Take A Ride On The Reading

I sit here, my shoulders tensed up, my forearms turned in, and my palms rested on the front of the laptop keyboard, letting the echoes of the day's social interactions quiet down in my thoughts.

Thanks and hellos: Meg and Tim at Tuesday Morning; Selena from Gibson's BBQ; Rob at the post office; Chris from Mr. Electric; customers in close proximity; Raymond, Ann, and Bebe, our next-door neighbours.

Watched Lingo, Avatar:TLA cartoon and DOOL on the tellie, with my wife and me seated on the sofa.

Power restored to all the circuits in the house.

Talked race cars and dirt tracks.

I like to tell tall tales to strangers, taking basic stories and blowing them out of proportion to simple, everyday life, just for the fun of conversation.  When I was a kid, they were called fibs or white lies and I was reminded of such, but I didn't care - I wanted to entertain (that is, please others) more than I wanted to tell the ordinary (boring and/or incriminatory) truth.

Words for the sake of words.

Have you ever been initiated into a secret organisation?

Why would someone want to brag about belonging to a club s/he knew you didn't?

Do you desire to earn your position in society?

If all the secrets of social positions are available to you without price or payment required, and yet you are a social being, then how do you socialise?

If you've shortcutted your way through the niceties and politics of social conversation by learning all the steps and extracting their meaning rather than memorising their dogmatic rituals, then how do you behave with others of your species?

Do you cut to the chase or carry on polite conversation?

I am an old, white-haired man, no longer attracting attention with my orange-red hair and toned body.

I have learned a few facts about life and remember very little.

My nights on the dance floor are gone.

I am still active but not over- or hyperactive.

With middle age giving way to the early days of later years, I find more joy in reliving my childhood, watching the fireflies and listening to the nightlife in the trees, seeing a mouse scamper down a Ficus benjamina on the back deck, talking to myself in this blog.

How many people have given up physical hobbies and replaced them with typing/texting like me?

My model rockets and model airplanes collect dust in the study.  Sketch pads and paints turn to dust.

Like my body, my house slowly deteriorates, joining me one day in our return to recycled elements.

Should I be thankful for the standard of living I can easily afford on this part of the planet?  Should I read articles about other parts of the planet where I can live on my government's socioeconomic financial benefits?

I am my parents' oldest child.  I am the husband of my mother in-law's surviving child.  I am not the only uncle of my nieces and nephews.

I am one person, this ordinary guy with no special skills to sell or improve upon.

What is left for me in the rest of my life?

Any wisdom I could offer can easily be found in the data and information available online.

I've never been an especially loving man.  I'm not touchy-feely or a big conversationist.  I like to sit and think, mainly to myself, for long stretches of time.

I can project personas but get bored with them after a while, my patience thinning with age, along with my hair.

On minimal exercise and a relatively healthy diet, I could live for decades to come.

If I'm not a social climber...

If I don't have anything special to offer succeeding generations...

If my life of producing more and more has given way to consuming less and less...

...then...

...is there anything for me, any reason left to be me?

This is the only moment I have.  There is no other.  I have only myself to nurture and entertain right now.  The future and the past do not exist - they never have.

The everlasting moment.

The desire neither to overly influence nor be overly influenced by others.

This blog entry concludes another chapter of my life.  I'm not sure what (or if) the next chapter will be.

Virtual neutron bombs have dropped on communities throughout this country, wiping out people's livelihoods and life savings.  How are they learning to cope, learning to create new communities not based on conspicuous consumption?

This blog is a form of conspicuous consumption, empty calories devoid of nutrition, contributing entertainment rather than concrete foundations for safe and secure places to raise a family.

I am my own megalomaniac and must beware myself.

I made a mistake and looked in the mirror, seeing the 18-year young boy who died a long time ago rather than the 48-year old man who lives today.

Time does not exist so how do I differentiate the versions of myself that seem more real in my thoughts than the self that exists now?

This moment is mine and mine only.  It, too, shall pass.

Just like lunch, some parts nutritious and some parts filler to pass on through.