The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

So it's midnight, I have to be up for work in six hours at the latest, and the beehive of my mind continues to elude slumber's sweet embrace. Take note kids, that's what you get for selling your soul and working double shifts; screwed up body clock. Oh, and lots of overtime pay to go towards your bike fund.

Experiences. Memories. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Why is there evil in the world? Why can we not always be happy? Without contrast, how could we truly appreciate anything?

It was with shock that I realised we're over a week into March. Six months since I've been living in London. Less than two months 'till I turn twenty two. Along with remembering old and current friends, I've been recollecting some of my more memorable experiences, and the great contrasts between them.

I have been in over twenty different countries, all unique; both wonderful and terrible in their own ways. Seen people and creatures dead, dying, diseased, disfigured, in poverty, and in pain; met people content, healthy, rejoicing, friendly and generous.

I have been atheist; I have been Christian.

I have had £5 to my name and no roof over my head; I have earned over £300 in a day, eaten the finest of foods and lived in more than comfortable housing.

My first girlfriend; my first boyfriend.

I have been healthy, strong, fit as a fiddle; I have been so sick I couldn't keep half a cup of water down; was once in such constant pain I was popping codeine just to try and sleep; spent 3 months with the prospect of cancer hanging over my head.

Friends who love me, supported me, advised me; enemies who bullied, tortured, slandered and tried to undermine me.

Times when I could have died, gone to Heaven, and not been happier; times I wanted to die, to put an end to it all (and nearly did).

Times I have injured or killed; times I have comforted or healed.

Work that involved sitting on a boat, reading books in the sun; work that saw me elbow-deep in oil and sludge, getting 4 hours' sleep on the good nights, or drenched in raw sewage (if I ever tell you something tastes like shit, I mean it...)

So cold I couldn't feel my limbs; so hot I couldn't sweat any more.

Going out to drink on a Thursday, finishing on the Monday morning on the way to work; getting through a couple of bottles of wine with each meal; drowning sorrows; being dry, learning to enjoy alcoholic beverages when I don't just want to get hammered.

Doing nothing but chilling for a month or two; clocking 300 hours of work a month.

Hoarding possessions; giving everything away.

My 20th in Loughborough, drinking shots all night, sleeping in a grotty student house; my 21st in Nacula, Fiji, sober and sitting on a deserted beach with a bonfire, sleeping in a local village about as far from civilisation and the beaten track as you can get.

The list goes on for quite a while further, but this is all very self-indulgent; you're forgiven if you're bored of this tripe. To conclude, variety is the spice and zest of life; seek it out. Weather the bad moments, for they are what make the good times good.

What I once considered the worst things to happen to me, I now consider the best, for they made me stronger, and make me realise how blessed I am. To forget your life is, perhaps, one of the saddest of losses. Treasure all of it.

0130....damn

What are you? A man or a mouse?

I've had this question posed to me on quite a few occasions, mostly when I was a child. Amusingly, I recall a little voice in my head that piped up every time, giving "squeak" as a private reply.

Identity has been on my mind of late. I don't consider my "identity" to be who/what I view myself as; I am a stream of consciousness contained within a corporeal shell, with various subconscious and/or glandular desires and emotions. I have the capacity to learn, reason and remember, and a greater capacity to forget. To define and categorise oneself is to impose limits on what you can be or achieve. It's similar to trying to describe God; every label you apply makes God less like God and more like your own (mis)conception of what a God should be.

When I think of my "identity", it is what others view me as. I have many, quite different identities, depending on who you ask; depending on what sort of situation people have experienced me in. When someone says they're afraid of me, I'm generally shocked (and I know a few people who would laugh at that). But that's the facet of "me" that they've seen.

I am rather fond of getting my own way; when I want something to happen, I'm not averse to doing whatever I have to in order to realise my wish. Appearance, how I present and comport myself, is one tool I have come to use a lot. It is something we are all judged on, and something we can have a lot of control over. I also find that my mental self image rarely lines up with my actual image; what is inside is rarely reflected on the outside.

This doesn't bother me much. For whatever reason, I am quite detached from what body I have, or what people call me/refer to me as. Those who ask me what name I want them to use, invariably get a hazy "whatever" in reply.

At face value, it seems most people see me as a heterosexual man in his mid-twenties, confident, neatly dressed, well-built, quiet and well-mannered. It is an image I have cultivated and encourage, for the simple reason that it helps me get what I want. In general, people afford me more respect as a result, for like it or not ours is a sexist, ageist (etc) society; if, for example, I were to look my age or younger, or look like a woman, certain things would become a lot more difficult.

Someone once commented to me, "You know, for such a macho guy, you sure do have some very feminine traits..." I just grinned.

We all judge books by their covers; it can't be avoided. But don't forget there's a myriad of pages contained within.