"On the day of my judgment, when I stand before God, and He asks me why did I kill one of his true miracles, what am I gonna say? That it was my job? My job"
"You tell God the Father it was a kindness you done. I know you hurtin' and worryin', I can feel it on you, but you oughta quit on it now. Because I want it over and done. I do. I'm tired, boss. Tired of bein' on the road, lonely as a sparrow in the rain. Tired of not ever having me a buddy to be with, or tell me where we's coming from or going to, or why. Mostly I'm tired of people being ugly to each other. I'm tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world everyday. There's too much of it. It's like pieces of glass in my head all the time. Can you understand"

This is a quote from The Green Mile, one of the better films I've seen recently. It mixes thoughtfulness with shock and sadness and happiness and horror so well and perfectly that it's hard to come away not feeling some strong things mashing around inside you. There's a bit of the weird and unexplained in there too which I wasn't sure about to start with but I think it makes the story work. John is not just a good man, he is a gifted man and it shouldn't end the way it does.

I think the film raises other issues too, issues that I've talked about in this blog. One is that John Coffey has resigned to his death, welcomes it even. How old is he? How much has he seen on this world; how much can he see?
"That's as good a word as any. He infected us both, didn't he, Mr. Jingles? With life. I'm a hundred and eight years old, Elaine. I was forty-four the year that John Coffey walked the Green Mile. You mustn't blame John. He couldn't have what happened to him... he was just a force of nature. Oh I've lived to see some amazing things Elly. Another century come to past, but I've... I've had to see my friends and loved ones die off through the years... Hal and Melinda... Brutus Howell... my wife... my boy. And you Elaine... you'll die too, and my curse is knowing that I'll be there to see it. It's my torment you see; it's my punishment, for letting John Coffey ride the lightning; for killing a miracle of God. You'll be gone like all the others. I'll have to stay. I'll die eventually, that I'm sure. I have no illusions of immortality, but I will await your death... long before death finds me. In truth, I wish for it already."
Paul says that for letting John die and not saving him, he is cursed with life beyond his years. He has to watch everyone die and know that he cannot die yet. I think this is a well thought out part of the film. What would be seen by many as a gift, is actually a curse. It would be all to easy to make him immortal, but then he wouldn't age. To have your life slowed down, that is far worse I think. Death is coming, just a little bit slower than before. Humans live as long as they do because by the end of your life you're about ready to die. Much longer than that and it's too long. That's just me though. I could be wrong about that. I think 80 years is a very long time. I've lived a nearly quarter of that already and in 50 or 60 years time I think I'll have had enough. Probably even before that.
Sometimes I sit in the shower and just let the hot water crash down around me. Sometimes when I do this I'll try to imagine that I'm not sitting in the bath with the shower over me, that I'm in fact sitting in a bath in a rain forest with hot rain falling all around me. Sometimes I manage to imagine this so well that I almost actually believe that I'm going to see a rain forest when I open my eyes. What if you could actually believe that it was going to be a rain forest? Would you experience the rain forest when you open your eyes? Is the only thing tying you to reality the expectation that it's still going to be there when you open your eyes?

Many philosophers believe that there is nothing to make us believe that the world around us is real. If this is true then maybe the only thing connecting us to reality is ourselves? We can take drugs to partly (or mostly) sever the tie with reality so why can't we do this with our own minds? Maybe it takes a massive amount of will power. You've spent your whole life relying on the fact that reality is still going to be there when you open your eyes. Telling yourself that something different is going to be there is going to be pretty hard.

So Long, So Love.

I sit here and look at this blank page and wonder why I can't think of anything to write any more. Is my mind so small that I've exhausted it in less than 10,000 words? Pretty poor show if you ask me. I'm hoping it's just a temporary loss of thought, but it could well be forever. Life is very stressful at the moment. I have a film to make, all the paperwork to write up for it, several photography shoots to sort out, the paperwork for that too, and revising to do for philosophy. I really can't get motivated to do any of it though. I know many of you would just reply; well your loss, you're the one that's going to fail at life, not me. Ah well. The more you've got to lose, the harder it is to walk away. When you have nothing left, you are totally free. At the risk of sounding cliché, maybe this society in which we have cocooned ourselves is what's holding us back. Eco-warriors are always telling us to get back to nature and maybe that's what we need. I don't think humanity is going to give what we have up all too easily though, I know I wouldn't. The power of humans is adaptability and progression. Stripping us of our progress is just going backwards and then we have to start again. Maybe this is what we need, and to do things right this time. What is 'right' though? Nietzsche thought that we were all retained in an 'eternal return' that reprocessed us through life again and again until we could accept that the would is the way it is and that's how it has to be. He said that if you were given history to control, if you changed it to make it for the better then you had to go back and live another life. He thought that we can only die in peace when we learn that life isn't just about good and evil, pain and pleasure, black and white. It's about the end result too. Yes there are wars and there is death and hate in the world, but there is also an insurmountable amount of love and life and peace in the world too. Maybe we should spend our time thinking about a way to move forward rather than dwell on our mistakes of the past.

Rather hypocritical of me, that comment, however. All I ever do is dwell on my own mistakes and hate myself for them, but we don't always have to practice what we preach, do we? A father might steal food to feed his children, but hide this from them and still teach them to be good people. Life isn't perfect and nor are we. When someone asks me what they should do I'm not going to tell them to do the 'wrong' thing just because I did the wrong thing. I often knowingly do the 'wrong' thing out of self destruction, but that doesn't stop me from wanting other people to make the right choices. Tired now. I'll write a proper entry soon, I promise.

So Long, So Love

It seems that I have been away for a while. Not in body, but at least in presence. I do apologise for that. I find it funny that I talk to myself in that way. I talk to myself a lot actually. I've told people and they find it quite strange that when I'm on my own I refer to myself as 'we' and I talk to the other me quite often, especially when in the car on my own or cycling. I explain things to myself too. Hopefully that's more normal than it seems. Ah well.

Doesn't seem I have much to talk about tonight. The tiredness is getting worse though. So tired and dead all the time. I think it may be connected to the whole emotionless/depression thing, although that could be speculation. Not so much that I'm tired because I'm depressed, but possibly depressed because I'm tired. This would be quite nice actually as it'd mean that I have a sleeping problem rather than a mental one which I guess is easier to sort out than my being a nut case. I've been falling asleep quite often at college which isn't too great really but can't be helped I suppose. It would be nice to be able to feel again, but as I talked about last time, I don't want that at the cost of this, so to speak.

My thoughtful self seems to have hidden himself tonight. Come out please? I'm in the mood for a good mong with the other side of reality. The side that isn't about getting fucked every Friday night, the side that's almost like that side but just a little different. The side where the nights are so warm and peaceful that you can lie and look at the stars forever and the afternoons are so orange and lazy that they never end. This reality is with people too. Good people. Good friends that you could spend the rest of forever with. Not fake friends that 'just do', the kind of friend, the kind of friend that can do what? I can't even think of something that is that close and amazing. My mind really is a closed book tonight. Usually that sort of thing is waiting at my fingertips.

If you were given the choice, the choice between this world and another, could you leave this one behind? You see it so often in films and books when the traveler is asked to stay and they say they must go home, or they allow themselves to stay. In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the children stay to rule the kingdom. What sort of ending is that? In Alice and Wonderland, however, she chooses to go home to fix home, rather than live forever in Wonderland. I guess the end is different to life though, because life has no 'the end' until the end. What if you could just walk away? Walk away from your family and your friends and your job, could you? Walk away to a better life with better people and happier times. I know some people would stay, either out of selflessness or fear, but what sort of a life is that? Staying in mediocrity when you could move on to beauty? Why put up with the grey skies and light of England when you could be somewhere beautiful? Maybe I'm too young and naive to see the beauty in this country, but I just can't. The summer is too short and wet and the winter is too long and wet.

You know what? I'm going to kill it here. Tonight has been pathetic, lets hope I can come back next time with something worthwhile to write about rather than this drivel. Fucks sake.

So long, So love.

I haven't posted in a while, I do apologise, I've been quite ill. I've spent most of today trying to cough my lungs up through my throat. I decided that today I'm going to write about identity. Are you, you? Or is it not quite as simple as that?

It seems quite obvious that as you move through life, you continue to be you. It's funny how you don't notice how the exterior changes. Consider the idea of a clone; there is another you sitting across the room from you. He looks exactly the same as you, has had exactly the same life experiences and just is a second you. Who is the real you? Each of them will say themselves because the mind can't comprehend that there is another you. You can't both be you, can you? This seems like a bit of a silly metaphor because it's not possible that this situation could occur. The fact that you're both sitting on different sides of the room means that you are subtly different and not the same. But what if we say that your mind is split 50/50? One half is one part of you and the other half is another part of you, who is the real you? Is it the one you would choose if you had to rid yourself of one of the yous? But when who would be deciding which you to get rid of? A third you? I think maybe it would be impossible for the conscious person to be aware of the second personality, and unaware of the change from one to the other, so is then identity attached to consciousness (the aware half of your mind, not the dormant 'other' half) or is it attached to your body (the way people perceive you from the outside?)

I mean to say, if you are only ever aware of yourself as a single entity, and not the other opposing self in the same mind, then you are only ever of one identity, yes? But then people on the outside would witness you being two different persons, so you would have two identities, would you not? So maybe the answer to this question lies in how we would answer another question. Many things are like that.

If you were asked to write down everything about you that made you, you, that could be your identity could it not? This list of things that come together in a way unique to you. The longer the list the more unique you become. If you make a similar list in ten years time, the list would be different, wouldn't it? Even with reference to the original list, we change over time, so the new list that made up our identity would be different, do we agree? So, over time, one person will have two very different identities, how is that possible? Is the identity of something allowed to change over time? If it can change, how do identities stay unique? We are faced with that question again, aren't we. Is our identity related to our physical body (we are still the same person, we inhabit the same body, and thus our identity is retained) or is our identity a sum of our consciousness (and thus, allowed to morph and change over time)?

Let us now consider the question of slowly changing over time. I think it may be linked to the last question, but it may also be different. Imagine you are a car. You start off as this car, but over time parts stop working or break and they are replaced. After ten years, there are no parts original to your car any more, but are you still the same car? You feel like the same car, you noticed no definite point in time that you stopped being the old car and started becoming the new car, but you are definitely not the car you used to be. I think this is turning into a metaphor for the last paragraph, but I'll continue regardless. So you definitely have a different identity than the old car, but at no point was there a sudden change. Does this mean that the two different identities are actually the same? Does time warp identity?

I worry sometimes. I feel no emotion, no happiness or joy or elation, just nothingness. Apart from sadness, and occasionally anger towards inanimate objects. I worry that if I go and ask for help, and I get fixed so that I can feel again, that I will lose this part of me. The part that is sometimes called 'deep', the part that my friends and those around me cannot fathom because it lurks in the depths of darkness. I like this part of me. I feel that this part of me makes me Jack. If I get given medication or go through mental exercises to reopen the emotional part of my mind, will this part of me become hidden? Will I still be the same Jack? I'll look the same, but if this part of me is gone, will I still be the same? Would I retain my identity if I, in the process of regaining my emotions, forgot that this part of me existed? Does identity revolve around what we know about ourselves, or what we know we don't know about ourselves?

So many people around me understand the world only in black and white - right and wrong. They cannot see that what is wrong for one person can be right for someone else. I think I understand rationally better than many people that often a story has more than one side, and I worry that this part of me will also go if I get better. Will I become shallow and unthinking? Unconcerned with what happens around me? From books and films we see that the wise one is the eternally tortured one. He looks at you with sad eyes and you know that he can see everything, and everything is horrible and painful. I would like to be wise, and maybe eternal sadness is a burden that is worth undertaking in return for wisdom.

What is wisdom? Some believe that wisdom is knowing how to always make the right choice. Others believe that wisdom is ultimate knowledge. Which do you think is a better asset? I think wisdom means more that you know that there must be mistakes as well as knowledge and truth. Wisdom means that you know that the world is evil and that horrendous things happen, and that you cannot stop that. You must not stop that. The world is a horrific place, but it is also full of beauty too. I think you need to understand that the horror must exist for the beauty to exist also. I also think that you need to understand that even with the knowledge wisdom gives you, you cannot stop these bad things. You must allow the world to continue around you.

If given the choice between ultimate knowledge, and ultimate wisdom, which would you take? I think many would mistakenly take knowledge over wisdom forgetting that knowledge means nothing without the ability to understand it. The King has the power to know everything in the land, but the wise man will still make better decisions, for he knows that there must be a balance of good and evil, dark and light. Obviously if the King was wise enough to make good of his power then he and the wise man would be the greatest of friends. I think the King would be wise if he understood that he was not wise, and he consulted in the wise man as a result.

Too many questions, yet again, but I hope I have stretched your minds a little.

So long, So love.

Where are we going?

Will we be looking back from someplace else when we get there?

It seems I feel compelled to write these posts just after watching Skins. This weeks episode was truly crazy and beautiful and powerful and moving all at the same time. There are so many perfect shots, especially the shots of Effy and Freddie in Effy's room, backlit by the morning sun. I wish I could take shots that beautiful, but I don't know if I will ever be able to. I want to talk about this episode, just rabble and ramble and be a crazy person but I don't want to spoil it for anyone who's not watched it yet. It made me cry, which is a first for Skins I think. There's just something about someone sobbing in that way that just brings the tears out of me. Maybe I will never take my perfect photo. Maybe I will be forever consigned to taking mediocre photos. This would be a shame really as I'd probably end up killing myself not too long down the line if I never take a photo I'm happy with. Lovely thought that, but not really that scary.

People seem to think I'm quite a depressing person when it turns out that I've thought about death quite a lot. Not my own death; that would be a little morbid, even for me; no just death in general. I don't think about death in that pathetic emo way, "Like Omfg Life Is So Harsh On Me I Just Can't Go On Living Its Just 2 Hard!!!!111!!!1", sort of like, you need to accept that death is coming for you, and will get you. The harder you run the faster he comes your way. Don't give me any of that "living every day like it's my last!!" bullcrap because you're not, all you're doing is using that as an excuse to go out and get hammered every Saturday night and get laid. Living every day like it's your last is looking at the sunset and reminding yourself once again how beautiful it is, looking at that grey sky and thinking if it were just underexposed by a few stops it would look wonderful and crazy and thundery, living like there's no tomorrow is accepting the future and forgiving the past and loving yourself and those around you with no regrets. I can't say I act upon my preachings because for me the past is always there, and I can never forgive myself for my wrong doings, and loving myself isn't something I've done for a very long time, but I love those around me that much more so I like to think that makes up for it.

Dying isn't something to run from, it's something to walk towards. You know when you go on a great adventure, and when you start it you wish it would never end? And it seems like it's over all too soon, but when you get in your front door and you drop your bags on the floor and you flop into your divot on the sofa that your ass made because you sit in exactly the same place every night, you're glad to be home at last. Life is like that. When you're young you wish it would never end and you could live for ever but by the time you get to the end you're glad to be home and death doesn't seem like such a big deal any more. People who commit suicide are like people who get homesick and go home early and people who get hit by cars are like people who get arrested half way through their great adventure and get sent home early. When you look at it like that it doesn't seem half so bad. I think a part of growing up is realising that you have to go home some day. Part of growing wise is realising that it's not such a bad thing; having to go home; after all.

One of my favourite quotes is "Why die for today when you could live for tomorrow?" It has many meanings, but I think one of them is that however heroic and brave your death today is, you're still going to miss the beauty of tomorrow. Maybe dying today means somebody you love can live for tomorrow, but if they love you too then why would they want to live for tomorrow without you? Giving your life for someone is widely seen as a selfless act but it's possible to see it as incredibly selfish too. Seeing a loved one die is one of the hardest and most painful things imaginable so many would say "I wish I could die so they could live", but how much of that is chickening out of feeling that pain? Do you really wish all the pain you feel to be placed upon the shoulders of the person you love, just so that you don't have to feel it any more? Sounds pretty selfish to me.

It is very hard to kill one's self nobly. There is the case of a man throwing himself on top of a grenade to save the crowd of people around him that he doesn't even know, is that brave suicide? Suicide is so often known as the 'easy way out', but it's not. There must be something terribly wrong with a human if they can override the basic instinct to live, but sometimes someone just knows when it is their time. Suicide is often terribly selfish and pathetic and weak but I know I can think of some circumstances where it's just laid a tortured soul to rest.

So many people seem to think that living forever would be amazing. That living forever is cheating death. Living forever isn't cheating death, far from it, to want to live forever merely taunts death to come and get you. To live forever in fear of death is no life at all. To really cheat death you must live life as best you can, and when he comes for you, instead of running you turn and face him. You face him, look him in the eye and let him take you. That is cheating death. To let him take you with no fear and with no remorse. To know that you have loved and lived and that you have no regrets, that is cheating death. To be run down like a rabbit by a dog is no way to die, that is no way to live. Do not fear death, he is a friend simply giving you a lift home. Once home you can put your feet up and sleep, sleep in a way that you never could when you were alive. You can sleep without fear, without nightmare, without time or place. You can sleep in peace.

Sometimes, when we run from our fears, we spend so much time running that we don't have a chance to look back and check what exactly it is we're running from. Sometimes when you look back you see that that monster really isn't that scary at all. If only I were brave enough to take my own advice eh? I might actually be able to slay some of these creatures that torture me, but no, not yet. Not yet.

Not yet.

So long, So love.

Long time no see, it seems. Should I apologise for this? Maybe not as I have a sneaking suspicion that I may be talking to myself but that is not an object of concern. I talk to myself a lot so this is just extended talking I guess.

The war photographer Don McCullin said in an interview, "I have been manipulated, and I have in turn manipulated others, by recording their response to suffering and misery. So there is guilt in every direction: guilt because I don't practice religion, guilt because I was able to walk away, while this man was dying of starvation or being murdered by another man with a gun. And I am tired of guilt, tired of saying to myself: "I didn't kill that man on that photograph, I didn't starve that child." That's why I want to photograph landscapes and flowers. I am sentencing myself to peace." I think he's saying that even though he has no part in the atrocities that he photographs, he still feels the guilt associated with them. He feels the guilt of not helping, but how can you help everyone? If you help one you must help many else it isn't fair. Life isn't fair though. It just isn't. Good people die and bad people prosper because that's the way the world turns around. I wonder what would happen if we spun the would backwards instead? Chaos, no doubt, but would it really be chaos? Or just different to what we see and know? If you walked through a door and you were suddenly in another universe surrounded by people that look exactly like us, except that they were crazy; foaming at the mouth and raving and lumbering around; who would be the crazy one? You're in their world and to them, you are the crazy one. Should this idea modify the way we talk and think and act socially? Maybe.

Imagine you were in the jungle and suddenly you were captured by some men. These men are cutting down the jungle for wood and they think you shouldn't be there. They take you back to their campsite and there are 10 natives in a make-shift cage. One of the man holds out a gun to you and tells you that you can go free if you shoot one of the natives in the cage. If you refuse to shoot the native then you may go, but they will all be killed instead of just one. Assume that the man is telling the truth, and that those you don't kill will be freed, what do you do? Do you take the gun, aim down the barrel and shoot, and have the blood on your hands? Or do you turn your back and walk away? Is this a question of responsibility or guilt or humanity? Do we have a responsibility to kill one to save many in this situation? Is your guilt important? Would you feel more guilty about killing one or letting many die? Do you deny yourself something when you take that gun and pull the trigger? Something so important that it makes up the very core of humanity? Or are these morals and ethics and guilty emotions all weakness?

Does it make you weak to walk away? Or strong? Some might say that it makes you weak because you cannot shoot one man to save many. Others might say that it makes you strong because you aren't taking the easy route out, but then again, what is the easy route?

I'm predicting that many of you will choose to shoot the one to save the rest. Am I right? That seems like the natural human reaction to a situation like this. You have the power to stop 10 people getting killed by killing one yourself. Do you really have that power? Or is it an illusion? Are you simply removing yourself from the equation if you walk away? Does that change anything? Would these people have died anyway if you hadn't come along to be given this choice?

Seeing as I guess many of you will still say that you would shoot rather than walk, now suppose this new scenario. You are the president of a large country - we'll say America. Now someone else, say Russia, contacts you and says that they will kill 50% of the American population with a nuclear missile. The only thing you can do to stop them is to kill 5% of your own people. What do you do? Let the Russians kill half your country or kill 5% of them yourself? I guess that makes it a lot harder, doesn't it? Lets just add in there that the Russians will have proof that you ordered the deaths of thousands of people and will leak it to the media, so there's no way you can pawn it off on another country. Do you shoulder the responsibility and risk revolt, hate, or even your own assassination by killing your own people or do you let the Russians do their thing? Just to clarify, we are talking about the same ratio of people living or dying in each scenario so, technically, your answers should be similar. Are they different?

Maybe they're different because as a normal person you think you could handle killing someone as long as you don't let all 10 people die, but you're scared that if your president of prime minister was in the same situation he might betray you and choose you to be one of the ones killed. Maybe you would prefer your president to kill off a smaller part of the population so you have more chance of surviving?

These are all very hard questions but interesting thinking. Killing one to save many is known as utilitarianism, the idea that we all must strive for 'the greater good'. I think the official line is 'the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people'. If someone or something gets in the way of the greater good then they are no consequence. It sounds like a good idea doesn't it? As many people as possible get to be happy and those that try to make us unhappy get eliminated. In theory, it is a good idea (like communism) but in reality it doesn't quite live up to expectations. What if you're a member of the side who don't agree with the majority? Don't you still want your voice to be heard? Don't you still want power to make a difference? The problem with utilitarianism is that you need someone to decide what the 'good' is, and how we should be 'happy', but everyone feels happiness differently and is gratified in different ways. How could one good be right for us all? The 'greatest number' might only be 51%, while there is 49% unhappy people. Maybe a true democracy would work, but true democracies hardly ever exist in the real world because it's simply too difficult to coordinate.

I feel like I should carry this on in some way but I need to shower and get ready to go out now so maybe another time. I'll see if I can dredge up any more ideas to think about for next time.

So long, So love.