My so called depravity

FeaturedMy so called depravity

Beware of how vain this piece of writing is, if you are you may enjoy it more. Perhaps you could think of it as your own.

I often think about how depraved I am.

Then I push it out of my mind. I can’t dwell on it too long or ever speak of it.

This is false. It isn’t really me.

I’m the person who has these dark and depraved thoughts, these imaginings and impulses that would shock and scare people.

Would people still think of me the same way if I told them who I really am? I think many I know think of me as a ‘good’ person.

Does a good person think for a moment of running a person over in the forecourt of a petrol station because they are standing in the way of your car and won’t move fast enough? Probably.

Does a good person think of killing someone because they are irritated by them momentarily? I think so.

I think the idea of ‘good’ is illusory. We do not do certain things because we know the penalties we would face. So are we really good just because we deny our impulses? Or are we weak?

Are we good because we feel good being good? Or are we good because we think we should be?

In terms of ‘goodness’, I think the penalties we give ourselves would be the harshest.

The torture that we would subject ourselves to if we strayed to a place where we killed or really harmed someone we loved or even someone we hated. You see it in the eyes of someone who has done such a thing.

I have met a man who killed the love of his life. I felt pity for him. He betrayed himself. And betrayed those who loved him and the person he killed.

But I am a good man. Whatever good is. Fuck good and fuck bad.

Is a really bad person, condemned by society, who admits their fault, better than a good person who does not? I think probably they are.

People think I am good. Not everyone does of course. We all have our detractors. My biggest being myself. Which is not unique.

I think of chaos, destruction and evil. I think of Violence, anger and hate.

I balance this out with the positive aspects of my character though. Peace, love and understanding. I do not sink into the depravity I imagine.

Does that make me less depraved though? I don’t think so.

I think of vengeance. Vengeance for wrongs done to my loved ones. Vengeance for wrongs done by my loved ones.

Vengeance for wrongs done to me, vengeance for wrongs done by me.

I think of death. Death to those who do not believe I am right. I know more than everyone else. I am greater than you.

I can’t articulate it yet however.

That is sheer vanity though. The true weakness of humanity. My weakness. My humanity.

I know enough to know that it is meaningless to know more or to be more. Though it is also meaningful. We will all die. Or will we download our consciousness to a hard drive and live on?

Will that be good? Or helpful? To live forever? Is god in the machine? Will we create our god? Will we make ourselves gods? Maybe.

I don’t look forward to fading away. Of aging until I disappear. Lying in a bed being waited on by patronising fucks. Though I am intrigued by death.

I look forward to the alternate dimension. Death is quite possibly a magical thing. It hastens to us with it’s beautiful fatality, it’s end, regardless.

Death is the end they say.

That said, what do we know of it? Of what lies beyond it? What do we really know? Of inter-dimensional realities?

Very little. There are alternate dimensions, I know this, and many others do also. I have seen them. I do not care if you do not believe. If you do not then you should think on it further. Ruminate.

I know more than you do. I am more depraved than you. I accept the depravity and the knowledge. I accept death and life.

I hate, and I love. I love you. And I hate you. I am at peace with this. As you should be also.

I bore myself and others. I know enough to know I am a bore. Peace be with you.

I do not look forward to reading this in a year. I will despise it tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

Blog

I’m writing a blog because I’m doing a job and it is interesting and humorous. It is no longer commercial construction which I’m quite pleased about.

It is something a bit more enjoyable and inventive. Besides that I’m working on some incredibly slow writing projects. They are both books. They will both be good books. I’m taking my time though.

We are all on our own journey. The crowd at this job is pretty cool. I like the people I’m working with, they’re all pretty chill.

I’m also teaching myself the electric guitar again. I used to play a little bit of guitar many years ago. My mother and siblings are much better guitar players than me though I’m going to now try and get good.

What else is happening? Wars in several places. The people depicted in the movie Swordfish are doing well. Let me tell you. Big dividends, biiiiggg dividends.

What else? A hilarious thing is happening in English pro football where the clubs are getting punished by the league for outdated financial penalties based on amounts from yesteryear.

Quite bizarre really but at the same time it is good it has reined in the ridiculous transfer spending of some clubs. It encourages player development and restricts outlandish deals to once a year.

What else,? I admire you all and look to you for inspiration and advice. Take care and go well.

Bird song

A twitter out the window, slices through the cool crisp air, the morning sings.

Rebirth, renewal, it is constant.

Let not the prophets of doom reduce your universe with their predictions of terror.

We are eternal there is no end near us we need be fearful of.

This has all happened before, our earth is wise. We are it’s offspring.

It has magic in its nature, we are in that magic, it is in us.

Technocrats think they will find the answer in a machine, they fool themselves. It is a lie.

Machines are magnificent but devour nature in their work.

They are not capable of reproduction without direction and information.

Birdsong in the cool crisp morning makes me think of these things.

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Pathetic politics

Pathetic politics

The government has failed us again. Anyone surprised?

Entrenched in its mired dogma, it is religion extrapolated into modern realities with politicians as holy ones, and the prime minister as some sort of voice of god. Ardern like Key before, worshipped like some sort of holy emperor.

It is a natural human trait to place such faith in our leaders and they thrive within such adoration and reverence.

Is this type of fervour really healthy? Or the hatred espoused by those who despise the leader? Either choice is a trap. Indifference is perhaps worse still. Do we not need new leadership that is not ensconced in these relics of bygone eras?

Trapped in a cage of our own making. We are so comfortable we almost don’t care. Until things happen that we really don’t agree with. Then almost always it is is too late.

Silly flag referendums, silly big government decisions. Lies about taxation, lies about business reform, lies about all sorts of things.

It is easy to stop the rot. Just drop red and blue. Vote anyone else but red or blue. So easy. Take a stand, enough is enough.

Aotearoa is and has been for hundreds of years a land of innovation.

Why is it trapped in decades old political systems and ideas?

Why does everyone faithfully vote blue or red every election? Without considering an alternative?

Do you think suddenly inspiration will really alight upon these tired institutions? That the members will suddenly remember they work for the people? And not for themselves?

These tired political warhorses and their feeble minded group think, scared of dynamic change because it will upset their sponsors and business partners?

Why is the bulk of the populace in thrall to these hacks?

These politicians who take the easy road and join the red or blue team? They sign up to carry the colours. They let go of their own beliefs, buy into the team think.

The Labour party again foisting their big govt ideals on the nation with the water plan while National vocalise loud critique of it without providing any solution. Fucking pathetic.

Both of these big parties deserve to fade away slowly and not be mourned. The litany of their policy errors follows them and yet they somehow still get the majority of the vote.

Why do we stand for this shit?

Like so many bright eyed children at kindergarten in thrall to a charasmatic teacher we listen to the pollies as they spout their shit every election cycle.

This time it will work! This time they will do what they said they would! This time they’ll look after us.

We have the political mechanism to destroy this ridiculous duopoly.

These parties are in our employ. We can stop funding them, we can stop them from taking the piss.

Is it not time to really look at the situation and really use more stringent discernment to make your political choice beyond the hot air these prideful political institutions indulge in?

I’m so tired of inept leadership exercised by people who have no real interest in pursuing the best interests of the population at large. And also of governments that think they can build levers of control that will not be mired in bureacracy.

Centralising control has clearly not worked well but currently Labour are doing this exact thing with the water.

The councils need to be held accountable for their ineptitude over time. This can be achieved in the provinces. The central govt will not do a better job, it is a joke to think they will.

Vote anyone but red or blue. Those parties are corpses rotting from the inside out. I yearn for the day they disappear.

It is up to all of us to make it happen. I hope you’ll stop voting for the party your parents voted for, or the one they didn’t.

Vote anyone but red or blue. Make them pay for their feeble ineptitude. Enough is enough.

Time passes

I thought I’d write something just for the hell of it.

I don’t write a lot anymore besides comments on social media. I love to write though. Words have always been a place for me to feel free in that I know them well and they seem to know me.

Or I seem to know them and they are there for me.

I read prolifically as a young man because my dear old mum introduced me to it. She’s an inspiration to me and many others.

I simply devoured text from the age of about seven until now. The funny thing is for approximately 35 years it was books and print media. As a teen I would read four to six novels a month with non-fiction writing interspersed. No exaggeration, I was a reading machine. I read less as I got older but would still read a decent sized book at least every month. Then computer based literature became the norm. These days I very rarely read anything other than a screen.

I don’t feel bad about that either. I love print, don’t get me wrong. I like nothing better than to sit down in a moment and read a book. The feeling, the smell, the moment. Beautiful.

Writing seemed to be something for me to aspire to do as a younger man because most of my true heroes were writers. These days I wonder about everything. I question myself and everything.

I thought the other day I should write something and then wondered what exactly it would be.

You have to have a gripe online these days. I don’t really have one to be honest.

I’m trying harder to be a better person if that means anything to anyone. It’s difficult. I have a lot of baggage. Childhood trauma and the like. My parents parting company when I was two years old was apparently quite troublesome for the younger me.

It’s something I’m getting to grips with. I struggle feeling appreciated and respected which proves problematic for people around me, particularly my partner and my kids.

I think I’m improving though. Sonetimes I think the idea I had when I was in my mid-twenties that I’d be better off alone forever might have been accurate but then I quash those feelings. They were pretty nihilistic really.

I cannot imagine life without my little whanau. Such lovely spirits.

That said I do work everyday to check myself. It’s a difficult thing to get a handle on. I have a lot of things to work on. Irritability is a big one. I’m extremely impatitient with people due to feelings about myself which I bury.

Insecurity and fear are constant problems in my mind, which though clouded, is aways brimming with information and ideas. Insecurity and fear dog my existence with their shrill call. I doubt myself constantly and everyone else as well. More myself though.

All is not lost however. I believe in humanity and our ability to move forward into the never. We are capable of godhood, no matter what your friend says. We can be greater than anything else before us. Never give up your belief. I won’t.

Anyway. take it easy. I hope you’re well x

A dog named Jacque

The last year of high school I inherited a dog named Jacque.

My elderly neighbour had died and his dog was unwanted by the family. I had a bit of a rapport with the animal so was volunteered by my parents for the role of dog adopter.

Jacque was a good dog though he had a penchant for chasing flying birds, he was obsessed with it.

I tried in the first few winter months I owned him to try to interest him in other games. It worked well with a triangular rubber boomerang. We passed those few cold months together and developed an even greater bond, throwing that triangular thing.

Later in the year one warm spring Saturday I took him to the beach with friends. I had the boomerang, and planned to throw it in the surf with Jacque.

My friends were having a barbecue at a popular beach. Lovely spot.

I was surprised by the size of the crowd when we got to the beach. It was heaving. The weather was perfect and the water was beautiful.

Jacque and I took to the surf and had a great time. It was surprisingly warm and there were more people swimming than usual, it was magic. Everyone had a great barbecue meal, including Jacque who got a chop and a sausage, good dog.

We lounged around for awhile and then I took Jacque for another swim.

I threw the boomerang a few times and Jacque dilligently returned it.

I then threw it hard but I thought a little too deep. That was when I yelled first.
“Jacque!”

Some people to the left of me looked over.

I could see Jacque swimming deeper and deeper. I yelled again. This time louder.

“Jacque!”

Some more people looked around, I wondered why.

Jacque swam further and further out.

“Jacquuuueeee!”

I yelled it quite loudly now, oblivious to everything around me.

“Jaccqquuuueeee!”

Suddenly I heard someone to the right of me scream.

“Shark! Shark! Shark! Shark! Arrrrggghhh!”

Jacque had got the boomerang and was swimming back toward me. To my great relief.

The problem now was the beach was in a panic. Someone had yelled shark and the crowd was rolling toward land at high speed. Hundreds had taken up the cry, shark!  shark! they screamed. The beach was a chaos of human panic, a speeding torrent of flesh, rushing from the water onto the land.

A man had died at this beach in a shark attack four years ago.

Jacque and I luckily scrambled safely up to our friends car. Rather shockingly we heard two people weren’t so lucky. They were knocked out in the crowd crush and fell into the surf and drowned.

I always felt so sorry for them. What a terrible coincidence.

It wasn’t till three years later that I realised the drownings were the fault of my elderly neighbour.

He named his dog for a friend called Jacque he’d had in the great war.

“Jacque, Jacque, the card shark”.

Stuffed: Or why I grew even more tired of the media

Stuffed: Or why I grew even more tired of the media

So I had this childhood ambition to write for the Hawke’s Bay Herald Tribune.

Unfortunately, it was merged into the Napier rag and became Hawke’s Bay today.

However, I also aspired to write for the Dominion. Which unfortunately was also merged into another paper, the Evening Post.

The Dom got the first name though, so remained the Dominion.

For me personally, the day I got my first story in the Dominion, some flood plain carry on in Greytown, was a proud one.

Then I got a number of fronts, seconds and third pages so it was pretty good for a bit. Despite the wage slavery I was under. I could have got an extra 25 percent or more pay doing the same job in Melbourne or Sydney, or probably most places in Oz.

Now I’m working in a completely different industry and doing well in NZ, thankfully, it’s just a transition though.

The thing is, I did enjoy the thing that was the NZ media for a bit. Despite the lameness and boredom. There were some great characters. People I really enjoyed talking to and interacting with.

I got to drive a nice late model car and charge expenses for interviews and meetings, the odd freebie, the skydive was probably the best, followed closely by the ride in an ex airforce aerobatic plane. It was ok in some ways.

I met a lot of really cool people and wrote stories that changed things in their lives. Me and my good friend JP Delamere saved our mate Frank van Steensel’s dog.

A triumph, we beat the machine (SWDC), which wanted to grind his dogs bones to dust. And spent over $20,000 on one of the top law firms in Wellington trying to do it.

Fuck them. We won.

Several other decent stories as well.

I wrote some lovely bits of prose in the Dom and on Stuff that a few people read.

I used to throw literary little gems in, like, ‘baleful’.

That was in my first page two story after a central Wellington shift. It was a little photo and spiel anchor piece. I think the intro was something like, “The annual blah blah swim took place in baleful conditions at Petone Beach today.”

I was petrified whoever edited would take baleful out, gladly they left it. Too good a word I think.

I’d try to get at least one lesser-used word in an article. Just to get them out there.

My first Dom front page was an anchor, with a lovely photo of a whales tail coming back down after bursting through the surface of the brine.

It was about oil companies using sonic detection equipment to disturb whales and other sea-dwelling mammals off the NZ coast. I was happy it bore out because I’d had issues getting the oil companies for comment.

In the end though, it was a job where you were expected to write certain stories a certain way and do things as they had been done.

Ridiculously uninspiring at most times. Unless you were a ‘newshound’, good grief.

I despised Stuff before I worked for it, briefly entertained the idea it was ok while working and then swiftly returned to despising it post-employment.

I still have a soft spot for the Dom though, it will never be ‘Stuff’, and the people there were by and large excellent.

Helpful, intelligent and insightful most of them. Special mention must go to Eric Janssen, Piers Fuller, who hired me, and others like Katie Chapman, Jo Rigby and Patrick Piercy who all helped me develop my writing significantly in the time I was there.

Tom Hunt is a cool cat I liked to have a yarn too and my former office-mate Jack Barlow is probably one of the most talented Kiwi writers I’ve ever met.

In the end though, there were certain kooks who managed to ruin it.

A high up Stuff chap (recently confused with a U.S. pro athlete), took offence to me joking to him at the Stuff Christmas party that I was the best writer working for the company.

He complained to my boss who had a word with me a few weeks later while all the while probably knowing I was just having a laugh.

Fragile egos. I should know, I have one. Not that fragile though. Jeepers.

I also told someone very high up in Stuff online, the same night, that the entertainment writing was extremely poor and that they should get my friend back in.

That also didn’t go down well and was party to the warning the came after the joke.

I really lost a lot of respect for the job after that, knowing that such people were in charge. Such painfully weak minded people, in thrall to the verbal slings and arrows of maniacs like me.

How pitiful.

I pull no punches sometimes and say things for a laugh. Or for a thought. I’d gladly work for a media outlet again if I could write whatever I wanted, but that will most likely never happen. Oh well.

I made a lot of vids for Stuff as well, over 70 for the website. My favourite was from an aerobatic plane. SUper vid. I’ll include the link below if I can find it.

Peace out my loves. We know nothing about this universe and what makes it tick and yet consider ourselves so wise at times.

Such folly, beautifully humorous folly. May humanity learn much more moving forward. And may you have a beautiful day.

Thank you to whoever took the time to read this, I appreciate it a great deal.

Link to aerobatic story, check out the vid I took, it was wild. Really great buzz.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/89695998/aerobatic-pilots-show-extreme-discipline-and-focus-during-nz-champs

Supercilious

Supercilious

Supercilious am I? Yes.

For what reason? Not entirely sure, though I have a handle on it.

I have deep rooted insecurities stemming from moments as a young child where I felt as if I was unimportant.

Seems plausible doesn’t it?

I think so. Is this a poem?

No it isn’t. Or is it? I’ll make it rhyme soon.

I always find myself commenting on things on social media as if I know something that other people don’t. One of my strengths as a youth and young adult was my encyclopedic general knowledge, thanks to a lifetime of book reading.

Thanks to google that now means shit. If you know something people assume you googled it. Unless they are in your presence and you spit it out within about twenty seconds.

Oh well, I’m comfortable knowing that if there is a power cut I am generally still the best at general knowledge.

To he’ll with that though. Do you ever think about killing people? I know a lot of people do.

I do. Only sometimes. Just when someone annoys me too much, when they cross the line of insanity. I think for a few seconds about if I had a scimitar and just swept it violently through the air in their general direction.

That’s normal behaviour I think. We all think about violence, it’s normal on some level.

Or if it isn’t for you, it should be, you sanctimonious prude. God damn it.

I’m deluded enough to think the world would be a better place if I was in charge.

Then I realise, eventually, that that is an egotistical quagmire and I relax.

I hope you are all well.

Try to be great and try to be good, but if you can’t just try to be loud.

Woke

I woke the other day, I mean, I became woke. I decided I was, and so it was.

I realised quickly I needed to find my people. I had to find the others who had woken.

We needed to distance ourselves from those who were asleep, the sheep. We were the elite, the thought leaders.

Our new found mental prowess enabled us to immediately decide who people were based on the first ever communication we saw from them. No matter how trivial. Or even base assumptions on where they lived and their ancestry.

It felt powerful, in a world where I had often felt powerless. I joined several Facebook pages and followed a lot of Instagrams. I became a top commenter. I was making a difference to the total perspective.

My wokeness was awakening others. It was like a dream.

Suddenly I knew what was going on. I knew who didn’t. I knew what the problems were and I was pretty sure I could figure out how to fix them.

Memes suddenly changed my perspective minute by minute, and I would rarely confirm the things said in them. What woke person would make a false meme?

Obviously someone not woke. I trusted my fellow woken. I was pretty sure we the woke would fix everything. For the future.

In fact, I realised we would fix it. I realised we were like gods. I had woken.

Are you woke? I think it’s best to be woke.woke