It's 25 minutes to midnight....

....and i don't feel much like going to bed.

Hi, 

Although paradoxically I'm not really a fan of the idea of being awake either. 

In the first case, I don't want to go to bed because that signals the end of another, somewhat empty and repetitive day, which feels much like failure. On the other hand since it is repetitive and empty, prolonging it in the hope that something might change amongst the dying embers of the last minutes is kinda forlorn - yet oddly compelling. 

This then is the paradox of depression. The disinterest in anything, yet boredom with being disinterested. Thankfully I don't have the anxiety that some have. I do have apathy in spades however. An ever present sense of futility, of the morbid reality that in a few short years the sum total of zero will return to precisely that integer. 

Of course all things die, its kinda what make life precious. The mere fact that it will end and that we do not know when or how is what makes every waking moment precious. 

But knowledge of that fact for someone in my position, someone for whom thinking, self awareness and logical examination is at their core of self, just adds to the feelings of abject failure when one cannot, as they say "make the moments count" and is merely reduced to "counting moments" 

I'm shortly to write a blog and other articles on the political machinations of the current moment, allied with the philosophy of politics as part of my mini series on philosophical basics. Yet as I sit here delaying the inevitable demise of what feels like another wasted & unproductive 24 hour period, I am left wondering just how objective I am likely to be on that point. 

You see, for me the coming election isn't just about philosophical ideals and varying economic models. It is, perhaps for the first time in my life, of great personal consequence. Should this country have a further 4 years of conservative right wing governance of the type that is currently in vogue, then my prospects are dire. 

However, should the classical socialist values reemerge, and gain some form of agency to actually reverse the decline in those things that go into the making of a society, like health care, education, employment, and infrastructure, then I may have a chance. 

Why is this a first for me? well because no government, regardless of political affliction, would let the military be seen to be none functional. Since it is an extensions of both government and country itself. Thus for all my years of service I was insulated from the realities of the civilian world that the vast majority live in. Elections didn't matter on a personal level. I went were I was told to, and was paid well for it. The government was my boss, and that was simply that. 

Recently I've written quite alot on the categorical nature of the human organisational mind. We love to think in categories. So here are a few. 

White

Unemployed 

British

Male

Married

Content

Director

Parent

Healthy

Self employed

Soldier

Nurse

Poor

Depressed

Profesional

Divorced

Employed 

Woman

Trans Gender

Intersex

Affluent

Each of these categorical descriptors all conjure differing vision and concepts in the mind. However. At varying points in my life, All of the above could be, and indeed were attributed to me. Or rather I to them, be that by myself or other observers.

The point here is that whilst acknowledging change as the only constant, I am still to a greater or lesser degree the same individual that I ever was. I am still "me" even if "me" isn't as it was 20 years ago. 

I see those I once served with, and others, who still exist within the categories I once inhabited. I had no knowledge of the true extent to which my bubble of existence was a two way mirror, the brightness of my own life eclipsing the view of the darkness surrounding it.  Opinions thus formed that were based on this limited view. 

However the irony, once expelled from the bubble, is that by being in the darkness you can see into the bright bubble very clearly, and therefore see more than those who still are where you once were. The sight is quite ... revealing. 

This is why there are certain areas of the country, usually the more affluent, that will still vote conservative in the coming election. Not because they are bad uncaring people. But because their two way mirror blinds them to the world beyond the bubble. They believe that socialism is "bad" since what they have now is "good" and therefore it must be ok for everyone. Sure it a generalisation but I'm sure you get the idea. 

Actually today did have one mile stone. A rejection from the local patient transport service. Apparently I don't have the correct license to drive then vans. 

I am left wondering what point I was making with this entry. I am not sure. Perhaps if anything it is that the value society places on a person has little to do with that person, but everything to do with notions of what it might be that the person stands for. 

That's actually a good metaphor for the "perceived wisdom" that JC, the current labour party leader is weak and unelectable. 

Why is this touted? Simple. Fear. Not of the man, but of what he represents. The fear that if a left wing classically socialist based view gains leverage then those currently with influence will loose their grip on that influence. To some extent they aren't going after JC the man. They are going after JC the metaphor. The conservative right and the current well entrenched power base wish to diminish the counter argument to their own growth and success. So they go after the categorical idea, with little thought to the man himself and the consequences of that approach. 

It's the same when lobby groups go after trans, LGB, animal rights, pro life or pro choice abortion debates. religious exemption etc etc etc... Denigrate the categorical reasoning and all those who might inhabit it. Call it dangerous, deluded, or whatever, and be damned to the human consequence and cost, or - if your second name is Trump - any adherence to historical and/or current versions of facts and truth. 

Well, at the risk of sounding grandiose. I am that cost, at least when considers Trans as an issue. Looking at where I was, what I did and why I did it, all with the best of intentions, but with the express purpose of "achieving" and being representative of something with perceived value, whilst not paying attention to my own self. 

Yet with the notable exception of family & friends. Little I had during that "success" was of true value. And whilst what I "represent" now may have less affluence and be of questionable worth to society, it holds within it a damn sight more truth, and thus actual value.

I wonder, and am sometimes asked, if what I lost was worth it. I have to say yes. Every time. 

You see, to use a Socratic expression, I did trade bronze for gold. I traded the appearance of beauty (in the greek sense) for true a beauty. Knowledge. 

And perhaps now at 25 minutes to 1 in the morning on my 229th consecutive day out of paid work, I have my positive thought. Slowly rising into the night from those dying embers. 

Peace out.