This is a long entry - the kind you need to take the morning off to get through. I’m sorry. There’s a lot going on in my head right now. Most of it’s pieced together from conversations I’ve been having with people over the past few days, because other people can occasionally be invaluable in order to see yourself through another person’s eyes. If you haven’t got the time - and I really wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t - scroll down. There’s a picture of me and Patrick Wolf and some funny movies from YouTube below that make me laugh as an alternative.

For those of you who don’t know Ben, Ben’s decided to do something.

And it’s crunch time.

A few days ago, when I decided to do what I’m about to do, I felt free. It was like nothing I’ve felt before. I suddenly felt so explosively happy. A million ideas came alive in my head. So many things I suddenly wanted to do. I think the first one was wanting to take a night train to the Devon coast and walk along the cliff tops. Then I wanted to skip around Highgate Woods with Danse Macabre screaming into my ears from my iPod. As the prospect took further root I suddenly wanted to start a new literary movement - one for intelligent and creatively articulate young men who refuse point blank to disappear between the cracks of meaningless, ephemeral 9 to 5 trudgery. A beat movement revival maybe - in the spirit of humanity, vomiting up anything original that’s already been eaten up because the purity of thought is too rich to properly digest the first time around. Indigestion. Such a movement would have to wear a slightly more parochial, slightly more self-deprecating name to be born out of North London, rather than 1950s America.

The Beetroot Movement perhaps.

In short, I felt, for the first time in a long time, like I could do anything.

Because I can.

I can do anything.

All of us can. We just forget this. We trap ourselves. We need to pay the mortage, or get the kids into a good school. There’s a Voice Of Reason that tells us not to go chasing rainbows, pipedreams or any other fuzzy-shaped metaphor because we’re adults now, and we have responsibilities. We should start behaving like an adult should. We should start to live like a grown up.

Now I have never been, and cannot conceive of myself as ever being, a “grown up.” I’ve chased silly dreams and reached for The Stars Unreachable ever since I could stretch an arm. I don’t believe in limits other than the limits we set ourselves. And having been an appallingly unreformed smoker for the past ten years, I know of no greater ingenuity than that demonstrated by a man who has no money and needs nicotine.

You (yes you) can do anything you want.

So, as you might have guessed by now, tomorrow morning I will hand in my one month’s notice and take my chances, for just a few weeks at first, as a full time writer. A novelist. A poet. A desperate, frustrated beans-on-toast eating unemployed person whoring himself out to agents and magazines. An ex-rat, retired from the race.

My only concerns at first, still riding high on the crest of self-expression, was how I would survive one last final month of servitude. Having turned on the light at the end of the tunnel, I want nothing more than to run full steam ahead towards it.

I. Do. Know. That. The. Next. Month. Is. Undoubtedly. Going. To. Be. The. Most. Agonising. Wait. That. I. Have. Certainly. Ever. Endured.

But tonight I’ve left a door open somewhere, clearly. Whilst the defence mechanisms of my persona were celebrating - dancing and drinking, patting themselves on the back for both their resolve and having finished editing a paragraph or two in Chapter Five of my long suffering novel that I’ve picked up again, amidst the blaring bad karaoke - the demons broke out, and now they’re quietly creeping about the party in disguise, picking on one guard after another - telling them that they’re fat, or that their flies are undone, or that the cute blond standing across the room isn’t into guards like them. Every so often a voice can be heard above the brawl of the party:

“What the fuck am I doing?”

I’m halfway between enthusiasm to press on into the unknown towards pure ambition, and terror to leave security behind and drink it safe and steady, but dilute.

I’ve tried to juggle Ben the Administrator and Ben the writer for two and a half years now. It doesn’t fit. It’s incompatible. In fact, Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker know nothing about living the double life. I’ve dillied and dallied about quitting for months now, waiting for another job to come up that’s sympathetic to what I want to do with my life. None have. So now I’m just cutting away the bane and taking my chances with a pocket full of skimpy savings and a few good contacts. I’ll do temping after a month or so when things get desperate, and I’ve got some good friends in good places who are keeping their eyes open for me should I need another job.

I could fail, sure, but I could also fail in the long run by spending the rest of my life being nothing more than a PA/Administrator who used to have dreams once. And the way I feel at the moment, I’d in all honesty rather become a Buddhist monk than go back to being one of Dolly’s footsoldiers.

There’s just this doubt. This constant, unrelenting, unsilenceable doubt, over and over again like the painful melody of one hundred dripping taps:

“Whatttt The Fuckkkk Are You Doinggg?…”

As a footnote, because life often really needs them, as I write this, Louis Armstrong has started singing ‘We Have All The Time In The World’.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Tomorrow belongs to me. Tomorrow will tell all. Only love. The answer has got to be love.

The only thing I’m scared of at the moment, far more than making a go of this and failing, is chickening out tomorrow morning.

“Patrick, I’m sorry, but could I have a photo?”
“No, sorry, I…”
“NOW, BEN, NOW!”

Very well then, so I shall go mad. I will hold my breath until my toes turn blue. I will talk to ghosts and falling leaves and laugh when it rains. Again. I will peek behind time - a twitch of the net curtain that you’re not supposed to go behind. Then I will break into Peace and dig up a grave or two to ask the past what it thought about not being alive anymore, and if it came as a terribly big surprise. YOU COULD SEE IT COMING YOU STUPID FUCKING CORPSE. Couldn’t you? COULDN’T YOU? WHY DIDN’T YOU… Forget that. That’s a metaphor. I wouldn’t ever bother a dead person. How would you feel if your ancestors invited themselves to dinner and told you that you’re a big disappointment? Know your places and get there or stay there. Don’t intrude. I will run and run and run from this field of death until I am out of breath. I will talk myself into a stupor to others, stupid stupidity, because I’m making sense to myself. Yup, to be that mad old man on the bench again, somewhere between a granddad and a scary drunk. Tramps are either wise or stupid. Like people. Tramps are just like people. Tramps must be people too. Astounding. So if a tramp is a person and people like tramps can be just as insightful as a falling leaf, then does everything really make sense? Nonsense! Where art thou? Why does everything seem too sensible? With Out You. Why does everything seem so ancient? Why do I have no fear? Of any of it. I’m not afraid of anything here because I know that none of it matters. I’m staring at a blank wall and wondering why it doesn’t frighten me. Would it frighten you? I only ask because I get so trapped in your stupidly sensible words. You have this wonderful way of saying everything so simply, without the clumsiness of music, meaning or magic. Cage, clenched fist - whatever. You have building-brick logic. You keep a study without mouseholes. You tidy everything up and throw away the things that you don’t need until everything is so orderly in its sterility and interchangeable uniformity of authorised singularity. Singularity. That’s another name for a black hole you know. This big incredible thing - this hungry mouth sucking up anything and everything, gravity and light itself. And there’s not even only one. There’s a universe of them. An infinite amount. The hungry underside has many mouths, and Hell has been bought by a larger company and mass produced at half the cost. Hommo. Odgeyness. Some big space-faring dick-shaped vacuum cleaner poked itself into this corner of the cosmos and switched itself into reverse to piss away all the real meaning and real sense and real logic a long time ago leaving just dead sodden skin. All hail the second cumming of The Great Dick Shaped Vacuum Cleaner. I’ll give you £50 for your faith. First there was paradise, then came the fall. Then there was the war. Now there is nothing. Dead skin and silent chaos and rocks and damp carcasses litter little battlefields still years afterwards. Victory to the rain. Not even the wind. So this is Peace. This silence. This place where the purple ribboned empire rots unheard like meat plucked clean from where it lived like happy flesh in plasma, left in a fridge. Pointless. Stop this. End. Plastic packaged dreams have no value because they never degrade.

When I was a kid my friends thought it was hilarious that Mary Poppins scared me.

Someone else clearly felt the same way:

Proof yet again that it’s all in the music.

Since when were heart attacks the epitome of butchness?

Any amateur photgrapher will know that a snow scene is a perfect opportunity for contrast.

I didn’t expect the metaphor in this to be quite so stark.

Snow scene at home:

Postcard-perfect picturesque and serene. This view from my bedroom window and outside my flat made me squeal with childish glee when I saw it.

“It’s snowing! It’s snowing in London!”

Snow scene at work:

No white pavements, no dusted trees. Just grey sludge and mud everywhere. This sight as I left Euston Station instantly rendered me utterly depressed at the prospect of another day in the office.

“It’s Wednesday. It’s Wednesday in London.”

Most of this was generic guff, but the following paragraphs struck a chord. Or was it a nerve?

Are you delaying reality?
Many people take temporary or unsatisfying jobs to make money before pursuing their dream job. This is a reasonable strategy. But have you ever met people who are in the same job five or ten years down the road, even though it isn’t what they really want to do? The challenge is that pursuing your dreams may require a sacrifice in lifestyle, time, or money. Unfortunately, too many people get used to a certain lifestyle and aren’t willing to make the necessary changes. As a result, it can be difficult to give up what a person is accustomed to, even if it’s not ultimately fulfilling. It can also be tempting to some people to hold on to a dream and not pursue it in order to avoid failing. Remind yourself: There are no dress rehearsals in life. Everyday you don’t work toward pursuing your goals is another day you’re delaying the fulfillment of your dreams. Go for what you really want today; you don’t want to look back on your life with regret.

Success is doing something you love
Too many people in our society pick careers based on status, money, or their parents’ expectations. It’s nice to walk into a party and tell people you have a prestigious profession, but if your work isn’t something you love doing, then that momentary feeling of pride will be fleeting. Explore why you are in your current career. Who supported you? If your parents or other family members did not influence you to go in this profession, would you be in it now? If not, what do you think you would’ve chosen on your own? It’s not that people don’t find happiness in careers that weren’t their first or second choice, but it’s important to come to terms with the choices that led to where you are today and why. Through this type of reflection, you may even make peace with decisions you made in the past.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6281309.stm