HOW TO BE IMPULSIVE

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HOW TO BE IMPULSIVE

You’ve seen him – her – before. And every time you do so you want to know him – to want more. To make her part of your life. But this can be frightening – making that first move. So what do we do?
We have an in-built facility to override our normal behaviour, our restraint, and just go for it. When we do so, we can head for a beautiful life, or total disaster. Maybe this is why we need to be hard-wired this way. Otherwise we’d never do anything.
To be impulsive is to have a sudden urge and follow it. Most changes in our life come from doing it. And as indicated, this can be good, or it can be very bad. The result is, quite literally, in the lap of the gods.

This is so because ‘impulse’ requires no conscious thought.

To think about something is the opposite of impulse. Hence, impulse is a kind of instinct for human interaction. But sadly, impulse can be much more.
It infects our normal life. We impulsively shop. We impulsively eat. We impulsively take impulse into our lives more and more, to the point that conscious thought often disappears.
Why do we do this more and more in the modern world? One answer is that a strict moral code used to hold us back. In effect, we feared retribution, or condemnation. But there is no such fear today.
Which is a good thing as far as Big Biz is concerned. After all, we live in a consumer society, where impulsive buying has become the ‘engine’ of commerce. Strange, though, how we impulsively do their bidding.
Maybe this essay is wrongly titled. Maybe it should be how NOT to be impulsive. But the answer to that is simple. Learn to say ‘no’, and ‘no’ again. And keep doing it until you do it without thought. Impulsively.

© Anthony North, May 2008

BETRAYAL

Love is great, we all agree,
such feelings between your love and thee;
But there is more to this thing called love,
that can rise way above,
our ability to always be,
true and loving, intimately;
The roving eye for another life,
forever bringing trouble and strife;
Never satisfied with our devotion,
going on to create commotion,
as another is spied with adoration,
sating our rabid infatuation;
The loss it leaves is terrible indeed,
fuelling in us an overpowering need,
to take revenge rather than plead;
Betrayal, that horrendous
destructive
unimaginable seed

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

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SOAR

Pull out! Pull out! Damn it pull …
Banking hard. Five G. Six G. Face contorting, the pressure – Man, the pressure! The sky below me, the ground above, the fireball of my Wingman, he’s gone, flames licking my fuselage …
MISSILE LOCKED
Copy.
I’m alone now, just me and that MiG – and a missile locked on my ass.
500 knots
550
600 – I’ll outrun. Afterburn ignites the sky behind me. Wait for it … NOW!!
Counter-measures decoy the missile. I’m free. Roll. Come up behind. 20mm cannon. FIRE!!!
Peace – for a moment – the stench and the flames turning sky to Hell – for a moment.

It’s come to this – now.

It had to. Invade Iran, they said. Easy, they said. No, the Russians wouldn’t take sides – they said …
Remembering: ‘I don’t know you any more.’
‘But Jen, I’m a fighter pilot. I have to do it.’
‘You’re a killing machine. I can’t … take it … I’m sorry.’
Memory makes me angry, makes me sore.
TANK COLUMN SIX O’CLOCK
Copy
Pull left, ground radar searching. Descend low. Play chicken with the ground as it flashes past, undefined.
(tears fill my eyes - Oh! JEN!!!)
Sighted.
COPY
(I love you. Always have. Always will)
500lb bomb selected.
COPY … WAIT … NOT TANKS! NOT TANKS! REFUGEE CONVOY
Jen gone. Wingman gone. Everyone dead. Everyone just damned dead!
Laser guidance selected. Line up for run in …
MiG at 3 O’CLOCK - EVADE!!!!!!!!
Final run. I can imagine the whites of their eyes …
MISSILE LOCKED
I can’t ……………
…
…
…

© Anthony North, May 2008

TT #11 - HOW TO FIND ATLANTIS

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INTRODUCTION

Welcome to my Thursday Thirteen #11. For many years I’ve been researching many mysteries, one of them being Atlantis. Hence, this week I thought I’d dedicate this post to trying to rationalise the subject. Hopefully it will give you food for thought, and make you decide I’m not a total crackpot.
I’ve also included pieces from the writers’ prompt, Three word Wednesday, in this post. By doing so, I hope to offer a little variation. I hope you enjoy reading it.

COUNTDOWN

13. Many researchers feel the genesis of Atlantis comes from the eruption of Thera in the 2nd millennium BC. A huge disaster, part of the island sank, and there is evidence it wiped out the seafaring Minoan civilization on Crete.

12. Plato first wrote about Atlantis, and many feel his assertion that it was ‘beyond the Pillars of Hercules’ places it in the Atlantic. The ‘pillars’ are the Straits of Gibraltar. However, many miss the fact that the Atlantic was mysterious at the time, and Plato could have used ‘mysterious’ as a metaphor.

11. Atlantis serves a purpose in human advancement. Whenever it is popular, you usually find it is at a time of social or political change. Philosophers have always used it as a metaphor for the perfect society being considered at the time.

10. This could be what Plato had in mind. His philosophy revolved around the idea of the ‘ideal form’ to everything, and the idea of the perfect republic. Hence, the Atlantis myth is a perfect metaphor of what he hoped to achieve in his philosophy.

9. This is hinted at with his Royal City of Atlantis. An island with a temple at its centre, and surrounded by a number of circular canals, with a tunnel going from its border to its centre, if you draw a plan of the city, you are actually drawing a perfect seven ringed mandala – a symbol for reaching higher consciousness.

8. Some researchers believe the pyramids, being similar in many parts of the world, were built by the survivors of Atlantis. How else do we explain their universality? Easy. All tribal societies represented nature with fertility, building earth mounds to represent the ‘womb’ of the Earth. As mathematics came into being, the pyramid is a natural extension of the mound. The universality is in human psychology.

7. Various ‘structures’ under the water close to coastlines have been thought of as belonging to Atlantis. Others say they are natural formations. But what if they are natural formations partially sculpted into early temples? Could this give a hint of the reality of a lost civilization in prehistory?

6. Humans almost certainly populated the Earth in stages, moving out from their natural habitat in Africa. The ‘Out of Africa’ hypothesis places this mass movement in stages between 55,000 and 15,000 years ago.

5. How was this done without boats? No matter how you look at it, there were times when they would have had to cross large expanses of water. It is highly likely that there were rudimentary, ocean-going boats tens of thousands of years ago.

4. Once built, it is ridiculous to imagine these boats being abandoned. Rather, I would argue a ‘fisheries revolution’ occurred in many parts of the world in deep prehistory. With static ports, social and technological evolution would occur, making them seem like ‘gods’ to the Stone Age inlanders.

3. Between 12,000 to 8,000 years ago, the end of the last ice age raised water levels, swamping most coastal areas worldwide. The above civilization would have been wiped out, its rudimentary cities buried below the coastal silt, only its rudimentary temples remaining.

2. Survivors of this civilization would have moved inland, and being more advanced, would have been responsible for kick-starting the known ‘agricultural revolution’. They are known throughout the world through the Hero myths, of strangers coming along following a great flood and bringing knowledge and agriculture.

1. Of course, the above is speculative, but I suggest it is totally rational. And it speaks of a possible global cosmopolitan civilisation in our deep past, remembered, today, only through myths of gods.

© Anthony North, May 2008

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A GOTHIC ROMANCE - Fiction

To be a Goth is the most satisfying thing in the world. Oh, I remember when I first moved into the Goth scene in the early 1980s. Their parties were better than the average parties; their dress, black, chained, dark black around the eyes, post-punk.
It began in the UK, spread to so many other countries, and is still alive and well today, even though it was dismissed as a fad – something that would soon be scratched out.

Well, as I entered the party, it was clear the critics were wrong.

The music was loud, heavy, chaotic, and in no time at all I existed in a swirling mass of bodies. Many of the girls I had been with before, and they simply gave me blank stares, emotionless.
It wasn’t that I was too exuberant, or anything like that. Just … well, you know.
But it was a new girl I spotted tonight – late teens, vibrant, just finding her feet in the Goth culture.
It took no time at all to woo her – kiss her on the neck. After all, I’d had a reputation for some time. And it was inevitable we’d end up at my place, where we …
Well, a gentleman never tells. But as I took one last look at the corpse and closed my lid, I knew she’d be as everlasting as my Goth culture, come tomorrow.

© Anthony North, May 2008

SCRATCH IT

I want to scratch it, it’s a bitch,
you’ve no idea how much I itch;
It’s gone on for day, the infernal thing,
so bad at times it starts to sting;
It isn’t your average annoying stigma,
but it certainly is one big enigma;
My finger works, trying to ease it quick,
causing effects that, frankly, would make you sick;
Where is it? I hear you, pray,
below my neck is all I’ll say;
Other than that I’m telling you,
you’d scratch it yourself,
if you only knew

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

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AN AVERAGE ESSAY

I keep hearing about this thing called average. It gets everywhere. It can be used to describe people, things, thoughts, lifestyles, events. You name it, it can be infected by this thing called average.
It gets annoying at times – you know, something you’d like to scratch out of your life. But escape from the average is quite impossible. Everyone talks about it, and even laws and rules are based upon it.

Only thing is, as soon as you try to find it, it disappears.

It simply does not exist in your neck of the woods. Which is maybe the most important thing we can say about average.
Average is an ‘ideal’, designed to provide a rough guide to planners, thinkers, statisticians, politicians, etc, in order for them to make policy decisions about us. Or at least, that’s what I used to think
Today, we live in a mass media world, where images constantly bombard the younger generations. And the more the media grows, the more I see people wearing identical clothes, speaking in identical slang, dancing in identical ways, and having identical expressions, ways and thoughts.
Maybe the curse of the average was not simply an ideal, but a growing control mechanism. It’s rather strange that, as we celebrate the individual today, the average is becoming a reality.

© Anthony North, May 2008

MM - HOW TO DOODLE

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TO DOODLE

To doodle is to draw,
little images galore;
We do it absent-minded,
with no thought confided;
But it is also an analogy,
for which we have an allergy,
to doing things with thought,
which we know we really ought;
So to doodle is to live,
chaotic as we give,
not a hoot to how we plan,
our entire life’s span;
So doodle away through life,
ignoring trouble and strife,
doing just as we please,
going nowhere fast
with ease

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

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DOODLING POE

Mo over at Manic Monday is giving some money to the new charity, Cat Friends Helping Friends, for everyone who places a doodle of a cat in their Manic Monday post. Well, I’m lousy at doodling, so will an image do?
It is of a black cat at night, and this links nicely with the word ‘doodle’ – at least for me. I’ve written hundreds of very short short stories, mostly with a twist, and long ago I decided to call them Doodles.
And what has this to do with a black cat? Well, no one inspired me to write them more than Edgar Allan Poe, who virtually invented the short story with a twist with his own stories such as The Black Cat.
Poe is perhaps the most under-rated of writers, never achieving the acclaim he truly deserves. He doodled absent-mindedly through life, but that didn’t stop him arguably inventing, also, the detective story, psychological thriller and science fiction.
Though sometimes over-written, his stories make him one of the greatest writers ever.

© Anthony North, May 2008

MOTHER EARTH

Mother Earth, she knows best,
suckling life through ample breast;
Taking this barren Earthly orb,
shrouded in air to absorb,
heat from our life giving star,
so diversity can go so very far;
Her influence is clear to see,
yet now we need a simple plea;
Why has man ignored her so,
producing waste that he does throw,
away with no concern for where,
giving us all an environmental scare?
Once we were in nature’s womb,
part and parcel of its tune,
then we discovered technology,
and advanced, all full of awesome glee;
but then we broke the umbilical cord,
of Mother Earth, and we did lord,
over all of nature as our own,
forgetting it was just a loan,
until the day, we will atone

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

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BEHIND THE DOOR - Fiction

Jessie was fifteen and impressionable – just getting to the age when childhood was giving way to womanhood. This was a confusing time for her, as she tried to negotiate the psychological maze of interaction with others. And typically, she often got it wrong. Indeed, her friend, Roxy, told her this time and time again.
‘You’re just a witch,’ she told her, ‘always ruining things for me.’
Maybe growing up is the same as being young, thought Jessie, because she’d thought herself as a ‘witch’ before.

To get away from it all she went to visit her Nan for a couple of days.

And as she sat on the bed, the ‘witch’ thing came back to her with a new intensity. After all, it was in this very room that the wardrobe stood – the very wardrobe around which her Grandfather had told her so many stories before he died.
‘There’s a witch in there,’ he used to say scaring her half to death. And even now, at fifteen, she had never dared open the door.
Of course, the fantasies were many. Was this the entrance to the magical land of Narnia, as C S Lewis would have us believe? Or was the ‘witch’ of a much more sinister nature?
Well, thought Jessie, it is time to put childish things away and open the door.
It was with a sense of trepidation that she approached the door. Reaching out, she noticed her hand was shaking, but steadying it, she gripped the handle, pulled open the door, and looked into the mirror.

© Anthony North, May 2008

MIND PLAN

We see the world in all its glory,
experiencing things and placing our story,
upon our inner reflections of life,
creating mind, vibrant and rife;
But how do we know where thoughts are hidden,
those that are friendly and those forbidden?
Where is the map of our inner world,
its ideas, its dreams, all unfurled?
To find them we must search a mental maze,
turning to thoughts that are otherwise a haze;
But once we know them, they do glint,
shining bright memories, as they hint,
the way to our inner fingerprint

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

A UNIVERSAL ARTIST

As more and more powerful telescopes look into the cosmos, the more our astronomers and cosmologists claim to know about the universe. But is our growing knowledge as simple as that?
One thing that worries me is the fact that any new discovery seems to offer a great deal of excitement, but only mild surprise. It is as if whatever is found fits quite neatly into our view of things.

One answer to this is that our theories are right.

We have a good grasp of the universal construct. We are on the right track, and soon everything will be disclosed. But there is another answer.
This concerns the nature of what we can know. For instance, many ‘realities’ could be out there, but we are only capable of imagining a certain set of principles. Even if the result of them was there to be seen, we would miss them.

Consider our senses.

They have limits. We cannot have the sensual acuity of a dog, for instance. Neither can we sense things like a bat. We are limited in knowing what we can sense and experience.
This is why we have technology to measure things, such as those powerful telescopes. But even here, they can be limited in a similar way to sensory us. In effect, they can only ‘see’ what we can conceive can be seen. They are only built to extend what we can already experience, and not create new experience.

The universe we see is therefore an image of our imaginings.

But what is the nature of the knowledge that accrues from our imaginings? Well, if the above is correct, we can say that it is very limited. And a little knowledge is famed for producing what can be classed as the delusional.
Now, I don’t mean this in a way that suggests that our cosmologists, etc, are mad. But a little knowledge does suggest that they may fill in the pieces with ideas that are closer to ‘belief’ than rationality.

People who believe things can become evangelical.

We see this all the time in fundamentalist religious movements. And it is becoming clear to many on the sidelines of science that a similar thing is happening.
It is increasingly difficult to go against the ‘consensus’ of a scientific idea that has taken hold of the collective imagination. And increasingly it is looking like modern science is a process of consensus rather than rational investigation.

This all suggests that those telescopes are echoing a belief.

Indeed, quantum theory allows for this eventuality. In the ‘observer effect’, what ‘is’ is the result of our ability to observe and define. The universe bends to our mind-models.
We can now see what we know in a different light. We can see those telescopes more as artist’s brushes, sculpting a picture of the universe from our minds. Which leaves an intriguing question. When we actually go ‘out there’, will the universe ‘be’ as we imagined it to be?
If so, it appears we will be the creators of our own universe. We will have become gods.

© Anthony North, May 2008

WHAT HE SAW IN OUTER SPACE

He saw it, there, in outer space,
an anomalous form, so out of place;
Come here, he said, see what I’ve found,
and colleagues came to compound,
this marvellous sight in his telescope,
and new theories he did invoke,
of our enigmatic universe in all its glory,
rewriting our marvellous universal story;
But come the day it disappeared from view,
doubts began to be cast anew;
Soon after that, they began to scoff,
not noticing the cleaner
had wiped the stain off

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

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Fiction Xtra - PLANET ZERO

The Explorer looked down upon the battle-scarred planet. He could see all the signs of high civilization. Cities, highways, everything an advanced culture required. Yet, it had all been reduced to rubble years ago.
The thought entered his head that he should pass this planet by, but the insatiable curiosity of the human got the better of him. What had brought a civilization to this? And could it teach us anything about ourselves?
He had not landed long when he found himself surrounded by heavily armed humanoids. Immediately suspicious of him, their aggression was obvious. Indeed, he thought he was going to die there and then. And no doubt would have if another group of humanoids had not approached and opened fire.

The battle didn’t last long.

There were casualties on both sides, but the first group withdrew, leaving the Explorer with the second.
He asked why they fought, and the answer was typical. Something in their deep past had happened – they could not remember what – and the god-form, Consensus, demanded the battle carried on. Indeed, the only thing he could definitely find out was that the enemy was ‘different’.
This puzzled the Explorer, as over the coming weeks it became obvious that both sides were identical in every way.
His opportunity to stop the madness came a month into his time on the planet. Following a battle, a group of wounded from both sides were resting close to the battlefield. It was with relief that they saw the Explorer shake hands with each in turn and say: ‘friend.’
It took but a week for Consensus to die, and reason to be born.

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

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HOW TO FANTASIZE

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HOW TO FANTASIZE

Fantasy is an unusual word. It suggests the fictitious. After all, the most crazy stories are known as fantasy – and I’m not just speaking of ‘swords and sorcery’. Many people seem to live in a fantasy world.
We’re deeply suspicious of them. They are not quite ‘all there’ – or they are habitual liars. Yet all culture is actually geared to fantasy. After all, isn’t art a representation of how an artist’s mind sees something, rather than actual reality itself?

Some would say religions are based on fantasy.

I think this may be true, but this is not a slur on the religionist. Rather, it is honest, accepting that everything in life has a touch of fantasy to it.
The sociologist, Baudrillard, understood this when he devised his concept of ‘infotainment’. Based on modern media, images are so mixed up that we cannot know what is fact and what is fiction.

In one sense, this is the ultimate postmodern nightmare.

But I think ‘reality’ has always been like this. We can understand it through semiotics, or the science of ‘signs’.
A typical sign is a cloud. Depending on its consistency, colour, etc, it convinces us of what the coming weather will be like. In other words, we are convinced of a reality before it actually becomes reality.
Unfortunately, though, signs can lie. Take a can of soup. If hungry, the picture itself can make us salivate. Yet, it could be a lie. It could be a can of worms. The ‘sign’ produced a fantasy so strong that it affected us physiologically as well as psychologically.
Beware of the word, ‘fantasy’. It cons you into thinking it doesn’t apply to you.

© Anthony North, May 2008

TELEPHONE

The telephone rings, it’s always there,
Don’t answer! If you dare;
When just on a desk, or maybe a table,
life wasn’t so bad, ‘cos we were able,
to live a life relatively free,
of constant messages from all to thee;
But come the cell phone, it’s all change,
always with us, as if a chain;
On the train, in the theatre, or even the park,
that damned ring tone, it does hark,
of contact to others all the time,
and if not ours, then other ring tones rhyme,
constantly around us, forever a hell,
giving us no time on which to dwell,
on life without that damned satanic phone,
yet if never a call to us does hone,
we wish someone would ring, ‘cos
we’re all alone

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

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FRIDAY’S FEAST – These are the questions

Appetizer: When someone smiles at you, do you smile back?

Now be careful. This is a dangerous question. There is an automatic suspicion that people who smile at strangers are somehow – well, you know. And even if they’re not, what motive do they have?
Do they want something? What type of smile is it? Have they noticed something about your dress? Have you forgotten to zip up your trousers? Has a bird pooped on your shoulder?
So many possibilities. But yes, usually when someone smiles at me, I smile back. And they wonder, am I all there? Has a bird …

Soup: Describe the flooring in your home. Do you have carpet, hardwood, vinyl, a mix?

Carpets mainly. Which reminds me, we need new. This meme is costing me!

Salad: Write a sentence with only 5 words, but all of the words have to start with the first letter of your first name.

All appliances are always available. (Hey, Zelda, you’ve got no chance!)

Main Course: Do you know anyone whose life has been touched by adoption?

This seems a simple yes/no answer, but it isn’t. If we do know someone, then the answer is yes. But if we don’t, can we answer no? I don’t think we can. And I think this because we cannot be sure.
Maybe we do, but the subject has never come up. Maybe we do, but they don’t know it themselves. Maybe we do, but they hide the fact.
We often adopt an attitude that we know the world, and our friends within it. But a question such as this should make us think. Maybe we should adopt a different attitude to what we think we know, and what we don’t.

Dessert: Name 2 blue things.

Well, I was going to say sea and sky. But they’re not. If we take the sky, it is actually colourless. What we see as ‘blue’ is the effect of light upon the sky. Infact, when you think about it, what is blue?
As a colour it’s no more than a frequency of light. Hence, it doesn’t really exist at all. Infact, many things we attribute blue to are not colours either. Think ‘cold’ or ‘sadness’.
So blue may not be a colour, but an attitude. So can I name two things that are REALLY blue? I can definitely name one.
Movies.

© Anthony North, May 2008

A FANTASTIC DREAM

Dreams are crazy, all full of fantasy,
yet they’re symbols of real life, as you’ll see;
My dream last night was just such a one,
there, in my mind, and as quickly gone;
A plastic bottle from which to drink,
a symbol of mind, full of things to think;
A hockey puck made a quick appearance,
reminders of sport, and my adherence;
wrapped in a dirty handkerchief? This I knew,
recalling that I’d recently had flu;
A crumpled note left me puzzled for a while,
but it was my last poem, not in my style;
The unhinged door was easiest to explain,
’twas my life, all open, ‘cos I’m not vain;
So dreams may be full of much fantasy,
but it’s still related to my life, you see;
A dream can be explained; is not full of malice,
You just fall down the rabbit hole
and meet Alice

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

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TO BE FAITHFUL - Fiction

I never really understood what faithful meant until I wasn’t. All those years of marriage, and never once did I think of being unfaithful. We were as one, and that was that. Until the loneliness crept in – a deep, melancholy loneliness ….
I put up with it for a couple of years, but I suppose the time comes when you can take it no more – when you just need something else in your life.
I met her at one of the functions I have to attend as part of my job. I wouldn’t say I ‘went’ to them, as such. More I just ‘existed’ in them, as if I wasn’t really a part of it, enjoying myself, or anything like that.
Life becomes this way, with such loneliness. But then I saw her, and something just clicked between us, as if it was meant to be.
We dated.

Good grief! We dated. As if I was a teenager!

The meals were enjoyable. And it was inevitable that one thing would lead to another, and eventually I found myself in her home, kissing, making love, discovering a life without loneliness once more.
It was during this first love making that I suddenly looked up to see my wife stood by us.
I jumped, shocked! And as my lover turned to look at her, the full reality of what I’d done struck home.
My wife seemed incensed. It was almost in slow motion as she bent down, her hands encompassing my lover’s neck, and squeezing the life out of her …
I find it hard to recall the event, and even harder to explain it. Indeed, that’s why I’m here, in prison, facing a life sentence for murder.
Well, it was either that or the psychiatric hospital. You see, my wife died two years ago.

© Anthony North, May 2008

TT #10 - HOW TO BE GROSS

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INTRODUCTION

Welcome to my Thursday Thirteen #10. Today I’ve decided to go with the suggested theme of ‘gross’. Now, that’s a word that can have many connotations, so I hope I offer a little fun, and some things to think about.
I think the idea of a theme is a good addition to Thursday Thirteen – not that I’ll always use it. But sometimes it just fires the imagination in the right way. But certainly it works best when it’s just a word, like this week – I mean, gross.

COUNTDOWN

13. Picking your nose, flatulence, scratching bits you shouldn’t be able to reach. There are so many possibilities here. But get the above over with, please, and then concentrate.

12. If you do so, then you are engrossed. This can be a good way to be. This means you are fully occupied, and I’ve been a success as a writer/blogger. So come on, don’t fail me!

11. You can become too engrossed – not here, you understand – and if you do, you become obsessed, and obsessions can take over your life. This is bad. It leads to fanaticism, and in my book, all fanatics are wrong. They take ideas with a touch of commonsense, and make them ridiculous – and often dangerous.
I have a mantra which says: ‘I’m fanatical about moderation.’ Yes, I know, it’s a contradiction, but the subject engrosses me.

10. A Gross is, of course, a dozen dozen. Yet, this is Thursday THIRTEEN, and thirteen is a Baker’s Dozen. This is supposed to come from Medieval English bakers who often gave one extra. Generous people, the English. I’m one. Except Yorkshiremen. They’re said to be stingy. Oh dear! I’m one of those, too.
Better, though, not to have a Baker’s Dozen dozen. That would be a gross gross.

9. Gross can mean overfed. This is often a touchy subject. Yes, I know some people do it for comfort, others because of genetic disposition. But I’m not talking about you. I’ll concentrate on the greedy. And I won’t dwell on it.
But often, being overfed comes from indulgence. To indulge yourself you have to have a certain amount of wealth. This leads to excess in all things, many of them harmful. Have you ever noticed how increased wealth leads to increased masochism? Aren’t we happy with wealth?

8. Gross can mean coarse. This is language or actions that people can find vulgar. This seems to be growing, today. It is particularly prevalent amongst celebrities. Why do they do it?
Well, we live in a media age, where image is all-important. But what happens when ‘image’ becomes a science, and all celebrities jump on the bandwagon? Easy. They make their image more and more extreme – and more and more coarse.
Which tells us what ‘coarse’ is. Attention seeking.

7. Gross can mean indecent. This often has a sexual connotation. And it is increasingly obvious that sex is on the rise today. Sex is everywhere, indecency all around us. Now, I’m not a killjoy. I like sex. But it has a place.
Sex is best behind closed doors. Sexy is clothing and action that ‘suggests’ what’s beneath, letting the imagination reign free. Full frontals take that away, and reduce sex to an animal state. And not only this, it makes it ‘available’ on demand.
Sex has become a commodity. Stack ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap!

6. Gross is what you have before overheads. This can be a metaphor for ‘you’. You are, as a person, your full self. This is the ‘gross’ of you. But life can be a bitch, and constantly it takes bits away.
What is left is the ‘net’ of you, depleted - a shadow of your former self. Yet maybe we should think of our life’s path as an account in itself. And in doing so, we can maybe work out how to balance the books.
We can do this because life’s experience not only depletes you, but teaches you important lessons about life. Hence, we can learn from these experiences, refreshing the account with growing wisdom, and balancing the books.

5. Gross can mean gross profit. Nothing explains the modern world more than this. Modern super capitalism is all about profit. I’m not anti-capitalist by any means, but remember what I said, above, about obsessions? Well super capitalism is an obsession.
When you have a society run by tycoons who’ve forgotten the importance of ‘service’, and search out profit alone, you end up with a cold, calculating society that simply does not know itself, other than its choice to buy. This is perhaps the most repugnant use of the word ‘gross’ we can have.

4. This post may be getting a bit gross in itself. Yet I’ll leave it up to you to decide what I mean by ‘gross’ here. For the last three in this week’s post I thought I’d be a little different. Throughout my blog you’ll find lots of poetry and flash fiction. So I thought I’d end with a bit of – you’ve guessed it – poetry and flash fiction.

© Anthony North, May 2008

ENGROSSED

What is this beauty I behold?
Within my mind it does enfold,
its grace and elegance for me to see,
as if an answer to a plea;
Such posture, grace, and charm are you,
your peers are so, so very few,
a delight, an absolutely perfect scene,
sometimes I think it even obscene,
as every morning,
in the mirror
I preen

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

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WITNESS TO A GROSS EVENT - Fiction

Oh, how I wish I’d never taken the short cut home that night. If only I’d stayed with the road – not gone down the path in the dark. But wishes are no use after the event.
How do I describe what I saw? How CAN words be enough?
She was dead, that was plain to see. And how she must have suffered, as the monster attacked her, and then did that …
I don’t remember contacting the police, but they eventually arrived to find me almost comatose by the body. Of course, I was no good as a witness – I’d not really seen anything. At least, not then.

Later, it was a different matter.

How do you sleep once you’ve seen images like that? How can you stop the nightmares?
Many a night I woke up in a cold sweat, screaming, reliving how it must have been for her. And even when awake the images would not disappear.
I suppose, eventually, you get used to them, and they become part of you. But it was a changed me, that was for sure; no longer shrouded by innocence, but in a way, gross, as those images were gross.
They say such an experience affects you for life, and I think that is true, slowly turning your mind, your very being, until the night I deviated from the road. Walked down a path. Waited.
I can stop myself.
I CAN!!

© Anthony North, May 2008

TAKE AWAY TAKE OVER

The slugs they came, crawling along,
six foot tall and twenty feet long,
run, run, run, try to escape,
from their manic, gross, gross gape,
chomp, chomp, chomp, they eat all in sight,
giving us all a damned big fright;
This nightmare ain’t so far in the future,
born from us, and our modern culture,
they say you become just what you eat,
and you ate them,
didn’t you?
Your hamburger treat

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

FUTURE CO

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FUTURE CO

The chief executive sat at his desk. The window, to his side, was huge. It needed to be in order to see the whole panorama of his creation. It was one large corporation indeed.
They had advised him to be cautious before he began the project. After all, he was taking capitalism to a whole new dimension. Yet, if only he’d been more aware of the outcome, maybe he would have thought twice before proceeding. But when has such fear stopped the human need to advance?

To advance. Is that what had happened?

Efficiency was the key. A society is best if full efficiency is achieved. If everything runs like clockwork, and everyone operates to their maximum ability, and time is used to perfection, with just enough time to sleep, just enough time to eat, just enough time to work, and just enough time to buy.
Well, he’d achieved maximum efficiency, that was for sure.
And now, as the chief executive sat at his desk, looking down on Earth, he offered one last smile before raising the gun to his head and firing.
It was the last act of inefficiency before the zombies came in, and efficiently cleaned him away.

© Anthony North, May 2008

MAYBE MAN

The maybe man, he’s a scream,
going there, in his dream;
Cautious is, his way to be,
going nowhere, like a tree;
All through life, he thinks it out,
swimming nowhere, like a trout;
A human being, he certainly is,
but his existence, has no fizz;
sometimes you’ve just, got to say,
get on with life, its full array,
or in your head, or in your bed,
you’ll stay, until
you’re very dead

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

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CAUTIOUSLY GOES

There are two ways to go through life – throw yourself into it, or be cautious. Yet to me, both stances are erroneous. To go ahead with something without thought usually ends in disaster.
We have a mind for a good reason. It is there to work out odds and consequences of our actions. And we are well aware of the thoughtless individual, the centre of a whirlpool of chaos and tragedy.
Alternatively, caution can be counter-productive, too. So often we say ‘maybe’ – should we do it this way, or that? What will be the outcome of this? And before you realize what’s happened, nothing has, and life has passed you by.
Problems no matter which way we go. So rather, to be fully human we should search out the happy medium. Think things through, but not too much. Jump into things, but giving a thought to others and yourself.
If anyone ever works out how to do it, please let me know.

© Anthony North, May 2008

MM - HOW TO STAY FRESH

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HOW TO STAY FRESH

Wash, for starters.
After all, you’re not fresh if you’re smelly. And don’t forget all those private bits – protect against fungi – especially between the …
… and let’s have a bit of anti-perspirant here, please. You’re the only one who loves your body odour. And how about squeezing those zits. No! Don’t aim.
And could your clothes do with a …
… disinfection? And what do you mean you don’t iron?

Well, that’s one way to stay fresh.

But there’s also another. Life so easily becomes boring, routine. And whilst there’s a lot going for a bit of routine in our lives, it can go too far.
Routine is good to provide stability. It’s a form of magic, especially your routine in a morning. It places the mind in equilibrium with the world, and things fall into place, proved by the fact that, if your routine is disturbed, your day usually ends in disaster.
But keep routine where it belongs. As for the rest of your life, try something new every day. It only has to be a little thing – nothing special. Just something to provide a fresh experience.
This gives you a fresh start every day, and you feel fulfilled because of it. It makes you feel alive, and able to grab life by the horns. It says, above all else, I exist!
After you’ve washed, of course.

© Anthony North, May 2008

REFRESH

Pictures of life on my computer exist,
full of experience that does persist;
sometimes it’s good, sometimes bad,
yet living, it is certainly had;
But what, if like the computer screen,
we could alter what has been?
Click ‘refresh’ and change it all,
stopping those things that make us fall?
What kind of witchcraft this would be,
refreshing life for you and me,
existing as we want to be,
and I would then,
be a deity

Anthony North, May 2008

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FRESH IDENTITY - Fiction

If only I’d known. If only I’d realized the errors of my ways. But we rarely do so before taking the plunge.
I suppose you could call me a fraudster. Computer banking and electronic records were my thing. Ah, the delights it offered for identity fraud. And once you’ve got your mark, you can create a whole fresh identity for yourself. And if you’re really lucky, finding a no hoper, with a life that went almost unrecognized, and found him dead, apparently having committed suicide, and no one knows …
Well, I managed to step into his shadow perfectly – after burying his body, of course.

Such a non-entity he had been.

No one ever recognized him, he had never been in debt, he had no family to become suspicious, and soon my fresh identity was building a new life for itself.
So you can imagine the shock when, six months into my fresh identity, armed police burst into my house, spread-eagled me on the floor, and rushed me in for questioning.
A little extreme, you may think, for simple identity fraud. Well, let this be a warning to all who think they can get away with it in the end. There is always a catch.
And what was mine?
Well, I have a lifetime in prison to ponder it – how total and absolute my success that no one would believe I wasn’t who I had claimed to be. And why, oh why, did I have to pick a murderer on the run?

© Anthony North, May 2008

FEROCIOUS

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FEROCIOUS

She walked up and down the room, treading the carpet. She walked fast, angrily, ferociously.
‘And you just couldn’t resist, could you?’ She never awaited an answer. ‘God, I knew you were unhappy, I knew we had problems, but this?’
Her face was contorted, her good looks turning to something macabre, insane and – yes – so very defiant. ‘I should have guessed.’ An admonishment. ‘All the signs were there.’ A sense of regret – or was it stupidity for not realizing?

Her husband just sat there, staring into space.

‘I gave you everything,’ she continued, her pace quickening, as if there was no time to get to where she wasn’t going.
Maybe that was why, she thought, suddenly. I’m pacing up and down, trying to work it out, but maybe we were just going nowhere.
Her thoughts turned to words: ‘But that doesn’t let you off, you bas …’
Was that the crescendo, cut off in its prime? Was the ferocity of her mood declining?
The time comes. We know it does – when the anger is spent, maybe through sheer tiredness. And this is the point of reunion, of forgiveness, of being carried away on a tide of ecstasy as they make up.
She turned to face him, knelt by him. And as she stared at the knife embedded in his heart, she knew that this time it was final.

© Anthony North, May 2008

HURRICANE

The weather comes, it blows, it roars,
it batters your home without a pause;
A wind that comes ferociously,
whirling round you and me;
It’s the third, this time around,
much more frequently, they come to pound,
and always that manic thought resounds,
forever there, it does rebound,
that this is pay back for our insanity,
battering nature so we can see,
a better life materially,
but ignoring nature’s beauty,
balance,
and harmony

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

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FEROCIOUSLY SPEAKING

When someone appears ferocious we stand well back. Words such as ‘violent’, or ‘intense’, describe it. And when violence with intensity arises, it is brutal, immediate, without thought, beyond control.
There are various reasons for such ferocity. It is ingrained in a soldier that in the heat of battle, ferocity is the only way. Yes, professionalism usually controls it to a point, but we don’t speak of ‘the dogs of war’ for nothing.

Revenge is usually a motive.

When we are whipped up to the frenzy of revenge, nothing stands in our way. Yet in the modern world a new form of ferocity has come to our streets.
This is the violent delinquent, making life miserable for all. Of course, there’s always been crime, but now it seems to carry a new edge of violence. Why has such ferocity come to crime?

Well, it isn’t actually anything new.

In Britain, a similar ferocity arose alongside crime in the 18th century crimewave. Looking back, it parallels modern times in that it was a period where capitalism was advancing, and religion declining.
So it seems to be about an increase in our ability to ‘have’, coming alongside a decline in the notion that we ‘shouldn’t’. And when society tells us that we ‘cannot’, we get angry, and ferociously take.

We can also see ferocity in another way.

Nothing diminishes a person more than a lack of self-esteem. It seems to be in our very nature to feel that we are someone. And to be denied can cause anger, violence and more.
Hence, we can also see ferociousness as a lack of confidence. It is the result of our ‘smallness’, our inabilities, and our hang-ups. And as more and more face a crisis of confidence, ferocity is likely to increase.

© Anthony North, May 2008

BAR AT THE END OF THE ROAD

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BAR AT THE END OF THE ROAD

I found the bar at the end of the highway. It wasn’t that I was looking for it. I wasn’t really looking for anything. I just felt so empty, so totally drained.
I got out the car and went in – ordered a drink – drank it down – ordered another. Thought about how easily I could hit oblivion.
The bar was almost empty, too. It reflected back my life, a life ignored, a life abused, a life of boredom …

It had promised so much, had marriage.

She had been wonderful, and we were so perfectly attuned, perfectly as one, and I was so perfectly …
What? Deluded? Not seeing reality for what it was? Not registering the crap that would soon begin to fly?
It had been one hell of an argument …
The third drink went down the same way as the others. Oblivion was coming closer – and I ordered another.
‘And I’ll have one, too.’
I turned round; wondered where SHE’D come from. Unable to believe I’d missed her as I entered.
I bought her a drink. And it was inevitable we would talk – about my problems, about her life, about the meaning of everything. Until, several drinks later, she advised she had a room upstairs …
It was a heady mixture of booze and expectation as I entered her room. Hormones pumped through my body and I was ready as I took her in my arms.
Maybe it was the shock of what I was about to do, but it was then that I burst into tears – torrents of tears, pouring down my face, washing away the stresses and strains of so long, cascading away to …
To what?
To another girl’s arms, at the end of another highway? And as we both said sorry, we cried together, and kissed.

© Anthony North, April 2008

HAUNTED HOUSE

The house is empty, solitary, creepy,
to enter can affect you deeply;
As cobwebs brush your face and hair,
you’ll quickly learn to be aware;
If you had driven down the highway outside,
and through the corner of your eye you spied,
you should have ignored it, or at least have tried

But in you come, you don’t believe in ghosts,
at least that’s what you always boast;
Yet my creepy finger rubs down your spine,
as with your mind my presence will entwine;
Until you’re as timid as a mouse,
no longer denying ghosts you espouse,
especially as this is YOUR house

(c) Anthony North, April 2008

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TO BE IGNORED

To be ignored is a terri …. (cough) … Err! Excuse me! Pay attention.
That’s better. To be ignored is a terrible thing. There’s nothing worse than speaking and no one is listening to you. And it isn’t long before you’re seething.
Of course, it could be that you are totally boring; or maybe the person has no interest in the subject at hand. Or worse of all, you are one of those people who appear to be a non-entity.
If you are, you’ve got problems. Your existence can be totally empty, and you negotiate the highway of life alone. In one sense, there’s nothing you can do about it. It is your personality. You are made like that. But it could be that you simply need to raise your confidence – be more assertive, take risks.

I used to feel like that about my writing.

For years I’d bashed away on the typewriter, totally ignored by publishers. I’d play with my style, trying to please them, but to no avail.
Eventually, of course, I’d had enough. Ignored too long, I decided to go on-line. And soon after that, I started this blog. For several months I hardly did anything with it. Then, about March last year, I discovered something.
People were beginning to comment, and I was no longer ignored. And now, just over a year later, I’ve just passed a quarter million hits.
What does this tell me – and you – about being ignored? Simple. Ignore THEM and do what YOU want to do. And pretty soon you find you’re not ignored at all.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you!

© Anthony North, April 2008