Kick, rape, first of the month.

That's how it goes, isn't it? It's May the first, as long as I upload this within the next thirty-one minutes, and as such I feel I should say something awe inspiring. Unfortunately, I have spent the past twenty minutes trawling through some writings of my fellow course-mates; they were... uninspiring to say the least. You shouldn't be running out of things to say after fourteen updates. You also should, if you're a journalism student, be aware that the possessive 'its' does not require an apostrophe. You should also be aware how clauses work. And how style does not need to be infinitely polished, but spelling and grammar should be. I'm assuming that is why these writings exist in the first place: to attempt to attract a patently unrealistic level of traffic, so that in a job interview it can be cited as important and/or popular. Naturally, unless they start proselytizing or being really racist - omglol same thing hahahaha - that's never going to happen. I wish them all the best, don't get me wrong, but it's difficult to attract people to read your stuff consistently. Or at least it is to a point where they feel inclined to engage with your stuff. I don't mind, because I am not writing to gain anything: no one walks into comment writing. It simply doesn't happen, nor should it. Clarkson and his ilk are practising journalists of some repute, and have been for X years. You can't simply moan about shit for a couple of weeks and expect to get picked up by someone.

Then again, if that happened I'd probably have to kill myself (if it happened to anyone but me, naturally). That's what blogging is, really: a showcase for your own self-importance. I can quite happily sit here, in my dingy little room, and lament how close-minded you all are; spouting self-appointed truths about this and that or the other. I can berate you mindlessly for hour, after hour, after hour, but really I have no more legitimacy in doing so as do the people who are against me. Yes, I am not saying that defeats the purpose of this here musing-page, because I enjoy it - and occasionally I like it when people agree with me; but I am saying that in terms of career use these things are pointless.

I could dress mine up; put on a pageant of platitudes and banal mutterings about how wonderful my family is. Get myself a little marionette show; parading invented people, places, things. I could try to get you to give a shit about my piddling little life, my infinitesimal insignificance, but I don't want to. For me, this is catharsis. For me, this is an opportunity of really coming head-on with what I truly believe. We often don't really understand ourselves until we get some perspective. For instance, I never really know how passionate I would become about immigration. I didn't realise that inhumanity made me want to die.

I didn't realise - as I never do - that I would die for other people, because I don't care too much about my own life. I watched Kick-ass the other night, and it's all about a kid who decides to start fighting crime - like a superhero. Nice idea. I like the sentiment. I started thinking about it: would I be prepared to take a bullet for someone else. I know this is a question which has been done to death by hoards of people over time innumerate; it is a cliché ("a man who loves a very cultured woman knows he cannot say to her, "I love you madly", because he knows that she knows (and that she knows that he knows) that these words have already been written by Barbara Cartland. Still, there is a solution. He can say, "As Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you madly.""). So, in that vein: as others have said before me: I would die. I believe I would, because I have a cavalier attitude towards my own safety. Having come close to death and realising you'd only regret your life if you were forgotten, you realise that it is better to die in the stead of another than to live with the pain of your own cowardice. When I told people I tried to kill myself they'd react with horror, "there's nothing worse than trying to kill yourself!" There is: trying and failing. I'm not trying to be morbid, and I'm actually in quite a good mood, but I think it is a hollow sentiment without experience. Irrespective of motive, I think it requires and seeks experience. What am I talking about? This is too postmodern for me.

"Would you die in place of another?"

"I don't know."

"Instinctive answer."

"Who are they? How would I die?"

That means you wouldn't. Think it not bravado, this thought. I'm not trying to set myself on a moral pedestal. I am no different to anyone else (a point my counsellor seems to think is the reasoning behind my problems), nor do I claim to be. I am not a narcissist enough to be elitist. I just think I would. I think I would. I know it's nouveau-liberal to be this cavalier and effacing, but that's not my intention. I have no desire to die, nor will I - I doubt - attempt to do unto myself again the act of mortal goodbyeness. I do not seek death, but I think I would be able to embrace it. If you dislike life, then perhaps death might bring final rest. Could it be rest if you were unaware of it? I mean, I suppose it probably could. This kind of speculation is better suited for a smarter person, and an earlier time. I am not brainy enough, nor awake enough, to fully answer any of these questions. It's just that when we're faced with our own mortality we become these selfish bastards. You see it all the time. One of my friends - a kinder, more compassionate person you would struggle to meet - admitted that if I were to kill myself her first thought would be 'What do I do now?'. That's the kind of honesty you don't normally encounter. I think it's true though. That flips cliché on its head, does it not? Suicide, the most selfish of acts, begets selfishness. Goes back to my whole 'selfless motives, selfish actions' hypothesis. Back further to moral absolutes. Underpinning arguments which form who we are and where we are and how we act and who we act. That's the whole performative identity argument, as well. I will talk about that when I've readied my thoughts on it. I am struggling to think sensibly at the moment, so I cannot collect my thoughts in a way as to be readable or understandable. Let's face it, I'm difficult at the best of times. Especially when I'm in one of these moods where I can barely be bothered to punctuate, and the things I'm saying don't really relate to each other, and I'm jumping from topic to topic without really thinking about it, and most of the things I'm saying are demonstrative of that craven bastion of humanity: refusal to look at yourself. If I were to analyse why and how and who and what and when I'd probably be staring my own mortality in the eye and I - I'm sorry, Eco - I would blink. A frank admittance, I think you will agree. Staring yourself in the eye would you blink? Would you run? Think Harry Potter when Harry has to avoid being seen by himself (after using the time-turner). Think that but on a more existential level. I suppose if we're going down that whole existential route then I'd have to make a case for staring straight at yourself being the same as staring straight at life. Things don't get much more narcissistic-grandtastic than than, do they. Let us go neologistic: but we don't have to, because I have achieved it without even needing to continue. That truly was enjoyable. Neologism is fun.

As a last little thought for you all: we are being told that police officers are now able to cut through the bureaucracy and spend 80% of their time on the street, instead of doing paperwork. At the same time, they have been banned from saying "good afternoon" (or stipulating an implied time by their greeting) because of the confusion it can cause to other cultures. I can find no justification for this other than that the person who came to this decision was labouring under the delusion that other cultures were unable to tell time. Well, yes, perhaps in some remote corners of the globe we don't give them free AIDS medication because they have to be taken at regimented times, and they don't have watches - and can't tell time anyway. But I don't think we can use that as a blanket statement. Likewise, the new way to describe someone who is of mixed-origin (formally half-cast, then mixed-race) is 'mixed cultural heritage' or 'mixed parentage'. How's 'mixed parentage' for tautology? Or do guys get wombs now, too? Sweet. Where's mine? Does it come in the post? Will I have to sign for it? I'm not in Thursday, so I hope it doesn't come then. Standard delivery? I hope it fits through the post-box. What if it doesn't? How big is a womb?

I posted this earlier and then added to it. It's 23.59. Happy May.