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“The Journey Of The Master’s Apprentice Part 2: Personalized Abysses & The Start of the Journey” (A Serialized Essay)

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by Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

The Journey Of The Master’s Apprentice Part 2: Personalized Abysses & The Start of the Journey

This is a continuation of the prior link https://antonmartinsmith.com/2026/02/21/the-journey-of-the-masters-apprentice-an-essay/

…..On that, if I was to speak as a English person from the 20th century I might say that “just because the ‘working classes’ & the ‘middle classes’ hate each other, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t just on different sides of the same coin”. I once said to a long term childhood friend of mine, who I talk of sociological matters to, “the working classes take their profits in sex, & the wealthy forgo sex to get the cash”. A little crude but it was a good analogy. We like to think talking of upper & lower classes as a old fashioned – but I ask if you – is the world we see really more egalitarian? Or is that just a polite and weathered façade?

But back to the story of ‘climbing out of the abyss’ – which from the last paragraph’s explanation – really is a task for everyone (Yes – even though the ‘trust fund baby’s life’ seems a total lark). It is a task for the child of the ‘crack addict parents’ and the child of the ‘CEO dad & Lawyer mother’, and all the children (who then of course grew into adults) in between. If you are born of a human being, you will have to face a personalized ‘abyss’ at some point and quantum science also implies it will also look back at you.

In short we are all tasked with crawling out of our own ‘personalized abyss’ (for the ‘modern organized world’ designs so many traps casually) the child given everything by wealthy highly networked but emotionally distant parents has to crawl out of their own ‘personalized abyss’ too. This experience of life’s casual pathology is something that the ‘boarding school syndrome’ sufferer is acutely aware of. We all need to create our own healthy and true ‘meaning’ in our lives – a cliché but a true cliché.

So as you as an adult (emerging from the standard & various childhood traumas already mentioned) start to ‘crawl out of the abyss’, you see the light is getting stronger. You continue walking towards the light. It is like a ‘near death experience’ if things are good the light should increase – if things are bad the light will diminish. But real life is complex in that something ‘eventually Good’ can have this iterative journey:

Bad, bad, bad, no so bad bad better, bad, better, not so bad, better, good, bad, GOOD.

“Poorly Written Personified Latin, Only Partially Saved” (A Poem)

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by Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

My name is “Et Cetera” I things like all things in the same vein or theme. 

My arch enemy is the evil “Inter Alia”, who likes to live amoungst other things that need not be mentioned. 

My neighbor “Ipso Facto” is a bore, obsessed with only dry facts leading to unarguable conclusions. 

However my delightful alter ego ‘Cognito Ergo Sum”, I cannot think better of! – a better man surely does not exist! 

The less said about “E Pluribus Unum” the better – that old flame is too obsessed with simplicity, always boiling things down. 

And finally a mixture of both good manners & schoolboy humor stops me from about “Annus Horriblis” at all.

This “stock” or “filler” Poem is worth a written apology it itself,

Which cynically can then be cut up & disseminated as seven individual “stock” “filler” poems,

I’m sorry dear reader but this is what you must put up with for the good,

For to get to the payable gold you have to shift at least a tonne of dirt.

Alas there will be no refunds at you local poetry dealer store –

The one that opens at 1pm and shuts at 3am – (standard liberal arts hours).

“A poetry store at the end of every street?

Surely this is just a ‘pipe dream’.

Sad the man who was ironically also smoking a pipe & unwittingly in the middle of a lucid dream.

I said “you are probably right, a poetry store on every corner is a pipe dream sir – I’d have to sell sewerage pipes for that”

To which the smoking lucid dreamer woke for his lucid dream & fittingly said

“Shit – where am I”

I said “you’re up caught in the middle of a shite poem that you can’t get out of”

To which the pipe smoking man looked up & said – “I agree that Latin shit up there that you wrote is totally stock, filler if you will”.

To which I replied “Don’t worry Sir, I’m belatedly putting this shite poem out of it’s misery”

To which he queried “Does this also mean I die?”

To which I replied in the affirmative.

He then said “Oh well, I had a good run”.

I promised him before brought the hammer down, that I might revive him in a future poem.

He said “ok, but next time can you write in a ‘hot mrs’ half my age?”

I said, hey hey sonny, I’m the hero of my own poetry ok – if anyone’s gettin’ that it’s me!”

Just as I hit save on the computer screen he managed to squeak out a nominal; “F you”.

I love it when characters come to life, saving a very bad poem from abject artistic obscurity.

I only hope some future critic will review it as

Poorly Written Personified Latin, Only Partially Saved

“The Journey Of The Master’s Apprentice Part 1 : Crack addicts & trust fund babies have more in common than you think (bad parents)” (A Serialized Essay)

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by Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

The Journey Of The Master’s Apprentice Part 1 : Crack addicts & trust fund babies have more in common than you think (bad parents)” (A Serialized Essay)

You can shore yourself up slowly & surely for a decade or longer. You can definitely do that. Upon doing so you begin to climb out of that whatever that form of randomized cultural abyss you’ve been programmed by as a child and a teenager. Most of us came from various shades of cultural abysses.

This is especially those of us who have lived ‘Downunder’ in NZ or Australia – both countries still suffer from our difficult pioneer/penal colony beginnings. The ongoing generalized culture is the amorphous blob that bears the scars of these difficult beginnings and also transmits them into the future. This is why it is so hard for a society (or an economy) to ‘re-invent itself’. The amorphous cultural blob has it’s own interests. You

The child of the crack addicts & the child of wealthy on the hill are different, but I contend it is still a matter of degree, rather than form. The child’s crack addict parents were addicted to temporary chemical highs while the child of the rich-on-the-hill parent is addicted to the imperfect feeling – also a ‘chemical high’ – the random ‘neurotransmitter hit’ that money, & it’s close cousins called status & security can give.

The crack addict vs the money & status addict adult share biologically all the same ‘brain machine’ of the same species – Homo Sapiens. The difference, as I was saying is one of degree in terms of programming – morays – culture, which has rules for which ‘objects’ of the world (tangible & intangible) get focused on.

The child of the ‘crack addict family’ at root is neglected in a similar way to the child of the “CEO dad & the Lawyer mother who sent their kid to boarding school” – In both families they minimized the true social needs of the child. If those children met at a bar & talked of childhood neglect, they’d most likely see eye to eye. There are many false divisions in this world’s journey.

(Part two to follow soon)

Copyright Martin Smith Creations Ltd NZ

“The Unrecognised Jungian Shadow Of Being Too Depressingly Positive”

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by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

Yes being a depressed person is not good.

But so is being ‘always positive’.

Neither cases are good.

The overly positive types are likely to seed chaos with a smile,

& not even know that they are doing so.

They’ve juiced their brains to say “everything’s great”.

They are embodied in the real-estate-agent-attracting-fake-uneducated-life-coach-guru.

These types are indeed WMD’s in their own right.

They’ll keep whooping & hollering together in a big room,

While they raise the rents on the supermarket worker, the nurse, the, mechanic –

The ones that lubricate a functioning society.

I’m no Marxist – I love entrepreneurship the kind that shows human human birdsong,

But the smoke & mirror economy is all because of imbalanced boom in untrammeled sh*t talkers.

We need positivity mixed with respect for knowledge and systemic harmony,

We need positivity that ‘lifts all boats’.

At least the depressives are too lacking in energy to destroy the world quickly,

For you have to be an go getter & an early riser to create a Great Depression.

Let us be a people with both our heads in the clouds and our feet on the ground,

Who are also not afraid of their own long trailing Jungian shadow.

For there’s nothing worse that to be enveloped in & saddled by,

The Unrecognised Jungian Shadow Of Being Too Depressingly Positive”

“Disneyfication” (A Poem)

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by Anton martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

And to the lights-on-but-no-one’s-home-folk that recoil in horror about a poem about BO?

Or a poem about the life being drained away from the eyes of the the human cubicle dweller?

Can’t you see that you rose-tinted-glasses view of the world isn’t helping anyone, let alone yourself?

The San Padro Poet was right when he talked about the ills of ‘Disneyfication’

There’s dirt, grunge, & bad smells & much worse in this world,

So let it be described in all it’s uncomfortable rancid true colors.

Though let’s be frank – the leafy greens types in aisle 7 will never catch on.

But perhaps a few will walk by the ‘gutter poetry aisle’ one day,

And look squarely at one of our poems,

Lift up their rose tinted glasses and read the first line or two,

And after the third line upon raising a single eyebrow up high,

Instead of the their usual loudly dismissive herumpf followed by clomping getaway feet –

There is just a barely audible ‘pfft’ followed by gentle mouse steps to the vacuum-packed salmon section.

Mickey Mouse will slowly start erasing himself from his big stupid ears to his oversize shoes,

Leaving only a dancing hand in a white glove & a pencil behind (in true cartoon style).

“Supermarket Narratives” (Poem)

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By Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

If you arrive at the supermarket checkout,

At the same time that another customer’s ‘stinkwave’ arrives at your checkout chick’s nose,

Their is a very high chance of ‘mistaken stink identity’.

You may see a poorly hid, ‘scrunched up face of horror’ in front of you.

Yet you cannot protest or explain – for to be seen as a ‘drama queen’ is much much worse.

All you can do is keep quiet & put your armpit’s reputation on the line,

& hope that next week the same exact thing doesn’t happen again.

Yes visiting the Supermarket in person is full of risks of all kinds.

You’re better off ordering alone by yourself from a soulless screen –

Where their is zero risk of ‘mistaken stink identity’ –

Where if there are any ‘stinkwaves’, they’ll be ‘own brand’, your own nose, & you won’t give a shit anyway.

But then I ask of you Sir or Maddam – where’s the fun in that?

And to the lights-on-but-no-one’s-home-folk that recoil in horror about a poem about BO?

Can’t you see that you rose-tinted-glasses view of the world isn’t helping anyone, let alone yourself?

The San Padro Poet was right when he talked about the ills of ‘Disneyfication’

There’s dirt, grunge, & bad smells & much worse in this world,

So let it be described in all it’s uncomfortable rancid true colors.

Though let’s be frank – the leafy greens types in aisle 7 will never catch on.

But perhaps a few will walk by the ‘gutter poetry aisle’ one day,

And look squarely at one of our poems,

Lift up their rose tinted glasses and read the first line or two,

And after the third line upon raising a single eyebrow up high,

Instead of the their usual loudly dismissive herumpf followed by clomping getaway feet –

There is just a barely audible ‘pfft’ followed by gentle mouse steps to the vacuum-packed salmon section.

Mickey Mouse will slowly start erasing himself.

I went to Dunedin for a three day break (Blog Post)

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So I decided I had to force myself to have three days off. Being a self employed guy it’s hard to have long holidays. You need a lot of cash to have long comfortable holidays these days. the dark forces in charge decided a couple of decades ago that it was bad to let the middle class/ working classes have comfortable holidays – so they ramped up prices.

So I went up & crashed as best I could in one of the few affordable places left that wasn’t a dorm room. The weather was great in Dunedin & all my precious little time was spent at the St Clair beach, it is an amazing beach & craps all over the last beach I lived near – in St Kilda Australia. the Dunedin St Clair Beach is long, has beautiful sand, the surf is amazing, the air crisp & clear. Perhaps it should be called “St Clear” lol.

Outside that I went to the second hand bookshop – “Hard To Find Books” on Dowling St. I was in a budget but got a couple gems including Don DeLillo’s “Underworld” (David Foster Wallace loved DeLillo, so I thought I’d ask if they had any books of DeLillo’s). I’ve been buying up a tonne of books lately – I must have 30 in the magazine now.

Back to the trip – I also went for a night out in the ‘Octagon’ – this area is the center of Dunedin city – the street is set out in an octagonal design. Was great to catch up with the boys at my fave semi-dive bar ‘the Dunedin Social Club”. Was quieter than usual as the students are not back from summer break yet. More than a few $6 pints were had. Great to catch up with “English Joe” the bartender & his sidekick “Alex the Kid”. We caught up on things & I am glad they fended of a savage attack from a marauding drunk Maori fella out for revenge on western society LOL – perhaps he thought it was Waikato 1865 not Dunedin 2026?.

So now I’m back to small town C.Otago existence. That’s ok, I got a good reset & feel my vibe has lifted 20%.

May as well post a pick from the trip – it’s on the roof of the cheap-ish room I managed to wangle. PS I am not sure if I look Moses-like or Dictator-like)

Commentary on recent work

I have much work to do – namely editing/proof reading my Novel (Trafficlight Dystopia). I recommend you read my latest Long Short Story/Novella called “Full Circle Indeed” – it’s 14K words long so I guess that you can read it about one point five to two hours – it addresses the effect of bullies/being bullied in Highschool. Here is the link

“Full Circle Indeed” ( A Novella)

Another fun Poem/prose I did was one about how the younger generation are troubled due to being born into mad times. I feel sorry for them, the under 40 have been particularly screwed over (it’s financially so hard now to be a ‘deadbeat loser’ is quite an achievement). Read it to see what I think.

“The Disease that Was Killed with a Slogan” (Prose)

I wrote an essay split into two parts (with cross ref links to each other) about being old middle aged lonely & isolated in good ol’ NZ. I muse about why NZ is the way it is. I wonder if it’s due to how it was ‘peopled’ in that first 70 years from 1830 odd? I also add my own life matters – perhaps it’s not NZ it’s just me – perhaps my worries are just because I was a ‘child of divorce’ as Adam West lamented about on those old 60s Batman episodes (“That crook was only like that because he was from a ‘broken home”).

https://antonmartinsmith.com/2026/01/19/soulful-self-expression-or-the-existential-ramblings-of-a-lonely-kiwi-man-part-2-a-blog-post/

I also wrote a little one on the subject of “Birth Order” – from the perspective of the ‘lastborns’ (maligned, creative) who is tired of the stuffy, power hungry ‘firstborns’ crap. p.s. I’m sure that Nazi prison guards & the top rank were also mostly firstborns.

https://antonmartinsmith.com/2026/01/30/a-last-borns-lament/

Anyway this blog post must end! The year has started well enough, & though not a resolution, my goal is to be a little happier & harder working. Misery is quite good for writing, but it’s best to have some silver linings as well for ‘life insurance’ reasons.

Happy reading & writing!

Anton Martin Smith

On the Roof on a undisclosed High Street location in Dunedin NZ

“A Last-born’s Lament” (Prose)

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by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

All hail the glorious and much maligned La-BoS-Mi-Ag-NoC!

That is, The Last-Born-Single-Middle-Aged-No-Children folk.

And what brought these words here? – forthwith, I shall tell a tale.

One that I hope even the most the most lemony-faced scoundrels will find perfectly cromulant.

The problem is society tells the La-BoS-Mi-Ag-NoC’s they are ‘old shirkers’ –

Yet we cannot help it – we all still feel ageless, in a forever Twenty to Thirty-odd ‘band’ (not ‘trapped’).

This never changes, even as the years roll by.

The First-borns all boringly copied each other & are ‘happily trapped’ by their responsibilities.

Yes Yes Yes – The First Born Married With Children, aka the Fi-Bo-MaW-Chi’s have it in for us.

They all think there is something wrong with us all.

They don’t see that just like them, we are a merely a product of our environment.

Just as much as they want to be trapped & want to define themselves by the trappings of the trap,

We La-BoS-Mi-Ag-NoC’s want to do the same via Freedom & its cousins of down-time & creativity & novelty.

The difference is they can always take the moral highground, while we cannot – for we are not allowed to.

Society is run by Firstborns & their idle Second-born lieutenants, who love all Traps & all things that Trap.

They even write brainwash-books called

‘Learning to love the Trap’..

‘Build a better Trap all in your spare time’

‘Get 20% more out of your Trap all while you sleep’

‘Escape The Trap of not being Trapped’

‘YES! – YOU Deserve All The Trappings Of The Trap’

‘Live Trap-ily Ever After’

‘I Was once un-Trapped: A Horror Story’

Etcetera Etcetera Etcetera

Still, dispite it all – let us not let them change us a jot, a little bit or indeed even by a big big little bit –

For they cannot truly rationally complain.

For just like them, we are just doing what we were born & raised to do –

Avoid overrated the materialistic straightjacketed falsities so as to become ‘as free as birds’ –

At least in out minds eyes, from time to time, as the Fi-Bo-MaW-Chi’s horrid little machine will blue-moon-allow.

And besides, let those myopic drawn-faced Firstborn tsk tsk’ers gossip & nod dissapprovingly –

For one day when they need creativity – that’s when they’ll run cap in hand to us –

And we will say –

“Well well well – look who suddenly respects my worth, but it’s too late too late sucker – you’re on your own”

Yes Sir-ee – Our final revenge will be sweet.

For it was written long long ago it a time now long forgotten, and probably on some granite tablet,

That the La-BoS-Mi-Ag-NoC’s will inherit the Earth,

While the Fi-Bo-MaW-Chi’s will be castigated to suck on their over-regulated, transmogrified & long-past-expiry-date-eggs.

Viva le La-BoS-Mi-Ag-NoC’s!

Of course that supposed Utopia for us La-BoS-Mi-Ag-NoC’s could just all end terribly like Bolshevism did –

But to steal (paraphrase) a line from San Pedro’s ‘Poet Laurette of the gutters’ to that I will say this:

“Hey it’s my story buddy…..I am the hero baby….it’s my prerogative as the writer”.

Of course, I must admit their is still that nagging voice echoing from time-to-time through-my-mind:

Don’t be a fool the Fi-Bo-MaW-Chi’s will enslave you sad La-BoS-Mi-Ag-NoC’s forever.

After all, I may be a fine La-BoS-Mi-Ag-NoC but I’m still only human.

“Nuthouse Candidate” (Comedic Prose)

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By Anton Martin Smith Antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

When I walk around town and see the people, I like to play a simple game – I ask myself: “If it was still 1950 – who would be locked up in a nuthouse? From there on is is a fairly simple taxonomy & observation exercise:

Lady at second hand book sale slams books down on the counter like they are sledgehammers –nuthouse candidate.

Lady who when talking to young German tourists can’t get over how far from home they are – nuthouse candidate.

Alcoholic old staff lady who frantically called the cops on a handsome middle aged male customer for making over-the-top jokes with the young female staff – nuthouse candidate.

Homely middle aged lady & checkout chick saying at high ‘customer audible’ volumes to similar staff lady next to her that she “hasn’t had sex in so long that it’s almost grown over” – nuthouse candidate.

You might notice a pattern emerging from this: a lot of middle-aged females. Well this is an understandable but technically false assumption: I would have written down the ‘nuthouse candidates’ who were ‘male’, however as they are all business owners of stores that I regularly frequent (Bookstores, Takeaway Joints, Bars, Pool houses, Cafes), and I am worried they will swiftly ban me on account of if write of them, and they duly recognize themselves in the text.

This is why I will not ever mention a guy like “Joeblo” the vertically challenged snot-nosed barmen who breeds Guinea Pigs and whose nickname is “Richard Gere don’t do that”.

Moreover they also get a free pass from being ‘nuthouse candidates’ as they are economically too important, are often very stupendously witty, & I on too many occasions often agree totally with them.

The moral of the story? Don’t let a flawed research methodology get in the way of having really fun a day out around town.

And always remember to love the crazies because of the ‘it takes one to know one ‘thesis’, and also the other so-true thesis of “there’s nothing worse than being boring”.

And as a postscript – whatever you do, don’t ever listen to the thesis of “If you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all”, after all your grandmother was a statistically probably a bitch, and following that thesis would rule out the entire arts & literature game entirely – clearly this is bad-bad-bad.

Fatal Uploads Inc. (A Poem)

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By Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

It’s True.

The mind is a funny thing.

Left to itself – it will move to destroy itself.

It will chase easy dopamine fixes, forgetting food, sleep, others.

And that’s exactly what they try to encourage – those techno feudal overlords.

They are feeding the beast until it devours itself whole.

They’re making the physical world seem ‘quaint’.

So that one day people will click ‘yes’.

To the final fatal upload.

Fuck that.