Greetings from the Vat...




It's possible that I'm not living in the world I think I am. I may in fact, be just a brain,suspended in a vat of life giving nutrients, connected to a  computer, vastly superior to the one that I think  I'm using to write this now. All my sensations, memories, thoughts and feelings are merely illusions , constantly streamed through  artificial neural connections. I may simply  never have existed in the time and space I believe I have. Every single thing I think I've experienced may just be a simulation brought about by very advanced software that is able to construct a totally believable 3D world, maintaining the deception of my unreal life.


 All of this may have just popped into existence...then...or now I'll never know.I may have lived the same situations a thousand times before: first kisses, seeing snow for the first time, sun sets, the feeling of rain on my skin, delighting at seeing frost in the hedgerows, the taste of chocolate, the feeling of love, anger, sadness and laughter all just code, run and rerun again and again by whoever or what ever presence keeps me there.


 There is no defying of gravity or other such miracles in this illustrated world, though I may hear or read about them or think that I have, there is only the everyday, the stuff that normal is made of.There is nothing to make me question that the world around me isn't solid and real. I can tap my finger on top of a table but it will never go through it,though I may wish for it to do so,the walls will stay stubbornly solid  no matter how hard I push against them and the possible truth of  why I should be made to exist in this way will remain outside that which is held to be true.


I have nothing to give me reason to doubt my reality in any way....


Apart from sometimes, my own doubt.

The Art of Doing Nothing..

I decided not to make the bed

Instead,

I sat on the edge

and fell back onto unmade sheets

I didn’t polish round.

But lay looking up at the ceiling,

eyes following shafts of warm sun

lazy arms stretched out,

pretending to fly
upside down.

My search for dust

had instead found a smile,

discovered a laugh
which ,making its way  

from my head

to my

feet.... went out through the window

and into the summer,

where it danced with the sounds

that came in from the street.

Is this me ?

So many times in my  job, I find myself having to wear that mask of grown up indignant response to people I deal with and only because they're doing something I'm supposed to deem irresponsible and not what they should be doing or how they should be behaving.


It really makes me question what it is that I'm doing and also re-enforces my own belief that life is just  ridiculous at times. When we take on a job, we have to take on it's values, be that person who has them. For me this has always caused a problem. I don't think I should be working in an office, in a job where I have to point out to people that their attitudes are stopping them getting that all important job, so that they can contribute to the all important system and be seen as useful and obedient members of society. I care about people but I don't care about pushing them into things they don't want to do. The old excuse about draining the system through not working, has been overshadowed somewhat by the revelation that we're led by greedy selfish bastards who continue to run us all into the ground.




I can't help but wish I had the blatant and open honesty that some individuals can have in the face of overwhelming odds. It does of course mean that they are seen as idle and shy of the never ending rat race we others gleefully take part in for most of our lives until we drop dead at 65. I don't see it like that.It's pointless to expect everyone to fit into that same shape mould of I want to go to work all week and even more so to expect to get something out because you've put in. The longer we do this, the less likely that gets anyway.


The reason behind this out pouring of thought ? Today I was due to do my job with someone who disappeared from the building I work in, only for me to ring him and discover he was in the pub across the road. It was 10 o'clock in the morning I wanted to laugh and shout at the same time. The part of me that isn't the work me thought" I can't fault you" the other didn't know what to think. 


And there it was and it's been with me all day, that grudging admiration for the man, knowing his actions would bring about repercussions from those who want him to be employed but still aware that it echoes my own want sometimes to just get up, walk out and tell The World it can go  and fuck itself.

Listen sometimes

I spent part of this morning talking to a gentleman from The Sudan, who used to spend his days diving into the deep blue waters of The Red Sea.


 Personally, it always makes me feel very lucky to meet someone who comes from somewhere else and has stories to tell. I forget all about my job and just want to listen, form  pictures in my head from the accounts they give me.


Sometimes their stories are like  a lot like mine but shaped differently  due to their culture, other times they're very different and so far removed from my own experiences of living in  a system based on democracy. It's one of the things I love about doing what I do, meeting different people.


Unfortunately in life, we have no option but to look at things from our own perspective and because of this, many will always only see the darkest side of things, it's not anyone's fault, just human nature to seek a cause for our own ills in others actions. We are none of us immune to it.


I feel that it comes to a certain point about people and how they perceive  the world around them.  
Some see it as harsh and react so, some see it as life and the flow of things and are able to accept it with grace and  gentleness .


I envy them, for I am only able to do this fleetingly and am prone to cursing things when wants and hopes fall flat.


At least now I have the thoughts of  sunlight and warm blue water to keep me going under the dark November skies...