I have been posting dating tips through facebook status updates, and decided to collate them into a blog:
In times of trouble, purchase flowers. They symbolise decay. It's likely to prove most appropriate as the end approaches.
A relationship can be a good method of easing your fears of dying alone.
Even if you never fall in love, it doesn't have to mean you will die alone. Some events claim more than one life.
If you want to form something long lasting, try to avoid being honest wherever possible. The less someone knows about you, the easier it is for them to convince themselves that you are who they hope you are. Don't spoil the illusion by being who you actually are, until you have them trapped.
Your relationship is not genuine until you confirm it through facebook relationship status. Proposing to broadcast the relationship on facebook, ranks above marriage in terms of how serious you are about each other. If your partner doesn't have a facebook then they are not a real person.
If you try to find yourself in someone else, you will only find yourself more lost.
Total mutual and permanent isolation from one another leading to awkward silence and meaningless small talk when unexpectedly crossing paths, makes for an interesting alternative to close intimacy and affection. Give it a try next time you are stuck for ideas on how to progress a relationship forwards.
Communication is key to relationship breakdowns. As long as you don't talk, you'll be lifelong companions. If your pet could communicate effectively with you, do you think it'd be so affectionate? ..."Explain to me why you're not feeding me" ..."Fuck off, I need sleep" ..."I did it in the corner, what's your problem?" ..."Don't touch me" ..."I think it's time I saw other people".
"We can still be friends" means for the next 2 to 3 years, posting on each others facebook wall once a year. To say happy birthday.
Dating somebody who takes your breath away can be extremely suffocating.
If you can try to have patience and always remember that good things come to those who wait, eventually you will find that it's too late.
If you think you are unattractive, even when people are obviously attracted to you, your logic is extremely flawed. Even the hottest of Hollywood stars feel insecure about how they look, and in fact, if anybody isn't at all insecure about how they look, they are probably a cunt. Don't waste too much of your life putting on make-up and plucking eyebrows.
If there's something you want to say to someone and you feel too weak to interact directly, try posting a facebook status update as if it's aimed at nobody in particular. Maybe they'll read it and not respond. Even better, you may have a public argument through status comments. Give it a go next time you break up with someone while they're still on your friend list.
When you find the object of your affection is married to another person, you need to change your perspective and your whole outlook. Try to think of them purely as an object, and their partner purely as an obstacle.
When you see someone walking through town who you used to be romantically involved with, and you are not sure whether they saw you because they didn't acknowledge you at all, they did in fact see you and were simply ignoring you.
If you place any significance on Valentines Day, you completely deserve all the disappointment you're going to get as a result.
If you send a text message to your partner, and they don't reply instantly, simply send a few more text messages asking why they haven't responded yet. It shows that you care. About stupid meaningless shit. Maybe your partner will be in the process of composing a reply, and would appreciate being interrupted by what is essentially a pointless duplicate message.
If you feel that you must always be understood, and that you must always understand why someone does the things they do or is the way they are, you will never be happy. People can not be understood.
It is not necessary that you love yourself in order for somebody else to love you.
It is not necessary that you love youself in order for you to love someone else.
You know how you think you were so stupid in the past? In a few years you will think who you are now, was stupid. You're doing it wrong. Just stop being stupid.
When you find someone who will be with you, don't let them out. You don't want them to know they could find something more exciting, or someone who would treat them better. Make them think they can't. Be their life. Trap them. There will be plenty of time for them to catch up with their old friends after they escape.
If you talk to someone in a bar who you find attractive, it is your moral obligation to sleep in their bed.
Once something new, interesting and exciting, becomes old, dull and boring, try to forget it all and pretend that it never mattered, until it doesn't matter anymore and you forget it.
Offer your love to whom it may consume.
When you find that you can't sleep at night, and can't see any point getting out of bed in the morning, and the only person who has ever really known you at all no longer thinks you are worth knowing at all, you should just become emotionally resiliant.
Stop placing so much emphasis on bullshit that is meaningless.
When you feel like you are losing your best friend and one true soulmate forever, and things seem absolutely hopeless, and everything you do only makes it worse and pushes them further distant, you need to develop excellent communication and conflict resolution skills. This will definitely drastically improve everything, leading to a perfect future.
If you are interested in someone who you know has Aspergers Syndrone, none of your predominant moves and games are likely to be noticed. You need to be a bit unorthodox to stand a chance, and do something much more unconventional, like tell them directly.
There is one and only one person on this planet for each and every one of you. So many people throughout history had to copulate at extremely precise moments in time in order for fate to carefully arrange for you and your soulmate to meet. You fucked it up. You shouldn't have talked. You interfered with fate and it's all screwed up forever now, for everyone. Thanks.
When you ask a question in text form, use excessive question marks. Add exclamation points and capital letters for added effect. This will surely communicate to the reader that answering that question as soon as possible, is the most important thing they have had to do in their lifetime. If they don't answer, post some more question marks, and they'll like you more.
Just because you feel it with all your heart, and never doubt for a second that it must be true, it doesn't mean that it's not impossible.
If your partner asks you if their big bones make them look fat, you need to say no.
When you meet someone who you are keen on, you need to break the ice and fall into the icy waters of death below.
After you break up with someone, you should always view them as nothing more than a fish. There are plenty more fish in the sea, and once you catch one, their life will soon be over.
Once you remind somebody of someone else, or of something they don't like about themselves you should give up. Anything you say or do will only give them rational reasons to dislike you.
Are you a poor starving student? Yes? Well, there are lonely people out there who have spent the last 20-30 years building up a mass of wealth and possesion in the hope of one day pulling a student. These men are everywhere. Say hi.
If somebody is physically attractive, but is an asshole, you should at least date them, and try to change their personality. There is potential then for them to be the perfect person. It's worth a go. It could be your only chance at happiness.
Whoever said "love is all you need" was wrong. It's not.
When you have a conversation on the phone, don't hang up. Wait for them to hang up. They may say "no, you hang up", but don't. If you hang up, they will assume that you hate them, which, by then, you probably will. Just hang up.
If you believe someone is perfect, you suffer chronic delusion, and it is vital that you be alone. If you see flaws in a person, and choose to love them despite the flaws, you may just be a rational person.
Never decide to live with someone without taking into consideration that you may eventually have to pay the entire amount on your own. Don't trap yourself. If you feel unable to discuss the issue with your partner, the more likely the issue will become an issue.
If you have troubles acquiring partners, maybe you need to make some alterations to your mating call. Try standing slightly crouched, ass out, arms slightly raised, head looking straight, and sing. Sing about your availability, your skill set, your ability to lie, and your weekly income. Sing loudly to increase the odds of more members of your species hearing you.
Whether it's a stranger awkwardly attempting conversation, someone who developed unrequited feelings, or even someone who betrayed you years ago, don't lose sight of the fact that if it came to it, they'd risk their life to save yours. Fuck the psychological bullshit. It matters none. Try to treat every person with the respect every person automatically deserves.
Be considerate. You should consider their feelings, and then decide to disregard them because they are irrational.
If you're friendly enough, they will try to sleep with you.
Tell them how you feel before it's too late. Also, make sure you don't tell them how you feel, because you'll only screw it all up forever.
Getting what you wanted will often be more disappointing than not getting it would have been.
As soon as these words begin forming something that is more than just a sentence, it is likely to become an endless and chaotic, sporadic mess of loosely and vastly related and unrelated themes. The idea for beginning to form these sentences, is simply to attempt to answer some quite common questions, that I (and everybody else) rarely seem to answer in any sort of semi-meaningful way. Questions of the "how are you? / what have you been up to?" type. You are welcome to stop reading it whenever boredom becomes unbearable.
On the odd occasion, through the awful website that is facebook, somebody I haven't seen in a long while will ask how I am, or what I have been doing with myself recently, and I rarely get around to responding. Every so often, someone will do it through text messaging, which is a ridiculous form of conversation that I despise. I often don't have any response to these types of questions whatsoever when somebody asks it to my face. Not because I have nothing to say, but more so because I have way too much I could possibly say. Any question so nonspecific is all but impossible to answer. I don't know where to start, or what to say, or how to say it, or how long it would take to say, or whether anybody could find it interesting enough for me to bother beginning to say anything. Most people wouldn't want a response that wasn't very brief and mostly meaningless, and that is what they generally get, if anything at all. I am writing, so that anybody who has enough time or interest in an actual attempt at a genuine response can read it. I am writing... an essay, on life and what little sense I can make out of it all.
Since I'm bound to unleash a load of brutal negativity, I should at least try make it clear from the start that I don't consider myself at all even slightly depressed. Just because I do not feel the extreme emotion that is happiness, does not mean I feel any equally extreme opposite emotion. I hate the fact I feel I even need to say that. I'm very glad I don't feel happiness. If I felt happy with this life, all I would be is completely delusional, and as a consequence, I would have absolutely no motivation to do anything other than simply see out the rest of my days in equal meaningless and unmemorable fashion to the days which came before. If anybody thinks that everything is great, and that there is nothing extremely wrong with this world, then there must be something wrong with their rational thought processing. There is no medication that will make the world a better place. Maybe doctors should be prescribing anti-happiness pills to a lot of people, because happiness can quite often be an unrealistic and unhealthy delusion, leading to unnecessary and almost inevitable catastrophic breakdowns. Fantasies are prone to being annihilated by realities. There is no more depressing a thought than being happy. Anyway..
How am I? You've possibly asked me that before, and I'm adequate, thanks. Thank you so much. Thanks for asking. How can I ever thank you enough? There aren't the words to express my eternal gratitude. I have always immensely despised the fact that so many people ask that question so frequently. It epitomises all that is fake. People even ask others that whilst they are in the process of walking in opposite directions. It's so hollow. I tend to usually reply with the equivalent of a "hello", because that's what it essentially is... it's a greeting. A greeting of the most meaningless kind, usually followed by an even more meaningless automated response. As meaningless as it usually is, it's not completely pointless. Sometimes there's nothing much else to say. It just seems as though everybody is trying to be the same shade of grey.
I am content... though what exactly is contentment? there are multiple levels of contentment. I do not feel any sense of contentment whatsoever in that I would feel I have achieved or experienced anywhere near enough in my lifetime, if my life were about to end. I am content though, at the level of contentment I am actually content with. I'm content enough living in such ultimately meaningless fashion for the time being, because I believe in what I want to be. I am content with the stage I am at in a journey towards ultimate contentment... if there is even such an experience as ultimate contentment. Maybe in the end there will only be an acceptance that there isn't. It all depends on luck in the end as to which of the two it would be. My longterm goal is to have a funeral in which nobody mentions that I had potential.
What have I been up to? When somebody asks that, they tend to want to know what I do for a job, or how work is going. Sometimes they'll also want to know if I have a girlfriend. If I know them from uni, they may want to know if I'm ever going to finish the meaningless degree that I will never complete. If I knew them in school, I'm surprised they still retain a memory of my existence. In one word, excluding all these other words, what I have been up to is music, which I will say again with more words further downwards.
All I want is to escape the world I know. Not through death, but through living. There has just got to be something more than this. It's like a prison, and if I'm too quick to try to break free, I will be shot down. My escape will be timed in a more slow gradual way. There's no hurry. It is after all, quite an awesome and spectacular beautiful prison of comfort. Life is meaningless. Obviously. It is fundamentally pure meaninglessness at its innermost core, which is great. I find it important to have that in mind. Essential in fact. Meaningless. It is from that starting point, that every single person can add their own meaning, or create their own sense of destiny or purpose, since nothing has been predetermined. It can only come from within, or it's false. What is meaningful and crucial to one person is insignificant to another, and again, that's great. What is the meaning of life? If there was one simple answer to that question that applied to everybody, then life would be pointless and nobody would be interesting. If something feels true, then it's real... that, something, feels real... regardless of logic. Happiness can spawn from irrationality. It doesn't matter how real or good anything supposedly is, unless you are able to discover it for yourself. You can try to find yourself in someone else, but you're likely to find yourself more lost.
Everybody is searching for something, though few know what. People like to pretend that their life has a meaning, and people like to believe their life has a meaning. You do what you can to make yourself feel free. Nobody can tell you what feels of great importance to you. Many people find a sense of meaning through having a belief in an afterlife, or a supernatural higher power, or in preaching what was once preached to them, some find it in relationships, or love, or in parenthood, or providing for the family, some find it through earning money, or spending it, living in luxury, or running their own business, some people find it through having power or control over others, some in trying to right injustices, or gain revenge, some find it in helping other people, or saving wildlife, some in making people laugh, some find it through the rush of adrenalin, or through striving to be the fastest or greatest at something, or breaking records, or maybe trying to answer questions that are as yet unanswered, some people find it through discovering and nurturing talent, some through travel, some in sex, or following a sports team or person, some people find it in trying to overcome a disability, some in not being dead, and some in not being bored, some people find it through substances that alter their perception, some find it in the magic of music, some people find it in the creation of art, and some people find it in having the time available to regularly do one particular thing they find immensely enjoyable... which may be as simple as covering their hands in PVC glue so that they can peel it off. Just because a particular person finds happiness in any particular thing, doesn't mean the same thing would make anyone else feel the same way, or that it should.
Many people can find happiness through the story of Jesus or through the bible, but my need for logic prevents me from ever gaining anything from any of it, or feeling what they feel. It's no choice. In terms of the massiveness of the universe, where could a God fit in? Is she or he or it only interested in our particular species on this particular object? How could God come into existence? How could matter come to be? How can life form from which there was none? How can any person as an individual exist amongst it all? Why am I conscious during this moment of infinity? Even if everything could be explained and understood through science, there would always be a reason for intelligent people to believe in a god regardless. It would never disprove every idea of god. It would simply disprove religious hypothesis... which are entirely manmade ideas... and are usually believed as fact when they simply shouldn't be. Just because creation in the sense of Adam and Eve is impossible, doesn't mean God is impossible. It just means man's arbitrary explanations are wrong. God is a creation of human intelligence. God itself is impossible to define. There is no one definition or way to explain its existence. It's quite possible that it exists, entirely depending on how it is defined. By a lot of definitions it is simply impossible, but for example, someone may say god is love. If that's a definition of god then I can't tell them they are wrong. It's possible. Is God the force that guides a particular insect to know what to do to perform its task within the greater survival of its particular grouping? Maybe it exists within instincts. But God, as an intelligent creator of all these circumstances that have to simultaneously occur in order for its plan to come into effect just doesn't make sense. How could everything that happens and exists have been comprehended into such detail? How bored and lonely was he infinitely backwards in time before he decided to create something? Regardless of any such stuff that can never be understood, the idea can give people hope where there is none. In a near death situation, it makes sense that a person would pray for divine intervention. And it makes sense that if they survive, they could believe it was purely because of supernatural help.
What is possible and what is impossible? Obviously resurrection is impossible. That never happened. Obviously nobody can fall pregnant without semen somehow entering their vagina. Though religion tends to be flawed, it doesn't mean it's impossible that something spiritual exists, and that it can be described as god. Manmade religions are full of holes, and clutching-at-straw laws. I find individual beliefs to be more rational. If people feel that something is real, then it's real enough for them. If that something makes them happy, or a better person then it's good... though it's better if it's found through ones own rational thought process, rather than blind faith. So many people seem to simply scroll down and tick the "I agree" box, and just download whatever software into their head. You can feel something to be real without subscribing to a bunch of ridiculous dogma. The bible was written by man. It can't possibly have any significance beyond that. You could say Tolkien was channeling god when he wrote Lord of the Rings, and it would be just as silly. Just because these supposed occurrences happened long ago, doesn't mean impossible occurrences were possible back then. The fact people grappled onto such concepts seems to have been hugely beneficial though. Maybe it simply freed people's minds, allowing them to be more creative and revolutionary. I'm not sure. Of anything. How could anyone be? I don't even want to be. To be sure, often means your logic is flawed. I do know that finding out I had Aspergers freed my mind as an individual, and maybe it was an equivalent thing that caused such massive human progress on a larger scale, whether or not there was ever any substance to any of it. A great majority of people stopped wondering why they were here, and just did stuff.
I do not have any desire to live the lifestyle that most people seem to strive towards. I don't want the house and car. I no longer feel any need to try to embrace things that are considered normal, or a self loathing for not understanding it. My head is elsewhere. Finding somebody to love, who also loves me, and settling down, is not a goal, nor an option. Nothing has happened in my life worth settling down from. I don't want a wife, or a child... not that that's all that uncommon these days. No matter how much I would love them, I wouldn't be able to escape a feeling of resentment towards them. It just would not be right. I wouldn't be able to convince a child of mine that they can achieve anything they set their mind to, if I haven't even achieved what my own mind is set on. I don't want to bring more life to this world. Not to my world. I don't know how I'll feel in the future. All I know is now. It's not a long-term goal. It's not important. I'm not all that interested in finding love. That's what I've managed to convince myself at least. I see no reason for it. How much of that is an actual choice I have much control over, and how much is just me realising and accepting the way things are, I'm not sure. My faith in people is almost nonexistent. There was a time where I craved what I would now push away. I almost feel as if I am not even capable of falling in love. It's not the cure to the dissatisfaction I feel. I definitely don't want to feel responsible for someone elses mental stability. I am not what anybody is looking for to feel complete, or to feel able to cope.
People need something to cling on to. Something to hang on to, in fear of falling. A branch that can sustain their weight. Some glimpse of hope, or comfort, or whatever, but... it aint me... babe. To feel loved, or interesting, or that somebody gives a fuck, is more than enough for most people to feel comfortable with their life and with who they are, and that can only be good... well, it can sometimes be good. Many decent people choose to stay with ridiculous people. Sometimes people just need to let go of whatever branches they cling to, in order to get their feet on the ground. Love can set you free. And it can hold you back. It can give you strength. And it can destroy you. It can take your breath away. And suffocate. It can be the one thing that feels real in the world. And it can be a trap. It can feel real, whilst being fake. It can be irrational. It can be beautiful. It can be worth risking more than you're willing to lose. I simply don't want somebody to fall in love with me. Yours. Yours. Yours. Yours. Yours. I don't want to fall in love. I can't imagine living with someone. I don't want to wear a ring. I don't want to play stupid games. I am hoping it doesn't all come down to love in the end. I'm sick of seeing so many TV shows and movies reaching such a conclusion. The ending of Lost was rather sickening. It seems quite bizarre to me that any two people should form a relationship together... at least if one of the people is me. I don't have time for it. I can't possibly live in someone elses life until I feel like I'm living my own life. Which, I may never feel... but I can't allow such thoughts to entrap me.
What do I do? I think in the overwhelming majority of cases, what people do for a job will give absolutely no indication of who they are as a person, or what their ambitions really are... if those aspirations haven't been sucked out of them by the society in which they live. I have always immensely despised the fact that the first thing most people want to know when meeting somebody, is what they do for a job. What do I do for a job? I am a chef. I began as a dishwasher. I gave up on the idea of ever completing my studies, to simply have a job, and make music the ultimate focus. I gave up on the idea of following a tedious path towards confinement. I have my own long slow pathway that I am forging and I refuse to let anything push or pull me in a different direction down a different path. I am incredibly repulsed by the concept of needing a "career". It is one of the greatest flaws of modern society. It's an idea that causes a great deal of completely unnecessary stress and pressure on young minds that should not be focusing so much on working a great majority of the rest of their lives away on any particular task. You don't need to continue doing something purely because you began to do it. That was the only reason I didn't quit uni much earlier, and it's a dumb reason. I never could find the importance in any of it, and never found it worth stressing about... which seemed strange at the time. It's all meaningless. I could never imagine myself worrying about any of it when on my deathbed. Or even remembering it.
What will I remember of anything? What does anything matter if it's forgotten? That thought alone for me makes it so obvious that the entire fundamental reason for living is to create. It's the reason I chose to study design in the first place, as wrong as that decision turned out to be. I need to create. I need to record a fraction of the music that constantly buzzes around my head. I want to make something productive out of the memories I have whilst I have them... and out of the experiences I have had... and out of the beliefs, values and opinions I hold... and out of the imagination I have. Something positive out of all of my splendid negativity. Something out of the life I have before I'm gone. I need to create something that will outlast myself. Something that will continue. That will inspire, and become part of something bigger than me. Something that wont just be eaten, or hung on a wall. No matter what I may achieve, it will all be meaningless anyway when the sun explodes and everything dies, but that doesn't matter. I just want to (and feel that I need to) do what it is I most enjoy in life while my life exists. Fuck the world, and fuck money. Music is my greatest talent, and it is where I am creating my sense of purpose and meaning for this life that I lead.
So how is work going by the way? Do I enjoy it? Any satisfaction I gain from it is entirely dependant on whether people think I'm good at what I do, and whether I make other people's jobs easier. Performing the tasks purely in of themselves would not be enjoyable. I'm not doing something I love to do when I work. I work for people. Not for enjoyment. And there is nothing wrong with that. A business is people's livelihoods, and that is important. Over the last year I have felt like an incredibly important figure in the functioning of the business, therefore it's been good. For five or six weeks I ran the kitchen. More recently, rather frequently I have felt unable to perform to a level I expect from myself due to feeling like it's a struggle to simply remain balanced on my feet, and often losing my vision and short-term memory. Those days became far less frequent since I cut back on hours, and generally work is fine. I am reasonably proud of the progression and improvement I have made in the time I have had my job, and the barriers I have overcome, but still, it is just a job, in the overall scheme of things. It's not my life... though it takes up a majority of what my life is... the time at least. It is the now. It is the reason I can afford to pay bills and purchase food and drink. It is the life I ultimately want to escape. Not the job, but the whole societal situation. It would be the same with any job I could currently get. I am not wanting another job. I have a good job and I'm good at it. I could forge a long successful career out of it and earn a lot of money if I decided that's what I wanted to do. I wouldn't ever pretend to anyone that I would find that worth considering. Playing this sort of comfortable role within society until I grow old and retire, is not a thought I'm at all comfortable with. Playing a role is all it would be. I would find it nothing more than meaningless, pointless, and awful, though for the time being I'm reasonably comfortable with the fact it has to be this way. I'm willing to do it for as long as it takes, but I'm not willing to get complacent and allow years to just slip by without making what I feel is progress towards self betterment. I'm not saying, nor do I think, that other people's lives are meaningless, pointless or awful. And also, it doesn't mean that I do not have the greatest of respect for a lot of people I work with and have worked alongside along the way. Whether they are doing something they genuinely love to do, or whether they struggle to gain any ultimate satisfaction from it yet perform a good job, either way, they are both qualities in people that are worthy of great respect. Whether it's a career choice and true passion, or something more temporary before whatever other life journey somebody intends to take, is irrelevant in terms of how good a person is at what they are paid to do.
What do I do? I can say I'm a musician, but I have nothing much of interest to follow it up with, because I haven't done anything of any worth with music yet. No airplay. No releases. Never even performed live. What style of music? I don't know. I hate that question. A good artist has a unique style. I could say I intend to be a successful, globally respected and influential musician, but who could possibly believe that that's even possible apart from myself? It just seems so pointless to say. And I risk looking a fool if I don't follow through. That's a risk I don't give a fuck about taking. Kick me in the shins if I ever become a 50-year-old who settled for something different. It's as if you are expected to maintain a constant projection of false contentment, and lack of aspiration. All that can come from communicating such ambition, is doubt, and people thinking it's crazy. They may tell me that it's not possible, or I'm not good enough, or that I have to go to university and study it first, or that I should give up the dream and settle for something else, or that I'm not doing enough to make it happen, and am running out of time, or that it's stupid to place such emphasis on one such unlikely goal, or that it's just a dream, or that it's not a real job or source of income, or whatever, blah, blah, blah. It is more real than anything else I could ever do. To me it seems like my one and only plausible method of true expression... of saying things that otherwise cannot be said... of making an impact... of saying "Fuck You" to people from the past who rejected me as a person... of creating something that will long outlast myself... of ever being able to feel truly satisfied and successful... of feeling human... of being free. Music is where I belong.
Music will always be everything to me. It's what get's me through. Where people are always likely to drift apart, or to cut you off no matter how close you may get, the songs remain the same... even through the vast multiple ways of listening to them, and differing perceptions. A truly good song is a good song forever, though overexposure to it in a short time span can destroy appreciation of it for a while... a bit like people I suppose. A truly good song will always come back. Music is what I can most rely on. Where it becomes a struggle to decently remember or recapture good experiences, it's easy to experience a good piece of music again and again. When it becomes a struggle to erase bad experiences from memory, music provides escape. Music can restore some sort of faith in humanity. All that is good can be found, expressed, and felt in music. Music enriches the dull world. Listening to it is not enough. Something in me (call it a curse if you will) needs to create. And to emulate. To feed off others, and to feed others. Creating it is not enough if it can't reach people. The world has me set up to lose, but I refuse to let it bring me down. I have to believe. It's the only option. In myself is all I can believe. I have to believe it's just a matter of time, perseverance, passion and commitment. Many people get to live their dream, and it would be the most epic of failures if I didn't believe I could be one of them. I'll never be willing to throw it all away. Without the dream there is just an empty shell. I can't settle for that. I can't settle for this. That would mean settling for eternal dissatisfaction. Forever insignificant. Forever ordinary. Fading into the past. Forgotten... or rather, nothing to even be forgotten. It's not enough, but it's brilliant material for writing about. I will continue to play a "normal" role in this colour-by-numbers society for the foreseeable future because I must. The discontentment is what makes me strong. I will never feel happiness in things most people find happiness in. Maybe I simply need to accomplish something extraordinary, just to feel an ordinary level of happiness and contentment.
In my mind, everything is focused on one day being able to properly devote myself to my creativity and one true passion. Everything. There is no great rush, or reason to stress. It doesn't matter how long it takes. I don't want to do it to become rich. I just want to do it. Unless death happens first, I will do it. If death happens first, then my existence will have been ultimately meaningless to me, and simply dull, and nobody is allowed to mention at my funeral that I was a happy person who enjoyed life. Money is meaningless to me. It is not the cure to the dissatisfaction that I feel. Obviously I need it in order to be able to survive in this society, but I do find it meaningless nonetheless. Having more money is not an idea I place any significance on. I wouldn't pretend that I wouldn't love a large sum of money, just like anyone else. The value of the money to me would not be in what things I could purchase, but in the time it could earn me. It would simply mean there would be the time to devote to doing what I actually want to do, without being caught up in the "real" world... the world of money. You need money to make money... excluding extremely rare cases obviously. You need money in order to not have to worry about having money. It is an extremely bullshit world to live in for anybody who just wants to create art. It is an extremely bullshit world for millions of hungry people too. People... slaves to the dollar, struggling to make dead ends meet, going forward into despair, but at least it gives us song ideas.
It's ridiculous when money is used to gauge how successful people are... even more so when used to gauge how hard somebody works for their money, or what their level of intelligence is. If I ever become incredibly wealthy, I wouldn't want to spend outrageous amounts of money on meals or sunglasses, or living in "luxury". It's seriously fucked up how much people are willing to pay to dine out somewhere "flash". If there is anyone who regularly goes out and pays hundreds of dollars for their meals, then they earn far too much money and quite frankly, they don't deserve it. The thought alone of spending so much on food or luxuries, would sicken me so much that I could not find the enjoyment or satisfaction in it. Some people have far more money than any one person should ever have, and I wouldn't aspire to be one of them. I could never feel I deserved it. Bono could easily do more to ease poverty. Just because your occupation involves a lot of people knowing who you are, doesn't mean you are better or deserve your money more than someone who performs frequent life saving surgery. Practice what you preach or don't preach. You'd help more people if you at least paid tax in whatever country you reside in. You don't need more money. It's no tragedy people downloading your music for free. Your political viewpoints aren't all that important. If any one person had total control over how all charitable funds were allocated, everything would be fucked. Aids. Aids. Aids. H. I. V.
What about me? I've been up to music, which may seem surprising. Through my years of being a music listener, I have always tried to remain conscious of what I like and why I like it, and what I don't like, and why I don't like it, and what others like and why they like it, in order for me when the time came, to have an idea of what I want to do myself and what I need to do. I used to pay little to no attention to lyrics. It was just the melodies and harmonies that I cared about. I now find lyrics rather vital. I never imagined myself writing lyrics, but I never realised how essential they were. From the moment I first heard the Shihad album The General Electric as a teenager, I realised the power music would have on me, and I set myself two longterm targets. One was to be in a well-known band playing music as good as that to large crowds by the time I was 40, but first, I was to learn an instrument and be recording my own music by the time I was 30. Through all the years I wasted at university, and all the years I spent making absolutely no progress whatsoever in my life, and all the dreaded birthdays that would get exponentially dejecting, I still believed it was a perfectly attainable goal, and always remained the target of most interest even though I didn't feel ready to push for it. 12 months ago I begun to push for it, and now I find myself much further ahead in my lifelong goals than I ever planned to be. I feel better than I ever have because of it. All the wasted time doesn't matter anymore because it has got me to the mindstate I have now. And it provides subject matter at least. My mindstate is one of moderate contentment and confidence. It's not true contentment, because it's heavily reliant on future success, but that doesn't matter. It feels strange to actually feel like I'm not being entirely fake if I answer "good" to the question "how are you?".
I set myself a goal at the start of the year, to write a song per month, until I had an album length worth of material, not including songs we're writing in my band. The band by the way is making progress. Slow as it is. We have quite a few songs that are not quite completed, and we are not sure when we will be doing any gigging. Over the year I avoided going to some concerts I would have loved to have gone to, and went months without internet, to find more time to work on my songs. I do not care about recording and releasing a solo album. There would be no reason for anyone to listen to it. That is for later in the future... perhaps even by the time I'm 30. At the moment, I am simply too insignificant. I would be extremely hesitant to sign a record contract. I would be skeptical that they even give a fuck about music, and may only end up limiting opportunities to develop as an artist, or to even be heard. My focus right now is on building up a starting point, and simply having material. The previous year I had begun attempting to write lyrics, and this year has been the year to start bringing them alive and experiment with structuring entire songs, rather than just having a fuck load of bass riffs and bits and pieces. My sights have been targeted on entering my songs in a worldwide songwriting competition by early October, which is a week away now. I have only been focused on the actual songwriting, and experimentation, rather than the finished product. I'm not able to make them sound as professional as i would like. They are prototypes. The competition does not judge on production, which is what attracted me to it. It's an opportunity to have my songs heard by top industry figures, and well-respected and influential musicians. There is a chance that it could eventually give people a genuine reason to listen to something I create. A chance to do something better.
It's easy enough to say "live for today, not for tomorrow", and it is an interesting enough philosophy to think about or live by, but it has no meaning for me. It's not like you can suddenly give up the today and simply live the tomorrow, nor should you ever have to give up the idea of the tomorrow. I'm not living for today. Tomorrow will be the same too, but the metaphorical tomorrow of more distant time is definitely worth living for. It's what I live for. I have no shortage of patience. And yeah, death can occur at any time, and render it all pointless in an instant. There is never a guarantee that tomorrow will even come. That thought is on my mind constantly. Hopefully before that occurs, I can create enough. I aim to create music that impresses influential artists that inspired me to create it. I aim to eventually perform alongside musicians I admire. I aim to increase the profile of artists that never got the recognition they deserve. I aim to affect people. To make them feel good. To make them feel sad. To make them think. To make them dance. To make them cry. To make them laugh. To make them sing. I want to retain a diverse sound forever. I want everything I enjoy and am influenced by, to come across in what I produce. I want to understand various forms of music, and to conquer them. I will always aim to write the perfect pop song... the perfect song to move to... the perfect album... the most depressing song in the world... to destroy conventions, without refusing to use them if they feel right for a song. I aim to be complex and simple. Fast and slow. Happy and sad. Something to everyone. Everything to nobody, but myself. To create. To have time to create more.
How am I? How I am at any given moment, is entirely dependent on how confident I am of one day being a respected and influential musician. And I am reasonably confident. I need to be, because life has nothing else to offer me, and I'm never going to give up. Though it's easier to just say "hi", or "good". My music means the world to me. If I ever become a vegetable, eat me. I fear deafness.
Thank you anybody who had time or interest to make it through all that. If you want to hear what I have done with the last year, you can listen to it here. Find out if you think I'm going to waste the rest of my life : Continuous Disregard For Possessive Apostrophes by Influential Unknown [It's all made by me alone, apart from "Lost in the Past" which is instrumentally based on an idea from my band and includes a drum track played by Chris Parker, and "The Rain" was instrumentally composed and created by Brendon Palmer, and I just put bass and vocals on it.]
What is greatness? What is personal opinion? What is indisputable? How important is it to be influential or popular? If I had no knowledge of who the Beatles were, and had never heard any of their music, and listened to Revolver, what would I think of it? What would I think of it if I were to judge it entirely on it’s own merits? I like to believe I judge it entirely on it’s own merits already.
Influence = What?
When I listen to music, the word is meaningless. I just don’t care. I probably wouldn’t listen to something if it were not at all influential, but once I do, all the impact and influence shit is taken out of the equation and I decide how good it is as a product. It's a group of human beings writing music and playing it. It has been produced and mixed and whatnot by people in a studio. It could be anyone. How good is the product? If influence impacted my decision when determining which between two artists is the best, then all the New Zealand music I know and love, would never be able to compete with the giants of the USA and Britain. It would be totally illogical, and unfair. Maybe if I were American or British, I would be more inclined to give more weight to influence. But, no.
I have never seen any reason why a new release by a relatively unknown modern band can't be just as good or better than some of the most highly regarded, popular and influential releases of the past. I've always known it to be true. I don’t think Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band is the best album ever. I think Pipeline Under the Ocean by Pluto is superior. It hasn't been heard by enough people because the world sucks, not because it’s not as good. It’s not as important in the overall global musical landscape, but… so what? I’m not listening to importance, I’m listening to music.
Influence, impact and popularity are important to me in that it sets the boundaries in which I search for new sounds. I can't afford to go buying new releases that I don't know anything about, searching for future greatness. There's too much stuff out there. I wouldn't know where to begin. The strike rate would be too small, as the majority of music at any given stage is weak. It will always be that way. It always has. I have to set a boundary in which I select my music out from, which is limiting it to within popular music… within artists who are somewhat influential or have made some kind of impression or impact. Obviously popularity alone gives absolutely no indication of how good something is at all. Crazy Frog made it to the top of the charts at one stage. I've never been somebody to shun popular music in favour of underground music. I've never understood why people do that. There is a lot of excellent popular music, just as there is lots of excellent music that fails to make any sort of impact. There is a lot of awful popular music too, and a lot of awful music that fails to make any impact. It's all fact. It's all obvious. Do I even have a point?
Modern bands that get raved about rarely have the substance to back it up in my experience. I tend to wait until the hype settles down, to see if it’s still held in high regard a few years down the track. I try to spend my money on something that I can be quite confident that I will find great. I've never really purchased brand new releases unless I am already confident in the band due to them being already established, and due to me already knowing them to be good respectable musicians. If they haven't made any impact, then I'm not going to find out anything much about them and will end up being drawn to something else naturally… no matter how good they may be. It can't be great if nobody bought it... it can be good... not that I would ever know. I don’t have enough time to find out.
Taking from the past can be safer than going for the new, purely because a lot of the shit has sunken out of view over time. It may seem that music was better in the past, and that modern music is mostly crap, but that’s an illusion. Modern music has mostly been crap always. Look at the music charts at any stage in history, and I'd imagine you'd find the greater percentage will have always been rubbish. The modern shit is still floating around, submerging some quality stuff. I own nothing from this year yet. I’ve hardly ever owned anything from any given year, during the actual year. I'd imagine I'll be discovering a lot of quality stuff from this year, in about 5 years time. Surely there are bands releasing good albums right now, who haven't made the big time yet, and we will be looking back through these current releases once they do make it big in a few years time. It's the way it often works. It’s definitely much more exciting being a fan of a band who still exist. It’s cool feeling the anticipation before a brand new release. It’s good to be able to see your favourite bands performing live. I’d regret getting into a band too late and missing out on the buzz, but I’d find their product just as good nonetheless.
The reason influence holds little significance to me is because I believe that there is a direct correlation between how influential something is, and how popular something is. In general it's true... there are always exceptions of course... like they say with The Velvet Underground for example, about how not that many people actually listened them at the time, but everyone who did formed a band [Not that I'm very convinced of that at all... It's a good little catchphrase though]. A band who haven't achieved the global super stardom that another band has, therefore will not be anywhere near as influential as the other band in most cases. I find it totally irrelevant when deciding which band is the better of the two. I would find it unfair to disadvantage the superior band for being less influential than the Sex Pistols. I don't care at all if one band is more influential than another. A lot of music that is highly influential, doesn't sound that good to me at all. A lot of it sounds inferior to stuff I can go listen to at local music venues. Most of those bands playing the local music scene will never amount to anything, and that is quite sad if you think about it. It's unfair, but it's the way it's always been, and it's the way it will always be.
It's a myth that the best artists will be the most popular. It's a myth that the most popular artists are the best. A lot of good artists are influential on bad artists. A lot of weak artists are influential on much better artists. There's just something about the whole kind of… thinking you're being completely unbiased and removing personal preference from the equation by using influence to judge someone against another… there's just something… biased about it I think… biased towards someone who was in the right place at the right time. There's something about requiring someone be influential in order to be great… like… would you have thought they were great at the time? Before it gained widespread recognition? Would you have even been listening?
A C-grade American band will pretty much by default be a more influential band than an A-grade Australian band. Does that make the American band greater? of course not. Not at all, but they will have more of an impact on the course of the popular music landscape. It's pretty meaningless to me. Influence, popularity, impact, blah blah, pointless. I go for who I find to be of the higher quality of output.
The Byrds may be a hugely influential band, but in no way is that a convincing argument to me that the songs they wrote were very good at all. They did some extremely great covers, but so what? The jangly clean guitar sound might have been made popular by them, but so what? They hardly wrote many good songs at all. They wrote some of course. I wouldn't say they were bad at all. They influenced some good music. Tom Petty is an obvious person who holds them in high regard. I think he wrote better songs than the Byrds and much more of them too, so I rate him much higher than the Byrds. He's not very diverse, but he wrote a lot of good simple songs. I don't think the Byrds did. I think Crowded House and Split Enz are obviously far better than them both. It doesn't matter that they are nowhere near as appreciated as they deserve to be... I don't hold that against them at all. I think Neil Finn is the best there is. I genuinely believe it wholeheartedly. I think he's the greatest. I don't like it when something I feel so strongly is reduced to "it's only personal preference", "it's just your favourite, but it's not actually great", "they can't be that good because they didn't have much success in America", "they can't be better than the Byrds because they aren't as influential", "I can't even find their albums in record stores", "if they were that good, then more people would know who they are", "they are insignificant", "they will never make it into the rock and roll hall of fame", "blah blah", etc. I will always recommend someone spend their hard earned dollars purchasing Together Alone rather than on a Byrds album. It's definitely influential on me. It's influential in it's own right... in proportion to the amount of people it touched. I would expect it to have a similar or superior ratio of influence over it's audience as most other more popular artists. So they didn't change the course of global music history... but so what? they are better than most of the artists who did. And enough people share my admiration for the Finn brothers catalogue, that I can feel completely justified ranking them above all else. More than enough.
I don't separate greatness from favourites at all. When I am deciding how much I like something, it depends on how great I think it is. My favourite is my favourite because I think it's the best. If I think A is better than B, yet I for some reason enjoy B more, and listen to B more often, I will still rate A above B, because I think it’s better. I definitely understand why people would separate "great" from "favourite" as two totally different things. I'd expect the majority of the population to do it… actually I’d expect most people to have favourites which they happen to like simply because they like it, and they don’t care beyond that about any criteria or analysis, and don’t feel any need to explain or to even know what it is about it they think is so good.
It's an individual thing. It depends what is important to the person who is deciding for themselves who is better than someone else for whatever reason they find important. It's hard for most people to even attempt to explain why they even like something at all. Iron Maiden are incredibly influential on pretty much all Metal music. Since influence is not an important criteria to me, I don't rate them very highly. They sound like all they do is listen to their own albums. It's all incredibly similar. It's not diverse, which makes it not very interesting, and I don't rate them highly for that reason. They are boring. But I appreciate them sometimes. They have their moments. If all you do is one thing all the time, for a long time, it's pretty much going to be a sure thing that at least a few times you will manage to totally nail it and do it very well, if you're any good at what you do. At times they do succeed quite spectacularly. They have some songs that I find incredible, that I think are the pinnacle of all Metal music... but so what? Metal music alone is too restricted for me. To be truly great, I demand they sound like they listen to some music that is not their own, or I snore. AC/DC are the same. At times they have nailed the formula, but overall, the formula is lame. They give Rock a bad name. To me they do. I don't hate either band, but I'm not all that fond of them either. I think a band needs to be diverse to be truly great.
Influence is the only reason whatsoever I ever listen to The Velvet Underground & Nico. I honestly don't think it's very good, yet I will continue listening to it until I begin to understand what is so good about it, or until the frustration reaches an intolerable level. It is incredibly influential, therefore it has earned extra listens from me. It's got an advantage over most other releases in that I continue to force myself to find something interesting within it. I want to like it. If that album was exactly the same, but never achieved anything at all, I honestly wouldn't see any reason whatsoever to listen to it again.... definitely not enough times to ever learn to appreciate it for what it is. I don’t enjoy it. I don't hear anything great in it. I will admit it's one of the most important albums ever made, and I will always respect its place in history. That is absolutely indisputable. A lot of people hold it in extremely high regard, and I have to respect that. I'd never put it on a greatest albums list though. If I did that, I may as well put Garth Brooks on a greatest artists list… even though I’m familiar with none of his shit... I can't think of a better example, so I'll just stick with it. It would seem absurd to me. If the reason most people keep putting it on their greatest albums lists is because of its impact, then to me it's like saying "it's there because lots of other people also put it there", which basically equals "I can’t think for myself". If they genuinely believe it to be a great work of art that they enjoy, then fair enough... I totally respect their opinion. If somebody ranks it highly whilst being like, "it's not one of my favourites at all, but I think it's one of the greatest because it's so influential", then I lose respect for their musical opinion. They may as well be saying "it’s so great because it came before something else"… meaningless.
I appreciate innovation more than influence. I don't think there is a correlation between the two. A lot of innovative stuff tends to go unnoticed by the mainstream. A lot of influential artists were not innovative. A lot of innovative artists are not considered very influential. Maybe they did it first, but a more popular band took it and made it popular, and get the credit and recognition. Innovation isn't that important to me actually... it is and it isn't. The only thing that truly matters to me is the songs. The music is what matters to me. The melody. I don't demand that they change the world. It's just music. If it's a good song, it's a good song... no matter how popular it is or isn't... no matter how simple it is... no matter how complex it is... no matter how overplayed it is... no matter where it's played... It does not matter if it uses the same formula that has been used a few million times... it doesn't matter if it wasn't a single or a radio song... it doesn’t matter if it gets stuck in your head… it doesn't matter if it was used in an advert… it doesn’t matter how cool it is or isn’t... it doesn’t matter if it breaks away from the established sound of a particular artist… it doesn’t matter if the artists are bleeding assholes. All I can expect from an artist is to write good songs and albums, without becoming boring and predictable. That is what I like.
Popularity... impact... influence... they are important to me... to make it to the starting line... to be heard... not judged. Once I listen to something, I try to judge it all equally. Influence is a reason why I wont give up on something after a few unpleasant listens. Influence earns somebody my respect, but not a high ranking on my list.
I am weird. You are weird. Everybody is weird. I have Aspergers Syndrome, and I suck at explaining what it is. It just basically means that people think I'm weird.
I am an extremely positive person, even though life is meaningless, and there is no hope at all.
