An existential ramble on emotions, relationships and why you should keep your love off Facebook

Last night, while out knocking back a couple of draughts, Boyfriend and I got to talking about emotions. Specifically, I mentioned the fact that emotions really are ugly little things. It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, and something that’s honestly fascinated me for a long time.

I think what got us started on the topic is that I’ve got this really awful habit of picking away at people, doing my best to get them raw and intense and fired up, even if it means hurting them in order to do it. I like to see what’s really going on under the dull façade that people tend to put up for public consumption; not the muffled version of only what they’ll allow themselves to say. What you find, really, is that emotions are just not pretty; not the real, deep ones. Even love, which is supposed to be this beautiful thing, is actually just raw and brutal and ugly. It’s tinged with so much jealousy, possessiveness and intense desire that borders on terrifying sometimes.

If you could only see the beast you’ve made of me
I held it in but now it seems you’ve set it running free
Screaming in the dark, I howl when we’re apart
Drag my teeth across your chest to taste your beating heart

I considered just blogging about that – how ugly emotions really are – because, as I said, it’s something that’s been on my mind a lot lately, but the more I thought about the more, the more I realised I had to say on the subject.

One of the first things that came to mind is some of the warped and vaguely idiotic things people do when they say they’re in love – not because I think I’ve got it down and do things better; just because I’m a judgmental whore and I get very irritated with some things. For instance, a friend of mine claims to be very in love with her significant other; they’re even planning on having kids sometime soon. Still, she won’t tell him that she’s afraid of doctors, because she doesn’t want him to think that she’s weak. I see something very wrong with this.  I understand that love doesn’t always mean being consumed with passion and never looking twice at another person, but surely if you’re in love, you should trust your significant other enough to tell them some of your fears?

Another thing is just a pet-peeve of mine; those people who splatter their social networking sites with ridiculous declarations of love and devotion; status messages like “I love you more than all the other people in the entire world, angelsnoochypoo, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. The sun shines out of your eyeballs and you practically ejaculate nutella and rainbows. If you ever leave me, I will spontaneously combust and I’ll just DIE. I love you mwa mwa mwa” It just drives me insane.  If you’re so interested in your significant other knowing how you feel about them, why don’t you just send them a fucking message?

There’s another thing; why do people have such a hard time telling their significant other how they feel. I understand the fear and anxiety that can bubble up when you’ve got something really intense to say, but it’s the way you feel, and why should you have to hide that just to keep them with you?

Another quote I don’t quite remember, is that people should be able to say how they really feel, and not words that other people put in their mouths. Jesus, so true. Everyone is constantly bombarded by shit in the media about how relationships should be, what you should do, what you shouldn’t say, how you should dress to impress your man; fuck that noise, I say – Boyfriend can just deal with me in sweatpants and haystack hair; apparently he likes me like that, so. Why are people relying on gossip rags to tell them what love is?

This is becoming a slightly longer ramble than I anticipated, so here’s where I just forgo any sort of conclusion and just sign off.

Maybe it’s just a case of painfully short attention-span

Though the idea of having a blog is one that I love, and I occasionally muster up the energy to actually make a post about something, maintaining any sort of consistency is difficult, to say the least. As I’ve mentioned on some of my other blogs, I have the consistency of undercooked custard.

Seeing as blogging about being incapable of blogging consistently still counts as blogging, I figured I’d do that. Maybe if I get into the habit of just posting what’s on my mind, I’ll be able to get into some sort of groove.

If writers wrote as carelessly as some people talk, then dwaufhaasdasdfghjg lkjhgfdsasasdf[apoi[dasd dadasdqa

So what follows is Ke’s list of: Reasons I Suck at Keeping a Blog

1. I’m lazy
Christ, I give new meaning to the word lazy. Though I’m stellar at getting things done when I’ve got some sort of deadline and a fair bit of pressure on me, there’s no pressure to update the blog everyday. Who the fuck cares anyway? Honestly, I’ve got better things to do during the day than type random words – like fuck around on tumblr FOREVER and make to-do lists that will never get done. Not to mention searching new bands and updating my twitter. I lead such a rich and varied life, obviously.

2. I write all day
I work as a copwriter, dammit. I spend all day writing random shit about unicorns and car-washes and full-body fucking hot stone massages; the last thing I feel like doing when I get home is writing more.

3. I never have anything to say
Nothing ever really happens in my life, except wake up, work, talk to boyfriend, sleep; not exactly the most exciting things to blog about. When it gets right down to making a post, I just sit there pondering a topic – and when I finally figure one out, one of the other reasons for never blogging comes into play.

4. I think in snapshots and pretty pictures
As a photographer, I tend to find pictures far more appealing than words – and as such, I’d rather create a blog constructed mainly of photographs and other images, with a few words scattered here and there; mostly quotes and song lyrics.

Speaking of which – scoundrelicious.tumblr.com

5. I don’t have time
Any time I actually work up the enthusiasm to blog, and actually have a vague idea of what I’d say – I’m so busy with other random crap that I could actually puke blood from the pressure. This often leads to me half-assing my posts so that I can at least get something up, which just kicks my morale and writing-based self-esteem right in the face.

Franz Kafka

I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.
— Franz Kafka

You’ve just got to ask yourself; how is Franz Kafka the most BAMF individual to ever put pen to paper? Seriously, this is the same guy who gave us the impossibility of crows

The crows maintain that a single crow could destroy the heavens. Doubtless that is so, but it proves nothing against the heavens, for the heavens signify simply: The impossibility of crows.

also, The Metamorphosis and Before the Law; two stories that are damn near guaranteed to have your brains melting through your eyeballs out of sheer amazement and confusion.

I cannot stress enough how strongly I feel that everyone on this whole damn planet should read Before the Law and how strongly I feel about Franz Kafka and his general BAMFness. If you do nothing else today, go read Before the Law – because it’s pretty easy to find online – and it’s something worth reading.

A Year with No Haircuts

For some reason that I’m no longer quite sure of, I recently made the decision to grow out my hair; which, considering I’ve kept it relatively short until now – never let it grow over my shoulders, really – is quite a big deal. After about seven years of choppy hair, and giving the choppy hair the chop whenever it becomes even vaguely longish, it’s probably time I tried something different.

Therefore, I’ve decided to go an entire year without a haircut. For someone who’s used to a total follicular revamp every three or four months, a year with the same choppy and ridiculous mess is going to drive me seven shades of crazy. Alas, no haircuts at all is the only way I’ll ever be able to grow out this godforsaken mop on top of my head; because if I find myself within spitting distance of hairdresser’s scissors, I’ll just tell them to shave me like an alpaca in winter, and that would sort of defeat the main objective.

It’s been two months so far – less, actually – since I made the decision, and already it’s making me crazier than a squirrel-rat after a week’s floating down the Niger delta in pickle-jar. I just don’t know what to do with myself or it. Boyfriend also claims that his hair’s awesomeness comes from the fact that he doesn’t put anything on it, so I’m also trying to avoid products and styling – because, dammit, it’s wrong that my boyfriend has better hair than I do. So now, we have hair that’s more unmanageable than a sugar-addled toddler and a determination not to use styling products; the ultimate recipe for driving Ke insane.

Mostly  I just need to rant about it lot so that I can forget about actually doing something to it – like hacking all of it off in a fit of impulsive IDON’TGIVEAFUCKANYMORE and try to remember that it’ll probably look quite cool once it’s a bit longer – also, that once it’s longer, I’ll be able to put the dreads in that I’ve wanted since I turned sixteen.

 

What’s your sexuality?

The one where I don’t give a fuck, have sex with whatever I find attractive, leave nothing concrete, and don’t parade it around like it’s a badge of honour because who I am attracted to is neither an achievement nor is it an extension of my personality. My mating call is “well, you look symmetrical”

It’s pretty legit.

This is probably the best explanation for spectrasexuality and sapiosexuality that I’ve ever seen; it also happens to be exactly the way I feel.

SPECTRASEXUAL: The attraction towards a wide range of genders and bodily formats on the spectrum that is gender. An attraction based not entirely on personality but appearance.

SAPIOSEXUAL: A form of sexual orientation characterized by a strong attraction to intelligence in others, often regardless of gender and/or conventional attractiveness. 

I really just don’t understand the people who use their sexuality as a way to define themselves, because not being ashamed of who you’re attracted to is one thing, but waving it around like a trophy is completely another. It’s like people being proud of the fact that they metabolise oxygen.

Existential thought(s) for the day

The pursuit of individual happiness has been acknowledged as a universal right. Yet the existing social conditions make the individual feel powerless. He lives in the contradiction between what he is and what he would like to be. Either he then becomes fully conscious of the contradiction and its causes, and so joins the political struggle for a full democracy which entails, amongst other things, the overthrow of capitalism; or else he lives, continually subject to an envy which, compounded with his sense of powerlessness, dissolves into recurrent day-dreams – JOHN BERGER, WAYS OF SEEING

Once again, I find myself in the midst of a quasi- existential crisis. It seems to be a perpetual state of being for me; I can never just accept the way things are and just carry on, because everything is constantly moving and I can’t stand feeling stagnant. Essentially, it’s just a constant struggle to be a better person, to know more or be more or be different.

So, my existential crisis for the day seems to be which of John Berger’s categories I fall into; the political struggle or the recurrent dreams? Neither seems particularly appealing. I don’t particularly care to overthrow capitalism, and I’d never want to waste my life away languishing in daydreams.

And people are often unable to do anything, imprisoned as they are in, I don’t know what kind of terrible, terrible oh such terrible cage. Do you know what makes the prison disappear? Every deep, genuine affection. Being friends, being brothers, loving, that is what opens the prison, with supreme power, by some magic force. Without these one stays dead. But whenever affection is revived, there life revives – VINCENT VAN GOGH, LETTER TO THEO