giving and refusing blood – Da Hui

I give blood, I don’t brag about it or show off about it and don’t generally bring it up unless it comes up in conversation and still then I remain humble because I do it simply for the people who stand to benefit from it – yeah you knew I was gonna say that didn’t you. Well bugger off coz I’m writing this and I mean it and maybe I do it a little bit to keep my karma in check and to know I‘m doing something good, can’t hurt can it?

The thing is that I actually got a card through the other week from the national blood service for giving blood several times in a year… They sent me a card! With flowers on it and dodgy testimonies from blood receivers inside and everything!

In case anyone gives a shit I have a rare blood type and the only other person I know who has the same type is my lovely friend Sah who is originally from Korea – it’s that fucking rare. This however unfortunately mean that if either of us were ever hospitalised and haemorrhaging we would be epically screwed and would probably need to call on each other and sort out some kind of pulley system or something in order to keep both of us alive, and I tell you this right now I would gladly spend a few weeks unconscious in order to prolong the life of my friend Sah or even someone I didn’t even know simply because I think it is fucking amazing that we have this opportunity at all however the thing that has got me all wound up and using expletives is the fact that there are people out there who think what I do and the people who receive my un-clotted red efforts are wrong, and not just wrong, unholy!

People who actively refuse blood for themselves or their children such as the Jehova’s Witnesses appal me in their backwards attitude towards life and their shunning of modern medical miracles – I’ll even go so far as to say that the last person who believed so strongly in purity of race died in a bunker in Germany in a strong disagreement over politics with a large proportion of the world. I’m not stupid enough to make a direct comparison I’m just saying that stupid ideas infuriate me no end.

I do love some of the crazy aspects of different faiths I truly do, a rabbit that goes round giving out chocolate eggs for example – brilliant and the idea of washing before prayer and holding a blessing before a meal are fantastic instructions that enrich the experience of human life for me but I cannot imagine that in a modern world there could possibly be a deity that would shape their dogma in such a way as to allow a child to die when the ability to save it’s life.

Every holy text I have ever encountered preaches a reasonable amount of the idea that we should all live together and help each other of course this is on the bias that we all join whichever religion the text is preaching about at the time and help those who have already converted faster than the heathens but as far as my obviously short sighted and over simplistic nature on things go I believe that we were all made equal and definitely made from the same elements of skin and bone so what is impure about replacing a liquid that carries oxygen around your insides? Would you refuse to lend your neighbour a can of engine oil because he drives a different type or colour car to you? Exactly.

I’m sure of course that it isn’t as simple as this and growing up the child would no doubt encounter feelings of shame at being ‘unclean’ with someone else’s blood flowing inside them and may even have to face the idea that they were not supposed to live in the eyes of their god and lead a half life unloved even though there are people out there with pig’s hearts and mechanical pacemakers keeping them going but at the end of the day I would honesty rather see a hundred children living with a stigma that may actually inspire them to be thankful than to turn off one switch over those horrible plastic bubble cots that hold unhealthy babies.

I once gave a girlfriend of mine a vial of my own blood simply because having that in her bedside cabinet is literally the closest she can ever get to me when I am not there. It is also it has to be said a bit extreme and a fantastic dedication to someone and truth be told I like the fact that a hundred ‘I love you’s’ cannot even come close to literally giving someone a part of yourself and I think this is the same idea that comes across when you give blood because in most circumstances you will never know the person you help but the fact you do it at all expecting no thanks shows a love for life and it’s people that I’m sure you would love shown for you.

Some things it must be accepted are bigger and more important than faith and the main one is ‘us’ as a whole and what we can do for each other.

Disagree if you like, explain to me why I’m wrong if you have to, please I want to offend you because I would always rather spill the blood of an idiot than waste the blood of someone with good intentions.

- Da Hui.

religiousintolerance.suite101.com/article.cfm/dying_for_religion

www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/witnesses/witnessethics/ethics_2.shtml

 

The female version of me

The other day as I travelled on the tube to Camden to take part in a study on the effects of cannabis for the 3^rd year psychology students at UCL I saw the female version of me.

I understand you may’ve just had to read that again and that you may make a link between the study and my randomness but I wasn’t stoned at the time. I am fairly serious about what I saw as It took me quite by shock at the time but standing in front of me was this girl my age, exactly my height, brown eyes and red hair which is peculiar in itself because I have never seen a girl with exactly the same colour hair as me until that day, similar yes but not exactly the same. She was wearing a plain black shirt as I was with a leather jacket in the same style and colour as mine (dark brown not black with gold zips,) similar trainers (which is just plain odd because I would wear much better shoes if I was a woman) and her denim skirt was the same colour and style of my own blue jeans and frayed around the bottom just the same and it wasn’t just the clothes but her facial features and her stance as well, whilst obviously her features very much more feminine than my own there were some serious traits going on between us.

We both had small sharp eyes and good high cheekbones a lack of freckles normally associated with our hair and skin tone and unless she was wearing silk underwear there really couldn’t be more similarities in the way we dressed. Now I know this could just be an extension of that horrible moment where you realise you’re wearing the same top as someone else at a party but this was more than that, this was an entire outfit and looking at her face I realised that she actually looked more like me than anyone in my entire family, more so than any of my cousins or my brother and I was stunned to say the least. I know I’m probably opening myself up to some serious piss taking even by writing this but I simply don’t care because this was too incredible not to share.

I know this all sounds like a series of lame coincidences which is what I thought it was at first but then after an astounding number of things had already grabbed my attention I noticed that she had mirrored my body language exactly as she had come onto the tube (which always makes me uncomfortable) and I could hear the drum and bass from my headphones phasing in and out with the spill from hers and realised she was listening to the same style of music as me and that she had a gleaming metal chain running along the right hand side of her skirt, I reached down instinctively and found that this was the one day in about a fortnight I hadn’t worn mine – damn this was getting a little weird. To have someone walk onto an empty tube and pick the space opposite you and to feel like you are looking into a mirrored world is just mind-blowing especially when she is already staring right at you by the time you notice her!

I started thinking about an episode of Red Dwarf where they travel to a parallel dimension where everything is the same except that their history and society has been dominated by women instead of men. Nellie Armstrong landing on the moon and the works by the famous English playwright Wilma Shakespeare. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was perhaps thinking of the same episode and if we would get on and have similar interests? would it turn out we liked exactly the same bands and films? Had the same dreams to travel California and Australia? Perhaps she could also quote every line of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and writes for music magazines in her spare time… Perhaps I can find her blog about when she saw the male version of herself on a tube towards Warren Street online somewhere? maybe that’s taking things a bit too far.

I wondered if we had been twins separated at birth which would explain why I look like no one in my own family? I wondered if it was vain of me to think that she was cute? I hope not because she was attractive in such an odd way and that’s the bit I find unsettling and its also glaringly obvious that if this was the case then I would clearly look better as a woman!

I wondered if I was on a reality TV programme about to be set up for something not quite hilarious? But dismissed this idea fairly quickly

I felt so bad then just as I do typing this now for not summoning up the testicular fortitude to talk to her but what would I’ve said? Something casual perhaps like “I like your jacket” subtly pointing out that it was almost exactly the same as my own and then moving on to the fact our hair was the same colour and we were listening to similar music. Should I’ve just pointed out the apparent coincidences and get a conversation flowing until I could mention the fact we were seemingly separated at birth? Perhaps not but it would’ve been a damn sight better than simply waltzing up to her and exclaiming “You look like the female version of me!” And in my moment of indecision about my method she was gone and as she turned right out of Warren Street station towards McDonalds she was lost again as suddenly as she’d been discovered. I wish I could’ve seen her walk into McDonalds or light a cigarette – anything that would’ve allowed me to think that she wasn’t really like me but she didn’t and my fascination kept its shining light

My umming and ahhing about whether she would take offence or be startled or not seems so pointless given the way she was also looking at me and smirking with the right side of her mouth as I do but I guess I’ll never know.

I’m not really one for morals but I think if this story had one it would simply be ‘carpe diem’ to seize the day and the moment because even if she had thought my realisation was the strangest thing ever (which I doubt, there are much stranger things on the London underground) then she would’ve been gone again in an instant and I wouldn’t of cared in fact I am far more haunted by the fact I didn’t say anything and missed an opportunity for a funny conversation than by anything she could’ve possibly said.

Perhaps she was thinking it too and was equal shy about mentioning it? Just like me.

I hope you enjoy these rants, I make no apologies or explanations for them and it is my simplest hope that by laying out the things that go through my mind day to day we can connect over them and find similarities and therefore a way to make each of our individual lives easier simply by knowing that whatever the world throws at us we do not go through it alone.

People Watching

You know the times you spend just looking at people in the street or on trains and busses and wondering who they are?

I’m talking about the times you find yourself sat on the fountain in Stevenage town centre or the statue at picadilly or using the underground at King’s X and you look up at a stranger and find yourself wondering what their story is or where they are going? and how come they ended up crossing your path as they do now? You end up wondering about the millions of people around you and how they come to interact and who they are?

 Everyone does this, it’s a healthy extension of our own wonderment and imagination, some people give it the moniker of ‘people watching’ and people do it differently, some watch people in a detective style trying to work out by their clothes and demeanour who they are and what they do, they use clues such the subject’s briefcase and choice of vocabulary or even the expense of their wristwatch to try and gauge what they do for a living or where they are from and they delight in the knowledge they can garner from even the smallest of clues.

 But this is tediously boring and even slightly creepy in my humble opinion and whilst it is fascinating how much information you can gain about someone if you really look at them the real pleasure in people watching comes from making up stories and inventing the histories and missions of those strangers who cross your path. I’m guessing that there’s a few of you who read that last sentence who know exactly what I’m talking about.

Without exception everyone I have spoken to about this has fantasized, actually that’s too strong a word, has conjured up stories about a stranger in their imagination to while away the time and the most common themes tend to be about those strangers really being spies and secret assassins or other secret sections of society their humble briefcases containing much more than office stationary and a packed lunch, instead these mild mannered middle class commuters on public transport or passing you as you gaze out of the window of some bland eatery are actually carrying everything from unstable plutonium stolen to make nuclear missiles to silenced pistols and lethal poisons as they headed towards downing street.

If you have ever seen Ocean’s 13 where they steal the Faberge egg from a bland looking backpacker taking public transport whilst a convoy of impressive looking black cars distracts the attention of any would be thief then you will be able to understand that we never know what people have in their bags or who they really are or what they are doing. We can’t ever really know but it is a human tendency to wonder.

 We all know why we people watch, even if you’ve never really thought about it – because its our imagination drifting out into our surroundings making them more interesting for a while. People watching and giving others stories takes the tedium out of everyday life helping to pass the time when we’re doing something mundane and are surrounded by others doing the same and its directly connected to our sense of wonder which we should never ever lose.

In fact I can’t help but wonder about the lives I have lead in other people’s imaginations without ever knowing it – I wonder what they saw in me and where I was going in their imaginations?

 If you have any running themes that you tend to imagine when you people watch or anything you do when in these situations or thoughts on what I’ve written then please share them as its always good to know that even the odd little things we do we ALL do together. Da Hui

Straight from the lip – Facebook is stealing my soul

Straight from the lip – I can’t help but feel that the computer is stealing my soul.

I’ve never been one to have any kind of routine in my day to day life until recently where I have started sleeping in late and then leaping onto Facebook to check my messages in the morning and before I know it it’s 5 o clock in the evening and I get that sickly feeling of having wasted a few hours I may never get back. I don’t tend to use Facefuck or Rapebook or whatever you want to call it for menial things, when I am online I’m usually emailing to one of my many pen pals who live far away (Jessica Rabbit, Anastasia, Cky cky etc… you know who you are.) as opposed to talking to people I could just go and see and I don’t really do the quizzes or the stupid application like Farmville (sorry Jade) but after a while whenever I try to do something else I find myself clicking back to face rape ‘just in case’ so and so is online or just in case I have any notifications telling me more things that truly don’t interest me and it means I can’t drag myself away from it!

I’ve seen this happen with my friends as well as they get dragged into it religiously checking their face book even when they are with their friends (the height of rudeness) and unless you’re using it to help your mate talk to ‘this girl he really likes’ then its pointless.

Because I realised I don’t really need my car I’ve sold it for holiday money and it’s made it that little bit harder to get out the house which of course means more time on the computer especially if its raining outside so I’m trying to stave off that horrible dry sense of boredom by using the internet for its real purpose of accessing unlimited amounts of information, I’m learning about the makeup of the solar system and different theories of the origin of our species, researching for the book I’m writing but this still means I’m on the bloody internet! And after a couple of hours have gone by in the blink of a web-page I feel tired and achy and like I don’t want to do anything and I know that there are a few of you out there who get the same drained feeling I do.

I think that like anything else though falling into a routine or a comfort zone can have disastrous effects on your well being, sure a bit of stability in your life can really help you when it comes to getting on with things that you need to do and there’s a lot to be said for being organised and productive but falling into the bad habits of surfing Face slut and You tube all day not only limit’s the information you can receive but it also seems to limit how much you can actually take in… I swear last week was like groundhog day for me with the first part of every day spent idly watching stupid things on you tube and having meaningless conversations over FB, its really good for flirting but dog shit awful for really talking to anyone and as someone who thinks the art of conversation is on the decline anyway this worries me.

I’m going to make sure from now on that any time I do spend online is being used as productively as possible, sorting out the new revamp of Rogue including the emerging pod casts that will make up Rogue Radio, researching for my story, making new friends from around the world on couch surfing.org, only talking to people with an attention span of more than 5 minutes and watching fantastic pornography (I never said I was perfect, just close.)

I’m not going to urge you to do the same as I don’t know how it affects you, although I can guess I’m just thinking that it might be about time that a few of the die hard addicts took a step back and looked at their routine each day and the hours they lose on social netwanking sites and maybe learn that the world wont collapse if they don’t go on it every day.

 For those of you who are unable to take that step to switching off your computers I recommend these sites so that you can take in something different www.ted.com – just click on any of the talks on this wonderful site and learn something, some of them can be a bit heavy so unless you understand the basics of astrophysics go for one of the light hearted ones.

www.couchsurfing.org – if you are planning any trip that involves going outside of this miserable little country you need to sign up to this website, this one site will help you find places to stay for free, help you find out the real attractions in foreign countries and allow you to meet up with allsorts of likeminded people. I’ve used it to help book my holiday to Amsterdam and I’ve been invited to stay in a hippy commune in Brighton based in and around tree houses.

Right – I’m out of here to get on my bike and go down to our gym in order to better myself and then I may go see my friends in person in order to learn to DJ vinyl. Da Hui.

Straight from the lip – Gun crime

Hello again welcome to my words, today’s column is going to be a story of the over paranoid times we live in and the rising problem of gun crime.

Last Thursday I was in Bancroft park in Hitchin Hertfordshire, a pretty damn quaint little green space with a band-stand and children’s play equipment in the middle of town because me and my girlfriend Vicky were going to have a cake fight to celebrate her birthday ( we like to do something different and we’re planning to turn these cake fights into a Hitchin tradition. Watch this space.) So I’d brought along a water pistol, a bright blue, hand held plastic water pistol in the shape of a cowboy’s old school six shooter which I planned to fill with cherryade or mars drink or whatever took my fancy in order to drench our opponents.

As I was walking through the park spinning the ‘gun’ round I spotted a wobbly hatted Rasta friend of mine who was beckoning us over to join him by the bandstand, on my way over there were a couple of pissheads and the local homeless enjoying the sun and a few special brews and when they saw my ‘piece’ they jokingly begged me not to shoot them or start any trouble so I pretended to shoot a few of them had a laugh and wandered on over to my Rasta friend.

We were chatting about the upcoming Rhythms of the world festival and generally shooting the breeze when suddenly a police officer turns up behinds us, now this police officer isn’t dressed like standard Hitchin old bill, he’s got a taser for one thing and is wearing a black stab vest, didn’t really think much of it apart from the idea that he must be really warm and after a second or two he addresses us asking if we’ve seen anyone waving a gun around in the park?

Now I thought he was there to have a go at some people having a barbeque in the park but this sounds a lot more interesting so we start to ask him about it and he looks a bit confused, he eventually cuts to the chase and says that ‘they’ have recieved a phone call saying someone matching my description (I am so easy to spot) has been seen waving a gun around and suddenly it clicks and I realise he’s talking about the water pistol which is sitting on Vicky’s lap! I pull it up and show it to him and he immediately starts cracking up, the relief all round can suddenly be tasted in the air and he gets straight on the radio telling the powers that be that it’s nothing more than a toy water pistol, he starts telling us that he’s from an armed response unit and his mates are sitting round the corner with guns waiting for a signal from him! we’re still laughing about this but suddenly I’m not sure why.

Anyway he starts to head off and wishes us a good day (nice bloke) and then come sback a minute later apologises and says that his bosses have insisted that they confiscate my ‘weapon’ and that I can pick it up at the station (yeah right) and I am suddenly gutted that they have to take my gun off me even though they’ve realised it was a water pistol? I understand that its great that the police were able to respond to it but after declaring that there’s no threat they couldn’t even leave me alone in a park with an empty water pistol!!! what’s that about? that’s exactly the kind of place and weather I expect to find water pistols and because of some overly paranoid un observant colour blind dipshit I am now out of pocket by one water pistol.

Their job is to protect people sure but not from unloaded water pistols!

The scary thing is that I never even saw the guy who dropped the dime on us and that’s what really kind of scares me, not even the idea that there were armed police round the corner because most policemen are just messengers and friendly and will listen to you but who was this mystery person who shopped me in? where were they watching from and did they really think I was going to shoot someone? – The thing that scares me in today’s world is not the police and not the fear of being shot or fear that someone might be carrying a weapon but the fear of being watched constantly, the fear that has been pushed upon us by the media through the newspapers… the image forced into people’s heads that the rapists, drug dealers and paedophiles out there represent the majority not the infinitely small minority that make the headlines all the time. When Hitler rose to power all those years ago the grip of his secret police was feared immensely even though most of its actual power came from people living in fear grassing each other up for being a Jew or a sympathiser with the rebels not the actual secret police themselves, by creating a climate of fear the newspapers have us scared of each other, and whilst we never know what another person has on them unless you go looking for trouble you are very unlikely to find it.

If I thought the streets really were full of rapists and scum then I would probably arm myself accordingly carrying a knife or a gun I’m not proud but I would want to protect myself… but I know this simply isn’t true, let down your barriers love the people around you who wish you no harm but don’t be naive, for the day to day scumbags around me I’m sure I can send them running scared with my water pistol.

Please feel free to comment

Oh and as for the interview in London yesterday, it went brilliantly I was confident and alternative in my answers which was enough to keep them interested so I look forward to hearing from Catch 22 and entering on their journalism training scheme at the end of the month… go me.

08/07/09 – Run in with the police

Ok I’m going to give this blogging thing a go.

So yesterday started with much sweetness as I spent the day saying goodbye to my girlfriend who’s off to Onsabruck in Germany for 5 days, we cooked a nice meal together and listened to a few silly songs whilst beginning to sort out our travel arrangements for our pilgrimage to Amsterdam at the end of the summer and because everyone else was out it really did feel like getting a glimpse of domestic bliss living together in our own home – something we’ve always spoken about and tried to imagine.

After that we went to the cinema and then I dropped her off at home letting out a big sigh and decending into an awkward silence with myself after she had gone, I know its only 5 days but sometimes that can be a long time.

Straight after I decided the best distraction would be to head down to the makeshift gym that we’ve put together at my friend lanky Dave’s house. Having recently decided that our little group of friends was better off motivating each other to improve ourselves  we cleared out a space in the garage put in a bench a running machine and a rowing machine alongside a load of  assorted weights and mirrors (so we can check that the fitness regieme is working in the most narcissistic way.) Although we’ve only had this fantastic space for a few days I can say prouidly that we’re learning to enjoy the pain and the burn and pushing ourselves and all those other lovely macho cliches that only seem to make sense when you’re half mad from the sweat in your eyes.

Working together  like this especially with all the endorphins floating around is really good for all of us both physically and mentally and because we can encourage each other and can all be a bit competetive we’re running faster and further and doing just a few more reps that we would if alone… we must’ve run for miles and miles yesterday sweating and jelly legged and even after excessive hil training on the running machine I would still be raring to go for more exercise 10 minutes after the last one.

Our plan for the future is that we’re all going to put in a joint effort to make that space as wonderful as we can, Our hench friend Pete is going to supply us with some old weights and anatomy posters to cover the walls with so we know exactly which muscle we’ve just pulled, Gus (whos is really also called Pete) is going to bring a skipping rope and one of those weighted balls that I completely fail to understand, I’m bringing in  a DVD player and CD player as well as my old weights so we can have a focal point allowing us to stay in there for hours and Harry’s going to move all his stuff to his house to give us more room.

After these shenanigans we towelled off and headed down to the Dell a beautiful secluded wooden place in the centre of Hitchin that was originally used by the ajoining theatre. We meet with our hippy friends to spin fire and various juggling equipment as well as just hang out and drink and smoke around a campfire.

Last week at the local festival a few of us had gotten together to do a fire demonstration and after much patting on the back for how utterly brilliant we were last week (fuck moedesty) we carried on with our tricks and all chilled out for a while until I and Gus went up to the King’s Arms to find his friends and I hung around for a while to watch this really swinging Jazz Trio playing in the back room of the pub – they were awesome and in my slightly smoked out state I was able to really dig the music and adore the bass player’s technique, especially his wild (but on point) solos and skat singing along to his own basslines. I must’ve been the youngest person in the audience by at least 30 years but that music still got through to me and I was left hoping I’d still be a good bassplayer in 30 years time.

So after that we went straight back down to The Dell and began jumping over the campfire we had going in a very ritualistic way as people have probably done in the name of entertainment for thousands of years, however our extravagant friend Ty is not one to be outdone especially when he’s had a bit to drink and espeically when he’s had a bit too much to drink like tonight…

so as he’s showing off and baring his naked chest to the fire staggering around and somehow just missing the nails sticking out from the burning wood two police officers arrive and calmly sit down with us in the woodland and start shooting the shit with us, Steen offers one a roll up, he accepts and we begin chatting away until Ty decides he’s madly in love with both of them so he goes in to sit on the white guys lap and seems happy perching there for a minute of two until he is ejected by the stunned copper, he then goes round the back of both of them demanding hugs and kisses and professing his love for men in uniform, we don;t know wether to laugh or get really worried so we do both in excess whilst trying to steer Ty away from getting arrested, Ty returns and stealth smooches the policemen from behind demanding another hug. The officer with the roll up obliges him kindly to big laughs and has a laugh about it but the much more homophobic second officer is beginning to crack and you can see it etched painfully on his face, he is being heavily smooched on the side of his head by a very excited Tyrone and he is trying not to rock the boat any further.

After regaining our composure enough to grab Ty and lie him down on a nice comfy pallet with our friend Glyn to molest for a bit we are told that the reason beghind all this suddden police niceness is that they are here to tell us that we are no longer allowed to have a fire in the beautifully private and largely unused space all due to a sudden enforcement of a by law that they had been turning a blind eye to because someone new has just taken on a job and naturally wants to shake things up a bit.

We’re not toally convinced though because even though we are the only group that really use that space  (and have done for 5 years with various battles and permissions and police and firemen in our history) there is a company called ‘Jum’ who want to build climbing frames and rope courses up in the trees and charge extroadinary prices to use it whilst fencing off the Dell so that we can no longer use it (which we are petitioning and opposing) and we think that the police messengers are the first sign of very bad omens for our beloved site.

- Thanks for reading, if anyone has any advice on how we can fight this or what law it is that says we can’t have a fire in a public space such as the Dell (it must exist but we can’t find it!) then please send me a reply.

Today I’m off to the big smoke for an interview to join the Catch 22 journalism academy. Wish me luck and I’ll keep you posted. My plan is to begin to use this blogging tool in order to keep writing a regular (if not daily) habit of mine; one in which I can point out whats going on in my life and the gaols I want to achieve so that others may comment on them and in order to keep these goals in front of my face so that they may be easier realised.

- P£ace

Giving and refusing blood

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Giving and refusing blood – the latest column from Da Hui

I give blood.

I don

’t brag about it or show off about it and don’t generally bring it up unless it comes up in conversation and still then I remain humble because I do it simply for the people who stand to benefit from it – yeah you knew I was gonna say that didn’t you. Well bugger off coz I’m writing this and I mean it and maybe I do it a little bit to keep my karma in check and to know I‘m doing something good,

can’t hurt can it?

The thing is that I actually got a card through the other week from the national blood service for giving blood several times in a year

…

They sent me a card! With flowers on it and dodgy testimonies from blood receivers inside and everything!’s that fucking rare. This however unfortunately mean that if either of us were ever hospitalised and haemorrhaging we would be epically screwed and would probably need to call on each other and sort out some kind of pulley system or something in order to keep both of us alive, and I tell you this right now I would gladly spend a few weeks unconscious in order to prolong the life of my friend Sah or even someone I didn’t even know simply because I think it is fucking amazing that we have this opportunity at all however the thing that has got me all wound up and using expletives is the fact that there are people out there who think what I do and the people who receive my un-clotted red efforts are wrong, and not just wrong, unholy!

In case anyone gives a shit I have a rare blood type and the only other person I know who has the same type is my lovely friend Sah who is originally from Korea – it

People who actively refuse blood for themselves or their children such as the Jehova’s Witnesses appal me in their backwards attitude towards life and their shunning of modern medical miracles – I’ll even go so far as to say that the last person who believed so strongly in purity of race died in a bunker in Germany in a strong disagreement over politics with a large proportion of the world. I’m not stupid enough to make a direct comparison I’m just saying that stupid ideas infuriate me no end.s life.’m sure of course that it isn’t as simple as this and growing up the child would no doubt encounter feelings of shame at being ‘unclean’ with someone else’s blood flowing inside them and may even have to face the idea that they were not supposed to live in the eyes of their god and lead a half life unloved even though there are people out there with pig’s hearts and mechanical pacemakers keeping them going but at the end of the day I would honesty rather see a hundred children living with a stigma that may actually inspire them to be thankful than to turn off one switch over those horrible plastic bubble cots that hold unhealthy babies.‘I love you’s’ cannot even come close to literally giving someone a part of yourself and I think this is the same idea that comes across when you give blood because in most circumstances you will never know the person you help but the fact you do it at all expecting no thanks shows a love for life and it’s people that I’m sure you would love shown for you.

I do love some of the crazy aspects of different faiths I truly do, a rabbit that goes round giving out chocolate eggs for example – brilliant and the idea of washing before prayer and holding a blessing before a meal are fantastic instructions that enrich the experience of human life for me but I cannot imagine that in a modern world there could possibly be a deity that would shape their dogma in such a way as to allow a child to die when the ability to save it’

Every holy text I have ever encountered preaches a reasonable amount of the idea that we should all live together and help each other of course this is on the bias that we all join whichever religion the text is preaching about at the time and help those who have already converted faster than the heathens but as far as my obviously short sighted and over simplistic nature on things go I believe that we were all made equal and definitely made from the same elements of skin and bone so what is impure about replacing a liquid that carries oxygen around your insides? Would you refuse to lend your neighbour a can of engine oil because he drives a different type or colour car to you? Exactly.

I

I once gave a girlfriend of mine a vial of my own blood simply because having that in her bedside cabinet is literally the closest she can ever get to me when I am not there. It is also it has to be said a bit extreme and a fantastic dedication to someone and truth be told I like the fact that a hundred

Some things it must be accepted are bigger and more important than faith and the main one is

‘us’

as a whole and what we can do for each other.’m wrong if you have to, please I want to offend you because I would always rather spill the blood of an idiot than waste the blood of someone with good intentions.

religiousintolerance.suite101.com/article.cfm/dying_for_religion

www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/witnesses/witnessethics/ethics_2.shtml

 

 

 

Disagree if you like, explain to me why I

- Da Hui.

Karma

 

 

karma

 

/[kahr-muh] –noun

Theosophy. the cosmic principle according to which each person is rewarded or punished in one incarnation according to that person’s deeds in the previous incarnation.

 

Origin:
1820–30; < Skt: nom., acc. sing. of karman act, We all know what it means, to ourselves at least but to the person in the next room? The guy opposite you on the tube? I believe in Karma, I really do believe in karma and that good happens to good and bad to bad a lot of the time but the reason I believe in it is a bit warped because instead of karma being a separate thing to do with past lives or reincarnation I think that you instigate karma in yourself and constantly judge and measure yourself against this personal sliding scale of good and bad that you have set up in your head, if there was a good word for it in English it would be something like ‘Morals!’ and that as you’re the only person who observes all your bad deeds and thoughts you punish yourself accordingly by knowing that you are in the wrong and that you living below the standards you have set on you. I believe that your actions have consequences even when it is only yourself observing them, to do something you know is wrong or mean by your own judgement leaves you with just yourself to blame and even though people managed some biblical feats of ‘passing the buck’ onto others I still believe that deep down inside you know that you have done something wrong and you punish yourself with an stain on your self image, leading you to doubt yourself and your word, basically until you end up feeling like you’re a real cunt.

This process is two way however and so you can build it up whenever you do something good (excuse me if I’m being obvious) but the point I’m making is trying to move karma away from an external force idea, people talk about karma as if it were a little invisible wind that changed the world around you correcting the balance because it has seen you laugh at a fat person earlier and is now going to add half a stone to your weight overnight in big greasy chunks or has seen you hit your mate on the head for a laugh and will now open that cupboard door just a tiny fraction at roughly head height for you or whatever is your particular personal flavour of shit. I don’t like this view much as it seems to encourage Karma as just something that gets written on a scorecard as we go through life instead of a tangible feeling that has a direct effect on you because it is tied in with your actions and view of yourself I don’t see it as anything external changing and I definitely I see if at a decaying force on your own sense of self esteem and being out of balance with whatever values you hoped to achieve daily just to be a good person, usually the same values you check against other people in considering them rude.

Even if you stole that watch years ago and no one ever knew about it unless your morals justify this action you will always know you stole that watch.

I’m not saying castrate yourself slightly for every bad little thought you commit in your head because then we’d all be acting like catholic priests all the time and we all know how that turns out, I’m just saying that karma will get you if not as an external force than as an internal one. Don’t go out now and start helping grannies across roads they didn’t want to cross and throwing food at homeless people in order to get your karmic balance back out of the red zone, so much of this is subconscious the best you can really hope for is to make sure you notice and realise it may have some effect on how you see yourself and just steer yourself into a way of living your everyday life that allows you to feel good about yourself, it also affects how you perceive other people’s actions and words to you as well though but that’s just plain old self depreciation whichever way you slice it.

Although now I come to think about it I wonder how long I could save up brownie points before I was allowed to take a big dump in someone’s pint glass and walk away with a smile on my face?*

I understand of course that you don’t always have a set of morals that you choose yourself, some of the strangest people I’ve ever met in my life have been utterly conflicted over their own judgements and their parent’s imposed viewpoint on whatever subject is their particular ’sin’ but I’m trying to focus on every balanced individuals without a massive parental debt on their shoulders or some other controlling or imposed set of morals other than what is normal to that society, like for instance the people who would be reading this at some god forsaken hour at night or bored time during work. The point is by whatever standards there are you evaluate your actions and sometimes when you are bad you feel you can’t help it and this is ok I reckon as some people need to feel dangerous or sneaky and some people as we know need to feel cold and ruthless for whatever reason but the idea is to be able to look at yourself and know that you are focused on doing good, being positive and at least trying just because this will have an effect on you and no one wants to think of themselves that they are rude or simply don not try to live by any standard.

If you’ve ever read the portrait of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde (and you should) then you will understand that in the end no matter where we push our sins and blame to that in the end we all have to look at our own reflection sometime and I’m sure that is enough to kill some people or at least get lost in their own portrait.

Da Hui

- (As I was thinking about this in my head earlier I noticed one of the signs from outside a shop had blown over so I picked it up and re attached the front, picked up a few bits of loose paper and stuck them back on. No sooner had I done this and put it back to it’s correct position when a blind man walked round the corner with his stick and walked straight into it sending himself and the sign flying across the pavement )

And what does this teach us about karma… lol what do I know?

 

 

 

 

* Don’t be sickened I’m talking about a real smeghead here and it’s just an example.

Faking your own death

Faking your own death.

I always joked with friends since I was young that once my 35^th birthday rolled around if I was not happy with my life that I would undergo a sex change and live out the rest of my life as a woman – frankly this isn’t going to happen unless someone pays me a LOT of money to do so and I mean – living on my own private beach kind of money, but this has always gotten me thinking about another idea of mine which put simply would be to fake my own death.

There is no real amazing idea behind this except to be able to attend my own funeral and not only hear my own eulogy but to start a slow clap at the end of it from the back row! I hate the way that so many people are so reserved with their feelings they may never be able to address them and speak them aloud until after I am gone and that’s just pointless as far as I’m concerned, yes it’s closure for them but it’s needless closure if I have already heard it and know what they truly think of me. I decided a long time ago that as long as I have one trusted friend who can organise my funeral and claim to ID my body, write the obituary in the paper and basically do all the work whilst I’m off laying low somewhere nice and warm then it’s possible. The thing is though I will have to wait until my parents are dead because the shock would truly stop my mother’s loving heart if it happened now and my remaining family would clearly grieve over me but the way I think of it is that I shall be doing this for my friends and for myself so that when I rise out of the casket at the end of my own funeral to see the look on everyone’s faces it will all be worth it, even though my friends may hate me for a while I will be able to achieve one of my dreams and hear what all you bastards really think of me, I will then as a manner of course go and round up everyone who didn’t attend and demand an explanation! I know I am being mean and sending my friends and family through un-necessary pain and grief but from my own view I know my friends will share in the laugh and hopefully just be plain old relieved that I am not dead. This idea aside though faking your own death leads to a few really troublesome and seriously un-funny problems once you re-emerge from the dead not the least of which is getting a new passport and making sure that everyone has heard so that 6 months down the line people aren’t still saying ‘Alright Matt? I thought you were dead.’

Occasionally though there are times when I do really need to disappear, times when I want to get away from everyone and everything because I feel it is all infecting my life and spoiling this one great chance I have, those of you who really know me well will know that there are times when I seem to just drop off radar and no one can trace my movements for a few days, However I am good at this so everyone presumes I’ve just been seeing other friends or working a lot and I can easily deflect the questions – even my on off girlfriend of the past 4 years has never really noticed anything and it is through her I have learnt to curb this desire of freedom because I simply always looked forward to seeing her and am no longer worried by responsibilities. I always come back to the idea that if I could start again I could have another chance but a better chance knowing all I know now giving me a firm place to stand and take stock of my real life as I was no longer swept up in living it… but how to achieve this?

Then it hit’s me!

Exile, , falling off the edge of the world. I’m not talking about going on holiday or even going travelling for a while – I’m talking about going and living in once place (possibly after a spate of travelling) where you begin to live and do your own thing and it can be somewhere remote or just another city but my idea would be that as soon as anyone asked me about myself in this new location I would lie my ass off! Lie, lie, lie I would make up my entire history and start my entire life again and as far as anyone knew I would be this person I had created wearing them like a glove puppet, I’m not talking about being anyone extravagant ‘oh yes I’m the son of a king and the rightful monarch of Ireland’ or anything but just as an experiment to see how it affected me and how other people would treat me differently because of my supposed history because that’s one thing I notice about living around here, You cannot ever really escape your past, you have a profile built up and subconsciously shared by your peers and whether you think the opinion they hold of you is right or not they still continue to hold it and subconsciously act on it when they talk with you or choose whether to invite you to something or not. How many people do you know who you are good friends with who you see just about every weekend but who you never actually call or make plans to go and see? I bet you can think of a few and this is an example of this habit at work, and it’s not necessarily bad in itself, it’s just something I have always wondered about looking a objectively.

I myself am still held in the doghouse for an act of violence over 5 years ago by certain people and I know that there’s very little likelihood of that ever changing because put simply I never see them, these 2 maybe three people have this idea concreted in their head and avoid me because of it and I cannot get the chance to change it or show them my personal growth over those years – I’m sure you can all think back to something you did that didn’t turn out how you wanted it and the horrible sense of loss and of powerlessness you felt at having someone take away something from your meeting that you did not attend only to find you cannot change it. My idea is that through living in another country as another person you could free yourself from all the insecurities which come from knowing that the people around you have known you for years and have seen you naked and drunk and making a fool of yourself and know your personal details. If however you lived in a place where you were totally unknown and were asked about yourself – do you think you would still answer exactly the same or would you give your answers in accordance of how you really feel about yourself and the world without fear of persecution?

I don not wish to escape my past or the future it is taking me towards I’m merely using it as an example of one of the things that still stings me to this day but what if I could change it? What if I were ever so sick of it all I wanted to change my life? We are all aware of the tale of Frank Abignale the con artist immortalised in ‘Catch me if you can’ a man who has become a personal hero of mine after I read a few things about him and looked into it further, this chameleonic nature appeals to me with the idea that personality is transient, I cannot abide people who are two faced or fake however the change in a person’s personality for any genuine reason enthrals me and I cannot help but notice and evaluate.

The world is but a stage and everyone upon it an actor – I have always vehemently disagreed with this stupid saying that aims to absolve anyone for responsibilities in their actions until this day where I begin to think it may be possibly for you to choose which part you play.

 

 

 

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