Slow Down

People used to be fond of saying to procrastinators and pretenders, "This is not a dress rehearsal, you know: this is the real thing". It's something that can be quite a revelation the first time you hear it, but quickly loses its impact, especially if you're a truly committed procrastinator. I expect "a stitch in time saves nine" and "look before you leap" were eye-opening insights in their day, too. But you don't hear that "dress rehearsal" thing so much, these days. Largely, I suspect, because an all-encompassing virtuality has undermined our sense of the reality of the here and now, to the extent that the distinction between a dress rehearsal and the real thing has become quite blurred. We're all pretenders now.

Incredibly but undeniably, I will turn 67 early in 2021. I'm older than I think. I'm reminded of what a wise friend said to me a while ago: it's time for us to start thinking about endgames. This is something most people postpone, quite often until it's too late, like writing a will. [1] Understandably: an "endgame" does sound rather, well, final; it's nowhere near as fun to think about as some youthful, open-ended daydream of future, fantasy lives, or even yet another well-intentioned New Year's Resolution. But it's a simple fact that in our 60s rather more than half of our life is over, and a fair proportion of whatever may be left is highly likely to be unpleasant, painful, and humiliating. I've already had a preliminary taste of that, and we've all had more than enough reminders of our mortality this year, haven't we? So, as seventy hobbles into view, it's finally time to stop dreaming, stop imagining alternative realities, and make the most of this one. This is not a dress rehearsal...

Producing this blog has embedded itself in my day-to-day life, but it may be becoming a distraction from my reality. I'm not sure that writing pieces which were read, at peak, by 300 people – and recently far fewer and still diminishing, I'm sorry to say – is a serious part of any endgame that makes sense. In the end, it may simply be yet another excellent way of postponing some more important things that I really want to undertake, or attempt, before I get too old to remember what they were, and why they seemed important.

At the outset of my big blogging adventure, back in 2008, I was still in my mid-50s and had finally grown sufficiently disenchanted with my work in a university library to contemplate early retirement, and I think I had hopes that writing these pieces and showing these photographs might be a solid public platform for a second, late-life career, perhaps even a portal for opportunities to exhibit or to write columns and articles. But, twelve years later... Well, dream on. Such things are other people's reality, not mine. The sober fact is that, for most of us, the dress rehearsal is as far as it goes. You might even say that everybody is an understudy for the life they thought they were going to lead.

However, although I have no intention of shutting down the blog yet, regular visitors may have noticed that the interval between these posts is increasing, and it is likely to increase still further in 2021; strange as it may sound to people who don't themselves write, I need to learn the discipline of writing more, but "publishing" less. There may even be times when the blog goes dormant for extended periods, while I concentrate on other things. Obviously, I'll flag that up if and when it is going to happen. 

It's still fun and rewarding to do, most of the time, and I'm still enjoying the company of a handful of fellow-travellers.  It is astonishing, really, that like-minded people can still find each other among the noisy party of a billion rooms that is the Internet. Ironically, though, in the end that is the core of the distraction of blogging: if nobody at all read these pieces – certainly the fate of most blogs – how much easier it would be to put it aside and do something else.

But leave the Wise to wrangle, and with me
The Quarrel of the Universe let be:
And, in some corner of the Hubbub couch'd,
Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee.

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Fitzgerald translation

So, my best wishes for 2021 to you from this particular corner of the hubbub, as we back carefully and slowly out of 2020. That really was quite some year, wasn't it? Despite all the inconvenience, hurt, and heartache, despite everything you might want to forget about it, and everything that didn't happen as it was supposed to, 2020 is destined to be a year to remember. Even if you were one of the lucky ones, and not much of significance happened to you personally, or anyone close to you. So what did you do in the Great Plague Year, grandad? Well, I mainly worked hard at sitting indoors, scoffing at the news and the scrambling, serial incompetences of our political class, and enjoyed feeling like Butch Cassidy every time I masked up to enter the Post Office. ¡Esto es un robo! Manos arriba... Other than that, it was all a bit of a blur.

So, just to get the virtual seasonal party going, and seeing as the theme is "slowing down", I thought it would be an admirable opportunity to put "Slow Down" on the turntable, something that same wise friend mentioned above brought to my attention some years ago. I pride myself on having worked out that Keb' Mo' was "Kevin Moore" without being told. It's the little things...

You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough

1. I know nothing worth knowing about chess, so for me an endgame is a metaphor, pure and simple. But on the subject of wills here's some golden advice from one who knows, i.e. me: don't let your elderly relatives, however poor, die intestate, especially if dementia runs in your family. Just don't. And if they're even moderately well off – do they own a house? –make them write a will NOW. And don't ever let them name a bank or a solicitor as an executor. If you're British, arrange "enduring power of attorney" NOW.  If you don't know what that is, FIND OUT. Seriously.