Five Years...
Today marks my fifth B3ta birthday. I don't post much, and have never come up with anything of note. But logging in today, seeing that little candle, seeing the "0 months, 0 days", seeing that it was five years ago today that I first joined up has made me reflect on what has happened to me since 20th January 2003.

Materially speaking, I now have considerably less than I did then. I have less money, a smaller house and a fridge filled primarily with cheese. I have no job, having recently been made redundant for the second time in a year, and so am facing the soulless nightmare of the dole for the first time.

My dreams of being a writer are in ashes, having not written a thing for months now, and having mild palpitations whenever I try. My characters lie dead or dying on the page, my dialogue is just so much empty bleating, my plots are the worst dregs of grave-robbing cliché. I am not the man I thought I was.

I have a couple more crow's feet and my hair is a shade thinner than I remember it every time I look in the mirror. My back hurts when I stand up or sit down. I am gradually coming to realise that I have come to the end of my potential, and I still have a good few decades of this left.

While this may sound self-pitying and a cry for a dissenting opinion, that's actually the last thing I want. This is me trying to be honest about what's landed me here. The simple fact is that I have placed emphasis on fitting in with the world of recreation rather than the world of responsibility. There has always been another chance waiting around the corner. There has always been something else in the pipeline. There has always been tomorrow.

Fitting in is not necessarily a bad thing, no matter how you do it. What's important is to fit into the right way of thinking and then follow it. I'm at the point now where this actually rings true, and doesn't sound like the kind of empty platitude you read in a lazy advice column, and so I wonder how January 20th 2013 will find me. Rich/poor, ill/well, happy/miserable. Either way, I hope to see that little candle again, and the "0 months, 0 days".

And some kind of Goatse abomination, because that's what it's all about.
(Sir Harrington Titsmith disgraced himself on, Tue 20 Jan 2009, 16:15, 9 replies)

This reminds me a bit of the Book of Disquiet
Maybe you shouldn't give up your literary ambitions just yet, but instead write something existential and angst-ridden?
( rofl harris, Tue 20 Jan 2009, 16:55, closed)

Write about chips!
I hope it's chips for tea tonight.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Tue 20 Jan 2009, 17:10, closed)

write poems they are easier
and there *is* always a tomorrow -
(sirolimus, Tue 20 Jan 2009, 17:18, closed)

Warming in a strange way...
I picture you in a smoking jacket huddled up to a typewriter with a stuffed parrot on the fireplace shelf.

to me it seemed I was readin the woes of a person who has slowely become to realize they wasted their life trying to fit, and once "slotted" into place has been kicked right back out again.

Tis all experiance, just don't start smoking joints down the park at 12 at night in recouperation of wrongly spent youth.
(zenzeypher, Tue 20 Jan 2009, 19:23, closed)

Yowsers, this umms of mid-life crisis
I've had exactly the same thoughts myself (except for the redundancy bits) but I was lucky to have someone to keep me going through the insanity (that being my daughter).
I definately didn't think things would turn out like they did; always thought I'd end up in a lab somewhere other than the dreg of a job I've got now.

On a plus note, in Tescos right now Frijj are only 49p!!!!! Just drank a Chocolate Fudge bottle, fucking A1.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Wed 21 Jan 2009, 9:57, closed)

I know how you feel.
This time 5 years ago I was still excited with work, life, had visions of becoming a writer, much like yourself.

Now I am unemployed, drinking more vodka than can be healthy, and I just about look forward to the end of each week as if something magical is going to happen on weekends still, as they invariably seemed to as a child.

I think it's just teh realisation that life is in fact shit, when you think of it.
(Galahad is out of his gourd on yellow bentines, Wed 21 Jan 2009, 10:36, closed)

I think life is wonderful
and what's up with everyone wanting to be a fucking writer as well?
(sirolimus, Wed 21 Jan 2009, 11:22, closed)

hey!
Having lost my dream job two years ago, had another bout of depression etc etc. I actually signed up to B3ta to sharpen my writing, 'cos I used to write all the time when I was younger...

I too have had it with trying to fit in, work full-time, not have enough time to watch the birds in the trees opposite, not have enough time for anything. If that's fitting in, they can keep it. I don't actually want two holidays a year, or to own my own home,I did it twice before and it's not gonna happen again unless I strap myself onto the debt bus until I'm 68. I hope we're all still here when you get your next little candle as well.

Not so fussed about the Goatse tbh.. lol
(Beer Elf Thought this was like a campfire, anyhow, on, Wed 21 Jan 2009, 13:03, closed)

Ah, don't give up!
You sound so sad, but don't give up your dream of writing. Writing is a wonderful thing. If you are having palpitations when you put pen to paper, then you are not writing about the things that make you happy, or that are true to your character. Find a monotonous job that will pay the bills and write on the side, this will free up your creative side and stop you from being so scared. I write for a living, not books, but advertising. I didn't start until I was 32, I've been doing it now for 13 years and I still enjoy it. You have to have fun, or be in a good frame of mind, to write. So change your focus and start writing again. Best of luck.
(Woofie, Wed 21 Jan 2009, 18:04, closed)