By Myles Cook
On the basis that it’s good to know a little about the people whose random musings you peruse I am giving over this month’s piece to a prose picture of myself, a full self-portrait in words as it were.
When I was seven years old my personality radically altered from being an outgoing, happy child into an isolated, unhappy one and it is to this point that the start of my thirty-one year history of depression was traced. I grew to become a socially awkward adult who was, and still is, more of an observer than a participant in life.
I have a tendency towards pessimism that is a reflection of my life experience although I do manage to maintain a weird sense of humour alongside my Victor Meldrew-like exasperated view of life.
I have always felt that there is something missing in my life and it was in the mid-1990s that I was finally able to give form to my search for that missing piece in the shape of two questions – who are you and what do you want? In my search for answers I have wrestled with my personal demons and have taken to reading books on psychology, politics and philosophy with a little theology thrown in as a way of trying to understand myself and the universe.
I am a man haunted by a duality of personality, not a case of multiple personality disorder but merely a highly developed compartmentalisation of my personality that astrologers would attribute to people born under the sign of Gemini. This duality is both a hindrance to me and the source of my creativity and drive to find the answers I seek.
I write poetry when I can and tend to get lost in thought thinking about the nature of reality or what it is to be human whilst maintaining an objective, critical eye on society, ever the observer. For all I have learned I realise that my journey of self-discovery has just begun and my answers are still waiting to be found.
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