Older, but no wiser

I suppose this might be depression. Of a sort; perhaps with a small ‘d’ rather than a big ‘D’, as it were. I’m not sure exactly where it sits on scale from being merely fed up to being truly clinically depressed, except to say that it feels as though it’s maybe hovering somewhere around the midway point and moving closer to the latter than the former. The periods of occasional fed-up-ness have grown and merged; no longer just a part-time feature but a continuous state which colours everything, dawn to dusk and even it feels in sleep, and from which nothing seems able to extract me, even temporarily.

Even now though, something in me revolts at the idea. No; not me; I don’t do depression. I’m positive, right? Optimistic, always finding a silver lining to every cloud, glass half full, always looking on the bright side. Trouble is, bright sides are getting harder and harder to find.

This is all totally irrational of course. There’s no logical reason for feeling this way; on the scale of things, any clouds on my horizon are mere wisps of stuff that the sunshine ought to have no difficulty dispersing. So why do I allow them to hang over me like thunderclouds?

I have got to snap out of this.

...here

My son is now £140 poorer thanks to this policy of Paypal:

“Payments received in your PayPal account may be reversed at a later time (in some instances up to 180 Days following the time of receiving the payment) if such a payment is subject to a chargeback, reversal, claim or otherwise invalidated. This means that for some of our sellers, payments received into their account may be reversed after they have been paid and after the seller has delivered any goods sold.”

He sold an iPod on eBay, received confirmation of the buyer’s payment into Paypal, shipped the goods, then a few days later Paypal took the money back out of his account, because it turns out the buyer was using a stolen credit card.

So much for seller protection. We both mistakenly thought that Paypal acted as a security buffer between buyer and seller, but in practice it seems that if Paypal accepts a criminal as a client, they're able to pass on the effects of that client's criminal behaviour to their other law-abiding clients after the event at no loss to themselves. Moreover, since they're not a bank they can operate outside of banking legislation.

If you Google “Paypal sucks” you’ll find plenty of websites and blogs recounting problems with their ‘service’, and thousands of very angry and frustrated users. I've taken down the links that I had here, as it turns out many of these sites are actually linking back to (and sponsored by??) a competitor to Paypal. I make no comment about any competitor's service; Paypal still sucks.

Hard to say; internal communication shutdown of some kind. CPU core processes still ticking over, but the lights on the front panel stopped flashing and input/output capacity (never a flood, even at the best of times) reduced to a trickle, just enough data getting through to prevent essential systems shutting down entirely.

Like being on dial-up instead of broadband; dial-up with a dodgy ‘phone line.

Or a virus that hogs the CPU, keeping it stuck in a loop chasing its own tail.

I’ve never been this long without posting. Sometimes in the past, when I’d been feeling particularly doubtful about the future and contemplating abandoning this blog, one of the things that kept me posting was the thought that, whatever the most recent post was, it wasn’t one I’d be comfortable as being the final one. I’d rather go out on a high, or at least a positive note, rather than just fading into nothingness.

I almost thought that previous post might be the one that fitted the bill. Nothing remarkable from a literary point of view, but at least it was positive, something I could leave standing as my blogging epitaph.

So, with no pressing need to post anything, I lapsed into silence. Both here and in the real world.

But if nothing else, there are a couple of points from that learning journey that may be worth sharing, as and when I can do them justice. So, no, I haven’t abandoned this space. Not yet.

Prompted by Rob Paterson’s observation that his blog is likely to reach one million page views some time this summer, Chris Corrigan asks: “If you knew that in five years 1 million people would read what you have written, what would you do with that opportunity?”

If I only had one shot at it, here’s the message I would want to give:

Seize life with both hands; you only live once (as far as we know) and it’s over a lot quicker than you think.

Speak your truth.

This world is brimming with wonders; seek them out wherever you go, appreciate them, and be renewed by them.

Take time to be still.

When you meet another, look for the good in their soul and speak to that good.

I had in mind that seven would be nice number of points. Those five came to me quickly, and maybe I shouldn’t struggle to make up the number. One though I could add as a qualifier to those above: Do as I say, not as I do.

It’s Friday, it’s lunchtime, the office is quiet, the sky is dark and it’s pouring outside (rain, sleet, thunder, lightning) all of which makes it feel quite bright and cosy and relaxed in here, and therefore possible to take a moment out to think, in spite of what I said yesterday.

This job problem, since that’s where I am at the moment. There are two sides to it: the hard facts of the job itself, and my feelings about those facts. I guess one thing I’m trying to do in this exercise is to tease those two apart, and see whether there really is a fundamental flaw in the facts of the job, such that I will never feel I fit here, or whether it might be possible to change the way I feel about the job, and so come to terms in a positive way with another dozen years here.

But first a qualifying question: is it just the job, or is it broader than that? Lifestyle might be a better word.

Let’s try a thought experiment: Suppose I were doing exactly the same job but in a part of the country which held the opportunity for easy access to wilder places; somewhere where I might for example go for a summer evening’s rock climbing, or even just a stroll along a riverbank; would that be sufficient? Or turn it round the other way – suppose we carried on living exactly where we are and visits to the hills were as few and far between as they are now (a year since I went camping anywhere) but I had a wonderfully fulfilling job (which equates to one where I felt I was being of service to humanity in some way), would I be content with that?

I have to admit, of those two, I think I’d prefer the former. But perhaps that’s just because it’s easier to imagine – I know what this job is, and I can easily paint an idyllic picture of a place in the country – or even a more realistic one, of a place on the outskirts of a regional city (much as I might dream of rural tranquillity, I’m enough of a realist to understand that after 53 years of suburban living, the adjustment to truly rural life would be quite significant) - but I simply have no conception what a fulfilling job might feel like. Oh, maybe that’s not quite true. I just remembered the time I was doing career counselling; I remember the comment I made after giving my very first session that it was possibly the most fulfilling day I had ever had at work. But I threw in the towel, because I didn’t believe in myself…

Perhaps those two alternatives have something in common though – perhaps there’s a common theme of what Maslow called self-actualisation, and I could attain that in either scenario?

Or perhaps even within the bounds of the present scenario; isn’t that what this question is all about?

If you’re waiting to hear more reflections on the 30 day learning journey… don’t hold your breath. The next 9 days will be a blur of work, practice, rehearse, work, perform… with the occasional spot of eating and sleeping thrown in for good measure.

I’m still committed to working with the question I set myself, but my 30 days wont be coincident with Chris’. When I put myself under pressure like this, free thought processes get turned off; all that remains is single minded application to the task of the moment. I’ll feel a lot more relaxed when I know I can play those darn notes…