1 August - blogs not deep

A v. good friend has finally read this blog and commented it’s not very deep. She says that I use self-irony as a way to not allow for any real feelings to show. It’s sort of like journalism or a column. She is v. perceptive in the sense that despite purporting to be a diary much is held back. I never mentioned for example how nice it was to have young lover here, how worried I was to have made him come visit on a 'thursday possible more bombs' day and how I couldn't wait to get out of Euston Station fast enough and ruined his long, face sucking embrace, and how sensibly we decided to stay in for 48 hours approx - ok that was not just for fear of bombs.

As to feelings, it’s strange, nothing much seems to have upset me since I started writing this. It’s a positive time which can could be the result of years of practicing distancing from events and no longer knowing what hurts or doesn’t. A lowering of expectations and a placing of such expectations not in the hands of god but in the hands of the great unknown who doesn’t much care for what we want/wish for /wish to avoid etc. I was watching a documentary about how people in the regions affected by the tsunami are coping and whether their religion is of comfort to them. It appears that the westerners are faring badly as are much more unable to just accept what happened. The fatalistic eastern religion followers are much more matter of fact. It’s god’s will and no point trying to explain (this is not to say their pain is less real but it seems less evident in the way they list who they lost: father, mother, wife, kids, brothers etc. By contrast a westerner who’s lost their only daughter is marooned on a sea of grief that will never let him have peace. They want to understand when there’s nothing to understand. All this to say that I naturally tend towards that view of the world and if my diary comes across as having a certain insouciance, then it could be a result of treasuring only one basic lesson obtained from a brief meditation experiment/course. Ok, ten days is not brief but I have never managed the daily stuff. The message is ‘Everything arises, and passes away’. You just have to wait for the next wave. As usual it doesn’t mean that you just let life happen to you, but you don’t get too down about setbacks and when you look at it even death is just a setback. Fear of dying or fear in general is always much much worse than actual death. Or am I being too glib?

My friend also pointed out, again correctly, that if you don’t supply real feelings, depth, vulnerability, it’s difficult to care for a person or character. In my case I also offer a variety of names that get mentioned in passing and often only once and this is confusing. But at the moment this diary is a random experiment and doesn’t record really all that goes on. I realise no one is reading it, well, I told preciously few about it, but I still try to protect identities as if anyone on the web would know who they are. Mmhhh how to overcome this?

It’s quiet at work so have read many other blogs recently and vow once again to never have a computer at home as don’t want to get sucked into this for hours on end. I have a life! I must confess to blog envy. Not so much the contents but the layouts/designs, the links, the indexes or the entries that are not just a date but a witty title. And yes, maybe also the fact that some blogs have tons of comments, though the moment you get drawn into reading these it’s really the end. Probably like chat rooms which I have never ever entered. And some blogs even win awards! Blimey. Yes, zillions of TV hours are also dedicated to the confessional and who hasn’t watched the life of people in an airport, garden centre, police station or whatever thinking but why would I care? What a monumental waste of time! So I read housewives, mothers blogs to feel that in the end my choices in that department are still entirely justified. Say no to babytalk is still valid for me. Why teach a baby to speak when you can read a book? Etc. Anyway, as with authors, it’s better perhaps not to know much at all about a blogger’s reality. I was reading this guy's, an ambulance medic in London, was mentioned in a Sunday paper. I liked it, interesting, funny, entertaining. Then I read the guy’s profile and he’s thirty something, lives alone or in shared accommodation, never has/had girlfriends, is not attractive, is very unhealthy, loves a band which I find dismal and suddenly not being able to imagine him as a Dr. Jack in Lost or even a medic on ER, his writings though still real, become sadder somehow. This is a man who’s not that happy after all and his sarcasm becomes bitter rantings. But he’s more real than me for example. I’d be tempted to enhance my traits rather than be brutally honest. Bloogers seem to write to vent in general. Is this what I’m also doing? It probably only gets really interesting if it is the blog of Francis Ford Coppola etc but again, this would be mediated, it would never be the truth ‘My daughter’s films are captivating but inconsequential’, ‘My former son in law did at least make some good music videos for Fatboyslim, but when she went out with that Quentin! I was worried, my wife can’t stand him too’. You simply can’t do that. Anyway, a blog is no more real sometimes than The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.....