new start

been away to long

have been away to long but will be back next week ....is anyone out there?

so many weeks ago!

Its been so long. I feel, like stranger in my own world. What happened? Depression happened and this time I only have myself to blame. It may sound peculiar to blame one self on depression never the less warning signs. had been brewing for some time. The question is why did I ignore the signs. This is important. For a person who some professes to have an understanding of the illness this lapse in recognising the slow creep of the downward curve is pretty disastrous. But I'm back and hopefully this time I can keep to my deadlines.
Since the attack I haven't felt the inclination to journey out into the world,even though the purpose of this exercise is to explore walking with depression. Something powerful took over the will to explore,even though it could be argued that depression, by its very existence resembles a journey into an other place,another reality, the need to wander out into the night and sense world though the gaze and sensibility of depression was simply to much to bear.The suffering itself was its own experience.
How can the mind drive a person to edge of life? What mysteries force a person to want self destruction over living?

some other part of London

Before I start I have to apologise for my spelling mistakes. When depression hits me my mind goes all over the place and Dyslexia becomes a problem.
May be I should post some of my thoughts re Dyslexia and Depression, some other time maybe.
In the meantime I want to suggest the idea about walking into other spaces where walkers don't usually go. Walking is a human activity which appears strange to some people. The car is a second appendage to the body. When we walk we are only doing what nature meant us to do. We walk because we are built to walk.
Walking takes on many different aspects. Some people enjoy walking out into the wild places, some walk in city scape's, some walk across vast deserts and so forth. My attempt at walking with depression leads me into some untouched sites in the Metropolis.Places off the beaten track, but which never the less are home to thousands of people. A mixture of cultures and customs ( are the two inter linked)? Place which where once demeaned to "Suburbia" but have now developed into a vast mish mash of conflicting values and religions.Places walkers dont explore. i will start soon by exploring Edmonton Green in North London.

walking with moon

The clouds rush across the sky, this is good stuff because I cant feel the wind. Maybe something magical is taking place up in the heavens. The night landscape feels comfortable at the moment. I cant help wondering what people all those eons ago felt when thay saw the night. Their night would have been far more powerful than today's gaze. Then people would have seen the whole sky in all its wonderful depth and uniqueness. I feel sad tonite. A nervous,anxious sadness. How much is our world changing? We are living at the end of an epoch All around me people are enjoying the autumn colours of the the night world. Why cant I be part of this crowd? Tonight the present is not a good place to be. change is sometimes to powerful.

changing formations

One important fact concerning walking with depression, something which completely escaped my thinking, depression is exhausting. It drags the person down physically, emotionally and mentally. This really extreme state leaves its scare on the "gaze. The power of depression still mystifies me. A continuous onslaught on the joy. Nothing will be the same again. I'm not talking about self pity. Where memory becomes powerful is in its ability to haunt what in the past may have been, a simple expression of fun, suddenly turns into a raw expression of pain, and indeed sorrow. Memory and depression is a terrirtory I will exlplore again. Like walking, depression turns into so many adventures.

sunday morning

The sky fells thick.One of those gray dull days which always suggest nothing is going on up there in the skies. Of course that's so much wishful thinking. But for walking purposes the idea of confronting the morning is difficult.There's a sense of emotional drift taking place in my mind today. Tensions where there shouldn't be tensions.Motivation to attempt something useful fall flat. Yes that's the feeling "flat".
The super ego isn't trying very hard to lay into me. Must be an ok sign. Never the less have started to develop that guilty sensation and those tense undercurrents which always love to undermine what I want to do.
I have this idea at the moment that the brain is like an uncharted territory. A vast empty mass full with unexplored wanders.Like a magical kingdom with secret wonders,this place is fascinating and dangerous. I find it hard to grasp just how little we really understand about ourselves. How much do we really know about nature? What do we learn and our do we transport our lived experience into a pleasure of co operation.
To walk out on a day like today is to confront that part of the self which doesn't want confrontation at the moment. Think I will go with the flow and simply except the moment and do nothing. Walking is always there.Its a free journey.

early morning walking

The challenge of winter depression is to understand the reasoning behind its attacks on the territory of the mind, it encloses the brain and swallows the soul in a series of violent encounters with the past present and that mystical dream called the future.Night time brings no hope of sleep. Walking is the encounter I need. To understand depression is rediscover the child lost in the past, who imagines a future with out pain but as no understanding of childhood Why? because child is already being over taken by the monster "other".

strooling with depression.

Its odd how emotions dictate the way we thing and cope with the external realities. For the past weeks my nerves have been shattered, tension and anger seem to be reaching some kind of fever pitch on my mind. Truth be told the outside world felt a threatening place to be in. My mind attempted to block out any sense of joy. The streets represented a state of mind. Walking became simply a function to arrive at a destination already preplanned. It wasn't meat to be like this.
The tensions inside my mind never ceased to stop,walking slowed down the inner battles, but not for long. Memories or rather 'emotional' attacks with memories attached battled their way in the that territory called the brain.
Last night I couldn't sleep, I've suffered this problem before when depression pushes me into to much sleep. What happens is the night takes the brain, and the brain responds with an endless reworking of dormant emotion's on which images are imprinted and the fragments of these imprints hover around in a menacing aura which then reproduces another round of imprints. Last night I felt the colour GRAY.It had a body. It developed a life. In the darkness Gray became another part of the interior landscape of terror and it felt real.

srrooling with depression

Early morning and the dark closes in. Darkness and depression and bad combination. Last I attempted my first experiment, walking into the night with depression. An idea. How does the mind cope with the darkness after a hard day doing a job which is completely against everything I hold dear. But what can I do. The country is in the grip of an economic depression. It was a wonderful cold night. Shadows and street lights glittering in the darkness. I was already down and felt extremely exhausted. This wasn't a joyful quest. My legs felt heavy and I couldent focus on anything. Strange how the mind doesent rest. Thoughts simply rush through a the brain. and everything seems blank, stuck in a time warp of mental agony. I wont give up.
This is an experiment its the first night and London is going home. The rush hour is still moving in what ever direction rush hours moves. I cant join the crowd, I'm not part of this mass. It worries me.

strolling with depression

This may appear a strange introduction to yet another idea on a blog full of changing's, shifting ideas. You could say this new adventure is the culmination of all those past explorations. Now the exploration is concerned with a greater challenge. I want to confront one aspect of my depression by walking. So whats so original about this new adventure? Walking is one of the many in things at the moment. And people who suffer from depression understand the importance of exercises and getting out and about, getting out from the enclosed prison of the depressed mind releases the soul. The sense of freedom and simple wanderings satisfies the mind. And maybe helps the brain to take its long deserved from all those powerful tensions which flood the conscious with a wilful power all of its own.
Space and the awareness of a greater emotional outside certainly lefts the mood. My big problem with depression is its ability to imprison all the negative attacks in one space and then unleash these wild negatives into the soul.
Depression doesn't simply attack the mind, it unleashes its spleen into the body.
Its a common assumption these days to suggest some form of psychical endeavour to help counter the onslaught. I don't yet need to delve into the joys of walking. Instead this small introduction is to help me clear my mind and make sense of what this idea hopes to achieve.
Dark times are suggestive of a depressive mindset. Those grim skies and empty sensations bring on a feeling of hopelessness. Suffers of depression usually react to winter with trepidation. I do. But some of my most savage attacks have occurred during The month of July. During the winter months the long dark nights heighten a sense of hopelessness. They bring with them a threat of endless mundanes.Nothing lives in the darkness.
we know that's not true, but feelings are power allies in the war chest of the depressed mind.
Walking into the darkness whilst highlighting vision of depression is a creative challenge.
Its this sense of vision I need to explore. In the dark is an alternative landscape. This is the quest.

small notes 2

HOW THE CHILD SEES THE CITY..
Is it he mindlessness of childhood that opens up the world? Today nothing happens in a gas station. I'm eager to leave, to get where I'm going, and the station, like some paper cutout, or a Hollywood set,is simply a facade.But at 13 sitting with my back against the wall,it was marvellous place to be. Thw delicous smell of gasoline, the cars coming and going, the fresh air hose, the half heard voices buzzing in the background-these things hung musically in the air, filling me with a sense of well being. In ten minutes my psyche would be topped up like up like the tanks of the automobiles....FRANK CONROY..

small notes

This blog keeps morphing into ideas which give the appearance of have no connection with the previous set of ideas. Time in the mental space doesn't leave me to much room to gather my thoughts into a coherent set of worked out arguments. Some weeks ago I was convinced I lost this blog. Was I upset? Yes. Although the absence of the blog gave me the reason to re think what a blog means to the person writing the blog, and, how do other people read the blog?
What is a blog intended to achieve?
I think my original mistake was the view the blog as a steeping stone towards engaging people in some kind of quest. What quest? I keep thinking. One thought leads on to another thought,sometimes without logic. Is this a form of Post Modern mourning in a world where the Post Modern is now mocked.
The Post Modern might be mocked, never the less, aspects of political and economic discourse bears all the all marks of a Post Modern world.This is scary.
So what am I going to explore now?
Simple....culture, walking and making up stories.
Action comes from an over active mind. I will try and post every two days. Its my little note to the world.

whats gone wrong with the left

The left is in retreat. That's the political argument doing the rounds at present. Some shift in the political discourse suggest the left is in a permanent state endless decline. If this is the case, then we in Europe are in for period of awful decline and punishing social disintegration.
Why is the left completely in a state total disarray. I would love to complete this discussion but this lap top is fast disintegrating itself......

thought I lost my blog

At last I found my blog thoght it had gone away somewhere never to return But I think its back..

walking before returning

This is proving more demanding than I originally excepted.How do i capture that essence which the depressed gaze offers up to an individual who is in the grip of depression.Maybe the only method I can think of is to insure "something " is written down at the exact moment the depression is reaching that point where all life appears lost and worthless. But in order for me to reach that critical tension I have to dig deep into my soul and conjure up some energy in order to meet the depression head on. Of course to do this means digging deeper into an already fragile soul. This is the challenge.

riots and non riots

The day Tottenham took to the streets and the media went moved into hysterical blasts of moral indignation I walked along the South Bank of the river Thames. It was obvious that the end of London hadn't effected this part of the capital. The glorious tackiness which insures the South Banks popularity will not fade way for sometime to come still attracted thousands of people who strolled along in blind oblivion to the coming catastrophe which would spill down from the confines of Tottenham.
Maybe the throng of families, lovers strollers where unawares of the history being played out on the streets of North London.
This got me thinking about the vastness of cities. Tottenham imploded but the South Bank still supplied its sense of chaotic escape.People simply enjoyed the sun. No looting burning or other types urban disasters.
What developed in the North of the capital was alien to this Sunday stroll. As this none involvement always been the fate of Cities? What seemed to be taking place was a sense of disengagement. People simply weren't bothered.The news may have been predicting an explosion of rage,but the sense of fun was at odds with a media interpretation. Some alternative existence was being played out in the Capital. Lives where not connecting, communities live in separate zones whilst the media concentrates on the problems of one area they cant focus on the whole. London was not threatened. Never the less geographical dislocation concerns have always been a fact in the growth of the Urban landscape.

walking before returning

When I was a kid and lived in Kings Cross the train stations were part of growing up. They took on the role of adventure playgrounds. Underground tunnel linked two stations. Back then Kings Cross Station was the elegant sister to the Gothic Monster which is St Pancres. Steam Trains ruled the landscape in every possible manner Smoke, soot, and noise filled the day and night This is a vanished world of darkness and adventure. The tunnels were mysterious and scary. Dark underground vains which spread out under the the dirty,bustling, travel traps above the ground. Trains appeared like vast metal demons which spat out steam,fire, and thick smoke.
The stations where dark and dirty. Places of departure and returns. Soot was everywhere. Smoke was everywhere. People who worked on the stations didn't appear to bother with the kids running all over the place. We could look after ourselves. And we could and did.
St Pancres was the darkest. The vast glass roof was coated in 100 years of grim,smoke,and darkness. The place became an adventure in survival. We kids imagined becoming lost in the grim and ending up in some far away land.
I remember the oak panelled waiting rooms, dirty and sad, but also mysterious. Throw backs from an old time. The vastness of the station added to its strangeness. It possessed a sense of out of timeliness.
We lids didn't know anything about this strange place being pulled down. It belonged to our dreams. Its filth and emptiness fitted into a landscape of ruins and adventure. Smoke and fire. All those waiting rooms,always empty, deserted but hiding ghost. I was fortunate to have the greatest adventure playground in the whole of London right on my doorstep. A Gothic monster which towerd over the whole landscape. We had no idea of its history but we had a sense of place. It belonged to us. Its dirt was our dirt. We loved it.
Now its a shopping mall devoid of place and meaning. a cleansed spectacle which means nothing. Its cleansed of meaning and adventure.

Myth and the city

Taking a a walkover to St Pancreas Station, that vast, Gothic monstrosity which dominates the landscape of Kings Cross. Back in the distant past this folly was going to be demolished in favour of a modernistic disaster much like Euston Station which must be the most ugly travel trap in the whole world. These buildings represents clash of travel styles which speak volumes about how culture experience the idea of travel. St Pancreas was conceive at a time when to travel meant some different. A statement of England at the time when the confidence in the Empire was on the wane. But the class system still prevailed. The building was/is a monument to the self perception of bombast and imagined power.
When we use our penetrating gaze and focus our attention upon the style of this form of Gothic structure we must question what we are observing. This is a symbol of invented histories which have no meaning what so ever in reality. Its a imagined reality in a landscape of imagined passion. When the building went up it was already out if time with the changing historical reality.
Nothing about the building tells us anything about the times. Monuments which hold onto fairy stories offer up a comfort against the harsh troubles of the times.
The railway station was a microcosm of 19c expectations. It is a space of waiting, the original interior was a net work of waiting rooms. It was a monument to the tedium of waiting and the expectation of new things.
The roof is a master work of engineering.
Everything else is candy land reality. They/the station is,was full of illusions and deceptions which high light the high point of capitalism in the late 19c Its a dreamscape, today it represents the Disney version of pleasure.The big difference being shopping .
Importantly for me the station became my adventure playground way back in my tender years. This is why I am returning back with a different gaze.