* * *
I found Ashbourne unusually oppressive and depressing today.
I think it was partly due to the two sets of road works which were being
conducted with a lamentable lack of regard for either coordination or effective
management, and which were causing exacerbated delays in consequence. It was
also due in part to the proliferation of old people in the town, and therein
lies a fit starting point for another subject: my oddnesses.
I mused on them while I sat in the coffee shop and watched a
certain little lady walk by (for those who recognise the reference, I really
was sitting in a coffee shop, not leaning on a lamp post.)
1. Among my bag of sundry neuroses there is one which I
never really thought of as a neurosis before. I’d go so far as to suggest that
it’s on the level of a phobia, and might well be recognised and have a name
something like ‘geriatriphobia’ (which Word doesn’t think is a word but that
hardly proves anything.) The fact is that I have a horror of old people. I find
them repulsive and go to some lengths to avoid being near them. (At this point
the normal response to such an outlandish statement would be: ‘It’s wrong to
think like that,’ and my reply would be ‘I don’t think like that. It’s how I
feel. Thoughts are generally quite obedient phenomena and mostly prepared to
listen to reason. Feelings, on the other hand, are wild creatures which come
and go in accordance with their own will and take orders from nothing and
nobody.’) But to continue: The problem with suffering from geriatriphobia is
that it affects the sense of self as you grow remorselessly towards the state
of agedness. It’s why I now try to keep some distance between me and certain
other people, partly to protect them from suffering nauseating attacks of
repulsion, and partly to avoid my own descent into self-loathing.
2. I try never to wish harm to anyone no matter what they’ve
done. I’m not always successful, but I do try. I suspect the wishing of harm
probably damages whatever part of us survives physical death – if anything does
– and is therefore counterproductive. The desire for revenge is also, or so it
seems to me, a product of the lower mind and unfit for those who aspire to
exist on a better level.
3. I find frilly lingerie a complete turn-off. There’s a
shop window full of the stuff opposite the coffee shop in Ashbourne, and I
sometimes spend several minutes staring at it and wondering what it’s there
for.
4. In similar vein, I could write copious amounts on the
connection – or lack thereof – between love, sex and romance. Unfortunately it
would involve imposing a level of effort on my typing fingers to which I’m not
prepared to subject them. Suffice it to say that I’m not at all sure that I’ve
ever felt love for an adult human. Romances aplenty have come and gone, but
that’s not the same thing at all. And one of the deep undercurrents of my odd perceptions
is the notion that sex is fundamentally sordid.
5. And also in similar vein, I don’t understand why Dr House
continues to pursue Lisa Cuddy. She’s far too blousy and tight-skirted for a
man of oddly refined tastes. (I suppose it means that Dr House is not such a man.) As
for me, I find surface glamour cheap and something to be avoided rather than
pursued. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Hermione Granger man and always have been.
They were the ones which dropped off the top of my head in
the coffee shop. There are plenty more. Right now it’s time for my nightly
conversation with the bats (Not that it’s quite a conversation I admit, but you
know what I mean.)
* * *
I never said what I did in Ashbourne which caused me to have
pangs of regret, did I? I’m not going to, either. As I’ve said before and it
bears repeating: the problem with writing a public blog is that you can never
be sure who might read it. Those who know me well, however, might have caught a clue further up the page.
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