As I allow the distance to grow - for whatever reasons - between myself and some of the people I once considered close, I find myself alternating between self-sufficient apathy and dreadful feelings of loss and loneliness.
But let's not get lost in self-pity...
I'd like to say that the girl I'm seeing thing is going quite well. Is it? I really don't know. Anyway from talking to her, I've realised that I'm far more calculating than I ever gave myself credit for. I even tell her this. Maybe CM's right, and by gradually exposing your full set of attributes early on, you're giving someone half a chance.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Monday, May 01, 2006
Creeping to a Peak
Where were we?
I feel I ought to mention that things are really going pretty well at the moment. Several factors involved:
CM is in London
He's in the next room, asleep. I'll save the full note of appreciation for his ears only, but suffice to say I really enjoy his company and miss him when he's not here.
I've booked holidays
A long weekend in Sweden at the beginning of June, a long weekend in northern Italy in August and an extended trip around the world (mostly Asia) for two and a half months from mid-November to the beginning of February. Hooray - I miss out most of the British winter!
I have a love interest
A girl I met at a party. More to follow perhaps...
All of this, plus I'm exercising regularly, work's going quite well, family seems to have stabilised a little (condition still pretty critical though), I've picked up my guitar again, I'm eating/ sleeping well (though not at the same time), and I generally feel quite positive. Could it get any better?
I feel I ought to mention that things are really going pretty well at the moment. Several factors involved:
CM is in London
He's in the next room, asleep. I'll save the full note of appreciation for his ears only, but suffice to say I really enjoy his company and miss him when he's not here.
I've booked holidays
A long weekend in Sweden at the beginning of June, a long weekend in northern Italy in August and an extended trip around the world (mostly Asia) for two and a half months from mid-November to the beginning of February. Hooray - I miss out most of the British winter!
I have a love interest
A girl I met at a party. More to follow perhaps...
All of this, plus I'm exercising regularly, work's going quite well, family seems to have stabilised a little (condition still pretty critical though), I've picked up my guitar again, I'm eating/ sleeping well (though not at the same time), and I generally feel quite positive. Could it get any better?
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Bad Form
The John Ralston Saul post has just reminded me to have a rant about a phrase that seems to have become increasingly common in usage amongst young adults/ twentysomethings...
On Good Form
A "I saw B today."
C "Oh yeah, how was she?"
A "Yeah, she was on good form."
This is an exchange I hear far too often, and it honestly makes me wince. I think that there are several things going on here, some more universalisable than others.
Social acceptability by appeal to a fashionable and recognisable term
Examples of this include:
Rock up as a synonym for arrive
Take it easy as a way of saying goodbye
Kip over as a synonym for stay/ sleep over (verb)
I'm certainly not immune to this type of behaviour, but at least I know what's going on. Luckily some of my friends will pick me up on this and mock me accordingly...
Bite-size summation
Closely linked to CM's theory of the one-sentence summary i.e. that we are all afforded a single phrase by each other which can be given as a response to the question, "What's B like?" (the most bland of which would presumably include the word nice. I hope I'm never described as nice in other people's one-sentence summaries).
Where the one-sentence summary is pretty static, often frustratingly so if you feel somebody has you all wrong, the bite-size summation has the potential to be far more dynamic. Most importantly though, its scope is often limited to a shallow inference by its subject: "She made a couple of funny jokes so she must be happy"; "He didn't say very much so he must have things on his mind"; "She scrutinised the bill so she must be uptight". What makes you so sure? Did you ask how she was really doing? Have we lost the ability to communicate?
People as a means to an end
I think that many people are generally uncomfortable with other people's problems and unhappiness (or should I say discontentment). I also think that this is largely because first, many people are so afraid of consciousness and responsibility that they would rather suffocate their minds with material distraction to avoid the possibility of contemplation on this kind of level (I'd like to thank the Academy... and Pascal...), and second, as pointed out by Mr. Saul, people now see the pursuit of mindless and selfish hedonism as a god-given right: tales of woe are seen as a pollutant.
By saying that B is on good form, you give the public exactly what they want.
On Good Form
A "I saw B today."
C "Oh yeah, how was she?"
A "Yeah, she was on good form."
This is an exchange I hear far too often, and it honestly makes me wince. I think that there are several things going on here, some more universalisable than others.
Social acceptability by appeal to a fashionable and recognisable term
Examples of this include:
Rock up as a synonym for arrive
Take it easy as a way of saying goodbye
Kip over as a synonym for stay/ sleep over (verb)
I'm certainly not immune to this type of behaviour, but at least I know what's going on. Luckily some of my friends will pick me up on this and mock me accordingly...
Bite-size summation
Closely linked to CM's theory of the one-sentence summary i.e. that we are all afforded a single phrase by each other which can be given as a response to the question, "What's B like?" (the most bland of which would presumably include the word nice. I hope I'm never described as nice in other people's one-sentence summaries).
Where the one-sentence summary is pretty static, often frustratingly so if you feel somebody has you all wrong, the bite-size summation has the potential to be far more dynamic. Most importantly though, its scope is often limited to a shallow inference by its subject: "She made a couple of funny jokes so she must be happy"; "He didn't say very much so he must have things on his mind"; "She scrutinised the bill so she must be uptight". What makes you so sure? Did you ask how she was really doing? Have we lost the ability to communicate?
People as a means to an end
I think that many people are generally uncomfortable with other people's problems and unhappiness (or should I say discontentment). I also think that this is largely because first, many people are so afraid of consciousness and responsibility that they would rather suffocate their minds with material distraction to avoid the possibility of contemplation on this kind of level (I'd like to thank the Academy... and Pascal...), and second, as pointed out by Mr. Saul, people now see the pursuit of mindless and selfish hedonism as a god-given right: tales of woe are seen as a pollutant.
By saying that B is on good form, you give the public exactly what they want.
A Cigar Called Hamlet
Happiness
A tired and twisted notion which has become an increasing embarrassment in a confused society.
Happiness rose to great social and political prominence in the eighteenth century, when it was used by most European philosophers as one of the essential qualities of a reformed society. It was legally consecrated at the highest possible level by Jefferson who, in the American Declaration of Independence, made it one of the citizen's three inalienable rights: "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Thanks to its philosophical and legal position, happiness has stayed at the forefront of social and policital policy throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, the meaning of the word has gradually changed.
Its Aristotelain sense was spiritual harmony. But Aristotle was the justifying genius of the Scholastics* and spiritual harmony was one of the concepts which helped them to maintain a state of intellectual and social stagnation. It was no accident that the Enlightenment's attack on scholasticism included the reorienting of this word to give human harmony a more practical, active meaning. As a result, in the eighteenth century happiness came to include basic material comfort in a prosperous, well-organised society. As the Western upper-middle and solid middle classes gradually accomplished this for themselves, the word's meaning declined into the pursuit of personal pleasure or an obscure sense of inner contentment. Both the spiritual and the necessary material were forgotten. Few writers and public figures have dared to point this out or suggest that, since the meaning of the word has changed, it no longer needs to be treated as a question of primary importance.
President de Gaulle responded to pressure from his ministers to give in to policies which might be popular in the short run, but were fundameneally damaging, by retorting that "happiness is for idiots." He wasn't proposing unhappiness or a loss of material comfort. Much of his time in power was spent creating social services and prosperity. Rather he was protesting the confusion of happiness with a state of mindless contentment. He was arguing against happiness and in favour of consciousness which, the world being what it really is, might not involve contentment, but would involve Reponsibility*.
Nothing has happened in the last quarter-century to clarify this confusion. As economic and social conditions have gradually sunk, happiness, with its twisted meaning at the ethical and legal centre of our society, has seemed increasingly lugubrious and out of place. In a more practical world, there would be a formal process for retiring a word from active use until it finds itself again.
John Ralston Saul - The Doubter's Companion (A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense)
* Denotes a term that is qualified (i.e. satirised) elsewhere in the book.
A tired and twisted notion which has become an increasing embarrassment in a confused society.
Happiness rose to great social and political prominence in the eighteenth century, when it was used by most European philosophers as one of the essential qualities of a reformed society. It was legally consecrated at the highest possible level by Jefferson who, in the American Declaration of Independence, made it one of the citizen's three inalienable rights: "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Thanks to its philosophical and legal position, happiness has stayed at the forefront of social and policital policy throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, the meaning of the word has gradually changed.
Its Aristotelain sense was spiritual harmony. But Aristotle was the justifying genius of the Scholastics* and spiritual harmony was one of the concepts which helped them to maintain a state of intellectual and social stagnation. It was no accident that the Enlightenment's attack on scholasticism included the reorienting of this word to give human harmony a more practical, active meaning. As a result, in the eighteenth century happiness came to include basic material comfort in a prosperous, well-organised society. As the Western upper-middle and solid middle classes gradually accomplished this for themselves, the word's meaning declined into the pursuit of personal pleasure or an obscure sense of inner contentment. Both the spiritual and the necessary material were forgotten. Few writers and public figures have dared to point this out or suggest that, since the meaning of the word has changed, it no longer needs to be treated as a question of primary importance.
President de Gaulle responded to pressure from his ministers to give in to policies which might be popular in the short run, but were fundameneally damaging, by retorting that "happiness is for idiots." He wasn't proposing unhappiness or a loss of material comfort. Much of his time in power was spent creating social services and prosperity. Rather he was protesting the confusion of happiness with a state of mindless contentment. He was arguing against happiness and in favour of consciousness which, the world being what it really is, might not involve contentment, but would involve Reponsibility*.
Nothing has happened in the last quarter-century to clarify this confusion. As economic and social conditions have gradually sunk, happiness, with its twisted meaning at the ethical and legal centre of our society, has seemed increasingly lugubrious and out of place. In a more practical world, there would be a formal process for retiring a word from active use until it finds itself again.
John Ralston Saul - The Doubter's Companion (A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense)
* Denotes a term that is qualified (i.e. satirised) elsewhere in the book.
Friday, March 31, 2006
B****day Update
A couple of the girls from work just collared me for not letting them know it was my birthday - I told them I just didn't want to make a big deal out of it and, although a little peeved (for show?), they seemed to accept it.
In any case I may have slightly misjudged the gift aspect. Today we celebrated a couple of colleagues' birthdays with a cake - a very nice gesture. It seems present-buying is no longer the order of the day in our team (when the team was more numerous, and in all of my other jobs for that matter, it was definitely a bigger thing).
Then again, this was only a consideration, an aside from the main point - I'm still apathetic and I've already wasted far too many words on it.
Case closed - until next year.
In any case I may have slightly misjudged the gift aspect. Today we celebrated a couple of colleagues' birthdays with a cake - a very nice gesture. It seems present-buying is no longer the order of the day in our team (when the team was more numerous, and in all of my other jobs for that matter, it was definitely a bigger thing).
Then again, this was only a consideration, an aside from the main point - I'm still apathetic and I've already wasted far too many words on it.
Case closed - until next year.
La Honte!
The office toilet: where men become men once again and farting at an audible level (often anonymously) returns to the status of a pleasurable competition. All these suits just letting rip - it's hilarious. Especially because I know that the second they leave that room, they have to be a collective paradigm of respectability.
I, on the other hand, abandoned the office persona long ago, though I suspect that I shall have to re-inherit it for my next contract (whenever that may be). Today I am dressed in baggy ripped jeans, white trainers and a Puma t-shirt - I wouldn't even be allowed to work on a shop floor looking like this, let alone a private bank...
Yesterday curiosity and the realisation that I'm not meeting anybody new drove me to sign up to an online dating agency. So this is what I am reduced to. I don't hold much hope for it, and though I was contacted almost immediately as I signed in for the first time after setting up my profile, I'm generally pretty sceptical about these sorts of things. Imagine telling your kid that you met mummy online:
"Yeah, I loved her comical use of the word desperate, and her photos practically told me her legs would be wide open, so I decided to message her. Four years later, out you popped... Any questions?"
Apart from my snobbish tendencies, I think that what I dislike most about online dating is its contrived nature. In fact, I hate anything contrived. I hate feeling that my or anyone else's actions are contrived... So much so that a few years ago I declined preparing a speech in advance of my grandma's 80th birthday celebration on the grounds that at the time it seemed too contrived. My sister did it instead. On reflection, a recent bout of appreciation for my grandmother may well force me to regret that particular decision.
Anyway, I'll let you know if anything comes of this online dating thing, but I'm not holding my breath.
I, on the other hand, abandoned the office persona long ago, though I suspect that I shall have to re-inherit it for my next contract (whenever that may be). Today I am dressed in baggy ripped jeans, white trainers and a Puma t-shirt - I wouldn't even be allowed to work on a shop floor looking like this, let alone a private bank...
Yesterday curiosity and the realisation that I'm not meeting anybody new drove me to sign up to an online dating agency. So this is what I am reduced to. I don't hold much hope for it, and though I was contacted almost immediately as I signed in for the first time after setting up my profile, I'm generally pretty sceptical about these sorts of things. Imagine telling your kid that you met mummy online:
"Yeah, I loved her comical use of the word desperate, and her photos practically told me her legs would be wide open, so I decided to message her. Four years later, out you popped... Any questions?"
Apart from my snobbish tendencies, I think that what I dislike most about online dating is its contrived nature. In fact, I hate anything contrived. I hate feeling that my or anyone else's actions are contrived... So much so that a few years ago I declined preparing a speech in advance of my grandma's 80th birthday celebration on the grounds that at the time it seemed too contrived. My sister did it instead. On reflection, a recent bout of appreciation for my grandmother may well force me to regret that particular decision.
Anyway, I'll let you know if anything comes of this online dating thing, but I'm not holding my breath.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
At the Pulpit
To coin a cliché I feel increasingly entitled to use, experience has taught me that people who seek to strengthen their case by any appeal to what is or is not an alleged fact are suspiciously likely to be both incorrect and incapable of accepting the remotest possibility of their inaccuracy. Such people are, in short, either arrogant in the most proper sense of the word, blind conviction being a trait common to the truly dangerous and despicable, or pitifully proud.
Monday, March 27, 2006
Birthday Blooze?
So my promise of more regular postings didn't really yield much fruit. In fact, it didn't really yield any fruit. It was fruitless.
Yesterday was my 26th birthday. For the last couple of years (three when I come to think of it), I have had very little motivation to actually celebrate my birthday, least of all in the traditional manner society dictates to be appropriate (special dinner, big night out, private party etc.). Do I really want to oblige people to celebrate my existence? Are their lives intolerable in a parallel universe in which I don't exist? Excessive self-pity aside, playing a birthday down is the best way to avoid the almost inevitable disppointment of being let down. If you apply this kind of attitude on a more general level, you might come to the conclusion that it is really best never to expect anything from anyone - perhaps then you can only be pleasantly surprised?
Well, this year proved to be one of my least celebrated birthdays to date. I didn't tell anyone from work. For one thing, to tell them would carry an additional tacit expectation on my part that they would club together and buy me some kind of rudimentary gift. I would then, if only for a split second, subconsciously judge the gift as a measure of my value in that particular social sphere - its estimated price gauging my popularity, its non-materialisation an outright declaration of my worthlessness. Have I really stooped to these levels of shallowness and insecurity? Well, no, not exactly. I'm much closer to apathy, and the truth is that I would far sooner avoid the entire siutation. I don't need gifts and good wishes from work colleagues - their only substantial effect on my life would be (im)material. On the other hand, maybe I regret not telling one particular colleague, as he's perhaps more worthy of the friend title than that of colleague, and as such deserves the remission of my latest façade. I may well point him in the direction of this blog when we finish working together and the regularity of our contact decreases substantially. A note to you: you know who you are - if you ever read this, this constitutes an apology...
The tacit expectation of a gift applies far less when it comes to close friends, at least for me and my circle of chums, who happen to be mostly male (ever since my ex-girlfriend accused me of being sexist in an overly-drawn-out break-up speech via several hundred miles of telelphone wire, I have a tendency to consciously avoid making gender generalisations). Amongst close friends, the acknowledgement is far more important than the form. I suspect that this is because acknowledgement carries with it a confirmation of their respect and their consideration, without which a close friendship soon becomes an acquaintance. Anything else is of course welcome, but in no way defining.
So, returning to my original point, namely that playing a birthday down is the best way to avoid the almost inevitable disppointment of being let down, you might be tempted to ask exactly what this awful disappointment is that I am trying to avoid, potentially at the cost of F.U.N. I've worded that carefully though: what I have called inevitable disappointment does not necessarily constitute a reason to play down your birthday, rather if you're at a point where you feel that you would be disappointed with anything less than your expectations of the event, should you choose to have one, being met, then it is not necessarily negative not to have one despite society's decree to the contrary. By giving autonomy to people, setting your expectations lower and celebrating more intimately and discreetly, I would say that you can find far more out about the nature of your relationships.
Most of my closest friends, where possible, made their own efforts to spend time with me around my birthday, which were appreciated and filed accordingly in my mind. Most also communicated their good wishes, which is important for reasons I discussed earlier. My family sent heart-felt words in their cards (none of them are in London), which I found surprisingly touching. Acquaintances and other friends had little if any involvement. My personal celebration amounted to a night out with my flatmate to someone else's birthday party, where we knew very few people and drank heavily (but not to the point of the kind of student depravity I'm trying to avoid). My actual birthday was a fragile Sunday in my dressing gown.
Perfect in its imperfection.
Yesterday was my 26th birthday. For the last couple of years (three when I come to think of it), I have had very little motivation to actually celebrate my birthday, least of all in the traditional manner society dictates to be appropriate (special dinner, big night out, private party etc.). Do I really want to oblige people to celebrate my existence? Are their lives intolerable in a parallel universe in which I don't exist? Excessive self-pity aside, playing a birthday down is the best way to avoid the almost inevitable disppointment of being let down. If you apply this kind of attitude on a more general level, you might come to the conclusion that it is really best never to expect anything from anyone - perhaps then you can only be pleasantly surprised?
Well, this year proved to be one of my least celebrated birthdays to date. I didn't tell anyone from work. For one thing, to tell them would carry an additional tacit expectation on my part that they would club together and buy me some kind of rudimentary gift. I would then, if only for a split second, subconsciously judge the gift as a measure of my value in that particular social sphere - its estimated price gauging my popularity, its non-materialisation an outright declaration of my worthlessness. Have I really stooped to these levels of shallowness and insecurity? Well, no, not exactly. I'm much closer to apathy, and the truth is that I would far sooner avoid the entire siutation. I don't need gifts and good wishes from work colleagues - their only substantial effect on my life would be (im)material. On the other hand, maybe I regret not telling one particular colleague, as he's perhaps more worthy of the friend title than that of colleague, and as such deserves the remission of my latest façade. I may well point him in the direction of this blog when we finish working together and the regularity of our contact decreases substantially. A note to you: you know who you are - if you ever read this, this constitutes an apology...
The tacit expectation of a gift applies far less when it comes to close friends, at least for me and my circle of chums, who happen to be mostly male (ever since my ex-girlfriend accused me of being sexist in an overly-drawn-out break-up speech via several hundred miles of telelphone wire, I have a tendency to consciously avoid making gender generalisations). Amongst close friends, the acknowledgement is far more important than the form. I suspect that this is because acknowledgement carries with it a confirmation of their respect and their consideration, without which a close friendship soon becomes an acquaintance. Anything else is of course welcome, but in no way defining.
So, returning to my original point, namely that playing a birthday down is the best way to avoid the almost inevitable disppointment of being let down, you might be tempted to ask exactly what this awful disappointment is that I am trying to avoid, potentially at the cost of F.U.N. I've worded that carefully though: what I have called inevitable disappointment does not necessarily constitute a reason to play down your birthday, rather if you're at a point where you feel that you would be disappointed with anything less than your expectations of the event, should you choose to have one, being met, then it is not necessarily negative not to have one despite society's decree to the contrary. By giving autonomy to people, setting your expectations lower and celebrating more intimately and discreetly, I would say that you can find far more out about the nature of your relationships.
Most of my closest friends, where possible, made their own efforts to spend time with me around my birthday, which were appreciated and filed accordingly in my mind. Most also communicated their good wishes, which is important for reasons I discussed earlier. My family sent heart-felt words in their cards (none of them are in London), which I found surprisingly touching. Acquaintances and other friends had little if any involvement. My personal celebration amounted to a night out with my flatmate to someone else's birthday party, where we knew very few people and drank heavily (but not to the point of the kind of student depravity I'm trying to avoid). My actual birthday was a fragile Sunday in my dressing gown.
Perfect in its imperfection.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
There Were Lots of Invitations
A quick post to say that I haven't given up on the blog... I've accepted another contract extension (and another pay rise - yay! The mind boggles...) on the condition that I'm based in London for the majority of the time, so with any luck I'll be able to blog a bit more frequently.
I'm just listening to a bit of Leonard Cohen, and am completely taken by the song Waiting for the Miracle. A pseudo-intellectual interpretation of the lyrics can be found here.
I'm just listening to a bit of Leonard Cohen, and am completely taken by the song Waiting for the Miracle. A pseudo-intellectual interpretation of the lyrics can be found here.
Friday, January 20, 2006
[Why am I] Always on a Plane or a Fast Train
Maybe this is going to turn monthly...
I've barely walked in the door of my London flat after another week of work in Glasgow - this time I was sent up there alone to do what was ostensibly an impossible task. Luckily I flashed the hazard lights early in the week, the outcome of which being that the company re-employed a former colleague (the only person with enough knowledge to do the work) for a couple of days to help me, and ultimately the project manager of this sinking ship, out. My colleague - a thoroughly likeable chap - told me he's charging £xxxx (i.e. a four-figure sum) per day for his expertise. What's more, I don't really blame him, but then I've never been one to condemn supposedly wrongful monetary acts upon the corporation: in times of desperation, I'd far sooner steal from a big-name supermarket than from the local grocery store. But then that doesn't exactly make me special now, does it?
Hey, how's it going? How was Christmas? Yeah? Did you go home? Glad to be back?
Yeah so Christmas was much better than I thought it was going to be. Had CM over for Christmas lunch with my family, which was probably the best Chrismas Day I've ever had, and generally spent a lot of decent time with my friends and family: an effort in itself, but an effort worth making. November and December were quite difficult months, and I now feel I've come out of them OK, largely because I got away from the non-stop working environment and had the chance to exhale. Now I am working better, and I'm on my way to becoming the person I think I can be once again.
The Blog
I have also been considering exactly what I am doing writing a blog. That doesn't mean to say that I shall soon stop writing, but rather, that I am ever-conscious of what I am writing and where this is (or is not) going. So far, I think this has been more of a casual diary than I expected it to be - I had originally intended to post more of my opinions or explore the opinions of others, to amateurishly continue where my Philosophy degree left off. This has not really happened! Again, I am not unhappy with the results - I just wish I had more time even for thinking on that level, let alone writing...
Another consideration: on my very first post, I implied a no holds barred approach to blogging, that I would fearlessly write whatever I wanted, irrespective of the consequences. I have since realised that there are certain things about which I don't feel comfortable writing here. This basically covers two areas: family, and deepest darkest me. My family deserve the respect and consideration such that I should not be advertising their intimate details in a public arena, especially as there are people who read this blog who also know my family. As for me, well, I know what I am, but there's a limit to how much I can spell that out here.
I've barely walked in the door of my London flat after another week of work in Glasgow - this time I was sent up there alone to do what was ostensibly an impossible task. Luckily I flashed the hazard lights early in the week, the outcome of which being that the company re-employed a former colleague (the only person with enough knowledge to do the work) for a couple of days to help me, and ultimately the project manager of this sinking ship, out. My colleague - a thoroughly likeable chap - told me he's charging £xxxx (i.e. a four-figure sum) per day for his expertise. What's more, I don't really blame him, but then I've never been one to condemn supposedly wrongful monetary acts upon the corporation: in times of desperation, I'd far sooner steal from a big-name supermarket than from the local grocery store. But then that doesn't exactly make me special now, does it?
Hey, how's it going? How was Christmas? Yeah? Did you go home? Glad to be back?
Yeah so Christmas was much better than I thought it was going to be. Had CM over for Christmas lunch with my family, which was probably the best Chrismas Day I've ever had, and generally spent a lot of decent time with my friends and family: an effort in itself, but an effort worth making. November and December were quite difficult months, and I now feel I've come out of them OK, largely because I got away from the non-stop working environment and had the chance to exhale. Now I am working better, and I'm on my way to becoming the person I think I can be once again.
The Blog
I have also been considering exactly what I am doing writing a blog. That doesn't mean to say that I shall soon stop writing, but rather, that I am ever-conscious of what I am writing and where this is (or is not) going. So far, I think this has been more of a casual diary than I expected it to be - I had originally intended to post more of my opinions or explore the opinions of others, to amateurishly continue where my Philosophy degree left off. This has not really happened! Again, I am not unhappy with the results - I just wish I had more time even for thinking on that level, let alone writing...
Another consideration: on my very first post, I implied a no holds barred approach to blogging, that I would fearlessly write whatever I wanted, irrespective of the consequences. I have since realised that there are certain things about which I don't feel comfortable writing here. This basically covers two areas: family, and deepest darkest me. My family deserve the respect and consideration such that I should not be advertising their intimate details in a public arena, especially as there are people who read this blog who also know my family. As for me, well, I know what I am, but there's a limit to how much I can spell that out here.