This Particular Onion

Where does it come from? This word. The next thought. Or sound. Or sense of anything. Seriously … where does it come from? Did we make it happen? It feels like we did. But did we? And anyway, where did that feeling come from?

If we keep un-peeling This Particular Onion of profundity … we inevitably get to the middle. And as everybody knows, at the very centre of an un-peeled onion, is precisely nothing.

But where did that come from?

If you’ve spent much time, thinking these kind of, like, deep thoughts, man….well it might seem like it is all a very good reason for getting drunk and forgetting everything for a while. Or getting religion. (Other escape routes are available)

Maybe so. Or perhaps it is simply what inspired Bob Marley, and could inspire us, to spot those three little birds.

Congrats

From an email I received yesterday:

Hey David,

Congrats, since you joined Todoist 9 years, 7 months, 1 day ago, you’ve already completed 0 tasks!

Productively!

The Todoist Team


I responded of course. It’s only polite.

Dear Todoist Team,
Thanks for keeping tabs on my achievements. And I appreciate the level of detail. Not even my daughter-in-law manages to remember the number of days!

I suspect, however, that you possibly overlooked the need to explain to AI Bot, whom you so kindly asked to send me this little love note, the meaning of the term “Congratulations”.

Either that or you and AI Bot are having a little bit of fun with me! Surely not?

Anyway, your kind message made me smile at this earlier version of myself. Best intentions and all that!

Yours Procrastinatedly,
I. Didn’tist

ps. Although on reflection I do remember a couple of tasks I got done in that time period, so maybe the congratulations is in order after all. Are you sure you haven’t got a record?

Every Time

You hear tell of folk “Deconstructing” an art-form. Messing with the format. Taking the materials apart and making something new.

To my mind that is what we are attempting to do Every Time we make art:

- That is how it’s done

- And this is how I’m doing it.

If it’s “Art” they are never quite the same thing. It’s just a question of degree.

And, as in Art, so too in Life.

Staying Up Late

Temporarily stopping something, means that the plan is to start again. But it’s hard when all the momentum has been lost.
Better to keep the habit going. At least that’s what I’m thinking.

What am I talking about?

Well, specifically, sleeping in on holiday. It crept up on me, even with the best of intentions. The lure of Staying Up Late dragged me in, like the middle-aged adolescent I sometimes am.

But I always needed the same amount of sleep. And there are always the same number of hours in a day.

I like my life better when I get up earlier.

Satnav Slaves

I always used to laugh at those stories about people driving into the sea because they mindlessly followed the Satnav.

Today we picked up some visitors from the train station. We took a nice Satnav detour on the way home to see more of the countryside. This detour took us onto increasingly more “rural” tracks until we came to a dead end in the middle of fields of green.

I had one of those awkward 10 point turns to avoid getting stuck in a ditch. But, hey, the visitors were very happy to laugh nervously at our misadventures.

And I’ll show a little bit more mercy in the future towards my fellow Satnav Slaves.

What’s In A Name?

What’s In A Name?

Sometimes more than is initially apparent.

A SUP Board is a Stand-Up paddle board. But the acronym doesn’t do the experience credit.

Paddle boarding has been such a great thing for me to learn. Brilliant for improving balance (VERY important once you hit the downhill section of the Ageing Graph) but not difficult to pick up, if you take it slowly.

I’ve been able to teach myself. We’ve got access to a big lake here in the Netherlands. It’s shallow for quite a way out, so ideal for those early stages of learning. But then there is a whole world to explore.

It is still slightly nerve racking heading across the lake to the other side - instead of around the edge. But sometimes I have the whole water to myself if I go out at the right time (early or late). And when the motor boats are out and about…well, more chance to improve the balance further, when their waves come by. LOL.

Lying still on my board in the middle of a relatively large expanse of water feels liberating.

And the quiet moments are sublime. I paddle up the little inlets and can see carp and perch swimming beneath. Easier to see than when sitting in a canoe. I can even sometimes watch the Great Crested Grebes swimming underneath while chasing the minnows. The dragon flies… well they fly alongside. The coots, moorhens, and various ducks dive for cover, heading into the reed beds with their chicks as I pass by - “What is this strange thing…a man walking on water!?”

The occasional blue flash of a Kingfisher darts past.

I haven’t experienced this particular brand of peacefulness before. It’s a cliche, but I do genuinely feel like a part of nature.

And it’s all happening on my “SUP Board”.

#FirstWorldProblems

My laptop screen is filthy.

And it turns out that giving it hundreds of little cleans over the weeks, months and years would probably have been a lot easier than trying to undo the damage of not having done so.

Anyway, I can still see to type obviously. So in that sense, no harm done.

In fact … it might be that I’m more bothered about what people THINK of me and my filthy screen…than the practical reality of actually having one.

But still, probably wiser to give it a clean now and then?

Hmmm. I’ve definitely got my share of #FirstWorldProblems.

More Things

Tuinhuis means Garden House in Dutch.

We’ve got one on a holiday park in the Netherlands fairly close (but not too close!) to Dutch relatives. It sold us both on the idea, the one simple idea, of trying to live a little more simply.

Yes, we’ve got a holiday home. So already very lucky and possibly over indulged. But it’s a little house of wood with a little garden and just enough of everything. Still more than most people have on a global scale. But for us “richer than we think” Westerners, it feels a little bit more minimal.

Anyway, no big point to be made, other than to say that after we’ve got past the point of not needing to worry about survival, less is almost certainly, more.

More Things really doesn’t make for a happier existence.

ps. And BTW… we didn’t actually paint the Tuinhuis red. But I did enjoy doing it, even on a hot day.
Oh dear, I think I’m coming down with something … I could be about to experience … a bout of contentedness. What’s all that about?

Paint The Tuinhuis Red

Some people come alive doing work around the house. Painting, DIY tasks, weeding the garden, cleaning the windows.

To some of us it is all a chore, getting in the way of “more important things”.

I’m one of the latter. But I would like to change my attitude.

No time like the present.

Today I’m going to paint. Today I’m going to enjoy it! I could even sing while I’m doing it. Time to Paint the Tuinhuis Red!

I feel a little bit better already.

It Doesn’t Have To Matter

The Draft.

We make one with a blog. With a book. With a song. With a play.

This isn’t IT. This is “something like it”.

The plan, usually, is to go back and edit. Improve things.

Life, of course, doesn’t have a Draft version. Each moment is “Live” the moment it has been written.

On the other hand, every day does offer the opportunity to start again at the very beginning.

It’s not that what went before was meaningless.

But It Doesn’t Have To Matter.

Brought Together

Brought Together…

- by Family
- by Celebration
- by Death
- by Passion
- by Music
- by Sport
- by Politics
- by Faith
- by Love

All the same things that can Tear Us Apart.

Are we able to hold on to it all a little less tightly?

Cloud Atlas

I would like to recommend a book, if you haven’t come across it before. It is Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

Simply the best novel I’ve read. I can’t remember reading a better one anyhow. And though I never tend to read a book or watch a film twice, I am going to make an exception for this one. And the same for the film, by the way, which had a similar impact on me when I watched it a few years ago.

I’m probably not clever enough to properly understand Shakespeare’s genius, though I have read him enough to see that he was clearly a master of language. It’s hard to fully appreciate writing from a completely different era though, without certain historical knowledge and insight. I don’t possess those.

But if Shakespeare is a better story teller, a better painter of people, a better wordsmith, a better commentator on life than Mitchell, then he must be pretty damn good. Coz Mitchell is bloody brilliant.

Take my recommendation with a pinch of salt by all means. As I say, my qualifications are limited, and there is always a certain amount of personal taste and subjectivity in these matters.

But as you can see, I’m not recommending it lightly.

An Ebook

I’ve intended to write An Ebook about Homesong and the possibilities of music in community for a while. I’ve had a stab at it before, but never really got a foothold.

It’s such an important topic for me and - other than friends and family and the songwriting itself - this vision for Homesong is my main passion in life. It’s my path to seeing a bit of hope for the future, and not just for me as a songwriter, and for other songwriters. It also feels like a positive way forward for rediscovering a sense of community, in an age where that particular fundamental of life seems to be lost in the midst of our global, pandemical, artificially virtual, digital, world wide web of a bit of a mess we seem to have got ourselves into.

Anyway, I feel like I started for real yesterday. I found a doorway in. Now I need to see it through to completion.

Wish me the correct dosages of resilience, persistence, and creativity. And luck. Ta.

Me And The Bean Soup

The coffee is gurgling.

I wait for the grounds to settle. For the luscious oil to seep through to the cavern. I’m anticipating the dark hit. The bitter smooth taste - no diluting milk or sugar for me. And the wee caffeine rush behind my eyes, a short while after.

Yes, I’m probably an addict. But I do sometimes take a day off just to test my mettle… just to prove that I don’t need to go to rehab quite yet. And I never use a needle!

Oh, well now…the coffee has stopped gurgling.

You’ll need to let me go.

It’s just Me And The Bean Soup for a while.

I know you’ll understand.

Needing Help

My wife is supposed to be spending a few days doing work online while we are away in the Netherlands. We’ve been on a very special journey, which you too may have experienced. It involves trying to sort out the technical problems which need to be overcome to make this sort of thing happen.

You’d think, in this day and age…….etc, etc … your call is important to us … failure to listen…. two years later… solution not found….blah, blah, blah.*

Why is it that our/your/my particular issue is the one that nobody ever in the history of anything has ever experienced before?

Or is it, as they say, just us?

It’s not just us.

But it is true that many people, even in their area of expertise, struggle when everything isn’t exactly the way they think it should be. And so we end up with customer service peeps berating you, the customer, for being wrong.

We’re not wrong. We’re just ignorant in this particular area, and we need help.

And when the boot is on the other foot, this may be true of people looking for help from us.

Not wrong. Just Needing Help.



* This song is definitely “hammering the hook home”. 600 million views suggests we shouldn’t knock it. And maybe this isn’t the kind of song we want to write…but the primary lesson it offers…keeping things as simple as possible … should generally be on the list of songwriting “Things To Do”.

The Jigsaw Puzzler

Not everything is significant.

Some things, like dust, just exist. And some things we do fall into that category too. They have no impact on the world. We all shed a lot of dead skin during a lifetime.

I’m going to blow the songwriters trumpet here though. A song is significant. It matters. It adds something of substance to the universe. It has an effect.

And now to snatch that trumpet away (hopefully to be returned) before it has barely parped a parp…

…because writing a song is like producing a single piece of a universal jigsaw. On it’s own it is clearly “something”. It is clearly significant, and has a place in the Big Picture. But it is very hard to say what part that is. And the songwriter (none of us) is putting the jigsaw together anyway.

Some pieces of the jigsaw, some of our songs, might merely represent another piece of the endless blue sky. Good luck with THOSE pieces Mrs Jigsaw Puzzler! They are all, never-the-less, a necessary part of the whole.

Other pieces might have more recognisable features. Pieces that She will know straight away where to place. Perhaps the head and wings of a soaring eagle that fits nicely onto the backend of another piece. Those are the songs we really want to write, of course. Those are the significant actions we want (or possibly our egos want) to add to the world.

Anyway, these acts of significance, whether they be songs, or moments of kindness, a job well done, or anything that matters … though they be tiny … well, they really do matter.

We are obviously not even going to see the final jigsaw. If it ever is final. But, heavens above and hell below, these sometimes feeble attempts to make or do something beautiful are each, in their own way, a definitive part of the whole.

So why not choose, and carry on choosing, as far as we are able, to produce pieces of significance in our lives. Pieces that The Jigsaw Puzzler can use.

I Didn’t Want To

We’ve discovered some photos of my step-father-law, Gerrit, who recently died, climbing Lion Mountain - Singha-gi-ri - in Sri Lanka. He did this a few years ago on a travelling adventure with my wife’s mum, Gerrie, while they were in their early seventies.

The reason those pictures of Gerrit are of particular interest, is that I turned down the opportunity to climb that same mountain when we were visiting Sri Lanka last year, to celebrate my son Joel’s marriage to Tharushi.

I’ve not got a great head for heights, and even though I do try to face challenges that scare me, at the time I didn’t feel the inclination. More specifically, I Didn’t Want To feel the inclination.

But seeing Gerrit, who I’ve written a yet unrecorded song about, being completely the incredible guy he was (and effortlessly making local people laugh in the process, despite the language divides) has encouraged me to give it a go, should I get the chance again.

Which is quite likely at some point, as we’ve got an ongoing invitation to visit.

That is all.

New Life

It wasn’t just Romie’s birthday yesterday was it?

It was also her mums. Her mum gave birth to her on that day, 3 years ago. It’s a shared Birth Day. More memorable for her mum in fact, than for Romie herself.

There are many of us who have never given birth to new life. Some of us because we can’t, some of us because we choose not to, and some because the time hasn’t come yet.

Having witnessed the experience on several occasions, from the outside looking in, it appears both magical and mysterious and, at the end, almost savage. Of all the imaginings that can be imagined, to be pregnant and give birth is one of the hardest to imagine.

But we can all bear New Life in our own ways. And we will need a lot of the same qualities which a mother needs -patience, love, endurance, and hope.

New life is both inevitable and it is a choice.

But when that new life is finally born, it will be out of our control.

Even if we try to persuade ourselves otherwise.

Too Much Inside

It’s my granddaughter Romie’s birthday today. She’s three, and a beautiful little lady, who takes her duties of care for her young sister Caya very seriously.

And she knows her own mind.

Which is a useful knowledge to have, but also a knowledge that we can somehow manage to lose.

Maybe there is just Too Much Inside of there to know, after a certain point in time. An ever increasing life time of memories and experience.

Which is perhaps why our subconscious mind pushes forward all sorts of things that we might need to address, right here and now.

We get into the habit of avoiding that knowledge though, through distractions and the next activity, because it doesn’t always make sense, or seem important, or is simply too painful or shameful to look at.

I think I’ve been doing that for years, and I’m learning to spend more time studying the library that has always been there, and has always been mine. My own mind.

What’s happening in there?

I know, it’s a scary thought.

But hey, you’re reading this blog, so kudos to you for your bravery and sense of adventure.

A Fresh Start

Beneath the skin.

There’s something there for sure. There is a reason you did that and not this. There is something causing that feeling of…expectation, or guilt, or pleasure, or sadness, or worry, or restlessness, or boredom.

It’s helpful to look closer, and more clearly, at what makes us who we are. Then maybe we can be kinder to ourselves. Because there is, whisper it, a sort of inevitability to where and who we are right now. A path that brought us here. One which we cannot change, and perhaps never could.

That thought might, but shouldn’t, lead to a sense of helplessness - “If ME is inevitable, why bother?”

But why not choose instead to have a wee bit of compassion for this person, YOU, who has developed into…well, THIS. Give them a bit of leeway and suggest, very simply, that whatever has happened, now there is an opportunity for a new beginning.

Nothing to stop them moving in a better direction. Nothing tying them down to the ticks, and triggers, and habits, that came before.

A Fresh Start isn’t just another nice idea. It’s a fact to be embraced, no matter how many times we “mess up”. Or “succeed”.