How are Things?

Tag: writing

  • Tuesday 5th August 2025

    How to live a good life is a question almost tired, it has been so explored. But for me, the rebirth/requestioning that is taking place is so new, and so unexplored, that really asking it is not a failure.

    If I was to meet myself in five years, and was to find I was living a perfect life, what would I find? A healthy body, exercised and with no problems or stresses. A mind happy and joyful, again capable and with skills, still willing to learn. And a spirit in touch with compassion, aware of the remarkable and the spiritual, connecting with others and with a greater good.

    To have joy, one must work.

    A healthy body can only be arrived at by exercise, regular and routine. So I will have to go swimming and weight lifting several times a week.

    To have a happy mind, I need to take on study and learning. I need to take up a new skill, or skills, I need to practice new disciplines. I also need to take up mental discipline; perhaps Stoicism, though without the frequent foray into a masculinity that romanticizes the hermitic life. (Come at me bro!)

    A spiritual life is one that thinks of others even when it is not necessarily in one’s first interests.

    So lazy! I have more to write and it is so late, and still I dawdle!

    Today I saw my business coach again, and we spoke for an hour and a bit. I left with a notepad covered in notes, but a summation would, should, include;

    Research a particular business topic that will help me guide my team.

    • Rethink the problem and the dialogue surrounding it.
    • Reclaim the space of the problem and add my own successes to it; in some areas of work I have made huge progress, I need to create that energy to this area of work.
    • How do we create a climate of safety for our team?
    • And also, I am responsible, not guilty. I need to take breaks, set boundaries, take the time to learn, and to work well, not more.
    • I need to communicate, and to have the deep fear of not being worthy, of having no right to be here, fade away. Like a smoker needs to examine the emotion before the impulse to smoke, I need to examine my own self doubt before giving into it.
    • I have for some topics passion, intelligence, and am willing to give real support, at times I am almost an evangelist. That is what I should bring to work.
    • Spock is a thousand times better than Kirk (but you already knew that).

    Dear friend, thank you for reading my late night ramblings. I will continue tomorrow to examine these fruits of my thoughts.

  • Monday 4th August 2025

    It is August, already. I have found that, as my own cognition improves, I’m drawn more and more to the mental structures of rationality. I am reading the Glass Bead Game, listening to Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, rereading the Stoic principles.

    The positive or negative thing about such pleasant structures is their supposed ease of access. Here, says the Universe, is a method of being Rational/Logical/Stoical, or whatever term is appropriate. Now you can be Rational/Logical/Stoical. Never once does Rationality appear to say, sorry, this is not for you. It does not have any layers that are inscrutable, or beyond you. It merely provides a method, and away you go.

    To use it daily, is to question both the data I take in, and the technique I use to examine it. It means that I am forced to move so slowly over material facts like a glacier taking over a new piece of material; I have to take in the fact, then correctly use the technique with regards to it.

    I wanted to take in and consider the next five years. My son will be 18 by then, and I’ll be 57. Considering that it always takes longer to reach a goal or target than you think, and that cognitive bias is a factor nearly impossible to avoid, setting small targets seems sensible. It is also sensible when you consider the destruction to the West, and to the area North of Africa; the world is going to look very different in five years.

    More on this tomorrow.

  • Thursday 31st July 2025

    If you’re reading this, you are probably imaginary. No one is reading this; the stats remain flatlined, like the heart readout of a patient in a TV ER show. “I’m sorry, Doctor … we did all we could.” So you reading this, are all in my head. A busy bespectacled professional, hoisting a leather notebook out of a satchel, wondering how my day went today. A mom with the sound of happy children coming from another room. A wise old woman, long silver hair in plaits, patchwork quilt to work on as my words go on, a view of old trees outside the window.

    The last day of July. Here comes the commencement of the march towards Autumn, and what I suspect will be a very hard winter for the world. How has my July been, and this rare, unique time that I now exist in? My son is away from the house, with his father and the man I do not like to think of, not least as my ex-husband. I get more than four hours sleep. I exist in a schedule of my own making. I am rested. Unrushed, for me.

    I think that it has taken me days to get to this state, where my pre-frontal cortex is alert enough to contemplate and reflect properly. I need to use this time to think, to really think, and to remind myself of who I am. Who I want to be.

    There is an art to strategy, to ruminating, and it is about time I got back to it. I should sit in the back of the cave and think for a while, the choice to do so won’t be given to me forever.

    One last thing to think tonight; going without sleep makes you stupid, upset, and unable to plan. Get more sleep.

  • Monday 28th July 2025

    I feel an awareness of anticipatory sadness; tomorrow the 29th marks two important anniversaries.

    It was the day I and my son were evicted from our home.

    And it was the anniversary of my wedding day.

    The two days are very far apart, as you might imagine. My wedding day was probably a day that saw a lot of people laughing at me. I was older than the average bride. And fatter, too. I can only guess at the sniggering my attempts at ‘blushing bride’ might have inspired. One thing that made the day particularly hard was that my mum was very, very sick. She had Early Onset Alzheimer’s and on the day wasn’t able to be there; in fact, I’m not sure she knew who I was.

    It is really hard to remember that. So much of that day was hard, and sad, and a struggle and I, I don’t know how to say all of it and keep going tomorrow morning.

    So I might leave that go, with just the comment that it is in itself a novel of sadness.

    And the eviction happened last year. My by then ex-husband left so much junk behind that I received a furious phone call that evening. I was shell-shocked and brutalized getting to my family home. They were so angry with me over the amount of junk he had left for them that they threw out all the things they had agreed to keep until my own sale closed. I saved what I could, it cost me hundreds, but there was so much lost; mementos, things from my son’s childhood, Christmas decorations…

    There had been a little mechanical teddy bear that read The Night Before Christmas. She had been exactly the thing my son loved each Christmas. And I lost her, and she got thrown out on a skip and forgotten, when I loved her so much.

    I got through all of last year with just grit and putting up with things. But somehow when I think of that bear, which I must have loved, I can’t but cry. They threw her out with a sense of anger, of disgust, and she was innocent of all of it.

  • Friday 25th July 2025

    It’s Friday. I made it. I got through the interviews, and the meetings, and the work, and taking care of my son, and now it is Friday. Today, my son went to spend two weeks with his father, and I will get to sleep.

    His father lives with his parents, and has since we broke up, which was in 2021. He exploded our lives with viciousness and resentment; he had in fact been doing that for years, but had never pointed it at my son. It was an ordeal for me that had been going on for the best part of a decade.

    But then he did it to my son.

    My son. He was his father, but he was/is my son. I took care of him, I fed him, I worked from 5am during Covid so I could take of him, I dealt with all the schools. I was the parent. My then husband was also in the house.

    When he did that to my son he screamed at him, yelled at him, then walked out of the room as calm as a swiss knife returned to its slot, leaving a terrified child and myself in freeze/fawn mode, but aware that something was very wrong.

    I am not going to talk about that tonight.

    It is years later. He still lives with his parents, a situation I approve of as at least I know there are two other sane people in the house. I will speak to him every night on the phone. It’s alright. It’s all alright.

    He will be out of the house for two weeks. I will work, work out, and get to cry a lot. I will get to think about myself for a bit, and just… rest. The music can change tempo, be slower, kinder, more reflective.

    You know you have lived a life not many would chose when the idea of being alone is so utterly restful and kind, so peaceful!

    Peace, just peace.

    Good night all.

  • Wednesday 23rd July 2025

    Right, well, here we go. No jazz concepts to calm the soul tonight my lovelies.

    My son has special needs. He can’t spend his summer at Summer camps as so many places won’t cater to him and he thinks they are rubbish in any case. So, there is a scheme where you can hire a qualified person to come to your home and take care of him, for a maximum of 40 hours over the total summer. It is a tiny thing but it is there. You fill in a form, you send it off, you get approved, you’re good. My son has a favorite person who has come to us several summers in a row, and it was all going like clockwork.

    She asked me today about the form, and I should have received confirmation way back in June about it. And I didn’t. I hunted through the items in my inbox, and on my desk, and true to form, there was the fubbing form untouched in the envelope his school had sent it home to me. I think I got it late April but maybe May, and had all of that month to send it in and then June as well. And I ruddy well forgot!

    I now owe this woman three figures that she has more than earned and I have to hand it over straight away, as in, tomorrow. How can I be so stupid? My first reaction in such moments is that I’ve discarded the right to live, I’m so stupid. And I have no one else to blame!

    There was a dreadful moment last year, after we were evicted and living in a city center flat, where I let getting the electricity set up go too long. It was absolutely my fault, I just let weeks go by and didn’t do it. Then they shut us off, and I had to get it back on pronto. It meant paying a reconnection fee, and dinners for my son in McDonalds. I was lucky, I still had a membership fee at the gym so we could go for swims, take hot showers, lunch in town… I was privileged. But it was completely unnecessary, just being too delicate to deal with the realities of life! Lying in the dark that night, I felt that a lesson of life had been shown to me; suffer the pain of practicalities or suffer a greater pain in their absence.

    And yet here we are again! Things sliding off me like algae off the side of a stagnant pond; why am I so stupid?! Why?

    I am supposed to be amazing everyone at work regarding my marvelous skills, and I’m honestly wondering if I should be here at all. What a waste of flesh!

  • Tuesday 22nd July 2025

    And finally, the day is done. I have some jazz on, everything is lit by lamplight, and the cat is relaxing. Let’s go through the day, shall we?

    So I managed to get up and to get going earlier than I have been (though still much later than I had before). I made breakfast for myself, and was interrupted by my son, meaning I felt obliged to make sure he had breakfast as well. This sudden extra piling on of jobs irritated me, I’m sorry to say – I was focused on the large task in front of me, and wanted to keep that focus on.

    After I made breakfast I headed away as close to 8am as possible. By 9.30am we were all in the boardroom and set up. And on came the interviews. I won’t be so tacky as to go through each of them directly, but I will say we had a total of five candidates, and there were two that stood out directly. The others had an energy that that seemed much less desirable.

    I got through them and then got through 50 emails, and then picked up some supplies from a colleague while on the way home. I got home at about 530pm. My son was out with his childminder having fun, and so I got a rare and precious chance to sit for a moment. Then everyone arrived home, so it was back to making dinner, serving, washing up, putting out the bins and then an hour’s worth of ironing. I wish I could say I listened to something highbrow, but instead I watched a Korean Drama The Trunk. Then it was, it is, time to get some rest. No doubt tomorrow all will be well.

    I am not sure we chose the right man today. I hope I have enough energy and sanity to lead the team correctly. But I am running on fumes at present, and I need to reboot as soon as I can. I have an image of myself in the shower, my eyes closed, water running over my face as I finally reset…

    I wish I had profundity to offer you. Some well crafted statement or saying conveying the purple night, a reflective thought, a resonance within a soul. Instead, I can only wish you peace, and rest, and say tomorrow will be another chance.

    Goodnight, all.

  • Monday 21st July 2025

    Good evening all. I’ve become so used to this blog it is beginning to feel weird if I don’t make a daily entry. Today, I woke up so tired I was at one quarter power, and honestly my entire body and soul was begging for rest. Instead, I got up, late, did my exercises, slowly, and got myself into work.

    I hate the fact that my son is now old enough for me to leave by himself. He has a fully charged phone, and he has a person who calls in, but it is two hours after I leave, and my eager imagination creates all manner of disasters to happen the moment I leave.

    The day itself seemed to beg me to stay home. We had torrential rain from about 5am onwards and it didn’t stop until at least 10am. There is always a part of me that worries about those who have to deal with that; animals made starving by climate damage, homeless people with nowhere to go. It is the case that I now know that such well meaning wishes don’t do anything concrete except make me forgive myself.

    Work was brought to us by the words ‘Coffee’ and ‘Perseverance’. I brought the huge number of emails down from 120 to 30, and then turned to the questions for tomorrow. Tomorrow, we hold interviews for folks wishing to join my team. I went with the flow last time and had to deal with a frankly less than pleasant personality. Tomorrow, I aim to get the best person possible for the team.

    The evening was salmon for dinner, lots of laundry done, and listening to the rain. Hope you’re not out in bad weather, wherever you are. Sleep well.

  • Saturday 20th July 2025

    My brother woke me early to find out what happened. It was so early that it woke me up; and seeing as I am up between 5am and 6am during the week it wasn’t very much what I wanted.

    Anyway. Today my son and I took my niece to see a movie. She lives thirty minutes away, and the movie theatre is another thirty minutes, so we had to head out around 12.30pm. Then pick her up, and then over to see the movie at 2pm. The movie tickets cost approximately $39, and snacks beforehand cost roughly the same. We were going to see Jurassic World Rebirth, and I think it was my son’s fourth time seeing it; maybe fifth?

    My niece has had a hard time. A hard life, really. She went through a really bad event as a teenager, and then had an eating disorder that derailed life for several years. She picked herself up, and got her degree. She met someone, and they fell in love. And then just the other day, the person she loved didn’t want to be with her any more. Her heart is broken, but she is keeping going. And we wanted to spend some time with her.

    And she hated the movie. For some reason they played it too loud, and there were points of sadness in it right from the beginning, and to a wounded heart it was all too much. We left after about thirty minutes and dropped her home. I’m only sorry I couldn’t give her a better afternoon, but I am proud of my son for coping so well with it. He really wanted to share this experience with her; but when he couldn’t, he was an absolute gentleman about it.

    Then we got the groceries and he turned into a teenager.

    My son was in the worst kind of teenage mood all afternoon and evening. At the till I asked him to swop one sliced pan for another, and he had nearly a fit at the burden I was placing on him. I honestly was trying not to have a huge argument with him right then and there.

    We got home, we got dinner into us, and then, finally, he got some rest in bed. I managed to not do anything very productive all evening, and it is appallingly late as I type. And now, I’m going to go to bed.

  • Friday 19th July 2025

    Finally, this week is over. I have been so tired and so uninspired this week, and now there is a chance to rest for a moment.

    I made an appointment with my councilor, a woman who by now knows me way too well. Then I had lunch with a fellow colleague where we got a chance to raise our concerns about senior management.

    Problematic person has done a lot of crying but has broken up with terrible person but I’ve gone ahead and notified security about his awful ex; if only because apparently my name was mentioned in the break up conversation. The Problematic person’s emotional wave has gone out from shore, and in fact is now heading back in: they have texted me to say they’re annoyed with the other people being annoyed with them. This is a mess, and I’m going to get myself out of it.

    Dinner was made by my son and it tasted amazing, mainly because he is a great kid. I’m listening to Amy Poehler and going to bed. Night all.