This is the view of the solar eclipse just after sunrise yesterday (Tuesday 04/01/2011) from my study window. Like what eclipse? Typical of the UK to cock it up; can’t this country get anything right? Bah Humbug!
This is also my first photo for the “52 weeks” (ie. a photo a week) I’m doing this year. I hope I can keep up the standard of getting something off-beat each week. Watch this space.
I decided to do this survey I found to summarise my engagement (or lack of it) with 2010. If it works I may do it again in a year’s time.
1. What did you do that you’d never done before?
Retire
Be hypnotised
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don’t make New Year resolutions (see here); but I did have some goals most of which I failed to achieve
3. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
More sex
£1M
4. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory?
Sunday 14 February
Saturday 5 June
Friday 27 August
5. Did you suffer illness or injury?
No more than normal: the usual couple of vile colds etc.
6. What was the best thing you bought?
New digital SLR camera
7. Where did most of your money go?
Fuck knows, and he ain’t telling me
8. What did you get really, really excited about?
Nothing; I waste effort on excitement or panic
9. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a. happier or sadder? Definitely happier and less depressed, at least at the moment
b. thinner or fatter? Fatter
c. richer or poorer? Poorer
10. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Photography
Cooking
Swimming
Seeing friends
11. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Eating
Wasting time
12. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Moving my mother into a good care home
Retirement
Starting hypnotherapy
13. What was your biggest failure?
Putting weight back on when I’d been slowly losing it
14. How many one-night stands?
None
15. What was your favourite TV program?
I watch so little TV I really haven’t got a clue
16. What was the best book you read?
Brad Warner; Sex, Sin and Zen
Ben Goldacre; Bad Science
17. What did you want and get?
New digital SLR camera
Amazon Kindle
18. What did you want and not get?
New bathroom
£1M
19. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
£1M – it won’t solve all the problems but it won’t half help you cope with them
20. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
Nude when possible, clothed when necessary
21. What kept you sane?
Noreen
Hypnotherapy
22. Who did you miss?
Surprisingly some former colleagues
23. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010:
Life happens, deal with it
24. A quote or song lyric that sums up your year:
Chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order, because it is better organised. [Terry Pratchett]
No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. [unknown]
Mr Spock … We’re trapped in an eerie, brain numbing madhouse! Any answers? [unknown]
25. Your hopes for 2011
– Successful Anthony Powell conference in September
– Catch up with the backlog of Anthony Powell Society work
– Achieve financial security for life (well I can dream!)
– More sex
– Less depression
– Lose weight
– Be a better husband
– Society normalises sex and nudity rather than being disgusted/frightened by it
Like a number of other people I know, I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. They are, by and large, setting ourselves up to fail. We pick as resolutions things we’re determined to do, but maybe don’t really want to do, like stopping smoking or exercising more. Consequently, although we try, we don’t stick the course. We fail and then beat ourselves up for failing. Only to go through the whole cycle again next year with the same resolutions! All New Year resolutions are is self-fulfilling fails just waiting to mug our psyche.
I’ve never liked being tied down by immoveable objectives (to me that ceases to be an objective and becomes an irrevocable order, something to be achieved “or else”). And I don’t intend to start now I’ve managed to slough of the spectre of work. I’m basically someone who drifts with the tide; I managed it through my working life and have escaped with (most of) my sanity intact and a life outside work. Yes I probably could have done better for myself, but at what cost to my sanity and work-life balance? That wasn’t what I wanted so drifting suited me just fine.
So in recent years I have tried to set myself some goals to achieve over the year. And no, a goal is not a resolution! Resolution = I am determined to do this come what may. Goal = a target to be aimed for; success is a bull’s eye; but you still get points for hitting an outer blue or black ring, for some small progress.
Last year I set myself a number of goals. And I scored really badly, though I did pick a few points. This was partly because my goals didn’t end up aligning with the things which turned out to happen during the year and which I couldn’t have foreseen. Yes, I’m disappointed, but no I’m not beating myself up about it (well not much anyway).
So for 2011 I’m setting myself a new set of goals. And no, not the ones I didn’t achieve in 2010; many of them are not now relevant to where I need to be going. And no, I’m not about to tell you what they are. I may or may not achieve these goals, but every one is attainable if somewhat challenging and I shall give them a good shot. As long as they remain relevant. And that’s the key. Goals = targets to be aimed at which are achievable, relevant and allow for progress short of 100% success. So many New Year’s resolutions become “must do”, are unreasonably hard to achieve, and too often become irrelevant to where life takes us. Flexibility is more important than single-minded determination; partial success is more important than total failure.
Reading Redlegs in Soho yesterday has reminded me that, although I’m not a fan of making resolutions, a few seasonal wishes for the coming year might be in order (just don’t invoice me until January, OK?). We can all wish for the big things, like world peace, and for our own selfish wants (a big lottery win), so we’ll skip those and concentrate on things to improve society or make life more interesting. So here’s my selection:
So what would your list be?
A11 Sunset, originally uploaded by kcm76.
I took this photo on the journey from Norwich to London on 27/11/2010, late afternoon. We are heading south across Thetford Chase. I always seem to take shots of those trees as they always stand out well against the sky! Oh, and before anyone asks, no I wasn’t doing the driving!
A few weeks ago I speed read Susie Bright’s Full Exposure: Opening Up to Your Sexual Creativity and Erotic Expression. While I found much of the book mundane here are a few snippets which struck me and/or helped crystallise my thinking.
We have no tradition in our culture for showing respect to anything sexual. We don’t promote erotic education. Our health care establishment barely has a clue about our sexual bodies. Our political system finds sex to be a fine whipping boy. The gossips and preachers are our typical sex advisers, and their tone is usually damning, rarely daring.
*****The puritans are suspicious of sex education because it leads to tolerance, and there’s a world of sexual learning in everything from anatomy books to Leaves of Grass [by Walt Whitman] to Hot Legs magazine.
*****The right to free speech, when you get right down to it, is the right to make someone else uncomfortable, to outrage the respectable, and to question everything held dear. Who, after all, needs protection to say they like Mom and apple pie? It’s the same with our legal rights to privacy […] We have persecuted people (from socialists to separatists, gay liberationists to pot smokers) who made unpopular statements or did unusual things.
*****If you are drawn to a non-traditional, non-Western ideology [any ideology? – K], ask yourself where sexual liberation lies in its philosophy. Are masculine and feminine roles fluid and accommodating, or are they drawn to fit a predetermined role? Does your faith tell you that masturbation is selfish, that it wastes one’s precious energy? Or that monogamy is the only mature relationship in the eyes of your God? Are you led to believe that your sexual satisfaction is something that only your faith can give you, or some¬thing that must be sacrificed to get closer to essential truths?
If any of these Rules of Living sound familiar, ask yourself why something that is supposed to be so very divine and far-reaching […] would hand you [a] load of body-loathing, double-standard, sexually shaming intolerance.
*****What wouldn’t I give for even one politician to get up and say, “One thing I’ve learned from this awful mess is that we must decriminalize sex between consenting adults”! Now that would take some honesty, not to mention balls.
*****There’s a difference between secrecy – hiding significant information – and privacy, which is our right to maintain an existence that isn’t constantly orbiting around our mate. Secrecy devastates relationships, but privacy enhances them, because it distinguishes us; it resists the urge to merge.
Just three this week …
It is good to rub and polish your mind against that of others.
[Michel de Montaigne]Our life depends on others so much that at the root of our existence is a fundamental need for love. That is why it is good to cultivate an authentic sense of responsibility and concern for the welfare of others.
[Dalai Lama]I’m selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I’m out of control and at times I’m hard to handle, but if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.
[Marliyn Monroe]
OK, Cat tagged me on Facebook, so here goes (after I’ve had a bite of lunch) …
What You Do
Once you’ve been tagged…(1) Turn on your MP3 player or music player on your computer.(2) Go to SHUFFLE songs mode.(3) Write down the first 10 songs that come up–song title and artist–NO editing/cheating, please.(4) Choose 10 people to be tagged. It is generally considered to be in good taste to tag the person who tagged you.
If I tagged you, it’s because I’m betting that your musical selection is entertaining, or at least amusing. To do this on Facebook, go to “NOTES” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, enter your 10 Shuffle Songs, Tag as many people as you like (under the post) then click Publish. Otherwise post this on your weblog, as here!
The Songs
1. Pink Floyd; Wish You were Here
2. Incredible String Band; No Sleep Blues
3. Scott Joplin; Paragon Rag
4. Queen; Killer Queen
5. Vejvanovský (Pavel Josef, c1633-1693); Beatus Vir (Psalm 112)
6. Trionfi! A Florentine Festival; Canto di Lanzi sonatoridi rubecchina
7. Ludford (Nicholas, c1485-c1557); Gloria from Missa Benedicta et Venerabilis
8. Santo Domingo de Silos; Benedicta es tu Virgo Maria
9. Queen; Bicycle Race
10. Beatles; Here Comes the Sun
I tagged 10 people on Facebook, but from here I also tag Sue L.; Jilly at jillysheep; and Noreen at Norn’s Notebook.
Having last week quoted the opening couple of lines from Roger McGough’s poem Here I Am it seems opportune to post the whole poem as it isn’t very long.
Here I AmHere I am
getting on for seventy
and never having gone to work in ladies’ underwearNever run naked at night in the rain
Made love to a girl I’d just met on a planeAt that awkward age now between birth and death
I think of all the outrages unperpetrated
opportunities missedThe dragons unchased
The maidens unkissed
The wines still untasted
The oceans uncrossed
The fantasies wasted
The mad urges lostHere I am
as old as Methuselah
was when he was my age
and never having stepped outside for a fightCrossed on red, pissed on rosé (or white)
Pretty dull for a poet, I suppose, eh? Quite.
Now OK, one knows that here will likely be a degree of poetic licence and tongue in cheek, but it is interesting what one even might consider it important that one hasn’t done (or would have liked to have done) in a lifetime.
So what would be on my list of things I’ve never done, and feel I want to have done? Hmmm … well … OK …
Well there’s still time to tick off some of those; better get going!
You can also check out my list of 111 Bucket List Things To Do.