Whenever the need arises to venture into London, I play games. They’re mostly designed to keep me amused, but also produce the side effect of keeping me sane inside my own little floaty ego-bubble.

The first; is to see how long you can survive in the concrete jungle without tutting, frowning or kicking anyone in the heels as they cut you up through the sea of human traffic. Thankfully, there are strategically placed power ups along the way; 90% in the shape of amusing advertisements. These can usually distract you long enough to make you forget that you care about something you shouldn’t. The remaining 10% are presented in the form of human interactions… these are the really good ones which can save you from the most stressful of levels – they’re definitely out there, I saw them myself, but you just have to stop looking at the floor and the adverts and you’ll find them.

The other; is to try to not think about other people’s lives. I’m shit at this game. Robert Winston says that one of the most stressful things you can do is to walk into a room full of people. The number of judgements that we make towards others seems proportionate to the number of people we have in our field of vision, and the number of judgements we make about a single person is phenomenal in the first place. So when you’re walking round a Big City, where people are bursting at the seams trying to grasp at the floating pieces of identity that are lost in the vanilla ocean of existence… well… it all seems to just add to the importance of being able to be good at this contest. You’ll notice that lots of the characters in the game has discovered sunglasses in order to create a sort of invincibility for the duration that their eyes are hidden; personally, I’ve never liked using cheat codes since Action Replay decided to Poke around inside 8-bit consoles. So, with the midday sun threatening to burn a new hole in my retinas, and the impact of the other contestants becoming stronger; I buckled to the comfort of a Brighton bound train, stuck next to the fat 50 year old business man, spilling the high end of his shitty-disco music from his tacky iPod headphones and drumming along with his fat fingers and his fat smile. It reminded me that I need to get better at this game; that or I need to get some sunglasses.

Uncontrollable and irrational adrenaline. I don’t miss you when you’re gone, so why turn up in the first place? If it’s to protect me, I think you need to stop and look around. What kind of situation am I in where I need protecting? Perhaps you’re just bored and haven’t been out in a while, so you need to take a walk every now and then…. stretch your legs.

Adrenaline… can we come to some sort of arrangement, where you tell me that you want some exercise, and I get the leash that’s hanging by the front door and run around the park with you? It’s just that if you come out while we’re having a nice meal at a restaurant… well, it sort of spoils the mood for me. And today, all I wanted was a nice walk in the park and to sit down and read a book. It seems like you had other plans. Or were you sleeping, and someone trod on your tail? Well, I’m sorry about that, but there are better things to bark at, I promise you.

Maybe you want me to dangle myself off a cliff a bit more often? I could swing from treetops, dodge traffic or run barefoot through a crack den. Would that be exciting enough for you? Living life on the edge could be the answer. But that’s a bit too close to death for me right now. If only I could give you some kind of emotional pager, and beep you every time I’m in need. In fact, when was the last time I really needed you? There was that fight I got into in 2005… but… wasn’t it you that started that in the first place? Who knows, perhaps you’d been listening to alcohol for too long. You guys should definitely stop hanging out.

So I suggest a compromise. Give me warning in future. Any kind of warning. Tear up one of my favourite shoes. Give me the sad eye/whining combination. Go to the bathroom in my closet… anything… just give me some kind of sign. Once you do that, we can work something out. I’ll listen to you and we can work better together as a team.

Yours sincerely,

Consciousness.