April 12

 Work is just an unending clusterfuck at the moment.

It's difficult to explain in simple terms, but basically, Andy has managed to screw up just about every aspect of an ongoing project due to.. well.. being out of his depth and not understanding what he's talking about. So I, like an idiot, and as ever, fill all the pot holes, cracks and bullshit to actually get you where you need to be. It's exhausting, frustrating, demoralising and stressful.

So. That's nice.

The latest wheeze is Andy having a major misunderstanding about key aspects of tech. Without getting technical - trying to use a tractor to go sailing. I thought, he said, we would just use our tractor to go sailing around... stop. What the fuck do you think that sentence means. He repeated himself. What the FUCK do you think that means I said again even more angrily. Well.. you... sail...in... a.. tractor. NO. I don't know whether you're being this dumb or just pulling my leg or being wilfully ignorant because you fucked up, but you can't go sailing in a tractor. He then tried explaining what he thought tractors do. NO. They do not !

I sighed. And stared out the window in silence. Grappling to come to terms with the level of dumbassery. I sighed again and started up the sisyphean hill before me.

Ok, basics 101 I said. And then proceeded to explain to him what various bits of tech and crucially what they don't do.

This stuff is absolutely a prerequisite to know vaguely what you're talking about. Whilst I have skipped the technicalities it isn't actually that technical, it's literally at the level of knowing that tractors don't swim. Or perhaps more apt. That wallpaper paste does not have a pattern. It's wallpaper paste. You use that to stick up wallpaper which does have a pattern. So if all you've bought is wallpaper paste to decorate your house. My man. You have a problem.

So he fundamentally didn't understand the tech.

This also goes back to the start of the project where he used terms in a very wishy washy way. He didn't understand what he was saying. The choices of the terms he was clearly uncomfortably using and was being mealy mouthed about have vastly different consequences. The difference between repainting the door of the Taj Mahal. And building a new Taj Mahal. He didn't know what he wanted. What he was asking for. But he wanted - of course - everything, but at the low price. Effectively what he was asking for was can you build a new Taj Mahal, but let's pretend it's the same commitment as just painting the front door. But at the level of completely misunderstanding what's required. I had thought that it was just about wanting your cake and eating it. Which he does an awful lot. Wanting something for nothing. But clearly it was more than that. Not only was it that. It was also, and I have no clue what the technologies do, and am just winging it vaguely, faking it, until I make it. That fucking book he read. Faking it til you make it. Aka, how to be a bullshit master and annoy competent people around you, whilst acting like a twat and fucking up. Whoever came up with that philsophy, I hope they get to suffer in some hell specially reserved for that kind of person. A new level of hell. The fake it til you make it level of hell.

The upshot of this is, that even at the basic level, terms he has bandied around before, he clearly doesn't entirely get. And now. In future. I will have to triple check, and have yet another level of hand holding bullshit to make sure he fully understands consequences and scheduling. Which. Is pointless anyway. Because the dude does not do scheduling. At all. Ever. Because. Pathological people pleaser.

To say I am done with this is an understatement.

It's also pretty clear that if and when I do entirely leave. The wheels are going to fall off the goddamn wagon at some point. Who on earth is going to be able to prop him up at that level. It's going to be the blind leading the blind. I dare say there is quite a bit of gas in just squeezing out momentum and letting more and more wheels fall off. But at some point. All the wheels will be off. Things will grind to a shitty halt. And then what ? He probably scarpers. His age old MO. Get in. Make a mess. Run away.

Meh.

On the flipside, my health has been not good. Woke up this morning with two black eyes and feeling like death warmed up. Ah yes. According to the GPs we "don't take black eyes as a sign of anything". Right. Sure. Excellent. Waking up with two black eyes is perfectly normal and should be ignored. Right doc ?

Fucking idiots. GPs at this point are about as much use as a fucking broken vending machine sitting on a platform of a lonely train station.

Also also. My mentals are low. Not screaming. Not angst. But just incredibly low. Somewhere in there I have given up on everything. No hope. I have not only lost faith with society - which I did a long time ago. I have lost faith with life - also happened in the past - but also with shit just making any kind of sense, of being able to make a difference. I have lost faith in people. I have lost faith in the process. I am grateful for the people in my life that show care and listen. But I'm also aware that shit just goes on. Everyone is locked in their own little cells, and most of them are unaware of the shit that plagues them and how they act out. It is. Depressing. No ones going to come fix you my dude. Because guess what. As fucked as you are. As hopeless. As lost. You're actually doing better than everyone else. You ARE the adult in the room.

That. Is... depressing... demotivating... horrifying... as hell. Because I'm a disaster. And this is the best you get. Yikes.

In a weird way, this is the lowest I have ever been. This isn't an easy simple 1 dimensional scale, good to bad. It's way more complex and multidimensional. I have certainly been far farrr worse mental health wise than what I am now. "worse". Hmm. Out of control ? Yeah. That's probably a better term. But I can't remember ever being this... void. Not even a glimmer of imagined light.

Step back. Take a breath. I think I am just, "just", suffering from a bit of myopia. I need to step back, destress, majorly destress, and get the focus of all the flaws and shit out of sight, so I can realise there is more to life and people than that. It's not that any of what I have said is untrue. It's just that there is more to it than that. Or. There can be. If. You can get there. And breathe in the fresh air.

Still. The realities are brutal. I have a chronic health condition. I will always be on my own. Things are going to get worse not better. My sex drive has disappeared. That half of who I am has just died.

Still. Focus on the positives eh. Heh. Heheheh.

Sigh.

Truly. Positives. I have a roof over my head. I am not screamingly desperate for money. I can tread water, roughly, indefinitely. I am warm. I am secure. I eat. These are enormously important and amazing things.

This is the philsophy / therapy of being thankful for things. Stop and list the things you are thankful for. It supposedly refocuses your mind and puts a positive spin on things instead of a negative one. It's not a new idea. Stoicism is full of it. Marcus Aurelius, a famous stoic, wrote about it.

It's all very nice. And makes sense. But. I do get the sense that it's a bit like rich people telling you not to worry about money. Have you tried not being negative. Sure. Easy for you to say Mr Roman Emperor Aurelius. You see what I do, is calm measured breast stroke, and we glide through the crystal clear water, and make our way, and the world is peace and calm. Now you try. *peasant neck deep in pigshit desperately flails in the muck*. Mmm. Trying to serenely swim and make progress depends a lot on whether it's the crystal blue of the mediterranean, or, the bottom of a cess pool. Context. Is everything.

Or as the observation goes, talking to someone about navigating a field of wheat that's 5 feet tall is a very different conversation depending on whether you're the six feet tall guy, or the four feet tall short arse. Same wheat. Very different experiences.

There is a lot of wisdom to it. For sure. But. It also does happily glide over the nitty gritty that sometimes such wonderful high falutin academics have zero place in the shitty rubber meets road reality. Throw any number of therapists in a warzone without aid or hope, and you'll see how fast those techniques dissolve into something much more animal, and oh golly, oh gosh, oh wow, yeah, it is shit, it is hard, and just like all the rest of the sufferers, there is no panacea. No matter how fancy a name you give it, or how many pamphlets you print.

Lots of helpful things tend to be long on writing shit about, how you can extend the distance you can swim, and are presupposed on you swimming in those crystal clear waters. They have fuck all to say if you find yourself swimming in shit. On plans on how to turn shit into crystal clear water they tend to either be silent, or offer short shrift, such as. How about you leave the shit pool and find some water. Which is the equivalent of the good old have you just tried cheering up cliche for things like depression. Brilliant. Have you tried not being poor ? Have you tried having more money ? Have you tried not being abused ? Have you tried not living in a capitalist dystopia ? The problem of course, is that there isn't a way to turn shit into water or fix any of those source problems. Somethings you can't escape or fix. Warzones. Drowning because you tried to flee persecution. Abusive societies. The general soul sucking nature of late stage capitalism. As even some shrinks have said, can you diagnose depression as a disorder, when, in fact, it's the rational response to a shitty world. You should be bloody miserable. This is the slow coming around to the fact that oh yeah, not everyone, gets to swim in crystal clear waters and apply those lovely help methods in a perfect environment. As it turns out, when everyone around you is screaming in terror, as the bus you're on has pitched over the cliff to tumble to the lava below, and the banshee wails of those about to die fill your ears, it's quite difficult to follow step 4 of the How To Feel Better plan, and remember what you're looking forward to in life and remember not to be anxious.

Twattery.

If anything in history, philsophy, therapy, ideology, theology was a slam dunk solution. You best believe everyone would be on it. A one and done. Peace and light. Doesn't seem to work that way though. And the never ending search for more therapy, more wisdom, a better philosophy, a new religion goes on. I don't think there is one. Not that they can't helpful. They are. But there is no solution, no, completion of the puzzle. It is just a number of very imperfect ways of trying to organise the continuining raging chaos. It cannot be tamed. Cannot be stopped. You can manage it at times in different ways. But. Like a metaphor for life. It's not something that can ever be solved or stopped or fixed. Just. Managed. Imperfectly.

Anywho.

Cheery.

Fuck life. Fuck this shit.

If you find meaning, let me know. 

I know I know. I am just probably in a "bad place" at the moment. Which for me, perpetually in a bad place, means an especially bad place. Ho. Ho. Ho.

Breathe. Work. Thenfuckingreduceyourhoursorquit.

Don't get me started on capitalism. And the corrosive nature of greedy people on the majority of everyone else.

Andy send me a message this morning relating that after having thought about it, he understood what I was saying and how difficult it was. And that I was awesome.

Uh huh.

Sigh.