quote:Originally posted by ben: Moral: Old stuff can only make you feel worse - turn your attention to new things, pilgrim.
Maybe you're right. I remember your post about how you were going to shuck off all your old paperbacks in the hope it would spur you on to write more, which is a pertty big gesture. How did that work out, by the way?
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Hmmm... I am a hoarder of some reknown, and have to have trousers three sizes too small and a decade out of date wrested from my grasp, and have only just thrown out gas bills from 1999. Watching Life Laundry makes me cry. But I'm not sure of the value of throwing out old letters etc as a means of 'only looking forward'. We are as much a product of of our past as of our ambitions, and there surely must be a way of cherishing our old selves without being hidebound by them.
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Herbs - you sound like you need Get Rid of Half Your Shit - Version 0.0. In this module, you kick off by identifying half a dozen categories of shit with comparatively little sentimental value, typically:
Clothing
CDs
Financial stuff
Cosmetics / bubble bath / pot pourri holders
Old / surplus / semi-discarded stationery
The stuff you have in drawers that isn't cutlery (eg. four half-rolls of sellotape, bundle of loose cocktail sticks from three Christmasses ago)
You can't use lavender-scented epistles of blossoming passion in the last century as an excuse for not divesting yourself of 6 tiny pairs of lime hotpants and those Hue & Cry CDs.
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And there's Get Rid of Half Your Shit - Version 0.0 chapter 2 where you throw out all clothes more than two sizes too small. I cannot do this myself. I even put them all in a bin bag ready for Oxfam. They're still in the bag, in the back of the cupboard, waiting for me just to .. admit it.
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Darryn's comment is a great reason why this exercise is worthless - rediscovering stuff like that in a new context can be quite exciting.
Question: Have Dr Benway, Ben, and Vanilla Online Persona - basically the people advertising this procedure - actually done it? Having actually been there I can say it's about as meaningful and relevant as going on a detox diet at the start of January, and a lot harder to reverse. Face it guys - your just wanking on about the latest in a long line of cHAngE uRE LifE!!!1! strategies that don't actually make any diffference, but just fool you into thinking "Ahh! A new me!" The only way to actually do it, is to just grind on with the thing you want to do. There's no magic freshen up technique that will trip the switch in your head or any such crap. You've just got to make an effort at whatever it is you want. Binning a bunch of stuff isn't progress, no matter how much you want to pretend it is.
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Sorry Darry, that's where they lost me. I must have worn my cassette of Seduced and Abandoned out, I played it that much - and in Remote I found the album that every sensitive 14yo needs... a jazz-funk record with jurgen Habermas quotes on the sleeve.
The Bittersweet I felt Pat finally disappeared up his hole, transforming into an oily lounge singer en route and certainly bidding adieu to any further chart success.
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In all seriousness you're talking to the wrong person Thong, I move jobs and countries pretty much whenever I get a bit bored. This is why I don't have much to chuck. If it ain't useful, I don't bring it. I was about to hum Wherever I lay my hat but then I thought I might, quite fairly, get punched. Worse, Jonsey might do a story about a spikey haircut and an 80's erection-section dance-floor unpleasant. So I'm glad I didn't.
Apart from my books and dvds, I've thrown away almost everything.
My own little Break Down was liberating. Yes, I've replaced lots with new, but there's a net loss in amount of clutter and I feel clearer headed, less attached/ dependant to stuff, hell I appreciate what really matters in life and what really doesn't.
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quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: Question: Have Dr Benway, Ben, and Vanilla Online Persona - basically the people advertising this procedure - actually done it?
In fairness, I was talking about pitching it to a tv producer (Channel Five, I'd guess) and encouraging some of you lot to do it: result would be that I'd either get props for the l33t advice or would be able to laugh at someone who'd intentionally flung themselves below the average standard of living on my say-so.
I don't know, though - I might have a go with my wardrobe tonight and photograph the results, if anyone's remotely interested.
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also, to all the people with their insensitive 'what the hell do you need to deal with grief for, just get on with it', has you ever had anyone close to you died?
i wish i dealt with it more, talked to family and friends, saw a councillor. but hey! it turns out bottling it all up was correct. i so rad.
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quote:Originally posted by Darryn.R: Do YOU still have any ?
I probably have the first two albums on tape somewhere still - along with others from that era (The Christians, Hothouse Flowers *sob*). As I recall, I also had a tape I did off TFM of Hue and Cry performing live at the Teeside Arena, or whatever the venue of the time would have been called. I did a collage inlay card for the tape case of that one.
This was in the days before the internet, obviously.
*Thinks for a minute*
Fucking hell! In two years' time, 1988 will be TWENTY YEARS AGO 1!!!11!!OMG!!!
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quote:Originally posted by vikram: also, to all the people with their insensitive 'what the hell do you need to deal with grief for, just get on with it', has you ever had anyone close to you died?
I was actually having a pop at the language of this kind of self help thinking rather than declaring that people 'just get on with it'. As in, when something terrible does happen with its shattering fall out someone saying "I think you need to deal with your grief" doesn't really mean a whole lot to me. Like it's something that can be harnessed and packaged up and then you can say "That's my grief dealt with". As far as I'm aware, it doesn't work like that.
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quote:Originally posted by vikram: also, to all the people with their insensitive 'what the hell do you need to deal with grief for, just get on with it', has you ever had anyone close to you died?
To be fair, most of the people on this thread are talking about "dealing with the grief" of things like relationships fucking up, not actual grief.
I have a real problem with the appropriation of the word "grief" for things like that. It's a way of elevating your situation's importance by putting it on a par with something really fucking awful.
posted
I have NEVER had a Hue and Cry album. Nor any pot pourri. Well, not recently. When I moved last year, though, R made me throw away not only my old records, but also the record player. Admittedly I hadn't used it for about 10 years, but still. Just because he'd be happy in a monk's cell with naught but a scratchy blanket and the collected works of Samuel Beckett...
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Thanks for the offer, Darryn - but no. I even feel ambivalent about re-listening to old albums I still rate. I was uneasy, for example, at the news that the Blue Aeroplanes' 1990 masterpiece, Swagger was to be reissued in a 'deluxe' edition, no less. All of a sudden it feels like music that meant a lot to me at the time is being turned into a series of museum exhibits (a 'historic set' as Uncut would no doubt have it). It's all kind of ghoulish and missing the point of what was great about this stuff the first time around.
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quote:Originally posted by vikram: also, to all the people with their insensitive 'what the hell do you need to deal with grief for, just get on with it', has you ever had anyone close to you died?
To be fair, most of the people on this thread are talking about "dealing with the grief" of things like relationships fucking up, not actual grief.
I have a real problem with the appropriation of the word "grief" for things like that. It's a way of elevating your situation's importance by putting it on a par with something really fucking awful.
To be even fairer, the breakdown of a relationship can be a devasting experience, one that some people can never recover from - ie - really fucking awful.
[ 17.01.2006, 10:41: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: To be even fairer, the breakdown of a relationship can be a devasting experience, one that some people can never recover from - ie - really fucking awful.
To be really fair, yes sometimes that's true. But most of the time it's melodrama.
quote:Originally posted by vikram: so, yeah, recommended!
also, to all the people with their insensitive 'what the hell do you need to deal with grief for, just get on with it', has you ever had anyone close to you died?
i wish i dealt with it more, talked to family and friends, saw a councillor. but hey! it turns out bottling it all up was correct. i so rad.
as has already been pointed out; try reading and actually taking in what has been said rather than just getting aerated and upset over what you think has been said Vikram....
Louche
Carved TMO on her clit just to make you feel bad
posted
quote:Originally posted by vikram: also, to all the people with their insensitive 'what the hell do you need to deal with grief for, just get on with it', has you ever had anyone close to you died?
Why do you ask? Does suffering a bereavement somehow qualify you to take the piss on a discussion board? Does it become neccessary to have a CV litany of woe before you can have any form of black humour?
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I was listening to Fraiser Chorus "Ray" the other day. Slightly wanky sub Enya pop but strangly enjoyable as it reminded me of my student days of driving around with friends in my WV Polo and shit.
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