Some thinking

Good morning. It’s Wednesday morning and I feel odd today. I have a sense of hope. I was getting down earlier and I think it’s because I’m always in and my life is nothing like I feel it should have been. Me aside though, and the completely different subject which made me think about sitting down and writing here was watching the John Gacy tapes on Netflix.

There’s a guy there who said that this guy, Gacy, was not insane because he had made the decision to kill and he had planned his murders and he had tried to hide them. This doesn’t work for me. The reason it doesn’t work for me is firstly, what is insanity? We can’t define it. Or if we can, if somewhere in law or in science it has a definition, it’s too sweeping for me, I don’t care what that definition is. The second reason it doesn’t work for me is that we are who we are and there are reasons for everything every single one of us does.

I don’t excuse what any murderer has done. You can’t. You can excuse self-defence, you can even excuse someone acting in self-defence even if it wasn’t necessary and they were mistaken. You cannot blame someone emotionally effected by the murder of someone they care about for lashing out and being perfectly at ease with killing their murderer, though. But why does what a murderer does need to be excused? It doesn’t, but I don’t believe that it can be but not because it’s too awful. I appreciate the awfulness. But I also think it’s true to say that human beings don’t know why they act as they do, I don’t believe in free will — again no excusing — but people don’t act out of evil. Evil is a construct to excuse not thinking more about the subject to which this label has been assigned. People are complicated creatures, perhaps sometimes with something missing that enables them to act in these ways but in my view, in almost all cases people should be given some kind of mental help if possible.

I don’t believe in justice. You can’t make up for the innocent victims of a killer, but I don’t believe public executions achieve. Maybe if someone is going to go to prison for a very, very long time and they are clearly beyond help, maybe then they should just be put away, but wouldn’t it be a shame to never learn anything from them?

Humans are far more complicated than some of us realise. Evil and good are far too convenient to ever be true. What is evil? The thing is, acts like those committed by Gacy, or by Dahmer, it confuses me when people make remarks like “they just did whatever the hell they wanted”. It confuses me because that makes it sound like everybody wants to do that. It’s the motive that should be investigated. I think that it’s just part of evolution, well, nature’s way of providing different ways of survival, and of course if you do certain things, quite rightly, you’re not allowed to continue. But people are who they are and they are what and who they are because of many things, and none of them the fault of themselves. Which leaves a definition problem. I use the term fault to express the usual meaning, and that’s wrong. The usual meaning is to express something was someone else’s fault because they intentionally made a mistake if that makes any sense. They couldn’t see the full picture, thought they were doing what they wanted, but as it turned out it was either what they or what other people didn’t want. But that doesn’t work. Is it someone’s fault if they are born with a predisposition to violence or anger that leaves them hurting people? My human mind says yes, you fuck with me and I’ll fuck with you back, but the bigger picture is that that person got to be there for many different reasons and often people need help.

I don’t believe in compassion for the sake of it and it, again, is playing to the human mind. Cuddly. Care. Decision. We are programmed to respond to these things but we don’t have free will at all, even if it is our reality. Our reality is not reality and however many people try to convince me that it is makes me think more and more about how short sighted human beings really are. But if we are to value human beings, if we are to allow our human ways to become a hybrid of understanding that we can indulge our minds in human ways, but also understand that humans are basically machines without free will, then more understanding of the human brain is surely necessary. If somebody steals food for their family because they need it the same as someone who has too much and steals more? Of course not and there is often a psychological deficit just as their can be of ownership, of ability to survive and fighting for it.

I’ve been thinking more and more about going to Brighton. Now. If I go, frankly I don’t know how I’ll cope. Psychologically I’ve been in a bubble, in this house, for a very long time. I’ve been afraid to get out of it. Tiredness aside. If what I thought/think happened, happened then I wouldn’t go back. I’d never go back. There are some things you just can’t say about someone, and yes, they are the ones that should have been suffering all these years as far as I’m concerned and not me. What I have discovered, though, is that if someone says something as insane as what I believe(ed) he was saying, shame is given to you. Passed to you. It doesn’t matter if what is said is true, if you think people believe that person, then, at least I am, entirely capable of feeling the shame given to you by that person and all of the people you believe are believing them.

Ideally I will go there and it will be just like visiting as I would have done and nobody will know who the fuck I am. And I think that’s likely because even if he videoed me in my flat, at the time I believed he’d been videoing me in the shower as I’d heard him talking about that, then they’re not going to recognise me. I don’t know, I don’t know anything, but I do know that I will be scared. I would say shitless but for all I know I will feel more comfortable on arriving.

I’ve said this a million times, but I received a note that had them introduce themselves and explain that they were the neighbours above me. I can’t fathom it. I can’t see that they would have done that if it was real. So what the fuck is wrong with me to have had it so vivid in my head for so long whilst I was there that I truly believed what I was hearing. “We are confused. We have nothing against you.” What the fuck was that? At the time, I genuinely felt confused when I saw that note. My only conclusion was that they were worried I’d go to the police and the only way a note like that was going to fly with me is if they believed that I was so off my head I’d imagined it. And I believed that’s what they wanted me to believe. I need to put some thought into it because one word from anyone and I’ll get very upset and leave. And being on hyper-alert is potentially something that could set me off into crazyville.

My head isn’t clear today. I slept all last night and most of today and I am tired so I may rest.

I’m also finding myself annoyed at someone. He knows that I don’t have much money, he knows I want to freelance, yet he is resigning from his job, he’s walked into a lot of freelancing work and he keeps on about how much money he’s making. And it’s a lot. And that’s great! I get that. I understand that. But I don’t think that anybody should be flaunting something like that to someone who doesn’t even have the energy to get clients or make any money at the moment. It’s insensitive and thoughtless. Sure. I should be a better man and not get jealous, but money is important. You wouldn’t go on about how much food you had to a starving person. And I could understand it if he did it just once, but it’s every time we chat. I get angry. Call me a bad person if you will, but it’s built into me. And I can snap. I can snap in a way my brain would call self-defence. Please do take the murdering stuff written above away from that. I certainly don’t do that. But it’s self-defence to protect my mind, to concentrate on my own life and achievements. I don’t need to hear about how amazingly well someone else is doing. And I just don’t think it’s particularly mature to go on about it. No, it’s not you, dear sole reader of mine, heh. Potentially. Should I write about it here? Probably not. We all need an outlet.

I did start my guitaring a couple of days ago. “The year of the guitar” it was supposed to be but I’m just too tired. That gets me down. That pushes me closer to snapping. I’m not a snappy guy! But I’d also not go on about wealth to a poor person. Flaunt it at your own risk.

I shall rest. God I hope I can get some stuff done tomorrow. I’ve two apps to build. I have the backend and the front end of the backend to finish for my forest app. I don’t know if it’ll ever be used but I might as well carry on with it. I have a Pokemon app. I also have an app for my previous employer but I really think he’s likely to be passed caring by now. I don’t care. I’m a grumpy fucker. And anyway, I emailed him about a year ago asking for a password, he’s had a more recent email explaining what’s going on and he hasn’t bothered to reply so he’s annoyed me too.

Also, I need to work out what the hell I’m doing with my phone. BT want to put my bill up. I can lower it, therefore, by 50 quid a month which is a lot of money to some of us if I just get broadband only but then I don’t want to be a pain to my family by always calling them on their Skype facilities. They can’t get a mobile signal so their landline is important. They hardly go out because of the virus still and I’m not sure it would work. The other option is to only save thirty quid and get a new contract including a poncy digital phone. The other option is to cut the landline and get a mobile phone contract although I’m told it’s quite unhealthy to use a mobile too often. If I can’t decide I’ll just get the poncy digital phone I guess. I’m sick of saying I guess. That’s another illogical thing that makes me angry; americanisms. That might not even be one, but it’s certainly used more in American films than in my world at least. I have nothing against Americans at all! Well not all of them, but that’s the same as for the English. I mean a lot of my favourite artists are Americans. I just fucking hate people pretending to be something they’re not. Calling me bud, for example, makes me feel quite angry. I can’t help it! I don’t take it out on people. Give it time, though.

I am so tired. And Christmas is getting closer. I don’t want Christmas…we’re half way through March already…must…make…change.

Kind love and respect.