Tag: writing

An Update From Me ( A Blog Post)

Posted in UncategorizedTagged , , , , , Leave a comment

By Anton martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites or martinantonsmith@gmail.com

So what’s been happening?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anton Martin Smith aka Martin Anton Smith

31 May 2026

“Don’t Be An Alco If You Can Help It – A Tribute To Buk” (A Prose Poem)

Posted in UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

Perhaps no writer has told of the ave joes plight in the nine-to-five drudge.

Than the great Bukowski.

Yes he was a sleaze.

But let’s be honest at least half of urban-nine-to-five slave-women like sleazes.

They can use them & throw them away.

They are convienient.

They are fun during bar night ovulations.

The other half are at least intrigued by a wild animal type like Bukowski.

I mean the cliché is that all women like a ‘bad boy’.

Clichés have to at least be half true – don’t they?

Of course they are.

Although he did say he ‘let women push him around’, & that’s why they liked him a lot.

But I think he was at least a hybrid of both a ‘pushover & a bad boy’.

Perhaps it was the hybrid nature that intrigued his many boozy women that he talked of in ‘Women’.

But then again most of Buk’s women were fellow ‘bottom of the barrel types’.

They were alcoholics, party animals etc.

Though later in life Buk said he couldn’t be bothered with bars no more –

He just wanted to sit in a quiet room.

Even an dive-bar-livin’-alco like Buk can’t party much past fifty.

There’s the famous video where he gets pissed at Linda his wife because she keeps partying big.

In the infamous video she is unrepentant & says “I’ll keep going out & I’ll see who ever I want”.

This makes Buk ‘see red’ – he threatens to ‘Get his Jewish lawyers to kick her out’.

She is again unrepentant to his discomfort & his view of ‘how it should be’.

He loses it, his ager boils over & as the are both at opposite ends of the couch,

He starts kicking her like a child would – it looks bad on camera but there’s no force behind the kicks.

He ruined his poise & argument there.

It was a good argument to not be an alcoholic if you can help it at all.

But if you are and you can’t, it also helps to be an entertainer, artist or writer –

They kinda issue you a ‘free pass to misbehave’.

Rest in peace Buk – may you be soaking in a giant vat of Budweiser in the clouds.

For the record I was a binge drinker for fifteen years, but not an alcoholic.

These days I just sit in a quiet room, drink two beers a night & write.

Like Bukowski my wild party days are long gone.

All I have left are a few wild memories.

And sometimes I really miss those various Bukowski Boozy Babes I had too.

Time really does turn deadly sharp edges into fuzzy warm curves.

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

Posted in UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

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

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

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

But let me explain the ‘pinned down’ thing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh I’ve decided to rebalance my portfolio”

“Oh really – that’s wise”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why would anyone want to live like that?

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

They have ‘human sacrificed’ themselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And our rooms are book laden dusty debacle obstacle courses.

Other than that life’s Rosy for us.

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

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

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

It is a terrible conjecture indeed.

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

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

Dragon slayed my friends – Dragon slayed!

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

We have not yet became that which we fight against.

But this is not the end of our problems:

For what of the next conjecture:

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

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

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

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

Some of us can be assholes all of the time,

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

This is called the Dylan-asshole-theory.

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

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

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

I reader pals, would never do that.

Though I am also sometimes a unscrupulous liar.

I regard this as an inalienable right my artistic license,

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

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

For more than enough intellectual chaos has been metered out,

And ‘world befuddlement stocks’ have been greatly enriched.

My work is done here.

“The Journey Of The Master’s Apprentice – Part 4 – Take the Fork in The Road & You can’t not be a Soldier”:

Posted in UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

by Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

….Back to the analogy of the Apprentice-to-Master journey from the abysmal beginning to the Masterful mountaintops: Remember you’ve now come a long way, relaxed to much & have seemingly tumbled back to your starting point.

It was a dramatic event. Before you knew what was really happening you have stopped falling & are no longer tumbling downhill. Now you are still at the bottom – where you began the journey long ago. You notice it ‘looks and feels like’ the psychological state many have called ‘rock bottom’. It feels that way.

But now you have dusted yourself off, checked you’re bruises and broken bones over you can now see you seem to indeed be back to the ‘randomized cultural abyss’ where you started your journey between ten and twenty five years ago. You at this stage of your development (Not yet a Master) trust your immediate surroundings far to much – or should I say the ‘meaning imbued’ into your surroundings.

This natural for most for remember – you are not a Master (of Life) yet, you are an probably an experienced Apprentice – perhaps you are even a mature Journeyman. A Journeyman to a Master is of course a seen as a more primitive state than the Apprentice who can become a Master (of Life).

For the Journeyman lacks the constitution (tools) to ever become a Master (But of course we need them still & a Master knows this intuitively. But let’s say for simplicity you are not so ‘bad lucked’ to be a forever Journeyman – let’s say you can become a Master (of Life).

Again let’s go back to where you found yourself at rest after falling back from your journey to the fabled path where you spotted the peaceful, Masterful mountaintops in the reachable distance. The truth is when you woke up from the tumbling down, you were now no longer the exact same Apprentice you were immediately before the fall. Your history precludes that possibility. It must do as the inputs are much different, so must the output. You are not the same person, you are not the same Apprentice. The Master looking from the future knows this. But a forever Apprentice or a forever Journeyman will not know this at all – for his mind is not at t ha level of being able to see through surface appearances.

But this situation is where Life throws up a ‘fork in the road moment’. It is by nature a psychological fork as much as a physical one. It’s of belief. It is akin to the ‘what you Think becomes you’re Actions and what becomes your Actions becomes your Reality thesis (that saying is True – but of course Life Coaches/Internet guru’s have twisted/murdered all these good old type fables). The (psychological) fork in the road goes like this: From that point after the fall, you can either ‘roll over & die’ (do nothing at all) or ‘load yourself back into the stock barrel to be fired back into battles-scape (of Life)’ and possibly towards being a future Master (of Life).

If again later in the journey you chose the wrong path in the road (i.e. you agree to stay an Apprentice or at best a Journeyman) you also choose a path of not being to ever become the Master. If you choose the ‘path of the Master’ you are on the ‘right fork of the road’, I.e. the path to possibly become a Master (of Life).

Of course it’s worth mentioning that Yogi Berra (the famed American baseball coach) also said wisely “if you see a fork in the road ahead – take it”. So in truth you can take the right fork (towards being a Master) the left fork (An Apprentice or Journeyman) or (as Yogi Berra warned of, & p.s. to the non-American’s – Yogi Berra is his real name & he is not the ‘Jellystone Park’ Cartoon Bear that steals pic-a-nic baskets) you can sit the grass next to the fork in the road or back at where you fell back too (falsely) avoiding the stress of making a decision.

But let’s assume your smart enough to “take the fork in the road” as Berra said. What is the difference between the two situations he talks of – ‘the barreling towards the forks in the road of life or the ‘roll over & die’ situation where you avoid life entirely?

The one that ‘loads themselves into a the barrel again’ and then also chooses the Masters path at the key ‘fork in the road’ has proven they are future Master material’ – for they intuitively know not to trust their kneejerk feelings after waking up from the fall backwards to what looks very much like that old randomized abyss of the beginning of life’s adult journey (perhaps) ten to twenty five years ago.

The future Master chooses not to take the ‘beaten down, in-the-moment, go-to advice’ – that is of choosing the options that stop

You from becoming a ‘Master’. The future Master has (psychologically) a healthy ‘dissociation’ between themselves and their minds ‘chatter’ (bad superficial advice).

I hate to admit it, but life seems to be indeed akin to a War (and I would contend is at least as much ‘attritional’ as vs a series of ‘shock & awe’ battles). Sun Tzu (The Art of War) had many fine points on the matter in fact. In wandering the wrong forked path after a blow to the mind and spirits, anyone can easily forget life’s ‘War-like-ness’ – & I think even a future Master (of Life) can even still fall prey to ‘aimless wandering’ – but perhaps I am being to optimistic, but that’s also not a bad strategy in itself, so long as it’s based on (Enlightenment like) philosophical reasoning vs blind reasoning. I’d like to think that twenty years in a psychological rest area is not also a metaphorical black hole of mediocrity (as eighty years as an Apprentice would certainly be).

The War of life is about embracing the rough & tumble, showing your battle-scars with pride. Then you are reminding yourself that you are at (some various kind of) War – with at least large attritional aspects. While a soldier in the ‘War of Life’ (hopefully to be a Master) you then must agree (as a soldier does by definition) to ward off the often ‘beaten down part of your mind. After all – a soldier worth their salt doesn’t like a ‘chatterer in the ranks’, especially while under enemy fire (to act like this would be seen as Treasonous or at least Court-Martial-able).

Isn’t it sad we don’t always hear of ‘Life’s battle cries’ hidden amongst the rest areas of the mountain’s foothills, and in the ‘randomized abysses’ we all came from, and in particular after a ‘heavy fall’. But then again if everyone was a ‘Master’, then it would also be true that no one would be – for ‘without shade their is no light’. Whatever the Truth is, Shakespeare was onto something, for life as it is and has been lived here prima facie on Earth, is surely some kind of weird alchemy of both tragedy, comedy and history – and we all need to create genuine meaning out of it all, much to the chagrin of the future-present-past slings & arrows that abound.

THE END

This writing is owned by Martin Smith Creations Ltd (NZ). For Commercial use contact Martin A.Smith at martinantonsmith@gmail.com. For non-profit Educational use, please share freely.

“Heartbreak I Miss You” (A Prose Poem)

Posted in UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , Leave a comment

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

I have never wrote of heartbreak in any of my poems.

There will be a day when that comes – in fact now is as good as any.

I am probably a coward for not doing so earlier.

Their are many heartbreaks in life – but these are the three big ones:

Heartbreak of the Romantic kind – for the one you were ‘supposed to be with’ but it ‘seemingly cannot ever be’.

This type will not fade as the years and decades pass.

Next is Heartbreak of the Non-Romantic kind – perhaps the most common is the ‘disappearing/invisible parent’ of the seven to seventeen-year-old.

It might be a divorce thing, or they may be there but not present, or deeply betrayed the child.

This kind of Heartbreak I also believe does not really fade.

Next – the third type, another Non-Romantic Heartbreak is (as Jung famously mentioned) is that of the ‘unlived life’

Or more specifically it is:

‘The dispair of the Adult who realizes that their life is now proven (without a doubt via the ‘condemnation of the years’ effect) to be an an unlived, unfulfilled, un-potentiated one.

Jung mentioned that when a parent suffers from this, they take it out on the child –

‘It is the child that suffers most for the unlived life of the parent’.

But of course, this adult sufferer will also take it out on themselves in their inner minds – a personalized hellish torment.

The interesting thing is someone can suffer for not just three of these Prime Heartbreaks – but four if they had the additional wrath of an ‘unlived parent’ experience as a child.

And now I wonder if that ‘sufferer of four concurrent Prime heartbreaks’ is me.

And I wonder if that is also true for the other side of the Romantic Heartbreak – her.

Perhaps we had six Prime Heartbreaks between us both, and when we split together we created seventh & eighth.

And I wonder if that is why we resonated in a cosmic energetic unity for that short ‘lit-fuse year’ we were together.

All Theory aside, how does one keep ones aging chin up under these circumstances?

And of course I know their is no answer to this question –

There is only a half-answer:

Only the traditional only-half-working-one,

To remain stoic in the face of you forever falling down the ‘black chasm abyss’ for eternity.

i.e. The same one they used in WW1 – when you saw your best hometown mates head blown off by howitzer fire from one foot away.

And I think if one were to suffer all four Prime Heartbreaks, that would certainly qualify you for the analogy.

Yes Stoicism can’t actually truly save you if you suffer from three or four Prime ‘life-concurrent’ Heartbreaks.

Unfortunately – as the saying goes – ‘you’re on your own’.

And in closing I will separate out just one of my Prime Heartbreak’s,

The one who signifies seemingly forever romantic lost love.

She is surely the most important one of the different types – it feels that way.

She is after all why I wrote this poem right now, after so many years in mourning.

This is the one where my brain settles on only three bare words:

I. Miss. Her.

Or another song title way to put it would be:

“Heartbreak I Miss You”

‘The Brain’ must know that that’s all that really matters.

The-Professor-in-my-minds-eye says:

‘Heartbreak 101: Torment can make for good art and writing’ – by the way this is a compulsory paper’

“A Catch Up with Pete The Wanderer” (A Poem/Prose)

Posted in UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , Leave a comment

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

And so I walk down the town.

It is Friday @ I’ve taking half the day off.

I have allowed it, as I have finished a block of work on the studio ‘reno’.

As I walk past the cafe – who do I see?

It’s Pete the 50 plus dreadlocked wanderer/rough sleeper who hides it quite well.

Pete has nice hardy shoes & outdoorsy clothes that almost gives a middle class trampers appearance.

That’s no accident – Pete ain’t stupid – I can attest.

We have met a few times before by the ‘bridge rest area’, where he stops over a lot.

He stays for one night – as else the ‘freedom police’ stormtroopers mobilize.

In the past I’ve shared a few beers with him, & talked of the rigged world the satanic shadow elite have created,

And how the term ‘conspiracy theorist’ was coined to malign the pesky people who dare hold democracy to account.

And we talk of how NZ has ‘completely lost its way’.

I sit & have a coffee with him – it’s great to see him – for he is confirmed as being alive.

He’s embattled, downtrodden but the glimmer of hope and knowledge still resides in his eyes.

I haven’t seen him in perhaps six months.

He tells me he’s been walking the Te-Araroa trail, & he recently went to his rich mothers 80th in Queenstown.

Having a haircut to get to I have to cut the catch up short.

Haircut done I’m walking the streets again – I then see Pete walking with a six pack he has acquired.

I agree to quit the day for work at 2pm, buy a six pack for myself & we toddle down to the bridge rest area.

We again talk of the of the rigged world the cabal shadow elite have created,

And how NZ has completely lost its way.

The convo is peppered with latest news items confirmations of this – The Epstein files, Mass emigration to Australia etc.

Pete is a good conversationalist, but mostly broadcasts – you can’t tell him much on something you don’t already 100% agree on.

The time flies & I finish 3 of my six cans to his 6 plus two ‘big bots’ of Aussie made Coopers Red.

I’ve already given him one of mine an hour ago, on saying goodbye I give him another one, which leaves one for my pocket.

I walk back home via the main street of the town way having some Chinese food before home.

I tell my Chinese friend who is a server there what I’ve been up to with Pete – she warns me about doing that kind of thing –

That is – ‘hangin’ with vagrants’

I tell her that if no one is friendly to the most downtrodden, at least once in a while – we’re sowing more seeds of destruction.

I think she half-understood.

I am glad he’s still alive & kicking.

After he wakes from his “illegal” night by the bridge in his tent, he’s hitching to Dunedin then Marlborough.

I guess I’ll see him again soon & good luck to him in the interim.

There are more & more Pete’s in NZ these days which is sad on one level (rough sleeping) and good on another –

‘How Pete gets treat’, tells us where we are at, & what we have become as a nation.

The week before the news said they’ve given more powers to police to move rough sleepers on.

As usual they didn’t mention where they would move them on to – because clearly they don’t give a shit.

For we are ruled by vapid new money ghouls: If they person isn’t their snobby dinner parties they can die.

I guess this is why we celebrate ‘Guy Fawkes’ – for with coldness like this coming from the top ranks –

Who wouldn’t want to ‘blow up Parliament’?

See ya next time Pete.

The Journey Of The Master’s Apprentice : Personalized Abysses & The Start of the Journey – Part 3 The Pain of Resting Too Long” (A Serialized Essay)

Posted in UncategorizedTagged , , , , , Leave a comment

by Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

The Journey Of The Master’s Apprentice : Personalized Abysses & The Start of the Journey – Part 3 The Pain of Resting Too Long” (A Serialized Essay)

……continued from https://antonmartinsmith.com/2026/02/26/the-journey-of-the-masters-apprentice-part-2-personalized-abysses-the-start-of-the-journey/

A ‘eventually Bad’ thing can take the same look. When ‘beating your own path’ to find meaning – It’s annoying that it is not always obvious that your doing either the right or wrong thing. I was listening a a 50 year old writer who wrote for 29 years with no success, & then finally at age 50 it ‘suddenly all fell together’. He said that during that 29 years every ‘normal person’ thought he was an idiot for wasting his time. He won because he knew he was good & had a thing called ‘faith’. I think the Apprentice – to Master process is like this. A budding ‘Master’ of (something original) will probably usually be known as a failure to most around them.

For people on this journey (hopefully if of meaning, originality, Mastership) – perhaps after a decade or two of adulthood (if you are lucky or not forever willfully blind) you see that the trail has changed & looks less ‘abyss-ie’.

A quick surveillance as you look around shows that you have now arrived at a new location – the foothills of a hazed but surely very real, and at the least ‘partly beautiful’ towering distant mountain peak.

As you realized the improved conditions, you recognize you have ‘come a long way now’. But then you being an Apprentice (of Life) instead of a Master, you chose to celebrate and you tell yourself to take rest.

That’s what feels right. But there were risks in that decision. On this ‘celebrated rest’ you relaxed too much thinking you were enjoying yourself – that which is happening is of course the ‘Masters test’. For you don’t know it, but you’ve done something wrong by resting (too long) & psychologically celebrating too much.

The future Master-self (if you become one) who is looking on from the future, knows this is where you let your guard down (against Life’s tripwires).

The (future self) Master is watching you (as him/herself in the past) as a greenhorn Apprentice (of Life) making schoolboy/schoolgirl errors.

The future-self-Master see what the present ‘more foolish you’ has done – in choosing to ‘rest too long’ Apprentice-you has allowed a random unvetted element to sit beside you while you were resting.

While you patted yourself on the back about ‘how Far you’ve come’, some strange force came to distract you, perhaps it was a person pf a ‘collective of people’ that appeared in human form (common), but perhaps not (perhaps the destructive force was simply an obsession with electric guitars or a psychological addiction to cynicism etc.).

Because you as the Apprentice (of Life) only within the ‘adult game’ for perhaps ten to twenty five years, you have so much to learn yet to become literally ‘Masterful’.

In taking to rest & the distraction that was ‘served up’ while you were relaxing in the ‘rest area’, you lost sight of the main goal. You lost sight of the hazed covered mountaintops & the less beaten path that leads towards its peak.

So, of course in these conditions you are as the famed Roman border-guard-soldier who has over successive generations became en weakened to be casual about taking off his uncomfortable helmet while on guard/lookout duty. He is like most the other Roman guards of The Decline – he thinks to himself ‘it’s been quiet on the ‘hun invasion front’ I can relax a little”. He trusts the bad chatter in his mind, instead of being like Marcus Aurelius the stoic Roman Emperor who would dismiss the minds weak defeatist chatter with ease. That kind of creeping malaise they say is what really made the Roman Empire fall.

Thinking like that can make disaster easily strike just like an asp might strike someone ambling dreamily through the long grass on the savannah. The disaster bites, you are snapped out of you’re seemingly-always-getting-a-little-better-journey. Suddenly you’re rolling back downhill fast, tumbling, sweating, having no rest, losing parts of yourself piece by piece. That’s what they call in the vernacular a ‘rude awakening’.

Back to the Apprentice to Master journey from the abysmal beginning to the Masterful……

“The Journey Of The Master’s Apprentice Part 2: Personalized Abysses & The Start of the Journey” (A Serialized Essay)

Posted in UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

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.

I went to Dunedin for a three day break (Blog Post)

Posted in UncategorizedTagged , Leave a comment

So I decided I had to force myself to have three days off. Being a self employed guy it’s hard to have long holidays. You need a lot of cash to have long comfortable holidays these days. the dark forces in charge decided a couple of decades ago that it was bad to let the middle class/ working classes have comfortable holidays – so they ramped up prices.

So I went up & crashed as best I could in one of the few affordable places left that wasn’t a dorm room. The weather was great in Dunedin & all my precious little time was spent at the St Clair beach, it is an amazing beach & craps all over the last beach I lived near – in St Kilda Australia. the Dunedin St Clair Beach is long, has beautiful sand, the surf is amazing, the air crisp & clear. Perhaps it should be called “St Clear” lol.

Outside that I went to the second hand bookshop – “Hard To Find Books” on Dowling St. I was in a budget but got a couple gems including Don DeLillo’s “Underworld” (David Foster Wallace loved DeLillo, so I thought I’d ask if they had any books of DeLillo’s). I’ve been buying up a tonne of books lately – I must have 30 in the magazine now.

Back to the trip – I also went for a night out in the ‘Octagon’ – this area is the center of Dunedin city – the street is set out in an octagonal design. Was great to catch up with the boys at my fave semi-dive bar ‘the Dunedin Social Club”. Was quieter than usual as the students are not back from summer break yet. More than a few $6 pints were had. Great to catch up with “English Joe” the bartender & his sidekick “Alex the Kid”. We caught up on things & I am glad they fended of a savage attack from a marauding drunk Maori fella out for revenge on western society LOL – perhaps he thought it was Waikato 1865 not Dunedin 2026?.

So now I’m back to small town C.Otago existence. That’s ok, I got a good reset & feel my vibe has lifted 20%.

May as well post a pick from the trip – it’s on the roof of the cheap-ish room I managed to wangle. PS I am not sure if I look Moses-like or Dictator-like)

Commentary on recent work

I have much work to do – namely editing/proof reading my Novel (Trafficlight Dystopia). I recommend you read my latest Long Short Story/Novella called “Full Circle Indeed” – it’s 14K words long so I guess that you can read it about one point five to two hours – it addresses the effect of bullies/being bullied in Highschool. Here is the link

“Full Circle Indeed” ( A Novella)

Another fun Poem/prose I did was one about how the younger generation are troubled due to being born into mad times. I feel sorry for them, the under 40 have been particularly screwed over (it’s financially so hard now to be a ‘deadbeat loser’ is quite an achievement). Read it to see what I think.

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

I wrote an essay split into two parts (with cross ref links to each other) about being old middle aged lonely & isolated in good ol’ NZ. I muse about why NZ is the way it is. I wonder if it’s due to how it was ‘peopled’ in that first 70 years from 1830 odd? I also add my own life matters – perhaps it’s not NZ it’s just me – perhaps my worries are just because I was a ‘child of divorce’ as Adam West lamented about on those old 60s Batman episodes (“That crook was only like that because he was from a ‘broken home”).

https://antonmartinsmith.com/2026/01/19/soulful-self-expression-or-the-existential-ramblings-of-a-lonely-kiwi-man-part-2-a-blog-post/

I also wrote a little one on the subject of “Birth Order” – from the perspective of the ‘lastborns’ (maligned, creative) who is tired of the stuffy, power hungry ‘firstborns’ crap. p.s. I’m sure that Nazi prison guards & the top rank were also mostly firstborns.

https://antonmartinsmith.com/2026/01/30/a-last-borns-lament/

Anyway this blog post must end! The year has started well enough, & though not a resolution, my goal is to be a little happier & harder working. Misery is quite good for writing, but it’s best to have some silver linings as well for ‘life insurance’ reasons.

Happy reading & writing!

Anton Martin Smith

On the Roof on a undisclosed High Street location in Dunedin NZ

“Nuthouse Candidate” (Comedic Prose)

Posted in UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

By Anton Martin Smith Antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

When I walk around town and see the people, I like to play a simple game – I ask myself: “If it was still 1950 – who would be locked up in a nuthouse? From there on is is a fairly simple taxonomy & observation exercise:

Lady at second hand book sale slams books down on the counter like they are sledgehammers –nuthouse candidate.

Lady who when talking to young German tourists can’t get over how far from home they are – nuthouse candidate.

Alcoholic old staff lady who frantically called the cops on a handsome middle aged male customer for making over-the-top jokes with the young female staff – nuthouse candidate.

Homely middle aged lady & checkout chick saying at high ‘customer audible’ volumes to similar staff lady next to her that she “hasn’t had sex in so long that it’s almost grown over” – nuthouse candidate.

You might notice a pattern emerging from this: a lot of middle-aged females. Well this is an understandable but technically false assumption: I would have written down the ‘nuthouse candidates’ who were ‘male’, however as they are all business owners of stores that I regularly frequent (Bookstores, Takeaway Joints, Bars, Pool houses, Cafes), and I am worried they will swiftly ban me on account of if write of them, and they duly recognize themselves in the text.

This is why I will not ever mention a guy like “Joeblo” the vertically challenged snot-nosed barmen who breeds Guinea Pigs and whose nickname is “Richard Gere don’t do that”.

Moreover they also get a free pass from being ‘nuthouse candidates’ as they are economically too important, are often very stupendously witty, & I on too many occasions often agree totally with them.

The moral of the story? Don’t let a flawed research methodology get in the way of having really fun a day out around town.

And always remember to love the crazies because of the ‘it takes one to know one ‘thesis’, and also the other so-true thesis of “there’s nothing worse than being boring”.

And as a postscript – whatever you do, don’t ever listen to the thesis of “If you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all”, after all your grandmother was a statistically probably a bitch, and following that thesis would rule out the entire arts & literature game entirely – clearly this is bad-bad-bad.