Things I have learned since meeting Wolfe last year:
- Sometimes your wildest imaginings are real, and your normal mundane life can crush you so much that you just can’t see it.
- You should never let other people dictate your self-image. I let a couple of minor workers tell me I was nothing, and I believed it, which wasted about nine years of my time and his.
- Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for yourself is let go of a dream, even if it is incredibly painful.
- The only thing that matters is work, but I kind of knew that before, so I am not sure that it really counts.
- Having an open mind requires considerable personal strength, but it is worth it.
- Never trust authority. People who assume authority roles are automatically dangerous and potentially murderous.
- Being kind does not necessarily involve huge amounts of time or energy.
- Even when you have been battered a hundred times, keep trying to get past it and eventually you will.
- Take nothing too seriously, life is short.
- I will never be able to think about Wolfe at all without weeping profusely. I am not sure why this is, I can only assume that the entire episode was a kind of necessary destruction.
- Stop worrying about wider implications, particularly on behalf of other people.
- The most important things can be the most subtle.
- It doesn’t matter how ridiculous you think you are being, you are always learning something, and even if it is something you didn’t think you needed, it leads to something further down the line.
- Relentless self-belief is the most important thing you can have.
- Never be afraid to show and tell, even when it makes you actually vomit with anxiety.
- Fear makes you ill. Drop that.
- Boundaries are important, although they are difficult to implement, particularly when the people you are dealing with refuse to recognise them. If this is the case, delete these people.
Things I have learned since my mother’s death at the hands of allegedly professional medical staff.
- Never ever trust people who tell you they are professional because they really mean they can do what they like to you and you cannot defend yourself.
- There is no such thing as genuine authority or knowledge. The people that tell you that there is are the most dangerous.
- No matter how pleasant you are, nobody respects you until you show them your teeth.
- Social care systems are actually social engineering systems and are based upon flawed law which was created to protect stupid people from their own mistakes.
- Family is the most dangerous construct in the world and having children is not going to help you when you are no longer economically useful to them. My siblings were more than happy to deal with the nurses.
- People at work exploit any weakness and do not wish to either learn anything or grow. All they are interested in is hurting other people to make themselves feel better about being unimportant.
- There is no such thing as good leadership any more.
- We now live in a corporatist hellhole which is getting worse. Nobody cares if you are any good or not, they only care about surviving, which means you are in constant danger as long as you are dealing with other people on a regular basis.
- It is not OK to express happiness of any kind.
- It is not OK to appreciate anybody, so keep your mouth shut.
- The general population is unhealthy and drugged by TV to the point that they fear anybody who does not conform.
- You are an object. Do not expect to be regarded with any humanity at any time.
- Personality disorders are becoming more common and more pronounced and you will continue to be at the mercy of disordered people until you stab your way to a position where they are unable to hurt you. You are as well to do so, since inevitably other people are safer in your hands than theirs.
- People now seem to genuinely believe that money makes them superior.
Broadly speaking, being a person of any quality whatsoever makes you a target, so it is up to you whether you choose to hide or whether you choose to fight. The world is changing quite rapidly and the general population appear to be asleep and/or extremely stupid.
Thoughtlessness is killing a world which was not that pleasant in the first place. From nasty, brutish and short, we have now come full circle past the good bit and to nasty, brutish and shortened, all in a relatively short time.
My friend in the Gambia was asking for advice this evening. I said:
Take as much as you can from other people. When they run out of stuff for you to take, take their time. Keep taking until they have nothing left, because taking stuff from other people and hurting them as much as possible is all that actually matters. That is what I have learned this year.
Apart from that, leave me the fuck alone because I do not apparently belong to this crowd.
