When it all comes down.

I used to get around 2000 hits a week on this thing, now it's more like 200.

It's my own fault- I stopped inputting data. The content froze. The crowds moved on.

I've been working on a novel, so anything remotely clever I may have had to say got slipped into that. And I have an iPhone too, which means if I need to self-diagnose, I record a voice memo instead. Very therapeutic.

Today was a little odd. I have trackers on all of my social media, so I know when my exes are stalking me online, or their friends. I see them poke around, look at my life, and leave (usually without incident). I have a policy to NEVER EVER look at their feeds, as that would indicate an interest in the past. I know there are no answers there, so there's no point looking.

But today a sister of someone I used to be involved with decided to drop a totally ill-informed rant on my Instagram, with the intention of hurting my feelings. I will tell you now, facts hurt my feelings. But barbed invective of exactly the kind you find being shouted by angry schoolgirls doesn't have any effect other than to make me feel sorry for the people closest to whoever is doing the ranting.

This rant got the wrong end of every stick currently available, and was factually incorrect at every level, so the capacity for offence was obviously diminished with every new word typed.

It also accused me of being "old", which I fail to see as an insult (it's an inevitability). And considering the amount of friends I have lost to disease, suicide, and misadventure, I wear it with pride, to be honest. It accused me of a number of things, all of which were baseless, but the net result was that it made me pause and think for a moment.

My first instinct was to think about all of the obvious faults inherent in my accuser. The family secrets that I know, and they don't. I was sworn to secrecy by those closest to them, and despite my lack of affection for any of these people any more, those secrets have been, and always will remain, firmly hidden. If my accuser knew what I know, their personal world would end, both because of the facts involved, but also from the shock that their own family never told them about it. It's all very juicy, but that's all I'm going to say about it.

Then my mind wandered to marinate on my own inner journey lately.

This is my blog, so I'm allowed to be as honest and blatant as I want (especially as I don't have a large readership to cater to any more).

I have struggled with suicidal feelings for so long, but it's not something that needs an intervention. I mean, I probably do, but please don't do that. What I'm saying is I feel so remote and disconnected from a world I'm really disgusted by. By people.

I don't fit in anywhere, but I'm not depressed about that. I can fool people into thinking I'm part of their group/scene/whatever when the necessity strikes. You have to if you want to remain employed. But it's all an act. On my weekends, I stock up on everything I need, I go home, shut the door, and don't come out for two or three days. I don't talk to anyone, I don't arrange to meet people, because I am far happier being alone. My housemate is exactly the same way, so it's perfect. We're ghosts.

My suicidal feelings aren't related to belonging, I'm horrified at the thought of belonging! I opted out on purpose, after all. No, they are related to the apparent pointlessness of life without whatever the singular form of gregariousness is.

There is a nagging, ever present background hum that says "You're doing it wrong", because the idea that of the thousands of people I have met in this lifetime so far, they have all meant so little, that I purposefully elect to actively stay away from people and avoid fresh interactions completely.

Is that what life turns into?

I mean, I know I could change it if I wanted to... it's the not wanting to that seems so out of place and which makes me question what the point is.

I keep myself very busy. I have 3 jobs, two of which are my own businesses. I sleep a maximum of 6 hours a night, I simply cannot sleep more than that any more. I have creative pursuits that I lend myself to regularly, despite my bleak outlook that after I die, my computer will be wiped and given to someone else, and all of the music and writing I have poured into it will simply be deleted. But I mean, that's true, isn't it?

No one is going to give a crap about any of it. And why should they? I have never claimed to be talented or necessary. I'm just another ant, doing ant things. And when I dry up and cease to function, other ants will take my place in this great and magnificent dance we call life.

And, shock/horror- I'm fine with that. I guess I just concentrate too much thought energy on "Why wait?"

And I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you that I laugh every day. Quite a lot. I'm very entertained, I do a lot of fun things, I enjoy myself immensely. But a large part of my personality is that I get tired of things very quickly, so even if I'm laughing and having fun, my inner cynic is still always waiting to yawn and point at its watch.

I work very very hard, and that's great, because I gain a great deal of satisfaction from a hard days work. I don't enjoy work at all, but I do enjoy it. It's like if Escher did personalities.

But to drag this rattling out-of-control word salad into some semblance of a point, I really want to declare this:

I read back through a few posts in this blog today. And while there exists literal clouds of wanky, self-indulgent, ultimately meaningless garbage; there are also some very solid posts of which I am extremely proud of. And I don't need any form of wider recognition to validate them. I don't care if only 3 people read them, or if they become mandatory reading for High School English. I needed to say some things, I said them, and the way in which I articulated those things tickles me to revisit.

Mission accomplished, so to speak.

And it made me realise, no matter what anyone has to say about me, no matter how negatively I may experience my own self at times, and even no matter how pointless we all are with our ideas and careers and cars and brain tumours; some of the posts in this blog are of a high enough standard that I feel I achieved something worthwhile in all of the living, assessing, experiencing, learning, mistakes, revisions, and other ephemera that went into the creation thereof.

Words are an acceptable legacy in my opinion (and no, that isn't a cry for help or a threat of self harm).

Just sayin'.


This is knifey, from 'the internet'.

Fame as a birthright.

In 1968, Andy Warhol said that "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes."

In 1970, Alvin Toffler wrote 'Future Shock', where the accelerated rate of technological and social change left people disconnected and suffering from "shattering stress and disorientation".

In 1991, Douglas Coupland released 'Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture', which depicted through the structure of a framed narrative, the stories of inhabitants of a post-Toffler existence.

On June 11, 2002, Simon Fuller, Fremantle Media North America, and 19 Entertainment presented 'American Idol: The Search for a Superstar'.

Today, I would contend that the accelerated rate of change, coupled with the publics diminishing ability to concentrate, has accelerated Warhol's 15 minutes so fast that it has reached zero point and has nowhere to go but in reverse.

Instead of 15 minutes, the public shows trends of consuming media voraciously with a constant focus on 'what comes next'.

Due to the revolving door format of reality shows, todays stars are actually manufactured with a clearly definable use-by date, to the extent that new entertainers are often criticised for attempting any kind of action toward career longevity.

And in the extreme, entertainers suffer backlash for releasing a second album, or for branching into other areas (ie: acting) in a move to cement future exposure.

The message seems to be that you don't get 15 minutes then fade away any more, you get one quick shot, and then "You are embarrassing now."

This microwave oven entertainment situation has a flow-on effect to society, and of course to younger more impressionable minds, who no doubt wonder why anyone even remembers Led Zeppelin or The Doors. Because entertainment is disposable (and more often than not, free), star power means a lot less than it used to. 

So the first single by artist 'X', charting highly this week, is not expected to remain in place. In fact, there is a general belief that artist 'X' will be back at their day job this time next year. As a result, the artists musical integrity (if it exists in the first place), is watered down to the point of irrelevance. If an artist other than the pantheon of record industry superstars (Rihanna, Beyonce, GaGa, Katy Perry, Matchbox 20, Nickelback, etc...) does live to release a follow-up album, they are often hated for it by many of the same people who jumped over each other to get at the first. 

The record industry of course is fully aware of this, and encourages (if not exacerbates) this situation, as it allows their top stars to monetise heavily on their safe position, and allows the companies themselves to churn out large volumes of content that is produced extremely cheaply and with no long term artist development expenses to consider. Very clean. This safe market position is tirelessly maintained by huge numbers of behind-the-scenes staff and media, who constantly engineer and promote leaked sex tapes (that everyone involved in is not only aware of, but has signed off on, and is getting paid for), as well as paparazzi stories/videos, and manufactured news/photo opportunities. gossip, and carefully constructed legal allegations.

Let's not forget that reality TV has injected a curious element into this mix- most kids sitting at home, even those without an atom of talent to call their own, fully believe not only that they have a chance at fame too, but that they are actually entitled to it.

And because they believe in this entitlement, their attitude is very much "Hurry up and die so I can have my turn."

We've never had that before.

The socio-musical balance has been upset, and the flipside to this commentary is that young people have become both perpetrators and victims of this cut throat mentality.

Kids have always been unpleasant, but now even more so. Being nice is considered a weakness, there is a constant pressure to retain SWAG, to live without thought for the future or consequences (YOLO), to "Trust no bitch", etc... This aggressive MEME culture values the individual over the collective, without the individual in question actually needing to have any sort of mental/cultural/ personal currency to back up their claim of importance.

It is entitlement as apex predator.

Of course culture can only maintain this direction and frenetic pace for so long before a new paradigm is forced to emerge, and I'm not ashamed to say I have absolutely no idea what it will be.

Technology and science/biology are tending towards collaboration as the standard model, which seems reasonable. And of course this generation will learn a lot of hard personal lessons over the next decade, and will settle as all other generations do/have, into a more societally acceptable/workable mindframe.

But we are a long way off a transhumanist H+ hive-mind/singularity. People are just too absorbed in irrelevance, and their own desire to lead that irrelevance right now. Unless there is a huge personal payoff (superhuman strength, unlimited information and blindingly fast access/processing abilities), there is no reason to give up on that dream of fame and pecuniary advantage.

The concept of an altruistic/benelovent culture swing seems more like science fiction than human/animal chimeras (which have existed in China since 2003) do right now.

That's really saying something about us.


This is knifey, from 'the internet'.