Nick Grant

This is a story about achievement...

If I manage to slip the bonds of the United Kingdom tomorrow, I will have done extremely well. I know for certain that I do not have COVID-19, of any variety, because I am tested every week by the University of Oxford/ONS study, and I never leave the house except to go mountain biking on my own. Additionally, I literally just received the results of a very rapid but very accurate new test, which is about as good as anybody can ever get at saying "I haven't got COVID".

I mean, it's very simple: I just don't have it.

I don't socialise. I don't leave the house. My cat doesn't leave the house. I don't have children (which is the main thing) and I haven't travelled for 16 consecutive months, so it is impossible for me to have caught it.

The people who have caught it and who have been spreading it, are the people with children; the people who've been going to pubs and other social gatherings, the people who've been circulating amongst their friends and family... basically, carrying on like normal. Of course, then there are the people, for whom direct social contact is unavoidable. There are so many jobs which can't be done from the safe comfy confines of a home office, and those jobs are essential to almost all our lives.

However, in most cases the virus is being transmitted entirely unnecessarily: just close the schools; close the non-essential businesses... and by non-essential, I mean NOBODY'S GOING TO FUCKING STARVE IF YOUR GYM HAS TO CLOSE.

I am, however, a hypocrite. Although I have spent all year as a recluse - a hermit - and I wasn't one of the heaving masses who flocked to the shops when they re-opened, or rushed to the beach, or threw house parties. I wasn't one of the crowd. I wasn't one of the herd. Despite my laudable behaviour, regarding lockdowns and suchlike, I eventually needed a holiday. I am attempting to have a holiday.

I must admit that I was very sneaky. As soon as populist governments started talking about giving people a "normal" Christmas I knew that expectations would be set unrealistically, and it would be politically impossible to do a U-turn, having built up the nation's hopes of enjoying a very brief period of yuletide festivities: basically, to snatch away the nation's excuse to get drunk, spend loads of money, and eat loads of festive food, seemed unconscionable, once the expectation had been set.

It's a logical impossibility to say "we're following the science" and also talk about a "Christmas ceasefire"... let alone make a series of moronic date-based predictions, which were ostensibly not based on any science: nobody possesses a crystal ball. When politicians spoke of beating the virus by Easter, July 4th, the start of the new academic year... are they really so stupid? No. This is modern populist politics, where ideas are tested on focus groups and policies are driven by vote-winning data. Yes, politicians are following the science: the data science of how to push people's buttons, which is usually the preserve of the advertising industry.

So, I booked a holiday, with the dates intentionally matching the "Christmas ceasefire" with the virus, as promised by our Prime Minister. I thought, foolishly, that any U-turn would be such a huge disappointment, and spread such anger with the government's bungling of the pandemic, that they wouldn't dare to break their promises.

Instead, what we have ended up with, is a system so bureaucratically complex as to be unenforceable, and indeed a momentum in the country, which inevitably builds in the lead-up to Christmas, that martial law, curfews, road blockades, sabotaged bridges and other such activity, would not stop the average British family from proceeding with their Christmas plans, which were so meticulously made.

If German and English soldiers weren't prepared to kill each other, during the famous WWII ceasefire, and even played a game of football in no-man's-land, what policeman or solider is going to break up a typical family of otherwise-law-abiding and obedient servants of the crown, for the crime of getting their family together for an event so deeply enshrined in our culture? Even the most officious of policeman and soldier, is also indoctrinated by their cultural upbringing, and so they empathise and sympathise with the plight of those who have been asked to follow insanely complicated rules, at the last minute... so much so that the politicians and their 'power' are shown to be utterly worthless, in the face of two things: 1) a virus, which does not know about any culturally significant events in the calendar of particular civilisations; and 2) a population, which already knows and accepts that many of its elderly will not survive the winter; death is inevitable.

I'm the worst kind of hypocrite, because I know that I am prone to thinking that there's "one rule for me, and one for everyone else". Like the very most despicable people on earth, I know what's good for you. I do not, of course, practice what I preach. Perhaps, for example, I will be the individual who is unknowingly carrying a mutant variant of COVID-19, which will ultimately return humanity to the stone age. Because of my selfish individualism, all the "end of lockdown" partying and other acts of myopic idiocy will pale into insignificance.

The next time I write to you, I will have either successfully pulled off an egregiously antisocial act, which might seem small and inconsequential if considered in isolation, but, we must look at the bigger picture: perhaps I am the patient zero, and the ultimate hypocrite.

In fact, I cannot be the ultimate hypocrite, because I have always recognised the importance of certain festivals and other events in the calendar of different cultures, and I actually agreed that attempting to have a somewhat normal Christmas was the right thing to do. The unforgivable error, in my opinion, was the cynical attempt to do a U-turn, and hide behind an unfathomable rulebook, in the hope that the blame could be deflected onto the individuals, instead of the politicians who made promises they couldn't keep. I, personally, would have held a press release and just said: "you're going to kill granny and granddad, but you're allowed to make that choice if you want: you're not stupid; you can be led by the science too... it's not that hard".

Anyway, spare a thought for your poor author: laying on a comfortable bed in a 5-star hotel, penning this essay, tragically unable to utilise the swimming pool or eat in the award-winning restaurant. Spare a thought for the stress your author has endured, not knowing with certainty whether or not he will be able to board a flight to paradise tomorrow, or not. Your hand-wringing over a paltry 1.7 million deaths pales into insignificance, when compared with my own very real first-world problems.

Tags: #holiday #virus #pandemic #travel

This is a story about estrangement...

I had a theory, a couple of months ago, that if I chucked all the spammers off my website and stopped allowing public comments, it would be 'better'. What I meant by 'better' at the time, was a combination of a better image in terms of not having tons of spammy bots, filling up the comments section, but also, I was fearful that my site would be algorithmically marked as spammy, and therefore expelled - or at least very harshly punished - from search results, burying my writing... making it impossible to find.

My theory backfired. From a peak of 7,000 visitors a day, I am back where I started: I can make an educated guess about who most of my regular readers are.

Of course, we can talk of sour grapes and self-serving arguments, until we're blue in the face, but for one reason or another, a second of my current work colleagues openly admitted to reading, which was very kind of them. So, amongst my [presumably] regular[ish] readers, I can count two colleagues who I work with on regular[ish] basis.

I notice that the first people I told, on Christmas Eve last year, that my kidneys had failed and I was on dialysis in hospital - very sick - were my work colleagues.

I spoke to some people on the phone, like my sister, and a very dear friend from Bournemouth. A friend from London was going to come and visit me. A work colleague - not one of the admitted readers - did actually visit. Another friend who I'd only met in person twice, but have spent a long time talking to online, and who has read my blog, came to visit.

It does concern me, that I have spent a lot of this year, a hair's breadth away from ending my life, and this Christmas is shaping up to be particularly stressful, when I so desperately need it to be relaxing; I so desperately need the opportunity to recover, rest and recuperate, after a pretty hellish year.

I think things were a lot worse earlier in the year. Presently, I have plenty of money and good credit, so I'm prepared to go to any lengths to keep myself safe this Christmas, which basically translates as: not being home alone in a City where I don't have a social support network, the weather is terrible, and where I nearly died a year ago... quite deliberately.

My colleagues never quite, but still, quickly forgot that I nearly died of multiple organ failure, because that's the way I wanted it: I went back to work and carried on as if nothing happened. What almost none of them know is that I deliberately poisoned myself, I knew my kidneys had failed for many days, and I just lay down on the floor - in great discomfort - waiting to die. Dying is not quick, I'm afraid, unless you do it right: overdoses are tricky things.

I did very recently attempt to obtain a potent poison, but it proved slightly more difficult than it first appeared to be. I'm not a stupid man, and of course I have an almost infinite number of avenues I could pursue, to end my life, but death by poisoning seems to be the most preferable: ideally something which quickly brings unconsciousness, and is painless.

Twice in three years, I've been saved in the nick of time. Once, the emergency services got me to the hospital, just before I started having seizures... 15 or 20 minutes later and I'd have been dead. It was a miracle they discovered me and got me to hospital so promptly. The most recent time, I had lain on the floor, with kidney failure, dying very slowly, for a few days... I'd had time to try a few different ineffective overdoses... it was not a well planned or executed suicide at all: I knew that my only chance was to remain undiscovered until I had a cardiac arrest, which my blood toxicity when I arrived at hospital, showed that I wasn't far away from, due to extremely high potassium levels - a side effect of kidney failure, which I knew.

I should make it clear, I do not plan on committing suicide this Christmas. I am doing everything in my power to keep myself safe. I'm not sure what compelled me to try to obtain the highly potent poison, very recently, but I suppose I felt like having the option, ready, at hand, was prudent preparation, because I refuse to have another bad year.

Of course, as I said, I'm not a stupid man: if I make that very definite final decision, I will execute it, and I will not change my mind. Things get a little harder at Christmas time, in terms of options, but there are still a near-infinite range of options, if I really do feel that I absolutely have to end my life immediately.

Things feel a bit different this year. I feel like there are people I would talk to, if I was getting close to attempting suicide. It's been a long time since I've felt like there was anybody who I'd talk to first... before putting plans into action.

Things feel a bit different right now. I feel like I can solve problems, as opposed to feeling like there's an endless procession of insurmountable obstacles, with each one threatening to destroy my life. Ultimately, I have plenty of money and I'm in the right frame of mind to find solutions other than just ending my life. There isn't anything, except a tragic event involving my sister, niece, friends or cat, which would be enough to provoke me, I think, beyond my general state of depression that my life must inevitably end prematurely anyway, simply because that's my [early] retirement plan.

I feel like I've got people who care about me. I feel like I've got people who understand what I'm going through. I feel like I've got [short-term] options. That's enough to keep me alive this Christmas, I think.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about knowing when to stop...

By no later than the age of 17 or 18, I had figured out that life was a miserable rat race, which was unwinnable, and that all jobs were equally awful. I made the decision to focus on earning as much as possible, to make my leisure time as good as it could possibly be; I made the decision to work as little as possible, get paid as much as possible, in terms of "hourly rate" if you like: for sure, there are some very well paid investment bankers and corporate lawyers, but they work 100+ hour weeks. If I can work for 25 or so hours of the week, mostly just reading the news and otherwise browsing the web, but get paid a salary which is not inconsiderably different, then I am the higher paid in relative terms.

I made a decision, and quite a sensible one, to move to the seaside. I was able to continue my London investment banking career, but I could also go kitesurfing before work, at lunchtimes and after work. I could have barbecues on the beach. I could play beach volleyball. I could have a boat and go wakeboarding, whenever I wanted. It was, without a doubt, one of the best decisions I ever made.

But.

Burnout and depression, precipitated by the very driven and determined part of my personality, which I can never quite tame, led to to me finding myself too unwell to work.

The next part of my life was not well planned. I did very well from some speculative ventures, and I also managed to do very well with some other coastal companies who needed my consultancy skills. I still had my boat. I still had my barbecues. Life was still very good.

However.

Having spent a very long career (11 years at this point) hating every single second of the rat race, and having had some success with speculative entrepreneurial ventures, I wanted to "be my own boss" for once.

Big mistake.

More than anything in the world, I hate business administration. I'm an engineer: I want to design and build cool stuff. I don't want to be bothered with bureaucracy. I want to concentrate on elegant solutions to difficult problems.

So, I didn't really enjoy doing my first proper tech startup. I wanted all the wealth and security of what I'd done before, plus the freedom to do some nice engineering, but instead I had to deal with customers and investors. I hated it. I hated my business, which I had no passion for: it was just a cash cow, and a stupid idea, in terms of giving me the lifestyle that I wanted.

What does winning look like?

That question was really easy to answer, once upon a time: to live near the beach, and to be able to go kitesurfing whenever I wanted, and to have enough money to travel the world, going kitesurfing wherever the wind was best at that time of year.

I did, literally, live the dream for a while.

What does winning look like, now, today?

I have no idea.

I know that I need to find another passion again, which I hope I have done with mountain biking, but it's difficult because it's such a dangerous injury-prone sport, and I'm not a young man anymore.

I know that I need to find something which brings social contact; a network of like-minded individuals. It's difficult, because I've only ever known that to come about through my particular passion.

I think that a high standard of living is part of it - nice holidays and meals - but at the same time, one of the happiest times of my life was when I was homeless, destitute and sleeping rough.

I appear to have a lot of options. I was, for example, able to go to Turkish Disneyland, completely on a whim, because I needed a holiday and had no other inspiration. There was a water park, rollercoaster rides, and the whole place was delightful, including the themed hotel, which was meant for kids but was absolutely amazing for adults: who wouldn't want a Playstation and massive projector screen in their hotel room, for example?

I've tried and failed with a few relationships in recent years. Frankly, that's been more to do with the extreme pressure I've been under in other areas of my life, to stabilise my finances, and rebuild my professional reputation, after a rocky period due to repeated illnesses; hospitalisations... and of course, unstable mental health. My priority has been rebuilding my bank balance, and making myself look employable again; delivering some high-quality work.

What does winning look like now? Well, I have the world's best cat - a beautiful ragdoll girl - and a 3.5 bedroom house with 2 reception rooms, all in very grand proportions, for her to run around in. I live in one of the most desirable parts of Cardiff, next to botanical gardens and a massive lake. I can cycle from my house to mountains or lakes. I've got it all, except for a partner and a [local] social support network. It sounds like I've got it all, but as I lay dying of multiple organ failure on the floor a year ago, I knew that I'm a hermit; a recluse. The lack of any social glue, sticking me to life, is going to prove fatal.

I'm not complaining... of course, I get to live a very exciting life, although most of it is extremely lonely but that's necessary as part of the journey I'm on... even though I don't know where I'm going. All I know is: if you have a lot of money, you have a lot more choices, and you have a lot more fun; less stress.

I'm sorry if you find this boastful or otherwise churlish.

Tags: #career #work

This is a story about keeping busy...

At first glance, it appears that I'm neither cash poor nor time poor. This year, my life has been revolutionised: all the wasted commuting time is now mine, to do with whatever I want, and I will definitely end the year with a small financial buffer, to shield me from any economic certainty. In theory, I might even find myself in the Spring time, with some 'disposable' income.

Of course, I have time and money at the moment, but I would rather use my 'leisure' time to make more money, and I want to hoard as much money as possible, because I'm always on the edge of suicide, or at least a nervous breakdown; I can feel no certainty about my future: it contains only death and/or serious illness, both of which will eliminate my income, wrecking my fragile finances.

Looking back at extravagant purchases over the past few years, I've furnished a large house, been on some very luxurious holidays, bought a couple of highly sought-after pedigree cats, eaten in a lot of restaurants, travelled around by taxi, bought a car, bought the latest iPhone and otherwise spent money, without really worrying about it. However, it's not that money that anybody should worry about. That money is just normal stuff that you buy over the course of a few years, working very hard full-time. In fact, I would say that I've spent far, far less than anybody else in my income bracket, who works the same number of hours per week as I do. The lion's share of my money has gone towards debt, taxes and savings... the latter of which I have precious little, when my health is so fragile.

On the matter of fragile health, it seems wrong to write about it, when I don't - to my knowledge - have a life-limiting illness... that is, unless you accept that my depression is so severe that it is life-limiting. I suppose it's grossly unfair to compare myself with a person suffering from cystic fibrosis, who is battling to be alive and has very few choices, versus me who doesn't battle at all, and has an infinite number of choices, right?

That's right, isn't it? My choices are infinite?

Let's just double check this: I can do anything I want, right?

Wrong.

Spectacularly wrong.

Yes, I am fortunate not to have cystic fibrosis, but that doesn't mean I have infinite freedom. Imagine if you met somebody with cystic fibrosis who was depressed about having the condition, and resigned to an early death. Now, imagine you are meeting me, with depression so severe that I have also resigned myself to the early death, which will result from the condition. You will say that I am choosing, but the person with cystic fibrosis cannot choose. You're just plain wrong. If it was a matter of choosing, then I would obviously choose not to have a mental illness.

It seems inconsiderate of me to make this comparison; it seems distasteful, taboo, and somehow intrinsically wrong; incorrect. However, I assure you, that whether it is an auto-immune condition where the body attacks itself, or a mental health condition where the body attacks itself, there is an underlying pathology, which is ultimately prematurely fatal. The situations are, for the purpose of this thought experiment, identical.

The fact that I would continue to do what I'm doing at the moment for 'free' if I was financially secure and independent, suggests that I'm not complaining about a lack of 'spare time' at all. I need my leisure time, with very little to occupy it, because I am so single-mindedly fixated on the outcome of the project I'm involved in. If I tried to do anything extra, I would definitely have a nervous breakdown. Hence, being single and not dating at the moment, for example.

The fact that I do and say whatever I want, whenever I want, also suggests that I'm not complaining about lack of money either. Of course, if my contract was terminated early, or not extended, then I will very quickly find myself evicted onto the streets, penniless and destitute. The question is how quickly? I expect that I can support myself for 4 or 5 months, without any lifestyle alteration. Of course, I also know what it's like to spend the best part of two years homeless, sleeping rough for considerable periods... so it's not something I'm anxious about.

What I fear more than anything is boredom. I like being busy.

I do also fear the loss of my home, and more importantly, the stress that would be placed on me, having to downsize from a 3/4 bedroom house with two reception rooms, a garden and a driveway, to a hostel bed or a tent... or worse still, just a hastily improvised bivouac.

However, more than the fear of the loss of my home, and the associated stress, I fear being trapped as a wage slave; I fear being forced to do a salaried job which I hate more than anything in the world, just to pay the rent or mortgage... locked into a miserable monotonous life, with no option to cut and run from that drudgery.

Perhaps the day will never come - indeed it never has - where I will be able to finally take a year off work, go travelling, write a novel or two, without having a constant anxiety gnawing at the pit of my stomach, telling me that I'd better get back to work as quick as possible, to replenish my rapidly dwindling meagre pot of life savings.

I have, now, considerably simplified the whole thing though: I will work hard, now, while there is the opportunity. Then, I will see if I have the chance, for the first time in my life, to pursue a path just for fun and excitement, as more than just a one or two week holiday, as recompense for a miserable boring job, which doesn't really count. I've never had money, health, and freedom from commitments, ever before in my life. I'm not one of the privileged bunch who got to go on gap years and doss about at uni, because there was a magic money tree which meant they could just drift around, reading a few books and chatting to interesting people... all I've ever done is work.

I'm far too old and far too poor to really be thinking about 'travelling' in a youthful sense... this is more akin to 'early retirement'... except my early retirement, through financial necessity, must end with premature death, which is fine by me, because I am very, very, very tired.

Tags: #suicide #career #work #money #debt #homeless

This is a story about confidentiality...

Does that blurry blob at the end of the rainbow look recognisable to you? Are you sure? Isn't it far too pixelated for you to be able to figure out what it is? Haven't I gone to great enough lengths in my obfuscation, to make it unintelligible?

Do you think that, if you search, you'll find somewhere I slipped up... some place where I mentioned a person's name, an organisation name, a project name?

I know you're looking.

I've collected the data and done the analysis; I have the stats.

I know what things you've searched for.

What I don't know is why you're searching... but I can guess. You want to see if I'm badmouthing you, or your organisation, or your project.

I assure you, there's not a single word - nay, not a single letter - which references you, your organisation or your project.

I've been working for a very long time, for a very large number of organisations, and almost all of them have been extremely paranoid about security. I started my career in defence, dealing with highly classified documents and going to places which required very high security clearance. I shouldn't particularly even say that but it was a long time ago. I'm not allowed to say whether - today - I hold any kind of security clearance, or have access to any kind of classified or otherwise sensitive material, for the obvious reason that it would compromise security... these are lessons I learned when I started my career, in defence, in 1997. That's a hell of a long time to spend, strictly adhering to security and confidentiality procedures, and so they are deeply ingrained in me.

After leaving defence, I moved into investment banking. Banks, as you might well imagine, are just as paranoid about security as the defence industry, because bad people want to steal money just as much as they want to steal intelligence, weapons and suchlike.

Like I said... for most of the past 23 years, it has been a routine part of my career, to treat every piece of information that I possess, or have access to, with the utmost respect and adherence to a strict code of conduct, with extreme penalty for transgression. Also, like I said, I am neither confirming nor denying my present activities, or anything else, which would prove useful to a bad person, or persons.

The other reason for searching the 1.4 million words I've written and published, is because I am, admittedly, a very harsh critic of fuckwittery. "Fuckwittery" has been very deliberately chosen by me as a nondescript term. As the famous quotation goes: "I cannot give you a definition of pornography, but I know it when I see it".

Am I supposed to be sorry that I don't like fuckwittery?

Am I supposed to pretend that I do like fuckwittery?

I need to vent, and I don't really have any opportunity to vent, given that I live on my own, with no nearby friends or family, no housemates, no partner... nobody. Are you getting that? Is that getting into your thick skull? I've got nobody. If I had severe chest pain, I would just lie down on the floor and hope to die: I wouldn't phone anybody, I wouldn't text anybody... I would just hope that my heart would stop before... before what? Who would knock on my door? Who would ring my doorbell? Anybody who came to my house, like a neighbour asking if it's OK to park on my driveway, would just presume that I wasn't home. THAT'S THE WAY MY LIFE IS.

It was unfortunate that, last Christmas, me ex-girlfriend was certain that I was at home, and after she spent several days persistently shouting through my letterbox, and getting no reply, she called the emergency services. It was unfortunate, because otherwise I would not have had to experience 2020. It was unfortunate because I was so close to what I wanted. I was so close to dying of multiple organ failure. Frankly, I didn't give a shit what I died of... I just wanted to die. I lay dying, knowing that my organs were shutting down, in a lot of discomfort for DAYS AND DAYS and I NEVER ONCE thought that I wanted to phone, text or email anybody.

DO YOU GET IT?

So, this is what I do. This is how I cope. This is where I vent.

When I see insufferable fuckwittery, beyond the limit of what I can cope with, I write - in general - about the insanity of the world. I don't write about YOU. I don't write about YOUR ORGANISATION. I don't write about YOUR PROJECT. But I DO write about how utterly fucked up and stupid the world is, and what an incredible amount of fuckwittery the world contains.

If you're taking things personally, I'm sorry, that was never my intention. If you ask yourself the question "am I a fuckwit" and the answer is "no" then VERY CLEARLY I AM NOT WRITING ABOUT YOU so you've got nothing to worry about.

Anyway, feel free to search away through all the 1.4 million words, but you can take my word as gospel: you're not going to find any slip-ups, because I'm not a fuckwit.

If I have written something about a specific person, or organisation, they know why I did that, and they know that it was the truth, otherwise I'd have been sued for libel; they know that I was within my rights, in terms of my contractual obligations and code of conduct, otherwise I'd have been disciplined or sacked. But, generally, it's not my style. 99.999% of the time, I'll never write about anybody, any organisation, or any project, or suchlike.

Fuckwitterly is so commonplace that there's no need to single out any individuals, organisations or projects, for direct attack... it's perfectly adequate to make vague statements which apply to millions of really shitty badly-run organisations, with their bazillions of terrible projects, stuffed full of utterly appalling fuckwits; fuckwits of mind-boggling magnitude.

But, it must be remembered, that in the vast ocean of fuckwittery, there are lots and lots of lovely lovely people, who I like and respect very much, and want to be friends with... but things haven't worked out like that. Instead, I'm isolated and suicidal, and my patience for fuckwittery does very occasionally boil over... and the pages of this website are where you might find one or two clues that I'M REALLY FUCKING SICK OF THE FUCKWITTERY.

Of course, to hope to find a fuckwit-free utopia, at any point in my lifetime, is ludicrously improbable. The best I can hope for is to end my life, having created a tiny island, which is mostly free of fuckwittery, in the unimaginably humongous ocean of fuckwittery.

This was supposed to be a "sorry I made you upset" essay, but it's probably turned out to be rather the opposite.

Anyway... keep hunting; keep reading. You might learn a little about who I am, which couldn't hurt, even if you decide that I'm an incurably horrible man... at least it's more information than you possessed before, when you presumably thought that I was Jesus Christ and had led a life entirely free of sin; an infinitely patient, kind, forgiving and tolerant man. I AM NOT THAT MAN. I AM A LUNATIC WITH BIPOLAR DISORDER WHO IS SUICIDALLY DEPRESSED AND IS SICK OF THIS LATE-STAGE OF CAPITALISM TO THE POINT I WOULD BE GLAD TO HEAR THE WORLD WILL BE OBLITERATED BY AN ASTEROID.

I hope you're making notes. Make sure you bring this up at my next performance review.

Tags: #work #career #bipolar

This is a story about income...

Three strikes and you're out, is standard practice, in the workplace. I believe, for regular salaried employees, they are allowed a certain number of verbal warnings, written warnings, and then they can be fired, without fear of legal repercussions. Obviously the process of getting rid of a bad employee is fraught with difficulties, if you want to avoid employment tribunals, unfair constructive dismissal lawsuits and other such comeback, but generally speaking, if somebody is frequently reprimanded for unacceptable conduct in the workplace, they will find themselves booted fired from their job, eventually.

There are acts of gross misconduct, gross negligence, sexual misconduct, workplace bullying, discrimination on the grounds of a protected characteristic, conviction for a crime, and other extreme circumstances which are grounds for immediate dismissal, but those are not the topic of this essay.

Most people are grateful to have a job. Most people are grateful for their salary. Most people need their salary to pay their mortgage, bills and to buy food, not to mention school uniforms for their spawn, petrol to put in the car to drive their progeny to school in a massive gas-guzzling 4x4, and regular delivery of cotton wool in which to wrap their precious darlings in... and other associated costs of being a fully-paid-up card-carrying member of the "I'm a mindless animal, no different from a slug or a wasp" club.

Yes, for most people, the worry about losing their job is second only to their worry about their child being harmed or killed.

That's normal. That's been the same for so long, that we have started to believe that it's natural and perhaps even a law of the universe which cannot be defied, like the speed of light.

I have some shocking news for you: we don't need jobs, mortgages, money, exams, certificates, qualifications. If, as you all have demonstrated en masse, your only intention is procreation, then your car hire-purchase of an expensive shiny new 4x4, which you lovingly wash every Sunday, looks ludicrously absurd. "But I need that car to drive the kids to school, and to get to work" you protest. No. You do not need to take your kids to school. You do not need to go to work. "But if my kids don't go to school they won't do exams and get qualifications so they can get a job". Correct... you're just repeating what I just said: you do not need to take your kids to school. "But how will they get jobs?". They don't need jobs. "I need a job. I will lose my job if I don't go to work. I need to go to work to get money, to pay my mortgage". No. None of this is necessary.

You have been indoctrinated into a weird cult, where a person gets a job as a baker, so that they can get paid a salary, and use the money to purchase a slice of one of the loaves of bread that they baked.

Are you fucking insane?

"But I don't know how to build a house! I don't know how to harvest wheat!" you wail.

Well, guess what, if you weren't so fucking busy with your mortgage-car-loan-drive-kids-to-school-for-pointless-exams-going-to-pointless-job laughable existence, you'd have plenty of time to learn how to build a house, although you already have a house so that seems pretty pointless. You'll be able to learn how to harvest wheat... less than 1% of the population is involved in agricuture: 1 person can feed 1,000, so the labour is not going to be difficult or back-breaking, escpecially with agricultural mechanisation.

But.

You cannot comprehend any other way of life than your current absurd one..

You have been indoctrinated into the weird cult, so successfully, that you can't imagine any other way of life, other than the miserable merry-go-round, which condemns your children to abysmal living standards; depression, suicide, poverty. Your refusal to open your eyes and see that we are heading in the wrong direction is condeming your children and grandchildren to a dystopian nightmare; a horrendously horrible life of suffering, pain and discomfort.

The point of my essay is this: I don't need your fucking job, OK?

I want to help people. I want to do useful stuff. I want to make a valuable contribution. I want to work hard, for the betterment of human society. I really really really really want to have the opportunity to use my skills and experience, to make the world a better place.

I'm bored and unchallenged and under-utilised and, frankly, I can't fucking stand it when I see idiotic shit happening, and I'm not allowed to go and help out; to go and fix things. All I want to do is build brilliant useful stuff and I fucking hate it, when because of organisational political bullshit, I'm not allowed to go and put my skills to use, where they would be most usefully employed.

Okay, I'm an arrogant arsehole, but I'm the arrogant arsehole who's made massive contributions to absolutely massive flagship projects for global organisations on many occasions. I'm not yelling "listen to me; do what I tell you to do, immediately"... I'm yelling "what the fuck are you doing, not using my extremely expensive and valuable talents, which I am desperate to give to whoever needs them the most". I'm yelling "I am extremely competent and capable and productive... what the fuck are you doing, wasting my valuable time, having me sitting around bored all the fucking time?".

I don't need your fucking job. I don't need your fucking money. I have a plan: if my contract is terminated, I'll just kill myself, because I am absolutely fucking sick of corporate organisational bullshit; I am absolutely fucking sick of the rat race, where the rats are 'just about managing' and everything is a colossal clusterfuck cock-up, and the fucking 'talent' are kept in the dusty trophy cabinet, untouched.

Yeah it's big-headed. WHY THE FUCK WOULDN'T IT BE? LOOK AT THE FUCKING EVIDENCE.

On the flip side, I'm sorry that I take out my frustration on people, sometimes. I'm sorry that I 'lose the plot' and go on big rants, in an environment which is supposed to be purely professional, but there's FUCK ALL professional about massive incompetence. There's FUCK ALL professional about massive FAILURE. I didn't go into a profession to be a FUCKING FAILURE, OK? I want to work on projects which are massive SUCCESSES, and the way I make that happen, is that I work REALLY FUCKING HARD on whatever is on fire.

So, I've taken out my frustration on various unfortunate parts of the organisation, which have felt the sharp end of my tongue, and that will probably end up with my contract being terminated early. FINE. FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING MORONS. You don't need my help to fuck everything up, but you DO need my help to make things a success... so please understand that I'm REALLY REALLY SORRY that my frustrations have boiled over and I've been raging and ranting. PLEASE understand that I'm really sorry, and I'm doing everything in my power to fix that.

Also.

However, also.

Please understand, that I am BEGGING YOU for the opportunity to help make things a success. I'm not applying for a role, with a committee to decide on whether I'm the right man for the job, in the hope of having my job description changed, and some pointless fucking announcement from a waste-of-space middle manager. What I'm basically saying is: STUFF IS ON FIRE... LET ME PUT THOSE FIRES OUT. What I'm basically sayings is: YOU'VE ALMOST RUN OUT OF TIME... LET ME CATCH YOU UP.

It doesn't seem like an unreasonable request, to be begging to save your fucking project from being an utter shitshow.

And yes, I know "utter shitshow" is not tactful and diplomatic language, but maybe ALLOW ME TO STOP THE SHITSHOW and then I'll tone down my language.

On a personal level, everyone I work with is really nice and the project is really cool. But, seriously, I'M HERE TO FUCKING HELP.

I know that going mental at everyone could be [wrongly] dismissed as 'unhelpful' but somebody has to be Cassandra here. Also, I'm bringing you SOLUTIONS not PROBLEMS.

It's not personal. I'm not attacking the individuals. The problem is endemic in all large organisations. It's me who's the weirdo; the misfit. It's easier to get rid of me, and carry on with the shitshow, than to accept my help.

For my side of the bargain, I'll stop going apeshit when I'm no longer bored shitless, forced to watch an enormous about of stuff being horrendously botched, but not allowed to get involved and sort things out. When I'm busy fixing stuff, I'm happy, content, and I have no time or inclination to explode with frustration and annoyance, at the shitshow all around me, because I'm working as hard as I can to turn things around.

Just, please, for the love of god, let me do what I'm good at.

On a personal note, I've found out that people have taken things I've written very personally. It's not personal. I know everyone is working hard. I know everyone is stressed. All I can say is, that I'm very sorry; I'm full of remorse that upset was caused. But, please let me help you. I can't excuse the fact I upset you, but I can assure you that if you let me help you then my tendency towards screaming "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS UTTER HORSE-SHIT?" is somewhat lessened... although such outbursts are never directed at any individuals.

This probably won't make for great reading, but what does it matter? The choices are simple: either I'm able to occupy myself productively, sorting out problems, or I'm booted out of the door, and my plans to commit suicide arrive a little sooner than expected. I'VE GOT NOTHING TO LOSE. I WAS GOING TO KILL MYSELF ANYWAY.

Tags: #suicide #work #career

This is a story about social isolation...

In this age of social media, it sometimes feels like we've got more friends than ever, given that it's easier to meet new people online, and to maintain some degree of friendship over any distance, remotely.

However.

There are a set of tests, which I hope you would agree with, which establish your true friends, from the people who you were once 'kinda' friends with, but aren't friends with anymore:

• Does your friend visit you, in person?
• Do you speak to your friend, on the phone or via video chat?
• Are those visits and/or chats regular?
• Would your friend visit you if you were in hospital?
• Would your friend let you sleep on their couch, or in their spare room?
• Would your friend help you move house?
• Would your friend feed your pet, in an emergency?
• Would your friend lend you £1,000... even if they had to borrow it?
• Would your friend testify to your good character, in a court of law?
• If you went missing, for 4 or 5 days, would your friend notice?
• If you phoned up your friend, in a desperate situation, would they go out of their way to help?
• Would your friend rat you out?
• Could your friend's opinion of you be changed, almost instantly, by one-side [another person's side] of a story?

Turns out that it's a longer list than I thought it would be, but I think the questions are all important ones, in order to find out who your true friends are.

Of course, we might say that for most of this, it'd be the job of family to provide support and unconditional love, which meets the conditions of many of those things on the list. I've got one thing to say to that: fuck you, you cunt. We don't all have wealthy, kind, caring families around us. For some of us, our friends are our family. For some of us, there's nobody to fall back on; nobody looking after us.

This is not an attempt to guilt-trip any friends. This is not a veiled criticism. It's just a fact, that if you don't have a friend (or family member) who ticks every single one of those boxes, then your life is precarious; you live on the edge of life and death.

I'm going to go through the list, and think about whether I have that minimum viable social support network, or not.

I do have friends who have visited me in person this year. I do speak to two friends regularly on the phone or video chat. I do have a friend who visited me in hospital, most recently. Past experience tells me that my friends would gladly see me sleeping rough, but that might be different today... I definitely had one offer, kinda, to stay with a friend, his girlfriend and their very young baby, in a tiny bedsit, which is definitely something worthy of consideration. I'm not sure I'd ask for help moving house, but none would be forthcoming. None of my friends would feed my pet. I could borrow £1,000 from a friend. I would hope that at least one friend, of good social standing, would be prepared to testify to my good character in court. I could easily go missing for 4 or 5 days, or more, and my absence not be noticed. I would struggle to persuade a friend to help me, in a desperate situation. Yes, I have friends who would rat me out... but I think one or two would not. A few of my closest friends would want to hear my side of the story, before making their final judgement.

In summary, I think it's fair to say that I live a precarious life and death existence, without hyperbole.

How many friends do I have, who are true friends? 3, 4... 5 at the most? Maybe that is more than most people, but the litmus test, for me, is the number of friends who made the trip to hospital when my chance of survival was so low: just one friend, each time. There were more friends who came to see me, when I was hospitalised the time before, thanks to a wonderful ex-girlfriend who helped make that happen. Also, I should say that I did tell my sister and another friend not to bother making an exceptionally long journey, during my most recent hospitalisation, when it was clear that I was going to recover.

We might, in a particularly mean and cynical way, say that I have been hospitalised a lot during the past 6 or 7 years. It hasn't been "a lot" and I've got one thing to say on the matter: fuck you, you cunt.

It takes two to tango, so I must ask myself: have I been a very good friend? It's true that I could bolster my superficial friendships, but that seems like wasted effort. When it came to the biggest test of friendship I've ever faced, I dropped everything for that friend: I made them my number one priority; I did everything humanly possible for them. I can say, hand on heart, that I pass all the tests that I have listed: I might not have almost any true friends, but the ones I have... they can count on me during the most difficult life events.

To those who say I might be pleasantly surprised, if I found myself in hot water: fuck you; you're wrong. I've been homeless, slept rough, penniless, locked up, hospitalised, left for dead and completely fucked over by situations I've had to deal with all on my own, so I know who my true friends are, and I know how precious few they are.

If you think I'm ungrateful for the lazy "chin up" social media messages I get from time to time, I probably am. "Chin up" doesn't put a roof over my head. "Chin up" doesn't make the difference between life and death. The sentiments are worthless; worse than worthless: they are valuable to you in making yourself feel better about not doing anything, but of no value to me.

However, it must be admitted that my situation has been made worse by needing to move away from my ex-wife, and my parents incessant hard work in lobbying against me; spreading lies and disinformation; maliciously attacking my character and exhaustively portraying me - falsely - as of bad character; evil.

My parents incessantly changing the school I was in - 8 different schools - and moving around, disrupting every childhood friendship, was the coffin nail in any chance of me forming lifelong bonds. Yes, I am still in contact with old school-friends via social media, but my constantly disrupted childhood provided no opportunity to cement friendships which last substantially into adulthood, although I was immensely grateful when a handful of old childhood friends contacted me in recent years, unexpectedly.

I've written far more than the daily word count limit I have set for myself, but that is in no small part, because I am so socially isolated. The misery of my childhood haunts me more and more, like a post-traumatic flashback. The sins of the father - in my case, an unemployed lazy druggie, who selfishly didn't care about the damage to my childhood schooling and friendships - are visited on the son, namely me, of course. I don't write this in the sense of saying "I blame everybody else for my problems" but as a factual explanation of why, in due course, I will end my life prematurely.

The friends who are keeping me afloat: Oxford, Worcester, Croydon, Prague, Fareham, and maybe an honourable mention of Newport and Pa Tong, maybe a bit of a mention of Portishead... Bournemouth & Poole, kinda. Cardiff and Bridgend maybe, but it's complicated. How many is that? 4 or 5 actively. Another couple occasionally. Another few much less frequently, but old enough friends that I think they'd pick up the phone if I was in the shit. Is that enough? Evidently not, but I'm grateful for what I've got. In fact, if you see where you live on the list, you should know that if you've been in contact recently, I'm incredibly grateful, and you're the difference between life and death... no exaggeration.

In conclusion: that's it. That's all there is. It sounds like it's more than it actually is, during an average month. A few phone-calls to Oxford. One or two to Worcester... that's it for regular social contact. My guardian angel is there, but a long way away; we hardly speak. My friends in other countries.... visits are hard. I spend as much, if not more, time speaking to friends who I've never met in person, than I do to old friends... that's an alarming situation.

Anyway, it is what it is: I'll work, get my money, then kill myself. That's that. I know now: my social needs will never be met, and I'm trapped in an unbearable situation. All I can do is hope that my enormous effort to document who I was, and the impression I've left on most of those who've met me, has been on the whole more good than bad, and that my true friends will defend me from people like my parents, who maliciously want to paint me as an evil character; a demon.

Tags: #friends

This is a story about the finish line...

My idea of 'winning' is very different from most other people's I think. Well, actually, on reflection, we are agreed on what would constitute 'winning' but most other people have decided to lower their standards, and call something else 'winning'.

Let me give you a breakdown:

Having a house is something which everybody wants. I want to have a house. Other people want to have a mortgage: the bank will own the house, and allow the person who pays the mortgage to live there, but it's not the same as having a house.

Retirement is something which everybody wants. I want to retire. Other people want to collect a pension: the pension will be woefully inadequate, so the people who are collecting their pitiful pensions will have a new job, which is trying to make their meagre funds stretch to pay for their needs, which is not the same as retiring.

Financial independence is something which everybody wants. I want to be financially independent. Other people want credit cards which aren't maxed out, and a small pot of savings - enough for a holiday or a minor improvement to part of the bank's house - which is not the same as financial independence.

Freedom is something which everybody wants. I want to be free. Other people want to be told when and where they should be, for the majority of their time, and otherwise controlled by the limits of their meagre finances.

All I want is everything.

That's all.

Of course, we can all agree that owning a house - outright with no mortgage - not having a salaried job, having enough money in the bank to last you for the rest of your natural life (at a high living standard) and otherwise being free from any commitments or other coercion, would be the dictionary definition of 'winning' right?

So, why then do I sound so ludicrous when I say "that is what I want"? Why does it sound so implausible? Why does it sound so impossible; such an unattainable fantasy?

I'm getting close.

I'm getting really close.

But.

My version of 'winning' is a shit version of 'winning'. I will buy a shit house. I will live in a shit part of the world. I will not be able to live for very long, at a reasonable standard of living, before I run out of money. My freedom will cost me the ultimate price: premature death.

Is that so bad, premature death? Many people who pay off their mortgage and retire, do not live for very long. Are they 'winners'? Obviously not.

To win the game, you have to have spent more years of freedom, financially independent, retired and living in a house you own, than anybody else. The winner is the person who spends the most years in that situation. There are no prizes for paying off your mortgage, retiring, and having a huge pot of savings, when you are 65 years old, and you die 16 years later, having spent most of that time with no freedom at all because you are old and sick and dying.

In terms of quality-adjusted life years, if I spend just 8 years with good health, right now, I will have achieved more than 16 years with arthritis, dementia, cataracts, deafness, incontinence, heart disease, lung disease, diabetes... not to mention the vastly diminished energy levels, fragility of my body, and far greater length of time for any injury to heal.

Why wait?

I don't need to wait until I'm pensionable age to take advantage of my health. In fact, to wait would be incredibly foolish, because it's inevitable that my health will deteriorate, and there's an ever-increasing chance of death. How stupid it would be, to die before retirement, or soon after.

Sadly, there's a finite limit to the length of my early retirement, which dictates that my life must be cut short, artificially, in order to yield the high-quality years of freedom which I quite rightfully demand. There's a price to be paid, and I will pay the ultimate price on a pre-chosen day, in the not-too-distant future. However, don't be sad... everyone dies you stupid cunt.

Tags: #suicide #retirement

This is a story about dieting...

All humans, and indeed all animals, enjoy drinking, having sex and/or masturbating, drugs and/or other intoxicants, and eating. I know that you are all leaping onto your keyboards to tell me that you don't drink alcohol and you don't like sex, but I'm sorry to say you're wrong, in regards to what I just said. Your thirst is quenched by drinking water, which releases endorphins, just the same as you also get a brain chemical reward when you achieve orgasm, or some other form of sexual gratification. I don't give a shit what you think in your moronic brain: millions of years of evolution are not wrong... the very core of your being is designed to ensure that you stay hydrated, fed, and at some point make an attempt to procreate. Sorry that you thought you were special and different. You are not.

"But I was born incapable of enjoying drugs" you might wail. Yes, yes, I know you think that you somehow won the lottery while being hit by a meteorite and struck by lightening, and you very much think of yourself as a special unique snowflake, but your self-appointed "asexual" status, or whatever the hell it is, does not alter the fact that your brain is so exceptionally complicated, that it does not differ from that of your parents, who ate, drank and had sex, sufficiently to produce anything so pronounced as the absence of any of the enjoyments I listed.

"But I was born without a tongue". Yes. Sure you were.

"But I was born with depression so severe that I can experience nothing at all except for pain and suffering". Yes. Sure you were.

Okay, so, enough of your bullshit.

You like eating, so that's why you keep doing it. The 'liking' part is something which can be philosophically debated ad nauseam, but we have established that you eat, because otherwise you would not have reached the point where you can read stuff on the internet and argue with complete strangers about your weird self-invented identity.

Okay, moving on.

Some people have eating disorders.

Let's repeat that, because it's the point of this whole essay.

Some people have eating disorders.

Eating is nice and enjoyable, but some of us eat "too much" which shouldn't really be considered a problem, but it definitely causes health complications, eventually. Eating "too much" can be considered an eating disorder.

We tend to just call people who eat "too much" things like "fat" or "overweight" or "obese"... but whatever we call them, these are usually pejorative terms. We look upon people who eat "too much" as greedy, lazy, lacking self-discipline, lacking willpower, and generally morally inferior, lesser human beings; deserving targets of abuse and castigation; not worthy of our respect.

Basically, don't eat "too much" or else people will treat you like shit.

Got it?

Then weirdly, there are people who don't eat very much, who are totally awesome people. I mean, like, just because they eat a bit less than other people, we celebrate them: we parade them around as if they're special and different; we photograph and film them; we shower them with money. We idolise a whole bunch of people who don't eat very much. We have built multi-billion-dollar international businesses, who do nothing other than to worship a bunch of people who don't eat very much.

Basically, eat less than you'd like to eat, and people will treat you much better than if you eat a normal amount.

Got it?

Obviously, it's quite difficult to get the balance between not eating very much, and not eating enough just right. It's very hard to judge whether you're eating the right amount, when the aim is to not eat very much. If the aim is to not eat very much, then why not eat nothing? Obviously, you can't eat nothing - although many people will try - because eventually you will die of starvation, but because the human body is very tough, it's very hard to know what "enough" is, when there's so much pressure to not eat very much, and so much reward for not eating very much.

Once you've made the decision to not eat very much, where does it end?

In the past couple of months, I've eaten several hundred calories fewer than my basal metabolic rate. Also, I have had many long periods where my calorie consumption has been zero. The result has been predictable: approximately 10kg (22 pounds) of weight loss in the space of no more than two months. Of course, this is ludicrously unhealthy, but I want to be thin because being thin is considered attractive.

To achieve the extreme weight loss, I have had to forgo a lot of eating. One of my favourite things to do, in the whole world, is to eat. Not eating is extremely awful; distressing; unpleasant. It is an extreme sacrifice, to stop eating, or to eat significantly less than I want and need to. However, the reward for being thin, is to be attractive and so I have done it.

The problem comes in - as an eating disorder - when I look in the mirror at my body, which is a healthy weight, but I see a fat person. Given that my aim was to be thin... if I don't see a thin person when I look in the mirror, and I've undergone such extreme dieting in order to become thin, that I will continue to eat far fewer calories than my body requires, just to pump blood around and keep me warm.

I'm cold. I'm cold all the time. It's awful, dieting.

Yesterday I ate 847 calories. Today I plan on eating zero calories. Tomorrow I plan on eating approximately 700 calories. That is extreme. However, this is necessary to be thin.

If somebody was to accuse me of having an eating disorder, I would disagree, because I will simply stop this extreme diet and start eating a more normal amount of calories, once I am I am thin. However, the question is: when will I be satisfied that I am thin? I have a very easy answer to that: when the National Health Service website admits that I should stop losing weight. I'm already "healthy" according to my BMI, and indeed I have a slim waist of 32 inches, which is excellent for a 183 centimetre tall (6 foot) 41 year old man... everyone should just fuck off and leave me alone but oh no the fucking NHS website couldn't just leave it alone, could they? Even though I've lost 10kg in two months, they are still saying I should lose more. Okay then, fine. I will. Fuck you.

Tags: #diet #weightloss

This is a story about being unpleasant...

We like to think that niceness, and conversely, nastiness, are innate inherent personality traits, which are fixed immutably at birth. We like to think that the world divides neatly into the nice and the nasty. We might, for example, lazily assume that all criminals are nasty, and that all nurses are nice... to take two very simple examples of commonplace simplified thinking.

While we might all agree that the world would be better if we all aspired to be as nice as possible, and that the world would be better if we all vowed to never be nasty.

Sorry. Nope. Won't work.

Less than one month from now, every gym in the western world will be crammed full of fat people, who aspire to be thin, and who have vowed to lose weight; who aspire to eat less and who have vowed to get fit. Almost all of those people will fail. They will fail, not because they are bad people but because the circumstances around them, exert such a great force pushing them towards being fat and unfit, and away from being thin and fit, that their limited willpower will not last very long. The short-lived nature of their willpower is not a character flaw, but something which is integral to all of us, psychologically.

Imagine that I am very fat. Imagine also that I am unhappy about being very fat. Then, create a single hypothetical day of the year, where everyone in the western world all decides, en masse, to join a gym and start getting thin. Most of the reasons for becoming thin always existed: to be more attractive, to be healthier, to live a longer life, to be able to be more fit and active; able to exert more energy doing fun stuff, and not just shifting blubber from one place to another. So, what's different about New Year's Day? Nothing. Nothing except that millions of other idiots are all having exactly the same idea, at the same time, so there is an immense social movement, carrying a fat person on a wave of delusional euphoria: "this year I'm going to lose weight!" they all declare, as their New Year's resolution.

Why almost all of them fail, is not due to personality flaws, weakness, laziness or even because they are nasty people. They did intend to lose the weight, but if it was easy then they wouldn't have waited so long to do it, would they? If it was easy, then there wouldn't be smug thin people, rubbing everybody's faces in the fact that they're so thin, would there? Being thin would be nothing to be proud of, and to parade around, if it was easy.

We might then, re-evaluate the way we think about fat people. Fat people are nice, because they are just minding their own business, doing what comes naturally to them: eating. We cann't ever say that eating is a nasty act, because we all have to eat, otherwise we die. There is no malice in eating.

Equally, we should re-evaluate the way we think about thin people. Thin people are nasty, because they are deliberately doing unpleasant things, like dieting and exercising, which are not at all natural, in order to feel superior to everybody else. Thin people are maliciously motivated to parade their thin bodies around, figuratively screaming "look at me you fat fucks... I'm so much better than you are, you bunch of lazy porky cunts". That's pretty nasty.

Looking around, we can find other examples of niceness in unlikely places. Crack and heroin addicts who only steal from rich people and/or from large corporations, like retail chains, in victimless crimes like shoplifting. Ethically, there is no difference between shoplifting from a multinational corporation, or buying their products: neither one harms or benefits anybody. In fact, if anything, the presence of shoplifters creates many jobs, for security guards, police and the manufacturers of anti-theft devices. We can think of crack and heroin addicts who commit acquisitive crime, so long as it's just shoplifting, as an essential part of a healthy economy; job creators. What about the crack and heroin addicts who have sex with ugly men? How would those ugly men get sex otherwise?

As you can see: so called 'nasty' people can actually turn out to be very 'nice', and vice-versa. Anybody who's ever had to deal with somebody who actively thinks of themselves as a saint, will know that they're invariably an insufferable cunt... like a doctor who likes to think of themselves as "saving lives" when actually they work as a GP and all they do is make the process of accessing medication into a slow and painfully bureaucratic process, adding zero value and costing everybody a lot of time and money, plus meanwhile preaching holier-than-thou bullshit about how slightly overweight people should lose some weight, unsolicited, to all of their patients, who have no other choice but to listen to the nasty person give their lecture, lest they be refused a handful of pills they could've just bought from a pharmacist, cutting the nasty full-of-themselves so-called doctor out of the loop altogether.

I was going to write, also, about how nice or nasty you are is dictated by how rich you are, and how much pressure and stress you're under... but that will have to wait for another time. Meanwhile, fuck off.

Tags: #medication #mentalhealth #philosophy #diet #exercise