I was given a meme ‘ Your life in a day.’ I have been reading about Memetics and I decided that this meme could and would encompass just one true day in my life. What I did, what I saw but more importantly why I did it and how I saw it. What I thought and why. A self examination, a Socratic Interrogation. Just another day.
I plan to keep this space to revisit the meme from time to time as a way of providing a snapshot of life in relation to my environment.
M. has challenged me. I have decided to accept. Find it at Value Judgements.
Oxford sank Cambridge.
I open my eyes around 4 a.m. most days. At once I am compelled to get out of bed. I never sleep in unless I am ill. Some people find this baffling and/or annoying. I have been a borderline insomniac since a child. I don’t know why. Neither warm milk nor sleeping pills really work. There comes a point when you have to accept how you are.
I will find quiet, useful, things to do like empty the dishwasher and prepare other people’s breakfasts. As soon as it is light I will leave for my run.
Today when I ran I listened to music. I do this particularly when I do not want to think. When I just want solitary exertion, numbness. I have an i-pod shuffle. I bought it because it is light and clips easily onto my running kit. Today I listened to this by Blue Juice over and over and over again for the tempo and the noise and the numbness.
I run through the woods. Up hills, down hills. The trail itself can only be accessed by foot. I have been running here for years and have never seen anyone else, ever. I try not to think.
I can’t help thinking about the leaves. It is strange because it is Spring but everywhere there are fallen leaves. There are no leaves on the trees. It is like Winter, but it is not. I think Global Warming, rising fuel prices, food prices and credit crunches. These are things I have no control over.
When the run is finished I look up into the trees. For over a year now I have been obsessed with death and suicide. Other people’s, mostly.
It started with a trip to the Far East. I had to take anti Malarial treatments the side effect of which was suicidal thoughts. One day not long after getting back I was sitting in front of a computer screen when suddenly and without warning I found myself wanting to slash my wrists. Envisaging blood. Wanting to die. Lingering on black thoughts.
It was a place I had never expected to visit and was unprepared. Fortunately I could step outside myself and understand what was happening.
Then last year I was running underneath a viaduct when someone threw themselves off it. The body got caught in a tree. I am an Atheist. No, really.
I drive a lot. I drive too fast. I find driving boring. I listen to this by The Goo Goo Dolls. It comes from the Soundtrack to City of Angels which was a tragic reworking of Wings of Desire.
I listen to this because it was sent to me by a long term lover. I had an affair with him for years and never once felt guilty or bad about it. It was about sex and well, sex really. Eventually I realized he was boring and I was using him but by then he had fallen in love so I had to hurt him. And I did. Because Some Things are more important.
Every so often, he will send me this song. No matter how many times I have listened to it I still don’t understand it. Perhaps the point is I never will.
German and English are both technical, scientific languages. They are full of useful words like kompressor and piston. French and Italien are Romantic languages. Water towers become water castles in French which gives a totally different vision of something industrial and mundane.
I want to believe science is a good thing, a positive in a world charged with negatives. I think about DDT and chain reactions, of stem cells and research and think about making mistakes and how some things seemed like a good idea at the time…..
