What follows is the first chapter of my podcast storybook which is about the long term consequences of social exclusion and isolation. Where that took me. The acute and damaging consequences of living like that. It also exposes some of the dark aspects of the state social control system, commonly known as ‘mental health services’.
I started writing this around 2018 and it was kind of ironic when lockdown happened as I already knew only too well the dangers of exclusion and of spending too much time alone. It is not for no reason that solitary confinement is a weapon used by the state against detainees. Even for a loner like myself, man is not an island and long term isolation is a risky business
What I describe is the processes via which a slow disintegration occurs, a gradual dismantling of the mind, which is subtle at first but gets ever more disturbing as time goes on.
It is is a spiritual journey too, this solitary path gave me new insights into the other world. Breakdown of the mind leads to deep awareness of what else is both out there, and inside ourselves.
If anyone would prefer to read it, I have posted the text below too. The setting of this whole podcast is at a week-long inquest into my partner’s death, partly set at the Coroner’s court and partly in the pub where I was staying at the time. I have changed the dates slightly and also the names of people and places to protect identities but the events are as I remember them.
I dedicate this to Heavenli … may she rest in peace
I ONLY SEE STRANGERS
To Heavenli
Wild at heart and forever young
Chapter One
‘Bye bye’
It’s hard to work out the exact point my life reduced itself to a series of encounters with strangers. To be somebody, there has to be somebody else. Somewhere. And there wasn’t. Everybody was a stranger, including me, and you can’t quantify those things. Strangers are shifting sands. There’s never anything to hold onto.
It wasn’t a specific decision I made at any particular point in time. That’s it. Bye bye people. I’m alright Jack. On me tod. One man band, look at me, no hands. Robinson Crusoe would have paled in my presence kind of thing. It was slow and subtle. I’ll call Jerry next week. But then he hasn’t called me. After Christmas, yeh, in the New Year. Where’s his number? Shit five years, is it that long?
Human beings aren’t optional extras. They are fixed on the curriculum. You can’t just skip the classes and think no one will notice, coz you know a lot about gerbils and there’s got to be transferable skills around that. Hominini have strict rules like no other beasts, which is why they take so long to mature. Their communications are highly complex. There’s a huge amount to learn. And you can’t get it from books.
We’re meant to be social animals but to be sociable you got to have some bod to socialise with and that means making a grunt or visible sign in the direction of AN other. And AN other has to grunt back. There’s this co-ordination thing that has to be done and its horrendously complicated. You have to have a memory or a calendar, and a rock solid belief in your future projection skills. You must be one hundred percent sure that on Wednesday at 2.15pm when your calendar screams /phone bleeps telling you you absolutely have to meet Mabel, that you have mapped every star position and factored in all possible hiccups or catastrophes that could very likely happen between this moment now and Wednesday at 2.15pm. It’s too scary. So you don’t bother. You let go of seeing Mabel for another few centuries. If you'd known that Mabel would call you at 12.59 on Wednesday to tell you that she’d lost her shoes so she wasn’t overly keen on venturing out to meet you, you would have happily made that arrangement a million times over.
Spending all your time alone is like a personal revolution to overthrow yourself. It’s not long before you are somebody else. A thing sprouting prickles. One or two at first but it don’t take long before those little bastards are popping out exponentially. Then it’s full on curled up impenetrable ball on the sniff of one passer by. Other people change too. Friends are long gone and strangers get stranger. And what’s worse, strangers is all there is. Every interaction you have is with a stranger. And they’re getting stranger.
There was a point when my world became parallel. The other world, where other people went, was over there somewhere. On the rare occasion I found myself ‘over there’ it was like wandering onto a film set where I was neither cast nor crew, not even an extra. This phenomenon progressed until every glance my way was a kick and any gesture, an act of war.
There are things I could have done different. The odd ‘super’ or ‘awesome’ wouldn’t have gone amiss when ‘Dickie/Lottie/Freddy’s tooth came through or ‘Ginny/Jenny got made captain of the hockey team’. And more crucially, when I crossed over into the twenty first century, there were countless opportunities when I could have liked more dumb posts or retweeted the latest twirp.
No matter though. Who needs people when you can scream at the walls and laugh at your own jokes?
Jean-Paul Satre was spot on when he he worked out that ‘hell is other people’, but what he forgot to say is that no one has yet invented an alternative. When you’re stuck in the loft and the ladders’s fallen away from the hatch, it’s hard to get Jacinta the Gerbil to scurry to the rescue. And it’s unlikely even Max/Monty will lift a paw and or reposition it with his nose. Since robots aren’t widely available yet, the best hope you’ve got is that Felix joins you with the can opener and refrains from miaowing all night and waking the neighbours.
Too long spinning alone on the wheel and everything starts flying off. Wet clay needs the odd touch. People aren’t that different. They need a potter from time to time.
By my early twenties I’d had it. I didn’t want whatever I t was and it didn’t want me. I didn’t fit in whatever slot anyhow, and if modern homo sapiens don’t see a place on the team for you, you’re out. They won’t even keep you on the benches.
It may be true that two’s company and three’s a crowd. But there is a certainty to beat all certainties. And that is this.
One is the loneliest number.
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