A Serious Process

The Welfare to Work scheme is revolting. I have spent a considerable amount of time on the phone today trying to refer someone to a service without allowing a really intrusive assessment to take place. Centrelink is becoming (or has it always been?) the devil's agent, and the staff sound apathetic and incompetent (I remember some of the staff in the Fitzroy office having multiple facial piercings, and someone in Centrelink on Sydney Rd telling me to make up some jobs I had applied for when I hadn't finished filling in my form. It was close to Christmas, and one of the jobs I claimed to have applied for on my dole form was as Father Christmas). Remember our social security services in the 80s and 90s, when you could be unemployed, or seriously fucked up, in privacy and with dignity? Welfare to Work: for god's sake, there are reasons that some people can't work, or stay employed. Are we trying to homogenise to the point of making ourselves ill?

I was reading an article in Broadsheet about the unsustainability of human living. Sometimes I feel as if everything is fucked and like we are committing the most irresponsible of acts regularly. I saw that someone had written an article called I Hate Australia which made me think that perhaps things aren't so bad. As long as we are still able/allowed to hate who are, and criticise ourselves and our actions, surely things can't be too bad? Although I feel that we are dangerously close to losing our critical capacity through systemic and debilitating selfishness and our capacity to 'think globally' yet not 'act locally' (maybe that was a dangerous statement. After all, Australians pour money into foreign aid, yet balk at the idea of examining povery and inequity within our own country. I too am guilty of it: I donate to Amnesty International, and I suppose it makes me feel good - or at least alleviates some guilt. Really I should be forming a seditious army and researching successful mutinies).

Just because all the cool countries do it doesn't mean that democracy is the best model. And perhaps there is no model that can work long term, or ever. I too Hate Australia to a large extent, because I don't think it is a just or equitable place. I hate Centrelink, and I hate the Howard government and feel that nothing I do or say can make any difference. Does that matter? Perhaps I make a habit of viewing myself with a gratuitous significance. If I don't I won't bother living.

How Do We Record Each Other?

I am so concerned with recording myself that often I forget to consider my recording of others. And when you record other people in some way, do you really allow them to exist?

"headfirst into the headboard"

In the interest of symmetry, I will continue until I reach 100 posts, or until November, which will be a year from when I started. November 28th is that date. I write more in my diary now, as all sorts of private things are happening in my life. There are things now that I can't write about or expose. And perhaps one of the things I have to come to terms with is the idea that when you are with someone, nothing is ever 'just you' anymore, as awful as that may sound. There is always a large part that is always 'just you', but because you choose to have another person very close, you choose to expose them to things too. I have realised how harsh I am, how 'just me' I am, and how horribly uncompromising and selfish that is. I thought I was just tough and independant, until I realised that what I was doing was resisting the people that I want. And for so long I have revelled in the idea of contradiction, and people's ability to disagree with themselves, and then I realised that part of me wanted to create a smooth and homogenous self that was based on past feelings, becuase it is more comfortable. It also provides a way of knowing yourself. There are so many ways of knowing yourself and we fail to explore so many of them.

What scares you more than anything?
What embarrasses you?
What do you dislike about yourself?
Who do you love most in the world?
When do you feel sexy?
Do you think you are attractive?
What habits do you have?
What have you done?
Where do you put things?
What do you never want people to know about you?
Are you ever totally honest?
Do you look at people?
Do you desire strangers, just because they are strange?
What is familiar?
What are you unable to explain?
What do you not want your parents to know about you?
Are you interested in things you wish you weren't?
Do you worry about what people think of you and how that will change who you are?
Do you pick your nose?
Do you enjoy your body when it smells unwashed?
Do you have desires that you have never told anyone about?
Have you ever seen a psychiatrist?
What do you want to do more of?
Do you wish that people thought thought of you more?
Have you ever felt terribly guilty?
Are you secretly racist?
Do you have a fetish?
Do you ever think about hurting people?
Have you ever wanted to be the opposite sex?
Do you want people to desire you?
Do you wish you looked different?
Do you often feel jealous?
Are you suspicious?
Do you think you deserve better?
Do you think other people are better than you?
Do you think your friends talk about you?
What do you think people say about you?
Do you want people to fear you?
Do you ever feel as if you are either ridiculously complex or ridiculously simple?
Do you desire people you think would never desire you?
Have you ever found your partner repulsive?
Are there things you won't talk about?
Do you feel as if you have never been in love?
Are you dysfunctional?
Are you good at your job?
Do you think people think you are weird?
Do you think people feel sorry for you?
Are there members of your family you are embarrassed by?
Do you despise people who disgust you?
Are you obsessed by money and material?
Do you worry about bodily functions?
Are you healthy?
Are you self pitying?
Are you too self interested/centred?
Do you talk too much?
Do you talk about yourself too much?
Do you demonstrate how you feel about the people you love?
Are you too opinionated?
Are you a selfish cunt?
Do you find some people pathetic?
Are you dismissive of things you don't understand?
Do you pretend to know more than you do?
Do you try to convince others that you know more than them?
Do you want people to always agree with you?
Do you ever disagree because you feel like it?
Do you ever wish to anger or upset someone?
What is the most horrible thing you have done to another person?
What are you ashamed of?
What will you never recover from?
What will you never forget?
What do you wish you could forget?
What part of your body do you not want people to look at?
What do you want to happen to your body when you die?
Do you ever imagine your funeral, and how many people will be there?
Do you think people like you?
Do you think people find you irritating or stupid?
Do you have many friends?
Do your friends genuinely like you or do they just like your partner?
Does anyone really dislike you?
Do you really dislike anyone?
What makes you panic?
When are you most tired?
Do you think the best part of your life has already happened?
Do you wish you could be famous?
Do you wish you were more intelligent and better looking?
Do you wish you were thinner or larger?
Do you try to be different to other people?
Do you work hard?
Are you generally self conscious?
Do your clothes fit you well and do you like them?
Do you think you are better than some people?
Do you ever wis you could kill someone and get away with it?
Do you bitch about your friends?
Are you good at keeping secrets or do you confess?
Do your friends trust you with their secrets or do they know you have a big mouth?
Do you wish you were more reliable?
Have you ever slept with someone you shouldn't have?
Do you really love the person you are with or is it habit?
Do you wish you could go somewhere alone?
Are you able to accept responsibility for your failures or do you blame other people?
Do you think the things that are wrong in your life are someone else's fault?
Are you helpless and hopeless?
Do you have a good memory?
Do people laugh at you?
Do you laugh at yourself?
Are you happy?
Do you really want to exist?