Friday 14th September 2018 - Autumn is Coming

[Retrospectively written - copied from handwritten diary]

The gradual descent into Winter seems tangible.

Today, even sitting in the garden, in full sun, requires a second layer of top clothing to ensure comfort, particularly when the breeze is blowing in from the North or East.

Small birds, tits and robins mostly, are frequenting the feeders again, to the annoyance of the pigeons who have held a virtual monopoly on the easy pickings since the start of Summer. The number of visitors has swollen noticeably, no doubt helped by a good crop of returning fledglings from the Spring matings.

The days are shortening quickly now as the Autumn Equinox approaches so post-dinner sojourns outdoors have ended.

Leaves and fruits drop from trees who've seen it all before, as they draw in their energy and rest beneath bark blankets.

Some welcome and embrace the new season; the jam makers, the game hunters, the football and rugby enthusiasts and the Christmas fanatics. I curse the faint light, the biting cold, the interminable wind and the spiteful precipitation. At least the beach will empty of holidaymakers now, traffic will move freely and there are those hot, slow-cooked dinners to look forward to.

Hoodie's on and I've moved to the garden to write. Dark clouds are rolling across what was a clear sky earlier and it's decidedly chilly. Stormy weather is forecast for the weekend and I fear we've lost the sun for a few days now.

I quite look forward to Fridays, the last day of the working week for most, even though I'm not 'employed' currently and may never be again. They do, I suppose, provide respite from the creditor 'phone calls and there are none on Sunday so my heart can tick with a more natural rhythm and the throat knots and stomach churns will abate somewhat.

As I consider the past week, I feel that matrimonial relations have improved slightly and I've returned to writing after a hiatus. Blog posts have been added retrospectively and links to these no-holds-barred musings have been posted on Twitter, where I'm active again in the #sixwordstory camp. There are more entries to copy to the blog and I'm chastising myself for committing yet more words to paper here but it just feels more natural and personal to use pen and paper.

In other productivity news, Wednesday's woodwork was missed through migraine but a brief willow weaving session garnered another bullrush for the garden.

Just added another couple of days' diary to the blog and was pleased to note that I only had one week left to transcribe. Unfortunately, it appears to be the most fertile week to date. Ah well ! Onwards and upwards.

Been pondering my synopsis that citizenship ought to be an option rather than an obligation. I've done some brainstorming and mind-mapping and it's fraught lwith issues and contradictions. I'm not sure if this is due to the limitations of intellect, a lifetime of indoctrination into the norms of the system or it's just an unworkable idea. I will return to this and write a blog post in due course (I think!). I should maybe research Engels and Marx and see how long it took them to write Das Kapital for reassurance, maybe.

I guess a forum to discuss 'ideas' of any nature would be useful. Maybe one exists already. If it doesn't I already have a name for a collaborative thought site: "THINGK TANGK".

Tuesday 30th January 2018 - Direction

The intent of this blog was to write about what I know about.

Since what I know most about is me, I had thought that it might become a diary or some kind of living biography. I'd probably pass comment on the weather & the day's propaganda feeds as well as my daily routine.

However, it seems to be going off at a tangent at present. My renewed enthusiasm for writing, as a distraction, has turned it into something of a scrapbook of randomness recently. Writing for the sake of writing? Yes. Why not? Site hits for my 'Inspiration' related musings are exponentially greater than those relating to my trials and tribulations. I guess we've all got our own issues, without burdening ourselves with those of strangers.

So, this blog needs to find some sense of direction and I'm unsure what that should be for now. As I remain unclear as to where I go personally in life. If I was merely undecided on these matters it would be a simple question of choice. Life's too bloody complicated!

Anyway, a bit of diary just for the record.

I've been prescribed Zopiclone & Sertraline. Three days in and the Zopiclone is working like a charm - wide awake at 03:45 this morning!!

It's not all negative, though. In many ways 3 to 4 a.m. is the day's happy hour. With such little human activity at this time, the peace and quiet has a meditative quality that provides space for uninterrupted thought. I enjoy writing at this hour, which is just as well since most other activity risks disturbing the rest of the household.

A timely, generous and selfless act from a close relative at the weekend has lifted the severe financial pressure on us. I sincerely hope the immense gratitude is apparent to them and that I prove worthy of the 'investment'.

Desperately tired and restless now. A combination of stress, insomnia, last week's event and the new drug regime I suppose. Not to mention all the personal attention being lavished, which I'm unaccustomed to! A couple of good nights sleep would be more than welcome and I'm pretty sure increase my positivity no end.

As always, any comment is appreciated. Particularly if you have any sense of the direction this blog or my life should be taking!

Sunday 28th January 2018 - Make Strangers A Source Of Inspiration

On Sunday 14th January, I posted a piece entitled Struggling for Inspiration.

https://thereluctantdiarist.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/sunday-14th-january-2018-struggling-for.html

One of the options I put forward was to "Make strangers a source of inspiration".

Here's an example. She's not an interesting character but if you were to rock her world, all kinds of possibilities could be imagined.

The Bobette

The Bobette is characterised by shoulder length, cut too thick hair and tinted but only to preserve neutrality and cover any early grey strands - no reds, blues or greens for this girl.

Safe, comfortable, middle class, boring without realising it & married to Mr Dependable who leaves the house at 8 a.m.every morning and walks back through the door at 6 p.m. prompt. Typically aged 30-50, though sometimes the condition's onset is earlier, she's advertising that Mr Right has been found and the only flattery or attention she desires now is from her female friends.

She may keep a house cat but is wary of dogs - she heard some could be dangerous. The small car that ferries her around probably has a given name, rigidly obeys speed limits & all other road signage & is checked over by Mr Bobette every weekend at her behest. Naturally risk averse she 's never made a bungee jump, pillioned on a motorcycle, smoked, drunk more than 2 glasses of wine, visited a tropical country or driven without fastening her seatbelt.

She dresses neatly for comfort - trouser suits, knee-length skirts, blouses (not too clingy) and twinsets. She doesn't own a pair of jeans but has a cupboard full of low heeled, scuff-free shoes.

Her home is clean, neat & sparsely decorated. The lounge is functional with a plain wool mix carpet & seating pushed back against the walls.A nest of tables sits in a corner of the room and if there is sufficient space to allow the room to remain uncluttered, a coffee table beset with the obligatory cookery books, coasters & a small vase of dried flowers will rest on a neutral rug in the centre. The table will be just beyond arms reach of the sofa sitters but form prevails over functionality here. On the longest wall a tasteful, conventional, posed, professionally-taken A3 photograph of her nuclear family takes prominence. A smear-free glass fronted display cabinet houses more silver-framed family portraits - none of them show the subjects engaged in activity, just dutifully staring into the camera lens with their vacant smiles and safe haircuts.

The kitchen is rebuilt every few years with a contemporary but not bold design. Full sets of cutlery and crockery are neatly stored - loss or breakage demands replacement and a trip to the charity shop with the perfectly serviceable old sets.

The fitted bedroom is feminine, pastel and floral with functional, formal lighting and no allusion to a temptress's boudoir. Bathrooms are polished and fragranced with neatly arranged toiletries & a small bottle of after shave the only indication of a male presence.

When the kids are collected from school - which, of course, they must be given all the dangers of suburban life - she stands with the other Bobettes & talks proudly of Mr Bobette's promotion to deputy bean counter in accounts receivable and the fish pie that she's prepared for dinner.

The rest of her days are filled with cleaning, tidying, shopping, a flower arranging course and weight watchers.

And such will be her life. So long as the basic security & comfort she feels isn't rocked, her limited imagination & intelligence will permit a definite contentment with banality and good luck to her. It's not a life that most would choose but the malcontents amongst us might just hide a tiny bit of envy for an unremarkable, uncomplicated existence.

Please feel free to leave comments.

Wednesday 10th January 2018 - Regrets? I've had a few

I find it absurd and rather egotistical when people say they have no regrets in life.

It implies a lifetime of precise decision making and never a misplaced spoken or written word. A perfect life without a slip in word or deed. Balderdash!

No word or deed is ever unconsidered, if only for a moment, before being given life in the world & every action has implications. Cause & effect.

One need not dwell on past indiscretions or self-flagellate over missed opportunity, I suppose (though I admit I can't help myself). Particularly when an otherwise useful, productive and fulfilling existence has been had but surely only the psychopathic or sociopathic amongst us can be reminded of past events without feeling something; happiness, sadness, pride, remorse - the yin and yang experiences which serve to shape us. It is the weight that we choose to give each side that determines our own satisfaction and that is down to personality, which is largely formed in our early years and beyond our control.

My regrets are many. Chief amongst them, the soul-destroying years of unfulfilling office work, I always considered a necessary & selfless duty in order to put food on the table and a roof over the heads of a young family. On reflection, I should have done more to change the course of my life. It would not have been selfish to take the risk and explore other avenues more fully. Indeed, the angst and depression I felt must surely have affected my nearest and dearest to the point that any economic benefit from my persistence may have been offset entirely. Ergo, the consequences of inaction may be as detrimental as misplaced action.

I can have no regret about marriage and raising children. It's easy to rationalise that the whole point of anyone's existence is to ensure the survival of the species. Whether or not my own contributions to the human gene pool have been worthwhile, we may never know but to the extent that I have fulfilled my singular purpose for being I should be satisfied.

The question is, what is left to do now. Kids are fledged, I'm 53, broke & have almost no income. That roof I suffered selflessly for will surely be gone before long. Had I followed my artistic instincts and pursued photography and writing more vigorously, I might now be reaping the psychological & financial rewards. Both, I can confidently say, would at least have been much improved. Could I have played the game at interview & won that scholarship -Yes. Ought I to have taken that opportunity to study for a degree 15 years ago - Yes. Certainly, I have regrets and so should everyone else. Ultimately, it is to the degree that these affect others or they gnaw at your own psyche that really matters.

Comments and contributions are gratefully received, both positive and negative. Please leave something if you have the time. Thanks for reading.

Tuesday 9th January 2018 - Trains Of Thought & Reading Lists

Continue to thoroughly enjoy the Woolf diaries.

Whilst necessarily dealing with the mundane chores & typical events of daily life  there are numerous insightful physical and emotional characterisations & anecdotes that bring life to some of the great writers and thinkers of the day; Aldous Huxley, Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey to name but 3.

And all set against the Great War backdrop. Mention of the dead & wounded (and their aftercare or not), food & coal shortages, nightly bombing raids on the capital, conscription, pro & anti-war rhetoric. Most days bring reference to the weather - some of the worst for years by all accounts which sparks images of and provides explanation for the horrendous mud in the killing fields a few miles East.

On the political front there is suffrage, the early throes of the Labour party & open debate of socialist principles.

In the round all of these observations accidentally combine to give the reader a great feel for an interesting period of history, when the war to end all wars merely led to a change in tactics, emancipation began but remains unfinished, domestic service to the upper middle classes was waning as better wages & conditions could be found elsewhere and free-thinkers found audiences.

The honest & unedited end of day ramblings, written in a staccato style give the impression of a sense of urgency on the author's part to lay down thoughts whilst they are fresh or are remembered. Indeed, at some point she makes reference herself to this matter & the frustration she feels when guests stay late & trains of thought evaporate. We all suffer this fate and indeed I was just settling off to sleep myself last night when I was compelled to rise & get these musings down. As usual, the intent was to jot down some bullets & return to flesh things out in the morning but I ended up typing by the light of the laptop through the early hours.

A tremendous command of the english language & the now slightly antique sentence structure in Woolf's writing appeal greatly. I say 'antique' because my guess is that even today's 'serious' authors write prose in a more current lilt. Guessing is necessary because, as I remarked in a previous entry, my voracious reading days were in my youth.

Now, if one were to ask 10 different readers for a list of 10 must-read books I daresay there would be few duplicates in those 100 tomes presented for consideration. I would expect a spattering of Shakespeare, Greek Classics, perhaps some 19th century poetry anthologies, Brontes, Austen, Huxley, Orwell, a bit of French, Russian & North American, maybe a Booker winner or two. I will dust the cobwebs of my mind & try to come up with my own list presently.

Then, where should one begin?

Be very happy to hear from anyone with a list or comment.

Life & Biography Writing for Friends, Family History & As A Personal Historian

Some time ago, when I was devoting much time to researching my family tree, I produced some documents that I intended to use for information gathering purposes.

These were initially intended to serve as skeleton questionnaires for the interviewing of older family members and would inform both about the individual & hopefully prompt recollections of other, perhaps largely forgotten about ancestors. As is the norm, this initial idea quickly expanded and I thought about developing them further so that I might become a Personal Historian and produce biographies for others to leave for their own families.

With the development of Information Technology, the production and publication of professionally printed & bound biographies for the 'unfamous' is now available to many at reasonable cost.

Whilst I didn't take the project all the way to fruition at the time, save for one family member, a lot of hard work & a little plagiarism went in to the production of some pretty solid questionnaires amounting to in excess of 400 questions. Many of these serve well as prompts for supplementary questions that enable a deeper insight into a life story.

Have you started or thought about putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard & immediately got stuck? We all have those moments when a long forgotten memory suddenly springs into our consciousness & lives again. This will often happen during a conversation but is frequently triggered by sensory stimuli. To aid recall, consider trying to aid the recall process sights, sounds & smells fom your past.

Sights might include that box of old photographs in the attic, some cine film (which is easily converted to digital these days), an old movie you watched or a visit to a gallery etc.

Sounds could be a favourite piece of music from your youth, the clackety-clack of a railroad, a ship's horn in the harbour or something from the natural world.

Smells that are useful include those of food cooking. Consider preparing something that grandma used to make you. Or, maybe it's flowers or pine-cones or a camomile lawn or the fish market or an open fire.

If there are any readers who would like assistance with writing, proof reading and/or publishing their own life stories, please use the contact form to the right of this page & I will be happy to help.

Alternatively, I can email you copies of the structured questionnaire & some more handy hints and advice. If they are of use and any value to you and you are financially able a click on the donate button to the right would be greatly appreciated. I would wish you well anyway with your endeavours.