Thee Oh Sees latest album 'A Weird Exits' is pretty cool and there is no finer way to kick-start a working day than with 'Plastic Plant' a psych workout with a humming bassline...
I'm not a big fan of nostalgia. Never have been. I don't believe in the idea that things were much better in the past. A bad case of rose-tinted spectacles and all that. I prefer to look forward. Despite the current state of the world, I believe there is better to come, both individually and globally. Clearly, this is a preamble for a volte face - almost but not quite. I have gradually started to accept that good things in the here and now can come from roots in the past. My rejection of the past has been a bit extreme, and I've come to realise (I am a slow learner) that the past makes me who I am now. All of which is an excuse for a trip down memory lane. Many years ago I worked in the IT department of a supermarket chain, a chain that is no more as it got gobbled up by bigger fish. The team I worked in included two other men with the same Christian name as me. Up until then I don't think I'd met anyone with the same name. To distinguish each other we had ...
A life can be considered as a multitude of parallel streams, each of which feeds into the main flow of your river of life. The streams represent paths not taken whenever choices arose. When you choose a path, you exclude another path. Whichever route you choose, you don't know what would have happened if you'd chosen differently. You do have to believe, assuming you are happy with where you find yourself, that the other path wouldn't have been better. Sometimes a wrong decision can take you down a path you're not enjoying and still lead you back to happiness. Either way, there will be joy on the path you chose, even amongst the weeds that choke the stream. The song I've chosen, '1000 Years' by The Coral, touches on these themes.
Carpe Diem There is much encouragement from society to make the most of every day. Identify the small things that bring pleasure. Be grateful for what you have, not what you lack or desire. This is all sensible advice, but we can't be exploring a new part of the world every day. Jumping out of planes (with parachutes, ofc), flying at 500 knots through the Machynnleth loop in the backseat of an F15E at 250 feet above the ground. Gradually, day-to-day life imposes its mundane aspects on us and the possibility of living each day as if it will be our last soon fades away. It would be too exhausting and become rather tedious. We find pleasure in the people and activities we love, or go mad. Sometimes life intervenes and is determined to slap us around the face with a wet fish to remind us of our mortality. But there are escapes... Music is one of the things that keeps me energised, so I'm very grateful to still have some hearing (despite the loud concerts and fast jet noise...
For about a week, maybe more, I've had a cold. It's one of those colds that refuses to go quickly. I have shared it widely, unintentionally, though of course, I may not be the source of all the colds, there are so many about. I'm not here to write about my cold, though. It's a lead-in to something more pernicious. Accompanying the cold, especially as it slowly fades, I've had a bad headache. Initially, I thought it was cold-related, but I've come to believe it's a physical manifestation of stress - a topic that opens a crate of cans of worms. The stress I'm experiencing is probably the result of several things I'm anxious about. I had considered listing the things I thought were at the root of it, and then deciding whether they belong in the category of things I can control or cannot control. Instead, I've decided to dig deeper and write about it in the hope that writing it down helps control it and maybe it helps more widely. I've always b...
The last three weeks have been fun-filled, starting with the Idler festival, a family holiday in Phuket, a week for Q and I in Bangkok, culminating in a day at the Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford. Phew! As I start writing this I have yet to think about how I'll cover all this, it may even require two posts, we crammed so much in. Q and I attended the Idler festival , starting with an overnight stay in a small hotel in Hampstead, before meeting up with our Idler friends on Friday. Unexpectedly, we had an impromptu evening meal with son #2 and his Costa Rican gf. This was excellent and a chance for Q and S to spend time together again. In a few days, we'll be off to Thailand together. After the meal, we bumped into some of our Idler friends who'd popped into the pub for a drink. Friday evening was the start of the festival proper, and it was great to meet up with Idler friends as well as hear a discussion between Rowan Williams (ex Archbishop of Canterbury), ...
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