Where did I come from....

Hello folks...I am back and still continuing on my voyage of self discovery and inner musings via the way of my weekly rant. Sorry for the delay but slight technical problem, one of the silent assassins, who are other wise known as my three boys decided to destroy the plug on the laptops AC adapter, no power = no blog. Almost thought I might have had to resort to a pen and paper for my weekly rantings.

But again I wander from my initial thoughts and purpose.

I was recently invited by an old friend to join an online group of writers/bloggers and one of the first questions posted by a member of the group was in regards to everyones background and where our motivation lies, which did get me thinking a bit about my past, present and future and as to why I have suddenly decided  taken up writing.

Firstly I am a bloke, born in the early seventies and dragged up in the late eighties and early nineties. A devotee of the Smiths, Morrisey, The Cure, The Housemartins and the Beautiful South to name a few. I was there the night Darren Millane took his last ride after a night at the Tunnel. I was around when disco bickies flooded Australia and our inhibitions disappeared on a wave of euphoria. My discovery of Johnnie Walker in the early nineties lead to the first major rise in a stock price caused by one individuals personal consumption. I had a highly addictive personality and had scant disregard for myself and others well being. Commitment was something that I feared and emotions were something to be suppressed and not shared. These feelings were caused by my own naivety and substantially by an all to unwanted intimate experience within the confines of the local church at an early age, if you follow my drift. I was hell bent on living a life of excess and personal gratification, in other words I was a male tart with a commitment phobia and addiction issues, not exactly the type of bloke any decent woman would take home to Mum and Dad. To say that I was not always honest with others and myself would be akin to actually believing that the Iraq wars were not based upon control over the oil industry. My life at that stage was about denial and doing my utmost to obliterate memories of where I came from and who I was by any means possible.

I remember someone once telling me that I was the most intelligent bloke they knew but in saying that I also had the compensity to make the dumbest decisions they had ever seen, in hindsight they were bang on. I was an absolute spanker for the majority of my late teenage and early adulthood years. So what has changed, if anything I hear your minds asking? Well for one, I made a decision when I was in my mid 20's that resulted in my father seeing me in a state that no parent should have to see their child in. I do not know if it was the look of pity, disgust, shame or failure that I saw in my Dads eyes that day, it could have been a mixture of all of the them. But it was something that I did not wish to see ever again as his look made me feel those exact same emotions and for the first time in a long time I actually thought about the impact of my actions on those around me. I am not going to sit here and say that I clicked my fingers or rubbed my belly and magically everything was better. I stumbled and faltered many times, there were relapses and failed relationships, I would panic and close up/off and hope that the other person would get sick of me and leave before I hurt them via the way of my selfish acts. Yes I know it sounds crazy but it seemed to work in my mind, I hated confrontation, but by doing the above actions I created the exact bloody scenario I was trying to avoid. Men and their stupid right sided brains....so it would end up in me disappearing as I deemed this was the best course of action in my dumb male head for the avoidance of any perceived potential conflict.

But with the stumbles and falls came a resolve to overcome and succeed, I am incredibly stubborn by nature, just ask anyone close to me, my addictive personality developed into a competitive, success driven persona. I actually realised that talking and letting things out can be of some use, startling isn't, maybe they should develop a science on this theory and call it Psychology. My hold on life and the world I lived in slowly began to firm up, demons from the past were excised and plans were put in place to move forward. You could say I had almost found calm and inner peace, or maybe I had actually became confident and comfortable in my own skin. What ever had finally gelled gave me the determination to keep looking up and forward and not be scared anymore, it was time to live my life. So is this latest musing of mine an apology to those that I let down and hurt, or is it the final piece of my therapy, that is having the courage to write about and acknowledge my past? I think it is a blend of both. Am I scared that i am putting this out in a public forum? My answer to this question is no, this is where I came from....I may not be proud of my past but it did make me who I am now and for that I am thankful in a strange sort of way.

So what keeps the SS Allan steaming forward, simple, the love of a good woman and three beautiful sons. I am not going to delve headlong into a synopsis on my relationship, or my boys as I will keep those for another day. But I will say that if I ever felt the old personality traits beginning to surface all I would need to do to quell the fires would be to have a peek into either of my boys rooms as they are sleeping. Motivation does not come any stronger than that.

Like Norman Cook of The Housemartins who morphed into the artist we know now as Fatboy Slim, people do have the ability to develop, evolve and change, even people like me...

Rant over...