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.