Remembering 2008

So, like the fuckboy that I am, I am often rolling a tape in my mind of 'what happened 10 years ago'.

In my mind I'm thinking about August-October 2008. Two things have simulated this reminiscing.

On Netflix I've started to binge watch the Big Bang Theory. You know, that god-awful sitcom about the PhDs. One thing I've noticed about it is how deeply politically incorrect the characters are. They wouldn't make a show like that today. Perhaps its a testimony to how long a show is, that the characters who are supposed to be our protagonists, are beginning to look like antagonists by the contemporary 2018 standards of the day. Wolowitz looks like some alt-right future shooter and Raj looks like some future right wing incel. But maybe the point of the show is that they develop as characters and grow from being facile individuals.

Back in 2008 after my dissertation. I lived in a flat in Bristol. It wasn't my best time, in fact, it was a time of some significance in relation to the men's group I'm in right now (more on that another time). I would wake up, didn't have a job. Didn't feel motivated to apply for a job. I was waiting on that PhD application, waiting, waiting, waiting.

I'd wait until December 14 for the rejection. The biggest drop I ever felt. But that's not the part of the story I want to focus on. Before that drop I had a routine.

I'd wake up, or refuse to get up, come around 2pm or so, not really do much. I'd then eventually get out of bed and go to the nearby sainsburys in Clifton Down. I'd buy the same kinds of things: Ramen, tinned fish, cheese ball crisps/snacks or some Haagen Daaz. I was at the point after I began to stop purging or not quite stopped, where I was sexy and thing but beginning to pile the weight back on with my shitty eating.

I felt lost during those walks. I'd walk to clifton down using many different routes. I'd walk back, using even more and longer routes. When I got home I started to watch The Big Bang Theory. I'd usually do 1-2 episodes a day. In the darkness of my life and the limbo of my nothingness. (ed: hmmm, Limbo, I've not used that word in a while....). I would plant myself down in the box room. I'd put on some Big Bang Theory and gorge on the disgusting cheese balls or Haagen Daaz. In that moment I felt a drug like bliss. My situation disgusting and dire, no intellectual pleasure at all. What I felt was a physical rush, a sense of self-soothing that was unhealthy with a selfhood and concept of self where I had no notion of healthy or unhealthy.

In my group we talk about 'old me' and 'new me'. I guess that's really the old me, the old me that I need to move away from and move towards something different.


The other thing that reminded me of 2008 and that specific era of my life is that on my TV forum where I find about TV shows, there's an historical documentary series about...the 2000s. I am so confounded by this. How is there a TV series about the 2000s. How is there a documentary series about the 2000s. We are nearing the end of the 2010s and we really are still in the 2000s in my opinion. There are so many things about the 2000s that the present day are basically a response to: Obama's era led to the Trump reactionary era aka present day. The financial crisis led to a decline in faith in the economic and political order, aka Brexit, Trump, populism, and social divisions. Plus we are still obsessed with electronics that are increasingly technically advanced: Ipods begat Iphones, Iphones begat Ipads, Ipads begat newer Iphones....we still are in the 2000s in my view.

In another respect, we are still definitely not in the 2000s. Back in 2008 I was an ex grad student. Back in 2008 I was lost in life.

Now in 2018 I'm developing the means to pull myself out of the darkness. It is not a bright time for me, but it is the age of enlightenment.

I get my positives where I can.