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Printed from https://writing.com/main/books/item_id/1713785-CREAM
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Rated: 18+ · Book · Experience · #1713785
Young man's struggle with money, women and literature.
This blog will help serve as motivation for me to record my successes and failures as a final year student of English Literature. Two years of partying and failure to produce any work that truly reflected my ability, I am using this blog initially as a means of documenting my day-to-day achievements in working towards a final year grade that can really show what I can achieve in academia. This blog will also run parallel with my issues regarding my obsession with money and social pressures.
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January 15, 2011 at 12:28pm
January 15, 2011 at 12:28pm
#715559
Its been a long time since I actually listened to an album as a whole and felt transported to another planet. These new waves of musical obsessions are extremely important for making me realize the larger picture of life and providing a cinematic soundtrack that stretches the scope of mind; the imagery and visuals this music creates makes me feel like nothing else I have experienced.
January 8, 2011 at 10:31am
January 8, 2011 at 10:31am
#715014
The volitility of my emotional state is now just a welcome mode of living. Its always happened, fluctuations between intense happiness and depression that seems to create some intangible weight in my guts that brings me closer to the ground (seriously, I kept hitting the deck last night with comical moans of anxiety and frustration). I know now and can feel now this control to move on and look to my life after university. Its coming, and coming fast. I think I was in some state of delusion about my future as an academic. Of course I would love to stay at university and continue to learn and increase my intellect and maybe someday even have 'Dr.' in front of my name - the kind of name that seems like it should have a 'Dr' in front of it - but I look to the lives of academics as I wander around this library before term and it seems so...closed off. I think its because I have been born in age with so many marketing influences that make me want to spend money and live a life thats going to make me feel so fly like a G6. Of course, if I squint my inner eye I can see how an academic life would make sense; I would have the biggest possible separation from the labourer, utilizing my intellect on a daily basis, with a birds eye view of the world around me and how history has shaped it, with perhaps some insight into what is to come.

Mention may have been made in this short blog about my 'poetic genetic'. My father seems to have a way with words, a way that should not be so alive for a retired labourer whose terminology should only have extended to branded spades, the brute force of brick lifting and conversion. Its probably best if I look to a practical means of living that will be somewhere in the middle classes of making a comfortable living and perhaps even finding a way out of England.

-- This is the stage in writing a blog entry where I realise I don't much of a direction and want to leave --

I am not going to bail out so quickly this time. The reality of my future is quite dim; I lack any real experience to find my way into a real job, especially with a rather broad degree and little work experience that is going to get me in a good position during an interview. I am pretty screwed, all I know is, is that if/when I do get a job, I know I'll get really obsessed with it and do my best to excel. Unfortunately it means that I am probably going to neglect other areas of my life.

Subject change.

I have been asked some many times what kind of music I listen to and I never really have a good answer for the polite questioner.

'I am in to a bit of everything really'


It would be better if I had some scripted replies. I remember visiting Brighton for a night out and a tournament. The club/bar/mating dance seen fascinates me greatly. Girls are dressed to impress and the guys with sense either push the boundaries with some bold retro look that screams murder about their style and taste that the girls should try out or the males fashion a pinstripe suit. It feels like as soon as I find myself in the real world, the name of the game is going to be 'first to six figures: one, two, three - GO!'. I think I have lost already. Money interests me, ballin' interests me. Maybe its just the inherent male need. I am under some illusion that I will enjoy it one day, for now I just enjoy the fantasies.

I am determined to do what I need to do to get it, I just need to be shown the right direction.
January 5, 2011 at 12:05pm
January 5, 2011 at 12:05pm
#714767
I need to just vent right now. I am torn between falling into old habits of getting extremely upset and frustrated about my feelings towards a female, however, my blood pressure is low enough to realise how it isn't the best solution. It seems as if I now have the ability to put it aside and just try and keep myself busy. It comes back to my feelings about not be good enough for intimacy with another human being. Despite the 'unromantic circumstances' I spoke of in an older post in regards to a girl I spent the night with, she has been on my mind the entire Christmas season. I did my best not to stalk her online and I haven't bothered her. In fact there have been two other developments with girls since then, but none of them compare to the scale of my feelings towards the first girl.

Yet, I read this and feel this and a new wave of control comes over me where I can put it aside, realise that there are more pressing concerns and then continue to sort my life out. Ironically, mere laziness is preventing me from actually doing that. Another realization is that in the past, I used this kind of pain to achieve things; first in writing, then in training. It was my subtle, self-destructive way of saying a massive 'fuck you' to those that hurt me without even knowing -You'll see, you'll see'. It was childish and, as I said, self destructive. Now I am transforming that energy into a kind of control that allows me to stand back and see the situation from a more objective point of view. This bland, uncreative writing isn't a by-product, but it is a means to an end. An end that calms me. I can see the problem, express, share, transform and manipulate.

The truth is, I enjoy this stabbing pain. Its been so long since I have really felt anything and I live in a state now where I swing with wonderful rapidity between immense, unexplainable happiness and joy, to the very depths of suicidal and depressing feelings. These swift shifts lead me to believe I am pregnant. But I'm a dude, so its all good.
January 4, 2011 at 6:45am
January 4, 2011 at 6:45am
#714688
My last post was, rubbish. I was lacking energy, but now I really need to say whats troubling me: 1) so that I can actually see what it is and 2) so I don't keep getting reminders to update this blog.

Concerns about my future after university are now more real than ever. I really want to avoid my hometown and the reality of finding a graduate job, although good, would probably require a serious commute or a complete relocation, which I don't feel comfortable with at all. I hate England for all its 'sameness'. Whenever I travel to another part of it, it all looks the same and it depresses me. The reality of having little or no money, surviving off of no food and making early morning travels to get to a job that doesn't satisfy me seems like a very real possibility. I know the outside world is harsh and I know working is horrible. I really need to nail my CV and covering letters to get in with a chance of getting a job that I can at least semi-enjoy. Its going to be a long, difficult process. But I really need this.

Previously, I was thinking about becoming some kind of academic, which allow me to prolong and maybe even stay at this place for the rest of my life. However, I think I was deluding myself - I'd really need genuine passion for literature and what I am studying to do well. I always felt there would be security in it, and bring me a life of good discounts of Apple products and the opportunity to meet new people all the time. The reality seems to involve more time spent in the library by myself doing something that would damage my energy, because I would have too much of it.

I think I need something, although office based, that requires some creativity, something with print or copy. Something with words, but in a way that doesn't discuss the extent in which Twain's use of satire is used for social criticism...Hmm, that does sound kind of interesting. This is my biggest problem - I simply have no idea what I want. The safest bet right now, is going for a job somewhere that will get my earning more than I am spending, because the reality of it, is that I am quite screwed. I am so terrible with money.

I need to crack on.
January 2, 2011 at 5:41pm
January 2, 2011 at 5:41pm
#714568
I have really slipped off the radar here. This was supposed to serve as a motivational way to record my academic progress while studying literature. Truth be told, my progress was completely destroyed when my Macbook Pro and all of the work I had done on it got stolen from the library - my faith in humanity dramatically diminished. I never really got back on top of things and ended the term very poorly, I do not look forward to receiving the marks for the work I have done. This next, and technically final, term of university has been given a similar start as the last, this time I don't really have anything to steal. I am a good way into Ulysses, which is the primary novel for one of my modules and making sure that I actually do something productive every day. I am training again and things seem to be going well.

My priorities need to extend to my life beyond university. I am purely scared of Graduate Scheme applications in case I get something wrong, but they seem like my best chance of avoiding my home town and staying somewhere more independent and generally ambitious.
December 10, 2010 at 2:39pm
December 10, 2010 at 2:39pm
#713370
...and I can still smell her.
December 10, 2010 at 2:02pm
December 10, 2010 at 2:02pm
#713363
I've been absent, I've been wrong.

The last few weeks have been nothing short of some unstable hedonistic lifestyle; on a level I am not used to. Developments with at least three different women and my preconceptions about relationships, intimacy, feelings are undone. Each meeting, over the last week has been a gradual increase in closeness and yesterday I have felt things I have not felt for such a long time. How people can grow tired of physical contact with someone they care about is beyond me. Simple intimacy is something that, first of all, I can say no other male in this room is writing about right now. Partly because they are doing essays. Secondly, I can guess that this is that 'floating' feeling many people must experience when they are in a relationship. Mine was short lived and I doubt that it will happen again. Even though this most recent drunken love situation was with someone I am very interested in, it is unlikely to continue or even happen again, so I am promptly dragged back to the ground with a hot stab in my chest - I can't imagine the pain one must endure after a lengthy and more intense relationship. The circumstances of my most recent encounter with a girl that I like, very much, are definitely a bit dodgy. Alcohol and drugs were combined from both parties and the idea that it was all a mistake is definitely the most prominent conclusion.

This hurts.

I have always satirized the idea of emotions being physically painful, joking that I have no emotion, no feelings. It ties in with a love for my favourite Ally McBeal character, Richard Fish, and his amazingly superficial take on life. I repress emotion so much that when it comes back, it comes back in abundance. Combined with an environment with subtle symbolic meanings that extend to my perceptions and past experiences and now with the perfect melancholic and emotional music, I am in an intangible abyss of slow moving, adrenalin-pumped feelings and sickly emotion. I just want to cry into a pillow.

What the hell is wrong with me?

I want her back.

Waking up with a girl like that beside me, was one of the most beautiful and amazing moments in my life. Of course, the circumstances in which it came about were completely unromantic, yet, I cannot shake that level of euphoria I had. How do the jocks and cool kids from school deal with so much of this?
November 25, 2010 at 12:39pm
November 25, 2010 at 12:39pm
#712287
Bitterness makes the most simple tasks a lengthy struggle.

It’s easier to blame the current social construct for my apathy, my lack of hope, of ambition, of motivation. I caught the latter half of a film about capitalism last night. It just adds to my cynicism about the world and deepens my lack of faith in the human race. On the one hand, if I was a big time banker, with a serious account and enough money to really live more than comfortably; able to pay for the things that really satisfied my fantasies of all kinds (that I believe are no doubt in the deep regions of the souls of every human being), I would probably never want it to end. There is no real solution for harmony, regardless of the system that we run. I know I write with a pretentiousness that seems to give off the idea that I know what I am talking about. I feel that even now, in this situation, I am so far removed from the harsh realities of life that it’s just too late for me to ever see what is going on. The ferocious, competitive nature of our world can just be too much for some people. I consider the academic elites in the top universities, chairman’s of the secret societies, the rituals, the deals under the tables, the 'its-who-you-know' clubs, the destined-for-power. They are the ones who are naturally sublime, or have been brought up in the sporty, private school. Surpassing and pushing forward the gene pool, creating a future of beautiful, proportioned girls and tall, witty, fast, intellectual men. It is going to happen.

The common man just seems like too much hassle and the easier we can be kept in-check, the easier it is for those above us.

Maybe we need another revolution? Who was it who said that a revolution is too inhumane and that building libraries would be the better thing to do?
November 15, 2010 at 3:55am
November 15, 2010 at 3:55am
#711421
I refuse to look at templates, guides or tutorials on how to write poetry or scripts. There seems to be a predetermined idea of how things are to be universally recognized and displayed, which I feel inhibits the essence of a blank canvas. This rather cynical or lazy view has prevented me from carrying on with my somewhat creative mid-teen phase, a time when I seemed to have a popular journal (on ye olde GreatestJournal.com) with followers ranging from close friends to the random passer-by. I used to spur out off-the-cuff rants about my feelings and all the annoyances that came with life, with poetic openers that I spent the walk to and from college obsessing over, revising and revising, re-thinking and observing, mentally, over and over - how would this person react to it? how would that anonymous reader feel about it? This will sound rather pretentious, but I feel as though I had some ability to arrange words in great way; it felt as though there was some dying strand of talent in my gene pool that related to words and creativity. This phase was fueled by a rather deep obsession with a couple of girls, as well as the music that I was pumping through my veins and the idle wonderment that always came naturally to me. It was a recipe that allowed for a constant source of inspiration, unlike I had ever felt before.

However, with the demise of GreatestJournal.com and the innate ability of mine to 'quit when I start getting good at something', resulted in a rather gradual decline in any creative output on my part. When college finished and I found myself working behind a till during my gap year, the structure of my soul was inevitably cracking at a rapid rate. I miss those days, greatly.

Today, although I would like to grasp that old ability of creating through words, I find myself reaching a dead-end, very quickly. I am so uninspired, so void of feeling. When I look out the window of this library and see far off into the distance, with the morning haze exposing the contours of the dipping landscape and the wickets of the cathedral knifing through and single birds launching from dead branch to brick wall - I become filled with inspiration. Each season brings with it a new weight of comfort and happy melancholy, but I cannot keep it. It escapes me so quickly. Passion has become has a volatile entity to me now.

Its as if my insides have died.
November 5, 2010 at 11:36am
November 5, 2010 at 11:36am
#710405
I aimed to avoid vulgarities in this blog for as long as possible, but the intrusive beauty of the students that surround me have forced a deserving recognition of the subtle battleground of preliminary sexual advances that make this particular part of university (the library), just as ferocious as the nightclub. After reading reviews of this university (after I had written one myself), there was actually a section named 'eye candy', where you are supposed to rate the attractiveness of the students here and one person actually commented saying 'we go to the library to check out the talent, not for work!'. Attraction is something that has puzzled and infuriated me for a long time. I am one of those 'neither here nor there' kind of people who doesn't really lean towards any definitive side of the attraction scale, but I have always been amazed by the looks my closest friend gets from girls. He seems completely oblivious, but I always make the joke that whenever we go about town, the divorce rate goes up a few percent because all those wives are seeing what they are missing.

During my walks, either home or to anywhere else insignificant, my mind quickly and momentarily flashes into a state of another, where life is without a care and I am a Rockefeller or a Jackson (Curtis). It is a world so completely different and queer from what me and you are familiar with. The abundance of money, respect, opportunity and pleasure is just astronomical.

As consumers we pay for the soundtracks to the lives of those people, even though we ourselves aren't enjoying it on a scale anywhere near to them.

Working in a nightclub, the tracks that come out are just the perfect marketing ploys that sucker us in to buying and living our lives in such a drilled and predetermined manner. When I was going through a phase where I thought I could maybe one day become a copywriter, I spent some time reading marketing and advertising books and the extent in which we are manipulated was astonishing to me. I began to take a step back from my life and realize I am just a whore of marketed influences. My previous post stated I wanted to buy a pen and paper to sit in a coffee shop with...oh dear! I have wasted so much time. My energy levels are terrible and it can take me a week to complete just a few simple tasks that require brain power. This is why I believe some genes should not be passed on, this is why I have removed myself from the gene pool by not chasing these absolute beauties around me in this room. This is why I am nothing.

Fury.

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Printed from https://writing.com/main/books/item_id/1713785-CREAM