An open letter on loneliness, depression and procrastination...

          

            It is often with a heavy heart the lonely greet a new day, the alarm was set for a ‘suitable’ time. Yet as the chimes sparked the reluctant dreamer into consciousness there was pain, lethargy.

Thoughts and aches had probed the over active mind long into the night, maybe it was but an hour ago that the sleeper lay down in the soft embrace of the ever present, ever comforting duvet. Aside from those occasions where you just want to sleep and the duvet tangles, suffocates, and hinders. Generally however, the duvet is our friend keeping us safe from the darkness without its gentle folds.

                I digress, this letter isn’t only for those who live alone, after all you can find yourself lonely in a crowd ever so easily. This is for the depressed, the creative types, the chronic pain sufferers, the insomniacs and the ‘misfits’. I use that word loosely because after all I don’t think you’re a misfit and that is my very point.

                On numerous occasions I have woken late, perhaps by accident or quite intentionally because frankly today I could do without stuff, what stuff? Any stuff. I just do not want it. However you do eventually rise to the clicking of lethargic joints and aches of a tired or over rested brain. I hate that, you sleep because you’re just so damn tired and you wake and find too much sleep is terrible in equal measure.

                Digression... Always off of the point. So you’ve risen at some point in this new day that was much like yesterday, same problems and woes. You have things to do, maybe you need to make a phone call for missing an appointment that you forgot. Whatever it may be now you just cannot seem to focus, you just cannot get down to business, so to speak. What comes next? Guilt and shame.

                You feel terrible and the first thing you do is begin to rip on yourself about just how bad a person you are and how this, that you are experiencing in this moment of intense and almost professional procrastination, is all your fault. You tell yourself how much of a failure you are, perhaps you begin to reflect on where everything went wrong and how other people just do not seem to struggle the same way that you do. How very helpful, why thank you inner me.
                The majority of the time it is us that isolate ourselves for what we suppose others must think of us, I am a bad person and I can't stand me so everyone else must feel that way too. We have already deemed ourselves unworthy of the affection of others and so we lock ourselves away. No one forced us to do that it was self afflicted as is much of our suffering. We overthink, we make assumptions and we hurt ourselves as a result.

                Well stop, stop it. No matter how hard you strive for that answer it is almost impossible to find and by the way, beating yourself is never going to help, so just stop.

                I would suggest perhaps going to YouTube and partaking in some funny cat videos but we all know that we have stuff to do and if we start with one video, soon enough it’ll be 5am again and you still didn’t eat!

                Moving my chair back across to my original point, when you are lonely all of the above just seems so much worse. There is no one there to wake you when you sleep in, no one to gently chastise you for procrastinating, no one to just go “hey are you all right?” I suppose I’m only compacting the problem with this but I want to reach out to you, solidarity. I like that word... Solidarity.

                I get you, I AM with you and I will always walk that painful walk with you. If anything makes me feel better it is easing the loads of others. It doesn’t weigh me down, nor does it add to my own load. At first I would say I used to use it as a distraction and I kicked myself for it. Yet now I’ve come to understand that sharing in the solitary walks of others and coming along side those who are sad and lonely brings me genuine joy and fulfilment. I understand and I have empathy for that walk. I may not physically be in situ in order to bring you cups of tea and duvet snuggles but spiritually we walk the same road my friend.

                Life is a struggle but it need not be a solo one way trip. Each and every road for every person on this Earth has its bends and muddy patches, its hills and ditches and giant puddles. In the case of puddles, get your wellies on and jump in that sucker.

                You needn’t suffer loneliness and depression, make it suffer you. Find that thing that brings you real joy and hold onto it so fucking tight that you get pins and needles in your fingers. My light, my lifeline is loving other people. Maybe yours is cuddling your cat or talking to it in an awkward baby voice, “isn’t that right Ser Pounce-a-lot?” Whatever it is, keep it safe, keep it close and never forget it.

                At any rate, I am lazy, I am in pain, I get down and hell I don’t feel like working or eating! I am not going to let that beat me because I love and I love pretty damn hard. What I do each day impacts someone in the most simple and subtle of ways and I need to hold to that. The moment I give in and become bitter and defeated and start shouting at others and getting all caught up in me, well it wins. IT, this invisible, nameless, jerk gremlin that sits on my shoulders and pushes me down.

                So to finish I want to say to you, name and shame your gremlin, don’t punish yourself. Find your little sputtering light in the dark and nurture it and never let it go out. 

                Now I had better get back to what I should be doing. Peace.
 Mako signing off!

P.S. I love you and you CAN do it.

For Queen and Country

It's rare moments like these when someone like myself, who doth possess such wit and intelligence, can think of nothing clever to say. I suppose I just want to go off on an ill-natured rant before I go and steal a seat from a pregnant lady carrying bags on the bus tomorrow.

I like many others have studied hard and achieved a decent degree. Three years of hard graft at something you always felt that you excelled at. You were lured towards University with promises not unlike "guaranteed and improved job prospects on graduating!" Many of us learnt all too quickly that this was complete and utter cow poo with a capital BS. Those improved job prospects were either labelled with "Underqualified!" or "Overqualified!" Fabulous...

At this point I chose to abandon this country for pastures unknown and although many of my experiences in Asia were really rather epic, I was depressed, underpaid, overworked and really no better off than my companions in fair Britannia. It was far too bloody hot anyway and what happened to all of the normal tea!?

To skip ahead of the story two years I did return to England only to be stuck at the dole office nodding my head like all of the other unfortunates. According to those Job Advisors with their jobs you can't manage without them and won't be able to find a job if it weren't for them wiping your backside...

I digress...

Well anyway I suppose what I really want to say is, what's in it for us? What do we the people who want to work hard and make this country great get in return for our blood, sweat and tears?

The degree I ploughed into debt for has so far brought me squat. It was everything I was ever good at and I strove and I achieved but here I am stuck in a job with no hopes of progression, no future but an early grave looming ahead. I find little reward and little point in my struggle, I yearn for something greater.

"Fuck that you creative types with your dreams and aspirations of escaping the mortal coil into greatness!!"

I would love that my creative talents could support me financially but I never was that good at drawing boobies...
Mako signing off

Glasses Re-imagined

So today I have two words for you....
Optimism.
Pessimism.
According to those all knowing all seeing psychologists we are all one of the above but then they use this term "grey area" meaning those of us who fall in between. I must add that this is all of us, we ALL fall in between. Well anyway that's just my starting point and yes, I am quite aware this is already more than two words long well shut your cake hole or put cake in it for a change rather than complaining.
Onto the matter at hand, glasses, are they empty or are they full? Or to be more specific, half full or half empty. This aside from being a misleading matter is bloody irritating as a phrase, "Oh your one of those half empty glass kind of people..." She said nasally in that judgemental way of hers.
It's not a matter whether the glass is half full or half empty it's a matter of how big is your glass?
What I mean to say, life is about being realistic. If you aim for the top you'll only find you have further to climb and you'll be buggered before you get there so here's the thing....
Half empty? If life is hard on you and you find that you never seem able to keep up with the shit that is almost unrelentingly thrown in your direction perhaps it's time you downsized your glass. If your glass is HUGE how are you ever going to fill that with happiness when things are tough?
Our glass is a place to gather our good experiences, so start small and fill it up before you tip that little bit of happiness into a slightly bigger glass. The gap between half way and the brim won't seem quite so far so you can say, my glass is full of happiness, sure it might only be small now but at least it's full right? Up and up and up and before you know it those small moments of "happy" are preciously collected up and in a pretty big glass.
Have I pissed you off yet? Good. I'll leave you with one more suggestion, put a lid on your glass, a tippy cup of happiness if you will, that way when you stumble you won't spill your happy all over the floor. It worked when you were three and always looked about the place in awe and wonder....
And hell you were a lot happier back then when you were three and couldn't spill your juice.
Mako signing off

Just a moment of your time if you please?

Malcontent, the silent killer. It waits in bushes, in the trees, in that over stuffed cupboard under the stairs, in the drawer of 'stuff' that we all hoard. It can also be found in the cup of tea that you forgot about, the tasks you have been putting off, oh and just under maleria in the dictionary, (funny how things like that happen isn't it?)
Never the less it waits for us all in some long disused avenue, waiting for the perfect time to strike. So what exactly can you and I be doing about this invisible menace? Well you can try digging a very deep hole and burying yourself, or ask an understanding and patient friend if they wouldn't mind just filling it back in while you have a lie down on the bottom. You can have a nice cup of tea, feed the ducks, have a long bath, get a makeover, go shopping and so on but today I have a secret to share with you all. The true path to happiness.
After you have pet that adorably cute kitten that you keep in your sock drawer for desperate moments go out and be a bastard. When being nice just doesn't seem to cut it stick your favourite digits in the air and give the world and the universe in which is spins on regardless a right royal fuck you world!
Having a good long laugh at someone else's expense seems to the do the trick to making you feel a whole lot better, and when a good opporunity simply doesn't arise, good planning can create the perfect moment.
Jumping around a corner and shouting boo as an old lady comes out of the disabled toilet, teaching your best friend's baby the words Zac Efron and buying them the high school musical annual for their next birthday.
I am sure that you as the creative and wonderful people you are can come up with some truly great ways to give you that moment of catharthis, revenge for all that bullshit this world puts you through. At any rate you can be a bastard and still remain a good person. I'm talking breaking laws here, stealing your friends life saving medication and laughing at them as they squirm and die is well in the realms of not cool.
Yet remember that next time you have a bad day, someone else is probably having an even worse day and so I'll finish by saying the world doesn't JUST hate you, it hates me and every other poor fucker in it, aside from that guy that won 17million on the lottery the other day... Yeah... May a thousand camels shit in his tent.

Mako signing off.