This is a story about arms races...

Being the only honest player in a game where everybody else is cheating is a fate worse than death. Where do you draw the line for cheating though?

When playing pool, it's a well known phenomenon that there's an optimal level of intoxication to be a better player. Alcohol relaxes you, which means your muscles are less tense and the action of your arm should be smoother, delivering a straighter strike to the cue ball. Is it cheating to have a cheeky couple of pints when you're playing pool down at the pub?

Computer programmers are machines that turn coffee into software. Stimulants like caffeine and the other amphetamines - caffeine being indistinguishable from amphetamines when given intravenously - are well known for improving concentration. If most programmers are gulping strong coffee all day long, how's anyone who's caffeine-free going to compete with the rest?

The combination of caffeine and glucose is proven to improve athletic performance by a remarkable amount. Given that energy drinks are not banned and can even be sold to children, how is anybody supposed to compete at sports unless they're guzzling Red Bull?

There's a great deal of pressure on me to perform at the moment. My entire future rides on me doing a good job at work. If I fail, I go bankrupt and I become a leper: unable to gain well paid employment or even have a mobile phone or broadband contract, let alone rent an apartment.

Therefore there's a temptation to use substances to help me perform at the top of my game. With a strong coffee in the morning, I'll be able to concentrate on writing code all day. With a few glasses of wine or a sleeping pill, I'll be able to unwind and relax after a day of hacking away at complex computer systems. Uppers and downers. Round and round. Highs and lows. This is the life that we should all lead, isn't it?

I'm staggeringly well paid for what I do. Why would I want a lower paid job? Why would I want to be on average Joe wages when I could earn five times as much doing the same job? Why would anybody deliberately impoverish themselves? However, my high-risk, high-reward strategy demands that I perform to the best of my abilities. Without substances, would I have been able to get my foot in the door and hang on to a highly sought-after job?

Thus, caffeine, alcohol, sleeping pills and tranquillisers circle like vultures. I need the effects of substances, in order to cope with the life that I'm built for - I've been in this career for over 20 years. How am I supposed to cope without the unhealthy coping tools that I used successfully... until I had a breakdown; a burnout.

What goes up must come down. The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long.

It's better to burn out than fade away.

Even music has become performance enhancing. I listen to high-tempo dance music - blasting away at 130 beats per minute - in order to focus my mind and put myself into a trancelike state where I can concentrate on software code for hours and hours. What must the effect be, to be in such an unnatural state for so long?

What must it be like to have a job that brings you into the unpredictable chaotic world of people and human interactions? What must it be like to have a job that's full of intrigue and unexpected surprises? What must it be like to never have to fight your constant existential crises and suppress all invasive musings about the absurdity of existence, because you're just a rat waiting for the next food pellet: when's the next order going to arrive; the next email; the next patient; the next customer?

As I do battle with boolean algebra every single day, there is no comforting wiggle-room of the humanities - computer says yes or computer says no; true or false. There are no shades of grey in my world - there's a right answer and a wrong answer. I sit in front of three screens and I try to figure out the right answer. I can go for weeks without speaking to another person. It fills me with terror sometimes, thinking that the ultimate arbiter of whether I've succeeded or failed is a cold, rational and unthinking machine. It's like playing chess against myself.

Some would say I'm a success story. Isn't the whole reason for paying attention at school and trying hard during your exams so that you can land a good job and get promoted into a position of seniority? Aren't we all trying to climb the greasy pole and get a big fat wage packet at the end of the working week? Aren't we all trying to compete and win? I won... didn't I?

I wouldn't be so churlish as to say "it's tough at the top" and of course, I'm laughably far from the top, but I'm sure there would be a plenty long queue of people who'd swap their salary for mine, so let's not be too hasty. It's worth considering just how destabilising my career choices have been to my mental health: feast & famine, boom & bust and the ever-present pressure to perform. Alcohol and caffeine are ubiquitous - as they are everywhere - but you haven't seen alcoholism in the workplace to quite the extent I have, unless you've also worked in the City of London in investment banking.

They say that banking greases the wheels of capitalism. Alcohol greases the wheels of banking.

The most successful strategy that I could play right now would be to have have two or three strong cappuccinos every day at work, and at least a bottle of wine every night. I'm sure my career and my bank balance would benefit handsomely from such a strategy.

I do worry about my mental health, but in this capitalist society, who has the time & money to stop and think about such a trifling thing? I'm reminded of this time last year, when I had to discharge myself from hospital against medical advice, to go chasing a banking IT contract. Money, money, money. Find an edge. Do whatever it takes!

You understand, it's not greed that drives me. This is the world we live in. We all need a competitive edge. I have no idea how to function in a world where I'm not compelled to use uppers and downers to help me perform. What do people even do without their morning coffee and their evening wine?

I earned well over a thousand pounds for two days sitting in front of a computer screen thinking "what the f**k am I doing?". I'm winning aren't I? This is what winning looks like, isn't it?

I'm winning... aren't I?

Before I know it, I've had more than the magic two pints and I can't hit a ball to save my life. I've gone beyond the sweet spot. I've had too much to drink and I'm just drunk. There's a fine line between performance enhancing, and substance abusing. I wake up one morning and all I've got is a habit. A stimulant habit. An alcohol habit.

We can all reach for substances to give us an edge, but you're playing a high-stakes game. The bigger you are the harder you fall.

It's almost impossible to change the habits of a lifetime. Of course I'm going to reach for substances when I'm struggling. Of course I'm going to return to the same boom and bust lifestyle that's served me so well, and also threatened to destroy me.

Roll the dice.

Tags: #career #banking #computing #alcohol #caffeine

This is a story about sequels...

Two years ago, I was experimenting with my blog. I thought it would be profound to write a public suicide note, record a video and go jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. I thought I would get sacked from my job and illustrate how the stress would push me into acts of extremism. I decided to sleep rough close to the skyscraper I had been working in. I thought I was going to starve myself for 25 days and spend Christmas Day in a tent. I thought I was going to kill myself by going on hunger strike.

For 25 days I wrote an advent calendar type series of blog posts. The whole thing was leading up to the punchline: boxing day. Really, what I was doing was building up to the revelation of the truth: that I'd had problems with addiction. It was a big admission. It took a lot of courage to be honest.

Why did it take me so long to acknowledge my problems with addiction?

Generally, addicts don't get a very favourable hearing. Addicts are amongst the most stigmatised people on the planet. If you're looking for a sympathetic non-judgemental ear, it's probably best if you don't mention any addiction problems you've had until somebody's got to know you.

So, people had to get to know me.

My friends, family and work colleagues knew me. Those people who've gotten to know me have seen that I'm an OK person. I'm not a monster.

But am I a monster?

It's surprising how little it takes for us to question everything we ever knew about a person. Sometimes, there's a revelation about a person that can completely shake our perceptions of them. Suddenly, it's as if a person we knew well is a stranger to us, and not just any stranger: a horrible nasty stranger who's going to rob us and kill our children and eat them. Everybody knows that addicts leave a trail of HIV-infected needles lying around everywhere they go, especially in areas where children play. Everybody knows that addicts enjoy nothing more than random acts of killing. Also, if you discover that somebody's had problems with addiction, you can pretty much forget everything you ever knew about them.

Hang on a second though.

How quickly can you completely re-evaluate an entire person and decide that they're a completely worthless hopeless junkie, who'd rob you without a moment's hesitation in order to score their next fix? How long does it take to write somebody off completely and dismiss everything you ever knew about them? Why are junkies just so damn easy to hate and what happened to the person you used to know?

While there are some very unfortunate people whose morals will be corrupted by their addiction, that's not the case for most addicts. Not every addict is a liar, a cheat, a thief and somebody who would recklessly endanger the lives of your precious children. Not every addict is flakey, unreliable, untrustworthy, unscrupulous and immoral. Not every addict is worthless, hopeless and doomed to forever seek and take drugs. Not every addict is a menace to society, and should be treated like a leper: shunned from work, friends, family and all the other things that give us a functional life. Not every addict should be marginalised and demonised.

Of course, I write with a vested interest. I don't want to be mistreated. I don't want the stigma attached to me.

So, why don't I share my stories of addiction anonymously? Why don't I join Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous and Cocaine Anonymous and Crystal Meth Anonymous, and while I'm at it Gambling Addicts Anonymous and Sex Addicts Anonymous? Why don't I keep quiet and just pretend like I'm normal? I don't even take drugs.

Nobody thinks that gambling addicts inject packs of cards, so why is it that when you think of me - an addict - you immediately imagine dirty needles? Where did the OK Nick that you used to know go? Why did you eject the pleasant memories you had of me, and replace them with an imagined version of me, where I was mugging grannies for their life savings?

It's necessary for me to concentrate on the prequel to my story, in order to receive a fair hearing. I need to explain that adverse childhood experiences, an abusive relationship, stress, burnout and mental health problems, all created a fertile environment in which to grow a substance abuse problem. I need to explain that my mood instability - bipolar - predisposed me to reckless sensation seeking, such as substance abuse. I need to explain that my motivation was self-medication, not getting high. I sought relief from symptoms, not enjoyment. I was trapped and I needed a way out. I chose the wrong one. I made a mistake.

We might take a quick glance at a situation and utter the words "why don't they just...?". Why don't they just what? Leave their abusive partner? Stop moping around and get out of bed? Stop taking drugs? Move somewhere else? Sort themselves out?

When you're secure and happy, everything looks pretty easy. All people have gotta do is get a house, a job, a sexual partner, friends, hobbies and interests, a loving family, a supportive environment, a healthy lifestyle, coping mechanisms, substantial financial resources and favourable socioeconomic conditions. That's it. That's all. Just get on and do it!

For some, remaining addicted is not about the ongoing want for drugs, it's actually slow suicide.

That last point is worth re-iterating. One of the reasons why some people won't stop taking drugs, is because they don't want to live anymore. They literally don't care if they die. I would say that most addicts are very well aware that their addictions are going to kill them, but they carry on anyway - they're committing suicide, slowly.

Looking at teens and twentysomethings who smoke, we might see that there's a general belief that "it'll never happen to me". In our youth, we tend to believe we're pretty indestructible. By that same token, we might assume that a drug addict believes that they'll be one of the lucky ones, who addiction will spare. I don't think that's the case.

As an addict, it quickly becomes apparent that control has been lost and you're on collision course with health problems and early death. Repeatedly, the addict will have extremely aversive experiences which scream loud and clear that the path of addiction is going to lead to death and destruction. Do you think every lecture about what an addict is doing to themselves falls on deaf ears?

Equally, do you think that addicts just don't care? Do they want to die?

Committing suicide - including addiction - is not about wanting to die. Suicide is driven by hopelessness and inescapable awful feelings. If life only has pain and misery to offer, why wouldn't a person choose early death? If building any kind of liveable tolerable life is an insurmountable task, what hope is there? Who'd want to spend the rest of their life miserable, depressed, anxious and in pain?

It's easy to say "keep putting one foot in front of the other" or "take things one day at a time" because you don't have to live through that misery. It's easy to ask somebody else to tolerate the intolerable, because it's not you who has to suffer: it's them. Eventually, a person can conclude that there aren't going to be any good days, or that the few pleasant times don't outweigh the multitudinous bad times. On balance, one might conclude, life's not worth living.

When you've made that decision that life's not worth living, it's pretty hard to find any reason to not have that next hit of drugs, even when the drugs are killing you.

I write to you today clean, sober and with no intention of obtaining and taking drugs.

However, I think it's highly likely that I will take drugs again, both recreationally and abusively. The number of protective factors - friends, family, work, money - have increased, but my life is still very badly broken. There are innumerable things that predispose me to relapsing onto drugs, and on the flip side there is a huge list of things I've got to fix or get in my life in order to have enough on the other side of the scales to balance things out. I look to the year ahead: what do I have look forward to other than hard work, living out of a suitcase, paying off debts and otherwise scrimping and saving? I'm sorry, but I'm not exactly thrilled by the prospect of living off sandwiches that I've made in a hotel room, spreading the mustard with a shoehorn.

But, perhaps also there's a desperate desire to self-sabotage because life was simpler as an addict. Even the synthetic cannabinoids have enough of an attractive intoxication for addicts to jettison the stress and strain of paying rent and bills, and having to hold down a job, in favour of homelessness. The bureaucratic burden of civilised society is wearisome and ridiculous. The form-filling and pointless makework of bullshit jobs is absurd. It's not just about the drugs - it's also about dropping out.

You'd think that dropping out would be a terrible thing. You'd think that the shame of the loss of status would be unbearable, but it's liberating. You know that you have to work hard to keep up your mortgage or rent payments. You live in constant fear of losing your job, which would quickly lead to eviction. When you become homeless, it's a relief - a thing you feared the most has happened, and it's not as bad as you thought it would be; somehow you manage to cope.

I'm averse to the idea of a miserable dead-end McJob. I'm averse to the idea of spending any more time stressed out of my mind, helping my boss get richer; helping my landlord get richer. I'm averse to the idea that the peanuts that most people get paid, in any way compensates them for giving up the prime years of their lives. I don't see that society is working well for most people. I see that stress, anxiety, depression and other mental health problems are rife. I see that suicide is the biggest killer of the group of people who are our most productive members of society. That's not fair.

So, I need to find a middle way. I need to find a way that's not suicide, not drug addiction, but it's not a miserable dead-end job either. I refuse to get a bullshit job that pays peanuts. I'd rather die.

At the moment, I'm clean from drugs and I'm working a very well paid job. I'm learning stuff. It's stressful, but it's not boring. I'm increasing my value - my employability - as well as doing a good job. It feels fair.

I'm starting 2018 at a considerable disadvantage. I'm deeply in debt. I don't have a girlfriend. I don't rent or own a home. Why bother?

It's been 6 months since I had an addiction. I'm clean. Why would I even write about addiction? I've won, haven't I?

In fact, addiction is always there: a dependable companion. Very little effort is involved in resuming an addiction. Addiction will always be everything you expected it to be. Addiction never disappoints. Conversely, a happy functional life with all the components necessary to make it work, is very very far out of reach; almost unattainable. You might think that because I'm only 6 months away from putting a lot of the pieces in place, that it'd be easy. 6 months is no time at all, right? In fact, 6 months without all the things you take for granted, might as well be a billion years. It's never going to happen. Try getting in a bath filled with ice cubes. Try holding your hand over a naked flame. What you perceive as quick and easy is not quick and easy when you're in pain.

My present situation might look infinitely preferable to my life as an addict, but it's not. Addiction could last me forever - until the day I die - but what I have today is only temporary; it's fake. I can't stay where I am forever. My contract will come to an end and I'll have to find another job. I'll need to rent or buy a place to live. I need to keep moving around: 3 and a half hours on the train, one-way, and moving from hotel to hotel, AirBnB to AirBnB... always moving on. I'm tired, even though it looks like I should be well rested. I'm stressed, even if it looks like things are going in the right direction.

Addiction's there as a one-stop-shop. Addiction means that I can stop pedalling so damn fast. Addiction means relief. Addiction means there's an end in sight. I'd be a liar if I didn't admit that when I'm alone with my thoughts, I don't immediately think that addiction is infinitely preferable to the mountainous task ahead, to merely build a mediocre life of disappointment and depression; boredom and bullshit.

Going cold turkey doesn't prove anything.

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

This is a story about losing my way...

I've kind of screwed everything up since my suicide attempt. Why did I tweet when I was really sick? Why did I piss my readers off by live-publishing the draft manuscript of my dreadful second novel? Why am I struggling to find my voice again, and reconnect with people?

It feels like there's a lot of pressure to write very profound and meaningful things, having cheated death. It feels like whatever I write should be a decent contribution to society. However, I'm missing the mark. I'm falling short of my own expectations. I feel like I'm letting everybody down.

I feel considerable embarrassment that my story does not have a nice linear progression. Why doesn't the tale read like a straightforward rags to riches fairytale? Why are there flies in the ointment? Why is there bad stuff in there, mixed in with what I dearly desired to be good? What's my message anyway? Where am I going with this?

Writing another novel took me down a peg or two. It was hard, and my arrogant belief that I'd be able to just sit down in front of the keyboard and crank out something decent, was a delusion that was shattered. I've had to face the very real conclusion that I've still got a long way to go if I want to produce anything decent. I'll need to pre-plan more. I can't just shoot from the hip and expect everything to go my way.

Writing these stream-of-consciousness blogs has become quite easy. If you do aspire to be a writer, writing needs to become a daily habit. I've developed the habit, but writing a journal, a diary or a stream-of-consciousness blog is probably the easiest option. Writing short stories is fun and not that hard. Dedicating even a mere 30 days to a single work of fiction, turned out to be very hard. I thought it would be easy, because my first novel came with little effort and I've managed to write this blog for two and a half years, but the construction of characters, plot, scenes... it's tough going when you get up to and beyond the 30,000 to 35,000 word point. It's not about the word count, of course. You have to write the right words, naturally. However, I can't understand why anybody would write the wrong ones. Just edit as you go.... except that's hard when you're doing creative writing.

I'm trying to recover my raw and uncensored voice. I'm trying to rediscover myself; my identity. I briefly thought I would own the moniker: novelist. I wrote "thinker" on my bio because I thought it would piss people off. Aren't we all thinkers? How dare I declare myself to be some kind of intellectual philosopher type chap. "Show me your certificate immediately!" people demanded. "Show me your credentials!" they screamed.

I'm backing down.

Although I hold a balanced set of opinions, have lived a varied life that's given me first-hand experience of almost every aspect of human society, and I can string a sentence together, I'm surely not entitled to write on whatever topic takes my whimsical fancy, and expect people to read it? Who the hell am I? What's my job title? What position of authority do I hold?

I think my readers are figuring out that I'm just a guy; just an ordinary person. These are not the words of a superstar celebrity CEO chairman chief lord god. These are merely words. Where are my citations? Why am I not quoting people you've heard of? Who the hell am I to hold my own reasonable opinions, and dare to express them as if I'm somebody of any import?

There isn't enough room in this world for the rich and famous, and the likes of us. Make room for the celebs. "SILENCE, PLEB!" scream those who are entitled to an opinion, because of their superior status.

It would be OK, but what the hell am I going on about anyway?

I feel like I missed my chance. The spotlight was on me briefly, but I choked. When I had the attention I craved, what did I do with it? I screwed up. I wasted my opportunity. When that chance came, I didn't have anything profound to say. It's time to shuffle red-faced back into the audience. It's time to shut up and let the stars of the show resume their performance, isn't it? Make room for the celebs!

I lost 2,000 Twitter followers in the weeks following my suicide attempt. I've lost 500 Twitter followers since getting a job. If I was cynical, I could argue that it's not very interesting to read about somebody who's succeeding; somebody who's safe and is probably going to be OK. Where's the drama? Where's the jeopardy? Where's the suspense? I'm not cynical though, so I take it personally: my message must be wrong. It must be something unlikeable about me. I must have changed. I failed to say anything profound and interesting when I was passed the microphone. I had my moment of fame and I've screwed it up. Next!

What frustrates me is that I know there is something profound to be found in my writing. I know that my story does contain an interesting and exceptional tale. I know that there's a message that can be teased out, and it might prove useful for other people who are going through hell. The odds were stacked against me - as they're stacked against so many - but what's different about me that's allowed me to pull through? Why am I alive when so many others would have died? I certainly don't want to piss anybody off by smugly declaring myself a success story - it's a different message from that... it's about what lessons can be learned, even if that's not an original thought or idea at all.

I've had to sit and listen to cult-leader type characters, while they talked about their spiritual awakenings in sweat lodges or in South American jungles, intoxicated with ayahuasca. I've had to listen to endless amounts of people who've wanted to share their stories of recovery. Nobody who's listened has been able to emulate them though. It's all well and good going on about your own success in recovery, but it's not helping anybody, is it?

There are a lot of very desperate people out there. My website is visited by the suicidal, alcoholics and drug addicts. There are millions of people out there who are looking for solutions to their problems. There's a temptation for me to start writing as if I've got the answers. I know that there's an eager audience for any kind of self-help material. I know that it would be incredibly popular, if I was to start writing a prescriptive guide for how to cure yourself of your depression, anxiety, drug and alcohol abuse. I know that people are desperate and they haven't found anything that works.

Nobody's a done deal. Nobody is a finished article. It would be dishonest and misleading for anybody to write as if they've got the answers; they've found the cure.

During my treatment for mental health problems and addiction, I discovered a world of non-judgemental people, and people who will listen to your story. Your story is interesting. You deserve the chance to recover - every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. It seems as if there's a monopoly on storytelling - only the celebs get to tell their stories, and the rest of us should silently cower in a dark corner, filled with shame and regret; convinced that we're worthless sinners; eternally damned. I wouldn't be surprised if we discover that the secret to recovery is to allow people to recover, by allowing them to no longer feel as if they must pay a lifelong price for their shortcomings; by allowing people to revel in their own identities and their actions, rather than apologising and thinking of themselves as useless and flawed.

You may notice that there's rather a different code of morality applied to celebrities, than is applied to the general populace. You will see a great outpouring of sympathy for celebrities who are affected by mental health, alcohol and drug addiction issues. You will see that celebrities are celebrated for their faults - it makes them more relatable. However, the ordinary likes of you and me will become black sheep - scapegoats for the ills of society - if we stumble and err. Nobody's going to forgive our sins because we're not celebrities. Nobody wants to hear your story.

However, you should write like you're already famous. You should own your story. You should tell your story, because nobody else is going to tell it correctly. Nobody but you should own your identity. You decide who you are; you decide how your story gets told.

I'm having a wobble. Why are people disengaging? Why are fewer people connecting with me and my story? Why am I losing Twitter followers? Why do all my graphs trend downwards?

I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know where the hell I'm going with this. If I was going to be a writer, why am I not punting my novel manuscripts to every literary agent I can find? If I was going to be a writer, why am I not relentlessly pursuing a writing job? If I was going to be a writer, why am I not promoting myself through every avenue? It must be clear to my audience that I'm confused; directionless.

Often times when we're consuming content on the internet, we wonder what the commercial angle is. All those lovely webcomics that you read have usually got associated merchandise - T-shirts, coffee mugs etc. - and all those silly Buzzfeed lists that you love, are paid for by the advertising that's plastered all over the website. The deal you've struck is pretty clear - your eyeballs are being traded. However, what's my angle? What do I want from you?

I guess I need attention to feel valued; worthwhile as a human being. Without an audience; with nobody listening, who the hell am I? Who really cares whether I live or die?

My social media success is inversely proportional to my real-world connections. As I've made new friends, reconnected with old ones and impressed my new work colleagues, my social media identity has suffered. As my health, wealth and prospects have improved, my digital footprint has declined. I suppose I should be happy, but this blog and my Twitter followers provide me with a comforting safety net. If all else fails, this blog is something that would be hard to take away from me. This website - and my writing - is something that's inexpensive and provides stability; support; self-esteem. I suppose I could dismiss my virtual life as unimportant, and concentrate on real face-to-face human relationships, but I'm loathe to do that when I'm fragile; delicate. Why would I cut off one of my biggest sources of security?

A blogger friend has recently completed a year of sobriety, got herself a regular spot as a guest blogger and now has a boyfriend. Writing has been staggeringly successful for her, as a healthy coping mechanism. Blogging has been her constant companion, and she's proud of what she's produced. She's buzzing with the excitement of getting noticed. She's thrilled that she's achieved so much.

I remember when I started writing this blog, I suffered the usual thing that most bloggers do, which is to believe that I was writing amazing stuff that needed to be shared. I was a blogospammer. I would share my content as far and wide as I could. I exhausted every avenue, trying to get exposure. I wanted readers, like a junkie wants drugs. I obsessed over my stats; my metrics. I quickly came to believe that I was a serious writer, and that I'd produced a significant contribution to the literature.

Now, I beaver away in relative obscurity. I put very little effort into self-promotion. I cringe a little when I think about how I spammed every social media site I could, trying to get readers. Now, I'm passive - read if you want to... you know where to find me.

I'm still a bit hooked on my stats though. It upsets me when I have fewer readers this week than last week; fewer followers.

I imagine that I'm going through an important developmental phase though. To write every day for a year is necessary to develop the writing habit. To write for a second year is to prove that the first wasn't just a fluke. To write for a third year is to discover why you're really writing. What is it that I'm getting out of this? Where am I going with this?

It's incredible that there are some people who've read everything I've written here. I've written 770,000 words, which is the same amount as in the King James Bible, more or less - it's my next milestone, to have written as much as is in the Bible. Then, I want to write a million words, just because it's a cool number. How cool would that be, to say you've written a million words?

So, I don't really know what I'm writing about. I don't really know why I want followers; readers. I don't really know what I've got to say that's profound and interesting and useful and entertaining and moving and helpful and original and all the other things that I vainly want my writing to be. Why am I doing this? I don't know yet.

I imagine that people reach the end of these sometimes lengthy brain-dumps, and they think "that's 10 minutes of my life I just wasted". What knowledge have I imparted? How have I improved anybody's life?

I am going to find out where this is going. There is a purpose, I promise. I just don't know what it is yet.

Tags: #writing #socialmedia

This is a story about value...

You think this is money, don't you? You think this paper with numbers written on it has some value, don't you? You want more of it. You think that you can earn it by working, don't you? You hoard it. You protect it. You think it's money.

This is not money.

It's a rounding error.

Did you hear about that programmer who worked for a bank, who took all the little bits of money that just disappeared and collected them all? When a bank pays 1% interest on your savings and you've got £1.50 in your account, what happens to the half a penny that you're owed? It just disappears, of course. It's a rounding error.

Banks deal with quadrillions of dollars every year. A quadrillion is a thousand trillion, which is a million billion, or a thousand million million. You can write a quadrillion like this: 1,000,000,000,000,000. It doesn't mean very much, but put it this way... a quadrillion dollars divided up between every man, woman and child on the planet, works out to be about $143,000. Do you have $143,000?

All of the cash in existence - the banknotes and coins - adds up to about $7 trillion. $7 trillion is 0.7% of a quadrillion dollars. Imagine that. While banks are dealing with quadrillions, all of the banknotes and coins in circulation in the whole world add up to less than 1% of all the 'money'. Can you see now how worthless and ridiculous those banknotes in your purse or wallet are?

I imagine you played some board games when you were a kid, and one of the ways that you could see who was 'winning' was to see who had the most fake banknotes. The board game Monopoly famously has brightly coloured banknotes of different denominations. Perhaps you played Monopoly as a child, and this introduced you to the idea that the better players of a game would accrue more banknotes, and therefore win the game. Life's a bit different.

Unlike Monopoly, when we start life, we all start with different amounts of money. Whether you start life in a desperately poor family, in a desperately poor part of the world, or whether you're born into a fabulously wealthy family in a super rich country, is not something which we can influence ourselves. However, we have a reasonable idea what kind of life any prospective offspring might be born into, before we choose to get pregnant and deliver any babies into the world.

"I haven't got any money but I really want to inflict misery on unborn infants" I hear you cry. Have you thought about just saying "fuck it" and having children anyway? Have you thought about pursuing your own selfish wants in the face of overwhelming evidence that you're a fucking idiot?

"But I want children because it'll make me feel good. It's mainly about me, you see. Fuck the fact the child's going to be miserable"

Yes, yes. You and slime mold both want to reproduce. Very good. Anyway, moving swiftly onwards.

"No. Wait. What about the fact that I could give birth to the next Einstein or Mozart?"

You really are a prize idiot, aren't you? Let's examine the Monopoly game again.

In Monopoly, all the players are given the same amount of money at the start of the game, and all the players are subject to the same rules throughout the game.

"Yes, so a player with more skill will beat a less skilful player. I'm going to give birth to a genius whose brilliance will conquer the day and they'll be elevated from poverty because they're so amazing"

Oh dear.

See what you've failed to understand is that life is not like Monopoly. The players in life sit down with different amounts of money, and those who have vast amounts of money use it to bribe and bully their way through the game. Speeding fine? No worries, just bribe somebody off. Sent to jail? No worries, just bribe your way out. Run out of money and can't afford to buy that property you just landed on? Never going to happen. In fact, some people have so much money that they can sit down at the playing table with weighted dice that roll sixes every time, and exemption from any rule that's not in their favour. Are the rich really playing the same game at all? Let's look at education, as an example.

We might imagine that with standardised testing, the rich and the poor are playing the same game, and the 'brightest' children are achieving their grades on merit. You'd be wrong.

If you think that preparatory schools, private tutoring and private schools are merely unlocking the hidden talent of a child, you're delusional. If exam grades are an intelligence quotient to measure the intellectual ability of a person, then why would vast sums of money be spent on education by the wealthy? Why is there a perfect correlation between the amount of money poured into a child's education, and their highest academic achievement? If you really believed you were having your kid because you thought they could be the next Einstein, you wouldn't have tried to queer the pitch, would you? You wouldn't have tried to rig the game.

The cash in your pocket bears as much relation to the hard work you've done, as your exam grades relate to your intellect. Those who are richer and have superior qualifications are simply better at cheating.

They tell us: don't have a childhood, because it's important to get good grades and don't have an adulthood, because it's important to work hard and save money. These are two of the most ridiculous follies of our modern times. The problem started when your parents selfishly decided to launch you into a life with no prospects.

"But my little darlings can be anything they want to be. They can follow their dreams"

No they fucking can't. Unless, of course, their dream is to work in a shitty office punching made-up numbers into a spreadsheet, in order to give all their wages to an unscrupulous landlord and sink deeper into debt, having already stressed themselves out to the point of nervous breakdown and run up huge amounts of debt just to obtain the worthless diploma that allowed your little darling to get their bullshit job in the first place. Unless your little darlings dream of having no financial or housing security, living on a polluted dying planet, contemplating their own mortality, the absurdity of existence and the immorality of perpetuating the cycle of misery, then no... no they can't follow their fucking dreams.

We might say that we could re-adjust our values so that money isn't important, but I'm pretty sure that most of us still want a roof over our heads and food in our bellies. You have to pay to play, and I'm afraid that art, poetry, music, acting and suchlike just won't allow for any following of dreams, while being able to pay rent and buy food.

The only ones amongst us who stand a chance of winning the game, are those who start with an unfair advantage. For anybody who cares to examine the mythology of the "man who started with nothing" and built themselves a business empire, or whatever trite bullshit you care to trot out as some kind of response to the bleak prospects, you'll find that those stories are utter horse-shit. Nobody gets anywhere without somebody underwriting their risk. Nobody gets anywhere without investment.

We only need to look at the lottery to understand that people's psychology is flawed. It might be you. It could be you. But, in all probability it's not going to be. Yes, people have won the lottery. What the fuck does that prove? Yes, somebody, somewhere at some time or other won the lottery. SO FUCKING WHAT? THAT'S NO FUCKING REASON TO HAVE KIDS. Just because a handful of people win the lottery every year, that doesn't mean that the system of wealth distribution isn't broken.

So, what about all this wealth distribution malarkey then?

Well, I imagine you think that hard work pays off, don't you? If you work hard, then you'll get money. No. No not at all.

If ever there was a case of inverse correlation, then it would be with wealth distribution versus hard work in a capitalist society. Those who already have wealth will accrue more, without a single day's work. Vastly more. Think about all the ways to earn money without labour: money lending, loan sharking, gambling, investment, interest, capital gain, rent, extortion, receipt of bribes, pimping, human trafficking, war, robbery, fraud and slavery. If you think you don't profit from those things, ask yourself what part you played in the building of your house and the growing of your food. Even if you built your house, the chances are that the slates on your roof were quarried in China. Where did the bricks come from? The cement? The plasterboard?

As you sit at home counting your money and thinking of yourself as virtuous for saving a few pennies here and there, one should be mindful that this is insanity. The money bears no relation to any supposed talent, intellect or hard work that you've put into life. Those banknotes are not a useful way of keeping 'score' to see if you're 'winning' because the game is rigged. How can you usefully use your pocket change as any kind of measure of wealth that's stored away, when it's quite meaningless. Is there any scarcity? No. The mint can simply print more money, and they do.

It might be easy to scoff at this essay, given your irrational attachment to received wisdom. There's also a certain smugness when you feel like you're winning the game, but you're not - get things in perspective. It might seem like I have little respect for money, and the difficulty with which people obtain and keep it, but in fact the opposite is true. I feel very sorry for those who toil and stress over money, when the very largest sums are obtained without effort for a tranche of society who have never known poverty. To criticise me for being disrespectful towards money is ridiculous, when wealth bears so little relation to anybody's efforts or the wisdom of their choices.

This is, perhaps, one of the most provocative topics that I could write upon, dealing both with the sad truth that wealth does not flow to those who deserve it, and the unpleasant but patently obvious fact that it's immoral to have children when unable to provide a good future for them; prospects. It's immoral to have children when we live on an overcrowded planet; it's immoral to have children when we can't look after the ones we've got. Are you no different from slime mold?

For the avoidance of any doubt, my tirade is directed at no one in particular. My attack is on existence and its absurdity, capitalism, banking and the unfairness of life. If you've felt something, then that might be your conscience, not a personal attack, I promise.

Tags: #parents #capitalism

This is a story about routine...

I used to write every day. Where did I go wrong?

It's been costly, not writing every day. I write because it allows me to keep more people informed about my fragile mental health, than would otherwise be possible through all conventional communication mechanisms. The phone is the worst: being tied up talking to just one person, and having to listen to what they had for lunch, just out of social etiquette. Email is not at all a good one for me: I tend to segue into angry rants about matters which I'm deeply unhappy about, but have managed to repress emotional wounds for the sake of everyday functioning. Texts/instant-messaging/direct-messages: these are so throwaway and only useful when both conversation participants are actively involved... do you know any greater frustration than seeing that your message has been read, but no response is forthcoming?

There are three things that are driving considerable self-censoring. 1) I live with friends who I love dearly, and it would not be acceptable for me to talk about that private life. 2) I'm working again and a friend helped me get the job - I can't risk losing the cash or letting my friend down. 3) I tried to write a 50,000 word novel in a month, while publishing the draft manuscript live... I haven't recovered from the exertion of the demanding feat yet.

On the subject of the novel, it was of considerable embarrassment to me to have failed. A mere 42,000 words in 30 days. Also, a sex scene crept into the first chapter and then the whole thing went totally berserk. Having told the world that I was going to write another novel in November, I had put considerable pressure on myself. It seems apt that I would have confused the homophones taut and taught, in the very first sentence - if ever there was to be a lesson in overhyping, I learned the hard way that it's so easy to turn your audience off. Those subtle mistakes that get picked up in the edit are glaring errors when somebody reads your quick-fire draft. One slip-up and your readers can decide that you're an illiterate idiot and move on.

Why didn't I write every day? When writing my blog, there have been considerable advantages to writing every day. A gap in my otherwise daily writing habit has tended to indicate periods when my life has become unmanageable. Writing daily has served usefully as a kind of 'heartbeat' for anybody to know whether I'm alive or dead. The gaps during my latest novel writing escapade were only due to genuine writer's block - I hadn't preplanned my novel carefully enough, and I was overwhelmed with the task ahead of me on the days I didn't write... there was no dreadful crisis that had consumed me.

Why haven't I resumed my daily writing routine? Well, the obvious answer is that I've been zooming all over the globe with a new job; life's been pretty stressful and disrupted. Also, I disturbed my shoot-from-the-hip stream of consciousness; I disrupted my natural habit of sitting down in front of a blank sheet of paper and pouring out all my thoughts and feelings on whatever eclectic topic I happened to feel most compelled to write about at the time. In short: I got into the habit of hesitating.

I have some of the old habits. I still make notes about things I want to write about in more detail, when circumstances allow. I still wake up and immediately think about what I'm going to write. However, between work and travel and speaking to my friends, I'm not finding the time to stop and pour my heart and soul into these little snapshots of my state of mind.

If I had written every day, I think you would have seen how circular my thinking patterns are at the moment. My thoughts revolve around the paradox of me working, which brings money, but that I'm also running out of money, which brings stress - working will fix the financial problems, but it also causes them, as well as being incompatible with good mental health. It's intractable.

A lot of what I want to write about is in response to banal criticism. However, my critics are so repetitive and their points so invalid that I've started and then erased a whole series of blogs which would have added nothing to the literature. Who really wants to read about homeless people who have tried and failed to elevate themselves from poverty by economising? What is there to learn from those who have unsuccessfully failed to tighten their belts? Why would we imitate failures, when we are trying to succeed?

I write to you now, having polished off a bottle of wine and completed a boring day in the office. It seems impossible to separate one habit from the other. My day job is immensely lucrative, but its soul-destroying nature seems to bring an insatiable appetite for intoxication: how else am I supposed to make sense of the absurdity of the incredibly well remunerated work that seems to improve precisely nobody's life.

My daily habits include sleeping tablets and an anti-anxiety medication which I became hooked upon because of damage to the nerves in my left leg. My daily habits include a dressing-up game where I go to the office wearing a fancy suit and with a poker face that does not betray the contempt I hold for banking and IT. My daily habit is to question the absurdity of existence, from the moment of waking to the moment I lose consciousness.

It upsets me that I've gotten out of the routine of writing every day. It upsets me that I had a hit-and-miss month where I was writing fiction of dubious quality. It upsets me that I have disrupted the relationship which I had with my readers, where I had become part of their daily routine - "I wonder what Nick's doing today". Every time I've turned my back on my blog, it's been a mistake.

If this is an addiction - writing - then it's a healthy one. There's no doubt that writing every day is a good habit, where supercrack is a bad one. [NOTE: you can't take supercrack every day, because you start to get psychotic after about 10 days without sleep]

The story of a man who puts on a grey suit and goes to an office every day is not an exciting one. Where are the pulse-racing tales of police chases, addiction, homelessness, destitution, destruction, psych wards, madness and otherwise going bat-shit insane? Of course, my mind inundates me with imagery of all the most inappropriate things I could do; all the most ridiculously unacceptable things play on a show-reel in my mind, and it sometimes takes concerted effort to not act on my self-sabotaging impulses.

To write today has caused me to override my instinct to bury my blog, as I thought I was going to do earlier this year when I had an employment contract. In fact, it was a mistake to hold back. To own my identity is the most important thing I've ever done. Not writing so much made it easier for me to be exploited - I had deliberately held back, believing it was the responsible thing to do, but I was mercilessly taken advantage of.

My parting thought is one about the effort required to create versus the effort required to consume. While it may take you but a few short minutes to hoover up the words on this page, you should consider that it might have taken me some hours to craft them - there's a considerable disparity. While we live in a society where art seems to be in no short supply, that does not mean that art is worthless. Although I've been driven to a point where it's been impossible to avoid expressing myself, that does not mean that these words are cheap. In fact, I've earned the right to pursue my creative endeavours. I delayed gratification; I waited.

So, I'm considering re-addicting myself to writing. I'm considering a resumption of my daily writing habit.

Tags: #writing

This is a story about time...

It was Saturday the 9th. I was behind that door, dying. I assumed that nobody knew where I lived. I assumed nobody cared. I was wrong.

I'm still pretty unclear how exactly the emergency services got to me so quickly.

The thing about activated charcoal and gastric lavage is that they only work during the first hour or so of an overdose. I knew this, so I'd set a timer on my phone to stop myself from being tempted to send any "goodbye cruel world" type messages, which could have triggered efforts to save my life before I reached the point of no return.

Saturday nights are pretty hectic for the emergency services. I'm surprised they got to me so quickly. I'm surprised they got me to hospital so swiftly. If they hadn't I wouldn't be writing this.

Maybe social media is addictive, it "isn't real life" and it's causing the collapse of normal healthy face-to-face relationships, but I'm pretty sure I'd have sunk without a trace if it wasn't for my digital connection to the world. It was kinda inevitable that the author of "the world's longest suicide note" was going to do the deed at some point. My suicide attempt wasn't a cry for help; it wasn't attention-seeking. I don't believe that my suicide attempt was avoidable either - circumstances were too hostile to allow my mental health to improve.

Back on that Saturday the 9th - and today - I found myself in a strange city, far from friends and family. I was isolated and alone. Stress, anxiety and depression all conspired to make life feel totally unliveable.

Tonight, I'm in a hotel room near an airport 1,200 miles from home. Language and cultural differences make it additionally obvious that I'm out of place here. I'm doing a rewarding but stressful job. My mental health has been pretty bad. There are lots of similar features to that previous Saturday the 9th. However, there's unlikely to be a "straw that broke the camel's back" type trigger tonight.

I'm mindful that I wrote a blog post called The Closest I've Come to Suicide back on Saturday 9th September, merely hours before I actually tried to kill myself. Things can change. I'm a little superstitious and unwilling to tempt fate... I don't want to jinx anything.

I sometimes feel like I'm trolling my friends - giving them a lot of stress and worry about me. I sometimes feel like it's bad behaviour, to talk about my suicidal feelings. What's the alternative though? Should I just bottle it all up and leave everybody wondering what the fuck happened to me and wondering if there was anything they could have done to help, once I'm dead?

Having written this provocative blog for over two years, I hear from a lot of people who've lost loved ones to suicide. The impact on those who lose a relative or a friend is devastating. People are left wondering "what could I have done differently?" and beat themselves up about it.

There are quite a few well-worn platitudes that are trotted out whenever a suicidal person is brave enough to share how they're feeling. Generally, the suicidal person is guilt-tripped into thinking about the consequences of their suicide. I imagine this is the reason why more people don't speak up when they're feeling suicidal, because the presumption is that they're selfish, cowardly and don't care about the pain they're going to cause for other people. These accusations are unhelpful and untrue - suicidal people know that they're going to cause pain and suffering, but life is so horrible for them that it's not enough to keep them alive. Guilting people is not the way to keep them alive.

I sometimes wonder if there's a difference between me and those who've succeeded in killing themselves. I'm afraid that it's pure blind luck. Even with 20,000 Twitter followers, I'm still subject to the same human physiology as anybody else - the massive overdose I took should have been fatal. You can have all the fame and wealth in the world, but you're just as mortal as the next man or woman.

I talk about the inevitability of my suicide attempt, and the worry that I'm trolling my friends. In a way, I'm embarrassed to have survived, because it makes it look like it was some half-arsed botched attempt where I didn't really want to die anyway. I'm embarrassed that I put my friends through the horror of thinking I might've succeeded, but I also know that I told hospital staff not to resuscitate me - I refused treatment, because I wanted to die. I can say with my hand on my heart, that I wasn't trolling anybody. It wasn't a cry for help. It wasn't attention seeking or a publicity stunt. My suicide attempt was premeditated and my method was extensively researched in preparation.

So what about all those deaths from suicide? Suicide kills more men under the age of 45 than cancer and other diseases, road traffic accidents, drugs, alcohol and everything else. Suicide is the biggest killer of them all. What is it about suicide?

Well, there are a lot of greedy, selfish, horrible men in the world, who just want to get rich at any cost - they don't care who they trample on. I emerged from hospital to find out that the wannabe Labour MP who I was working for, was sacking me for not turning up at work for a couple of days - it should be noted that those two days I was in a coma on an intensive care ward, with a machine breathing for me. This wannabe politician was completely unconcerned with the fact that I'd nearly died. This guy professes to be a Labour politician, no less - in theory, his values are all about protecting workers from unscrupulous bosses. What a liar. What an awful, awful person.

The world is a desperately competitive place. People will commit suicide because of pressure to attain good exam grades, to get ahead in their careers and generally because life relentlessly batters us with horrible uncertainty about financial and housing security. Of course people are going to commit suicide when life's so stressful. I attempted suicide and immediately lost my job and my apartment - isn't that awful? If that's what a wannabe Labour MP is prepared to do to a fellow human being, the problems in society clearly come right from the top. If our politicians are arseholes who don't value human life, of course we're going to see vast numbers of people committing suicide.

What happened after my suicide attempt is that things got worse. Things got a lot worse.

Then things got a bit better.

Friends who I haven't spoken to in years got in contact.

I made new friends. I got a new place to live. I got a new job.

Writing this blog has caused me to lose my job and my home, and has made me an easy target for discrimination. Writing this blog leaves me exposed to cyber-stalkers who want to find out what my weaknesses are, and exploit me. Writing this blog leaves me open to criticism from those who say that my message about suicide, mental health and homelessness is contrived - that I somehow pre-planned everything that happened to me, and that my opinion is therefore invalid; that my story is unrepresentative.

If you prick me, do I not bleed? Do I not feel lonely like other people? Do I not find the burden of debt and financial worries to be unbearable? Do I not need a roof over my head?

My blog begins two years ago, with me living in a hotel and working for a bank. That's exactly the situation I find myself in today. Was it necessary to have been hospitalised three times? Was it necessary to have become homeless? Was it necessary to nearly be bankrupted? Was it necessary to lose my job? All of the hardship I've been through might look avoidable, to a casual observer. A BBC journalist even accused me of having planned the whole thing.

I genuinely believe that if I hadn't lived my life in the public eye, I wouldn't be alive to tell the tale. Of course, some concerned friends saw my final Tweets on that Saturday night - the 9th - and they raised the alarm along with a bunch of other followers. Somehow, the emergency services were swiftly delivered to my door. A friend told me that my phone had been traced, but that's improbable, given that I lived in a dense urban area - signal triangulation is highly unlikely to have been accurate enough. It's a bit of a mystery, who gave the emergency services my address in time for them to save me.

I've written about a lot of this before, so I'm aware that I'm repeating myself, but it seems apt because it's Saturday the 9th. So much has happened in the intervening time, including a 3-week stay on a psych ward and me emigrating from England to Wales. So much has happened, in terms of having space and time to digest the traumatic events and trying to figure out what I'm living for. So much has happened, in terms of friends who've been kind enough to get back in contact and even offer practical help. So much has happened, with new friends and a new home, and healthy human relationships.

I'm still stressed and single and broke. My job is 1,200 miles from home. There is still a whole load of shit to go through before I have everything I need for a liveable life. You might be screaming "OTHER PEOPLE HAVE IT SO MUCH HARDER THAN YOU" at the top of your lungs, but fuck you. As my guardian angel once said: there's only one person on the whole planet who has it harder than anybody else. Are they the only person in the whole wide entire world who's allowed to feel depressed, stressed and anxious? If the "think about the starving African children" platitude had any value, we could just blast that message through megaphones and all depression and suicide would be cured overnight.

If you think I'm self-centred, self-pitying, selfish, self-absorbed or any other criticism you want to level at me, then perhaps it's you who completely lacks any empathy. Do you not care that suicide is the biggest killer of men under 45? Do you not care about this very real problem, that's only getting worse and worse? Do you not care about the epidemic of mental health issues?

I will vociferously defend my decision to blog about my mental health problems and suicide attempt(s) because I believe that my social media presence has been a major reason why my life hasn't been claimed by suicide. For sure, there have been lots of high-profile suicides. Fame and notoriety are not protective factors. However, in the face of a mental health epidemic, it's clear that pressure, guilt, shame and stigma are not working in anybody's favour. It's only through an honest and candid examination of how we're really feeling, that we might be able to save those who are on the brink of killing themselves, in the nick of time.

I think that even my harshest critic would be hard-pressed to deny that my navel-gazing suicide note blog played a major part in saving my life. Without my blog, how would I have made a new friend who offered to let me live with her and her family? How would I have reconnected with an old friend who helped me get another job? How would I have coped, through homelessness, hospitalisation and without any money? My blog is the consistent thread throughout all the traumatic experiences of the last few years.

It might sound like I'm giving my blog credit, when really credit belongs to those who took practical steps to help me - those who phoned the emergency services, those who phoned me when I was in hospital, those who helped re-house me and those friends who have made a concerted effort to re-enter my life. Of course, I'm incredibly grateful to those who've gone to great lengths to assist me, to reassure me that I am loved and that my life does matter.

There's a lot of pressure now to sort myself out. I have a pretty good opportunity to get back on my feet. I have support. I often wonder if it's time to change the name of my blog from "the world's longest suicide note" to something else. However, it was back on Saturday the 9th that I wrote about how close I was to suicide, before then being tipped over the edge later that same day. If I'm reluctant to declare myself safe, then tough titties - I know how fragile things are, so it would be foolish to prematurely take myself off the endangered species list.

Perhaps you - dear reader - feel a little led-on by the whole thing. Perhaps you feel a little cheated that I didn't die. Who knows. All I know is that it doesn't feel like it was very long ago that I was dying on Saturday the 9th.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about the generation who want to die...

So you mean to say that I've inherited a dying body on a dying planet, over-populated by dying coffin-dodgers who are squatting in all the big houses and hoarding all the money? So you mean to say that all those times I didn't get to eat jelly and ice-cream; all those times when I had to stop playing with my toys and go to bed even though I wasn't tired; all those times I couldn't see my friends because I was being dragged around the place by grown-ups... you mean there's no payoff for all of that?

What's so infantile about acting like a spoiled child? What can we learn from children?

It strikes me that even though we went to school and ate our vegetables and had lots of tears and tantrums as children, everything went to Hell in a handcart anyway. When the survivors of the nuclear apocalypse crawl out from under the rubble, aren't they going to wish that their kids weren't raised by strangers in institutions? Aren't you going to wish that you didn't act more childishly when we're all going to die anyway?

How precisely has all of our discipline and self-denial benefitted us? Half the planet lives in dire poverty; those in the middle live in conflict zones, afflicted by war and refugee crises; the top couple of per cent have wealth, technology and education, which they use to write angst-filled books, share suicide memes and otherwise complain about the agony of existence.

Even tiny tots get given homework. Exhausted looking parents complete after-school projects for their kids, the night before the deadline. Extracurricular activities demand every spare second of time - every waking hour of the day is seen as an educational opportunity.

Pinching our noses and shovelling in disgusting-tasting food, because it's good for us, is something that we have become habituated into doing as adults. What can children tell us about the madness afflicting the planet? Why do I want to be healthy and live a long miserable life?

"Are you smarter than a five-year-old?" is the title of a gameshow. A chess grandmaster is not smart per se - they are probably a thoroughly impractical person if they've dedicated so much of their life to playing a board game. Better chess players are simply better at spotting patterns they've seen before, as opposed to brute-force reasoning - to become good at chess requires a lot of experience. To be an adult is simply to have gained more experience of how to play the game of life - I often think that children are the smarter ones.

Stood in the supermarket today, I wondered why I didn't just take a doughnut off the shelf and eat it; I wondered why I didn't lie on the floor and kick and scream that I wanted something until it was brought to me; I wondered why I was walking when I could be carried or wheeled around in a trolley or pushchair; I wondered, in fact, why I would adhere to any of society's expectations at all - none of us are getting out of this alive, so why shouldn't we put down our tools and just run around like a bunch of kids?

Of course, when we get cold and hungry, we're immensely grateful to have a fire and some food, but those things don't require me to sit in a classroom, lecture theatre or an office. I don't need to wear a suit and take a crowded commuter train to put food on the table and keep my house warm - the work of the service industries is not farming, fishing, producing energy or building homes. I wonder if our advanced society should feel as smug as it does, given the vast numbers of us who are stressed, anxious and depressed. When our bright, energetic and enthusiastic young people are faced with such grim prospects, have we led them astray?

For those "I'm alright, Jack" few, who are content to mortgage their grandchildren for the sake of their desire to be idle in opulent luxury, they will mock socialist movements as immature and naïve. Conceited media commentators deride supporters of the Labour party & left-wing as being mainly students and bleeding-heart liberals.

Literature is littered with examples of the youth being to blame for everything. Parents are afraid of their own children. It seems acceptable to laugh at the angst-ridden teenagers, as if us adults have got things all figured out. It seems OK that millennials won't get to buy a house and have a job that pays enough for them to raise a family, because they've got smartphones and social media - as if that's some kind of fair trade.

I find myself somewhat sandwiched in-between a generation who feel entitled to do nothing, as their reward for fucking up the whole world, and a generation who get no reward for giving up their childhood, despite eating their vegetables and doing their homework. Why?

For every 'good' reason I can come up with for why it's better to act in an adult way, I have to admit that I can fully empathise with the childish stance. Furthermore I can see that inside even the most po-faced and responsible adult, there's still a part of them that would like to have a big tantrum and not do any of their chores. Under the veneer of maturity, we are still children. It struck me that the only difference between me and a child is that I look like a grown-up, and my play-acting has gotten a lot better - I can keep a straight face.

If we're not careful, then childish ideas will take hold. The us-versus-them mentality that has brought Donald Trump to power and threatens the unity of Europe, is lifted straight from the playground. If we wish to be po-faced about the behaviour of children, shouldn't we discipline ourselves first? What kind of world have we created for our children to inherit, that makes us so damn smart and justifies feeling so smug with ourselves?

Personally, I'm turning to children to remind me not to be so dazzled by the brilliance of my own mind. Whatever I've read; whatever I've learned - it's clearly becoming less & less relevant in the modern world. There were 4.3 billion people crawling around like ants on the planet, when I was born, and now there are 7.6 billion humans alive today. In a little over a decade, there will be twice as many people competing for the same scarce resources, than when I started my life. What relevance do attitudes of the 1970s - when I was conceived - have in the 2020s and beyond? What could I possibly tell a young person about the world, when it's changed so much in my lifetime?

The old strategy of studying at school, working hard and complying with the rules of the game, seems deeply flawed when we're telling people that no matter how hard they work they won't get a job, get a house and be able to afford the things that seem like a human right: to be able to raise a family of our own. Are we supposed to be happy that at the end of it all, we will be living with our parents, like overgrown adult-sized children? Why not just remain infantile and childish for life?

Although I can see that to spawn my own progeny might change my attitude, I also see that I might begin to impose my own "I know best" attitude onto my children, which perpetuates the cycle. While I do occasionally cringe when I look at myself, talking like an angst-ridden adolescent, I would prefer to be accused of immaturity than associate myself with the sneering po-faced group who got us into this mess - those who refuse to accept that society and civilisation is crumbling all around us; refuse to acknowledge the untold human misery.

To critique parents has become rather boring, so instead, I write this essay in support of anybody who wants to have a tantrum, eat crisps & chocolate instead of vegetables, bunk off school/work and otherwise run around having fun instead of living a life of intolerable suffering.

Tags: #childhood #parents

This is a story about life on the farm...

Yesterday, I was too depressed to get out of bed. Being awake was horrible - I tried to doze for as long as I could. I was irrationally afraid of having to get up for some reason; on edge that there might come a knock at the door. My friends make me feel incredibly welcome, and I would always have somebody to talk to if I was feeling lonely and desperate, but I also feel like I should demonstrate my willingness to help wherever I can.

Today, it's been sunny and mild; very good weather for the time of year. Hiding under the duvet doesn't feel so bad when it's grey skies and raining, but I feel guilty about wasting the day when it's nice outside. Nice weather can paradoxically make me feel even more depressed.

I'm naturally a restless, anxious and fidgety person. "Where am I going? What am I achieving?" I continuously ask myself when I'm not consumed by a task; fixated on a mission.

At the beginning of the week, I dragged myself out of bed to go to the seaside. It was a drizzly foggy day, so the picturesque beach wasn't going to yield any nice views, but still, it was an outing. Rain-drenched families trudged through puddles. "Why are all these children not in school?" I asked. Apparently, it's half-term school holiday time in England - not so in Wales.

This jarring disparity; this acute difference between what consumes my thoughts, and what most other people are concerned with, is being well highlighted in my current environ. I was cut off from the world in my London apartment. It was wonderful to have the space & time to think & write, but I was very far removed from the day-to-day reality that most of humanity experiences. In the past few weeks, I've been reminded about school-runs, commuting to work and long days in the office, car maintenance, housing, pets, children, cooking and cleaning, although I can claim absolutely zero personal involvement in the running of these affairs - I'm an idle observer; a tourist.

Of course I worry that I'm lazy; worry that I'm mooching; worry that I'm a leech; a parasite.

"Yes, we'd all like to be a thinker; a writer; an artist; an intellectual; a professional layabout" I imagine people saying. "Your art is just a hobby... get a job" is what I imagine people are thinking. I feel guilty for not producing anything more tangible than the words on this page.

I started to get a little stressed about November, when I plan to write my second novel. "How am I going to find the time to write?" I wondered to myself, which must sound a little ridiculous to you. Why am I even writing anyway, when I'm not overtly commercialising my creative output?

There's something more socially acceptable about saying "I'm sorry, I need to write my book" as opposed to just "I'm sorry, I need to lie in bed feeling incredibly anxious and depressed". I wonder if more people would have breakdowns and refuse to go to their stressful and boring jobs, if it wasn't so stigmatised. Wouldn't we all love to just spend all day with our children, and not get out of our pyjamas? Why can't we skip breakfast and have cereal instead of a cooked meal, and completely reject the demands of society?

I feel immense guilt for not having a proper job, spending hours of my life stuck in traffic, being bored to tears by a bullshit job. What's my contribution to society? Why am I allowed to pontificate, when I haven't done my 9 to 5 grind?

I'm not so naïve as to think that the good life doesn't have to be bought and paid for with human misery. For every beautiful countryside cottage set in manicured gardens, nestled in lush green countryside, there is also an immense amount of suffering that's gone into delivering that dream. The children who wait 5 minutes, staring at a single marshmallow on the table in front of them, will receive two marshmallows as a reward for their patience. Those same patient children will shed tears when they are packed off to boarding school, but it'll all be for a good reason one day.

Are we even supposed to be so patient; so tolerant of intolerable cruelty? Are we any happier for all that homework? Are we any happier when we get "A" grades and go on to get a fancy job, miles and miles away from our home and our family? Are two marshmallows sweeter than one?

I feel like the cuckoo in the nest: I'm no genetic relation of the lovely family who I'm living with. Why do I get to enjoy the comfort of a farmhouse straight from the pages of Country Living magazine? What's my contribution to the household? What's my contribution to humanity?

Extrapolating, I can easily imagine that I will have produced my second novel in a little over a month from now, but I will have very little else to show for my time, not to mention the food and energy that I will have consumed. To say that I have been working on restabilising my mental health and attempting to rediscover my reason(s) for living, feels a little untrue given the trajectory of my mood. To turn a blind eye to my very real concerns about the difficulty of obtaining paid employment during the Christmas & New Year period, seems short-sighted - November will be over in the blink of an eye.

Throwing a ball for the dog in the garden, sucking in lungfuls of clean fresh air that's blown inland straight from the Atlantic Ocean, my physical health is undoubtedly improving. I'm seeing an aspect of existence that I'd long forgotten, trapped in a polluted concrete jungle, and surrounded by the seething masses in densely overpopulated cities. This life is so much healthier and happier than the rat race, but I can't afford it - it feels as if I'm enjoying a retirement I haven't paid for.

Perhaps you imagine that my time is free for the pursuit of leisure. Perhaps it is. If so, why am I so damn stressed?

Tags: #family #depression #writing

This is a story about being caught on camera...

There was a time before digital cameras and Facebook when it was thrilling to see photographs of yourself that other people had taken: this was the pre-selfie age. There was a time when creating a digital identity was hard - social media wasn't dominated by the big players, and maintaining a homebrew website required expert technical skills and a significant investment of time & effort.

Some enterprising tech boffins created free software that allowed bulletin boards to be created by relative novices - these were forums where internet users could discuss topics, under the banner of a certain hobby or interest. Originally, bulletin boards were telephone numbers you could dial up from your computer, to do the kinds of things we do on the internet today, except that these bulletin boards were isolated communities.

Facebook and Twitter have taken the bulletin board - where we build a community around a common interest - and allowed us to build a community around our personal identity, with the bait of seeing ourselves tagged in photos or mentioned in tweets. On forums, there was a thrill in seeing a thread of discussion getting many views and replies - to be the original author of a popular thread was something to take pride in. We covet 'likes' of our updated profile photographs and our pouting selfies, as we preen our digital identity.

With the ubiquity of smartphones that are capable of capturing and uploading photos and videos, making them instantly available on social media, we are amassing a huge library of images of ourselves, as well as projecting an identity that goes well beyond the people we see on a daily basis, face-to-face.

Our skill in presenting ourselves as we want to be seen - Facebragging - is something that we have had to recently learn, especially as we increasingly mix work colleagues with our close friends, online. Our digital identities can overspill unless we are careful to manage the audience with whom we share things.

A sinister and creepy cyberstalker made a horrifying boast to me:

"I know"

I'm sorry, what? What do you know?

"I've read your blog. I know"

What? What do you know? Have you really read my blog? There's the best part of three-quarters of a million words here - I seriously doubt you've read much, and I seriously doubt you know much.

Those words - "I know" - were said to me by somebody who was making a very important decision. Because of the sheer volume of noise on social media, I'm relatively hard to find. Thanks to my concerted efforts over a number of years I can laugh at anybody's attempt to "know" me - stalkers only scratch the surface. Yes, I am applauding myself for writing so much that even the most determined cyberstalker would be exhausted.

I live in fear of cyberstalking.

Don't we all live in fear of cyberstalking a little bit? There's probably a sex video of you and somebody else that's hidden somewhere on your computer or smartphone. What about all those sexts that you sent between you and your sweetheart? What about all those paedophiles who want to molest your children? What about all those rapists who are following your every move on social media? The world is out to get you.

My fear of cyberstalking is a little different.

I'm now convinced that almost everybody is far too wrapped up in their own self-centred little world, to give two fucks about much of what anybody else is doing. The cyberstalker who said "I know" in a very sinister and horrible way, was intent on harming me just as much as you'd expect of any stalker - zero fucks were given about my health and wellbeing, and a very great deal of harm was rendered to me.

Perhaps I should set my privacy settings to the maximum and erase everything that's personal and accessible to malicious attackers?

To protect myself from a determined cyberstalker would be nearly impossible. Our lives are lived online nowadays - to reject social media and not cultivate a digital identity, will leave me isolated and without access to online communities. To have to always consider how anything I share could be used against me is exhausting, and how am I supposed to ask for help or otherwise indicate to my friends that I'm in trouble? Pretending that my life is awesome and I'm totally OK is ridiculous, if I'm doing it just in case a cyberstalker goes digging.

I'm not suggesting we all post our mother's maiden name, social security number, credit card details and other data that would lay ourselves open to fraud... or maybe I am. In an open and trusting culture, the bad apples are easier to spot - nothing to hide, nothing to fear.

The fact that I've suffered significant financial loss due to a cyberstalker is akin to a kind of fraud that has been perpetrated against me. I'm no fraudster: who I am is plain for all to see. That somebody would steal my data and use it against me is criminal. Why should I be persecuted and discriminated against, because of what dirt you think you've dug on me? It's like a kind of blackmail to use my digital identity against me.

I wonder what kind of person would think that whatever I choose to write on my blog is more important than the facts, which have included things such as being in intensive care in hospital with a 50/50 chance of living or dying. Wouldn't you care about the person - i.e. me - and not about the digital identity? "Are you feeling OK because I was really worried you were going to die?" would seem like the more appropriate human response, rather than the extremely creepy and sinister "I know". I mean, what the actual fuck?

So, I've been cyberstalked, and the stalkers have caused significant harm to me. Just hearing "I know" from somebody who seems to be a respectable member of society, does show that there are some downright evil fuckers out there. However, I stand my decision to be brave and publicise who I am and what makes me tick.

In my experience, it's better to be brave and bold, even if it feels scary and nasty people try to fuck you up.

Tags: #writing #socialmedia #career

This is a story about picking on an easy target...

Has anybody ever died of shame and embarrassment? I feel horribly exposed all of a sudden, having published my entire psyche into the public domain - all the inner-workings of my mind; every dark secret is out on display.

I'm acutely aware that I've kept writing and publishing throughout periods where I was incredibly unwell. I'm acutely aware that I've published unedited things, despite being exhausted, stressed and unable to make a sound and rational judgement call on whether or not to publicise private matters.

It's quite apparent that my rather strange and questionable mission - to submit my private journal to public scrutiny - has been incredibly costly.

Have I made a mistake?

Clearly, I've made a whole string of mistakes. Every day, I think about millions of mistakes I've made that I could write about. Even the process of exploring all my feelings and admitting my fault, is somewhat of a mistake.

Racked with self-doubt and feeling a mounting sense of vulnerability, I've thought about back-pedalling - haven't I made myself look like a buffoon in front of enough friends, family and strangers? Shouldn't I now clam up with shame and regret that I ever opened my mouth? Shouldn't I bury this blog and hope that nobody ever brings up the matters I've made public?

It would be so easy to press the "delete" button and destroy the digital identity which I've created. It would be so easy to deny all knowledge of ever sharing extremely personal matters. Don't believe everything you read online.

If I loaded a gun with bullets and handed it to you, I turned around and you shot me in the back, would you feel victorious?

I don't understand why anybody would take the ammunition which I give them and use it against me. I don't understand why anybody would take the opportunity to sucker-punch me, when I'm making myself so vulnerable; such an easy target. Is there really any pleasure in picking on somebody who's laid wide open to attack? Where's the sport?

I've started to wonder what happens to the people who pick my pocket, blame things on me or thump me in the face, knowing that I won't defend myself or retaliate. Do they feel pleased with themselves? Do they feel happy and are they able to sleep soundly at night?

If I'm starting to sound like I think of myself as sweet and innocent and free from all sin, that's not the case. There's more than enough admission of wrongdoing on these pages, if you want to go digging. I'm not some butter-wouldn't-melt, holier-than-thou, whiter-than-white person who claims to never have said boo to a goose. I admit that I'm a deeply flawed individual.

I'm struggling with a cloudy brain. I feel like my wits are dulled and my thoughts swim through treacle. I feel run-down; unwell. I feel like I'm not well enough to be writing. I regret things I wrote when I was sick, in the past.

As the truest version of myself - free from drink and drugs - emerges from under a dark storm-cloud, I struggle to reconcile the way I feel now with how I felt when I had the protective armour of intoxication. I'm full of stress, nervous tension and anxiety, while my brain is raw and damaged from abuse - I'll recover, but it's taking time.

I'm defensive, because I can't afford to lose any more opportunities. I can't afford to have my reputation tarnished anymore, even if it appears to be me who's doing the tarnishing. I can't afford to have influential people leaping to the wrong conclusions. Why continue to write so honestly? Why take the risk? Why not shut down this crazy experiment?

The fact you're reading this means that you're either going to use it against me - shooting me in the back with the weapon I handed to you - or you'll dig a little deeper; try a little harder. It's all too tempting to kick a man when he's down though, isn't it?

It's too obvious and easy to shut down; shut up. I've come this far, so why shouldn't I keep writing? What does it matter if I make myself unemployable? What does it matter if I can never return to the part of society that routinely lies and wears a mask of insincerity? Why the fuck do I want to live in a world full of absolute arseholes, who stab each other in the back?

Come; come and beat up on me; come and put the boot in; come and strike me with sticks and stones and whatever weapon you can grab, while I lay battered and bruised, unarmed on the floor, naked, afraid, defenceless, outnumbered and in pain.

I invite you to martyr me.

Tags: #writing