On Life and New Things.

I was going to make an extended post tonight around the question of ‘do people change?’ I got to musing about it when I heard Gregory House – or it might have been James Wilson – say ‘people don’t change.’ I told myself to think about it and subsequently came up with my version of the answer, and here it is:

Forty two. (Sorry, force of habit.)

Yes and no. It depends on the nature of the change and the agent that’s driving it. And that’s all I’m prepared to say because I’m not in the mood for extended rationale (and what the blip would I know anyway?)

Instead, I thought I might mention the fact that I bought two very stylish mugs today. (They really are very stylish, the sort you might find in some terribly urbane bistro in one of those smarty-pants cities where they have terribly urbane bistros.) I also started using my swish new electric kettle – only a Russell Hobbs, but it’s still swish and new and it wasn’t cheap.

Now, the first of these new diversions suggests I’m rather more sophisticated than I thought I was; that’s just about bearable. The second, however, might or might not reveal that I belong to this culture more than I thought I did, because the buying of swish new kettles which aren’t cheap is central to the ethos of a consumption-obsessed mentality which regards such practice as a defining marker of civilisation. That would worry me, but I only bought it because the switch was going wonky on the old one. So maybe I’m OK after all.

But here’s the irony: When I came to use one of my very stylish new mugs, the unconventional nature of its relative dimensions meant that my reading glasses steamed up when I blew on the hot beverage. Life will insist on playing practical jokes on you, won’t it, just when you’re trying your best to be neither more nor less than who you are.