What’s worse, unrelenting negativity or ceaseless positivity? Depends on my mood probably, but they are both ridiculous ways to live a life. Some things are shit. The menu at my kid’s school (although there are apparently plans afoot to change it), the fact that my four-year-old daughter has to go to school at all, terrorism, Newt Gingrich – all utter cock. In fact, many, many things are shit. It is okay to say so. A lot of things are also great. Music, cinema, the sound of the sea, boobs – each of them stupendously brilliant. The world (and by extension, my life upon it) is both lovely and terrible. As a citizen of the developed world, it is undoubtedly better than most.
I’m not quite sure what my point is. I guess I think that a spade should be called a spade. It is a digging implement (or possibly a playing card). I can’t imagine that it is possible to be either in a great mood or a miserable one all the time, and people who pretend either one are a bit bloody annoying. Shouldn’t self esteem issues work the same way? Sometimes I’m alright – even pretty damn good; when I got my degree, when someone pays me a genuine complement, when my wife smiles at me. Other times, I’m a useless hateful piece of human sputum – when I get something wrong or forget something that causes problems for others, or when I spout some ill-considered, off-the-cuff remark that upsets somebody. I know there are people with genuine deficiencies that can cause extreme spirals of depression, but for the un-afflicted, a love-hate relationship with yourself is surely par for the cause, isn’t it?
I don’t think feeling like crap is necessarily a bad thing. That oft-repeated balls about how you’ve got to love yourself before you can be a proper person makes no sense. Self-hate is just as normal. So feel free to despise yourself at times when you feel useless, fat, ugly or whatever. But try to remember to give yourself appropriate credit when you do brilliant things as well. It might be worth remembering that we’re on a ball of rock flying through the vacuum in the tiniest corner of an inconceivably huge uncaring Universe with only a small layer of atmosphere held down by gravity stopping us all from dying horribly. With that in mind, who really gives a monkey’s bollock how fat you are or how stupid I am?
Friday, January 27, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
The strange and depressing case of Donna Williams.
Just before Christmas, I was walking to the bus station to catch the bus home after work. It was late and dark, and I just wanted to get home and see my kids. Walking towards me is a person, stumbling slightly, veering a little, but definitely heading my way. As we close in on each other, I notice that they are very upset, crying, gesturing, wanting very much to communicate something urgently. It is at this point that I reluctantly decide I have to take my headphones out of my ears and engage with this person. Sadly, being able to hear her makes little difference, because she is very upset, very drunk, with a very strong West Midlands (possibly) accent.
As the sounds tumble from her mouth I slowly begin to establish that something bad happened at a cash point. I think maybe some people stole the cash she was withdrawing or perhaps even forced her to withdraw money. It sounds serious so I point her in the direction of the police station, and after much repetition I think she understands. She neglects to make any movement towards said police station, however, choosing instead to stand by me. In a small voice, I hear her say “I think you’d better come with me”. Thinking rather selfishly about my bus and my kids’ bath time, I reluctantly agree - she is so distressed I’m left with little choice. I begin to wonder if she’s on drugs as well.
As we start towards the police station, she seems to find a little self control and I am hoping I can just leave her to whoever’s on duty at the front desk and catch my bus after all. “I’m Donna” she says en route, visibly pleased to have someone else around. We walk into the police station, and it is immediately clear that the guy behind the desk is very reluctant to talk to her, and is barely civil to me.
As Donna feebly attempts to explain what got her so upset in her mostly unintelligible drivel, it seems that in her drunken and possibly drugged state, she may merely have witnessed some people withdrawing cash from a cash point and assumed they were stealing the bank’s, and possibly her money. Even without the drink, the drugs and the distress, it seems clear that Donna never had the benefit of a full education (which might go some way to explaining the drink and the drugs). She continues to talk, to repeat herself while waving her bank card about (it is now I am able to establish her full name as she waves her card under my nose). She talks about her Jobseeker’s money, about how she still has a little in her account, about if the police do catch these apparent thieves, what will happen, going round and round, repeating herself in broken random sentences, while struggling to focus. The guy behind the desk is trying to explain that there would need to be proof of a crime first, and that she should check her account and talk to her bank. My bus has long gone, but it is clear that Donna will get no help from the police tonight. Not that there’s really anything they could do – she’s pissed and going on about people withdrawing cash and her Jobseeker’s. Eventually she is convinced to leave.
Outside, she seems to feel better, so I make my excuses. Donna is off to a pub and invites me along for a drink about ten times before I am finally able to shake her hand and get away. I don’t want to be there to see what a panic she gets in when the pub refuses to serve her. I catch a later bus and get home just in time to say goodnight to my kids as they get into bed.
It seems a shame that people like Donna exist, but it is an inevitable consequence of a civilisation such as ours. Success is measured by achievement and wealth, progress and the accumulation of stuff. When you don’t have the ability to accomplish in the same terms, you get cast down, left to live on Jobseeker’s Allowance, scorned by those around you and with no prospects of it ever changing. Without even the knowledge or basic level of social intelligence to see the kind of problem you have what is left? Drink. Drugs. Other temporary avenues of escape.
I hope Donna is okay. I hope she made it through that night. I hope she finds some miraculous way to improve her circumstances. If you ever meet her, or find yourself forced to interact with someone like her, don’t be an asshole, okay?
As the sounds tumble from her mouth I slowly begin to establish that something bad happened at a cash point. I think maybe some people stole the cash she was withdrawing or perhaps even forced her to withdraw money. It sounds serious so I point her in the direction of the police station, and after much repetition I think she understands. She neglects to make any movement towards said police station, however, choosing instead to stand by me. In a small voice, I hear her say “I think you’d better come with me”. Thinking rather selfishly about my bus and my kids’ bath time, I reluctantly agree - she is so distressed I’m left with little choice. I begin to wonder if she’s on drugs as well.
As we start towards the police station, she seems to find a little self control and I am hoping I can just leave her to whoever’s on duty at the front desk and catch my bus after all. “I’m Donna” she says en route, visibly pleased to have someone else around. We walk into the police station, and it is immediately clear that the guy behind the desk is very reluctant to talk to her, and is barely civil to me.
As Donna feebly attempts to explain what got her so upset in her mostly unintelligible drivel, it seems that in her drunken and possibly drugged state, she may merely have witnessed some people withdrawing cash from a cash point and assumed they were stealing the bank’s, and possibly her money. Even without the drink, the drugs and the distress, it seems clear that Donna never had the benefit of a full education (which might go some way to explaining the drink and the drugs). She continues to talk, to repeat herself while waving her bank card about (it is now I am able to establish her full name as she waves her card under my nose). She talks about her Jobseeker’s money, about how she still has a little in her account, about if the police do catch these apparent thieves, what will happen, going round and round, repeating herself in broken random sentences, while struggling to focus. The guy behind the desk is trying to explain that there would need to be proof of a crime first, and that she should check her account and talk to her bank. My bus has long gone, but it is clear that Donna will get no help from the police tonight. Not that there’s really anything they could do – she’s pissed and going on about people withdrawing cash and her Jobseeker’s. Eventually she is convinced to leave.
Outside, she seems to feel better, so I make my excuses. Donna is off to a pub and invites me along for a drink about ten times before I am finally able to shake her hand and get away. I don’t want to be there to see what a panic she gets in when the pub refuses to serve her. I catch a later bus and get home just in time to say goodnight to my kids as they get into bed.
It seems a shame that people like Donna exist, but it is an inevitable consequence of a civilisation such as ours. Success is measured by achievement and wealth, progress and the accumulation of stuff. When you don’t have the ability to accomplish in the same terms, you get cast down, left to live on Jobseeker’s Allowance, scorned by those around you and with no prospects of it ever changing. Without even the knowledge or basic level of social intelligence to see the kind of problem you have what is left? Drink. Drugs. Other temporary avenues of escape.
I hope Donna is okay. I hope she made it through that night. I hope she finds some miraculous way to improve her circumstances. If you ever meet her, or find yourself forced to interact with someone like her, don’t be an asshole, okay?
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