Good morning. I have come into the office and wanted to get a few hundred words written for myself before I make a start of writing the words other people need from me. In this case the script and slides for a presentation on Monday. I have left finishing that a bit late.
One of my life’s questions really, why do I put things off when I enjoy being prepared and ready so much. There are good answers for this, including the general lack of consequences. However, while I wrote that sentence the morning sun is playing over the skin on the back of my hand which is no longer effortlessly tight and smooth but instead has the diamond shapes all over it of slightly less elastic skin which any sensible person would associate with a man in his early forties.
I’m not a bag of bones yet, but I can lay less claim to youth. More important I can lay less claim to opportunity. Life is perhaps more than half done and while it is far too early to be complaining and whining I do feel the pressure to act rather than think about acting.
I should give myself some credit. I have broken up with my ex L and bought a house. It’s a house which needs work and these are things already done. Now to continue doing them.
My eldest, N, is pretty busy, with sport, with friends, with trying to start romantic relationships, with learning to live and work in a new country when you have the passport but perhaps not all of the attitudes and ideas which make the place work. There are some lessons for me there in thinking about moving to China.
It is something I want to do and I really need some clarity about why and what I want from the experience so I can be determined and purposeful when I am there. I have travelled to places a few times in my life and not enjoyed the sensation of walking out of the airport or port without a clear sense of why I am there, what I want to do and where I want to go.
Some of the best experiences have been the reverse of this. When I am sure about my purpose and intention and how to go about achieving it.
I read those two haiku to N, who winced a little at the second one. I had not noticed before how positive and light the first one is and how much that contrasts with the second which is more about some of the pain and loneliness of modern life.
Yesterday I ate dinner at a pub called the Muggleton Inn. It was not especially pleasant, but it was filling and tasted ok. Across from me was a table with three middle-aged women seated at it. They sat quietly drinking their drinks and looking at things on their mobile phones. Each of them as alone as I was.
Briefly I considered crossing over and asking whether they would like to have a chat. Not to flirt but just to lift themselves out of themselves and into a group. I thought it might be fun to arrange a Maidstone philosophy group and get some people together in a convenient place to talk about things the way Joel does in London. This would pull triple duty, giving me something to organise and be responsible for, introducing me to steady stream of new people and inevitably introducing me to new romantic prospects as well.
Probably one of the things I enjoyed the most about Joel’s group was the steady stream of new and interesting women and the relatively neutral space to talk to them in. Worth admitting to myself and worth perhaps pursuing as I’m hardly a chat-up artist and I would appreciate having some company while I am working on the house over the next couple of years.