I HAVE NOW BEEN IN THE UK A WEEK
AND SEEM TO BE OVER JET-LAG, AND GENERAL FATIGUE, AT LAST. ADJUSTING TO LIVING HERE—AFTER 14 YEARS IN THE U.S.—SEEMS LIKELY TO TAKE A LITTLE LONGER
Thursday, May 14, 2015
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
(#221-1) May 13 2015. A business model based on paying people badly tends to be counter-productive in the end.
JUST BECAUSE I’M NOW LIVING IN THE UK DOESN’T MEAN I REMAIN ANY LESS INTERESTED IN THE U.S.
THE U.S. WILL ALWAYS HAVE A VERY SPECIAL PLACE IN MY HEART—WHICH IS WHY I AM CONCERNED. IF I DIDN’T CARE, I WOULDN’T WRITE ABOUT IT.
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
(#221-1) May 12 2015. I seem to be adjusting.
A NORMAL NIGHT’S SLEEP
IS A WONDERFUL THING
Last night, I experienced my first normal night’s sleep—and today started work at about 7.30 am pretty much as used to be my routine before my move.
I guess I am mostly physically adjusted.
Mentally? You have got to be kidding! This is a major change in almost every way, as far as I am concerned.
Difficult? Sure. But very promising.
Monday, May 11, 2015
May 11 2015. Hard to be sure—but I think I have done it! Done what? Caught up with my blogging.
MOVING DIDN’T COST ME MUCH BLOGGING TIME
MY SOFTWARE, WINDOWS LIVE WRITER, DID
ZOUNDS!
It doesn’t sound particularly difficult to blog each and every day, seven days a week—and it isn’t if you are disciplined and keep up to date—but it can be the very devil if you get behindhand. Then missing days can mount up with astonishing speed.
Moving, jetlag, and sheer fatigue cost me the bones of week—and then I had two periods when Windows Live Writer—my blogging software—would not cooperate.
I should have fixed it except that I was obsessively focused on re-writing and re-designing my long overdue website—all 800 plus pages of it—and didn’t dare stop what looked, at the time, like a near impossible task.
800 pages is a lot of work in writing terms alone—and is about twice as difficult and time consuming if graphics are involved as well.
As of today, I have finished this phase of the website—a humungous amount of work—and am finally up to date with my blogs.
I’m feeling rather pleased—and very tired. As always, there is a great deal of other stuff I haven’t done—but there is a limit to what I can cope with.
I like to work Hell, I love to work. But, every so often, I just run out of steam.
Since I have been backfilling—if that is an appropriate term—the actual date is July 3 2015.
Sunday, May 10, 2015
May 10 2015. I’m a believer in values—but not, particularly, in nationalism.
SOME COUNTRIES INSPIRE ME—AND I WARM TO THEM
OTHERS DO NOT. NONETHELESS, THERE IS SOMETHING TO BE SAID FOR SIMPLE FAMILIARITY.
Although I am Irish—Anglo-Irish if you want to include my class and social background—I was actually born in London in 1944. In fact, I was nearly killed within months of arriving on the scene when a German V.1 rocket exploded nearby. Apparently my cot was covered in broken glass, but I was unscathed—and downright cheerful.
Or so I was told. I have no recollection of eyeballing Hitler personally.
People tend to associate the Blitz (the bombing of London) with the Battle of Britain, and the early years of the war, but actually there were two major campaigns against London with the second starting shortly after my arrival.
This second campaign was the first sustained onslaught on a city with missiles—and was only brought to an end when Allied troops overran the launch sites on the continental mainland. The death rate alone from these assaults was in the tens of thousands. Add in the injured, and the casualty rate was into six figures. London was a dangerous place during WW II.
My mother had come to London to have fun (which she certainly did) and it was almost incidental that there was a war on and London was very far from risk free. She was much more scared of missing out on sex than losing her life.
She did not miss out on sex—neither during the war nor subsequently—and didn’t lose her life for many decades. Eventually, she died in Spain. Her third husband was Polish. As I have mentioned many times, I am the eldest of 12.
I tend to think of myself as a European for very good reasons. The family is closely connected to England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France, Spain, Germany, Austria and Poland—that I know of—and some of the women I have been fondest of in my life, came from Switzerland.
Though I have been to Denmark often enough, and both Sweden and Iceland once, poor Scandinavia doesn’t get a look in except indirectly. My French ancestors came from Normandy, which was so called because it was conquered by the Vikings. Those guys got everywhere.
Though I have lived in England at various times in my life—including going to boarding school here—I have never been able to warm to the country.
It was pretty drab after the war, has been politically depressing for much of my life—as it has struggled to find its way—and it is London orientated to excess. On top of that, the UK is financialized to a fault—and I happen to regard financialization as a disaster.
Britain survives regardless—and at least it has the merit of being familiar. Also, the English more or less speak English—though, based upon some of the regional accents, you would wonder.
How long will I be here?
Man plans and the gods laugh.
Saturday, May 9, 2015
May 9 2015. Follow your dreams. Give your nightmares a miss.
SHOULD YOU LISTEN TO YOUR DREAMS—OR CONFORM TO WHAT SOCIETY EXPECTS?
A FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION—PERHAPS THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION BECAUSE THE VERY CONDUCT OF YOUR LIFE DEPENDS UPON THE ANSWER.
Some time ago, I ran across the following piece in that excellent publication THE GUARDIAN. It’s a British paper which used to be called THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN—but then went national, I’m glad to say.
Indeed, it is now somewhat international today. I don’t read it every day because my primary focus is on the U.S. (regardless of where I live) but I may mend my ways. The Guardian’s U.S. coverage is pretty damn good as well—and decidedly more courageous and in tune with my values (more or less)..
I was truly intrigued by the subject matter, “The Top Five Regrets of Dying.” When people are dying, they tend to tell the truth (so I’m told). How novel! Between outright propaganda and social convention, the truth is a far more elusive beast that we generally care to admit.
So, we don’t.
Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai, which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.
Ware writes of the phenomenal clarity of vision that people gain at the end of their lives, and how we might learn from their wisdom. "When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently," she says, "common themes surfaced again and again."
Here are the top five regrets of the dying, as witnessed by Ware:
1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
"This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it."
2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
"This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence."
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3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
"Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result."
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
"Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying."
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
"This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again."
The following are my observations on The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. I make them subject to the qualification that I may change them when I am sure that I am actually dying (as in the immediate and fairly certain process of—for instance, while the blade of the guillotine is actually falling..).
Just so you know, I had a bunch of ancestors guillotined during the French revolution. I don’t expect to die quite so dramatically.
1. I’ve had a difficult life in many ways—but I have few regrets. I have followed my dreams and I’m eternally glad I have.
2. I work phenomenally hard and wish I had worked harder and more effectively.
3. I have expressed my feelings to the people who have really mattered to me. Where others have been involved, I am mostly glad I held my tongue.
4. I have tried very hard to stay in touch with friends—above and beyond what is normal in some cases. I wish some of my closest friends had not died—too young.
5. I have a serious demeanor so often don’t look particularly happy—particularly when I’m thinking. Don’t be fooled. I have wanted an essentially cerebral life leavened with words, women, and wine—and that is mostly what I have had.
Of course, I do have some regrets, but far less than you’d think—or, probably, than people who think they know me think.
If you want to know what I really and truly think, read my books. My much commented sense of humor doesn’t come from a miserable heart. It is the manifestation of a happy one—because I love to write, and that is exactly what I do.
Friday, May 8, 2015
May 8 2015. The end of an affair—even if not completely.
ONE ADVANTAGE OF MOVING IS THAT IT GIVES YOU A CHANCE
TO RE-THINK THINGS
Let me freely admit that I don’t like being forced out of my comfort zone—but I would be the last to deny that having to re-think things has its advantages. Necessity, so to speak, breeds perspective.
For most of my working life, partly as an aid to my eclectic memory, I have tended to operate with a largely paper based support infrastructure large enough to lay waste to a small forest (it included many thousands of books and nearly as many files) but now I am back in Europe I have decided to try and go substantially electronic.
I am being pushed into it by the fact that it was just plain uneconomic to ship all the files I had accumulated in Seattle to Europe, but also by the feeling that I may now be computer literate enough to make the move.
I’m also attracted by the notion of being able to travel lighter—and needing less on a day to day basis—and generating vastly less waste. I will also need less space to live and work in—a decidedly attractive thought.
I don’t intend to give up paper totally—I still have a weakness for indexed ring-binders (or their European equivalents) and I love real paper books, but live in hopes I will be able to get through the rest of my life without a paper filing system.
I love paper—but even the most passionate affairs come to an end.
My love of writing isn’t an affair. It’s fundamental to who and what I am.
My main objection to death is that it seems likely to interrupt my writing.
But, you never know.
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