Recursive Words

After working throughout the entire summer, and disappearing for one long weekend during that time, I finally shut my computer down on Friday evening with no intention of switching it back on for the coming week.

This morning I threw a few clothes into a backpack, and am now sitting on a train, heading towards the south-west for the weekend – to visit my parents. The train is growing increasingly late – with the driver apologising endlessly over the PA system. I’ve already called my parents and told them I’ll know more when I reach Plymouth. I change trains at Plymouth, and head onwards over the Tamar bridge into deepest darkest Cornwall.

At least I have a seat. I’ve somehow bagged an entire table to myself – which seems outlandingly luxurious in comparison to past journeys where I found myself wedged into corners of the entrance and exit way while the train lurched like an over-filled sardine can on it’s four hour journey.

As the journey takes me further from London, you can feel the world slowing down. The mayhem and chaos are slowly dissipating. People don’t seem to be in as much of a rush to get to the next thing, and the next. While walking to the cinema in the week I laughed with my other half about our seeming invisibility in town. People aren’t just self-obsessed any more – they’re oblivious to anybody or anything outside of their bubble.

I’m looking forward to reaching the coast (in the next hour or so). As the train travels travels further south west it will skirt the English Channel, and Atlantic ocean – whistling past beaches and breakwaters along the way.

We’re approaching Exeter St. Davids.

When I was young my Dad had a yacht moored at Exmouth – just inside the protective arc of Dawlish Warren (a huge nature preserve). We would visit each weekend and potter around nearby harbours and ports – a bit like going on a nautical caravanning holiday every weekend.

According to family, I learned to walk on a boat (my Dad had a succession of boats when we were young). My other half would contend that’s the reason my sense of balance is so poor. My Dad sold his final boat a couple of years ago. It feels strange – not having a boat somewhere, after so many years with one.

I’m just smiling to myself. As the train becomes increasingly late, the observation about life slowing down is coming true. I wonder if Einstein accounted for the Great Western Railway timetable in his general theory of relativity? I think it might have messed with his equations quite a lot.

I very much doubt I’ll be able to publish this post anywhere near the internet until this evening, because although Great Western Trains advertise “free wifi” on their trains, the only service it appears to be able to provide is indicating their might be a wifi signal somewhere along the train somewhere, on a good day, with a following wind. Read: there is no wifi.

Let’s give it a try, and see what happens…

(three hours pass)

I’m now safely ensconced at my parent’s house. The train journey turned into an epic trek of sorts, after another train broke down, and the one I was aboard changed route to save the other train’s passengers.

My Dad met me at Liskeard railway station, and we carried on towards home. A few hours later, and I’ve managed to arm-twist them into letting me pay for a Chinese takeaway, and am now trying to stop my Mum re-filling my glass repeatedly.

I’ve switched to coffee now – otherwise I’ll struggle to get up in the morning. Early start to visit my Dad’s flight simulator club. I’ll be in charge of eating biscuits and drinking coffee throughout the day.

We went to the cinema this evening, and watched an advance screening of “Nuremberg”, starring Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, and Michael Shannon.

Ooft.

Incredible movie. Exceptional performances by all involved. I can’t imagine how difficult an actor must find it sometimes – to inhabit a persona, or put themselves in a situation that most of us would retreat from pretty damn quickly.

On the walk home we found ourselves struggling to unpack what we had just seen. Normally we talk endlessly about good movies – about how this part was, or that part was. This time we were just quiet.

A lot to process.

There’s a famous saying that all that is needed for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. It was good to be reminded – and I think some people are already feeling a bit triggered – given what’s going on in the world right now.

I read a couple of reviews of the movie at lunchtime today, and was surprised in-amongst the mostly glowing comments where one or two people had completely slated the movie – and then I realised which side of the political divide they probably inhabited, and they were awake enough to realise how the world now sees them.

All it takes is for good people to do nothing. The trick would seem to be realising you’re on the wrong side in the first place.

It’s half past lunchtime on Sunday, and you find me hiding out in the junk room at home, listening to a singer-songwriter playlist. Randy Newman is singing that he thinks it’s going to rain today. He’s not wrong – it looks pretty miserable outside. Never mind. I’ll stay in the warm with a mug of coffee.

The last few days have been pretty relentless. I’m taking a day off today (apart from chores of course) – trying to invest a little in myself. Writing this blog post is a part of that plan.

I’m still flip-flopping between the various apps on the Mac that purport to help my organise the chaos a little. I’m still on the fence about switching to Things and Bear over Apple Reminders and Notes. I also found myself using Notion again at work this week, and reminded myself just how good it is. The only thing that stops me settling for Apple Reminders and Notes is the knowledge that they’re terrible at importing and exporting anything. Then of course there’s Obsidian…

In all honesty, I kind of miss using a paper bullet journal. It’s the reason I still do “rapid logging” in Obsidian at work – and it’s kind of its killer feature as far as I’m concerned.

See… even on a day off, when I’m supposed to not be thinking about any of this stuff, I end up thinking about it. I really am my own worst enemy.

(Three and a half hours pass)

My youngest daughter was struggling to make roast dinner on her own, so I had to get involved to go rescue her. Her boyfriend was also supposed to be helping, but his help seemed to consist of not being present for whatever reason while she struggled. We got there in the end, but not before my other half arrived back from a supermarket trip, discovered dinner was not on schedule, and started shouting at everybody.

Pretty normal Sunday then really.

I just finished washing up, and putting everything back away again – which entails discovering along the way that others haven’t put things away properly, so you end up pretty much emptying every cupboard you open to put them back properly (or wash things that have been hidden in cupboards without being washed properly).

I wonder how old kids get before they start to care? Or if they need their own house before that happens? I worry that our youngest will flounder badly when she gets her own place… Don’t get me wrong – she can do all the important things – cook, wash clothes, etc – but without somebody supporting her along the way, she’s going to find it hard.

I’m sure all parents have the same worries, no matter the age of their children. Life doesn’t have an instruction book, does it. I just hope I don’t turn into the previous generations that I see and hear all too often – complaining about the generations that have followed them rather than offering to help.

Don’t get me started about the “it was better in my day” crowd either – I’m firmly in the Louis C K camp – that we live in by far the best time that has ever existed. Sure, it’s scary at times – because change is happening faster than ever before – but just because the world is different, doesn’t meant mean it’s better or worse – it’s just different. There’s a wonderful TED talk on YouTube that applies a lot of statistics to the argument, and clearly shows that by any meaningful measure, the world is far better now than it has ever been before. Try telling that to anybody that consumes (and believes) the news presented to them on social media sites though…

Anyway.

Time to relax for at least a little of Sunday evening, before another work week starts. Who knows – maybe I’ll get the chance to catch up with one or two friends. I’m more than aware that I’ve fallen off the social bicycle in the last few months.

I just looked at the clock in the corner of the computer screen after consciously trying to figure out what day of the week it was. Where did Wednesday go? Never mind Monday and Tuesday – how is it nearly Thursday? Where did Wednesday evening go? Has anybody seen it?

I’m writing a few words just to keep the blog ticking over. I don’t really have much to report – but when has having nothing to write about stopped me writing about it in the past?

A singer-songwriter playlist is quietly filling the room with a selection of soporific nonsense. Bob Dylan just finished ranting about something to whoever might listen. James Taylor is now singing about Fire and Rain. I know he’s not trendy, and his music is a throwback of sorts – to the 1970s, country music, folk music, and songs that told stories – but I’ve always liked him.

It just occurred to me – I don’t have a Carly Simon record in my collection (she was married to James Taylor). I can imagine my other half eye-rolling now, if a vinyl album with her face on it appeared through the post. That’s almost enough reason to buy one.

Maybe I really will cut this short, rather than waffle on about a load of inconsequential idiocy. I bought a children’s book the other weekend, and have hardly made a dent in it. I love young adult fiction – it’s somehow more transparent – more direct. I think there’s a temptation among “serious” writers to be clever for the sake of it – which often backfires and makes their writing almost impregnable.

There’s a reason Harry Potter sold a bazillion copies.

It’s funny – when I write late at night, I end up wondering how people are that I’ve not heard from or written to in ages – and invariably end up writing emails into the early hours. I’m resisting the temptation at the moment. I’ll file the idea right up there next to “another thing to try to do at the same time as everything else you don’t really have time for at the moment”.

I don’t really believe in “not enough time” though. You make time if something is important to you.

I had a review today at work – and the only constructive feedback was that I tend to throw myself under the bus too often – agreeing to help everybody – with everything – all the time. I agreed instantly. I know I do it. I like helping people though. I like sharing knowledge. I love the moment when somebody “gets” what you’re showing them – and how they can use it to benefit themselves.

There’s also the thing that I just don’t stop.

I need to force myself to slow down a bit. Stop burning the candle at both ends. I know I’ve written it before, but I really do. It doesn’t really matter what I choose to do instead of relentlessly working on this, that, or the other – it could be running, listening to music, reading – anything really. I just need to do something for myself from time to time.

Anyway.

Maybe it’s time to go to bed.

See. Told you I would find a way to fill a page with nothing in particular. It’s a skill.

Two of our oldest friends hosted a joint 50th birthday party at the rowing club in town last night. If I’m entirely honest, neither of us really wanted to go – we’ve both had a pretty draining few weeks/months/year, and would quite happily have had a quite night in.

We know how that goes though – when you organise a party and then worry that people will turn up – so we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps, had a wash, put on some nice clothes, and headed out during a break in the rain that had fallen incessantly earlier in the evening.

The evening was unexpectedly wonderful.

We saw friends we haven’t seen for years, and made new ones along the way. One of the couples had been present at our last night out before adoption. Another couple had been at a music festival with us when the children were little. Several were retired co-workers.

We hadn’t planned on staying at the party long – agreeing that we would “show our faces”. We ended up staying to the end – past last orders at the bar – and wandered home laden with trays of left-over finger food.

On the way home we shared stories of our conversations throughout the evening, and I quizzed my other half on who-on-earth half the people I had been talking to were. It turned out the lovely Finnish blonde lady that had somehow attached herself to me throughout the middle part of the evening had been a Mum at the infant school where she used to work – but beyond that, we had no clue how we had common friends.

One conversation that has stayed with me today was with a couple who have risked everything to run two holiday cottages in the south west. We have stayed in one of them in the past – they are wonderful. The down-side of running a holiday cottage for let, that your family uses for the rest of the year? A total an utter erosion of your expectations of people in general. You know when you half-expect what might unfold, but quietly hope isn’t true? That. Times ten.

After sleeping in this morning, I was up a little after 9am and started putting one load after another through the washing machine. Writing this at lunchtime, the structural integrity of the poor old washing line outside is struggling somewhat. It’s sunny and breezy though, so seemed like too good an opportunity to miss.

I’ve been pottering around the house doing this and that all morning – trying to right the ship before my other half appears. The kids were supposed to be cooking us lunch, but have mysteriously vanished to the pub together to buy their own lunch with money they don’t have. In a couple of weeks they’ll no doubt be asking for money, and we’ll no doubt lecture them yet again about living beyond their means (and refusing to help them unless absolutely necessary).

It’s difficult sometimes – you obviously aren’t going to let your children struggle too much – but by the same token you want them to struggle – because otherwise they won’t learn. They need to go without. The reason we don’t have to go without is because we’ve been working our arses off for the last thirty years. Of course as soon as you try to tell them any of that, they roll their eyes and tune out.

The entitled generation is all too real.

Anyway. Time for a coffee, and perhaps a dib into the party leftovers from the fridge.

What is the “right” age to act? What if the most authentic version of “you” is still a little bit… sticky-fingered and prone to spontaneous laughter?

It strikes me that refusing to grow up isn’t about throwing tantrums, or asking for a juice box at a formal dinner party (though, let’s be honest, sometimes the urge is strong) – it’s a deeper, more profound commitment to a certain way of navigating the world. It’s about a refusal to let cynicism set like concrete – to keep the doors labeled “wonder” and “curiosity” unlocked and open – even when the world tries its best to slam them shut.

Think about it. When you were young, a cardboard box wasn’t just a box. It was a spaceship. It was a fort. It was a time machine. The possibilities were limited only by the boundless expanse of your imagination.

A child doesn’t looking at an obstacle and see a problem – rather they question how the obstacle might become part of the unfolding game – or ignored entirely en-route to something far more interesting.

It’s about the willingness to be surprised and delighted.

It’s about finding joy in the smallest of things: a perfectly shaped cloud, a sudden downpour, the shape of a cast shadow.

It’s about uninhibited laughter that bubbles up from deep inside, unrestrained by social norms or the perceived need to maintain a sophisticated facade.

It’s about singing loudly and off-key in the kitchen while doing chores – because, well, why not?
It’s not just about the frivolous.

Being young also means retaining an unabashed vulnerability – and the capacity to exhibit unbridled emotion – to get genuinely excited about anything, and to share sadness and loss without pause.

It’s about the readiness to learn, to ask “why?”, and to admit you don’t know.

One of the current WordPress writing prompts asks “what historical event fascinates you the most ?”

Where to begin?

When I was young I was a huge science fiction fan. I read all manner of books by the likes of Arthur C Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, and consumed a steady diet of whatever movies happened to be shown on television.

In the days before everybody had video recorders, I remember the BBC showing a series of classic science fiction movies on Thursday evenings – and it coinciding with the night we would typically visit my grandparents. I remember sitting on the hearth rug in front of the television – which had already been turned down so the grown-ups could talk – straining to listen to The Day The Earth Stood Still, This Island Earth, Earth vs the Flying Saucers, Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, and more.

As I grew older, I became interested in astronomy and space travel – borrowing all manner of books from the library that told the stories of Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, and Newton. It’s only just occurred to me that this period probably coincided with me realising that everything I had been taught at school – I went to a Church of England school – might have been wrong.

Fast forward another few years – into my early 20s – and I became aware of a book in the paranormal section of the local public library by a physicist called Stanton Friedman – called “Crash at Corona”. It told the story of a rancher in New Mexico finding wreckage strewn across his land, and reporting it to the local sheriff’s office – who reported it to the local army air force base – who reported it to the world.

We know it now as “The Roswell Incident”.

It captured my imagination, and has done ever since.

There are so many questions…

Why were pieces of the crashed weather balloon – which went up every day from the air base – confiscated from anybody who had them? Why did the first army air force officer on the scene decide to tell his family decades later – when he was terminally ill – that the weather balloon had been a cover up? Why had the mortician in the nearby town been called with questions about the availability of child sized coffins, and advice for embalming recent remains? Why was the rancher that called the sheriff’s office held in custody and questioned for several days? Why did he then change his story?

Why in the late 1980s did a man called Robert Lazar go to the press after losing his job working on an engineering contract – after taking friends to watch “the nightly light show” on the edge of Groom Lake outside of Las Vegas ?

He claimed he had been hired to help reverse engineer the engine of something much more exotic than the Stealth Fighter that the public found out about later that year – he claimed to have been working on the remains of something perhaps more similar to the craft that had come to ground years earlier in New Mexico. He knew when and where the test flights were. Unfortunately Groom Lake security knew where he and his friends were too.

Over the years my opinions of what might or might not have happened have swung in different directions. I remember talking to a friend of the family late one night, and pulling out some of the books I had amassed. While flicking through them, he volunteered that he had once been as enthusiastic as me about the possibilities of “what might be out there” – but as he had grown older, he had become jaded – cynical about it all.

You known the strangest thing? Every time I have started to wonder if any of it really happened, another piece of the historic puzzle has come to light that has proven a small part of the larger story from the past – be that through a first hand account, or the uncovering of evidence that has disproven something else.

In recent years we’ve seen hearings in the US Congress about “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena”, secret programmes such as “Immaculate Constellation”, and hither-to unknown departments of the US military complex such as AATIP – the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Programme.

Aerospace experts have spoken on the record about a “credible threat” to national airspaces – which always makes me smile. If somebody or something has the ability to cross either vast distance, time, or dimensions to visit us, I very much doubt they are a threat to us – if they were, we wouldn’t still be here.

If there’s one thing we can say, it’s that humans have a history of thinking an awful lot of themselves.

Anyway.

There we are. The Roswell Incident. The “incident” that started it all.

Only it really didn’t because there are numerous prior incidents in history – including perhaps most famously the “Book of Enoch” – one of the apocrypha – the books that were removed from the Old Testament of the Christian Bible when it was canonised. Enoch tells of angels falling to earth from the heavens and siring children that were giants (of intellect?). It tells of magical tablets, and knowledge of the mechanics of the universe. It tells of them leaving in a blaze of light, and making everybody present sick. Or perhaps it doesn’t – because it very much depends what you believe, and how you choose to interpret the story.

While me might never know – or be allowed to know – what happened in 1947, it’s fun to speculate.

After spending so many years surrounded by chaos at home, it always feels a little bit odd when travelling to find life suddenly becalmed. So much so that I slept in this morning. I can’t remember the last time I slept through until 9 in the morning – especially as the clocks changed last night – winding back an hour.

Thankfully the house we are staying in is more modern than the cottage we stayed in during our visit to Hay on Wye. I keep wondering how or why the cottage came to be – if the owner perhaps lives in it for part of the year, and opens it to visitors at other times. There are clothes in the bedroom, craft materials in the study, and food in the kitchen cupboards.

The kitchen certainly caught us out – we stopped at a supermarket en-route to buy some basic groceries for breakfasts and then discovered a filled fridge and a sticky note to help ourselves.

I’m always amazed at the “put together” nature of houses where there are no children. One of my co-workers doesn’t have children, and I’m always a little envious of the lack of clutter throughout his house. Perhaps he’s envious of our chaotic family too.

There was a moment a few days ago – while out with close friends – when we were congratulated for making it to nearly twenty five years together – and having brought up three children that were not our own for the greater part of that time. I suppose you don’t really think about it when you’re in the thick of it – and not everybody is lucky enough to have the same experience.

Except it’s not all luck. It’s f*cking hard sometimes. Nobody has good days every day. Nobody is the best version of themselves every day. Although I tend to avoid any sort of self congratulation, I will admit to character traits that help enormously. I tend to be happiest when those around me are happy – or rather, if I can keep everybody else happy enough, many they’ll leave me alone for at least some of the time.

I’ve written in the past about “going to the well” though – that if you’re doing it too often, you start to worry how much water might be left.

Like I said – we all have our good days. We all gave doubtful days too.

Anyway.

We eventually made it out this morning, and wandered around Wells together. After walking into town last night, we chose the car today. It’s a little over a mile walk, and bad weather was forecast for later in the day. We almost didn’t make it any further than the long stay car park though – I stood with another family for quite some time, trying to install yet another mobile app for a car park while holding phones in the air to get one bar of mobile signal, and then filling out more information than a passport application. I thought my other half was going to burst into flames in temper.

After exploring every single clothes shop in Wells – don’t ask – I suggested we might get something to eat, and we ended up sitting high about the street from a part of the Bishop’s Palace walls, in a small cafe called “The Bishop’s Eye”.

We chose a vegetarian sharing platter, which turned out to be quite incredible. The only thing not quite so incredible was a group of writers sitting behind us that insisted on reading their writing to each other out loud – for the entire cafe to “enjoy”. The lines from the Hitchhike’s Guide to the Galaxy came to mind – about Vogon Poetry being the second worst in the known universe – causing listeners to gnaw their own arms off. I suspect I have now heard the worst poetry in the known universe. Quite how I made it out with both arms intact is still something of a mystery.

Rather than eat out this evening, I bought food from the supermarket, and cooked back at the house. A pasta tray-bake that turned out remarkably well. I fixed the cooker clock while doing it – setting cooker clocks seems to be my speciality when visiting other people’s houses.

This evening I’ve started reading “Impossible Creatures” – a book I picked up in the wonderful book-store in Wells high-street earlier today. It’s really a children’s book, but I don’t hold with any of the snobbishness that seems to pervade the literary world. A good story is a good story, and can be enjoyed by anybody if they drop their prejudices.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and polish off the left-over pasta we had for dinner, before heading to bed. I fully expect over-sleeping in the morning. Of course, having said that, I’ll wake up like an automaton at 6am, and wonder how my brain manages to do that so reliably.

After a wonderfully unplanned night out with friends last night, we scraped ourselves out of bed this morning, threw clothes into travel bags, and set off towards Wells in Somerset – a small town near Glastonbury.

After a somewhat eventful journey spent partly behind a tractor for ten miles of winding countryside roads, we eventually crested a hill and the entirety of Wells and Glastonbury spread out before us – with Glastonbury Tor silhouetted against the distant skyline.

After picking our way towards the centre of Wells and finding a car-park – our Air BnB wouldn’t be available until mid-afternoon – we then spent a good few minutes losing the plot entirely with a car park charging station, and car park payment mobile app. At last count we have seven electric car charging apps, and as many car-park payment apps. It’s madness.

Wells is lovely.

We wandered along the high-street looking for somewhere to stop for lunch, and happened upon “The Crown” – the pub made famous in the movie “Hot Fuzz”. My other half delighted in telling me that it was only used for exterior shots (she knows these sorts of things – she works for a movie production company). It didn’t stop them selling a locally produced beer called “Hot Fuzz”.

While wandering along we discovered the “Bishop’s Palace”, and wandered in to explore its vaulted ceilings and rambling gardens. There were promises of views of Glastonbury Tor from the garden wall. Perhaps you can see the Tor in winter when the trees are bereft of leaves – in the autumn, not so much (or at all, it turned out).

After stopping for a pit-stop at the palace cafe – which might or might not have also involved Bakewell tart – we wandered back into the town, where I somehow found myself in a book-shop. I have no idea how it happened. It’s a mystery.

I bought the new “Impossible Creatures” book by Katherine Rundell. I heard about it on the radio a few days ago; apparently Disney have gone all in on the series and bought the movie rights – causing the author to now have more money than Croesus. It was only after buying the book that I discovered it’s book two in a series – so sat down with the Kindle a few minutes ago to order the first.

We stopped en-route to the house at a supermarket to pick up essentials – milk, bread, snacks, and so on. It turned out to be a mistake – given the owner had filled the kitchen with food for us. We couldn’t quite believe it.

The house is wonderful.

A quiet bolt-hole for a few days, tucked away at the end of a residential road on the outskirts of Wells. It’s clean, tidy, and homely – with lots of books dotted around the various rooms. I love seeing books in houses.

We’re going to walk back into Wells this evening – we booked a table at the restaurant in The Crown before leaving at lunchtime, and will try not to imagine Simon Pegg and Nick Frost arresting half the town’s teenagers while eating dinner.

Just after arriving, exploring the house, and unpacking my bag in the bedroom, I wandered into the lounge with nothing to do, and nowhere to go. It felt really strange.

I’ve always loved the act of writing. I would never claim to be particularly good at it – passable maybe – but have always loved the act of sitting down and emptying my head into a keyboards, an paper notebook, or whatever the tool or method might be. And therein lies the problem. I’m a serial “tinkerer”.

Rather than settle for a given notebook, or writing app, I’m always trying the next thing out. For years I carried Moleskine notebooks around with me – filling the pages with observations, thoughts, ideas, and doodles. When bullet journals became popular, I read Ryder Carroll’s book, and invested myself in them – “rapid logging” and “migrating” my way from day to day, week to week, and month to month.

Writing on paper has of course been an anachronism of sorts – in parallel with the moleskine notebooks and bullet journals, I’ve been witness to the arrival of smartphones, tablets, and all manner of note taking apps into our lives. The list is long – Evernote, Notion, Obsidian, Bear, Ulysses, Scrivener… name a “second brain” note taking or writing app, and I’ve probably tried it.

But what was all this writing for? The common thread throughout all of the head emptying has always been the blog. My blog. My almost daily expounding of idiot opinions, and inconsequential contemplation.

During the pandemic – while not furloughed like so many colleagues – I happened upon the commercial writing model at Medium, and thought “I could do that” (you know, in addition to everything else, because I’m an idiot like that). For a few months I threw myself at Medium, and wrote no-end of articles about whatever I thought anybody might want to read – and got paid for it.

The money was good, but also hard work, relentless, and utterly unpredictable. The articles I was most proud of earned pennies. One or two badly written afterthoughts went massively viral.

Perhaps the biggest lesson of that time is that most commercial writing is a race to the bottom of a barrel. While writing stories about subjects I cared about, I became increasingly aware of the preponderance of stories about “how to make money at Medium”, or “how to attract readers”. Looking back, it was obvious – those with the largest following were not the best writers – they were the best influencers – and they preyed on the most vulnerable – those that wished to be as popular as them.

They were the cool kids.

Suddenly Seymour Hoffman’s “Lester Bangs” spoke from the depths of my brain;

“they make you feel cool. And hey. I met you. You’re not cool”

“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.”

I left Medium soon after, and consigned myself to never making money through writing – not if it meant selling out and churning out the same awful sausage machine slop. I wonder what those famous-for-five-minutes writers think of the AI slop machines that write better offal in a fraction of the time? They’re probably using it to help destroy the once wonderful social internet.

I wonder what happens if you ask an AI slop machine to generate an essay about why AI slop generation is so self defeating? Would it become self aware and sink into a Marvin level depression? Perhaps that’s how we defeat AI – we wait for it to become self aware, and realise just how vaccuous and meaningless it’s existence really is.

In more recent times I hosted my blog at Substack too – and watched in mock horror (not really surprised) as it slowly pivoted towards the same idiot capitalist grifting hellscape that Medium had descended into.

Perhaps money really does ruin everything?

I should probably mention that I’ve had several attempts at NaNoWriMo too – the annual writing slog, where people are encouraged to try and write 50,000 words in a month. It starts again next week – it runs during November.

I completed NaNoWriMo a few years ago – I wrote the beginning of my own autobiography – recording memories of growing up, school, first jobs, and so on. I made it to 50,000 words in two weeks. It turns out if you have something to write about, it’s not difficult at all – writing something anybody else might want to read is another matter entirely.

It turns out writing your own autobiography is a wonderful form of self therapy. I wonder if we only really remember the good parts of our own lives – because I still find myself smiling when I read any of it back.

Anyway.

I think I’ve covered “alternative career paths”. It hasn’t been so much an alternative, as much as something I did “as well” – which as I’ve already mentioned, is something I’m particularly adept at. Why spin one plate well, when you can spin many badly? Perhaps that should be the tagline on my blog.

You never know – perhaps one day a wealthy publisher will read my forgettable nonsense, and offer me a huge advance to stop the software development and content creation nonsense, and double down on emptying my head.

We can dream, can’t we?