Finally bought Tarkovsky's Stalker. To me places have feelings which I can't put into words and seem attached to mysticism. As I've gotten older I've noticed it less, perhaps for the usual reason of being too locked into memories of the past to completely take in my present surroundings. Still I watch Stalker and get this feel of that generalized area of the world. I'm reminded of my visit to Kazakhstan. All of Russia comes together with this feeling, all the Russian writers I've read. The few movies I've seen. All presents this feeling which I can't explain. Something positive about it. Sort of like the UK and my strange feeling I was meant to have lived there, although nowhere near as strong.

The beginning sequence of making it into The Zone feels like a dream, not quite realistic. Reminds me of Sleeping Child's Play.

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Finally switched to just one night shift a week instead of 3. This should be a huge positive in my life. The really bad part of working nightshifts was the days off, spent up all alone through the middle of the night. Just couldn't switch my sleeping back and forth that much. Hopefully switching for a single day won't be so bad.

An intelligent student at work said I could speak online to people in Asia, etc at night. My response was a bit too derisive really. It just came out too quick. Was very tired by that point from a hard day plus have such an incredibly negative outlook on internet interactions now.

Has been good to blog for me though. Hard to go back over old posts. Hard but I think very good. So hard to remember my unhappiness. But brings it home that I want a future within which I can look back on the past and not have the feeling I have now. I want to look back on positive memories.

But how positive can they ever really be in dystopia?

I can't unknow that this is a dytopia. It's like mowing the lawn. Recently reading a book (Edible Estates) which talks in great detail about what a pointless negative thing lawn mowing is. Yesterday as I was mowing the lawn I was thinking about how I've always known this. Since I was 11, 12 years old. I've always understood this despite it back then taking place in a manner that I couldn't articulate. I've no problem with hard work provided it isn't a ridiculous utter waste of time. I can't forget how retarded lawn mowing is and in the same way I can't forget this is dystopia and so how happy can I ever really be?

Trying to fall asleep last night and wanted a happy thing to think about. Had to stay up a bit and sleep alone to get ready for single night shift tonight. I used to sometimes try to think happy thoughts about a person I knew who lived in the UK. That person's made it extremely difficult for me to continue thinking happy thoughts about her.

Eating green vegetables, blueberry smoothies and daily running really help with sleeping well. As does thinking happy thoughts while falling asleep. This knowledge I have, that this world is a dystopia, which I guess others don't have, much like apparently most people enjoy mowing their lawn, it can be forgotten if I'm focusing on people for whom my interactions have been positive. It doesn't work with my wife because she's right here. There's nothing missing to fill in with imagination.

The missing though... so easy to fill it with negatives though. Especially with a strong imagination and a life already quite full of negatives. It's perhaps dangerous to deal with people whom have too much missing info.

About lawn mowing though, so much pain in this world, so much unhappiness that can't be avoided. We ought to have fun when we can, and so what do people do?

They make sure their land has only one single type of very boring plant on it and make sure each frond is exactly the same height by spending a very loud hour or two of each of their precious few days off from work cutting it. They're overworked to begin with and so this is what they do with their free time.

They might as well just go back to work on Saturdays instead.

You point out how ridiculous it is and how do they respond? They make up crap. About a horde of snakes overtaking the land and so on. Humans are hopeless. I suppose they're evolved into this, this creature that wouldn't know what to do with it's self if it wasn't doing some drugery.

Another thing about work, was thinking about the whole 'how are you? I'm fine. And you?" exchange. It's not only that you have to say you're fine even if you aren't because the other person actually has no real connection to you and couldn't do anything even if you weren't. Even worse, saying you're not fine makes it sound like you're unstable and maybe a liability as an employee there. Again, the fake smile. In dystopia everyone is smiling. And everyone's fine. Because those who aren't smiling, those who aren't fine, are dangerous, unstable, not to be trusted with jobs, etc.

Yet still I also ask people how they are. And I'm sure they lie and say they're fine when they're not. To not do so would be so rude. It would be seen as me saying, I'm not even going to pretend that I give a damm how you are. In truth I want to really give a damm. But you know, no one's going to say they're not fine, except for maybe an annoying cold, etc.