Like a phoenix, rising from the ashes to soar majestically....

Meaghan doesn't like me to be happy. When I'm happy, my writing suffers, I have less inspiration, less of a need to write in my blog. And she's right, but why is that?

Why does depression inspire greatness? Looking at my friends I can see several cases where misery has helped their creativity, where happiness stunted it. And it takes less than 2 mins to find out that the literary world is filled with great authors and poets who wrote through tragedy.. What is it about sadness that brings out these gifts?

Are we trying to overcome our grief in a way society deems okay, are we trying to put down in words how we feel at that particular moment so as to never forget it and to learn and grow from it, or are we merely trying to escape into our own worlds where we can find true happiness? Personally, it seems a combination of all of those, and none of those.

And it's not just literature, but art, film, even photography.

Disaster may inspire creativity for many reasons, barely half of which we will ever know or understand, and as for the complexities of the human mind when dealing with things like this I won't even try to comprehend.

All I know is that while this happens, I will enjoy the irony of seeing the best humanity has to offer contrasted by the fact it has risen from the worst humanity has to offer.

A town called hypocrisy....

I'm torn.. as always... between what I promised and what I really want to talk about...

I promised a blog on patriotism, and I'm going to get slated for it. I want to talk about Katie, but I haven't got anything to say, it just happens and makes me feel happy. Also, watching Cougar Town and the whole 'that's what she said' came up... that joke rules, and is such a universal guy thing, and cannot be used by girls... Partly because they're more mature, but mostly because it's not their thing :p

Anyway, sidetrack over, I'll talk more about things with Katie Kat when there's more to report, relationships that are only 3 days in don't make for good reading or writing to anybody who isn't involved personally. I'll talk about writing later too, specifically mine, which sucks, but handwritten, so nobody else has seen it :)

But I made a promise, and so here is the patriotic blog... or not so patriotic, depending on your particular viewpoint.

Something I realised while complaining about the world cup, is how hypocritical everybody becomes about this country. The St. Georges' cross is flown from every other house, people walk around with their faces and shirts painted red and white, and we argue with anybody who claims it offends them. I have no problems with that at all. The issue I take is larger.

Where is this pride every other time of every other year? Why is it that it takes 4 years before we show this kind of commitment to our country? We fly the flag any other time, we get called racist, we fly it now, we get called racist, but if we're willing to fight for it over football, why shouldn't we fight for it other times, when there is more reason, for example St. Georges' Day... how many of you have been out and celebrated that? Or even shown you know about it? Yet mention Paddys' and suddenly everybody is in an uproar if they can't make it out.

Civil disobedience, it's part of our history, women owe their votes to it, workers owe their unions to it, and especially in the North East which is heavily soaked throughout its history with fighting for what we believe in. Sunderland fought alongside Scotland against England, we fought against this country because we disagreed with what was going on. People have been outraged by the election, but who has actually done anything about it? What happened to this once great and outspoken country? We had some of the original martyrs for Christs' sake!

This is why I consider myself more Scottish than English, the fire is still alight in my blood, and I am ready to face whatever is thrown at me if I believe in something, because I will not back down just because it's inconvenient. You lot don't want to fly the flag all year every year, but you'll do it when everybody else is? Cowards, the lot of you. Do it all year every year, somebody complains then argue your point, the point you use now, because if it's valid it'll stand up to opposition. Simples.

P.S. I should add a disclaimer should anybody decide to do something stupid after reading this, I did not tell you to, I may have encouraged it, but all I really want and the reason I wrote this is so people will stop with the hypocrisy.