Older, but no wiser

With so much potential on so many fronts for global catastrophe, doing anything other than something which just might help avert just one of the doomsday scenarios feels like fiddling whilst Rome burns.

We wring our hands helplessly, and carry on fiddling.

Work continues to be as purposeless and unfulfilling as ever. But I dutifully fiddle nonetheless. It seems the only option.

I gaze longingly at the crate of rock climbing gear in the garage and wonder if I’ll ever use it again. But anyway, it would only be fiddling.

My bass guitar looks at first sight like a metaphorical fiddle. Yet art – even apparently banal musical shows - has a way of touching the soul. So in spite of the pressure it brings to a self-doubting musician struggling to master his instrument, and the single-minded focus it requires, this is one form of fiddling of which I’m not ashamed.

I reckon kids growing up and leaving home is the biggest life transition I’ve encountered so far. Adjustment is proving surprisingly difficult, in ways I’m only just beginning to notice, let alone comprehend. This is the most real thing in my life today. In the final analysis, family trumps global catastrophe.

I might change my Internet Service Provider. It would be a worthwhile cost saving, but I'd lose the hosting service for the photos which appear on this blog, so all that would be left would be those little squares marking the place where something's missing. The blog's a mess anyway - the template was designed in the days when 800 x 600 pixel screens where commonplace. It's obvious too that I have very little to say these days; I've changed, I'm not the person I was when I began blogging. I'd delete the whole thing and forget about it, except for one thing. The comments. If I look back over old posts, it's not what I've written that matters, it's the conversations that have ensued, the connections, the friendships - although to my shame I've let those lapse. But I'm not quite ready yet to cut adrift from all that, so this broken space can stand a while longer while I figure out what to do with it.

...I should just acknowledge that I can't do this any more.