. I'll always be hindered by a frustration of wanting the rest of the World to see these things the way I do, it's hard not to become consumed with how cruel and shit the world is. I'm in a constant personal tug of war between being a fantasist and a realist. I'm both the world's scorned enemy and jealous lover. If all the real 'emo' music in the world doesn't take me through this summer then I'll feel it has been thoroughly wasted. Mineral and Elliott have made me impassioned, exonerated and harbouring a reckless determination to live life full of lust.

Dusk and Summer

It's been months since my last post. I don't know whether it was because I lost all mental-verbal ability to transform my thoughts into written prose or because I just didn't have anything I felt I had to publish onto this virtual platform. I guess my involvement cyber-wise reached a pinnacle with the notorious formspring.me, I became ashamed of myself when I realised its subconscious striving for attention amongst its holders, and the brazen insecurity/cruelty/pathetic nature of its posters. In an honesty that's been stripped of all metaphors and lengthy often confusing sentences: I've had the worst time since last summer. I haven't enjoyed being me very much. And I've particularly resented the world I live in. At times, my rationality gets complacent and I get scared and hateful of a planet that seems to be inhabited by the worst examples of humanity and I fear for my future, if there is one. I came to realise that I have to live in a world where for 85% of the time I live in a state of what I'd consider rational apathy, and worry only about what decisions to make and not the fact that work ethic and self-sufficiency has reached an all time low, and the planet is becoming just like Transmetropolitan- just without all the cartoon tits and pornographic references.... oh actually...

Without deviating, I can honestly say I'm feeling positive and hopeful. I yearn for a summer of old emo music and the best times with the most amazing people. I've got someone in my life who makes me so happy when we're together that I could die, every ignorant fucker I serve at work or happen to come across on facebook won't change the way I'm feeling right now. I just hope I've maintained enough of my humour to post here.... I've missed that feeling of a literary purge, and all the drama that comes with it.

Society Is All But Rude

I haven't written on here for a while for fear of completely and literarily losing my shit. So many things about the world I live in right now make me angry. Whilst I am the protagonist of my own life I, unlike Andrew Marvell's Gardener, do not believe myself to be the protagonist of others'.

The Sad Truth

'I dream of a world where flags are nothing but cloth and the only thing that matters is love, life and freedom. Where the bottom line doesn't determine life and we aren't defined by income bracket, a pretty house, faith, a lack thereof or a fucking degree.
Where we think before we act and act before we critique. Where we think about who is next and make it cleaner than how we found it. Where we mean what we say and only say what we mean and where ideals are meant to better ourselves and where we aren't afraid to say "I can't". Where "sorry" is a liberating word and "thank you" comes from the heart and where we don't just watch but we decide to act.
Where we refuse to live only until its time to die. Where feelings and desires mean more than quotas, expectations and disappointed stares. Where we have a right to hurt, scream, cry, live, die and sit in silence just because we fucking can.
I dream of a world where I can love you in spite of what keeps us apart and where second best is as good as first or a millionth. where we don't over analyze every breath or under appreciate what our words mean to another. Where we find comfort in silence and a place of peace in all of the noise and where everything that is thrown at us makes us better, stronger and more appreciative.
Where we celebrate life, death and all that comes in between. Where songs sing to us and a loved ones' words make us dance. Where what we see in a mirror is a happy, satisfied and fulfilled individual and where we feel bad about how we look at others and not just because of how others look at us.
I dream of a world where I can love you, where I can feel you and where I can know you without having to own you, without having to hate you or without having to fuck you. A world where I can love you, where I can feel you, where I can know you. Know you without having to own you, without having to hate you, without having to fuck you. Without having to fuck you in more ways than one. Without having to own you, without having to hate you, without having to fuck you in more ways than one.
Where a smile isn't a rare gift and where sadness isn't a curse and where the two together make life worth living. Where media doesn't define friend or foe and doesn't tell me how to look, how to feel, how to act and how to live. Where a flower, a smile, a thought, a touch, a smell makes it all worth it and the hardest words are nothing but poetry that spills from our mouth.'

Existentialism Continued...

Every essay I ever have the intention of completing always seems like some kind of contingency before I actually get it finished. I've given up with physical 'to-do' lists as my theoretical and mentally contained list of activities I have yet to complete seems to be not only eternal but consistently shape-shifting like a Ditto that I'm never going to catch in a Pokeball.

The passport was created in Britain with the intention of allowing any British holder to go wherever they chose without objection. Whilst the country still maintains the arrogance to think it's top dog, my intentions of working in America this summer are consistently impeded by Visas, social security, work insurance and generally this notion I appear to get as a traveller that unless I'm desiring to further spoil any of the Spanish/Greek isles or go somewhere in the common wealth then I'm generally not welcome.

As you can tell, my current ability to feel drastically sorry for myself is still in vivacious motion.

Reverently Alone

I wish self-confidence was something physical and tangible so I could take it in my hands or keep it in my pocket so I didn't have to look for it on a daily basis. As I step further away from parental guidance I find my self-belief diminishing and this nihilistic, shirking form invade where I lose all sense of self worth and intellectual assertiveness. It's funny what ability the modern surroundings have in reducing someone (namely me) into a reclusive and unassured mess of indignation and unease. Tempted by the consumerist plight of the media and capitalism I am then thrust back into the grasp of self-depreciation because I'm not boasting whatever perverse bodily form the fashion magazines are imposing upon our increasingly impressionable youth.

People wonder why I'm isolationist. I'm just looking for an escape, I care no longer whether it is something I have materially and fictionally conjured up between the pages of books and comics, between the four walls of my room that I feel I will never grow to resent. As long as I never have to face up to what the World expects me to be I think I'm going to be just fine.

To Do's and Dont's.

When something unfortunate happens to me, it seems to spurn some sort of avalanche of unfortunate events until I'm suffocating under a ton of misfortune and am feeling desperately sorry for myself. I've broken the washing machine and I have a million things to do. My ability to write lists and use them seems to have been made redundant by my own self-pity. I consistently wish I possessed the aptitude to make certain decisions, and didn't have to mix my words just to get something off my chest without actually saying what the problem is. My life is just a metaphor I can't create but will spend forever trying to describe.

I am so grateful for anyone that loves me for the way I am.

Amateur Psycho-analogy.

It's funny how I'm always wondering what the people who see me in a negative light are thinking about me right now. That's if they're thinking about me at all. I personally find I only ever think with particular intensity about the people I'm very very fond of, and the people I can't stand. I, as a result think this habit exists in everyone who knows me, and dislikes me. And even though I don't care, I'm thinking about what they're thinking right now.

It's also funny how it's the fleeting thoughts that really consume my mental being for any given amount of time. One day I think I'm going to write all my particularly quirky thoughts and the ideas/divergences that they transcend to into a book, and illustrate it with amateur drawings.

It just particularly provides as a distraction for all the things I don't want to be pondering. I suppose.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

It's 2010 and I've never wanted a previous year to return like I do right now. This year has already been plagued with injustices and general day-to-day bullshit and it's when personal misfortune begins to pile up that one begins to analyse better times and inner cynicism as well as self-depreciation occurs. I feel little need in detailing what has made me become so self-consumed and pitiful, I just vowed as some pseudo- resolution for the (somewhat overrated) New Year's zeitgeist that I'd get online and write this more, and just write more generally. For someone who used to be so self-driven I'm floating amongst a sea of half-fledged ideas and unfinished projects.

I'm finally getting down with some reading and have just started the Transmetropolitan series by Warren Ellis under Vertigo. It's dark, utterly crude and disastrously fitting for my current state of mind. Regardless of my distaste for the way this year has started I pledge to stay on top of my work at University so I can continue reading and writing and being narcissistic. I'm so scared of losing my intellectualism to my own disappointment at the way things always turn out. I'm increasingly likening myself to the hare who lost the race, not because she thought she was better than the tortoise, but burnt out before she was old enough to understand what she should have done with her agility.