Month: January 2016

Pain, oh the inconvenience. 

~ thefreerangeslug ~ Leave a comment

I’m at the dentist. 

I hoped the pain would go away, but no. 

My system diagnostics have detected an anomaly in the lower jaw, left hand side. 

My central processing unit is recieving a constant reminder that something isn’t as it should be. 

Constant!

Seriously, I got the message the first time. I’ll see to it, you can stop with the constant reminder. I’ll go, I promise. 

Actually, I lie, I’m real busy, this is an inconvenience. If the pain stops, I’m outa here. 

I’ve got more important things to do other than take care of my health, business, children, the world. 

The consuming traveller.     

~ thefreerangeslug ~ Leave a comment

I hate this airport. 

It used to be an airport, now it’s a shopping mall. 

It takes me an extra 5 minutes to get to the gates now, all because we all have to walk through duty free since the modifications took place. 

I never agreed to this, I wasn’t asked if I wanted to walk past the alcoholic businessman sampling whiskey at 5.25am. What if I was that alcoholic businessman trying like hell to avoid free samples of whiskey? Thanks for that! 

I vote with my feet when I can, if I’m at the airport I buy nothing. When I need to travel, which is often, I try to use the train. There is no free whiskey tasting on the train. There are plenty of alcoholic businessmen. 

I read that there is almost £1m spent each week at this airport on car parking and retail. Goodness knows what they charge each business for rental. Only a few cats getting fatter on the back of extorting more and more money from the consuming traveller. 

The CEO of this place receives over £500,000 in salary and the owners (who are mostly pension investment companies looking for an ever increasing monthly return) lapped up £22.8m in pre tax profits last year. 

The irony of the pension companies creating an environment that gets us to spend money that we don’t have to make a number of them richer instead of saving and paying a specific pension contribution. The later being the better investment for the individual and for society. 

Nothing. 

~ thefreerangeslug ~ Leave a comment

It’s so dark.
I can hear things, I can see things, I can feel reality (I think) but I am not part of it.
I’m here, in the same room; I can hear you speak, see your lips move but I don’t know what you are saying.
There’s something wrong with my processor.
My input devices are all ok, I think.
It’s my head, I’m sorry, I’m trying; it’s so dark. 

Benefit offset.

~ thefreerangeslug ~ Leave a comment

So, back to work tomorrow, or is it the next day, I can’t remember what I agreed with my boss.

Would anyone notice if I didn’t turn up, would she notice?

Do I actually do anything during those 9.5 repetitious and monotonous hours that is making a difference to the company or to humanity?

Perhaps the things I do at work are actually detrimental to humanity, I’d never thought about that before.

I’m not making WMD’s or anything, but if I’m not actively making things better for humankind, surely I’m making things worse?

Is this one of those things where there is no middle ground. You’re either a benefit or a drag? Shit, I’ve not thought about that before, I’m a drag, a leach on society, perpetuating the dysfunctional system.

Perhaps I should change careers to a more beneficial one? or….

Perhaps I can purchase some ‘offset’ benefit on the internet. That’s what I’ll do tomorrow, when I go to work, I’ll purchase some benefit offset.

Impromptu gatherings.

~ thefreerangeslug ~ 1 Comment

Sometimes accidental get togethers are better than planned ones. Last night was one of those accidental ones. We didn’t plan to do anything on New Year’s Day or that night but it turned into a very fun evening. 

What defines fun? Or rather what gives you that feeling when you reflect on the evenings events that it was a great night? And are my feelings, those evoked at the time and then now through my memories of the evening, similar to others in the group? Is it solely to do with the ingredients of the good night or does it also depend on the ‘space’ that I was in at the start of the night that allowed me to experience the ingredients in a way that was fun?

I’m not sure I’m making sense here.

I’ve learnt through experience that my mental state has a lot to do with my enjoyment or otherwise of an experience. If I am in a good place, content, happy, positive etc. I will experience things in a more positive way, whereas if I’m not in a great space, the same event could leave me annoyed, frustrated and grumpy. 

I suppose it’s this –

Positive mental state + positive event = positive experience and positive feelings

Negative mental state + positive event = negative experience and negative feelings

This is an oversimplification but it’s kind of what I’m trying to get at. Same event, same actions, same people, same words spoken etc interperated differently because of my mental state. 

So are my memories of how much fun an event has been, got more to do with my mental state and less to do with the actual event?