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Blogging at Work

9 min read

This is a story about office life...

Image within an image

Look closely at the image above. It appears like I already wrote this blog post. It certainly feels like that. Haven't we been here before? Deja vu?

When you get stuck into a cycle, how do you break out of it? When the loudspeakers scream with feedback, because the sound that the microphone captures is being amplified and re-amplified, how do you reset, without cutting the power?

My behaviour might look self-sabotaging, but I'm actually deliberately burning bridges so that I have no line of retreat back to the places that made me unhappy in the first place.

When I worked in the City the first time around, I used to have 3 or 4 strong macchiato coffees every day. That's 12 espresso shots. I used to get drunk most lunchtimes and after work. I needed 2/3rds of a bottle of red wine to get to sleep, after all that coffee.

Uppers and downers, round and round. We rode the rollercoaster nonstop until we were sick. Every day, every week, every month, every year... they were the same.

When I was in my early 20's it wasn't such a big deal. We used to tank up on caffeine, churn out a load of code that would form the backbone of the world's economy, and then go get drunk to try and calm down a bit. We thought we could carry on like that forever, with our uppers and downers.

I saw colleagues get sick with stress, anxiety, depression, alcoholism. Some of my colleagues needed liver transplants. Some of my colleagues died. The system chewed us up and spat us out.

By my mid 20s I'd owned a yacht, a speedboat, sportscars... for some reason no amount of material possessions and status symbols seemed to quench the massive insecurity and frustration with life. Take a socially awkward, unpopular geek, sprinkle in wealth and the illusion that you're being 'successful' in life, and you wind up with a pretty confused adult.

While my schoolfriends paired off with lifelong partners and started to have children, I would suddenly decide that a loving relationship would be my salvation. I moved to a Surrey commuter town with a girlfriend, and started to play golf and generally start to think & act like a middle-aged family man. That was a bit of strange thing to do for a 21 year old.

Back in London after my first experiment into becoming a happy adult had failed, I satisfied myself with extreme sports, Internet discussion forums and lots of holidays and weekends away with nice big social clan. The London Kitesurfers 'club' was a lovely thing to be part of for several years. However, I still felt that I was missing that 'love' piece of the puzzle.

Some nice scientist kitesurfer girl seemed to tick all the boxes, and I launched myself with great intensity at a long-distance relationship that was never going to work. Relocating to the South coast, I quickly got involved with a geek girl who was into adventure sports: she seemed ideal, on paper.

I set about building the framework for a comfortable family life: the house, the steady job, the sensible car. However, I ignored the massive red flag: my girlfriend was a mean person.

I'm not easily dissuaded from my goals. Whatever obstacles I encounter, I just go around them. I'm a completer-finisher. I try to fix, improve, change, rather than throw things away or start again.

Anyway, I was flogging a dead horse. No matter how many times I painted a perfect picture postcard of how life could be, I'd found somebody who was stubbornly resistant to the idea of being nice and kind and supportive of the person who potentiated a 5-star luxury lifestyle for both of us. There was plenty of space for us both to shine, but sadly, she wanted me to be subdued and subserviant. She had gotten used to being showered with praise and being top of her class. She wasn't used to sharing the stage. She wasn't prepared for both of us to be happy.

I abandoned that life. I lost my business, my reputation with the major employers in the local area, my house and a substantial chunk of my wealth. I was fighting for survival, so I didn't have the time to go and carefully unpick the things that I had spent years building. I had no need of a house and shedful of things. What was I going to do with all that stuff? It was an unncessary millstone around my neck.

Now I find myself following a tried-and-trusted formula for wealth and 'success'. I'm rapidly putting together a lovely home again. I'm rapidly rebuilding my cash position. I'm rapidly rebuilding my reputation. However, I've seen it all and done it all before. I'm just going through the practiced motions.

"How did you know that was going to happen?" my colleagues ask me, like I'm some kind of clairvoyant. My ability to 'predict' the future is nothing more than making educated guesses, because I've been seen it all before. It looks prescient, but it's no more amazing than somebody who's learned from their mistakes.

That means my day job is pretty dull. I finish people's sentences, and I take great delight in giving people things they need before they ask for them. I'm ahead of the game. In the oft-quoted words of Wayne Gretsky, I'm skating to where the hockey puck is going to be.

I'm aware that this seems very arrogant. I'm not delusional. I know I'm not special or different. I know I'm no smarter than your average Joe.

I've done a 'gap' analysis, of my unsatisfying, unfulfilling and depression-filled life, and it seems like I need a dog, a cat, some kids and a loving supportive partner. If you ask children to draw a picture, they'll normally draw a house, the sun, some clouds, their parents and brothers & sisters, their pets. It seems like a pretty tried-and-trusted formula for life.

However, I even feel guilty about my cat living with my parents because he comes from a broken home. My cat, Frankie, has had to move house once in his kitty life, and I feel bad about the disruption and stress I caused him. I would love it if Frankie could live with me, but it would be cruel to make him live in a 4th floor apartment in a busy city. Having Frankie adopted by my parents, with their generous garden and surrounding Cotswold countryside, was the least bad option, but I still feel guilty.

Can you imagine how bad I'd feel if I had kids and they had a stressful home life? Can you imagine how guilty I'd feel if I knew that I selfishly chose to have children because they would give my life purpose and meaning, but I failed to adequately consider that the world I bequeathed to them is dying?

I'm running in autopilot at work. My brain is on tickover, doing my job. This unfortunately leaves a lot of time to consider the plight of the world's poor and struggling people. I have a lot of time to think about war and preventable diseases. I have a lot of time to think about inequalities and morality. I seem to be like a sponge, sucking up all the pain, suffering, cruelty, anger, hostility, selfishness, greed and immorality that seems to characterise the human race.

I could cut myself off from reading the news, but what would I do all day while I'm bored at work?

I can read the news, and if I get caught then nobody's really that bothered because I'm on top of my work and performing well. If I write my blog and try to stay on top of these feelings that threaten to overwhelm me, then I'm always nervous that my mask is going to slip.

I'm flirting with disaster anyway, wearing a semicolon tattoo just behind my ear, that advertises my struggle with depression, anxiety, addiction, self-harm and suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts.

When you have a problem, you can try to solve the root cause, or you can find a workaround. I know what the workarounds are. I know what the root cause is. I'm just not really satisfied that I can either do much about human nature and a selfish race intent on destroying itself, and neither am I very happy to attempt to insulate myself from reality, using drugs and money to put myself into a protective bubble

Begging is illegal in the City of London. Canary Wharf is a private estate, so undesirable members of society can actually be thrown out of the rich little enclave. You can kid yourself that there aren't any problems in the world, because you don't see them - out of sight out of mind - but that's why we got in this mess in the first place.

What happens next is as much a question of morality as it is a question of personal survival. Is it better to have lived life with some values and standards, rather than just saying "I was just doing what everybody else was doing" as if that's some kind of defence.

I know this is very lecturing, and once you've got skin in the game you have no choice but to try and do the best for your tiny tots, but I have a choice. I actually choose not to get a dog, because they're polluting (dogs need to eat masses of meat) and I choose not to have a family, because I can't make any guarantees that there's going to be a liveable planet for them to grow up on.

It doesn't make me a morally superior person. It's just the way I personally think. I know parents are racked with worry about the kind of world that their kids are going to inherit. I do empathise with the stress and challenges faced by families. Doesn't mean that's an excuse for me to join in though.

 

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Right to Die

17 min read

This is a story about euthanasia...

Nick at work

I need to cover what I'm about to write with a hefty preamble, full of caveats and other disclaimers, because there are so many considerations with this issue, but it's an issue I need to tackle.

Firstly, let's consider this: nobody really wants to die.

For people who are in pain and other kinds of physical discomfort, or are otherwise afflicted by diseases, injuries or genetic problems that mean their quality of life is terrible, or certainly going to end up terrible: these people do not want to die. Those people would dearly love for a cure or some kind of relief from their symptoms that doesn't come with intolerable side effects.

Clearly people who want to prematurely end their lives in a dignified manner, have exhausted all treatment options, and their future looks bleak: pain, discomfort, infirmity, senility and disability.

Alzheimers and other kinds of incurable degenerative brain diseases carry the added worry that the sufferer will no longer be of a sound and rational mind when the illness reaches its late stages, and they will burden their carers, while perhaps not even being able to recognise their loved ones any more.

Let's also consider this: some people have hope, while others do not.

Yes, there's always a chance of a miracle cure. Yes, there's always a 1-in-a-trillion shot that God might personally intervene to remove the horrible afflictions that he originally cursed you with.

Most people love life and can't bear the thought of being torn from the arms of their loved ones. Most people cry out in fear, when they think they're about to die. Most people fight to survive.

There are people who have gone through many bouts of surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, transplants and who take bucketloads of medications with horrible side effects, and generally battle through awful sickness and pain, holding out hope that their ailments will be at least treated well enough to prolong their lives a little longer.

Some people might spend a long time on a transplant list, barely surviving, while oxygen and dialysis just about preserve them while they wait for a donor match. An agonising race against time happens: will a donor arrive before the illness kills the poor helpless person who can only sit and wait?

I feel like I should use softer language, to cushion the blows for every person who's lost a child, parent, friend, partner, relative. Death is painful, and all the more so knowing that a person had so much more life left in them. Death can be so cruel. People so deserving of more life can be snatched away, while others who are seemingly careless with the gift of life can seem so selfish and ungrateful for their good fortune to have been spared by the gods.

And it's the ungrateful ones I want to talk about.

What do you do with the alcoholic who 'wants' to drink themself to death? What do you do with a suicidal person?

The footballer George Best famously received a liver transplant, and then proceeded to court controversy when he was caught drinking again. Instead of demonstrating his gratitude for his stay of execution, by becoming teetotal, he was clearly the same person - ungrateful for life some might say - as he was before he received an organ donation.

What do you do with somebody who is determined to kill themself? Do you put them in a straightjacket and keep them in a padded cell indefinitely, just so that they can die of old age in an asylum?

It might be the case that a suicidal person is in perfectly good physical health and does not abuse drugs or alcohol, but they are nonetheless determined to end their own life prematurely.

There's a general belief that telling people that their lifestyle is much akin to suicide, will curtail their health-damaging behaviour. Doctors mostly seem to take the route of saying "if you keep drinking, you're going to die young" to alcoholics. While most people would think that this would shock somebody into cutting down their drinking, in fact there's little evidence that it has any affect at all.

Similarly, telling suicidal people "you've got so much to live for" and "it's just your depression telling you lies" and other statements that make perfect sense to people who are not suicidal, is also ineffective. The only thing that has proven somewhat effective - as far as short 12-week studies paid for by pharmaceutical companies can tell - is psychoactive medication.

Smoking causes many preventable diseases, and is a big killer, but yet people still choose to smoke even though it's expensive, makes you smell and stains your teeth. You would have thought that the large "SMOKING KILLS" health warnings on packets would cause people to stop smoking immediately, but no.

You know what one of the most effective smoking cessation treatments is? It's the antidepressant called Wellbutrin (marketed as stop-smoking drug Zyban and generically known as Bupropion).

Why would an antidepressant be a good treatment for smokers? Well, let's consider two things: firstly, people smoke because they're missing something. Take smoking away, and a smoker's life is now incomplete. Removing nicotine and the habit/ceremony of smoking leaves a void in that person's life. Also, you've got to be fairly depressed to do something that's clearly a threat to your health, and possibly your life.

Wellbutrin is a fast-acting antidepressant, unlike anything we can get on the NHS. Instead of making people feel sleepy and emotionally numbed, Wellbutrin has been proven to offer a number of improvements in the lives of patients, including their sex lives. Wellbutrin is France's most popular antidepressant.

What do you really want from an antidepressant, other than to relieve your symptoms of depression now when you're feeling it? Being told that a medication might take 6 to 8 weeks to become effective, and then having to suffer your symptoms that whole time while you're waiting is no use at all! Some depressions will lift naturally after a month or two anyway.

But what goes up must come down. After some weeks or months taking Wellbutrin, many patients experience panic attacks and insomnia. Plus there's the obvious problem of having to stop taking the medication at some point, and suffering the comedown (sorry, I mean withdrawal syndrome).

Yes, the difference between 'drugs of abuse' and 'prescribed psychoactive medications' is precisely zero. Every medication that has an upside also has a downside. Addiction and habituation with prescription medications is just as much of a problem as with street drugs. The only difference is medical oversight and quality control.

And so, I arrive at the situation where I'm perfectly well aware that I can get short-term relief for the symptoms of my depression, in the form of a pill from my doctor. However, I'm equally aware that to go down that road is to have a lifetime dependence on medication for my sense of wellbeing. Basically, do I want to be a medically sanctioned drug addict? None of the stigma, but all of the same behaviours.

You're right, I wouldn't have to lie, cheat or steal to feed my habit. I can wander into my pharmacist, and get my uppers over the counter, and carry on like I'm a fine upstanding member of the community. Did you know that even heroin addicts are completely functional members of society, when they can get a clean high quality supply of the opiates they need? When doctors in the UK used to prescribe heroin, there were none of the antisocial problems that we instinctively associate with drug abuse today.

Of course, I'm not advocating drug abuse, but then I'm also pointing out that the flaws that afflict a smoker, a drinker, a junkie and even a depressed person... they're all rooted in the same psychological need to cure an invisible illness.

Pretty soon, I will have spent a year where over 75% of the time I was using no psychoactive substances at all, except for alcohol. A period of 115 consecutive days - 32% of the year - I was completely teetotal. For the whole year I had no tea, coffee, cola, energy drinks, or caffeine containing headache pills (more common than you think). I'm completely unmedicated.

How do I feel? Awful.

It seems to me like I have a choice: suicidal depression, or drugs (i.e. medication, coffee & alcohol etc.)

I know that a scientific study with one participant tells us nothing, but equally I'm not a group, I'm me. You can't dismiss my individual findings, that are true for me. I've gathered the data during a 20 year career, and I've come to the conclusion that my life is unliveable in its current form.

When you are conducting a scientific study, you have to control the variables. Thankfully, I'm an ideal test subject for this.

Since the age of 17, I've been a very well paid software engineer. For sure, during the first couple of years it took me a while to get my salary up to a decent level, but since the age of 19 I've never had to worry about money. Also, I've done pretty much the same thing for all my career: sitting at a desk, tapping on a keyboard, making software.

I've had the same running crisis my whole career. When I was 19, I was bored so I applied to university and was offered places at some very prestigious institutions to study psychopharmacology. I decided to stick with the money, and keep selling my soul to the highest bidder.

When I was 28, depression had crushed me to the point I was on my knees and unable to turn up and do the same office bullshit anymore. I retrained as an electrician and started my own company.

Man with van

As a self-employed tradesman, I loved what I did, but I was grossly underpaid for the level of responsibility I had. Ordinary members of the public think that tradesmen are out to rip them off. In reality tradesmen are highly trained professionals whose job it is to stop houses burning down and families being electrocuted or poisoned by carbon monoxide.

The freedom of not having a boss, not having a 9 to 5, Monday to Friday routine, and not having to sit in the same damn chair at the same damn desk, pushing the same damn 102 keys on the same goddam keyboard... all of those things are just as great as they sound. However, getting paid peanuts to do dangerous dirty work is also not great either.

And so, I returned to what I'm experienced and qualified to do.

I earn staggering amounts of cash for moving my mouse around and looking busy at a desk. However, I used to earn £470 per day when I was 20 years old, doing computer programming for Lloyds TSB back in the year 2000. My job is exactly the same today, doing the same damn computer code for HSBC, JPMorgan, Barclays or any other damn bank.

But maybe the problem's banking? Nope. I've written computer code for nuclear submarines, torpedos, school computer networks, trains, parking ticket machines, busses, security guards, shop assistants and just about every other weird and wonderful industry you can think of. I've written in dozens of programming languages, for dozens of operating systems, on dozens of form factors. It's all the fucking same binary 1s and 0s and boolean algebra under the covers. All code is made from the same nuts and bolts. It's fucking boring.

And so, I can be a miserable exploited worker on a low wage, doing something I take pride in but knowing that I'm undervalued. I can be an overpaid and underworked software developer / scrum master / development manager / IT director. I can be a stressed out startup founder working my arse off to line the pockets of the venture capitalists who are going to get filthy rich at the expense of my health. I can be a destitute bum, a tramp, a hobo. Which would YOU choose?

I particularly object to the idea that I have to drug myself up, just to fit in with the bullshit jobs economy. I object to having to be high on antidepressants just to be able to cope with the same bunch of fucktards making the same fucking mistakes I've seen a million times over, in the job that I've mastered and brings in obscene amounts of cash. I object to having to be high on anxiety medication, to cope with the insecurity faced by the underpaid and undervalued front-line members of society who build your houses, look after you in hospital, grow your food and perform every other truly useful function that we need.

Even to work in civil engineering would frustrate the hell out of me. Crossrail, the multi billion dollar project improve London's cross-capital transportation, is rather pointless because it will be at full capacity on the day it opens, because London is already packed full of idle fucktards like me, clogging up the world with pointless makework jobs. Do we really need any more offices and office workers? Do we really need any more service sector jobs? Do we really need such a bloated financial services sector, with its equally parasitic support industries of corporate law and accounting? It's all such utter bullshit.

And so, I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't.

In my 20 years of full time work, I've become worn down with it all. I'm exhausted. I've tried a number of things, and I find that bullshit prevails everywhere I look. My heart is broken by all the bullshit that trumps everything else.

I'm exhausted, and I'm depressed and I'm suicidal.

Yes, I know some people are grateful for their lives and what little quality of life they can squeeze out of their existence. Yes, I know that I have good physical health and I'm reasonably young still. Yes, I know that there'd a queue that stretches around the planet, of people who would love to have my job.

So, if I choose to reject all that and end my life because I feel like I have no quality of life, is that morally wrong?

You can't even level the accusation of me that I don't know suffering, and I don't know poverty. I've lived homeless in a park, destitute, penniless and surviving on charitable food donations. I've woken up in hospital numerous times in pain and discomfort. I've had numerous scrapes with death. Shouldn't all that stuff make me grateful to be alive? Guess what? You have absolutely no idea. Guess what else, I have a very good idea, because it's already all happened to me.

I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I went to state comprehensive schools. I wasn't gifted jobs by any friend or family member. I had no head start in life. It's true that I have no obvious disability or disadvantage either, unless you count a couple of drug addict alcoholic parents, but I still had other family members, teachers and friends who were nice to me. It's not a fucking competition. The point is that the variables are controlled. I neither had advantage nor disadvantage, but yet I arrived at this point, here, now, today.

It's not like we can say this is just a short-term crisis. Like this will fucking blow over.

It's not going to blow over. For 20 fucking years it's been the same. The same shit, different day.

Yes, there were times that were actually pretty good, but guess what... they weren't sustainable. I liked living in a hostel with a bunch of other homeless people. I liked not having a job and being a bum. I liked having no responsibilities. Who wouldn't? But that's not real life. We don't get to have a freebie just because 'real' life is killing us. It still cost £120 a week for my bunk bed in a dormitory that slept 15 people, with one fucking bathroom between us all. My current rent is only £240 a week and for that I get a double bedroom, an ensuite bathroom, a kitchen, a dining room, a dual-aspect lounge with panoramic views over London and a balcony overlooking the river Thames.

I should be happy, but I'm not. Happiness is not a choice, no matter what you read on some bullshit Internet meme inspirational quote.

All the right pieces are in place. My doctors are chuffed to bits that I don't drink, smoke, abuse drugs or in any way engage in health damaging behaviours. My blood pressure is amazing. My cholesterol is low. My eyesight, hearing, teeth, joints... all of it is perfect.

And yet, my mental health is in ruins. I'm so depressed. I'm so suicidal.

I'm doing everything right, and yet everything feels so wrong.

Of course I feel guilty for feeling like this. What the fuck am I supposed to do though?

Honestly, I feel like I want to spend the next 30 days convincing people that the most humane thing is to let me end my life. Honestly, despite the things that should be really great in my life, nothing feels great. Nothing feels good or nice. Nothing works. Nothing is working.

There's still the possibility of just running away and absenting myself from all responsibility, but then when I'm dirty and sick from a life of destitution... when I die then, will anybody understand? A tramp, a bum, a hobo, a junkie, an alkie... these people are all too easily dismissed by society.

What happens when highly paid banking IT consultants start dying? Well if they're white middle class thirtysomething men... not much. Who cares? Probably just a selfish socialite, having a tantrum because they can't do whatever they want, one newspaper article basically said, in the wake of one death.

What the fuck is anybody supposed to do about this fucked up life that we're supposed to live?

I really don't feel like I can live this bullshit rat race anymore, and the alternative is a long slow death, shunned by society and marginalised.

In the long run, we're all fucking dead anyway.

Apologies if I'm triggering raw and painful feelings about your beloved family member or friend who is busily fighting for survival, or who lost their battle. I really don't mean things disrespectfully, but I can't lie anymore. I feel this stuff and it's undeniable.

Call me narcissistic needy spoilt white middle class brat if you like, if it'll make you feel better. It certainly won't make me feel any worse, but isn't that so terribly melodramatic and attention seeking?

Can you understand, how exhausting it is, having to justify your feelings and apologise for wanting to be dead the whole fucking time?

It's a one-way ticket and for sure it needs careful thought, but aren't we being a bit unfair, shutting down the conversation by guilt-tripping people into hiding their feelings? Perhaps suicide is a smart choice for people who feel that they have no quality of life.

 

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31 Days to Go

6 min read

This is a story about goals...

Calendar

A friend of mine said in 2010 that he was going to blog every day for a year, to see if had the discipline to be able to write a book. He achieved his goal and now has 2 books published, as well as continuing to write his blog for over 8,000 subscribers, and tweet to nearly 4,000 followers. He's an inspiration.

What's impressive about what a couple of friends have done, is that they've managed to blend their professional expertise with things that they're passionate about. A couple of inspirational friends' blogs include a mix of creative writing, photography, their hobbies, as well as being part of their work portfolio.

Given that I'm passionate about mental heath, addiction and homelessness, and ways of improving the lives of vulnerable members of our society, that rather clashes with my day job of being an IT consultant to a bunch of elite and uncaring capitalists. My colleagues would shit themselves if they knew what was going on behind my neatly presented and unassuming façade.

I wandered up a bit of a career cul-de-sac. "Do what you love and money will follow" is just utter bullshit. There are so many people in caring professions, or very creative people, who are absolutely flat broke. Hate the boring shit that you do and money will follow has most certainly proven itself, over the years.

You've got to be quite flukey to hit that sweet spot, where you love what you do and you're well paid to do it. Please stop telling people who are demotivated and disillusioned with the rat race to quit their jobs and do whatever they want. Cottage industries are allowing people to just about eke out a living, but only as a form of charity where we feel that we should support our friends and family in their dreams. Of course we don't really want to buy all those cupcakes or hang those revolting paintings on our walls, but we feel that we should do our bit to support them.

When you get yet another charity sponsorship request, and you can see all the names of your friends and colleagues who have donated, you are duty-bound to make a similar contribution. What are you really contributing for? Are you contributing for the good cause, or are you contributing so that your friend or colleague can delude themself that they're making a difference.

While charities tell us they're being innovative and making a difference, with everything from rock concerts to gamification, the reality is that the rich:poor divide is growing. Charity has failed. The middle classes give away pocket change. The working class are forced to donate through taxes on their stupidity, like the National Lottery. However, the rich are absolute selfish c**ts.

And so, I find if very hard to reconcile the rhetoric of the world - "do what you love" - with the reality of needing to pay my rent and bills. I find it very hard to ignore the pragmatism of working for somebody who will pay me the market rate, versus being exploited by somebody else because I enjoy what I do.

I write this blog, because there is no other outlet that will pay for my creative output. I can draw as many cartoons as I want, write as much as I want, sing, dance, record videos of myself... everybody else is doing just the same, and it all costs absolutely nothing.

Some writers on Reddit said that I should see writing as a job, and pointed out that if people are prepared to work for nothing (and so many are) then of course the wages will tend towards zero. Only the high-profile columnists and established authors with the marketing power of a publisher behind them, will be able to keep their heads above water and be heard in the midst of the deafening white noise.

I'm 11 months into my little project and I have over 6,000 Twitter followers and my blog's been read in nearly 100 countries worldwide. However, it's hardly like I can quit my job and declare myself to be a writer, even though I love writing and mental health is an important issue: an epidemic.

I need to grind out the next month.

One month from now, I will almost have reached financial security for the first time in 3 years. I will have had 6 months clean, which is a big deal, because I've been limping along with relapses for so long. I will have also been writing every day for a whole year.

My mental health is in a shockingly bad state. The stability of my life still hangs by a slender thread: how would I pay my rent and keep a roof over my head if my contract was unexpectedly terminated? The state of my finances is improving every day, but I'm still several months away from building up any kind of safety net.

However, one more month and I have something to celebrate: the wolf will be somewhat further from the door.

Doing "Go Sober for October" was probably a mistake, because I rely on alcohol to cope with stress and anxiety. Being stone cold sober landed me in a psychiatric hospital, because I had zero protection: nothing to cushion the blows and relentless pressure from the horrible hostile cut-throat business environment.

Yes, in theory I could go a little easier on myself, but in practice it's not true. I have a narrow window to make things work. When your mental health is unreliable, it's a good strategy to get rich quick. It doesn't look unusual to have a string of short contracts, but my mood disorder would stand out like a sore thumb to some HR person, poring over the gaps in my CV, if I was in the dreaded arena of permanent employment (a.k.a. worker exploitation).

I'm being a scrappy little hustler, and clawing my way up the cliff face. I might make it. I might fall to my death. Let's wait and see what happens.

 

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Biggest Killer of Men Under 45

4 min read

This is a story about lies, damn lies and statistics...

Blood Poppies

What do you think the main cause of death is for men under the age of 45? Road traffic accidents? Infectious diseases? Cancer? Industrial accidents? Drug abuse? Murder? War? Terrorism? Starvation? Auto-erotic asphyxiation?

It's suicide.

It's well documented that the number of people dying in wars has dropped immensely in the last hundred years. The number of people dying of starvation has nosedived in just the last 40 or 50 years. In theory, we are living in a time of peace and plenty.

At its peak in the 20th century, death by starvation never exceeded 1% of the population. Most people were not starving to death. The 60 million soldiers and civilians who died in World War II accounted for 2.6% of the population, but 12.5 million babies were also born in that period.

Even for your grandparents and great grandparents, the chances of dying through war or starvation were surprisingly slim.

But what are the chances of you buying some land, building a house, having a job or some project to work on where you feel happy and fulfilled? What are the chances of meeting a nice girl and settling down and having some kids, living close to your family, near where you grew up? What are the chances that you'll be able to stay on top of your finances, and have the things you need for you and your family? What are the chances that you'll have the basic essentials you need in your bio-psycho-social world?

You would have thought that now we have the high-yield agricultural techniques to grow all the food that we need, and we have the means of mass producing everything else, we should be free to pursue arts and education. We should be released from the need to do bullshit jobs. We should be freed from the prison of the office.

The benefits of working part-time are unquestionable. Not working at all is arguably bad for you, because the structure, routine and socialisation of working is good to keep the brain ticking over, but working 5 days a week or more is counterproductive.

Empirically, it has been proven that the same productivity can be achieved in a 3 day week as a 5 day week. There is so much 'padding' and pointless time wasting, as we attempt to spin out our bullshit jobs to last all day, all week. The jobs are utter bullshit anyway. There isn't going to be any less food on the table or fewer houses built because some social media marketing person didn't tweet enough, or some corporate lawyer or accountant didn't turn up for work.

Wars galvanise whole nations into action and hunger is something that cannot be ignored. The drive to fight and protect, hunt and gather, build shelter... these things are instinctive, and human.

However, there is no instinct to put on a shirt and tie and go and sit at a desk for 7 or 8 hours staring out of the window, bored out of your mind.

The link between going to work, getting paid your salary, and then using that salary to pay your rent, buy food and drive your kids to school is a very tenuous one. For sure, once you've got skin in the game you're utterly fucked and you just have to go along with what everybody else is doing, no matter how insane it is. You can't rock the boat when you're living a hand-to-mouth existence where you're never more than one or two months away from being evicted or having your home repossessed (i.e. mortgage foreclosure).

In the UK, 8.6 million people live with Damocles sword hanging over them... just one missed paycheque would see them unable to pay their rent or mortgage, putting them at risk of homelessness.

The pressure is ridiculous, and although the chance of you dying by war or famine is really small, the chance of you ever escaping the rat race is also really small. You hate your stressful shitty life where you've got absolutely no hope of ever getting ahead. You'll never escape the stress and relentless bullshit. Why wouldn't suicide become a more and more attractive option?

This is what we're seeing. There is no hope for people, but there is a mountain of stress and anxiety.

Depression rates are soaring. There is a mental health epidemic that is raging out of control.

Were we born to just pay bills and then die? Is that much of a life?

 

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Destroying Your Reputation

13 min read

This is a story about self sabotage...

Man on a mission

What the hell am I doing, blogging about stuff that could get me fired, sued and make me unemployable? Why the hell am I burning so many bridges, and destroying my own reputation? Is this simply self-sabotaging behaviour?

If we look at the wider context of my story, the rat race has made me unwell. The boring office jobs propping up the instruments of capitalism so that an idle wealthy elite can ride roughshod over the proletariat, has made me unhappy. Compromising on my moral, ethical position, five days a week is not healthy. Working in an unstimulating environment that is unchallenging and uninteresting is a fate worse than death.

It's very easy to keep doing what you do because you fear change and it's the path of least resistance. I've been moulded into a certain career and industry sector. I'm the perfect guy to have join your massive corporation and quickly get up to speed with the bureaucracy, systems and processes. The bulk of the hard work in a big organisation is not the actual skilled thing that people are qualified to do, but just dealing with the crap that gets built up by a zillion little Hitlers all micromanaging their tiny empires they're building and trying to justify their pathetic jobs.

It's interesting who I'm friends with on Facebook, and who follows me on Twitter. In fact, with very little digging you can even find this vast cache of dirt, on Google. This is not about how important and influential I am, because I'm not. This is about public exposure. I took a decision to lay my soul bare, and I stand by that decision. But, for a moment, let's consider the kinds of people who I know or suspect have at one time dipped into my social media and online accessible over-sharing:

  • Ex colleagues from JPMorgan
  • Ex colleagues from HSBC
  • Cohorts from a technology startup accelerator
  • Two influential and well respected directors of startup accelerators
  • Mentors from startup accelerator
  • My accountant
  • People who are influential and well respected in the technology sector
  • Friends who work in tech and/or industry sectors that I work in

I've stopped short of actually tying my LinkedIn profile back in this direction, towards my blog. I've stopped short of in any way linking my limited company back towards this new alter ego of mine, although I did briefly get myself in a muddle over some suicide watch startup idea that I had. That was on September 21st... right when I started this journey of deciding to go public with every struggle I faced when I finally lost my grip on my career, my company, my reputation, everything.

For sure, I'm a nobody. However, people still talk. There is a rumour mill, no matter how small and insignificant you are. And people who work in offices are particularly interested in lurid tales of people who're doing anything that is out of the ordinary, even if that's losing your mind and ending up in the gutter.

By now, my tale of the toxic combination of stress, abusive relationship, mental health problems, heavy drinking, drug abuse (in that order) leading to suicide attempts, hospitalisation, homelessness, destitution and even police involvement, is well documented.

Well, I guess it's not that well documented, but it's out there in the public domain.

I have no idea how much was known before I decided to embark upon a mission of full disclosure, but I know that my abusive ex-wife was particularly indiscreet and insensitive. I'm sure that my friends did their best to save my blushes and protect my reputation as much as they could, but people still knew that I was getting more and more unwell.

Obviously, at times during my descent into melancholy and the infinite madness, I sabotaged my own reputation amongst my Facebook friends. I once shared a picture of some potassium cyanide that I had bought with the express intention of ending my life quickly and cleanly. The lethal dose is about 250 milligrams. I bought 2 grams of the toxic chemical: 8 times more than was strictly necessary.

Depression now has less stigma associated with it. We pretty much all know somebody who suffers with depression, and takes anti-depressant medication to help them with their low mood. These things are no longer taboo to talk about, and many people are able to still continue to hold down good jobs and be in positions of responsibility. Suffering from clinical depression is not a death sentence, certainly as far as a person's professional reputation is concerned.

Bipolar disorder has almost become cool to have. There are a list of celebrities and politicians as long as your arm, who have come forward and declared that they are living with the condition. Obviously, the ability to turn your hypomanic episodes into hyper-energetic flurries of productive activity, means that you can get shit done. In a way, we celebrate the person who has these mood episodes, because they can produce the 'overnight' successes we so revere in society.

Alcohol is everywhere, so unless you're swigging from a bottle of vodka hidden in your desk and reeking of liquor fumes as you breathe on people, just about any amount of drinking is socially acceptable. It's only if you declare yourself an alcoholic and have a stay in rehab that people start to stigmatise you. You can cover up your 28 days in The Priory, by saying that it was private hospital treatment for stress and anxiety.

Drug abuse is the last taboo. You pretty much don't want to put that one down on your CV. Cocaine use is widespread throughout London, and coffee gets stronger and stronger to the point where you're practically swallowing amphetamines. A few cans of Red Bull is the socially acceptable equivalent to snorting a couple of lines of some stimulant. Students are increasingly using Modafinil, Ritalin and Adderall to improve their concentration span and fact retention, as well as to stay awake during long revision binges.

If you think that these things feature in my daily life, you're wrong. These issues are simply incompatible with day-to-day existence. Depression robs you of the energy to get out of bed and face the day. Bipolar hypomania robs you of the contents of your bank balance, as it all gets ploughed into crazy schemes. Alcoholism is hard to hide, not that I've ever been physically dependent on booze, thank God. Drug addiction is all-consuming: there's no hiding it when you've lost the battle with addiction and it's taking you on a white-knuckle ride to an early grave.

So, if I've won the battles, why would I make it public knowledge that I fought them? Why would I take the time to declare, beyond all reasonable doubt, that I'm a flawed individual? Why would I spell it out, that I could relapse into any number of life-destroying illnesses at any moment?

Well, we could all succumb to these things at any moment.

I was 28 years young when I was knocked flat by clinical depression. I was 32 when addiction got its hooks in me. Just because I'd been a good student, a well behaved polite boy, a model employee, a career go-getter, and on the face of it I had a perfect little life, it doesn't mean that I was immune from anything.

But "it could never happen to me" right?

We believe that smart life choices will keep us safe. We believe that we have free will, and that therefore we would never choose to do something stupid. We believe that past performance is indicative of future results, even if the disclaimers always tell us the opposite.

There's something ugly about academic and corporate life, where we put a black mark against people's name if they fuck up even once. Screw up your school exams and you'll never get a chance to go to university. Screw up in your career and you'll be frozen out of the good jobs forevermore. Screw up in life and you'll be a dirty leper who nobody will want to know or to help.

This is the bleak outlook for so many people, who were simply unlucky or made a decision that was obviously regrettable, but life is continuously setting us traps and pitfalls. Why do consequences have to be so long lasting? Oh, you got in financial trouble? Here, let us help you by now charging you fines and punitive rates of interest, plus denying you opportunities and making the cost of living sky high because you have a poor credit rating.

The punishment for not having any money is that you have to pay more money. The punishment for your crimes is the deprivation of your liberty and the destruction of your future opportunities.

Apparently people are mocking those who have chosen to get a semicolon tattoo, but let's think about this for a minute.

I work in a big office and I see hundreds of people every day. In all likelihood they have seen that I have a semicolon tattooed behind my ear. If you were to Google "what does a semicolon tattoo mean?" then you will see that it's mostly to do with struggles with depression, addiction, self-harm and suicide attempts. I wonder how many people are thinking "why the hell did we employ this guy?".

Semicolon tattoo

When I did my interview, I sat so that my interviewers were on my right-hand side. The people who interviewed me never saw that tattoo, until soon after I started in my new job. I wonder if they'd have hired me if they had seen the tattoo.

Tattoos are actually uncommon amongst investment banking IT consultants. Certainly visible tattoos are even declared as not permitted, in many banks dress codes. I even thought about putting a sticking plaster over the mark on my skin, for my interview.

However, that's all I ever did for years and years. That's our whole approach to mental health and the problems that people face in their private lives: put a sticking plaster over it.

I've written at length about how angry I am that our first line of defence for people who are stressed out and depressed by their shitty unfulfilling office jobs, is to give them powerful psychoactive medications that artificially alter their mood so they can continue to work their dreadful jobs.

I'm angry that I'm so pressurised by wider society to cover up my problems, in order to retain a blemish-free reputation. I feel like the need to appear pristine and infallible to potential employers, fellow work colleagues and bosses, is largely to blame for why I had a massive breakdown and implosion, instead of things getting fixed before they got out of hand.

We are brainwashed to believe that we can't have any gaps on our CV that we can't explain. We are brainwashed to believe that we can't take our foot off the gas pedal for a single second. We are brainwashed to believe that a stain on our reputation will hang around for the rest of our careers.

You know what the problem is? It's our fucking careers. The treadmill. The rat race. It's making so many people mentally unwell, as well as causing physical health damage due to the sedentary nature of the work. No amount of standing desks or free gym membership is going to compensate for the problem.

I backslid into office employment because it was easy and I was desperate. My back was against the wall, and it made perfect financial sense to go and suffer another stretch of agonising misery back doing the shit that I'm most qualified and experienced to do, but it's fucking killing me.

It's important to be values-aligned, but it's also so easy to be tempted by 'easy' money. The cash rewards for doing the kind of mind-bogglingly boring work that I do are substantial. In theory, I only have to do this work for short bursts, and then I have spare time and cash to do whatever I need to do to balance the books, psychologically. However, in practice, all I'm doing is servicing debts that were built up just staying alive.

The welfare state took a dim view on my situation. Why do I need help, when I can go and get a job that pays fabulously well? Well, guess what? I tried it. I tried getting one of these shitty desk jobs that kill me, while I was homeless living in a hostel. And guess what? Working one of those jobs that made you unwell in the first place while you are still unwell really fucks you up.

This whole exercise of blowing my existence and private life wide open serves to document the ridiculousness of the mental health destroying lives that we are forced to live. If this whole experience ends up killing me, at least I've left the evidence: the smoking gun.

Nobody really cares when white middle class, well educated men in good jobs kill themselves. Why would they? Well, look around you. Do you see people getting happier? Do you see mental illness declining? Do you see suicide rates declining? Do you feel secure, fulfilled? Do you feel like the human condition is improving?

I look around and I see war and I see poverty. I see ordinary British people being forced into zero hours contract minimum wage McJobs, and still unable to afford basic amenities. I see loneliness and depression. I see a lack of real local community. I see families pulled apart by the need to go to large urban centres to seek your fortune. I see people locked into their own little world: headphones plugged in, eyes cast downwards at their smartphone, not talking to anybody face to face except to ask for their morning coffee.

Is this just a London thing? Is my view tainted because I'm struggling with depression myself? Actually, London is the canary in the coal mine. The sensitive people who have their head up looking around, sensing for danger, are usually on to something. Everything is pretty shit and fucked up right now.

And so, I am rejecting the conventional. I'm rejecting the sensible, rational and tried-and-tested. I'm burning the bridges that lead back to places I should never return to.

Yes, I might be making a fool of myself. Yes, people might be sniggering at me, safe behind their computer screens. Yes, important people are judging me and they have the ability to thwart me because of their prejudice, and make my life hard and even impossible. I could find myself unemployable, but not know why, because nobody has to tell me. I'm giving away all the ammunition you need to destroy me, and people are eagerly taking it.

But you know, who's the real winner? If you take what I gave you and use it against me, how are you going to feel? We're all doing that. We're all exploiting weaknesses that we discover in each other, in order to get ahead in the rat race.

How do you win a rigged contest? If everybody is cheating, do you cheat too?

The other option is to martyr yourself. For sure, you'll be hated and excluded. Nobody will thank you. But at least you can sleep at night, in the gutter.

No more prisons

Prisons can mean anywhere you feel trapped and your liberty is restricted

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Alan the Alcoholic

31 min read

This is a story about destiny...

Beer cans

I've been writing short stories all this week to fill my boring days at work. I wasn't going to share them, because I already share thousands of words every week, but this is one of my better efforts.

Anyway, without further ado, please allow me to introduce The Factory:

* * *

His mother had warned him that if he didn't try hard enough at school he would have to work in a factory, but this conflicted with Alan's day-to-day experience with his teachers. Alan's teachers always told him that he had amazing potential. Alan's teachers always told him that if he just applied himself, he would be a brilliant student. Perfect! No effort required then, until the exams actually counted for something. Why burn yourself out over mock exams and other work? Keep your gunpowder dry until the real battle.

Was it lazy? Was it arrogant? It seemed smart to Alan to not bust his balls on extra homework and every essay and assignment. School was going to go on and on for years and years, and then there was university after that. Yes, it was generally assumed that Alan would be going to university, because he was a sharp cookie. Just needed to apply himself. Just needed to try a bit harder. Why bother trying until the day of his GCSE exams, his A-levels, and his entrance examination for Oxford or Cambridge? Why break a sweat until then? Why get anxious about tomorrow's problems, today?

Whenever Alan did turn it on, concentrate, try hard, he found that he was showered with praise and good grades. His experience bore out everything that the world told him every day, except his mother's prophecy that he would end up working in a factory.

But now he worked in a factory.

In the factory, there were warehousemen who drove fork-lift trucks, ferrying pallets of supplies around the factory buildings, or loading the boxed up products being dispatched to the wholesalers. There were machine operators, who pressed oversized industrial buttons, to start and stop the various plant that mixed chemicals in huge vats, pumped liquid, or carried things on conveyor belts. The machine operators were responsible for hitting the big red STOP buttons in the event of an industrial accident, so they were slightly higher paid than the warehousemen, who only had to have a fork-lift truck driving license.

The lowest paid workers in the factory were those who performed repetitive manual labour that could not be easily automated. The manual workers took cans off the conveyor belt, stuck a sticky label on them, and then loaded them onto another conveyor belt. The manual workers picked out any cans with dents or loose lids, and put them onto large trolleys marked "Quality Control" which were wheeled to another area, where somebody else would check to see if the product could be salvaged or not.

There were the supervisors, who had risen through the ranks by doing one of the many jobs in the factory for 25 years or more. That was about how long it took to get promoted. If you had stuck it out for 25 years, and you'd managed not to make a fool of yourself, you were pretty much automatically promoted into a supervisor role. It was well understood, and it was the reason why many people were sticking with their low paid jobs, holding out hope for that promotion. The supervisors were paid marginally more than their colleagues, but the big bonus was that they didn't have to do any work anymore. The supervisors would march around, clean and smelling fresh, putting ticks on a checklist clipped to their clipboards.

Supervisors would escalate issues to management. Management were all the sons, daughters, husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends and close friends of the family who had originally owned the factory, or another factory. To enter into management, you had to be born into management, or marry into management. There was a legend, often told, of the boy who used to sweep the factory floor who got promoted to be a manual worker, then a supervisor, and then a manager. This legend was the lottery-winning chance that everybody in the factory secretly hoped for, but of course it was a myth. Whenever new managers were needed, only people who were already managers would be eligible for the role. Can't get the job without the experience, can't get the experience without the job. That was the Catch 22 that kept the riff-raff out of the boardroom.

But, there had been a new role that had been created, that nobody felt qualified to do. Some of the managers had hired family members, friends, to try and do the role, but nobody had been able to perform the duties required. There had been several rounds of telephone interviews to screen candidates. Human Resources had then called in promising candidates to understand if they had the right cultural fit and commitment to the mission of the company, to be suitable. Then junior management had held some day-long sessions where candidates fought it out with each other, in some real-world scenarios that had been set as a test. Then, finally, there were several more face to face interviews with senior management, before at long last the CEO personally vetted the remaining handful of hopefuls, and selected a winner. A job offer was dispatched and the factory's newest recruit joined the team. However, every person they had recruited to date had left, soon after starting their new job.

It was time to try the open market. Jobs were routinely advertised on the open market, but invariably it would be somebody known to somebody else who would be recruited. You had to know somebody. Any candidate from the open market was there just to make up the numbers, and to pay lip service to the idea that there was some meritocracy to the process, but everybody in management knew that unless you were already in management, your face simply didn't fit: you weren't part of the club.

And so, the unprecedented step of hiring somebody on the basis of their Curriculum Vitae was made. Their aptitude and qualifications were actually considered on merit, and the interviewers actually mulled over the answers to the questions that were asked. The management team was getting desperate. It was time to hire somebody who might be capable of doing the job, rather than simply recycling the same pool of people who had been born into privileged positions. Management were out of ideas, because they had only ever taken their ideas from an insular pool of people with the same background. It was time to try an outsider.

Alan had been through the same gruelling rounds of telephone interviews, HR grillings and face to face meetings with various junior and senior managers. Alan had suffered the same dismissive attitudes, because he had never held a management role, because his family had never owned a factory and gifted him a job. Everybody who interviewed him let him know, subtly, that he wasn't cut out for management because he wasn't part of the club. However, begrudgingly they had been forced to recommend their favoured outside candidate. Alan had been chosen for his strengths, not because of nepotism. Management were not happy about this. This was not the way things worked.

Finally, the CEO had awarded Alan the job. The CEO knew that the factory had little choice. It had an unfilled role that was very important. Nobody from the pool of those with managerial experience had proven able to perform the duties. Of course none of the supervisors could be promoted. That would be ridiculous! Alan had good grades and had studied at Cambridge, so on paper he was a cut above everybody else that they had interviewed, except the one thing that would normally disqualify him from ever entering management: that he actually had to apply for a job, rather than just being gifted one by his family.

Alan's roles and responsibilities had been explained to him at length during the interview process, but now he had an HR meeting to discuss his salary and his final job description.

"There's been a slight change" said Sandra, the HR woman. "There's actually just one thing we need you to do" she explained. Sandra pushed a piece of paper with some text printed on it over the desk towards Alan. "Is this some kind of joke?" Alan asked.

The salary negotiations had taken a new direction now that Alan knew that his intended role had somewhat changed. Normally, candidates enthusiastically accepted pretty much whatever was offered in terms of remuneration by the time that they had reached the point of a job offer. The purpose of the interview process was to make a candidate so relieved when the stress and the anxiety of the whole awful ordeal was over, that they wouldn't want to risk losing the job offer when it was on the table.

"I want twice as much money" Alan plainly declared.

"Ridiculous!" Sandra had replied. "You'd be paid more than the CEO if we gave you that much" she spat, contemptuously.

"But look at what you want me to do" Alan pleaded. "What you're offering just isn't enough to do that".

Eventually, Sandra had backed down. She was shocked. She'd never actually had to negotiate with somebody before, and even when candidates had tried, she just held her ground and they gave in. She'd met people like Alan before, but she'd never come up against such stubborn determination. His attitude had seemed to change completely when she told him what his new role would entail.

Alan started his new job with something of a sense of happiness. He was going to be paid an obscene amount of money. He couldn't believe his luck. Even though Alan knew that the size of his paycheque bore no relation to his actual value as a person, he still felt special and appreciated to be receiving such healthy remuneration for his efforts. Alan was almost cocky and arrogant, knowing that he was the highest paid person in the factory. He was the highest paid person he knew. He calculated how much he was going to earn every hour, every minute, every second... it was a lot.

Three supervisors met Alan at the factory gates and gave him a brief tour of the facilities. Alan was soaking up his surroundings with glee. It was nice to feel part of something. It was nice to see the efficiency of everything, as cans and boxes, and crates and vats of liquid were ferried around the warehouses, and vast quantities of products were stacked up ready to be dispatched to customers.

Alan was shown to the testing room. Everything had been prepared for him.

The testing room was a cube in the corner of one of the cavernous warehouses, with a door labelled "TESTING ROOM" in bold black text. The testing room had a round silver door handle, and a piece of plastic that could be slid so that the words "IN USE: DO NOT ENTER" could be displayed, or hidden when the room was unoccupied.

"Yes, it's ready to go. Please start when you're ready" one of the supervisors said, gesturing towards the door.

Alan slid the plastic so that "IN USE" was displayed, and stepped inside the room, closing the door behind him.

Inside the room, there was black folding chair in the centre, and 4 blank walls. The walls had a slightly glossy shiny look to them. There was a sharp chemical smell in the air. An extraction fan whirred above, sucking away the fumes. Alan sat down in the chair, and begun to look at the walls.

After 12 hours, a loud whistle blast could be heard throughout the factory, including inside Alan's room. The factory workers queued up to clock out of their shift, and then disappeared out of the exit to the car park and bus stop. The supervisors jumped in their battered old cars and drove home. The manual workers queued up in the rain to catch the bus. Alan queued up for the bus too: he would have to wait for his first paycheque before he could think about buying a car.

The next day, Alan arrived and made his own way to the room. He opened the door and there were a couple of men in there who were just packing up their things. One of the men said "all ready for you" and then the room was left vacant. Alan slid the sign to show "IN USE" again, closed the door and sat in his chair, waiting for the factory whistle while looking at the glossy walls.

After 11 or so hours, Alan started to wonder if his eyes were playing tricks on him. Were the walls slightly less glossy? There certainly seemed to be patches where the walls looked somewhat more matt. There were areas that were still shiny and reflecting light, but there were large parts that seemed to no longer have the same sheen. Before he could think about this much longer, the factory whistle blew and everybody left for home.

Alan had a troubling night of sleep, wondering what he was doing. Had he made a mistake in taking this job? It was certainly very well paid, but it wasn't at all what he imagined he would be doing for a living. He started to think about the nice new car he was going to buy himself with his first paycheque. Yes, just focus on the money, he told himself as he drifted off to sleep.

The following morning, two men were just leaving the room as he arrived. They were carrying rollers, brushes and cans of paint. "Morning!" they cheerily called to Alan. "Morning!" Alan enthusiastically replied. It was nice to be greeted by his colleagues. They seemed happy to have him there.

Inside the room, it had been repainted in a wonderful bright new colour. This made Alan joyously happy. This minor change in his environment and routine was well appreciated and his whole 12 hour shift passed quickly. Alan felt noticed, cared for. Perhaps his doubts about this career were misplaced.

In the evening, Alan considered taking out a car loan. I mean, now that he had found a job that he enjoyed and was well paid, surely there would be no risk in taking out some finance to allow him to have a reliable vehicle to transport him to work? It would be a nice treat that he could have now, rather than having to wait until his paycheque. He would be able to drive to work rather than taking the bus. That would be a big improvement in his quality of life, not having to stand and queue for the bus in the rain.

Now the working week was nearly done. Alan felt really happy about the approaching weekend as he rode the bus on his way to work.

The painters were leaving his room again when he arrived, carrying their brushes and rollers. Wow! This was exciting, Alan thought. "What colour have they painted my room today?" he wondered.

Inside the room, the walls were the same colour as the previous day, Alan felt sure. What the hell? Were his eyes playing tricks on him? Was his memory fading? Maybe the paint simply needed a second coat, but it had looked pretty good yesterday, he thought.

Alan's 12 hour shift was spent pondering the conundrum of the paint colour. Strangely, he was almost but not quite able to enjoy watching the glossy sheen of the wet paint change to a matt texture, as it dried. He made a little game, of checking each of the slower drying areas intermittently, to see if they were still shiny.

Friday brought another almost identical day. The painters were leaving as Alan arrived, and the colour was unchanged. The only thing that was different was that Alan was now certain that no further coats of paint had been required in order to give even coverage. The walls had been adequately coated with paint the day before. This extra coat of paint was wholly unnecessary, for even the most diligent decorator.

Clocking out of his shift, Alan was troubled and locked into his own mind, questioning what he was doing and why. His eyes were glazed over and not engaging with the faces of his colleagues as they left the factory. On the bus ride home, Alan started to shake off his doubts and just enjoy the fact that work was over until Monday. It was the weekend and he could relax, knowing that he had successfully got though his first week, and he was a little closer to his first paycheque.

The weekend was overshadowed with niggling doubts. Alan had been planning on going to the car dealership to enter into a finance agreement and arrange to take delivery of a brand new car. Instead, Alan was almost in a daze, unable to shake off the feeling that his new job was not quite what he had bargained for. Were things going to change? For sure, on that day that the walls had been repainted, he had felt that things were going to be OK, but then the end of the week things had made no sense.

By Sunday evening, Alan had started to become quite anxious about the week ahead. If the colour of the walls changed again, that would be better, but it still didn't really answer the question of what he was doing there. If the colour of the walls didn't change, he would be forced to question what the purpose of his role was. He knew that it was important that he didn't ask difficult questions or voice his doubts, and he didn't want to risk that big salary. How long could he hold his tongue?

On Monday morning, Alan felt extremely tired even though he had not stayed up late or slept especially badly. He felt tense. His muscles ached. He felt butterflies in his tummy. Why would he be so anxious? His job was easy and he'd made it though the first week with no problems. There was no reason why he couldn't continue day after day, week after week, year after year, decade after decade. Think about all that money he could save up for retirement. Think how rich he was going to be.

Alan arrived at work with seconds to spare. He was almost late. The room was empty, but the walls were shiny and wet with fresh paint. The painters had obviously left shortly before Alan had arrived.

For the first three days of the new week, the paint remained the same colour but it was always freshly repainted. Alan never saw the painters again because he was arriving later and later to work, questioning what on earth he was doing and how he could carry on without understanding the purpose of it all. It was so meaningless, so purposeless, so lacking in rational explanation, so wasteful. He was the highest paid person in the factory, and yet he didn't understand the importance of his role. In fact, his role seemed pointless to him. He persevered, thinking about the money and the new car.

On Thursday, he was torn between just quitting his job or marching into the boardroom to demand answers from the senior management. He knew that either option would pretty much spell the end of his career.

Arriving exceptionally late, Alan turned the handle and opened the door of the testing room a fraction. Inside, the walls had been repainted a different colour. Alan was flooded with a disproportionate amount of relief that something had at last changed. It had been more than a week since the colour had been altered, and even though it had happened once before, he was now overjoyed that it had happened again. It had seemed like forever that he had lived with the same colour of fresh paint, day after day.

On Friday, the wall colour changed again, and now Alan was almost ecstatic. He felt giddy with the waves of emotional relief that swept over him. He was almost drunk with feelings. Everything seemed to make sense, even though they didn't. Everything seemed to be slotting into place, even though they weren't. Alan spent his whole shift daydreaming about driving his new car, and resolved to rush to the dealership first thing on Saturday and sign the car finance papers.

Alan's sleep was very disturbed with excitement about getting a new car. Of course, he would not be taking delivery for some time, but that's not what he was thinking about as he fitfully slept until the earliest possible opportunity he could get up and rush to the dealership when it opened in the morning. At the dealership, Alan borrowed far more money than he had originally intended. Buoyed with the optimism of last couple of days at work he'd just had, in stark contrast to his misery and anxiety at the start of the week, Alan felt that he must purchase the very best car that he could afford, in order to give everything some meaning.

Then, as soon as the door of the dealership had swung closed behind him, he felt a sense of regret, rising panic. What had he done?

Now his weekend was doubly anxious. What if he had another week where they didn't change the colour of the walls? What if he lost his job before he got paid? What if the new car was not as wonderful as he hoped it would be.

Alan tried to console himself in daydreams about him driving the new car. Alan tried to picture how much happier he would be, owning and driving a new car. It didn't seem to be quite enough to settle his deep sense of unease, that he was now trapped into his job in order to keep up the repayments on the car finance. The thought that he now had no option but to stay in his job, or else face both unemployment and insolvency, was a terrifying amount of pressure.

The following week was sheer agony. The colour of the walls remained the same every day, even though they were freshly repainted for all five days. Alan tried to lose himself in daydreams about taking delivery of his new car, and driving it for the first time. He tried to imagine the new car smell. He tried to imagine tearing off the plastic that protected the brand new seats, like tearing of wrapping paper at Christmas. But it didn't work. Time dragged incredibly. Every second felt like a minute. Every minute felt like an hour. Every hour felt like a day. Every day felt like a month. The week felt like a year. A year of pain. A year of staring at the blank walls, wondering what he had done, but feeling completely trapped by his finance agreement.

Alan made it through a second week that was much the same. He dare not arrive late, for his financial security depended on him keeping this job. He dare not raise his concerns with senior management, for he needed this job. He was locked in. He had to keep quiet and just keep doing what he was doing.

When he woke up on Saturday it was 3pm in the afternoon. He hadn't gone to bed late, but the stress and anxiety were exhausting. He was wrecked by the constant tension, the constant worry, the constant doubt. He was lolling around in bed, not really wanting to face the day because he was too emotionally drained. And then he remembered: he could collect his new car today.

Instead of joy, Alan felt trepidation. He procrastinated in getting ready and travelling to the dealership. There was too much riding on this. If he didn't enjoy his new car, his life was over. How on earth could a new car solve the misery of his day to day existence? No material object was capable of resolving his crisis, surely?

Arriving late, the car dealer was only just able to complete all the paperwork in time to let Alan have the car that day. Alan thought he was going to literally collapse and die when he was told that there might not be enough time before the dealership closed, and he'd have to come back another day. Perhaps the dealer had seen the grimace on Alan's face, and had been taken aback. Instead of being fobbed off, the dealership had pulled out all the stops to get Alan his car, while he sat exhausted in the waiting room.

At last, Alan was handed the keys and led to the car park where his shiny new car was ready to go. The paint colour wasn't quite the same as the one he specified and the dealer had forgotten the upgrade to the wheels that he had been promised, but he didn't care. Alan wasn't going to refuse to take delivery now, when he'd been working for so many years to get this prize; or so it felt. Alan signed his name and stepped into the driver's seat. This was finally happening.

It was certainly nice, like he had imagined, being in a brand new car with the smell of plastic and foam. Everything was unmarked, blemish free. Alan had to pinch himself to be reminded that this was not one of his many daydreams he had been having in anticipation of this day.

Driving to work, Alan drew envious stares from fellow work colleagues who he had previously taken the bus with. He apologetically cringed, knowing that they were thinking how flash he was, displaying his wealth so obviously like this. He felt like a traitor, having taken the bus with the ordinary factory workers, and now flaunting his privilege, while his co-workers were soaked from the rain. However, it had been a remarkably enjoyable journey to work despite the traffic. Alan arrived at his room feeling remarkably relaxed and happy.

Now, Alan spent 12 hours waiting to be able to enjoy his drive home. The anticipation of it almost seemed to make the time go slower, but at least he was carried through the first half of the day with a bit of happiness from his drive to work. He fantasised about perhaps going on a long drive at the weekend.

The week dragged, but it was not too bad. As an added bonus, the room had been repainted on Thursday in a new colour. Alan's week was almost tolerable. This could be sustainable, he thought.

Another couple of weeks passed with Alan's car getting a little bit dirtier, scratched and dented from the daily commute and people carelessly opening doors in the car park, or brushing past his vehicle with sharp protruding zips or studs on their clothing, damaging the paint. Inside the car, it was littered with discarded coffee cups from Alan's commute, which now seemed painfully slow as he queued in traffic. The bus zipped past him in the bus lane, as he sat fuming at the wheel. Driving to work was an added pressure, an added anxiety.

The same nagging doubt about what he was doing, became bigger than the novelty of driving to work, which had quickly become the norm. The changes in wall colour were as routine as anything else. Alan simply spent 12 hours sat in his room questioning his very existence, and trying to will himself to think about the money, which was very much less than before, because of his borrowing obligations. Working to pay off his car loan really did not seem to make any sense except in the context of his job, which also didn't make any sense.

In a way, Alan hankered for the days when he used to take the bus, because he didn't have the pressure of having to drive himself and the crippling financial burden of the loan he had taken out to buy the car. Of course, the car was now well careworn and uncared for and was worth a tiny fraction of what Alan had paid for it. He would never be able to repay his debts by selling his car. He would have to keep the job, in order to keep up his loan repayments. He was trapped, and it was destroying him, knowing that he was damned if he did, and damned if he didn't.

Alan started to drink heavily. At first in the evenings, to deal with his anxiety at facing the working day. Then he started to drink at the weekends, to deal with his anxiety at facing the working week. Then he started to drink in the mornings in the car park, so that he would be drunk at work and the day would pass quicker. Alan had no problem hiding his drunkenness at this stage, because he was inebriated around-the-clock. He would never let the alcohol levels in his bloodstream drop, because he would start to get the shakes and start throwing up. He had woken up in the night, soaked in sweat, when he had suffered an epileptic fit in his sleep.

Now physically dependent on alcohol, Alan's his body would complain with horrific withdrawal symptoms and seizures if he stopped drinking. He was also psychologically dependent on intoxication to be able to cope with the monotony of his job. Sobriety was barred to him, because he was unable to continue to work without alcohol, and he needed the job to pay for his loan. Alcohol numbed the stress and anxiety of the situation.

His mother had warned him that if he didn't apply himself at school, he would amount to nothing, and would be a manual labourer in a factory. He was now the highest paid person in the factory, and higher paid than even the CEO. He had a lovely car, and he was on top of his finances. His credit rating was sky high. He could borrow as much as he wanted, to buy a house, a boat or whatever he wanted. However, he was now wary of borrowing any more, knowing that it would shackle him more to the job that had driven him to alcohol. There was no way out. Material things brought temporary relief, but only at the expense of further tying him to a pointless job that denied him any sense of purpose.

People asked Alan why didn't he just retrain as a circus juggler, or a bricklayer? Perhaps he could be a flower arranger, or a concert pianist? Did these people not understand that those salaries would never allow him to service his debts? Did these people not realise that it costs money, on rent and tuition fees, to be able to retrain, and all Alan's money went on rent, debt and alcohol. "Why don't you save up some money and go travelling?" people asked. Saving money meant less alcohol, and it was only through alcohol that Alan could make it through the day. He was mortgaging his health in order to keep his job, in order to repay his debts. Couldn't people see he'd love to dream. Alan was not short of dreams and ideas, but how could he pursue them when he was so trapped?

Riding the wall of death, faster and faster, round and round. Alan had to keep drinking more and more in order to maintain his intoxication, as his body became more and more tolerant to the copious amounts of alcohol he imbibed. Three bottles of wine every day. Cans of super strength lager to keep him topped up. Then a bottle of whiskey every day. Then two bottles of vodka every day. Then he lost count. There were bottles in his gym bag, in his car, littered throughout his flat. He had hip flasks in every pocket. He lived in constant fear of running out of alcohol and getting the shakes, having a fit at work that would cost him his job.

Nobody seemed to notice that Alan was tanked up on alcohol the whole time. He was functional. He was turning up to work and doing his job just like he'd always done. He was reliable, dependable. He was uncomplaining. He didn't ask any questions. He was the perfect employee. Moulded to fit his job perfectly. He had filled his role better than anybody in senior management could have possibly hoped for. The CEO was overjoyed with Alan's appointment, and the work that he was doing. He was worth every penny of his salary, even if Alan felt worthless.

Knowing that he was an alcoholic and unable to function outside the narrow remit of his role, Alan was even more trapped than before. There was no way that he would find another job. There was nobody who needed somebody with such specific skills and experience. There was nobody who could afford to pay Alan the salary that he needed. There was no way that a functional alcoholic could hide their problem throughout the gruelling interview process. There was no way that a functional alcoholic would be able to start doing something new. He was just surviving on muscle memory, on practice and routine. Alan's brain was shot to pieces.

Alan wondered if suicide would be preferable to his existence. He knew that he was slowly committing suicide anyway. Soon his liver would be destroyed. Soon his health would fail completely, and he would quickly die. Wouldn't it be better to do it swiftly, before he got hospitalised and he painfully slipped away? Death would be unpleasant, as his organs failed one by one and his body gave up due to the ravages of alcohol. Surely it would be better to just kill himself quickly.

Stockpiling paracetamol from the chemist, buying boxes two at a time, Alan gathered hundreds of pills.

There was no moment of doubt when he did it, swallowing handful after handful of white tablets, washed down with whiskey. Alan had selected a fine single malt to end his life. Leaving no suicide note, he had however tidied up his flat and set his financial affairs in order. Everything would be found neat and tidy, when the police were sent by the factory to see why he hadn't turned up for work at all that week.

Of course, people were sad when he'd gone. "He could have been anything he wanted" they said. He had amazing potential. He just had to apply himself to something. The world was his oyster. There were so many opportunities.

Nobody saw how trapped Alan was, and he had known that he could never explain. People would never understand how he could be so trapped, when he was so well paid and so good at his job. He was steady and dependable. He never rocked the boat. He never complained. He just got on with his work.

His mother didn't mention her prophecy about the factory at the funeral. Many of his work colleagues attended the burial, and it would have been insulting to talk about factory work as undesirable. There was also a subtle point that Alan's mother had missed: he had ended up working at a factory, just as she had warned, but she had been proud of him because it was a prestigious role.

What Alan's mother had failed to understand was that the men who manually laboured in the factory felt like they made a difference. Every full lorryload of product that left the factory felt like some small achievement. Even a full day spent sticking labels on cans and transferring items on conveyor belts felt somehow useful.

However, Alan had never figured out what the purpose of his role was. He knew that he was well paid, and that he was a valued employee, but he didn't know why. Alan had been unable to place himself anywhere in the grand scheme of things. Alan had never been unable to get over the most basic reduction of his job description to the simplest possible explanation, which was now chiselled into his gravestone in commemoration of his great work: 

"He watched paint dry"

* * *

 

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E = mc²

13 min read

This is a story about simplicity...

Spiral

A compressed spring is heavier than an uncompressed spring. When you lay down on your mattress, the springs of the mattress are actually getting heavier. When you get in your car, the springs of the suspension are getting heavier. When you wind up a clockwork watch, it weighs more. Wait, what?

Yes, it's as simple as I just said. When you squash a spring, the spring gets heavier. Any questions?

Probably just one: whaaaaat?

Well, it's because of E = mc² you see.

Oh, boring. It's one of Nick's crazy rants about physics. Perhaps he's gone nuts again. Perhaps he's having another hypomanic episode. Well, in some ways you're right. But before anybody shouts "BANANA" at me [it's my 'safe' word] you should really read on a little further.

The reason why I race off on those hypomanic episodes is that most of the time, some evil passenger in my car keeps putting the handbrake on. People keep climbing on my back and making me carry them. People keep putting rocks in my pockets and getting me to drag their shit along for them. I'm basically frustrated as hell the whole time at the endless monotonous boredom and not being able to get on with my projects because of absolute bullshit. I just like to work on things and finish them, you see. If you tell me that you need something building, I'll get on and build it, and give you a completed project, instead of sitting around with my head up my butt. I don't really like sitting around with my head up my butt. I like getting on and building shit.

And so, I become a compressed spring. The more that I'm held back, the more that I become coiled and squashed and full of energy, ready to spring forwards when I'm released. The time windows are very short, but I build a lot of cool stuff very quickly. I built iPhone apps that reached #1 in the charts in a matter of weeks. I built a gigantic summerhouse in my garden in the space of a few days. I don't generally fuck about.

"But why do springs get heavier when they're compressed, Nick?" I hear you ask. It's really easy to explain.

Energy and mass are equivalent. Therefore, if you apply a weight to the top of a spring, and it squashes down, the energy that is stored up in that spring is stored as mass. More mass means the spring is more heavy. When you take the weight off the spring, allowing it to uncompress, the mass is converted back into energy, and the spring gets lighter again.

That's all that the equation E = mc² really says. It says energy equals mass [times the speed of light squared]. Energy-mass equivalence.

OK... the speed of light squared is a pretty big number, so the amount of mass is pretty tiny compared to the amount of energy. So tiny that there isn't a set of scales accurate enough in the whole world to measure just how much heavier our spring got, when we compressed it. The amount of mass that we created from energy, by compressing the spring, was teeny tiny.

Equally though, you don't need to turn much mass into energy to create lots of energy.

When people talk about splitting the atom and nuclear weapons, I'm not sure what your average person on the street imagines. Perhaps they think that atoms are actually being destroyed to create the explosion. When a chemical explosive is detonated, the chemicals are rapidly being turned into gas, which is many many times more voluminous than the size of the solid or liquid explosives. This is not what's happening during a nuclear reaction.

The nuclei of atoms are held together by the strong nuclear force. Think of it like a door latch. The door latch holds together particles with similar electrical charge. I'm sure you remember playing with magnets, and you know that like poles repel each other. So, when you put the red end of magnet towards the red end of another magnet, they don't want to touch each other. The strong nuclear force holds those two red ends together, stopping them from flying apart. This is much akin to our coiled spring.

When the nucleus of an atom is split by being bashed into by another particle, a bit like a wrecking ball smashing into a house, then the 'latch' of the strong nuclear force is broken, and the particles with the same charge repel each other. The different parts of the atom fly apart because of this repulsion. It's like those coiled springs are uncoiling.

This means that energy is being released. Lots more energy than it took to unlatch the strong nuclear force that held the nucleus together. It's a bit like a room full of mouse traps, all sprung-loaded and waiting to go off. It only takes one light little touch to cause one mouse trap to go off, and before you know it, they're all setting each other off in a great big chain reaction.

And that's how a self-sustaining nuclear reaction works. A small amount of input energy is required to start the chain reaction, but once it's started, there's plenty of energetic particles flying around to smash into other nuclei and cause them to break apart. Less energy input was required than the amount of total energy output, and only a very small amount of the mass is actually being released, by the strong nuclear force being overcome, allowing the subatomic parts of the nucleus to fly apart.

The same cascade reaction is used in a nuclear power plant as was used in the atomic bombs that blew up Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's called nuclear fission.

So, how does this relate to anything? Well, whether it's reading a stack of books about nuclear physics (this, by the way, was only the most basic introduction I'm afraid) or writing hundreds of thousands of words, I'm kinda a bit like that coiled spring, ready to unleash my energy on whatever I can when I'm given my chance, and I'm unlatched.

I just need a small opening, a small opportunity, and I'll run headlong at it. I'm so desperately bored by having to go at snails pace because of the limitations of the world around me. I live with constant frustration that I can't go at a natural pace, and so I go twice as quick as I should do when I'm finally given the opportunity to get on with something.

Had I ever gotten the chance to study theoretical physics at university, I would have read half as much in twice the time. Had I ever gotten to write at my own pace, with enough money behind me to keep a roof over my head, I would have taken twice as long and written half as much.

I'm now wrestling with the problem that I'm pretty much working two jobs, and in one of them I'm trying too hard at to compensate for the lack of fulfilment in the other. My day job doesn't challenge me. My day job gives me zero job satisfaction. And so when I get home in the evenings, I write and I write and I write. I've even taken to rattling off a couple of short stories every day while I'm at work. The one I wrote this morning was 6,000 words. That's right. I just rattled off 6,000 words because I'm so damn frustrated and bored, but I'm still working a full time job as well as producing some 14,000 words a day. It's too damn much and I'm going to burn out, but my day job is utter bullshit. My life is utter bullshit.

It's such a fucking rush, a hurry. It's such a fucking struggle. Trying to put up with enough boring bullshit that I've got a lump of money behind me to allow me to take a break and work on something I love and I'm passionate about. Either that, or I just take the tiny windows of opportunity where I find them, and work as hard as I can and as fast as I can, before the bullshit catches up with me again.

I honestly thought to myself that prison wouldn't be so bad. So much time to read and write, and ponder stuff. Really, I'm a fucking prisoner at the moment. I can't exactly get an interesting book out at my desk. Even when I'm writing, I'm doing it while looking over my shoulder. I've got to keep one eye on the boss, and be on my game in case I get asked to do something or somebody has a question for me. It's so fucking tense you know? It's compressing me. It's squashing me. It's making me dense and dark and heavy.

I fantasise about living in a tent, unencumbered by having to make rent payments and keep the electric and gas switched on. What would I really need, in this day and age? You can do so much on a smartphone.

I'm coming full circle. In a little over a month I will have been writing every day for a year. This whole thing started with me writing about some research I did on a public bench at a railway station. I think how different my life was then, and somehow I had much better quality of life, even though I was destitute.

Do I want this? This life? This life of commuting on the morning train, and office chit-chat and the daily grind, and of looking busy at my desk and saying clever shit to impress the boss, and hiding in the toilets browsing the Internet, and writing short stories in a really small font to disguise what I'm doing, just to pass the endless boring hours, and watching the clock, counting down, counting down, down, down. Down to what? My premature death from the stress and anxiety of it all?

Plenty of research has now proven that working a boring shitty office job is more unhealthy and lifespan shortening than smoking. Famously, people are suing their employers for the mind-numbingly dumb work they're asked to do. It's almost physically agonising. I'm being squashed. My very life force, my energy, my dignity, my passion, my personality... it's all being squeezed out of me like I'm a tube of cheap toothpaste.

I feel so sick and anxious. I don't know how to continue. I know that fiscally it makes perfect sense to continue. It's easy money, but it doesn't look that easy when it seems to be the root cause of my mood instability. People either ask me to work too hard for too long, so I burn out, or they bore the shit out of me, so I eventually explode with frustration. The pyramid scheme of corporate life is destroying lives. My life is being destroyed.

Oh God I want to throw up. This isn't just a job you fuckers. This is literally fucking me up. I can't do it much longer. I'm going to have a motherfucking breakdown. I can't cope and I'm waving the white flag in surrender but yet the gunfire does not seem to pause.

"Everybody needs to work"

"You have a great job"

"You're so well paid"

"People would love to have your opportunities"

"Count your blessings"

"Just another few decades and you'll be rich beyond your wildest dreams"

"Not long now"

"C'mon it can't be that hard"

"You should try my job"

"You've got things easy"

"I'd love it if I was bored all the time"

"You spoiled bratty bastard"

"You earn 6 or 7 times as much as I do"

"Why don't you follow your dreams"

"You've got nothing to complain about"

FUCK OFF, FUCK OFF, FUCK OFF

Argh! I can't deny my feelings any longer. I fucking well did what I have to, to get out from a fucked up situation, and I got somewhat out of the way of the oncoming collision, but it's been at great personal expense. I can't express how much it's killed me to put myself in a position where I might as well put my brain in a pickle jar and wheel my cryogenically frozen body into position at my desk.

Imagine if I picked fruit and vegetables for a living, and I slept in a barn on the farm where I worked. I could keep some of the fruit and vegetables that I picked, and eat them. My labour would provide my contribution for my space in the barn, as well as enough beans, rice, pulses and meat to keep my protein and carbohydrate intake at a healthy level. I would be able to see, quite literally, the fruits of my labour each day.

I live a life that could not be more opposite. I will never meet the people who use my software, and I don't even create the software anymore. I manage a bunch of people to create software for me. And I don't even see the people I manage face to face. They live thousands of miles away in some developing world country. I don't even know what management is. I pretty much just say "you're doing a great job. Keep going!" over and over again, to these poorly paid people who toil away, on the other side of the planet. Then some money is digitally credited to my bank balance, and I digitally credit it somewhere else to pay my rent. I never see actual physical money. I don't ever carry cash. Coins are just an antique novelty to me.

Modern life is making me unwell, I can sense it.

I have embraced technology and science, and I understand it better than 99% of people. In abstract terms, I'm doing really well, and it looks insane to be dissatisfied with my lot in life, but how do I really define my existence? Can I define myself as a father and enjoy family life, when I have no children? Can I define myself as a builder or a soldier, when what I do is so ethereal and intangible? Can I define myself as a farmer or a gardener, when what I do is so unnatural?

I'm a spring. That's what I am: a rusty spring.

I'm coiled up and compressed, ready to unspring, ready to bounce and boing.

It's fucking awful, let me tell you, being so unable to apply yourself to some useful mission, project or productive endeavour. It's fucking awful, feeling so trapped and imprisoned. That's why my thoughts turn dark and brooding so often. That's why suicide is so often on my mind.

 

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Lives of Quiet Desperation

5 min read

This is a story about the looking glass...

Mirror selfie

What do you see when you peer into somebody's life through the prism of social media and the mask they wear at work? How well do you think you really know somebody, from the things that they choose to tell you, and from the side they choose to show to the public?

What do you know about me? Director of my own company, lucrative consultancy contract, flat on the river in central London, under 40, own hair, own teeth, no obvious disabilities. Brilliant! Perfect! Spiffing!

I don't even want to ham up the whole invisible disability thing. It's true, you can't see my depression, anxiety, bipolar. You can't see what my childhood was like. You can't see what struggles I've had in the past, to reach where I am today. You can't see my finances. You can't see my family pressures. You can't see the emotional baggage I'm trying to deal with. You don't even know what my daily existence is really like.

I'm not saying whether those things are good or bad, what I'm saying is that you're in no position to sit in judgement.

It's not a competition. It's not like I need to show you videos of me as a little boy, being sexually abused by my uncle [not that he did that] just to prove to you that I'm a worthy cause. How can anybody really say who is struggling and suffering more than somebody else? There is so much that is invisible, imperceptible.

There is no way to measure our distress, and to gauge who is worthy and who is being some kind of spoiled bratty person who should just shut the fuck up and go away. Count your blessings! Just be grateful for what you have! Look on the bright side! Cheer up! Chin up! etc. etc. ad nauseam.

Do you really want to take the chance of browbeating somebody and making them feel guilty for being desperately depressed and overwhelmed by their situation, until the moment that they take their own life? Is that really your preference, that people should just shut up and try to count their blessings, force their chin up and put on a mask of fake happiness, until they finally crack and they're gone?

Oh yes, isn't this so terribly melodramatic. Oh isn't it so terribly attention seeking. Oh wouldn't we all like to complain about our lives, and our lot in life, and our stress and the competing demands for our time and our money, and how emotionally and physically drained we are, and how we can barely cope. Oh me too, and you don't see me going on about it blah blah blah.

Well go on then.

Go on. I'm not stopping you. In fact, I encourage you to speak up if you're having a hard time and I will listen. If you're really at your wits end, I will find you and I'll make time for you. I know what it's like. A cry for help is a cry for help. Would you ignore a drowning man? Oh! It's just a cry for help! If he was serious about drowning he would have sunk to the bottom of the lake and be dead!

Cry wolf. YOU LEFT A LITTLE BOY WITH WOLVES FOR FUCK'S SAKE!

You know what it is, when people tell people with depression and crippling anxiety to shut up? It's bullying, plain and simple. People are being bullied into not talking about their distress. The bullies don't like attention being diverted from their narcissistic selves, so they bully people who are in genuine distress, using insulting terms like "melodramatic" and "attention seeker".

You wanna know what's attention seeking? Demanding that attention not be shown to those who are crying for help. Implicitly, by saying "don't look at them" you are saying "look at me". Yes, that's right, you're saying "don't look at that person who is yelling for help, look at me instead, aren't I fabulous?".

Guess what? You're not fabulous for having your shit together and no problems. If you're fabulous and have got your shit together, then try helping others who are less fortunate than yourself. What is Facebook and social media for? "I'm so pissed off because you're filling up my news feed with all your depressing stuff" = "make room for more selfies of me having a wonderful time".

When somebody is casting out for connections on social media, they have probably reached the limit of isolation. Social media is the last toehold that a person has in the world. They probably don't have friends, family and other healthy relationships that they can turn to in their hour of desperation. There's a reason why they're turning to social media, and it's not because they're an attention whore, looking for 'likes' on their shit.

It's rather tragic that I even have to explain this, and I know that the people who I have in mind when I write this have already switched off, because they're not tagged in a photo of them, smiling in the sunshine in their perfect fucking lives.

Is this whole essay based on jealousy of those who made smart life choices? Is this whole essay ignoring the fact that there are starving African children? READ IT AGAIN YOU FUCKING A-HOLES.

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When Is A Life Choice Not A Life Choice?

6 min read

This is a story about taking responsibility...

Cookie monster

What did you do to get fat, poor, alcoholic, addicted to drugs, mentally ill, bored and unfulfilled in your job and your life, into an abusive relationship, trapped onto benefits or otherwise cornered?

Those who think of themselves as having made smart life choices are quick to criticise those less fortunate than them, believing that the difference between them was simply one of choice.

A fat person simply chose to eat more calories than their energy requirement. If you mostly sit around watching TV, you don't need any more calories than those required to pump the muscle of your heart, move the diaphragm of your lungs, and for your cells to create enough heat to keep your blood at 37 degrees Celsius.

A poor person simply chose to not study very hard at school, and to not seek a lucrative career. If a poor person wants to become richer, there is an established path of acquiring academic qualifications, and then working your way up through the ranks to gain the experience you need to get a better job.

An alcoholic simply chose to not stop drinking before their body entered a state of alcohol dependence syndrome. The first time that you get the shakes after drinking, you could quit and possibly avoid delirium tremens and having a seizure.

A drug addict simply chose to continue to seek whatever escapism and pain numbing they found comforting in their drug of choice. A drug addict could simply choose to live with the pain and issues that they're trying to escape, or kill themselves in a much quicker way.

Mentally ill, stressed, anxious, depressed people simply chose to put themselves into an overwhelming situation that doesn't meet their needs and constantly bombards them with things that they have to do that they can't cope with. A depressed person could simply stop working, draw the curtains closed, and wait to be sacked and evicted onto the streets.

People in abusive relationships are simply choosing to not give up on their partner and remain optimistic about things getting resolved, or are simply choosing to be trapped into a cycle of abuse that fills them with so much fear that they feel unable to remove themselves from the situation. People in abusive relationships are simply choosing to not run away from the family home with their children, and live where? On the street?

People on benefits are simply choosing to not take a zero hours contract McJob on minimum wage that would see their benefits slashed as well as also having to spend all their paycheque on childcare so that some stranger can raise their kids, who they never get to see anymore because they're at work the whole time. People on benefits are choosing to live on a government handout that is not enough to pay for the basic essentials that they need, and puts them into a hand-to-mouth stressful existence with no hope of escape.

Maybe you could combine all these things, so that somebody is an overweight drunk with a drug habit, depressed, anxious, under-qualified for any decent job, and wedded to both the welfare state and an abusive partner, both of which have their claws into the person such that they can never escape.

Do you think it sounds appealing, the idea of living life without the comfort of food and eating? Life without the simple pleasure of sugary and fatty snacks. Do you think it sounds appealing, being stone cold sober and straight, with absolutely zero chemicals to alter your perception of the world, when your world consists of collecting benefits cheques that disappear like sand running through your fingers, with no hope for any kind of different future? Life without the numbing power of intoxicants, and the brief moments of joy that might be brought by other drugs, in an otherwise bleak and depressing existence.

Imagine having to give up your home, your partner, your family, your chemical crutches, your favourite food, and live in the cold harsh light of a reality of being single, alone, homeless, withdrawing from drugs and alcohol, dealing with depression and anxiety with nothing other than this magical bullshit thing called "willpower" alone.

Yes, it's all very well criticising the poor and unfortunate from your villa in Tuscany or the deck of a yacht. Yes, it's all very well talking about poor life choices, while you sit in your second home counting your money.

The truth of the matter though is this: the difference between successful people and unfortunate ones is pure blind luck.

We don't pick our shitty irresponsible lazy parents. We don't pick how wealthy our family is. We don't pick our schools. We don't pick whether we will have academic aptitude or not. We don't pick whether we can apply ourselves to the task of getting a lucrative job, or whether we hold onto unrealistic fantasies of becoming a pop singer or a Premiership footballer for far too long, before reality finally dawns on us. We don't pick whether we get to throw ourselves into our careers, our homes, our families, our pets, our hobbies... or whether we end up running to the bottle, the pills, the powders and the needle, in order to deal with the extraordinary shitness of daily existence.

Life is short. Life is shit. If your life is not shit, you're in no position to tell other people that it's because they're lazy, irresponsible, stupid and they made bad life choices. If your life is not shit, it's because you were lucky enough to be born into a family of reasonable wealth and education. You were lucky enough to fall into something that was lucky enough to work out. Yes, you made choices, but there was a huge component of luck that it worked out. Plenty of people made the same choices as you, but through no fault of their own, things didn't work out well for them.

In the blink of an eye, you can have an accident that will have life-changing consequences. In the blink of an eye, your one golden opportunity can pass you by, and you'll be shunted off the smooth tarmac and onto the rocky road. In the blink of an eye, your fortunes can change, and you find yourself cast into the seething mass of humanity, all crawling over each other like crabs in a bucket, trying to escape.

Just because you were lucky enough to make your escape, doesn't mean that anybody else can follow your special recipe, doesn't mean that anybody else can find their perfect job, can find fulfilment, contentment. Just remember: one slip and you're just as fucked as all the other people who weren't lucky like you were.

One slip and you're fucked.

 

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Happy Birthday to Me

4 min read

This is a story about equilibrium...

Kitesurfing Fuerteventura

I've now had exactly as many days on Planet Earth as an adult as I have had as a child. I guess it's time to pretend to act like a grown up a little more now.

I guess at some point, one day, I'm going to stop living in the past and going on about all the things that went wrong, or are broken in my life. It's been a little tough to "move on" and "look on the bright side" when there have been constant reminders, constant stressors, constant anxiety.

But this week I am on a desert island, somewhere off the coast of Africa. This is good. It is sunny and it is windy. Bliss.

There's a good chance this could be seen as boastful. It isn't. It's been well over 3 years since I had a week's holiday. I think I deserve it.

Of course, nobody deserves anything. Think of the starving children etc. etc.

However, maintaining equilibrium of mental health is a battle of whatever it takes. If I need to drink coffee and alcohol to tweak my mood up or down, to get through the day, I'll do it. If I need to eat unhealthy food or laze around in bed feeling sorry for myself, I'll do it. If I need to treat myself to a week off the rat race, the daily commute, the insanity of a bullshit job, I'll do it.

This is the payoff. This is the reason for living in a concrete jungle, wearing a straightjacket of a suit and not walking out of the office yelling "YOU'RE ALL GOING TO HELL" while making obscene hand gestures at everybody.

We're only here once. We only get one life. Nobody is getting out of this alive.

So, I'm going to ride my board on the ocean, blown along by the wind, with the hot sun beating down on me. Screw you, world, I kinda won here, for a moment.

For a brief moment in a monotonous daily routine of questioning my very existence, my place in the Universe, I'm briefly liberated from the deeply unsettling feeling that everybody's kids and grandkids are going to have a really shitty time due to the collective insanity of humanity.

For a brief moment, I cared more about not surfing into a giant rock that suddenly revealed itself to me, as the sea pulled back and a wave rose up.

There's something life-affirming about entering the ocean, where you also enter the food chain.

Kitesurfing has long ceased to be a 'survival' sport, where you're just happy if you have a session where you're not smashed into any hard objects by your massive kite, but you can still have the odd occasional unexpected rock, or something brushing your foot or leg from the depths of the ocean.

It's a pretty guilt-free pleasure... using the wind and the waves to power yourself along. No carbon dioxide is being released to propel you forwards. You're just harnessing the forces of nature, as best as you can.

Of course, nature is always humbling. An unexpected gust will tug you skywards. An unexpected wave will pummel you towards the sea floor. What unexpected life-affirming event ever happened to you in the office? A paper cut?

So, it seems pretty clear that I need nature, wind and waves in my life, to maintain some degree of equilibrium in my life.

Money potentiates the pursuit of the things you need to stay sane and happy, but it's not exactly necessary. There are plenty of other systems and non-systems for organising the human race, such as barter, anarchy etc.

I'm playing by the rules, and things have started to go my way. Please don't presume that I'm off the critical list, but I'm certainly in a good place at the moment.

You might think of me as very self-centred and melodramatic. You might think of me as complaining too much, and ungrateful for my lot in life. You might think that my expectations are unrealistic.

However, I'd be pretty happy to be a destitute beach bum right now.

 

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