Sad Day Today

 Yes, it is sad, My Friend's funeral is today a little later.  It's sad as he was full of life and deteriorated over a year I suppose.  The last time I saw him was about a year ago I suppose.  I spoke to him but then his hearing and his sight went downhill and he was able to go for respite care in a local home but contracted Pneumonia and passed away.

It's a shame as he was full of life and laughter.  He made us all laugh and he really was a lovely person.  It was the unexpected demise which is so upsetting.  One minute we were all laughs and fun, then he wasn't particularly well and was beginning to forget things and the next thing was he was in the hospital for a long time and we didn't know then I managed a couple of calls but he wasn't his happy self he was stuck in the downstairs room with a specialised bed, losing his sight and hearing and there you go.

We will remember his happy and smiling self today.  Then it is my Aunt's funeral on Monday and whilst she lived to a ripe old age, dementia carried her off some years ago.  She was reasonably OK when I attended her husband's funeral in 2020 under the horrendous Government's stupid rules.  What utter bollocks that was and their draconian hard-nosed absurd rules did nothing for something that when looked back on proves the hubris of man thinking they can control a virus - the pratts.  

Anyway, mustn't digress from the message that it is the funeral today and next Monday and we will pay our respects and feel happy to have known them and sad that hey are no longer here.  Let us hope that they find peace on their next journey.

You Never Know When It's The Last Time You See......

 Somewhat strangely these past six months or so I've been getting random flashbacks of things I did, people I knew, places I've been to and so on.  Names sometimes fail me or if I remember them, they take me right back to events long since forgotten about.

There were some photographs online of places in London from the 70s and 80s and I recognised them as being, of that time and they feel as old to me now as say 1940s photos felt to me as a child.  The thing is that the last time I was there, these places looked completely different to now.  Of course, they will but then I realised, for example, that I hadn't been to Farringdon for about 25 years or more and places like Barbican also 30 years ago and of course, things will have changed.  It's been the blink of an eye but when I remember back it has been 30 or more years and suddenly it just seems strange to me that I never really knew when the last time I visited these places was.

So by that, it means that we never know when it's the last time, do we?  I recall driving to my parent's house and knowing that it was the last time I'd drive along that set of roads and to that particular house but when my father died I hadn't really worked out that it was the last time I would see him.  A friend of mine and I were chatting at a bar just before lockdown and again, that was the last time I saw him he was tragically taken at a young age and we had only seen each other days before.

So it is with travelling and so on.  I saw some photos of when I worked in Brussels and Paris, again, over 30 years ago now and realised that I'd probably never be there again (where I worked) I've been back to Paris and Brussels since but then I realised that was still some time ago!  

When you unlock your memories of these times and places and indeed people you worked with it presents mixed emotions.  Mixed in that I had various levels of relationships with them and they've just disappeared into nowhere.  It's strange that I have very few connections back to those days and in some cases, I just lost touch and one day I was working with them closely and then I never saw or contacted them again.  A couple of close people to me also went the same way and it disturbs me a bit that things just disappeared like that.  How could it happen?

So it was really a strange thing to remember people and places today and over the past months.  I'm not sure why this is?  Regret maybe?  Getting older and reflecting on that?  The march of time maybe?  Whatever it is, I do find that I regret that I didn't keep in touch with certain people and keep up friendships with a couple of people who really meant a lot to me.  I don't know how I dropped them but a career change 32 years ago into an almost entirely different industry probably didn't help matters and I think getting ill 17 or 18 years ago also changed the landscape.

I still have friendships from 55 years ago with my old school chums and I need to work on that as I've drifted away over the past 6 months or more.  Now I'm feeling on the up I hope that I will get back to some sort of "normality" if that is what it is.

It makes me think hard about these things as for instance, will I ever go back to Canada, Mauritius, Venice, Milan, Madrid, Paris and so on?  I enjoyed them when I was there but did I ever think as I travelled away from these places that it would be the last time I'd see them? 

Drama - Not Me

 Well, this is interesting and the news is that I've gone past the Drama in my life stuff now and returned to a quiet equilibrium.  By that, I mean I am no longer tense, stressed or anxious.  It's great, and I am back to where I was perhaps 5 or 6 years ago.

There's still "stuff" of course there is but it isn't bothering me any more.  Things will take their course and the universe will unfold at its own pace, I am sure.  What is interesting is watching other people's stress and daily dramas unfold.  There's always a story, someone who did something, who looked at me a strange way and that sort of thing.  Sure, people do the strangest things around here and I had some weird things going on but these weren't aimed at me, these were just humans being stoopid as they often are!  Things that would upset me back in the day.  At the shop someone leans right across you to get something, not following the one way in the car park, walking in front of you and stopping dead.  Car drivers not obeying the rules of the road pedestrians in our lane walking in front of the car or otherwise trying to walk behind you when reversing, that sort of stuff.

I would, not so long ago, get annoyed about it but these people who don't follow Darwinian theory are only alive because people like me stop their car in time or actually think on their behalf and don't run them over  LOL.

So rather than having multiple dramas when I'm out I just let it all happen and try not to let it bother me.  I gain nothing by getting irate and they wouldn't notice anyway.  I still rant at the pathetic politicians and so-called scientists on the TV but I try and spend as much time away from TV as possible only watching what I want to and not leaving the distraction box playing to itself.  

With this newfound freedom, I have taken to reading books again and actually reading three at once as I have to constantly cross-refer between them to work out what is going on in the main book!  It's fun but also quite a challenge to have a 20th-century book and refer to Plato at the same time :-) 

It takes a bit of practice to try and stop the anger rising and to blank out the "voice in your head" but you can do it.  I like the fact that I am now at ease with myself although I need to find useful things to do to fill the gaps left by no TV.  

Head Clearing and Time Management

 I forget that I am retired now and so occasionally I'm aimlessly thinking about what I have to do today!  That's right, not a lot really, my time is my own and after 50+ years of working it has come as a bit of a shock.  Once again, I find myself here late afternoon looking at what I have accomplished today.  Funnily enough I did something constructive this morning but otherwise, I am sat at my PC playing a couple of tedious games to pass the time.  I really ought to go do something but I cannot be bothered.

There's something very strange about this as I have plenty of things to do including catching up on my reading, sorting out some accounts and the like but I just don't feel like it and this has been a problem for a couple of years and one of the hints that something isn't quite right.  

I know this and I am coming out of the depression that I had last year but there's still something niggling away at me.  Apparently my better half tells me that I am not as bad as I was in 2020 when I was really down in the dumps - probably because I knew what Covid lockdowns would mean to my business and to the future.  Hey ho, that prediction was pretty much spot on, killed my business and a cost of living crisis and things are really beginning to look as I predicted with large chain shops closing down now and the awful service that work from home has promulgated.  Bad management of those working from home doesn't help either I  suppose.  

Anyhow, that is what it is and I am OK in myself and getting a clear almost empty head is great as I am not constantly worried about stuff or fretting about things which is great.  Back to where I was perhaps 10 years ago maybe.  Things take time and I am just going to have to work through this like I did with the other stuff.

Normal Service Will Be Resumed Shortly

Or at least, I hope it will be.  There's something strange about suddenly freeing your body and mind from all the troubles that have been causing you to be stressed especially when you realise that it is you causing your own stress. 

It is something that, unless you've felt it yourself, isn't easy to explain.  I was massively stressed before Christmas, so much so that I said to my friend who I met for breakfast, that I was stiff with all sorts of anger, stressed out and fearful all at once.  Of course, there was the idiot we were dealing with who didn't approach negotiation with anything but his own best interests at heart and other similar things. Yet, at this very moment, nothing is causing me stress.  You see he'd have to be standing next to me being an idiot or actually physically hurting me and he isn't.  At this moment I can only be present and the past and the future have no bearing on things.

Easy to type that isn't it?  The upshot is, as I'd practised before, to not let your own brain take over and overthink, overanalyse and frankly make your own life hell!  You don't need it.  The idiot will do whatever he will do next and when he does that I'll be able to respond in kind.  I can't do anything about what he will do nor will worrying or getting uptight about it do anything that will affect it.  It's coming up two months since he made his last stupid remark and so perhaps he's overthinking things?

Then there's all the other things in life that were winding me up.  They aren't important at all really.  Stupid people will do stupid things and it isn't any of my business what they do.  They might be untidy or lazy and so on but that's no reason to let my brain beat me up for that either.

It's interesting to hear the voice in my head start up some sort of memory or regret from the past and I'm getting used to stopping it dead now.  Past romances and encounters that didn't lead anywhere (but little voice says they could have) that sort of nonsense.  Nothing in the past matters because it is in the past and cannot affect you at this very moment.  Likewise, something in the future cannot affect you as it hasn't happened yet.

 Catch your mind (little voice) and stop the thoughts, think about something else in the present, the sound of the birds outside, the smell of some flowers, doing a task, give it your undivided attention and you'll find that all the noise goes away.  

Where I used to react to other people's dysfunction I can now stop myself (not all the time) and be present and not let my own ego try and sort the situation out.  It is difficult but getting rid of all the crap really clears your mind and you can then just be yourself and enjoy your life.  

I'm getting better and better at this.  Hopefully, I can get back to being a bit like my old self again  Soon.  

Yikes - Getting Old

 I was in my 50s when I got Bladder Cancer and had around 17 years until they discharged me saying I was more likely to get a new cancer than a recurrence.  

I've mentioned before how sceptical I have become about the NHS and how it is driven by suppliers I feel they treat symptoms and don't actually do anything holistic and there's this cross-over between "Government Advice" and other advice, and it's not a service anymore - it's pretty awful unless you get something done.  Anyway, that's me ranting again about it LOL.

So, getting old and my concerns over the Covid vaccine.  Here's the thing, I don't have a lot of friends but...  Let's look at my vaccinated friends for a moment.  Nearly all of them are BTW.

70-year-old, Vasculitis, treatment, survived and his 50-year-old son, heart attack, died.  His wife also passed away suddenly.  He's receiving all sorts of treatment for it.  

In his mid-50s died in his sleep.  Another, in her sleep, late 50s. Another, heart attack, died. Yet another heart attack died. Another, bleed on the brain, seizures, strokes, died.

60s stroke survived. 

Myocarditis in another ongoing treatment - seems to be OK but who knows?

Last month a friend diagnosed with 'turbo cancer' died within a month!

My close friend requires a new heart valve replacement, had an operation yesterday.

Another two have heart problems requiring restarting and some sort of laser treatment.    

Finally and ironically, the chap who poo-pooed that the jabs caused blood clots and that I was making it up.  You guessed it he's got DVT which has stopped him from flying abroad for at least three months.  

It's of course natural that people die and you kind of expect it but this is in the last 18 months and of the small close-knit group of five of us three aren't well with heart problems and DVT.  I find it either a massive coincidence or it's just getting old.  Of course, I've nothing to prove otherwise.  It just seems strange that of my close friends and acquaintances this is happening and I seem to be the only one connecting it like this, everyone else thinks its getting old! 

Straight & Narrow - I'll Let You Know

 Gosh it's been a long time getting back somewhere towards normal.  I'm not there yet unfortunately but I am quite a way along the right road now.  I am signing up to do things and going out a little more, I've plans to do some things like Quiz nights and visiting places so that's progress as I'd rather be sitting at home doing nothing.

My head is clearer for sure and emptier as I'm not constantly having to listen to the little voice in there telling me all sorts of random sh1t.

What to do next is the thing really.  I just have to keep working at keeping this clear head and trapping the ego and pain body before they start to overwhelm me again.  I know stuff is going to arrive but it's not my problem and it's not under my control so it will be what it will be and that's even more progress.  I know, for example, that the idiot is going to do something stupid but no use worrying about what that might be until he does it, can't worry about it now, in the past or in the future, I'll just deal with it when it comes.

I now need to get myself working in the now all the time and I can I think move on a bit further if I can achieve that.  It is actually far more difficult than I remember from 11 years ago when I suddenly got to a point where I was free and clear of stuff.  Of course that then led to the divorce and all that but that's OK too I think.  Again, no use in worrying about what's happened is there as, well, it's happened and there's nothing I can do about that is there? 

So getting there, bit by bit, slowly slowly catchy monkey as they say. 

Catch yourself and stop it

 Now that's interesting,  I'm beginning to catch myself (my ego/pain body) diverting attention away from what I am doing.  So far I think I've been able to catch it most times.  It's trying hard and dragging up memories from the past, some that I've only just remembered through this fight in my head.  The crazy thing is that there isn't any pattern to the daydreams and memories at all.

There's some interesting stuff that I've not remembered very well, the insides of buildings for example, I recognise some of the people and recall some of the situations but I'm realising what these are and stopping them.  What they are, are an attempt to divert me and drag me back to having all this stuff going around in my head.

What's good is the emptiness and space I feel at the moment - like things have been lifted away and long may that continue.  It's taken a while to get here and I just need to make sure I work at it and fend off my mind's attention seeking - lets see how I do?

On the up!

 Well, that is good, things are on the up and I feel much better than I did leading up to Christmas and the New Year - I'd been down for 6 or more months by then even and so it's nice to come out of the other side.  Mind you, two deaths in as many days, My Auntie who, bless her was 96 and had been suffering dementia for some years and a friend who I spoke to in December and really wasn't well who passed away overnight, he developed pneumonia and the drugs just couldn't save him.  Sad in that he was such a live wire until a year ago when he developed this illness that has eventually took his life.

Another friend in a faraway country is also down on his luck so I've sent him some money, not that I can afford, to alleviate his sufferings.  I hope that he will be able to turn things around.  Abroad is nice but no welfare system like we have to help if things go wrong.  

As for me, well I spent some time in my Eckhart Tolle books and some YouTube things he has done and I've gotten back on top of my brain!  There's no one inflicting pain on me physically and the idiot I have to deal with will always be an idiot and do stupid things and so it shouldn't anger me or cause me any pain and I know how to deal with him now as well.

I can feel my ego/pain body wanting to fight back as they lose control over me and raking up old affairs and situations is a way that they do that.  It's a matter of realising what is happening and stopping yourself from reacting.  It's not easy to do this I grant you but part of the solution is knowing what is going on and realising that your reactions are what they want to get from you.  Once you realise you can stop it and bring yourself back into the present moment, the now if you will and that pushes these things away for a while.  

I've found that leaving Social Media alone has helped and I am trying to disconnect from all social media as well as State broadcast news and so on.  Again, try to work out what the "programming" is - try counting the times that a news programme or documentary mentions, for example, Climate Change, Man-made carbon emissions, Sea Level rise, Extreme Weather, Environmental impact blah, blah, blah.  When I watch it (if at all) I can almost predict the script.  There was a programme about the London flood of 1928.  That was due to huge snowfields melting, persistent rain and a High Tide / Storm Surge.  It happened again on the 1950s and in the 2000s - they managed to get the lot in here a full house of environmental impacts caused by man, Climate change, sea level rises and extreme weather - so this happened 3 times in one hundred years.  I doubt in 1928 many of us had SUVs!   If they'd bothered to look further back into history they'd have found more floods and generally around the same time of year when we get high tides sweeping up a narrowing estuary, heavy rain and so on.  We get it every year, we live in a maritime climate - that's what happens.  

It's all very predictable, the country programmes are made by people who live in the city and not in the countryside and they have an agenda of their own, they haven't really got a clue what happens out here.  If these people had a few more brain cells they'd be stupid.

So anyway, I'm better than I was, still battling the ego (as the rant above will show you) and the problem is just that.  I need to disconnect away from all these utter bollocks that are happening out there, the crazy psychopathic headlong charge into wars, destroying our food and fuel for some crazy theory that hasn't even been proven and the data doesn't support.  It sounds harsh but I feel I should fight all of this and rage against the machine and yet in reality, I and my fellow citizens need to wake up and withdraw from it, take away these crazy people's power and focus on living ignoring all the noise and nonsense around us.

Easy for me to say and very very difficult to actually do.  I can only be alert and present in small bursts.  I was better 11 years ago when I could get out of the house and just feel at one with the world.  The catalyst then is not available now.  I need to recreate what it felt like and learn to dismiss all the crap around me.  When you get it and feel at one with the world it really makes you mind and body sing, go light, rejoice and all the day-to-day rubbish is banned for as long as it can last.  At the moment it is short, more seconds and minutes, years ago it was longer perhaps tens of minutes.  It's hard going given the way our brains are programmed but I intend to get myself there in the end.

OK That's Better

 So apart from having to pay that thieving London Mayor to drive into what is to all intents and purposes the edge of London - you know the bit surrounded by fields and the like, I survived going out to my meeting. It was probably a good thing I went as I got my 40-year citation and was asked to make a toast which actually got me up off my backside and doing something.

I have to say that I've been feeling better and a lot more relaxed about things.  Even my other half commented that the idiot giving us the grief wasn't triggering me as I suggested to her that he'll do what he wants to do and we will react to that. I know what my response will be to what I think he is going to do so that's OK.

We endured a second power cut after the recent storm, 24 hours this time, I think it was a couple of hours last time and about 24 hours the time before that.  That's the trouble of being in the country and fed by overhead wires, a tree falling or a branch crashing into the power lines will soon bring everything to a halt.

Yes, I am feeling calm and I've spent quite a while going back over my Eckhart Tolle books and YouTube videos and also just chilled a spent quiet time disengaging my brain as much as possible.  

Wasn't that impressed that someone turned up with a cold on the day as I'm only just getting over a cold that I must have caught from him at the meeting. 

Amyway, much better place, much lower stress levels and hopefully I can keep it that way!  

Let's see how today goes shall we?

 Well, I chatted to a friend and he asked me to come along for the meeting today and I said yes, then I realised that I'd have to go into the London (FFS it's nowhere near London) ULEZ zone and my car (as I live down a green lane in the country) is an AWD Diesel - it actually has low CO2 emissions and is relatively cheap to tax due to that doesn't fit in Idiot Kahn (I think that's its name) London which goes all the way out to where I used to live in the countryside!  FFS.  So I've pinched my nose and will have to cough up £12.50 for one journey into "London".  Honestly, it's a joke and daylight robbery and I can't vote the git out as I don't live in his area.  No taxation without representation and my MP can't (or won't) do anything about it!

So I digress, as you do. Off to a meeting and I haven't been for 6 or 7 months at least so it will be different and I don't think I'll get the claustrophobia attacks as I've sort of clicked out of that a bit now.  I did some serious "A New Earth" book reading and whilst I'm not back to my old self, I have certainly stopped shaking and being so stressed.  I'm not letting other stuff bother me and I see it has been 2 months since I stopped interacting with Facebook and Twitter other than birthday greetings and postings only for the club. 

I hope that it will go well, I think once I get there it will be OK and I can just go with the flow a bit and see how things progress.  I'm sure they'll be happy to see their Treasurer back and doing the finances :-)  

Wish me luck, I hope I'll get through this meeting and be able to move on a bit more once again.  I'm certainly a lot better as I do not feel any tension about going today.  

 

A Little Better

Things are a little better.  My mate gave me a call which was good of him and that's made me feel a little better.  I'm not sure if I am going to get myself up to go out next week.  I kind of hope so but I'll make a decision over the next day or two - that's standard procrastination that comes with this sort of depression.  You leave it and leave it and then corner yourself :-)

It's been a strange day today as I've not actually done anything constructive as such.  Taken the bins out and fixed my Stove Fans that I killed by having the log burner burning over 300 C!!  Oops.  Hopefully, they'll be fixed by inserting these new components.

So I still feel sick most of the time, not like I'm about to throw up but it's there just in my stomach, clear signs of stress and a reminder to me that everything is not "alright", far from it.  At least I know what it is, I can manage it, I'm in control most of the time but the flashbacks are most unusual.  These are daydreams, full colour and sound of incidents of my life.  Everything from encounters with specific business situations, girlfriends and other meetings with people who I thought I'd long ago forgotten about.  Going back to my teens and my first job and the people I met at College and so on.  It is most unexpected and also somehow, these flashbacks are tinged with regrets.  What might of happened plays out in many of them.  People lost along the journey is also a common theme.  By that I mean people I was close to in my working life and we just drifted apart and that was it, I never saw them again and it plays on my mind now but I don't know why.

Here's the thing, you cannot change anything that happened to you, nor can you worry about it or I suppose regret it. It happened, it was what it was and could be no other outcome and it's over.  You can only truly deal with now, this moment.  You cannot do anything about what might happen tomorrow nor should you worry about it either.  I'm expecting something stupid to land in my email from the narcissistic idiot.  I should not worry about it but I am.  I need to take my own medicine or eat your own dog food as it was once put to me :-) It goes back to my absolute hate of idiots and stupid people (stupid by nature or by design).  People who are incompetent, stupid, feckless and unprofessional will bring out the worst in me too.  No one needs to be ignorant or stupid but a lot are.  I'm very surprised that their brain tell them to breathe or sit the right way up on a toilet but I suppose it might be hard programmed thing and nothing to do with intellect.

I now tend to treat the majority of people as stupid unless proven otherwise.  There's a total lack of common sense these days.  Stuff on the TV is obviously bollocks and no one calls it out.  Useless statistics make huge claims about pollution, nature, climate change, and so on and people regurgitate this stuff as fact.  One of the claims was that let's say butterfly numbers are 70% lower this year.  OK, lower than what?  What number are we talking about, over what period etc etc.  This stuff is cherry-picked out.  Like the hottest temperature ever at Heathrow Airport.  Firstly, there wasn't an airport in the 18th century, it certainly wasn't surrounded by square miles of brick, concrete and tarmac and aircraft pushing out hot exhaust emissions.  So how is that representative of "The Climate"  utter bollocks once again.  

Why do rational human beings swallow all this stuff and regurgitate it parrot fashion to you?  I have no idea, these are the mask-wearing public who think that if you walk around a shop in one direction only saves you from getting a cold?  Who thinks that an IFR of .096 is frightening, who sees death as some sort of outcome of getting a cold when they are fit and healthy.    When will people see that they've been played, that they've been part of one of the worst lies in history.  

And so probably this too is playing on my mind in as much as the vast majority of people I speak to seem to have had their intellect stolen.  They no longer discuss things they take sides and argue aggressively and use ad hominem attacks to make their points.  Since when did shouting at people and calling them names secure an argument?  I had an interesting conversation with someone about climate change just before Christmas and it was a civilised discussion about facts.  I challenged their accepted thinking about CO2.  Having worked with that particular gas most of my life, I think that I can discuss its properties quite well.  I gave the example of bailing out CO2 fire suppressant that had gone off in a transformer bay.  It was bailed out by hand using buckets.  It, being heavier than air (let's call it) was trapped in the chamber and needed to be removed.  At no time did that room get any warmer.  When I asked how much CO2 was in the atmosphere, they were wrong by a factor of hundreds.  Most people think it warms the atmosphere but if it is just 415 parts per million i.e. 0.04% then how does it do that?  Everyone appears to have forgotten thermodynamics and surely water vapour is a great greenhouse gas than CO2?  Surely it must be?  Just think about other things like how much water there is on the planet.  I like the warming poles too, that makes me chuckle as it is warming twice as fast there they say.  What does that even mean????  It means nothing at all.  For it to melt, wouldn't it need to be able 0 degrees C?  In winter in the northern hemisphere, it's dark and cold the sun doesn't shine at all on it and some odd molecule of CO2 is going to heat it up and melt it?

 So where am I rambling, oh yes, of course, do some basic investigation, do some research and fact-checking and ask is that right? How would that work then? What are the figures behind the claims and so on.  No one asks these basic questions and we are lied to constantly and it once again, irritates me that people accept what they hear and see on the Radio and TV as fact without challenging it and then proceed to berate me about my lack of knowledge.  Of course, once I'm belting out the facts and challenging them, they generally go quiet or they say "You're a climate change denier!"  Always a useful addition to a conversation is that.  Bravo, you've used a phrase alluding to Holocaust denial to prove that you are right and to close down any debate.  That's annoying me too.

Blimey I didn't mean to write that lot but obviously, it was in my head so it's good to get rid of it.  Maybe I've a few more issues that I thought I had :-)

Onwards and Upwards. 

 

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.