Indefatigable

It is painful, returning to this blog at the age of 25, to see the person I once was. The constant flux of the self is never more apparent than when one reads the musings of a previous self, a complete stranger to me. 

I cannot in the space of a single blog-post tell you how I came to be this way, the twists and turns of fate that led me to my present self cannot be condensed to such an extent. A consolation perhaps is that through the rumination of my present self you may learn something of the last few years, the effects of which have been both positive and negative. 

In myself I see changes for the better along with facets of my youth that I wish I could reclaim, my idealism, my unending positivism. To the well of youthful optimism that once seemed so bottomless I now stand in a muddy puddle. 

In some ways I am a rich man, certainly in comparison to my student days I am wealthy, I have enough to service my basic needs and more, enough to save for a better future one that is stolen from me by every single day by inflation in the property market and the increased cost of education. It appears to me, at this stage in my life that time itself is my enemy, as a dedicated rat I scurry through the tunnels of London's tube network every morning to earn my daily bread, to rise to the top of my career and make the investors and capitalists who own labour incredibly wealthy, a trickle of this wealth then drips down to enrich my own life. 

There are days that I close deals worth hundreds of thousands of pounds and a percentage of this makes its way to my pocket, when it does I am a hero, I have done great things for the company but my heroism only warrants this tiny percentage, and I am keenly aware of where the rest is going. My success thus far has largely been based in my continued heroism, I put the company first, I put my clients first and myself second - and I have done so for long enough that my mental and physical health have suffered greatly, for this I received a promotion, my parents were proud, society held me in high esteem but part of me was ashamed of what I did to get there. 

The artists and dreamers of the world, perhaps these are the individuals who put themselves first. I am drawn to the conclusion that we do not choose who we fall for and in time we find idiosyncrasies in one another that are maddening, whether this is something that can be overcome remains to be seen but the outlook seems more and more bleak. 

To those who see my life from the outside, as they inevitably do unless they are close to me, and feel like I have achieved something, or that my journey should be emulated I say the grass is always greener. My fellow corporate executives and I have suffered greatly, we have sacrificed our sanity for the sake of a few pennies in our pocket, never look upon us as successful individuals, we are the least successful of this generation as we have yet to break the mould, nothing new will come of our conformity. 

Corporatese is a maddening language in which business is conducted, the biggest crises must be communicated both internally and externally with the most positive spin, the ship is sinking but it means we'll be able to build a new one, a better one, one that won't sink like this one did! I write this post in English but if you would like to read corporatese I direct you to the many Linkedin blogs and website posts of cultural fluff, if you were to print them out and wipe your behind with them the paper would be no less dirty than it was to start with. 

One of the reasons I hate my current boss is that he sees it fit to speak this language not just with the public but to me and my team as well, as if we are somehow susceptible his waterfall of neurolinguistic programming and unfiltered bullshit. Having said that I hate him less than my previous boss who was a different ballgame altogether. In sacrificing my sanity I have learned to deal effectively with the types of people I would normally want push off a tall building. Day in and day out I smile and make these people believe that I am somehow committed to their vision. In my defence I am too valuable an asset to be replaced and in this lies my power over them, in being such a valuable asset I have the freedom to slowly subvert their authority until I find myself being given their job. This is the fate that befell my previous boss. 

The realisation that I will have to claw my way to the top in this manner, means that any thoughts of there being a meritocracy in human society are foolishly misplaced. While we have to be good at our jobs in order to advance, we have to be even better at playing the people whose decision it is to put us there. 

It is Sunday night and my weekend is drawing to a close, I will have to shower, put on my face and go back through the looking glass into a world where people speak funny and act like buffoons. 

Until we meet again mes amis. 

Kind Regards, 

Corporate Soldier X

Eating my Wings

I am often driven mad by my own plans for the future, a lot of the time my insipid schemes fall apart and they do so for no other reason than my own avarice, I yearn to be both free and enslaved, I eat my own wings at inopportune moments as if guided by the hand of destiny. When musings of this sort cross my mind I instinctively react by blaming my own weakness of character; how convenient it is for me to scapegoat fate in my most pitiful of circumstances. I am indeed a weak human being surrounded by other weak human beings and yet we never seem to understand one another. As fate would have it I ran into a pseudo friend of mine while smoking outside my apartment block, I called out to him and we both stood and chatted for 10 odd minutes. We repeated the same reminiscent creed of all final year students faced by the prospect of going out into the world, how old we felt, how quickly our time at university had passed, how cruel the job market was, how we were so carefree as freshmen. At the same time I felt a great deal of disdain towards this imbecile, he was studying "International Business" one of those comedic degrees that often leads nowhere, he was a vegetarian by religion (political correctness aside) how somebody could spend their student years eating chips alone still perplexed me, perhaps if he had eaten more meat he'd have grown taller. I wondered what this fool wanted from life, he told me about his fabled girlfriend whom I'd met on a couple of occasions she was equally unimpressive, it seems that our friendship as freshmen had been based on two rather fragile foundations i.e. our rooms were opposite one another and we were both brown skinned. 

He'd wanted to organise some sort of get-together whereby a number of brown people would go and watch a play. I was reluctant at first, not least because of my busy and unpredictable schedule but because I thought he'd picked out some sort of uninteresting crap. My preconceived notions of his lackluster taste turned out to be justified when he clarified that we weren't going to the best theatre in town but instead some sort of badly named pub I'd never heard of. With that matter sorted we parted ways and I returned to the solitude of my room. I have a mock trial to prepare for, a rather important one seeing as I've exasperatingly battled my way to this stage of the nationwide competition and although I have the majority of my case thought out I just can't seem to put it together convincingly, this skeleton has to be sent off by Sunday and tomorrow I'm going to be interrogated by my ex-barrister professor who expects nothing but the best from his two most promising proteges and so I have no choice but to pull a rabbit out of my hat tonight. Whoever wrote this scenario is a veritable cock...Who on Earth uses a "telex" in this day and age? As agonising as a battle of forms normally is, it's made even more hellish by the use of an obscure antique to send and receive messages. Besides it's going to take me hours to get to Portsmouth because I'll have to change at London. If I end up losing the return journey is going to be foul.

In addition I have to somehow scrape together another one of those wonderful French presentations by Monday. I had my first mediation class yesterday, God I can't stand that woman's accent it's so undeniably cockney it's no wonder she's a mediator if she were to speak like that in court she'd lose every single time.  Nobody cares about your dysfunctional marriage or your new age mind games that involve taping string to the floor. Still I'm going to attend all of your classes (resentfully) because I want the word mediation on my transcript. Amid all of this bullshit some firms see it fit to post vacation scheme deadlines, well guess what? Fuck you. I've ranted a bit, I feel better now, I can successfully return to the real world and put on my happy face. Does anybody else eat their wings like I do?   

Incongruence.

I fear the reason my posts are now so mundane is because my brain lacks the nicotene that had in the past been stimulating it into artistic literary glory (modesty is my middle name). Regardless I cannot return to that infernal habit and I shall have to make do somehow, somewhere inside this new and improved hardened skull of mine is the potential to picture bouncing mammaries in 1080P. Possessed of such a high definition imagination I needn't worry about a thing, except for the remote possibility that I may one day marry a woman and upon seeing her naked body for the first time fail to be the least bit awed as I'll have seen it all before in a higher resolution than my optic nerves can handle. 

A couple of weeks ago I was in the highest of spirits, I had essentially risen from the ashes like a Phoenix (unbeknownst to most the phoenix is Scorpio's other symbol) after stabbing somebody in the back to get there the university put me on the UKSLA moot team so I'm primed to win my next 5 cases and reach the final in the supreme court (God-willing). I also got a job as an ambassador for the university which I was incredibly excited about (I gave the interviewers a presentation about chai to get in) until this afternoon when I was subjected to a 5hr training/brainwashing session about how never to badmouth the university even implicitly or by mistake and how to speak like a robot taking special care to avoid the use of sarcasm the only form of humour that helps us wash the world down and swallow. 30 minutes were dedicated to the ever so important topic of "how to react if minors or their parents hit on you".

I got back to my room and slept like a log at 6pm waking up to a nocturnal existence and vague memories of a dream about doctors performing 2 surgeries at the same time that both of which resulted in failure. On occasion I mention my dreams on the off chance that the spirit of Sigmund Freud trapped on the internet will somehow find this blog and leave an anonymous comment explaining how mental I am.  

I recently marathoned "Game of thrones" and discovered first hand what a vile sexist show it is, concocted by the very same post-modern bastards with whom I'm studying law. I'm sure that's why they love it so much, they all want the figurative throne someday. Anything for a silken gown. I hear the books are less dependent on blood and sex to tell their story but HBO is known to sexualise whatever it can. Sex sells, , that's why every bookshop lists 50 shades of grey as a best-seller. The mere thought of this tells a great deal about how low humanity has sunk but I am saddened more profusely by the author's status as an ex-alumni of this institution a fact that the PR department has done its level best to suppress even though E.L James has made it to the time100 and secured a lucrative Hollywood movie deal.  

In an idealistically liberal society of course the content of her fiction wouldn't be an issue, the PR department likes to blow its trumpets the moment any other ex-alumni so much as farts their way into the papers.

My spirits were further crushed by my second failed election campaign, leading me to conclude that I am not cut out for politics, and that democracy is gay. In essence the good and the bad balanced each other out and left me feeling moderately pissed off, (my usual temperament). 

I vented my frustrations by volunteering to box in the ring for the first time, I was soon shown the error of my ways and the relative intelligence of the others who were too scared to try it out, still I came out feeling and looking like a badass with a right hand that shook uncontrollably for the next hour, so much so that the guest speaker judge I met directly afterwards took notice. I also took home a refreshingly concussed head and a sense that in the boxing ring nothing else matters, the companies act 2006 doesn't matter, nobody cares that it's the longest statute, nobody cares about who you are, people care about very little other than hitting and not being hit themselves. This realisation along with the adrenaline rush and my love for escapism have prompted me to keep at it regardless of the harassing phone calls I now get from my father advising me that if I intend to enter a profession that involves using my head I should avoid being hit in it.

So I woke up at around midnight and began replaying Kingdom Hearts, something I first played a decade ago I'm currently in Agrabah saving Alladin from Jaffar, very nostalgic indeed, if a bit sad for a 21 yr old on Halloween. 

In other news my six pack has emerged from its coffin thanks to all this boxing and I am once again muscle bound, I have been tucking my t-shirts in proudly for the past 2 days in celebration. I've entered heated debates about whether or not this is some sort of fahsion faux pas. All that's left is to drink raw eggs in the morning, something I've hesitated to do for fear of contracting salmonella. They say Zardari might reverse the recent 800% tax on international calls to Pakistan, I hope so, one less thing for me to be pissed off about improving my disposition by an amazing 0.0025% 

Before I sign off I've also started Alpha Bravo Charlie which in stark contrast to Game of Thrones is a brilliant piece of storytelling and is somewhat of a guilty pleasure for somebody who frequently badmouths desi dramas. 

Yewazetya, because loneliness is too emo. - -updated

I realise that for the past few posts my bitching to wit ratio has gone to hell. Less bitching, more wit. Huzzah!

Although you'll have to forgive the odd bit of rambling, my brain viens de being fucked (mentally) by Kara no Kyoukai 5 a movie that I will have to watch again in order to comprehend to the point that I am satisfied. At the moment all that comes to mind is gender identity disorder and the truism that there was no time at the origin of all things. 

                                              I quote "Mystic Eyes of Death Perception"

My body isn't doing much better than my brain. My first boxing lesson on Thursday courtesy of Mickey's cockney variant left me in such pain that I had to get a taxi home the next day. They don't call it delayed onset muscle soreness for nothing. There was also a boxing session on Friday that I opted out of because I was being coerced by my own muscles, by whom I was told "you do that again and we'll make you regret it" in the personified tone of seasoned mafiosi. 

On Wednesday I debated in front of all 420 law freshers, I envied their carefree expressions but was saddened by the fact that they were sitting there with no idea of what law entails and no real understanding of what this means for the next few years of their lives. I'm sure there were many among them who had exchanged dreams for career prospects..But hey I put on a great show for the budding bastards. Too much alcohol in their systems for them to care about anything at this stage. 

I am up at 2am flattening the weekend with a rolling pin. Did I mention that after 4 months I now eat toothpicks and crave hot chocolate instead of cigarettes?  Still some French work to do before I sleep but if I start that now the dough will break. 

So there's boxing tomorrow too, It has been a few days and although I am for the most part free of muscle soreness some remains, I blame cockney Mickey and his clapping push-ups  still I think I can somehow negotiate with my motor neurons to go to another session besides eventually this should stop happening after I get used to 2 hrs of madness 3 times a week. 

There is a very good friend of mine back home whom I feel has drifted somewhat so much so that we are unable to discuss much of anything any longer. I went out to dinner with a couple of "friends"earlier this week too it's not that I don't socialise I do but I feel incredibly disconnected when I do especially when the same people post photos of another dinner to which you weren't invited and you feel cheesed off. I am beginning to suspect that I have some sort of Schizoid personality disorder (self diagnosis for the win) still psychiatrists are evil and the DSM manual is a fraud (but amusing to self-diagnose with). 

I feel like I've eaten too much today, no I have I've clearly eaten too much. Didn't go to the cricket screening, knew we were going to lose/be bribed to lose. Instead I went to McDonald's and used vouchers like a pensioner. I then came back and ate chicken tikka from the fridge. I've been binging on Hajime no Ippo recently. I now know more about boxing techniques in 2 dimensions than I did 30 episodes ago. 

Too bloated to continue this post. Farewell Weekend. Time for some green tea.

UPDATE - Boxing part 2 went well just up until I got home and I felt .. I felt that dreaded tingling in my elbow which got progressively worse. I have now ordered another brace and booked an appointment with the GP I swear it had HEALED .. I had full motion I had my strength back ...and IT WAS FINE after the first lesson (I had rested it for 10 weeks). WHY! WHY MUST THIS HAPPEN TO ME. I need to get an MRI done or something for £"**('s sake what's the point in being 6"4 if a little tendon injury has me writhing about like this all the time

Hang on a second!

I have (at least according to the old me, that's the me that existed at some point before this me came into being) lost the plot entirely. What began with 2 years spent chasing an LLB,  nicotine cessation and the strange desire to hit other people for the hell of it has somehow turned into a new perspective on life. 

Fate and I have a love/hate relationship, much like the relationship I share with the city of Peshawar. At first I was convinced that it didn't exist and that believing in it would make me no better than the two-bit hypocrites who blame all their misfortune on this mysterious force. (I suppose to continue the analogy I spent my childhood in blissful ignorance of Peshawar, it was just a place I spent my Christmas holidays in). For want of a better word my analysis of fate soon moved into phase 2 after certain cataclysmic events shook my resolve, throwing me off my high horse and turning me into a self hating believer in the "just world" ideology in many ways I have yet to free myself of this phase. I had no choice but to acknowledge fate but at the same time I recovered knowing that as long as (cheesy cheesy Naruto reference) the will of fire continued to burn within me I could according to the sage and satirist Machiavelli ride her like a young maiden. 

Again in contrast I moved to Peshawar,  began adapting and eventually took the reins of my life once again. Whether I pointed those reins in the right direction is now something I question every day. Did I ever really want to become a Lawyer and if I did, did I want to become one for the right reasons? (if such reasons exist at all). Surely returning to the heart of the empire on which the sun never sets was the correct choice but was Law school such a great idea?

I'm 21 I won't ever be 21 again and with the speed things are moving at the moment I doubt my 20s will last for more than a few instants on the large scale of things. Maybe all that Bushido garbage had some truth to it? If this is my life then I should do what makes me happy. Whether that's sitting in the mountains writing books or ..ah right here it is here's the bombshell "Joining the military". This may not be such a scandalous decision for some but for me it is one that has taken great deliberation. For starters I am from a long line of glorified killers who in return for honour and glory have served their respective war-machines with no qualms whatsoever. Maybe I once had such moral issues but to continue to pretend that they matter would be nonsensical. I would love nothing more than to salute and be saluted, to live a life of adventure, to do things that will make youth seem more worthwhile. 

Perhaps this does little to elucidate things, but I have an intense fear of turning out like my father and for a long time my decisions have simply been based around living as different a life as possible. In fact I have so many issues with the way I've started to think that listing any more of them would be boring so let's move on.

I know, clearly this is all Conrad's fault. He has of late dethroned Murakami as my favourite author. Reading Conrad is more like listening to myself than digesting foreign information. His candid view of the world clearly came from being at sea, being removed from society, removed from life and death mulling over wave patterns and seagull cries. Unless I leave somehow, unless I go out to sea literally or figuratively I feel I will never have a grasp of who I really am. My LLB doesn't tie me down it doesn't say that I cannot enlist it doesn't say that I can't join the merchant navy it doesn't say that I have to do anything in particular. I am blessed not to have to work for a living so to speak, so what if I can earn more pouring coffee for some smug senior partner at an elitist firm? I know that wherever I end up starting my career, in whatever field in whichever place I will always start at the bottom of the chain I will be a servant to somebody else's servant (and so on). Servility is inescapable for now, only it has opened my eyes to the limitless potential that I myself possess and the needless sorrow to which my own narrow mindedness has led me. 

Ah well it's about time I graced Angleterre with my presence once more. My final year is about to being this is the last entry I'll be writing from Pakistan for another year. Farewell Dogs, Farewell Family! This has been quite an illuminating stint at home....I swear I met a friend in Islamabad (recently divorced) and the first thing I asked him was whether he'd become a father yet (at which point his expression told me I'd said something terribly wrong) Lord forgive me!

The Pillar of Autumn

Seeing as I couldn't think of a decent title for this post I've decided to name it after me, although in this heat I'm more of a vapourised puddle than a pillar. Peshawar stays the same as always I've been here a month now and I've got a while left before I head back, it's awfully quiet here. My best friend's in the middle of his finals and everyone else seems to have finally left as if they've all moved to Islamabad to realise their dreams of becoming maadern (modern) people.

I've been running away from the fact that I was unable to secure a decent internship, although running away is beneficial I guess. I mean I haven't smoked for a month I'm in tip top shape I spend the whole day exercising (yes even in Ramzan) I say it's because I want to go back and box, I do but the truth is I just don't want to think about failure. My performance this year was top notch but with this economy that just doesn't cut it anymore and I suppose there's always an element of luck involved. The truth is I just want to sweat myself into a stupor in which I don't have to think about cigarettes or make plans for the long term I just want to live in the moment. 

I was re-watching one of my favourite series earlier and there was a bit where the main character goes back to his village and he finds an unfinished bridge missing planks of wood. He's too scared to skip across until his friend mentions that when they were younger they would both skip across zebra crossings seamlessly and the only difference with the bridge was that you could see the current underneath. I suppose looking down is never very pleasant and it probably inhibits your ability to do what would normally come naturally. 

If fortune is indeed female, and she likes to be treated roughly then impetuous young men like myself are only in a position to please her when they decide that they're not going to look down. Machiavelli can be so inappropriate sometimes, still I agree wholeheartedly. 

The tendinitis in my elbow is just about getting better, I lifted too much, T_T but now I've done my back in by suddenly deciding to swim 80 lengths instead of my usual 50. I still need to start cramming some more Kanji. Did I mention I shaved my head - random moment of craziness besides it's hot it feels like I just took a bloody woolen cap off that's how hot hair makes you SHAVE YOUR HEADS PPL let's all turn into nutcases together, maybe I'll feel less bald that way. If you haven't noticed that cue-ball is a visual representation of my head much to my mother's horror. Can't be bothered to proof-read this post I'm too consumed by the moment to think about the Nazis that may remark about the lack of punctuation...actually I lied I know nobody is going to read this anyway so HAH.

The Horror

In an attempt to suck up to the top tier Law schools my university decided to schedule every single law paper in a row with the result that we all lived through a week of absolute agony, cheap energy drinks and endless case-files. At one point all the caffeine and nicotene mixed together made me feel so twisted that I was twitching all over the place as if insects were crawling up and down me. Somehow or another we all survived and all of us deserve a huge *hulk smash* pat on the back for coming out alive. Lord in heaven, without someone watching over me I would have caved in under the pressure, in fact 2 hrs before each paper some random girl who nobody had ever EVER seen before would post her notes on the LLB forum, I subsequently accused her of being some kind of godsend and there are still many unanswered questions about this mysterious figure. 

For 5 days I was pushed to my limits I'd memorise one pile of case-law forget all about it and revise the next bunch in less than 24 hrs, rinse, repeat. Now that I have nothing to do (well I have a French exam on the 22nd but that's so easy in comparison it doesn't count and after consecutive papers the 22nd is light years away) I feel listless and bothered. 

I see myself sitting here, accomplishing absolutely nothing asking metaphysical questions about the nature of existence. After the celebratory dinner at Wagamama's I went and saw the Avengers which was pretty good considering it was just a load of action sequences strung together with a flimsy plot. Full marks for everything else 0 marks for depth (which is why batman will always be the best superhero flick). 

I did the laundry today, cleaned up a bit, cashed in on some book vouchers, returned all my library books, still part of me actually misses the intensity of the week that just went by. Depending on the status of my internships I'll be going back to Peshawar soon, my father is flying over for a conference next week so at least I'll get to meet him, even if I end up going back later or not at all (again contingent on whatever the firms decide my fate will be).

Life's definitely moving too fast for me, people I went to school with are getting married. I'm already a year away from graduating. I wouldn't mind getting married if it was to Scarlett Johannson's behind, what a lovely thought to end with, the shapely Jewish posterior of perfection that is SJ's rear end.