A man destined to hang can never drown

Friday morning as I arrived, a little late for my appointment with my psycologist, Daniel Cowman started playing on my phone. It is usually on random and my SD card with hundreds of albums has four by Regina Spektor: Begin to hope, Soviet Kitsch, Songs and Mary Ann meets the Gravediggers. I really enjoy Regina Spektor, I saw her play live earlier this year in Amsterdam at the Paradiso and cried real tears of joy and Wimsey when she played Samson.

But then since then, it's now Sunday, Daniel Cowman is playing the piano and her haunting melody through my head like a ghost that needs something from me. My meaning making machine head just needs to get it's thoughts together so it can move on.

The song was playing I don't exist, I don't exist, I don't exist and Now that we've go that straight, doesn't mean that I can fly, doesn't mean that I can do whatever I want.  Apart from the fact I liked the melody and structure of the song, I felt the urge to look up the lyrics and meaning to the song. Who on earth is Daniel Cowman and why is he destined to hang?

Firstly the lyrics

There are two sections where there are links to who he might possibly be, from a Modest Mouse song called Cowboy Dan where Cowboy Dan drives into the dessert shooting his rifle saying "God, if I have to die, you will have to die" The world should have stopped existing, how can it go on if I don't exist? But the bit that captures my imagination is the idea that a man destined to hang can never drown. There is no such thing as destiny and when a person is sentenced to death or even to prison time, their fate or destiny is controlled. Now can I take a fucking bath? so by drowning in the bath before he's sentenced to death, he's regained control.

This came up in the case at the Hague. Former Bosnian Croatian war criminal drunk poison after being tried and convicted.

The worst thing you can do to a person is to take away their freedom. Lets face it, if you are being tried for war crimes, you've been messing with the freedoms of not just the odd person.

So maybe this song is a tale of freedom, an expression of one person's relationship to it.

and now that we got that straight, doesn't mean that I can fly 
Doesn't mean that I can go do whatever I want 
Now that we got that clear, and you know that I'm not here 
Doesn't mean that I can go do whatever I please 

When you cease to exist, when you die, you don't get freedom, cus you don't exist!

The untimely death sentence, Heroine Boy, out of control, dangerous to himself and all around him, destined (no such thing) to die, but why hang when you can drown. It takes courage to take your fate into your own hands and finish your own life so that you don't let someone else have that satisfaction.

If you are an addict on death row, arguably someone who's whole life has been manipulated and abused, from the start, parents, the system, addiction is a disease that has been criminalised. 

A war criminal is a different animal, but whether he contests his innocence or just doesn't agree that what he did was a crime, when the day of judgement came, he took the power to decide when he no longer exists. 

Redirecting thoughts

The human mind is a powerful generator that cannot be turned off; it can only be directed.

What thoughts would you like (re) direct today?

I am nothing, empty and meaningless - a useful thing to remember when I'm telling myself that life isn't fair and complaining that things aren't all my way. I am a lighter person, but i also need to direct import in the direction of things that for no reason other than I choose, are worth doing.
I am searching for some magical purpose, calling, that thing that I am born to do. But it (probably) doesn't exist, in my case perhaps.
Am I destined to be a writer? Have some really interesting ideas and plots I want to explore, plus I am a pretty good writer and inventor of ideas. But I have limited time and energy, and an urgent need to spend what time I have, earning even a small amount of money.
There are jobs out there that I could do, using my brains, experience and energy, if only I knew how to find them, how to convince them I was useful and if need be invest time and energy learning new skills. I am a clever person, but I'm still working out where I'm cleverest and where I'm not.

My story is that I don't know, I am bored of applying for jobs where they come back with the fact that I have no recent experience, yes I know! that's because I'm suddenly unemployable! Talk about catch 22. I need someone to be willing to take a risk, or to give me the opportunity to catch up, it wouldn't take long (if any time - it's rubbish, I am not rusty at all, I just haven't been employed for decade - I've worked for myself and run a family).

This is also kind of a storyline as technically I'm working now, I clean 3 mornings a week and child mind 2 afternoons a week, so that's a respectable part time income, except that there's no progression, no holiday money, no sick pay and no security. It's hand to mouth.

So the fact is, I'm working, the rest is whatever I happen to feel like.

Maybe I should compile a list of all the things I'm interested in, all the things I'm good at, all the things I'm ok at and all the things I hate or I'm rubbish at. Then see what drifts to the surface.

How much time and energy to I actually have to do stuff? How much time am I actually prepared to dedicate to earning a living?

If my story is that I don't know what to do with myself, then the obvious thing to do is to focus in on that rather than it being ever present on in my peripheral vision and every time I see something I might like I think about it for an hour, a day a week, maybe a month, and then I remember there was other stuff I liked or that it requires money and time investment which makes me nervous as I have wasted so much in the past and changed my mind and my plans.


Up to now I've seen that my short attention span lends well to project work, that my intelligence lends well to being able to fully comprehend a situation or task, that my strong language skills lend well to being a good communicator, both verbally and on paper. My integrity and honesty lends well to working on things that make a difference - I am not motivated by money, pay or  even acknowledgement so much as doing stuff that is useful and there's a tangible result or outcome.

I am a good leader, I am not proud or vain or interested in power. However I'm rubbish at demonstrating that I'm a good leader in an interview, because I haven't worked out what it is that I actually did in situations where I took the leadership role. I don't gravitate towards leadership unless I see that it's not already being led. I possibly avoid or lack the confidence to impose or offer leadership, to me leadership requires invitation. This probably isn't true, or it is true but I'm not seeing or interpreting the invitation.

So many things - a mind dump

My head is infinitely spilling over with ideas and things to get round to. Amazing stories that i forget, jobs I would like to do, things I would like to try, ideas I want to explore and they vanish quietly as I carry on with my life.

This life that I slowly try to keep a float, where the work I'm paid to do is a drop in the ocean to what we actually need. Where my peers are telling me about their academic and professional projects that do seem to pay them to have the lives they want. They get to travel and have choices. Here's me cleaning houses. I actually quite like it, I can switch off just enough, it's the simple, repetitive task that lets my brain go into free flow. With the radio on in the back ground, stimulating my thoughts and teaching me new things.

I have great ideas while I'm cleaning, sometimes practical ideas, sometimes really good plot ideas for films or stories, sometimes I work out really great ways to fix the worlds problems, if only that really mattered and I was in a position where I really could help.

Toby's mental health is a constant worry and burden, he shouts his head off about needing peace, he bangs doors because we clattered something. Everything he does is a laudably violent retaliation for the audio sensitivity he feels. It's exhausting and relentless. I hear myself saying, well he does do stuff like take the kids sledging or step in at the weekend when I had flu, but there's bound to be a fall out of spasms and shouting that follows and I am very selective about when I choose to give myself that time to be sick. I have to because, I know if I don't i will be no use to anyone, and when I do have a break, knowing that it will make Toby suffer his illness worse for that short time, it's so that I can carry on and pick up again. I'm cunning and ruthless short, but it's so that we can keep going long term.

My whole life I have day dreamed wonderful ideas and created special interests to distract me, sometimes they coincide with work, or actual stuff to do, sometimes it's accompanied by me reading books or watching stuff about it. They vanish as quickly as they appear, and I'm left with the residual broad general knowledge which is useful and makes me a very rounded person.

But I have no expertise, I want one, I need one, I just want to focus for long enough so that I can do something useful. I catch myself, I find something, I become fanatical, then I can feel it loosing it's magic, I complain internally and externally, then to my relief, I release it. Usually to allow more space for an emerging priority, this priority might not be self generated, but it's generated by utility or love, urges, necessity, survival, aspirations. These things are so overwhelmingly powerful, they take me over and yet they are ultimately self generated by me, they are powerful, I move mountains for myself, for others, I am powerful, energetic, creative and clever, tenacious and resourceful. Then there's something new, first I need to recover, to flop, to collapse, to sleep, to sloth, maybe a day, maybe a week, my back goes, I lie down a lot, it makes my back worse, then I rest, I slowly get more active again, recover, the energy returns and I am back for the next project. Except they are not projects, they are hugely inefficient and I am wasting all this energy being very useful but not really. I can justify this as motherhood, my kids get good parenting, better than i see some of my peers doing.

But then I see others doing so much better. Money can't buy so much of what parenting involves, but it damn well helps! there are lots of things they are not getting because we can't afford it. There are lots of things they are not getting because I don't have the bandwidth, between my own autism and Toby's I can't fit it in. We schedule, we plan, we create strategies, but we are still somehow not getting it right.

Some of these I can justify, excuse, explain, some of those explanations are justified others explain alright, but I can't justify and I don't excuse. I want to improve and each time I see something, I resolve to move it in the right direction. I can't see everything, I can't be everything. I wish i could be paid to do what I'm good at so I could pay someone else to do what i'm not good at.

I desperately want to create something useful, fulfil a purpose and get paid enough to be comfortable to do it. I have denied my passions and special interests as too niche or too pointless, I have diluted myself and hidden myself under a facade of responsibility and respectability, I don't know who or what I am any more.

I change my mind so many times as to what I could do with my talents, but I don't have the time or energy to practice my talents, I don't have the executive functioning to remember to practice them more's the point. I want to break these patterns of aimless idle dreaming, dreams are great, but how can I make at least some of it reality, I don't need much of it, I just want something to become real.

Reality shouldn't just be drudgery and obligations, or just the empty pleasure of a telly show, a trip to the pub, a board game or a day that the spa. They are never going to go away, and i don't want them to, but that world, where people study for stuff, they make stuff, the create possibilities that become useful stuff. People go great, nice stuff you are doing, or even what do I  do with this stuff? But they have produced something, like it or not.

I want to produce more than just waste.