The Ballads Of Mister Rhodes

"Be a voice, not an echo." -Cornwell West- (Artwork by  Müge Olçum) So here we are, the grand sum of however many years of being. All that rich tapestry to look out upon. Men and women who have overcome unimaginable hardships and displayed feats of bravery and heart. An entire animal kingdom to learn from. Authors, lyricists, and teachers. An open source world where our shortcomings are pointed out to us. Endless streaming of news events that highlight how deep psychological flaws manifest themselves in our society. Warning after warning after warning. Yet there still seems to be some question about how it might be some intellectual privilege to be able to look out at the world and see all of this. Somehow life is too burdensome to have the time to consider your own becoming. Somehow the average human brain can’t compute what is good for it. Is there so much chaos spanning the multiple dimensions of existence that we simply can’t find a good starting point? Have our pasts thr...

  "In the end, we'll all become stories." - Margeret Atwood Illustration by Müge Olçum There is no conclusive research as to how long the average human can go without social contact before they go insane. There are reports of individuals living in almost complete isolation for over a year, but these individuals didn’t survive with their sanity intact. As little as ten hours alone can leave most people with a physical and psychological craving that’s not too dissimilar to the same amount of time without food. Then you have to take into account the individual’s preexisting mental state and the presence of other stressors. Then, of course, there are the fundamental differences between everyday interactions such as purchasing goods and meaningful human interaction. How many visits to the supermarket equate to an hour talking with someone who is present with you? Eventually, after some time, I turned to myself for some sort of validation that I was here and that the social v...

At around 16:10 I had a sudden urge to cry. I chose not to. I’m not sure if this is a gift or an ailment, but I didn’t want two bike accidents in as many weeks. It made sense not to cry. I feel that sometimes the sensation is brought upon by a series of experiences, and at other times the sensation finally decodes what was behind the experience. I suppose they are both similar and often concomitant.   One of my frequently asked questions is ‘is there a physiological difference between acknowledging that one feels like crying and the act of crying itself?’ Another question is ‘what of all this conflict?’  I fear that I might sometimes take too much of an aggressive stance in retaliation to existence. It is my defence to sharing time and space with the possibilities of being threatened, harmed, feeling inadequate and failing. I live alongside the strong chance that I will not reach the destination I had in mind, and that life might not necessarily treat us kindly as we fail t...

It’s meant to be a minimum of 5 articles a week, but there’s something in the air. Sometimes it's hard to have things expected from you. It’s not like I want to curl up into a ball and disappear. Nothing so indulgent. Just the need to exercise the freedom muscles. To think differently, strikeout, and misbehave by most others’ standards. Then I left my pineapple at the fruit stall, and I’m still debating whether or not I should go and get it. I think some things are meant to be. I’ll get my bromine some other time. I’m not sure how often you notice this. I see the Instagram feeds are doing their best to convince us that it's something else. I just want you all to know that it’s okay to look out at the world and want to hurt it sometimes. It's not okay to do it, but it's perfectly healthy to ride along with a little disdain from time to time. Don’t worry too much if you’re looking dumbfounded while the world reads off its top ten best ways to cope with the world list. It’...

My head is full of cold and I haven’t written anything in a while. That’s usually not a problem, but I can feel myself becoming more ‘bitey’. You know how it is when you’re not in the greatest of places... You start looking around and pinning it on the outside world, but the reality is that you’re just having one of those ‘sorry piece of shit’ moments and its easier to be blasphemous. I just really fucking hate it when my immune system reminds me that I’m not an undiscovered superhuman. My ego doesn’t need that. I like being 36, stronger than I’ve ever been and slowly getting rich doing nothing much. I semi-jest. I do thoroughly enjoy being 36 and being stronger than I’ve ever been, and passive income is my kind of employment. I’m not rich, but nor am I desperately searching the nooks and crannies for half-cut ideas to make a few quid while I’m not allowed to leave the house, but I can leave the house because I’m on an island off Vietnam and not some bum-mungle-strewn city. I don’t nee...

“I am exhausted and you are nearly invisible. What a pair we are.” - Sarah Pinborough -  There just seems to be very little work done on unification. In fact, even those previously associated with collective consciousness seem to have embarked on vitriolic assaults on different ideas and agendas. I was trying to find some collective somewhere that wasn’t currently enraged at the actions or ideas of another collective somewhere else. The Apathetics perhaps, but no one wants anything to do with them.  People who don’t want to wear a mask, scorn the mask wearers as unconscious slaves who have fallen prey to more evil reptilian control who have dedicated their scaly lives to pushing the yardstick of what they can make us do further and further. To wear a mask is to be enslaved by the system, and not only that... it will make you ill. If you wear a mask you begin to recycle your own waste. I mean, if a woman doesn’t wash, and chooses to wear the same clamwrappers every day she’s pr...

“Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth” - Alan Watts I don’t think anything really dies down as such. It's much more to do with the amount of superficial that gets poured into the catalyst before its set alight. If you’re here for opinions to shake your head at or advice on what to do next then I’m afraid this isn’t your piece. It’s mine. I mean, when you actually look back, nothing really happened, no one did anything. The sheer polarity of then and now makes it seem like centuries have passed, but as we battle with goldfish for a place in the attention span race, we would do better to take note that it was a week or so ago. It says a lot for your dedication to a cause. Recollecting the arguments I had with a smile on my face, I am very grateful for where I am now. It is not entirely free of complications, but no life should exclude adversity. What I come to realize is the sheer amount of unnecessary layers we place upon living, and how we often praise ou...