A Fool's Paradise

Meat on a stick. Nutrition in powdered form. Chinese powdered peanut cookies wrapped in foil and bright green boxes. The opium of the masses is not religion but convenience foods. Not that I'm complaining - what tastes good may not always be good for you but it sure beats cooking.

Age is an illusion! Young or old - we're simply people sliding along a time-shift...and the chronological rheostat will dim for everyone...
Time doesn't stand still on holiday. It runs faster so that it can afford to rest longer during term.
I think I've been ageing far more rapidly than I'd hoped. Peering into crystal balls seems to have that effect. Peaks and troughs of enthusiasm and disillusionment zoom faster into focus than I'd expected. The words 'decade,' 'how time flies' and 'it's been a long time' are never far from my lips. Nostalgia is like a pacemaker...people with broken hearts (?!) can't live without them. Oddly enough, I think I'd rather be cardioverted.

Clouded thoughts

Hope is a star in the darkest night.
When old men stumble and young men fall
If beauty fades or shadows pall
Hope lingers near.

The beaches, landing grounds, fields, streets and hills

The notion of globalisation is not entirely new to our time. The various ages of hegemonic empires spanning oceans and continents (think: Mongols, Arabs and British) each brought disparate peoples closer - linked by shared subjugation by/allegiance to a greater power. However, the current climate of interdependence is unique in its multipolarity and flux - while technology and travel easily bridge time-zones, our times are marked not by universal feelings of peace and stability under the aegis of an all-commanding power. No - the hallmark of our days will be how we adjust and cope with these unceasingly changing and 'interesting' times. Security is a thing of the past and the very nature of culture is being redefined by the undercurrents of change that shape our world. This is no Babylon - it is a Babel.

I have been re-reading old blog entries - the slips and slides seem hard to believe in my current self-anaesthetised emotional state. Certainly, I'm glad to be home - but the sheer uncertainties in my life are a source of constant frustration.
Over a pancake lunch some of those feelings I've been walling up (yes, the Chinese like walls) for the past two years have been beginning to peek over the parapets. The response last time was to build higher, thicker, stronger walls and double the sentries on duty. Perhaps this time it's time to open the gates. I'm cynical and self-tortured enough - perhaps letting a bit of light into my dark little world will bring some things back into focus. Oddly enough - I seem willing. Eager, almost. However, I'm also aware that this is exactly how it began last time - except this time there appears to be a slightly more rational basis for this change of heart than mere impetuosity. That may be good - I like them 'rational.'

I'm feeling a little 'hyper' at the moment. The post-project buzz hasn't dissipated and the void left in my sad little life after the handover seems to yearn to be filled...

Dimples of Venus

...the pair of sagittally symmetrical indentations sometimes visible on the human lower back, just superior to the gluteal cleft and directly superficial to the two sacroiliac joints...known more formally by the medical profession as fossae lumbales laterales...