This is a story about living a double life...

I don't know if you know this, but I've been working again these past 3+ months. I've been putting on my suit and going to the office and pretending like everything's just peachy. When I put on my professional clothes, I also put on a mask. "Hi! How are you? How was your weekend?" I cheerily ask my colleagues on Monday morning, instead of saying "this place makes me want to kill myself".

I like my colleagues and I like the project I'm working on. There's nothing especially objectionable about the company I'm working for. Every large multinational corporation has skeletons in its closet, and my current end client is no exception. But, I don't have a deep-seated concern that I'm propping up some too big to fail organisation, like I did at HSBC. The global project I'm working on is the number one IT project for a FTSE 250 company. It's a good project and it should be enjoyable.

When I was looking for work I was feeling pretty insecure. I had a run of short contracts that didn't end particularly well. Every job I took, I was inadequately enabled to make a difference. In every role, I was frustrated that I had very little decision making power. I was frustrated that my bosses weren't listening, and instead my Cassandra-esque prophecies came true while I was helplessly kicked to the sidelines.

So, I swapped from a purely hands-on technical role into a managerial one. I knew that I'd be able to ace the interview, and that it's virtually impossible to get sacked from a managerial job just so long as you keep your head down and do a reasonable job of organising your team.

I made a calculated gamble. I knew that I find purely managerial work totally soul-destroying, but also that I've made a reasonable job of running the projects and teams I've been given in the past. I knew that the interview process would be a lot less painful than the current crap that you have to do to get a developer job these days.

And so, I joined a failing project with a programme director on his last legs. Things were just as desperate as they were at HSBC, with total numpties in management whipping people to go faster and faster while the deadlines loomed ever larger, and it became clear that the software was going to be delivered late, and the performance and stability were going to be crap.

The project had - and still has - a huge staff turnover problem. People leave after just a few weeks because the atmosphere is so toxic. Almost every member of the original project team has left. Other IT contractors had warned me to actually stay away from this project. However, the job was offered with a fairly immediate start, and I could get my invoices paid weekly. It dug me out of a financial hole very quickly. It totally made sense to just shut up and put up with it for a little while. That was 3 months ago.

Now, a new management team have been installed. The old programme director got the boot, and we moved from totally crazy deadlines to a properly Agile project. In terms of the task ahead, things looked a lot more hopeful, but I still get shouted at by the grumpy customer every day, literally.

I have no idea if there are any happy projects in IT.

With my team, I throw a protective bubble around them, set them realistic deadlines, and shower them with praise for their hard work. My team have delivered all the work that they committed to doing for 12 weeks in a row now. My team is the most successful team on the project. I've had no problems with sickness and staff turnover in my team. Everybody who works for me is pretty much happy to come to work, and fulfilled in their role... apart from me.

I sit at my desk, and I'm bored.

It's actually quite easy to manage a high performing team. I've set them up to succeed, and my team members relish the opportunity to do a good job. People don't need micromanaging.

For sure, most of my job is pointing out where corners have been cut, or things that developers don't really like doing haven't been done. The code is never the problem. Instead, development is about giving everybody enough time to think about all the things that aren't code. Being a good developer isn't about being a good programmer. Good programmers are not necessarily good developers. Good programming means that something is logically correct. Good developing means that I have high quality features in an application that I can actually use in a meaningful way.

I should be able to have a lot of pride in my work, but instead I'm frustrated that I'm running just one of 8 scrum teams, and that any attempt to help the wider project would see me treading on toes and getting into trouble again, like I did at HSBC. In the interests of my own job security, and that precious cash that replenishes my damaged bank balance, I'm not rocking the boat. I sit there, quiet and miserable, while the whole project goes down the shitter.

My team is a diamond in the rough. It's not that my colleagues are necessarily doing things badly. There are historical reasons why everything is fucked. I'm sitting pretty with a happy motivated team who consistently hit their targets and deliver high quality software. I'm the golden boy, with the customer very pleased with the work we've done.

The difference between this contract and my last one, is that I'm listened to. I sat down with the new programme director and told him I was deeply unhappy that the project deadlines were so unrealistic, and that our end-client was so unreasonable in their expectations. He listened, and he even took the time on Friday to tell me that he's grasped the nettle and told the bad news to the customer. My previous boss would never have done that. I actually risked my job a couple of months ago by telling the customer that there was no way in hell they were going to get everything they wanted by Christmas. Although I got in trouble with my boss, I also impressed the client, so when shit went bad they got rid of him and kept me.

However, the pace of change is awful. It's taken forever to put a decent set of managers in place who have enough of a backbone to stand up to our stroppy customer. It's taking forever to change the toxic environment of the project.

The whole time at work, I'm bored. I can't bury myself in work. I can't roll up my sleeves and fight the biggest fire. Nobody would thank me for wading in, where others are struggling. Things are so siloed. I couldn't get involved without treading on toes. So, instead, I sit quietly, letting my team members get on with doing a good job. "I'm alright, Jack" is not my style. It's totally unlike me to just think about my own role and responsibilities, and try to ignore the bigger picture.

It's killing me, working like this.

I'm damned if I do, and I'm damned if I don't. If I had a regular developer job, I'd be frustrated that the team wasn't being run the way I like to do things. If I had a programme director job, I'd be frustrated that I couldn't help to manage individual teams. I want to be all things to everybody. I want to be in all places at all times.

It's frustrating that I can't just bury my head in code, and entertain myself learning new technology skills. It's frustrating that my hands-on skills are getting rusty, as I sit around doing manager stuff, which is mostly just being the punchbag for the grumpy customer at the moment.

Sit back and think of the money, right?

Well, yes, to a point. But the working day goes so slowly, that by the time I get to the weekend I'm filled with pent-up frustration that I haven't gotten to work on anything meaningful. I have almost zero chance of doing anything creative during the week, except for the odd blog post. Even writing short stories at my desk is hard, because there are enough interruptions to ruin my flow. I could try to learn some new technical skill, but it's so hard to do when you can't sit down and concentrate for a block of time.

My life seems remarkably easy on the face of it. Put on a freshly laundered shirt and dry cleaned suit. Put on my polished shoes. Grab my laptop bag and head for the tube. Rock up at the office. Have breakfast at my desk. Count down the hours until lunchtime. Go sit by the river and eat a sandwich. Count down the hours until I go home. Collect my cheque at the end of the week. However, it doesn't feel like a week. Every week feels like a year. A year of pain and boredom.

Yes, I'm probably sick. I seem to be suffering from persistent anhedonia. I get no satisfaction or enjoyment from anything. I have no energy or enthusiasm to do anything. I just write and I drink, and I wait for the next time I've gotta go to work. Day after day, week after week.

I'm grinding out the hours, in the hope that things will get a little easier every day, but they don't. Every day I'm questioning what the hell I'm doing, and then like stretched elastic, I snap. Every day when I get home, all the suppressed parts of my personality come rushing out in a complex tangle of mixed emotions, which I try to deal with by writing.

People at work have little idea that I'm dealing with depression and suicidal thoughts every day. People at work have no idea just how much I hate my day job, and how much it's destroying my soul and sense of wellbeing.

It makes no sense to an outside observer, because what they see is a capable member of the project who comes to work and manages to get the best out of the team. On the face of it, I'm succeeding: I'm well paid and I'm doing a good job. My bosses are happy. My team members tell me they're pleased to be working with me. I've managed to shield the developers and testers who work for me from the toxic atmosphere that's pervasive throughout the project. I've managed to wear my mask so well, that I doubt anybody at work suspects just how desperate I am, inside.

Maybe things will change. Maybe they won't.

I've been waiting for my depression to lift for so long now. I've been waiting for things to get better at work for months, and they haven't, although there is always hope on the horizon. I literally live in hope.

But you know what? It's exhausting, leading this double life. It's so exhausting, telling your team great job, and being sunny and upbeat about everything, rather than letting the whole toxic atmosphere and hopeless deadlines cause a morale problem for the developers and testers who I manage. "Take one for the team" is literally what I'm trying to do. That's literally my role: to be a human shield to protect my team from the stroppy customer.

It's also exhausting leading a double life where you're so depressed you can barely function, but you need to put on the corporate mask of being the reliable high-powered decision maker. I need to turn up and be consistent every day. The whole reason why I command a good daily rate is that I don't take time off sick or bring my problems to work. I'm not allowed to have an off day. That's the point of using contractors: they'll drag themselves into the office even when they're desperately sick.

If I was my doctor, I'd say stop, what are you doing? Give yourself a break. You can't continue like this. This job is making you unwell. However, how can I do that when I need to get a stack of savings in the bank so I can afford to have a nervous breakdown.

I've been bumping along at rock bottom for as long as I can remember. I never recover, because I'm always trapped in a corner. I'm forced back into work too early, and I'm forced to work stressful shitty full-time jobs, because I need to dig myself out of a hole. It's a Catch 22.

It's quite possible that if I can stick things out for a couple more months, my fortunes will change. Things won't look so bleak when I'm no longer working to simply keep a roof over my head and service debts. I'm going as fast as I can, and yet it's somehow still not fast enough. I'm trying as hard as I can, and yet it's somehow still not good enough.

Sure, my bosses are pleased. Sure, my team members would tell you that I'm doing a great job. But it doesn't feel sustainable. I'm living too much of a lie. It's too much of a compromise on my identity and sense of wellbeing. It's too demanding, having to wear a mask all the time.

I'm bloody good at it: hiding my problems. That's really what this whole blog is about. I've spent so many years covering up my problems and maintaining a blemish-free CV, and making sure that I always get a good employment reference, that it was inevitable that I would one day decide to burn it all down. You just can't live a lie forever.

It's not like I'm hiding a drug habit or alcoholism. It's not like I actually have anything active in my life that I need to keep secret, unless you count having to appear like some kind of perfect corporate specimen of a man, who never gets sick and never has any personal problems.

Would it really help, going to my bosses and coming clean about my low mood, boredom, depression, suicidal thoughts? Of course not. Nobody wants to have to treat somebody with kid gloves. Fit in or fuck off is the mantra of corporate life.

Fit in or fuck off. It's fucking me up, living this double life, just to be able to fit in.

Tags: #career

This is a story about bullshit jobs...

In the east end of London, sandwiched inbetween Hackney and the area that used to be responsible for producing clothes and shoes, is the tiny oasis of Silicon Roundabout. The concrete mostronsities that sprung up in the postwar era, after the factories were bombed to shit, are now home to the darlings of the UK's tech industry.

TechHub, which is just a stone's throw away from the Old Street roundabout, prides itself on not having a proper ceiling to conceal its air conditioning ducts. The desks are battered and constructed from scaffolding. The urban decay of the whole area is part of the appeal. I mean, you can work in a disused underground train carriage for fuck's sake... some kind of hyper-trendy modern office.

And yet, this hipster village borders the City of London, where the world's investment banks and hedge funds headquarter themselves. Money is made hand-over-fist in London's financial districts, and all of the profits are enabled by smart tech people. There isn't a single cent that lines the pocket of a capitalist without some computer geek having written some software to make it possible.

There are two kinds of brain drain in operation.

Jaded City workers jack in the corporate humdrum of suits and 9 to 5, to head into the world of Hoxton, Shoreditch and Silicon Roundabout in order to grow a ridiculous beard and ride a bicycle with fixed gearing. Meanwhile, the very smartest are poached from the digital agencies and other parts of the thriving software community, in order to build the backbone of the financial system and re-architect the whole world economy.

Sadly, the main conduits for smart people still deliver the bulk of those graduating with first-class degrees and 2:1s from the best institutions, straight into the hands of bloodsucking parasites.

What was your degree in? Chemistry? Geography? Psychology? English? History? Epidemiology? Medieval iconography?

Who fucking cares?

If you're smart enough to have risen to the top of your classes, you're going to be hoovered up by the financial services sector, which dominates 80% of the British economy. Sooner or later, you're going to find yourself working in a towering phallus of glass and steel, which is a monument to the stupendous stupidity of man.

While red-braces wearing men fill their wheelbarrows with worthless paper, the rest of the world rumbles on, but is seen as unimportant compared with the "masters of the universe". It's obvious that you can't eat a futures contract, or a derivative, but yet the bulk of the 'money' in the world is derived from legal contracts that are almost impenentrably complex. Clever little cunts just coming up with clever schemes to scam the 'real' economy out of their labour and productive output.

How did it all begin?

Well, at the Royal Exchange, a farmer decided to sell his crop of wheat before it had been even harvested. This was the original futures contract. From this grew options, swaptions, interest rate derivatives, exotic credit derivatives and every flavour of cuntery inbetween. It's utter horse shit.

Now, you work all fucking day and your salary isn't even a rounding error on a balance sheet somewhere.

The amount of cash in circulation is nothing. It's meaningless. Financial services and the abolition of the gold standard means that the bankers are just adding extra zeros onto the end of everything just to prop up an utter horseshit system based on perpetual growth. As long as the masters of the universe are getting more zeros on their salaries and bonuses. That's the real reason why anybody has to suffer austerity.

Sorry about that.

Tags: #capitalism #banking

This is a story about surprises...

We are very keen to jump to conclusions. So many of us read the headline and assume that we know the story. Surprisingly large numbers of people will comment on a social media post without even clicking through and reading the content. It's so easy to walk in on a chapter of somebody's life and assume that you know the whole story.

Mental health problems? Blah blah blah... go and see a doctor, get some happy pills and all your problems will go away. No need to hear the end of that story. All problems can be medicalised and will be just fine if you just speak to the right specialist. For sure there are people out there who deal with this kind of stuff. Not my problem. Go away.

Drugs? Say no more. We know how this ends. Yes, your story is bound to involve selling your own grandmother to unscrupulous rogues in order to raise money for your dirty habit, and basically you're filthy scum and don't even deserve to have your story heard. GET OUT OF MY EYES AND EARS and go away.

Nervous breakdown? Why not take up yoga? Stop and smell the flowers. Do cartwheels in a field. Other people have things so much harder than you so I don't even know what you're complaining about. Everybody's life is terrible. Get a grip on yourself. It's all in your head. Why don't you exercise more? Salsa dancing? Homeopathy? I'll write the end of your story for you: all your problems went away and you were magically transported to the land of milk & honey. The end. Go away.

Sex addiction? You filthy pervert. Go away.

Workaholic? You should try sitting around on your arse on a continous jolly holiday. Why don't you retire or take up knitting? If you force yourself to smile, you'll suddenly feel much happier about everything. Take some deep breaths. Have you thought about shutting down the system and rebooting? Failing that, you can reformat the hard-disk and reinstall the operating system.

Isolated, lonely and suicidal? Chin up. Look on the bright side. Suicide is so selfish. Suicide just leaves a big mess for other people to clean up. You're so attention seeking. Cry for help. If you were serious you'd have done it already. Go away.

We are being told that problems are all in our heads, and the only person holding us back from achieving our full potential is ourself. This is utter bullshit. There are so many barriers to entry and things that are holding us back. Life is more complicated than every self-help book, motivational quote and trite soundbite that sounds inspirational but is actually really depressingly useless.

People who are happy and fulfilled are the ones who go to the gym, cook organic freshly prepared meals, don't smoke, don't drink, do yoga, meditate, smell the flowers, swim in the ocean and generally swan around having a lovely time. Doing those things is not the cure or the answer to anything. Doing those things is a symptom of the fact that your life is pretty bloody perfect. There's a reason why people are depressed, stressed and anxious, and it's not that they haven't done enough yoga.

The yoga can wait. It really can. I'm far too worried about earning enough money to pay my rent, bills, food, transport and other cost of living expenses, while also keeping myself washed, clean shaven, hair cut, nails clipped, nose and ear hair trimmed, and with enough clean clothes that are not completely threadbare in order to have a reasonably professional appearance. I'm far too worried about servicing my debts, staying on top of my taxes, keeping up with the administrative headaches that our bureaucratic government forces upon us, as well as turning up at work and keeping a seat warm from Monday to Friday. The yoga can wait. I'm far too preoccupied with my soul-destroying job that makes me suicidally desperate for escape, but escape is eternally just out of reach.

So you're going to quit your job and go travelling? What about your kids? What about your pets? What about your family? What about money? Oh, you don't have any money? Well you could save some up, couldn't you? Oh, you've been trying to save some up, but you're having a crisis NOW? Well, can't you just postpone your crisis, perhaps for another 30 years?

So you're going to quit your job and find a new career? What about your rent? What about your bills? What about all the money you need to pay for tuition and certification? What about the money you're going to need to fund yourself when you're looking for an entry-level job? What about the huge drop in income you're going to have, having no experience in your new career? What about the tent that you're going to buy because clearly you're going to go homeless if you lose your source of income?

So you're going to leave the city and get away from the rat race? What about the fact you don't have any friends or family anywhere else? What about the fact that there are no opportunities anywhere else? What about the fact that you've got nowhere to live, no car, no van, no tent, no cardboard box?

Oh yes, the world is stuffed full of opportunities to avoid the sources of stress that are destroying you. Yeah, sure it's all in your head and you should just imagine what you want to be, snap your fingers and it will come true. How's about a ballerina, footballer, pop singer, astronaut, fireman, deep sea diver? Yeah. The only thing holding you back is YOU you stupid dummy. How silly of you.

Or you could just do some yoga. Yoga fixes everything.

Here's the image that you had to click through to see, and scroll all the way down here. I hope the reward was worth it. Well done. Gold star.

Tags: #mentalhealth #suicide #addiction #career #depression

This is a story about being in touch with your feminine side...

When I was a pre-pubescent boy, I read a book by Judy Blume about girls getting their period and having their first kiss with a boy. Before you boil over into a fit of inexplicable anger (as women are prone to do because they're completely ruled by their emotions) I'm not actually saying I know what it's like to menstruate, have boobs and to carry a baby inside me for 9 months and deliver it into the world through my vagina.

My education and upbringing was pretty heavy on the whole sex-ed thing. My sister was born when I was 10 years old, and so I clearly remember her birth and my Mum's pregnancy. My teacher at school was pregnant when we were being shown childbirth videos, and the schools in Oxford are actually pretty progressive. We were taught about the reproductive cycle in the first year that I went to middle school, when I was 9 years old.

Of course, I will never have the first-hand experience of having my cervix dilated by the large head of my child, to the point that it tears, and other painful sounding childbirth related stuff. I know that I would get yelled at with hormonal illogical female rage, if I was to suggest that other stuff that's happened to me has been painful. The muscle on the front of my calf was sliced in half, severing 4 tendons. The hospital in Oxford kept me for 3 days to re-stabilise my kidneys - no painkillers - and then sent me back home to London for the operation 2 days later. My whole journey on the train and across the capital was done without crutches or pain relief. My bandages were soaked with blood. I'm sure those 5 days where my calf had a muscle that was sliced in two down to the bone would give me no capacity to imagine having my vagina ripped to bits by a baby though.

I genuinely don't want to insult mothers. You're right, I'll never know what it's like to have a bad back from carrying round all that weight of a baby bulge for 9 months. I'll never know what it's like to have my internal organs being squished by the life growing inside me. I'll never know what it's like to be woken up by my unborn child kicking. I'll never know.

If you think I'm being flippant or sarcastic, I'm sorry, but I'm actually being genuine. I've often given consideration to the things I'll never know.

What man hasn't given consideration to how much fun they might have, if they got to swap bodies with a woman for the day. Of course, we'd like to play with our tits, but we're also fascinated to know what it feels like for a girl. There's a <blush> slightly kinky element. What does it feel like to be penetrated? Are multiple orgasms as good as they sound? Errr... did I just say that? Moving swiftly on.

Yeah, it's pretty shameful to admit this stuff, but I've made it my mission to vicariously experience what I can of the feminine. I don't think I'm one of those men who thinks that they're a woman who got born into a guy's body. I've just made it a goal in life to empathise. Empathise with everybody. Including the opposite sex.

When I was a teenager I read female erotic fiction. I tried to get into the mind of what women want. I tried to learn how to be a generous lover, so that I could please my girlfriends. I put a lot of effort into my 'research' and I have to say, I got a big kick out of it. However, I read an article recently where the author - a woman - was actually offended by how much of an ego boost guys get by knowing they've moved the Earth for their lover. Well, guess what? That's been added to the long list of considerations too.

So am I painting this picture of me as some sort of perfect guy? No. Don't be ridiculous. What I'm saying is that I'm an information gatherer, and I was born as a sensitive little soul who takes in a lot of what people say, how they feel and whatever I can divine from the media I have consumed. I guess I figured out from an early age that I wasn't going to learn everything I needed to know from pornographic magazines and videos.

It's laughable isn't it, to say that I empathise with women, mothers. and it's actually not true, I don't. I try to, but of course I fail on so many levels. You can't possibly know how much you don't know. Dunning-Kruger effect. Blah blah blah!

But, if you can have a tomboy, can you not also have a tamgirl?

I remember when a friend was talking about her hen do. I enthusiastically gushed "OMG! When is it?" without thinking that I would not actually be invited. I just kinda assumed that I would be. It was a strange situation, because she was a "one of the lads" kind of girl, and I'm a "comfortable with my sexuality" type of guy, so the gender exclusion of the event didn't even register with me.

So, why have I taken a wordplay of Mumsnet, turning it into something that's supposed to sound like The Social Network? Well, because I'm jealous. I feel like I'm missing out on something.

My same friend who I mentioned regarding the hen do was at one time (I'm not sure if she still is) an active contributor on the Mumsnet forum. I actually met her on a forum to do with kitesurfing, many years before. We were both active forum contributors. In fact, I think we competed for the top spot, quite often.

Another friend, a wonderful geek girl whom I very much enjoy the pleasure of the company of, is also another active Mom social networker, who I think also frequents the pages of Mumsnet.

The blogosphere is heavily colonised by mommybloggers, looking for some kind of activity to connect with the world in a way that fits with the demands of family life. Family members eagerly devour every last detail of life of the youngest members of the clan, and will scour the pages of every social media source in order to gather any updates and juicy pictures of the cute little kids as they grow up. Blogging about your family life is a natural extension of that.

However, I imagine that having kids can be a fairly bleak and isolating existence at times. Just as being single can leave you left out from all those couples events - who's going to invite sad Dave to dinner on his own? That'd be weird! - so the stressed out mom who's had to spend all day with fractious children is going to be overlooked by friends who don't want their peaceful child-free existence shattered by the arrival of mountains of childrearing equipment and tantrum-prone toddlers disturbing the peace.

Yes, unless you have a good baby circle of other moms who have kids of a similar age, it's kinda hard for anybody to relate to the particular struggles that you're immediately facing, whether that be teething and nappy rash, or the defiant "NO!" phase as the loveable darlings assert their own personalities. Which of your friends understands that they need to remove all the sharp, swallowable and fragile ornaments from the low surfaces? That bowl of potpourri looks terribly decorative on the coffee table, but to a parent of a young child, that's just a choking hazard. The worlds are going to collide.

And so, sleep-deprived moms get isolated, as social lepers because they're no longer footloose and fancy free. Not only must the children travel with mom, but also the changing mat, clean nappies, wet wipes, sterilising equipment, bibs, blankets, toys, teething rings, potties, spare clothes, medicines, high chairs, carrycots, pushchairs and every other bit of parenting paraphernalia to keep the tiny tots clean, comfortable, fed and watered, in the hope that they'll smile and giggle, not cry.

I have no idea if an Internet forum can provide some of the camaraderie that is necessary to make things seem a little less desperate, when Junior just won't go to sleep and he's driving you nuts with that noisy toy that grandma bought for him. I have no idea if getting together online, as moms who've been through it all too - they know all the shit that you're going through - in some way makes getting through the day a little easier.

I know that I miss my time being a top contributor on a forum. I know that I miss those familiar nicknames. I know that I miss the purpose and routine that it gave my life, trying to read absolutely everything, and make comments in the most active threads. I miss those virtual friends, who actually turned out not to be virtual at all. Some of the best friends I have, I made through forums. Some of the best experiences of my life, were when a bunch of us nerdy Internet dwellers met up, in the evening for drinks, for weekend trips away, or for adventures around the world.

The gender-blind part of me thinks that I should sign up for Mumsnet and join in the discussion and debate, but something tells me that might not go down too well.

There is a considerable hole in my life, without an online community to belong to.

Tags: #friends #socialmedia #sex

This is a story about invasions...

Are you worried about your culture being wiped out? Are you concerned that we could all end up speaking German, Japanese, Chinese or Arabic? Are you concerned that you will no longer be able to worship your favourite imaginary friend? Are you concerned that you'll have to salute a different combination of colours, stitched into fabric and raised on a flagpole?

When you look at nationalism, you'll see that it's pretty insane. While some people willingly learn another language and enthusiastically adopt the culture of another country, and go and live amongst those people, others believe that "our" way of life is worth dying for. In fact, they believe "our" way of life is worth killing for.

Why would somebody learn German and go and live in Germany? Surely that would be like surrendering to the enemy. Surely that would be a slap in the face to our brave grandfathers and great grandfathers, who fought in two world wars so that we never had to learn another foreign language or eat a bratwürst. Our dead relatives laid down their lives so that we should never have to suffer an Oktoberfest and drink large steins of cold beer brought to us by buxom wenches in lederhosen.

When we study history and people's attitudes, it was nationalism that was the main reason we went to war, not the protection of the Jews. The genocide that was being committed is what we are mainly taught about today in schools, but the strongly held belief in British hearts, was that we needed to protect our country.

Only when our European allies had been completely overwhelmed by German forces, and they had reached the northern beaches of France, did we decide to put some boots on the ground.

If you examine the rhetoric of Donald Trump and the Brexit movement, you will hear similar attempts to stoke up nationalistic fever and paranoia over an 'invasion'. Apparently, a "swarm" of brown people are on their way to our shores, intent on fucking up our national identity. We are told to live in fear and mistrust of our Muslim neighbours, who wear strange clothes and congregate in strange buildings. Islamic culture is so different from ours, and we are being trained to treat what is different with suspicion of an ulterior motive, of overwhelming everything we hold dear.

Talk of walls and pulling up the drawbridge. Shut down the borders. Send "them" home. Look after "are" (sic.) own. Britain First. Make America great. Blah blah blah.

But, if we ignore the social problems that are driving suport for far-right jingoistic nationalists, like Trump, Farage, Le Pen, then we fail to defeat them. By continuing to bury our head in the sand and repeatedly just cry "racist" and "bigot" then we continue to drive a wedge between enlightened liberals, and the vast numbers of poorly educated people who feel economically disenfranchised.

Why would I talk about economics? Surely ordinary British people just want an integrated society, full of fellow British people, not all these damn foreign types with their weird food and strange customs? Well, no not really. The reason why people have rounded on immigrants, as has been stated ad nauseum, is that people feel poor and insecure in their jobs. Ordinary people are economically disadvantaged, and there is a popular belief that immigrants are fuelling excessive competition for a finite number of jobs and resources.

I'm about to suggest another, more controversial reason, why we have been taught that the West has 'won' and our way of life is the correct one.

Let's leave all discussions about anti-Semitism and the holocaust aside. Of course, any discrimination based on colour or creed is wrong. Of course, any act of genocide is deplorable. These things are not the topic of my thesis. Let's set those points to one side, because they're discussed at length elsewhere.

Now, let's think about how the Nazis swept to power. Do you think Hitler said "let's kill all the Jews" and all the Germans went "Yeah! Brilliant idea! Let's vote for this guy!". Nope. Even if the Nazi policies of getting rid of gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally ill, Jews and other minority groups was central to their meteoric rise to power, something else was driving it.

Think about the economic situation in Nazi Germany. The country was saddled with debt. The war bonds were a crippling millstone around the neck of the ordinary German people. For every Deutsche Mark that was produced by hard working ordinary Germans, 17 more Marks had to be found for the repayment of national debt. The German people felt enslaved to the money lenders, and the money lenders were perceived as Shylocks (Jewish money lenders, Jewish bankers).

In the twenty year period in-between the world wars, ordinary Germans had been massively economically disadvantaged by the national debt, in the form of war bonds and reparations, that their own government and nation had taken on. Do you think the ordinary Germans felt that they owed this debt? Do you think that, given the choice, they would have borrowed so much?

The German people wished to free themselves from the slavery of interest payments and the tyranny of capitalism. The Nazi movement was essentially an anti-capitalist movement, with the ideas of Gottfried Feder at its roots. The Nazi movement was more akin to communism than the neoliberal capitalist democracy that we assume was the basis for all Western economies in the 20th century.

How were the Nazis able to motivate so many people to work hard to produce vast quantities weapons of war that are hard to not admire, for their sheer feat of engineering prowess? Germany took a great leap forward in putting the instruments of industry to productive use. From a position of being economically depressed, and with massive financial problems, how was it able to build airships, planes, tanks, bombs, guns, and massive amounts of infrastructure to support itself? How did Germany go from depressed doldrums, to becoming a world superpower, so quickly?

The answer is that they abandoned capitalism.

What, in essence, is capitalism anyway? Well, it's putting capital to work, through interest bearing financial instruments. Instead of having labour exchanged for food or goods or services, instead, debt is exchanged for factories and machinery, and people work because they don't own any of the factories or farms anymore. Where does the capital come from? The capitalists. Where does money flow to? Back to the capitalists.

Gottfried Feder figured out the pyramid scheme of capitalism. In his Manifesto for the Abolition of Interest Slavery, Feder explains how the owner of a factory does not benefit from the productive output, and neither do the workers either. Instead, the bonds that paid to purchase the factory bear effortless interest, meaning the profits of the factory flow back to the capitalist. The people who work in the factories need to buy the goods that the factory produces, so, their money again flows back to the capitalists. And through the exponentially multiplative effect of compound interest, the capitalists will grow ever richer, while never having to do a single day's labour. Infinite endless effortless capital.

It was an economic idea that brought the Nazis to power and kept them there. The Nazis brought a sense of prosperity and wellbeing to a nation that had felt depressed and enslaved to the capitalists. The Nazis brought about pride, not in the nation, nor the flag, nor the Nazi party, but in their productive contribution. People feel proud to have done a good day's work and to have produced something. Economic depressions rob people of their feeling of self worth. Economic depressions rob people of their self esteem.

Now, if we look at Islam, we can see that a core teaching of the Muslim faith is that earning interest is a sin.

In fact, do you think of yourself as Christian? Yes? Did you know that Christian supposedly means that you're Christian. That is to say, you follow the teachings of Jesus Christ our Lord and saviour. Do you believe in Christ?

Well, Christ is documented as saying "build no store of wealth on this Earth". Christ is documented as smashing the tables of the money lenders in Herod's temple. Think about that for a second.

Had time to digest that? Yes, that's right. Jesus Christ was anti-capitalist.

So, if we look at the successful religions from the past 2,000 years, and the most recently succesful attempts at world domination, you will see that anti-capitalism is the secret to their success.

Look at the Chinese. In 58 years, the Chinese have brought a nation of 1.3 billion people into economic prosperity. China has become a world superpower. China is one of the largest economies on the planet. How did they achieve that? By rejecting capitalism.

Islam counts 1.6 billion souls following the Muslim faith, and enshrined in law in Arab countries is the illegality of charging interest on loans. Imagine that! Imagine every bank in Europe and America being no longer allowed to charge any interest!

So, if you're looking for a reason why we should all fear the 'invasion' of these conquering hordes, and the demise of our precious culture, you might find that you're empathising with the likes of Rothschild and Goldman Sachs, cowering in terror because their plutocracy is about to be overthrown by the people that they have economically enslaved.

Why do we have a nation of bankers, lawyers and accountants, when those professions are only needed by the very wealthiest 0.1%? We are shaped in the image of what our rulers think is important. When we are governed by billionaires and millionaires, our whole nation and the priorities of our laws are shifted towards supporting their needs, not ours. We are producing trillions of dollars worth of useless derivatives, rather than useful goods & services.

Imagine if we took our best & brightest out of UBS, JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, and instead deployed them to work in science and engineering. Imagine if we took our hardworking poor in McJobs, and instead allowed them to build wonderful things for the betterment of humanity. Imagine how much happier and productive everybody would be if they were working towards something, rather than against everything.

Our world is so adversarial, with us & them, the haves and the have-nots, the rich and the poor, the wealthy white Westerners and those pesky brown people who want a few crumbs from the table.

In actual fact, there's plenty of everything to go around, but we are so intent on playing by the existing rules of the game, that we fail to wake up and realise that we are propping up a status quo that only makes us poor, disadvantaged and divided.

What have the Nazis ever done for us? They've shown us that economic ideas can create prosperity, optimism and productivity. They've shown us that there's a better way than neoliberal capitalist democracy.

It's distasteful to revere the successes of the Nazis, because I might be seen as also endorsing their genocide and ethnic cleansing. However, what could be more ethnically cleansing than building a massive wall, deporting all the Latinos and banning people of a certain religious faith from entering your country? Trump epitomises everything that is bad about the Nazis, whilst offering nothing that was good about them.

We need to cherry pick the best ideas, and we need to get rid of the ideas that enslave us and hurt the vast majority of ordinary people.

Tags: #economics #politics #capitalism

This is a story about dream jobs...

Why aren't nurses who work in geriatric care the best paid people on the planet? When humans are old and shrivelled up, senile, incontinent and are simply an inconvenience, getting in the way of children receiving their inheritance, geriatric nurses are there mopping up the poop and vomit, and generally trying to ease the suffering and discomfort of the age-ravaged creatures who are long past their sell-by date. On the face of it, palliative care seems a thankless task, and the low pay would certainly back that up.

But what about nursery nurses and nannies? These people also mop up the shit and puke of those who can't look after themselves, but the tiny tots that they care for are all cute and brand new. People who work in childcare are similarly badly paid, but maybe that's because it's supposedly fun and rewarding, playing with children all day.

How can this be? How can it be the case that somebody who looks after those who are dying gets paid badly, but then so is a person who looks after those who have their whole lives ahead of them?

Perhaps it's the case that anybody who deals with human waste is badly paid. Certainly when we examine the remuneration of garbage collectors and cleaners, we find that these people who scrub human stains from the world, are very badly paid. The people who unblock sewers and those who work in sanitation are hardly big earners, and might in fact be in a similar pay bracket to the people who look after children and old people.

You would have thought that having to deal with dirt, grime, death and bodily fluids would carry a pay premium that would see the people I just mentioned, amongst the highest paid there are, but this is not the case at all.

Hang on though! What about musicians, poets and writers? Sure, there are a handful of successful individuals who are paid mind-bogglingly humongous sums for the art that they create, but the very vast majority of people who have chosen music and wordcraft as their profession, will find themselves very poor indeed. Think how many struggling writers there are. Think how many people there are who play in bands, but barely earn a single cent for their trouble. How many people reciting wonderful poetry are able to call it a well paid profession?

So if writers and musicians are badly paid too, but they don't have to deal with bodily fluids and rotting trash, then what exactly is the common link?

Do you think it's time spent studying? Do you think it's qualifications? Well, many musicians will have spent tens, if not hundreds of thousands of hours mastering their instruments. Music theory is not trivial. Music theory and harmonics are governed by discrete mathematical rules. Can you really say that a corporate lawyer or accountant is more qualified than somebody who has dedicated their life to music? Of course not.

So what is it? What is the rule that decides whether you will be well paid, or you will struggle to make ends meet?

Well, my theory is that the more alien and dehumanising your job is, the more you will be paid. Humans have caring and nurturing instincts built into them. We will naturally feel sympathy for those in discomfort and pain, and we will want to help if we can. Humans have a dislike for waste and mess, and we will want to keep things clean and ordered. We have evolved the instinct to not live in piles of our own filth. We have even evolved the social instinct to create art that binds us together. Whether it's trancelike-state inducing beats and chants, paintings on cave walls, or the telling of stories that are our very earliest form of preserving our history, myths and legends. It's human to want to perform, to sing, to entertain.

What innocent young child really can imagine that they would want to grow up and get a job massaging numbers in spreadsheets or editing the minutiæ of legal contracts? What the fuck does your bullshit job even entail? What the fuck is it going to say on your motherfucking gravestone? How the fuck would you even go about explaining what you do to your grandmother?

And so, we now have an army of the living dead who are, in the words of David Bolchover, switched off, zoned out. This is the shocking truth about office life. Nobody gives two fucks about their job or their employer. There is no job satisfaction. The jobs are alien, dehumanising.

What do these armies of disillusioned people do all day? Well, they read and they listen to music. Some of the most cultured art patrons that we are lucky enough to have in the world, are just bored people sat at their desks with glazed eyes, wondering what they're going to have for lunch.

But then what? What happens next?

Well, these people start dreaming about becoming musicians, writers, artists, poets and pursuing all manner of things that will connect them with the aesthetic and creative elements that their bullshit daily humdrum gives them precisely fuck all of.

What even is a journalist? Well, the clue's in the name: journalist. As in day. As in somebody who writes a journal every day. That's all it is. That's all it takes to be a writer. You don't have to be qualified to be a writer. Just write. Every day.

There's a myth that you can't do anything without studying, that has been perpetuated by the professions. It's true that you can't become a lawyer or an accountant without studying, but those are bullshit jobs with bullshit professional bodies whose job it is to limit how many people enter the profession every year, in order to maintain false scarcity and prop up their salaries.

It's utter bullshit. We don't need any lawyers & accountants. Without builders, there are no houses. Without farmers and fishermen, there is no food. Without weavers and seamstresses there are no clothes. Without lumberjacks and miners, there is no wood and coal to keep ourselves warm and to cook our meals. Everything else is just intellectual masturbation. Unnecessary bullshit made up jobs that add nothing of value.

So, as people are realising that the fact that they didn't go to an Oxbridge university to study English, or at least attend a creative writing course, but yet they can still write a blog and entertain their friends and family on Facebook and Twitter, the value of journalists has been completely eroded.

Yes, it's a shame that The Guardian and The Observer newspapers are going down the shitter, whether they add a paywall or not. Yes it's a shame that a lot of friends and people who I know, who are extremely talented and have dedicated their whole lives to the pursuit of journalism and writing careers, are finding that there's just no way that they're ever going to earn a decent salary doing what they love.

And that's just it. That's the kicker. That's the real kick in the teeth. As soon as you do something you love, you'll find there's no money in it. We all want to be footballers, singers, food critics, cinema critics, writers, journalists, poets and every other job where you fuck about doing nothing more than entertaining, informing, educating, inspiring.

We all love the thrill of the limelight. We all love dressing up. We all love exotic locations. We all love to seek new sensations. We all love to meet interesting people. We all love to talk and write about what we're passionate about. We all love to make art that expresses our deeply felt human emotions that can't be articulated using the blunt instruments of words.

If you do what you love and it's necessary, like nursing, then you'll be paid just enough to survive. If you do what you love and it's unnecessary, like art, then you'll not be paid anything at all. It's a race to the bottom. We can all stick a paintbrush on a piece of paper and produce something passably artistic.

The arts used to be the preserve of the aristocracy, but with the democratisation of the arts through the digital medium, my crude drawing of a penis can be reproduced infinitely many times across every computer screen on the planet. I can write a library full of books, and they're all immediately in print and available to be read by anybody, at any time, for free, because of the limitless power of the digital printing press that is the internet. Why the fuck would anybody pay anything for art anymore?

Of course, scarcity still has value, and a few super-high profile artists will continue to produce original artworks in the form of paint on canvas, art installations and live performances. These artists are the courtiers in the entourage of the plutocracy. You have about as much chance of becoming one of these people as you have of being struck by an asteroid, twice.

As the global recession deepens, the amount of people who are able to just about scrape a living as a freelance writer or a busker will drop away to nothing, and the arts will once again be the preserve of the sons & daughters of the very wealthiest, who have the monetary means to pursue things which society largely deems worthless.

The Huffington Post has shown the future for journalism, where an army of bloggers are leveraged to provide the same kind of re-hashed reporting of the stories that are churned out by a handful of news agencies who are still able to have people on the ground. Your dreams of being a war correspondent are over. Even your dreams of being a lifestyle blogger are looking pretty hopeless.

There is a vast oversupply of opinion and wordcraft and music and art and everything else that's fun to create. There is no longer any room to do something you love. As soon as you derive any kind of job satisfaction, that's going to be the last pay rise you ever get.

Don't you get it? It's a race to the bottom. See you there!

Tags: #writing #socialmedia #capitalism #career

This is a story about pets...

I love cats. Cats love me. My cat, Frankie, is so comfortable with me that I can zip him inside my jumper to keep him warm and he just happily snuggles up.

I read the other day that it took less than an hour to raise thousands of pounds for a cat that needed an operation at the vet. I've always taken the precaution of having pet insurance, because I would never want to have to make a cold hard financial decision about an animal that I kept as a pet, because I'm very emotionally attached - bonded - to Frankie.

A friend of mine has cycled thousands of miles across Europe to raise money to buy bicycles for impoverished families in Africa. These are not bicycles for leisure. They are an essential mode of transport for rural dwelling people, in order to be able to access education, employment and markets, without having to walk for hours and hours in blistering heat. Each bicycle can literally transform the prospects of an entire family overnight.

My friend who has so far covered about 2,000 miles, in over a month, has raised less than 25% of what the needy moggy managed to raise in less than an hour. I'm sure you'll agree, that cycling thousands of miles in some of the steepest parts of the Alps, surely shows that it is not through lack of effort that his fundraising attempt has not been more fruitful so far.

It's certainly not my intention to criticise or take anything away from his incredible feat, working so hard for such a good cause, to raise money for World Bicycle Relief by cycling across Europe. I'm totally in awe of what my friend is doing.

However, what saddens and disappoints me is how readily people will reach for their wallets when they think of a poor suffering furball, rather than a fellow human being.

Both my friend and I have been homeless. There seems to be an assumption that human beings are architects of their own demise, and animals are innocent creatures that need our protection. There seems to be an assumption that charity and governments are somehow working, to redistribute wealth and protect the needy and vulnerable. That simply isn't the case.

Why do people wait, until their friends and relatives are in hospital or dead, before they say "I wish we knew what to do, before it was too late" and "if we knew things were that bad, we would have done something"?

Frankly though, this is horse shit.

We have a culture where we believe we are engaged in a desperate struggle just to "look after our own". It's simply not true.

It might feel like a desperate struggle, to prepare the kids packed lunches and hang the laundry out. It might feel like a desperate struggle to think that you might not get to take 3 foreign holidays this year if you or your partner loses your job, which you're not going to. Things might feel like a desperate struggle because you've been reading too much damn tabloid journalism.

Until you've slept rough, barely been able to keep yourself clean, except with the occasional public shower, and barely been able to keep the clothes on your back from turning to dusty rags, you know fuck all about desperate struggle. However, even when you're homeless in the UK, you still don't tend to go without at least one hot meal a day: there are always soup kitchens and the Hare Krishna.

I don't know what it takes to trigger some empathy, and the goddamn impulse to get up and do something but I'm fairly outraged by the pocket change that gets stuffed into a charity collection bucket, simply to salve a middle-class conscience.

You've probably completely misread my own situation. I live in a flat that costs me twice as much as a hostel bed, which is totally excellent value. I work a job that brings in enough money to pay down the debt that I ran up supporting myself when I was sick. Yes, that's right. Instead of claiming incapacity benefit, housing benefit, council tax deductions and every other kind of government handout that I'm totally entitled to because I have major mental health issues instead I've funded it all out of my own pocket, and impoverished myself in the process.

Why would I do that? Well, because it's easier to get the money you need to survive when you have fur, whiskers and paws.

I mean, for fucks sake, Syrian children are having to print out pictures of themselves with Pokémon so that we give a shit about them.

Sorry for the condescending tone. I'm just a bit pissed off that our idea of "helping our own" is a few likes and shares on Facebook.

The end.

Tags: #charity #frankie #homeless

This is a story about speaking to the audience...

Acknowledging the reader is not a great literary device, when overused. I think I have pushed most people away, by writing with a very lecturing tone. When I address my readers as "you" I normally have somebody in mind. I tend to be using this blog as a passive-aggressive device, to attack those who have wronged or offended me.

When I write about "get a job" idiots, it's because I'm highly offended, when I've had a 20 year career and been in full time education or employment since age 4. When my hackles are raised because somebody says "everybody has to work" it's because I've probably put up with more shitty boring jobs than most people, and racked up more hours. Investment Banking is not known as a career for slackers. IT projects always demand you to pull some epic hours to get things over the line.

When I write about the hypocrisy of my parents, it's because they epitomise everything I would never want to become: lazy, underachieving, highly critical and negative people, who have always put their own selfish wants ahead of their children's needs. When I look at the general decline in living standards of the younger generation, it triggers my deep sense of having had an enjoyable time as a child and young adult robbed from me. And for what? So I can now have a miserable boring job?

There's a Frank Zappa quote that I like, though:

If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it

But, in the words of my Dad: "you've got to pay to play". Of course, he forgets that his Dad was a wealthy accountant who very much paid for him to play.

So, I'm working a job that I hate, because I needed money and I needed it fast. Here in London I can get an IT contract very quickly and easily, and earn 5 or 6 times more than the average wage. You might think it's ungrateful, spoilt, to take this for granted and to even be unhappy, but after 20 years of playing the same game, using the same tried-and-trusted formula, there is no novelty, no surprises.

When I was 20 years old, I was earning £400/day working for Lloyds TSB in Canary Wharf. I was doing exactly the same work that I do today. It might seem vulgar to talk about money, but maybe you need to know why I'm not exactly thrilled to get out of bed in the morning.

There's a high-water mark: an expectation, set by your experiences. I really don't live any kind of jet-set life. I shop in regular supermarkets, I rarely eat out, I drink wine that costs less than £10 a bottle. I don't pay for satellite television, luxury gym membership or in any way indulge expensive tastes. Even my suit is threadbare and worn out, and I wear cheap shoes.

Some people need the status symbols, the trappings of wealth. Sure, I could plough my income into having a Ferrari, a speedboat, but you're missing the point: I completely rejected the rat race, made myself destitute, and I loved it. The feeling of liberation from monthly downpayments on some material object, or mortgage payments on bricks & mortar, brought joy back to my soul.

The highlight of my week was talking to the guy who shone my shoes. Under the grand arches of Leadenhall Market, by the futuristic Lloyds building in the City, this chap told me that he had quit his job as an auditor for Ernst & Young, and had become an actor. Sure, he was poor - having to shine shoes for £5 a pop - but you could see he was clearly in love with his life again.

You might see pictures of my fancy apartment, with its river views and think "flash bastard" and "that must cost a pretty penny". However, you have simply been fooled by the image that I wish to project... in fact, I need to project. I get paid a lot of money because I'm successfully hiding the fact that I'm a desperate man on the ragged limit of control. Only the semicolon tattoo behind my ear slightly gives away the fact that I'm living a life of quiet desperation.

In actual fact, the rent on my apartment comes to roughly double what it cost me to live in a hostel. Instead of living in a 14-bed dormitory with people who are on the very bottom rung of society, and having to share a bathroom and protect my few possessions from theft and spoil, instead I have an ample sized ensuite bedroom, storage cupboard and expansive reception rooms in which to relax in comfort.

You would think that living in a hostel would be cheap, so paying twice as much does not sound unreasonable, correct? When you consider that I can safely keep my bicycle in my hallway, I have a central London parking space, and amazing views over the River Thames from my balcony, you must surely recognise the value for money that I'm getting.

My one threadbare suit I only use for interviews, and the rest of the time I wear £50 trousers from John Lewis, no jacket and no tie. Somebody complemented me on my sharp attire the other day, and asked if my clothes had been tailored to fit me. I could only chuckle to myself, knowing that my outfit is entirely cheap off the peg stuff.

My accountant must despair of me, as I always cut things mighty fine. There is no profligacy - every penny I spend is calculated, right down to the few bits of bling that are necessary to indicate that you have attained a certain social status. It's just going to look a bit weird if you're an IT professional with a cheap shit laptop.

The really frustrating thing is how easy it is to fool people. Everybody assumes that under the surface, everything is just fine. If you dress yourself up in the right clothes and pretend like everything is tickety-boo, people have no reason to suspect that you are one negative event away from killing yourself.

I have no idea how I'm going to sustain the charade. Just because you're settled into your little rut, and figured out a system to keep turning the pedals, doesn't mean that I can do it. Smile and take the money, right? But what if it's too easy? What if the formula has been so perfected, that life is a paint-by-numbers?

I tried to teach a friend how to blag and hustle. I tried to show him the magic formula. I busted my balls to transfer as much knowledge as possible about how to play the game. He's no fool, and knew a few of the tricks of the trade already. However, ultimately he let himself down, because of the subtle detail.

There must be something that sets people apart. What is it that shatters the illusion? It could be something as simple as not noticing that your suit has still got the slit in the back of the jacket held together by a stitch of thread that you are supposed to cut yourself. It could be as simple as a cheap pen, or umbrella. It could be a single moment of self-doubt, or an answer to a question that clearly betrays the fact you're blagging, because you fail to one-up the interviewer and blind them with things they don't understand.

It might sound like snobbery, but it's actually the very essence of how people get into positions of authority. Having a shirt monogrammed with your initials, wearing an expensive wristwatch, carrying a Moleskine notebook, writing with a Mont Blanc pen, wearing the correct style suit and shirt and shoes. It's all so shallow, but sadly it works.

I'm part of a boys club, and there's no way I can show my hand. There's no way that my colleagues would be able to process the fact that I'm barely coping with mental health problems, the threat of relapse into drug addiction, and a desire to return to a simpler life when I didn't have to grind just to pay taxes, rent and maintain a fake image of having my shit together.

If I address the audience, it's because I'm so lonely in the little stage-play of my daily life. From Monday to Friday, I'm putting on a poker face, and looking busy at my desk. I face the threat of being found out as a blagger, a hustler, at any moment. The homeless guy is not welcome in the club. There's no room for anybody with a weakness, in the corporate dog-eat-dog world.

My colleagues tell me I'm doing a good job, and they like working with me, but I feel like a fraud when I submit my invoice for the week, and I think about how much time I spent on Facebook, writing blog posts, tweeting, reading the news and hiding in the toilet. I look at my timesheet, and it doesn't reconcile with the amount of work I have actually done. Sure, I was present in the office. My bum was on the seat for the hours I declare, but I don't feel productive or even useful.

So, I cast out into the world, looking for a connection, desperate for somebody to acknowledge my existence. Even when I rub somebody up the wrong way, at least it means some of what I say is hitting home somewhere. Most of the time, I'm alone with my thoughts and lonely as hell.

Every time I address "you" it seems to fall on deaf ears. I quickly forget that people have reached out, gotten in contact, because the conversation is so sporadic, unpredictable. This is such an unusual mechanism of communication, but what would I do without it? Friends have literally threatened to unfriend me on Facebook, because of the disproportionate amount of space I have consumed on 'their' wall.

I'm rambling, but I don't want this to end. It feels like I'm talking to "you". It feels like "you're" listening. It feels like I have a human connection, an honest relationship, that I just don't get for all those lonely, lonely office hours, where my whole focus is on trying to hide my depression, anxiety, boredom and desperate lack of purpose.

Without this blog, I'd be stuffed. There's a temptation to adapt my writing to be more appealing again. There's a desire to drive up the number of readers, by writing things that I know will be like clickbait, and nice to read.

However, that's not my style, not my purpose. We're having an intimate conversation, you & I. You might not realise it, but I'm thinking about hundreds of different potential audience members, as I write... trying to engage you... trying to connect.

Even if this isn't being read by the people I intended, at least it's there. There's something comforting, knowing that a little piece of me has been captured somewhere, in my own words. It feels like I'm at least winning, in the battle to leave a true account of who I was, and not become a convenient dumping ground for those who seek to abstain from any blame, for the part they did, or did not play in somebody's life.

I live in London. I'm practically an expert in turning a blind eye: ignoring the Big Issue seller, the clipboard-wielding survey taker, the collection tin rattling charity worker, the beggar, the pavement evangelist, and every other undesirable member of society who has fallen on hard times. I know what it's like to have your head down because you're so wrapped up in your own struggle, and so fixated on the rat race.

I've considered the question many times: am I a melodramatic attention seeker? Are my cries for help completely unnecessary? Is my lot in life no worse than anybody else's?

Frankly, who gives a shit? I'm just about scraping through every day by the skin of my teeth. Not only walking out on a boring job, but potentially leaving this shitty life altogether. I know how decisive I am. I know how bold and brave I can be, once I have decided to do something. I know I could easily snuff out my life, in the blink of an eye.

Doth I protest too much? Why take the chance?

Isn't this somebody else's problem? Aren't there pills for this?

Yes, try clinging onto those pathetic get-out-of-jail-free cards, once the person has gone.

Perhaps I'm dredging up emotions that could be suppressed? Perhaps the very act of writing is prodding at raw nerves, and actually keeping feelings on the surface that could easily sink back into my subconscious. Am I, in the very act of writing this blog, talking myself into depression and suicide? Well, the journal charts my moods, so you have all the data you need for the postmortem.

I live for writing. I live for my browsing stats and my Twitter followers. I live for those few moments when somebody emails out of the blue, and acknowledges my existence. You would be surprised how few and far between those precious events are.

Moan, moan, moan, right? Poor me, poor me, pour me another drink?

Perhaps Alcoholics Anonymous is the place for this, even though I'm not an alcoholic? Dylan Thomas wrote that an alcoholic is somebody who drinks just as much as you, but you don't like them very much.

Why do we push people to the fringes, the periphery? Why do we want the people who wail in distress to just shut up and go away? Do you think it completely meaningless, when somebody goes to great effort to explain how they're feeling, and attempt to communicate with you, by whatever means they can?

How long have I been doing this for? Shut up! Give up! Go away! Right?

If something doesn't immediately work, just quit, right?

Hasn't the message been received from you, loud and clear? You don't care. You're busy with your own life.

Is it the bystander effect? Surely somebody else is going to do something? Not me, I'm not going to be first. I don't want to get involved!

What do you think's going to happen? Are you going to catch my mental illness? Are you going to be made responsible for my life? Are you going to be shackled to me, forced to live with me, with me stealing food from your children's mouths? Am I out to ruin you and your family?

I feel like a dirty leper. I feel contagious. I feel a huge amount of pressure to pretend like I'm capable of just conforming, complying... when the truth is that things are getting worse, not better. My patience is worn thin. My energy levels have been exhausted. I'm later and later getting to work. I can no longer even pretend to be busy, and keep up the charade.

Join a gym. Eat some kale. Go to a book club. Get a girlfriend.

Can I chase away the existential dread with trivial frivolities, when the bulk of my waking hours are filled with such utter bullshit? Having a taste of freedom has perhaps ruined me. Knowing how the game is rigged, and how to play the system has left me reeling, with the shocking revelation of the pointlessness of it all.

Even if - for the sake of argument - I'm a dimwitted fool, it still doesn't take away the fact that my brain is in overdrive. I'm bombarded with thoughts in the empty hours where I am so unchallenged, so bored.

You educate a person. You train them for a job. You stretch them and challenge them and titillate their interests, and then what? You put them into a corporate machine where independent thought is undesirable? You put them into a bland business environment where creativity is discouraged? You put them into the straightjacket of the working world, where innovation and ingenuity are unnecessary?

Yes, I'm compliant, because I had a tax bill to pay, and debts to pay down. But every day is a simple test of patience. What's going to win: am I going to commit suicide, run away from my pointless responsibilities, or simply sit mute in my chair trying not to scream for long enough that I have built up another nest egg to fritter away on more life-affirming pursuits?

Life's too fucking short for all this. The clock ticks down to the day I die, and what can I say I did with my life? I didn't tell the boss to go fuck himself? I didn't storm out of the office, yelling at the top of my voice that everyone is wasting their precious existence on pushing paper around their desk? I didn't let the bank, the landlord, repossess their precious property and go live somewhere off-grid, to get away from the constant pressure to run just to stand still.

I'm writing and writing, because there is no end until going home time. How do I fill these empty hours where I'm 'working'. Does anybody even care that I've churned out tens of thousands of words, at the expense of the companies I'm contracted to work for? Does anybody even notice, that it makes not a jot of difference, whether I'm fulfilling my job description or not?

You're going to look at the length of this essay and think "what the actual fuck, who has the time for this?". I could put a cork in my mouth. I could curtail this bout of verbal diarrhoea. But what else would I do with my time? At least this wall of words - this tidal wave - records for posterity, the angst that might drive me to my early grave. At least people can see the kind of torture that my soul was subjected to.

Suffer in silence? Fuck off.

Tags: #writing #socialmedia #suicide #depression #mentalhealth

This is a story about the collapse of civilisation...

What is it that causes empires to collapse? Why have fascinating ancient civilisations crumbled into ruins? Well, one prevailing theory seems to be that these societies failed to forgive debts, before there was a popular uprising.

There's a disrespect for working people that's highly prevalent in the world. We have a patronising attitude towards people who get themselves in heaps of credit card debt, or take out mortgages that they can't afford. We seem to assume that the when loans go bad, it's is somehow the fault of the borrowers.

In actual fact, having sat in on phonecalls with many people who are in a distressed debt situation, they did nothing more than try to make ends meet and have a lifestyle that should be considered completely normal in a developed Western country.

Most people who've got into a debt-spiral did so because there's no way to legitimately dig their way out of the hole. They already work the maximum hours that they're able to, but yet their earning potential has maxed out. When the car breaks down, they have to borrow to meet the shortfall, and this tips them into a downward spiral, because they'll never be able to find the extra cash, due to punitive interest rates.

The story is almost always the same. When things start going wrong, people hover up every bit of available credit in order to maintain their perfectly reasonable lifestyle. People still need to replace their clothes, and cheap clothes wear out very quickly. People still need to get to work, and transport costs are significant. People even need to service their addictions. Without tobacco and alcohol, many lives would simply be unbearable. These are not luxuries, and people are not profligate for expecting a minimum standard of living.

If you look at the kind of savings you can make by economising and shopping around, it's fairly depressing. You might be able to save a few pounds by shopping at another supermarket on the other side of town, but what about the extra fuel you burned getting there, and the extra wear & tear on the car? What about the waste of your time, that could have been spent working more hours... if they were offered?

The fact of the matter is, that in free market economics, prices will find a level that is just about affordable for people on an average wage. If you price things too high, then everybody goes bankrupt and just refuses to work because the game is a stupid one. If you price things too low, then there's untapped profits and people rise out of poverty and refuse to do shitty jobs anymore. So, things have to be priced just right so that everybody is looking at their bank balance and eking things out to the end of the month, every month, month after month, year after year.

If you're a politician, landlord or a businessman, you want to find the price elasticity of demand so that you know how much you can charge as taxes, rent and the price of your products, such that demand is not unduly impacted. You want to charge the maximum tax, maximum rent and maximum price for everything, without people saying "fuck this" in huge numbers. Everything is priced based on the limit of what most people will just about put up with.

Unfortunately, people get ground down. Working your whole life just to pay taxes and service debts starts to get pretty irritating. People can see that they don't stand any chance of ever getting ahead in life.

We can see that there's a link between poverty and ridiculous dreams. Where people are poor, gambling is popular, and there's no bigger tax on the poor than a lottery. The lottery is the ultimate con, because it robs the very poorest people of a significant proportion of their income, whilst also giving them false hope that they might one day escape their situation.

Other ridiculous dreams include becoming a professional athlete, and becoming a famous pop singer or movie star. The number of Premier League footballers and TV celebrities is a piss in the ocean. In percentage terms, you're more likely to win a lottery or some kind of accumulator bet.

So many kids these days say that they want to be "famous" but they have no idea what for... singing probably. Vast numbers of people watch singing contests like X-Factor, Pop Idol and The Voice, and unwittingly, they are buying into this fairytale dream that they're going to be plucked from obscurity and poverty one day, and get to live this A-list celebrity lifestyle that's rammed down our throats with shows like Made in Chelsea and The Only Way is Essex, let alone Keeping up with the Kardashians.

Panem et circenses has paved the way for the political class to become ever more powerful, with the proletariat feeling that their vote would make no difference, and their time is better devoted to watching banal wannabe celebrities croon on a television show, as well as spending money to vote on premium rate phone lines.

Banks are "too big to fail" but the ordinary working person receives no government bailout for their financial woes, when it becomes evident that they can no longer service the debt that they have run up. However, there has been no popular uprising yet, because people are resigned to government and corporate control of their lives.

For me, the rioting and looting that we saw in the Tottenham and Croydon riots in London is indicative of a huge portion of society who are taunted with expensive consumer goods that they'll never be able to afford, and offered no jobs or legitimate opportunity, in order to acquire the material things that they desire.

Debt has been the only way that people have been able to get the celebrity lifestyle that's rammed down everybody's throats. All those flashy new cars are on hire purchase. All those gold-plated iPhones are bought with credit cards. All those lovely clothes are purchased on storecards. I don't think these people are idiots, and I don't think they're financially reckless. They've been told their whole lives that they're entitled to these things.

However, the more that people are denied the things that they've been promised - houses, cars, holidays and all the trimmings - the more they're going to wonder why they should work, only to get deeper and deeper into debt, and to have a miserable life where they're just counting down to payday, only for their hard-earned cash to be swallowed by rent, debts, transport, food, clothing and other life essentials.

We are asking too much of our working people, and at some point they're going to realise that it's not the immigrants who are to blame, but the ruling class.

The party never stopped for the elite. The good times just kept rolling. You can't prop things up forever, when working people are so unhappy.

Tags: #capitalism #banking #politics

This is a story about the descent into darkness...

The first time I couldn't work due to depression, it came out of the blue. I had started a new job, and it was actually really interesting. I was quite enthusiastic about what I was doing, and empowered to grow into a new role. Spring was turning into summer, and so I had the seasons in my favour. What happened next was a surprise to everybody, including me.

One morning, I couldn't get out of bed. I'd had problems getting up early for work, but this was different... I couldn't face the day. As soon as I'd admitted defeat - that I definitely wasn't going to make it into the office that day - I was somehow a changed person. It was like a dam burst. This problem that I had been barely coping with was suddenly unleashed, after 11 years of steady 9 to 5 grind and reliable service in the name of the corporations I worked for.

People talk about nervous breakdowns, and I guess that's what had happened. All of a sudden, and with little warning, I was sick... but this was an invisible sickness. I felt it, and I couldn't overcome it, but I didn't believe it was real. I thought that it was fake. I felt like a fraud.

In the UK you can take up to 3 days off work without a doctor's note. After 3 days, I knew deep down that there was no way that I could possibly go back to work, but what was wrong with me? This was highly unusual for the dependable grey-suited regular 9 to 5, Monday to Friday office Joe Bloggs, that I was. 11 years of full time work and 13 years of full time education. All I knew was getting up and going to a dictated place, on the treadmill, in the rat race, following orders.

To summon the effort to go and see my doctor took the whole of those 3 days. I knew the problem was more severe than just not feeling very well. I knew it was more severe than a day off work was going to cure. I knew that something was seriously wrong, but I couldn't express it... I had no language to explain the brick wall that I'd hit.

It was so unlike me to be lacking in energy, in purpose, in motivation and to neglect my duties, my responsibilities. It was so unlike me to not do the work. I'd had a nearly 100% attendance record at work and at school and college. Bunking off wasn't in my vocabulary. Not doing things I didn't like wasn't something I ever considered as an alternative.

I went to the doctor. I sat down and explained that I was tired. I was more tired than I'd ever been in my life. I couldn't cope. I couldn't turn the pedals of the cycle anymore. I couldn't do what I'd always managed to do, which was to drag myself out of bed, and go to school, college or work, no matter what. It hadn't mattered whether the bullying was unbearable, or the stress was intolerable, the pressure relentless... I had been that guy, that perfect student or dream employee, who always turned up and did their work, like a good little boy.

Within a couple of minutes of me explaining my unexpected interruption in my perfect attendance record, and inexplicable fatigue, my doctor said "have you heard of Fluoxetine?". I had heard of Fluoxetine: it's the generic name for Prozac, which is an anti-depressant. Fluoxetine is a Specific Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI) which was supposed to increase levels of Serotonin in the brain, or so Eli Lilly - the manufacturer - thought, and told the world that depressed people had unnaturally low serotonin levels in their brain. They were wrong.

The theory that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, is ubiquitous. We are comforted to know that there is a medical problem with us, that can be corrected with medication. It's a neat little theory: depressed people don't have enough serotonin in their brain, and with medicine it can be topped up to 'normal' levels. Sadly, it's just not correct.

Measurements of the amount of serotonin metabolites in spinal fluid of depressed people who take Fluoxetine or other SSRIs are actually lower than supposedly healthy people. The theory was proven to be bunkum, but doctors and mental health professionals still share research that's 30+ years old and has been disproven. The theory was just too popular, as well as the SSRI medication, which millions of people had flocked to as their salvation.

I had read extensively in the field of psychopharmacology and had received unconditional offers of a University place at several prestigious institutions, to study psychology, pharmacology and psychiatry. I was probably better informed than my doctor.

I knew that SSRIs were associated with emotional blunting, anorgasmia (not being able to cum) and increased suicidal ideation (thinking about killing yourself). I knew that the long-term outcomes were actually worse than placebo, in several studies. I knew that an SSRI would take 6 weeks to take effect anyway, and that was no use to me. I needed to get back to work!

So, I declined the medication that was offered to me, within just a few minutes of talking to my doctor. I was shocked by how quickly I had been offered psychiatric medication from a general physician, which would take at least 6 weeks to take effect, and I could end up taking for a long time. I felt a little failed by the health services.

My doctor signed me off for a week, and I felt a little relieved to have some time to allow my body to hopefully revert to homeostasis, and I could hopefully get back to work. I felt like a real failure, and I started to feel anxious about the impression that my bosses and colleagues would have of me. Would I be seen as unreliable? Would my name be tainted?

The fatigue and lack of motivation, purpose, persisted and I spent a week in bed, sleeping for 16+ hours. I hardly ate. I didn't open the curtains. I turned my phone off and just curled up under the duvet. Where had this tiredness come from? I had always been in good physical shape and my body had never failed me like this before. I had always had plenty of energy.

I went back to the doctor after a week, and I was getting pretty desperate for an answer. I was looking for a diagnosis, a cure. I wanted the trusted men in white coats to make everything better again.

We did tests: blood tests, urine tests, thyroid function, kidney and liver function. We even did an AIDS test, as my doctor was at a loss to explain why I was so fatigued all the time. One week turned into three weeks. There was seemingly no end to my exhaustion and inability to cope with the thought of going back to work. There was no way I could face the day, for some reason. I had been housebound with the curtains closed, except for trips around the corner to the doctor's surgery.

My doctors remained convinced that I was suffering with Clinical Depression, and urged me to try an SSRI, but I still refused on the grounds that I didn't want another 6 weeks off work, while I waited for the medication to kick in. 9 weeks off work seemed ridiculous to me, and the side effects sounded unacceptable.

So I stopped going to the doctors. I stopped getting sick notes. I switched my phone off and went to bed, and I just tried to ignore the fact that I was going to lose my job. I didn't care because I couldn't care. There was no way I could go back to work, feeling so exhausted, so drained, so fatigued and unable to cope with even preparing food, getting dressed, having a shower. I just lay in my bed and slept two thirds of every day, and lay half-asleep, anxious about a knock at the door, with the curtains closed, for the rest of the time.

Everything seemed impossible, insurmountable. The idea of going to the shop seemed as insane as the idea of going on an expedition to the South Pole without any warm clothes or supplies. Clearly there was something wrong with me if I was misjudging the effort involved in things, but I also knew that I couldn't keep just doing the same shit, the same crappy 9 to 5 routine, and the same formula of working a job.

As the summer wore on, I started to get interested in the idea of doing some iPhone development work, and slowly I ventured outside into the sunshine in the afternoons, to learn how to develop software on the Apple platform. It seemed like a nice confidence-building exercise, as I had started to doubt that I'd ever be able to work again. I had started to feel like I'd be invalided out of the workforce for the rest of my days.

The more I worked, the more obsessed I became. My energy came back. Slowly at first. I would work for an afternoon, then an afternoon and an evening, and then soon I was doing full days of work again. But it didn't stop there.

By the time July had given way to August, I was working an 18 hour day. I was irritable and single-minded. Eating was a chore that would slow me down and get in the way of me working. I didn't want to waste time with my partner, my friends, my family. Nobody understood what I was working on and how important it was. Explaining anything to anybody was painfully slow and angered me to have to take time out from my work to even answer the simplest of questions.

I started to speak faster, in a rush to get the words out and not waste precious time speaking to people. I viewed other people as obstacles, standing in the way of my single goal, and as dimwitted fools who were sent to irritate and frustrate me. My thoughts raced, but I could follow them, but speaking was never fast enough to verbalise what was going on in my brain, so my speech was pressured... trying to will my tongue to be fast enough to keep pace with my thread of thought.

My work rang me up and insisted that we meet up. I saw my boss, and we agreed that I should give my notice. There was no way I was going back to that job. They were cool about things, but I didn't really have any explanation about what was going on with me.

I was free from the confines of the 9 to 5, Monday to Friday office routine. I was free from dimwitted bosses who had been promoted into positions of incompetence. I was free from bureaucracy and red tape and corporate bullshit. I just worked, and worked, and worked. I worked 7 days a week. I worked until I was falling asleep, and then I would start again as soon as I woke up.

At some point during this flurry of activity, I managed to get a couple of iPhone Apps to number one in the charts. Naturally, this brought in a lot of cash. I had done it. I had proven my point. I had unwittingly become a successful entrepreneur, off the back of becoming unwell and losing my job.

However, I failed to see it like that. What I saw instead was that office work wasn't good for me. I felt like office work had made me sick, and that I needed to find a new profession... well, a trade actually.

I decided to quit IT and software - the thing that I was really good at - and retrain as an electrician. I decided that the most important things to me were being self employed and working in a non-office environment. It took a couple of years before I finally realised I was wrong.

The same thing happened to me, except this time it was much, much faster.

The pressure on a small businessman, and a tradesman is immense. An electrician is responsible for the safety of everybody in the homes that you have installed an electrical system into. If anybody is electrocuted because of your shoddy workmanship, it's your fault. That's a lot of responsibility. Also, the public expect you to work for peanuts.

The sense of exhaustion and inability to cope with the pressure anymore, had hit me really hard in my cushy desk job. Now I had angry customers ringing me up because I had gotten sick. This was much, much worse, because they were ordinary people who I'd met and built a relationship with. Ordinary people were counting on me to wire up their homes, and I was personally failing them.

This depression was much deeper and darker, because I'd really run out of ideas. I felt completely useless, and that as a well known local tradesman, I'd ruined my reputation in my community. This was awful. I was actually afraid to leave the house, in case I bumped into somebody I knew, somebody who I'd let down.

I felt like I couldn't go backwards, and I couldn't go forwards. I was really trapped. How would people take me seriously as an IT professional if I'd previously been a lowly electrician? How would I ever work again as an independent businessman, when I had actually crashed a business due to my ill health? How could I ever be trusted again?

I started to think about suicide very seriously. I saw no way out of this cycle of depressions and failure. I couldn't see a way to earn money anymore, to work again. I couldn't imagine going back to my profession, or starting another business. Everything looked doomed to fail again and again and again.

I tried the medical route again, and finally got referred to a psychiatrist. It took a very long time before I actually met with the consultant, and the options were the same: SSRIs, SNRIs and NaSSAs. All serotonergic drugs. All with horrible side effects. All taking 6+ weeks to kick in.

I begged my psychiatrist to let me try Bupropion (sold as Zyban and Wellbutrin) which is very popular in France and is fast acting. He refused on the grounds that it was an off-label prescription in the UK and he'd have to get special permission from the NHS trust. It was more than his job was worth.

So, I resorted to self-medication.

Self medication worked... in the short term. I felt better, I could function. However, it took me down a path that led to the Dark Web, which led to drug window-shopping, and later to experimentation with just about every highly addictive hard drug known to man, including Heroin, Crack Cocaine and Crystal Methamphetamine.

Drugs don't work. The brain gets used to them, and then you have to increase the dose or switch to a more powerful drug. You can't artificially induce an organ that's designed to be balanced - homeostatically self-regulating - to be forced into an unnatural state.

What's the reason why those people who were taking SSRIs had lower serotonin levels in their spinal fluid? Well, it's because the brain realises that something is artificially out of kilter, and so it releases less serotonin to compensate, and puts you right back where you started.

In the words of The Verve: "the drugs don't work, they just make it worse".

Why do you think drugs from your doctor are good, and drugs from a drug dealer or the Dark Web are bad? Do you think your brain knows the difference? Of course it doesn't. Most of the drugs that are abused were developed by pharmaceutical companies originally, and used to be prescribed before newer 'safer' medications were developed. By 'safer' we tend to mean weaker and with such horrible side effects that taking bigger doses becomes unpleasant. In actual fact, the so-called 'drugs of abuse' have far less side effects than their 'safe' counterparts, at therapeutic doses. Anything becomes poisonous at high enough doses.

Does that mean I'm pro-drugs then? Am I soft on drugs, and one of these decriminalisation nuts?

Well, no, not really. Drugs are bad. They put your brain into an unnatural state and it's hard for your brain to achieve homeostasis when you are poking and prodding at it with the blunt instruments that are the chemicals that cross the blood-brain barrier.

Drugs can 'reset' your brain, in a similar way to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) which is also known as 'shock' therapy.

Medicine of the brain is very early in its development. Psychiatry has only really been a medical field since the 1950's and the true mechanism of action of medications is only very poorly understood, especially as the true nature of mental illness has not yet been revealed.

My personal view is that the destruction of families, clans and villages in favour of ridiculously long working hours in an isolated urban setting, has destroyed everything we need as humans in terms of our relationships with other human beings. Mental illness is a perfectly sane response to modern life. It's a sane response to an insane world.

The thing that's been most beneficial to my mental health has been connecting with a group of friends, while being homeless. Being relieved of the isolated silence of the commuter train, and the pressure of horrible work and job insecurity, coupled with the financial pressures of paying ridiculous rent and unattainable material goals... it was sweet, sweet relief. Living in a kind of commune, with other people who were living in close quarters with each other, sounds unbearable, but it was actually nice. It was humanising. It felt natural, and a sense of calm, relaxation and connection with the world, flooded back into me. I felt a warmth within me that I'd never felt, except maybe with Heroin.

The question now on my lips is: how do I get that again? How do I recreate the sense of community I had, either with tons of kitesurfing friends, or with tons of similarly dispossessed and dislocated homeless people, all thrust together out of necessity to stick together?

The need to belong to a tribe, a group, a commune... it's undeniable, now that I've experienced it. I place an importance on it above financial security, because without it I just feel suicidal, so it's actually essential for life in a way that money just isn't.

Human connection is the answer to the riddle of depression, suicide and addiction.

I'm halfway betwixt and between. Half in the dark, and half in the light. My brain doesn't know whether to be suicidally depressed or hypomanically fixated on a single goal.

Tags: #suicide #depression #mentalhealth #bipolar #addiction #drugs #career