On Life

I want to talk.

I want to talk about the world, about you and me and we are free and we can do whatever we like; and whatever we want, and nothing else matters.

And perhaps that’s true.

The world is a curious construct: the ethical world, like any other, is a single one-dimensional scale is a constant struggle between your self on one end and what you perceive to be everything else on the other. With this then comes everything else. 

But it’s not really like that, is it, you ask. It’s identity versus society, it’s personality versus responsibility...the list goes on.

Well, I suppose none of that was wrong. 

But look again, and you’ll see that it’s transformed, and the question now is not whether you care about you more than you care about everything else. It is clear now that you are the center of this world and it’s a matter off which benefits you more.

We are selfish people.

We do not help others if we do not gain from it.

It’s not just a matter of physical and material gain. We’re talking ideology and satisfaction and egos here.

It’s all up to priorities, I suppose. Is personal philosophical satisfaction worth just this little bit of pain or money or time?

But when you’re lost, you don’t have a response to that. 

But perhaps, circularly, having a clear idea in your head your priorities is what gives you identity?

So I don’t know who I am, and I hope you do.

Do you, do you?

I want someone to tell me who I am.

No. Perhaps, I don’t just want to talk: 

I want to be heard.

Would you listen to me?

On Horse Meat

Okay so I'm majorly freaking out about life what is life even what am I doing who am I aahhhhhhhh

Okay wait. Let's try that again.

I'm scared.

I'm scared. Yesterday someone at school had an interview at UCL.

Ummm obviously not me so.

Yeah you see where I'm trying to go with this? 

Haven't heard back from them aaahhhhhhhhh what is life.

Okay so maybe I'm overreacting slightly. It's still quite early, I suppose. But. You know. For all I know, they could have seen my application and chucked it in the maybe pile. 

I don't want to be in the maybe pile.

(I want to be in the yes definitely we want you now pile, in case anyone asks)

And what am I even applying for why am I applying for it.

Unis don't want me I'm a fraud I'm stupid I'm just pretending to be clever I'm not clever I can't brain :(

speech not making sense arrrghh garhhhh what is life.

Here's some horse.

And If You're Still Breathing

In Book VI of the Iliad, Glaukon says to Diomedes, ‘As is the generation of leaves, so is that of humanity. The wind scatters the leaves on the ground, but the live timber burgeons with leaves again in the season of spring returning. So one generation of men will grow while another dies.’

Now is the season of dying men in this part of the world that knows no summer.

I’m discontent. I’m jumpy. And I get palpitations just thinking of what is yet to come. 

And I shiver at the approaching cold.

Maybe it’s just the time of year, but I’m personally feeling quite down. School starts up again in a week, and it’s not that I don’t like it. But I’m bad with change and I like what I have, right now, en ce moment, and I’m not at school now.

And I don’t want anything to change, so I don’t want school to come please thanks.

I feel like I haven’t done anything all summer for it to be gone already. 

Scratch that - I feel like I haven’t done anything at all this year for it to have just disappeared with the snap of my fingers.

But yet-

A year ago, I wouldn’t have done half the things I’m doing now.

Clichéd as it sounds, I am a different person today. 

What have I done to incite such a change?

Nothing.

Nothing. And everything.

I still want to do so many things, and to be so many different people, but our time is limited. 

We, man, like to think that we owe ourselves choice, and that our lives are blank slates to be painted on, and that we’ll always do what’s best for us. 

But Brute, thy honourable mettle might yet be wrought, and even in the land of mortals we have no say in what the Moirai deal us.

And oh my, they have thrown me quite a number of curveballs recently. I mean, I’m not very pleased with them at all, so let’s change the metaphor and say that believe me, the Moirai have upped their game and chucked a few footballs at me.

I’m in the wrong place, wrong time, and I don’t know how to play this new game.

I might be exaggerating.

I’d like to think I’m alright, and that I did okay for a novice.

But not knowing beforehand is never an excuse is it. It’s less about having a plan and more about trudging through our strings as we’re forced along it and just trying not to reach the end and fall off.

I would say that I know more about myself now. And that’s good right? Bright sides, silver linings, and all.

But am I any less lost than before?

And two comes before one and the omega might not be the first but he is the last and the sun sets and the moon giggles and she thinks she has it all, and a cat mewls at home and a bat screeches though nobody can hear him.

But come morning, Helios chases his sister away, and the dog barks at the cat who stole his basket, but the haughty cat triumphs, and a car rushes by, and people talk on phones and- everything.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.