Solitude

The pleasure of solitude
The luxury of introspection 
The exploration of self
The mysteries of paths unhewn
The joy of discoveries unknown
The depth of silence
The solace of your mind
The titillation of senses awakened
The gratification of being you
The liberation from seeking justification
The synchronisation with nature

Find these
And you will be the richest man alive.

Introspection

It is a perverted leap of faith, the belief that your abilities will shine through the dross that makes up ordinary people's lives. The frailty of genius is in that it always needs an audience, even when none seems likely; despite that, and rather foolishly, I continue to seek approval. 

I hold my breath for applause that will never come, for cheers I will never hear and validation I will never be able to claim, or Bon Jovi would put it, "As I dream about movies they won't make of me when I'm dead...". 

There is no greater hurt than to worship and not be worshipped in return; no greater heartbreak than loving and being spurned; no greater insult than your intellect being compared unfavourably to base juvenile instinct; no greater wound than a barefaced lie; no greater pain than being surrounded by people and yet feeling alone.

I don't know where I go from here, I'm not even sure there is anywhere to go to. That the world needs changing isn't the scariest of thoughts; that I might have to, is what terrifies me.

A Depressing Day

Midweek. Wednesday. This is pretty much the last week of work before we pack up for the holidays. My class graduates this week too, and they've been good; they've done well, learning more than I thought I was capable of teaching. I should be elated. I'm not.

Today began muggy, damp and cold. The fog that promised to lift before noon, still hangs heavy, like a scene from The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Ominous. Foreboding. Opaque. Despite what you wear, the chill cuts right through to the bone. You have thoughts in your head. Some happy, some tinged with sadness, and some filled with dread and fear.

Somewhere in the higher echelons of British Academia, envied the world over, it has been decided that the segregation of men and women on the basis of an oddly archaic belief system is a valid concept. In 2013, where empirical evidence is king, where a man may marry a man, where basic human rights trump everything else, men and women will be required to sit apart because a bigot's rights are suddenly paramount. We're a tolerant bunch, us Brits, but must we tolerate intolerance? To think I've handed over my children to these idiots to be educated...

A few thousand miles away, the nation that calls itself the largest democracy in the world, the nation that the entire globe sees as a beacon for the future and significant player in the new world order (conspiracy theorists, shut up, I don't mean that NWO), chooses to continue to outlaw gay relationships. Old men, with not a bone in their body, despite markets flooded with generic Viagra, making decisions about the sex lives of people they're never likely to come across is as depressing a thought as I'm making it out to be. And we thought the Taliban were bad.

I'm off, to the comfort and warmth of my home, where I am informed we're going to have Aashak for dinner. Under the soft glow of tungsten filaments (yes, old-school lighting), I'm going to sit in my recliner, and watch the light dance through the ice cubes and amber liquid in a crystal glass and thank that good old chap from Tennessee, Jack Daniel for well, Jack Daniel's.

The world can go fuck itself.