Nick Grant

This is a story about retirement...

It's unusual that nobody sets out to be impoverished in old age - quite the opposite - but most people will end up poor during the twilight years of their life. It is unusual that so much money is pumped into pension funds, but so few enjoy a wealthy retirement.

I suppose, for people who work but don't earn much, there's an ever-decreasing opportunity to build up any kind of pension pot. Since the demise of both final-salary pensions, and social housing, the difficulty of balancing the immediate needs of food, housing, clothing and other essentials, far outweighs the impending old-age poverty. Although the home-ownership fetish appears to lead to some security, in fact the cost of council tax, energy bills and food, is still substantial enough to erode anybody's meagre pension income, even without the cost of a mortgage. Old-age poverty is inevitable.

Given that we are all aiming for the same thing, in theory, it's remarkable that most of us fail to achieve it.

I suppose some will say that they love their work, and they're happy to accept that they're underpaid, because they are happy with their career. I suppose some will say that friends and family are their wealth, and haven't paid much attention to the trivial financial nonsense. In fact, they all care about what happens to them in old age, it's just that they assume - wrongly - that things will work out OK. Things will not work out OK.

Pensions are, unfortunately, a Ponzi scheme. All public companies function on the basis that very large pension funds will automatically have to buy their shares, once they reach a certain market capitalisation (i.e. valuation). Many private companies, angel investors, venture capitalists, private equity fund managers, entrepreneurs, investment banks, and whole swathes of other ancillary leeches, function on the assumption that there is a virtually unlimited supply of new suckers, prepared to pump a substantial portion of their wages, into the Ponzi scheme, allowing others to siphon it all off. There are more people withdrawing obscene amounts of unearned money, than there are honest hard-workers injecting new money into the system, and as such, failure is inevitable.

I find it very unusual that many people feel wedded to a particular corporation, which evidently pays them very little versus the market value of their labour, which can be worked out by the profit generated for the company. The argument is often that it's a "safe" job, that redundancy money provides "financial security" and that they're somehow locked into a pension scheme, which is expected to provide a "generous" retirement.

No.

Everybody wants to retire well-off, but unfortunately, demographics and the refusal by the generation who most recently retired, and are in the process of retiring, has brought the whole Ponzi scheme crashing down.

Not everyone can retire on a final salary pension. In fact, already, far too many have been allowed to retire on a final salary pension. The huge burden placed upon the few at the bottom, by the massive number of grotesque fat greedy pigs at the top, creates an inverted pyramid which must, inevitably, topple over.

Yes, it's all well and good having a lot of industrial action to demand the impossible. Useless do-nothing people in do-nothing jobs went on strike, threatening to do nothing and harm nothing... then when they finally pissed off and made some space for others to get promoted and start earning a decent wage, there are now too few of the decent salary earners to pay for the disgustingly high final-salary pensions which were unearned by the lazy fucks who expect to spend a far greater proportion of their natural lives than any generation in human history, riding on the backs of the overworked and underpaid working class.

Yes. My granny and granddad spent approximately 15 to 20% of their lifetime in retirement, which was pretty good going. Now that has doubled. To expect to spend 35 to 45% of your life, with good health, living by picking the pocket of your sons, daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, is criminal.

The generation who just retired and is in the process of retiring, will die rich, up to a point. Inflation eroded their debts and gifted them vast property wealth, without having to do a single day of labour. They will, of course, have to relinquish a small amount of that wealth when they eventually need to go into a nursing home, but because of good diet and medicine, they will enjoy the health of a 40 or 50 year old from their parents' generation... for many decades.

Meanwhile, the generation who are working now, today, will have no opportunity to retire rich, unless they are in the top 2 or 3% of earners; born into a wealthy family. For 97% of the country, nothing awaits in old age except for cold and hunger.

It is highly unusual that, despite all the furious energy expended, scurrying around busy as hell, so few people have managed to comprehend the fact that their effort is futile: they're going to die poor, and their children are already poor; their grandchildren are just utterly fucked. Take a look around: there's nothing for them... no jobs, and no comfortable retirement at the end of it. It's all fucked.

I'm afraid neither compound interest, financial planning, nor hard work is going to make the blindest bit of difference: the numbers are too stacked against you; Ponzi schemes always fail eventually.

Tags: #retirement

This is a story about professional reputation...

I had a game plan for this year, which was to write eye-wateringly boring things about my mundane existence, such that the history of my chaotic and traumatic life would be safely hidden behind a wall of impenetrable tedium. Unfortunately, I have not stuck to the plan. However, I have arrived at the conclusion that the best place to hide is in plain sight.

I once attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting - or similar such thing - which annoyingly was in a building immediately adjacent to my workplace. As I predicted, while I was in the process of leaving the meeting and saying goodbye to people in the street, a work colleague emerged from the office and also greeted me; that was my worst nightmare realised: that my private world and my work world would collide.

Today, I can count at least one work colleague amongst my readers, and over the years there have been a large collection of both present and former work colleagues, who have read some of what's published here, publicly for all to see. Most of what I write is frank, brutally honest and candid, and none of it is the stuff which can or would be discussed in a professional context. Sometimes it troubles me, being exposed in a professional reputation sense, but I doubt I do a very good job of concealing my madness in the workplace.

One thing, I hope, is quite apparent to my work colleagues, versus my readers: that I am highly productive, and making an undeniably useful contribution, with just about enough sanity to spend 40+ hours a week in close quarters with people who, presumably, have no plans to call the men in white coats to take me away.

I'm not so stupid as to think that it's not quickly obvious that I'm mentally ill, if you spend a little time with me. I'm not so stupid as to think that my colleagues don't consider me odd; abnormal; different. But, I'm used to being the odd-one-out and I've got over the initial paranoia, which was caused by mistakenly thinking that I had successfully integrated and been accepted as 'normal' when I so obviously am not. I had begun to believe that I had shaken of my miserable childhood and re-invented myself; that I had integrated with normal mainstream society. When the mask slipped, it destroyed me, because I had worked so hard to hide my flaws.

Retrospectively, I see that the effort I put into making myself as homogenous and unnoticeable as possible - the effort I put into fitting in - was essentially wasted.

People. Just. Don't. Care.

Unless you're actively going out of your way to be a problem, most people are too busy with their lives to acknowledge your existence or take any interest in you. Unless you're a massive pain in the backside, and you're annoying everybody, nobody really knows or cares who you are.

Conversely, if you make an effort to be 'different' you are equally uninteresting. Sure, you might think that your carefully constructed identity, with your weird haircut, purple hair colour, piercings, tattoos, and deliberately unusual fashion choices, is something which makes you stand out. No. In such an individualistic society everybody is attempting to stand out, so you are conforming and fitting in by attempting to do so.

Are you damned if you do, and damned if you don't?

Well, I'm very glad to have made a friend, who's a work colleague, somewhat thanks to this website and my writing. The friendship makes an almost infinite amount of being ignored by the world, pale into insignificance. I'd like to say that I don't care when I have a day with fewer readers, but it would be a lie: for sure, I want to be noticed; I want people to be aware that I am, at present, alive, having thoughts, experiencing feelings.

The massive folly that I have built - millions of words written and published - is utterly disproportionate to the number of readers and amount of income that I make, as a direct result of my effort. However, over the years, the effort has brought me some of the best things in my life.

I don't discourage anybody from going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, if they want to, even if they're not an alcoholic... I too, am not an alcoholic, nor am I a recovering alcoholic, nor have I ever been an alcoholic. My relationship with alcohol is entirely controlled by me, not a higher power, or a bunch of anonymous people meeting in a dingy basement, spilling their traumatic stories out to each other. I'm doing the opposite: publicly broadcasting every innermost thought, and most shameful trauma, and here I am... seemingly as normal as anybody. No need to label myself as anything other than "me".

Tags: #writing #socialmedia #career #work

This is a story about assisted dying...

Having spent an extraordinary amount of time thinking and writing about suicide, as well as receiving a massive amount of emails from strangers in crisis, contemplating killing themselves, I don't claim to be exactly the same as a doctor who has specialised in euthanasia, or a crisis counsellor, but it's quite possible that we might have spent the same number of hours contemplating the same subject. My ignorance is not better than anybody's knowledge, but we are, after all, talking about the unknowable. Anybody who claims to know the unknowable is a charlatan.

The original charlatans would have been witch doctors and shamen, I suppose, claiming to have magical powers. Later, with the decline of magic and the rise of organised religion, the charlatans were, and indeed still are, priests. Debatably in modern times, there are [some] doctors who are charlatans. Anybody who says that doctors are scientific and evidence-led, has not met [enough] doctors, and truly understood their role and behaviour in society.

Of course, it's incorrect to say that the practice of witch doctors, shamen and medical doctors can be dismissed as equally groundless. In fact, we can ignore the obvious stuff - surgery, effective treatment for infection, life-support techniques - and look instead at what's common between the voodoo conjurers and your family doctor: neither of them will save your life, or the life of your child[ren], but both enjoy high social status, and we believe that they possess a power which they do not, which perversely can have a positive effect on our superstitious human psychology.

We must, for a minute, acknowledge that it is better to be soothed by a priest, telling us that we don't have to be afraid of death because we are going to heaven, or indeed soothed by a doctor who is telling us that everything is going to be OK because 'medical science'. Neither, in fact, possess the means to ease the burden of mortality, nor any knowledge to transform the human condition, beyond assistance in invoking a person's own capabilities of inducing a delusion: namely that life is anything other than a meaningless, godless existence, which ends with pain and terror.

Most of us will be so frantically pounding on life's treadmill, that we will scarcely have a moment to contemplate mortality, and if we do, it will be in the context of soothing the anxiety of our elderly relatives, and young children. The contemplation of our own individual mortality is a rich-man's hobby, and therefore something which only a very small percentage of the earth's inhabitants will ever have the wealth and privilege to do.

I might be such an idiot that I'm unable to correctly perceive and comprehend the depth and breadth of my own stupidity and ignorance, but, you would be foolish to deny that I have not had a lot more time to consider things than you, given that I have not been spending the majority of my waking hours attempting to shovel baked beans into the face of my grubby progeny.

It's banal and routine to ridicule first-semester philosophy majors, in the North American parlance, for thinking they just solved all philosophical problems at the first attempt. However, once you've figured out that we all end up as worm food, and all of human history and evidence of any human existence, will be obliterated so completely it will be as though humanity never existed, frankly, then at that point, all philosophy starts to look the same; equally absurd and meaningless.

Of course, subscribing to a certain life philosophy, or indeed a collection of different bits of philosophies, can make the difference between bearable or even very pleasurable periods of existence during a short mortal life, versus the unspeakable horror of experiencing the futility and meaninglessness of everything, raw and unfiltered, until you finally, gratefully and gladly expire.

Human inventions, like the wheel, sprung up independently in different times and places. No one human can ever claim to have a monopoly on, for example, a particular philosophical thought, because that thought can be arrived at independently.

To claim that religion and medicine - or at least, doctors who don't practice any medicine, but merely occupy the high-status role, dispensing ostensibly worthless advice - are totally and utterly without value to humanity is entirely wrong: they are valuable. The church keeps a great deal of humanity occupied with futile pursuits, but we must ask ourselves if it's truly futile, if it occupies people when they might otherwise become, like me, preoccupied with their own mortality. Many medical doctors practice a new form of religion, where we worship them and elevate them well beyond their capability to forestall or otherwise arrest our inevitable death, but is their value over-estimated, if our irrational belief in them eases the passage of our lives.

I wish, very often, that I was stupid enough to believe in god, or doctors.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about unrealistic expectations...

I'm not sure where this 'unrealistic' thing came from. Realistically, we will succumb to a horrible disease, and then die. This much, our parents knew for certain when they decided to have children. Realistically, our parents knowingly condemned us to a life of deprivation and want; disease and death. Realistically, our expectation should be to die in fear, agony and discomfort, after struggle and suffering.

Is there any point in counting our blessings? Why not count our curses? Either option is comparably meaningless as a mortal creature in a godless universe.

I wonder how frequently a minor inconvenience seems sufficient grounds for suicide, to me. Certainly in the past few years, I've been so consumed with horrendous anxiety over 'trivial' life events, that I've lived with near-constant suicidal depression. I've lost count of the number of times that I've promised myself that I'll end the suffering if a certain unfortunate event occurs. I've lost count of the number of times I've felt, for a moment, on a knife edge about to end my life, triggered by seemingly the most minor of things; the most inconsequential and hard to fathom, for those who aren't troubled with such extreme sensations.

It's hard to know if things are getting better or worse. Certainly, I overcame problems with moving house, potentially losing my income, some invasive background checks, plus the hurricane-strength headwinds of debt and other money worries, which completely eroded any hope and sense of wellbeing, constantly. I dealt with breakups, losing my cat, a car which had to be scrapped, another car which got crashed into, multiple organ failure... you know, that kind of stuff. Normal everyday ordinary kinda stuff.

I'm no fan of the contrived platitudes about counting blessings, or suchlike idiotic nonsense. However, it did occur to me that I'm grateful that, for example, I have no need to deal with doctors or dentists; I have no need to deal with solicitors; I have no need to deal, on the whole, with the general public. I suppose it's a somewhat charmed existence, certainly versus being one of the oft-mentioned starving African children, or indeed the one any only person on the entire planet who's got it worse than everybody else, and therefore by extension is the only person out of nearly 8 billion, who's legitimately entitled to complain or feel sorry for themselves: everyone else has to suck it up and "count their blessings".

I reserve the right. I reserve the right to complain. I reserve the right to feel sorry for myself. I reserve the right to kill myself, whenever I want. I reserve those rights.

It seems to me, that the only way that humanity's self-awareness can be balanced, along with the curse of intellect which allows the perception of the futility of existence, is with the ability to end one's own life. Sure, vast swathes of humanity are too stupid and ignorant to be cursed with the comprehension of the awfulness and meaningless of existence; afflicted by angst, ennui, anxiety, depression and other horrors visited upon those who are elevated above the level of rutting beasts. Sure, it would be soul-soothing to be swept up in the mass hysteria; too busily acting like a slug or a wasp, intent on passing on its genes, like a mindless beast... sure that would obviously be better, in terms of personal suffering, but it's unethical to knowingly inflict such awfulness on an innocent victim: namely those children who did not consent to be born, nor indeed should have been born into such a dreadful world. There is no excuse for the crime of bringing children into this world, to suffer and die afraid, in pain, after a life of struggle, discomfort and unmet want.

I suppose it's an incredibly unoriginal and banal observation, that organised religion provides a convenient but provably wrong fantasy for those who wish to justify and forgive their own wicked deeds. You might argue that morality is the sole preserve of organised religion, and in a way you are right: there are no supernatural entities who sit in judgement over any of us; there is no objective morality; everything is permissable, within the confines of the universal laws of physics.

So, in conclusion: commit suicide, or commit murder, or don't. Nobody gives a shit. Nothing matters. Life is meaningless and all human history will be obliterated such that any and all existence of humanity's existence will be utterly undetectable; totally and irretrievably destroyed.

Tags: #suicide #depression #anxiety

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

We like to laugh at the stupidity of 'primitive' civilisations which used to make human sacrifices to the sun god. However, we also live in an era - today - where we make human sacrifices to imaginary concepts.

The squeals and cries of "the economy!" in the face of a deadly global pandemic, indicate that global free-market capitalism demands human sacrifice at the alter of Mammon. In a more civilised society, we wouldn't kill people for the sake of an abstract concept, such as money. Money can be created at will, with the stroke of a key on a keyboard: it doesn't exist; it's not a physical commodity; we can continue to grow and harvest crops, rear cattle, fish the seas, build houses, make clothes and do all the other physical, tangible things that we need to, in order to be healthy and happy. We do not need money. To demand that people die for the sake of money is exactly the same as sacrificing people to the sun god; equally delusional and psychotic.

We've been looking for people to murder for a long time now. In the UK, we've had many years of wanting to murder non-whites, under the guise of so-called "anti-immigration" policies. Instead of looking at how we can improve our quality of life, instead our efforts have been ploughed into worsening the quality of lives for people. The 'hostile environment' policies of Theresa May were as damaging to vulnerable white working-class people as they were to the non-whites they were designed to injure and kill. Given half a chance, 51.9% of the country would be out on the streets slitting the throats of anybody they didn't deem to be like them: non-whites, gays, transexuals... and probably a lot of the liberal metropolitan elites too. Why stop there? They wouldn't. They'd kill anybody they had got a grudge with too, and still not be satisfied. When the food and medicine ran out and the power went off, they'd then kill and eat their own children - "Spoiled little brats... I showed THEM who's boss".

As a self-confessed leftist and Benthamite utilitarian, I must say that I have indulged in a few wealth redistribution fantasies. I don't think that we should kill and eat the rich, but we could certainly take 90% of their wealth, in order to lift living standards for billions of people.

On closer examination does murdering a few people really seem so bad for the greater good? We must explore the question.

Let us think about a mass murderer who's beyond hope of rehabilitation. Even if we do not sentence the mass murderer to death as a punishment, it is costly to imprison them. Why would we waste valuable resources on somebody with zero utility, who poses a very real and significant risk to the general public, and indeed anybody in charge of keeping them imprisoned. It seems to make sense to kill the mass murderer.

What about billionaires? We don't need any billionaires, but we certainly need their wealth. It seems fairly obvious that we should take and redistribute the wealth of billionaires, but what do we do with them? Well, I see no reason to kill them - what harm are they, once they're stripped of most of their wealth? If they build more wealth, we'll just take it off them again. In fact, perhaps stripping them of wealth encourages them to create more - a win:win situation. They can remain obscenely wealthy, but not so much so that we have any hunger, homelessness or exploitation left in the world.

What about Jews?

Let's imagine that hypothetically - although I must make it clear that I am exploring this anti-Semitic canard purely to illustrate how ridiculous it is - lots of Jews are billionaires. Well, why decide to treat the Jews differently? It's perfectly philosophically and ethically acceptable to strip the billionaires of most of their wealth, provided they are left with plenty and aren't mistreated. Why would we single the Jews out, even if there are lots of Jewish billionaires? Just go after the billionaires and don't persecute anybody because of their religious faith, right?

I'm not saying that choosing a particular identifiable group and murdering them isn't "economically sound". In fact, it's definitely "good" economically to commit murder, as the many wars from history will attest. If you kill somebody and take their wealth, you become wealthy and there's one less mouth to feed; one less person to house and clothe. Of course, murder seems completely logical, if you believe that "the economy!" and money are the most important things in life.

Of course, then there's the temptation to murder Jews and/or non-whites. Why not just redistribute wealth though, instead of committing mass murder? Why not target the wealthy and not Jews, Muslims or non-whites? If you are in favour of wealth distribution I will support you, and so will the majority of other people. If you are in favour of persecuting Jews, Muslims and non-whites, then I will fight you every step of the way.

Tags: #capitalism

This is a story about starting over...

My cat is missing. She's been missing since 26 June. I've posted leaflets through the door of hundreds of homes in the vicinity. I've posted all over social media. I've alerted all my neighbours through private messaging groups. I've spent countless hours walking around, calling her name, shaking her food. I've put her litter, her blanket and her favourite toys around outside my house, in the hope that she'd smell the scent.

All to no avail.

She's gone.

Was she stolen? Was she hit by a car or a train, and the incident didn't get reported; her body wasn't found? Has somebody started feeding her and taken her in as their own? Was she stolen for profit by an unscrupulous rogue? Is she out there somewhere, lost and hungry?

Whatever has happened - and I'll probably never know - she's gone.

Of course, I can play the coulda woulda shoulda game. In the course of my search for her, I've found out that there are lots of cats just like her which are living quite happily in this safe neighbourhood. We live in a leafy, wealthy suburb, plus the streets have been extra quiet and safe because of the Coronavirus lockdown. Perhaps I could have turned my house into some kind of maximum-security cat prison, but why did I need to worry? I live in a nice place and I have nice neighbours; plenty of cats just like her live very happily in this area.

Whatever has happened, she's gone and I can't do anything about it now.

I don't have a time machine. If I did, would I go back and change anything? It's not realistic to put a metal grille over your windows. It's not realistic to install air-lock style security doors. It's not realistic to secure every skylight, window, door and air-vent, which your determined would-be escapee might use in their bid for freedom. I'm trying to live my life, not become a prison warden to a cat, living in some kind of concrete bunker with bars on the windows and heavy metal cell doors.

If I was messing around with time travel, maybe I should go back further and not get the cat.

Maybe I should go back further in time and not give my first cat to my parents, during the messy divorce.

Maybe I should go back further and fix my marriage.

Maybe I should go back further and not even get with that girl who I later married.

Maybe I should go back further... and not even be born.

This reductio ad absurdum reasoning leads me to conclude that it's futile to start wishing to change things in the past, not least because it's impossible anyway. It's futile and unproductive, and it leads nowhere good.

Maybe I'm just covering my ass because my cat is lost and I feel bad about that; somehow responsible. OK so my decision has led to my cat becoming lost. There. I said it. Does that bring my cat back? No.

Anyway, as is often my way, I'm making another point: there are heaps of things which are less-than-ideal in my past, but I can't do anything about them. I've had a really rough bunch of years, and it's caused me a whole heap of problems, but I can't expunge those unfortunate events from history so I'm going to have to live with everything that's happened.

I had a lengthy break from blogging and social media. I felt like it wouldn't be good to be writing every day during lockdown. I thought that the time would pass incredibly slowly if I was writing my blog during the repetitive and monotonous stay-at-home period, where I've been cooped up under the same roof for more than 3 months, with no company except my cat... who has now disappeared.

My intention is to begin writing regularly again, but I hope that my improved mental health, finances and a generally improved outlook to my life - much more stable than in recent years - will provide a backdrop for a period of writing which seems more like a normal happy life; less full of disaster and violent mood swings; less full of powerful negative emotions and terrible memories; less full of bitterness and hate.

Of course, my writing is therapy for me, and part of therapy is venting - catharsis - so I shall no doubt be launching myself into the occasional angry rant from time to time, but I'm hoping to somewhat turn over a new leaf and start with a clean slate as much as possible... although I can never escape my past, and doubly so because I intend to leave this blog in place unedited, containing all the difficulties I've been through in the 5 years I've been writing it.

I'm hoping that by writing a load of new material which is coming from a much more secure and happy place, it will put some time, space and distance between me and the bad stuff in my past.

Tags: #cat

This is a story about repetition...

Drug addicts and alcoholics know a lot about relapses. What dreadful consequences they suffer when they fall off the wagon. Am I immune from such things? Am I the first person in the history of humanity to outsmart addiction? No. Of course not.

Readers who have followed any of my story might wonder if I've started drinking again, or have become addicted to sleeping pills again. No. No I have not.

I went to the supermarket yesterday - a big fancy supermarket with lots of lovely things to choose from - and it was difficult to stay away from the alcohol aisle, but not impossible. The whole point about being an alcoholic or an addict is that you're powerless over the substance(s) that you're abusing. I do not offer my successful self control as evidence of my immunity to addiction and alcoholism, but it does prove that I'm in control, which cannot be said of those unfortunate wretches who are in the grip of active addiction and/or alcoholism.

Rehabs are full of charlatans who claim that they have a magic cure for addiction and/or alcoholism, but all recovery comes from within - how bad do you want it? I'm not saying that those who are killed by their addiction and/or alcoholism didn't want to be clean and sober, but they clearly wanted to be drunk and high more than they wanted to avoid their inevitable demise, or else they wouldn't have died. Unfortunately, the self-reinforcing draw of addictive substances can overpower the best of us, and although I do view addicts and alcoholics as "victims" of a disease, it's also demonstrably clear that people who have no problems with drink and/or drugs - including those people 'in recovery' - were simply lucky enough that the scales were tipped marginally in their favour.

My life has potential which would be churlish to deny. It's not fair for me to say "everything is ruined so I give up" when clearly I have high earnings potential, and with money comes opportunities to escape a miserable life and get a better one. Sure, I can get overwhelmed and decide that I don't have any energy left to keep fighting, and I would quickly be wrecked and ruined by our over-competitive coercive and exploitative society, which would dearly love to trample me underfoot, but I stand a better chance than most people of escaping the rat race.

Yep, I cheated a couple of times this week. I used a sleeping pill on a couple of nights to help me force my sleep pattern into the one which capitalism demands. I used a sleeping pill to combat the incredibly negative side-effects of social jetlag, caused by the toxic demands of office hours, contrary to human health and welfare.

Did I relapse? Nope.

What does relapse even mean for me? I've never been an alcoholic.

What does relapse mean in terms of mental health episodes? My mania-driven achievements are widely celebrated and cheered on by the capitalists who've been assisted by my immense productivity, which has been almost superhuman, but has come at great personal cost. My mental illness has been on public display for many years, yet my paymasters don't care because I'm delivering the goods - so long as I keep up the successful results, my violent mood swings are tolerated, and the results of my manic episodes are highly prized by all involved, especially by those who provoke me into doing high-pressure projects with unrealistic deadlines.

I hope - eternally - that the repeating patterns are not on a downward trend. I attempt to learn from each mood cycle, and to hold onto the gains and not give up so many losses. I try to limit the downright outrageous negative consequences of unrestrained mania, and I try to fight through the devastating depression that follows, forcing myself to keep inside the artificial constraints of some reasonable tramlines, knowing that it will be ultimately beneficial for me and help me to escape from the boom and bust... most importantly to escape from the bust!

Self medication with the occasional sleeping pill is infinitely preferable to routine intoxication with copious amounts of alcohol, although it's easy to convince myself that neither has any long-term ill effects, clearly my health will suffer if I drink heavily on a regular basis, even if my wealth and professional reputation are not impacted.

It's all a bit boring really. Uneventful. I'm very good at putting one foot in front of the other, I just don't like it very much, especially when going on a journey I've done a million times before. There's not much pleasure left in renting a house, moving my stuff, starting a new job, impressing new colleagues or delivering a project which is exactly the same as every other project I've ever delivered in my long and illustrious career. I just do it for the money.

Some might accuse me of being a dry drunk but they are idiots. Every day that I struggle through the rat race puts a significant amount of pounds, shillings and pence into my pocket. Every day that I force myself to do the intolerable shit that I have to put up with, is a large step closer to freedom. I have no need to adopt a significantly different life at the moment, because the life I have is staggeringly lucrative, which unfortunately means that it's the quickest route to financial independence and housing security, which is the most important thing for my health and wellbeing.

Sobriety between now and the end of October is something quite welcome - it will help my health immensely. Working between now and the end of my contract, on Halloween, is something that will help my wealth immensely. It's incredibly dull and boring, but it's got to be done. It's easy, but it's repetitive. When was the last time that you put up with a shit job that you hated? Probably never. When was the last time you spent years doing boring, repetitive, easy stuff? Probably never. You just wouldn't put up with it.

Tags: #alcohol #bipolar

This is a story about repeating patterns...

What am I doing? It feels like I'm making the same mistakes I've made a bunch of times before. It feels like I'm re-living 2015, and I didn't like how things went that year, so I'm desperate to avoid making those mistakes, but I feel like my mood disorder has got me stuck in an inescapable pattern.

Strictly speaking, I have two mood disorders: bipolar and seasonal affective disorder (SAD). The latter disorder means that I'm unable to escape a downturn in my mood as summer turns into winter, unless I head to warmer climate. The former disorder means that I'm prone to episodes of mania, which I always like to believe I'm in control of, because I enjoy the mania and find it immensely useful for creativity and productivity.

Looking back to 2015, at the time I felt like I was enjoying playing a pivotal role in the number one project for the biggest bank in Europe. In retrospect, I was very unwell indeed. My behaviour was quite erratic and unpredictable and it's kind of hard to pinpoint exactly why I feel like I was doing good work, now that I think about it. For sure, I helped bang some heads together and get things moving to meet some key deadlines, but I was definitely suffering very badly with a severe episode of mental illness, and I hadn't been working on the project for very long so I expect my contribution was negligible. This is what gives me a great deal of fear that I'm repeating the same mistakes: that history is repeating itself.

In 2015 I was working a lot of overtime. I was working most weekends. I was working extremely hard - long hours - and I had the additional pressure of moving house, given that I was homeless and living in a hostel. Also, it hadn't been very long since I had been in a dreadful state, with my brain chemistry completely messed up. I had terrible insomnia. I was a big mess.

Today, I have a house and a cat. My home life is comparatively settled, although I've had some relationship problems lately which have been very destabilising. My working routine is not too taxing - I have a short commute to the office, and the hours I work are strictly Monday to Friday. If I leave the office at 5:30pm, that's a long day for me. In 2015 I was routinely staying in the office past 9pm, and often to 11pm, and then staying up all night writing emails, which was not at all healthy or conducive to good mental health.

In some ways I feel that I'm in much better health than I was in 2015, and I stand a much better chance of getting through an incredibly stressful period at work without losing my mind. However, late on Friday I lost my cool at the office, and the emotions that have been bottled up started to come out, which wasn't very professional. I started to speak my mind way more than I should have done, and I started to send off messages with a scattergun approach. I stopped approaching problems in a calm and methodical manner, and instead I acted with desperation and superstition. I was afraid that all my hard work was in ruins. Strangely, I thought I was dreaming; or rather having a nightmare.

I suppose my sleep quality is compromised at the moment. Several nights a week I don't sleep well because there's a technical problem I can't stop thinking about. My dreams are all about my work. In fact, my dreams are nightmares, where I attempt again and again to resolve the problems I left at the office. As soon as I wake up, I rush to the office to pick up where I left off.

A colleague has mentioned in private that I should take it easy; not get so obsessed over the project. A colleague has correctly identified me as somebody who can make themselves sick through overwork - at risk of burnout; at risk of a breakdown. It's good advice - that I should try to maintain some balance. Becoming obsessed by work is very unhealthy.

Yesterday, I left a rambling garbled and emotional voicemail for a colleague, begging them to let me do something over the weekend. I spent time trying to find colleagues who would help me with a piece of work, and ended up getting somebody to do something for me at 11pm. It's too much. It's too intense. It's too crazy.

I have no idea if I'm eternally doomed to suffer from delusions of grandeur, and to repeatedly burn out, only to look back and realise that my negligible contribution was laughable; pathetic. I have no idea if my perceptions are warped and I'm unable to grasp just how bad an episode of mental illness I'm suffering from. It's hell being so functional, and having so much feedback which seems to corroborate all the apparent evidence that I'm being incredibly productive and useful, but yet I also have a whole load of evidence that the end result always seems to be the same: burnout, crash, disaster, destitution, destruction. Am I a fool for hoping that this time is the time when everything finally works out for me, and I get the glory I crave?

Looking back to 2008 and 2011, I was able to make it to the finishing line with a gigantic project for JPMorgan and a TechStars program technology startup accelerator. I was able to deliver, but at huge personal cost. Both times I ended up in a terrible state. I was too fixated on the specific delivery date, and I didn't think about what would come afterwards. I didn't handle the anticlimax well at all. The episodes of depression that followed the frantic manic energy which allowed me to deliver on time, were so destructive that all my hard work was destroyed... or was it? JPMorgan was able to process quadrillions of dollars of credit default swaps, using the software I designed and built. My tech startup was able to continue trading profitably and getting new customers, even though I was too sick to work. The cost was to me personally. I was ashamed that I couldn't continue to function at the same intensity, and I assumed that everyone would hate me for getting sick. I threw away those opportunities, because I assumed that they were ruined. I assumed that everybody saw me as damaged goods; unreliable and untrustworthy.

I have no idea if I'm destined for another personal disaster. I certainly worry that I won't be able to cope with the end of my contract, and the end of my involvement with the project I'm so unhealthily obsessed with. I suppose I need to mitigate against any probable crash in my mood. I suppose I need to plan ahead.

I can't imagine I'll be able to find a good contract locally. I can't imagine how I'm going to juggle my need to find a well-paid contract, with my cat and my house rental agreement. It's a stress that I really don't want to have to deal with right now. It's stress that I really wish would go away - if only my contract could be extended for another year, that would be perfect.

My life is a rollercoaster, so we would expect my mood to be too. It's hard to unpick my mood disorder from the circumstances of my life. I like to think that my mood is dictated by the time of year and other things that are going on, such as whether I'm in a good relationship or not. I like to think that my extreme moods will abate as my life improves.

Tags: #bipolar #depression

This is a story about being time poor...

I went to write a blog post called "Not Enough Hours in the Day" but then my browser told me that I'd already used that title before. The photo I had selected is one that I've used before, which I noticed when the file name was already used.

My working day is done and I just got home via the supermarket. My girlfriend just arrived and I need to cook dinner.

To claim that I don't have any time would be untrue, strictly speaking, but it's not easy working full time and finding the time for side hustles. Obviously, my blog is not a profit-making endeavour, so it can be a little hard to understand why I'd divert valuable time and energy into doing it, but it does provide me with a number of intangible benefits.

I don't particularly want to spend a long time writing when I could be watching movies or TV shows with my girlfriend, but I wanted to maintain the daily writing habit, even if this is little more than a pathetic rushed 'diary entry'.

I owe you something more profound.

Tags: #writing

This is a story about influence...

One of the great benefits of operating my own homebrew website is that I get to see the visitor analytics in all the glorious detail. I can't be certain, but I have evidence that I can count some work colleagues, my girlfriend's mother and other important people as readers, who have never mentioned that they are readers, but I see the evidence all the same.

A colleague from another part of the country was kind enough to tell me that they'd been reading my blog. That was a first. I've had plenty of evidence of colleagues visiting in the past, but they've never explicitly told me that they've read any of my blog.

I sometimes feel a little bit paranoid and vulnerable, having the contents of my messy mind and messed-up life so publicly on display, but I assume that anybody who's going to take the time to read is going to hopefully empathise with my situation and see that I'm mad, not bad.

I write about this scrutiny quite often. Often times I am angry about the invasive nature of security vetting, background checks and suchlike, given my lengthy career and achievements, which I feel should be enough to free me from the tyranny of gatekeepers. Often I implore the lurkers to imagine me at my very worst; to judge me based on their prejudice. Often I wail with agony about those who are seeking to dig dirt; to find reasons to reject me.

Conversely, I'm acutely aware that anybody can access this repository of innermost thoughts and feelings at any time. I'm relatively well-informed about who's reading, thanks to my website's detailed analytics. I can see who's reading, when and for how long, and I can make educated guesses about the impression they might form.

It might seem sensible to present another side of myself, given how important it is to be a bland corporate drone or ideal boyfriend material, in the eyes of colleagues and my girlfriend's mother. It might seem sensible to write under a pseudonym. it might seem sensible to present a sanitised mask; to present only my greatest achievements and to trumpet my successes and finest attributes.

I found it was rather toxic to my mental health to live so much of my life worrying about my professional reputation; worrying about my corporate image; worrying about how presentable I was as a fake person. I found it exhausting keeping my CV spotless and otherwise maintaining a perfect career. I found it exhausting, worrying about gaps in my employment history and whether the organisations I worked for were prestigious enough to be impressive. I found it exhausting making sure that my job titles and projects were grand and magnificent, to maintain the perfect corporate image.

If I really was worried about becoming unemployable and losing my income, then surely I would tear down this website and its associated social media accounts and set about expunging anything unflattering from the digital realm, wouldn't I? If I was a credible professional person, surely I would have a bland corporate identity: faceless except for the unblemished stream of non-stop corporate accolades and achievements, presented in dry bullet points, clothed in a grey suit and completely lacking in any personality or personal identity.

I find it exhausting and toxic to my mental health.

I find it intolerable that the corporate world wants to steal so much of my valuable time, but also my identity, and to insist that I conform to an unrealistic, unhealthy and impossible conception of what the 'ideal' corporate drone would look and act like.

My reaction has been to create an "anti-CV". This homebrew website is everything that colleagues, prospective employers, girlfriends' mothers and others, would never normally see, hear or read about a person. Here is everything that you'd love to know but would never usually be able to find out. Here's all the dirt that gatekeepers wish to dig, presented clearly and concisely.

My thoughts are a little jumbled and confused. I don't know who's friend and who is foe. I don't know when I'm being judged harshly and unfairly, due to prejudice, and when my readers are feeling empathy, sympathy and generally taking an interest in my wellbeing.

I know that some colleagues and others read because they're interested in who I am as a person, and perhaps they even care about me and would like to see me succeed. I know that hardly any of my readers are looking to cause me harm. In fact, most readers are concerned about my welfare and they use my words with kindness: worrying about me and thinking about ways in which they could help me.

My behaviour is a little erratic. I do struggle with dreadful suicidal thoughts, depression and anxiety, which threatens to do me great harm, but yet I do not know quite what I'm doing: is this a cry for help, a form of therapy, a coping mechanism, self-sabotage, a folly, foolish stupidity? What consequences are there for acting in contravention of the expected behaviour of a corporate drone? What consequences are there for not complying with social norms; suffering in silence?

I feel happier when I'm writing vast amounts every day, because I feel that I'm a moving target; I feel like the energy and the productivity wards off anybody who might think me stupid, idle and easy to pigeon-hole. I feel like writing wards off anybody who might seek to sum me up with a simple sentence, thinking that they've understood me. I want to be complicated. I want to be interesting. I want to be eccentric. I want to be hard to understand. I don't understand me, so why the hell should you come here and think you've got all the answers?

As usual, I've written more than I intended. Nobody wants to read more than about 700 words, and even then, my thinking is disjointed and hard-to-follow. I've reverted to a stream-of-consciousness comfort zone, where the words pour out, but there's no clear thread of thought and I'm not saying anything except a hotchpotch of jumbled thoughts and feelings without any clear conclusions or intersting insights.

Perhaps there's a human interest angle, but I'd like to return to the time when I wrote think-pieces which explored ideas, as opposed to diary-esque brain dumps, written in a desperate attempt to neutralise overwhelming negative thoughts and feelings which threaten to consume me.

Another thing which occurs to me is how little my mind is occupied. My job is very easy and my working day is pretty boring. My evenings are often spent in social isolation. In fact, most of my life is socially isolated. I have no local friends. My job is not very sociable. There are few social occasions in my life. I am estranged from my family.

I wonder if I'm lonely, but I don't think that I am.

I can remember being lonely in the past, but I don't feel those feelings at the moment.

My brain is very busy.

My brain is intensely noisy.

My brain will continuously present things to be anxious and depressed about, unless it is occupied with something taxing to think about.

Writing is an ideal occupation.

However, my writing is somewhat scrutinised. My girlfriend will read this. My friends will read this. My work colleagues will read this. My sister might read this. Strangers will read this.

Strange.

In some ways I'm incredibly isolated and I mostly inhabit my own mind, alone. In some ways I'm socially disconnected; removed from the normal social interactions that most people have with their friends, family, kids, colleagues and suchlike. I spend vast amounts of time in my own company and/or lost in thought. I can spend a whole day in a trancelike state, thinking.

In other ways I'm not isolated at all. At least I have a mechanism for connecting me with people, even if it's rather atypical. I don't mind that there are work colleagues and my girlfriend's mum, who read my rambling thoughts without acknowledging that they are there, reading in the comfort of their office. I don't mind that I don't really know precisely when I'm communicating, and who precisely I'm communicating with. I don't really mind that I don't get the feedback of knowing how my words are being received. I don't really mind that I'm transmitting - broadcasting - and I don't know how far my words are travelling or where they're landing.

Of course I worry that the more I write, the more I expose myself as a fool. If I write enough, I'm sure to expose my sheer idiocy. I'm hardly considering my words precious and choosing them with extreme care, given the prolific nature of my writing. Those who've read vast amounts of what I've written have said how repetitive I am. Should I have expected any other result, given my approach?

So, the rather unsatisfying conclusion is that there is no conclusion. I find it useful to write regularly, in the interests of allowing my creativity, productivity and identity to have some room to breathe, given the restrictive nature of the bland corporate world in which I inhabit. I find it useful to maintain a digital identity, lest I become paranoid about anything less-than-perfect emerging in other areas: at least my humanity is contained all neatly in one place here, where I can keep an eye on those who come to poke around. I find it fascinating that anybody would bother to try to find me, and would bother to read about me, especially given the vast tracts of drivel that I've written, such as this one.

Tags: #writing #socialmedia #privacy