journalo'jackie

sixth form magazine - final issue!

i’ve inadvertently made myself miserable in the pursuit of intellectualism and an attempt to turn my back on frippery and nonsense by having recently read (am still reading) neil postman’s ‘amusing ourselves to death’. the treatise examines modern society’s reliance on tv and the way it packages news for the receiving and processing of information. the book states that we have a lot more knowledge of the world around us but that most of it is out of context, e.g. it is unusable in our everyday lives. the data that is transmitted to us by modern media encompasses snippets of news dressed up as entertainment or is of no direct consequence meaning that the majority of us are now unable to think in an analytical or rational manner. postman documents our development from reliance on oral retelling in a community environment for important and relevant information that would help us to make immediate decisions, through the emergence of print and its ability to present coherent thoughts and form debate on the page, to current rolling news available on 24 hour tv and the internet. in order to sell ideas (either as news or in an advertising sense), programme makers present information as entertainment - the ‘and now… this’ mentality, whereby what you have just seen and heard will bear no relevance to what comes next. postman also argues that a reliance on photography has also eroded our society’s ability to question and analyse what information is presented to us in that (unless an image has been obviously photo-shopped) you cannot argue that what is in front of you is not ‘fact’.

i often feel like i am bombarded with too much information - most of it useless and inconsequential - and this inability to process such amounts of data makes me feel like i am in some way lacking in mental capacity. postman would argue that actually it is the reverse: if you can switch off when presented with erroneous and damaging ‘knowledge’ then you are probably doing something right. i’m stuck now though as i’m not entirely sure what to fill this empty space with! everyone likes to be entertained, i sure do: people come home from work and put the tv on cos they’ve been thinking all day and want to unwind. even though i banished my set i still like watching dvds or streaming films and i enjoy going on the internet and discovering something that i didn’t know before and going ‘ah’ even if it’s not going to change how i live my life.  i used to think that me being able to finish the crossword showed a degree of intelligence but according to NP they are just devices dreamed up by the newspapers for readers to put their inconsequential knowledge to use. usually my days are spent in search of a constant stream of stimulation and i am usually happiest when i have three things on the go at once to flit between. now that i’ve been convinced that i don’t need this constant entertainment … what do i do with my time? i see no worth in my job so that can go for a start, i see my daughter for only half the week so that’s 3.5 days still to fill with meaning. i have no partner so i have to focus on myself which i often find difficult… ‘but what do i need? really?!’. i suppose in the past people had religion to fill their time but i’m not going down that route, and i gave up on trying to change the world for the better fairly recently so social activism is out also. what i would most like (strangely enough) is a nice hot bath - a long soak in the tub with a book. though not a neil postman books as he’s completely shattered my belief in inconsequential knowledge and random intellectual stimulation, possibly forever. the shit.

i tried dancing like will powers suggested, i tried writing, i tried socialising and traveling, b vitamin supplements and a change of diet, but ultimately i think my on-going low mood and general disinterest in things stems from a lack of exercise. the period of time that i’ve started feeling ‘meh’ coincides with the period in which i gave up going to the gym at work and doing my strength exercises at home. why did i stop? short attention span and burnout. problem is, the lack of motivation feeds itself until you’re stuck in a cycle of ‘can’t be arsed-ness’ and ‘what’s the point’ mentality. but now is time to break out and get running! i have friends who run as an alternative to taking anti-depressants, and i have friends who run to feel free and push their physical stamina. i have no reason not to get on the exercise bandwagon and join them - i’ve been thinking that i should for a while but knew that if i did it as a ‘have to’ rather than a ‘want to’ i wouldn’t sustain my interest and begin to see it as a chore. i believe that getting active will improve my mood and make me feel proud of my achievements, get me out into the fresh air and (of course) get me fit and toned = a winwinwin situation. don’t worry, i’m not going to become one of those exercise bores that talks about how many k they did that day, i just wanted to put it in writing to prove my determination to do this. the recent wet weather seems to (i hope) have abated and in the past 6 weeks i’ve put on 4lbs - not a disaster but i have started feeling fed up so now seems like the right time to do something positive about my ongoing health malaise. wish me luck!

All this recent local election activity has unleashed my (hitherto dormant but now latent) antipathy toward elected representatives and the voting process. More specifically I have concerns surrounding what the official role of a mayor is: what they get paid to do and what they actually do, in public and in private. Witnessing all the hoo-hah in London and the media coverage of the mayoral campaign down there has made me very wary of regional counterparts in the North. It may be down to reading too much Private Eye, the on-going Coalition fuck-over, or my smarting over NHS reforms pushed through with no real support from the electorate – all the written opposition and analytical evidence to counter their claims ignored to boot… So I just don’t agree that paying some ego-maniacal twat on a power trip to be king of Leeds would be such a great idea. How can one person encapsulate or represent what the local people want, besides the inevitable questions over accountability and legitimacy? Personality politics much? I used to like Ken Livingstone, and in the past I may even have felt some sort of empathy towards Gorgeous George and his independents in Bradford, but now I just think these individuals are antithetical to the concept of democracy. It’s like celebrity elections – style over substance, media over matter, popularity over policy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Bo-Jo fan but he is as you see him: unashamedly trading on some bumbling cretin persona that for some reason people down south are absolutely lapping up. Everyone knows he’s a fuckwit – they love it! – so who needs real politics? I voted Green this time round – Labour don’t interest me anymore, if they’d come a-knocking I may have lifted a pencil to cross their box but ultimately I don’t feel like they know/care what local people want. After coming so close to voting Lib Dem in the last general election I feel like I’ve been taught a valuable lesson without actually losing anything (besides my faith in an alternative). My depressingly negative conclusion? All politicians are cunts… I mean what kind of person would actively seek to be part of that profession besides some kind of self-important, sanctimonious twat telling us they know what we really want, usually in a passive-aggressive tone. Urgh, if you want to change your world, help the local community or make a statement against continued evil Toryism, do me a favour and don’t get into politics. Volunteer for a charity, talk to an old person, help your neighbours pick up litter, say hi to someone in the supermarket checkout, be nice to your kids – you make a difference straight away without the ugliness of getting embroiled in the inevitable back-biting, smearing, fraud, corruption and pointless showboating. Thanks!

tony wilson demonstrating his utter cuntishness… looks like a lesbian?! fuck off!

21 years (yesterday) since JT died. RIP xx

Sixth Form 3

i’ve taken the plunge: i’ve handed in my notice (with heavy heart and hand and head obviously) and i’ve only got 5 weeks left!! i know everyone is going to ask me: so what happens next? and i suppose it is the fairly obvious question. and my not so very predictable response is: nothing. i don’t have another job lined up (cue sharp intake of breath) and i have no serious plans to find another until september when tilly goes to school. i’m not signing on though before you jump to any conclusions regarding my dole scum credentials. i want to work, that’s the thing - i want to do something rewarding in some shape or form and get paid for it (in an ideal world). my current job has a good salary but i gain no real sense of satisfaction from it: i can’t keep phoning it in just for the cash - that’s not how i roll. i did try to make it my own, forge myself a role i wanted to do, find some small bits of happiness in a soulless grey wasteland but sadly it is too little too late and faced with continued uncertainty regarding the future of the library it was time to say goodbye.

so anyway, carl jung has a few ideas of what i should be doing instead. thanks to a nifty little online personality test i now have a list of all my ideal jobs picked to fit in with my personality type - an ENFP in case you were wondering, which stands for extroverted/intuitive/feeling/perceiving. my best suited roles are actor, entertainer, musician, comedian, filmmaker, comedian, radio dj, poet, journalist, fashion designer, movie producer, playwright, batender(!), artist, model… so basically the complete opposite of what i get paid to do now. and yes please! any of those jobs would be A-MAZ-ING. i’ve always told myself i wasn’t creative and that other people did ’art’ better than me and that i should just fade into the background and be another admin drone but i think a change of career is in order post-haste! http://typelogic.com/enfp.html