Walking the Road that Suits.

I sometimes wish I’d been a child prodigy – one of those kids who cast aside the rattle before they’re old enough to crawl, preferring to construct complex melodies on a tin whistle instead. By the time they’re old enough to talk they’re already virtuosi par excellence, and go on to spend their lives being watched by half a million YouTubers and getting likes:dislikes in the ratio of 10,000:1.

Not for me, though. Being a child prodigy leads inevitably along the road of endeavour, accomplishment and recognition, and people like me aren’t comfortable on that sort of glistening surface. I’ve had a marked mistrust of endeavour, accomplishment and recognition ever since… but that’s a long story. In retrospect, I think a life of drifting without ever getting anywhere in particular was probably about right.

But here’s an interesting thought: Is it better to be a nobody or a has been? The nobody doesn’t have anywhere to fall, does he? But I suppose that’s the negative view, and maybe I can blame it on my early life mentor, the great Bob himself. One of the first lines of his which I remember being impressed by was:

When ya got nothin’, ya got nothin’ to lose.

And now I’m even struggling to remember which song it comes from.