Tag Archives: Life

Making your own mistakes.

Posted by on October 5, 2010 No comments

I guess you could put this one down to perspective...

When it comes down to life I really am quite an empirical person. This isn’t through lack of thinking things through enough or an oversight in judgement, it’s just because the only way to find something out is to just do it. The only concrete conclusions you can draw on are the ones you have witnessed for yourself.

This is not a process that comes easily to me, though. Naturally I am quite introverted; INTP if you are a believer in personality types. The overwhelming urge to sit back, analyse and let the world flow on is sometimes quite hard to resist. But when I can resist, I try my hardest to do so. I do so because I believe that the only way you can really experience life is if you are completely prepared to fail and look a fool.

Quite frankly, the only things worth having are the things worth failing for. Making a leap of faith can take you to amazing heights and we can always pick ourselves up from a fall. Whether the leap of faith be telling somebody you really like them or auditioning for a play, getting the courage to open a door can lead to somewhere truly amazing.

Anyway, now the introduction is over I will spare you from more metaphors (for now) and instead focus onto the more applicable side of making your own mistakes. I think it’s only fitting, therefore, that I start with where I have failed and the leading on to where I have succeeded.

The first, most obvious, point would be my education. While I was in sixth form I took subjects that I really didn’t have any interest in or was any good at. I wanted a change from technology; I wanted to spin my life in new directions. The new direction it took me, however, was down with a 180 degree turn.

My failure in science reignited my love in technology which has lead to me enrolling in De Montfort University to study my passion in life. From failure, I went to the top university in the country for Computer Security and I am loving every second of it. I am completely glad of all the events that have led up to this.

Other leaps of faith include joining Game-Engine which took me completely out of my comfort zone and had me doing things I had never done before. I was working on podcasts, writing informal and formal blog entries and even working on and recording videos. For anybody interested in internet media, I highly recommend it. It combines various elements of practically every media publication outlet there is and is a lot of fun to get involved with.

However, other leaps that were beyond me I feel have really limited my life. For a while I felt completely fine not engaging in a relationship; again, just sitting back and letting life do what it wills. Not making deep contact with another person has proved to be my biggest regret. For years I have spent making people laugh without realising their feelings or investing my own. I feel like I have missed out on so much that could have been in my life.

If you learn anything from me and in whatever context you wish to take it, make sure that you take the risks  that lead to something amazing. You are all your own person and you are completely allowed to make your own mistakes and to play with your own fate.

Goodnight, my friends!

Honesty is(n’t) the best policy.

Posted by on August 26, 2010 1 comment

Well my calender is starting to fill up again which means I am going to be spending a lot more time with other people than the ramblings of my own brain. A refreshment such as this is welcome as there is only so much thinking I can do without going paranoid that everyone hates me – which they probably do but I am going to keep them company regardless. Anyway, before I head off into a period of as little thinking as possible, there is one final thing in my mind that would make a good blog post: the place of honesty in today’s society.

When I say honesty in this context I don’t just mean what everybody says to each other on a high level. What I mean is how honesty is implanted into our minds and where it stands today in popular (un)consciousness. When I look out and examine the people close to me and the people on the street it becomes painfully apparent that we live in a society where we systematically deceive people in order to still appear socially normal. Normal in a world where problems simply don’t exist, everyone is polite and, to some extent, almost a “higher-being.”

I don’t know if it simply a male perspective or the ramblings of a deeply introverted human being but the one thing I don’t understand when it comes to human behaviour are the aptly named, “hints”. It has always remained a perpetual mystery to me why you would want to use body language or small bits of carefully shaped dialogue to relay a message to someone almost as ostentatiously as if you just said it out loud. Why can’t you simply just say it straight rather than give people around twenty different avenues to consider before they arrive at what you really mean? I certainly wouldn’t get offended or weirded (yes spell-checker, that is now a word) out if I was approached directly with a sensitive issue. Ultimately we both benefit in that we can talk over anything on your mind rather than the you just hoping the other person deciphers your “hints” and musters up the confidence you plainly don’t have to talk about it. It’s all just a guess game.

Small rant aside, I don’t blame people who like to drop “hints.” Talking to people when you are worried how they will react is daunting in a world where we have been raised to believe every person is as judgemental as the rest. The fundamental flaw with this pattern of thinking is that everybody is in the same boat and practically nobody will judge you for speaking the honest truth – unless of course speaking the honest truth means you will go to prison for a long, long, time.

And it’s not just “hints” which are products of social dishonesty. A much more destructive emotion to be caught up in this game of social cloak-and-dagger is anger. Being angry at somebody and not telling them – even hiding your feelings from them – doesn’t do anyone any favours whatsoever. You repress your emotions, the situation will not resolve itself and, at worst, you can appear downright bitchy. It’s okay to be angry at somebody but telling everybody but them is just not on. If I have upset somebody I would want to know about it so I can make it better; what I don’t want is everybody else judging me for something I don’t know is causing so much damage.

As a finality to this brief wander down dishonesty lane, I would like to share with you a story of where I have seen dishonesty consume a person to the point where lying to themselves has become the only way they can cope. I have known a particular friend for many years. He had a vibrant personality and we got on famously together. However, it became very apparent to me that he lived in a very enmeshed family and he easily caved into pressure for authority no matter how tentative the authority was. Over time he has alienated friend after friend and it has finally my turn to throw in the towel with him. He turned into a cliché as the only way to justify how he lives and he frequently compares himself and his future to fictional characters.

The deep irony of this example is that I tried telling him but he just got overtly angry. I tried to be honest with him but he just doesn’t take it well and I simply couldn’t carry on being in that kind of friendship anymore. After trying and trying I now try my best to ignore him, let him carry on deceiving himself. I guess I should be a stronger person but I’m not; at least I tried.

Anyway, I hope this short post hasn’t contained to much whining. It is a topic that has been plaguing my mind for a while and at least you can’t say I haven’t been honest about what I think.

Musings forward from June 2010.

Posted by on June 27, 2010 No comments

Well, the exam season is nearly over and it is almost time to put my feet up and relax. Well, not really; despite serious matters coming to a conclusion there are still quite a lot of recreational activities to get out-of-the-way first before I can claim to only having daydreaming on my agenda.

Firstly, the Shakespearian comedy that I am acting in is finally coming to fruition. After rehearsing in the Tudor courtyard in which we are performing, it is getting scarily close to the opening night. Well, I use the word ‘scarily’ in a loose sense, I am actually quite looking forward to it. This is one of the first proper productions I have been in and I’ve had a really good time working on it.

However, as that draws to a close I am filled a little with regret. I have met some really great people while rehearsing the play and I’m either going to be moving away from them or they will be going to opposite ends of the country in the same university quest I will be partaking on in the near future as well. I suppose that’s why God invented Facebook – if, like me, you count Zuckerberg as a God (lol jk I think he’s a privacy invading moron).

On lighter matters the Game-Engine crew will soon be heading down to Newquay with a few friends to celebrate the end of, well, whatever the opposite of further education is – previous education? There is going to be fun and, in more certainty than fun, alcohol; a copious amount of alcohol. Who knows, I may even break my quasi-teetotal philosophy.

Well, it’s all kicking off nowadays, isn’t it?

To continue with the random mammals theme - here is a raccoon.

Musings on the Social. Walking and Talking.

Posted by on June 19, 2010 No comments

Well I'll be fucked.

Hello. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but as some of you might have heard, the Ignition podcast this week has been delayed and, at the very worse canceled. This is down to many factors that are out of control: such as Matt being a complete twonk. Why is he a twonk? Well, no one can be sure. What we can be sure about is it is better to unjustly blame somebody for everything rather than admit we have a messed up situation.

Anyway, as we are moving up in our own world I thought it be best not to leave you high and dry with nothing to chew on for another week. It’s by that reasoning I sit in front of you today filling your brains with the delicious whipped cream that is my voice.

As any self-indulgent never-had-any-worries Brit will tell you these days, I’m getting fat. A fact that is most certainly not growing to my comfort. After realising my Dad is eying me up as a replacement for his worn out Pirelli, I have decided that something must be done about it.

I have resolutely decided some time ago, however, that exercise is about as boring as listening to my cousin’s feeble attempts to speak. So, with every problem comes a solution and I realised that, while my imbecilic one-year-old blood relative tries to gabble out, “mummy”, so badly I wish it was a summoning incantation for an Egyptian plague, I tend to resort to daydreaming.

So it was all just a matter of trying to figure out what can combine exercise with my love of ignoring people. The idea was obvious; the idea was even glorious; the idea was walking: by far the best and most introverted way to lose weight there possibly is.

So I set a route around some pretty lovely, a term I use loosely, urban areas around where I live and went to it. No iPods; no people; just me and my bordering on the schizophrenic fantasies. And for a time, this was just bliss.

What I didn’t factor into my equation is that many other, equally disturbed, people have also taken this approach. There are even some normal, most possibly extroverted, people being selfish and NOT driving. I mean it honestly makes me wonder what kind of world we are in where people will not spitefully destroy the planet just to avoid social interaction with you.

Anyway, these are things I can’t really help. I may have to meet people as I pass their way and just occasionally I can spitefully cross the road just so the awkward nod of acknowledgement does not have to happen. A particular facet of this interaction does annoy me a little-bit more than any other random interaction.

Putting it bluntly, meeting old people in the street is worse than dying. You instantly know they are judging you and if you smile at them, you’re automatically a paedo’. I don’t know how that works but by god that’s how it feels. And finally, if you’re on the verge of dying, please do not come out and spoil my pleasant evening. I don’t know whether to neglect your frailty by not offering you help or to neglect your dignity by offering you an over-enthusiastic piggy back.

It’s because of this sort of incredibly awkward interaction I pray in my head when I see someone of the older generation approaching, “Please, dear God, have a massive heart attack”. However, it’s to my displeasure to realise shortly after this cry of desperation that God probably doesn’t kill people over social awkwardness; which also dispels the myths of his parents being English and American.

Anyway, I draw on and I’m sure you don’t want me taking up more of your precious time looking at things on the internet. Thank you for not losing the will to live. Not you, granny.

Bitchen wheels! No, I meant bitch'n'wheels.