Funfare for the Common Man

‘I can understand that people want to feel special and important and so on, but that self-obsession seems a bit pathetic somehow. Not being able to accept that you’re just this collection of cells, intelligent to whatever degree, capable of feeling emotion to whatever degree, for a limited amount of time and so on, on this tiny rock orbiting this not particularly important sun in one of just 400m galaxies, and whatever other levels of reality there might be via something like brane-theory [of multiple dimensions]…really, it’s not about you.’ Iain Banks, in his final Guardian interview, published 15 June 2013 ‘I have more than once in my time woken up feeling like death.’ Christopher Hitchens, ‘Mortality’ This will, no doubt, soon turn into a bit of the theatre of absurd. I’m not that old, but I always feel it. Hypochondria also runs in the family blood, mainly from my father’s side. The slightest niggle or pain, and we’re suddenly dying....

I often feel that I was born in the wrong century and belong in a different era. I can hardly keep up with modern times, things are changing so fast. I know, I sound like Brooks from The Shawshank Redemption – but don’t worry, I don’t plan on topping myself (belated spoiler alert: sorry if you haven’t seen it). Oh great, another technophobia-themed rant Regular readers will no doubt be familiar with my posts on technology and its failings and my slavish adherence to Ludditism. I’ve long been a fully-fledged, paid-up member of the club. I don’t want to rant and rave yet again, but I had a few thoughts and reflections as I spent last week hiking and biking in the cool, fresh air of the Carpathians. (in western Ukraine, for my non-local audience) Now, I’m all for innovation and progress but…at what cost? The modern world and its gadgets confound and overwhelm me. And I know that every [good] artist has to change his canvas at some point, but…after a certain point, it al...

‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ Socrates ‘What if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well?’ Kurt Vonnegut ‘Live all you can; it’s a mistake not to.’ Saul Bellow I once quoted Socrates at the beginning of an angst-ridden, existentialist-funk themed post sometime in 2010. Relax – I’m not about to do the same. But it has been a while. February 2012 was my last post…I wonder if anyone had given me up for dead? I’ve been putting this off for long enough, so I think I can be forgiven for asking myself ‘where do I begin?’ At the end of that post, I pontificated on what it meant that 2012 was set to become a busy year with that wretched Delta on tap – what was it going to mean for this blog? I didn’t expect to junk it altogether. Although time got the better of me, the real reason was more of extended ‘creative’ writer’s block, plus a lack of inspiration and motivation. The Delta required such a dif...