"I Get a Little Lonely When The Sun Gets Low..."

"...And I end up looking for somewhere to go
Yes, I should know better but I can't say no
Oh no, no, no
No, no, no, no, no, no, no..."

 

 ...(From Night Owl by Gerry Rafferty)

          (full lyrics below)

 

Though, to be fair, nowadays I don't really "get a little lonely when the sun gets low", and instead of "looking for somewhere to go", I generally end up looking for a video game to play or a dvd to watch. BUT, once upon a time, much like Gerry Rafferty, I had periods of nighttime melancholy, where I would be "lost in dreams in a world full of shadows", and would sometimes soothe this distortion with "one more drink, you're sailing away".

 

Thankfully, I've never been a heavy drinker; I don't like the feeling of being obliterated (mostly) and I hate hangovers and I wouldn't want to trip over my feet and fall on my face (mostly). So I've stayed away from the demon drink (mostly). But if I'd found (or find, in the future) the lure of the bottle too lurey, I think I could listen to Night Owl for some solace, with its calming melody and gentle melancholy, set against its harsh truth, maybe repeated listenings would be a way to ease myself away from going down, down, down (no, no, no...).

Full Lyrics:

Night comes down and finds you alone
In a space and time of your own
Lost in dreams in a world full of shadows

Down the street the neon light shines
Offering refuge and hope to the blind
You stumble in with no thought of tomorrow

Yes, I get a little lonely when the sun gets low
And I end up looking for somewhere to go
Yes, I should know better but I can't say no
Oh no, no, no
No, no, no, no

The lights are low and the Muzak is loud
You watch yourself as you play to the crowd
One more face in a palace of mirrors

One more drink, you're sailing away
One more dream but it's looking okay
One more time to watch the flow of the river

Yes, I get a little lonely when the sun gets low
And I end up looking for somewhere to go
Yes, I should know better but I can't say no
Oh no, no, no
No, no, no, no, no, no, no

Where is the 2nd Guitar???

(The answer is: There's no 2nd guitar!)

Once upon a long LONG long time ago, when I was 16-18 years old, I was learning acoustic (classical) guitar. I really enjoyed my lessons, which lasted for about 18 months, and I think the acoustic guitar is a beautiful instrument (I also like the electric guitar but I think acoustic - nylon or steel string - is more pretty). I may have played a little better had I practiced more - as gently suggested by my lovely guitar teacher - and, perhaps, I could've been more proactive in my guitar learning. Still, I had fun and I'm glad I had guitar lessons. I did, however, develop a wee crush on Mr Guitar Teacher, despite his being somewhat older than me and married - which leads me to the next, slightly difficult, paragraph.

Mr G T and I would chat during and after my lesson, mostly about music but other things as well. I can't really remember too much of what we actually talked about, I just know that I was beginning to enjoy his company in a way that even my addled teenage brain realized was becoming problematic and inappropriate and wildly unrealistic. I eventually stopped going to guitar lessons; partly this was because other things were distracting me and maybe I wasn't really going anywhere with my guitar playing, but I also stopped because I knew nothing was ever going to come of my feelings for Mr G T and I was too vulnerable and I felt it was better to be away.

 

Obviously, OBVIOUSLY, obviously, there is a textbook analysis/argument to be made here about a teenager falling for an older person and why it happens; blah blah seeking security, when you're young and insecure, from someone who seems to know stuff, blah blah feeling protected from the big scary world, blah blah he was nice and didn't treat me like the idiot child that I was, so of course I was going to like him. Blah, I don't care, my love was real! Blah!

But what the hell has this got to do with the missing 2nd guitar (as per the title of this blog post)? Let me explain, the title refers to three things:

Firstly, it is a metaphor for a long ago, but occasionally remembered, sadness at not being able to see my guitar teacher anymore (he was the 2nd guitar). 

Secondly, it is a comment about the most incredible Lindsay Buckingham acoustic guitar version of Fleetwood Mac's Big Love, to which I've listened for many years believing there was a 2nd guitar, until I watched the video clip (which I have conveniently placed below).

And Thirdly (if I can keep going a little longer with this kooky 2nd guitar metaphor - which I'm going to do), much like Lindsay Buckingham not requiring a 2nd guitar to play this song, I've become someone who doesn't require a "2nd guitar" (partner) to "play my song" (live my life) - not that my life is as good as acoustic Big Love, but it's pretty good nevertheless.

 

Thank you, Lindsay, that was freakin' awesome!

The Hideous Tentacled Slime Beast

A recent, and mercifully short-lived, bout of existential loneliness seems to have been effectively curtailed. The soothing salves included port, marshmallows, tea, video games (Tomb Raider 3 and Silent Hill), sleep (replete with freaky dreams), and watching Slow TV (The Ghan: Australia's Greatest Train Journey).

Obviously, being afflicted with the malaise known as 'the human condition' - a condition which affects an overwhelming number of people - means that there is always the threat of existential loneliness (aka The Hideous Tentacled Slime Beast) brewing somewhere below the nebulous place known as 'the surface'. However, I find that as the years move inextricably by, and the sands of time slowly swallow and digest me (with their gritty grains that frequently get caught in painful and hard to reach places), it becomes easier to subdue (and, possibly, vanquish) The Hideous Tentacled Slime Beast.

Not that The Hideous Tentacled Slime Beast serves no purpose, and thus needs to be entirely obliterated from the human world. The presence of The Hideous Beast in the human psyche, with its seeping slime and its terrifying tentacles, seems to provide some kind of motivation; though the configurations this motivation takes can be myriad and obscure, and often with a tendency for destruction rather than construction.

The Fullness of Living Each Day to the Full

The final line of my high school anthem (aka School Song) was:
Live each day to the full!

We, the students (and probably some of the teachers), didn't really know the rest of the lyrics - something about seeking Christ and seeking wisdom, and possibly seeking wisdom in Christ (yes, it was a Catholic school) - but at school assembly, upon being instructed by our charismatic leader (aka the Principal) to sing the school song, we would mumble our way through until the last line, whereupon we would raise our voices in glorious chorus to proclaim our hive-mind intention to "Live each day to the full!!!". It was quite the invigorating experience. Say what you will about the evils of propaganda and mind control and whipping a crowd into a frenzy with apparently inspiring song lyrics and elevated levels of oxygen in the blood ('cos of having to take a really deep breath before the last line to make sure we 'sang' it as loud as possible), but I always felt kinda good afterwards and had more inclination to do some book learning.

However, I harbour some skepticism towards the popular notion that a person must 'live each day to the full'. It's a notion that seems to ascribe a moral duty to people to 'make the most out of life' - whatever that means, especially given that the fullness of living is subjective. Extrovert fullness would be going to every social function, travelling to every country, having many relationships. Introvert fullness would be avoiding every social function, staying in one place as long as possible, having a minimal number of relationships. Adrenaline junkie fullness would be skydiving, rock climbing, swimming with sharks. Not that I want to generalize or put people into restrictive categories or ignore the nuance and complexity of the human race (as satisfying as that may be), but it is possible to allocate people, to a degree, into different groups based on common behavioural and psychological traits. And these different groups have differing expectations and goals: 'loud' or 'quiet', many or few. Or no expectations and goals at all. Sometimes just getting through the day/week/year/century without too many catastrophes is a life well lived, goddammit!

It often seems as though a 'proper' expectation or goal should be loud - big and showy. And that if a person doesn't achieve, or attempt to achieve, they will be (should be) filled with regret. You'll never know if you don't try...You may never get this opportunity again...you only live once. I think I have enough self-insight, imagination, and wisdom to know that the thing you're berating me to do is something I do not want or need to do and that my life will be quite fulfilled, thank you, without having 'achieved' this annoying activity. Plus, this (at times, overbearing) insistence seems to be more about the person doing the insisting - maybe they have a domination power fantasy - than about the person being insisted upon. Also, and (possibly) most pertinently, there are many expectations and goals that are likely driven more by ego-fulfillment than by existential-fulfillment. Much like this blog post.

The Happy Hermit

Once upon a time, there was a happy hermit. Though, given that there was not total isolation from other human beings, a happy part-hermit might be more correct. She (yes, hermits can be female) was not a sociopath, as some might believe of a hermit, though she would be lying if she claimed to never have experienced anti-social thoughts (but, I suspect, this would also apply to many non-hermits). Her social skills, however, were frequently in need of a makeover.

Her hermit lifestyle was a self-created one (ie not imposed by external circumstances, such as being marooned on a desert island or being in solitary confinement). It was a existence that fit her like a glove, or perhaps, like the shell of a hermit crab (see what I did there - a little hermit humour).

But why was she a happy hermit? It's important to make the point that despite being a hermit, and thus being cast with an expectation of experiencing sadness, likely induced by loneliness, she was generally quite content. And she did not feel particularly lonely - other than the usual, pervasive, all embracing, existential lonely experienced by all sentient lifeforms.

So how did she achieve a state of 'happy'? What she did was to have an active imaginary life. She existed entwined in a joyous, fantasy world. An invented society. One that frequently provided her with connection and solace. Sure, it was all fake, but it still made her feel good.

And what could be wrong with that? Should this be considered insanity? Or could it be considered a sensible, and even clever, coping strategy? I mean, in Real Life World, people obtain connection and solace from all kinds of multitudinous interactions, many that are wildly insincere, and some that are actually completely fabricated. And sometimes, Real Life People either aren't aware, or won't admit, that these interactions are not genuine. They immerse into their delusion, believing in its veracity, while ignoring its facade of happiness. (Or am I being too cynical? Or not cynical enough?!? I mean, love is a human construct, right? Not that a person should have to be unhappy just because nobody loves them - which is kind of the theme of this post). At least the happy hermit was quite lucid in regard to her delusional life. She was vividly cognizant that the world in her head only existed in her head. And she maintained an otherwise healthy lifestyle. She ate a (mostly) balanced diet, she exercised (mostly), and she made use of companion animals, like cats and fuzzy microbes, as well as imbibing a lot of tea - tea being an essential facet of both a hermit life and a happy life. And, on the rare occasion, she would emerge from her seclusion and interact in Real Life World, which was (mostly) not too traumatizing.

TARDIS as TEAPOT

The TARDIS (as seen in Dr Who) possesses many extraordinary capabilities - time travel, space travel, sentience, telepathy, babel fish like language translation, wacky dimensional manipulations and distortions. But one of its lesser known (though tremendously important) capabilities, is its capacity to manifest as a teapot:

I wonder if the TARDIS teapot brews vastly greater quantities of tea than its exterior size would suggest.

A strange, feline induced, time-space-teapot-TARDIS paradox occurred:

Clash of the Titans (aka Home Appliances)

The history of White Goods is, of course, also the history of epic battles. Since the dawn of the first refrigerators and stoves, there have been long and bloody mechanized white plastic conflicts. The Great War of the Washing Machines, which lasted nearly a decade, saw massive destruction both to the machines themselves and to the households that had become so reliant on these extraordinary creatures.

In recent times, some modicum of civility has infiltrated the ongoing frays, and White Goods interactions have witnessed less violence and more diplomatic methods of negotiation.

But vestiges of the brutal old ways still remain in the polymeric cross-linking (ie "DNA") of the appliances, and flare-ups, though increasingly rare, continue to be a feature of these modern conveniences. Recently, I was privy to such an altercation between two kettles in my kitchen:

The new kettle (on the right) was brought into the kitchen to replace the old kettle (on the left) which had been experiencing difficulties with its water-boiling functions. Foolishly, I placed the new kettle onto the bench without first removing the old kettle. I wandered off for a brief interlude and when I returned I encountered a savage display. Lids were raised in fierce rage, pouring spouts glowered with fiery fury, water boiled angrily from inside the kettles despite neither kettle being connected to an electricity outlet (nor having been filled with water). It was a bestial scene.

The teapot and the coffee-maker, kitchenware known for their enduring pacifism, huddled together in apprehensive anticipation of the outcome. The toaster (to the far right) sat in the corner with Zen-like stoicism, not giving a damn.

Denouement: There wasn't a true victor for this battle, mainly because I broke up the fight before it got too gory (not that I abhor violence, it's just that I prefer for it not to occur in my kitchen). The new kettle is now my everyday kettle, a position it has earned by its consistency in both heating water to boiling point and switching itself off when reaching this point. The old kettle received a thorough soaking in diluted vinegar, which removed all the gunk from its element, thus allowing it to regain its ability to boil water, but it is unable to switch itself off and so it is now relegated to being my emergency kettle. The old kettle now lives in the cupboard under the sink, an arrangement which should hopefully deter it from interacting with the new kettle and thus prevent any more kitchen brawls.

Dark White Noise

Oxymoronic Challenge: Focus on my inability to focus.

The signal strength to noise ratio of the thought-frequencies in my brain is producing disconcerting static - too many (signals) and too loud (strength), and too jarring (unpleasant thoughts are noisy). Translation: I can't concentrate due to mind-fuzz, but also I don't want to concentrate on my mind-fuzz as it is residing in a cranky and gloomy place. Winter, and its short, cold days, isn't helping. Nor is bereft human connection.

In order to combat such dark white noise, I might need to rethink my recent adherence to a (so-called) healthy diet; whereby I've been attempting to reduce my consumption of non-essential and (seemingly) unhealthy foodstuffs - sweets, alcohol, caffeine, babies. Maybe living healthy is mostly only good for my body, and my struggling mind suffers under such fascist food fanaticism. Perhaps, in this time of dark white noise, it is necessary to forgo some corporeal vitality so that menacing mind-fuzz doesn't collapse into a black hole of doom.

My Nerada Tea Shelf Overflow-ith

The peppermint and chamomile teas were on special, so I stocked up. I have no (money saving) excuse for stocking up on the regular tea - 200 tea bags per box, oh yeah! - but, clearly, it would be a disaster for me (or any sensible person) to run out of tea, so it's best not to tempt fate (as Toby Ziegler would say).

Something Heart-Painful I've Never Experienced

There are, of course, many, many painful things that can happen in this world which I've never experienced - eg homelessness, war, hunger, death of (my) child, prolonged and incapacitating illness - and I'm thankful that I haven't had to experience these things. And, mostly, when I'm being depressive and negative and self-pitying, I can still appreciate how much my life is NOT a struggle, compared to the lives of so many others. The last month, however, has not been one of those times. There's been some high level depressive and negative and self-pitying inhabiting my brain, catalyzed by an intense bout of loneliness. An infection of loneliness, and its consequent pathology; sleeplessness, distractedness, brain vomit.

I tend to 'catch' loneliness when I've experienced unrequited affection (at least, when I become aware of unrequited affection - most likely the affection was unrequited for some time, but my delusional state would not allow realization of such realities).

Discovering you've been unrequited is always, to varying degrees, heart-painful. But so is being in a long-term relationship which ends when you didn't want it to end. This is a heart-pain I've never experienced. The relationships I've had have usually been around 12 months long, and mostly I ended them. The most painful breakup was with a boyfriend who was abusive, and the breakup was painful because he wouldn't 'allow' me to breakup with him.

I imagine it could be devastating to have a long-term relationship end; a sudden, massive emptiness, and a loss of control over one of the main conditions of life. I don't know how I'd react in this situation. For me, at the moment, I have a large degree of control over my life. Discovering that someone doesn't want to have a relationship with me pretty much means that my life 'changes' from me being on my own, to me continuing to be on my own - albeit with an enhanced sense of loneliness. And I can always rely on cups of tea to make me feel better (and, occasionally, cups/shots of something a little stronger).

Merry Christmas is NOT an Option

Due to the inexorable approach of Christmas, Effulgent13 is experiencing a degeneration of all its faculties: physical, emotional, intellectual, hell, even spiritual. During this most difficult of "happy" seasons it can barely keep itself fed, let alone think coherent thoughts. Basic hygiene is just a distant memory. Writing in the first person is no longer possible. Just have to make it through 5 more days and it will all be over. Need more tea.

Catholic Land

The first blog entry for 2009, groovy. And I hope 2009 will be a groovy year. I’ve sensibly chosen a very safe, unfiery topic to herald in the New Year – Religion.

Looking back on some blog entries from last month I began to wonder if this blog might be open to accusations of religious intolerance, and specifically, Catholic intolerance. I wouldn’t want that to happen, not because I’m worried about being shutdown, but because I don’t think I’m intolerant of Religion. I am critical of Religion, and anything else in life, when I think it’s warranted. And clearly, I have some issues with Catholicism (into which I was baptised as a baby) – the doctrine of papal infallibility bothers me, and the level of power this confers – the encyclical “Humanae Vitae”, which outlaws contraception for Catholics, bothers me – the Pope’s recent comments comparing homosexuality to climate change bother me – I think the Vatican has its own intolerances.

So now I play with fire; but fire played with me first. It would be unrealistic for me to continue writing a blog without some reference to Religion. It’s a part of me, although I don’t have religious faith – Is that allowed? Probably not. Religion seems to have a lot of dos and don’ts. To be a member of a Religion you have to follow the rules. No bending. However, there are practising Catholics who ignore some of the doctrines of Catholicism. And there are clergy who are OK with this. I think this is a good thing. People with religious faith should be allowed into church, allowed to celebrate and share their beliefs with others, it should be a positive experience. I don’t think there should be restrictions.

Another thing that concerns me is exposing some of the more challenging tenants of Catholic theology to young children. I think it can be psychologically dangerous. For example, the concept of Hell and how easy it is to get there, is pretty frightening, even to adults.

I gave up being a Catholic (or any kind of Christian) when I was sixteen. I gave it up, blubbering, in front of a priest – a very kind and patient priest. He prayed for me, he asked God to give me guidance through my troubles. And I was guided through my troubles, away from Religion. So I wonder, is my lack of religious faith proof of God’s existence…freaky…ironic…but that’s God for you, with His wacky sense of humour…if He exists…

For me, there are too many aspects of Christianity in which I don’t have faith. Probably the biggest being my lack of belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God. But I agree with many of Christ’s teachings – don’t be selfish or greedy, help those in need, try to understand others by wearing their shoes and then walking in them. And, from my limited research, other Religions have similar teachings.

I’m not comfortable commenting too much on the theology of Religions I’ve never practised and haven’t really studied properly, so I’ve confined my diatribe to Catholicism.

Many, many, many people living on this rapidly spinning planet find solace in Religion and have a strong faith in God. I respect their beliefs, but don’t share their beliefs. Can we still be friends? I hope we can.

A religious person might ask me: “If you don’t have religious faith, what sustains you?” At the moment: The sun. The moon. Soil. Things that come from soil. Lots and lots of tea. Family. Friends. My continuing heartbeat.