Saturday 29 May 2010

Boulter's Tor

Hallo. Words have been coagulating into something... have been thinking about the nature of time quite a lot (there's, at the very least, a noticeable Heidegger reference in there)... combine that with my usual tendency for schmaltz and I've tried to throw together some lyrics. I'm aware they are cheesy, so if anyone is reading this, constructive criticism would genuinely be appreciated.


We spend our nights on Boulter's Tor
Reaching in the dark
Searching for a way to move
Beyond a broken heart
Soft words there to reconcile
Our fears and our desires
We see a world ahead of us
Where everything moves slow
We all walk alone

Memory and expectation
We watch them fall apart
God only knows how lost I am
In that photograph
These seconds will stay with me
An effigy of you
I don't want to hurt you
But you made me promise to
Where did our summer go?

We write down everything
We're lying to ourselves
We got tired of happy endings
We got bored of romance
They say that care is commitment
But no-one says to what
It's time now for change
But no-one says to what
Wrap up, wrap up

I'll carry this weight
Every girl I never kissed
Every word unspoken
Every chance I missed
Every promise that I've broken
Every day we let slip by
Every little thing I am
Until my dying day
With a smile upon my face

Come sit with me, my sister
Upon Boulter's Tor
The world's a smaller place
Time passes quicker now
I can't wait to see the light
The light that blinded you
No time left for tragedy
No time left for fate
We just walk

Thursday 27 May 2010

Fragment...

A dream that seemed so real, like they always do
Never wake me up, if there's a chance that this is true

Monday 24 May 2010

Moustache Heroes




I'll make another proper post at some point, I'm just determined that this blog won't become a dumping spot for my every little whine and niggle.

In the meantime...

"Moustache Heroes No. 29:

RAF Flight Lieutenant Chris Ball sports a handlebar moustache as popularised by generations of British airmen. In 2008 he was posted to a United States Air Force squadron in Afghanistan who promptly told him to trim his splendid plumage. Ft Lt Ball refused, insisting that his tache, which measured six inches from tip to tip, was within Queen's Regulations. After a check of the rule book and a 'frank exchange of views' his lip appendage was left firmly intact. An MOD spokesman said; 'Local commanding officers should not issue instructions to officers which cannot be fulfilled by reasons of difference in dress regulations.' 'Attire, facial hair and discipline would always follow RAF rules.' Quite right too."


Bizarre, as far as chewing gum goes, if nothing else.


It seems I have failed to guard against this blog becoming a depository for passing whimsy. Never mind.



Reaching out...

It's important to try and connect with others, so I thought I'd send the good people at Unilvever some helpful feedback regarding their well known butter substitute...


Dear sir/madam,

Although your product is a perfectly servicable form of bread paste, I regret to inform you that, if anything, it has made me even more credulous towards negative dairy-based claims; I no longer believe either that the moon is made of cheese or that consuming yoghurt in vast quantities will give me superhuman powers. However, fret not! This simply means that my yoghurt expenses have been dramatically reduced.

Yours sincerely.

David Bumbershock


So far they haven't replied... I just wanted to be friends.

Wednesday 19 May 2010

Cosmic Resonance

I am abusing the term "cosmic resonance" here.

For the sake of my ramblings, cosmic resonance does not imply the idea that two apparently unrelated events can effect one another (my dancing in my room is unlikely to cause a car crash unless I happen to have left the curtains open and the driver loses sight of the road). Instead, I only wish to take from this idea that of connectivity; how we are very much part of the world, and the spiritual resonance this causes.

Not exactly a new thought, I know, but I'm intent to throw in my two pence.

For a long time now I have been struck by the surreality of housepets. We habitually surround ourselves with the artificial. We live in houses largely fabricated out of man-made materials and designed with lots of straight lines and flat surfaces. Very practical, if nothing else. And yet we seem strangely determined to have living things in these spaces. The odd pot plant doesn't really strike me as strange. They have a pot; we have designated a space for them. Even goldfish or whatnot, anything which has been allocated an area in which is belongs, fails to strike me as particularly noteworthy. Primarily it is cats and dogs which leave me feeling a little confused. They just wander about the place as if it were normal. The vegetative equivalent would presumably be to have ivy growing up the walls of your living room, which I'm sure would cause comment among company. There is just something about watching an animal move which fascinates me. These are living breathing creatures, treating our fold out sofa beds as if they were a fallen tree. Don't get me wrong, I like cats and dogs. If I thought I could be trusted with their care, I would probably surround myself with them (as it stands I think I'm just going to let ivy start growing in my bedroom). My point is that there is something incongruous about the situation. We seem determined to live in a space clearly demarcated from the natural world, but equally feel the need to surround ourselves with life in some form or another.

Lately this feeling has been penetrating my life on a wider scale. Birds in particular will fascinate me. They are so perfectly engineered. Let's face it, if you're going to fly you better be pretty sure that all the parts are going to work properly. Except that, of course, they aren't engineered at all. They just are; the product of evolutionary forces and the inexorable passage of time.

What fascinates me here is the apparent contrast between the natural and the artificial. Given pretty much anything artificial, we can point at it and at least offer an explanation. This house; to keep us warm and dry. The bus I can hear passing by; to get people from A to B. The electric iron I can see out of the corner of my eye; well, I struggle with that one slightly but I at least understand that some people feel the need to look neat from time to time, even if I don't understand quite why. The products of artifice.

(Perhaps not everything we create falls under this category. Art and music generally seem to lack any well defined purpose. We create these because we have to. Because we have no choice. In this sense it is possible that art has, in a vague sense, something like life.)

The natural, on the other hand, is more difficult. Of course, we can offer explanations as to how things have come to be (it is raining because the heat of the sun causes water to evaporate, whereupon it condenses in the atmosphere and, after the droplets of water vapour become too heavy, precipitation ensues). But we can't speak of these things purposively. They just are. Imagine a conversation;

Dreamer: Hey there human couple!
Couple: Hello!
Dreamer: Why do you have that tiny person with you?
Couple: The tiny person is our child!
Dreamer: Why do you have a child?
Couple: Well, we felt that we had reached that point in our relationship, that we had a lot of love to offer a child and that being parents would be an emotionally enriching experience.
Dreamer: So the purpose of the child is to provide you with a sense of enrichment and to give you something to love?
Couple: Well, not exactly... Ummm...

Ok, so dialogue isn't my strong point. The point is that it doesn't make sense to ask what the purpose of a child is. It isn't a category which can be applied to living creatures. Or to the world in general. To a certain extent this is something that we have lost sight of; the human species does not feel connected to the world. People identify more with the artificial environments in which they reside, decked out as they are with posters of film stars and fast moving vehicles, than they do with the world they are part of. Nature enters into our consciousness primarily in terms of the phrase "natural resources" or as a place to visit and gawp at. It is something to be manipulated; either in terms of stripping it bare and utilising it or in terms of demarcating it as an area separate from the human.

It is perhaps because of this that the experience of cosmic resonance can, paradoxically, be quite alienating. You find yourself in awe at the world, at once so massive and so miniscule, and that you are part of this... and that the world is part of everything (there is perhaps a limit to the amount that the human mind can process without shutting down in self defense, so I recommend contemplation of the latter only be undertaken under a starry night sky with a bottle of red wine to hand). But you also, perhaps, find yourself alienated from the human and the artificial (What is this city doing here? And you! You with the Metallica t-shirt! Don't you realise that we are all manifestations of qi?)

But I occasionally think that this is missing the point somewhat. I am focussing on the artificial rather than the artificers. The reason the natural world, birds and all, fascinate me so is their unfathomability. Of course, it could be that, faced with this, you posit some higher power. But I can't go for this. I'm an anti-transcendentalist. I just don't see how you can justify belief in the traditional conception of God (God the artisan). Without getting bogged down in theology, the argument largely seems to boil down to the idea that nothing would make sense without God. But then, say I, maybe things just don't make sense. I'm not sure who it was that told you that they would.

This, of course, leads to another issue. If nothing in this world makes sense, then perhaps we should just give up on it. Perhaps all there is to this world is suffering and illusion, and what we should, therefore, really be doing is trying to limit this. See through the madness. Stop the pain and the yearning. There is definitely something noble about this, and I admire anyone who approaches the world in this way. But it isn't for me. Y'see, contrary to popular belief, I actually quite like being alive. I love the sensation of being out in the coutryside, barefoot in the grass. I love when I realise that I'm arguing with someone about something we agree on. I love having a jazz cigarette and singing to myself at two o'clock in the morning. Admittedly, the more lenient of Buddhist would probably argue that none of this is necessarily forbidden by the Middle Way, but, all the same, I don't think it is for me.

The beauty of the pointlessness of everything is that it keeps on going. By some strange chance of chemistry life exists. It isn't getting anywhere. There was no "grand plan" to which it is progressing. It just is. Being is all. And the idea of not being terrifies us to our core. Pretty much every living thing is simply striving to perpetuate. We run from danger and fuck quite a lot. So do the birds (well, mostly they fly). Admittedly, there are cases when an animal will sacrifice itself, but usually this is to protect its young or its fellows. Humans do this too sometimes. Sadly, humans do seem to self-destruct more often than other animals, but I think there is a reason for this. Or reasons, anyway.

In philosophy, this absence of meaning is often called the Absurd. To be more exact, the Absurd describes the gap between the lack of meaning in the world and our expectation and need for meaning. It is in the face of the Absurd that humanity destroys itself. On the individual level, it can be too much to bear for some people. On the collective level, we deify. We create values and then place them beyond ourselves. God is worth killing for, by this logic. So are any number of things. I'm sure you see where this is going. Of course, things aren't simple. There will always be conflict. And maybe some things are worth dying for. But it feels to me as if human life is often cheapened in the name of ideas, when presumably the purpose of these ideas in the first place was to give human life meaning. It is fair to say that this does not always sit easily with me.

But despite this, there is staggering beauty to be found in our Sisyphean struggle. I think this struggle finds its purest expression in the natural world. Life, without feeling any need to try and justify itself, just keeps on going, despite everything. And we needn't limit this to just the organic. It is very possible to picture the entire world as being, in a certain sense, alive. The universe is massive and uncaring and, ultimately, is tending towards entropy. But still, life goes on. If life had any particular purpose, it surely would have given up long ago. Perhaps this is simply a product of hippyish sentiment, but I like this.

I am an Absurdist. It isn't at all a tenable philosophical position, but then I'm not really a tenable philosopher. Albert Camus, the father of Absurdism, writes that giving up is conceding to the Absurd. Rather than do this, we should rebel. If the universe fails to provide us with meaning, then the only thing we can do is keep on going and find happiness in that. Doing this involves creating all of our own values, and taking joy in what we can. This is, it should be noted, distinct from the deification of human values and ideas because one should never lose sight of the Absurd, and therefore never let our values transcend us, as when they do someone is going to get hurt. They will either crush us when they collapse under the weight of expectation, or they will lead us to hurt those who think our ideas aren't all they are cracked up to be. So, instead, the most noble thing we can do is carry on, constantly keeping the Absurd with us, but never giving in.

Ok, so life in general doesn't really do this. It implies a sense of self-awareness that, as far as I know, nobody has suggested is part of Gaia theory. But then we rarely have this either. Which is kind of the point. Every time I feel at one with the world and this struggle that it is almost entirely unaware of, I am also identifying with mankind and all of it's artificialities. Everything we do is an expression of this same desire to survive, and not just to survive in the moment but to survive ourselves. We want to have a family, we want to provide for that family, we want to achieve great things... we want to leave our mark. We don't know why we're doing all this, and we'll almost never acknowledge that it is because we're scared there is nothing for us to believe in beyond ourselves. So we create. We surround ourselves with meaning. Even that fucking electric iron is an expression, however distantly, of the idea that there is a right way to live, that there is something bigger than ourselves that we are buying in to.

And isn't this fantastic? We're all buzzing around posting letters, buying second hand cars and attending political summits for exactly the same reasons as the world and everything in it does everything that it does; to hold of the yawning emptiness of the void. It is beautiful, even if we don't realise it and I feel strangely peaceful to be part of it.

And this is why people keep housepets.

10 PRINT "Hello World" (20 GOTO 10)


Hello. My name is David. I am blogging here because, as alluded to in the title of the blog, sometimes the voices in my head get too loud and I can't do anything useful.

I should probably start out by pointing out that I don't mean to imply by this that I have any kind of psychopathological disorder. I don't (as far as I know). My voices are not those of others, or of gods or demons. I am free from such things, which is something I am grateful for. My voices are simply my thoughts. This is different from my inner monologue, because I am not always in control of these thoughts, nor do I necessarily identify with them. It is probably most accurate to say that I overhear these thoughts. When they make sense I will usually engage with them. When they don't I will usually let them wash over me.

Y'see, I'm a fairly run down person and prone to contemplative moods. Thinking happens to me. All the usual mechanisms at play in the human animal to keep them focused and productive and functional kind of fall apart when you haven't had enough sleep or food. Especially when your work also involves spending the entire day reading a range of academic texts. I'm aware that people will scoff at the idea of mental exhaustion. Compare it to working down a coal mine and I will agree that reading books probably isn't very tiring. But it still takes its toll, as it demands a very high level of intellectual engagement and concentration (which doesn't come naturally to me), so I ask that you humour me for now.

The net result of all this is that I often find myself on the edge of consciousness. Not asleep, but not quite awake. In this state of being, thoughts, in the form of voices, bombard you from all kind of directions. Sometimes they are inspiring. Sometimes they are interesting. Sometimes they are just snippets of an imagined conversation, or words being shouted over and over. Or laughter.

Perhaps I am wrong, but I would imagine that this is, to some extent, a familiar phenomenon to most people. Perhaps the thoughts don't take on voices, per se. Perhaps this waking dream state manifests itself as a detachment from the world, bereft of anything that would be recognised as thought in waking life. At any rate, it is very much part of who I am. And this blog is here for me to... vent, I suppose. These thoughts have a habit of swishing around in my head until I do something with them. What I do with them depends on the kind of thoughts. Some contribute towards my work. Some provide me with a little mental rumination, and result in less formal writings. The snippets of conversation and the odd repeated words and phrases will occasionally get worked in to terrible poetry or cheesy song lyrics. The point is that I'm currently inclined to use this blog as a repository for such things, whenever they get overwhelming.

I expect I will post again today, as I've repeatedly been mulling over the relationship between cosmic resonance, God and the absurd, and it seems to be getting in the way of my reading somewhat (hence the blog creation). So, implied reader, I'll see you later...