i'm still alive. The pub business is going well. I'm so caught up in what I'm doing I barely have the time to think of anything else, let alone step back and get perspective. Online time is also few and far between. My creative energy is as soaked up as my time. I've not commented or even read anyone's journals lately. Are you all well?
I haven't replied to anyone for a long time, or participated in this site in any way. It isn't that I've lost interest in the friends that I've made here, just that I am so busy I wake up in the morning and don't have time to even check my email. Things are going well I think, but uncertainty about many things still plagues me. I'm stuck looking backwards and forwards at the same time and while I don't want to go back I realise that what I hope for the future is still a long way ahead of me. I thought this whole project would place me in a state of security. it hasn't as of yet.
I hope you are all well and prospering in whatever field you have chosen for yourselves. It's good to feel you are moving forward.
I hope you are all well and prospering in whatever field you have chosen for yourselves. It's good to feel you are moving forward.
Finally got internet. I've gone in to the Pub business and have little or no spare time. Grandfather died yesterday. For the best, but that's what people say when someone dies isn't it? More later...
I vowed not to update until my "grand plan" was completed, but that should have been a good few weeks ago now. Hopefully this entry won't be sitting around for very long.
I've been stressed, busy, living between two homes. My grandfather is in hospital due to having been diagnosed with later stage lung cancer. Therefore my grandmother, who was previously looked after by him, went to my mothers house. All hands on deck. There's a wireless connection somewhere around my mothers pad, but it has proven rather unreliable so I haven't been getting online much, which would usually be a massive issue but in this case isn't such a big deal as I've been too busy to get online in any case.
As it transpires my grandmother isn't well either. Results of a blood test came back and her kidneys are slowly failing.This means she won't last too much longer either.
Right. That's me offloaded. Hopefully I'll have something more interesting and cheerful to update with next time.
Oh, and bateman has gone grey. I don't think it is a colour that suits him, but he's been "apathetic" about the site for a while now. He left me a message saying "check my journal entry" but by the time I got it he was grey already. Anyone see it?
I've been stressed, busy, living between two homes. My grandfather is in hospital due to having been diagnosed with later stage lung cancer. Therefore my grandmother, who was previously looked after by him, went to my mothers house. All hands on deck. There's a wireless connection somewhere around my mothers pad, but it has proven rather unreliable so I haven't been getting online much, which would usually be a massive issue but in this case isn't such a big deal as I've been too busy to get online in any case.
As it transpires my grandmother isn't well either. Results of a blood test came back and her kidneys are slowly failing.This means she won't last too much longer either.
Right. That's me offloaded. Hopefully I'll have something more interesting and cheerful to update with next time.
Oh, and bateman has gone grey. I don't think it is a colour that suits him, but he's been "apathetic" about the site for a while now. He left me a message saying "check my journal entry" but by the time I got it he was grey already. Anyone see it?
In limbo...
I don't have a great deal of free time at the moment, but here's one of my rare moments. I'm still working on something, something which I hoped to be able to announce in a grand manner via this journal. In fact, it should have been announced, done and dusted already, a few weeks back, but things are delayed, and now I'm waiting. Quite naturally that's rather annoying, and every minute I am kept waiting is another minute it might never happen.
*taptaptaptap*
Yes, it's all a bit cryptic I know, although a few of you might know what I'm on about. I've had a fair amount of grand schemes, and one of my pet hates is people asking me what happened after it's all fallen to shit. Therefore it has been my avowed policy for some time to keep them relateively under wraps until such a day as it all comes good.
Also one of the reasons I'm not very forward in comeing backward in my journal is it feels quite alot like living in a goldfish bowl.
In other news: there is no other news.
How are all of you?!
I don't have a great deal of free time at the moment, but here's one of my rare moments. I'm still working on something, something which I hoped to be able to announce in a grand manner via this journal. In fact, it should have been announced, done and dusted already, a few weeks back, but things are delayed, and now I'm waiting. Quite naturally that's rather annoying, and every minute I am kept waiting is another minute it might never happen.
*taptaptaptap*
Yes, it's all a bit cryptic I know, although a few of you might know what I'm on about. I've had a fair amount of grand schemes, and one of my pet hates is people asking me what happened after it's all fallen to shit. Therefore it has been my avowed policy for some time to keep them relateively under wraps until such a day as it all comes good.
Also one of the reasons I'm not very forward in comeing backward in my journal is it feels quite alot like living in a goldfish bowl.
In other news: there is no other news.
How are all of you?!
Update time!
My god I'm up early. Usually this time of year I start to. Isn't it nice to wake up with the sun, start your day at the very beginning? All the potential layed out in front of you like fresh snow...
Hmmm... It seems I woke up uncharacteristically poetic today. Here's a rare moment of self reflection.
Profit:
I'm a terrible uncurable marxist. This pleases me. It pleases me because while I was growing up all anyone told me was "oh yeah, it sounds great, but the world doesn't work like that", followed quickly by "and as soon as you're earning your own money and have to pay taxes you'll change your tune".
This always annoyed me because it seemed to imply that I was as shallow and morally bankrupt as the people who manage to wreck this beautiful world of ours. I thought mere self interest could be seperated from moral judgement, and that it was possible to soldier on through life and do what you had to do to survive without getting your "rough edges", the freshness and inscisiveness with which a young person views the world, knocked off.
I won't lie. I was never going to soldier on as a class warrior, fighting the evil machine of capitalism by living in a squat, refusing to wash because it was "bourgeois" and singing revolutionary songs. Frankly I consider that kind of political masturbation to be as worthless as the unceasing search for profit for it's own sake.
I grew up accustomed to certain comforts in life. I travelled extensively as a child and was certainly used to the better things in life. I always knew I had to re-create the manner of lifestyle to which I was accustomed. And, of course, this involves money.
On the other hand I knew I was never going to conform to a traditional carreer. Slight digression: a few years ago I ran in to the mother of an old schoolfriend of mine who I hadn't seen in 15 years. She asked me what I was doing and had done in that time, and when I replied said "J, you were always going to be successful, and you were always going to take the least conventional route to get there".
My parents were wealthy enough to show me the better things in life, but by no means wealthy enough (or willing even if they were) to give me a financial prop to get there. Some of my freinds have had mortgage downpayments handed to them, jobs organised for them, investment money handed to them etc. So, young passionate red flag waver that I was, I was still in possession of the knowledge that I would have to make my money.
And it is here that all the voices which said "you'll soon drop that marxist line when you're in the real world" echoed uncomfortably around my skull.
My opinions have changed. I feel them changing. But they've always changed and refined as I've got older and seen more of the world. Am I less of a fervent communist than I used to be? Probably. But only because I don't have the time or outlet to enthuse, study and think as much as I used. I can feel myself judging other people's search for profit less harshly than I did as well. So then, has an entry into the real world changed my understanding of captialist economics? Not at all. Do I think it is ok for multinationals to make the sort of money they make? Definately not. Do I think capitalism works on a microcosmic level and it's just new aggressive global capitalism is the problem? Do I bollocks.
So the conclusion I have come to is this: self interest can be seperated from moral political judgement. It should be. It's ok to look after yourself in the world that is around us. You have to play by the rules.
I can seperate my daily activities from my political beliefs provided they don't conflict. I play by the rules to the extent I find morally comfortable, but that doesn't mean I suddenly accept the rules as right or good. They still stink.
I always used to think the people who told me they were left wing when they were younger but they "grew out of it" simply didn't have the same understanding of left wing politics and economics as I did. How can you "grow out" of an understanding of economics? You can decide it was wrong or had an incorrect emphasis, but you can't grow out of it. What you can grow out of is the moral underpinnings which determine the way you view that ecconomic understanding: the moral conclusions you draw from it.
To put it another way, unless you just weren't paying attention while you were soldiering through all that marxist material at univerity, has self interest changed your moral judgement? Have you aligned your understanding of right and wrong with your own self interest on the political sphere?
I'm happy to say that's not happened in my case. At least not yet.
My god I'm up early. Usually this time of year I start to. Isn't it nice to wake up with the sun, start your day at the very beginning? All the potential layed out in front of you like fresh snow...
Hmmm... It seems I woke up uncharacteristically poetic today. Here's a rare moment of self reflection.
Profit:
I'm a terrible uncurable marxist. This pleases me. It pleases me because while I was growing up all anyone told me was "oh yeah, it sounds great, but the world doesn't work like that", followed quickly by "and as soon as you're earning your own money and have to pay taxes you'll change your tune".
This always annoyed me because it seemed to imply that I was as shallow and morally bankrupt as the people who manage to wreck this beautiful world of ours. I thought mere self interest could be seperated from moral judgement, and that it was possible to soldier on through life and do what you had to do to survive without getting your "rough edges", the freshness and inscisiveness with which a young person views the world, knocked off.
I won't lie. I was never going to soldier on as a class warrior, fighting the evil machine of capitalism by living in a squat, refusing to wash because it was "bourgeois" and singing revolutionary songs. Frankly I consider that kind of political masturbation to be as worthless as the unceasing search for profit for it's own sake.
I grew up accustomed to certain comforts in life. I travelled extensively as a child and was certainly used to the better things in life. I always knew I had to re-create the manner of lifestyle to which I was accustomed. And, of course, this involves money.
On the other hand I knew I was never going to conform to a traditional carreer. Slight digression: a few years ago I ran in to the mother of an old schoolfriend of mine who I hadn't seen in 15 years. She asked me what I was doing and had done in that time, and when I replied said "J, you were always going to be successful, and you were always going to take the least conventional route to get there".
My parents were wealthy enough to show me the better things in life, but by no means wealthy enough (or willing even if they were) to give me a financial prop to get there. Some of my freinds have had mortgage downpayments handed to them, jobs organised for them, investment money handed to them etc. So, young passionate red flag waver that I was, I was still in possession of the knowledge that I would have to make my money.
And it is here that all the voices which said "you'll soon drop that marxist line when you're in the real world" echoed uncomfortably around my skull.
My opinions have changed. I feel them changing. But they've always changed and refined as I've got older and seen more of the world. Am I less of a fervent communist than I used to be? Probably. But only because I don't have the time or outlet to enthuse, study and think as much as I used. I can feel myself judging other people's search for profit less harshly than I did as well. So then, has an entry into the real world changed my understanding of captialist economics? Not at all. Do I think it is ok for multinationals to make the sort of money they make? Definately not. Do I think capitalism works on a microcosmic level and it's just new aggressive global capitalism is the problem? Do I bollocks.
So the conclusion I have come to is this: self interest can be seperated from moral political judgement. It should be. It's ok to look after yourself in the world that is around us. You have to play by the rules.
I can seperate my daily activities from my political beliefs provided they don't conflict. I play by the rules to the extent I find morally comfortable, but that doesn't mean I suddenly accept the rules as right or good. They still stink.
I always used to think the people who told me they were left wing when they were younger but they "grew out of it" simply didn't have the same understanding of left wing politics and economics as I did. How can you "grow out" of an understanding of economics? You can decide it was wrong or had an incorrect emphasis, but you can't grow out of it. What you can grow out of is the moral underpinnings which determine the way you view that ecconomic understanding: the moral conclusions you draw from it.
To put it another way, unless you just weren't paying attention while you were soldiering through all that marxist material at univerity, has self interest changed your moral judgement? Have you aligned your understanding of right and wrong with your own self interest on the political sphere?
I'm happy to say that's not happened in my case. At least not yet.
So my mission to become a half participating member of this community has crashed in flames yet again. I have no excuses other than sheer unadulterated lazyness.
I mean, you know you must be lazy when you can't be arsed to log in to view naked arse...
What have I been up to? Living. Progressing somewhat, although slowly. All personal projects are showing signs of development, although none are really massively underway. Sorry to be so cryptic, but some of you know alreaedy, I don't like to broadcast what I'm trying to do in case of faliure followed by a year of unpleasant "weren't you doing such and such?".
How are you all? Who wants to go drinking? Who wants to tell me something that will make waking up tomorrow a more interesting or productive experience!?
I mean, you know you must be lazy when you can't be arsed to log in to view naked arse...
What have I been up to? Living. Progressing somewhat, although slowly. All personal projects are showing signs of development, although none are really massively underway. Sorry to be so cryptic, but some of you know alreaedy, I don't like to broadcast what I'm trying to do in case of faliure followed by a year of unpleasant "weren't you doing such and such?".
How are you all? Who wants to go drinking? Who wants to tell me something that will make waking up tomorrow a more interesting or productive experience!?
Well yes it's been quite a while since I last updated. Such a long time of course I must have loads to update about.
Or not....
The talented mr ripley was just on TV, and the last scene is truly disturbing. Good film though I suppose.
I've come to the realisation that my prospective career change is more desperately needed than ever. Working in an industry where most people you meet on a daily basis are total and utter cunts is not a good sate of affairs.
I'll never loose my own sense of decency, but I don't much like becoming desensitised to shit behaviour.
That's quite enough of that nonsense. If you could be a mythalogical creature what would you be?
Or not....
The talented mr ripley was just on TV, and the last scene is truly disturbing. Good film though I suppose.
I've come to the realisation that my prospective career change is more desperately needed than ever. Working in an industry where most people you meet on a daily basis are total and utter cunts is not a good sate of affairs.
I'll never loose my own sense of decency, but I don't much like becoming desensitised to shit behaviour.
That's quite enough of that nonsense. If you could be a mythalogical creature what would you be?
