The Age of Imperfection

or Wonky for Short

I am a Professional Failure. This is not me doing myself down but a statement of fact. Despite my bad breath and halitosis sometimes I look at myself in the bathroom mirror and say "You're actually a breath of fresh air lad". To reach the grand old age of 52 without a job/career or a spouse and children actually requires military planning. This does not just happen by chance. The fact that I had to don the mask of insanity to do it might appear a little extreme to you dear reader but the mentally ill can get away with murder as we are seeing on the news. To feign mental illness was the only way I could see that I was going to get out of the societal conditioning of striving, succeeding, competing, achieving. In other words perfection. I have become a glorious imperfectionist. Rather than bent I would call myself wonky. Capitalism has latched on to this fact now and Supermarkets are flogging off misshapen fruit and veg. Broken Biscuits have been around for a long time but it now appears with the world having imploded that we are all rising to the new consciousness. It's OK not to be perfect. It's all right not to get top grades. It's fine just to be without having to prove yourself to anybody. I can say these things now because I have walked through the veil of tears. There are no expectations on middle aged men. Well there are, we are expected to be slovenly and slow and good for nothing but going from the bookies to the pub and that suits me just fine. The fact that I don't gamble or drink doesn't matter. Society expects little of 'the feeble minded'. My 12 years of 'economic inactivity' have allowed me an insight into our collective insanity. There is no way I could have got back on the merry go round after I fell off quite spectacularly in 2005. I have been fortunate. With the love and support of my family I have been afforded a sanctuary in an emergency. I have had to re learn how to live. Learning how to live on little and this has actually been liberating. I was always self conscious and shy as a child and teenager and it appears that this self consciousness has returned now in the form that depending on where I go, I am actually dressed as somebody who doesn't care and doesn't try. Never somebody who cared about clothes and fashion, I could be a mannequin model in the windows of less salubrious charity shops. I am a scruffy, rough looking bastard in short and this does make me pause to reflect especially when I meet new people.  Their eyes belie the fact that they have identified a 'wonky', an imperfectionist and they are wondering what fate has befallen me to escape the culture of conditioning.

Perhaps I flatter myself but others can always identify someone who is self conscious. It is the law of the jungle. If you are self conscious, you don't tend to take so many selfies. It is a question of confidence and there is very little in life that can raise your confidence apart from success. But success always appears to have a dark side, a shadow. Unrealistic expectations from parents can cause a great deal of anxiety and distress in their children. So if any parents are reading this, take it from me, a professional failure, if you don't want your offspring to end up wonky, you will need to take advice from CAMHS if of course you can get hold of them.