Bags of Gold

By God I was angry, I’d been angry all the time recently. It was one of those periods when you get something right and two things go wrong. I kept telling myself it could be worse, and then it would get worse. My prides of joy, my material religions had for too long been my fishing tackle; mountain bike and; car. The fishing tackle had been stolen, the bike had been stolen. The car had been twatted. Not only that, the builders were overrunning, and with everything that got fixed, something else was broken. Work was tough, overworked, over stressed, and Christmas was coming up fast. My calamities were beginning to transcend from my private life into my working, and I was getting known for having an uncannily jinxed run. It didn’t stop there, I was seeing a therapist and she’d been digging up my historical issues, getting to grips with my anxiety. I didn’t think it was affecting me, but it was. I was angry at the world, well not the world, indeed I care so much about the world it tore me up. The way we treat it, the way we treat each other. I was angry at society, indeed completely livid with humanity, right down to watching two colleagues go to the same shop, buying the same neatly packaged lunch, to eat in the same place, yet still requiring two plastic bags big enough to drown a whale. We care that little, we need to be forced. This generation will never care enough to think for themselves, conditioned now to the point of thoughtless convenience being core. Environmental cost means nothing, fiscal cost means everything, and for too long we’ve had the latter too easy, so easy, we just throw it all away. I got angry in the car, angry at the television, angry on Facebook, and worst of all, was becoming angry in the home. It’s funny how things can always get worse, worse to the point whereby the thought of all of the above seems like a complete breeze. Well. Things did get worse, but I shan’t go into that now, I’ve got a book to write, and four book ideas have already slipped my mind whilst I write these bags of gold. It wasn’t that which tipped me though, it was something small a little while later; it was the last card on a house of 51 that brought the house a toppling. My brow beat, my complexion grey to yellow as my pacing disturbed those at the other end of the platform. I was lost, just like everybody else, only I’d awoken to it; I was a ghost trapped in time. Thanks be to the elderly man who then appeared before me, took to the end of the platform he did, out of his way, out of everybody’s way. Introducing himself kindly, quickly he established a rapport with my restlessness, as if in tangent with the rhythm of it. He’d been strong in his day, probably still was for his age, told me he’d been an angry soul as a younger man, maybe seen something in me, pacing. He’d lost his way, lost his family through the anger, gave me a lecture on it he did. I found the whole thing strange; no-one had ever just started talking to me on this particular platform, never. He calmed me down with talk, his own talk, never asking me a single thing; he knew a response wasn’t there just then and there. Seems that plastic bags have been produced and recycled for the whole of a man’s career, different bags for different souls, a whole line requiring holes, another requiring no holes. Bags and films made of oils, some cheap and full of friction, some dear and touched with additive. Colours left in and colours left out. Specific contaminants dictating specific ingredients - specific ingredients containing specific goods. Paid over time for a thousand bags home to pay a boy a bob a hundred to punch the M&S line. Green was labelled, ‘profit’ as the old stuff got chopped to granule and came back out as new. I survived that day, turned back on a lost cause and had some Squares with a Spitfire.

And Beyond

Top of the food chain - Earth.

The Blind Who Still See

There are the blind who see - they see only what they want to see.

Pseudo Wise

Don't judge what you don't understand.

Chipped Generation

No matter what you do, you can never please everybody. Some people just want to be cross, and so they miss the bits that count.

Ego Assurance Insurance

We all think we're superior to the next man, just as the next man thinks he's superior to us.

A Wealth on Mental Health

I feel compelled to write this on account of how misunderstood mental health issues are. I hope that it will be of help to those who suffer, but also to those who do not. My intention is merely to provide information to those who do not suffer, in the hope it might assist them in dealing with those who do. I have not based this upon any medical research whatsoever; it is entirely based upon my own personal experiences. If you dismiss this now in the belief that those who suffer are just pathetic, or need to get things into perspective, then you are the most in need of reading this, but also, I would embrace your good fortune. The first thing to say is that we are all wired up differently, every single brain on the planet is different, no two brains develop in an identical set of conditions and circumstances. Brains are the same as snowflakes in this regard. A brain is molded like plasticine as it grows, but also as it experiences and learns. Sometimes brains are the subject of chemicular imbalances, injury and illnesses, or fail to make particular connections from one side to the other. Sometimes, brains can over think matters, torturing their bearer with too much ‘air’ time. There is nothing unusual here, indeed the list goes on, and most people will have suffered from at least one such ailment, no doubt regularly. The problem in my case, I believe to be intense and relentless thought, usually over several different issues and building gradually over a sustained period until eventually they become all consuming. I know full well when this is happening; I also know that I am at risk when it does. I guess in the same way you are at risk of a common cold when you stand out in the rain for too long. This is precisely why I avoid conflict and am a terribly upbeat person; such is my defence mechanism against allowing the seep of negativity in, I stay as far away from it as possible. The problem is of course, life is such that from time to time there may be no control over the waves of problems that come into it, when this happens to me, no matter how hard I try, they envelope and begin to breach the defences, like bacteria, entering my thought process like as a virus would the blood. Now, whereas some brains are geared up to cope with this, others are not. I have to say mine isn’t bad, which is why I only become unwell once in a blue moon. I do have a grasp of perspective, I will have already latched on to as many positives as I can find, indeed the battles I have had with a ‘defeatist attitude’ are epic. But eventually, like with any perfect storm, conditions are so relentless and freakishly in sync, that to some, they can become overwhelming. For me, my grasp of perspective can be drowned out by the depth of my thoughts. Normally perspective bobs along the top of thought in harmony, buoyant on the skin of serotonin, but when the weather changes and the seas are rough, perspective can be thrown under, and starts to sink. Different brains succumb at different points, in different conditions and for different reasons, just as some will never succumb. But when a brain does, it is a sickness like any other, but therein lies the problem; those who do not suffer do not see it like that. You wouldn’t tell a person with bronchitis to stop coughing, or a person with the runs to stop shitting. So why tell somebody with depression to pull them self together? Is there a belief they have not tried? Mental illness is so horrendous nobody wants to be there, it is not something you would volunteer for, just as it is not something you can suddenly decide to cure yourself from. Worse still, is that every case is different because every brain is different, not even medical science can clear such a mine field , it can ease the symptoms, but that is all. Let me explain what it’s like for me. I suffer from occasional anxiety and even less occasionally depression, so I’m probably on the spectrum nearest to somebody who doesn’t suffer at all. My anxiety has taken me into crippling panic attacks, but that is another story for another day. Most recently however, I have suffered a bout of what I would consider mild depression, so that is what I will describe. The battle I have to prevent this from happening, which can go on for months, from waking until sleeping, and within sleeping - manifesting in uncomfortable dreaming, can incidentally be won. But if lost, leaves me mentally exhausted, drained and physically tired, which in turn leaves me unable to articulate what exactly is happening and the extent of it. The latter being my subsidiary motive for getting this down in writing. It is frustrating and scary for both those who suffer and those who care. For me it feels like a waking dream in which you cannot run away from what’s in pursuit, and you cannot make a sound to scream for help. I endeavour to sleep it off and reboot; I self medicate, and always get up in the mornings. I just keep going as best I can in the knowledge that time will take care of the rest and good times will prevail. It takes understanding, patience, quiet and empathy from those around. With me, its best not to try and argue perspective, it will have been exhausted already, believe me. It’s also best not to presume that the person suffering is anything like you, we all have different brains, different make ups and different thresholds remember, neither party would be suffering if you were the same. Anger and blame are understandable emotions from people who are close, but don’t assist. Love and kindness however, they never go amiss.

An Insight Into The Well

To the empathetic touch of the rain, to the quiet understanding of silence. I didn't want to explain, I knew I'd get into trouble for that.

Never Give Up

For every effort tumbled, turn and take two at the ten that stand, then make another.