The Great Wall of Vanity.

I admire adaptability, the actors of the world who can change what they let people see about them, fooling others into believing a truth that doesn't exist in any way at all. I enjoy being versatile but on no level close to the best, before it sounds like I'm trying to stand on a podium with these masters of their art. Some of the performances I've put on may actually be award worthy thinking back on it.

I'm growing more tired of life, the prospects of the future, the paths I can pick out compared to a life I'd actually want to have. Most days I find myself overcome with feelings of disdain for every minor infraction or occurrence around me, I feel like I want an escape and the old methods don't work any more and I'm running out of ideas. I want to live a life filled with meaning and do something that matters, impact the world positively, the more I read into the past the more I find out how recently this world has been for the lack of a better word, ugly. Despite how long we've existed we truly are still infants in the grand scheme of things and with that brings ignorance and intolerance on a scale that depresses me, violence and experimentation that disgusts me beyond words and a system the world runs off that's well and truly broken. We're not the good guys and we never were, that isn't new to me at all but delve into that, use this grand worldwide search engine and look at things, we, as people have got away with in the last hundred years alone. Atrocities, pure evil, and for what? Power, appeasement, and vanity.

I'm supposed to go about daily life, working five days a week and struggling every fucking minute of the day because what I do doesn't matter, even if I change that I'm terrified because I know whatever I do will never be enough for me. Just give me a good thing to die for, one thing, make my life worth something on the way out, I don't care about praise or legacy and I don't need to be remembered at all, it would be better than wasting away miserably in a shadow of something greater.

It's tricky thing, to evaluate yourself and what you're becoming. You live with your regrets, failures and worst moments across your shoulders, but letting those things become more than they are by dictating a path with less adventure or fulfillment is the greatest loss to learning about yourself. Embracing the mistakes and taking something from it is always what you're told to do, and for good reason.

Today

I made a personal breakthrough, one of those movie-moment epiphanies where something suddenly makes sense after years of not even realising it was an issue at all. My biggest flaw, at least to me has always been thinking I'm smarter than I actually am, most days I wake up and already have myself convinced that I can either outsmart or twist my way around people in such a fashion that I could do almost anything I wanted at any given time. Now obviously that isn't true and if that was the 'epiphany' moment I'd be realising I was much less intelligent than I'd ever believed in the first place, I have my days of self doubt just like anyone else and believe it's healthy, necessary even to stay grounded so my giant head fits through doorways. The thing I finally realised is: just because you aren't chasing after the girl doesn't mean you're over her, and just because you don't think about her all the time or love her any more doesn't mean there's not a subconscious remnant thinking maybe something could happen again one day.

Plenty of relationships between then and now, other girls who I sincerely fell in love with and been invested in fully that I put effort into, but this idiotic subconscious thought hanging by a thread was always there. I spent so long convincing myself that I never wanted it to happen again that I believed myself and made it worse, flipping a want to be with someone into a legitimate effort not to be which was equally damaging. I've gone so long without realising I was believing a lie I told myself to make things easier a long time ago, it's an odd feeling of closure and freedom to have worked that out, to get past it when I never really knew it was holding me down in that way.

All this because of silence, I wish I could say thank you.

Spills

Further and further away I feel myself getting from the life and mind I felt I knew. The constant need for something new being chased is almost exhausting and I often ask myself what I'm doing it for, I'm not sure I know the answer any more.

I feel like I know myself but I'm not sure anyone else does, I think I have a tendency to get lost in unrealistic ideas and talk about how I perceive life and what it means, I also offer advice far too much for someone who doesn't know how to lead themself on the worse days, but I feel strong, awake, clearer than ever in ways I never considered viable before, every realisation is a doorway to a knew breed of thought, every experience I have now could positively affect another in the future.

In the process of shedding my old skin of shyness to talk or draw attention to myself in larger social situations when there's not a guitar strapped to me, I pushed a bit too hard and that leaves me talking at times when it's not necessary. We're all constantly in a self improvement loop which can occasionally roll backward as well as forward, submitting to the wills of our personal nostalgia; perhaps your old haircut did shape your forehead better, maybe those glasses your friends said made you look like a Annie Potts from Ghostbusters actually fit well, and the classic "'I can bring the totally mustache back! They're not just for 1980's pedophiles!" These moments are often mistakes, but we all have them and my continuing journey of finding who I want to be in life has been through constant trial and error, pushing everything I possibly can as far as it can go just to see where it ends, I won't get anywhere or do anything at all unless I'm outside my comfort zone and the most serendipitous part of that is I'm aiming that gun of goals straight at falling back into that place once I can secure a life I love.

Right now I have my friends, I have my guitar and I have my freedom, these are the things that matter most. I want a motorbike to give me the freedom of movement, I want a business to be proud of, to be in control of my own life and I want more memories, experiences and moments than I could ever forget over a thousand lifetimes. Every risk is a necessity.

Letter

It's time to stop being so idealistic, it just goes to show when you feel like you have control of things, you're actually looking at it the way you want it to be and hoping the inevitable won't happen.
Realising this situation is out of my hands has hit me pretty hard and more than anything it's shown how good things are for me right now when they aren't so much for others. I wish I could do something, I really do and it's going to be in the back of my head for a long, long time, it's the reason I'm awake at almost three on a slow Thursday morning.

The only thing I care about is having fun, smiling, laughing, having the best memories possible while constantly making better ones. This isn't one of those times, but it puts a point in the future to refer to, an unsure one right now but it's there, something to aim for, to build towards so on that day I can do my best to make up the time where we all lost something and eventually got it back.

Hopefully time actually has some wings to fly with.

Points of Reference

These are all points for myself to look back to and remember who I was at the time. If you can truly write without inhibition about yourself, your fears, worries, strengths and weaknesses, it will give you a better understanding of yourself in that time, and it will give you something for the future to know you improved yourself.

Cogs

I try to think ahead of myself, probably a bit less than I should, obsessing about past mistakes and discrepancies which waste so much time that I could put towards something positive and life affirming? Yes, I'm sure that's exactly what I'd use the extra time for... Alas, letting my mind wonder seems to be something that brings equal amounts of pain and understanding to multiple aspects of my life, which mostly seems like I don't have a grasp with what I'm doing, and currently and quite honestly I look forward and see such uncertainty and change that I can't organise any effort to combat it.

Looking at other people's life, their plans and aspirations, they seem so simple, or at the very least they have an understanding of themselves, I long for that. I feel lost, I feel like I spend my time thinking and focusing on things that everyone else can ignore, or just don't find any interest for. I'm not talking about the 'Meaning of Life' or anything pseudo-meaningful like that, the meaning of my life is to be happy, the meaning of all life is personal to each and every one of us, so there's no need to sit around playing with it. The things that I seem to fixate on now are people's behaviour, and the things that cause certain actions, how I'm supposed to make a life that I'm happy with, and generally how unfathomably huge, stupid complex and fascinating space is. These are just some of the things that circle around in my head that I've pulled down for examples, every single day there's something new to focus on.

I'm guessing the point of the last two paragraphs filled with poorly worded ramblings, is that I'm not struggling to function in some 'Cry for help' fashion, but in some way I'm finding it difficult to live my life day to day and not question simple aspects of living that everyone else seems happy with. I'm sure it all bases itself in a fear that once I finally have something I've been wanting, I'll move on to the next thing and never be completely happy with what I've got.

"It’s all building towards something."

"Sooner or later, I’ll do something with myself and make my mark, but until then whatever I do is not a waste of time, it’s all building towards something."

Is it though? The way I see it, thinking like that is a way to comfort yourself, to let your mind rest on the cluster of facts and thoughts that you have every day that you still haven't done anything with yourself, even though 10 years ago you were constantly being told you could be anything, do anything, live the life you wanted providing you worked for it. What a shame it is that at that point I had no idea what I wanted to do in my life and barely knew what I wanted to do the next day, let alone a few years down the line which ultimately was supposed to be so decisive that you were planning out your entire life with genuine happiness.

If only I understood that your wants change constantly as you age, that you lose people and pull away from people that you once cared, or still care for. How could I be so naive and childish to ignore the idea that while you grow up your brain is what drives you, and it seems to me like what holds me back. I'm not scared of failing, in anything I try, whatever the risk it's probably worth a go once at least, right? While I have that mind state, the world terrifies me, my own mind worries me, I don't enjoy doing things I used to do, and that's change that I can't anticipate so it bothers me.

I spend most of my days laughing, trying to pull whatever bit of amusement or happiness out of it I can, and it seems to work because it keeps me occupied for the time I'm there, but once I'm on my own, I can't escape the feeling in the back of my mind that whatever I do, I'll never be happy. That if I take one path in life, I'll long for the other thing that I didn't choose, that if I settled down with a family and had kids, I'd want to go travelling round the world as some sort of vagrant that only had a guitar, camera and a few possessions to my name. I can't decide what I'll want in my future and I probably won't know until I get there.

I'm worried about preserving parts of my past as memories in case I forget them, I'm scared of losing myself in something that I can't control, that's why I like pictures, I like having physical evidence of memories I love because I worry that one day I won't remember them. I like to write because it leaves behind etchings that maybe I can read in the future and think 'What the hell was I going on about?' and laugh at my past self, seeing how idiotic I was being.

I desperately want to be someone, to do something that matters, and every day I wake up and realise that I thought I'd be doing that a couple of years ago and that I'm still not doing it, and it depresses me. All I pursue in life is to be happy, surely that's the meaning of it all, to wake up in the morning with a smile on your face and to lay down at night knowing your day today was great, and tomorrow will more than likely be the same?

Born Into Life's Great Downfall.

By definition, people are bad, and even those with the kindest of intentions tend to be trying to prove something to someone, often themselves, if not always. That does not make them bad though, just means they have organised their life and mentality into a place throughout a number of years that enables them to be who they want to be, by which I mean the majority of the world is under the influence of their parents beliefs and values for far too long until it's finally realised that they have been doing it. There's no real way out of that though, the only other option is to rebel and argue every point your parents make, and that doesn't work because even if you're right ten percent of the time and that makes you feel validated in your decision to start doing E's and that time you stole your little sisters pocket money to move on to heavier stuff, the other ninety percent of the time you get shafted, badly.

Our primal instincts are to do whatever we can to further ourselves, whether that includes stealing, cheating or otherwise, this means that those little moments in some peoples, or most peoples lives where they manage to ruin something they care about, are caused by a mix of your original instincts and often a good amount of stupidity. There's no point pretending the majority of bad things in life aren't caused by people's own stupidity on some level, because there's plenty of causes for that too, and I would say it's okay but this thing we do now where we're proud of how ignorant we are, I've got to be honest, it's not working for me. Being proud of the fact you don't know something isn't acceptable, if you have trouble being called out and getting something wrong, so what? No one likes being proved wrong or shown up, but learn to accept the fact that you do, in fact, not know that fact. Learn from it and take it away with you, because I'm sure you'd remember it from then on, instead of blowing it off and ranting about how "you don't need to know that because it doesn't interest me!" Then don't talk about it, ever, if that's the attitude you have.

We spend all of our lives trying to impress others and confuse ourselves into thinking that we're not who others see, or worse, that you see in yourself. People waste their entire lives trying to change what they were born with instead of embracing whatever they already have and not being miserable for 99 out of one hundred years, because of that one perfect year at 28 where they had the right amount of plastic surgery to not look like a fish. I'm not preaching anything, I don't believe in anything, I don't believe in the self-help bullshit telling you to accept yourself or the over the top positive attitude that most have when telling others to accept their 'special gifts in life', I'm just sick of watching the World fall faster and faster into this pit of stupidity and self-hatred.

Most people just get by in life while convincing themselves it will get better for them one day, it probably won't, because you've never tried to further your squalid position, just had the belief that you should be handed it. Somewhere in time we started to lose our way, and it's been unraveling slowly ever since, it's not the end of the World by any means, melodrama bestows nothing, but we're definitely in worse shape than ever every single day we wake up.

Living on a Damned Hill in Flood Weather

This is the type of weather where you can't get anything done, you want to get out the house but not 10 steps down the street your clothes are soaked through and your shoes feel like you're walking in fish guts, another 10 steps and your skin will be so saturated you'll start to expand like a balloon beneath a tap. I say this, yet I don't need to be anywhere at all, which is nothing new, in fact it's become commonplace for me to have no real schedule, the only time anything interesting happens is on the only day in a 3 month period that I actually need to be doing something else, but for the rest of the country it's really ruining their week.

The city is as busy as sin, filled to the brim with people bustling about with presumably more agenda in one day than I plan to have for the rest of my year, considering how rude they're being to each other at any rate. Pushing and shoving, walking in to each other and acting as if the World owes them something, unless I'm sorely mistaken the only thing the majority are owed is back-taxes and a slap in the mouth, and unfortunately for them the back-taxes are debatable, whereas the slap is not.

The terror of a normal life approaches, out of the protective bubble of the British Education System and kicked into a world where there are no real guarantee's, many will be facing it in the coming months, but I only truly have to care for myself in this situation, keeping a close eye on what others do out of morbid curiosity using the many social spying tools we've been so easily been provided with, Facebook, I believe? You have to be careful not to spend all your time watching what other people are doing mind, and that's become a problem for many in this age, the fascination in other people's lives due to the ease of viewing it is causing more and more people not to really push themselves in any direction, just to watch what their friends do, even celebrities.

I have to further myself in some direction, I need to find something solid to focus on and move towards it, but with a ocean of news about minimal jobs for young people, and a landscape of optimism about infinite chance, I find myself to be caught dead center considering why anyone would set their mind to believe either/or. I'll carve my path whatever way I see fit and do almost anything to get where I want to be in life, but when you mix that attitude with uncertainty of what exactly you want, you end up with a Mexican standoff that has neither party back down, one is going to get hit, it's just a matter of time.

1

Crippled under eternal joy,

Where mothers wept, they lost their boy.

Crossing paths meet together,

Responsibility lies light as feather.

Covering over all logical thought,

Their brain ignores all once taught,

Crushing away their memories,

And ending their humanity.

Squandered Fortunes Among Hope and Chance

Watching people have their dreams crushed is a funny thing, it gives a feeling that comes somewhere between amusement and complete tragedy, for me anyway. Apparently, the rest of the nation seems massively amused whilst watching people walk onto a stage only to be slammed down by a panel of talented people, and that's becoming more and more popular amongst almost everybody you see while walking down a street. It's never been an oddity that people are amused by freaks or others who they can easily look down on, quickly jump back a few decades and you can pay to stand in-front of midgets, people with disfigured bodies and bearded women, it wouldn't be surprising if it wasn't for society telling us it was wrong to do, that this would also still be normal for people to do.

Unfortunately it seems to be human nature to find someone or something weaker than you and then berate it, or watch and laugh as they fall apart, it's not new, just easier to see due to Media saturation. As much as I want to sit here and tell myself that it's okay, it isn't, it's disturbing, and I'm not going on a Crusade about how we're all evil and deserve to be judged for it, I just think it's going too far, even compared to decades ago when it was common place.

My main reason for writing this goes on from this point:

I can't understand how people let themselves fall into such average lives, working a Office job 9-5, Five days a week with an okay salary. How can you not want more than that? How can you not look at something else in the world and aspire to doing it? Being so complacent that you convince yourself that a life you never planned is now okay 'Just because' it pays for some stuff and keeps your family going. There's millions and millions of these people all over the world working in jobs that they never wanted, that they obviously never started out Adult life wanting to do, and it angers me to think that so many of them have dreams they never accomplished.

Sure, I'm not one to talk about forcing myself to do things to further my immediate position in life, half the time I seem to do the absolute opposite and try to make things go backwards, or in some alternate possibility which seems (so far) to have worked out. I'll take risks, I'll work hard on what I have to do, but I still don't have my future even half set out, I don't think most of the people my age do, I'm not even sure if you're supposed to when you're 20 but I sure remember being told I should know when leaving school at 16. Can you honestly look back to when you were that age and think that you would have actually made a trustworthy decision? I know well that I wouldn't have, if at that age you were forced by Law to make a decision that determined the rest of your life, the world would already be over, because 99% of people had no idea at all what they wanted out of life other than being happy and not dying a painful death, two things that are very related.

What does any of that moronic rambling even mean though? Probably that it's too late to be writing this kind of continuous thought and actually hoping that it makes the slightest bit of sense. Either way when the pin drops, I'll put all my money and effort behind whatever seems like the best idea at the time, I'll never live a blindly optimistic life but I'll damn sure do a better job at making sure I don't ever end up in a situation I'm only 'Okay' with. Everyone aims big at the start, why not, we were brought up thinking we could do whatever the hell we wanted, and we can do providing we try hard enough and more often than not, sink enough money into, but peoples self belief, effort and tolerance all fly straight out that giant window, and they settle for whatever they see first that suits the majority of their needs.

I'd rather be dead.

I swear to whoever I can that I would rather be dead that live such a meaningless and harmless life. No-one ever started out with the intention of being average, why do most finish their life in that category? I'll make something out of myself somehow that's for definite.

Overdue

It's all too obvious already exactly what this entry will be about, I feel disappointed in myself for not bothering to delve into the mess sooner, but in all honesty when you're out of the country and away from the mess, it's not as immediately important to you as it is to the people who were fighting Looters off and the Policemen forced to tackle the rioters.

The country I tentatively give the moniker 'Home' was for the first real time in what seemed to be full collapse, whether you look at it Socially or Economically, the cells bars were rusting through and the imprisoned escaped into the streets with the intention of causing havoc. The Boiling Point to this entire situation is at heart, or as far as much of the media would lead you to believe, about one man's death. The man in question was Mark Duggan, 29 year old father of 4. Whether you choose to believe he did wrong in his life is up to you, Police evidence says he was carrying a converted Starting Pistol that fired real ammunition, I don't doubt that what they say is the truth but with the earlier stories of Police Corruption this year, I think it might be smart to take everything with a pinch of salt, and probably a little shake of scepticism too. That said, I do believe he was carrying and in the end his own demise was very much his own fault, regardless of how the Police acted. This sparks a Peaceful Protest from his Family, quickly spawns into a night time session of looting and general pilfering from Mr Duggan's 'Connections'. All that is just the set up to what I actually find important, the events mentioned above wouldn't be something too uncommon to hear about in America on a bad day in a bad area.

The days after the first night of badly Policed Criminality are the things I, and the majority of the Country find important, the behaviour and inclusion of the regular British public in the riots and looting in the next few nights. I followed the events post Duggan's death, and at first I was surprised to see something happening in London that wasn't being crushing quickly by Police like it usually would. People running through the streets, some with faces covered, some morons without, smashing property, looting shops and starting fires.

The second day, it began to become apparent that the Police's lack of effort in quelling the disturbance had spurred (No joke intended, it's too easy/been done) more people to join them and misbehave. Now before I go too far and really make it look like I believe the Police were just being lazy, I know they weren't, it was mainly because of the Handling of the Riots last year with Water Cannons and Kettling used on Students, I don't agree with those practices, but if you go to a Riot you should expect it, and really if the Police can do things like that we should be allowed to as well, fair's fair right? Due to those 'Protests' the Police were significantly stunted in their choice of action, and without using some violence there wasn't much they could do to scare rioters. This, and this alone was the reason these riots continued for more than the one night which wasn't even necessary, if the Police were authorised to show some aggression, fire some Rubber bullets and shoot some water, it would have ended within a few hours. How can I be sure? Because the so-called 'Gangsters' and Londoners that were out giving a bad name to the rest of the City are also the same people who would back off as soon as the Police showed them they were going to get put in their place.

I remember one day in High School when I was probably around 12 or 13, and we had a Sports Teacher that intimidated everyone, even up to the Higher Years and College level, he isn't immediately important in this story, just bare with me. For some reason one of the Older kids decided that we'd all gang up together in the Playground and March out of school, or against the Head Teacher, something stupid that only a bunch of 12 to 16 year old's would think would work. There was probably at least 200 to 300 people there, and I remember marching up the steps of the Playground and towards the front gates, literally 30 seconds into this we heard 'It's Mr G----! Run!!!' and that second the entire crowd spun round and ran back towards the Playground. It was at that moment that I realised two things; 1. Mob Mentality is very easy to get stuck into and 2. It only takes one person that people are scared of to stop something, no matter how big it is.

That time in my life resonates with me to now, I knew that if the Police would show some force, be allowed to do their job properly that this bunch of weak-minded, crowd following morons would have fallen straight back into line and everything would have been fine. Instead, we've ended up with a bigger mess than I think anybody ever imagined when this first started, and who knows where we'll go on from here.

TBC.

He Had A Dream...

The 4th of April clearly doesn't mean that much to a lot of people these days, I'm ashamed to admit that even I found myself realising only because of a section in 'Fear and Loathing on The Campaign Trail' while I rode the train out to Hell this morning.

Forty-Three years ago, on this very day, a man was killed in cold blood, and in most cases that wouldn't be something overly special due to the amount of murderous pillaging that happens now, and even back then... But he was someone important, someone that still is important even today.

Forty-Three years later in a country thousands of miles away from where his body fell, he will still be remembered with great importance and missed by millions because of what he stood for, the words he said, what he believed in, and, what he dreamed of.

Martin Luther King was killed by James Earl Ray for standing up for the rights of others and more importantly what he believed in. What were we told in school at a young age? Were we told to silence people who thought differently and bully them? No, but because of human nature that's how it plays out, even when people are children, a bully resorts to their ways purely by acting under a dislike for what someone else looks like or what they say, and look at it now, children's prejudice is all grown up, and now it's called Racism or Sexism or Homophobia, and when you try and silence that person who wants to speak their thoughts freely, you take away our freedom to fight without the need for physical confrontation. But who needs that? I mean why sit down, talk about something, be civilized, when instead you can take millions to war and have their heads blown open and limbs separated? Let alone all the people that survive and have to suffer the rest of their lives in situations they shouldn't be in.

Amongst other things, all he really wanted was equality for people with the smallest difference of a variation in skin colour.

The saddest thing of all is, we're still working towards that equality when it should come to us all so easily.

From Here On Out.

Why bother with mediation any more? When all it brings is distinct unhappiness, I may as well begin to ignore this horrible situation and do what feels right even when I know it's wrong. Yet this isn't a situation that brings no repercussions, quite the opposite in this case, a giant mess and shit storm of terrible things that will probably make this itching feeling pale in comparison. After all, digging yourself into a black hole of debt is never advisable, just preferable at this time in life.

When left with no other solution, this is the only thing that makes sense to me, either continue on with no money, or add to the damage I've already caused with the fee's handed out by those ghastly government types, claiming: 'We'll take you in! Teach you the final parts of your education and let you have a good time doing it!' When in reality even the ignorant knew to take the claims with a large pinch of salt, maybe even pepper too. Yet over a year and a half in, these feelings still eat away at the back of my mind, taking up valuable space that could go towards something worthwhile, even if I'm in no state to express what exactly.

Life itself is a wonderful thing filled with so many variables that it's possible to turn your entire life upside down in the very second I write this, and when you find yourself in a situation that you like, it sometimes becomes impossible to shift yourself from the normalities you've become comfortably accustomed too, with that said, I still have the complete ability to do whatever I want, I just choose not to with many of the worse things. Regardless of this, for the first time in as long as I can remember, I'm giving up on what that shriveled brain of mine says is the right answer, and going with the complete opposite, a dangerous opposite that could potentially have effects on my life for years to come, but who really cares about that now, if you continue on with enough money to live comfortably what does it matter? Money clearly being the keyword here, the thing that controls practically every persons life worldwide on this formerly-blue but now Black ball floating around space, why the change? Because we're all controlled by money, and that doesn't warrant a calming colour anymore.

Far from believing the 'Life with no material possessions' is a good idea, albeit admirable nonetheless, I'm left with that choice to plunge myself further into darkness, or continue on, penny less and miserable.

The choice is obvious, I'm going out in style.

Tragedy in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Everyone should already know what this is about, from the blanketing media coverage over the last twenty four hours, and if it hasn't crossed your radar by now stop reading this and instead, search the term 'Japan Earthquake'.

It's truly impossible to anticipate such an event, even with todays technology you can see it coming but fail to prepare for exactly what is about to take place. Yesterday morning, March 11th 2011, at around 11.30 GMT, I awoke as usual only to go online and find that a 7.7 Earthquake had struck Japan just off its coast, 'Jesus!' I thought, just over a month or so after the Christchurch decibel in New Zealand we've got another disaster on our hands, but that was before I began reading the article that the headline protruded from.

In my mind, there was absolutely no doubt of the devastation caused by this terrible incident, I quickly began to think back to the Haiti Earthquake last year that registered magnitude 7.0 and flattened an array of buildings taking over 316,000 lives. I knew for a fact this event may be bigger in magnitude, but with Japanese building regulations in a country prone to Earthquakes, it wouldn't be anywhere near the death toll of the Haiti Incident. So far most media outlets have been claiming the Death Toll may be around 1,300, the only problem now is that the town of Minamisanriku, a small town sitting on the coast, has 9,500 people that are unaccounted for. Seeing the pictures doesn't give me too much hope.

As I ventured down the page to read updates from the last 5 hours, the thing that hit me hardest was that it was now saying the quake was 8.8, possibly even 9.0, and the aftershocks were in the 7's and 6's. With the amount of time I've wasted reading up on Natural disasters, I knew straight away this was bigger than I'd ever seen before, nothing this big had happened in recent years.

What followed was hours of searching sources trying to find out exactly what was happening to the country, I watched waves crash across the landscape, washing away buildings like they were made from paper, engulfing rivers and overflowing out of them in seconds, only to continue on, marching forward, ripping apart everything ahead of it. The most shocking images came from watching the helicopter footage, witnessing cars trying to escape the coming assault, a black mass washing over everything filled with debris, debris that was in flames whilst the water carried it. To imagine what it must have been to see that mass coming towards you I'll never know, and despite my lack of any religious sentiment, God help them, because anyone there was out for their own live at that point, and it saddens me to think that they probably did get away with it this time.

Seeing the pictures of Japan this morning was equally as devastating as what the World witnessed yesterday. Some of the water had receded, leaving shards of houses, trees, cars and even boats pushed across the landscape in places you'd never find them in almost any other situation. The clean up effort will be gargantuan, and I wish I could be there helping, it would certainly make a difference to sitting here whilst witnessing and wishing that I could be there.

All we can wish for now is that the Fukushima Nuclear Plant does not add to this situation with a meltdown. Despite the building surrounding the Reactor exploding this morning, the reactor itself is yet to worsen as far as I've heard today, I can only hope for their sake it stays that way.

My wishes, condolences and hope go out to every single person in Japan right now. Good luck to all of you, you will pull through.

In the Midst

This whole band thing has been pinballing back and forth for months now, you could even count the previous years of attempted and failed bands, but in all honesty there wasn't enough songwriting, or good songwriting at least, to really merit it. 'Hell' would be a nice way to describe what it's been like, despite seeming mundane for the most part, it has been a huge pain to organise everything to get this far. Currently, I'm sitting with a huge amount of riffs, sections, lyrics, practice recordings, jams, band names and God knows what else that have accumulated over the past two or so years that I've been doing this, to the outside observer it looks like a mountain of work and a lot of time, and the latter is true, but a mountain? Hardly.

The last few months have been by far the most productive, back in Summer 2010 whilst I was travelling through parts of Spain and Morocco, the 2 things I was carrying musically was my laptop, with all my song parts on, and eventually a 3/4 Classical Acoustic that I picked up in a small, but extremely impressive classical music store in Barcelona (If there was a Metal shop selling Flying V acoustics, I would have been with it, but I was low on money and starting to get withdrawal symptoms from not playing.) It's a weird thing to look back on, especially when you consider your spouse's parents being around all the time you're practicing and writing small parts of songs, but eventually I got it going, and ended up getting about 3 songs and 10 to 15 sections done in the four or so weeks we traveled round.

That was basically the thing that sparked the band off again, and got me working towards it properly and attempting to organise everything, without bothering about all that stuff, I essentially continued the writing process through the end of 2010, making some good songs and sections that could be used elsewhere. Now I'm sat with so many files I can barely even organise or look through them, but the important thing is the Folder on my Desktop marked 'EP'. That folder holds the 6 tracks (and 1 intro) that will compromise the EP that will get recorded and released in the first half of this year. I'm honestly really excited by the idea of finally getting all this done professionally, even with the Multimix and H2 that I've got, it's not ever going to replicate the feel of being in a Studio working on this properly.

Looking through all these recordings and files, it literally documents as far back as 5 years worth of my life's work, and yes, most of it is terrible but you wouldn't really expect much else from someone who started doing bands as soon as they started playing an instrument properly. Lots of awful, awful riffs mixed in with some strange lyrics that definitely used to have meaning back at some point. Looking through them is fairly unnerving... Look:

These flames were lit by the tears of millions of children,

The People who died due to poverty and war, (Chorus)

Not because of you, you were never important that night,

The flames were Set. A. Light.

What does that even mean? I know where it's coming from in terms of subject matter and meaning, but why was I even writing that back when I was 15? I didn't know shit back then, I was just a kid who was happy enough to basically run around the streets of a town at night, get arrested and do loads of stupid shit, those lyrics weren't even something that seemed to be an outlet to rid myself of those thoughts, they just seem to exist purely because I wanted to try and write something meaningful. God alone knows, there's some songs in there that do have some sort of real meaning, but it's so easy to tell the difference between the two feelings.

I'm looking at them now when I'm gearing up to write lyrics to 5 or 6 new tracks that I've been making along with a friend/band member, and in all honesty looking at how I've matured in the last few years makes me know whatever I'm going to write about is going to actually mean something properly. I've always got something to say, I've been in a world 5 years longer in a position that shows me the World in a completely different light, and it's been bad and good, but why focus on the good when I want something slightly poignant, but mostly aggressive and angry. It truly is a comfort to know I'm entering what might be the easiest part of the songwriting process with a clear mind and a full head of ideas, it's also amazing to be able to pick anything up that has words on and instantly be able to riff them into a song structure with ease, all I can really say is I'm looking forward to getting this done and moving forward again with the band, or what we have of it currently.

In all honesty, I believe this will lead somewhere, with the effort we've put in this time there really is some great riffs and song parts, and I'm not one to say everything we've made is amazing, there's parts I enjoy and parts I wonder about, but at the same time I wonder about all of it, because to us what might sound good, may be terrible to everyone else. The bottom line is once this is all finished and recorded, it's done. That's all that really matters because then it's done and finished and we can finally aim to get somewhere and have the thing in our hand that we need to get there. Now is the time to do this.

The music industry is hard to get into is it? Bring it on.

Jew Crazed

The new craze with Hollywood seems to be exploiting, well that might be a slightly strong word for it, but using Jewish content in films as some kind of selling point. Before anyone accuses me of being racist, I'm not, I'm simply highlighting this point and seeing if anyone agrees, or something like that.

"Valkyrie", "The Reader", "Defiance" and "Inglourious Basterds" 2 of which have been released, Tarantino's Inglorious Basterd's which is set for release on 28th August, and Edward Zwick's Defiance set for a 09th January release, all focus round the Second World War, which gives the opportunity of bringing Jewish subtext into these films. This is probably one of those things that appears in cycles, every few years springing back into popularity and later disappearing into obscurity until the next time it's able to rear its withering head and entice people yet again. Taking into consideration that I'm only 17, I haven't been alive long enough to really know of these cycles, and even if I did have the motivation to become a child film prodigy at a young age, I don't think one of the things I would have noticed straight away was Hollywood taking on the topic of Jewish people inside the towering walls of the subject of the Second World War.

I would be forced to assume that there's something of those cycles going on, and usually I'm one for research on the kind of matter at hand, but I'm feeling lazy tonight, and hopefully I won't go blazing around writing completely irrelevant things for much longer than I usually tend to.

Personally I see the Second World War as something that's being used far too much by the media these days. It's clear to see it's still a favourite with the Video Game industry, and why wouldn't it be? People are ready and willing to throw money at them, and if people are stupid enough to throw it, I'm all for picking it up, so I'm not being critical of them...well, much. The film industry has a well thought out interest in the War, since there isn't huge amounts of footage taken from every given moment of every battle or skirmish, It's adequate to recreate these moments in films. Regardless of the public's continuing love for seeing the German's getting stepped on over and over, which ironically often earns Directors, Producers and Actors large amounts of money, whilst at the time the German's were losing much more money, I for one think that War films still hold an important cultural significance too the countries involved. After all, when you look back on it, it's not all that far back from the times we're living in now. For the record though, I'm more interested in films set in the Vietnamese War, like Platoon and Full Metal Jacket.

To me it seems that holiday bring out these films just for the feeling of; 'Yeah! Jew's killing Germans!' I mean that's what Tarantino's film is presumably going to mostly be about, I hope at least. I have great respect for the man, personally and for his work due to his unique viewpoint on things, and I hope Inglorious Basterds fairs just as well as his films. His film doesn't seem to be part of the Jew Craze cycle anyway, it doesn't come across as something he was told to do, more a film he wants to do.

Defiance is yet to surface fully, but is receiving positive reviews so far, and so it should be due to what I saw of the Cinematography earlier.

As for Valkyrie, it's receiving positive reviews mainly, the only criticism towards the film is Tom Cruise related, but what are you going to do?

The Reader seems to be fairly good from what I've seen in terms of reviews, only a handful of ratings on IMDB so far, even though it has been out for 5 odd days.

I suppose at some point I'm going to have to venture to watch all these films, Inglorious Basterds is already on my watching list just for the reason it's Tarantino, and it's bound to be of interest too me in terms of production and when it's set. Anyway, I'm not totally sure where I've gone with this blog or if I've said anything of any importance at all, but it has killed some time, so I think I'll leave it here.

One Day.

I'm just like this. I find myself in unrealistic expectations and a lust for an interesting life. More true to myself than ever, I expect to fail but at least I try it all out. From all the colours splattered across the board, I'll try it, taking whatever I can from every place and trying my best not to look back, after all what reason do I have to?

Just like me. I don't ask to be understood, I'd rather I didn't, I like the mystery, all I ask of myself is that I don't mess up with anything from this point on. This life will be an interesting ride. With all the unexplainable things in life, I don't believe anyone needs an answer, standing back and watching the madness unfold is all we should really do.

It's the kind of thing that should be seen scrawled in the notebook of a madman, mental patient, generally unstable individual, yet it comes from a 17 year old with a creatively corrupt mind. There's nothing that I, as a person, if it's possible for me to consider myself that at this age, can say to effectively ease a persons pain and hardships. Then again, what reason would I even have to do that? It's probably because I'm listening to Amy Jo Johnson and her music makes me think more than anything, but when I get into this state of mind I end up just writing anything and everything I'm thinking, said thing being fairly evident.

There's no need for me too carry on writing now, but when was there a need for Darwin to continue his theory of evolution or for Kurt Cobain to continue writing Smells Like Teen Spirit? There wasn't, just like there has never been a need to carry on and continue anything, but as a people, we all feel the need too, even if it means nothing. I expect Cobain wrote his songs never even thinking anyone would care, just being his creative outlet, and Darwin writing believing people would never agree with him, and low and behold, no one did. I get sick of being told by people what I should and shouldn't be doing, probably the thing that annoys me the most, being told to do things, compromising my freedom, a thing that I feel I should keep with me at all time. No matter what you or anyone else thinks, freedom should be the only thing you uphold as a person, it's the only thing you need to survive. Fuck pride. Fuck honour. As important as they are too me fuck them, because in the end they serve no real purpose other than to cause trouble, if anyone honestly wanted the definitive solution to every problem in their life it would be find a way too free yourself from everything holding you down. For the people that can't do that, for the people that are in prison, in war zones and in constant danger every day, It is possible, somehow, you can get up and leave. There's always a way out, whether it be good behaviour, picking up a gun and fighting your way out, on just putting your fist up and saying no, you have a way out. The only thing that ultimately stops you, and deters you from your freedom is the choices you make. If you won't choose to get injured in some way, mental or physical, you can never expect to progress towards freedom. Martin Luther King was murdered for fighting for his dreams that one day black people would be free, in essence that's all everyone else needs to do, dream that we will all one day be free of everything. One day.

Suspended For Free Speech

After my friend, who i'll keep anon for now, made a remark about his workplace, Sainsbury's, an English supermarket, he has been suspended from work for a week under something the company are claiming as 'New Policy'.

My friend made the comment on his Facebook status, saying:
"-name- is sickened by Sainsbury's attitude"
His friend then commented:
""Why, what have they done?"
Which he replied:
"They're just cunts. You do everything for them and they just shit on you, almost literally!"

Past the strong language, surely it is up to him what he says? After all we have free speech, we have rights? So what makes it possible for him to be suspended for a week over this? As far as I can see he's entitled to his own opinion.

Anyone who's had something similar happen, disagrees with this, or wants to protect free speech, please upvote and do something about it!
Thank you.