It’s 01:53 and I feel quite sorted. I know what makes me happy now. And that, generally speaking, is taking care over things. I’d rather be ‘square’ and happy than trying to be something else. This care extends to clothes and body. I’m already taking care over what I eat. Feel more confident. I am not denying things and it makes it better. Let feelings flow about inadequacies – not good enough, not cool enough. All in the mind. I hope these words don’t cheapen the act, as my mind is always ready to judge. But I’ve done enough of that and it’s changing. I am no longer going to try to distance myself from the world I live in. Yes I am different, but isn’t everyone? Have fun, look after myself and those I meet. Little things. Important things. Positivity. Or else what’s the point? Duty to others?

Applying for a job tomorrow, then come summer I can do something else, like travel maybe. Should I just up and leave here? Where to? I can’t run away and try to be happy. I’ve got to learn from myself, first. Knowledge of self. What makes me happy, not what should I be doing. Becoming something I am not has led to frustration. Discipline can be a very good thing. Good night. Maintain.

Pretty messed up today. Smoked loads of hash last night and too many beers. Felt like shit, mentally and physically.

I have been trying to reach a kind of perfect mental state and it has been driving me crazy. That isn’t the way. What is ‘perfect’ anyway? So this ideal I have, part of me wants, and so everything I lay eyes on or think about, this part criticizes. I want it to stop but wanting it to stop won’t help either. Fucked up. No. This week was real good.

Have I ever been happy? What is it? I feel so detached from this world and even when people (rarely) talk about ‘important’ things things, I’m still not interested. I want to put all words I write in quotes. I think I’m something I’m not. It’s all right, man! Please. Stop.

I feel so differently to those around me. Went to Chris’s band’s 4th gig [Virgin Soldiers], at Docs. I filmed it for them. Didn’t want to go. People getting drunk, loud rock music, etc, etc. Came back when it had finished and after Chris had been headbutted. They are all downstairs now making a hell of a lot of noise.

Wrote a letter to J along the lines of ‘I am not in common with anyone and didn’t want to socialize’. Not with anyone, really. Is there something wrong with me? It usually makes me uncomfortable. Why is this? Should I attempt to overcome this or ‘run away’? Maybe it is just the type of socializing. I am not interested in what most people consider fun, but it can make me feel so alone. Will that go? Should I go away? Thought of getting a loan to buy a camper van. I could live in that. Would I be lonely? How can I find people of like mind? Is there anyone of like mind?

But generally I have been very happy. I am much more with it, physically. Eating better. No drink for one month or more. Still smoke when others are smoking. Loud shouts outside. I must just do what feels right. Try to ignore the others. In the long term, perhaps it won’t seperate me. Perhaps that is the way. Yes it is. Can I sleep now, with all this? Peaceful states of mind when lying alone. Only tonight has this stress manifested, a result of feeling an outsider, and the general noise and indeed chaos. Have no part in it. Feel better now. Interest in Buddhism but more so, Krishnamurti, standing alone but not isolated. I’ll put my headphones on now until the noise has gone. Ringing in my ears from Docs. There is nothing wrong in being alone, and in any case I am not, really.

The season is changing to autumn, although today was most warm. I am on holiday from Zurich [Insurance] for the first time. I am hoping that last night I took tobacco for the last time. I don’t intend to drink often now. I am disillusioned by most things society gets up to. Maybe I haven’t experienced the right things but I feel it is more than that, and an alternative is needed. So I am staying in lots and reading Krishnamurti. I am working out what the ‘nagging’ is. That is my aim.

After the diary of the trip round Europe in 1990, the next one is more of a notebook, a big black notebook. There are no dates, but it covers the period where I began to experiment with a change of diet, yoga, came across Krishnamurti, but while living in a house of hedonists: drinking, drugs, mucking about – around 1995-1997, age 24-26. The end of Road Runner Dispatch and working for Zurich Insurance. There are no dates for each entry, nor an order to the book. Full of struggle and attempt at change, to give up and to find direction.