I'll be frank: it hasn't been the best Christmas this year. As far as Christmases ago, it's been the worst. Various demons have conspired to do me down in the holiday weeks. They've taken the form of illness, overwork (the two are most likely inseparable), severe disappointment and family death. God, it's gone on and on. Once again I'm left with the feeling that we've had the best of it. The future's nothing but a series of painfully comic calamities. The human animal is a lonely animal, drifting through joblessness, impoverishment, spiritual unrest, social unease, heartbreak, denial and despair as the walls draw slowly in to crush the life out of it. This miserable picture of existence is not without benefits. Davies and I made a good spontaneous monologue out of it once, and it was just about the funniest thing either of us had heard up to that point. I've kept busy, as one inevitably must. I've inoculated myself with a fair few classic horror films - two today, Torture Garden (1967) and Eyes Without a Face (1960) - kicked back the standard History revision, and pored over Simon Callow's Love Is Where It Falls, as weepy and soul-cleansing a book as there ever was. I tried to ring in the new year with a bit of festive cheer, but the terrible, intolerable grind of life has creaked on. The worst of it is that I still don't quite believe that any of this babbling sentiment is true. The wheel will go on turning, and I'll wind up feeling exactly the same way all over again. It's a truth that should be acknowledged more often: some pessimism is vital to life. Thank goodness there's only one more day to go. Unless I'm impaled by a weather vane falling off my house or bludgeoned to death by a rogue beaver, I'm trusting it'll be a more relaxed and insular occasion. After that, I can immerse myself in the reassuring blur of work again. Work and structure. Controlled pressure too, the sort that society wants us to feel. Not this messy human nonsense.
Saturday 3 January 2009
Bring Back College!
I'll be frank: it hasn't been the best Christmas this year. As far as Christmases ago, it's been the worst. Various demons have conspired to do me down in the holiday weeks. They've taken the form of illness, overwork (the two are most likely inseparable), severe disappointment and family death. God, it's gone on and on. Once again I'm left with the feeling that we've had the best of it. The future's nothing but a series of painfully comic calamities. The human animal is a lonely animal, drifting through joblessness, impoverishment, spiritual unrest, social unease, heartbreak, denial and despair as the walls draw slowly in to crush the life out of it. This miserable picture of existence is not without benefits. Davies and I made a good spontaneous monologue out of it once, and it was just about the funniest thing either of us had heard up to that point. I've kept busy, as one inevitably must. I've inoculated myself with a fair few classic horror films - two today, Torture Garden (1967) and Eyes Without a Face (1960) - kicked back the standard History revision, and pored over Simon Callow's Love Is Where It Falls, as weepy and soul-cleansing a book as there ever was. I tried to ring in the new year with a bit of festive cheer, but the terrible, intolerable grind of life has creaked on. The worst of it is that I still don't quite believe that any of this babbling sentiment is true. The wheel will go on turning, and I'll wind up feeling exactly the same way all over again. It's a truth that should be acknowledged more often: some pessimism is vital to life. Thank goodness there's only one more day to go. Unless I'm impaled by a weather vane falling off my house or bludgeoned to death by a rogue beaver, I'm trusting it'll be a more relaxed and insular occasion. After that, I can immerse myself in the reassuring blur of work again. Work and structure. Controlled pressure too, the sort that society wants us to feel. Not this messy human nonsense.
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I in the mean time procrastinate further by writing comments on your blog when I should be refiling all my notes! God, human beings fail at life. Hopefully your desire to return to the scheduled life of College will be fulfilled; I for one greatly resent the idea of returning to the hellish, sickly domain known as the Sixth Form. No, you're too optimistic for your own good on that one.
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