Tag: life

“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.

“Soulful Self Expression Or The Existential Ramblings Of A Lonely Kiwi Man? – Part 2” (A Blog Post).

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by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

Part 2 (If you haven’t read Part, 1 click link below):

https://antonmartinsmith.com/2026/01/17/soulful-self-expression-or-the-existential-ramblings-of-a-lonely-kiwi-man-a-blog-post/ )

……….

Back to things ‘New Zealand’. Of course there is a new different form of isolation – of ‘small town New Zealand’, being over thirty, and being unmarried, single and over forty, over 50, over 60 etc. Yes, I admit the ‘peacefulness of New Zealand’ is written into the fabric of this place. I don’t deny that. It’s an amazing thing in itself. But the added social isolation is a construction of the people who came here and the people still here now. The social isolation situation is constructed actively that have been here (i.e. After an arduous three month journey landed and dis-embarked off that boat out of Britain & then settled).

The ‘isolation culture’ has been managed and reproduced to the next generation since NZ became a colonial outpost circa Eighteen-Thirty. My current favourite theory as to why isolation is so entrenched here is that we never got over the wild chaotic pioneering beginnings of things. When there was too much hard work ahead of us to build literally everthing; almost no ‘civilizing’ females here only en-roughened violent and bad tempered men; Law and order was patchy to non existent at best. In those conditions in colonial NZ, it was wise to not trust anyone, given anyone you randomly met was probably some rogue drunk and violent male, most probably a cast-off from eighteenth-century Dickensian London, quite ready to rob, beat or maybe even kill you. The entrenched isolation is perhaps proof it’s all too early in ‘cultural-time’ to expect otherwise.

The theory is surely half right – how could it not be? after all – ‘facts are facts’ as they say. Sadly, I also think we as New Zealanders don’t know ourselves well enough to be able to fight the unnecessary ongoing culture of isolating patterns of behavior. It’s almost as if after saying ‘no we are not British we are now New Zealanders’ we have embraced a void – we have something we are not (British) don’t have something we are. Of course anyone with brains knows it is folly to pretend we ex colonials are not still ethno-culturally British/European – even though the white liberals love to pretend they can.

But I believe agency exists, at least in part (this is a big topic in Philosophy). In NZ People allow themselves to be too reticent, too co-dependent with their spouses, too suspicious of ‘others’, never backing themselves to get out of their rut, always worried what people will think of them of they dare put their head above the pulpit. That is why despite the ever-piling-up evidence (e.g. poor mental health) to the contrary, we still pretend ‘everything is ok’ and that we are just people who like to “chill out”. I believe ‘Chilling out’ to much has killed more people than all the guns, at least in terms of a very real ‘mental death’ – for just look around – you can be ‘walking dead’ with ‘the lights on with no one home, long before physical death.

I can only hope this self-deception in NZ can end one day (and also everywhere else). I mean if what I say is not true, then why is our social society and economy so full of cavernous fractures? For a people who are happily ‘chilling out’ there seem to be hell of a lot of mental meltdowns, early deaths, murders, assaults, poverty, homelessness, depression etc.

I am like any adult. Sometimes I wonder whether I am ‘really happy’ or ‘really sad’, or somewhere in between the extremes – just ‘sad’ or ‘sad-ish’ or ‘happy’ or ‘partially happy’ etc etc. But now with age and experience I realise that’s a ‘silly modern question’. No one asked that kind of question until about one hundred years ago. When the medico-psych industry realized if they could male everyone think they were sick because they weren’t ‘skip through the tulips happy’; when the advertisers realized it was better to make people think they were sad in order to sell the (faux) ‘materialistic’ solution – a new fridge, radio, house, table etc. A great scam – you could fleece everyone. So since we can agree ‘true happiness’ is a modern fraud then the real question is one of contentedness.

Under that theory we should be asking ourselves ‘are we content?’. To be reasonably content would mean we are conventionally ‘happy’. I guess I roughly have that to a degree nowadays. But I also have a nagging feeling that I’m supposed to actually be living some other life, in some other location, making people go ‘wow that’s cool what you just did – tell me more’. I wonder if thoughts like this are a ‘remnant hangover’ from the NZ brand of socio-cultural ‘bad-programming’ I’ve been subjected to over my lifespan as a resident New Zealander (?).

Perhaps it is Edward Bernays’s fault. If you don’t know – Edward Bernays was marketing genius of around one hundred years ago. Bernays was the pioneering propaganda guru who realized you have to manufacture wants in peoples minds, not just wait for them to tell you they want something – and if you do that trick you can’t get ridiculously wealthy and influential. With Bernays era it is the programming of ‘you must be unhappy so buy this flash car you can’t afford’. That crap has immersed us thanks to modern tech where media is blaring at you everywhere, and it’s now in our pockets.

Or as Karl Pilkington said without knowing any of that theoretical stuff at all – “everyone has a ‘worry hole’ that has to be filled” (I paraphrase). It aligns with the manufactured wants Bernays thesis. For it doesn’t matter how rich or poor you are – the ‘worry hole’ is there & must always be filled by things you cant ever get to. The Pilkington ‘worry hole’ is proof the Bernays system has truly worked on everyone. The fact you feel empty for no reason is proof the ‘Bernaysian’ brainwashing has worked and is still working on a deep psychological-societal level.

It has been proved that Multi-Millionaires and even Billionaires do worry a lot (a hell of a lot), despite their big material comforts. It is more than just ‘Bernaysian programming’ (the maxim of ‘one variable can’t ever explain everything’ is true). Over and above what has happened in the last couple of hundred years, we do seem hardwired to worry. The evolutionists say that it made far more sense to jump first and think later, least a sabre tooth tiger eat you while you were thinking whether to jump or not. This is also very true. The logic is good. Darwin and later (his promoter) Herbert Spenser had a good point there.

Anyway, thoughts of wellbeing are very interesting. Perhaps if my parents had not been divorced & I had grown up like ‘The Waltons’ (for those under 40 that was a cheesy 1950s falsely perfect American TV family) and not grown up in a recession ravaged small NZ town in the Nineteen-Nineties.

I’m just talking out loud here, being less intellectual for a moment. Wondering about your own ‘Wellbeing’ is a bit like getting into Ufology – no matter how many Alien/UFO podcasts you watch – you’ll never know more than you started, you will never know if ‘they walk among us’ or if Roswell was true, if their really are Aliens seeded through the Universe. Perhaps that’s why no one in the old days even thought too much of ‘Wellbeing, Self-Help & Happiness’. They just worked, got married, had kids and some were (born?) lucky enough to earn more than their neighbor who wore rags for clothes.

Anyway these are all nice philosophical musings. And perhaps I am just indulging in a educated-middleclass traditional hobby – doing what ‘the chattering classes’ do. I don’t really have the answer. I guess – practically speaking – it is best to worry about the day one day at a time. Someone born long ago with long hair and a robe said that a very long time ago in Roman held Israel. It’s hard to argue with the Christian maxim that each day has enough worries of it’s own.

On that measure, I had a good day today, and a good week. After all I did get a lot of real things done in the physical world (which is a bit of a hang out of mine these days). Maybe the best maxim really is ‘if in doubt don’t overthink more than what is in front of you’ – which is really just the Stoic (see Marcus Aurelius et al) version of the Christian maxim. Maybe if you do that maybe not much will go really bad.

The German Philosopher Schopenhauer (channeling the Stoics?) thought ‘happiness’ was stupid and contentedness was all you could have, and that came from the absence of bad outcomes, i.e. a negatively defined thing. He’s got a good point I think – though it is also worth mentioning that History has I think correctly adjudged the German Philosophers as being far to depressive.

I must say I feel much better now for writing this – for expressing myself as a unique individual. Not being a copy-cat. Writing helps. Why? Because have expressed myself as an individual. My soul likes it. And now that I travel down this fork in the road instead of the copy-cat other fork, I do get to do that a lot. That is a very real form of wealth. Maybe I’m secretly content. But will I allow myself to admit that? I am not so sure – it might not be a profitable use of my time & resources – according to a Bernaysian propagandist at least.

Perhaps these are all just the idle ramblings of a lonely kiwi middle aged man. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Where would we be without ramblings? I’ll take a side of ramblings with my main of lukewarm discontent any day of the week, all washed down with a mighty ice cold beer of course. Yes, for now we the plebs are still allowed beer. As the 80’s Batman of the DC comics would say at the end of the comic – this city is safe….but for how long…

‘Happy’ (content?) Saturday folks !

Anton M Smith

17 (& updated on the 18th) Jan 2026 (+ updated on Feb 10)

“Soulful Self Expression Or The Existential Ramblings Of A Lonely Kiwi Man? – Part 1 ” (A Blog Post).

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by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

So it is a summer Saturday in small town New Zealand. As usual nothing is happening. In NZ nothing much happens, especially if you are over thirty. While being under thirty their are low hanging fruit frivolities of student parties and easy drunkenness. But then after that era is over all social life is destroyed. The over thirties want to sit in their burrows with the co-dependent other and slowly mentally die. This to me just seems a fact.

Disclaimer: Of course – I know this is actually a worldwide phenomenon. New Zealand being an already long term socially and geographically isolated place, it acts merely an amplification of the general effect. A slide towards (techno) isolation. A canary in the coal mine, if you will.

Of course the ‘moneyed’ will always have their ‘dinner parties’ etc – so I’m not so much talking about them. I guess in a way this is a reason for me to hate them less – they know socializing is important. That is why they ‘force it’ like a job they have to attend, when they would rather sit on the couch. [Edit: I have, like all those who grew up poor been guilty of hating that nebulous blob ‘the rich’ I realize now that that is an affliction in itself For the ‘nebulous blob’ is at least half fictitious. It is perhaps poetically more of a haze that clings tightly to a wooded gorge, avoiding the city flats at all cost.

I shouldn’t hate the ‘moneyed’ as if that ‘nebulous blob’ is scientifically real – it’s probably a bad habit I can’t break. I know most of them – pretty much all the ones that are not mega mega rich – actually do work hard. They are not lying when they say that glibly. It’s just I can’t stand how they all sound like the exact same tape recording. That’s usually how they got their money – copying each other. I can see why they do it. I mean they don’t need to worry about being under a bridge catching fat moths to eat. And besides, their genus on the whole are the types that hate to read. Another reason why I don’t like them. That one is a good proper reason.

But I think they (the moneyed) minimize the down side to being so very much a copy-cat all the time. There’s a big price to pay with that psychologically. There’s a dissociative thing that happens. I believe deep down in every human there is a creative soul wanting to be heard. The moneyed don’t realise that this need cannot be willed away by hard work, fine things, weekends away or general copycat-ism. This is where the dissociative aspect enters. It is as if the moneyed middle-class-copy-cat types, all residing cloistered within their tight-knit social groups are all acting as the same character in the same play. They know something’s deeply wrong, but they dare not listen to their muffled souls voice crying out from the bowels of their hearts to them – for they fear if the listen the risk losing all their wealth, or half it or perhaps three quarters of it, and they feel to mention the lie would risk being ostracized, ridiculed, exiled. And of course they are right to fear this – that is what would happen. It takes courage to listen to that what speaks to you from the core of your ancient humanity – your caveman self? More so if you are at the lover levels of the ‘moneyed’ cults. And so the dissociation, the split occurs – the moneyed treat this via alcohol and or class A drugs, or sometimes a sport like golf or running etc.

More than a decade ago I used to work in the ‘Corporate world’ (it’s all in the name – they admit it’s not actually the ‘real world’ its a constructed one, a virtual one, with its own customs and laws). I was around these ‘middle class copy cat culture’ types – perhaps a third were the dissociative ‘moneyed’ types mentioned prior. I was about thirty when I realized I was facing a fork in the road: destroy my life as I know it or become like them (the moneyed), or at least a half-pie version of them. I chose to destroy my life as I knew it. Though it wasn’t really the executive functioning side of my brain making a considered logical choice. The decision came leak-wise and via stealth from my soul. I think it used its ‘veto power’. It issued a clandestine order:

You will self sabotage this life, you will torpedo it from afar.

That is what happened. It was a slow exit over perhaps two years. In the middle of my separation from my ‘rehashed middle class copy-cat life’ was a six month long international trip to three south Asian countries (Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam but it could have been anywhere really). At the time I thought that trip was happening to ‘revitalize’ me, whereby I would return to some kind of ‘copy-cat utopia’ back in the big rat race city I lived in (Melbourne, Australia). Of course my soul new that it was just stretching out the divorce from my former self. Not so much a closing of a chapter but a throwing away of the whole book. The mind trick self delusion of a ‘ nice reset via a international getaway’ was just my soul just making it sure the ‘book throwing’ could be made palatable.

That was more than a decade ago. After that trip my souls sneaky plan worked a treat. I couldn’t rehash that old life, even though I did try for a year afterwards. The attempt to re-copycat myself failed at every turn back in the copy-cat-haven-rat-race city. It all folded so beautifully (but yes, I thought it was a disaster at the time). No employer of copy-cats wanted a bar of me. They could smell I wanted out. So I never had a chance to get my old life back – I now know how lucky that was. Most copy cats die as copy cats, with ingrained downward trend faces and anti smiles, having not had a flicker of light in their eyes for decades.

My life is no longer a copy-cat thing at all. It’s quite original & creative, even if I do say so myself. But anyone with access to a computer can just read my stuff to see that I copy no one in my work. My life – It’s not perfect by any stretch. But I get by, & I no longer am strapped to a cubicle climbing the corporate ladder, dealing with passive aggressiveness, putting up with office politics, getting wildly underpaid. No longer saying copycat-culture empty platitudes about mortgages, marriages, 2.1 kids & career progression plans. That shit is all gone. After the fork in the road opened up to the new highway, I taught myself to ‘fish for my food’. I now source my own jobs out there that people need done in the physical world. When I need more money I work harder. When I have enough I ramp up my creativity. Am I living as the ancients did in a place of bounty? Probably not as that sounds far far to romanticized. Perhaps I am merely talking up some kind of ‘temporary gentile poverty in the New Zealand countryside’ moment-of-life I reside in. As always the truth is probably a mix of the two philosophical bookends.

End of Part 1….Part 2 is below

“Soulful Self Expression Or The Existential Ramblings Of A Lonely Kiwi Man? – Part 2” (A Blog Post).

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

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I walk back from the place & see my neighbour.

They are Gen Z – about 23.

We’ve Been Neighbours since he was born.

I am a young Gen X – I’m 47.

I haven’t ever really said much to the young fella,

Probably because neighbors these days avoid each other in general.

But he knows I’m his neighbor & vice versa (of course).

Anyway, so I’m walking home.

He sees me from about thirty meters away he’s walking towards me.

And so he doesn’t have to interact with another human being,

He sells a dummy & pretends he’s going to the other direction.

But I’m on to him – he’s bad at executing.

As I walk pass him, not five meters later, he veers back to his original plan and direction.

Proof he’s gone out of his way to avoid me, because it obvious that a passing nod is all too much for him.

If this is the future of our species WE have no hope.

They try to avoid all stress – even the smallest tiniest piece of it.

Thinking more deeply about it, this is surely the behaviour of an endangered animal that is inevitably soon due for extinction.

Let me illustrate the point with a wildlife analogy.

If it was a nature doco about the small endangered ‘Furry Zwapzwap’ of Gonkswania,

The narrator would say:

Sadly the small furry Zwapzwap has become so reclusive over the last century, that it has given up entirely on the stress of communication at all, & is now mute. It is now unable to make it’s former muffled warbling sound. This also means it has tragically lost it’s mating call. It no longer reproduces at all, except by accident when one furry Zwapzwap falls over onto another member of the opposite sex. The Gonwanian Zwapzwap is so now shy it only ventures out when it has to eat, and only eats the minimum so to the reduce stress of being outside to long outside its safe warm underground burrow. Sadly, with all this lack of vitality, Furry Zwapzwap numbers have fallen dramatically to the point of-no-return where even a ‘massive accidental copulation event’ will not stop their total extinction by the year 2075.

The world needs to realise that the under 35 crowd- aka the species future hopes – are the f*cking weak afraid-of-livng furry Zwapzwaps that are breeding themselves and ‘future us out’ of existence.

And p.s. I don’t really care about us aging Gen X’s – we’ve done ‘the tour of duty’ – we’re allowed to start slowly fading away. It’s the Future that matters. No one should start fading away at age sixteen, twenty three, thirty one.

I think we need a new ‘Manhatten Project’ to stop all this ‘scaredie cat’ nonsense.

I’m not saying this is the best strategy option – but perhaps the following scheme easiest way to save future extinction:

Cheap Rent,

Cheap Alcohol,

Lots of late night shitty meat-market bars re-open,

A shitty but guaranteed job for every and any dopey schmuck loser.

I call this theory by a very interesting name:

“Roll back the Wowsering, Roll on the Partying”.

And I reckon you’d win an election with it as a slogan.

If I come up with a less based, more refined way to save us all – I’ll let you know.

But I have a sneaking suspicion there is none.

Hopefully by the time I am 125, I trust someone long ago with more energy than me will have read this prose as a young man or woman, & then championed my idea in the real world of high Politics.

And then perhaps all going well, I will be reading a History book of the Twenty First Century just ended that has a chapter called:

Roll back the Wowsering, Roll on the Partying: The Disease that Was Killed with a Slogan.

But if not we’ll certainly go the way of the Romans, which is sad but probably fitting – given that we are technically the last remnant of The Roman Empire anyway.

If this latter case is the case, I’ll be the last Human on earth age 125, casually reading a dirt-salvaged History book with the chapter:

No One Rolled back the Wowsering, No One Was Partying: And Isn’t It a Pity That We’re All Now Extinct

“Some last musings in the last moments of 2025” (A Blog post)

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First some housekeeping – I have just greatly updated my last post – the link is here https://antonmartinsmith.com/2025/12/30/the-ex-high-school-nerds-coalition-prose/.

It’s a witty piece about the nerd/jock high school thing – from the aging nerds perspective. It’s as irreverent as possible…but I hope it strikes a chord to a few readers – it should do as I can only guess most people here as writers or readers were probably ‘nerds’ in high school (as I was).

Anyway go read it – I’m sure it’ll make you laugh, or cry – or maybe you’ll hate it…perhaps you will feel indifferent. Those are the only four options are they not?

In my writing it’s easy to have a bunch of neurosis. Of course I am currently a ‘nobody’ – so I don’t want to sound ‘preachy’ when I don’t have the write to, er I mean the right to. But my point is that I am thinking you need to not let the worries about what (disembodied not actually real) people might think (or be annoyed at) when you write.

In my mind there’s a too conservative middle class boring person who is tsk tsking – or a overly white liberal pretending to be offended. But I tend to ignore these neurosis & just write what I’m trying to tell. But the whiney ‘don’t do that’ super-ego parental cartoon character on the shoulder definitely makes themselves heard – they are just there outside your choice. I guess assuming you are not a psycopath you just need to learn to ignore that annoying shoulder tsk tsk’ing guy.

Maybe if I ever properly publish something I’ll get to know if those white liberal complainers will have a go at my stuff – maybe that’s when I know I’m not totally terrible.

Anyway on the writing in 2025 it’s been a good year on my WordPress site – now I have 75% more of ‘not very much’ traffic – so I should pop the cork of some fancy French wine (that I don’t have). Beer is my thing. Beer is a wonderful thing, especially now that I drink properly & no longer need ten in a row (ah I am so so mature these days, drinking like the Europeans!).

Anyway it’s now five mins to midnight, & being in NZ we get the New Year first – so It’s a good time to hit ‘publish’ for the last time in 2025.

Whoever reads this, now or in the distant dystopian future (I guess it could be a utopian future but I doubt it!) thankyou so much for the effort in listening to my ordinary tales of madness (nod to San Pedro’s finest ‘dirty old man’ – the late great Bukowski)!

See you in a few days (give or take) & happy reading (& possibly) writing!

Anton Matin Smith

“A Nice Moment At The Asian Eatery” (A Blog Post)

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And so this was the last task to do. The annual greeting card giving. I usually only do one – & it goes to the ‘asian eatery’ (as I call it) – my regular hangout. I get a great personalised $20 deal – for this I am allowed a choice of 4 different items – Nasi Goreng / Sweet & Sour Pork / Works burger / Crispy Chicken. All options come with quality beer – I get Steinlager or Ashahi if its in stock. Nasi Goreng is the ‘go-to’ main. Anyway, I digress.

So I make the greeting card – I have water colors & ink etc. The final image is a ‘fat sunglasses-wearing Santa’ with his shirt off. It’s a ‘bang up’ (i.e. fast & mediocre) job, but at least it’s colorful. In one hand Santa has an opened beer bottle & the other is ‘Santa Sack (full of ‘prezzies’ – that is xmas presents). In a speech bubble Santa is saying that he is quiting while ‘on the job’ because he’d rather go to the ‘asian eatery’. At the bottom of the image there is a rat that has observed it all & says “Santa you lazy bastard”.

So that’s good – card done. I go to drop off the card in person. This card must be my seventh in a row by now (??). Tradition can hem you in – but that’s not usually a bad thing – for the result aimed at is usually the concept of ‘social cohesion’.

So fast forward ten mins & now I am in from of the owner with my card. Because of the language/cultural barrier the main owner lady (lets call her ‘Vicki’) needs me to explain it. I do so & the funny part is her joke that the ‘fat Santa’ is actually me. We have a little laugh. I can laugh at myself pretty freely these days, age helps on this matter.

While this card-giving is going on, I notice that a father & his daughter sitting at a restaurant table for two having food – they are Chinese as well. I have learnt that it is a tradition for travelling Chinese ethnicity folk to visit foreign Chinese restaurants. of course that’s only natural – we westerners like ‘ex-pats’ with burger bars in asia after all, do we not?.

I decide show the card to the little girl & she likes it. I introduce myself. The father is ‘Barry’ who is working at a major university here, visiting from China. His daughter is ‘Angelica’ (not their real names). The ‘asian eatery’ owner – Vicki has given me a box of chocolates (the usual gift in return for the card – that’s pretty nice profit for me! Surely those hand made cards of mine will never be valuable). I offer one chocolate to each both father & daughter – they oblige the small token. I offer another, but the Father who I presume is weight conscious, declines (he is rake thin & I joke that he could use fattening up).

So then some chit chat. Barry askes me a little about what I do & I explain my day job instead of my highest interests (writing, studying, reading, drawing etc), although I do slip in a past Melbourne life in Telecoms for good measure (I guess part of me doesn’t want him to think l I’m a total hick from the sticks’). I am a kiwi & we talk ourselves down – probably a very bad trait, but I now try to combat that a little as I go – after all it’s clearly wise to not hide all your talents.

The ‘convo’ (as the aussies say) is going well. The father – ‘Barry’ says I should visit China some time. I say I’d like to. I don’t mention the truth that my budget won’t allow it. After all now my life is simplified vs a decade ago, when I was a young-ish urban office worker & a semi-frequent international traveler. The polite hello is now at its natural end. We say our goodbyes. They leave to go back to their car to go back to their (temporary) normal lives in the nearby university town in Otago NZ. As they go I wonder if the mother is with them in NZ? I assume so given separation/divorce doesn’t really happen in Chinese culture (unlike it’s normality in the West). Perhaps she is back in China. After all, some people can’t travel at all. And as I’m older I’m more of a homebody that ever (but I am a ‘arty & write-ie’ type – we prefer to travel with mind vs legs).

So that interaction over I think of my stomach. A common trait. I could lose ten kg. I sit & start eating my heavily salted & sauced battered fish sans chips. I have a book on the table – poetry – an old NZ classic magazine Landfall. Landfall is known to be well past it’s heyday, but still has some good writing here & there. It has a crappy bookmark.

Lo & behold the little girl I was taking to with her father just before – Angelica comes back. She gives me a Chinese ornamental book-mark as a gift (the ones housed in plastic). I say thankyou ‘that’s great as I need a better bookmark’. I tell her it’s good to read (I’m sure her dad has this covered, but a little reinforcement can’t but help). The little girl has a real kindness to her. She has a little soft toy lamb in her arms & I ask her if it has a name – she says no, so I say ‘you could call it ‘Bleetie’ – by her slight confused look, I’m not sure if she understood the relevance of my suggestion to the sound a lamb makes. I said thankyou to Angelica & wished her goodbye.

As I put some soy sauce on on my battered fish. As I sat munching on tastiness, I thought that that was a really lovely thing that just happened. It warmed my sometimes too also ‘battered’ weary 47-year-olds heart more than a little. The Chinese in general are not perfect (like any ethnic group), but I admire that they try to be polite as much as possible. We’ve lost that too much in the West I think. They have a lot of other good traits too. They accept hard work with grace, unlike many of us now semi-dazed Westerners. We ourselves aren’t quite ‘down & out’ just yet though.

I hope Barry & Angelica have a good time in NZ. From what I’ve heard I know it’s still not entirely easy to be asian in NZ – especially in the small towns. I also hope the artificial intelligence Barry is working on doesn’t all put half the world out of work by 2030. But then my day job is shifting dirt, cutting lawns & banging nails (and a bit more than that) – so I figure I should be ok at least until age 62 in the year 2040. Who knows maybe I’ll be a proper ‘quirky, niche-partially-sought-after-by-humans, non-AI-cottage -industry-human-writer’ by 2032.

But I know that the future will be what it will be. But today was very ‘humanly nice’, you might say. You just need to string a few days like that in a row I think. It took me a while to learn that, but ‘better late than never’ as the old Western saying says.

I would also like to wish anyone who reads this a Merry Xmas & New Year!

Anton Martin Smith

The Men In the Mountains sketch by M.A. Smith 12.5cm x 17cm

“The Ballad Of Low Self Esteem” (A Poem)

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by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

Their was once a land far far away,

Full of people with gnarled, wrinkly faces – even the young.

A land of ‘downward trending’ smiles & lost tempers.

It was a sad place – for it never learnt how to do anything.

This was because the peoplesfolk had abjectly low self-esteem.

You couldn’t tell them anything, for they took it the wrong way – as a sleight.

Slowly they became more backward than they were the year before, & the year before that.

Some wag once said a very funny comment when pressed on the problem of the matter:

“Why would we change – for if we continue to be move backwards,

Eventually the worst that will happen is we will return to our starting point”.

Another one said:

“Sure we have low self esteem, nothing works, crimes up & our economies in the dustbin BUT”

And I said “But what” then they said

“But…But…imagine if we had too high self esteem – that would be worse as a society”.

I said “why is that”, to which they replied

“Well then we’ll get in over our heads won’t we” they said.

Then I said “what about the saying better to try & fail than never try at all”?

Flustered they then looked at their phone nervousy & said:

“No Sir it is better to not try at all & in the future tell of your wimpery to another wimp”

“Why’s that” I ask with a raised eyebrow.

“Have you ever heard the phrase ‘Misery love company’ “?

“Yes I have” I said.

“Well I’d be too lonely if I was a go getter – I’ll stay miserable with lots of friends thanks”.

The weird thing is that after they said this, it was the most confidant I’d ever seen them look.

As they walked away with a swagger, I made a mental note to make sure I leave this town tomorrow.

They are all far to comfortable with their entrenched culture of low self-esteem.

After all – it is almost certainly just another undiscovered form of insanity.

Even if it is indeed as comfortable as they made out.

And I wonder if I’ll actually ever leave.

Perhaps I am one of them, & simply deluding myself to the contrary.

Sadly, this is not the first time I have wondered about this, & it won’t be the last.

This was ‘the ballad of low-self esteem’.

Out now, never-ending, & everywhere you look.

“If The Results Are Good” (A prose Poem)

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by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

A Gas-station coffee run it is.

“I’d like a flat white please”, I request.

“Do you wan’t sugar?”, she queries.

“No honey”, I say cheerily.

“If you keep talking like that you’ll get it served in your face!”

She is serious.

Her face is contorted, pained.

She’s in her 50s she has grey dreadlocked hair, a face lined by a share of hard times.

Up until that moment our customer to customer service relations had been friendly enough, perfunctory.

Aiming to quickly diffuse the moment I apologize.

“Oh sorry I didn’t mean anything by that, I didn’t mean to offend…I must be getting old”.

It seemingly half works – after all scolding hot coffee has not hit my face, has it not?

“Would you like a marshmallow?” She says in a as-per-standard-question way.

“No thanks” I say, wondering why she is offering marshmallows for a flat white.

She finishes & hands the coffee over.

I matter-of-factly pay, & leave to my awaiting vehicle which with my ‘ troublesome coffee’ in hand.

As I drive away wearing sunglasses, I glance in to see the counter area.

I’m ascertaining the body language after the unsavory event.

The other staff member that had witnessed it all is looking at me black faced – I take that as a minor win.

The one who served me is obscured.

As I post-mortum the situation – my internal narrative is of two strands:

One is self serving:

“Geez some people can’t control their emotions at all, why no sense of humor – especially in that role”

The other is of a negative bent:

“Oh no you’ve put your foot in it again – why did you say that you fool – ‘no honey’…Geez!“.

As I drive away to my home, I take a sip of the “troublesome coffee”.

I now know why she offered a marshmallow after I ordered.

The sweet taste is sickening.

It is very much a hot chocolate, & not a flat white.

So she has either intentionally or unintentionally punished me on the spot.

I do half a u-turn & then I think better of it & abandon the u-turn.

I’m again driving home.

I’m feeling a little mentally deflated about it all – not that it’s a big deal or anything.

When I enter my driveway I park & disembark & I suddenly perk up a notch.

“Ah…This is good writing material!” I have suddenly realized.

“Thank god I took up writing!” I say to myself with relief.

Writing really has added so many silver linings to the blackest of social thunderclouds that abound.

Of course the worry about this phenomena is that you will create drama in order to write about it.

I wonder – Am I already do this without knowing it?

the problem is of course. as they say – an old chestnut – but is it good or bad?

Well, I cannot categorically answer that – as the answer embodies a conflict of interest.

But as an imperfect, rough & contaminated answer I will say this:

If the results are good…

“Soldiers Of The Abyss (& how to best survive them)” (A Poem)

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by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

They’ve only ever followed orders – poorly so – in life’s institutions.

At School they were mediocre,

At the office they forced you do all their work,

While you slowly burnt out,

Punished for your ‘Voluntary Pseudo-Parentalism’.

They hate you because you helped them.

They must always ‘bite the hand that feeds’.

They hate that you can create – something impossible for them,

For they have ventured so far down into the abyss of ‘the banality zone’.

They could be 23, 38, 53 or about to retire at 64 –

It doesn’t matter because they cannot emotionally mature.

They the denizens of 21st Century offices everywhere are time warped.

They are the inner city everyman, whose ancestors were exactly the same through the ages.

They are the personification of the adage ‘No good deed goes unpunished’.

And you can’t escape them.

They are around you by design.

They’re there to drag you down to their level –

They are ‘The boring, The Mean, The stupid & Uncreative’.

They are your punishment for living, for not being born to the right bloodline.

In there own minds they are ‘cool’ – & definitely to good for you.

For they do not see the wealth evidence to the contrary –

Ignorance is bliss & it fuels their ‘backward cognitive dissonance-land’.

Where all that is good must be bad,

Whereby anyone emanating anything good, original, or interesting is to be marked as ‘the enemy’.

This the everyman in the urban wastelands that about everywhere.

They are your curse.

Befriend them at your peril.

Unfortunately you must learn this the hard way.

With age you will learn to keep them at arms length,

To varying degrees of success.

They do not give up on their prey easily.

And if you’re not on your game, in your quest to combat them –

You might end up becoming one of them yourself.

Which incidentaly – they will not like either.

For they are so perfectly debased – that they also hate their fellow ‘soldiers of the abyss’.

And p.s. – becoming a total recluse is no solution.

You can only carry your wound-full arrows as a badge of honor.

You must at all costs remain you.

For surely that is all you really truly have.

I repeat:

Always beware the ‘soldiers of the abyss’.

They are everywhere.

And remember – there is one ultimate enlightening Truth

True Darkness will not and cannot prevail over all that is Good.

An update from the writer (+ other whimsy-like anecdotes).

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By Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

Well, we are hurtling to the end on 2025. Here the weather is getting hot – which as all arty people know – is bad for being artistically productive. The extra energy that the air brings takes away the top 5% brain function that good art requires.

This is why I haven’t posted for a long ten odd days now – so this is the perfect time for a ‘update post’ – it’s all filler but interesting none the less! (I hope).

Let me start with a little larf. Today I had a couple of laboring jobs, & as is my habit, I go to my local Chinese restaurant afterthe day is over for a tasty feed & a beer (I usually get a beer & a plate of Nasi-goreng for $20 0 a good deal eh?). As I have mentioned I like to have a chat with the staff, & I am basically a “VIP” there. What can I say – must be my natural charm (or is it the free english lessons & the cash from my wallet? yes probably that). Anyway today the interaction went like this:

“Hello Anton, do you want some cold water”

“Yes Yein that would be great – I’m parched”

“What does “parched” mean Anton?”

“I’ll tell you later, I’m too tired to explain”

“That’s ok – take a seat”

(I take my usual seat & she brings over a glass bottle of very cold chilled water. I open it pour some and take a quenching gulp).

“Ah that’s good, thanks Yien – it’s nice & cold too”

“Did you know in China we don’t like our water cold? We even have a saying for how warm water is better for you”

“Really? We in NZ have saying about drinking warm water too”

“Really??”

“Yes it goes like this….’We in NZ used to drink our water warm….BUT WE’RE NOT IN CHINA ANYMORE, ARE WE!!!”

Yien laughed at this bad, somewhat Americanised joke (Or shoudl I say ‘Americanized’), and I soon ate my usual tasty Nasi Goreng + cold beer (I usually prefer Asahi, or Steinlager, but this time I had a Heineken as they had run out),

Anyway so that was nice to hear someone laugh today. I told my mother the joke I made & she thought it was a bad joke (Mothers are always so brutally honest aren’t they).

I think I’ll leave it at that – other than to say that this year is the 5th year of my blog & as far as views/visits it’s been a record year by quite a margin – I think they are up by at least by 75% this year.

Thankyou to all the readers – yes there is a lot of bad stuff – but every now and then there is something ok or good (I hope). I am thinking more ‘slice of my life in my home town’ angles will be coming next year – the truth & small-town-grounded-ness angle really adds some intimacy I think.

Cheers & keep writing & reading – a great thing to do (lets do it while pens, paper, & keyboard clacks & characters on screens still exist!).

Yours Anton Martin Smith 8 Dec 11:36PM, Central Otago South Island NZ.