by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmith@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com
Right now I am feeling very jaded. Yes I am very tired. So that’s part of why. But I feel it’s only a small part. The larger part is because of ‘life’ as a single 48 year old guy living in a small town, where people casually disregard the need to exchange ideas (via deeper conversation) and socialize.
You see I think as a human being – you cannot ignore these two big requirements for well being and get away with it.
As a New Zealander – I think we have a curse related to this. The curse must come from the hardships of the pioneer era. If you are too close to the ‘pioneer epoch’ in time then your culture has not yet achieved ‘social maturity’.
A place which has not achieved ‘social maturity’ will – either unwitingly or wittingly – choose to ignore the need to exchange ideas, have deeper conversations and socialize as a regular part of their common ‘rituals’ (the antrhopologists like that term ‘ritual’).
You see a socially mature population would a) recognize that ‘widespread social immaturity’ is a cancer and b) chose to combat it on an individual level.
In small town NZ we seem trapped in these insular pioneer manacles – and we cannot seem to (or want to) override this tendency.
This begs the question: Is smalltown NZ (& NZ especially as a whole) addicted to this ‘social immaturity’, that results in either a deep form of loneliness or a situation of co-dependency (via you girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, husband etc)?
You see NZ seems to be bifurcated between the two camps. One camp single @ not getting enough social contact, conversations; and the other camp that board themselves up at home wth their partners or perhaps wider family members.
The Australians seem to be better at this than us Kiwis – they seem to be wiser in knowing that they need proper socialization also and making it happen. Of course I would be a fool to not mention that much of this is due to the ‘big city effect’ where perhaps 75% of Australia lives in the big cities of Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth Darwin. Big cities by there nature (a lot of people in a small space) make it such that a certain amount of what I might call ‘surface level socialization’ is unavoidable (in cafes, public transport, at the larger headcount workplace, neighbours in higher density apartments, at the bars etc).
But Australia I think is more social than NZ ( and so less ‘lonely’) not just because of the size of their cities. I think Australians are perhaps further over their ‘pioneer syndrome’ than NZ. There is a certain necessary pigheadedness about ‘pioneering life’. You have to ignore the fact that it’s a lonely place while you build the country into something more than a few huts with dirt roads. But if your society can’t ‘shake off’ this cultural programming once it has been sufficiently built then surely this becomes a societal -wide pathology. I think we in NZ do suffer this pathology and Australia does too, but to a much lesser degree.
Of course the question then becomes “how does a country that has this a-social pathology affliction get out of it, treat it etc”? I think it’s a very hard question and a very hard task. You see the pathology self reinforces itself. Once someone is insular, they become less confident with others, less skilled in conversation, more likely to be embarrassed about things, more likely to be offended – so they shut themselves away more.
When a society does this, we must then see declines in all the institutions that promote sharing of ideas and socialization. The most obvious decline is that of the ‘great western pub’. You see for a long time the pub was perhaps the center of socialization for the wider community.
Speaking as a NZ’er or an Aussie (or an American or a Canadian etc) The English Pub is obviously a part of our collective Western ethnic heritage. The pubs (and its offshoot the night-club) have all been in decline in the West over the last fifteen to twenty years. This is just one example of one formally strong institution where wider socialization between people is the whole point.
I’m sure that more than the pub – i.e. cricket teams, Netball teams, rugby teams, table tennis, sewing clubs, amateur dramatics etc have all dwindled in participation. This is proof that the pathology has been spreading. At this point there’s no real debate against this fact, other than perhaps the argument that ‘yes but what about the internet – people socialize and communicate on the internet now’.
Yes this is true – but it is not a like for like replacement of the pub, the cricket club, the bowls club etc. Many would say it’s an unhealthy bastardization of socialization. Some might disagree and say that that is being to dogmatic – after all should not the way we socialize be able to change? I guess the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Internet socialization or communication is perhaps best described a ‘half-measure’, that is fundamentally imperfect.
On a personal level – yes internet communication has been great for me – but I do feel its imperfections acutely. For example when I was younger in the nineties the pub scene was a great way to meet the opposite sex and socialize with friends and the wider community – but now that that has essentially gone, and I perhaps chat or send an email to someone it’s clearly something that leaves me wanting a richer experience. If it’s not a long term friend your messaging (I’m messaging) you never really meet up with them – and most the time you don’t request a physical rendezvous. If it’s a relative or complete stranger you say a few lines, like their posts and you might rehash the scenario for a while or you might lose interest and stop doing that.
I should mention the ‘online dating’ situation briefly. Again compared to the pub or the amateur dramatics club of old, it is a debasement. When I was younger – perhaps around thirty I did try this online dating. I found it to be shallow. This really is because the technology is designed to keep you single and having casual realtionships, because that is where the tech giants get there money. There’s no point in saying much more other than this is how I experienced it and I dropped it as a consequence.
I myself am of course talking from the perspective of a very well educated middle age man (of forty-eight), living in small town New Zealand and being single. I am a Gen Xer. I guess I am luckyin that up until thirty-odd I the old world of the social institutions was mostly still in tact. If I was twenty-five I would be more upset about this non-socialization pathology that I am. If I never socialize again, at least I can look back to the old days and feel warm inside. When the twenty five year old is fifty will they be able to do the same? Or will the doctor have done their best to tranquilize the feelings out of them entirely?
And I should mention that I think it is good that more people realize we are in a ‘loneliness pandemic’. I’ve seen that mentioned a lot – on the internet in particular. My fear is we talk about it online, and therefore basically almost make it worse. I myself feel lonely a lot of the time. I worry about this.
I am concerned that my romantic/dating life ground to a complete halt at about age forty. In small town NZ as a over forty male I feel you cannot hope to make a new friend. My friends (bar perhaps one or two others who is really just acquaintances) I have all known since high school. I do not see this changing while my environment remains the same.
In the interests of keeping this digestible – I will end it here. I don’t know what the solution is. I have a hope that there will be a mass movement to be online less. I see some anecdotal evidence of this – but I would say it is ‘scanty at best’. I haven’t mentioned the ‘gender wars’ that seem to be terrible at the moment – but I will say now that it surely is amplified by this pandemic of the a-social. We really need to make a nation-wide and indeed a global emergency of this situation we face.
It is such a thorny issue. I feel sorry for myself and all the millions of others effected by this, especially the young. But it’s bad for everybody. We’ve drifted into this at base totally avoidable situation. I will try to remain positive about the solutions. I will try to champion people to get over their ever increasing social inhibitions meet more in the real world more often. After all a problem (or an idea) shared is a problem halved as they said in the (sometimes wiser) olden days.
Perhaps tomorrow after a good sleep I will feel less jaded about everything. Perhaps this is nothing new and past societies have suffered through and came out the other end of this anti-social quagmire we seem so stuck in. Perhaps the cyclical theory of History can give us (& me personally) a rational form of optimism. Perhaps by 2035 the pubs will be bangin‘ again just like 1999 and before (But did they also ‘banged too much’ back then? Perhaps).
by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmith@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com
I think I had a five-minute relationship with a woman at the supermarket. I was walking around by myself – as usual. I had my trusty ‘transistor radio’ on me. And no I do not do this for the ‘quirk factor’ per se – What can I say I like classic rock but hate smartphones. Perhaps this is what you do when transitioning to being old. She’s twenty eight (she told me that later on). She said “I like your music” and I didn’t hear her. Then she appeared again at the next aisle and said it again. I heard it this time. We chatted a little. She told me she’s trying to be more outgoing – so that’s why she said hi. I was impressed – it takes a lot for a gal to do that. I said ‘walk with me’. She did. I picked up some milk – I picked up two litres. “I need some too” she said – one litre”. It makes sense as I’m twice as big as her. She told me she various psychological ailments – I wasn’t judgmental – these days don’t we all? I mean – who can say that they aren’t a little ‘F’d in the swede’ It’s all a matter of degree. We got to the toilet paper aisle. I thought to myself that if I was younger I’d be embarrassed now. When you are young you get embarrassed about being human and having to wipe. That I don’t miss – the embarrassment of youth. I got one brand, she got another. She was carrying her stuff like a bachelor does – no basket hugging the goods tightly. I made a joke about this and that she should carry it on her head. A bad joke but she didn’t pull me up on it. Then I said we should catch up sometime for a coffee. She was keen & we exchanged details in modern day way – her phone. I haven’t messaged her yet. I’m not sure if I will. it’s nice to wind back the clock. That kind of thing happened to me all the time between twenty and thirty five. That was thirteen years ago now. It’s a nice ego boost for sure. But now the main thought I am having is this: ‘What if she’s more crazy than I am?’ This is probably just me being ‘avoidant’. That’s always been a hobby of mine after all. I feel uncertain. I’m so out of touch with all this. I’ve been a Monk. And I am probably a broken man after all. But then who isn’t at my age? It’s a small town, I’ll see her soon some time anyway. And I’m sure thinking like that says a lot about me. But the next impromptu Supermarket run in could be best anyway. So instead of default neuroticism – I’ll just try to keep my pecker up. And If I never see her again, I guess we’ll always have the bog-rolls, milk, and classic rock. I wonder if she’ll ever read this and recognize herself?
by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmith@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com
Literary Proviso: Re the subject of ‘avoidantism’ – I’m pretty sure I’m not pathologizing ‘being a dickhead’ (But you never know do you? Perhaps the entire DSM V could simply be whittled down to an A4 page entitled ‘The Seven Types of dick’eads’).
So what happens when two avoidants collide? I think this happened to me in a gnarly unforgiving mega-city long ago. She was a ‘dismissive avoidant’. I was an ‘anxious avoidant’. Of course I am not qualified to diagnose – But ain’t pop psychology fun? – the joy to diagnose everyone with at least something. And that something is only only ever half real – at best. BUT some diagnosis are more real/useful than others. And I think the ‘avoidant’ attachment style theories are quite good. But again – what do I know?
This is the beauty of writing – it’s your universe up until the ‘blackshirts’ arrive. Now going back to us ‘two avoidants’. At the time (in the gnarly mega-city) I also hated my job. Yeah sure for that you can call me a copy cat – I agree entirely. In big gnarly cities the jobs are ‘created to be hated’. That is their raison-de-tre. And you can quote me on that
I think she did (hate her job) too, but not nearly as much as I did. But at least she made – as they say -‘some decent coin’. I had foolishly and blindly made myself an immigrant slave. Well I guess I was an immigrant coming from New Zealand to Melbourne. Pseudo-immigrant maybe, but still an immigrant non the less. Maybe I had a better ‘class of slavery’ over there than in NZ – maybe.
Now that I am older – I realize it’s (i.e’ your life) is all about self-confidence. It is one of the many ‘glib but true’ things. You life falls or rises to the level of your self-confidence. Both of us ‘two avoidants’ had low self confidence (a neccesary condition of the disease). Of course you can be high in confidence in some areas and low in others. It’s all a complex thing – and we Kiwis/Aussies are also bred to have low confidence. Glib but true thing number two: The brain is the most complex thing in the universe.
I was high in confidence in picking up bar-women for example, But low in chasing a job or generic situation that reflected a higher-self. Of course there’s really no way to win being an corporate employee – They’ll fire you if your confidence isn’t fake anyway. Confidence is allowed when you ‘own the thing’. Confidence is for Entrepreneurs with 100% or at least 51% share loadings. Confidence is for Artists/Muso’s/Writers with shitty day jobs @ glorious creative nights, And there’s not much in between.
Anyway of course me being the ‘anxious avoidant’ wanted to be around her (the dismissive) more. I guess the ‘anxious’ part overrided my ‘avoidant’ part if she was the one avoiding me first. It’s all such a ridiculously complicated thing. It was far too complicated for me to figure out, Mainly because we men (us with brains) get better with age – and I wasn’t old enough. A young man cannot really put guard rails on the powerful forces that exist in him. It is when we age the forces ebb away a little so the train can stay on it’s rails.
But I must say in my case of the ‘two avoidants’ I will always wish that somehow I could have prevented the book-end-implosion. But as an old man I accept that is also wishful thinking. And I still wonder about her some decade and a half gone (well -more than that). I wonder what ‘the ol’ dismissive’ will be saying her poems about it all – & about me. I’m sure she agrees that we couldn’t have changed anything much at all. And only as an (almost) old man ‘ave I came to accept that.
It was a wise decision to dismiss me after all. If the cards fell a little more to the left – I would have easily done the same thing to her. And she was only following her ‘nervous systems orders’ after all. And to be fair to myself – I was wise to be anxious about her. I too was merely following my nervous system’s orders. We were both relative novices riding that selfish bucking beast.
But Avoidants or not – at least we did at least ‘attended class’. We sat next to each other in class – the naugty ones at the back. And my now my self-imposed detention (exile?) is surely over. I’ve written the same line a million times now: “In time good executive function can & will tame any prior emotional dysfunction”. And upon writing the millionth line – it came true (or did it?).
And so in summary: in relative youth two avoidants must explode, But many years later the remnants can gravitationally collapse over a lovely cappuccino. And I don’t care if someone complements my rose tinted glasses. For with age you don’t care what others think. You finally and sans apology do what’s best for you. And now I will finally stop rambling (it’s artistically legal via Prose) of the time – “When two avoidants did collide all those years ago”.
by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmith@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com
Note: (This post comes complete with a ‘fake editors’ comments i.e. me)
This is the magician trick that’s done on everyone. [Don’t be silly it can’t be everyone! -Ed ]
And this is why at forty most people have nothing behind their eyes. [That’s not very nice is it? – Ed]
It a tragedy, an exercise in skullduggery, an evil game and completely culturally normalized. [Shh don’t tell everyone – Ed]
Of course it starts at school (although in theory the unborn listens to empty platitudes of their office crank-parents in the womb) .
[Bloody schools! – I’m still getting over Mr McKnuckle-Rapp the Mats Teacher! -Ed]
The teachers are invariably ‘middle class upward striving types’, [Yet the used to be Poor! – Ed]
So they fawn over the kids whose parents have money, houses on hills, and job titles.
Obviously this ‘new money’ ‘low brow ‘ tendency gets worse as the schools supposedly get ‘better’ and suburbs become greener and leafier.
[Those poor kids in the private schools – that’s where bullying reaches dizzy heights -Ed]
You see I am convinced all the ‘good jobs’ in the cities that give ‘status’ will all kill you.
It is off course an individual thing in terms of the degree of punishment.
But only the clinically insane can avoid the metaphorical and sometimes literal grim reaper of the dark mega cities. [Isn’t it weird that being ‘clinically insane’ is now a great thing to put on you CV! – Ed]
They’ll either kill you literally (happens sometimes) or figuritively (is the norm).
So if you end up with a salaried job that all your old two-bit teachers fawned over.
Odds are you’re probably gonna end up quickly hating your life & the light will certainly drain from your eyes. [Oh you are being overly dramatic again – but then again you are an aging drama kid! – Ed]
You see the teachers & their kind (‘Professionals’ & I use that term loosely) are too wedded to the idea of ‘The Status Machine’.
‘The Status Machine’ can also be called ‘The Career Machine’ or just ‘The Machine’ they are the same thing.
This beasts natural habitat is naturally the mega-city with its many millions of inhabitants (that become its zombies). [Isn’t it odd how many people their are on Earth these days – no wonder it’s impossible to get a parking space! -Ed]
They (the two bit teacher/copycat professional types) reckon if you do a job that gives you ‘status’ then therefore this must make you happy.
This is absolutely horse shit. [Yet to a Tomato Gardener some ‘Horseshit’ is gold – Go figure! – Ed]
You see let me explain via an analogy. [We do love an analogy! – Ed]
I go by the ‘hobby thesis’ If you like something, then you have to like doing it minute to minute, hour to hour. [And where do you go these days to be assigned a hobby? – Ed]
In ‘The machine’ in the mega-city there are only jobs that have very bad minute to minute physical and mental realities.
The exception of course proves the rule (maybe someone romantically inclined working in a flower kiosk is having a blast). [Wouldn’t it be an interesting job – I’m sure they know which men and which lesbians are having the affairs – Ed]
They (Dark forces?) design it this way – “The Career Machine’s” main task is to confuse you into totally wasting your life.
And when this works thr result is illustrated perfectly by that great line of Bukowski’s: [Oh wait that’s dangerous to mention him! The third wave feminists don’t like him! -Ed]
“People are strange, about something insignificant they care very much about, yet something very big like the fact they are wasting their entire life barely registers in their minds at all (paraphrased)”.
The genius ‘Poet of Gutters’ was completely correct.
Of course everyone knows that a badly paid job in a mega city is usually a terrible mind-numbing thing.
That’s kinda obvias.
But the insanity really kicks in on the ‘seemingly well paid’ job in the mega-cities.
When someone is ‘well paid & has status’ this is just the hook and also the reward of The Machine.
The Hook part is because the people in The Machine never usually admit they hate their lives. [Note to self: Never admit to someone you hate your life – I did it once and got a nasty promotion! – Ed]
So some teacher (two-bit) can say ‘Look at Larry The Lawyer – he’s on 300K, be like him Timmy go to Law school’.
Meanwhile Larry the Lawyer each night gets home and drinks a twelve pack, smokes like a train and cries into his hands all night.
The Reward part (called a salary) is simply the Machine paying the person for giving the output of ‘Wasting their lives’. [OMG – I’ve been wasting my life, but at least I can buy the extra malty ‘Editors Ale’ to numb the pain! – Ed].
You could call it all part of the ‘soul contract’ – don’t you think it’s weird you have to sign your name to get a job?.
You may find it hard to believe that The Machine, aka The Career Macine, aka The Status Machine functions this way.
I’m sorry to burst your large kaleidoscope colored bubble – but it does. [I notice Kaleidoscopes are very pricey these days – Ed]
This is why when you have a Job-slot in ‘The Machine’ they work you into the ground.
The ‘work you into the ground’ part is not a accidental thing.
It IS the point.
Why do you think someone came up with the term ‘being worked into the ground’ in the first place?
This is because a Job in The Machine (in a mega city) is willingly joining up to a ‘Death Cult’. [Oh dear boy, you are once again being overly dramatic – I knew you should have been on a stage instead of holding a pen! – Ed]
This is why these Career Machine jobs happen and thrive the most in cities and more so in big (mega) cities.
Learn this: The Mega Cities are a celebration of The Dead.
The ground is covered in concrete.
Lighting is fake.
You stare like a Zombie at screens all day.
Water comes from taps or water coolers, there is no fresh water lake for miles.
You work in a chicken cubical made from factory produced artificial materials. [Hey hey now I will not have you disparaging the office cubicle – the doctors have made a lot of money out of people getting flus every week ya’know! Ahh Chooo! – Ed]
The social life (getting drunk doing drugs talking to fellow ‘Machine Losers’ in a dingy room) is artificial.
Your so called ‘friends’ all secretly hate you and would ‘knife you’ (dump you) in a second. [Yes that happened to me once – but I was able to buy some new AI friends at bargain basement prices – it was a ein win for all concerned other than the poor AI friend who had to put up with me and never complain – Ed]
If it’s a smaller (non-mega) city, you might be able to bludge a form of neutrality – neither happy or sad.
But you cannot cannot cannot indulge in The Machine AND be happy in the Mega-city.
It’s like saying you can jump in the sea and not get wet and salty.
This is a misnomer of the Teachers, The Professionals The ‘City Dwellers’ that are in a cognitive dissonance daze. [Poor humans – always in a daze these days – their is only one solution – sell them stuff before they get smarter! – Ed]
Victims of brainwashing.
The Machine likes to get people to build their own prisons around them (e.g. mega mortgage, snob-wife-husbands, weirdo kids that can’t throw or fish).
But their is some light that often breaks through:
It is called (propagandized) by The Machine as the famed ‘mid-life crisis’. [Oooh yes I had a bad one of those – I ended up getting married to another mid-life crisis person needless to say we both wished we were twenty years younger – Ed]
But it is in truth an ‘mid life awakening’.
But The Machine must by neccesity invert this into something bad (else the mega city life-stealer would die).
This is because The Machine wants the person to think their ‘spiritual awakening’ is a disease.
They (dark forces?) push the ‘death cult’ solution to the mid life crisis/awakening:
Sports cars, Sleeping with someone twenty years your junior, Cocaine, Marathon running etc (escapism).
This unfortunately usually works all too well for The Machine.
I mean the Mega-City broadcast media – the cultural brainwashing dragnet – helps makes it so.
Yes friends, it takes a special spiritual warrior who chooses to stay in the mid life crisis i.e. awakening. [Good god man! You wan’t to stay in the mid life crisis? That’s some courageous stuff akin to the D Day landings! – Don’t do it! – Ed]
That warrior says F YOU to The Machine, says F YOU to the Mega-City Says F YOU to the City Career Zombies.
And returns to the countryside, where the ‘Life Cult’ still (albeit imperfectly) exists.
Where the fresh water pools in lakes and rivers, where unconcreted ground is walked upon, and where green abounds.
Where the people are ‘backward’ (mostly in a good way) and helpful and will give you the benefit of the doubt.
In these Life Cults you can actually be ‘poor and happy’ (the term here is not a scammy call to action).
So what do you Lawyers, Doctors, Executives, General Managers, Office Consultants, Town-Planners think?
Am I right?
Will you be happier if you leave the Death Cult in the Mega City and move to the Life Cults in the countryside? [Wait do joining ‘life cults’ mean you need to act like a old hippy all over again?]
Think about it – even the very ‘death culty’ Adolf Hitler had his Berghof hideaway in the Bavarian Alps. [I can’t believe you put his name to print! The Germans won’t like that at all! – Ed]
If he’d stayed in Linz and worked as a farm hand, then a carpenters laborer, The War (& Gas Chambers) would have never happened.
Hitler is a very good worse case scenario – this is what happens if you join the Death Cults, The Machine, The Career Machines.
So I say to all you salaried ‘cog-diss’ Zombies in the mega cities – stop being like Hitler ya’ here!
Quit the mega-city-death-cults, embrace the mid-life crisis and move to the countryside!
Get any job.
Watch the light in your eyes return. [Yes I’m feeling my eyes brighten up after reading all this positivity – Ed]
Your wrinkles abate.
Your smile widen.
Kind new friends will in time appear. [I need some new friends – why else would I be here doing this dross for a blog no one reads? Ier I mean ‘keep up the good work Anton! (if that is your real name) – Ed]
Or if you really want to just stay dead, and keep getting paid poorly to human sacrifice yourself.
The choice is yours my mega-city friends.
Oh and I should say that it (quit thuh mega city death cult & move to the city) has worked for me – I’m as happy as I can be.
P.s. Of course this ‘move to the country’ kick is nothing new. The 19th Century’s Thoureau (He wrote ‘Walden’ 1854) did it and built his cabin in Walden Pond, ‘lived deliberately’ and sucked the marrow out of life. [You bloody name dropper – I bey you haven’t read his book and just asked for a 300 word summary of it from Grok! Lazy Bastard! – Ed]
(P.s.s This is the part where I could say ‘now buy my book for only $39.99’ but I won’t do that – my book isn’t published yet and the (rough?) drafts are freely readable on this site).
P.s.s.s This is beside the point and self indulgent BUT – I wonder if ‘History’ will see me as a ‘crank’ or not. I guess if the mega cities continue to win the culture wars, I guess I’ll be ‘completely erased’ in true ‘burn the books fascist fashion’. Better to be a crank than erased I guess. But who knows, maybe I will reach the dizzy heights of ‘cult kiwi complainer slash barely known backwater philosopher’. NB: I guess if they do burn all the books the bragging rights are about which one they burn first – the ‘oldest ashes’ if you will.
[Yes that was self indulgent – as I have the last word here I must tell you this is the worst thing you’ve ever posted here – just as well I am here to be your Editor in chief @ keep you in line. Now get me a cup of Tea will you? this has been exhausting! – Ed]
by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com
Her name was Rose W. Thorn
(Not her real name at all)
She was as they say a ‘small town girl’.
Who like all the kids in high school from the late eighties and nineties and beyond.
Was told by the clueless teachers you had to ‘go to university’ (or yer nuthin’?).
So she ditched the small town and studied something in the nearest city with a uni.
(In fact I did that too, didn’t we all? we were such lemmings!).
Of course moreover all the young want to leave their small towns – we all know it.
(And I’m not saying that’s bad per se).
She graduated with a quasi-profession credential and got an office job….
(She wanted to be an architect but didn’t have the grades – I can sympathize I wanted to be a physicist! What a pity that I couldn’t get out bed to see dear Einstein’s Equations)
Ironically she got an office job in a small town – one not so unlike her hometown.
(But aren’t small towns all roughly the same anyway?)
She had to return to this state of affairs – there were no big city jobs for her – for there was a recession in the early nineties.
It was the only office job she could get in her ‘line of Uni’,
(Beggers can’t be choosers just starting out).
So she stayed and started her career off – a good temp outcome it seemed.
She grinded…she grinded…and it was so long ago now that she may have even used a typewriter (?)
A couple years passed.
Her early ‘apprenticeship’ was duly achieved.
But she was still very young and anxious not to waste her youth (the young run on instinct).
Her feet were getting decidedly ‘itchy’ – as young peoples feet do when stuck in a boring place.
She was shy, but at heart adventurous – especially when blind drunk.
(We all drunk a lot back then, and we who lack confidence need it as social medicine. Entire Nations are like this).
But to go backwards a little.
At this first career-job she met a guy,
Who of course fell in love with her.
(Some people are of course all too easy to fall in love with – she was like that).
He wanted to settle down young marry, have kids and front lawn and a Labrador.
But she wanted to travel the world and party, see the sights, have total freedom.
(And Ultra-independence was like gold to her).
So she said goodbye to him and the future labrador and hello to a plane, a flying tin can.
She soon travelled around the world.
To England, most of Europe, and even to Africa and some other unnamed wild places too.
While on the road she stayed in many a dingy backpackers.
(As you do and are happy to do with at that age – in fact I did it for a long time).
For her home base she stayed in the typical antipodean way – ‘ten person flats’ with only two or three rooms.
After the first bout of travel she pulled beers in England and mixed a few temp office gigs too.
She partied hard – this goes without saying:
(On that looking back – were not the nineties simply an extension of the sixties and seventies?)
She was a westerner in the late 20th century and young.
The parties and dopamine and hormone based experiences rolled on.
(Don’t make me spell them out either, I couldn’t tell you details as I wasn’t with her).
When she was finally Thirty she had to give up that five years of fun and duly went home –
(So back in the tin can it was).
The ‘flat land of red dirt’ some thirty flight-hours away was calling.
She returned to a big dirty city for the rest of her career and is still there some twenty five years later.
(I dare say she will probably stay for the rest of her life).
She could never settle down – and she didn’t really want to.
She was used to and programmed for short relationships and fun times with the men with rizz aplenty.
The ‘trap of excitement’ you might say.
As she aged and all around her settled down – she steadfastly resisted.
Many whisperers did appear from ‘various gossipers’,
They said ‘she couldn’t love’, and of course much worse.
This was not the case that she ‘could not love’- the truth was that she actually loved too hard.
(Well once in a blue moon that is when the right biological, time-a-logical, socio-intellectual bloke arrived.)
Unfortunately, on ‘matters of the heart’ – she had a curse.
And when she did feel love or closeness, the electronics in her body went haywire.
(Her nervous system would pull rank on her)
Those pangs of anxiety simply wouldn’t let her settle down with one guy, once and for all.
Tragically the more she felt loving feelings the further she was made to run.
(Perversely this meant she could only essentially marry the ‘amorphous male blobosphere’).
So she kicked to the kerb many guys she really liked, and a couple or at least one of these she loved.
Not becasue she wanted to.
She had to.
(Her internal physiological Sergeant Major had pulled rank).
The electronics inside were stronger than diamond chains around her feet,
And it would take a series of perfectly planned and executed wars to break those chains,
To then allow the feelings of closeness not to trigger electrical short circuits within.
(I hope that day comes)
And so her career rolled on, money was made, rent was paid.
But as the years rolled,
Her social life was increasingly a ever slightly degrading repeat and rehash of her youth in England/Europe.
(You see with addiction, the hit gets less high each time).
Perhaps now described best as quasi-controlled-debauteurous weekends,
Mixed with typical middle class dinner parties, drunk racing events, cafe coffees and brunches.
As the grey hairs grew she new she was having the same year, done many times over.
(The Sergeant Major was not yet in retirement and was still ‘blasting ears’)
She knew she wasn’t happy (I know as she even let slip one day – but weren’t we city-o-office-o’s all that way?).
At heart she always wanted to be an entrepreneur – set her own hours – do her own thing.
But she got trapped as a salary-woman in a mega city does.
(After all – is not the invention of the ‘big city’ the oldest trap on humankind there is?)
Late in life she tried to become an entrepreneur –
I’m not sure if that worked.
After all, entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs while young.
They find a way – becasue it is who they are.
I guess I was lucky that she couldn’t handle long term closeness,
Becasue we would have never met at that drunken bar when she was pushing forty.
(When we kissed, didn’t come home with me and then handed me her business card pre taxi home)
Of course I may be deluding myself.
I could easily say using joes-schmo logic ‘that was a ruinous night and the start of a war’.
But now old I know that sometimes you meet who you need to meet at the time.
(And it will disrupt and shift your entire life).
And it might be someone who allows the needed dismantling of your entire life to occur.
That would not have happened otherwise.
And I guess that’s why I met her.
(I had a not just a destiny-date with a mirror – but a date to be thrown through it to a parallel-life)
But with the peace-and-fun-becoming-full-blown-war (that was us) being now long over,
With the mustard gas that was stinging my (our?) eyes long gone –
I (we?) can now see that clearly.
And isn’t it interesting that there is one part inside myself that has never changed.
Perhaps that is a all-knowing holographic part of her inside my chest.
I don’t know if that’s a healthy assessment – but I don’t really care.
It is simply an immovable object inside.
It is what Olympus Mons is to the surface of Mars.
But the question is (and has been over the rolling years) what to do about it?
Does the famous climbers Q & A adage hold for me? –
“Why did you climb that mountain? – becasue it’s there”.
And so I sometimes look at Olypus Mons, from far away Earth.
And I wonder if I too would/should Travel there.
To see her in true strikingly perfectly imperfect unique beauty.
After all – I believe that today she is still ‘There’.
Yet currently at star-date 2026.4958 I am still ‘Here’.
Perhaps I am like an asteroid that collided on Olympus Mons with a ‘glancing blow’,
And so natural physical law demanded I skip away into the black skies never to return.
Yet information cannot ever be scrubbed.
Yet the scars of the collision remain within the asteroid’s hulk, within me,
As so do more than a few small fragments of her (my ‘Olympus Mons’).
So I guess if I never see her rugged striking heights and cosmically unique grandeur again,
I can always say she never one hundred percent left anyway.
I carry literally a few pieces of her with me through space and time.
And will her short-circuiting electronics (her Sgt. Major Syndrome) ever be fixed before she is gone?
Perhaps when it is, this will be the spark that starts the spaceship’s thrusters,
And while I am thinking I will simply be whisked away to see her.
Physics itself will be in ‘dictatorial charge’ of the matter.
(it will issue an edict that will happen).
Yes – let’s end it there and agree to that seemingly quasi-copout shall we?
(Why do the most frank assessments also seem so glib and weak sounding or is it just me?).
It is time to wrap it up.
After all this prose poem has become an odyssey in its own right,
(Or is it the modern-version unsent letter?).
And perhaps with a mind of its own, and definitely a nervous system.
So there is now only one more line that I have to say,
And whatever the future holds it will remain true for everlasting eternity.
And that last line is this:
She was she, I was me, and we both still are…..
(And at least if nothing else – I still have that).
BONUS MATERIAL: WHAT DOES THE WORDPRESS AI BOT THINK OF THIS WRITING?
Anton Martin Smith Writer 