One Torturous Day.

I was fifteen minutes early for my doctor appointment this morning; the doctor was running fifteen minutes late. And so I sat for half an hour in a chair close to the automatic doors being repeatedly assailed by blasts of cold air every time another patient made its entrance or exit.

And on the wall facing me was a video screen vomiting instructions as required by the modern mania for risk avoidance: Don’t do this because it’s bad for you. You must do that or face some deleterious consequence. Avail yourself of screening for this, that, the other, and all the other others we haven’t thought of yet. Stay warm in the winter (Really?) Make sure your house is heated to a minimum of 18° Celsius. (Do they realise how much it costs to heat a house to minimum of 18° now that the energy providers are hiking their tariffs by 4x the rate of inflation just because they can?)

The best of them showed a bunch of pharmaceutical capsules dancing around, heads bobbing merrily, while somebody with a poor singing voice sang just about the worst song you could imagine anybody ever getting paid to write. They informed us that they were antibiotics, and wished us to know that antibiotics don’t cure everything. I did know that actually, and anybody who doesn’t must have trouble knowing how to put their socks on in the morning.

Meanwhile, I was beginning to feel ill from the icy onslaughts making their way through the automatic doors… And that wasn’t all.

They had Ashbourne Radio playing continuously from hidden speakers somewhere at ceiling level. I assume they have to be hidden so that people like me won’t have a credible excuse for taking a 12 bore shotgun into a doctors’ surgery. If ever I make positive identification of said speakers, I just might.

Ashbourne Radio is one of those small local radio stations which somehow manage to survive on an endless diet of inane muzak and twittering superficialities. It’s utter torture and I told the doctor so when I finally escaped into his office. He smiled and asked ‘What’s playing?’ ‘Bloody Ashbourne Radio,’ I said gloomily. He smiled again.

He then gave me a partial diagnosis of my condition, but left enough loose ends dangling in the murk of the immediate future to ensure that I shall remain stressed for at least the next eight days and probably beyond. In any event, it seems I’m to have an operation. Do you realise what a torturous thing the prospect of an operation is to a recluse with an invasion phobia and a horror of all things corporeal? It really is, you know. It is.

And so a good day was had by all. When I got back here (I never refer to this place as home) I was faced with another exasperating issue, but that one is too complex to write about.

Being Pre-Trump and Ominous.

I was just reading an old post of mine from three years ago. Part of it concerned a news item about a Twitter post deriding Islam made by some celebrity. One section of my post read:

If you feel, maybe not unreasonably, that you need to criticise a belief system as big as Islam, is Twitter the right place to do it? I think not. The subject is far too emotive and needs a much broader platform to allow for a balanced and reasonably argued view. Unfortunately, tweeting is what celebrities do these days; I suspect that most of them are afraid of getting lost on broader platforms.

Does that remind you of a dark cloud still lurking below the horizon?

Saying Nothing.

So here I am with nothing to say again. Too many distractions. I suppose I could make the Trump and the Book post, and how the content of his twittered reaction proved yet again what an emotionally insecure and immature child he is. For somebody who claims to be in possession of a high IQ, the fact that he fails to see what a fool he constantly makes of himself is quite remarkable. But everybody with a grain of common sense knows that already, so why bother?

A Bad Joke for Troubled Times.

I’ve mentioned before that I have an aversion to most expressions of corporeality. My latest epiphany on the issue was brought to me by an elderly cat, and a blog post of uncommon insight loomed. But then I gave up the idea because I couldn’t be bothered. It seems the body was willing but the spirit was weak.

Maybe I’ll make it if and when I may be assured that my own body is not to undergo invasion or join the ranks of the choir invisible. Such layers of irony are the last refuge to which an inveterate observer clings.

Adjusting the Dictum.

It’s after midnight and I haven’t made a post yet today. That bothers me, but the fact is that I spent most of the day tending the birds, perambulating the Shire, braving the blast with spade in hand, and doing household chores. And then the evening was spent Skyping and emailing. (What an easy life I have compared with some people.)

I did wonder why I spend so much time and effort on emails. Is it because I’m concerned about saying the right thing, or is it more to do with ego? Is it both, and is that acceptable? My standards and motivations are so important to me, you see. Why is that? Should they be so important? I don’t know, which is why life and mortality can be a bugger at times.

I did have one interesting thought tonight, though. You know that hoary old New Age dictum: Always follow your heart, for you heart is never wrong? I don’t like it; it’s too easily misappropriated to mean ‘do whatever is easier, pleasanter, more profitable, or more comfortable.’ It would make more sense to me if it read: Train your will to accord with your soul’s known purpose, and then do what you want to do.

How the hell you achieve success in such a purpose I can’t begin to guess. I don’t even know whether we have a soul or not. I don’t know anything except trivial facts like my name and the price of baked beans. So I’m not preaching or trying to coin a radical new sound bite to augment the flotsam already washing around the ocean of New Age literature. It’s just that the latter seems to be less forgiving of human frailty than the former, and you know how disturbed I sometimes am by expressions of human frailty.

A Laboured Decision.

I bought a second hand DVD for 99p in a charity shop today. When I took it to the counter the girl asked: ‘Are you paying by cash?’

The first and most obvious reply would have been ‘I’m hardly going to pay 99p by credit card, am I?’ But it seemed unimaginative, and that would never do.

So then I considered: ‘Is that all right? I’m afraid I’m clean out of buttons.’ Ah, no. She might have been embarrassed, or she might have inferred a hint of mockery and taken offence. Besides, she had a foreign accent and people from other cultures often misapprehend my sense of humour. I took the simple, direct route and said ‘Yes.’

Sometimes I wish life wouldn't insist on forcing decisions on me. It can be quite unsettling.

On Llamas and Inductive Reasoning.

I was clearing one of the road drains today when my old friend the llama came trotting up looking mightily amused.

‘You look amused,’ I said.

‘You state the obvious,’ he replied.

I chose not to be offended since a llama's intention is not always quite what it seems, but asked instead what he found so funny.

‘I just proved how illogical humans are,’ he answered smugly.

‘Oh yes, and how did you do that?’

‘I snatched a woman’s hat off her head and flung it along the road.’

‘Why was that funny?’

‘That wasn’t funny. What was funny was her reaction.’

‘Which was?’

‘She looked confused for a moment, and then said to the male companion with whom she was walking: “Oh. The wind must have blown my hat off.” “I didn’t feel any wind,” replied the male of the species. “Well, what else could it have been?” she insisted, still affecting that odd countenance which humans adopt when they lack the appropriate degree of certainty. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “I suppose there must have been a sudden gust.” See what I mean? Illogical.’

‘It wasn’t illogical at all,’ I argued, feeling a trifle defensive towards my own species for a change. ‘Hats don’t just fly off your head under their own power, do they? They naturally assumed it was the wind because that was the only rational explanation.’

‘Ah, but it wasn’t though, was it?’

‘Wasn’t what?’

‘The only rational explanation. I remember reading a book once about a detective called Shylock something-or-other…’

‘You mean Sherlock Holmes.’

‘Do I? Well, whatever. The bit I particularly remember was where he said: “When you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains – however improbable – must be the truth.” Or words to that effect. Now, had the woman said “My hat just flew off my head and there’s no wind, therefore I conclude that an invisible llama is playing tricks on me,” I should have had much more faith in her powers of reason and those of your species generally. What are you doing, by the way?’

‘Clearing the dead leaves and silt off this grid.’

‘Why?’

‘So the water will go down it instead of running along the road like a river in the wrong place.’

‘Hmm. Good idea. Do the other humans in this locality value your efforts?’

'Probably not.'

'My point precisely.'

And then he trotted off up the road whistling. Did you know that llamas can whistle? Neither did I.

A Life of Little Purpose.

There are those who believe that there is a plan to everybody’s life – that we have a destiny to which we are inexorably drawn. Maybe that’s true, in which case it appears that mine can be summed up in three words: observe, experience, recount. I sometimes feel guilty that I rarely did much that was useful.

Wind and Water.

The clouds tonight are rushing headlong across the near-full moon, racing from the north east like so many hags on witchy business, their vestments leaping in the icy blast like cold flames while they roar their displeasure at those of us who cling to the steady land for safety.

It’s different being at sea in a small frigate during a heavy storm. The wind does not roar so much, for there is less to offer resistance. Instead it whispers in your ears, wild and sibilant, to augment the hammering of the mountainous swell on the puny vessel and the venomous hiss of bow waves surmounting the deck and splattering man and superstructure alike.

There is no land to cling to for safety on the dark briny, but only reliance on the fates and the sureness of sea legs to keep you from being hurled to a certain end. This I experienced on only four days in my life, but it was enough to be remembered.

Another Pretend Positive.

Being a classic HSP type I’ve been prey to a lot of stress all my life. Today it finally dawned on me that it has one thing to commend it: if you feel stressed, at least you know you’re alive and functioning after a fashion. Those who don’t feel stressed in stressful situations are mostly either dead, drugged, insane, psychopathic, or they’ve given up (or maybe they’re fully enlightened Buddhists, but there aren’t many of those.)

It doesn’t help much if you’ve got it bad, but I thought I’d say it anyway. And I’m probably generalising…