Goodbye 2023 Hello 2024

 Well, here we are again.  Seventeen years on and whilst the Cancer is gone and I'm looking back in vivid flashbacks at other stuff in my life, it's easy to see why New Year can be a line in the sand and you can move on from one thing to another.

Damn it though I feel sh1t at the moment.  A whole series of things playing around.  I find my car isn't compliant with some twisted megalomaniac of a mayor of London who has brought in an Ultra Low Emissions Zone right out to the borders of London.  It's £12.50 per day to go there and where I go, surrounded by fields and so on it's London!  REALLY!!! So after having spent a shed load on my car on its service including the new elastic band thingy that synchronized the engine components and stops them from exploding, I'm a bit stuck.  My car is an SUV, it is an all-wheel drive vehicle and if you drive around here, you'll soon find out you need the traction and the power.  Obviously, this bloke hasn't set foot outside his natural habitat of central London.

Then to top that I've got the entitled, narcissistic idiot who wants to charge me for all of his business problems that he's brought down on his head through sh1t planning and has no idea how to deal with real people or negotiate.  Every time we get near, he does something more ridiculous than the last time.

I've lost confidence in myself as a DIY handyman - I don't seem to be able to do anything right but maybe that's bad luck, I don't know, maybe I'm being a bit hard on myself.

I'm having flashbacks to certain periods in my life and incidents that arise in a random order sparked by things that I am encountering and that's bizarre as they are vivid daydreams.

Then there's this feeling inside that is melancholic and I feel nauseous with it.  I doubt myself and my mind to make rational decisions (although don't make irrational decisions).  It's this lack of confidence and not wanting to do anything that's so annoying.

I've got out a few times but that was a struggle and the weather has been awful so I've only been able to do a couple of jobs before getting soaked in the rain and wind that seem to have been around for months.

I'm hoping that I can push my way through all of this, I'm rereading my Eckart Tolle book, A New Earth, and hope that I can once again get rid of these inner demons that are caused solely by my inner pain body and ego.  Easy to say isn't it.  Last time, it was like a switch and everything was lifted.  Of course that then led me to leave my wife and set off on this journey.  

I should be enjoying my retirement and I should be doing a lot of things but my head isn't letting me do that at the moment.  I've given up Social Media, I don't watch the news and I watch very little TV as I am sure they aren't helping me.  I prefer to go sit those out if I am watching TV and pick up my reading or listen to music.

2024 is around the corner, the same challenges will be there, I just need to work out how I'm going to break this cycle of depression and anxiety.  I think the Black Dog needs to go away pretty soon and I need to work out how I'm going to break free of its claws.

Christmas Over, A New Day Has Begun

 I feel a lot better now that Christmas and Boxing Day are over.  As usual, it's a big anti-climactic event.  I do get down a bit at this time of year, always have done but more so of late.  I haven't hosted by my own family since I split up what must be 11 years ago now.

I used to host around 14 for Christmas Lunch and it's nice now with just a few of my new family but it isn't the same and I don't get to see my children or grandchildren much around Christmas.  It shouldn't play on my mind but recently I've left that chink open for the pain body and ego to run amok in my head which really hasn't been pleasant at all.  

The thing is you know what is going on in your head but stopping it is actually quite difficult to achieve.  I've picked up a New Earth by Eckhart Tolle again and I'm around halfway through it.  Somehow, I've detuned myself down to about half my anxiety levels of last week and I am intent on doing that some more.  It's hard work to get back to my real self, taken over, as I am, by stupid thoughts and burning resentments and other nonsense all being cooked up in my brain.  I have no doubt that I'll get past this and the only thing I am not sure about is quite how I'll achieve that.

Today, my other half is out and off to London for the day to see the decorations and other stuff, she does this every year and that's her thing.  It interests me not at all.  So I have the house to myself and I can just sit back and relax at last.  Just me, my thoughts and perhaps I'll get the fire on and just enjoy a day of leisure.  

Whatever I do, I intend to get my head back into a good place and not allow these thoughts the room to nag and annoy me.  Obviously, you have to keep your guard up against this stuff coming back to haunt you.  

Snatching Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory

 The idiot, which is a nice way of referring to him, has excelled again today.  So I finally talk to a Solicitor and it looks as if we settle a way out of the problem the idiot has caused and blow me down. the silly bugger goes and doubles down on demands which take us all the way back to where we were two years ago.  What an arsehole!

I went for breakfast with my mate, that cheered me up, as did this morning's chat with the solicitor but I'm feeling a bit down now that the silly sod has gone and done something stupid again.  It just prolongs the agony when we had planned to actually get it all wrapped up.

I'm now combatting my ego and trying to stop it beating me up because I can't control these events and it will be what it will be.  Using this too will pass isn't working with me at the moment.  I hope that the Christmas period will cheer me up a bit.  I need to take a complete break and then start anew.  I hate dealing with stupid people but this guy is arrogant, narcissistic and totally without honour and I find that difficult to deal with.  His idea of negotiation is to make up imaginary costs and invoices but it won't work with me.  

So getting back to the mundane.  Somehow I've got to rise above all of this :-) Wish me luck.  

I hate Black Dog

 Damn it I hate Black Dog.  Luckily my friend is coming over and we are going for Breakfast at a local Cafe which should help my humour and attitude, he's a great listener and he and I go back a long way, were both "ill" at the same time with different Cancers but were both in Hospital around the same time and had long slow recoveries.

What I dislike is how ill I feel all the time.  I feel slightly feint and shaking too.  My hands (right mainly) shake now and then and I can feel a sort of twisted feeling in my stomach.  I absolutely know it is stress and I know that it isn't anyone else doing it other than myself.

I feel a deep dive back into the "A New Earth" Book to get the ego under control is necessary.  

It can really just stop you in your tracks and just stare away and not get things done.

The Trouble When Dealing With Idiots

Being an INTJ can be somewhat difficult.  All my life I've had to deal with people who are, well, to put it bluntly, f*****g stupid.   The best one to wind me up is to actually not be stupid but to treat me as if I am and boy, does that boil my piss too.

I'm dealing with a precocious knobhead at the moment, a full-on narcissist who thinks that what he has done and how he is acting is perfectly acceptable.  He lectures me on commercial and contract law and rattles on about how he's got all these problems and how he's going to make me pay for it and on and on he witters about this and it's his very own actions that have brought this about on himself.  Now he's cornered he's thrashing out with the most ridiculous stuff you've heard and he doesn't seem to realise what a complete bell-end he's making of himself.

I dislike that inwardly I'm reacting to this and it's affecting me when none of it is my fault or my making.  Additionally, whilst the bloke is a complete idiot I can't really tell him that either.  The best strategy is to point out that he needs to sort it out, not me but a narcissist really doesn't see it that way - all his problems are me and yet I've actually done nothing.

So, I am trying like mad not to let it affect me whilst I'm in my current strange state of mind.  I really don't need him and his pettiness inside my head.   It's easier said than done when he is such a blithering idiot.  I'm playing a strategy as you cannot reason with people like this and slowly backing him into a corner where he must work out what he is doing.  He has no limits on his stupidity and only by exposing him will this go away.  

Anyway, another thing floating around in my head when I really don't need it.  As if I haven't got enough silliness in there already :-) 

This Too Will Pass

 This Too Will Pass.  I know it will but I am not in a perfect place at the moment.  I've a neighbour from hell who wants us to sign up for something we don't want to and he just gets angrier and more extreme when we tell him NO.  A narcissist is always difficult to deal with and his sense of entitlement and one-sided opinions are tiresome as you can't actually deal with him, I've tried twice and he's a complete arse as he doesn't do a balanced analysis of a situation.   Money is a passing issue too and it's Christmas coming up and I've scaled that back this year.

It's been that sort of year.  There's no one thing that I can put it all down to but a series of events and situations that are affecting me.  I absolutely know that these things should not affect me (if that makes sense) for what are they?  They are life's inconveniences thrown my way and instead of saying this too will pass I'm wearing these troubles and my head is in constant movement attempting to make sense of it all.  For that is also part of this, it just doesn't make sense and it plays on my mind as such.  I really don't need to do this, all the situations are out of my control and they will be what they will be but I find this difficult.

So today I need to work on strategies to avoid these thoughts and to also stop sitting down and analysing these and writing lots of notes.  I spent 4 hours last night going over in my mind the crazy sh1t that the narcissist sent through and I have still come up with the same answer, he's lost the plot and I need to stop reacting to it.  I absolutely know this but my head throws doubt in and the Ego is getting louder, so it needs to be destroyed again.  There's a book I've mentioned many times by Eckhart Tolle called A New Earth that really sorts this out and so today I will go find my copy and re-read it as it makes so much sense and if I can harness the lessons from there, I will get rid of all this nonsense I am carrying around in my head.  Last time, I got to a point where almost instantaneously I got rid of all the demons in my head and then saw a lot of things clearly.  Sure, it resulted in me leaving my wife of 32 years and getting a divorce but at least after that trauma things were clearer and better.

I must remember that in all this pain (and it is painful - the stress tightens my chest and increases my tinnitus. My hands shake, I feel nauseous and so on) there is a way out of it and that's the present moment.  At this present moment, right now, is this idiot attacking me, are these things actually affecting me now?  The answer is no of course.  I just need to stop my head thinking about it all.  I know what is happening, it's happened before, it doesn't make things easier to know that.  Anyway, This Too Will Pass.  

Knowing you're not alright is good (I suppose)?

 What a series of depressing days I've just had.  Tomorrow I go to see my mother and spend a few days with her.  I'm hoping that will lift me up but my daughter isn't going to be around - she lives not far from my mum.  So that's not great but I suppose I saw her a month ago so it's not that I haven't seen her.  She's not around for Christmas either so that's a bummer too.

Life has been just soulless and I'm not enjoying things much at the moment either.  The neighbour is being a particular arsehole at the moment too which doesn't help and whereas in the past I'd just laugh it off and also be quite assertive back (he's technically, contractually, legally and commercially wrong on something) I actually feel intimidated and not sure of myself.  That's not an INTJ at all.  I don't know what I'm worried about really as he can't do anything about it unless he goes to Court and even then, it would be interesting to see what he'd even want to do that.  He needs me to agree to something that he's done so he can get off the hook.  After all the shit he gave us for 3 or 4 years now, I should be enjoying getting my own back but, I'm not at all.

So many silly things are annoying me and I don't need to worry about them, they shouldn't cross my mind but they do.  Knowing things are wrong is good, I've been this way before, it isn't nice, it's black dog territory once again and unless you've had this dark shadow feeling, I can't really explain what it is like.  I suppose the Death Eaters in Harry Potter might come some way to describing the sucking out of all the joy in you and the cold darkness of wondering whether you will ever be happy again?  As I said earlier, nothing brings me joy at the moment but I am sure that in the next few days I'll be feeling better and towards the end of the week Grandson NO.1 will be in his Nativity play and Granny will be very proud as he is playing Joseph!  He tells us he has a lot of words to remember.  Bless him, I'm sure he will do well he is a very nice young man and of course we are proud of him.  I hope I'll be alright on the day and not morose or overly emotional, it sort of depends on the day.

So I'm just making the best of things and hoping that I'll cheer up in time for Christmas if nothing else.  I decided to have a few beers last night as I'd not had any for four weeks.  It really didn't mean much or cheer me up - depression is like that, not even having a beer made me feel any better!  

Onwards and Upwards as they say! 

Sensitivity

 I said I was emotional but also I'm getting fed up with how people behave today and it's grinding on me.  There are some thick-as-mince sort of people around who jump on the "latest thing" without any idea about what they are truly/really saying.

So many things but say Climate Change is a good one to start with.  The vandals, for that, is what they are, destroy things and annoy people to highlight that we should (insert the latest thing here) give up something.  Now the oil types make you laugh because the very clothes that they wear and shoes on their feet, their high viz jackets etc are all made from oil products.  There isn't much that isn't a by-product or that requires the energy from oil, gas and coal to be made.  Indeed the very machines that make these things require lubrication and so if you have no oil, well you go back to greasing stuff up with lard and tallow and you have nothing.

They don't seem to understand that the last 100 or so years have seen our life spans double, and the ability to heat our homes and rid ourselves of diseases are all down to industrialisation driven by oil, gas and the like.  If these guys end up in hospital what do they think syringes and all the plastic is made from?  Would they like to do without it.

So that's just one area, consider any other like taking sides in wars.  Since when do you cheer on a side in a war that isn't yours?  Since when do you arm each side and not discuss peace at a diplomatic level?  Take other stuff going on like clean air zones and fining people for driving where they've always driven before.  London's ULEZ is a ridiculous thing.  The metropolitan elites live where the transport system is the best and the railways, underground and buses serve 24-hour transportation.  Where I live, the buses stop running around 7 pm!  If I am back later than that I have a 45-minute walk in the light - at this time of year it will probably take a bit longer as for 75% of the way home there are no street lights and it's pitch black!  I'm not that far out of London but if I want to drive to a station it will cost me £12.50 before I've paid parking and the train fare!  Who thinks these things through?  The answer is that people only see the money and not the consequences of what they are doing.

I enjoyed telling the council what their charges for parking had achieved when they wondered why the high street shops were dying.  After 2 years of stupid lockdowns and making people deliberately stay away they then shove the car park prices up.  I would only go to the HIgh Street if I had to and that's rare - twice last year.  I prefer to drive to a small shopping complex where I don't have to pay anything to park and everything I want is there.

What else?  Well just about everything is wrong these days, the news is more like Pravda and we have to pay for the privilege of watching it.  Well I don't actually watch it any more as it is part of what's giving me these head problems now.  In addition, Facebook, Twitter and the like are also just as bad.  You think you know people and then you see they come out with some outrageous stuff on their timelines and you wonder how they can be so ignorant.  Of course, if you look at the MSM and their programming, you soon see that people are repeating what they are told is the truth.  If they dug deeper or asked a few questions they'd see that things don't actually add up and things aren't what they appear at first sight.

Let's take the "pandemic" No one is asking why, a couple of years later, excess mortality is so high, especially in younger people?  You can of course speculate why this is but to ignore the fact that more young people are dying suddenly doesn't make the fact go away.  Excess heart disease and cancers are also troubling.  Some say caused by shutting down the NHS for after all, what was a respiratory virus much like Flu.  But whilst you could understand that in the older population viz me, these are young people, athletes, people who shouldn't be presenting this early on.  Anyway, no one cares and no one notices.  But here's the thing, I've lost a number of acquaintances through heart attacks and just dying in their sleep and I've a number of friends who are now presenting with heart problems. 

Back to my old friend climate change which is a bonkers proposition that CO2 can heat things up.  I like to ask people how much CO2 is in the atmosphere?  You'll get answers of 5% up to 20%  Very few know that it is around 0.04% so less than 1% and that makes the planet heat up?  CO2 is heavier than O2 and so it isn't where you think it is.  If it's so good, why don't they fill the double-glazing air gap with the stuff?  It's because it wouldn't work, the good thing about CO2 is we could do with more of it.  When you go to those who grow plants they'll tell you that they want bigger concentrations as it makes their plants grow better!  But no, you'll get someone telling you how the poles are melting and CO2 will make the oceans boil etc etc.  Not a fucking clue.  A short introduction to thermodynamics would actually help if they stayed awake long enough to listen and actually understood why this stuff isn't possible.

Then the hilarious stuff about windmills and solar panels and cheap reliable renewable energy.  That's really funny as energy costs have doubled or more, no one seems to understand that if the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't out you don't get any electricity out of them.  They aren't reliable, efficient or indeed recyclable.  In Scotland they cut down hundreds of thousands of trees to make room for them, they chop up wildlife and need massive subsidies to make them attractive to investors.  Windmills use oil and need massive amounts of power to manufacture so how green are they?  I like the idea that someone once told me of batteries to store all the free electricity they make.  You'd need a battery the size of Wales to look after the rest of the country and they don't last long, they will need replacing after less than 10 years and so on.  Windmills were replaced in the 19th century when we got steam because steam was reliable and the 17th century windmill had had its day.  In the late 19th century we used to have electric cars until the ICE came along which was far more reliable and extended the range available.

I could go on about our Politicians who seem to have barely left kindergarten rather than be professional, diplomatic, managers.  They are crap, wishy-washy and shit at their jobs.  They throw our money around as if it is a bottomless pit of cash and they haven't solved anything in 13 years of Government.  Yes, just about everything is triggering me at the moment.  I used to just curse and get on with things, but now it affects me and is dragging me down.  I regularly hear myself swearing at these idiots, some of my favourites being "Why don't you grow the fuck up!"  "You utterly useless piece of shit!" "What a waste of Oxygen" and so on.  These things can't be good for my blood pressure.

So I'm getting it off my chest here and elsewhere and I'm going to tackle this by trying to move away and into my own circle and control.  I can control my life and actions and I've just got to work out how I do that and pull away from the MSM and the evil that seems to surround us all these days.  I'm sure I'll do it but not sure how long it will take this time.  

Emotions -- Hate It!

 I don't normally get emotional, it's very rare indeed.  INTJs don't tend to do the emotional stuff as they are rational, logical, pragmatic types.

Having said that there are a few films that get me every time.  The Passion of the Christ is overwhelming, especially the torture scenes.  For different reasons, Field of Dreams is also emotional, I watched it the day my father died and the bit at the end where his father comes to play ball with him is a reminder of that day and that part of my life.  The film Amelie strikes me and I'm not sure why as does Schnidler's List and you'll know what part the red coated girl plays in that.  And finally, but not least Saving Private Ryan especially if listened to in surround sound with the wind rattling the flag pole rope retainer way before you see it, the pointlessness and waste of life and the whole thing which is really well done.

Some music will send goosebumps like Elgar's Nimrod and Barker's Adagio For Strings and yet these are rare occurrences for me.  

Whatever I am going through at the moment is bizarre as I can now just read an article and I'm choking up.  Things that I'm normally hardened to are giving me emotional reactions and I don't particularly want them to.

Yes, whatever it is, I'm not enjoying it as it's not me.

On a more positive note, the change in diet has worked and not even three weeks in I've lost 10 lb 8oz which is a reasonable-sized baby LOL.  My belt goes into the next notch and my watch is rotating around my wrist and I actually feel better.  Being off the booze has also helped, although I've just taken in my Christmas delivery of beer :-) I'll only be drinking occasionally from now on too.  It was getting a little out of control even if I was mixing alcoholic and no alcoholic beers.  

A Bit Better

Well, yesterday and today have been better.  I had to take my car to be serviced and get its annual MOT done and it was a nice autumnal sunny, slightly chilly day so with a few hours to spare I wandered into the local town and got my hair cut and then grabbed a double espresso and stood by the river, swollen and very high after the recent rains.  A walk through the high street and back along the river path and the car was ready by then.  A lot quicker than I expected as I was going to reward myself with a beer and lunch but hey ho, no problems.

A friend popped by briefly and another one called me to check I was OK.  The rumour was that I might have been suffering from a recurrence which I was happy to allay their fears.  Bless them, it's an obvious reaction.  I always remember my daughter made me cry when she thought I'd had a recurrence and was very upset herself.  You forget how your condition affects those nearest and dearest to you.

I find myself time travelling back to my first years at work and college, my various jobs and careers and to my children's early years and the trouble with that is it isn't at all productive if you beat yourself up over what happened then and what you could have done right etc.  The bottom line is that it happened and it couldn't happen any other way given those circumstances at that time.  

Such is the spiral of elation and despair in your head at any one time when the Black Dog comes to visit you.  One minute, hour, day you're absolutely fine and the next you're down some stove pipe wrestling with your brain for something you did to yourself or someone 50 years ago!     

With that comes this feeling of uselessness, hopelessness and plain, in my case, laziness.  By that, I mean that when I go to the darker side, I am paralysed by the thoughts in my head and I just sit there and don't do anything about it.  I can sit here at my PC and suddenly it gets dark outside and I realise that I've done nothing all day except stare at the screen and browse my way through endless nothingness online.

That's why I've cut back on my social media presence.  I'm Mr Happy on Facebook telling jokes and the like with the odd serious commentary but the news and the way people treat each other these days is toxic and that is seeping into my day-to-day life which it shouldn't.  Society is being ripped apart either deliberately or perhaps it is part of some overall scheme beyond our knowledge and that is having a profound effect on me.  My "accepted norms" are torn apart and as an INTJ this is a problem.

I'm not a conformist but I understand that society requires structure for the vast majority of people and I see this social cohesion currently being wrecked either deliberately or by circumstance.  The vast majority of people cannot debate me and they certainly do not see the world the way I do at all.  I shudder to understand "celebrity" although notoriety might be a better word, for there is nothing to celebrate in these vacuous excuses for human beings who virtue signal their approval or rejection of "the latest thing" (insert cause as required) as if they actually know anything about it or have any reflection of real life in their vacuum packed and lateral worlds that they inhabit.  When they lecture on TV or Social Media they appear to me to be children stripped of their education.  They haven't a clue what they are talking about and in my case, I switch off the moment they are introduced.

I spend little time in front of a TV these days as the stream of lies and manipulated wording is horrific to me.  Climate Change is a scam of monumental proportions and Net Zero is ill-thought-out and impossible.  Man's hubris will be the death of him.  YOu hear people rattle loads of old bollocks like "the (insert species of mammal/fish/avian here) have decreased their number by 50% over the past 5 years"  What was the number when you started the analysis, is it huge, are you talking about a single location or across the globe.  It means absolutely nothing at all.  If there were 10 last year and only 5 this year does that matter?  If there were 50 million and it's only 25 million then let's understand what's going on.  But it isn't, it's mealy-mouthed words fired at an audience that doesn't seem to think or act logically anymore.  Try and discuss things with facts and the common retort these days is "Climate Denier!" or "Liar" or the opposite view is yelled at you so you cannot discuss anything.  I certainly don't bother with bully boy tactics like yelling and calling names the ignorance invariably doesn't lie with me.

And so here we are, part of my problem is that I am not dealing very well with this new world of virtue signalling, cultish behaviours and everyone's an expert type of world we now live in.  I like to shock people, I like to say NO and Fuck Off and Piss Off, not a lot but I'm definitely getting worse.  "You need to do this!" NO, "You should wear a mask" NO, Fuck Off.  "You should do this" NO, PIss Off.  YOu should see their faces, it's grand and it's affirming for me.  People haven't been told NO for a long time, the appeasers have seen to that.  I loved it when I said no to people handing out masks or telling me to mask up, they looked shocked.  But, here's the thing, I did a lot of research about it and they just do not work.  The masks that would work you'd feel were constricting your breathing and on top of that, early on it was said that the virus can enter through the eyes, nose and mouth.  Well if you weren't also covering your eyes then hey, what use was it. I am particularly proud of telling someone to "Grow the Fuck Up" at one point in proceedings :-)

So many people were frightened into walking in a one-way system around shops standing 2 metres apart and thinking that plastic screens would protect them even though the cashier handled every one of the items you gave them and you exchanged your money too.  Mmm, people don't think this stuff through.  I'm angry, I'm furious about it all, I lost my business and feel like some of this damage now is due to the draconian rules they imposed - whether or not we kept to them.  

So, in many ways, I am struggling with the impact of the past few years and the utter stupidity shown, the banal spineless shit on the TV, so much so that I only watch a couple of programmes now. I'm struggling with politicians and the establishment kowtowing to the loudest people from the smallest minorities, bending my life to suit those who shout loudest.  Ruling for the 1% is going to turn out bad,  can see it, I don't need a crystal ball, I'm an INTJ, I can see where it is going and that's probably going to be the biggest problem I need to overcome.

You see my job for my whole life has been about analysis, planning, and delivery and you need hard data and facts to do the job.  Running things on emotions and what's fashionable now is going to end up badly for a lot of people.  They cannot see it.  The trouble is I see it but many people think I am a conspiracy theorist.  The outcome of the lockdown was predictable and now it is coming home to roost.  The present problems will also have a knock-on effect and I don't get why people do not see the outcomes of their knee-jerk reactions.  Surely they must realise what will happen?

Wow, that's a long-winded way of saying things are better but in fact, my brain is exploding with things that I need to drop, erase and forget about as I cannot do much about it apart from my usual reaction to most of these things and that's still saying NO to most things.

Today's better, tomorrow is another day and I hope it will be better.  

Well That's Not Good Is It?

Words to myself.  It's not good at the moment but there's light at the end of the tunnel.  It could be the light of a fast oncoming train but what the heck!

I've decoupled from most of the things I enjoy doing which seems strange I grant you and I'm clearing out my office and destroying old paperwork.  I'm hoping that if my car passes its annual mot tomorrow I will take myself away for a few days to recharge the batteries.  Nowhere in particular, go see my mum and then have a day or two to myself.

I've got Christmas in some sort of order and I'm planning on getting stuff completed that I haven't before albeit not at the speed I want but I'm still fragile a bit.  I'm not certain what I am doing as there's no clear plan or map out of where I am but I'm not drifting too much either.  

I could sit here in my office and a day would slip by unnoticed and that's not happening as I am trying to stop Social Media interaction, I've brought that right down and haven't posted anything (except some family stuff) in 2 weeks.  My weight is down around 3 kilos (6 pounds) in two weeks and my trouser belt actually does up comfortably now.  My wrists have lost weight as my watch spins around my wrist LOL.  

In terms of head problems, well they persist in differing amounts.  I'm feeling sort of sick and lethargic in different measures and yet, sometimes things look good and I feel fine and later on, I'll be morose and quietly bored.  By being bored I mean I actually cannot motivate myself to do anything.  

The whole thing is annoying and I'm pushing my way through it.  It doesn't help that some of this is caused by things beyond my control that I should not worry about but they exist and that's not helping.  I also think I'm not taking to this retirement malarkey either.  I'm "old" now.  Not in my head but my age now makes me a Senior Citizen, an Old Aged Pensioner none of which I feel - or maybe I do, that's perhaps playing away in the caged demons area of my head along with all the other stuff.

Now I know all about this and I've just got to get away from it once again.  I had a sort of epiphany years ago when I got rid of all the crap in my head, all the old stuff, all the things that I incessantly thought about and computed in my head and the reason was they were, every one of them, in the past and I couldn't do anything about them.  I was where I was, in the now, in the present and it was water under the bridge so to speak.

So here I am, I know that I can get past this and I'm part way there but something in that brain box is telling me that there's something else that needs to happen too.  It's all well and good to delete the crap in your head but you actually need to go and do something with the time you have left and I'm no longer feeling useful and I'm not doing stuff (although I am in some ways).  

It needs a new outlook and a new focus to get rid of much of the annoyance and sheer amazement at how people think and act these days.  I wasn't brought up nor did I act like they do.  I'm not going to change my ways but I need to work out how to avoid all these negative people and to somehow move on from there.  

Anyway, at present I am swishing around in the dark and trying to find direction whilst at the same time wanting to both hold on and change my past relationships and to avoid mainstream and social media negativity.  Wow, some balancing act but I'll hopefully get there. 

Mind Wobbles

 Damn it, I've moved my life in a huge way since 2006 and yet, how strange, I'm back with Black Dog again.  Lots of reasons I think although it's not Cancer again (I'm pretty sure of that).

Weight - well there's a thing I've expanded way too much.  I dropped off my Keto LCHF diet about two or three years ago and the beer, bread and pasta, potatoes and flour have made me into the Pillsbury Dough Boy!  The Stoooppid lockdowns and mask bollocks, walking around one way in supermarkets and all that discredited crap haven't helped me and humans being bloody evil to each other isn't helping either. 

Falling out with my GP over wearing masks in waiting rooms and consultations has resulted in them dropping repeat prescriptions for me so I need to change my lifestyle and not rely on meds.  Nothing sinister just Blood Pressure which I imagine is now high as I'm stressed and anxious.  I'm not entirely convinced what has brought it on but I am sure that if I lose a significant amount of weight, get out and about walking - I live in the country so that shouldn't be difficult, an almost blanket ban on TV and Social Media and I hope to overcome both this wanting to only stay at home and the claustrophobia I had back in 2006 - 2009 periods.  

I've devised a bit of a plan to overcome it and that goes into action next week.  I'm running down my beer supply which will be finished come Saturday evening's Rugby World Cup FInal.  I'm stocking up on various meat, offal and eggs and I will almost exclusively go Paleo or Keto LCHF.  The aim is to lose around 7 stone.  I am over 18 stone and am just under 6 feet tall.  I used to weigh 11 1/2 Stone when I was 19 and I am aiming to drop to somewhere near that in the next few years.  It can't be done overnight and it is a long-term target but I must do this to bring down my weight, and my blood pressure and to get back to being healthy.  Imagine carrying around all that extra weight all the time.  

I'm thinking of dropping all other commitments for a short while (clubs and the like) and going a bit "hermit" for a while.  I need to disconnect, recharge and then slowly reconnect again.  It's not easy I have to say.

I was surprised quite how quickly this has come about but I think it has a lot to do with the collective Covid madness where everything was taken from me, my business and earnings and having seen through it and done whatever was in my power (not a lot of power) tried to stop everyone going mad.  Now I see that people are beginning to wake up to the facts of the matter and to see how we were lied to in every country around the world by useless politicians and health experts.  As I said before, the NHS in this country is shot to pieces, they think by employing Climate Change Officers (hundreds of them) at £100K each per year plus a nice index-linked pension etc etc. they'll make a dent in the 7,000,000 waiting list - that's in a country of 64,000,000.  2,000,000 are awaiting surgery.  It's hardly world-leading and if as they say it is why has no other country in the world copied it? I'll wait.

Hilarious last year when someone offered me a mask and I just said No, quite assertively.  These people must be off their heads to think any mask can stop a virus, the weave isn't fine enough and if it was fine enough you'd have real difficulty breathing through it.  If a virus can enter through your eyes too, what good are masks?

And, by me writing that I see what some of the Black Dog problem stems from.  If professionals are doing things that they should be questioning and people choose sides in conflicts ignoring the collateral damage inflicted, if politicians can send billions to endless war but not protect their people, the ones who give them power and vote for them, what have we become?

It really is time to disconnect from this madness where people thousands of miles away from conflict march in the streets and choose sides rather than demand peace and where mandates were placed on people to control all aspects of their lives and make life hard for us then things will begin to work themselves out.  My mind is tired of analysing it all, I know that people are getting really rich through this and ordinary people are suffering.  I wonder for how long that will be?  There comes a point of strain but I've reached it now and I am wondering when other people, probably worse affected by cost of living crises and being fined and taxed, paying through the nose for utilities and having their mortgages take them towards breaking point?  It feels like civil unrest is coming, perhaps not now and maybe not in my lifetime but the undercurrents are there and it's either by design or these people are building a rod for their own backs without knowing it.

For my part, I'm burnt out with it.  I've done what I can written to MPs and so on but perhaps actions will speak louder than words in the long run.  I just know that I've got to decouple from it all now or I'll slip further into the hole created by Black Dog.

 

Retirement Looms

 A day I never thought I would see arrives and I shall retire shortly at the grand old age of 66.

I had Bladder Cancer and then it took 16 years of repeated reviews (six years too long they now say) and I have been well for many years.  A few niggles of course but hey, getting old probably comes with plenty of those.

I find it strange that I don't feel my age (if you are even meant to) and that I'm supposed to be an old man now!  I feel like I'm still in my thirties and if I do something like DIY I find I can't do what I used to :-)  I fitted a bathroom and a log burner last year - the log burner weighed 120kg and I managed that on my own with the appliance of science and well-remembered physics lessons from school and a little maths too of course.

So why write a blog post today?  Well, I find that my mind has been in a bad place these past years not helped by the ridiculous Covid restrictions imposed by our imbecilic Government.  That and the sheer damage done to us and our economy (surely they must have done a Cost Benefit Analysis).  On top of that as I head to retirement I found myself back in my black dog darkness and was just not wanting to do anything.  The prospect of winding up my business (again caused by the government) and then setting up my pensions and realising that that phase of my life is now over and a new one is about to begin were gnawing away at me and if truth be known it has probably taken 3 or 4 years to come to where I am now.

What I did though was to make a decision to use some of the money from my pension to do some work on the house and then I decided to have a real holiday.  I haven't really had a real holiday for about 10 years.  Most of the time I've ended up working hard to self-cater and drive places but this time I wanted something a bit different and so I'm off with the other half to Mauritius for 2 weeks of all-inclusive luxury.  There's nothing to do but lie on the beach, go snorkeling, fly my drone, read and listen to music, and eat and drink all day long.  I've always had to "do things" on previous holidays but here, you can do something if you want and if you don't want you can just laze the day away.

I am hoping that my batteries will be recharged and that I can make this a defining break between my past life and the new one to come.  I'm not quite used to it and I'm without purpose at the moment.  I don't think that will be for long because just by booking the holiday I am feeling upbeat and much happier than I have been for a long time, perhaps years.

It is hard to change your life (again) but after having worked for 50 years, it's time for me now and I need to selfishly start to focus on myself and plan to do something with these years to come.