Month: March 2017

identity, name, shakespeare, Uncategorized

Watt’s in a name?

Bargeworth

For most of us Anglos, our names are derived from the vocation of our forefathers. I’m a Bailey. Somewhere in my lineage there was a big, bald and exceedingly handsome bailiff that dreamed of being a dancer. Smiths, besides reproducing like rabbits, generally have a blacksmith somewhere in their familial tree.

I’ll never shake hands with a Cockburn.

What we did as a living was so intrinsically tied to our identity as a person, it actually became our name. Flash forward to twenty seventeen and not much has changed. We still judge and identify people by what they do, not who they are.

Thanks to celebrities we have wonderful names in circulation such as Apple, Pilot Inspektor and Moxie Crimefighter (yes, those are real names) that, surprisingly, don’t give away too much about what they do in life. One of the first questions we tend to ask when meeting someone new is ‘What do you do?’. Their answer will immediately shape our thoughts on the person.

There’s a quote from John Lennon. He said ‘When I was five years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment. I told them they didn’t understand life.’

He did also say ‘I am the Eggman, they are the Eggman, I am the Walrus, Goo Goo Goojoob’ so, you know, one might think twice before blindly following him as their spirit guide but the sentiment rings true.

It’s drilled into us from a young age that we must ‘be something’ to be valuable in society, to be happy. Kids are bombarded with the question from adults ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’. More often than not, I feel the adults are asking the question to inspire themselves but it reinforces to the child that they need to make some monumental decision that will shape their life and who they are.

I find who a person is, infinitely more interesting than what a person does. I want to know what someone does to feed their soul, not what they do to feed their bills. The two aren’t mutually exclusive and quite often what we do for work will reflect our values in life but I don’t think we need to ‘grow up’ and ‘be’ something to be either happy or valuable to those around us. If we need a label to make us feel good about ourselves, well, we’re all human! Isn’t that enough?

dating, Uncategorized

The Disposable Dating DilEmma

Bargeworth

I remember as a youngster, my friends and I all went to the very first lawn party at Randwick Races. It was a great day – $120 that included all drinks and food. After prowling all the local Vinnies shops for the finest and most flamboyant outfit they could produce at my overall budget of $8.74, I arrived looking resplendent in my Zebra print jacket, peacocked my way to the bar and armed myself with two Bacardi Breezers.

Halfway through the watermelon flavoured one, I got a little bored of it. I threw it over my shoulder and tucked into the pineapple. The pineapple was quite delicious but when I got about three quarters of the way through, it got slightly warm so I, again, tossed this bottle over my shoulder and made my way to the bar to restock.

This pattern repeated itself throughout the day until the point where one of my wayward bottles inadvertently found its way to the cheek of one of our hardworking boys in blue. Despite my protestations I was merely trying to offer him a semi-warm drink to help him through his day, I was promptly marched to the gates where I narrowly avoided an assaulting a police officer charge and received a stern warning to make my way home post-haste as well as a polite request to put my pants back on.

This current culture of disposable dating, brought about by apps like Tinder, is much like my day at the races. Due to a perceived surplus of pre-paid and available stock, we feel we don’t really have to engage in any one particular flavour as there are always more available the moment one gets slightly warm. Most of the time it will also end with a polite request to put my pants back on and exit the premises post-haste.

One good thing about disposable dating is it does allow one to perfect a standard dating routine. I, personally, like to offer a particularly underwhelming experience full of awkward silences, holding in of farts and the inevitable headbutt as I go in for a goodnight kiss. This will, of course, be followed up by a meaningless text or two before we both mutually ghost each other and move on with our lives exactly as they were before. Just a casual carousel of emotionally unavailable people going around and around.

I like to consider myself a romantic. I feel my expectations of love have been ruined by movies. Pretty Woman, for example, promised me a street hooker with a heart of gold and all of her own teeth. When pursing this ultimate romance story, reality presented me with a different version – a stolen wallet, crabs and the teeth of  a Souths supporter.

Recently I tried to move myself on from the disposable dating game. A funny thing happened – I became emotionally involved. It wasn’t any great thing and didn’t last too long but for the first time in years, I had feelings for someone other than myself.  With my over-inflated ego and obvious awesomeness, I’ve always just assumed that if I made an effort, the receiving party would be so overwhelmed with gratitude they would all but worship the ground I walk on as they bake me endless cookies and bore their girlfriends to tears when they go to the toilet together as they start talking ad nauseum about how the Amazing John Bailey has selected them.

Just like with the movies, reality may have presented a slightly different picture.

It can be scary to actually open up and invest some of yourself into another person as you run the risk of finding out you are rather disposable yourself. All of a sudden, you are that slightly warm Pineapple Breezer being tossed aside for the chilled Strawberry and Coconut still waiting in the fridge. That’s the risk you have to take to find something meaningful. Dating is so much easier if there are no emotions involved but like the great man, Bruce Springsteen, said ‘I’d rather feel the hurt inside, than know, the emptiness your heart must hide’.

He was basically saying ‘Go on. Eat the figs’.

anxiety, elephant, mentalillness, Uncategorized

The Grey Elephant

Bargeworth

If depression is The Black Dog, anxiety is The Grey Elephant. It walks up and settles itself heavily on your chest, crushing your sternum and expelling the breath from your lungs. It lays there, not moving, while your chest is slowly imploding under the immense weight. The more you panic and try to shrug it off, the heavier it becomes until, eventually, it pins you down until you are unable to move.

On the surface, everything seems to be fine. You are still, mostly, able to function. You get up for work, have a laugh with friends, do all the normal things. On the inside, your anxiety just keeps growing. An analogy I’ve heard used to describe this is that of a duck – On the surface of the water the duck looks calm, cool, collected (and delicious with a little plum sauce) however, underneath, it’s little legs are spinning around twenty to the dozen.

I was always a worrier as a child. When I hit puberty, the worry must have met a Russian gymnastics coach and got on steroids as it morphed into anxiety which, in turn, led to depression. I didn’t know to feel any different so I thought that this was just normal. It went up and down in stages but I had both The Elephant and The Dog with me pretty much constantly until around the age of 26. That was when I started to question this feeling. Was it normal to feel like this?

From there, things started moving. Exercise, diet, cutting back booze and ensuring proper sleep were the major factors, for me, in moving forward. It did take an enormous amount of energy to beat that initial inertia to get myself going again. It wasn’t a linear progression and took a little bit of time but the depression eventually died away and the anxiety, whilst still there, was minimised.

Fast forward to roughly two years ago. I had some injuries and was unable to train. When I look at it now, I can see that is the point that the anxiety started building up again. There’s been a fair bit happening in my life and without the training I turned to food and alcohol to help quell the growing Elephant. Not my smartest idea. My smartest idea, incidentally, is getting twenty drones synched with each other, attaching them to some carpet and then sitting in the middle with a remote control flying around like Aladdin.

The anxiety was growing so slowly I didn’t even realise that it was getting bad again. It was surreptitiously stalking me. It silently sidled up behind me, tapped me on the shoulder and as I turned around, it bitch slapped me in the face.

Four weeks ago I went down to Melbourne to see my beloved Bruce Springsteen with my old china plate Tangles. It was such a great weekend but on the day I was scheduled to fly back home, I woke up to the beating heart reverberating throughout my body like a drum. Bah-boom bah-boom bah-boom. The walls were closing in on me. The Grey Elephant was affixed firmly to my chest. I was sweating. I felt nauseous. Something was wrong.

I was having a panic attack.

I threw the cover off me. I paced back and forth. I jumped on the spot. I paced some more. I walked and bought some food. I paced yet again. I swung my arms around in a circle. My hands were shaking. The more I thought about it, the worse it got. It was a self-perpetuating beast. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run. I felt like my insides were struggling to break free of the thin layer of skin housing them. The whole time I could feel the ever increasing hammer of my heart. Bah-boom bah-boom bah-boom.

It was a terrifying and ethereal experience. Since then, my base level of anxiety has increased ten fold. I’ve been on edge constantly. It did push me to complete an internal stocktake. Doing that, I can see it was something that had been building up for a while. The signs were there, I just either ignored or didn’t even see them.

I’ve since started seeing someone and I’m trying to actively manage The Grey Elephant. The anxiety is abating and I’m getting back to normal. The funny thing is, I’m actually a laid back individual and things don’t tend to faze me.

The reason I’m telling you all this is, number one, I just felt I needed a verbal (written) purge. Secondly, mental health issues can be quite isolating. It’s easy to feel like you are the only one in that circumstance. You’re not. Many people, most likely your good friends, are struggling with the very same things at this very moment. Seek help. Talk to friends. If you don’t have any friends, find an online or face to face group. Vent. Purge. Empty your cup and refill it. It’s ok to feel shit sometimes. It’s ok to not be ok. You will be amazed at how supporting and understanding humans generally are.