This is a story about waiting...

There are many things in life that have to be endured. Life's like a really shit amusement park, where you queue up for days, weeks, months or even years, so that you can have a thrill ride that lasts all of 90 seconds.

Tags: #depression

This is a story about compatibility...

Very often, when you're acutely aware that there's something that you need to avoid crashing into, you'll end up staring at it, unable to tear your eyes away. When riding a board or a bike, flying, driving or otherwise in motion, you tend to go in the direction you're looking. If you want to avoid a crash, you should look at a spot away from danger.

Is this the reason why we don't talk about taboo subjects, because we're worried about tempting fate? We turn our back on the ugly truth and try to pretend like everything's OK.

My Christmas stocking included some bath salts.

Clearly, Santa has the same dark sense of humour as me. That's great. I think humour is a fantastic way to exorcise the demons of the past. First comes talking, then understanding and finally you can laugh and joke about a topic that was originally quite painful and difficult to remember. Repressing memories and walking on eggshells is no way to move forward.

If we don't have honest conversations where we can talk about how we really think and feel, then we build up a load of sensitive topics. Secrets and lies lead to paranoia and weak relationships. Keeping schtum about my parents' drug use - when I was a child - was too much of a burden. Writing openly has been liberating and has allowed me to move on from shame and regret, to regain my self-esteem and confidence.

I remember a desperate scramble to cover up my admission to The Priory. My psychiatrist had made a referral to a "private hospital" for treatment of an acute episode of bipolar disorder. All perfectly true, but there was a certain economic use of the truth. What would most people think, if they found out that I was spending weeks in the UK's most notorious treatment specialist for drug & alcohol abuse? They would leap to the wrong conclusions, surely?

It's so bloody exhausting keeping up appearances. One must be aware of how things can be [mis]interpreted and people aren't likely to share their true thoughts and feelings: "better keep him away from the kids if he's mentally ill" or "I bet he's a raging alcoholic behind closed doors if he's been in The Priory".

We're brought up to believe that our reputation is like a balloon: one little prick and it goes pop. We're scared to take time off work, because we'll have gaps on our CV that need to be explained. We're scared to share details of our private lives, lest our employers decide we're unreliable and judge us on preconceived notions. Who wants to work with a madman?

When it comes to dating, the same applies. Who wants to date somebody with flaws; defects? Who wants to take a risk on a ticking time bomb; an unsteady ship? And so, I should have found myself unemployable and undateable. "Take your pills, sit in the corner and shut up" says society.

However, if you ever meet me in a work or social context, you may gain the [false?] impression that I'm pleasant company: a healthy, happy and capable member of society, engaged in productive endeavours. Strangely, you might have the wool pulled over your eyes so much that you actually mistake me for a normal human being.

Surely this is thanks to the excellent medication that I take?

Well, no. I don't take any medication. I don't do therapy. I haven't had a course of electro-convulsive shock treatment. I don't even have a psychiatrist at the moment.

"But you're going to murder everybody if you don't take your pills."

Yes, that's right. I'm your worst nightmare. I'm out there, on the dating scene, luring unsuspecting vulnerable young women into my web. I'm a dangerous fantasist; a con-man. I'm so good at living a lie that I've constructed an elaborate fable that looks, smells, tastes and sounds very much like an authentic real life, but it's all fake. It can't be real. What about the secrets we now know?

If you take your secrets and turn them into jokes, you defuse that ticking time bomb... or at least that's my working hypothesis.

I certainly feel a lot happier knowing that I've met somebody with enough of a good sense of humour to make a joke on Christmas Day about my chequered past. I feel less sensitive, paranoid and insecure than ever before. I feel like I'm myself, and that's OK.

Maybe it's just a getting old thing: the realisation that we're all flawed in some way. We're all human. We all have weaknesses and strengths, and we all have history; baggage even. It seems better to wear my heart on my sleeve than present myself as some whiter than white, holier than thou saint who never put a foot wrong in their life.

I doubt I'll ever unify my professional and private identities, but I certainly don't regret jettisoning the traditional approach to dating. Honesty seems to have been the best policy in this case.

Tags: #dating #sex #bipolar #addiction

This is a story about social lubricants...

This time last year, I was attempting 101 consecutive days of sobriety. I actually managed nearly 120 days without alcohol in the end. I'm pretty sure that the lack of 'crutch' meant that I wasn't able to self-medicate with booze when I needed it, which caused hypomania to flair up during a period of incredible stress.

I've been juggling the fine balance between stimulants and tranquillisers, in order to cope with a boring career that has lasted two decades. Tea, coffee, cola, wine and beer: it's a winning formula.

"An alcoholic is someone you don't like, who drinks as much as you do" -- Dylan Thomas

There are all kinds of middle-class rules that differentiate the right sort of people from those dreadful sorts who swig Special Brew in the park. No drinking before midday. Don't mix your drinks. Craft beers. Fine wines. Single malt whiskies. It's the snobbery of it that means that the wealthy can drink copious amounts and get away with it.

Of course, there are people who are alcohol dependent. If you consume huge amounts of alcohol every day, you'll suffer life-threatening withdrawal if you abruptly stop drinking. You might have a seizure and die.

I'm sure my liver was very grateful for that period of sobriety last year. I've gained a load of weight through drinking, which isn't healthy. My weight has fluctuated wildly this year. I was really thin and bony back in March. I drank loads to get through a dreadfully boring contract and I've been drinking heavily again to cope with the stress of evicting a flatmate, having to look for work again, worrying about cashflow, the pressure of Christmas and everything else that everybody in the entire world worries about too. I'm not unique and what about the starving Africans etc. etc.?

The big change in my consumption habits is that I no longer drink alone.

It's quite possible that I've entered into a kind of co-dependency, but equally there are safeguards when you drink with others: you know when you're drinking faster than everybody else and you know when you're drinking more than other people. It's remarkable how the social shame of guzzling booze when everybody else is sipping, means that you can moderate your behaviour somewhat.

"Do you want a drink?" my kind host asks.

"What's everybody else doing?" I reply. "I'll wait... don't open a bottle on my account."

It's clear from the size of the alcohol aisle in the supermarket and the clink of bottles being loaded into the back of cars, that a British Christmas is a boozy Christmas, for most households. Family traditions are varied, but everybody likes to pop a cork or two over the festive season. I can't imagine a sober Christmas, even though I had one last year.

The hardest thing about quitting booze was not the craving for alcohol - that subsided after only a few days - but how ubiquitous it is. My AirBnB host in San Francisco was visibly put out that I declined the offer of a drink at Halloween. On several occasions, there was relentless pressure on me to 'cheat'. I refused to even sip wine for the taste. If I was going to undertake the challenge, I was going to do it properly!

Go Sober for October was the charitable event that gave me a legitimate excuse to get through the first 30 days of sobriety. Without that, I'm sure I would have weakened under peer pressure. I'm sure I would have got into the habit of cheating.

That's why drinking alone is dangerous: once you pop you can't stop. So many times I say to myself "I'm just going to have one glass of wine/beer" only to then find myself finishing the bottle or the 4-pack. It's been a very successful strategy, to be a social drinker. I'm super self-conscious about being drunk or high, when those around me are 'straight' so I just don't do it. There's safety in numbers.

I drink too much and I'm alarmed by my weight gain, but I've made it to Christmas Day without total disaster. Things could be better, but they could be a lot worse.

Think about how much your day is structured around socially acceptable drugs: you want your morning coffee and then you're craving something to 'take the edge off' in the evening. Round and round we go, with our uppers and downers.

I'm embracing alcohol, because the desire to become intoxicated is inextricably bound up with the human condition. Coping with modern life is impossible without some kind of 'help'. Stress will drive you crazy: I can vouch for that.

There's an arms race - of course - where our employers expect us to be able to cope with unrealistic levels of stress and exhaustion, because they've gotten used to everybody being hopped up on coffee during the day, and drunk enough to sleep at night. However, that's not to say that alcohol and caffeine are bad, when used sparingly to cope with life's unpredictable peaks and troughs.

Anyway, I need to get on with Christmas Day. It won't be long before the Buck's Fizz starts flowing. The day will pass much more pleasantly with a warm alcohol glow and a fuzzy brain.

Habit of a lifetime.

Tags: #alcohol #christmas

This is a story about being naughty...

If you're thinking about what you're going to get me for Christmas, I'd like a tame raccoon or squirrel. But, I know that I've been a bad boy, so I've been crossed off Santa's list. There's a black mark against my name.

How do you know a 'wrong un' when you meet one? How do you know a lost cause? How do you know that somebody's got an evil streak?

I once begged the police to punish me. I was convinced that I was a bad man and I should be locked up. The police have cautioned me four times, but never brought a prosecution. The police deal with bad people every day, don't they? Cops & robbers; cowboys & indians; goodies & baddies; right & wrong; innocent & guilty. If anybody knows what a bad lad looks like, it'd be them, wouldn't it?

But what about all my victims?

Obviously I've shoplifted, pick-pocketed, mugged, defrauded, burgled, assaulted, vandalised, robbed and generally gone on a crime spree, leaving a trail of misery in my wake.

Except I haven't.

Maybe it's a question of morality. Morality is absolute, not relative, isn't it? If a billionaire steals an apple that was the only food that a whole starving family had to eat, that's exactly the same crime as the father of the starving family, stealing an apple from a billionaire who owns all the orchards. Theft is immoral, always. All crimes are equally bad.

Presumably, if there are gods and they smite the wicked, anything shit that's happening to me is all part of some divine comeuppance for my evil deeds?

However, the evidence doesn't show that. Despite being a desperately bad boy, who's misbehaved like crazy, it seems to have done little to destroy my health, wealth and prospects. I certainly don't want to take my good fortune for granted. I'm well aware how close to disaster I've been and I know how much assistance I've received from some lovely people. But... doesn't the conventional wisdom say that I should be disowned, excluded and thrown onto the bonfire of human bodies that we make with anybody who strays from the righteous path?

Lock up your daughters!

In fact, you're probably better off keeping your daughters away from the kiddie-fiddling priests who claim to be moral authorities and pillars of our society. Your children can't 'catch' my mental illness. I'm not an active promoter of dangerously deadly deeds. I don't leave cyanide-soaked baby rusks lying around, and drop HIV-infected hypodermic syringe needles all over the place.

Is there something intrinsically attractive about a bad boy?

Why would anybody want to get close to somebody with flaws? Why would you be drawn to somebody who's sad, vulnerable, lonely, sick?

We know that kittens and puppies instil protective instincts in us, so why shouldn't the same be true of a homme fatale? If I wasn't rescued when I was on my knees, I'd be dead. If all the 'best' boys are taken, then what's the next best choice? Do you go for one of the second-rate options, or do you find a broken one and fix him up?

It's said that men find a woman they love, and they hope they'll never change, but they do. Women find a man they love and they hope they do change, but they don't.

Wouldn't it be good if you could find a bad boy and turn him into a model boyfriend; a perfect partner?

"You knew what I was like when you married me" said I, never.

I tried so hard to re-shape who I was - to bend and twist my personality - to please my ex-wife, but it was the wrong thing to do. I tried to please my parents; to impress them. Waste of fucking time.

'Good' and 'bad' are labels that other people want to attach. Behaviour is amoral, because it's driven by circumstances, environment, upbringing, instinct, natural urges and evolved biases. We have strong views about things that other people should or shouldn't be doing, but we want freedom for ourselves. Our moral code is defined by our own unique moral compass.

So, if you think your kids are being naughty this Christmas: the question is not "how can I control this naughty child and make them do what I want?" but instead you should ask yourself "what is driving their behaviour and what do they want?"

For my part, I've decided I'm going to drink lots of Tizer, bite people, scream, pull the ornaments off the Christmas tree, refuse to sit at the table, repeatedly say "I want sweeties" while crying lots and not let anybody else play with the toys.

Tags: #childhood #christmas

This is a story about family...

I was born in Aberystwyth, Wales. This is the first house I lived in. We moved around lots when I was growing up - I went to 8 different schools - so I don't really know where to call home. For me, home is where I make it: I have a grab bag in my apartment in London, with a tent and a sleeping bag. I'll survive, but there isn't a family home I would visit ever again. Homelessness is the only option.

I was wondering to myself earlier whether I'm a misanthrope or not. I certainly dislike the stress of rush hour travel and battling crowds. You must wonder why I live and work in London, where it's so densely populated, but I find that it has amazing people, food, culture and lots of jobs for my skills and experience. I live by the river and it's actually pretty quiet down on the Isle of Dogs, as is the Square Mile, where I often get contracts.

I've decided that I don't hate people, but a lot of people seem to hate me. Changing schools so much is disruptive to a child's life. Instead of learning how to make friends and become popular, there's little point if you're going to get yanked out of some place you're happy with and dumped somewhere else. It's fairly obvious that the more disrupted a child's environment, the more they will retreat inwards, in search of some stability and consistency.

Bullying was a big feature of my childhood. It was a daily feature of life until I went to college. It's easy to make a child into a bullying victim: just give them something that marks them out as different. Take a look at the way all the children in school are dressed and make sure you dress your kid differently: turn-ups on their trousers, a jumper when all the other kids are wearing blazers, Clarks shoes when all the other kids are wearing Doc Martens. If they're a girl, dress them like a boy and vice-versa. If they're a boy, make them ride a pink bicycle with ribbons on it. Et cetera, et cetera.

My parents' only hobby was drug taking. In their imagination, there were fucking unicorns and rainbows everywhere and everything they said was profound and important. In their minds they were hard working and intelligent. In reality, they were sat around in a dirty house, dribbling like morons and unable to say a single syllable that was understandable. Their brains were intoxicated by drugs and alcohol and they were antisocial: preferring to spend as much time as possible alone indoors with their drugs.

I'm not sure if my parents are misanthropes, but they sure as shit don't have any friends. They have each other and they seem to think that they're the two smartest people on the planet and everybody else is thick as pig shit. When I feign snobbery and arrogance, it's easy because I just imitate my parents. They used to talk about friends and colleagues behind their back. I would get in trouble if I ever let slip a "mum says..." which taught me about two-faced hateful nasty people.

It's kind of fun to gossip behind people's backs, but having been the victim of social exclusion, bullying and also witnessed the nasty nature of horrible people who say mean things about people behind closed doors, I now try to stop myself. I'm not getting up on my high horse and saying I'm morally superior: I just mean to say that I have strong feelings about it, as it's affected my life. It's almost as if I was the one who suffered for my parents' desire to be hostile to everyone.

There I am. It's fairly obvious from those murderous eyes that I'm pure evil and had been plotting to do all sorts of dastardly deeds, while I was a sperm and an egg.

"My girlfriend" is how my dad referred to my mum. He made me call him and my mum by their first names. I wasn't allowed to call them "Mum" and "Dad". There was open hostility towards me, as if I had planned to ruin their drug binge and screw up their easy carefree life; as if my birth was some pre-meditated malicious atrocity. That's a pretty freaky thing to accuse a small child of.

What else do I know about myself?

Well, I was lonely. I was so desperate for secure, loyal friendships, that I would get very overexcited when I got to spend time with friends. I was super intense and hyper: I had to pack in all the friendship I could, when the opportunity presented itself. Sleep was always of secondary concern to maximising the time available, so it was exhausting seeing me for the short intense bursts that my parents permitted.

A number of my childhood 'friends' were the children of people my parents deemed good enough to hang out with occasionally, because they liked to take drugs. My parents made all objective judgements of people based on whether they liked drugs or not, rather than on personality or intellect. My dad rather styled himself on a man known literally as Mister Mean, who charged his wife and young children rent to live in 'his' house. What a cunt.

The biggest event in my life was the birth of my sister, when I was 10 years old. Parents are supposed to be outnumbered. Children are supposed to grow up with brothers and sisters. It's fucking abusive to have lonely isolated miserable children. Guess what? Children like playing together. Children like being children with other children.

It occurred to me that we spend so much of our time and energy trying to get children to act like adults, which is disingenuous and bound to lead to frustration and misery all round. If you want adult company, go make friends with people your own age. Kids need to be kids, which means play and socialising with their peers. Punishing a child for being childish is abusive.

Yeah, I'm banding round the term 'abuse' quite freely and easily. I'm sorry if there's a very specific context in which you find that English word acceptable, but it has a definition that you're at liberty to look up in the dictionary if you need to. I'm calling things abusive, because they've had life-altering negative effects on me and caused prolonged periods of abject misery. If you've fucked up your child's chances to form meaningful, secure happy relationships and partake in society as a well-rounded individual, you've really fucking abused a kid, OK?

This is turning into a bit of a "poor me, poor me" whinefest, but it's the background of the who am I type stuff I've been thinking about. I know it's horribly egocentric, but tell me, which pill do I take to just forget about this stuff and move on?

"Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man" -- Aristotle

Finding myself unable to get along with my peers and finding my parents to be disappointed that I wasn't born as a grown adult independently wealthy Victorian butler, I eventually found that friends' parents and some teachers were very nice to me. Having been raised to act with 'maturity' many adults found my good manners and strong communication skills to be charming. While I could do nothing right at home, I found that the adult world was mainly about kissing arse and saying intelligent sounding things at the right time. Naturally, my peers saw me as aloof and arrogant, which I guess I was.

It's easy to see how I got a head start in life: because I was lonely and isolated. I played on computers when others were playing with their brothers, sisters and friends. When I went to my first job interview, I wasn't intimidated because I felt more comfortable in the adult world than I did with children. When it came to making a good impression at work, people judged me on the fake image of maturity that I projected. In short: I seemed more grown-up than I was.

We're all a little insecure, but I desperately wanted loyal friends and a loving girlfriend. That lifelong damage that you do to a kid when you fuck up their childhood, means that they feel unloved, they don't know how to make friends, missed out on childhood sweethearts and feel distant from their peers. That shit carries over into adult life. Where's the confidence, the gregariousness, the outgoing nature? Where are you going to get that stuff, if all you know is bullying, isolation and disruption to your life that destroys every friendship you've ever cherished?

Every time I've been clingy, intense or a little too full-on... that's coming from that hole that was left in adolescence, where most people are swigging cider in the park and having fumbling trysts in the bushes.

But, I've also been affected by drugs. I'm not afraid of drugs. I don't have a healthy fear and respect of drugs, unlike people who've never been exposed to them. I'm in the situation of having in-depth knowledge of drug taking, but I'm surrounded by educated middle-class professionals who know nothing about drugs (except that if you inject a marijuana you will immediately murder a grandmother to steal her money).

It's crazy to think that the spotty, nerdy unpopular awkward geek who was bullied as fuck, took amphetamines and lost his virginity at the age of 15. Is it crazy? Well, a lot of people think drug taking is cool. It's seen by some simple-minded fools as an act of rebellion. Idiots see themselves as being part of a counter-culture movement, when they make themselves dumb and apathetic, spending their money on a trillion dollar commercial industry, never actually doing anything revolutionary or productive because they're sitting around indoors dribbling and babbling incoherently.

Doesn't it seem only natural that with insecurity and isolation, I would follow in the footsteps of my parents? It sounds like I'm blaming my parents for my addiction, but I'm not (directly). The debate about free will and our ability to make choices, is a complex one. 

"Boring! We've heard all this!"

Yes, but I'm retelling. I've been through Hell and I'm trying to understand everything myself. Through my writing, I'm coming to terms with a mind-boggling amount of experiences that I have to slot into place, in order to make sense of the world and where I fit within it. Life is not black & white; good & bad. I can't simplify things to the point of simply saying I'm a "bad kid" like my parents seemed to decide from very early on. Blaming myself for everything has gotten me nowhere.

No apology or even discussion was forthcoming from my parents, so it's up to me to figure everything out and make the correct judgements based on the evidence and rational investigation of the facts. Yes, it's nice and easy to jump on any one particular thing that seems to be the 'smoking gun' pointing to the fact that I must be an evil little shit sent from Hell to terrorise the world, but there comes a time when that story really doesn't stack up.

I've been wondering why I do a lot of looking back. I have very little control over the future. My future is bound up in the hands of decision makers, who will either give me a role that I'm qualified and experienced to do, in order to get the cash that's needed in this bullshit capitalist society. Otherwise, my life will be ripped to pieces by the vultures that prey on anybody who doesn't fit the mould.

Life's definitely a lot easier when you're not penniless, sick, homeless and addicted to drugs, but it's not as simple as that. What's your purpose? Who are you? What's your identity?

Being a vagrant is actually a fairly strong identity. There is something cool about being half-dead. There's something attractive about the hollow eyes, pale skin and skinny body of heroin chic isn't there? If you don't belong to a sports team; you weren't one of the popular ones at school; you aren't trying to get as many letters after your name as possible; you haven't conflated your professional and private identities... then who the fuck are you and what the fuck are you doing?

Drugs neatly encapsulate both identity and reward. Instead of getting small dopamine hits by bragging about your promotion at a dinner party, you can get a big dopamine hit by staying at home and taking drugs. Also, you feel that you 'belong' to a special club: you learn to identify other addicts and you feel a connection to them... a sense of belonging.

If you can roll a joint and you have weed, you'll have 'friends'. If you have enough money to buy cocaine, you'll have 'friends' and you'll want to share it because you're not an addict, right? Except you are.

I found - by accident - that drugs gave me the self-confidence that had been stolen from me by my parents. I was able to chat to girls. Pretty much most of the time that I had sex, it was on speed (amphetamine), mushrooms (psilocybin) or Ecstasy (MDMA).

Eventually, I discovered - through dangerous experimentation - a drug that was so powerful that it was a far superior substitute for my abusive ex. She was no longer needed. She was abusive, mean, selfish and unpleasant and I was very glad that the spell was broken, even though it cost me a period of addiction and a lot of money. I wasn't strong enough to leave her, without the drugs.

Now, I'm all cleaned up. I'm a good boy.

But, I'm left wondering about that whole purpose & identity thing.

Tags: #childhood #parents #divorce #drugs #addiction

This is a story about bad debt...

When a person or an organisation defaults on their debts, it affects their credit rating. For a company, their bonds will be 'junk' and as such, they are not considered investment grade. It will be much harder and much more expensive to borrow money if you've defaulted on debts.

Arguably, life would be much easier if we could all borrow money at close to 0% interest, directly from the central banks. We could go on a non-stop credit binge of epic proportions. Buy now, pay later.

But what about It's a Wonderful Life?

In theory, a bank takes deposits from savers and lends out the money in the form of loans, overdrafts and mortgages. In theory, if you default on your loans, you're risking people's hard-earned life savings.

Of course, the banks should hold enough reserves and do enough know your customer checks to make sure that they're not lending to hopeless idiots, with no sense of a moral obligation to keep up the repayments on their loans. In practice, our demand for relentless growth and ever greater profits, means that the banks have done a shitty job of being able to withstand sudden spikes in distressed debt: people losing their jobs and businesses going bankrupt, for example.

I'm sympathetic towards people who lose their jobs through no fault of their own. I'm sympathetic towards people who can't work because of sickness or disability. I'm sympathetic towards people who are honest and hardworking. I'm sympathetic towards people who need a break.

Banks have to put up with a certain amount of fraud and a number of reckless bankrupts. However, what about the idiots who shouldn't even be in business, because they're hopeless with cashflow; careless, unrealistic and dishonest? Well: it's pretty hard to get a bank loan unless you're a credible person with integrity.

So, why borrow from me? I guess because I trust people and I expect them to act with common decency.

Actually, the only thanks I've gotten for my trust & generosity is the pile of soil on my floor, things taken from my apartment and being ignored on Facebook by a couple of entitled moochers; bankrupts; parasites.

This is my message of Christmas cheer. I'm in a financially precarious situation, not enjoying the festive season as much as I should be, because a couple of entitled parasitic people picked my pocket. They'll go and stay with their mummies, in the bosom of the family home. I don't have that option.

Tags: #london

This is a story about the odd one out...

How's your Christmas shopping going? How was your office Christmas party? Have you bought all the food you need for Christmas dinner? Have you put up the Christmas tree and decorated it? Have you wrapped all your Christmas presents? Are you looking forward to seeing friends and family, and having a nice get-together? Are your kids really excited about Santa coming down the chimney in a few days time?

Poor me. Poor me. Pour me another drink.

I'm in a totally different mindset - job hunting and fretting about cashflow - and I'll keep working right up until the enforced 4-day break. I wish I could get into the festive spirit, but it's not part of my personality to take a break from something until I reach my goal: I'm a completer-finisher.

I'm not a Scrooge and I like that London's streets are quieter (except for the shopping precincts, of course) and people are in a more jolly mood. I see men and women in their business outfits, wearing Santa Claus hats. I see pissed up people swaying merrily in the streets, staggering home after a fun night out with friends and work colleagues.

What are you going to do? Turn on your out-of-office email responder and switch off your work phone, I expect. No work is getting done and everything can wait for 2017, can't it? It's the festive season. It's holiday time.

The strange thing is that I can relate but I'm a few years out of practice. Christmas has literally fucked me up for several years. When you're on the limit of the stress you can handle, the very last thing you want is the extra stress of having to worry about Auntie Sue's banana allergy and whether your nephew likes books or socks. Travelling to see people who refuse to leave the comfort of their own homes. Putting up with the shit you normally keep at bay by living far enough away from your family that you can ignore their calls when you're not in the mood.

There's also the enforced holiday.

You'll be enjoying your holiday, because you've got secure income. For me, not working means not getting paid. Boo hoo, right? Yes, it's my choice to be a contractor and not have some shit-paid permie job. Yes it was my choice to write a novel instead of looking for work in November. I'm not complaining: I'm just marching to a different beat from you.

My routine is structured around quarterly dividends, VAT returns, corporation tax, self-assessment and the turbulent market for financial services IT contractors, and of course my own unstable mental health and propensity for self-sabotage. Also: crazy projects.

Most people's lives are structured much the same as a fruit fly's: eat, fuck and sleep... producing yet more clones of yourself in order to swarm all over the fucking place like a plague. Merry Christmas, you happy consumers. May the shopkeeper's festival be forever the highlight of your year. Bah! Humbug!

Those of an insecure nature will probably read that last part and think "what do you know about being a parent? It's really hard but it's really awesome too" or some variation thereof.

Point being: you fell in love (or at least lust) and some baby-batter, love snot or man yoghurt was involved in the insemination of an unprotected womb... millions of years of human evolution did the business and your DNA won the day. You were successfully tricked into doing the evil deeds of your selfish genes, and you replicated those dastardly protein chains. Did you know that there's a specific type of spider, that gets stung by a specific type of wasp, driving it mad, so it spins a web cocoon for the wasp and then sacrifices itself as a tasty snack when it's done. Basically, that's the same thing.

"But Christmas!"

Yes. More than anything I want to give some puppies to my cute young children for Christmas. Somebody I know on Facebook has given his kids a couple of kittens. I've never met his family, but it makes me smile, thinking about them all playing with the kittens. I'm not a fucking monster. I do get this stuff, OK? I'd love to be sowing my wild oats all over the place and fathering a litter of little snot-faced shits. I'd love to adopt a bunch of animals and live in happy squalor. Nothing would make me happier than being a totally useless father who provides absolutely nothing except for a tiny bit of DNA, a string of broken homes, disappointed children with no male role model and a bunch of struggling mothers with fannies all ripped to bits from childbirth.

Seriously, I'm at the point now <condescending> where I don't see anybody else acting responsibly </condescending> so I might as well say fuck it and start a family without giving two fucks for the consequences. I know it'll be good for me so fuck the welfare of the children who didn't ask to be born. Fuck the happiness of the poor wretches who have a bloated belly, bad back, squashed internal organs, incontinence and then 36 hours of agony as an alien tears their groin to shreds and wrecks their sex life forevermore.

Women seem to divide into four camps: those who don't want kids, those who want kids, those who have an unplanned pregnancy and those who get talked into motherhood by the father. Men are in one camp: love their kids, but they're so fucking noisy and annoying and life was so much simpler and fun before the kids and for God's sake woman come and get your son because he won't stop screaming and our daughter's hanging out with the wrong crowd and I'm going to beat up all her boyfriends until she's 30 and I can let her out of the tower where we keep her safe and ah fuck I'm going to work and then out for beers with the boys and I'll be back late smelling of alcohol and looking for a drunken fuck at 3am.

Anyway, as you can tell, I think I'm oh-so smart don't I? I'm better than you and I've got everything all figured out. I'm an insufferable know-it-all.

Actually.

I'm jealous of all you lot who had childhood sweethearts and had your kids when you were young and you've now got wonderful families of your own and you're going to have a fabulous family Christmas with your spawn. I hope you got them kittens and puppies. I hope your Christmas is filled with lots of hugs and smiles. I really do. I do get it... maybe a little bit, don't I?

Maybe I'm just a monster.

Tags: #christmas

This is a story about unhappy endings...

When things come to an end, it's hard to re-adjust. Our lives have almost perfect continuity: we segue from school to university to job to job to job... and then we die.

My life's been a bit different.

The conventional wisdom is that any gaps on your CV show that you're lacking moral fibre. You're flawed. You're a failure. You're malingering. You're going to be hauled in front of the authorities and be asked to give a good explanation for why you didn't shackle yourself to your desk, in some dead-end career that barely pays the bills.

Is it fear or is it poverty that keeps people working full-time, when really it would be a lot better if we could stop and smell the roses? Why is nearly every job a 5-day a week full time one, with at least 7 hours a day doing some dull pointless shit, keeping a chair warm? Surely we could get all the actual work done in 4 hours and then take the rest of the week off?

I decided to take the whole of November off so that I could write my first novel.

Now, I'm hunting for a new role in December. It's hard to find work in December: everybody is in holiday mode. No work is getting done. People are thinking about seeing their families, drinking too much and eating luxurious festive food.

My last contract finished prematurely when the commercial terms of the project failed to be agreed between consultancy and client. Everybody got the boot. I needed that money to get myself back on a good financial footing. My flatmate had to be kicked out because he was thousands of pounds in debt to me and showing no intention of getting a job.

Then I finished my novel.

I loved inhabiting that fictional world. I loved that people were reading and would ask me where the next chapter was, if I didn't publish one every day. I loved doing something creative. I loved having a goal; a project. I was master of my own destiny, and I achieved what I set out to do. I proved that I can set my mind to a task and be disciplined enough to keep working until it was done.

Now, I have absolutely no control of my destiny.

I fire my CV off into the ether, and I have no idea whether the right people are getting to look at it. Agents might filter it. HR people might filter it. Project managers might filter it. Until my CV gets in front of somebody technical, they have no idea what they're looking at. It's literally an exercise in writing the right things to get through the dumbasses that stand in between you and the person who's qualified to make a decision.

I'm not happy when I don't have a project; a mission; a goal; a target.

I'm a completer-finisher and it will be painful for me to have to down tools and spend the Xmas break impotently waiting for the working world to start up again in the New Year. I want ink dried on a contract. I want to work. I guess it's my fault for spending November writing a novel though, rather than speaking to agents and doing interviews.

My life goes like this: morning speaking to a procession of agents who phone me up asking if they can put my CV forward to their clients. Afternoon speaking to agents about roles that I've already been put forward for... trying to get some feedback and see if the roles are still actively hiring. Evening spent sending my CV out for every contract that looks any good. I also have phone and face-to-face interviews. I can't keep track of everything. It's disruptive, having to wait by the phone and speak to agents and interviewers. I'm glad I'm not trying to write my novel while I'm doing this. I hate being interrupted when creativity is in full flow.

The other thing I miss though, is the time and the space set aside for writing. Friends were excited that I was writing a novel and they would ask "do you need to write your chapter today?"

People were helpful, making sure I had space to be a novelist, even if it was just for a month. It was fun, to call myself a writer.

Sometimes surprising things can pay the bills. If I can edit my novel in January, I might be able to circulate it with some literary agents and see if it has any commercial potential. I can't see why my debut novel would be up to the required standard of a publisher, but it's worth a punt. I can always Kindle it as a plan B. It's just nice knowing that I did that: knowing that I have another achievement to be proud of. How many people can say they've written a novel in their lifetime? It's way cooler than saying that I've written computer games or business critical software. It's way cooler than saying I'm blogging. Everybody blogs, don't they?

My identity is bound up in whatever I'm doing. I had purpose when I was a writer. I had purpose when I was a scrum master, or a developer or whatever. Now, I'm nothing. Just another unemployed loser. Just another guy stuck at home on the sofa, circulating his CV hopelessly.

Overcome with depression and frustration, I snipe at the whole bullshit system and flirt with disaster by linking my professional identity and my nom de guerre. I don't like pseudonyms and I don't like living a double-life. I'm not a keyboard warrior. I'm not a troll. I feel happier - after some initial trepidation - having as much of a unified identity as possible. Even an old colleague at HSBC - who I haven't seen for 12 years - somehow knew that I was briefly an electrician. What the actual fuck? I knew gossip travels faster than light, but that's ridiculous.

Is it that we are all applauding our colleagues who are brave enough to say "fuck the system" and go off and chase crazy dreams? We want to live a more exciting life - vicariously - through the people who quit the rat race. I'm that nutter who did iPhone apps, dot com tech startups, retrained as an electrician, was a whistleblower, became a novelist. People in offices with good 9 to 5 jobs just don't do anything that exciting or cool.

But, the reality is a lot more grim.

It's tough at the top. Being your own boss sucks. Dealing directly with customers sucks. Doing the right thing sucks. Being the odd one out sucks.

Alright, it doesn't suck, but the stress and the loneliness outweigh the financial rewards. Life is a constant battle when you're trying to do something different. Everybody's got 99 reasons why you're going to fail, why you should give up and why what you're doing is wrong and shit and useless and pointless. People goad you into trying, but then they secretly think "I'm glad I didn't try that myself" when things go wrong. I am glad I tried though. I am glad I've got those experiences, even if I'm left a little fucked up by it all.

So now, I've got this collection of awesome experiences. I've proven to myself that I can achieve awesome things. Problem is, it doesn't fit the mould. I haven't approached things from the usual angles. I've turned my hand to things that I thought I could do, and I did them. I succeeded, but nobody gives a shit. Nobody's ever going to ask me in an interview "how many profitable businesses have you founded?" or "how many books and computer games have you written?".

What now? What next?

When you do something different in society, you get a taste of freedom. You realise that things can be done. You realise you are capable. But... it will ruin you forever. The system doesn't want you back, because you're an independent thinker and you trust your own abilities. You don't need to prove yourself to anybody. You answer back. You're a dangerous inspiration to the drones in the hive: what if other people start questioning whether the 9 to 5 bullshit they do for five days a week is how they want to spend the best years of their life.

What's my plan? Milk the system for some more easy money and then go write more books. Buy a yacht and sail away. So crazy. So romantic. So unrealistic. But, what's the alternative?

Wage slavery and waiting for a retirement you'll never get to enjoy because you'll probably drop dead from stress before you get to spend that stockpiled lucre.

Tags: #career #writing

This is a story about being well presented...

It was gone two o'clock in the afternoon and I was woken up by my phone ringing.

"You've forgotten haven't you?"

It transpired I had an interview in the tower of broken dreams for a contract with Megabank Plc. I was late and I had to get from Camden to Canary Wharf. A journey that would take at least 40 minutes.

"Get going and I'll make an excuse for you."

There was no way I was going to be able to get showered, put on my suit and get across London in an acceptable amount of time. There's only so long that a recruitment agent can stall for. There's late and there's ridiculously late. I went back to sleep.

The phone rang again.

"OK, they're going to wait for you. Are you on your way?"

I lied, saying that I was. I collapsed back on my bunk. How had I managed to keep my suit pristine? How had I managed to have a neat line pressed into my trousers? How had I managed to keep a shirt freshly laundered and uncreased? How had I managed to keep a pair of leather shoes so shiny? My interview outfit was hanging on the bunk bed in the hostel dormitory, ready to go. Reluctantly, I hauled myself off to the communal shower, shared with 13 other people. It was the middle of the day, so at least I didn't have to wait.

How long have I been doing this for?

Surviving by the skin of my teeth.

When you get ejected from the system, it doesn't know how to cope with you. There are valves, barriers, gatekeepers. It's a one way street. You can fall from grace, but there's no way back. Entrepreneurs brag about their bankruptcies. Startup founders brag about the mistakes they made. The world of career, reputation, CVs, references, credit checks, proof of address and security clearance doesn't have any way of coping with somebody who's going through hell. You're doomed to slide all the way down the greasy pole to the bottom, and stay there.

You literally have no idea how hard it is to get yourself off the streets and back into the system.

I've papered over the cracks pretty well. It's remarkable how beneficial it is having a place to live, but it still takes a huge amount of time to restabilise. You might take it for granted that you've got all your Direct Debits set up, your stuff all in one place and unpacked, and your life running fairly smoothly, but my life was smeared all over London's streets. I moved around so many times. So many things were lost or damaged.

Just renting an apartment was exhausting and destabilising. Living out of a suitcase and working on an incredibly stressful project, I was skating on thin ice. The added stress of the London rental market and dealing with a letting agent tipped me over the edge. I had a place to call home, but it cost me my health and my job.

Anyway, this isn't a sob story.

The point is, that when I pulled my overcoat out of the wardrobe for an interview, I could see very visually just how worn down I am: I'm in need of replacement parts. There are scars and war-wounds. The evidence of a very shit few years is still there, if anybody examines my life with any close scrutiny.

I'm wondering, just how obvious is it that I'm out of place? I'm not supposed to come back from the dead. People who've gone through what I've been through are not supposed to dust themselves down and resume their careers.

My suit -- that I proudly wore on Demo Day at the end of the Springboard technology accelerator program in Cambridge -- is now so threadbare that the dry cleaner told me they couldn't wash it more than a couple more times. I need a new pair of black shoes. I need a new overcoat. I need some new shirts.

I'm banking on the fact that scruffy engineers usually have their mind on the job rather than their appearance. I'm banking on my skills and experience carrying the day. I'm banking on people not looking too closely, and seeing that I'm looking a little worn out.

My fatigued business attire is a metaphor for me: past it; has-been; burnt out wreck; failure; loser.

Obviously, I don't believe that. It's nothing that a shopping trip couldn't solve, but if I'm doomed to failure, splashing cash on fancy clothes and shoes would be a waste of money. I can't quite bring myself to have the double-whammy of having the office doors slammed in my face, and having to look at a lovely new suit and overcoat gathering dust in the wardrobe.

I managed to get a good contract earlier in the year, despite my shitty business attire. I considered covering up the semicolon tattoo behind my ear with a sticking plaster, but I risked it. Nobody ever commented on my tattoo for that whole project. Perhaps we only see what we want to see. The superficiality making smalltalk and pretending to get along with our work colleagues: we barely take in what we're seeing.

Why on earth would anybody suspect that I have some secrets? Why would they think I have a dark past? What reason would they have to believe that the man in a suit and a 19+ year career in IT might have had a troubled period?

"So, tell me about mental illness, divorce, drug addiction, homelessness, near-bankruptcy, the loss or destruction of nearly everything you own and the other shit that doesn't seem to have made it onto your CV."

That just hasn't come up... yet.

Tags: #career

This is a story about the box...

Why did you come here? What were you hoping to discover? How are you going to categorise me, sift me, sort me, pigeon-hole and label me? Do you want to grade me, score me, rank me?

You want to know my date of birth, but you don't ask me what time zone I was born in. I was born pretty close to midnight, so does that mean I'm lying about my age when I apply for jobs in Australia and New Zealand?

Where do I write down the shit I've been dealing with on my CV? Where do I apply for bonus points because I've managed to keep working through all kinds of adversity? How do I make you understand that I will make your organisation better, because I don't fit the mould? It's precisely because I've done things that don't qualify as a 'job' - like running my own business - that gives me the experience to get shit done.

What do you want me to write when you ask me for my address history? Should I put "no fixed abode" or "homeless"?

Your credit checks are going to show that I have a great credit score. I've got a huge overdraft agreement and credit cards with really high limits. Will your credit check show that I used borrowing facilities to narrowly avoid bankruptcy, when I was too sick to work? Am I a good credit risk because I've managed my cashflow so effectively, or am I a bad credit risk because I'd be fucked if I couldn't get a job?

Where do I answer the question you really want to know?

"Do you drink?"

What's the correct answer? You want somebody who drinks. You want boozy social nights out occasionally. You want somebody who can work hard and play hard. I guess you're implicitly asking if I can handle my beer. You want somebody who can get drunk, but won't be swigging vodka at their desk. That's me, but where do I write that on my CV? Also, you should probably know - if we're being completely honest - that I drink to cope with the stress of being unemployed, homeless, destitute, doomed... does that make me an alcoholic, or just somebody with a very unhealthy coping mechanism?

"What about those gaps on your CV?"

What about the gap on your CV where you don't have any of the skills and experience that I do? That's why you're hiring me you dumbass: because you have a gap that you need filling and I'm the guy with the smarts to fill it.

Where do I write about my ethical stance on the use of public money? Do you know what the "P" in "PLC" even stands for? Do you know about the Sarbanes-Oxley act? Are you hiring people to help you bury the bodies, or do you really stand by the bollocks in the mission statement of the corporation you're employed by? Doing the right thing doesn't make you a lot of friends, but at least I can sleep at night.

 "I'm just going to hire somebody I can wrap my head around."

Yes, that's right. B players hire C players. Only A players hire A players. Horribly arrogant, conceited, but that's what we encourage in our bullshit pyramid scheme. There are limited slots at the top, so we all have to trample and shit on each other to bag a decent job.

So you're doing some due diligence are you? Well, it would take quite a lot of effort to fake 20 years of full time employment and the technical expertise that's been gathered in two decades. You could read this whole blog, as I'm sure it has all the gory detail you want. There's only 600,000 words, so it shouldn't take you long. I'm sorry, did you say you were looking for an IT contractor or you were interested in studying my entire life history?

Do you feel like you're being mocked?

Yes, that's right. I'm mocking you.

I'm fucked off and stressed out with jumping through stupid hoops. School. College. University. Aptitude tests. Personality tests. Technical tests. I've been measured and not found wanting. Did you actually read my CV? Why did I even bother writing it? Why do I even bother doing anything, like being a fucking expert in my fucking field and doing a good fucking job at it?

Do you want your company to be some fucking dinosaur? Extinct. That's right. Only an idiot does the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. You pay peanuts, you get monkeys. You hire the dullest box-ticking twats and you wonder why you're not competitive versus startups. Just saying that you're switching to a "lean" business model is bullshit if your entire organisation is 100% dead wood losers like you.

You can only rest on your "too big to fail" laurels for so long. The challengers won't be the challengers forever. You'll be undercut and usurped. Time to start hiring some talent. Time to start listening to the experts. You don't know the right answers because you don't even realise how dumb the questions you're asking are. If the question is dumb and there's only one answer box, where do I write "this test is utter bullshit that will tell you nothing about whether I'm a good candidate, except that if I answered your question, that would make me a dumbass like you."

Where do I write about how I'm not like you and that's a good thing?

Is this concept whizzing over your thick skull?

"Fit in or fuck off."

Yes. You see. You don't get it. The challengers come in and they take away your position of dominance because they embrace the misfits, the odd ones out. What's the world's biggest company and who said that? Bzzzt! Wrong answer. Time's up. Your turn is over and now it's time for talent to trump everything.

What have you found out about me? Did you get your tick in your box?

Does. Not. Compute.

Tags: #career