process

The truths were a collaboration between myself and the people who spoke to me. I took ideas from three key conversations that I had, and that became my path. 

oracles

Before - a couple of years ago - I knew that the hardest part was still ahead of me. That was true. Experts, who supposedly knew better than I did, told me otherwise. 

They told me all kinds of things that are not true. They aren't lies though, because I know they believed what they were telling me. Also, maybe in purely objective terms, what they were telling me was true. 

What I find interesting is that I was told some things that were truly life-changing - things that I took and used to overcome, and that I still believe. 

So, even though I was told some things that weren't true, that didn't poison the well. I was able to receive life-giving truth. 

manifest oh

Nothing I create is contingent on an envisaged response. 

typo

There are some people that will just inevitably harm you. You can't come within their orbit and be unscathed. It seems like you're going to get away, but you can't. 

Then there are people who are the opposite. You can't help but benefit from your association with them. 

understanding | a | curse

I learnt about how Gothic horror works and I saw this film and I was struck by the way that it was literally just one gothic device after another - the whole film....they go into a hospital and suddenly all the lights go off, a cute little kid speaks with a deep, unearthly voice...they flee to safety and it's not safe

repeat

I was really enjoying a certain TV show, and then it turned into fight club, which made it a little less compelling. 

cyfy

Neuromancer is an astonishing book. I only understand it because I live in the 21st century, and it was published in 1984. 

parked

It's actually a good thing when you 'lose' people - when you find that the people who were part of your life are no longer a part of your life. They don't know your new self, and the new you has nothing to do with them. 

obv

Changing feels like breaking, but breaking also feels like breaking. 

obiter

just press the damn button

funky

Emotional states seem so intractable. They're like functions....whatever parameters are input, the function does its thing. 

lost connection

I finished reading Howards End for the second time. For whatever reason, it was like coming to it completely fresh. As I was reading it there was no recognition or memory of what I was reading....nothing at all. If I didn't know that I had read it before, I would have said I hadn't. 

news

Cats have really fallen off. 

unwanted

I really don't want a book to change my life. I want to do it myself. 

loops

The crushing of your dreams can be the best thing. We tell ourselves that things aren't meant to be like this. Things are meant to be like this. 

the beginning

Detox really did represent a fresh start for me, but not just a new chapter or phase in my life. It was a whole new life. I think that's one of the reasons why I haven't relapsed. You wouldn't give alcohol to a baby or a child. So, if I have begun a new life, alcohol has no place in it. 

I didn't come up with the idea that I was beginning a new life, someone suggested it to me. It was a social worker. I was saying that the main challenge for me at that point - 2 or 3 days into detox - was the intense depression and anxiety that engulfed me, especially in the afternoon. She said that that's completely normal, and then she reframed it by suggesting this idea that I was beginning a new life. It wasn't the end - a downward spiral of never ending depression and anxiety - it was the beginning of a life without alcohol. 

Of course it was going to be raw and difficult at first. New life is like that. 

scorn

Sometimes people are more interested in nurturing their grievances against you than in fixing whatever the problem is. The problems would be easily fixed. It would be a win-win, but sometimes people think it's only a win when someone else loses. 

the end

When I was a child I used to think that 100 years was the appropriate length for a life. All things being equal, you would live to 100. Now I think it's more like 60. Not that you die at 60, but you start winding down, and you've had a fair share of life. 

reversals

The film 'The VVitch' brilliantly evokes the way that human beings manifest very precisely that which they hate and fear. The witch narrative - the story we think of when we think of witches - was inscribed, not by witches, but by puritans. 

volution

It's crazy to think there are only 6 years between 'please please me' and 'abbey road'. 

purple lines

I really enjoyed the film, While We're Young, and there was one unforgettable line, where Ben Stiller says, 'It's like he saw a sincere person for a couple of minutes years ago and he's been trying to imitate them ever since'. It's such an eloquent, brilliant, creative expression of how he sees the person he's talking about. Later on he has a more charitable view but, at that moment, it's a perfect encapsulation. 

one way

I draw encouragement from the way that, although I'm still beset by a range of challenges, there are positive developments that are substantial. Like, I'm continuing to taper and reduce my valium dose, and that's only ever going to go one way. I will never again increase my dose, just like I will never again drink alcohol - never ever. 

I'm happy with the progress I made this year on my taper. 

coda

It won't beat me though. 

sentence

Valium has really blighted my life. 

gnostest

Because of the way it was presented on the page, I missed the best part. 

nt f real

The growing realization that I'm outside and it's OK. 

The first time you see it, you feel like you have to hold onto it, but you can't.

So, you're back inside again and stuck here without hope

but it's not real

the place without hope is not real 

burn

Nothing compares with action - with just doing stuff. 

It's one of the major themes of my new life, actually.

Somehow the old has to be destroyed, to allow for the new.

cede

at least there are things changing in a positive direction in my life, permanently and irrevocably

doxic

Being exposed to safety and freedom is deeply unsettling

breathing space

Withdrawing from valium is very different from withdrawing from alcohol. I think this is something unique about benzos, and it makes coming off them extremely hard....unlike other drugs where, after a difficult initial period, withdrawal symptoms peak and then steadily subside, with benzos, things get worse and worse and worse with time. 

So, it's like you're always headed into rougher weather. 

escapade

It's like when I went into the psyche ward. The answer that emerged was that I needed to face my life. I needed to push back into my normal life, as impossible as that seemed, and then just keep going. 

alternative reality

It's such a sweet feeling, this growing sense that I don't need this stuff any more. I still do have some need for it, but I'm not reliant on it like I was. 

It's a very definite thing - a real change. I remember how I used to feel the need to take some valium with me whenever I went out, even going out for a run. And then there came a time when I just didn't need to do that.

It used to be hard to even go out at all. When I walked to the shops, I would be stressed all the way there about going in, and it took courage to go in. Buying more than one thing was challenging. I thought I was going to faint or lose control or something. 

It's interesting....for me, this tapering process has involved facing and overcoming the depression and anxiety that I used the medication to deal with. 

up

I still posit myself as someone who is trapped when vicious cycles kick in. But more and more I'm able to envisage something better to come and I'm able to imagine a better life for myself even now. 

things that matter

Objects in mirror may be closer than they seem. 

grates

I never really like the most critically acclaimed works. Like, Seven Nation Army is nowhere near Jack White's best song. I don't think it's even that good. Same for Bleak House. It's not the best of Dickens. And Brothers Karamazov. Maybe I just don't get Karamazov, but The Idiot and The Possessed were fire and, in my view, far better than Karamazov. 

sophistry

The truth wasn't fancy enough. She felt like she had to have a more sophisticated mythology. That made her feel special, when actually she was just deluded. 

a

Detox really 'took' with me. 

making it real is just part of the story

One of the things that made The Wire such a great and ground-breaking show was its realism. It's very hard to achieve that, because unvarnished reality doesn't make for good TV, and bottom-line, it's not real. It's fiction. 

note to self

add books from to do to amazon

ab

I'm reading Finding Me by Michelle Knight - her story of being held captive and tortured by Ariel Castro for 11 years. It's chilling how it unfolded - how she was actually acquainted with him and that gave him his opportunity, and then, in a moment, her life became a horror story. 

lie

For we can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth. (2 Corinthians 13:8)

We can't change the truth. The truth doesn't need our defence. It bothers us too much when we think people are lying, as if they're getting away with something. They aren't. 

equal and opposite

Our sense of ourselves is something we create. We think we are basing it on how people treat us but the way people treat us is more a reflection of the signals we send out than what people actually think of us. We can't see ourselves, physically or spiritually. 

near

My standard dose now is half a 2 mg tablet, and the remarkable thing is that that dose has absolutely no discernible effect. 

travelling in factions

A lot of times, the idea of a book is more interesting than reading the book, and you can think of the ideas of a lot of books at the same time or in a moment, while to read a whole book, you have to devote yourself to that one story or topic for hours. 

fin

One of the challenging things about tapering off a benzo is that the hard part is ahead of you, and the hard part will go for months and years. But now I am through the hard part. 

drafting

yes! I'm so happy - I just heard Hilary Mantel, who is a great writer, say something that I have thought about a lot, but I haven't heard any writer ever say....that since she started writing on a screen, she isn't conscious of the difference between drafts.

Finally somebody said it. Because of word processing, the way we write now is different from earlier periods in history because you can edit as you go. It makes a huge difference. 

I'm not completely against drafting, but I think its role in the writing process is different from what it used to be.

ps

Robert Eggers is making Nosferatu for Christmas

turning the tide

The Gettysburg Address was short and, in some ways, not that impressive, but it is immortal. 

Joseph Welch triggered the ending of McCarthyism, with two sentences: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

things that matter

There seems to be a common belief around now that being a Christian is about being morally upright and making a stand about the status of other people before God, but Jesus told us to look at our own sin first....concern ourselves with that...and the parable of the tax collector and the pharisee teaches us that it's not the person who takes pride in their right standing with God, who is made right with God. Instead, it's the one who recognizes their filthiness in the sight of God, who gets forgiven. 

What matters in that parable, is that they recognize and repent of their own sin. 

gasolean

Real events always seem artificial