Spartacus, Other-halves, Lego and Insanity: Why I Write

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Albert Einstein

My keyboard is cold and the words aren't flowing like they used to. The web page in front of me is a familiar one - homely even - but everything else seems so unfamiliar. It was the Twenty sixth day of August Two thousand and Fourteen (I apologise to those who understand why I've written like that) when I last mustered the motivation, and indeed the confidence, to write a blog post. Now I'm back, I guess the biggest question is this: why? Let me try and answer that question.

Too much has happened over the last five or so months to consign to a single act of blogging, although not enough to claim there's a book to be written. I've therefore decided that instead of clearing my throat with a splurt of dull dear diary drivel, that I'll hit you with the important stuff and try and answer the question set. Exam mode at the ready.

Forward Thinking, But Not Too Far

Looking into the future can be a whole lot of fun. We are inherently tuned to make plans; to always want for something more. This serves as the topic for my upcoming posts, starting with today’s.

My interest for this topic of discussion stems from a number of different sources. Firstly, I’m sitting in the gap between undergraduate life and my first year of professional training. In transitional periods such as this it is difficult not to be in a forward-looking state of mind. The subject of today’s post – an experience I had a couple of months ago – provided another spark of interest in thinking about this type of thing. I also met someone recently who has taken ownership of their life like few others I’ve met before. Listening to this person’s story over the last couple of months has led me to consider my own.

Valentine's Day Through the Years and Through the Day - Part 1

Nothing has changed. 

I spent the morning reading through my previous Valentine's day rants and watching some previews for today's skeleton final at the Winter Olympics. Those might seem far removed but there are parallels to be drawn. First of all, both facilitate the (voluntary) falling on one's own face. Both will captivate the whole country today, ending in either sheer elation or misery. And - most importantly given the nature of my posts over the years - both are mental.

This year I've decided to take a different approach to this post - which is apparently the 'only post people look forward to' on my blog. I am going to write a little this morning, head out for my normal day and observe. Think of me as the David Attenborough of blogging, or, at the very least, that odd nature guy from the One Show. 'And now we see an obliged young man picking through the last of the flowers as he heads home from work'; 'This gentleman baulks as he prices his wife's favourite chocolates, settling instead for the easy prey that is the reduced box of Roses'. I'm going to have fun with this.

A View of Myself Through the Looking Glass

"I am what I am, and what I am is what I have made myself". Those profound words were typed out over four years ago by the same fingers that write this post tonight. The phrase made a reappearance in a rather narcissistic (and poorly written) post over on the younger brother of this blog, Ramblings of a Teenager, in 2011. 

The line popped back into my head when I was watching House earlier today, when one of the characters said that 'we are who we are'. I then set out on a mission to find the place that I first wrote those words to find out the context and mindset that they were developed in. Safe to say I was not ready for what I found.

Look Into My Eyes

Someone once said that they wanted my eyes. I was reluctant, as one would be, but considered the options nevertheless. What was I going to get in return? What were they planning to do with my eyes? What would I do without them? Where does one acquire new eyes? These were all of the questions that didn't go through my head as I sat on a bed with a long-lost female friend. I look back on that now and wonder (a) why do I remember her saying this to me? and (b) was she only in it for the eyes? I remember her saying it to me because I remember lots of useless things. Was she only in it for the eyes? I've never heard of that before, but knowing my luck it was probably as good as I was going to get.

The Valentine's Routine

I've started writing this Valentine's Day post two or three times now and each time it just sounds like I'm moaning about being single. The furthest I got into it was a story about a couple I saw the other day saying goodbye to each other. As they went their separate ways, the woman wiped her lips and the man had a spring in his step. However I realised that this observed contrast in post-kiss reactions didn't go so much to the heart of my dislike for Valentine's Day - it went much deeper. The moral of the story (which took up two or three paragraphs so you'll be glad that it's been dropped) I found was this: in a relationship it is often the case that the two people are not on the same page. It's quite sad and results in weeks and months of people's lives being lived under false pretenses. However, that isn't what I wanted to write about so I've cut it short(er) so I can get on with the task in hand.

Just Dropping In

I had to get a big stick (like a really big stick) to poke at my blog from a distance to make sure it was still alive. The signs weren't good: a few empty bottles of Scotch, a scattered box-set of 'House' and what seemed to be a half chewed packet of Haribo - it was a sorry sight and I cried profusely before arming myself with the aforementioned stick. It was surprised to see me at first and made to throw one of the scotch bottles at me but realised that it had no arms with which to do so and gave up on this futile effort. After clearing its head a little bit, it recognised me and came bounding over (after I had put in my password of course) with news that people have still been looking at my blog in my absence. Naturally it is hurt and it's going to take a lot of making up on my part but I guess that this, being my 40th post in ROATSomething, is a good place to start.

The Early Morning Reality of Dreams

Some of you may already know and some of you will fall off your seats when I tell you what I'm about to tell you. I think I've actually covered just about all of my readers in one sentence - not sure if that's good or bad. Anyway I've got a job ("Blog Readers Get Back on Seats After Nasty Shock") and I've been working away for about a week and a half now. One of the wonders of this job is that I've got 6am starts - note the sarcasm for future reference. If the truth is to be told, I've only had one of those shifts but I have had two other 6.30am starts - you're splitting hairs if you think there's a difference. My inaugural 6am start was in fact this very morning when I was up and about at about 5am with it still being dark outside and with the BBC World Service playing on BBC1. If I'm honest, I don't actually mind the early starts that much but something happened this morning/last night which annoyingly affected this morning's preparations.

We've all had dreams that, when we wake up, seem like they were as real as your first fart - or so I'm told anyway. Up until I started working, I didn't really dream all that much but in the last week a combination of early mornings and hard work has meant that I've slept like a log and I've had a dream just about every night since. Last night was no different but with me having to get up effectively half way through the night for work, this dream really did seem like it was real (basically because I was still half asleep in the shower and on route to work). But reality soon hit.

There are few things in life that are worse than having such a vivid dream only to realise that that was all it was. Reality bit hard this morning a few minutes from work with the promise of milk and frozen food replacing what was otherwise quite a pleasant existence - in my dream that is. I'll tell you about it eventually, I'm just delaying at the moment because I don't know how to describe it!

Right here it goes. It was a fairly standard dream: there were a lot of people that I know and I was there - the usual stuff. I'm sure that everyone important was there in some form but don't hate me if you weren't; my sub-conscious probably just doesn't like you. The reason why this dream hit me so hard was that someone was there (of the female variety) for whom I used to hold a lot of feelings. I've written about her in the past on Ramblings of a Teenager and I thought that was where she was to remain: in the past. Apparently not and so I woke up this morning convinced that everything in the dream (all clean, I promise) had actually happened and subsequently those feelings returned, albeit until I was putting ice-cream in the freezers.

I could approach this from a few different angles, each of which results in a different destination. Initially I thought that this might be a relapse but I've not spoken to her for about 3 years and I've seen her almost as little in that time - relapse is quickly ruled out thankfully. I could also look at it from the point of view that I might like to get in contact with her again but that's irrational - I'm learning! I should then` probably consider why I was dreaming about her at all because I've not thought about her in a long time and haven't even come across a 'story' on Facebook about her that would have really made me stop to think. The last, and most probable, reason for the dream deserves its own paragraph.

Those of you that have been reading Ramblings in the last couple of weeks like drug addicts looking for their next fix will know that I've been reading (and writing about) some hefty stuff recently - namely philosophy. I was actually at a lecture/interview with Alain de Botton at the weekend with my Dad at the Edinburgh International Book Festival but that's a post for another day. If you haven't been reading (why not!) then things went pretty deep last week - or at least as deep as I go.

Oh ye, that paragraph I was talking about - apologies for the important, yet lengthy, digression. My interpretation of the dream (hence the digression) and the way it got to me this morning is that I miss having a someone to pine after. The poem that I wrote about in 'A Look at Love' (which gets a lot more airtime that it really should) had a last line that says. "...is it love or teenage lust?". That very poem was written about my 'relationship' with the girl from last night's dream and the very reason why I wrote it was because it was just teenage lust - nice rhetorical question eh? The real question is this though: what would I not give for a little bit of that back?

It's funny how a little dream (which had many other elements to it by the way) can have such as effect on your head, especially on someone who considers himself half-decent at being stoical. I'm not going to let it get to me and I'll trot off to work tomorrow morning (slightly later start thankfully) thinking about something else. Having said that, it doesn't mean that I wouldn't mind dreaming about her again tonight.

Thanks for reading,

Martin

A Basic Lack of Understanding - Another Comment on Relationships

If someone was to ask me (which they undoubtedly will in light of this post) why I have been writing about relationships in my blog recently more than anything else then I'm not sure what I would say. I'm not authority on the subject but I am fascinated by it as can be seen from yesterday's post and one of the first posts of ROATSomething, 'A Look at Love'. In writing those two pieces (whether they make sense or not) I have opened the proverbial can of worms and, as previously predicted by yours truly, many more words are there to be written. Think of what I write about this topic as me thinking out loud in a noisy room full of more learned and experienced people than myself; you might want to occasionally listen or even engage but a lot of it will be me rambling - again the title of this blog pays for itself. Today's comment comes from a shortcoming of my own which I have elaborated on in my head and turned into something of an argument. Some will like it but most won't - at least not the guys anyway.

A Truth About Love and Relationships

You know that feeling when you read something and you think 'yes, I couldn't agree more with that'? I read quite a lot of stuff, both fiction and non-fiction, and only occasionally do I come across a sentence, a passage or a chapter that says something more to me than what is actually written on the page. This happened to me when I was reading a sample of a Kindle book last week. I'm going to one of the Edinburgh International Book Festival events next weekend with my Dad; the event being an interview with Alain De Botton who is a writer and philosopher from Switzerland. It wasn't something we originally looked at going to (everything we did was sold out by the time my 'place in the queue' eventually got to the front) but the tickets fell to us from a family member who can no longer make it - funny how some of the best things 'fall' to you.

A Look at Love

Today I have been unsettled. I occasionally sit myself down to watch a film that I know is going to skew my head for a couple of hours and this post comes off the back of such a film. I'm a huge Ian McEwan fan - something that my Dad is mainly responsible for. A couple of his books are amongst my favourites - I even wrote my first critical analysis on his best book (in my humble opinion) 'Saturday'. This morning I decided that I would watch the adaptation of 'Enduring Love' starring Daniel Craig. Admittedly I've not actually read the novel but the DVD has been in the house for as long as I can remember and I finally decided that I would see what it was like. A deeply unsettling film about love and obsession, it has got me thinking about the question of love and what that actually means to me. A brief exploration into my head is sure to follow here - apologies are in the post.