So many people wonder why we talk about dark, miserable and terrible things, and why I write about them. The reason is very simple. Those places need a light shone on them so they aren’t dark anymore and we can focus on the brightness rather than the abyss. The other end of happy is unhappy, and both are legitimate states of being, in the same way cheerful pop music is diametrically opposed by death metal. Experiencing, learning and talking about the darker things is not the same as obsessing over them and letting them affect the way we are. Its ok, safe and in some ways essential to walk into the flames as long as we keep our eyes on the daybreak.

Im not a big fan of summer. Something about June, July and August plagues me for a reason I know not. My memories of this time of year arent great, in fact I can remember several genuinely horrific and painful things that happened in the recent past that made me want to forget the season altogether. Im not going to go into details but rest assured they were life changing and nothing Id ever want to revisit in any lifetime I had again, regardless of the lessons I learned. In try to avoid August if I can.

Around 2 years ago i was walking down a country road, almost unable to walk and on the verge of being hospitalised. My girlfriend at the time was in total and utter despair and so worried that she was in tears. I could hardly lift my arms, speak more than a few words or find the strength to eat. I was shaking and trembling like I would never stop, like electricity was racing around my body. Nobody could do anything. Nothing had worked. I was falling apart. I knew I was going to die, and it was going to be a relief.

I hadnt slept at all in over 10 days. I couldn’t sleep no matter how hard I tried or how tired I was. Not one minute.

A week beforehand my doctor had diagnosed me with anxiety and depression. In those 10 days I had been on almost every antidepressant known to man, and nothing helped. I was throwing up, disorientated, wired like Id drunk a litre of coffee every hour and unable to carry on. At one point I was out in the middle of the road on a humid night at 3am on the phone to both the NHS and the Samaritans because I was convinced I was going completely mad. My ears were ringing, my skin was tingling and my heart was pounding out of my chest. For 3 days, continually.

Sleep never came even with some of the most powerful sleeping pills, and the fear of not sleeping took over like it had done years before when Id been wasting my life away on methamphetamine and cocaine. As the days went on I had got worse and worse and found myself travelling at 6am back to Hampshire to my doctor, who made the initial diagnosis and went through the whole catalogue of SSRIs (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, such as Proxac and Seroxat) in response, none of which did anything but make me worse.

We eventually went to the country because I couldn’t handle being anywhere near the hustle and bustle of a town or city, but I worsened. After a few days and at what felt like my last dying breaths, they got me into the car and took me to a local GP in Norfolk who spent 2 hours talking through whether I should be committed or not. He openly said he was amazed how Id got that far and how I was still able to maintain a profound and deeply intelligent conversation. I don’t think It was anything like that, more the fact that I understood the mechanism by which tricyclic antidepressants worked and how they were made.

In the end he prescribed me the antidepressant my mum had used for nearly 20 years and the original staple benchmark for all drugs of that type, amitriptyline hydrochloride. What works for mother often works for baby, and that night when I finally fell asleep my girlfriend cried her eyes out in relief. I slept for 16 hours and woke up a day later.

It had crept up on me for several years and I had experienced similar times when my nerves were shot to pieces but never at that scale. Adrenaline is a short-acting hormone that is designed to stimulate your body for fight or flight in emergency situations. Your body is not designed to produce adrenaline for long periods of time or sustain that physiological state for any more than is absolutely necessary as it requires massive resources and enforces huge pressure on you. Were meant to cruise in fifth gear and not continually accelerate violently.

So when something goes wrong, serious damage results, both physically and emotionally. When you live with stress so chronic and perpetual that it causes a long-term physiological reaction, you eventually reach the end of the road and break down like a car in a traffic jam on a sunny day. And I broke down. I simply was too stressed, worried and burnt out that the constant excitation of my nervous system had ground me to a halt. My dad helpfully called me an emotional cripple.

I suffer incredibly acute and frequent anxiety. Bizarrely enough, so does every entrepreneur and self-made man/woman I know. Panic attacks, night terrors, nerves, jitters and irrational fear are every day things for me. It runs in my family, just as thyroid problems do. To start with, everyone thought my anxiety was my thyroid over-producing once again and making me totally mad. The symptoms are indeed similar, such as lack of sleep, weight loss, shaky hands and more. Its another strange illness where you don’t know you have it until someone points it out or medication brings you back to normal.

I often wake in the night suddenly and am flooded with intense adrenaline for no reason at all that I recognise. Panic attacks and night terrors make you wide awake and feel like you are having a heart attack. They last for 20mins or so that feels like hours, and are completely irrational as they have no apparent cause which confuses you. Its even stranger when you realise that the panic you are suffering is a delayed reaction to something that happened earlier in the day, and that even though you are over it by now, your body still needs to shake it out later. If you look at me closely you’ll see my hands always shake. I get scared and nervy very easily. I cant sleep until I’m exhausted, especially if its the first night in a place I don’t know.

But you’ll never know I suffer so intensely unless you are close to me because I wont show you. In fact I go to great lengths to cover it up, until now, writing this. Outwardly the impression most people get from me is that Im superbly confident, quirky, a very positive, a character, bold to a fault and charming. People say the things I do and say inspire and entertain them in equal measure. My speeches are a classic example. What you don’t see are the times that go with these successes where I am crying, shaking, curled up in a ball or unable to speak because I’m hyperventilating.

If only they knew what it takes to do it, and what it takes out of me.

When I tell people I have clinical depression, their reaction is generally one of surprise (not quite shock, but near) and disbelief. I usually get 10 minutes of why I shouldn’t be on antidepressants and why I dont really need them. Apparently you just need to get on with it, in the same way someone with a broken leg just needs to run down the road to feel better. I humour them at that point in time because I know they are too ignorant to know any more than what they read in the paper.

Its impossible to describe, as so many people say. No words could do it justice, as its a permanent state of being that never ends, unlike a cold or flu. You know those things will go after a few days and your body will fix itself. Depression has no end. It is a feeling of total despair that infects everything you do. It overwhelms you so powerfully that you have no enthusiasm or energy for anything and cant ever see anything ever getting better. Everything is a struggle. There is no way out, and no help. You cant see the good in anything or anyone. There is no point to anything. You feel heavy, slow and lost. All day, every day.

Fighting makes no difference. In fact, fighting in itself causes stress and makes things worse, which excites your nerves when they need time to recover like physical nerves do. Anxiety is so closely linked to depression that the same drugs are prescribed for both. You are touch-sensitive and panic at the smallest thing. Eventually you get so wound up that you become afraid and anxious about the anxiety itself, in the same way as it is impossible to sleep when you are worried about not being able to sleep. Only exhaustion and your own body shutting you down brings relief. Nature intervenes to prevent further harm.

I remember feeling devastated and being in total disbelief when I was first diagnosed. It was more than a shock, it was a damning verdict that I was weak, couldn’t cope and that I was a victim. Depression was something that happened to other people, not strong people like me who could handle anything and fight on. I was embarrassed, deeply ashamed and didn’t want anyone to know. Part of me arrogantly thought the doctor was entirely wrong and that Id find out in a few weeks once it had rectified itself that it was all a big misunderstanding and melodrama. He had told me I was one of the disabled, one of the weak minority who couldn’t handle it or whose system wasn’t strong enough to withstand normal life.

I suddenly realised I was a freak. I was one of them.

Antidepressants take several weeks to kick in, which is deeply disheartening because you want an instant cure right then and there. You want a painkiller, something that will get you back up on your feet immediately so you can soldier on with life’s everyday tasks. It feels pointless when nothing is happening, and it all just seems to get worse. Everyone around you reassures you that it will be fine and that you will feel a difference, but nothings happening, at the same time that you’re in complete denial that theres anything medically wrong.

Depression is a very strange beast, and one that is so badly explained or communicated that it goes untreated in so many people. My favourite author Scott Peck says that life consists of many instances of legitimate suffering, such as when we cant get what we want when we want it, or when we grieve the loss of a loved one. His argument is that all mental illness is due to our attempts to avoid that legitimate suffering. For him, natural and healthy depression results from when the subconscious mind knowing something before the conscious mind does, and the incongruity between the two subsequently causes the emotional instability.

In most instances, healthy depression resolves itself fairly quickly. We get over things pretty soon, as painful as a lot of them are. Sometimes it takes hours, sometimes a few weeks, depending on the severity of the incident and the ability of the person to process their emotions and deal with they are feeling. Often an incident is a trigger for a greater problem, and just as often there is no incident or direct trigger. A lot of the time, it just happens. Its as common as flu, and 6-10 million people in this country suffer it at some point in their lifetime. You will know dozens, and most dont even know they have it.

Depression becomes clinical and/or pathological when it lasts for more than it naturally should, for whatever reason.

Doctors have a list of symptoms of which you musty have at least 5 for anxiety and depression to be diagnosed, each being closely related to the other. Some of them are very strange and make a diagnosis easy, such as malaise, waking early in the morning (e.g. 4am), suicidal thoughts and/or behaviour, loss of appetite and others. In that case, its relatively easy to discover it and just getting on with it will clearly not help. The less open you are with your feelings, the harder it is to spot, but the more violent the crash when it comes. Its these extreme cases that make depression so deceptive. And it is very, very deceptive. Depression is a very subtle illness and not what you imagine.

Feeling depressed is something we all experience, and very normal. But clinical depression isnt the same as being depressed in the common sense of the phrase. As obvious as that sounds, most people still don’t manage to get it. It is typically a progressive illness that develops over a period of time, but can also come on suddenly. Sufferers don’t walk around with heads bowed, lie in bed crying all day and have razor blades half-embedded in their wrists. Remember that most people don’t realise they have it so they struggle on. Its not what you think or imagine, and isnt like the stereotype.

Depression is the entire lowering of your mental state, and you cant detect it as it mostly happens without you knowing. Everything appears normal until it gets too bad that you cant carry on as you are, just like any other illness. Because youre in the middle of it, you cant see it. Other people can, but you cant. It happens slowly so you cant work out where it came from. Only when the symptoms are relieved do the clouds clear and you see exactly how your view of the world has darkened. Just with alcoholism and drug addiction, you cant see it unless its so bad you cant function normally.

Its for that reason that I describe the illness I suffer as like wearing grey-tinted glasses.

Once my doctor had diagnosed me and Id been started on medication, my mum and I went for coffee. Out of the blue she told me she thought it was all to do with my nan, and never having grieved her death. It was ridiculous but it was true. I was talking with her normally when I noticed that tears were flowing down my face faster than I could mop them up, but I couldn’t feel anything.

I couldn’t sleep for 10 days as they were the 10 days leading up to a friends wedding we were due to go to. It was the first time I would have been in a church since my nan’s funeral when I was 10. Even 15 years later, the grief was there and had become pathological. Id never grieved as I had to support my mum and it just bubbled up to the surface, almost randomly, years later without warning. I was surprised until I learnt that some people in their 80s sometimes suffer from things they experienced in childhood. It was very, very weird indeed.

And there is one of the many paradoxes of depression, that you are totally emotionally numb. People often report that they feel frozen or without emotion. Its a warning sign, so get them help, fast. The first thing that immediately comes out when you thaw is anger.

The mind and body are integrally linked together, and we don’t understand how they interact very well at all. When you have a cold or flu, your head is groggy and you cant think properly, and when you come back from the gym you are more mentally alert. Depression causes dysphoria (the opposite of euphoria), and robs you of joy, hope and calm. Naturally that affects you physically as well, hence exercise often the number one thing that doctors recommend for self-treatment. You become so used to feeling the way you do that you no longer remember what it was like to feel content, and the vicious circle becomes harder and harder to break.

Clinical depression is recognised medical illness. That fact almost always goes forgotten by most people. The key to resolving fear and healing comes through education and understanding the disease. Understanding brings peace and helps you help yourself. The trouble is that when you suffer depression, the illness steals the faith and motivation you need to do that, like the insidious thief it is.

Biologically speaking, depression is characterised by lower than average levels of certain neurotransmitters in the brain, such as serotonin, noradrenaline and dopamine. These chemicals are also the same ones involved with illegal drug abuse, hence why some scientists believe drug addiction is actually self-medication. We don’t understand the mechanism by which the mind and heart alter brain chemicals, but we know they do. Its a simple equation, but overlooked.

Suffering clinical depression means you don’t have enough neurotransmitters racing around. You are not weak, a freak or some kind of victim. That lack of chemicals is a symptom, not a cause.

The press is full of daily criticism for antidepressants, saying too many people are on them, children are being prescribed them too liberally and that they are the solution for everything. They claim doctors give them out on demand, they are dangerous to mental health and/or they dont work at all. There seems to be this overriding belief that they are unnecessary and dangerous. People claim they are prescribed as a cure, when they are no such thing. If you think these drugs cure depression and that doctors think that too, you are stupid, ignorant and ill informed.

All of it is bullshit. All of it. If youve never suffered depression, you need to shut the fuck up because you clearly know nothing about it and your ignorance is propagating the problem. Dont give your opinion, and dont assume you somehow know more than the medical community does. Its not a matter for argument or opinion, it is scientific fact.

Antidepressants are a recognised medical treatment for a recognised medical illness. They relieve the symptoms of depression by deliberately raising the levels of chemicals in the brain so they are back to a normal level. That increase causes changes in mood on a solely physiological basis. It is impossible to over-produce those chemicals, and antidepressants have no effect on those with normal levels of them. In short, they make life bearable whilst you get to the bottom of the problem, the root emotional cause of why youve become unwell. Depression recurs, so using antidepressants trains the brain to remember to produce the right amount of chemicals again. The longer you use them the first time it happens, the less likely it is to raise its ugly head again later.

And all come with side-effects. Another paradox of depression is that the tools you use to treat it often cause the symptoms of the illness itself. In fact, thats true of many treatments. Nothing is more ironic than reading a insert pamphlet explaining that your antidepressants can cause anxiety and depression as a side-effect. I reacted badly to almost all of them. Constant nausea was the worst feeling, but you learn quite quickly how important neurotransmitters control so much of what you do every day. Its a game of trial and error to find the right one. Again, only when those neurotransmitters fail to work, or work abnormally, do you notice them.

Yet so many people feel qualified to give counsel on the effectiveness and/or validity of antidepressants. They have little or no medical knowledge but somehow feel confident enough to tell you don’t need them, its dangerous to rely on them and how you should just carry on as normal and let it sort itself out. They couldn’t be more wrong or utterly insensitive. The press has the audacity to call them happy pills like they were a cheap diet supplement for your own emotional indulgence. These drugs have saved my life, and the lives of countless people I know. Its not for any of these people to judge or offer opinions on something they know nothing about.

Antidepressants are like paracetemol or aspirin. They relieve symptoms but do not cure the cause. When you understand that, you understand the context of how and why they are used. They take off your grey tinted glasses so you can see the colours of the world again and help you remember how things were before you put them on. Healing is a natural next step.

The UK is dreadful for its culture of suffering in silence and stiff upper lips. We cant seem to get the unwashed masses to understand that feeling crap once in a while is different to a major clinical condition that needs long-term specific treatment as its pathological (which means that is classified as a disease). We wouldn’t dare suggest that someone with tonsillitis should just talk their way through it, or those with broken limbs exercise them off, or even those with cancer just hop, skip and dance it off. Wed expect them to get help and be prescribed the relevant treatment, which would be surgery, drugs, a plaster cast or combination of therapy.

Depression is the same. It needs a combination of treatments to resolve. If you still think people should just get on with it, or cope like everyone else, then Im sorry to break it to you that you are officially a moron. Shape up and do some reading. Dont regurgitate what you read in the Daily Mail. That attitude is killing people and keeping them in slavery to unnecessary suffering, and does nothing for anyone but allow the fragile, naive feeling of some kind of perverse superiority and righteous indignation.

Personally, I don’t feel depressed or down, and am more alive than Ive ever been. I feel things now, as opposed to being frozen over for the last 20 year of my life. I don’t feel suicidal or want to self-harm, nor do I mope around, be miserable or crave attention and sympathy. Equally I’m not hysterically ecstatic or out of touch with reality. I’m not sedated, don’t write angst-ridden poetry, routinely write suicide letters or dress in black. I don’t want pity, hugs or you to understand how I feel or what this illness does to me. Life is the same more me as it is for everyone, I just have a set of complications that other people don’t.

There are good days, and there are bad days. The good days are ones where I am in a spirited frame of mind, positive about the present and future and am ready to give of myself in any way that I can. The bad days are really, really bad and very dark. I can be walking around admiring the beauties of nature, sampling it in all the 5 senses and recognising it’s wonder, but feel suicidal. I cant tell you why and I don’t understand it myself. Some days when I’m excited and happy my sole overriding urge is to destroy everything around me. I want to kill everyone in the near vicinity and smash the buildings down. Id never do it (obviously), but its the way I feel. Its irrational and unpredictable, and requires a special kind of self-control that I haven’t completely mastered yet.

Other days are just mediocre, where I feel my despair creeping up on me like a slow-spreading virus. The world gets slowly darker and things feel more and more hopeless. I start thinking about the bad and the cynical scenarios instead of the positive ones. I cant laugh as easily and I don’t have the emotional energy I need for social situations. I stop eating properly and my sleep is interrupted. I cant just relax, be happy with what I have and tick over normally, as the momentum of going forwards is the only thing that can distract me from the emptiness of standing still. I have to fight twice as hard as anyone else doing what Im doing.

On the strange days, I cant concentrate or think properly as I feel too vulnerable. Things and people don’t have a shine, they are just, there. I cant trust anyone not to hurt me and don’t have the strength to put on my brave face. I carry on regardless only as Ive become used to accepting the weakness the condition creates in me and know how to fight through it and hope that the way I feel has changed by the next morning. Only when I look back in hindsight do I realise what happened as I cant recognise it when I’m there in the moment.

Youll never know any of this. All you will see is my cheerful banter and flippant eccentricity. Im an obsessive bottler, in that I prefer to ignore things until they pass. But as Scott Peck so rightly pointed out, thats a bad template for doing things (a long-term strategy of the heart using short-term emotional tools to cope) and inevitably those things you bottle dont go anywhere and eventually accumulate to such a degree that you slowly become more and more unwell. And that is also my argument when it comes to cannabis causing mental illness. For me its not the drug, its that the drug numbs you and does the bottling for you. Push enough down, and you eventually break apart.

Whats helped me most is learning about the illness and understanding why, how and when it happens. Claire Weekes books on nerves literally saved my life. Ive read them time and time again and sometimes, like a lucky charm, just having them there is enough to calm me down and help me sleep. But I still don’t quite get it. If she were alive now Id give 50% of what I earn in this lifetime and it still wouldn’t repay her. Education is like switching a light on so the darkness disappears, and the darkness in the case of depression is the ignorance and stubborn opinion-hawking of those who aren’t qualified to express a legitimate view on the subject.

Im actually grateful for it, believe it or not. Getting up for every day is twice as hard as it is for anyone else. Having to push twice as hard means you become twice as strong. Touch sensitivity means you are so much more responsive than the average, and feeling your weaknesses more intensely means its easier to locate and address them. Discontent is a massive driving force behind so many things. The battle for me is not with the world, its with myself. I need to be careful about how I spend time with; as my composition doesn’t allow mood-hoovers or those whose misery acutely infects others. When the black clouds start to hover, I have to consciously fight to stay afloat, instead of treading water and gently paddling. That fight in me is violent and draining, and enough to knock me out for a day or two at a time.

But Im not scared of it now, and there will always be people who continue to talk about it in hushed tones or under their breath like its a taboo subject they daren’t mention for fear of judgement. But there are also people in the world who believe that having sex with a virgin will cure you of HIV. There is hope, and its such a wonderfully beautiful irony of life that we see hope only in the darkest of places and circumstances. Everyday life is so regular and mediocre that hope literally has no place. To have hope means you have faith, and faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen. As a wise man said, most people live lives of quiet desperation. Hope shines in darkness, but its more important in the day to day humdrum than anywhere else.

Ive achieved everything in my life whilst suffering from depression. Ive fought through, worked hard and never let it stop me, despite it taking its toll.  The greatest lesson Ive learned is about getting up after you’ve fallen down. The concept of failure means nothing to me anymore, as its all just feedback. Living with depression means you have to learn to get up. The illness takes away your energy to stand and the reason for standing in the first place. The place you find is that very elusive so-called last inch of you that nothing can touch, harm or wipe out. Im the master of me, not the slave of neural biology.

Dont doubt for a second that depression means weakness, as Im more dangerous than ever simply because my nerves are armed up. The memories of the painful times only serve to remind me that I can survive, and the scars I have remind me that Ive been through worse. Im more cynical and suspicious, which means my agenda is hidden deeper than people know and its difficult to manipulate me when Im already considering the worst about someone. But suffering exists to generate wisdom, humble the complacent and help us to have compassion with others. The sting in the tail is also the magic wand that allows me a doorway to being more human.

I wrote all of this last weekend, when the black clouds had not only descended, theyd brought an entire hurricane with them for good measure. Time heals, and this life is just a ride so they tell me. If this is the worst the illness can do, it had better buck its ideas up as I just tore a hole right through it and I’m going to help others to do the same.

I’ve been grumpy lately. So I need to get out. No, I’m not fucking apologising.

I suspect its because I’ve been busy. So I thought I’d draft a quick troubleshooting guide for people to understand clearly where they might have fallen foul of me. I remember everything: every little gesture good or bad, every tiny thing that you don’t think I did. The way I work is like a bank account, with people making withdrawals and getting credits paid in. If you piss me off, you make a withdrawal, and if you do something kind, you get a credit to your balance. I remember that £1 you lent me when I needed it or the time you cheered me up or refreshed my soul. I also remember the time you were selfish and childlike for a second.

But I don’t tell people when they offend me. I just keep my private sliding scale working away quietly and naturally. When you reach my tolerance limit, you get cut off without warning, completely. So go ahead and be an utter fool, try it on, take the piss and think you’ve got the better of me. You won’t know how far along you are, and for all you know right now reading this, you may be a hair’s breadth away from never speaking to me again. I can think of a dozen people who I’m letting swing the rope around their own neck to hang themselves or I’m happily watching walk over a cliff they don’t realise is there. I’m sure for a lot of people that doesn’t really upset them too much, but I can assure you it means even less to me.

Just because I don’t tell you my plan doesn’t mean I don’t have one. Just because I’m calm doesn’t mean I’m not sick to the back teeth of you. I’m quite brooding and intense so most get the message without needing words by reading in between the lines. A very good lady friend once said to me, “You talk a lot, but you don’t talk a lot”, by which she meant that although I’m a talkative guy, you could have a conversation with me 8 hours a day for 3 years and end up knowing absolutely nothing about me at all. Or knowing a lot of things that I want you to know but aren’t really the true me.

Wow, mysterious I know. If only it was as dramatic as that, but unfortunately the truth is far less glamorous.

I choose a small inner circle people to be bonded to, those I’ve seen I can trust, who understand me and are wise. People who bring something to the table. I know that I have a knack of being able to make people feel very special, and I’m quite open with compliments. Its hilarious how vain and haughty homo sapiens becomes once you give them positive feedback. I appreciate beauty, so I’ll often tell the girl I’m talking to that she’s beautiful. Almost always she thinks I’m totally under the thumb and can play any game she likes and I’ll tag along like a loyal salivating puppy. Not so I’m afraid.

Yes Roxie, that means you. You’re today’s living example of why not to fuck with me when it comes to presumption. Tomorrow there will be another. I’m not sorry, one tiny little bit. That wasn’t nastiness, it was just honesty. When I’m nasty you’ll definitely know about it. You just have to try harder thats all. If I had a penny for all the girls who think they’re well in there when they’re nowhere near, I’d be buying the drinks.

Allow me to share with you the other side of the equation. Yes you’re beautiful to me, although you may not be to someone else as we all have diffeing tastes. I usuallly just state it as a matter of fact rather than with some deviant intention. But I think flowers and movie scenes are beautiful too, and I don’t take them out to dinner, have a conversation or make love to them. If you’re beautiful, congratulations, but it means relatively little. You might want to review exactly the control you think you suddenly have over me by me pointing it out. You’re basically a mannequin, and there are 50 beautiful girls every second. They’re ten a penny. What I want to find is something extra, the bit that makes me vibrate out of my seat.

It might sound like I’m being defensive, but I’m actually a very private person underneath all the talk and bravado, and sometimes its weird to think how few people know who I am. I agree with my sis when she says I’m like marmite, as I’m a person of extremes that people tend to either love or hate. My purpose in life is to disrupt, as its my character as a weapon and how I’m used depends on the situation and context. But its all about tearing things to bits and making a real mess. I get bored as easily as I fall head over heels in love with someone or something. I work in shortfire bursts and binges rather than at a steady pace. Once you understand some of these things, I become a lot easier to live with.

Let me put it very bluntly. I am a Machavellian. If you don’t know what that means, you need to retake GCSE English. Have a complaint? Want to whinge about how I mistreated you? Preach away. Feel free to criticise. Scream your head off. Deploy your spite in full measure. I don’t care. I’m not just saying that for effect. I genuinely don’t care. You’re just slowing me down and as such, you’re irrelevant and a hindrance.

You’re either on my side, or you’re in the way.

Don’t fucking talk to me about any of these things. If you do, you’ll get a very sharp response which should get the message across that I’m not remotely interested in even thinking about them, let along having any kind of conversation that they feature in.

1) Celebrities
Totally vacuous, vain, useless, money-grabbing, time-limited, pathetic wastes of time and resources. These people mean absolutely nothing to me. They bring nothing to the greater good whatsoever and are worshipped for it. Why do people admire others whose only achievement in life is meaningless and ignore those who have changed the face of human history and actually should be admired? I don’t want to hear about the story you read in Heat, how this person was in the Sun or why you think Jordan is great because she’s so good with the press. Save it for the council estate.

2) Football
I hate football. Its a ballet game played by overpaid metroxsexual little girls who prance around like fairies and complain when they get the slightest scratch. We’re not even that good at it, yet for some reason its worshipped with religious devotion that gets shot down every time we inevitably fuck it up. More than anything else, its just utterly boring - reptitive, scripted and about who gets to be the hero. I’ll pretend I’m interested, but I’m not. You’ll bore me in about 30 seconds. I don’t know about any of the leagues, teams, players, scores or any of that asinine rubbish you seem to really enjoy filling your walnut brain with.

3) How amazingly amazing your little fwends are
We all love our friends and family (otherwise the wouldn’t be our friends now, would they shithead?), and I don’t want to hear you gooing and awwing over these people who I have never met, don’t care about and have no interest in. Tell me in a “baby voice” and you really will be throwing down the gauntlet. If you want to tell everyone in the whole world, pay for a full page advert in a newspaper for fucks sake. Why would anyone care how much you drool? What do you want them to say in return?

4) Reality TV
You watch it because there’s nothing else on? Oh really? No you don’t. You watch it because you like it, but don’t have the guts to admit it as we all know its a load of shit. But its pointless, cheap, tacky, socially-bankrupt dross that barely passes for entertainment and is designed to strip you of your pocket money when you use the telephone to interact with it. Its a dead genre thats past its shelf-life, but for some reason you still think its great. You are a loser who has no intellectual capacity and belongs in the herd with the rest of the cattle. No I don’t want to hear what happened last night in the BB house. Please do not breed. Join the “invalid” queue.

5) Ex-girlfriends
I have a few exs, and although I’d love to be able to forgive them all, I just can’t get past finding them so totally irrelevant. They’re always trying to have their little digs, playing their games and hoping for that occasional jab they can deliver to see if you still care. Well, I don’t. I sincerely mean that. I really could not give a flying fuck what they are doing with their lives, as I have enough in my own to keep me more than occupied. And for some reason they always go radically downhill in the looks department post-Cameron. Get over it. Stop wasting your time and energy and get on with your life.

6) Your right-wing politics
Very dangerous territory. Think immigration is evil? Dislike Johnny Foreigner? Want abortion banned? Want sex removed from television? Religious family values taught in school? Drug addicts imprisoned? Hard line on crime? Hate the Human Rights Act and want more punishment? Want national service, corporal and capital punishment brought back? Want people who help the terminally ill to commit suicide tried for murder? War waged on all who defy the British empire? Read the Daily Mail, Daily Express, Daily Telegraph or The Times? Stay the fuck away from me.

7) Your dogmatic (but naïve) religious beliefs
My faith is private, and I don’t want to know about yours unless I ask you because your preaching is fucking vulgar and offensive. There’s nothing worse than someone whose faith is based on nothing but blind allegiance to what they’ve read or been told. Happy clappies whose house of cards comes crashing down at the briefest of inspection make me sick. Think, for fucks sake. Question what and why you believe. Don’t quote religious texts to me as I’ve read them all. Don’t try to preach at me or convert me, or you will get it. Are you a scientologist? You fucking moron. Get out of the gene pool for the sake of the rest of the population.

Clubbing
Its dull. Its never half as exciting or rewarding as anyone makes out. People get massively over-excited about it like its some kind of badge of honour to have been stripped of all your cash and crammed in a sweaty room listening to a sonic boom of false electronic “music” with other equally stupid people who think they’re the shit. The only thing that makes it seem remotely interesting is the drugs you are taking. Its soulless, expensive, empty, unfulfilling, boring and tacky. Don’t try to tell me you go to dance. You go so you can tell people you went clubbing. Sad. Very, very sad. Don’t ever ask me to join you at one, as I’ll take it as an insult and you’ll be dealt with accordingly.

9) Your unrealistic business idea or invention
Your dotcom idea is revolutionary and will change the world! You have no experience in what you want to do, no idea whether someone else is doing it, no customers lined up, no idea whether people even have a need for it, no idea on where the market is going, no idea how to make money from it, but its still the most amazing idea ever! Its definitely going to work - all your friends agree! All you need is £3k cash to start with and people will be queuing at your door as soon as you’ve built it! As soon as Richard Branson reads the letter you sent him about it he will call you in and buy it! You’re going to be a millionaire! Like fuck you are. Get a fucking clue.

10) Fairytale love
You just saw them and fell in love that moment, it was destined in the stars. Your wedding day will be the most beautiful and wonderful romantic thing in the whole world ever. If you love each other you will never argue and everything will always be OK, you’d just anything for each other, just because of your love. Your love with conquer all, no matter what happens. If the rest of your relationship isn’t like the first 3 months, you’re not meant to be. You just know when you see “the one”, which everyone has somewhere. You utter, utter fucking naïve, pathetic, drooling, foolish, immature drifter. Grow the fuck up.

11) Your loans and credit cards
If you don’t realise these things are here to make other people, then you are a fucking idiot. They’re not there for you to live your dreams, have free cash you don’t have to pay back for ages or fund your delusions of grandeur. The practice of charging interest on loans is called usury, so look it up and for god’s sake work it out for your own good as well as everyone else’s. If you ran up debts or took out loans to cover your existing debts, if your own fucking fault. No-one wants you to pay off your debts, simply as the longer you have them, the more money they make from the interest. For fuck’s sake stop being so weak and falling into the same trap over and over. You know you’re fucking up, so just stop it.

12) How trashed you got
Wow, you poisoned yourself so much that you could no longer function and/or vomited on the street. Its the only way anyone can actually let go and lose themselves in this country, and its become the de facto social activity somehow. You smell when you’re drunk. Your breath stinks, your clothes stink and you act like a total, utter wanker. Same goes for drugs, which give the incoherence that is apparently so dignified and appealing. When did your lack of ability to stimulate the minds of others become such a key selling point? You fucking bore me senseless. We did it when we were kids, then we grew out of it. If the major highlight of your week is suppressing your nervous system on a Friday night, you need help.

13) How tough you think you are
Think you’re the hard one eh? The problem is we live in a cutesy little country where you can kick bins over as a rebellious statement of your own callousness to impress your pathetic little monkey friends. You’ve never seen anyone die, mummy and daddy clean up the mess, the apathy of the public at large means you’re ignored and allowed to continue at your leisure and the chances are you’re only ever remotely brave when you’re surrounded by a larger group. If you put any of these people in a situation where they were really in danger, the yellow streak would be flashing so loud it could flag down a 747 flying overhead. You’re selfish, spoilt, boring cowards of the highest order. Stop fucking trying to be more than you are because you think people think so little of you.

14) How little or much money you have
I honestly don’t care whether you have a little or loads of it. Its utterly irrelevant because what truly matters is the person you are. Money doesn’t solve problems, it brings 10x the amount of new ones. If you’re poor, educate yourself and get a new job that gives you more, or find a way to generate some cash. You have the internet, which is the world’s greatest encyclopaedia of information available, so get off your ass and work it out. If you want to boast with all your status items, we all know its not a big ego, its a little baby one of someone desperate to impress everyone because you lack so much elsewhere. Feelings about money that drive you to behave in certain ways make you a twat, pure and simple. Stop whingeing. You’re fucking lucky to have the things you do and to be as healthy as you are.

15) Procrastination
No you won’t do it tomorrow, or when that something happens to stir you into action. You always have to wait for someone else to do something first, or for something happen before you get stuck in. That day will be like today, when you put it off. You couldn’t spot an opportunity if it smacked you in the fucking face, let alone seize it. Its never going to happen unless you fucking make it happen, so again, get off your fucking ass and do it right now. Your life will pass by quicker than you think, so if you’re sitting there wondering why it didn’t happen, look in the mirror because its your own fucking fault. All we have is now. You have no idea what could happen tomorrow. There’s absolutely no reason why you can’t do it today. You’re lazy, you’re apathetic and you don’t deserve it. Read a book on why you delay. Its an anxiety-minimisation tool.

16) Text message language and business buzzwords
Fucking laziness, pure and simple. You’re showing me you don’t have a brain and like being one of the herd. You can’t be fucking bothered to take 2 seconds to spell something properly and communicate any more elegantly than a retarded primate could. You let your brain dribble rather than exercise it like a champion racehorse. Don’t be surprised when I look on you with absolute fucking contempt. let me help you here by explianing why you do it. You speak in vague, abstract terms with wishy-washy adjectives because you can’t be bothered to take time and care to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and communicate your thoughts to them in a simple and practical way they would understand. Go die, please. You’re diseased and contagious.

17) Your silly little emotional games
The perogative of immature girls and abusive men everywhere. There is nothing I hate more than morons who can’t find it in themselves to communicate like a grown up and instead prefer one of a library of silly manipulative tactics to get some kind control over someone else. I see it very quickly, as everyone else does. One sight of it, and you’re out the fucking door. Don’t let it hit your sad little ass on the way out. You’re human vermin and a nuisance that needs to be stamped out like the pests that you are. There hasn’t been one game thats ever been played by any retarded little girl that has ever had a positive outcome in the 5000 years of human history. But people still do it regardless. Do it once, and I’ll never see you in the same way again. Don’t risk it.

18) Your rabid envy/jealousy
You covet what others have because you don’t have enough in your own life. Its very simple. You want what you can’t have, and the grass is always greener. You think the things you have make you who you are. You are dumb. Baaaa. You’re insecure, and you need to control so you don’t feel vulnerable. I won’t fucking have it, so get used to the idea of being powerless. Try and control me or whinge on about how you want what someone else has and I’ll laugh at you and walk the other way. If you want it, go and fucking get it for fucks sake, stop complaining and wanting. One installment of psycho behaviour and I walk.

19) Rap, RnB & Hip-Hop
You listen to this industry-generated rubbish because you’ve been told its cool and that you’re supposed to like it because everyone else does. These artists are pathetically fake, and if you can’t see it then you deserve to be lied to. You are being sold fucking marketing, not substance. Its the same formula repeated over and over and over, with different packaging. And you fill the pockets of these charlatans who sit back and watch the cash fly in as you mindlessly follow their lead. The emperor isn’t wearing any clothes. Thanks for just standing there and filling the space as a voiceless conformist coward. Die, die, die.

20) Your obvious lack of social graces
There are some people who are just born to make up the numbers. Do you hang around listlessly after a conversation has reached its natural conclusion? Are you stupidly rude to people because you think its funny and makes everyone else laugh with you? Have halitosis and generally bad personal hygiene? Is small talk your coup de grace? Talk in a monotone voice only about yourself and your mediocre life? Have nothing to make conversation about at all in the first place? Are you totally unable to empathise with, or be considerate to others? No-one will miss you. Squirming maggots have more value than your ugly excuse for a life. I hope you die, painfully. And when you do, I will laugh. The world will be rid of a pest and we’ll all have that little extra oxygen.

Phew. Breathe Alex, breathe.

I could very easily carry on. Why so negative, I hear you say. I must be in a very bad mood you think. There’s no need to be so down on everything and the stuff that no-one takes seriously anyway. You must be miserable company Alex. Everything in this article is sp depressing! No, the fact you don’t get it is depressing.

Balls I am. All of these things get in the way of whats real and important. Relief from pain is not the same as pleasure. How can you make room for the good things when your life is full of these revolting things?

This stuff is bullshit that needs to be fucking bulldozed out of the way so we can get down to the things that really matter. Life is precious and needs to experienced in all its many diverse guises, and I’m angry this shit is blocking my ability to savour and enjoy the wonders of the world and the wonderful curiosities of people and the details that make up their whole. I have no idea why its there and who on earth put it in place.

Its only by identifying the bullshit and calling it out for what it is that we are liberated to appreciate beauty, the compelling and the miraculous. Its only by seeing the darkness that we recognise the light. I don’t want to talk about these things as they are a hindrance to me being amazed and surprised emotionally, physically and spiritually by the people I love and the wonderful complexity of the world we all live in. These things are an ugly scar of pollution that clouds us from seeing what we could have if only we wanted it enough.

They fill a void in us which hurts like a hunger, one that is so desperate we’ll almost accept it being filled by anything so long as we don’t feel hungry again. But it never lasts, so we rinse, lather, repeat and forget how little they actually helped. I hate these things because they are foolish, short-lived, self-perpetuating and empty. I hate them because they interfere with my happiness, not because they are the source of someone else’s. So I don’t see them as nothing. I see most as great evils that need to be ignored, scorned or exterminated, not necessarily in that order.

I feel that because I love life, not because I dislike it.

You will think Im mad for publishing this. And I probably am. I bounced the idea around and decided against it originally. But for some reason I think I need to, maybe as some form of confessional or just to shine some light on some of the evil in this world of ours that goes on every day without any of us doing anything about it.

Regular blog-goers will remember that a while ago I wrote about homelessness, and that we were recently in India for the weekend. No, you didnt read that wrong we really did go just for the weekend, albeit on business. It was a fantastic few days of non-stop laughter, frantic deal-making and some incredibly inspiring projects that are empowering and liberating the people of such a bustling developing country. Right now as I write this, were not sure if well get back in one piece as the combination of monsoon rain and high tide has made Bombay totally impenetrable and drowning in a flood thats metres high and invading everything on every street. We have an hour to get some sleep before we need to set off at 5am (1.30am UK time).

Our team, like always, are fired up and ready to rock at a moments notice. Sleep isnt a concern for us as we have 6 hours to get through the floods to the airport, and after that wait to hear whether our plane will take off as planned. I have to say that we’ve done some amazing things here, and there is so much business we can do that were having difficulty figuring out where on earth to start. 5 days of Indian food is starting to wear us down though. We have so many stories despite only being here for a few days. But I want to focus on just one.

The night we went to a brothel.

The businessman’s motto is usually what happens on tour stays on tour. But Im going to break it as I want to share what I learned from it.

You might be thinking that its a brave admission writing about this, but I can assure you I feel no shame, simply because I didn’t sleep with a prostitute. In fact I didn’t do anything at all. I actually did quite the opposite and Cameron’d the poor girl. But it also disturbed me greatly and I found it to be a powerful experience regardless. For me it was a test of who and what I am. And more importantly, what Im not.

It probably wont surprise you that whores and corporate entertainment go hand in hand in every country. The girls of Mayfair play host to just as many deviant businessman as their counterparts in Bombay. It’s a dark, unspoken part of business trips that those who receive guests make sure they are well taken care of in any way, including sexually. I remember meeting a very powerful man who was the soon-to-be-disgraced CEO of a global accountancy firm. His addiction to brothels spiralled out of control after providing girls at his clients request, and ending up liking it so much that he was spending £20,000 a week on high-class hookers for himself, billed directly to his company expenses. Again, it should come at no surprise that he got moved, not fired.

Asking where the girls were had become a running joke on our trip, as our guys are good-natured and a lot of fun to be with. Our evenings had been very, very business-like and spent with some very powerful politicians and media moguls. And like all kind hosts, every night the most beautiful whores in both cities we were within reach of us were rounded up for us to choose from. Sometimes they were led to our rooms or waiting in reception.  And by God, they were beautiful. Thankfully my exhaustion, dignity and sobriety kept me away from it all. Some of our guys indulged, just as the locals did. Ive always found it to be rather distasteful being the posh little shit that I am.

But tonight I was curious, as wed been deal-making for literally hours and everyone was tired. Our hosts had spent the whole day finding the most beautiful girls they possible could. First they were coming to our hotel, and then we were going there. I knew theyd arranged one for me whether I wanted it or not another running joke was to try to get me to calm down by sowing my proverbial seed. At first it was quite exhilarating. But also bear in mind that I dont have any libido whatsoever, so it doesnt come as naturally to me as some our rabid colleagues.

I was really nervous and not sure whether I should go through it. Sex for me is all about a spiritual connection and the other person having an as amazing time as you. Prostitutes aren’t there for the enjoyment, so to me its entirely forced and tantamount to rape. They might be consenting in a way, but as far as I’m concerned its not enjoyable for them whatsoever and totally about being exploited and used and the man indulging his lust and craving for power. Call me old fashioned, but that doesnt turn me on. A very dark part of me was burning away but I just couldn’t shake off my hesitation. As macho as we were all being, it was just not something I could do to another human being or write off in some way so I felt better.

Its easier to illustrate this by explaining the opposite. The most incredible girl I could imagine being with in that way in the whole world is Emma. Its about the awkward moments, the silly feeling in your stomach, the intense wanting to be inside her and the wonderful intimacy you get from having that connection. You’re bonding in a way thats extraordinary and very moving in so many different ways. Its the looking into her eyes, knowing she wants to be with you too and trying to fight off the desire that you know you’re going to have to give in to eventually as you’ll die if you don’t. Somehow, sex and money just dont go together for me at all.

So I thought about considering it as a one-off life experience, and seizing the day. But I just couldn’t do it. But I couldn’t be rude to our hosts or let the other guys down as I just wouldn’t hear the end of it. So I hatched a cunning plan to keep everyone happy. I said I was tired and only really wanted a massage. They were ok with that, so we set off in the car. I was incredibly curious more than anything. Id never been to a house of ill-repute before and was interested to see how it all worked. I knew I wasn’t go to do anything stupid as I didn’t want disease on my parts, guilt on my conscience and the knowing that I had given in to my animal instincts at the expense of someone else.

So 2 cars full of businesspeople (some very, powerful ones too, and many closely related to famous politicians) drove to this run down hotel in the middle of nowhere where people pay by the hour and change the sheets after every visit.  It wasnt horrid, but lets just say it wasn’t exactly 5 star. The whole staff contingent came out to roll out the red carpet and welcome the rich white men. We were given a drink to take with us. By this time it was getting very, very weird. I had no idea what to do. We were ushered upstairs to choose the girl we wanted. But I had my plan, so assumed Id be ok.

And so you’re thinking, why did I go along? Why didnt I just speak up? The truth is that I don’t know. It was a mixture of excitement, curiosity, the heat, me wanting to pacify the others, and just pure laziness. I wish Id listened to myself. I tried to back out of it when they first said they were going, but I got swept along with the tide.

So we headed up the stairs and the sombre quiet that had been the tone in the car had changed to schoolboy excitement. No-one wanted to go in first or stick their necks out. I don’t think Ive had an ominous feeling as strong as that for a long time. We were led to a room where the girls were waiting, beers in hand. I had no idea what to expect, but I really treaded the legendary identity parade.

And there they were. My heart absolutely broke. 3 of them, very young, sitting in a badly-decorated room looking scared, miserable and vulnerable. All of them had their heads turned like they didn’t want anyone to see them. All I felt was revulsion to the whole thing. Cattle rounded up for the carnivores. When the guys started choosing them they looked away. It was a meat parade, and the words of one of our guys were ringing in my head. Just don’t be embarrassed. I refused to choose, and said looks didn’t matter as I was only getting a massage. So 2 got picked and I ended up with the last one by default. Not a bad option as she was very pretty.

All done, everyone headed into the hallway to discuss price and pick rooms, which were hurriedly being unlocked. I couldn’t look at any of the girls and was trying to keep cool. Again I didn’t choose a room, and got the one at the end of the corridor by default. Each of us was handed a condom and wished well.  The girls were ordered into their respective rooms. God knows what they were thinking, but they looked scared. Our guests paid for us whilst we were to satisfy our natural urges.

It was then that the reality hit me very hard.

The morning before we hadn’t dinner with one of the most powerful people in the country and moved ont