h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm not going to argue with you about the horribleness and pointlessness of the world, but don't blow your brains our, okay?

Of course I won't. But I had to not be scared to write it.

Also I need to write about that from a young age I was continually threatened with being sent away..something I feel scared of here. First it was to a children's home..then later every other week, to a boarding school. All by my mother. I lived in perpetual fear of being sent away from the family because I was deemed out of control. I wasn't. I was just angry about a lot of stuff to do with family dynamics and my mother's total inability to be a mother...and of course having my culture ripped from me at 7.

She couldn't cope with 2 children. My brother was the well behaved one that she seemed to have few problems with. I was the badly behaved one.

I wouldn't let her touch me after about the age of 8 or 9 I think. And I would refuse to speak to her for up to a week.

She was utterly useless. But then she'd had a hellish childhood.

Thank god she'd married my dad though. Mind you if she'd married someone else I wouldn't be here But it might be someone even worse here

But its to do with the structure of our society. He was always at work climbing the ladder towards the top. So she didn't get much support. But then she was egging him on to climb that ladder.

I had a lot of smacking from her..and even at one point a stick kept in the corner of the room for more severe reprimands. He smacked to and more violently..but somehow it didn't matter so much because he inflicted no psychological abuse.

That was always my achilles heel. The psychological stuff I got from her.

These are things I'm sure lots of kids of my generation had. But they were hidden away and considered the norm in many ways.

But maybe I did have it worse I think really.

I think I've done well to be as sane as I am, and not inflict more violence on others.

Intelligence and education is a wonderful thing for dealing with this stuff.

Oh christ what can I let rip about next?

Arsenal are playing like sht this season.

Oh something the same as earlier. All my bad points are talked about...but none of my good ones. You'd think I was the spawn of satan sometimes. But yes this is a pattern.

thank god my real life friends see the positives.

This is a problem with conversations intended to repair breaches (likely aggravated by cyberspace): it's hard to avoid 'Well, you always ...!' Statements when what is intended is 'something that I have trouble with is ...'

There's just too much missing from text conversations. It's hard enough to discuss dinner points of brewing with Taff without being able to say 'here, taste this'. Relationship stuff is orders of magnitude more fraught with pitfalls.


Now, I really must tend my metaphorical garden.

the main thing I'm sick to death of is all the emphasis on the negative points about me. it becomes like a prison when you are forever worrying about that.

kea and I on a deep level are still very close I think. But the surface is all mucked up.

Actually maybe I should post that to her on the anhaga thread. Its certainly true I think.

Okay this is a positive letting rip.

I'm really so very happy I got to talk with kea about some of the problem we had. And anhaga is such a star mediator

Still very windy here. Branches all over the place with swaying

I feel so emotional about that thing. I hope she is okay I don't want to pester her. But I have so many strong warm feelings towards her...but I can't really express it properly..and I get that head spin.

And i can't stop laughing again...about everything...

And I want to say here that I work harder than most people here will know to channel all this energy into structures that feel fundamentally alien to me.

It comes across that I'm thoughtless of others. Nothing could be further from the truth. But I have to keep on trying to fit into structures that feel so unnatural. So I'm bound to fail quite a bit because that's so exhausting.

But its nice if people can get the actual thing about me that is good. Its so depressing to be ever thought as a selfish egoist. Oh and of course being the way I am is labelled as an illness by doctors. Yes it is. But its not all negative.

I just can't change my fundamental nature too much. That would be a crime I think.

So I'm left with the dilemma. Force myself to fit into structures that feel alien in order to better get along with people..or allow what I really am more breathing space and get everyone not liking me?

This is a fundamental dilemma for many creative people. Hence quite a few end up taking their own lives because the conflict just gets too much in the end.

I'm going to write more about this later.

recent programmes by Stephen Fry have really helped me..he also being bipolar. And he even came clean about going to prison and that happened because of recklessness and no thought for consequences which can happen when you are manic. Then the energy is like nothing most people could imagine and all norms of society disappear for you. When I became manic the first time it was all about sexual energy for me rather than the reckless spending thing.

That's why I was locked up. the ward didn't know what hit them..I'm not talking about that here at present though..

But Stephen Fry is such a national treasure so if he's like me, I feel good. Even my parents watched his programmes about bipolar and learnt something. Well if I mention it, usually the subject is quickly changed.

Also he did a programme about his love for the music of Wagner and he visited the holy of holies for it, Bayreuth. he was nearly in ecstasy as he walked through the main entrance to the concert hall. And being Jewish he talked about the association Wagnerian music has to do with the Nazis. Yes they adopted it because of its intense emotional power.

But that's a twist that they put on it. In certain moods I love Wagner, especially the Love/Death of Tristan and Isolde. But sometimes its just all too bombastic.

i generally prefer Mahler who was quite influenced by Wagner..and he was jewish. But his music is far more to do with the earth and nature. 'Song of the Earth' is brilliant...but also all the symphonies.

Okay this writing has got rambly..and not so letting rip..or just a bit

Brigit Nilsson Lieberstod (Love/death) from tristan and Isolde.

My favourite version on YouTube. Superb filming and relationship between her and the conductor is very interesting.

Opinion divided over whether she was the greatest interpreter of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSGbM2jvahY&feature=related

I think its amazing.

That I seem incapable of growing up properly like other people. Stuck always in the intensity of adolescence.

I mean others only have a few years of that hell.

The middle class reasonableness of this place drives me crazy at times.

I bet if we were all living in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust was going on..people would be debating the niceties of that...and complaining about some getting too hot under the collar about it.

I have been to Auchwitz. I spent the day on my own walking all around the former camp, saw the remains of the stone structures that the SS blew up that were part of the main area for gassing.

The most amazing thing though was a pond I came across on the edge of the woods just outside the main area for visiting. When I looked closely all the banks of the pond were composed of tiny fragments of human bone. A Polish peasant farmer started shouting something at me. I actually took some and intending to take home to my garden...what a ridiculous thing..but I was overcome with it all.

Then when I got some way away I knew that was wrong as taking away evidence...plus those bone fragments needed to be there with all their community. So I walked back about half a mile and put them back..

You put me in mind of something . . .

Have you seen this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jl2w3xYFHQ

Thanks for that. I think its the same pond.

I had an obsession with visiting Auchwitz ever since I had a relationship with a married Jewish man...a neuroscientist. But also big into the arts. A working class guy from Leeds who went to Pembroke college Oxford and got his degree in medicine, but became a researcher instead of an actual doctor.

He explained a lot to me about the culture of Jews in Eastern Europe..and how peaceful that was and very creative.

They were like lambs to the slaughter for the Nazis.

No wonder Israel is now the way it is. I don't really blame them.

And this is getting me too angry again. He was such a lovely person and spent his life...still does trying to help people who have spinal chord injuries.

Banks' way of treating people in such an inhuman way. All these stupid number things.

I had felt in such a good mood. It's a very barmy evening here. Lovely warm and mild. It was a lovely atmosphere up the road when I went out earlier. People seemed really relaxed and happy..as did I.

Its all just panic attacks and headspin now.