Mentalechoes

So much for my rant about “can do” attitudes in my last entry; I feel like some vampire has sucked all the life and motivation out of me, because right now I couldn’t be arsed doing anything. I keep trying to convince myself that it’s because of my neck injury from about 6 weeks ago, but I know that’s just a convenient excuse. Maybe it’s the mosquitoes at night that are stealing my mojo with the 2 litres of blood they normally take. Little bastards, they seem to have this ninja stealth ability to go invisible the second you turn on the light and start looking for them. These European ones are smart too, they know to wait till your asleep before beginning the extraction of your vital essences, as you won’t fight when you’re unconscious!

At any rate, I’m going to give myself the rest of the week off, and then one way or another, I am getting back into life again. I just wish I was more enthusiastic about the whole thing. Maybe having a haircut on friday will help. It will be my first one this year and they say a change is as good as a holiday. Well that might be true, but I think an actual holiday is the only thing that is as good as a holiday! So I might maybe look at getting some time off and head over to London to see the mates.

For now I think I’ll go and get some sleep and see if a fresh start to a new day gives things a new perspective.

Padwanna!

I feel a bit bad about a conversation I had with a friend a little while ago. She’s feeling a bit down about some things in her life, and doesn’t know how to sort them out. One of the things she kept repeating at me was “I can’t do it, I just can’t do it”! For some reason, this really got a fire burning inside of me, and I started handing out some rough slap-in-the-face advice, which I now feel bad about.

I guess the way I see life, there’s no such thing as “can’t do something”, there is only a matter of motivation, and having enough, or not having enough. We can do anything we want, if we really want to, it’s just a question of how much we’re motivated to go for it. But yeah, that’s just my personal philosophy, and not much else.

The thing was, she didn’t know it, but she struck a nerve inside of me quite hard, and triggered a knee jerk reaction. All my life, right from a young age, someone in my immediate family told me that I couldn’t do so many things I wanted to do; I wasn’t smart enough, I wasn’t sporty enough, I wasn’t educated enough, I wasn’t talented enough, the reasons were as many as the leaves on a tree. Living in this shadow I was almost convinced I wasn’t able to do anything with my life except what I was told I could do. But luckily that person left while I was still a young adolescent and other influences, much more positive ones, began to come into my sphere of existence. Still I live with that stigma of negativity from those early days which I have control at times, or I can drown in the fear inside of myself.

As it is now, I live, and have created a life out of doing things that others say can’t be done. A lot of it has to do with a combination of luck, skill, and good timing. The thing is, if you begin with an attitude of “it can’t be done”, then it can’t; all is lost before you have even started. The world can be so many things, but you have to believe and have faith in yourself and be able to set yourself in motion if you are to get anywhere worthwhile.

In a bizarre turn of events, I have just found my own answers to some questions of my future that I have been asking. Maybe this discussion was something fate wanted me to have, instead of her!

Padwanna!

“Don’t tell me you’re watching the game as well”? My idle distraction wrote to me in an sms as I was settling down on my friends couch about to take in the first England game. “I’m so dissapointed in you”, she joked, though I get the feeling it had a bit of a serious barb to it.

Of course I was watching the football, it’s World Cup! It’s the best of the best national players playing the best of the best countries! I mean, it’s right up there with The Olympics, and World Championship Concrete Drilling for excitement. I’m not even a football guy really. I mean, I couldn’t give a shit about league football or any of the 400 European Cup football competitions that seem to run endlessly ad nauseum all year around, but World Cup is something different. It’s got a fever to it you just can’t help but get sucked into. Or maybe that’s how it is when you’re a man because most chicks just don’t seem to get it. They don’t really pit their physical skills against another equally desperate and hungry opposition, all for the glory and rush of victory. No, chicks are more your cunning types for whom winning is achieved through bleeding the lifeforce out of their enemies, like vampires and succubi do to hapless victims once they’ve scored! I guess it’s a difference in how you look at life I suppose, but either way, it’s not really compatible with enjoying World Cup.

I get the feeling this is the time when a lot of relationships will be tested too. After all, most sports mad blokes are going to want to watch as many games as possible while most basically female partners are going to be driven mad and do everything they can to minimise the amount of football they have be subjected too. So will begin a contest to see who has the strength of will to control the television broadcasting. If it was 50 years ago I would say the chicks had better just sit back and learn the rules to make it easier for themselves, but now in the new millenium, I’m not so sure. With equality and easier to use TV remote controls, comes a blurring of the traditional power structures in a household, and many a guy may find himself sitting down in front of a cooking show whilst some game is on as a sign of submission to his partner.

If nothing else, at least it’s hot enough that he can do so while sitting on the couch with his shirt off and a beer resting on his belly! There’s no taking that right away from us!

Padwanna!

So it’s June 1st! [Ed's note, finished writing this on the 2nd cause I got distracted half way through last night] I’m pretty happy about that. It means the second half of the year has started. Okay technically it’s still the first half of the year, but I’ve always thought of June as being the beginning of the second half of the year ever since I could remember. Probably has something to do with the weather back home.

The second half of the year is a pretty good stretch for me. It’s when I’m at my best; I’m totally fired up, motivated like hell to do something. I just don’t have that in the first half of the year. Most of the time I’m simply trying to work out just what is going on. You know, like see what kind of year it’s going to be, and sort out what the fashions are. For some reason that seems important, trying to keep up with the fashions. I never do, but then it’s not through lack of trying, just through a lack of money. If I could, I’d camp out at the front of the big Martinique store on Leidsestraat at the beginning of every new season and as soon as the doors open, run in and power shop. But yeah, cash is my limiting factor, it’s an expensive business looking good in Europe.

So I figure this second half of the year I will be able to acheive three of the five things.

* Finish the screenplay.
* Finish the short novel.
* Make a contact in the Amsterdam film/tv industry.
* Speak dutch.
* Own a cool new style-master jacket.

I really hope number 5 is in there, I could really do with a new jacket.

Padwanna!