Another year

 It's December again and time to write some more thoughts. I have had this blog since 2005, but only really post each year to add another line to the list of years. It is unlikely that anyone reads anything on here.

I feel like nothing I do makes any difference to anyone. I quit my job in environmental consulting in September, and had to wait until October to actually stop. Financially, this was a terrible decision, I missed out on yet another bonus. Morally, I could not take it any more. I have come to believe that all work carried out in an office is corrupt and immoral. Putting money before human lives, before environment, etc.. Writing proposals and reports for environmental services to companies that manufacture weapons - that kill people, make craters in the planet, and ultimately burn fuel for no good reason - seems counter-intuitive. Justifying this practice with "if we don't then someone else will" doesn't seem like a suitable method to combatting climate change. Universally blackballing these companies, such that they are unable to obtain the correct credentials and have to pay the fines seems a more suitable option.

Ah well, this is no longer my problem to solve.

I am sick of living in a world of people that only want to do what will put the most money in their bank accounts, regardless of the consequences.

This year I have been journaling a fair amount. Somewhat of a late resolution. Some weeks I did every day, some weeks not at all, better than nothing. I need to catch up, but at the moment I am working nights and haven't had anything I feel like writing... I think this can count as an entry anyway.

My car broke down (clutch went) on Thursday morning after work. Got towed to a garage for £165. The garage said it will cost £1,500 to fix... There goes my last 3 weeks of work in one go. What's the point???Potentially should have tried to fix it myself, but the tools needed would probably cost about as much as just getting them to fix it. I hope they aren't scamming me.

I have been hanging out with a few people a fair amount. Open mic nights on Thursday and Sunday at the Oxford have been fun, and I have written new songs. Had the best date idea with a girl I met there. She is obsessed with spiderman, I took her to an arcade bar with a PS1 to play the spiderman game. Been meeting up with her since... However, since starting work, my meltdowns have come back and I am scared that I am scaring her off. This of course manifests scaring her off... I am stressed out with life. Feel as if I have no purpose, no reason to get out of bed.

On that note, I very much enjoy sleep... Have dream adventures with no repercussions. Then I wake up and have to work and survive.

A letter to my mum

 Dear mum,

It’s 1 year since you left this place and I hope it’s peaceful and painfree where you are.

I think about you everyday. I miss being able to talk to you, because there aren’t a whole lot of people I feel comfortable opening up to. There aren’t a lot of people that understand me like you did, but then you raised me. I miss coming to talk to you every time I left the house. 

It’s a struggle with you gone. Most people don’t understand how this feels and I have very little patience for nearly anyone these days. I struggle to see the point in work, or why we do anything, I don’t want to look back and wish I had spent less time working, but the world is so expensive.

You would be proud of me for the things I have done in the last year, I know that much, but I am struggling to keep going with it. The way this world is drives me insane and all I want is it to stop.

I know you would have done anything for more time.

Joel

x

When everything seems hopeless

When everything seems hopeless

Even in the darkest night,

A torch’s light cuts through it, bright.

Even in the dullest days,

Tops of clouds see the sun’s rays.

When all hope seems on the brink,

Just be calm, take time to think,

At least a place is there that’s dark,

A place that, one day, light can arc.

Just chill out, take time to be,

The dark will pass, and then you’ll see,

When everything seems hopeless,

The world will turn, regardless.

JRF

Monologue

I seem to just come on here when I am sad about stuff or when it's Christmas, and it's not Christmas.

"Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have something you desire" - Susan Cain.

Sometimes I get trapped in a feeling. The rage builds up and unless someone is there to stop me feeling it or calm me down, it will get to the point where I will alienate everyone. This always results in the same ending. I end up alone and feel like shit, knowing that I am in the wrong. I wish I could see myself going into one of these spirals as it happens, instead of when it is too late.

We envy people that have success in places that we don't have success in. This is a result of having insecurity in who we are as people. So the less secure we feel, the more we envy other people's security. 

I should be secure in myself by now, but am not. I keep having ideas thinking - maybe if I get a job I will feel secure - maybe if I have more friends I will feel secure - maybe if I improve this skill I will feel secure - maybe if I have a house I will feel secure. But I don't think any of these things will help. Instead it is a mindset that I need.

People always suggest therapy; tried this last year. I just don't think therapists really know what they need to draw out of me. I don't even know this, so how could they? So, I just resort to circling around the same few topics. I felt as though I was pouring 1/8 of my paycheque down the drain. Then everyone asks me why I stopped.

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So it turns out I'm fine, just was in a bit of a complex state, figured out a whole friendship I had turned into a really toxic gaslighting situation. So I fixed that because now we both understand gaslighting better we are not stuck in it any more. If you can care about someone so much that you both remain friends after this sorta thing then you must really love each other (in the platonic sense, of course).

I have found the Duncan Trussell Family Hour (DTFH) podcast very helpful to listen to with regard to topics such as existentialism, which I think I've struggled with my whole life. I would get overtly angry about my lack of reason-for-being, but that podcast calms me down significantly.

There are so many stresses out there. I am working hard to build up. I am succeeding in work -  which I understand has been helped by my middle-class parents; that I have never felt financially pressured or had to worry about where my next meal is coming from; and the fact that the ethnicity I happened to be born into has bullied all the other ethnicities for however many years to the point that now, despite that our ethnicity has collectively realised that this is wrong (with a disturbingly large number of stragglers), we still have so much inequality that we still need to equalise, so many inequalities that most of us don't even realise are inequalities. I digress. I mean I am succeeding in the actual day to day stuff, which helps when you are trying to buy a house.

I'm currently working on buying a house or flat, which is a hard enough feat to accomplish even after you have acquired enough income for it. Buying a house is like hurdles... Except all the hurdles are like high jumps of varying sizes depending on the situation you happen to be born into and where you want to live. The rich and powerful and all those governments being possessive over who can live in what areas. It's a bit idealistic, I know, but why can't we work together? We can achieve so much more collectively as a species than if we spend all this time and energy fighting each other. Everyone I meet at the moment seems so lovely, so how do all these assholes end up in charge?!? Is there like a secret population of nasty hermits who control everything and only show up on voting days? Or is everyone just faking being nice?

Stop waving your genitals at each other and work together.

Christmas 2021

 Hi all, Joel here, I just wanted to wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

This has been an interesting year for me… Been changing my mind about where I want to live every few months; had a political protest where I donated a month of my salary to charity; had my largest ever pay check; learnt a lot about myself; became more in touch with my feminine side; got closer to my best friend.

I’ve sort of settled on Bristol as the next place to live in my life. This has bounced between London and Portsmouth in the past, but I have decided that I need something new and can’t afford London anyway, and it is so big it is not really a sustainable place to live. London is designed to try to screw you out of money. I don’t know a Londoner who hasn’t been caught by the scam that is the ANPR network. Google maps doesn’t know about the network of taxi and bus only lanes. It’s designed to catch you out! So even I have been caught out by this, this year.

Things are going fairly well financially. I got a new used car this year. RIP to the OLW (scrapped for charity) and hello NiKU. Already had my first RTC in it, no damage to me but like £6k damage to the other person. Kinda sucks. Just want the insurance companies to stop calling me every now and again and deal with it like we pay them to. But ah well.

In terms of self discovery I have I have had 8 weeks of counselling because I needed help with some stuff. Ended up quitting because I felt like I had run out of stuff to talk about. I want to start a podcast as a result of these sessions. But i need to plan that in advance.

At work I have been working on lots of Target Setting related stuff. I feel I have upped the company’s value a fair amount. I just need to get better at teaching people how to use my products, particularly the product footprint calculator. Target setting has gone well though!

In terms of faith. I am currently distant spiritually. I am struggling a bit with a lot of the hypocrisy at churches. But when you call anyone out they point you in the direction of Matthew 7:1-5. So it is impossible to really get through to them.

Having realised I connect and relate very well with autistic people and people with ADHD, I have considered seeing if i can get a diagnosis for one of these. However, in my opinion these “disorders” are the worlds way of saying “you don’t fit in” which is ridiculous. My autistic and ADHD friends are the most interesting people I have met.

I have been to free parties this year. These included a drum circle event. It just involved loads of people getting in the flow with each other. The culture is incredible! The rich don’t realise that the rest of us just want to live freely. Is that too much to ask?

My protest I did this year was a success. I donated my November basic salary to a 3 charities (info here: www.denytaxdonate.org). This was to protest government spending, giving money to themselves and their mates in exchange for a donation to the Tories. Definitely syphoning our taxes. 

There are other self discoveries I have had this year, but I don’t feel comfortable discussing these at the moment. There is so much I would love to say.

But anyway, Merry Christmas everyone and happy new year!

Christmas, new year etc

So we have pretty much just gone round the sun again. This year, for the first time in my life I’m financially stable, with no dependents (single and no kids). 

Anyway, the way we do our Christmas presents on dad’s side of the fam is sort of a secret Santa. I got given one of my cousin’s names. So I bought what was on her list and sent it to her. Didn’t think it was a big deal. Anyway, my aunt sent back £25 saying ‘it wasn’t fair’. I don’t think Christmas is about what is fair and what isn’t. Why can’t people just accept gifts? Someone recommend me a charity and they can have this money.

On another note, who reckons 2021 will be just as bad as 2020? At least in 2020 we had until March to be free! I guess we’ll see how effective this vaccine is. I just want to party.

My sister just left but when my sister said ‘I’m going to have to go soon’, our google home said ‘we’re looking forward to it’. If that isn’t the most savage thing one of these AI assistant things has said then I don’t know what is.

Some resolutions for the next year:

- Release a single

- Make some new friends

- Make plans for a skate ramp, 300Wh battery pack, van

- Go to at least 1 festival

Be different. Be yourself. Stop stereotyping.

If you are going to comment on this, please make sure to read the whole thing first.

As many people will know, gender has been one of the major controversial topics of the 21st century. To be quite honest, I think the whole thing is sexist.

So where does gender come from? As humans we notice patterns. We grow up and we see biological men and biological women and we invent stereotypes of what we see these men are like and what we see these women are like and so on and so forth. These stereotypes are completely fabricated by our own minds and we can't stop ourselves creating these. They are also reinforced by advertising and marketing. These stereotypes are completely based on what we see other people doing outwardly (obviously we don't have eyes inside other peoples' heads).

We then look at ourselves and we notice that we don't fit in to these stereotypes. For example, I am a straight man but I wouldn't say I fit the "manly stereotype", I am fairly "stereo-typically feminine" so to speak. But this does not mean I am not a man and it also does not mean I am not straight. I had counselling once and the counsellor tried to "diagnose me" as trans (yes it was CAMHS). I have also had a fair number of people ask me if I am and accuse me of being gay (partly because I am not constantly hitting on women - a straight male stereotype), but sexuality is not what I am talking about here. 

Basically, the problem is that people want to put labels on things. Then when they don't fit the labels they were assigned (i.e. their biological sex), they believe that they should be something else so they can fit in.

This is all completely stupid. You can be a man and wear high heels and make up and be submissive. You can be a woman and play American football, have high aggression and be dominant. The fact is that all humans are different and we should not define ourselves by these umbrella categories of different "genders". If there were no such thing as "gender stereotypes" and everyone would just be themselves (a human with a penis, or a human with a menstrual system), then there would be none of these problems of gender dysphoria. 

By claiming that you should have been part of another sex (using gender), you are being sexist, claiming that all people of your assigned biological sex are like one thing (that you aren't), and all people of the other assigned biological sex are like another thing (which you are). This is stereotyping, stop doing it. 

Be different. Be yourself. There is no such thing as gender. You don't need to fit in.

I'll probably get a lot of hate for this.