General Knowledge

Our society is failing to keep us up to date with important information

Our media is fickle and the masses are perfectionist and careful, apparently

Everywhere around us, celebrities are lying to us. They lie when they host talk shows. They lie when they say they are monogamous. They lie when they say they are sober and they lie when they say they are trustworthy. They are radio presenters, pundits, sportsmen and women, actors, news readers, gossip columnists and they are evangelical preachers.

But they are not the only liars among us... there are more.

They are truck drivers, office staff, retail assistants, warehouse workers, firemen and politicians.

We offer each other so much crap that we forgot how real things are.

We are treating war like it's new and surprising, religion like it's beneficial, politics like it's trustworthy, television like it's entertaining and tabloid gossip like it's original.

When did we get so blind? When did we stop seeing the truth?

We would like to believe that there are no perverts, there are no murderers, there are no rapists, psychopaths and torturers. But there are, and always have been. Have a look through history and then look at the recent press... it's no different, just how it's sold to you. It's Sensationalism and you want to believe you are in different world to all these people. Here's some real news: you aren't.

We would all like to believe that there was a man out there who doesn't cheat. Doesn't look at other women. Doesn't like to do his own thing in spite of what he tells you. If he says he doesn't want to, he is lying. Men are men. We belong to the same sex, have the same genes and interests. Gay or straight, we are still men.

(At this point I would have liked to talk about women, but seeing as I am not one, I could only take it so far, so I didn't.)

We would like to believe that there are celebrities out there with concrete relationships. People of a high social order that will prove to be that rock of hope that will justify all your fantastical dreams of a perfect relationship. People have been pounding the shit out off each other since the dawn of time. Just sit back and let the realisation sink in. It's real. That shitty gossip column you read is moot. Some guy got his rocks off. Big swing. Some chick left her husband: she found out.

We would like to believe there are rich people who genuinely look out for the interests of others and hand all their own money out to the poor and needy. We would like to believe that money doesn't make you selfish and greedy. We would like to believe that the pariah of the rich and famous will donate all his money to the third world. That's just Idealism. What better way to earn popularity but though talking the talk, not walking the walk. There are many who have done it. All the good and effective ones were killed because they were too good at it.

What we read about and watch on T.V is just basically a pile of garbage. History will teach you everything you need to know about right now. Nothing has changed, just the people who are participating. This does not mean we have to lose hope, in fact it's the opposite. You can relax and sigh relief in the knowledge that everything going on around you is quite consistent. It's been happening since Homo Erectus became Homo Sapien. All that happened since then was that the competitive ones stopped killing each other as much and instead talked about how much better they were than you. But they are just the same really. Like when you read about the cheating footballer, you know that could easily be you. When you read about the handsome male actor who left one woman to be with another, you'd do it too. When that fake celebrity knocked up another girl soon after his wife died, that's pretty normal. You'd like to think you were different, but you are the exact same. It just gives you comfort that it's out in the open and that it wasn't you who was the example being set.

Thankfully though, not everyone is a psychopath or has cruel intentions in their heart. There are a few good people out there who actually genuinely want to help each other. Granted, they still have a sex drive, which makes them the same as you and me in the grand scheme of things and if they are lucky, they won't have a controlling centre like the media, religion or a system in place that tells them they cannot express their sexual nature in case they might be exposed. Though that is news, it certainly isn't a surprise I'm sorry to say. That pretty much makes your gossip magazines, news-rags, T.V. sensationalism and movie plot a moot idea once you tune in and stop being ignorant of what has been going on forever.

Nothing and nobody is perfect. The sooner you realise that, the sooner you can have a happy existence. You are no different than any other human. That is a good thing. You can relax and enjoy life.

General knowledge is a lot more general than you give it the credit or recognition for.

No-one Owes You Anything

Eventualities, promises, the future, chances, choices, living in the moment, insecurity, expectations and disappointment.

That's quite a load to try and tackle at once, isn't it?

Yet we are all guilty, at some point or another of dealing with all of the above for someone else, or expecting others to handle all of our own.

Generally, it's not a good idea to trust anyone, even your best friend/significant other with any of the above. They all sound so intricate as to warrant a lengthy explanation for each, yet they are all tied to the same thing. In general though, I class myself as quite cautious and careful not to mishandle any of these when faced with receiving them as a reluctant gift. I have been known to stumble and smash them all over the ground. You cannot turn any direction without someone placing their expectations of an unwritten future onto your lap.

It can be argued that fate and destiny tie you to the results of fumbling with expectations, but only in a relative sense as I have said before. A clever person may decide whether to try live up to the expectations of another when given the choice, but even the clever person is fallible when faced with the demands of the quiet hopeful expectant. We are all subject to great fantasies when promised that someone will meet the demands of your dreams, even facing an unsure means of achieving a result. I could promise to meet you for dinner, hail, rain or shine, but that truck driver may be trying to meet a deadline of his own and therefore flatten me dead while overtired. Dinner ain't happening, my fair lady.

I may also decide now that one day I'd like to move into the same accommodation as you, somewhere down the road, just so long as I accept that all the things you do between now and then are OK with me. Seeing as I am not the master fortune teller, I may not agree... I prefer to say I'll watch the ongoing results of our friendship before I commit to buy or make a decision.

And so it is also fair to say that I don't often handle the fragile package that is holding all of your dreams that are not apparent to me right now. I would not like to open that package to be hit by a punch-glove in jest, or to trip up and fumble the package only to find out that it was in fact holding a crystal sculpture of a scene of the future that you carved with your bare hands. You may say I'm afraid of the responsibility of handling the delivery of that package... I would say I just don't want it. I would rather be the hands that pass it on, thank you very much.

I don't gel well with the expectant kind. I don't like sitting on the fence due to immature forc asts I have made about my own character. The only forecasts that I can predict well are the tears that follow from failing the expectations of others. I seem to know them well, even if I do not know what they are. I just know that they are there and that failure to meet them always ends up rupturing the waterworks. I am no better a plumber than I am a courier in this case. In the world of creating and manufacturing expectations, delivery and receipt of them, I am unemployed. I have to say, that is only because I willingly quit the business long ago.

I wouldn't even say this was a pessimistic outlook of the business rather a realistic one. I am not the father of an ex's kids, I am not married to or separated from any past girlfriends, I did not wait four hours for an unreliable friend that never turned up and I have not been decieved by the same person twice... at least outside my own family anyway. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.

Choices are easy to make, based on the ongoing results you see in any given situation. Some people really do believe that they don't have a choice. As the Rush song "Free Will" states: "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice". Many will leave their "fate" (for want of a better word) in the hands of another, even when they see things are not going their way. They will say that destiny dictated that they were not meant to be happy, or that Karma dealt them a blow because of a past life. Imagine the Allies believed in Karma? We'd all be speaking German now. At least, what was left of us anyway. That is not to say German people are bad. In fact they are wonderful. Based on the decisions of a few English, American and Russian people. Of course it's ALL relative now. The important thing now is that They are. We are. And You are.

When expectations are not going your way, it is your fault, not the fault of the person whose hands you placed them in. When things are not going your way it is your choice and actions that decide what way they will go, to a large degree. You cannot stop the reels to land on lucky 7's, but you can stop your hand from putting money in. in the first place. If your house mate is pissing you off, say so. Or else move. If it's raining on your wedding day, tough it out and enjoy yourself in spite of the weather. But please shut up moaning about something you CAN'T change. If you are overweight and don't like it, LOSE weight. Don't blame the food, blame your lack of motivation and self-control. If you are happy the way you are in this life, don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. They probably just want to drag you down.

If things are not going your way make it so, or try a different approach. If he is not marrying you then find someone who will. If you are not getting laid go out and TRY. Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing, it was here first*

And don't blame anyone for failing your expectations. The only one in charge of them is you.


*Mark Twain

Captain Midnight

Howdy all

Well it's been a week since I wrote anything on here. It's gotten to that stage where I think I was overdoing it. The good news, at least for me, is that I have been keeping my own notebook fairly up to date. But it has been a really busy week and a half so I haven't really had the time, despite having nothing but time off. Figure that one out.

So tomorrow I am finally getting my motorbike fixed for good, as in I am replacing the back tyre and, well, that's about it. But you wouldn't believe the shit you have to go through, as well as money in order to get a 160/60- 18" tyre. Anyway, I'll be glad to be done with it.

And I have finally started selling paint ball in my spare time as a nixer. I made one sale today and plan on getting a few more in by the end of the week. Just have to swot over my notes for roughly 3 or 4 minutes to make sure it works out :P

For now I'll keep this short and hope to get a kinda bi-weekly thing going on when things settle in and calm down a bit. I have plenty more stuff to talk at length about and a few more things to give out about. Watch this space :D

Matt's Bi-Weekly Rant - Feels Good, Man

So if I've learned anything over the last few days it's this: It ain't worth a damn planning ahead or worrying about anything once you have done all you could do to make a situation work within your best interests. Any anxiety or stress you feel about any given moment may not be changeable, but so long as you've drained your resources and tried your hardest you may as well just sit back and then do the waiting with that feeling justified.

Lately, I have been asking myself a lot "what can I do to change how I feel about this?" You know, when things are not going according to "plan" for want of a better word. If I'm stressed, I lessen the stress by pushing as far forward as I can with things before allowing myself to succumb to suspicion and doubt and even at that, I don't want to give them any great priority in my day. And I cannot be bothered with people who try to hold me back with "what ifs" or "maybes". Some folks are just afraid of mistakes. And as mistakes provide the best source of learning and experience, they pretty much say they are afraid of learning which to me is just flat-out ignorance. I don't have time for ignorance. Why wouldn't you want to learn?

Anyway, this was to have no particular direction, it was just meant to be a vent that I always intended this blog to be. I learned two new things yesterday alone: I am just as fallible as anyone else when it comes to raising expectations and that sometimes my own decisions aren't right. But like I was saying there, for better or worse, I am no longer afraid of the consequences. What is the point of living in fear like that anyway? The answer: there is no point. If there is no point in doing some good and enjoyable things like meeting up with friends and having a good time as I have seen some succumb to, then there is most certainly no reason why anyone should want to do rubbish things that make you feel terrible eventually.

And so it goes that I was deterring myself from doing something enjoyable like this new job with the expectation that I wasn't going to get that phone call. When I did get it, I realised that I had wasted a whole lot of time prejudging the situation. Anyway, the good news is that I have to go to a team meeting on Monday so it's looking good. What the hell was all that worrying?

So now the things left on my list are as follows. I'm currently waiting on a back tyre for my motorbike. Apparently that is being delivered today. If it's soon, I can go to the mechanic. If not, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Then I have to have a mad long fun day tomorrow. Gig and a birthday party. Fun times all around. Sunday I'm going to spend doing nothing really. Then Monday.

You might think "Matt is breaking one of his own golden rules by planning away his life". Well the truth is, yes, I have a few plans made all right... but they are dependent on nobody else. I will be doing this stuff anyway so if you feel like you want to join in, or your plans fall through, give me a shout. But in the mean time, I have dropped any expectations I have had of anyone gradually over the last few months. I know most aren't like I am and the few with a flair for activity are few and far between. That is a simple choice I realise. And every choice goes through a process of elimination before it's cemented. If you think your mates aren't worthwhile catching up with, then I can probably guess what your priorities are. Cool enough. Just send me a postcard when you get to Miseryville. I might help you pay for the return ticket though. Yeah yeah that is tacky, but I don't really give a shit, after all, here you are reading it as I am typing it. :P

Blah blah blah. It feels like that sometimes. Sometimes I feel like I am offering advice, but then I read over it and it's kinda all right... I'm just emptying all the bullshit out of the attic that I don't want any more. If you glean any help from this it's purely accidental and incidental. Generally I have a lot of time for people. More than I care to admit. Even when I'm busy writing, playing a game or just net browsing, I'm holding conversations on my laptop. At the moment I am having two while typing this piece. You know, though these may seem like rants, they are more like vents when it comes down to it. When the air inside gets stagnant, you open a window. That's what I do. I open up windows.

Anyway, I have fulfilled my bi-weekly obligation to myself. Feels good, man :D