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Been a while since I scribed anything in these pages. I must admit a certain sliding tendency towards that depressing state of mind that grows on one as we approach middle age.
By this I mean the belief that all has been done, all has been experienced, and all the future holds is repetition of defeats and an unending parade of selfish and sleeping people.
By sleeping, I refer to my personal belief (obsession) that the average citizen is asleep through most of their lives. That now and then you can wake yourself up through various acts which you can initiate or have performed upon oneself.
I guess some of these 'waking acts' include good sex (well that's not going to happen!), meeting a mind that challenges your very foundations of existence (perhaps less likely than the sex option, the last time this happened I was about 21 years old), or an amazing book/film/theatre piece - but as I age either I grow more resistant to the influences of media, or perhaps I just am so cynical I foresee the hooks and ruses media employs to keep attention, and seeing the apparatus behind the display, I dismiss the sum of the display.
It's sad to think that just getting laid would put me in a world of difference. That it would kick start actions within me that could lead me anywhere, end up with me doing anything. Why does such a simple biological action attract so much baggage in us males. Or does it for fems also? Then, ultimately, we are meat machines, following basic blind biological programming. Why wouldn't you weight the urge to reproduce as high as you can on an individual's wish-list? Whatever gets the genes out there I guess.
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I picked up ma and pa from the Brisbane Writers Festival this evening. They'd seen Bob Ellis, and I emphasise seen. Dad is very deaf, mum for the first time tonight admitted partial deafness. I see their struggles with admitting loss of senses and I see the young junkie sticking to their 'I'm just a casual user' shtick. Self-deception is luckily something a good friend, and one of those aforementioned mind-blowers, helped eradicate, or at least minimise, earlier in my life.
But the trouble with self-deception is that it's very hard to identify on your own. The very act that you are deceiving yourself about is, to oneself, just as factual as the fact that you may have blonde hair or blue eyes.
The best way to detect something that you're self-deceiving about (in my experience) is to keep an eagle eye out for friends rolling eyes, pausing before responding (a sign of the friend self-censoring a natural response) when you say certain things, like "I have a really good relationship with my girlfriend".
Friends will often be torn between not hurting your feelings, and acting as a true friend should (once again, my opinion, but these are my diary pages so you have to expect this, yes?) and exposing to light your self-deceiving bullshit.
I am by no means of the belief that I don't still deceive myself about a number of things - the state of my current relationship and this relationship's own relationship with my finances being first and foremost.
It's strange that I can be aware of the badness of a thing on one level in my mind and at the same time ignore it completely and act as though it is not true. I guess that's classic self-deception. I don't want to be lonely, so I tell myself I am loved, despite what facts may show. So I select the few facts that point to the possibility of supporting my hypothesis. And when a friend stated recently "When are you going to admit that she's just a smack buddy, Flex?", I accept that statement but just file it under Ignore.
A little like those nutty 'there are UFOs in the bible' who sort through thousands of texts to find a few vague references to 'spinning wheels in the sky' that were probably written by the undiagnosed village schizophrenic and then passed down as a bit of a laugh, but ending up in a tome taken WAY too seriously. That's the same behaviour of my self-deception vis a vis relationships.
Yes, like them I pick the facts that support my craziness.
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Anyway, why I mentioned picking up my parents earlier- we were driving down Peel Street heading for the Grey St bridge, on a main road, and mum says
"There's a car to your left!", in an urgent tone of voice. A sort of "Watch out!" tone.
There were cars all round really, I am still unsure why she selected that one.
The funny thing is, I made a show of veering six inches to the right to show I was taking her information on board. We are social creatures and showing that we are listening is a basic act of communication.
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I have to mention officially that I got my MR2 running the weekend before last, and moved it to S's. She balked at letting it in the garage as earlier promised. It sits on a road, unregistered, and I am back in stress mode. Looking for a self storage company that will store it reasonably...
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I told the be-tanned and be-nailed Michelle of the tanning salon at lunch today that the purpose of relationships is to slow everyone's inevitable descent into craziness. A partner helps point out that your idea that squirrels are picking on you is actually a crazy thought, whereas if you were alone you'd probably build and build and build on this theory until you end up spraying yourself with Yak urine to ward off squirrel attacks.
It saddens me that this response was my first explanation of the purpose of relationships. I am sure there is something else to them, I have just forgotten.
Been asleep too long, I guess. Wake up calls now being accepted.