Stalemate

Comic Relief night tonight. I'm sick of it.

This time two years ago I went to Elle's house to watch it. I left my bike in the car park. An almost brand new bike that I'd treated myself to.
By the time I left the house it had been hit by a car or vandalised or something. One wheel was pinned against the frame and the rear mudguard was gone. I had to carry it home which was at least a mile. It's never ridden the same since. Something with the gears. I keep taking it in and they keep checking it out, but it simply doesn't ride well anymore and as far as I'm concerned the gears are shot, however many times they tell me they're fine.

Two years and I'm still pissed off about it. It was such a beautiful bike when I first got it.

I have an ancestor who ran away from home. He was in his late twenties with a wife and children at the time. Went off to work one day and disappeared. Turned up on the doorstep about fifteen to twenty years later and was taken back in.

Turned out he'd hopped a ship to the New World, went up north for the gold rush, discovered it and became a millionaire, married and had a family, wasted his money on wine women and gambling and when he bacame poor again simply hopped a ship back to blighty.

His American progeny included a future mayor of Washington D.C.

Well, all I need is a gold rush.

My great aunt Ethel was another funny one. She was a Victorian dropout. Her dad sent her to work in service, she was allegedly caught stealing and sent back. Her dad handed her over to the police and she went to prison (Holloway?) from whence she escaped and set herself up as a Ukranian Gypsy or some such. Married several times, had several children, some of whom were taken by their father back to Sri Lanka I think it was. At some point she was living in a caravan with some guy from the BBC. Last heard of she was running a shop in Hammersmith.

My family is full of strange characters. It's also full of some extremely intelligent and wonderful people. Very often these are one and the same.

I wonder if they thought in the way that I think. Mum says I'm very like my Grandad but I never really new him, he was so ill from as long as I can remember, but I know he was a wonderful man.

I certainly haven't found anyone, except perhaps Hayley, who thinks like I think, but thinks in the way I thought several years ago at least. That's why I've always been so drawn to her, I recognise something in her, that until recently I wanted to nurture. Now I feel like why would I want anyone else to be the way I am, to think like me, it almost always ends up disastrous.

I suppose that actually I run along for a good few years with people before running into a wall, whereas some people run into walls constantly. But I feel with me it's inevitable, it's because of the way I am constructed that sooner or later it will happen. Whoever I'm with, whatever I'm doing. I keep in touch with no one from Bradford, must try and speak to Danny, occasional contact. Very few people from Halifax. No one from before that and the list seems incredibly small now from two years ago from Carlisle.

The one constant in all your failed relationships is you.

How accurate is that.

Does this mean that almost every realtionship, whether platonic or romantic, that I have, is doomed to fail at some point. Once that person discovers me beyond the appearance that I put out am I doomed to fail in their expectation of me.

The image everyone sees is concerned, willing, caring for all and sundry, unafraid to involve myself in their private affairs if I think I can help. This is what life has made me, because no one has ever done it for me. Yet I always have the suspicion myself that underneath all of that is the hardest nut in the world, that I don't actually care for anyone but myself, that if I truly wanted to, I could walk away from everyone who loves me and everything that I love. I wonder if I actually have feelings at all, whether my brain is so powerful that I simply override everything with logic. And then I feel guilty about that.

Ruth no doubt believes I quit her show for selfish reasons. I believe I quit the show in the best interests of both of us, but have I simply constructed that argument to justify a selfish act? I honestly do not know. And thus I feel guilty that it might have been a selfish act. I feel sure that it wasn't but I do not know.

I feel like this about all my judgements. Where do my thoughts end and my feelings begin? Have my thoughts simply constructed my feelings in an effort to dress up my unpalatable decisions? Have my feelings affected my judegement or my logic?

I wish I was more like Dale, uneducated. Thoughts are thoughts, feelings are feelings. Everything that happens is justified, he is always in the right and no thinking occurs. No challenging occurs.

I have arrived at the conclusion that challenging everything, questioning everything, is the only true way forward. The only true basis of knowledge and discovery. The excellent book, Teaching as a subversive activity, puts it succinctly, unfortunately I've lent it to Elle, so I can't quote from it.

I challenge everything, even my own mind. I've always done it, but it is only recently, since I read the book, that I have become aware of what I do and why I do it.

The wise man knows, only that he knows nothing, goes the old axiom. I can't decide whether that is true or not. I feel like God, for God must know everything, and therefore he must challenge his every move himself, for no one else will. Surely he too would be paralysed by the conflict of thought and feeling, a paradox that cannot be resolved. A chess player playing against only himself, both sides in stalemate.

That is the price of understanding. Me and him together. I really wish I did know nothing.

On a lighter note, Dr Who is returning to the telly. A few weeks. Really can't wait.