Happiness

Past week or two there's been a sly shift in mood from me as many people close to me may have clocked. Acheiving happiness isn't hard, you just know how to tap in to your body and how it runs. You treat it like a piece of shit wife then you gotta respect that fact that that bitch is gonna kick and scream at you until the day you die, maybe even the afterlife if there is one. If you treat yourself right, you will be marvelled at how easy it can be to put a spring in your step.

Take drugs, for example, yea you can feel hell fucker good like you're in the most amazing place and everything you see sparkles, trust me I've been there, but you don't stay like that forever, sometimes I think we all wish there was a magic button on our bodies which instantly resets you to sober. You could play about with it, make the most ridiculous circumstances actually, like go out on an amazing lunch break where you fly the intergalactic highway, then turn up back at work and instantly be in the ZONE. Might have gone a bit too far there, what I'm trying to get at is that hangovers, comedowns, STALE BUZZ (slyly stale right now) are all signals from our body to our brain that this shit just isn't all that good for you in the long run, and it makes damn sure you know that. I don't know if anyone does any major exercise (some do, some don't) but I went skating tonight for the first time in about 2 weeks and I was BLOWIN. I mean I cycle to work and back each day, but to be honest it's only 15 minutes tops there and back, and even though I burn it there and back I honestly don't really feel myself getting fitter. Because we are young, sometimes I think we take our health for granted a bit too often, because if you're still smoking 15-20 a day well into your 20s, you're going to have some serious underlying health problems that could end up being fatal. You've also got to take into account the second hand smoke, you are literally smoking even if you don't smoke. In some ways I think this is kind of offensive to people who don't smoke, in particular a certain friendly squat which too much of us spend large periods of time in, I'm sorry to say (you all know what I'm talking about). Feel as if I've digressed a bit. Oh yeah, drugs. Another thing to consider is the state of your brain after you constantly melt it with harmful chemical substances, which brings me nicely onto my second point, mental health.

I have been working at a doctor's surgery the past couple of months now, and my job began as basically scanning all the confidential post onto the computer system and direct them to the relevant doctor's. I'm supposed to keep complete confidentiality, but often you have to read the content of the letter to know what to categorise you (hope I'm not losing you here! If you're tired go to bed, I may be here a while), which means you read some fucking boring letters like Jack and his orthopaedic knee (and his fucked up arm while we're at it, and ya webby toe! love ya jack man), whilst sometimes you read about how much cron Federico Dominico Luigi Margaretti Fumagalli Switzerland is smoking a day and how his life is slipping into a state of disrepair. (although recently Fede has found new meaning as a shotter, I rate him for finally seeing how to play the game and win) Which can be fairly interesting. But I find it surprising how alot of people that have mental health issues are our age. Now I know that alot of these people are from lower class families, but why should that make a difference, they live in the same fucked up world as we do, admittedly we have certain luxuries (this 32" beast of a TV that I'm staring at) but we're both equal human beings (although there are not a single two souls on the planet who have exactly the same DNA code, something which still amazes me). I honestly think depression is a byproduct of our society, and it could cripple us, being in a constant state of negativity affects how we act and interact with those around us. I know there's times when I've been majorly pissed off with the world and maybe even thought about taking my own life, mostly when I was younger, hopefully I've outgrown those sort of thought patterns. Think about how primary school kids get bullied, that shit affects how you trust people and gives you lasting memories, I know I remember some traumatic experiences during the first stage of education. Anyway, enough about the downers, time for some uplifting shit, some simple things to do help deal with the neverending turmoil that is our planet these days.

Firstly, your body. Give it what it needs. It doesn't need shit. I fucking love chicken, who doesn't, but if you eat it all day, well they say you are what you eat, so that would make you a chicken. Humans have evolved so far because of the fact that somewhere in the world something you would never DREAM of touching is being eaten (insects anyone?). It is through this that I believe we gained the molecules and genetic information that makes us the most successful animal on this planet (this is getting pretty deep, rah). Anyway, don't eat shit and you won't feel like shit. Also most of us are constantly dehydrated. In an ideal situation, you should drink 2 litres of water a day, and urinate as much as possible. It's not good to hold in 1s and 2s, this is the body's natural way of geting rid of the shit it doesn'twant, why on earth would you hang on to stuff which has no nutritional value? Drinking lots of water also cleans out your system, recently I have been drinking 10 glasses of water a day and a lot of tea aswell, and sure you piss like a hose all day, but you can instantly feel the difference, you can think clearer and you are far less distractable (is that a word), the brain needs water and depriving it will cause it to start to dry out. Can't remember that randy fact of the ratio of water in our bodies, and neither can I be arsed to describe how important eating healthily is as well, we all know it but for us sugars and fats are just more appealling, this is your body's way of trying to survive for long winters and such, but we don't live in the fucking caves anymore so it is actually harmful to us.

Getting regular exercise is also really good for you, it's just unfortunate that our lives are so full of so many choices of how to pass 24 hours in a day. Even if we think we are busy, I'm sure we can find time in our lives to exercise how ever many hours it is in a week we're supposed to do (not good on my facts tonight, google is a whole mouseclick away but it looks so far...). A good way to begin exercise is to set yourself small, acheivable targets, not some gnarly regime, that path is bound for failure. Once you find that you can easily do 30 push ups before you go to the shower, you can then set yourself more, like 30, then 20, then 10, constantly adding the reps is a good way to quickly build muscle or lose weight, in moderation and over a period of time of course. Which brings me onto my next point.

Setting yourself little goals and things that you would really like to do or learn can be a great way to get yourself feeling positively. There is nothing more satisfying than getting the girl you always wanted, or finally learning that fucking nollie flip. This can have a sharper side to it though, as set your targets too high or don't do something that you know you can achieve only leads to more negative thoughts. There's a fine line between success and failure, and trust me I've been on the wrong side, can start a whole episode of chain reactions that steamroll into you feeling like shit. I guess what shapes us as individuals is how quickly we return to the fray after the fall, some people are very good at taking it on the chin while others flip out and self destruct into global thermonuclear war (too much call of duty). I'd like to think that I've gotten better at dealing with these situations, to the point where if something overly gnarly happened now, sure it would shock, but I think I'd be able to get past it fairly quickly, no-one likes holding grudges (some more than others), the minute we stop and think that they would rather be friends than enemies the minute the shit is sorted. There's people I dislike I'm not gonna lie, but it's mostly because of the way they act or speak about other people or in general, not because of my opinion (well I suppose that is an opinion, shot myself in the foot there).

My final point is breathing (hey it's 2.15 in the morning and I wanna go bed, gotta work at half ten and I'm going clubbing tomorrow (tonight actually) so I'm gonna try be as brief as possible, if at all possible). I bet you think you're the fucking shit at breathing. You could do it since day one. You can even do it when you're sleeping (not when you're unconscious though ya stupid fuck). Well here's what dickhead, you're fucking crap at breathing. Hate ta break it to ya, but here's how it goes. I think I'm being fairly obviously in saying that if we didn't breath we would die (wow I am buzzinggg to say something retarded like that), but I bet you didn't realise just how important our good o2 is. The minute you get out of this smoketrap of a city we call London, the minute you realise how shit the quality of our air is. There's a reason people who live outside the cities are the way they are, although it does turn them a bit funny let's not beat around the bush). A while ago I borrowed a book called Healing without Freud or Prozac: Natural Approaches to Curing Stress, Anxiety and Depression without Drugs and without Psychoanalysis , link here, had to Amazon that fucker, happy now. It was a pretty amazing read, I thoroughly recommend it, although you may have to hide behind something else on the bus, unless you want people thinking you're a bit loopy. Basically the first chapter is about breathing, and some simple exercises to enter your brain into a state of high concentration, I'm not gonna go into it now (read the book for fuck sake) but by learning how to control your breathing you can easily make a potentially damaging situation into a good one in the blink of the moment. Learning how to control your breathing through sex is also VERY intense, I think there's some shit about it in the karma sutra or something. I bet hardly any of us have ever tried to meditate, but there's so many good things about clearing your mind and thinking in a productive way, hell how the fuck do you think we have evolved from shitting in our hands to 4 blade razors. The basic concept of meditation is to think about nothing but your breathing, concentrate only on taking in the perfect breath and feeling yourself exhale, this is harder than you think, I've been trying it for a while now on and off and I can't say I've ever properly been in a state of meditation. Most of the time I use it to get to sleep, which I suppose you could call a state of meditation, more rest and dreamtime if you're being anal.

I could probably go on longer, but I can feel my brain melting and I have a gnarly day tomorrow so I might round it off. Apologies also if I've made you feel like a retard by stating the obvious so much, but sometimes it just needs to be done. So yea, I'm not condoning the use of drugs, shit I take as much as the rest of you, but I can definitely see myself getting bored of them, already bored of this shit that we keep shoving up our noses, meph, mioaw miaow or whatever the fuck you wanna call it (who calls a drug mcat, I mean come on), cheap knock off in my opinion. I think we may have all skipped a beat in taking so much so early in our lives, people say you make your friends at uni for life because they're the people you first take drugs with, but I know there's already certain people in my life who aren't going anywhere anytime soon because of the scatty times we've had that have brought us closer together, or at least I hope not. Shit some of us even go back primary school days, christ. What else, oh yeah eat right drink right breathe right and err, think right? think that's everything I dribbled about for a good hour, never get that back again. Stay positive

Less drama think about karma

James