Tag: writing

Training Artificial Intelligence

This is a story about computer brains…

Let us imagine that I want to set my computer a simple task: I want it to point to the end of my nose. My computer doesn’t know what a face is, what a nose is, or even that it can and should point to a certain part of my anatomy. I could write a program which tells my dumb computer exactly what to do – how to divine the position of my nose from an image, and then the relatively straightforward job of then asking the computer for the co-ordinates of the end of my nose, once the nose has been located. I could also use artificial intelligence, and more importantly machine learning.

Why does milk taste sweet?

You might not think of yourself as having a very sweet tooth, but in fact you used to have an insatiable appetite for sweet things. Your body is programmed to seek the wet, fatty, sweet goodness of milk, which provides the perfect sustenance for your growing brain and body. The reward circuitry is self-reinforcing and gives you a hit of dopamine every time you suck on the tit and get a mouthful of your mother’s milk, which causes the neural pathways in your brain to become stronger, while others are pruned away. Eventually, you become hard-wired to stuff fat and sugar into your mouth, when to begin with you had only the reward part.

That’s machine learning.

We need to give our machine – our computer – a reward. Let’s say that for a high-resolution digital photograph of perhaps 8 megapixels, assuming that most of the photos we give the computer will have the nose tip somewhere around the middle, the worst possible guess would be somewhere near the edges. We can set up a super simple reward for our artificial intelligence, giving it a hit of computer dopamine every time it guesses a point somewhere in the middle of the photo.

Obviously this is very flawed.

Very quickly, our artificial computer brain will learn to make guesses in the middle. Even though our computer doesn’t know what “middle” is, it will quickly become hard-wired to guess in the middle of the photos we show it, because that’s how we set up our reward system.

The guesses are not close to the tip of the nose, but they’re a lot closer than if we just let the computer guess completely at random.

We need to refine our reward system.

So, we take a library of thousands and thousands of photos of people’s faces, then we record the location of the tip of the nose by manually clicking on the tip of the nose ourselves. We create a huge database full of the correct locations of nose tips, created by humans.

Then, we set up the reward system to reward guesses which are close to the correct location of the nose tip. The closer the guess, the bigger the reward.

Now, we train our computer system with the big database of photos and nose tip locations. Every time the computer guesses, it gets a reward based on how close the guess was. We can run the training millions and millions of times. We keep doing the training until the computer gets really really good at guessing the location of the nose tip.

Remember, the computer has no idea what a face is, and it has no idea what it’s really doing. Nobody wrote a program instructing the computer how to do anything. The truth is, nobody really knows how exactly the computer is getting better and better at figuring out where the nose tip is. Nobody could predict how the computer brain is going to wire itself up. The computer sees all those thousands and thousands of photos, which are all very different in immeasurable ways, and somehow it begins to make associations between what it ‘sees’ and how it should intelligently guess the location of the nose tip.

That’s a neural network.

The really interesting thing that happens next, is that we show the computer a photo of a face it hasn’t seen before, and it’s able to guess where the nose tip is. We use the same artificial intelligence with a brand new face which the computer hasn’t been trained to locate the nose tip of, and it’s still able to figure it out, because the neural network has hard-wired itself to be really good at fulfilling the rewarding task of pointing to nose tips.

There’s nothing particularly amazing or hard to understand about machine learning and artificial intelligence. We’re simply training our computer slaves to do simple tasks, by setting a quantifiably measurable reward system, so that the neural network can practice for long enough to get good.

The predictive text suggestions on your phone come from machine learning, which has seen vast quantities of stuff written by people, such that it’s fairly easy to guess the word that’s likely to follow, based on what you’ve just written.

So, what about training a computer to be more human and be able to have a conversation? How are we ever going to pass the Turing test and trick somebody into thinking they’re talking to a real person?

We need to come up with a way to train artificial intelligence to speak just like a person.

Every time you use a text-messaging service to have a conversation, that data is harvested and analysed. Quintillions of messages are sent between people every year, and all that data can be fed into a machine learning system to train it to come up with typical responses to things people say. Google Mail makes absolutely brilliant “canned response” suggestions, which are usually totally appropriate for the context, because Google has seen quadrillions of banal emails saying little more than “thanks and kind regards”. Google employees don’t read your emails because they don’t have to – a machine does it and it effervesces the very essence of your exchange, such that it knows whether you should reply “love you too” or “see you in the office tomorrow”.

It’s of no particular use – beyond the present applications – to have so much aggregated data, unless we want to have a very bland, homogenous and unsatisfying experience of life. We we slavishly obey the conclusions of vast pools of data which have been analysed, we’ll end up in some sort of dystopian nightmare where are life outcomes are decided at birth, using available data, and reality will become like a piece of text composed by the predictive suggestions your phone came up with.

As an example, I’m going to generate a random number between 1 and 437, which corresponds to the page number of the novel I’m reading at the moment, then I’m going to generate another random number between 1 and 50 and use that word as the ‘seed’ for the predictive text feature on my fancy brand new iPhone Xs.

Let’s go…

Ok… page 35 has been randomly selected.

And… word 17 has been randomly selected.

The 17th word on page 35 of my novel was “of”.

OF COURSE IT WAS “of”.

Chances are, it was going to be “a”, “an”, “of”, “the”, “is”, “as”, “to” and any one of a zillion different super common words. Let’s use the word “sycamore” because it was on page 35.

Here’s what my phone just generated:

“Sycamore is a good one and I have had to go back and I get the feeling of being able and then they are taught to work and they have had to do it a little while I’m not gonna was a very long and I have a very good relationship”

Clearly, machine-generated text leaves a lot to be desired.

Critically though, do we really want a single machine mind which can spit out decent text, or do we actually want personalities? Do we want a single generic face which is composed of the average set of features from all 7.6 billion people on the planet, or do we want variation?

Thus, we arrive at the conclusion that we should all be training an artificially intelligent system capable of machine learning, to be just like us, as an individual. It’s no use that Google harvests all our data, because it aggregates it all together. It’s no use that all the messages you’ve typed on apps from Apple, Facebook and Google, all the emails you’ve written and all the documents you’ve created, are absolutely fucking useless because they contain very little of your personality. Most of the messages you wrote were about food, sex, your children and your pets. Most of the emails you wrote were about the bullshit made-up numbers you type into spreadsheets all day long, which you call your “job”. None of it is any use to train an artificially intelligent system to think and act like you.

I haven’t figured out the reward system yet, but I’m building up a huge database of stuff I’ve thought. This stream-of-consciousness seems like utter madness, but I’ve very deliberately expressed myself in a certain manner: pouring my inner monologue out onto the page. It’s ridiculous egotism and something which lots of writers have fallen foul of over the centuries, believing they’re immortalising themselves with their words, but we are in an unprecedented era of exponentially growing computer power, yet most of our efforts are diverted into meaningless exchanges which expose very little of the interior of our minds.

173 years ago, Henry David Thoreau built himself a cabin in the woods, lived alone with his thoughts and wrote perhaps 2 million words in the journal he kept for 24 years. It’s highly unlikely that his handwritten text will ever be digitised because of the incredible effort involved. By contrast, my 1.1 million words have been extensively search indexed by Google and other search engines, and my digital legacy is conveniently stored in ‘the cloud’ with perfect fidelity. While most people have been wasting the gifts of the information age by asking their partner if they need to buy bread and milk, I’ve been gaining what can only be described as a head start in the race to be immortalised by advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence.

How the hell did you think they were going to get the contents out of your brain and into another [artificial] one? Did you think it was going to require no effort at all on your part? Did you think that somebody was going to invent some kind of data-transfer cable?

Yes, it’s horribly arrogant to think that anybody would have any interest in spinning up a digital version of me, but you remember that bullied kid at school who everybody hated and ostracised? You remember that you called that kid “nerd” and “geek” and generally abused them because they were good at maths and physics? You remember how you made it your mission in life to make their life as thoroughly miserable as possible?

They’re your boss now. They’re rich and you’re poor.

Those geeks and nerds are suddenly on top of the pile.

You thought you were top dog when you were a kid, but now you’re getting left for dust. You’re being left to fester in your own filth. You’re the underclass.

All of those skills you developed in bullying and abuse quickly became redundant, when all that geek stuff became highly lucrative.

Those late-gained skills of using Facebook groups to share your vile bigotry amongst your fellow thick-skulled dunderheads, has done nothing except line the pockets of the geeks. The geeks have been using the internet for decades to discuss the creation of a better world, where the knuckle-dragging primitives who thought they owned the playground, have somehow been left unaccounted for by ‘accident’.

I’m not a big fan of the social exclusion and elitism which is emerging at the moment, but I’m damned if I’m going to stop keeping my technology skills up to date and investing my time and energy in my digital persona. Having put up with a lifetime’s worth of bullying during my childhood, I’ll be damned if I’m gonna meekly shuffle off into a quiet corner now. I’m sorry that you weren’t paying attention when the world went digital and now it’s super hard for you to catch up, but that’s what happens when you’re too busy making vulnerable people’s lives a misery, to notice that you’re wasting valuable time.

Every word I write is harvested by thousands of computers which comprise part of ‘the cloud’ and although billions of webpages are lost every single day, content is king and my 1.1 million words can be easily copied from one place to another, unlike the contents of your brain.

This might be a core dump of the contents of my mind, hurriedly written down in a state of kernel panic but it’s taken a huge investment of time and effort, which unfortunately has always been required to achieve anything. Without the large databases manually created by humans, the machines would have no datasets to learn from and artificial intelligence wouldn’t even be a thing.

Tags: #computing #writing

24 October 2018
I Forgot to Write

This is a story about aide-memoires…

My brain should be wrecked from all the punishment I’ve inflicted upon it, but somehow I’m still capable and competent at my job; somehow I seem to be able to pretend to be normal and live an ordinary life.

It seems reasonable to presume that I should be unstable, impulsive, forgetful, illogical and lacking capacity. It seems reasonable to expect that I would be unable to productively contribute to society, play by its rules and create anything of tangible value.

It has been immensely useful to me to have a collection of visual cues, which constantly refresh my memory about where I was and what I was doing on any given day. My life became so chaotic that I sometimes have to use the gaps in my photo archives to know when I was truly lost in the fog of addiction, but those gaps are relatively few and far in-between. Having written almost every day for over 3 years is incredibly stabilising, even if I can’t remember most of what I’ve written. However, when I read my list of approximately 800 blog post titles, it helps me recall what I was writing about on that day.

Today, I forgot to write.

I started watching a TV show I’ve been very much enjoying – Last Chance Lawyer NYC – and I promptly forgot that I needed to write. I soon remembered, but I decided not to interrupt my viewing to stop and write. I spoke to a friend on the phone. I exchanged messages with a few people. Then, BOOM! It’s nearly 10pm and I’m hurriedly bashing out words, in order to sustain my routine.

I’m feeling very pleased with myself at the moment. My colleagues missed me and I haven’t [yet] lost my job. I’m inching my way forward with my debts. I’m well rested.

My life is missing friends and intimacy, but I’m coping. I made it through a really ridiculously tough patch and reached my much-anticipated milestone of having a proper holiday, as a reward for the pain and suffering it’s taken to get this far. I don’t feel like complaining about anything. I don’t feel very depressed or suicidal. I don’t feel very anxious or stressed. I’m not even very bored.

Because I’ve got my detailed written record – replete with photographs – of everything that’s happened over the past few years, I’m well able to recall how dreadful I felt back in January, for example, when I was stressed out of my mind, tired, lonely and unbelievably bored.

Despite all the off-piste craziness, especially with amnesic medications like Xanax, I have a pretty photographic recollection of everything that’s happened, which I desperately need as a kind of road-map to help me avoid repeating past mistakes.

I don’t feel like writing, but I do it anyway, because the routine is helping me a lot.

I forgot to write, but I’m writing anyway.

Tags: #writing

23 October 2018
Writing Every Day Is Sometimes Hard

This is a story about workload…

Pictured above is part of the puzzle about how I was able to keep writing, even when I was sectioned and locked up on a psych ward. Underneath the NHS-provided pyjamas is a mobile broadband router, which was smuggled into hospital by my guardian angel. It was a lot easier to write when I was kept under lock and key, because I wasn’t expected to do anything other than eat, sleep and take pills twice a day. Now I have a full-time job and I’m very reluctant to risk writing when I’m supposed to be working.

In November I’m going to write another novel.

My first novel pretty much wrote itself. I did what all wannabe authors are supposed to do, by writing about what I knew. I had a very good idea of the plot and the structure of the book. It was surprisingly easy, although I did struggle briefly at around the 40,000 word mark, when I realised I hadn’t made enough notes and I was risking tripping myself up. In the end, my 52,000 word debut novel was completed in under a month and I was pleased wit my achievement.

I thought my second novel would be easy too. I picked my favourite style of story: a utopia/dystopia. I had some characters in mind and a vague plot idea. I had done a little research. I was woefully under-prepared, but I thought I’d probably be able to wing it – I believe the term is “pantster”… doing things by the seat of my pants. Arrogantly and perhaps still touched with a little madness – 2017 was a very rough year – I thought my second novel was going to be good but it really wasn’t. My style was inconsistent and I made some decisions which made writing the book very difficult. I wasn’t well enough practiced at writing dialogue and fleshing out my characters. I took pleasure in very technical descriptions of scenes and a lot of factual aspects of what I was writing about, but it certainly wasn’t good storytelling, in a lot of the chapters. Eventually, I abandoned the effort, having written 42,000 words in a month. I do have the remaining chapters planned out, but I think I’d like to rewrite the whole thing. I like the concept of the book, but as I progressed with it, I started to deeply regret mistakes I’d made. I started to hate the project. It became a real chore.

A big mistake I made was stopping blogging while I was writing my novels. Also, live-publishing the draft manuscript created a huge amount of pressure. I missed blogging soooo much. My heart ached to be blogging again. I wanted to experiment with the medium dot com platform, where there’s a big community of writers, but I really regretted neglecting my own website and my regular readers.

So, I need to keep writing my blog every day, no matter what.

But, it’s a huge workload.

Working a full time job. Writing a blog post every day. Writing a novel.

That’s a lot of work.

I do want to write another novel. I want to give myself total freedom this time. I want to take the pressure of making my draft manuscript public off myself. This time, I’m going to let the creative juices flow and write about whatever I’m motivated to write about. This time, I’m going to keep my blog going at the same time, because it’s hard for me to get through daily life without having a public journal/diary type thing, to keep me connected to the world.

I’ve created a lot of work for myself. Perhaps it seems like a good use of my time, to spend an hour or two writing every day, instead of watching mindless entertainment. Perhaps it’s a good thing to connect with people all over the world, and to have built a personal brand which brings me a lot of pride in my achievement. However, I spend as much time thinking “what am I going to write today?” as I do thinking “what am I going to do at work today?” which has both upsides and downsides. When work isn’t going well, at least I have an outlet for my creativity and energy. When I’m very tired and perhaps I really should be taking it easy, I feel somewhat obliged to write something, even when I’m not in the mood, because I don’t want to interrupt the routine.

I’m getting nervous about the workload of a full-time job, a blog and a novel, all at once.

I’m a completer-finisher.

I was gutted that I didn’t finish my second novel.

So many wannabe novelists will work on a manuscript for years and years, but they’ll never actually finish. If you don’t produce a finished draft, you’ll never be able to publish. If you never complete a novel, you’re not really a novelist at all. So many wannabe writers will start blogs and then abandon them, or write them very sporadically. Most blogs have a big burst of energy at the start, before the novelty quickly wears off.

If I start novel number three, I’m damn well going to finish it.

It might not be good. It might be silly. It might be downright bad, but I’d love to complete a second novel, because I learned so much writing the first and I’m so proud of the achievement. I also think I might really enjoy myself, if I’m writing mostly in private for once, without the pressure of any expectations I’ve built, that I can actually tell a half-decent story. My first novel really is a half-decent story, but that actually ended up contributing even more pressure, especially when it dawned on me that I was going to either fail, or produce something pretty bad, having been expecting to sail through and bash out another half-decent effort without too much difficulty.

I worry that I’m going to get lost in my imaginary world and so engrossed in writing that I might be tempted to write while I’m at work, and be irritated by bothersome interruptions, like my colleagues expecting me to do my damn job. I worry that I’m burning myself out, living a double-life. It’s surprisingly time and energy consuming, just writing my blog and staying on top of social media, as well as working my full-time job.

Obviously, this stream-of-consciousness-y type stuff pretty much writes itself. I connect my thoughts and feelings directly to the keyboard and the words just tumble out of me and onto the page. I’m well practiced at doing blog posts just like this.

Writing fiction is a whole different kettle of fish. Sometimes the words come easily and sometimes it’s like pulling teeth.

So… my challenge for November is to write another novel, but this time I have complete freedom and indeed I’m encouraging myself to be as fantastical as possible, and not artificially constrain myself with arbitrary rules about having to create an ultra-realistic fictional world, restricted by real-world limitations. It seems ridiculous that a geek like me hasn’t written any sci-fi up until now, but I’m always loathe to behave as anybody might expect me to.

It’s time to have some fun and do whatever I want in my fictional world, and the draft manuscript is going to be kept under wraps this time, so that I’m not constantly worrying about what other people think about my writing and my story.

That’s the plan.

Tags: #writing #novel

20 October 2018
Midnight

This is a story about turning into a pumpkin…

I wasn’t going to write tonight. I’m lying on the couch of my very good friend and fellow co-founder of what was once a promising profitable startup. We drank wine, drank beer and ate curry. We discussed every topic under the sun, from relationships, children, getting rich, becoming poor, going mad, and the absurdity of existence. Then, it was time to go to bed because we have to be up early in the morning: him because he has 3 young children, and me because I’m a jet-set playboy who’s off to the airport to catch an early flight.

Ironically, my friend has given me a book to read while on holiday, about the importance of getting good sleep.

I know how important sleep is.

My flight starts boarding in 8 hours, but I still need to drive to the airport, check-in, clear security and get to the gate. It shouldn’t be too bad, but I haven’t packed my bag yet. I imagine that I’ll be frantically decanting clothes from one massive suitcase – into which I threw every bit of clean clothing I own – into a more reasonably sized piece of luggage. It seems ludicrous to travel across the globe with my entire wardrobe, but carting everything I own around with me from place to place, is how I lived when I was homeless in London.

The concepts of home and away-from-home are unfamiliar to me. Wherever I happen to be sleeping on any particular night is ‘home’. If there’s somewhere comfortable to lie down and I’ve got my stuff with me, then I can make myself at home anywhere.

I wasn’t going to write, because it’s been a long week and it’s been a long year. It’s taken a lot of hard work, suffering and time to get to the point where I’m able to go away on holiday, and not worry about having a place to live and a job when I come back. The future’s uncertain, but there’s a good chance that I’ll be able to recharge my batteries and continue to earn money, paying off my monstrously crippling debts and re-filling the war chest.

I wasn’t going to write because I’m tired and a little drunk, but screw it.

I wasn’t going to write because it’s past midnight.

I like to write every day.

Technically, it’s tomorrow already.

According to my clock, it’s almost 1am

I didn’t turn into a pumpkin.

The next time I write to you, perhaps I will be officially on holiday, for a whole entire week.

Wish me bon voyage.

Tags: #writing #friends #holiday

12 October 2018
Nick Grant
This is a story about secret identities and alter egos…

I’m Nick Grant and these are my glasses, which are my cunning and infallible disguise to protect my real identity. It would be a disaster if anybody found out my real name – Nick Grant – because this blog is pretty unflinchingly honest and contains a lot of very unflattering things about me. I’m pretty damn exposed, hence why I wear my disguise.

Today I’m celebrating 3 years of blogging. I’ve been writing every day for 3 whole years, with only a few gaps due to sickness and near-catastrophic events in my personal life, which have threatened to see me bankrupt, evicted, homeless, penniless and destitute. To have kept writing regularly throughout all the ups and downs of the past 3 years is a huge achievement.

To date, I’ve written and published 1,013,091 words in that 3-year period.

The last 36 months could be summarised thus:
- September 2015: working for HSBC, living in a hotel, dating a BBC journalist. Rent an apartment on the River Thames.
- October 2015: working for HSBC. Suicidally depressed. Hospitalised. Fly to San Francisco.
- November 2015: fly back to the UK and deliberately get sacked from HSBC. Dating a PA to one of the directors of a major investment bank. Meet my guardian angel.
- December 2015: protesting against bombing Syria. Sober for 100 consecutive days. Relapse back into abuse of legal stimulants and benzodiazepines.
- January 2016: self harm and drug abuse. Start drinking again. Destroy my bed.
- February 2016: abuse of sleeping pills and tranquillisers
- March 2016: poly-drug abuse, combining legal highs and medications
- April 2016: holiday to Southend with my guardian angel. Start dating again
- May 2016: working for undisclosed major multinational organisation, with 660,000 employees worldwide. Replace destroyed bed.
- June 2016: working. Suicidal. Bored.
- July 2016: holiday to Fuerteventura for my birthday with my guardian angel.
- August 2016: working. Suicidal. Bored.
- September 2016: project cancelled. Meet love of my life. Minor relapse. Lies. Antidepressants and tranquillisers.
- October 2016: in love. Mini-break to the New Forest. Weaning myself off tranquillisers.
- November 2016: in love. Drinking a lot. Writing my first novel.
- December 2016. in love. Christmas with her family. Eating and drinking a lot.
- January 2017: DVT and kidney failure. Hospital and dialysis. Working for Lloyds Banking Group. Neuropathic pain from nerve damage. Taking tramadol, codeine, dihydrocodeine and pregabalin for the pain. Abusing large amounts of Valium and Xanax. Lose contract
- February 2017: fully-blown supercrack relapse. Completely addicted to prescription opiates.
- March 2017: supercrack. Abusing sleeping pills and tranquillisers. Quitting prescription opiate painkillers. Drinking. Still in love.
- April 2017: supercrack. Still in love.
- May 2017: attempting to quit supercrack by staying at girlfriend’s and taking dextroamphetamine. Not succeeding
- June 2017: drug and insomnia-induced mania, paranoia and general insanity. Break up with love of my life. Regret
- July 2017: run out of money. Get a job in Manchester. Put all my stuff into storage. Leave London. Fling with girl from work.
- August 2017: working for a startup in Manchester. Dating a different girl. Still physically addicted to painkillers, tranquillisers and sleeping pills.
- September 2017: breakup. Suicide attempt. Hospitalised. Sectioned. Locked up on psych ward.
- October 2017: move to Wales.
- November 2017: writing my second novel.
- December 2017: working for undisclosed bank in Warsaw and London.
- January 2018: working for same undisclosed bank in London. Dating a Welsh girl
- February 2018: bank. London. Girl.
- March 2018: working for undisclosed government organisation. Rent an apartment in Wales.
- April 2018: successfully quit all drugs and medications. Job, girlfriend and apartment all in Wales and very close.
- May 2018: relapse. Breakup.
- June 2018: government project finished. Mini-break to Faro, Portugal to see old friend.
- July 2018: working for another undisclosed government organisation. Living in a hotel.
- August 2018: government. Hotel. Single. Depressed.
- September 2018: still working for same government organisation. Dating again.
By my calculations, 27 out of 36 months have been relatively OK, but 9 months in the past 3 years I’ve been a complete and utter train-wreck. The damage that’s been done in that quarter of the year where I’ve been struggling with addiction, has been enough to completely screw up my life the rest of the time, but not quite bad enough to lead to me becoming unemployable, bankrupt and homeless – I always find a way to bounce back.

Somehow I’ve managed to fit 5 serious girlfriends and 5 major IT projects into the madness of my day-to-day existence, as well as 3 hospitalisations for major medical emergencies, being sectioned, two psych wards, an arrest, two evictions, moving 5 times, 6 cities, 5 countries, 13 powerful prescription medications, 5 street drugs, 121 consecutive days sober, 56 consecutive days sober, 799 blog posts, 1 million words, 14 thousand Twitter followers and a couple of hundred thousand pounds… and all I’ve got to show for it is this poxy blog.

The story of Nick Grant and his ups and downs might be a bit repetitive, but I’m sure it’s not boring. I would argue that it’s pretty remarkable that I’m still alive and kicking, and able to string a sentence together. It’s remarkable that I’m reasonably mentally stable and I’m working full time on quite an important project. It’s remarkable that my colleagues don’t suspect a thing. It’s remarkable that I haven’t made myself unemployable or otherwise ended up excluded from mainstream society. It’s remarkable that I’m unmedicated and yet quite functional and productive.

Along the way, I managed to lose my original pair of glasses, but I had a new identical pair delivered today, which I’m wearing now. I had no idea when my replacement glasses would be delivered, because they were being hand made to order, so I find it deliciously wonderful that they were delivered on the day I’m celebrating the 3-year anniversary of starting this blog.

When I think back to my very first blog post 3 years ago – Platform 9.75 – it’s amazing to reflect on the journey I’ve been on and marvel at how effectively my daily writing habit has functioned as a stabilising influence. I very much doubt I’d have been able to recover and continue my journey without the huge amount of help and support it’s brought me. I feel really proud of what I’ve achieved, which gives me some all-important self-esteem in the times when I need it most. I’m sure I’d have killed myself long ago if it wasn’t for the people who’ve engaged with me and what I write, and encouraged me to keep going. I feel loved and cared for even during some very dark and dismal days.

Obviously what I’ve written is not particularly palatable or compatible with dating and my professional life, but they’ll never be able to find me – Nick Grant – because I’ve been so careful to disguise my identity and make sure that nobody could just Google me and find out all my closely guarded secrets. Nobody will ever be able to make the connection.

My next objective is to get through September 9th – the anniversary of my most serious suicide attempt – without incident. I plan on phoning a couple of the people who managed to get the emergency services to rescue me in the nick of time, to thank them for saving my life.

Tags: #writing #secrecy #privacy #nickgrant #socialmedia #blogging #career #addiction #bipolar #hospital #homeless #alcohol #drugs #sex #relationships #london #startup
6 September 2018
Online-Dating-Friendly Content

This is a story about marketing yourself…

The image I present of myself online is thoroughly incompatible with my professional life and my aspirations to meet a girl and start a relationship. I speak my mind and I’m very honest about some things I’ve experienced which are taboos. It’s not very common in our society to talk about our failures and other unflattering things which might paint us in an unfavourable light. I would attract a lot of stigma and prejudice if I was up-front about unpalatable things from my past.

Half-naked photos of yourself and presenting yourself as an all-round faultless great guy – a real man’s man – is not a particularly successful strategy. I include the image above ironically. Unsolicited dick pics don’t work either, but there are a lot of men who seem to think that they do.

For a brief time I had included the fact that I’m a writer on my online dating bio, but I realised that my blog doesn’t exist in a particularly sanitised form and I would hate to be writing with hesitancy, thinking about how my words would be received by an online love interest who’s just getting to know me. I’m very exposed in a way that most people usually aren’t. You almost never have the opportunity to peer deep into somebody’s psyche and read about all their deepest darkest secrets.

Earlier in the year I tried dating with my blog offered as part of the package of information presented. Usually the information we have when dating is a name, age, a few photos, a very short bio, then after some discussion we know what a person does for a living, whether they have kids, whether they have pets, where they studied, where they’ve travelled and a few other details which actually tell us very little about that person’s character. It’s not a lot to make a decision about whether it’s promising enough to warrant an actual in-person date, but we have the writing style – from text message chat – to gauge whether a person is intellectually stimulating and easy to converse with or not. Subtle language cues tell us whether we’re of a socioeconomically similar group, which is important not least for reasons of insecurity and feelings that we were hard-done-by in some way. Nobody likes feeling poor in the company of somebody who’s enjoyed wealth and privilege, or feeling stupid in the company of somebody who’s been lucky enough to enjoy a great education.

The problem with having my blog as part of the information bundle, is that there’s an almost unlimited amount to be consumed and processed, which is available anywhere, anytime. It’s tempting for almost anybody with even a casual interest in other people’s lives, to dig and dig, and it raises troublesome questions which would normally never come about in the course of a relationship, because we don’t usually have access to the inside of somebody’s mind.

I’m quite comfortable with friends and the general public having access to the entirety of the dark recesses of my mind, because I’ve found that most people are sympathetic and kind, and they’ve used the information for purposes which have been very beneficial to me. I get messages of support. I make connections with people, and that feels good. I feel that people care about me.

When somebody who I have a romantic interest in starts to read my blog, however, it can make me somewhat paranoid about being judged negatively. Indeed, many people have a very negative view of those who do online dating, believing the online world to be a hotbed of murderers, rapists, sadists, perverts, pedophiles and other unsavoury characters. If you’re looking to find out something bad about me, and you’re hoping for your worst fears to be confirmed, then there’s a lot of material here which can be twisted by the mind of a sad, miserable, negative and mistrusting person, who has no ability to perceive their own flaws and less-than-perfect personality. I make a leap of faith every day by choosing to expose myself and make myself vulnerable, sharing my innermost thoughts and feelings as honestly and candidly as I can. To abuse my trust by twisting my words and turning me into a monster is not very nice, but it’s what a lot of people do, because they’re looking for reasons to reject, not reasons to connect.

Similarly, prospective employers are looking for reasons to reject, and this is the reason why my blog is not at all compatible with my professional life. There’s an unwritten rule in the corporate world, which is that you never talk about your flaws and failures. It would be career-ending if I was to include a link to this blog on my CV or LinkedIn. The contents of this blog is gold dust to the gatekeepers who very much want to see me penniless and destitute; unemployable.

I need companionship and intimacy. I need a job. I have to play by the unwritten rules of society, so that means keeping certain parts of my life under wraps. It would be too much for your average small-minded square to process, and it’s almost too much for even the most kind and compassionate, to get beyond the usual knee-jerk reaction which is to reject anybody atypical.

There’s nothing I need to tell anybody per se. I don’t have any secrets particularly. I’m not trying to cover up a drug habit or pretending to be something I’m not. I’m not trying to pull the wool over anybody’s eyes. I’m not withholding important or relevant information.

To mistreat people by treating them with suspicion and mistrust is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think somebody’s going to let you down or do something bad, you’re increasing the likelihood of that happening, because you’re ostracising and persecuting that person, just like so many others do too. If you’re expecting bad things to happen and you’re withholding trust and commitment – refusing to take a leap of faith – there can only be one outcome, ultimately.

I think the decision to have this open document is the right one, but I still need to get laid every now and again.

Tags: #dating #sex #socialmedia #writing #privacy

2 September 2018
Context Switching

This is a story about screen time…

The button to silence my smartphone has broken so I leave it permanently in “do not disturb” mode, which suits me just fine. Hardly anybody ever phones me except for agents and other cold caller sales types. My time is mostly spent in the 12 apps pictured above. Perhaps I’m not on my smartphone all the time, but essentially I’m context-switching non-stop throughout my waking hours, so I thought that warranted a little examination.

Starting with my 35,225 unread emails, my inbox has gotten rather out of control. Email has become such a victim of its own success that no IT professional I know even uses it anymore – we’re all on Slack. Most communication is entirely transient and there’s no need to have a record of anything except some kind of chat transcript to catch up on – anything old can be archived and forgotten. I spend all day every day chatting to my colleagues on Slack, including colleagues from organisations where I don’t even work anymore.

Messages comprises SMS messages – mostly telling me about voicemails I haven’t listened to – and a handful of iMessages from people who aren’t using WhatsApp for some reason. WhatsApp deserves special note though, because of the group chats. I was removed from the only group chat I was a member of – discussion between cryptocurrency enthusiasts – and I was usurped by a guy who screwed me over last year when I was on my deathbed, which is kinda besides the point but it galls me.

Instagram I don’t actually use very much. I live in a text-based world and the photos I take are in 4:3 or 3:2 aspect ratio, not 1:1. I don’t take very many selfies.

Facebook Messenger is my most active chat app, but I only use it to chat to one person – my guardian angel – and we mainly exchange memes about suicide, mental health problems and the ruined economy. Facebook messenger also makes calls – as do many of the apps – and I occasionally speak to a friend in Poland, which is about the only time I speak to anybody on the telephone.

Recently I’ve been using Tinder and Bumble in an attempt to meet girls. It adds additional complexity to my context-switching life.

I’m not really sure what I use Facebook for. I do browse through the feed once a day – not on my smartphone – and I occasionally like and comment on things which are especially noteworthy, but I generally try to avoid over-investment in that particular walled garden. I used to share a lot and indeed I’ve managed to rather make a fool of myself in front of all my friends and scupper my chances of ever working in some organisations, because I dragged my own good name through the mud. I don’t put my dirty laundry on Facebook much, only for it to be conspicuously ignored. Instead I write over a million words on my blog and broadcast my ups and downs to thousands of followers and anybody who does Google searches.

I don’t use Twitter properly. I don’t generally retweet stuff and I don’t spend enough time reading the tweets of the 6,000+ people I follow. How anybody could sift through it all I have no idea – Twitter is a pretty noisy place. Generally I just look to see if anybody I know is tweeting about any of the trending topics, and I otherwise rely on an email I receive in the morning each day, which tells me what my favourite people have been up to. I must admit, it’s sometimes a struggle to stay on top of my notifications and DMs and then I turn turtle and hide for a while until things quieten down.

I don’t bother with LinkedIn much. I don’t struggle to find work. I don’t much see the point in ploughing much time and effort into my corporate image – I’ve got a perfectly professional CV and LinkedIn page, and otherwise I rely on my contacts, skills, experience and references to be able to get work when I need it.

I wake up in the morning and I quickly scan through my notifications – mostly Twitter – to see if there have been any comments, which I make a mental note to reply to later in the day. When I get bored around mid-morning, I have a glance at my inbox to see if there’s anybody demanding money with menaces or otherwise harassing me. Approaching lunchtime, I might kill a bit of time with Facebook, but I don’t want to get too engrossed in my phone when I’m at work. If I’m having a really dreadful day, I might reach out to a couple of friends via Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp and see if I can get them to send jokes, memes or anything that might provide a moment’s distraction from the boredom. After leaving the office and generally before my evening meal, I write a blog post. I often scan through my website analytics to see if there’s anything notable going on. If my mind is busy and distracted I frequently find myself flipping between half-watching something on Netflix and several tabs in my browser – a mix of Facebook and Twitter. Sometimes I read the news, but I find that I spend less and less time engaging with current affairs at the moment, because I’ve been stressed out of my mind with basic survival. A new part of my routine is chatting to girl(s) via the dating apps and if I’m ever lucky enough to get a phone number, then chatting on WhatsApp.

The amount of context switching is pretty remarkable. In any given day I might have to switch between fully professional mode, with colleagues who I want to present with a squeaky-clean corporate-friendly version of myself, and a more relaxed but still guarded version of myself which allows a little bit of my personality to show, but hopefully keeps my bad not-safe-for-work (NSFW) stuff hidden. I might be chatting to somebody who I’ve known for a long time online who’s in a different timezone – ahead or behind – and they’ll know an incredible amount of personal stuff about me and we’ll be talking very frankly and honestly about everything and everything… then I’ll be talking to a girl who I’ve just started chatting to who doesn’t know me at all… then I’ll be chatting to work colleagues who I spend 40 hours a week in close proximity with and they think they know me but they don’t [and I don’t want them to know everything]. Then, there’s the image I present and the interactions I have via my blog and social media. and all the people who I have frequent and infrequent contact with, and the different ways I know people. Facebook is a particularly weird melting pot, where former work colleagues mingle with people who I know through kitesurfing, my startup days, the time I was homeless and living in parks and hostels, people who I’ve just randomly friend requested when I was mentally unwell. Facebook is kinda the worst, because I never know which guise I should be in, so I’m probably too honest and I’m tarnishing my own reputation and good standing that I once had with friends.

My brain has to switch between survival mode – where I’ve been worried about money, housing, addiction, alcoholism, transport, sex, isolation, suicidal thoughts, self harm, depression, anxiety and odds that have been very much stacked against me – and professional mode – where I’m expected to perform at a very high standard and navigate extremely complicated large organisations and know all the ins and outs of massive and complex software systems and the infrastructure they’re deployed on, plus all the many teams and the zillions of people and the processes and procedures – and my digital identity which I’m cultivating – which needs me to compose a blog post every day and stay on top of any replies, messages and emails, and generally keep in touch with an ever-growing list of friends who I’ve never met in person, but who’ve been amazingly kind and supportive during rough times – and Mr. Eligible Bachelor mode, which requires me to present myself in the correct sequence, so that I can be understood without at the same time being overwhelming and off-putting.

To some extent my life looks quite simple. I have a job and not much else – I don’t socialise and I’m not in a relationship. To the casual observer, all I do is move between my home, the office and a hotel, and I’m always in front of my laptop, tapping away at the keys quite furiously.

I suppose my life is quite simple, if we imagine that my fixation is the screen and the keyboard, but the screen time is a red herring – it’s a window to an unimaginably gigantic and complex world of thousands of interactions with people all around the globe.

The context-switching is pretty hard though. I’ve struggled to stay on top of everything during the last couple of days.

Tags: #socialmedia #privacy #writing #friends #career #computing #dating #sex

31 August 2018
Too Much Responsibility

This is a story about burden…

Heavy is the head that wears the crown. While it might not seem like I have a lot of responsibilities, I feel as if I do. Nobody dies, loses their life savings, job or otherwise suffers catastrophe if I fail to complete my duties and fulfil my obligations, but I feel honour-bound to keep my promises and satify my commitments.

If I say I’m going to do something – perhaps just to myself – then I take that commitment very seriously. I’ve decided that I’m going to work for a whole year without letting mental illness get in the way, so I’m persevering through periods when I’ve been feeling very unwell. I decided that I was going to write every day, so now I feel fully committed to doing that.

I want to prove to myself and others that I’ve overcome the difficulties I’ve been through during the past few years, and the way I’m proving that is to be reliable, steady, dependable, consistent and stable.

I want to show those who’ve trusted and believed in me that their faith was not misplaced. Anybody who’s taken a risk on me needs to be repaid; the gamble needs to pay off.

Perhaps I was overly reliant on my reputation and past achievements for too long. Perhaps I had rested on my laurels. I feel like it’s very important to knuckle down, work hard and to prove my worth. I need to put in an almighty amount of effort to prove beyond reasonable doubt that I’m not a has-been, washed-up, spent and broken man, who’s got nothing left to give or contribute.

I feel physically and mentally unwell. The journey up to this point has exhausted me and I’m very weary. I’m struggling to believe I’m able to continue. I don’t see the life I’m leading as sustainable.

A great deal of pressure was lifted when I reached my million-word blogging target, but I always wanted to cement the achievement with a ‘cool-off’ period where I’d write with more quality and less quantity. I don’t yet feel as though I can allow myself a day off.

Most of my life runs on auto-pilot. My job is so easy that it takes very little thought or effort. The main challenge is simply the waiting game; the boredom.

If I do nothing, I win.

It’s an incomprehensible situation that I feel so much pressure and I’m struggling so much, when I’m so free from responsibility and I’m accumulating money so rapidly, with so little effort. I don’t understand why I’m not laid back and cruising along comfortably, quite happy and content that everything is ticking over just fine. I don’t understand why I feel burdened.

It’s not a comfortable situation for me, doing nothing. I feel like I got to this point because I forced things to happen – I fixed things, I found solutions and I got myself out of horrendous situations. I’m not at all comfortable with being passive – having had my back to the wall for so long, I’m not built for periods of tranquility where the best thing to do is to coast downhill.

I’m unsure of even exactly where I am. I feel like I just dismantled a television set and all the thousands of components are laid out neatly in front of me, but I have no idea why I took it to bits or how to put it back together again. I felt like my life had purpose and meaning when I was dismantling that TV, but now I’m lost and confused.

My rhythm and routine has been somewhat disturbed.

Tags: #writing

27 August 2018
Five Minutes of Your Precious Time

This is a story about daily habits…

The average amount of time my readers spend on my blog per visit is 3 minutes and 12 seconds. The average number of words in one of my blog posts is 1,318 and an average reader reads at 200 words per minute, so I’m writing double the amount that people want to read.

I’m lucky enough to have had a handful of very dedicated people who’ve actually read everything, from start to finish. It should be noted, however, that at least two of them were people who read as part of their profession, and they can probably read at about 1,000 words per minute.

The average casual reader doesn’t want to read a 10,000 word blog post which was written in a state of sleep deprivation and mania, and published with very little editing.

Less is more.

People also want to read stories not rambling nonsense. When I was live-publishing a chapter of my first novel draft manuscript every day, my readers were hooked. During that period of November 2016 my blog became ‘sticky’ – visitors came and then stayed; they kept on reading because there was a story being told.

I’ve gotten into dreadfully bad habits during the past 25 days because I was so fixated on word count. Also, I’ve lost my way a lot this year, not really knowing what I was writing about, for whom and why.

I keep a list of writing prompts, which are generally just titles of future blog posts serving as an aide memoire of topics I want to write about. The topics are quite eclectic but usually revolve around social issues. Anti-capitalism, pro-socialism, anti-organised-religion, anti-natalism, anti-psychiatry and generally liberal and left-leaning sentiments are themes which often recur. I often write defensively about how people with mental health and addiction issues can participate positively in society and shouldn’t be stigmatised, demonised or thought of as flawed or weak. I write a great deal about my frustration with the great futility and inefficiency of working doing bullshit jobs until the day we die. I often despair aloud about the total absurdity of wasting our finite mortal lives on utter nonsense. I can’t hide my anger at being denied the opportunity to be an artist; to be creative. I feel trapped; I do not feel free at all and my resentment of the prison bars always seems to bubble to the surface.

I’m a writer. I create another little piece of my artwork every day. How could I possibly not feel free? Why do I want something I’ve clearly already got?

In fact, I’m an irrelevant commentator who’s not even on the fringe, let alone participating in any political, social, artistic, creative, journalistic, literary or academic movement. I’m just a reclusive lonely isolated man who writes in obscurity, mostly unnoticed and unheard. I’m fighting what feels like an unwinnable battle, to have a say in my own life.

I’m practical and pragmatic enough to realise that art and writing is never going to pay the bills. I’m realistic enough to see that everybody is trying to get noticed and to promote themselves, with the hopes of being heard. I’m cynical and pessimistic enough to believe that there isn’t a newspaper column, book deal or ‘viral’ event which would ever have enough of a life-transforming impact for me to be able to quit my day job. There’s simply not enough room at the top for everybody who wants to be a bestselling author, award-winning journalist, entertainer, commentator, influencer, politician or otherwise have some impact on people’s daily lives and a pleasant and rewarding career in the creative arts.

So, in my infinite frustration with the ways of the world, I’m taking what I want. I’m doing what I want to do anyway, even though it’s costly to me and doesn’t appear to benefit me in any obvious way. I spend my precious spare time writing, editing, proofreading and publishing my creative efforts, and giving away what I write for free. In many ways, I am an enemy of those who have enough trust fund money and inherited wealth to be able to be artists, because my contributions must surely devalue the commodity.

I write because there’s only one thing I can possibly get: exposure. If I write enough, slowly but surely I get noticed. Writing and publishing a million-word suicide note is a ludicrously hard thing to do, so it’s notable.

Have you ever noticed how overnight successes actually take very many years to perfect?

My next challenge is to try to make my readers feel that it was worth their while visiting and reading.

Tags: #writing #socialmedia

26 August 2018
The Journey

This is a story about three years of my life…

I was living in an ultra-modern hotel in Canary Wharf and working for HSBC at their head office. I was a member of the team working on the bank’s number one IT project. Shortly beforehand I had been living in a 14-bed hostel dorm and I’d narrowly escaped bankruptcy and destitution. I was working 12 hours a day, 6 or sometimes 7 days a week. I was exhausted and the tiredness, stress and unsettled life was driving me literally insane. I was suffering with delusions of grandeur, paranoia and my behaviour was erratic and unpredictable; I was extremely tense and irritable. I was on the brink of having a breakdown.

I rented an apartment on the River Thames near the office. The rent was obscene – £500/week – but I was earning great money working for HSBC and I was working very hard, so it seemed affordable at the time; it seemed like a nice reward for all the hard work. It felt like justice that I’d been able to get myself off the streets and into such a lovely place to live; to have gone from homeless and sleeping rough in a park, to having a luxury Thameside apartment with panoramic views over London.

I was dating a BBC journalist. I was rapidly gaining a Twitter following. I felt like everything was happening for a reason. I felt like it was my destiny to do something important. I was consumed with mania; I was obsessed with the idea of a grand gesture. I had been deeply affected by my homelessness and near-bankruptcy and destabilised by the exhaustion of sleeping rough and in hostel dorms. The IT project was very stressful and I was under a great deal of pressure from HSBC management. My mind was a mess. I was very severely mentally ill.

I woke up one morning and I couldn’t go on. I couldn’t face the office. I wanted to kill myself. I went to my doctor who sent me to hospital. 13 hours later I was admitted to a secure psych ward. I explained that I was financially distressed and very stressed at work. The psychiatric team recommended I stay in hospital for at least 2 weeks, but I needed to be back in the office if I was going to keep my job, to be able to afford the rent.

I discharged myself from hospital after a week and flew to San Francisco. I figured that if I was going to kill myself I might as well do it somewhere iconic. A friend picked me up from the airport and I borrowed a bike. I cycled straight to the Golden Gate Bridge. Seeing old friends, however, made me change my mind about committing suicide.

I lost my job with HSBC and I “slept rough” in the shadow of the head office skyscraper in Canary Wharf. I thought that this would be the pinnacle of my journey. I thought that having been used and abused by HSBC then unceremoniously dumped out onto the streets to suffer bankruptcy and homelessness – having managed to get myself a job at the bank while of no fixed abode and living in a hostel – would be deliciously poetic. It was, but my journey had barely begun.

I quit drinking for 121 consecutive days. I starved myself. I thought that I would go on hunger strike. I thought that I would sleep rough on Christmas Day. I was really angry and upset with the world. Self harm and substance abuse dominated my life for several months. I got into heaps of debt just staying alive.

I survived the winter. I got another job. My life was OK except for persistent suicidal thoughts. I hated the project I was working on but I persevered because I was in a lot of debt. I loved where I was living – every day in my apartment was like Christmas Day because the view was so awesome. Living by the river was an incredible privilege. I took a holiday and went kitesurfing. My quality of life was improving slowly.

I met somebody very special and fell totally in love. She accepted me for who I was, including the all the bad bits, such as my prior issues with substance abuse. She was the first person I’d been in a relationship with who’d been able to read everything about me on my blog and to understand my flaws. We had a good relationship. The project I had been working on came to an end and I was jobless again. I wrote and published my first novel – she proofread it and helped me with the ending and other ideas. She was very supportive and I was confident I’d find work again easily.

New Year’s Eve watching the fireworks over London, sipping champagne on my balcony with the woman I loved – it seemed like the New Year was full of promise, but I was worried about getting another job and I was still in a lot of debt. There was a lot of pressure.

Disaster struck. I got deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in my left leg, which swelled up to twice the size of my right leg. My kidneys failed and I ended up in hospital on a high dependency ward having many hours of dialysis every day. The potassium in my blood spiked to a life-threatening level and I was constantly at risk of cardiac arrest. I was very sick.

My stay in hospital caused me to lose my job. Losing my job caused me to collapse psychologically and become very depressed and despondent. The DVT had caused terrible nerve damage and I had a lot of neuropathic pain, as well as a numb left foot. I started to become dependent on painkillers. I sought powerful antidepressants for my low mood. Pictured on the table are: codeine, dihydrocodeine, tramadol, diazepam, alprazolam, mirtazapine, venlafaxine, dextroamphetamine, zolpidem, zopiclone and pregabalin, which are all highly addictive. Because of this cocktail of prescription drugs I suffered an episode of medication-induced mania – temporary insanity – and broke up with the love of my life.

I ran out of money. I had to pay a huge tax bill and I had to go even deeper into debt. I was virtually bankrupt. Out of desperation I was forced to put all my worldly possessions into storage and leave London to take a job in Manchester. The job in Manchester included an apartment as part of the package, which was lucky because I didn’t have enough money to pay rent or a deposit – I was totally broke. Moving house and leaving London was incredibly upsetting and traumatic. The new job was extremely demanding and exhausting. I was very lonely and isolated in an unfamiliar city with no friends or family; no local connections.

I tried to commit suicide. I took a massive overdose: I’d been stockpiling my prescription painkillers and I knew that 8+ grams of tramadol was likely to be fatal. I sent a tweet when I believed I was beyond the point of no return. I thought nobody knew where I lived. I thought there was no chance anybody would get to me in time. I was wrong. I regained consciousness a few days later in a hospital’s critical care ward on life support. I was later sectioned for 28 days and admitted to a Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU).

A doctor from Wales discovered my blog and invited me to live on their farm in a converted garage. I had no money, no car, no job. I had nothing.

I almost went bankrupt but a friend got me some work in Warsaw and in London. I was living in AirBnBs and working in the Square Mile from Monday to Friday and living in Wales at the weekends.

I bought a car, I got a local job, a local girlfriend and I rented an apartment. Briefly, I had everything I wanted and needed, although I went even deeper into debt. The pressure, stress and turmoil which I’d endured to get to this point was unimaginable; just to get to a position which most people would take for granted as the minimum acceptable things for a normal ordinary liveable life.

The local project ended and I was jobless again. The relationship ended. I papered over my bedroom windows and withdrew from the world. The journey had destroyed me. I was spent.

An obscene amount of money flows through my hands, but it all ends up in the pockets of those who I owe money to. I’m desperately trying to keep my head above water. The financial pressure is immense; unbearable. The journey has been incredibly long and arduous. There’s still a very long way to go before I reach security and stability; before I’m comfortable, happy and content.

In the last year alone, I’ve managed to move house 3 times, work 4 different jobs, travel to 4 different countries, date 2 girls, survive a suicide attempt, be admitted to 3 different hospitals, quit addictive painkillers, sedatives, tranquillisers and sleeping pills, be arrested and locked in a cell, buy a car, rent a place to live, stay in 17 different hotels and AirBnBs, and somehow stay on top of my mountainous debts, not go bankrupt and even pay some of that crippling amount of money back. My only remaining vice is wine. I’m completely unmedicated and I don’t abuse any substance other than alcohol. It’s a remarkable journey for just 12 months, but the journey has been much, much longer than that.

In the last three years, I’ve written and published a million words and connected with thousands of people all over the globe.

To be precise, to date I’ve written exactly 1,001,020 words and counting, on this blog.

It’s the world’s longest suicide note.

If you want to understand why I’m suicidal you just have to read it all – it’s all written down in exquisite detail. To save you the trouble of reading all 1 million words I’ve summarised the last 3 years for you right here.

The pressure; the stress; the exhaustion. Where is my reward?

I’ve travelled so far and I’ve achieved so much but yet I feel like it’s gotten me nowhere. I should be rich but in fact I’m up to my eyeballs in debt. If you want to know where that debt came from, I just explained it to you. I didn’t get into debt buying frivolous things and being profligate. I didn’t make particularly bad choices. I’m not stupid. Where’s the payoff for working so hard? Why did I bother?

My name’s Nick Grant and I drink too much but otherwise I’m an ordinary regular guy. I do my job to a high standard and I’m liked and respected by my colleagues. I pay my taxes. I pay my rent and bills. I contribute to society as a productive member. I do ordinary stuff and have ordinary needs.

I’m 39 years old and I have nothing but debt. I have nothing much to show for my 39 years on the planet.

I’m lonely. I live a double life. The person I am in the office is different from the person I am in the comfort of my own home. Nobody at work would ever suspect that I’ve slept rough, been in trouble with the police, been hospitalised many times, been sectioned and had horrific problems with addiction. Nobody would suspect that my mental health has caused me horrendous difficulties when exacerbated by stressful life events, like divorce, moving house, losing jobs and everything else that’s happened to me in the past 5 or so years.

My solution to the instability in my life was to create a backbone that has run consistently through my ups and downs: my daily writing. To have been able to write a million words has been immensely stabilising and has brought me into contact with so many wonderful kind and caring people. I quite literally owe my life to those who’ve followed me and my blog, especially via Twitter. Without this connection to the world I would be dead.

Today, I’ve crossed a seemingly arbitrary imaginary finishing line, in having written and published a million words in less than 3 years. It might seem ludicrous and pointless, but if you consider it in the context of the journey I’ve been on, you can see why I’ve wanted to document it.

If you’ve followed me on some part of this journey, I’m really grateful to have had your support. Thank you.

Tags: #writing #career #friends #socialmedia #publishing #homeless #mentalhealth #bipolar #london #suicide #depression #debt #addiction #drugs #nhs #hospital

25 August 2018