#120.21 - Success

As long time ago I began to question what success really was. It became very clear to me very quickly it was not about having things. Many things, expensive things, things which let you fit in, things... in general. It was also not about money. Yes, you did need money, like you needed things, but not at the extent and level with which we were led to believe. Just read what a day was like in Versailles and you get the idea. Most people who were deemed successful were mostly psychopaths. 

It was not about achievement. I look at so called scientists today and what they are celebrated for. Then I look at the state of the world and I despair. What is the point of being able to put a bot on Mars or see what the outer moons of Jupiter look like if we have not found the solution for world peace? Or solve starvation? Or the state of the planet. To me from where I am standing we are not living in the most advanced time ever, but in the most idiotic time ever. For some reason having a giant gyre of plastic in our two oceans with most of the wildlife we have under threat is an acceptable contradiction. I think its nuts. You cannot do this. It is like saying this drug will save you from cancer but it will make all your hair fall out and for the rest of your life you will be drinking soup from a straw. Far better to go after the causes of the illness AND to understand death.

I have often wondered to myself if I did have cancer, incurable cancer, would I subject myself to any treatment?

I look at the state of the world and I have to say that if I was somehow responsible for it, which thankfully I am not in any major way, I would be so so so ashamed. All the rewards, status, money, expensive toys, stupid friends with braying obnoxious laughter, all of these things would be utterly utterly meaningless. I would now be looking at the mountain I stand on top of and realise that it is a resounding pile of crap. And really, I would be just kidding myself. All of the paper which has been waster - paper and ink - in trying to kid yourself about running a government... if there is one thing I am relieved about is that I am no longer part of the administrative industrial complex.

Academia has not fared much better either. For some unknown reason people who should now better decided to take the neoliberal model - the Shell system of turning everyone, including students into customers, and run with that. I'm surprised we haven't turned our children into customers yet either. Or our parents. I'm sure that happens in the highest realms of success. Which is probably why they send them off to boarding school. Ugh.

So if all of that is not my idea of the trappings (note the word trappings) of success, what is? The truth is that I don't know about this word - success. WTF does it mean? I understand loving, kind, generous, beautiful even - but successful? That is mental. To me this stupid word has been used to manipulate us for generations because success is not a tangible thing. We can create something completely artificial and then invest it with this idea of success. So for instance that phrase - thin and successful. For some reason thinness is equated to success. WHY????? That is completely irrational. Like the blood sweat and tears needed to be successful in school. That is a load of bollocks. I can understand healthy. I can understand curious, I can understand fascinated with the world. I can understand wanting to know more. I can understand trying your best. But in schools success is seen/regarded as having good grades???? Like WHAT. Good grades for a stupid exam which everyone takes. Seriously. The same stupid exam which tests exactly what??? Your ability to do well in a pub quiz or game show.

In essence then life has been reduced to a game show. I was watching these moronic game shows on TV. The most moronic being Taskmaster. I hate Greg Davies. There is something repellent about him. He has this persona of being the child who never grows up. It is completely moronic. And his kind of show is regarded as acceptable TV now. Yesterday Paul Merton wailed that this was what Have I Got News For You had become... when Adrian Dunbar got them guessing what the subject of the painting which a pig had drawn was. He was absolutely right.

THIS is what our civilistion has come to. In many ways we are not better than say the Mayans nor the Olmecs who at least had the wit to be able to cultivate corn and survive in a very harsh environment. The more I learn about history the more I think about how useless we are at using our god given talents. It is this sort of thing which makes me think that God doesn't exist. I have gone from thinking that he can't exist because if he does he is a cruel god and I would rather have no god than a cruel god. Now I think that god either cant be bothered or he has moved on. He thinks, actually, this world, it is a pile of crap. Too bad for the animals I got to share the planet with these assholes. Can't do everything.

I do still believe in a consciousness which is unseen... but right now, I feel really super alone and when I attend the Christian Community it is more to remind myself that we did create this amazing story about a man who was willing to sacrifice himself for everyone.

My ankle is still in state... an my knee and I don't want to injure it further. So I'm just going to do housework and accept that my running will need to start again on Monday. I can't even stretch because it causes the ankle to hurt. Maybe it will be better tomorrow. I have been very ranty today but that's because I am sick and tired of the stupid.

Oh I will end not on a rant. Duran Duran is receiving a rehabilitation ... it is nice to know that not only the band I was obsessed with when I was a teenager is still writing music and performing, but also that Nick Rhodes who got me into them is seen as the brains behind the operation. I remember sitting on the top deck of the double decker bus on the way home from the Victoria Road convent... I was 13 and I opened a magazine like Smash Hits or something, and I saw him. He was celebrating his 21st birthday and there was something about the picture and his story that struck me. I hadn't heard a single one of their songs and I was completely enraptured. It was through Nick Rhodes I first heard about Andy Warhol... and I began drawing the Rio album cover. It was so strange. I was very embarrassed about them when I was in my 20s but now in my 50s, they are still here!!! Making new music and taking their privilege and money and still trying to push some of those boundaries. 

I don't know what it was about them which made all the girls go mad. It was funny hearing the photographer who followed them say all their fans were girls and they were all shouting at this certain pitch. I'm listening to Arcadia and it is one of my favourite albums... it still sounds so new and fresh but somehow still the 80s. 

Finally, my usual drone on about the Drop Zone and the fasting. The fasting has not gone well at all. It is nigh impossible to fast and work in the school. I don't know how Muslim teachers do it. Amazing. My mom always said that Muslims are born with fasting stomachs, which is a cute conceit. But obviously inaccurate. It is much easier to fast when you are working.

However, the drop zone has continued. I am now exactly where I thought I would be a week ago. It is absolutely right that the drop zone continues for another two weeks. I feel great. I did however spend most of last night on the sofa watching the X-files, another great TV series where they examine very pointedly Americana and myth making. Again having Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as part of that Dream Team of intelligence dry acting... and fantastic writing. We were very lucky to have the X-files and all the issues they dealt with. From plastic surgery to the assassination of Kennedy from quirky tat to confidence tricksters, from colonisation to environmentalism... it was all there, all those issues. I miss Darin Morgan, but it is still a great series.

OK... it is 8 am... i might go back to bed for an hour or so and then clean the house. Maybe I will go for a short run... 

Drawings from this week... and a map.