drugs, sex and rock and roll

It's a strange thing, drugs.

To many the harmless '4 leafed-clover' (as my friend refers to it), or the 'happy drug', is always so 'harmless'. To me, it has destroyed 2 relationships and washed out memories/short term and long. While i don't not approve of it, i am at odds with the drugs for several reasons. I find that medicinally, it's no worse than say the super get fit drug. (I won't name names), but you get my drift. I hate what it does to people when they take it recreationally. Okay, i'll say ... sure, try it once or twice.

I have never personally been interested in taking drugs. So when my friends took it, i didn't really understand the fascination. The horror stories of E and heroine were enough to make me feel ill.

The 4 leafed clover, as i describe however, has been interesting for several reasons. There's a lot of discrepancy about what it does *not do*. It does not harm you. It does not effect you. That's the biggest load of *#$@()R&)@ i've ever heard.

A good friend of mine had been taking it, for over a year and a half. When they tried to quit, they couldn't. To no avail. The problem is, people think it is okay if it isn't classified as 'addictive', but the problem is, once you start taking it for that long, without it it is difficult to come off. It does eventually become an addiction. Now surely, this is not the case with all takers, but for many who are so used to the habit, how can you ask someone to suddenly come off it cold turkey after 10 years of the same habit?

The 4 leafed clover has given me great unrest with friends in the past. I watched as one good friend helped to deteriorate our relationship over a 3 year period. While we were still friends, their short term memory began to deteriorate. At first, as an observer, it is difficult to figure out. Their character was washed out. They didn't have that sharp personal edge. My friend was a sharp, clever and bubbly person. When they took it, they lost that, and became a little bit like...a washed out canvas with nothing on it. Soon, it was apparent they would lose any trace of personality they had left. I felt dissapointed and sad.

trapped in a box

Perhaps when I started out on the net, I was just a young naive thing. I would say that i was.

I look back and i think of the people that have chatted to me online and i think, shite, there's a lot of interesting people from all around the world. It sounds like a trite comment to make, but it seems to be the only way i know how to say it!

Whether or not I believe what they tell me is another thing. Some of them were publishers, one was a well established author, a snake breeder, a few rough and tumble bikies, musicians ... i met one person whom i sure was compulsive liar and apparently was a masseus in france massaging well to do ladies and models. What fascinated me most was the vast array of people i've met, and the kind of communication you can have...whether you believe them or not is another thing too. I think that the net can actually be an interesting learning experience.

Nowadays, the image of the chatroom as a community has gone a little bit awry. They're so pumped full of sex ads, and indian telemarketers you're not sure what's what. (Not that you did in the beginning to start with!)

The illusion is broken into by commercialism. I guess it had to happen. It's not a straight line though. Without the popularity and blooming commercialization of the net, people would not be able to accept it so readily as they do now. One does not come without the other. I can't say i dislike the state of it, because i think that without the popularity of it, people would think i'm star raving mad to say the internet is a great way to communicate to someone in the UK.

Some of the best working relationships work over the internet. I'm not talking about 'i love you', although i think that probably has and will work out for some people. Can you fall in love with words? With the idea of someone? That's an age old question. I think you can. What's love anyway? Since when was it something tangible? Does a ring signify the person's measure of love for another?

I'm not saying that i approve, but hey whatever goes for you!

moderating, obligating

I remember one dream. One beautiful dream, many years ago.

A man came to me in a dream, and suddenly I felt at peace - no words were spoken. Nothing was necessary, he communicated everything without words and he adored me, accepted me for everything i was, loved and admired me for everything inside. There was no need for insecurity, and he was equally beautiful on the inside and out. His voice was deep and sonorous, warm and comforting.

He knew what i was thinking, i understood perfectly what he needed. It was that feeling of peace that kept me so transfixed with him, that complete ease that i could be myself finally, be loved for that. That feeling of tranquility in my dream, is something i have never experienced in my life and something, that many people ordinarily take for granted. I couldn't hold on to it though, my mind wouldn't let me, i felt i was losing grip of that image, he stayed for a short while...but he left because it was like, anything that perfect - never exists.

I woke up in tears.

yellow fever, blue fever, red...

I don't know how many people realize how difficult it is to be a different nationality in a western culture and not get looked at or noticed by the opposite sex.

The times people notice this the most i would have to say would be when we're all out along the clubs. The first people to get noticed usually (if you take observation): are the blonde chicks. They could be the ugliest dogs on earth and guys would still look. It's hard when you're from a different background and you're only semi-okay looking. Or you're not white. Living in this country, it is difficult to get noticed if you're from a different background other than that of someone whom is white. You could be Naomi-fucking-Campbell in this country of mine and not a single guy would batt an eyelash when you walk past a busy club. They'd still look at the stray blonde dog behind her consistently chain smoking, with big tits and dressed up to the nines with clothes from that horrible cheap chain store, Supre.

You might think i have something against blonde women, but i don't. I just wish guys would be more open minded in our country with a bit more headroom up there to register different hair colours other than yellow or peroxided platinum yellow.

Having said that, not all guys are like this in our divine country. It's just that a great majority seem to be...however, when the country with it's globalization now, there'll be a more diverse mix hopefully and we can stop all this hairist-colorist shit.

extreme difficulty

I love the anonymity of the net. The chance that *you* the reader will read this. It must be a voyeuristic pleasure. Did i catch you off guard with that sentence? I bet I did.

It always does for me whenever a blogger directs his/her audience directly.

---

One of the things that used to keep me artistically motivated, (despite the fact that I didn't exactly enjoyed it at one stage) was a certain online community of artists. I won't say which group, but it has funnily enough motivated me in the past. Stranger things have come to pass.

While I enjoy trying to motivate myself to do better, to improve myself in one way or another it's becoming stingingly apparent how inappropriate my past behaviours towards goals like this were. Self awareness is a big fat burden.

random disorganization.

So i receive back an essay, and i discover to my horror that i have merely just passed. Just passed. Weeks of work, research gone down the drain. I stare at the paper in unresolved shock.

Recently, I asked my lecturerer to discuss the paper with me. Fortunately he was very accommodating and eager to discuss my paper with me in detail. He noted that my essay was a bit like blocks of writing that had been stuck together and had not been organized properly. I nodded quietly and realized what he was saying was true.

I began to wonder, was this an indication of the workings of my own randomly working mind, or just pure laziness?

For years i have been writing, reading and learning. And yet I still struggle with grammatical issues, syntactical errors and general disorganization in my writing. It shouldn't be the case. Since he noted this, I have decided to make a larger effort to read more, write more and concentrating on trying to understand the English language a little more effectively.

While I was taking in all the academic issues, I began to wonder how much writing is an indication of my own behaviours of late. Is it possible to gauge a person's confusion to their ability to write and read coherently? Organize thoughts in their own mind like they do in their essay? Does it correspond with one another?

I began to wonder if i was completely transparent as he spoke to me. Can you see through me through my own writing I wonder? I realized in what intonation he was speaking to me - that of a child because of my own silence. Every lecturer seems to think i'm going to crumble if i ask for constructive advice because of my quietness. They reassure me and say, 'but...it's only a...', which always makes me laugh inside because I wouldn't be there if I were afraid. Or if I were going to crumble.

internet dating and the horrors

What is it about internet dating? I live in a place where internet dating is seen as strange and peculiar, (now seen as almost too commonplace for everyone in the U.S.). It's increasing popularity has had me thinking about the particular kind of etiquette issues it poses and mistinterpretation with communication and this new, fluid technology.

Mistinerpretation. Without the obvious presence of another, it's too easy to mistinterpret what is being said into something highly undesirable. Perhaps as human beings, it's our natural instinct to think the worst of a situation before raising our hopes. A bit nihilistic, but it seems to be the best explanation at the moment. When someone says something vaguely suggestive as to insult you, it can be guarded with intonation of voice, body gesture, eye contact etc. Without all these aids, we depend wholly and completely on the text. Weight on words. It seems we have gone backwards again.

Or have we?

Illusion. What is it about internet dating that scares everyone off? So alluring, so mysterious...at least until we put the picture next to what it is we've been typing to. Let's develop a situation. If you were typing to someone, discovering that they were 'interesting', not having seen them before you naturally develop a mental image of what this person may be. It might not be a complete picture, but small fragments developed on what it is that you *think* you know about them. An impression, an impressionist painting if you like.

How can your imagination possibly compete with the person that has been communicating and typing with you? If your image is one of great mystery, flexibility, something intangible. It is impossible. Suppose the person you have been talking to ends up as a look alike of angelina jolie, or that model of the front of GQ. Even then, once it becomes solid, the illusion is broken.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's dangerous. But it does set up an unusual illusion - one set up for almost inevitable dissappointment. Mainly because nothing can compete with the fluidity and endless imagination of a human being.

More on illusion. One of the most alluring issues about the internet is it's anonymity, it's ability to reinvent itself like a woman. That might sound like a load of crock to you, but when you think of how easy it is to disguise oneself, to escape from the mould that people have categorized and caged you into - it seems appealing.

I noted a book where a woman wrote of her 'scandalous' affairs with random strangers she'd met on the internet. It's easy to be someone else. It's a schizophrenic's dream come true. I'm not alluding or suggesting it to be bad, but rather that the chameleon like nature of the internet allows for all types for ... interesting behaviour in a human being. Critics write about ethical issues on the internet and how to govern them. The beauty of the internet, is that there are none. It's too fluid. The government can be undermined on here. The Yes men intercept organizations like that through the internet. It's too easy.

More on internet dating. You can be ceremoniously dumped the one day, mistinerpreted the next. Yet you can never know what it is the other feels. Never understand if the other abhors or ardently admires you by looking at body language. There is none. Of course, if we take into account the camera that's another issue in itself. A different level of communication - a way to act, to be looked at to be gazed upon. A leo fantasy. A narcisstic tendency. You watch, and they watch themselves on the screen.

You can lie through your teeth say you're a cabaret dancer and the successful author of three self help books. Nobody will know the better. You can change genders. So internet dating you can understand, makes me a little apprehensive, knowing all of the above. While it's easy to say, 'let's forget and pretend for a moment all of the above is not true, let's believe the person that we're communicating with is telling the truth', some of the above does hold true. This will for many people who forget it's not the same as seeing someone in real life. It never will be. You don't say, 'ASL', and you don't judge a person based on 'their pic'. (Which with the help of a little airbrushing can change you looking from barbara streisand look alike to Halle Berry goddess).

It develops it's own language. ASL, PIC, becomes the broad status. Which kind of kills the fluid nature of internet communication. The openess of it at least. It's besides the point. Anybody with a lack of imagination and second hand writing skills is immediately put at the back of the line. I'm not saying we should all live in a utopian world where everything should dance fluidly and nothing should be governed. Neither do i think it should be governed completely.

Well, i'll be leaving it at that.