Recently in State of Mind Category

Some people spend their whole lives not knowing what they want. Some people know exactly what they want and can't find it.

I don't know which is worse....

It's not often I make a "serious" post on this blog, probably because I tend to spend most of my time just trying to stay afloat rather than form opinions on things, but this is something that's been bothering me for a while. So I thought I'd write about it. Here we go:

What's the point of religion? Do people who pray every day really believe that their lives are made better by the act of prayer? Or do they just believe that if they don't pray then their lives will be made much worse?

I know that people take comfort in the words of the bible. Is that because they can't think of a solution to their problems on their own? They have to turn to a "how to do it" manual?

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that there is a God. Only one God, and he is omnipresent, and omnipotent. He knows everything that we are thinking, everything that has ever happened and everything that will happen. So, by extension, he knows if you're inherently a good person, or inherently an evil person. He knows that good people can occasionally do bad things, and feel sorry about those things, and he knows that bad people can occasionally do good things (although I have no idea if they feel good about those things or not. But God knows. If he exists). Anyway, feeling good about yourself or feeling sorry for yourself does not change your inherent nature. So, given that God knows all this, and given that we are going to go to heaven or hell based on whether we are inherently good or evil, will praying make the slightest bit of difference?

Let's also say, for the sake of argument, that Bob Geldof does not believe in God. Does that mean that he is going to hell because he is a non-believer? But Bob is an inherently good person, he saw that something was wrong with the world and set about changing it, improving the lives of millions of people. So should he go to heaven because he is an inherently good person? (Actually I wrote this a while ago and chose Bob as an example here because he's pretty well-known as being a "good person". I had no idea if he believes in God or not - according to this interview, he doesn't).

I'm not sure if I believe in God, or heaven, or hell. I do know that it is better to be a good person than an evil person, that treating fellow human beings with respect and kindness will have its paybacks. What goes around, comes around. But just because I don't go to a specified building at a specified time of the week, and read specific words from a specific book, does that make me a bad person? You can teach children right from wrong without touching the bible (or any religious writings). They learn what they need to know from fairy tales, fables, ghost stories and all the other stuff that kids lap up. My son knew that lying was bad after he watched Pinocchio, we didn't have to quote the bible to him to teach him that.

The human brain is a remarkable thing. Given enough time, it will usually sort out its own problems. When we sleep, when we dream (or daydream), this is our brain making sense of the outside world. If you have a problem rattling about in your head, a moral issue or whatever, how do you go about solving it? Do you write out a list of pros and cons, an action plan? Do you go to church or wherever and ask God for guidance? Or do you sleep on it? I would wager that whichever option you chose, you'd come up with a solution to the problem within a few hours. Now, did you logically work out a solution? Did God answer your prayers? Or did your brain make sense of the problem while you were sleeping?

I have a feeling that people feel comfortable with prayer because it acts as a way of distracting the mind from the normal day-to-day problems, and gives it some space to sort things out on its own. Meditation does the same thing, I would imagine yoga does too. The brain also has time to think about the day's problems while you're at the gym. So if prayer is simply a means to distract the brain, why not go for a walk instead?

My parents are Jewish and although no-one in my family is observant I was sent to a Jewish school. I learned how to read hebrew and how to say the prayers. But I don't remember being taught all that much about what the prayers actually mean. So when I go to synagogue (about once every 10 years if current stats are anything to go by) I can still just about read the hebrew words and tell where the rabbi is up to, but the rest of it is like watching a foreign film with a blindfold on. And I get the impression that 98% of people that go to synagogue when I go (Jewish new year and Yom Kippur, the day of atonement) are only going so that other people can see that they went. I don't think anyone really goes to atone for their sins, because the most obvious sin is that they haven't set foot inside a synagogue for the last 12 months.

There are many different religions in the world, each believing different things. Some religions are more tolerant than others of people that either don't believe, or believe something different. Over the course of history, how many people have died as a result of religious fighting? If people are praying to God and calling for an end to war, do you think he's listening?

Time to reassess and reconfirm my immediate goals and plans. I've got so many different things running round my head at the moment, I need to take some time out and work out what's important and what's not.

Home

I've been thinking for a while about remortgaging my house, freeing up some of the equity in it, and using the extra cash to make some home improvements. And my house certainly does need quite a lot of improving. I could do with a new kitchen, new boiler, new fireplace and carpet in the lounge, new back door, fix the leaks on the front door and the front window, make sure the place is properly insulated, and decorate it from top to bottom. That's all going to take time and money, and I need to calculate a) if I can afford it and b) if the improvements will increase the value of the house sufficiently to make it worthwhile.

Work

I've been working for the same company for the last nine years now. The job is ok, and I don't have any problems doing it, but the salary isn't brilliant, and the work environment could be better. The place is on an industrial estate, in what looks like a converted warehouse, and there are no windows so I can't see what's happening outside. I get no sunlight, no daylight even, and that's really starting to bug me. Also, the place I work is 20 miles from where I live, and the time and cost of commuting is also starting to get me down.

I've got a couple of weeks off at the moment, and I'm going to do some research into home improvements, remortgaging, finding a new job, skills etc. Might be a lot to ask for in two weeks though. I'm also planning on getting to the gym a bit more often (yeah right)

What goes around, comes around. Karma, and all that. I'm feeling upbeat and positive at the moment, good about myself and good about who I am. Which is certainly an improvement on how I was feeling when I started this blog!

My friend M turns to me for help and advice on her relationships. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail here, but when she has problems getting her thoughts orgranised she asks me to help out. We did this a few weeks ago, and this weekend we did it again. She tells me what's been happening with her, I take the information on board, write out how I think she's feeling and what I think she needs to say, and send it back to her. After I did this she came back to me saying it was beautiful, described exactly how she felt, and that she was almost in tears after she had read it. Of course, she didn't send the email word for word as I had written it, she added bits and rephrased bits.. but it's good to know that I was able to help out somewhat.

My cousin S is also having a hard time of it at the moment. Looks like she'll be getting a divorce after 17 years of marriage, and I've been providing her with a safe haven over the last week or so, somewhere she can go when she's got nowhere else to go. She can plug in to my broadband, get things sorted out, have a coffee, have a cigarette, have a chat. I know it's not much, but just being there for someone is more than enough.

Things are going very well between myself and my new friend C. When we met online we both knew that we were looking for a relationship, but she's been stung before and doesn't want to get stung again, so she wanted to dip her toes back in to online chat, thinking that it would fizzle out after a few days. However she bumped into me on her first night in the chat room and we've been chatting at every conceivable opportunity since. We've also been texting each other, and over the last couple of days, phoning as well. So we're moving forward, but I'm not pushing things any faster than she wants to be pushed. C was persuaded to get back online by her friend J, and I met J for the first time at the weekend (it's a convoluted story). I hope she gave C glowing reports about me!

So, yeah. I'm not so wrapped up in my own feelings any more that I can't care how other people are doing. I keep my nose out unless I'm invited in to help (I'm not a busybody!), but it's good to know that when I do help, I'm doing the right thing at the right time, and it is appreciated.

Let's face it, getting a text message saying "You're a good man" certainly put a smile on my face :-)

My desk at work, in fact my entire office space, is rather dull. There is no natural light, the desks are old and brown, the walls are old grey, the carpet is old and blue. Behind my screen is the PC itself (black), and behind that is a server cabinet (grey).

I've been thinking of brightening the place up a bit. Why not bring a rug in, a thick fluffy rug to put under the desk. I'd then take my shoes and socks off and just make fists with my toes, like Bruce Willis did in Die Hard. MMMmmmmm... I might get a bonsai tree as well, a bit of green round here wouldn't go amiss. Although I don't know how long it would survive without any natural light.

Taking the rug idea a bit further though, why not put a sandbox under the desk? Get the feeling of sand in between your toes, maybe replace my office chair with a deckchair, put a knotted hankie on my head, shine a spotlight in my face. No UV, no suntan, but then again no skin cancer either. But why restrict yourself to that pleasure just when sitting at your desk? Why not fill a couple of shoeboxes with sand and get that beach feeling all day?

Viz Top Tips, you have a lot to answer for.

In the first post on this blog I mentioned that I was getting pissed off with people (friends, family etc) always popping up on Yahoo messenger just to ask me for a favour, to ask me a question about something, rather than to enquire how I was, or ask me to come and visit them because it would be lovely to see me.

Now, I don't mind helping people. I get a buzz out of seeing a happy face, and knowing I had something to do with making that face happy. I like imparting knowledge about something to someone else, especially if that knowledge makes their lives or jobs a little bit easier. I like seeing little light bulbs go on over people's heads (figuratively speaking). But I've come to resent it if I don't always get thanks, or feel that that's the only reason people think I'm worth talking to in the first place.

Having read something about the teachings of Buddha this evening, I kept coming across the word "mindfulness", mindfulness of others and their plight through life. Reading these words over and over again made me realise that I've been incredibly selfish over the last few weeks, seeking answers for myself, about myself, about my problems and issues. I should be clearing my mind of all that rubbish, and focus on the fact that being mindful of others, being aware of their problems, being compassionate towards them, is the way to peace and understanding of myself. In other words, happiness should come from helping, not from getting the thanks afterwards.

I may have got it all horribly wrong, and I may have not expressed my thoughts properly here, so it probably reads like a mish-mash of half-formed ideas, but the purpose of this blog, for me, is to help me clarify those ideas, and to see how I'm changing over the course of time. So, right or wrong, insightful or misguided, I'm going to put little thoughts like this on the blog anyway.

It's been a few days since I wrote anything here and I'm still trying to clear out the thoughts in my head. The issues I wrote about here have largely been resolved, and I still chat with her online. Sunday night, though, my mind was going into overdrive, and once again I only got two hours sleep. I'm amazed I was only half an hour late for work on Monday, to be honest.

I've been spending some time this week trying to find out if my plans for how I want a future relationship to work are feasible or not. Now, at the end of the week, I feel I need to take some time out and reassess who I am and what I can realistically achieve. How can I get what I want if I don't know why I want it, or even if it's what I'm looking for in the first place?

So. Time for contemplation. After a little bit of googling I found this site and I'm going to read up a bit more about it over the weekend. I need to relax, clear my mind, talk to other people, gain some insight into myself and only then can I decide where I want my life to go.

My last post was a rambling, probably incoherent, summary of my life at the moment. And that sums up my life, rambling and incoherent. I set myself goals, start to work towards them, and then, for some unknown reason, just stop.

Here are just a few examples:

Health and fitness

In 2003 I joined a local walking club. I went out with them a few times, got chatting to a few people, enjoyed myself. Then one week I didn't go. Then the next week it rained and the walk was cancelled. I've never been back since.

In 2005 I joined the local gym. I went three or four times a week for the first two months. Then I stopped. I started again in Feb/March but stopped again. Earlier this year they phoned me and asked if I wanted to restart my membership. I gave it a go, went three or four times a week, then stopped again. I haven't been since Easter.

I bought a bicycle about three years ago. The first summer I had it I rode it quite a bit. Last year, not so much. I've been out on it once so far this year.

Business

I had an idea of setting up an e-commerce web site. Although you can have a steady income working for someone else, you're never going to have financial independence. That only comes with running your own successful business. Now, I come from a technical background, and not a business one. I probably couldn't sell shit to gardeners. So when I had this idea, I tweaked my technical skills and started building a web site that I could use to sell widgets. I'm not going to say here what the product actually is, in case I do ever manage to resurrect it and get it off the ground, but widgets will do for now. The particular type of widget I want to sell isn't something that would fit into a standard e-commerce/shopping cart application, so I can't use one of the off-the-shelf packages. I had to write my own.

I got it to the stage where the customers could browse the products, choose what they wanted, tweak the product to their own requirements and place an order. They could track the status of their order. They could leave feedback, read the latest news. I could print out the orders, and update the order status. It printed reports showing me what I needed to order from my suppliers. I offered discount schemes for loyal customers. It's pretty much there, but it needs graphic design and layout, and integrating with a payment mechanism.

Now, if you're planning on running an online business, you're going to want more than just paypal for getting money from your customers, you want to be able to use credit and debit cards too. And that means setting up a proper company, and getting a merchant bank account. And that means persuading a bank that you're going to make money. You have to have a business plan, projected earnings, all that sort of stuff. I don't have that, and I don't know how to start going about getting them. The product I want to sell is something that is used by millions of people every day, so there's definately a market for it. I just don't know if I can grab any of that market for myself.

Relationships

H'mmmm... this is a tricky one. I'm not sure if I'm ready to talk about this in such a public place just yet, suffice to say that I have my own ideas about how I want future relationships to work, and so far they haven't worked out that way. And the reason they haven't worked out is that I'm not sure I have a srong enough personality to make them work the way I want them to work. That probably doesn't make the least bit of sense, but don't worry about it. I'll expand on this when I feel the time is right.

I've started blogs and I've stopped them again. Started and stopped. It's a good idea, it's a bad idea. I'll make time for it, I don't have time for it any more. I'll research ideas that I want to expound upon, then I suddenly can't be bothered. I can't seem to concentrate on any one idea for more than a few weeks. I'm happy being alone, I'm depressed because I'm alone. I want to be successful and well-liked, but on the other hand I'm popular enough at work and I have a roof over my head, clothes on my back, food in the fridge. Which is more than a lot of people.

I have a few friends, I could do with more. I never seem to have enough money. I've done things in the past I'm ashamed of. My future is shaped by my past. So how can I change my future? Is it possible for me to change as a person?

I tend to fade into the background. When I'm in a group of three or four people talking, they all seem to be talking to each other rather than to me. I don't have opinions on anything. I can't be bothered with sport, and any political views I have tend to be very simplistic. Sometimes I want to learn about something in depth, most of the time I don't. I'm losing my hair. I weigh too much. My teeth are getting worse. I can't afford to have them fixed.

I have a failed marriage behind me, and a couple of short-term relationships after that. People are happy enough to remain my friend, but I don't know if that's because they genuinely like me or because they feel sorry for me. A lot of people only get in touch when they want me to do something for them.

I've lost touch with the people I grew up with. The people I went to school, college and university with. I don't know if I want to get in touch with any of them or not. I've seen a few names listed on friends reunited, or facebook. But it's like any school reunion, you're scared to go in case everyone else is deleriously happy, with beautiful wives, intelligent children, and investment portfolios.

So why start another blog? No idea, seemed like a good thing to do at the time. I've no idea what I'm going to say in it. I've thought about doing a video blog and uploading it to youtube. Doing a podcast on a subject that is close to my heart. But... I'll probably do one episode, maybe two, and then that'll fizzle out as well.

I need to clear the crap out of my mind. I read an article this morning on the benefits of meditation, sitting silently, clearing your head of all thoughts, so your mind can reorganise itself and be more productive and efficient. But when I sit silently and try to clear my head of all thoughts, all I am aware of is the tinnitus ringing in my ears. An unfortunate side-effect of being an outgoing popular teenager into loud rock music.

The tinnitus means that I'm forever finding something new to think about, something to keep my mind occupied so that I'm not aware of the constant ringing. Actually, it's not a ringing, it's more of a high-pitched whine. It also means that when I'm in a pub, club, or party, I find it difficult to follow conversations. The background noise gets in the way and if someone isn't standing within two feet of me and I can't see their lips move, I sometimes have trouble making out what they are saying. This means that I sometimes just stand there and stare into space.

Maybe writing all this down and blogging it will force me to actually get up off my arse and do something about my life. At the moment I just feel like I'm going through the motions, aimlessly. I wake up, I go to work, I get home, I find something fairly useless to do all evening, and then I go to bed. Usually too late, which means that when I wake up the next morning I'm lethargic and still aimless.

I really must find a goal in life. Something achievable. I'll talk more about goals in my next post.