Tag: Wellbeing

“The ‘Book-wormed Weirdo?’ ” (Prose)

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Woman reading a book on a rooftop balcony with city skyline at dusk

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

Remember back to when you were at school?

Now I am not a mean man….BUT

At least half the kids were so disruptive & stupid,

That they could barely write their name at the top of the exam, test, or pop quiz.

And of course they sent some good teachers to their ends wits – and/or alcoholism & early retirement.

All those troublesome people left school and went into the workplace.

Contrary to what your mind wants to tell you –

They did not disappear at all.

They went into big faceless companies for ‘cubicle jobs’ just like you did.

It’s not that your were ‘dumb’ to do this – it’s that you have no choice when ‘coming of age’ –

That’s the de-facto law – you can sell out as a wage slave or not and live under a bridge.

And through some weird twist of fate,

About how the world has intellectual degraded,

Or just some giant cosmic inside joke,

They (the troublesome dummies) were far more likely to end up your boss than you theirs.

Ps and to make this clear: I’m all for ‘kindly dummies’ – ’tis the ‘bastardy dummies’ in my crosshairs.

–

You see no one liked a ‘brainiac’ a high school,

And I’m sure it’s not news for you – but they don’t like one after high school either.

You see the world is so backward that they’d rather destroy the day-to-day world,

Than allow someone with brains to be in a stock-standard leadership position,

In a stock standard concrete cubicle-land position,

In some god-forsaken-randomized-grey-cubicle-obsessed-zombified-mega-metropolis –

If you will excuse the flagrant artistic-license-inbued-verbosity.

Why do think it is that nothing ever works these days?

Why do you think terrible customer service is the norm?

Why do you people lose their shit and flip out at the drop of a hat?

It’s far more of a ‘bad gag’ than a ‘mistake-by-chance’.

Somewhere along the line the dumb kids were handed the ‘keys to the city’ and nice shoes,

And you were handed some boot polish while you sat in the dirt and read Kierkegaard.

And when they said ‘Yo egghead – shine my shoes’ – you complied meekly.

And as the years rolled by you grew sick of shining the boots of the dummies,

So you slowly dropped out of society.

After all – you were human – you could only take so much.

Now you sit in rags and read Schopenhauer,

Now you shine your own shoes but they have holes in them.

And as you wearily turn the dead philosophers’ pages you tend to agree wholeheartedly.

Sometimes you deeply reflect on yourself, the pages, and the world you’ve seen so far.

Boot-polish-days over – you allow your mind ‘total creative control’ to wander endlessly.

You wonder whether the story of ‘God vs Satan’ is actually true.

After all – surely all this suffering you’ve had is for a stoically good reason?

Sometimes of course it’s all a bit too much to handle –

We all have our good and bad days.

But luckily Marcus Aurelius is always there on your shelf, desk or floor,

To help you pay your rent,

And finally climb your sad carcass out of bed. .

Sure its midday or even later – but who really cares?

At least you still haven’t done yourself in.

After all you’ve given The Devil more than enough already –

Did you not play – via coercion mind – his stupid games for decades?

You bowed down to the dummies in charge for many a moonrise –

Yet you didn’t even go full-on ‘Postal’ – well apart from that one time anyway.

That long self-denial of your human needs was a minor miracle in itself – a true act of self-sacrifice.

As you think of all these things you don’t flinch.

You merely turn the page as you sit outside in the sun, wind, and then rain.

Christ! – Perhaps in the end you got what you wanted!

‘Degradation trip’ or not , you have survived – have you not?

Sometimes you wish you were one of them dummies and you immediately blush –

Despite there being no one around you – so far as you can tell that is.

You tell yourself things are good.

You’re now ‘happily living on the outskirts of hell’.

(that is away from Metropolis-Cubical-Zone Sector 23-G).

At least that’s what you tell your solitary friend,

Who visits once a month or so – if your lucky.

You’re pretty sure he’s (or she) is real.

Or have you just become another ‘Forty-Plus Frederick Nietzsche’?

(i.e. a formerly top-tier wise but now a shackled ‘madman’?)

And a madman of course never can see that going or have become quite mad.

It all depends whether they write about you one day or not.

But to hazard a guess, statistically you’ll probably be known as a ‘book-wormed weirdo’.

So learn to be happy with that –

As I have become.

The ‘Book-wormed-Weirdo rules ok?

Well he still draws breath anyway.

“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/

“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!

“Of Death Cults, Mid-Life Crises-Awakenings and Walks In The Countryside” (Prose/Satirical Open Letter).

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Stressed CEO in crown and robe sits on throne surrounded by messy office with panicked employees running and papers flying

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

Note: (This post comes complete with a ‘fake editors’ comments i.e. me)

This is the magician trick that’s done on everyone. [Don’t be silly it can’t be everyone! -Ed ]

And this is why at forty most people have nothing behind their eyes. [That’s not very nice is it? – Ed]

It a tragedy, an exercise in skullduggery, an evil game and completely culturally normalized. [Shh don’t tell everyone – Ed]

Of course it starts at school (although in theory the unborn listens to empty platitudes of their office crank-parents in the womb) .

[Bloody schools! – I’m still getting over Mr McKnuckle-Rapp the Mats Teacher! -Ed]

The teachers are invariably ‘middle class upward striving types’, [Yet the used to be Poor! – Ed]

So they fawn over the kids whose parents have money, houses on hills, and job titles.

Obviously this ‘new money’ ‘low brow ‘ tendency gets worse as the schools supposedly get ‘better’ and suburbs become greener and leafier.

[Those poor kids in the private schools – that’s where bullying reaches dizzy heights -Ed]

You see I am convinced all the ‘good jobs’ in the cities that give ‘status’ will all kill you.

It is off course an individual thing in terms of the degree of punishment.

But only the clinically insane can avoid the metaphorical and sometimes literal grim reaper of the dark mega cities. [Isn’t it weird that being ‘clinically insane’ is now a great thing to put on you CV! – Ed]

They’ll either kill you literally (happens sometimes) or figuritively (is the norm).

So if you end up with a salaried job that all your old two-bit teachers fawned over.

Odds are you’re probably gonna end up quickly hating your life & the light will certainly drain from your eyes. [Oh you are being overly dramatic again – but then again you are an aging drama kid! – Ed]

You see the teachers & their kind (‘Professionals’ & I use that term loosely) are too wedded to the idea of ‘The Status Machine’.

‘The Status Machine’ can also be called ‘The Career Machine’ or just ‘The Machine’ they are the same thing.

This beasts natural habitat is naturally the mega-city with its many millions of inhabitants (that become its zombies). [Isn’t it odd how many people their are on Earth these days – no wonder it’s impossible to get a parking space! -Ed]

They (the two bit teacher/copycat professional types) reckon if you do a job that gives you ‘status’ then therefore this must make you happy.

This is absolutely horse shit. [Yet to a Tomato Gardener some ‘Horseshit’ is gold – Go figure! – Ed]

You see let me explain via an analogy. [We do love an analogy! – Ed]

I go by the ‘hobby thesis’ If you like something, then you have to like doing it minute to minute, hour to hour. [And where do you go these days to be assigned a hobby? – Ed]

In ‘The machine’ in the mega-city there are only jobs that have very bad minute to minute physical and mental realities.

The exception of course proves the rule (maybe someone romantically inclined working in a flower kiosk is having a blast). [Wouldn’t it be an interesting job – I’m sure they know which men and which lesbians are having the affairs – Ed]

They (Dark forces?) design it this way – “The Career Machine’s” main task is to confuse you into totally wasting your life.

And when this works thr result is illustrated perfectly by that great line of Bukowski’s: [Oh wait that’s dangerous to mention him! The third wave feminists don’t like him! -Ed]

“People are strange, about something insignificant they care very much about, yet something very big like the fact they are wasting their entire life barely registers in their minds at all (paraphrased)”.

The genius ‘Poet of Gutters’ was completely correct.

Of course everyone knows that a badly paid job in a mega city is usually a terrible mind-numbing thing.

That’s kinda obvias.

But the insanity really kicks in on the ‘seemingly well paid’ job in the mega-cities.

When someone is ‘well paid & has status’ this is just the hook and also the reward of The Machine.

The Hook part is because the people in The Machine never usually admit they hate their lives. [Note to self: Never admit to someone you hate your life – I did it once and got a nasty promotion! – Ed]

So some teacher (two-bit) can say ‘Look at Larry The Lawyer – he’s on 300K, be like him Timmy go to Law school’.

Meanwhile Larry the Lawyer each night gets home and drinks a twelve pack, smokes like a train and cries into his hands all night.

The Reward part (called a salary) is simply the Machine paying the person for giving the output of ‘Wasting their lives’. [OMG – I’ve been wasting my life, but at least I can buy the extra malty ‘Editors Ale’ to numb the pain! – Ed].

You could call it all part of the ‘soul contract’ – don’t you think it’s weird you have to sign your name to get a job?.

You may find it hard to believe that The Machine, aka The Career Macine, aka The Status Machine functions this way.

I’m sorry to burst your large kaleidoscope colored bubble – but it does. [I notice Kaleidoscopes are very pricey these days – Ed]

This is why when you have a Job-slot in ‘The Machine’ they work you into the ground.

The ‘work you into the ground’ part is not a accidental thing.

It IS the point.

Why do you think someone came up with the term ‘being worked into the ground’ in the first place?

This is because a Job in The Machine (in a mega city) is willingly joining up to a ‘Death Cult’. [Oh dear boy, you are once again being overly dramatic – I knew you should have been on a stage instead of holding a pen! – Ed]

This is why these Career Machine jobs happen and thrive the most in cities and more so in big (mega) cities.

Learn this: The Mega Cities are a celebration of The Dead.

The ground is covered in concrete.

Lighting is fake.

You stare like a Zombie at screens all day.

Water comes from taps or water coolers, there is no fresh water lake for miles.

You work in a chicken cubical made from factory produced artificial materials. [Hey hey now I will not have you disparaging the office cubicle – the doctors have made a lot of money out of people getting flus every week ya’know! Ahh Chooo! – Ed]

The social life (getting drunk doing drugs talking to fellow ‘Machine Losers’ in a dingy room) is artificial.

Your so called ‘friends’ all secretly hate you and would ‘knife you’ (dump you) in a second. [Yes that happened to me once – but I was able to buy some new AI friends at bargain basement prices – it was a ein win for all concerned other than the poor AI friend who had to put up with me and never complain – Ed]

If it’s a smaller (non-mega) city, you might be able to bludge a form of neutrality – neither happy or sad.

But you cannot cannot cannot indulge in The Machine AND be happy in the Mega-city.

It’s like saying you can jump in the sea and not get wet and salty.

This is a misnomer of the Teachers, The Professionals The ‘City Dwellers’ that are in a cognitive dissonance daze. [Poor humans – always in a daze these days – their is only one solution – sell them stuff before they get smarter! – Ed]

Victims of brainwashing.

The Machine likes to get people to build their own prisons around them (e.g. mega mortgage, snob-wife-husbands, weirdo kids that can’t throw or fish).

But their is some light that often breaks through:

It is called (propagandized) by The Machine as the famed ‘mid-life crisis’. [Oooh yes I had a bad one of those – I ended up getting married to another mid-life crisis person needless to say we both wished we were twenty years younger – Ed]

But it is in truth an ‘mid life awakening’.

But The Machine must by neccesity invert this into something bad (else the mega city life-stealer would die).

This is because The Machine wants the person to think their ‘spiritual awakening’ is a disease.

They (dark forces?) push the ‘death cult’ solution to the mid life crisis/awakening:

Sports cars, Sleeping with someone twenty years your junior, Cocaine, Marathon running etc (escapism).

This unfortunately usually works all too well for The Machine.

I mean the Mega-City broadcast media – the cultural brainwashing dragnet – helps makes it so.

Yes friends, it takes a special spiritual warrior who chooses to stay in the mid life crisis i.e. awakening. [Good god man! You wan’t to stay in the mid life crisis? That’s some courageous stuff akin to the D Day landings! – Don’t do it! – Ed]

That warrior says F YOU to The Machine, says F YOU to the Mega-City Says F YOU to the City Career Zombies.

And returns to the countryside, where the ‘Life Cult’ still (albeit imperfectly) exists.

Where the fresh water pools in lakes and rivers, where unconcreted ground is walked upon, and where green abounds.

Where the people are ‘backward’ (mostly in a good way) and helpful and will give you the benefit of the doubt.

In these Life Cults you can actually be ‘poor and happy’ (the term here is not a scammy call to action).

So what do you Lawyers, Doctors, Executives, General Managers, Office Consultants, Town-Planners think?

Am I right?

Will you be happier if you leave the Death Cult in the Mega City and move to the Life Cults in the countryside? [Wait do joining ‘life cults’ mean you need to act like a old hippy all over again?]

Think about it – even the very ‘death culty’ Adolf Hitler had his Berghof hideaway in the Bavarian Alps. [I can’t believe you put his name to print! The Germans won’t like that at all! – Ed]

If he’d stayed in Linz and worked as a farm hand, then a carpenters laborer, The War (& Gas Chambers) would have never happened.

Hitler is a very good worse case scenario – this is what happens if you join the Death Cults, The Machine, The Career Machines.

So I say to all you salaried ‘cog-diss’ Zombies in the mega cities – stop being like Hitler ya’ here!

Quit the mega-city-death-cults, embrace the mid-life crisis and move to the countryside!

Get any job.

Watch the light in your eyes return. [Yes I’m feeling my eyes brighten up after reading all this positivity – Ed]

Your wrinkles abate.

Your smile widen.

Kind new friends will in time appear. [I need some new friends – why else would I be here doing this dross for a blog no one reads? Ier I mean ‘keep up the good work Anton! (if that is your real name) – Ed]

Or if you really want to just stay dead, and keep getting paid poorly to human sacrifice yourself.

The choice is yours my mega-city friends.

Oh and I should say that it (quit thuh mega city death cult & move to the city) has worked for me – I’m as happy as I can be.

P.s. Of course this ‘move to the country’ kick is nothing new. The 19th Century’s Thoureau (He wrote ‘Walden’ 1854) did it and built his cabin in Walden Pond, ‘lived deliberately’ and sucked the marrow out of life. [You bloody name dropper – I bey you haven’t read his book and just asked for a 300 word summary of it from Grok! Lazy Bastard! – Ed]

(P.s.s This is the part where I could say ‘now buy my book for only $39.99’ but I won’t do that – my book isn’t published yet and the (rough?) drafts are freely readable on this site).

P.s.s.s This is beside the point and self indulgent BUT – I wonder if ‘History’ will see me as a ‘crank’ or not. I guess if the mega cities continue to win the culture wars, I guess I’ll be ‘completely erased’ in true ‘burn the books fascist fashion’. Better to be a crank than erased I guess. But who knows, maybe I will reach the dizzy heights of ‘cult kiwi complainer slash barely known backwater philosopher’. NB: I guess if they do burn all the books the bragging rights are about which one they burn first – the ‘oldest ashes’ if you will.

[Yes that was self indulgent – as I have the last word here I must tell you this is the worst thing you’ve ever posted here – just as well I am here to be your Editor in chief @ keep you in line. Now get me a cup of Tea will you? this has been exhausting! – Ed]

“Oh Glee Oh Rapture – A Chance To Escape Jail?” (A Poem)

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

I’m thinking of writing a “horror movie”.

It’s called “attack of the Neurotypicals”. 

The plot looks exactly like any random day on Earth. 

In this movie billions of people die horribly,

But only on the inside.

The Earth people were too foolish to know that slavery never ended.

The slave bosses simply got them to think of what was produced,

Versus what they sacrificed – the best years of their lives in bonded servitude.

It was found Earth people were suckers who believe anything,

Get used to anything.

So it happenned.

Now they pop anti depressants just to get through another city day.

They willfully stop themselves being creative/unique –

Muffling the voice of their now invisible inner child.

Taught to care about what their slavish friends will think,

They made themselves smaller to fit in.

BUT all their friends for the most part secretly hated them anyway.

Especially if they saw you could rise like an eagle & quit undeclared eternal nine-five slavery.

Yes this ‘based on a true story’ movie I have planned is a real horror show indeed.

So go see “attack of the neurotypicals”  – coming soon to a theartre near you.  

But then again, why spend your hard earnt SlavedollarTM & waste your time –

All you need to do is open your tired slit-eyes and look around the office or city streets.

See it and don’t do it my friend!

Find the tiny crack in the pavement,

Find the eddie in the river leading to a undistubed backwater.

Find a way to sneak back into your natural habitat.

If you force yourself – it can even be done after work or in the weekends.

Oh Glee!

Oh Rapture!

A chance to escape jail?

What more motivation do you need?

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.

“The Crowd” (A Poem)

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

You should not want to fit in with the crowd.

Do you not know about ‘the madness of crowds’?

Why would you willingly choose insanity?

Not all individuals are sane,

I will agree with you on that measure –

But

At least we know that a true Individual,

At least has a shot at trying to be sane,

And a shot at actually becoming sane.

A Crowd or a mind infected by The Crowd

Is not afforded that that luxury whatsoever.

Of course I know my words will not be followed.

No one reads anymore,

Let alone wisdom-orientated poetry,

Residing in the backwaters of the Web.

Or perhaps that is The Funk speaking.

Perhaps I am sliding into artistic melancholy –

For surely all Poets who talk of people have it as a bedfellow.

And now to segway from surely’s to Perhaps’s.

Perhaps those not in The Mob aka The Crowd have never truly entered it.

The worst Crowds perhaps very much have ‘black hole characteristics’:

Once you enter its ghoulish grasp – perhaps you cannot ever hope escape.

At least not alive that is – be it physically or spiritually or both.

Perhaps do not be a fool to think otherwise.

And so this quasi-sermon of dire warning almost ends.

But I will end on a positive note:

There are reports of Individuals escaping said ‘black holes’ –

Like a basketball they scooted cyclically around The Crowds ‘event horizon’,

And thanks to the Universal Principle of Uncertainty –

Where saved from falling into the irreverable abyss.

Thanks to a quirk written into the very fabric of the cosmos,

They were spat out as Individuals,

Zipping merrily through the cosmos with permanent ear to ear smiles,

Exclaiming all the while:

“Phew – that was close”.

(or Perhaps they said “zounds that was close but ultimately inevitable”)

“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.

“Life as a Series of Lies & People to Avoid” (An Essay)

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I was reading Bob Dylan’s autobiography “Chronicles Vol. 1” & a part sparked me to think of how the world normalises falseness. He roughly said that the world often asks us to live out what is essentially ‘a lie’. Here are my thoughts that sprouted from that literary spark. They flowed very quickly, I might add – so I assume they must have been percolating quietly for a while prior to writing (or should I say ‘keyboard placking’?).

I felt very old at the beginning of my life & this didn’t faze itself out until age 27. When I was young, I felt like an old man amongst babies. I just never felt “in the right place” through childhood. From about 30 I almost suddenly felt more and more child-like. Attempts to negate this failed miserably – If I tried to be “mature” I found life wouldn’t allow it. I could do well at work & be ignored for promotion. If I sounded rational in conversation, I was hated for it. If I acted “mature” to women they became uninterested romantically.

Then as I became over 37 no matter what I did, I could not curry favour with any “normal” person. I had grown tired of the “lose-lose” realities of being or trying to be just like everyone else. By age 40 I had realized the ‘not fitting in’ problem was in fact most likely to just be life itself as a human being in modern times.

I realized at this point in Homo Sapien’s low level of spiritual awareness, the point is to systemically not allow for any individual to feel comfortable. Under our terrible system of existing – you are supposed to feel uncomfortable. The world has an invisible arm guiding you to live life as some kind of ‘living lie’. You pretend that you are on top of your life – both its emotional & practical hemispheres – and you trot this line out in social gatherings.

The truth that this whole thing (from my Westerner viewpoint at least) is a system to create a total farce is a sacrilegious thing you can’t say 99% of the population. The ‘World’ has its Game, it forces you to be born into it, it hides the rules from you – & your happiness means it loses the ‘Game’.

I found the key to survival is to be happy to be an outsider. You have to see the people who are propping up this wilful insane asylum as some kind of spectres to be avoided in confidant yet non-violent fashion. This for me has thus allowed a mostly solitary a world of personal interests, books music art and when I’m really lucky – honest insightful interesting conversations with those who are my spiritual kin.

The ‘World’ doesn’t like such behaviour & cannot handle itself being rejected. The ‘World’ will send its evil angels to hold you to task & to renounce your hermit like refusal to engage & embrace its false premises. The more and more you find solace and success in rejecting the “World” the more spiteful its ‘evil angels’ are.

I guess at that point we are supposed to follow Christs maxim – ‘resist not evil’, ‘turn the other cheek’ etc, but I must admit to thinking I can cut these demons off entirely. This is probably because I still have much to learn about the World & it’s dark ways.

I have learnt at least one thing for sure from my life: Survival, Decency, Health & Sanity is the highest ‘Success’ you can have – & you have to follow the path less taken to achieve it. I am also pretty sure you wife/husband/friends won’t ever do this for you – more likely they will be the fog covering the winding ice laden road to the town your supposed to live in.

I think you have to get used to your own company & deeper thoughts to reach a breakthrough in how to deal with ‘the world’. If you can’t ever get 1 minute away from the hordes of unwitting & witting demons that constantly surround us – you’ll never find the salvation your spirit needs.

The trick is to not listen to that voice in your head that chastises you for being unsociable, an outsider, a loser, a snob, annoying or just plain ‘bad’ for disobeying the ‘Worlds’ crazy, stress filled, unfulfillable-by design diktats.

You have to keep believing your contrariness is definitely the right track – I think a sign of this is your former materialist ways & bank balance worries shrink out of the range of your mental radar.

In closing, even the best ‘world avoider’ must admit to my following lines I will describe as realpolitik poetic truism. – that is simply a paraphrase of Bob Dylan’s famous “you can please some of the people, some of the time…” lyrical quip:

You can avoid some of the people some of the time – you can avoid all of the people some of the time – but you can’t avoid all of the people all of the time.

– Essay by Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com