Army of Me

Army Of Me
By Daniel Finfer

Back at the beginning, I split myself in two
Because the world was just too big to see with such a narrow view.
From the two that I became I knew exactly what to do,
And with another point of view around the world felt fresh and new.

The two that I became soon turned into three and four
I lived a life of peace, and never dreamed I'd start a war
I headed out across the land to conquer and explore
But thats the day I felt the need to split myself some more

The thousands i became began to build their first machines
I started building tiny boats to navigate the seas
I dreamed up new religions but they all just disagreed
And suddenly my new religions started building armies

My boats turned into battleships to put me in my place
The soldiers of myself all wore disguises on their face
I don't feel that responsible, for how could I have known
The enemies i wiped away were soldiers of my own

The war engulfed the planet as my army swept the land
I had to know which side of me would gain the upper hand
The tiny little soldiers were too small to understand
I made me fight against myself to find out who I am

You see the winner of the war would know the shape of things to come
For they alone decide my shape when all is said and done;
I almost caught a glimpse of me, reflecting in the sun
but suddenly the final soldier cursed what I'd become

I lost control of everything, and i became confused
I waged a war against myself I never thought I'd lose
And right before I killed myself, I wondered if they knew
That all along their Mighty God was just a point of view

Time to Pretend

I think this has been my first week back at Uni after the holidays (not that I really anything that could be considered a holiday) and already I feel a little trapped again.

I know I moan about Uni a hell of a lot, and for all the bad things it could be worse, but I'm not sure at the moment if this is what I want... just, all of it. I don't really know if University is the right thing for me, or if I am right for it, because I like to feel (however opposed it may be in reality) like I am free, and making my own decisions, and I don't get that with all this.

This is all I talk about on here, generally because I am trying to make sense of it myself, and because University is my life, and has been, since September. I should probably make more effort to do more things outside of Uni in a social aspect, but I don't really see anything of much worth doing in this 'city' that I am in, and I'm educating myself on the internet by collaborating in an artistic way with people who feel similar to me (sort of) about art.

I just don't know... I say this all the time, I know I do, and yet I make no steps in solving any of it or making any steps towards being active and making decisions.

I won't lie, I have thought, quite a bit, about quitting.

I don't know what's stopping me... me proving to myself I can do all this? Not letting my family down or being a disappointment like they always thought I would be? Not wanting to end friendships or dissapoint the people I have met up here who I have made plans with for the coming years?

It's a lot to think about. I don't want to be another drop out... someone who couldn't handle authority or handle being independent, but on the other hand it's not about that, it's about the way I feel about the things I am doing... yet others will see it like the first of those.

It's just... like I'm living my life in a groundhog day scene, where repetition is relentless and it's the same thing day in and day out, and yeah, I work on different projects and there is always something different in that sense, but it's the same thing still, and then I have all of these doubts all the time, every day, on and on.

Fuck... it's just a lot to cope with. And still, for all of this, I can never talk face to face with people about any of this, not in this detail or depth, because I just block out full on interaction on an emotional level with humans... It just happens, and I can try and brake that barrier but it never fully comes out as I have rehearsed in my head a thousand times over.

This must be such a boring fucking topic for anyone who bothers reading this now... it's all i go on about, all the time, blog after blog. I wish I was sorry but I'm not... I've said all along this is all for my selfish ways and to just clear my head, so I guess I can't be sorry for something intentional, but I wish I wasn't feeling this way.

Imagine this though... I quit University, and then what? I live back with my family and mum, I don't have the internet because we can't afford it, I don't get a job because I'm too adamant that I will never work a 9 to 5 or something that isn't keeping me creative... and that will be that.

How can people, adults, make these decisions that are really life changing all the time? I wish I knew, or could see into the future and be safe in the knowledge that everything will work out fine or... well... yeah... the other option I won't discuss.

But I don't understand how people do this. In fact, I don't understand why as humans we just put up with it. It's just this whole system we are all trapped in, and I want out, because I don't enjoy any of this really.

Anyway... yeah.

Go do...

I think I've realised something while I have been at University, which is actually a step in the right direction for me and my future.

I say this all the time, but I have always wanted to be a film-maker. The strange thing is, up until recently I've always sort of wanted to do feature films, or short films, but within the last few weeks while I have been thinking in depth about what I want from all this and to do ideally for the rest of my life... I came to a realisation.

I think something I really want to be is an artist, that is, a visual artist. I know film-makers can be visual artists in some contexts, but every time I have done projects within college or university that has no boundaries or story as such to tell, I have always enjoyed it much more than sticking to something with conventions and rules, or a narrative.

I don't even know if any of this makes sense.

It's like... I really just enjoy picking up a camera and filming anything, in whatever way I want, without restriction, and then seeing what I can do with all that footage... rather than planning something and spending forever sorting things out. It almost takes the fun out of making things for me, because I really get turned off by having to do something a certain way, or not being able to be free... it's like a mental prison.

This isn't to say working of short films or things of this nature are not fun in some way, or cannot be rewarding, but the whole process just seems to lack the magic of just doing something and not having it all planned... capturing the world through spontaneous and random moments that take your fancy then seeing what you get with it.

Obviously, this has limited options. Who would watch a DVD of just short/long experimentation and random things put together? Not many people I suspect, but it has a place in galleries and the like, where people go to be see things in a new way, rather than be told a story (most of the time).

For me, there is something special in physically seeing something that isn't just on a screen... something 3d, or in an environment that is specially created for one specific thing, something which transforms from project to project, a personal space. I love art galleries, and i've been to some amazing visual exhibitions which just really transport you into a different place which you are in a room.

I don't know... But I think this is where I kind of, belong. Just being creative and artistic, without too many boundaries or set ways of doing things, and just capturing without plans, getting things as they are.

It's something to think about.

Life is like a box of chocolates...

“Life is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that no-one ever asks for. Unreturnable, because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So you’re stuck with this undefinable whipped mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there’s nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in awhile there’s a peanut butter cup or an English toffee, but they’re gone too fast and the taste is fleeting. So you end up with nothing but broken bits filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts. If you’re desperate enough to eat those, all you’ve got left is an empty box filled with useless brown paper wrappers.”

The Cancer Man - The X-Files

A moral dilemma

If you were didn't agree with guns you wouldn't want to work in a gun shop would you?

If you didn't agree with animal testing, you would work in a lab that tests on animals would you?

The above statements are just a few examples on decisions we as humans face when we have morals we like to keep up. Now, everyone has different morals... some people think animals are inferior to humans, and so testing on animals is perfectly fine, thus the second of those issues wouldn't bother them greatly, and in the same way, some people, cultures even, think guns are perfectly fine.

I understand both of these viewpoints, and could probably in some way understand any other viewpoint on those subjects, though it doesn't mean I agree myself.

In the same way, I keep coming up with a dilemma that I can't explain to people but which I doesn't morally fit within what I find comfortable.

If a film industry is more focused on profit and shareholders than actually giving film-makers a chance to shine, why would you work in the film industry?

Okay... I've heard every possible answer to this, looked at it from many angles, and to me, morally, I couldn't. I don't know if people just think they can't get by without huge corporations putting money into projects, and I don't know if people just feel they are losing a battle that can never be won, but to me, morally and in my heart, I can't do it, and don't want to.

The thing for me is, at the moment, many films are made because they have a pre-built audience, someone to sell it at and market it towards, something they know can make them money back, and so we see the same old stuff pumped out all the time, sometimes and often, from the same people, with the same people in them...

There are exceptions to this, I will admit, but for the majority of films, money making profit is one of, if not the most important aspects of the business... because that's what it is, a business. The people who run these companies often don't have a passion for films like we do, they have a passion for figures, and if something will give them figures, they will be happy to give the all clear.

Now, imagine for a moment that every film anyone wanted to make was made... there would be some shite, I know, but imagine also all the amazing films we could have seen already had they been given a chance. There are people in this world, people I know even, who have so much talent, but very little way to output it and who never get the chance to show people. Trust me when I tell you I know people who could easily make a film that is out of this world and that people will want to see, but without that chance, without a clearly defined market, it never gets seen/made.

When money becomes involved, it puts me off, because then there is something called compromise... Now, I understand compromise is important in every day life, and important in this industry, but often the intentions behind that compromise is to maximize viewers, and in return, maximize profit.

There is so much I could go into, so many problems and so many things I don't agree with within this industry, but for now I'll leave it at that... all I can say is, I have always wanted to make films, for pretty much my whole life, and I always will, but I don't want art, my art, to be governed by a business that is simply out to make money, and that will actively try to change that art to make more money... and I don't want to play a game where I would feel I would always be losing.

That is something people don't understand... I always get told that I need to play the game, the game of the business, but I don't, and won't. In the end, if I can look back at my life and say I tried my best and did what I believe to be right, that will be the best thing I could ever hope for... If I looked back and saw that I had to bow to industries only interested in money, or that I couldn't create art in a way I wanted, how would I feel? Cheated. I would have cheated myself and been cheated.

We all have different reasons for doing what we do... and for me, it's all about the art, the passion, the way that art is made, the reasons behind making it. If I were to make art in a corrupt system, that art wouldn't be as pure as I would want it to be, and I wouldn't be making something in a way, and for the reasons, that I felt would be right.

Where does this leave me though? I do wonder about that... but one thing I know is that no matter where this road takes me, or this dream I have, I'll always, ALWAYS, in some way, live my life through creativity, imagination and passion, and I will always try and do that in the best way possible to stand with my morals and ideals.

Again, going back to the top of this blog, we all have different morals... this is just one of mine, and I will fight it tooth and claw.

x

Trust me when I tell you...

Last night I had a tough time sleeping... After trying endlessly to sleep, my mind somehow drifted into that state where you think about the past. I know people say you need to forget the past and look forward to the future, but the past is the thing which shapes up into what we are now, which in turn shapes the way the future will pan out... so...

I got to thinking about trust, or the way I often find it hard to trust people fully, which in turn led me to think about the past and events in which my trust for someone was broken.

As a child I had a best friend. I can safely say I trusted this person 100%. We were like brothers, and we did almost everything together for pretty much the whole of our childhoods.

We went through primary school together, started secondary school together... it was one of those friendships you just never imagined ending. Then things started to change.

My friend started becoming friends with people I didn't really like, but who I gave a chance. Basically, the people who I had nothing in common with. Where as they were interested in drinking late at night on street corners, smoking whatever they could find and being 'interested' in girls, I was more interested in trying to do well at school, art, film... things I really loved and still love today.

This isn't to say those people cannot like the things I like, or even change, but generally, I wasn't 'feeling' this new crowd of people.

However, being best friends with this person, and wanting this friendship to last, I went along with it. I was pretty much becoming a person I really dislike, one of the people who I had nothing in common with. I guess I was experimenting with myself, dipping my toe in the metaphorical sea of a new perspective.

I spent night after night on street corners... spent a few nights running from police... experimented with substances that I have not been near since...

I did this all in the name of friendship. but at the time, I didn't realise friendship doesn't consist of simply following a crowd. I was young, naive, stupid in the most simplest of terms.

But anyway, back to the point... trust.

So, we were still really good friends. The strange thing is, I saw two sides to my friend. There was the person he was when he was with these new people, and the person he was when he was alone with me. With them, he would be the 'tough' guy, with me... that vanished.

A year or so went by of this whole thing, and with each day I was getting more and more uncomfortable with his actions, my actions, and the actions of the people around me. It got to the point where I was witnessing people like me being bullied... and I wouldn't, out of choice, do anything about it, but knowing full well what it felt like and that I should.

By this time, a new person has come on the scene. A new best friend, but not for me, for my best friend... he was part related to him, so they shared this 'bond' that I couldn't compete with. The normal routine started happening where slowly but surely, the best friend I knew and trusted would let me down. We would plan to do something, the other guy would show up and suddenly our plans were dropped like a lead balloon.

I put up with this, holding on as much as possible to the friendship we once had.

Then one day, the three of us went for a walk.

Now, I disliked this guy who had barged his way into the middle of our friendship... not because of that, but because of the way he was. He was basically the kid you see who things he is better than everyone, and who has an ego the size of a small planet, and that's not something I find attractive in a friend.

Anyway, so we went for a walk.

To cut a long story short, that day, during that walk, I was beaten up. Literally to the point where I was on the floor having my face kicked in, for no reason I could even begin to think of. If you know me, you will know I'm not a violent person, and this extends to defending myself. I'm not strong, I have very little power over anyone in terms of this sort of thing, so I was just on the floor, crying for him to stop, while all the time, blow after blow, I was being kicked.

The hard part of all this, was that my childhood friend, the guy I trusted 100%... when I looked up, was just stood there. He wasn't the one kicking me, sure... but he was stood there, watching me, not helping, not telling the guy kicking me to stop.

I don't know what hurt more... the fact that I was literally being beaten to the point of blood pouring from my nose, or the fact that my best friend of over ten years was stood watching it happen and choosing to do nothing.

And that was that... trust broken. 100% broken.

From that point on, I did what I always do when trust is broken and stopped talking to him, tried to avoid him, pretty much kept myself to myself and moved on. It's the way I deal with friendships and relationships breaking down, I prefer to just cut off any contact, because if I have contact that last image and the reason for that friendship ending comes back to mind and it hurts me again.

I guess though, this was when I realised that people sometimes change, and not always for the better, and also... from this... I grew stronger. I realised that rather than try to salvage something which is only making things hard, if you realise that it is going bad, end it before it gets worse. It might pessimistic, and I know not everyone is like him, but that seems to be the best option for me.

So, me and this friend literally didn't speak for years... and now we lead different lives. He has a girlfriend who has a baby and he has become the father figure, he seems genuinely happy and honestly, I think he could be a great father figure... protective, loving... everything you need.

And I'm... well, look back through this blog and you will see.

But to the matter at hand, now, I have a hard time dealing with trust. I used to dish out 100% trust to anyone who came into my life, and now I don't. The worst thing is, even if people give me 100% trust, and no reason to think that they will ever do anything bad, I still have that little memory in the back of my mind that triggers this warning, that tells me never to trust anyone fully, which in turn just makes things more difficult.

It's kind of like this black cloud hanging over me all the time, and I just expect it to start raining at any moment... I expect anyone I am with, at any moment, to just break that trust.

Of course, there were other moments in my life that also added to this trust issue, I mean, my own father left me just after my first birthday, so it's not as if I was new to whole 'let down' side of people...

Sorry for the long and rambling blog. I guess a sleepless night and too much time to think just really made me look at things again. I don't expect anyone will have read this, and in honesty, I'm not sure anyone bothers to read these things at all anymore... I don't blame you, they are long and boring and always about myself, in fact, I always hark on about myself all the time, on every site, every blog, in every conversation... I suppose I'm just a bit selfish.

Anyway...

A decision of the death kind...

when I die, I don’t want a funeral, or to be buried. Y’see, once I’m dead, that’s it. My body is useless, and the idea of my family or whoever might care when death comes a knockin’ paying tons of money to stand and stare at my lifeless body in a wooden box just isn’t my idea of money well spent, not to mention, what’s the point?

I’d rather be remembered for what I have been. All the funerals I have been to, that memory of them, seeing the dead bodies of the people I love… I have no comfort in that, and that is the memory that lasts because it was the last time I saw them.

I remember my great Aunty who I loved to bits, and the last time I saw her was in a coffin. I touched her hand, and she was just... cold. and although she looked beautiful in a still kind of way, that's still the lasting memory that will stick with me forever. That and being stood at her grave while the coffin was being lowered, tears streaming down my face.

That's not a celebration of life, in any form, it's just a party for the dead, and not one that can even be enjoyed.

No… I don’t want that. Just stick me in a cardboard box and burn me in a forest, then sprinkle my ashes in the sea. And with the money you save, get pissed and remember me for all the good times. And go watch whatever small films I have made, look at the drawings I have made, read the stories I have told... That is what I want to be my final communiation, my lasting memory, the things I created while I was alive.

That’s if anyone cares by the time the reaper comes and takes me away.

Either way, I hate funerals and I don't understand why anyone would willingly want a lasting memory to be everyone sat looking at them in a wooden casket. I'm sorry, but it makes no sense.

don't bother reading, usual shit.

You don't even have to read this.

It's just the same shit as normal, just a different date.

I just realised, I've not been out the house since last Friday, as in, actually stepping out the front door. Few reasons... one being that I'm still ill, two being that I'm scared and three being that I just generally feel shit altogether.

In terms of number one, I keep getting intense pains in my stomach, head aches, dizziness, the list goes on... I feel like a second hand toy with parts missing, not fully able to operate in any sense. I don't have a doctor, and I don't care to see one... After years of being like this on and off, all I ever get is 'Take these shitty little tablets and life will be better' but it never is, and it never helps in the long run... ever. I swear, it's at the point where I just break into tears because of the pain a number of times during the day, and then I can't sleep during the night. I'm wearing down, fast.

In terms of number two, I'm scared for a number of reasons. First and foremost, what happened last Friday really scared me, and I am seriously worried it might happen again. It's not an irrational fear, because it's based on something I never want to experience again... Reason two is that I genuinely feel scared at the moment of everything, and in here, this room, the only thing that can harm me is myself. If you have never felt this way, I'm sure it will be hard to understand, but the best way I can describe it is like this:

It kind of feels like I'm in a prison where the door is always open, but I can't leave.

So, I've missed a full week at Uni... hardly done anything at all productive for Uni, pretty much fucked everyone over and everything up... and yet, for all of that, I really can't seem to care. It's not that I don't care, I do, a hell of a lot, but when I'm in this mindset I just feel numb, and everything around me suffers, which only makes it worse. Get the picture?

I'm really at the point where I question what the point is with everything. If I'm just going to be a fuck up all the time, or for periods like this, and that's going to happen again and again, then I'll constantly just be this fucking burden on everyone around me, and myself.

Speaking of which, I just feel alone, all the time now. I must say this all the time but... There isn't a constant in my life, nothing is sure and certain and there isn't that constant person to rely on. I know I should learn to live without the help or need of others, but it's difficult. Just someone to have a proper face to face conversation with about anything, someone who understands you, someone you can always rely on and trust with your heart and soul...

I can't even face talking to my family anymore because I just want to cry hearing them on the phone, or seeing the pictures of them on Facebook... anything, any reminder. I can't seem to think about them, because I realise I've neglected them. I just feel like a stranger to them.

I mean, honestly, I feel like this so often... it's very rare I ever feel happy, and then it's just like a blip in the system. It's just all these moments of feeling lost and out of control with temporary moments of happiness just thrown in for good measure.

And it's all a cycle...

I get ill, it takes forever to get better because I've worn my immune system and body down so much, so I feel down, or I'm ill because I'm down, then I miss uni, and then I get behind and don't do what I should, which then makes me stressed or fucks things up for other people, which makes me feel guilty, which makes me feel shit, which makes me ill again...

Add to that tons of other things and it really does drag. I've tried everything, pretty much everything, to solve this crap I've been putting up with for the last 8 years or so, and it never gets easier, ever. I guess I should be a pro by now.

Thing is, nobody even cares enough to ask if I'm fine, and again, I shouldn't need people to ask, but it's just a case of someone noticing. I've been asked once in a week by someone I know if I am okay, and that was only an opening for the infamous 'Can you do me a favour'. I'm going to stop bothering the next time I think someone isn't feeling too good, or when they need an open ear, because when I need it most nobody so much as sends a simple message to see whats happening.

I mean, it's literally at the point where I can't for the life of me just put that brave face on and pretend it's all okay, and I don't want/need people to see me like this, ever.

I'm just a wreck.

And yeah, I talk about myself on here all the time, and I know there are people worse off than me. People dying of cancer, in earthquakes, in wars, famines, poverty, people living with domestic violence, abuse, people being killed as we speak, people with drug addictions, no house, no family at all...

I'm lucky, I am. But it doesn't stop the way I feel. I don't even know why I bother writing all this in blogs, because it never helps, and I keep deleting this blog and bringing it back to life, but nobody probably notices anyway, or bothers to read, and I don't mind, I don't blame you all... anyone.

Fuck it.

Maybe memories...

I'm feeling quite tired and over-emotional at the moment... a big mixture of things big and small are creeping together slowly and it can be overwhelming.

The last few weeks I have been ill on an almost daily basis. Started with stomach cramps, then slowly my back came into the equation and has been constantly aching. Add to that a flu with a terrible cough, headaches which come and go about three times daily and cause immense amounts of pain to the point of feeling sick and crying my eyes out...

Then on top of that I just feel drained, physically and emotionally. Mentally I'm battling a few demons which have struck me once again.

I try not to show all this... the pain I'm in. I still go to Uni every day, act like I always do and put as much energy as possible into projects and work, and then at the end of the day when I get home I just burn out. It's becoming impossible to cope with.

I had a two hour conversation with my sister in law tonight on the phone, and I miss my family so much. A month ago I became an uncle, and I still have not seen my new niece. My grandma isn't feeling too well. My mums uncle, my grandmas brother died, and this will be the second funeral I have missed while I have been back at Uni.

In terms of the funerals, although they are not family members I know all that well, it's a time when you feel the need to be with the rest of the people who are suffering, the ones who I am close to and grew up with, and I feel like I can't be... which tears me up.

Worse than this is the fact that I feel like my feelings are not intense towards this all... Like, I am living in my own little bubble and world and I forget that my family is coping with all this joy and pain back home, and I'm not feeling that. When my niece was born, I felt happy, obviously, but I have never had contact with her and I don't know how she is... I don't have feelings for her which an uncle should, which I feel i should because I am absent from her life.

I miss my mum. I know she goes through things and doesn't tell people, because when I went home at Christmas I saw it for myself, and although people know she finds it hard, they often don't know how to treat the way she is, or rather how to get her to understand herself, which I do. I feel guilty almost for leaving her, and yet I have to live my own life.

When I was at college, and I was seeing someone about some issues I had, I was told that I needed to stop the guilt and remember that I have my own life, and yet here I am, a year on, feeling the same feelings I did then, just with more passion. It's difficult.

The thing is, my mum is the only parent I have, and although she is capable of everything herself, I feel somewhat inclined to be able to look after her the way she has me. She brought me up alone, which takes effort and dedication that I find hard to be rivalled.

She is now living alone, for the first time in her life, and she is struggling... I saw that at Christmas.

I guess I'm living my own life though, and there is reason... I want to be able to not only follow my dream, but be able to provide my mum with a constant stability that she needs, because all her life she has struggled. She deserves more.

So... where does this lead me now?

Well, I have to keep going. It's difficult, and will no doubt get worse before it has any chance of getting better, but I have to remember why I am doing this, both on a personal level and in terms of what I want to be able to provide for my family. I need to sign up to a doctor if I have any chance of getting rid or even knowing about this illness which is taking too much effort to get rid of. And last of all, I need to keep battling and working to achieve what I came here to achieve, because although it's three years of my life which will be difficult, I hope it might be the stepping stones to reach my goals and dreams.

So although I feel pessimistic at the moment and things are getting on top of me, I also see a faint light in the distance... which makes a change.

x

Saddest story never told

Saddest story never told

I’m really missing my childhood today, or rather, I miss the feeling of being a child. I miss it often, but when I think about it more it’s sad that I can only ever get furthur away from it, and never closer.

Each day I will grow older, each year new things will happen and my innocence will be lost even more, until I am simply another generic adult who forgets the wonderful magic that only comes with being young.

This is a picture I drew a while back... and for some reason it seemed like a good picture to upload with this post.

I will always carry on my imagination, no matter what… into every single day and second of my life, but it’s changing more and more, and I wonder if it will transform into something so far away from it is and has been, and turn into something I dislike.

I don’t know, it’s like the older I get the more and more desperate I am to hold onto my inner child, that little bit of life from my younger self. It’s like I am staring in the mirror and seeing myself at 9 years old, but slowly the image is fading and all that remains is a ghost, a shadow.

It scares me. Being an adult scares me. I can’t quite describe the feeling, but it’s like a black cloud hanging over me. When I think about it, although there have been some wonderful adults I know/have known, most have simply tried to squash me and mould me into something I am not. They don’t understand me, rarely anyway… and I don’t want to ever become like this.

If you don’t feel the same way, or have never felt this way, you probably won’t understand, or even begin to imagine how this feels. Most people embrace adulthood with open arms… I am having an harder time adapting.

x JH x