Older, but no wiser

You know what it’s like when you go into a room – a party, perhaps – and there are a dozen conversations all going on at once? The sound level is deafening; your ears are bombarded by wave upon wave of words coming at you from all directions; you catch a few that seem to go together, you try to follow the thread of one single conversation among many, but strain as you might, all you hear are snatches - there aren’t enough words that rise above the hubbub for you to follow the flow, find the meaning, and join the conversation. A phrase from this couple here, a word from across the way there, a cry of excitement from the far side of the room; fragmented outline shapes of stories, but no content. A hint, but no more; the one is drowned out by the many.

That’s a fair metaphor for what’s going on in my head these days. It’s not that there’s a shortage of raw material, but the strands of thought are constantly fighting each other for air-time, with the result that all I hear are fragments, isolated pieces for different jigsaws that wont link up to make whole. Oops, there I go, mixing my metaphors again. But perhaps you get my drift. I need to find a quiet room somewhere where I can close the door on all these voices and listen just to one.