Undercurrents.

Undercurrents
Current mood: sympathetic

I feel like im revelling in some kind of victory.
There was some kind of hail storm today, and I left my window slightly open so I could hear the wails of the wind, as I watched it drive the icy residue across the greying sky. It reminded me of why I hate winter, all the uncertainty of movement. The way you cant walk in a straight line because the winds too harsh, how papers and plastic bags dance around, people’s cloths flap and swash in the breezes and even the rain doesn’t fall straight.
There’s no hope for anyone looking glamorous though – which is a blessing – because it covers my own lack of effort a little more then usual. Its times like these when I consider nature to be on my side.
I am a procrastinator by nature though, and so I am starting – rather early – to dread the coming of summer, the uncomfortable nights, the draining days. This years will be different to most though. My first summer as an adult, you could say. Even long summers of work promise respite come the start of term again, but this time I don’t really have that privilege. My ridiculous poverty foretells long hours of hard graft in some daft institution of labour, while contemplating the onslaught of a work based (rather college-y) qualification. Needless to say I’ll be up to my unborn offspring’s ears in debt by then, and the weight of that hangs over me unnecessarily heavily too.
I guess there’s several ways of looking at change. I am starting to take them all into account. I cant even decide which one of a bunch of airy philosophies to take. There’s people I’ll miss, people I wont. Thing’s I’ll wish I’d made more of, things I’ll be glad to be rid of. People will think I have rose tinted glasses about the whole thing, but there really has been nothing negative about this experience (apart from the abject poverty) and I don’t regret a thing. I feel much, much freer now then I ever have in my life. And I’m increasingly positive about years to come, which is something I have never, ever experienced in my life.
I’m finding that old insecurities worm their way out in different ways these days, and that spark there once was to my personality is dumbed down, or – perhaps – is completely gone. What remains of me is a worn, more apathetic (yet strangely constructive) shell, in which I am more aware of my mental activities then the constraints of my physicality. Indeed, it feels as though my mind is running like Lynford Christy on speed, while my body lags behind, the lame-lizard opposite.
Perhaps I’m getting older, there’s a chance I’ve just given up, but either way things have changed. And this is what I know I will have a hard time facing.
Its kind of a jump now/don’t jump now situation. One which I’m feeling ever more out of control of. But then again, for the first time I dot really feel the need to be in control of it.
Am I enjoying the ride?
Is this what it is to ‘Go with the flow’?
Even the simplest pleasures aren’t craved anymore, they are just given. And all the things that seem so out of reach, now are in the palm of my hand. It never was as hard as I imagined. But that somehow cheapens the whole thing. I lied to myself, or at least my emotions ran amock in my weak mind, which has now been trained like a vine, to consider things more wholly.
I am like a religionist, who seeks to pick out the best parts of theology to create a super-philosophy of the choicest morsels of information. I am at the stage where I can justify – rationalize even – virtually everything I believe. There’s not much left to explain anymore, and the untamed ramblings of my former self only works itself out in my head.
I am under the suspicion that this is what growing up is. The ability to exercise self control. Which I suppose comes with an understanding of one’s surroundings.
And understand them I do. I know why things are the way they are. I can see traces of humanity in every invention, I know the thought processes, and directorship and regulation behind every aspect of what I see before me. And more and more I find myself subject – for the first time willingly – to it.
Its easy to start a battle, but much harder to start a war.
And warring puts enlightenment on hold, this I now realise.
I also now realise that the cleverest people aren’t the deadest – but the numbest.
I take this into account with fervour, it makes me consider my options more wisely.
All in all, on some conscious level right now I’m feeling quite balanced, quite pleased with myself, quite.. pleasant. But underneath this steady level is the undercurrent of anxiety that has always existed. Only now, its just an undercurrent.

Currently Reading :
With Nails: The Film Diaries of Richard E. Grant
By Richard E. Grant