Tag: mental-health

“My Friend Kaboosekov”. (A Prose Poem/Open Letter + Bonus Material)

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By Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com

My Friend Kaboosekov

He’s over six foot and is not just as lanky as a bean pole .

well to be more true, he is as lanky as a bean pole that’s been whittled to javelin-like proportions.

He is in his late forties.

Perhaps this ‘whittled-javelin’ look he’s cultivating is about ‘getting into character’.

Only the character is the guy on the news who was ‘just arrested for putting a mirror on you shoes and going up an elevator’.

Never mind Kaboosekov – ‘ya canny win ’em all’, as my Scottish forebears said between whisky glugs.

Now Kaboosekov lives in an empty (formerly goat filled) paddock at the very bottom of his parents hobby farm.

This where he feels safely insulated from the calamity-filled outside world.

He might say that the exigencies of the hard-nosed and not at all anodyne 21st century reality specifically demand this orientation.

But he wouldn’t do this because his vocabulary couldn’t muster it – he’s not at all reader of books.

Of course he says he works everyday but I highly doubt that.

I think like the office worker who endlessly reads his newspaper in the lavatory – he to is running a good cover story.

He came to visit today and I’d I quizzed him with ‘pointed questions about his laboring duties’ –

To see if he had done anything at all on that day in question.

You see percentage wise, I think he’s mostly just ‘pretending to work’.

In answer to the pointed questions he umm’ed and ahh’d and I picked up ‘sheepish deception’ (excuse the pun).

I think to talk like the revered NZ dirt digger of yesteryear- ‘He’s clearly had done F all’.

I reckon he must only do one hour a day on average, perhaps two or three during ‘lambing time’ tops.

He’s almost certainly quasi-autistic – he can’t really communicate properly in conversation –

Eye contact is indeed a problem.

And when talking to him you have to pry out the answers and he so often answers a totally different question you never asked.

He does all these highly technical electronics things which are quite impressive in themselves (more autism evidence?).

He is as cheap as an old Scotsman – and he feels no wider social compunction to support local businesses etc.

I’m not calling him a ‘parasite’ but let’s just say if he was a parasite – his kinfolk would harass him for not pitching in enough.

His main trick is going to a Supermarket to buy a single can of bens – and nothing more.

If everyone was as cheap as him there would be a dire unending Great Depression probably ending in cannabilism.

Alas with more Kaboosekovs, the world would resemble what the Nazis did to the Russian POW’s.

On another level sometimes I conjecturize if he has that thing called “temporary prison homo-sexuality”,

But then again this kind of thing is probably rife in every small rural town where men are punished for talking to women.

Kaboosekov is a bit too ‘clingy’ and sometimes I wonder about his vibes – & no I am not ‘projecting’.

I am pretty sure ‘I am not gay’ but you never know – after all I do like Italian architecture (p.s. I’m not gay).

Kaboosekov studied Computer Sci at Uni and did ONLY computer related courses – not a single liberal arts or business paper.

After university he went into the world for 18 months, and it was all too much for him –

He was soon scampering back in a beaten up rusted honda-civic to his safe womb-like parent’s lower paddock,

Where he has been ‘paddock-maxxing’ (as the kids say these days) for the last twenty five years.

Consequently he has never benefitted from a ‘layer of real world programming’ to help combat autistic behaviors.

I would say – to hazard a guess that Kaboosekov has a mental age of perhaps twenty five (he’s now pushing fifty).

Perhaps he’s not quasi-Autistic – perhaps its ‘only’ Asperger’s.

Alas, perhaps my diagnosis is an overdone one.

Maybe he’s just ultra-ultra-eccentric.

After all we all know the field of Psychiatry has been inflated syndromes to make more cash at least since the DSM 2.

Kaboosekov – He’s not a bad guy of course, BUT if you’re stuck mentally at twenty five – you are going to stay ‘too selfish’ (autistic or not).

Of course I am not perfect, and there are some parallels with how I’ve lived my live and I have some similar odd/life avoidant traits.

BUT

I’ve always realized (after many psychic crash outs) you have to fight those internal programmings that socially hold you back.

Life is so much about fighting your bad human traits and doing it on a daily basis.

I won’t say I’ve succeeded in winning the ‘war for your own mind’,

But I’ve had a few ‘battlefield wins’ at least – I will not bore you with a list – lest it fall into enemy hands.

I do try to be a good influence on ol’ javelin joe when he visits me, which is clockwork-twice weekly.

I don’t mind, as life in these tiny towns we both live in are by their very nature ‘isolating old-world alternate realities’.

Kaboosekov does have some interesting socio-political views, albeit very naïve ones.

This is why he voted for the very insane Green Party at the last election.

Pretty soon they’ll be stuffing crayons in various orifices and calling themselves post-modern art pieces.

So executive decision made!: I’ll keep sociio-culturally looking after him for a while.

Alas all-in-all – Kaboosekov is not a bad egg.

And being a ‘normal office blat-blah-clack-boob’ would be infinitely much worse than a paddock-grown-quasi-autist-asperger.

And besides,

He’s very good to ‘casually pick on’ on account of his schoolboy-ish naivety.

And a friend that takes being ‘casually picked on’ is priceless no matter what.

I guess in that way I am half-Australian after all – born with a bent to pick on/be picked on (in equal spades).

That decade in Melbourne has infected me or perhaps just amplified me that way.

So long live my cheap-ass weirdo friend Kaboosekov – ‘the closet-quasi-autist-asperger’,

Who is probably not suffering ‘prison-gay-syndrome’ but you never really know for sure (and if he is that’s ok).

And ‘the skinny prick’ (as we say in the woods in NZ) will probably live to be a hundred too –

That is prob thanks to his father’s overly restricted calorific diet regimen he is shackled to.

And also thanks entirely to his now elderly farmer parents – he’ll be probably a multi-millionaire soon.

Which reminds me of that like by Bukowski (Life’s funny – some people get rich and others get to east s**t).

And what of the future you wisely ask?

When I finally meet a new woman (or return to the a back catalogue item female #56-00-ASP/B) yes – I’ll tire of him somewhat.

But until then, I’ll keep him on as a patient with with his ‘weekly psychiatrist visit’ intact.

The prescription will be as always ‘listen to my wisdom fool & take my casual picking on you with good humor’d warmth’.

Yes friends – It would be mean to kick Kaboosekov to the silt-filled-apple-containing-kerbs.

I agree – that would be Treasonous.

After all I’ve known the freak Kaboosekov since we were thirteen.

Since he was standing at PE class hugging and rocking himself to reduce psychological stress overload.

And I have always been way too overly loyal to a flaw.

But that’s probably a good thing overall.

It is far better to be too loyal that too disloyal.

And these is why we live in the faded grandeur ruins of some poorly resurrected Roman Empire.

But I am not here to talk of Rome.

Back to Kaboosekov.

Sometimes in life’s relationships – you’ve just got to give the baby their bottle.

And bedsides,

Excuse me if I talk like a fridge salesman for a moment:

Isn’t the feeling of being better than your friends just so flippin’ fantastic?

For is it not just ‘the other side’ of the famed Australasian sport called ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’?

Yes I know what you are saying – YES I am indeed guilty – of soaking in ones own crapulence.

But all the same in this letter I hope I have raised a few ideas and at least one bushy literary eyebrow.

Ahh Isn’t it great to not just wallow but to crawl on all fours militarily style in these shallow delightful social quagmires?

This the low-brow delights of being ‘better than your friends’.

Like alcoholism that fiend called Reverse Tall Poppy Syndrome (RTPS) is a hard illness to shake off.

So Kaboosekov better not move out of his giant green paddock or start acting his age,

Lest I lose my sense of being ‘better than him’ – I couldn’t take the blow to my ego.

Consider his execution stayed indefinitely.

P.S. In touting my superiority I am discounting my quasi-bankruptcy (inter alia) of course, as you do.

P.P.S I hope dear reader, that I don’t sound to much like an arrogant solipsistic bastard (for I usually hide it so well).

BONUS MATERIAL: Here is what the new WordPress AI Podcast Bot thinks of this poem:

Update: I’ve been on rooves clearing gutters – I always knew I’d make in to ‘high society’. (A Blog Post)

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by Anton Martin Smith Antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com or Martinantonsmith@gmail.com (I use this one most)

Yes we came up from the gutters…and the wrong side of the Tracks – Lemmy Kilmister

I’ve been on rooves clearing out leaves from gutters. This is one of the tasks I do to make some money in my day job. I’ve done 2 rooves in 2 days. Wealthy folk with big houses where if your ladder falls your in for a trip to the ER. this week I got ‘lucky’ – I got 6 out of 7 days booked with jobs. This little business keeps me mentally healthy, fit and allows me to do fun things like work on this creative site. Yes it is the ‘day job’ although since I’m self employed it’s a bit more than that. In theory it could ‘take off’.

But of course – theoretically I’d rather have my writing take off. If I was really smart I’d ramp up my advertising and employ some sucker to do all the work and I would write all day and try to get things published. That would be pretty wild to do that. I wonder if it would be easier than it seems.

Sometimes I think about the ability to make money. I think growing up poor gives you some good and bad programming. On the good side you can learn to live frugally – because you had to growing up. I think that ability stays with you for life. in business that’s a ‘cost side benefit’. But on the negative side – I think growing up poor makes you think that having a lot of money is some kind of ‘mystical thing that’s not for us because we are poor’. In business that would perhaps be called ‘revenue atrophy problem’.

You see in business you got to go out and get sales, then you get money. The poor programming doesn’t see this reality. In my business I have to go out and make sales – so I have broken that old cycle BUT I don’t think I have broken it enough YET. You see I don’t really push sales – I tend to ‘go after’ them with the pressure of a low bank balance. If I was truly over my childhood no money upbringing of thinking ‘money was a mystical thing we don’t see’ I’d push myself to make more sales.

Oh well I have time to improve in this life on many things & this is one of them. The good thing is when I make a sale I am truly helping someone, clean their driveway or take leaves from the gutters, mow lawns, fix a fence etc. This is good as I don’t need to feel I’m a ‘corporate sell out’ who is (for example) selling overpriced insurance to people that don’t need it etc.

In other news we are heading into winter here in South Island NZ. It gets freeezing here – which is great for reading and writing so YAY WINTER.

On the writing front I am editing my new novella which I am worried is too boring – I’m wondering if the main character needs to do something wild. But I’m also thinking I’ve never done a story where nothing much happens, so perhaps this could be a test case. It does have a lot of underlying existential philosophy in it, so I’m hoping this will be the thing that makes people like it. It’s about a guy that lives in the higher plain of the ‘holographic world’ and is having one of his regular jaunts as a physical being on a planet as a joe schmoe. In this case the joe schmoe is a High School principal who is a functional alcoholic that travels to the neighboring town to get drunk at the pubs. This happens a lot I think with the ‘teacher’ set.

For the record I don’t like teachers much (and at root it’s because they live in an cloistered Marxist intellectual fishbowl) but let’s not get into it NB(people always pretend teachers are ‘great’ yet everyone agrees the good teachers they had were few and far between). And yes there are always that 10-20% V. Good to Great Teachers – I won’t be so mean spirited to deny that truth. The good ones must suffer their colleagues with grace no doubt.

Anyway these were just some quick thoughts.

happy creativity everyone and thanks for reading and liking my stuff – especially the guys who do it regularly – I really appreciate it!

Now it’s time for me to have a beer (I have 2 a night and it’s a fantastic tonic).

‘May all your gutters be clean’.

We who grew up poor may have (As Lemmy said) ‘come up from the gutters…’ but I will add this to that line

…that doesn’t mean we can’t bloom be be a giant sunflower that somehow crawled out of a deep crack in the concrete after having finally seen the light of the eternal supernova

p.s. My DM’s are open (email me an idea or comment)

Anton Martin Smith

Am I happy? Or am I sad? Is this a dumb question? How do you know? (A Blog post)

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by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com

This is a strange situation. If you would back the clock to when I was between age 19 and 21 and for 18 months was unable to get out of bed in my student flat in Dunedin NZ – then the answer would be obvious. I was not happy – quite the reverse. If you asked me that question at age 32 with a poorly paid corporate job in Melbourne with a bunch of regular drunken escapisms/escapades attached – again I would say ‘no I was not definitely not happy’. You see in those two situations of my personal history, there was an element of ‘black and white to it all. When things are black and white it’s easier. But things are only ‘black and white’ from certain perspectives. This is why a common car thief or the socialist student that burns down a business can explain to someone with a straight face that they are helping society. Delusions/Ego stop us from seeing the black and white realities about ourselves.

So I can see that when I was younger I was not happy, from the perspective of many years later I can see the black and whiteness of it. But what about my happiness or sadness right now? Now I’m officially middle aged at age 47 soon 48, the answer is still at this very second as I write not truly obvious to me.

There is a ‘grey area’ to it. Of course, I have talked in the past on an intellectual level about whether the well known traditional Philosophical question ‘should we aim to be happy’ – but I won’t dwell on that now other that to summarize that overall the position held is that it is a little foolish to want to be ‘happy all the time’ as an adult – as we struggle under the many life pressures the world puts upon our shoulders day to day, month to month, year to year.

The smartest position as a grown adult is (possibly) to exchange contentedness for happiness. I agree with that idea. It’s a more reasonable position. Even with this newer definition of happiness – I still see that I wasn’t ‘content’ at those age 19-21 or at age 32 prior self-examples. That’s because they were genuinely unquestionably full of obviously bad things.

With this in mind – at 47 soon 48, I guess I am at least ‘arguably content’ most of the time. For example there are quite a few times when I really do feel ‘happy’ (which I’ll now redefine as moderate to high elation) and even more with the lower definition of ‘contentedness’. I won’t bother to define contentedness – I think it’s roughly self explainitory (but go to a dictionary if needed!).

Ok so nowadays I’m quite often content. Lets say that now. I’ll add some more life data points:

I am not rich – I live a hand to mouth, self employed, low income, low cost life. I act as a part time caregiver to a family member. I have access to a cheap lodgings, though that may change in the medium term. My job is physical – carpentry and gardener work. When I need more money, I have to find more work. This has mostly been working in terms of ‘survival money’ – I eat ok, go for a coffee a few times a week, a takeaway meal a two or three times. I do not make enough for middleclass holidays, like I was able to at age 32 working in corporate offices. I live in a small town of 6000, picturesque, quiet with little urban trappings such as events, nightlife, dating culture etc. I have a cat, and another that visits and lives on my roof.

More data points: I have for the last 5 years written lot of creative stuff (on this website/blog). I am single, which now looks like ‘life long bachelor’ status. I have not gone out with anyone since I was in Australia a decade ago. I put this down to the fact I never actually meet anyone a little like me these days. The few regular male friends I have I’ve known since I was 13 or even younger. I don’t really have any female friends, like I had in urban Australia. So that’s the generic raw life-data on me.

You see I had some on the face of it some plusses in Australia (socially, more money etc) but it did not translate to happiness/elation or general contentedness. I do miss the conversations here and their & the female energy friendships – yes I do. BUT you see those things were ruined because at age 32 I had not had the years to have worked on myself as much as I have now some 16 years later aged 47 soon 48. And I think this is the difference – I needed to put the self reflection and mirror looking and question asking work in before I could ever have the chance to be content, let alone to have a shot at ‘regular happiness/elation feelings’. So I guess I have answered my quandry in a very simple manner. I am at the least mildly content because I have benefitted from ‘working on myself’ for perhaps now for fifteen years straight.

I guess I have to now think about the regret that this kind of improvement to contentedness brings. Their is a sadness when looking back to all the chaos that being discontented brings. The pressure of relationships. The broken relationships. When with one discontented person or two discontented persons ‘go out with each other’, there is a natural tendency towards disaster, war, hurt feelings, grudges. And the sad thing is that when you have done work on yourself, you know that when looking back to your raw troubled unworked self – you know you simply got back ‘what you were putting out onto the universe’. This is not to be all ‘woo woo’ – it’s just really about congruence and vibration. Troubled people with unresolved or repressed issues will resonate in environments that have the same dynamic. Be they Jobs Lovers, Wives, Husbands or Friends.

The good thing about self-work is you can see the past for what it was, accept it. Forgive. Ultimately you accept it as the learning experience you had to have to become the person you are now – at least ‘somewhat content’ – and with more potential for becoming more content in the future. As I write these words I can’t help but think it’s all a bit too glib, to much out of the pages of some ‘self help’ shelf in a non descript early 2000s bookshop. Even so I think it is true. With my advancing age the self-work is now paying off. Yes glib but true – ‘time can heal many wounds’. I’ve realized that just to be ‘half decent’ actually also takes work. If you do zero work on yourself you will be not be very nice – that’s the default. Yes there are probaly people who are great from birth to death (because of great parents? A great town?) – but that would be the exception that proves the rule.

We live in a world that is far too throwaway, stressful, competitive. And more so in bigger and bigger urban environments like the one I was in in Australia when I was 32 (Melbourne). I think those big cities if you are just flowing along the ‘social corporate urban river’ the toxicity can become like the goldfish bowl is to the goldfish bowl. I think when I was in that environment it was too easy to ignore how extremely important self-work, healing work is. For example in big cities relationships can be disposable – because there’s always a new sucker just around the corner.

I guess I could be wrong – perhaps I am more unhappy than I think I am – but perhaps that unhappiness is just like an artists car – it breaks down because the artist owner refuses to do the basics of maintenance – check the oil, tires, lights, clean the McDonalds wrappers out from the foot areas etc. I now know that that kind of ‘stock unhappiness’ in the car example to be a good example of how to cure these kinds of ‘peripheral unhappinesses in yourself’. Just like if the artist isn’t feeling well one day and puts oil in their car, checks their tires etc, a persons ‘temp unhappinesses’ can be worked away by things such as exercise, deep rest, good nutrition, avoiding having mean people as best friends etc.

Anyway I thought I would share these feelings on the journey to wellbeing & contentedness, with a few jolts of elation sneaking in just for good measure. I wrote this personal post as I think we should all support each other on this very common journey, and to do that we need to talk openly of our lives and struggles.

Because a lot of discontent (and so also the downstream effects of chaos) is not nearly as permanent as your prior 19 or 32 year old self thinks at the time. But you do need to focus and spend the time, & that won’t be easy. I should also specifically add that being creative seems to help a lot. I think we were all made to be creative. To not express it at all surely creates some kind of amorphous blob internal discontent or energetic ‘blockage’ of some sort. And remember creativity for health does not need to be ‘good’. Many years ago (when I was still very unhappy with a lot of work to do) I once shamefully told a lady that her art was ‘not good’ because of perceived technical reasons…oh how I missed the point.

For others on the well being journey – I hope my words help in some way, perhaps you have similar or different takes (feel free to share in the comments!).

Let us all heal as we peal the oranges of life, and may the many slips on life’s banana skins whisk us away to a beautiful beachside towel with a responsibly drank pina-colada and a great book (haha!). Rose-tinted but wise? Perhaps we may be so lucky for those we wronged long ago to one day see or hear that our older and wiser words are indeed genuine and forgive us. That would of course ne a cherry on the top – as our internal wellbeing is the main prize.

Anyway these were a few thoughts of my ideas on journeys to better places.

See ya on the next update post!

Anton Martin Smith

On the night of April 28 2026, NZ.

An Update From Me ( A Blog Post)

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By Anton martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites or martinantonsmith@gmail.com

So what’s been happening?

Well the world is turning to crap again with this oil crisis. By now at my age I realise this is all a game. There are all these tripwires in the ‘global economy’ – & every now & then they trip one of them to distract you. Why distract you? because they know you are being served from restaurant that never cleans the floors or wipes the tables, & is always cooking frozen food. The restaurant has only foul mouthed waiters that scream at you, call you ‘fat & stupid’ & then force you to pay a 50% tip….you look at the menu & you only have seven only slightly differing sh*t sandwiches you can have the Hawaiian sh*t sandwich – which has pineapple – you can have the “Mexican sh*t sandwich” which has hot sauce…you can have the ‘big daddy sh*t sandwich’ which has a slice of cheese in it. All these International “crisis” are there to distract you from the fact you are in these dirty restaurants of theirs eating sh*t sandwiches. Everyone should be able to see this by now.

It’s also “funny” that this Iran/Oil thing happened after the “Epstein files” wasn’t going away easily. No coincidences. The big boys in geopolitics are all playing “good cop bad cop” & just carving up the world between them. Anyway I won’t go on any further on that. Just know what restaurant you are sitting at & why your food always tastes horrible.

Outside that, the writing is going well – the website has had a great start to the year – 3 very good months & the traffic/visitor level has already passed that of the entire last year! This must be what happens when you play along with the ‘persistence pays’ motto!

re specific works – I am still of course doing the high turnaround poems – they are the ‘bread & butter’ of the site & my work. But on the harder level stuff – I not long ago finished a first draft quick Novella (14K words) called “Full Circle Indeed” – it is about a man (Mal Matakinski) who was once bullied & has organised a get together of other nerds who were bullied at ‘Trudgerton High’…all is going well until an ex bully turns up…what follows for Matakinski is a lot of soul searching, as he tries to reconcile the past & his present and the future in his mind. here is the link https://antonmartinsmith.com/2025/12/30/full-circle-indeed-a-short-story/

Of course the other big project is my Novel – I am still editing/proof reading it – this was started exactly 1 year ago now, so I need to keep going with the editing/proof reading so I can publish it before the real world happenings make my book ‘old news’.

This Novel is called “Trafficlight Dystopia” – it is set in 2045 where Techno Fascism has taken over the world, and a AI management/surveillance machine is in control of every normal joe & jane – called ‘Trafficlighters’ because they all exist in three tiers (Red,Orange,Green) of slightly increasing subordination & slightly decreasing Freedoms/Perks. Matakinski unlike the others somehow has retained his memory of the ‘old world’ and so can see more of the hellscape than anyone else – he wonders about starting a rebellion – but how can he under these tough ‘perfect prison’ conditions that have been enforced on the world?. There is a love element too as Matinski aims to finally meet up with his old flame Kelly in his old city that he is now exiled from – ‘Big City’ – will she reject him again or will she let her guard down after so many years of non contact? What with the AI mega-manager called The Database do about Matakinski when it has a face to disembodied face chat? The Novel link is here https://antonmartinsmith.com/2025/03/31/trafficlight-dystopia-a-short-story/

Other than that, I’ve been working on putting insulation in my studio ceiling – it’s getting cold and this year I want to be warmer. It really is wise to learn carpentry – you save a ton of cash.

Happy reading & remember the words of George Carlin “The world’s a giant private giant club & you ain’t invited!” (so f*ck ’em all!)

Anton Martin Smith aka Martin Anton Smith

31 May 2026

“The Rosy Life Of The High IQ + Neuro-divergent” (A Prose Poem)

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by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

If you have high IQ and Neuro-diversity you tend to live in your own world.

A world of ever-swirling-ideas, stacks of sky-high books & mindsets of never wanting to be ‘pinned down’.

And of course, at least a few decades of voluntary poverty – that goes without saying.

But let me explain the ‘pinned down’ thing.

You see people like us – who are smart & also neuro-divergent (I reckon I have ADHD) –

We love ‘Ideas’ much more than the current version of ‘bland Earthian reality’ dished up.

So this explains our tendency to not want to commit to a single-probability-wave-collapsed, long term course of action –

It is too much connected to the ‘real world’.

We would rather talk about the myriad of pitfalls that the ‘real world’ has waiting to ensnare.

When we do this with a beer or tea or coffee we are in our version of ‘heaven’.

For example I don’t like the idea of being a Lawyer with two kids in private school with a high price wife on a hill.

And then we would have dinner parties where we all sit & rattle off narrow upper-middleclass epithets to each other.

“Oh I’ve decided to rebalance my portfolio”

“Oh really – that’s wise”

“Yes I decided that while drinking bitch juice at Portsea Polo last week”

“Oh what a great Idea Ms X, and I have got my reno going – we are adding an extra room & two new bathrooms”

“Oh isn’t that wonderful Ms Y – but will Burt still pee on the toilet seats?”

Cue the laughing like Hyena’s & all in front of poor Blushing Burt.

That kind of life I would see as a ‘living hell’.

The performative narrow-band blandness of it all is stomach churning.

Why would anyone want to live like that?

When I see people like this I think it’s all because they have killed off their inner child.

They have ‘human sacrificed’ themselves.

You can’t think of them as the playful child they once were – it is impossible to divine from their adult faces.

Someone that has a high IQ & is Neuro-diverse sees these things very easily.

We see the unhappiness & the unhappiness out there in the world.

We see through the smoke & mirrors of this ‘reality tv’ world they’ve sneaked on us.

Of course we suffer – for we are usually poor – but perhaps a few might get wealthy off Art/Media/Music etc.

Those ones often can’t handle being back in the world of empty epithets, status, & bank balances – so they do themselves in.

So we are better off being alone on our rooms with books piled high & living off the food scraps the world throws up.

If we die under a ditch early in life – we can accept that.

For at least we saw the swindle and had a original few ideas.

We let the dull have their dinner parties, & we were happily uninvited.

It’s far more fun to make fun of them.

They can swig their overpriced bitch diesel & practice their sneers in their expensive cracked mirrors.

We will be writing of it all with full epistemological & philosophical accuracy for future generations to enjoy.

While they will be outed as the ‘intellectual sludge people’ of the ever-declining post-post-Roman era.

All in all I’d say us high IQ-Neuro-diverse have it pretty good.

The only draw back is we need to raid the back of the couch to buy milk,

And our rooms are book laden dusty debacle obstacle courses.

Other than that life’s Rosy for us.

The only weak point we have is when there is a sudden ‘crisis of confidence’:

Where we wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night with the thought:

“Are we just a rehahsed version of them but don’t know it?”.

It is a terrible conjecture indeed.

If it were true, I would act to bury it deep in my psyche forthwith – to protect a fragile ego.

If it were not true, I’d be willing to write a poem about it.

Dragon slayed my friends – Dragon slayed!

We are not at all like them – we are not like our natural enemies.

We have not yet became that which we fight against.

But this is not the end of our problems:

For what of the next conjecture:

Are we High IQ Neuro-divergent family still just ‘bunch of assholes’ none-the-less?

I call this the ‘Griswold’s theory’ and I hope the answer is not of the ‘one hand clapping in the woods’ type.

But let’s be honest with ourselves: we can easily slip into the territory without knowing it,

So perhaps all of us can be assholes some of the time,

Some of us can be assholes all of the time,

But all of us can’t be assholes all of the time.

This is called the Dylan-asshole-theory.

Of course I could continue, however this is a poem and not an essay.

And I think we can all agree, be us High Iq Neuro-divegent’s or Upper middle class pustules or somthing else:

Only an asshole would write am essay and call it a poem.

I reader pals, would never do that.

Though I am also sometimes a unscrupulous liar.

I regard this as an inalienable right my artistic license,

Which strangely is now made to expire every five years, & limits the number of passengers I can stage dive onto.

And now this essay, er…I mean poem must end.

For more than enough intellectual chaos has been metered out,

And ‘world befuddlement stocks’ have been greatly enriched.

My work is done here.

“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.

“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

“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.

Musings about our Kiwi (& Aussies) lives. (A Blog post/update)

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Today I was wondering about Kiwis (Sorry you Aussies are relegated to the P.S. section) – I was wondering why we are so reclusive. I came up with this line of thinking:

Why do we NZ’ers not know that our ultra-reclusiveness is something we are deeply hamstrung by? Does this mean we’re stupid as well? Or is it arrogance? Perhaps it is simply a form of entrenched genetic PTSD stemming from our ‘Let’s escape our shitty UK lives’ ancestry. yes – that’s gotta be it!

So this kind of makes me feel better – we are probably all suffering from a heavily entrenched & now genetic level PTSD. It’s not because we are stupid, or arrogant at all. And besides, we are natural ‘Mr Fixits’ – you can’t be stupid & know how to fix everything – so case closed.

So while I feel happy about this – this is still a worry. Becasue while ultra-reclusiveness may help us ‘tinker away happily fixing things in sheds’, it is bad for our mental health to be so insular. This is under the thesis ‘ a problem shared is a problem halved’ thesis. We don’t share our problems – especially males – so our mental problems are relatively doubled compared to the (perhaps only mythical & not actually real) ‘happy problem sharing society’.

Yes we try to get better on this – but I’m not sure we can force ourselves to be better. I think that will only help us perhaps ten to twenty percent. To change 50% we have to somehow change who we are. I don’t know much – but I’m sure that won’t come from talk alone. So the answer must be this:

We need to find a new project to totally enliven us – but what the hell would that be?

I will end here – becasue I don’t have the answer to this problem. Hopefully (to use an overused term) it ‘sparks debate’ & some genius will save us all from our ‘hideaway & tinker syndrome’. But the worry of that course of action we often look for a saviour in all the wrong places. Just look at 20th Century History. in the hope of getting better, we better no get worse.

Good luck to us & all others like us (Eastern Europe?)!

P.s. the Aussies surely have the same ‘Genetic level PTSD’ problem – but they are ultra competitive lot, & can pick on each other rabidly – if that’s a ‘solution’ to their entrenched cultural PTSD then could the solution be worse than the disease? Or am I just dreamin’?.

P.P.S The Aussies are certainly making more money than us – but are they happier? I’m not sure that the truly are. After all – remember your grandparents dictum of it’s not what you earn, it’s what you save….& prices on their side of the ditch are roughly on a par with us (& everywhere else in the western world).

P.P.P.S At least we kiwi’s when stressed can always blindly walk into our back yards that are also giant beautiful nature parks. we defnitely have this over our Aussie cousins as an ‘anti-PTSD pill’.

Cheers Anton Martin Smith

email me at antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com