Every day I miss Frank Black

It's true.
Every day I miss him, just like the poster on this blog. I have all three series of Millenium sat on my shelf. I know I can go back and watch the episodes any time I want. In fact there are a handful I will probably go back to whenever I need to have a full release of tears, like 'Midnight of the Century' or 'The Sound of Snow'.

If you're an emotional type and you're curious about Millenium they might be the episodes to watch, though they won't have their full power without the context of the surrounding series. Watch it all if you can. Just thinking of Frank Black, and those episodes in particular, makes me teary. Both episodes deal with losing the most important person in the world to you.

I'm thinking of these stories (episodes) now because it occurred to me that most of the people who are like me, or who I want to be like, slip through my hands like sand. As R.A.W. once said, "the problem with us individualists is that we tend to stick apart!". And the problem with the people I feel a deep kinship with or seek to emulate are those who must follow their own trajectory - a path that only intersects incidentally with mine on a tangent. Sometimes we travel together for a while. The inner fires that give us power and motion however must inevitably also drive us apart.

As saddening as I find this, it also highlights what is, for me, one of the keys to true and fulfilling happiness. As Bertrand Russell once said in 'The Conquest of Happiness' - it is about having a cause. At least, that is what it looks like from the outside looking in. From in here looking out however it is something much more tangible and wonderful than an individual transitory cause. It is a core that drives me. Whether it is an amalgamation of tendencies, principles and beliefs, or something I've hardwired into myself through years of habituation I'm not sure exactly how to characterise it.

I do know that it never wavers or cracks and is always there when I remember to look for it. It is neither arbitrary nor fickle. It starts in a sense of self, the kind of sense that is, purposefully perhaps, not inculcated in one's youth or education. The path to it is simple. It is the realisation of perspectivism. You realise that your sense of self - in the truly limited sense of being aware that you are an aware being (of whatever description) is the fixed point that Archimedes was seeking. Einstein's objection to Quantum Physics, that if a mouse perceives the world differently, then the whole world changes, is no objection at all. It is from that singular point that you grip everything.

Descartes was an amateur. I think therefore I am, 'The Cogito', is oft presented as some kind of profound truth. It's repetition is also often completely mindless. Like, wow man. It's bollocks. If you read Descartes you find that this, the supposed highpoint of his Meditations, in fact leads him 'back to God'. Fool! Everything leads back to you. 'God' is not indivisible, you are. The extent to which you are stripped of any kind of fundamental "essence" - in Stirner's "spook" sense, is, as I'm sure both Nietzsche and Stirner would have agreed, the extent to which you have let others foist values, beliefs and experiences on you.

So spare a little time for that little core inside that is fundamentally you. That which is chosen by you in full awareness. It is the last little inch that Valerie talks about in 'V for Vendetta'. It is the solid and sharp edged sword against which tyrants and dictators, including the tyranny of your own body, will be smashed.

Broken pen fist

One of my heroes, Broken Sword (from 'Hero') was (oddly enough) named after his broken sword. My blog musings were brought to a sudden standstill last Easter by a broken fist. Unlike broken sword I couldn't use my primary tool of interaction with the world at all for a good couple of months. And like any good habit (or bad habit for that matter) that is broken; it tends to stay broken for a good, long time.

So I'm back. My fist is back in action, swinging back and forth across the keyboard (stop those filthy thoughts now those who are having them). And I get back to giving a public airing to some of the musings (and venting a few spleens) that cross my mind and give myself a chance to catalogue some of them before they disappear into the ether.

A lot's happened since my last post. I resigned from Ufi/learndirect. Carrie is out of my life (and good riddance). Orla is now in my life (beautiful Irish ice-skating girl) and it's definitely a better life for that fact. Ema is now studying in London and she's lovelier than ever. I'm working on my PhD proposal and seeking funding. I'm also now working at the Home Office. I'm sure that surprises a few people. What won't surprise a few people is that a(nother) resignation is on the horizon already...... more anon!