Triffic

I’m tired of people talking about their age. “Things I wish I’d known at 25 now I’m 38” flew past my screen on getting here. I’ve not read it. It might be brilliant. But everybody learns things at a different rate. And I can’t tell you there’s anything I wish I’d known. So I assume they’re not talking about useful facts. Here are some things I don’t listen to but wish were true but might be.

Eating healthily will change my life. I need brain function. I really, really, do not know why alcohol affects me the way it does. I had maybe three bottles of wine on Saturday. It’s Tuesday and I’m still foggy and a little shaky. Never good, but I’m used to that and there have been times where it’s felt more like a bomb’s gone off in my head so this is okay. I can cope. But it does get me thinking. In the past I’ve felt spaced out for the following day, as in the full twenty four hours, after just a glass of wine. I completely understand that a GP might think “Well stop drinking if it’s doing that to you!” rather than investigating something they don’t have time to investigate but it’s very hard to just stop when you have something of an intense relationship with alcohol and you’re not one to just accept something without there being a reason. If I understood the reasons behind the immense effect drink has on me I could speed up the recovery. One of the biggest problems I have is brain fog, something I’ve thought could be light Asperger’s, ME but whatever it is I know alcohol makes it worse and I really want to get rid of it because if I can I might be able to gain regular employment or just get better at everything.

Looking back, actually, I recall struggling when I was at school. I’d drink so much I couldn’t make sense of words, or most notably to me, the words just plain wouldn’t make sense. I wasn’t drinking small amounts and this, again, was days after I’d got drunk. I recall craving alcohol during English in year nine and I remember hallucinating and shaking because I’d overdone it. People say it takes years to do permanent damage, on the other hand, at that young, I’d not be surprised if this was a big part of my issue. I was always smoking at that age too. God. I want to ask how anybody could be so stupid, but it has a huge amount to do with the environment you grow up in; sorry family.

I don’t know what else I should have known. Occasionally I discover something like if you spend more time washing your face with facewash your face feels a lot cleaner. I’ve not yet learned to brush my teeth without getting toothpaste up my sleeves, or how to avoid getting soaked sleeves when you wash your hands but perhaps more importantly how to wash your face without getting soap in your eyes. People say don’t put soap around your eyes but I want to have lovely clean eyelids and it just doesn’t wash. Boom boom.

I’d have told Mum not to marry, let alone move in with her second husband. I was only ten, I didn’t know any better but that was an enormous mistake.

But here I stand. Forty. I have been told by a couple of different people that I don’t look it so I might lower my age. I’ve even thought about changing my name. I think I have an odd sense of self. Of course I don’t know what a sense of self feels like for other people but mine is foggy. Sometimes absent. Probably a combination of me being me but not helped by spending most days alone. Not that I’m complaining. And I’d like to say that although a lot of people would probably consider me negative I’m never actually moaning about things with texture unless they’re worth moaning about. The government is worth moaning about. I think that’s true anyway. I think most of my moaning comes from a complete and utter lack of understanding of the world. Sometimes I might sound critical to people, but that’s me asking questions because often I just don’t understand. If I pick at something it may provoke a reaction and I think there’s subconscious intention there.

I’m analysing myself a lot today. The thing is. Foggy I may be, but the government cannot afford, well they probably can I’m just one guy, but I’m not going to get the money I want in order to live as I want. I am talking about material things but not for the sake of it. I want a big house, to own it. What’s in ownership? Not shitting money down the toilet. Why do I want a big house? Space for creativity.

One thing around psychosis, something I’ve been okay with lately, is the rapid eye movements I noticed during my last mad day. Alcohol can induce this apparently. The mind is irritating, as much as it is fascinating. I think coding has broken me; I want answers to everything. But the thing is, the mind is foggy in nature. I suppose that’s because we just don’t understand it very well. Map a mind entirely into a capable computer and why wouldn’t we be able to find out every reason for every part of the behaviour of a human being?

And I’ve not mentioned Brighton once. Yet. I don’t think I feel the need today.

I think what I need is a plan. First! A plan to sort out poor physical health because I think alcohol’s been a cause of many of my problems. I want to stop using nicotine. That could have a big impact for all I know because I’ve used it pretty constantly since I was a kid so I don’t know what happens if I stop. I don’t know how really. I’m fully addicted. But it’s so dehydrating, this vaping stuff, that it cannot be good for the mind or body. And why is it we “don’t know how it’ll affect people in the future”? Why is it so hard to really find that out?

So back to the plan. Health. I need health and hydration. In fact I’ve marked today as the first full day of sobriety. I like a date. I don’t expect I’ll stick to it. As soon as something else is a success or failure I expect I’ll get drunk again.

Achievements and being “productive” are really important to me because I’m so tired or foggy I’ve struggled to achieve anything much over the last twenty years. I’ve not met as many people as I should by far and the coding jobs I’ve had I’ve always struggled with other people’s code. But if that’s to remain a part of the way I am, I really want to play the guitar. I think you have to find things to do in life in a different way to those with their own family. It would be foolish to compare myself with them, but it might give me some time to excel at something I think is worth excelling at. Guitaring, drumming, art or, well, coding. Do I care for coding? I do. But not for any ultimate goal, more for the same reasons that anything is interesting. It’s a hobby. A sandbox. A place to play. To build.

Moving is a goal. But thankfully I don’t have to decide on a location until I have an income. I am going to finish the WordPress course I’m doing. I think it’s all easy stuff, it’s just knowing things. I also want to finish the Android course. Then I’m going to move into design and possibly SEO.

Something I did manage last week was a wibbly wobbly wave effect for a new website. I feel like Arise needs a brand. A logo. All that shit. Maybe I’ll stick with the wolf’s head logo I have for Uncouth. I have nicked the look of the Arise website I’ve been working on from someone else but I don’t think he’ll ever know. Our paths will not cross, plus I’ll be personalising it. In some ways I think it would be quite nice to have the company website, Arise, and then have my own myname.com website for more human things. The art, the sounds, the fun things. I’d quite like a film noire style cartoon image. I could make use of the smoke effect I’d made with the HTML canvas. I don’t know. I’ve taken to writing whatever the hell I like here without thought because it’s an outlet, but it might be nice to write a blog where I’m actually caring what people think of me to the degree that is common. That degree might be difficult to find, but I could try. It’s good to have some kind of standards or dignity.

I find it hard to know to what degree one should be honest. On one hand, growing up, at school, and in life, I find people have been distastefully honest and I suppose it seems, then, that that’s perhaps how people should be. I’ve always, historically, been more guarded. I think sometimes my honesty comes from an inability, and therefore eventual apathy, to be able to tell where the lines are. If you can’t see invisible lines, it’s frustrating, and you have no option but to give up. But perhaps in that direction is madness. Or maybe it’s healthier. I don’t know. The world is confusing.

Exercise. Comes under health.

So. Fuck all the get healthy crap. Important but to what end? Guitar! Music. I’d like to sing. Paint. Drum. Poetry. To what end? That might be a stupid fucking question. Pleasure. Or artistic misery. Is there an ultimate goal? The beauty of the human mind is that goals are never ending. Well. Reality. I think I want to create something other people like in music or a drawing. To what end? Fuck off! I need goals or I won’t bother getting out of bed.

Animals. Animals take away the necessity for goals. You don’t compare yourself to them, at least not competitively, and I take pleasure in the empathy I have with them. I take pleasure in being around dogs and cats. I want to retrain.

But I’d also like a few code things to be proud of that were amazing. Not websites. Possibly physics modelling.

Maybe the answer is to play with graphics and play the guitar in between studying because it’s going to take some considerable time to get through these courses.

And why is SEO so boring? Maybe someone can make it more interesting. I feel I should be able to offer it as part of the website deal. I don’t want to make websites. But I can. And it’s often easy money.

I will go. I have to rest.