Clank Pan Bam

My little treasure.

It has been a while. But i've needed a bit more colour...

http://abithinesy.blogspot.com

Dean, this is for you

Pink news

Today a lady with pink hair gave me some good news. Some very good news.

It's definitely why we all need to wear more colour, and feel colour and be colour.

And love the world again (Yes I know I sound like a hippy). But it's true. The simple things keep you going. For me, its cupcakes, creation (music, food, art, writing) and of course my friends and family.

This song is for today.

From now on, I want things to look up. No excuses. I'm not going to miss out on anything.

Art Exhibition: Love Is What You Want, Tracey Emin

I saw this exhibition at the most perfect time. My brain is like a black space filled with millions of colourful puzzle pieces; some fit and some don't, and that's just me.

I find art exhibitions quite interesting, more so from how they make me feel. Most of the time I can't wait to see them, but when I am there I feel desperate to get outside again. They can be quite...stuffy. Whether thats the people, or just the fact that most of the time you have to be quiet and there can be too many people around you tend to feel a bit squashed, theres a strange sense I feel when there-perhaps it was this exhibition itself.

Tracey Emin has has her heart ripped out and put back in again. It fits 97% right, but there's a slight gap and slight un-fix where her soul has been placed back in an awkward angle. I really feel for her. Perhaps there should be limits in the amount of people that can attend such exhibitions; I try to imagine myself alone, completely alone with no body around me so I can capture and inhale all that I see.

One of my faveourite moments was when I was able to enter the neon room by myself. It was more a long black corridoor lit by fantastic words of art. Some echoed in my mind, all too familiar as some I had once kept telling myself:

Of course no picture truly represents the great colour blaring in your face in person. Clearly, this woman has really suffered, she's been depressed. A blank gritty being in which is all too familiar.

Myself, a past in documentary film making-one of her documentaries I saw I really did not enjoy. 'Sometimes the dress is worth more money than the money'. Whether it is because I didn't understand it completely or, well. Who knows. In room 3 'trauma' recorded her collection of pieces representing her experience of abortion. Words echo with me when watching the film... I can't remember the name or find it yet (I hope to find it scrawling through the exhibition book I bought-will add it in!!), the words Tracey speaks describing how you feel like a failure, that ultimate guilt and failure of what you have become, in getting pregnant unexpectedly, saying 'it wasn't choosing to have an abortion it was choosing to not have a child', were very interesting. I'm glad she had her boyfriend there, though the shock that it didn't work in the first place, Tracey had to be rushed into hospital were at this point as she made her way out of the taxi, something slipped and she realised between her thighs and her hands was the dead fetus a failed abortion had left her with. I'm sure we all know what it feels like when our body gives up on us and medical procedures aren't always what they promised...

I can't remember whether I dreamt this, or if it was something I saw recently. Ok it was, it was on a modelling programme stuck on E4 for sometime recently. The phrase 'I just wanna give her a hug'. Well it's a phrase commonly said (though not for a while now) between someone I know-we both share the understanding of this desire. Clearly, when there is so much animosity in one person you know there is something else going on inside. We all have butchered attempts at trying to hide it; with anger, arrogance, sarcasm, being loud, being quiet, binge eating, drinking, substances e.t.c. though some have the ability to see past this and recognise all this person is doing is crying for help. They are trying to fix themselves in some way-there is always a difference in helping yourself in a healthy way, or a negative way.

I want to hug Tracey Emin. I love her work. Of course, it is all an expression of her-it has clearly been her release. I think when one experiences all that pain and all the puzzles we require in order to stick back our brains again we have to find healthy ways to do so, otherwise we risk going into greater danger again. We need to filter the good from our experiences:

'I think all the experiences add to make the person but I could have done well without the traumas in my life. What I've done is used my experiences to my advantage, turning the negative around to the positive. That's one of the greatest things that trauma can teach.'

We can all learn from this, its the beauty of Tracey Emin. What I also find remarkable about her is in her Blankets she quotes (often through her other pieces as well):

'So beautiful'

 Hopefully you are able to see in the top left blanket, Tracey writes. Amongst all the ugly she speaks about she quotes 'so beautiful' in how I feel she is almost laughing knowingly that there is beauty within the bleak ugly that we feel. We laugh, we smile with our experiences and learn.

There was a moment when I discovered Tracey's abortion pieces on the wall; a iud copper coil, pregnancy tests, flowers in the name of blood aborted fetus. I don't know if it's from medical self experiences or if someone who was diving into the unknown at that experience; at first I was unsure about the set up and the room, as I said at the start I felt desperate to get out of the exhibition and whizz through (knowing in my mind I had paid to see her, it also kept me from walking out), the more I delved the more I didn't want to stay. In my 90 minutes of being there, I felt her and felt myself in a way I haven't for a long time. I don't believe its the finding someone else who has experience all of this pain, I didn't feel like finally someone else who has felt similar things. I believe most of all I felt, it was nice for someone to let it out. She's let it all out, again something of which we can all learn from.

There was also a girl who I heard mutter 'why on earth did she get herself pregnant'. I'm not sure if this girl believe in abortion or not (abortion I am totally for), perhaps she didn't understand Tracey's motives behind it. The layout for me was perfect in the 'Trauma' section because for someone like me who doesn't know her history, you piece together her emotions in a pattern, unknown to how it all happened. We also read a marvellous piece written by Tracey's madness in working out whether she was pregnant or not (this time she wasn't) though we sense she has a strange relationship with fertility. It's only then when we move onto a dark room (with the film name I am unable to remember) that she goes on to explain her fertility is 90% odd positive to not get pregnant and that the Doctors totally cocked up her chances in being put through for an abortion.

We all will roll our eyes at the NHS. All money aside, health shouldn't be messed with especially just because our treatment is free.

Tracey's self portraits of masturbation, words gashing out heartbreak and signs of penis hope. It is a bleak cold and hot pursuit of love unattainable to ones self. I've felt it myself, in a way you want to abuse yourself because you feel so ugly, so rejected and thrown, smashed to pieces in a way you clamour onto methods and ways to stretch your mind from thinking about them. And these to be released. To be performed. Discussed, let go of, and freed.

I loved Tracey Emin's documentary on being free, with dancing. Out of all the shit she has become free for her and no-one else.

I'm sure I will have more words to add to this piece.

Song of the day

Missing you

Clanky pan I miss you and I also miss myself. I think that's why you have become a distant measure of my writing.

You will be continued, I promise. I don't make promises that often, though this one is going to exist.

The Clanky Pan, that is me

Hello blog. I have missed you for a good few weeks. I think I have been asleep for a very long time, months even. Things only now just seem to look light again.

There has been a series of unfortunate events, all to self. Some created by self and some which have purely happened out of my hands. In all honesty I have been too afraid to blog in the past in fear of not writing anything which may be good enough, all in aid of facing up to the real facts of my life-past and present.

Time wears us and forever will I believe in the 'bruised brain' theory. Though, with our bruised brains, perhaps they will always be bruised until we truly deal with our ways from the past and making them clearer in the present. I have always said, and will always say that one can only learn; this being from self and from others too. For me it only takes a few words or a glance of an eye to get some perspective from those I talk to. I love it so. Their adventures make mine all the more worthwhile.

One of the things I find most interesting, not only about the people I know but the generalisation we all hold to ourselves; will anybody ever escape that phase of hating ourselves for some particular reason? I wouldn't say it is guilt towards our behaviour towards others, just the matter of hating ourselves for literally being who we are. What seems most unfortunate in it all is that a huge part which creates these thoughts are not always self inflicted, some come from the words of others which build in our own mind and weigh us down. The more we hear something from someone I think it understandable in it being unavoidable to absorb-we feel worthless. Also, we have a strange bearing to overwhelm ourselves with self hate purely caused by our own personalities and thoughts. With what should seem the norm seems so much effort and motivation to even look after self, it goes out of the window.

These self stages are very scary.

My words must seem very vague. Whilst writing this piece, well of course I want to write the truth. I want to write the tales of my last two weeks, though for the mean time until my mind is set I shall linger.

I think right now, I am going through a stage of huge overwhelment. Pieces of the puzzle have come to a close, it feels like the beginning of an end and of course a new horizon to explore. One can only feel so gifted with joy all the while feeling like there is no chance one wants to let go...just in case.

If the pieces of the puzzle have come together, well, why does one still have to express some fear? Perhaps hesitation would be a more appropriate word considering a person experiences something fairly traumatic, like I say, we learn from our experiences. Shouldn't one know that if someone puts all into something, it's better doing that than saying you gave half of your effort. Right now all of my efforts should be in putting things straight, building myself back up again and establishing who I was months ago. Months ago there was no fear, only courage.

That image needs to re-appear again. What can you throw at me now, but not in a negative sense. Those words now should mean, what can you throw at me now-what else is there that I can explore?

I find the following words quite interesting. I think I and others, have fallen into the trap of the said, below:

'So yeah, it's maddening, to me, to be living in a world where much of human behavior seems transparent, and you wonder why the other person isn't acknowledging things that seem pretty obvious. But when you push, it comes off like you're being superior, like you have all the answers. When of course it's pretty much the opposite, that you've seen just how few answers you actually do have.'

Though I believe the following words make sense towards the ethics behind trying to enlighten people.

'We are talking about sides of ourselves that are seeking fullness, seeking to come into being or come into fullness. Rather than focus on the "I" at the center of things, we realize that we live in a nexus of many emerging selves. For me, for instance, there is the musician and the woodsman and the solitary one, and the lover and the friend and the writer. And some of these personalities are unpleasant; they seek to dominate, to destroy, to take; they are uncivilized and animalistic. There is in me the arrogant, imperious one who seeks to know all and slay all rivals. There is the one who seeks to break all fetters, to tear out of the classroom and run free. There is the one who wants to rip up the room and expose all pretense and get everyone drunk...

We tend to acknowledge the parts of ourselves that we think are good. But the parts we think are not so good, they get irritated when neglected, and they come around too, nudging us, wanting recognition.

I do not know what this kind of therapy is called. I only know that for quite some time I would regularly sit on a rug and be asked, "What is most present right now? What is most alive?" And  this question was an invitation to these archetypes to express themselves. And as a consequence I became more friendly with parts of myself and more attuned to their requests to appear.

So it is a kind of organizing method, akin, I suppose, to the tarot: a set of archetypes.
And the beauty of it was, for me, to see myself less as the master of all around me, responsible for everything, and more as a kind of hapless dad, powerless over several vibrant and emerging lives: responsible for their needs but powerless over their ultimate shape. That is how I view myself today, as the water boy for a strange team.

So I buy instruments for my musician self. I give him lots of practice time. Etc.

Also on that strange team is, of course, the one I call "me." But the "me" is increasingly a mystery.'

Rules in Relationships

The following words link back to a previous post.

'I think a lot of people worry that non-monogamy means that you are more unstable in your relationship and that monogamy is a way of guarding against outside threats to your relationship. But you're suggesting that non-monogamy can actually help strengthen a relationship.

For some relationships. It would really threaten others. I'm not recommending it as a program, I'm recommending it as an option. I think what people have to do is negotiate and be honest about what their needs are and mate with people who have the same desires and goals. I tell a lot of stories in the book of different gay relationships, including absolute monogamy where no breach would ever be tolerated.

The idea is to make the vows that you really want to keep, and to know that over the life course you might have to renegotiate them. The idea of cheating is when you break the promise and there's only one promise you're supposed to make -- so we're going to get a lot of promise breakers. But if you allow people to promise what they really mean to promise and are able to do, you'll have fewer cheaters because you would have different definitions of what cheating means. Cheating would mean breaking the terms of whatever agreement is made.

When you were saying that you're advocating for people to be honest about what they need, it struck me that it can be hard to even personally know what's right for you because of the way that monogamy is put on such a cultural pedestal.

You're absolutely right. The argument against my position, one that I take seriously, is that without a template or background rules, you leave too much to negotiation and disagreements. I take it seriously, but I still think it's a better alternative to feel an obligation to be honest with yourself and honest with your partner.'

I like this as it reinforces communication between the people you want to be involved with. One doesn't know where they stand unless otherwise stated. In finding more articles like the above, I feel it establishes more that we all need to make our own rules. Perhaps settling for what we think we should do is a way of life that should start to be forgotten about. In making our rules it further enhances our own lifestyle desires, our own goals and in all putting the power in our own hands towards self's level of happiness. Sometimes we forget that not only do we negotiate with others, we accidentally negotiate with ourselves.

Its a new dawn, its a new day...

Its a new life...and I don't want to come home!!!

Plans changed this weekend and I made a last minute trip back to Wales to see the family. I've been longing all week to come back and see my mum and everyone, sometimes you just can't put off your feelings.

More than ever before, well I haven't really ever felt like this before when leaving the family home-I just really don't want to go back to London today!! I'm really dreading the train. 3 and a half hours of, erm wishing I was just going back in the other direction.

Though, we all make journeys for a reason. Who knows what may come of it

State of Mind

When one lies back in a glorious bed, fantastic music and beautiful scenery. One realises their state of mind:

So overwhelmed one wishes to cry, but no release will come. Body chemicals raise and lower and balance and unbalance. When will the settlement come? I think I need to take a steady pace, and breath. No coma is going to cure this.

The status of Clanky Pan

I apologise for my lack of posting. I think this is probably the third apology I have claimed.

Whether I blog about the real reason things have been a little slack, well...I am not sure what step to take, for in telling the truth would only be a benefit to self. I must have, subconsciously and perhaps now consciously, been putting pressure on self to blog and therefore nothing has come from it.

Sometimes the mind spirals and is pulled in so many opposing directions, one finds it hard to centre. I think this weekend will provide tales for Clanky Pan; some are already building in my head, when an idea comes about it starts phrasing in my mind like some alter ego narration (a bit like JD from Scrubs)

Lets see what happens later... who knows what I may tell. Will it be good for audience sake? And may the consequences be?

Song of the day

Sometimes songs feel like flashbacks

Guy With Beard On The Walk To Work

Don't be shy!! Smile at me when I walk past and glance at you! I'm not going to burn you with my brown eyes!...

I still find amazement when you see your commute regulars on the way to work. It feels like an added bonus if you see them on the way home as well. It is quite funny when people seem too scared to smile...

Poo Patt

I used to jump in cow pats when I was a kid. The news states farmers are looking for pig poo to build high revenues. Words of the such bring me back to childhood memories, walking around fields in Dorset, discovering old roman roads, the smell of grass and jumping in crispy cow patts hardened from the sun. Wellies definitely came in handy!

Sounds, Socialising and Speed Dating

This sounds like fun, literally! On Sunday 10th July I hope to attend a social event involving the sharing of music playlists over beer, cake and of course the best part-meeting new people! Here is the organisers website. Also, more links involving their blogs (charity based bakers) and The Note Well Website which seems like it is still in development.

In Love and Sex

I found the following words quite interesting given the post I made yesterday:

'In my memoir I have exposed myself – not just sexually but emotionally. I've shown myself as weak, sometimes naive, and written about sexual rejection. A reviewer says she finds my emotional candour more shocking than the sex. I find this fascinating. The British are very squeamish about emotions too. Is owning up to rejection a bigger taboo than sex? I have written from the point of view of making what I thought was a colossal error: sex, I say, ruined my life. We have been given a formula for a "valid" relationship: it must combine sexual and platonic love. If a relationship isn't sexual, it isn't the real thing.

Yet love affairs come in every size and shape. Whether a person lives in passionate celibacy with another, or in a blaze of erotic desire with someone they find annoying, there are hundreds of flavours and mixtures of love. I made myself unhappy measuring my love against a given norm. The truth is, we make ourselves happy in among a wide variety of loves; all count.'

Is monogamy a dependancy to hide our inhibitions?

Talking from the perspective someone has gained in being exposed to the idea of polyamory, I have come across this article detailing the rules of monogamy, yet they consistently seem to be broken in the public eye.

'There's this sort of naive thinking that somewhere, somehow one public figure is going to prove to us that you can do [long-term monogamy], and then there's the indignation and second-guessing that happens when their infidelity is exposed.'

Whether people have affairs, open relationships, multiple loves in relationships (polyamorists) or remain monogamous; it is questionable to what makes one decide in going ahead in seeking others attention. It could be flattery, it could be lust, it could be seeking into the unknown. Sometimes people just catch the attention of another and this is fulfilled in having sex. If this is a one off or not, in my eyes, this would only seem wrong if one of the two people involved have agreed to a monogamous relationship-isn't that what the term 'boyfriend' or 'girlfriend' means these days. You make a commitment to one another by not seeing other people; though I want to examine why we feel the need to make this idea apparent. What is there to prove?

We regularly hear phrases like 'I wouldn't know what to do without them', or 'they make me feel complete'; but why?! Yes, these sentences represent ideals in proclaiming the strength of love but for what reasons do they fulfill the person involved? I believe if these words are said, at least they should be carried with known connections to another person-you know what life is like without them, of course you would survive, but wouldn't you prefer them to be in your life as they are wonderful! Not because they are fulfilling a purpose?! I do wonder myself whether how much we may rely on another person, and at what point does someone who we think we have romantic feelings for-do they become a dependency to our happiness as well?

One the one hand, you could say that before you meet somebody your life was good. Perhaps it wasn't until you met girl or boy that your life got even better. This idea I like. Though the alternative which is less of my preference; life always seem liked something was missing until girl/boy came into your life. Surely we should be completing our own goals and life ambitions before a person seems to complete our lost limb?...( I have always found this curious when young couples 'settle down', and have always felt there is a danger in assuming what you want, yet then this seems harder to change when things don't pan out as expected.)

Sometimes it seems that if there are deeper issues involved within self, this can accidentally become transferred onto another. Do we then see our other half as fixing the issue or just as a pleasant distraction towards dealing with the ultimate topic itself? I think when it comes to becoming romantically involved with someone, I find it idealistic to know more of who you are yourself before you become in risk of developing your mind and attaching it to someone elses. I prefer not to doubt self and develop a false sense of self belief in feeling more complete just because there is someone else around who is amazing, in your life. Sometimes it's personal experiences of the such which may lead to one thinking of wider ideas in our interaction with people. Just because monogamy is the norm, doesn't mean it's the only way. Most people see polygamy as something based upon religion (and also looking at divorce statistics, surely the idea of having more wives would make any person scared enough to even consider the idea!); most people forget the idea of polyamory-or at least an open relationship. I have come to establish that most individuals whether they are involved with another or not, forget to make their own rules.

I mean, polyamory stands for loving more than one. I believe if you are going to follow through with this notion, you have to make your own rules and stick to them as well. In observation it would see that with this lifestyle, making the rules and sticking to them becomes easier in experience of polyamory. You don't know what is right for you until having tried something; sometimes rules are spoken, made and broken and the wrong people get hurt...Most importantly with this concept, there needs to be no threat received from any party involved. Ones love for another doesn't affect the love for someone else; though this idea for me personally provides so many challenges in circumstances; location, it all being a balancing act e.t.c., perhaps that is more appropriate for another post...

In returning to exploring different ideas of 'relationships'; polyamory doesn't always have to flow with everyone involved. Just because one connection may have two loves, doesn't mean one of those two loves has several others as well. Loves in this case, doesn't just mean sex. Polyamory idealises romantic feelings for several people. I personally know that, well I couldn't cope too well in having strong love for one, and perhaps another person. I strongly believe in open relationships; though this too has its problems with those you may date, feeling second best to 'the one' you have made clear to them, you love. (There is a risk in it feeling like a sorting situation, in proposing this idea of openness yet it seeming like a set up to narrow people down to 'the one'.) I think that's what most people forget and where infidelity occurs. If you want to sleep with someone else, or even get to know them a little better-isn't it better to be honest with them about it instead of going behind their back. Sometimes you just don't know what reaction you may get. The 'other half' may be comfortable with this idea as well; they may have dabbled with the ideas themselves as well. This is where I think people should make their own rules, why do you think so many married couples play with the idea of swinging as well.

For me, I know that love creates priorities. All of our life experiences create priorities which in a way make love all the more harder, and sometimes our ideas of love even harder too maintain. Why do we think people divorce after 20 years of marriage? It's scary to think 20 years ago a couple were so so happy, yet all that time later both of those individuals have changed, either grown apart from each other, an affair has triggered the separation, or they mutually hate one another. Love seems all the more scary and these situations further challenge the idea of 'the one' itself. In meeting other people, feeling for other people-to what extent does this challenge the strength of ones love?

There are people out there to meet in the world, so why not go out there and meet them?! Some may look at it as an amazing opportunity, to meet, dine, date, sleep with all of those fantastic people you meet and have great life experiences. However, the other idea is that some people-well they just love someone so much that no-one else really shines through. It would seem that this is some sort of instinctual behaviour for humans and love. Sometimes are feelings are just so whole, powerful and overwhelming that the phrase 'love is blind' really does apply. So does this concept challenge polyamorists in their desires to explore with others?

I once read the quote from a famous Actor, Johnny Depp who said:

"If you love two people at the same time, choose the second one, because if you really love the first one you wouldn't have fallen for the second."

So where does feeling for others really come from? Are we just too scared in putting too much value on one?? Is this the reason why people choose to break from the rules of monogamy or is it our own natural desires to feel 'free' and wanting to explore other people as well?

You could say, it's a massive step in personal development. Perhaps one gets to a point where they realise that there is no other lifestyle for them and that experiencing life with several people is more amazing than experiencing it with one. You can't really argue with that if it's what makes them happy. I see an importance though in getting the rules right, no-one intentionally wants someone they become involved with to get hurt. However accidental pain always occurs:

'It seems like we use monogamy to protect against the possibility of our feelings, or our partner's feelings, being redirected toward another person -- in other words, falling in love with someone else.
Right, right -- that is the paradox. To the extent that we do use monogamy as a guarantee of that, we may blow the occasional infidelity out of proportion. We end up saying, "Oh my god, this is a threat to the relationship," when in fact it might not have meant anything.'

Whether it's a difference between lusting for another and feeling emotion for another, on separate occasions or at the same time; I think monogamy needs to take a little more re-education itself. Why are we fulfilling it, is it really what we want? I still believe that most people go along with that flow of life because it is what they know, forgetting their own rules and opportunities which are available to be made.

GP: Shouldn't this rather stand for, Generally Prioritising?

Apologies if this offends, but in my experience and perhaps most will agree; General Practitioners really do press my buttons...

The biggest question for me is, how ill do you have to seem to thoroughly get listened too? Of course we could all put on the sympathy act in this case, but when you have to relay to your doctor what has been the problem and what the next steps they wanted to take are-this doesn't actually help towards developing your faith in someone who pretty much is in control of your health.

Sure, its fair to say that they do have time schedules and we are limited to 5-10 minutes per appointment; though when it comes to tests, what to look for-I would like to instigate some confidence that they can prioritise the particulars they are looking for. When something gets forgotten about it becomes very hard in a sense to forgive or more to the point, remain calm. Health I believe is something you just can't just neglect.

Whats natural about being 'natural' these days?

An article from the guardian discusses 'the natural look', to what extent this idea has evolved at present for women.