Idiots (Ignorance part two)

A few weeks ago, someone I know told me that she got 'pelted with eggs'. She was surprised and in total disbelief:-

"I don't understand. Why would they do such a thing??!!"

I was surprised myself. Not because of the actual incident. But because of the fact that she was surprised that this had happened to her. What I then said surprised myself but only after a few minutes after thinking about it:-

"I've been pelted with eggs numerous times. Why are you so surprised?"

The fact that it had never happened to her and it was the first time must have been quite shocking to her. The reason I was surprised with what I said was because I then told her that I EXPECT to get pelted with eggs.

That when I am walking the streets and I see a car drive past and the window is down, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if eggs were thrown.

That is the "surprising" and shocking world that we live in.

I tried to explain to her how ignorant some people are.

They aren't pelting me with eggs because of what I look like, or how I dress, or what music I like.

They are pelting me with eggs because of who I am. They are attacking me for who I am. But they don't know who I am. They know nothing. Yet they still do it. Why? It may never be known. Just like they will never know me. And that is a shame.

But what I do know is that the sooner you get used to this kind of behaviour, the less upset you will get about it. It's not right for this to happen-of course it's not right.

But this is the world that we live in.

With much worse things happening around us.

The privileged life (Ignorance part one)

I want to start this post of by writing a few things that people have said to me during the course of the year:-

"You work part-time in retail? You must earn around £20,000 a year."

"No, it wasn't that expensive. It just cost a few thousand."

"It's common for single mothers to have cleaners."

For me, it is really baffling how I always think that it is me who is out of touch with things. I am indeed actually out of touch with a lot of things but for people to say these kind of things to me just goes to show that I am not alone in being out of touch. It's a nice thought in some ways. As with ignorance, they are so ignorant, they don't even know that they are being ignorant.

For people who are brought up into rich families and have been born with silver spoons in their mouths would find it very difficult to understand the working peoples' lifestyle. It is not easy to work and live on minimum wage. House sharing with parent(s), or just living with people you don't want to really live with-in a house you don't really want to live in. Not shopping in Waitrose but in Aldi instead. The food is exactly the same, but of course, you are so much more classier if you shop at the former.

Missing meals.

Constantly dipping into savings. Wondering if there will ever be a time when you can treat yourself. Sometimes it just seems like constant pressure.

The three statements above would never be said by someone who had a remote bit of knowledge on how difficult it is for some people to just get by. I sometimes feel ashamed that I am in this position of working part-time in retail. I feel like people look down on me-in fact, I KNOW that people look down on me. Whether it is a conscious decision for them to look down on me or not-I know that they do.

But when I think about it, should I feel ashamed? Is it right for me to feel ashamed? Is it right that it is me who is feeling ashamed, or should it be the people who have absolutely no idea how hard it is for others who automatically disrespect and put down others who they perceive to be below them? Aren't they the ones who should be ashamed simply for being so ignorant?

They can go to their private schools but are they really educated? They may think that they are but do they even have a clue what life is? No. And they never will. But on the flipside, I will never understand them either. Their own lifestyles. The only way I could would be if I won the lottery-but even then, I would know what it's like to sometimes struggle. I would know what it's like to be looked down on.

I'm not stereotyping everyone or anyone who is better off than me at all. I am just pointing out the things that I have to deal with due to the absolute ignorance of some arses. If you can afford to have a good life, then live it.

But respect is such a massive thing for me. Sometimes respect can go a long way. Unfortunately, there are some people who will never understand that.

Diwali #4

I didn't write one last year due to a hell of a lot of shit going on. It didn't seem right. In some ways it seems even less right now but here goes.

It is Diwali today. The Indian equivalent of Christmas. Tomorrow will be the new year. Today is the darkest night of the year-so candles, diyas and lanterns will be lit. 

For those that don't know, Diwali symbolises Light over darkness. Hope over despair. Knowledge over ignorance. Good over evil. Right over wrong.

It used to be my favourite time of the year. However, everyday is the same to me now. 

In Hindu philosophy, it is believed that there is an afterlife. That there is more to just the physical body and that there is an inner-self. A soul. A soul which is pure, infinite, eternal.  

There are things which happen in life. Things that are unreasonable. Beyond unreasonable. Things that can leave you wondering, questioning. Things that can leave you forever sad.

Things that can leave you empty and lost. 

But maybe all is not lost. 

All is never lost. 

If what I have written is true. If there is Light over darkness. Hope over despair. Knowledge over ignorance. Good over evil. Right over wrong. 

If what I have wrote about an afterlife. A pure, infinite, eternal soul being all true.

(I hope it is all true). 

Then today, Diwali. 

It truly is a day of celebration. No matter what happens in life-or afterlife.

Things are going to be OK.

This post is for Louise and Will x

R.I.P Myles Oliver Neale 12/10/2014 x

Lust > Love

I suppose it's all fun and games until feelings get into it.

Lust. Love.

The former.

You are horny, you see someone attractive (for me attraction is about the mind as well as the physical features). You want them. You want to screw them, fuck them, make love to them, have sex with them. However you want to put it. It's good. It fulfills you. You go on living life and doing your thing. It's simple. It's easy. Nobody gets hurt.

So then what comes with the latter?

What comes with Love?

Understanding. Companionship.

Something beautiful. A sensation that in my opinion, no written word could really ever describe. Especially anything I may write. Just the thought of that person makes your heart smile.

Their actions, the way they laugh, their movements, the way they speak, the things they say. Their characteristics.

Their everything.

It all sounds so amazing. But unfortunately, there is an awful flip-side.

What else comes with it?

It can make you go crazy.

What if love breaks down? What if one person doesn't feel the same way as the other person?

What if you love someone and they don't love you back?

Hurt, anger, jealousy. Worthlessness?

Pain. Sheer fucking emotional pain.

How would YOU feel if that happened to you? How would you feel if the person you loved didn't care about you? That they didn't even acknowledge your existence?

Imagine if you love someone and they were with someone else. Imagine them being kissed, touched, fucked by that someone else. Imagine them not even caring about your feelings.

Would you feel betrayed? But how can it be betrayal if they don't care about you and never did? If they don't feel the same about you and never did? It's not even fucking betrayal.

Each person is different. Some are strong. Some can move on.

Others suffer. Others become miserable. They feel like there is no point. They don't want to exist anymore. They want to be dead. How can this happen?

What if you loved someone and you had to let it go but you could never let it go? No matter how hard you tried? Give it time some say. No. That doesn't always work.

The emptiness.

No matter what you do, you can't stop thinking about them? You can't stop crying, shaking, trembling.

Are you supposed to just ache forever? What do you fucking do??

Lust. Love.

I choose the former.

An amazing cause but I didn't want to get pressured into participating.

I think the latest craze has passed? Therefore I am writing this. 

Recently, a lot of people around the world decided to pour ice cold water over themselves to raise awareness for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and to raise money for the ALS association. 

Now this was a huge worldwide thing which I wasn't even aware of at first as apparently it started on a social networking site which I don't use. For anyone out there who doesn't know-this was called "The ice bucket challenge". 

The challenge aims to raise awareness for ALS and money for the ALS Association. 

The British equivalent is called The Motor Neurone Disease association (MND) which benefited a great deal. 

Fifty-six per cent of those who did participate in the ice bucket challenge for ALS said they did not donate afterwards, while over a third of people who did it said they did the challenge just to gain attention on social media.

A further one in ten claimed to have done the ice bucket challenge because they felt pressured into doing so after receiving a nomination.

In Britain only sixteen per cent said they donated between £1 and £3 to an ALS charity after completing the challenge, while three per cent said they donated £10 or more.

But before the ice bucket challenge was introduced, The MND association received an average of £200,000 a week in donations. On the last week in August, it received £2.7M!

The ALS during the whole of last year well over $2.5M but in just one month, the charity made $98.2M!! 

The amount of money going to such a good cause is just absolutely incredible. That is an amazing amount of money. A lot of people around the world participated.

Some really believed in donating money for a good cause.

Some wanted attention and for some celebrities, this was a great chance to try and get back into the limelight. How many women wore really tight tops and nothing underneath? How sexy. But also of course, celebrities can't make themselves look bad. 

Some actually had no clue what was going on and were just following a trend that had caught on.

It raised so much awareness that literally millions of people are more in the know about this condition now then they were before the ice bucket challenge.

The "challenge" was to pour ice cold water over your head. You record it. You then donate to the charity. You then nominate three people after doing so to do the "challenge". And they must do it. They have to. If they don't then...I'm not really sure? Oh wait, they have to donate more money to the charity if they didn't participate. It's the rule and everyone who is nominated has to play. 

Did I play? No. 

Social pressure has become a really big thing. And when something on social media has gathered so many people into making decisions based on what everyone else has decided to do can make a person feel like they are doing the wrong thing if they decide not to participate. It can make them feel bad. The most kind person can feel like they are doing something wrong if they didn't participate. In this case, the most kind person would have to pour a bucket of ice cold water over their head to not feel bad. Or the most kind person would have to give more money to a charity to which they might not have a personal connection with if they didn't want to have a bucket of ice cold water poured over their head.

I was in a pub sat next to a friend when he stared panicking as he had just been "nominated" and claimed that he would now "have to do it."

And that is what it comes down to for me. 

I do love the fact that so much money has gone to charity and such a good cause for a condition that is truly horrible. 

I would like to donate my money to the stroke association. I would like to donate to childrens' charities. I would like to buy food for people who can't afford to. Am I allowed to nominate people to do this? 

It's national water day on the 22nd of March. I am not going to talk about water wastage and how around 768 million people in the world don't have any water. But it's a difficult one because fundraising in itself.

I have yet to donate to the MND. But I will donate to them. As it has raised my awareness too to the awful things that happen for someone who gets this fatal neurodegenerative disease.

Although at the same time and I really don't mean to sound as cold as ice water, but I don't want to feel pressured into giving or doing something that I don't want to do. Ever. 

Happy birthday Dad #2

It may be a pointless thing to write or it may not be. I am not sure. But he would have been 65 today.

When I first started going out at around 18 years old there was one night where I got home at about 2:30am in the morning with me having to go to college the next day. I didn't start drinking alcohol until  a few months before then and my limit was about three drinks. I may have had four that night as I was pretty out of it.

I wasn't used to alcohol back then.

I was hungry. Very hungry.

Is this what alcohol did?

I looked in the freezer and there was a pack of chic-sticks. I could shove a few in the oven and maybe have a fifteen minute nap until they were done! What a great idea. It was cold. I also had to put the heater on in the front room.

So about twenty minutes later, I heard these heavy footsteps pounding down the stairs and I just thought "shit". Then I remember my dad shouting at me in a booming thunderous voice. Something like "COLLEGE IN THE MORNING, WHAT TIME DO YOU CALL THIS!?" etc. My head was hurting a bit.

Is this what alcohol did?

He then asked me what the hell that burning smell was. I told him I couldn't smell anything. But I could really. My chic-sticks were burning. Then it was something like "YOU PUT FOOD IN THE OVEN AT THIS TIME AND THEN YOU FALL ASLEEP ON THE SOFA WITH BOTH THE HEATER AND OVEN ON!?"

Then he said "Do you want me to order you some food? I'll give you some money."

Pride IS prejudice

It's not a typo.

It is the end of pride weekend again in Manchester. Every year, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people have a festival where they celebrate their lives/the way they choose to live.

I have always believed that no matter who you are, whatever your circumstances, finding happiness and acceptance is possible. I don't know the answers as to how. But SOMEHOW it is possible. Only sometimes a person can be blinded by things that they may say they are totally against to stop themselves in finding TRUE happiness.

Philosophical but back to the point. The Pride festival takes place on canal street every year on a bank holiday weekend where they fence up the outer parts of the street and then charge around £25 for people to enter the street to be able to enjoy what I imagine (if you were into the music that gets played there and all the other stuff) quite an amazing night. Everyone that goes to this festival seems to have an incredible night. Extortionate prices so surely you have to have a good night? Or you have to tell yourself you have a good night. I have yet to meet a person that said it was bad.

There have been times when I have been through canal street and the bouncers on every door have stopped me from entering the bar on which they were guarding. Why wasn't I allowed in? Was it because it was too full? No. Was it because I was too drunk? No. Was it because I wasn't dressed appropriately? No. Any of these reasons, I could accept. The reason I wasn't allowed in any of these places was because I'm not gay, bisexual or a transgender or a transsexual. The bouncer would tell me "members only." Once I was with a couple of friends and it was pouring down with typical Manchester rain and door after door we were being turned away with "members only." One of my friends didn't know what those code words meant and after being turned away five times started losing patience "how are we supposed to become members if we can't get in anywhere in the first place?!" He was even more annoyed after it was explained to him what those code words actually meant. The one place that did let us in said we would have to sit upstairs AWAY from everyone else. There was the three of us, a small bar, one disgruntled barman and the rest of the room was completely empty whilst the downstairs part was full of music, atmosphere, frolics and the rest of it. Not only that, but at midnight we were told that the upstairs part was closing-thinking we would then be able to go downstairs, we were then asked to leave the premises instead. Last orders for the downstairs part was 3am.

Last week my friend got approached in Canal Street by some thug like woman who shouted at her "What are you doing in here?! You're not a lesbian?!" My other quick thinking friend said "She's er... she's er... SHE'S BI-CURIOUS.

So can you imagine on the flip-side if there was a gay person who went into a pub and was turned away for being gay? Can you imagine if a bouncer said to this person "members only" and when challenged, the bouncer would then say "no gays." It would be in the news. On the front page:-

"Uproar as homophobic bar refuses to serve gay people."

The reaction would be huge. People would boycott the place, there would be protests, fights, riots!

Maybe I am going a bit too far. But the point is that this is no different from a person who isn't gay, getting turned away from a gay bar.

I understand that there are a lot of haters out there. A lot of homophobic people. A lot of people who don't even understand transgenders, never mind accepting and respecting them for who they are and that maybe gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgenders feel safe in an environment where they will be accepted. They wouldn't want their haven to attract people who are afraid of the unfamiliar to then maybe take some kind of hatred out on them. I do understand that. I get hate because I am Indian. I get hate because I support Manchester United. I even get misunderstood through the choice of music I listen too. I also understand wanting to be accepted. Wanting for people to understand.

But at the same time, accepting a person for who they are and what they choose to do with their lives will never be understood by a lot of people because of what society is doing to itself. Maybe there will come a day when a person can go anywhere they like without being judged, hated or misunderstood.

Without having to be a certain type of person just to be accepted.