Today I started to read a book a close friend gave me, the biography of Charles Bukowski written by Barry Miles. On the second page of the book it describes Bukowski's first prom.

He didn't attend but observed through the window. The couples chatted easily to each other. Hank (Bukowski's nick name from his first name Henry) couldn't understand where they learnt to converse like that and to dance. Everybody was possessed of this secret knowledge but him. In any case he would be too terrified to look at one of those girls let alone to be close to her and talk. To look her in the eyes and dance with her would have been beyond him. And yet I knew what I saw wasn't as simple and good as it appeared. There was a price to be paid for it all, a general falsity, that could be easily believed, and could be the first step down a dead end street

I haven't cried for over twenty years but during that passage I felt a welling up from my heart that one gets before one weeps. I didn't weep but it moved me so much as I felt so much identification with him. Falsity has always caused me fear and kept me quite isolated until alcohol became my trusted tool to 'sometimes' cope with that situation and join in with the irreality.

When I was a child, before I was 'made' to go to a friends e.g. Birthday Party, my parents would say to me, Go on join in, you'll enjoy it once your there. I hated joining in with people that looked confident in having fun, organised games, dancing, I didn't know what to do in such circumstances and didn't get the point. It seemed like a waste of time, I felt and still feel that falseness. However If I could find someone to talk to on a one to one basis I would enjoy myself. This is a pattern that has followed me through my life.

As Christmas looms I become more and more isolated and enjoy the separation from the form. The respite I usually get is spending time with my parents, the three of us, chatting round the table, it's real, the dinner is cooked, we eat, talk, sleep, wake up, eat and talk, perhaps reminisce and enjoy our company. We are no different to each other on that day than we are the rest of the year.

You will not get a bigger show of falsity than Christmas, 'good will to all men', twenty four hours of hypocrisy, people 'being nice' to one another which relieves their guilt for a while, from their cuntish behaviour for the other three hundred and sixty four days of the year.

This year circumstances are different, my parents are spending Christmas with my brother. I am clinging on to the fact that I might be able to spend the two days alone, some good food that I don't have to cook, perhaps a selection of cold meats, and cheeses, a pile of sweets, an ounce of pollen, possibly re-visit some music I haven't played in a while and write my way through two days of personal peace.

All verbal teachings are just to cure an illness. Different illness's require different cures. This is why sometimes it is said there is only truth and sometimes no truth. True teachings cure the illness. If the cure works, the teachings are true. If they don't cure the illness, the teachings are false. True teachings are false if they create opinion. False teachings are true if they destroy delusions. The illness is an illusion anyway, so all the cures are also illusions.