Tag: mental-health

“Paper Planes & Long Lost Eye-Glimmers?” (A Prose Poem + Bonus Narration in the writer’s own voice)

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Paper plane carrying office worker past oblivious office

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

Basic Assumption: You the reader/listener have brains.

You used to think “When I leave High School my brains will be appreciated”.

This naive delusion helped get you through the psychological torment dished out by the bullies,

And all the other horrors that happened thanks to those deeply frazzled & disinterested teachers.

Then by the time you’re a couple of years into ‘work life’ you realize ‘High School never ends’.

Of course this was to your horror – a slow kind of creeping crystalizing horror.

Yes sadly on this godforsaken planet, most people of all ages will still hate you if you have brains and good ideas.

Your already existing decades-long-friends certainly don’t want you to have brains.

In work you realise that people would rather have the whole company fail than reward your brains.

Of course a big part of you lies to yourself – you say to yourself:

Maybe if I do this project REALLY WELL it’ll change.

Of course it never does – you were deluding yourself.

The kooky management kept promoting people with dubious IQ’s to be your boss or to boss you around.

And so the years and decades roll by.

The money stays shit and the promotions never come.

You keep doing the work of seven.

You keep doing the work of your boss.

You’ve become the ‘high price external consultant’ that is totally free.

Of course you start to drink or do drugs or womanize (or ‘man-ize’) – that’s a given.

In fact it’s almost the wise choice since you do work in a literal madhouse –

For if bad decisions are routinely made over good & intentionally so –

Then don’t be a fool to think that this isn’t a form of madness.

Why wouldn’t you blow off steam on the short weekend breaks from the asylum?

You would be stupid not to lean on at least some form of escapism.

And then suddenly the ‘cubical dilated time’ says seven years has past since you had your first day,

And you take stock – you realise you have psychologically checked out forever.

It was all like a loud dripping tap into an empty but plugged bathtub in the room above your head –

The annoyance seems endurable so you don’t make plans to remedy it –

But it will assuredly fill and then overflow through the floorboards and onto your cold head.

At this point the light has long left your eyes.

You’re probably overweight.

You probably de-facto-married someone who is also a cubicle-prisoner (with wasted brains too) just like you –

After all misery does love company –

And there’s no way you could marry the empty platitude enemy (your jailer boss the ex high school bully) is there?

Or maybe you just ‘did it all alone’ to wallow ‘Schopenhauer-ingly’ in the ambiently-anguished-atmosphere.

And as a Late-Twentieth-To-Early-Twenty-First-Century-Dweller it is almost redundant to mention this but I will –

The Corporation’s Henchmen (formerly ‘The Quacks’) have certainly loaded you with deadly anti-depressants.

Yep – I’m sorry to announce this BUT….you screwed up.

There’ no getting away from the fact.

You fell for the plan.

You fell ‘hook line & stinker’ – as the wise last century’s cartoon characters did say.

Yep – you foolishly agreed to ‘Stay in High School forever’.

Of course in theory you could have left Cubicle Fluorescent Light High School –

But they told you business was to risky and by the time you realized it wasn’t –

It was too late –

By then you were past the point of no return.

You succumbed to the ‘non-event horizon’ that is your forever ‘corporatized penal life’.

Yes the World ‘got you’ as is the plan for all us ‘Neo-Dickensians’.

I mean lets take a breath – let’s not be too harsh – they do run a great devilish ‘Mephisto PR game’.

You have to be born into an ‘insider family’ to know it before it traps your soul and your eye-glimmers.

Yes – It was a shame, it is always a shame.

You (like so many with brains) were full of potential.

You could have been something great.

Now you’re closer than ever to retirement.

The last thirty years have gone forever never to return.

And through the decades under lock and key you didn’t even have a hobby either.

You could have read the worlds books.

Knitted up a storm of bright jerseys.

Learnt to be a potter.

Got into web design.

Learnt how to speak as the Spaniards, The Russians or The Japanese do.

Done some woodworking or furniture repair.

Hell – you could have made a billion wonky-quasi-flying paper planes.

But you didn’t even do that.

But being a cerebral outsider that never finally quit the bully-favoring-cubicle-rat-race wasn’t your biggest mistake.

What you needed was a persistent low level chronic dose of freedom on tap.

For all you truly needed was not a giant company of your own –

It was not a trapper’s cave in the woods far from civilization –

But it was something small that was entirely yours.

That you could build upon.

If you had jus done that – you would still have a tiny glimmer in your eye.

And it is true that a single spark can burn down an entire tree, forest or national park is it not?

If nothing else you must have a hobby – as glib and sanctimonious and as that seems.

Now excuse me – I have (my equivalent to) a paper plane to catch.

You see – I wasn’t quite as stupid as some were,

For with these words I have retained a hobby.

But with all this quasi-sermonizing I don’t think I’m being mean either.

Just think of me as a farmer of your un-paralized and formerly non-extinguished urban eye-glimmer.

My goal is to bring a tiny part of you back to (a real) life.

Surely at your age some of you is allowed to leave Urban Cubicle Dreadnaught High School?

And I don’t think that’s too much to ask – do you?

Don’t dare lose all of that fading glimmer in your wandering screen-jaded left eye.

So go get yourself a noble hobby – and remember ‘bomb making’ is just as good as any.

You didn’t think I’d end on a mature note did you?

(Ah you know me too well!)

It’s my birthday. I am forty-eight today. I worked like it was a normal day… (A blog post)

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Man sitting on a bench holding a drink with flying books in the sky at sunset

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmith@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com (email me!)

So yes it’s my birthday. Forty eight. I celebrated by deciding to not celebrate. It’s now a firm tradition of mine. I’ve been doing it for decades.

Is it because I am a Gen X’er? I say that because the stereotype is we don’t care about anything. Is it because I am ‘South Island kiwi? I say that because we have this Scottish Presbyterian/Calvinist cultural hangover which says you can’t be seen to enjoy yourself. Is it because deep down I don’t think I’m worthy enough to celebrate my entry into this (seemingly wildly degenerating) mortal coil?

The answer is I don’t know why I couldn’t care less about my birthday. Other than to worry about my ‘life as I age’ a little more – as now I am almost half a century old. The ‘distant horizon of the end’, having been priorly an academic thought, is now appearing in sight – it is now a farway hill I can see instead a mountaintop in the distant hazy horizon. And we all no matter how ‘Zen’ we think are, think of our achievements in some manner at least. I would be lying if I do not have worry about the charge of “he was such a promising youngster – but he hasn’t really lived up to his potential” factor. Of course I don’t care about the fact I’m not a big CEO or a Lawyer – I’m not that stupid to see those empty ‘TV style’ manufactured wants. But of course, I do want to have exhibited my natural and worked-on creative talents. That’s called being human.

I wouldn’t say that I’m in any danger of a ‘midlife crisis’ – weirdly I kinda had that early at about age thirty-five-ish. It’s really just normal aging worries that someone like me has, I am sure. And by ‘someone like me’ – I guess I mean someone who is bookish, prone to be an over-thinker, undiagnosed ADHD (maybe I am but that could be a boldface lie!), and a man without much hard cash at the moment. This is because I’ve made a commitment to the liberal arts AND I’m in small business. So really I shouldn’t worry to much about pushing fifty – and I don’t really look fifty anyway – I could easily pass for forty. In theory I could go anywhere and suddenly ‘reinvent myself’ – but I’m too wise to try that folly again.

In the end ultimately, I think I feel “ok”. This is in terms of ‘day-to-day mental headspace’ speaking. And today being “ok” is actually as rare as hens teeth. To feel “ok” is relatively like being on ‘cloud 9.’ After all most people have terrible uncreative cubicle lives, have done no shadow work whatsoever, and are medicated up to their eyeballs. I had a taste of that a long time ago ( the anti-depressants scam where the quacks dished them out like candy) and I eventually escaped that prison although in truth it was probably the handmaiden called burnout that had the key that unlocked me from all that silliness.

In terms of psychology – I am far more content that I used to be when I was younger. I have learnt slowly as the years rolled by to wangle a weird solution to feelings of ‘chronic depression or anxiety’ – and I think it’s fair to say I have always had those feelings, but it might have been anxiety more than depression perhaps (it’s hard to say). The wangle was physical work, homecooked meals & living in the country – my boyhood home town of six thousand people. Well it was also learning not to tie your self worth too much to social status. That’s important.

Physical work is great for the mind – especially if you are prone to the blues. But ideally you don’t want too much of it all at once. After all who that is over forty wants seven or eight hours hard labor a day for four or five days? No I think anywhere between ten twenty five hours is good, and the sweet spot is probably right in the middle – seventeen and a half hours. If you are young, well blast ahead with physicality.

Physical work is like a battle. Yes it can be very boring and uncomfortable. But some is office keyboard placking. For example I am now doing a sub-part of a renovation job (a ‘reno’). I am what we call here in NZ “Gib-Stopping” which I guess the Americans would call “Drywall plastering” and the English “Joint Plastering” (I think the Aussies also call it ‘Gib-Stopping’).

Let me tell more. When you slap on the plaster, it’s sloppy-messy and gets all over your clothes. I actually had a blob go right in my eye at the beginning when I forgot to put on my protective eyewear. Then after you have slopped on the plaster over the joints the next part is even worse – you have to sand it down smooth and flush with the Gib / Drywall/ Plaster sheeting. The dust is so bad you end up standing in something akin to the ‘First World War mustard gas attacks’. You can do all the things to protect yourself – but you can’t really escape the fact you are a in gib-dust (drywall or plaster) battle. Life is a bit like that – don’t kid yourself you are not in some kind of battle here.

Ok now – so you know how bad that ‘Gib Stopping’ job I’ve been doing is – let me tell you why it’s also good for you. At the end of the work day you intimately feel that you have become mentally (and physically) stronger. You see with your own eyes that you’ve made progress on the bigger project (in my case the ceiling looks better and better). And you probably did it all by yourself too. You didn’t know how to do it and you backed yourself. That’s a great anti-depressant. You don’t get that in an office cubical in a mega city – you don’t have that creative freedom (Like Melbourne where I worked in an office for a decade).

So that’s why physical work is good for me and my tendency towards depressiveness and/or anxiety (or is it just adhd mixed with perfectionism etc?). I really recommend it to you who is reading this – especially if you exist in a ‘grey concrete jungle cubical zone’.

And if you are reading this – then you probably love writing or are a writer or an artist or work in an office (statistically you are likely given that’s where most the jobs are nowadays). And if you are someone like the last sentence describes – then you probably have anxiety or depressiveness or creeping feelings of helplessness lurking around. And if that’s true, what was good for me will also be good for you.

So remember to get out and dig some holes, plant some veges, run to the beach or lake or over the hill, jump on you bike etc. If your deep in the concrete jungle cubical zones I’d exercise about ten hours a day in nice outdoors setting.

So I’ll lave it there, now seems like a good place to end. I can now have a sneaky treat (these are great as anti-depressants too). In my case it’s some beer. I don’t over drink – I simply have two a night, which sometimes I upgrade to three, and once in a blur moon I might go crazy and have four. But that’s rare as I can’t do hangovers these days at my age. That’s the good thing about aging – it forces you to be more mature on a lot of things that you used to go totally nuts on.

‘Birthday Beer’ I will now come to you. I hope you are nicely almost near zero degrees centigrade (That’s 32 degrees F for the yanks),. You will be frosty delicious from your time spent in that freezer prison I put you in. I’m sorry I have to drink you – but it must be done. Wait a minute I’m sounding too much like an alcoholic – I better finally shut up now.

So happy birthday to me – you old coot. You ain’t as bad as you probably think you are or used to be. You’ve come a long way. You’ve ignored the noise and built your mind up. Your feeling ‘ok’ and that’s better than it sounds.

See you on the next blog update.

Bye!

Anton Martin Smith on 7th August 2026 8:03PM NZ Time.

“As All Madmen Who Write Tend To Do.” (Prose).

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Man kneeling by car flat tire, woman in driver's seat, man walking with notepad

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

I have a beater of a car.

It’s birthday was in the year 1999.

It’s older than a fair whack of people alive today.

The other day I was scrolling and came across a lady who said:

“Why do the best guys always have the shittiest cars?”.

Well I can only agree with her assertion.

And the obvious answer is:

Because we are not materialistic.

So onto the subject.

My car tire has a slow leak.

I’ve monitored the situation and you can drive on it for three days,

But then of course you must inflate it at the servo.

Or should I say ‘Gas Station’.

You will have to excuse me –

For I have a half kiwi half aussie vernacular.

I’ve ‘done time’ on both sides of the Tasman – so to speak.

Anyway, when I discovered the leak I first thought

“Hmm I will get that fixed immediately”.

But then I had a second overiding thought:

“But that’s so stock, why not choose the contrarian path…

…After all – you do love Philosophy”.

So that’s what I’ve been doing.

I have discovered you can indeed drive on a flat tire for three blocks,

Then inflate it at said Servo/Gas station.

The other day I even drove their with my overweight mother riding shotgun.

I crawled along at 30 km/h along the back streets,

I made sure I only made left handed turns for safety.

Git there and ‘did the necessary’ as we Kiwi’s say (or do aussies say that?).

This may all seem rediculous,

That a well educated forty eight year old small business owner would do this.

But as I have found – when you age your life can become suddenly too dull.

Sure in my case perhaps that’s just because I partied way to hard in youth,

And so now with age ‘standard life’ now seems overly dreary –

But what can I say – we all live the lives we have had, don’t we?.

Perhaps this could be a warning sign – that I need to move to the city.

The wags say ‘he’s so bored in that small town he’s driving on flat tires for kicks’.

Well, I guess their must be a smidgen of truth to that yes – I am a reasonable man.

But I as I already mentioned it’s merely a need to be contrarian –

But then the other wag pop’s head over pulpit and whispers “but what’s the cause of that?”

Well perhaps it’s a generalized fear of anything external to my own mind,

Due to a number of childhood trauma incidents that have scarred me for life.

Trauma that has been buried so deep for so long that it can only emerge within the ‘safety of the absurd’.

Such as the choice to drive around on a slow leak-flat tire seemingly just for kicks.

Of course I am engaging and indulging the Americanism of ‘casual pop psychology’.

But at the same time – what if I’m right?

In the absence of knowing the correct path of action –

I will monitor the situation namely the p.s.i. of my remaining three tires.

And if one day things escalate and I find myself ‘driving happily on all four rims’ –

I’ll do nothing at all, keep driving and see what eventuates.

After all – I am a bored, small-town-trapped, unmedicated contrarian with an interest in Philosophy ain’t I?

But don’t worry, on a final serious note I’ll sort the tire out next week, or maybe the week after that.

What’s that my dear fine wag calling out from the back row?

Yes you are correct I did forget to mention my penchant for procrastination.

That guy I worked with long ago – Matthew from Melbourne – was probably correct:

I am probably in theory at least a “Psychiatrist’s wet dream”.

But when writing of one’s own foibles – that’s is my prerogative, is it not?

“This ramble-a-thon now must end” said the fourth wag in this prose poem.

I agreed and ended it now, after all I was standing on the carpet that he emerged from underneath.

And I do love to end on a self referential tone –

As all madmen who write tend to do.

“The De-Transmogrification Process (Went Swimmingly)” (Prose/Essay) + Bonus Material

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Silhouette of person standing on ruined building amidst twisted skyscrapers under stormy sky

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

To transmogrify means to transform in an often strange, surprising, scary or grotesque way.

I think when a small town person grows up and goes to the big gnarly city to ‘make it’, they tend to transmogify.

It cannot not happen.

After all, a giant gnarley city is usually strange, surprising scary and grotesque.

Of course I am not saying small towns are heaven.

You get cornered into selling yourself to the big gnarly city.

It’s about Jobs, the need to make enough money…and usually a side of debauchery.

When I was young I was quite miserable.

I didn’t learn how to know how to be happy until perhaps 37.

When the big gnarly city has spit me out like a annoying chicken bone.

This is all not abnormal – that is to be miserable by default & to be spat out like city trash.

Of course a big gnarly city will spit out many a small town kid all grown up.

Again – this is not anything new.

Children have no power and cannot usually choose to escape.

The kid who grows up with high trauma will internalize the misery that surrounds.

Deep into their nervous systems and psyhe’s.

And by default all kids like this -we all soon transmogrify into degrees of ‘broken adults’.

I’ve talked about my trauma before so I will not rehash other than three epitets:

Poor, Neurodivergent, Child of Divorce, my father a magician (i.e. disappeared).

Now I am for many an ‘older man’ – but by now I’ve learnt like others do – to to ‘steal happiness’.

It’s not really happiness per se,

It’s really a rolling feeling of semi-wellbeing,

Because I’ve learnt to curb the most destructive habits:

Being too drunk too often,

Being around too many assholes in big cities & offices and bars.

And I’ve learnt about a few easy cheats:

Eating home cooked meals,

Having creative hobbies that could sprout into something bigger – e.g. writing.

Learning that it’s ok to say no to something.

Getting some regular hard physical labor under your belt.

And also remembering about ’embracing the inner child’.

And post apocalypse – I think the writing & the hard labor may have saved me entirely.

I’m purely speculating here, but you never know –

If I’d never started the hard labor and the writing –

And was spat out into the gutters of the big gnarly city

Perhaps I wouldn’t even be here now.

If your life’s over in a big city – it’s never wise to stay.

You will likely become a zombie of the city.

Yes in my younger, darker, big city days I have known deep despair.

If I had not died and been essentially reborn and exiled at 38 – who knows where I’d be.

But I doubt I would have ever died by my own hand.

Maybe I would have suddenly became just another a big ego driven depressed ‘success story’ in the bright lights –

MAYBE.

But I think I was one of those people that had to be essentially destroyed in order to ‘get better’.

The weird thing about my ‘Big City era, was I was within a couple of steps to some ‘city success’.

But something inside me warned me off opening that door.

It’s just as well as I was taken out before that happened.

For I probably would have been just another semi-wealthy miserable bastard wearing a mask.

Transmogrified by the big gnarly city.

Now after the war has been over for well over a decade,

I get to sit quietly and reflect.

On how good it is to have a soul, quiet times and the occasional smile.

That’s where the wealth’s at my friend.

You know it, I know it, your cat knows it but your big city office crank boss doesn’t.

Of course I don’t want to sugarcoat – I’m probably still a old curmudgeon.

And Big Gnarley cities have their good people and places – yes.

It would be remiss of me to pretend that was not the case.

Today I do love a few cans of beer at night in the country quietness.

As I sit in solitude.

And why not? haven’t I earnt it?

That war is long over and the peace settlements have been signed.

I’m entitled to a beer with my thoughts as the country stars twinkle.

Yes – I have remnants of big gnarly city bastardry – and that’s ok.

A remnant and defeated psychological ghost army can’t do much harm anyway.

I really can recommend blowing up your horrid big city office life for the country air.

Of course if your lucky the city will push the controlled demolition button for you.

And they’ll save you well ahead of ‘natural time’.

And I realise all this as I sit with a beer breathing clear air.

Writing away happily.

Yes loneliness is real but I like to think of it as being ‘functionally lonely’.

I have memories of the War – but it is so long ago,

It’s edges are rounded off and some fuzzyness has emerged .

The Big Gnarley cities are expert propagandists and tricksters.

The old Roman Bread and Circuses till abound.

The Big Gnarly daily wars do allow its footsoldiers to get laid regularly.

Amongst all the other vices.

The Corporate-denizen-slave need something to forget their cubicle-screen-work-dystopias.

And I was no different to everyone.

It’s actually what the psychologists call mass psychosis.

This is why it’s far better to visit the madhouses than live in them.

Anyway this was my tale of how the ‘concrete jungles’ are well named.

For that’s exactly what they are.

I’m merely reminding people of the facts.

I’m a mere reporter just ‘tellin’ it how it is’.

Personally I’m happy I was spat out versus consumed and transmogrified into the abyss.

In writing and in life – you gotta call a spade a spade.

Your best audience will love you for it.

Who doesn’t love a good trauma-based, haphazard-but-believable, de-transmogrification tale?

Bonus Material: There is a related Essay on my sister site – see the link below.

https://martinantonsmith.wordpress.com/2026/07/05/article-are-mega-cities-inherently-bad/

“Today I am feeling Jaded and worried about socialization – or the lack of” (A Blog Post + Bonus Material)

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Elderly man sitting on bench reading book outside bookstore in the evening

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).

BONUS MATERIAL: See the expanded version (more Philosophy based) of this post on my essay based site https://martinantonsmith.wordpress.com/2026/06/27/today-i-am-feeling-jaded-and-worried-about-socialization-or-the-lack-of-an-essay-expanded-version/

“I Was Once ‘Unhappily Labelled’ – But Now I’m Clean-Skinned” (Prose + Bonus Material)

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Whiteboard listing ADHD treatment options and a man looking puzzled in a home office

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

These days I am wondering if I have adhd.

I mean it is ‘all the rage’ these days.

It’s all so tempting to join the conga lines.

But I am in a quandry.

I cannot decide whether I am:

A – Delusional (just an ‘attention seeker’).

B – Partially Correct (I am only a ‘half-pie’ ADHD).

C – Totally Correct (I am full blown ADHD).

D – Not ADHD (but am some type of ‘Neurodiversity’).

E – A Hypercondriac ( aka version of option ‘A’ – Delusional)

And here’s the interesting thing:

I hate the idea of being ‘diagnosed’.

BY SOME FUCKING QUACK (Ok I added this line simply for schoolboy-crass-charm)

You see – I think I can think my way to the best solution.

And I know via reflexivity (thinking about thinking) that this kind thought might just mean that I am.

(PRONE TO BEING NEUROTIC THAT IS).

Oh and I forgot – I also think I may be an ‘Avoidant Attachment’ type.

However it’s not all bad.

You see as I am now old – I know myself to know all these things are a mirage.

A GIANT GREAT BIG FUCKING MIRAGE THAT IRONICALLY YOU CANNOT IGNORE.

I know that even if YES you are all of these things, you still have to make life work for yourself.

For example let’s say I have all of these things and I go see the local factory-issued big-pharma doc (they all are).

They (of course) robotically dish out said Class A drugs in disguise as a fake remedy.

I take them and they are basically just ‘party uppers’ I take to sweep everything under the rug (always are).

P.s. I’ve been down this route between age twenty and thirty-two with Scam-Stress-Pills TM).

Now I’m pushing fifty I know all that to be a giant swindle:

That’s all a game of fakeness to make mules of everyone for cash.

Now with hindsight I know this deduction to be cromulant:

We’ve been around many many thousands of years.

The design has not changed.

The only solutions to make you feel better from the African savannahs to the Melbourne office are:

A. Stop hanging with a-holes that pick on you (you can tribe hop).

B. Get the right mix of exercise & rest (avoid flourescent lighting).

C. Eat better natural foods (Pick a nut-bush when needed).

D. Express your creativity (Draw on a cave-wall-equivalent).

E. Have a change of Environment once in a while (Go visit the next watering hole).

You see what we’ve always had available to us must be the only real solution.,

To any and all chronic feelings of dissatisfaction mental (& most physical) disarray.

And if the seconds set of A – E’s can’t fix all the feelings of anguish in the first set of A-E’s nothing will.

(And you don’t need to go to A & E to know that either!)

And the drug pushers with certificates on their walls of course will call me a ‘witch doctor’.

But who now twenty-five years into the twenty-first century trusts any one them these days anyway?

I’ll go with what has always been & what I’ve seen work for me over the last fifteen years.

How can that be wrong?

Yes when you lack wisdom ‘being miserable can be addictive’ –

But what can I say Joe – ‘that ain’t it babe, that ain’t it’.

For yes – I was once ‘happily labelled’ – but now I’m just a clean skinned beer drinker.

What more could I ask for?

(SO AM I LIVING IN A FUCKING PARADISE ALREADY ???)

BONUS MATERIAL: Let’s see what the WordPress AI Bot thinks of this Prose!

“When two avoidants did collide all those years ago” (Prose)

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Two people in vintage attire reading newspapers in a busy café.

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”.

“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.