sunday night

So I'm sitting in my room, at my desk. It's 10:54pm, sunday night, and I'm listening to Jens Lekman. The only light is coming from the computer monitor. Such an odd existence. I spend my entire working week sitting in front a computer, and then when I get home, I sit in front of my laptop. When I go to bed my laptop usually comes to bed with me. I go to work, where I have an office. I only speak to people when I am involved in some project or something is broken, and 90% of the time, it's via phone conference to people in singapore, china, japan, the USA, germany, etc. I never see my boss, and rarely speak to him. I go to work, do what I need to do, then come home. Rinse, repeat.

Week nights are spent at home, on my laptop, playing games, surfing the web, listening to music. Weekends are pretty much the same. I see my flat mate, and speak to him, but really thats about it. I try to go and eat dinner with my parents once a week - thats about the extent of my interaction with people.

Right now, I am completely unmoved by work. Apathetic is the best word. It's not something I really want to do, and it's not something i have to care about all that much.

I have no inspiration or motivation to create art at the moment. I should force myself to go out and take some new photos, but I cant help but think to myself "why?". It's like when you live alone, you rarely cook, and very rarely make a nice meal. I mean, you spend money, take the time to cook something, and then sit down to enjoy it - by yourself. What's the point? Not that I am in any way looking for back-patting or re-assurance from anyone, but y'know if a tree falls in the woods, et. al.

I wish my life was a book, so I could skip forward a couple of chapters and just glance at the paragraphs - I dont want to read ahead, just check to make sure things turn out ok. Choose your own Adventure would be great too - I could keep my fingers bookmarking each page before I make a decision.

The strange thing is that the more I feel alone, the less I want to be around people. It's like every other person is together and winning at life, just to spite me. Which of course is just fucked, but there you go - Im just riding this wave, hoping not to drown, y'know?

The most comforting thing for me at the moment, is this weird regression back into childhood. The small of crappy Dominos pizza, the music from an 8-bit NES game like Megaman, movies like Big Trouble in Little China and Back to the Future, cartoons, red lemonade, etc etc. I was a child of the 80's and could crap on about 80's pop culture a lot, but I wont. I'm just unsure whether this is healthy behaviour. I mean, am I trying to escape this issue, or is this merely a good way to re-establish myself and who I am as a person, because the truth is, I'm not entirely sure these days. The way I look at it, is that revisitng the past is a good way to re-calibrate where you are headed. I'd really love to catch up with some people from my childhood years - my old next door neighbor especially. We basically grew up together and spent about 10 years hanging out every day after school and on weekends. There are also a few people I'd like to catch up with from highschool - though in person, rather than via facefuck.

I mean, if I feel ok thinking about and doing these things, then surely it's not a bad thing for me to do. Who the fuck knows, eh?

One thing I did realise tonight, is that sometimes, as much as you wanna continue to look back and wonder what if, you have to just shut the fuck up, turn around, and start walking. And really, walking isnt hard - it's just one step after the other.

This entire blog post is complete rambling bullshit. Disregard.

It's been a rough couple of weeks for me. Not so much about any particular event as such, but I guess just about some kind of realisation. This idea that there is someone for everyone is just rubbish. I've been pretty sooky, and kinda gone through the five stages of acceptance in my head - shock, anger, fear, bargaining, acceptance. I'm not sure I'm totally at acceptance yet, but pretty close. So as a result of all this thinking time, big questions have started to creep in - the biggest questions. And while I think everyone wonders them at some point, for most people, the path is pretty well laid out. I mean, you find a partner, breed, visit Ikea on a sunday, etc etc. Your meaning on this earth shifts focus from yourself to your partner and or family, and thats enough to keep those pesky un-answered questions from sneaking back into your brain at night. "What is my purpose on earth? Oh thats right, to raise my kids to be the best they can be" or "..to share a life with my partner and be happy." So what becomes of the rest of us?

Being raised as a Catholic, going to church every sunday, attending a Catholic boys high school and then out and out rejecting religion in all it's forms, once I had the critical and intellectual skills to see how ludicrous they were being; you would think that finding religion wouldn't even be considered as a remote option, and it's not. Though admittedly the thought of going to church crossed my mind for about 5 seconds on the way home from work. What the fuck though, seriously. I'm not even going to get started on how completely against all my principles that would be. What of other religions? For me, same deal. I am an athiest, through and through. No, I am NOT going to find god on my death bed, and quite frankly if heaven is full of Christians, I'd rather go to hell (thanks Bill Hicks).

So, family seems out. Religion is definitely out. I've thought about doing volunteer work. I'm not sure in what capacity, but I do genuinely want to contribute positively to society. I realise the world does not revolve around me, and despite my woes, I have it pretty fucking good compared to most. Thats not lost on me. But is charity and volunteer work going to light the fuse that guides me to what my purpose in life is? Fucked if I know.

Get a dog? Yep - thought a lot about that. pretty close to doing that too - or a cat maybe (called Chairman Meow). Thing is, I can see myself leaving Melbourne in the next year or two. That's not some kind of airy fairy dream, and it's not some subconscious threat - it's something I am planning for - so how can I leave a dog or cat? And really, what kind of life's purpose is to look after your dog?

For the first time in my life, I am really at a loss as to what to do. Work bores the shit out of me, nothing in my free time is particularly stimulating right now, and I have nothing on the horizon. And see - there is another one of those questions creeping in again..

Is this it?

swimming in the deepest oceans

2:16am, I have a heavy heart and cold feet. Sometimes it's hard to maintain self-confidence when that feeling of worthlessness starts to creep in. I have been wondering a lot lately whether it's going to be me vs life until it's all over. It's the kind of thought that you need to push aside, step over and ignore - though you know it never really disappears. It's always there, waiting for times like this, when you feel rejected.

But Miles Davis is wallowing with me and it really is hitting the spot right now. He knows that I have cold feet and a heavy heart. He said motherfucker a lot apparently, which is something I can relate to. So I'm doing my best to not beat myself up over anything, because when I get down, I can really get down, so I'm taking the unfeeling approach. I'm trying to not over-think anything, and just get on with life during winter in Melbourne. Still, there is an ocean of sad stuff there, waiting patiently for the boat to spring a leak.

I took some photos tonight - please take a look and leave your feedback. I really like them, but I suspect I may be alone on that. Who cares though, eh? They are mine, and I like them. That doesn't happen to often with me. Take a recent podcast I posted for news from the other side - I can't bring myself to listen to it. First podcast and all that but still, I cant help but think I am the most boring person in the entire world. Regardless, I'm gonna make more. I think I'm going to do a field recording next weekend when I go to take photos, and just record my random thoughts and street sounds. Could be crap, but who cares right? It's mine.

I have an essay to write on the history of Hong Kong Cinema which I have actually started, and I have a video reel to do for a very large company here - deadline is thursday. Still, all I want to do is listen to Miles, drink shiraz, play video games and wallow (like a motherfucker).

I posted some photos from a recent trip on picassa, and in fact there is a couple of other galleries up too. I have a thing for shooting fluorescent lights at the moment - I have an idea for some images that I want to play around with.

It's funny how I only tend to write here when I'm feeling south of happy these days. Actually you know what, forget that thought. Who gives a fuck when I write and for what purpose.

Until next time,

JL

..

It's 11:10pm and I'm tired. Chinese food for dinner from King of Kings, but I didn't really enjoy it. Watching Louis Theroux right now, and it's depressing me. I also should have learned by now to not have a snarky argument via a chat client, because sarcasm doesn't work, and it escalates very quickly. Gah.

I plan to start doing some audio recordings soon. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do, but I have some ideas. Fuck it, I'm sick of in-action, I'm going to just start putting things out there. 

There are new photos on my flickr page and also here 

Let me know what you think. Also let me know if you would like to see anything here or from me. I'll do my best to oblige.

So I'm back. It's been crazy of late,  but is settling down a bit I think. A lot of stuff has been happening in my life, of which I'll go into over the next few posts. I'm waiting on a new camera to arrive too, so I should be able to post some nice photos over the next few weeks. Keep an eye on this site, as I'll try to get back into regular updates, and also keep an eye on http://www.focusfour.com.au . There should actually be a website up there some day soon.

I joined a punk band a few weeks ago, playing the drums. It was fun for a while, but last week I told them I was out. I'm really not a punk, and to be honest, playing drums in a punk band is pretty unsatisfying. Athletic, but boring. It was also the kind of scenario where I was just the hired drummer, and they really weren't up for any creative input from me. Also they were happy playing sex pistols covers. zzzz. I thought about trying to introduce some electronic sounds by way of my laptop, but decided it was probably best I just move on - especially when they began writing borderline racist songs proclaiming that asians eat dog. Yeah, I decided I was out.

I've been doing some design work for the Commonwealth Bank here recently - has been fun. I'll go into that and ff a bit more soon. I might even post some images. Maybe.

Anyway more soon, but tell your friends, I'm back. For the time being anyway.