Doom and laughter in a digital age
So I had a had a big long post full of unashamed bleeding ready to post but decided I was a little compromised by a rather large intake of booze.
Instead I have decided to posts GIFs of that fabulous bookshop owning alco, Bernard Black. For the uninitiated, I am referring to the protagonist of Black Books, a rather fine (nay, the finest) example of contemporary British television comedy. Bernard Black is portrayed by the almost equally fabulous (but not really), Dylan Moran.
Woke up around 2pm this afternoon. I lay there a while contemplating… There were things that should be done. Big things, small things. Stupid things mostly. Maybe suicide was the best option, I thought.
Stuff doesn’t need to be done when you’re dead. Life becomes so much easier. No absurd places to be, no absurd conventions to follow. No one to put on a brave face for. Just simple, infinite oblivion.
There was no one around to come bumbling in on my business. Surely it would be easy…
Eventually I decided to get up and have coffee instead. Put some music on. Talk to friends. Slowly the day appeared a little brighter, but still so many unresolved issues. Huge, sinister incorporeal issues that have no clear line of attack. Things that should bring me joy and comfort, twisted into something I can’t even face.
Put them off another day. Enjoy the small things. The coffee, the music, the friends. Smile and laugh a little. Today is here, so enjoy it.
And now I’m enjoying a fabulous cheap wine. Life is horrible, but it’s also ok, and also fantastic.
Seriously, I can do anything! This is the sort of mind frame I’m often in by the time I should be going to bed. I’ve usually managed to achieve a small victory, finishing a few small tasks, or even something a little more weighty, if it was a particularly saucy day. I’ll be making plans for the next day. I’ll be organising. I’ll be getting ready to attack a bigger task. “I’m going to work on money tasks,” I say to myself. “I’m going to go back to uni,” I might say another night.
I’m telling myself that 4-5pm will be exercise time, and that I won’t drink an entire bottle of wine (or two) just because. I feel like life is finally under control, that I can actually do it, that after 3 long years in the wilderness I have finally reached the fucking light at the end of the fucking tunnel.
And then the next morning I wake up like the above. Except not at all like that. All that progress from the day before is gone. During the night I’ve ended up at some earlier backup point. I wake up feeling like a pile of shit. That I can’t do anything. That my life is fucked. That everything is pointless, even if I did momentarily feel like doing something.
At some point I drag myself out of bed. On the best days I’ll manage to shower, breakfast, and even put on clothes. On the worst days I’ll just sit in my stank and drink coffee (which is admittedly pretty fucking glorious). Little by little I try to get back to where I was the night before. Some days I get no where.
After a while I get to wondering why I’m still here. That surely it’s only a matter of time before I do something rash. And why not? Life is without meaning, all suffering is futile, and any joy is transient. Why not get blasted and go play by the cliffs, or get to working on a serious heroin addiction? Why not?Against It all, I’m still here.
I’m still here because there is that little something that says, I am a unique fucking snowflake! I can do this, damn it! Life may only have whatever fleeting value and point I bestow upon it, but I’m going to do it my way.
So, while every day isn’t waking up to the heavens beaming warmth, love, and joy down upon me, I can work my hardest to live how I want to live, and achieve all I can.
Put on your pants and join me.
So, a blog post a day, huh? Yeah, well, I did actually have something written up to post for yesterday, but then I decided I wanted to do a little illustration. And I was really going to do the illustration. But I didn’t… and the beauty is that no one cares, not even me. Actually I do. A little. I’m a tiny bit disappointed in myself :/
Instead of getting around to this little task, that probably would have taken ten minutes, I decided to get drunk and play with my e-comrades until 4am. It was totally worth it. Now, I’m going to go do an illustration for this post, but I plan to actually do it tonight, and not flake. Yesterdays post shall now become tomorrows.
Watch me do it! Or not. I’m going to get dinner.
So, I had a delicious Kway Teow noodle box for dinner. It was the bomba. Then I was feeling really tired and thought I wouldn’t get the post done. But I did! Yay, me.
Today I decided I’m going to blog every day.
I’m going to do it even if I have nothings to say.
I’m going to blog about nothing.
Today, CyberageFunk is officially a blog about nothing. Just like Seinfeld was a show about nothing, and my existence is a life about nothing. That’s the beauty of everything. Everything is about nothing. We just pretend stuff is about something. But it’s not…
Maybe I’ll write about nothing multiple times a day. Here’s George Costanza pitching that show about nothing.
I’m not a NWO nutter, but the TTP and it’s brothers have caused me a good deal of concern. Too much happening without transparency. One’s imagination can run wild with possible ramifications of giving corporations the only vote that matters in shaping the future.
Could democracy be that nice shiny bauble that the landed interest folk threw the plebs to keep them quite while they got on with stealing everything?
There are always things I think I should write about. Important things. Stupid things. Amusing things. Stuff about things. But then I don’t. I figure, who’s going to read it? But that’s not the right way to look at it. I dig writing. I dig writing just for the sake of writing. Writing for me. For the void. For the moment and for tomorrow. Writing for others is all well and fine, and yes, I do that with some of my other blogs that real life people do read, but the world is so stuff full of words everywhere that most people who write can’t expect to be read unless they are (or are introduced by someone who is) already established, notorious, or deeply embedded within a community of sorts.
…but this isn’t meant to be a post about writing, getting noticed, or any other pro blogger tip thingy. It is a post about remembering its ok to write just for the hell of it. Remembering this reminds me of who I am. Remembering who I am helps me deal with the ever present wave of horror, despair, hate and injustice that forever hangs above the world threatening to brake upon anyone that dares to look at it. Remember who you are. Remember that yes, some people hate you for just being alive, that yes, just being alive hurts others. Remember that some people are ignorant, bigoted fucks, but also that sometimes it is you who is ignorant.
So, I thought that whole, “I woke up one day and realised I was over him/her/it”, was a bunch of malarkey, but that’s a fairly accurate account of how I feel right now. I’m not sure when exactly it happened but the roller coaster seems to be petering out (really truly), and has been for some time. Generally, I like roller coasters but that one got old damn quick. Psychic emo rides are the sort of thing only drama queens and masochists can derive any joy from.
The booze and slobbing about period has lapsed back into my native state of booze-and-slobbing-about-lite, which has always been a more productive space. I’ve never managed to attain the dubious title of “drunken master” in any of my pursuits. A little extra lubrication rarely hurts, though that is indeed a very slippery slope that can easily result in pizza and zom-coms (or whatever) for the ill-disciplined and vulnerable.
[Carpe diem bro]
Who else finds those “getting to know you” sessions awkward and painful? Maybe it’s just me but whether it be for study, work, or just about anything else this part of the orientation has me looking for emergency escape routes. In short, it has the exact opposite of its intended effect.
HR goon/tutor/etc: “Stand up and tell us about yourself. Don’t be shy. No one’s going to judge you.”
Me: Umm, no thanks.
HR goon/tutor/etc: “Ok, fantastic! Let’s all break up into groups by favourite colour and penis size for awkward bonding activities which are designed to be stupid and disarming.”
Me: Fuck my life.
This time around there was none of that awful anxiety. Maybe I’m just chilling the fuck out in my old age, or maybe being in a room with other awkward geeks and creative types blunted the harsh edge of “getting to know you” politics. Sure, the group wasn’t uniformly anxious and dysfunctional, but these are my people… more-or-less. It also helped a lot that the first round of introductions was simply, “name, and last video game you played”. Our disarming group activity was building structures with marshmallows and spaghetti. How can you go wrong?
The fun rolled on with party games on a huge projection screen in the foyer. Strangers facing off in Joust and the innuendo laden Pole Riders resulted in much laughter and applause.
After a barbecue lunch (which I ditched in favour of a much-needed coffee) it was down to business with the first introductory classes. It was slightly amusing but more painful listening to the tutors struggling to explain fundamental principles such as UV mapping and rigging. Some of the explanations were a feat of linguistic contortion, and likely left those new to the concepts supremely confused. To be fair, these can be hard to explain off the top of your head.
As I suspected, Maya is the 3D software we use in class. My first impressions of Maya: what the fucking fuck? Coming to Maya as a LightWave user made for a distressing first encounter. Without knowledge of why Maya is laid out the way it is and why it functions the way it does, the program appears to be an unforgiving hodge-podge of idiosyncrasies. After a few hours of being completely lost and confused the logic started to appear and an incredibly powerful program was unfolding. Unless I end up landing a job with a big studio I don’t see myself working with it much in the future, but that is more due to the price of an Australian commercial license than the software itself.
All-in-all the first week at AIE was positive and I am optimistic about the opportunities the course and institution have to offer.
Turn back ye now! Ahead lies a most self-indulgent post of woe (and hope). Everything is about me. So, run or stay. Your choice! Another year has spun on. My hearing is getting worse, my eyes are deteriorating and my hair is in a slow retreat. Those things I can live with but this break-up weight seriously needs to go. I can still see my toes. Last year was one arsehole of a year, but thanks to some good friends and family, self-medication and therapy I’m still here.
Things are looking a little better and new possibilities beckon. This isn’t to say everything was great when I look back further. The five years I spent with miss X and my second born had many ups and downs, but in many respects, they were the best so far. But when looking all the way back to my first days at high school and every day since, a general lack of direction, self-doubt and existential aliments has resulted in a jumbled, turbulent and unorthodox life to date. Not to mention conflicting and contradictory. So, some good and some bad. Some extraordinarily super periods and some hellish.
I know I’m not alone here. Most people experience at least some of what I’ve been through, and there are plenty who go through much worse. There are far too many that don’t made it through to the other side of their worst days, either because the bad ones keep on rolling on, or because suicide becomes preferable. I got lucky. I didn’t end up dead or a vegetable.
My greatest regrets are letting anxiety get the better of me all to often, living so far away from my eldest, and allowing my relationship with miss X to implode.
And this is where it has all lead to. At 30 years of age I am yet again trying to make a “fresh” start. It was 5 years ago, almost to the day, that I first came to Canberra on the grand reboot, and once again I’m heading back to school at a new institution. Unlike previous attempts I’m feeling more secure in my field of study and have a clearer idea of where I’m going. The future has always been a severe case of writers block. Any clarity is very welcome.
Starting next week (Feb 2nd) I embark on a two year diploma of 3D Animation & VFX for Film at the Academy of Interactive Entertainment. I almost forgot what optimism felt like. That too is also very welcome. The biggest obstacle to overcome in making it through this course will be to settle for “close enough is good enough”. In past studies an unrelenting propensity for perfectionism has lead me to burnout time and again. Of course, perfection is a myth, or at best, a fleeting moment destroyed by it’s mere observation. Good is good enough. Repeat. Practice. Good is good enough.